Sacramento County
Biographies
GEORGE WASHINGTON CAVITT
The
arduous labors connected with the improvement and cultivation of a ranch
occupied the time of Mr. Cavitt throughout almost the
entire period from his arrival in California
during 1865 until his death, January 24, 1907. His birth occurred in Rush
county, Ind., in 1832, and some years later, in 1845,
his parents removed from there to Iowa,
where they engaged in farming pursuits until 1864. In that year he started for California,
and settling in Sacramento county he eventually became the owner of eighty acres of
ground. In that long era of agricultural and commercial upbuilding
he witnessed the transformation of the commonwealth from a broad expanse of
undeveloped and sparsely settled land into a region of prosperity and even
wealth. In the difficult task of improvement he bore
an honorable share. To the labors of such indefatigable pioneers may be
attributed the present high standing of the entire state. Beginning to till the
virgin soil ere yet a furrow had been turned in it and keeping up the labor of
cultivation long after bare tracts had been transformed into finely improved
ranches, he contributed his quota to the general agricultural prosperity and
proved beyond question the adaptability of the soil to many important crops now
grown with profit. When he came across the plains at the close of the Civil War
rapid transportation was unknown. Large expeditions of emigrants were organized
as a means of protection against the assaults of Indians. Oxen were utilized
as motive power and supplies were conveyed in the old-fashioned "prairie
schooner," in which also rode all the women and children together with the
least rugged of the men, while others of the men acted as cattle-drivers or
guards. Immediately after his arrival Mr. Cavitt took
up land at Antelope, Sacramento county,
and there he passed his remaining years busily engaged in general ranch
pursuits on his eighty-acre ranch, situated two miles southeast of Antelope and
fifteen and a half miles from the city of Sacramento.
Mr.
Cavitt was married February 28, 1856, to Rebecca J.
Perkins, a native of Virginia,
who survived him for a few years, passing away May 8, 1911. Four children came
to bless their union and crown their last days with affectionate devotion. One
of the sons now resides in San Francisco;
the other son and one of the daughters remain at the old homestead and
superintend the eighty acres of almond trees, finding both pleasure and profit
in the thrifty management of the finely improved ranch. The children were born
as follows: William C., November 30, 1856; Thomas T., September 20, 1858; Ida
Bell, January 30, 1860; and Eva T., April 10, 1867. Mrs. Eva T. Stackhouse, who
likewise owns an interest in the old home ranch, but makes her home in
Sacramento, passed the uneventful years of childhood upon that farm and
attended the country schools. When she left the homestead it was as the wife of
Nathan Stackhouse and they became the parents of four children. The deepest
sorrow that has come to the family has been the loss of two daughters, one of
them, Hattie M., when a lovely young lady of twenty-two years, and the other,
Mildred, when a loved child of only four years. George Alvin Stackhouse resides
with his mother in Sacramento. The
other surviving child, Effie A., born in Alameda county and educated in Sacramento, is
now the wife of A. C. Moore, a native of Maine.
A daughter, Angela Moore, blesses their union and represents the third
generation in descent from that honored old pioneer, George Washington Cavitt. Could he now speak it would be to endeavor to
inspire in the hearts of the rising generations a deep affection for their
native commonwealth and an unselfish loyalty toward its progress, inasmuch as a
region, matchless in fertility and climate, with commercial prospects limited
only by the energy of its people, forms a monument to the privations of the
pioneers as well as the business sagacity of the citizens of the twentieth
century.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Willis,
William L., History of Sacramento County,
California, Pages 932-933. Historic
Record Company, Los
Angeles,
CA. 1913.
© 2006 Sally Kaleta.