Solano County Biographies

WILLIAM W. VANDERBILT

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
was born in New York in the year 1815, where he studied and engaged in the 
profession of a machinist and engineer, and afterwards as shipbuilder; was for 
many years in the service of his cousin, Commodore Vanderbilt, of New York.  He 
was Chief Engineer of the pioneer steamer �California� when she made her voyage 
to this coast.  In 1849, he visited Benicia and, in this connection, relates 
that water was so deep there that the steamer was made fast to the shore, where 
she rode in perfect safety.  Mr. Vanderbilt was in the employ of the Pacific 
Mail Company from 1849 to 1869, and for ten years was their General 
Superintendent of the Bureau of Hulls and Machinery, during which time he 
designed and superintended the construction of many of the company�s largest 
steamers.  Having retired for some time, he again entered the service of the 
P.M.S.S. Co. in 1873, which he left in the following year to superintend, in the 
interests of Phineas Burgess, of Brooklyn, New York, the rebuilding of the 
single turreted monitor �Comanche,� and the construction of the double turreted 
monitor �Monadnock� now building at Vallejo.  Is a life member of the Society of 
California Pioneers of San Francisco, and is a member of long standing of the 
fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons.  He was married in New York, in July, 
1840, to Miss Sarah Remer, by whom he has two daughters who are married and 
living in Vallejo.
 
History of Solano County � San Francisco, Cal. - Wood, Alley  & Co., East 
Oakland, pub 1879, pp 394-395