Solano County Biographies

GEORGE A. GILLESPIE

Transcribed by Linda McDowell

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

 
was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 7, 1830.  His parents and the other 
children of the family were born at West Farms, Westchester, New York; when he 
was yet an infant the family removed to Ohio and located on a farm near North 
Bend, and about eighteen miles from the city of Cincinnati.  Here ten years of 
his life were spent and here his parents died; the father dying when he was of 
the age of six years, and his mother following the father to the grave four 
years later.  In February, 1842, the family of children returned to St. Louis 
and for one year George attended the private schools in the city, and, in 1843, 
the family separating, he was sent to Kemper College, an Episcopal institution 
of learning, located near St. Louis.  In 1844, he left the college and went to 
live with his eldest brother, who was located in Boonville, Missouri, and while 
here for two years he attended Kemper�s Academy, closing his school days at this 
institution.  After clerking in a hardware store at Boonville for a time, in 
1847 he returned to St. Louis and took a situation with Joseph S. Pease, one of 
the pioneer wholesale hardware dealers of that city.  He remained with Pease 
until the great fire of May, 1849, at which his employer was burned out and 
rendered almost bankrupt.  In a few months he went into the employment of Hon. 
Henry T. Blow, the then owner of the Collier White Lead Works, as paying teller 
in the purchasing office of that establishment, and remaining with Blow until 
March, 1850, when he embarked �the plains across� to California, journeying from 
the Missouri river to Sacramento, in the then unprecedented time of eighty-three 
days, and arriving in Sacramento on the 10th day of July, 1850.  After remaining 
in Sacramento a week or two to rest from the arduous trip, he, in the company of 
two of his St. Louis companions, left for the mines and located at Rough and 
Ready, in Nevada county, where he spent the winter.  In the spring of 1851 he 
sold his claims at Rough and Ready and visited his brother Edgar F., who was 
then keeping store in Hangtown, now Placerville and from there he went to 
Horse-shoe Bar on the American River, near Auburn, to see another brother, who 
shortly after returned to Ohio.  He at once engaged in mining and remained in 
this locality until April, 1852, when he joined his brother,  Edgar, who had 
located in Suisun valley the year before.  During the summer of that year he and 
his brother engaged in cutting and baling hay and conducting a hay-yard at 
Sacramento city.  In the Fall they gave up the hay-yard and commenced 
preparations for planning a crop of barley, on what is now known as the Clayton 
Place, at the head of the valley.  The primitive farming of this period 
presented many novel features and more serious obstacles.  There being no lumber 
for fencing or building purposes, ditches were dug and the crests of the sod 
covered with the branches of the valley oaks to warn away the numerous bands of 
cattle and horses, and prevent their intrusion upon the newly sown grain.  
Plenty of hay could be cut in the summer but, for want of proper shelter, it 
could not be preserved for use in the Winter, and the old system of stacking, so 
much in vogue in the Eastern States, here proved an absolute failure; and barley 
being very scarce and rating at an enormously high figure, feeding the working 
animals after the common method was out of the question; therefore, the animals 
were nightly turned out upon the grass to obtain sustenance; and each morning 
were caught up and harnessed to the plow for the daily task of plowing an acre 
or an acre and a half.  And, during the Winter, bread-stuffs, in the valley 
became inconveniently scarce.  To get flour was an impossibility; and shorts 
rated in Benicia at $20 per hundred pounds; and, owing to the excess rains of 
the season and the miry condition of the trails, it was next to impossible to 
obtain any provisions, from Benicia, accordingly, the settlers in the upper part 
of the valley, during the most of that Winter, had to rely for breadstuff on a 
few sacks of shelled corn, which was, fortunately, in possession of one of their 
number, and this corn was prepared by first grinding it in a rough iron 
hand-mill, and, with this meagre preparation, it was mixed into bread  batter, 
without so much as a partial acquaintance with the time-honored sieve.  It made 
wholesome food, however, and the civilized plague of dyspepsia was, to these 
hardy pioneers, wholly unknown.  Game and the bands of wild cattle ranging in 
such vast numbers in the Suscol hills, furnished the settlers with meat, with 
occasionally a piece of salt pork to flavor the savory dishes prepared by the 
