Sacramento County
Biographies
GEORGE TAVERNER
GEORGE TAVERNER, a prosperous and
worthy farmer of Lee Township,
was born in Devonshire, England,
in 1841, being the son of George and Susan (Moore)
Taverner. He received but a limited education,
engaging at the age of seventeen in the trade or business of a butcher, which
he followed in England
until he was twenty-three. In the spring of 1864 he emigrated
to America and went to Lawrence,
Massachusetts, where he followed his old
line of business for one year. In 1865 he was employed in the Pacific
Mills, where he worked at running a printing machine for about two
years. In 1867 he came to California by the Isthmus
route, and again returned to his original business in Sacramento
for one year. The next two years he tended sheep for Martin Monsch on the Laguna, working for wages. In the spring
of 1870 he purchased a half-interest in his brother’s flock of 1,400
sheep. They also bought 2,144 acres of uplands for grazing. In the
fall of 1873 he sold his share, 2,400 sheep, and his half of the land. For
eight years he traded in mutton and beef, renting his present ranch for the
last half of that term. In 1881 he purchased it, being 900 acres, which he
has since increased to 1,600, all in one body He also rents three sections of
land from Mrs. Monsch, and 1,100 acres from Mrs.
Miser,—all for sheep pasture, having generally from 3,000 to 4,000 head, and
has had twice as many in years past, when the business was better. He also raises horses, keeping seventeen to twenty
head. In 1888 he sold off his cattle, finding they did not de well with
sheep. Of the home ranch 180 acres are bottom lands on the Cosumnes, on which he raises alfalfa and corn for
feed. He employs five shepherds and farm help as needed. In 1883 he
went to England, and was there
married, in August, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Berry, a daughter of Nathaniel
Berry, of Westcot Farm, Devonshire. Mr.
Berry is still living, at the age
of seventy-one, and has one sister living, who was born about 1815. Mr.
And Mrs. Taverner are the
parents of two children: Mary Josephine Victoria, born September 30, 1884; and
Frances Kate, born February 13, 1889. Mr. Taverner
has been since 1883 a trustee of the Wilson
school district, in which he resides, and is also clerk of the board of
trustees.
Transcribed 8-30-07
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated
History of Sacramento County, California. Page 621. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.