Biographies
HENRY F. G. WULFF
Teutonic ancestry is indicated in the name
of Wulff. The founder of the family in the United
States was one Henry Wulff, who came to the new world
at the age of sixteen years. Prior to emigration he had served an apprenticeship
to the trade of cabinet-maker and later he also gained a thorough knowledge of
the occupation of a millwright. A desire to avoid the military service
obligatory upon him if he remained in his native land caused him to seek a new
home across the seas and for some time he worked at his trades in St. Louis,
Mo., but as early as 1850 he crossed the plains to California and ventured into
mining with a fair degree of success. Returning to the east via Panama he
married Miss Caroline Lehnke
and established a home in St. Louis, where occurred the birth of his
eldest child, Henry F. G., January 31, 1854. During the spring of the same year
the family made the long journey across the plains and at the expiration of
one-half year landed in Placerville, Eldorado county, when the son was nine months old.
For years identified with mining
interests, Henry Wulff did not limit his energies to
that occupation, but acquired varied interests in the west. He had the contract
to build the first quartz mill in Placerville. Removing to his ranch in 1859,
he took up the stock business on a large scale and at one time controlled a
ranch of one thousand acres at Green Valley. Some of the land was acquired
under the homestead laws and some by purchase, but the whole was improved
through his industrious efforts and represented the results of his sagacious
management. After years of active identification with the development of the
west he died on his ranch in 1886 and his widow still remains at the old
homestead. In December of 1911 she celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of
her birth. Of her ten sons and four daughters there now survive five sons
and all of the daughters.
After having completed the studies of the
Placerville public schools and also for a time having clerked in a Sacramento
grocery, in 1873 Henry F. G. Wulff attended evening
classes at Heald's Business College at San Francisco,
from which he graduated in 1874, and in the meantime he earned his livelihood
by clerking in a grocery store in the daytime. For one year he was employed in
the coining room of the mint, and after resigning this position he went to
Virginia City, Nev., continuing there until June, 1879, when he was appointed
United States gauger in the Internal revenue office
for the Sacramento district. For nineteen years and three months he was
identified with the Internal revenue office, meanwhile
acting as chief deputy of the local department for ten years. While thus
engaged he drew every check paid out for the construction of the new postoffice, the check in payment for the ground being the
only one not drawn by him personally.
When he had resigned as the chief of the department he embarked in the
real-estate business, during 1898 becoming a member of the firm of Kromer, Wiseman & Wulff.
The retirement of the senior member of the firm in 1901 caused a change to the
present title of Wiseman-Wulff Co. In addition to
carrying on a general real estate, loan and insurance business, the firm has
pioneered sub-division work in Sacramento. Among their most important tasks was
the improving of eleven thousand acres at Knight's Landing, Yolo county, forming the fair ranch at one time owned by the
senator of that name. Under the name of the Sacramento Farms Co. they purchased
this bottom land, which is as fertile as the far-famed valley of the Nile. On
reclamation work here $350,000 has been spent, the results of the expenditure
appearing in the first crop (1911) raised after the work had been completed,
when six thousand acres yielded more than eighty thousand sacks of grain. Mr. Wulff has been secretary of the company since its
organization.
By marriage of Mr. Wulff
to Miss Louisa Galvin a son, Albert H., was born, who is now connected with a
wholesale grocery business in Sacramento. After
the death of his first
wife Mr. Wulff married Miss Elizabeth Stelter May 2, 1888, and thus became connected with one of
the old and honored pioneer families of Sacramento county,
her father, Frederick Stelter having been a resident
here since 1860. Of the second marriage there are three children, namely: Fred
L., who is identified with his father in the real-estate business; Ramona and
Horace B., who are students in school. The family attend
the Lutheran Church. In politics Mr. Wulff stands stanchly by the principles of the Republican party and in 1911 he was its candidate for trustee from the
ninth ward. For years he has been prominent among the Odd Fellows, belonging to
Eldorado Lodge No. 8 and Occidental Encampment No.
42, and in 1910 he occupied the office of grand patriarch of the Grand
Encampment of California. In the capacity of grand representative he attended
the Sovereign Grand Lodge in September of 1911, held at Indianapolis, Ind., to
which important gathering delegates were sent from lodges in every part of the
world. His tact and counsel have been most helpful to the local advancement of
lodge work and thus to the general prosperity of the order.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Willis,
William L., History of Sacramento County,
California, Pages 911-913. Historic
Record Company,
© 2006 Sally Kaleta.