Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JOHN SAMUEL SELBY
For more than half a century a resident of
California and at present one of the honored and esteemed citizens of the Santa
Clara valley, John Samuel Selby is worthy of special mention in this history,
and the story of how his success was attained is one of interest. Although
advanced in years, Mr. Selby yet takes an active interest in affairs political
and otherwise and holds several important positions, such as director of the
executive board of the Santa Clara Pioneer Society and vice-president of the
Historical Society of the same county, to which he was elected in 1902.
Besides, Mr. Selby has served for the last twenty years as a member of the
school board, and is clerk of that honorable body, showing in the execution of
his duties as such, the same ability and honesty that have characterized all
his dealings with his fellowmen.
In tracing the ancestry of Mr. Selby
we find that his grandfather, John Selby, was a native of Maryland, which was
his home, however, for only a part of his life, as he traveled west to Kentucky
and afterward located in Callaway county, Mo., where
his death took place. His son, William J., father of John S. Selby, was a
native of Shelby county, Ky., and during his life
worked at the carpenter’s trade, and later was a farmer in Callaway county,
Mo., where he lived until his death. His widow, who was before marriage Miss
Julia Ann Turley, was also born in Kentucky, and she and her husband reared
five of their seven children, three daughters and two sons growing to maturity.
Mrs. Selby also died in Missouri.
The second of this family of seven
children, John Samuel Selby, first saw the light of day November 24, 1834, in
Callaway county, Mo., and received his education in the common schools in that
county. April 17, 1853, in his nineteenth year, Mr. Selby started west,
crossing the Missouri line May 3d, and being five months enroute
to California. After a short stop in the San Joaquin valley he located at San
Jose and after a month there engaged in working in the redwood district near Bolinas,
Marin county, remaining there nine months, going back then to San Jose. Mr.
Selby next took up the occupation of farming and soon purchased one hundred and
fifty acres of land in Berryessa, but after three years sold this tract and in
1860 bought his present farm five miles north of San Jose. Originally this
comprised one hundred acres, but Mr. Selby has since sold part of it. He
himself leases twenty-six acres and of this fourteen acres are set out in
orchards.
After purchasing this place, Mr.
Selby followed contracting and building in connection with his farm work, and
in 1892 he was elected county supervisor of Santa Clara county,
which office he filled in an admirable manner for four years. He married Miss
Sarah Brelsford, a native of Indiana, the ceremony taking
place in San Jose, Cal. Of the five children born to this couple, two were sons
and three daughters, and all are living. Mary married William E. Trimble, a
farmer of San Jose, Cal.; Emma Jane is the wife of Ed. Able of Milpitas;
William H. is the head carpenter at the State Insane Asylum at Agnew, Cal.;
Lizzie Lee became the wife of W. E. Coombs of San Jose, Cal.; and George Wray
is a citizen of the same place. A Democrat in political views, Mr. Selby is an
active politician and also holds a membership in the Ancient Order of United
Workmen, at San Jose. He is also an active member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South, of which he has been steward for the past fifteen years, and from
which he went as a delegate to the general conference at St. Louis in 1890. As
an honest, straight-forward, Christian gentleman, Mr. Selby commands the
respect and esteem of all who may chance to make his acquaintance.
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 1195-1196. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.