San Joaquin County Biographies
Ref: Page 1460
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 11/18/2009
PATRICK DONELON
The ranching interests of San Joaquin County are well represented by Patrick Donelon, who for almost a quarter of a century has engaged in grain and stockraising in the Bellota section. His present home place consists of 515 acres seventeen miles east of Stockton, which he conducts ass a dairy and stock farm with gratifying results. County Galway, Ireland, was his birthplace and he is a son of Thomas and Catherine (Herbert-Donelon) Donelon, both also born in Ireland.
Patrick Donelon received a good education in the schools of the town of Dunmore, and at seventeen years of age he went to England, where he was employed on a farm in County Cheshire, working for four seasons, each winter returning home to be with his parents. In 1883 he left home for America with passage paid to Sacramento, Cal., and upon his arrival in Sacramento he found work in the Southern Pacific Railroad shops, where he worked for about one year; then he found employment on the passenger steamer Apache, one of the Sacramento River steamers to San Francisco. Mr. Donelon worked as deckhand for four years and as fireman on this steamer for ten years and was oiler for one year. For his efficient service he was given engineer papers as a second-class operator of river boats in California. Mr. Donelon was on this boat at the time of collision in 1885 with the T.C. Walker and received a painful injury in his side and hip, which necessitated remaining in the Marine Hospital in San Francisco for a month. During the years of his service on the Apache he received his U.S. citizenship papers.
Mr. Donelon's marriage in San Francisco united him with Miss Ellen Donelon, born in County Galway, Ireland, who had come to San Francisco in 1893. After their marriage the young couple settled on their ranch four miles east of Bellota, which Mr. Donelon had purchased in 1889. For twenty years they resided on this place, and here all their children were born. They are the parents of five children: Catherine is a graduate of Notre Dame, San Francisco, and for the past two years has been teaching in the Fair Oaks school in Stockton; Mary is a graduate of the San Francisco Normal and Notre Dame and is a teacher in the Elmwood school; Thomas attends the Stockton vocational high school, where he is learning the auto mechanic trade; Agnes and Lucile attend school in Stockton. Five years ago Mr. Donelon acquired the present home place of 515 acres, which he is steadily improving, and he purchased a residence at 1066 North Sierra Nevada Street, Stockton, as a home for his daughters. For several years he served as trustee of the Douglas school district and at the present time is a trustee of the Bellota school district. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus of Stockton, and has always manifested a public-spirited interest in the general progress and development of his locality.
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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