Tulare County Biographies

DANIEL WOOD

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
A native of the Empire State, at one stage of our national development a mother 
of pioneers, Daniel Wood went early to Wisconsin, whence, in 1849 he came across 
the plains to California as a member of a party of thirteen whose experiences 
during their six months' journey were perilous and painful in the extreme. Once 
they were obliged, in the desert, to burn some of their wagons for fuel, and a 
few of the party died of cholera. After his arrival in California, Mr. Wood went 
into the mines at Hangtown, where flour was $50 a sack, one onion cost $3, and 
eggs readily brought $1 each. Of course it will be understood that the lack of 
local production and the excessive cost of transportation were factors in 
determining these almost prohibitive prices. When he was done with the mines, he 
went to San Francisco, whose Indian camps were then its most conspicuous 
features. From there he went to Mariposa county, where he taught school for a 
time. He was one of the first white men to visit the Yosemite valley. Eventually 
the fortunes of the border brought him to Visalia and soon he was employed to 
teach in the old Visalia Academy and later given charge of schools in other 
parts of Tulare county. He was one of the founders and a constituent member of 
the first Methodist class organized in Visalia and was the pioneer berry-grower 
of Tulare county, taking off a crop of strawberries worth $1600 from one acre of 
ground. During the pioneer period he operated a ranch of two hundred and forty 
acres near Farmersville, Tulare county. For some time he held the office of 
justice of the peace, by authority of which he performed the marriage ceremony 
of the famous Chris Evans.
The state of Indiana includes what was the birthplace of Miss Carrie 
Goldthwaite, who became Mr. Wood's wife, and bore him children as follows: 
Daniel G., George Litta, Stella, Edna and Edward. John W. Goldthwaite, Mrs. 
Wood's father, came to California by way of the overland trail, in the pioneer 
days, took up government land and developed a ranch in Tulare county. He saw 
service in the Union army during the Civil war and had an intimate personal 
acquaintance with Gen. W. T. Sherman. In the years after the war until he passed 
away he was a leading spirit among Californians of the Grand Army of the 
Republic.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 751