Daniel Freeman (Los Angeles County)
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Daniel Freeman (1837–1918) was an American landowner in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, and a developer in downtown Los Angeles during the 19th century. He was the founder of the City of Inglewood and the first farmer to engage extensively in wheat cultivation in Southern California.
Freeman was born in Norfolk County, Upper Canada, on June 30, 1837, the son of Daniel Wesley Freeman (1807–1877) and Isabella Bailey (1811–1856). He had a brother, Charles Edwin Freeman, and a sister, Phoebe Amelia Freeman. He attended the common schools in Norfolk County and then went to Lynn Grove Academy until 1857. He earned his law degree from Osgoode Hall, University of Toronto in 1864.[1][2]
Freeman married to Catherine Grace Christie Higginson on July 13, 1866, in Vienna, Province of Canada, and they moved to San Francisco in 1873 and later to Los Angeles County. There were three children, Archibald Christie (1867), Charles (1868) and Grace E. (1870). His wife predeceased him.[1][2]
For many years, the family lived in a small house on his property that later became known as the Centinela Adobe and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.[3] In 1891, he built a large residence in Inglewood[3] that later became a local historic site but was torn down in 1972 because there were no funds for upkeep or prospective buyers, and the site was needed by Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital for its own use.[4]: 67
An Episcopalian and a Republican, he was an organizer and the first president of the California Club of Los Angeles, as well as president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in 1893 to 1894.[1][3] He was a life member of the British Benevolent Society.[5]
Freeman died of "an attack of heart failure" on September 28, 1918, at the age of 81 in his home on Inglewood Avenue in Inglewood, California. A "strictly private" and "unusually simple" service was held in the home of C.F. Howland, his son-in-law, followed by another service at the Inglewood Episcopal Church and cremation at Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. Notable honorary pallbearers included newspaper editor and writer Charles F. Lummis and attorney Henry O'Melveny.[3][6]
Freeman was survived by two children, Grace Howland, wife of C.H. Howland of Inglewood, and A.C. Freeman, who was living in Paris, France.[3] In a hand-written will of fourteen pages, Freeman bequeathed the bulk of his estate, valued between $800,000 and $1 million, to Alice Cruz Freeman, a granddaughter living in San Francisco. He left $50,000 to the University of Southern California, certain bequests to other relatives and the remainder, estimated to exceed $100,000, to his daughter, Grace. The will stated that Freeman had in 1897 already given to his son "a very valuable tract of land... as his full share and portion of my estate and of the estate of his deceased mother, Catherine Grace Higginson Freeman" and that other "large sums of money" had been conveyed to the son.[2]
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