Rich Uncle, Elected Nephew

As we follow the immigrant trails of the earliest Canadian settlers in the riverside valley locale eventually known as Lodi, California, we begin to see connections between these families. Just yesterday, not only did we realize that John Hutchins of Ontario, Canada, arrived along with his entire family, but that his oldest sister had married another of Lodi's early landowners, Ezekiel Lawrence. It was these two men, along with some others, who apparently secured Lodi's downtown site as stop along the way for a new Central Pacific Railroad route in 1869. If nothing else, John Hutchins was rich in land and ingenuity.

After their 1857 marriage and move to San Joaquin County, John's sister Mary Hutchins and her husband, Ezekiel Lawrence, had three children: William, George, and Nettie. The middle child, George, became focus of one of the many biographical sketches in George Tinkham's History of San Joaquin County. From that resource, we learn that George was born on his parents' property in Elkhorn Township—eventually to become the city of Lodi—and attended "district schools" until his enrollment in Saint Mary's College. After receiving a bachelor of science, George Lawrence returned to his hometown to study law. He soon was elected Justice of the Peace of Elkhorn Township, the same place where his parents had settled, back in 1857.

By the time citizens of Elkhorn Township were ready to entertain the possibility of incorporating the city of Lodi, it was 1906. The vote passed, by a margin of two to one, and immediately after the official date of incorporation on December 6, the new city's board of trustees elected George Lawrence as their first mayor.

By the time George Lawrence was elected to the first of his two terms as mayor, both his dad and his uncle—the two neighboring landholders who had been so instrumental in the formation of what would eventually become the city of Lodi—were gone. His dad, Ezekiel Lawrence, passed in 1899, as did his uncle, John Hutchins.

It will take a lot more reading between the lines to learn what roles, if any, were played by these two brothers-in-law in the political success of Lodi's first mayor, George Lawrence, but that is all the same as the original quest which introduced me to this research project in the first place: just who the city had in mind when they named one of their major streets after someone named Hutchins.

From Canada to California: Finding the Path

When our ancestors reported their place of birth as a foreign country—as, for instance, simply "Canada"—there is not much to learn in such a statement. Canada is a wide country, stretching from ocean to ocean in the same manner as the country to which our specific immigrant subjects immigrated.

One research technique is to follow the families backwards in time through each decade's census. That means, taking the John Hutchins family of Lodi, California, as an example, we would locate them in the most recent census record we can find, and then, using the details gleaned from that document, work our way backwards through the decades.

We already know from his biographical sketch in George Tinkham's History of San Joaquin County that John Hutchins crossed the continent from Ontario in 1853. Just which direction his journey took him, the article doesn't mention. To read Tinkham's entry, one would think John Hutchins—a teenager of about seventeen at the time of this migration—had made the journey by himself, but that is apparently not the case.

Looking at the 1880 census, we can find John along with his wife, the former Anna Nevin, and their children, Nellie, John, Edward, and Mary. The census reports that John was born in Canada, and that his parents were from Ireland. Likewise, the 1870 census shows that John was born in Canada, but that his two year old daughter was born in California—thus, gradually narrowing the time frame of his travels.

Moving beyond the date of his marriage to Ann Nevin to find John Hutchins before that 1870 census means looking for a single man—or, possibly, a young man in the household of his parents. This, fortunately, became the case for our search, finding a possible John Hutchins in the home of his namesake, his father John Hutchins, in the same Elkhorn Township of San Joaquin County, the very place from which the city of Lodi was later established.

The 1860 census shows this young John Hutchins reporting his age as twenty four, putting his year of birth as 1836, agreeing roughly with what we had gleaned from later census enumerations. Again, it showed his birth to be in Canada, and his parents, John and Catherine, to be from Ireland. Along with the junior John, the other family members were his (presumed) siblings James, Thomas, Hannah, Catherine, and Henry. All but the youngest—who at that point was listed as twelve years of age—had been born in Canada. Henry provided the location of the next stop in this Hutchins family's migration by the place of his birth: Iowa.

Indeed, in Dubuque County, Iowa, for the 1850 census, there was a family of an Irish couple, John and Catherine Hutchins. With one addition—that of a daughter named Mary—the family constellation remained the same, with John, James, Thomas, Hannah, Catherine, and Henry all making their appearance. The only catch was that each of the children was listed as having been born in Michigan, not Canada. Could that have been the family's entry point from Canada? Or were their parents fearful of divulging their foreign origin?

