Calaveras
County
Biographies
BERNARD SHERIDAN
Sons of the Emerald Isle have made
their mark in California in every field of human endeavor and in every
generation since civilization began there, and venturesome and enterprising
Irishmen were numerous during the days of the gold excitement. One of those who came in 1853 was Bernard
Sheridan, long a respected resident of Mokelumne Hill. Mr. Sheridan was a son of James and Bridget (Comeskey) Sheridan, natives of Ireland and devout members
of the Catholic Church. They were
farmers, not faring very well in their native land, and they decided to seek
better fortune in America; and their children all came to America at different
times. Bernard, who was born in County Cavan, September 12, 1830, came in 1842, when he was twelve
years old, sailing in the Olive Branch from Drohady
to Boston. He fell in with one Captain
Brook and was employed by him to do chores about his place, and performed his
duties so faithfully that he was a member of the Captain’s household for eleven
years, until 1853, when he came to California.
He sailed from Boston on the John L.
Stephens, which landed him at Aspinwall.
He crossed the Isthmus and secured passage for San Francisco, where he
arrived on November 20. From there he
soon went to Sacramento, where he found work at planking the streets, and at
seventy-five dollars a month and board.
He went from Sacramento to Jackson, Amador County, and mined on the
Middle Fork Creek, with only modest success.
After a short stop at Jackson he mined at different camps on the
Mokelumne River until 1856, when he settled at Mokelumne Hill, where he entered
to employment of the Mokelumne and Camp Seco Canal & Mining Company, in
which he continued until 1899, a period of forty-nine years, when he met with
an accident which disabled him somewhat and caused him to retire from active
work. Soon after he came to Mokelumne
Hill he bought a building lot, which he subsequently planted with trees, vines
and shrubs and on which he has established a pleasant cottage home, where he is
literally passing his declining years “under his own vine and fig tree.” In 1860 he voted for Stephen A. Douglas, the great war Democrat, but he voted for Lincoln in 1864 and has
voted for every Republican presidential nominee since.
In 1851 Mr. Sheridan married Miss
Catherine Blake, a comely Irish girl born in his own County Cavan. He sent for her and she came out to him in
1855 and five children were born to them in California: James, of San Francisco; Maria, who died at
the age of twenty-four; Kate, who married Robert Randall and lives at Warner
Creek; Rose, who is now her father’s housekeeper; and Frank, who is a member of
his father’s household. Mrs. Sheridan
died in 1869, in the thirty-eighth year of her age, and is remembered by her
husband and children as a faithful wife and devoted mother. Mr. Sheridan has always mourned her death and
has tried to rear their children as nearly as possible as he believed she would
have done. His life has been an honest
and industrious one and he is respected not only as a good citizen but as a
pioneer who has given his years to the development of the interests of his
adopted state.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 383-384. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Calaveras County Biographies