The Original Families: The McPeak Family
Anthony McPeak was born in 1836 in Callaway County, in central Missouri. His parents were Mathew McPeak and Mary A. Powell- McPeak (b. VA) and they left Missouri for California in 1852 when Anthony was about 16-years-old. They set out with an oxen team to make the nearly 2,000 mile journey with their eight children including Anthony.
When they arrived in Sonoma County, Anthony helped build his parents' home which was located five miles northwest of Santa Rosa and constructed completely of redwood.
On September 27, 1857 when Anthony was 21-years-old he purchased land of his own. Anthony bought 160 acres of government land at $1.25 per acre. The total purchase price was $200. This land was the present day Korbell property "where the Korbells now reside" (1911). It was Anthony who spent the next 14 years working that land to make it suitable for cultivation.
So in 1871, Anthony transferred the land to the Korbell brothers and, with the money they paid for the developed land, Anthony bought his "current" (1911) property near Hilton, the present day Hobson Creek watershed. Two years later, Anthony's father Mathew passed away and was buried in Sonoma County.
Originally, the property that Anthony purchased on the watershed was 694 total acres, but over time and as he grew older he broke the property up into smaller parcels, gifting portions of the land to his children so that by the time of the writing of his biography, he lived on 240 acres along Hobson Creek.
Originally, the property that Anthony purchased on the watershed was 694 total acres, but over time and as he grew older he broke the property up into smaller parcels, gifting portions of the land to his children so that by the time of the writing of his biography, he lived on 240 acres along Hobson Creek.
On April 18, 1864 Anthony married Malissa E. Bell, the 16-year-old daughter of Henry Bell and Catherine Kiser from Windsor who owned the general store and who Bell Road is named for. Her family moved from Lewis County New York, settled and were prosperous in Sonoma County. Together, Malissa and Anthony had nine children: Leonora (deceased by 1911), Harmon P., Presley P., Henry Martin, Minnie, Mathew Lawrence and their three youngest children who sadly died at a young age. |
1884 was a difficult year for the family. In mid-February their son Henry Edmund died before he was a year and a half old. He was the first McPeak to be buried in the little-known McPeak Cemetery at the crest of Rio Vista Rd. By mid-August, the couples youngest son Philip W. had also passed away and was buried near Henry. In 1892, tragedy struck again for the McPeak children. Wiley, their 14-year-old son died suddenly while loading a wagon in Guerneville. His strange and unexpected death was reported in the San Francisco newspaper. The rest of their children lived into adulthood. |
Anthony was well-regarded in the community. He was quite the traveler. He traveled throughout the United States from Oregon, Utah, and Arizona to Colorado, Texas and Nebraska. He was a staunch Republican, and it was said that the first person he ever voted for was Abraham Lincoln for President. The last vote he ever cast was for Theodore Roosevelt. Although many said he himself would be well-suited for politics, Anthony was never interested and instead preferred to spend time on his land.
A year after the writing of his biography, his wife Malissa passed away. At that time their land was called 'Cosmo Farm' a type of resort that Anthony and Malissa had developed and run. They were particularly ahead of their time in their thinking. The resort was formed not for ultimate recreational entertainment but rather for "quiet and rest" which was gained by their guests in keeping the land mostly in a state of "native wilderness" with some cultivated fields through the woodlands. At the time of Malissa's passing, four of her nine children were still living, two on the farm with their parents.
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The family ran ads in the San Francisco newspapers for their Farm turned Resort from the time it opened in 1905 through the years. Besides its ad, any time a notable community member headed north to stay at the Farm, it made the paper. In August of 1910, a San Francisco doctor reported back to the paper that he was having a "swell" time despite getting a bad case of poison oak.
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By March of 1919 the Cosmo Farm Ads were still running but the McPeak family was no longer mentioned in them. Quietly, in January 1919, Anthony McPeak finally passed away at 83 years old. According to the newspaper announcement, Anthony died "at home" in Windsor. So it seems he had moved away from the Land in his final years. However, Anthony's body was brought back and laid to rest at the family cemetery along with many of his children and wife.
This information is provided by the printed biography of A. McPeak written in the "History of Sonoma County" (1911) p. 523. This volume can be found at the local Genealogical LIbrary in Santa Rosa. Photographs are provided courtesy of the Forestville Historical Society's Website and newspaper clips were found as digital copies at newspapers.com. Some genealogical research was conducted on ancestry.com