JOHN A. McINTIRE

Sacramento County

Biographies

JOHN A. McINTIRE

JOHN A. McINTIRE.--A highly-esteemed Californian who has come to enjoy a well-earned retirement is John A. McIntire, popular as a Sacramento mining man, who was born at Lancaster, N. H., on June 8, 1843. His grandfather, John McIntire, was a native of Bethel, Maine, and a soldier in the American Revolution, after which he located at Lancaster, N. H. His father, Edward B. McIntire, was also born at Lancaster on May 10, 1816. He was one of a family of sixteen children, eight boys and eight girls. The grandfather lived to see all of them married and none of them died under seventy-five years of age. The mother, Mary Jeannette Stockwell, was born in Lancaster, N. H. They had five children, but our subject is the only living member of the family. Edward B. McIntire came out to California as a forty-niner, by way of the Isthmus, and located at Sutter Creek, in Amador County; and he became one of the leading mining men of the Mother Lode country. Both he and his wife taught school in New Hampshire before they were married, and he was the first superintendent of schools of Amador County. He also served as a supervisor and as justice of the peace. He was an expert in deep mining, and was president of the first mining company formed in Amador County. He made a study of quartz mining in particular, which gave him an enviable reputation. He died in his eighty-fourth year.

John McIntire attended the district schools and academy in his native district in New Hampshire, and in 1856 came out to California. He continued his schooling at Sutter Creek, in Amador County, and finished at the San Jose Institute and Commercial College. On October 1, 1864, he entered the employ of Booth & Company at Sacramento as bookkeeper, and soon became cashier; and he advanced step by step and when Booth & Company was incorporated Mr. McIntire became executor of the estate of the two founders and sold the business. Since that time he has been identified with mining interests in Sutter Creek, Amador County, and he is carrying out many new mining ideas originated by his father. He has a valuable map of the Mother Lode mining district, which includes five counties, Eldorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Mariposa Counties; this map was done by expert draughtsmen under his supervision, and it took eight months to complete the great task. He has contributed to local papers most interesting articles and data concerning pioneer days.

A great deal of Mr. McIntire’s success is undoubtedly due to the natural ability and untiring cooperation of his wife, whom he married at Sacramento on June 4, 1874. Her maiden name was Henrietta Slater, and she was a native of Placerville, Eldorado County, where she was born in 1851. She died on May 14, 1922, after a very eventful and successful career. She graduated from the San Francisco normal school in 1868, at the age of sixteen, and was valedictorian of her class. Later, she took a four years’ course in Sacramento high school and she taught school in early days. Her father was a Presbyterian minister, a graduate of Union College, and he came to California in 1850. He was a highly educated man, and wrote one of the first books ever published against Mormonism. Mrs. McIntire was one of the best-known women in northern California. She taught in the Sunday school for fifty-one years, and was president of the missionary society for twenty-one years. She was a fluent speaker, and altogether a gifted woman. Two children blessed the union of this excellent couple. Howard S., of Sacramento is chief assistant in the state adjutant-general’s office in Sacramento, and Emily K., is the wife of W. J. Parsons of Pasadena. Mrs. Parsons has two children, Charlotte Slater and John Howard.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 981-982. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.