Santa Barbara County Biographies

JOSEPH SEXTON

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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


JOSEPH SEXTON, nurseryman at Goleta, was born in Hamilton County, Ohio, nine miles from. Cincinnati, 
March 14, 1864. His father was a farmer and afterward a merchant at Dent, same county; then, in 1852, 
he came to San Francisco on the steamer Star of the West, on the Atlantic side, and the S. S. Lewis on 
the Pacific side, crossing the Isthmus by the Nicaragua route. The S. S. Lewis was unseaworthy, leaking 
badly, and on her next trip she came near sinking off San Francisco. After arriving in San Francisco, Mr. 
Sexton first became a dealer in wood for eleven months. Then he went to lone Valley, Amador County, 
and bought a tract of land, on which he started a nursery of all kinds of fruit trees. In 1864 he returned 
to San Francisco, then moved to Petaluma, Sonoma County, and bought a nursery, in company with his 
father, which he conducted two years; then managed the grain farm in Marin County two years, and 
finally, in December, 1867, lie came to Santa Barbara and bought ten acres within the city limits. In the 
spring following he went to the Goleta (signifying schooner) ranch and purchased forty-five acres. He 
has since added to that tract twenty acres. Here he started the nursery business first in town and then 
moved to Goleta. He started with fruit trees only, and afterward added ornamental. In 1882 he bought 
208 acres, and later 105 acres at Ventura; and next, in company with his father, he purchased a ranch of 
8,000 acres. He has about twenty-five acres in a nursery of fruit-trees; is now setting out 105 acres of 
blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) at Ventura. In 1872 the industry of raising pampas grass was originated 
at the Santa Barbara Nursery, by planting the seed � a discovery having been made with reference to 
selection and the mode of planting. In 1889 he shipped between 200 and 400 plumes, and since 1874 he 
has shipped altogether 1,388,000. At first plumes were valued at twenty cents apiece. The soft-shelled 
walnut also originated with Mr. Sexton, from seed purchased in San Francisco. In the nursery he has a 
full line of fruit and ornamental trees, the specialty being the soft-shelled walnut and ornamental palms 
in great variety. For these purposes he has under cultivation sixty-five acres. He has 300 varieties of 
evergreen roses. 

Mr. Sexton was married at Goleta, in 1868, to Miss Lucy Foster, a native of Illinois, whose father, Isaac 
B. Foster, was a money-lender. Mr. and Mrs. Sexton have seven sons and five daughters, and all living 
at home. 

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.