San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM LAFAYETTE OVERHISER
WILLIAM LALAYETTE OVERHISER, a rancher of O’Neil Township,
residing at “Oak Home,” four miles from Stockton, was born in Northumberland
County, Pennsylvania, December 29, 1824, a son of Abraham and Mary (Burtis)
Overhiser, both born and married in Columbia County, New York. Grandfather
Overhiser, born in Germany, settled in New York State. The parents of our
subject, immediately after their marriage, located in Northumberland County,
Pennsylvania, where the father’s chief pursuit was farming, varied with
occasional enterprises. Among these is mentioned his taking the first sample
load of Lackawanna coal to New York city, hauling it on a two-horse sled. They
were the parents of four children: Hannah Jane, by marriage Mrs. Henry Hart,
who died in 1889, aged now seventy; Mary, by marriage Mrs. Daniel Discho, of
Newark, New Jersey, is sixty-eight; William L., our subject; Susan Ann, by
marriage Mrs. Benjamin L. Bedell, of Brooklyn, New York, in her fifty-ninth
year. In 1830 the family moved back to the old homestead in Hillsdale, New
York, and thence in 1841 to Long Island, where they settled on a farm in
Queen’s County, near Rockaway.
William L. Overhiser, the subject of this
sketch, received a district-school education and helped on his father’s farm
until the age of eighteen, when he went to learn the trade of blacksmith near
his home. At twenty he moved to Hempstead, Long Island, where he finished his
apprenticeship, and, buying out his employers, went into business on his own
account. He was soon rejoined by the family, the father buying property and
settling there. On a business trip to New York city in 1849, he caught the gold
fever, being inoculated by a friend and neighbor named Cooper, and bought an
interest in the ship Salem. Closing out his business in Hempstead, he, with the
rest of the party, about 160 persons, left New York on the ship Salem, March
12, 1849. The captain proving dissipated, reckless and incompetent, the alarmed
passengers decided to entrust the command to the first mate, Douglas, confining
the captain to his cabin. Through the want of charts, which the captain
neglected to procure, they were still exposed to great danger, though the mate
was competent and reliable. He passed the entrance to Rio Janeiro and several
days were lost in correcting the error. Arriving there they submitted their
action in displacing the captain to the American consul, who fully approved
their course. Proceeding on her way the Salem rounded Cape Horn on the Fourth
of July. In entering the harbor of Tockawanna by the wrong channel, the Salem
narrowly escaped being wrecked. At Tockawanna they loaded with flour for San
Francisco, where they arrived October 12, 1849.
On the voyage Mr. Overhiser and eight
others from Long Island formed a close alliance for future co-operation, and
five of these set out at once for the Mariposa mines, while the other four,
Overhiser, Bennett, Cooper and Griswell, remained to dispose of the party’s
interest in the ship Salem. Three weeks later the four set out for Stockton on
board a little trading schooner that was ill adapted to the passengers’
comfort. The only available bunk was surrendered to their less stalwart
comrades, and Overhiser and Bennett slept on deck in their blankets, an
exercise entirely new to our subject. Going ashore at Benicia in the night they
found their way to an all-night house and were stowed away in a loft but little
better than the schooner’s deck. In the morning Mr. Overhiser had an unexpected
meeting with the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, a Presbyterian missionary whom he had
known in the East, and who had come to this coast in 1848. While the four
comrades awaited their promised signal from the captain, they saw to their
dismay that the schooner had started off without them. Hurrying forward they hired
a man who took them to the vessel, and charged them $16 for the service.
Arriving in Stockton in seven days from San Francisco, in the early part of the
historic rainy season of 1849-’50, their first necessity was some covering for
their persons and property. They bought a tent that had just been vacated, on
the bank of the slough in front of where the Weber engine house now is, for
$150, and filling it with their goods to the eaves, they slept on top of these.
Mr. Cooper extemporized a stove out of some sheet iron among their effects,
which, however, so attracted the attention of the inhabitants, and especially
Mrs. Harris, that it soon passed into her possession by purchase.
The season continuing rainy the party were
at a loss how to avoid infringing on their capital of $1,000, the proceeds of
the sale of the Salem, when Mr. Overhiser learned of an opportunity to purchase
for that amount from a discouraged freighter his outfit of four yoke of oxen
and wagon, loaded with 2,500 pounds of freight destined for Sullivan’s camp, in
Tuolumne County, for which would be paid on delivery at that point a freightage
charge of 50 cents a pound. The trade was effected, and Overhiser and Bennett
took charge of the team and delivered the goods, leaving Stockton late in December
and returning three weeks later. Their next venture was not so fortunate.
Scurvy had broken out among the miners at Murphy’s and potatoes were at a
premium; our party bought a considerable stock in San Francisco, shipped them
to Stockton and hauled them to Murphy’s, only to find the market glutted. The
absent five arrived from Mariposa mines early in 1850, and the nine companions
formed the “Nassau Mining and Trading Company,” to handle miners’ supplies at
Murphy’s. During the summer they enlarged operations by opening a store at Gold
Spring and buying a mining claim. Selling out at Murphy’s some months later
they confined themselves to trading and mining at Gold Spring. Meanwhile Mr.
