Sacramento
County
Biographies
JAMES M. FRALEY
James M. Fraley was born in Maryland, November 24, 1827, his parents being Frederick and Ellen
(McHenry) Fraley, both natives of Frederick County, Maryland. They were the parents of nine children, all
now deceased except the subject of this sketch and a younger sister, Mrs. Dr.
Evart, of Baltimore.
The father had learned the trade of wagon-maker, at which he worked for
some years in Frederick and Cumberland.
About 1840 he moved into Alleghany County, Maryland, where he owned a farm and kept a public
house. He had been reared on a farm
until the age of eighteen. James M. was
educated in the district schools to the age of fifteen, supplemented by a two
years’ course in a high school. At the
age of seventeen he was employed in driving his father’s team, usually from Cumberland to Brownsville, and sometimes to Wheeling, besides helping occasionally in farm
work. In 1849 his mother died, and the
family was soon scattered into four or five States. James M. went peddling with a team, dealing
mostly in copper kettles, for a manufacturer in Cumberland, and remained in that business until February
1, 1852. He then went to Whitehall, Greene County, Illinois, where he had three married sisters, and
spent a year there. On March
29, 1853, in
company with Dr. Boyse, of Whitehall, and some others, he set out for California.
The party comprised ten men and six women; with four wagons drawn by ox
teams. At St. Joe, Missouri, they joined a larger party, but soon
separated and proceeded by themselves, suffering no special inconvenience. They came by the old emigrant route to Carson Valley, and then by Johnson’s cut-off into California.
They arrived at Ristine’s ranch, just eight
miles below Sacramento, having been six months in making the
journey. For a month or two he drove a
team for $75 a month, but was taken sick with typhoid fever, and for four
months was unable to work. Early in 1854
he went to work for the California Stage Company, taking care of their horses,
at which he was again taken sick. In
1855 he engaged in farming on the shares, putting about 165 acres in grain
which was destroyed by the grasshoppers, involving a loss of quite a sum of
money and his time. In 1856 he went to
work for A. M. Plummer, who kept a public-house on the old Jackson road, about thirteen miles from Sacramento, remaining with him about three and
one-half years. In 1860 he purchased an
outfit and went to teaming, chiefly over the mountains into Nevada.
In 1865 he bought a farm of 320 acres, near the Twelve-Mile House, but
continued teaming until 1869, after which he gave undivided attention to his
ranch until he sold it in 1879. He kept
the Twelve-Mile House two years, when he sold out and moved into Sacramento, where he kept a saloon for nearly two
years. November 1, 1882, he rented the Slough House, about eighteen miles from that
city, which he still conducts. Mr.
Fraley was first married, in 1848, to Miss Sarah Ellen Lawson, a native of Maryland, and daughter of a farmer on the Potomac.
She died ten months later of childbirth, the child also dying. In December, 1881, he was again married, the
Miss Addie Laurell, a
native of Portland, Maine.
She died in March, 1885, without issue, leaving him again alone in the
world.
Transcribed by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An
Illustrated History of Sacramento County,
California. Page 512-13. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.