Sacramento County
Biographies
EDWARD TWITCHELL
The pioneer instinct has
been strong in the Twitchell blood. It was that which
led the first representatives of the name in America
to leave the comforts of European civilization and identify themselves
with the stern environment of New England. The same love
of the frontier appeared in the history of a New England couple, the husband,
Capt. Timothy Twitchell, from New Hampshire and the
wife, Susan (Watson) Twitchell, from Vermont, who
gave up home and friends and sought the unknown territories of the south, there
to make a temporary home in the ancient city of Pensacola, Fla. During the
sojourn of the family at that point a son, Edward, was born November 8, 1828. There were two
other sons, George and Amos, equally talented as the one previously named, but
their ability led them into different lines of activity and one became a very
successful physician, the other a scientist. Capt. Timothy Twitchell
was a seafaring man; as early as the '20s he sailed
around Cape Horn to the California
coast, as well as up to the shores of Alaska,
trading in hides, horns and tallow, and he is known to have put in at the Bay
of Monterey.
Concerning the early life
of Edward Twitchell little is to be said. It
presented the same round of struggle, the same lack of advantages, the same
deprivation of comfort and the same willing endurance of hardship which
characterized the lives of the people during the early half of the nineteenth
century. No break came in the monotony of labor and isolation until the
discovery of gold in California.
That event changed the entire life of the young man in Florida.
An expedition was organized comprising people from his part of the southeast.
Joining the party he traveled by boat to Mexico
and then rode on horseback across that country, taking boat on the Pacific side
and sailing north to the harbor of San
Francisco in August, 1849. The trip, though
necessarily one of great hardship and privation, was not without its share of
pleasure and interest to the young man whose previous knowledge of the world
had been limited to his own little corner thereof.
While it was primarily for
the purpose of mining that Mr. Twitchell came to the
west, we find that the occupation did not engage his attention for any
protracted period. Even when at the camps he found the trade of a carpenter
more profitable than looking for gold. Having learned and had experience as a
civil engineer in New Hampshire
in 1848, under a celebrated surveyor, upon his return to Sacramento
he became deputy to Gen. Horace Higley,
surveyor-general, and for twenty-five years he remained in the office,
meanwhile working under General Houghton and others. For a time he was a
surveyor and miner in the White Pine district, in Nevada.
during the early days he did considerable surveying in
Sacramento, Berkeley,
Alameda and Oakland,
and at one time owned property in these cities, as well as in Fresno
and Yolo counties. While in the government employ he made the first survey of Lake
Tahoe, also surveyed in New Mexico
and Arizona, surveyed and named Twitchell Island,
and had other important expeditions. For many years he owned a large tract of
land on Sherman Island.
In his last years he had retired from business cares, but still took part in
civic affairs and gave earnest support to movements for the local advancement. he died February 8,
1912. He was a member of Sacramento Society of California Pioneers.
The marriage of Mr. Twitchell and Margaret Woodland was solemnized in Sacramento
December 20, 1870. They
became the parents of three children. The only son, Edward W. Twitchell, M. D., is a prominent physician of Sacramento.
The elder daughter, Blanche, is the wife of James H. Jennings, son of an
honored pioneer of San Francisco
and himself, a well-known resident of that city. The younger daughter, Ethel,
married Prof. W. D. Briggs, who is connected with the English department of the
Leland Stanford
University at Palo
Alto. Mrs. Twitchell was
born in Louisiana, but at the age
of six months she was brought by her parents across the plains to California,
the journey covering four months. The family traveled up the Mississippi River
to St. Louis, thence joined an expedition overland, and finally arrived at Fort
Sutter during August of 1849, and Sacramento has been Mrs. Twitchell's
home ever since. Not long after arriving her father, James W. Woodland, who was
the first assessor of the city of Sacramento, was shot and killed during a
squatters' riot that occurred on the corner of Third and J streets, Sacramento,
he having taken no part in the trouble, but happening to turn the corner just
as the parties came together, and a stray bullet hit and killed him. The fact
that he had just left his home after the birth of an infant son added to the
sad event. Later E. B. Crocker bought the old Woodland
homestead and on the ground he erected a building now known as the Scudder
House. When Miss Woodland began housekeeping in her own home as the bride of
Mr. Twitchell, her mother, Mrs. Jane (Alexander) Woodland,
joined her there and afterward remained an inmate of the Twitchell
residence, where she died in 1905 at the age of eighty-six years.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Willis, William L., History of Sacramento
County, California, Pages 535-539. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1913.
© 2005 Sally Kaleta.