Founders and their Families

 

In working on First Families projects, we sometimes anticipate receiving records of significant men and women who were instrumental in building our state or county. In our county's case, one of the most well-known names of local city founders was that of one man who settled in Lodi, California. His name was John Hutchins, and he was the Canadian-born son of Irish immigrants. He likely came to California for one reason: the Gold Rush. But he made the wise choice to take his winnings from that mining gamble and invest it in a more solid future.

In one of those ubiquitous local history books of the late 1800s and early 1900s, author George H. Tinkham offered up a brief biography of John Hutchins in his 1923 tome, History of San Joaquin County, California. Ascribing to John Hutchins the honor of being included among "the highly honored pioneers" of the county, Tinkham portrayed him as a local man with an "interesting history" and "enviable record." True, the book containing what seems to be a lasting legacy was published a quarter century after John Hutchins' passing in 1899, but books like this often excelled at hyperbole.

Still, the Hutchins name is one that is noted even now in the town's public places, including at least one civic building and street name. Local residents who have been here for a while recognize that name as coming from one of the city's founders.

John Hutchins apparently migrated to California across the Great Plains with his family. Arriving during the later years of the California Gold Rush—his family was enumerated in Iowa for the 1850 census—he would have been in his late teens or early twenties when the family arrived in Placer County.

He and his family apparently met with some success at that mining venture, for the extended Hutchins family decided it would be far more prudent to invest their money in land in the nearby Central Valley, where land prices at the time were quite reasonable. There is a record of a John Hutchins taking advantage in 1872 of the Homestead Act provision to acquire land in San Joaquin County, a fertile location for farming ventures, with access to water provided by nearby rivers.

John Hutchins was apparently in the "Big Valley" before that date, however, for the local newspaper noted his appearance in court in Stockton to vouch for his brother James during naturalization proceedings in  1868, and, even before that date, John stood before the pastor of Saint Mary's Church in that same city to be wed to his bride from Iowa, Mary Ann Nevin.

With that began the family and business ties which remained throughout John Hutchins' life. Though a foreign-born immigrant, he made business and personal connections tying him to the town he helped to form. From farmer to real estate owner to businessman, John Hutchins was credited, in partnership with associates, of laying out the town of Lodi and selling lots to the first residents there. He remained there for the rest of his life and was buried in Lodi in 1899.

It's what happened with the next generation, though, that moved away from that "First Families" designation, as John Hutchins' children married and moved away. Yet it is in that next generation that we see the beginnings of the network of descendants which eventually will tie back in with those roots in Lodi. It's the connections between the many lines of descent that tie back to the home location which fascinate me as I research these First Families applications.