San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLARD WILLIAM HAYDEN
WILLARD WILLIAM HAYDEN,
deceased, of Douglass Township, was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, August 22,
1821, a son of Willard Boyd and Sarah B. (Woodruff) Hayden. The father died at
the age of twenty-two of typhus, and Willard W. was brought up by his
grandparents, David and Elizabeth (Bishop) Hayden, from the age of fourteen.
His uncle, Charles Sylvester Hayden, born November 14, 1820, and he were ever
afterward closely associated, being generally supposed to be brothers. David
Hayden, born in Massachusetts, in 1781, learned the trade of goldsmith and was
the first, or among the first, to manufacture buttons in this country. He was
at one time a member of the firm of Leavenworth, Scoville & Hayden, of
Waterbury. In 1829 he moved to Auburn, New York, and there established a
rolling mill. In 1831 he went to Illinois and settled on a farm near
Carrollton, where he died in 1833. His wife was over ninety-six at her death
about ten years ago.
Willard W. was destined by his uncle,
David Hayden, Jr., for a military career, and received some special education
to prepare him for West Point; but, chafing under the strictness of his uncle’s
guardianship, he ran away in 1837 and went to Texas. In 1840 he went to New
Orleans and thence to St. Louis, where he undertook to learn the foundry
business, but soon changed to steamboat engineering, in which he was engaged
seven years. December 18, 1848, he started for California on the steamer
Falcon, crossed the Isthmus and took the English bark John Richardson to San
Francisco, where he arrived May 6, 1849. He went to mining at Angel’s Camp in
Calaveras County, and in September, 1849, he started a store with his uncle
Charles S., who had arrived in California that summer and first went to mining
near Sonora, joining his nephew a little later. He had learned the trade of
harness-maker and carried on a shop in St. Louis for three years. In 1844 he
sold out and went to New Orleans, where his brother David was surveyor of the
port. Through his influence Charles S. was appointed a measurer, January 1,
1845. The Haydens having started their store, bought mules and oxen to haul
their supplies from Stockton, freighting in those days being very high. In the
summer of 1851 they closed that business, having meanwhile prospected
considerably, and having bought the Pine Tree and Josephine vein in Bear Valley
in 1850. With a third partner, Mr. Higginbotham, they formed the firm of Hayden
& Co. They paid the discoverer $4,000 and invested $25,000 more in
machinery, being about the first to erect a stamp-mill. When the vein was found
to be valuable the party of whom they bought, backed by wealthy men of San
Francisco, secured an injunction, with the final result of a loss of $80,000 to
Hayden & Co. The mine was sold about 1886, for $300,000, and Hayden &
Co. would probably have become millionaires had not their prospects been
blighted by unprincipled men. The three partners having been ousted, they
squatted on land about eight miles east of Stockton, on the Mariposa road.
In 1852 the subject of this sketch got a
position in the custom-house of San Francisco, through the influence of his
uncle, David, then located in that city, who had been in the employ of the
Federal Government about twenty-five years. David Hayden died in that city in
1856. W. W. held his place until 1856, when he went to Kern river, which was then
the scene of a great gold excitement. He found a good vein, but his backer, who
had been badly bitten in a venture, withdrew his support and Mr. Hayden
returned to San Francisco. He afterward went to prospecting on Rabbit creek and
elsewhere, finding some good veins, but, lacking the necessary capital to work
them, he might as well not have found them. In July, 1856, he bought 160 acres
in Douglass Township and remained in this county the remainder of his life.
About 1863 he sold the 240 acres which he then owned in this township, and
bought a quarter-square, corner Washington and Hunter, which he improved and
sold in 1866, at a handsome advance. He then engaged in buying and selling real
estate as opportunity offered. He died January 20, 1890. He was never married.
Meanwhile Charles S. made a little money
in Stockton, in 1852, by moving people in a yawl from the submerged district
and then went to work on a ranch at $100 a month; afterward did some teaming,
and in 1856 bought the 160 acres ranch he still occupies in this township,
doing but little teaming after that time. He was married in Linden in 1875, to
Mrs. Sarah Catharine Sargent.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 239-241. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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