CHARLES TRAVER

Sacramento County

Biographies

CHARLES TRAVER

CHARLES TRAVER--Among those who, coming to California in the early days, have amassed a fortune and become prominent as representative men in this “the land of golden promise,” the subject of this sketch ranks among the most widely and favorably known. The story of his life carries with it a lesson fully illustrating what may be accomplished, even under adverse circumstances, by perseverance and well-directed energy. He was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, and was but a child when taken to South Bend, Indiana, where he was raised in the family of a cousin, and worked in a brick-yard, receiving little or no rudimentary education. At the age of sixteen years he ran away from home and found employment upon the river and elsewhere; this was in 1841. In 1844 his cousin, starting for Oregon, desired him to accompany him, but he decided to remain in South Bend, and was there united in marriage to Miss Dillie Day, a daughter of Captain Lot Day, a farmer. As he grew up he became acquainted with Charles Crocker (since noted), who came from the same place, South Bend, and they were friends prior to coming to California, as well as since. In 1850, in company with his wife and a party made up at South Bend, he started out for California, overland. Schuyler Colfax, afterward Vice-President of the United States, being then a warm personal friend, made them a farewell speech as they started on the then long journey. Their train, consisting of thirty-two ox teams, made quite an imposing array. On this, his first journey across the plains (he has made three altogether), Mr. Traver walked every step of the way and carried his rifle on his shoulders. Crossing the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, the party proceeded up on the north side of the Platte, to Salt Lake, and by way of Goose Creek, the head of the Humboldt, etc., to Hangtown, arriving August 12, having been something over four months on the road. During the following year (1851) his father-in-law, Captain Day, came across the plains and settled at Stockton, San Joaquin County, where Mr. Traver and wife joined him. Remaining there till the fall of that year, they went to the Cosumnes and rented the Slough House, which had been kept by Daley & Sheldon. Daley had died in the fall of 1850, of cholera, and Sheldon, a man of irascible temper, had made himself unpopular and was shot during the following spring. Mr. Traver kept the Slough House till the winter of 1853, when he crossed over into Yolo County and took up a homestead, where for fourteen years he made his home, until he took up his residence permanently in the Capital City. Mr. Traver was one of the first in the State to raise grain. In 1852 he paid sixteen cents a pound for seed barley, sowed it, cut it all himself with a cradle, and hired Indians to rake and bind it, and in this primitive and laborious manner secured the first crop. When in 1860, upon the completion of the Masonic Temple, the county court-rooms were removed from the building at the corner of Ninth and K streets to that edifice, Mr. Toll remodeled his building and fitted it up as a hotel, and in doing so became involved. The property came into the possession of L. M. Curtis and Mr. Traver, and after the floods of 1861-’62, when the water stood on the first floor of the building as high as the bar, they refitted and refurnished it for one Judy, who kept if for a time. It was afterward kept by James Shoemaker for two years. Curtis & Traver then bought the lot, forty feet on K street and 120 feet on Seventh, making altogether 100x120 feet. In 1868 the entire building was remodeled, and has since been known as the Capitol Hotel, one of the finest in the city. When in 1864 Mr. Traver moved in from the ranch, he did so in order to take charge of the hotel; but he soon leased the property to Mr. Day, a brother-in-law, who ran the house until he was succeeded a few years later by Messrs. Blessing & Guthrie, the present proprietors. Of the later enterprises which have engaged the attention of Mr. Traver, the “Seventy-six Land and Water Company” of Fresno County, and building of the town of Traver on the Southern Pacific road, must receive a least a passing notice. Having purchased a large tract of land in Fresno County, midway between the city of Fresno and Tulare, he conceived the idea of bringing the water of King’s River, thirty-two miles distant for purposes of irrigation, and a ditch 100 feet wide at the bottom was constructed and proved a perfect success. In 1884 the town of Traver was laid out, a station and other buildings erected, and at the first day’s sale of town lots in April that year, $27,000 was realized; and such was the rapid development of this section, due to the abundant supply of water, that in 1885 more wheat was shipped from Traver station than from any other point on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Mr. Traver has been a Freemason since 1849, being a charter member of Castwell Lodge, of South Bend, Indiana, and an Odd Fellow since 1886, being a member of Eureka Lodge, No. 4, and of Encampment No. 2, of this city. Such a brief is the outline of the history of one of Sacramento’s most successful and honored citizens, who began life without a dollar, and who arrived on this coast forty years ago without a business acquaintance or a friend; yet such has been the success of his life that it is with pleasure that we accord to him a prominent place in this historic volume of a county with which he has been so closely identified for so many years.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Page 720. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.