Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JETHRO NATHANIEL “BRUCE” BRACKETT
An enthusiast to whom fruit growing is both pleasant and profitable, and who has given many years of study to the perfecting of his interesting occupation, is J. N. Bruce Brackett, owner of a forty-six acre fruit ranch on the Alviso road, five miles from San Jose. Besides ten acres of prunes, ten of apples, sixteen of asparagus, five of pears, and twelve of alfalfa, Mr. Brackett finds room for the raising of fine standard Hambletonian horses, that which no better examples of this breed are to be found in the state of California. The Brackett ranch is an encouraging example of what may be accomplished when the earnest and industrious husbandman starts out to improve his western opportunities, for in equipment and management it is unsurpassed in its neighborhood. Nature has done much to invite inspection, but the hands of its owner have vastly improved upon the raw material, and have changed it into a beautiful and thoroughly modern and thrifty property.
Mr. Brackett has spent all but eight years of his life in California, for he was only a child when he came around Cape Horn in the good ship Brutus, accompanied by his parents, Nathaniel and Lucinda (Turner) Brackett, in 1853. In all there were three children to secure passage for, and two of these survive to dimly recall the months of storm and calm ere they reached the port of San Francisco, where the father engaged in contracting and building in the then very small community. Nathaniel Brackett was born in Exeter, N.H., and in early life learned the carpenter and millwright trades, which he followed for many years. In 1834 he settled in the then sparsely settled community around Tecumseh, Lenawee county, Mich., where he erected an ax and scythe foundry at Ann Arbor, operating it in connection with building houses and barns for the early settlers who came after him. He was ambitious and fearless, and possessed strength of character sufficient to start out and make his way in a new country, the extent and resource of which he knew only by the reports of returned miners. On the coast he turned his attention principally to erecting quartz mills and flour mills in different parts of California and Nevada, and in 1862 he bought the ranch five miles from San Jose, now occupied by his wife and son, and where he lived until shortly before his death in San Jose, in November, 1902, at the age of eighty-four years and nine days. His wife was born in Utica, N.Y., July 4, 1819, a daughter of Simon Turner, one of the substantial farmers of new York. Mrs. Brackett is now eighty-five years old, but retains much of her youthful vigor, and takes a keen interest in the ranch upon which she has spent so many years of her life.
J. N. Bruce Brackett was educated in San Francisco, attending the public schools, and the City College, of which he was a charter member, and where he was a student for three years. He accompanied his parents to his present ranch in 1862, and with his father studied horticulture and farming, and the breeding of high class Hambletonians. In 1881 he became interested in the business of T. W. Hobson & Co., and at the present time is one of the directors, as he was one of the incorporators (sic) of the new company. He has taken a keen interest in politics since living on the ranch, and has been councilman of the Third ward for one term, filling also other offices of trust and responsibility. He is prominent in the social life of San Jose, and is identified with the San Jose Lodge No. 10, F.& A.M., the Howard Chapter No. 14, and the San Jose Commandery No. 10. He is a magnetic, forceful, and progressive business man, earnest and honest, and upright in all of his dealings, counting among his friends many of the foremost people of the town and county, and taking his place with the reliable and financially strong element of the community.
Transcribed
7-17-15 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page 691. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marilyn R. Pankey.