Sacramento
County
Biographies
GEN. ALBERT
MAVER WINN
General
A. M. Winn was born in Loudon county, Virginia, April 27, 1810, his death occurring on the
26th August, 1883, in Sonoma county. He was 73 years and 4 months
old, having more than scored the biblical “threescore years and ten.” There was
a poetic sentiment in laying the old pioneer to rest in the home of his earlier
endeavors, Sacramento, where the waters of the river of that name will sing his
perpetual requiem.
He saw
California spring from a territorial condition to statehood; was present at its
birth and baptism, and witnessed its growth till a world stood aghast on
beholding the young Giant of the Pacific. General Winn’s first official
position was as a member of the Capital City’s Council, and on the death of
Sacramento’s first Mayor he was chosen to that responsible position. In the ’49
days he was President of the Relief Association of Odd Fellows, which was
organized for the benefit of the sick and destitute brethren of that charitable
Order. General Winn, through life, felt the impulses of Charity, and his life
was a practical illustration of the fact that through deeds and not through
mere professions are her works felt. Almost simultaneously with the
organization of the Relief Association, the Masons and Odd Fellows of
Sacramento instituted a hospital for the benefit ef
(sic) the sick and destitute members of those organizations, and General Winn
was foremost in the movement.
General
Winn, in June, 1850, as Brigadier-General, issued a proclamation to his command
to appropriately celebrate the approaching Fourth of July. The exact date of
the proclamation was June 29, 1850, and on the same date in 1885, 35 years
later, at the Bay City of California, he issued a call to the young native
Californians to meet, to organize an association or order, from which grew the
Native Sons of the Golden West.
In 1860,
General Winn took up his residence in San Francisco, remaining there until a
few years before his death.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: “Illustrated
Fraternal Directory Including Educational Institutions on the Pacific Coast”,
Page 238, Publ. Bancroft Co., San Francisco. Cal. 1889.
© 2012 Cecelia
M. Setty.