Sacramento County
Biographies
JOHN GEORGE PYNE
JOHN GEORGE PYNE, deceased, was a
native of Ireland,
born near Fermoy, in 1825, his parents being J. G. and
Ann (Pyne) Pyne. The Pynes were originally English, but being long settled in Ireland,
they became "more Irish than the Irish themselves," entirely
identified with the interests and aspirations of that land so favored by nature
and so abused by man. The parents of Mr. Pyne
were blood relatives some degrees removed, and were people of wealth and high
social standing. The grandfather, also named J. G., which seems to have
been a favorite family name, was a practicing physican
of local distinction. The great-grandfather was Lord Chief-Justice Pyne of the King’s Bench. The Pynes
have a family tradition that their ancestry can be traced back many hundred
years. Be this as it may, it is unquestionable that the late J. G. Pyne, of Courtland, was a man of education, refinement and
culture. He was a college graduate and had studied architecture
and engineering, and is known to have practiced the latter, being for some
years in the employ of the Santa Fé Railroad as a
civil engineer. In 1856 he owned a farm in Dubuque County,
Iowa, which he sold before coming to California
in 1862. With two brothers, Edward and William, he came to the Sacramento
River, where they worked together for a time on a rented
ranch. William afterward went back to Ireland
and died unmarried. Edward moved to Virginia City,
where he engaged in mining. John G. worked for a time for one of the
ranchers on the river, and in 1868 bought the ranch, increasing the acreage by
later purchases to 118 acres, all planted in fruit trees. In 1877 Mr. Pyne made a visit to his native land and was married march
27, 1878, in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, in the city of Cork, to Miss Kate Pyne Brown, a native of Inchigeela,
in the same county, daughter of Richard and Henrietta (Pyne)
Brown, a blood relative in the third degree, both being great-grandchildren of
Chief-Justice Pyne, already mentioned. A
grand-uncle of Mrs. Kate Pyne was celebrated for
military prowess, and was called Captain Talaveras Pyne for recovering some captured colors from the French in
the battle of that name. After six years of married life devoted to
promoting the happiness of his wife, and the enjoyment of learned leisure in
the nice home he had erected and beautified, Mr. Pyne
died in 1884, aged fifty-nine. Mrs. Pyne by a
later marriage, since legally dissolved with the right of resuming her former
name, is the mother of one child, Dora Isabella, born September 3, 1887.
Transcribed 9-9-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Page 632.
Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.