San Francisco County
Biographies
GRANTHAM ISRAEL TAGGART
A real-estate agent of Oakland was born
in Chester County, Pennsylvania,
December 4, 1829, a son of Joseph Israel and Abigail (Smith) Taggart. The
father, born near Newcastle, Deleware, February 19,
1806, of American ancestry for several generations, is a resident of that city,
in 1891. A house bearing the date 1678 was there erected by one of his
ancestors. In young manhood J.I. Taggart entered on a seafaring career and was
for several years Captain of a merchant vessel of Philadelphia
engaged in voyages to Liverpool and other ports in Europe and Asia as well as South
America. Quitting that pursuit, Captain Taggart moved West about 1831, and became a pioneer trader in Jacksonville
Illinois, where he remained seven years. Moving to Cincinnati,
Ohio, he was a merchant of that city some five years,
when he returned to Illinois, engaging in business at Galena,
for five years. In 1848 he went back to the home of his ancestors and has been
engaged chiefly in buying and selling realty. He is also interested in the
Delaware Insurance Company; and though in his eighty-fifth year is still
active; is in full possession of his faculties, and writes with as steady a
hand as ever. His natural uncle, Isaac Grantham Israel,
Postmaster at Bantas, San Joaquin county California, from about 1880 to 1885,
lived to the age of ninety-one, dying in St. Louis,
Missouri, in 1886. The mother of Grant I.
Taggart, died in child-birth in 1846 aged about thirty-three, leaving about
three children: Jane the wife of the late Wm. K. Stahl, a merchant of Galena
and afterwards of Chicago, is living, in 1890, the mother of seven children;
Grant I., the subject of this sketch; Rebecca, the wife of Captain Henry
Johnson, chemist and druggist, for many years in the service of the Government
as Medical Purveyor, first at Washington during the civil war; then Medical
Storekeeper for the Pacific coast, headquarters San Francisco, for twelve
years, and now filling the same position for the department of the Atlantic
headquarters, New York city. Mrs. Rebecca (Taggart) Johnson died in Georgetown,
District of Columbia in 1866, leaving two
children.
Grant I. Taggart received his education in the public
schools, first at Jacksonville, Illinois, and then at Cincinnati, Ohio, but has
not been to school since he was eleven years old. Almost his first earning was
from the sale of badges of Clay and Frelinghuysen in 1844. The vignettes of the
candidates were stamped on white satin ribbon, and these he sold at fifty cents
and under, mostly in Dayton, Ohio whither he traveled by canal boat from
Cincinnati, realizing about $60 from the venture. He next went to work as a
clerk in a wholesale fancy-goods and notion store in Cincinnati
until the removal of the family to Galena
in 1843. Then he became a clerk in his father’s store, and there continued with
his brother in-law, Stahl, in charge of the business after the fathers’ return
to Delaware in 1848. In 1850 Mr. Taggart came to California
across the plains and engaged in mining at Murphy’s Bar on the middle fork of
the American river, for some four months. He then became clerk in a general
store in Greenwood valley, remaining about a year, when he embarked in the cattle
business on Dry creek below Galt, with two maternal cousins, Samuel and James
Ringgold, of the Maryland family of that name, under the style of Taggart &
Ringgold. In the fall of 1852 he came to San Francisco
and entered a wholesale grocery house as clerk. From the spring of 1853 to the
fall of 1854 he was in the employ of a house in Shasta and afterwards with
another grocery about one year, when he formed a partnership with J.C. Cushing,
now of this city as Cushing & Taggart. After about one year he sold out to
Mr. Cushing, in the fall of 1856 he removed to the south fork of Salmon river, where he conducted a country store on his own account
for a short time. Moving to Yreka, Siskiyou
County, he was employed as a clerk
in the express office for about one year and then was engaged in the California
Stage Company until 1860. He was married in 1860, at the Tower House, Shasta county, to Miss Mary C. Metcalf, born in Rhode
Island, May 1, 1841.
Mrs. Taggart’s father died comparatively young; the mother,
whose maiden name was Nancy Tower,
is living with her in Oakland, at
the age of seventy. After his marriage Mr. Taggart was engaged until 1867 in
conducting the Tower House and the thirty-acre orchard belonging thereto,
celebrated in those days throughout Northern California
for the excellence of its fruit products. Meanwhile, in 1865, he had become a
mail contractor, for the route between Shasta and Weaverville, and later for
other routes between different points in that region, for sixteen years in all,
running also the stages on the lines covered by his mail contracts. In 1867 he
was elected County Clerk
of Shasta County
and re-elected in 1869. Before the expiration of his second term he was elected
Clerk of the Supreme Court of California for four years, and moved to Sacramento,
where he entered on his duties December 1, 1871. In 1873 he moved his family to
Oakland, and at the close of this
term in 1875 engaged in the real-estate business in this city. From 1876 to
1880 he was of the firm of Woodward & Taggart, and from 1880 to 1885, of
Taggart & Dingee. Selling out to his partner in 1885, he went to Modoc
County, mainly for his health, and
was there engaged in the stock business. Returning to this city he resumed his
old business of real-estate agent, May 1, 1890.
Mr. Taggart has been a member of the Masonic fraternity
since 1856, and is now of the thirty-second degree A. and A.S. Rite. He is also
a member of the Legion of Honor. Mr. and Mrs. Taggart have three children:
Charles Almanza, Joseph Levi, and Abigail Ruth.
Transcribed by Kim Buck.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 625-626,
Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2007 Kim Buck.
California
Biography Project
San
Francisco County
California
Statewide
Golden
Nugget Library