Merced-Madera County CA Archives Biographies.....Roberts, William Mason 1866 - 
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Author: John Outcalt (1925)

WILLIAM MASON ROBERTS

   A very well-known and successful man, one of the pioneers of the town of Los
Banos and a rancher of the West Side, where he has been engaged in the
blacksmithing business for many years, and also a man who has served in official
capacity in both town and county, is William Mason Roberts, who was born in
Smith County, Tenn., on April 10, 1866, the son of Oliver W. and Lucy A.
(Whitley) Roberts, the former born in Virginia and taken to Tennessee when he
was eight years old and there reared and lived his entire life as a planter. On
the maternal side the forebears were of English descent. Grandfather Roberts
came from Scotland and made settlement in Virginia. Oliver and Lucy Roberts had
the following children: Elizabeth, deceased; Wiley, of Tennessee; Tempa,
deceased; William Mason; and Donie, James, Melonee, and Robert S., all in
Tennessee; and Inus, of Long Beach, Cal. William M. was educated in the grammar
school of his native State, and in 1889, at the age of twenty-three, started out
to work for himself, doing odd jobs, blacksmithing chiefly, until 1890, when he
came to California and first stopped in Madera County, being employed in various
places doing work on ranches, later worked for wages at blacksmithing and
running a harvester each season for the large grain farmers in Merced and Madera
Counties, continuing some ten or twelve years, finally settling in Los Banos,
when the town was first started. He started in the draying business, but sold
out after a short time; then, in company with H. C. M. Reuter, he opened a
blacksmith shop. When the people were looking for a reliable man for constable
of Township No. 3, they selected Mr. Roberts, who was already serving as a
deputy sheriff of the county; he was elected and served for sixteen years, up to
1917. His partner carried on the blacksmithing while Mr. Roberts looked after
official duties. As he began to be a man of substance he purchased fifteen acres
just outside the city limits of Los Banos and lived there until 1923, then he
purchased the old Charles Aker place of eighty acres five miles from Los Banos
and moved there. This ranch is devoted to alfalfa and will come under the new
canal.

   William M. Roberts was married in Merced, on October 9, 1897, to Miss
Drusilla Mills, born in Santa Cruz County, but reared on a ranch near Soledad,
Monterey County, the daughter of John Board-man and Louisa Christina (Bickmore)
Mills, natives of Maine, among the pioneers who braved the dangers of the water
and overland routes to locate in the West. Mrs. Mills crossed the plains in
1849, and Mr. Mills came about the same time. Mrs. Roberts is a second cousin to
the late D. O. Mills, pioneer banker of Sacramento, and she is one in a family
of twelve children: William, deceased; Sylvina, of Gonzales; Rose, of Salinas;
Oliver, deceased; Clara, of Chico; Drusilla, Mrs. Roberts; Emma, of Corvallis,
Ore.; Edgar, deceased; Mary, of San Jose; George, of Oakland; Phoebe, Mrs. O. E.
Phillips, of Los Banos; and Rachael, of Long Beach. Mrs. Roberts' father was a
carpenter and farmer and died when he was fifty-eight; her mother died at the
age of fifty-four. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts have two sons, William Mason, Jr., and
Marvin Mason. Politically Mr. Roberts is a Democrat. Fraternally, he is a member
of Merced Lodge No. 1240, B. P. O. E.; Los Banos Lodge No. 312, F. & A. M.;
Mountain Brow Lodge No. 82, I. O. O. F., of which he is a Past Grand; and he
belongs to the Woodmen of the World in Los Banos.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
WITH A
Biographical Review
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
JOHN OUTCALT

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925


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