San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN JONS
An experienced wheat and grain
rancher who was also a pioneer in alfalfa culture is John Jons, a native of
Upper Holstein, Germany, where he was born on October 25, 1860. He enjoyed a bright boyhood in the
comfortable home of his parents, who provided for him excellent common school
training; but when he was eighteen years of age, he decided to come to
America. He reached New York aboard the
steamer Lessing, and after a brief stay in the metropolis, pushed on to Iowa,
where he spent three and one-half years near Ogden, in Boone County, engaged in
hard farm labor.
In 1882 he migrated still further to
the west, and on reaching California, pitched his tent in San Joaquin City, then a center in San Joaquin County, and nearby he found
employment on the San Joaquin ranch owned by L. B. Holt. He also put in a few months in Stanislaus
County. He went in for extensive growing
of wheat and grain in the San Joaquin City district, and he was the very first
rancher to take up the raising of alfalfa on the Kasson Irrigated Farms, some
three and one-half miles south on the River Road from Banta. This was in 1912; and now Mr. Jons owns a
splendid tract of forty-five acres, productive of fine alfalfa, where he is
also conducting a first-class up-to-date dairy.
Combining the thoroughness of Old World methods with the more modern
appliances and devices of the American farmer, and taking into account in
particular the conditions peculiar to California, Mr. Jons has met with
success.
On September 26, 1888, Mr. Jons was
made a citizen of the United States, and five years later, on April 6, he was
married to Miss Hannah Haccius, a native of Germany, who had come out to
Stockton in 1881, following her brothers, Hans, now a resident of San Jose, and
Christian Haccius. Three children have
been born to this union: Frederick is a
rancher and lives at home; Hannah has become the wife of Edward S. Thornberg,
and they have one child and reside at Tracy; Frieda is Mrs. William B. McBride;
and her husband, who is now ranching near Vernalis, enlisted in the U. S. Army
Aviation service. In national political
affairs Mr. Jons is a Republican, but in local matters he co-operates in every
way, regardless of partisanship, for the benefit of the community.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1135. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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