USA > California > Sacramento County > History of Sacramento County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, 1913 > Part 69
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SIDNEY S. ALBRIGHT
An important business has been developed within the past few years through the energetic and intelligent efforts of Mr. Albright, who although a resident of Sacramento since the summer of 1903 did not embark in business for himself until six years later. The business which he selected was the one with which he was the most familiar and in which he had received skilled instruction during a
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sojourn in various large eastern cities, viz: the painting of car- riages and automobiles. Adopting a conservative policy he started in business in small quarters on Twenty-fourth street, engaging in carriage, wagon and antomobile building and repairing, as well as trimming and painting, but the trade grew with unexpected rapidity and to provide accommodations for the vehicles in his charge he was forced to double his ground space and also to utilize two floors instead of one. With the enlarged space he is now able to store all cars and carriages given to him for painting, and he thus has the facilities desired for prompt and satisfactory work in the line of his specialty.
Prior to his removal to the west Mr. Albright had lived for some years at South Bend, Ind., but he is a native of Crawford county, Ohio, and was born near Bucyrus. His father, who still resides in Ohio, was in former years a man of considerable promi- nence and as early as 1876 he built flour mills at Berwick, Seneca county, and Holgate, Henry county, which he operated under his personal supervision for a long period of successful business effort. The family is an honored old family of the east and traces its his- tory back to the colonial period. Several generations were identified with the material upbuilding of Pennsylvania. In a small village of that state, Jacob Albright, a great-uncle of Sidney S., established a congregation and erected an edifice known for years as the Al bright Church. The building still stands and is now used by the Evangelical denomination in its religious services.
At the age of sixteen years Sidney S. Albright began to learn the trade of a carriage-painter. From that time to the present he has allowed no outside matters to turn his attention from his chosen occupation. It was always his ambition to learn the trade under the most competent workmen and he therefore considered himself fortunate in serving an apprenticeship in shops famed for the quality of their work. At different times he was employed at his trade in Dayton, Ohio, and Jackson, Mich., as well as New York City, where he had advantages of an exceptional nature along the line of the trade. For six years he was engaged as foreman of the Studebaker paint shop in South Bend, Ind., and from there he re- moved to California, where for six years he was employed as fore- man of the painting department of the carriage shop owned by A. Meister & Sons, finally resigning the position in order that he might begin in business for himself.
While living at South Bend, Ind., Mr. Albright there married Miss Verna Rench in November of 1898, Mrs. Albright being the daughter of a man prominent in public affairs and widely known in Michigan. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Albright consists of two children, Howard S. and Jewell Verne, ten and six years of age respectively. The family attend the services of the Christian
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Science Church in Sacramento, in which Mr. Albright is a member of the board of directors. Long a thoughtful student of religion, he has found in this church the doctrines that accord with his per- sonal views and he gives to its upbuilding the most devoted effort and most generous assistance. At no time has he been active in polities nor a seeker after official honors, but he keeps well informed regarding national problems and gives the Republican party the influence of his ballot in all general and local elections.
LOUIS F. BREUNER
The president of the John Breuner Co., Louis F. Breuner, of Sacramento, Cal., was born in the city of Sacramento, state of Cali- fornia, on the 15th day of August, 1869. He is the son of John and Katharine (Keuchler) Breuner, both natives of the Fatherland. John Breuner came to the United States in 1849, and to California in 1852, locating at Sacramento, where he established the well- known furniture firm of John Breuner Co. It is difficult to point to a better instance of what may be accomplished by perseverance and principle than is presented in the history of John Breuner, who, in spite of the many serious and discouraging obstacles encountered in the way of fire and floods, rebuilt his store which now stands as a commendable monument to his undannted and honest business methods. John Breuner was a leader in his profession, and his genial disposition held the respect of the entire community until his death in 1890.
