Alameda County Biographies

JOHN M. ENGLISH

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 

	The subject of this sketch, whose portrait appears in this work, was born in 
Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland, February 17, 1834.  At the age of five years he was 
taken by his parents to Jefferson County, Western Virginia, and there received his education 
and resided until his leaving for California, in 1851.  On the 4th of December of that year he 
sailed from New York on board the steamer Phymetes, and proceeding by the Nicaragua route, 
finished the voyage in the Independence, arriving in San Francisco January 7, 1852.  Mr. 
English at once settled on a farm near Centreville, Alameda County, which is now occupied by 
George Patterson, where he remained one season, when he moved to an estate on the San Lorenzo 
Creek, where he farmed until 1857, when he transferred the scene of his operations to the 
property where he now resides, purchased by his uncle, Samuel B. Martin, the tract so acquired 
being on league square.  The portion occupied by Mr. English is situated two miles and a half 
north from Pleasanton, and comprises three hundred and twenty-five acres of fine land. In Mr. 
English we have one of nature�s truest noblemen, a man whom it is an honor to know, and whom to 
know is to appreciate.  Married in San Francisco, in 1869, Miss Leta, daughter of Captain Smith 
of Sonoma County, by whom he has four surviving children, viz.:  Frederick, Genevieve, John, 
and Ada.

History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 884