Santa
Clara County
Biographies
WILLIAM HARRISON DEXTER
The second in a family of four
brothers, William Harrison Dexter was born in Santa Clara, Santa Clara county, Cal., September 22, 1854, a son of Albert Dexter, an
honored pioneer of the state, whose sketch appears on another page. The family
located in Redwood City when Mr. Dexter was about six years old, and there the
father engaged in a mercantile business until 1867. In that year they located
in Santa Clara county, upon an eight hundred acre farm
near Gilroy, and on the Pacheco Pass road. Here he was reared to manhood,
receiving his preliminary education in the public schools, after which he
entered and graduated from Healds Business College,
of San Francisco, completing his educational work in 1875. From boyhood he was
trained to an agricultural life, and he therefore chose this occupation in
manhood. He located first on a cattle ranch in San Benito county,
this state, becoming the owner of a ranch upon which he remained until 1874. In
1875 he returned to the old home and superintended the ranch, at the same time
purchasing a ranch just back of Gilroy, in the neighborhood of Hot Springs,
upon which he engaged in stock-raising until his father’s death. When the
property was divided he became the owner of about two hundred acres of land,
and also owns the same number of acres on the San Felipe road, a mile and a
half east of Old Gilroy. He is now engaged in general farming and dairying,
raising large quantities of alfalfa and hay, while he also has an orchard of
fifteen acres. A gasoline pumping plant furnishes an ample supply of water for
all purposes from an inexhaustible well. In addition to his farming interests
he is also engaged in the buying, selling and shipping of stock.
In Gilroy Mr. Dexter was united in
marriage with Belle Plummer, a native of Maine, and they are the parents of
three children, namely: Walter, Agnes and Lillie. Fraternally Mr. Dexter is
associated with the Ancient Order of United Workman and the Red Men, and
politically is a stanch Republican, and firmly grounded in the principles he
endorses.
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 934-937. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.