“California Senator” George Perkins Cut Signature Mounted For Sale

Up for sale “California Senator” George Perkins Clipped Signature Mounted. 

ES-8934

George

Clement Perkins (August

23, 1839 – February 26, 1923) was an American businessman and politician.

A member of the Republican Party,

Perkins served as the 14th Governor of California from

1880 to 1883, and as United States Senator from

California from 1893 to 1915. He also served in the California State Senate. Perkins

was born in 1839 in Kennebunkport, Maine, the

son of Lucinda (Fairfield) and Clement Perkins. Perkins ran away to sea at age

twelve, eventually arriving in San Francisco in 1855. After making an unsuccessful

effort at staking a mining claim in Butte County, Perkins

worked a succession of jobs in Sacramento and the

mining town of Oroville, including

driving a mule team and working as a store clerk. Perkins eventually bought the

Oroville store he clerked at, and was soon grossing $500,000 a year. Perkins

was elected to California State Senate in 1869, representing Butte County.

While in serving in the Senate in Sacramento, Perkins met businessman Charles Miner Goodall,

with whom Perkins would form what would become the Pacific Coast Steamship

Company. Leaving his Oroville business to be operated by his

brother, Perkins moved to San Francisco in 1875 and expanded his interests in

the shipping industry. Perkins sought the Republican nomination for governor in

1879 and ran a successful campaign emphasizing his purported independence from

railroad interests given his interests in shipping, a competing industry. During

Perkins' term as governor, former Civil War general John Mansfield served as his lieutenant governor.

Perkins was appointed to the Senate by Governor Henry Markham in 1893 following the death

of Leland Stanford.[2] As a Senator, Perkins was a part of machine, commonly called the Southern Pacific

Political Bureau, headed by Southern Pacific chief counsel William F. Herrin. Perkins is buried alongside his wife Ruth

Parker Perkins in Mountain

View Cemetery in Oakland, California.