Sacramento County Biographies

LEVI PAINTER

Transcribed by: Nancy Pratt Melton

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

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP
PAGE 260.

	lives twenty-four miles from Sacramento, and one mile from 
Courtland; he owns one hundred and twenty-three acres of land; was born in 
Indiana, in 1833; in 1842, he moved, with his parents, to Missouri, where he 
lived until 1849; in that year he started for this coast, but stopped in 
Nebraska, and traded with the Indians until 1851; he then returned to Missouri, 
and engaged in farming; he worked in the mines there one year. He came to 
California in 1853; moved to Sacramento Valley a year later, and settled on the 
place where he is now living in 1855. He was married, in 1860, to Miss Mary 
McDermitt, a native of Scotland; she died in 1865, leaving him three children 
one son and two daughters. He built, in 1877, what is known as �Painter's Hall,� 
at a cost of $2,000; the first entertainment held in it was given during the 
holidays of 1877. His land and improvements are worth about $26,000. Post 
Office, Courtland. A view of his place is given on another page. 
 
Source: History of Sacramento County, California With Illustrations 1880 by 
Thompson & West.


	Was born in Lawrence County, Indiana, January 14, 1833, his parents 
being Aaron and Rebecca (Hickson) Painter, natives of Tennessee, and there 
married.  They first moved into Indiana, and after several years' residence 
moved to Missouri, where the father became owner of 160 acres.  Both parents 
were brought to this coast in 1873 by their son.  The father died in 1876, aged 
seventy-four, and the mother survived him five years, dying at the home of her 
daughter in Indiana, in 1881, aged seventy .  Grandmother Painter was eighty 
when she died.  Levi Painter came to California in 1853, leaving St. Joseph, 
Missouri, April 18, and arriving at Placerville, August 23, a member of the 
small party of twenty men, two women and two children.  Of the outfit he owned 
two horses.  He mined during the winter of 1853-'54, and came down to Sacramento 
River April 14, 1854, going to work for $50 a month and board on the ranch he 
now owns.  Five months later he went across the river and chopped wood for four 
months, making $75 a month.  In 1855 he returned to ranch work on Sutter Island, 
and in December of that year he settled on his ranch of 123 acres, bought a few 
months before, and what has since become known from his name as Paintersville, 
about twenty-two miles below Sacramento, on the river.  For ten years he raised 
but little of anything except vegetables, but since 1865 he has given attention 
to fruit-growing, gradually increasing in that direction until he now has about 
thirty acres in orchard and ten in vineyard.  He has not, however, entirely 
relinquished the raising the vegetables, and has varied his interest in other 
directions.  About 1877 he built a large two-story building  which was first 
used as a boarding-house for employes of the salmon-canning establishment then 
in operation at that point, and afterwards as a dance hall for some years.  This 
he has recently removed and raised on a brick foundation, at the lower end of 
the village, near his warehouse, refitting it for his own residence. In 1879 he 
divided three and three-quarter acres into building lots, on which the hamlet of 
Paintersville has since arisen.  About 1880 he began to breed horses and mules, 
and is still actively engaged in that line.  In earlier years he gave some 
attention to cattle and hogs, but in the flood of 1862 he lost some 200 head of 
these, of which about eighty were ready for the market, and he has never since 
taken any interest in hogs.  Cattle-raising he has also discontinued, keeping 
only one cow for family use.  Levi Painter was married in 1860, near Roseville, 
in this county, to Miss Mary McDermott.  She died in June, 1867, leaving three 
children: Louisa, born May 2, 1861, now Mrs. Victor Falkenberg, of San 
Francisco; Mary Jane, born August 2, 1862, died of pneumonia, aged seventeen; 
William, born August 29, 1865, is employed on the steamer Modoc, in the 
engineer' s department.  Mr. Painter was again married on Thanksgiving Day, 
November 24, 1887, in Sacramento, to Maggie Van Auken, born in Parma, Monroe 
County, New York, March 18, 1833, daughter of Louis and Jane (Westfall) Van 
Auken, both now deceased, the mother in 1870, aged eighty-one, and the father in 
1880, aged ninety-three, living together in married life sixty-five years, 
lacking two weeks.  The father was a native of Pennsylvania, and the mother of 
New York.  Of their children six sons and one daughter, besides Mrs. Painter, 
are still living: Anthony G., James M., Elmer and Edwin B., all four farmers in 
Shiawassee County, Michigan; Edmund B., twin brother of Edwin B., is living at 
Salmon City, Idaho; and Andrew Jackson, now in the employ of his brother-in-law, 
Mr. Painter.  Jane, the only living sister of Mrs. Painter, is the wife of 
George W. Gale, a farmer residing near Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, Michigan.

An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. By Hon. Win. J Davis. 
Lewis Publishing Company 1890. Page 279-280.

Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton.