Fred Whitaker
The name of Whitaker is one well known in various sections of California, and covers a period which dates from the memorable year of 1849. The earliest member of the family of whom we have any definite knowledge was the Hon. John McCormick Whitaker, who was born February 11, 1801, in Clermont county, Ohio, and resided in his native state until 1827. In that year he went to Michigan and for nine years engaged in trading with the Indians. At the end of that time, in 1836, he became a pioneer settler in Iowa, where he cleared a home for himself and family from the wilderness, and for twenty-five years was one of the most active and influential citizens of that commonwealth. For twenty years he served in the territorial legislature, and for seven years was locating agent, being appointed by the legislature to select and locate five hundred thousand acres of land donated to the state for internal improvements, but, by the constitution, devoted to the support of schools, the establishment of which he personally supervised. From Iowa he came to California in 1861, settling in San Luis Obispo county, where he made his home until his death in 1891, at which time he was ninety years of age. He was a man of exceptional executive and business ability, very successful from any standpoint from which his life might be viewed, and he was also a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity.
Among the children in the family of Hon. John McCormick Whitaker was James P. Whitaker, who was born in Clermont county, Ohio, October 13, 1824. He was therefore about three years old at the time his father removed with his family to Michigan, and there and in Laporte county, Ind., his early boyhood was passed. He was about twelve years old when, in 1836, removal was made to Van Buren county, Iowa, where they were among the very first settler. The nearest neighbor was ten miles away, and game, which was abundant in the forest, formed the chief article of diet. Wild animals and Indians were a constant source of terror to the settlers, making it necessary to be on guard much of the time until conditions changed. It was on his wilderness farm in Iowa that the news of the finding of gold reached Mr. Whitaker in 1849, and during the same year he started on the overland journey with ox-teams for the Eldorado. Mining absorbed his attention for two years, after which, in the spring of 1853, he located in Marin county and invested the proceeds of his mining venture in land. There on six hundred acres of land he successfully carried on farming, dairying and stock-raising until 1881, when he leased his ranch and purchased two hundred acres in Russian River valley, Cloverdale township, and at once began the improvement of his estate, erecting a commodious residence and all the necessary barns and outbuildings usually seen upon an up-to-date, thriving ranch. This was known as the old Turner ranch, and here Mr. Whitaker engaged in grape-raising on an extensive scale. He himself superintended and managed the ranch until 1883, when he suffered an accident that prevented him from continuing his former active labors. Finally he sold his fine property to the Italian-Swiss Company for $23,000, and with his family took up his abode in Cloverdale. It was there that he passed away March 26, 1891, his death closing a career that had been enobling and uplifting. Observation had led him to the conviction that intemperance was the greatest evil with which we as a nation had to contend, and as long as his health permitted he worked indefatigably to stem the corrupting tide, both by lectures and personal work.
The marriage of James P. Whitaker, September 28, 1858, united him with Miss Jane Carroll, who was born in County Monaghan, Ireland, and came to the United States with her parents when an infant. She received exceptional educational advantages in the public schools of New York City, and after coming to Sonoma county, Cal., in 1855, was engaged in teaching here until her marriage. Four children were born of this union, as follows: Gilbert, a resident of San Francisco; Lottie, the wife of Augustus Martin, of San Francisco; Fred and Wallace J., the latter also a resident o San Francisco.
While the parents were living in Marin county Fred Whitaker was born near Tomales, October 11, 1863. Although he was reared to a full knowledge of ranch life, his inclination tended in other directions, and in following the line of work for which nature intended him he is not only successful, but is happy and contented. While still a youth he showed a decided taste for things mechanical, and fitted himself for an engineer’s position, and for the past fifteen years he had been the efficient engineer of the Cloverdale water works, and for a considerable time he has also been a member of the volunteer fire department. His thorough knowledge of the value of land has been put to good account of late years through the purchase and sale of numerous pieces of real-estate, among which was a tract which he purchased for $500 and sold for $5,000 twenty years later. Another was a tract of one hundred and thirty-two acres, for which he paid $200, and which he sold for $25 an acre. He has recently purchased a six-hundred acre tract of mountain and timber land, besides which he owns a like amount of land in Mendocino county. Fraternally he is a member and past grand of Cloverdale Lodge No. 193, I. O. O. F., and is also a member of Sotoyome Lodge, Foresters of America, of Healdsburg.
History of Sonoma
County, California
History by Tom Gregory : Historic Record Company, 1891
Los Angeles, Ca. 1911
Transcribed by Roberta Hester Leatherwood
April 26, 2012 Pages 709-713
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