San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHARLES D. ROSS
Prominent among the progressive
farmers of the Delta district is Charles D. Ross, who has fifteen very choice
acres on the Upper Roberts Island, devoted to vineyard purposes and the raising
of high-grade poultry. He was born in
Martinsburg, West Virginia, on October 15, 1886, the son of John H. and Mary
Ann (Tyson) Ross, the youngest in a family of ten children, his father J. H.
Ross, being a blacksmith and an expert wheelwright who, true to his convictions
as to the great political questions of the day, had served as a soldier in the
Confederate Army. Our subject grew up
amid comfortable home advantages, and at the age of seventeen worked in the
paper-mill at Davis, West Virginia, starting at $1.50 per day; at the end of
two years he was paid six dollars per day, pretty good wages for that
time. When twenty-one years of age he
enlisted in the U. S. Army at Fort Hancock, N. J., and after twenty days of
training he was sent to Fort Slocum, when he was dispatched to the Philippines
for active service in the Spanish-American War.
His journey to his foreign destination was most interesting and
profitable, for first he crossed the Atlantic and then the Mediterranean,
through the Suez Canal and across the Indian Ocean, with many stop-over
permits, all of which he availed himself, finding Malta in particular, so
attractive that he spent three days there, and the company of which he was a
member were entered in first-class fashion by the Royal Guards as well as the
British populace. He also spent four
days at Gibraltar, and three days at Alexandria, with side-trips into Egypt, so
that this was decidedly an educational trip, never to be forgotten, although
because of a terrible epidemic at Suez, the company was not allowed to
land. In the government service at Manila,
Mr. Ross help to mount several 12 and 16-inch guns, which are still in
use. He served his country well, and
received his honorable discharge, which he very much cherishes, certifying as
it does to his having maintained a high standard of efficiency. On returning to the United States, he
re-enlisted and served as sergeant at Fort Scott, and eight months later he was
with Captain Murphy in the 65th Coast Artillery, and at the end of
the term of service he received a second honorable discharge with all credentials.
At San Francisco on August 15, 1915,
Mr. Ross was married to Miss Mary C. Holst, a native of San Francisco and the
daughter of the late J. D. Holst, a prominent pioneer merchant of that city,
whose widow is now Mrs. Mary C. Porteous. A brother, D. H. Holst, is in the registry
department of the San Francisco post office.
One child blessed this union:
Laura Lee. Mr. Ross came into San
Joaquin County in 1917, and then bought his ranch; but he also owns desirable
real estate in San Francisco and with Mrs. Ross has done what he could to
advance the development of the Delta region.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1493-1494. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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