THE PRICE FAMILY OF SONORA, TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

WILLIAM LUTHER PRICE, Patriarch

by Sue Rydberg Canavan copyright 2006

PG. 3

The personality of Bill Price is an enigma - a man of conflicting values and behaviors. As an old man, Bill had few lovable qualities. Though his grandson, Price Sullivan, told of sitting with him on his front steps, eating nuts, on a happy occasion, few from that time have happy recall. My dad, Joe Rydberg, another grandson, remembered Bill keeping the children at bay by shaking his cane at them.

In the latter part of the 19^th century there was some common lawlessness in Clay Co. Kentucky and in the towns of the Gold Rush. Liquor often prompted men to run down the middle of the street, shooting a shotgun in the air. It may have been a common occurrence during Bill Price’s early years. He demonstrated this behavior in the streets of Sonora in his old age and the stories follow him 80 years after his death.  His quick temper, intolerance, and outrageous behavior encouraged children’s teasing. Adults would also bait him, especially about his Confederate loyalties.  This was told by one who witnessed it and probably took part in the daring. In all, it describes Bill Price as an unhappy man. 

Childhood influences on Bill Price were extreme. Some members of his maternal family were supporters of the Union. His forebears fought vocally for the elimination of slavery. Yet, this family owned slaves and had black servants.  Conflicting family history gives a glimpse of an interesting, childhood.  Bill remained strident for the South’s cause all of his life. Did these influences contribute to the puzzle of his personality?

                Did the murder of his brother, Daniel Garrard Price, when Bill was 15, instill a distrust in him that followed him to California? The circumstances are yet unknown.

                Did the Civil War death of brother, Rob, with whom he had shared the excitement of adventure and the greatest of challenges crossing the plains and those formidable mountains, solidify such a distrust?

                He knew his wealthy, educated, influential Garrard family very well. Was he kept from knowing his Price relatives for a less than noble reason?

                Did the division of his family over the Civil War trouble him?  How did he view the celebrity of his uncle T.T. as a Union General – fighting against his brother, Rob, the rebel spy? Wasn’t this the same uncle who most likely made the journey west seem so appealing and provocative?

                Did Bill’s generation carry on the cavalier attitude toward women that was common with his Garrard and Price relatives? The family history is laced with unhappy marital stories.

                And then, was he bemused or outraged by the family feud between the Whites and Garrards that T.T. embraced in his later years?  These had been close families for three generations. Perhaps Bill was even sorry to miss out on this confrontation with long standing family friends.

                How did this adventuresome teenager who left his interesting, well-educated and respected Kentucky family become this embittered man?

Sorrows similar to those of his childhood were experienced in his adult life. In 1866, his father-in-law died at age 40, on the road to Bodie, when his wagon ran over him. In 1889, the family suffered the drowning death of Bill’s young wife, leaving him with at least five children still at home. In 1903 his son, Frank, was killed in a shocking murder in downtown Sonora - the motive unclear. Kitty McQuade Blair, his sister-in-law, was a neighbor as well. She committed suicide when her son, Bill and Polly’s nephew, died in a mine accident – this was later in Bill’s life.  The tragic circumstances of his brothers’ deaths were hard times. Rob died in the war and Penn’s death was an accident - killed by his horse.  Always a survivor, Bill Price became a successful cattle rancher and contributed much to his community. 

Like many immigrants, Bill married another California pioneer. Margaret Theresa “Polly” McQuade was the daughter of George and Elizabeth McDonough McQuade and perhaps the youngest of the 49ers to arrive in Tuolumne County.  The McQuades, among the first ten to arrive in Sonora, came from Dublin, Ireland. They had been in Australia/New Zealand for several years before sailing for California. George, Jr. and Polly were born in Australia. James and Catherine “Kitty”  McQuade were born in Sonora. 

William Luther "Bill" Price

Margaret Theresa "Polly" Price

Polly was an infant when her family came to the Sierra foothills. She was 5 when the Price boys came to town. She was 15 and Bill was 29 on 13 July 1864 when they  married with her father’s consent. Her mother and 12 year old brother were witnesses. A minister of the gospel, named Robert McCullough, performed the ceremony, probably in the McQuade family home, also on South Washington St. in Sonora. Their first child, born in 1865, did not survive, but they had 8 living children.

