Alameda County
Biographies
FRED. D. ARFF
Was born in Keil, Holstein, Germany, on the 5th of February, 1822; and resided there with his parents until sixteen years of age, when he had a great desire for the sea. He led a seafaring life for sixteen years, sailing on various freight and passengers vessels, and entered mostly all the principal ports on the continent. In 1852, on the 11th of May, he arrived at San Francisco on the clipper ship John Stewart, and landed at long wharf on Commercial Street. At the time he landed he was penniless, but was fortunate enough to get free board and lodging for a couple of days. Soon after his arrival he went into the mining occupation. The first mine he entered was at Woods Creek, between Jamestown and Sonora, where he discovered from eight to ten dollars’ worth of gold daily. He remained there six months, when he went back to San Francisco, where he again took up his old occupation for six months on a sailing ship, carrying lumber from Oregon to San Francisco. After leaving the latter ship he met an old mate of the John Stewart, by the name of James Wood, who got him a situation in a store at the corner of Union and Battery Streets. At the end of twenty-three months he embarked in a draying business until 1856, when he came to his present place, comprising two hundred and eighty acres of land at Mount Eden. On the 18th August, 1857, he married a Miss Louise D. Liese, of Hesse-Cassel, Germany. Five children were the result of this union, of which two sons and two daughters survive.
History of Alameda County, California…, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883
p. 839-840
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
CAPT. GEORGE ATKINSON
Was born at Mountville, Waldo County, Maine, September 26, 1836, being left an orphan at eleven years of age. On March 4, 1852, being then but sixteen years old, he went to Syracuse, New York, and there found employment in a drygoods store, where he continued five years, on the expiration of which time he moved to Lyons, Ionia County, Michigan, where he was engaged in a like business for two years. He then proceeded to Fulton, Whitesides County, Illinois, and after a year to Lake City, Wabasha County, Minnesota; he there engaged in the commission business and resided until his coming to California. When the Civil War broke out, Captain Atkinson on April 26, 1861, enlisted in Company I of the First Minnesota Regiment of Infantry, and leaving Red Wing on the 27th of May proceeded to Washington, where they were assigned to Franklin’s brigade, and took part in the first battle of Bull’s Run. Subsequently he was attached to Sedgwick’s division of Simm’s corps of the army of the Potomac, and was present in all the engagements until August 8, 1862, when he mustered out for promotion at Harris Landing, Virginia. He now returned home, and on August 26th of the same year took command of Company G, Eighth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and with it proceeded to Fort Abercrombie, Dakota, where he was quartered for eighteen months under General Sibley in the first instance and afterwards under General Sully, their duty being the subjection of refractory Indians. In the summer of 1864 Captain Atkinson was detailed with two hundred men to proceed to the relief of certain emigrants who were held in check by Indians about two hundred miles west from Fort Rice, which duty being successfully carried out, they marched back to Sioux City, Iowa, thence to Dubuque, and then followed his regiment, which he joined at Murfreesborough, Tennessee, and was appointed Brigade Inspector of the Third Brigade, First Division of the Twenty-third Army Corps, with which he remained until the close of the war, having been engaged in the great fights at Nashville, Franklin, and Murfreesborough. After the battle at Nashville the corps to which Captain Atkinson was attached followed Hood to the Tennessee River, where the Captain sustained the well-earned reputation of Minnesota troops for bravery on the field of battle, whence they were transported to Washington, where they arrived February, 1865. Here they embarked in transports for Fort Fisher and thence to Newburn, North Carolina, then following up the railroad to Kingston, and onward to Goldsboro’ there joining Sherman’s army, with which they proceeded to Raleigh, North Carolina, and finally halted until August, 1865, at Charlotte, in that State. On the 26th of the same month his regiment was mustered out of the service and returned home, he never having received a scratch, although being in the thickest of the fray in many a hot engagement. Upon his return to Minnesota, as we have already said, Captain Atkinson engaged in the commission business in Lake City, where he resided until 1872, when he embarked in a grocery store in St. Paul, Minnesota, and there remained until November 1874, when, with his wife and family, he came to California and made his home in San Francisco. His first employment there was for one year in the Assessor’s office, after which he entered upon his present position in the General Freight office of the Central Pacific Railroad Company. In 1876 he transferred his residence to East Oakland, and for the last four years has been secretary of the Cosmopolitan Mutual Building and Loan Association. Married in Lake City, June 7, 1866, Miss Maria Kellogg, a native of Pennsylvania, and has five children, viz.: Frank, Sue, Blanche, Nellie, Hardy.
History of Alameda County, California…, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883
p. 840-841
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler