Colusa Biographical Sketches.
CHAPTER XII.
JESSE C. STOVALL.
This enterprising gentleman was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee, January 19, 1822. He spent his early life on his father's farm working laboriously and picking up such an education as the schools of the time or locality could afford, supplemented by the reading of books which a keen desire for self-instruction could lay hold of. At the age of thirteen years, young Stovall removed, with his father's family, to Missouri. Here he remained nearly fifteen years, pursuing the labors of the farm. On April 16, 1850, he bade adieu to his old home and set out for California, crossing the plains by way of Sublett's Cut-off, driving an ox-team. He arrived at Sacramento on August 29 of the same year. For the first seven years of his life he worked at various jobs, sometimes at mining, at other times on a ranch or herding stock in the ranges of the Sacramento Valley. In the fall of 1858 he came to Colusa County, and located one hundred and sixty acres where his present home now stands, six miles west of Williams. Here he engaged in grain-farming and stock-raising, and whenever his means would allow and the opportunity proved favorable, he kept adding to and enlarging the territory of the home ranch.
Mr. Stovall had now become quite prosperous, a felicity which his industry and sagacity well merited, and over which his neighbors and friends were never slow in congratulating him. It was now determined to consolidate his large holdings with those of the Messrs. Wilcoxson for the purposes of incorporation, and out of this was formed the Stovall-Wilcoxson Company, incorporated January 15, 1890. This company owns thirty-two thousand acres of land in the county, which is cultivated to grain or utilized for stock-raising. Besides they own warehouses for the storage of grain, at Williams, buy and sell grain and live-stock and conduct banking business in the same town. J.C. Stovall is president, and George H. Wilcoxson vice-president, of this company.
Mr. Stovall was married, March 3, 1869, to Miss Mary L. Moore, in Sonoma County, by whom he was the father of five sons and three daughters, of whom one daughter and four sons are living. Though frequently solicited to permit his name to be used as a candidate for a representative office, in a county where his party (Democratic) is always strongly dominant, and where his popularity would cause him to lead his ticket, Mr. Stovall has invariably declined. He prefers the quiet and contentment of the home circle, or the administration of his vast business, to the allurements of office, while his careful business habits and wise counsels are not entirely devoted to his own private affairs, seeing that in every matter of moment to the community they are freely given and highly appreciated. No single individual in his section is more progressive or more fully alive to its interests.
COLUSA COUNTY
ITS
HISTORY TRACED FROM A STATE OF NATURE
THROUGH THE EARLY PERIOD OF SET-
TLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT,
TO THE PRESENT DAY
WITH A
DESCRIPTION OF ITS RESOURCES, STATISTICAL
TABLES, ETC.
ALSO
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PIONEERS AND
PROMINENT RESIDENTS
by Justus H. Rogers
Orland, California
1891
Page 343-465
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 6/27/2009
Colusa County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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