San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HENRY MOHR
The good old days of the pioneer are
recalled by the life story of Henry Mohr, the early settler long honored
throughout San Joaquin County, and especially so as the founder of Mohr’s
Landing, known now as Bethany, on the San Joaquin River. For over a half century he had resided in
California and San Joaquin County. He
was born in Holstein, Germany, on March 12, 1829, and was bereft of his parents
when only nine years of age. A neighboring
family cared for him for the next six years, when he went to sea on a German
merchant ship and several years were occupied on voyages to the Dutch East
Indies, West Indies and other islands and countries of the world, sailing a
number of times around the Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. Sailing through the Golden Gate in 1851, he
determined to give up a seaman’s life and locating at Hayward, Alameda County,
he made that his home for several years, when he removed to San Joaquin County
and secured lands near the river and established the only means of
transportation to and from San Francisco there.
He established his first home on Union Isle and engaged in raising grain
and stock until the winter of 1861-62, the year of the disastrous flood that
inundated the island and caused great financial loss to the farmers. With the brave spirit and strong will which
characterized his whole life, Mr. Mohr set about to retrieve his lost
possessions; engaging in the lumber and ferry-boat business on the river, he
soon had made up all he lost. In 1868 he
acquired the farm near Bethany which has been the home place ever since, and
which responded to his excellent farming methods with bounteous crops each
season.
In 1873 occurred the marriage of Mr.
Mohr to Miss Dorothea Lindemann, a native also of Holstein, Germany, born September
29, 1848, who came to California via the Isthmus of Panama, in company with
three girl friends, arriving in San Francisco in 1869, and going to Livermore,
Alameda County, where a sister, Mrs. Emma Rose, resided. Of the five children born to Mr. and Mrs.
Mohr only one survives, Mary, the wife of William C. Brown, a native of San
Joaquin County, a son of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Brown, prominently and favorable
known ranchers of the upper division of Roberts Island; the other children, Henry,
Dora, William and George, are deceased.
Mohr’s Landing was, until the coming of the railroad in 1869, a most
flourishing business center, as the river was the chief means of transportation
and the farmers availed themselves of it, and the straightforward business
methods used by Mr. Mohr made him a businessman with few equals. He was a staunch Republican and few men in
this portion of California were more familiarly or favorably known, and when he
passed away on December 16, 1909, the community lost one of its most
progressive citizens and a loyal friend to all who were privileged to know
him. Mrs. Mohr still lives on the hold
home place, now conducted by her son-in-law, W. C. Brown.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
963. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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