Theron Harford Tooker[i]
1811 Born about March of 1811[ii] in the state of New York.[iii]
1831 Married November 8 to Charlotte Philips in Seneca County, New York.[iv]
1837 Acquired land patent for 70 acres in Washtenaw County, Michigan.[v]
1840 Mr. T. H Tooker and family lived in Washtenaw County, Michigan.[vi]
1843-1845 Served as Itinerant Preacher in Michigan.[vii]
1843 On trial, assigned to M. E. Church in Edwardsburg, Michigan.[viii]
1844 Daughter Sarah Carrie Tooker born January 23.[ix]
1844 Remained on trial, assigned to M. E. Church in Buchanan, Michigan.[x]
1845 Payment recorded for service.[xi] (Assignments were 150 miles from home.)
1846 Performed marriages in Middlebury, Elkhart County, Indiana in March, July, and November. Listed as “Minister of the Gospel” and “Preacher of Gospel.”[xii]
1851 On April 1 a letter was waiting for Theron Tooker in Sacramento.[xiii] (Letter suggests he was in the Sacramento area during the gold rush.)
1859 Michigan Agricultural Society noted Mr. Tooker for his butter and atmospheric churn.[xiv]
1860 Resident of Washtenaw County, Michigan, occupation “M. E. Clergyman.”[iii]
1864 On April 23 Mr. and Mrs. Tooker left New York on the steamer Illinois for San Francisco.[xv] (At this time, the steamer Illinois traveled from New York to Aspinwall where passengers boarded the Panama Railroad to cross the Isthmus of Panama. At the Pacific coast passengers continued their journey to San Francisco on steamships of the Opposition Steamship Line.)[xvi]
1867 Lived in Alameda County, California; occupation: farmer.[i]
1867 “The first authentic account of [Methodist] preaching in Livermore was by a man named T. H. Tooker, who it seems organized a class of which his son-in-law, John Manzer, B. F. Brannan, A. A. Overacker and wife, and a Mr. Scott, were members.”[xvii]
1870 Lived in Murray Township, Alameda County California; occupation: farmer.[xviii]
1870 Passed away December 24, 1870 at the age of 59 years and 9 months. He is buried in the Centerville Pioneer Cemetery at Fremont California.[ii]
1878 Charlotte Tooker died September 15. Her tombstone in the Centerville Pioneer Cemetery reads “Wife of Rev. T. H. Tooker.”[xix]
[i] Full name determined from 1867 Voter Registration. California State Library, California History Section; Great Registers, 1866-1898; Collection Number: 4 – 2A; CSL Roll Number: 1; FHL Roll Number: 976446. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
[ii] Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=41350432&ref=acom.
[iii] 1860 United States Federal Census, Ypsilanti Ward 4, Washtenaw, Michigan; Roll: M653_563; Page: 839; Family History Library Film: 803563. Accessed through Ancestry.com.
[iv] Fred Q. Bowman, 10,000 Vital Records of Central New York 1813-1850 (Baltimore, MD, Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1986), p 241, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 85-82513.
[v] Government Land Office Records. Patent issued to Theron H. Tooker in Washtenaw County, Michigan; BLM, Department of the Interior; viewed online at https://glorecords.blm.gov/default.aspx.
[vi] 1840 United States Federal Census, Saline, Washtenaw, Michigan; Roll: 211; Page: 141; Family History Library Film: 0014797. Viewed at Ancestry.com.
[vii] Elijah H. Pilcher, D. D., Protestantism in Michigan: Being a Special History of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Detroit: R. D. S. Tyler & Co.), p 453. Viewed at https://books.google.com.
[viii] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1839-1845, Vol III (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane), pp 384, 386. Viewed at https://books.google.com.
[ix] “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV37-DBV8 : 22 August 2014), Theron Tooker in entry for Sarah Carrie Manzer, 16 Nov 1924; citing Death, Stockton, San Joaquin, California, United States, county courthouses, California; FHL microfilm 1,831,879.
[x] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1839-1845, Vol III (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane), pp 530, 531. Viewed at https://books.google.com.
[xi] Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1839-1845, Vol III (New York: T. Mason and G. Lane), p 654. Viewed at https://books.google.com.
[xii] (a) “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27LX-QCZ : 21 January 2016), T H Tooker in entry for Homer L Matthews and Melissa E Hutchinson, 08 Mar 1846; citing Elkhart, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,845,552.
(b) “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27LX-QZP : 21 January 2016), Theron H Tooker in entry for Joseph Newell and Harriet A Bole, 21 Jul 1846; citing Elkhart, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,845,552.
(c) “Indiana Marriages, 1811-2007,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27LX-Q8V : 21 January 2016), T N Tooker in entry for Ebenezer B Bole and Phebe D Corpe, 12 Nov 1846; citing Elkhart, Indiana, United States, various county clerk offices, Indiana; FHL microfilm 1,845,552.
[xiii] “List of Letters,” Sacramento Transcript, 14 April 1851: Vol 3, No 13, p 1, col 2. Viewed at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc.
[xiv] Transactions of the State Agricultural Society of Michigan, 1859 (Lansing, Michigan: John A. Kerr & Co.), pp 116, 117, and 540. Viewed at https://books.google.com.
[xv] “Passengers from the East,” Sacramento Daily Union, 19 May 1864: Vol 27, No 4106, p 2, col 6. Viewed at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc.
[xvi] “Ocean Travel,” Sacramento Daily Union, 13 May 1864: Vol 27, No 4101, p 4, col 6. Viewed at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc.
[xvii] C. V. Anthony, A. M., D. D., Fifty Years of Methodism (San Francisco: Methodist Book Concern, 1901), p 308. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924009150057.
[xviii] Directory of the City of Oakland and County of Alameda for the Year 1870 (Oakland: Cook & Miller, 1870), p 199.
[xix] Ancestry.com. U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=41350431&ref=acom.
