BIO- Alley, Bowen- History of Santa Clara County

Born in Robertson county, Tennessee, May 4, 1827, where he was educated, reared a farmer, and resided for the first twenty-one years of his life when he stated for California.  The journey was commenced with a mule-team, but his he left before reaching Salt Lake, making the blance of the journey with oxen.  In the month of September, 1850, he arrived in Nevada county, and passed that Winter at the Rough and Ready mines, having fair success; in the Spring he moved to Poorman's creek on the South Yuba and at the end of six month set out on a prospecting tour.  After visitng Sonora and Vallicita, in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, he came to Santa Clara county and settled at Mountain View, on the farm now owned by his brother, D. B. Bailey.  In 1857 he proceeded to Tulare county, where he was engaged in stock-raising until 1864, when he settled in Almaden township on his present ranch of eight hundred and seventy-three acres  Married at Mountain View, in 1855, Ellen Sparks, by whom he has had a famiy of nine children,  Two of these are dead, those living are: Frederick, born December 19, 1858, in Tulare county; Nannie, born April 30, 1861; in Tulare county; Stonewall, born September 5, 1863, in Tulare county; Lulu, born December 23, 1868, in Santa Clara county; James and Wesley (twins), born September 17, 1871, in Santa Clara county; Bowling, born May 26, 1875, in Santa Clara County. 

Transcribed by Carolyn Feroben
History of Santa Clara County, California
San Francisco: Alley, Bowen & Co., 1881, 838 pgs.

SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES

SANTA CLARA COUNTY HISTORY-THE VALLEY OF HEART's DELIGHT