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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
-y-^- >^
HISTORY OF
FRESNO COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical S/cetc/ies
T/ie Lecic/ing- Me/i and IFodicii of tlie Comity IF/w Juvve
bccfi Ide?itified witii its Gfowtli and
Development ffom tiie Ea?dy
Days to t/ie Present
HISTORY BY
PAUL E. VAN DOR
ILLUSTRATED
COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1919
PREFACE 1154033
r^
History is lite essence of innumerable biographies. — CARLYLE.
Xy The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of recollection: and he ccill in turn
^ be supplanted by his successor of /oinorcoiy.— WASHINGTON IRVING.
■^ The happy historian has no other labor than of gathering what tradition pours dozvn
fs^ before him, or records treasure for him. Y^ even ivith these advantages, few in any age
\ ' have been able to raise themselves to reputation by writing histories. — DR. SAMUEL
Vy JOHNSON.
^ History, being a Lollcition of faits JiuJi uu iniiltipl\in., ^ithuut end ]\ obh^id to adopt
Q arts of abndgnunt to iLtatn tin niou niattiial ici)i/j and to diop all tlu tnmntt liuhui
V^ stances which aie only interesting ditiing tlu time, oi to tht piisons ingOr^td in tin tiaiis-
O action— nUU^
In nation th, fii r' ^"'^ '/'' A'''^ '" /'mMm //'. / ;. ^ a
the piuuiphs nil, I ' ' '/ ii//i//» //) /^'uii iiuiui m .,/
pcrfunif, oiih luili , I'u iiu 1 1 d ,/ hish.ix 1, i, //
truth -Jiuh Illicit •■ 'l^"l ■iiiioi,., I'l II III, .,,././ ,„
the mass dtriies its Ji 'L >iliu mid tlu piiaoiis t'aituhs ai, ^nuuilh
the baser m such a iiuniini that tin s,paiatioii is u ta\l of Ih, utiiinst di]
MACAULAY.
The pride in his own California of tlie native born and of tlie citizen that has adopted
it as his state, is only too well grounded. The transient visitor is charmed by California,
enraptured by her natural wonders, marvels at her wealth .md pi ii. lUiahiir^ lie beholds
on every side nature's and man's verilication of the wonderful .iii.l .iln-i m. inlible tales
that have been told of the new El Dorado; he ceases to wondei uli\ u i, IhM m such esteem
and he comprehends why the pioneer located in this sun-kissed iLrrcstnal paradise to end
his wanderings and why "Eureka," the Greek motto, was exultingly adopted as that of the
state to be perpetuated in its Great Seal.
California is the accepted Wonderland of the Far West; it is the Empire State of the
Golden West, the diadem in the coronet of the Pacific Slope states, inseparably part >,\ the
greatness of the nation, close-bound by the transcontinental railways and umre recinil\ by
the latest wonder-creation of the world in the Panama Canal, the work of Anu rican lirains,
enterprise and money. Once upon a time, upon the map of the world, California was an
undefined thing without metes or bounds. Today it is America's western outpost of com-
merce with the East — the fabled Indies which the venturesome explorers strove to discover
but in their failures stumbled on a new continent, while later enterprising navigators located
the storied Californias of the .\nia;-nns whose very name was appropriated from one of the
most picturesquely evolved lulion, ,,| a iii..lia\al poet.
There is not another siaia uiih a lii-iiir\ such as California's, whether for entrancing
poetical interest, picturesque ri'in.mcr, \anii\, ,id\enturous character and origiualitv of ex-
periences and incidents, or, lastly, wondmus niaPrial clc\ili >piiii m ami wmlih li is a tale
without precedent, without after-counterpari li > min, n, ,ii,',| 11,11,-11 ii-,|i, - li i.I, us cl the
poet's imagery, baffled the philosopher's oniiii^ciencr It 1, 1 nin.iiu, wnlhuit parallel. It
is an e.xuberant story of wonderful acliievenieuts, of -rrai died,, inllnwiii^ grand amis, that
has made California famous. Probably no state sa\a lli. .niuiiial lliirieen can point to a
greater anthology. California has been the favorite .md iia \li aiisiil,!, tlienie for the indus-
trious historian, the dreamy poet, and the imagin,ili\e .and creati\e fiction writer. New
works on the llieme appear every year. No one of these has pictured all phases of Cali-
forni.a's claims to greatness and beauty. Like classic poem or tale, or familiar soul;, the
tale rif C.ilifornia never wearies or stales, but gains new charm and zest in the retelling.
In a modest work of the compass of these volumes, primarily the plain story of a county,
such phases only of tlir spita's liist,.i\ in its rapid development are touched upon to empha-
size upon the reader ilu- racr .md niMti\c characteristics of the people that colonized the
land and of those that ci^iLpi. nd ami d.\al(ipcd it; to compare the "poco tiempo" era of the
Spaniard^^with the "All ri'alit ; ljm ali. id" tiiiKs of the American; the lagging, deferring
"manana" of the one, wdth tlir al, n, widr awake rush of the other in meeting obstacles and
ever pressing forward. Wh- w.ll ..,\ ih at d.stinv's hand did not retard colonization by one
decadent race, for the swift e\nhitioii by a virile, red-blooded race, representing a com-
mingling of many bloods ?
Sufficient early California history as a background is touched upon to prepare the reader
for the main work of the History of Fresno County. The history of the state linds its
counterpart in many of the older counties, fields that unfortunately have been only too
lightly surface-scratched, so engrossed were the actors and the chroniclers of the day in
the development of the material resources. There is a late awakening in research work to
shed new light, to learn more of the history of the state and its counties. The regret is
that the work has been delayed until after so many of the actors have passed away.
The writer of this History of Fresno County entered upon the work as a task ; as it
progressed over a period of years it became a labor nf ln\c It was a stupendous undertaking,
covering as it did a bird's-eye retrospect of ^ixt\ tin.. \i,irs. Necessarily there had to be
abridgment. The scheme was adopted of pixMiiiin- liu lnstriry in popular narrative form,
tracing the development of the county by industrial ipocliN, following a general chronological
order, eliminating much of the dross of minor and passmg events, to bring out the abstract,
salient and permanent truths and results, while not suppressing the local coloring in the
personal element.
So-called histories of the county have been many. For the greater part they have not
been regarded as authoritative reference works. They have been the hurried labor of super-
ficial hack writers, unacquainted with their subject, the historical subordinated to the com-
mercial feature of the publications. Xo history of the county has been printed since "The
History of Fresno County," published in 1882, by Wallace W. Elliott and Company, of San
Francisco. It was a work of original research and a trustworthy authority.
The editor and publishers of these volumes present them confidently as a verified and
authoritative history of the county — the result of conscientious labor in original research,
and of information imparted by pioneers and their descendants, entered upon originally as a
pastime and without thought of publication of the collated material. It essays to present
county and city historical data that had lasting bearing on the times, but which with many
of the picturesque incidents were ignored or overlooked in the publications that have gone
before ; and lastly it is an endeavor also to fill in the hiatus of the years since 1882, to bring
to date the tale of the development and growth of a county which, from a small beginning
with a rough and uncouth mining population and hardy pioneers, has become one of the
richest, politically best governed and industrially typical of a great state.
Incredible as their development and growth have been, through successive industrial
epochs, the mind cannot grasp the future of State and County when the twin Sacramento
and San Joaquin Valleys will have reached the zenith of development and production.
California is today a self-supporting empire in itself. It is dependent upon the world for
only a few of the raw materials demanded for certain manufacturing and industrial enter-
prises. It is developing these. The zenith having been attained, Fresno County will be a
leading contributor to California's greater riches, enhanced production, and to the unmeas-
ured happiness and prosperity of its citizens. Fresno is the state's center. A remarkable
past will be eclipsed by a more wonderful future — it is manifest destiny.
—PAUL E. VANDOR.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Introductory 31
California a land of wonders and surprises. Fresno County an Empire
within an Empire. Assessed property valuations. The Valley is the
keystone in the arch of the State's wealth. Interior region little affected •
by the Spanish and Mexican regime save in the nomenclature of
landmarks.
CHAPTER II
Roster of Earliest Living Pioneers 34
Changes brought about by the mutation of time. Linking the present
living with the remote dead past. The days of the Squaw Man. Sur-
viving pioneers antedating days before county organization. A fre-
quently changing and ever shrinking roster. Some of the picturesque
characters that have passed away. Pioneers of the mining period of
the decade of the 'SO's.
CHAPTER III
History of State is Unique and Redolent of Romance 43
Riches of State greater than those of the fabled Indies. Practically
unpeopled before the discovery of gold. "Inferno of '49" startles the
world. The day of another controlling race dawns with the setting of
the sun on the Golden Age of the Missions.
CHAPTER IV
California's Colonization Delayed for Centuries 45
Settlements all located on the coast. Upper California imperfectly
known. E.xpeditions undertaken to locate new mission sites. Ensign
Moraga the most enterprising explorer of his time. Journey of Padre
Garces.
CHAPTER V
Tulare Swamps the Rendezvous of Outlaws 49
Fremont hesitated not to buy stolen horses. Fages the first white man
to look upon interior valley. Pursuit and surrender of Santa Clara
Indians. Vallejo countenances shocking butchery of hapless prisoners.
Kidnapping of Gentile children.
CHAPTER VI
Fresno County is the Heart of the San Joaquin Valley 52
The city is the State's practical geographical center. Physical features
of the great interior basin. Climate a most valuable asset. Develop-
ment change due to irrigation. Destiny is to support a much larger
farming population. Fullest growth will be obtained with conservation
of water and forests.
CHAPTER VII
Discovery of Gold in California 56
Disputed date of discovery. Amount of gold shipped. A wild and
reckless population gathers. Some figures of the extraordinary acces-
sion by land and sea.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
First Reports From Gold Mines Excite Incredulity 59
Official confirmation. Colonel Mason's extravagant idea of figures.
The placers are visited and reported on. State Geologist Trask's
prophecies. Fresno's camps of the southern mines. First local mining
settlements.
CHAPTER IX
Practical Disappearance of the Indian 65
Characteristics of Valle}- Tribes. Polygamy was not uncommon. At
starvation point following reservation liberation after the 1850-51
uprising. Si.xteen tribes signed the Treaty of Peace of 1851 in Fresno.
CHAPTER X
Indian Troubles in 1850 70
Squaw discloses tribal conspiracy. Trader Savage outmarshaled in
diplomacy. Murders and plunder forays, with mutilation of victims.
Mariposa's battalion of rangers is formed, commanded by Savage.
CHAPTER XI
Mariposa Indian War Campaign 73
Chief Teniyea obstructs entry into valley. Chowchillas and Yosemites
remain obdurate. Favorite son killed and Teniyea held captive at end
of rope. End of war. Yosemites exterminated by the Monos.
CHAPTER XII
Major Savage a Picturesque Character
Consorted with Indians nearly all his life. Wagered his weight in
gold on turn of a card. Indian affairs in hands of a political ring.
Savage cowardly murdered in defense of Indians.
CHAPTER XIII
Permanent Settling Up of Fresno a Slow Process
Millerton .at its zenith in 1853. First locations of trading posts and
mining camps. Centerville a flourishing community. Earliest glimpse
of future county seat. First assessment rolls of 1856-57.
CHAPTER XIV
Early Days of Fort Miller and Millerton
Picturesqueness of mining days. Freight teams, mounted express and
stages enlivened villagers. Enforcing state foreign miner's tax. Joaquin
Murieta and his reign of terror. Capture of Garcia.
CHAPTER XV
Organization of Fresno County 91
First elected county officials. Many years a Democratic stronghold.
A statistical curiosity of 1857. Year of birth the remarkable one of the
great vigilance committee. "Lone Republican of Fresno."
CHAPTER XVI
Milestones in Millerton's History 95
Official records incomplete. Construction of jail. Miner's tax collec-
tions. First sheriff incompetent. Boundary line disputes. Early
licensed ferries. Lumber operations on Pine Ridge. Tollhouse grade.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVII
MiLLERTON Courthouse a Worry for Ten Years 101
Abandoned on removal of county seat. Courtroom becomes the town
assembly hall. Building recalls tragic mystery in Fresno's official
annals and the first defalcation.
CHAPTER XVIII
MiLLERTON Lacking in Civic Spirit 104
No town plat or incorporation. Nearness to rich placers controlled
site. Stage lines and slow mail deliveries. Franco-German war news
rushed on by stage coach after purchase by club in Visalia.
CHAPTER XIX
Characteristics of Early Settlers of California 108
Political opinions during Civil War. Firing on Fort Sumter stirred up
strong Union sentiment. Gambling and drinking a state-wide habit.
Leveling tendencies of pioneer days. A tribute to womanhood.
CHAPTER XX
MiLLERTON Retrogressive Rather Than Progressive Ill
County seat removal suggested in 1870. Surroundings of village. Big
fire on eve of the Fourth of Tuly. 1870. Unaided by Fort. Millerton
never housed its fixed population.
CHAPTER XXI
Early Flood and Drought Periods 117
Scottsburg washed away. Millerton never rallied from disastrous flood
on Christmas eve. 1867. San Joaquin a blessing and a curse. Gigantic
irrigation project is failure.
CHAPTER XXII
Early Settlers of Millerton 122
McKenzies, Harts and Hoxies among earliest families. Gillum Baley
elected county judge. Personal recollections of other pioneers.
CHAPTER XXIII
Social Side of Pioneer Days in Eresno 128
Big families the general rule. No marriageable woman needed to be
without husband. Women in numerical majority. First white child
born in county. Practical jokes characteristic of the times. Artlessness
of political candidates. No mincing of king's English.
CHAPTER XXIV
Saddest Chapter in Fresno's History 134
Pathetic end of three prominent men. Gaster as a defaulter dies in
foreign clime. Converse fills the grave of a suicide. McCray dies as a
pauper.
CHAPTER XXV
Southern Secession Strong in the County 141
Millerton newspapers keep alive political rancor. Desecration of flag
incidents. Fort Miller reoccupied by soldiery in 1863. Swashbuckler
publications villified administration. Assassination of Editor Mc-
Whirter. The Republican is the conspicuous journalistic success.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXVI
County Seat Removal in 1874 151
Big defalcation is discovered. Fresno is staked out in May, 1872.
Millerton deserted. First passenger train schedule of 1873. Court-
house corner stone laying. Visit of first circus. Courthouse fire in 1895.
CHAPTER XXVII
Industrial Period.s in State and County 157
Lumbering conspicuous in Fresno. First handworked "sawmill" at
Fort Miller. Hulse, pioneer of millmen. Pine Ridge is scene of mill
activities. Directory of first "Bullwhackers" and sawmill men.
Corporate fluming operations.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Pastoral Period Succeeds Placer Mining in 1864 161
Stockraising becomes dominant industry. Dairying neglected. "No
fence law" tolled requiem of stock business. The "Sandlapper" comes
to the fore. Wool raising an important consideration. Prominent
stockmen listed. They discovered Sierra's scenic wonders in the quest
for pasture.
CHAPTER XXIX
Agriciilture Takes Possession of Valley in the 70's 167
Dry farming conducted on gigantic scale. Discouraged by stockmen.
Fertility of soil demonstrated. Development of labor saving machinery.
First farming on plains. Failure of Alabama settlement.
CHAPTER XXX
Vasquez and His Robber B-and 172
Millerton given great scare. Murieta's retreat is starting point for raids.
State is terrorized. Vasquez hanged for murder at Tres Pinos.
CHAPTER XXXI
Water for Irrigation and Railroad Aid in Upbuilding of Fresno. . . . 17b
Sycamore as rival to new county seat. Failure of gigantic irrigation
project. Railroad exacted tribute from farmers and towns. Leland
Stanford's prophecies. Historic transaction giving rise to the familiar
Harris land title.
CHAPTER XXXII
Irrigation and Its Gradual Development 180
M. J. Church remembered after death in a bequest. Easterby makes a
success of wheat farming. Church champions irrigation and develops
it despite implacable hostilities. A marvelous transformation comes
about in first decade.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Fresno is the Center of the Sun-Dried Raisin Industry 187
Spain outdistanced in 1892. Stabilization of prices. California acreage
the largest in the world. First raisin exhibit at 1863 State Fair. Seeded
raisin a Fresno creation.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Raisin Industry the Financial Barometer 192
Many efforts at cooperative control. Crisis faced at close of year 1917.
Spectacular campaign staged for new contracts. Prosperity under-
written for six years.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXXV
Development of the Wine Industry 198
Fresno leads in sweet wine and brandy. Conditions ideal for sun cur-
ing of products. Citrus growing belt of valley. Local nursery stock
of a year sufficient to supply entire State.
CHAPTER XXXVI
California Ranks Ten in Value of Farm Products 204
Raisin industry outranks all increases in Fresno County. It has the
credit for more than one-half of state's dried peach crop. For hay
and forage it is third. Rice growing is making great strides. Sacra-
mento Valley raises ninety-five per cent of the cotton in the State.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Romantic Side of Horticulture in California 208
The story of the minute fig wasp in the introduction of a coming in-
dustry. Early experimentation in caprification. Revolutionizing the
grape industry. The rabbit drive as a sport.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Possikilities of Cotton Culture in the Valley 213
Warning against mistakes made after Civil War. The Egyptian variety
recommended. Fig production will play an important role. Currant
grape another commercial factor in raisin belt.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Life and Public Career of M. Theo. Kearney 218
Lived in solitary grandeur in chateau without companion or friend.
Died unattended on the high seas. Championed the formation of the
first raisin growers' association.
CHAPTER XL
The Litigious Side of the Raisin Business 225
Pettit's long fight as the impoverished inventor of the seeder machine.
Forsyth pre-seeding machine is rejected as lacking novelty. Liquid-
ation of first association lags in courts for six years.
CHAPTER XLI
Notable Benefactions to the County 230
Frederick Roeding, M. Theo. Kearney and William J. Dickey made
generous gifts. Dr. Lewis Leach is remembered as noteworthy per-
sonage. Frank H. Ball made large bequests to public institutions.
CHAPTER XLII
Influence of Dr. Chester Rowell in Upbuilding of Community 237
Noted physician, founder of a newspaper, organizer and leader of a
party. Unique local character was Fulton G. Berry. His funeral a
remarkable spectacle.
CHAPTER XLIII
Development of Land, Commercial and Financial Interests 244
First great land promoter was Thomas E. Hughes. His activities fast-
ened upon him the appellation of "Father of Fresno." Louis Einstein
was a pierstone in foundation of conservative commercial and financial
life of city. Otto Froelich was pioneer merchant and banker.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XUV
Land Holding Barons of Pioneer Days 253
Jefferson James last of picturesque cattle kings. Henry Miller never
knew how much he possessed in land or live stock. Frederick Roeding
made known the agricultural possibilities of desert lands.
CHAPTER XLV
Colony Settlement System Contributes to Agricultural Growth. . . . 260
Central California colony the pioneer in the county. The Alabama
and Holland failures. Early farmers were extravagant in use of wa-
ter. Sterilization of soil with appearance of alkali is consequence.
CHAPTER XLVI
Newer Town Locations Represent Later Development Period 268
Brief review of their origin. Fresno in 1879 still a cow county vil-
lage. Burials in town ceased, only in 1875. Two transcontinental
railroads serve county. A remarkable mountain railroad into the Sier-
ras. Automobile has solved problem of interurban communication.
CHAPTER XLVII
Incorporated Cities of the County 274
Newness of the towns on the plains with Fresno as oldest located and
first to incorporate. Settlements existing before 1872 are memories
of the past. Clusters of population before 1880. Earlier tradmg points
called to mind. With Madera's divorce in 1893 went the early histor-
ical region of Fresno County north of San Joaquin River.
CHAPTER XLVHI
Shelbyville Recalls a ^^^IDESPREAD Swindle of the Land Boom Days. . 279
It was a lottery conception of an eastern theatrical man. Town had
no existence save in the mind and on a filed map. Site has long re-
verted to the state for unpaid taxes. Fresno as the first incorporated
town in the county. Chance discovery of earliest recorded townsite on
Dry Creek in 1875.
CHAPTER XLIX
CoALiNGA Oil Field is the Largest Producer in the State 283
Another interesting chapter in the history of a wonderful county. A
great industry established in a waste sheep grazing region. Coalinga
in early days typical of western mining camp. First oil excitement of
1865 recalled. California's petroleum possibilities first recognized
about 1900. Coal deposits had proved inadequate for fuel supply.
CHAPTER L
Oil District is One of the State's Great \\'ealth Producers . .... 288
Early drilling methods were crude. Tales of frenzied finance mark
early development days. Picturesque features in exploitation of West
Side field. A story as interesting as that of the gold period of the
Argonauts.
CHAPTER LI
Evans-Sontag Reign of Terror of 1893 296
Most lurid chapter in criminology of county. Many armed conflicts
with officers of the law and escape of the bandits. Populace in the
foothills blocked authorities. Leader ended his days in a county poor
farm.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER LII
Location by Railroad of Townsite of City of Fresno in 1872 301
A. J. Maassen the first settler. William H. Ryan was at death the old-
est continuous resident. Russell H. Fleming now holds that distinc-
tion. Jerry Ryan was notable personage. Early recollections of some
first comers narrated. Contrast of the years marked in the ownership
of automobiles. Survey stake at K and Mariposa marks geographical
center of State.
CHAPTER LHI
The Building Up of the City of Fresno 310
Livery stables and saloon periods of village. Activities centered on
coming of railroad. First locomotive crosses San Joaquin March 23,
1872. Renewal of county seat removal agitation. First permanent im-
provements. Appeal made to plant shade trees.
CHAPTER LIV
Irrigation and Trees Attract Bird Life 318
Agitation on for railroad competition. School district is established
Grain growing acreage extending. First Fourth of July celebration.
Candidates to the fore for county seat. Fresno's dominant industry
is bar room.
CHAPTER LV
The End of Pioneer Millerton 325
Old county seat is left deserted. Bids are invited for new courthouse
in Fresno. Big defalcation discovered in treasury. Anti-Chinese
agitation. First brick building erected. Courthouse cornerstone lay-
ing. First bank opened.
CHAPTER LVI
Progress of Fresno is Steady and Substantial 333
First cemetery abandoned. Fire protection a much felt want. Central
California colony. Granice Merced murder trial. Agitation for a
church. Completion of courthouse. First Fresno-grown orange.
CHAPTER LVII
Six Years of Astonishing Changes LTp to Centennial Year 340
County boundary line controversy. Irrigation problems. First wine
making. Founding of town of Madera. Panic year among sheep men.
Gold placer mine bubbles. Church is begun. Pioneer flouring mills.
CHAPTER LVIII
Townsite of Fresno an Unattractive Spot on Sagebrush Plain 348
M, K. Harris gives mental picture of town in 1879. All business cen-
tered about railroad station. Brick buildings numbered six. Coyotes
howled at night. A glimpse into early politics.
CHAPTER LIX
Fresno a Handful of Houses in a Desert of Sand in 1881 355
Metropolitan hall the graveyard of many traveling shows. O street
was out of town. Nob Hill the residential quarter. Rabbits and squir-
rels in the backyards.
CHAPTER LX
Fresno's Memorable Boom in 1887 358
Many of the larger buildings erected. Outlying territorial additions
made. Abnormal conditions of the day anticipated the later ruimg
land valuations. Excursions run to bring moneyed land buyers.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER LXI
Public School Department of Fresno County 367
One of the largest of the State. The Normal established a State In-
terior Educational center. Public activities of the children. Statistics
show growth of public schools.
CHAPTER LXn
A Dark Chapter of Crime in the County's History 374
Murder of Major Savage. Murieta's career ended. Looting of Chinese
Indians hanged. Vasquez and robber band. Killing of Fiske. Dr. F.
O. Vincent hanged. Evans-Sontag reign of terror. Wooton mystery.
Case of Helm boys.
CHAPTER LXni
Picturesque Narrative Revealed in Madera Murder Trial 395
Case submitted to juries three times. Victim was a squaw man and
pioneer of gold days. Tale of feud with Mono tribe of Indians.
CHAPTER LXIV
Effort to Divide County and Lop Off Coalinga Oil Field 399
Initiated by Hanford for the enlargement of Kings County. Commis-
sioners indicted for refusal to canvass vote cast at special election.
Conspiracy defeated. Compromise follows with loss by Fresno of
strip of land.
Official Directory of Fresno County t 409
Official Directory of the City of Fresno 415
Obituary List 423
County Tabloids 430
City in Paragraphs 471
Personal Recollections 512
War Reminders 556
Casualty List 600
INDEX
A
Page.
Abbott, Andrew 800
Abbott, Frank Edgar 2303
Abbott, Franklin 1415
Adams, Grant A I9S5
Adams, H. A 2199
Adolfson, Erik 1745
Adoor, Barsam 25S3
Adoor, Paul 2549
Aggers, Henry 2357
Ahlberg, Gustav E 1545
Aikin, John W", 1270
Akers, LeRoy 2297
Akers, Wm. Albertus 1842
Akers Family 40
Albrecht, A 2138
Albright. Arthur N., D. D. S 1496
Allen, Arthur VV 969
Allen, Jesse Buell 1542
Allen, Thomas J 2237
Allen, William H 2369
Amador, Benjamin 2052
Andersen, Andreas H 2232
Andersen, Mrs. Anna M 1794
Andersen, Jes 2482
Anderson, Arthur J 2113
Anderson, Fred 1838
Anderson, Garrett E 1190
Anderson, Harvey G 2031
Anderson, Nils A 2514
Anderson, Otto 2346
Andrews, S. M 906
Annigoni, Menotti 2547
Anthony, William James 1371
Apperson, William L 260
Appling, David F 1000
Arbios, Peter L 2295
Ardohain, Martin 2539
Arieta, Arthur 2546
Ariey, Marie 1082
Armstrong, John A 1759
Armstrong. John W 1823
Armstrong, Robert FranKlin 1425
Arnaudon, Alfred Joseph 1927
Arnold, Edwin E 1892
Arnst, Christian 2582
Arostegny, Jean 2546
Arrants, John G. S 732
Arrants, Eeander J 1602
Arrants, Mrs. Mary A 765
Arriet, Angel 2484
Arriet, Pedro 2465
Ashton, John L 1634
Asmusscn, Mathias 757
Atkins, Oscar D 2381
Atkisson, John Marshall 2419
Augustine, Louis 1580
Austin, John R 975
Autsen, Hans 2493
Avenell, Charles P 2465
Axt, Rudolf 2591
Azzaro, John 2541
Babcock, A. Lorenzo 2164
Baber, E. 1 2386
Bachtold, Christian 818
Backer, August H 1721
Backer, Henry H 1121
Bacon, Charles 2216
Bacon, Oscar F 2362
Badasci, Delmo B 2597
Bader, Frederick 1555
Bahrenfus, John 2436
Bailey, Frank T 2361
Baird, Alfred 1424
Raird, Edson Emmet 1928
Baird. Morgan 1048
Baird, Mrs. Morgan 1053
Baird, Robert 760
Baker, A. A 2214
Baker, James Edward 1949
Baker, Ray W 1135
Baker, R. C 1254
Baker, Sands 1263
Baker. Steve Todorovich 745
Haley, Gillum 124, 623
Baley, John 1502
Balfe, John Hilton 2522
Ball, Frank Hamilton 236, 629
Ballard, Edward L., D. C 2489
Banks, Jasper A 2074
Barcus, William Milton 2398
Bareford, Henry V 1171
Barker, Mrs. Frances T 692
Barnes, George W 2397
Barnes, James F 1208
Barnett, William 2190
Barnett, William F 1604
Barnum. Charles E 2355
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Fincher. Vital Bangs 1817
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First National Bank of Fowler 1358
First National Bank of Laton 1820
First National Bank of Selma 1775
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Forbes, Charles Thomas 2158
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Mackay, James 1850
Madsen, H 834
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Madsen, Mads 2503
Madsen, Mads Peter 24S1
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Madsen, Robert K 1789
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Malanca, Giovanni 2382
Malter, George H 725
Maneely, Alexander 1480
Maneely, Mrs. Gertrude 1591
Maneely, John 2340
Manning, Elisha Arnold 726
Marcel, Ilhero 2575
Marriott, George Clyde 2303
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Marshall, Edwin C 854
Marshall. John B 1314
Marshall, James McConnell 192S
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Martinto. Dominique 2576
Maselli, G 2539
Massey, R. W., V.S 2375
Mathews, Roy P 2007
Mathison, Peter 2338
Mattel, Andrew 937
Mattei, Andrew, Jr 1489
Mathiesen, Rasmus 2155
Matthews, G-eorge R 1 1 18
Matthews, J. C 2399
Matthews, Thomas Bettis 895
Maxson, B. D 758
Maxwell, James Nathan 1046
Maxwell, John Franklin 2574
Medley, Joseph 40
Meisner, Henry 2586
Mercy, John J. and Henry N 2530
Merritt, Hiram P., M.D 932
Page.
Metcovich, Martin 2476
Metzler, Adam 2587
Metzler, August 2322
Mikkelsen, E. M 1799
Miles, Elbridge 1036
Miles, Virgil S 2044
Milla, Caesar 2385
Miller, George W 1884
Miller, Henry 254
Miller, Henry C 2174
Miller, Peter 2141
Milnes, Alan D 1891
Mitchell, Arthur Prentice 2424
Mitchell, Jasper E 1322
Mitchell, John L 1629
Mitchell, Ralph F 1813
Mitrovitch, Stephen N 1621
Modine, Alfred 2075
Moffitt. William Jordan 2334
Moline, William 0 2406
Moller, William 2056
Molloy, Rev. Edw., C.S.S.R 2528
Momson, Henry A 1499
Moncrief, E. J 1784
Monson, Hans 1575
Montgomery, Cloyd Burton 2002
Montgomery, Litchfield Y 869
Moody, Thomas F 112
Mooney, Stephen Francis 2208
Moore, Prof. J. W 1490
Moran, George P 1326
Morgan, Harry C 1771
Morgan, John D., Jr., M.D 2452
Morgan, Peter M 1260
Morrison, Isaac Dossey 1758
Mortensen, Andrew... 2487
Morrow, Jesse 126
Mortensen, Morten 1968
Morton, Charles H 2429
Mosesian, Moses Paul 2061
Mouren, Joseph 2457
Mower, Eugene A 2137
Mulligan ,Mrs. Margaret 1177
Mullins, Thomas H 1895
Munger, Warren Sanford 1561
Murphy, John R 1513
Murray, Clarence 1456
Musick, Jasper Newton 35, 1045
Mutchler, Mr. and Mrs. Charles H.... 1277
Myer, Isaac 2005
Myers, J. W 2008
N
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Nash, Warren G 1187
Neal, John 950
Nederhouse, Z. D 2175
Neikirk, B. F 1129
Nelson, Albert 1970
Nelson, Andrew 2537
Nelson, Carl August 2344
Nelson, Emil .- 1841
Nelson, Fred 2515
Nelson, Jonas Peter Alfred 1981
Nelson, Peter Otto 1612
Newman, Bernard A 1455
Nelson, J. H 2280
Nicklason, John August 2100
Niditfer, James Murray 1569
Nielsen, Anton 1748
Nielsen, Hans A 1771
Nielsen, Hans Jorgen 999
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Nielsen, lener W 2558
Nielsen, Niels Hansen 2552
Nielsen, N. P 1388
Nilmeier, Conrad 2458
Nilmeier, Conrad H 2319
Nilmeier, Conrad 0 2594
Nilmeier, Henry P 2580
Nilmeier, Phillip 1944
Nieswanger, J. Franklin 1958
Nishkian, Garabed M 2325
Niswander, J. F 763
Nolan, Frank J 1545
Nord, E. M 1016
Nord, Fritz E 1799
Nordstrom, Rev. Magnus Anders 1493
Norman, Horace E 1795
Norman, J. L 1898
North, Benjamin 1835
Northrup, Ellsworth M 1550
Norton, H. E 1378
Nutting, W. R 1997
o
O'Neal, Edward. 1 2382
Oed, John 2387
Olinger, W. L 1837
Oliver, Mrs. Mary 1938
Oliver, Orie Odell 1699
Olmstead, Charles H 2376
Olsen, Gustav 2554
Olsen, Lorenz 2586
Olsen, O. A 2520
Olson. Abram 2029
Olson. Albert Julius 1124
Olson, Gus 1904
Olson, Peter 1238
Olufs, Oluf Bernard 711
Orr, Wiilliam 2495
Oslund, John 1962
Ostendorf, Mrs. Johanna 673
Otis, George Buell 783
Oussani, Joseph 2129
Owen, Richard Thomas 706
P
Packard, Oren Fred 1187
Page, John 1520
Parret, August 2568
Paulsen, Soren 2451
Payne, L. Roy 2527
Peak, John H 1067
Pearce, Martin W 2169
Pearson, Emil 1122
Pearson, Olof 2516
Pedersen, Axel 2120
Pedersen, Peder S 2118
Pellissier, Hippolyt 2580
Perez, Rudolph J 2027
Perrin, Robert 259
Perry, James Abner 2427
Peters, A. B 2022
Petersen, Mrs. Christine A 1802
Petersen, Dagmar, M.D 2255
Petersen, John T 2190
Petersen, Louis 827
Petersen, Nicolai 2531
Petersen, Niels 1528
Petersen, Peter M 2512
Petersen, Thomas J 2055
Peterson Carl Gustaf 1272
Peterson, C. V 1381
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Peterson. E. Ed 2052
Peterson, Joseph A. T 1739
Peterson, Oscar E 2124
Pettit, Hon. Melvin 1335
Pfister, John Rudolf 1933
Pfost, G. W 2040
Phelan, James C 1307
Phelps, Z. L 1868
Phillips, Charles C 1582
Phillips, Charles E., D. D. S 1479
Phillips. Mrs. Elizabeth 694
Phillips. Perry Commodore 694
Pierce, Charles S 645
Pierse, Rev. Patrick 2373
Pilegard, Christen A 2263
Pilegard. Mrs. Carrie 2268
Pilegard, Peter A 2403
Pimentel. John 1 2518
Pinninger. Frederic William 1200
Plate. Willard F 2193
Piatt. Sidney L 1512
Phinneke. Charles 1140
Polito, S. L 1593
Pomeroy. F. K.. M.D 2033
Porta, Emanuel 2602
Porter, Evan Doyle 1776
Porter, George E., D.C 1496
Possons, William J 1788
Potter, Joseph Webster 1508
Potter, M. R 1636
Poulsen. Morten 2525
Potter. Zane 1437
Powers. Aaron Hubbard 1412
Powers. Lucius 1412
Poytress, J. A 2544
Prandini, Joe 2592
Prather, Joseph L 2370
Prather, Robert R 1536
Pretzer, Henry, Sr 1769
Pretzer, Henry, Jr 2195
Preuss, Charles 1225
Price. Oscar E 1777
Price, R. L 1741
Proodian. H 2210
Puccinelli. Louis 2600
Puckhaber. Charles R 2291
Pugh Brothers 1692
Pugh. John M 630
Pugh. John Sallee 1633
Pugh, Sarah Frances, D.0 1435
Q
Quails, John M 1372
Quick. Herbert B 2188
Quist, A. J 2433
R
Ramacher, Henry 1097
Ramacher, Leonard D 1165
Ramacher, Leroy 1850
Randrup, George 2405
Randrup, James B 2389
Rasmussen, Axel H 1662
Rafhgeber, Philipp 2374
Rathmann, Theodore 2602
Rauscher, Henry 1490
Rawson. Mrs. Eva H 1314
Rebensdorf , Fred 2524
Reese, Edgar Orlando 2090
Reese, Thomas J 2542
Reborn, Frank 15S1
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Rennie, William 831
Retallick, Richard G 2083
Reyburn, Clarence James 777
Reyburn, James John 685
Reyburn. Joseph Davidson 731
Reyburn, Leslie Devoe 929
Rhea, Robert W 1127
Rhodes, Stephen Walton 2189
Rice, Rozell W 2399
Richardson, Charles Henry 2278
Richardson, Thomas E 1819
Richmond. Emmett G 1360
Richmond. William Sherman 2279
Riggins, Emmett 1400
Riggs, Don Pardee 1062
Ring, Theodore J 1662
Risley. E. W 1669
Roberts. \'ictor 2307
Robertson. James MacGregor 1715
Robinson. J. H., M.D 1830
Robinson. Raymond D 2232
Robinson. Winfield Scott 1055
Rodrigues, Frank V 2196
Roeding. Frederick C 256
Roessler. Fred M 2523
Rogers, E. B 1086
Rogers. James J 42
Rohr, H. G 2462
Romain. Frank M 963
Rorden. John C 1567
Roscelli. Charles 2561
Rose. Anthony G 2391
Rose. Dale 2276
Rosendahl. Frank D 1232
Rosenthal. Jacob 2234
Ross, James 1147
Rougny, Albert 2579
Rougny, Eugene 25 56
Roullard. Fred P 1740
Rowell, Albert Abbott 641
Rowell. Dr. Chester 237
Rowell. Chester Harvey 942
Rowell. William Franklin 884
Ruble. John W 2309
Rucker. Aliss Maggie P 910
Rudolf. Adam 2589
Rudolph. Henry. Jr 2551
Rusconi. Louis 2175
Rusconi, Peter 2507
Russell. Capt. Ezra M 700
Russell. Mr. and Mrs. H. W 2336
Rusten. O. C 1902
Ruth. William 1170
Ryan. Jerry 303
Ryan, William H 302, 718
s
Sabroe. Carl 0 1987
Sagniere, Joseph 1211
Sahargun, Jean 2562
Sallaberry, Brothers 2578
Samelson, Samuel 970
Sample. Cowan A 1535
Sample. David Cowan 651
Sample, Samuel C 1891
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Scales. William L 1451
Scharer, Charles 923
Scheitlt, Fred 2067
Scheldt, George 2576
Scheldt, Henry 2563
Scheldt, J. Henry 2157
Schell, Mrs. Louisa Dumont 968
Schlotthauer, J, A 2316
Schmall, John Peter 2118
Schmidt, John A 2489
Schmitz, Ernest 2591
Schneider, Conrad 2575
Schcneider, Henry 2548
Scholler, Louis 2386
Schuknecht, Theodore H 2500
Schultz, Barney 1919
Schultz; Mrs. Mary 2012
Schwabenland, Alexander P 2601
Schwlnn, George 1534
Sciacqua, Leopoldo 2560
Scoggins, John Lee 1733
Scott, David 1727
Scott, Jay .... J 707
Scott, Hon. L. D 2443
Scott, Phil 898
Scott. Ralph H 2002
Scott, Robert 1555
Seacord, David 2367
Self, J. A 1843
Selma Irrigator (The) 1783
Selma National Bank 1558
Selma Savings Bank 1775
Sempe, Charles 2403
Semper, Natalio 2337
Sequeira, Antone George 2468
Sequeira, Louis George 1844
Serian, Harry S 2498
Serimian, A. S . 2598
Serrano, Florencio 2429
Serrano Matias 2505
Sessions, Capt. Herbert A 1529
Setchel, W. Flanders 2314
Setty. Rev. Sanford E 1890
Seubert, Rev. George P 1628
Shafer. John IS62
Shafer, W. H 1574
Shannon, Albert Sidney Johnston 1336
Shannon, Jeflferson M 1436
Shannon, L. S 1347
Shannon. Scott A 2291
Sharer, John William 797
Sharer, Marques Monroe 766
Sharp, Ivy Watson 1616
Shaver, Charles B 1305
Shaw, A. CliflFord 1592
Shell Company of California 2283
Shimmins, Mrs. Myra 84S
Shipp, George R 1417
Shipp, John M 2289
Shishmanian, G. N 2538
Short, Frank H 615
Short, John W 686
Shuey, John W 780
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Silva, Frank 922
Silveira, Joseph J 2585
Sime, Alexander 2274
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Sims, James William 1630
Sinclair, John G. C 1283
Sininger, William H 2057
Skoonburg, J. L 1184
Slater, Edward Earl 1396
Smclley, Christopher 2070
Smith, Chris H 1240
Smith, Edwin Herbert 1319
Smith, Flora W., M.D 1213
Smith, George E 2017
Smith, George W 747
Smith, James W 976
Smith, John E 2429
Smith, John W 1747
Smith, Lewis Howell 1549
Smith, Thomas D., M.D 1717
Smith, Thomas P 1207
Smoot, Guy Thomas 2392
Snow, Alva E 852
Snyder, C. Ross 1650
Snyder, George 2435
Snyder, George H 2233
Soderberg, Andrew 2566
Soper, Mrs. Sadie Elizabeth 1829
Sorensen, Christian 2500
Sorensen, Hans William, D.D.S 1690
Souza, Ed. J 1818
South, N. Lindsay 2016
Spear, E. R 2275
Spence, David A 1703
Spence, Harry Edward 2024
Spence, John Young 2070
Spencer, Wright H 1896
Spires, H. E 2412
Spomer, Rev. August 2395
Staley, William S 1365
Stammers, Clarence L.. M.D 2286
Stange, Hugo S 1528
Stange, Paul T 2391
Stanton, M. E 1326
Statham, Bert A 2285
Staub, Arnold Humboldt 1897
Stay, Andrew H 1922
Stay, Ole H 2375
Steitz, H. P.. Jr 2270
Steitz, John August 2111
Stephens, Lewis 0 846
Steward, George Wallace 1664
Steward, Nehemiah W 1564
Stieglitz, Michael 2183
St. John, Enos Frost 652
Stockton, Guy 1339
Stone, Charles J 1903
Stone, W. T 1690
Stowell, Henry Oakley 2213
Strader, William Franklin 1364
Stranahan, John H 2213
Stratton, John J. 2028
Stricklin, James Henry 2030
Strid, Charles 1237
Stump, Allen Everett 1580
Sturtevant, Andrew Judson, Jr 1536
Suglian, John 1465
Sulprizio, Deuta 2524
Sunderland, Al E 1145
Sutherland, William 708
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Swanson, Nels 2057
Sward, Axel W 1285
Sweeney, Albert H.imk-t. MI) 1141
Sweezey, E. R i332
Swift, Harvey W 659
Swift, Lewis P , 740
Swift, Reuben James 2156
Swigart, Edward Cooper 1680
Swiss Supply Company 2597
T
Taft, r.eorge W 618
Taft, Mrs. Emma M 618
Tangney, P. D 2195
Taylor, Alexander 754
Taylor, George H 1452
Taylor, Marion H 2156
Teague, Charles 828
Teilman, Ingvart 692
Telin, C 982
Thiede, Rev. K. A. Herman 1219
Thomas, Benjamin Cassius 1042
Thome, Eugene P 2508
Thompson, A. E. 1627
Thompson, Georgia Emily. M.D 2389
Thompson, James Wallace 2358
Thompson, William P 65S
Thomsen, Jens Christian 1 160
Thomsen, Mathias 1706
Thornton, Philip Burt 2570
Thorwaldson, Horace 1514
Thurman, William C 1656
Tobiasen, Bendiks 1770
Toccalini, Jack 2517
Todd, Clayton Wesley 2149
Tomasetti, Eugene 2595
Toreson, August 2490
Traber, Charles H., M.D 1594
Traber. Prof. John W 739
Trahing, Charles Willard 1239
Tranberg. James J 2132
Traweek, Cecil Calvert 1661
Trout, William Arthur 1814
Trucchi, Annibale 2564
Tuck Brothers 2148
Tucker, F 2321
Tucker. Steve 2344
Tufcnkjian. Sarkis, M.D 1056
Tupper. Henry Clay 626
Turner, George A 2412
Turner. William 2093
Tuttle, George M 2074
Tuttle, John E 2037
Twining, Frederick E 1449
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Uhler, Russell 1470
Underwood, Olin C 1711
Urrutia, Juan Miguel 2258
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Vanderburgh, John Jay 1172
Vandor, Paul E 1311
Van Meter, Edgar Snowden 1112
Van Ness, William H 1004
Van Ronk, Lewis E 2333
Venard, William F 1423
Venter, Otto 2076
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Verble, H. E..... 2368
Verwoert, Mrs. Alfreda 2082
\'ignola, Angelo 1668
Vignola, Guy R 1668
A-illanueva, Miguel 2490
Vincent, Manuel 1710
Voenes, George J 2547
Vogel, Frederick Karl 2395
Vogel, Herbert E 778
Vogel, Jacob 778
Vogelsang, Edward D 1099
Voice, Charles E 2409
Voorhees, Truman L 2315
Votaw, A. S 2379
\'nught, Lawrence 865
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Wagner, Fred 2593
Wahl, Mrs. Louis 2379
W.il.lberg, Arthur G 1691
Walder, William U 2319
Walker, James N 40
Wall. Elmer Thomas 1783
Wallace, Duncan, A. B., B. D., A. M. . 866
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Wallers. John 2493
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Webb, Hon. James Ransom 2445
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■ Woy, Martin Luther 944 I
Wristen, William David 999 I
Wulf, Andreas 1985 II
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Youngquist, Mr. and Mrs. John A 2297 II
Yraceburu, Joe 2273 II
Yraceburu, Jose M 2563 II
Yzurdiaga, Firmin 2588 II
z
Zandueta, Jose 2542 II
Zanolini, Silvio 2321 II
Zediker, David S 1889 II
Zimmer, William T 1200 I
Zinn, Thomas H 1429 II
Zwang, Jacob 2196 II
HISTORICAL
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
By Paul E. Vandor
CHAPTER I
California a Land of Wonders and Surprises. Fresno County
AN Empire Within an Empire. Area of the Two Divisions.
State is Not a Unit Geographically. Assessed Property
Valuations. The Valley is the Keystone in the Arch of
THE State's Wealth. Interior Region Little Affected
BY the Spanish and Mexican Regime Save in the
Nomenclature of Landmarks.
California is a land of never ending wonders and surprises, a land that
can only be described in superlatives.
Literally and figuratively, Fresno County is to the state an empire within
an empire — imperium in imperio as the Latin phrase has it. This statement
is not put forth as the declaration of a newly discovered fact, but to empha-
size that an old one is incontrovertible as the result of a remarkable twin
development of state and county.
California, thirty-first state of the union, is about 780 miles long, has a
breadth varying from 148 to 235 miles, a sea-coast line 1,200 miles long through
ten degrees of latitude, a total area of 158,297 square miles of which 2,645
comprise water surface, and an estimated 101,310,080 acres, in great part
rough, mountainous country, or desert. The term desert is a relative one.
The land now comprised within Fresno County's area was long considered
desert, fit only for pasturage and worthless for agriculture. Aluch of it is
yet regarded in that category, lacking the water to make it productive.
Imperial Valley in the county of the same name, the southeasternmost in the
state located between San Diego County and the Colorado river as the state
boundary line is another notable desert wonder in the agricultural line. Other
instances might be quoted to emphasize the declaration that California is a
land of never ending wonders and surprises.
Approximately one-half of the land surface is under federal control,
including the nineteen and one-half millions or more acres in the national
forests. As to area, California is second among the states of the union.
Texas alone exceeds it. It is larger than the nine combined states of New
York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New
Hampshire, Connecticut and Ohio. It is one of the richest among the states,
with a startling record of material achievements and with potentialities so
varied and great as to stagger the mind in the contemplation of them.
Fresno, forty-first of the counties in the order of creation, has a land area
of 5,950 square miles, or 3,808.000 acres, ^^'hen organized, it was much larger,
but in March, 1893. a slice of 2,121 square miles was taken ofif from the
northern part to form Madera County, and in 1909 were transferred to Kings
County 120 square miles of the southeastern portion. Even with these 2,241
squarp miles lopped off from the original 8,214 before partition, Fresno ranks
32 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
sixth of the fifty-eight counties in the state as to area. Only five exceed it,
namely, Inyo, Kern, Riverside and Siskyou, San Bernardino leading. As to
population, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alameda and Santa Clara lead it in
the order named. The 1910 census returned a county population of 75,657, and
for the county seat, 24,892. An estimate of 29,809 for the city was made in
July, 1914, and one of 45,000 in June, 1914. The latter is according to the
1916 report of the state controller, but manifestly too liberal for various
reasons. Estimates made on the figured basis of school attendance, directory
publishers and chamber of commerce advertising literature all give greater
returns but must be accepted with allowances. It is not to be denied that
there have been large annual accessions in the rural and urban populations,
but a census enumeration and not theoretical surmises will be required to
give reliable figures.
The county is fourth, with Sacramento a very close fifth, for total value
of assessed property. Fresno is one of the very few counties in the state that
had no public indebtedness. An estimate of the value of the county's public
property is the following:
Courthouse Grounds and Jail $1,207,000
Hospital, Almhouse and Grounds 318,000
Fair Grounds and Buildings 100,000
Orphanage ". 30,000
County Library Equipment 10,000
Total $1,665,000
The county had no outstanding bonds and no floating indebtedness. It
has $150,000 invested in state highway bonds, $300,000 in Liberty war bonds,
$19,490 in county school district bonds that buying speculators would not
purchase because of the smallness of the issues, and in December, 1917, had
$.590,200 of accumulated funds out on two per cent call loans, a sum that
fluctuates from time to time. The statistical figures of the assessor give the
county an acreage of 2.251,520.
ASSESSED PROPERTY VALUATIONS
Assessed value of property for 1*^16-17 in the state, county and city of
Fresno is exhibited in the following tabulation:
State
Real Estate $1,851,485,421
Improvements 696,960,698
Personal Propertv 333,403,268
Money and Credits 35,005,709
Non Operative Roll 2,916,855,096
Operative Roll 504.284,748
Railroads 157,006,590
State Grand Total : $3,578,146,434
Fresno County
Real Estate $41,644,875
Improvements 1 1 ,421 ,988
Personal Property 9,892,398
Money etc 110,547
Total $63,069,808
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 33
Fresno City
Real Estate $11,596,555
Improvements 7.764,385
Personal Property 3,039,137
Money, etc 179,585
Total , $22,579,712
Non Operative Roll 85,649,520
Operative Roll 13,980,567
County Grand Total $99,630,087
The 1917-18 county assessment roll shows the following valuations for
taxation purposes, not including the segregated school district valuations
for one of the numerically largest county school departments in the state,
exclusive of the larger populous centers of San Francisco, Los Angeles and
Alameda counties.
County Real Estate $ 56,792,585
(Fresno City, $15,931,470)
Improvements 20.075,245
(Fresno City, $10,933,700)
Improvements Assessed to Others than Owners 123,720
Personal Property 15,923,163
Money and Credits 427,310
Non Operative Roll 93,342,023
Operative Roll 6,044.386
Railroads 8,515,019
Total Assessed Property $107,901,428
Fresno City as the county seat is the largest incorporated municipality.
The other eight incorporated towns are; Clovis, Coalinga, Firebaugh, Fowler,
Kingsburg, Reedley, Sanger and Selma.
The county's apportionment by the State Board of Equalization of rail-
road mileage and property for state taxation is as follows:
Railroad Mileage Valuation
Southern Pacific 196.89 $5,394,978
Santa Fe 96.30 2.311.200
Central Pacific 31.46 692.208
Pullman Palace 166.61 116,633
KEYSTONE IN ARCH OF WEALTH
Geographically considered, California is far from being a unit. It presents
with its immense sea-coast stretch and its great breadth, traversing interior
wide valleys, desert wastes and high mountain ranges, geographical conditions
in remarkable variety. When in their variety in turn, the land surface fea-
tures, climates and productions, the latter ranging from those of the temper-
ate to the subtropical and the arctic zones, are further borne in mind.
California may well be classified as an empire itself.
California's great interior San Joaquin Valley, an empire in itself, is the
keystone in the arch of the state's wealth. The Mother Lode poured its mil-
lions of gold into the world's lap. Its plains were the public range during the
cattle raising era of the boundless pasturage ground. It was once one of the
world's granaries in the days of the vast grain ranch period. It is a leader
today in the products of the intensive and diversified culture of the small irri-
gated orchard and vineyard farm. The oil industry confined to the Coast
Range is an overshadowing one, and the San Joaquin valley has become the
34 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
state's oil producing region. Irrigation has transformed Fresno from a desert
to an annual producer of over thirty millions.
Its potentialities are boundless almost. It is no dream that in the cultiva-
tion of rice and cotton as the latest taken up enterprises of the soil with
demonstrated successes in the experimental efforts, California and its great
interior valley are preparing to furnish the world with more surprises. Such
an eminent authority as George C. Roeding has declared that Fresno must
wake up and teach the world that "here in the central portion of the Golden
State there is an empire worthy the attention of the man with the dollar."
And there is a wonderful past to substantiate him.
The history of Fresno, and for that matter of the great interior valley
also, was little influenced by the Spaniards or the Mexicans in so far as leav-
ing imperishable impress upon the region that the gold seekers brought to
the world's knowledge. There was no Spanish sub-stratum with the pictured
life and customs as at the coastal mission establishments, so suggestive of
medievalism and even feudalism, to give the quaint and picturesque setting
for the American superstructure to follow and to recall the days before the
Gringo came.
Of the Spanish and Mexican rule there is no lasting memorial, save
perhaps in the melodious nomenclature of landmarks, and in the foreign words
grafted on the English language. The name "Fresno," from the Spanish
meaning "ash tree." was applied because of the abundance of the tree in
the mountains of the county. It was first given to identify the river tributary
to the San Joaquin and once embraced within the county, but now in Madera.
It was so applied before Fresno County was organized, and even before the
territory now so named had distinctive appellation as a part of Mariposa
County. It was so appropriated to name the first big trees discovered bv
James Burney of Mariposa and John Macauley of Defiance, Ohio, in 1849.
They were in Fresno territory that is now part of Madera County. Burney
was of North Carolina and the first sheriff of Mariposa, elected after organiza-
tion in February, 1850. The above named and two others made the find in
the latter part of October on the Fresno-San Joaquin divide while pursuing
animals that the Indians had stolen. This was at a time when Mariposa em-
braced, as one of the original twenty-seven counties of the state, nearly the
entire San Joaquin Valley, south of the Tuolumne River.
CHAPTER II
Changes Brought About by the Mutation of Time. Linking
THE Present Living With the Remote Dead Past. The
Days of the Squawman. Surviving Pioneers Antedating
Days Before County Organization. A Frequently Chang-
ing and Ever Shrinking Roster. Casual Mention of Some
OF the Listed Picturesque Characters That Have Passed
Away. Pioneers of the Mining Period of the Decade of
THE '50's.
As a political entity, Fresno's history runs back to 1856. Prior to that
and territorially long before that, it was unpeopled during the period that
Bret Harte has so poetically described as "that bland, indolent autumn of
Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican indepen-
dence." It was the undisputed domain of the Indian — the Digger as he was
called, because he digged the ground for edible roots, bulbs and insect larvae.
It was indefinitely located as the remote and farthermost outpost of "that
section of the mining region known as the Southern Mines" after carving
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 35
out from Mariposa and with it claiming Utah Territory as easternmost bound-
ary. The Mother of Counties embraced ahiiost everything in the easternmost
interior between the Coast and Sierra ranges from Tuolumne on the north to
San Luis Obispo on the south, with its celebrated central Fremont Grant
concerning which alone a book might be written, its four great central gold
abounding sections and quartz veins throughout the county, Mariposa as one
of the original organized with formation of the state in 1850, was so rich in
mining wealth that it was estimated as formed in 1856 that over 500 mills
could be supplied with rock paying from sixteen dollars to twenty dollars
per ton.
As to Fresno, years elapsed before "the reviving spirit of American con-
quest," gripped the land. With successive industrial evolutions, the trans-
formation has been short of the marvelous. From the early primitive mining
camps in canyons and gulches or along river banks, the transition from an
inland cow county has been to a vast agricultural domain, the future seat of
fullest activities in that line of a great commonwealth, and the upbuilding of
an interior community that every prophecy holds out as destined to become
one of the largest, most populous, inifuential and richest. It is well on its
way to reach that goal.
Jonathan Swift, the greatest satirist of his age, philosophises through one
of his characters that "he gave it as his opinion that whoever could make
two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground
where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more
essential service to his country, than the whole race of philosophers put
together." ^^'hat then of the pioneers who on the barren nothingness of
1856 laid the basis of what is the wonderful Fresno county of 1919?
The changes that the mutations of time have wrought in the span of
sixty-two years are not appreciated until they are brought to a realization
by some homely yet startling illustration. The reader may measurably con-
ceive the changes when contemplating the concrete fact that there are less
than a dozen known living persons that have risen out of all obscurity in
the growth of the county, or who, having removed from California, trace
has been lost of them, and who were residents of the territory before and
at the period of the county's organization in the year 1856.
ROSTER OF LIVING EARLIEST PIONEERS
The following roster of surviving pioneers of pioneers was first compiled
nearly two years ago. It has undergone five revisions to leave today in
January, 1919, the submitted names, for be it borne in mind that the adult
pioneer in the territory in 1856, or before county organization, must have
been at twenty-one majority or close thereto, and with the sixty-two years
added since, would need be, if surviving today, at an advanced age in the 80's.
The living are believed to be the following named according to best research :
Henry F. Akers, of near Sanger ; William Albertus Akers, of near Coal-
inga ; Mrs. Sarah Akers-Chambers, of San Benito ; Mrs. Mary Agnes Burns,
of near Sanger; Mrs. C. P. Converse that was Mrs. Stephen Caster, whose
home is in Ishom Valley, Tulare County; Mrs. Lewis Leach, who was the
first Mrs. C. P. Converse, and is a resident of Fresno City ; Mrs. Mary Mc-
Kenzie-Hoxie, born at Millerton in 1855 ; Hiram IMcDonald, who was chief of
police of 5-Point Precinct, Phoenix, Ariz, at last accounts. The last two were
in the county as juveniles at organization date.
Jasper N. Musick 1.1.54033
Jasper N. Musick headed the above list for more than a year and a half
as perhaps the widest known of the early pioneers, though the Akers family
preceded him in the territory by some three years. Death removed Musick at
36 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the age of eighty-five years on June 4, 1918, and two days later his remains
were laid away in the little rural cemetery at Academy, where sleepeth so
many of the pioneer men and women of the county.
Familiarly known as "Uncle Jess" because of his lovable character,
Jasper N. Musick had experienced all the vicissitudes of early day pioneering,
and as a boy the family located at what is now Jefiferson City, Mo., at a period
when St. Louis was on the map as a trading post. He was the sixth of fifteen
children. A brother, Jeremiah, for whom a Fresno residence addition was
named (he died in 1904) came to California after the war and engaged in
stock raising.
Jasper and a brother crossed the plains, arriving in the fall of 1850. They
made the journey to Salt Lake City with ox teams, but traded for horses as
,a swifter means of progress. Arriving at Hangtown (Placerville, Cal.), they
were surprised to behold the traded oS oxen that had previously arrived and
in a much better condition than the horses. For six years, Musick mined
in Amador County with reasonable success, in 1856 settled in Mariposa
County, engaged incidentally in Indian warfare and participated in the skirm-
ish on Tule River which quelled the outbreak. Settling at Millerton, he
teamed to and from Stockton and the mines, hauling provisions to the latter
for five cents a pound with ten days required on the round trip. In 1858 he
moved the Fort Miller soldiers to Benicia Barracks on evacuation.
Later he located on Dry Creek in the- stock business with J. G. Simpson,
conducting a Millerton meat shop, and each spring drove a band of cattle to
Sonora and other mining centers at profit. This partnership continued until
1865, when he took up the sheep business with ranch at Letcher. There he
also pioneered in orange and deciduous fruit growing. His residence in
Fresno city dated from 1892, and here in comparative affluence he lived a
retired life after the whirl and excitement of his younger years. By a first
marriage at Dry Creek with a native born of Millerton. Rebecca, daughter of
James Richards, a pioneer settler, five children were born, three of whom
attained majority. The second marriage in December, 1878, was at Lemoore
to Nancy J. Messersmith, whose family came from Cole County, ]\Io., after
the war.
Mr. Musick was for two terms a county supervisoh and chairman of the
board for a time. It was during his incumbency that the county-seat removal
was efifected, a change that he had championed. While a Dry Creeker, he was
in 1872 one of the incorporators and organizers and the treasurer of the Dry
Creek Academy with ex-SherifT J. D. Colhns as the first teacher, a school of
acknowledged repute. Later, building and grounds were deeded to the school
district of which Mr. Musick was a trustee for years, and school has never
closed doors to its original purpose. In his younger days Mr. Musick was a
leader of the Democracy.
As an evidence of the remarkable faculty that some men are endowed
with in the recollection of dates, is cited the incident that on the day of the
funeral, June 6. 1918. John C. Hoxie. the late pioneer, recalled on his way to
the obsequies to attend them as a pall bearer, that the day of his friend's death
lacked only fortv-eight hours of the day. June 2. 1856. of his first meeting, as a
small boy with Jasper N. IMusick at old Millerton. Two days after the
funeral was also the incident of the recording of a government land patent to
Musick under date of August 30, 1877, and apparently long forgotten.
Joseph Bums
At the age of eighty-eight years and three months on December 13, 1918,
Joseph Burns died after an illness of five months at his home near Sanger.
He was one of the last of the Old Guard, his coming antedating county organ-
ization in 1856. He had followed agricultural and pastoral pursuits nearly all
his life in California, amassing a competency which permitted him to aid in
the development of the county in humble fashion. He was a good citizen,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 37
never in public life, never sought political preferment but remained content
to follow the unobtrusive career of a farmer, drifting along with the time and
the tide, his circumstances benefitted by the natural advancement and enrich-
ment of the region in which he had chosen to cast his lot, undisturbed by the
hurly-burly of changing epochs and living more in the historic dead past than
the bustling, restless present.
Joseph Burns was a South Carolinian born, but as an infant removed
with parents to Sparta, Randolph county, 111. In early manhood and allured
by the gold excitement, he came to California in 1852 ; according to another
report in 1854. At any rate he settled in Alariposa county and was a resident
of that county even after Fresno was carved out of that vast mining domain.
There is little to be told of his early experiences, though after removal to
Fresno after county organization it is recalled that like many others he was
adopted according to a prevailing practice of the times into tribal relations
through the daughter of an Indian chief with a place in history. Cowchiti,
as he was known, had to do with the preliminaries of the treaty of peace
signed up at Fort Barbour, April 29, 1851, with the rebellious tribes of the
valley following surrender to the Mariposa Battalion under Maj. James D.
Savage and with the last act in the drama — the bringing in of tlu- ca]Ui\e and
starved out Yosemites from the fastnesses of the valley. Chief Cowchiti was
the scout and interpreter that guided Capt. Boling's company to and from
the valley in the pursuit, being the first \-isit by white men in number to enter
and explore the scenic gorge and make its fame known. Cowchiti was looked
upon by the soldiery not altogether without suspicion and doubt as to his
motives and purposes, but proved faithful to his trust.
Burns settled on Willow creek, a tributary of Coarse Gold Creek, in
Madera county now, setting out there what is said to have been the first
peach orchard in this region. In 1862 he married Mary Agnes Lewis, whose
father was a herb doctor at a time when graduate practitioners were few. In
the year 1869, Burns pulled up stakes and moved to Centerville in the Kings
river district and engaged in stock and sheep raising and farming, and also
planted one of the first orange groves in that pioneer citrus belt. He and
others were associated in the co-operative Sweem ditch enterprise. It was on
any scale the first practical irrigation demonstration in the county and with
its inclusion in the Church irrigation plan metamorphosed the parched grazing
land of the plains into vineyards, orchards and farms.
