Santa Clara County
Biographies
MENZO SAMUEL LOUCKS
For many years prior to locating upon his present ranch in 1893 Mr. Loucks had followed agricultural pursuits as a means of livelihood. In that year he purchased a part of his present farm, on the Charleston road, two miles southeast of Mayfield, which now contains one hundred and fourteen acres, and the principal crops raised upon his place are hay and grain, the soil being well adapted to this line of farming.
August 19, 1849, M. S. Loucks was born in Walworth county, Wis., the third in a family of nine sons born to William and Susan Lucinda (Conable) Loucks, both parents having been natives of state of New York. His father followed the double occupation of a hatter and shoemaker for a livelihood. In 1846 he located in Walworth county, Wis., where he also carried on farming. With true patriotism he responded to our country’s call for volunteers during the conflict between the north and the south, enlisting in Company C, thirteenth Wisconsin Infantry as sergeant. Promotions followed, and before his honorable discharge in 1865 he had been made second lieutenant. After the close of the war he returned to his Wisconsin home and again turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, but in the spring of 1866 he removed to a farm in Fillmore county, Minn., where the closing years of his life were spent, passing to his final rest at the age of sixty-five years. Mrs. Loucks, who was a native of Warsaw, N. Y., survived him a number of years, her demise taking place at Los Angeles, Cal., in her seventieth year.
M. S. Loucks was the recipient of the best educational advantages afforded by the local schools of his native section, but nevertheless his education was somewhat limited. In 1869 he left home and in St. Clair county, Ill., near East St. Louis, he engaged in railroading, in the construction department of the Pittsburg Railway, assisting in laying the track from St. Louis to Belleville. His next occupation was cutting timber, and for three years he supplied various coat mines in that district with timber for props, etc. He then returned to Minnesota and in 1874 went to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, for several years working on a farm near the location of his present home. April 21, 1879, he accepted the superintendency of the A. P. Hotaling ranch, a position he filled in a creditable manner until forced to resign, in 1887, on account of ill health. He then went to his old home in Minnesota and spent six months in recuperating, afterwards returning to California, going by steamer to New York and continuing his journey again by way of the Isthmus of Panama. In the meantime he had purchased a part of the ranch upon which he now lives.
In Stockton, Cal., he married Miss Maria Sherman, a native of New Bedford, Mass., and two children were born to them, Charles Earnest and Ray Sherman, both at home. The family are Baptists in their church leadings, and have always occupied a prominent and respectable place in the community. Mr. Loucks is a Republican, and fraternally he affiliates with the Odd Fellows of Mountainview.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1377-1378. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Joyce Rugeroni.