San Joaquin County
Biographies
WESLEY MINTA
WESLEY MINTA, an attorney of
Stockton, was born in Whiteside County, Illinois, a son of William and
Elizabeth (Dixon) Minta, both natives of England, and there married. They came
to America in 1838 and settled on a farm in Whiteside County, where both died in 1862, leaving eight children.
Both grandfathers died while the father and mother of the subject of this
sketch were young, but the grandmothers lived to an advanced age, Mrs. Dixon
being seventy-four and Mrs. Minta ninety-six at death. Upon the death of his
parents Wesley Minta lived with an older brother, also a farmer, until the age
of fourteen. At the age of fifteen he entered the high school in Morrison, Illinois, and at seventeen the Normal school in Winona,
Minnesota, from which he was graduated in 1871. After a brief
visit to Illinois he came, in April of that year, direct to this
county, whither he had been preceded by a brother and sister. He taught school
in this county from 1871 to 1876, and, having read law with James A. Louttit,
he was admitted to the bar in 1877. Mr. Minta was Deputy District Attorney in
1879, Justice of the Peace from 1880 to 1883, and again Deputy District Attorney
from January, 1885, to January, 1889. In the intervals he has practiced his
profession alone, but since January, 1889, he has been a partner with Ansel
Smith under the style of Smith & Minta. Mr. Minta is secretary of Stockton
Lodge, No. 11, I. O. O. F., and was Grand Representative to the Sovereign Grand
Lodge in 1887 and 1888, and to the Grand Lodge of California from 1879 to 1889.
His sister, Julia, at one time librarian of the Free Public Library of this
city, is now the wife of Thomas O. Minta, a merchant in Carbon, Wyoming Territory.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Page 361. Lewis Pub. Co.
Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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