This is the S & S Market, originally the Gibson Store

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     One of our members is researching the history of Thornton. In the process, she has found some interesting bits of information, which we share with you. Here's what has been learned thus far.  If you have information, or photos about this town or the families that lived here, please send them to us.

Mokelumne City was located three miles north of the present city of Thornton on the road to Franklin. 

     In 1850, just after the Benson Ferry river crossing was established, Mokelumne City was surveyed along the river's edge, and lots were sold. The building of the Lower Sacramento Road in 1853, through Woodbridge, connected Stockton to Sacramento and helped the area grow. Mokelumne City was laid out at the junction of the Cosumnes and Mokelumne Rivers. The Snap brothers opened a general store, and the town provided supplies to the miners in the Mother Lode. The river was its lifeline. Light steamers could navigate the river ten miles above the point where the Mokelumne merged with the San Joaquin River.

     In 1857, a sloop, the Mary Bowers, sailed up the Mokelumne to its junction with the Cosumnes at Mokelumne City. At one point, Mokelumne City, with its deep-water connection to San Francisco, was the second largest city in San Joaquin County. It competed only with Stockton. Mokelumne City boasted 23 houses, a hotel, and a lumberyard. As the gold rush ended, the trade to the mining camps lessened, and Mokelumne City began to decline. The final blow came in 1862 when the flood came. Nineteen houses were swept away. All the bridges across the Mokelumne were gone, even the one far up river at Clements. After the flood, very little remained. A few people stayed until 1898 when the Barber family purchased the town site.

     Today, the Housken House stands on Franklin Road. It was originally two buildings, a hotel and a bar. In the flood of 1862, it floated downstream a half-mile south and a little east of the town. Because it came to rest on land owned by the same man, it was not returned to its original site. Instead, it was put on logs, pulled by a team of horses, and placed next to a nearby road. The house gets its name from W.C. Housken, who was born in the house, who was a Justice of the Peace for Union Township and was a resident of Thornton for over 83 years.

     Benson Ferry: Just one-third mile west of Mokelumne City was the river crossing, Benson Ferry. It was established by Edwin Stokes and A.M. Woods. John A. Benson purchased the ferry in 1850. He then built a house there in 1852. During the flood of 1862, the Benson house was lashed to a large tree and was saved from being washed down river. On December 5, 1996, a brush fire, which got out of control, burned the old Benson House and the Benson Ferry. The Benson Ferry Road sign is all that remains today.

     New Hope: New Hope was founded because of the flood of 1862. It replaced Mokelumne City. This time, the town was not built directly on the river.

     New Hope grew slowly. By 1880, New Hope had a blacksmith shop, stable, saloon, post office, and several homes. In 1863, Arthur Thornton purchased a ranch in New Hope, and in1879, he married Emma Greives. Mr. Thornton built a two-story home and opened a store with a partner, E.A. Borrland. The daily stage line to the Lodi Railroad Station ran by their store. On November 12, 1878, Arthur Thornton was appointed Postmaster, a position that he held for thirty years.

     In 1904, the Western Pacific Railroad wanted to put a line through New Hope. Arthur Thornton, who owned 1000 acres of land, offered the right-of-way through his land, with the thought that the railroad would bring business to New Hope. The Western Pacific honored Thornton by naming their new station and large freight depot after him. The city, New Hope, was officially renamed "Thornton" five years later on November 26, 1909.

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The Last of The Thorntons

(Chapter 8 from Tapestry: A Collection of Writings from Pioneer Days)

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     In August, 1959, the Sacramento Bee published the following story about Jessie Thornton, the last of pioneer Arthur Thornton’s family, who was then 80 years old and still maintaining the Thornton Hotel.

San Joaquin County - It is unusual to find an octogenarian tending bar, particularly when that bartender happens to be an 80 year old woman.

     Jessie Thornton takes her occupation in stride, just as she does all the other duties in running a 14 room hotel. Her 80 years rest lightly on her shoulders, and she considers her present work merely one of the interesting facets in a life made up of exciting incidents. These have ranged from doing her share in fighting floods along the Mokelumne River to taking voice lessons in Italy.

     Miss Thornton says she is the last of the Thorntons, a family of early settlers in the region. The town, originally called New Hope, was renamed for her father, Arthur Thornton, who came to the area from Scotland in 1865 and operated the general store, post office and Wells Fargo office. In addition, he owned and managed large farming acreages. A farm of 5,000 acres was just average sized in her father’s time.

     The hotel, with its vine covered porches, originally was the family home, built by her mother and father in 1871, in which they raised their five daughters.

     “Those five girls were a bitter disappointment to our Chinese cook”, Miss Thornton relates. “When the last girl arrived, he said, ‘Oh, no, not another girl!’ and went out on a two week drunk.”

