San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ALFRED D. WARDROBE
An exceptionally interesting and
instructive story is that of the pioneer family of Alfred D. Wardrobe, the
progressive and successful vineyardist, who lives one and one-half miles to the
east of Acampo. He was born in San
Joaquin County, near the Live Oak schoolhouse, in Elkhorn Township, on
September 15, 1867, the son of S. V. and Eunice (Cobb) Wardrobe. Both his father’s and his mother’s family
came to California from Massachusetts in 1851.
Grandfather Charles Cobb was a boot and shoe manufacturer, and just
before the outbreak of the Civil War he sold a large consignment of his
products to patrons in the southern states.
He was paid Confederate script, which in time proved utterly worthless,
and was thus forced into bankruptcy. In
1865, with only $15 as capital, he landed in California, after a journey by way
of the Isthmus, having left his wife and children behind in Boston. He obtained a job in San Francisco cleaning a
cargo of shoes that had come round the Horn, and had moulded on the way. For this he received $9 per week, and had to
board himself. When it became known that
he was an experienced shoe-man, he was offered the position of salesman in the
shoe store; and when later, someone wanted a man to take charge of his shoe
store in Maysville, he was sent there, and he remained in Marysville as manager
of the shoe store for several years. At
the end of six years, he was able to send for his wife and family, and they
joined him at Marysville. Later, he took
up some land between Lodi and Stockton, 160 acres in all, and embarked in
farming; and after awhile he acquired another tract of 160 acres. He lived to be about eighty-six years old,
and came to be worth approximately, $10,000 before he passed away. A few years ago the home place was purchased
by Stewart Elliott.
S. V Wardrobe, whose full name was
Samuel Valorous Wardrobe, the father of our subject, made three trips to
California, the first, around the Horn in 1848, the second in 1850, and the
last in 1851, when he yielded to the lure of the moment and went into the
mines. Afterward, he bought a ranch in
the Live Oak section, and as he was naturally a progressive agriculturist he
became quite an extensive grain farmer.
In the early days lumber was very scarce. While back home in West Scituate,
Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, on his visit in 1850, he had his brother,
Reuben Langdon Wardrobe, who was a carpenter and joiner, frame a 12’ x 12’
house out of eastern yellow pine, which was shipped in the knockdown to
California via the Horn. It was unloaded
from a new steamer, at Weber’s Point, in Stockton, and by the two brothers was
hauled out to S. V. Wardrobe’s land, near where the Live Oak schoolhouse is now
situated. Later on additions were made
and the house was remodeled, but to this day it encloses the first 12’ x 12
house, which was converted into a bedroom.
The house is still standing, and is in use to this day. In that bedroom our subject’s oldest brother
and Alfred Wardrobe himself were both born.
It is the oldest living-room, which has been in continuous use in San
Joaquin County. S. V. Wardrobe and his
devoted wife were blessed with four children:
Franks S, the eldest, is in Butte County; Lucy is deceased; Alfred was
the third-born; and Eunice, the youngest, is also deceased.
Alfred Wardrobe attended the Live
Oak School, and remained with his father until the latter’s death, at the age
of fifty-six. The mother had already
passed away. After his father’s death,
he and his brother managed the old home place of 627 acres until 1910; and then
a division of the property was made, he receiving 307 acres, and his brother
320. He sold this place, and bought
twenty acres on the Acampo-Lockeford Road, about one and one-half miles east of
Acampo, a fine tract of vineyard and orchard, which Mr. Wardrobe has developed
with his own pumping plant and irrigation system.
At Sheldon, California, on May 6,
1896, he was married to Miss Rebecca Macy, the daughter of Seth and Jane Macy,
and a native of Sacramento County. Her
father was born in Iowa and her mother in Missouri. In the late fifties, Mr. Macy went into the
mines. Mr. and Mrs. Alfred D. Wardrobe
have had four daughters, and three are living, Oleta having died at the age of
eighteen. Viola and Myrtle are high
school students at Lodi, and Vernon is a pupil in the grammar school. Mr. Wardrobe is a Democrat and is a member of
Elk Grove Lodge of Odd Fellows.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
887-888. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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