USA > California > San Joaquin County > An illustrated history of San Joaquin County, California. Containing a history of San Joaquin County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its future prospects; > Part 78
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When they came out to California property of all kinds was perfectly safe from being stolen, even if left unprotected. Along in 1850, however, Mr. Sargent missed some pork when he came back from a trip to Sacramento, and he afterward learned that it had been stolen, and found a half barrel of it buried. Horse and cattle thieves then became plentiful, and one band especially gave the Messrs. Sargent and others considerable trouble. Our subject had a horse claimed from him on the streets of Sacra-
mento by one of those miscreants. He followed ont the fellow's bluff, however, to its full extent and finally entirely discomfited him and his crowd.
In the fall of 1850 R. C. Sargent came to Woodbridge, San Joaquin County, and built three cabins in that neighborhood. In the spring of 1851 he started a brushi fence from the river about where Lodi now is, which they continued out on the plains for some distance, striking the river again about four or five miles from the point of starting. When the fence was finished, he looked for his stock, but could not find it. Finally, striking a trail he followed it to the place where he now lives.
The first grain he sowed was in the fall of 1851-about sixteen acres. The next season he sowed and fenced in 160 acres of barley. The stock business was carried on from the start, the main market being in the mountains in the early days, one shop at Mokelumne Hill taking from twenty-five to thirty-five beef cat- tle a week.
During the high water of 1851-'52, our sub- ject bought a pair of boat gunwales forty feet long down from El Dorado County, and rigged np a boat on his place, utilizing a couple of wagon sheets for sails. All the work was done under difficulties. He took the boat and some men to Stockton, where he loaded it with sup- plies, and started for his home. It got pitch dark when the boat was yet a half-mile from the landing place, which had to be approached by a gradual curve. Mr. Sargent was at the helin himself and knew the route to perfection. He was out of humor, however, with his men for the awkward way in which they had acted, and when he ran the boat ashore he told them to jump for their lives. They did so and got a good ducking, though there was no danger! He took the supplies on shore and next morn- ing loaded them on packs, which took them to the first crossing of the Calaveras, where he got a good price for them. The man who bought, however, did not come out even on his pur- chase.
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Another incident in connection with packing in those early days will be found of interest. Some mnen had contracted to take goods by boat from Stockton to a certain ferry on the road to Mokelumne Ilill, for a man named Sturgis. They had taken them a part of the way aud stopped, claiming that they were ouly to take them to a nearer ferry with a somewhat similar name, and demanded a large increase in price to land them where he wanted them. They would not give up the goods and Mr. Sturgis would not pay the extortionate price. Thus matters stood when Mr. Sargent met Stur- gis about a mile from Woodbridge. A con- versation followed, the result of which was that onr subject agreed to get the goods from the inen who held them and pack them throngh to Mokelumne Hill on time. He proceeded to the river, found the goods and the men, and announced his intention of taking them. This brought on trouble at once; but when it was found that Mr. Sargent paid no attention to threats, while he offered to the inen a reason- able means of recovering wages if they proved to be in the right, he secured the goods. By the exercise of the utmost exertion and good judge meut he accomplished what was supposed by Mr. Sturgis to have been an impossible task, and got the goods into Mokelumne Hill (which was short of food) by 7:30 o'clock in the morning. These supplies were sold by 2:00 P. M. for good prices, and none too soon, as directly afterward wagons began to come in witli provisions, send- ing prices down.
Speaking of teaming in the winter of 1851-'52, our subject, who had been on a trip packing provisions to the mountains, was coming home relieved of his load, and crossing a slough it was necessary to follow a narrow trail. He took the head animal and started across, but the beast stepped off the trail, mired down, and whirled the other way. As he began to wallow all got off the trail. Mr. Sargent had a inan with him, and the two, on getting an animal out, would pull his saddle off and turn him loose. When they got them all ont it was not yet daylight,
and they camped down on blankets, tired out. When they awoke it was evening and the sun was setting.
