Yolo County
Biographies
JOHN WESLEY
ANDERSON
The reputation of J. W. Anderson as a widely known expert on everything pertaining to fruit culture has been won by many years of study and practical experiment in different parts of the state. His standing is perhaps best illustrated by his position as horticultural commissioner of Yolo county, a responsibility requiring more than average knowledge, one of his chief duties being the inspection of nursery stock for exportation. His judgment is sought wherever fruit is raised along the coast, his information regarding soil and its relation to fruit being exhaustive and accurate. Since 1891 he has made his home on ninety-five acres of land half a mile east of Davisville, which he has set out to table grapes, prunes, pears and almonds, and where he executes his scientific theories evolved from his own and the experience of others.
Mr. Anderson comes honestly by his predilection for nature and the things that grow, for in his youth he lived on an ideal southern farm in Stafford county, Va., near Fredericksburg, where he was born September 21, 1848. His family had been known thereabouts for many years, his father, John, having been born there soon after the arrival of the paternal grandfather from Scotland. John Anderson was a builder and mechanic by trade, and many of the fine old homes and substantial buildings still standing in Virginia are due to his skill in construction. He was especially well known all over Stafford county, and for years was its best-known builder. His large farm of two hundred and forty-four acres was ideal in its richness and development while yet peace reigned in the south, but when hostilities were inaugurated his home became the rendezvous for the troops on both sides, and little regard was paid to his buildings and improvements. After the war he spent a large sum in rebuilding and fitting up his farm, and it became once more a beautiful place, noted for the hospitality and good cheer with which the typical southerner surrounds himself and friends. He lived to be sixty-five years old, his wife, formerly Delphia (Curtis) Anderson, a native of Virginia, surviving him until 1895. Both died on the old home place, where sixteen children were born to them, ten of whom attained maturity.
John W. Anderson is the sixth child in his father’s large family. He was educated in the public schools and at Wallace Academy, and in 1872 left home and went to Baltimore, Md., where he lived about two years. In 1875 he came to the coast with his two brothers, M. O. and J. H., the former of whom prospered in the west to the extent of serving for fifteen years as captain of the police force of San Francisco, the latter becoming a sergeant on the same force. J. W. Anderson secured a position as superintendent of the Oakshade Orchard of three hundred and forty acres, at that time one of the most extensive of this section, and located one mile east of Davisville. During his ten years association with this responsibility he gained a broad knowledge of western fruit methods, and after resigning his position was called to Orangevale, Sacramento county, to superintend the setting out of three thousand acres of fruit trees in the Orangevale colony. He did not quite accomplish this task, as two years later he went to San Diego county and superintended the planting of an orange grove, and in 1891 located on his present ranch purchased some time previously. In the meantime he has visited all parts of the state where fruit is grown, studying the soil, climate and fruit possibilities, and diffusing his knowledge wherever it has been in demand. He has done much to create a high horticultural standard in his own and remote vicinities, and is regarded as one of the most erudite and enterprising of the men who are making a specialty of this line of work.
In Yolo county Mr. Anderson married Clara Cecil, a native of Missouri, who is the mother to two children, Mary Cecil and Alma. Mr. Anderson is a Republican in politics, but aside from the formality of casting his vote is never heard of in local party undertakings. He stands high in the Presbyterian Church, of which he has been an active member for many years, and is now a trustee and treasurer of the Sunday-school. He is a man of fine characteristics, of reliability and rectitude, his genial manner and personal magnetism contributing not a little to his popularity and success.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of the State of
California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento
Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, Pages
577-578.
The Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 1906.
© 2017 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden
Nugget Library's Yolo County Biographies