Overhiser had been engaged in freighting the goods from Stockton, which was
much the most laborious task, and out of all proportion to the easy duties of
his partners. He accordingly demanded a settlement, and received $700 in gold
dust, being one-ninth of the estimated assets of the company. With this amount
and $700, the loan of which was volunteered by another shareholder, he came to
Stockton. Here, through the persistent generosity of Mr. Judson, with whom he
was stopping, he was enabled to buy a very fine team of oxen. He then went into
freighting on his own account, and was quite successful. After a time,
freighting business being dull, he turned his stock out on the range. Some time
afterward Mr. Overhiser, needing his stock, found that six oxen had been driven
off toward Winter’s Bar, on the Calaveras river. After a weary search at
Hangtown, El Dorado County, he found one in a butcher’s pen awaiting slaughter,
the hides of three drying on a fence in another camp, and the remaining two
just slaughtered at a third place, the thieves having got away in safety. He went
to the law to recover the living animal, brought witnesses from Stockton to
prove the property, and won his suit only to find himself without money and
still owing the $700 loaned him at Gold Spring. In the spring of 1851 he bought
a land claim on the Calaveras, on which to cut hay for his stock. Meeting one
of his old partners, Mr. Cooper, who was also teaming on his own account, they
formed a partnership and bought another quarter section adjoining Mr.
Overhiser’s. With his friend Cooper he soon began to make money, and was
enabled to extend a helping hand to a former benefactor, Mr. Judson, on whom
fickle fortune had meanwhile frowned. He gave him employment, and in three
months admitted him into partnership. In 1852 they harvested, on forty acres of
their Calaveras ranch, the first crop of barley raised in San Joaquin County.
In 1852, also, they bought 320 acres, which are now a part of Mr. Overhiser’s
Oak Home ranch. With a view to driving a band of sheep to this coast and also
some horses, Messrs. Cooper & Judson went East, but finding the season
unfavorable to driving across the plains they sold the sheep they had bought.
They purchased a number of horses, some of which were left at pasture near Salt
Lake. Three of these were stolen, but were afterward recovered in San
Francisco. Mr. Judson retired from the partnership after three years, Messrs.
Cooper & Overhiser continuing as before his admission.
In October, 1855, they built the farm
house, which from its location between two great oaks suggested its name. In
1858 they separated, Mr. Cooper taking the lower ranch and Mr. Overhiser the
Oak Home ranch, which he has since increased to 700 acres, devoted chiefly to
grain and stock, but with twenty acres in orchard and vineyard, which he was
among the first to give attention to in this section. As early as 1852, when
his partners went East, they sent him some nursery stock, and a few years later
he planted some vines. “Oak Home” has had much intelligent labor bestowed upon
it, and is a fine, well-appointed country house. Its water supply is among the
most complete in the county, comprising four deep wells, a pumping system of
the most approved pattern, and a reservoir stocked with carp, while the farm
implements and appliances are also of the best in the market. A highway ran in
early days in front of the house, and several attempts were made to re-locate
it. After the flood of 1862 the necessity of a good road from Stockton and
Waterloo became apparent to all, and the county surveyor was authorized to lay
out a road. The line to the junction of Cherokee Lane was readily agreed to,
and the remainder was determined by laying out an air line from the Fairfield
place to that point on one hand, and to Waterloo on the other. Mr. Overhiser
was appointed overseer, and opened the road through its whole course, though
not without much opposition and some lawsuits. At his suggestion the three
bridges were made of heavy timber, the size of which occasioned much flippant
comment at the time, but his foresight has been amply vindicated by their
permanency, two of them being in perfect condition at this day without
additional outlay.
Having discovered a gravel bed on his
place in 1869 Mr. Overhiser took an extensive contract for graveling the
streets of Stockton. He was the moving spirit in building the Calaveras
gravel-road, inducing the conflicting interests to unite on constructing a good
road to the junction of Cherokee Lane and Waterloo road. A company was
incorporated and the road partly built, when the contractor failed. Mr.
Overhiser advanced the necessary funds, taking a mortgage on the road for
nearly $3,000. When this grew to be $6,000 he foreclosed the mortgage. Two
blocks of land now in the city, but outside the limits when the road was built,
fell into his hands. The road runs diagonally across the blocks, and as he was
thus deprived of their use he decided to close them up, his legal right to do
so being unquestionable; but he has allowed the road to remain open temporarily
for a consideration.
Mr. Overhiser’s most important life-work
has been in connection with the Grange movement, the value of which he was
among the first to recognize, and no resident of this State has taken a more
prominent part than he in the organization of the Patrons of Husbandry and the promotion
of its interests. By its means the farmers are advancing toward the position of
power and influence they should rightfully occupy, as the most necessary and
useful class in the community. Mr. Overhiser’s great zeal in the cause and his
recognized ability as an expounder of its principles, caused his selection as
State lecturer, and his election of State overseer for two years each. He is
now one of the general deputies of the State. He was elected Master of the
State Grange in 1887, Grand Representative to the National Grange in 1888, and
labored hard and successfully to secure the holding of the meeting of 1889 in
this State. The happy outcome of his painstaking endeavor, culminating in the
continuous ovation and generous hospitality extended to the members of the
National Grange in all the chief cities of the State, is a matter of history.
Mr. Overhiser was married in Stockton in
December, 1855, to Miss Catherine E. Hutchinson, a native of Boston,
Massachusetts, who came to California with her mother, a brother, and two
sisters. They have one son, William Henry, aged twenty-five years.
Mr. Overhiser is a member of Morning Star
Lodge, F. & A. M.; of Stockton Lodge, I. O. O. F.; of the San Joaquin
Valley Society of California Pioneers, and President of the Rural Cemetery
Association. His life has been eminently active, useful and eventful,
creditable to himself and the community, and inspired with lofty considerations
for the best interests of humanity, and more especially of the agricultural
class, with which he has been so long identified.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 555-558. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Genealogy Databases