WILLIAM S. CHURCH 

William S. Church, City Attorney of Sacramento, is a native of Woodford County, Kentucky, born near Versailles May 19, 1851. His father, James C. Church, was a native of Indiana but located in Kentucky, where he studied surveying, and where he was married to Miss Fannie Smithers, a native of Kentucky. In 1852 he removed with his family to Kansas City, Missouri, and the following year came out across the plains to California, locating in American Valley, Plumas County, where he bought a ranch. He afterward removed to Indian Valley, where he died in 1886. His widow yet resides there. He followed his profession of surveyor for some time after coming to the State, and held the office of county surveyor for one term; but his fine set of instruments were destroyed by fire, and thereafter he devoted his attention to ranching. William S. Church, subject of this sketch, was but two years old when the family removed to this State, and he was reared in Plumas County. He was educated in the public schools, and in the winter of 1867 commenced attendance at Heald’s College, San Francisco, where he was graduated in May 1868. He then came to Sacramento and obtained employment on Whitcomb’s ranch, in the southern part of the county. He worked there some time and then went home on a visit. In 1870 he went to Yolo County, and clerked in a store in Capay Valley for a year and a half. He next engaged in teaching school at Fairview. In 1873 he went to Nevada, and taught writing school at Virginia City and at Reno. Later in the same year he returned to California, and while in Solano County was elected superintendent of schools of Plumas County, and by virtue of reelection, served from 1874 to 1878. He then began to think of some permanent profession other than teaching, and turned to the law, for which he then began reading. In 1880 he was nominated on the Democratic ticket for district attorney in the county of Sierra, but of course was unsuccessful, as the county was hopelessly Republican. In 1881 he received his life diploma as a teacher. Early in that year he came to Sacramento and read law with Colonel Creed Haymond and W.A. Cheney (now Superior Judge of Los Angeles County). On the 7^th of May, 1881, he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of California. After his admission he went to La Porte, Plumas County, and there practiced law for two years. He was a candidate for county clerk on the “New Constitution” ticket in 1881, but was defeated. On account of the stoppage of hydraulic mining, everything was dull in Plumas County, and Mr. Church came to Sacramento and engaged in law writing. He wrote a book titled “Habeas Corpus” for Bancroft & Co., San Francisco. In the Legislature of 1884 he was clerk of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments. In 1885 he went to Galt, and practiced there a couple of months, and then went north to Washington Territory and British Columbia. Two or three weeks later he returned to Sacramento, and was engaged on the “American Decisions” for Bancroft & Co., and continued his writing on this work until elected city attorney in 1888. In 1886 he made the race for district attorney of Sacramento unsuccessfully. Mr. Church as married in Sacramento April 11, 1886, to Miss Tillie Beauchamp, a native of Chicago and daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Beauchamp. Mr. Church is a member of Tehama Lodge, F. & A.M.; Sacramento R.A. Chapter No. 3; Sacramento Council, No. 1, R. & S.M., and of Court Sutter, No. 7, 246, A.O.F. In the latter he was, at one time, chief ranger. He is a man of broad attainments, and although already considerably experienced in professional and official life, may be said to have just commenced his career, being yet a young man.