San Joaquin County
Biographies
SAMUEL DAVIES WOODS
SAMUEL DAVIES WOODS, of the
law firm of Louttit, Woods & Levinsky,
of Stockton, was born at Mount Pleasant, Maury County, Tennessee, September 19,
1844, a son of Rev. James and Eliza Ann (Williams) Woods. The father, a
clergyman of the Presbyterian church, became
identified with the history of that denomination in this community, being
familiarly known as the pioneer Presbyterian minister of Stockton. (See sketch
of that church in this volume, chapter XII., and also
chapter III.) He died at Winters, Yolo County, October
10, 1886, aged seventy one. The mother, a native of York district, South
Carolina, and a daughter of Rev. Aaron Williams, also a Presbyterian clergyman,
died in Winters, Yolo County, January 3, 1883, in the
sixtieth year of her age. Grandfather Woods, a native of Barre,
Massachusetts, by occupation a farmer, lived to the age of eighty-five. One
James Woods left London for Boston June 18, 1679, by the ship “Thomas and
Susan,” and it is probable that the family is descended from him. The children of
Rev. James Woods are: S. D., the subject of this sketch, and the eldest; Rev.
J. L. Woods, pastor of the First Presbyterian church at Carson City, Nevada;
Hon. Henry M. Woods, formerly of Tombstone, Arizona, and Mrs. F. H. Jones, of
San Francisco. Four are deceased,--John, Walter, Charles and George,--all dying
in Stockton, the two latter after reaching manhood.
The subject of this sketch set out for California by sea, around Cape Horn from New York, with his father, in 1849, arriving January 12, 1850. Educated in the public schools of California, he read law about three years in the office of Hon. John Satterlee, late Judge of the old Superior Court of this State in April, 1867. He practiced law in that city as a member of the firm of Bletchley & Woods about two years, and afterward without a partner some eight years. He was married in San Francisco in 1872, to Annie Sholl, a native of London, England.
Becoming interested in the mines in 1878, he was engaged in hydraulic mining in Placer County about three years, then in Yuba County for about one year, and then mined for silver and lead in Inyo County, doing fairly well in these ventures, but eventually dropping all in further experimenting and prospecting. After seven years of “hastening to be rich,” he resumed the practice of his profession in 1885, at Stockton, in partnership with Hon. J. A. Louttit and A. L. Levinsky, under the style of Louttit, Woods & Levinsky, which remains unchanged in 1890.
Mr. Woods is a member of Charity Lodge, I. O. O. F.; is President of the Yosemite Club, and Vice-President of the San Joaquin Valley Society of California Pioneers. He is also a member and Vice-President of the San Joaquin County Board of Trade, and chairman of the Citizen’s Executive Committee for the development and improvement of the city of Stockton and the county of San Joaquin. There is no public work of the city or county that he is not more or less connected with, and might be called the universal chairman of every public enterprise. He is a Republican in politics, and his services are freely used by the party, as they are by the public generally, for the furtherance of whatever is of good report in this community. He holds a high place in the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens as a worthy representative of the best type of the legal profession, and is a strictly honorable and public-spirited citizen, whose labor and influence can always be counted on for the promotion of the best interests of Stockton and San Joaquin County.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 415-416. 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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