The published Burns obituary recorded several glaring inaccuracies. The
death was heralded as that of the oldest citizen and pioneer. This was mani-
festly incorrect. It was declared as "an outstanding circumstance" of his re-
ported marriage in 1862 "that it was the first recorded in the new county of
Fresno which up to that time formed a part of Mariposa County." This is obvi-
ously also an absurd statement. Equally far from the truth was the statement
that "for several years he was the only Republican who cast his vote in Miller-
ton, then the county seat of Fresno County." The distinction of having been the
historical "Lone Republican" in the county has been fastened on various per-
sons, now dead, among them the late Judge Charles A. Hart and the late
Supervisor H. C. Daulton. Truth is that the subject of the obituary never
did vote at Millerton because there were precinct polling places at Coarse
Gold and at Centerville even before the Republican party came into existence.
If there is a well authenticated historical incident it is the one that the "Lone
Republican" of Fresno that gained a state wide name because casting the only
Republican vote in his locality for that new party's first presidential nominee
was "Dad" Aldrich. or Aldridge (the spelling is varied). He gained that
publicity because of his vote for Abraham Lincoln at the election November
6. 1860, at the Coarse Gold precinct. The late Capt. R. P. Mace of Madera
was the presiding officer at the polling place, and the late James G. McCardle
and William Cunningham (brother-in-law of Mace by the latter's second
marriage), escorted and protected Aldrich to the ballot box to vote, the three
38 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
cognizant of the threats made by certain roughs against Aldrich that "no
damned Abohtionist would vote if they could prevent it."
Burns was undoubtedly one of the earliest voting Republicans in the
county as he was also one of the 100 who subscribed for small stock holdings
to start the Fresno Republican newspaper under the late Dr. Chester Rowell.
It is not to say that in the activities of his day and time he did not aid and
encourage the movements for the development of the county, for he did do so.
It is however to record historj^ that he chose to drift with the times and while
encouraging these movements did not initiate any. He was not ambitious on
these lines. He did not yearn to flash in the lime light of publicity. He had a
competency and was content to let well enough alone. His competency
dwindled with time but to the end he pursued a life of restful peace and quiet.
A widow, two sons and four daughters survive him. A member of the
Presbyterian church from childhood, he was not bound by sectarianism in
religious matters. Report had it that he took comfort before death from the
23rd Psalm and at the last recited it to the end:
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
"All the days of my life ;
"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
"Forever."
Joseph M. Kinsman
During the year, 1916, Joseph M. Kinsman of Madera, a pioneer of 1848,
headed the list. He and his brother, Albert, known as "Al," were of the clan
of squawmen so numerous in the days when a white woman in the mining
regions was a rarity. Joseph was the surviving brother and he died December
26, 1916. The story is told that a fad of later days was his collection of news-
papers and prints with storied experiences of the pioneer times. He was him-
self a fountain of information and had a remarkable memory of what he had
in his unclassified collection. It is said that he wantonly set fire to his shack
and destroyed the collection that would have been a priceless treasure for
the historian. Neither brother filled a place in public or historic life.
Joseph Kinsman died at his Northfork miner's cabin at the age of eighty-
nine years and ten months. He was a sailor in youth, born in Boston in 1826,
came to California in 1849 and mined on the Chowchilla, later went into busi-
ness at Merced Falls, Mariposa County, and in 1875 settled at Hooker's Cove
at Northfork and continued there until death. It was said of him that he was
a life-long Democrat and a Southern sympathizer in the Civil War. although
a Northerner born, and was known as "the Connecticut Rebel." It is recalled
of him that he kept a diary of daily events from 1849 to 1875 when it was
destroyed by fire, and then that he opened another.
Capt. R. P. Mace and Wife
A notable death preceding that of Kinsman's, was that of Mrs. Jennie
E. Mace, pioneer of 1855-56 and widow of Capt. R. P. Mace (April 24, 1894).
She died July 17, 1916; he was a California '49er. Death, in the home of over
forty years of residence, removed in Mrs. Mace the oldest pioneer woman of
Madera County. Her first California home was at O'Neal's, and during her
sixty-one years in the valley, she saw Fresno, Merced, Mono and Madera
Counties come into e.xistence and the cities of Fresno and Madera spring out
of the plains. She was a native of Ireland, born in August, 1837, and with her
father, Andrew Cunningham, and her mother, came to Indiana when only
a few weeks of age. She married in 1855, John Gilmore, and the honeymoon
was passed on the journey to California. She settled at O'Neal's, where she
lived nineteen years and where a daughter (Mrs. Tillie Gilmore-Brown) and
two sons were born. Her marriage to Capt. Mace occurred in 1866. She was
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 39
a much beloved woman, who was noted for many acts of charity and benevo-
lence, was prominent in the Methodist Church, South, and in 1869 was one
with others, to organize at Fort Miller, one of the first Sunday schools in
the valley, the abandoned guardhouse being the place of meeting. In pos-
session of her faculties to the last, she could talk interestingly of experiences
from the viewpoint of the good wife, the respected woman and the honored
mother of two families.
Capt. Mace's adventurous career started with a sea voyage as a cabin
boy from Boston to New Orleans, thereafter with a companion he spent a
roving season with a French trader among the Comanches. At Independence,
Mo., he joined the trading train of the American Fur Trading Company en
route to Bent's Fort on the Arkansas. He accompanied Robert Isher, noted
scout, trapper and trainer of Kit Carson, on the volunteer journey to Taos,
to convey important messages for 180 miles to Charles Bent, one of the four
brothers, trailing through the hostile region of the Utes. The journeying was
done by night with concealment in canyons by daylight. The return to the
fort was with escort of trappers and hunters. Mace continued in the employ
of Charles Bent for six years as a trusty scout, carrying express from Bent's
Fort to Fort George on another dangerous trail and taking his life in hand on
every journey and on one occasion holding five Indians at bay.
For two years with Kit Carson he hunted the buffalo for meat for the 4O0
employes of the fur company, chasing the bison over the present site of
Denver, Colo., and also being at Pueblo, that state, when the first adobe was
raised for a trading post. At twenty-three he returned to New Orleans, con-
tinued for three years as clerk in a wine house and at the outbreak of the
war with Mexico was among the first to volunteer and for three months served
under Gen. E. P. Gaines. Louisiana being requisitioned upon for a regiment.
Mace returned to New Orleans on leave, recruited the first company for that
first regiment, was appointed captain — hence the title that remained with him
through life — was the senior in rank and served until the treaty of peace. He
also served in quelling an Indian uprising in Yucatan. The gold discovery
attracted him to California and the year 1849 saw him in San Francisco
(Yerba Buena) camped in Happy Valley, south of Market street, afterward
the manufacturing and foundry district, headed soon for Rose's Bar on the
Yuba and with varying success mining for twenty years. Later at Millerton,
he and a company spent three years building a race to turn the San Joaquin
River for mining. They first struck it rich, making from a few buckets of
dirt, $900 and $1,000 a day for several days, but the bed soon played out.
He had also a quartz lead at Fine Gold Gulch. This was mismanaged and
destroyed in his absence. The later No-Fence law practically ruined him so
he killed his live stock to dispose of it. He rented and managed the hotel at
the ambitious settlement at Borden which once aspired to be the county seat
of Fresno County, continuing from 1874 until 1876, when Madera was founded
and he was one of the first to buv town lots. Madera eventually crowded
Borden oflf the map. In 1877 he built the Y'osemite Hotel in Madera, stopping
place for Yosemite Valley travel via Raymond, and when it was destroyed
bv fire he erected the standing brick structure that faces the railroad depot.
Capt. Mace was justice of the peace for years and served for three terms in
the state legislature.
Running allusion is made to his career to emphasize the spirit and
character of the men who were the prominent pioneers of Fresno. They were
men that did things. It was not the period for mollycoddles.
Thomas Sprecherman, also known as "Tom Jones," who came on the
Chowchilla as a miner in 1849, and John Besore, of French descent and an
early pioneer, have been on the list. They and Thomas J. Dunlap, popularly
known as Jefif Dunlap. all Fresnans, became Maderans after county division
because they lived north of the San Joaquin River line.
40 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The Akers Family
The Akers family group is a notable one of five brothers with many
descendants. They came overland to the territory in 1853 via the southern
route, heading straight for Millerton and settling on the Kings River at Cen-
terville or Scottsburg as the first settlement was named. They were in the
order of primogeniture; Harvey (died June 17, 1911), at the age of eighty-
three. Smith and Anderson (both long since passed away) and the surviving
two youngest, Henry F. and William Albertus. A sister is another survivor, a
resident of Bitterwater in San Benito County.
The Akers made up an oxteam party of emigrants and it is related that
when near where Tulare City is now located they found themselves almost
out of provisions and facing starvation. Ahead of them trailed another party
fairly well supplied with stock cattle. It bogged in crossing the Kings River,
and what was its loss and misfortune proved the salvation of the others, for
the Akers party rescued the mud imbedded cattle out of the river bottom and
slaughtering them for beef was enabled to close in on the last lap of the long
journey and to furnish itself with meat after arrival at destination.
James N. Walker
Another who was once listed was a pioneer of the valley, influential in
his day politically and financially, James Null Walker, who died January,
1916. His closing career is tinged pitiably when he is recalled in the days of
the dandified and handsome personage of younger and middle age, in contrast
with his Rip Van Winkle sloven, ragged and neglected appearance of the
closing days. A day had been when none was too high not to court the friend-
ship and acquaintance of the Hon. James N. Walker. A Missourian, born in
February, 1829, he was brought up in the handling of stock and at fifteen was
sent to the New Orleans market in charge of his father's cattle, and later was
taken into partnership. He m'ade his last trip to New Orleans as a drover
in 1849 and netted enough out of the joint venture to purchase an outfit to
come to California in 1850 and arrived in August, after the overland oxteam
journey.
He mined in Grass Valley. Nevada County, and in Mariposa County
following up mining with merchandising at Coarse Gold Gulch in Fresno
County. He conducted a large credit business with the miners but had to
close out at a heavy loss with the early giving-out of the mines. Walker's
Store was a political and civic center in those days. Ranching at Fine Gold
followed, and in the foothills, in 1863, he stocked a range with four dollar a
head cattle and in 1867 located also on the north side of the San Joaquin.
This was an establishment that was a show place in its day, it was added
to until he had 1,3(X) acres on the river, first raising mules, then interested for
twelve years in sheep and later in cattle. Prosperity favored him in this and
other enterprises and he served two terms in the state legislature after 1861,
was twice sherifl!^ after 1866. and an assemblyman in 1870.
It was said of him in 1905, that he was then one of five left of the early
settlers of Fresno County, manifestly as incorrect a statement as the popu-
larly misconceived one that he was the first sheriff of the county. Still. Walker
was a prominent and honored citizen in his day. There is in existence a re-
markable photographic work of art by Frank Beck picturing him tuning up
an old fiddle. The picture was one of twelve that won for Beck the first prize
at the photographers' national convention exhibition at Chautauqua. Walker
died at the age of eighty-six leaving a $40,000 estate, a widow. Agnes J. Cran-
mer, and seven children, four of them daughters.
Joseph Medley and T. J. Dunlap
Death removed from the list, in the summer of 1917, Joseph Medley and
T. T- Dunlap. Medley, born in October, 1826, was a picturesque character, a
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 41
resident of the Auberry \'alley section for upwards of sixty-six years, identi-
fied with activities in the Tollhouse lumber district, a miner of course in the
first days, and a squawman as was his brother, Marion, whose death preceded
his. Joseph went through life without achieving other mark of distinction
than as the picturesque survivor of a past day, eking out an existence as a
cattle and hog rancher, and removed only a degree above the Indian whose
life long associate he had been. His remains lie buried in the little cemetery
at Auberry Grove and, at the simple funeral (July 9, 1917) Rev. Hardie Con-
nor of the near-by Indian Mission of^ciated. Surviving Medley were son and
daughter, three nephews and a niece. Leaving no impress of his long life
on the history of the county, yet talking interestingly of the very earliest
personal recollections of it and its men, the most lurid events in his negative
career are recalled in visits to the later founded Fresno City in its infant days
to yield to the pitfalls in his path in the den that was dignified with the name
of the Star Theater to squander with the prodigality of a Monte Cristo the
returns of successive seasons from sale of hogs and cattle, returning to foot-
hill haunts and squaw, bankrupt after wasting his substance on the bediz-
zened and short skirted damsels who welcomed him as long as his money
lasted. Medley ended his days in the almshouse, decrepit and almost blind.
The local print noticed his death in a twenty-five-line obituary, without re-
vealing the picturesque identity of the character that had passed away.
Of another stamp was T. J. Dunlap of Madera, arrival of 1852-53, whom
fortune favored at the very outset in making him strike it rich with a cousin
in mining at the mouth of Kaiser Creek where it empties into the San Joaquin,
later selling the claim for a big price after having profitably worked it for
years. His later day home was on the ranch near Fine Gold ; in the 70's he
was in the lumber business with saw mill on the site of what is now Bass
Lake in Madera County, one of the impounded water reservoirs for electric
power generation and at the upper end of which is located The Pines resort.
Dunlap represented in the Fresno County board of supervisors the dis-
trict north of the San Joaquin, made a campaign for sheriff, but was defeated,
and was a deputy under County Assessor W. J. Hutchinson. He was a citizen
of note and his death was at the age of eighty-nine. As with many others
Fortune, fickle drab that she is. gave him cold shoulder in his last days ; or
perhaps times and conditions had changed and the pioneer of other days fell
by the wayside in the swifter march of the day.
Passing allusion is made here only to earliest of pioneers in Mrs. Ann
McKenzie-Hart who died in 1910, at the age of eightv-five and Dr. Lewis
Leach who passed away at seventy-four, in March, 1897. Record of them is
found elsewhere. They were of the very first white permanent settlers.
Others might be recalled but they would have to be summoned out of ob-
scurity. It is with sadness that it must be noted that in their closing days
fate has been unkind, even harsh, with some of these pioneers of pioneers,
for burdened with the ills and infirmities of age and poverty not a few have
had to seek the sheltering roof of public institutions.
John Dwyer and Robert Brantsford
Not overlooked should be one who, until his death in June, 1912, was
a character in Fresno city. John Dwyer came to the territory with the soldiers
to give protection to the miners against the hostile Indians. He came as a
drummer boy and the tale is, that on the march through Death Valley he was
carried, in an exhausted state, for two days and nights on the shoulders of
Robert Pirantsford, a stalwart and burly Virginian and soldier of the expedi-
tion. Dwyer labored on the hand-operated saw mill that turned out the logs
and planks for Fort Miller, the soldiers first bivouacking at Fort Washington,
further down on the river, where today the school district bearing the name
is located.
42 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Dwyer was also of the squawmen contingent. After leaving the garrison
he became a freight carrier between Stockton and the Southern Mines ; in
this connection the story is recalled that as an expert horseman he was once
a principal at Stockton, in a wager with thousands in gold dust at stake, as
to who had the best horse to move a load of given weight over a marked
course. The demonstration by his opponent foreshadowed his loss of the
wager, but a quick thought saved the day. Dwyer jumped on his horse a-
straddle and with the added weight the animal was enabled to secure better
foothold to start moving the load and the wager was won. Dwyer was known
in Fresno as "The sand wagon man" from his vocation of carting and selling
sand for mortar, plaster and other construction work.
Dwyer had passed his eighty-fourth year when death summoned him. It
is to be noted as remarkable, the years that the men and women of the pioneer
times attained after the hardships and privations endured. Dwyer as a team-
ster hauled the material in the construction of the Millerton courthouse, was
a California volunteer in the Civil War, took unto wife the widow, Mary
Friedman of ]\IiIlerton, was a pioneer of Fresno city, and a member of the
first volunteer fire company. His lot in life was an humlde one but he shirked
no duty.
Of Brantsford who also joined the squawmen, it is recorded that he died
in September, 1890, and in his will, made liberal provision for a daughter
Martha, the offspring of a Mono Indian mother, who was known as Mary
Hancock because of having assumed other marital relations. Brantsford left
for the daughter a trust estate, with Jasper D. Musick as executor of his will.
James J. Rogers
Included in the list of survivors at one time, but eliminated in the course
of revisions was also James J. Rogers, whose death was at the age of eighty-
two. He was born in Illinois March 17, 1822, the son of Robert Rogers and
Helen Patterson, and a direct descendent of Gen. Robert Rogers of French and
Indian wars. Rogers served under Gen. Winfield Scott in the War with
Mexico and was one of the twelve that carried the .American f^ag into the
capital, Mexico City, on the 14th of September, 1847, when the victorious
army marched into the city and occupied the national palace. He married
Cynthia Ann Stephens, born in Illinois December, 1830, daughter of William
Stephens and Delia Short, the latter a descendant of Capt. Short of Revolu-
tionary fame, and the parents of J. B. Stephens, who' was a captain in the
Mexican and Civil wars. James Rogers married at Little Rock, Ark., Sep-
tember 26, 1848, left for California April 1, 1850, via the southern route
through New Mexico and Arizona, arrived at Los Angeles August 1, 1850,
settled at Stockton in the spring of 1851, engaged in mining until 1857 and
then removed to Fresno county where a large family was reared. The Rogers
were the pioneer owners of the Rogers Hot Springs, known now as the Fresno
Hot Springs. James J. Rogers died at Los Angeles March 6, 1904. Mrs.
Cynthia A. Rogers, the widow, lived at last accounts (November 20, 1918),
at Stockton, Cal., and though eighty-eight years of age is a wonderfully pre-
served woman, who despite her years is able to read and write without diffi-
culty, goes wither and when the mood possesses her and has found time to
knit for the American soldiers in France.
BACK TO MINING ERA
In the rostered membership of the Fresno County Pioneers' Association
are the following named living residents whose days go back to the mining
era of the decade of the 50's, namely ;
1856 — Mrs. Marv A. Parker-Strivens. Charles E. Strivens, James T.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 43
Parker, Henry Wells, Mrs. Sallie Cole-Sample (Obit., Dec. 17, 1917), and
T. F. Boling.
1857—1. W. Hollidav, G. W. Statham and Frank M. Lewis.
1858— John C. Hoxie (Obit., Nov. 21. 1918), Elizabeth J. Hoxie-Barth,
Sewell F. Hoxie, Mrs. Tillie Gilmore-Brown and Charles Crawford.
1859— Lil A. and Led. F. Winchell (Obit., 1918), Mrs. Peter Parry and
Mrs. Carrie E. Hoxie-McKenzie.
Some of these were children at the time. They are excluded from the
pioneer list of territorial residents before county organization date. The asso-
ciation residence date qualification for membership is the removal year of
the countv seat of Millerton in 1874.
CHAPTER III
History of State is Unique and Redolent of Romance. Its
Name an Etymological Enigma. Riches of California
Greater Than Those of the Fabled Indies. Long Neglected
BY Its Spanish Possessors. Practically Unpeopled Was
the Territory Before the Discovery of Gold. Spain Over-
looked Its Opportunity. "Inferno of 49" Startles the
World. The Day of Another Controlling Race Dawns
With the Setting of the Sun on the Golden Age of the
Missions.
California is a land redolent of romance in its early history of discovery
and exploration. Its very name created in 1510 for a romance of medieval
chivalry, "the most fictitious of fiction," is an etymological enigma to this
day. Its source origin in a forgotten Spanish romance was not discovered
until the winter of 1863, and then by Rev. Edward E. Hale in the course of
Spanish archival researches at a time when he expected to become the reader
and amanuensis for William H. Prescott. the historian. Melodious as the
name is, the California poet Edwin H. Markham. observes that it is "as
well also the oldest of any state save only Florida," given by Ponce de Leon
in 1512, while in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth.
For long California was "a mere field of cosmographic conjecture,"
whether island, peninsula or part of mainland. Its location was placed some-
where between Mexico and India, with its boundaries vagueness itself. The
fabled and the material California have in turn attracted a world's undivided
interest. Her history is unique. Considered in entirety or in its successive
phases, the record is one unequalled in variety, originality and interest by
that of any other province of the New World. Whether regarded from the
purely romantic or the positive, materialistic viewpoint, no state of the union
has commanded more continuous notice and attention. \\'riters and historians
ever return for a fascinating theme to California, land of gold, of perpetual
sunshine, of natural blessings such as no other land has been endowed with
in such prodigality.
The romancer of 1510 described his California as an imaginary island
"located on the right hand of the Indies, very near the terrestrial paradise."
He peopled it with black Amazons, who trained griffins for warfare and
caparisoned them with gold. The only mineral on the island was gold, though
it was fabulously rich also in precious stones and pearls. It was, as Poet
Markham described it, "a rosy romance." Still the Spanish romancer's most
extravagant dreams did not conjure up such a rich land as the real, material-
istic California has proven to be. The California that the explorers placed on
the map and named proved in truth to be the land of gold and of untold riches.
Not of precious stones and pearls, but of gold and products of the virgin soil.
44 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The gold was not unearthed until nearly three and a half centuries after
the romance, and then by the Anglo-Americans, in whose veins throbbed and
pulsated to action the admixed red blood of preceding generations of the
adventurous and resistless Saxon.
The problem of Columbus' day was to reach "far Cathay" by sea, sailing
westward — to open a new route to India. Ever the cry was India. This fever-
ish quest for wealth was the impelling motive also of Hernando Cortez after
his conquest of Mexico and the subjugation of Montezuma (1520-21). In the
various explorations under him, of the California and North Pacific coasts
(1532-37), whatever the specific moving cause of particular expeditions,
whether in the alarm-spreading presence in the North Pacific of English buc-
caneer or freebooter to seize the annual Spanish treasure galleon from the
Philippines, whether the threatened aggressions of foreign powers for terri-
torial acquisition or commercial spoliation, or whether the location of a Cali-
fornia relief port for the teredo-eaten hull or scurvy-stricken crew of the
annual "great Manila ship."
It was all very nice for the history recording apologists for "these con-
scienceless gold-seeking adventurers" to advance the specious plea for them,
of spreading the faith and win souls through religion, their real motive in
the quest for the Indies was always gold, precious stones, the luxurious and
costly fabrics — to find the shorter route to wealth, glory and the commerce
with the Eastern El Dorado, fat and overflowing with the things precious
for the increasing wealth and luxurious demands of the age.
Great would be the glory and great also the profit of the individual or the
nation that would shorten the overland route to India, minimize its perils and
difficulties, and pour into the receptive lap of Europe the priceless and
coveted commodities of Asia in quantity unstinted. The very name of India
suggested bovindless wealth and riotous, luxury. The Indian sea-route never
was voyaged, via the fabled and long sought "Strait of Anian," because the
early navigators had to learn that a New World continental barrier blocked
the way. In the course of time and in a slow but gradual unfolding of a fore-
ordained destinv, California astonished the world with her stores of gold
and her succeeding greater material wealth in the soil and products thereof,
and her name was acclaimed the synonym for a wealth incomparably greater
and more substantial than all the fabled and dreamed of treasures of the
Indies.
It was long the subject for wonder and amazement with early travelers
and the sea commanders that California so rich and fertile, a great territory
capable of sustaining such a large population, and a region so remarkably
favored by nature in all things conducive to man's comfort, happiness and
prosperity, should, for more than three-quarters of a century during the Span-
ish-Mexican regime from 1767 to 1846, be left neglected, remain practically
undeveloped, its vast gold-besprinkled interior unknown and unexplored, and
the stretch of country along an ocean highway so ill protected as to make it
the easy prey of any nation that would have cared to seize it. The little known
concerning the land and its isolation were the main safeguards against such
forcible seizure.
During the later development periods, California's geographical isolation
and position was relatively a less important controlling factor than in the
times of discovery exploration. Stretching along the unknown Pacific, the
right to control the commerce on which the Spaniards asserted, and next
door neighbor to their Mexican province, it was natural that they should dis-
cover California and hold possession. No reason then to imagine that the
English speaking settlers from the extreme eastern continental shore would
come and control the most remote and isolated western border. Previous to
the adventitious discovery of gold, in January, 1849, California was practically
unpeopled, save for the few scattered Spanish settlements near the sea-coast
by those who had come by the comparatively easier and shorter journey from
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 45
Alexico, helped out by occasional Americans and others landed or deserting
from trading vessels, or wandering across the country as hunter, trapper or
adventurer.
It required a transcendental event to bring about, as it did, California's
phenomenally rapid settlement, to brave and overcome the physical obstacles
and geographic barriers on the months' long and dangerous overland journey.
But for'the lure of gold, California might have long continued a sparsely
populated country tobe settled and developed slowly by a farming class as
Oregon and Washington were in large part. The real, positive and unlooked
for development of the state began with the discovery of gold. Only natural
that Spain should be first to send settlers, but her error was in not practically
following up her decided advantages in the presented opportunity. Existing
conditions in a country of plenty and the easy life in a genial climate, without
necessity for arduous toil ''tended no doubt toward stagnation rather than
progress." Had these pioneers and their descendants been of as progressive
a race as those that were to dispossess them, the very barriers separating the
west from the east would have been Mexico's most helpful agency in retaining
her California province.
As established in the Californias, the missions were as much political as
religious institutions, and they were accorded the protection of the king's
soldiers, wretchedly equipped, ill-paid and frequently unpaid for long as they
were. Kings of Spain and viceroys of Mexico made their entrances and exits
on the world's stage, but California slumbered along and underwent little
material change from the discovery days under Cortez, save for the fringe
of civilization planted along the sea-coast and spread out thinly from the
twenty-one missions from San Diego to Sonoma. In 1831 these missions had
already lost much of their splendor and greatness. The downhill grade began
in 1824, followed by secularization in 1845, sale of a number of missions for
a song, and the neglected Indian converts scattered to run wild and wretched
over the country.
Almost up to the time that the great immigration upon the gold discovery
startled the world, ushering in an era so extraordinary in history that H. H.
Bancroft, the California historian, has epitomized it in the trite phrase, "The
Inferno of 4^," the interior valley country, which has been the wealth basis
of the state through every development stage, continued terra incognita prac-
tically. The little known concerning it was indefinite and much of this con-
jectural. The very purpose for which the information was gathered — if it
was with a definite object in view — existed no more because secularization
under the Mexican republic had sealed the doom of the missions and bereft
the padres of power and property. The sun then set on the golden age of the
missions, the dav of another race dawned and with it was ushered in the real
and too long held back advancement of a sadly neglected land.
CHAPTER IV
California'.? Colonization Delayed for Centuries. Settle-
ments ALL Located on the Coast. Upper California
Imperfectly Known. No Inducement to Explore the
Interior. Expeditions Undertaken to Locate New Mis-
sion Sites. Ensign Moraga the INIost Enterprising
Explorer of His Time. Padre Garces Starting Out From
Yuma, Traverses the Valley as Far South as the Present
Location of Bakersfield, A Remarkable Journey.
"And it all availed nothing."
Little effect on the substantial new conditions after the American con-
quest had all the impotent efforts to block manifest destiny during the three-
46 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
quarters of a century of the Spaniard and the Mexican, with the heroic work
of the padres in their missionary and civilizing labors. The quoted phrase
epitomizes in fitting epitaph the passing of the Spanish rule in California
(1769-1828) with its ten vice-regal governors, of the Mexican rule (1822-46)
with its thirteen governors, and incidentally the end of the efforts of the
padres, at times arising almost to the sublimity of martyrdom, to convert the
Indian and introduce an effete civilization.
The two periods cast over the early history of California a glamor of
romance and the picturesque but added little or nothing to the real and
materialistic. No effort in Upper California at colonization was made for a
little more than two and one-half centuries after Juan R. Cabrillo's voyage in
1542-3 exploring the coast line, half a century before the discovery of Massa-
chusetts bay, nor for more than 160 years after Sebastian Viscaino's, in
November and December, 1602, when he set foot in the harbors of San Diego
and Monterey.
To prevent Russian encroachment southward from Fort Ross and Bodega
bay and to convert the Indians, successive land and sea expeditions sent out
from Mexico eventually established a chain of twenty-one military and relig-
ious establishments located at intervals of a day's journey by horse along or
near the coast.
The first of these was founded by Padre Junipero Serra in July, 1769,
and the last in August, 1823, as one of two north of the Bay of San Francisco,
blunderingly located by Caspar de Portola in a search for Montere}' Bay, but
ignorant to the last that he had given the world one of its three greatest har-
bors. San Francisco Bay was long after its discovery mapped as Sir Francis
Drake's Bay and was so shown in Colton's Atlas, published as late as 1855
for use in the public schools. In the very early histor}' of California, Serra,
the simple friar, was the greatest pioneer, the first civilizer of the western
coast, the ver}' heart and soul of the spiritual conquest, and he it was who
"lifted California from the unread pages of geological history and placed it
on the modern map."
Upper California's physical geography was imperfectly known until after
American explorers and scientists investigated. Little attention was paid this
subject further than to learn something generally of the country on the ocean
border from San Diego to Fort Ross. This was a forty to fifty miles-wide
strip comprising the white settlements concerning which anything was known
with accurate particularity. So also as regards the boundaries. Not until
the Americans seized Oregon was it that they, and not the English under
claim of the Francis Drake (1579) and George Vancouver (1791-94) discov-
eries, were dealt with in settling the northern boundary dispute. The eastern
line question was not determined until the entire country came into the pos-
session of the United States after the war with Mexico. Even then the segre-
gation was by the Americans themselves with California's admission into the
union in September, 1850. Down to the American conquest, the Californians
occupied only a negligible portion of the interior, yet while knowing nothing
of the country east of the Sierras, save by report, they asserted claim to the
land as far eastward as Salt Lake.
The coast mission sites were located with reference to sea harbors a&
San Diego, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and San Francisco, while
the others on the Camino del Rey (King's Highway), connecting them all,
were selected with special regard to water for irrigation. California's climate
was similar in general to that of Mexico and the solicitude of the padres was
ever to chose well watered sites in fertile valleys for their establishments.
Their judgment of sites was admirable. Settlements along the camino mani-
fested no tendency to spread from the coast. The interior was so inaccessible
and appeared so dry and inhospitable. The fathers discouraged mining — in
short there was no inducement to explore the interior, while the isolation
tended to self support and the development of a quiet pastoral life.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 47
Barter there was none, except in liides and tallow with the periodical
New England traders, and hence cattle raising became the industry. Geo-
graphic considerations determined the location of the settlements and the
occupation of their founders. The seaports and valleys would probably other-
wise have received most of the new comers, until they came to appreciate the
necessity for irrigation, when they would gradually have spread to the interior.
The search for gold in turn headed them from the agricultural districts into
the gulches and canyons of the Sierras, and so with the great stampede,
mining camps and towns .sprang like mushrooms in the Sierra foothill belt.
Locations were controlled by convenience to some rich bar or stream, often
in narrow gulch or on steep mountain slope, rarely with regard to farming
prospects or future lines of travel, activity or centers of population, accounting
for the desertion of so many of them with the later changed conditions.
The Spaniards extended the exploration of California with exasperating
slowness during the half century and more that they were in undisturbed
possession. After Juan B. de Anza's time, in 1774, most of the information
concerning the interior was gathered in the search for sites for a projected
interior parallel line of missions, or lay punitive military expeditions pursuing
runaway neophytes.
Thus in 1804 Padre Martin crossed the range to the Tulares, which he
appears to have explored as far as the Kings River. Gov. Jose J. de Arrillaga
(March 1800-July 1814), an enterprising soldier and a more zealous religionist
than any of his predecessors, planned in 1806, a more extensive exploration of
the interior than any before undertaken. A party was sent out from each
of the four presidios. The one from Santa Barbara headed direct across the
range via Santa Inez to the neighborhood of Bucna A'ista and Kern lakes
and passing eastward reexplorcd at least part of the re^i'm that Padre Garces
visited thirty years before. It returned via Mission San Gabriel, reporting the
Indians well disposed but only one available mission site.
In September, 1806, Ensign Gabriel Moraga, great Indian fighter and the
most enterprising of the soldier explorers of his day. left Mission San Juan
Bautista with a party of fifteen, crossed direct to the San Joaquin River which
he had named nu an earlier \'isit, striking the river near the northern line of
Fresno County. Turning north, he discovered and named the Mariposa River
and he found what he regarded as a fairly good site near the present city of
Merced. Continuing north, he crossed three other rivers which he named, and
then came upon the Tuolumne tribe of Indians — the first recorded mention
of them.