Bill must have been proud of the success of his sons: Lee was a popular sheriff, owned several stores,  and later followed in his father’s work as a very successful cattle rancher. Gabe made it big in the mining industry. He was a major figure in the biggest gold find in Nome, Alaska, and came home with amazing stories and wealth. Gabe bought the Lord Ranch which became the Price Ranch, and gave part to Lee, who managed it.  Til ran for public office which had long been a Garrard tradition. He didn’t win but was a very popular man in the county and owned several stores.  Frank, also interested in mining, died before he fulfilled his promise. How Bill felt about his daughters is unknown, but he had every reason to be proud of them, too. They shared his many strengths. Women weren’t highly regarded in Clay Co. KY or early Sonora, so they may have been given little credit or attention.

See Bill/Polly's 8 Children:

Robert Lee

Elizabeth Lucinda

Gabriel William

Georgianna Belle

Francis Bartlett

James Tildon

Katherine Martha

Geneva A.

It seems as if their children were carefully named - mostly for family. Robert Lee was named for Bill’s brother who died in the Civil War, and for their Confederate hero. Elizabeth Lucinda was named for both mothers - Polly’s and Bill’s -, and for Bill’s grandmother, Lucinda Toulmin Garrard. Gabriel William Price has names of his paternal grandfather and of his father. Georgianna Belle’s name honors her grandfather,  George McQuade.. James Tilden Price is named for any of the many “James” from both families. Tilden may be a corruption of Toulmin, a name used by generations of descendents.  Katherine Martha has a maternal aunt, Catherine McQuade, and a paternal aunt, Martha Price, to thank for her names. Francis Bartlett and Geneva A. are the only ones without obvious naming connections. It is curious that none of the girls were named after Polly.

Lee, Bessie, Kate, and Genie all married into families of local pioneers. Lee’s wife, Louisa Brunet, came from a French family in Columbia. Bessie married Ellsworth Kephart whose father brought his family to Sonora from Iowa. Kate’s Irish immigrant husband, Mike Sullivan, came to America with his siblings. Genie married Ed Rydberg, a rancher from the valley below Sonora. Ed’s father arrived in the US as a child from Sweden and his mother was born to Irish parents in Don Pedro Bar, on a ranch southwest of Sonora. Gabe married Jenny Lane, a relative of his boss, a wealthy miner, C. D. Lane. She died within a year and he then married Eva LaGue whose Canadian father pioneered Oroville CA. Til married Winifred Ward, daughter of a Spokane WA banker. Frank married an Alameda girl, Lottie May Allen, whom he met in an Angels Camp dancehall in neighboring Calaveras County.  Georgie, who never married, was a lively “spinster”, actively involved in community affairs.

Bill may never have planned to be a miner for he brought some of the earliest cattle and  some of  the first mules through the mountains to Sonora. He was a farmer, a stockman and a rancher. In his earliest CA census, in 1860, he is a dairyman. Sonora was a growing community, greatly improved from the tent city and muddy lanes of his wife’s family’s experience. But it was still somewhat of  a wilderness. There are tales of bears roaming in the town and of rough manners and behavior in 1853.

Industrious ways were common to pioneers who often had many financial interests. Bill was still exploring possibilities besides cattle raising 25 years after he arrived in Sonora. He was a driver for the  Pioneer Stage Line. An article in the Tuolumne County Independent,  28 June 1879, describes a stage coach accident in which  “Mr. Price, stage driver, rescued the passengers of a wrecked stage near Baker’s Station on the road to Bodie and Mono”. In this same paper, on 27 Sept 1879, an article describes a new ‘pony service’ - a stage line going over the pass between Sonora and Bodie. “The pony riders will be Louis Passeron and William Price.” The famous Pony Express had ended in 1861 but the idea still had value for efficient trade and travel and communication. This road is the one pioneered and built partly by Bill’s father-in-law, George McQuade.

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