As has been previously stated, the Sargents were accustomed, in the early days, to sell many of their cattle in the mountains, and in- deed many butchers depended upon them for their entire supply of beef. In the winter of 1864, after the dry season, R. C. Sargent went to Bouldin Island, where they had many cattle, to bring some of them up to the bome ranch. While he was gone the butchers kept coming, until, when he returned, twenty-two of them were waiting for him. He had not bronglit enongh to supply the demands of all of them, and there was a great uproar as to who should get the cattle. At last Mr. Sargent told them that if they would each tell him how many they had expected to get, he wonld issue them to each pro rata as long as they lasted, and wonld guarantee that each would have enough. He found he had to shrink all the demands one- half, and, true enongh, he subsequently received letters from nearly all the butchers in which they said that they liad indeed received all of such cattle that they wanted. Some of these butchers were from as far away as Red Bluff.
It is pre-eminently as general ranchers, how- ever, that the Sargent Brothers have become so widely kuown as successful men. On what is now the home ranch of R. C. Sargent there are 16,000 acres, and here the Sargent Brothers have been engaged in the herculean task of re- claiming an immense area of land for culti- vation. Of this large tract all but about 2,500 acres was overflowed land, which they have leveed in. This levee commences on the north about two miles and a quarter west from the northeast corner of township 3-5, and runs thence till it strikes the head of Sycamore slough, then runs westerly on the sonth side of Sycamore slongh to the Mokelumne river; thence southward to the junction of Potato slough and the south fork of Mokelumne river; thence along Potato slough until it strikes White slough, which is their southwest corner;
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HISTORY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY.
thence it runs up the north bank of White slough, about four miles to the southeast cor- ner of their place, and the southwest corner of S. V. Treadway's place; then it turns in a northerly course between this land and Tread- way's, until it strikes the said land of Mrs. Treadway: thence by more of an easterly course to within about a mile and a half of the east line of township 3-5. There are two large sloughs crossed by this levee where it was neces- sary to construct two extensive dams. The water about one of these is sixteen feet deep, and about the other thirty feet. Each of the dams is 120 feet across, and they are 150 to 200 feet wide on the bottom, and fifty feet on the top. These levees were mainly being built before the present improved machinery was in vogue, and most of the work was done by hand. The embankment ranges from fifteen to eighteen feet wide at the base to forty feet. In June, 1888, they put up a dredger on their levee work, and have now been all around Syca- more slough to Potato slough with it, and the base of the levee for all this distance is fifty feet across. It will require until the summer of 1891 to finish around with the dredger. Since 1862 they have been at work on this levee system, and the advantage it has been to San Joaquin County, in reclaiming so much of its land otherwise valueless, is greatly to their credit. They have about 8,000 acres of this land in cultivation, and lease 1,500 for vege- tables, mostly potatoes. On the Blackberry Damn place (part of this ranche) seven acres have produced in one year 3,000 sacks of onions, which brought 60 cents a sack.
They also have a large tract of the same kind of land at New Hope. In that body there was formerly 7,000 acres, but a good deal of that lias been sold off. It all lias a good levee around it, and all is in cultivation except 2,000 to 3,000 acres, which is used for grazing. They also have 2,200 acres of cultivated land in Sac- ramento County, and some other smaller ranches. The landed holdings of the Sargent Brothers in Santa Clara and Monterey counties
are very extensive, but as the business of the firm is being divided, our subject withdraws from his interest therein. The members of this great firm, one of the best known in its line in the United States, have been Dr. Jacob L., R. C., J. P., and Bradley V. They have one other brother on the coast, A. J. Sargent, residing at Mokeluinne Hill, and their only sister, Martha H. (now the wife of S. M. Preston), resides at Newton, Iowa. Her husband was a Colonel in the Union army during the late civil war.
Mr. Sargent is a remarkable business man, and has accomplished wonders in the field whichi lie has adopted for his life work.
R. C. Sargent has been a stanch Republican since the outbreak of the civil war, and is prominent in the councils of the party. He has represented liis district in four sessions of the General Assem- bly of California, taking an active part in the work of the committees on swamp lands and claims, especially the latter. He is a member of Jefferson Lodge, I. O. O. F., at Woodbridge, and of Woodbridge Grange, Patrons of Hus- bandry.
His children are as follows: Clara Root, born June 4, 1860, died October 24, 1877; Jacob Preston, born June 8, 1863; Roswell Chapman, born July 7, 1865, died July 7, 1865; Julia. Frances, born January 24, 1868, died February 14, 1885; Mary Emma, born May 20, 1870; Charles Bradley, born February 13, 1873; Ros- well Webster, born August 25, 1877, died Feb- ruary 6, 1884.
