San Joaquin County Biographies
Ref: Page 734-739
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 10/13/2009
LOUIS RUDOLPH BRANDT
An industrious progressive and prosperous rancher is Louis R. Brandt, a native of Schaumburg-Lippe, Westphalia, Germany, where he was born on August 22, 1846, the son of Frederick and Phillipina (Schwertberger) Brandt—the former a schoolmaster, who taught for nearly forty years in the excellent schools of his native land. The worthy couple had thirteen children, among whom Louis was the eighth in order of birth. Those older than he were: Edward, Bertha, Henry, Otto, Charles, William and Herman; and those younger were: Julius, August, Matilda, Anna and Frederick.
Louis Brandt attended the grammar schools in his native country, and then served a three-year apprenticeship at the cabinet-making trade, after which he worked as a skilled journeyman at Burkeburg. Afterwards he worked in Berlin for eighteen months, and then in Paris for the same length of time. In 1867 he came to Indianapolis, Ind., where he remained from August to December of that year, and then he removed to Washington County, Texas, intending to settle and continue at his trade. There was so little demand for cabinet work, however, that he took up carpentering instead.
In 1868 Mr. Brandt rode across the plains on horseback, with thirty comrades, by way of Fort Scott, Fort Davis and El Paso. They then divided and Mr. Brandt and others came on to California. Arriving in San Diego, Mr. Brandt spent just one month in helping to erect the first house built in what was called New San Diego. After that he journeyed north to San Francisco for a visit to his brother Charles, near French Camp, on the San Joaquin River, with whom he formed a partnership for shipping fruit and vegetables, an enterprise in which they continued for seven years. Then Louis Brandt bought a grain ranch of 640 acres, near Clements, in 1877, which he managed for twenty years and then sold. He next bought the ranch of 480 acres he at present owns, two miles to the northwest of Clements, where he engages in dairying. He has eighteen acres of alfalfa and plenty of grain land, and thirty head of milch-cows; and all the improvements on the place he himself has made during the past two decades.
On November 13, 1875, Mr. Brandt was married at Stockton to Miss Anna Bowman, born near the foot of Mt. Diablo, Contra Costa County, Cal., the daughter of John and Jennie Bowman. Her father was a sailor on a schooner plying along the Pacific coast. He came via Panama to California in very early days from Emden, Hanover, Germany. After continuing in coastwise traffic for years, he took up agricultural pursuits near Farmington, in San Joaquin County, and later cultivated land on Roberts Island. Nine children have blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Brandt, and they also have thirteen grandchildren. Their oldest daughter, Jennie, is Mrs. G.J. Christy, of Clements, and the mother of two children, Carroll and Darrell; Phillipina is dead; Anna is Mrs. H.J. Corell, of Acampo and has six children—Mildred Anita, Naomi Brandt, Calvin Harvey, Florence Madeline, Louis William, and Helen Jane; Matilda is deceased; Rudolph, who assists operating the home farm is married to Miss Dora Wilson and has one child, Shirley Rudolph; Louis Jr., also a rancher near Clements, married Lena Murdock, and they have four children—Harold, Marrietta, Eugene and Louis; Emma lives at home; Bernice is the wife of Jacob Wilson, an orchardist of Wheatland; and George Albert has charge of the Brandt Dairy. Rudolph and Louis Brandt, Jr., are both members of the Odd Fellow Lodge at Clements; and both have passed through all the chairs, while Rudolph is also a district deputy grand. Mr. Brandt is a Democrat; but more than this—he is an American, first, last and all the time, ever ready to help in all that promotes the welfare of the section in which he lives.
History of
SAN JOAQUIN 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
HISTORY BY
George H. Tinkham
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1923
San Joaquin County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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