Sacramento County
Biographies
CAPT. WILLIAM T. FORSMAN
CAPT. WILLIAM T. FORSMAN. Prominently identified with the business interests of Sacramento, Capt. William T. Forsman occupies a representative place among her citizens. He is a native of Indiana born in New Albany in June, 1852. His father, J. G. Forsman, a native of Kentucky, located with his family in Indiana, and was engaged as a steamboat engineer on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in mercantile trade, the boats plying between Cincinnati and New Orleans. In 1863 he came to California, locating in Somona county, where he followed ranching. Later he removed to Sacramento and from there to Colfax, Placer county. His wife, formerly Mary M. Peak, was also a native of Kentucky.
William T. Forsman received a part of his education in the city of his birth, and also attended the public schools in Sonoma county, Cal. In 1871 he accepted a position on a steamboat plying between Sacramento and San Francisco and intermediate points, and during the time he was in the employ of the company, was promoted from time to time until he became captain. He is also manager of the Farmers’ Transportation Company (of which J. M. Miller is president), general freighters on the Sacramento river between San Francisco and Colusa and other points. In September, 1904, Captain Forsman became projector and promoter of the Northern Electric Railway Company, running from Chico to Oroville, through Butte county to Marysville, Colusa and Princeton, a distance of one hundred miles, tapping one of the best fruit belts in the state in this enterprise. He has been the chief instigator of a project which will not only enhance the value of the lands through which it runs, but will give the farmers in the fruit and grain belt a market at home. The right of way has been secured along the line and work has been commenced to push it through and complete it within two years.
Captain Forsman is married and has one son, George A. Politically Captain Forsman is a Democrat and was nominated by his party for the state senate and made the race, receiving a large vote, but by a combination and being an off year, he was defeated. He takes a lively interest in both local and state politics. He organized the Masters and Pilots Association, of which he was president for one year, this being the first organization of its kind on the Pacific coast. He is also a member of the American Association of Masters and Pilots, which he was instrumental in organizing on the coast, and of which he was president for one year, the membership aggregating fifteen thousand in the United States. While district deputy of the coast he was elected to represent Harbor No. 15, of San Francisco, in the Grand Lodge of the American Association of Masters and Pilots at their meeting in Baltimore, Md., where plans were matured and the future meeting place fixed at Washington, D. C. Captain Forsman it at present promoting an electric railway in Yolo county, to run from Sacramento to Woodland, Madison, Capay and Winters.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: “History of
the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California”
by J. M. Guinn. Page 1302.
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1906.
© 2007 Louise E. Shoemaker.