Collection: Books and Periodicals

About This Item:

Title: A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Published: 1891 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Source(s): Google Books # of Pages: 713 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-22 00:25:09 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:29 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 06:30:36

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 713  

LUISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. 491 SSeS forty-foot header, and he reduced the expense to sixty cents per acre! He made an average of nine acres per hour during the season. In two days of ten hours each he cut 230 acres, an average of eleven and one-half acres per hour. He uses Benicia Granger plows, which he runs day and night, employing two sets of men, & locomotive light in front to see where to go, and rear lights to see the plows, enabling the men to steer the machine by night. The Berry traction is the only successful machine of the kind in use, which five years’ successful running has fully demonstrated. The price of this machine, complete, with barley crusher, is $8,500; without the crusher, $8,000, including engines, separator, headers and plows. In the Benicia works iron farm wagons are also manufactured, and there is a special department for each specialty made and for each class of work. Mr. Montgomery is a native of Scotland, born in Linlithgowshire, in 1849. When he was four years uf age his parents removed to Canada, where he gradnated at the Hamilton Business College, Ontario. In 1872 he went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was book-keeper for O. K. Pearsoll, in the line of agricultural implements ‘and hardware, and since that time he has represented some of the largest agricultural-implement firms in the United States, among them Nichols, Shepard & Co., of Battle Creek, Michigan; the Champion Machine Company, of Springfield, Ohio; the Wayne Agricultural Works, of Richmond, Indiana, and later D. M. Osborn & Co., of Auburn, New York,—representing these firms as general agent throughout the Western States. In 1887 he came to California, intending to represent Eastern inanufactures at Valparaiso, South America; but, on account of cholera at that point, he could not go by the Pacific route, and while in San Francisco he was offered a position as inanaver of these works, which he accepted. He was married in 1876, to Miss Emma Green, daughter of Willian Green, of the firm of Wheeler, Green & Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. She died in Kansas City, in 1883, and in 1889 he married, here in Benicia, Miss Emma La Force, of New York city. His parents were John W. and Grace W. (Waddell) Montgomery, natives also of Linlithgowshire, Scotland. His father died in the old country, and hie mother is still living, in Canada. Mrs. Montgomery is a daughter of Ephraim S. La Force, a contractor, of Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Montgomery is a member of Benicia Lodge, No. 5, F. & A. M.; of Oriental Commandery, No. 35, of Kansas City; of the Chapter of Benicia, and also of the I. O. O. F. MOLONEL A. M. STEVENSON, who has G been a resident of California since 1850 and of Solano County during most of that time, was born in Versailles, Woodford County, Kentucky, in 1821. His parents were William and Jane (Muldrow) Stevenson, his father a native of Maryland and his mother of Virginia; their parents moved into Kentucky during its earliest period of settlement. Colonel Stevenson’s grandfather fought for the independence of this country in the Revolutionary war, and his father was a soldier in the war of 1812. At the.age of about twenty years Colonel Stevenson was employed in the office of the clerk of the Circuit Court, where he learned Next he engaged in mercantile business, in which he continued nntil the breaking ont of the Mexican war, when he enlisted in the First Regiment of Kentucky Cavalry. under Colonel Humphrey Marshall, his immediate commander being Captain Thomas F. Marshall. Colonel Marshall, by the way, afterward became prominent as a politician and as a Confederate commander during the late civil war. Going to Mexico with his command, he was appointed Quartermaster with the rank of Colonel, which position he held until the close of the war, participating in the battle of Buena Vista and a number of skirmishes. After the war he resided in Kentucky many valuable lessons for life.