San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MARCELLO NEGRETE
The
well-known harnessmaker and automobile top manufacturer, an expert in his line,
Marcello Negrete, is a native of Mexico, having been born in Mexico City,
January 16, 1865, and there received all the schooling he ever had. While still a young man in years, he was
apprenticed to learn the harnessmaker’s trade and
worked at it until he was twenty-three years old, when he went to Mazatlan,
Sinaloa, Mexico, and there continued to work at his trade. In 1895 he removed to Stockton, and was first
employed by C. Rodder, the harness man; later with C.
G. Schneider in the same work. Nineteen
years ago he established his own business at 129 South Hunter Street, where he
remained for ten years and then located at his present place, 112 South Hunter
Street, where he makes automobile tops and specializes in fine hand-tooled
Mexican saddles, an art he acquired while residing in Mexico. He makes the steel tools with which he
executes the designs of flowers and fruits and these saddles bring a high
price. Mr. Negrete engraved a large
piece of leather for the Chamber of Commerce for exhibition at Buffalo, New
York; this piece was also recently shown at the San Joaquin County Fair held in
Stockton in 1921, and attracted a great deal of attention, it being a very fine
piece of work. He has also engraved a
suitcase, which is considered by the salesmen who handle it, as the finest
piece of engraving on the market. Mr.
Negrete is known throughout the state as the most expert workman in his line.
The marriage of Mr. Negrete united
him with Miss Adella Lizarraga,
a native of Sinaloa, and seven children blessed their union: Vincent Negrete is a graduate of the Stockton
high school and is with the Joe Gianelli Company; Antoinetta is a graduate of the high school and the Brothers
School and is now one of the Dominican Sisters in the San Francisco convent;
Ralph is a graduate of the high school and the Brothers School and employed by
the Sampson Iron Works; Irma is a graduate of the high school and the Brothers
School and is a clerk with the Merchants’ Association Rating Bureau of
Stockton; August is clerk in the Stockton Branch of the Bank of Italy; Aurora
is employed by the Joe Gianelli Company; and Salvador is a student in Santa
Rosa College. Mrs. Negrete passed away
February 2, 1919.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1400-1403. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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