San Francisco County
Biographies
JOSEPH
DIMMICK
JOSEPH DIMMICK, A dentist of Oakland was born in Schuyler
County, Illinois, November 5, 1842 a son of Joseph Benjamin and Comfort (Dean) Dimmick,
both born January 24, 1808, the father near Syracuse, New York, and the mother
in Ohio. In his sixteenth year the father moved to Ohio,
when he was employed at some salt works, and was married at eighteen. About
1835 he moved to Illinois, settling on a farm in Schuyler
County. In 1852 they crossed the
plains to Oregon, eventually settling on 320 acres in
what is now Benton County.
On the six month’s trip they found not a single house between the Missouri
river and the Dalles, Oregon, not
even where is now the city of Omaha. Fort Hall was a rough and
ready frontier post of rude cabins and tents. They spent the first winter in Milwaukee,
six miles north of Portland, Oregon.
The fathers, whose main career was farming, died in 1861 and
the mother in 1858. They had seven sons and seven daughters, of whom the
oldest died in crossing the plains at the age of twenty-three, and another son
was accidentally killed by the careless handling of a gun in his
own house in Josephine County, Oregon, at the age of thirty-one. The
other twelve children are still living, mostly in Oregon.
Ann is the wife of Rev. T. M. Starr, of Halsey, Oregon,
and Ethelinda is the wife of A. W. Starr a rancher of Tulare
County in this State. Grandfather
Joseph Dimmick, born near Syracuse New
York, where the family originally English, seems to
have settled for several generations, lived to the age of about sixty. His
widow survived him many years, reaching the age of eighty-eight. Their son
Benjamin, a land owner and merchant of Pleasant view, Schuyler County,
Illinois, and Post master of the Village for over fifty years, died in 1888,
aged ninety-five. The maternal ancestry of Dr. Dimmick was of Virginia, but the
grandparents Dean moved to Ohio and afterwards to Iowa,
where they lived to the age of about eighty years. Their son Samuel Dean, a
farmer near Shueyville, Johnson County, Iowa,
is living, in 1890, aged about seventy. J. Dimmick, the subject of this sketch
received his education in the common schools, beginning in Illinois
and ending in Oregon. He afterwards
learned the higher mathematics and surveying under a private teacher. The
family being large, he began to earn at an early age books and clothing, going
to school only in the winter terms. At fifteen he began to help in the local
country stores, and in his eighteenth year he was clerk and virtual manager of
a general store in Monroe, Oregon,
for two years. He spent the summer of 1864 Prospecting in Idaho,
and mining a little. He taught a country school for the winter term of
1864-1865, and then took the position of clerk and manager of a general store
in Corvallis, Oregon.
In 1866 he made a trip to the east, from June to October, going and coming by
way of Panama.
He was present at the great national gathering in Chicago,
in memory of Senator Douglas, and was much interested in many other sights and
wonders of his native land, which to him had all the novelty of a strange land,
and he was filled with enthusiasm for the greatness and glory of our reunited
country. Returning to Oregon, he was married in Corvallis,
April 27, 1867, to Mrs. Mary Frances (Kriechbaum) Belfils, a widow with two
children, Victor Hugo Belfils now in the employ of the Puget Sound Lumber
Company, and Ernest Kriechbaum Belfils, now a dentist of Tulare,
California. Mrs. Dimmick is the daughter of
John George and Lucy (Morgan) Kriechbaum. Her father reached the age of
seventy-two, and her mother born in Illinois, September
28, 1824, and married in Iowa, in
1840 is living, in 1890. Dr. Kriechbaum was for some years a merchant in Burlington,
Iowa, and came to this coast in 1853, settling in Portland,
Oregon, where he carried on a Hotel. Mrs.
Dimmick’s grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Morgan, came to Oregon
in 1853, and died at Pleasant Hill, in Lane
County, the husband at the age of sixty-seven
and the wife about seventy. Soon after his marriage Mr. Dimmick came to San
Francisco and engaged in trade for a few months. In
1868 he went to farming and fruit raising near Windsor,
Sonoma County,
where he bought 164 acres on which he remained about ten years. About 1871 he
began to give some attention to the study and practice of dentistry, and
gradually grew to be an expert in the art. In 1879 he sold his place in Sonoma
County, taking in part payment some
property in this city, where he has resided since April and practiced his profession
since June of that year. Dr. Dimmick has been a member of the Odd Fellows since
1865 and a Knight of Pythias since 1882, and is a past officer in both. The
children of Mr. and Mrs. Dimmick are : Clarence Cornell, born in San Francisco,
January 22, 1868, received a good common School education and is now in the
employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in Oakland; Lillian Lucy
Comfort, born in Sonoma County, February 17, 1870, is a graduate in music; Edwin Huston, born January 31, 1873,
is a graduate of the Oakland High School, and is now learning dentistry in his
fathers office; Virgil Benjamin, born August 25, 1875; Ellis L., born February
22 1879; Carroll Dean, born in Oakland, August 12, 1883. The Dimmick family are of a Healthy and Robust stock and have little
need of physicians. Four Brothers and three sisters of Mr. Dimmick at a late
reunion of the family were found to weigh 1,463 pounds.
Transcribed
by Kim Buck.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Pages 627-628,
Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
© 2007 Kim Buck.
California
Biography Project
San
Francisco County
California
Statewide
Golden
Nugget Library