California Biographies
Mendocino and Lake Counties, California
 
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 Mendocino and Lake Counties, California
With Biographical Sketches
History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry
Illustrated, Complete In One Volume
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914


JAMES A. FRENCH.� In Hingham county, Mass., in the year 1848, was 
born James A. French, whose father died when he was a boy of eleven years 
of age. In 1857 his mother came to San Francisco. Cal., sailing around Cape 
Horn, having been engaged as stewardess of the vessel, and in 1860 the chil- 
dren joined her, traveling by way of Panama. The mother continued to make 
San Francisco her home until her death. James A. received his schooling in 
Massachusetts and in San Francisco. In 1864. when sixteen years of age. he 
responded to his county's call, enlisted in Company A, 8th California Volun- 
teer Infantry, and served until the close of the war in 1865. when he was 
mustered out and honorably discharged. On his return to the Bay he was 
employed on a dairy farm in Marin county, and followed that occupation 
later in Monterey county. He then entered Heald's Business College in San 
Francisco, where he completed the course, after which he continued in the 
dairy business. In 1880 he was appointed receiving clerk at San Quentin, 
holding the position for four years, and after this he was wharfinger at the 
Alameda Mole, until he resigned and went to Monterey county as superin- 
tendent of a dairy. 

In 1888 Mr. French was appointed dairyman at the Agnew Hospital, fill- 
ing the position until 1890, when lie resigned and made a trip to Alaska, 
going via Fort Wrangle and spending twenty months in the frozen north. 
On his return to California he was again employed at Agnew. In June 
of 1902 he was appointed dairyman at the Mendocino State Hospital, a position 
he has held ever since. He is well posted in the dairy business and a good 
judge of a dairy herd and it is largely due to his experience and knowledge 
of the details of the raising of cows that the dairy herd at the hospital is 
among the finest in the state. Fraternally Mr. French is a member of the 
Knights of Pythias at Ukiah.