A quick double check of California's Great Register in the 1870s confirms, however, that Elkhorn Township resident Henry Hutchins—the baby of the family—claimed to have been born in Iowa (see entry 2538), while older brothers John (see entry 2485) and James (see entry 2565) had to declare the date and courthouse of their naturalization, as having been born in Canada, not the United States. Unfortunately, any Canadian census records before that point of the Hutchins family's departure from Ontario only sparsely covered the territory, leaving us without any further direction as to where, exactly, the Hutchins family had settled in that part of the British Empire.

There was one bright spot in the monotony of this exercise, however: the discovery of oldest sister Mary in the 1850 census, and her subsequent disappearance from the 1860 Hutchins household. By the time of that later census—if we can believe the age reported for her in the 1850 census—she would have been twenty eight. Very possibly, she was by then married and living in a household of her own. But where? Left in Iowa? Or continuing with the family to California?

Perhaps it was merely coincidence, but appearing in the biographical sketch of another pioneer of Lodi was the mention of his mother's maiden name as Mary Hutchins. As it turns out, that same person's father's name is one we've seen before. The father, Ezekiel Lawrence, was one of the men named as having had a hand in the establishment of the downtown area of what was to become the city of Lodi, California. If this is so, the younger John Hutchins and Ezekiel Lawrence were not only business associates and neighboring property owners, they were also brothers-in-law!

Of a Feather

One discovery, in researching the five men credited by local history as having a hand in the formation of the city of Lodi, California, was how many of them had Canadian roots. This could merely be a curious coincidence, or it might be a detail worth pursuing. Since the pursuit of family history is not simply the study of individuals—as if they were independent, individual actors throughout their lifetime—but an observation of the collective actions taken by people who were closely associated with each other, it makes sense to handle this study of Lodi's founders in the same way.

Cluster genealogy—that study of the micro-history of families in relationship to their social and other connections—may serve our purposes at this juncture in my research project. Sometimes called the "FAN Club," this cluster, people taken in the aggregate, may provide hints generated by the whole group, whereas studying each person as an individual might fail to reveal broader connections.

One of the principles of the "FAN Club" is that people, moving from their home to settle in new territory, seldom make such long journeys alone. While I've been wandering in research circles, trying to determine just how the California city of Lodi actually was established, I've run across enough clues to tell me that not just one of the original settlers in this new state came from Canada. There apparently were several more.

Now, considering that Canada is a large country—and that even saying something like, "They both came from Ontario" seldom tells us much—it might seem like a fool's errand to determine just where in that immense dominion the exact town might have been, if even one location. But I'm game to trace these Canadian immigrants to see whether their paths coincided on their way from Canada to California.

For one thing, migration patterns seemed similar. Wherever these settlers started in Canada, their goal was to arrive in California as soon as possible after the news flash about the discovery of gold in the northern foothills. Young men being young men, the pattern included a marriage to another Canadian, usually in El Dorado County, likely at the county seat of Placerville—or, as it was known in that era, Hangtown. The finale to this pattern was obtaining a large tract of government land somewhere in the new state of California—for some coincidental reason, specifically in a place called San Joaquin County.

I've been focusing, in the past week, on the men named in an old history of the county as being key in establishing the downtown area which eventually became the city of Lodi. My original focus was on a man whose surname has somehow—through recognition of this man, himself, or others—become the name of a major street and cultural center in the city. However, as I branched out to the other four men listed as city fathers, I began realizing some of them, too, claimed to have come to this isolated valley in California from an undisclosed place in Canada.

The question is: which place in Canada? Or should we say, places?

To start this exploration, let's take a deeper look at the paths taken by the families of John Hutchins and Ezekiel Lawrence, tomorrow.

On the Streets Where we Live

Not many people give much thought to how the street where they live received its name. While some street names—notably those in sanitized suburban settings—may reflect the unimaginative sameness of tree-themed names, there are some street signs revealing a glimpse into a road's history.

Curious about the name of a major road near me, after discovering that the farmland once adjacent to what is now a city street bore the same name, I've tried to find sources to confirm any connection. Though I can find a biographical sketch touting the many civic contributions of that property owner, there is no mention of just how the street passing by his property managed to acquire the very same name as this man's surname.

Other cities have street names which reveal a glimpse into their history. I tried my hand at a search at GenealogyBank, repository of many archived newspapers, to see if anyone wrote an article about such a topic. Sure enough, there were a few choices. One writer expounded upon the "history and significance" of street names in South Trenton, New Jersey, for the Trenton Evening Times in a Sunday article on October 12, 1913. For some strange reason, the Portland newspaper, The Oregonian, ran a column called "Origin of Street Names" on April 14, 1900—only it was about the history of street names in New York City.

