Benicia founder Robert Semple “was a busy guy,” said Jerry Hayes, president of the Benicia Historical Society.

Semple started the first California newspaper. He was involved in the Bear Flag Revolt for California independence, and escorted the captured General Mariano Vallejo to Sutter’s Fort.

Semple was, in fact, a key figure in the founding of the state of California, and his role at the 1849 Constitutional Convention in Monterey is the subject of a Historical Society program Thursday at the Camellia Tea Room.

Greg Tilles, the Society’s historian and a professor at Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, will describe how Semple, as chairman of the Constitutional Convention, helped guide the founding of the state. “He presided over it, and had the respect of the delegates,” Hayes said.

Semple rarely gets “his due,” Hayes said, which is why the Society wanted to focus this program on the man who envisioned the city of Benicia as he accompanied Vallejo to Sutter’s Fort.

Semple also started the first California mail service, tying northern and southern parts of the state through postal carriers. And he launched the ferry that connected Benicia to Martinez.

While Vallejo contributed the land and Thomas Larkin invested money, Hayes called Semple “the founder of Benicia” who also found time for a career in dentistry. “He was quite an amazing character,” he said.

Hayes said Tilles is well-qualified to speak about the historic figure.

“He’s been around Benicia a long time. He’s a wealth of information,” Hayes said of Tilles, who was chosen to be the Historical Society’s “go-to” person about the city’s past.

“He has done talks in the past that always are well received,” he said.

Tilles has other ties to the city’s history, Hayes said: He and his wife own a former military officer home in the historic Arsenal district, and that house has been on the Society’s historic homes tours.

Tilles’s talk about Robert Semple will start at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Camellia Tea Room, 828 First St. Admission is free. Refreshments will be served.

The Historical Society’s next talk, in the fall, will be about author Jack London.

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