San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HARRY S. TODMAN
An experienced, influential man of
public affairs, whose family has had an interesting association with the
history of the Golden State, is Harry S. Todman, the owner of one of the finest
peach orchards in Clements. He was born
at Oakland, California, in December, 1866, the son of John H. and Viola A.
(Pomeroy) Todman, his father being a native of England who came out to America
when a young man and settled at Victoria, Prince Edward Island. While still a young man John Todman entered
the United States and came west to Nevada, and in 1854 came on to
California. In Nevada he had mined with
the Comstock Company; and on reaching California he settled for awhile at
Oakland, and then took up mining in various parts of the western states. While prospecting on the Colorado River near
Yuma, Arizona, he was drowned in 1886.
Mrs. Todman then removed to Stockton; and there she died about twenty
years ago at the age of fifty years.
Harry Todman profited by the public
school advantages of San Francisco, and for three years attended Valencia
grammar school; and when fourteen years of age he started out for himself. In San Francisco he learned the paint and
wallpaper trade and after that he worked as a journeyman in San Francisco. In 1889 he came to Stockton and engaged in
his trade on Market, near Sutter Street, where he maintained also a supply shop
for painters and paper hangers. His
place of business was in the Union Bank.
Ten years ago he sold out and
purchased thirty acres of the old Athearn ranch, about one mile northeast of
Clements, on the Mokelumne River, where he has a fine orchard devoted to
peach-culture, known as El Nido Ranch. There is a first-class pumping plant in the
orchard, pumping direct from the Mokelumne River, and from this supply the land
is irrigated. He has a twelve-inch
stream, and a gas engine of fifteen horsepower.
At Stockton on July 28, 1889, Mr.
Todman was married to Miss Cora Hitchcock, a native of Canton, Mississippi, and
the daughter of Charles N. and Sarah Elizabeth (Tatum) Hitchcock, in whose
family were four children: Florence, now
Mrs. Hamsher, of Acampo; William and Joseph, who died
young; and Cora, now the devoted wife of Mr. Todman. Mr. and Mrs. Todman have the distinction of
being the first couple to have been married by the Rev. Mr. Sink in
Stockton. Mrs. Todman’s
father, Charles N. Hitchcock, was a machinist, who brought her to Oakland when
she was three years old. Later he
removed to Stockton, where in 1919 he died at the age of eighty-two; his
devoted wife had died three years before aged seventy-four years. Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock removed to Stockton
when Cora was ten years old, and there she attended the grammar and the high
school. Her father was a native of New
York State, who had moved to Wisconsin prior to the Civil War. He joined the Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry
and was a first lieutenant; and he served in the Army of the Mississippi and
sustained several severe wounds. After
the war was over, he went to Mississippi to claim for his bride a lady he had
met while fighting in the South; her parents were plantation owners, and of
course were allied with the Confederacy.
Two children blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Todman: Jessie, now Mrs. E. P. Kayser,
of Oakland, and Edna, Mrs. E. W. Drury, of Stockton. Mr. Todman is a Democrat, and served as an
aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor George H. Stoneman. His only sister, Josephine M. Todman, an
attorney-at-law, was executive secretary for fifteen years in the office of
Governor Budd. Broad-minded, of
many-sided interests, Mr. Todman has served on the Board of Directors of the
Humane Society at Stockton. He is a member
of Stockton Lodge No. 218, Elks, and belongs to several other orders.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1498-1499. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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