Delving into a theme I brought up yesterday, the Encyclopedia of Chicago explained the challenges behind coordinating street names in a city which, as it expanded, swallowed up smaller towns in its perimeter, resulting in several different streets sporting the same name, but different locations. For those hoping the fire department arrived before their house burned down, this would understandably cause some consternation, which city fathers hoped to rectify.

This, of course, brings up another challenge to finding the story about one's street name: street names have changed, over the years. In searching for how Hutchins Street got its name in Lodi, California, I ran across a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of the downtown area from 1895, which provides an example in its "County Road" label for one particular street. Today, residents would recognize that street as Lodi Avenue. Very possibly, the road past the Hutchins property may at one point had a generic designation much the same as this.

Working with other researchers attempting to discover more about the area where their ancestors lived, I have been made aware of other streets in our county which have been called by names other than what we call them today. Between that challenge, plus the re-numbering of house addresses in the early 1900s in many cities in the United States, inquiries into the history of the street where our ancestors once lived can encounter many twists and turns—even concerning some of the major routes of our cities. Whether these are causes concealing the elusive reason for the naming of Hutchins Street in Lodi, I can't yet tell.

Above: Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Lodi, San Joaquin County, California, showing "County Road" designation to the right of the map. Sanborn Map Company, Mar, 1895; map courtesy United States Library of Congress; in the public domain.

Not West 196,841st Street : Decisions About Street Names*

Asking why a street received the name it has might not be among your top research priorities, but in my case, I can't help but wonder. I've already uncovered paperwork revealing that a relative by marriage was the namesake of Shields Avenue in Fresno, California. And discovery of a road in my adopted California hometown bearing the unusual surname of another distant relative prompted me to trace that property owner's pedigree back to our most recent common ancestor—someone living over two thousand miles away. So you see, I come by this curiosity naturally.

Now, my attention is turned to John Hutchins, a Canadian who traveled the distance of a continent to land in Lodi, California, right after the state's gold rush. Perhaps owing to success in mining endeavors—or possibly because the land was so cheap at the time—John Hutchins acquired much property in the Elkhorn Township area which eventually became the city of Lodi. Even more so, his influence on the growth of the area in its earliest years may have landed him one tiny nod in the form of the area's current cityscape.

It just so happens that there is a major north-south artery in Lodi named Hutchins Street, now the location of the city's cultural center bearing that same Hutchins name. I'm curious how the street got its name. According to a timeline of the city's early years (see page 22), Hutchins Street was listed as the city's western limit in 1906, only seven years after John Hutchins' passing. Though his biographical sketch included in George Tinkham's History of San Joaquin County was glowing, perhaps his wasn't the most illustrious claim to the Hutchins surname.

It's fascinating to learn the process of just how municipalities decide upon names for their streets. Some cities are quite upfront about their requirements, such as the city of Buellton in Santa Barbara County, which posted its street naming procedures online. As associate professor of law Ann Bartow observed in her article in the law review of the University of California at Davis in April, 2004:

Few people are likely to want to live on a thoroughfare named 198,457th Street because such an address lacks personality and interest. When public amenities are accorded more colorful denominations, however, complications can ensue.

It is those "complications" which have precipitated precise local government procedures on who can name streets and just how they are to do so. One review of the situation by Fox News detailed the complexity of a process which might take weeks from start to finish, shepherded by the planning department with vital input from not only engineering and public works departments, but also police, fire department and even the post office.

While it may seem as if streets are bestowed their names through a scientific process—above all, avoiding "monikers that might be unappealing to residents," though, as one New York Times reporter found, such are in abundance despite being "unappealing"—there is also a certain politic nature to the granting of honorific designations. National heroes often become the focus of naming committees, with examples drawn not only from national history—every name from George Washington to Martin Luther King—but from significant hometown developments, as well.

And yet, of all the reports concerning the process of naming streets, most of these resources divulged details about how real estate developers in our current times approach the issue. What I'm searching for is just how street names from our past history were bestowed—and how to learn the stories behind those designations.


*196,841st Street: with thanks to Ann Bartow's April 2004 article in the U.C. Davis Law Review, "Trademarks of Privilege," for the footnote #114 on the absurd concept of naming a street with a number as inconvenient to remember as that example.

In Circles

Sometimes, it feels like a research project takes the researcher along a winding path which, eventually, leads right back to the place where it started. Take my discovery of a connection between my research subject and a man whose surname was significant to his adopted hometown of Lodi, California. I discovered that his biography, included in a History of San Joaquin County two decades after his death, mentioned his role in the establishment of Lodi in much more glowing terms than I was able to find anywhere else. At the same time, I discovered four other men were credited with the very same role—with no mention of the original focus of my attention. Which story was right?

