San
Joaquin County
Biographies
DILLARD S. FAGAN
Decidedly popular among the officers
in charge of one department or another of the well-organized and
well-maintained Holt Manufacturing Company of Stockton, is Dillard S. Fagan,
the storekeeper, a native of Stanislaus County, where he was born on a farm on
June 27, 1881, the son of Frank and Emma (Petty) Fagan, the former, now
deceased, a native of Illinois, the latter, who is still living, of Tuolumne
County, California. Mr. Fagan came to
California in the late fifties, and with his brother John located on a farm
near Linden, in San Joaquin County. They
farmed there for a few years, and then they took up a large tract of Government
land some twelve miles east of Oakdale, Stanislaus County. Later, the brothers divided the property, and
Frank Fagan farmed the same to grain up to his death on February 24, 1891. His widow, now a resident of San Francisco,
was born in Sonora, the daughter of Isaac and Virginia (Gooch) Petty, the
father a California pioneer who settled in Tuolumne County in 1849, and later
was a prominent farmer near Knights Ferry, Stanislaus County. The children of this worthy couple still
living include Dillard S. Fagan, the subject of our interesting review; Cora
A., the wife of W. E. Morrow, of Santa Rosa; and Theil
and Louise H., residents of San Francisco.
Dillard, the only surviving son of
the family, attended the district schools in Stanislaus County, enjoying the
grammar school and high school as well as the courses at Oakdale, and in 1899,
when a young man of eighteen, came to Stockton and secured employment in the
storekeeper department of the Holt Manufacturing Company. His duties as floor man included looking
after the extra parts of the harvester machines and other general duties; and
by strict attention to business, when work was expected of him; he justified
his advancement to the position of storekeeper in charge of the department in
1907. Since then, he has administered
his important trust so well that he is still filling this post, to the
satisfaction of everybody concerned. He
has seen, indeed, twenty-three years of continuous service there, and is one of
the oldest employees of the company; and as his is one of the most important
departments in the famous concern, it will be realized that his work there is
fully appreciated. Here are to be found
some 50,000 different extra parts of harvester and caterpillar tractors, some
of the parts of the harvesters built in the eighties being still kept in stock
and supplied to owners who bought harvesters of the company thirty-five years
ago; but it is not alone that Mr. Fagan’s efficiency makes it really possible
to find these, when wanted, it is the more important fact that, long ago, he
made the interests of the Holt Manufacturing Company pre-eminently his own, and
gave them his first, best and last service.
Fidelity of that sort seldom goes unrewarded, and never by the Holt
Manufacturing company.
When Mr. Fagan married, at Stockton,
in the year 1908, he took for his wife Miss Bertha Briggs, a native of Modesto;
and theirs has truly been an ideal wedded life.
Mrs. Fagan shares her husband’s social life and popularity in the
circles of the Stockton Lodge No. 11 of Odd Fellows, Stockton Lodge No. 218, of
the B. P. O. Elks, Stockton Parlor No. 7 of the Native Sons of the Golden West,
and the Golf and Country Club.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1227. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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