Contra
Costa County
Biographies
JOHN F.
BURCH
JOHN F. BURCH. Classed among the progressive and enterprising
farmers of Contra Costa county, John F. Burch
occupies a position won by many years of industrious and painstaking
effort. He is a self-made man in the
best sense implied by the term, and has not only made a success financially,
but has gained the respect and esteem of all who have come to know him. Born in New York City December 25, 1837,
he was the son of Henry Burch, and in that location he was reared to young
manhood. At the breaking out of the
Civil war he was among the first to offer his services, becoming a member of
Company F., Fifty-sixth New York volunteer Infantry, in 1861. Following his enlistment he served two years
and ten months, at which time he was honorably discharged for disability. At the battle of Gettysburg he served as
corporal. On his return to civic duties
he took up surveying and civil engineering, and spent two winters in South
Carolina and ten years in the state of Nebraska. In 1876 he came to California and located at
Visalia, Tulare county, where he assisted in building
the overland Southern Pacific Railroad, and acted for the company as land
appraiser. He remained in that location
until 1898, when he bought ninety-four and seventy-five one-hundredths acres of
the Playter estate in Contra Costa county, and also
thirty-three and one-third acres from Henry Icey. In addition to these two pieces of land he
purchased a small fruit orchard and a vineyard of six acres. The ranch is devoted to the cultivation of
grain and hay, in which he has been very successful. He has made many improvements on his property
and greatly enhanced its value. The land
of this ranch is peculiarly adapted to the production of corn, a farm product
which is exceedingly rare throughout the state.
In 1870, in Sullivan county,
N.Y., Mr. Burch married Harriet A. Pierson, also a native of that
county, and of this union were born two children, namely: Alfred P. and Bertha G. The daughter married William De Bois, and they
are the parents of one daughter, Grace M.
[Inserted by D. Toole]
1925
Jun 17, Oakland Tribune, P15, Oakland, California
Estate
of Crash Victim is $12,000
Martinez,
June 17 John F. Burch, Concord
pioneer, killed June 12 when his automobile was struck by a San
Francisco-Sacramento railroad train at Concord, left an estate valued at
$12,000, according to a petition for probate of his will filed in superior
court today. A bequest of more than
$5000 is made to a son, Alfred Burch, and bequest of of[sic]
$1000 each are made to Oliver C. Scott, petitioner in the estate, and
Philip Scott. Jay and Robert Clare are
left $500 each, while farm implements and the residue of the estate are left to
Elmer and John Dubois, with whom Burch made his home.
Transcribed by Donna Toole.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 988. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Donna Toole.
Contra Costa County Biographies