Placer
County
Biographies
ALBERT G. READ
Albert G. Read, a highly respected
California pioneer of 1850 and a prominent merchant of Forest Hill, has resided
in the town and vicinity for a period of fifty years. He is a native of New England, born in
Boston, Massachusetts, March 11, 1830, and is descended from the early Puritan
settlers of that section of the country, the Read’s having come from England to
America and located in Massachusetts in 1645.
Several generations of the family were born in Boston. The grandfather and father of Albert G. both
bore the name of Davis Read and were natives of Boston. The former was a soldier in the Revolutionary
War, participating in the Battle of Bennington, and attained the ripe age of
eighty-eight years. Davis Read, Jr.,
married Lucinda Davis, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and a descendant of
Welsh ancestry, her forefathers also having been among the early settlers of
New England. His age at death was
eighty-four years, and his wife passed away at the age of seventy-six. For many years they had resided in Walesburg,
Vermont, where he was a prominent and influential citizen and where he filled the
office of selectman of the town. They
were the parents of twelve children, only four of whom survive at this writing,
Albert G. being the youngest.
Albert G. Read received an academic
education, and in his youth learned the trade of tanner and currier, three
generations of the family having followed that business. The gold discovery in California caused him
to leave home and friends and face the dangers of a voyage around the
Horn. He sailed from Boston, October 31,
1849, and arrived in San Francisco, April 7, 1850. There were plenty of ships in that harbor
without crews, the sailors all having gone to the mountains in quest of
gold. He set up his tent where the
Cosmopolitan Hotel now stands, and remained there four months in charge of a
lumber yard. Lumber was brought there by
lighters from the east and was sold for one hundred and thirty dollars per
thousand feet. In the month of August
he, with a company, set out for the mountains to find a claim, taking their
goods on a pack mule and stopping first at a point near Georgetown. His first year’s mining on the river was
attended with poor success, owing to the fact that he did not understand the
business. Later he, with others, flumed
the river and met with better success.
After the flume was completed for a distance of a mile and a half and
the miners of the locality were numerous, Mr. Read boarded a hundred of them;
but at the end of the season the failure in this mining enterprise was so complete
that the men could not pay him their board-bills and he lost heavily. Some of them asked for work, wishing to pay
their indebtedness in that way, and as the flume was abandoned he set them to
the task of gathering up the lumber and piling in on the bank of the
river. After this was accompanied the
freshet carried off a part of the lumber.
Most of it was saved, however, being securely fastened with ropes, and
four months later he sold it for fourteen thousand dollars.
That winter Mr. Read had a pack
train composed of twenty mules that brought supplies from Hoboken, the freight
on the same being twenty-five cents per pound.
He was located on the middle fork at Big Bar, and from that point his
train made four trips during the winter, the snow at times being six feet
deep. At Mount Gregory he paid fifty
cents per pound for beans, with which he fed his boarders. Their chief articles of food were beans,
bacon, potatoes, beef and coffee. Board
was fourteen dollars per week for each person.
In the fall of 1853 he sold out and went to Todd’s Valley and engaged in
merchandising, dealing in miner’s supplies, making money rapidly and remaining
there until 1865. While there he built a
large brick building, which still stands.
He established himself as a merchant in Forest Hill in 1887, and has
done a prosperous business here ever since.
During his long career as a merchant Mr. Read has spent much money in
different mining enterprises. Many
tunnels in which he was interested proved failures and most of his money
invested in them was lost. His object,
however, was to do what he could to develop the mines of the county, and as he
has assisted in accomplishing this his money has not
been spent in vain.
In 1867 Mr. Read was happily married
to Miss Emma Moody, a native of Pennsylvania, who traveled life’s pathway with
him for nearly three decades, but died in 1894.
Of the children born to them only one survives, Walter C. Read, now a
resident of Newark, New Jersey, where he is engaged in the manufacture of
brushes. He is an inventor also, much of
the machinery in his factory being of his own invention.
Politically the subject of our
sketch has been a Republican ever since the organization of the party and to
him belongs the distinction of having helped to organize
the Republican Party in his locality. He
was a member of the first Republican convention held in Placer County. He has long been identified with the Masonic
order, having been made a Master Mason in Todd’s Valley, in 1867, since which
time he has been an active and efficient member of that time-honored
organization.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 766-768. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.