San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ELI STEWART FERGUSON
A successful vineyardist, whose
methods and accomplishments have been a source of real inspiration to others,
is Eli Stewart Ferguson, a native of Blairsville, Pennsylvania, where he was
born on May 2, 1853, one of an old established family of the Keystone
State. His grandfather Atkinson was a
native of England, and his grandmother, also on his mother’s side, was of Irish
descent. On his father’s side, the
family was Scotch-Welsh. His father
married Miss Matilde Atkinson.
Our subject had to rough it in order
to get an education, and in winter he walked two miles through the snow to get
to the Pennsylvania school. Then there
were only three months of public schooling a year, and if any one attended for
a longer period, he had to pay private tuition, and being the eldest boy of the
family of eight children, Eli could not afford to do so. His father was a blacksmith by trade, and the
boys were handy.
When thirteen he started out for himself
by working on a farm at twenty cents a day and his board; but when eighteen, he
took an engineering job with the Isabelle Furnace Company, and worked at that
for a year. He then came out to Iowa and
worked for W. J. Young, at Clinton, in the sawmill. After that he went to Kansas and worked for
six years in Atchison in a furniture store belonging to the mayor of the city;
and through him he was put on the police force of Atchison, and served there in
that capacity for four years.
In 1875, he came to California, and
arrived here on the first day of December; having previously, however, spent a
year in the Northwest, chiefly at Seattle and Portland. He then came to San Francisco and from the
ocean inland to Stockton, paying only one dollar for his fare on the boat. He worked for Craven & Myrtle, the
contractors, who laid the sewer pipe of Stockton, and in 1891 he came over to
Acampo, and here worked for P. B. Armstrong for three years and six months, and
then worked for John Cory for two years.
He next started on a contract basis.
He chopped wood for B. F. Langford for $1.50 a day, and boarded himself;
and with W. E. Wilder he fixed up a contract to graft 300 acres for Langford at
the low price of eight cents a tree.
Mr. Ferguson then formed a partnership
in the nursery business with Wirt E. Wilder, now deceased; and this partnership
lasted for twenty-one years. In the
beginning they had a ten-acre tract and needing more ground, they bought forty
acres from J. C. Thompson, and in three years they had made enough profit to
pay for the land. On Mr. Ferguson’s
present ranch there are almonds, grapes and plums.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1908, Mr.
Ferguson was married to Mrs. Mima (Lewis) Jones, the
daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Lewis, the ceremony taking place at the Cory
ranch; the father of the bride was a native of Wales and also a farmer, who had
married in his native land. He then came
out to America and settled in Jackson County, Ohio. There Mrs. Ferguson was born, the youngest of
seven children, and there she attended the local schools. In Jackson County, too, she first married Mr.
E. Jones, who was the youngest and only brother of Lord James, the ship-owner
of England. Evan Jones’ name was also
Evan James in Wales; but his name was changed to Jones upon coming to
America. Their native home was at Merthyr-Tydfil, Wales.
In 1883 Mr. and Mrs. Jones came out to Portland, and about seven years
later moved to California. They had one
daughter, Ida, now Mrs. Giles of Coalinga; and she has two children by her
first husband whose name was Jack Hurd, of Hurd Brothers in Stockton: Hazel and Nellie Hurd. In November, 1910, Hazel married Earl
Brinson, and they live at Lodi. He is a
blacksmith, and they have one daughter, Bessie Inez. Mrs. Ferguson, therefore, has seen the third
generation through her former marriage.
Mr. Ferguson is a Republican.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1409-1410. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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