California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


BENJAMIN F. COKLEY. Self-made in the best sense implied by the term. Benjamin F. Cokley, 
a prominent vineyardist of Paige district, Fresno county, has brought his own success by 
the application of energy and industry with which he has devoted himself to the accu- 
mulation of a competence. A native of Sumner county, Tenn., he was born September 10, 1859, 
a son of William Cokley, who owed his nativity to Robinson county, of the same state. He mar- 
ried Martha Lawrence, also of that state, whose father, Lammy Lawrence, was a native of Vir- 
ginia. William Cokley was a farmer, and both himself and wife died early in life, leaving Ben- 
jamin F. Cokley an orphan at the age of twelve years. Reared to manhood in the family of an 
uncle, he was trained in the practical duties of a farmer. He remained with him until attain- 
ing the age of twenty-two years, when he came to California, locating, in 1882, in Fresno coun- 
ty, where he engaged in farm work on King's river. For twelve years he was actively engaged 
in this work, and having accumulated sufficient money to warrant his enterprise he came into 
possession of the property upon which he has since lived, that being the year of 1897. He has 
forty acres of land devoted to the cultivation of grapes, orchard and the raising of hay. He also 
has sixteen acres in alfalfa in the Malaga district, and twenty acres in the Garfield district 
devoted to vines and peaches. Politically Mr. Cokley is a Democrat and fraternally is identi- 
fied with the Woodmen of the World.