Contra Costa County Biography

GEORGE FREDERICK GEARY

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta, December, 2006.

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

 
               George Frederick Geary, one of the representative ranchers and 
fruit-growers of Contra Costa County, was born in the Ygnacio Valley. He is a 
son of Lawrence Geary, one of the pioneers of California. His father was born in 
Baden, Germany, December 5, 1827. In March, 1848, he came to the United States. 
He landed in New York and went to Philadelphia, where he found employment on a 
farm. Remaining there six months, he went to St. Louis, and thence south to New 
Orleans, where he worked on a sugar plantation. In April, 1849, he went to Fort 
Leavenworth and resided two years. In 1852 he, in company with three others, 
started across the plains for California, and arrived at Hangtown on August 26, 
1852. He followed mining for a short time, and in the fall of 1852 he came to 
Contra Costa County and engaged in farming. In the fall of 1878 he purchased 
four hundred acres of land and engaged in general farming, in Pleasant Hill 
district. Mr. Geary was married on November 25, 1858, to Miss Jane Wallace, a 
native of Missouri. George Frederick Geary, the subject of this sketch, has 
fifty-five acres set out to walnuts, fruit and vineyard. In politics Mr. Geary 
is a Republican. He has served as clerk and trustee of the Pleasant Hill school 
district for some time. Mr. Geary was married on September 11, 1889, to Emma 
Reeves, a native of Maine. To this union have been born two children - Mabel E., 
a teacher in the schools of San Leandro, and Gladys E., at home and attending 
school. The family attend the Methodist church.
 
Source: "The History of Contra Costa County, California," Elms Publ. Co., 1917, 
pp. 569-570.