Sacramento County
Biographies
WILLIAM H.
SLAWSON
WILLIAM H. SLAWSON, a prosperous rancher on the Sacramento River, was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, July 30, 1835, a son of De Witt and Elizabeth (Horton) Slawson. When he was twelve years of age the family removed to Illinois, locating in Perry County, where the subject of this sketch lived for about ten years, employed upon a farm. He then started for the Golden West, going to New Orleans by steamboat, thence by the steamer “Philadelphia” to Havana, the Granada to Aspinwall, and after crossing the Isthmus, by the steamer “Golden Gate” to San Francisco, arriving March 2, 1857. He soon went to the Sonora mines, where he followed gold-mining for a short period, with but little taste for it and corresponding success, and then he resorted to his favorite calling, that of agriculture, which he has ever since pursued, and in which he has enjoyed signal prosperity. He was on the tract of land adjoining the Tuolumne River until 1865, when he located in this county. Here he first bought a farm of 160 acres on the Freeport road, a part of the Winters ranch, where he made his home about three years, then he moved down upon the Cosumnes River and bought 540 acres near Benson’s Ferry. In 1875 he moved upon the Lower Stockton road, adjoining the place of his brother, S. S. Slawson, and resided there five years; he then sold that place and moved further up, to Whiskey Hill, and bought a place there, occupying it two years; and in 1883 he purchased his present place on the river road about four miles below the city, where he owns 156 acres of land as fertile as the valley affords, on the banks of the river. In 1866 he married Mrs. Catharine Kendall, nee Clingenpeel, a native of Dayton, Ohio, and a daughter of an old Virginian. She was but five years of age when her parents moved with the family to Fulton County, Illinois. She married William S. Kendall, and they came to California in 1857. After residing in this State a few years they went back to Canton, Fulton County, Illinois, where Mr. Kendall died in January, 1863. By that marriage there was one son, William Smith Kendall, now residing in Sacramento. Mr. And Mrs. Slawson have
an adopted son, named Charles H. Slawson, who was born March 15, 1876.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Pages 600-601. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.