Santa
Clara County
Biographies
ALONZO WITHERS
Additional interest is found in the
ranching enterprise of Alonzo Withers because of the busy blacksmith shop which
greets the passer by with the merry ring of its anvil, besides providing an agreeable and fruitful source of income to
its industrious owner. Mr. Withers is a
born mechanic, and it may also be said that he is equally at home as a tiller
of the soil and raiser of stock, occupations which have engaged his attention
ever since he started out on an independent career. He was born September 23, 1862, in Gilroy, Santa
Clara county, and is a son of Stephen Andrew Withers,
born in Kentucky, but who was reared in Boone county, MO. While in Missouri Stephen
A. Withers married Elizabeth Jacks, who bore him four daughters and three sons,
Alonzo being the third child and oldest son.
The name of Stephen A. Withers is
inscribed on the roll call of the pioneers of 1850. He spent the winter previous in packing his
goods and equipping for the ox team jaunt, setting forth in the spring. His course lay by way of the Platte river and Virginia City, and he located at Hangtown, now Placerville, where a short mining experience
convinced him that his fortune lay in other directions. Removing to Gilroy he took up one hundred and
sixty acres of land and lived thereon until 1866,
when he began to raise sheep in Tulare county, but
sold out two years later and removed to Salinas. In the fall of 1868 he bought another band of
sheep and pastured them in the San Joaquin valley until the spring of 1871,
when he took his sheep to Elko, Nev., and eventually disposed of them. Returning to California in 1875 he was
employed as foreman of the sheep ranch of Dr. Bryant and in the fall of 1877
came to San Jose and became night watchman in the woolen mills. In 1886 Mr. Withers came to the Almaden road
and rented a farm until 1887, when he rented other land in the vicinity of
Hollister, giving it up to locate on his own farm on the Almaden road, where
his death occurred March 30, 1898. His
wife still makes her home in Hollister.
Owning to the necessity for his aid in the
support of his father’s large family, Alonzo Withers was unable to realize his
educational expectations in his youth, but the limited effort in the public schools
of San Jose gave him a start upon which he has since builded
[sic] of his own accord. Experience and observation
have been his wisest teachers, and to his credit be it said he has listened
intently to the voice of both these instructors. For some time he worked as a farm hand in Santa
Clara county, and then took a position with the
Southern Pacific Railroad Company, beginning as wiper and advancing to
fireman. In the fall of 1883 he began an
apprenticeship to a blacksmith in Kern county, and in 1884
went into partnership with his brother, John M., in the purchase and management
of the five-mile blacksmith shop on the Almaden road. This shop was disposed of in 1889 that he
might remove to Elko, Nev., and in the spring of 1890 he returned to California
and rented a farm on the Almaden road.
He was so successful that next year he rented more land, and for several
years had as much as five hundred acres under cultivation.
Mr. Withers became a land owner in 1898.
Through the purchase of his recent ranch of sixty-five acres, twenty-four of
which are under vineyard and the balance under grain. For the past three
years he has had his shop on the ranch, and has secured the patronage of a
large number of farmers in the vicinity. He is successful from a financial standpoint,
and also from the standpoint of having won the confidence and esteem of his
fellow-townsmen. In San Jose he was
united in marriage with marriage Amelia Greenwalt, who was born in California,
and whose father is elsewhere represented in this work. Four children have been born of the union:
John Walter, Alvin Booth, Clara and Alice, all living at home. Mr. Withers’ standing in the community is
augmented by his fraternal associations, he being identified with Garden City
Lodge No. 7763, A.O.F., of San Jose, and with Hamilton Lodge, A.O.U.W., of San
Jose. In political affiliation he is a
Democrat and has given effective service as road master. He is a practical, up-to-date rancher,
interested in all that pertains to the development of his prosperous
neighborhood.
Transcribed by
Louise E. Shoemaker November 21, 2015.
Source:
History of the State of California &
Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A.
M., Pages 884-885. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Louise E. Shoemaker.