San Francisco County
Biographies
FREDERICK
SINCLAIR
Frederick
Sinclair, a member of the Oakland Fruit and Produce Company since 1884, was
born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 4, 1854, a son of Judge Thompson and
Eunice M. (White) Sinclair. His father,
a native of New York State, died about 1886; was Judge of Kent county, Michigan, about twenty-seven years, whither he had
moved in 1832. He was born in Romulus,
New York, of parents who were natives of the north of Ireland. His older brother, William M., born there in
1810, died in 1874, in Chicago, where he had been a member of the Board of
Trade a number of years. They
constituted the firm of Sinclair Bros. (Robert P.), engaged in real estate and
insurance. Robert P., born in Ireland,
died in 1887. David A. Sinclair, another
brother, born near Romulus, is still living in Kern county, this State; has
been Treasurer of that county some years; came to California early in the ‘50s.
Judge Sinclair
had five children: Alexander Porter, special agent for the Home Insurance
Company, of New York, and Phoenix, of Hartford, and has Kitty, Clarence and
Frederick; Thompson White, employed by the Oakland Fruit and Produce Company;
Annie Elizabeth, now the wife of George S. Johnson, chief engineer of the Grand
Rapids & Indiana Railroad; David A., salesman for George W. Clarke &
Co., of San Francisco, traveler, etc., and has two children, Mabel and Edgar.
The subject,
whose name introduces this sketch, has earned his own living ever since he was
fourteen years of age. For a number of
years he was with the Central Michigan Railroad Company in their office at
Grand Rapids. In 1875 he came to
California to visit his uncle, David A., whom he met in San Francisco. His first engagement was a bookkeeper for the
California Silk Manufacturing Company for two years. Going then to Virginia City, Nevada, he was
employed by J. A. Brumsey one year—1877—’78. Returning then to San Francisco, he was
bookkeeper for Getz Bros. & Co., commission merchants, for three and a half
years, having also charge of the office business; then for a year and a half he
was similarly employed by Sweet & Sayers, commission merchants, keeping
books and traveling during the last six months he was with them; next for a
year he was with Wm. Metcalf, and then, with the aid of a partner, he bought
him out.
He was married
in San Francisco, in 1880, to Fannie W. Bowman, a native of this city, who died
in 1882, two days after giving birth to her only child, Rodney F., born July
20, 1882. James Bowman, the father of
Mrs. Sinclair, died the same year, aged about seventy-five years. Her mother, whose maiden name was Cornelia
Wheeler, and who was born and brought up in Burlington, Vermont, is still
living, aged now over fifty years.
Transcribed by Donna L. Becker
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 1,
page 704, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2005 Donna L. Becker.