San Mateo County
Biographies
DENNIS J. MERCER
The Mercer ranch of thirty acres, half a mile south of Mountainview, is a fair sample of what may be accomplished by a combination of admirable climate, adaptive soil, scientific ability, and unremitting perseverance. It has all of the improvements suggested by inquiring and progressive minds, and no expense is spared to make its equipment in accordance with the best known principles of horticultural endeavor. Two brothers direct its affairs, the younger, who is manager, being Dennis J. Mercer, and the elder being Charles Mercer. Both men are abreast of the times on all matters pertaining to successful ranching, and both are held in high esteem in the community. Twelve years ago, in 1892, the ranch was purchased by C. H. Mercer, the head of the family, and its founder on the western coast, who had already established a reputation second to none as a candy maker in San Francisco, and who desired the relaxation of country life to tide him over his exceptionally active later years.
C. H. Mercer was born in Kent county, England, and upon coming to the United States in 1851, located in San Francisco, where he started a candy shop on a small scale on Sacramento, between Kearney and Dupont streets. He afterward removed to No. 518 Kearney street, and in all was known to the confectionery world of San Francisco for forty-three years. After purchasing his ranch in 1892 he set out fruit trees of many kinds, and took the keenest interest in making his property a pleasant and profitable place on which to live. His death occurred six years later, in 1898, when he had reached the age of sixty-seven years. His wife was formerly Mary Ann O’Brien, a native of Brooklyn, N. Y., who also died in 1898, after rearing four sons and one daughter.
Dennis J. Mercer was born in San Francisco January 9, 1868, and while his father was pursuing his candy manufacturing attended the public schools and the high school on Fifth street, from which he was duly graduated. This training was supplemented by attendance at St. Ignatius College, and at the Santa Clara College, from which he graduated with a commercial diploma. His father’s large business presented an opening to him as soon as he was inclined to enter upon a business career, and so thorough was his mastery of candy manufacturing that he must always have the satisfaction of knowing that should the bottom drop out of his present enterprises, he could return to it with reasonable expectation of success. Mr. Mercer partially assumed the management of the factory when his father came to live on the ranch in 1892, and when the latter died in 1898 he sold it and came to live on the home place. With his brother he has twenty acres under apricots and ten under prunes, and in addition to many other improvements erected one of the finest rural homes in the county in 1902. In San Francisco in October, 1900, he married Florence E. Fay, a native daughter of the metropolis, the ceremony taking place in the Catholic Church, to which the family has been devoted for generations. In addition to the management of the ranch, Mr. Mercer has a substantial source of revenue in a real estate business on the corner of Leavenworth and Ellis streets, San Francisco, where he disposes of and buys improved residence property, stores and flats, and where he has established a reputation as a practical and remarkable successful promoter of homes and business projects. Mr. Mercer is forceful, energetic, resourceful and liberal, and all of the enterprises in which he has been interested have been benefited by this aggregation of desirable attributes. He is a Republican in politics, but is not influenced in local elections by any particular party.
Charles Mercer, also occupying the old Mercer ranch, is the second child in his father’s family, and the eldest of the living children. His education was acquired in the public schools and at St. Mary’s College, and after his graduation he entered his father’s candy factory, remaining with the concern until it passed into other hands in 1898. He came to the ranch with his father in 1892, and from that time on was more of a rancher than manufacturer, and has evidenced particular aptitude for a country life and its attendant responsibilities. He also married a native daughter of San Francisco, Lena Hayden by name, and in 1896 his life was embittered by the death of his wife, who left him two daughters, Frances and Marie, both of whom are living with their father. Mr. Mercer is a Republican in politics, but has never shown any inclination for office seeking. He is an honorable, high-minded gentleman, fair in business and society, and a popular and influential member of this increasingly prosperous community.
Transcribed
Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 377-378. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Joyce Rugeroni.
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