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Edwin Crocker Family papers, 1885-1936.
MANUSCRIPT2942
Collection Overview
Title:
Edwin Crocker Family papers, 1885-1936Crocker, Edwin
Abstract:
Materials about and belonging to the Edwin Crocker family, the majority of which is correspondence and legal documents pertaining
to litigation involving property near Donner Lake owned by Edwin's daughters Jennie and Aimee. Other material relates to the
acquisition of the former Crocker home by the City of Sacramento in 1911.
Date:
1885 (issued)Contents:
Folder 1: Correspondence; Folder 2: Documents.
Subject:
n-us-caCrocker, Edwin
Crocker, Margaret
Crocker, Aimee
Fassett, Jennie Louise Crocker
Crocker Art Museum.
Note:
Edwin Crocker, brother of Charles Crocker (one of the Central Pacific Railroad's "Big Four") was born in Jamesville, New York
on April 26, 1818. He trained to be a civil engineer but eventually went into law practice in Indiana, often defending fugitive
slaves. He moved to California in 1852 with his second wife, Margaret. Crocker continued practicing law in Sacramento, became
a judge, and later was appointed Chief Counsel for the Central Pacific Railroad. He retired after a stroke in 1869 and traveled
to Europe collecting art. Crocker died on June 24, 1875. He was the father of a daughter with his first wife, Mary, and of
five children with Margaret, only two of whom, Jennie and Amy, lived past the age of 22.
Margaret Crocker was born Februry 25, 1822 in Stark County, and married Edwin Crocker in 1852 before the two of them to California.
After her husband's death she became Sacramento benefactor, donating a conservatory, additional land to a cemetery, the Marguerite
Home for aged women, and in 1885 the Crocker Art Gallery, consisting of her and her husband's art collection in a gallery
next to their former home. Margaret died in Sacramento on December 1, 1901.
Jennie Louise Crocker, daughter of Edwin and Margaret Crocker, was born in 1860, married J. Sloan Fassett in 1879, and moved
to Elmira, New York. Jennie supported the Crocker Gallery throughout her life, contributing $10,000 in 1911 for Sacramento's
purchase of the former Crocker home to expand the gallery, and donating cermics, jade, ivory and sculpture obtained during
trips to Korea. She died in 1939.
Amy Isabella Crocker was born in Sacramento in 1863 and died in New York on February 7, 1941. During her long life Aimee,
as she called herself, married five times (including two marriages to European princes), and had numerous adventures in the
Orient, detailed in her 1936 biography "And I'd Do It Again."
Crocker, Edwin.
Unrestricted. Please credit California State Library.
Physical Description:
print
1 manuscript box; 15 1/2 x 12 x 3 in.
Language:
English
Identifier:
Origin:
CaliforniaCopyright Note:
Unrestricted. Please credit California State Library.