Colusa County
Biographies
JOSEPH PROSPER
SHERER
This California pioneer of 1857 in Colusa county resides three and one-half miles northeast of Arbuckle, and is a native of Knox county, Ohio, and a member of an eastern family early established in the United States. His father, William, was born in Washington county, Pa. Early in life he became a farmer in Knox county, Ohio, and from there in 1847 removed to Missouri, settling near Savannah, Andrew county, where he developed a farm from a tract of raw land. On crossing the plains in 1857 he settled below College City, where he carried on a hotel known as the Ohio house. Later he removed to the neighborhood of his son’s home and carried on a stock business. A man of exemplary character, a sincere Christian and an accommodating friend, he was mourned when death ended his career at the age of seventy-five years. The welfare of his community and country was ever dear to his heart and in citizenship he proved himself loyal and patriotic, worthy of the blood of his Revolutionary father. During early manhood he married Mary Kincaid, who was born in Pennsylvania, but reared in Maryland; from there she removed to Ohio with her father, Joseph Kincaid, who was a native of Scotland, and was successively a resident of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio. When the family removed to California she crossed the plains with them and eventually died in this state, in 1896, at the age of eighty-four years.
The family of William and Mary Sherer consisted of four children, namely: Hamilton, who died in Colusa county; Joseph Prosper, who was born in Ohio November 14, 1835, and was twenty-two years of age at the time of coming west; Mrs. Martha King, and Dillon, whose home is in Modoc county, this state. The journey of the family from Ohio to Missouri was made in a “prairie schooner,” when J. P. Sherer was twelve years of age. He attended school in Andrew county three months of each year, the balance of his time being given to the work of improving the farm. With a train composed of sixty persons and twenty wagons drawn by oxen, Joseph P. Sherer and his family started for the coast, leaving St. Joseph April 5, 1857, and proceeding up the Platte to Fort Laramie, thence via Sublet’s Cutoff through a locality infested with hostile Indians, and down the Humboldt, thence via the Honeylake route to Susanville, which then had but one house. On the 14th of October they arrived at Butte creek, and later Mr. Sherer camped at Sycamore slough, turning loose the herd of cattle which he had brought from the east. After working for Steele & McCord one year, in the fall of 1858 he built a board house on the slough, and later purchased from the state the two hundred and eighty acres comprising the farm. With two horses he began to farm and put in a crop of grain, which he successfully harvested, and as time passed he secured an excellent equipment for the cultivation of the place. In those days he made a specialty of hogs, which he fattened on barley and sold in the mines. Later he had three thousand head of sheep several years, and in the meantime he remained continuously interested in the cattle business. With his brother Dillon he also operated two threshing machines. In 1866 he settled on a tract of one hundred and sixty acres which he pre-empted and to which he has added until now he owns eleven hundred and fifteen acres in all. On the farm about 1893 he erected a substantial two-story residence with modern improvements, and the property has been further improved by an orchard of three hundred trees and a vineyard covering one acre of ground.
For a long period Mr. Sherer engaged extensively in the raising of grain, but since 1897 he has rented his grain land to tenants. In 1902 he embarked in the dairy business and now has one hundred milch cows, besides two hundred and fifty head of cattle. To secure feed for his cows he has devoted attention to the raising of alfalfa and now has one hundred and fifty acres in that product. For the irrigating of his alfalfa land he, with others, built a ditch of suitable dimensions, by means of which it is possible to irrigate ten thousand acres, the water being carried from the Sacramento river. The use of a separator operated by steam power facilitates the work in the dairy and the cream output is shipped to Woodland. Jerseys and Durhams are his favorites. His lands and estate have been incorporated under the title of the J. P. Sherer Land & Stock Company, of which he is president.
In Savannah, Mo., July 5, 1855, Mr. Sherer married Miss Susan Smith, who was born there and died in Colusa county August 22, 1900, at sixty-five years of age. She was woman possessing many attractive qualities and was an exemplary member of the Christian Church. Her parents, Ezekiel and Sarah (Walker) Smith, were natives of Tennessee and pioneers of Missouri, where Mr. Smith was elected the first sheriff of Andrew county, filling the office for two terms. During April of 1849 he died of cholera, and afterward his wife came to California, where she died in Potter Valley. Three of their daughters (including Mrs. Sherer) came to California in 1857. One of their sons, John Peyton Smith, came in 1849, as did also their son, Hiram, but in 1853 they returned to Missouri, J. P. coming west the second time in 1856 and Hiram in 1857. The latter became a grocer at Healdsburg, where he died; and the former is now living in Potter Valley.
The family of J. P. and Mrs. Sherer comprised ten children, the eldest, James Hamilton Sherer, the present sheriff of Colusa county, being an infant at the time the family came to California; the other members of the family are as follows: J. D.; Katie, Mrs. John Craig, of Modoc county, this state; William E., a stockman near Arbuckle; Minnie, wife of K. Mardes; Samuel T., who is employed in San Francisco; Mattie, wife of Edward Smith, of Vancouver, B. C.; Edward, on the home farm; Mrs. Evelyn Tucker, of San Francisco; and Mrs. Alta Rankin, of College City. All of the children were give good advantages, including attendance at the Pierce Christian College in College City. For twenty years Mr. Sherer served as trustee in the Franklin district. The first school in the district was built on land which he donated and he also aided in the work of building, as he did later when it became necessary to erect a new building for the accommodation of the school. In politics a stanch Democrat, he has given faithful service to his party, mainly as a delegate to county conventions and as a participant in local political matters, but in the line of office-holding he has had no ambitions, his tastes lying in the direction of agriculture rather than public service.
Transcribed
Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of the State of
California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento
Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, Pages
564-567.
The Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 1906.
© 2017 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Colusa County
Biographies