Biographies
THOMAS J. MORONEY
THOMAS J. MORONEY.--What a progressive, wide-awake rancher may accomplish, both
for himself and the community in which he resides and prospers, with the
unexcelled resources of this favored section of the Golden State, is
demonstrated in the case of Thomas J. Moroney, who is
cultivating a choice farm about one mile south of Wilton. He is thoroughly at
home with all the natural conditions there, for he was born on the Moroney Ranch, northeast of Hicksville, on March 30, 1862.
His father was Dennis Moroney, a pioneer who came to
California in 1858, a native of Limerick, Ireland. In New York, to which city
he had come as a boy, he had married Bridget Sexton, also a native of that part
of the Emerald Isle, who had crossed the ocean to New York when she was twelve
years of age; and he brought his wife and two daughters, Margaret, now
Mrs. Keating, a widow of Wilton, and Mary J. Moroney.
The family came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and traveled
part of the way on the old-time ship "Orizaba,"
which was a favorite steamer along the Coast in the late fifties and during the
sixties.
Mr. Moroney
settled in Sacramento County immediately, and there
bought a ranch of 384 acres, northeast of Hicksville on the Consumnes
River, where our subject and his elder sister, Elizabeth G., were born. Later,
Mr. Moroney purchased an additional quarter section
of land, making his estate to consist of 544 acres; and this acreage is still
owned by the family. He breathed his last July 27, 1922, at the remarkable age
of ninety-three years, and Mrs. Moroney is still
living, at the age of eighty-eight.
Thomas J. Moroney
has always resided on the Moroney ranch, where he
built a home, to succeed the picturesque but more primitive one in which he was
born. He attended the Davis district school, and at Sacramento, on April 1,
1998, he married Miss Minnie A. Hanrahan, a native of
Placerville, Cal., and the daughter of highly-esteemed Irish-Americans, Michael
and Ellen (Mulcahy) Hanrahan,
who brought her up in Sacramento. Her parents were both natives of Ireland; her
father came out to California in1858, and mined in El Dorado County, near
Placerville, for several years. He then removed to Sacramento, and for
years engaged in the handling of wood and other fuel; and he was known, and
popularly so, by almost everyone in Sacramento. He was a stone-cutter, too, and
a good part of the stone for the foundation of the State Capitol was cut by
Mike Hanrahan. Eight children blessed this worthy
couple: Minnie, now Mrs. Moroney, was the
eldest; Thomas J. is a dealer in wood, in Sacramento; Dan and James are
deceased; William; Nellie is Mrs. O'Neil; while the younger children are
Catherine and Elizabeth, now Mrs. Acheson of Sacramento. Both parents died in
Sacramento.
Mr. Moroney is
in partnership with Messrs. O'Neil and Acheson, of Sacramento, in the
manufacture and sale of caskets. He is also a
interested in the Virden Packing Company of California. He has been a director
of the union high school of Elk Grove for seven years, and he is also a
director of the Elk Grove Bank, and for many years was a trustee of the Davis
district school. And he was one of the members of the old Elk Grove Parlor No.
41, of the Native Sons of the Golden West, before it ceased to exist. He has two
children. Thomas J., Jr., is a graduate of the University of Santa Clara,
trained for war service in the cloister of the university, and was in the
United States Army for eight months. The other child is a daughter, named Helen
M.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 278-279. Historic Record Company,
© 2006 Sally Kaleta.