San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHARLES M. LONG
The family name of Long is
well-known throughout San Joaquin County, where Charles M. Long has passed his
entire life, and where his parents lived for many years. He was born on the old Charles C. Long ranch
at Waterloo on November 28, 1860. His
father, Charles C. Long, was born October 20, 1835 in Schuylkill County,
Pennsylvania, his parents being Michael and Barbara Long, both natives of
Germany. They came to America in 1828
and settled in Pennsylvania, where Michael Long went to work in the coal mines,
and afterward took up a coal claim from the government, but was unable to
develop it because of a lack of funds.
The mine afterwards became very valuable. He passed away in 1875. Charles C. Long was reared on a farm until
eighteen years of age, when he learned the wagon maker’s trade. In 1855 he started for California via the
Isthmus, and after forty days landed in San Francisco. He went to Sacramento, and then to Stockton,
where he worked at his trade about five months.
He then went to the mines in Siskiyou County, remaining eighteen months,
and then to Trinity County, where he mined for about two years. In 1859 he returned to Stockton and started a
wagon shop, which he ran for one year.
Selling out his shop, he then located 160 acres on the Calaveras River,
about ten miles from Stockton. After
four years he sold the place and located on 220 acres on the Waterloo
Road. It was then covered with timber
and underbrush, but in time became on the best-improved farms in the
county. In the fall of 1859, Mr. Long
married Miss Rachel Meyers, a native of New Orleans. They were the parents of nine children, seven
of whom are now living: Charles M.;
Barbara, now Mrs. Charles Lydecker; Lucy, wife of
James Main; and Frank, Henry, Joseph and Rosa.
The father passed away at the age of fifty-six, and the mother died
during February, 1921 at the age of eighty.
Charles M. Long attended the
Greenwood district school and the Stockton Business College, and grew up on his
father’s farm, remaining at home until he was twenty-nine years old. He then took up the machinist’s trade,
working for Houser & Haines of Stockton for thirteen years, after which he
was for two years with the Sampson Iron Works, in the construction department. When his father died, he located in Lodi and
built a house on a three-acre vineyard about one-half mile east of the city,
and here his mother resided with him until her death. In 1901 Mr. Long started his business of
well-boring, and since then has sunk wells all over the county. Of late years most of the wells bored have
been twelve-inch holes, rarely over 200 feet deep.
At Stockton, on March 3, 1889 Mr.
Long was married to Miss Letitia Williamson, a native of Stockton, and daughter
of Philander and Anna (Ingwood) Williamson. Philander Williamson came from Detroit,
Michigan, across the plains to California in 1852, his wife following the next
year via Panama; and they settled in Stockton.
They had a family of four children:
Charles, Dean, George and Letitia, the wife of our subject. The mother passed away at the age of thirty
years, and the father at eighty-two years.
Mrs. Long attended the old Vineyard school in Stockton. Mr. and Mrs. Long are the parents of three
children: Rosa Bell, now Mrs. Bert
Wakefield, a student of music in New York City; Ethel, now Mrs. Michelson, of
Lodi; and Lowell Leland, at home. Mr.
Long is a Democrat in national politics.
Fraternally he is a member of the Foresters of America.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1344-1347. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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