California Biographies

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 the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


WILLIAM B. CHARLES, M. D. A few links in the ancestral chain of our subject takes us 
back to colonial days. For it was before Washington's command of the army or the signing of 
the Declaration of Independence that Jonathan Charles, the great-grandsire of Dr. William B. 
Charles, left his native heather and English home to settle beside the blue Potomac in Maryland. 

The grandfather, Nathan Charles, who was a devout Quaker, was born in Maryland, and with 
his parents removed to North Carolina, where he was married. In 1818 he went to what is now 
known as Washington county, Ind., and in that new and unsettled country engaged in farming 
and also followed the saddler's trade. He attained a venerable age, dying in 1868, when ninety- 
one years old. 

The father of Dr. Charles, Levin Charles, was born in North Carolina and went to Indiana with 
his parents when a child of four years, receiving his training in the latter state, and in fact spend- 
ing his entire life within its confines. He became an agriculturist of some importance for 
those early days, and passed away when in his sixty-sixth year. First a Whig, on the formation 
of the Republican party he joined its forces and was at once one of its stanchest allies. He mar- 
ried America Rodman, a native of Shelby county, Ky., whose father, Hugh Rodman, also a na- 
tive of Kentucky, settled in Washington county, Ind., about 1825. He served in the war of 1812 
as a commissioned officer and died when in his seventy-sixth year, having spent his active years 
as a tiller of the soil. His father, Hugh Rodman, Sr., was born in Bucks county, Pa., and 
settled in Kentucky in a very early day, in 1786, going by boat down the Ohio river. He was a 
descendant of Scotch ancestors. Mrs. America Charles died in Indiana in 1875, at the age of 
fifty-two years, having become the mother of eleven children, of whom William B. was the sixth 
in order of birth. 

Dr. Charles was born in Salem, Washington county, Ind., March 12, 1857. After attending 
the schools of the latter city he received a higher training in an academy, and subsequently  
began teaching school. It was while thus employed that he began reading medicine and for 
five years diligently followed this method of self-instruction. Later entering the University of 
Louisville, he graduated from that institution March 1, 1887, and entered upon the practice of 
his profession in Norcatur, Kans., where he remained for eight years. In 1894 he identified 
himself with Kings county, Cal., locating in Hanford in March of that year, and has ever since 
made it his home, building up a lucrative practice and endearing himself to all by his thorough 
understanding of the medical science and by his winning personality. 

The marriage of Dr. Charles and Carrie S. Wildfang, a native of Wisconsin, was celebrated 
in Norcatur, Kans., November 30, 1887, and they have two children, Ethel and William Gordon, 
who are at home with their parents. While Dr. Charles is a very busy man, he has time to de- 
vote to measures which tend toward the betterment of his home locality and withal is a loyal, 
public-spirited citizen. He is a Republican of the deepest dye, and on the ticket of that party 
was elected to the office of county physician, a position which he has filled with credit for the 
past five years. His interest in his profession is deep and sincere and he keeps in touch with the 
progress and improvement which medical science is constantly making. Fraternally he is a Ma- 
son, holding membership in Hanford Lodge No. 279.