Placer
County
Biographies
ROBERT MUNRO
Among the energetic, wide-awake and
alert businessmen of Placer County is Robert Munro, who conducts a large
general mercantile establishment at Dutch Flat, and is also the station agent
at that place. He is a native of Embro, Oxford County, Canada, born on the 23rd
of June, 1849, and is of highland Scotch ancestry. His parents, James and Effie (Gordon) Munro,
were both natives of Scotland and were married in the land of the hills and
heather, whence they crossed the Atlantic to Canada, in 1832, bringing with
them their first-born, a little son.
Their family was afterward increased until it numbered eight children,
seven of whom are yet living. The
parents were Presbyterian in their religious faith. The father died in the sixtieth year of his
age, but the mother long survived him, reaching the ripe old age of eighty
years.
Mr. Munro was a little lad of only
six summers when his father died. He
acquired his education in the schools of Canada and began to earn his living as
a bookkeeper, being employed in that capacity first in Canada, and afterwards
in Big Rapids, Mecosta County, Michigan.
After coming to the west he followed bookkeeping in Carson, Nevada. The year 1875 witnessed his arrival in California
and for a year he was employed as a salesman in a large dry-goods house in San
Francisco. Subsequently he became the
bookkeeper for a firm at Glenbrook, Nevada, and in 1886 he came to Dutch Flat,
where he purchased the general mercantile store formerly owned by Neff &
Company, Mr. Neff having been elected to the office of lieutenant-governor of
California. For the past fourteen years
Mr. Munro has conducted the business with marked success. His store has fifty-six hundred square feet
of floor space and is divided into various departments, all separate, yet each
complete in itself. There is a large
basement fitted up with staple goods, having a capacity of holding ten
carloads. His stock is valued at
eighteen thousand dollars and embraces everything needed by the mining and
fruit growing community with which he is surrounded. Mr. Munro has proved himself to be a
thoroughly progressive and capable businessman.
He employs a large force of competent clerks who aid him in carrying on
his large and lucrative business. In
addition to the management of his mercantile affairs he also conducts the
office of the railroad company at this point to the fullest satisfaction of the
corporation.
In 1872 he was happily married to
Miss Jane McNaughton, a native of the province of Quebec, Canada, and they now
have three children as follows: C. H.,
who is a mining engineer, born in Michigan; Robert, born in Nevada, now
attending school at Berkeley, California; and Fannie, who is a student in the
same place. Mr. Munro has ever exercised
his right of franchise in support of the men and measures of the Democracy, but
aside from this gives no attention to politics, his entire time being devoted
to his business. He has won a very high
and enviable reputation as an honorable and successful merchant of Placer
County, and his prosperity is due to his improvement of his opportunities, to
his keen sagacity and to his indefatigable energy.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 379-380. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.