Merced County Biographies
Ref: Pages 656-657
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 7/28/2009
JAMES JOHN BOYLE
Among the popular and successful business men of Livingston is James John Boyle, the genial and accommodating head of the dry goods department of the White-Crowell Company, Inc.; he also serves as vice-president and director of this institution of which he is a stock-holder. His birth occurred in the Province of Quebec, Canada, on February 2, 1863. His father, James Boyle, was also born in Canada and was part owner of a whaling vessel and followed whaling for several years. He married Annie Ascah. The paternal grandfather, also named James Boyle, served with General Wolfe at the siege of the Plains of Abraham during the Revolutionary War.
James John Boyle attended public school in his native province until he was sixteen years old. He then became a clerk in a general merchandise store at Gaspe, Canada, where he worked for three years. At the age of nineteen he removed to Philadelphia and clerked in the store of John Wanamaker. In 1890 he came West and settled in Washington where he remaineed until 1898, when he joined the gold rush to Alaska, and placer-mined near Atlin, B.C., with only fair success during his two-years stay. In 1900 he returned to Washington and resumed his former position as clerk in a large drygoods house in Tacoma, but his desire to locate in California caused him to leave after one year. He first located in Oroville, then came to San Francisco where he clerked for Hale Brothers. In 1902 he removed to Los Banos and was employed in the drygoods department of the store of Miller and Lux. In July, 1911, he located in Livingston and became an employe of White-Crowell Company, Inc.; soon thereafter he was made head of the drygoods department, which position he has since occupied. Mr. Boyle is an active member of the Merchants Association and the Boosters' Club of Livingston; fraternally, he is a Past Grand of Mountain Brow Lodge No. 82, I.O.O.F., of Los Banos.
History of
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
With A
Biographical Review
of
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925
Merced County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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