San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ALPHEUS M. HILL
For the past quarter of a century
Alpheus M. Hill has been a resident of California and for the past thirteen
years has lived on his home place on South School Street just outside of the city
limits of Lodi, which consists of two acres.
He was born in Kent County, Michigan, on June 22, 1862, a son of Albert
C. Hill, a general farmer in Michigan.
Our subject had the misfortune to lose his mother when he was two weeks
old and he was one of five children, the others being: Herbert Henry; Ada, deceased; Ida May and Mattie D. The
family finally settled in Shiawassee County, Michigan, and what little
education our subject received was obtained in the winter months in the
district schools of that county. He
assisted his father in the cultivation and development of his farm until he was
twenty-five years old, when in 1888 he came to California. He settled in San Luis Obispo County about
twenty miles east of Paso Robles, where he took up a homestead and preemption,
proving up on a half-section of Government land. Here he engaged in stock raising and farming
for eight years, when he sold out and removed to San Joaquin County. About thirteen years ago he purchased his
present home place of two acres on South School Street, on which he built a
good residence. About the same time he
and a partner bought thirty acres of bare land on Walnut Avenue one and a half
miles southwest of Lodi, and this they set to vineyard; one year later his
partner sold his interest and Mr. Hill became owner of the entire tract but he
now has eight acres, which is in twenty-two-year-old Tokay grapes, there also
being a good irrigating plant on the place, which insures a good crop of fine
fruit each season.
On December 19, 1900, at Lodi, Mr.
Hill was married to Miss Jessie Ray Chappell, a native daughter born in Lodi,
and a daughter of Henry and Salinda A. Chappell. Henry Chappell came to California in 1852 and
for a short time engaged in mining, then farmed in the Lodi section and Mrs.
Hill received her education in the Salem School at Lodi and spent one year in
the Lodi high school. Fraternally Mr.
Hill is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, and in politics is a
Republican. When he located here there
were but two places on the street, grain fields surrounded the town and South
School Street had just been opened.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1535-1536. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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