Alameda County Biographies

PERRY MORRISON

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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


 
            Was born in Dearborn County, Indiana, October 6, 1818.  At the age 
of six years he was taken by his parents to the vicinity of Indianapolis, where 
he was brought up, and resided on a farm until 1839.  At this time he 
accompanied his parents to Louisa County, Iowa, and there engaged in farming, in 
the mean time losing his father in 1843. In March 1847, in company with a train 
of eighteen wagons, with whom were Mr. Meek and L. Stone, at present residents 
of this county, they started with ox-teams to cross the plains to Oregon, to 
which terra incognita they proceeded by way of Fort Hall, and arrived in Oregon 
City, September 7, 1847.  The country was at that time, as it is to-day, the 
perfection of a timber country, and nearly all who arrived there at that time 
commenced the felling of trees and the manufacture of lumber.  On arrival Mr. 
Morrison engaged in sawing logs, and such like employment, until September 1848, 
when, hearing of the discovery of gold, he laid down his saw and ax, and betook 
himself to California and her prolific gold-fields.  Arriving on Feather River 
in October, 1848, he followed mining, which abandoning in August, 1849, he came 
to Alameda County, then the Contra Costa, and located his present valuable 
homestead, then pointing to but little comfort, but now developed into one of 
the most splendid places in the township in which he resides.  Married, firstly, 
in Tipton, Iowa, Miss Mary Davis, a native of Ohio, who died shortly after her 
espousal; and secondly, in San Francisco, Miss Martha Hastings, a native of 
Hartland, Vermont, by which union there were three children, only two now 
surviving, viz.:  Samuel, and George P.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 948