San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN P. WATKINS
For nearly fifty years John P.
Watkins has been a resident of the great state of California and during that
time he has borne his full share of the responsibilities that have been the lot
of successful Californians from the early days to the present. A native of Georgia, he was born near Atlanta
on September 1, 1855, the son of Allen and Martha (Burnett) Watkins. The latter was a second cousin of Alexander
H. Stephens, vice-president of the Southern Confederacy. Allen Watkins was born in the vicinity of Atlanta
on April 2, 1829, and became a man of prominence in his locality. On June 6, 1861, he organized Company A, Twenty-first Georgia Regiment, and was commissioned 2nd
lieutenant; on July 27, 1862, he was promoted to be 1st lieutenant,
and on September 1 of that same year became a captain. On September 23, 1862, he was killed at
Chancellorsville and was survived by his widow and two children, Mary Frances
and John P. The war left the Watkins family
without resources and John P. became the sole support of his mother and sister,
hence he was unable to get just the kind of schooling he desired. As he grew to manhood he educated himself by
self-study and qualified to teach school, which he did in Douglas County, Georgia,
for two terms. From the savings of his
years of labor he invested in a small farm in Douglas County and there the
family lived until 1878, when John P. decided he could better his condition by
coming to California. His mother
afterwards made her home with her daughter at Whitesburg, Georgia, where she
died on October 6, 1922, having reached the age of ninety-one years; her son
fortunately reached her bedside before she passed away.
John P. Watkins reached Sacramento
in 1878 and the following year he was united in marriage with Miss Catherine Boggess, daughter of Ahas Boggess, who, as Secretary of the State of Georgia, signed
the secession papers at the outbreak of the Civil War. Mrs. Watkins died in 1880, leaving a son,
Arthur, who now makes his home with his father in San Joaquin County. In 1889 Mr. Watkins was again married, this
time to Miss Catherine Grother, born in Pilot Hill,
California. She passed away and left one
son, Louis Edwin, now a resident of San Francisco. On September 21, 1898, the third marriage of
Mr. Watkins united him with Mrs. Effie Henderson, who came with her parents
from Mississippi in 1893. Of this union
two children were born: Agnes B. and
George Stanley. Agnes B. graduated from
the State Normal School at Chico, class of 1920, and at once took up teaching
in Glenn County where she is principal of the Cordora
School. George Stanley enlisted for
service in the World War as a mechanic in the aviation corps and trained in
Texas. He now resides in Michigan.
When Mr. Watkins arrived in
Sacramento in 1878 he soon found work on the 40,000-acre ranch owned by J. B. Hagin & Company, and in time was promoted to be an
assistant foreman of the famed Rancho El Paso, known to all lovers of fine
horses, for it was here that some of the world’s record-breakers were raised
and trained. After spending twelve years
in the employ of this company, Mr. Watkins resigned to enter the employ of Mrs.
Phoebe A. Hearst, and in 1898 was sent to Mexico as her personal
representative, with full power of attorney to look after the landed interests
of the Hearst Estate. During the five
years that Mr. Watkins spent in Mexico he became well acquainted and very
friendly with President Diaz. In 1903 he
resigned his position with the Hearst Estate, returned to California and
located near Lodi, San Joaquin County.
He bought a ranch, improving it during the following five years, and
sold to good advantage and then settled at Ripon and planted one of the first
orchards in this vicinity. He is still a
resident of this productive section of California.
Realizing his lack of educational
opportunity in his younger days, Mr. Watkins has ever had the welfare of the
rising generations at heart. It was
through his untiring efforts that a union high school district was organized at
Ripon, and as president of that body he was largely instrumental in planning
and bringing to completion the handsome Union High School building at Ripon, of
which mention is made on another page in this history. Mr. Watkins was a charter member of the San
Joaquin Farm Bureau and served as a director and vice-president until in 1919. He has always been a staunch advocate and
supporter of good roads and of all irrigation movements in the county, and has
worked for every cause for elevating the social, moral, educational and
financial standing in the county and locality where he has lived. During the World War he served as a member of
the San Joaquin County exemption board under the appointment from President
Wilson and for the duration of the War he made daily trips from his ranch to
Stockton to attend the duties of that position.
Mr. Watkins is a self-made man in the truest sense of the word and by
his upright and honorable methods he has won the esteem and good will of all
who know him or have had dealings with him.
Always active for every good movement he will long be remembered as one
of the foremost citizens of San Joaquin County.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1060-1063. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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