Sacramento
County
Biographies
GEORGE HARVEY KERR
George Harvey Kerr was born October
1, 1829, in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
(For his ancestry, see sketch of Joseph Hampton Kerr, elsewhere in this
work.) He had the advantage of the
public schools of Mercer County, where his parents moved when he was
three years old, and also of the academy at West Greenville, county seat. From there he went to Jefferson College, located a Cannonsburg,
which was afterward removed to Washington and consolidated with the college there. At intervals between his schooling and after
leaving school he learned the carriage-making trade, serving an apprenticeship
and following the business three years. April
15, 1852, he
determined to come to California, and accordingly made his way to New York, where he took the steamer Illinois to Panama, and from there to San Francisco the ill-fated vessel Golden Gate.
He was taken sick on the way; lay in Sacramento State Hospital for thirteen weeks, a private patient,
paying $3 a day. He
spent the summer of 1853-’54 teaching school at Diamond Spring, El Dorado County.
He came to Elk Grove and took up a quarter-section of Government land in
1854. In 1857 he started a fruit-growing
business, and in connection with that farming.
Believing that fruit cannot be grown successfully without irrigation, he
has in general used that method except for grapes, and been successful. He has ten acres devoted to orchards of
various kinds of fruits, and fifty acres are devoted to vineyard,--two-thirds
table and raisin grapes and the remainder wine grapes. Has cured his own grapes
for the past twelve years, and the best judges say that there are no better
raisins produced in the State of California than the Elk Grove.
Mr. Kerr is a member of the First Presbyterian Church at Elk Grove,
having first joined the church in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, in 1845. He took an active interest in building the
church property and the Grange Hall. One
of the first things he was interested in on coming to Elk Grove was establishing
Sunday schools at San
Joaquin. Politically he is a Republican, and has voted
for every Republican Presidential candidate since that party has been
established. He was married in 1864 to
Mrs. Mary Springsted, a native of Aylmer; Canada.
She was a widow with two children, both of whom are married and residing
at Elk Grove.
Transcribed by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An
Illustrated History of Sacramento County,
California. Page 512.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.