Leland Stanford succeeds John Gately Downey as…

Leland Stanford succeeds John Gately Downey as Governor of California, on January 10, 1862.

After being admitted to the bar in 1848, Stanford had moved with many other settlers to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he began law practice with Wesley Pierce.

His father presented him with a law library said to be the finest north of Milwaukee.

In 1850, Stanford was nominated by the Whig Party as Washington County, Wisconsin district attorney.

On September 30, 1850, Stanford married Jane Elizabeth Lathrop in Albany, New York. She was the daughter of Dyer Lathrop, a merchant of that city, and Jane Anne (Shields) Lathrop.

The couple will not have any children for years, until their only child, a son, Leland DeWitt Stanford, is born in 1868 when his father is forty-four.

In 1852, having lost his law library and other property to a fire, Stanford followed his five brothers to California during the California Gold Rush.

His wife, Jane, returned temporarily to Albany and her family.

He went into business with his brothers and became the keeper of a general store for miners at Michigan City, California, later the name changed to Michigan Bluff in Placer County; later he had a wholesale house.

He served as a justice of the peace and helped organize the Sacramento Library Association, which later became the Sacramento Public Library

In 1855, he returned to Albany to join his wife but found the pace of Eastern life too slow after the excitement of developing California.

In 1856, he and Jane moved to Sacramento, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits on a large scale.