At a large stream which some previous expedition possibly commanded
by him had named, Moraga turned back on October 4, dividing his party by
sending one section along the eastern side of the valley and skirting the Sierra
foothills, while the other wended its way further westward. At any rate
Moraga observed the entire valley to its southern limit more thoroughly than
it had ever before come under human scrutiny. As the result of these expe-
ditions. President Tapis, who had succeeded Lasuen as head of the missions,
reported four or five good sites discovered, but that a new presidio would
have to be provided to protect them.
In 1807 Moraga made another journey to the San Joaquin Valley with a
party of seventy-five, going as far as the foothills of the Sierras : and in 1810
two more. On the first he started out from the Mission San Jose and returned
via San Juan Bautista : on the other he revisited the Merced country in quest
of runaways, captured thirty and brought back a few hostiles.
The accompanying padres said that they found the Indians generally
tractable and well disposed. In the Tulare country many children were pre-
sented for baptism, but as no assurance was forthcoming that they would be
reared in the faith the padres declined to administer the sacrament. They
baptized however many old and sick people, who were in immediate danger
of death, and remained with some of these until the end.
48 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Moraga is admittedly foremost in the early exploration visits to the
interior of California, but there is one other — Padre Francisco Garces — to
share honors for an intrepid undertaking. By this time eight missions had
been founded, three more projected along the coast and Padre Serra had had
his heart's desire gratified in the mission at San Francisco dedicated to St.
Francis, patron saint of his priestly order. Padre Garces was of the Portola
first land expedition from Sonora in Mexico to IMonterey in California in
1774, and one of the most remarkable of missionary explorers of the south-
west. He was located at a frontier mission near the Apache country border,
exposed to all the dangers from those daring marauders. He was left behind
at Yuma "to teach religion" to the Indians until Anza's return from his second
land expedition, in 1775-76, with settlers from the Colorado with which to
found the San Francisco mission.
Without following up the itinerary, suffice it to say that, when ready in
February to begin one of the longest and most dangerous journeys under-
taken by him, it was with the hope of opening another route north of that
which Anza had trailed across the inhospitable desert and more direct from
the Colorado to the Mission of San Luis Obispo, or as far north as Monterey,
if fortune favored.
On this journey he discovered the Mojave River at its sink and reached
San Gabriel mission in March, crossing the San Bernardino mountains. In
the Tulare valley he came upon Indians differing from any before met with
in that they lived in enclosed camps, each family in its own house, walled,
tule roofed and with nightly guard stationed at each house. These Indians
aided him to cross the Kern River near the present site of Bakersfield. A five
days northward journey brought him to White River, where, having no more
presents for distribution and being dependent upon strange tribes for food,
he turned back reluctantly, having reached the latitude of Tulare Lake,
though he did not behold it as he was probably not far from the base of
the mountains and much farther east.
To paraphrase Z. S. Eldredge's History of California: He was now in
that great interior valley toward which the gold hunters of the world turned
so eagerly three-quarters of a century later. Lightly concealed in the beds
of the mountain streams farther north, lay more gold than Cortez had wrung
from Mexico or Pizarro from Peru . . . and succeeding generations
would find in the soil of the valley itself a far more permanent source of
wealth. He had opened the way thither alone, unhelped by a single fellow
being of his kind or kindred, he had explored it, braving the unknown dan-
gers of the wilderness, the heat and thirst of the desert, the rush of mountain
torrents, the ferocity of wild beasts, and the treachery of savages. He had
reduced himself so nearly to the level of the savage that he was able to live
as he lived, feed as he fed, on the vilest food, sleeping as he slept, in his filthy
and vermin haunted camps, and exposing his life constantly to his treacherous
impulses. And it all availed nothing!
On rejoining his Indian companions who had refused to proceed farther
with him among the unknown tribes, Garces set out by return route more to
the east than the one by which he had come. He probably crossed the moun-
tains at the Tehachapi pass, following the present day route of the Southern
Pacific railroad to the neighborhood of Mojave, and thence made direct for
the Colorado and Yuma country and following the Gila arrived at San Xavier
del Bac in September.
In this long tour he was accompanied only by Indians, his one associate
companion, Estavan Tarabel. a runaway San Gabriel mission neophyte, who
had proven a failure as a guide on Anza's first Sonora-Monterey overland ex-
pedition. The Indians acted as interpreters but when they failed him Garces
had recourse to the sign language. To arouse interest in his story of religion
he exhibited his pictorial banner. He also relied upon his compass which
never failed to interest and delight the Indian, and his cross, rosary and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 49
-missal. In his rewritten diary, he furnished much information which should
have been of moment to the authorities, "but it was not for the reason that
thev did not use it."
CHAPTER V
Tulare Swamps of Valley the Rendezvous of Renegade Neo-
phytes AND Outlaws in General. Fremont Hesitated not
TO Buy Stolen Horses. Faces, First White Man to Look
Upon Interior Valley. Pursuit and Surrender of Revolt-
ing Santa Barbara Channel Indians. Battle with the
Fugitive Santa Clara Mission Converts in 1829. Vallejo
Countenances a Shocking Butchery of Hapless Prisoners.
Kidnaping of Gentile Children.
The unexplored interior, or that central portion that was at all known
to the Californians, was named the Tulares, or the Tulare country, because
of the immense tule swamps formed in the depression or slough between
Tulare Lake and the great bend of the San Joaquin, and above it by the Kern
and other small bodies of water from the streams from the Sierras on the
east and south. This slough carried the surplus waters of lake and upper part
of valley off into the rivers in flood seasons. The valley was dry under foot
in summer and autumn seasons and in drouth periods. Around the lakes and
sloughs for miles, along almost the full length of the San Joaquin and the
lower half of the Sacramento and over a large territory of low ground about
their mouths, extensive tule covered swamp lands formed, salty where affected
by ocean tides but fresh or brackish where not.
The tule swamps, apparently one immense tract to the eye, were at
intervals visited by the Spaniards and the Californians in pursuit of deserting
Indians, and horse and cattle thieves. That region now embraced in Fresno,
Kings and Tulare counties was inhabited by a warlike band of horse riding
Indians, who not infrequently descended upon missions and ranches to run
off stock and particularly mustangs, the Indian having a great fondness for
horseflesh as an article of diet. The renegades piloted their wilder brothers
on the forays and raids. These Tulareans were never subdued by the Span-
iards, and the Tulares became in time a rendezvous for the runaway neo-
phytes of the missions. They were also resorted to by horse thieves from
New Mexico and elsewhere, and by Spanish and American adventurers to
buy horses. John C. Fremont, concerning whom Senator Nesmith of Oregon
once said that he had the credit with some people of having found every-
thing west of the Rockies, had no moral scruples on his 1846 expedition to
buy 187 horses from these Tulareans. despite the warning of John A. Sutter
that he would receive stolen animals. A hunting knife and a handful of
beads bought a horse.
Many were the expeditions sent to the Tulares. The first of which there
is record was in 1773, when Pedro Fages with a few soldiers sallied out
from San Luis Obispo across the Coast Range to the vicinity of Tulare Lake
in pursuit of runaways. He was the first white man to look upon the great
interior valley.
This Fages was a brave soldier, an undaunted explorer, a pioneer of
pioneers and a gallant and picturesque figure of early California, who as a
subaltern was prominent and foremost in the first land explorations of
California as well as of the bay of San Francisco with Portola. He was
California's first comandante of the military (1769-1773). He quarreled
with Father President Serra, who had him deposed, but later retracted his
50 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
accusations as unmerited. He was the fourth governor (1782-1790) and
during his regime the wife's accusations and actions involved him in a juicy
scandal agitating Monterey social circles from center to circumference. The
end all was to prove that Fages was more sinned against than sinning, and
the donna a woman, whose tact and discretion left much to be desired. In
his retirement days, Fages was never out but he was followed by a band of
children, attracted by the candies that he stuffed his pockets with for dis-
tribution among them.
The Tulares as the refuge of outlaws and evildoers was not infrequently
the scene of conflicts with them. In 1805 a small military party was sent
out from Mission San Jose to punish gentiles (Indians that were never
affiliated with mission) who had attacked a missionary who had gone on
an errand of mercy to their rancheria, and one of whose attendants had been
killed. This party pursued the malcontents as far as the San Joaquin River,
recovering thirty or forty runaways and capturing a lot of gentiles.
The routed survivors of the general uprising of February, 1824, against
the Santa Barbara channel cordon of missions, fled to the valley and were
pursued in June following by 103 soldiers with two field pieces. The In-
dians when overtaken in camp at Tulare Lake displayed a white flag. A
conference followed, the two priests acted as negotiators, and as a result
unconditional surrender, pardon and enforced return to their respective mis-
sions. The number engaged in this revolt was upwards of 400. Had their
secret conspiracy succeeded, there would have been massacre at all the
missions. Its failure discouraged other attempts for a time. Santa Inez and
Purisima with burning of the buildings and Santa Barbara were the missions
attacked.
Not until the spring of 1829 was there another general uprising, this
time of the neophytes of Santa Clara and San Jose, who deserted and fortified
themselves with gentiles near the San Joaquin River. A San Francisco expe-
dition of fifteen men under Sergeant Antonio Soto was dispatched to capture
the fugitives and destroy the fortification, but it was repulsed in penetrating
a thicket of willows and brambles and withdrew to San Jose, where Soto
died from his wounds. The Indians celebrated their victory with feasting
and dancing, while neighboring rancherias made common cause with them,
and the uprising threatened to become a dangerous one, necessitating rigor-
ous repressive measures. Jose Sanchez was sent with a second expedition of
forty from the San Francisco presidio but retired to San Jose without risking
a second storming of the inner works on finding that the Indians had set
up several strong lines of wooden palisades, the first of which had been
destroyed.
A third expedition of one hundred from Monterey under Ensign M. G.
Vallejo joined the Sanchez force with Indian auxiliaries, and after a desper-
ate fight the fugitives were driven from their intrenchments, unable to with-
stand the musketry and cannonading. After the fight, "a most shocking and
horrible butchery of prisoners took place." The auxiliaries ranging them-
selves in a circle were permitted to exercise their skill in archerv upon the
hapless prisoners in their midst, others were hanged from trees with vine
ropes and old women shot down in cold blood. Estanislao, the native alcalde,
who instigated the uprising, escaped the slaughter, delivered himself up to
Father Narciso Duran of San Jose who concealed him for a time and finally
secured his pardon.
Finishing his bloody campaign, Vallejo returned to San Jose and Mon-
terey. Father Duran attempted to have him prosecuted for "the greatest
barbarity ever perpetrated in the territory." One soldier was sentenced to
five years penal servitude for shooting down a defenseless old squaw, but
Vallejo escaped trial. Duran, who as a Spaniard opposed the republic, as did
all the missionaries, wielded less influence than Vallejo, who as usual ranged
himself on the popular side and was in the line of promotion, wherefore
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 51
according to Historian T. H. Hittell "by degrees tlie bloody story was sup-
planted in the public mind by matters which were supposed to be of more
immediate importance."
Gen. M. G. Vallejo, as he was later known, was a man who has been
given much prominence in the written early history of California, as well
under the Mexican as the American regime. He was a delegate to the Mon-
terey constitutional convention, honored politically then and afterward, a
leader and spokesman for the California-born Spanish speaking population,
lived the life of a feudal lord and baron at Sonoma with the history of the
region north of San Francisco largely that of his own family, held the
military title of General to his dying day yet never commanded more soldiers
than would make up the complement of one company, revelled in wealth
and luxury in the halcyon days and lived his later days in comparative pov-
erty, was as proud as the most blue-blooded Hidalgo until the very last, was
honored by the Society of California Pioneers, having arrived July, 1808,
and by the Native Sons of the Golden West, a quoted authority on early
California history, a friend at one time and the opponent at another, of the
dominant Roman Catholic church, importing and collecting for private read-
ing and library in his younger davs the very books that were forbidden by
the church, and foremost as an influential individual in yielding to and advo-
cating the change under American territorial acquisition.
A reading between the lines of history impresses one that he was a very
accommodating spirit, best described by the present-day term of a "political
trimmer." His advocacy of the American regime was at a time when his
opposition might have been feared for its possible results when the popular
sentiment was not over friendly to the American cause.
But what mattered it that a few Indians, more or less, were wantonly
massacred? Some of the whites were no more considerate or humane.
Towards the end of 1833, because of the frequency of raids by Indian
horse thieves, it became the custom to send monthly expeditions, aided by
rancheros, to overawe the marauders. It was not unusual for them to make
slave prisoners of gentile children, wherever met with. An instance came
under the notice of Governor Figueroa in the early part of 1835 as the result
of a San Jose expedition and the kidnaping of seven children. He de-
nounced the outrage in unmeasured terms, ordered the papooses placed in
the mission until the parents could call for them, directed that no more
expeditions be sent except in actual pursuit of horse thieves, and then only
with express governmental permission. Figueroa had great sympathy for
the Indian, due as much to his humanity as to his Aztec blood. He was so
well thought of that he was called the "Benefactor of the Territory of Alta
California."
Lieut. Theodore Talbot, U. S. N., who had been left in command with
nine men at Santa Barbara in September at the outbreak of the Californian
insurrection, following the raising of the flag and after the retaking of Los
Angeles, was called upon to surrender by one of the California military
commanders. Talbot refused, but unable to resist the force of 200 against
him retired to the mountains. His little party fought the pursuers, and fire
was set to the woods to burn them out. Talbot and men escaped the flames
and eluded the pursuit. An old soldier of e.x-Governor Micheltorena, who
was unfriendly to the Californians because of their expulsion of his former
chief, piloted the pursued ninety miles across the mountains into the Tulares.
From here they groped their way for about a month, mostly on foot, endur-
ing hardships and suffering, for some 500 miles to Monterey, arriving
early in November and rejoining Fremont after having been given up
for dead.
52 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER VI
Fresno County is the Heart of the San Joaquin Valley. The-
CiTY IS THE State's Practical Geographical Center. Phys-
ical Features of the Great Interior Basin. Climate a Most-
Valuable Asset. Development Change Due to Irrigation.
Destiny is to Support a Much Larger Farming Population.
Fullest Growth Will be Attained with Conservation of-
Water and Forests,, and Navigability of Its Main Water
Course.
Fresno County lies in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, and the
latter is the central portion of the state. Fresno City is practically the-
geographical center of the state, as it is the central spot of the valley. As
valley or county, the region is one with many claims to distinction and not"
a few to supremacy. Fresno is one of the five richest agricultural counties-
in the United States.
Between the San Joaquin and the Kings rivers, streams that rise in-
the perpetual snows of the Sierras, bringing the life-giving waters out upon-
the parched plains, to yield in orchard, vineyard and alfalfa fields, returns-
greater than ever did the local gold placers, lies a broad-backed divide,,
known as the Fresno plateau, though to the eye it is a part of the undulat-
ing fertile plains of the great valley. The plain-like Sacramento-San
Joaquin Valley — The Great Valley of California — was once a vast inland
sea. Geological proof of this is not lacking. The plain is 400 miles long-
and fifty to seventy wide, in the very heart of the state, nestling at
the foot of the Sierra Nevadas. or Snowy Mountains, and according to scien-
tists is one of the oldest, present day, existing physical features of California.
Sparsely settled as yet, the prophetic predict that it will some day support"
the bulk of the state's agricultural population.
The Sierra Nevada is a range of extreme scenic grandeur and natural
beauty, some of its valleys, as the Yosemite, the Forks of the Kings, and
the Hetch-Hetchy, presenting sublime scenic spectacles. The range protects
from the east the long, central, fruitful valleys of the San Joaquin and of
the Sacramento. The Coast Range parallels the sea coast line and protects
from the west. They unite near the 40th parallel and combined, extend north-
ward into Oregon as the Cascade Range. The Great Valley is a basin
between the two first ranges, gradually rising to them through foothills.
The northern branch of the trough-like plain is known as the Sacramento r
and the southern as the San Joaquin \^alley, each drained by a river of the
same name, heading from opposite directions, uniting in the valley's western
center and coursing westward to empty into San Francisco Bay.
There was a time when the combined stream went out into the ocean
through the Golden Gate, but owing to the sinking of the coast, in a great
convulsion of nature and the earth, of which there is a hazy Indian tradition,
the river was "drowned." Tidal influence is felt now no further inland than
at Sacramento and Stockton. The coast subsidence once flooded the lower
part of the valley, as even now at the junction of the rivers an overflowed'
delta and marsh is forming and slowly being made into dry land by silting,
the surface overgrown with tules. These reclaimed marshlands have proven
remarkably productive. When the gold seekers first appeared, the Feather
River was navigable by small boat to Marysville in Yuba County, and the-
Sacramento as far as Red Blufif in Tehama County. Today they are scarcely-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 53
navigable above Sacramento. The San Joaquin carries less water than the
Sacramento, although dredging could make it navigable.
Time was when the San Joaquin was navigable for freight scows, towed
by light draught tugs, in spring high water, above the present railroad bridge
across the river at Herndon in this county. Miller & Lux provisioned their
big cattle ranches thus, and by water sent to market hides and spring wool
cli'^ps. Millerton, the old county seat, was at times so provided with mer-
chandise as a cheaper means of transportation than hauling by freight
wagons from Stockton. The river was a navigable stream as far as Sycamore
Point, above Herndon, and was so delineated on the old maps. So well
recognized was the fact that when a bridge was put in at Firebaugh, it vv^as
made a draw so as not to impede navigation of the stream. A demonstration
river journey from Stockton with a light river steamer was successfully
made in thesummer of 1911 in connection with an abortive agitation for a
reduction of railroad freight rates and a congressional appropriation for
the dredging of the river as a navigable stream as in the days of yore to
near Fresno.
The Coast range streams flowing eastward into the San Joaquin are
small and dry in the summer. Those from the Sierras, flowing_ westward,
are large, permanent and supply the water for irrigation. The main drainage
line of the valley is consequently forced over to the west side by the delta
accumulations on the Sierra side. In evidence of this, the Kings has silted
up so large a delta as to block the one time continuous drainage of the
valley and form Tulare Lake behind the dam as a permanent body of
water. Later so much water was taken for irrigation that with the evapora-
tion the lake almost went dry and the lake shores were farmed. A few years
ago, six in fact, the water accumulated again and the lake was reproduced
but of reduced size. The Kern River's debris also dammed the valley, creat-
ing Buena Vista and Kern Lakes at the extreme southern end, though in
high water stages Buena Vista discharges northward into the Tulare basin
and also southward into Kern Lake.
The western sides of the valley are much drier than the eastern because
of the Coast range barrier, and therefore are in greater need of irrigation.
Much of this land will bear good grain crops in average rainy years. Other
large areas are semi arid and suitable only for grazing during the spring
months. Nearly one-third of Fresno County's area is on the dry west side,
which if ever brought under irrigation would yield results to duplicate the
agricultural wonders of the past and add immensely to the productive wealth
of the county.
The climatic extremes of the valley are greater than in the coast region.
The summers are hot, but the air is dry and the temperature is borne there-
fore with less discomfort than the summer eastern weather. In this dry
summer heat, the valley counties have a most valuable asset. It ripens crops
earlier and forms saccharine in the fruit, while it enables the grower to dry
it with the aid of the sun. The lack of humidity prevents dew at night and
thus maintains the drying process by night and day. The humidity is at
times as low as six percent, and while the mercury may register 110 degrees
this temperature is felt less for discomfort than one twenty or thirty degrees
lower in a region of humidity. This desiccating summer heat has made
Fresno the world's raisin district, an extensive citrus fruit grower and a
leader in sun-dried fruit. Sunstroke is as great a rarity as a snowstorm.
The mean daily average maximum temperature from May to September is
eighty-one degrees, and the mean minimum during the remaining period
fifty-eight degrees.
Experiment has demonstrated the existence of an orange belt extending
practically the entire length of the eastern side of the valley from Bakersfield,
in Kern County to Oroville, in Butte County. In this connection there is the
interesting fact to be noted that oranges ripen earlier than in Southern
54 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
California by one montii to six weeks, probably because the southern belt is
not protected from the ocean winds and cooling fogs as the central is, and
the growth and maturation of the fruit is slower. Latitude has apparently
little influence on the climate. Near the coast there is in reality only a few
degrees difiference between the northern and southern temperature, yet there
is an earlier appearance of spring fruit, and in the ripening of oranges in the
north than in the south. One must seek for other modifying local conditions
in the ocean, the wind and in mountain barriers to account for the anomalous
climatic variations.
The semi-arid plains were once considered valuable only as stock ranges.
Grain was sowed, but with disastrous results in dry years. An industrial
change came about with irrigation, and great ranch tracts were subdivided
into small ones, which could be better taken care of and yielded larger
returns. Fresno County is proof of what irrigation will do and has done.
It is one of the pioneer irrigated regions of the coast, the first experiment hav-
ing been made in the early 70's near Fresno with four sections in wheat.
Fresno is pointed out today as the typical California irrigation district.
Describing this district system. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 237
on "Irrigation in California" said of Fresno: "Considering its area, it is the
most highly developed district in the state," It added:
"Before the first irrigation of grain was attempted near Fresno, the land
could scarcely be sold at $2.50 an acre, but as soon as the results of irriga-
tion became known, land sales increased and twenty-five dollars to thirty
dollars an acre was given freely for the raw land, which now when in decidu-
ous trees or vines is worth $250 to $500 per acre. The citrus lands of the
foothills that now sell for $1,500 to $2,000 per acre when in full bearing
groves would be valueless without irrigation."
California's great valley is exceptionally located and conditioned for
a much larger population than it now supports. Encompassed as it is by
mountains, the drainage channels converge at Carquinez straits, from which
there is freightage with the world by deep sea vessels, receiving their car-
goes "at the very door of the valley." It is maintained that when the Sacra-
mento will have been navigably deepened to Red Bluff and the San Joaquin
dredged and by a canal tied in with the more southern Tulare and Kern
basins, the great region will be in a position to begin a supplemental devel-
opment without bounds. The scheme has been given serious thought and
tentative plans for it studied. To help out this water transportation project,
the valley is at present served by two transcontinental railroads with num-
erous feeders.
The student of history cannot overlook the fact how little the waterways
influenced the exploration and settlement of California, or even to aid in
the transportation of crops. Save for irrigation, the streams of the state
have not assisted inland development, excepting the lower Sacramento, the
San Joaquin in the days gone by, and the smaller arms of San Francisco
Bay. Yet the economic importance of the streams as sources of power to
be developed for commercial and manufacturing enterprises cannot be ig-
nored. The electric energy to be generated and transmitted to any point
is limitless. There is a woeful waste of the flood waters, so that with the
agricultural development of the valley for the greater population to come
conservation is imperative, because even now the increased demands require
such storage for use in summer, a time when water is needed most and
is scarcest.
Of the three largest rivers of the state, the San Joaquin-Sacramento is
the most important irrigation water provider with its" many branches head-
ing in the snow-covered Sierras. The Sacramento in the northern arm of the
valley carries water in abundance, it is thought, for all future agricultural
needs, besides navigability. The San Joaquin with the other streams of
the southern arm carry not so much water as will be required for the larger
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 55
area to be irrigated. The fuller development of this region, and of California
for that matter, will be governed in large measure by careful and rational
conservation of the forests and streams. The government has taken up this
important subject.
The Great Valley is well adapted for water transportation, and the
statement is not such a wild flight of fancy that there will be a day when
the natural water courses will have been deepened, and light draught vessels
will dot the plains of the interior basin. There is no insurmountable en-
gineering difficulty against a canal from Buena Vista Lake at the extreme
southern end of the valley northwest through Tulare Lake and via the San
Joaquin to tide-water. Indeed such a project in part was once in the air in
Fresno County to connect Tulare Lake with the San Joaquin River.
Articles of incorporation of the enterprise were filed, and the town-
plat of Fresno City was recorded as on Fresno Slough, or the South Branch
of the San Joaquin, by A. J. Downer as the agent for C. A. Hawley and
W. B. Cuminings, on April 25, 1860. The plat pictured an ambitious town
of eighty-nine blocks on both sides of the slough channel, located a mile or
two "from what is today Tranquillity town in the big farm colony of that
name. La Casa Blanca (White House") the principal structure of the town
on paper, occupied as headquarters and the upper floor as a hotel, stood for
years a landinark on the slough after the project was abandoned.
About the time of this enterprise two men, Stone and Harvey,
attempted to reach Tulare Lake with the small stern-wheeler, Alta, de-
scended the San Joaquin and the Kings River Slough as far as Summit
Lake, near the southern boundary line of the county and bordering on
the Laguna de Tache grant, but there it was stranded in one* of the' slough
branches and abandoned upon subsidence of the water in the slough by
drainage consequent upon the dredging of the section nearest the San
Joaquin, upon the proof of which labor land patent had issued.
Noncompliance however with the law in other respects in the disposal
of the reclaimed land resulted in successful litigation in San Francisco to
void the patent, and the enterprise came to naught, leaving the stern-wheeler
with its smoke-stack as another strange landmark to excite the curiosity of
the mail-stage passenger and of the lone traveler or wanderer on the inhos-
pitable and drear West Side plains.
Later the stack was removed and did service for years for one of the
steam sawmills in the mountain forests in the cotmty.
The only craft that ever passed from Tulare Lake to tidewater was in
1868, when Richard Swift took a small scow-boat, 16x18, through, loading
it with a ton of honey at the mouth of Kings River, passing through Summit
Lake and Fish Slough, thence through what was known as Fresno Slough
into the San Joaquin. It was with the hope of the successful issue of the
canal enterprise that on January 21, 1860, the steamboat, Visalia, was com-
pleted on Tulare Lake for the navigation of the San Joaquin between Stock-
ton and Fresno City, where the overland stages halted and near which at
the head of Fresno Slough steamers landed freight up to a few years before
the valley railroad extension from Lathrop.
The 1911 agitation to open the river to navigation came to naught be-
cause the government engineers reported that the traffic in promise would
not warrant the expense of dredging and improving the river channel to
make it navigable. At any rate the community succeeded some years later
in doing away with the discriminatory terminal freight rate against Fresno
and river navigation was left as a matter for agitation for future years. It
is like harking back to the dim past to read the following newspaper publi-
cation of forty years ago (June, 1878) of practically the last attempt at
river navigation :
"The steamer Clara Belle, Capt. Jack Greier, unloaded lumber and posts
for Gustavus Herminghaus at Parker's old store, last Monday. This is only
56 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
fourteen miles below the railroad on the San Joaquin at Sycamore and is the
highest point on the river ever reached by steamer, and the only time a
steamer has come up so far since 1867."
And in explanation thereof the following:
"Gustavus Herminghaus, who owns a very large tract of land bordering
the San Joaquin River and the Fresno Slough, has already received 250,000
feet of lumber by steamer, from San Francisco and will fence in some 15,000
acres of fine grazing land. The fence will follow the line of surveyed road
from White's to Fresno, and will force travel from its present and long used
route along the river."
CHAPTER VII
"The Hell of '49". Manifested Shipments of Gold. Disputed
Date of Discovery. No Hint in Legend or Tradition. All
Flocked to the Mines. Previously Reported Finds. Val-
leys Explored as Never Before. California Stampede
Likened to that of the Crusader Days. A Wild and Reck-
less Population Gathers. Some Figures on the Extra-
ordinary Accessions by Land and Sea. Arrivals Far Ex-
ceed Departures for the Years 1852 to 1856.
Total manifested gold shipments from California ports via Panama from
April, 1849, to the close of 1856, not including unascertained sums taken on
privately, are given as $365,505,454. Estimated yield is reported as $596,-
162,061. Known receipts from this state foot up $522,505,454, not including
foreign shipments other than to England, nor quantity manufactured in the
United States, indicating a state total yield after analysis of the figures of
about $600,000,000. Estimate has been made that since discovery, gold bul-
lion in an amount exceeding $1,500,000,000 in value has been produced in
California.
Singular it is that the exact date of Marshall's discovery near Coloma,
on the south fork of the American River, should be a disputed question. •
Hittell gives January 19, 1848. as the date. Bancroft says on Marshall's
authority that the find was made between the 18th and 20th, but that the
19th has generally been accepted as the date. Marshall was so confused as
to time that Bancroft by other records fixed the day as the 24th. And yet
the event has been ranked second only in importance to California's dis-
covery and later settlement by the padres.
A commission had been appointed by Gov. William D. Stephens of
California under the authority of a legislative bill, the inspiration of that
exclusively Californian fraternal order, of three members of the Native Sons
of the Golden West, to make research of historical data to ascertain, if pos-
sible, the date of the discovery of gold and also to correct the date of in-
scription on Marshall's monument at Coloma. Under Assembly Concurrent
Resolution No. 25 (42nd Session) the committee named by the governor,
Phillip B. Bekeart representing the Pioneers of California, Fred H. Jung
the N. S. G. W. and Grace S. Stoermer the N. D. G. W., made report
October 15, 1918, based on entries in historical diaries, recorded statements
and conclusions drawn therefrom, to find that January 24, 1848, and not the
19th, is the correct date of the discovery of gold in California and to recom-
mend that the inscription on the monument of Marshall at Coloma in El
Dorado County be corrected accordingly.
Little dreamed the Mexicans of the value of the land they ceded, other
than as to its probable future value commercially. As little, the buyers-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 57
how fat the soil with wealth untold and that rivers flowed over golden beds.
Between the discovery and cession periods of the territory, many examina-
tions were made by enterprising and inquisitive officers and civilians, but
none discovered that the Sierra Nevada streams poured golden sands into
the valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin. No hint of it in legend
or tradition was learned from white or red man. As Historian John Frost
remarks: "A nation's ransom lay within their grasp but strange to say it
escaped their notice — it flashed and sparkled all in vain." Capt. Sutter,
despite a residence of ten years in the vicinity of the discovered placer re-
gions, was none the richer or wiser for the treasure about him lightly
concealed under the surface soil.
It is a remarkable fact, which has been more or less commented upon,
that with the insatiable greed for gold the Spaniard, and those that followed
him, never made investigation to ascertain the existence or non-existence
of it, or that if they did and made discovery that the secret was kept invio-
late. The fact is, however, that the existence of gold was unknown by them
and the Indians. The latter had no golden ornaments — in fact did not know
of the value of gold, until the white man taught him it in barter at the
trading post stores, and then further presumed on his ignorance by exchang-
ing gold ounce for commodity or whiskey ounce, glass bottle included.
Governmental examinations had been made but no discoveries of
minerals resulted. True, there was conjecture that from the region's un-
doubted volcanic origin and peculiar geological features gold or other valu-
able mineral deposits might exist. Chance disclosed what inquiry had failed
to reveal, and in a few weeks California was agitated to fever heat, nearly
all the population became infected and flocked to the mines. By August
some 4,000 people, including Indians, were washing the river sands and
gravel for gold, the washings confined to the low wet grounds and the
margins of the streams and the daily yields from ten dollars to fifty dollars
per man but often much exceeded.
Every stream in the valleys came under scrutiny. Gold was found on
almost every tributary of the Sacramento, and the richest earth on the
Feather and its branches, the Yuba and the Bear, and on Weber's creek, a
tributary of the American fork. Prospectings in the valley of the San Joa-
quin also resulted, but later, in gold discoveries on the Cosumnes, the San
Joaquin, Fresno, Chowchilla, Merced and Tuolumne, besides in lesser quan-
tities in the ravines of the western Coast Range as far as Los Angeles.
The valleys were explored as never before, and with the spread of the
contagion man came to know the San Joaquin Y'alley, up to now the stamp-
ing ground of wild Indians and outlaws, the grazing ranges of immense herds-
of" elk, antelope and wild mustangs, with the plains in their wake foot-
printed by the stalking grizzly bear and the loping coyote. The territory
now comprising Fresno County was absolutely unknown and with state
government was yet to be a part of Mariposa until independent county
organization in April, 1856.
