Yolo County Biographies


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




Watson M. Ruberts
 
One of Yolo county�s prosperous and progressive fruit ranchers is W. M. Ruberts, 
who came to California in 1879.  He was born in La Salle county, Ill., November 
27, 1850, and while a small boy accompanied his parents to McDonough county, in 
the same state, where he lived until he reached the age of twenty-eight years.  
At this period he determined to seek his fortune in the far west, and with his 
family journeyed forth, settling in Woodland, Cal., where he resided about a 
year.  Later he removed to Rumsey, Capay valley, where he purchased twenty 
acres, eight of which he planted to grapes, subsequently setting out on the 
remainder apricots and pears.  He now has only eight acres, having sold off all 
but this amount.
 
Shortly after locating on this land the Southern Pacific Railroad Company bought 
the upper end of the valley and proceeded to improve it, building a station and 
subdividing the land into ten and twenty acre tracts which they planted to 
fruit.  Owing to the superior shipping facilities thus established, the value of 
the surrounding land increased immensely and this section became on of the 
leading fruit belts of that state.  Not the least to profit by the change, Mr. 
Ruberts prospered rapidly, and in one season he and a neighbor shipped an entire 
car of raisin grapes.
 
Mr. Ruberts was married in LaHarpe, Hancock county, Ill., in 1878 to Miss Hattie 
Edgington, a native of Des Moines, Iowa.  Four children were born to them, 
namely:  George, a machinist at Willows; C. Arthur, an electrical engineer of 
Bakersfield; Charles Irvin, a contractor of Coalinga; and Richard, an electrical 
engineer employed in Yolo county and residing in Rumsey.  Mr. Ruberts is a 
stanch Republican, well versed in the political issues of the day, and is a 
citizen worthy of the esteem and popularity which he enjoys. 
 
Transcribed by Bea Barton
Source:  �History of Yolo County, California� by Tom Gregory.  Published by the 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1913, page 360.