San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MILO MILETUS CHURCH
A well and favorably known resident
of the San Joaquin Valley since March 18, 1860, Milo Miletus Church was born in
the town of Jericho, Chittenden County, Vermont, on September 30, 1838. He was a son of Ezra Church, a wheelwright
and farmer in Jericho, who married Azeneth Chopin, a
native of Vermont, who came of an old New England family. Grandfather Church was a native of England
who came to this country and settled in Jericho, Vermont, where he raised his
family.
Milo Miletus Church was the next to
the youngest of eight children born to his parents and spent his boyhood on the
Vermont farm, receiving a good education in the public school. In February, 1860, he started for California,
sailing from New York City on the “North Star” to Aspinwall and crossing the
Isthmus on one of the early trains to Panama City, whence he took the steamer “Orizoba” to San Francisco, where he arrived on March 18,
1860. He made his way to Stockton, and
after working on a ranch for a time he began teaming to the mines. He purchased more stock, so that he had one
eight-horse team and two freight wagons hauling between Stockton and Sonora and
Columbia. He continued teaming for a
time and then engaged in the butcher business at Farmington, San Joaquin
County. Afterwards he followed farming
and stockraising for five years, and then purchased a ranch of 160 acres and
leased 640 more, and began raising wheat and barley. In September, 1899, he sold the ranch and
located in Stockton, purchasing the residence at 1325 South San Joaquin Street,
where he now lives retired. Mr. Church
served as road overseer at Farmington for several years.
In 1875 at Stockton, Mr. Church was
married to Mrs. Sivilla (Funk) Campbell, born near
Des Moines, Iowa, who in 1850, when a small girl, came with her parents across
the plains to California. She was a
daughter of Peter Funk, a pioneer farmer of Farmington. She passed away in Stockton, March 20, 1920,
aged seventy-nine years. The union of
Mr. and Mrs. Church was blessed with four children: Ida L., Mrs. Hewitt, of Farmington; Ezra;
Eva, Mrs. McCown; and Esther, Mrs. Dickey, all three of Stockton. By her marriage to John A. Campbell of Ohio,
who died in Farmington, Mrs. Church had seven children: John F., ex-county assessor of Stanislaus
County, now a realtor of Modesto; Thomas Eugene, living in Stockton; Albert G.,
of Farmington; William L., in Stockton; Nellie, who died in Farmington; Birdina, Mrs. Workings, who died in Stockton; and Charles
H., principal of schools at Lompoc.
Mr. Church remembers many incidents
of the early days when he followed teaming to the mines and where there was
plenty of hard work and money was also plentiful. He has been a member of the Knights of
Pythias. In politics he is a Republican.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1103-1104. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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