THE COCKEYED LIAR WHO CLAIMED TO BE THE FATHER OF CHICKENDOM
Petaluma has never been seriously troubled by the question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Both made good money during the city’s heyday as the “World’s Egg Basket,” rendering the question locally irrelevant.[1]
Rather, the mystery still plaguing the city is who invented the Petaluma Incubator, the innovative egg hatching machine that gave birth to its good fortune?
That legendary act of animal husbandry is commonly attributed to Lyman Byce, the self-proclaimed “father of chickendom.”[2] Turns out, he was also a cockeyed liar.
The first to peck at cracks in Byce’s story was historian Thea Lowry. In her book Empty Shells: The Story of Petaluma, America’s Chicken City published in 2000, Lowry called Byce’s paternity claims into question, but left the identity of chickendom’s real father a “mystery.”[3]
That speaks in part to Byce’s Machiavellian ability to brand himself with a garage start-up story, long before Steve Jobs made it an archetypal tale.
Byce’s story began on his family’s farm in Canada, where he claimed to have invented his first egg incubator at age 12.[4] In 1878, after overworking himself for two years at medical school in Toronto, he took a health break to visit his younger sister Jennie, who had just wed a Canadian-born farmer in Petaluma.[5]
Revived by the area’s Mediterranean sea breezes, Byce stumbled upon a problem that needed solving: San Francisco’s demand for fresh eggs was exceeding what Petaluma farmers could produce. Retreating to a small room above a blacksmith’s carriage garage on Main Street—site of today’s Dunaway Auto Parts—he labored around the clock until he perfected a breakthrough in artificial egg incubators.[6]
Byce unveiled his new invention at the Sonoma and Marin District Agricultural Fair in September 1879.[7]One of his first purchasers was an enterprising Two Rock farmer named Chris Nisson, who used Byce’s incubator to establish America’s first commercial hatchery.[8]Released from their motherly duties, hens were now free to devote themselves to manufacturing eggs on an assembly line.
Other local hatcheries quickly followed suit, setting off an egg boom in the 1890s that transformed Petaluma into the “Boss Chicken Town of the Pacific Coast.”[9] All thanks to the city’s cock of the walk, Lyman Byce.
Or so he claimed.
Further investigation of Lowry’s groundbreaking research reveals Byce’s paternity claim to have been a fraud. The real father of chickendom was a 25-year old dentist named Isaac Lopes Dias. His tragic early death three years after inventing the Petaluma Incubator, allowed Byce, his business manager, to shamelessly erase him from the company’s history.[10]
Born to a Sephardic Jewish family in New Orleans in 1856, Dias had something of an itinerate itinerant childhood. His father Abraham Hiram Lopes Dias, a native of Curacao in the West Indies, operated a resort on Lake Pontchartrain.[11] His mother, Rosa Depass Marks, was the daughter of an auctioneer with two daughters from a previous marriage.[12]
In 1860, the family moved to the west coast. They settled first in Placerville, California, where Dias’s father opened a grocery with his brother-in-law, Herman Glouber, before moving to Virginia City, Nevada, where the two men opened another grocery.[13] In 1867, they moved to San Francisco, where Dias’s father established another grocery and served as president of the newly established Jewish Congregation Ohaibai Shalome.[14]
In 1869, Dias’s father and uncle purchased a 48-acre farm two miles north of Petaluma near Cinnabar School. The adjacent farm was owned by Samuel A. Nay, the first farmer in the area to make a success of chicken ranching, which may have had some influence on young Dias.[15] In 1875, they sold the farm and moved into downtown Petaluma.[16]
Shortly before his death in 1877, Dias’s father purchased for his 21-year-old son a dental practice in the Derby Building on the southwest corner of Washington and Main streets.[17] Withing a few years, the hardworking and industrious Dr. Dias established himself as “one of Petaluma’s most intelligent and enterprising citizens.” An officer in the Literary and Debating Society, he was also elected an officer in the Masonic Lodge and foreman of the prestigious Petaluma Hook and Ladder Company.[18]
A born tinker, in September 1880 Dias exhibited his first patented invention, an automatic stock feeder, at the Sonoma and Marin District Agricultural Fair. Operated on a timer, it released grain at prescribed times into a feeding trough, allowing Dias, who kept a horse at his house on Liberty Street, to sleep in late.[19]
Dias unveiled his next invention, the Petaluma Incubator, at the 1881 district fair. [20] Although artificial egg incubators had been around since the time of the ancient Egyptians, the Industrial Age gave rise to a series of new innovative models.[21] By 1881, more than a half-dozen companies were marketing incubators in California, each claiming to be the best.[22]
What distinguished the Petaluma Incubator was its automatic heat regulator, which maintained a brooding hen’s body temperature at a steady of 103 degrees. Housed in a redwood, octagonal-shaped box, the incubator was heated by a coal lamp with a side vent that automatically admitted fresh air as needed to control the temperature.
Dias developed the revolutionary incubator in partnership with Thomas R. Jacobs, a Wells Fargo clerk. Jacobs, who later became a contractor and architect, most likely contributed to the incubator’s physical design and construction. Their partnership ended shortly after the fair.[23]
The Petaluma Incubator was awarded a ribbon at the fair, beating out the Axford Incubator, a popular model manufactured by the National Incubator Company in Chicago, with a 93% hatch rate.[24] The Axford had been entered into the competition by the company’s local agent, Lyman Byce.
