San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM PHELPS
A
prominent Delta rancher and grain farmer, William Phelps has witnessed the
wonderful growth and improvement in the Tracy district
of San Joaquin County and has given substantial assistance to the various
movements and measures which have contributed to its welfare and progress. He was born at Livermore, May 8, 1868, a son
of Harrison and Lavina Phelps, who settled in San Joaquin County in 1881. The father passed away in 1888, and
subsequently the mother married Julius Englander, a pioneer of the county and
at present foreman on the Bixley holdings on Roberts Island, where they reside. Harrison Phelps was employed on the Kidd
ranch on Union Island and there William Phelps attended school and grew to
young manhood, becoming a favorite with the farm hands. On this ranch were bred and raised some of
the finest race and harness horses of California and many of them became world
renowned. In 1891 Mr. Phelps engaged in
ranching on his own account on the Williams tract, and the first year the land
yielded a harvest of twenty-five sacks of barley to the acre, for which he
received sixty cents per sack at the San Francisco wharf; then he found
employment on the Bixley ranch and not until 1905 did he try ranching again on
his own hook.
The marriage of Mr. Phelps occurred
at Stockton and united him with Miss Anna Silva, a sister of Mrs. J. J. Ratto, and a daughter of Manuel and Teresa Silva of San
Miguel, California. Mr. and Mrs. Phelps
are the parents of five children: Hazel,
Lloyd, William, Jr., Richard and John.
Since 1919 Mr. Phelps has farmed extensively to grain on the B. M.
Bixley ranch, nine miles north of Tracy on the Elk Ridge Road; he also owns
desirable real estate in the Rosedale addition to Tracy. He is a Democrat in politics, and gives
hearty encouragement to all enterprises for promotion of the general welfare.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1180. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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