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


GEORGE W. WIGLEY. A typical representative of the self-made men of our times, 
George W. Wigley has paddled his own canoe to some purpose, and now in the prime of a 
vigorous manhood is enjoying the reward of his earlier years of toil, having by his own efforts 
risen to a place of influence and affluence. Energetic, ambitious and far-seeing, he has met with 
excellent success as an agriculturist, being now one of the leading dairymen and farmers of San 
Joaquin county, his farm, with its valuable improvements, being finely located on the Stanis- 
laus river, three-fourths of a mile from Huntley, and but four miles from Escalon. A native of 
Georgia, he was born April 4, 1854, in Resaca, Gordon county, where his father, Richard Wig- 
ley, was a planter. His grandfather, Joseph Wigley, also a planter by occupation, was a native 
of England, and settled in Virginia. 

Brought up on his father's plantation, Richard Wigley chose the independent vocation of a 
farmer, and began his active career in his native state. Subsequently removing to Gordon county, 
Georgia, he farmed there till he removed to Franklin county, Ark., where he bought land on 
the Arkansas river, and was there employed in raising cotton until his death, at the advanced 
age of eighty-eight years, in 1901. His wife, whose maiden name was Minerva McKay, was 
born in North Carolina, and died in Arkansas at the age of seventy-five years. She bore him 
a large family of children, of whom nine grew to years of maturity, and six survive. Two sons 
served in the Civil war, and one son, Richard J. Wigley, resides in Tulare county, Cal., owning 
a wheat ranch near Portersville. 

Living in Georgia until 1868, George W. Wigley obtained the rudiments of his education in 
his native county, but completed his studies in the district schools of Franklin county, Ark. 
His ambition on attaining his majority was to seek his fortune in some newer country, and he 
thought strongly of going to Texas, but was dissuaded by his brother Hiram and induced to 
come with said brother to California instead. Arriving in San Joaquin county in March, 1874, 
Mr. Wigley soon found that he knew but little of agricultural methods as pursued on the coast. 
Determined, however, to become familiar with them, he worked out as a farm hand for two 
years. In 1876, with a partner, he rented a ranch of two hundred and fifty acres, and, not- 
withstanding that it was a dry season, he raised a good crop of wheat, which he disposed of at 
the rate of $2.45 per hundred, clearing $2,850 in the operation. Encouraged by his success, 
Mr. Wigley then purchased a farm of three hundred and five acres, and for several years 
carried on general farming and grain-raising with good results, and still owns a portion of his 
original purchase. He has since bought adjoining land, and now owns five hundred acres on the 
Stanislaus river, on which he has made improvements of exceptional value and worth. In 1898 
Mr. Wigley embarked in the dairy business, and has now the largest and best-equipped private 
creamery in the San Joaquin valley, having a two-horse-power steam engine, and all the modern ap- 
pliances for manufacturing butter, the output of his creamery averaging four hundred pounds 
per week. His farm contains one hundred and fifty acres of bottom-land, on which he raises 
large crops of alfalfa, and in his dairy he keeps about one hundred head of milking cows. 

Fraternally Mr. Wigley is a member of Oakdale Lodge No. 275, F. & A. M.