(Editor’s note: This article was written by the late Ceres historian Mildred D. Lucas decades ago. It has been edited to reflect updates since the time she authored it. Mrs. Lucas passed away in 2018).

The white-pillared house, a mile and a half south of Ceres, sits gracefully among its tall palm, eucalyptus, elm and locust trees in well-kept grounds, facing Highway 99 and the Sierras far beyond.

The road in front, now Highway 99, has crept ever closer in the more than 115 years the house has been there. The old place has not always been so polished and sleek but that fact has not kept it from being a principal landmark for all of those years.

At first the house, in its simple beginnings, stood alone among the miles of grain fields, just one wing then, sited north and west of the older watering trough.

Barn, blacksmith shop and carriage house were added later and the house was enlarged with another wing across the front in 1892. A watering place had been there since the late 1850’s when the spot was a stop-off for sheep and cattle herders. The trough remembered by old timers was made of brick, plastered on the inside and at least 50 feet across.

The first use of the land and possibly the trough were probably by John W. Mitchell, largest landowner in the area at the time and founder of Turlock, who ran sheep in the vicinity.

The old house deserves recognition not only for its age and grace but because it housed Ceres’ “first” family, the Levi Carter family, who owned the land on which Ceres was founded, built its first buildings and gave the town its name. In its entire existence, the house has been home to only two families, the Carters and the Vilases. The lofty ceilings have seen marriages of both

Carter and Vilas daughters, family wakes, frequent reunions and have absorbed the sounds of tales of Indian fighting, gold mining, early irrigation battles and local rivalries. Though they came to the Ceres area separately and 40 years apart the two families had common origins, similar experiences and knowledge of one another before arrival in Stanislaus County. Their stories illustrate how typically pioneers were linked as they moved from place to place.

Levi Carter was born in Jefferson County, New York in 1822, a descendant of Puritan immigrants, the Rev. Thomas Carter of Woburn, Mass., and his wife Mary. Thomas and Mary had, among other children, a son Samuel, born 1640, who graduated from Harvard in 1660. Samuel’s descendants had scattered throughout New England, New York, the West and the Hawaiian Islands by the time Levi Carter came to Stanislaus County and the name Levi, as well as the name Stanton (see later), shows up often among them.

The descendants who migrated to New York settled mainly in the northern counties around Lake Ontario and along the Canadian border. Over the years of the nineteenth century, these Carters – who were farmers, tanners, timber merchants, sheriffs, justices of the peace, teachers and doctors – gained a reputation in Jefferson and surrounding counties as staunch Republicans.

Levi started his working life early in lumbering in upstate New York and soon drifted over the border into Canada to continue that pursuit. There he met and married, about 1850, a Canadian born girl of Dutch parentage, Fama Eva Shoup. Their first child, Elma Jane Carter, so important to Ceres’ history, was born in Canada in May 1851. They re-crossed the border into Jefferson County in time for their son, Stanton Lester Carter, to be born Jan. 16, 1853, in the town of Clayton, NY.

When Stanton was a year old, Levi moved his family to Carroll County in northwest Illinois. There he became a pioneer farmer just outside the county seat, Mount Carroll, and there, in November 1854, a third child, Melbourne B., was born.

Six years later Levi became restless again. Though he had not been attracted by the California Gold Rush of 1849 or the Pike’s Peak gold discovery of 1859, he had listened for years to tales of the far west. He left Fama (also she also went by Fannie or Annie) behind on the farm with the children and joined the wagon train of Benjamin Sanders, a family connection, as it passed through from nearby McHenry County, Ill. It was May 1, 1860.

The small group of eight adults and four children reached Nevada where the mineral wealth of the Washoe country was just becoming known, and stayed there for a time. They continued to California and chose as their final stopping place Eight Mile Corners on the Sonora Road (eight miles from Stockton). It was late September 1860 and Levi took that fall and winter to look over Northern California before he reached a decision to settle permanently.

In early 1861, he sailed from San Francisco for Panama and crossed the isthmus to return to Illinois by way of the east coast, about the time that news of the firing on Ft. Sumter signaled the start of the Civil War.

