Sacramento County
Biographies
SETH A WILTON
SETH A WILTON.--More and more popular among the place-names of Sacramento
County is that of Wilton, pleasantly recalling the progressive and prosperous
rancher, Seth A. Wilton. A native son, he was born at Georgetown, in Eldorado County, on June 2, 1857,
the son of Aretus J. and Isabelle (Marshall) Wilton, the former a native of New York, the latter of the Dominion of Canada. The parents were
married in New York. His father crossed the great plains
with his wife and daughter and reached Placerville, in November, 1852; and he devoted most of his life to
mining. He died in the vicinity of Georgetown at the age of eighty-two, while his devoted wife was
seventy years old when she breathed her last. They had four children to bless
them in their domestic circle. Jane was the eldest and is now deceased; then came George, who is residing in Fresno County; Seth was the third-born; and Merritt, the youngest of the
family, is also dead.
Seth A. Wilton attended the Volcanoville district school, and then followed mining
until he was thirty years old, working in the quartz and placer mines in Eldorado and Placer Counties. After that he came into Sacramento
County in 1887 and at first engaged in the raising of sheep and
cattle in the mountains, during the summer time, while he lived in Sacramento
County in the winter. In 1895 he removed to his present location,
and there purchased 124 acres of land, part of the old Putney estate, one of
the oldest ranches in this county and part of a grant. From time to time, he
sold part of what he had, until he now owns eighty-five acres. This was
formerly known as the George Putney ranch. When the California traction line was built, a station was erected at his
ranch; and the interesting settlement around that place now carries the name of
Wilton, in appropriate honor of our subject, who conducts a
strictly up-to-date dairy and poultry farm there. He is a Republican, and has
been a trustee of the Davis school district for eleven years. He had charge of the
liberty loan drives during the late World War, and had the entire southeastern
side of Sacramento County to look after.
Mr. Wilton was married at Georgetown, Cal., on July 26, 1877,
to Miss Lydia A. Dow, a native of Pittsfield, N. H., and the daughter of Abraham and Malinda (Hilliard) Dow, members of the family distinguished
by the noted temperance reformer. Mrs. Dow died when Mrs. Wilton was a mere
tot. She attended the Pittsfield Schools, and in 1870 came out to California with her brother, Cyrus Dow, and lived for three years in San Francisco, when they moved to Georgetown, where she later married. Her father died at the age of
seventy-eight. When Mr. Wilton settled on the Putney ranch, he was located six
miles northeast of Elk Grove. A son, Cyrus M., married Miss Ida Weybright and resides at Ashland, Ore. Mr. Wilton belongs
to Georgetown Lodge, I.O.O.F., and the Encampment at Elk Grove, and to the Elk
Grove Parlor, N.S.G.W.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento
County, California With
Biographical Sketches, Pages 310-311.
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2006 Sally Kaleta.