In the 1890 edition of An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County, pioneer rancher Jeremiah Kenefick’s story is described, but first, from the October, 1980 edition of the Northern California Grower and Rancher Magazine, we learn about Jeremaih’s descendants and the Kenefick Ranch.
In a day when the mobility of California families has reached the point where approximately one out of five pulls up stakes and moves every year, it’s something of a rarity to meet someone who has lived every day of his 76 years in the same house.
Such a man is George Kenefick of Herald, a tiny farm community a few miles northeast of Galt on the southern edge of Sacramento County.
He and his wife Frieda, who has shared their home on Alabama Road with him for 43 years, are looking forward to 1981 as the one hundredth anniversary of the family’s settlement on the land.
The original deed to the property, framed and properly displayed in the couple’s entrance hall, showed ownership passing to George’s grandfather, Jeremiah Kenefick in 1881 - 480 acres for $4,800. Next year [1981] Kenefick Ranch will be added to the State Fair’s 100 Year Club roll of California farms and businesses that have reached the century mark.
Kenefick Ranch today [1980]consists of one full section, 640 acres, of which 240 currently are in corn and 320 in wheat - all leased out.
Also being farmed by lessors is a 160 acre portion on the east end of the place which belongs to the Kenefick’s son George Geoffrey… Geoff, as he is known, divides his time between his job as a concrete mixer truck driver and his two hobbies: calf roping and old wagons…
In the shop is a Petaluma cart which Frieda once drove and beside it, a partly finished replica of the two-wheeler on which Geoff is practicing carriage making. It is an endeavor in which he receives a lot of encouragement and not a little technical help from his father. George Kenefick enjoys working in his own well-outfitted shop and reaching into memories of his early days for the skills needed to restore and build horsedrawn vehicles.
George Kenefick, a quiet, exceptionally reserved man, helps Geoff as much as he can, tinkers around his shop and takes an active interest in the affairs of the Galt Irrigation District of which he is one of only two charter directors still serving.
As a farmer’s wife, Frieda has little difficulty keeping her days filled but maintains an active interest in art and floriculture, canning and baking, and raising peacocks. When Galt was the site of the Sacramento County Fair, her brother-in-law Gene Kenefick was manager and she took an active interest in it - focusing her attention on the community exhibits and junior departments.
She was born Frieda Klaner on her father’s place on the Humboldt River near Elko, Nevada, the family later moving to Sacramento County where they raised prunes and strawberries. After moving to Herald, she served 23 years as a trustee for the Galt High School District and the Arcohoe Elementary District, the latter a combination of the earlier rural Arno, Colony, and Herald districts.
George has almost no recollection of his grandfather, the pioneering Jeremiah; in fact, he has only the barest memory of his father, Edmund Kenefick, the latter having died when George was a boy of nine.
Family records, however, and an entry in the 1890 San Joaquin County history, Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World, show that Jeremiah was born in the south of Ireland in 1831. His parents John and Anna (Mahony) Kenefick, came to America in 1848, settling in Clinton County in northern New York, where they resided for the rest of their lives.
Eight years later, Jeremiah left home for New York City where he boarded a ship bound for San Francisco. Pen Pictures says that his first job was with a man named Ferguson in the Linden area east of Stockton but that that employment lasted only a month. His next job was with Greene & Logan at the I Ranch near Ione in Amador County, hauling hay for the stage teams. That too was a temporary position and he moved again, this time to the Dry Creek area near Herald where he found work as a ranch hand on the Masterson place.
Jeremiah remained with Masterson for two years, then bought a team and worked for himself, hauling freight out of Stockton until 1861. That year he bought 375 acres near the tiny community of Liberty in northern San Joaquin County, later acquiring the 480-acre place a few miles north and across the Sacramento County line where his descendants reside today.
He married Rosa Dorsey, also a native of Ireland, in 1863. The couple had three daughters and two sons, one of whom, Edmund H. Kenefick, was George’s father.
The 1879 Thompson & West’s History of San Joaquin County lists Jeremiah among three dozen residents of Liberty Township, including the Jahant brothers, Peter and Victor, and J.F. Still, who were instrumental in “developing the value and fixing the status” of the township after its creation in 1861. A controversy developed over the township boundaries and those of Elkorn and Elliott townships out of which it had been carved. The bickering went on until 1872, according to that history.
It is probable that the pioneer Kenefick was also engaged in the squabble between residents of the area and the Central Pacific Railroad which ended in the demise of the early “paper town” of Liberty and the rise of Galt as a trading center for southern Sacramento County farmers…
Jeremiah and Rosa’s second son, Edmund, married Sarah Ellen McEnerney of Arno, another long since vanished farm center northeast of Galt. Edmund’s father gave the couple 320 acres of his Sacramento County land, acreage which was the start of today’s Kenefick Ranch.
The second generation Keneficks were successful grain farmers, soon expanded their holdings by purchasing the 280-acre Prouty Ranch along Dry Creek east of Alta Mesa - Dustin Road. Its rich bottom land was ideal to support a dairy and the nearby Sacramento Traction Line provided easy transportation of the cream to Sacramento.
The couple had two daughters and two sons, the second of whom was George.
In 1913, Edmund died, leaving Sarah with four children all under 13 and two ranches to operate. With a ranch hand or two and constant help from her seven brothers, she managed to keep the farms intact. Sarah remained a widow until 1921 when she married Michael M. Donovan.
Four years later, the eldest son, Eugene, married Leona Latourette and settled on the Prouty Ranch in a new home, a gift from Sarah. Under Eugene’s management, the dairy was expanded until they were milking between 200 and 300 head.
The second son, George, succeeded to management of the homeplace in 1929 following the death of his mother, sharing also in the work on Eugene’s dairy. Actually the two farms were operated together under the name of Kenefick Brothers. By that time the dairy had become Grade A, with the marketing contract held by Golden State Dairy, Sacramento. More land was added to the Prouty place, increasing it to 320 acres.
Under George’s management, the homeplace was farmed much as it had always been, in grain, until 1945 when he began an improvement program, beginning with the leveling of 120 acres along Alabama Road. A reservoir was built, with a new well to supply it, and the brothers began acquiring beef cattle. George favored polled cattle, used Polled Hereford bulls and carried on a strict dehorning program.
With the encouragement of Frieda, whom he had married in 1937, George began acquiring more land, including 160 acres purchased from an aunt of George’s, Annie Kenefick Connelly, who had been given it by Jeremiah. Another 320 acres were bought in the Alta Mesa district and 2000 more were leased from the Harbison family, making it possible to branch out into sheep raising. The Keneficks remember when the bands would be driven to the Delta or to George’s brother-in-law’s place across the river to feed on beet tops following the harvest…
Altogether, the pioneer Jeremiah’s enterprise has been in good hands. Kenefick Ranch, as it moves toward its hundredth anniversary, is an enviable, thrifty spread. George and Frieda are enjoying their easier years, while Geoffrey, the fourth generation on the land, looks forward to the day when he can take his wagons and heavy horses out on the show circuit.
The Galt Area Historical Society offers a book of our local history called Tapestry. Click here for more information.
Last edited 13 April, 2007
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