Fresno County, California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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


JAMES MACKAY.� Among the rising Californians of foreign birth, 
who have brought to the development of this great commonwealth so much 
of the brains, brawn and experience of the Old World, one who has become 
a recognized authority as a viticulturist and horticulturist, especially in the 
growing of figs, is James Mackay, who was born at Strathpeffer County, 
Ross. Scotland, in 1872, the son of Simon Mackay, an honored farmer there 
who died at the ripe old age of eighty-three. His mother, who was Catherine 
McKinzie before her marriage, survived her husband for many years. and 
died in 1912. 

James was the youngest of ten children, and was reared on the farm, at 
the same time that he received a public school education. He helped his 
folks and remained home until he was twenty years of age. Then he was 
made game warden on the Lord Middleton estate, but after six years he re- 
signed and joined the Edinburgh police, where he served for five years, or 
from his twenty-fifth to his thirtieth year, when he resigned. He then en- 
gaged in dairying for a period of eight years, when he sold out, to leave 
his native land and cross the wide ocean. 

Mr. Mackay came to California by way of New York and New Orleans, 
and was not long in choosing Fresno County as his home. Two brothers, 
Donald and Alexander, had preceded him to California, and this paved the 
way, in the spring of 1911, for his entry into the employ of the Glorietta ranch. 

In 1913, Mr. Mackay left the ranch and accepted a more flattering 
offer from the W. A. Sutherland vineyard, where he became foreman, a 
post he filled with exceptional ability for the next two years, and which he 
gave up reluctantly to take the superintendence of the Glorietta and Alta 
Sierra ranches, each of 160 acres, and also Mrs. Drake's ranch, and some 
others. The ranches were in orchard and vineyard, and he then began that 
conscientious study of horticulture and viticulture for which he had really 
laid the foundation on his arrival in California, and in which he soon became 
distinguished. Having a nursery on the place, he had ample opportunity 
to study plant life and especially the growing of figs, and in that field he 
has conducted some valuable experiments with Calimyrnas. He is a friend of 
Prof. J. T. Condit, the fig professor at the University of California, with 
whom he is in close touch, and he is at present experimenting with a distinct 
special Capri fig, and is keeping the records for the University laboratory. 
As a result, Mr. Mackay has made some valuable discoveries. 

While in classical and picturesque Edinburgh, the pride of the patriotic 
Scot, Mr. Mackay was married to Miss Elizabeth Monroe, a native of that 
romantic country, and by her he has had two children, James and Arthur. 
He is a member of the Woodmen of the World of Clovis, and was made a 
Mason in Clovis Lodge, F. & A. M. And finally, he is an American citizen, 
having been made a member of the American Republic on December 27, 1917