The McNear family: the second generation

June 21, 2006

Generous and shrewd, George P. McNear, preferred business transactions secured with a handshake and a promise -- telling a grandson he had lost about $250,000 in secured loans -- but little to none in loans made on trust.

In April, 1876, two weeks short of his graduation, George Plummer McNear, at the insistence of his father, John A. McNear, left Petaluma High School and joined the family firm, running the new Oriental Mill. John could find no other partner, and George, then 19, had worked in the business on weekends and holidays.

A shrewd man and a hard worker, like his father, George made the Oriental profitable, then opened a feed store on its ground floor when he saw how many Petalumans were going into the chicken and egg business.

With a taste for finances and banking, George also began loaning money to men who wanted to get started in the egg business. He was president of the Sonoma County National Bank for over 25 years, and was actively involved with six other banks.

In 1902, the McNear Feed and Seed store on North Main Street, was destroyed by fire: all that was left was the front door key in McNear's pocket. He relocated the business to what is now the Great Petaluma Mill and continued to prosper, erected buildings all over downtown in partnership with his father.

McNear's first marriage, to his high school sweetheart, Jennie Otis, ended in tragedy when she died in a boiler explosion on a river steamer. Four years later, in 1887, he married Ida Belle Denman, and the couple built what was probably Petaluma's most beautiful home, Belleview, a three-story mansion south of town and overlooking the river.

He was an active member of the Rotary Club and the Congregational Church, and enjoyed golf and traveling. McNear was also generous toward the city, giving it McNear Park, the sites of the fire station at Second and D streets and McNear School; and donating land, floors and money for the Petaluma Golf and Country Club.

He died at Belleview Aug. 12, 1947, at the age of 90.