San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JUDSON L. CRAIG
Known
for more than seventeen years as an authority on lands, locations and values of
property in the great central California section, Judson L. Craig is today a
specialist in the investment fields of his home country. He was born in Watsonville, Santa Cruz
County, California, on February 13, 1872, a son of Andrew and Mary C. (Pace)
Craig, the former a native of Ohio, and the latter of Missouri. The father crossed the plains with his wife in
1863 and was a pioneer attorney of Stockton; later locating in Watsonville he
served as superior judge of Santa Cruz County for twelve years. In 1880 he removed to San Francisco and was
elected district attorney and there followed his profession until the time of
his death in 1903. The mother was a
daughter of Judge Jonathan Pace of Chillicothe, Missouri, and she died in 1916.
Judson L., the youngest of their six
children, began his education in the grammar school of San Francisco and was
later graduated from the Polytechnic high school of that city. His first position was with the Claus
Spreckels Sugar Company, doing clerical work, which occupied him for five
years; he then went into the wholesale coffee business. In 1903 he went to Portland, Oregon, where he
remained for about four years, when he located in Stockton and became
interested in the development of unimproved and improved lands, later becoming
identified with the South San Joaquin Irrigation District. With his partner, John A. Coley, he was one
of the founders of the town of Escalon, making the first improvements there,
erecting buildings, laying out the townsite and selling lots; he was one of the
promoters and organizers of the Tidewater Southern Railway, and has been a
member of its board of directors ever since the road was built. Mr. Craig is the owner of the Clarkadota Fig
Plantations, which consist of 1,500 acres of land two miles to the southeast of
Stockton, the largest fig orchard of this variety in the world. It is seedless and differs from any other fig
when cooked because it retains its original shape. It has been shipped fresh and in perfect
condition to New York. A cannery for
processing all the fruit produced on this plantation will be constructed in
Stockton in time to handle the fruit in the summer of 1923. This company sells the land on easy terms,
plants the figs and care for same for five, ten or more years, thus enabling
professional and business men, who do not have the time to care for an orchard,
to own producing land, which brings in a profit to the owner each year. The leading hotels of San Francisco and the
Merritt Hospital of Oakland own producing fig orchards in this tract and serve
their figs to their patrons and patients.
The soil of the Clarkadota Fig Plantations is practically identical with
that on which W. Sam Clark obtained his wonderful results, the soil being
exceptionally heavy. The Clarkadota fig
tree bears four and a half to five crops a year, averaging about thirty days
each, thus requiring pickers to work for thirty days at a stretch, there being
an intermission of a few days between each crop. It is obvious that the orchard cannot be
irrigated while the pickers are at work, therefore, the soil must be sufficiently
heavy to retain an abundance of water for thirty days at a time. The soil of the Clarkadota Fig Plantations is
particularly favored by nature through a deposit of large quantity of lime,
silicate, phosphate, etc., all of which, particularly the lime, is a tremendous
asset in the growing of figs.
The marriage of Mr. Craig united him
with Miss Louise A. Williams, a daughter of a pioneer Woodbridge family, and
they are the parents of one daughter, Lida L., a graduate of Stockton high
school and now a student at Mills College, Oakland. Mr. Craig is active in the Stockton Chamber
of Commerce and fraternally is a member of Morning Star Lodge, F. & A. M.,
of Stockton, and Stockton Chapter, R. A. M.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1388. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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