Santa
Clara County
Biographies
ISAAC
JESSUP COMER
Among the vast army of gold seekers
who were drawn to California in the early days were James and Isaac J. Comer,
father and son, who left their Iowa home March 7, 1850, and arrived in
Placerville August 7 of the same year, the trip consuming just five months to a
day. Everything considered, the journey was a pleasant one, and upon reaching
their destination they engaged in mining, and for the following three years
were moderately successful in their endeavors to wrest the golden treasure from
nature’s vaults. Not realizing his expectations in the west, the father
returned to his family in Iowa in 1853 and resumed farming. The son, however,
continued in the west three years longer, when he, too, went to his former home
in Iowa. It is a trite saying that no one who has ever lived in California is
contented to reside permanently elsewhere. Be that as it may, suffice it to say
that in the fall of 1859 Isaac J. Comer again took up his abode in California,
and for several years was engaged in placer mining at Yankee Jims, Placer county. The stock business next engaged his attention, and
besides the business which he carried on near Sacramento, he also had cattle at
range on the mountains near Truckee, Nevada county,
where he occupied sixteen hundred acres of land, part of which he owned,
renting the balance. It was in 1887 that Mr. Comer came to San Jose and bought
the place which he now occupies on McKinley avenue.
Although the tract is not large, comprising only twelve acres, it is made to
produce results which would do justice to a ranch twice its size, owing to the
exceptional care and thorough devotion which is expended upon it by the owner.
The grandfather of Mr. Comer,
Stephen Comer, who was a Quaker in religious belief, died in Indiana, where he
had made his home for many years. His son James, the father of Isaac J., was
born in South Carolina but in later life moved to Iowa, and in the vicinity of
Salem was successfully engage in farming pursuits. It was to this same farm
that he returned after his mining experiences in California in the early ‘50s,
and there he passed away, as did also his wife, who was before marriage Miss
Beulah Jessup, who was born in Virginia. Of the three children in the parents’
family, two sons and one daughter, Isaac Jessup was the second child, and was
born in Henry county, Ind., July 1, 1832. The family
later moving to Iowa, he attended the schools of Salem, alternating study with
work on his father’s farm adjoining that town. In 1850, when he was a youth of
eighteen he crossed the plains with his father, and to one of his age the
experience of an ox train journey of that length could not be without its
exciting as well as interesting features. Upon his return to Iowa in 1856 he
was united in marriage with Miss Jeanette Iddings,
who was born in Indiana. The only child born to Mr. and Mrs. Comer, Edwin D.,
was accidentally killed while hauling a load of wood in the mountains. He was
thirty-two years of age and left a family.
A Republican in political belief,
Mr. Comer can always be relied upon to support any candidate or cause which
will enhance the party’s welfare. Fraternally he is identified with the Odd
Fellows, and is also a member of the Historical Society. The family attends the
First Methodist Episcopal Church of San Jose, to which they give material
support.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 679-680. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.