Alameda County
Biographies
JOHN McFARLING, of
Oakland, owner of agricultural and mineral lands, and breeder of fancy
poultry, was born in Belmont county, Ohio, near Barnesville, June 11, 1829, a
son of Ralph and Margaret (McKnight)
McFarling. The father, a native of
Shenandoah county, Virginia, was a farmer and a soldier of the war of
1812. He lived to be over fifty. The mother, a native of Loudoun county, was a daughter of Benjamin McKnight, a soldier of the
Revolution and afterward a farmer. He
reached the age of about ninety-six, being a pensioner for many years before
his death. Grandfather McFarling was a
freighter or teamster in ante-railroad days, and his son Ralph, the father of
our subject, was also brought up to that business, teaming to Charleston and
other mining centers in the Shenandoah valley.
The McFarlings and McKnights are of Scotch ancestry, but have been
settled in Virginia for several generations.
John McFarling received a little schooling
in his youth, a few months in
the
year, and was brought up to farm work.
Early in the fifties he spent a part
of two years in Iowa, where an older brother James, had settled in 1844. This
brother had come to California in 1849 and gone back to Iowa, whence he again started for California in 1854,
accompanied by our subject, arriving in Nevada City August 24, 1854. John McFarling went to mining, and continued
more or less interruptedly[sic] engaged in placer-mining until 1863. He is still interested in that industry,
being general superintendent and part owner of the Juniper and Mount Hope mines
in Lassen county, which are leased to working miners. In 1879 he bought 150 acres of farming land
near Calistoga, Napa county, on which he still carries on a general farming
business. He took up his residence in
this city in 1881, and in 1883 adopted as a specialty the business of raising
poultry. He keeps a dozen or more
varieties of fancy fowls – blue Andalusians, golden Wyandots, Rose-combs, brown
and white Leghorns and others. With good
management and plenty of room, the business may be made quite profitable; and
even a moderate yard in the hands of a skilled breeder affords a fair living.
Mr. McFarling was married in Gilroy,
California, in 1880, to Miss Susan J. Rogers, born in Washington county, New
York, a daughter of Francis Rogers, now living in Calistoga, aged over eighty.
This family, American for some generations, claims descent from John
Rogers, the Smithfield martyr. The
mother of Mrs. McFarling, nee Mary Boody, died March 1, 1875, aged
fifty-seven. Mr. and Mrs. McFarling have
three children - Lura,
born
May 9, 1881; Rose Eleanor, October 27, 1882, and Ashley Rogers, November 1,
1884.
Transcribed
by Walt Howe.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, pages 28, Lewis Publishing Co., 1892.
© 2005 Walt Howe.