San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM B. REINEY
An enterprising, up-to-date
hosteller, whose well-appointed establishment has become one of the attractions
of life in San Joaquin County, is William B. Reiney, proprietor of Hotel Clements,
at Clements. He was born in Monaghan,
Province of Ulster, Ireland, in 1861, the son of Robert A. and Sarah A. Reiney,
who had five children. The others were
Phoebe, who was educated at Trinity College in Dublin; John, deceased; Robert,
in California; and Elizabeth, deceased.
William Reiney attended the public
schools, and in 1877 came out to California.
Although then only sixteen years of age, he went into the redwoods, in
Mendocino County, and took up the hardest of labor, mastering in time every
branch of work in connection with the redwood industry, such as cutting down
trees, milling, curing lumber, and everything that pertains to a redwood lumber
camp and its varied activities. He
worked near Mendocino City for four years, and then went to Reno, Nevada, where
he put in two years. After that he
worked for Messrs. Smith & McNabb, and for Pierce Brothers, in San
Francisco, rounding out three years with them; and then he went to San Luis
Obispo and entered the service of A. I. Lyons, who had purchased a part of the
Blackburn grant near the old Mission town, acting as his foreman for three
years on the 1,600 acres making up the fine ranch tract. Then he rented the ranch from Mr. Lyons and
there raised stock.
About thirty-two years ago, Mr. Reiney
came to Clements to take charge of another Lyons ranch, to the northeast, and
was there for four years, building levees and reclaiming the land, which the
Wakefield brothers now lease. About 1894
he came to Clements and bought the Clements Hotel, and he has since conducted
it as a first-class country inn. He owns
some other town property, and is intensely interested in the development and
prosperity of this section.
At San Francisco, on March 31, 1887,
Mr. Reiney was married to Miss Mary Agnes Foley, a native of Cork, Ireland, who
came to America a promising young woman of eighteen, and was married soon
afterward. Two children and three
grandchildren have resulted from this union.
William John is the father of two children, Harold and Beatty; and Mary,
now Mrs. Morrow of Stockton, is the mother of one infant daughter, now seven
months old, christened May Reiney Morrow.
Mr. Reiney is a Republican, and a member of the Foresters of America,
the Eagles, and the Moose. He is
intensely interested in all manly sports, being an amateur athlete.
William John Reiney, the son,
enlisted in Company E, 26th Engineers, for service in the World War,
and he went to France with his regiment, enlisting from Taft as an expert
well-driller. He took part in the great
offensive at Chateau-Thierry and at St. Mihiel, in the Meuse-Argonne
campaigns. On March 27, 1918, at Camp
Dix, in New Jersey, he was promoted a sergeant, and as such he served during
the war. He returned to America with his
regiment, and from New York accompanied the body of a deceased officer to San
Francisco; and there, at the Presidio, he was honorably discharged.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1432-1435. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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