Jabez Banbury

Colonel Jabez Banbury (March 4, 1830 – December 9, 1900) was an early settler and founder of Pasadena, California. He served in the American Civil War, attaining the rank of colonel. He was also the first president of the Pasadena Republican Club, which was founded in 1884.

Early life Banbury was born in Cornwall, England, on the farm of his parents, Thomas Banbury and Mary Lysle. He attended school in Launceston until the age of ten or eleven. After the death of Banbury's mother at the age of fifty, the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Knox County, Ohio.

He worked for four years as an apprentice in a cabinet-making business in Mount Vernon. In late 1851, aged 21, he moved west to Iowa City, Iowa. completed in 1874 Banbury married Sarah Elmira Dunton, the eldest daughter of Revd. Solomon Dunton, in November 1854. A year or so later, the couple moved to Marshall County, where Jabez worked as a carpenter and, later, a family grocers. He continued in this role until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. on South Orange Grove Avenue near the current Tournament of Roses' Wrigley Mansion. The home was completed the following March, and he spent the rest of his life there, initially working in the fruit-ranching business, then moved into lumber. the first treasurer of the City of Pasadena, for four years, and treasurer of Los Angeles County for four.

Banbury had three children: Charles Morton (born 1858) and twin daughters Jennie and Jessie (1862). The girls became the first students to attend Pasadena's first school on Orange Grove. where he joined his son. He was followed by his wife, who survived him by six years, and daughters.