Miss Thornton recalls a girlhood filled with memories of winter floods, when they were surrounded by water from the Mokelumne and Cosumnes Rivers.

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     “Thornton is on higher ground, and never flooded”, she said. “The folks on lower ground would come from miles around, and would bring their cattle, horses, and possessions. Our big house would be full, and there would be people camping all around us in tents and makeshift shelters waiting for the water to go down. We always had to keep plenty of supplies on hand, because when those floods came, we were completely shut off in all directions.”

     “I remember on one occasion my father got in his rowboat and rowed all the way to the back door of the Walnut Grove Hotel, eight miles away.”

     During these flood-filled sessions, each member of the family was assigned specific duties by her father.

     “My sister and I had the job of getting up at midnight, putting up lunches, hitching up the horses and taking the food to the men out sandbagging the levees.”

     “It didn’t do us a bit of good to be afraid,” she said, “we had to do it anyway.”

     Her father built the first road between Thornton and Walnut Grove over a tulle filled-marshland. His unit of measurement was to have his daughters drive over the area, with a rag tied to the buggy wheel so that he could gauge the distance.

     Miss Thornton can remember the first levee building operations, when the work was done by Chinese laborers with shovels and wheelbarrows.

     Her own personal experiences included years of voice study in Milan, Italy, after which she conducted a studio in Sacramento. She has lived in San Francisco and other communities, but always returned to Thornton as home base.

     “It’s a hard town to leave”, she says. “It has such a nice climate and the people are so friendly.”

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The Barbers of Thornton 
(Chapter 7 from Tapestry: A Collection of Writings from Pioneer Days) 

     Since 1872, when pioneer George Barber moved to New Hope with his young family, there have been members of the Barber family in Thornton. Four generations of Barbers have lived in the area and taken an active part in the life of the little community. In January, 1975, the Lodi News Sentinal reported this history of the Barber family. 
George Barber, supervisor of the 4th District, is the fourth generation of Thornton Barbers to hold an elected office. 
 

     “I guess we have just been interested in our area and in helping make it a better place to live,” Barber said shortly after he was sworn in as the Supervisor from the north county district. 
 

     It all began shortly after 1872 when the first Barber settled in San Joaquin County. He was also George Barber and had moved here with his young family from Summerhill, New York. He purchased 100 acres in the Thornton area before the town was even named. 
 

     He purchased land which included the defunct town of Taison at Beaver Slough. This property is still being farmed by the family and the holdings also include two additional towns unheard of by the present generation - Mokelumne City and Benson. 
 

     Barber says today, “The old gentleman certainly knew good land.” All four generations of the family continued the farming operations, but they have also taken an unusually keen interest in community affairs. 
 

     Great grandfather George was a Justice of the Peace in the 1880’s and 90’s - an elective position. Many colorful tales of his career have regaled the family for years. 
 

     Court was held in Arthur Thornton’s saloon according to Barber. Proceedings would stop once in a while so they could have a drink and court would continue, although the judge was no drinker himself. 
The town wasn’t even named Thornton at the time. It was New Hope and the elementary school district there still bears the name. Thornton was the first to build a house in the area. He gave property to Western Pacific for a railroad line and the depot was named after the benefactor. 
 

     The area was still the “woolly west” before the turn of the century and the judge toured the circuit holding court throughout Union Township. 
 

     One of the tales still kept alive involves some very early Delta history. Barber said the judge was traveling by horse and buggy to Walnut Grove for court when he chanced upon a Chinese coolie with baskets of dirt on the end of a long pole across his back. 
 

      Credit can be given to these hard working people who built the first levees by hand in the Delta area soil reclamation. 
 

     But the horse had never seen such a sight as the long pole and baskets and was so frightened it jumped right into the river, the buggy with the judge following. Judge Barber made it out of the river, but his horse and buggy were gone. 
 

     Judge Barber had two sons, Edward and of course, George, who is the supervisor’s grandfather. They took up the community and farming duties where their father left off. He died in 1907. 
 

     They were equal partners in the farming operation and each also kept a dairy. They added to the family holdings and eventually owned 425 acres in addition to 100 acres in the Yaqui River Valley in Mexico. 
 

     The second George Barber, who had gone to the East for a part of his education, became a teacher. But within a year he returned to the Thornton farm. 
 

     Earliest county school records show that he served on the New Hope School Board - an elective position - from 1910 until 1925, but it could have been earlier as no records were available before then. He held the position of Board President, the same one that the Supervisor now also holds. 
 

     That was his only elective office, but he was a director of a milk producing association for 20 years and was active in other agriculture organizations. 
 

