Napa County Biographies

O. M. ADAMS

Transcribed by: Betty Wilson

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
            O. M. ADAMS has for the past twenty-five years been a resident of 
California, and for the past five years an occupant of his ranch two and a half 
miles from Napa, on the Sonoma road, where he has an orchard of twenty-five 
acres and a vineyard of fifty acres.  In the orchard are French and English 
prunes, two acres; peaches, two acres; apples, two acres; and the remainder in 
Bartlett and Winter Nelis pears; while the vineyard comprises mostly Golden 
Chasselas and Zinfandel grapes.
            Mr. Adams was born in New Hampshire, in 1837, and in his youth 
completed a course at Amherst (Massachusetts) College, graduating in 1856.  He 
then came to Chicago, where he engaged in teaching for about four years in the 
public schools.  Next he was engaged in the wholesale coal trade for Price, 
Morris & Co.  In 1862 he enlisted in the Chicago Mercantile Battery, with which 
he served under Sherman at the battle of Arkansas Post, in a severe skirmish on 
Black River, and in four other sharp engagements before arriving at Champion 
Hills.  In the noted engagement at the latter point he suffered a bullet wound 
in the leg, which required two years to be healed.  About four months after 
receiving this wound he was discharged for disability.  As soon as it was 
possible, he went to work, taking the position of Chief Clerk for the First 
Commissary at Chicago for about two years.  He then came to California, by the 
Panama route, arriving in San Francisco in 1866.  First he engaged in mining for 
two years, in both Nevada and California; next he was a teacher in Oakland 
College,�an institution afterward purchased by the State and converted into the 
preparatory department of the State University.  After a service there of nearly 
four years, he was for eleven years principal of the high school at Sacramento.  
In 1884 he purchased his present home of 160 acres.  Mr. Adams is a member of 
the Masonic order of Sacramento Commandery, No. 2, K. T., and of the Chapter; 
and he holds demits, as his lodges are too distant for his attendance.  His 
parents were O.M. and Fannie (Stearns) Adams, natives and residents of New 
Hampshire.
 
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing 
Co., 1891