Earlier that spring, Byce opened a poultry yard in area called Church Grove out on Western Avenue. In addition to selling Axford incubators, he employed them to hatch Plymouth Rock and Brown Leghorn chicks for market.[25] In addition to the Axford, Byce also entered an invention of his own at the fair, a brooder house for newborn chicks called the “Artificial Mother.” It also won a ribbon.[26]
After the fair, Dias launched I.L. Dias & Company to manufacture the incubator.[27] By the spring of 1882, the company had sold 36 incubators and filed for a U.S. patent, which was reportedly granted that summer.[28] He also signed on Byce as a sales agent.[29]
At the Sonoma and Marin District Fair in 1882, Dias again won the top award for incubators. A few weeks later, he received a silver medal for his incubator at the California State Fair in Sacramento.[30] By the spring of 1883, Dias had sold 200 incubators, and was employing ten mechanics. In April, he opened a new factory in a former armory across from his dental office at Main and Washington streets, at the rear of the McCune Building.[31]
That spring he also married his housekeeper, Mrs. Alzina Rhoades, who had three children from a previous marriage, one of whom still lived with her. She was 39 years old, and Dias 26. A year later, the couple welcomed a daughter of their own.[32]
Byce, meanwhile, continued to operate his poultry yard, now located on Hopper Street near the train depot, filling orders for eggs and chicks from around the country, as well as from Mexico, Japan, and Australia. He also began writing about poultry for the Pacific Rural Press, California’s weekly agricultural journal.
In May 1883, Byce wrote that when it came to incubators, he had found none to equal the Petaluma Incubator, which, “through the kindness of Mr. I. L. Dias, the manufacturer of the machine, I am using.”[33]
At that time, Byce was also listed in Petaluma’s business directory as a “partner in I.L. Dias & Company,” implying he had made a financial investment in the company.[34] That disclosure led to a flurry of acrimonious letters in the Press from competing incubator companies. In addition to chastising Byce for his duplicity, they dismissed both Dias and Byce as ignorant, young upstarts, and Dias’s incubator as unnecessarily complicated.[35]
In responding to his critics, Dias framed his arguments in the Press as though waging a high-minded debate. Byce, on the other hand, got defensive after being denounced as a “Benedict Arnold” for allegedly sabotaging the Axford Incubator he entered into competition against Dias’s incubator at the 1881 Sonoma and Marin Fair.[36]
“Deeming the Petaluma (Incubator) a superior machine,” Byce wrote in his defense, “I dropped the Axford, and did not hesitate to identify myself with the manufacturing of the Petaluma Incubator; but as my interest is but a small factor, I invite the gentleman when writing anything intended specifically for the Petaluma Incubator to address his remarks directly to the manufacturer (Dias).”[37]
To settle the cockfight, Dias agreed to participate in a tournament of incubators at the upcoming 1883 State Fair, winner take all. At the highly publicized event, the Petaluma Incubator easily beat out the competition with an 82% hatch rate, earning Dias a gold medal with his name engraved upon it.[38]
Shortly after the fair, Dias changed the name of his firm from I.L. Dias & Company to the Petaluma Incubator Company. He also made Byce a co-proprietor, indicating he had received from him a larger investment in the company. Hitting back at the competition, Dias launched an extensive advertising campaign, touting his gold and silver medals and his defeat of the Axford at the 1881 district fair.[39] By the spring of 1884, the company was having trouble meeting demand.[40]
In September 1884, the Petaluma Incubator won its second gold medal at the State Fair.[41] Dias and Byce also submitted a patent request for a more efficient heating regulator they had developed together.[42] By that winter, the company had sold 1,800 incubators.[43]
On Sunday, November 30, 1884, Dias took a rowboat duck hunting in the tidal marshes south of town with his dental assistant John Stone.
After dropping Stone off near a duck pond, Dias rowed himself to another landing. Climbing out of the boat while carrying his double-barreled shotgun, he apparently slipped in the mud, letting go of the gun. As it fell back into the boat, one of the trigger hammers evidently caught on the seat, discharging a blast that killed him instantly. He was 28 years old.[44]
After burying Dias in Petaluma’s Jewish cemetery, Dias’s widow Alzina submitted a patent request with Byce for a more efficient incubator heating regulator Dias and Byce had developed together. She filed a court request to sell the half interest in the Petaluma Incubator Company bequeathed to her in his estate. According to the filing, Byce, who was still operating his poultry yard, was reluctant to devote more time or money to the business. Instead, she sold Dias’s stake to a local carriage maker, William Magee.[45]
Byce apparently soon had a change of heart. It might have had something to do with ostriches. The rising demand for ostrich feathers in ladies’ plumes, boas, fans, and bonnets, had given rise to a number of ostrich ranches in Southern California. A few months after Dias’s death, the ranchers contacted Byce about developing an incubator large enough to hatch ostrich eggs. Byce presumably bought out Magee’s stake in the company, and got to work.[46] By the late 1880s, he had established a monopoly on ostrich egg incubators.[47]
Along with the sudden growth of chicken hatcheries, the ostrich market helped Byce to scale up his business.[48] In 1889, he moved his factory into a larger building on Main Street across from today’s Penry Park. In 1902, he purchased an adjacent lot and constructed what he claimed to be the largest incubator factory in the world.[49]
That same year, he incorporated the Petaluma Incubator Company for $100,000 in capital stock ($3.7 million in today’s currency), and built a showplace mansion for his family at 226 Liberty Street.[50]
But with increasing success came increasing competition. To maintain his market position, Byce decided he needed to promote the Petaluma Incubator not only as the best, but also as the oldest operating incubator firm.[51] That required a new founder’s story.
Up through the mid-1890s, published accounts attributed the Petaluma Incubator’s invention to Dias and Jacobs in 1881, with Byce joining the company in 1882.[52] Byce launched his new founder’s story in 1898 with a profile in The Illustrated Atlas of Sonoma County, which described him as “thegenius who originated and constructed” the incubator.[53]
In announcing the company’s stock sale in 1902, Byce took the opportunity to assert himself as the sole founder of the company in 1879, soon after he first arrived in Petaluma. He informed reporters that “the Petaluma Incubator’s introduction and use antedates that of any other incubator on the market.”[54]
In 1904, he sought to strengthen the bogus 1879 launch date by staging an elaborate 25th silver anniversary for the company.[55] Rehashing his fictitious garage start-up story, he also offered the press a new explanation of Dias’s role.
“A Mr. I.L. Dias,” the Courier reported, “who had acquired certain plans for an incubator, entered into a co-partnership with Byce. Dias soon died however, after which Byce abandoned the plans upon which they had been working on together, and pursued entirely his own ideas for inventing what became the Petaluma Incubator.”[56]
In 1909, for what he proclaimed to be the company’s 30th anniversary, Byce issued a brochure entitled “How It All Came About.” A hagiography of Byce’s early years leading up to the invention of the Petaluma Incubator, the brochure included testimonials from Canadian friends and prominent Petaluma businessmen confirming his fabricated version of events.”[57]
As the years passed, Byce continued to dismiss Dias’s involvement in the incubator, arrogantly describing himself as having “succeeded in accomplishing what no other man had.”[58] In 1934, a poultry teacher named Andrew Stodel wrote him to ask why the records of the 1882 California State Fair listed Isaac L. Dias as the Petaluma Incubator’s sole inventor and gold medal winner.[59]
In his response to Stodel dated November 30, 1934—ironically, the 50th anniversary of Dias’s tragic death, Byce hatched one of his most cock-a-doodle-doo yarns. He wrote that after first meeting Dias for some dental work, the two of them hit it off as fellow tinkers, Byce with his incubator, and Dias with his automatic stock feeder. While Dias frequently came to the garage to watch Byce’s incubator hatch eggs, Byce assured Stodel “he had nothing to do with my invention.”[60]
As for the mix-up at the State Fair in 1882, Byce explained that he and Dias decided to jointly exhibit their machines in the same shared booth at the fair. While Byce traveled to Sacramento by boat with two of his incubators, Dias transported his automatic stock feeder there by train. Arriving before Byce, Dias registered their respective entries for the shared booth under his name. That was why the gold medal awarded to Byce’s incubator was incorrectly inscribed with Dias’s name. He said a regretful Dias turned the medal over to him, which he still kept with him.[61]
At the time he wrote Stodel, Byce was 80 years old. Fate had not been kind. In 1919, overexpansion and increased competition, compounded by distressed sales during World War I, forced the Petaluma Incubator Company to declare bankruptcy.[62] Shortly after, Byce and his son Elwood launched a much smaller plant on East Washington Street called the Petaluma Electric Incubator Company.[63]
Plagued by further financial troubles during the Depression, Byce was forced to sell his Liberty Street mansion in 1938. He spent his final years living with Elwood’s family in a small rented cottage on Sixth Street, sharing a bedroom with Elwood’s infirm father-in-law until his death in 1944 at the age of 91.[64] Elwood continued to operate the Petaluma Electric Incubator Company until his own death in 1955, after which the company was shut down.[65]
Byce did however seal his own legacy as the father of chickendom by erasing Dias from the Petaluma Incubator founder’s story.[66] As for the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, biologists all agree—it was the evolution inside the silent egg, not the crowing rooster.[67]
Special thanks to Terry Park for his research assistance.
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 4, 2025.
******
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Petaluma, the World’s Egg Basket,” Petaluma Courier, June 25, 1918.
[2] “Another Contest,” Petaluma Courier, September 2, 1896.
[3] Thea Lowry, Empty Shells: The Story of Petaluma, America’s Chicken City (Novato, CA: Manifold Press, 2000) pp. 31-37, 186-188.
[4] Byce’s unpublished autobiographical essay, believed to be written in 1914, Lorraine Skoog Collection, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum.
[5] Byce’s unpublished autobiographical essay; Note: Jennie Byce didn’t marry John Flannagan in Petaluma until August 1879. Prior to that she was living, according to her obituary, with the family of Ezekiel Denman in town (“Married,” Petaluma Argus, August 22, 1879; “A Good Woman Called Home,” Petaluma Argus, January 2, 1926). The 1880 U.S. Census registered Lyman Byce as age 26, birthplace Canada, occupation medical student, living with his brother-in-law and sister, Thos. Flannagan and Jane Flannagan, at 211 Howard Street, Petaluma.
