The proprietor of Ryan’s Hotel at Arroyo Grande,
WILLIAM HENRY RYAN
Is a native of Massachusetts, born at Amesbury, April 28, 1833. His father was Jeremiah Ryan, a native of County Tipperary, Ireland, who emigrated to America when young, and married Miss Betsy Glidden, a native of New Hampshire, from which union sprung the subject of this sketch. The Glidden’s were an old New Hampshire family, a brother of Mrs. Ryan’s being a soldier in the war of 1812. The schools of Amesbury were of excellent repute, and in them young Ryan received his education and there remained until seventeen years of age, when, being a bold and self-reliant youth, he started out in the world to seek his fortune. It was in 1850, the beginning of the new era of adventure, of sudden acquisition of wealth, of travel and of the spread of civilization, surpassing in activity all recorded in the history of the world. The gold discoveries in California had aroused the enthusiasm of the people of all lands, and while but a boy young Ryan joined the throng for the Pacific Coast. Sailing on the brig Ark, in 1850, he made the passage around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Among the passengers was A. J. Bryant, subsequently Mayor of San Francisco. Mr. Ryan at once engaged in business in the new city of rush and excitement, and was the owner of one of the first drays that ever came to San Francisco. In the profitable occupation of draying he continued for eighteen months. The discovery of gold in Australia created a second mining excitement throughout the world, and Mr. Ryan was the first to feel its effects in San Francisco. In 1853, then twenty years of age, he went with the rush for the gold fields of the island continent, and there again sought for the fortune he had journeyed to the antipodes to find. After tarrying in Australia one and a half years, he recrossed the Pacific to explore Peru for the hidden treasure. In South America he labored a twelvemonth, and then returned to California. Soon after his return to this State he made a visit to his former home in New England, remaining East until 1860, when he was again in California in time to be carried away by the Washoe silver excitement. Mr. Ryan naturally accompanied the crowd over the Sierra, and went out with the prospectors where great discoveries were reported. Of the eastern slope mining camps of great promise, Silver Mountain, in Alpine County, California, appeared the brightest, and there Mr. Ryan settled and built a large hotel, known as “Ryan’s Exchange.” The rich mines of Silver Mountain defied the skill of the workers of ore, and the place declined. In 1868 the discovery was made of deposits of ore of unprecedented wealth at White Pine, in eastern Nevada, and the great White Pine excitement of 1868 and ’69 followed. To this new field Mr. Ryan journeyed, but the “Eberhardt” and the “Hidden Treasure,” and the “Aurora” and the “Ward Beecher,” and many thousand other claims of the wildcat species were located before his arrival, and he soon traveled on to Arizona, where he believed he was to find the mine that would yield him the great fortune he sought. To the land of the cactus and Apache he made two trips; then, returning to California, located in San Luis Obispo, where he remained one year. In 1874 he came to Arroyo Grande, where he has since remained, proprietor of the popular Ryan’s Hotel , the only hotel of the village. Here, as host, and at his ease, he is accumulating that fortune for which he has braved the perils of many lands and seas, and spent years of time, hard labor, and dangerous exposure, finding at last that quiet business brings greater prosperity than misdirected energy.
Source: History of San Luis Obispo County, California, pp351-2. Transcribed for the CAGenWeb Project by Cathy Portz.