William Gilliat Thornally 1850 - 1913 My Maternal Great Grandfather

William Gilliat Thornally Sr. This is the only
photo I have of my great grandfather

My maternal great grandfather was English. He was born on June 11, 1850 in Spilsby which is in Lincolnshire, England. William was the son of Samuel Thornalley and Mary Gilliat. He was one of nine children and the second son. He had two older sisters Mary Ann born about 1847 and Susanna Ellen born in October of 1848. His older brother Samuel was born August 17, 1846. His younger siblings were Emma Marie born in 1851, Hepzibah born December 1853, Betsy born 1855, John Henry born 1857, and Eliza born September 14, 1859.

William was christened in the Anglican Church of St. Mary in Thorpe St. Peter on June 22, 1850. In 1851 he was listed on the census with his family when they were living in Thorpe St. Peter also in Lincolnshire. Two teenage servants were shown living with them as were two lodgers who were identified as tile pipe makers. Richard Gilliat age twenty-nine was also living with the family. Richard was likely a cousin of Mary’s.

St. Mary's Church in Thorpe St. Peter, Lincolnshire

When William was six his family suffered a personal disaster that directly impacted William and likely every other member of the family. On February 13, 1857 a decision was made in the legal case Burns vs. Thornalley against William’s father Samuel. Samuel lost the lawsuit and was forced to sell all of the business interests he had inherited from his father Samuel (born about 1797).  After losing everything the family was forced to move to London and William’s father went to work for someone else in order to support the family.

When the 1861 census was taken the family was living at 249 Culbert Road in West Ham, Essex in Plaistow, England. William’s father had a job as a foreman for a brick and tile manufacturer. So, he was doing the same type of work as he had been but as an employee instead of a business owner. Life would have been difficult for the Thornalley family so when William came of age he immigrated to the United States in 1868 when he was eighteen. This fact was recorded on the 1910 US census. William’s older brother Samuel also immigrated to the United States and settled in Cook County, Illinois. The youngest Thornally son remained in England and died in Willesden, Middlesex in 1920. I have not yet researched the daughters but suspect they would have remained in England.

Google street view of West Ham, England

Six years after immigrating to the United States William married Mary McGowan on September 12, 1874. They were married in New York in the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan. See Mary’s bio published on August 9, 2015 for a photo of the church. William and Mary had five children between 1875 and 1887. Biographies for each of these children can also be found on this blog. Two years after their marriage William renounced his English citizenship and became a naturalized American citizen on October 27, 1876. The ceremony took place in San Francisco. This event marks William was our first ancestor to come to California. Henry Menge arrived in San Francisco eight years later in 1884, followed by the Pattillo family in 1887, and it was another twenty-three years before George Vetter showed up in Pasadena in 1910.

Google earth view of West Ham, England

The 1878 City of Oakland directory listed William and identified him as a carpenter but he and Mary were still living in San Francisco. When the 1880 census was taken on June 4^th they were living on Bush Street in San Francisco. Four years later they had moved to Oakland and were living at 1409 15th Avenue, according to William’s voter registration. This address was actually in the town of Fruit Vale which had not yet been annexed by Oakland. I found a news article from 1884 that mentioned that William and Mary were members of the Fruitvale Congregational Church in Oakland.

This is a Google Earth view of Thorpe St. Peter where William's
family was living when the 1851 census was taken - a much
smaller village.

From 1888 to 1890 William worked as a foreman for the Burnham-Standeford Car Shop Company. Burnham-Standeford worked as a subcontractor to Mahoney Brothers and built the cars for the Powell Street Cable Car in San Francisco. The city directory for 1891 and 1892 listed William and showed that he was employed as a foreman at Gurney Minnesota Thresher Manufacturing Company. They built threshing machines for the farm industry. Then for the next several years, he worked for the SP Company – short for Southern Pacific Railroad. He worked there until 1900. For the next few years, William was listed as a carpenter in the directory – presumably, he was working independently at that time. In 1906 William was elected as the Sanitary Inspector for District 1 in Fruitvale. The inspector role was part-time. I found a news article from the Oakland Tribune about William being asked to tell a group of gypsies to move away from Lake Merritt in his role as the Sanitary Inspector. The article was published on July 20, 1903. Directory listings until Will’s death in 1913 alternately listed him as a carpenter, contractor or sanitary inspector.

This is the original marriage license for William and Mary
which is currently in the possession of one of their
granddaughters

William’s 1896 voter registration described him as 5'9" tall, with a light complexion, blue eyes, light hair, and no scars or distinguishing marks.

Another Tribune article from 1903 mentioned that William served on a jury to try Victor Walkirez, “an African American man, who confessed to murdering Mrs. Elizabeth Leroy. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison because one juror, John H. Troy, thought he was insane at the time he committed the murder.”          

   

When I visited the City of Oakland Planning Department I learned that William purchased a plot of land in Fruitvale which came to be known as the Thornally Tract. It was located at Elm (E. 17th Street) between Bray (34th Ave) and Redwood (35th Ave). Over the next few years, William and his eldest son William “Bill” subdivided the tract into twenty-four lots and built single-family homes on the property – including one home for Mary and each of their children.  William and Mary lived in the neighborhood between 1887 to 1906. Each year the person who wrote the directory listings identified their address slightly differently. For example, in 1887 it was listed as “8 Bray Avenue near County Road”. In 1892 the listing read, “Bray between E. 14^th and Old County Road”. The 1896 directory offered “Bray opposite King Avenue”. In total their address was noted in ten different ways. It made it look like the family was constantly moving when in fact I believe they stayed in the exact same place for thirteen years. This is just one of the challenges faced by a family historian.

