Wendall Kerth

 

Wendell Kerth, capitalist. Among those who, coming to the United States from a foreign land, have achieved affluence under our benign institutions, may be mentioned the subject of this sketch, ---Wendall Kerth, of Sacramento, a native of Bavaria. The story of his early struggles and his later triumphs carries with it a lesson which many of the present generation might do well to heed. He was born at Gravenhausen, on the Rhine, March 15, 1819, his parents being Henry Kerth and Mary (Hauk) Kerth, the father, by occupation, a small Bavarian farmer. Compulsory education was the law in his native country then, as now, and also a term of service in the Landwehr (the German army). At the expiration of his term of service his parents were both dead, and he determined to emigrate to America. He set sail from Havre on the 15^th of January, 1847, and, after a voyage of fifty-five days, land at New Orleans, where he had a relative, Mr. Henry Sibel, a butcher of that city. There he remained two years. The trials of a foreigner in a strange land are graphically described by Mr. Kerth. He was determined to “get on;” he picked blackberries, drove a cart, worked for Sibel at $10 a month, and, after a time, made sufficient money to buy a stand in the market. When the California gold fever broke out in 1849, he was making $70 to $80 per month. He sold out to Sibel, however, and came to California via Panama, paying $175 passage money from Chagres to San Francisco. During the voyage the captain was drunk, they ran short of water and were nearly wrecked, but finally, after a trip which will not soon be forgotten, they reached San Francisco. There he met and old acquaintance, Gerald Spone, and together they went to Nevada City and the Grass Valley mining districts, and began mining. He was not very successful, but at length, after many vicissitudes, made a little money at Cook’s Bar. He was glad to leave the place, however, and return to Marysville and Sacramento, where, little by little, he gained headway and made money. In 1862 he went to Europe, and visited the scenes of his boyhood, being gone three years in all.  Returning to California in 1865 he made two investments, one being a seventeen-stamp quartz mill in Amador County, the other a ranch on the Cosumnes River of 2,000 acres. In 1872 he made a second trip to Europe, and was absent about eight months. He has since acquired and interest in another large ranch on the Cosumnes River. Mr. Kerth was never married, but makes his home with his sister, Mr. Louis Nicholaus, of this city.