There had been reports of gold discoveries before Marshall's, but if
true they created little more than local stirs and did not come to the knowl-
edge of the enterprising and wide awake Americans. That Capt. J. D. Smith
found gold in 1826 on his first crossing of the Sierras "near Mono Lake"'
may be true, but if he did it was on the eastern side of the range. In 1841
gold was found in Santa Clara County on Piru Creek, a branch of the Santa
Clara, but the find in March, 1842, at San Francisquito near Los Angeles, as-
mentioned elsewhere, was a genuine one, and it may be said that consider-
able gold was extracted in all the region from the Santa Clara River to-
Mount San Bernardino.
In greater or lesser quantity, it has been found in almost every part
of the state, but nowhere and never in such deposits as on the westenr
slope of the Sierras in the quartz veins, in the gravel and clay of ancient
58 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
river beds and in the channels of existing streams. It is another remarkable
fact that geology has not been able to explain that gold should be found on
the one side and silver on the other of the Sierras. The gold occurs in virgin
state, the silver in various ores. The western slope of the Sierras rich in
gold, the eastern in silver, the Coast range is equally rich in quicksilver in
red cinnabar, especially at New Almaden (1845) south of San Jose, later
found at New Idria in San Benito (in a corner formerly of Fresno) and
about St. Helena in Napa County.
There never was and has not been since, in history, such a stampede
as was started by the discovery at Coloma. In twelve months it attracted to
California more than 100,000 people of all nationalities, and commerce
sprang up with China, Mexico, Chili and Australia, while yet in govern-
mental confusion. The world was wild and delirious, and while only another
remarkable incident in the state's history, it did hasten as no other event
could have the assumption of state sovereignty and the development so cer-
tain to follow acquisition of the land. There was a wild scramble for the
mines, the daily gold accumulations ranged from $30,000 to $50,000, the
discovery wrought a marvelous and almost incredible change in the char-
acter of the country, laborers, professionals and tradesmen tramped the
crowded trail for mountain gulch or ravine, soldier and sailor deserted, and
there vtas a social upheaval with excesses and lawlessness for a time, with
labor commanding fabulous wages and prices of commodities and foodstuffs
prohibitive, even when they could be had. The exodus to California has
for its magnitude been likened to that of the Crusades of the Middle Ages.
The Annals of San Francisco, published in 1854, records that there was
soon gathered a mixed population of the "wildest, bravest, most intelligent
yet most reckless and perhaps dangerous beings ever collected into one small
district of country." Thousands came after the American occupation not
to stay but to pick up a fortune quickly and return home. It was no longer
the place "for a slow, an overcautious or a desponding man."
California was in complication over land and mining claims. The Indian
resented the taking of his hunting grounds by the miners, and with the
uncertainty of things the old regime bewailed the coming of the Gringo,
and lamented the discovery that attracted the horde as a green pasture field
does the locust or the grasshopper. The dreamy days at the haciendas, life
at the old missions with the patriarchal padres, all the idle days were no
more. A feverish excitement prevailed with gambling, drunkenness, horse-
racing and stealing, claim jumping and worse things. The days of '49 "be-
held one of the most reckless, heterogeneous societies ever brought together."
In January, 1849, according to a memorial of Senators Gwin and Fre-
mont to Congress, while waiting for the state's admission to take their seats,
the estimated population was :
Californians, 13,000; Americans, 8,000; Foreigners, 5,000; Total, 26,000.
As a result of the gold find, a population of at least 107,000 was claimed
for the state as follows ;
Estimate as above 13,000
Pacific ports sea and Sonora land arrivals
January-April '49 8,000
San Francisco sea arrivals, April-December
1849 29,000
Other ports 1,000
Southern overland 8,000
From Mexico 7,000
Deserting sailors 3,000
• Overland via Salt Lake 25,000
Total 107,000
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 59
All enumerations of the day may be accepted as inflations and little
better than wild-eyed estimates because of the shifting character of the popu-
lation as well as because of the other difficulties in making any reliable can-
vass. The variance of the various reported figures is irreconcilable. The
figures emphasize though the immensity of the Californiaward movement of
the day. The world had been inoculated with the gold fever, California had
a heterogeneous population, but no government, save the makeshift authority
exercised by a small and utterly inadequate military force.
California had leaped into world wide importance with Marshall's dis-
covery of gold in that mill race on that disputed January day in 1848. The
excitement and immigration and the insistent demand for a state government
furnish a chapter in history without like in the world. Somewhere someone
has written that the brilliant audacity of California's methods for admission
into the union is without parallel in the nation's history. Brilliantly audacious
it was, truly, but only characteristic of California and the Californians and of
the abnormal condition of the times.
Minerva, the mythological goddess typical of endowment of mind and
prominent and distinctive as the figure in the foreground of the Great Seal
of California, is emblematic and illustrative of its sudden springing into the
maturity of statehood as no other before or since of the United States of
America.
CHAPTER VIII
First Reports From Mines Excite Incredulity. Official Confir-
mation IS Given Them. Colonel Mason's Extravagant Idea
OF Figures. Everybody in the East Talked California, and
Prepared for the Grand Rush. The Placers are Visited
AND Reported on. State Geologist Trask's Prophecies.
Fresno's Camps of the Southern Mines. Early Pros-
pectors Were a Restless Lot. First Local Mining Settle-
ments. Variations in Gold Dust \^aluations.
First reports from Coloma and other placers excited general incredulity.
The California Star on March 25, 1849, announced that gold dust was an
article of traffic at Sutter's Fort. In size and character of nuggets the mines
were pronounced much richer than the fields of Georgia, where gold was
first discovered in the United States, also more so than anything ever placered
in Mexico. A half pound parcel offered in San Francisco, in April, in pay-
ment for provisions was accepted at eight dollars per ounce, and the store
was stampeded to stare on the golden dust. On ^lay 29, the Californian,
and on June 14, the Star suspended, because the printers had vamoosed for
the mines. Every sacrifice was being made to reach the mines.
Thomas O. Larkin, who had been consul at Monterey and secret agent
of the government in the intrigue for the acquisition of California, wrote
to Secretary of State James Buchanan, at Washington on June 1, 1848, de-
scribing conditions at San Francisco, from which then 200 to 300 had gone
to the mines out of a population, according to the census of August, 1847,
of 459, exclusive of the military and the Mission Dolores, and that about
$20,000 of dust had been exchanged for merchandise. Half the houses in the
town were closed. Spades and shovels that sold for one dollar commanded
ten dollars each in the mines.
In a second letter from Monterey of June 28, Larkin wrote that he had
visited the mines and found them all and more than he had anticipated.
Miners were scattered over one hundred miles of country from the Sacra-
60 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
mento to the San Joaquin, between which the placers extended. According
to the best estimates, there were then 2,000 people at the mines, nine-tenths of
them foreigners. Larkin believed that a few "thousand people in one hundred
miles square of the Sacramento would yearly turn out the price that the
United States was to pay for the new territory." Three-fourths of the houses
in San Francisco were then empty, and were being sold for the cost price
of the land. Even Monterey, sleeping the sleep of a Rip Van Winkle, had
caught the infection.
The gold discovery had been made during the governorship of Colonel
Mason, who on June 17, from Monterey, accompanied by Lieutenant Sher-
man, visited the mines, finding en route San Francisco almost deserted and
everything going to waste and idle until arrival at Sutter's Fort on July 2,
where there was life and business bustle. Mason visited the Lower mines at
Mormon Diggings on the American River, where 200 men were at work. At
Coloma. a little more than three months after the discovery, upwards of 4,000
were mining. Gold dust was abundant in everybody's hands. He estimated
that the yield from the mines was from $30,000 to $50,000 daily, and as they
were on public land he seriously debated whether or not to secure a reasonable
fee for mining. He resolved not to interfere unless broils and crime demanded.
Crime was infrequent though in the mines, and theft and robbery unknown
in the early period, despite the insecure deposit places for treasure.
Mason was carried away by the excitement, and while acknowledging
in an official letter to the adjutant genera! that he could not earlier bring him-
self to believe the reports concerning the wealth of the gold district he wrote:
"I have no hesitation now in saying that there is more gold in the country
drained by the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers than will pay the
cost of the present war with Mexico a hundred times over."
No capital was required to obtain gold, as the laboring man required
nothing but pick and shovel and tin pan with which to dig and wash the
gravel, and many frequently picked gold in pieces of from one to six ounces
out of the crevices of the rocks with butcher knives.
Mason's letter was published with President Polk's congressional mes-
sage of December, 1848, and with the exhibited gold and cinnabar specimens
from New Almaden. sent on by special messenger, the news was spread in
official and authoritative form. The gold assayed over eighteen dollars an
ounce.
In a letter to Commodore Jones at ^lazatlan. Mason wrote that, treaty
or no treaty, the gold discovery had decided California's destiny, and he
raised his estimate that the yield would pay the war cost 500 times over. The
war appropriation was $10,000,000, with $15,000,000 as the consideration for
the land cession and $3,000,000 assumed as a damage debt due Americans,
a total of $28,000,000, saving nothing of other expenses of the war. 100 times
$28,000,000 equals $2,800,000,000. 500 times $28,000,000 equals $14,000,000,000.
Mason was a little off on his figures : so was Larkin.
Many foreigners were at work at the mines, so many that certain locali-
ties were named after nationalities. The collection of the foreign miner's
tax, afterward repealed, caused not a little friction, but the reported race
hostility against the foreigner was exaggerated. Until the government should
act in the matter, which it never did. General Riley upon his later visit said
he would not disturb anyone in mining, nor would he countenance one class
attempting to monopolize the workings of a mine or drive out any other.
The earliest important notice of the discovery was published in the
Baltimore Sun of September 20, 1848, by which time private letters were
arriving telling of the wonderful story. Soon all the newspapers were full
of the subject and consignments of gold confirmed the tidings. Everybody
talked California. The adventurous prepared for a general grand rush by
land and sea, by latter route long before the great overland tide of '49 began.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company organized in April, 1848, and its first
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 61
steamer on the semi-monthly route between Panama and Astoria via San
Francisco was the CaHfornia, which arrived at San Francisco on February
18, 1849.
The early influx in the emigration flood to the gold placers was of
Mexicans from Sonora, then Chilians and some Chinese. These assembled
principally in the Southern Mines, which included the San Joaquin and its
tributaries at the lower extremity of the Mother Lode originating in Mari-
posa County. Colonel Mason so much feared wholesale desertion of the
garrisons that in contemplation of the thought that the laborer earned in
the mines in a day more than double a soldier's pay and allowances for a
month he added in a report: "I really think some extraordinary mark of favor
should be given to those soldiers who remain faithful to their flag through
this tempting crisis."
During the latter nine months in 1849, 233 vessels arrived in San Fran-
cisco from United States ports, besides 316 from foreign ports — a total of
549, averaging two daily and many unseaworthy, veritable "floating coffins."
The overland caravans started in spring began to arrive in a continuous
stream almost across the continent, and crossing the Sierras landed for
a few years their human freight in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys
to scatter over the country. A great and unparalleled spectacle was this
immigration of 1849.
NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN MINES
In July, 1849, General Riley visited the mining regions by way of San
Juan Bautista, crossing the San Joaquin near the mouth of the Merced and
examining the principal camps on the Tuolumne and Stanislaus and their
tributaries, then those on the Calaveras, Mokelumne, Cosumnes and
American, returning to Monterey by way of Stockton. The mining country
had by this time been divided in two sections, commonly known as the
Northern and the Southern Mines. Sutter's Fort, or Sacramento, was the
interior point from which the Northern Mines were reached, and Stockton,
the new settlement on Mormon Slough of the San Joaquin, for the Southern,
being also the distributing points for the districts and both accessible from
San Francisco by water. The traffic was enormous. The rivers, naturally
clear streams, had already commenced to become turbid, but they had deep,
well-defined channels and navigation for vessels of considerable draught
was as yet easy.
Many of the mining camps in the Sierra foothills became little towns,
some to be abandoned with the impoverishment of the placers, others to
advance from tent aggregations to villages of rough boarded houses, and yet
others to permanency as towns. Not a few as in the San Joaquin Valley
that had arisen to the dignity of county seats lost in time even that distinction
with the advent of the railroad and the removal of the seat and were aban-
doned as in Merced, Fresno, Tulare and Kern Counties.
In 1856 Dr. Trask, the state geologist, reported that mining was suc-
cessfully prosecuted in twenty-three counties. The aggregate area in which
gold was known to exist was estimated at from 11,000 to 15,000 square miles,
adding that "when this is compared with the area actually occupied (prob-
ably not exceeding 400 square miles and one-fourth of these old placers")
the latter will be found to comprise a mere mite of our available resources.
With our present population of the mining districts and the broad expanse
of territory over which they are spread, they appear like mere specks dotting
the surface of an inland sea, so indistinct as scarcely to be appreciable on
the broad expanse by which they are surrounded." Trask described the
gold region as extending from the Oregon line north to the Kern River
south — 460 miles long by from ten to 150 in width, and he classified the
region into three distinct ranges — the Upper or Eastern, the Middle Placers
62 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and tlie \'alley mines. It was in the second range that the greater proportion
of the mining community was located, more particularly in the central and
eastern portions. The third range comprised the districts among the foot-
hills extending westward into the eastern edge of the plains of the San
Joaquin and Sacramento three to five miles and having a linear distance of
about 250 miles.
The valley mines were on what constituted the high terraces of the
plains composed mostly of alluvial drift. They were the most shallow of
any of the discovered ranges and the most easily worked, though nearly
coextensive with the middle or upper districts, and falling little short of
the latter. In a review of the ranges, Trask said incidentally: "It will be seen
that we have still enough and to spare for all who are present, and for all
that may hereafter arrive, for at least the next half century. There need be
but little fear of their failing to yield their annual crop of gold, as long,
perhaps, as our valleys will yield their crops of grain."
The placers in the Fresno region were almost at the extremity of the
Southern Mines. The accepted dividing line between the Northern and
Southern Mines was the ridge on the north side of the north fork of the
Mokelumne. All the rivers of the Southern Mines were tributaries of the
San Joaquin. In extent of territory, population and yield, the Southern
were almost the equal of the Northern mines in the early period, but they
"petered out" more rapidly, and in a few years were comparatively ex-
hausted, except for quartz outcroppings, and were favored by the Chinese
and Indians more.
The rivers of this southern mining region were the Mokelumne, Cala-
veras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, ]\Ierced and tlie San Joaquin (in the foothills
and mountains), with their forks. Spots in favorable locations along the
creeks as far south as the San Joaquin, where it comes down in a westerly
direction from the Sierras, repaid the miners with good returns, but neither
the placers nor the quartz veins were comparable with those further north.
The fact is the mines in this locality gave out at the San Joaquin, as they
did in the north where the Pitt River, tributary of the Sacramento, came
from the same mountain chain, and yet according to general tradition Miller-
ton on the San Joaquin in its palmy days of 1853 of the mining period was
as lively a miner's village with as many saloons and as much drinking, as
much gambling and as much roistering as any, isolated as it was in a pocket
of the foothills out of the line of travel.
The gathered gold in gravels and sands was not of uniform value, size
or shape. The variance was so great that an expert could readily distinguish
them. The poorest usually came from the Kern River, much mixed with
silver. It improved in Fresno County, and even here the gold varied much.
It was better in Mariposa, and had a high standard in Tuolumne, Stanislaus
and Calaveras. The main original deposits were in quartz or limestone
veins on the western slope of the Sierras at elevations of 1,000 to 4,000 or 5,000
feet above sea level, and the chief of these was the Mother Lode, traceable at
or near the surface, from Mariposa to Amador County with frequent branch
veins. The Merced, Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Mokelumne Rivers, with
some of their tributaries, cut the lode at points where it branched, eroding
the quartz veins and depositing the gold down stream far or near.
REMEMBERED EARLIEST CAMPS
Among the best remembered earliest mining camps in the northeastern
Fresno County region were Coarse Gold Gulch, discovered in the summer
of 1850, Texas Flat, Grub Gulch, Hildreth, Fine Gold Gulch, Temperance
Flat, Rootville the immediate predecessor of Millerton on the San Joaquin
and one mile below the fort, "Soldier Bar" and "Cassady's Bar" on the bend
of the river above the fort. The channel of the river with its small tribu-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 63
taries from the bridge at Hamptonville, below Millerton, was worked for
forty miles up into the mountains. The Kings, which contributes to the
wealth of the county as the provider of the water for irrigation and has its
rise as high in the Sierras as the San Joaquin, has never witnessed any
mining operations, though some placer mining was once upon a time con-
ducted at or near what is now known as Piedra where the magnesite mine
in an entire mountain is located. Quartz locations on its banks have been
made many times, though no notable mine has been developed.
It is conceded that during the early mining period, as well as in subse-
quent years and as late as the 70"s and up to the 80's the gold placers and
the surface outcroppings were well worked over and exhausted. No portion
of the county but has been prospected by the grub-stake miner. Discoveries
are being made to this day and quartz mine locations are frequent occur-
rences. Even the old mining district boundary lines are adhered to as a
reminder of the past. These locations prove to be little more than chance
discoveries of pockets or vein outcroppings, raising great expectations
with no realization save in a few exceptions. No systematic development of
the mineral deposits has followed for self evident reasons in the too great
risk of investment, cost of or lack of transportation and remoteness of the
locations.
A marked map of the county would show it peppered in spots as remote
and inaccessible as the upper precipitous gulches of the Kings River forks
with mining locations and punctured with prospects holes and developing
tunnel openings with their dumps. Late in the 70's there was sporadic
effort at a development of quartz mines, but no rich or lasting ones resulted
from the labor and money investments. Even the picturesque and extrava-
gant names of the most notable of these have passed from memory. On the
Madera side of the river in the drift gold gulches districts of earliest days
several mills were erected, but the life of the enterprises was evanescent. In
the end they were all money losers, encouraging though the first prospects.
The names of them if recalled are reminders of wasted effort and misspent
money. Not all were absolute failures, though all were abandoned and are
only memories now. The number of them spells legion.
In Grub Gulch district was the Josephine, owned by an English syndi-
cate, fourteen miles northeast from Raymond, located in 1880; also Les
Mines d'Or de Quartz ]\Iountain, a Belgian corporation that sank, without
any returns, a fortune of the stockholders in erecting and locating a costly
plant that has been idle for many years in charge of a watchman and given
over to the bats and owls. The Raymond quarries have furnished granite
for the state buildings at Sacramento, for miles upon miles of street curbing
in San Francisco and after a period of comparative inactivity were drawn
heavily upon for the rebuilding of the San Francisco public and other build-
ings after the great disaster, and the later Panama Exposition. The quarries
at Academy in this county have and are furnishing granite rock for orna-
mental architecture and grave stones and monuments. In the inaccessible
Minarets section, north of the San Joaquin there are said to be on the south-
ern slope inexhaustible iron deposits in practically a mountain of almost pure
metal, one of the known largest and richest iron ore deposits in the world.
The Kniepper copper mine, in the Big Dry Creek district, was later
developed as the Fresno, and a first successful development of a copper
ledge was that of the Ne Plus Ultra, on the Daulton ranch on the Madera
side and it actuall}' for a time sent mats to Swansea, Eng., for refining. It
paid for a time but in the end petered out and another costly experiment
was charged up to experience and corresponding loss. It was never resus-
citated, evidence, however promising its fair prospects, that the jig was
up. The Copper King and the Fresno copper mines near Clovis swallowed
up small fortunes in exploitation and extravagant management.
The Copper King, originally the Heiskell mine, cost the British share-
64 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
holders $400,000 in the exploitation. Under the spectacular regime of
Manager Daley, an F. F. V., there was a move to erect smelter works, but
neighboring fruit growers blocked it by injunction. Expensive tractors were
operated to convey ore to the railroad station, and were abandoned after
arousing the opposition of the county supervisors because of the damage
in cutting up the roads. Luxurious quarters were fitted up for the manager,
provided with electric lights, porcelain baths and other costly appurtenances.
The story is also authenticated that at the Palace Hotel grill in San Fran-
cisco the manager would order three canvas-back ducks, and enriching the
third with the sanguinary juices of two of them as extracted in the grilling,
feast solely on the breast meat of that costly third bird, with a five-dollar
bottle of champagne as accompanying beverage. The high priced machinery
and tractors were "after the burst up" sold for old junk, and years later a
nice profit was made by speculators, who bought up the ore on the neglected
dump-pile when copper jumped up to twenty-six cents a pound with the
demands on account of the war in Europe. The Copper King property has
been taken over by a Texas corporation, organized in 1917, which having
transferred its interest to California incorporators, the latter will operate it
under a lease and royalty arrangement with option to buy after a given time
for a stipulated price. It resumed operations in January, 1918, after long
years of inactivity.
As late as 1865 gold dust was the medium of circulation in Fresno,
rather than coin, as the Civil War had created a scarcity in circulated metal-
lic coin and paper money being a curiosity and practically unknown in
California even for many years thereafter.
Property values were estimated in ounces of pure gold rather than
in dollars and cents. Gold dust was acceptable for taxes by special authority
of the supervisors, and in business according to valuations as per this
publication on March 8, 1865, in the ]\IiIlerton Times:
NOTICE
On and after the 1st of March, 1865, we, the undersigned, pledge ourselves to receive
and pav out GOLD DUST at the following rates only:
San Joaquin River or Bar dust, where it is not mixed with other dust, at $15.50
per ounce.
Fine Gold Gulch, Cottonwood, Long Gulch, and all taken out in small gulches between
the San Joaquin and Fresno Rivers (except Coarse Gold Gulch) at $14 per ounce.
Coarse Gold Gulch dust at $16.50.
Big Dry Creek at $16.50.
Temperance Flat dust, and dust taken out at the head of Little Drv' Creek, at $14.
Sycamore Creek dust, free from quicksilver and not mixed with other dust, at $17.50.
Fresno River dust, taken out below McKeown's store at $15.50.
The above rates are as near as we can come at the value of the various kinds of dust
in gold coin, and after this date, we do not intend to receive or pay out anything that is
not equal in value to United States gold or silver coin.
(Signed) : Geo. Grierson & Co.. J. R. Jones, Lewis Leach, James Urquhart, Ira
McCray, Wm. Faymonville, Wm. Fielding, S. W. Henry, Robert Abbott, C. F. Walker,
T. A. Long, Jno. White, Thos. Simpson, W. Krug, Geo. S. Palmer, Clark Hoxie, S. T.
Garrison, T. C. Stallo, W. S. Wyatt, S. Gaster, J. Linnebacker, Geo. McClelland, J. R.
Barklev, Henry Henricie, Chas. A. Hart, Tong Sing, Hop W^o, Daniel Brannan, H. W.
Clark, D. H. Miller, C. P. Converse, L. M. Mathews, C. G. Sayle, Ira Stroud.
There were 138 quartz mills in operation in the state in 1856 — eighty-six
propelled by water, forty-eight by steam and four by horse power, moving
1,521 stamps. The cost of the machinery was $1,763,000.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 65
CHAPTER IX
Practical Disappearance of the Indian. He Was in the Lowest
Scale as a Human Being. Characteristics of Valley
Tribes. Gentle and Friendly in Disposition. Polygamy
Was Not Uncommon. At Starvation Point Following
Reservation Liberation After the 1850-51 Uprising. Six-
teen Tribes Signed the Treaty of Peace of 1851 in Fresno.
Kit Carson, the scout, said that in 1829 the valleys of California were
alive with Indians. On again visiting the territory in 1839, they had measur-
ably disappeared. In 1851. James D. Savage, of whom more anon, gave the
number of Indians on the coast as 83,000, an inflated figure, as were all the
census estimates on Indians.
In October, 1856, the number of Indians on the reservations was reported
to be:
Klamath, 2,500; Nome Lacke, 2,000; Mendocino, 500; Nome Cult, 3,000;
Fresno and Kings River, 1,300; Tejon, 700: total 10,000.
Today the redman has practically disappeared from the haunts where he
was on-ce most numerous. It is a repetition of the old story with this doomed,
unfortunate race. The passing of the Indian was hastened on by the gold
diggers and the first settlers. He was an inoffensive being, but he was in the
way of the white man, and the latter did not seek far or long for cause or
reason to put him out of the way.
The California Indian was a nomad, moving with the seasons in the
search for food, subsisting on acorns, seeds, berries and nuts, roots, fungi and
herbs, fish, fowl and game — in fact nothing was overlooked as a diet. Grass-
hoppers, worms and the larvae of ants and insects were delicacies, and mus-
tang horse flesh a dainty. Along the coast, sea-fish and mollusks were im-
portant dietary additions, and a dead, stranded whale was a prize to warrant
general feasting. They lived in the most primitive habitations, dressed in
skins, or woven bark or grass fibre, and used stone implements. The women
did all the laborious work and wove beautiful baskets.
While the tribal individuals bore a general resemblance, there was a
remarkable diversity in language. Their racial origin is an interesting prob-
lem. Living in a pleasant clime, with the food supply abundant in ordinary
years and demanding no great exertion to procure — and then by the slavish
squaws — the Indian was an indolent, shiftless creature, and there is a general
consensus that in California he represented the lowest scale of human develop-
ment. He did not take kindly to the labor of the civilization that the padres
enforced, wherefore the frequent uprisings. With the confinement that they
were subjected to in the close mission buildings, herded like so many cattle,
and in the general demoralizing association with the whites, their decimation
was rapid enough.
At the close of 1802, the Indian population at the eighteen missions is
placed at 7,945 males and 7,617 females. In 1831 it was placed at 18,683, and
in 1845 the estimate was that, while the white population had increased to
about 8,000, the domesticated Indians, who twelve years before numbered
close to 30,000, scarcely represented one-third of that number. There are no
statistics of the wild Indians — gentiles as the Spaniards called them. Guesses
ranged from 100.000 to 300,000. Yet another classification was made. .A.11
save Indians were gente de razon — rational people — in contradistinction to
the natives, who were considered only as beasts — unable to reason.
The secularization of the missions with the return of the neophytes to
66 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
savagery and wretchedness was their perdition. It also marked the decline of
ecclesiastical power and influence in California. But no material loss was
suffered by the Indians. They were no worse oflf than under the mission sys-
tem, which held them as slaves, abject and groveling-. The missions them-
selves and the missionaries were the relic of a medieval age, and long had
outlived their usefulness.
In 1856, when Fresno was organized as a county there were six reserva-
tions in the state under the superintendency of T. J. Henley. The Fresno
and Kings River farms were, in this county, on the streams so named. They
were established in 1854 and covered about 2,000 acres in extent, 1,000 under
cultivation to wheat, barley and vegetables. The Indians gathered on the
two farms numbered 1,300. M. B. Lewis was sub-agent of the Fresno reser-
vation, with E. P. Hart as foreman, appointed in July, 1856, at $1,500 and
$1,200 salaries, with J. B. Folsom as chief hunter. William J. Campbell was
sub-agent at the other farm with one "Jndge" John G. Marvin as quarter-
master furnishing all the supplies, Charles A. Hart his wagonmaster and D.
J. Johnson an employe.
The number within the state jurisdiction was estimated at 61,600, of
which 16,000 were on the reservations in March. 1857. Cost of maintenance
in the state for 1855 was $236,000 and for 1856 $358,000. The idea of making
treaties with them or "recognizing in any way the rights they claim to the
soil" was a policy "rejected entirely" by the department, and according to
Henley his wards were everywhere highl}' pleased with the policy proposed,
"except in locations where malicious or interested persons have by false
representations prejudiced them against it."
Henley was severe against this class, asserting that it had been "the
cause of most of the Indian difficulties which had up to then occurred in the
state," and that in "almost all cases where the Indians have been guilty of
aggressions it has been to avenge some outrage committed upon them by the
class of persons in question."
The late Galen Clark, who in 1854 mined in Mariposa, assisted in govern-
ment surveying of west side San Joaquin Valley land and of canals for
mining in the celebrated Mariposa Grant, who first visited the Yosemite in
1855 and in 1857 on a hunting trip discovered the Mariposa grove of big
trees, for twenty-four years was the state guardian of the Yosemite Valley,
and lies buried near Yosemite Falls, where, with his own hands, he dug his
grave and quarried his own tombstone, came, by reason of his long associa-
tions, to know much of the traditions and customs of the Indians of Yosemite
and of the tribes that once peopled this valley.
According to this authority, the tribes in the region of the Yosemite were
affiliated by blood or intermarriage relationship. Before the coming of the
whites, they had defined tribal hunting limits, though the higher Sierras were
common ground. There was reciprocal barter between them, as on the west
with the Paiutes on the east side of the range, in salt blocks from ]\lono Lake,
and with the Mission Indians on the coast, in hunting knives and shells for
ornament or money, beads, blankets and the like. They had an efficient
relay courier system for 100 miles for the transmission of news, and a signal
code with fire by night and smoke by day. Their winter conical huts, holding
a family of six with all property, canines included, and with a fire in the
center, were covered with cedar bark and had entrance on the south side.
In summer brush arbors were occupied, the winter huts used for storage.
Their clothing before the reservation period was scant. Young children
went naked. Males wore a skin breech-clout or short skirt; females, a deer
skin skirt from waist to knees, at times fringed or fancily decorated. Both
sexes wore deer or elk skin moccasins.
Clark said of the Sierra tribes that "They are naturally of a gentle and
friendly disposition, but their experience with the white man has made them
distant and uncommunicative to strangers." And "as a rule also thev are
HISTORY OF FRESxNO COUNTY 67
trustworthy, and when confidence is placed in their honesty it is very rarely
betrayed."
Large game they hunted with the bow and obsidian arrowheads. They
followed the stealthy still hunt, or went on the general hunt, covering a
large area and driving the game to a common center for indiscriminate slaugh-
ter. Fish was caught with line and bone hook, with single bone tine spear,
by weir traps in stream, or scooped out in baskets after polluting the water
with soap-root plant juice. Acorns constituted the main staple breadstuff,
the nut ground to a meal and the bitter tannin laboriously leached out of the
thin gruel poured out in clean sand. The dog was the only domestic animal.
The Indians of the Yosemite region were of religious or superstitious
temperament, devout in their beliefs and observances, and easily worked
upon by their medicine men. They had elaborate symbolic ceremonies with
dancing an important feature. Both sexes took part, but they never danced
as a recreation. The ceremonial around a fire was accompanied by drum beat-
ing and a monotonous chant, the dancer circling until falling exhausted. The
great dance occasions were before going to war and when cremating the dead.
They had also tribal festival gatherings.
Polygamy was not uncommon among the Mariposa and other county
Indians, with two and three and even more wives. Chiefs and headmen
established relations of amity with other tribes b}- taking wives out of them.
The young wife was bought, payment for the chattel constituting a chief part
of the marriage ceremonial, and the wife becoming personal property to be
sold or gambled awav according to the mood. Clark says that in the mar-
riage relation the Indian was as a rule strictly faithful. If the woman was
found to be unfaithful, the penalty was death. Man whipping or wife beating
were unknown, whipping was not resorted to even for disobedience by chil-
dren, being considered a more humiliating and disgraceful punishment than
death. Disobedience was a fault rare among children.
It is Clark, who is authority for the statement, that after the 18.^0-51
hostilities and liberation after four years of confinement on the reservations
— the YoSemites and other tribes on and north of the San Joaquin placed on
the Fresno reservation and those south of the river on the Kings and Tejon
reservations — with tribal relations and customs almost broken up, the food
supply reduced with the settlement of the country, life was more precarious
and many at times were near the starvation point.
"In these straitened and desperate circumstances," recites Clark, in a pub-
lication of 1904, "many of their young women were used as commercial prop-
erty and peddled out to the mining camps and gambling saloons for money to
buy food, clothing or whiskey, this latter article being obtained through some
white person in violation of the law."
