San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HOBART J. COUPER
The progressive
spirit and thorough understanding which Hobart J. Couper
has displayed in connection with the development of his orchard and vineyard is
bringing him most gratifying success.
He was born in the rural district of Northfield, Minnesota, on July 24,
1867, and when but a small child was taken by his parents to Faribault County,
Minnesota, where they settled near Blue Earth, where he grew to manhood and
followed stockraising and farming for eight years. In 1897 he came to California and located in
Lodi; his parents followed him in the fall of that year and spent their last
years in Lodi. Mr. Couper
purchased twenty acres of the Woodruff ranch in the Lafayette district west of
Lodi; four acres were in young Tokay vineyard and he immediately planted twelve
acres to orchard and vines (making sixteen acres under cultivation); on the
remaining four acres he built his residence and other buildings and resided
there until 1920, when he sold out and removed into the city of Lodi where he
has an attractive residence on West Elm Street.
Believing in the future prosperity of the Lafayette district, he
purchased forty acres which he planted to Tokay grapes in 1901; he added ten
acres in 1908, which he planted to peaches and an additional purchase of fifty
acres in 1913, thirty of which he planted to Tokays and the remainder to
alfalfa. All of his real estate holdings
are in section eight and nine of the Lafayette district, adjacent to the city
of Lodi. His development work has all
been constructive and has added greatly to the progress and prosperity of the
county and state.
Mr. Couper’s
marriage united him with Miss Anna B. Stokes, a native of Minnesota and they
have had four children in their family:
Henry E., their oldest son, passed away in Lodi at the age of
twenty-one; Lillian, Sidney and Charles.
Mr. Couper is an active member of the San
Joaquin County Table Grape Growers’ Association and served on its board of
directors soon after its organization.
He was one of the organizers of the Lodi Episcopal Church and assisted
in the erection of the building and at the present time is the warden of the
church.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
748. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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