C. H. CUMMINGS, one of the pioneers of California, and an honored citizen of Sacramento, is a native of Massachusetts, born in Palmer, Hampshire County, on the 15th of May, 1823. His father, Benjamin Cummings, was also a native of Massachusetts. He was a farmer until midlife, and afterward a manufacturer of cloth. The Cummings family is an old one in the old Bay State, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch having been a Revolutionary soldier, at the surrender of Burgoyne. The paternal great-grandfather was also a native of that State. The mother of our subject, whose maiden name was Lucy Paige, was also born in Massachusetts. C. H. Cummings was reared on his father's farm to the age of 19 years, then went to Boston to take a situation in a mercantile establishment. He afterward went into business at Charlestown, and was so engaged there and at Cambridge until the fall of 1849. On the 12th of November of that year he sailed from the Newburyport, on the bark Domingo (Captain Bray), bound for California. The vessel put into port twice on the voyage, once at St. Catherines, where she was in harbor eight days, and again at Juan Fernandez, where she stopped for three days. The vessel landed at San Francisco on the 7th of April, 1850. Mr. Cummings remained in the city until October, then came to Sacramento, where he has resided ever since. He was acquainted with Mr. Mace, of the firm of Mace, Loveland & Co., who were then in the wholesale grocery trade on J Street, between Second and Third, and he soon made an engagement with the firm. He remained with them until they discontinued business, and then went with Meeker & Co., who were doing business at the present site of Hammer' s drug store, Fourth and K. He was employed by them from 1853 until 1856, and then became a member of the firm, the membership of which was thereafter David Meeker, A. W. Bell and C. H. Cummings. The firm closed out by limitation March 1,1858, and then Mr. Cummings went with the firm of Stanford Bros. & Meeker, composed of Josiah and Leland Stanford and David Meeker. With in a year thereafter Mr. Meeker sold out his interest in the business, but the firm continued until the election of Leland Stanford as governor in 1861. After his inauguration, Mr. Cummings was appointed stamp clerk in the Secretary of State's office, the date being January 10,1862. Upon the death of the then Secretary of State W. H. Weeks, A. H. Tuttle took the office, and Mr. Cummings became Deputy Secretary of State. He held this position until the election of B. B. Redding as Secretary of State, and for three months thereafter he was clerk in the office. He was then in the Sacramento postoffice a year and a half, ended August 1865, became cashier of the Sacramento and Placerville Railroad. This office he held until the consolidation of that railroad with the Central Pacific system, and since then he has been assistant paymaster of the Central Pacific. He has been secretary and treasurer of the Capital Gas Company since 1876. Mr. Cummings was married in Massachusetts to Miss Mary Ann Cole, a native of Maine, and a daughter of Hiram and Lois (Young) Cole, both of whose parents were born in the State of Maine. Mr. and Mrs. Cummings have had three children, of whom one, and Charles Augustus, died in September, 1852. Those living are: Quincy Cole, who was born at East Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1849, and is now with the Central Pacific Railroad at San Francisco; and Henry A., who was born in Sacramento in May, 1854, and is in the office of the treasurer of the Central Pacific at San Francisco. Mr. Cummings is an honorary member of the Sacramento Society, California Pioneers. He served four years as a member of the Board of Education, having been elected in 1872. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Cummings has been identified with Sacramento since her early days, and has always ranked among her best citizens.
Source:
An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. By Hon. Win. J Davis. Lewis Publishing
Company 1890. Page 255-256.
Submitted
by: Nancy Pratt Melton.