John Samuel Daly, who has been one of the rising and successful attorneys of Sacramento since 1898, is a native of this state and county, and at an early age has gained a place of high esteem among his fellow citizens and his brethren at the bar. While he is especially devoted to his professional work, he has also some very extensive agricultural interests in this county and has proved himself to be an enterprising and progressive spirit in all that he has undertaken.
Mr. Daly was born on a ranch near Antelope, Sacramento County, California, June 5, 1873. His father, Judge Elisha Daly, was a pioneer of the state, having crossed the plains in 1850. He settled in Sacramento County and engaged in farming during the remainder of his life, which came to a close in 1891. He was of Irish descent and held the office of district judge while living in one of the New York counties before his emigration to the west. He married Eliza Ramsey, who was born in Ireland, and her father, who was an Irish landlord, recently died at the age of one hundred and two years. She is still living on the ranch near Antelope. There were five sons and eight daughters in the family, as follows: John S., Elisha, Louis, Eugene, George, Jane, Hannah, Josephine, Maggie, Mary, Emma, Belle, and Minerva.
John S. Daly was educated in the public schools and graduated from the Stockton Business College in 1892. He then took a course in the San Jose State Normal School, graduating in 1896. For the following six months, he taught school and then entered the law department of Stanford University. While in college he was a prominent football player, being on the team all through his college work, and played the position of halfback. After two years of study at the university, he took the bar examination and was admitted in 1898. Since then, he has been engaged in general practice in Sacramento and has been very successful. He was appointed notary public in 1899 and reappointed in 1903.
Mr. Daly has always been interested in the success of the Republican party and has represented it at state and county conventions, but has never sought office. He has fraternal affiliations with the Red Men, the Patrons of Husbandry, the Tribe of Ben Hur, the Foresters of America, and the Tau Sigma Tau college fraternity. He has been much interested in the farming industry and has done much to promote the organization of farmers and the general advancement of their welfare. He is a member of the Farmers’ Insurance Company of Sacramento and also its legal representative. With his brother Eugene, he conducts the home place of eight hundred acres. They have a vineyard of forty acres, and Mr. Daly planted thirty acres of almond trees, which have proved a profitable part of the industry. They also raise other fruits and carry on general farming operations and raise stock. Their father was one of the first to recognize the value of California as a fruit state and planted one of the first orchards within its boundaries in 1856. At that time, he paid six dollars for each tree. In the early days, he hauled fruit to the mines at Placerville and sold all he could raise to the miners.
Source: Leigh H. Irvine; A History of the New California Its Resources and People, 2 Volumes; New York and Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903.