Sacramento County Biographies CYRUS TOWLE Transcribed by Karen Pratt. This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Farmer, was born in Cohasset, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, October 2, 1829; his parents, Ezra and Sybil (Barnes) Towle, were natives respectively of Cohasset and New Hampshire. His father, whose principal vocation in early days was that of a sailor, was about eighteen years of age when he went into Massachusetts, and commenced a seafaring life, which he kept up for about thirty years. The summer season was devoted to mackerel fishing, and the winter to the coast trade of the Southern States, chiefly New York, Baltimore, and so on southward. He was engaged in the business of carrying oysters from Baltimore to Boston, and corn and other products from the different Southern ports to New York and Boston. From the time he was twenty-one he was master of a ship until he quit the sea. He then followed farming for a while in Massachusetts, and ran a stage line from Cohasset to Hingham, to connect with the steamer Mayflower, running from Hingham to Boston in opposition to a railroad company. This business he followed until he died. His widow survived him a number of years. They had six children: Cyrus; Joanna Maria residing in Cohasset; Sybil Barnes, in Chester, Vermont; Mary Elizabeth, in Cohasset; Ezra, who died in 1865, in Cohasset; and Benjamin Barnes, who died sometime in the �60�s. Cyrus Towle was reared in Cohasset, Massachusetts, and lived there until 1852. During the summer he followed mackerel fishing from the age of sixteen to twenty-one, and during the winter he worked at shoemaking. After he was of age he entered the dry goods business in Cohasset, continuing therein until 1852. May 3d, that year, he left home, went to New York city and bought a ticket for California, embarking May 5 on the steamer Northern Light, which took him safely to Greytown, then called San Juan del Norte, at the mouth of the San Juan River; was a week going up that river and crossing Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific Coast; remained at San Juan del Sud twenty-six days, being in all thirty-two days on the Isthmus; left there on the steamer S. S. Lewis and arrived at San Francisco July 5, and at Sacramento two days afterward. In a few days he reached Baker�s ranch in Placer County, and hired out as a mule-packer. He worked at that four or five months, at $100 a month and boarding and lodging furnished. This work consisted in conveying goods and provisions from the store at Baker�s ranch to the mining camps, along a mule trail on the sides of the hills, by mule train, there being no wagon road at that time. One of the amusing incidents occurring on one of these journeys happened as follows: A keg of butter was knocked off the pack in passing a rock, and rolled down a hill at a declination go about forty degrees and traveled about a mile before it landed at the bottom. Only a �grease spot� was left! That winter after quitting business, he engaged in placer mining for a short time, with varying success, making from 25 cents to $16 a day; some days he worked hard and obtained but 25 cents, and on one day, by working only three hours, he obtained $16. He worked at mining until his health failed, and he had to quit when he was making $4 a day. During the last of February he bought a mule team and engaged in hauling freight from Sacramento to Bird�s Valley, near Michigan Bluff, till about the 1st of December, 1854. Then exchanging his team for lumber and hay, he started a hay yard on the corner of Ninth and K streets, Sacramento. The next spring he sold out this business and engaged in teaming again. Locating his present ranch during that summer, he put in his first crop, in the winter of 1855-�56, and continued teaming meanwhile. He cooked his first meal, a supper, on this ranch, August 1, 1856, and since that time that place has been his home. It first comprised 160 acres; in 1867 he sold half of it. At first he raised hay and grain, and for the last twenty years he has been principally engaged in fruit-raising. When the postoffice was first started at Florin, in June, 1869, he was appointed postmaster, which position he filled until January 1, 1876. In political matters he has always been a strong Republican. He is a member of the Grange, joining at Sacramento in 1873. Mr. Towle was married January 1, 1874, to Anna Maria Ames, who was born in Lunenburg, Essex County, Vermont, February 27, 1832, and came to California in 1873, arriving at Sacramento April 12. They have no children. Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 479-480. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.