It was in the public schools of Sacramento that Louis F. Breuner was educated. He was compelled to leave school at the early age of eighteen years on account of the impaired health of his father, which caused much responsibility of the latter's extensive furniture interests to fall upon the young shoulders of Louis and his brother John, Jr. When the father passed away the sons continued the business under the name of John Breuner. A few years later, through the untiring and energetic efforts of Louis and John, Jr., a magnificent building was built, which now stands as an orna- ment to the city of Sacramento. The business was greatly enlarged by the addition of new departments, ranking the firm as a strictly house furnishing establishment and one of the largest on the Pacific coast.
Louis F. Brenner is a man of honorable and progressive char- acter, numbering his friends by the hundreds, not alone in his own town and state, but the eastern states as well, where his business
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interests take him yearly. He has always taken a keen interest in the development and prosperity of the city and is one of the leaders in any movement proposed for the good of the community at large. Being the incumbent of high positions of different kinds, Mr. Breuner has been in the public eye practically all his life.
Mr. Breuner has been closely affiliated with Masonic work for the past fifteen years, being a Knight Templar and a life member of the Shrine. He has been a member of the Grand Commandery of the Knights Templar of the state of California, for ten years and over, having been elected in April, 1910, to the highest office of the Grand Commandery, that of Grand Commander of the State, which he held for one year. He has the distinction of being one of the youngest men to hold this position, such honors in the past having fallen to the lot of men in older years.
Mr. Breuner was the youngest man called to the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce, which office he held with signal ability during the period of 1900-2. He is past president of Sunset Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West, with which order he has been identified since becoming of age. He is an Elk, Woodman of the World, and a member of the Sutter Club of Sacramento and the Union League and Olympia Clubs of San Francisco. On June 14, 1893, Mr. Breuner married in Cincinnati, Ohio, Clara F. L. Schmidt, a native of that city. They have five sons.
STEPHEN JOSEPH ROONEY
The genealogical records of the Rooney family lead back to Ire- land, where, August 14, 1826, John Rooney was born to the union of John and Ann (Garland) Rooney, lifelong residents of the Emer- ald isle. In a large family he was the youngest child, and the death of his father leaving the family in discouraging financial condition was the cause of his early inurement to labor. From his childhood days he has been familiar with hard work, and even now, although far beyond the usual period of activity, he has not allowed himself to lead a life of ease and indolence. At the age of twenty-one years he sailed from Liverpool to New York, where he landed without special incident. From there he proceeded to Boston, near which city, at Roxbury, he visited a sister, Mrs. Mary Hoey. Two months later he joined a brother, Peter, in Alabama. November 20, 1849, he sailed from New Orleans for Chagres, Panama. From the Isthmus he proceeded up the Pacific ocean to San Francisco, where he landed January 27, 1850. On the 2d of February he arrived in Sacramento.
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It had been the intention of Mr. Rooney to engage in mining, and he lost no time in hastening to the camps indicated by current rumor to be the most flattering in prospects. For nine months he remained at Georgetown, Eldorado county, and there he met with exceptional success. About that time a friend from Alabama, John Hopper by name, obtained from him and his partner, Mr. Smith, the sum of $10,000 withont security. The money soon was lost, and the two men thus involved in the loss were forced finally to take as total reimbursement the equity in one hundred and sixty acres in Sacramento county. On the land they sowed a crop of barley that brought them almost $10,000, so that much to their surprise they lost nothing by their unfortunate loan. The Alabama mine in Eldorado county, owned by Mr. Rooney, yielded as much as $800 per day, and by 1853 he had netted $25,000. With that surprising amount to his credit, it was natural that he decided to establish a home of his own. Returning to Alabama in 1853 he married Miss Mary Clark, who was born in Ireland and came to the United States in 1850 with her mother.
The family of John and Mary (Clark) Rooney included four sons and one daughter. The eldest, John, Jr., died February 4, 1885, at the age of twenty-four years. Peter W. married Mary Powers. Stephen J., of this review, is next in order. James married Miss Mary Brown of Sacramento and they have eight children. The only daughter, Mary, is the wife of Thomas O'Neil of Sacramento. The father, who died in this county, was widely known among the early settlers of the county. Prior to the Civil war he supported Stephen A. Douglas, but in 1864 he voted for Abraham Lincoln for president, believing the hope of the country to rest in that great statesman and patriot. After 1868 he regularly voted the Democratic ticket at all elections.
