Early California Settlement

The early Woods family joined the national expansion even as it had barely settled in Ohio in Dayton. Perhaps the earliest in the family to lead the movement west was Jonas, son of Jeremiah and Virginia, as many did following their participation in the Mexican-American War. 

 Jonas Stansbury Woods

5. Jonas Stansbury Woods is notable as a pioneer as much as his father. He was born as third son of Virginia and Jeremiah on 1 Dec 1825 in Ohio. The middle name Stansbury has been a matter of some mystery. It is possible Stansbury was 2. Jeremiah or Virginia’s mother’s birth name, but it is somewhat unlikely. Jonas’ birth predates most known historical Stansbury names in America. In the 1700s there were Stansbury families in New Jersey and Maryland, and at least one in Kentucky about 1800. One Baltimore family of some note dates to the time period. Their connection to the Woods or Soward or Lowers family has not yet been shown.

5. Jonas Woods helped his father move from Ohio to Missouri in 1840 at age fifteen, married Emily Hawn in 1845 in Platte Co. Missouri. She was age 15, possibly born in New York in 1829, and he was 20. Her family is unknown here. Emily died at Sacramento at age 87 in September, 1916.[1] Censuses show her birthplace variously also as Germany and Ohio.

Within the year after marrying, Jonas enlisted at Fort Leavenworth in June, 1846. He became a second lieutenant and then a captain during the Mexican-American War in 1847 that acquired the southwestern states. Jonas led a Weston, Missouri, infantry company to defeat a superior force.[2]

The war lasted from early 1846 to late 1847 after the United States annexed west Texas and parts of neighboring states, claiming ground to the Rio Grande. American ground forces advanced into today’s northern Mexico, while other forces blockaded Pacific ports and captured Mexico City. Resulting treaties recognized the Rio Grande River as the border and Mexico ceded Texas, New Mexico and southern California in 1848.^[3] Jonas returned home and within a decade, gathered up his family and moved to the West.

Before the war, Mexico claimed all of present day Texas to the southern border of Oregon. In 1830 Mexican citizen John Sutter won approval from the Mexican state to establish a new settlement, an “empire of civilization,” at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers in California. Discovery of gold at Sutter’s mill in 1848 set off the gold stampede, destroying Sutter’s plans for his commune of Helvetia. Sacramento development began with trade at Sutter’s wharf at the join of the two rivers on the west side of modern day Sacramento.

Figure 14. Sacramento in 1850. (California State Library)

The rivers separate Sacramento from West Sacramento and Yolo Co. today. Flooding was a problem, requiring construction adaptations as the city developed. A cholera epidemic and conflicts with squatters characterized early years. In 1852 a fire burned over three-fourths of the city, followed by another in 1854. Sacramento was made the California State Capital in 1854. The San Francisco Valley Railroad was begun in 1855.[4] By 1860 Sacramento Co. held fifteen percent of the state’s population with 24,000 people, of which 14,000 were in Sacramento City. Total California population at that time was 380,000.[5]

Jonas and Emily Woods moved from Weston to Sacramento sometime in the 1850s, perhaps seeing opportunities as a builder following the 1852 fire. Their first child born there was in 1854. By 1860 Sacramento was the 67th largest urban place in the country. Jonas was living with Emily and five children in American, a township district with six hundred people on the north side of Sacramento along the American River. He was a brick mason.^[6] By 1870 Jonas’ five-year-younger brother Jeremiah Marion Woods was a deputy sheriff in Sacramento, and Jonas and Jeremiah were proprietors of Dexter Saloon and Stables on K Street.^[7]

One might muse that drinking and driving - horses - didn’t seem to be a problem at the time. Stables were as important in cities as parking lots today, and hired drivers likely needed a place to await a call. In Sacramento the saloon probably resembled an urban bar today where tradesmen, clerks and businessmen gather during the working day. In a city with over sixteen -thousand people by 1870, there must have been several stables and certainly more saloons.

5. Jonas Woods and Emily had six children. Rosella, born in Missouri in 1847 before the move to California, married Amos Mathews of Missouri in Sacramento in 1868, and they had a daughter Carrie. Alfred Stansbury Woods, born in Missouri in 1849, married Philomena Hess in 1874 in Sacramento and they had a daughter Emma. Anna Florence, born in Missouri in 1851, married William Cary in 1870 in Sacramento and they had four sons. Emeline W., born in 1854, married Joseph Augustus Martin in Sacramento in 1873 and they had a son. Mary Louise, born Christmas Eve, 1860, became a school teacher and lived with her parents until they died. She died in Sacramento in 1932.  Alice, born in May, 1862, possibly married William Sharkey. [8]

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[1] (Old City Cemetery Committee, Inc. Woods, Emily, Vo. A, pg 19, lot 1378)

[2] (Paxton p. 84)

[3] (Mexican–American War)

[4] (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sacramento,_California)

[5] (Gibson)

[6] (1860 United States Federal Census , American, Sacramento, California; roll M653_63, img 163, FHL film 803063; pg 160-161; fam 1366, ln 38-40, 1-4 [Woods])

[7] (City Directory Sacramento CA, 1873; pp. 486-7, ln 24, ln 4,7,9,10 Woods)

[8] (Old City Cemetery Committee, Inc. Lot 1378 Rosa Mathews), (California Marriages 1850-1945 FHL film 1302107, Sacramento,, 3 May 1903, Hood William and Woods, Emma), (1910 United States Federal Census Franklin Twp, Sacramento, California, ED 92, roll 92, part 1, page 115B)