San Joaquin County
Biographies
EDWARD ARTHUR TRETHEWAY
EDWARD ARTHUR TRETHEWAY,
millwright, at the Stockton City Mills, was born in Cornwall, England, April 3,
1844, a son of Richard and Rebecca (Arthur) Tretheway. In September, 1854, the
parents with four sons emigrated to the United States and settled in New
Harmony, Indiana, where the father worked at his trade of carpenter two years.
Returning to England he worked two years in a ship-yard in London, where
another son was born. In 1863 the father set out alone for California by way of
Liverpool, New York and Panama. His first job on this coast was building quartz
mills in Tuolumne County, about twelve miles from Sonora. Six months later, in
November, 1863, he was joined by our subject, who had learned his trade and
followed him by the same route. In 1865 they were engaged for a time in
constructing the necessary woodwork in the coal mines of Contra Costa County,
and in April of that year went back to England.
E. A. Tretheway was married in Cornwall,
in July, 1865, to Miss Ellen Yelland, a daughter of Richard and Ann Elizabeth
(Rowett) Yelland. Leaving home September 1, 1865, Mr. Tretheway reached this
coast by the same route as before and resumed work at his trade in Tuolumne
County, and the father followed in the spring of 1866. Mr. E. A. Tretheway
bought a lot and built a home in this city in 1866, and later, in 1867, was
rejoined by his wife in Tuolumne County, and in March, 1868, they came to
reside in Stockton. Mr. Tretheway afterward worked for a short time in Mariposa
County, and then for eighteen months in the employ of the Southern Pacific
Railroad. In 1872 he went to work in the Stockton City Mills, where he is still
employed as a millwright. Meanwhile the mother and younger members of the
family came to this coast about 1868. The father, born June 11, 1823, died in
this country of typhoid and erysipelas, July 4, 1877, and the mother, born
January 30, 1826, died July 26, 1881. They have had eleven children: E. A., the
subject of this sketch; Elizabeth, deceased in infancy; John, born March 16,
1847; Samuel and Richard, both deceased in infancy; Arthur, born February 13,
1853; Thomas, born June 10, 1854; William E., born April 27, 1857; Samuel, July
28, 1858; Amy, who died in San Francisco, in her thirteenth year; Richard, born
June 24, 1862, deceased in Stockton in the twenty-first year of his age. Of the
children living, John is residing in East Oakland, Arthur in Vallejo, Thomas in
Alameda, William E., is of the firm of Tretheway, Earle & Dasher of this city,
and Samuel, a baggage master in the employ of the Southern Pacific railway,
resides in Oakland. Grandfather Thomas Tretheway, also a carpenter by trade,
was twice married and lived to be over seventy. His first wife, the grandmother
of our subject, died comparatively young. Grandfather Edward Arthur was seventy
and his wife (nee Betty Best) was over eighty.
The father of Mrs. Tretheway, born July 5,
1808, died in 1869, and her mother lived to the age of sixty-eight. Grandfather
Rowett died comparatively young, the result of an accident, but grandmother
Elizabeth (Guy) Rowett reached the age of seventy-three. Grand-aunt Polly
(Rowett) Holton lived to the age of ninety, and two of her sisters also lived
to an advanced age. Polperro is the seat of location of the Rowetts. The
Yellands, too, are along-lived race. Great-grandparents Richard and Catherine
were respectively eighty-four and eighty years old. Grandfather John was twice
married and had twenty children, of whom thirteen were by the grandmother of Mrs.
Tretheway, Eleanor Hoblyn (Hodge) Yelland, born in 1782, deceased in 1849,
lacking one month of being sixty-seven. Of her children, Henry, born May 13,
1802, is living; William, born March 15, 1806, died in 1888. Another, John, was
seventy at his death. The grandfather lived to the age of eighty-three years
and nine months, and two of his brothers, Richard and Henry, reached the age of
ninety.
Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Tretheway have had six
children, of whom two, Alfred and Richard, twins, survived their first fifteen
months and two years and three months respectively. The four living children in
order of their birth are Edward Edgar, Ellen, Amy Arthur, and Walter Yelland
Tretheway. Edward E., educated in the public schools of Stockton, including one
year in the high schools, afterward took a business course and learned
telegraphy, quitting his studies at the age of eighteen to take the position of
book-keeper in the tinware manufacturing, stove and hardware store, which he
has now held about five years.
Mr. E. A. Tretheway is a member of Charity
Lodge, No. 6, of Parker Encampment, No. 3, and of Canton Ridgeley, No. 15, I.
O. O. F. Mr. and Mrs. Tretheway are charter members of the Rebecca Lodge of
this city, and Mrs. Tretheway is a member of the Central Methodist Episcopal
Church, in which all the members of the family usually attend service. Mr.
Tretheway is also a member of Centennial Lodge, No. 38, K. of P., and of
Harmony Lodge of the Sons of St. George.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 516-517. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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