At the homestead on the Coloma road, five miles from Sacra- mento, occurred the birth of Stephen Joseph Rooney and there he passed the uneventful years of childhood. After having completed the grammar school studies he entered Sacramento institute and later was a student at St. Mary's college in San Francisco. Interested in agriculture, he gave his mature years to the raising of farm products and the growing of hops. At one time he served as deputy under Sheriff O'Neil of Sacramento county. In common with the other members of his family he cherished a devoted allegiance to the Roman Catholic church. November 23, 1887, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Tackney, a native of the county and the daughter of John and Maria Tackney, natives respectively of Canada and Ireland. From an early day the family lived in California, where Mr. Tackney followed the occupation of a hotel keeper. There are three living children in the Tackney family, namely: Mrs. Rooney, residing at No. 1114 Twenty-fifth street, Sacramento; Mrs.
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A. Westlake, also of Sacramento, and Charles. Mrs. Rooney is the mother of three children, viz .: William J., born February 12, 1889; Stephen J., Jr., September 18, 1891, and Margaret, August 3, 1893. The daughter is an accomplished musician and teaches that art in the capital city.
During the excitement caused by the discovery of gold in the north Stephen Joseph Rooney determined to go to Alaska and at- tempt to regain a fortune his father had recently lost. With that ardent hope he followed his brother and Lee Brown to the gold fields in 1898. When he had landed at Skagway he assumed charge of a pack-train between that harbor and Lake Bennett. However, from the very outset misfortune seems to have marked him for her own. A number of valuable pack animals had been lost with the steamship Corona. A quantity of forage and provisions was lost in another vessel which went down. Finally, when his high hopes had begun to sink beneath the weight of repeated reverses, he fell ill with spinal meningitis and died far from the loved ones at home. The body was brought back to California by his brother and was interred in a local cemetery amid expressions of deep regret on the part of his host of early friends, all of whom united in deploring the demise of this popular citizen and in tendering to his family their most sincere sympathies in their bereavement. Since his death Mrs. Rooney has continued to reside in Sacramento, where she has en- gaged in raising hops, having met with a fair degree of success.
STEPHEN WILLIAMS HAYNIE
For many years Stephen Williams Hayme was perhaps as well known in Sacramento and its tributary territory as any man who traveled in and out of that city. He was born in Virginia in 1834 and died in Sacramento August 1, 1910, in his seventy-sixth year. In 1846, when he was a lad of twelve, he went to Baltimore, Md., where he remained until 1850, when he made his first trip to California. He returned east three years later and remained until 1868, when he came again to California, this time locating at Sacramento, where except for brief absences he passed the remainder of his life. By trade he was a ship carpenter, but during the Civil war he was in the employ of the national government and for seven years he was a traveling representative of the Sacramento Bee, one of the best- known newspapers in California. He had also some practical ex- perience in ranching.
In 1856 Mr. Haynie married Miss Margaret A. Hall, who was
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born on board a vessel en voyage from England to the United States, of parents who were descended from old English families. She bore her husband three children, one of whom has passed away. Those living are Millard F. Haynie and Mrs. Annie B. Fickett, who live in Sacramento and afford her much comfort in her declining years.
GEORGE PHILIP HARTMANN
To many of the early settlers of Sacramento the name of George Philip Hartmann was known as the synonym for all that was pa- tient in industry, purposeful in action, honorable in business and patriotic in citizenship. An identification with Sacramento cov- ering only a little less than one-half century brought him into as- sociation with the pioneers of the city and gave him an intimate knowledge of the measures and civic projects that ultimately brought their return in permanent prosperity. Although he came to America with little knowledge of the language and even less knowledge of the customs of the people, out of adversity and poverty he struggled forward to competence and success. Nor was he the sole member of his family who gave of his time and influence to the country of his adoption, for he had a brother, Frank, who crossed the ocean during early youth and became a soldier of the Union army, fight- ing for the stars and stripes.
