SAMUEL HOWARD GERRISH

 

Samuel Howard Gerrish, for many years a foreman in the railroad shops of the Central Pacific Railroad Company, in this city, was born December 27, 1834, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The family is one of the oldest in New England. His father, William Gerrish, was born at Lebanon, Maine, one of a family of thirteen children, twelve of whom were sons. He was a clock manufacturer and a merchant. He died in 1837. The founder of the family in America was Captain William Gerrish, of the British army, born in Bristol, England, who emigrated to America during Cromwell’s time, in 1638. On his mother’s side he is a descendant of the well-known Hartford family of New England; his grandfather Hartford was a New Hampshire farmer and a soldier of the War of 1812, in which war he died; Samuel Howard, for whom he was named, was his maternal grandmother’s father and was a Revolutionary soldier. When in 1837 his father died, our subject was two and a half years old. Although later on his mother removed to Boston, he remained in Dover to attend school. His brother-in-law, John B. Wood, was editing a newspaper at Great Falls, and at the age of fifteen years young Gerrish proceeded to that village to learn the trade of printer. After about one and a half years he went to Boston and worked at his trade in a job office on Washington Street. After a year had passed he concluded to learn the trade of machinist and went to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he worked for Dimock Bros. six months; then went to Holyoke, where he worked for the Hadley Falls Company one and a half years. Leaving there, he worked for a time in Boston and New York. His brother-in-law, R.M. Whitehouse, was foreman of the Connecticut River Railroad repair shops located at Northampton, Massachusetts, and he went there and worked seven years. In 1860 he came to California with George A. Stoddard, leaving New York June 5, coming by the Panama route and arriving in San Francisco on the 28^th. He began working for E.T. Steen and continued with him for a year and a half. For the next four years he was engineer on the United States dry dock in the Mare Island Navy Yard. Then he came to Sacramento and was employed by Goss & Lambard, proprietors of the Sacramento Iron Works. In May 1866, he was employed for the railroad company and ran the first engine for the Central Pacific shops, where he worked and made the first tools used. His brother, J.L. Gerrish, now of Oakland, was also employed at the time in the same shops. He has held many positions of trust, among them that of trustee of the City Library and secretary of the board. He has been a Freemason since 1863, when he joined Naval Lodge, No. 87, of Vallejo; he is now a member of Concord Lodge, No. 117, of Sacramento, and has been a Master of that lodge during three years. He is also a member of Industrial Lodge, No. 157, I.O.O.F., of which he is a charter member. He was also a member in 1866-’67 of the California National Guards, Company D, Infantry, Captain Dasonville. Being of a scientific and statistical turn of mind, he has kept a record of the rainfall and temperature in his experiments in acclimating tropical trees ever since he came to Sacramento, making, as a voluntary observer of the United States Signal Service, monthly reports to Washington. Of his home life we need say but little. He was married September 4, 1855, to Sarah J. Rogers, a native of Northampton, Massachusetts, whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower in 1620. Her father, Thomas Rogers, was a carpenter, builder and contractor. Mr. Gerrish has four daughters and one son. Their home is on G Street, where they have lived for twenty-one years.