San Joaquin County
Biographies
JAMES WASLEY.
JAMES WASLEY, of Linden, was
born March 13, 1819, a son of James and Nancy (Trebilcock) Wasley. They settled
in Ohio on a farm owned jointly by Mr. Wasley and his brother-in-law, Frank
Trebilcock. Mr. Wasley was a miner in Peru and Brazil, a number of years, and
in 1836 moved to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, where he died about 1840, aged under
fifty, though belonging to long-lived families, his parents reaching the age of
eighty. The widow, by her second marriage, Mrs. Richard Crocker, and again a
widow by his death, also at Mineral Point, came to California in 1852 by the
Panama route, accompanied by some female members of her family, the others
being already on this coast. She died in Linden in 1868, aged seventy-seven.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Wasley were first, John, born in 1816, afterward a
supervisor and county clerk of this county, died in 1879, leaving a widow,
still living in Oakland, and three children,--Frank A., of that city; Delate, a
dentist of Chico, and Emma, the wife of Fred H. Bushy, a glove manufacturer of
San Francisco. Second, James, the subject of this sketch. Third, Mary A.,
afterward Mrs. C. C. Rynerson and since the death of Mr. Rynerson in 1885 known
as Mrs. Mary A. Rynerson of Santa Barbara. Fourth, Thomas T., born February 15,
1824, and still living with his brother James in Linden. Fifth, Emma, now the
wife of I. S. Hasley, a dentist of Oakland.
James Wasley, the subject of this sketch,
received a fair education for the times and is regarded as a well-informed man,
having supplemented the deficiencies of formal education by personal effort in
an extensive course of reading. With his wife, one brother and one sister and
others not related he left Mineral Point, Wisconsin, about the first of April,
1849, for California. At Council Bluffs a company of from eighty to 100 persons
was organized and they set out to cross the plains. They encountered no trouble
from the Indians or other disaster, except two deaths, one by cholera and the
other by accidental drowning. Seven men and Mrs. Wasley crossed the Sierra Nevada,
October 13, 1849, having separated from the others at Salt Lake City. In
November, 1849, James Wasley went to mining at Weaverville, where he was
rejoined by his brothers, John and Thomas T., that winter. In 1850 all three
went to Feather river and mined on Nelson creek a few months. In the fall of
1850 James Wasley came down on the Sonora road, and about three-quarters of a
mile below what is now Farmington he built the Wisconsin House, having as a
partner in the enterprise A. J. Holmes, a carpenter, now of San Francisco. They
ran it as a wayside inn for two years, and there Mrs. James Wasley, by birth
Miss Clarinda Pleas, died, aged only twenty-four. The building was afterwards
removed to Peters, where it is still used as a boarding-house. Being rejoined
by his brother John in Farmington in 1851, he left him in charge of the hotel
and went with his cousin, William Trebilcock, to start a miners’ store at
Mokelumne Hill. In the summer of 1852 he struck some mining which he developed
and sold out the store, having previously sold his interest in the Wisconsin
House. In the fall of 1852 he came down the plains to the Fifteen-Mile House,
now Linden, and with his brothers took up 160 acres of land, three miles above,
now known as the Lewis ranch, on the Calaveras. They worked it about four
years, raising barley chiefly. In 1856 or ‘57 he returned to mining in Mariposa
County, on the Maxwell creek, a tributary of the Merced. He did not remain
long, being driven down to the plains by rheumatism. Again in the mines one
season in Amador County, one in Calaveras and one in Tuolumne, he kept on
mining, in all about five years. With his brother John and brother-in-law C. C.
Rynerson, he bought out the Foreman ranch, originally founded by his cousins,
William and John Trebilcock, about 1850. The name was changed to Linden. James
Wasley was interested in it with Mr. Rynerson and John Wasley for several
years. Rynerson started the first mill in Linden, and in this also Mr. Wasley
became interested, as was also his brother John. Finally the mill interest was
sold to a mill company of which John Wasley was the manager and in which the
other owners of the old mill became stockholders. Of late years the mill has
been standing idle, and Mr. Wasley has turned his attention once more to
ranching, in which he is joined by his brother, Thomas T. Wasley.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 287-288. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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