Descended from pure Teutonic ancestry unmingled with alien races, George Philip Hartmann was born in the city of Darmstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, January 1, 1828, and received excel- lent educational advantages in that prosperous German city. Upon starting out to make his own way in life, crossing the ocean to America, he settled in St. Louis, Mo., about 1850 and there secured employment at his trade of a butcher. However, the west was then appealing to young men by reason of its great mines and other possibilities and in 1852 he joined an expedition that came across the plains to Sacramento. After one unfruitful year in the mines he located permanently in Sacramento and here engaged in the butcher business. For thirty years he conducted a shop of his own, having his place of business at No. 418 K street, the present site of the large department store owned by Weinstock, Lubin & Co. Meanwhile he established his home at No. 2229 P street in 1892 and here his death occurred August 12, 1898, thus bringing to a close a long and honorable identification with his adopted city.
The marriage of George Philip Hartmann and Christine Nehr- bass was solemnized September 27, 1864, in San Francisco. Mrs.
S. Philip Bartmouse
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Hartmann was born near Mentz, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany. At the age of nine years she left Darmstadt for America in company with her parents, Wendell and Christine (Fischer) Nehrbass. For a brief period before coming to California they sojourned in Buffalo, N. Y., then a town of insignificant proportions and the market town of a near-by tribe of Indians. When twenty-two years of age, in 1859, she came to California via the Isthmus of Panama, and after her marriage began housekeeping in Sacramento, where now she continues to reside in the home acquired by Mr. Hartmann many years ago. One of her brothers, Jacob Nehrbass, is still a resident of Sacramento, where for many years he was connected with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. It was the privilege of Mr. and Mrs. Hartmann to assist in promoting the organization of the German Lutheran Church in Sacramento and they had the honor of being its oldest members, as they also were among its most generous contributors. Not only religious but other enterprises received the kindly aid of Mr. Hartmann, who possessed a gen- erous heart and the most philanthropic impulses toward those in need. As far as possible he contributed to all movements of un- questioned importance in the development of the city and the ex- pansion of its interests. Various fraternities received his active co-operation, including the Improved Order of Red Men, the Ex- empt Firemen and the Chosen Friends.
FRED LEROY MARTIN
Dependent upon its progressive citizens is the permanent ad- vancement of any community and particularly of such as conserve the business interests of a prosperous farming region while at the same time serving their commonwealth as the seat of legislation. Lacking the natural advantages which give to some western cities popularity as beach resorts and to others prominence as ports of entry for the ships bearing the commerce of the world, the capital city of California nevertheless possesses its own claim to pre-emin- ence among the great towns west of the Rockies, and far from its least important claim is that of attracting to its commercial and financial leadership men of honor, ability and intelligence, men of intense loyalty to civic progress and displaying a patriotic spirit without which no community attains a lasting prosperity.
It is not too much to state that the identification of Fred LeRoy Martin has been helpful to the commercial and financial growth of Sacramento, with whose business enterprises he maintained a long
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association and to whose banking affairs he has devoted his atten- tion more recently. A long residence in the capital city has given him broad ideas concerning its possibilities and an underlying as- surance as to its future importance. Since the age of ten years he has made his home in Sacramento, hence his belief in local develop- ment is not the result of sentiments spasmodically formed, but of knowledge absorbed through close observation and personal experi- ence. Of eastern lineage, he was born in Syracuse, N. Y., September 25, 1868, and at the age of ten years came to Sacramento in company with his mother.
