Sacramento County
Biographies
JOHN L. WOODS
Genealogical records indicate a long and
honorable citizenship of the Woods family in Maryland, where descendants of the original settler still are to be
found prominent in business and active in public affairs. Several branches
of the family have been transplanted from the early eastern headquarters into
various portions of the west, and one of these branches is worthily represented
by John L. Woods, an honored pioneer of California. It has been his privilege to witness the
development of the west since the year 1852, when he first came, a boy of ten
years, from his native city of Baltimore in company with his parents. He recalls the
appearance of Sacramento in 1852, prior to the fire and the great flood, and as he
contrasts its aspect then with its present beauty and its substantial
construction he realizes afresh the magnitude of the transformation wrought by
the intelligence and enterprise of the citizens. When he was sent to the
schools he found them occupying buildings poorly constructed and illy equipped, while the method of instruction was far
inferior to that of the present century. It will therefore be seen that
he had few advantages from an educational standpoint, yet he impresses a
stranger as a man of broad information and varied knowledge. His father,
John Lee Woods, who was born in Baltimore in 1816, had enjoyed excellent advantages in that cultured
city, but when he exchanged a city home for frontier existence he was unable to
prevent his family from undergoing hardships and privations, with few of the
advantages his ambitious spirit craved for them. When he died in 1897, at
the age of eighty-two, it was with the realization that the removal to the west
had proved to the distinct advantage of the family in their ultimate enjoyment
of the great prosperity that came to the country. His wife passed away in
1896, at the age of eighty-three years.
Although a blacksmith by trade, John L.
Woods devoted much of his active life to mining, and he has worked in the mines
of California, Colorado, Montana and Alaska, meanwhile experiencing many hardships and at times
incurring actual danger from the hostility of the Indians. This was
particularly the case while he mined in Montana during 1866, at which time the enmity and the attacks of
the savages reached their climax. Considerations of health led him to
discontinue mining many years ago, but he still owns an interest in a very
valuable mine at Grass Valley. Upon leaving the mines and coming to Sacramento in 1886, he embarked in the mercantile business on Fourth street and continued in the same place for five years. Upon
selling out the business he began to manufacture cider, and for twenty-two
years he conducted a large business in that line, meanwhile furnishing the most
of the cider sold in San
Francisco. It
was his custom to sell to wholesale firms, which entailed less annoyance than
small sales to retailers. While he still owns the business he no longer
gives it his personal attention, having practically retired from all active
cares. During 1872 he married Miss Mary Higgins, who was born in Ireland and died in California. Of their five children the sole survivor is Mary,
the wife of Robert E. O'Neal and the mother of one son, Robert Lee
O'Neal. His second marriage took place in 1891 and united him with Mrs.
Josephine C. Lewis, who was born in New York and accompanied her parents to California at an early age; her father, Michael Van Norman, died in
February of 1897, while her mother, at the age of eighty-nine, is still
living. In her family there are five generations now living, while Mr.
Woods proudly claims four generations on his own side. As he has been
devoted to his family and true to his friends, so also he has been loyal to the
commonwealth of his adoption and the land of his birth. At the opening of
the Civil war in 1861 he offered his services to the Union, and
was accepted at Auburn, Cal., where his name was enrolled as a private in a California regiment of volunteer infantry. The regiment was not
called to the east, hence saw only little of active
service. Upon the organization of the grand Army of the Republic he
became interested in its philanthropies and patriotic enterprises and for years
he has been prominent in Sumner Post No. 3, of which he served as commander at
one time. Fraternally he has been a member of the Foresters and an
officer in the local camp.
Transcribed by Sally Kaleta.
Source: Willis,
William L., History of Sacramento
County, California, Pages 597-598. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1913.
© 2005 Sally Kaleta.