History of San Joaquin County, California : with biographical sketches of leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 163

Author: Tinkham, George H. (George Henry), b. 1849
Publication date: 1923
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif. : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1660

USA > California > San Joaquin County > History of San Joaquin County, California : with biographical sketches of leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 163

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Edward Preszler is the eldest in a family of eight children, the others being Emma, Mrs. Kirschen- mann of Victor; William, residing at Victor; Henry, on the home place; and Allina, Ida, Martha and Len- hardt. Edward Preszler spent the days of his boy- hood in the place of his nativity, residing there until 1901, when he came with his parents to California and attended the Harmony Grove, Alpine and Locke- ford schools, in the interim between school terms assisting his father on the home ranch.

The marriage of Mr. Preszler occurred on August 3, 1913, in Lodi, and united him with Miss Ella Heil, a native of Hutchinson County, S. D., and a daugh- ter of Peter and Caroline (Neuhardt) Heil, both na- tives of Russia. Her father, Peter Heil, came to the United States in 1887, and her mother was only one year old when she was brought by her parents to America. Peter Heil is prominent as a successful vineyardist and independent packer of San Joaquin County, and has also been prosperous as a buyer and seller of vineyard property. They were the parents of eleven children, only seven of whom are now liv- ing. Emanuel and Ella were born in South Dakota; and Leodine, Freda, Theodore, Eugene and Regina are all natives of California. Mr. and Mrs. Preszler are the parents of four children, Bertha, Alfred, Irene and Raymond Reuben.

Mr. Preszler continued to aid his father on the home ranch until he was twenty-two years of age when his father assisted him in the purchase of his first ranch, the present place of forty acres on Locust Avenue. A part of the place was set out to vineyard, and Mr. Preszler continued the development. It is now all in a full-bearing vineyard with a small or- chard, a good, comfortable residence, and suitable farm buildings. In 1920 he purchased five acres in vineyard just outside the city limits of Lodi; and again in 1921 he purchased a ten-acre vineyard south of Kettleman Lane on the Alpine school road. His

Edward Prenler Ella Pressler

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HISTORY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY

entire holdings of fifty-five acres are in full-bearing vineyards. His home place of forty acres was a part of the George Tretheway place, and on this Mr. Preszler has built an irrigation plant with a four- inch pump and ten-horse power motor. Aside from the growing of fruit, Mr. Preszler is also interested in packing and shipping fruit. Seeing the need of a local packing house where he and his friends could handle their own fruit, he purchased a packing plant at Victor and then, interesting nine others, organ- ized and incorporated the Northern California Fruit Company, Inc., of which he was president the first year. He turned the packing plant over to the com- pany, and now they pack and ship their fruit. The members of the company grow about 300 cars of fruit a year. At present Mr. Preszler is vice-president and director of the company. In his political affilia- tions he is a Republican. He and his family are members of the German Reformed Church in Lodi.

CHARLES MUTHEL .- Numbered among Stock- ton's early residents, having come here nearly forty years ago, Charles Muthel has taken a prominent part in the reclamation of the Delta district, con- tributing heavily of his time and energy in bringing this rich soil into productivity. Mr. Muthel is a native of Hamburg, Germany, born June 20, 1865, and remained in his native land until 1883, when he came to America, locating first in San Francisco, where he worked in a winery. In the fall of that year he came to Stockton and went to work as a clerk in China Hall, a crockery store on El Dorado Street owned by Charles Behrens. Next he was employed at the San Joaquin Hotel, and then went to sea for a time, going from San Francisco in a sailing vessel around Cape Horn to Liverpool, and return. Returning to Stockton, he worked on a dredge for the Glasgow-California Land Company in the Delta district, later becoming captain of the dredger, which was working on the lower division of Roberts Island. For twelve years he was engaged in this work, and took an active and important part in reclaiming this valuable land. Next he was in the machine shop of the Shippee Harvester Works at Stockton, but returned to reclamation work in charge of the dredger for Richard Smith, and also in district No. 17 on Roberts Island. For the next seven years he was engineer for the San Joaquin Brick Company, and then bought and ran the Columbia Hotel on North San Joaquin Street, opposite the county jail, one of Stockton's landmarks, the lumber for the building having been brought around the Horn in early days. Subsequently Mr. Muthel owned a bicy- cle shop in the Masonic Temple Building on North El Dorado Street, and then bought land at Lodi and planted three vineyards of twenty acres each, which he disposed of at a profit. In partnership with John Grant he again engaged in dredger work on the island, and they bought 350 acres of land which they named the Grant tract, and this they reclaimed and sold.

