San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JESSE W. WAKEFIELD
An experienced vineyardist and
orchardist who has come to assist in the development
of California realty is Jesse W. Wakefield, who lives one mile and
three-quarters east of Acampo. He was
born in Brownfield, Oxford County, Maine, on March 16, 1865, the son of Edwin
and Sarah (Palmer) Wakefield. His father
came out to California and Truckee in 1849, and the following year lost his
hand in the sawmills in that place. As soon as he was able to travel again after
this accident, he returned to Maine, married, and there reared a family of nine
children. Calvin P., the eldest, is now
in Stockton; Edwin is in Modesto; Alice has become Mrs. Woods, and lives in
Maine; Oren L. died in 1919; Laura became Mrs. Seevey,
and is deceased; Angies also has died; Jesse W. is
the subject of our review; Fred is the next youngest; and A. P. Wakefield lives
at Stony Ford, in Glenn County, California.
Edwin Wakefield bought a farm on the
Saco River in Maine and lived there until his death at the age of eighty-five
years, while Mrs. Wakefield, who passed away in 1918, attained her eighty-sixth
year. Jesse attended school at Eaton,
New Hampshire, and in 1882 he left home to come to California, and here he went
to work on the Cressy Ranch in Merced County, near
Livingston. This place contained about
ten thousand acres, and he remained there for four and one-half years, after
which he came to San Joaquin County, and worked out for two years. He next leased 480 acres of land from Mrs.
Gage, lying north of Lockeford and known as the Faulkner ranch; and this place
he farmed for sixteen and one-half years.
In 1907 he sold his stock and purchased the place where he now
resides. This was then open land; but he
has developed fourteen acres of it to peaches, five acres to plums, five acres
to cherries, ten acres to Tokay grapes, and six acres to walnuts and
alfalfa. He has built a home on the
ranch, and has also developed two fine wells, with one pump of six inches, and
another of five, all operated by a motor of twenty-five horse-power.
At Stockton, on October 9, 1890, Mr.
Wakefield was married to Miss Luvina Eddlemon, the daughter of George and Ruth Eddlemon, a native of Arkansas, who came across the plains
with her parents when she was six months old.
They settled at Lodi, and both died in 1919 on their ranch near
Lodi. Mrs. Wakefield went to school at
Lodi, and grew up in that vicinity. Two
children have blessed their union. Delma May is Mrs. James M. Prentice, and Orin Edwin is at
home. Mr. Wakefield is a Republican, and
a member of the Woodbridge Lodge of Odd Fellows; and both he and his good wife
are members of the Rebekahs.
For the last five years, Mr.
Wakefield has been a real estate operator in Lodi and the vicinity of
Acampo. As illustrative of the advance
in land prices, he states that he was the first man hereabouts to sell a
vineyard for $1,000 an acre, and yet this same ranch sold for $3,000 an acre in
the spring of 1922. He not only sells
other folks’ land, but he buys land for himself, and owns fourteen acres of
Tokay grapes north of Youngstown on the Traction line.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1155-1156. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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