MORRIS SKINNER
Bio- Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: DUVALL, MAYHEW
residing on the Williams road, in the Moreland District, a little west of the Santa Clara and Los Gatos road, is the owner of a fine orchard property of eighteen acres. The orchard comprises 1,000 French prune‑trees and 650 apricot-trees in bearing, one acre being reserved for a household orchard, where may be found nearly every variety of deciduous fruit adapted to the climate. Mr. Skinner bought the property in the autumn of 1884, of J. F. Thompson, who had one or two years previously set out most of the trees that are now on the place. Of the crop of 1887, $1,700 worth of fruit was marketed. But little over one-half of the orchard contributed in making up that result, the remainder being too young to be in bearing.
The subject of this sketch came to Santa Clara County in the spring of 1884 from Dayton, Ohio, where, for a number of years, as the senior member of the firm of Skinner, Bradford & Co., wholesale dealers in millinery goods, he had been in active business. He was born in Miami County, Ohio. His father was a merchant, and a portion of his youthful years were spent in assisting him as clerk, and a portion in working on his father's farm. From 1850 to 1857 Mr. Skinner held a position as clerk in a mercantile establishment in New York city, following which he owned and managed a farm in Ohio. Later still, as before stated, he engaged in business in Dayton.
In the city of New York, in 1856, he wedded Miss Carrie Duval, who died in Dayton in 1874. His present wife, formerly Miss Dora J. Mayhew, he married in January, 1883. She was born in the State of Maine, and in that State received her rudimentary education. Graduating after a course of study at Maplewood Seminary, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Miss Mayhew became a teacher in Troy, Ohio, and for twelve years was thus employed, when, desiring rest, recreation, and further improvement in her chosen vocation, she visited Europe, and there pursued a course of study in the languages, especially French and German. Mr. and Mrs. Skinner are members of the Presbyterian Church at San Jose.
Having spent many years in active life, Mr. Skinner in the mercantile business,
and his wife in her profession as an educator, both are content in the quiet of
their pleasant home, in which they justly feel some pride. Being fitted by
character and education to appreciate the best things in any locality where they
may make their home, they are much delighted with life in California.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 446-447
SANTA CLARA COUNTY The Valley of Heart's Delight