Solano County Biographies

GEORGE W. SIMONTON

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 was born on April 21, 1824, in Waldo, now 
Knox county, Maine, where he received his early education and resided until 
December, 1859.  In 1848 Mr. Simonton entered that career which has, in after 
life, placed him at the head of that long list of teachers in California whose 
scholars are now fast coming into prominence in the world.  The first school in 
which he taught was that in Prospect, Waldo county, prior to which he had been 
associated with his uncle, Dr. Putnam Simonton, at Searsport, a most 
accomplished gentleman, and from whom young Simonton received much of that 
learning which has stood him in such good stead.  His next tuition was 
undertaken in the seminary of the Hon. M. C. Blake, the present Judge of the 
Criminal Court of San Francisco, after which he entered an academy taught by 
Rev. Edward  Freeman, with whom he remained until the year 1848, when he became 
Principal of the school, and as such continued till 1859, when he retired, on 
account of failing health.  On December 1, 1859, he sailed from New York city, 
by way of Panama, and arrived in San Francisco on the day after Christmas of 
that year.  He at once presented himself before the Board of Education, and 
being examined received a first-grade certificate.  Remaining in San Francisco 
but a short time he proceeded to Benicia, and there received a school 
certificate for the county of Solano from Dr. Woodbridge, and proceeded to the 
Green Valley District, in 1861.  Here he remained, teaching school, till 1864, 
when he came to Vallejo, and there took charge of the public schools on 
September 2, 1864.  At the time of his taking charge of these schools there were 
but seventy scholars, while his daughter, a young lady of some fifteen years of 
age, was the only assistant teacher procurable; here Mr. Simonton labored until 
1872, when he received a well-earned leave of absence for one year.  Proceeding 
to Ukiah City, Mendocino county, Cal., he there purchased a private school, but 
giving it up in May, 1873, he returned to Vallejo, and, assuming his former 
duties, continued to perform them until December, 1874.  Mr. Simonton was 
elected to the position of County Superintendent of Schools in 1863, filled the 
office for six years, and is now employed in the Constructor�s Department in the 
Navy Yard on Mare Island.  He married March 4, 1847, Harriet A. Ross, of 
Rocklin, Knox county, Maine, who died January 3, 1868, by whom he had eight 
children, there being now living, Fred W.; Sophia A.; Frank R.; Willis E.; and 
James G.  Married secondly, Mrs. E. J. Monroe, a native of New York State, on 
April 16, 1870.
 
History of Solano County � San Francisco, Cal. - Wood, Alley  & Co., East 
Oakland, pub 1879, pp 391-392