Sutter-Yuba County Biographies


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


 
PETER J. DELAY
            Peter J. Delay, author of this History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, 
was born in Marysville, Yuba County, September 8, 1865, and has resided 
continuously in the county.  His first employment was delivering newspapers in 
the era when one train a day reached the city from the larger centers, which 
arrival was the big event, and everyone who was at leisure went to the railroad 
station to note the arrivals and departures.  Peculiarly enough, after ten years 
of store life, starting at the age of seventeen, he drifted back into newspaper 
work and at this writing has been connected with the �fourth estate� for thirty 
years.
            In 1893 he took the position of city editor of the Marysville 
Democrat, evening paper, holding the same for seven years.  Early in 1900, he 
entered the employment of the Sacramento Bee, as a special correspondent to the 
Superior California department of that paper, covering Yuba, Sutter and 
adjoining counties.
            Representing the State controller�s office in the inheritance-tax 
department, he has served under three regimes � under those of A. B. Nye and the 
late John S. Chambers, and at the present writing under State Controller Ray L. 
Riley.
            In March, 1904, Peter J. Delay was elected, without opposition, a 
member of the Common Council of the City of Marysville, representing the third 
ward.  At the close of a two-years term he was reelected to the same office.
            In March, 1908, he was chosen Mayor of his native city in one of the 
warmest municipal elections in the city�s history.  At the end of his term he 
retired from political life.  A fellow journalist living at a distance, 
commenting upon Mr. Delay�s success at the polls, expressed wonderment, 
editorially, as to how a man with a name denoting anything but force, and with 
the burden of a newspaper man to live down, could accomplish such a feat.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 310