MRS. MARY J. GREEN

Sacramento County

Biographies

MRS. MARY J. GREEN

MRS. MARY J. GREEN.--Mrs. Mary J. Green, née Mary J. Thisby, is a native of Andrus Island in Sacramento County, and the daughter of George and Rebecca (Elliot) Thisby. Her father was a native of Scarborough, England, where he was born in 1828, while her mother was a native of Ireland. George Thisby was six months old when his parents came out to Canada, and there they lived until 1837. Then they crossed the line into the United States and Wisconsin, and remained there until 1845, when they removed to New Orleans, and engaged in steamboating until 1852.

In that year, George Thisby came West to California, and for a while he tried his luck at mining in Grass Valley, and then went into Santa Cruz County, where he remained until 1855. He then settled on Tyler Island at a point forty-one miles below Sacramento and engaged in farming. He lived there for a number of years, and also ran a fruit and vegetable boat to San Francisco for years. Then he purchased the place now owned by Mrs. Green’s brother, George, consisting of 200 acres and devoted to the raising of fruit and asparagus.

Mary J. Thisby was the only girl in a family of six children. Henry died on December 5, 1891, at the age of twenty-one; and he was the eldest. George was born after Mary, and is now on the old home place. William J. was drowned, on May 1, 1918, when forty-two and a half years old. Robert Francis is also deceased, having passed away on April 23, 1916, at the age of thirty-eight. Leonard, the youngest born, died on December 4, 1914. It is a strange circumstance that those who have departed this life from this family have met death by accident. George Thisby’s horses ran away, and he was thrown out of his wagon and killed in 1880. Leonard, while undersheriff of Sacramento County, dropped his revolver, and his own bullet proved fatal. Mrs. George Thisby was sixty-five years old on August 5, 1908, when she died in Sacramento. She was married on September 8, 1869. Mr. Thisby set out the fruit orchard and vineyard, and the extensive vegetable gardens. He died on September 25, 1880.

Mary Thisby attended the Georgiana and the Walnut Grove district schools, and then went to Mills Seminary at Oakland for five months, and finished at Irving’s Institute in San Francisco. She was married, on April 18, 1894, at her home, to Joseph E. Green, who was born on the ranch where the subject now lives one and one-half miles north of Courtland, on November 30, 1864, the son of Joseph Green and his good wife, Theresa Koch. Joseph Green, Sr., was a native of the Rhine Province, Germany. He came over to New York at the age of eighteen, remained there for five years, and in 1851 came out to California and mined gold. He then bought a farm one and one-half miles north of Courtland, consisting of 196 acres. In 1860 he married Theresa Koch, also a native of Germany. He had two children, a son, the husband of our subject, and Mary, who is Mrs. Cowing, of Alameda. Joseph Green was very enterprising, and he had one of the neatest ranches in Sacramento County, which was devoted to a large variety of fruit. He had reached a good old age when he died in 1894; his good wife passed away when the children were young.

Joseph E. Green was educated at the Richland school, in Sacramento County, and at the McClure Military Academy, in Oakland, and when through with his school-books, he remained at home and helped to run the farm. He finally acquired title to this ranch when his father died, while his sister inherited the ranch on Grand Island. The elder Joseph Green used to have a dairy in early days, but he gave this up after a few years, and devoted this ranch entirely to fruit. After our subject and her husband came onto the place, they reestablished the dairy, and had about thirty head of cattle. When her husband died, Mrs. Green sold the dairy herd, and the land was set to vineyard, but will now be set to Philip cling peaches. The year they were married, Joseph E. Green purchased 333 acres on Grand Island below Ryde from Dennis Leary. He sold six acres to the Libby, McNeil & Libby Company, as a site on which to erect an asparagus cannery. Mrs. Green still has the Grand Island ranch, and she and her son are devoting it to pears, beans and asparagus.

Joseph E. Green also bought two other parcels of land, one of twenty-six acres, from G. B. Greene, on the Sacramento River, and Joseph E. Green built a landing for the loading of the ranchers’ fruit onto the river boats. The other parcel of land, thirty-six acres, is known as the Freeman tract, and joins the home place on the rear. This is being put into asparagus, while formerly it was barley and hay land. Mr. Green also purchased 160 acres of dairy farm from John Herzog, and this is also in the estate today. The dairy was sold in 1922, and the ranch is being leveled up, and set out to vineyard and to peaches for canning. Mr. Green passed away, on December 16, 1915, aged fifty-one years, one of the most esteemed, and one of the most mourned men of his generation and locality.

After his death, Mrs. Green purchased 1,600 acres of cattle-range thirteen miles west of Arbuckle, and there her youngest son now runs stock. She has three children. Georgia Frances has become the wife of Nelson E. Dean of Courtland, a farmer, and she has one son, six years old, named Nelson E. Dean, Jr. Joseph E. Green, Jr., resides at the old home place, with his wife, who was Miss Bessie Waterberry, of Clarksburg, and he is the father of two children—Roberta, five years old, and Joseph E. He is assisting his mother. Nate Salsbury is married to Florence Wilson, of Woodbridge; and he conducts a stock business on the Arbuckle place.

Prior to his lamented death, Mrs. Green’s husband was a director of the Fort Sutter National Bank, of Sacramento; and he was also a school trustee for years in the Courtland school district. He was a member of Courtland Parlor No. 106, of the Native Sons of the Golden West, and had filled all the offices there, and was for many years the treasurer. He was a member of the B. P. O. Elks, of Sacramento. Mrs. Green is a member of the Eastern Star, Onisbo chapter, O. E. S., of Courtland, and at present she is worthy matron of Victory Parlor, N. D. G. W., at Courtland. Joseph E., the son, is a member of Franklin Lodge, F. &A. M., of Courtland, and also a Native Son of the Golden West, and a member of the B. P. O. Elks, of Sacramento; and he is a school trustee of both the Courtland high and the Courtland grammar school districts. Mrs. Green supports the Republican party and its platforms.

Transcribed Joyce Rugeroni.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 419-420. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.