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


GUY KILBURN. Numbered among the more prominent and prosperous of the earlier pio- 
neers of California was the late Guy Kilburn, of Newman, who came to this state in 1852, and 
from that time until his death, January 23, 1903, was actively identified with its agricultural and 
industrial prosperity. A man of sterling worth and integrity, honest and upright in all of his 
dealings, he gained the respect and good will of the community in which he resided, and his death 
was deeply deplored as a public loss. He was born November 17, 1836, in Tioga county. Pa., 
which was also the birthplace of his father, Wells Kilburn. 

Reared to agricultural pursuits. Wells Kilburn was engaged as a tiller of the soil in his native 
state until 1852, when, with his family, he came by way of the Isthmus of Panama to California, 
being shipwrecked while en route. Taking up land in Napa county, he was there engaged in 
his independent occupation of a fanner the remainder of his life. He married, in Baltimore, 
Md., Ann Guy, a native of that city. 

Having obtained the rudiments of his education in his native county, Guy Kilburn completed 
his early studies at a college in Baltimore, Md. Coming with the family to the Pacific coast, he 
assisted his father in improving a farm, and afterward engaged in farming on his own account 
in the Napa valley. Removing to Contra Costa county in 1867. he followed his chosen occupa- 
tion in Antioch for a year. In 1868 Mr. Kilburn located at Hills Ferry, and having purchased the 
ten hundred and twenty acres included in his homestead, which lies four miles north of Newman, 
he began the improvement of a farm. He was for many years successfully employed as a grain 
raiser, but devoted the latter years of his life to stock-raising and dairying, carrying on an extensive 
and profitable business until his decease. 

In Napa, Cal., Mr. Kilburn married Jeannette A. Smith, who was born near West Liberty, 
Iowa, a daughter of Egbert T. Smith. A native of New York state, Mr. Smith was born and 
reared on Long Island, his birth occurring in 1817. When a young man he journeyed on 
horseback to Ohio, locating in Franklin, where he took up a tract of timbered land, from which 
he cleared a farm. In 1835 he continued his journey westward to Iowa, where he continued 
as a tiller of the soil for nearly a score of years. Coming from there to California via Panama 
in 1852, he was employed in mercantile pursuits at Marysville for two years, and then went to 
Napa county, where he took up land, which he managed during his remaining years of activity, 
living in Napa until his death, in 1879, at the venerable age of eighty-five years. Mr. Smith 
married Sarah Schencke, who was born in Ohio, a daughter of Rev. William Schencke, and died, 
in 1 85 1, in Iowa. Of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Kilburn nine children were born, namely : 
Stella, wife of William C. Smith, of Stockton, Cal. ; Ada, at home ; Ruth, wife of George Stew- 
art, of Stanislaus county; Kate, wife of F. M. Eachus, of San Francisco; E. S., living at home; 
Ella, wife of W. G. Wilson, of Madera county ; Mabel, wife of L. M. Doty, of San Francisco ; 
Charles L., of San Francisco ; and Guy, at home. Politically Mr. Kilburn was a stanch Republican 
in his views ; religiously he was a member of the Episcopal Church ; and fraternally he was an ac- 
tive and influential Mason, having passed through all the different organizations of the Masonic 
order, and taken the thirty-second degree. He became a Knight Templar in the Stockton Com- 
mandery. Since the death of Mr. Kilburn, the family have sold the dairy business, and two hun- 
dred acres of land. The balance of the property is rented for dairy purposes.