Sacramento Valley Biographies

FRANCIS GERRY MYERS

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta, June 2009.

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

         A practical and progressive farmer, and a man of excellent business 
talent, Francis Gerry Myers, residing three miles north of Arbuckle, is 
intimately associated with the agricultural development and growth of this 
section of Colusa county. A son of Francis Gerry Myers, Sr., he was born March 
10, 1862, in Kenosha county, Wis. He comes of thrifty German stock, his 
grandfather, Jacob Myers, having emigrated with his family from Germany to the 
United States, becoming a pioneer settler of Kenosha, Wis. 

         Born in Baden, Germany, Francis Gerry Myers, Sr., came with his parents 
to America and settled as a farmer in Kenosha county. Ambitious to better his 
financial condition, he came across the plains to California on one of the first 
emigrant trains, having some trouble with the Indians while on the way, and for 
about three years worked in the mines. Going back to Wisconsin in 1852, he 
resumed farming, remaining there until 1872, when he made a second trip to the 
Pacific coast, and for a year resided in this state. Returning then to his farm 
in Wisconsin, he carried it for on for nine years, after which he lived retired 
in the city of Kenosha until his death, at the age of sixty-five years. He 
married Emma Gill, who was born in Germany, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George 
Gill, who emigrated from the Fatherland to Kenosha county, Wis., at an early 
day, and there spent the remainder of their lives, the latter attaining the 
venerable age of ninety-three years. 

        The third child in a family of six children, Francis Gerry Myers was 
reared on the home farm and educated in the public schools of Kenosha county. In 
1879, a youth of seventeen years, he came to Colusa county in search of 
congenial employment, and for about three years worked for wages, driving 
eight-mule teams. Beginning farming then for himself on a modest scale, Mr. 
Myers, with but one team, rented three hundred and twenty acres of tule-land and 
was so encouraged by the results of his first years' labor that he continued 
farming in the same neighborhood for fifteen years, raising, however, but two 
good crops in the time. Mr. Myers continued, notwithstanding his failure in the 
marshes, his agricultural efforts, renting land on the plains, some seasons 
operating as many as a thousand acres. For the past twelve years he has rented 
nine hundred acres of land, a few miles north of Arbuckle, and in its management 
he has met with well-merited success, his harvests being large and profitable. 

        In Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Myers married Annie E. Middlecamp, a native of 
Kenosha county, and they are the parents of six children, namely: Grover, Earl, 
Elsie, Gifford, Gerhardt, and Delbert. Politically Mr. Myers is an earnest 
supporter of the principles promulgated by the Democratic party, and takes an 
active part in local affairs. In 1898, his party's candidate for county 
supervisor from the first district of Colusa county, he was elected by a good 
majority for a term of four years, and in January, 1899, assumed the duties of 
his office. In 1902 he was honored by a re-election to the same position without 
opposition, and is now serving his second term of four years with credit to 
himself and to the honor of his constituents. During the time that he has been 
supervisor eleven miles of new roads have been built in the mountains of the 
first district.  Fraternally Mr. Myers is a past grand of Spring Valley Lodge 
No. 316, I. O. O. F., of which he was district deputy for six years. He is also 
a member of the Encampment; of the Independent Order of Foresters, and of the 
Modern Woodmen of America. 

 "History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento 
Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, The Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 1906, Pages 
548-549.