McNear, John Augustus (1832-1918) (1 of 2)

William Shew’s Portrait Photograph of John Augustus McNear

View fullsize

THE PHOTOGRAPHER/ PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO:

Photographer: William Shew (1820-1903) was a prominent 19th century photographer famous for his daguerrotypes. He worked in New York and Boston before moving to San Francisco in 1851.

Studio Location: 417, 421, 423 and 425 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, California

THE SITTER:

Name: John Augustus McNear

Description: In this head-and-shoulders portrait, John Augustus McNear appears as a handsome, clear-eyed, and, albeit balding, youthful man. His lack of top-of-the-head hair is compensated by his well-groomed Shenandoah beard. In a curious coiffure, the hair from both of his temples has been gathered and twisted into curls protruding above both of his ears. He is conventionally dressed in a jacket with large, pointed lapels, a matching vest, and a white shirt with a black neck tie.

Biographical Note: John Augustus McNear is arguably the most famous and respected of all Petaluma pioneers. He was a man of vision with astonishing energy, brilliance and ambition. Under his influence, Petaluma grew from a small riverside frontier town to a thriving center of industry and commerce. With encouragement from his father-in-law, George Bailey Williams (1809-1899), McNear moved to Petaluma in 1856 with his first wife, Clarinda Damsen Williams McNear (1837-1866). He saw that the little town had a bright future, and he immediately invested in a livery stable and hay yard. Trained as a master mariner in his youth, McNear used his profits to create a shipping business on the Petaluma River. He built riverside warehouses where produce, especially wheat and potatoes, could easily be transported via the river’s scowl schooners, invested to straighten the river’s impeding bends, financed a fleet of schooners, built the freight steamer, Josie McNear, and constructed a canal to enable steamships to dock in Petaluma independent of the tides. Wisely diversifying his interests, McNear founded Petaluma’s Bank of Sonoma County and was a backer of local railroad lines. He invested in the Sonoma County & Petaluma Water Company and established a very profitable brick manufacturing facility on Point San Pedro. Praising John McNear in his 1911 History of Sonoma County, Tom Gregory wrote: “Of all the prominent pioneers of the state there is none more deserving of esteem and good will of the people than John A. McNear, for wherever his name is known it means that he has stamped some indelible action in that locality… He is typically a Californian by adoption, always of the most loyal kind, honorable, upright and a man who has forged his way to the front through the exercise of talents given him by nature, and while doing this there has never been a time that he has neglected the duties of a citizen.”

Family Affiliation: John Augustus McNear’s first wife was Clarinda Damsen Williams McNear (1837-1866). His Petaluma pioneer in-laws were George Bailey Williams (1809-1899) and Mehitable Lilly Williams (1807-1899). John had several children with Clarinda, but only one, George Plummer McNear (1857-1947), lived to adulthood. John Augustus McNear’s second wife was Hattie S. Miller McNear (1847-1922) with whom he had two children, John A. McNear (1869-1927) and Erskine B. McNear (1872-1956).

Bibliography:

THE PHOTOGRAPH:

Format / Size: carte de visite

Medium: albumen photographic print mounted on cardstock

Description, front:

Description, back: The photographer’s imprint appears in the upper center of this card listing his address as, “Nos. 417, 421, 423, & 425, Montgomery St. San Francisco.”. Below this is, “No. 18906” (number handwritten in pencil), and “N.B. Duplicates of this card can be obtained by sending name and number, and an order from the party for whom it was taken.”.

Date: According to Peter Palmquist, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, Stanford University Press, 2000, p. 498 column 2, Shew listed his address as 417,421, 423, & 425 Montgomery between November 1866 and early 1869.

Condition: This card has slight foxing throughout on both sides, and the front has a large orange stain on the bottom left.

Owner:  Private collector, digital copy by permission

Reproduction rights: The Petaluma Museum Association makes no assertions as to ownership of any original copyrights to the digitized images here reproduced.  These images are intended for personal or research use only. Any other kind of use, including, but not limited to commercial or scholarly publication in any medium or format, public exhibition, or use online or in a web site, may be subject to additional restrictions including but not limited to the copyrights held by parties other than the Association. USERS ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for determining the existence of such rights and for obtaining any permissions and/or paying associated fees necessary for the proposed use.