Mr. Muthel's marriage united him with Miss Clara Brandt, the daughter of Frederick and Margaret Brandt. The father was a pioneer settler of Califor- nia, coming here in 1857 from Minnesota. Mr. Muthel has long been a member of the Stockton Lodge of Odd Fellows and also of Fidelity Lodge. He is now retired from active business life, and has recently returned from a seven-months tour of Europe, during 70

which he visited his mother and many old friends in his native city and attended the Passion Play at Oberammergau, returning to California by way of the Panama Canal.

JOHN A. PORTERFIELD .- A progressive ranch- er and public-spirited citizen of Lodi, John A. Porter- field contributed toward the more rapid and scientific development of California agriculture. He was born on June 11, 1861, in the lumber woods of Elk County, Pa., where his father successfully engaged in lum- bering. When John A. Porterfield was four years old, his father took his family down the river upon a raft to Allegheny County, in the same state, where he built a sawmill; and still later he removed to Indiana County, Pa.

John A. Porterfield attended both the district school and the normal school at Indiana, and then taught school for ten years in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kansas, and served one term as county superinten- dent in Meade County, Kan. He took up 320 acres of government land in the county, and continued to acquire more land until he owned 960 acres. He en- gaged in stockraising and made a specialty of blooded Galloway cattle. Selling off 800 acres of his ranch, he located in Fowler, Meade County. There he took an active part in civic affairs, becoming both a trustee of the township and a school trustee.

In 1909, Mr. Porterfield located at Lodi, after a visit to California a couple of years before. He bought a ranch of eight acres on North Church Street, from D. F. Owens, and there he makes his home. He has a variety of fruit trees, and also a vineyard. He has bought, improved and sold a number of vineyards since he came to Lodi, realizing in each case a fair profit.

Mr. Porterfield was married in 1895 at Meade, Kan., to Miss Anna Bowen, of Meade County, Kan., and their union has been blessed with six children, all of whom were born in Kansas. Bernice is a grad- uate of the Chico Normal School, and is a teacher in the Tracy public schools; Waldo is with the Stew- art Fruit Company of Lodi; Eva is training in the Children's Hospital, San Francisco, for the profession of nursing; Kenneth and Crawford are seniors in Lodi High School; and Vernon is in the eighth grade of the grammar school. Mr. Porterfield and his wife are members of the First Congregational Church of Lodi, and contribute to its benevolences.

J. W. PRITCHARD .- A very successful vineyard- ist and orchardist of San Joaquin County, who has done much in the way of practical accomplishment, is J. W. Pritchard, who resides about one mile east of Acampo. He was born in Elliott, San Joaquin County, on April 1, 1867, the son of John and Sophie (File) Pritchard, the former a native of Wales, of Scotch-Welsh descent, and the latter of German ex- traction. About 1853 his father came to California from Ohio. He survived until his eightieth year, dying in 1917, while Mrs. Pritchard, who was be- loved by a wide circle, departed this life at the early age of forty. The worthy couple had five children, of whom J. W. Pritchard was the third-born. The two eldest in the family were Jacob M. Pritchard, now of Oakland, and Jane; and the two youngest were Maggie, since deceased, and Nettie Pritchard. Mr. Pritchard homesteaded and preempted land, ac- quiring in all about 360 acres in Elliott Township,

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all of which was timber land. He cut fire-wood and hauled it to Stockton, although he received only three dollars per load. He had to use six horses to haul the wagon load; so that the trading, with badly cut-up roads, was not particularly profitable. He removed with his family to Galt when J. W. Pritch- ard was nine years old, and there the lad began his serious schooling. There Mr. Pritchard engaged in freighting, running a six to eight horse team to the mountain mining settlements of Ione and Jackson.

When fourteen years old J. W. Pritchard started to make his own way in the world; and he began by doing odd jobs on the farms. On August 19, 1895, he was married, near Acampo, to Miss Ida Fuqua, who had first seen the light on the old Fuqua rancho two and one-half miles east of Acampo. She was the daughter of John C. and Virginia F. (Stafford) Fu- qua. Her father was born in Ralls County, Mo., in 1837, and when sixteen years old came to California with his parents, traveling across the great plains with the old-time ox team. He mined for six years at the Diamond Springs mines, with moderate suc- cess, and in 1859 removed to San Joaquin County, where he took up farming. In 1861 he purchased a ranch two and one-half miles east of Acampo station, consisting of 160 acres of sandy loam, which he put under cultivation. On the ranch were many white oak and live-oak trees, and he added to these by planting a fine family orchard. His crop at that time was wheat. In 1878 J. C. Fuqua built a fine farm home, at an expense of about $2,500-a considerable amount for those days-and he also erected, at a cost of nearly $600, a water-storage tank with a capacity of about 1,500 gallons. Virginia F. (Stafford) Fuqua was also a native of Ralls County, Mo.

