Santa Clara County Biographies

O. F. ALLEY, whose orchard home is situated on the Almaden road, about two miles south of the court-house at San Jose, established his present residence in 1882, when he purchased the property of John Paine. Fourteen acres is set with fruit-trees, the larger part of which MR. Alley himself planted. The leading fruits are apricots and prunes, although a general variety of fruit is produced. For irrigation a ten-horse-power engine is used, which is capable of throwing from a well 600 gallons per minute. The residence is commodious and convenient, embowered and shaded by beautiful plants and fine trees, a typical rural home.

The subject of our sketch dates his birth at Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1824. He is the son of Obed and Susan (Clark) Alley, and is able to trace his ancestry back to the Pilgrim Fathers. At Nantucket, in 1851, he wedded Miss Phoebe Bunker, the daughter of Asa G. and Mary (Ray) Bunker. Her father was from an old New England family of English extraction, while her mother was of Scotch descent. While yet a lad Mr. Alley became a sailor. From 1839 to 1851 he spent most of the time on whaling vessels, the scene of whose operations was the North Pacific. He passed every grade from a sailor before the mast to master of a vessel. His last sea voyage was as master of the merchant vessel Maria of Nantucket, which, clearing at New York in November, 1850, made the port of San Francisco in June, 1851. Off Cape Horn the vessel was held back by head winds fifty-six days The season of 1851 was spent in placer mining in Calaveras County. Thence he went to Contra Costa County, where his wife, coming by the Isthmus route, joined him in March, 1853. He made his home in that county until 1874, much of the time being engaged in public business, serving either as County Treasurer of County Assessor for ten years. He was also engaged in stock and dairy farming while a resident of Contra Costa County. After removing to San Francisco, in 1874, he was employed for several years as deputy in the offices of the County Treasurer, Assessor, and other county officials.

Mrs. Alley is well-known as a natural or magnetic healer. She was in active, successful proactive in San Francisco for eight years, --a practice lucrative and pleasant, because of the good she wrought in hundreds of cases. She now confines her practice to the friends who come to her home for treatment. Both Mr. and Mrs. Alley are member of the San Jose Grange, Patrons of Husbandry. Mr. Alley is identified with the Republican party, with whose principles he is thoroughly in accord.

SOURCE: Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H.S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888. page 578 Transcribed by Carolyn Feroben

OSCAR U. ALLISON

OSCAR U. ALLISON is one of the native sons of California, who is devoting himself to fruit growing in Santa Clara County. His place on Pine Avenue, between Lincoln Avenue and Hicks Street, contains twenty acres, and is planted, ten acres in apricots, five acres in prunes, and five acres in peaches, all in bearing. This place yielded, in 1887, about $2,000. At that time he owned the place on the corner of Hicks Street and Minnesota Avenue, also a place near Campbell Station of thirty-two and one-half acres, of which twenty-one and one half acres were in fruit. These two latter places he has since sold.

He was born in Sonora, Tuolumne County California, in 1855. His parents, Oscar and Catherine (Miller) Allison, came to California in the pioneer days of the State. His father, a native of New York State, came around the Horn in 1849, on the breaking out of the gold excitement. His mother, a native of Massachusetts, came by way of Panama, with a married sister, in 1852. They were married in Tuolumne County, California, in 1852, and have two children, Oscar U. and Marion, now living in San Jose. Their residence is now in Napa County. The subject of this sketch was educated in San Francisco, after which he learned the soda-water manufacturing business, in San Jose, in Williams Bros’. Establishment, where he worked for seven years. He was for a time engaged on his own account in business in Woodland, Yolo County, California.

In 1882 he was married to Miss Lola J. Coburn, daughter of William and Mary (Lupton) Coburn, a native of California, whose parents came to California at an early date in its history. They had one child, Charles, born July 21, 1884. Mr. Allison is supporter of the Republican party, and of its views on the tariff question.

SOURCE: Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H.S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888. page 663-664 Transcribed by Carolyn Feroben