Sacramento County
Biographies
JOHN JACOB NAGELE
J. J. NAGELE, was born in Rhenish Bavaria, February 5, 1846, his parents being
Leonard and Susannah (Roedinger) Nagele;
educated from six to fourteen in the town of Siebeldingen,
near Landau; he grew up to manhood there, and then left with the intention of
being absent but fourteen days on a visit to his brother near Paris; but in the
meantime decided to come to America. Taking passage at Havre on the C. R.
Winthrop, after a voyage of seventy-one days he arrived at New
York December 5. There he engaged in the
ship-chandler house of I. F. Chapman. Leaving New York
May 23 of the following year, embarking at Pier No. 11, on the ship I. F.
Chapman, he started for California. The
voyage was somewhat uneventful until they had rounded Cape Horn,
when the vessel sprang a leak and they had to return to Rio Janeiro (sic) for
repairs. They were there three and a half months; and on starting again
they encountered foul weather, ran out of provisions and had to turn into a Chilian (sic) port and obtain supplies; again putting to
sea, they arrived at San Francisco
May 4, 1864, being 351 days on the trip. In that city he went to work for
William B. Cook & Co., wholesale stationers in Montgomery Block, remained
with them nearly two years, and then started in business for himself, in
partnership with George W. Wright, on Stockton street, between Vallejo and
Broadway. He retired from this business and went into the employ of a
paper-house, having two routes on the Chronicle and one on the
Bulletin, one of them including the whole of Alameda. For
the next five years he was brakeman on the western division of the Central
Pacific, and then entered the sheep business back of Haywards,
which he prosecuted one year with loss, on the Stony Brook ranch. He then
went to railroading again on the North Pacific
Coast road between San Francisco
and Duncan’s Mill. June 14,
1877, he came to Sacramento, engaging with Mr. Meinke; he then bought the Five-Mile House at Brighton,
which took the name of Jake’s Five-Mile House. He returned to Sacramento
again in 1881, and opened business at his present location on J and Third
streets. At first he was alone, then in partnership with Mr. Steger, the
latter being succeeded by his present partner, Svensson. Mr.
Nagele married Agnes Free, who died in Alameda
in 1874, leaving two children,—William F. and Mamie Agnes. He has been a
member of the I. O. R. M. since 1870, in now Past Sachem, and is Grand Mishmana of the Grand Council of California; and is also
Keeper of Wampum in Red Jacket Tribe, No. 28, which office he has held three
years. He is also treasurer of Capital Lodge, No. 66, A. O. D., and a trustee
of Council of Chosen Friends, and a member of the Turn-Verein. Politically
he is a Republican. He has educated himself in the English language, never
having had any one to teach him even to the slightest degree. He also
taught himself how to write. He is a genial, popular man, and his ale
vaults where he is employed are first-class.
Transcribed 9-3-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Page 625. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.