Sacramento County
Biographies
Hon Dwight
Hollister.—On the east bank of the Sacramento River, Sixteen miles south of the
Capital City, in Sacramento County, we find the home of the Hon. Dwight
Hollister. To say that he is a representative
man, while it is true, does not express the position which has been attained by
him in the State, in the county, and in the neighborhood; for in all these he
has been prominent for many years. The
historical volume of Sacramento County would indeed be incomplete without at
least a brief page from the story of his life, and a glance at his ancestry,
which will be read with interest by the many friends and acquaintances which
his public service, his well-known hospitality, the pre-eminent qualities of
head and heart, have gathered into his life.
Born September 27, 1824, near Marietta, Ohio, his parents being Sereno
and Mary A. (Ryan) Hollister. His
mother was a native of the Emerald Isle, but brought up in the Buckeye State
from a child. His father, a native of
Connecticut, moved to Washington County, Ohio, near Marietta, in 1820, and was
married there February 22, 1823. He
died September 2, 1880, aged eighty-three years. Grandfather Roger Holister was born in Connecticut, May 23, 1771,
and was there married to Miss Hannah Stratton, October 11, 1792. He was the fifth in descent from Lieutenant
John Hollister, who was born in England in 1612, and emigrated to Connecticut
in 1642. The Strattons are also
American for several generations. Dwight
Hollister was educated in the district schools, and afterward took an academic
course in Marietta. At the age of
twenty he began to work on his own account.
He clerked in a dry goods store about three years, and did some
flat-boat trading down on the Ohio and Mississippi. His health not being of the best, he came to California by way of
New York and Cape Horn in 1849, mainly with the view of receiving some benefit
from the long voyage. Learning in one
of the South American ports that the discovery of gold in California was an
assured fact, he went to mining for one year in Placer County. His success was not phenomenal, and he went
to trading among the miners. In company
with a comrade he conducted a trading port and tavern for another year. A third year was spent in the position of a
hotel clerk in Sacramento. In 1852 he
went into the nursery business as joint partner in the firm of White &
Hollister, in which he held an interest for twelve years. Meanwhile, in 1857, he went back to
Marietta, where he was married on December 8, to Miss Nannie H. Alcock, a
native of that place, born of an English father and a Virginia mother. Returning to California, he bought the ranch
on which he still resides, two mile north of Courtland, on the Sacramento River. The ranch contains over 600 acres, all
bottom land, but some of it is too low for cultivation. He uses a part for dairy purposes, keeping
about 100 cows, and raises all the produce necessary to their sustenance. But the great work of his life has been the
growing of California fruits. He is
widely known and esteemed as the “pioneer fruit-grower” of this section of the
State. As early as 1852 he first
engaged in the nursery business, and it was this foresight into the undeveloped
possibilities of California as the fruit-raising center of the world which has
brought affluence and opulence to the subject of our sketch. Mr. Hollister has been for many years
closely identified with the Masonic fraternity as a Knight Templar, and in
political matters has taken a prominent part, affiliating with the Republican
party since its organization. He has
been called upon to fill many offices of trust and responsibility, a duty which
he has not shirked because of the many personal inconveniences to which it has
necessarily subjected him. He was
chosen to represent his constituents in the Legislature of his State in the
sessions of 1865, and again in 1884. He
was known among his associates as one true to the interests of his section,
fearless in the expression of what he believed to be right, and tireless in his
efforts in the direction of wise legislation.
Of his home life we need say but little, although much might be said
with propriety of the individual members of his household, which is composed of
Mr. And Mrs. Hollister, two sons, Charles Edwin and Frank E., and one daughter,
Blanche, all of whom have received superior educational advantages. Both have attained to the degree of M. A.,
and the younger qualifying himself for business life by extended experience in
a commercial house at San Francisco.
They are both interested with their father in his extensive farming and
fruit-growing interests. Here, then, we
see the picture of one of the fair homes which industry and thrift has built up
beside the softly-flowing Sacramento, in this land of golden sunshine. Looking backward we see the turbid tide, the
trials and hardships incident to the pioneers days. Looking forward we see a land flowing with milk and honey, a fair
domain rich in the development of the bounteous resources of nature, while for
the present we see the conspicuous land-mark of a happy home, not built, it is
true, in a day, but the outcome of years of painstaking labor, a monument to a
successful life.
Transcribed
by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 489-490. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.