JOHN H. ROBERTS

     Captain Roberts--for by that title he is generally known--is one of the enterprising citizens of Sacramento, belonging to that class of representative Americans whose success in life is the outcome of their own well directed labors.  He was born in Detroit, Michigan, February 22, 1832, and is a son of John Thomas Roberts, who was born in Denby, northern Wales in 1793, and became a contractor and canal builder.  In 1827 he came to the United States after which he was selected by the North Wales Missionary Society to learn all he could of the Welsh Indians, supposed to be in the Yellowstone country.  He went up the Missouri river from St. Louis on the first steamboat; but the obstacles in the river and the hostility of the Indians in the territory through which the boats were forced to pass caused him to abandon the project.  Lieutenant Colonel Lewis had visited those Indians in the early '50s and found in use among them one hundred words of the Welsh tongue.  An old adobe church of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is also supposed to have been built by these Welsh Indians.  The father of our subject died in Sacramento, at the age of ninety-one years, and the mother, Margaret, nee Williams, who was born in the isle of Anglesey, off the coast of Wales, died in Sacramento when about seventy-two years of age.  In their family were five chldren, three who grew to maturity; but our subject is now the only one living.

     Captain Roberts spent the first eighteen years of his life under the parental roof and then started out for himself.   In 1850 he came westward with his parents, locating first at Nevada City, where he engaged in mining until 1852.  He then secured control of flatboats owned and run by his father, and in 1866 he began operating steamers on the river.  He is now the owner of a number of the steamers in use on the Sacramento river and is thus extensively connected with the transportation interests of the capital city.  His capital, acquired by his own efforts, has been judiciously invested and today he is numbered among the wealthy residents of this section of the state.

      In September, 1869, the Captain was married by the Rev. A. Benton to Miss Minerva Walrath of New York.  They have a wide acquaintance in Sacramento and enjoy the friendship of many. The Captain was a member of the "freeholders’ " committee who framed the charter of Sacramento city.  He cast the first vote for General Scott and is now a Republican in politics.

      If those who claim that fortune has favored certain individuals above others will but investigate the cause of success and failure, it will be found that the former is largely due to the improvement of opportunity, the latter to the neglect of it.  Fortunate environments encompass nearly every man at some stage in his career, but the strong man and the successful man is he who realizes that the proper moment has come, that the present and not the future holds his opportunity.  The man who makes use of the Now and not the To Be is the man who passes on the highway of life others who started out ahead of him and reaches the goal of prosperity far in advance of them.  It is this quality in Captain Roberts that has made him a leader in the business world and won him a name in connection with shipping interests that is known throughout the state.