Tehama County
Biographies
ALBERT GALLATIN TOOMES
Albert Gallatin
Toomes, a native of Missouri and founder of the Town
of Tehama, came to California from New Mexico with the Workman-Rowland Party in
1841. Within a short time he entered
into a building and carpentering partnership with another pioneer, of 1841, Robert
H. Thomes of the Bidwell-Bartleson
Company. This partnership, which appears
in the records of both San Francisco and Monterey, lasted till well into 1848
or later, after which Messrs. Toomes and Thomes went in for ranching.
In 1844, Toomes became a Mexican citizen, married a native
Californian woman named Maria Isabel Lorenzana, and
was granted the five-league Rancho de los Molinos in
what is now Tehama County. His friend Thomes, from whom he seems to have been inseparable,
received a five-league neighboring grant, called Los Saucos,
the same year.
Toomes visited his ranch twice, in 1845 and 1847, to stock
it with cattle, but did not settle permanently upon it till 1849. Here, unaffected by the gold rush and its
attendant excitement, he lived the quiet life of landed gentleman. He was fond of hunting and fishing and, from
time to time, wrote long letters to his good friend Josiah Belden of San Jose,
inviting him to forget the business world and come up and enjoy the fields and
streams of Tehama County. At the time of
his death at the age of fifty-six in 1873, Toomes was
not only one of the wealthiest, but also one of the most respected citizens in
the county.
The same
as with one or two brothers in his community, there is some question as to
where Toomes was made a Mason. His name first appears in California Masonic
records as the charter Junior Warden of Molino Lodge No. 150, of Tehama. In this, he has much in common with William
G. Chard, charter Treasurer of the same Lodge. Both may have been long-time sojourners prior
to the organization of Molino Lodge, or both may have received their degrees
during the year that the Lodge was under dispensation. But there the similarity ended. Though he was never Master of his Lodge, Toomes filled an office of some kind, ranging up to Senior
Warden, practically every year from the time the Lodge was organized till his
death. He was its Treasurer at the time
of his death.
Transcribed
5-28-17 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Source: “One
Hundred Years of Freemasonry in California Vol. 1” by Leon O. Whitsell, Page 14. Publ. by The
Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of California, 1950.
Golden Nugget Library's
Tehama County Biographies