     His brother Edward, the present George Barber’s great uncle, was elected Justice of the Peace for the township in 1906 and held the position for approximately 20 years. 
 

     He was also elected to the first Galt Union High School District Board of Trustees. He was also instrumental in organizing the reclamation district in Thornton and was on the board for many years. 
The Supervisor’s father, James (an older cousin who died at an early age had already been given the family name of George) was appointed to the position of constable in 1939, by Supervisor Ellory Stuckenbruck. 
 

     At the end of the term he was re-elected and continued to be elected until 1951 when the lower court system was reorganized. He was also active in law enforcement associations during this time. In 1953 he was elected to the Galt High School Board and served two terms. 
 

     The senior Barber also held offices in the Thornton Progress Club which became the Thornton Chamber of Commerce. 
 

     This is where the present George Barber became involved. Shortly after being discharged from Military service, he attended a chamber meeting “and the next thing I knew I was elected president”, he laughs. 
 

     His community service actually began before that and has continued, unceasingly since. When he was only 18 be became scoutmaster for the Thornton Boy Scout Troop. “I don’t know if it was legal for me to be scoutmaster at that age and at that time, but there was no one else to do it”. 
 

     He picked up the reins of the family tradition at an early age and was elected to the New Hope Board of Trustees. He was 26 and the youngest school board member in the entire state, “at a time when it wasn’t popular to be young and running for office”, Barber recalls. 
 

     Still holding the New Hope trusteeship, he was elected to the Delta College Board of Trustees for two terms, resigning from the Delta College position when he was elected Supervisor. 

The George Housken Family
By Charlotte Cameron

     George Housken was born in Norway in 1838. Mr. Housken came to America and directly to San Francisco, California in 1850 at the age of 22. He was a captain and owner of the schooner “Reliance” which plied the Sacramento River and was engaged in the Oregon lumber trade. In 1857 he acquired patented land and opened a store at the head of Beaver Slough which empties into the South Fork of the Mokelumne River. In 1873 he purchased 380 acres of land in Union Township. His farm was well stocked with cattle and horses. 

     The legend is that his house was put together from two buildings that survived from the 1860 Mokelumne City flood. It has had improvements made over the years. This house still stands on Thornton Road about a mile north from the town of Thornton.

     George Housken married Katherine Ling of San Francisco, a native of Germany, in 1865. They had 8 children: Frank Oliver; Oscar (deceased prior to 1923); William Christopher; Kate (Mrs. Fountain of Oakland); Augusta (Mrs. Von Enden of Holland); Laura (Mrs. Cogshall of Berkeley); and Josie (Mrs. Von Doran of Portland, Oregon).

     Two of the sons remained in San Joaquin County. Frank Oliver Housken, born in 1868, was an attorney and admitted to the bar in 1890. He practiced civil law specializing in real property law in probates. In 1901 he married Anna Lammer and later lived in Tracy. Lammersville was named after her family.

     William Christopher Housken was born in 1873 on the family ranch near New Hope. In 1878 when William Christopher was 6 years old the levees were under construction. He recalled that the majority of the work was accomplished using wheelbarrows by Chinese laborers. In 1890 when he was 18 years old he enrolled in the Ramsey Business College in Stockton for a year before returning to his father’s ranch. The elder Housken by this time had two farms, 360 acres and 480 acres. Until 1898 William Christopher worked on the family ranch, then worked in the Whittaker and Ray Store in Galt. He was later manager of the Don Ray Company's store at New Hope for six years. In 1902 he married Sigrid Sigelkoff of New Jersey who came to Walnut Grove with her family when she was 8 years old. In 1907 William Christopher worked along the river for 6 years where he was a pilot of river launches and towing at Antioch for 3 years; then worked for 2 years at the Sampson Iron Works. During this time he maintained a home in Stockton. He returned to the family farm near New Hope, trading homes with his father, where he raised alfalfa and beans, and grazed cattle. William Christopher and Sigrid had twins: Merle (Mrs. Wight/Shirrella of Modesto) and George H. Housken. William Christopher served as Justice of the Peace and was a member of the New Hope School Board. The family lived in the house where he was born, which was built by his father.

     In 1907 he earned the title of judge by running successfully for justice of the peace - serving for four years. In 1936 he was appointed to the Justice Court and served until 1951. Several local couples were married by the judge at his home including Bruno and Loretta Mori; and Floyd and Annabelle Lavaroni.

George H. Housken was born about 1910. He married Leola and they had one son: George E. Housken. George H. Housken was a carpenter by trade. He died in 1988 at the age of 78. He served on the Reclamation District Board for 25 years. 

     George E. Housken born about 1942 continued to live on the property and built his own machine shop and was known as a very good craftsman. He married and had two sons.