PIRAM RIPLEY BECKLEY 

Piram Ripley Beckley was born in Athens County, Ohio, March 2, 1835, his parents being Lucius Ripley and Mary Ann (Gorsline) Beckley. The father was a native of Ohio, and the mother of Indiana, her parents living near Fort Wayne. Grandfather Daniel Beckley married a Miss Camp, and both lived to a good old age, perhaps sixty years. In 1844 the parents, with three sons and a daughter, moved to Van Buren County, Iowa, where the father was engaged for a time selling the product of a local pottery, chiefly to dealers. He afterward moved to Lee County and went to farming near Montrose for two years, when he returned to his previous pursuit in Van Buren County. The grandparents also spent a few years with him in Iowa, but afterward went back to Ohio. In 1850 L.R. Beckley, with his wife and children, crossed the plains to California with three ox teams and some cows, forming part of a company of over 100 persons and a train of thirty-eight wagons. The Beckleys left Bonaparte, Iowa, April 5, but did not cross the Missouri until about May 1, not daring to venture into the interior because of the backward condition of the grass that season. They arrived in Hangtown, now Placerville, September 20, 1850, whence the father soon went forward to Sacramento to buy flour and other supplies with which he started a bakery at Diamond Spring for a few months. In December 1850 they moved to Sacramento, where the father built the Washington Hotel, corner of Fifteenth and J Streets. After a few months he rented it to another party, and he conducted the Prairie House on the Placerville road. There the mother died, June 5, 1851, and the family returned to the Washington Hotel in Sacramento. In the spring of 1852 he was again married to Mrs. Phoebe Shaeffer, a widow having one son. He was burnt out in the great fire of November 1852, and soon afterward bought the Monte Cristo House on the Coloma road, which he carried on about three years. In 1855 he moved into Franklin Township, and the fortunes of the family have been connected with this township ever since. He first took up 320 acres about two and a half miles west of where Franklin now stands, with a frontage of one mile on the road to the Sacramento River. Soon afterward he bought about 1,000 acres five miles north of Franklin. He was elected Supervisor for the years 1855 and 1856, and was afterward Public Administrator for one term. He died May 15, 1859, after two or three years of broken health, leaving three sons and a daughter born of his first marriage: Benson D., born about 1833, now a rancher of Calaveras County, and the father of four children; Edmund J., born in 1836 or 1837, a hotel-keeper in Portland, Oregon, and the father of one child; Mary Maria, born in 1838, by first marriage, Mrs. Isaac Allen and by second Mrs. S.F. Wheeler, who lived in this county from 1850 to 1883, and died in Nevada County in 1885. P.R. Beckley, the subject of this sketch, worked with his father, and afterward for a time in charge of his ranches, almost continuously from boyhood until the death of the latter in 1859. Meanwhile he had bought 160 acres adjoining his father’s place on the road from Franklin to the Sacramento, and about 320 acres of low land near the river. Mr. Beckley was married December 30, 1858, to Miss Sarah Clark Walton, born in Delaware January 3, 1838, a daughter of William and Maria (Fountain) Walton, both now deceased – the father, May 27, 1877, aged seventy-eight; the mother, December 25, 1885, aged seventy-six. The father was of English, and the mother of French descent. Their son, John Henry, died in Franklin November 24, 1888, aged forty-two, of blood-poisoning, from what seemed at first a trifling wound in the hand. Another son, William J., died in Iowa in 1854, at the age of nineteen. A daughter, Elizabeth J., was married to Dr. B.H. Pierson, one of the first residents of Woodland, Yolo County, and previously for fifteen years a practicing physician in Sacramento. He died in Franklin January 10, 1883, leaving three children, now living with their mother in Auburn, Placer County. Another daughter, Esther Ann, was married to T.J. Holloway, a rancher of Santa Barbara. They are the parents of four daughters and two sons. Mr. Walton with his family came to Sacramento in May 1856 from Iowa, where they had settled in 1849 at Farrington, Van Buren County. In 1857 they moved from Sacramento to the Twelve-Mile House on the Lower Stockton Road, which Mr. Walton carried on about three years. Early in 1859 Mr. Beckley built a new house on his place, which, however, he soon sold, being invited by his father to live near him on his upper ranch. The father’s death in May threw the estate into court for distribution. In 1860 Mr. Beckley took charge of the Twelve-Mile House previously run by his father-in-law. In 1861 he bought the ranch of 320 acres now owned by Weller Freeman, about two miles east of Franklin. In 1864 he was elected County Assessor for two years. In December 1866 he sold his ranch and settled in Georgetown, now Franklin, of which he has been a second founder. He bought four acres along the west side of the road, on which he has since erected the most substantial buildings in the valley. He first put up a store and a dwelling, the former being now used as a saloon, having been replaced as a store in 1881 by the large two-story brick, a conspicuous landmark for miles around, of which the upper-story is used as a public hall. The dwelling of 1867 is embodied in the two-story building known as the Franklin Hotel, begun in 1885 and finished in 1887. In February 1867 Mr. Beckley opened his place for business as a general store which he conducted until 1875, at the same time carrying on general farming on the McCraken ranch of 400 acres adjoining the village plat at its southwest corner, which he continued until 1885. Being elected Supervisor in 1875 he sold out his stock of goods and rented the store. He entered on the duties of his office on the first Monday in October of that year, and retained it by re-election until 1882. After an intermission of seven years in official life he was appointed after the election of 1888 to the position of sub-sheriff, and entered on the discharge of its duties on the first Monday in January, 1889. He has been postmaster continuously since 1868. Mr. Beckley is a member of the Masonic brotherhood, and is a highly esteemed and public-spirited citizen of Franklin Township – a sort of genial head-center of all local interests. Mr. and Mrs. Beckley are the parents of ten children, the crown and glory of their useful, industrious and unpretentious lives: Lucius Ripley, born November 23, 1859; William Walton, June 3, 1861; Mary Maria, January 8, 1864; John Augustus, December 26, 1865; George Irville, December 16, 1867; Lizzie May, May 1, 1871; Isaac Freeman, May 25, 1873; Sarah Esther, March 11, 1876; Laura Alice, January 14, 1877; and Ora Edna, July 17, 1883. Of these, the oldest daughter, Mary Maria, was married June 29, 1882, to John W. Hall, a native of Canada, son of John E. and Jane Elizabeth (Benjamin) Hall, then residing in this township and now in Yolo County. John W. Hall had taught school in Georgiana Township nearly four years, when, at the age of twenty-six, he was accidentally drowned, April 1, 1884, while hunting on the Whitcomb place, leaving two children: Elmer Ernest, born April 26, 1883, and a posthumous child, Myrtle Gertrude, born September 4, 1884. The children and their mother are members of the Beckley household. Lucius R., the oldest son of P.R. Beckley, owns 160 acres in Jenny Lind Township, Calaveras County; and William W., the second son, owns an adjoining quarter section.