Sacramento County
Biographies
Alfred
Greene McManus was born April 28, 1828, in Murray County, Tennessee, his
parents being Jonathan and Susan (McCaslin) McManus, both natives of the same State.
The subject’s great-grandfather was an Irishman from the north of Ireland, and
his grandmother on his father’s side was a Scotchwoman, and a cousin of General
Greene, of Revolutionary fame. When the subject of this sketch was four years
old his parents removed from Tennessee to Illinois, locating in Madison County,
where his mother died in 1836, leaving four children, one son and three
daughters. His father was married again, to Elizabeth Kell. They moved to
Texas, locating on Trinity River, where the father died in 1862. By his second
marriage there were four children, one son and three daughters. Alfred G.
McManus remained with his parents in Illinois till he was twenty-two years of
age, then worked in various places in that neighborhood. When twenty-one years
old he bought eighty acres of Government land in Madison County, borrowing the
money for that purpose, and giving a mortgage on the property as security,
which he paid by hard work at $12 a month. He made improvements on it and
rented it. October 6, 1853, he was married to Clarissa Clementine Best, a
native of Madison County, Illinois. In the spring of 1854 they moved upon his
farm, and lived there until August 22, 1875, when they started for California,
renting the farm for the next two years; they afterward sold it. They arrived
in Sacramento on the 5th of September, entire strangers in a strange
land. He rented the Van Trees ranch on Deer Creek for one year, and in April
bought his present ranch of 320 acres in Brighton Township, on the Jackson
road, twelve miles from Sacramento, which is chiefly devoted to general
farming. Politically he is a Democrat. Mr. and Mrs. McManus have two children:
John Franklin, born October 26, 1861; and Albert Greene, born January 16, 1858,
who married Emily Lee April 22, 1880, a native of Sacramento County,
California, daughter of Dr. Richard Henry Lee. Albert Greene married Emily
McManus, and they have one son, born December 31, 1880, named Albert Wesley.
Transcribed by Debbie Gramlick.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Page 461. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Debbie Gramlick.