ISAAC LEA

Sacramento County

Biographies

ISAAC LEA

ISAAC LEA, farmer, Brighton Township, was born in Yorkshire, England, April 22, 1827, son of John and Harriet Lea. In 1847 John Lea died in New York, while on his way to the West. The next year his wife died, in England. Mr. Lea was a nurseryman all his life, on a large scale, and became a man of comfortable circumstances. He had six sons and one daughter: Thomas has been a resident of San Francisco for thirty years, is wealthy and retired from business; John ran a ferry for nearly thirty years, and is now bridge-tender for the Central Pacific Railroad Company at Tehama, Tehama County, this State; Charles is a farmer at Florin, this county; Sidney is a merchant in Australia, whither he went from California in 1857; and Mrs. Joseph Scholfield, who came by water in 1863 and is now living in Brighton Township. Mr. Isaac Lea, the subject of this outline, was approaching seventeen years of age when he left old England all alone in 1844, and located in Kane County, Illinois; Rhodes, now deceased, came in 1848; Sidney and John in 1849; Thomas in 1852; Charles in 1855. All the living sons except Charles came to California in 1852 and made homes here. On arrival in Illinois, Isaac worked on a farm, then in a printing-office two years during the Mexican war, and then bought ten acres of ground and commenced farming; afterward he purchased forty acres more, and did not sell the farm until 1860, several years after he came to California. On coming to this State he had six horses and two light spring wagons, into which he put everything he might need; and when about half way here he sold one of the wagons, as about one wagon-load of provisions and provender was consumed. The wagon-boxes were made water-tight, so that they would float in crossing streams. Mr. Lea had an enjoyable trip. On reaching Carson Valley he sold four of the horses, for more than they cost. Directly after arriving at Hangtown he worked for two months on the Hangtown canal, and as soon as the rains set in he resorted to mining, working a year there. The next year, in June, 1853, he came down into the valley and was employed by A. D. Patterson, then sheriff, on his ranch. On the 17th of September he went down into what is called “The Pocket,” between the Sacramento and Cosumnes rivers, and bought land, and after that time of year cut fifty ton of hay, hauling twenty tons for Patterson and selling it to him for $20 a ton. November 15 he put in a crop of vegetables; and on the first of May, 1854, he took a load of potatoes to Sacramento, the first new potatoes brought in that year, and sold them at twenty-five cents a pound. That year he bought some peach trees in San Francisco, shipped from New Jersey, set them out, and also some apple trees from Oregon, which were sold at auction in San Francisco. He lived on that place two years, and then removed to his present ranch, bringing along with him a large number of hogs, which class of animals he had commenced raising on the first farm. To his present place he has hauled 100,000 feet of lumber in making improvements. In this county he now has 720 acres of land, and 1,275 acres at Napa Junction, Napa County, a stock farm. On his Florin place there are about seventeen acres in fruit trees and six in vines; twenty orange trees, some of them over thirty years old; 100 bearing olive trees, four varieties, the largest number in Sacramento County that are bearing; also citron and lemon trees, pomegranates, dates, plums, camphor trees, sweet bay and 100 fig trees, some of them twenty years old and eighteen inches in diameter. He was the first to put in olives, oranges, etc. In 1883 he erected his fine residence, which he and three hired men put up in ten weeks, from digging the cellar to completing the roof. Mr. Lea has always been a Republican. He was married in 1866 to Mary Murgatroyd, a native of England, and they have seven children: John Ward, Ida Mary, Kate, Mabel, Harriet, Louisa and Isaac Arthur.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 665-666. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.