Santa Clara County Biographies


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



John Christian
     John Christian, inventor and manufacturer of �The Diamond Thresher Teeth,� 
has been a citizen of San Jose nearly a third of a century.  Having come to 
California in 1855, he located here the following year and began learning the 
trade of making cylinder teeth for threshing-machines in the shop of McKenzie, 
known as the San Jose Foundry.  After finishing the trade, he worked a year as a 
journeyman, and then opened business on the site of his present manufactory, 
northeast corner of First and William Streets.  Mr. Christian is the inventor, 
patentee and maker of the steel-laid cylinder teeth.  The body of the tooth is 
constructed of the best Norway iron and the wearing edge of fine cast steel, 
which gives it double the lasting qualities of any other thresher teeth.  Mr. 
Christian has an actual demonstration of the remarkable endurance of these teeth 
in a set on exhibition in his shop which has threshed 70,000 sacks of grain of 
140 pounds each.  His goods are sold extensively all over the Pacific Coast.  
His factory is equipped with the finest machinery for the purpose, all of which, 
including the large steam engine that furnishes the power, was made by Mr. 
Christian himself.  The factory has a capacity of two thousand teeth per day.  
Mr. Christian was born in 1840 on the Isle of Man; came to New York just after 
passing his fifteenth birthday, and has fought the battle of live unaided since. 
 In 1864 he married Miss Sarah L. Pierce.  He has been a member of the I. O. O. 
F. For twenty years and of the A. O. U. W. then years.  He served eleven years 
in the California State Militia; lay on his arms in the armory the nigh that 
President Lincoln was assassinated.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, 
Illustrated. - Edited by H.S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 
1888. 
Transcribed by: Letisha Oddo
Pg. 405