San
Joaquin County
Biographies
FRED C. ALLEN
A straightforward citizen who feels
a keen interest in all that pertains to the rapid and permanent development of
San Joaquin County is Fred C. Allen, the well-known rancher residing east of
Lockeford. He was born at Gorham, Maine,
on January 25, 1868, a son of Hosea Roscoe and Eleanor C. (Thoms)
Allen. The father, Hosea R. Allen,
served in the 17th Regiment Volunteer Artillery of Maine, serving
throughout the Civil War in the Army of the Potomac. After eighteen months of service he was
disabled and was transferred and drove an ambulance; then he tried his hand at
cooking, and finally was detailed for hospital service, where he worked until
he became so weak he was a subject of the hospital himself. In 1883 he came to California and the same
year returned to Maine. In 1884 he
brought his whole family to the coast and settled four miles north of Lockeford
in Elliott Township, where he purchased 160 acres of grain land. There he passed away at the age of seventy
years, while the mother lived to be eighty years of age.
Fred C. Allen attended school at
North Bridgeton and later at the Fryberg Academy
until he came to California. He was then
sixteen years of age and started out for himself. He and his brother, W. S. Allen, who had come
to California in 1880, leased about 800 acres and farmed to grain, them Mr.
Allen moved to a portion of the old Megerle ranch, now the property of Charles
F. Smith, and leased it for six years.
Again the brothers entered into partnership and bought 200 acres of land
adjoining Lockeford on the east; this was grain land and the brothers developed
a fifty-acre vineyard, which they afterwards sold. A property settlement was then made and his
brother received fifty acres, thus leaving our subject 100 acres, which is his
home place at the present time. He also
owns 160 acres south of Clements. Mr.
Allen has a ten-acre vineyard and a number of acres in alfalfa. Some five years ago the old house was burned
to the ground, and he has substituted a fine story-and-a-half modern structure
to take its place.
Mr. Allen’s marriage in Lockeford on
December 22, 1894, united him with Miss Ora Viola Hatch, a daughter of Forest
R. and Charlofine Hatch. Mrs. Allen was born in Glens Falls, New York,
and came to California with her parents when a young girl, receiving her
education in the schools of Lockeford.
Her father, Forest R. Hatch, was a volunteer in the New York Infantry
and served three years of the Civil War; later he engaged in farming. Mr. and Mrs. Allen are the parents of five
children: Roscoe Forest; Clifton Le Roy;
Fred D.; Flora, Viola; and Alice Viola, deceased. In national politics Mr. Allen is a
Republican, and fraternally he is a past grand of the I. O. O. F. Lodge of
Lockeford.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1520-1521. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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