I hoped that, in exploring what could be found about the history of each of those other four men, I would discover any connection between the two versions. Other than realizing that several of the men were connected to one particular fraternal order, I wasn't able to discern the root of the variations in the story.

So, what can be discovered about John Hutchins, the man from Canada who crossed the plains to arrive in San Joaquin County in the earliest days after the formation of the county? George Tinkham reported that Hutchins made his cross-country immigration in 1853. Yet, whether the Hutchins household in the 1860 census in Elkhorn Township includes our John Hutchins, I can't yet be sure. However, John's name did appear in the Great Register, where in at least two editions, he reported being naturalized at the county seat on August 27, 1866.

Almost a year later, John Hutchins married Ann Nevin, an Iowa girl whose family had moved to Stockton, and by the time of the 1870 census, the couple was living in Elkhorn Township, along with their daughter Nellie and son John. Although the senior John died in 1899, we can still find the names of his five children in his widow's household in the 1900 census.

But what of the street through the town of Lodi which now bears the Hutchins name? Was it named for John Hutchins, the one who supposedly donated land to jump-start the downtown area before it even became designated as a city? Or was that honor given to someone else with the same surname?

The ubiquitousness of street signs may dull our inquisitiveness about their origin, but I just can't help myself. I want to know how that street came to receive that name.

Suits me to a "T"

Trying to reconcile conflicting reports about the start of the city of Lodi, California, has come down to two initials: that of Allen C. Ayers or Allen T. Ayers. Of course, since the names are so similar, it could have been a typo in George Tinkham's 1923 History of San Joaquin County that started the whole pursuit. Considering that the Tinkham volume amounts to 1,640 pages, one could cut the guy some slack on one silly initial. But just in case, I felt obligated to check out the references to the Allen C. Ayers who supposedly was involved in some key real estate transactions that eventually benefited the establishment of downtown Lodi.

We already learned yesterday that the similarly-named Allen T. Ayers had a middle initial representing the name Trimble. Attempting to find further information on his contemporary, the man supposedly named Allen C. Ayers, led nowhere. There are no census records for the county in either 1860 or 1870 showing the existence of a man by that name anywhere near the Elkhorn Township which eventually formed the city of Lodi. More to the point, every Allen Ayers listed in California's Great Register for San Joaquin County spelled out clearly the full name of Allen Trimble Ayers. No Allen C. to be found.

Considering that the four names mentioned in the land issue that persuaded a railroad company to build its line through the downtown area included not only Allen Ayers but that of another man—John U. Magley—who happened to live in A. T. Ayers' own household through two decades of census enumerations, it seems far fetched to assume that the Ayers name represented in the Tinkham volume was anyone other than Allen Trimble Ayers.

But what about any mention of the fourth man to be included in that railroad deal? Could anything be said for Ezekiel Lawrence, the name we've yet to examine, to connect him with John Hutchins, whose own biography prompted me to call this whole history into question?

Of course there can. Though once again, there is no biographical entry bearing the name of Ezekiel Lawrence, there were a few mentioned of the name tucked away in those thousand pages of history that can assist us.

The earliest mention of Ezekiel Lawrence was when, in 1858, he provided some of his land, just south of the Mokelumne River, for a schoolhouse. The 1860 census confirms his location in Elkhorn Township, along with his wife Mary and two year old son William. By 1870, the census confirms the Lawrence family's continued residence there, with the addition of son George and daughter Nettie.

Similar to the story of fellow Lodian John Hutchins, Ezekiel Lawrence was from Canada—the province of Ontario, if we can believe his son George's report in his own passport application, many years later. Like the story of Allen Trimble Ayers, Ezekiel Lawrence must have come through El Dorado County, as well—the well-traveled route to Gold Country leading to "Hangtown," now known as Placerville, where Ezekiel and his wife Mary were married in 1857.

Despite his 1858 provision of land for the Lodi schoolhouse, Ezekiel Lawrence did not show up in the Great Register until 1867. The reason? The minute he officially became a United States citizen, the naturalized Ezekiel Lawrence immediately registered to vote on May 18, 1867 in Stockton, county seat of San Joaquin County.

The only other mention I could find of Ezekiel Lawrence was that of the roster of officers for a fraternal organization's lodge in Lodi. Though finding only a listing of his name as the treasurer for the Lodi lodge of the Odd Fellows may be disappointingly sparse, considering all that surely could have been said about the man, reading the rest of the list can provide some insight.

Now that we already know the name of the foursome whose influence was instrumental in setting the economic growth of their future city—Ayers, Magley, Wardrobe, and Lawrence—this list provides some perspective on relationships. Along with treasurer Lawrence, the I.O.O.F. lodge had, for their financial secretary, Allen T. Ayers. And listed among the lodge's charter members, according to the Tinkham history, was John Hutchins.

