Santa
Clara County
Biographies
FREDERICK GEORGE WOOL
A fine mechanic
and an expert carriage maker by occupation, Mr. Wool has devoted many years of
his life to this useful trade in San Jose as well as in other localities, but
about 1886, he turned his attention to fruit culture and since then has devoted
the greater part of his energies to this profitable business. On his fine twenty-acre fruit ranch, at the
foot of Quinn avenue, two and half miles south of San Jose, Mr. Wool is
erecting as extensive cannery, and will be prepared to handle fruit,
vegetables, etc. during the present season, 1904. The cannery is a steam plant, requiring seven
hundred gallons per minute to operate the machinery. The business will be concluded under the firm
name of the F.G. Wool Packing Company and their goods will be known as the White
Oak brand. The plant has a capacity of
four thousand pounds per day, and tomatoes, peaches, apricots and cherries will
be handled. The importance of such a
plant in this community cannot be overestimated, adding one more to the already
large number of canning establishments in this, the heart of the prune, plum
apricot, peach and cherry district of California.
Born June
2, 1841, in Essex, Vt., Mr. Wool is the eldest in a family of eleven children
born to Michael and Caroline (Page) Wool, the former a native of New York and
the latter of Vermont. The paternal
grandfather of Mr. Wool was a native of France and he also bore the name of
Michael. He is the progenitor of the
family in America, coming to this country with General Lafayette at the time of
the latter’s famous visit to the United States.
This grandfather located first in Canada, but subsequently removed to
Vermont, in the Lake Champlain region, and in the section he spent the balance
of his life near the town of Chazy, N.Y.
The father
of Mr. Wool was a carriage-maker by trade and his entire life after his removal
to Vermont was spent in the pursuit of this occupation at Essex, where he also
died. His widow still resides there,
being now past her eighty-third year.
Mrs. Wool was formerly Miss Caroline Page, a daughter of Samuel Page,
the latter born in New Hampshire; he participated in the war of 1812, being
stationed on the Great Lakes. Of the
eleven children born to Mr. and Mrs. Wool, nine were sons and two were
daughters. The eldest child, Frederick
G., acquired a liberal education, his common-school education being
supplemented by an academical [sic.]
course, and at fourteen he entered Chittenden Institute, from which he was
graduated. His school days over, he
became apprenticed under his father to learn the carriage-maker’s trade and
after mastering all the details of the business he followed it for a
livelihood.
It was in
1860 that Mr. Wool left his native section, going to New York where for a few
years he was a journeyman piano maker.
Having saved some capital he returned to Essex, Vt., in 1866 and went
into the carriage-making business on his own behalf, carrying on a steadily
increasing business at that point until the spring of 1874, when he came to
California. Locating at San Jose, he
opened a carriage factory on the corner of Santa Clara and Third streets, and
conducted a paying business there for three years. In 1877 he traded his own property for the
fruit ranch along Coyote creek, which is still his home and which at the time
contained but thirteen acres. The
following year (1878) he again engaged in working at his trade, opening a
carriage factory on Third street in San Jose, selling
out four years later. In 1882 on Fourth
and St. John’s streets, he opened a new business in the same line and for four
additional years conducted a lucrative business.
At the
time the fruit ranch came into his possession he took up his residence here and
planted it to cherries, peaches, apricots and plums, having a variety of fine
bearing trees. Mr. Wool is one of the
most active members of the Santa Clara Fruit Company Exchange and deserves a
great deal of credit for his business capacity.
In addition to his home place he own a fifty-three acre ranch in the
Evergreen district on the Tully road, partly in orchard and the balance in hay
and grain.
By his marriage, in Albany, N.Y., Mr. Wool
was united with Miss Jane Morrill, a native of that city, and they have five
sons and three daughters, as follows:
Edward N., who resides near the home place; Jennie, wife of Charles M. Tabler, of Napa, Cal.; Luther D.,
living on the home place; Fred, residing on the ranch in Evergreen district;
Winifred, Frank and Beatrice, who also resides
at home; and Ernest, who lives on the ranch with the eldest
brother. Politically Mr. Wool is a firm
Republican and he served two terms as trustee of the Franklin district.
Transcribed by
Louise E. Shoemaker, January 13, 2016.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 922-925. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Louise
E. Shoemaker.