Levi disposed of his holdings in Carroll County and, this time acting as captain of the horse drawn wagon train, led his family and another small party westward along the route he had travelled with Sanders. The trip was of the typical adventures of the times. The most vivid of these, as the Carter family later told it, was the battle with Indians on Goose Creek, near the border of Idaho and Nevada. Two men in the train were killed in the fighting.

They made good time and arrived in Washoe, Nev. three months after starting. Mining still held little appeal and Carter soon took his family on to El Dorado County, California. After a rest in Diamond Spring, they settled in Folsom in neighboring Sacramento County where Levi started a teaming business.

Around 1863, however, when another son, Roscoe L., was born, Levi began thinking of the San Joaquin Valley and the land he had seen there on his first trip. He bought land near Eight Mile Corners where his earlier travelling companions had stayed. Soon he began expanding his farming interests south into Stanislaus County. With land acquired by the previously mentioned Mitchell, and owned briefly by a James L. Johnston, Levi started his Ceres holdings. At that period the land was in Empire Township, Paradise City post office, and there were no other names on the land just south of the Tuolumne River.

When Fanna presented Levi with his last child, Aletha Belle, in 1868, he promptly christened his headquarters at the stock watering station with the name Esmar. It was contrived from the first letters of the first names of each of his children, reversing the order of birth of the last two. ESMRA would have been equally exotic but a bit awkward on the tongue). Esmar Crossing, or Esmar Station, as it came to be known, continued for many years

the as a main stopping place on the wagon trails and, later the railroad, converged at that spot. It eventually became a shipping point for fresh and dried fruit.

As was customary in the Valley at that time among well-to-do farmers, the family maintained a substantial home in Stockton while the children were in need of advanced schooling and lived in the Stanislaus home during plowing, planting and harvesting seasons. Levi soon built grain warehouses on his land and, as news of the Central Pacific Railroad’s route came through teen-aged Elma Jane recalled her classical readings and came up with the appropriate name “Ceres” from the Roman goddess of grain and the harvest, for her father’s granary.

About this point began the competition between Levi Carter and Daniel Whitmore, the most familiar name in Ceres history and called the father or founder of Ceres. The rivalry and jealousy came to exist between Carter and Whitmore.

Whitmore had also come to San Joaquin County and had ties in Massachusetts, New York and the Midwest. He started first on a site on the south bank of the Tuolumne north and east of Carter’s holdings at present day Ceres. As was customary, Whitmore and his sons also returned to their home in San Joaquin County between harvests. Each of the men added steadily to their holdings, Carter branching out in several directions, Whitmore moving south.

In 1869 Daniel Whitmore built his home on what would become the town of Ceres. On Nov. 8, 1872, a deed was recorded in which Levi Carter sold Daniel Whitmore the land on which the town of Ceres now rests. 

Richard Whitmore, Daniel’s brother who laid out the town plan, also bought his first Ceres land from Carter, in 1874. John G. Annear and others who figure in early Ceres history also bought their land from Carter.

Both Levi and Daniel continued to vie with one another in land acquisition and sales, and for status along the new railroad where Carter had built his warehouses. The deed records are filled with their transactions in the 1870s and the 1880s. Daniel Whitmore’s granddaughter, the late Jennie Whitmore Caswell, sometimes spoke amusedly of that rivalry and its outcome. The name of Carter became almost forgotten as family members died or moved away, and the Whitmores became pre-eminent in land ownership and local influence.

A biographer, one of the Whitmore wives, wrote in the 1895 Ceres Reunion booklet, “the life of Ceres commenced” when Daniel Whitmore moved his family into his home in January, 1871. Though Carters – including Levi – were still living on the family acres and some were in attendance at the reunion, the Carters’ part in the establishment of the area is not mentioned at all.

