San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM H. WILSON
A native son of California, who has
made good along agricultural lines, is
William H. Wilson, whose sixty-acre ranch with thirty acres in vineyard is
located about five and one-half miles northeast of Lodi. He was born on his father’s ranch near
Farmington, San Joaquin County, on February 14, 1879, a son of James and Sarah
M. (Jones) Wilson, both natives of Ohio.
James Wilson came to Woodbridge, San Joaquin County, about 1875, bought
240 acres on the Acampo-Lodi Highway, and engaged in grain farming; later he
sold 160 acres of his ranch to P. B. Armstrong.
There were six children in the family:
John Allen, residing at Cloverdale, California; Sadie, now Mrs.
Erickson; Mary, Mrs. Gillespie, of Centerville, California; Elizabeth, Mrs.
Keeling, of Acampo; B. M., deceased, and William H. The father lived to be seventy-five years
old; the mother died in 1911.
William H. Wilson, as a lad, had
very little opportunity for an education, his time being taken up with work on
the ranch. After his father’s demise, he
purchased his brother’s interest in the home place, and now has sixty acres,
twenty-five of which is in Tokay grapes, five acres in Zinfandel and Mission
grapes, and the balance of thirty acres in alfalfa, etc. He has two irrigating wells on his ranch,
with a four-inch and a five-inch pump, driven by a gas engine and electric
power. Mr. Wilson and his father personally
built all the farm buildings, including the house, barn and smaller buildings.
The marriage of Mr. Wilson occurred
in Stockton on December 10, 1911, and united him with Miss Glessie
Martin, a daughter of J. and Anna (Ewell) Martin, her mother a direct
descendant of General Ewell. Mrs. Wilson
was born in Garfield, Washington, and is the eldest of a family of five
children, as follows: Glessie, Myrtle, May, now Mrs. Waucope
of Lodi; Ruby, the wife of Ellis Frink, a
mineralogist now engaged at Clarkdale, Arizona, and Herbert, of Sherwood,
Oregon. Mr. and Mrs. Martin removed to
Idaho, and Mr. Martin there conducted a sawmill, and
while residing there, Glessie attended school up to
the seventh grade. When she was thirteen
years old, her parents removed to the Live Oak district, in San Joaquin County,
and there she finished the grammar school; then she entered the Lodi high
school, where she remained for two years.
While residing in the Live Oak district, the family lived on the old
Elliott place in the house built in 1850, which has just recently burned
down. Mr. and Mrs. Martin are now living
in Sherwood, Oregon. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson
are the parents of three children:
William Woodrow, James Martin, and Francis Marian, who died on February
11, 1923, at the hospital at Lodi, as the result of a surgical operation. Fraternally, Mr. Wilson belongs to the Ione
Lodge of Odd Fellows, and politically is a Democrat. Mr. Wilson takes pride in advancing the
general interests of his town and county and is regarded as one of the
progressive citizens of the community.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1052. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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