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R. J. L. SARGENT, brother of R. C., and another of California's best-known agricul- turists, figures so largely in the above article, that only an outline sketch of his life will be neces- sary here. He was also born at Thornton, Graf- ton County, New Hampshire, where he received the advantages of a common-school education. This he supplemented, then and afterward, by study at home, so that he is really largely self- educated. When in his nineteenth year he left
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Thornton, going to Meredith Bridge, where he remained about a year, being for a portion of the time deputy in the postoffice, and also for a time engaged in a lawyer's office. From there he went South, and for about three years held the position of educator in the family of a wealthy slave-owner named Hendrick, in Meck- lenburg County, Virginia. From there he went to Vermont, and commenced the study of med- icine with the well known Dr. Benjamin Ruslı Palmer (afterward professor at Transylvania Medical College, Louisville, Kentucky). He attended lectures at the Vermont Medical Col- lege, Woodstock, and at the Berkshire Medical College, and was gradnated at the former in 1846. Being without means of his own, he went to Boston and obtained employment in a soda factory. Later in the same year, he went to Chicago, via the Erie canal, taking transpor- tation on a furniture boat. He arrived in Chicago early in 1847, and from there went to Bloomingdale, Illinois, where he practiced for a time, and afterward at Warrenville, in com- pany with Dr. Newton. He next practiced at Yankee settlement, near the present site of Blackberry station, on the Chicago & North- western Railway. While there he decided to go to California, and did so as described in the preceding sketch. Some of the experiences of him and his brothers have been previously re- lated, as well as the fact of their settlement and business interests at Ringgold. In 1850 his brothers left there, but he remained until 1858, carrying on the mercantile business as well as attending to office practice in medicine. In the year mentioned he removed to San Joa- quin County, where he has since resided, on the ranch with R. C., until 1890, when he removed into Lodi.
He was married in this county to Mrs. Emma Staples, a widow, whose maiden name was Simpson, a native of St. Louis. The Doctor is a whole-souled, liberal-minded inan, who, having passed through all the rugged experiences of pioneer life in California, has come out success- ful. He is agreeable and attractive in conversa-
tion, a man of unsullied business integrity, and therefore a favorite with a wide circle of ac- quaintances. It may be said of the Doctor that lie has killed more bears than any other man in California. He was visiting his brother B. V. in Monterey County, who was much bothered by bears destroying his stock. It was supposed that they could not be killed with strychnine, it having been the custom to sprinkle it on the meat for bait, which the bears would not touch; so that when Dr. Sargeut said he would kill them with strychnine he was laughed at. He brought his medical knowledge into play, how- ever, and procuring a good supply of the poison placed it, in the form of pills, inside the meat. The next morning one bear succumbed, and in- side of six weeks his strychnine pills liad killed sixty of the animals!
Since the above was written, Dr. Sargent died, April 22, 1890.
R. JACOB PRESTON SARGENT, oldest son of R. C., was born in San Joaquin County, June 8, 1863. He attended school in the vi- cinity of his home until fourteen years old, after which he went for three years to St. Matthew's Hall at San Mateo, and for the two succeeding years to a private institution in Napa valley. After this he attended for abont six months at the San Joa- quin Valley College, at Woodbridge. He then commenced attendence on medical lectures at Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, remain- ing two years. In the latter part of 1884 he commenced at Bellevue Medical College, New York, and was graduated there May 4.1886. He practiced in the out-door department of Belle- vue Hospital until the latter part of that year, when he returned to California. After practicing about three months in San Francisco, he went back to the ranch, to the business department of which he now devotes his principal attention.
He was married in San Francisco, November 14, 1889, to Miss Bettie Falk, a native of New York.
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He is a member of Stockton Parlor, N. S. G. W. Dr. Sargent is an able young man, well up in his profession and in business, and is popular with all who know him.
