California Biographies
McConnell, William E.

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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


McConnell, William E. The subject of this sketch was born November 23, 1839, in
Blount county, East Tennessee. His father with his family emigrated West,
arriving in California the first of September 1850. The family remained in the
mines until the spring of 1853 when they settled on a farm near the site of the
town of Woodland, Yolo county. Good schools at that early day were scarce, and
the father being a man of limited means, could afford no better facility for
education than the, then, very poor common country school. In the year 1858, the
subject of our sketch having by economy accumulated a few hundred dollars and
feeling the need of education, came to the town of Sonoma, where there was at
that time a nourishing academic school, and entered upon a course of study. He
remained there in school until the latter part of 1862, when he left and
commenced the study of law, at Santa Rosa, in the office of Judge C. P. Wilkins.
In 1864 he was admitted to the Bar and has been engaged in the practice of his
profession in Sonoma county ever since. He has been twice honored by the people
of Sonoma county by an election to the office of District Attorney.

Source: HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY, Alley, Bowen & Co. 1880