San Joaquin County
Biographies
LAFAYETTE SELLMAN
LAFAYETTE SELLMAN, deceased,
was born in Canandaigua, New York, November 24, 1825. He was educated in the
district school and brought up on a farm. He came to California in 1849, and
went to mining in Sonora, and afterwards engaged in the cattle trade. He came
to Stockton in 1868 and went into the laundry business, buying two lots for his
home and business on the east side of Grant street,
north of Main, and another across the street for his horses and wagons. In 1880
he began the use of steam and introduced all the modern conveniences and
appliances necessary to place his “Stockton City Steam Laundry” in the front
rank in that line of industry.
Mr. Sellman was married in Michigan, about 1847, to Miss Margaret Coon, by whom he had seven children, of whom only one survives, Charles Baltus Sellman, was born in 1868 and married in 1889, to Miss Maggie Sexton, a native of this State. His wife died young about 1877, and Mr. Sellman was again married December 18, 1878, in this city, to Miss Anna Shafer, born in Calaveras County, California, a daughter of Adam and Julia (Behrent) Shafer, both natives of Germany; the father, a rancher of Calaveras County, died in 1876, aged forty-seven, and the mother died in 1872, aged forty-six. By this second marriage he had six children, all of whom survived him, and five are living: Henry Lafayette, born September 22, 1879; Grace, February 26, 1881; Maud, September 30, 1882; Elsie, November 12, 1886; Ivy Frances, January 2, 1889.
Mr. Sellman was
a member of the San Joaquin Valley Society of California Pioneers, and of the
Iroquois Tribe of the Improved Order of Red Men. He died at his home in this
city, March 25, 1889, a member of the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, of
which his widow is also a member.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 417-418. 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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