The universal practice was among the Sierra foothill tribes to burn
the bodies of the dead with their effects and votive offerings. This was a
semi-religious practice to cheat the evil spirit of his prey in the spirit or
soul, the body being burned to set the soul free the sooner to the happier
spirit world. In later years the-burial custom of the whites was adopted, but
the things that were once burned as offerings were cut into fragments before
burial, lest some white desecrate the grave by digging them up. These Dig-
gers— a name given them in derision because not good fighters and from the
practice of digging for tuberous roots of plants for food — held such sacred
reverence for the dead that after reservation liberation they impoverished
themselves for years by burning their best belongings at the annual mourning
festivals. One of their beliefs was that the spirits of the bad served another
earth life in the grizzly bear as punishment for misdeeds, wherefor no Indian
would knowingly eat bear meat. In certain lines of artistic work, the Diggers
excelled all others, notably in basket work and how and arrows, which were
of superior workmanship and fine finish.
A great fund of mythological lore was in their possession, handed down
68 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
orally from generation to generation, hut they were reluctant to tell the whites
these often pretty and poetical legends.
The warlike valley tribes were the Tulareans of Tulare Lake, the Yose-
mites of the valley of that name, the Monos from the other side of the range,
and the Chowchillas of the river valley of that name. At the. signing of the
Fort Barbour treaty, the second and third named tribes had neither signed,
nor surrendered, nor been rounded up. The best known tribes were the Poho-
nochees living near the waters of the Pohono or Bridal Veil Creek in summer
and on the south fork of the Merced in winter about twelve miles below Wa-
wona, the Potoencies on the Merced, ^^'iltucumnes on the Tuolumne, Noot-
choos and Chowchillas in the Chowchilla Valley, the Honaches and Mewoos
on the Fresno and vicinity and the Chookchachanees on the San Joaquin and
vicinity.
The original name of the Yosemite Valley was Ah-wah-nee, meaning
"deep grass valley." The word "yosemite" signifies "a full grown grizzly
bear." The valley portion of the Sierra region was inhabited by a peaceful
people, who indulged in few controversies and were less belligerent than
any on the Pacific coast, usually settling disputes by talk in general council.
The treaty of peace and friendship submitted in council at Fort Barbour,
and afterward repudiated by the government by the way, was signed up on
April 29, 1851, by chiefs representing sixteen tribes. Of tribal names other
than those mentioned, only one has been perpetuated — that of the Pitiaches,
whose home was in the vicinity of the site of Fresno city and whose one
time existence is recalled bv the official designation of Pitiaches Tribe No.
144, I. O. R. M. of Fresno.
The Fresno Indians of today court the seclusion of their foothill or moun-
tain rancherias. In the fruit season, they mingle with the whites on the
plains to seek employment in orchard or vineyard ; otherwise they are not
seen save on the days of the visiting circus or for the Fourth of July parades
and celebrations. Such a moving appeal was made to the supervisors of the
county in March, 1917, that they authorized H. G. Brendel as superintendent
of Indian missions to provide medical service for the poor Indians and Dr.
Charles L. Trout of Clovis to attend the sick in the mountains and present
bills to the county for payment. It was the first step the county has ever
taken to render a service to the Indians, but the relief was like the locking of
the stable door after the horse was stolen.
The missionaries school them and give them religious instruction, afford
them medical attention according to the means provided them, and prevail on
them when they have lived in the marital state according to loose tribal cus-
toms and have borne children to accompany them to the county seat and for
the sake of the children take out license and be wedded according to the law of
the land. The Indians have had intercourse long enough with the whites to
have lost faith in their medicine men, though one of these charlatans was
haled into court about a year ago for manslaughter in the killing of a tribes-
man .in giving the blood sucking treatment to a patient resulting in death.
The charge was in the end dismissed. The missionaries have done all they
can in the medical line until the demands on them became too great without
money for medicine and mileage for the physician. Measles, pulmonary and
bronchial troubles are the principal ailments, especially among the children.
"I have watched men, women and children die because of no medical
service," said Superintendent Brendel in his appeal to the supervisors. "It
is a long way back into the hills and an Indian will ordinarily not earn
enough or more than to provide the merest necessary food to keep up life.
Why during winter they almost starve and when sickness comes they gen-
erally die. Once there were many Indians back in the hills, but now we have
only 687, a slight increase over last year. The diseases they are subject to
eat up the population fast. I often wonder how it is that we have any left,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 69
for the government has neglected to give them the aid that reservation Indians
are entitled to."
Back in earlier days, the government's agents signed treaties with the
Indians providing that they gave up the valley lands for reservations in other
prosperous sections of the country. Congress never ratified these treaties,
the white man seized the valley lands and the Indians were left to content
themselves with the barren foothill or mountain sections in which to build
their homes in. The government as the only thing that it does for them
gives two days of school sessions weekly. The state of California does noth-
ing for them. Patents are granted by the general government for mountainous
land — none other being available — to Indians that have severed the tribal
relations, but the title is paternally held as a protection to the Indian in trust
for twenty years.
The Indians are said to be good laborers, reliable, better than the Japan-
ese, willing and docile but the squaw must hold the purse string, because
strong drink is an allurement that the buck cannot resist. The county provi-
sion out of the public fund, small as it is, was made on the theory that the
Indians are indigents to be aided as are the other poor of the county, and
thus on a small scale a work as a mission charity efifort was initiated for fees
that little more than defray automobile mileage charges, while improving the
general health and living conditions of the Indians. The surviving aborigines
in the county are assembled on rancherias on Sycamore Creek, at Indian Mis-
sion, Table Mountain and in the foothill sections near and about Auberry.
The Indian population of California in 1915 was returned at 15,034.
Indians are located in fifty-five of the fifty-eight counties of the state. In
dealing with the California tribes, the government did not follow the policv
pursued with the wild tribes of the plains in making treaties or giving them
remuneration for lands acquired by whites. Allotments number 2,592 of 82,-
l'')2 acres with 430,136 unallotted. The California Indians are of at least four-
teen difl:"erent linguistic stocks. They are located on twenty-six reservations,
twenty-two of these mission reservations. Most of the mission tribes of dif-
ferent tribes are located on scattered small reservations over Riverside and
San Diego Counties. The Tule River reservation of seventy-six square miles
in Tulare County shelters the survivors of the one-time warlike Tulares that
were once monarchs over all they surveyed on the San Joaquin plains.
The last and most remarkable and also the most formidable uprising in
California was the 1872-73 Modoc war. That tribe defied and resisted gov-
ernment troops for months from their lava beds near the Oregon state line
and treacherously assassinated at a peace council on April 11, 1873, Gen. E. R.
S. Canby and Rev. Eleazor Thomas of Petaluma, Cal., one of the commis-
sioners. The tribe was finally subjugated, four of the ringleaders in the mur-
ders hanged on October 3, 1873, two sentenced to life imprisonment at Alca-
traz Island and the others — thirty-nine men, fifty-four women and sixty chil-
dren— deported to Ouapaw agency in Indian Territory.
70 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER X
Indians Give Much Trouble in 1850. Squaw Discloses General
Tribal Conspiracy. Trader Savage Outmarshaled in
Diplomacy and is the Principal Sufferer in Hostilities.
Murders and Plunder Forays in Rapid Succession With
Mutilation of the Victims. State is Appealed to for Pro-
tection. Mariposa Battalion of Rangers is Formed Com-
manded BY Savage. Hostilities Halted for Retarding
Palavers by the Investigating and Deliberate Commis-
sioners. Indian Rancherias Surprised.
There was none of the heroic and much of the inhuman on the part of
the whites, with some of the pathetic on the side of the redmen in the Mari-
posa Indian War, which footed up a bill of $300,000 as the cost of the exter-
mination of the valley mountain tribe of the Yosemites (estimated at some
200) with incidental discovery of the famous scenic valley on the Merced
River.
During the vear 1850, the Indians of Mariposa County, which then in-
cluded all the territory south of the Tuolumne and Merced divide within
the San Joaquin Valley proper, greatly harassed the miners and few settlers.
Their depredations and assaults continued until U. S. commissioners came
in 18.51 to exercise control over them. Treaties were made in the end with
sixteen small local tribes and all were placed on reservations. Among the
settlers was James D. Savage, of whom more anon, who in 1849-50 had located
in the mountains near the s'outh fork of the Merced, about fifteen miles below
the Yosemite Valley. He employed Indians to dig gold for him and early in
1850 the Yosemites,' a band of mountain tribe outlaws and fugitives, attacked
his trading post and mining camp, claiming the territory and attempting to
drive Savage ofif, though plunder was probably the real object.
The assault was repelled, but the location was no longer deemed a safe
one and Savage removed to Mariposa Creek, twenty miles southwest of
Aqiia Fria, near the site of an old stone fort. He also established a branch
post on the Fresno, above what was known later as Leach's old store, where
the mining prospects were better with subsidence of the water. Here a pros-
perous traffic was built up, the miners and prospectors dealing with him
rather than spend the time on the journey to and from INIariposa village,
exacting though his prices were. In the midst of prosperity, one of his squaw
wives disclosed a conspiracy-hatching among the mountain tribes to kill or
drive off all the whites and plunder them, the Yosemites leading in the plot.
He pretended to disregard the report but gave general warning against a
surprise.
Savage gave out that he was going to San Francisco for a stock of goods
and ordering strict caution, he started, accompanied by two squaws and an
Indian chief, Jose Juarez, really one of the leading plotters, to impress him
with the sights at Stockton and San Francisco of the futility of an uprising
in view of the superior numbers and resources of the whites. Juarez, being
liberally supplied with gold, was stupidly drunk while in San Francisco, and
being reproved by Savage retorted in abuse, disclosing the secret of the
war. Savage lost his self control and knocked him down. After remaining
to witness the celebration on October 20, 1850, of California's admission and
arranging for the forwarding of goods as he might order. Savage started back
for Mariposa. On arrival at Ouartzburg. he learned that the Kaweahs were
exacting tribute from immigrants passing through their territory, and that
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 71
one Moore had been killed not far from his station. Savage "scented danger
to himself."
Learning that Indians were numerous at Cassady's Bar on the San Joa-
quin and not far from his Fresno River station, he hurried to the latter point,
found everything quiet apparently, and the Indians congregated only for
barter, among them two chiefs of tribes from which he had taken wives.
Pretending indifference. Savage sought to assure himself of the progress of
the conspiracy, and calling an impromptu council, passed the pipe of peace
and speechified on the damaging results of a war and the advantages of peace-
ful intercourse, being familiar with the dialects. He referred to Juarez to
confirm his statements.
Th;e cunning Juarez answered, but to the surprise of Savage advocated a
united war for their self preservation, the speech evincing "a keenness of
observation inconsistent with his apparent drunken stupidity," while at the
bay city. His speech met with approval, others joined him, and an appeal to
cupidity in a common plot to plunder had its effect. Savage was outgeneraled
and withdrew to prepare for the h.ostilities he felt certain would follow. The
miners and settlers ridiculed and belittled his warnings.
Soon settlers at Indian Gulch and at Ouartzburg learned that Savage's
Fresno post had been looted on Christmas night 1850 and two men killed,
and that his squaw wives, who had refused to abandon his interests when
importuned, were carried off by th:eir tribespeople. "Long Haired" Brown,
the courier, had been warned by a friendly, carried by him across the Fresno
and escaped barefooted and in his night clothes, dodged arrows in the pursuit
and outdistanced his pursuers, being a man of strength and agility. On the
heels of this report came another from the miners' camp at Mariposa Creek
that Savage's establishment there had been plundered and burned and all
save the trader killed.
Another murderous assault was reported January 15, 1851, by Frank W.
Boden, whose arrival at Cassady's post with shattered right arm and on pant-
ing horse excited general sympathy. A partv at once started for Four Creeks
to aid his companions, whom he had left fighting the Kaweahs. Boden's arm
was amputated by Dr. Lewis Leach of St. Louis, Mo., who had come in with
him. Boden and companions had halted at Four Creeks to rest and graze
their horses, and while there Kaweahs demanded tribute, banter followed
and all at once there was firing. In the melee Boden was four times arrowed
in the arm. He fired his last shot, resting rifle on broken arm, and then with
bridle rein in teeth, and carrying broken arm in the other hand sped at top
speed for Cassady's. The attack was made near the site of the present Visalia
— Dr. Thos. Payne's place. The mangled bodies of Boden's mates were found,
one of the four by unmistakable signs having been flayed alive.
Cassadv & Lane kept in January. 1851, a trading post several miles below
Rootville CMillerton), and were engaged above the fort site in mining at
Cassadv's Bar, employing about thirtv men. The camp was protected by a
stone fence, the post by ditches. Indian hostilities hereabout included the
murder of two teamsters at Fine Gold Gulch and the driving off of stock,
and by two other man killings below Millerton. Cassady's post was visited
bv Indians on the 20th of the month. Savage being there on a warning call.
The employes had maintained vigilant night guard and dug ditches and em-
bankments, but Cassadv ridiculed these preparations. No guards were put
on that night, Savage sleeping in a covered wagon within the enclosure. In
the morning an arrow was found in the canvas of the main tent, arrows in
several of the horses and mules, and fresh moccasin tracks along the river
bank. Cassady, who was "a very Georgia Major," foolhardy and a swaggerer,
would not heed warning, but persisted there was no real danger. Next day
Savage and Leach rode to Mariposa to be at the organization of the battalion,
and in a day or so Cassadv paid the penalty for his foolhardiness. .A. detach-
ment of thirty men under Kuykendall, with Leach a private, came to seek the
72 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
remains and found them on the river bank below the post, with legs cut off,
tongue cut out and pinned with arrow over the heart and the body otherwise
mutilated. It was buried near where found.
Reports of these and other raids and murders were forwarded to Gov.
John IMcDougal by Sheriff Burney and other officials, urging immediate meas-
ures by the state for the protection of the people. It being in the air that
the Indians were rallying for concerted operations, a volunteer force made
rapid and toilsome march among the wooded mountains in pursuit and came
up with the retreating Indians high up on the Fresno. A skirmish followed,
with one man killed, and other casualties. Unorganized and with no supplies,
the pursuers were worsted, the pursued elated and the volunteers returned to
the settlements for reorganization under John J. Kuykendall.
About 100 took up the war-path and pursued the Indians to near the
north fork of the San Joaquin, encamped at an old rancheria on a round,
rugged mountain, oak and brush covered. Protected by trees and rocks, they
taunted the whites and called upon Savage to come out and be killed. He
was kept in safe reserve as his knowledge of the country and of the Indians
and their dialect could not well be spared. The leaders of the hostiles were
Juarez and Jose Rey, the special pleaders at Savage's council. Eight tribes
were represented, chief among them the Chowchillas, Kaweahs and Yose-
mites — some 500 against not to exceed 100 whites, the latter under Boling
and Kuykendall, Doss and Chandler.
The plan was for a daylight attack, setting fire to the village before the
surprise assault. The camp was routed, Rey was among the first shot down
and the Indians took flight. All was done so quickly that there was nothing
left for the reserve under Boling and Savage. The village fire spread so fast
as to endanger the camp supplies. The Indians escaped in the smoke, twenty-
three killed, no prisoners taken, number of wounded never learned. The
whites had only minor hurts. Further pursuit was useless.
A general uprising being evident, the state authorities were aroused to
action with the result of the Mariposa Battalion of 200 men being mustered
in on January 24, 1851, the settler's organization forming the nucleus of the
volunteer force with Savage riding on to Cassady's Bar to make up the com-
plement. The volunteers provided horses and equipments, the state camp sup-
plies and baggage trains, and maintenance was expected at the expense of
the United States under the direction of the commissioners. Major Ben Mc-
Cullough was offered the command in the hope of drawing the Texas Rangers
in the county, but h;e declined, having a lucrative position as collector of the
foreign miner's tax. The officers as commissioned on muster in were:
Major — James D. Savage.
Company A, seventy men — Captain, John J. Kuykendall ; Lieutenants,
John I. Scott, T. T. Rodgers and Elisha M. Smith.
Company B, seventv-two men — Captain, Tohn Boling ; Lieutenants, Reu-
ben T. Chandler, T. J. Gilbert and T. J. Hancock.
Company C, fifty-five men — Captain, William Dill ; Lieutenants. H. W.
Farrell, F. W. Russell and Fletcher Crawford.
Adjutant — M. B. Lewis. Surgeon — Dr. A. Bronson. succeeded by Leach
on resignation. Assistants — Drs. Pfeififer and Black. Field and staff, seven:
company officers and men, 197: total, 204.
Incidentally, it may be noted that there is not in the state office any
official record of the battalion, nor of this "war."
The particular duty assigned to the battalion was to subdue the Indians
on the east side of the San Joaquin and Tulare Valleys from the Tuolumne
to Tejon Pass. Ready to start, an order came to halt hostilities and the
battalion was visited by Wm. Xeely Johnson, the governor's aid and himself
governor later, and the LTnited States commissioners — George ^^^ Barbour for
whom the temporary fort was named ; Redick AIcKee afterward Indian agent,
and "th.e genial and scholarly" Dr. O. M. ^^'ozencraft, who was a member of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 7i
the constitutional convention, the party escorted by a detachment of United
States dragoons.
The commission proceeded first to investigate the cause of the war and
condition of affairs. Mission Indians were secured to notify as couriers all
tribes to come in and surrender, presents were distributed, powwows held,
and promises made of food, clothing and useful things, and while awaiting
answer horses and mules were stolen from the vicinity of the camp and in
the field. A reservation was selected on the Fresno near the foothills, a few
miles above the present Madera, eighteen or twenty miles from camp, and
headquarters established.
No active operations were undertaken, aside from scouting parties, so
deliberate were the commissioners. But the mountain would not come to
Mohammed, and so Mohammed went to the mountain. The mountain tribes
would not come in, and so it was resolved to go after them. Major Savage
and Boling's and Dill's companies to scour the region of the San Joaquin
and Merced, and Kuykendall to operate on the Kings and Kaweah. A Noot-
choo rancheria on the south fork of th.e Merced was the first to be surprised.
Bishop's Camp or fort was established and the Indians transferred to the
Fresno. Runners were sent to the mountains, a small band of Pohonochees
from the Merced divide came in, and next Tenieya, chief of the Yosemites, in
response to a special envoy. Surrender? Perish the thought! Forward,
March ! to the village to bring them in, even to follow them to their lurking
places in "the deep canyon."
CHAPTER XI
Mariposa Indian War Campaign of Starvation and Village
Burnings. Chief Tenieya Obstructs Entry Into the Val-
ley. Chowchillas and Yosemites Remain Obdurate.
Discovery of the Great Valley. Favorite Son Killed and
Tenieya Held Captive at the End of a Rope. End of the
War. Yosemites Exterminated by the Monos for Ill-
requited Hospitality. Their Ch'ief is Stoned to Death.
Reservation System Unpopular.
Tenieya was a wily, voluble and rascally old fellow, who with one plea
or another prevented or delayed the march to the valley. Had the rangers
been left to themselves, they would have made short work of th,e campaign,
but they were bound by the orders of the commissioners, and much time h.ad
been frittered away with powwows and procrastination. Patience at last
ceased to be a virtue.
Volunteers were called for the "Deep Canyon" Party and Boling's and
Dill's companies stepped out as if on parade, but the select were chosen after
a footrace in the snow, the inspiration of Boling. A camp guard was left be-
hind of the distanced. At last the start was made in the snow, trailing in
single file, Savage leading, Tenieya an unwilling guide, and the party entered
the valley on March 21, 1851, the first appearance of the white man.
This was the very thing that Tenieya had tried to prevent, because of
a traditional prophecy. A great medicine man, a friend of his father, induced
him to leave th.e Mono tribe of his mother, and as their chief establish him-
self in the valley of his ancestors with a few descendants of the Ahwahnee-
chees and other renegades, who had been living with the Monos and Paiutes.
The patriarch, had prophesied that while in possession of the valley the tribe
would increase and become powerful, he cast a protective spell upon it, but
cautioned that, if ever the horsemen of the lowlands (the Spaniards) entered.
74 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the tribe would be scattered and destroyed, his people taken captive and he
be the last chief. The rangers' stay in the valley was limited to three days,
because the provisions were exhausted, and the return to camp was taken up
with some 350 Indians, including seventy-five surrendered Yosemites, all
of whom save one, escaped from Boling and nine men, on the night before
the last day's march to the reservation. Most of the runaways were retaken
on pursuit.
But the Yosemites and Chowchillas refusing to leave their haunts, new
campaigns were necessary against each, first against the Chowchillas en-
camped on the north fork of the San Joaquin. The march was taken via
Coarse Gold and a circuitous route on which Crane Valley was located and
named. Savage was called away as interpreter to treat with Kaweahs sent
in from the south by Kuykendall. who in season ended the campaign against
the Tulare valleyites by vigorous operations in the valleys, foothills and
mountains of the Kings and Kaweah Rivers, chasing them even into the
high Sierras.
Roling in command headed for the Chowchillas' camp. They fled de-
moralized, Rey, their chief, having died from his wounds. They surrendered,
subdued by hunger and swift pursuit, and though after the Yosemites
the most warlike Uiey proved the most tractable and reliable of the mountain
tribes.
For the second valley expedition some of Kuykendall's men at head-
quarters volunteered with the supply train. Dill, with part of his company,
was retained at headquarters as guard, while Gilbert with part of h.is, reported
to Boling. Dr. PfeifTer was placed in charge of a temporary battalion hospi-
tal. Surgeon Bronson resigned to reap the returns of his negro slaves mining
on Sherlock's Creek, Leach succeeded him and Dr. Black went with Boling,
who marched on against the Yosemites into th.e valley, sending out scouting
and searching parties, burning wigwams and acorn stores to starve out the
band after it was evident temporizing had no results. This was the plan
throughout the Mariposa Indian War, as it was called. Three sons of
Tenieya were the first captured in the valley.
Escapes of individuals from camp left two captives, w^ho were fastened
to an oak tree, tied back to back, while scouts went out to surround and
seize Tenieya. The captives loosened themselves, deliberately observed by
the guards, and starting to run were fired upon, and one who was killed
proved to be Tenieya's youngest and favorite son. Lieutenant Chandler and
scouts returned with the captured chief, and the latter's first sight in camp
was the body of his son. It broke the old chief's heart, and he manifested
it in moody silence, or alternative laments and tirades, so that "hardly any
one could help sympathize with him in his great sorrow."
Tenieya was "a greedy and filthy glutton" though, and it is related by
Dr. Lafayette H. Bunnell, M. D., volunteer surgeon of the battalion and
its historian, that surfeited with fat pork and beans and soldier rations he
became dyspeptic and begged to be put out to grass in the meadows. The
novel sight was presented of the chief staked out at the end of a rope in
the hand of his guard grazing upon young clover, sorrel, fresh ferns and
bulbous roots.
The rangers remained in the valley for about one month, ever on the
move to locate and bring in recalcitrants, and Bunnell as the most senti-
mental one naming most of the valley points of interest. About June, and
no more Yosemites to be located in th.e valley, Boling advanced higher into
the mountains to a large lake on the north fork of the Merced ten miles
northeast of the valley, observing which Tenieya employed every artifice to
divert him and made several escape attempts. Here on June 5, the remainder
of the tribe was found and made captive, half starved and in a miserable
state from the privations of the close pursuit. Th.ere were thirty-five, nearly
all part of Tenieya's family. Oft to the reservation they were marched, and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 75
the lake was named for the old chief. The "war"' was ended. The com-
missioners had gone to the Kings River Farm to treat with the bands col-
lected th.ere. There being no more hostiles from the Tuolumne to the Tejon,
the battalion was mustered out on July 25. 1851, at Buckeye Creek, midway
between Bridgeport and Mariposa. . . . The reported last survivor of
the battalion was Robert Eccleston, pioneer resident of Forbestown, Butte
County, who died in Oakland, Cal., on February 1, 1914, at the age of eighty-
one years. He came overland and was a cattle raiser near Forbestown. The
muster roll shows that he was a private in Company C, enlisted as a New
Yorker at the age of twenty-one.
At the reservation Tenieya was never much in favor. He was "set in
his ways, obstinate and exacting" — "cranky" in other words — and the other
Indians taunted him with his downfall. He chafed under the contemptuous
treatment and asked for leave of absence, pleading that he could not endure
the heat of the sun and preferred his acorn diet to the government rations.
Nothing loath to be rid of him with the endless squabbling, he was released
and trailed back to the valley with the remnant of his relatives. Others were
allowed in time to go and early in May, 1852, some of these ticket of leave
absentees ambushed Coarse Gold Gulch,, French prospectors, who had en-
tered the valley.
Rose and Charbon were killed and Tudor seriously wounded but
escaped and arrived at Coarse Gold later in August. The news spread alarm
and there was fear that the excited Indians at the reservation would desert
and another outbreak would result. In fact those encamped outside hurried
to the agencies for protection lest they be picked ofi in revenge for the latest
murders. Lieutenant, Moore from Fort Miller was sent with: soldiers to
punish the Indians and entered the valley by night. One of his volunteer
scouts was A. A. ( Gus) Gray, who had been in Boling's company and after-
wards was a captain in Walker's Nicaragua filibuster expedition. The party
captured five of the murderers. Tenieya apprised by a scout of all that fol-
lowed kept in seclusion. The murderers did not deny the accusation and
wearing part of the apparel of the dead Moore did not bandy words but
summarily pronounced judgment and ordered them shot, which was done.
To justify himself or to allay public curiosity, Moore published a letter
in the Mariposa Chronicle descriptive of the expedition. In this letter the
word "Yosemity" was for the first time written "Yosemite." It attracted
attention and the changed orthography has continued since. The "autocratic
power" assumed in shooting the Indians was at the time the subject of
public criticism. To iloore attaches the credit of being the first to draw the
attention of the scientific and literary world to the wonders of the Yosemite
Valley, his position as an army officer establishing a reputation for the facts
that another correspondent might not have commanded.
Tenieya had fled across the range to the Monos. He had nothing to
do with the murders but Moore followed in close pursuit. Tenieya knew
the mountains better and escaped, skulking among the clififs and chasms,
driven from pillar to post. Moore finally gave up the pursuit and Tenieya
returned, late in 1853, to the valley, followed by some of his veteran incor-
rigibles. The Monos and Paiutes returned one day from a successful South-
ern California foray, and the Yosemites ill repaid the hospitality of their
former hosts by making of? with some of their stolen horses. The Monos in
revenge set upon the Yosemites with Tenieya as the principal object of at-
tack, while at a horse meat banquet. One young Mono chief, having spent
all his arrows, hurled a rock with such force as to crush in Tenieya's skull,
and others cast rocks upon the prostrate body until in accord with, the
Paiute custom he was literally stoned to death and buried under a pile of
rocks. All but eight of Tenieya's young braves were killed.
Hittell describes the finale: "The IMonos then pursued the other Indians
and killed all, except some very old persons who were allowed to escape
76 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
and some young- women and children, whom they carried into captivity
across th.e mountains. There was no longer any Yosemite tribe, nor so
far as known any living being of Tenieya's blood. He was in truth the last
of the Yosemites." The Independent Order of Red i\Ien tribe at IMadera
has taken for its name that of the Last of the Yosemites.
Success did not crown the labors of the commissioners in treaty making
and establishing reservations. There was a lurking but strong suspicion
that they knew little about the country and much less concerning Indians,
that everything they did was a mistake and not infrequently in excess of
their powers. They travelled in style like a circus caravan and at consid-
erable public expense, with dragoon escort and accomplished little of im-
portance or lasting benefit, while making presents and being lavish in prom-
ises for little or no return value. Their treaties were disapproved and nearly
all the debts contracted were repudiated as unauthorized. The established
reservations were almost useless, and very unpopular. Governors jNIcDougal
and Bigler opposed th.em in the legislative messages, McDougal favoring
removal of the Indians beyond the state, and Bigler denouncing the reserva-
tion system as wrong, fraught with evil to whites and Indians, calculated
to irritate collisions and imposing heavy burdens on the government.
The work and its results proved so unsatisfactory that the commission
was abolished and Congress adopted a new system with Indian agents as
managers, and the valley reservation Indians were liberated after about four
years of restrictions. The Indian question was one which gave the legisla-
tures of the 50's much concern, but the old state of affairs continued and
the extermination went on.
During the summer of 1853, Dr. Bunnell and E. G. Barton traded and
mined on the Merced on the north side, several miles above the north fork,
but that winter the place was plundered, desolated and the two men in
charge murdered. The body of one was pierced nine times with five arrows
still quivering in the flesh when found. Boling was then sheriff' of Mariposa
County, but the case was beyond his jurisdiction, the supposition being that
the crime was perpetrated by Tuolumne renegades once under Tenieya and
that they were on the Upper Tuolumne.
The last serious Indian outbreak in the valley was in the summer of
1856, when the Four Creeks of Tulare went on the warpath. Volunteer com-
panies ran them down in six weeks, and there has not been another uprising
since. Fresno County contributed some fifty rangers for this campaign, the
Millerton and vicinity company under Ira Stroud and the Coarse Gold and
Fresno River company under John L. Hunt.
CHAPTER XII
Savage a Picturesque Character. The Most Able of the Squaw
Men. Consorted With Indians Nearly All His Life. He
Had Five Squaws as Wives. Wielded Great Influence
Among the Mountain Tribes. A Thumbnail Sketch of
Him. Wagered His Weight in Gold on Turn of a Card.
Indian Affairs in Hands of a Political Ring. Savage
Cowardly Murdered in Defense of Indians. Slayer
Released After a Farcical Inquiry.
This Major James D. Savage, so prominent in the Mariposa Indian War,
was one of the remarkable and picturesque characters connected with the
early days of the valley. His death was a violent one. It was said of him
that he was of those "not unfrequently found upon the confines of civilization,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 77
who combined great, though uncultivated, strength of intellect with great,
though not unkindly, coarseness in the conduct of life."
Before the day of the white woman in California, some of the early
residents took up relations with squaws, even to marrying them. Most of
these men were described as "coarse in manners and low in character, but
some were in various respects superior men," who had yielded to their
environments. Savage, it is agreed, was "the most prominent and perhaps
the most able" of all these so-called squaw men. The marriage of Indian
women by white men involved the latter's degradation to the Indian's level,
and never in a recorded instance elevated the woman to anything like social
equality with the whites. It also meant for the white man racial and social
ostracism.
Savage emigrated overland to California in 1846. The earliest mention
of him is as a member of Company F, Fremont's California Battalion in the
California insurrection. He is named in a directory of New Helvetia ( Sut-
ter's Fort), and also as one of the most troublesome malcontents in the bat-
talion, necessitating a general courtmartial of them in December, 1846-47.
He had been a trapper and mountaineer and consorted with Indians the
greater part of his life, familiar with their customs, readily mastering their
dialects, wielding wide influence among them, besides later acquiring wealth
by his business methods. He was one of the Philadelphia party that located,
with Rev. James Woods on the Tuolumne at Wood's Crossing or Wood's
Creek in the early summer of 1848.
He also worked the Big Oak Flat diggings, fifteen or twenty miles south
of the rich Sonora gold placers, so named on account of a big oak tree on one
of the main travelled routes to the Yosemite and later so familiarly known.
At the Flat mining in 1849. he employed Indians, whom he paid in blankets
and provisions, constituting himself also protector of their interests against
white encroachments. He developed a faculty for dealing with the Indians
and contracting domestic relations with them, ^\'hile doing a lucrative busi-
ness as an employer and supplier, a quarrel arose at the rancheria and a
Texan was arrowheaded to death. The whites rushed to arms. Indians were
killed, strained relations resulted looking to a war, but Savage pacified the
Indians and they moved higher up into the mountains.
Afterward, in 1850, he opened a trading post on the south fork of the
Merced, employing Indians and marrying according to mountain men cus-
tom the five daughters of as many capitanejos. By reason of the connections
with as many tribes, he commanded general influence and strengthened his
personal safety among the Mariposa Indians. His wealth was reported to be
not less than $100,000. He was such a powerful agency that the governor
hesitated not to commission him major of the ranger battalion. His services
moreover were indispensable as interpreter in the treaty making negotiations
with the surrendering or captured tribes. The lawless and predatory Yose-
mites on the headwaters of the Merced alone were beyond his authority and
persuasion.
