Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JOSEPH M. McKIERNAN
As a
veterinary dentist J.M. McKiernan ranks among the first of his kind in Santa
Clara county.
His livery business is also entitled to mention among the substantial
business concerns of San Jose, and is advantageously located in the heart of
the town of South First street. A comparatively young man to have succeeded
so well in his undertakings, he is essentially a product of his own energy and
perseverance, having started out in life with the wholesome lessons of economy
and industry well learned, but with little to back up his ambitions. Besides himself there are nine other children
to represent the family name among the workers of today in California, and to
maintain the reputation for integrity and success established by the father,
Frank McKiernan, a California pioneer of 1861.
Mr. McKiernan was born in Ireland, and upon arriving in the west located
first in the Santa Cruz mountains. Afterward he removed to a ranch near
Livermore, Alameda county, where he owned two thousand
acres of land, and where his son J.M., the third child in the family, was born
June 3, 1871. The elder McKiernan later settled
off stony road, near Evergreen, Santa Clara county,
where he engaged in putting three hundred and seventy-one acres under orchard
and general farming. He married Mary
Burke, who is also still living, and they make their home in San Jose.
From 1875
Mr. McKiernan was reared in Santa Clara county,
attending the public schools, and later graduated from the Garden City Business
College. In 1892 he took a course in the
New York Veterinary Hospital in San Francisco under Dr. E.J. Creely, and in 1896
started a livery business at Nos. 181 and 183 South First street. December 1, 1904, he expects to move into a
new stable on south Market street, opposite the city
hall park. The building is 70160s feet,
and has a capacity for accommodating seventy-five horses and as many
carriages. Mr. McKiernan makes a
specialty of veterinary dentistry, although he practices also in a general way
understanding well the disorders that stand in the way of the usefulness of
man’s best friend in the animal kingdom.. He is also a breeder of thoroughbred horses,
owning Lee Direct, with a record of 2.16.
Mr.
McKiernan has served as police and fire commissioner, and has often given his
support to friends worthily chosen for positions of trust and
responsibility. Politically he is a
Republican. Fraternally he is prominent
and popular, being identified with the Eagles and the Knights of the Maccabees,
at present being finance keeper of the latter organization. He is also a member of San Jose Lodge No. 22,
N.S.G.W. In Mission
San Jose he was united in marriage with Margaret Smith, a native of Santa Clara
county, and the mother of one son, Joseph Urban. Mr. McKiernan is a member of the chamber of
commerce, and a man of high standing in the business world of San Jose. He is energetic and resourceful, faithful to
friends and trusts imposed, and a master of the occupation which to him is
humane, interesting, promising and financially remunerative.
Transcribed by
Louise E. Shoemaker, July 19, 2015.
Source:
History of the State of California &
Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A.
M., Pages 698-699. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Louise E. Shoemaker.