Sutter-Yuba County Biographies


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



WILLIAM C. POOLE
 
A successful rancher, who is especially experienced in the growing of fruit, and 
whose operations have produced much of onward movement in horticulture in this 
favored section of the Golden State, is William Poole, who owns a ranch of 
thirty-five acres along the Hammonton road, about two miles out of Marysville.  
A native son, thoroughly in touch with Pacific Coast spirit, he was born at 
Smartsville, on July 15, 1860, the son of Frank and Mary A. (Keats) Poole, of 
fine old English stock.  Mr. Poole came out to California a mere boy, having run 
away from home and gone to sea, and arrived in San Francisco as early as 1848.  
That same year Miss Mary Keats, then a young girl, also reached the Bay City.  
Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother became the wife of a Mr. 
McKenzie, a Scotch sea-captain.  He sailed into San Francisco and left his wife, 
our subject�s mother, and her half-brother, James, there; but the mother, 
dependent for the time on her own exertions, could not make a living in San 
Francisco, and so she moved with her family to Sacramento, and there shortly 
after died.  Frank Poole and Mary Keats married in Sacramento, and about 1858 
moved to Smartsville and there he took up gardening, making a specialty of 
raising strawberries, which he sold in Grass Valley, at a dollar a pound.  His 
little one-horse buggy would carry at one time, on a trip to Grass Valley, not 
less than $300 worth of strawberries and other vegetables, and he would sell to 
miners, who would be glad to get fresh fruit and green garden truck, and pay any 
price in the dicker.  Mr. Poole is still living at Marigold with her youngest 
daughter, the center of a circle of admiring friends; while Mr. Poole died in 
September, 1922, at the remarkable age of eighty-nine, having rounded out a very 
useful career of credit to himself and of benefit to many.  There were five 
children in the Poole household.  Mary Esther, who married George McDonald, is a 
widow, residing in San Francisco; William in the subject of our instructive 
story; James Fredericks is in Kings County; Frank D. lives at Smartsville, in 
Yuba County; and Martha is now Mrs. John Havey, of Marigold.
William Poole attended the grammar school at Smartsville, where his father lived 
from 1858 until he died, and when he was seventeen years of age, he started out 
into the world for himself, having already, as a boy, worked on ranches.  He 
went to San Diego and took up butchering; but after two years, he threw that up 
and went to Arizona and worked in saw-mills, prospected and hauled lumber.  He 
then returned to San Diego and there, on July 29, 1881, married Sarah A. Green, 
a Polish girl, born in Russia, and the daughter of David and Fannie Green.  Her 
father died in San Diego, where her mother still resides.  David Green came to 
the southern city in early days, and there he and his wife reared eleven 
children: Mrs. Poole, Abraham, Louis, Robert, Mollie, Leon, Isaac, Rosie, Flora, 
Joseph, and Minnie.  The seven children of Mr. and Mrs. Poole were all born at 
San Diego.  Soon after the birth of the youngest, our subject returned north to 
Marysville.  Alfred E., the eldest, is dairying; Mabel Esther has become Mrs. 
Sneid, of Richmond; Frank William is a jeweler at Marysville; Cordelia is Mrs. 
Haney, of the same city; and there are James D. of Haney and Poole, jewelers, 
Marysville, William Floyd and Carrie, all in Marysville.  William Floyd is a 
merchant and popular violinist; and Carrie has become Mrs. Friess, and is a 
saleswoman with the Messrs. Roberts.  While at San Diego, William Poole had 
worked at blacksmithing, and on his return to Marysville, he continued a 
blacksmith for seventeen years.  In April, 1917, however, he took up fruit 
culture on his thirty-five acres of Yuba River bottom land, and he has ten acres 
in three-year-old peaches, and ten acres just planted to peaches; and he also 
raises alfalfa and chickens.  Because of impaired health, Mrs. Poole is living 
at Marysville, with her son.  In national politics a stanch Republican, Mr. 
Poole in local affairs is a good non-partisan �booster.�  He served as a 
constable of particular efficiency at San Diego, and also as a school trustee 
several years.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 1216