Tuolumne
County
Biographies
CHRISTIAN CONRAD DRESCHER
The prominent citizen of Jamestown,
Tuolumne County, California, whose name is above, was a pioneer in the state in
1850. He was born of German parents in
Germany, September 2, 1831. His father,
Daniel Drescher, was born and reared in Germany and there married Miss Johannah Rothschlay, also a
native of the “fatherland.” He
immigrated to America with his wife and nine children and settled on a farm of
one hundred and twenty acres in Marion County, Missouri, where he passed the
remainder of his life, dying in his sixty-sixth year, October 8, 1850. Three of his sons and five of his daughters
survive and Mrs. Elizabeth Moss, one of Mr. Drescher’s sisters, lives at
Ventura, Ventura County, California.
When Mr. Drescher came with his
father and mother and eight brothers and sisters from Germany he was eight
years old. He was brought up to hard
work on his father’s farm in Missouri and acquired some education in common
schools near his home. Early in 1850 in
company with a brother-in-law and a cousin and two other young men, he crossed
the plains from Missouri to California.
They started with five yokes of oxen and two horses. At a Mormon station in Carson Valley they
exchanged their cattle for some horses and were thus enabled to cross the
mountains and make the remainder of their journey on horseback. Coming by way of the old Georgetown trail
they stopped at the “old works” ranch and Mr. Drescher began mining for wages
in Rock Canyon at Georgetown, and was paid one hundred dollars a month and his
board for his services. Later he mined
on his own account on Dry Creek, four miles below Georgetown and was moderately
successful.
In March, 1851, Mr. Drescher went to
Onion Valley, on Feather River, and thence to Jamison Creek. He helped to open the mines at Eureka North
and lost some money there, though the mines afterward proved valuable. In 1852 he returned to El Dorado County and
resumed placer mining in his old camp on Dry Creek. In 1853 and in 1854 he took out considerable
gold at Murder Bar, on the American River, but invested in a flume enterprise
and lost what he had made, and in November of the last mentioned year he went
to Columbia, Tuolumne County, and mined there successfully for some time. From there he went to Jacksonville where he
remained eleven years, mining in the river with good results, but the money he
made there he lost by investment elsewhere, and he later mined on Curtis Creek
until 1868, when he turned his attention to quartz mining, to which he has
since entirely devoted himself. He took
four thousand dollars out of the H. H. Haight mine on Curtis Creek, but
expended it in the development of the property, and was the owner of the
Tarantula mine near the Shawmut mine, which was discovered by a Mexican in
1862. The discoverer took a large amount
of gold from the Tarantula mine and then abandoned it. It was relocated in 1872, on the first day of
March, by Mr. Drescher, who took out ten thousand dollars and who is one of its
owners at this time. It is considered a
valuable property and is bonded for five hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Drescher was personally acquainted with
Joaquin Murietta, the noted Mexican outlaw who was at that time (1851)
associated with William Burns, the American scout during the Mexican War. He also was present in Georgetown, El Dorado
County, in October, 1850, when the Englishman accidentally shot his wife in an
attempt to take from her the large eleven-pound nugget which he had previously
found in Hudson Gulch, in Oregon Canyon, to pay a gambling debt. At the death of his wife he was lynched by
the miners.
Mr. Drescher’s home at Jamestown is
a pleasant one and he is regarded by his fellow citizens as a man of patriotic
public sprit. Politically he is a
Populist, but he is not an active politician and has never sought or accepted
office. A thorough, practical temperance
man, he never used liquor or tobacco and is influential so
far as is possible to induce others not to use them. In 1879 he married Mrs. Gertrude Newcomb, the
widow of George Henry Newcomb and a daughter of Edmond Parnell, who came to
California in 1851 and is proud of the title of California pioneer. Mr. and Mrs. Drescher have no children. Mrs. Drescher, by her former husband, had
four children, two of whom are living.
Their daughter, Emma Estella, is the wife of George A. Sharrock and lives on a farm at Rough and Ready, Tuolumne
County; and Gertrude May is the wife of Charles H. Deane and lives near Merced,
Merced County.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 556-558. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.