George Derby

George Derby was born 1823 in Dedham, Massachusetts, son of John B. and Mary Townsend Derby. His father deserted the family mercantile business to be a poet, spending the family\'s money on self publishing. He graduated from West Point in 1846 and first served in the Mexican–American War at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. According to the newly (2010) published Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. One, Ulysses S. Grant was a classmate of "Squibob\'s" and the General told Twain some stories of Squibob at West Point. However, according to the 1969 edition of "Register of Graduates and Former Cadets of the United States Military Academy," although their times at the Academy overlapped by a year, Grant and Derby were not actually classmates.\n', '

In 1853, Derby arrived in the small outpost of San Diego, California, to begin mapping the region and developing plans for redirecting the San Diego Riv…