Colusa Biographical Sketches.
CHAPTER XII.
JUBAL WESTON.
This gentleman was born November 13, 1824, at East Adams, Connecticut. He comes of a family of manufacturers and inventors. His father built the first cotton mill at Taunton, Massachusetts, ever erected in the United States. His uncle, Herman Weston, invented the first machine for making pins, rolls for pressing shoe leather and devised about a dozen other useful inventions. Young Weston passed the early years of his life at Hopkinton, Massachusetts, but on leaving home he first found employment in a shoe-maker's shop. Then he was engaged in a clock factory, drifting soon into the jewelry business. He was very proficient as a workman in all these branches. He was determined to visit California, then a land where fortunes could be so quickly acquired by the industrious and saving. For this purpose he left New Orleans on January 16, 1849, and, coming by way of the Isthmus, he was seized with an attack of cholera, which almost proved fatal; in fact, bets were made by his fellow-passengers that they would never see him again, as he could not survive the journey. But Mr. Weston pushed on, with great nerve and pluck, and arrived in San Francisco April 30 following.
Here he took hold of the first employment presented, which was driving a mule team, in the winter of 1849-50. In the fall of the latter year he purchased the schooner Julius Springle and with it sailed for the Sandwich Islands. Here he laid in a cargo of oranges, and, returning with them to San Francisco, disposed of them at prices so gratifying to the seller in those days. After making another trip to the Sandwich Islands, he disposed of cargo and vessel and bought the bark Harmony, loaded with whalebone and oil. This he took to New London, Connecticut, arriving there in the spring of 1852. Remaining in the East for one year, he again set out for California. Most of his leisure time he now passed in San Francisco, and was married here, February 5, 1854, to Miss Sarah Frances Richardson, who had come from New England to be united in matrimony. The bride was the daughter of Captain Wm. B. Richardson, of the U.S. Navy. Three months afterward, with his young wife, he arrived in Monroeville, Colusa County. Monroeville at that period consisted of a hotel and the inseparable bar-room attachment.
Pleased with the prospects in his new abode, he concluded to make this locality his home. At first Mr. Weston conducted the hotel of Charles Horner. In 1868 he purchased a strip of land one-quarter of a mile wide running east and west on the south of the Walsh rancho, or Capay grant, containing seven hundreed and ten acres. This land, which at that period was considered almost worthless, but which has since grown so highly in agricultural esteem, was purchased by Mr. Weston merely as a drive-way for stock crossing from the plains to the river. Mr. Weston has lived on this land for a long time and sows it to wheat, and it is most productive and valuable now.
Mr. Weston is the father of five boys and three girls, four of whom are living; their names are: Mrs. Althea Cook, now living in New York City; Joshua Frank, civil engineer at Coos Bay, Oregon; Essie M. Weston and Hugh E. Weston, both of whom reside in Boston with their aunt. Mr. Weston lost his wife in the spring of 1876. Arthur Weston, deceased, was a civil engineer of much promise, but who, unfortunately for the fond hopes of his family, was drowned, September 25, 1887, in the Sacramento River, near his father's home.
Mr. Weston goes East frequently to visit his two children and relatives residing there. He is an esteemed member of the Pioneers, and a Republican in politics. He is a gentleman of means and both generous and hospitable.
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 6/28/2009
Colusa County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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