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


SAMUEL LA FAYETTE RITCHEY. In DeKalb county, Tenn., April 12, 1867, S. L. Ritchey was born, a 
son of Micajah M. Ritchey. The latter was a native of the same state and in 1870 he brought his 
family to California. He first located on the present site of Modesto, Stanislaus county, where he 
engaged in blacksmithing and farming for a number of years. In 1882 the family removed to 
Merced county where the father and his sons are all prominent and successful ranchers, widely 
known and esteemed for their business ability as well as personal worth. Their ranches are 
numbered among the first in point of cultivation and improvement in this section. 

Reared and educated in Stanislaus and Merced counties, S. L. Ritchey has known no other home. 
He remained on the paternal ranch and assisted in the home duties until 1892, in which year he 
took up independent operations and has since been engaged in farming for himself. He is now 
located one and a half mile from Le Grand, on Mariposa creek, where he has eighty acres of land, 
six of which are devoted to the cultivation of orchard fruits and a vineyard. He has a well two 
hundred and seventy-five feet deep, and a twelve horse-power pump, while in many other ways 
his ranch is well improved. Following the training of his boyhood and young manhood he gives to 
his work an intelligent and practical interest, and conducts his farming enterprise in a methodical 
and business-like manner. 

Mr. Ritchey married Stella Turner, a native of Texas, and they are the parents of two children, 
namely: Roscoe and Donald. Politically he adheres to the principles advocated in the platform 
of the Democratic party, and in his religious affiliations is a member of the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian Church.