Manuscripts
This typewritten memoir by Los Angeles engineer, John Henry Quinton, begins with his childhood in Enniskillen, Ireland. He continues with his decision to find work in America as an engineer after seeing an advertisement in a book for the Central Pacific Railroad Company. After a rough voyage at sea on board the steamship Circassian, he landed in San Francisco, California with $40 in his pockets in 1873. In California, Quinton writes about various ventures, from ill-conceived irrigation projects to the inception of a colony called the "California Colony," which was the foundation for the city of Fresno. At one point in the memoir, Quinton interjects with a note about his temperament. "I have already stated in these pages that I was endowed with a hasty temper as a boy, and showed it so frequently that my mother, who was a very wise woman, warned me that it would sometimes get me into serious trouble. Fortunately as I grew older I learned to retrain my temper, and although it came near getting me into serious trouble several times it never really got me into serious trouble" (p. 202). He concludes the memoir with a few kind words about Frederick Haynes Newell, the First Director of the United States Reclamation Project, and taking up work since he did in 1908.
mssHM 83618
