Maneely, Alexander

Alexander Maneely was born at Blenheim, Ontario, on April 25, 1859, to John Maneely, a native of County Cavan, Ireland, and Catherine Johnston of Enniskillen, Ireland. Reared on a Canadian farm and educated in local public schools, he began working in a sawmill before joining the Great Western Railway at age sixteen. He subsequently advanced his railway career across Manitoba with the Canadian Pacific and as a construction foreman and roadmaster for the Manitoba and Northwestern Railway at Portage la Prairie. In 1888, he married Elizabeth Johnson, a native of Ontario, at Portage la Prairie, and the couple raised five children: Ethel, Ida, Lawrence, Irene, and Hazel.

In 1900, Maneely relocated to Los Angeles County, California, working three years as a Southern Pacific Railroad foreman at Ravena before moving to Fresno in 1903 to oversee construction for the Fresno City Railway under Griffith & McKenzie. He directed streetcar line development in Fresno and later executed projects in Stockton, Bakersfield, and Exeter for various railway companies. In 1905, he purchased a 100-acre ranch in Barstow Colony along the San Joaquin River, fourteen miles north of Fresno, which he developed with his son Lawrence to grow alfalfa, grapes, apricots, and peaches. Affiliated with the Baptist Church in Fresno, the California Associated Raisin Company, and the California Peach Growers, Inc., Maneely retired to his ranch in 1917.