Sacramento County
Biographies
ROBERT
CHRISTESEN
ROBERT CHRISTESEN was born in North Schleswig, now in the German Empire, April 24, 1842, his parents being Hans and Seenet H. (Wayback) Christesen. They came to live with their son, Robert, in September, 1877. The father died in 1882, aged seventy-four, and the mother in 1884, aged sixty-eight. Robert Christesen received a limited education, and worked on his father’s farm, from boyhood. He came to California in 1868, and worked first in Sonoma County, driving team for the owner of a saw-mill there, for one year. He worked six months in a butcher shop and learned the business, but did not follow it further. In 1870-’71 he worked for Mr. Henry Ehrhardt one year. Mr. Christesen was married in Georgetown, now Franklin, December 13, 1871, to Miss Paulina Christesen, a daughter of Paul and Abilena (Boyesen) Christesen, to whom he had been engaged for seven years. Her father was a grain dealer at Flansburg in Schleswig. The two families, though bearing the same name, are not relatives by blood in any traceable degree of consanguinity. They were married in a month after her arrival. In 1872 Mr. Christesen rented 320 acres for one year; in 1873, another 320 acres, on both of which he raised cattle chiefly. He also bought and sold cattle of others’ raising. In 1874 he moved across the Cosumnes, where he rented 500 acres. In 1875 he bought the place he now occupies in Franklin Township, containing 480 acres. About 1877 he bought 160 acres, and in 1879, 200 acres, which with 280 bought in 1884, he sold in 1889 for $15,000. He traded the 160 acres for a blacksmith shop, leaving him at present the owner of the 480 acres he bought in 1875. He raises wheat, horses, cattle and hogs and the necessary feed for his stock. Mr. and Mrs. Christesen are the parents of four sons and four daughters: Abilena and Louis, twins, born October 12, 1872; Fernando, March 30, 1874; Mary, April 19, 1876; Tesha, October 11, 1877; Emma, January 17, 1880; Robert, November 13, 1882; Henry, October 21, 1885. Mr. Christesen has been a school trustee, and is a member of the Masonic fraternity.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Page 691. Lewis Publishing
Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.