Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

MICHAEL JAMES McNAMARA

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
            There is no phase in Sutter County�s early development with which 
Michael McNamara is not familiar and his reminiscences of the early days are 
most interesting, presenting a clear picture of life in this section when this 
was a frontier region.  His birth occurred at Lakeport, Ill., November 20, 1841, 
the second in a family of five children born to John and Mary (Norton) McNamara. 
 In 1853 the family started across the plains to California with a covered wagon 
drawn by two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows; then they had two other wagons 
drawn by ten horses and one mule, and on September 15, 1853, they arrived at 
Sacramento.  John McNamara and his sons did grading work on K and J Streets 
after the flood of 1852-1853 at four dollars per day, and for one year they were 
thus employed.  In 1854 the family removed to Sutter County where John McNamara 
took up 640 acres on Feather River, which has been the family home ever since.  
He and his wife died here in 1896 and 1897.
            On September 3, 1872, at Nicolaus, Mr. McNamara was married to Miss 
Catherine Claquez, born in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., a daughter of Philip and 
Caroline (Harris) Claquez; natives of Spain and New Orleans, respectively.  
Philip Claquez was a furniture manufacturer in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., but died 
when Catherine was four years old.  The next year the mother brought her family 
via Panama to San Francisco in 1857, and thence came to Sacramento.  There she 
met and married C. P. O�Neil, a pioneer whose portrait is now exhibited in 
Sutter Fort.  The mother died in 1864 and Catherine came to Nicolaus and it was 
here she made the acquaintance of Mr. McNamara whom she married.  Mr. and Mrs. 
McNamara are the parents of six children:  Henry resides at Nicolaus; John 
resides at Lincoln; Michael F. is a rancher at Dixon; Philip resides at Galt; 
Carolyn is the wife of William Peckham and they reside at Wheatland; Anita is 
the wife of James A. Worth a rancher on the old McNamara ranch, whose sketch 
will be found in this volume. There are seven grandchildren in the family.  On 
September 3, 1922, Mr. and Mrs. McNamara celebrated their golden anniversary  at 
their old home which was attended by one hundred of their relatives and friends, 
some of whom had been present at their wedding fifty years ago.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1127-1128