William Isaac was born 8 March 1827 in Tennessee. The Isaac family moved west, ending up in Platte County, Missouri, where William married Jane "Jennie" Netherton on 11 July 1848.
William and Jennie’s first child, a son named Eli Egbert, was born in Platte County in 1849. Three daughters and another son followed at two-year intervals.
Between 1858 and 1860, the Isaacs moved to California, where they were recorded on the federal census of 1860 for Contra Costa County. William was a farmer. Besides his own wife and five children, William was supporting his widowed mother Mary as well as several of his younger siblings. Six more children were born to the Isaacs in California.
By the 1870 federal census, the Isaacs were living in Gilroy Township, Santa Clara County, and William’s occupation was listed as ‘surveyor’. He also served as a Baptist minister and member of the San Jose Board of Education.
The William Isaac family left Salinas, California, in the spring of 1875, bound for the Arizona Territory. Arriving in Prescott, they stayed there for the summer. In the fall, William Isaac and his grown sons rode south to the Salt River Valley, where they staked out a homestead west of Phoenix.
In the spring of 1876, the Isaacs moved to Phoenix. They resided in an adobe structure at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Jackson Street while the men constructed a house on their new homestead, near what is now 35th Avenue and McDowell Road.
Among the household items the Isaacs had brought with them from California was a four-octave melodeon. On Sundays, the legs were removed and it was conveyed by buggy to the South Methodist (now Central Methodist) Church in Phoenix, where it provided music during the worship services.
To ensure that his younger children got an education, William Isaac founded the Isaac school. He assisted Captain Hancock in surveying the Grand Canal and was active in the local Masonic lodge.
William Isaac retired from active farming around 1890. He died 23 March 1900 of 'dilatation of the heart' and was buried in the Masons Cemetery. - adapted from a story by Donna Carr and Dean Isaac
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