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


JAMES F. PECK. In less than a decade James F. Peck has acquired a professional practice of 
financial and legal significance, embracing association with many of the most important civic 
and corporate complications in Merced and San Francisco. The fact that his business has in- 
creased in greater degree in the larger city is perhaps proof of his capacity for managing large 
affairs. In Merced Mr. Peck is appreciated as a man who has added to the prestige of the town, 
and as one to whose family the community owes a pioneer debt of gratitude. His father, Charles 
S. Peck, watched the city rise from the desert, was its most prominent builder and contractor 
for many years, and materially assisted in its general development. 

Reared at Snelling, Merced county, James F. Peck came with his parents to Merced in 1874, 
and after finishing his education in the public schools entered the University of California, 
from which he was graduated from the law department in 1885, with the degree of LL.B. His 
preliminary practice was inaugurated in Merced in partnership with J. W. Breckenridge. and con- 
tinued until 1892, two years before the death of the eminent lawyer. Since then Mr. Peck 
has conducted an independent practice, and in 1896 became attorney for the Crocker-Huffman 
Land & Water Company. For years he was the attorney for the Commercial Bank, and also was 
attorney for the Mitchell and Turner estates, and the Potter estate of San Francisco. His work 
in the latter city assuming such large proportions, he established an office there in the Mills 
Building in 1902. 

In San Francisco, in 1883, Mr. Peck married Emma Spring, a daughter of one of the pioneer 
families of Nevada county. Cal. Three children have been born of this union, Charles Melnotte, 
Jesse Lydell and James Forester. Mr. Peck is independent in politics. He is a member of the 
State Bar Association, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Knights 
of Pythias. His wife is a member of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Peck has a profound under- 
standing of the theory and practice of law, and his splendid health and physical endurance 
give promise of a career of exceptional prominence and usefulness.