Alameda County Biographies

FRED. D. ARFF

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 

	Was born in Keil, Holstein, Germany, on the 5th of February, 1822; and resided there 
with his parents until sixteen years of age, when he had a great desire for the sea.  He led a 
seafaring life for sixteen years, sailing on various freight and passengers vessels, and 
entered mostly all the principal ports on the continent.  In 1852, on the 11th of May, he 
arrived at San Francisco on the clipper ship John Stewart, and landed at long wharf on 
Commercial Street.  At the time he landed he was penniless, but was fortunate enough to get 
free board and lodging for a couple of days.  Soon after his arrival he went into the mining 
occupation.  The first mine he entered was at Woods Creek, between Jamestown and Sonora, where 
he discovered from eight to ten dollars� worth of gold daily.  He remained there six months, 
when he went back to San Francisco, where he again took up his old occupation for six months on 
a sailing ship, carrying lumber from Oregon to San Francisco.  After leaving the latter ship he 
met an old mate of the John Stewart, by the name of James Wood, who got him a situation in a 
store at the corner of Union and Battery Streets.  At the end of twenty-three months he embarked 
in a draying business until 1856, when he came to his present place, comprising two hundred and 
eighty acres of land at Mount Eden.  On the 18th August, 1857, he married a Miss Louise D. Liese, 
of Hesse-Cassel, Germany.  Five children were the result of this union, of which two sons and two 
daughters survive.

History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 839-840