San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN WESLEY PLATT
A public official representing with
exceptional ability the Federal Government in San Joaquin County is John Wesley
Platt, the postmaster at Manteca, who was appointed by President Harding on
October 3, 1921, although he had been acting postmaster ever since the
twenty-fourth of the preceding February.
He was born at Berlin, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 1890, and in that
town enjoyed the best educational advantages, being graduated from the Berlin
high school in 1907. In September of the
same year he entered Ashland University at Ashland, Ohio, and for three years
pursued the classical-divinity courses, when for awhile, his studies were
interrupted. As a result he did not
graduate until 1912, when he received his B. E. degree, and was duly ordained
in the Brethren Church. He had already
taken up teaching, and he was occupied as pastor of the Brethren Church at Conemaugh, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, the
next three years.
He next received a call from the
Lathrop and Ripon charge in San Joaquin County, California, and early in 1913
came out to the Golden State. Two years ago he resigned this charge to
devote himself entirely to the Manteca charge, which during the past nine years
has grown steadily from a very small group of followers in the Brethren Church,
and which for awhile held its meetings in the grammar school building, or in
such other places as could be conveniently secured. In November, 1921, the church was completed
at Manteca, thanks to a large degree to Mrs. Nancy J. Salmon and Mrs. Emma Carlon, both venerable ladies of this county. The Sunday school, too, has grown steadily in
proportion to the church, fortunate in continuing to have Mrs. Elliott as the
superintendent. The pioneer church work
to be done in this district has indicated an unworked field, and our subject
has been only too glad to assist in the good cause.
Rev. John Wesley Platt has been
active as a public servant, and he has witnessed the steady development of the
educational, social and economic life of the people. He was elected pastor of the Brethren Church
at Manteca in January, 1919, and besides carrying on the work of his vocation,
he has also become very active in local civic and business affairs. In 1914 he was employed as a rural mail
carrier, when the post office was occupying a small room in the Wiggins Hotel,
now known as the Manteca Hotel; but three years later he resigned that position
to become resident agent of the Great Republic Life Insurance Company. At the earnest solicitation of a goodly
number of his fellow-citizens, Mr. Platt resumed postal work in February, 1921;
and since then, under his able direction, the Manteca post office has entered
the group of the second class, and has come to be housed in a modern, spacious
building on Vine Street. Mr. Platt also
owns real estate and residence property in Manteca, for which he finds ready
rental.
John Wesley Platt’s paternal
ancestors were of German birth, and as such they joined the early settlers of Philadelphia. On his mother’s side, the Johns family was of
Scotch-Irish extraction, and was living in Pennsylvania at the time of the
Revolutionary War. He himself was the
eldest of thirteen children, ten of whom still survive. He was married at Ashland, Ohio, in 1909, to
Miss Harriette Mathews, the only daughter of George
B. Mathews, a pioneer of Ripon, and at that time a student at the University of
Ashland, having been born near Ripon; and three children have blessed their
union: Leland W., Enid R., and Alvar Bryce.
Just how important in the status of
public officials in San Joaquin County Mr. Platt is, may be judged from the
growing importance of the town which he serves.
In 1910 Manteca had only eighty inhabitants; but since the introduction
of irrigation and the consequent development of the country around the town,
its progress has been rapid, as is evidenced by the fact that at Christmas,
1915, the population was 350, a year later 570, and on May 1, 1917, there were
close to 1,000 souls here. Located on
the main line of the Southern Pacific Railway and on the main San Joaquin
Valley branch line of the Western Pacific Railway, Manteca is the office town
of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District of 71,000 acres and is the center
of a body of 40,000 acres of deep, rich, sandy loam soil under the most
dependable and efficient irrigation system in America. It has thus become the “payroll town,” and an
ever-increasing postal business is daily transacted in the institution now
directed by Mr. Platt, owning in part to the creameries, canneries and packing
houses.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1584-1585. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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