[6] Byce’s unpublished autobiographical essay, Skoog Collection.
[7] Byce’s unpublished autobiographical essay, Skoog Collection. Note: there is no Petaluma business listing for Byce listed in McKenney’s District Directory for 1878-79 Yolo, Solano, Napa, Lake, and Sonoma Counties, Sonoma County Library.
[8] Byce claims that Nisson purchased his first incubator in 1880 (Byce’s unpublished autobiographical essay; Petaluma Incubator timeline by Elwood Byce, 1927, Lorraine Skoog Collection, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum). However, Chris Nisson’s son Eric claims his father purchased his first incubator in 1883 (“The Poultry Industry in Petaluma,” Pacific Rural Press, June 25, 1910). That corresponds with the first Petaluma newspaper mention of Nisson’s operation in 1885 (“Tales from Two Rock,” Petaluma Courier, November 11, 1885).
[9] Lowry, pg. 27.
[10] “The Axford Agent Replies to the Business Manager of the Petaluma,” Pacific Rural Press, June 21, 1884.
[11] Hotel at Madisonville,” New Orleans Daily Delta, June 15, 1855; “Death of A.H. L. Dias,” Petaluma Argus, January 4, 1878; “Death Of I. L. Dias,” Pacific Rural Press, December 6, 1884; “A.H.L. Dias, Died 1877, U.S. Will and Probate Records; Note: A.H.L. had a sister, Rachel Lopez Dias, who married Herman Glouber, who became A.H.L. Dias’s business partner in California and Nevada. Dias married Rosa Depass Marks, a widow, in New Orleans in 1854 (“A.H.L. Dias, findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74049327/abraham_hiram-dias)
[12] Rosa Dias was born in 1816 in Charleston, South Carolina to Joseph M. Depass, an auctioneer, who moved the family to New Orleans sometime in the 1820s. He auctioned estates as well as slaves on occasion (New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 26, 1838, February 1, 1853; Ad for auction of Family Slaves by J.M. Depass, New Orleans Cresent, December 22, 1849). Depass had many children. His paternity of Rosa is confirmed by her documented sister, Louisanna E. Depass, who married an Adolphe Hecht (“Married,” Times-Picayune, October 19, 1845). She then moved with her second husband, a Mitchales, to France, where she died in 1886 (“Died,” Petaluma Argus, December 18, 1886). Rosa’s first husband, Henry Marks, was a newspaper publisher and grocer in New Orleans. He died in 1849 of consumption, leaving Rosa with two daughters, Blanch Cora and M.E. Marks. M.E. later married Thomas Golden of Sacramento, and Blanche Cora later married a man named Ward in El Dorado County (“Died,” New Orleans Crecsent, April 30, 1849; 1860 S.S. Census: Placerville, CA, A.H.L. and Rosa Dias living with three children, M.E. Marks, B.C. Marks, and I.L. Dias). Rosa spent her final days with Golden in Sacramento: “Polly Larkin’s Pot-Pourri,” Petaluma Courier, May 19, 1886; “Died,” Petaluma Argus, May 22, 1886; “Social and Personal,” Pacific Bee, Augus 20, 1886; “Blanche Ward, Nevada Pioneer, Dies in California,” Reno Evening Gazette, November 1, 1935.
[13] “New Store,” Placerville Mountain Democrat, June 30, 1860; U.S. Census 1860: A.H.L and Rosa Dias, age 50 and 42, living in Placerville, with three children, daughters M.E. and B.C. Marks from Rosa’s first marriage to Henry Marks, and son I.L.Dias; Dias’s partner in both his groceries was his brother-in-law, Herman Glouber, a native of Austria and the husband of his sister Rachel Lopez Dias, who is listed in his California will and probate filing in December, 1877. The Gloubers had a son in New Orleans in 1856, and were living in Placerville, California, by 1858. It’s possible they moved to San Francisco as well with the Dias family. Herman Glouber purchased the 48-acre farm in Petaluma with A.H.L. Dias (“Petaluma Road District,” Sonoma Democrat, February 7, 1874).
[14] Dias & Co. listing, The Hebrew (San Francisco), September 29, 1871; “Local Intelligence,” Alta California, September 16, 1867; “Elected,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 12, 1868. Note: Dias’s two older sisters, Blanche Cora Marks and M.E. Marks, both married while the family was living in Nevada, Blanche to Robert D. Ward (“Marriages,” Sacramento Bee, November 2, 1863), and M.E. to a Thomas Golden (“Died,” Petaluma Argus, May 22, 1886).
[15] Sonoma County Records, Volume 27, page 435: On April 1, 1869, Abraham H.L. Dias and Herman Glouber of San Francisco purchased for $5,000 lots 5 and 6 of Rancho Roblar de la Miseria. The last year they paid property taxes on the farm was 1874: “Petaluma Road District,” Sonoma Democrat, February 7, 1874. The 1873 San Francisco Directory lists A.H.L. Dias as a merchant, and I.L Dias as a student, living at 1209 Post Street in San Francisco, indicating that was their primary residence; Tom Gregory, “Samuel D. Nay,” History of Sonoma County (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911), p. 856-857.
