Background
Thomas Andrew Garey was born on July 7, 1830, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the son of Dr. Samuel and Margaret Wringer Garey. His father came of Dutch ancestry; his mother of Pennsylvania German stock.
Thomas Andrew Garey was born on July 7, 1830, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the son of Dr. Samuel and Margaret Wringer Garey. His father came of Dutch ancestry; his mother of Pennsylvania German stock.
Garey spent his early youth in Hagerstown, Maryland, where he obtained a common-school education.
Garey moved in 1847 to Iowa, and from thence he set out in 1849 by ox team for the West. Although his ultimate destination was California, he stopped on the way in New Mexico.
After about a year at Albuquerque and six months in Arizona, he and his wife pushed on to San Diego, California, arriving in 1852. Soon, however, they moved to El Monte, in Los Angeles County, where they remained for several years.
In 1865, Garey bought seventy-two acres of land on what is now South San Pedro St. , in Los Angeles and there he developed an extensive citrus nursery. This was in the early days of the citrus industry in southern California, when the demand for orange and lemon trees was increasing.
In one year (1873), his sales of fruit trees, mostly citrus, amounted to about $75, 000; in a period of three years, they totaled around $175, 000.
Garey was greatly interested in community affairs.
For many years, he acted as president of the Los Angeles Pomological Society. He was master of the Los Angeles Grange and an overseer of the state Grange. He took an active part in other local organizations.
He accumulated considerable property at times; met with repeated reverses, but recouped his fortunes.
At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife and three of their eight children.
Garey introduced into California several varieties of citrus-fruits, and was largely instrumental in the dissemination of others, including the Mediterranean Sweet and St. Michael oranges. He became one of the outstanding personalities in the development of the citrus industry, and in 1882, published a written study, Orange Culture in California, which was the first book on the subject to appear in the state. The name of the former was first applied by Garey; it had been originally received by him erroneously identified as a shaddock. Perhaps the variety with which his name is the most intimately linked is the Eureka lemon, which became one of the two principal varieties grown in California. Though it was developed from the seed of a Sicilian lemon, imported about 1858, it was Garey who, beginning its propagation in 1877-78, disseminated it first as “Garey’s Eureka. ” He helped to found the towns of Pomona and Artesia, and in his honor, the council of Santa Barbara County in 1887 named the town of Garey where he later engaged in the nursery business.
In his later life, Garey became an ardent Spiritualist.
Garey was a charter member of the Good Templars.
On October 27, 1850, at Albuquerque, Garey was married to Louisa J. Smith, a native of Massachusetts.
