San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOSIAH McKINDLEY
A decidedly representative man in
the Acampo district, one who has faith in the future of this region, and of
whose life work the district is proud, is Josiah McKindley, a native of Dent
County, Missouri, where he was born on August 1, 1852, the son of Alexander and
Sarah (Shealor) McKindley. The father came to California in 1853,
crossing the great plains in a prairie schooner drawn
by an ox-team; he was a farmer and provided a comfortable farm-home for his
family of five children. He died here in
1861; but his devoted wife lived to see her seventy-fifth year. When Mr. McKindley reached El Dorado County,
he went at once into the mines, where he was moderately successful. Then he moved to the vicinity of Volcano, in
Amador County, and after being there a short time, removed to the vicinity of
Healdsburg in Sonoma County, where he took up government land. He was contested by an old Spanish-grant,
however, and lost out on his title; and this dissipated the fruits of
years. In 1863, Mrs. McKindley was
married a second time to a Mr. Strickland, of Volcano, who was both a hydraulic
and a placer miner.
Josiah McKindley attended the
district school near Healdsburg, and when yet a lad, started out for
himself. He worked at all kinds of hard
labor to get ahead; he lumbered, logged in the forest, and worked in the mines
of Amador County, mining at Sutter near Volcano. When he was twenty years old, he took up
teaming by contract, and not only provisions and lumber but did a general
freighting from Volcano and other points to the mines. Later, he removed to Elk Grove, California,
and followed grain-farming; he leased land, and for fourteen years planted it
to grain, and at times cultivated as many as 4,000 acres at once. Then he sold out his stock and his
implements, and in 1900 bought 196 acres just southeast of Acampo station, a
grain-farm in a very rundown condition when he purchased it, and he immediately
started to improve it in every way. He
built a fine house and barn and all the necessary outbuildings for a successful
ranch, and began setting the land out as both a vineyard and an orchard. From time to time he sold off portions as he
developed them, in small lots, until he had reduced the property to about 116
acres, the finest portion of the ranch, on which he had his residence. Of this land, he had forty acres in peaches,
four in apricots, six in cherries, twelve in prunes, and thirty in a vineyard,
while the remainder was either devoted to yards or was vacant.
In the summer of 1922 Mr. McKindley
sold off 106 acres of his farm. This
leaves him 10.51 acres upon which he built a beautiful country residence in
1922-1923, where he and his family are comfortably and happily domiciled.
The marriage of Josiah McKindley and
Miss Emma A. Mattice took place at Volcano on March
30, 1875, the bridge being a native of Illinois, who was brought to California
about 1856, when she was a little child, by her parents, Simon and Agnes
(Stockton) Mattice, the former a miner at Volcano;
and they had seven children. Mr. and
Mrs. McKindley have nine children.
Flora, Mrs. J. W. Pritchard, of Acampo; Daisy is Mrs. Agnew, of Fresno;
Elizabeth is Mrs. E. Adams of Acampo; Sarah, or Sadie, is Mrs. S. Smithson, of
Acampo; Ernest Mahlan lives at Lodi; William A., a
government agent, is also there; Hazel passed away in her fourteenth year; Rosabelle is Mrs. Holt, of Acampo; and Edith, who resides
with Mr. and Mrs. McKindley, is now Mrs. Story.
Mr. McKindley was president and
manager of the Acampo Fruit Growers Association; and since it was reorganized,
he has been a director and a vice-president.
The new organization is known as the Acampo Growers Association.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
629. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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