Santa
Clara County
Biographies
MRS. ADDIE WILCOX
A woman of great business aptitude
and tact, Mrs. Wilcox is actively identified with the industrial prosperity of
Santa Clara county as proprietor and manager of two of
the best-kept and most productive dairies in San Jose. Several years ago, wanting to find a healthful and profitable
out-door employment for her only son, she embarked in the dairy business on a
modest scale, and by her energetic industry, persistency of purpose and good
judgment she has developed an extensive business and has acquired a large
property. A daughter of William Hopkins, she was born in Kentucky, of English
ancestry, her grandfather, William Hopkins, Sr., and her great-grandfather,
Josiah Hopkins, having both been natives of England. Immigrating with his
family to America, Josiah Hopkins settled in Kentucky, and became the founder
of the city of Hopkinsville. Coming with his parents to this country, William
Hopkins, Sr., grew to manhood in Kentucky and after his marriage with Sarah
Smithers of England, remove to Davis county, Iowa, settling near Bloomfield,
where he was prosperously employed in farming until his death.
Reared to agricultural pursuits,
William Hopkins, Jr., assisted his father in establishing a homestead in Iowa,
and subsequently engaged in general farming on his own account. Removing with his
family from Iowa to Kansas, he took up land near Lucerne, and was a resident of
that place until his death, in 1903. He married Caroline Robinson, who was born
in Decatur county, Ind., of Scotch-English descent, her father, Marmaduke
Robinson, having been born in Indiana of Scotch ancestors, while her mother was
a native of England. Mrs. Hopkins survives her husband, and lives on the
homestead in Kansas. She bore her husband twelve children, of whom ten are
living, Mrs. Wilcox being the eldest child. One of her sons, Eldridge Josiah
Hopkins, now living near Lucerne, Kans., served as private in an Iowa regiment
during the Civil war, and his son, Frank Hopkins, served in the
Spanish-American war. As a member of the Twentieth Kansas regulars he was sent
to the Philippine Islands, where he and a comrade saving a train by swimming
the Calumpit river and bringing the rope through.
Brought up on a farm and educated in
the district schools of Iowa, Miss Hopkins left home when a girl to come with
an aunt, Mrs. Pugh, to California. After a six months’ (sic) trip on horseback
across the plains, she arrived in Marysville, Cal., in the fall of 1865. While
in that city she married Miles Wilcox, who was born in New York state, and came
to California by way of Panama in 1853. Mr. Wilcox was a broom manufacturer,
and carried on a lucrative business. In 1870 Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox removed to San
Jose, where he continued the manufacture of brooms for many years. In 1885 Mrs.
Wilcox established her first dairy, buying two cows, and commencing on a small
scale. Her success being far beyond her expectations, she was soon forced to
enlarge her operations, and now has in her San Jose dairy, which is the smaller
one, forty full-blooded Jersey cows, of the best stock to be obtained on the
coast. She raises much of the hay and clover for her stock, being the owner of
twelve and one-half acres of land on Newhall street, and renting twenty acres
of land adjoining her own. Achieving such success in the management of her
original dairy, Mrs. Wilcox established another dairy on the Weller ranch, near
Milpitas, where she keeps a large number of choice cows. In Milpitas Mrs.
Wilcox rents four hundred and fifty acres of land, which she devotes to
pasturing and the raising of hay. This land, in 1903, yielded her four hundred
tons of fine hay, a good average crop. Mrs. Wilcox is very careful in regard to
the feeding of her cattle, giving them bran, middlings,
and the best of clover hay, but no brewery slops. She carries on an extensive
wholesale as well as retail business, shipping the products of her Milpitas
dairy to San Francisco, where her milk is sure of bringing the very highest
market price, its purity being unquestioned.
Mrs. Wilcox’s only son, Irvin, ably
assists her in her business, and is her collector. She has no other child of
her own, but has an adopted daughter, Mrs. Schultzburg,
of San Francisco. Mrs. Wilcox is a member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and in her political views is a Republican.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1388-1389. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2017 Cecelia M. Setty.