Pioneering Families with Roots in Madison County

Pioneering Families
... with Roots in Madison County

REV. WESLEY PECK, son of Andrew and Polly Peck, was born in Hamilton, Madison County, New York, September 25, 1831. His father was born in Danbury, Connecticut, and his mother in New York. Luther Peck (Wesley's grandfather) felt called to the ministry in 1816, but told the Lord if he would excuse him he might have all his boys; and seventeen of his children and grandchildren became ministers! Andrew Peck was born in 1800, and died in Cortland, New York, in 1887. Wesley was educated at the Cazenovia Seminary, in Madison County, New York. He was married, in 1851, to Harriet C. Stiles, of Cazenovia. He entered the ministry in 1853, and served as a pastor and traveling minister for eleven years in the State of New York, when, in 1864, he came to California. Here he was pastor twenty years, and presiding elder four years. The district over which he became presiding elder consisted of eleven counties in Northern California, and he traveled over this district in his own conveyance, making 6,000 miles per year. Being in poor health, he came to Los Gatos in 1884, and served as pastor of the Methodist Church for three years. In the fall of 1887 he closed his ministerial duties, on account of failing health, and engaged in the real-estate business, in which he has been interested ever since. In 1887 the Los Gatos Land Agency was organized, under the firm name of W. Peck & Co. (W. G. Alexander and B. H. Noble).
Mr. and Mrs. Peck have had three children: Ellen H., who died March 27, 1876, in her twenty-third year; Charles Wesley, who died December 24, 1819, in his twenty-second year; and Lillie May, born April 4 1869, who resides with her parents. In January, 1888, Mr. Peck was appointed a Notary Public, to reside at Los Gatos.

Source: Anonymous. Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or, Santa Clara County, California: containing a history of the county of Santa Clara from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future, with profuse illustrations of its beautiful scenery, full-page portraits of some of its most eminent men, and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of today. Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1888, p. 296.