Alameda County Biographies

EDWARD WIARD

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
 
The subject of this sketch, whose portrait appears in this work, was born in New Haven, 
Connecticut, March 10, 1815, there received his education, and resided until 1835, in which 
year he proceeded to Georgia and engaged in steam-boating on the different rivers in that 
State, as engineer, until 1850.  He then came to California, by way of Panama, arriving in 
San Francisco in the month of August of that year, but shortly thereafter proceeded to the 
mines in Mariposa County, where he remained three years.  At the end of that time Mr. Wiard 
commenced mining on his own account, at which he continued until September, 1859, when, coming 
to Alameda County, he bought the place where he now resides, at the Oakland Trotting Park.  
The one hundred and fifty acres he then purchased, all of which he still owns, has located upon 
it the famous resort called Shell Mound Park, as well as the Oakland Trotting Park; while the 
principal portion of his property is laid out in gardens and rented, the picnic-grounds being 
leased to Captain L. Siebe, the �track� being under his own personal superintendence.  Married 
in San Francisco, July 10, 1867, Mrs. Mary Jane Colcord, a native of Maine, and has one child, 
named George Edward Wiard.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 996