San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HEMAN D. SHINN
Since a babe in arms, Heman D. Shinn
has resided in San Joaquin County. He
was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, December 8, 1853, a son of John R.
and Maria A. (Doyle) Shinn, natives of New Jersey and New York,
respectively. John R. Shinn first came
to California in 1852, but remained only a short time before he returned to New
Jersey. In 1854 he brought his wife and
infant son, Heman D., out to this state by way of the Isthmus route. For a short time after his arrival he lived
at Hangtown, now Placerville, where he mined for gold; but in the same year of
1854 he settled in San Joaquin County on the ranch now occupied by his son,
Heman D. Shinn. The John R. Shinn ranch
contained 400 acres, for which he then paid $1,000, and on which he resided
until his death in 1867. Before his
death he had disposed of 120 acres of the ranch, leaving a balance of 280
acres. He was a Republican in politics,
and was well-known among the early settlers of San Joaquin County. Three children were born to himself and wife,
of whom Heman D. is the only one living.
The others were Ida M. and Denver J. Shinn. The mother lived to be eighty-two years old,
passing away on the home place where she had lived for so long.
Heman D. Shinn attended the Franklin
district school and the grammar school at Woodbridge, and has resided on the
old Shinn ranch practically all his life.
At the age of ten years he began to plow and clear the land of the heavy
growth of timber; and when thirteen years old, on the death of his father, he
assumed the running of the ranch with his mother. Ninety acres had been cleared when his father
died, and he has since cleared the balance.
His father teamed a great deal from Stockton and Sacramento to the
mines, and as far as to Reno and Virginia City, Nevada, so that the management
of the ranch was largely left to his family.
Since the father’s death about thirty-seven acres have been sold, so
that there are now 243 acres on the home place:
eighty acres in timber bottom land, twenty-five acres in cherries,
fifteen acres in pears, and the balance of 123 acres in bearing vineyard. The ranch is under the Stockton-Mokelumne
Ditch, but it is so well sub-irrigated that Mr. Shinn has little need to resort
to artificial irrigation. He has piped
his ranch with cement irrigation pipe, and has two six-inch pumps for
irrigation in case of necessity. He has
also improved the place with fine buildings, making it one of the most modern
and up-to-date homes in the county.
Three miles north of Clements, Mr. Shinn bought 246 acres which he and
his son farm to grain. The family also
own 1060 acres of timber land in Calaveras County. Mr. Shinn is a stockholder in the First
National Bank of Lodi.
In Stockton, on December 8, 1874,
Mr. Shinn was married to Miss Emma S. Tock, a native of Maine, and a daughter
of James Tock, now deceased, who was born in Maine and became a resident of San
Joaquin County. There were five children
in his family: James; Elizabeth, Mrs.
Russell; Sarah, Mrs. Turner, deceased; Anna, Mrs. Benson, and Emma S., Mrs.
Shinn. Mr. and Mrs. Shinn are the
parents of three children: Mae, Mrs.
Bancroft, of Woodbridge; Elmer John, of Woodbridge, who married Gladys Healey,
of Alameda; and Bessie A., Mrs. Atwell, a widow residing at home with her
parents, and the mother of one child, Ruth.
Mrs. Atwell is the owner of a twenty-acre producing vineyard. Mr. Shinn is a member and past grand of the
Odd Fellows Lodge at Woodbridge, and with his wife is also a member of the
Rebekahs, of Woodbridge.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1635. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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