Samuel Crawford Cleek

He went to California looking for gold in 1849 then returned to Virginia. He enlisted and mustered as Private, Company D, 37th Virginia Infantry on 3 March 1862 in Estillville, VA.

He was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was admitted to Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, VA on 27 September and sent to Danville, VA on 3 November. He returned to duty on 10 November 1862.

He married in Virginia in 1877 then went to Orland in the Sacramento Valley of California. Beginning in poverty, he built a successful one-acre farm there that became something of a wonder for the density and variety of its products.

His service from Rankin1 via the Historical Data Systems database. Details from family genealogists. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Elizabeth Gillett (1834-1917) in 1877.

See more about his tiny farm in a sketch called A Farmer's Legacy in the Irrigation Age of November 1904 or in The Smallest Complete Farm in the World from Popular Mechanics of October 1905.

05/25/1825; Bath County, VA

11/30/1903; Glenn County, CA; burial in Orland IOOF Cemetery, Orland, CA