Napa-Calaveras-Yuba County CA Archives Biographies.....Parker, Theodore R. 1819 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 18, 2006, 5:33 am

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

THEODORE R. PARKER is the Superintendent of the Napa Water Works, and also of
the Napa City Gas Light and Heating Company. The directors of the water company
are: S. E. Holden, president; George E. Goodman, J. A. McClelland, H. H. Knapp
and F. E. Johnson; S. E. Churchill is the secretary. The works are situated
about one and a half miles from Napa. The source of the supply is an underground
stream, which is pumped into a reservoir having a capacity of 3,500,000 gallons.
The present capacity of the pumps is about 50,000 gallons each twelve hours.
They have some nine miles of main pipe. The water furnished is so pure that,
though used steadily in the boilers for six years, it has never left any scale
or deposit. This underground stream was discovered somewhat by chance. Mr. Coe,
the proprietor of the premises on which the pumping works are situated, had
reason to believe from a well he had sunk that there was a large body of water
underneath, and so reported to the water company. They sunk a large well that
flowed so freely that they could not control the stream, obliging them to sink a
shaft and run a tunnel beneath the stream of water, and finally a cross tunnel
also. Their preparations being completed they blew up the roof of the extreme
ends of the cross tunnel, which caused the full stream to flow through the main
tunnel to their pumping shaft. This had furnished Napa a practically unlimited
supply of water, the pressure in the town being about forty-five pounds to the
square inch. The reservoir, 100 feet above tide-water, is situated in a deep
canon, with a masonry wall on the west end thirty feet high, twenty-one feet
thick at the base and about six feet thick at the top, fronting the water in
convex form. It is locked into a ledge on either side like the Sweetwater dam
near National City, San Diego County, and is cemented into the solid rock on the
bottom and sides.

  The gas company was incorporated in August, 1867, and re-incorporated in 1889.
They manufacture gas from bituminous coal. The works were rebuilt in 1888, under
the supervision of John Fullager, formerly superintendent of the Cincinnati Gas
Light Company.

  Mr. Parker was born in New York city, October 21, 1838, where he attended the
public schools until about eleven years of age. He then entered the office of
Dr. Roberson, where he was taught to write and started in many branches of
study, but the Doctor died a year later, and he then went into the office of
Butler, Evarts & Southmayd, as copyist. This was Hon. William M. Evarts, now
United States Senator from New York. He was employed for s time in the hardware
business, and at fifteen years of age he began to learn gas-fitting, with which
business he has been connected to a certain extent all his life. When seventeen
he began working as a journeyman, being employed for some time in the Richmond
Gas Works, on Staten Island. In 1859 he went to Exeter, New Hampshire, to take
charge of the gas works at that place, a position which he held for three years.
He then came to California, in 1862, by the Panama route, arriving in San
Francisco April 28. He managed a sawmill at Mokelumne Hill for a year, and then
removed to Marysville, where he superintended the gas works until 1869, when he
came to Napa and assumed his present position.

  Mr. Parker was married in Exeter, New Hampshire, July 28, 1861, to Miss Eliza
M. Gate, a native of that place. They have six children: William M., born
October 5, 1864; Adah A., born December 3, 1866; Joseph R., born August 27,
1870; Caroline T., born February 6, 1873; John W., born December 24, 1876; and
Theodore R., born October 1, 1879. His parents were William Martin and Caroline
T. (Hogan) Parker, the father a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the
mother of Hackensack, New Jersey. Mr. Parker is a member of Corinthian Lodge,
No. 5, of Marysville, F. & A. M., and has been a member for the past seven years
of the Board of School Trustees.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California.

Illustrated, Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast
from the Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with
Glimpses of its Prospective Future; Full-Page Steel Portraits of its most
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers and also of
Prominent Citizens of To-day.

"A people that takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendents." – Macauley.

CHICAGO
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891.


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