CFH First Draft: Callin Montgomery

 This post is part of an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. 

Callin "Cal" Montgomery is the 21th person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, (1.) James Callin. This descendant report uses the Register Style of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 

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Fourth Generation

21. Callin "Cal" Montgomery

(Elizabeth Callen-3, James "2nd"-2, James "1st"-1) was born on 28 Feb 1831 in Richland County, Ohio. It is possible that he went west with his brother and sister-in-law when they visited the Gold Fields. However, and whenever, he might have arrived, he lived in Coloma, El Dorado, California in 1860.

Cal enlisted in the military on 18 Sep 1861 in Coloma, El Dorado, California. After the war, he remained in El Dorado County, through at least 1910. He married Laura E Baker on 23 Jan 1870 in El Dorado County, California. Laura was born about 1852 in California. The 1870 Census describes her as 18 years old and "3/4 white." Cal and Laura were listed as a married in the 1870, when he was a saloon keeper near Coloma. By 1880, he was listed as single and living in Gold Hill.

Numerous voter registration records and occasional mentions in The Record-Union of Sacramento over the years establish Cal as the kind of colorful side character you might see in an old western. He was the ol' prospector who passed word of a generous stranger in Coloma to a Wells Fargo official in Placerville, thus helping authorities solve a stage coach robbery. He was the grubby old timer who dealt with the remains of a Chinese man who was suffering from leprosy and committed suicide, leaving a corpse no one wanted to go near hanging in remote cabin.

Cal last appeared in Greenwood, El Dorado County, in 1910. He died on 3 Oct 1912 at the age of 83 in Napa County, California.