City of Sunnyvale

My name is Marion Hendy Rust. My father was Samuel Hendy Jr., son of Samuel Hendy Sr., who was the nephew of Joshua Hendy, the founder of the Joshua Hendy Ironworks. I'd like to share with you in my own words the saga of the Hendy family.

Joshua Hendy was born in Cornwall, England in 1822. At age 13, he and his two brothers emigrated to the United States and settled in South Carolina, where he grew up and got married. He then traveled to Houston, Texas, where he set up a trade as a blacksmith. After his wife and two children died of yellow fever, he moved to San Francisco to seek his fortune in 1849, the year the gold rush hit its peak.

Joshua bought land in the redwood country, and built Benicia Sawmill, California's first redwood lumber mill, where he would later build a large mill on the Russian River and the Navarro River in Mendocino County is the present site of the Hendy Woods State Park. This land was later given to the state on the condition that it could never be changed. In 1856, Joshua started the Hendy Iron Works in San Francisco in order to construct milling machinery of his own invention. While Joshua was building the business in San Francisco, his brother was killed in the Civil War, and his brother's two sons, Samuel and John, were sent to San Francisco by their mother to be raised by their uncle Joshua. Soon after coming out west, Sam, the older of the two brothers, became the manager of the Hendy Iron Works when the firm became a corporation in 1882. When Joshua died on October 21, 1891, Samuel and John took over the business.

Over the next decade, the brothers worked to build the Hendy Iron Works into one of the leading suppliers of equipment for the mining industry. On March 14, 1906, Samuel Hendy died from heart failure. When he died, the value of his shares in the company was over one million dollars. He was survived by his wife Wilhelmina, and four children: Ethel, Mabel and the twins, Marguerite and Samuel J. Hendy Jr. At this point John assumed presidency of the Hendy Ironworks.

On April 18, 1906, there was a great earthquake in San Francisco. The quake and subsequent fire turned the shop into smoking ruins beyond the hope of any salvage. While the Hendy directors were pondering the problem of rebuilding, they were approached by representatives of Sunnyvale, a little town forty miles south of San Francisco. Because Sunnyvale was eager to attract industry and commerce, the representatives of the city offered Hendy thirty two acres of land, free of charge, all in prunes, apricots and pear orchards, located along the Southern Pacific main line. Unable to resist the offer, the board decided to move south. John Hendy supervised the building of the plant in Sunnyvale.

For many years afterwards, Hendy maintained the leadership in the position in manufacturing mining equipment. Orders came from Russia, Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, China and Japan for Hendy hydraulics, giant crushers, ball mills and ore carts. Hendy hydraulic equipment helped to carve out the Panama Canal. The company expanded into manufacturing valves and gates used for flood control, irrigation and power projects.

In these early days of Sunnyvale, I remember hearing stories about my father- the family always called him junior- getting into quite a bit of mischief. On one occasion, he bred my mother's prize mare to a jackass and when the colt was born they took one look at the ears and knew they'd have to get my father away from the ranch before his mother saw the colt or there'd be trouble. On other occasions, Junior and the fire chief's son commandeered the fire truck, which was then drawn by horses, and raced across town. I never did hear what happened to them when they finally got caught.

In the early teens, Samuel Hendy Jr., my father, began college at the University of California at Davis. The family decided that he should be groomed to run the foundry so they pulled him from the school and started him on an apprenticeship to be a master machinist. The future that the family had planned did not agree with him, so the very day that Sam completed the apprenticeship and became a master machinist; he ran away and joined the Navy. The family tried to get him out of the navy, even enlisting the help of Senator Phelan, but they were unsuccessful, and Sam ended up serving his country from December 30, 1916 until August 29, 1919.

Soon after World War I it became clear that John had not the business savvy that Sam had, and was making some poor investments. Sam's widow, Wilhelmina, was talked into surrendering her shares of the Hendy stock for allegedly debts left by her husband, and in less than 10 years the entire Hendy fortune was gone. Despite these troubles, the business at Hendy Iron works hummed along relatively smoothly until the stock market crash in 1929 and the subsequent depression. Soon the business dwindled and was forced to change in ownership to Mr. Brennerman. In November 1940, Charles E. Moore took over the ownership with five other partners. The partnership was called the Six Companies.

Business thrived at Hendy's during World War II. The company manufactured ship engines, turbo generators, diesel engines, torpedo tube mounts and rocket launchers. At this peak there were about 11,500 employees working there. In 1947 Westinghouse bought Hendy. Today San Francisco contains many Hendy built monuments, such as Roman arches and lampposts which still illuminate Chinatown, and the machinery which operates the famous 3rd Street Bridge. Each monument that still stands pays tribute to the Hendy legacy in California, a legacy which I am proud to be part of.

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