San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN L. ABSHIRE
An enterprising member of the
agricultural class may be found in John L. Abshire, who is the owner of a fine
ten-acre apricot and almond orchard situated on the Thornton Road, San Joaquin
County. He was born at Forestville,
California, August 20, 1870, his parents being John and Anna (Toney)
Abshire. John Abshire was a native of
Virginia who crossed the plains to California in 1863, settling first at
Woodland, and later moving to Sonoma County.
He married Miss Anna Toney, a native of Illinois, in the east, and the
young couple came across the plains by prairie schooner and ox-teams. Ten children were born to them: Maggie, Alice, Sarah, John L., Andrew and May,
living; Margaret, James, Jane and Bell, deceased. The father lived to be sixty-four years old,
and the mother sixty-two.
At the age of twelve years, John L.
Abshire began to contribute to the needs of the family support, and what
education he received was obtained in the grammar school of Woodland. He remained at home with his parents until
their decease. Removing to Fresno
County, he worked for wages for five subsequent years; then returned to
Woodland, where he met and married his wife, who was Miss Emma Smith. She is the sixth child born to Dr. Andrew M.
C. and Cordelia Laurana
(Kellogg) Smith, natives of Ohio and New York, respectively. Her father was a graduate of Pendleton
Medical College, located at Pendleton, Ohio, and came to California with
ox-team in 1849; later he returned to his native state, and when he returned to
California he came around Cape Horn. He
married Miss Kellogg, a member of an old New York family. This branch of the Kellogg family was
represented in America by four brothers who came over from Scotland in Colonial
days. Great-grandfather Kellogg was a veteran
of the Revolutionary War, and Grandfather Kellogg fought in the War of 1812,
while her father fought in the Mexican War of 1846-48, in the 2nd
Ohio Infantry, Company E. Her mother was
thirteen years old when her parents came to California, and she was the eleventh
woman in Yreka, California. The marriage
of her father and mother is the second one recorded in Siskiyou County. The father prospected for gold in the early
days and practiced his profession. In
those days the name Yreka was spelled with a “W” instead of a “Y.” The town received the name from the yells of
the Indians as they surrounded the mining camp, yelling “Wi-ree-ka.” Dr. Smith
was one of the organizers of St. John Lodge No. 37, F. & A. M., in Yreka,
and rose to a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He retired from practice and spent his later
years with Mr. and Mrs. Abshire at Lodi.
He passed away at the age of seventy-eight, while the mother passed away
at Lodi at the age of sixty-four from the effects of an accident. They had ten children: Rozella, deceased; Maretta, deceased; Nettie, Clarence; Ensign, deceased;
Emma; Warren; William, deceased; Clayton, deceased; and Albert.
Emma Smith was born in Orofino,
Siskiyou County, where she was reared and attended the public schools. She then moved to Woodland with her parents
and soon afterwards married Mr. Abshire.
Shortly after their marriage, Mr. Abshire moved to San Joaquin County,
six miles southeast of Clements, where he engaged in raising bronze turkeys,
which occupied his attention for five years; then he removed to Lodi and rented
a forty-acre fruit ranch two miles south of Lodi on the Cherokee Road, where he
farmed for the following fifteen years; then he moved to his present place on
Thornton Road, a short distance from Woodbridge, a part of the Wilhoit
ranch. This place is improved with a
good house and orchard, which is irrigated by a five-inch pump. Mr. and Mrs. Abshire are the parents of two
capable and interesting daughters: Leone
Laurana, a graduate of Stockton College of Commerce,
is a bookkeeper in Stockton; and Rozella Lucile is
also a graduate of Stockton College of Commerce, and is a notary public and
stenographer in Lodi. In politics both
Mr. and Mrs. Abshire are Democrats, and they are also members of the Congregational
Church of Lodi.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1520. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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