San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHAUNCEY A. LEASE
It has been fortunate for the State
of California to attract to her confines such men as Chauncey A. Lease, roofing
contractor, now residing at Stockton. He
was born in Bremer County, Iowa, on March 10, 1856, the son of Chauncey A. and
Jeanette (Nutting) Lease, natives of Vermont and New York, respectively, but
pioneers of Illinois and Iowa. In 1869,
when thirteen years old, Chauncey A. accompanied his parents to Missouri, and
well does he remember the journey overland in an open vehicle when for days
there was continuous snow; he was in company with a cousin and a brother, the
parents and smaller children being in a covered wagon. The family settled near Centralia, Boone
County, and there the lad grew to manhood on the home farm and during the
winter months attended the district school.
When he was twenty-one he left home to go west, having a span of horses
and his sole capital was twenty-five dollars in his pocket.
He stopped in Mitchell County,
Kansas, where he homesteaded 160 acres of land and took up a timber claim of
like amount; this he proved up on and made his home for eleven years. While living on his land he helped to build
houses made out of the native stone that was quarried on the land and was of
such consistency that it could be cut with a saw into any size of block
desired. After it had stood for a time
it gradually hardened and then was plastered in the inside and made very good
stone houses for the settlers. He gave
the land for the first school house in his district in Mitchell County, and
here church and Sunday school services were held. When Mr. Lease sold out in 1888 it was to
come further west and he arrived in California, November 29, locating in Santa
Cruz.
Once in the Golden State he was not
long in finding employment and soon began general contracting and cement work
with his brother, George E. Lease, as a partner, and this business arrangement
continued until 1913. In 1898, with
twenty-five others, Mr. Lease bought a schooner and equipped for a mining
expedition to Alaska, where he remained eight months. The brothers did contract work in various parts
of the state during the intervening years; one contract was completed in Marin
County on the ranch owned by Mr. Hotalling, which
took a little over a year; then they did the stone and cement work on the first
two buildings of the State Polytechnic School at San Louis Obispo in 1902. They made a specialty of roofing work and that
with their general contracting kept them unusually busy. The work was given personal attention and
evidences of the stability of the buildings erected are to be seen today in
Santa Cruz and elsewhere, and it is to his credit that he built the first
concrete house in Santa Cruz.
Mr. Lease located in Stanislaus
County after twenty-five years residence in Santa Cruz, and bought an alfalfa
and dairy ranch of seventeen acres located near Modesto. His ability as a builder soon became known
and he accepted a position as superintendent of concrete construction work to
T. K. Beard and in this position did some very important work in the
state. In 1915 he moved to Stockton,
still retaining his ranch near Modesto, which he sold in 1918. After taking up his residence in this city,
he gave his entire attention to roofing contracts and during the passing of the
years has roofed more than 2,500 buildings throughout the San Joaquin
Valley. He put on the first white rock
roof in the city and was the originator of the crushed glass roof. Three fourths of the homes in Tuxedo Park and
Yosemite Terrace have been roofed by Mr. Lease, besides apartment houses,
garage buildings, buildings at the county fairgrounds; he also roofed school
buildings at Lodi; bank and other buildings at Tracy; school at Manteca; and
did work for the Diamond Match Company in Butte County. In his roofing work he uses hot asphaltum or
roofing cement to cement the various layers of wool felt or asbestos paper
used, then the entire surface is given a coating of the hot preparation and
then the desired color of crushed brick, rock or glass is sprinkled over and in
twenty-four hours it is dry.
The marriage of Chauncey A. Lease
was celebrated in Kansas on February 1, 1879, when he was united with Miss
Phoebe Catherine Johnson, who was born in Ohio, at Barnesville, Belmont
County. She is a daughter of Pius and
Sarah E. (Jarvis) Johnson, both born in Ohio of pioneer forefathers. The union has been blessed with the birth of
five children. The eldest son and child,
H. Fred Lease, died in Missouri, aged one year.
Bessie Belle is the widow of William R. Cruz, by whom she had one
daughter, Doris Elizabeth. Rupert I. is
the head of the grocery department of C. D. Hinkle of Santa Cruz, and the
father of two children, Elsworth, deceased, and a daughter, Helen. He is also one of the enterprising men of
Santa Cruz, having been engaged in buying, improving and selling property
there. Jesse E. is a mill man by trade
and followed it in Stockton prior to the war, when he worked in the shipyards
at Oakland and Bay Point. He is now
engaged in a mill and wrecking company with W. E. French in Stockton; he had a
daughter, Vivian, now deceased. The
youngest child is Chauncey A., Jr., who is a graduate of the Stockton high
school, class of ’18; also a graduate from the Agricultural School of the
University of California at Davis, class of ’22, and is taking charge of the
vineyard. Mr. and Mrs. Lease take an
active interest in the various circles in the Central Methodist Episcopal
Church at Stockton and in national politics they support the platform of the
Republican Party. In all his work Mr.
Lease has had the active cooperation of his devoted wife. Mr. and Mrs. Lease have always been strong
advocates of temperance. To show his confidence
in the future of San Joaquin County, Mr. Lease has invested in ranch property
and is the owner of a twenty-acre vineyard near Escalon, and with a partner
owns twenty acres two and one-half miles from Farmington, devoted to prunes and
cherries; and he is preparing to plant seven and one-half acres to the Clarkadota fig in the near future. San Joaquin County may well be proud of the
invaluable contribution made to its permanent growth and real progress by such
citizens as Mr. Lease and his family.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1188-1191. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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