At the Merced post he did business on the principle of hiring every
Indian that would work, taking all the gold dust but scrupulously paying
in hardware or whiskey, ounce for ounce, pound for pound. Not alone was
he a man of mark, widely known in the district but throughout a consider-
able part of the state. The Yosemites drove him from the Merced to Aqua
Fria on the JNIariposa in 1850, and he established a branch post on th.e Fresno
as related. Galen Clark, who died in Oakland, Cal., March 24, 1910, at the
age of ninety-six, said that Savage was perhaps the best friend of the Indians
while in captivity.
A letter written from Hart's ranch on January 16, 1851, by T. G. Palmer
of Newark, N. J., as a member of the battalion to his father gives this thumb-
nail sketch of Savage:
"From his long acquaintance with the Indians, Mr. Savage had learned
78 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
their ways so thoroughly that they cannot deceive him. He has been one
of their great chiefs and speaks their language as well as they can them-
selves. No dog can follow a trail like he can. No horse can endure as much.
He sleeps but little, can go days without food and can run 100 miles in a
day and a night over the mountains, and then sit and laugh for hours over
a campfire as fresh and lively as if he had just been taking a little walk
for exercise. He pointed out their fires, could hear them sing and could smell
them, but his eyes were the only ones that could see, his ears alone could
hear and his nose smell anything unusual."
As illustrative of the ways of the man, it is related that at the Fresno
branch h,e kept an electro magnetic battery and with its mysterious opera-
tion worked upon the superstition of his Indian hangers on. Also that on
the visit to San Francisco in October, 1850, when he took along 600 pounds
Troy weight of gold to safe-deposit and to make purchases, the lure of the
gaming table seized him. and presumably in the famous El Dorado tent at
Washington and Kearney Streets he leaped on the table and setting foot
on the card wagered his weight in gold on the turn of the wheel — and lost.
He was an ignorant man, but naturally shrewd, unable to read or write, but
one of such positivism that he made many warm friends as well as impla-
cable foes. Though in directing command of the battalion. Savage gave most
of his attention to the palavering commissioners. The business connections
with the treaties were transacted principally through him as the medium.
The mission interpreters translated the Indian dialects into Spanish, these
were rendered into English by Spanish interpreters of the commission, while
Savage conducted the preliminaries and acted as ' a check on the dialect
translations.
After the war, Indian affairs fell into the hands of politicians and a
ring, and the pot was kept simmering to influence congressional action,
or the war department, for liberal estimates for the California Indian service.
The excitement was largely local, the Indians remaining quietly on the
reservations, as they did for about four years, under a loose supervision.
They were envied for the possession of the Kings River Farm, and a few
whites were ready to squat on the land whenever the redman was driven
ofif. This element' was headed by one Walter H. Harvey, who was the first
county judge of Tulare. Handy hangers-on asserted claim to the reserva-
tion, the Indians on the rancheria warned them off, they were fired upon and
several squaws were killed.
Savage denounced the agitations and murders, asserting that Harvey
was the responsible cause of them. Mariposans knew little concerning the
affair as the Kings River was such a distant outpost. There had, however,
been strong opposition against the commissioners' location of two reserva-
tions in one county and the selection of the best farming land for them. It
was openly declared that the reservation system, pretty in theory, was so
mismanaged as to be one of neglect of the Indians and a fraud on the govern-
ment. Bunnell asserts that while Tenieya and family were in the mountains
subsisting on acorns the cost of their rations and support at the reservation
was regularly charged up, and that estimates for appropriations were de-
ceptive and "ten times more than the truth would warrant," so well estab-
lished was the "California Indian Ring."
Savage successfully pursued his trade with the miners on the Fresno and
surrounding territory and the Indians of the reservation, besides those of
the Kings "Farm, exciting jealous ire. Self interest prompted him to keep
the Indians pacified, but nevertheless he denounced Harvey and his asso-
ciates as deserving punishment, all of which came to their ears. Harvey and
Sub-agent Campbell in common cause denounced Savage in return. _ Harvey
assailed Savage's integrity and boasted that he would not dare visit Kings
River while he (Harvey)' was there. Savage rode over on the forenoon of
August 16, 1852. He demanded a retraction of the offensive personal re-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 79
marks. Harvey refused, saying that Savage had been talking about him.
"Yes," repUed Savage, 'T have said that you are a murderer and a
coward."
Harvey retreated a pace and passed the He. Savage struck him in the
face and his pistol fell out of his shirtwaist. Quartermaster John G. Marvin
picked up the weapon and Harvey asserted that ]\Iarvin had disarmed him,
but the latter corrected him. Instantly Harvey fired with his own pistol
five times, and Savage fell mortally wounded at the first shot. Marvin stood
by during the encounter with Savage's pistol in hand too scared or too
cowardly to interfere.
Harvey was discharged after a farce of an examination by Joel H.
Brooks as the justice, a personal friend of Harvey and a fellow who had
fed on Savage's bounty. Brooks was specially appointed to conduct the
examination. Afterward he fathered a series of articles assailing the Indian
management, but was silenced with congenial employment at one of the
agencies. Harvey left the country later in mortal fear that the Indians would
avenge Savage's murder. According to Bunnell, "th.e ghost of Major Savage
seemed to have haunted him, for ever after he was nervous and irritable and
finally died of paralysis" — and drink.
The body of Savage was, in 1855, exhumed and removed to the Fresno
near his old trading post on the J. G. Stitt Adobe Ranch, a few miles east of
Madera. A ten-foot shaft on a pedestal was there erected to his memory
by Dr. Leach, his successor in business. The shaft is of Connecticut marble,
cost $800, and the monument weighing many tons was shipped from Connec-
ticut by water to Stockton and from there transported overland on a speci-
ally made truck, drawn by eight horses. It bears the simple inscription,
"Maj. Jas. D. Savage."
Dr. Bunnell relates as a conversation had with Savage over a prospec-
tive business connection this :
"Doc, while you study books. I study men. I am not often very much
deceived, and I perfectly understand the present situation, but let those
laugh who win. If I can make good my losses by the Indians out of the
Indians, I am going to do it. I was the best friend the Indians had and
they would have destroyed me. Now that they once more call me 'Chief
they shall build me up. I will be just to them, as I have been merciful, for
after all they are but poor ignorant beings, but my losses must be made
good."
Bunnell gives credit to Savage for many noble qualities — manly cour-
age, generous hospitality, unyielding devotion to friends, and kindness to
immigrant strangers, but admits that he had "serious defects but such as
would naturally result from a misdirected education and a strong will." He
seemed to justify his course in using the opportunity to make himself whole
again, while acting as a trader and in aiding others to secure "a good thing,"
by the sophism that he was not responsible for the action of the commis-
sioners or of Congress.
80 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XIII
Permanent Settling Up of Fresno a Slow and Tedious Process.
Early Record of Locators is Scant. Millerton Was at Its
Zenith in 1853. First Locations of Trading Posts and
Mining Camps. Centerville a Pioneer Flourishing Com-
munity. A Remembered Oasis in the Desert. Earliest
Glimpse of the Future County Seat. Established Indi-
viduals AND Partnerships According to First Assessment
Rolls of 1856-57.
Permanent settlement of Mariposa county's Fresno territory was slow
and tedious. With only a narrow fringe of placer mines, confronting a great
expanse of arid plains in the center and on the west, and backed by an
equally uninviting ruggedness along the Sierra slopes, it was deemed to
have few attractions for the white settler. The Indian troubles tended to
hold t^ck settlers, and so the few were restricted to the northeastern placers,
with"^ light sprinkling of stockmen and farmers elsewhere.
In connection with General Riley's visit to the placers, a reconnoissance
of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys was made with a view of estab-
lishing military posts to defend the miners and settlers. From the character
of the mining population and the nature of their occupations, Riley advised
that unless a strong military force were maintained on "the frontier." it
would be impossible to prevent the outrages upon the Indians, and these in
turn avenged by murders of isolated parties of whites. He urged that a
militarv post be speedily established in the Kings River neighborhood, be-
cause the new gold discoveries being made in this vicinity were attracting
miners, while the rapidly increasing population of the northern placers was
gradually forcing the Indian to the south to congregate on the waters of
Lake Buena Vista in the Tulare country. The later Fort Miller was one re-
sult, and it was the only military protection afiforded the entire valley "fron-
tier" as far south as Fort Tejon.
The record of early settlements and events in the Fresno territory is
scant. Up to 1856, it is officially a part of the archives of ^lariposa County.
Newspaper there was none until the ]\Iillerton Times in January, 1865. It
lasted two and one-half months, and then there was a hiatus until .\pril,
1870. Both were weekly apologies, which gave what little news they chose
to gather and color in the presentation after it had been popularly threshed
over during the week and was as stale as a last year's bird nest, ^^'hat
newspaper publicity may have been given was in far away journals by
volunteer correspondents when the mood took them to send them a few
lines. The actors, who participated in the early events, have nearly all
passed away, and the story is necessarily a patchwork of fugitive-recorded
recollections of the pioneers and th.e traditions handed down through their
descendants. These are not always reliable because the memory of man is
at best treacherous.
This slow settlement-process was due to various natural causes. It was
scattered because the first comers located in the mountain gulches and on
streams where there was gold, and the farmer where there was soil and
water. Moreover the population was of the floating class, with little thought
of permanency in location. Besides, the territory was so isolated and so
remote from the county seat that actually for years there were communities
without the semblance of authoritative government, unless in the repressive
representation by the military at the fort, and it having nothing to do with
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 81
matters civil. No wonder that there were excesses and that human Ufe
was valued at so little in -those wild and woolly times. For years, there was
unrest because of the Indians. The nearest populous stage points were
Stockton, 140, and Visalia, 120 miles, by the routes traveled then. Yet Mil-
lerton was a lively enough mining village in 1853, during which and for later
years it was at its zenith, but with some of its glory and life departed on
the abandonment of the fort and the removal of the soldiers in September,
1856, not to be reoccupied until August, 1863, because of rumored activities
in the valley during the Civil \\'ar by adherents of the southern cause.
EARLIEST TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENTS
The earliest settlement in the territory was of course Savage's trading
post of 1850, above Leach's old store on the Fresno River, which was after-
ward part of the county's northern boundary line. Next was very likely
Rootville, the mining camp on the San Joaquin on the later site of Millerton,
antedating even Fort or Camp Barbour, temporary headquarters of the
commissioners during a part of the Mariposa Indian War and succeeded by
the permanent Fort Miller. The peace treaty was signed in the camp on
April 29, 1851. Upon return from the starvation campaign against the Chow-
chillas before that date, Fort Miller was being built for the protection of
the settlers. It was named for Captain Miller, its first garrison commander.
but was not established until 1852, and Rootville and Fort Barbour changed
names accordingly. There was a Fort Washington further down the river
on the site of a vaquero corral of 1849, according to tradition : but this is
little more than a tradition.
This fort was below Rootville at Gravelly Ford on the river, and was
the location of Cassady & Lane's post, where Cassady was killed and a
previous massacre of several persons had occurred in the series that led
to the Mariposa Indian War. It was hurriedly thrown up as an earthwork
defense in expectancy of hostilities and was located above the present Lane's
(Yosemite) bridge and below Little Dry Creek on land afterward of the V.
B. Cobb ranch. The school district there still bears the name of Fort Wash-
ington. Cassady was surprised and killed while beyond reach of succor in
search of stray stock. Certain it is that Cassady & Lane had post and camp
operating in January, 1851, and possibly before.
After peace on the treaty signing. Savage put up a second store in
the summer of 1851 on the Fresno, moving in the winter further down the
stream to Bishop's camp or fort, before which the Fresno reservation had
been selected on the Fresno. That summer Coarse Gold Gulch was a bus-
tling mining camp, and Texas Flat was booming, Rooney & Thornburg keep-
ing a store there. Fine Gold Gulch was probably also in existence then.
Another Indian war threatening in October, 1851, Coarse Gold was depopu-
lated by the miners, save for a half dozen, including William Abbie, but be-
fore December they returned and C. P. Converse and T. C. Stallo opened a
store one and one-half miles below Texas Flat in charge of Samuel H. P.
Ross, nicknamed "Alphabetical" Ross, afterward district attorney of Merced
County.
Asa Johnson came then, with three negroes and a wench, in the summer
of 1852. He killed Thomas Larrabee and upon acquittal left the country.
Stallo & Converse discontinued their store in the spring of 1852 and were
succeeded by the Walker brothers, James N. and C. F., who continued until
1859. James was twice in the legislature in 1863 and 1871, and was sherilT
and tax collector, elected in 1867 and in 1869.
In 1852 John Ledford and Geo. M. Carson erected a store at Fresno
Crossing, but soon sold to J. L. Hunt, elected in 1856 as one of the first county
supervisors and four times reelected between 1860 and 1865. and to I. R.
Nichols, who sold to J. M. Roan, who did not qualify in 1856, wherefore
82 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Hunt's special election but who went to the legislature in 1858. In October,
1854, Jefferson M. Shannon and S. B. Coffee engaged at Coarse Gold in
the hog business, making large profits in selling pork for three years at
twenty-five cents a pound and more, to Chinese miners. In 1854 T. J. Payne
had a store at Fine Gold in charge of J. S. Ashman and one Julius William
Aldrich. Ashman was sheriff four times, elected in 1865, 1871 and 1875 and
appointed in 1874. In 1856 T. J. Allen kept restaurant and bar at Roan's
store on the Fresno, officiating also as justice of the peace and being a law
unto himself in holding a trial before a jury of three for a civil debt of $350
when the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace was limited to $299.99. But
almost anything "went" in those days.
Among some of the foremost at Millerton were in 1852-53: Dr. Lewis
Leach, C. P. Converse, T. C. Stallo, Hugh Carlin, T. J. Allen, Hugh A. Car-
roll, L. G. Hughes, Ira Stroud, Charles A. Hart, first county judge and sub-
sequent owner of the Millerton townsite and of the fort, which was his
home until death. Dr. Du Gay, Henry Burrough., John McLeod, William
Rousseau, besides others. In 1854 Ira McCray and George Rivercombe,
first elected county treasurer, and again in 1859 and 1860, engaged in the
hotel and livery business at Millerton, Rivercombe retiring early, leaving
McCray to "coin money" over his bar, his gambling tables and his ferry
directly opposite the court house entrance. In 1855 George Grierson, Otto
Froelich and Gomer Evans located as general merchants, Grierson returning
with family in May, 1868, to Denmark, Evans removing to San Francisco
as bookkeeper and cashier for Parrott & Co., the bankers, and Froelich con-
tinuing until 1872, when with the general exodus he came to Fresno and
became prominent in banking and commercial circles.
On the Upper Kings, about 1852, was a thriving settlement with John
Poole establishing the first ferry across the river and located there was
\\'illiam Y. Scott, the second sheriff of the county elected in 1858. for whom
the place was named. Scott was popularly known as "Monte" because when
he and Hazleton came to these parts they brought with them a monte layout.
Scottsburg was washed away by a flood, but th.e settlement was rebuilt on
higher land. It named itself Centerville and was in its day a flourishing
community, but because of a like named older village in Alameda County it
locked horns with the postal authorities and was not recognized officially
save as "Kings River." Centerville as the name staid, was at one time the
most populous village in the county, saving Fresno, the seat, and held the
balance of political power. Today it is a collection of weath.erbeaten rooker-
ies, and little more than a memory of the past, having been superseded by
the bustling town of Sanger in the Kings River bottoms in the center of
the pioneer orange and citrus belt of the county. Among the earliest Cen-
tervillians may be named ; W. W. Hill, supervisor in 1863, and treasurer
from 1867. until his death in 1874, the Smoot and Akers families. P. W.
Fink. A. M. Darwin and E. C. Ferguson. John A. Patterson, William Hazle-
ton, C. F. Cherry, Jesse Morrow of th.e Morrow House, which stood so long
on the site of the federal building in Fresno. Richard and William Glenn,
William Deakin. ^^'illiam J. Hutchinson, the village blacksmith and countv
assessor from 1883 to 1891. and others engaged in agriculture and stock
raising.
Another busy settlement was the New Idria quicksilver mine on the
West Side (now in San Benito County) with its Cornish and Mexican min-
ers. Its development was long retarded by protracted litigation over the
William McGarrahan claim, which was prosecuted in the end to the Ignited
States supreme court. It was about 1854 that L. A. Whitmore established
the first ferry across the lower Kings at where the town of Kingston was
located. He was killed and O. H. Bliss succeeded him and maintained it
but discontinued it for a bridge and sold the property after a time to John
Sutherland. Mr. Bliss had flower beds, green hedges, arbors and bowers
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
about the ferry station, it being remembered as a veritable garden oasis
the desert. He announced his activities in the following fashion:
O. H. BLISS
Notary Public
and WELLS, FARGO & CO.'S AGENT
KINGSTON FERRY
Mr. Bliss has a fine and commodious
LIVERY STABLE
For the accommodation of travelers
BLISS' FERRY at Kingston is the best and safest crossing on King's Riv^r.
A FIRST GLIMPSE OF MILLERTON
The earliest glimpse of Millerton is furnished in the itinerary notes of
Mineralogist William P. Parks, who, in 1853, was with the Williamson
government topographical survey of the California interior for a transcon-
tinental railroad route. The party left the United States arsenal at Benicia
Barracks, July 10, 1853, coming up the valley via Livermore Pass and Elk-
horn and camped several days at Fort Miller on arrival July 25. The itiner-
ary notes :
"Gold is found in the bed of the river in considerable quantity. It is
mostly very fine scale gold and it is difficult to separate it from the black
sand, which is abundant and heavy. Groups of gold washers and Chinamen
were engaged along the banks, either washing out the gold in a common
pan or using the 'cradle.' A panful of sand and gravel taken up anywhere
on the surface of the first bench of the river would 'show color' on being
washed out. This term 'color' has passed into general use among the miners,
denoting the presence of just sufficient gold to be well recognized. One of
the miners was working his claim with a cradle and employed two Indians
to dig and bring the auriferous earth and gravel. He was obtaining about
one ounce per day.
"Some of the officers of the army at Fort Miller were constructing a
canal along the bed of the stream into which they were intending to turn
the water of the river when at its lowest stage and thus be enabled to obtain
the sand of its bed which: was supposed to be extremely rich in gold.
"The Indians collect about the fort in great numbers during the winter,
as many as five or six hundred being there at one time. They live in the
usual manner — in brush huts — a short distance below the fort. They make
beautiful baskets or trays of a strong round grass, which they weave so
tightly and evenly that the baskets will hold water, and they are sometimes
used to hold water while it is made to boil by throwing in heated stones.
One mile below the fort is the ferrv across the river. The trade is chiefly
with, emigrants, miners and the Indians.
"During our stay at camp. Captain Love at the head of a party of
rangers arrived, bringing with him the head of the notorious robber chief,
Joaquin Muerto fMurieta). They had surprised Joaquin with his party in a
pass of the Coast Range and after a short fight, shot him through the head.
(Note was also made that the rangers had been obliged to swim one of the
sloughs in what is now called the West Side and that one of the prisoners
was drowned.)
"The temperature of this valley or at least of our camp ground is
worthy of note. Each day was like the preceding and the unclouded sun
seemed to have a remarkable heating power. The high hills on each side
prevented a free circulation of air and reflected back the heat. The thermom-
eter during the middle part of the day seldom indicated a temperature
lower th.an 96 degrees F. and generallv stood from 100 degrees to 104
degrees in the shade, in some localities 115 degrees."
84 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
LISTED ON ASSESSMENT ROLLS
It goes without saying that in those unsettled early days of the 50's-
directories were unknown. In fact none was published in the county until
the small afifair of the spring of 1881, the names for which were "chased up"
by R. W. Riggs, the photographer and historian of Pine Ridge, and S. L.
Pettit, a nephew of Petroleum V. Nasby, the humorist philosopher. The
pretentious county directory was in 1899-1900, but the assessment rolls for
1856 and 1857, unearthed for this history, list the subjoined established indi-
viduals and business partnerships for the first two years of county organiza-
tion, and it is to be presumed that few were overlooked. Incidentally the
rolls disclose the fact that canines were assessed $1.50 for the male and $3
for the female dog. The listed are:
1856— B. A. Andrews, Harvey Akers, Henry Adams, Frank Armstrong, Aaron Arnold,.
R. A. Appling, Thos. J. Allen, J. B. Aldrich, Fernando Ardero.
1857— Ah Sam & Co., Ah Quie, John Anderson, J. S. Ashman, \Vm. Adshead, Ah
Kow, C. Abell.
Wm, T., Jerrj- and Chas. BrowTi, Wilev and Henr\' Burroughs, Brown & Hadden,
David Beebe, Thos. Boyce, Benj. M. Branson, Leo. Boldero, W. W. Bourland, John
Besore, Tohn Bostick, T. H. and Alex Ball, A. C. Bullock, F. L. Barthold, Isaac Baker,
Geo. F.,'T. W. E. and Q. M. Brown, T. B. Brown & Co., Robert Bransford, A. H. and
W. C. Bradley.
1857— M. 'D. Bullard, P. A. Banta, C. Benbrook, Bufford & Bullock, Burroughs &
Hughes, M. Bergen.
W. I. and Samuel B. Campbell, Hugh A. Carroll, E. J. Curr}', W. D. Chapman, Wm.
P. Cruikshank, Geo. M. Carson, S. M. Cunningham, S. B. Coffee, J. G. Clark, Samuel
Chidester, Hugh Carlin, Chung Chong & Co., Carman, Mcintosh & Wilson, Ocenitio
Coetro, S. F. Cummings, Chas. P. Converse, Andrew Cathay.
1857— A. Coffey, Carson & Parks, Coffee & Shannon, Crow & Thwing, J. P. Cruik-
shank, Hewlett Clark, Homer Cogswell, A. Chambers, E. G. Campbell, C. Castro, Carman
& Co., J. G. Collins, W. C. Carville, A. P. Cromble.
Samuel Dinlev, Moses Damron, Jack Delo, Donelson & Linton, Wm. & L. D. Doug-
lass, F. B. C. Duff.
1857 — A. Drumm, Wm. Darwin.
Gomer Evans, Raphaele Europe, F. M. Edgar, F. M. Eagan, Selander Eubank.
Levi D., Tosiah and Wm. Ferguson, Mathew Frouth, Fitzgerald & Co., Robt. I. Finch,.
Samuel Frakes & Co., T. B. Fofsom. Fisher & Gill, Geo. N. and Robt. J. Finch, Fort
Miller W. & M. Co., reduced from $25,000 to $10,000.
1857— Frakes & Yancey, Faust & Parish, Wm. Faymonville, Richard, James M. and W.
Glenn, Geo. M. Garish, John Gilmore, Stephen Gaster & Co., Jos. R. Gashwiler.
1857 — A. B. Grovemv, Pat Gibney, Geo. Grierson, A. Gore, Geo Goforth, Daniel
Gibbs.
Thos Hucklebv, Wm. J. Harris, Jacob Howell, John R. Hughes, Hughes & Co., John
L. Hunt & Co., Chas. A. Hart, Herold & Harrison, Hildreth & Rea, W. W. Hill & Fink,.
John Hughes.
1857— Henry Hickman, Hunt & Nichols, Ly Mon Mong, J. T. Hamlet, Geo. S.
Harden, H. E. Howard, Hazelton & Patterson, Henr\- Havs, Thos. and T. E. Haddon,.
T. F. Hitchcock, David Hucklebv, Clark Hoxie, Harrison & Herrill, Thos. Hurst, A.
"Heath, E. P. Hart, Henrice & Co.
1857— Wm. and Robt. Innes.
Jacobs & Co., Henr\- lewett, Tohnson & Co., John Johnson.
1857— D. J. and E.' Johnson, Martha Jones.
Ah Kon.g, Sin Kav, Keith & Ridgwav.
1857— Ed'wd. King. "
John Ledford, Samuel S. Lovejoy, A. Layne & Co., Dr. Lewis Leach, S. H., M. B. and
Jonathan Lewis, Levi Loler.
1857— Robert Larrimore, J. H., T. M. and W. M. M. Lewis, P. Lynch, Samuel Langdon.
Samuel McClatchey, Henry Matterson, Gabriel Moore, A. McRobinson, Mayfield &
Co., J. R. Munn & Co., Samuel Mcintosh, Levi Mitchell, J. Y. Moore, Ira McCray & Co.,
W. A. McCreary & Co., Andrew McKenna, Bertha Mathew, Robt. Murray, Beveano'
Moraga, Labran Mathews, Herman Mathews, Herman Masters, R. P. Mace.
1857 — Henry Myers, Henr\- Mann, J. D. Mace, Thos. Maguire, Jesse Morrow, Mont-
gomer\- & Co., James Mathews, Wm. Martin, W. T. and J. P. Moore, Chas. Mitchell.
H. R. Nobles, Neleigh & Co., 26,660 acres at $33,330.
P. B. Neal, Jose Orevania, J. B. O'Reily, Domingo Ortego, Ramon Ovasa.
Tohn Poole, Tohn A. Patterson & Co., lleonard Patton, H. S. Pope, Chas. Peterson,.
Parslev & Faust, H. E. Parrish, Frank Phillips. K. L. Pern-.
1857— Edwd. Pratharo, Billy Patterson, W. H. Parker. Henn,- F. Pitts, W. E. Price.
Rodgers & Laverty, James Richards, Harr\- Rickard, Andrew Reinlein, Reed & Swan,.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 85
Leonard, Daniel and James B. Reed, J. Y. Ross & Co., J. M. Roane, Jos. Raggio, Wm.
18S7_A. M. Rogers, J. R. Richards, R. Robbins, Royal & Gaster, Jonathan P. Ross,
Rhoades & Co., Hugh Regan. , , , c- t ■ c •
Geo. Sharpton, Albert H. Statham, Smith & Crumley, John L. Stewart, Levi Slein-
hoff, John P. and John Simpson, M. E. Sinsabaugh, Ira Stroud, Stroud & Co., L. C.
Shackford, M. M. Saxton, Henry Strong, Noah Stilts, Alex. Saier, David Swan & Co.,
Geo. Sovereign, Wm. Y. Scott, Stewart, Neleigh & Crosby, nine leagues of land $50,000,
Domingo Salinger, Cyrus Sanford, R. Sheldon, T. C. Stallo, James Sayles Jr., Wm.
Savage, Chas. Simpson.
1857— J. S. Smith, Sim Kee & Co., Stroud & Bowles, Samuel Smoot, James Smith,
E D Scales, David Selander, C. D. Simpson, John Svlvester, F. Smith, Wm. Suther-
land, A. Strickard, J. G. Simpson, Jas. F. Stewart, Steinhoff & Mitchell, G. W. Stall.
Tas. Tucker, W. H. Thompson, G. B. Taylor, Chas. R. Thurman, Stacy Taylor, A.
Thibault, Peter Tracy, W. B. Taylor & Cormack, Frank Temple & Co.
1857— J. A. Tivey, Wm. Neely Thompson.
1857 — James Urquhart.
John Villet, L. D. Vinsenhaler.
1857— Thos. Vinsenhaler.
J. W., Geo., John, James E. and A, Williams, Ah Wong Lee, Wan & Co., Walker
& Co., J. N. and' C. F. Walker, Levi Womack, Jas. W. Waters, B. Wilson & Sanford,
Woodworth Wallace, Waters Paris, Woodworth & Co., H. A. and Jas. Wallace, Morgan
J. Wells, John G. Ward, M. D. Wilson.
1857— Michael Woods, H. B. Workman, L. A. Whitmore, Enoch Wright.
1857— J. A. Young.
CHAPTER XIV
Memories Cluster Thick About Millerton. A Mental Picture
OF THE Fort. Picturesqueness of the Mining Days. Freight
Teams, Mounted Express and Stages Enlivened the Vil-
lagers. A Red Letter Week in 1853 for Excitement. En-
forcing State Foreign Miner's Tax and Consequent
Results. Joaquin Murieta and His State Reign of Terror.
Garcia as the Monster of the Bandit Band. Capture by
Rangers Near Tulare Lake. Rewards of $6,000 Paid by the
State, With Rejoicing General.
About Millerton and its protecting appendage, Fort Miller, the first
of these for a decade and a half after county organization, the social, political,
governmental and population center, cluster most of the memories of the
long ago. No more alluring natural spot than the fort site could have been
selected. It was on the shelving, grass-grown, south bank of the river at
one of the widest reaches, so that it was never in danger of flood such as
twice visited Millerton, the last on a Christmas eve washing away nearly
half the village and causing a property loss from which it never recovered.
In that flood the water in the river rose a full twenty-four feet, maintained
with little appreciable fall for as many hours. Fort site was a garden spot
in spring and autumn, but in summer because in a pocket of sheltering,
surrounding low hills, a perfect bake-oven.
Fort Miller was located at the highest practical point on the river, all
things considered. Above it and Fine Gold Creek, the stream is impassable,
rushing out of a mountainous precipitous gorge. It was to place it with.in
easy reacli of the hill country beyond, and especiallv to aftord protection to
the miners at Cassady's Bar, across the range and due east and south of
the fort on the river bend, that the ancient trail, traversable to this day,
was laid out across the hills back of the fort. At Millerton the river runs
due east and west, the fort facing the stream to the north. Its northern
edge was built up to and partly hung over the river bank in early days. It is
86 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
not to say either that the river at the fort was always confined to the present
bed. The fort is at the mouth of a long and serpentine ravine running far
above and back into the foothills and mountains beyond.
The site was originally thickly covered with oak trees. These were
felled for the logs in construction, as well as to leave a clearing as a mili-
tary prerequisite. The fort enclosure was a quadrangle, surrounded by a
stone and adobe wall, five or six feet high, and faced the river. From Miller-
ton, the fort is not visible, the western view being shut of? by a rocky
promontory which projects to the river bank about halfway between fort
and village, which are a mile or more apart. The nearest courthouse eave-
corner is barely discernible from the fort. The latter was not unlike many
another.
The guardhouse was long ago razed, leaving only the rock-walled, iron-
barred, ventilation-holed excavated dungeon. It stood at the northwest
corner of the quadrangle and near it was presumably the main fort entrance
from town. Facing the parade ground and at the upper edge, with the flag
staflf in the center, was the roomy, one-story headquarters and commandant's
residence with veranda, and on the line to its left two smaller adobe officer's
quarters. The parade ground was enclosed on the right by the long, low,
wooden barracks shed and on the side backing the river were the stables
and the quartermaster's department sheds in continuation of the barracks.
In rear of headquarters, the sloping hillside was dotted by the post garden,
the smithy, the bake-oven, powder magazine, the two-story, sunny hospital,
and nearly on top of the hill spur the little post cemetery.
The ancient blockhouse, the oldest standing building in the county
today, in the construction of which not a nail entered as the logs were dove-
tailed and mortised, stands outside of the quadrangle. A group of military
and farm structures clustered on the blockhouse side at one time, so that
the fort surroundings had the appearance of being quite a pretentious set-
tlement. Blockhouse, standing now in solitude, is often overlooked by sight-
seeing visitors. Indeed many labor under the delusion that Millerton and
fort site are one and the same thing, and that the courthouse was a jail
instead of a general county government building, jail included in the base-
ment.
The post had accommodations for a garrison of two cavalry troops or
two batteries of artillery serving as infantry, with detachments in charge of
light field pieces. Its military history is brief and comparatively speaking
uneventful.
The kitchen addition to headquarters, and connected with, the dining
room at the eastern angle, is a blockhouse of hewn timber, held in place by
uprights and the interstices filled with mud to make solid walls. Under roof
protection, the soundness and preservation of these oaken logs showing
the marks of th.e hewer's ax are worthy of note. In the garden in the rear
of headquarters are umbrageous and prolific orange trees, which in earlier
days were a seven day's wonder, to see which people travelled miles. They
were, so it is said, the first orange trees set out anywhere in the valley, this
side of Stockton.