[16] Real Estate Transactions,” Petaluma Argus, December 10, 1875; Note: A.H.L. Dias and his brother-in-law Herman Glouber sold the farm in December 1875 to Christopher Springer. Springer is listed as the property owner in Thompson’s 1877 Sonoma County Atlas. Both Dias and the Glouber families, along with the Glouber’s son Milliard, a dentist, then moved to what appears to have been the same residence on Keller Street in Petaluma (McKenney’s District Directory for 1878-79 Yolo, Solano, Napa, Lake, and Sonoma Counties, pgs. 266, 268).
[17] “Death of A.H.L. Dias,” Petaluma Argus, January 4, 1878; “Notice,” Petaluma Argus, March 16, 1877; “Court Proceedings,” Sonoma Democrat, April 5, 1879; “Santa Rosa Notes,” Petaluma Courier, May 3, 1880. Note: Dr. G.M. Phillips, who sold the dental practice to Dias, later reneged on his agreement to refrain from practicing dentistry in town for five years, leading to a lawsuit by Isaac Dias, which was ultimately settled in his favor.
[18] “Sunday School Anniversary,” Petaluma Argus, April 2, 1880; “Officers Elected,” Petaluma Argus, January 21, 1881; “Married,” Petaluma Argus, February 10, 1883; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, December 22, 1883; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, December 22, 1883.
[19] “Automatic Stock Feeder,” Petaluma Argus, September 10, 1880; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, September 2, 1881; Patent #245,795, issued by U.S. Patent Office August 16, 1881; 1880 U.S. Census: I.L. Dias, 26, living at 108 Liberty Street with his mother, Rosa Dias, 64, a 12-year old niece Ida Ward and 14-year nephew, Joseph Ward children of Rosa’s daughter B.C. Marks Ward; McKenney’s Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, Yolo, Solano, and Marin Counties, 1882-1883, p. 15, Sonoma County Library: Dias’s personal address is listed as 108 Liberty Street; McKenney’s District Directory for 1878-79 Yolo, Solano, Napa, Lake, and Sonoma Counties, p. 266, Sonoma County Library: Dr. I.L.Dias’s personal address is listed on Keller Street, no address.
[20] “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, July 13, 1881; “New Incubator,” Petaluma Argus, September 2, 1881; “Pavilion Notes,” Petaluma Argus, September 9, 1881; “The Incubator,” Petaluma Argus, September 16, 1881; “Jacobs & Dias’s Incubator,” Petaluma Argus, September 21, 1881.
[21] “The Egyptian Egg Ovens Considered More Wondrous Than the Pyramids,” Atlasobscura.com, March 29, 2019. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/egypt-egg-ovens; Page Smith and Charles Daniel, The Chicken Book (San Francisco, CA: North Point Press, 1982), pp. 13-14; 232-233.
[22] The California State Fair in 1879 featured an exhibit of the Axford Incubator from Chicago by one of its agents, W.H.H. Lee & Co., and the Eclipse Incubator from Massachusetts by one of its agents, H.W. Caldwell. In 1880, a G.G. Nickson won two ribbons at the state fair for an incubator and a brooder: “Prospects for Upcoming Fair,” Sacramento Bee, September 6, 1879; “State Fair,” Sacramento Bee, September 20, 1879; “State Fair,” Sacramento Union, September 28, 1880; “The Incubator Contest,” Pacific Rural Press, May 21, 1884. The most publicized was the Centennial Incubator, invented in 1876 by A.M Halstead in New York. Their California sales agent, Manuel Eyre, operated a 116-acre poultry yard of Brown Leghorn and Plymouth Rock chickens in Napa. He began running the first ads for incubators in Petaluma newspapers in 1879. “The Maryland Poultry and Poultry Fanciers Association,” Baltimore Sun, October 6, 1876; Eyre’s ads featured in: Santa Barbara Independent, February 8, 1878; Fresno Expositor, November 20, 1878; Ferndale Enterprise, November 22, 1878; Stanislaus County Weekly News, November 22, 1878; Anaheim Gazette, November 23, 1878; Cloverdale News, December 7, 1878; Santa Cruz Weekly, November 30, 1878; His first ad in the Petaluma Argus, was in the November 28, 1879 edition.
[23] Note: Prior to becoming a contractor and architect, in 1883, Jacobs left Wells Fargo to purchase a grocery in town. He designed, among other things, the Pepper Free Kindergarten Building at Liberty and Washington streets, and his own stylish home at 419 D Street. “Petaluma Pickings,” Petaluma Argus, May 5, 1883; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Argus, December 8, 1883; Ad, Petaluma Courier, December 12, 1883; “About Completed: The William Pepper Kinder-School Building,” Petaluma Courier, August 23, 1894; “County Hospital Suicide Was a Well-known Former Local Man,” Petaluma Argus, December 26 1917; https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/242042606/thomas-robert-jacobs.
[24] “Jacobs & Dias Incubator,” Petaluma Courier, September 21, 1881.
[25] “The Feathered World,” Buffalo Courier Express, January 28, 1879; “New Poultry Yards,” Petaluma Argus, March 4, 1881; “Local Brevities,” Petaluma Weekly Argus, May 6, 1881; “Our District Fair,” Petaluma Argus, September 9, 1881. Note: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: W.W. Axford’s early U.S. patents for his incubators were issued in 1876 (#183,526) and 1880 (#232,325).
