San Joaquin County
Biographies
DON CARLOS MATTESON
DON CARLOS MATTESON, of
Matteson & Williamson Manufacturing Company, iron-founders and manufacturers
of agricultural implements in Stockton, was born in Genesee County, New York,
May 18, 1827, a son of Stephen B. and Esther (Jones, by birth Sexton) Matteson.
His father was a native of Vermont; his mother of New York, and thought to have
been of the Mohawk Dutch descent. In 1832 they moved to Canada, where his
father farmed for sixteen years. In 1847 they moved to Erie County, New York,
where he followed the same pursuit and where his wife died October 8, 1854, in
the seventy-second year of her age. His father came to Stockton in 1874, and in
1876 went to Detroit, Michigan, to live with his only daughter. There he died,
February 25, 1879, at the age of seventy-nine, of injuries received by being
thrown from a horse.
The subject of this sketch went to
Naperville, Illinois, in 1845, and there learned the trade of blacksmith from
his half-brother, A. S. Jones, spending three years as an apprentice and two as
a journeyman, at $7.50 a week.
Mr. D. C. Matteson was married in
Naperville, Illinois, September 19, 1849, to Miss Catherine Salisbury, born in
Canada, September 7, 1828, a daughter of Christopher and Catherine (Cook)
Salisbury, both natives of Canada. They moved first to Syracuse, New York, and
then to Illinois, where they settled on a farm not far from Naperville. They
afterward sold and bought another farm between that town and Chicago. There her
father died, at the age of seventy. Her mother died in Naperville about 1878,
aged ninety-eight. Grandmother Cook (by birth, Seron) was 100 years old at her
death. Grandfather Salisbury was accidentally killed in the infancy of his son
Christopher. His widow, by second marriage Mrs. Hess, lived to an advanced age.
Mr. Matteson came to California across the
plains in 1850, arriving in Placerville on July 13. He went to mining in that
vicinity for a few weeks, averaging about $8 a day. He left that to find
something better, trying Rich Bar on the north fork of Feather river. He had
left millions in gold dust behind him and wandered off in a vain search for
richer deposits only to be disgusted with the result. Bidding adieu to mining
and prospecting he set out for Sacramento, where he found work at his trade at
$8 a day and board. After six weeks he was taken sick and though confined to
his bed only three days it was three months before he could do any heavy work.
In this emergency he started an eating stand at the old horse market, being
able to wait on the table though still under medical treatment. He sold apples
at twenty-five cents each, and grapes at a dollar a pound, mush and milk at
fifty cents a bowl as fast sometimes as he could dish it out; after selling
half a barrel a night his average gains were about $30 a day, and he soon
accumulated $1,400. Again he could not let well-enough alone and on recovering
his strength the mining fever seized him under the persuasion of some comrades.
He sold his stand for $50, being in mad haste to again try his fortunes in the
mines, leaving the equivalent of a gold mine behind him. The purchaser made
$4,000 in four months, while the seller, going back to the north fork of the
Feather river made haste to sink what he had accumulated. Three comrades and
himself dammed the stream at Twelve-mile Bar, he supplying the means; result,
the loss of his money. That was in July, 1851. He then went to Downieville and
worked with two others, a father and son, who kindly gave him an interest in
their claim in Blue Hill, but all three lost their labor. He then went to
Durgan Flat and worked a few weeks for $8 a day. He then bought a half interest
in a claim and in four weeks made $1,200 besides paying for his purchase. Soon
afterward he had a narrow escape from death, a large mass of earth and rock having
caved in while he was at work. Escaping with a severe strain of the shoulder
nearest the drift he sold his interest the next morning and soon afterward set
out for Illinois with the intention of never returning. Going by the Panama
route it cost him $700 to get home, leaving a net result of $1,000 as the fruit
of all his labor and trials and experience at gold-seeking. But his experience
at Naperville, Illinois, soon turned his thoughts to California. He went to
work at his trade at the old rate of $7.50 a week, the hours of labor being
from daylight to nine o’clock at night. He had worked about three weeks, when
on going to the shop one morning he found everything so frozen that the poker
actually stuck to his hand. He quit then and there with the determination to
strike again for California as soon as possible.
