Amador
County
Biographies
FRED WERNER
Fred Werner, recently deceased, was
numbered among the honored California pioneers of 1849, who after long
connection with the affairs of life enjoyed in the evening of life a well
earned rest. He resided at Sutter Creek,
in Amador County. His life history began
on the banks of the Rhine, in Bavaria, Germany, where his birth occurred on the
24th of March, 1824, his parents being Henry and Elizabeth (Neu) Werner. His
father was a shoemaker by trade, following that pursuit in order to provide for
the maintenance of his family. He had
five children. His death occurred in his
forty-eighth year and his wife passed away in her sixtieth year.
Mr. Werner, of this review, was
their second born, and in his native land he obtained his education and learned
the butcher’s trade. The favorable
reports he received concerning the opportunities and advantages of the new
world led him to seek a home across the Atlantic, and in 1846 he sailed for New
York, landing at the American metropolis amid strangers whose language was
unknown to him, without money or influential friends to aid him. He worked at his trade in New York City until
1848, and then made his way westward to Chicago, where he followed the
butchering business until the spring of 1849.
Desirous of trying his fortune in the newly discovered gold fields of
California, he then started upon the hazardous journey across the plains to the
Pacific slope, leaving his Chicago home on the first of April and arriving at
San Francisco on the 19th of November, 1849. He was with a party of five young men, who
made the journey with two wagons drawn by oxen.
They were five months upon the way but in safety reached Sacramento,
where Mr. Werner engaged in the butchering business on his own account. Beef was then selling for ten dollars per
hundred-weight at wholesale and sirloin steak brought twenty-five cents a
pound. He continued business in the
capital city for five years and then obtained a large ranch in Solano County,
where he engaged in stock raising, making a specialty of cattle and
horses. He purchased thoroughbred cattle
and fine-blooded horses, and for many years was prominently identified with the
stock raising interests of California and did much to improve the grade of
animals raised on the Pacific slope. At
one time he was the owner of Rattler, the best horse in the commonwealth.
After conducting business here for
seven years he returned to the land of his nativity to visit relatives and
friends, but the great affection which he had formed for his new home led him
again to California, when he took up his abode at Sutter Creek. Here he purchased a butchering business,
which he carried on for many years, meeting with marked success in his
undertaking. In 1873 he erected a brick
building, twenty feet wide and extending to the rear boundary of the block. It was located in the very center of the
business district, and through many years he furnished to the inhabitants of
the town choice meats at reasonable prices, and thus he gained a very liberal
patronage. His business methods were
ever honorable and commendable, and he gained the respect and confidence of his
fellow men. At the time of his death he
owned a ranch of two thousand acres and still was raising stock, but
practically living retired, having relegated to others the more arduous duties
of his business to which, however, he gave to some extent his personal
supervision. He was a charter member of
the Pioneer Society of Sacramento and reached the traditional age of
three-score years and ten. He died
August 12, 1900, very suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy, and his passing away
occasioned a gloom throughout the community, for he was held in high esteem by
the citizens generally.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 496-497. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Amador County Biographies