Alameda County Biographies

WILLIAM BARRY

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 Rochfort Bridge, Westmeath, Ireland, October 2, 1831, and there resided 
until fourteen years of age.  Afterwards he served two years in the office of a solicitor in 
Dublin, but getting tired of the musty tomes and crisp parchments of this �limb of the law,� 
he shipped on board the Forest Monarch, bound on a voyage from Liverpool to New York, 
subsequently proceeding to St. John�s, New Brunswick, whence he sailed for Greenock, Scotland; 
but on the passage suffered shipwreck on the Arran Isles, on the northwest coast of Ireland.  
The crew landed on the island of Inniskerragh, and stayed by the hulk for nearly a month. They 
soon separating, our subject found his way home after a weary walk of a hundred and eighty miles, 
and an absence of six months.  Mr. Barry followed �a life on the ocean wave� for several years, 
during his cruises visiting nearly all parts of the world.  In the year 1851 we find him in 
Australia, reaching Port Phillip in the first year after the gold discovery there, whence he 
sailed for South America, etc.  On May 1, 1852, our subject arrived in the harbor of San 
Francisco with a cargo of coal from Valparaiso, but soon after left his ship and found 
employment with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company for one month.  Mr. Barry next was for a 
short time engaged in Contra Costa County, working for William Castro.  He then went to San 
Francisco, and finally came to Alameda County July 1, 1852, and obtained work from E. L. Beard 
and Millard Brothers, until 1854.  In the summer of 1855 he started in the manufacture of grain-
sacks in Centreville, in partnership with Richard Wilson, and in the fall of that year purchased 
the lot whereon now stands the store of Saltz & Co., on which a building was erected, and our 
subject opened a store of general merchandise.  This business he conducted until 1857, when he 
sold out and embarked in sheep-raising, an occupation he abandoned in the fall of 1861, when, 
meeting with some serious reverses, he left the county for the first time since his arrival in 
it.  Proceeding to Monterey County, he there became superintendent of the extensive ranch of 
Colonel Hollister, where he remained until the summer of 1863, at which time he went into the 
employ of Searle & Wynn, when he was prostrated from sickness.  On his recovery, Mr. Barry 
returned to San Francisco, and in April, 1864, took charge of the ranch of J. B. Wynn, near 
Hollister, in whose employ he continued till the fall of 1866. He now engaged in the book business 
until 1869, in which year he returned to Alameda County, purchased his present place of fifteen 
acres, situated a mile and a half east of Centreville, and where he cultivates fruits and herbs.

History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 844