San
Joaquin County
Biographies
THOMAS F. BAXTER
Stockton owes much of its
world-celebrity to the Holt Manufacturing Company, whose efficient, popular
manager is Thomas F. Baxter, the president.
He was born at Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 1, 1869, and there
attended the grammar and high schools.
At the age of seventeen he secured a position with a banking firm in
Boston, and after three years there, he became, when twenty years of age, treasurer
of the Worcester, Nashua and Rochester Railroad. Three years in railroading satisfied his
ambition for that field, and then he entered the Boston and New York banking
firm of Messrs. Bond & Goodwin. From
the start there, he was successful, both in inspiring his superiors with
confidence in him, and in satisfying the patrons of the house with whom he
dealt; and it is not surprising to find that in 1900 he was made a partner in
the concern, and two years later he became senior partner. The banking house is one of the largest in
the east, with many branches and connections elsewhere, including some on the
Pacific coast; and Mr. Baxter could hardly have had a better introduction to
his present line of enterprise.
In 1913, then, with the prestige of
a successful banker, Mr. Baxter came out to Stockton, as general manager of the
Holt Manufacturing Company, and on the death of Benjamin Holt in 1921, he was
made president of this now widely-known company. In January, 1920, he retired from active
participation in banking, two years after he became a citizen of Stockton. He is still a director in the banking firm of
Bond, Goodwin & Tucker, Inc., at San Francisco, with Pacific coast
branches, being chairman of the board, and he is also a director of the Stockton
Savings and Loan Bank. He is vice-president
of the Stockton Chamber of commerce, and was active in all liberty bond drives;
he is still especially interested in the Boy Scout movement, and donated Camp
Baxter to the Boy Scouts for summer vacation purposes.
Mr. Baxter was married in Boston, in
1899, to Miss Mabel Smith, a native of Boston, by whom he has had two sons and
one daughter: Thomas F., Philip N., and
Ruth Baxter. Mr. Baxter belongs to the
following clubs: Brookline Country Club,
the Braeburn Country Club, the Minneapolis Club, the
Peoria Country Club, the Pacific Union Club, the Burlingame Country Club, the
Yosemite Club of Stockton, the Stockton Golf Club, the Stockton Country Club,
the Stockton Progressive Business Club, the Brookline Elks and the Boston Press
Club; is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, holding membership in Aahmes
Temple, Oakland. He has recently been
elected president of the Chamber of Commerce.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
727-728. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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