Sacramento County
Biographies
JOHN WILD
JOHN WILD, farmer, near Folsom, was born in England, May 1, 1810, son of Benjamin and Ann (Winters) Wild, natives also of England, and occupants of the farm where the subject of this notice was reared. At the age of nineteen years he commenced working away from home occasionally, and when twenty-one he went out for himself altogether, learning the machinist’s trade in Rochedale, England, and followed the same until he came to America in 1844, sailing from Liverpool to New York city. The first four years in this country he spent at Hood’s Island, working at his trade; next he was in Massachusetts; in 1850 he came to California by way of the Isthmus, on the steamer Philadelphia, the trip occupying six weeks and three days. Coming on to Sacramento he at once found employment in a blacksmith’s shop. In one half-day he repaired a starting-bar for a steamboat, for which service he received $50. Six weeks after arriving in Sacramento he went to Mississippi Bar and mined two weeks there; the ensuing six months he was at Dolan’s Bar, and then at Mormon Island, and at all the mines in the vicinity of Placerville, that of Stony Dam being the principle one. He was successful in his mining career, which extended over a period of twenty years. In 1852 he settled upon his property, which now comprises 300 acres of land, all supplied with water and well adapted to general farming. This tract he found in a perfectly wild state, and he has made all the improvements that now exist upon it. He has been a member of I. O. O. F for fifty years or more, has been past officer for over fifty-one months in the lodge, No. 91, of Warrington, England. In 1830, in England, he married Miss Ellen Rollinson, and they have two sons; James and Benjamin, both born in England, and both now residents of California, and miners by occupation, at present being located in the Amador mines. Mr. and Mrs. Wild live by themselves in their quiet cosy home half a mile from Folsom. He has been a man of great energy, and is still vigorous and of a happy disposition.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Page 591. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.