San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN WORTHINGTON DORSEY EWING
Prominent among the distinguished
residents of Stockton whose influence for progress is always perceptible is the
very representative American, John Worthington Dorsey Ewing, who was born in
San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, on September 4, 1880, the son of Philip C. S.
Barbour Ewing and his good wife, who was Miss Lou Eleanor Dorsey before her
marriage, the former, now deceased, a native of Mississippi and the latter of
Missouri. The elder Ewing was born in
the Bayou State and reared by his uncle, Philip Barbour, who owned an old
plantation near Louisville, Kentucky.
Upon reaching manhood he returned to the old Ewing plantation in Owen
County, Kentucky, where he raised tobacco, cattle, horses and mules. During the Civil War, on account of his
sympathy with the cause of the South, he gave to the Confederate Army all of
his livestock. Later he purchased the
old Mayo place in Cooper County, Missouri, where he continued to raise tobacco
and livestock. The old Mayo home was
built of black oak slabs in 1831, and still stands on a hill on the old
plantation where Daniel Boone and his companions camped during the Indian Wars. The old gentleman came to California in the
‘70s, and stocked the Dorsey ranch in Stanislaus County with fine blooded
stock, cattle and horses, and he later returned to Missouri, thereafter
spending part of his time in California.
Here he married a lady of Pike County, Missouri, and they had three
children: Edwa
W. Dorsey, John W. D., and O. Barbour, who became Mrs. Harry Cory Marsh, of San
Francisco. Mrs. Ewing and her sister,
Miss Anna B. Dorsey, are the only ones left of the old Dorsey family.
John W. D. Ewing attended the public
schools of Stockton and in time was graduated from the Stockton high school in
1899. Then he clerked in the freight
department of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Stockton, after which he entered
the First National Bank of Stockton, where he was for fifteen years the paying
teller. The close confinement beginning
to tell on his health, he resigned.
Since leaving the bank he has devoted his time to his mining interests
in Calaveras County and his grain ranch, sixteen miles southeast of Stockton, near
Atlanta.
Mr. Ewing is very prominent in the
Masonic fraternity. He is a past master
in all bodies of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Free Masonry, and
belongs to the Ben Ali Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Sacramento. While he has advanced to the 32nd
degree in the Scottish Rite, he also has the honorary
degree of the K. C. C. H., the vestibule to the 33rd degree. He is past chancellor commander of the
Centennial Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and held that office in 1903, the
youngest man in the order with that responsibility and honor. This is natural enough, for Mr. Ewing’s
ancestors for generations were Masons, dating back to 1740, some of them being
the first Grand Masters in the state of Maryland.
Mr. Ewing organized the first
chapter of the American Institute of Banking in Stockton, and served for two
years as its first president. He belongs
to the Anteros Club of Stockton.
J. Dorsey Ewing, as he is generally
known, is always found in active leadership of all civic movements for the
public betterment or spiritual uplift.
For many years he has been a vestryman of St. John’s Episcopal Church,
being one of the oldest in length of service in the Vestry.
During long years of service as
treasurer of the Y. M. C. A. he saw it grow from quarters in a small rented
room to the handsome $100,000 building it now occupies.
He has a fine library, including
some tomes printed in 1792 and handed down through generations of his
family. As an enthusiastic reader, he is
a student of economics, and keenly alive to all important questions of the
day. Mr. Ewing, a man of truly sterling
character, is a friend, in all that word implies, to everybody.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1404. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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