San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN KIRK BALDWIN
A native son of California, whose
father and mother were ‘49ers, is John Kirk Baldwin, a retired stockman and
grain farmer residing on his fine ranch located on Baldwin’s Lane four and a
half miles east of Stockton, where he has lived and labored for a quarter of a
century. He was born at Knights Landing
on the Sacramento River, July 3, 1859 his parents being John and Louisa (Kirk)
Baldwin, both natives of Missouri, and pioneers of ’49, represented on another
page of this work. John Kirk was the
second eldest of their eight children, five of whom grew to maturity. He was about one year old when his parents
located in San Joaquin County. He
received a good education in the Douglas district school of the county and as
soon as his school days were over, he assumed his share of the ranch work, and
the practical experience of those first years of training has been invaluable
to him. Besides assisting his parents,
when he was sixteen years old, Mr. Baldwin started out and farmed for
himself. He rented a section of railroad
land near Bellota in 1875 where he raised grain and later also engaged in stockraising. Meeting with success he
leased160 acres of land adjoining so he operated 800 acres, continuing here
from 1875 until 1905, when he gave up his lease, though the railroad company
begged him to remain. Meanwhile he had
purchased 160 acres in Calaveras County, which he kept for twenty years and
then sold it at a profit. He had also
purchased ten acres of the old Cochrane place seven miles west of Stockton,
which he owned for fourteen years and sold at a profit. In 1903 he had purchased twenty acres of raw
land and in 1905 he quit grain raising on a large
scale to locate on this ranch in order to improve it to alfalfa and engage in
dairying. In 1922 Mr. Baldwin sold the stock to give all of his time to raising
hay and poultry.
In San Jose on November 28, 1911 Mr.
Baldwin was married to Miss Myrtie L. Berry, a native
of Strafford, New Hampshire, of English descent, a daughter of Hiram D. and
Letitia (Smith) Berry, born in New Hampshire.
Her father was an operator in a shoe manufacturing establishment. Mrs. Baldwin before her marriage was a school
teacher and Grandfather Jacob Smith was an old time school master and teacher
of penmanship. Mrs. Baldwin’s mother
passed on when she was but eleven months old.
Her brother, Adelbert C. Berry, who lives on a
ranch on the Durham Ferry Road near Lathrop, came to California on his way to
the Klondike in 1898. His sister Myrtie joined him in Stockton on May 13, 1906 where she met
Mr. Baldwin. She has been a member of
the Concord, New Hampshire, Lodge of Rebekahs since 1897. Mr. Baldwin’s business career has been marked
with sterling success and in a county where he has so long made his home he has
gained for himself an honorable name.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1292-1295. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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