Sacramento County
Biographies
FRANCIS M. JANES
FRANCIS M. JANES. – An enterprising and successful rancher, whose
neat farm of forty acres has become one of the show-places around Galt, is
Francis M. Janes, who lives about two and one-half miles east of that town. He
is a native of Missouri, and was born in Andrew County, on June 3, 1863, and his
father was Thomas Jefferson Janes, a native of Wisconsin. Grandfather H. F. Janes built the first house in Janesville, Wis., and also that town, whose
name is now so historically famous, was named in his honor. He later removed to
Andrew County, Missouri, and there his son, Thomas Jefferson, the father of our
subject, was married to Miss Ellen Flesher. In 1852, Grandfather Janes and his
family came across the great plains to California in a prairie schooner, and
settled at Camp Curtis, in Humboldt County; this was a government
camp, where soldiers were stationed to protect the immigrants from the natives.
Grandfather Janes acquired 400 acres of land, and spent on it the balance of
his days. Thomas Jefferson Janes returned to Andrew County, and there Francis M. Janes
first saw the light.
In 1871,
Thomas Jefferson Janes and family returned again to Humboldt County, where he then had a farm
of eighty acres, upon which he lived the balance of his days, dying at the age
of seventy-six. Mrs. Janes, who was a native of Illinois, passed away in her eighty-fourth year. The worthy parents had five
children, Mary, the eldest, now being Mrs. Bradford, of Humboldt County. Thomas Jefferson is at Santa
Margarita; Francis M. is the subject of our story; Ella is Mrs. Brotchie, of San Diego; while Joseph Theodore is
deceased.
Francis
M. Janes attended the Janes district school, a district named after the family,
and when still very young, he went into Del Norte County, and worked for two
years in the Hobbs & Wall box factory. Then he returned home, and worked
around there for another two years. After that he rented his father’s farm, and
managed that for seven years, raising grain and running a dairy; and then, with
a partner, he conducted a shingle mill at Ryan’s Slough in Humboldt County, for two years. He next
worked in a sawmill at Scotia, Cal., for eight months, and then
went to work in a store at Alliance, Cal., and continued there for
three years.
Mr. Janes now bought a half-interest in the Alliance business, and was a partner
with R. A. Green for ten years; but selling out, he removed to Oakland, where he had a grocery
store on 38th Avenue. for
two years. Following that experience, he purchased his present location, about
two and one-half miles east of Galt, acquiring forty acres in 1912, known as the Lem Kane ranch. He moved to this ranch with his
family, and here he has resided since. He owns a lot at Berkeley, and he has eighty acres at
Fremont, in Fremont County, Idaho, and Mrs. Janes has a
quarter-section willed her by her father. These 240 acres in Idaho are under cultivation, and
are devoted to general farming. The home-ranch of forty acres east of Galt is
largely devoted to a vineyard, thirty-two acres being set out to vines, while
eight acres are in pasture.
On June
29, 1887, Mr. Janes was married at Eureka, Cal., to Miss Elizabeth Otilda
Ernestina Giesler, a native of Elizabeth, N. J., and the daughter of William and Mary
(Holtz) Giesler, both natives of Germany, the former a native of
Baden, the latter of Hamburg. Her father was a potter by
trade, and the last years of his life he was a farmer in Idaho. In 1873, he came out to California, and settled first in Mendocino County, and from there removed to Humboldt County, and later to Fremont, Idaho, and after a while he
retired and passed away, at the home of our subject and his wife in Humboldt County, breathing his last in his
sixty-ninth year. Mrs. Janes’ mother was fifty-one years old, when she died at San Francisco. Three children made up the
Giesler family: Elizabeth, Mrs. Janes; Charles, who is deceased; and Bertha,
Mrs. Nelson, of Walnut Creek. Mr. Janes is a Republican,
and he was a school trustee for a year in Humboldt County. He is a stockholder and a
director in the Bank of Galt and he belongs to the Grape Growers’ Association,
and Poultry Producers’ Association of Central California.
Transcribed by Vicky Walker, 5/31/07.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With
Biographical Sketches, Page 664.
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Vicky Walker.