Sacramento County
Biographies
LEWIS
TOMLINSON
LEWIS TOMLINSON, deceased. The subject of this sketch, for many years a resident of Natoma Township, was born in what is now West Virginia, in 1816, his parents being Samuel and Lovisa (Purdy) Tomlinson. The grandparents, Joseph and Elizabeth (Harkness) Tomlinson, natives of Virginia, had moved westward into Marshall County, where among other enterprises Mr. Tomlinson laid a village, and named it Elizabethtown, in honor of his wife, the first white woman settled in these parts. It is now known as Moundville, eleven miles below Wheeling. Both lived to be about eighty. Samuel Tomlinson died in January, 1846, aged sixty-six, and his wife in 1854, aged sixty-five. Grandfather Jonathan Purdy, a native of New York, was a soldier of the Revolution, and died about 1839, aged eighty-two, having entered the service of his country, like so many others, while quite young. Grandmother Eunice (Dickinson) Purdy died at the age of sixty. Their son Louis fought in the war of 1812. Lewis Tomlinson was raised on his father’s farm, receiving such education as was accessible in those days in a pioneer settlement on the Ohio, and was fond of reading and self-improvement. He came to California in 1850, and went to mining in Placerville, and afterwards in Rhoads’ Diggings. In 1854 he went East, and in December, 1855, was married to Miss Alta McMillan, born in Boone County, Kentucky, December 10, 1832, daughter of George and Ellen (McNinch) McMillan. The father died at the age of sixty-five; the mother died July 28, 1852, aged sixty-five. Returning to California in 1856, Mr. Tomlinson resumed mining, in which he continued, more or less, almost until his death. His judgment in that line was above the average. In partnership with his brother Joseph he bought 160 acres also in 1856. He afterward entered 160 acres under the homestead law, but of this he was deprived through legal chicanery. He secured by pre-emption the 160 acres on which the family still resides. Mrs. Alta Tomlinson, since the death of her husband, has added largely to the realty, having purchased 260 acres, of the railroad company, and other ranches of private individuals, making in all 1,000 acres, used mostly for pasturage. Some hay is raised in favorable spots, but the chief marketable products of the ranch are sheep and turkeys, there being usually over 1,200 of the former and 700 of the latter. Some forty head of cattle, including cows for a small dairy, and some horses, mostly for use on the ranch, complete the list of stock. Mrs. Tomlinson has also a small but thrifty orchard of mixed fruits for family use. Mr. Tomlinson died May 28, 1876, leaving five children, all residing with the mother: Ida, born March 18, 1857; Lewis, July 8, 1858; Frank, June 8, 1860; Joseph, January 28, 1862; Samantha, January 18, 1864.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Pages 597-598. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.