About the Book:

Dan Freeman’s Life Struggle

Dan was one of the energetic and ambitious entrepreneurs who sought opportunity in America’s new west coast in the mid-1800s. With raw determination, Dan managed to overcome a basketful of personal losses and disappointments to eventually make his mark and build significant family wealth in his adopted country. The emerging metropolis of Los Angeles was a major beneficiary of his efforts as well.

Dan was a third generation Canadian who worked hard as a young man to educate and establish himself for a career as a barrister. He married well and was then diverted from his law work to preserve his new wife’s inheritance that was being devastated by the severe economic downturn following the American civil war. The truth about the uprooting of his young family from Ontario and their trek across the continent is cloudy. Some say the apparently desperate move was for his ailing wife’s health. The evidence points more towards his need to escape a financial disaster from his failing business and accumulating debts. Dan needed a new beginning. It took more than 10 years but he succeeded in acquiring one of southern California’s premier land-grant ranches. He promptly set out to sub-divide and develop the thousands of acres but along the way he encountered one obstacle and disappointment after another. Most men would have given up, but not Dan Freeman.

Today, we would consider Dan a workaholic. His wife Grace died shortly after their arrival in California but within a month he was negotiating a large real estate transaction. Dan was consumed by his diverse business ventures and his limited role as a father led to a serious and costly estrangement from his two privileged but eventually directionless sons. Dan never remarried.

About the Author:

Paul Erickson is a native Californian and earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and the Harvard Business School. He recently retired from his professional life in corporate finance and management consulting centered in the San Francisco Bay Area. Paul is a descendent of Daniel Freeman by marriage. Though this is Paul’s first work of non-fiction, his hands-on business experience provided valuable preparation for the extensive research required to produce this historical record and to decipher the complex real estate and financial dealings of Dan Freeman. Paul lives now in Penn Valley, California.