[26] “Our District Fair,” Petaluma Argus, September 9, 1881; “List of Premiums Awarded,” Petaluma Argus, September 16, 1881; Ad for the Petaluma Incubator, citing having beaten out the Axford National at the fair, Pacific Rural Press, December 3, 1881.
[27] By December 1881, Dias was listed as the sole proprietor and manufacturer of the Petaluma Incubator at I.L. Dias & Company: Ad for Petaluma Incubator, Pacific Rural Press, December 3, 1881.
[28] “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, March 22, 1882; Note: Beginning in August 1882, Dias’s incubator began to be referred to in the press as the “patent incubator.” The Petaluma Courier reported in February 1883, that the patent had been received in 1882: “Our Fair,” Petaluma Courier, August 30, 1882; “Artificial Chicken Hatching,” Sacramento Bee, September 11, 1882; “Poultry and Incubators,” Petaluma Courier, February 7, 1883.
[29] Ads for “I.L. Dias & Co.” began appearing in the spring of 1882 (Petaluma Courier, March 1, 1882); Ad for L.C. Byce, Petaluma Argus, November 4, 1881; “Byce’s Poultry Yards,” Petaluma Courier, March 8, 1882. Note: by March 1882, Byce had moved his poultry yard to Hopper Street in East Petaluma, “Byce’s Poultry Yards,” Petaluma Courier, March 8, 1882.
[30] Note: Dias and Byce were cited in a newspaper report (“An Incubator,” Petaluma Argus, August 4, 1882) as having “just perfected an incubator which is very near perfection.” There is no supporting documentation for this at the time. “Our Fair,” Petaluma Courier, August 30, 1882; “Our Fair,” Petaluma Argus, September 1, 1882; “The Petaluma Incubator,” Petaluma Argus, September 8, 1882; “Sonoma at the State Fair,” Petaluma Argus, September 20, 1882.
[31] “Poultry and Incubators,” Petaluma Courier, February 7, 1883; “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, April 25, 1883.
[32] U.S. Census 1880; “Superior Court,” Petaluma Argus,” October 7, 1880 “Legal Post,” San Francisco Examiner, July 24, 1882; “Divorce,” San Francisco Examiner, December 31, 1882; “Married,” Petaluma Argus, February 10, 1883; “Married,” Oakland Tribune,” January 24, 1884; “Born,” Petaluma Courier, May 28, 1884; “Obituary,” Hood River Glacier, July 19, 1906. Note: Alzina Rhoades was married in 1861 in Minnesota before to Louis S. Rhoades, who worked on railway bridges. They had three children, Eva, Alberta, and Orson Rhoades. In 1874, they moved to California, and apparently separated when Louis moved to Oregon in 1877. The U.S. Census of 1880 lists Alzina as “divorced” and living at Dias’s house at 108 Liberty Street as a housekeeper with her daughter Alberta, age 9. Her age is listed as 35. Dias was 24. Alzina’s divorce from Rhoades was made official in 1882 on grounds of desertion. Alzina was awarded custody of their daughter Alberta. She and Dias married in Santa Rosa in February 1883, and then again, for reasons unknown, in San Francisco in December 1883.
[33] “Artificial Rear of Fowls,” Pacific Rural Press, May 12, 1883.
[34] “Poultry and Incubators,” Petaluma Courier, February 7, 1883; “The Incubator Contest,” Pacific Rural Press, June 16, 1883; “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, June 20, 1883; McKenney District Directory of Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, Yolo, Solano, and Marin Counties, 1882-1883, p. 15, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum.
[35] “Still More about Incubators,” Pacific Rural Press, June 10, 1882; “The Incubator Contest,” Pacific Rural Press, June 16, 1883; “The Proposed Tournament,” Pacific Rural Press, June 16, 1883; “At the Late Incubator ‘Contest,’” Pacific Rural Press, November 24, 1883; “Petaluma Incubator Replies to the Agent of the Axford,” Pacific Rural Press, June 7, 1884; “The Axford Agent Replies to the Business Manager of the Petaluma (Incubator),” Pacific Rural Press, June 21, 1884.
[36] “Experience with Incubators,” Pacific Rural Press, June 2, 1883; “The Incubator Contest,” Pacific Rural Press, May 21, 1884.
[37] “The Incubator Contest,” Pacific Rural Press, June 16, 1883.
[38] “Experience with Incubators,” Pacific Rural Press, June 2, 1883; “The Incubator Contest,” Pacific Rural Press, June 16, 1883; “The Proposed Tournament,” Pacific Rural Press, June 16, 1883; “State Fair Notes,” Pacific Rural Press, September 22, 1883; “The Result of the Incubator Test at the State Fair,” Pacific Rural Press, September 22, 1883; “At the Late Incubator ‘Contest,’” Pacific Rural Press, November 24, 1883.
[39] First ad for Petaluma Incubator Company, Pacific Rural Press, August 30, 1884; “A Gold Medal,” Petaluma Argus, November 22, 1884; McKenney’s Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, Yolo, Solano, and Marin Counties, 1884-1885, p. 265, Sonoma County Library: I.L. Dias & Company lists Isaac L. Dias and Lyman C. Byce as manufacturers at the corner of Main and Washington streets.
