Sonoma County Biography
Conrad C. Boyson
One of the industrious and thorough-going ranchers of Sonoma county is Conrad C. Boyson, whose well-appointed and productive ranch is pleasantly located a convenient distance from Petaluma, on Rural Route No. 4. Becoming a rancher from choice, he is here giving expression to his interest in and knowledge of fruit-raising, dairying, stock and poultry raising, in all of which branches of agriculture he is having remarkable success, and as rapidly as circumstances will permit he is enlarging each branch of the business under his control.
Germany has been unstinting in the supply of noble, industrious sons whom she has sent to all parts of the world, but it is safe to say that no country has appreciated them more than has the United States. Among those who have assisted in developing her latent possibilities and at the same time have made comfortable homes for themselves and their families, is Conrad C. Boyson. He was born in North Schleswig, Holstein, Germany, in 1855, the son of Boy Boyson, also a native of the Fatherland, born in the year 1820. The latter was a carpenter by trade, and throughout his active years he followed this as a means of livelihood in his native land. He lived to attain a good old age, dying at the age of eighty years. In young manhood he married Miss Dartha Arfsten, who was born in Germany in 1826, and of this marriage three children were born, John W., Conrad C. and Carolina. John W., a resident of Petaluma, married Miss Lucy Mamson, and they are the parents of seven children. Carolina, who still resides in Germany, is the wife of Christ Koch and the mother of one child, Boyd D.
The year 1871 found Conrad C. Boyson among the immigrants who landed at the port of New York, he then being a youth of about sixteen years. From the eastern metropolis he came direct to the Pacific coast country, locating near Bloomfield, Sonoma county, Cal., which has been his home continuously ever since. In the years that have intervened he has made a number of trips back to the homeland, and while he never lost his old fondness for the land of his birth, he nevertheless returned to his adopted home after each visit with a feeling of contentment that Fate had dealt so kindly with him in directing his life course toward the new world. Before leaving his native land he had gathered a good insight into his father's trade of carpentering, but he has never made any use of it as a means of livelihood. Instead, he has given his entire time and thought to agriculture, at first on a ranch of three hundred acres which he purchased in the vicinity of Bloomfield, which he conducted as a dairy, and since 1893 he has owned and occupied his present ranch near Petaluma, renting the first-mentioned ranch to a tenant. Here he has six hundred acres of excellent land, admirably suited to the varied uses to which he has put it. Twelve acres are in bearing orchard, besides which he has thirty acres in young orchard, almost exclusively in apples, and in connection with the orchard he also maintains a drier or evaporator, in which the fruit is prepared for shipment. Besides the fruit from his own orchard he dries and ships from his plant such other fruits as he is able to purchase from ranchers throughout Petaluma township. It may be interesting to those unfamiliar with the fruit business to know that in the process of evaporation fruit loses in weight in the ratio of seven pounds to every eight. Mr. Boyson also has a diary of sixty cows, keeping his herd about this size all the time by the addition of about ten head of young stock each year. He also has about twenty head of shire and Belgian breed of horses, besides about three thousand chickens of the White Leghorn breed. It is Mrt. Boyson's purpose to enlarge both the chicken and dairy industries as rapidly as conditions will permit, which is equal to saying that he will accomplish what he undertakes.
In San Francisco in 1879 was celebrated a marriage ceremony that united the destinies of Conrad C. Boyson and Miss Ida R. Carstens, the latter also a native of Germany, born in 1857. Four children were born of this marriage, Clarence C., Dorothy B., Edna J. and Ilma R. Mrs. Boyson was one of a family of seven children born to her parents, Jens and Elke (Sorensen) Carstens, who were born in Germany in 1809 and 1820 respectively, the former being a veterinary surgeon by profession. Mr. Boyson has been a member of the Grange at Two Rock for the past fifteen years, and for the same length of time he has also served as a trustee of the Walker school district. Politically he is a Republican, and fraternally he is identified with the Odd Fellows lodge at Bloomfield. In addition to his agricultural interests Mr. Boyson is a factor in financial matters in his community, being a stockholder and director in the California Savings Bank of Petaluma. The two big rocks from which the Two Rock country gets its name are located on the land of Mr. Boyson and E. P. Nisson
History of Sonoma County, California
History by Tom Gregory : Historic Record Company, 1891
Los Angeles, Ca. 1911
Transcribed by Roberta Hester Leatherwood
April 2008
Pages 629-631
Sonoma County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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