San
Joaquin County
Biographies
SOLOMON WAGNER
A veteran of the Civil War who
appreciates and has a great liking for his adopted state is Solomon Wagner who
was born in Grant County, Wisconsin, on August 20, 1838. His father, Jacob Wagner, a native of
Germany, came to Virginia where he married Mary Sparks, after which they
removed to and became early settlers of Wisconsin, where he became a well-to-do
farmer. He was murdered in 1843, when
Solomon was five years of age, leaving a widow and eight children. Two years
later Mrs. Wagner sold the farm and removed to Hampton, Iowa, where she reared
and educated the children to the best of her ability and there she resided
until her death.
Solomon, the fifth of the family,
worked on farms until sixteen years of age when he proceeded to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and there learned the carriage maker’s
trade. Later he began rafting on the
Wisconsin and Black rivers and down the Mississippi as far as St. Louis. Solomon was a stout and hearty boy and it was
natural he was selected to do the snubbing of the rafts which required
quickness as well as great strength.
In 1857 he went to southwest
Missouri where he was employed in the lead mines. Many opportunities in that new country arose
but like hundreds of others could not see them.
For example, he could have bought the town site of Joplin, Missouri, for
sixty-five cents an acre. In 1859 he
went to Jackson, Arkansas, where he married Miss Maria Ann Sullivan, a native
of that state. When the Civil War broke
out they had a child two months old. Solomon
was forced to give up his guns and ammunition and had to muster with the
natives once a week. One evening he said
to his wife he would not continue to muster under a rebel flag. He yoked his two small oxen to a wagon and
loaded some supplies and with his wife and baby started at nine o’clock so by
morning he was away from that locality, and he drove on north making as good
time as possible until he arrived 400 miles north at Springfield, Missouri,
where he was safe under the Stars and Stripes.
He came on to Carthage, Missouri, and went to work in a wagon shop until
March 23, 1862, he enlisted in Company K, 6th Kansas Cavalry, but
later he was a member of Company L. They
were on scout duty chasing bushwhackers in southwest Missouri. He was in the battles of Newtonia, Cold
Creek, Prairie Grove and Ft. Smith. He
spent several months at Ft. Gibson in charge of a company of Cherokee and
Choctaw Indians as acting captain. He
returned to his command at Ft. Smith, remaining there until Price’s last raid
into southwest Missouri. He was
honorably discharged at DuVal’s Bluff April 17, 1865.
In the fall of 1865 he moved back to
Wisconsin where he engaged in farming until the spring of 1868 and then removed
to Franklin County, Iowa, where he purchased raw land at $8.00 an acre, which
he improved and farmed for four years and then removed to Kansas and
homesteaded 160 acres in Republic County and went through the early hardships
of that country, being devastated by the grasshoppers and when his crops
yielded large returns prices were so low there was no profit. He has hauled wheat forty miles and sold it
for forty cents a bushel, corn was ten cents a bushel and they used it for
fuel. Selling out he removed to Oronoco,
Missouri, and there engaged in the livery business and also ran a lumber
yard. In 1893 he came to Stockton and
engaged in the grocery business in Fair Oaks for sixteen years and also built
three different residences. His wife
died in 1908 and he sold the store and houses and retired. They had eight children: Mrs. Mary C. King, deceased; Mrs. Mamie
Rankin of Los Angeles; Mrs. Sarah Josephine Geer lives in Missouri; Mrs. Mattie
M. Miller of Joplin, Missouri; Nial is in Baxter
Springs, Kansas; Bertie died at three and one-half years; Jessie served in the
World War, and is now in the bakery business on South Center Street, Stockton;
while Ivan is a grocer on East Oak Street.
Mr. Wagner has been a Mason since
1865 and is now a member of Morning Star Lodge, F. & A. M., Stockton, as
well as the O. E. S. He is a member of
Rawlins Post No. 23, G. A. R., having served as junior vice-commander. He has always been a staunch Republican.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1112-1115. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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