San Joaquin County
Biographies
CHARLES ELISHA NEEDHAM
CHARLES ELISHA NEEDHAM,
rancher of Douglass Township, was born in Addison County, Vermont, December 1, 1829, a son of Charles and Minerva (Porter)
Needham. The parents, with their children, moved in 1854 to De Kalb, Illinois,
where the elder Mr. Needham, in partnership with J. M. Adsit, now of Chicago,
bought 320 acres, and laid out Gillson’s addition to De Kalb. C. E. Needham,
with his wife, had preceded them in 1832, and became owner of 160 acres and of
one-third interest in the enterprise. The father, born October 6, 1800, died
September 3, 1883; the mother, born in 1801, died in 1870. She was a daughter
of Noah W. and Polly (Pangborn) Porter, of Ferrisburg, Vermont, of whom the
former lived to be eighty-five, and the latter but little less. Grandfather
Jeremiah Needham, a native of Brimfield, Massachusetts, taught school in
Vermont, and at the age of twenty-five was there married to Miss Ruth Cooley,
aged fourteen, a daughter of Colonel Cooley, of Revolutionary fame, who was an
officer with Ethan Allen on the historic occasion of the demand to surrender in
the name of the Great Jehovah and the continental Congress. He afterward moved
to New York State, where he declined a nomination to the State Senate. He lived
to the age of eighty, and his wife survived him a dozen years. The original
Needham immigrant came in the Mayflower, and Needham, Massachusetts, owes its
name to the family.
The subject of this sketch received the
best education locally accessible, finishing with a course in the academy.
Brought up on his father’s farm he learned to make himself useful in the
honorable vocation of agriculture, which is the corner-stone of all business.
He was married in New York September 8, 1852, to Miss Olive Lavina Drake, born
in Crown Point, New York, September 8, 1828, a daughter of David and Sally
(Bigelow) Drake. The father, born in Massachusetts, September 24, 1787, died
February 13, 1837; the mother, born in Vermont in 1791, died in April, 1867.
Grandparents Peter and Patty (Vail) Drake lived to a good old age. Grandfather
Nathan Bigelow died of an amputation at the age of seventy-five years, and
Grandmother Betsy (Oakes) Bigelow was also about that age when she died.
For about ten years after his arrival in
De Kalb, Illinois, Mr. Needham continued an agriculturist, paying also some
attention to the breeding of fine horses, chiefly Blackhawks and Morgans. In
1862 he drove twenty-three of his own raising across the plains to California,
and did very well by the venture, selling none at less than $500, while for two
specially fine animals he received $5,500. He went back in 1863 and brought his
family out in 1864, across the plains, and settled in Santa Clara County,
living three years in Mayfield. He moved into San Joaquin County in November,
1867, settling near Bantas, where he owned 560 acres. He was appointed United
States Inspector and gauger for the First District of California, in 1874, and
retained that position until 1884. The family lived in San Jose from 1878 to
1886, because of its educational advantages. Selling his farm in Tulare
Township in October, 1887, he bought 197 acres of bottom land on the Calaveras
river, in Douglass Township, three miles east of Bellota. Here he has revived
his interest in raising blooded horses. Mr. Needham was a Justice of the Peace
for three years at Mayfield, in Santa Clara County. He received the Republican
nomination for the Assembly for 1871-’72, but the party being weakened by
dissensions he was not elected.
Mr. and Mrs. Needham are the parents of
six children, viz: Harry Burr, born November 13, 1855, married in 1881 to Miss
Esther Ann Woodall, a native of this county, is a teacher and farmer in Trinity
County; Cyrus Hal, born June 9, 1859, was married March 20, 1889, to Miss Dora
Ellen Drace, a native of this county; Myrtie Lou, born August 6, 1861, was
married June 27, 1882, to William Giles McKean, a native of New Hampshire, and
a druggist of Santa Barbara; James Carson, born September 17, 1864, in Carson
City, during the journey across the plains, graduated from the University of
the Pacific, and has taken a course in the law department of the University of
Ann Arbor, Michigan, from which he was graduated June 27, 1889; Lillian Vail,
their first born in California, July 21, 1866, and Luella Gertrude, February
25, 1869, are graduates of the high school of San Jose.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 296-299. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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