El
Dorado County
Biographies
WARREN LARKIN
Since
the year 1922, Mr. Warren Larkin has served as under-sheriff of El Dorado
County, and in this capacity he has most satisfactory record for himself, and
added greatly to the prestige he already enjoyed in the county of his
birth. Mr. Larkin is descended from one
of the true pioneer families of El Dorado County. He was born east of Diamond Springs, on the
old Larkin place, January 28, 1865, a son of Henry and Sena
(Trask) Larkin.
Henry
Larkin was the captain of a wagon train which he brought across the plains in
1849, coming direct to Placerville. In
1852 he bought the land which is still known as the Larkin place, and on it
built the structure yet known as the Big House, which is still standing. This portion of the property was later sold
to a mining company, but Warren Larkin is still the owner of a portion of the
old homestead. Henry Larkin principally
followed mining, and was the official collector of the mining tax from those
prospecting and mining in this district.
This tax was called a foreign tax.
He served as a deputy sheriff of the county, and also was for one term a
state senator. After the boom days of
the mining industry, he engaged in farming, and died at the age of sixty-six. His wife came to Sacramento the year of the
flood, and in leaving Sacramento for Placerville was compelled to depart from
the former city by boat. She came to
California by way of the Horn and was one of the early school teachers of El
Dorado County. Henry and Sena Larkin were married at Placerville, and became the
parents of five children; two of them, Warren and a brother, now survive.
Warren
Larkin was educated in the common schools of El Dorado County, and then worked
on the old home farm until 1888, when he bought the Cary House at Placerville,
and conducted it for six years. He next
spent two years at Oakland, California, and then returned to Placerville, where
he ranched and mined until he was appointed to the office of under-sheriff in 1922. Mr. Larkin is a Democrat, and is a member of
the Native Sons of the Golden West. He
is past president of the local lodge of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, also of
the Druids. He married Miss Fannie S.
Blair, a descendent of other pioneer families.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 2 Pages 222-223. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's El Dorado County Biographies