LINCOLN SHERIDAN CHURCH

Lincoln Sheridan Church, Assistant District Attorney of Alameda County, was born in Alvarado, in this county, May 12, 1865, the youngest of the nine children of Augustus M. and Ellen (Cronkhite) Church, both natives of New York.  The father, born in Allen's Hill, Richmond township, Ontario county, June 19,1816, a son of Lovett and Sally (Boyd) Church, arrived at Bear river, California, August 13, 1849, and after an eventful and honorable career on this coast, died in Oakland, September 1, 1889.  (For a full sketch of his career from boyhood to old age, see Wood's History of Alameda County, pp.862-4.)  The mother, born  February 13, 1822, a resident with her parents of Berrien county, Michigan, at her marriage, in May, 1839, after a married life of over fifty years, is living in this city, which has been the home of the family since 1876.  She came to California in 1852 with her five children to rejoin the husband and father.  Of their nine children, three sons and two daughters are living, in 1890, all residents of this city except one daughter, Sarah, now Mrs. John Gill, of Oceanside, San Diego county. The other living children are:  Helen, now Mrs. Helen Salisbury, the widow of B. J. Salisbury, late of Santa Ana, Orange county; William H., employed in the Hall of Records of this city; Rod. W., Recorder of this county (see preceding sketch); Lincoln S., the subject of this sketch.  Grandfather Lovett Church, a native of Vermont, a shoemaker by trade, moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, where he died at the age of sixty-five.  His wife, by birth Sarah Burns, died in middle life, leaving three children.  Her son, William Church, a Captain of artillery in the civil war, died in Michigan, aged over sixty years. Grandfather Cronkhite, at one time a merchant in New York, and afterward in Michigan, died of cholera on his way across the plains in 1849. His wife, by birth a Miss Springstein, a descendant on her mother's side of
Abraham Clark, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died in St. Joseph, Michigan, at the age of seventy-four.

     Lincoln S. Church, educated in the public schools of this city, entered the law office of J. C. Martin in August, 1883, and after three years' study was admitted to the bar in August, 1886.  He continued in Mr. Martin's office until January 1, 1889, when he was appointed Assistant District Attorney, a position he fills with marked success and general approbation.

 

Transcribed 11-21-04  Marilyn R. Pankey