Zabriskie, Elias B.

Born: 1825-06-22 New Jersey

Died: 1894-06-10 Carson City, Nevada

Elias B. Zabriskie was a businessman, miner, and cavalry officer. In 1840, he and his father moved from their native state to Jacksonville, Illinois. Upon the commencement of the Mexican War, he volunteered for military service, serving as a second lieutenant in the 4th Regiment of Illinois Volunteers before transferring to the 1st Regiment, where he was a second lieutenant and aide to General James Shields. After the war, Elias accompanied his father to gold fields in California, arriving in San Francisco in July 1849. In 1850, he was living with his family in Sacramento. When silver was discovered in what would become Nevada Territory, Elias and his father moved to the area and established several mines. He continued mining until June 1863, when he helped organize a battalion of cavalry for service in the Union Army. In August 1863, he volunteered for military service, receiving a commission as captain in the First Battalion of Nevada Cavalry. He remained on active duty until a year after the end of the Civil War. In December 1863, he married Justine Jackson, with whom he had one child.

Wm. Hugh Robarts, Mexican War Veterans: A Complete Roster of the Regular and Volunteer Troops in the War Between the United States and Mexico, from 1846 to 1848 (Washington, DC: Brentano's, 1887), 44, 45; Isaac H. Elliott, Record of the Services of Illinois Soldiers in the Black Hawk War, 1831-32, and in the Mexican War, 1846-8 (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1882), 196; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Sacramento, Sacramento County, CA, 166; Francis Bazley Lee, ed., Genealogical and Memorial History of the State of New Jersey (New York: Lewis Historical, 1910), 1:303; Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of the United States Army for the Years 1861, '62, '63, '64, '65. Part VII. Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, California, Kansas, Oregon, Nevada (Washington, DC: Secretary of War, 1867), 378.