San Joaquin County
Biographies
GEORGE KLINGER
GEORGE KLINGER, a rancher of
Douglass Township, was born in Würtzburg, Bavaria, December 4, 1824, the
youngest son of Michael and Barbara (Ott) Klinger. The father lived to be
eighty-three, dying in 1847; the mother died in 1837, aged forty-nine. The
father served in the thirty years’ war, was a harness-maker by trade, as was
also the grandfather, Franz Klinger. Mr. Klinger received a good education and
was graduated from a poly-technical school, learning the trade of his father at
the same time. He then spent three years in Switzerland, and became
enthusiastic for liberty. He thinks the unification of Germany a step in that
direction, as “it is easier to reduce one throne than thirty-six” when the
people are ready to assert their rights. His father’s influence with the
military officers enabled him to escape conscription, and he came to America in
1844. He traveled westward to Albany, Buffalo and Chicago, working at his trade
in each place. In 1845 he was in Milwaukee, where he made a somewhat longer
stay; in Whitewater, Wisconsin, from 1846 to 1848; thence he went to
Janesville, where he first opened a shop on his own account in the spring of
1848. This promised more permanence, but the discovery of gold in California
somewhat changed all that.
In the spring of 1849, with a company of
gold-seekers from Milwaukee, he started for the El Dorado. At St. Joseph,
Missouri, the united adventurers organized under the title of the Batcher
Rangers, numbering seventy-five men, with twenty-two wagons drawn by ox teams.
The men were all from Wisconsin, and were all under thirty years of age. At the
sink of the Humboldt Mr. Klinger and fourteen others, detaching themselves from
the main body, took the Lassen route and entered California at the head of the
Sacramento valley, above Chico, October 8, 1849. Descending the valley, they
crossed Feather river at what is now Oroville, and went thence to Bidwell’s
Bar. Mr. Klinger now went to mining at that point, and there spent the winter.
The following season he mined at High Rock, four miles below. When the dry
season of 1851 suspended active operations, he with three of his old comrades
traveled north, reaching Yreka. Here with one partner he carried on a
freighting business by pack mules, about three months, receiving 50 cents a
pound for conveying goods from Salem, Oregon, or Shasta, California, to Yreka.
On the last trip from Shasta they lost twelve mules with their packs, stolen by
Indians, and the mule-back freighting company was wound up. Mr. Klinger then
went prospecting on Shasta river, west of Mount Shasta, but finding no
encouraging indications, he concluded to return to civilization and the harness
business.
About August, 1851, he arrived in
Sacramento and went to work at the bench. The work in those days was mostly
repairs and the making of pack-saddles. Probably the first horse-collar made on
the coast was made that year (1851) by Mr. Klinger. It cost $25, or about eight
times what it would cost now; but the block had to be made as well. The firm
for which he worked had a shop at Marysville also, and a dissolution of
partnership occurring, Mr. Klinger was offered $45 a week, with board, by the
partner who took the Marysville shop. The offer was accepted, and he went to
work in that town about a month before the place was destroyed by fire, and he
lost all his tools, of which he had two complete sets. He also lost all
immediate prospect of being paid what he had earned, or the $500 he had loaned
his employers. Returning to Sacramento, he went to work in the old shop, but a
disagreement arising, he left and went to San Francisco. Not finding work to
suit him, he came to Stockton and found a job which lasted all winter. In May,
1852, in partnership with Joseph Harrison, he purchased the shop. In 1854 he
bought out his partner, and in 1855 sold out the business. In 1855 he bought
the 160 acre ranch on which he still resides, about two miles south of Linden,
and afterwards 140 acres, which he again sold. He had taken out two or three
crops, when in 1858, the prospect being poor and he somewhat in debt, he went
back to his trade and was foreman in a shop in Stockton until 1869, the family
meanwhile living on the ranch. In 1869 he started a shop in Linden, which he
carried on until 1887. He still does a little at his trade for himself and
special friends, and has had abundant reasons to recognize the value of
learning a trade.
Mr. Klinger has been deputy assessor for
two separate terms, between 1878 and 1885, and has done some insurance,
especially for the old Hartford Company (of 1794), since 1882. He has been a
school trustee fifteen years. In politics he is a Republican, having been
converted by the firing on Fort Sumter. He was a member of the county
convention in 1878, and chairman of the Linden primary.
Mr. Klinger was married in Stockton,
September 6, 1853, to Miss Maria Augusta Hellmert, of Eisenach, in Saxe-Weimar.
Her father died in that city, the home of his ancestors for many generations,
aged ninety. Mrs. Klinger came to California direct from Bremen, around Cape
Horn, with her mother in 1853. She still treasures as an heirloom a gold watch
presented by the grand duke as a token of personal regard, to her father, who
was glazier to his highness. His grandfather, Henry, was also in the same line,
and lived to about the same age. The mother of Mrs. Klinger died at the home of
the latter, June 23, 1889, aged eighty-four. Mr. and Mrs. Klinger are the
parents of nine children, viz: William Henry, born April 19, 1856, married to
Miss Belle Goncher, a native of this State, her parents now resident of this
township, has a boy and two girls; Sarah, born March 6, 1858, now Mrs. Gischel,
of Stockton, mother of one child; Wilhelmina, born July 4, 1859, now Mrs. L. E.
Grimsby, mother of three boys and one girl; Mary A., born October 20, 1861, now
the wife of Harry A. Little, engineer of Angel’s Camp, mother of two girls;
John, born July 28, 1863, married to Miss Ora Goncher, resident of Oakland;
Matilda, born June, 1865, now Mrs. August Welcher, of Copperopolis, mother of
one girl; George Washington, born August 16, 1875, and Charles A., born
December 18, 1877. None of the boys have learned their father’s trade, though
the Klinger family dates back 400 years, with a harness-maker in every
generation. That heredity of physical traits is more positive is shown by the
fact that one of the daughters is an exact representative of her French
great-grandmother. One child died in infancy.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 290-292. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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