Alameda County Biographies

EDWARD NIEHAUS

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 

	The subject of this memoir, whose portrait will be found in this work, was born in the 
kingdom of Hanover, Germany, December 24, 1827, where he received a common-school education, 
and resided until the year 1842.  Being then but fifteen years of age, he bade adieu to the 
land of his birth, and emigrating to the United States, settled in St. Louis, Missouri, where 
he served a three years� apprenticeship to the blacksmith trade, and afterwards followed it 
there until 1850.  In the month of April of that year, he left St. Louis with mule-teams in 
Doctor Knox�s company, and crossed the plains to the Land of Gold, arriving at classic Hangtown, 
now more appropriately named Placerville, September 11th, after a not unpleasant trip of five 
months� duration.  Until December 8th Mr. Niehaus tried his luck in the mines; he then came to 
the Contra Costa, erected a house on the Horner and Beard claim, put in a crop of barley and 
potatoes (in which he sank five hundred dollars), and resided there for one year, on the 
expiration of which he returned to the mines.  At the end of eighteen months, he came back 
therefrom with fourteen hundred dollars in his pouch, and commenced farming in partnership with 
L. P. Gates in the Santa Clara Valley, which continued a twelvemonth, at which time he purchased 
the interest of his associate, continued farming until 1874, and then sold out.  Mr. Niehaus now 
embarked in his present business of merchant with S. Salz, under the firm name of Salz & Co., 
and has since continued it.  In this gentleman we have one of the most whole-souled of living 
mortals.  He is noted for his uprightness in business, his strict honesty, and unswerving 
rectitude of character.  His heartiness is infectious, his probity, unquestioned.

History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 952-953