Kings County Biographies


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



C. RAILSBACK
 
ranks with the California pioneers, having been a resident of this State since 
1852.
            Mr. Railsback was born in Warren County, Indiana, in 1830, and 
remained at home on the farm until he was twenty-one years of age.  At that 
time, in company with his brother, William Railsback, he came to California. 
They took the steamer at New York, crossed the Isthmus by the Nicaragua route, 
and below Acapulco were wrecked, losing all their possessions, but no lives.  
After a detention of three months at Acapulco, they crossed by the Nicaragua 
route and arrived in San Francisco in May, 1852.  They at once went to Sonoma 
County and began ranching.  A few months later they bought a team on credit and 
commenced splitting and hauling lumber to Petaluma and elsewhere, and thus paid 
for their team.  In the winter of 1853 they put in a crop of potatoes, paying 
three cents per pound for the seed, which produced heavily, and they were 
offered two cents and a half for the crop, but were advised to hold on for 
higher prices.  Instead of increasing, the value of the potatoes depreciated, 
and they bought hogs to eat up their crop.  After the hogs were fattened they 
did not bring the price paid for them, so the labor of the year proved a 
failure.  The following year they planted potatoes and wheat and started a small 
dairy.  
            In 1854 Mr. Railsback was married to Miss Nancy C. Raynard, a native 
of North Carolina, who crossed the plains to California in 1853.  In 1862 he 
disposed of his ranch and dairy interests to his brother, and went to Fraser 
river during the gold excitement.  With a partner he took out $75 per day, but 
the claim soon ran out.  Mr. Railsback then returned to Sonoma County, bought 
320 acres of land and resumed farming, dairying and the stock business, and, 
with only occasional departures in other lines of business in San Francisco, he 
made the above ranch his home until 1876, when he sold out and came to 
Grangeville and purchased 640 acres of Government land.  He passed through the 
exciting scenes of the land league and railroad troubles, maintaining a neutral 
position.  He made additional land purchases and was largely interested in 
farming and the stock business, raising hogs and horses, breeding the Clydesdale 
and Normon stock.  At one time he owned 1,280 acres of land, a portion of which 
he has sold and divided among his children.  At this writing he owns 550 acres, 
300 of which are in alfalfa, ten in peaches, ten in raisin grapes and thirty in 
French prunes.  He sells his peach crop on the tree for $100 per acre.  Mr. 
Railsback keeps about one hundred head of horses and a Norman stallion, Prince, 
and his average number of hogs is about 200 head.  On his ranch is an artesian 
well 590 feet deep, with a steady flow of fine water, which, having been 
analyzed, shows valuable medicinal properties.
            Mr. and Mrs. Railsback have seven children:  Mary E., now Mrs. A. W. 
Lane; George W.; Frank A.; Ada, now Mrs. C. L. Newport; Walter U.; Sherman, and 
Oscar, -- all settled on ranches in the Lucerne district.
            Mr. Railsback was one of the incorporators of the Bank of Hanford, 
in 1887, and in 1891 helped organize and incorporate the Farmers� and Merchants� 
Bank of Hanford, of which he was elected president.  As a financier and business 
manager he holds an enviable position among his townspeople.
 
Memorial and Biographical History of the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, 
California
Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892 p 398-399
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler