Tulare County Biographies

JAMES THOMAS BOONE

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


In Missouri, Benton county, in 1862, James Thomas Boone was born. There he grew 
up and was educated. He began his active career as a clerk in a factory in St. 
Louis. When he was twenty-one years old he came to California and not long after 
his arrival he located at Traver. For a time after he came to the state he was 
bookkeeper in connection with one of the old canal projects which in their time 
promised to be influential factors in the commercial prosperity of this then new 
country. In 1884 he bought land at Traver, on which he lived until 1895, when he 
moved to Orosi. After two years' residence there he located at Dinuba and in 
1899 he bought forty acres near that place. He was the first man to build a home 
in Section Eight, and when he planted most of his forty acres in vines it was as 
a pioneer vineyardist. The land cost him $37.50 an acre and $600 an acre would 
be a low price for it now.
In 1887 Mr. Boone married Matilda Isabelle Blakemore, a native of Tulare county, 
and their five children are all living in Tulare county. Roy B. Boone, prominent 
in the drug business at Dinuba, married Frances Williams. He is one of the few 
graduates in pharmacy who live in this part of the county. Guy H., who is 
prospering at Dinuba as a liveryman, married Ethel Alford. Estella Jeanette is a 
graduate of the high school at Dinuba; William is a student in that school; and 
Clyde Thomas is attending the grammar school. Thomas Jefferson Boone, father of 
James Thomas Boone, was a native of Kentucky and the woman he married was also a 
native of that state. William Bailey Blakemore, father of Mrs. Matilda Isabelle 
(Blakemore) Boone, was a native of Arkansas, who in pioneer days made the 
overland journey to California with ox-teams. His daughter, who was born in 
Tulare county, recollects seeing much game on the plains and in the woods round 
her home when she was young.
A man of much public spirit, Mr. Boone is ready at all times to do anything in 
his power for the advancement of the public good and has served his fellow 
townsmen in the office of justice of the peace, making a record for just and 
wise decisions of which judges of many greater courts might well be proud. Mr. 
Boone was the first City Clerk after Dinuba was incorporated and served the 
first term.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 763-764