San
Joaquin County
Biographies
FRANCIS MARION COWELL
A prominent citizen of San Joaquin
County, who believes that the future of Manteca is well assured, is F. M.
Cowell, the vice-president of the Manteca Packing Corporation, a far-seeing
patriot who was one of the prime factors in the founding of the town. He was born in Grant County, Wisconsin, on
January 27, 1847, and spent his boyhood in that state, where he received a
common school education helpful when he came to strike out for himself.
He was preceded to the Coast by two
brothers, Joshua and H. W., who had crossed the Great Plains in 1860 and
stopped in Nevada one year, then, H. W. came to California in 1861 and located
at Lathrop and French Camp. Our subject
came out of California in 1864, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in
Stockton in August of that year. After
awhile he came to San Joaquin City, as it was then called, and there he entered
the employ of a rancher; and he finally acquired a ranch and there went in for
the raising of grain. In 1868, he
homesteaded 160 acres, and for twenty-eight years he was active as a grain-farmer
on the West Side.
Dry year after dry year, however,
caused him to look about for a new location with the consequence that he moved
to Manteca, where his brother, already referred to, had lands needing
irrigation. In 1872 he married Ada E.
Graves, a native of Wisconsin, who had cross the plains to California in
1864. She passed away in 1880, mourned
by a wide circle of devoted friends. Mr.
Cowell’s second marriage united him with Miss Sadie
Talley, who accompanied her parents to California in 1863, by way of the
Isthmus of Panama. Her mother, now
eighty-two years old, resides at Manteca.
Four children have come to call Mrs. and Mrs. Cowell blessed. Mrs. Edna E. Larsen, a resident of Stockton,
is the mother of two children; B. F. Cowell has a wife and one child, and they
live in Oakland; Lester M. Cowell resides near Ripon, with his wife and child;
and Mrs. Myrtle Edwards, also a resident of Stockton, has one child.
In 1895, our subject removed to
Manteca from the West Side, where he had served as a trustee of the Rising Sun
school for ten years, and he acquired the land of H. W. Cowell, one mile to the
east of Manteca, which was again sold, in 1917, to the Spreckels Sugar Company,
and since conducted as the site of the Spreckels’ farm and factory. There Mr. Cowell set aside 150 acres, and
planted the first vineyard in that section.
For several years he was chosen chairman of the farmers’ mass meetings
on irrigation, and he did a great work in organizing the district. He was also one of the prime factors in
gaining for this locality a branch of the Stockton Creamery at Manteca, in
1896. He helped establish the first
skimming station at Manteca, putting it on a standard commercial basis and
which has since developed into the creamery.
Besides giving valuable aid to the foregoing and other enterprises, Mr.
Cowell was instrumental in organizing the Pioneer Bank of Manteca, and with
three associates, in 1915; he organized the Manteca Cannery, interest in which
he sold, after four years of success.
Then he reorganized the company, and created a larger manufactory called
the Manteca Packing Company, of which he is now the vice-president. He was also the prime factor in the
organization of the Farmers Mutual Insurance Association, which protects the
rancher at cost. The policies written by
this company now total over $6,000,000.
He was city trustee of Manteca from May, 1918, to January, 1921, and
during that time much public improvement was undertaken and carried out
successfully. He has always supported
good roads, better schools and more churches, and having always been active in
public affairs, he feels justly proud of what the city has accomplished within
a few years. He is a member of the
Knights of Pythias, and is a past chancellor commander of that order.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
740-743. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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