San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ROBERT J. STANLEY
An esteemed pioneer of San Joaquin
County is Robert J. Stanley, known as one of the most successful and
enterprising grain farmers and stock raisers of the county and he makes his
home on a ranch twelve miles east of Stockton on the Sonora Road, consisting of
865 acres, and recently he has purchased 309 acres of wheat land, a portion of
the Griffin estate. He was born on March
28, 1848, in Essex County, Vermont, a son of John C. and Jane (Beattie)
Stanley, natives of New Hampshire and Vermont respectively, who were farmers in
Essex County, Vermont, where they resided until they passed away. Their family comprised five children: William J., a farmer in Franconia, New
Hampshire; Margaret, Mrs. Brown, passed on in Coos County, New Hampshire;
Jennie, who for many years was a teacher, resides in Lancaster, New Hampshire;
Mrs. Harriet Carpenter, deceased, and Robert J., the subject of this
review. John C. Stanley was a farmer all
his life in Vermont and lived to be seventy-seven and his wife died at the age
of seventy-six in 1887.
Robert J. Stanley attended the
public school in Lancaster, New Hampshire, and also Lancaster Academy, and
after completing his school work entered the employ of the Boston & Maine
Railroad as fireman, where he remained for four years, then returned to his
home and farmed for two years. At
twenty-seven years of age he entered the contract lumber business at Strafford,
New Hampshire, and also at Brunswick, Vermont, which engaged his attention for
the next six years, when he started for the Pacific coast. In 1879 he arrived in Stockton and was
greeted by his old boyhood friends, D. A. and Fred Guernsey and John Moore. Mr. Stanley found employment on the grain
farms and spent two years driving the big teams in the grain fields, then began
on his own account and for forty-one years he has farmed east of Stockton on
the Sonora Road.
In Stockton on February 3, 1881, Mr.
Stanley was married to Mrs. Lucretia (Dowling) Matteson, a native of Lima,
Ohio. Her father, Dr. John Dowling, was
a pioneer physician in California and he also engaged in farming his ranch,
being located east of Stockton, which was also the headquarters for his freighting
outfit. He practiced medicine from his
home on the ranch until his demise, 1875.
Mrs. Stanley was educated at Oberlin College, where she was
graduated. She taught school in Ohio and
then as a member of the American Missionary Association. As Mrs. Matteson she went to Africa as a
missionary, spending two years on the Dark Continent. On her return she located near Wichita,
Kansas, until 1875, when she came to California to take possession of her
father’s estate, and it was here she met and married Mr. Stanley. She passed away in 1904. By her first marriage she had two sons,
Arthur E. and John J. Matteson, the former living in this county. By her union with Mr. Stanley there was one
son, Albert James, a graduate of York’s Business School. He spent some years in the Kansas oil fields,
but since 1911 has been associated with his father in ranching. He married Miss Edna Rossen
and has one child, Ruth Ethel, attending the University of California. He is a member of the Odd Fellows and Native
Sons.
Mr. Stanley has been a very
successful farmer; twenty-four years ago he leased the present ranch of 865
acres from J. H. Hough. He also owns 309
acres adjoining, purchased from the Griffin ranch, devoting his operations to
raising wheat and barley. At times he
has farmed as much as 2500 acres, the land yielding from eight to twenty-five
sacks of wheat to the acre and from fourteen to thirty sacks of barley. Mr. Stanley has also engaged in raising fine
mules and horses and at the present has sixty-five head of choice stock. Installing a pumping plant in 1910 Mr.
Stanley seeded ten acres to alfalfa, from which he has cut six crops during the
year. Mr. Stanley has always used the
most modern machinery in harvesting his grain and was one of the first to own and
operate a Holt combined harvester in this section. The machine shop in which John Holt and Dave
Young, now both deceased, manufactured their first harvester in 1876 is still
standing on Mr. Stanley’s ranch. The first
harvester was known as the Centennial and fourteen machines were manufactured. In politics Mr. Stanley is a Republican and
fraternally has been a Mason since 1872.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
702-705. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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