San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHARLES KIMBALL BAILEY
The pride and strength of any
country, its mainstay and support, is the farmer, whose toil produces food for
the masses, and without whose labors poverty and ruin would soon come to the
nation. The hardy frontiersman of
America had much greater tasks before him than the mere tilling of the soil; he
had forests to raze, rivers to bridge, roads to make, privations and hardships
innumerable to endure, yet rarely did he falter in the grand and noble work,
the work which meant civilization, progress and prosperity. In the mighty work of rendering the great
state of California a fitting place for mankind Charles Kimball Bailey
certainly performed his share of the task, and no one was more deserving of
praise than he. He passed to his reward
in November, 1905, honored and beloved by all who knew him, for his life had
been useful and productive of great good to his locality.
Mr. Bailey was born in Andover,
Massachusetts, June 9, 1830, a son of Samuel and Prudence (Farmer) Bailey. The father, a Massachusetts farmer, lived to
be seventy-five, the mother sixty-three years old. Grandmother Bailey was over eighty years old
when she died, and her brother, Jesse Trull, was eighty-five years old. Grandfather Bailey also died at an advanced
age. The Bailey, Farmer and Trull
families are believed to be long settled in New England. Charles K. went to school more or less until
the age of twenty years, but after he reached the age of fourteen he drove a
market wagon in spare hours, and when there was no school. His father was a farmer and market gardener,
and the son had early opportunity to learn the business. In 1851 he went to work in a grocery store in
Lowell, and in June, 1853, he came to California via the Nicaragua route. After one month in San Francisco he went to
mining at Mokelumne Hill, and followed this business
in that section for nearly ten years.
On January 8, 1863, at Mokelumne Hill, Mr. Bailey was married to Miss Mary E.
Belknap, born near St. Louis, Missouri, March 4, 1846, a daughter of James D.
and Rachel (Rhoads) Belknap. James D.
Belknap brought his family across the plains with ox teams and covered wagons
to California in 1850, the journey occupying seven months and eight days. Arriving in San Jose, they remained there a
short time, then removed to Mokelumne
Hill. The mother, a native of
Pennsylvania, died four years ago, aged ninety-three years, and Grandmother
Barbara Rhoads lived to be 104 years old.
In 1863, Mr. Bailey bought 160 acres of land in partnership with C. W.
Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter was a native of
Vermont, born in 1830, and came west to California in 1852, where he was
associated with Mr. Bailey in mining enterprises and later in stockraising, the partnership being maintained until the
death of Mr. Carpenter in 1883, aged fifty-seven. Mr. Bailey became an extensive landowner,
owning at the time of his death in 1905 5,360 acres, besides a large number of
fine horses and 6,000 sheep. He was
survived by his wife and five children and a sister, Mrs. Perrin, residing in
Lowell, Massachusetts, aged eighty-seven years.
The five children of Mr. and Mrs.
Bailey are as follows: Nettie Orilla, the widow of James A. Louttit;
Addie Mabel, Mrs. E. D. Middlekauff; Hattie Maud,
wife of Dr. E. A. Arthur; Edward Franklin, and Mamie Ethel. Mr. Bailey was a member in high standing of
the Mokelumne Hill Lodge, I. O. O. F. In 1917 Mrs. Bailey with five others left
Stockton in an automobile for Detroit, Michigan, making the journey in fifteen
days, a marked contrast to the journey she made seventy-three years
before. Mrs. Bailey has retained a
portion of the home ranch for herself as long as she lives and the balance has
been equally divided among her children.
She is still an active member of the Methodist Church at Linden and is
alert and interested in all matters pertaining to her locality. Mr. Bailey achieved success through honorable
effort, untiring industry and capable management, and his true nobility of
character and deference for the opinions of others gained for him many warm
personal friends. Mrs. Bailey is well
preserved and does not show the years of pioneering she went through. She reads, sews and works without the aid of
glasses and is in good health. A cultured,
refined woman of pleasing personality and charm, she still resides on the old
Bailey homestead where she went as a young bride over sixty years ago and is
held in the highest esteem throughout the county where so many useful years have been spent.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
958-963. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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