From: Centennial Yearbook of Alameda County, Oakland, Cal.: W. Halley, 1876.

William Meek

This gentleman is the model farmer of Alameda County. His residence is at San Lorenzo, and his ranch extends towards Haywards more than three miles. He left Van Buren County, Iowa, on the first day of April, 1847, and crossed overland to Oregon City, where he arrived on the 9th day of September, the same year, with a large party of immigrants. Among Mr. M's effects was a wagon loaded with fruit trees and seeds. This constituted the first lot of grafted fruit trees on the Pacific coast. There were seedlings already in the country, introduced by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Located at the town of Milwaukee, on the Willamette river, five miles from Portland, and went into the nursery business in June, 1848, with Mr. Henderson Lewelling, whom he had known in Iowa. In the Fall of 1848 he went to the California gold mines with an ox team, and remained till the following May. The party he came to California with, made the first wagon track from Oregon to California, passing through the Modoc country, and skirting the lava beds. On his return to Oregon, continued fruit-growing and lumbering, till December, 1859.

That year sold out in Oregon, and removed to San Lorenzo, in Alameda county. His first purchase of land was 400 acres, of HW Crabb. This land originally belonged to the Soto grant. He subsequently bought 1600 acres more, which made 2,000 acres. At first he devoted his attention to grain-growing and general farming. He managed his land with skill, and followed a system of rotation.

In 1864 Mr. Meek farmed 2,200 acres of land, on which he had 20,000 almond trees, and sold from his nursery that year a similar number. He also planted out 7,000 more. He had 4,200 cherry trees, 3,000 plum and prune trees, 225,000 currant plants, making altogether 260 acres of fruit trees.

No man bestows more care and attention on his land or experiments more successfully. He has a water reservoir in the foothills, about three and a half miles from his home, and the water is conducted in pipes through his lands for irrigation. In 1870 he erected the finest farm house in the county, which cost him $20,000 and the furniture $5,000 more.

He has 90 head of horses, including 50 work horses and mules. He milks about a dozen cows, and pastures 800 to 1,600 sheep, according to the season. He employs a large number of hands, but not Chinamen.

When he raised fruit in early days in Oregon, prices were very high and produced fortunes. Apples sold by the box, which was then about a bushel measure, for $1.50 a pound weight; cherries sold for $2 a pound, and plums $1. The year 1856 was the most profitable time for cherries; 1856-7 for apples. It was no uncommon thing to pay a dollar for an apple. He netted $45,000 in two years' business.

Mr. Meek has grown on his present land 80 acres of corn, producing 70 bushels shelled, to the acre. In 1874 he grew a marrowfat squash that weighed 149 lbs. In his nursery he grows oranges, lemons and limes. In one late year, he raised 50 acres of tobacco, which was sent to Louisville, Kentucky, and which was highly prized. Mr. Meek's plan of rotation is as follows: Pastures 500 to 600 acres in one year; next year sows wheat; next barley, and next Chevalier and common barley. He makes cash rent out of the pasture. In 1873 Mr. Meek raised 30,000 centals of wheat and barley; but the writer has not learned of his operations during the past two years, which he has no reason to suppose have diminished.

Mr. M. was elected a county supervisor for four terms, commencing in 1862. He is a married man, has raised a family, and unless the writer is mistaken, is a grandfather. He is a native of Ohio, and is now in his sixtieth year.
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