San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN D. GRUWELL
For more than twenty-five years John
D. Gruwell resided on his ranch property four miles east of Farmington, where
he became one of the best and most representative agriculturists in the county,
and on his ranch of 720 acres, which was his home and center of operations from
1871 to 1900, he enjoyed a degree of prosperity which ranked him among the most
enterprising men of his class in San Joaquin County. He was born in Quincy, Illinois, June 9,
1830, a son of Robert and Millicent (Daves) Gruwell. The
parents, natives of Ohio, moved to Indiana in an early day and thence to
Illinois in 1828; and there Robert Gruwell became the owner of 160 acres of
land, and remained a resident there until 1833, when he moved to Lee County,
Iowa. On May 3, 1849, with his wife and
eleven children, he started for California.
All these children were born in Illinois and Iowa; the eldest child died
in 1852 at the sink of the Humboldt River, while crossing the plains. With them across the plains a brother, Jacob
Gruwell, came with his family.
At Salt Lake City some Mormon
acquaintances told them that it was impossible to go through to California by
the northern route, as the grass was all burnt off. They wintered at Fort Utah, a distance of
sixty miles from Salt Lake City, found work, and there met a man named Page,
whom their father had brought from Iowa, and this man, in company with a
cousin, went to the council house and there heard the Mormons talk of murdering
Jacob and Robert Gruwell, charging that they had been parties to the expulsion
of the Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois, and other localities in Iowa. The young men returned to camp and reported
the danger, so the Gruwell brothers started for California at once, by a
circuitous route, leaving their families, who secured a Mexican guide and in
three days started on the southern route for this state, their train being the
first that ever passed over General John C. Fremont’s southern trail. After many hardships, privations and also
loss of cattle, etc., their progress became very slow, and soon their diet was
confined to beef cattle, which had become too poor and weak to bear the
yoke. It was seen that the women and children
would all perish from hunger, so John D. Gruwell and his older brother, in
company with four others, left the train at a distance of 300 miles for the
nearest settlement, the Cucamonga ranch.
They had been informed by their Mexican guide that the distance was only
sixty miles, and they took with them only four days’ rations; when their
provisions gave out they lost all hope.
They toiled on, however, four days and three nights longer, without a
drop of water or a morsel of food to eat except prickly pears. At Los Vegas Springs they found a poor colt
which had been left by General Fremont’s pack train and this they were not long
in butchering and devouring. The next
meal was a coyote, on the Mojave Desert, and after that only a few acorns until
they reached the settlement. They returned
to their party with six mules packed with provisions and twelve head of beef
cattle, and arriving at the train in time to save their lives. They reached the Cucamonga ranch, September
23, 1849. Robert Gruwell and his brother
after eluding their enemies, who were unaware that they had received any notice
of the secret plot, came on by the way of Marysville, Sacramento, Stockton, Los
Angeles, and met their families 150 miles out from the settlement, and they
completed the journey safely together.
The father and family remained at Cucamonga ranch until spring and then
moved up into El Dorado County, near Coloma, and engaged in mining there until
late in 1851. The parents and their younger children then removed into Santa
Clara County, where the father had bought land.
In June, 1852, with his eldest son, Noah N., he went east via Panama,
where Noah N. was ill seventeen days with the fever, from the effects of which
he never entirely recovered. As soon as
he was able to travel he completed the journey, assisting his father in buying
some cattle. He married Sirena Cox, and the next spring started for California with
a herd of cattle. He arrived at the sink
of the Humboldt, but relapsed and suddenly died. In 1857 Robert Gruwell sold out and moved to
Lake County, buying land and entering into agricultural pursuits and stockraising. In 1861 he moved back to Santa Clara County,
where in the same year the mother died, aged fifty-four years. In 1883 he died, aged seventy-six years.
John D. Gruwell went to work on his
own account in 1849, mining. In 1851 he
made his first purchase of land, adjoining Santa Clara, and consisting of
thirty acres. Selling this, he bought,
in partnership with his brother, Labin H., 160 acres
three miles further south, which they farmed until 1857. Then selling out, they moved to Lake County,
taking up Government land and following stockraising and farming there until
1869. In 1869 John D. Gruwell moved into
San Joaquin County and conducted a hotel at Peters, during the construction of
the Copperopolis and Milton railroad. In
1871 he bought a squatter’s right to 160 acres of land, which he pre-empted,
and on which he resided until about 1900, four miles east of Farmington; later
he increased the extent of his land to 720 acres. Soon after settling on this ranch he
commenced raising wheat; at that time it was the most easterly point of the
wheat-growing section of the valley. He
erected a good two-story residence, with all necessary out-buildings and here,
he reared his family.
On June 19, 1854, in Santa Clara,
Mr. Gruwell was married to Miss Evelyn Fine, born in Fayette County, Missouri,
May 22, 1836, and they were the parents of six children, two of whom are now
living, Robert C. and Oscar. Mrs.
Gruwell passed away in June, 1906, Mr. Gruwell surviving until August, 1911,
aged eighty-one.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
681-682. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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