Napa County Biographies

A. B. ALSIP

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
horticulturist, near St. Helena, proprietor of Mountain Cove ranch, one of the 
most beautiful in Napa County, situated as its name indicates in a delightful 
bend of Conn Valley, near St. Helena.  Although it has been the property of Mr. 
Alsip for only some five years, he has already improved it in such a way as to 
make it not only one of the most valuable ranches in the county, but even the 
most valuable.
 
Mr. Alsip was born in the State of Maryland, in 1819, where he was brought up on 
a farm, and received a good education in the schools of the district.  In 1840 
he went to Indiana, settling south of the city of Indianapolis, in Morgan 
County, and engaged in mercantile business; continuing this until 1853, he set 
out across the plains for California, leaving Martinsville on the 12th of April. 
 On the way there, had a couple of brushes with the Indians, the Sioux and 
Pah-Utes being the aggressors.  For two hundred miles through the State of Iowa, 
they did not see a house, and from Des Moines to Salt Lake no civilization.  
Time has changed all that.  The train consisted of nineteen persons, with 300 
cattle and horses, four wagons drawn by oxen.  The time consumed in the journey 
was an even six months.  On arriving in this State, Mr. Alsip settled first in 
Sacramento and engaged in the dairying business, which he carried on until 1860, 
when he bought land near Rio Vista in Solano County, still carrying on dairying 
and stock-raising.  For twenty-five years Mr. Alsip farmed in Solano County, 
being one of the leading and prominent agriculturists in that county.  In 1885 
he came to Napa County, and purchased his present beautiful estate of 240 acres 
in Conn Valley, a spot blessed by nature with abundant rainfall, absolute 
protection from frosts or winds by surrounding hills, and possessing a soil of 
the greatest fertility.  Mr. Alsip has now about fifty acres of grapes, young 
and old, about four acres of French prunes, which have made a fine growth, and 
200 olive trees, young but thrifty, as well as apples, etc., all of which are 
found to do well.  Mr. Alsip states that he has never anywhere seen a better 
growth of trees than at Mountain Cove.  He has erected a fine stone wine cellar 
with a storage capacity of 80,000 gallons, and funds the making of wine a 
profitable employment. On the ranch are situated both sulphur and soda springs, 
as well as abundant springs of pure cold water, from which the water is piped to 
house and grounds.
 
Mr. Alsip has been married three times, the first time in Indiana.  He has one 
son, Mr. E. K. Alsip, the well-known real-estate man of Sacramento.  Mr. Alsip 
is a Republican, but is not a partisan.  He is in every respect a leading and 
representative citizen.
 
Memorial & Biographical History of Northern California, The Lewis Publishing 
Co., 1891