San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MRS. ISABELLA SHERIDAN
The earliest recollections of Mrs.
Isabella Sheridan are associated with the crossing of the plains to California,
where she has resided since she was four years old. She was born in Linn County, Missouri, on
April 15, 1848, the daughter of Solomon and Phoebe Epperly, her father a
pioneer farmer of that state. Leaving
Missouri with a span of horses and two oxen on the 14th day of
April, 1852, the family came over the Sierra Nevada Mountains by what is known
as the Silver Lake route, and arrived in California on August 26, 1852. They settled at Volcano and two years later
at a point about two miles west of Lockeford near the old brick church, which
still stands; there Mrs. Epperly bought out a claim and as there was no house
on the place, the family lived in a tent until the father could build a house,
which he did by cutting down trees, the logs were split and a flat surface
hewed on one side of the log with a broad-ax.
There were no nails to be had, and the logs were held together with
wooden pegs, and the house was constructed eighteen feet square. For two years the family lived in this house
with only a dirt floor; then a wooden floor was put in. Clearing his quarter section of land was
laborious and slow, there being a thick undergrowth of chaparral and scrub oak,
but it was finally accomplished. Solomon
Epperly lived to be eighty-five years old, the mother passing away at the age
of sixty-nine. They were the parents of
nine children: Hawkins is living at the
age of ninety years; Patience is eighty-eight years old; Frank, Zeralda, Evelyn, Elizabeth, Julia, Isabella, our subject,
and Rebecca, only three now living.
Dr. D. J. Locke, Mr. Holman and D.
J. Staples erected a schoolhouse one mile west of Lockeford made of canvas with
benches made out of logs flattened on one side and in this schoolhouse Isabella
Epperly started to school at the age of six years, with Mr. Wheelock as
teacher, the school term covering a period of about three months out of each
year. About the time of the Civil War
the Octagon schoolhouse was built, so-called because of its octagonal shape.
Isabella Epperly made her home with
her parents until her marriage on August 20, 1865, to Frank Sheridan, a son of
William and Sarah Sheridan, his father a native of Ireland, where he passed
away. Frank Sheridan came to California
with his sister across the plains in 1852 from Missouri, where they had first
settled upon reaching the United States.
He received his education at Merced Falls, California, and grew to young
manhood on a ranch and consequently he became interested in the stock business
and followed the butcher business as a livelihood. Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan spent one year in
Lockeford; then they moved to Snelling where Mr. Sheridan conducted a butcher
shop for eleven years; then they moved to Turlock and Mr. Sheridan engaged in
the same line of business. In 1878 the
family moved back to Lockeford and Mr. Sheridan ran a meat market until he
passed away in 1897. They were the
parents of seven children: the first one
died in infancy; Caroline Louise is Mrs. W. L. Young of Lockeford; Anna
Josephine is Mrs. Stamper of San Francisco; Katherine May is Mrs. Hartwell of
Tracy; Cora Belle is Mrs. Winkleman of San Francisco;
Frank died in 1899; Emelda is Mrs. Craig of
Fresno. Mr. Sheridan was a member of the
old Workman Lodge of Lockeford. Mrs.
Sheridan is the second oldest pioneer living in Lockeford today and it has been
her good fortune to see the improvements and developments of the county and
state from a wilderness to its present prosperity.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
459. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County Genealogy
Databases