From "History of Orange County" by Samuel Armor, 1921.

SIMEON TUCKER. — One of the substantial citizens of the community whose increasing interest in Mexican lands has by no means diminished his enthusiasm for Orange County and its future prospects, is Simeon Tucker, who was born in Stockton, Jo Daviess County, Ill., on June 1, 1847. His father was F.L. Tucker, a native of Green Mountain, N.Y., who settled in Illinois about 1835, and was a pioneer merchant at Stockton, when he had the post office on his farm, and he had to haul things to and from Galena. In 1859 or 1860 the elder Tucker set out across the plains for California; and arriving in Tuolumne County, he tried his fortune at mining. And there he died, in March, 1884, esteemed by those who knew him in his rugged Americanism. He had married Miss Marcia Hunt, a native of the Nutmeg State, but she died in Illinois. She was the mother of six children, among whom Simeon, the youngest, is now the only one living.

Brought up at Stockton, Simeon attended the Illinois district school, and for some years assisted his father on the farm and in the store. In January, 1874, having come out to California, he worked on a fruit ranch at Shaw's Flat, at thirty dollars a month, after which he peddled fruit. In 1875 he came to Westminster, then in Los Angeles, now Orange County, and buying a ranch he engaged in general farming, raising hogs and hominy.

When he sold out, at the end of five years, Mr. Tucker came to Anaheim, and in 1881 bought a place in the same district, but one mile below. He put in a vineyard, and two years later it died. Then he set out St. Michael and Mediterranean sweet oranges, and otherwise considerably improved the place. Later he traded it for a ranch in the Newhall Mountains in Los Angeles County. He went into the hotel business at San Francisquito Canyon, and the large stone building he then acquired is still standing.

In the meantime, having thirty-four acres in East Anaheim, he bought forty acres more, all raw land, with cactus and other brushwood covering the surface. He cleared the land, leveled it, drove out the rabbits and gophers, and in many ways agreeably improved it; and then he raised orange trees from seed, and budded them to superior Valencias. He sunk wells, installed an engine and had a fine pumping plant. He devoted forty acres to oranges, and he was the first to set out oranges in this district. In 1914 he also set out twenty-five acres of lemons. He raised much alfalfa, and now he not only has an electrical pumping plant for himself, but he supplies water to seventy-five acres belonging to other ranchers.

In addition to his valuable California holdings, Mr. Tucker owns two sections of land in Sonora, Mexico, and he has a stock ranch of 18,000 acres at Hermosillo in the same state.

In 1881 Mr. Tucker was married at Anaheim to Mrs. Lizette (Parker) Beckington, a native of Marengo, McHenry County, Ill., and the daughter of Leonard Parker. She came to California in 1871 and settled with a brother at Anaheim, and later her parents bought land in the East Anaheim district, near Madame Modjeska's home. In 1908 Mr. Tucker build a new, handsome residence. One son, Earl Robert, who was born on the first ranch they had, has blessed this fortunate union; he married Miss Laura Lensing, a native of Missouri, and assists his father. Mrs. Tucker has a daughter by her former marriage, Mrs. Lottie Bush.

Mr. Tucker has always, both as a genuine American and a Socialist, been interested, not merely in building up a community, but in the more difficult, more important work of upbuilding as well; and when he lived near Newhall he served with satisfaction to all as a school trustee.