Joe came to Tuolumne County in 1853 after the heavy winter that turned the freight roads into mires of mud and cut Sonora off from food and supplies. He married the teen-aged Ruth Parnell about 1858. In the 1860s, Joe was a toll bridge keeper, a miner, a farmer, and a stockraiser settling in the Green Springs area. Joe and Ruth produced a large family before she died in 1873. The family remained in the Green Springs area while the children were young, before Joe moved down into the Oakdale area in the 1880s where he continued to farm and work as a teamster. His farming operations moved to the grain fields of eastern Stanislaus and Merced counties in the early 1890s before returning to Tuolumne County by the end of the decade. He continued to work as a day laborer until his death. While clearing timber near the Eagle-Shawmut Mine near Chinese Camp, a surface mining blast from significant distance threw a rock fragment that severed his foot. He died the following day from the injury. He was buried by the C.H. Burden Undertaking Company in the Sonora City Cemetery 20 Sep 1903.
Joe came to Tuolumne County in 1853 after the heavy winter that turned the freight roads into mires of mud and cut Sonora off from food and supplies. He married the teen-aged Ruth Parnell about 1858. In the 1860s, Joe was a toll bridge keeper, a miner, a farmer, and a stockraiser settling in the Green Springs area. Joe and Ruth produced a large family before she died in 1873. The family remained in the Green Springs area while the children were young, before Joe moved down into the Oakdale area in the 1880s where he continued to farm and work as a teamster. His farming operations moved to the grain fields of eastern Stanislaus and Merced counties in the early 1890s before returning to Tuolumne County by the end of the decade. He continued to work as a day laborer until his death. While clearing timber near the Eagle-Shawmut Mine near Chinese Camp, a surface mining blast from significant distance threw a rock fragment that severed his foot. He died the following day from the injury. He was buried by the C.H. Burden Undertaking Company in the Sonora City Cemetery 20 Sep 1903.
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