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.

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.