[1][5] Born November 30, 1818, in Greenfield, in Saratoga County, New York to Asa and Sarah (née Odell) Anthony, they moved often in his childhood and eventually landed in Indiana.

[7] Anthony arrived in Santa Cruz between December 1847 and January 1848[10][11] to work as a local Methodist Episcopal Church preacher.

[7] His land spanned what is now the downtown of Santa Cruz (the main area of the lot was near what is now the junction of Mission Street, Water Street and N. Pacific Avenue in downtown, the building no longer exists) and eventually developed the first commercial block in Santa Cruz called the Anthony Block.

He invested in building real estate on a hill called "Anthony's Bluff" since uneven land was less preferred by the local Native Americans.

[1] Starting in 1865, Anthony with Frederick A. Hihn built the first private water supply network in the city of Santa Cruz and serving nearby communities.

However, by 1885 it was a larger movement called the "Non-Partisan Anti-Chinese Association" headed by Anthony and Duncan McPherson, editor and publisher of the Santa Cruz Sentinel spread down the coast to local cities and towns.