San
Joaquin County
Biographies
GEORGE WIGGINTON
A resident of the Lodi section of
San Joaquin County, George Wigginton came to California in 1886. He was born in Steubenville, Ohio, on October
24, 1844, a son of George and Anna (Hottel) Wigginton, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter
of Virginia. The family of Wigginton
dates back to the sixteenth century.
During the War of the Rebellion they were strong abolitionists and Mr.
Wigginton served under General Schof in the Army of
the Potomac in Company C, of the 157th Ohio Infantry, and was
stationed at Fort Delaware on the Delaware River for four months.
George Wigginton is next to the
youngest of a family of ten children. He
received his education in the public schools of Ohio and assisted his father
with the farm work until eleven years of age, when he began to earn his own
living. He went to Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania, and there learned the cigar-maker’s trade, which he followed in
various places for fifty years, having his own business a great part of the
time. Mr. Wigginton vividly recollects
the grandfather of Harry Thaw, who then lived in Pittsburg near the cigar
factory, where he worked as a lad of twelve, and his own boyish pranks in
shooting beans and putty-balls at the old eccentric in his perambulations past
the factory. He also recalls the
occasion of Abraham Lincoln’s first visit to Pittsburg at the beginning of the
Presidential campaign in 1860, when he made a strong plea for home manufactures
and the iron and steel industry, then taking up the slavery question, he made a
powerful argument in favor of abolition.
After hearing the address, young Wigginton ventured the prediction that
the speaker’s looks would probably never put him into the presidency, but that
he would go in with a smashing vote just the same.
The marriage of Mr. Wigginton to
Miss Sarah H. Owen occurred at Steubenville, Ohio, on December 13, 1870. Miss Owen was born at Steubenville, a
daughter of Richard and Eliza Owen, and received her education in that
city. Richard Owen was a tailor by
trade, who came to California in 1849 and settled in Calaveras County on the
Mokelumne River, where he resided until his death. Mrs. Wigginton met a very tragic death at
Lodi, August 4, 1900, at the age of forty-eight, as the result of injuries
sustained in a runaway accident on the 26th day of the preceding
month. Mr. and Mrs. Wigginton became the
parents of two children, Lilie and Emma, who was both
living at the family home on South Quinby Avenue, in
Lodi, a home where true filial affection abounds. Lilie has charge of
the telephone exchange at the Beckman Grocery, in Lodi; while Emma is employed
in the office of the Hotel Lodi.
Lilie Wigginton married Mr. George W. Spink, who became master
mechanic for the Key Route Company at Oakland.
On the 15th day of November, 1903, while in the performance
of his duty, he was accidentally injured while passing through the subway at
Oakland. He died from the injury
received on November 17. Two children
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Spinks: Aline, the wife of Harold Deal of San Francisco; and
George, who resides with his widowed mother at Lodi.
Emma Wigginton married David E.
Otis, who became superintendent of the municipally owned and controlled
incinerator at Portland, Oregon. On
September 14, 1913, while in consultation with Mayor Albee at the City Hall in
Portland, his life came to a very abrupt end, as the result of a stroke of
apoplexy. Mr. and Mrs. Otis became the
parents of one child, Norman Otis, who married Miss Glory Emery of Los
Angeles. Norman Otis is now with the
Ford agency at Eagle Rock, a suburb of Los Angeles.
In 1886 Mr. Wigginton came to
California, and first settled in Oakland, where he worked at his trade for nine
and a half years for Fibush Bros. Altogether the family lived in Oakland about
eighteen years. Mr. Wigginton then went
to Stockton, where he worked at his trade for two years; then went to Fresno
for a short time, and then to Benicia, where he remained for six months. In 1890 he located in Lodi and purchased
eight acres west of town, for which he paid $115 per acre. When he sold the property he received $800
per acre for it. He then went to
Portland, Oregon, and worked for the City Creamery, his son-in-law, Mr. Otis,
being the superintendent of the plant.
He remained there for five years.
In 1917 he returned to Lodi and bought his present two-acre home on Quimby Avenue, on which he built his residence, and where
he has since resided. In politics, Mr.
Wigginton is independent, and fraternally he is a member of the Masonic Lodge
of Terre Haute, Indiana, and the Ancient Order of Foresters of Oakland.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
936-939. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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