San Diego County Biographies
 
R. C. KIRKPATRICK

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


one of the prominent pioneers of Menifee, is a native of Jackson County, 
Tennessee, born August 24, 1823. His grandfather, Robert Kirkpatrick, emigrated 
from South Carolina with pack horses before there was any other mode of 
conveyance and settled at Aston Station, Kentucky. There he raised his family 
and then in 1805 removed to Tennessee. Mr. Kirkpatrick's father, William 
Kirkpatrick, was born in Kentucky in 1772. He was married to Miss Keziah Chisom, 
daughter of John Chisom, of Tompkinsville, Kentucky, born in 1782, by whom he 
had five sons and seven daughters. The subject of this sketch was the seventh of 
this family. He was educated in Jackson County, Tennessee, and when twenty years 
of age learned the tanning trade and followed the business for several years. In 
1847 he opened a general merchandise store in Gainsboro, Tennessee, and 
continued there in business until 1860, and then removed to west Tennessee and 
carried on a dry-goods store at Union City.
        In 1874 he came to California and settled at Garden Grove, Los Angeles 
County (now Orange County), bought land and farmed there for seven years. 
January 7, 1881, he came to Menifee and took up 160 acres of land. When he had 
been on the land a year his sons, William T. and Cladus M., came on and each of 
them took up 160 acres of land, making a section that they have together in one 
body. It is an excellently line section of land. They are farming it mostly to 
grain, but they are also raising cattle, horses and mules. This year (1889) they 
intend to sow 250 acres of wheat and about 700 acres of barley.
        He was married to Miss Bettie Thompson. daughter of William Thompson, a 
Tennesseean and a farmer. She was born February, 1834. They had nine children: 
William T., married Miss Callie Patton and has a family of seven children; Mr. 
Kirkpatrick's daughter, N. K., married Mr. J. B. Teel and lives in Menifee. The 
other sons are in Menifee on the land adjoining their father's. Mr. Kirkpatrick 
and two of his sons are members of the Christian Church. The family is one of 
high respectability and honor and take an interest in all that pertains to the 
advancement of the county in which they have elected to make their home.
 
SOURCE:  An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties 
of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower 
California� Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.  p.-  182