This, finally, provides the only context linking the four names together in their bid to persuade the railroad's consideration of a route through Lodi. In the meantime, we've explored the few details we could glean about four early leaders in the expansion of the city now known as Lodi.

Still, we can't simply be satisfied with this exploration into the friends and neighbors whose land tied them together at the start of the downtown Lodi area. We need to stay the course on our original objective. Researching these four men mentioned in the Tinkham history of Lodi is solely for the purpose of examining another claim: that there was a fifth man who, with "four associates," presented that offer of land to the Central Pacific. That other man was John Hutchins.

Above: Excerpt from the Map of the County of San Joaquin, dated 1895, as currently found at the United States Library of Congress, shows the property of Ezekiel "Lawrance" just south of the meandering path of the Mokelumne River; courtesy Library of Congress Geography and Map Division; in the public domain.

Initial Inquiries

Names containing only initials can be vexing for the ardent genealogical researcher. In particular, reading the history of the founding of Lodi, California, we find two mentions of the surname Ayers. One is A. C. Ayers, the other is A. T. Ayers. Close, but not necessarily the same individual.

In our continuing quest to rectify two tales of how the fledgling city of Lodi got its boost with the Central Pacific Railroad agreeing to build its line directly through the downtown area, we've been examining the biographical information on each of four men credited with the land donations influencing that change of plans. Behind that examination is the need to rectify the report in George Tinkham's History of San Joaquin County with that of his biography of another leading man in Lodi: John Hutchins.

So far, not only have we not uncovered any connection between John Hutchins and the first of our subjects—Reuben Langdon Wardrobe—but there was not much mentioned directly about R. L. Wardrobe in the entirety of the book's 1,640 pages.

As we'll see here, much the same can be said about the subject of today's post. There was no biographical sketch included by Tinkham for A. T. Ayers.

Worse, not only was there no specific entry for this man credited by Tinkham as making a donation of property to help clinch the deal which led to establishing downtown Lodi, but in some of the other entries about the surname Ayers, the author mentioned the name Allen Ayers. More troubling, sometimes that middle initial was a "C" instead of a "T."

If this indicates two different people rather than a simple typo in the text, which one was the right man? You know what that means: researching both names to see which one provides more reasonable indicators of representing the right person.

Fortunately, I decided to start with the name listed in the paragraph on the property donation, and looked for A. T. Ayers. First up, I discovered that A. T., like A. C., had a first name of Allen. That wasn't a promising start to this search.

If this is a troubling research problem for us, as far removed as we are from the event itself in the 1860s, consider how troubling it must have been to the man who might have had to constantly clarify which Allen Ayers he was. It wasn't long until I found A. T. Ayers' voter registration from 1866. The date of his registration was August 6 of 1866, showing him to be a thirty six year old farmer from Ohio, then living in the Elkhorn Township of San Joaquin County. Rather than simply relying on initials as at other times, his name was spelled out fully as "Allen Trimble Ayres."

Since we had already reviewed the story of one of the original Lodi settlers selling his land to "Allen Ayers," it was good to have this clarification, for in another section in the Tinkham volume, the name had been given as Allen C. Ayers. At this point, with a full name to research, I could more closely track the decade-by-decade movement of this Allen Trimble Ayers.

And that, I did. Starting with the 1880 census and working my way backwards in time, I found an "Allan T. Ayres" in Elkhorn Township, along with his wife Julia and teenaged daughters Estelle and Coralin. In the same household was an interesting addition: the presence of John U. Magley, immigrant from Switzerland, who just happened to be one of the four men mentioned as having donated land to bring the rail line through Lodi. Magley's residence in the Ayers home made me wonder whether he and Ayers were related by marriage.

Checking the 1870 census, I found Allen Trimble Ayers in much the same location: Elkhorn Township in San Joaquin County. Still in the household with his wife Julia and two daughters—both of whom were born in California, showing us that A. T. Ayers (well, at least his wife) was in the state as early as 1863—he also had a spot in his home for that same John U. Magley. In fact, the home site had enough room for horses, mules, cows, and a few pigs, as A. T. Ayers kept his 150 acres in winter wheat and barley.

Even before that point, Allen Ayers and his wife were in California in time for the 1860 census, although not living in Lodi. Julia and Allen Ayers were then living in El Dorado County, which, though not part of our story today, provides a hint about who his parents might have been, despite a name as common as Allen Ayers. Though A. T. Ayers originated in Ohio, he may not have traveled to California alone. There was a Stephen Ayers from Vermont listed not only in El Dorado County, but also on the Great Register on the same page in Lodi as Allen Trimble Ayers in 1866. Besides this, in census records including location of the father's birth, Allen always gave his father's birthplace as Vermont, same as this Stephen Ayers.

