San
Joaquin County
Biographies
FREDERICK C. GARLICK
Prominent among the most successful
building contractors of San Joaquin County, Frederick C. Garlick, a pioneer of
the Fair Oaks section, was born at Kemptville,
Ontario, Canada, and when he was a year and a half old, his family removed to
“the States” and settled first at Ogdensburg, New York, and later at
Springfield, Illinois. There he was
reared and educated; and there he learned the trade of a carpenter; and in 1879
when a youth of seventeen, he left home and for a short time worked in the
mines at Leadville, Colorado.
On August 6, 1880 he arrived at
Sacramento with just five cents in his pocket; and he secured work at once on
the ranch of Frank Slack. Later he
worked at Gardner’s wood yard at Sacramento, and then he journeyed south to Los
Angeles, reaching there at the time of the great flood. This led to his returning north to San
Francisco, from which port he shipped on the whaling ship, Dawn, for a cruise
of eight months in the Arctic. On his
return to California, he worked for the Continental Oil Company in Sacramento,
and coming to Stockton, he worked for a building firm and helped to erect both
a building at the State Asylum and the Masonic Temple in Stockton. For three years he was in San Francisco as
foreman on the Wharf Building on the Bay front; and then he returned to
Stockton and joined the police force as bailiff in the police court; two years
later he became a patrolman. Later
still, he engaged in house moving in Stockton for sixteen years, but more
recently he has followed building as a contractor, operating particularly in
the Fair Oaks district. There he has
built over thirty cottages, and he has proven an important factor in the
building up of the district. Over thirty
years ago, he bought six lots at Ash and Sonora streets, and erected his home;
lots 25 x 115 feet on Sonora Avenue sold for $125 at that time, and they are
now valued at $500 per lot. Corner lots, 50 x 115 feet, are now valued at more than $1750;
while lots on Fair Oaks Avenue have trebled in value. Villa Park Addition,
Gambeth’s Addition, and supplements to these two
additions, and Burkett’s Acres are included in the Fair Oaks section. This land was a mere grain field when our
subject first located there, and the paving he put in on his block was the
first in the district. He was also the
first to build a concrete sidewalk in Fair Oaks. Now he owns valuable real estate, and has
more calls for his houses than he can meet.
The Fair Oaks district is growing rapidly, and is now a part of the city
of Stockton, for being higher in its altitude than the city; it has become a
very desirable suburb.
At Stockton, August 6, 1889 Mr.
Garlick was married to Miss Mary Burke, a native of Cincinnati, and the couple
are now the center of a devoted circle of friends.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1320-1323. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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