Sacramento
County
Biographies
William McLaughlin, who has been recently
elected to the office of Second Trustee of this city, was born in County
Donegal, in the extreme north of Ireland, in 1842. His father, a small farmer, having died when he arrived at the
age of eighteen, he emigrated to America, where he had two brothers and two
sisters living. He came in a sailing
vessel from Londonderry, at the mouth of the river Foyle, and, after a long but
uneventful voyage, landed in the city of New York, going directly to
Philadelphia to join his relatives, where he lived for nine years, acting as a
private watchman in a mercantile house.
In the meantime his two sisters had become residents of Sacramento, and
were delighted with the place and the prospects here. They urged him to join them, which he finally did, leaving New
York on the Colorado, August 16, 1865, crossing the Isthmus and steaming
through the Golden Gate on the 9th of September. He came soon afterward to the Capital City,
engaged in the draying business on his own account, and, it is needless to say,
has prospered. Always a Democrat in
politics, his personal popularity induced his party to bring him forward in
1880 as their candidate for County Supervisor, but he was defeated, it being a
bad year for Democrats. In 1883 he was
again nominated for the same office and elected by a handsome majority. In 1886 he was put forward as the regular
nominee for the office of trustee, and failed of being elected by only 250
votes, notwithstanding that a branch of his own party had put another candidate
in the field. In 1889 he came up again
as the choice of his party and received the endorsement of a handsome majority
of his fellow-citizens, being elected to the office of second trustee and
supervisor of streets. He is a typical
gentleman, full of energy, yet courteous and affable in manner, an efficient
officer and warm personal friend. He is
a member of Concord Lodge No. 117, and also an active member of Chapter No. 3,
Council No. 1, and Commandery No. 2, F. & A. M. Mr. McLaughlin has been
twice married, first in 1864, at Philadelphia: wife died leaving one son; and
in 1876 he was married for the second time, to Miss Mary Ferrell, a native of
Philadelphia, a daughter of Thomas Ferrell, who came to Sacramento in the early
days. They have had two children, only
one of whom is living.
Transcribed
by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Page 503. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.