Sacramento County
Biographies
MICHAEL LAFAYETTE WISE
M. L. WISE.--A highly-esteemed pioneer, whose memory will be long cherished as peculiarly sacred both by contemporaries who knew him and enjoyed his companionship, and by others stimulated by his example, was the late M. L. Wise, who was born in Richland County, Ohio, on April 26, 1846, the son of the Hon. Jacob Wise and his good wife, who was Miss Lydia Hibbard before her marriage. They were Pennsylvanians, and removed to Fayette, Fulton County, Ohio, when our subject was eighteen months old. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he enlisted in the service of the United States, although only a boy, went to Camp Chase, and was assigned to Company K, 38th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and went into a battle for the first time, at Perryville, Ky. He also took part in an engagement at Corinth, and also at Triune and Murfreesboro; and he was in the thick of the fight at Chickamauga, and after the rendezvous at Ringold, Ga., proceeded to Atlanta, and after that was in the battles of Dalton, Atlanta, Jonesboro, Buzzard's Roost and Tullahoma. He was wounded three times at Jonesboro, in the left arm, the left breast and the head, and was taken from the field to Atlanta. He was next sent to Nashville, and from there to Jeffersonville, Ind., where he lay in the hospital for three weeks. He was then sent to Camp Dennison, and discharged, June 18, 1865, having served through the entire war. He was in the 3rd Brigade, the 3rd Division, of the celebrated 14th Army Corps under General Thomas; and he went to Cincinnati after his discharge, and from there returned to his home.
On September 12, 1868, he started for California by way of New York and Panama; he crossed the Isthmus and took passage on the steamer "Santiago de Cuba," for San Francisco, where he landed the 30th of October, 1868. After stopping long enough in the bay city to get some idea of the metropolis, Mr. Wise pushed inland to Sacramento, to join his brother W. E. Wise, on the following Monday morning, to earn the blacksmith trade; and he remained with his brother for nine and one-half years.
Then he engaged in business for himself at the Telegraph shops on J Street, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, and on October 1, 1877, he purchased a lease on the property at the corner of Eleventh and J Streets, and the firm of Wise & McNair was organized, for the commencement of the business of blacksmithing, and carriage and wagon-making and painting. In the fall of 1879, he bought out his partner's interest and alone built up an enviable trade.
On October 20, 1875, in Sacramento County, Mr. Wise was married to Miss Alice P. Taylor, the gifted daughter of John B. Taylor, whose life-story is given on another page of this historical work; and one daughter, Mylinda Isabel, now Mrs. Theodore N. Koening, of Sacramento, was born of their union. Mr. Wise died November 17, 1909, and in his demise the world lost a real man.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Page 830. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.