In the spring of 1852, with one wagon and
five horses, and in company with a few other teams and their owners, he set out
with his wife for the Pacific coast. Arriving here he sold his wagon and horses
for more than the round trip had cost him, and found himself in possession of
$1,850. Having stayed a month in Placerville they came to Stockton in
September, 1852, and have resided here since, except one visit made by Mrs.
Matteson in 1876 to her relatives and friends in Illinois, Michigan and New
York. She had intended to be gone six months but promptly cut it down to two,
so uncongenial did she find the Eastern climate.
In the autumn of 1852 he bought a lot on
the corner of Main and Grant and put up a blacksmith shop, paying eleven cents
a foot for the lumber. He carried on the blacksmith shop at that point for
several years, having two or three forges in constant use. About 1860 he moved
his shop to the lot adjoining Central Methodist Episcopal church, and there
constructed a reaping-machine, which was quickly knocked out by the headers, at
a loss to him of $2,000 in three months, in that venture. He then bought the
lot where Commercial Hotel now stands and moved his shop to that point. In 1865
he formed a partnership with Mr. T. P. Williamson, who is still with him. In
1867 he obtained a patent for his reversible gang-plow, and afterward for his
fork and derrick by the use of which two men can do the work of fourteen, and
next a horse-hoe for weeding purposes. In 1868 he made some improvements on a
combined harvester, Marvin’s patent, still in use on some ranches in 1889, and
highly prized by the owners. Matteson & Williamson remained on the
Commercial Hotel lot until their works outgrew it. They still own the place
with the improvements thereon, receiving a rental of $452 a month from hotel
and stores.
In 1870 they purchased for $7,500 the
block bounded by Main, Market, Grant and Aurora streets, their present
location, and erected the foundry and what are now called the old sheds, and in
1883 four new buildings, where they manufacture plows and the harvester know as
the Harvest Queen. Of these they built six in 1886, twenty-five in 1887, sixty
in 1888, sixty-one in 1890.
They employ from thirty to sixty hands,
nearly all skilled workmen, having fifty-seven in October, 1889.
In 1887 and 1888 Mr. Matteson received
patents for two valuable improvements on the Harvest Queen. His last invention
is an improvement on a plow, adapting it to adobe land, being strong and simple
of construction, the plowshare being such as can be replaced by any blacksmith
not a novice in plow-making. Their agricultural works comprise a planing-mill
80 x 140 feet, two stories high; a blacksmith shop of about the same dimensions,
one story; a machine shop 85 x 140; an office 30 x 60. The foundry has a
moulding floor fifty feet square.
Mr. and Mrs. Matteson have three children,
all born in Stockton: Julia Alice Matteson, born March 17, 1853, married
January 24, 1871 to John R. Williams, a native of Missouri and a druggist by
profession, has two boys: Walter E., born November 1, 1871, now a clerk in his
grandfather’s counting room, and J. Harry, born in 1879. Walter Carlos
Matteson, born March 22, 1856, was brought up to his father’s business and
worked for him about eight years. He then started a carriage and plow shop in
Oakdale, which was burned down in 1885. He is now a foreman in the Shaw Plow
Works. He was married August 24, 1876, to Miss Mary Eggleston, a native of this
State. They have a son and daughter, Edward Jerome Matteson, born May 15, 1859,
learned his father’s business, but thinking farm work more healthy has of late
years followed that business. He was married October 12, 1880, to Miss Ann
Eliza Bissell, born on her parents’ farm on the Calaveras in September, 1858,
where they now live; they have one daughter.
Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Matteson are members of
the First Baptist church of Stockton, and Mr. Matteson is a member of Stockton
Lodge, No. 11, I. O. O. F. He was also a member of the city council one year.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 435-437. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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