ANTONIO I. BITANCOURT.
Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNMAES: MARTHUS
This gentleman owns seventeen acres on Lincoln Avenue between Willow Street and Los Gatos Creek, about seven acres of which are planted in rhubarb, and a like area in asparagus. The average gross receipts from these productions are about $250 per acre. On the place are a steam boiler and engine of the capacity of eighteen-horse power, with four six-inch pumps, part suction and part force. By means of these pumps Mr. Bitancourt could irrigate 100 acres if necessary, selling water for such purposes when the season requires it. He bought this place about nineteen years ago, for $300 per acre; during the late "boom" he refused $36,000 for it !
Mr. Bitancourt was born in 1823 in the little village of St. Matthews, on the island of Pico, one of the Azores Islands, which group belongs to the Portuguese Government. His parents, Sergio Proda and Agatha (Marthus) Bitancourt, were born, lived, and died at St. Matthews, his father dying when the subject of this sketch was but seven years of age; his mother, in 1869. He had five brothers and sisters, he being the fourth child.
Mr. Bitancourt had sold his fruit business in San Jose, and made all preparations to visit his mother in his native land, when the news of her death reached him. Instead of visiting his old home --which he had left at the age of fourteen years—he bought this place in the Willows. Before leaving his native home he had served an apprenticeship in fruit-raising and the care of stock, on his mother's farm. At the age of fourteen years, following the example of most of the boys of his native place, he went on a whaling voyage, following the sea until he came to California in 1850. In 1846 the bark Carmelita, of the crew of which vessel he was a member, while on a voyage from Bangor, Maine, to Trieste, Austria, was captured by a ship pretending to be a Mexican privateer. They were carried into the harbor of Barcelona, in Spain, with the Mexican flag hoisted above the stars and stripes, where they were kept for three months, but finally were released, as the papers of the privateer were informal. After voyaging in various ships for the next four years, he finally came to San Francisco in the bark Baltic, from Philadelphia. After going to the gold mines, as was the custom of all new-corners, he came, in 1851, to San Jose, and went to work farming, going into the fruit business in 1859.
He is liberal in his views of politics and religion, but
has always identified himself with the Republican party. He has always been an
enterprising and public-spirited citizen.
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. 606-607