San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM JOSHUA JONES
WILLIAM JOSHUA JONES, a
rancher and native of Dent Township, was born August 15, 1861, a son of John
Wheeler and Catherine Martin (Dunlap) Jones. (See foregoing sketch). He
received the usual district-school education, and spent some time in Litton
Springs College in Sonoma County, quitting at the age of eighteen, and arriving
at home before the death of his mother in 1879. He was then assigned by his
father to the superintendence and management of the 1,280 acres which he now
occupies, and which were formally deeded to him about 1887. The ranch is
situated on the French Camp road, near its junction with the Lone Tree road,
and about twenty-five miles east of Stockton. He has built a comfortable and
tasteful residence, neatly enclosed in an area of a few acres planted in vines,
with a small orchard adjoining, about seven acres in all, for home use. He also
owns 320 acres about twenty miles east of Stockton, on the same road. Both
ranches are devoted chiefly to wheat and barley, but Mr. Jones gives some attention
to breeding horses, partly Normans and partly trotting stock.
Mr. William J. Jones was married November
14, 1888, to Miss Mary Ellen Rodgers, born in Modesto, California, May 31,
1871, a daughter of John and Ellen (Frazier) Rodgers, both now deceased. The
mother, born in Indiana about 1849, died in Modesto in 1875; the father, born
or brought up in Texas, died also in Modesto in October, 1884, aged about
fifty-four. Though the parents were short-lived, there is a strain of longevity
in the family. Grandmother Lucinda (Cartwright) Frazier, born about 1829, is
still living in Oakdale, Stanislaus County, in 1889; and great-grandmother
Tilda Cartwright died in Summitville, Indiana, aged ninety-nine.
Mrs. William J. Jones finished her
education at Mills Seminary, near Oakland, in 1887.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 653-654. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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