San Diego County Biographies
 
J. M. WOODS

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

 
J. M. Woods, who at present is Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of San 
Diego, was born at Wheeling, West Virginia, in May, 1831. His grandfather was a 
farmer, and one of the first settlers in Wheeling; his father was a merchant and 
speculator in that city; his mother was a native of Pennsylvania. He was in a 
family of eight children, seven of whom are still living. At the age of thirteen 
years he moved to Missouri, and soon after accepted employment on a Mississippi 
river steamboat as freight clerk, which he followed for four years. In 1852 he 
started for California, in a company of about 100, with thirty wagons and about 
800 head of cattle. They were about six months en route, driving from Hannibal, 
Missouri, through Salt Lake City to Stockton, California, crossing the mountains 
by Central Pass, coming by the Volcano route. They lost very few cattle, but 
were engaged in many skirmishes with the Indians, who tried to steal their 
cattle. At Stockton the cattle were turned loose, and Mr. Woods and brother went 
to the mines of the Tuolumne river until the wet season came on, when they went 
to the dry diggings in Mariposa County, and they followed placer mining until 
1865, making considerable money. He then bought a ranch in the Buckeye valley, 
Amador County, and followed ranching until 1869, when a syndicate, who owned a 
floating Mexican grant, settled upon his land. He then came to San Diego and 
began farming and stock-raising in the Jamul valley, and later the sheep 
business in Poway valley, buying 160 acres and grazing in the mountains. In 1883 
he went to the Pamo valley and bought 1,000 acres of land, which he still owns, 
and which is to be the reservoir site of the Pamo Water Company; it is now being 
surveyed, and the building of the dam will commence in the spring of 1890. The 
reservoir syndicate is formed, and they have every prospect for securing the 
contract of supplying the city of San Diego. In 1884, Mr. Woods was first 
elected as supervisor under the law districting the county, drawing the short 
term of two years. In 1886 he was elected for four years, and was appointed 
charman [sic] of the board.
 
Mr. Woods has been twice married, first in Amador County, his wife dying in 
1873, leaving three children. He was again married, at Poway, in 1880, to Miss 
Rosa Babb, a native of Oregon. They have three children, all of whom are living 
and at home.
 
An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San 
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California, from the Earliest Period of Occupancy to the Present Time.... - 
Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. pp 135-136