Sacramento County
Biographies
MARTIN J. BRENNAN
MARTIN J. BRENNAN.--For thirty-one
years of his active career Martin J. Brennan was in the employ of the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company; nine years ago he removed to Andrus Island and has since been the
manager and superintendent of the upper Andrus Island pumping plant and drainage
canals. He was born in County Mayo, Ireland, November 10, 1865, a son
of Patrick and Catherine (Hopkins) Brennan, natives of the
same country. The parents were farmers and lived and died in Ireland, the father at the age of
seventy-seven and the mother at thirty-six years of age. Eight children were
born to them: John Thomas; Martin J., our subject; and Patrick, William, Ellen,
Mary, Kittie, and Anna.
Martin J.
Brennan received his education in the grammar schools of Ireland. In 1882 he came to the
United States and stopped at Cleveland, Ohio, where he remained for one year;
then he came West to California and soon found a position in the railroad shops
of Sacramento as a mechanic, where he worked for four years; in 1887 he began
firing out of Sacramento to Truckee and ten years were spent on this job. He
then became a locomotive engineer on the Southern Pacific lines from Ogden, Utah, to El Paso, Texas, and spent seventeen years
thus engaged. After his retirement he settled on Andrus Island, where he has charge as
engineer and superintendent of the pumping plant and drainage canals on the
upper part of the island for Reclamation District No. 556. Mr. Brennan owns
four different residences in Sacramento.
On April
25, 1893, Mr. Brennan was married to Miss Mary M. Green, a native of St. Louis, Mo., and a daughter of W. H.
and Sarah E. (Cowell) Green. W. H. Green was a farmer in Missouri who crossed the plains to California with a mule team in pioneer
days; later he returned to Missouri and there was married and in 1876 returned
to California with his wife and three children: Angie, Frank, and
Mary M., Mrs. Brennan. Mr. Green was employed at the Southern Pacific shops in Sacramento until he retired; he passed
away at the age of seventy-nine years. Mrs. Green now resides in Sacramento at 2312 H Street, aged eighty years. Mr. and
Mrs. Brennan are the parents of nine children: William M. is an engineer for
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company; Angie is deceased; Austin James; Thomas,
deceased; Ruth; Arthur; Jack; George; and Edwin. Their son Austin James entered
Company B, 117th United States Engineers of the 42nd
Division, and served twenty-two months overseas in the World War; he was gassed
twice and at two different times the kitchen of the regiment was blown up by
the enemy, where he was serving as cook. He is now employed with the First
National Bank of Tonopah, Nev. Mr. Brennan is a Republican
in politics and fraternally belongs to the Y. M. I. of Sacramento and the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
Transcribed by Vicky Walker,
8/14/07.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical
Sketches, Page 973. Historic Record
Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Vicky Walker.