San Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN WILSON
JOHN WILSON, a rancher of
Douglass Township, San Joaquin County, California, was born in Greene County,
Ohio, July 24, 1815, a son of John and Sarah (Mitchell) Wilson, both born and
married in Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. They moved to Greene County, Ohio,
about 1810, and from there to Washington County, Indiana, about 1823. The
father, a soldier of the war of 1812, from Ohio, afterward a farmer, died about
1830, at the age of fifty-two, at his home in Indiana. The mother reached the
age of seventy, dying also at the old homestead in Indiana. Grandfather John
Wilson, an Irish emigrant, settled in Pennsylvania and was there married. He
fought in the Revolution, and with his wife lived to an advanced age, both
dying early in this century. Grandfather David Mitchell,
was also an Irish emigrant and a soldier of the Revolution and was married in
Pennsylvania. The grandparents Mitchell also reached a good old age.
The subject of this sketch received but a limited education and helped his widowed mother on the farm until his marriage October 7, 1840, to Miss Elizabeth Calvert, born in Kentucky, December 20, 1814, a daughter of George and Sarah Calvert. Both died on their farm in Indiana, she a native of South Carolina, at the age of eighty-four, and he, a native of Virginia, at the age of seventy-three. In 1850 Mr. and Mrs. John Wilson moved to Iowa and settled on a farm in Davis County, where they remained fifteen years. They came across the plains in 1865 in a train of about 100 wagons, of which they owned three, one with two horses, another with three yoke of oxen, and a third with four mules, and six loose ones to use at pleasure, all of which were very valuable in those days. The trip took six months, from Davis County, Iowa, to San Joaquin County, California. Mr. Wilson bought 200 acres, in 1865, about ten miles east of Stockton on the Copperopolis road, near what is now called Holden Station. He traded some of his mules for eighty acres adjoining his first purchase, and in 1866 he bought twenty acres. In 1885 he bought another twenty, making a half-section in one body. In 1888 he sold eighty acres for a fruit ranch, and still owns 240 acres of excellent land. After first settling there in 1865 he farmed right along until 1889, meanwhile residing with his family on the place until 1884, when he moved to Stockton, where he remained until near the close of 1889. In 1871 the founder of Holden bought 100 acres and laid out a village plat, which, however, reverted to Mr. Wilson the same year, and the village plat was legally annulled in 1889.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are the parents of two children that grew to maturity, both natives of Indiana: Sarah Ellen, born in 1842, by marriage Mrs. S. M. Hughes, has three children: Laura, born in 1877; Lottie, in 1878; and John M., in 1880; all living with their mother on her father’s ranch. William Duncan Wilson, born in 1844, received a good education in Iowa, and on the breaking out of the civil war he enlisted for three months, in 1863, and then re-enlisted in the same year for the war. He lost his health and was discharged before the close of the war. In 1869, hoping to recover his strength, he went to Europe by way of New York, but neither that trip nor the care of physicians at home or abroad were of any permanent benefit, and he died unmarried on his father’s place in 1872. Mr. John Wilson was brought up in the Presbyterian faith, but is not a member of any church. Mrs. Wilson is a member of the First Baptist church of Stockton.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 416-417. 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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