Santa Clara County
Biographies
CHARLES LAKE
Nearly half a century of life on the same farm near Berryessa, Santa Clara county, has brought to Charles Lake experiences of a varied nature, all of which have tended to the fulfillment of a definite purpose, to become financially successful, and morally influential. A philosopher in the truest sense of the word, this pioneer of ’52 views his losses as gains, and his struggles as stepping stones to nobler character and more satisfying achievement. He has perhaps paid as dearly for his farm as any man who ever tried to gain a foothold in the county, for owing to defective title in the beginning, he was required to secure a second title for his five hundred acres, and a third after nineteen years of litigation, as well as a fourth when the land became city property. At the present time he owns forty acres, nine and a half of which are under hay, fifteen acres under prunes, ten under peaches, and nine under apricots. In 1890 he built his present commodious home, where February 22, 1900, was celebrated the golden wedding of himself and wife, an occasion marked by much rejoicing, and the gathering together of many friends and relatives. This event, following upon a married life of exceptional harmony and helpfulness, is characteristic of the stability of Mr. and Mrs. Lake, and of their devotion to friends and the community in which they live.
Mr. Lake was born in Mansfield, N. J., December 5, 1825, and comes of humble parentage, being the seventh of the three sons and five daughters of John Lake, the mother dying when Charles was three years of age. John Lake was a laboring man for the greater part of his active life in Washington, N. J., but for years owned also a few acres of land, where he made his home, and where his death occurred at the age of eighty. His children were not fortunate either from the standpoint of financial help or education, and one of the briefest memories connected with the youth of Charles Lake is centered around his ten days of attendance at a public school. With this meager book learning he entered upon his career in 1849, going to Chicago, Ill., where he was offered an entire block in the city with a cabin on it for the small sum of one hundred dollars. From Chicago he went to Freeport, Ill., where he worked in a hotel kept by Charles Wychoff, who had similarly employed him in his native state of New Jersey. For a time he lived in White Oak Springs, Ill., and February 22, 1850, near Galena, he married Priscilla Hacock, who was born in Cornwall, England, in May 1833, a daughter of John Hacock, a native also of Cornwall and a miner and farmer by occupation. The Hacock family came to American in 1840, locating at Vita Grand, Ill., where Mr. Hacock engaged in mining, but later removed to the Lake Superior region, where he died at an advanced age.
In 1852 Mr. Lake came to California via the Platte river, and north of Fort Laramie, with ox teams, accompanied by his wife and two children, Sarah and John, both of whom were ill on the way with cholera infantum and died on the plains. They were six months and fifteen days on the plains, and at the end of their journey Mr. Lake located his family in Santa Clara city, and found employment on a farm near by for a year. He afterward located in Santa Cruz and worked in a sawmill, and from there came to his present farm on the Berryessa grant. There have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Lake the following children: Mary Jane, deceased; Eliza, now Mrs. Cretes; Elizabeth, the wife of A. E. Holmes, of San Jose; Charles, of Hanford; John, of San Jose; Wesley, a farmer near his father; and Hattie, the wife of F. H. Holmes, a farmer near Berryessa. Mr. Lake possesses strong religious convictions, and for years has been a trustee in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Berryessa. For years also he was a class leader in the church, and has been one of its most active and stanch supporters. He has written, and is contemplating printing a book entitled “My Stories of Grace, or the Christ Revealed,” an exposition of his supreme faith, as revealed in a trance. In political affiliation he is a Republican, but has never been active in local undertakings of his party.
Transcribed
Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 654. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Joyce Rugeroni.