San Diego City Father William Augustus Begole: Story of a Workhorse Pioneer

William Augustus Begole stepped from a side-wheel steamer onto Horton’s Wharf in New Town San Diego on September 24, 1869. For the next thirty-two years he helped shape the city’s governance, politics, commerce, civic institutions and fraternal life. Forgotten in most San Diego histories, the author’s long-lost 19th Century Cousin Gus Begole was discovered accidently in 2009 while the author was reading Richard Pourade’s well-known series, The History of San Diego. There in The Glory Years , Pourade’s fourth volume, was her mother’s rare Huguenot surname – glamorously attached to a member of an 1875 sheriff’s posse. Intrigued, the author invested the next five years researching the details of her ancestor’s life as he travelled from his birthplace in New York’s Genesee Valley, to California Gold Country in 1849, and to San Diego in 1869 where he served as one of five elected City Trustees during New San Diego’s formative years and played both leadership and support roles in most of the city’s foundational institutions.

This biography of William Augustus Begole is the product of the author’s search for his place in her family history and in the history of San Diego, and of her exhilarating discoveries along the way of the many members of his generation of intrepid 19th century cousins – all grandsons (and granddaughters) of the American Revolution who helped build the American West.