Sacramento County
Biographies
GEORGE WISNER HANCOCK
GEORGE WISNER HANCOCK, Secretary of the
Sacramento Crockery Company and an enterprising member of several business
circles, is a descendant of the John Hancock whose bold chirography heads the
list of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and who was secretary
of the celebrated convention that drew up that remarkable document. Our
subject is also a descendant of the Lee family of Maryland,
as was also the late General Robert E. Lee, the most liberal scholar among the
Confederate generals of the late civil war. George’s father, Nathan
Hancock, in the early days of Massachusetts, owned and
operated a stage line from Barre, Worcester
County, to Petersham
and Boston. This line was
afterward sold out to a Mr. Twitchell, for many years
a leading railroad man of New England. Mr. Hancock
was born at Barre, Massachusetts,
in 1836, the eleventh child in a family of twelve children, seven of whom are
still living. He was educated at the high school of his native
town, which afterward became widely known as the seat of the first State
Normal School of the commonwealth
of Massachusetts. At the early
age of sixteen years he took charge of a farm, previously occupied by his older
brother, who had just come to California. At
that time (1852) he had three brothers in this State: John, Henry and
William. John had come in 1849. In 1857, his brother Henry having
returned to look after the farm, George came to this State, landing at San
Francisco in February, 1858. First he joined his
brother, William, then on a farm on the Monroe ranch, on
the Sacramento River. Remaining there until 1863,
he went to the State of Nevada to reside, but soon
returned to Sacramento. In
1866 he engaged in the livestock business, on a ranch on the Cosumnes River,
sixteen miles from Sacramento, which was successively in
Placer, Sutter and Sacramento
counties. From the first until the present time has Mr. Hancock been
enthusiastically interested in this vocation, at that point. He has some
very fine blooded stock. In 1885 his filly Daisy, a yearling, made the
fastest time in the world, passing a mile in 2:38¼. His colts, by Guy
Wilkes Sterling, Antevolo and others, are very
promising. On his ranch he also has fifty acres in fruit,—Bartlett
pears and French prunes,—in which he takes special interest. But Mr.
Hancock has also been prominent in commercial circles. In 1857 he
organized the Grangers’ Co-operative Business Association of
Sacramento. In pursuit of information regarding enterprises of this kind,
he visited San Jose, San Francisco, Stockton
and other cities, and the plans submitted to the association and adopted by it
were the result of this investigation of the subject. He was the first
president of the association and continued actively engaged in the enterprise
until the close of 1888. In 1882 he bought the "Dollar Store" at
627 J street,
and from this has grown the present great wholesale and retail house known as
that of the Sacramento Crockery Company, of which Mr. Hancock is the secretary,
John Neil being the president. In this line this is the foremost house
north of the Bay. Of course Mr. Hancock is a member of the order of
Patrons of Husbandry. He is also prominently connected with Capital Lodge,
I.O.O. F., and for the past twelve years a director of the State Agricultural
Society. For two terms he has been superintendent of the society’s grounds
and of their race track. Yet still more conspicuous has Mr. Hancock been
in bringing about useful legislation. While the Constitutional Convention
was in session, the State Grange held its annual session in Sacramento. A
committee was appointed by that body to formulate articles in the interest of
the farmers and of the producing classes generally. Mr. Hancock was a
secretary of that committee, and it devolved upon him, after discussion, to put
into form the ideas desired to be engrafted into what ultimately became the
organic law of the State. Twenty-seven articles were formed and adopted by
the committee, and placed in the hands of members of the convention; nineteen
of those articles were adopted in the exact language in which they were
presented. At a meeting of the Sacramento Grange Mr. Hancock was appointed
on a committee to examine and report upon a set of text-books for the public
schools, and after a thorough investigation of the matter reported in favor of
the plan that the State should compile and print the text-books. He
formulated the very plan that was afterward adopted and put into operation, and
that now furnishes the text-books to the pupils of the whole State at forty per
cent of their former cost. He carried the matter up to the State Grange, and from it to the Legislature, where he was an
active member of the "third house" until it became a law. Thus California
became the first State in the Union to adopt this wise
measure, which other states are now taking into a favorable
consideration. Mr. Hancock was on a committee appointed by the State
Grange at the annual session held at Oakland, to examine the manufacture of
jute bags, with a view to carrying their manufacture into the State prison; and
from the report made the matter was pushed into the Legislature and became a
law, which when put into successful operation broke the iron sack ring that had
been held over the farmers for so many years. Mr. Hancock was also the
first to suggest a citrus fair being held in northern California,
which had resulted in developing the vast citrus resources of this section of
the State. When a new pavilion was wanted for the State Agricultural
Society, and many of the directors feared to undertake the job, Mr. Hancock
with characteristic courage said it could be accomplished, and was active in
the circulation of the petition which secured the requisite amount of
subscription to warrant the Legislature in passing a bill to pay $40,000 from
the State treasury for the erection of the present building. Mr. Hancock
was first married in 1868, to Miss Julianna Folger, whose ancestry were well-known families in Nantucket,
Massachusetts. By his marriage there
was one son: Benjamin Franklin Hancock, now of Sacramento. In
November, 1882, Mr. Hancock married Miss Edith Southworth,
a niece of Judge A. L. Rhoads of San Jose
and a descendant of Parson Southard (as the name was then pronounced), who was
a prominent Presbyterian minister, celebrated for his scholarship, especially
for his knowledge of the classical languages and the German. He
established the First Presbyterian Church in Oneida County,
New York. The son by this marriage
named Raymond Southworth Hancock,
exhibits the sturdy qualities of his long-lived and prominent ancestry.
Transcribed 10-17-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 776-777. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Sacramento County Biographies