Butte County
Biographies
ISAAC LE ROY MANSFIELD
ISAAC LE ROY MANSFIELD.--Fortunate indeed is the
community of Wyandotte to have as its guardian of
health such an excellent and experienced physician and surgeon as Dr. Isaac
LeRoy Mansfield, a man of high professional honor and skill. He has won not only recognition as a
physician of worth in the community where he has faithfully and conscientiously
practiced for so many years, but in a social way he has won the hearts of the
people of Wyandotte, and this section of Butte County, by his kindly, genial and sympathetic nature.
Isaac
LeRoy Mansfield was born at Washington, Lincoln County, Maine, on August 13, 1848. His father Jacob Mansfield, was also a native
of Maine and came to California in 1868, where he engaged
in sheep-raising, and later was the first rancher at Wyandotte to set out and orchard of Washington navel oranges, as a commercial venture,
having planted fifty trees of this well known variety. Jacob Mansfield passed away, at Wyandotte, in 1910, at the ripe old
age of eighty-seven. Dr. Mansfield’s
mother was in maidenhood Maria Upham, a native of Maine, in which state she was
united in marriage to Jacob Mansfield.
She did not remove to California until 1870, when she came
to Wyandotte, and there she lived to be eighty years of age, and
passed to her reward a few months prior to the death of her husband.
The genealogy of the Mansfield family can be traced back
to England. Dr. Mansfield’s paternal grandmother was
Sally Gray, a cousin of “Billy” Gray, the noted shipowner, a millionaire and
humorist, who acquired ninety-nine ships, but could never secure the coveted
hundredth one, even though he built several at one time. There were always some lost. Grandfather Mansfield was born in England, and was a shoe
manufacturer at Lynn, Mass., but later in life settled in Maine.
Dr. Isaac LeRoy Mansfield was the only
child of his parents, and received his early education in the common schools of
his native state. At the age of sixteen
he decided to prepare himself for the medical profession, and had just begun
reading medicine, under Dr. L. W. Brown, of Vineland, N. J., when the Civil War
broke out. Being fired with the spirit
of patriotism, he forsook his books and enlisted in the defense of his country,
enlisting in Company E, Second New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, serving in the
Army of the Potomac, and was only thirty miles from General Lee when he surrendered. After the war he returned to New Jersey and resumed his studies,
eventually entering the Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery, from
which institution he graduated in February, 1869. In the meantime, his father having located in
California, the young man was possessed with a desire to move westward, and
after visiting his mother in Maine, and arranging his business affairs, he left for the Golden State,
arriving in November, 1869, and in February, 1870 began the practice of his
profession at Forbestown. After living
at Forbestown and Oroville, he located at Wyandotte, where he remained from
1874 to 1891. The latter year he was
appointed physician at the State Penitentiary at San Quentin, which position he
retained for over five years, at the end of which period he located in San
Francisco, and there practiced his profession until 1900, when he returned to
Wyandotte.
Dr. Mansfield was united in marriage with
Miss Hanna Farady Woodward, in 1872 at Oroville. She was born in Marysville, Cal., the daughter of Edward ad
Elizabeth Woodward. Dr. and Mrs.
Mansfield had one son Edward LeRoy, who married Josephine Wickman, of Enterprise, Butte County. For fourteen years he was assistant
postmaster at Oroville, then held the same position at Maricopa about one year,
after which he held a position in the postoffice at Jerome, Ariz., where his death occurred,
May 26, 1918.
In addition to attending to his
professional duties Dr. Mansfield engaged in agricultural pursuits, and owns an
orange and olive orchard at Wyandotte, where he has a family
orchard of well selected fruit trees. He
sold seven hundred acres to the Mission Olive Company of Wyandotte, but still owns three
hundred acres in the new irrigation district, which will be amply supplied with
water. Dr. Mansfield was made a Mason in
King Solomon Lodge of San Francisco and now is associated with
the Masonic Lodge at Oroville; he is also a member of the Odd Fellows and the
Encampment at Oroville, and is Past Commander of the W. T Sherman Post, No. 96
G. A. R., of Oroville. Of recent years
the Doctor has had two strokes of paralysis from which he has had a remarkable
recovery and still calls to see his patients, but is always accompanied by some
one. He is public spirited, refined in
taste, and has a host of friends.
Transcribed by Louise E
Shoemaker, March 20th, 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 825-826,
Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Louise E. Shoemaker.
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