Danford Atwood was born in Connecticut in 1823. His parents were Mormons and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, at an early day, and from thence to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where in 1850 Mr. Atwood married Miss Jane Garner, of Hancock County, Illinois. She was the daughter of George and Elizabeth (Hedrick) Garner, natives respectively of North Carolina and Indiana. They had six children. Mrs. Garner died in Illinois at the age of thirty-two, and Mr. Garner married Lydia Hill.
In 1836 he went to Council Bluffs, where he remained nearly two years, and then came to California, in 1852, by ox team. He bought land on Lytle creek, where the woolen mill now stands, and was there for twenty years. He then sold out and went to Salt Lake, where he was killed by a runaway team August 31, 1877. After our subject’s marriage he lived at Council Bluffs ten years, where he was engaged in farming and stock raising. May 1, 1860, he left Council Bluffs, crossing the plains to California, and arrived in San Bernardino December 1 of the same year. Here he bought land, which he held two years and then sold. He then bought 100 acres of land in Warm creek district, where he now lives, built a comfortable residence and has done a good dairying business, also stock-raising and general farming for several years. They have reared a family of eight children, viz.: Eveline, now Mrs. John Lett; Ernestine, now the widow of Mack Van Lennen; Arnold, who married Miss Alice Fredericks; Ann, now the wife of William Banford; Emma, now Mrs. John Shay; Ida, wife of Wm. Benson; Sarah, wife of George Holiday, and Lizzie, an accomplished young lady, still at home. Mr. and Mrs. Atwood have labored hand in hand for many years. They have endured the hardships of pioneer life and have reared a large and respect-able family and made a pleasant and comfortable home. They are worthy of mention in a work of this kind as true pioneers.