[40] “Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, October 3, 1883; “Large Shipments,” Petaluma Argus, March 29, 1884.
[41] “Petaluma Incubator,” Pacific Rural Press, October 4, 1884; “The Incubator Gold Medal,” Pacific Rural Press, October 18, 1884.
[42] It is not known when exactly they filed the patent. It was approved as patent #319,064, issued by U.S. Patent Office on June 2, 1885.
[43] “Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus, February 7, 1885.
[44] “Particulars of the Fatal Accident at Petaluma,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 2, 1884; “Dr. Isaac Lopes Dias Dies,” Petaluma Argus, December 6, 1884.
[45] “Polly Larkin’s Pot-Pourri,” Petaluma Courier, December 3, 1884; Patent #319,064, issued by U.S. Patent Office on June 2, 1885, for heat regulator filed by Lyman C. Byce and Alzina Dias and February 3, 1885, and approved June 2, 1884. It is not known whether this was a patent for an improved version of Dias’s original heat regulation developed by Dias and Byce, or whether Dias’s widow and Byce were tying up loose ends by filing a patent for the original heat incubator that Dias never received, even though he advertised his incubator beginning in 1882 as having been patented. No record of the 1882 incubator patent by Dias has been located in the U.S. Patent files; Alzina Dias’s legal request to sell her deceased husband’s half ownership in the Petaluma Incubator is featured in Lowry’s book, p. 36. Note: Lowry states she sourced the decree in Sonoma County court documents that show Alzina Dias sold her half-interest in the Petaluma Incubator to William J. Magee on May 18, 1885. Magee had recently opened a new blacksmith and carriage shop that March with Andrew Spotswood, called Spotswood & Magee (“Certificate of Copartnership,” Petaluma Courier, March 18, 1885). Magee was also a master of the Masons at the time (“Public Installation,” Petaluma Courier, December 29, 1886). Note: Alzina Dias and her children moved to San Francisco, while Dias’s mother Rosa, who was living with Alzina and Isaac, and who had lost her eyesight, moved to Sacramento to live with one of her two daughters (“Polly Larkin’s Pot-Pourri,” Petaluma Courier, May 19, 1886: Petaluma Courier, September 5, 1900).
[46] No record can be found of Magee’s sale of his interest in the company to Byce; he is not listed in McKenney’s District Directory of 1884-85, nor 1885-86, as a partner in the Petaluma Incubator Company. Byce is continually referred to in the press in 1885 as the manager of the Petaluma Incubator Company (“Practical Artificial Rearing of Chicks,” Petaluma Argus, February 21, 1885; “Hunting Story,” Petaluma Argus, July 25, 1885).
[47] “The Largest Yet,” Petaluma Argus, April 4, 1885; “Good Machine,” Petaluma Argus, July 18, 1885; “Petaluma Incubator,” Pacific Rural Press, September 1, 1888; “Petaluma Incubator,” Pacific Rural Press, November 9, 1889; “Ostrich Farming in California,” Pacific Rural Press, May 21, 1892; “The Great Victorian Feather Craze,” The Collector.com, https://www.thecollector.com/victorian-great-feather-craze-ecological-impact/
[48] Ad, Petaluma Courier, August 25, 1888; “A Happy New Year,” Petaluma Argus, December 28, 1888; “Petaluma Industries,” Petaluma Courier, May 29, 1889; “Petaluma Incubator,” Pacific Rural Press, December 7, 1889; “A Large Business,” Pacific Rural Press, March 25, 1893; “Poultry in Sonoma County,” Pacific Rural Press, April 22, 1893.
[49] “Petaluma Incubator Factory,” Pacific Rural Press, January 19, 1889; “Petaluma Incubator Factory,” Pacific Rural Press, April 13, 1889; “A Midnight Blaze,” Petaluma Courier, June 11, 1902; “A Business Deal,” Petaluma Courier, August 29, 1902; “Petaluma Incubator Factory the Largest in the World,” Petaluma Argus, June 11, 1907.
[50] “Now Incorporated,” Petaluma Courier, May 10, 1902; “Petaluma Incubator Company Files Incorporation Articles,” Petaluma Argus, May 10, 1902; “A House Warming,” Petaluma Courier, June 4, 1902.
[51] “How It All Came About” brochure, Petaluma Incubator Company, 1909, Lorraine Skoog Collection, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum.
[52] “Poultry in Sonoma County,” Pacific Rural Press, April 22, 1893; Samuel Cassiday, An Illustrated History of Sonoma County (Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1889), pp. 263, 548. Note: Cassiday, who apparently interviewed Byce for his biographical sketch in the book, wrote that Byce first came to Petaluma in the fall of 1879. That time frame corresponds with Byce’s written claim that he had come to Petaluma to stay with his recently married sister Jennie, who newspaper records show was wed in August 1879 (“Married,” Petaluma Argus, August 22, 1879). The only record found of Byce’s presence found in California in either 1878 or 1879 was as a registered hotel guest at San Francisco’s Ruff House in December 1879 (“Hotel Arrivals,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 3, 1879). Cassiday also writes that as a young man Byce worked in his father’s sawmill. After his father’s death, he went into the business of manufacturing potato starch in a mill near Toronto for two years, after which he abandoned the business. This corresponds with a bankruptcy filing by Byce in 1877 (“Bankrupt Notices – Ontario,” Montreal Gazette, October 25, 1877). Cassiday says Byce then entered medical school in Toronto for two years, until his failing health led him to make a trip to Petaluma in the fall of 1879. Lowry (p.38) found there were no records of Byce’s enrollment at any of Toronto’s three medical schools at the time.