A portion of the Sandborn map found at the City of Oakland
Planning Department showing the 24 lots in the Thornally Tract.
At that time in 1911 William still owned lots 8,9,10, 13,14 and 17.
The other lots had been sold.

Here's a transcription from another newspaper article about William from around 1906.

Successful Coyote Hunter. Our Sanitary Inspector, W.G. Thornally, went for his vacation to J. Johnson's farm near Rocky Ridge. The coyotes are so plentiful there that it is impossible for anyone who is not accustomed to their howling to sleep at all. Mr. Thornally then went coyote hunting in the old-fashioned way, the same way that rabbits are caught with snares. He was very successful, as he caught a score of them. One is alive and chained in the yard of Mr. Johnson at Rocky Ridge.

William's US Naturalization papers
October 27, 1876

Looking at old newspapers from the period between 1903 and William’s death provides several minor tidbits about his life. For example:

8 June 1903 William inspected the flashing for new light posts as the Sanitary Inspector and found them to be faulty.

8 May 1905 he inspected nine buildings and collected $19 in fees for the Sanitary Inspector’s office.

18 June 1906 William and Mary purchased a lot in Brooklyn from J.F. Valladao.

5 April 1907 a lot was sold in the Thornally Tract.

19 December 1908 William was one of 50 tradesmen summoned to Judge Master's Court to try Peter Claudianes who was charged with dynamiting the Schneck house in East Oakland but in a separate news clip on the same date, we learn that he was excused from jury service because he was a county official.

2 February 1910 William was identified as one person in a pool of about one hundred men as potential jurors.

William's granddaughter Sue Martin Tucker at the lychgate
of St. Mary's Church in Thorpe St. Peter

4 May 1911 William signed a full-page ad supporting Peter C. Frederickson for Commissioner of the City of Oakland as a member of the Greater Oakland Progressive Club. This is particularly interesting because it shows that William was actively engaged in civic affairs and that he had stature in the city. Other’s valued his endorsement. His son William carried on this tradition of community activism as have I by serving on the Alameda County Parks Commission, the Oakland Landmark’s Board and the Oakland Planning Commission – guess it is in my DNA.

When the 1910 census was taken in April William and Mary were both 59. They were living at 1707 Fruitvale with their two youngest children Samuel 23 and Rose 21. William was listed as a carpenter working for himself as a builder. Sam was identified as a house builder and was likely working for his father, and Rose was a stenographer at the SP Railroad company.

These frequent news clips that told of the routine matters of daily life are a now lost sign of the times before the internet when newspapers could afford to hire journalists to follow and report on the news of the times.

Google street view of Spilsby where William was born

By 1907 the Thornally household had moved to 1707 Fruitvale and they remained there until 1912. That home still exists and is in good condition. At the time of his death, William was living at 1665 35^th Avenue, so he had returned to his old neighborhood. That is the house in the Thornally Tract that he had built for my grandparents John and Emma Thornally so William must have moved in with his son after his wife Mary died.

I found the book Fifty Years of Free Masonry by Edwin Allen Sherman & G. Spalding on Google books and learned that William was one of twelve men who filed a petition to establish a Free Mason Lodge in Fruitvale – Lodge No. 336. They were successful in receiving a charter in October of 1898 and William was involved with the construction of the building which still exists in 2019. Several years ago the building was acquired by the Fruitvale Unity Council renovated and converted into a commercial and community use building. William and his sons William Jr., Harry and John were all active members of the masons.

Graphic from the book Fifty Years of Masonry in California by Edwin A. Sherman published in 1898. This book is about Royal Arch Masonry which "is intimately connected with the political disturbances of England and Scotland ..."

 

An excerpt from Freemasons Grand Lodge of California. This is a transcript of the 15th Annual Communication held at the Masonic Temple, in the City of San Francisco on October 10-14, 1899.

William died on May 11, 1913 from chronic heart problems. I found two obituaries for him.

Retired Contractor of Fruitvale Dies

Fruitvale.  March 11 William G. Thornalley, one of the pioneers of this district, and widely known, died at his residence 1665 thirty-fifth Avenue. Thornally has been ill for some time, but death came unexpectedly. Thornalley's wife died a year ago, and it is thought that lose helped to bring on this death. He was a retired contractor and builder. He took a keen interest in public affairs and was a member of Fruitvale Masonic Lodge. He is survived by four sons and one daughter. The sons are W.T. Thornally Jr., Samuel Thornalley of the Melrose police force, Harry and John Thornally. The daughter is Rose Thornalley. No arrangements have yet been made for the funeral.

William, Mary and Lottie Thornally's
headstone at Evergreen Cemetery
in East Oakland.

THORNALLY— In Fruitvale. March 11, 1913. William G., beloved husband of the late Mary M. Thornally, and father of William G. Jr.". John, Harry M., Samuel, Rose and the late Lottie Thornally.  A native of England. A member of Fruitvale Lodge No. 336, F. & A. M.

Friends and acquaintances are respectfully invited to attend the funeral services tomorrow (Thursday). March 13. 1913. at 2:30 o'clock p. m. at the Fruitvale Masonic temple, East Fourteenth street and Thirty-fourth avenue. Services under auspices of Fruitvale Lodge No. 336, F. & A. M. Interment Evergreen cemetery.

William's obituary and his masonic pin.

Street View of Thorpe St. Peter

Street view of Spilsby, England