San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HARRY T. BAILEY
Descended, on both his father’s and
mother’s side, from an honored ancestry prominent in Revolutionary days, and
the son of one of Stockton’s earliest settlers, Harry T. Bailey was born at
Stockton, December 10, 1875. His parents
were Andrew J. and Sarah J. (Allen) Bailey, the former a native of Vermont and
the latter of Connecticut. Both the
Bailey and Allen families were prominent in colonial days, and were well-known
for the aid they rendered during the American Revolution, the father being a
direct descendant of Joseph Bailey and the mother a descendant of Ethan
Allen. Both parents came to California
by way of the Isthmus of Panama in 1852, and later were married here. For many years they were residents of
Stockton, and there Mrs. Bailey died in 1908.
She was prominent in the circles of Daughters of the American
Revolution, and through her, as well as through his father; Harry T. Bailey is
eligible to membership in the Sons of the Revolution. Coming to Stockton as one of its pioneer
settlers, Andrew J. Bailey followed farming on a large scale and also mined in
the mother-lode country, passing away in 1909 at the age of ninety-one. This pioneer couple was the parents of four
children: Mrs. Lottie M. Walter, of
Oakland; Edward J., of Oakland; Phoebe, deceased at eighteen years of age; and
Harry T., of this sketch.
Harry T. Bailey was educated in the
schools of Stockton, Los Angeles and Pleasanton, and took a business course in
Heald’s Business College at San Francisco.
At the age of eighteen he started in to earn his own living, and was
assistant postmaster at Pleasanton and also employed as a drug clerk there. For two years, in 1896 and 1897, he was bookkeeper
for the Abramosky Grocery Company at Jackson, Amador
County, and then came back to Pleasanton, where for two more years he did
clerical work. From there he went to San
Francisco, where he was chief accountant with the Empire Laundry Company, and then
with the Metropolitan Laundry Company for four years. During the reconstruction period of San
Francisco after the disastrous fire, he was with the H. Rosencrantz Hardware
Company as a salesman, and later was transportation manager of the Crown
Columbia Paper Company of the bay metropolis.
In 1909 he was appointed auditor of the Bay Cities Telephone Company of
San Francisco, now the Pacific Telegraph & Telephone Company, remaining
with them until he received a similar appointment with J. H. Adams of Los
Angeles.
Coming to Lodi in 1912, Mr. Bailey
engaged in the dairy business and in raising cattle, sheep and hogs on the
Henry Beckman ranch. In 1920 he
discontinued these lines in order to develop the ranch into vineyard and orchard
property, planting 120 acres to Tokay grapes, thirty acres to wine grapes,
seven acres to cherries, and ten acres to almonds and plums. He had become associated with the Superior
Manufacturing Company in 1919, as its secretary, and this responsible post he
resigned on December 9, 1922, in order to give closer attention to his fruit
ranch and his other interests, among which is that of special representative of
the New York Life Insurance Company; he resigned particularly in order to
accept his present important position as field manager for the Woodbridge Fruit
Company, under Freeman B. Mills. He is
also director in the Beckman, Welch & Thompson Company of Lodi.
Mr. Bailey’s marriage, which
occurred in 1911 at Lodi, united him with Miss Eva M. Beckman, daughter of the
late Henry Beckman, one of San Joaquin County’s honored pioneers; and they are
the parents of a son, Howard Lewis Bailey.
Prominent in government activities during the World War, Mr. Bailey was
a member of the Liberty Loan committee for Lodi, which covered eight square
miles of territory. He is a member of
the Lodi Rotary Club; the Mokelumne Club; Lodi Parlor, N. S. G. W.; the Elks
Lodge, No. 218, of Stockton; and Woodbridge Lodge, No. 131, F. & A. M.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1115-1116. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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