[53] Reynolds and Proctor, Illustrated Atlas of Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, CA: Reynolds and Proctor, 1898), p. 32; “Gaye LeBaron,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, May 16, 1876.
[54] “Now Incorporated,” Petaluma Courier, May 10, 1902; “Petaluma Incubator Company Files Incorporation Articles,” Petaluma Argus, May 10, 1902. Note: Both front-page articles are a word-for-word match, indicating they were likely reprints of Byce’s press release.
[55] “Petaluma Incubator Banquets,” Petaluma Courier, November 22, 1904; “First Incubator by Lyman Byce,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955. Note: At the anniversary jubilee dinner, the backs of the place cards on the tables were inscribed “Born 1879, at the Petaluma Incubator Factory, Petaluma, California.”
[56] “Petaluma Incubator Banquets,” Petaluma Courier, November 22, 1904.
[57] Lorraine Skoog Collection, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum; Note: One of the testimonials is from Art S. Newburgh, an editor at the Petaluma Argus, who describes being ten years old and visiting Byce’s poultry yard with the owner of the local freight company, B.F. Cox (also included in the testimonials), who allowed him to ride with him on his wagon after school. They went to Byce’s place to pick up one of his newly invented incubators, and transport it full of eggs and in full operation, to the fairgrounds for the September 1879 Sonoma and Marin District Agricultural Fair. At the fair, the chicks successfully hatched and the machine became a big attraction. While that might have in fact happened, it probably wasn’t in 1879, but rather in 1881 when Cox and Newburgh transported from Byce’s poultry yard the Axford Incubator he entered at the fair to compete with the incubator of Dias and Jacobs.
[58] “Petaluma Incubator Factory the Largest in the World,” Petaluma Argus, June 11, 1907; Unpublished autobiographical essay, believed to have been written by Byce in 1914, Lorraine Skoog Collection, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum.
[59] Letter from Byce to Andrew Stodel, dated November 30, 1934, Lorraine Skoog Collection, Petaluma Historical Library & Museum; “Famous Judges Will Award Trophies,” Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet, January 9, 1936; “Andrew Stodel Named Grand Historian by Native Sons,” Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet, June 14, 1956.
[60] Letter from Byce to Andrew Sodel.
[61] Letter from Byce to Andrew Sodel; Note: Byce’s granddaughter, Lorraine Skoog, claimed to still be in possession of the gold medal, but apparently she did not donate it to the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum with Byce’s other artifacts and papers. A museum volunteer, Leif Ortegen, reported that Skoog showed him the gold medal before she died, and that winner’s name on the back had been chiseled off (email from Leif Ortegen to John Sheehy, July, 4, 2025).
[62] “Petition in Solvency,” Petaluma Argus, September 23, 1919; “Big Auction Sale Today,” Petaluma Argus, February 3, 1920; “Will Open a Monster Plant,” Petaluma Argus, March 25, 1920.
[63] “Will Open Electric Incubator Factory,” Petaluma Courier, September 4, 1919; “Electric Incubator Co. Buy Land for New Home,” Petaluma Courier, May 13, 1923; Legal post, Petaluma Argus, June 11, 1924; Note: The company first leased a building from the Golden Eagle Mill at 2 East Washington Street “Electric Incubator Co. Buy Land for New Home,” Petaluma Courier, May 13, 1923, before purchasing a building at 307 Third Street (Petaluma Boulevard South) in 1923 (“Electric Incubator Co. Buy Land for New Home,” Petaluma Courier, May 13, 1923). In 1938, they purchased a new building at 416 East D Street (“Incubator Co. Moves Plant,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 10, 1938).
[64] “Work Starts on New Medical Building at Fourth and D Streets,” Petaluma Argus, July 26, 1938; “Mr. and Mrs. H. Reynaud to Occupy New Home,” Petaluma Argus Courier, October 3, 1938; “Mr. and Mrs. E. Byce Rent Mrs. Bauer’s House,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 15, 1938 (the address of the two-bedroom house is 404 Sixth Street,); “E.J. Cameron Claimed By Death,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 16, 1942; “Lyman Byce is Called to Rest at Age 91,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 8, 1944.
[65] “Byce,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 19, 1955; Ad for Frank Maus who purchased the Petaluma Electric Incubator Company’s inventory, Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 3, 1955.
[66] Examples include: “First Incubator by Lyman Byce,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955; “Lyman Byce Developed First Practical Poultry Incubator,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 24, 1958; “The Incubator Was Perfected in Petaluma,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 15, 1980; Ed Mannion and Lewis Barber, “Petaluma Was First Explored in 1776,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 21, 1993; “Lyman Byce, Inventor of Chicken Incubator,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 24, 2015.
[67] “Which came first: The chicken or the egg?” Livescience.com, February 6, 2023. https://www.livescience.com/which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg
