San Joaquin County
Biographies
SETH WILBUR POTTER
SETH WILBUR POTTER, a rancher
of Dent Township, was born in Grant County, Wisconsin, June 30, 1854, a son of George and Minerva (Steele)
Potter. The father, born near Waterbury, Connecticut, October 27, 1814, moved first to Adams County, Illinois, where he was married to Minerva L. Steele in 1833.
He there followed farming a number of years; thence removed to Grant County,
Wisconsin. He afterward returned to Illinois, and again
to Wisconsin in March, 1866; thence to Kansas in 1884, where he still resides, in 1889. The mother
was born near Geneva, Ohio, February 22, 1820, and died near La Prairie, Adams
County, Illinois, December 13, 1865, being the mother of seven children, of
whom three are living in 1889, viz: Minerva Jane, residing in Grant County,
Wisconsin; Sarah Elizabeth, of Cleveland, Ohio (both unmarried), and the
subject of this sketch.
Grandfather Enos Potter was a farmer in Connecticut, and there died at an advanced age, his wife also
being quite old at the time of her death.
S. W. Potter, the subject of this sketch,
worked on a farm from his youth up. He came to California in 1874, arriving in Stockton May 24, and worked in the harvest field that season.
September 30, 1874, he went to work in a blacksmith’s shop at Atlanta, and continued to work in that line about three
years. He was married in Stockton, December 27, 1877, by Rev. Martin E. Post, to Miss
Mary Alice Kiel, who was born in Wisconsin, December 27, 1860, a daughter of Charles Barber and
Ann Eliza (Beckwith) Kiel. The father enlisted in Company E, Twenty-fifth
Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers, at Platteville, Grant County, August 11, 1862, where he was taken sick furloughed
home, and died February 4, 1864. The mother, who was a native of Erie County, Pennsylvania, came to California with her four children in 1867, where she died
January 7, 1888, aged fifty-one. Grandfather Stephen Beckwith, a native of New York State, lived to be seventy-eight, and his wife, by birth a
Winston, was sixty-two at her death.
Grandfather John Kiel was killed by the
Indians in crossing the plains in 1850. Grandmother Kiel, who had borne twelve
children, had remained in Wisconsin until the husband and father should have tried his
fortunes in the land which he never reached. She died in that State in 1858,
aged somewhat over fifty.
Mr. Potter owns 320 acres of land, which
he bought September 27, 1879, and where he now resides. It is situated one mile
and a half southwest of Atlanta. It is fairly good wheat land, and is devoted chiefly
to the raising of that reliable product. Mr. and Mrs. Potter are the parents of
six living children, viz: Mary Corunna, born December 28, 1878; Charles Wilbur,
April 11, 1881; George Leroy, February 14, 1883; Clara Eola, January 12, 1885;
Minerva Ann, April 17, 1887; and Hattie Elizabeth, August 5, 1889.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Page 331. Lewis Pub. Co.
Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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