Sacramento County Biographies

GEORGE THISBY

Transcribed by: Nancy Pratt Melton

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

GEORGIANA TOWNSHIP. 
Page 264
 
	Lives on Andrus Island, four miles down the river from Walnut 
Grove, his Post Office; was born in England in 1828; when about six months old, 
removed with his parents to Canada and lived there until 1837; he then went to 
Wisconsin and remained there until 1845, when he moved to New Orleans and 
engaged in steamboating until 1852; in that year he came to California, and 
resided in Santa Cruz County until 1855, and then settled in this county, 
engaging in farming. Mr. Thisby owns two hundred and twenty-one acres on Andrus 
Island and fifty acres on Tyler Island. His land and improvements are worth 
about $15,000. He was married in 1869 to Miss Rebecca Elliott; a native of 
Ireland; they have six children living. 
 
Source: History of Sacramento County, California With Illustrations 1880 by 
Thompson & West.


 
George Thisby, deceased.  The subject of this sketch was born in Scarborough, 
England, May 15, 1828, his parents being William and Mary (Trattles) Thisby.  At 
about the age of twenty-one George Thisby came to the United States and among 
his earliest occupations in this country was that of night-watchman on a 
Mississippi steamer for two or three years.  In 1852 he came to California, 
being employed to drive cattle across the plains by the southern route to Los 
Angeles.  He afterward went to mining for a year or two in the neighborhood of 
Nevada City, with such ill success that he came down on the Sacramento in the 
spring of 1854, having only 10 cents in his pocket.  He was employed by Mr. 
Madge at $40 a month, and in the autumn of that year he became his partner, the 
arrangement continuing two years.  He then bought fifty acres on Georgiana 
Slough, about thirty-two miles south of Sacramento, with a cabin of 10 x 12 feet 
upon it, and only two or three acres cleared, paying $350 cash and 3 per cent 
per month interest on an equal amount, and proceeded to clear it.  He also 
rented twenty acres on Grand Island, paying one-third of the proceeds.  In 1859 
he ran a trading boat of five tons� burden from Walnut Grove to Sacramento and 
Stockton.  In the flood of 1862 he lost all his stock except a span of horses 
and one cow.  In November, 1862, he paid a visit to his old home in England, 
returning in June, 1863.  In the autumn of 1864 he bought the sloop Franklin, of 
thirty-five tons, and was her captain for three years in the San Francisco 
trade.  In 1868 he planted an orchard of about ten acres on his slough ranch, 
now increased to about thirty acres by his widow.  In 1867 he bought for $5,000 
the place of 222 acres, on the river, still occupied by the family, thirty-two 
miles south of Sacramento, having rented it for the preceding year, and put it 
in charge of Henry Hebb.  From 1868 onward he gave his undivided attention to 
farming.  It had only three or four acres of orchard when purchased, which he 
increased to about fifteen.  He was a director of the California Transportation 
Company from its organization, being the first concern, and was vice-president 
of the company at the time of his death.  Mr. Thisby was married August 8, 1869, 
to Miss Rebecca Elliott, a native of Ireland, born in Enniskillen, March 26, 
1848, daughter of Henry and Sarah Elliott, both of the same name but not related 
within any known degree of kinship.  The widowed mother came to America in 1865, 
and to California in 1870.  She died February 21, 1885, aged eighty, at the home 
of another daughter, Mrs. Anna Sidwell, of Rio Vista.  Mrs. Thisby came to 
America in 1861, accompanied by her oldest sister.  She found employment in New 
York city for five years, first as a nurse-girl, and afterward as seamstress, 
and in 1866 came to California, arriving at Rio Vista on Thanksgiving Day.  Here 
she worked chiefly as seamtress and milliner, and at general house work for one 
month, for which she received $45.  She has one brother and two sisters living: 
John, a farmer in Sullivan County, New York; Ellen now Mrs. J. M. Gleason, of 
this (Andrus) island; Mrs Anna Sidwell, of Rio Vista.  Mr. Thisby was 
accidentally killed on his own ranch by falling from a wagon loaded with hay and 
being dragged along by his team, September 24, 1880, dying twenty-four hours 
later, without having recovered sufficiently to explain the circumstance.  The 
surviving children of Mr. and Mrs. Thisby are: Philip Henry, born June 1, 1870; 
Mary J., December 28, 1871; George, September 24, 1873; William John, October 
15, 1875; Robert Francis, June 4, 1877; Leonard Charles, October 2, 1878.  
Philip H. has taken a course at a business college in San Francisco; Mary J. was 
educated at Mills� Seminary in Oakland and afterward at Irving Institute in San 
Francisco; and the other children are attending the district school.  Since the 
death of her husband Mrs. Thisby has added eighty-one acres of the adjoining 
Westfall ranch to her place on Georgiana Slough, has increased the acreage in 
fruit, cleared up some land, and improved the home place very materially by the 
erection of a new barn at a cost of about $2,000, and the expenditure of about 
$4,000 on the house, making it a very comfortable home for the family.
 
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, 
California. Pages 480-481. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890. 

Transcribed by Karen Pratt.