THOMAS McCONNELL

Sacramento County

Biographies

THOMAS McCONNELL

THOMAS McCONNELL, sheep-raiser, San Joaquin Township, was born in Pittsford, Rutland County, Vermont, January 30, 1827, the son of Thomas and Clarissa (Curtis) McConnell. The history of the McConnell family can be traced back to the Highlands of Scotland, the earliest reminiscence preserved being that of an Orangeman in Prince William’s army, who participated in the war and afterward settled in the North of Ireland. One of the sons, probably named Thomas, emigrated to America and settled in New Hampshire. All his three sons —William, John and Samuel—settled in Rutland County, Vermont. Of these Samuel was the grandfather of Thomas, whose name heads this sketch. This family consisted of two sons, Thomas and Barnard. The latter emigrated West, became a land speculator, and died at Lima, near Quincy, Illinois. Thomas continued to make his home in Rutland County, Vermont, where he died in 1854. In his family were six sons and three daughters, who grew up, besides two children who died in infancy. After his death his widow and all the children, in 1863, came to California, where she died, as also four of the sons and two daughters. Two of the sons —Samuel and Thaddeus, both now deceased —came here in 1849; Thomas, our subject, came here in 1850; George in 1853, and has since died; Frank was here in 1851, returned East, studied law in Poughkeepsier, New York, admitted to the bar in all the courts of that State, came again to California, practiced his profession in Sacramento, and finally was killed by accident in the mountains in 1864. The youngest son, Charles, is now in Nevada, engaged in the sheep business; is a prominent man there, having served in the State Senate, from Humboldt County, two terms. The Curtis family were of English origin, and moved from Connecticut to Vermont in an early day. Mrs. McConnell was born in Rutland County, the daughter of Thaddeus Curtis. Two daughters —Mrs. Clara Curtis and Anna —are deceased, and Mary, a third daughter, is living in the East. Mr. McConnell, the subject of this biography, passed his boyhood days on his father’s farm until he was of age, and then for two terms attended a military school at Norwich, Vermont, commanded by Alden Parridge, a prominent man in the history of this Government. Young McConnell had quite a taste for military instruction and military affairs. In illustration of the economy with which he was brought up, he says that on a certain general training day he indulged in ginger-bread, molasses candy and hard candy to the extent of 14 cents’ worth during the day, and on his return home his parents told him that he had been very extravagant. This he considers to have been his “biggest spree.” When he was nineteen year of age, and before going to the military school, he commenced teaching a small school, receiving at first only $11.50 per month; and after he left the military academy he taught a village school in Rutland and in Clarendon, receiving as high as $18. In the spring of 1850 he sailed from New York in the steamer Georgia for the Isthmus, and thence in the bark Sarah to San Francisco, landing there at the close of August, after a journey of seventy-six days; and, strange to say, the steamer Republic —the one which his original ticket called for, and which he surrendered at the Isthmus on hearing that it had not then left New York—sailed into the port of San Francisco, having come around Cape Horn! Then he came to Sacramento on the steamer Gold Hunter, paying $20 for deck passage, leaving $118 in purse, while owing $300 in the East, money which he borrowed to bring him to California. He walked up to the mines above Coloma, to a place now called Garden Valley, where his brother Thaddeus was at that time, who had started a small garden, and sold potatoes for 30 cents a pound, and tomatoes for 75 cents a pound. Apples could not be had at any price until a little later, when they were brought down from Oregon. These two brothers and Samuel carried on this garden, and soon got into the grocery and general supply trade, from the small circumstance of getting a barrel of vinegar from San Francisco and selling it at half the price that another man had been selling it at previously. The miners, finding that he sold his vinegar so much cheaper, asked him if he had other articles; and this led him to procure other commodities until he became fully stocked with groceries and other mercantile goods, many of which were imported from the East. Buying a team of recent immigrants, they did their own hauling to and from Sacramento. Thus they prospered until 1857, when they were burned out. In connection with the store they also ran a saw-mill, where they sawed out over 1,000,000 feet of lumber per year. In 1853 he made a trip to the East, carrying safely to the mint at Philadelphia $25,000 in gold dust. In 1856 he bought his present place, where he has ever since made his home. The same year he located here, he, with his brother Thaddeus, brought seven Spanish Merino sheep from Addison County, Vermont, which were the first importations of that class of sheep into the State of California. This led to other importations by the neighbors, so that the enterprise has been worth thousands of dollars to the people of this county. Ever since then fine sheep have been Mr. McConnell’s specialty. Since 1870 this business has been prosecuted by himself and his brother Charles, of Nevada. They have at present 16,000 head. Last year they sheared 12,000 head, obtaining 86,000 pounds of wool, which was shipped to Boston. The highest shipment they ever made was 100,000 pounds. Mr. McConnell had over 3,000 acres in northeastern Oregon, and his brother 1,400 acres in the same neighborhood, some of which is very productive. His home place consists of about 1,500 acres, half of which is bottom land bordering along the Cosumnes River. He also had 700 acres in El Dorado County, about ten miles from Folsom. Politcally Mr. McConnell has been a Republican since 1860; previously he had been what is called a Douglas Democrat, and now expresses his views earnestly in favor of “protection” of American industries. In 1854 he was a member of the Democratic State Convention held in the Baptist Church in Sacramento, of which an interesting account is given elsewhere in this volume. He was in the Constitutional Covention of 1879, in Sacramento, when the present constitution was adopted. Besides these, he has served in other conventions, and has always taken an active part in the public welfare. He has been remarkably successful in business, and in the advocacy of measures in the civil government. He is a director in the Granger’s Bank of San Francisco, having held that position since the organization of the bank, in April, 1874. He has been a member of the Masonic order since 1854, being made a Mason in Georgetown, El Dorado County. He is now the only charter member of Elk Grove Lodge, No. 173. Mr. McConnell was married in Rutland, Vermont, June 19, 1856, to Miss Louisa Chaplin, daughter of George W. Chaplin. She was born in the same place (Pittsford) in which Mr. McConnell was, April 29, 1827, there being only a few months’ difference in their ages. They have three daughters and one son: Anna, Mary, George W., and Jennie. Mary is the wife of Homer Bostwick, in New York city. The other members of the family are residents of this county.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 685-687. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.