Yolo-El Dorado-Sacramento County CA Archives Biographies.....Fiske, George D. 1827 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 13, 2006, 7:34 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

GEORGE D. FISKE, real-estate and insurance agent, Woodland, was born in
Fiskdale, Worcester County, Massachusetts, July 31, 1827, a son of Henry Fiske,
a native of Sturbridge in that county. Fiskdale is now a part of Sturbridge,
According to one historian, the origin of the Fiske family in America was as
follows:

   Two sons of Nicholas Fiske, a knighted physician who emigrated from Stadhough
parish in the county of Suffolk, England, came to the United States and settled
in Massachusetts, which at that time comprised far more territory than it does
now. There is now in the possession of the subject of this sketch the
coat-of-arms which was given to Nicholas Fiske in the year 1635, in the time of
the reign of Charles, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland. Henry
Fiske, father of George, was born in Sturbridge in 1795, married Susan Helen
Fales at Wrentham, Massachusetts, twenty-two miles from Boston; she was born in
that locality. They resided in Massachusetts until 1837, when they removed to
Ingham County, Michigan. After a residence of nine years in Ingham County, he
died in the town of Leslie, that county, the day before Christmas, 1845. He was
the second incumbent of the office of Judge of Probate in that county. After his
death, his widow moved with a part of the family back to Massachusetts. Late in
life she removed to New Hampshire, where she died, at the residence of her
daughter, Mrs. Susan F. Gerould, in 1881, at the advanced age of eighty-seven
years. She was the mother of seven children, of whom two died in Michigan, one
in California from an accident, and Francis L. is residing at Ottawa, Illinois.
Her eldest son, Henry M. Fiske, of San Francisco, is a member of the State Board
of Health. The daughter is the wife af S. A. Gerould, in Keene, New Hampshire,
and the remaining son is George D., the subject of this sketch.

  The latter ended his school education at the academy in Jackson, Michigan,
returned to Massachusetts and became associated with his uncle, Elisha Fales,
commission merchant in Boston, who afterward turned the management of the
business over to Mr. Fiske.

  In 1848 news of the California gold discovery reached Boston, and after
preparation he sailed the next spring on the barque Edward Fletcher for
California, in company with twenty-eight others. Three of the organized party,
however, came overland through Mexico, arriving a month in advance of the others
to make arrangements for transportation to the mines. The vessel belonged to
William Fletcher, and was built for the Mediterranean trade and to carry
missionaries abroad. Leaving Boston March 4, they came around Cape Horn and
arrived at San Francisco on Sunday, September 7, —180 days from Boston. They had
several exciting experiences on the trip, which would be interesting to relate
had we space. Four days after their arrival they went to Sacramento on the
schooner Jacob M. Ryerson, paying $14 each as passenger fare and $20 per ton for
freight. They hired ox teams and took two loads of provisions to Hangtown; but
Mr. Fiske and two others were left behind to take charge of the freight and
secure other ox teams as they came in from overland, with which to take the
freight and other provisions, etc., to the mines. About a week afterward, with
four yoke of oxen, they started on their journey, Mr. Fiske accompanying; but
two of the oxen died on the way, the teamster became sick, and finally, after
about four days' travel, they reached Hangtown. The company then voted to
dissolve, each one to go his own way, finding that as an organized body they
could not accomplish anything.

  Mr. Fiske went to the mines on the south fork of the American River, engaged
in gold-mining at Salem Bar and also kept a little store. In the fall of that
year he sold out his store, returned to Sacramento, and in company with a man
named Phillips, bought a team and a lot of goods, with which they made another
trip to the mines, sold the goods there, and then went to McDowell Hill and
bought out the McDowell & Read store and boarding-house. Business was very brisk
at that point, the water having been turned from the bed of the river and the
gold yield very large. Mr. Phillips, in making a trip to Sacramento for more
goods, died with the cholera, and Mr. Fiske then had to take the road himself
while the fearful epidemic was raging. Mr. Fiske, leaving his business in charge
of his cousin, William L. Messinger, went East by way of the Isthmus, taking
charge of an invalid young man from Rhode Island named Durfee, and sailed for
Panama on board the old British barque Enterprise, and was nearly three months
reaching Panama. From the Isthmus to New York he sailed on the steamer North
America, then the fastest steamship plying between New York and Chagres.

  July 26, 1851, Mr. Fiske was married, and on the same day took the train for
New York on his way to California, taking also in charge his cousin's wife, Mrs.
Messinger and her child. They sailed on the steamship Cherokee for Havana, when
they were transferred to the Falcon for Chagres. The Chagres River being very
high they took the stern-wheel steamer Aspinwall up that river to Gorgona, and
by barge to Cruces, then by mule back to Panama, where they took passage on the
steamer Northerner, landing at San Francisco September 9.

  Mr. Fiske sold out his store at McDowell Hill the following spring and went
into mining operations on a very large scale; but the early rains of October
were so heavy, as to carry away their flumes and machinery. After the great fire
of November 2, 1852, which destroyed Sacramento, Mr. Fiske moved down to that
place; and soon the city was inundated, and Mr. Fiske and his wife's brother,
George Loring, were engaged in taking goods around to Brighton in lighters,
where they could be conveyed to the mines by teams. In the spring, after the
water had subsided, Mr. Fiske and Mr. Loring started in the grocery business and
continued it until the fall of 1855, when they sold out and removed to Capay
Valley in Yolo County, and engaged in stock-raising and farming. Mr. Fiske, then
wishing to locate where he could educate his children, sold again in 1859 and
moved to where Woodland now stands. In 1862 he purchased land adjoining Woodland
and the same year was appointed United States Deputy Collector of Internal
Revenue for the Fourth District, being connected with the department for eight
years. Part of this time and subsequently he was Deputy Sheriff under Charles H.
Gray. Since about 1863 he has been engaged in the real-estate and insurance
business.

  Mr. Fiske married Elizabeth C. Loring, a native of Yarmouth, Maine, by whom he
had two sons: Harry Waterman, born on McDowell Hill in 1852, graduated at the
Cooper Medical Institute at San Francisco, and has since practiced his
profession in Plumas, Yolo and San Luis Obispo counties, and died at Cambria, in
the latter county, July 31, 1887, leaving a widow. The second son, George Damon,
was born in Sacramento in 1855, married a daughter of William Hazelton, of Kings
River, Fresno County, which is his present home; he has a son and a daughter.
April 13, 1890, the subject of this sketch was by the hand of death deprived of
his companion of nearly forty years.


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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