San
Joaquin County
Biographies
MAX PAUL
An experienced, enterprising
business man is found in Max Paul, proprietor of the Valley Machine and Tool
Works, located at 6 East Miner Avenue, Stockton. He is a native of Magdeburg, Saxony, Germany,
and was born February 8, 1879. At the
age of fourteen he was apprenticed as a machinist with Schaefer-Budenberg Company, in his native city. The first year of his apprenticeship was
spent as an errand boy, then he entered the tool department; he was then
promoted to the mechanical drawing department, where he spent one year. He spent five years in night school learning
the theoretical part of the business. He
then went to Manchester, England, and entered the employ of the same company,
which had a branch business in Manchester; there he learned automobile
mechanics, gas engine work, the making of instruments, and electrical
work. While in Manchester he was also
employed by the British Westinghouse Company.
About this time he had determined to seek his fortune in America. Landing in New York City in 1907, he
proceeded at once to Foxboro, Massachusetts, and entered the branch factory of
the company he first worked for in Manchester, England. This was an instrument factory, making steam
gauges, whistles, fog horns, sounding machinery and engine and boiler
accessories, and he was with them for two years; next he was in Brooklyn, New
York, employed at his trade for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company; then he
returned to Foxboro, Massachusetts, and did experimental work on clocks, and
other electrical works, and worked for two and a half years more, he then removed
to Canton, Massachusetts, and was employed by the Electric Goods Manufacturing
Company as a designer of clocks. In 1913
he arrived in California and went to the Lick Observatory, Mount Hamilton, and
was engaged for a year in building telescopes, cameras and spectrographs. Removing to Stockton in 1914 he went to work
for J. C. Skinner Automobile Company and was later with the Holt Manufacturing
Company and the Sampson Gas Engine Works, having charge of the tool room of the
latter. He then opened his own business
at 6 East Miner Avenue, doing expert work for automobiles and trucks and other
machine work, besides expert tool work such as punches, dies, drill jigs,
milling fixtures and mechanical and electrical instruments. His years of experience have enabled him to
take his place among the best informed and most enterprising of mechanics in
Stockton. A brother, Hugo A. Paul, had
charge of the Hall Scott motor shop and helped design and build the first
eight-cylinder airship motor; he was a thorough mechanic, and had an automobile
repair shop; he died in March, 1920.
The marriage of Mr. Paul in
Manchester, England, united him with Miss Mary Antony, a native of that place,
and they are the parents of two children, Arnold Hugo and Mabel Melita. Mr. Paul has
recently designed and built a ditching machine for irrigation work, on which he
obtained a patent in February, 1922. He
has also made several other useful machines.
Three years of his time in the East was spent in experimental work for
the Industrial Instrument Company in Foxboro, designing and improving
electrical and mechanical instruments.
He is a member of the Stockton Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants’
Protective Association, and is an unbiased supporter of all that is best for
San Joaquin County.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1336-1339. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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