San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM HENRY ADAMS
A pioneer who has both witnessed and
participated in the development of the Golden State, observing the great economic changes, is William Henry Adams, who
resides about one mile due north of Acampo.
He was born in County Fermanagh, Ireland, on
December 29, 1867, the son of William and Rebecca (Elliott) Adams, farmer folk
there. His father died when he was very
young, but his mother lived to be eighty-five years of age. There were six children in the family. Robert lives at Lodi; Mrs. Fannie Pritchard resides
in New York; Jennie died at the age of sixteen years; Mrs. Maggie Parker lives
at Oakland, California; Rebecca lives in Lodi; and William Henry is an
orchardist and vineyardist near Acampo.
William Henry Adams attended the
schools as often as he was able; but educational opportunities in Ireland then
were limited. When seventeen years old,
he came to the United States, arriving in San Joaquin County in 1884 where he
has been ever since. He took out his citizenship
papers in Stockton, and worked a year for his uncle, Henry Adams, on the Dry
Creek Road. He then worked for William
Hickey in the Elliott district for two years, and after that for W. R. Strong
in the Christian Colony, where he was engaged in the nursery line for nine
years. After this he came to the Ogden
ranch.
On November 16, 1898, Mr. Adams
married Miss Florence L. Ogden, a native of Williamsburg, Iowa County, Iowa,
and the daughter of Henry T. and Augusta (Smith) Ogden, natives of Ohio and
Iowa, respectively. Her father was a farmer,
and lived to be seventy-eight years old, while the mother attained her
sixty-first year. There were five
children in the Ogden family: Addison,
Elmer, Vernon, Florence (Mrs. Adams), and Leon.
When Florence was nine years old her parents came to California and
lived for a short time in Oakdale, Stanislaus County. Then they moved to Snelling, in Merced
County, where her father bought a half-section of grain land; and she was sent
to the Snelling schools. In 1894, her
father traded his grain land for seventy acres of land on the Cherokee Road,
one mile north of Acampo, and this he set out to almonds and a vineyard. Mr. Adams bought ten acres from one of his
brothers-in-law, and for the last six years he has also rented and operated the
seventy acres, living on it at the same time.
In April, 1920, his father-in-law died, and the estate was sold to W. C.
Petsinger, who now lives in the old home. Then Mr. Adams repurchased seventeen and
one-fourth acres of the old Ogden estate adjoining his ten acres, making the
present holdings of his ranch twenty-seven and one-fourth acres. He remodeled the home he now lives in, and in
November, 1921, moved into it. He has an
electric motor of ten-horsepower and a four-inch pump, and is able to command
an abundant supply of good water. He has
six children: Violet, at home; Elliott,
a student at Reno, Nevada; Norma, a student in the State Teacher’s College, San
Jose; and Leon, Raymond and Harold, pupils in the Houston grammar school.
Mr. Adams has twenty acres of almonds,
and is a member of the California Almond Growers’ Exchange. He has seven acres of Tokay grapes, and is a
director of the Acampo Fruit Growers’ Association. He is a stockholder in the Coast Tire &
Rubber Company, and also in the Samson Tire Company of San Diego. Mr. Adams is a Republican in matters of
national political import. Fraternally
he is a member of Woodbridge Lodge No. 131, F. & A. M. He has always been a hard-working man. When he came to California, for example, he
worked from sunrise to sunset driving a six-mule team, and received only
seventy-five cents for his labor.
Recalling his own hard experiences, he tries to do the right thing by
those who work for him.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1216. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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