Santa Clara County Biographies


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

          
J. H. FLICKINGER
 
            J. H. Flickinger, one of the leading exponents of the fruit industry 
of Santa Clara County, is the subject of this sketch.  Coming to this valley in 
1849, observing the gradual unfolding of the resources of the section, and 
grasping, with a keenly intuitive instinct, its wonderful possibilities, he has 
always been foremost in advocating and illustrating these possibilities by 
personal exertion.  Mr. Flickinger was born in Germany in 1830, but from a child 
reared in Erie, Pennsylvania.  His parents, Adam and Katie (Hechtman) 
Flickinger, were long residents of Erie, and owned a farm near the place.  He 
received his early education in the usual neighborhood schools, later attending 
for two years an academy in Erie.
            At the age of nineteen, attracted by the wonderful stories told the 
then almost unknown California and its treasures of gold, he went to New York 
and took passage for this State, around Cape Horn, on the bark Clyde, which left 
port on the twenty-fourth of April, 1849.  On the trip, while off the Cape, they 
encountered a terrible snow-storm, which incrusted the sails and cordage with 
ice, and froze the rudder, causing the ship to drift for twenty days toward the 
south pole, during which time of anxiety they were imperiled by floating 
icebergs, and so near exhausting their provisions that the passengers and crew 
were put on an allowance of one hard-tack cracker and a cup of water per day !  
Fortunately, the wind changed and they weathered the Cape, reaching Valparaiso 
on the first of August, where they remained three weeks to recruit, and 
provision the ship, arriving at last in San Francisco on the first of November, 
1849.
            Mr. Flickinger came to San Jose in December, the �Legislature of a 
thousand drinks� being then in session.  He at once opened a meat market, which 
he kept through the winter.  When the Legislature adjourned he went to the 
mines, where he remained until September, 1850, when he returned to his San Jose 
meat market.  In the spring of 1851 he extended his business to general 
merchandising, in which he continued two years, when he closed this and went 
into the wholesale cattle business, exclusively.  He continued in this until 
April, 1886, when he went into the fruit-canning business.  In 1880 he had 
purchased part of the land which he now has in orchard, adding to it at 
different times until he has now two hundred and fifty acres on Berryessa Avenue 
and Lundy�s Lane, on which he has planted twenty-five thousand trees,--one 
thousand cherries, eight thousand apricots, ten thousand peaches, and six 
thousand prunes, of which, in 1887, about fifteen thousand were in bearing.
            When he purchased this land it was in pasture, grain, and mustard, 
and honeycombed by squirrels and gophers, and did not pay current expenses and 
taxes.  He immediately inaugurated a revolution,--planted his orchard, fought 
squirrels and gophers, spent money lavishly, but judiciously, until, as a result 
of his efforts, in 1887, in his cannery and drying establishment, he employed 
over four hundred persons, turning out of the orchard goods that sold for over 
$100,000.  These are some of the results which can be obtained in Santa Clara 
County by well-directed effort combined with pluck and knowledge.  The cost of 
his canning and drying plant has been about $20,000.
            In 1858 Mr. Flickinger was married to Miss Mary A. Smith, a native 
of New York, her parents being Dr. China and Parnell (Hall) Smith, who came to 
California, from Rochester, New York, in 1855.  Dr. Smith died in 1885, aged 
eighty years, and his wife in 1880.  Both died in and were buried at San Jose.  
There have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Flickinger five children:  Katie and 
Charles S. (twins), born in 1860, the former now the wife of L. F. Graham, of 
San Luis Obispo, and the latter in business with his father; H. A., born in 
1864, also in business with his father; Nellie, born in 1868, now the wife of J. 
R. Patton; Sarah, born in 1870, attending, in 1888, the Normal School.  Mr. 
Flickinger�s father, who is now (1888) over eighty years of age, is still living 
on the old homestead in Erie, Pennsylvania; his mother died in 1862.  He has 
been a member of the I. O. O. F. Lodge, No. 34, San Jose.  In 1856 he joined the 
Republican party, helping to carry this county for Fremont and Dayton, and has 
worked in this harness ever since.  He believes in the fullest protection of 
American industries.
 
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.
Pg. 177-178
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler