Santa Barbara County Biographies

J. VICTOR JESSEE

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


J. VICTOR JESSEE, surveyor and civil engineer of Santa Maria, was born in 
Woodland, Yolo County, California, in 1855. His father. Archer C. Jessee, was 
an early pioneer to California and was born in Russell County, Virginia, in 1821. He 
lived at home until 1842 when he was married, in Atchison County, Missouri, to Miss 
Mary Harbin, a native of Tennessee. After marriage he farmed until 1846, when he 
came across the plains to California with oxen, horses and mules, and was five months 
in crossing. He settled on the present site of Sacramento, and soon after arrival, in the 
fall of 1846, he enlisted under General Fremont in Fremont's Battalion, and was ap- 
pointed First Lieutenant of Company E, under Captain John Grigsby. They were at 
the battle of Salinas Plains when Captain Byrns Foster and others were killed, and at 
the skirmish at San Fernando. He served through the war and was discharged in April, 
1847. He then returned to Sacramento and later moved to Napa Valley, where he re- 
sided fourteen years, trading and dealing extensively in land and stock. He was the first 
Sheriff of Napa County and served two terms. In 1864 they moved to Lake County 
in same business and in 1869 came to San Luis Obispo ; then to San Bernardino in 
1873, and in 1876 to Arizona, where he died August 12, 1876. The family then returned 
to Santa Maria in 1878. There are ten children living, seven sons and three daughters. 
J. Victor Jessee was educated in the common schools and the private college of San 
Bernardino, and there studied civil engineering, finishing in 1875- In Arizona he fol- 
lowed his profession in general land survey and in running irrigating canals. He re- 
turned to Santa Maria in 1878, and in 1880 joined the United States Land Survey, work- 
ing with them one year, and since then has been chiefly occupied by his profession. He 
subdivided the Bradley ranch for the Santa Barbara Land and Water Company, and is 
frequently employed by the courts in cases of complicated boundary lines throughout Santa 
Barbara County. He has been a witness in thirty-eight land cases and has never lost a 
case. He does all the county work in the northern part of the county, and has done 
the necessary subdividing of the Suey Rancho. lie has all the field notes and 
data of the section of country about the Santa Maria Valley � made out by personal 
experience. 

He was married at Santa Maria on February 16, 1888, to Miss Mary McHenry, a 
native of California, and they are very happy in their little one, born January 23, 1890. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.