Fresno County Biographies

Ozias Bingham

Submitted by Sally Kaleta, June, 2007

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	Ozias Bingham was born in New Hampshire, February 6, 1832, 
and belongs to the sixth-generation of the Bingham family born in America. 
Thomas Bingham came to this country from Sheffield, England, about the middle of 
the seventeenth century, and from him is descended the American family of 
Bingham. Thearon Bingham, father of the subject of our sketch, was born in New 
Hampshire. He married Almeda Gillow, a native of that State, and the 
granddaughter of an Italian who joined his fortune in the Revolution, under 
command of General LaFayette. They had six children - five sons and one 
daughter. One son died in infancy, and another, who came to California in 1852, 
with his brother, Ozias, died in Westminster, Los Angeles County, in 1877. Mr. 
Bingham is the fourth child of the family, and at the age of twenty he came to 
this State with the intention of getting gold, returning East and obtaining a 
thorough education. He mined in Yuba and Sierra Counties, and was one of the 
first to adopt hydraulic mining, and during his experience in the mines he 
averaged about $10 per day in one claim, which was worked out in a few weeks. He 
continued mining for about three years, and has since been engaged at it several 
times, with varied success. He tried farming in Marin County, and remained there 
five years; moved to Solano County and took up a homestead, and after erecting 
buildings and making other improvements on it sold out and purchased land near 
Vacaville, where he resided six years and sold again; located in San Jose, and 
was for some time engaged in the real-estate business at that place; resided in 
Stockton five years; removed to Modesto, and from there came to Tulare County in 
1886. At first he purchased a place at Traver, where he lived until December, 
1890, when he came to his present locality near Dinuba, and purchased a 
twenty-acre raisin vineyard, which is now in bearing. Mr. Bingham was married in 
California, in 1864, to Miss Josephine Williams, a native of Iowa. She came to 
this state in 1853, and is a thorough pioneer in every respect, having witnessed 
the wonderful development of this great commonwealth. With her husband she has 
seen many of the hardships of life incident to the early settlement of a new 
country, and with true pioneer bravery they have met and overcome the many 
obstacles as they presented themselves, and are now happy in the possession of a 
comfortable home in this sunny clime. Both are members of the Presbyterian 
Church at Traver, and Mr. Bingham holds the office of elder in the same. He is a 
member of the F. & A.M., having been made such in 1858, and while at Vacaville 
was Master of the Lodge. He was a charter member of the A. O. U. W., at San 
Jose, and now belongs to the same Lodge, No. 17. In politics he is a Republican; 
has held the office of Justice of the Peace in Marin, Solano, and Tulare 
Counties, and during ten years' service has never had a decision reversed by the 
higher courts. 

Source: "The Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno, 
Tulare, and Kern, California," Lewis Publ. Co., 1892, pp. 610-611.