Waterford

By Jeff Benziger

Nestled where the San Joaquin Valley begins rolling into the Sierra Nevada foothills, Waterford is steeped in a rich history. From its scenic Tuolumne River corridor, early gold seekers and travelers in untamed central California forded the summer stream here or crossed swollen winter flows by ferry. Waterford was originally named Bakersville for founder William W. Baker, who arrived by covered wagon in the 1850s. The fertile soil provided good farming and prosperity for disillusioned gold seekers. When an ingenious gravity irrigation system was introduced in the 1890s, farms thrived, drawing families, businesses, and churches. Rowdy saloons briefly flourished before stalwart citizens drove them out. Waterford s brave first settlers, farmers, and businessmen made their marks here, and included such visionaries as the Rudi brothers, longtime meat purveyors whose Waterford offspring included Oakland A s baseball legend Joe Rudi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: May 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781439639269

Jeff Benziger

Waterford resident and historian Jeff Benziger, the Waterford News editor from 1982 to 1987 and former city councilman, offers a fresh look at the very old history of Waterford through a vast photographic collection of the Waterford Historical Society and key families.

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One

WATERFORD’S BEGINNINGS

A RIVER TOWN SPRINGS FORTH

Benjamin Horr, Josiah Covey, and Elihu Beard were first to set up residence in the Waterford area. But the man who was to establish the town of Bakersville (later Waterford) was William Wilkerson Baker. The Berryville, Arkansas, native took a look at dry-farming opportunities in the Waterford area in the late 1850s and acquired 160 acres south of the river on a gentle slope near Lampley Road. Around 1859, Baker sold his land to John and Rachel Search to move downriver and across to the north bank. Baker established a business around 1866 charging miners and other travelers to ferry them across the river, which could swell with winter flooding. Men named ? James, William Sturtevant, and W.P. Crow operated a different ferry at Sturgeon Island from 1878 to 1879.

Baker’s ferry was run by J.A. Hayter after April 12, 1880; it operated until October 1889, when the county opened the wooden bridge it had built for $20,000. Stores, homes, saloons, and other businesses quickly sprang forth. One of the first buildings was a small cement structure dubbed the Old Adobe, built by Adrian Faure, an enterprising French man. The building served also as a store and home at the southeast corner of Yosemite Boulevard and Tim Bell Road.

For mail, Bakersville residents had to travel to Horr’s Ranch Post Office, eight miles to the east. Postal officials granted permission in 1871 for a new post office under the name of Waterford. The new town name was ordered because mail for the 40 to 60 residents was often misdirected to other California towns of similar names, including Bakersfield. The name Waterford was logical, due to the practice of fording the slow river in summer, made possible by low-cut banks on which the old town was anchored.

As Waterford’s civic and social ties began to grow, Grange No. 57 was one of first organizations to be established. The Grange operated from 1873 to 1881 (later resurrected in 1934), first meeting in a hall adjacent to the Baker and Summers Hotel, with S.M. Gallup as the first Grange master.

When the Stockton-Visalia Railroad came to Waterford in 1891, the entire town location shifted closer to the tracks. The old part of Waterford became known as Old Town.

The Summers and Baker General Mercantile, located on Yosemite Boulevard just east of Tim Bell Road, sold dry goods, groceries, hats, boots, shoes, and clothing. Established in 1862, the store and its stock burned in 1873. In 1868, along came the Summers Hotel (at left). Baker died in 1885; this picture was probably taken in the 1870s or early 1880s. Summers died in 1897. (Waterford Centennial: 1857–1957.)

William and Joanne Summers came to Waterford in 1857 with the Baker party. William was a native of Kentucky, while Joanne, sister of Caroline Baker, was born in Tennessee. She was known to all in Bakersville as Aunt Babe. Together, they ran the store and hotel at Yosemite Boulevard and Tim Bell Road while raising a large family. He died on November 10, 1897, and Joanne died on September 10, 1923. Both outlived their children, Frances and Nancy. (Waterford Centennial: 1857–1957.)

Belle (left) and Alice Baker were twin daughters of Waterford founder William W. Baker. They were born on December 5, 1857, in Nevada during the Bakers’ covered wagon trek from Arkansas to California. The girls lived in neighboring houses at the southwest corner of Covey Street and Tim Bell Road. Belle married in 1876, and Alice married in 1881. Both were honored as Covered Wagon Babies during the 1937 Stanislaus County Fair. Alice G. Baker Hayter died in 1942, Belle Elder in 1944. (Waterford Centennial: 1857–1957.)

Disease and accidents, abetted by the ineffectiveness of medicine, cut many lives tragically short in the 19th century. Ida Mae Baker, the third child of William and Caroline Baker, died at age 17 from an unrecorded cause on April 24, 1891. She is buried in the Roberts Ferry Cemetery next to her parents. (Waterford Centennial: 1857–1957.)

Born March 3, 1870, Nettie Baker, daughter of William and Caroline Baker, was married on January 14, 1891, to James Dolan, a local woodworker and shop owner who lived in a house at the southwest corner of F Street and Welch Street. Just over three years later, on April 7, 1894, Nettie passed away at age 24. (Waterford Centennial: