Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

WILLIAM L. GALLIGAN

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
An interesting duo of successful agriculturists are George A. and William L. 
Galligan, brothers, operating together on well-kept farmland about eleven miles 
southeast of Marysville, just off the Spenceville road.  George A. Galligan was 
born on the old Hooper Ranch, near Wheatland, on December 11, 1863, while 
William L. Galligan was ushered into the world on what was known as the old 
Galligan Ranch, at what is now Erle, in the Elizabeth School district, on March 
13, 1871.  Their parents were Mathew and Susan (Ewing) Galligan.  Mathew 
Galligan was born in County Longford, Ireland, and came to the United States 
when he was seventeen years old, landing at New York City.  He remained there 
for two years, and then he went into Pennsylvania, and for three years worked on 
a farm at eleven dollars per month.  He then went to Muscatine, Iowa, and 
married there, and also farmed for two or three years; and by that time he was 
ready to start across the plains with his wife and two children.  He traveled in 
an ox- and mule-team train, by way of the River Platte and the Salt Lake route, 
and landed in California in 1860.
Mrs. Galligan, as Miss Susan Ewing, was a native of Ohio, and became an orphan 
at a very tender age.  Her father started off to visit his mother who lived at a 
distance, and was never heard from again; and shortly after that, Susan�s mother 
died, leaving the little girl alone in the world.  Susan was reared by a Mr. 
Roddan, in Iowa, and having gone to Muscatine to live, it came about that Mr. 
Galligan and Miss Ewing were married there.  Eight children were born to Mr. and 
Mrs. Galligan, two of them in Iowa; the elder being Hugh Peter, and the younger, 
Mary Catherine, who died in California on January 2, 1890, at the age of 
twenty-nine, at the present home of the Galligans.  The six born in Yuba County 
are George A.; Eliza Ann, now the wife of Dennis Coughlin of Marysville; 
Margaret Jane, who died in 1899 at the age of thirty; William L.; Ellen Matilda, 
who became Mrs. Downing, and died at Santa Cruz, on March 31, 1921; and 
Elizabeth Ann, who lives with the family of our subject.
Mathew Galligan went to work for Mr. Hacker in Yuba County, and farmed there for 
a year; and he then settled on the Hooper place of about 100 acres, and he was 
there for two years.  He then leased a ranch at Brighton, in Sacramento County, 
for a short time, and after that took a lease on the Roddan Ranch, on Bear 
River, and farmed that for a year; and next he settled eleven miles east of  
Marysville, on the Marysville-Spenceville road.  He first bought a quit-claim 
from Mart Sparks, on a section of railroad land, for $400; and he settled upon 
that, and built himself a home, and lived there for six years.  Then he threw up 
his claim on this section of land, and moved down to the present location of the 
Messrs. Galligan, eleven miles east of Marysville, and he homesteaded eighty 
acres, and preempted eighty acres, all of government land, and later purchased 
160 acres of the section he had given up.  His homesteaded land, and the quarter 
section which he purchased, fortunately adjoined, and that has proven a great 
advantage.  The father, who was always one of the best of providers, built a 
dwelling, and the family lived in it with him until his death, in 1904, at the 
age of seventy-four.  Mrs. Galligan breathed her last three years later, at the 
age of sixty-nine.  Mr. and Mrs. Galligan were esteemed and mourned by a wide 
circle of friends and acquaintances.
G. A. and W. L. Galligan continued until 1914 to farm to grain, but since that 
year they have devoted themselves to sheep and poultry, and they have also since 
purchased an additional quarter-section adjoining their half-section.  They have 
never had over 125 head of sheep at any time, but with these they have been 
successful, and in the season of 1922, they raised and sold 580 turkeys, all of 
the Mammoth Bronze stock.  In national political affairs they are Democrats; but 
they wisely dispense with partisanship in local affairs, and no one outdoes them 
in their loyal and enthusiastic support of everything favorable to Yuba County.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 1245