San Joaquin County
Biographies
ALFRED BENJAMIN TREADWELL
ALFRED BENJAMIN TREADWELL,
Prosecuting Attorney of Stockton, was born in this city, November 29, 1856, a
son of William and Susan (Walker) Treadwell, both deceased. The father, born in
England about 1807, by trade a painter, emigrated to Mexico and was there
married; the mother, born in Mexico, of an English father and a Mexican mother,
Vivian Evara, who were married in Hermosillo in 1834. She was of Spanish
descent. Grandfather Walker died there, aged sixty-eight; grandmother Vivian
(Evara) Walker came with three sons and Mr. and Mrs. Treadwell to California in
1851, at the suggestion or request of Mr. Thomas Walker, of Stockton, who
perhaps was a relative of grandfather Walker. Here William Treadwell became
associated with Thomas Walker under the style of Walker & Company, one of
the pioneer commission houses of this city. He died in 1857, and the mother
followed in 1860, leaving the subject of this sketch an orphan of four years.
The grandmother lived until 1878, dying at the age of sixty-eight. At the age
of eight years A. B. Treadwell was taken to Mexico and was there educated,
first in Mazatlan, and afterwards in Guaymas, until the age of eighteen,
learning English, Spanish, French, Italian and Latin, and teaching from the age
of seventeen to nineteen in a college in Culiacan, twice a week. In 1876 he
returned to this State, opened a school of languages in San Francisco, and in
1879 founded La Republica, editing and publishing that paper until he
sold it to the Mexican consul. He returned to Stockton in 1882 and taught
Spanish and Italian classes here and in San Francisco for about a year.
Meanwhile he had commenced, in 1877, the study of law in leisure moments. He
read law one year under Judge A. Van R. Patterson. He was admitted to the bar
in 1882, and was immediately elected a justice of the peace, continuing his law
studies on opportunity in the office of the late Judge D. S. Terry. He was
re-elected a justice in 1884, for the years 1885 and 1886, and in 1887 and 1888
he practiced law with E. E. Copeland, under the style of Treadwell &
Copeland. In 1889 he was chosen secretary of the judiciary committee of the
Senate for two years, and in June, 1889, during the recess of the senate, he
was appointed city prosecutor of Stockton.
Mr. Treadwell was married in this city,
November 29, 1884, to Miss Nettie Fairchild, born in this county in 1861, a
daughter of William H. and Anna (Gray) Fairchild. The father, born in
Pennsylvania about 1820, came to California in 1850, afterward settling on a
farm in this county, died in 1882. The mother, born in Scotland in 1837, is
living on the old homestead, four miles from Stockton, on the Waterloo road.
Mr. and Mrs. Treadwell have one child, Sophie Anita, born November 29, 1885.
Mr. Treadwell is president of the County Democracy and secretary of the
Democratic County Committee.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 647-648. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Genealogy Databases