San Joaquin County

Biographies


 

 

 

JUDGE DENIS MARTIN DENEHY

 

 

            A retired merchant whose years of industrious, successful activity and long record of fair-and-square dealing have won for him the esteem and confidence of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances is Judge D. M. Denehy, ex-postmaster of Acampo, in which town he has been the central figure since early days.  Born near the Lakes of Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, on November 11, 1851, he was the son of Dennis Denehy, an Irish pedagogue teaching in the national schools of that country.  He had married Miss Mary Murphy, and they had three children when they came out to the United States and settled in Fairfield County, Ohio.  Our subject was then six years old, and he went through the nine grades of the district school.

            Striking out for himself as a young man, he went to Iowa, and having learned the trade of a blacksmith in the Buckeye State, he followed his trade there.  In 1874 he came to California, working at his trade for different contractors at railroad and levee construction in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, and visiting the Acampo district while thus engaged.  In the month of January, 1876, he opened up a blacksmith shop at Lodi.  He remained only a few months, however, until May 1, of the same year, when he came up to Acampo.  Here he built his blacksmith shop, which he operated until 1890, when he went back to Lancaster, Ohio.  There he engaged in the natural gas and real estate business until 1892, when he returned to Acampo, California, and for two years resumed his work at the forge.  In 1894 he engaged in the general merchandise business at Acampo, and for twenty years successfully conducted a general merchandise store there.  He has bought lands at Acampo and in the vicinity from time to time, until he has become a substantial property owner.

            In 1894, Mr. Denehy was appointed special agent for the General Land Office, and later he became postmaster of Acampo.  Since 1902, also, he has been serving as judge in the Justice’s Court, and this responsible office he still holds, although in 1914 he sold his store at Acampo and retired from active business life.  He has always been a consistent Democrat. 

            Judge Denehy was married at Acampo on November 27, 1877, to Miss Lilly Mullen, a native of Placerville and the daughter of Dennis and Bridget Mullen, who came to California in the sixties and settled in the mining section of Placer County.  Four children have blessed their union.  The oldest was Sylvan, he died at the age of nineteen, unmarried; Annette C. is now the wife of C. W. Howard, vineyardist, of Acampo, and has one child, Naomi Jane, eight years old; Robert E. married Miss Christine Wesner.  He served the Southern Pacific Railway Company for nineteen years, nine years as day operator at the Southern Pacific downtown office in Stockton, until he succumbed to the influenza in 1918.  He left one child, James Eugene, now twelve years old.  Mildred is the wife of Leo Cooper, of Santa Barbara, California.

            The death of Mrs. Denehy occurred on November 23, 1920, just a year to a day, before that of her brother.  Since her death, Judge Denehy has been making his home with his daughter, Mrs. C. W. Howard.  The Judge was long a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge at Woodbridge.  He is patriotic and popular as a justice of the peace, and finds that administration of that office easier, with public sentiment in his favor.

 

 

Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.

Source: Tinkham, George H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages 831-832.  Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic Record Co., 1923.


© 2011  Gerald Iaquinta.

 

 

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