San
Joaquin County
Biographies
PATRICK DONELON
The ranching interests of San
Joaquin County are well represented by Patrick Donelon, who for almost a
quarter of a century has engaged in grain and stockraising in the Bellota
section. His present home place consists
of 515 acres seventeen miles east of Stockton, which he conducts as a dairy and
stock farm with gratifying results.
County Galway, Ireland, was his birthplace and he is a son of Thomas and
Catherine (Herbert-Donelon) Donelon, both also born in Ireland.
Patrick Donelon received a good
education in the schools of the town of Dunmore, and at seventeen years of age
he went to England, where he was employed on a farm in County Cheshire, working
for four seasons, each winter returning home to be with his parents. In 1883 he left home for America with passage
paid to Sacramento, California, and upon his arrival in Sacramento he found
work in the Southern Pacific Railroad shops, where he worked for about one
year; then he found employment on the passenger steamer Apache, one of the
Sacramento River steamers to San Francisco.
Mr. Donelon worked as a deckhand for four years and as fireman on this
steamer for ten years and was oiler for one year. For his efficient service he was given engineer
papers as a second-class operator of river boats in California. Mr. Donelon was on this boat at the time of
collision in 1885 with the T. C. Walker and received a painful injury in his
side and hip, which necessitated remaining in the Marine Hospital in San
Francisco for a month. During the years
of his service on the Apache he received his U. S. citizenship papers.
Mr. Donelon’s
marriage in San Francisco united him with Miss Ellen Donelon, born in County
Galway, Ireland, who had come to San Francisco in 1893. After their marriage the young couple settled
on their ranch four miles east of Bellota, which Mr. Donelon had purchased in
1889. For twenty years they resided on
this place, and here all their children were born. They are the parents of five children: Catherine is a graduate of Notre Dame, San
Francisco, and for the past two years has been teaching in the Fair Oaks school
in Stockton; Mary is a graduate of the San Francisco Normal and Notre Dame and
is a teacher in the Elmwood school; Thomas attends the Stockton vocational high
school, where he is learning the auto mechanic trade; Agnes and Lucile attend
school in Stockton. Five years ago Mr.
Donelon acquired the present home place of 515 acres, which he is steadily
improving, and he purchased a residence at 1066 North Sierra Nevada Street,
Stockton, as a home for his daughters.
For several years he served as trustee of the Douglas School District
and at the present time is a trustee of the Bellota School District. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus of
Stockton, and has always manifested a public-spirited interest in the general
progress and development of his locality.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1460. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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