The grammar and high schools of Sacramento, which then as now held a wide reputation for thoroughness of instruction, gave to Fred LeRoy Martin the advantages of an intimate acquaintance with the studies that form the basis of all true education. After he had completed the high school course he entered upon business affairs. At the age of seventeen years he became identified as a clerk with the firm of Thomson, Diggs & Co., wholesale dealers in hardware, and for twenty-one years he continued with the same company, meantime rising from a clerkship to a position of trust and re- sponsibility. During the long period of his association with the hardware establishment he became prominent in civic enterprises and also founded a home of his own, his marriage April 29, 1902, uniting him with Miss Henrietta Schammel of San Francisco. The same period of business activity was interrupted by an active service of nine months as captain of the signal corps in the Spanish-American war, his position giving him charge of all the signal work along the Pacific coast.
The connection of Captain Martin with banking affairs in Sac- ramento began during the year 1909, when he was elected president of the Capital Banking and Trust Company, holding that position until it became a national bank. He now holds the position of as- sistant cashier of the California National bank. A sound, conserv- ative policy, aloof from merely speculative ventures and guided by keen perceptive qualities, has been his chief characteristic as a banker and has given him the confidence of depositors demanding the utmost safety for their moneys. With business and financial matters demanding his entire time, he has not identified himself with public affairs nor has he enjoyed a leisure sufficient for active participation in politics, yet he has maintained a large circle of friends in every circle of society and has held prominent connection with the well- known Sutter club of Sacramento, also has engaged in fraternal work with the local lodge of Odd Fellows and is a leading member of the organization of Spanish-American War Veterans.
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HENRY SCHNETZ
For several generations in the past America has been the land toward which many aspiring young Germans have turned their eyes in eager longing, and hither among many thousands of emigrants came Henry Schnetz at the very opening of manhood's activities, a youth scarcely twenty-one years of age, unfamiliar with the English language or with American customs, almost wholly without means, yet fortunate in having a rugged constitution and a thorough knowl- edge of a trade. There ensued for him years of indefatigable exer- tion in the acquisition of a competency and eventually he suffered in health, from the prolonged continuance of his arduous labors. A vacation from work being considered necessary for the benefit of his health, he left California, accompanied by his wife and son, and en- joyed an European tour of eight months, during which time he re- visited the scenes of childhood and the home where his father and mother had spent their last days.
Descended from an old Teutonic family, Henry Schnetz was born in Germany May 2, 1862, and received the advantages of the excellent schools of his native land. At the age of fourteen he left school and began to learn the baker's trade in the bakery owned and operated by his father, Carl Schnetz, who was an expert in the occupation and enjoyed a local reputation for skill in the prepara- tion of food products. Upon the completion of his apprenticeship he went to Heidelberg and secured work as a baker, remaining there for three years. During 1883 he crossed the ocean to the United States and for two years worked in New York City, where in June, 1885, he crossed the continent to San Francisco. In that city and in Oakland he found employment at his trade. Upon coming to Sacra- mento in October of 1885 he secured work in a bakery, where he continued until 1888. Returning to San Francisco he first worked for others and then opened a bakery of his own. At the expiration of three years he sold his interest in the business to a partner.
When again establishing his business headquarters at Sacra- mento in 1892 Mr. Schnetz bought an interest in the Pioneer bakery, and subsequently he bought his partner's interest, thereby be- coming the sole proprietor. This bakery is the oldest in the city, having been established at the present location, No. 124 J street, in 1849. The business developed into one of profit and its management brought him a fair degree of success. At this writing employment is furnished to twenty persons and three wagons are in constant use for the delivery of orders to enstomers. With the failure of his health, which necessitated a lessening of his labors, Mr. Schnetz sold an interest in the bakery to his brother, Otto Schnetz, who since
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then has been associated with him as a partner. January 11, 1896, he was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Probst, a native of Kentucky, but reared and educated in Santa Clara county. Their only son, Earl, born March 10, 1900, is now a student in the schools of Sacramento. The family are earnest members of the Roman Catholic church and Mr. Schnetz has been a generous contributor to its maintenance. Since becoming a citizen of our country he has supported Republican principles in national elections, but in local campaigns gives his allegiance to the best men regardless of politics. After coming to California he entered into fraternal activities and now holds membership with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Improved Order of Red Men.
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