Santa
Clara County
Biographies
ELIZABETH JANE MCCOMAS
Elizabeth Jane McComas
is a pioneer of California, having crossed the plains with her husband in 1863,
traveling by means of ox teams, which brought them to their destination after a
journey of four months and seven days from Leavenworth, Kans. Though
civilization had blazed the trail across the plains and made habitation more or
less desirable among western scenes, there were still hardships and privations
to undergo, still loneliness and danger to combat, and a strenuous effort to be
put forth in the establishment of a home and the acquisition of a competence.
Passing through the pioneer days to those of the present, Mrs. McComas recalls to the younger generation the life of
almost a half-century ago.
A daughter of John Hatfield, Mrs. McComas was born in West Virginia, near Huntington, where
her father was also born, and in girlhood she came with her parents to
Missouri, locating in 1856 near the town of Platte, Platte county.
Mr. Hatfield engaged in farming until his death two years later, at the age of
sixty-two years. Her mother, formerly Susan Brumfield, also of West Virginia,
died in Hope, Mo., when sixty-eight years old, the mother of two sons and three
daughters, of whom Mrs. McComas was the youngest. Reared
in West Virginia, she received her preliminary education in the common schools
of the state, after which she attended Marshall Academy. After removing to
Missouri she was united in marriage with Charles L. McComas,
near Platte City, in 1856. Mr. McComas was also a
native of West Virginia, and had located in Missouri with his parents. In 1863
he and his wife outfitted for the journey across the plains and sought to make
a new home among the attractive surroundings of California, arriving in Alviso,
from which city they went to a location near Santa Clara. In 1872 their present
home of eight acres, located three miles northwest of Santa Clara and one mile
west of Agnew, was purchased, and since that time has been devoted to the
cultivation of strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, alfalfa and grain. Mr. McComas occupied a position of importance among the farmers
of this section of the county. He lived to attain the age of fifty-three years,
his death occurring May 11, 1885. Politically he was a Republican, and was a
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
Since the death of her husband Mrs. McComas has managed the affairs of the ranch, exercising a
judgment and ability which have continued the success of the family. She has a
pleasant home, and is surrounded with the comforts of life, and is rearing to
useful manhood and womanhood a large family of children, named in order of
birth as follows: Samuel, deceased; Laura, deceased; Edward V., deceased;
George H., located in a commission house in San Francisco; Charles L., located
upon a ranch; Dora, at home; Burton S., located in Santa Clara; Nellie V., the
wife of Fred Snow, of Agnew; and Walter H., at home assisting his mother in the
management of the farm.
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 1043-1044. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.