HERBERT KING

Sacramento County

Biographies

HERBERT KING

HERBERT KING.--Sacramento County boasts of some of the most successful of California’s vineyardists, prominent among whom is Herbert King, of the Don Ray Colony, to the southeast of Dillard Station. He is a native of the Dominion of Canada, and was born at Quebec, on November 21, 1854, the son of Samuel and Hannah King. His father was a chemist, and lived to be sixty-seven years of age; while his mother, who passed away at Quebec in 1920, was 107 years old at the time of her death. Both were highly esteemed by a wide circle of acquaintances, and each of their five children have reflected credit upon them. Ainsworth is the oldest; then come Henry, Emily and Alice; and our subject is the youngest.

Herbert King attended school in Canada, and at the age of sixteen commenced to teach in a Canadian grammar school, continuing in pedagogical work until he was of age, and abandoning that interesting field of activity only when his health began to fail. As a result of this set-back, he went to work in the timberlands in Canada, including Manitoba, and also in Michigan and Wisconsin, where he put in some of the hardest of labor. At Manitoba, on June 29, 1878, he was married to Miss Adeline Rousseau, a native of Quebec, and the daughter of John and Emerentiene Rousseau of French-Canadian descent. Her father was a farmer, and provided for his eight children in the comfortable style of the farmer-folk of that country and period. These children were John, Philiomene, Joseph, Batiste, Sarah, Francis, Adeline (now Mrs. King), and Soloman. Adeline Rousseau was educated in Quebec and grew up to be a gifted, attractive woman. Mr. And Mrs. King lived in Manitoba, where Mr. King worked hard at farming and lumbering, until his good wife died, in 1898; then feeling that he could not longer endure life amid an environment constantly reminding him of the happy days he and his faithful companion had spent there together, he turned the ranch over to his sons, and came to the United States.

On coming to this country, Mr. King first went to St. Paul, Minn., and afterwards resided for a few months in Carbon County, Mont. He spent about one year at Seattle, Wash., and after that settled in California, landing there the day the American troops returned to San Francisco from their service in the Spanish-American War. He worked in the War Department of the United States Government at San Francisco for a year, and then went to Merced, where he spent the following winter. Returning to San Francisco, he remained there for a few months, and then came to his present place of abode in 1903. He purchased ten acres of land in the Don Ray Colony, devoted to Mission grapes, and here he has been busy ever since.

At Sacramento, in 1908, Mr. King took out his citizenship papers, and he has since exercised the franchise independently, and in the interest of the general welfare. He is doing good work as secretary of the Farm Bureau of his vicinity, and is president of the Don Ray Colony Central Improvement Club. He is custodian of the Branch Library, and has been a director of the County Farm Bureau since 1920. He and his faithful wife were blessed with nine children. Harold is on the old home ranch in Canada: Clara, Edith, Mabel, Bessie and Alfred are next in order of birth; while Percy and Lilly are the youngest. Hector, the seventh-born, was mortally wounded in the Battle of Vimy Hill, France, while he was fighting with the Canadian troops; he had the distinction of being in the first contingent sent into the World War. There are fifteen grandchildren in the family circle.

Transcribed by Priscilla Delventhal.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 886-889. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.