WALTER SCOTT GRIMSHAW

Sacramento County

Biographies

WALTER SCOTT GRIMSHAW

WALTER SCOTT GRIMSHAW.--A very enterprising, progressive and successful horticulturist, who is a native son proud of his association with the Golden State, is Walter Scott Grimshaw, who was born on the old Grimshaw place at Mocosumnes, now Cosumne, Sacramento County, January 15, 1868, a son of William Robinson Grimshaw, who was born in New York city, a son of John and Emma (Robinson) Grimshaw. The father was born in England of a family who were manufactures in Manchester. The mother was of old American family, being of the Robinsons of Rhode Island. John Grimshaw dealt in cotton and cotton goods and traveled a great deal. William R. spent most of his time in England from the age of two until eleven years of age. He was bereaved of his father in early life and was reared in the home of his Uncle, Thomas Minturn.

On his return from England, William R. Grimshaw was sent to Mobile, Ala., where he spent four years at College. Again returning to New York, he spent some time there and in Burlington, Vt., completing his education, and then spent a short time in a drug store. At the age of twenty-one he “shipped before the mast” on the “Isaac Walton,” owned by his Uncle Minturn and bound for California. Arriving in Monterey he shipped on the “Anita”, a naval tender, which he left in October, 1848, to accept a position as bookkeeper for Sam Brannon & Company at Sutter’s Fort at a salary of $400.00 a month. In November, 1849, he went into partnership with William Daylor and kept a store on his ranch on the Cosunmes. Mr. Daylor died of cholera in 1850, leaving no issue.

In April, 1851, Mr. Grimshaw was married to Mrs. Sarah P (Rhoads) Daylor, the widow of his late partner. Some years later they moved to Sacramento, where for a time Mr. Grimshaw was a law clerk with Winans & Hyer in 1857. By private study and through experience gained in the legal business he prepared himself for practice as a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar in 1868. However, he quit the practice of law in the spring of 1869, not finding it as congenial as he had anticipated. He was justice of the peace for fourteen years, and also taught the Wilson district school toward the close of his life. In 1876 he made a voyage to China for his health, but without marked improvement. He died September 14, 1881, and his widow survived him until January 11, 1889. She was an early pioneer of Sacramento County, having come hither with her father across the plains in an ox-team train in 1846. Mr. and Mrs. Grimshaw were the parents of twelve children, seven of who grew up: William R., deceased; Emma G., Mrs. Lawton, who died in Sacramento; Thomas M. and George R., both of Sacramento; John F., Deceased; Frederick M., an horticulturist at Cosumnes; and Walter Scott, the subject of this interesting review.

Walter Scott Grimshaw spent his boyhood on the home ranch, receiving a good education in the local public schools, which was supplemented with a course at Howe’s Business College in Sacramento, after which he engaged in horticulture on the home ranch. He was among the first to set out orchards of prunes on the Cosumnes River and also engaged in raising hops. He has made a study of growing fruit and by research finds the river sediment land the finest in the state for the growing of prunes. The quality is most excellent and the fruit is much larger than grown in other portions of California. The yield here is three tons to the acre, as compared with one ton to the acre in Santa Clara County, for the trees grow very large and healthy in this deep, rich sediment soil. He has just completed a dehydrating plant with a capacity of about seventy-five tons a day. Mr. Grimshaw owns the old Grimshaw home place of fifty-five acres all in prunes and hops. He also owns a half interest in the Mahone ranch of 800 acres, 160 acres of which he has set out to prune orchard now eight years old, one of the finest orchards in California. The balance of the ranch he devotes to stock-raising. In the operation of his ranch he uses tractors, trucks and teams, giving it his personal attention and looking after every detail, and as a result he is meeting with excellent success. Being a firm believer in cooperation as the successful way of marketing the farmer’s produce, he is a member of the California Prune and Apricot Association. Politically, he is a Republican. He takes well-deserved pride in his well-kept orchards as well as his beautiful gardens of flowers and vegetable, and lawn, his place being one of the show places in the county. Fond of hunting and fishing, he spends much time hunting in the high Sierras and at his hunting club in Butte County, enjoying the diversion of his week-end trips to the latter place to the fullest. Mr. Grimshaw is liberal and progressive, aiding in the development and upbuilding of his favored section of the land of gold and sunshine. Well-read and posted, he is a pleasing conversationalist and one is indeed fortunate to enjoy his dispensing of the true old-time California hospitality.

Transcribed by Patricia Seabolt.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Page 375-376. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.