Mrs. Pritchard lived only seven years after her marriage, dying in 1902, the mother of four children. Everett Fay lives on the old home place; Eva is with her father; Henry is at Lodi; while Winifred is train- ing to be a nurse at the Merritt Hospital in Oakland. In August, 1907, Mr. Pritchard was married for a second time at the old Fuqua ranch, taking for his wife Mrs. Flora L. Thomas, a daughter of Josiah McKindley, whose life-story is elsewhere sketched in this volume. She was born in Volcano, and was the widow of Herbert Thomas, and the mother of four children: Ruth, the eldest; Joseph and Richard, who were twins; and Bessie. Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard own a ranch of thirty-two acres, which is a part of the old Fuqua ranch; and they have set out twenty acres of the wheat-land to grapes, leaving ten acres open, and there their son resides. Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard make their home on Mrs. Pritchard's ranch of thirty acres, just to the south of the Houston schoolhouse, on the Cherokee Lane road; and they devote these thirty acres to the growing of grapes, peaches and cherries. Both ranches are under excellent irrigation. This home, formerly known as the Northrop home, is one of the old landmarks of the section, and is at least fifty years old. They have one child, George Burton.

A Democrat of the stand-pat type, Mr. Pritchard has been content to do his civic duty by the ordinary acts of a private citizen, and so has never dabbled in politics. He is a member of the Woodmen of the World, of Lodi.

JAMES WILMER DICK .- Prominent among the nursery dealers in San Joaquin County is James Wil- mer Dick, of Lodi, who was born at Lone Tree, John- son County, Iowa, on August 13, 1873, the son of Peter and Margaret (Constant) Dick, substantial farmer-folk from Ohio. A thorough patriot, Peter Dick enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 as a member of the 27th Volunteer Ohio Infantry, and had the honor of serving his country under the generalship of U. S. Grant., Nine children were born to this worthy couple, and our subject was the fourth in order of birth. Orville M., lives at Watsonville; Leona R., has become Mrs. Frank Dickinson, and re- sides in Oregon; Clare E. is Mrs. Chas. E. Jackson, and is one of the society matrons of San Diego; James Wilmer is the subject of our instructive review; Clar- ence L., is in San Diego; Z. B. Dick, died in 1918; J. H. Dick, died in 1922; M. C. Dick, lives at Acampo; and L. M. Dick lives at Lodi.

M. C. Dick was born at Jackson, Amador County. After leaving school he took up mechanical pursuits and for fourteen years was one of the dependable employees of the Holt Manufacturing Company. During the World War he was sent back to Peoria by his company, where he instructed the soldiers sent there to learn the operation and repair of the cater- pillar tractor, and also helping to demonstrate its value to the government officials. He is married and has a daughter, Maxine. He is a member of the Los Angeles Elks.

L. M. Dick, also a native Californian and a compe- tent mechanic, is now a painting contractor in Lodi. He married Miss Hilda May, born at Angels Camp, a daughter of August May, who for the past thirty- six years has been the head carpenter for the Utica Mining Company in Calaveras County. She is a graduate from the Bret Harte High School at Angels Camp and also attended the Western Normal at Stockton. They have two children, Richard and Madeline. Mr. Dick belongs to the Alameda Elks.

When James Wilmer Dick was about five years old, his parents removed to Emporia, Kan., and there his father worked for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad for three years. In 1882, however, he migrated to California, bringing his family. They settled at Jackson, in Amador County, and there Mr. Dick engaged in agricultural pursuits on a small grain ranch. James Wilmer went to the grammar school at Jackson, and when seventeen years of age started out for himself. He became a wheat farmer, and worked on various ranches. About the same time, the family moved to the vicinity of Lodi, and there his father died, in 1901, The mother survived him until 1920.

For three years James Wilmer Dick raised water- melons at Acampo. Then he tried wheat farming in the Acampo locality and was so occupied for four years. After that he took up orcharding, also in the Acampo section, which he continued for a number of seasons. Next he followed railroading, and was for a number of years with the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, at Eureka, in Humboldt County. In 1915, he became salesman and district distributor for Messrs. Wilder and Ferguson, nurserymen of Acampo, and he was with them until the dissolution of the firm, at the death of Mr. Wilder. Since 1921, Mr. Dick has been an individual dealer and nursery agent, supplying the northern portion of San Joaquin County with nursery stock. Wherever he has oper- ated, he has established an enviable reputation for reliability and affability.

