Solano County Biographies

JOSEPH McMURTRY

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
born December 22, 1836, in Calloway county, Missouri, where he was educated.  In 
the spring of 1853 he emigrated to California, crossing the plains with his two 
uncles, William and Calvin McMurtry.  The subject of this sketch, having parted 
company with his relations, arrived in Sierra county, August 20, 1853, and 
worked in the mines, and filled the position of a clerk in a general store until 
the fall of 1858, when he paid a visit to his native State, but returned in the 
following spring to Sierra county, where he started the express business, 
between Downieville and Minnesota, in the above county, combining with it the 
duties of mail and paper carrier, which he followed for two years.  In March, 
1862, he came to Solano county, and settled on a ranch near Elmira, where he 
remained until September 1, 1868, when he moved to the farm he now occupies and 
owns, comprising five hundred and forty acres of land.  Married, April 16, 1861, 
Miss Anna Barrett, in Centreville, Suisun, who was born June 15, 1842, in 
Newark, N.J., and has a family of eight living children, and one dead, namely:  
Joseph B., born January 8, 1862, died June 3, 1869; James T., born September 5, 
1863; Anna S., born January 29, 1865; George C., born August 25, 1867; Louie L., 
born August 25, 1869; Frank, born May 31, 1871; Clara, born November 10, 1872; 
Gracie, born October 14, 1874; Eugene, born November 5, 1876.
 
History of Solano County � San Francisco, Cal. - Wood, Alley  & Co., East 
Oakland, pub 1879, pp 480