San Joaquin County
Biographies
ALBERT DE LOSSE SAYLES
ALBERT DE LOSSE SAYLES, a rancher of Douglass Township, was born
in Rhode Island, July 16, 1840, a son of Albert and Maria (Rosa) Sayles. The
father died November 7, 1855, aged sixty-nine. Grandfather Amasa was seventy,
and his wife Melissa sixty when they died. Originally English, the Sayles
family was established in Rhode Island before the Revolution. Great-grandfather
Uriah Ross emigrated from Scotland to Rhode Island before the Revolution, and
was engaged in that struggle on the side of his adopted country. He died of old
age. Grandfather Samuel Ross also lived to old age, being about eighty; but his
wife, Johannah (Mowry) Ross, died comparatively young, of a cancer.
The subject of this sketch received the
usual district-school education. He came to California by the Panama route in
1859. His father had been here in 1850, working chiefly at his trade of
carpenter, preceded by a brief trial of mining. His health becoming impaired
after eighteen months, he went home, intending to return with his family, in
renewed vigor. He was disappointed in both respects, and died in Rhode Island
in 1855.
When A. D. Sayles arrived in California in
1859, he went to farming for wages for two or three years, and then rented a
ranch and has been farming ever since. He was married December 7, 1862, to Miss
Sarah Jane Comstock, a native of Lewis County, New York, born February 20,
1841, a daughter of Eri H. and Esther A. (Thornton) Comstock. Her
great-grandfathers on both sides are known to have been natives of Rhode
Island. Grandfather Ezekiel H. Comstock moved from that State into New York,
and was there married to Miss Lucy Jenks, whose mother lived to be ninety-two.
Grandmother Patience Thornton lived to be eighty-four, and her husband was over
seventy.
Eri H. Comstock was a forty-niner, and did
a little mining, but soon settled in Stockton, where he carried on a general
store. He became the owner of 2,100 acres of land in this township, and was
rejoined by his wife in 1852, when they settled on the ranch near the Calaveras
river. Their two children, Seth H. and Sarah J., now Mrs. A. D. Sayles,
remained with their grandparents Comstock to be educated. Seth H. came to
California twice, being accompanied on the second trip in 1859 by Mrs. Sayles.
The father died in Nevada in February, 1862, aged about fifty. Seth H. was
married to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Harrod, who died in 1879, leaving one child,
Charles W. Comstock, born in 1877, and now living with his grandmother, Mrs.
Seth Thomas, of Dent Township, his father having died November 12, 1884.
On January 12, 1863, five weeks after
their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Sayles settled on 300 acres of the original
Comstock ranch, where they still reside. They are the parents of a large,
unbroken family of ten children: Esther Maria, born April 25, 1864; Edward
Wood, October 26, 1865; Harry Albert, December 14, 1866; George Henry, July 31,
1868; Emily Jane, January 22, 1870; Oscar Arthur, February 23, 1871; Frank
Howard, February 25, 1873; William Henry, December 24, 1877; Lyle Ramsey, April
11, 1880; Burt Elmore, February 12, 1882.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 658-659. 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
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