San Joaquin County Biographies
Ref: Page 1480
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 2/23/2010
JOSEPH C. KENNISON
Among the fruit men of San Joaquin County who are interested in all departments of that greatest of California industries, is Joseph C. Kennison, a native of the state, born at Jenny Lind, Calaveras County, on May 8, 1866. He is a son of Joseph L. and Miranda (Cutts) Kennison, both descendants of old New England families. Great-grandfather David Kennison was a member of the Boston Tea Party and also served in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. He lived to be 115 years of age.
Joseph L. Kennison came via Cape Horn to California in 1849 and engaged in mining in Calaveras County; later he went into business at Jenny Lind. When their son, Joseph C., was a child of two years the family removed to Stockton, where the father followed his trade of brick mason and also did considerable contracting; many of the early brick buildings in Stockton attest the kind of work he did. Joseph C. is the youngest child in a family of three, the others being J.F., residing in Oakland, and May, a resident of Los Angeles.
Joseph C. received his education in the Stockton and Oakland public schools; then took a course in the Stockton Commercial Business College; when he was fifteen years old he became a clerk for the Hartford Fire Insurance Company in San Francisco, and remained with them for four years. He then gave up inside work and went to San Ramon near Danville, where he worked for wages on the James Boone ranch; then he removed to his native county and worked in the olive grove of H.H. Moore near Jenny Lind. In 1894 he bought ten acres of the tract he now owns and from time to time added more land until he now has forty acres; this was unimproved land on the Mokelumne River about two miles northwest of Lodi; he set out a vineyard to Tokay grapes and an orchard of peaches, also built a house and farm buildings. His ranch now has a peach orchard containing twelve acres, an apricot orchard of three acres, and the balance of twenty-five acres is in a fine, full-bearing vineyard. In politics he is a Republican and fraternally is affiliated with the Charity Lodge of the I.O.O.F. of Stockton.
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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