Background
Bennett A.A. was born in 1825 in Schoharie, New York, United States. The son of a physician.
Bennett A.A. was born in 1825 in Schoharie, New York, United States. The son of a physician.
He served an apprenticeship to a carpenter-builder in his native town.
At the age of twenty-one he left for the south, and worked in Montgomery and other cities in Alabama for about two years. Early in 1849 he embarked from New Orleans on the
S. S. "Galveston” with a party bound for California. After a long and hazardous trip of a hundred and two days, part of which was travel by foot across the Isthmus of Panama, the party landed at San Francisco on August 30th.
Mr. Bennett eventually began practice in that city and carried on his work there until 1876, when he was appointed State Architect, and moved his office to Sacramento. He served in that position under two Governors, Haight and Irwin, during which time he had charge of the work on the State Capitol and Governor's Mansion in Sacramento, also buildings at the prison in San Quentin and branch buildings in Folsom. In private practice he was architect of the Mechanics Art College at Berkeley, and Court Houses in the following counties, Yolo, Stanislaus, Merced, Tulare and Kern.
In 1883 Mr. Bennett resumed practice in San Francisco, and in association with John M. Curtis opened an office in the German Bank Building at 528 California Street. During the next several years they were busy in designing Court Houses, two of the most important being the Sonoma County building at Santa Rosa, and the Humboldt County Court House at Eureka. Mr. Bennett was also the architect of several public buildings in San Francisco.
From early life he was ambitious to become an architect, and under the tutelage of a brother-in-law, Orson Phelps, studied architecture and building.