San Benito-Nevada-Santa Cruz County CA Archives Biographies.....Palmtag, William 1847 - 
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Author: Luther A. Ingersoll, Editor (1893)

WILLIAM PALMTAG, a prominent citizen of San Benito, who has been for the past
five years Supervisor of the county and Chairman of that body since 1886, is of
Teutonic extraction, born in Baden, Germany, in 1847. The father of young
Palmtag was a farmer by occupation, and the boy spent his early life on his
father's farm, acquiring meanwhile such education as was afforded by the schools
of his native home. He comes of a prolific race, and the members of his
immediate family consisted of father, mother, eleven boys and one girl. Six of
the brothers had preceded the subject of this sketch to California, and when he
had attained his seventeenth year his enterprising and ambitious spirit
predominated. Bidding good-by to his native heath, he proceeded to Liverpool,
whence he set sail for Calfornia [sic] via New York and the Isthmus of Panama,
arriving in San Francisco in November, 1863. From the metropolis of California
he went direct to Nevada county, where for the following three years he was
engaged in mining, part of the time as an employe and part of the time
hydraulicking on his own account. During the last year of his stay in Nevada
county, he was employed as a clerk in a grocery store. Then, after a short
sojourn in Watsonville, he located in the Salinas valley, where he engaged in
farming, and followed that pursuit for one year with such poor success that he
seriously impaired the small capital which by his energy and industry, he had
acquired in the mines of Nevada county. In the fall of that year, 1869, he went
to Watsonville, where his brother, one of the six who had preceded him to
America, was engaged in the brewery business, and here he remained and was
employed in driving a beer wagon for his brother until the spring of 1872.
Having by this time, after several strokes of ill fortune, again accumulated the
necessary means, he came to Hollister and established himself in the wholesale
and retail liquor business, which he continued to run in his own name until
1882. His business had prospered and by close attention thereto and shrewdness
and sobriety, he had accumulated considerable money and was desirous of visiting
the land of his birth: so he took in as a partner in his business, Mr. Charles
Bernhardt, and placed him in charge and control thereof, and the following year
he made a trip to Germany, spending six months in the Fatherland, reviewing the
scenes of his childhood and paying a pleasant visit to his brothers and other
relatives, his mother and father having died several years before. Upon his
return to Hollister he purchased the interest of Mr. Bernhardt and soon
afterward joined forces with Messrs. Barg and Kleen, who were running a similar
business in the town, and since that time the business has been conducted under
the firm name of Palmtag, Barg & Kleen.

  Mr. Palmtag's time is now taken up in attending to his ranch, which consists
of 420 acres, about 150 of which are set in vines, while the rest is devoted to
general farming. The ranch is on rich bottom land and well suited to the growing
of alfalfa, of which upward of 100 tons are raised by Mr. Palmtag yearly and
used mainly to feed his own stock. A winery of the most modern style, on which
$10,000 were last year spent in repairing and renovating, is part of the
property, and in it the product of the vineyard is made into wine of a superior
quality and bouquet, which is sold to customers in San Francisco and the
adjoining counties. One of the advantages which Mr. Palmtag possesses over the
majority of other vineyardists in California is that he is possessed of the
necessary means to enable him to keep his wines in storage for a year or two,
until it becomes marketable, instead of being obliged, on account of scarcity of
funds, to sell it at an almost losing price as soon as it is squeezed from the
grape and before it has had time to mature.

   On the incorporation of the Farmers and Merchants' Bank of Hollister,
November 3, 1891, Mr. Palmtag was elected its President.

  Mr. William Palmtag is a stanch Democrat, and has, since he took the oath of
allegiance to Uncle Sam, been a sincere adherent to that great political party.
In .1876 he was elected one of the Town Trustees, and was thereafter twice
re-elected to that honorable office. His honor and the conscientious handling of
the trust which had been placed in him, was duly appreciated by the citizens of
this district of San Benito county, as shown by the fact that he was chosen from
among the many prominent residents to represent this district in the Board of
Supervisors, of which honorable body he was made Chairman in 1886, which
position he has maintained and filled with honor to himself and satisfaction to
his constituents for the past six years. Mr. Palmtag is universally recognized
and respected as a man who, in the discharge of official duties, is
incorruptible and fully deserving of the trusts which have been reposed in him.
In 1880, he was sent to the Convention at Oakland to nominate State delegates to
the National Convention at Cincinnati, and was likewise chosen as the
representative to the Los Angeles Convention last year, which nominated
delegates to the national Democratic Convention at St. Louis, and
notwithstanding the opposition which he meets from the Prohibition element of
Hollister and San Benito county, he has never been defeated for any office for
which he has accepted the nomination.

  Mr. Palmtag was married, in 1875, to Miss Kate Moore, of Amador county. He
lives in a comfortable home in Hollister, which gives every indication of being
one of contentment and happiness.

  Mr. Palmtag is a shrewd, conservative man of business. He has worked hard
since he has been in Hollister, the disposition to do so being one of the
characreristics [sic] of his nature. He has acquired the handsome competency,
which he now possesses, by honorable methods and by close and constant
application to his business affairs, and he richly deserves the high estimation
in which he is held throughout the country. In addition to his residence in
Hollister, he owns the building in which the business of the firm is
conducted-fifty-six feet on San Benito and 150 feet on Fifth street-and the
ranch previously referred to. On this latter he employs continually from fifteen
to twenty-five men.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California.

Illustrated.

Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the
Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of
its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent
Citizens of To-day.



HENRY D. BARROWS,
Editor of the Historical Department.

LUTHER A. INGERSOLL,
Editor of the Biographical Department.

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants."-Macaulay.


CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1893.


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