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In the San Francisco Call on 8 May 1900:

Maria de Bolcoff, an old lady, who has a ten-acre ranch at Millbrae, swore to a complaint in Judge Fritz's court yesterday for the arrest of William Code on the charge of felony embezzlement.... Code, who is a son of the well-known canner, returned from Mexico in March last and three weeks ago ex-Supervisor Becker secured a warrant for his arrest for passing a worthless check upon him, but the matter was settled out of court.

Mr. Code, the elder, lived from 1828-1895. Was he literally well-known known for putting nonbotulized food into cans, or could "canner" here be a dated regionalism or term of art, or a typographical error?

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    This sounds like a question for the beta History SE.
    – 1006a
    Commented May 19, 2017 at 5:11
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    It's possible to be well-known in any profession.
    – Lawrence
    Commented May 19, 2017 at 8:47
  • Being well-known in a small community is different from being well-known internationally.
    – Davo
    Commented May 19, 2017 at 11:00
  • Certainly it's possible that the senior Mr Code operated a cannery in the area. Or it could be a bit of slang. (I'll note that Urban Dictionary defines the term as "Someone who is unskilled in anything they do", but it's unlikely that that definition has survived for over 100 years.)
    – Hot Licks
    Commented May 19, 2017 at 20:54

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Because fruit and vegetable farming were so important in the Central Valley, the Imperial Valley, and elsewhere in California (including in what are now urban areas, such as the Fruitvale district of Oakland), canneries were a big deal. Fishing canneries were important, too, as Steinbeck's novels about Cannery Row in Monterey, California, attest; those were sardine canneries, I believe.

For further evidence, I offer this item from "The Eastern Shore: News from Alameda, Berkeley, Oakland and Environs," in the [San Francisco] Daily Alta California (December 6, 1887):

Every year the question of a cannery in Haywards has been discussed by the merchants and fruit growers in the valley. The question had taken no definite form until a well-known canner proposed recently to start a cannery if he could secure about 150 acres of land near town for a term of years upon which to raise a sufficient amount of vegetables. If successful he promised to enlarge Oakes' building, formerly used as a skating rink, and conduct the enterprise on a large scale. If a large amount of land cannot cannot be secured he will in all probability occupy the San Lorenzo cannery.

So a "well-known canner" in late nineteenth-century California is almost certainly a person who is well known for operating a cannery.

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