Santa
Clara County
Biographies
STEPHEN K. JACKSON
The
comparatively light occupation of prune growing and drying to which Stephen K.
Jackson has devoted the past thirteen years of his life would seem to be a
grateful challenge from his many years of service as a master mechanic and
railroad car builder. Judging from the
success which he has met with since locating on his present ranch in 1891, he
must have exercised the same sterling qualities, among which is patience and
perseverance, that led him from the lowest to the highest round of the ladder in
his work with the railroads His ranch
consisted first of twenty acres, but ten acres have since been added, and the
entire land is devoted to prunes of various kinds, all of which are dried on
the premises and attain to maturity under the most favorable conditions known
to modern horticultural science.
Mr.
Jackson comes of Vermont stock, and his parents, Stephen K. and Frankie
(Hunkins) Jackson, were born in the Green mountain state. They located in St. Lawrence county, N.Y.,
about 1835, and shortly before the birth of Stephen K., Jr., January 8, 1840,
the father died leaving to the care of his wife two other sons and one
daughter. The wife nobly performed her
mission under the most trying circumstances, owing to the fact that her
carpenter and builder husband had saved little from his meager earnings. She died in Gloversville, N.Y., April 15,
1904, in her eighty-sixth year. She was
a widow for the second time, and her second husband, Lieb Cleveland, leaving
behind him a family of four children.
Stephen K. owes his early training to his maternal grandfather, Robert
Hunkins, who was born in Vermont and settled in St. Lawrence county
while the farming population was still widely scattered. Subsequently he removed to Franklin county also in New York, and died there at about eighty
years of age. Stephen stayed with his grandfather
until sixteen years of age, and then applied himself to learning the
carpenter’s trade, which he afterward followed in Malone, N.Y., for three
years.
An event
of importance in the life of Mr. Jackson was the war service which taught him
the beauty of peace, and which enabled him to perform disinterested service for
his country. He left the carpenter’s
bench to enlist in Company F, Tenth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and with
the army of the Potomac participated in nearly all the battles which have made
the Civil war famous. At the battle of
Yorktown he was wounded in the leg, and though the pain was severe, continued
uninterruptedly his life in tent and field until his discharge in Washington in
1865. After the war he located in
Springfield, Mass., and until 1866 was employed in the Wasson car shops, after
which he went to Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1867 to Omaha, which was destined to
be his home for twenty-one years. He
went to Omaha immediately after his marriage to Miss Jennie L. Moody of South
Hadley, Mass. His position as
superintendent of the passenger car manufacturing shops of the Union Pacific
railroad at Omaha not only gave him a liberal financial compensation, but
enabled him to be thrown with people prominent in political and social life,
and of acknowledged usefulness. He took
a keen interest in Republican politics, and his devotion to the cause resulted
in his election to the House of Representatives, his service extending through
two sessions, or during 1879 and 1880.
He was the earnest champion of the high license bill, introduced by
himself and his representation of his district was characterized by wise and
shrewd understanding of its needs. In
the meantime, work in the shops progressed in satisfactory manner, and under
his management the first passenger coach used on the Union Pacific was begun
and completed. Leaving the shops he
engaged in real estate in Omaha from 1887 until 1890. After which he visited
the scenes of his youth in the east.
Arriving
in California in the fall of 1890, Mr. Jackson spent a year in San Jose, and
the following year located on a ranch of twenty acres, to which he has since
added ten. His first wife dying in this
state, in 1901 he married Miss Willett Worthington, a daughter of Charles H.
Worthington, a pioneer of Santa Clara county, whose sketch
also appears in this volume. Mrs.
Jackson is a naive of California, and presides with gracious hospitality over a
beautiful home. Mr. Jackson has found
inspiration and social diversion in the lodge of the Masons for thirty years,
and at present is identified with the Capital Lodge No. 3, of Omaha, the
Chapter No.1, of Omaha, and the Mount Calvary Commandery of Omaha, being a life
member of all three. He is also a member
of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Omaha. In the following of his trade, in his large
and responsible position in Omaha, and in the prosecution of his horticultural
work in his adopted state, Mr. Jackson has evidenced rare regard
for thoroughness and reliability, and by his earnest sincerity and large
mindedness has won the esteem and liking of all with whom he has been
associated.
Transcribed by
Louise E. Shoemaker, June 03, 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 332-335. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Louise E. Shoemaker.