Sacramento County
Biographies
PETER HOEY
PETER HOEY, farmer, Brighton
Township, was born in County
Lowth, Ireland,
December 23, 1839, son of John and Mary Hoey,
farmers. Of the family of nine children six sons came to the United
States. The first to come was Patrick,
who located first in New Orleans and came thence to California. The
next was John, who left Ireland in
1850, and also stopped a short time in New Orleans and
came to this State with his brother, in 1854; but the first to come to California
was Bridget, now Mrs. Stoner, who came to the United States
early in 1851, and to California
in 1853. Catharine Quail came next, in 1866; Mary Carroll in 1867; Peter
in 1868. John died in November, 1880; Patrick, in April, 1887; Michael,
who never came to the United States,
died in the old country in 1882. Thomas, still another brother, inherits
the old home place in Ireland. Another
sister, Margaret, now Mrs. Byrne, also resides in Ireland. Peter Hoey, the subject of this sketch,
when a little boy, entered the employ of Sir John McNeal, who manufactured tile
and brick. After he learned the business he had the position of
burner, and for sixteen years conducted the whole business on contract. Then he
ran a portable threshing-machine for five years. He left home at the age
of twenty-seven years, and he sailed from Dundalk,
Ireland, in the spring of 1868, and
landed in Sacramento June 5, coming by way of New
York and Panama. He
first stopped with his brother John, and the next year bought a farm of 163
acres in Brighton Township;
and this is his present ranch. In 1882 he purchased another ranch of 170
acres, on the Coloma road, and since then he has sold half of it, and now owns
seventy acres of the place. His total real estate is now 233
acres. He has followed agriculture ever since his arrival here. The
large ranch where he resides is devoted to grain, but it is also well adapted
to fruit. On the smaller ranch he has fifty-six acres in vines and the
rest in fruit trees, bearing. Mr. Hoey was
married first in 1872 to Bridget Dunn, a native of Queen’s County, Ireland, who
died April 15, 1885, the mother of four sons, of whom only one is now living,
John J., born September 19, 1880. In 1886 Mr. Hoey
married Annie Curtis, who was born in Ireland
and came to this State in 1876. They have two children: Gracie and
Gertrude, twins, born March 29, 1887.
Transcribed 9-6-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 633-634.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.