While many links can be found online purporting to have found Allen Trimble Ayers' place of burial outside California, a locally published book by a former member of our own genealogical society provides a clue that A. T. Ayers' wife and also his (likely) father were buried in a location south of Lodi which is now a defunct cemetery.

Known as the Live Oak Cemetery, its demise provides the kind of story that genealogical researchers seldom appreciate encountering. Apparently, some of the bodies of those buried at the Live Oak Cemetery were moved to a new burial place east of downtown Lodi, decades afterwards—but not, possibly, all of those originally buried at Live Oak. The newer burial place, known as Lodi Memorial Park, contains a memorial plaque for those re-interred from the Live Oak Cemetery. Whether Stephen Ayers' remains are at the newer resting place or the original burial grounds is hard to tell, though someone created a Find A Grave memorial for him indicating the answer is the Lodi Memorial Park.

As for the son, Allen Trimble Ayers, who knows what became of him. There is a memorial on Find A Grave speculating he somehow wound up in Nebraska and was buried there, but I do not feel confident of that conclusion—at least, not yet. A. T. Ayers' one daughter married a man from Stockton—Walter Eugene Ladd—whose family name was significant in his hometown then, as it is now. What became of the second Ayers daughter or her father, I can't say, but it is likely that they, like some of the other property owners from the early days of Lodi, moved out of the area long before George Tinkham ever considered omitting their mention from his ponderous history.

Shipped in the Knock-Down

After the survey had been made through Lodi, A. T. Ayers, John U. Magley, R. L. Wardrobe and E. Lawrence petitioned the railroad company to locate a station on their land. As a bonus, the three owners first named agreed if a station was there built and a town laid off, to give the railroad every odd lot in the proposed town and a railroad reservation of twelve acres in the center of the town.

George H. Tinkham, History of San Joaquin County California

It is clear, from looking at an 1895 map of California's San Joaquin County, that R. L. Wardrobe held property close to the downtown area of Lodi, and yet, trying to find any entry featuring the heading of his name in George Tinkham's biographical entries of the leading men of the county, there is none to be seen.

Reuben Langdon Wardrobe was indeed in San Joaquin County as early as November 13, 1866, the date in which he reported his residence to be Elkhorn Township, when he registered to vote. And yet, as instrumental as his role was reputed to be in securing rail service for the growing town of Lodi, he merited not much more of a mention in Tinkham's volume than a section of a paragraph in an entry about the son of his brother, Samuel Valorious Wardrobe.

S. V. Wardrobe, it seems, had been traveling back and forth from his home in Massachusetts to the spot of his intended  new property in California, a ranch in the "Live Oak" section of San Joaquin County. Realizing that lumber in the new country was "very scarce," on his next trip back to Massachusetts, S. V. Wardrobe arranged for his brother, a carpenter by trade, to frame an entire house—though admittedly tiny, at twelve feet square—which was then "shipped in the knock down" around the Horn to California.

That brother, incidentally, was Reuben Langdon Wardrobe.

The two brothers had the dismantled house shipped up the delta from the San Francisco bay to the port at Stockton, and they then hauled it to the Live Oak property near Lodi. While S. V. Wardrobe remained on that property long enough for two of his sons to be born there, Reuben Wardrobe apparently moved to Elkhorn Township, acquiring land of his own—some of which eventually played a role in enticing the Central Pacific Rail Road to opt for the survey report which favored a line through the developing town of Lodi.

As for Reuben Wardrobe, that is about all that is mentioned of his role in the growth of the city of Lodi. By 1900, according to census records, he was living farther south in Riverside County. Unfortunately, digitized copies of that census cut off the name of his wife, but marriage records show he was married in 1875, to Mary A. Dixon, back in San Joaquin County. Finding the family in the 1880 census, still back in the vicinity of Lodi in San Joaquin County, with children aged much older than the five years of his marriage at that point indicates Mary was at least his second wife. Voter registration records indicate he may have left the county as early as 1886 and apparently stayed in that southern location of the state until the date of his death in 1908.

Perhaps it was because his last days were spent, not in Lodi, but far removed from that location of his brief legacy as a founding father that we see no separate entry for Reuben Langdon Wardrobe in the annals of Lodi's history. Except for that fleeting mention of the role played by his decision, along with others, to put up land in exchange for the future prosperity of the town where he once lived, there is little passed down to us about the part R. L. Wardrobe played in that offer which clinched Lodi's future.

