San
Joaquin County
Biographies
PATRICK BRENNAN
For many years Patrick Brennan was a
foremost agriculturist of the Atlanta district of San
Joaquin County, and his death on October 9, 1879, when in his fiftieth year,
meant a personal loss to the citizenship of the locality. He was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, in
1829, and there grew to young manhood.
He was married in New London, Connecticut, to Miss Bridget Kelly, also a
native of Ireland, born in 1834.
Embarking for America in 1852, Mr. Brennan arrived in the United States
and located at New London, Connecticut, where he was married and where the
young couple remained for four years; then in 1856 they started for California,
and on September 15 of that year arrived in Stockton, where they spent another
five years. Deciding that agriculture
was best suited to him, Patrick Brennan bought 320 acres of land eighteen miles
southeast of Stockton on the French Camp Road, near Atlanta, where he
successfully farmed until he died on October 10, 1879, survived by his wife and
seven of their nine children: Frank J.;
William J.; Joseph; George (died in youth); John (died in infancy); Henry; Mary
Sullivan; George W. and Stephen E., whose sketch appears elsewhere in this
work. Following her husband’s death,
Mrs. Brennan managed the ranch and paid off the mortgage and reared and
educated her children. This was not
accomplished without hardship and privations incident to early day life in
California, but her courage and determination to overcome all obstacles
resulted in keeping the family home intact and giving all her children a
workable education. Five children now
survive the mother, who passed away on May 29, 1912, mourned by a large circle
of friends, who were loud in their praises of her remarkable force of character
and genial disposition. After her death
the home place was divided among the surviving children, and they in turn subdivided
their portion, until a number of farms have been made out of the original
tract, and under the South San Joaquin Irrigation District have been made to
blossom like the rose. Thus one by one
the old pioneers of the fifties are passing away, the younger generation
assuming the responsibilities of the development and prosperity of the great
state of California. Mrs. Brennan was an ardent supporter of St. Patrick’s
Catholic Church at Atlanta and so remained until her death.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1451. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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