Merced-Sierra-San Francisco County CA Archives Biographies.....Calkins, Thomas D. 1858 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 8, 2006, 11:47 pm

Author: John Outcalt (1925)

THOMAS D. CALKINS

   The development of the Great Golden State is due to the energy and patience
of the pioneers who left their comfortable homes in the East and came to the
West and helped in the task to establish a State. One of these families was the
Calkins', who trace their ancestry, by well preserved records, not only back to
the Eastern States, but to the nobility in England. M. D. Calkins, father of our
subject, was a native of Ohio and in 1852 came to Nevada City, Cal. He had
married in the East, Elizabeth A. Sayles, also born in Ohio, who joined him in
California in 1853, and their first child was born here. Later the family
returned east and established the family home in Chicago, where Mr. Calkins
became established as a journalist. He made numerous trips to California to look
after his mining interests here, until in 1878, when he returned with his
family. Both he and his wife died in San Francisco.

   Thomas D. Calkins was born in Elyria, Ohio, on April 13, 1858, the second of
seven sons, of whom three are still living. He attended the public schools in
Illinois, also an academy in Chicago. In 1879 he came to California and
established a newspaper in Forest City, called the Sierra County Tribune, which
he moved to Downieville two years later, and conducted it for ten years. He then
sold out and moved to Sutter Creek and was proprietor of the Amador County
Record for another ten years. We next find him in San Francisco, where, with his
two brothers, he established the Pacific Coast Miner, a mining and engineering
journal, which was sold three years later to the Mining and Engineering Journal
of New York. T. D. Calkins was one of the organizers of the Calkins Syndicate
and in San Francisco he established the Orchard and Farm publication. After the
fire and earthquake of 1906, when his material fortune was swept away, he sold
his interest in the syndicate and spent four years as editor and owner of the
Haywards Review, at Haywards; then he was four years in Monterey as owner of the
Daily Cypress. In 1917 he came to Atwater and purchased the Atwater Signal,
established in that town in 1911 by L. F. Atwater, since which time he has built
up a good circulation and also does a good job printing business.

   Thomas D. Calkins was united in marriage on October 1, 1884, with Mary M.
Farley, daughter of Judge M. Farley of Alabama, who brought his family to
California in 1869. He served in the State legislature from Monterey County in
the sessions of 1882-1883. Mary Farley was born in Fairfield, Texas, and was a
sister of Henry Farley, at one time sheriff of Monterey County and who was
killed in 1899 by the bullet of a bandit. He was once postmaster at Gonzales and
prominent in the Native Sons of the Golden West. Three children have blessed the
marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Calkins, viz.: Malcolm, connected with the Merced Sun;
Donald Reid, proprietor and editor of the Ceres Courier; and Lucile, wife of R.
T. Hughes, of Napa. Mr. Calkins has a record for having put in nearly forty-five
years active work in the newspaper business. He has always been closely
identified with the life of the State and has helped make its history.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
WITH A
Biographical Review
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
JOHN OUTCALT

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925

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