Above: Along with the names of Elkhorn Township property owners E. Lawrence and John Hutchins, we see the parcel just south of the downtown area of Lodi bearing the name of R. L. Wardrobe, one of at least three local men who influenced the proposed route change of the new Central Pacific Railroad line from Sacramento south to Stockton in 1869. Map courtesy Library of Congress Geography and Map Division; in the public domain.

Keeping an Eye on the Neighbors

A story about a neighbor may help open up the chapter for us in the Lodi settlement's beginning years, as we puzzle over not only who got here first, but who could rightfully claim an instrumental role in establishing the future city's financial well-being.

We may have several variations of the tale of just how the Central Pacific railroad route actually came to be directed through the nascent downtown area of Lodi, California. We have one report which seems to indicate that John Hutchins was the prime influencer who lobbied to bring the railroad route through downtown Lodi, but another rendition mentions the names of Ezekiel Lawrence, Reuben Wardrobe, A. C. Ayers, and John Magley.

While we will consider each of these men's stories in the next few days, a bit of a backstory—about a neighbor—may help to set the stage today. In the telling of this brief vignette, you will see some familiar surnames pop up.

The neighbor was named John Fry Layman. Born in Ohio in 1834, he married in 1861 in Davis County, Iowa, and after the 1862 birth of his firstborn, Joseph, moved his family to California. The story was that John Layman had intended to head to Washington, but after stopping in the central valley of California for a few days' rest, changed his mind and, making a trade of one of his teams of horses for some land—160 acres, to be exact—settled in the area that eventually became Lodi.

Though the land was rugged and required much work to clear—let alone plant, or set up work buildings or a home—John Layman eventually added more land to that original acreage. He bought enough additional land from a man named R. L. Wardrobe to bring his total holdings to 240 acres, but eventually thought better of the prospect of these holdings. He sold the entire acreage and moved south to another city in the valley.

Depending on which version of the story you believe, Layman either sold his land to Allen Ayers, or to both Allen Ayers and R. L. Wardrobe. The transaction was completed in 1867. 

Meanwhile, north of Lodi, the engineers of the Central Pacific Railroad Company were scoping out the best route for a line from Sacramento, the state capital, to Stockton, a city directly to the south of Lodi, which served as the county seat. Of three possible routes surveyed, the proposed best choice ran to the west of Lodi, near another town called Woodbridge.

Rumor had it that the owner of the land over which the proposed route was to pass in Woodbridge refused to grant right-of-way, and was considering demanding excessive payment for "damages."

Perhaps it was not simply brilliance which induced five Lodi businessmen—with or without our John Hutchins—to seize the moment and make a proposal the railroad company couldn't refuse. Among those businessmen were the two landholders named in local history as having just acquired that centrally-located land of John Fry Layman, conveniently near the site of Lodi's downtown development. We'll see what we can discover about these men, tomorrow.  

How to Mangle History

There I was, minding my own historical business, when I unexpectedly found myself sucked into a mess concerning someone else's family history. How does this happen?

The object of my pursuit was a man whose surname is well known in the city just to the north of my rural home. It turns out that someone bearing that same surname—and living in that location in its formative years—popped up in my research concerning another family in town here. (Full disclosure: this man became husband of the sister of my research subject.)

The man's name, as we saw yesterday, was John Hutchins, a Canadian who traveled to California just after the peak years of the Gold Rush. A 1923 history of the county in which he settled gave a glowing account of John Hutchins' integral involvement in the foundation of the settlement destined to become the city of Lodi. Even his Find A Grave memorial picked up details from that Tinkham biography.

Trouble is, there are some other reports which, while providing a similar story line, include names of men other than John Hutchins in their account. Worse, there are other timelines and accounts which omit any details at all of how John Hutchins could be considered a city father.

True, one of those accounts may not be considered academically noteworthy—the Wikipedia entry on the history of Lodi—but I find it odd that, even in the Tinkham volume, there are two different accounts about how Hutchins' adopted hometown got started.

According to the Tinkham biography of Hutchins,

With four associates, he [John Hutchins] bought the site of the present town of Lodi, and these five men in association founded the place. He also induced the Southern Pacific Railroad to build its line through the town, and then he laid out the town and sold lots.

The Wikipedia history notes:

In 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad was in the process of creating a new route, and pioneer settlers Ezekiel Lawrence, Reuben Wardrobe, A.C. Ayers and John Magley offered a townsite of 160 acres...to the railroad as an incentive to build a station there.

Already, I'm spotting details which concern me about accuracy. In addition to the absence of Hutchins' name in the second account, the fact that Tinkham lists the Southern Pacific Railroad as the target of Hutchins' lobbying efforts is a problem. If you look at a map of the area, drawn up in 1895, years after the 1869 discussion about selecting a route, you will notice the two railroad lines which cross the downtown area of Lodi were the east-west route known then as the San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada Rail Road, and the north-south route of the Central Pacific Rail Road.

