California Biographies
Van Doren, John Suydam

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Van Doren, John Suydam. The subject of this sketch is the second child of
William L. and Sarah Van Doren, and was born in Sangamon county, Illinois, April
29, 1836. At the age of eight years he moved with his father's family to St.
Louis, Missouri, and in April, 1850, accompanied his father to California,
arriving in the Territory of California before it was admitted into the Union as
a State. He first settled in Nevada City; attended school for three months in
1851 in Sacramento, and for a like period at Marysville during the Summer of
1852. From 1852 to 1856 he followed mining in Nevada county, California, until
November of the latter year, when he moved to Petaluma, where he still resides.
Engaged in the hotel business with his father until January 27, 1861, and in the
following June rented the Eureka Hotel at Santa Rosa, which he kept until April
24, 1862, when a disastrous fire left him to recommence his business career. In
June, 1862, he was appointed by County Assessor Alonzo Walker, Deputy, to assess
Santa Rosa township, a duty he completed in the month of August. In September of
the same year he assisted Hon. W. A Eliason, United States Assessor, to organize
the Fifth Internal Revenue District of this State, as Assistant Assessor of the
first division, which embraced Sonoma and Marin counties. This position he
resigned in December, and in January, 1863, was elected Minute Clerk to the
State Senate, again filling the same appointment for the session of 1863-4. In
September, 1864, he was once more appointed United States Assistant Assessor, on
this occasion to take charge of the second division of the Fifth California
District, comprising Marin county, and Sonoma, Vallejo and Petaluma townships of
Sonoma county, which office he filled until April 28, 1868, when he was elected
Cashier of the Bank of Sonoma county, in Petaluma, in the place of E. Sprague,
who was compelled to. resign from ill health. Mr. Van Doren married, first,
Martha, second daughter of the late Alexander W. Barnes, on January 27, 1861,
who died January 29, 1873, leaving one daughter, Mary Frances; married, January
2, 1877, Frances Maria Rawson, daughter of Roswell and Loretta Rawson, of
Galesburgh, Michigan.

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