Stanislaus
County
Biographies
ALBERT L. CRESSEY
The subject of this sketch has
several claims to consideration. He is
the president of the Modesto Bank, at Modesto, Stanislaus County, California,
one of the staunchest financial institutions in that part of the state. He is one of the most prominent citizens of
the town and county and was an early settler of California. He was born of old English stock and some
early representatives of the family in America were prominent in Massachusetts
and New Hampshire. Curtis R. Cressey,
his father, was born in New Hampshire and married Miss Susan Littlefield, a
native of that state. They were prosperous
farmers, who were respected by all who knew them and were active and consistent
members of the Baptist Church. Curtis R.
Cressey lived to be eighty-three years old and died at Brownfield, Maine, which
had some time been his home. His wife
died when in her thirty-sixth year. They
had six children, of whom two are living.
Albert L. Cressey, who first saw the
light of day in New Hampshire, was reared to the work of the farm and had few
early opportunities for “book learning,” and his education, which impresses one
as being quite ample, was acquired by self-directed reading and in the broad
and instructive field of human experience.
Sailing from New York by way of Panama, he arrived at San Francisco in
1857, young, single and with just money enough left after having paid his
passage to settle his first hotel bill at Stockton. His knowledge of farming was turned to good
account and he farmed in one way or another on other men’s land until he was
able to take up one hundred and sixty acres of government land on his own
account. He prospered and as occasion
offered added to his possessions until he had a fine farm of five hundred
acres. He gave his attention exclusively
to farming for a number of years, until teaming became profitable in his part
of the state, when he put a number of teams on the road hauling goods from
Sacramento and Stockton to Virginia City and other mining towns in Nevada. This enterprise was successful and he
directed it from headquarters on the Calaveras River north of Stockton and
later at a point in Merced County, where he owns a second farm.
He took up his residence in Modesto
in 1875, and he and his brother, C. J. Cressey, organized and opened the
Modesto Bank, the first bank in Stanislaus County, of which C. J. Cressey was the
president until he organized and assumed management of the Grangers’ Bank in
San Francisco, when Albert L. Cressey became the president and manager of the
Modesto Bank. The two brothers were
partners in these and various other business enterprises until the death of C.
J. Cressey in 1892. During his entire
active career, Mr. Cressey has been a hard worker and his industry and business
acumen have brought him well deserved success.
During a serious drought in the Calaveras Valley he obtained water and irrigated
his wheat fields, and by so doing was able to insure a good yield, when the
wheat crop was a failure throughout the valley, and he sold his wheat in his
granaries at five cents a pound and took notes of the purchaser at
two-and-a-half per cent a month, and it was ten years before he received final
payment! They were for some time in the
sheep and wool growing business and their enterprise in that line brought them
the money with which they erected a one-story brick building and organized the
Modesto Bank. Their building was used
for the bank until 1893, when the stockholders erected the present bank
building, which is one of the finest banking structures in the state and is a
credit alike to Mr. Cressey’s enterprise and to the
City of Modesto. It is a three-story
stone and brick building, with the bank on the ground floor, fitted up with
elegance and with due regard to safety, the floors above being utilized for
office purposes by some of the leading business and professional men of the
town. The institution does a general
commercial banking business. Frank A.
Cressey, a son of C. J. Cressey, deceased, is its vice president, and G. R.
Broughton has ably filled the office of cashier for more than twenty years.
Mr. Cressey owns nine thousand acres
of land, including farms already mentioned in the counties of San Luis Obispo,
Kings, Merced and Stanislaus and farms on a large scale. He formerly owned more than eight thousand
sheep, but now gives his attention principally to wheat, horses and
cattle. His Hanford ranch is devoted to
the raising of horses and mules. By the
importation of a Norman Percheron Draught stallion weighing thirty-two hundred
pounds, Mr. Cressey not only improved his own stock but also the stock of many
neighboring ranchmen. He was one of the
organizers and the president of the company that made the first irrigating
ditch in the county. That innovation
showed the great productive possibilities of the land when properly watered,
and it is believed that in all his useful career Mr. Cressey has done nothing
for which he is entitled to more credit from the general public than for that
unique and beneficial enterprise. His
interest in the affairs of his town and county has always been active, and
there has never been a movement for the general benefit to which he has not
given his moral encouragement and financial aid. He has for some years been the president of
the Stanislaus County Agricultural Association, which holds successful annual
fairs, for the satisfactory management of which he is personally largely
responsible. Mr. Cressey is, first of
all, a businessman, but his business enterprises are deep and broad and their
success is as beneficial to the community at large as to himself. He is a tireless worker and attributes much
of his success to habits of industry early acquired and to close attention to
business details. He has been an Odd
Fellow for more than thirty years.
In 1870 Mr. Cressey married Miss
Sylvia Swan, of Maine, who immediately after their wedding came to California
with him. Of their four children,
Charles, the eldest, died at the age of six years. Nellie is the wife of C. M. Maze, of Modesto. Alberta married Howard Taylor and lives in
San Francisco. George is a bookkeeper in
the Modesto Bank. Mrs. Cressey, who died in February, 1895, was a woman of
great nobility of character and a most faithful and loving wife and mother, who
was held in affectionate regard by all who knew her. The loss to her husband and children
occasioned by her death can never be repaired, and Mr. Cressey has often said
that words fail him when he attempts to offer a tribute to her life and
character.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 371-373. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.