San Joaquin County
Biographies
OTTO M. VOGELSANG.
A worthy citizen of Stockton, who has a record of continuous service with one firm of thirty-eight years, is Otto M. Vogelsang, the owner and proprietor of the James T. Mills Hardware Company, 30 East Main Street. He was born in Petersburg, Calaveras County, Cal., on December 12, 1864. He received his education in the country schools and his first job was herding sheep for three months for Fred Beal. In 1882 he went to Stockton and was employed with James T. Mills, and there he learned the tinsmith and plumbers' trade; later he became the foreman of all outside work. Upon the death of Mr. Mills in 1900 he assumed the management of the business. Mr. Mills' daughter, Miss M. Alice Mills, succeeded to the business and when she passed away in 1920 she willed the entire stock and fixtures of the hardware store, free of debt, and $3,000 in cash to Mr. Vogelsang, a fitting tribute for his faithful and efficient years of service to her father and herself. Miss Mills was graduated from the Stockton high school in 1871, this being the first graduating class from that institution.
James T. Mills was a native of Hartford, Conn. When he was a young boy he ran away from home and went to sea; he sailed around the Horn to California in 1849 and in 1850 settled in Stockton and opened a plumbing and hardware store, the first of its kind in Stockton. He was a fine mechanic and worked on many of the first buildings to be erected in Stockton; among them the Catholic Church, the First Presbyterian Church, the First Methodist Church, and the first court house erected in Stockton. He was active in civic affairs, serving on the city council, the city board of education; was a member of the Volunteer Fire Department and Exempt Firemen's Association; he was a charter member of Charity Lodge of Odd Fellows. He was an active member of the Congregational Church, and a strong temperance advocate, and was beloved by all who knew him.
The marriage of Mr. Vogelsang united him with Miss Nancy Gertrude Wyatt, a native of Stockton, Cal., whose parents were pioneers of that section. They are the parents of two sons. Harold A. is secretary to the chief of police of Stockton. During the World War he was sent to France and became machine-gun and bayonet instructor and during his service of eighteen months drilled 40,000 men; he was one of five who went from San Joaquin County to serve as instructors during the war. Ralph Leslie, formerly treasurer of the Yosemite Theater, is now a stage carpenter. He served the last two months of the war in the motor truck division at Tacoma, Wash. While the greater portion of his time is consumed by his business, Mr. Vogelsang can be counted upon to support all public-spirited movements for the good of the community.
History of San Joaquin County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1923
p 644
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.
CHARLES A. BACON.
ELLEN VINCENT BACON.
EUGENE C. BACON.
Besides having the honor of being a native son of San Joaquin County, Charles A. Bacon is also the only son of a pioneer family who came to this State in 1863, and was born on the Bacon ranch, three miles from Lockeford on July 25, 1868. His father was Eugene Charles Bacon, a native of New York, and a son of Samuel C and Finetta Bacon, natives of Connecticut and New York State respectively. Samuel C. died in 1861 and Finetta Bacon died in 1852. In 1854 Eugene Charles Bacon left home and traveled through many western and southern states, following engineering on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers for a period of nine years. He arrived in San Francisco in 1863, but after four months went to Virginia City, Nev., where he was employed by the Gould & Curry Company for three years, then removed to San Joaquin County, Cal., settled on the ranch that became known as the Bacon Ranch and followed ranching and stockraising until his death in 1913, aged seventy-seven.
In 1867, Mr. Bacon was married to Miss Ellen Vincent, daughter of Capt. Ashmit B. Vincent, who came to California as master of a sailing vessel, around Cape Horn in 1850. Upon his arrival here he spent two years in the mines, then went to Mokelumne Hill and was engaged in gardening until 1855 when he removed to San Joaquin County where he bought a squatter's claim to 160 acres of land from Merchant and Moore. This he cleared and farmed until his death in November, 1870. He had made arrangements to have Mrs. Vincent join him in California with their two daughters, Ellen and Cora, who came in 1853 on a clipper ship around the Horn. Mrs. Vincent died on January 23, 1861. Mrs. Eugene Charles Bacon is still living on the home place near Lockeford and at eighty years of age is hale and hearty and is surrounded by a host of friends who enjoy her tales of pioneer conditions in the Golden State. Mr. and Mrs. Bacon had two children, Charles A. and Ethel, who with their mother reside on the home place.
Charles A. Bacon received his education at the Harmony Grove school and after his school days were over worked on the ranch and at the same time has followed the machinist's trade, as well as learning the plumbing and sheet metal trades. From 1900 until 1912 he conducted a shop in Lockeford, during which time he perfected an acetylene gas machine which he manufactured and sold. After moving his shop to. the ranch he has devoted part of his time to managing the home estate and doing expert repair work on all kinds of machinery, his equipment being adequate to handle almost any kind of a job. For more than fifteen years he has engaged in well boring, specializing in deep water wells for irrigation purposes. On the ranch they maintain a dairy of twenty cows and raise grain and stock; twenty acres of the ranch is in alfalfa. Mr. Bacon is a member and past grand of Progressive Lodge No. 134, I. O. O. F., at Lockeford, a member of the Lodi Encampment, and past chancellor of the Lockeford Knights of Pythias. Politically he is a Republican and is counted among the progressive men of the Lockeford section of his native county.
History of San Joaquin County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1923
p 644
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.