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 THOMAS MOOREHEAD. By virtue of the fact that his residence and the larger 
portion of his land lies in Stanislaus county Mr. Moorehead is a citizen of this county, but he also 
maintains interests in Merced county by reason of a small part of his farm lying across the county 
line. A pioneer of this vicinity, he has witnessed its development from a wild country into one of 
the valuable agricultural regions of the state and has himself been a large contributor thereto. 
During the period covering about thirty years in which he has made his home on his present farm 
he has brought the land under cultivation to grain and alfalfa and has acquired dairy inter- 
ests to the amount of about twenty cows. 

The Moorehead family has been identified with Stanislaus county ever since the sixties, and men- 
tion of the family history appears in the sketch of Robert C. a brother of William Thomas, pub- 
lished elsewhere in this volume. The subject of this narrative was born near Lewisburg, Green- 
brier county, W. Va., July 23, 1844, and at the age of six years accompanied other members of 
the family to Iowa, where he gained a rudimentary education in the schools of that day and 
locality. To a large extent, however, he is a self-educated man and has acquired his wide range 
of knowledge through habits of observation and reading that have characterized all of his mature 
years. When he was twenty years of age he crossed the plains with his father and two broth- 
ers and after his arrival at Boise Basin engaged with them in mining. The placer mines of El- 
dorado county attracted him to that part of California in 1868. but the results were discouraging 
and he determined to seek a more certain means of livelihood. 

Upon his arrival in Stanislaus county in August of 1869, Mr. Moorehead found a wild coun- 
try, offering few inducements to permanent settlers. For two years he worked as a farm hand 
and meanwhile became convinced of the fertility of the soil when crops were selected suited there- 
to. In 1871 he began to farm rented land on Crows Creek, and in 1875 bought the place four 
and one-half miles southwest of the present site of Newman. His landed possessions aggregate 
two hundred acres, of which thirty-five acres are provided with irrigation facilities that render al- 
falfa a profitable crop. In addition to his own place he cultivates a rented farm of three hun- 
dred and twenty acres adjoining, all of which is under grain. On the organization of the New 
Era creamery, the first enterprise of its kind in this region, he became one of the original stock- 
holders and has since been associated with its management. Interested in educational affairs, 
he renders faithful service in the office of school trustee of Newman district. Fraternally he is 
connected with the Knights of Honor and in religion is a Presbyterian, being ruling elder of the 
church of that denomination at Newman. His wife, whom he married in Merced county and 
who was formerly Mary L. Johnsen, has been a life-long resident of this part of California. Dur- 
ing the exciting days of '49 her father, Bernard Johnsen, a native of Germany, came to the gold 
fields of the west, but after a brief experience in mining turned his attention to farming, and also 
became interested in sheep-raising on the Merced river. The five sons of Mr. and Mrs. Moorehead, 
John B., William D., Malcolm E., Charles C. and Marion H., are young men of promise and educa- 
tion, and all, with the exception of the eldest son who is clerking in Modesto, still remain with their 
father, assisting him in the management of his large interests, and, by the experience thus gained, 
fitting themselves for positions of usefulness and honor in future years.