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EDWARD
TWITCHELL
The
pioneer instinct has been strong in the Twitchell blood. It was that
which led the first representatives of the name in America to leave the
comforts of European civilization and identify them- selves with the
stern environment of New England. The same love of the frontier appeared
in the history of a New England couple, the husband, Capt. Timothy
Twitchell, from New Hampshire and the wife, Susan (Watson) Twitchell,
from Vermont, who gave up home and friends and sought the unknown
territories of the south, there to make a temporary home in the ancient
city of Pensacola, Fla. During the sojourn of the family at that point a
son, Edward, was born November 8, 1828. There were two other sons,
George and Amos, equally talented as the one previously named, but their
ability led them into different lines of activity and one became a very
successful physician, the other a scientist. Capt. Timothy Twitchell was
a seafaring man; as early as the '20s he sailed around Cape Horn to the
California coast, as well as up to the shores of Alaska, trading in
hides, horns and tallow, and he is known to have put in at the Bay of
Monterey.
Concerning the early life of Edward Twitchell little is to be
said. It presented the same round of struggle, the same lack of
advantages, the same deprivation of comfort and the same willing
endurance of hardship which characterized the lives of the people during
the early half of the nineteenth century. No break came in the monotony
of labor and isolation until the discovery of gold in California. That
event changed the entire life of the young man in Florida. An expedition
was organized comprising people from his part of the southeast. Joining
the party he traveled by boat to Mexico and then rode on horseback
across that country, taking boat on the Pacific side and sailing north
to the harbor of San Francisco in August, 1849. The trip, though
necessarily one of great hardship and privation, was not without its
share of pleasure and interest to the young man whose previous knowledge
of the world had been limited to his own little corner thereof.
While it was primarily for the purpose of mining that Mr.
Twitchell came to the west, we find that the occupation did not engage
his attention for any protracted period. Even when at the camps he found
the trade of a carpenter more profitable than looking for gold. Having
learned and had experience as a civil engineer in New Hampshire in 1848,
under a celebrated surveyor, upon his return to Sacramento he became
deputy to Gen. Horace Higley, surveyor-general, and for twenty-five
years he remained in the office, meanwhile working under General
Houghton and others. For a time he was a surveyor and miner in the White
Pine district, in Nevada. During the early days he did considerable
surveying in Sacramento, Berkeley, Alameda and Oakland, and at one time
owned property in these cities, as well as in Fresno and Yolo counties.
While in the government employ he made the first survey of Lake Tahoe,
also, surveyed in New Mexico and Arizona, surveyed and named Twitchell
Island, and had other important expeditions. For many years he owned a
large tract of land on Sherman Island. In his last years he had retired
from business cares, but still took part in civic affairs and gave
earnest support to movements for the local advancement. He died February
8, 1912. He was a member of Sacramento Society of California Pioneers.
The marriage of Mr. Twitchell and Margaret Woodland was solemnized
in Sacramento December 20, 1870. They became the parents of three
children. The only son, Edward W. Twitchell, M. D., is a prominent
physician of Sacramento. The elder daughter, Blanche, is the wife of
James H. Jennings, son of an honored pioneer of San Francisco and
himself a well-known resident of that city. The younger daughter, Ethel,
married Prof. W. D. Briggs, who is connected with the English department
of the Leland Stanford University at Palo Alto. Mrs. Twitchell was born
in Louisiana, but at the age of six months she was brought by her
parents across the plains to California, the journey covering four
months. The family traveled up the Mississippi river to St. Louis,
thence joined an expedition overland, and finally arrived at Fort Sutter
during August of 1849, and Sacramento has been Mrs. Twitchell's home
ever since. Not long after arriving her father, James W. Woodland, who
was the first assessor of the city of Sacramento, was shot and killed
during a squatters' riot that occurred on the corner of Third and J
streets, Sacramento, he having taken no part in the trouble, but
happening to turn the corner just as the parties came together, and a
stray bullet hit and killed him. The fact that he had just left his home
after the birth of an infant son added to the sad event. Later E. B.
Crocker bought the old Woodland homestead and on the ground he erected a
building now known as the Scudder House. When Miss Woodland began
housekeeping in her own home as the bride of Mr. Twitchell, her mother,
Mrs. Jane (Alexander) Woodland, joined her there and afterward remained
an inmate of the Twitchell residence, where she died in 1905 at the age
of eighty- six years.
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