James W . Dick

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HISTORY OF SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY

At Sacramento, on March 19, 1915, Mr. Dick was married to Miss Naomi Hansen, the daughter of Jens and Martha Hansen, an accomplished lady born at Angels Camp, Calaveras County. Her father was well-known at that place for many years as an en- gineer at the mines. He came to California from Copenhagen, Denmark, in early days. She at- tended the district school at Angels Camp, and will always have the pleasure of looking back upon happy days at the Bret Harte high school there. In 1922 she took a course in business at the College of Commerce in Stockton, and was graduated with honors. A great cloud came over her life in the ac- cidental death of her father at the mines. Her mother is still living in Modesto, honored by her seven children: Samuel; Hubert, who served six years in the army, in Mexico and in France; Naomi, Mrs. Dick; Hazel; Winifred; Alice; and Alberta. Hazel, Alice and Alberta are trained nurses. Mr. Dick is a Republican. Fraternally he is a member of the Knights of Pythias. A grown son, Norman A. Dick, is an electrician, residing in Humboldt County.

DAVID WILEY MILLER .- A successful land owner and substantial horticulturist, in the enjoy- ment of a handsome competence, David Wiley Miller has resided in San Joaquin County for the past twenty-seven years and enjoys the esteem of all who know him. His valuable ranch of 130 acres, known as the "Calaveras River Orchards," is lo- cated two miles north of Linden on the old Waterloo road, fifteen miles east of Stockton. When Mr. Miller located in the county in 1896 there were no com- mercial orchards in the Linden section. Now there are over 3,000 acres devoted to the raising of Wal- nuts, almonds, peaches, plums, prunes, and apricots. In 1904 Mr. Miller began to raise English walnuts, and each year more acreage is being planted with these trees. Two and a half miles from Mr. Miller's ranch a walnut orchard of 540 acres is being de- veloped.

David Wiley Miller was born in Northampton, Mass., December 14, 1850, the youngest child of David and Martha (Graves) Miller, both natives of Massachusetts. David Wiley received a good educa- tion in the schools of his native state, and at twenty- five years of age left home for California, traveling via Panama. He worked on the construction of the road to Mount Hamilton; then entered the employ of the San Jose Argus, a daily published in that city, where he remained for a short time; and then went into the office of the San Jose Herald as business manager, which occupied him for the next seven years. Indoor employment proved detrimental to his health, and consequently he resigned his position with the Herald and became a deputy county assessor under L. A. Spitzer, where he remained for fourteen years. This position afforded Mr. Miller a splendid opportunity to become conversant with horticulture in the Santa Clara Valley. He purchased five acres near Cupertino, which he developed to orchard and later sold to good advantage. He then reinvested in San Jose and Saratoga property, each time selling at a good profit. When he located in San Joaquin County, in 1896, he purchased the old Cogswell place of 175 acres, in partnership with Joseph H. Hunt, of Hunt Bros., canners. He cleared the land of the heavy timber and set out an orchard, and as the years

went by he set more and more acres to fruit. Mr. Miller sold his interest in this ranch to the Hunt brothers in 1910, when he located on his present home place, which he had purchased and improved. This is the pioneer orchard in the Linden section, named "Calaveras River Orchard." He also owns 400 acres of land north of Linden.

Mr. Miller's marriage occurred in San Jose in 1892, when he was married to Miss Jennie G. Pound, a native of Iowa. She and her mother, Frances (Bates) Pound, were prominent educators in San Jose, where they conducted Mrs. Pound's Private School on Wil- liam Street for many years. Mrs. Miller is a gradu- ate of San Jose State Normal, class of 1887. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Miller. Ray- mond W. is a graduate of the San Jose State Normal School, and saw service during the World War; he is married and has one daughter, Ruth Genevieve. He has an eighty-acre orchard at Linden. Margaret Frances, also a graduate of San Jose Normal, is a teacher at Linden; and David William is a student in Linden Union High School.

Three years ago a local group of men met and organized a Linden Walnut Growers' Association, now affiliated with the California Walnut Growers' Association, Mr. Miller serving as vice-president of the local organization. Mr. Miller was a prime mover in securing electricity and telephone service for Lin- den, and is a director in the local telephone company. He has been active in the good-roads movement, a director of the Farm Bureau, president of the Linden High School, and president of the building commit- tee for the new church at Linden. Mr. Miller was elected a member of the assembly of the State Legis- lature for the 19th district in 1918. In the session of 1919 he stood for the enforcement of the 18th Amend- ment, and was a member of the committee on educa- tion, public morals, and constitutional amendments. Mrs Miller is a member of the W. C. T. U. and the Linden Methodist Episcopal Church, and is promi- nent in social and civic affairs. Mr. Miller is an active Rotarian, a member of the Rotary Club, Stock- ton. In politics he is a Democrat.

