Sacramento County Biographies

ALBION CHASE SWEETSER

Transcribed by: Nancy Pratt Melton

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

      

SACRAMENTO TOWNSHIP.
Page 291.
 
	who now resides at time northeast corner of Tenth and G 
streets, in the city of Sacramento; was born in Waterville, Kennebec county, 
Maine, November 3, 1818. He removed to Belfast, Maine, in 1824. He resided here 
and in Winterport for the next seventeen years, and learned the trade of a house 
and ship joiner. In 1841 he removed to Boston, living there and in Cambridge 
during the next eight years; engaged in building and in merchandising. In April, 
1849, he started for California by the overland route, and reached Sacramento on 
the 27th day of September of that year. It is a remarkable fact that the company 
with which he came used no intoxicating liquors on the entire journey. When they 
reached the muddy Mississippi and were compelled to drink its waters, they were 
told by a man who professed to know: "Now, boys, you must drink whisky, or this 
water will kill you," the resolute answer to which was: "Then we'll die." They 
did not die, however. Mr. Sweetser has resided in Sacramento now for more than 
thirty years, having been in its early history, and down to the present time, 
one of the staunchest temperance men. For years he was Deputy Grand Worthy 
Patriarch of the Sons of Temperance and for two years was Grand Treasurer. After 
his arrival in Sacramento he first engaged in the business of a builder and 
contractor; this he followed until 1859, when he went into the real estate and 
insurance business, in which he is still engaged, being now the senior partner 
in the firm of Sweetser & Alsip. He married Miss Sarah Snow Pratt, a native of 
Portland, Maine. They have had only one child, a daughter, who died in 1857, 
aged two years, ten months and ten days. Mr. Sweetser has held the offices of 
School Director and Secretary of the Board of Education; also of Notary Public. 
He is a life member of the Sacramento Society of California Pioneers. In the 
early days of Sacramento he took an active part in Sunday school work, being at 
one time the Superintendent of the Congregational Sunday School for four years. 
Post Office, Sacramento. 

Source: History of Sacramento County, California With Illustrations 1880 by 
Thompson & West.