Santa
Clara County
Biographies
LYMAN WILLSON
One of the many worthy citizens and capable and
industrious agriculturists of Santa Clara county is Lyman Willson,
a well-known farmer, stock-raiser and dairyman, who was born in Old Gilroy, on
the homestead where he now resides, March 19, 1858. Obtaining the first
knowledge of books in the common schools of his native town, he completed his
early education at McClure’s Academy, in Oakland, and was afterward engaged in
business as a cattle raiser and dealer with his father and brother Edward,
owning the Gilroy ranch, and also having land at Hot Springs.
Going to the eastern part of Oregon
in 1879, Mr. Willson worked on a cattle ranch as
cowboy for two years, being located in Klamath county.
Returning home in 1881, he was prosperously engaged in buying and shipping
cattle for a number of seasons. From 1890 until 1898 he resided in Salinas,
being employed in the transfer business. Returning in that year to the old
homestead, Mr. Willson has since carried on general
farming, including stock-raising and dairying, and in his chosen vocation has
been very successful. He has made many improvements which have greatly
increased the utility and value of the estate, rendering it exceedingly
desirable. He has a large pumping plant, by which he irrigates the land, forty
acres of which he devotes to the raising of alfalfa. He has a fine orchard of
seven acres, in which he raises peaches and apricots, gathering good crops each
year. He takes especial interest in matters pertaining to the dairy, being an
authority on all questions connected with the production of milk, and in 1902
and 1903 worked for the State Dairy Bureau as dairy inspector of Santa Clara,
San Benito, Monterey, Merced and Stanislaus counties.
Mr. Willson
married Nettie Cavanaugh, a native of Gilroy, Cal., and they have one child,
Minnie Leola. Politically Mr. Willson is a stanch Republican, and fraternally he belongs to Gilroy
Lodge, I. O. O. F., and to the Rebekahs.
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., Page 849.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.