Background
Josiah Belden was born on May 4, 1815, in Cromwell, Connecticut, the son of Josiah and Ruth (McKee) Belden and a descendant of Richard Bayldon, who came to that state from England in 1645. His mother died when he was four years old.
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Josiah Belden was born on May 4, 1815, in Cromwell, Connecticut, the son of Josiah and Ruth (McKee) Belden and a descendant of Richard Bayldon, who came to that state from England in 1645. His mother died when he was four years old.
Josiah attended the common schools until he was fifteen, when his father died, and he was then apprenticed to a jeweler in Albany.
Josiah Belden moved to Philadelphia in 1836 and later to Vicksburg, continuing in the jewelry business. At Independence, Moissouri, in May 1841, he joined the Bartleson-Bidwell party, which was to make the first emigrant wagon-train journey from the Missouri to the Pacific. With about half of the original company, though without the wagons, which had been abandoned east of the Sierras, Belden arrived at the Marsh ranch, near Mount Diablo, November 4. At Monterey, October 20, 1842, when Commodore Jones, in the belief that war had been declared, compelled the surrender of the town, Belden raised the American flag. He also, a few days later, after serving in the interim as the town's alcalde, pulled the flag down. For two years he ran a branch store at Santa Cruz for Thomas O. Larkin, the American consul.
In 1844 Belden became a Mexican citizen and was awarded a tract of land in the Sacramento Valley. Here he established a ranch, though he gave most of his time to business ventures in Monterey and San Francisco. He seems to have borne only a minor, if any, part in the contest of 1846. At the time of the gold discovery he was in San Jose in charge of a branch store for Mellus & Howard, the largest firm on the coast. He left for the mines, but soon came back and resumed his business, which now, due to the influx of gold and the eagerness of the Mexicans to buy everything offered for sale, became exceedingly prosperous.
In 1849 Belden closed his business and invested heavily in San Francisco real estate. On the incorporation of San Jose as a city, in 1850, he was elected its first mayor, and he later served on its council. He supported the Union party in the campaigns of 1860-1861 and during the Civil War he took a special interest in the Sanitary Fund, to which he made large contributions. In 1876 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. About 1881 he moved from San Jose to New York. In his later years he spent much time in foreign travel.
At the time of his death, which occurred in his New York home, Belden was a member of the Union League Club and a director of the Erie Railroad. From his profits he bought real estate, of which at the time of his death he was a large holder.
Josiah Belden was a member of the city's Common Council (1851); the Republican National Convention (1876); the Union League Club.
Belden is described as domestic in his tastes, unassuming and democratic in manner, and punctiliously honest in his dealings. The considerable fortune which he built up had its beginnings in the friendship and confidence which he inspired among his Mexican fellow-citizens of San Jose, who not only bought his goods with great prodigality but entrusted to him, on his mere word of honor, large quantities of gold.
In 1849, Josiah Belden married Sarah M. Jones, a pioneer of 1846.
