When the Pico grant was finally declared invalid, uncertainty was to continue with a Central Pacific Railroad claim to alternate sections considered to be part of an agreement with the government for building a rail line.  This matter was not cleared until 1876, and settlers were finally able to buy their land from the government at $1.25 an acre.

Permanent settlement of what is now Woodbridge came when Jeremiah H. Woods and Alexander McQueen bought a barley field from the Sargeant brothers, forty acres of which was to become the town site.  They were serious about developing the property and in 1852 drew attention to the area as Wood’s Ford by laying rock on the river bottom to create a ford.  Soon they established a ferry across the Mokelumne River at about where the irrigation dam is located.  During 1858, the bridge for which the town was named was completed.

Within two years, a wooden hotel was erected to serve teamsters and travelers.  The community had potential for further growth through its position on the Mokelumne River, which was navigable to steamboats, and its ready overland access to Sutter Creek, Jackson, Mokelumne Hill and other Mother Lode mining camps requiring great amounts of supplies.  Shipment of goods were made through Woodbridge.

The town was particular busy in 1853, when a flood rendered most roads impassable and the route to the mines via Woodbridge drew attention.

J. H. Woods, the pioneering attorney in San Joaquin County, had boundless enthusiasm and seemed determined to build a community of importance.  In his estimation, being the head of navigation on the Mokelumne was not enough; he wished it to become a major settlement and, perhaps overshadow Stockton.  The county government was petitioned to establish a public highway to the state capital via Woodbridge along a route still known as Lower Sacramento Road.  Stages were running on the Upper Sacramento Road via Staples Ferry, but this traffic was easily drawn away in 1854 when Woods offered the stage company free crossings of the Mokelumne on his ferry.  In addition, he had a scheme to create a new county, Mokelumne County, extending from the Consumnes River in Sacramento County to a point five miles below Woodbridge.  His town was, of course, to be the county seat. The idea met with general disapproval in Sacramento and generated mass protest meetings in Stockton.

Despite Woods’ imperfect land title, the settlement was to grow.  Businessmen from Sonora, San Andres and Stockton relocated to Woodbridge, known as Woods’ Ferry until 1862.  The town grew like a mushroom from 1859 into the 1870s.  A flour mill was erected in 1862 by Ranking Brothers.  D.L. Green was operating a custom grist mill with three run of stones, possibly Rankins’, in 1878.  Many wished to reestablish here because of plans by the Western Pacific Railroad (no relation to the present company serving in this region) to build through the town to connect Sacramento and San Jose by rail.  The Western Pacific soon failed and was taken over by the Central Pacific.  Late in 1867, much to the horror of the builders of Woodbridge, the “Big Four” selected a new right away about three miles east of Woodbridge, working to the disadvantage of the established town and to the advantage of a new community soon to be known as Lodi.  Jeremiah Woods did not live to witness this turn of events; he was killed in 1864 during an argument over the shooting of his hunting hound, and the region lost his leadership.

The new plan put a stop to much talk of the growth in Woodbridge.  Its established importance as stage stop, ferry crossing and river port long before any development in Lodi did not succeed in ensuring a position on the first transcontinental railroad.  Some growth was to continue and rails were finally to reach the town through a line promoted by Woodbridge residents, the San Joaquin-Sierra Nevada Railroad.  The line was completed from nearby Brack’s Landing to Lockeford in 1882 and its terminal, Valley Springs, in Calaveras County three years later.

After the disappointment of bypass by the railroad, efforts to develop a community of distinction took another direction with the establishment of Clark and Langston’s Sanitarium and the Woodbridge Academy.  Dr. Asa Clark was a well-known physician at the Stockton State Asylum before he resigned to establish his own hospital at Woodbridge for the care of mentally ill sent by authorities in Nevada and Arizona.  From 1871 to 1877, Clark operated the hospital in partnership with Dr. S.W.R. Langdon.  The institution was successful, but it was decided to move to a newly built facility in Stockton.  In 1878 there were three doctors practicing here, Drs. Tatton, Adlam and Dayton.

Just after the hospital closed in Woodbridge, plans were underway to establish a young people’s school, the Woodbridge Academy.  One hundred and fifty investors, many of them local, thought their town had the advantageous environment of a small community at a time when most such institutions were located in large cities influences that could adversely effect students.  The school was built, buts its operation did not start until the interest of the United Brethren Church was gained.  This group held a statewide convention of their church at Woodbridge in 1879.  Four years later, the school was chartered by the state and at this time became San Joaquin Valley College, the finest in a wide area surrounding Stockton.

The social and cultural influence of the college upon the town was considerable.  Over the years, there were many graduates who achieved positions of importance:  Avery White, District Attorney in Stockton; Edward Thompson, Stockton City Attorney; Robert J. Beasley, state assemblyman; Alfred L. Cowell, editor of the Stockton Mail newspaper; and Marion de Vries, congressman and U.S. Court of Appeals judge.  Enrollment, however, declined and the college closed in 1897.

In 1927 Woods Elementary School, named for the town’s founder, was to bring educational distinction to Woodbridge once again.  The State Department of Education selected Woodbridge as a state demonstration school.  More than 1,500 teachers and supervisors visited Woods Elementary over a three year period to observe classroom procedures.

Local agriculture, as in other regions, was to change with the development of irrigation.  In 1886, plans were made to irrigate 100,000 acres, a project organized by Byron Beckwith.  A timber dam was built on the Mokelumne to supply forty miles of canals.  The work was continued by the Woodbridge Canal and Irrigation Company, which completed a major phase of the project in 1891.  A huge celebration attended by 3,000 people heralded the turning of water into the canal.  This dam, as well as another, was replaced by a concrete structure in 1910, which is still a major landmark in Woodbridge.  An irrigation district was created in 1924 and the system gradually expanded to 100 miles of canals.  The reservoir behind the dam created a beautiful area between Lodi and Woodbridge known as Lodi Lake.

Vineyards and winery operations have long been part of agricultural activities here.  Wine production over the years has taken place a Sebastiani Winery, Guild del Rio Winery and the plant of the Woodbridge Winery Association, which for many years, shipped all its products to the California Wine Association in San Francisco.

One of the best known local residents of recent times is Elbert A. Covell, a Woodbridge and Modesto area vineyardist.  Elbert’s father came to this area in 1887 while working as a civil engineer.  He laid out the canal system for the Woodbridge Irrigation District.  At age sixteen, in 1890, Elbert helped plant the first commercial vineyard of Tokays.  The 160 acres were planted with cuttings from the Florin area in Sacramento County.  Covell was very successful with his life’s  work as a vineyardist.  He gave part of his fortune to the University of the Pacific; one of the famous “cluster colleges” there was named for him in the late 1960s.