Santa
Clara County
Biographies
Lafayette
county, Mo., was a quiet, agricultural center in the
middle of the 40s, and although the settlers were widely scattered, the
schools and churches were as numerous as in any community in the middle
west. Returning travelers passing that
way began to spread reports of the discovery of gold on the far western coast,
and the news was confirmed by the sailors who manned the queer Mississippi
river boats and sent their stories inland with highly colored additions. The Worthington family was well known in
Lafayette county, having been established there in 1841 by Brooks Worthington,
a native of North Carolina, and born in Guilford county. He was of English extraction and a son of Joab Worthington, born in Maryland, and a soldier in the
war of 1812. Brooks Worthington married
Hannah Green, daughter of a family in his home neighborhood, and in time
settled on a farm in Davidson county, N.C., where his eldest son, Charles
Harrison Worthington, a prominent orchardist of the vicinity of Cupertino, Santa
Clara county, was born November 22, 1828. On the
way to Lafayette county, Mo., in the spring of 1840,
the family spent the winter in Indianapolis, locating on their farm where the
father lived until shortly before his death at the age of eighty-eight, when he
removed to the home of his daughter in Arkansas. His wife had preceded him to the great beyond
many years before, at the age of forty, after rearing a family of five sons and
three daughters.
The young
men in the vicinity of the Worthington farm in Lafayette county took up
seriously and enthusiastically the matter of rapid fortunes in the west, and
six of them determined to try their luck in the much lauded coast country. The winter of 1849-50 was spent in active
preparation, and many were the discussions indulged in over bright winter
fires. They decided to divide up
expenses evenly, and together purchased two wagons, with mule teams, three men
traveling in each wagon. Setting out
upon their hazardous journey April 18, they arrived in Hangtown
at the expiration of eighty-two days, having had a fairly pleasant and
uneventful journey. They were fortunate
in disposing of their teams and wagons at a fair price, and each went his
separate way, determined to bravely accept whatever fate had in store.
Of the
six whose fortunes were so closely allied for many weeks of early travel, Mr.
Worthington alone has survived to tell of their experiences. His course lay to the mines along the middle
fork of the American river, and in the fall he went to Grass valley, in both
places meeting with but indifferent success.
Owing to ill health he came to the Santa Clara valley in December 1850,
and in Mountain view [sic.] engaged in teaming to the
mountains. Later he engaged in the stock
and farming business, and in 1855 bought one hundred and sixty acres of land,
increasing his possessions in 1858 by buying three hundred and twenty acres on
the coast in San Mateo county. In 1859 he purchased and located on his
present farm of one hundred and twenty-three acres, where he conducted general
farming for many years, and raised some of the finest stock in the county. In fact, the bulk of his fortune was acquired
in the buying and selling and raising of tock, to the
study of which he gave much attention.
Gradually he disposed of his land as the cares of life began to wear
heavily upon him, and at present has but twenty acres, under prunes and
cherries. He has dignified his life work
with conscientious regard for details, with progressiveness, and adoption of
methods thought out and tested by the foremost horticulturist of the time.
Mr. Worthington represents all that is
worthy in rural life and character, and typifies the rugged sons of the east
who have exercised their splendid physical and mental strength in the up
building of the west.
Transcribed by
Louise E. Shoemaker May 28, 2016.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1162-1165. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Louise E. Shoemaker.