California Biographies Mendocino and Lake Counties, California Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California With Biographical Sketches History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry Illustrated, Complete In One Volume Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914 JOHN EDWARD SINGLEY.� The practical farmer and stock-raiser ot the west, one in whom are combined good judgment and thrift, find repre- sentation in John Edward Singley, whose industry and intelligence have had fruition in the ownership of large tracts of land and great flocks of sheep as well as other stock. From earliest memories he has been familiar with the farm. Although reared to agriculture, he did not drift unthinkingly into the occupation, but rather it is the choice of his mind, the selection of his matured judgment. As he became a tiller of the soil through natural adaptation to the work, he has met with success to be expected in such instances. When he left the parental farm and started out for himself, he had four head of horses, but nothing more. Little by little he added to his stock. Saving and industry enabled him to purchase land. From a small acreage he enlarged his holdings until he is now ranked among the leading land owners of Mendo- cino county, where he resides in Bell valley, about five and a half miles from Boonville. Table Bluff, in the neighboring county of Humboldt, is Mr. Singley's native place, and December 6, 1865, the date of his birth. He is the son of George Henry and Sarah J. (Farrier) Singley, the father born in Ohio April 14, 1827, and the mother in Arkansas in 1840. They both crossed the plains with ox-teams in the early '50s but with different trains. They were mar- ried in Humboldt county, where the father was a farmer, besides which he ran a ferry across Eel river. Afterward he retired to Ukiah, where he died April 14, 1902, and where his widow still resides. Of their five children three grew to years of maturity, John E. being the youngest. As a boy he lived on a ranch on Eel river and attended the country school in the same vicinity. In company with his parents he came to Mendocino county in October, 1881, and here he has since lived and labored. Shortly after the arrival of the family in Ukiah his father bought a sheep range of twenty-eight hundred acres in Bell valley and there the two worked together in the raising of stock and in such grain-farming as the land justified. At the age of twenty-two the young man embarked in the contracting business with no capital except such as was represented by his horses. For twelve years he devoted the summer months to hauling tanbark and such other work as the neighboring logging camps made possible for a teaming contractor. During this period he did not relinquish ranching, but spent his winters in such work, as far as the weather permitted. In 1895 he bought fourteen hundred and eighty acres of stock range in the same neighborhood, on which he placed a flock of sheep. During the fall of 1896 he contracted to build a portion of the Ukiah road from Boonville to Ukiah and this task he com- pleted to the satisfaction of those concerned. The old home ranch of twenty- eight hundred acres he purchased from his father in 1897 and later bought another ranch of twenty-three hundred acres adjoining which extends nearly to Boonville, so that with his other holdings he now has a total of about seven thousand acres of stock range, the whole representing the results of his frugal economy and intelligent application to general farming and stock- raising. The Singley ranches are fenced and improved with buildings, are well watered by Soda creek and Anderson creek, and with numerous springs, some mineral springs. At the old home residence is the soda spring which has splendid medicinal qualities and a pleasant taste. Mr. Singley makes a specialty of raising Spanish-Merino sheep, and has an average flock of four thousand head ; also has an orchard of peaches, apples and prunes. He has always been interested in the upbuilding of his county and is always ready to give of his time and means to forward any public enterprise that has for its aim the betterment of the conditions of its citizens and community. When the railroad was surveyed into the valley from Healdsburg he willingly gave a right of way through his ranch, feeling it would be a great benefit to the valley.