San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM C. MURDOCK
A California pioneer of whom all
native sons and daughters of the Golden State, and especially all patriotic
residents of San Joaquin County, are justly proud, is William C. Murdock, who owns
three-fourths of a section of excellent ranch land about one mile and a half
southeast of Clements. He was born in
the province of Nova Scotia, near Halifax, on December 19, 1844, the son of
Henry and Mary (Sanford) Murdock; and according to the old story of ancestral
migration, three brothers on his father’s side came from Scotland to South
Carolina. Grandfather Finley Murdock was
a great trader, a merchant-marine man, who handled South Carolina products,
with his sailing vessels running to foreign ports. Finley’s two brothers were planters, owning
extensive lands in South Carolina, and cotton plantations. Grandfather Finley came from near Inverness,
Scotland. During the War of 1812, one of
the ancestors on the maternal side was a surgeon. He was Dr. Woolever,
a native of Holland, of the old William Penn stock. Henry Murdock’s folks migrated to Nova Scotia
from South Carolina, and settled at Halifax, and Grandfather Murdock built and
kept a public house, free to be used by all, at Windsor, Nova Scotia. Henry Murdock took up the wheelwright’s
trade, and followed it during his lifetime.
He lied of lung fever at the age of seventy-eight. Five children were granted the worthy
couple. James is deceased. William C. is the subject of our interesting
review. Sarah Jane, who became Mrs.
Hamilton and reared a family of four children, is deceased. Mary, now living at Fresno as Mrs. Smith, also
brought up a good-sized family; and Katie is Mrs. Lane, of Oakland. The Sanford’s originally settled in Massachusetts.
When William Murdock was fourteen
years old, having finished his district school studies, he went to sea as a
cabin-boy; and at the age of nineteen, with seventy-five men working under his
direction, he built a ship, constructing it from the keel to the top rigging on
the mast, and launched it in the ocean.
Curiously, after that practical experience with the sea, though having
long wanted to come to California, he waited until he could come on an emigrant
train. The first trans-continental train
crossed the wide stretch of hitherto untracked country in May, 1869. Mr. Murdock came in November of that year,
and the trip took fourteen days, and was full of adventures. For example, at one time a great herd of
buffalo was seen coming towards the track a little way ahead of the train, and
the engineer stopped the train to allow the band to pass, the train having to
wait for about an hour.
Mr. Murdock landed at Stockton in
November, 1869, and came almost directly to Lodi, where, as a partner of Alexander
Gordon, he loaded cars and split wood.
He was an expert carpenter, and he helped build the hotel on the
Copperopolis road, which had been projected because the owners, thinking that
the railroad would soon be opened up to the mines, expected to do a good
business. But the road did not pass that
way and the hotel was finally burned to the ground. There were no railroads for a long time, for
problems of construction balked the attempts to open up the country on an
economical basis. The road from Stockton
to Ione and Jackson passed through such forests of trees that the driver had to
pick his way. Mr. Murdock worked at his
trade for awhile at Lodi, when that place had one blacksmith shop and a store
building owned by Mr. Ivory. In Stockton
the sidewalks were built on sticks, like stilts, so that on coming into the
town one would not need to walk in the mud.
In his youth, Mr. Murdock was a
member of the Christian Church; and upon his attending church here, he met W.
C. Miller, who was both a great church worker and a man of wealth. Soon afterward, Mr. Miller proposed that they
form a partnership, and embark in the sheep business. Mr. Murdock had no money at that time, but
Miller introduced him to his banker in Stockton, and left instructions for the bank
to allow him to draw all he needed for the business, in which he was then a
half-partner. He accordingly went into
the country east of Lockeford, and ranged his sheep from a point about one mile
east of the present location of Clements, on eastward into Calaveras County and
as far south as Tulare County. This herd
grew to contain several thousand head.
Since 1870, Mr. Murdock has called
the country east of Lockeford his home.
He took up a government claim of a quarter-section of land, and received
the patent to the land with James A. Garfield’s signature to it; and he still
holds this quarter-section. Mr. Murdock
also bought a half-section, and now, all in all, three-fourths of a section
minus the forty-acre strip of land given to each of his daughters, on which
they and their families reside today.
The quarter-section of government land lay three miles to the east of
his home.
At Sacramento, on November 5, 1870,
Mr. Murdock was married to Miss Martha Dimock, who
was born in the province of Nova Scotia, the daughter of Asa and Amy (Northover) Dimock, of English
descent, who came to California and to Sacramento, bringing her when she was
seventeen years old. He built a fine,
two-story home on his ranch, in 1902, about one and a half miles south of Clements;
but in 1917 it burned to the ground, a total loss, due to lack of
insurance. He then built a new home,
where he and his son Winfield and his wife live together today. Eight children were born to Mrs. and Mrs.
Murdock, five of whom are now living, and there are ten grand-children. Arthur passed away in 1915; Carrie died in
1893; Katie lived to be only ten days old; Alberta has become Mrs. Pierson, and
resides on forty acres of the old home place; Ethel is Mrs. Sain,
and also lives on part of the old home ranch; Charles is in Stockton; Lena is
Mrs. L. L. Brandt; and Winfield is at home.
Alberta Pierson is the mother of Ross, Madaline,
Stanley and John. Ethel Sain has a daughter, Lucile. Charles is the father of Ann Bell and
Marcel. Lena Brandt’s children are named
Harold, Marietta, Eugene, and Louis.
Well, and still enthusiastic enough to ride about his ranch and give
orders as to important details, Mr. Murdock is essentially a home man. He takes a live interest in politics, and
endeavors to support the best men and measures.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
609-610. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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