San Joaquin County
Biographies
R. J. PARSONS.
Fifty years have come and gone and great the changes that have occurred during the residence of R. J. Parsons in California, forty-six years being spent in San Joaquin County, a respected citizen and a well-to-do agriculturist. He was born near Thorntown, Ind., September 29, 1844, and was eight years old when he accompanied his parents to a farm twelve miles north of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father, Lewis Parsons, was a native of Virginia and migrated to Kentucky in 1831, where he was married to Miss Polly Kersey and in 1838 they removed to Indiana. Grandfather Kersey was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and also fought in the Indian War and was a pioneer of Indiana. At twenty years of age, R. J. Parsons removed to the western part of Iowa, then spoken of as "out west," where he engaged in farming and remained there until his marriage in January, 1871, which united him with Miss Susie Arnett, a native of Iowa, whose parents were pioneers of that state. Her grandfather lived to be 100 years old, passing away in Cedar Rapids, in 1886. On April 14, 1872, Mr. Parsons and his bride arrived in California and upon their arrival in Truckee encountered the heaviest snowstorm in the history of that place, which was not much to their liking, and their journey was continued until they reached Sacramento, then on to San Joaquin County, where Mr. Parsons began farming on the Brock place near the Ross Sargent ranch and remained there for twenty years; he then removed to Butte County where he bought a farm but never lived on it except to plow it. He sold it at a good profit and in 1876 he took up his permanent residence in San Joaquin County where he purchased 160 acres near Woodbridge; two years later he bought another 160 acres. In 1880 he planted eighteen acres to Tokay grapes which have since brought a fortune to the present owner. In 1902 Mr. Parsons sold his ranch and moved to Stockton and for ten years was occupied in street and road contracting work; following this in 1912 he purchased fifty-five acres in the South San Joaquin irrigation district where he has since made his home. Mr. and Mrs. Parsons were the parents of seven children, all born in California. Alfred Nelson Parsons died when about thirty years old, leaving one child; Myrtle Louise is the widow of F. A. Marshall of Yakima, Wash. Clara is the wife of J. S. Hannah of Dunsmuir, Calif.; Elmer Robert Parsons, a construction foreman, resides at Stockton; Mabel is the widow of G. Napier of Seattle, Wash.; Lela L. is the wife of J. E. Mahin, who resides on his ranch near Escalon, but is an engineer with the El Dorado Brewing Company at Stockton; Earl Arnett is in the employ of the Holt Manufacturing Company. The wife and mother passed away in Stockton in 1904. Politically Mr. Parsons is a Republican and cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln. He is numbered among the early settlers of his neighborhood, and has witnessed great changes during his residence here as the county has emerged from pioneer conditions to its present high state of cultivation and prosperity.
History of San Joaquin County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1923
p 878
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.
BERT BETHFORD BANTA.
The descendant of a California pioneer, Bert Bethford Banta can well take pride in the achievements of his progenitors, for it is to their unbounded faith in the future of this part of the country and their many years of arduous labor, that much of the present prosperity of this generation is due. Mr. Banta's grandfather, Henry Banta, who was the father of the late James Banta, came to California in early days and settled in San Joaquin County where he acquired several hundred acres of land. Banta being named for him.
Bert Bethford Banta was born on March 25, 1889, in Merced, but grew up in San Joaquin County, attending school in the Willow district school. His mother, Mrs. Millie (Wacksmuth) Banta is a native of Pennsylvania, who accompanied her parents to California in 1868, her father being Edward Wacksmuth, a pioneer of the county, who was highly esteemed and honored by his friends and business associates. Edward Wacksmuth was born in Germany on January 31, 1834, and in 1857 came to the United States, locating at Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1861 he enlisted in the Union Army and served until 1864 when he received his honorable discharge at Washington, D. C. He saw service in the following battles: Battle of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Days' Fight on the retreat with General McClellan, Battle of Malvern Hill, Battle of the Wilderness under General Hooker, Chancellorsville, Spottsylvania, and Gettysburg under General Meade. He was wounded in the right wrist and breast in the Battle of the Wilderness and was removed to the Base Hospital in Virginia and was cared for until his recovery. Soon after his discharge he removed to Franklin, Pa., where he was employed as an engineer for a short time; then went into the grocery business at the same place. In 1868, ambitious for a field of greater opportunities, he sold his business and embarked for California via Aspinwall, across the Isthmus of Panama and to San Francisco. Remaining in California but one year, he returned East for his family and on their arrival located in Sacramento, but after six months removed to Ellis, a town on the Central Pacific Railroad, where he engaged in the hotel business; he afterward leased the hotel for two years and engaged in the sheep business. However, in 1877 he resumed the hotel business and the following year removed his hotel building into Tracy, where he conducted a first-class house for many years. The Wacksmuth block on Central Avenue, stands as a monument to this man, who pioneered and won success. Besides Mrs. Banta, there are three children: Mrs. Elda Slack of Tracy, Mrs. Mary Grunauer and Eddie Wacksmuth, of San Francisco.
During 1909, Bert. B. Banta was graduated from the California School of Mechanical Arts in San Francisco, and then entered the University of California, taking up the agricultural course, and in 1914 received his B. S. degree. Returning to Tracy he has ever since been engaged in grain farming and stock raising, and is justly proud of the blooded animals on his farms. His extensive land holdings are coming under the irrigation systems and thereby will become not only more productive, but more valuable. Mr. Banta erected a fine residence on a 320-acre tract of land adjoining Tracy where he makes his home; 125 acres are devoted to a fine field of alfalfa, and many acres of corn are also seen on his vast holdings, which are in the West Side Irrigation District.
Mr. Banta's marriage, which occurred in Berkeley, Cal., in December, 1918, united him with Miss Amelia Armstrong, a daughter of Mrs. D. F. Armstrong, a resident of Berkeley. Mrs. Banta is an active worker in the affairs of the Woman's Improvement Club of Tracy and Eastern Star Circles. Mr. Banta is a well known figure in the Masonic Blue Lodge, Royal Arch, and Eastern Star, and is a strong member of the Farm Bureau of San Joaquin County. Both Mr. and Mrs. Banta being great lovers of the outdoors, have spent many happy days in the high Sierras, hunting and fishing, and have visited every National Park in the West, and some of them many times. Mr. Banta is a man of affairs and is ever ready to lend his aid to projects that are for the good of his home town and community.
History of San Joaquin County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1923
p 883
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.