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Surnames: Cady Nourse Blackwood Jameson Davis Plummer Pringle
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/WNH.2ACIB/602
Message Board Post:
Hope someone enjoys the information I found in this old book of California. Stoel
Cady's daughter Edna Mae Cady (b. 1871) was married to Alney Jameson Nourse, Jr. They
had two children, Ruth L. and Ralph C. Nourse. I have information on Ralph C. Nourse
(1900-1972).
Here is a reproduction of the info printed in the book about Stoel Cady:
PEN PICUTRES from the GARDEN OF THE WORLD
History of San Joaquin County, California
Illustrated History of San Joaquin County
Published: Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.
Biographical Sketches
Page 338
Stoel Cady
Stoel Cady, a rancher of Dent Township, was born in Otsego County, New York, April 18,
1824, a son of Horace and Eunice (Cady) Cady. The parents had a common ancestor some
generations ago, and both were natives of Connecticut. The family moved to Illinois in
1840, and settled in Schuyler County. The father died in 1862, aged sixty-three years,
and the mother in 1873, in her seventy-ninth year. The paternal grandfather, Reuben Cady,
also a native of Connecticut, was a soldier of the Revolution, who settled in New York
State and lived to be over seventy; his wife also reached an advanced age. The Cadys are
believed to have been long settled in New England, probably since some time in the
seventeenth century.
Stoel, the subject of this sketch, remained at home and worked on his father’s farm until
twenty years of age, when hid did farm work on his own account for five years in Illinois.
He came to California, crossing the plains in 1849, and arriving at Weaverville on the
10th of September, and mined there that winter, making about $900. He afterward made $600
in six days, but found that the claim belonged to others, whereupon he vacated it, and
never afterward was able to make more than $2 a day at mining. With seventeen others he
sunk his all in a mere pretentious mining enterprise in one month, then he withdrew from
that pursuit with disgust. In May 1850, he cam to Sacramento and went to work as helper
in a blacksmith shop at $8 a day. He then worked on the levee, in that city, continuing
on that job till January, 1851, when he came to Stockton and took charge of some stock on
the open ranges of Stanislaus County, for the Sacramento levee contractors, his late emp!
loyers, who were owing him $900, of which he received but $16. He sowed forty acres to
barley, the first ever sown in that county, and sold his crop, straw and all, for ten
cents a pound. Here, again, he was dislodged, at being discovered that the land was part
of a Mexican land grant. He then crossed the Stanislaus into San Joaquin County, in 1851,
to his present location, about two miles east of Ripon, where he bought a possessory right
to 160 acres. He then filed pre-emption papers, with his brother, for 160 acres each,
which they proved: he afterward bought out his brother.
In 1853 he went East, via Panama, and returning drove fourteen horses and 225 head of
cattle across the plains from Illinois. These he unfortunately kept too long, until 1857,
and did not make much by the venture. He bought his last piece of land in 1854, and his
ranch has since comprised about 816 acres, of which 164 acres are bottom land, and the
remainder good wheat growing upland. He has devoted his whole attention to farming, and
has aspired to no office, nor held any except that of school trustee.
Mr. Cady was married August 1, 1854, to Miss Nancy Jane Pringle, born in Illinois in 1832,
daughter of William Pringle, whose acquaintance he had made in crossing the plains in
1853. Two years after his marriage Mr. Cady erected a handsome residence on his place.
Mr. and Mrs. Cady are the parents of four living children, viz: Isabel Eunice, born June
8, 1855, now the wife of J.A. Plummer, a lawyer of Elko, California; Frank Pringle, born
September 7, 1857, a graduate of the Stockton Business College, married October 1, 1878,
has one boy, Leon Roy, born October 30, 1879; Fred, born April 6, 1859, is foreman on a
cattle ranch in Nevada; May, born August 20, 1871, is now (1889) taking a course in the
Stockton Business College.