Yolo
County
Biographies
T. H. DIXON, M. D.
For
the past thirty years Dr. T. H. Dixon has ministered to the physical ills of
the people of Knights Landing, Yolo County, and during this period has not only
been more than ordinarily successful professionally, but also has prospered,
being numbered among the well-to-do citizens of this locality. Dr. Dixon was born in Sackville, New
Brunswick, on the 14th of September, 1873. After completing the course of the common
schools, he attended Mt. Allison University, at Sackville, followed by one year
at Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Maine.
During the ensuing two years he served in the Boston City Hospital, at
Boston, Massachusetts, after which he completed his medical studies in the
University of Vermont, at Burlington, receiving the degree of Doctor of
Medicine in 1899. The Doctor’s brother
owned a gold claim in Atlin City, British Columbia, and the Doctor left
Burlington to visit the claim on an inspection trip. He made the journey to the claim, thence in
succession to Skagway, Seattle and San Francisco in twenty-seven days, a record
time for that trip in those days and which was never beaten. Arriving in San Francisco in the summer of
1899, he was connected with the German Hospital, until the fall of that year,
when he went to Sacramento and opened an office. Soon afterward he went to Madison, and then
to Davis, Yolo County, and in August, 1900, he established himself permanently
in Knights Landing, where he has been actively engaged in practice to the
present time. He is a careful,
painstaking and conscientious physician, has been notably successful and is
held in grateful regard by hundreds who have been benefited by his services.
During
the years of his residence here Dr. Dixon has been a large factor in the
improvement and development of Knights Landing, having built the grain
warehouse, the auto camp, a machine shop and service station, the theater
building and a number of residences. He
bought twenty acres of the old Edson ranch and erected houses on it, and he now
owns thirty-three buildings in this place.
His theater has recently been wired for the talking pictures, and he has
installed a private water system, supplying his own home and those of five of
his neighbors. On November 1, 1900, in
Knights Landing, Dr. Dixon was united in marriage to Miss Persis Kimball, of
Newburyport, Massachusetts, and they are the parents of two sons, J. K., and
Harry S., who is taking the civil engineering course in Leland Stanford
University. Dr. Dixon was one of the
organizers of the Lions Club, of which he is the president. He has shown a splendid public spirit and the
community in which he lives is greatly indebted to him for his initiative and
his business ability, whereby he has contributed materially to the welfare of
the town.
Knights
Landing, which is located on the Sacramento River, in
Yolo County, had its inception in 1843 when William Knight built on the Indian
mound which marked the ancient meeting of Cache Creek and the Sacramento
River. Its importance and value as a
steamboat landing and point of communication between the people east and those west of the central river was early recognized. When the town was laid out in 1849 it was
called Baltimore. Mr. Knight established
a ferry across the river at this point, but this later passed to the ownership
of J. W. Snowball. At that time the
ferry toll for a man and horse was one dollar, while for a team and wagon five
dollars was charged. In 1850 S. R. Smith
kept the first hotel here and in 1853 Charles F. Reed surveyed and laid off a town site, which was officially given the name of
Knights Landing. In the same year J. W.
Snowball and J. J. Perkins opened a large general store on the Indian
mound. On January 1, 1854, Capt. J. H. Updengraff
opened his hotel making it a festive occasion, with a New Year’s party. A steamer was run from Sacramento for the
accommodation of guests and the tickets for the opening sold at ten dollars
each. This was called the Yolo
House. In 1860 D. N. Hershey and George
Glascock erected a brick hotel. On March
25, 1890, the Knights Landing branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad was
completed, and later a bridge across the river was built at this point. The town has a population of five hundred and
is the main grain shipping point on the river.
It has a modern bank building, a good theater, paved streets, a number
of brick store buildings, a church, modern school building, Masonic lodge,
Lions Club and many comfortable and attractive homes.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 270-273. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Yolo County
Biographies