Granted, following the histories of each of these railroad entities, we do see that the San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada was swallowed up into the Northern Railway Company in 1888—which in turn was consolidated into the Southern Pacific in 1898.

The Central Pacific line experienced a similar fate, becoming a line leased to the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1885. Despite that technicality, the county's official map for 1895 designated the line as part of the Central Pacific network.

While those details about names may give a researcher pause, the absence of mention of John Hutchins in one account, and of the other four men in the other accounts also makes me wonder. I looked for any other resource which might provide an explanation. While this search showed me that there are several organizations interested in including a summary of Lodi's history on their websites, it also provided me with some additional tweaks to the narrative.

For instance, a timeline of the city's history, appearing in this document on pages 21 through 26, only mentions the name Hutchins when speaking of the street name, or the property used to establish their high school. The first merchants in town, the first newspaper publishers, the first bankers and politicians were mentioned by name—but not John Hutchins.

More concerning was this discovery of a rewording of the narrative, provided by the city's downtown business alliance:

Settled by local families in 1859, the town of Mokelumne, now called Lodi was born. It was just a local farming town until the Central Pacific Railroad brought pioneer settlers Ezekiel Lawrence, Reuben Wardrobe, A. C. Ayers and John Magley to build a railroad through the middle of town.

Now, not only were the four men we had already seen mentioned in the Wikipedia article listed again—and in the same order—but now they were instruments of the railroad company, there at the company's bidding to build the railroad.

One hundred years from now, whose version will win out as what "really" happened? With just the slightest changes, the story morphs from one aspect to another. And in one case, a key person was either omitted entirely, or inserted into the record when he shouldn't have been there at all. Which way is it?

Of course, just as we've learned in handling our own family history research, we need to go back to source documents to see what the paper trail actually shows us—hoping, at least, that the documents were drawn up correctly and the dates indicate the actual time of occurrence. And that's what I want to do, concerning my original question about John Hutchins.

Just out of curiosity, though, I want to pursue more information on each of these other gentlemen. Could reports about each of them allow us a glimpse of their own lives—and possibly explain their connection (or lack thereof) with that John Hutchins of the glowing reputation? Let's take a look at each one to see what we can find.

Above: Excerpt from the Map of the County of San Joaquin, dated 1895, as currently found at the United States Library of Congress, showing the properties of E. Lawrance, R. L. Wardrobe, and John Hutchins close to the downtown area of Lodi, California; courtesy Library of Congress Geography and Map Division; in the public domain.

A Canadian Goes to California

"Not many among the highly honored pioneers of San Joaquin County could boast a more enviable record, or a more interesting history," said George H. Tinkham in his 1923 History of San Joaquin County of one of the supposed "honored founders" of the "town" of Lodi, California. Yet, though the man's surname is still affixed to both a major street and the original high school in the city, perhaps the Tinkham entry on John Hutchins should be recognized more as an exhibit of the flowery prose of the era than an accurate representation of history.

According to the Tinkham biography, this founder of a city in northern California originated in Canada, traveling west across "the great plains" in 1853. First stop—for almost everyone heading west to California in that time frame—was to "the mines." Whether his first venture upon arrival in the Golden State was successful, this biographer doesn't say outright, but infers that after that stop, John Hutchins arrived in Lodi.

With four associates, he bought the site of the present town of Lodi, and these five men in association founded the place. He also induced the Southern Pacific Railroad to build its line through the town, and then he laid out the town and sold lots.

The Tinkham report details the location of the parcels John Hutchins purchased, and though there is no date given for these transactions, a map of the county in 1895 seems to indicate the then-current location of the properties to be approximate to the streets mentioned in the Tinkham history.

The only problem with the Tinkham report is that another version can easily be found online—a similar story about "inducing" the Southern Pacific Railroad to plan its route through the fledgling town, yet omitting the Hutchins name entirely.

I suppose I wouldn't have cared much about such details—or even noticed the discrepancy at all—had I not stumbled upon the name of this John Hutchins while working on the history of pioneer settlers of our county for our local genealogical society. That surname, however, figures quite prominently in that particular city, causing me to wonder not only about the connection to the pioneer settlers I was researching—actually, an entirely different family which turned out to be related by marriage to a John Hutchins of Lodi—but to the nexus between this particular individual and the street and building bearing that surname, as well.

Above: The full title of the George H. Tinkham volume, published in 1923; courtesy Internet Archive; in the public domain.