EDWARD HEALEY

Sacramento County

Biographies

EDWARD HEALEY

Edward Healey, rancher, was born in England, July 28, 1826, son of John and Betsy (Kershaw) Healey, Cloth manufacturers. Young Edward learned the trade of a carder, then became time-keeper on a railroad. In 1851 he emigrated to America, landing at Boston, where he was again railroad time-keeper, employed by an uncle for about eleven months. In the fall of 1851 he came to California by way of Cape Horn and the Sandwich Islands, being six months on the journey, and arriving in San Francisco in November. The first three months he followed gold-mining in the Big Ravine near Auburn; the next two years he a was mining on Johnstown Creek, El Dorado County, with moderate success, say about $5 a day; thence he went to Ford’s Bar, where he was engaged when the rise of the river drove them out. His company took out $10,000 in four months. Then He came down into Sacramento County and purchased a tract of land at $3.50 an acre, on the Daylor’s portion of the Sheldon Grant, and commenced buying fine cows, with reference to stock-raising, etc. By the great flood of 1856 he lost ninety head of cattle, besides fences and 30,000 feet of lumber. The grown cows had cost him on an average about $50 a head. He continued ranching until 1863, when he went into the mercantile business at Sheldon, where he still has a nice little store. In 1869 he sold one ranch, and the last one, which he had greatly improved, he sold to Mr. Kelley in 1878. He purchased his present property in 1882. It is located on the line of the Sheldon grant, eighteen miles from Sacramento. In 1853 Mr. Healey returned to Georgia and married Emilina Killingsworth, a native of Atlanta, that State. They have six children, four of whom are living: John E., born in 1854; Mary, born in 1857, and died while an infant; Mary A., wife of James Peerless (deceased), of Sacramento; Jennie, now Mrs. George Stillson, of Florin; Joseph, at Elk Grove; Emma, who was born June 5, 1866, and is her father’s main support,--housekeeper, business agent, etc. Her mother died in 1868, at the age of forty-four years.

Transcribed by Karen Pratt.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 522-523. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.

Sacramento County Biographies