Contra Costa County CA Archives Biographies.....Gift, W. W. 1796 - 1879
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Author: W. A. Slocum & Co., Publishers (1882)

COLONEL W. W. GIFT, (deceased.) -This distinguished gentleman, whose portrait
appears in this work, was born in Marlborough district, South Carolina, October
24, 1796. In or about the year 1809, he moved with his parents to Tennessee,
where he resided about forty years. As a boy he was engaged in mercantile
pursuits for some time, after which he married and embarked in agricultural
operations. In the year 1818, or thereabouts, he commenced running boats from
Nashville, Tennessee, to New Orleans, an occupation he followed, with which he
combined farming, until 1849. In the Spring of that year he left Memphis,
Tennessee, for the Golden State, and arrived in San Francisco in the month of
August. When the first Legislature of California met at San Jose, in December,
1849, Col. Gift was Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Assembly; afterwards, in
1851-52, and part of '53, he held the office of Collector of Foreign Miner's
Taxes. In 1853, he was appointed from Washington to the functions of Register of
the Land Office of California, a position he tilled for eight years; we next
find him a Custom House Inspector on board the steamers plying between San
Francisco and Panama, and subsequently holding a responsible position in the
Custom House on shore for five years—a long list of responsible and arduous
duties which his well-known integrity eminently fitted him for. In 1854, he
purchased property near Martinez, and maintained a residence there until 1858.
The Colonel was for thirty years or more one of the most conspicuous and best
known personages in the State. He was a man of ardent temperament, strong
feelings, warm attachments, and kind human impulses, though sometimes, in former
years, given to domineering manifestations of spirit and speech towards those
opposed to him in opinion. He was, nevertheless, always recognized as a man of
honest sentiments and generous spirit, that would forbid his doing a
premeditated wrong to any fellow creature, and one ready to make prompt
reparation for wrong unconsciously done, or committed under misapprehension.
Colonel Gift had a remarkable memory, a fund of information relating to public
men and events of his own times, and a happy faculty of narrating occurrences
with which he was familiar, that enabled him always to interest any circle of
auditors. He was a devoted admirer and intimate friend of Andrew Jackson, who
was always his beau ideal of official dignity, integrity, determination and
personal excellence. Like his eminent friend and patriot statesman, Colonel
Gift, notwithstanding his ardent Southern feelings and personal sympathy, was a
devoted Unionist, and we all remember here, with what eloquent emphasis, when
the secession policy was taking shape in the resolutions of Southern Legislative
bodies in 1860, he cited, as a precedent for President Lincoln, Jackson's course
and force proclamation for suppressing Calhoun's threatened Nullification
insurrection in 1832. Colonel Gift was a successful breeder of blood horses, an
animal he fondly loved, and during the years that elapsed between that in which
he ran his first race in Nashville, Tennessee, until he ran "Twilight," in
California, sixty-two years intervened. He owned many horses during his
residence in this State, was much attached to the sport, and was the soul of
honor. His instructions to jockeys were typical of his uprightness: "You must
ride a fair race—you can be a gentleman on horseback as well as in Congress;
General Jackson and Henry Clay ran horses, and they never threw a race in their
lives." He died at the residence of his son, W. A. J. Gift, in Martinez, April
17, 1881. He was married, in the year 1819, to Elizabeth Dodson, a native of
North Carolina, who died at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1873. By this union, there
was a family of eight children, viz: John H., born April 24, 1820; Catherine E.,
born October 20, 1821; W. A. J., born October 12, 1823; Maria, born March 20,
1825; Sarah Jane, born March 1, 1827; Edward D., born March, 1830; G. W., born
March 1, 1833; Rachael J., born April 20, 1835.

Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY,
CALIFORNIA,
INCLUDING ITS GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATOGRAPHY AND DESCRIPTION;
TOGETHER WITH A RECORD OF THE MEXICAN GRANTS; THE BEAR FLAG WAR; THE MOUNT
DIABLO COAL FIELDS; THE EARLY HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT, COMPILED FROM THE MOST
AUTHENTIC SOURCES; THE NAMES OF ORIGINAL SPANISH AND MEXICAN PIONEERS; FULL
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE COUNTY; SEPARATE HISTORY OF EACH TOWNSHIP, SHOWING
THE ADVANCE IN POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE;
ALSO,
Incidents of Pioneer Life; and Biographical Sketches
OF EARLY AND PROMINENT SETTLERS AND REPRESENTATIVE MEN;
AMD OF ITS TOWNS, VILLAGES, CHURCHES, SECRET SOCIETIES, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
SAN FRANCISCO: W. A. SLOCUM & CO., PUBLISHERS
1882.

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