more experienced cooks.  Hunting, shooting matches, and an occasional 
scrub-horse race, furnished the only amusement of the times, until female 
immigrants became more plenty, when the coarser sports of the men gave place to 
the more civilized pastime of the country dance.
The yield of the soil at this cropping was extremely good, and in one or two 
cases as high as seventy bushels of barley per acre was realized.  The 
harvesting commenced about the 20th of June, and the grain was cut with the old 
style cradle, and bound into sheaves, and threshed by the tramping of horses, or 
the services of an endless chain machine�there being one or two of the latter 
brought to the valley.  Nearly all of the products of the valley of that year 
were sold at Sacramento, being shipped there from the Suisun Embarcadero by sail 
vessel, and the barley bringing, in that market, an average of three and 
one-half cents per pound.
Mr. Gillespie continued farming until the summer of 1856, excepting perhaps a 
year intervening, when he went into the employment of John Doughty, one of the 
first storekeepers at Cordelia, to manage that gentleman�s business, while he 
was absent representing the people of the county in the Legislature of the year 
1855.  On Christmas day of 1856 Mr. Gillespie commenced the foundation of the 
first store and second building in Silbeyville, where he remained, 
merchandising, until the fall of 1859, when he sold to the firm of Deck & Co., 
and then engaged in sheepraising.  In the spring of 1860, he was appointed 
Deputy County Assessor, under Capt. E. H. Von Pfister, the then County Assessor, 
and remained with him until the work of the year was finished, resigning in the 
month of December.  In January 1861, he was elected Engrossing Clerk of the 
State Senate, and again in 1862 was re-elected to the same position.  Returning 
to the county again, in the summer of that year, he located at Maine Prairie, to 
buy wheat, as the agent of Gen. John B. Frisbie, who that year, had commenced 
the business of shipping grain to Liverpool.  The rejection of the Suscol grant 
by the courts, shortly after, put an end to the General�s wheat speculations, 
and Mr. Gillespie left his employment, and engaged in the drug business at Maine 
Prairie, in the partnership with Dr. S. K. Baker, --remaining there until the 
March of 1864, when he went into the Sheriff�s office at Fairfield, under his 
brother, who was Sheriff, as deputy and jailor.  At the end of the term, in 
March, 1866, he removed to Suisun City, and, during that summer, was the active 
projector and the first secretary and superintendent of the present Suisun and 
Fairfield Water Company.  In September of that year, in partnership with 
Woodford Owens, Jr., he purchased the Solano Press, a newspaper, published at 
Suisun, and, under the firm-name of Geo. A. Gillespie & Co., continued the 
publication of that newspaper until the latter part of 1869, when the Solano 
Press and Solano Herald were merged into a new paper, called the Solano 
Republican, published by Powers and Gillespie.  This firm continued the 
publication of the Republican until 1872, when Mr. Gillespie sold his interest 
to his partner, O. B. Powers, and soon after removed to Antioch, in Contra Costa 
county, where he was engaged in business for about two years, returning to the 
county in 1874, to go into the Recorder�s office, as a deputy, under his 
brother, whose failing health incapacitated him from attending to the duties of 
his position.  Recorder Gillespie dying before his term of office expired, 
William Wolf was appointed Recorder, and Mr. Gillespie was reappointed deputy 
under him, and remained in office to the close of the term, in March, 1876.  
Having been elected a Justice of the Peace for Suisun township the fall before, 
he then opened an office in Suisun, and, for the term following, was an acting 
Justice of the Peace and Notary Public.  In March, 1878, he was appointed Deputy 
County Clerk under Alex. Dunn, which position he holds at the writing of this 
book.
Mr. Gillespie is a man of positive convictions and activity of character, and 
has taken a prominent part in public affairs, his name appearing, all along 
through the annals of the county, for the past twenty-seven years.  
In 1862 Mr. Gillespie was married to Miss Mary E. Crousy, a native of Auburn, 
New York, who is well known in musical circles as a good vocalist and an 
excellent piano performer, besides enjoying the distinction of being a Past 
Worthy Grand Matron of the adopted Rite of Eastern Star, of the State of 
California.  To this union two children were born, a son, named Guilford, and a 
daughter, named Rena, born respectively on October 16, 1863, and July 19th, 
1871.  
 
History of Solano County - San Francisco, Cal., Wood, Alley & Co., East Oakland, 
1879, page 405-408