User:CA2MI: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

 

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==Death==

==Death==

After his last book was published in 1923, Tinkham spent two more decades in Stockton. He died in March 1945, a week before his 96th birthday. His obituary was carried by the Stockton Record on its front page.<ref>{{cite news |title=George Tinkham Succumbs Here |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/843914144/ |access-date=30 January 2026 |publisher=The Stockton Record |date=March 9, 1945 |location=Stockton, Calif. |page=1}}</ref> He was buried in Stockton Rural Cemetery.

After his last book was published in 1923, Tinkham spent two more decades in Stockton. He died in March 1945, a week before his 96th birthday. His obituary was carried by the Stockton Record on its front page.<ref>{{cite news |title=George Tinkham Succumbs Here |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/843914144/ |access-date=30 January 2026 |publisher=The Stockton Record |date=March 9, 1945 |location=Stockton, Calif. |page=1}}</ref> He was buried in Stockton Rural Cemetery.

== References ==

== References ==

American historian (1849–1945) in Stockton, California

George Henry Tinkham
George H. Tinkham, in his 60s: frontispiece of his California Men and Events (1915)[1]
Born	George Henry Tinkham (1849-03-15)March 15, 1849 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	March 9, 1945(1945-03-09) (aged 95) French Camp, California
Resting place	Stockton Rural Cemetery, Stockton, California
Other names	Geo. H. Tinkham

George Henry Tinkham (often cited as George H. Tinkham) was a prolific pioneer writer and compiler of local history in California, especially in Stockton and San Joaquin Valley, during the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Tinkham was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in March 1849 to parents of Scottish-English (father) and Dutch (mother) ancestry. Two months later, his father joined the California gold rush and immigrated to Stockton, California. Four years later, his mother brought young Tinkham and baby sibling across Panama by mule to join him; the family settled in Stockton.^[2]

Tinkham attended Stockton schools (as it was with no high school) and worked for his father, a butcher at the City Market. Then he roamed for fourteen years through sundry occupations: ranching, sheepherding, clerking (grocery, drug store), driving (streetcar, water-sprinkling wagon), editing the weekly Stockton Record and writing occasional news items for the Stockton Independent.^[3]

In 1878, while Tinkham was canvassing as a book agent, a friend from his schoolboy days suggested he should write a history of Stockton. That was the trigger he needed to devote the next two years preparing and writing his first major historical work, A History of Stockton from its organization up to the present time, which was a labor of love with no renumeration. The book’s frontispiece featured a signed portrait of the founder of Stockton, whom Tinkham consulted, Charles M. Weber, with the date, July 4, 1880.^[4][5] By convassing hard door to door, Tinkham was able to sell enough of his book to cover the publishing cost. But when the publisher wanted to charge him $20 for storage of the remainder, he told them to sell all 1500 of his remainder books to the paper mill.^[2] He made $800 for his all his efforts.^[6]

He [Tinkham] is merely saturated with the romances of past years, and is culling their fruitage for men and women yet to come, knowing that however his work might be ignored in the present, it will live! ^[2]

To support his new labor of love, Tinkham took on a salaried position as janitor at the Weber School building, which he held for fourteen years. During this time, he compiled entries for his later book California Men and Events. For six years, he produced a daily “20 Years Ago Today” column for the Stockton Record. He also wrote many historical sketches for the Stockton Mail.

In 1907, H. A. Preston from the Historic Record Company in Los Angeles, which marketed large handsome volumes of early histories of California counties with extensive biographies compiled by the company as prestige collectibles to subscibers, approached Tinkham to ask him to write a history of San Joaquin County for the company. Tinkham hesitated before he accepted the offer, which marked the beginning of his transition from a local Stockton journalist to a contract writer of county histories to accompany the prominent biographies by the company.

His first Historic Record Company publication appeared in 1909 in two volumes, copyrighted by the company, with J. M. Guinn writing the history of the State of California and Tinkham the history of San Joaquin County in Volume I and the biographical sketches in Volume II.^[7] The following year he wrote a history of San Benito County, which was published in a tri-part historical compilation by the company.^[8] A decade later, while he was in his seventies, Tinkham compiled for the company a history of Stanislaus County in 1921.^[9] In 1923 he completed an expanded stand-alone history of San Joaquin County,^[10] which featured a steel-engraved image of himself on the frontispiece and his own biography in the biographical sketches.^[11] Both the 1909 and 1923 editions of the history of San Joaquin county carried the commemorative biography of his father, Henry Tinkham, who died in 1894.^[12]

After his last book was published in 1923, Tinkham spent two more decades in Stockton. He died in March 1945, a week before his 96th birthday. His obituary was carried by the Stockton Record on its front page.^[13] He was buried in Stockton Rural Cemetery.^[14]