Return to the El Dorado County Page Return to El Dorado County TalesWritten by Joanne Burkett from research taken from Paolo Sioli's History of El Dorado County California, from El Dorado Co. birth, marriage, death and land records and often from interviews.
Telling the story of William H. Valentine caught my fancy some time ago because I, too, descend from a Valentine. However, they are not the same family at all. My great grandfather was Ed Valentine, a farmer in Grayson County, Ky.
When I began my research on him some years ago, I did not know that he had changed the spelling of his name when he came to America from Bornholm, Denmark in 1880.
The 19 year-old who boarded ship on the other side of the Atlantic was Peder Edvard Valentin, the fourth son of Valerius Michal Peder Valentin, a fisherman, whose ancestry I have since taken back to the early 1600s. One of Ed's uncles -- Valentine Valentinsen -- had come to America with the Mormons during the Latter Day Saints' Danish mission in 1851. However, this branch of the family changed the spelling of their surname to Wallentine.
William H. Valentine, the subject of this story, was the son of Obadiah Valentine, most likely a member of the original Nassau County, N.Y. Valentine family that had its origins in England.
On Dec. 19, one hundred and seventy-three years ago, William H. Valentine was born in Queen's County, N.Y. The year was 1830.
Many Valentines in this country, I have learned, are descended from that family, starting with Richard Valentine, born about 1620 in Lancashire, England. He was the first of the Valentines to journey to New York. The only other early American Valentine I have found is one John Valentine, who was in Boston in 1675.
Richard, however, came to the United States with the Winthrop-Saltonstall party. They arrived first in Massachusetts, moved to Connecticut, crossed the Long Island Sound in 1644 and set up housekeeping at Hempstead, Long Island. Richard was one of the original 66 to divide that area's land. Some of them became prominent leaders of the area.
In my research, I found a William who was the son of an Obadiah, which may have been the ancestors of my William and Obadiah. These first two were born in 1730 and 1765, respectively, and were descended from Richard. This Obadiah may have been the father of my Obadiah. The timeframe would be correct.
But, let's move forward to my subject, William H. Valentine. This William was a pioneer in his own right. He led an interesting life of hard work and adventure before settling down to raise a family in Coloma, during that town's infancy.
As a boy, William was educated in the often-haphazard style of the times and, along the way, learned the machinist's trade, which would serve him well over the course of his life.
In 1849, when he was just 19 years old, the gold rush in California was raging, sending out its siren call. Joining with a group of others anxious to head to those gold fields, he set to work that year building a ship. In August, the party sailed from New York to Cape Horn and on to San Francisco, arriving just after the New Year, January 1850.
Wasting no time, William headed for Nevada City, which was a wide spot in the trail at the time, boasting just three rough-hewn houses. This same year, he helped build an irrigation ditch for mining -- somewhere in Placer County.
The following year, 1851, he came to El Dorado County, where he joined with a company to build the county's first ditch, the Uniontown and Michigan Flat ditch, which would be located near Coloma, where he would eventually make his permanent home.
For several years, William worked at mining and in the construction of ditches.
Paolo Sioli's History of El Dorado County, written in 1883, states that William married Laura J. Cromwell in 1856. Laura was a native of Maryland, born in 1839. This report agrees with the entry on the 1880 census, however, records for the 1870 census show his wife as Susan, born in Maryland in 1839. The name Susan could have been recorded in error or could have been some sort of nickname. Not impossible, given that some common nicknames for the era included Polly for Mary, Biddie for Obedience or Bridget, Helen for Aileen, Dob for Robert, Lollie for Charlotte, and Ona for Charlotte, to name a few. By the way, the names of states were very popular for use as given names. There are girls named Tennessee and America in my own family tree. It was a very popular name for the fairer sex.
Anyway, William and Laura (or Susan) had four children: Layton W., Lewis H., Carlton O. and a daughter, Jennie, who died when she was four years old. Since Layton was 11 years old when the 1870 census was taken, there may have been a child born before him and it may have been Jennie. She does not show up on either census.
The 1880 census also shows 61 year-old Edna Valentine, mother-in-law, living with the family. Laura's mother's was probably a widow by now and her surname would no doubt have been Cromwell, not Valentine.
Eventually, the gold mines dried up and faded away. The ditches, and often the towns, were abandoned, their occupants seeking "golder" pastures elsewhere. Many just gave up the quest, settling for a more normal life of commerce or farming.
In 1857, William and his wife moved to their permanent home in Coloma and within two years, he was able to begin improving the property. A land patent record shows he later obtained three additional parcels of land on Dec. 1, 1868.
As he settled in to life as a farmer, he joined forces with other men from his new hometown. In April 1874, records show he was a member of the organizing body of the Sutter Mill Grange, No. 179, out of Coloma.
Three years later, on Nov. 21, 1877, he was part of a large turnout for a reorganization meeting of the El Dorado County Agricultural Society, formerly known as the El Dorado County Farmers' Club, No. 1. William was quickly named to the board of directors. George G. Blanchard was named president.
By the early 1880s, William and his sons were harvesting the bounty of some 4,000 fruit trees and 4,000 grape vines.
At this point, little is known of the family's fate, but today there are some 200 Valentines listed in the white pages for California. No doubt at least a couple of them are descendents of the New York native.
Permission is granted by the author to use or republish this article, but proper attribution to the author -- Joanne Burkett -- is requested.
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Last Updated on: 11 January 2004