Amador
County
Biographies
SAMUEL W. BRIGHT
Among the residents of Jackson,
Amador County, who have long made their homes in
California is Samuel Wales Bright, whose boyhood days were spent on the
Atlantic coast. He was born in
Massachusetts, on the 27th of May, 1831, and is of English
lineage. His grandfather, Jesse Bright,
was a native of England and became the progenitor of the family in the United
States. He crossed the briny deep and
established a home in Massachusetts, where he carried on agricultural
pursuits. He had six children, four sons
and two daughters, and two of the number still survive, Warren and Bobbie D.,
the former eighty years of age, and the latter about seventy, both residents of
Massachusetts. Michael Bright, the
father of our subject, was born in the old Bay state in 1804 and having arrived
at years of maturity he wedded Alvira Richards. They made their home in Massachusetts, where
they were honest and industrious farming people and enjoyed the respect of
friends and neighbors. The mother was a
member of the Baptist Church, and he was a man of high moral character, being
accounted one of the valued citizens of the community in which he resided. He passed away in the sixty-fifth year of his
age, and his wife was called to her final rest when fifty years of age. In their family were eleven children, six of
whom are now living.
Mr. Bright, their eldest child, was
educated in the public schools of his native town and there learned the two trades
of shoemaking and butchering. In 1851 he
took passage on the Philadelphia, bound for California, and by way of the
Isthmus route came to this state landing at San Francisco on the 10th
of December of that year. He made his
way direct to Mokelumne Hill, and on the 20th
of the same month began mining on his own account, but, not meeting with the
success he had anticipated, he turned his attention to the dairy business,
owning twenty cows. He did the milking
and then sold the milk among the people of the locality, receiving three
dollars a gallon. Corn meal was then the
principal mill product that could be obtained, and twenty-five cents a pound
was paid for it. Mr. Bright continued in
the dairy business for two years, and then he began butchering at West Point,
in Sandy Gulch. It was a rich gulch,
where many miners were engaged in the search for the precious metal, and he
there conducted three shops, meeting with excellent success. He also became connected with mining
interests, employing others, however, to do the practical work. In 1858 he sold his butchering business and
for two years gave his attention to quartz mining. In 1860 he came to Jackson where he purchased
the meat market of the Wiley Brothers and for forty years he has conducted his
present store, enjoying a large and profitable trade. He has a very wide acquaintance among the old
settlers of this section of the state and has through long years supplied their
tables with choice meats at reasonable prices.
His honorable business methods and his earnest desire to please secure
for him a very liberal patronage and he derives therefrom a comfortable competence. He has been connected with mining interests
from the time he located here and is still the owner of considerable mining stock. He has also made judicious investments in
real estate and now owns a number of business blocks and dwellings in Jackson,
being accounted one of the well-to-do citizens of the place. In 1862, when a disastrous fire swept over
the town, his losses amounted to four thousand dollars, for he had no insurance
upon his property. This did not
discourage him; however, for with renewed effort he continued his work and soon
regained all that he had lost.
In December, 1861, Mr. Bright was
united in marriage to Miss Martha T. Bradbury, a native of the state of Maine. They have lost their only child, a little
son, who died at the age of ten months. Mr. Bright has been a lifelong Republican,
having cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln. He has kept well informed on the issues of
the day, yet has never sought office nor has he joined either fraternal or
religious organizations. He has depended
entirely upon his own efforts for his advancement in life, and his worth and
ability have commended him to the public confidence and therefore to the public
support. As a citizen he is interested
in whatever pertains to the welfare of his town, county and state, and has
contributed to many interests which have advanced the
material, social, intellectual and moral welfare of Jackson.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern California”,
Pages 511-512. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Amador County Biographies