ILLIAM LA FAYETTE OVERHISER, a rancher of O'Neil Township, residing at " Oak Home," four miles from Stock- ton, was born in Northumberland County, Penn- sylvania, December 29, 1824, a son of Abraham and Mary (Burtis) Overhiser, both born and married in Columbia County, New York. Grandfather Overhiser, born in Germany, set- tled in New York State. The parents of our subject, immediately after their marriage, lo- cated in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, where the father's chief pursuit was farming, varied withi occasional enterprises. Among these is mentioned his taking the first sample load of Lackawanna coal to New York city, hauling it on a two-horse sled. They were the parents of four children: Hannah Jane, by marriage Mrs. Henry Hart, who died in 1889, aged now seventy; Mary, by marriage Mrs. Daniel Discho, of New- ark, New Jersey, is sixty-eight; William L., our subject; Susan Ann, by marriage Mrs. Benjamin L. Bedell, of Brooklyn, New York, in her fifty-ninth year. In 1830 the family moved back to the old homestead in Hillsdale, New York, and thence in 1841 to Long Island, where they settled on a farm in Queen's County, near Rockaway.
Williamn L. Overliiser, the subject of this sketch, received a district-school education and helped on his father's farm until the age of eighteen, when he went to learn the trade of blacksmith near his home. At twenty he moved to Hempstead, Long Island, where he finislied his apprenticeship, and, buying out his employ- ers, went into business on his own account. He was soon rejoined by the family, the father buy- ing property and settling there. On a business trip to New York city in 1849, he canglit the gold fever, being inoculated by a friend and
neighbor named Cooper, and bought an interest in the ship Salem. Closing out his business in Hempstead, he, with the rest of the party, about 160 persons, left New York on the ship Salem, March 12, 1849. The captain proving dissi- pated, reckless and incompetent, the alarmed passengers decided to entrust the command to the first mate, Douglas, confining the captain to his cabin. Through the want of charts, which the captain neglected to procure, they were still exposed to great danger, though the mate was competent and reliable. He passed the entrance to Rio Janeiro and several days were lost in cor- recting the error. Arriving there they sub- mitted their action in displacing the captain to the American consul, who fully approved their course. Proceeding on her way the Salem rounded Cape Horn on the Fourth of July. In entering the harbor of Tockawanna by the wrong channel, the Salen narrowly escaped being wrecked. At Tockawanna they loaded witlı flour for San Francisco, where they arrived Oc- tober 12, 1849.
On the voyage Mr. Overhiser and eight others from Long Island formed a close alliance for future co-operation, and five of these set out at once for the Mariposa mines, while the other four, Overhiser, Bennett, Cooper and Griswell, remained to dispose of the party's interest in the ship Salem. Three weeks later the four set out for Stockton on board a little trading schooner that was ill adapted to the passengers' comfort. The only available bunk was surrendered to their less stalwart comrades, and Overhiser and Bennett slept on deck in their blankets, an exer- cise entirely new to our subject. Going ashore at Benicia in the night they found their way to an all-night house and were stowed away in a loft but little better than the schooner's deck. In the morning Mr. Overhiser had an unex- pected meeting with the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge, a Presbyterian missionary whom he had known in the East, and who had come to this coast in 1848. While the four comrades awaited their promised signal from the captain, they saw to their dismay that the schooner had started off
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without them. Hurrying forward they hired a boatman who took them to the vessel, and charged them $16 for the service. Arriving in Stockton in seven days from San Francisco, in the early part of the historic rainy season of 1849-'50, their first necessity was some cover- ing for their persons and property. They bought a tent that had just been vacated, on the bank of the slough in front of where the Weber en- gine house now is, for $150, and filling it with their goods to the eaves, they slept on top of these. Mr. Cooper extemporized a stove out of some sheet iron among their effects, which, however, so attracted the attention of the in- habitants, and especially of Mrs. Harris, that it soon passed into her possession by purchase.
