ABRAM WOODARD

Sacramento County

Biographies

ABRAM WOODARD

ABRAM WOODARD, farmer, San Joaquin Township, was born in Hoosick, Rensselaer County, New York, February 9, 1822, a son of Phineas Woodard (who also was born in that county near the east State line), and Phebe, nee Phillips, who was born in the township of Gratton, same county. His grandfather on his mother’s side was John Phillips, a Quaker who came from England and settled on the Van Rensselaer grant in the township of Grafton. His parental grandfather, Jonathan Woodard, was born in Dutchess County, New York, of German descent, and was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. When Burgoyne sent a detachment of 500 English and 100 Indians to destroy the stores collected at Bennington, in Vermont, he was under the command of General Stark, who, with 800 Vermont and New Hampshire militia, killed and took prisoners the most of this detachment; but Mr. Woodard was not at the battle, as he had been previously sent to Albany with the provision wagons. Word had been circulated that were the English successful the Indians were to be allowed to massacre the women and children, which would have seemingly been easy, as all the men were at battle. Mrs. Woodard, acting upon the strength of this report, collected about thirty women and fortified them in a log cabin, armed with scythes, sticks, and other crude weapons of defense, and waited the outcome of the battle. The next day she went upon the battle-field to see if her husband’s body were among the killed. She turned over more than 200 bodies in her search, but, as stated before, he was not at the battle. While she was searching she came to a wounded English officer, who asked her to give him a drink of water, and she politely complied with the request. He was under the command of General Gates at the battle of Stillwater and the surrender of Burgoyne. He survived during the entire war. Mr. Abram Woodard’s grandfather, Phillips, on his mother’s side, was a royalist and was captured while trying to make his way to Canada and placed in prison. An instance of his prison life was this: When Washington was reviewing the troops the royalists were brought out of prison and compelled to lift their hats to him. This Mr. Phillips positively refused to do, for which he was heavily ironed and sent back to the prison, where he remained until the close of the war. Phineas Woodard was a farmer in New York State all his life, dying in the winter of 1867, at the age of eighty-four years; and his wife died three years afterward, at the age of eighty-six years. When she was about eighty she made a trip from New York State to Minnesota, and returned without an escort, showing what a strong and active woman she was at that age. They had five sons and five daughters, of whom three are now living, and only two even left the State of New York. Mr. Abram Woodard, whose name heads this sketch, was brought up on his father’s farm and lived there until 1849, in the meantime making a trip to Wisconsin in 1844. During the year 1849 he left New York for the home of his married sister in Janesville, Wisconsin. During the following winter he was employed by a Mr. Clark. About April 10, the following spring, Mr. Woodard left for the Golden West. Going first to St. Louis, to buy provisions, he ascended the Missouri River to St. Joseph, where he joined the overland train of three wagons and a number of horses. He was elected captain. Crossing the Missouri River May 11, at the end of eighty-five days he reached Ringgold, near Diamond Spring. Until 1853 Mr. Woodard worked in the mines there, while his partner, David Cook, who was not able to work in the mines, remained on the Sheldon and Daylor grant on the Cosumnes River, buying and trading in live-stock with the money Mr. Woodard furnished him. June 1, 1853, they left for New York by water and the Isthmus, landing there in twenty-three days. After a visit home they went to Wisconsin and put up 100 tons of hay, bought 426 head of cattle and twenty-two horses, and kept them on that hay during the following winter; and the next year, 1854, drove them across the plains to California, assisted by fourteen men. Arriving here October 22, they sold their stock, realizing high prices for some of it. After a little war-cloud between the squatters and the grant owners had blown over, Mr. Woodard and his partner bought 1,000 acres of land, which was afterwards divided equally between them. Crook sold his land to Dr. James Caples, and Mr. Woodard has ever since occupied his first purchase. About half of it is bottom land, very rich and productive. He has 170 acres in wheat, forty in hops, and about the same amount in alfalfa and corn; the remainder is pasture. He has about seventy head of horses and cattle, counting old and young. Politically Mr. Woodard was in early days a Douglas Democrat, and since then has been a Republican. He was married January 9, 1856, to Miss Elizabeth Sampson, who was born in England, August 28, 1839, daughter of Henry Sampson, who was a farmer, and who came to this country in 1844; was a business man of St. Louis a number of years, came to California in 1852, and died in February, 1863. Mrs. Woodard was only two years old when her mother died. Mr. and Mrs. Woodard have three children: Julia, wife of Richard Bilby, of this county; Irwin, who married Miss D. A. Witt, and resides on a part of the home place; and Flora, at home. They have lost two children; one died in infancy; the other, Joseph, died in 1878, at the age of nineteen years.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 591-593. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.