Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

ANTONE WILLIAM GOETZ

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
            The owner of a fine ranch property located eight and a half miles 
south of Yuba City, and developed to alfalfa and young orchard, is Antone 
William Goetz, who, besides operating his ranch, follows contract hauling, using 
in his business sixteen head of horses.  He was born near Fort Smith, Ark., 
April 29, 1892, a son of Carl and Elizabeth (Geheb) Goetz, the former a native 
of Germany and the latter of Arkansas.  Carl Goetz learned the baker�s trade in 
Germany and followed it after coming to the United States, where he was also in 
the coal and wood business and was later a road contractor.  He is still alive 
at the age of sixty-four, but the mother passed away on February 5, 1924, also 
sixty-four years old.  Nine children were born to them:  Carl, deceased; 
Elizabeth, now Mrs. Troncatty; Joachim and Boniface, both deceased; Antone 
William, our subject; and Adam, Louis, Frank and Marie.
            Antone William Goetz attended grammar school in Fort Smith, Ark., 
and did two years of college work at Paris, Ark.  He started out for himself at 
the age of sixteen, coming to Sutter County, where he found ranch work in the 
Tudor section for two years.  Then he leased land until 1914, when he bought 
fifteen acres near Oswald, developed it to peaches, and then sold it in 1918.  
In 1918 he purchased from James S. Troncatty his present place of eight acres on 
the Garden highway, on which he has built a good house and other farm buildings, 
and has installed a ten-inch deep-well turbine electric pump for irrigating 
purposes.
            Mr. Goetz from his boyhood has been a great lover of fine 
horse-flesh, of which he is a splendid judge.  He makes a specialty of breeding 
and raising black Percheron horses and has some very fine specimens, among them 
the imported black Percheron stallion �Markis,� a beautifully proportioned 
animal weighing 2000 pounds, which he has placed at the head of his herd of 
black Percheron mares.  He has some wonderfully well-matched teams; and it is 
the consensus of opinion that his herd of black Percheron horses is the finest 
in Northern California.
            At the annual Peach Day celebration of Yuba and Sutter Counties, 
held in both Marysville and Yuba City, Mr. Goetz�s float, credited to the Wilson 
Farm Center, made a gorgeous sight in the parade.  Representing early and 
present-day agriculture and horticulture, it rested on three wagons trailing 
together, loaded with wheat, rice and peaches and beautifully decorated, and was 
drawn by his eight-horse team of matched black Percheron horses in beautiful 
harness, silver-mounted and specially decorated.  Swiss team-bells surmounted to 
horses� harness and their hoofs were covered with silver paper.  The horses 
seemed to realized that they were on parade; and as they are so well trained 
that Mr. Goetz drives them in the fields without a line, since they obey his 
every word, the team and driver were naturally accorded enthusiastic applause 
all along the way.  Mr. Goetz received the first prize for farm center floats, 
and was also the recipient of numerous letters from various parts of the State 
complimenting and congratulating him on his exhibit.
            At Marysville, on February 10, 1915, Mr. Goetz was married to Miss 
Mary Da Cosse, a native of Butte County, daughter of August and Virginia 
(Lemenager) Da Cosse, natives of Illinois. August Da Cosse came to the Tudor 
district about 1900, where he leased a ranch and reared a family of five 
children:  Lena, now Mrs. E. Schuler; Edward; Mary, the wife of our subject; 
Charles; and Chester.  August Da Cosse passed away in 1921, and the mother now 
makes her home in Oakland.  Mr. and Mrs. Goetz are the parents of three 
children:  Virginia, Margaret and Charles.  Mr. Goetz has always leased, in 
addition to his home ranch, from seventy-five to 300 acres of land, which he 
plants to grain.  In politics he is a Democrat.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 967