The season contiuning rainy the party were at a loss how to avoid infringing on their capi- tal of $1,000, the proceeds of the sale of the Salem, when Mr. Overhiser learned of an op- portunity to purchase for that amount from a discouraged freighter his outfit of four yoke of oxen and wagon, loaded with 2,500 pounds of freight destined for Sullivan's camp, in Tuol- umne Conuty, for which would be paid on de- livery at that point a freightage charge of 50 cents a pound. The trade was effected, and Overhiser and Bennett took charge of the team and delivered the goods, leaving Stockton late in December and returning three weeks later. Their uext venture was not so fortunate. Scurvy had broken ont among the miners at Murphy's, and potatoes were at a premium; our party bought a considerable stock in San Francisco, shipped them to Stockton and hauled them to Murphy's, only to find the market glutted. The absent tive arrived from the Mariposa mines early in 1850, and the nine companions formed the " Nassau Mining and Trading Company," to handle miners' supplies at Murphy's. During the summer they enlarged operations by open- ing a store at Gold Spring and buying a mining claim. Selling out at Murphy's some months later they confined themselves to trading and mining at Gold Spring. Meanwhile Mr. Over- hiser had been engaged in freighting the goods
from Stockton, which was much the most la- borious task, and out of all proportion to the easy duties of his partners. He accordingly demanded a settlement, aud received $700 in gold dust, being one-ninth of the estimated as- sets of the company. With this amount and $700, the loan of which was volunteered by au- other shareholder, he came to Stockton. Here, through the persistent generosity of Mr. Jud- son, with whom he was stopping, he was en- abled to buy a very fine team of oxen. He then went into freighting on his own account, and was quite successful. After a time, freighting business being dull, he turned his stock out on the range. Some time afterward Mr. Overhiser, needing his stock, found that six oxen had been driven off toward Winter's Bar, on the Calaveras river. After a weary search at Hangtown, El Dorado County, he found one in a butcher's pen awaiting slaughter, the hides of three dry- ing on a fence in another camp, and the remain- ing two just slaughtered at a third place, the thieves having got away in safety. He went to law to recover the living animal, brought wit- nesses from Stockton to prove the property, and won his suit only to find himself without money and still owing the $700 loaned him at Gold Spring. In the spring of 1851 he bought a land claim on the Calaveras, on which to cut hay for his stock. Meeting one of his old part- ners, Mr. Cooper, who was also teaming on his own account, they formed a partnership and bonglit another quarter section adjoining Mr. Overhiser's. With his friend Cooper he soon began to make money, and was enabled to ex- tend a helping hand to a former benefactor, Mr. Judson, on whom fickle fortune had meanwhile frowned. He gave him employment, and in three months admitted him into partnership. In 1852 they harvested, on forty acres of their Calaveras ranch, the first crop of barley raised in San Joaquin Couuty. In 1852, also, they bonght 320 acres, which are now a part of Mr. Overhiser's Oak Home ranch. With a view to driving a band of sheep to this coast and also some horses, Messrs. Cooper & Judson went
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East, bnt finding the season unfavorable to driving across the plains they sold the sheep they had bought. They purchased a number of horses, some of which were left at pasture near Salt Lake. Three of these were stolen, but were afterward recovered in San Francisco. Mr. Judson retired from the partnership after three years, Messrs. Cooper & Overhiser continuing as before his admission.
In October, 1855, they built the farm house, which from its location between two great oaks suggested its name. In 1858 they separated, Mr. Cooper taking the lower ranch and Mr. Overhiser the Oak Home ranch, which he has since increased to 700 acres, devoted chiefly to grain and stock, but with twenty acres in or chard and vineyard, which he was among the first to give attention to in this section. As early as 1852, when his partners went East, they sent him some nursery stock, and a few years later he planted some vines. "Oak Home" has had much intelligent labor bestowed upon it, and is a fine, well-appointed country house. Its water supply is among the most complete in the county, comprising four deep wells, a pumping system of the most approved pattern, and a reservoir stocked with carp, while the farm im- plements and appliances are also of the best in the market. A highway ran in early days in front of the house, and several attempts were made to relocate it. After the flood of 1862 the necessity of a good road from Stockton and Waterloo becanie apparent to all, and the county surveyor was authorized to lay out a road. The line to the junction of Cherokee Lane was readily agreed to, and the remainder was determined by laying out an air line from the Fairchild place to that point on one hand, and to Water- loo on the other. Mr. Overhiser was appointed overseer, and opened the road through its whole conrse, though not without much opposi- tion and some lawsuits. At his suggestion the three bridges were made of heavy timber, the size of which occasioned mnuch flippant comment at the time, but his foresight has been amply vindicated by their permanency, two of them
being in perfect condition at this day without additional outlay.
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