El
Dorado County
Biographies
WILLIAM SHERMER KIRK
William
Shermer Kirk, of Placerville, who is president of the Placerville Automobile
Company, has been successfully engaged in the automobile business since the
year 1913. Prior to that time he was one
of the most active and best known newspaper men of California, and although he
has abandoned journalism for the automobile trade, he still retains an affection for newspaper work. He is known as a progressive citizen in every
sense of the term and enjoys a most enviable reputation in his community.
William
S. Kirk was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1868, a son of James
S. and Eliza (Rook) Kirk, who went to San Francisco and are now deceased and
buried in Placerville. He attended the
public schools to the age of fourteen years, when he became an apprentice to
the printing trade, later working as a journeyman printer. It was in 1893, when a young man of
twenty-five years, that he came to the west, and during the succeeding decade
he was employed on the San Francisco Chronicle, after which he managed the
Marysville Appeal for a period of several years. It is an interesting fact that Mr. Kirk
brought the first linotype machine to Marysville and operated the first
linotype machine brought to Sacramento, in the State Printing Office. He was the fastest operator of his time, and
he taught a number of operators who were experts. Following his arrival in Placerville he
purchased the Placerville Nugget and the Republican, which he consolidated
under the name of the Placerville Republican and published for fifteen
years. In 1913 he took over the local
agency for the Ford Motor Company and conducted this successfully for a decade
and a half, together with the Republican.
While thus engaged, he organized the Placerville Automobile Company, on
June 2, 1921, and since relinquishing his Ford agency has given his entire time
to the new concern.
In
early manhood Mr. Kirk was united in marriage to Miss Annie S. Hallows, of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their
daughter, Gertie, who is Mrs. R. P. Cornelison, spent one year in France in the
service of the Young Men’s Christian Association. She joined the Eastern Star at Marysville,
California, when eighteen years of age and is past matron of the Eastern Star
at Lakeland, Florida. She now lives in
Placerville, California.
Mr.
Kirk gives his political allegiance to the Republican Party, believing its
principles most conductive to good government.
He joined Triluminar Lodge of Masons at Newark, New Jersey, when a young
man of twenty-five years and has ever been a worthy exemplar of the teachings
and purposes of the fraternity. He now
belongs to the Placerville Lodge, No. 26, F. & A. M., Placerville, of which
he is past master; St. James Chapter, R. A. M., of which he is past high
priest; El Dorado Commandery, K. T., of Placerville; Sacramento Consistory, A.
A. S. R.; and Ben Ali Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Sacramento. He is also affiliated with the Sciots and
with the Fraternal Order of Eagles. Mrs.
Kirk is a member of Fallen Leaf Chapter of the Eastern Star and also belongs to
the Shakespeare Club, which occupies its own building. The Kirk residence is within the city limits
of Placerville, where the owner also maintains a fruit ranch.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 2 Pages 230-231. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's El Dorado County Biographies