Tredway pioneered cattle-raising, irrigation efforts in Lodi

Sylvester V. Tredway was one of the Lodi area's earliest pioneers and biggest landowners.

He helped pioneer cattle raising in Central California and helped guide Lodi's early development and attempts at irrigation, but not a great deal was written about him in historical references.

His cattle ranching partner, David Kettelman, may have stood out more and achieved more long-lasting fame with a major four-lane thoroughfare in Lodi named after him (even though the spelling was changed), but Tredway carved his way deservedly into local history with perhaps a smaller footprint and left a narrow little-traveled one-mile country road southwest of Lodi named for him.

Sylvester Vance Tredway was born on Dec. 21, 1821, in Pennsylvania. Some census and genealogy records list his birth year as 1820 and a few different eastern states as his birth location, but his obituary is the source cited here.

The Tredway family moved to Ohio, and that is where Sylvester Tredway met Isabel McLaughlin. They were both 20 years old when they married on March 14, 1842, in Jefferson County, Ohio. They lived in Steubenville and started their family right away. Their first child, George W., was born on Nov. 29, 1842. Two years later, their second son, William H., was born on Sept. 30, 1844. Their last child, a daughter named Rebecca J., was born on Aug. 3, 1846.

In 1849, Tredway was caught up in the gold fever gripping the nation with stories of the gold discovery in faraway California. At the age of 27, Tredway left his wife and three young children behind in Ohio and joined the flood of pioneers making their way across the plains to California's gold fields.

Once in California, Tredway tried mining. He soon realized the people getting rich were the storeowners who sold merchandise to miners. In 1850, he went to Winters Bar on the Mokelumne River, where there was a new strike. At Winters Bar, Tredway met David Kettelman, a German native five years younger than Tredway. The two men and Tredway's brother, James P. Tredway, decided to open a trading post. The partnership between Sylvester Tredway and David Kettelman would last more than 20 years and include a few different ventures.

The business grew, and soon they had stores in San Andreas, Poverty Bar and Diamond Bar. They hauled supplies in wagons from Stockton to the mining towns. Tredway and Kettelman started raising livestock and selling cattle to feed the miners. In 1852, Tredway settled on some land west of where Lodi eventually developed.

Beef was in demand in the gold mines, but the limited supply of cattle was mostly lean stock from the old Spanish rancheros. Cattle drives from Texas and the Midwest in 1850 brought good livestock to California, but more was needed. Tredway and Kettelman saw an opportunity, and Tredway saw a way to get his family to California.

In the fall of 1853, Tredway got on a ship and sailed to Panama, where he hiked across the isthmus and sailed north. Once back in the United States, he and Kettelman went through Missouri and the surrounding states and bought a large herd of cattle and horses. In March of 1854, Tredway gathered his wife and three children and began the trek west across the plains with Kettelman and drovers to drive the herd. Later that year, they arrived in the large valley south of the present city of Coalinga. The valley was covered in waist-high grass, and the cattle grew fat and attracted fine prices.

In the 1850s, Tredway and Kettelman bought land and amassed about 7,500 acres in San Joaquin and Fresno counties. They raised and sold cattle and hogs. Like all farmers in the area, they planted wheat and farmed the grain to feed their livestock and to sell.

Around the mid-1860s, Kettelman and his new wife moved to the Fresno area to manage the partnership's properties in the south while Tredway managed the properties in the north. After a flood in the winter of 1871, the Kettelmans moved back to Lodi. Sometime after they returned, Tredway and Kettelman ended their partnership and split the properties. With huge land holdings, plenty of livestock and vast wheat fields, they were well positioned as influential men in the emerging nearby town of Lodi.

Wheat was once king of the valley crops, but that fortune started to fade in the 1870s and 1880s. Midwestern farmers began competing in the marketplace, and more efficient farm machinery led to overproduction of wheat, which dropped the price. The wheat market was starting to go bust for Lodi farmers.

Once farmers began switching to grapes and fruit orchards, the obstacle of water had to be overcome. While grain and watermelons grew well in natural conditions, vine and tree fruit required more water. Farmers had to irrigate by pulling the underground water with wells powered by windmills and pumps or by tapping the Mokelumne River.

Tredway, Kettelman and others recognized the need to create a large-scale irrigation system. In 1875, they formed the Mokelumne Ditch and Irrigation Company. It was a group of farmers and businessmen who banded together with the purpose of building a dam on the Mokelumne River, a canal to Bear Creek and ditches to feed water to the farms. The company planned to irrigate 300,000 acres.

Capital stock was $200,000 in shares of $100 each. Tredway was named president of the corporation, and Kettelman was named treasurer. Other officers were J. E. Spencer, secretary, and directors, Benjamin F. Langford, Ross. C. Sargent, James A. Ellision and C. R. Ralph. Chief engineer was C. F. Holman. The men met in Jake Baker's harness shop in Lodi to conduct business.

In the summer of 1877, the stone dam was built on the river at Westmoreland's Bridge, about 25 miles upstream from Lodi in Calaveras County between where today's Pardee and Camanche dams are located. But the dam washed away with the first high water the following winter.

That was only the beginning of trouble. Opposition to the project mounted. The irrigation pioneers were called "land grabbers", and the company had trouble getting rights from landowners to dig ditches over their property.

By the summer of 1887, the Mokelumne Ditch and Irrigation Company was sold to a group of Southern California men, and the hopes of Tredway and Kettelman to irrigate from the river ended.

Following Tredway and Kettelman's initial effort, others made attempts to build an irrigation system. But the first successful project didn't get underway until Lodi's former druggist, Byron Beckwith, started Woodbridge system in 1886.

Tredway continued farming and raising cattle on his ranch north of today's Kingdon Airport off DeVries Road. In his last few years, he divided his property among his children but stayed at his ranch home.

Sylvester V. Tredway died on the afternoon of June 7, 1909. He was 88 years old.

Vintage Lodi is a local history column that appears the third and third Saturday of each month.

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Tredway pioneered cattle-raising, irrigation efforts in Lodi

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