Contra Costa County
Biographies
JOHN EDWARD MOITOZA
One of the youngest and most successful agriculturists and native sons of the vicinity of San Pablo, John Edward Moitoza was born April 19, 1876, and is of Portuguese ancestry, his parents, J. G. and Angelia (Morris) Moitoza, having come from Portugal at an early day. The family moved to San Pablo in 1874, where J. G. Moitoza conducts a barber shop, living with his wife and those of his five sons and one daughter who have not as yet left the home hearthstone.
John Edward, the second in the family, was educated in the public schools, and at an early age engaged in farming, saving his wages and looking forward to individual land ownership. In time he purchased the three hundred acres which comprise his present farm, made many modern improvements thereon, and since has engaged in general farming and stock-raising. July 3, 1904, he began the erection of a beautiful country home in the mission style, having eleven rooms and equipped with furniture and embellishments indicative of that important period of western history. The Nicholas addition to San Pablo was formerly a part of the Moitoza farm, as was also the Sunnyside tract, one of the most desirable residence sections of the town. Mr. Moitoza is also interested in the production of oil, and is a large stockholder in Oil Company No. 25, having an eighth interest in a section of oil land.
January 25, 1899, Mr. Moitoza married, in San Pablo, Elizabeth Dover, a native of Bakersfield, Cal., and daughter of Jesse B. Dover, a native of Tennessee. Mr. Dover came to California in the early days and engaged in stock-raising in Santa Cruz, and from there moved to Bakersfield, where he continued to raise stock until taking up his residence with his son-in-law, Mr. Moitoza. Mr. Moitoza is an active Republican, and is at present a trustee of the school district in which he lives. He is variously connected fraternally, being a member of the San Pablo Lodge, A.O.F.; the Eagles, of Richmond, and the U.P.E.C. of San Pablo. He is active in all these organizations, has passed all of the chairs and is a welcome member because of his sociability and high character. He enjoys the good will and respect of the people among whom his entire life has been spent, and the success which he enjoys is well merited and of substantial nature.
Transcribed
11-7-16 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1374-1375. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Contra Costa County Biographies