San Joaquin County
Biographies
BENJAMIN WATROUS
BENJAMIN WATROUS, land owner,
residing in Stockton since 1870, and in the State since 1850, was born June 11,
1831, in Springfield, Massachusetts, a son of Jeremiah and Sarah (Lanphear)
Watrous. The mother, born April 28, 1799, died November 2, 1833. The father, by
occupation a farmer, was the son of Nathaniel Watrous, also a farmer and
shoe-maker, who with some others of the family was among the first settlers of
East Long Meadow, Massachusetts. The parents of Sarah (Lanphear) Watrous were
Uriel and Jerusha (Pease) Lanphear; the father born May 26, 1771, died June 21,
1868; the mother born in 1776, died July 27, 1812. The children of Jeremiah and
Sarah Watrous now living are: Sarah Maria, born in September 1823, by marriage
Mrs. Abel H. Calkins, of East Long Meadow, Massachusetts; Leonard, born in
1828, now of Springfield, Massachusetts; and the subject of this sketch.
Mr. Watrous received a common-school
education and helped on his father’s farm until he set out for California in
1850. He left New York, April 30, by the steamer Falcon to Chagres, then by
boat to Gorgona, and from that point overland to Panama, whence he came by a
sailing vessel to San Francisco, arriving on the 6th of August,
1850. He went to mining in Tuolumne County and continued in that line of work
seven years. Among other ventures he embarked with fifteen others in quartz
mining at Carson Hill, Calaveras county, and lost money in the enterprise. He
then engaged in raising hay, below Chinese Camp, about seventeen miles from
Sonora, and sold some of his product at good prices. He once saw some hay sold
there at $150 a ton. About 1860 he engaged in hog-raising, which he continued
for several years, together with other stock, in the later years. Meanwhile he
went East by the Nicaragua route in 1863, and was married in Three Rivers,
Massachusetts, September 2 of that year, to Miss Ellen M. Goff, born in Ware,
Massachusetts, September 7, 1846, a daughter of Benjamin Franklin and Amelia
(Calkins) Goff. The father died in 1859, aged forty-three; the mother, born in
March, 1820, came to Stockton in July, 1872, and is still living. Grandfather
Calkins died of heart disease at the age of fifty-nine, but grandmother Esther
(Mixter) Calkins lived to the age of ninty-one (sic).
Mr. and Mrs. Watrous set out for
California a few weeks after their marriage, leaving New York in October, and
arriving by way of Panama and San Francisco in Chinese Camp, Tuolumne County,
November 13, 1863. Here Mr. Watrous resumed his stock-raising pursuits, and in
November, 1870, took up his residence in this city, still continuing to trade
in hogs and sheep for a few years. He has also bought and sold lands in this
county as well as in Stanislaus, Merced, Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties, being
still the owner of 640 acres, mostly in Merced County, which are farmed by
renters, and 6,000 acres in Kern County, not under cultivation. He is a member
of the San Joaquin Valley Society of California Pioneers.
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Watrous have four living
children: Frederick, born March 29, 1867, educated in the public school and in
the business college of Stockton, has been conducting a feed and sale stable in
this city on his own account for some years; Emma, born October 26, 1869, was
married January 28, 1890, to Benjamin M. Woodhull of the firm of Dickson &
Woodhull, marble dealers of this city; Alice M., born June 11, 1872, now
attending high school at Stockton, a member of the class of 1890, will probably
enter a University after graduation, as her desire for a higher education is
very pronounced; Benjamin Franklin, born May 18, 1875, is also attending
school.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 521-522. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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