Nevada Genealogy Trails Washoe County John O. Sessions Biography

JOHN ORVILLE SESSIONS, 1850-1922

Member of the Nevada Historical Society.
John Orville Sessions was born in Waupaca, Wisconsin, August 10, 1850. Waupaca was an Indian settlement and he was the first white child born there. Here his childhood days were spent and he received his early education from his mother and his father, E. C. Sessions, who varied his active pioneer life by teaching school during intervals when he was not occupied, in the lumber business. In the year 1861 the call of the West, which urged so many brave and ambitious families to treck towards the setting sun, took possession of the father and with the usual old-time equipment, he started with his wife and three little sons, Orville, Edward, and Charles, on the long journey across the plains. The mining excitement of the Comstock called and held the family for a little more than a year, during which time they lived at Gold Hill, but Mr. Sessions was alive to the wonderful agricultural and grazing resources, which he had observed in the Truckee Valley, and in the year 1863, he selected a choice homestead of one hundred and sixty acres south of and adjoining the present city of Sparks.

A district school was one of the first considerations of Mr. Sessions' father and he was active in organizing the public school district at Glendale and building the little frame school house which still stands and is being used today. Orville grew up on the ranch and as soon as he became of age, he homesteaded a farm adjoining that of his father. On November 25, 1877, he married Miss Catherine Vinton, who died December 7, 1907. In 1904 he was elected County Commissioner of Washoe County, an office which he held with honor to himself and benefit to the community for many years, being repeatedly elected. He was married in 1910 to Mrs. Martha Harris, and in 1913 sold his ranch near Sparks and moved into the city of Reno, where he actively engaged in the real estate and fire insurance business. For several years prior to his death, he served Washoe County as its Public Administrator. He died quite suddenly in his office, September 29, 1922.

Nevada Historical Society Papers
By Nevada Historical Society
Published by State Printing Office, 1922
Contributed by Kim Torp