THEODORE HENKE .- A successful grain farm- er, highly esteemed as one of the pioneers who con- tributed much, at the expense of years of toil and much personal sacrifice, toward making the prosper- ous and attractive San Joaquin County of today, is Theodore Henke, whose ranch interests are near Ver- nalis. He was born in Pomerania, near Berlin, Ger- many, on June 11, 1864, and spent his early years on his father's farm, enjoying some of the superior educational advantages for which his native land has so long been famous. In October, 1882 he came to America, and located on a farm at La Crosse, Wis., where he spent about three years prior to his coming to California. He remained in San Francisco until 1887, working at the carpenter's trade; and having taken up that handiwork, he made himself one of the most painstaking and accomplished of journey- men, always giving satisfaction by his honest labor. He had received, in blood and home-training, a price- less legacy from his parents, his father being Charles Henke, a native of Berlin, Germany, who passed away in that city on February 8, 1906, while his mother, who is still living in Pomerania, at the age

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of ninety-two, was Wilhelmine Basko before her marriage. Our subject was preceded to San Fran- cisco by his brother, August, who came out to Cali- fornia in 1884.

In 1889, Mr. Henke took up grain farming near Vernalis, and he has owned his ranch since 1905. In 1889, too, he was married to Miss Eliza Gerlach, who was born in New York City, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. and Mary (Kruse) Gerlach, both of whom are now deceased, who were sturdy pioneers in Stock- ton and on the West Side of San Joaquin County. Three children have sprung from this fortunate union. Herman was born on September 14, 1895, and gave great promise to his many friends; but he was killed in an accident near Vernalis during the harvest season of 1916. Then came Olga, and after her Theodore, Jr. Besides his, fine tract of 466 acres of grain-land, Mr. Henke owns valuable residence property in Tracy, evidence of his prosperity, the fruit of long industry and unimpeachable integrity. He was ad- mitted to citizenship at Stockton in 1887.

FRENZ W. HUCK .- One of the well known and respected citizens of San Joaquin County is Frenz W. Huck, whose life history furnishes a good example of what may be accomplished through determined purpose and well directed effort. His earliest recol- lections are of- farm life and since seventeen years of age he has been prominently identified with farming interests, conducting his father's ranch near Tracy at that early age. A native son of California, he was born on his father's ranch near Tracy, June 20, 1872, the only son of Frenz and Margaretta (Warch) Huck, both pioneers of this county, who settled in the New Jerusalem district about 1868. The father, a native of Germany, was a butcher by trade until coming to California, when he went into the mines in Tuolumne County; later he settled on a ranch of 640 acres in San Joaquin County, eight miles southwest of Tracy on the Vernalis Road. The mother came to Califor- nia alone and located at San Francisco where she met and married Mr. Huck in 1862, and they were the parents of the following children: Mrs .- Eva Schmidt, Mrs. Caroline Jepsen, and Mrs. Margaretta Schmidt, Frenz W. of this sketch, and Mrs. William H. Pope, whose sketch is also found in this work. The father passed away at Tracy April 9, 1904, the mother sur- viving him until December, 1906.

Frenz W. Huck was reared and received his school- ing in the New Jerusalem school district and at sev- enteen he was bearing the brunt of the management of his father's extensive grain ranch, and three years later was farming the ranch on shares. In those early days in the development of San Joaquin County, he sold grain as cheap as fifty cents per sack, but in spite of the ups and downs, he has been successful and upon the foundation of unflagging industry he has builded his present prosperity.

The marriage of Mr: Huck united him with Miss Anna Maria Thoming, born in San Joaquin County, à daughter of George and Lena (Mashoff) Thoming, both natives of Germany, as well as pioneers of the New Jerusalem district of San Joaquin County, hav- ing settled there in 1866. Mr. and Mrs. Huck are the parents of three children: Frances attends the West Side Union high school, Lester and Lao are students in the grammar school. For the past twelve years

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History of San Joaquin County, California : with biographical sketches of leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 163

Author: Tinkham, George H. (George Henry), b. 1849 Publication date: 1923 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif. : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1660

Author: Tinkham, George H. (George Henry), b. 1849
Publication date: 1923
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif. : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1660