Amador
County
Biographies
JOHN ROBERTSON
Forty-six years covers the period of
Mr. Robertson’s connection with California and its interests. Since 1854 he has been a resident of the
Mountain Spring District of Amador County and has witnessed its wonderful
growth and improvement, withholding not substantial assistance from the various
movements and measures which have contributed to its welfare and progress. He is widely and favorably known to nearly
all of the old settlers in this section of the state, and many will read his
life history with interest.
A native of Canada, he was born in
Westmeath County, near Pembrook, on the 23rd
of November, 1839, and is of Highland Scotch ancestry. His father, Alexander Robertson, was born in
the highlands of Scotland and when a young man crossed the broad Atlantic to
Canada, where he met, wooed and married Miss Margaret Otterson,
a native of Nova Scotia and of English lineage.
He died in the fifty-fourth year of his age, leaving a widow and four
sons and seven daughters, who came to California. She lived to be seventy-eight years of age,
dying at her home in Amador County. Her
husband had been a strict Presbyterian in religious faith, while she was a
devout Methodist. There were eleven
children in their family, seven of whom are yet living.
Mr. Robertson of this review was but
fifteen years of age when he came to California with his mother and the other
children of the family. Prior to that
time he had pursued his education in the public schools of his native
land. Two of his mother’s brothers had
persuaded them to seek a home in the Golden state, and by way of the Panama
route they made the voyage to San Francisco.
Although only a boy, Mr. Robertson began placer mining in El Dorado
County, following that pursuit through the winter and following spring, with
only moderate success. He afterward went
to school for a short time. Quartz mining
was then a new industry, not much known.
The family took a ranch of three hundred and twenty acres, and he then
engaged in farming and stockraising. In
1860 he came to Ione and secured employment in a gristmill. For twenty-eight years he followed that
pursuit, becoming perfectly familiar both in principle and detail with the work
of manufacturing flour. For three years
he was employed in Nevada, where he received five dollars a day for his
services, but in 1863 he put aside all personal considerations to enter the
Union Army during the Civil War. He
joined Company C, Seventh California Volunteer Infantry, and served against the
Indians in Arizona until the close of the war, being stationed most of the time
at Fort Mohave, engaged in escorting supplies to the interior. He served as first duty sergeant and received
an honorable discharge in 1865. Disease
contracted in the service has greatly undermined his health, and the
government, recognizing its indebtedness to him, grants him a pension, to which
he is justly entitled.
Mr. Robertson is now engaged in
quartz mining and owns a third interest in a gold bearing property three and a
half miles northeast of Ione. The ore is
very rich and they have three hundred tons on the dump and are erecting a mill
in order to separate it from the rock.
His property joins the Erzula mine and is considered very valuable by
mining experts. Whatever success he has
achieved in life is due entirely to his own efforts, his close application,
resolute purpose and untiring energy, and is certainly well merited.
In 1877 Mr. Robertson was united in
marriage to Miss Maria M. Lininger, a native of Ohio and of German
descent. She is a daughter of Christian
Lininger, who was an early settler of California but is now deceased. They have had four children: George L., Mabel G., Edgar and Elizabeth
Miller. They have also reared an adopted
son, Wesley Walker. Mrs. Robertson is a
Seventh Day Adventist. Mr. Robertson is
connected with no religious denomination, but is a valued member of the Ancient
Order of United Workmen, in which he is serving as overseer. In politics he is a staunch Republican,
earnest in his advocacy of the party and its principles, and though he has
never been an aspirant for office he keeps well informed on the issues of the
day and is thus able to give an intelligent support to the measures he
supports.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 147-148. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Amador County Biographies