William Sharon.
William Sharon was one of the remarkable men developed by the mining excitement in this country, one of the sagacious, self-reliant men who inevitably come to the front wherever they are found. He showed his mettle when the Bank of California was forced to suspend, and when a commercial pall hung over San Francisco. In the midst of the frenzied excitement he was one of the few who kept cool and never lost their courage. The wild excitement on the Stock Exchange of San Francisco was stopped at his suggestion that the sessions be indefinitely postponed. Then he called a meeting of the Bank of California directors and made a stirring appeal to them to stand by the bank in the hour of its misfortune, and rescue the business interests of the coast from the paralysis by which they were likely to be seized if they did not take a resolute stand, put their shoulders to the wheel and acquit themselves like men. He proposed that each subscribe liberally to put the bank again in operation, and set the example by a very large subscription—said to have been five million dollars. Others also subscribed liberally, and to the astonishment and joy of the city the bank again threw open its doors for business. He had some years prior to this become connected in business with the lamented Ralston.
William Sharon was born in Ohio, and early in life began the practice of law in Illinois. He went to San Francisco, and immediately engaged in the real estate business, and ultimately became a very large operator in lands, but failed, and in 1863 went to Nevada to take the agency of the Bank of California in Gold Hill and Virginia City. The bank had large loans out on mining property, and as the production of many of the mines had seriously declined, Ralston grew uneasy, and was greatly relieved when Sharon offered to become personally responsible for these loans on condition that the bank advance him a considerable sum to be used in contemplated mining developments, and allow him two years in which to meet the loans. The terms were accepted. Sharon ran new drifts here and there, and in four months, to Ralston’s amazement, paid all the loans, and placed on deposit three-quarters of a million to his own account. This feat drew general attention to him; he was consulted in large operations; he became a director in the great bank. He never forgot Ralston’s kindness to him. He assumed entire charge of the personal affairs of Ralston after his death, and settled on Mrs. Ralston nearly half a million of dollars. He finally entered politics, and represented California in the United States Senate. He was a conspicuous example of business acumen and surprising energy, as well as of becoming gratitude to the knightly Ralston, of whom he always said: “He was my benefactor.”