HENRY S. PUTNEY 

Henry S. Putney, farmer, Dry Creek Township, was born May 13, 1828, in Yates County, New York, a son of Jedediah and Caroline S. (Gartwell) Putney, of English descent. His father, who was also a farmer, died in Yates County in 1850 at the age of forty-five years. In his family were four sons and four daughters; the sons were Decastro A., Henry S., George S., and Lyman D. Decastro died on shipboard, on the Pacific Ocean, in 1853, of pneumonia. Mr. Putney was reared upon the farm in New York State until he was of age, in 1849, when he sailed from New York City, February 14, for California, on the Crescent City to Panama, and on the whaling ship Sylph for San Francisco, landing at that city July 28. Coming to Sacramento by sailboat, he went directly to the mines near Auburn, and mined for gold about a year, with moderate success. In the fall of 1850 he went to San Jose and entered a tract of Government land, which he afterward exchanged for a claim in this county where he now resides, twenty miles from Sacramento. It contains 530 acres, well adapted to grain, hay and livestock. All the improvements now seen there he has made himself, having lived there since 1851. A good orchard and vineyard are on the premises. He came with nothing and was $16 in debt, and he has made all his property by his own honest earnings. He was the first man to run a Separator threshing machine in Sacramento County. Mr. Putney, December 27, 1862, married Miss Rhoda A., daughter of Calvin and Eliza W. (Bixby) Bates, her father a native of Vermont and mother of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Putney have five children: Melvina E., born September 13, 1863; George S., January 5, 1865, and died June 12, 1887; Julia M., born January 28, 1866; Eliza C., October 24, 1873; and Frankie M., May 11, 1879. Melvina is the wife of Frank S. Wardrobe, of this county; the other children are still at their paternal home. Mrs. Putney crossed the plains in 1859 to this State with her brother George O. Bates and family, who now reside in Sacramento city; they were six months on the route. She and her daughter Julia are members of the Rebekah Degree Lodge, No. 36, of which Miss Julia is Noble Grand. Mr. Putney is a member of Elk Grove Lodge, No. 274, I.O.O.F.