Sacramento Valley Biographies

WILLIAM DOTY

Transcribed by Sally Kaleta, June 2009.

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

       Born in Tompkins county, N. Y., November 5, 1827, William Doty went with 
his family to Michigan, where he was with his parents on a farm until 1851, when 
he and a brother came overland to the west with horse teams which they purchased 
in Michigan. For a time after reaching California he worked in the mines in the 
eastern portion of the state, then ran pack trains from Marysville to 
Downieville, in which business he remained until 1854, when his wife came to 
join him here. Selling out his pack-train business to his partner, he came to 
Sutter county, and purchased a ranch of about two hundred acres at West Butte, 
where he ran threshing machines and raised horses until 1869. Again selling out 
he purchased the ranch two miles from Meridian, Sutter county, which his wife 
still owns. It originally contained six hundred acres, but he gave his son all 
of it except eighty-four acres. 

       December 4, 1849, Mr. Doty was married to Mary Fowler, who was born in 
Seneca county, N. Y., January 31, 1828, and went with her parents to Michigan 
when only a child, receiving her education in the same schools that her husband 
attended. In 1854 she came via Panama to California, leaving New York City April 
5 on the North Star for Aspinwall. From there she shipped to San Francisco, 
going from that city to Marysville, and has since lived in Sutter county. Seven 
children were born to them, viz: Mary Alice, who died at twenty years of age; 
Frances, who is the wife of George Betty of Sutter county; William Fowler, who 
is a barber in Meridian; Richard, still at home with his mother; Esther, the 
wife of William Geult, a rancher in Sutter county; and two children, who died in 
infancy. Mr. Doty was for a great many years a member of the Methodist Church, 
and was a sincere Christian. Politically he was a liberal Democrat, but would 
never accept public office, With the assistance of her son, Mrs. Doty manages 
the ranch, which in a great measure is devoted to grain raising. Since the death 
of her husband, which occurred November 14, 1899, she has remained on the ranch, 
and is a very active woman despite her seventy-seven years.  

"History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento 
Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, The Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 1906, 
Pages 539-540.