Sacramento County
Biographies
William
Breeding, rancher of Cosumnes Township, was born in Virginia, January 8, 1826,
his parents being Squire H. and Sally (Burton) Breeding, both natives of
Virginia and of long-lived parentage. The
father, born in 1801, and the mother, about 1807, died in 1862, being separated
in death only fifteen minutes.
Grandfather Jeremiah Breeding, born and brought up in Shenandoah County,
Virginia, lived to be sixty, and his wife, a Miss Husk before marriage, was
about seventy at her death seven years later, about 1845. William was reared on his father’s farm,
learned farming chiefly and worked at home until his removal to Missouri in
1851, where he worked for others in the same line. He arrived in Sacramento September 26, 1853, and was engaged in
mining fifteen years. In 1868 he bought
his ranch of 120 acres, two miles south of Michigan Bar, and has been farming
ever since, raising chiefly cattle and hay.
In May, 1866, he was married to Mary Ann Thornburgh, born in Virginia,
August 19, 1833, daughter of William and Catherine (Rickey) Thornburgh. They moved to Missouri in 1837. The father, a native of North Carolina, died
in his sixty-ninth year, in February, 1846; and the mother was eighty-four when
she died March 18, 1886. Grandmother
Elizabeth (Hoffmon) Rickey, born in Pennsylvania, saw her ninety-ninth birthday
The Rickeys were of French and the Hoffmons of Dutch origin. Grandmother Thornburgh was a Miss Martha
Ballinger before her marriage. Mr. Breeding’s
education was also rather limited but sufficient for all ordinary purposes. Mr.
And Mrs. Breeding are the parents of four living children: Emmett, born May 20,
1867; Martha Alamo, January 10, 1870; Una Catharine July 1, 1872; William
Walter, April 18, 1876. All have had or
are receiving a good education.
Transcribed
by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 490-491. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.