Sacramento County
Biographies
WILLIAM
CUNNINGHAM
WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, the pioneer jeweler of Sacramento, was born in the city of Brotherly Love, March 21, 1821, the son of Thomas Cunningham, a coppersmith by trade. He learned the trade of silversmith of William Rapp, after which he went to Boston, where he resided for a year; returning again to Philadelphia he found employment with Bailey & Kitchen for three years. When, during the gold excitement of 1849, the William Penn Mining Company was organized, a man by the name of L. R. Brooman, one of the shareholders, was unable to come and his place was given to Mr. Cunningham, he paying $200. They left on the Crescent City for Chagres, on the 5th of February, were five or six weeks on the Isthmus and finally came up the coast on the whale ship Niantic, arriving outside the Golden Gate just in time to celebrate the fourth of July, 1849. After spending two or three days in San Francisco, they came to Sacramento via schooner, went up the north fork of the American River to Willow Bar and began mining, but, being unsuccessful, disbanded and the Penn Mining Company collapsed. Our subject came to Sacramento and, on arriving here, had about $50 with which to start in life. He soon made the acquaintance of a man named Hastings who was working for Pillow, a jeweler, on J Street. Going to the quay, from among the collected debris, he fished out an ordinary crucible and with some tools, loaned by Hastings, made a gold ring, the first work he ever did in the Capital City. Finding that he could do good work he was employed by Pillow, but after ten days he and Hastings formed a co-partnership and, renting a room from Howett & Ells for which they paid $75 a month, they began business on their own account. They continued together for about two years, when Mr. Cunningham bought out his partner, crossed the street to 408 J Street, where more commodious quarters were secured, and there he continued business for over eighteen years. Mr. Cunningham was married in the city of Philadelphia, December 31, 1839, to Rebecca Byrley, daughter of George Byrley, a German farmer, at that time in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Cunningham came to California in 1852. They have had a family of ten children, only three of whom survive, namely: William, Louis and Benjamin; all of whom are jewelers in the city of San Francisco.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Pages 695-696. Lewis Publishing
Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.