In 1895, three years before his death and a year after Daniel died, Levi Carter still held two sections of land between Service and Keyes roads, bordered by Mitchell Road on the west and Faith Home Road on the east. Levi and Fanna died three weeks apart in 1898 at their home south of Ceres. Their son Melbourne, with other heirs, held on to the property until after the turn of the century. Daniel Whitmore and his son Clinton had by then far outstripped the Carters in land holdings and others, such as Ephraim Hatch, had taken up the competition.

Meanwhile, Marcellus Bowen Vilas, patriarch of the Vilas family, had been pursuing a life on somewhat parallel lines to Carter’s. He was the son of Vermont and New Hampshire natives but was born in St. Lawrence County, New York, next door to Jefferson County where the Carters lived. In the late nineteenth century there is record of Carters and Vilases in business together in upstate New York.

Younger than Levi by 12 years, Marcellus began early to work as a stock buyer. At the age of 20 he moved to Wisconsin, the same year that Levi took his family to Illinois. In the summer of 1859, the still single Marcellus headed west. Unlike Levi, he was lured by gold and set out for Pike’s Peak with an ox-team caravan.

By the time he reached Ft. Laramie, however, he had second thoughts and decided to seek California gold instead. Arriving in Shasta County in September he spent six years in mining, with a certain amount of success.

With the proceeds of his mining efforts he was able to go into lumbering through the purchase of a large saw mill and some land near Shingletown. Except for a brief look into Nevada mining possibilities, he spent 34 more years in Shasta County. There he became a Mason and was also known for his strongly Republican views.

Twice married, Marcellus Vilas became the father of 11 children. By his first wife, Emma Williamson, he had Edward P., Helen, Lillie and Walter M. His second wife was Sarah McMullen, born in Ireland, the mother of Perry E., Clay, Bertha M., Gertrude, Homer Bowen, Herbert R. and Ralph A. and two others who died young.

In December, 1905 Marcellus moved his family to land purchased from the Carter heirs. It consisted of 112 acres of irrigated alfalfa and included the Carter home and ranch buildings.

The three eldest Vilas children stayed in Northern California and two of the younger daughters were living in San Francisco at the time.

Sons Walter M. and Perry E., and later the younger sons, farmed with their father until his death in 1910.

Sarah McMullen Vilas, nearly 20 years younger than Marcellus, outlived him for a number of years, dying in 1924.

The place eventually came to be in the hands of two of the youngest sons, Homer and Herbert, who farmed it together until Homer’s son, Homer, Jr., joined them after World War II. The two Vilas brothers were fond of working with horses and kept them as working farm animals into the 1940’s.

The house was restored and refurbished around 1948 by Homer Vilas, Jr. for his parents. During the restoration phase, the old carriage house and barn were demolished. The historic watering trough had been removed a few years earlier, the blacksmith shop having been torn down in the 1930s.

The house retains its historical integrity in materials, layout and style. It has its original plaster throughout, and pine wainscoting in kitchen and back sitting room. Other woodwork around doors and windows is the original mahogany. The front entrance leads into a center hall with staircase, separating the front bedroom and the music room. Behind the music room is the parlor, long called the living room. The oldest back wing contains dining room, kitchen, pantry complete with Hoosier cabinet, a small office, and the sitting room which contains the only fireplace the house ever had. Near that fireplace was the favorite sitting place of Marcellus’ widow in her later years. The rest of the house was originally heated with wood stoves.

Upstairs there are four bedrooms (one now a bath) in the newest section and two bedrooms over the back wing which has another staircase. The back wing has two porches, a formerly screened porch on the north which has been glassed in, and one that runs along the south wall that has been the family entrance since Carter days. The exterior siding is the original.

Though the other farm buildings are replaced by more modern structures, and the original granary to the north in Ceres is long gone, the old house still stands in some of its original acres as a telling monument to Levi Carter and his impact on Ceres’ beginnings.

The feed mill that arose near the site of the old Esmar Station crossing, built by Homer, Jr. and Earl Brown in the 1960s, would probably have been approved by old Levi as an appropriate evolution from his grain fields and warehouses.

Homer, Jr. acquired surrounding land in recent times that partially reunites some of Levi’s small empire.

The sixth generation of the Vilas family to live on the land still occupies the home.