Sacramento County
Biographies
JACOB M.
NIELSEN
JACOB M. NIELSEN, one of the most prominent representatives of the blacksmithing business in Sacramento, and brother of C. Nielsen, whose sketch appears elsewhere, is a native of Denmark, born at Gudjberg, near Svendborg, on the 22nd of September, 1855. He was reared there, and attended school from his seventh year until he had reached the age of fourteen years. He then commenced the trade of blacksmithing, and served an apprenticeship of four years. He also attended the King’s Veterinary College, at Copenhagen, and there learned the trade of horse-healing in all its fine points, having been sent there by the Agricultural Society. When he was six months past his twenty-first birthday he entered an engineer regiment, in the army, composed of mechanics. He served with his regiment fifteen consecutive months, and in the fall of the following year went back for a short term. In the spring of 1878 he came to this country with his brother, C. Nielsen. Proceeding by rail to Hamburg, they took steamer to Grimsley, England, thence went to Liverpool, and from there made the voyage to Halifax on the steamer “Caspian.” They left home on the 3rd of April, and left Hamburg on the 4th. They were two days on the North Sea, in Liverpool five days, and eleven days from there to Halifax. From there they proceeded to Montreal, thence to Chicago, and from there to Sacramento. He went to work here for Holzman, Anderson & Co., Eleventh and J streets, and remained with them seven or eight months. He then went to Yuba City, and after working a short time there returned to Sacramento, and engaged with M. L. Wise, with whom he remained until he went in partnership with his brother in business, in May, 1880. Since the partnership was dissolved, in 1883, he had been in business alone. In 1888 he put up his present substantial brick building at 1011 Tenth street. It is 28 x 40 feet in ground area, and affords the best facilities for his business. He employs two skilled workmen, besides himself. In the horseshoeing line he makes a specialty of the shoeing of race-horses and fine animal generally. Among his patrons may be mentioned Wilbur Smith, Dr. Hicks, Matt Storms, and many other owners and handlers of fine horses. None but the most skillful operators can command this trade, but Mr. Nielsen’s thorough scientific training especially fits him for this difficult class of work. In him Sacramento has one of the masters of his profession. Mr. Nielsen was married in Sacramento, March 8, 1882, to Miss Ida Bondeson, a native of Sweden. They have three children, viz: Niels Elwood, Jacob Roy and Eda Elbertina. Mr. Nielsen is a popular man, and well deserves the success that has attended him in business. The parents of the Nielsen brothers are now living in Denmark, but the business formerly carried on by the father is now conducted by his son Nicolai. Another son besides those mentioned here is a resident of Sacramento, viz: Corfitz Nielsen, of the firm of Westwick & Nielsen, grocers and manufacturers of the Danish Viking Bitters.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Page 724. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.