YUBA COUNTY
Biographies
ISAAC NORTON BROCK
To those who knew and esteemed the late public-spirited and widely popular Isaac Norton Brock, it will ever be a source of consolation to believe that posterity will not let his memory die. He was born at Troy, N. Y., on December 9, 1835, and died on May 12, 1906. At the age of twelve, he started to earn his own living, working on a farm. In 1854 he removed to Rock County, Wis., with his parents, where he continued agricultural pursuits.
Resolved to seek his fortune in the romantic land of gold, Isaac Brock left New York City on December 5, 1859, and traveled westward by way of Panama, arriving in San Francisco in January, 1860. Pushing inland to Sacramento, he landed in the capital with just five dollars in his pocket; and then he walked all the way to Nevada City, Nevada County, where he secured work in the mines and in a sawmill. For a while, too, he mined at Kentucky Flat, in Nevada County. Later, on coming to Sutter County, he worked in the Bear River hay fields. He also teamed to the mines, first using ox-teams, and then employing mules.
Mr. Brock at first leased 1000 acres of land in Sutter County. Later he began to buy land; and at the time of his death he owned 6000 acres suitable for grain farming and the raising of sheep. At one time he had about 10,000 head of sheep. One section of the home place of the original ranch is still in possession of Mrs. Brock. Mr. Brock was a successful farmer and business man, self-made, as one says, and he left a large estate. He was one of the organizers of the Farmers Bank of Wheatland, serving as a director; and he was also interested in the Wheatland Flour Mills. For eight years he was one of the supervisors of Sutter County; and he was a member of the school board of the Fairview district. He belonged to the Nicolaus Lodge of Odd Fellows.
At Janesville, Wis., on January 5, 1871, Mr. Brock was married to Miss Jeanette M. Parker, who was born in that place in 1851; the same month they came out to California, traveling by train and taking six days to make the trip. Mrs. Brock’s father, Capt. Nathaniel Parker, was born in Watertown, N. Y., and came out to Wisconsin as a young man, locating at Janesville, where he was engaged in contracting and building. On the breaking out of the Civil War he raised a company which became Company M, 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry, of which he was commissioned captain. He was actively in command of his company until he was severely wounded during the siege of Vicksburg, in 1863. From the effects of his wound he died soon afterwards. His widow, Martha Hart Parker, was born at Brownsville, N. Y. She was left with five children, three boys and two girls, whom she reared and educated in Janesville. Mrs. Brock was the third child in order of birth, and was educated at the Janesville High School. Soon after she had completed the course here, she was married in the Episcopal church of that city to Mr. Brock.
Ten children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Brock, five girls and five boys: Martha Ellen, now Mrs. D. I. Waltz, of Stockton; Alice Louise, the wife of Robert F. Dunn, of Wheatland; Minnie B., who died at the age of twenty-one; Blanche Elizabeth, the wife of J. T. Denton, of Waterford; Nellie Jeane, who married W. P. Rich, the city attorney of Marysville; Joseph N., of Piedmont; Horace J., in Sacramento; Franklin A., a rancher in Sutter County; Isaac Norton, who served in the World War in the Aviation Section of the United States Army, at Kelly Field, until after the armistice, and who is now assisting his mother in her farming enterprise; and McKinley Parker, a very promising young man, whose early and sudden demise was a very sad loss to his family and many friends. While attending the University of California, he enlisted in the Aviation Section of the United States Army; but he was accidentally drowned in San Francisco Bay, February 17, 1918.
Since the death of the much esteemed husband, Mrs. Brock has continued to make her home at Wheatland, looking after the varied interests he left her. She is active in both civil affairs and church work, and has been president of the Guild of the Grace Episcopal Church at Wheatland for the past thirty years. She is a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and of the Civic and Wednesday Clubs, and also of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the American Legion. Mrs. Brock was a member of the Woman’s Board of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, representing Wheatland, and spent much time at the Yuba County Building at the exposition, looking after the welfare of young girls, giving her time gratis as well as paying for her own expenses. In her liberal and kind-hearted way, she loves to do for and aid others; and all of her benefactions are accomplished in a very unostentatious way. Cultured and refined, Mrs. Brock’s pleasing personality has endeared her to her many friends and acquaintances in Yuba and Sutter Counties, who esteem her for her true worth.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 347-348
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