San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM LITTLE DUDLEY
W. L. DUDLEY.--Among those
who have given character and solidity to the Stockton Bar is the gentleman
whose name heads this sketch. He is a native of Chesterfield, Cheshire
County, New Hampshire, born December 20, 1824, his parents being Moses and
Persis (Pratt) Dudley. The Dudleys are known as one of the old families of New
England, and the father of our subject, a native of New Hampshire, was born at
Londonderry, Sullivan County, and died in April, 1874, aged seventy-eight; his
widow, who lived to the advanced age of ninety-one years, died in January,
1885; she was born at Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire.
The subject of this sketch commenced his
literary education in his native county, attending Chesterfield Academy and finished at Brattleboro, Vermont. He commenced reading law in the office of Larkin G.
Mead, at Chesterfield, and afterward studied at Brattleboro, and later was with Allen P. Dudley, his brother, at Nashua,
New Hampshire. He finished his preparation for the legal profession
at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of
New Hampshire in 1846, and commenced practice at Chesterfield. His profession then commanded his attention until
the current stories of the golden wealth of California caused him in 1849 to join the Gordon Association,
organized for the purpose of giving its members an opportunity to test
themselves the truth of these reports. On the 20th of February,
1849, they sailed from New
York and landed at San Juan. Hence they proceeded via the San Juan river and Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific. They had expected to charter a vessel
there or go up on a steamer, but steamers passing there had all they could
carry, and five months elapsed before they could secure transportation. At
length they took passage at Rio Lejo on a sailing vessel bound for San Francisco. The voyage proved an eventful and tedious one. Water
and provisions gave out, and they ran into a little bay above Cape San Lucas, Lower California, where they lay a week, taking in water and other
supplies. At length, October 5, 1849, they put into the harbor of San Francisco. Mr. Dudley was sick when they landed, and he
remained a week with Postmaster Moore, who was a New Hampshire man. He then came to Stockton, and from here proceeded to Calaveras County, where he engaged in mining. At Mokelumne Hill he was
elected Alcalde in 1850. In April, 1851, he went back to New Hampshire, via Panama, but returned to California in May, 1852, bringing with him his law library, and
engaged in practice at Mokelumne Hill. In 1867 he came to Stockton, which has ever since been his place of residence.
During the quarter of a century he has resided there he has occupied his
present place in the front rank of his profession, a representative of its
strength and dignity.
Mr. Dudley was married at Newcastle, Canada, November 11, 1858, to Miss Mary C. Doak, a native of
Northfield, Massachusetts, and daughter of Thomas D. and Elizabeth (Mead) Doak.
Her mother was a sister of Larkin G. Mead, father of a well-known sculptor of
that name,--the designer of the National Lincoln monument at Springfield, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Dudley have four children, viz:
Elizabeth Mead; Ellena G., wife of L. H. Parker, of Beloit, Wisconsin; W. L., Jr., who is connected with one of the banks
of Stockton; and Mary Frances.
Mr. Dudley was a member of the
Constitutional Convention of 1880, and served on the Engrossing Committee of
that body. He was elected to Congress on the Anti-Lecompton ticket in 1857, but
did not go on to Washington to claim his seat. In 1858 he declined a
renomination.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 378-379. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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