|
The Marstons: A California Family - Part 12
George Marston, Benefactor for All Creatures
By Robin Lakin
May/June 2024
 View of Fifth Street where the San Diego chapter of the SPCA was established among the merchants on that street. Looking south, late 1870s. Courtesy johnfry.com |
 View of Fifth Street looking north, late 1870s. Courtesy SDHC |
 George Marston, c. 1880, at the time he organized the SPCA. Courtesy SOHO |
 Humane Society officer George R. Minter (Old Town pioneer descendant), carrying an injured dog to the Humane Society Cat and Dog Ambulance, c. 1925. Courtesy Calisphere |
On a Saturday afternoon in early February 1880, a boisterous gathering of men and boys quickly swelled to nearly one hundred at a vacant lot on the southwest corner of the Ginocchio & Co. store at Fifth and J Streets, a few blocks south from George W. Marston’s new dry goods store, also located on Fifth Street. The spectacle drew the attention of general passersby who witnessed an orchestrated, horrifying fight between a badger and several large dogs.
Bull fights and violent spectator sports involving animals provided regular entertainment in early San Diego. Not all folks were tolerant of such sport. Pioneer bride Anna Whaley reportedly fled a fiesta in Old Town in 1853 due to a bullfight, something she could not bear to witness in a town where neglect, starvation, beating and poisoning of domesticated animals was a daily occurrence.
In 1866, New York philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The ASPCA became the model for more than 25 other organizations to protect animals and children throughout the country.
Spurred on by the incident between the badger and the dogs, George Marston and his fellow Fifth Avenue merchants arranged a meeting on February 18, 1880; he and thirty prominent citizens formed the San Diego chapter of the ASPCA. The members included Marshall S. Root (president), George W. Marston (trustee), Dr. Daniel Cave (vice president), James M. Pierce, J.H. Simpson, Ephraim W. Morse, Chief of Police Joseph Coyne, Wallace Leach, Charles S. Hamilton, George W. Hazzard, Arthur H. Julian, and Dr. Thomas C. Stockton.
In 1938 George Marston, reminisced on those days: “In that frontier village in about 1880, there was widespread cruelty to animals.” The early day residents “would use their spurs on their horses unmercifully. Other instances of cruelty also were noted.”
George Marston, Charles Hamilton, and George Hazzard reincorporated the ASPCA as the San Diego Humane Society in 1888; duties now extended to the prevention of cruelty to children, whose labor often replaced that of animals due to new labor restrictions on animals and provided care for orphans, street children, children from broken homes, and children with parents who could no longer care for them.
The importance of the education of children regarding the humane treatment of animals resulted in the development of the San Diego Junior Humane League in 1912, culminating in the establishment of the San Diego Humane Educational League in 1914 to teach children to be kind to animals, treat pets properly and adopt a humane point of view toward all creatures great and small, including humans.
In 1915, the Humane Society assumed responsibility for the San Diego city pound following reports of abusive practices, underscoring the importance of ongoing vigilance for the protection of animals.
That same year the Humane Society presented George Marston with an honorary lifetime membership in recognition of his outstanding work for the organization, work that has benefitted San Diego’s four-footed and feathered friends for nearly a century and a half. It is the oldest and largest organization of its kind in San Diego county, thanks to the compassion and dedication of George Marston and his fellow San Diegans.
Read the rest of the ongoing The Marstons: A California Story History Series.
|
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
|
