Sutter County
Biographies
SYLVANUS
SANBORN
SYLVANUS SANBORN. Remembered
among the pioneers of the state of California is Sylvanus Sanborn, who located
in Sutter county in 1853 and engaged in raising cattle
and sheep until his death, which occurred at the age of forty years. A native of Sanbornville, N. H., he was born
in 1819, and while in young manhood located in St. Louis, where he made his
home until 1850. During the year just
mentioned he made the trip to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama. For a time after his arrival in the state he
engaged in mining, but later became identified with the Gold Hill quartz
crusher at Grass Valley. Removing to
Sutter county in 1853, with others Mr. Sanborn
embarked in the stock business, a line of endeavor which engaged his attention
the remainder of his life. After his
death, in 1859, Mrs. Sanborn purchased the interest of the other heirs and
carried on the business which he had so successfully planned.
In 1855 Mr. Sanborn married Cynthia
Eliza McMurtry, a daughter of William McMurtry, M. D., a prominent pioneer of Sutter county, a sketch of whose life appears elsewhere. Mrs. Sanborn was born in Hardin county, Ky.,
November 15, 1832, and was reared and educated in that state until 1852, when
her parents came overland to California, settling in Grass Valley, Nevada
county. Two years later they removed to
Sutter county and purchased land near Pennington,
which Mr. McMurtry continued to farm until his
death. After the death of her husband
Mrs. Sanborn assumed the management of the property and added to her small band
of sheep until they numbered four thousand, but as the country became more
thickly settled she was obliged to dispose of her sheep and devote the land to
farming. The property now consists of
two thousand acres, lying in Butte and Sutter counties, Mrs. Sanborn adding to
the original tract from time to time, paying $7 to $15
per acre for the land. In 1870 in order
to give her children better educational advantages, Mrs. Sanborn moved to
Marysville, where she had built a pleasant residence at the corner of Seventh
and D streets, where she spends the winters, moving to her country home for the
summer. She has two children, Jeannie
M., who is still with her mother, and Oscar Suydam,
who is married and lives on the place, assisting his mother in the management
of the farm. Mrs. Sanborn is a
successful, strong-minded woman, and although she has passed the age of three
score and ten, is gifted with an activity unusual to one of her years, and
takes a lively interest in her extensive property. She has assisted unstintingly in the
advancement of measures that have for their object the betterment of the county
where she has lived for so many years.
Transcribed by
Doralisa Palomares.
Source:
“History of the State of California and
Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California” by J. M.
Guinn. Pages
599-600. Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1906.
© 2017 Doralisa Palomares.
Golden Nugget Library's Sutter County
Biographies