Calaveras
County
Biographies
FRANK J. SOLINSKY
The bar of Calaveras County,
California, has long had a high reputation for the attainments and character of
its legal practitioners. One of the best
known of these at this time is Frank Joseph Solinsky, of San Andreas, a native
son of California, who was born at Chinese Camp, Tuolumne County, August 17, 1857. Mr.
Solinsky comes of Polish ancestry, and C. W. H. Solinsky, his father, was born,
reared and educated in Poland, and in 1838 came to the United States and in
1849 to California. His father served
with the rank of captain under Generals Scott and Taylor in the war with
Mexico, and was proud to have fought in that invincible army, which knowing not
defeat never paused in its onward march until the Mexican capital had
fallen. He came from New York and around
the Horn and located in Tuolumne County, and was a miner and banker at Chinese
Camp, where he represented the Wells-Fargo Express Company as its agent until
his death, which occurred April 5, 1896, when he was eight-one years old. He was made a Master Mason in 1857, was an
unswerving Democrat and was long a leader in public affairs, whose advice was
sought and respected. He married Miss
Mary A. Sprague, a native of the state of Maine, of New England ancestry, and
the daughter of Joseph Sprague, an early settler of California, and they had
three children: William H., who is a
druggist in San Francisco; Margaret, who married T. W. Jackson, of Sonora; and
Frank Joseph, the immediate subject of this sketch.
Frank Joseph Solinsky was educated
at the University of California, at which he was graduated in the class of
1877, with the degree of Ph. B. After
his graduation he taught mathematics in the institution for two years, and in
1881 he was graduated at the Hastings Law College with the degree of B. L. He began practice of his profession in July
of that year, and during the eighteen years that have followed has been very
successful, giving his attention to general practice and making a feature of
mining law, and has been connected with many prominent cases in this and others
courts of the state.
Politically he is a Republican, and
as such he was elected district attorney of Calaveras County and served four
years in that office, in the performance of the duties of which he prosecuted
several noted criminals, most of whom were convicted
and sent to the penitentiary and one of whom expiated his crimes on the
gallows. In 1890 he was nominated for
the state senate, but as the late J. B. Reddick, his
law partner, was that year nominated for lieutenant governor of the state, he
declined the honor in order to give his attention to their large and increasing
law practice. Mr. Reddick
was elected and Mr. Solinsky devoted himself so assiduously to his legal work
as to make it markedly successful.
Mr. Solinsky is well known as a
Mason and is a member of the blue lodge and chapter and has seven times been
elected master of his lodge. He is a
charter member of the order of the Sons of the Great West and has the honor of
having been its first president; and he is a past master workman of the local
lodge of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.
He married in 1882 Miss Winnie Syme, a native
of Calaveras County and a daughter of the late John T. Syme,
and they have three sons: Frank, Elbert
and Edward.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 577-578. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Calaveras County Biographies