San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHRIS WENZELBURGER
An enterprising, experienced and
very successful rancher, and one who obtains the best results in the raising of
both grain and stock, is Chris Wenzelburger, who lives about six miles to the
southeast of Clements. He was born in
Wittenberg, Germany, on January 25, 1870, the son of Chris and Carry (Fisher)
Wenzelburger, the former a baker by trade who came to California at the age of
twenty-one, voyaging around the Horn in a sailing vessel which made the trip in
eighty-eight days. Our subject was one
of six children. Mary is married and as
Mrs. Gunder she is living in the state of
Washington. Chris was the second in the
order of birth. Paul is on the Chehalis
River in Washington. Kate is Mrs. Gohrman of San Francisco, her husband being a druggist at
the corner of Market and Valencia streets.
William is at Othello, Washington; and Vera, is Mrs. Mohrmann
and lives at Driad, Washington. Mr. Wenzelburger, the father, lived to be
eighty-eight years old, and passed away at his home in Washington, and Mrs. Wenzelburger
died at their ranch on the Chehalis River in Washington at the age of
eighty-two. In 1880 Chris Wenzelburger,
Sr., had settled on a half-section south of the present home of our subject, on
land called the Mokelumne Grant, southeast of the
well-known Round Timbers Rancho taken up by J. Wright Johnson. At that time the land was thickly settled,
and there was a rancher on every quarter-section. When the railroad company was given each
odd-numbered section of land, the farmers became discouraged, and rather than
pay the company a second time for the land, they moved out of the county, thus
depopulating that section of the county.
The Brandt School, for example, came to have only fifty pupils, while
now it is discontinued. In 1890 Mr.
Wenzelburger lost out on his land, and went north to Washington, where he
bought a ranch on the Chehalis River, living there until he died.
Chris Wenzelburger, Jr., attended
the Brandt School, and on September 18, 1891, married Miss Mary Cordoza, a native of Sonoma County, and the daughter of Antone and Hulda (Drew) Cordoza. Her father
was a native of Portugal, who came to the United States when he was sixteen
years old. He settled in Sonoma County,
and there farmed for ten years; and then moved to Stone Corral, in Calaveras
County, where he lived for forty years.
Five daughters were born to this worthy couple. Belle, who became Mrs. Thomas, lived that La Fevre, and died there of pneumonia. Mary is the accomplished wife of our
subject. Elsie has become a San Franciscan,
and Lillian, Mrs. Brandt, and Genevia, Mrs. Peterson,
both live in the Bay City.
After his marriage, Mr. Wenzelburger
rented and farmed land for about ten years, but he saw that he was not getting
ahead in that way, so he purchased 400 acres of land about six miles to the
southeast of Clements, and built a fine farm home there, and put in many
improvements; and since that time he has purchased additional land adjoining
his original ranch, until now he owns some 2,400 acres of fine land. Although this is suited mostly for general
farming, he also uses it to some extent for the raising of stock, of which he
has 250 head, young and old on the ranch, while he has sixteen head of
work-horses. His main crops are barley
and oats. The one son born to Mr. and
Mrs. Wenzelburger, named Fred, is also successfully farming near his father’s
home place.
Mr. Wenzelburger is a member of the
Modern Woodmen at Clements, and he is a stand-pat Republican. But he is first, last, and all the time, an
American, and as such, is vitally and enthusiastically interested in the
welfare of the country at large, and the prosperity of the district in which he
lives, operates and thrives.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1527-1528. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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