Alameda County
Biographies
JOSEPH F. BLACK
Whose portrait appears in this volume, was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, April 1, 1835, and there resided until he attained the age of eighteen years. On April 26, 1853, he sailed from New York on board the Crescent City for Panama, whence taking passage on the Golden Gate, he arrived in San Francisco June 1, 1853. Mr. Black located at once in Alvarado, Alameda County, and subsequently purchasing the farm now owned by S. P. Harvey, there prosecuted agriculture until 1859. Disposing of the ranch in that year he moved to Dublin, Murray Township, followed farming on the Dougherty Ranch, and was the first, in point of fact, to till the ground in that locality. In 1863 he transferred his operations to the Bernal Rancho, where he has since engaged in raising grain. In 1866 Mr. Black purchased the interests of Juan, Raphilo, and Joaquin Bernal in the Rancho El Valle de San Jose, consisting of seven thousand seven hundred acres, plots, one, two, twenty-six, thirty-three, and thirty-four of which he has retained and laid subject to the plow. Mr. Black, besides his large grain-growing enterprises, has thirty-five acres of land planted with vines, now of two years’ growth, being the first vineyard of any importance in the Livermore Valley, while he is laying out in the same manner one hundred and fifty acres more this year, and building a series of fine wine-cellars. Mr. Black has also twenty-five acres in hops, which he has found a profitable venture. Has subdivided and sold this year over twelve thousand acres for grapes in subdivisions from seven to two hundred acres, and with the assistance of Charles A. Wetmore, Chief Viticulture officer, has succeeded in establishing on the Arroyo Valle what promises to be the best dry-wine district in the State. He married, in the residence of Greene Patterson, Alameda County, California, in the year 1865, Miss Mary E. Simpson, a native of Independence, Missouri, by which union there are five children, viz.: Mary, Kate, Joseph, Ellis, and Frank.
History of Alameda County, California…, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883
p. 851-852
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler