Sacramento County
Biographies
CHARLES E. THORNTON
CHARLES E. THORNTON.--A thoroughly up-to-date English-American who had made good in California, is Charles E. Thornton, the genial proprietor of the popular and prosperous Central Window Cleaners. He was born on March 28, 1874, in Bedford, which lines the River Ouse, the old town where John Bunyan, while languishing in jail there, wrote his "Pilgrim's Progress," and is the son of Charles Thomas and Frances (Vincent) Thornton, the father being a Canadian, who was brought up in England. These good folks both merited and received the respect and the confidence of their fellow-men.
Charles E. Thornton attended the excellent English schools, and for ten years thereafter he was an ordinary seaman on ocean-going vessels. Then he engaged in picture-framing and window-cleaning; and in 1900 he came to Sacramento and established here his well-known business, operating under the firm name of the Central Window Cleaners. He himself does much of the store and office-work, but he employs help to assist him.
Mr. Thornton married, in England, Miss Beatrice Gross, a daughter of Old England, and they now have several children. Constance has become Mrs. William Kohler, and there are Claude, Lawrence and Glenn. Mr. Thornton is a Democrat, and he belongs to the Red Men. As an Englishman, he loves sport, and never loses an opportunity to encourage the real sporting spirit.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County, California
With Biographical Sketches, Page 862. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.