San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HOWARD B. TAYLOR
An energetic and highly progressive
rancher, who has become a successful orchardist and vineyardist, is Howard B.
Taylor, of Youngstown, San Joaquin County.
A native of Barron County, Kentucky, he was born at Glasgow on February
24, 1881, the son of Able Cain Taylor, a native of Tennessee, who had married
Miss Nancy Katherine Harper, from Kentucky.
A. C. Taylor was a farmer and lived to be seventy years old. He served in the Army of the Cumberland under
General Bragg during the Civil War. He
was wounded at Perryville, Kentucky, and received over thirty bullet marks, and
was honored as a Confederate veteran.
Mrs. Taylor is now living in Crowell, Texas, at the age of seventy-six,
the beloved mother of ten children, among whom Howard was the seventh.
Howard B. Taylor received public
school training in Kentucky, and when seventeen years old began to make his own
way, working for wages on a farm. He
left his home at this time and went to Crawfordsville, Indiana, and there
worked on a farm for two years. From
Indiana he returned to Kentucky, where he remained a short time, and then came
to Loomis, in Placer County, California, arriving February 3, 1900. There he took up orcharding, and stayed until
1905, working long hours at spraying the trees, receiving only $1.25 per day
for his labor, and boarding himself. On
September 17, 1905, he came to Lodi and was employed with the Producers Fruit
Company; and in November of that year he bought the Reese Thompson ranch of
forty acres, on the Davis-Terminus Road, for which he paid $100 an acre. In 1906 he developed this ranch by setting it
out to grapes, and in June, of the same year, he went to Sacramento and took charge
of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company’s stockyards, continuing there until
1909, when the yards were discontinued and he was transferred to Sparks,
Nevada. Here they opened a new
stockyard, of which he was in charge until 1911, when he resigned and returned
to Sacramento. There he was engaged as a
realtor for one year, afterwards going to Reno, Nevada, where he took charge of
the Southern Pacific Railroad Company’s stockyards for one year. In February, 1913, he returned to his ranch
at Lodi, which in the meantime had been well cared for under his direction and
was then in full bearing. After one year
he leased it for $1,000 a year. He then
accepted a position in the shipping department with the Producers Fruit
Company, at Loomis, and the Pacific Fruit Exchange, at Lodi, alternating between
tree fruit and grapes. In 1915 he
engaged with the Earl Fruit Company as a solicitor, where he was employed for
four years. Meantime, in 1918, with Mr.
E. A. Humphrey, he purchased a forty-acre ranch, a part of the old Fuqua estate
adjoining Youngstown, half in peaches and half in vines. They have a pumping plant run by electricity,
with a capacity of ninety miner’s inches.
In 1920 he located on this ranch and has since devoted his time to its
cultivation and care. On November 3,
1921, he sold his original forty-acre ranch for $40,000. The same year their residence was destroyed
by fire and he immediately built a handsome modern bungalow, and how has an
exceedingly attractive place.
Mr. Taylor also owns one-third
interest in a ranch of 188 acres near Tudor, Sutter County, which they
contemplate developing to cling peaches.
He also owns a one-third interest in a sixty-acre vineyard near Loomis,
Placer County. He is a stockholder in
the National Fruit Products Company, the Citizens National Bank of Lodi, the
City Improvement Company of Lodi and the Raven Oil & Refining Company of
Utah.
At Ceres, on February 1, 1917, Mr.
Taylor was married to Miss Cora Lucas, the daughter of N. C. and Caroline
Lucas. Her father was an orchardist,
cultivating figs near Ceres. She was
born in Texas, but was reared and educated in New Mexico, where her father was
a cattle raiser. Mrs. Taylor is a
cultured and refined woman and presides gracefully over their home. She is a consistent Christian woman. Three children blessed the union of Mr. and
Mrs. Taylor: Marvin, Wilma and Virda. In 1920 Mr.
Taylor with his family made a visit back to his old home in Kentucky, and also
visited other points of interest in the east.
After a pleasant trip they returned to their home at Lodi. Mr. Taylor belongs to the Masonic Lodge at
Woodbridge and to the Eastern Star.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1625. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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