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 LEVI WOOD. There are few men now living retired in Oakdale who have so emphatically impressed their worth upon Stanislaus county as Levi Wood. While his name is associated with that of its most substantial and conservative citizens, his prestige has been gained in the fields and meadows of this fertile section, and is identified with unusual sagacity in purchasing and improving lands, and with the establishment of a standard which aspirants for agricultural hon- ors would do well to emulate. At all times practical and far-sighted, he is responsible for the improvement of at least five farms in the county, and his success has permitted the purchase of four properties besides the farm of two hundred and forty acres which he owns at present in the vicinity of the town. Mr. Wood is a self-made man from whose career one may derive both encouragement and help. He has given farming the best and strongest years of his life, has studied its every phase, and is competent to talk intelligently and instructively concerning an occupation upon which de- pends the success or failure of the markets of the world. He came to California in 1869 from Atchison county. Mo., to which his family had removed from Pike county, Ind., in 1855, and where an untracked wilderness, with its attendant dangers and loneliness, presented problems difficult to unravel. Born in Pike county January 1, 1847, Levi was eight years old when he went overland to Missouri, his father, Zachariah, taking up land in Atchison county, where the latter died when his son was fourteen years old. He was born in Ohio, and was of Welsh descent, and his father fought and was killed in the Black Hawk war. Through his marriage with Matilda J. Chambers, of North Carolina, he became the parent of ten children, six of whom attained maturity. Of these, Isaac died in Missouri; Samuel, who served in the Civil war in a Missouri regiment, lives on a farm near Portland, Ore. ; Aaron resides on a farm in Mis- souri ; Levi, the subject of this sketch, resides in Oakdale; Thomas died in Missouri; Mrs. Shack- leford died in Missouri. Levi Wood bad few playmates in his youth, for there were but thirty families in Atchison county when he first settled there, and of necessity the opportunities for acquiring an educa- tion were limited. Distinctly he recalls the disturbance incident to the breaking out of the Civil war, of the death of his father in the quiet of his farm almost when the first bugle-call was stirring patriots to action, of the hurried departure of his older brother to the front, and his own as- sumption of the responsibility of managing the home place in his absence. Putting his shoul- der to the wheel, he cared for those dependent upon him, and when the war was over and peace restored, established a home of his own by marrying Lydia Keeley. Mrs. Wood was born in Philadelphia, and came to Missouri with her father, Conrad Keeley. the latter of whom was a carpenter by trade, and a soldier in the Civil war. Mrs. Wood died in California in 1901. There are five sons and one daughter living, all of whom remain in their father's vicinity to comfort him in his declining years. William Elwood is a rancher near by : Alonzo Thomas owns and oper- ates a fruit ranch near Oakdale ; Harry J. is a funeral director in Oakdale ; Ralph is running a ranch near Oakdale ; Walter A. lives on the home farm ; Laura Evelyn also lives at home. Levi C, the second youngest, died in 1901. Mr. Wood remained in Missouri until 1869, when, owing to his health being broken, he came to California with his wife, and began to peddle fruit over the mountains from Tuolumne county. This proved admirable summer work, and his falls and winters he spent in Stockton, soon regaining- his health and spirits, and becoming thoroughly impressed with the many ad- vantages of the west. In 1871 he rented a farm on the Stanislaus river, and in 1878 purchased a farm of three hundred and twenty acres three miles south of Oakdale where he lived and pros- pered for ten years. He then bought a farm the same size twelve miles from town, remained thereon for eight years, and then purchased a half section two miles south of Oakdale, which he eventually presented to his sons. In 1901 he purchased his present home in Oakdale, and at the same time a ranch of two hundred and thirty-eight acres south of the town, which he has placed to grain and stock, and which now contains two hundred and forty acres. On all of these properties he established an ideal farming center, instituted the most modern and lab- or-saving of improvements, and secured from his land the best results compatible with soil, cli- mate, and general adaptiveness. He was systematic, practical and eminently far-sighted, making few mistakes, and those never a second time. He has always believed and lived up to the gos- pel of industry and common sense, has been loyal to trusts imposed and friendships enjoyed, and in consequence has won the lasting esteem of the people among whom his lot has been cast. A stanch but not active Republican, he is an exmember of the school board, and is a devout and generous associate and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church.