The blockhouse was erected in 1851 as a temporarv defense in advance
of the actual construction of the fort. At about the height that a man within
would hold a rifle in the act of aiming the weapon on a rest, runs around
the building a thick plank pierced with loopholes, each about a foot square.
All the habitable reservation structures have, in their day, been used
as private dwellings, even to the barracks and h.ospital, for Millerton never
had a building boom and accommodations for the visitor or newcomer were
often at a premium. After abandonment of the fort it became the home of
Judge C. A. Hart, was so occupied for years, and there he died. Having all
been in almost continuous occupancy, fort buildings are fairly well preserved,
though the boards protecting the adobe outside walls have been punctured by
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 87
generations of wood-peckers for the storing of acorns. The blockhouse, sad
to tell, is relegated to the base use of a cowshed.
The enclosing wall has long ago disappeared, so have the stables and
quartermaster's sheds. The cemetery graves, with a few exceptions where
no one came forward to make claim, were emptied long ago also, and the
military dead removed to the national cemetery at the San Francisco Pre-
sidio on final evacuation of the fort. The disinterments were principally
among the later graves in the newer portions of the cemetery nearest the
fort buildings. The last exhumation was that of the remains of the old-time
sheriff, J. S. Ashman. The grave of the little Stiddam girl is the onlv marked
sepulch.er left in the burial ground — the rust eaten, iron fenced sunken
grave of an infant. Frances E. Stiddam, who died October 21, ISfil, and
concerning whose kin all trace or knowledge has been lost.
The fort is used now as the farmhouse of the 14,000-acre cattle ranch,
including townsite, of the W. H. McKenzie estate, taking in land on both
sides of the river and in two counties as the San Joaquin is the boundary
with Madera on the north.
THE PICTURESQUE WAS NOT LACKING
The picturesque was not lacking at Millerton in the mining days. In-
dians were a common-place sight in times of idling peace, to fill out the
picture, what with one rancheria below the village and another on the bare
bluffs on the other side of the river, facing the town. Thev begged for food,
pilfered small things, did chores for money or a meal, or came to sell salmon
speared in the stream, or small game snared or shot in the hillsides, while
the squaw with papoose strapped on back in chokoni f canopied basket).
came to barter her h.andiwork in beaded belts or moccasins, or woven reed
baskets.
The rough and sun-blistered miner was of course very much in evidence
in flaming red shirt, whatever the thermometer, heavy water-proof topboots
with pantaloons tucked in them, and ostentatiouslv displaying pistol and
bowie knife in belt, whether arriving new comer with pack on burro look-
ing for a prospect, or whether one already located and at the village with
pack animals to stock up provisions, and never forgetting a goodlv supply
of aqua fortis for snakebites, or as a sovereign preventive against chills and
colds as the result of working in the wet slush about rocker or cradle on
river or creek bank.
The swarthv Sonoran was there in his wide sombrero, gaudy colored
neckcloth and often in serape covering his shoulders, gliding about furtively
because he was not always looked upon with favor. The meekest, most docile
and unobtrusive was the blue-bloused, cow-hide booted, bowl-shaped, bam-
boo-hatted Chinaman, working over the tailings that others had abandoned
after winnowing the surface "color." A few Chinese women there were also,
and never did one amble down the village street from Chinatown at the
upper end of it beyond the later courthouse but she attracted general notice,
even admiration, for woman was yet a curiosity. And last but not least
during the days of the fort occupation, there were the off-duty soldiers kill-
ing dull time and not looking the trim and natty men at arms as of the
days long after the war. The Indians regarded them as veritable demi gods
though, sober or not.
The arrival in dust cloud of freight team, mounted express or passenger
stage was always an event that assembled the villagers. Steamers later
landed at the head of Fresno Slough on the West Side and teams hauled
freight to Visalia and other southern points, or eastward to Millerton or
into the mines. The mounted express for the conveyance of gold dust, mail
and small packages was the rapid transit means to the mines, for post
offices there were at first none, and express companies handled the mail.
88 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Adams & Company succeeded by \\'ells, Fargo & Company were in their
day the carriers and did an immense and profitable mail and passenger busi-
ness that was practically a monopoly for years. For the conveyance of dust
or bullion, they were the only safe and responsible agencies, every coach
carrying shotgun messengers to guard and protect the treasure. In 1857
Thomas M. Heston ran a stage (called the Rabbit Skin Express) from
Hornitas to Visalia via Millerton, and the Silman lines made regular stage
trips from Stockton to Millerton via Tuolumne City, Paradise City, Empire
City, Snelling and Plainsburg. Later Silman & Carter also ran a stage from
the Slough City to Visalia via Millerton.
Thomas M. Heston was represented to be "a whole-souled fellow and a
good citizen." He was elected an assemblyman, and attended the eleventh
legislative session in 1860, and in those days to be a successful stageman
one had to be a popular idol — a very lacquered tin-god on wheels. Heston
was believed to have been murdered afterwards near Esmeralda Mining Dis-
trict, his remains having been identified by the gold filling in his teeth.. But
the California State Blue Book records that he was drowned in the Kern
River in 1863.
The isolation of Millerton is not sufficiently appreciated in these days
of hourly trains and of rapid transportation by Owl, Limited, Angel and all
the other lightning express trains, in these hurry-scurry days of telegraph,
telephone, long distance phones, special delivery mail, parcels post, wireless
telegraphy and flying machines. This isolation was an inconvenience as late
as February, 187L in that it took then three days to go from Millerton to
the near cities as follows : One day to Hornitas in Mariposa, sixty miles ;
one day from Hornitas to Modesto, forty miles, and then on the th,ird day by
the cars to San Francisco or Stockton. It was declared in all sobriety that
under the existing schedule and if one were in a hurry to go to San Fran-
cisco one could do so more quickly by stage riding to A^isalia, sixty-five
miles south, and then staging it to destination, gaining nearly two hours in
time. The railroad had then built as far only as Modesto, with finishing
work on the railroad bridge across the Tuolumne. Snelling was then the
county seat. It was changed to Modesto with the advent of the railroad.
In May, 1870, a mail route from the New Idria quicksilver mines (now
located in San Benito County just beyond the Fresno County line) via
Panoche Valley, Firebaugh Ferry, Areola (now Borden in ]\Iadera County)
and Millerton, with an office at Areola, was urged because as represented
then the mine residents must come twenty miles to Millerton for their mail,
while mail from Millerton to the New Idrians and Panoche Valleyites went
to Stockton, thence to Gilroy in Santa Clara County, thence to the place of
destination, journeying nearly 500 miles in a circle to cover about sixty or
seventy in a direct line.
The people of Buchanan (a deserted copper mining camp now in Ma-
dera County) were as urgently in need of a postofiice. They were forced to
come to Millerton. fifteen miles distant, for their mail and th.is too in the
face of the fact that it passed through the camp to go to Alillerton for dis-
tribution.
A RED LETTER WEEK FOR EXCITEMENT
A red letter week for unwonted excitement must have been the closing
one in July, 1853, when the railroad route topographical survey part}' and
its train of baggage wagons raised the dust of town towards a camp at the
fort, followed in a day or so by Harry S. Love"s dust-powdered cavalcade of
twenty rangers, in redhot from the killing of Bandit Joaquin Murieta,
whose head was brought in pickle, also the hand of Manuel Garcia, "Three
Fingered Jack." Garcia was also decapitated but the skull was so shattered
with Love's shots that it could not be preserved and was cast to the coyotes.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 89
The survey partv was protected by a detachment of dragoons, commanded
by Lieut. George Stoneman. Little dreamed he then of the honors in store
for him as a cavalry and corps commander ten years later in the war, or
that in 1879 under the new constitution he would be elected one of the
state's first railroad commissioners and on his masterly negative record as
the minority member of three he would pave the easy way for the 1883-87
governorship of the state.
Certain, however, that a vermilion hued dash of color was given to
the picture when there came into the village the sunbrowned gun fighters
of Love, deputy sh.erifif of Los Angeles, a Texan, who had served as scout
and express rider in the Mexican War and inured himself to border dangers
and hardships. Bancroft describes him as "a law abiding desperado who de-
lighted to kill wild men and wild beasts," a leader "with bright, burning
and glossy ringlets falling over his shoulders," one who "wore a sword given
by a Spanish count whom he had rescued from the savages." a personage
the "way and walk of whom were knightly as of ancient cavalier," while
"savages he had butchered until the business afforded him no further pleas-
ure." That in the rude frontier settlement of rough men as at Millerton,
Love was lionized goes without saying. Among his gun men were Harvey,
who murdered Savage, and Philemon T. Herbert, the California congress-
man (1855-56), who distinguished himself by shooting an inoffensive negro
hotel waiter in Washington.
Truth to tell, th.e end of Murieta, with his pickled head as evidence of
the fact, and the extermination of his band of cutthroats were events of state
wide moment, the importance of which cannot be measured in these staid
days of governmental regulation. The end of Murieta, described by Ban-
croft as the "King of California Cutthroats." and the "Fra Diavolo of El
Dorado," merits more than passing reference, because a state verily rejoiced
in h.is death.
One unquestioned result of the enforcement of the foreign miner's tax
law was the prejudice which it fomented, depriving many of employment
and driving them to theft and even murder. This prejudice was evidenced in
the passage, by the first legislature in April, 1850. of this tax law. It forbade
anyone mining in the state, unless holding a thirty-days' twenty-dollar
license, the sheriff empowered to assemble a posse of Americans to drive
him off on nonpayment, and the governor's appointed tax gatherers receiv-
ing three dollars out of every license collected, to make them active and per-
sistent. In March, 1851, this trouble-making law was repealed, but subse-
quently another was enacted fixing the license at four dollars per month
and making the sheriffs the collectors. Except for harassing the inoffensive
Chinese, it was not always strictly enforced. Persecution in 1850 growing
out of this tax, in being driven from the Stanislaus River, followed by bind-
ing to a tree and public flogging in Calaveras, on an unfounded charge of
horse stealing is said to have prompted Murieta to take an oath of vengeance
that was relentlessly kept, sparing not even the innocent, such an implacable
foe of every Gringo American came he to be.
Besides the tax, there were laws prohibiting mining by any save such as
could or intended to become citizens, and regulations of this character were
not unusual in the Southern Alines until the four-dollar tax law was passed.
But it was when the Chinese began to flock into the mining regions that
th.e most violent hatred of the foreign element was aroused by their thrift
and industry and the withdrawal of gold for which, as claimed, they left
no compensating return. Driven from the mines, the Chinese accommodated
themselves to the situation and became house servants, work hands and
railroad builders, working more injury to white labor than if they had been
left undisturbed in the mines among only a restricted class as to number.
For some years in connection with the tax collections, the waste upper
San Joaquin Valley region, and especially that west of Tulare Lake was
90 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
roamed over by bands of Spanish speaking vagabonds, whose nominal voca-
tion was running mustangs, but whose real activities were robbery and the
protection of robbers. In October, 1855, the evil had so grown that on the
Merced a company of rangers was formed and a bloody fight was had on
the Chowchilla River with a band of horse and mule thieves. Sherifif's
posses after these bands were not infrequent, nor sanguinary encounters
either.
It is an interesting coincidence that in his career Murieta came in early
contact with Ira McCraj^ who was such a notable and conspicuous personage
in the history of Millerton. It was about 1853 in Tuolumne County, at Saw-
mill Flat that McCray was a store keeper and obnoxious, to Murieta and
his band, and that attempt was made to poison the spring furnishing drink-
ing water. Fortunately the poison was so liberally applied that the project
failed. McCray and others, it was said, had been marked for death and
report had it that the store was to be robbed on a certain night. A mes-
senger was sent to Columbia for aid, and in response came, with a little
field piece that was discharged at frequent intervals to announce its ap-
proach, a military company under Thos. N. Cazneau, who was state adjutant
general under Governor Haight in 1870-71, but removed from office. There
was no robbery attack on the store, but there was such a cleanup of eat-
ables and drinkables at the Flat by the soldiers after the day's march that
it was a debatable question whether a raid by the robbers would not have
been preferable to the protection of the soldiery.
THE NAPOLEON OF THE CANYONS
To quote Bancroft, "Murieta stood head and shoulders over all knights
of the road in California, if not indeed superior to the most famous high-
waymen recorded in the annals of other countries." He was only a few
months more than twenty-one when he died, after "a brilliant career of crime"
of less than three years. Bancroft asserts that "the terms brave, daring and
able faintly express his qualities," drawing then the far-fetched comparison
that "in the canyons of California he was what Napoleon was in the cities
of Europe." It is needless to recite details of his many crimes. Educated in
the school of revolution in ^Mexico, it was an easy gradation for him to
consider himself the champion of his countrymen rather than an outlaw.
The terror of the Stanislaus, his history "though crimson with murder,
abounds in dramatic interest." In a few months he headed an organized
band that ravaged in every direction, and he "gave proof every day of
possessing a peculiar genius for controlling the most accomplished scoun-
drels that had ever congregated in Christendom." They operated principally
in Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa Counties, but covered the state at
large in their impartial distribution of murderous attentions. For nearly
three years, Murieta flitted between town and country, snapping fingers in
the face of authorities and the populace, while throughout the length and
breadth of the interior valley from Shasta to Tulare, and along the coast
line of missions, the country lamented its dead and rang with demands for
his capture, dead or alive. Joaquin lived mostly about the towns but kept
his henchmen informed of what was going on and of the opportunities for
plunder.
One of the secluded rendezvous places of the band was in the Arroyo
de Cantua foothills on the West Side of Fresno County, where to this day
are pointed out caves and watch peaks that served the band. The fraternity
was sent out for operations in five subdivisions under as many secondary
chiefs, acting simultaneously in wide]>- scattered sections, and this with the
membership of Joaquin Valenzuela, with similarity in name and appearance,
earned for Murieta a reputation with some for ubiquity almost supernatural.
Indeed upon his death, it was long insisted with dogged pertinacity that he
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 91
was still alive. In disguise one day at Stockton, he halted his horse to read
a tacked up handbill offering $1,000 for his capture, and he nonchalantly
added in pencil, "I will give $5,000 — Joaquin."
The monster of the band was Manuel Garcia. "Three Fingered Jack,"
from the loss of a finger in the war with Mexico. This most sanguinary
wretch^ was no less conspicuous for savage cruelty as for courage. To grat-
ify his lust for human butchery, he adopted as his specialty the throat-
slitting of Chinamen. Sometimes he pistoled them, but this was too tame
work. He would seize them by the queue and with, a twist peculiar to his
practiced hand threw up the chin, presenting an unobstructed mark. His
boast was that out of every ten not more than five escaped his aim.
At last the people of the state were aroused against this saturnalia
of crime and butcheries as a reflection on their manhood in permitting it
to go unchecked so long, and in March, 1853, the legislature passed an act
empowering Love to bring out a ranger company of twenty mountaineers
of experience, bravery and tested nerve to hunt down the marauders. Love
followed on the trail, spying by night and keeping close cover by da}'. On
Sunday, July 25, 1853, he and eight rangers came upon a party of seven
camping west of Tulare Lake, six seated around a fire at breakfast. Murieta
gave the alarm and threw himself on the back of his saddleless and bridle-
less horse, speeded down the mountain side, leaped the animal over a preci-
pice but falling with him was on his feet again, remounted and dashed on.
The rangers close at his heels fired and the bay steed was shot in the side
and fell. Joaquin ran afoot and received three balls in the liody. He turned
on his pursuers, saving. "It is enough ; the work is done," reeled, fell on
right arm and died without groan. Garcia being cornered, fought but was
overcome, after riding five miles and being shot nine times.
Love afterward received the $1,000 reward offered by the governor,
and the legislature of 1854 generously added $5,000. the rangers having
been engaged for $150 a month. The head of Murieta and the mutilated
hand of Garcia were on August 18, 1853, advertised in San Francisco on
exhibition at King's saloon at Halleck and Sansome streets — admission one
dollar. Certificates of identitv Avere attached of persons who had known
Joaquin. These gruesome relics fell, in later years, into th.e hands of an
anatomical museum, and were presumably destroyed in the big" fire of
April, 1906. The superstitious made much of the growth after death of
Joaquin's hair and of the nails on Garcia's hand, but pshaw! there have
been more lurid and incredible tales told about Murieta and his band of a
half hundred than were ever circulated concerning Robin Hood, Rob Roy,
Fra Diavolo, Capt. John Kidd, Jonathan Wild, Jack Sheppard, Robert Ma-
caire, and all the other unmentioned famous outlaws of history.
CHAPTER XV
Fresno Cuts Loose From Mariposa, the Mother County.
Population and Property Increases. It Organizes as a
County. First Published Mentions Were as "Frezno."
Needs for Independent Political Organization. First
Elected County Officials. For Many Years a Democratic
Stronghold. A Statistical Curiosity of 1857. Year of
Birth, the Remarkable One of the Great Vigilance Com-
mittee. "Lone Republican of Fresno." A Year of Modest
and Small Beginnings.
For about six years, the territory now comprised in Fresno County, and
more too, was tied to the governmental apron strings of Mariposa, the
92 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
mother county in the San Joaquin Valley, once regarded by common consent
as a part of that geographical myth mapped on ancient charts as "The
Great American Desert." A time came to cut loose and assume political
majority as a county. Fresno, Merced and Mono were originally comprised
in Mariposa, and all of Madera, parts of Kings and San Benito in Fresno.
Mariposa had, in 1850. a population of 4.879, and in 1860, of 6,243. As
showing the population increase of Fresno, there are the decade census
returns as follows:
1860 4,605 1890 32,026
1870 6,336 1900 37,862
1880 9,478 1910 75.657
And in further proof that Fresno was not standing still but slowly
developing her resources, despite drought and flood years, the following
assessment figures are quoted for the first twenty years :
Year. Property Value. Total Taxes.
1856 $431,403.60 $ 7,345.96
1860 931,007.00 14,895.86
1864 728,040.00 18,753.19
1868 2,366.025.00 55,143.40
1872 5,556,801.00 69,460.01
1876 8,292.918.00 136.431.48
The mining and lumber industries, the growth of agriculture, which had
made a promising beginning, and the location of the military post h.ere for
the entire valley region had attracted a population, which had to transact
its public and court business at Mariposa as the county seat, going thither
from the farthermost end of the territory, involving a tedious and costly
roadless journey over steep and rugged mountains and at times across dan-
gerous streams. Th.is was a growing source of expense to the individual, as
well as to the taxpayers, for which those in the southernmost section on the
San Joaquin received little return. The distance was so great and the isolation
so marked that little attention was paid this section in the matter of roads
or bridges or public needs — the territory was a source of revenue to Mariposa
Count}' while receiving comparatively no return. Th.e county's territory was
so immense, the revenue so limited in view of the sparse population and the
many pressing demands of the new region, and the conditions so unsettled that
the mother county could really not do much in a tangible way.
These conditions could not be worse but might be improved with home
government and the spending of the tax revenue nearer home. They led to
the county organization movement, and a petition to the legislature of 1856,
resulting in the enabling statute of April 19 and the creative enactment of
May 26. In petition and acts the original spelling of the conntv's name was
"Frezno." a phonetic version that was soon abandoned. Millerton as the
then most populous center was regarded as the logical place for the county
seat — in fact could not then have had a rival. To organize the new county,
seven commissioners were named in the act — Charles A. Hart, Ira McCray,
James Cruikshank, H. A. Carroll, O. M. Brown, J. W. Gilmore arid H. M.
Lewis. The last named two were absent from the meeting at McCray's hotel
on May 26, 1856, to organize and order for June 9 an election for county
officers and to vote on county organization, which was accepted as a foregone
conclusion. Cruikshank, a lawyer, was chairman and Carroll secretary of the
commission, and the county legal machinery was duly set in operation. The
first mentions of the new county are in the legislative proceedings and in the
State Register for 1857, a publication on the Blue Book order. The latter's
mention is reproduced as a present day curiosity:
FREZNO COUNTY
(County Seat — Millerton)
Frezno County, organized 1856. Boundaries : North by Merced and Mariposa, east by
Utah Territory, south by Tulare, and west by Monterey.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 93
TOPOGRAPHY— This county was formed from portions of Mariposa, Merced and
Tulare, and contains that section of the mining region known as the extreme Southern
Mines. The agricultural land in the county is situated in the vicinity of King's River, and
is represented to be well adapted for grazing purposes. Number of acres in cultivation,
including the Reservations, 2,000.
LEGAL DISTANCES — Not yet established by law (from Millerton to Stockton about
140 miles).
OFFICERS
Office. Name. Residence. Salary.
■County Judge Chas. A. Hart Millerton $2,500
District Attorney J. C. Craddock Millerton 1,000
County Clerk and Recorder.. I. S. Sayles Tr Millerton 1,000
Sheriff and Tax Collector.. W. C. Bradley Millerton 1,000
Treasurer Geo. Rivercombe Millerton 1,000
Assessor John G. Simpson Millerton 1,000
Surveyor C. M. Brown :Millerton 1 ,000
Coroner Dr. Du Gay ^Millerton Fees
Public Administrator James Smith .Kings River Fees
Supervisor John R. Hughes Millerton Per diem
Supervisor John A. Patterson Kings River Per diem
Supervisor John L. Hunt Huntsville Per diem
(The terms of all of these expired in October, 1858.)
THIRTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT— Hon. Edward Burke, of Mariposa, judge
district court ; sessions, second Monday, March, Julv and November.
SIXTH SENATORIAL DISTRICT— Senator : Hon. Samuel A. Merritt of Mari-
posa ; term expires January, 1859.
MEMBER OF ASSEMBLY— Hon. Orson K. Smith of Woodville.
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES— Wheat, 1,000 acres; barley, 500 acres, and vege-
tables, 500 acres.
FRUIT TREES— But little attention has as yet been devoted to the culture of fruit.
There are two vineyards in a forward state, and a few fruit trees, which appear to thrive
remarkably well.
LIVE STOCK— Horses, 1,400; mules, 200; asses, 150; cattle, 18,650; calves, 2,650;
sheep, 1,000; swine, 4,000; goats, 50; total 28,100. Assessed value, $360,000.
MINERAL RESOURCES — There are several important mining streams, principally
worked by Chinamen. Amount of foreign miner's tax collected $1,000 per month.
WATER DITCHES, ETC. — There are two extensive water ditches in the course
of completion; one steam saw- mill and two quartz veins, represented to be remarkably rich.
MILITARY POST AND INDIAN RESER\-ATIONS— Fort Miller, Frezno Farm
and King's River Farm Resenations are located in this countv.
FINANCES— Receipts from date of organization July 1 to December 1, 1856, $6,281.15;
expenditures, $4,268. Amount of taxable property, principally stock, $400,000, tax col-
lected, $6,912; foreign miner's tax collected $1,200 per month.
POPULATION— Votes cast, 319; Indians, 1,300.
ATTORNEYS— Millerton : O. M. Brown, H. Clark and Tames T. Cruickshank.
PHYSICIANS— Fort Miller: Wm. J. L. Engle ; Frezno River: D. J. Johnson, Lewis
Leach; Millerton: W. A. N. Dulgnay (Du Gay).
The first meeting of the supervisors-elect was held on June 23 of Hughes
and Patterson, J. M. Roan having failed to qualify wherefore Hunt was
chosen at a special election ordered at this initial session, besides wh.ich the
county was declared formally organized. Patterson was succeeded by J. E.
Williams in February. 1857, Clark Hoxie elected in :May to succeed Hunt
and S. W. Rankin in August to supersede Hughes.
1856 — Fresno's birthyear is a memorable one in the annals of the state,
being the year of the extraordinary reign of the great Vigilance Committee,
"the most formidable public tribunal in the history of modern civilization,"
that ushered an era of moral, civic and political scouring and scrubbing,
wh.ose befteficial effect was experienced for a generation. Governor Johnson,
who, with Gen. T. W. Sherman, was arrayed against the committee, referred
to its deliberations as "turbulence and strife without a parallel in the re-
corded annals of our nation."
Politically, California voted at its first two presidential elections as
follows:
1852 1856
Pierce (Dem.) 39,665 Buchanan (Dem.) 53,365
Scott (Whig) 34,971 Fillmore (Am.) 36,165
Hale (Free Soil) 100 Fremont (Rep.) 20.691
94 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
At this November, 1856, first national election, the county went:
Buchanan 218
Fillmore 123
Fremont 1
The identity of this Republican or Whig voter was no secret. He was
William Aldridge, and of an age that the younger called him "Dad."
He was the choresman at Payne's trading post at Coarse Gold, as populous a
voting district as there was in the territory at the time. He became known
over the entire state as "the lone Republican of Fresno." Aldridge also mined
at Fine Gold Gulch. The correct version here given for the first time is
that he came by his political appellation on account of an incident at the first
election for Lincoln. The polling place was at Mace's Garden and Captain
Mace was the judge of election, electors not voting then by ballot but by
oral announcements of their choice of candidates. Registration of electors was
an unknown art. Everyone, who was believed to have been born on the soil
and to have residence, was considered to have a vote.
In the camp were two notorious, swashbuckling Copperheads known as
Davis and Hill, very undesirable citizens and later suspected of being mem-
bers of the terrorizing band in the early sixty's that robbed the cabins of
Chinese miners of gold dust savings and outrageously maltreated these inof-
fensives, a reign that was ended only when the community took the matter
in its own hands and hanged several suspects after "Judge Lynch" trials.
Davis and Hill loudly boasted about the camp that no blank of a blank of
an Abolitionist would be permitted to vote that day. Aldridge carried word
of the threat to Mace and such swift and armed preparations were made that
when Aldridge offered his vote there was no one to hinder him.
Hill ran counter, afterward, of Deputy Sherifif "Shorty" Green of Mari-
posa Count}' in an affair at Indian Gulch in that county and was killed by
the latter with a pistol bullet that pierced his skull in the forehead center.
Whatever became of Davis no one recalls.
Aldridge was an inoffensive old fellow whose Democratic friends good
naturedly would escort him to the polls, and one of the candidates for gover-
nor remembered him by sending him a fine hat in care of the county clerk.
Aldridge declined to wear it until the county should give a Republican major-
ity, but he passed away and the hat disappeared long before that event came
to pass in an old time Democratic stronghold, built up by early settlers who
very generally hailed from the southern states, and strengthened by those
who came during and after the war and whose sympathies being with, the
South religiously voted that way.
Organization year was one of small beginnings with Fresno. In 1856 the
county was credited with 1,620 acres under cultivation as follows:
Acres Bushels
Wheat 1,000 30,000
Barley 520 20,800
Oats 100 3,500
Grapevines were estimated at 2,000. Los Angeles County exceeded every
other district in the state then in the cultivation of the grape, with 726,000
growing vines.
Two canals taking water out of the San Joaquin for mining purposes
were reported, the first of these almost opposite the fort but never completed.
These were the Fort Miller Mining and Water Company, two miles long
and to have cost $100,000: and Mace. Hatch & Company's five-mile canal at
Clark's Bar. The only steam sawmill was Alex. Ball's, about fifteen miles
east of Millerton, erected in 1854, operating one saw with capacitv of 6,000
feet and valued at $8,000.
Fresno was on one of the seven principal wagon roads leading from
California to the East — the Tejon route from Stockton via Millerton and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 95
the Kings River to the Tejon Pass to Los Angeles, San Bernardino and the
military road to Salt Lake City, 1,100 miles.
Lieut. Lucien Loeser of the Third Artillery commanded the garrison
of three officers and seventy-seven men at Fort Miller. He was the officer
who was sent from IMonterey to Washington with Colonel Mason's report on
the gold regions, and carried with him a tea-caddy full of gold dust, besides
cinnabar from New Almaden. The report was made ten days after the procla-
mation of the Mexican War peace treaty.
Hugh Carroll was postmaster at Millerton. and William Innes at Scotts-
burg, the only ]iostoffices in the count}- at the time. Carroll was another of
the tri1)e of squawmen, known among the Indians as "What-what," meaning
goose or gander and applied to him on account of his waddling and
shuffling gait.
CHAPTER XVI
Milestone.? in Millerton's History. Loose and Devil-me-care
Times. Official Records Exasper.\tingly Incomplete. Con-
struction OF A Jail a First Consideration. It Proved a
Veritable White Elephant. Miner's Tax Collections.
First Sheriff an Incompetent. Boundary Line Disputes
AND Attempted Land Grabs. Early Licensed Ferries and
Rate Schedules. Tollhouse Grade as the Beast of Burden
Killer. Extensive Lumber Operations on Pine Ridge,
With Ockenden as the Center of Activities.
The milestones in the eighteen years of Millerton's fleeting history may
be set down in the following order :
1851, April — Establishment ^of military post on the south bank of the
San Joaquin River, one mile abo\'e the later county seat village site.
1856, May 26 — Meeting of commissioners to arrange for county organiza-
tion details, with: election of first county officers on June 9.
September 10 — Fort Miller evacuated. Regarrisoned in August. 1863, dur-
ing the war and until final abandonment and sale of buildings, not very long
afterwards.
1857, February 23 — .\cceptance of first county built jail structure.
1861-62, "\^'inter — Damaging river flood.
1865, January 28 — Publication of first number of ten of the Millerton
Times.
1867, Summer — Completion of the courthouse and jail.
1867, December 2-1 — The big flood, with washing away of nearly half the
village site.
1870, April 27 — First number of the Weekly Expositor newspaper.
July 3 — The great fire of Millerton, with destruction of the Henry Hotel
and reported $8,000 property loss.
1874, ]\Iarch 23 — Election on removal of county seat.
September 25 — Removal of county offices to Fresno.
A writer from memory in the Expositor of January 1, 1879, presenting
what is the first attempted and at the time the most ambitious efifort at a
historical write-up of the early days of Fresnci Count v, originated in print
the since oft quoted description of conditions ruling in Millerton in 1853 that
has passed down as an accepted historical fact. Said he : "The mines on
the banks of the river were then rich, and the county officials and the officers
and men at Fort Miller had a very agreeable time with Millertonites, and
everything was conducted in a loose, devil-me-care sort of a stvle. County
5
96 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
court was adjourned one day to give the jury an opportunity to attend a
horse race, and the board of supervisors would adjourn twenty times a day in
order to go and take a drink." (The writer probably meant twenty adjourn-
ments in a day for twenty drinks, and not twenty adjournments to take one
drink.)
The writer of these "Reminiscences of Early Times" in that New Year's
day number was undoubtedly \\'illiam Faymonville, whose "kindly aid" is
duly acknowledged editorially. He was an old timer, an office holder as far
back as February, 1861, when he was appointed assessor to succeed W. H.
Ci"Owe resigned, elected county clerk and recorder in September, 1863, and
reelected two years later. He was prominent as a citizen and as a politician
in Millerton and in Fresno. The earliest mention of him is as an election
clerk in the fall of 1851 at the Texas Flat (Coarse Gold Gulch) precinct. He
was in a position to treat from personal knowledge of the early days that
he wrote about. Anyhow, the social "historical fact" has never been traversed.
That things in private and public life were "conducted in a loose, devil-
me-care sort of a style" in those early times in Millerton was true in no
restricted sense of the expression, and the record bears it out. For years the
county did business without an official seal. One was not adopted until
February 13, 1873, when the design in use to this day was accepted of County
Clerk Harry Dixon, who brushed up his youthful classic recollections to
build up the hog-Latin motto, "Rempublican Defendemus," — "We defend the
public good" — as he rendered it. And there was no one to gainsay him.
At clerical work, men were set who were more competent to manipulate
a shovel or a flail than a goosequill. No record is kept in the supervisors'
minutes as canvassers of election returns until 1862, and no declaration of
results. Tabulated returns were then inserted and paid for at the rate of
fifty dollars and more for a total county vote recapitulation less in number
than in a single Fresno city precinct toda3^ Nowhere in the record is there
anything concerning the organization of the county, save months and months
later in casual references to the organization act in connection with boundary
line resurveys.
Office holders were landlords of the county, receiving rent for public
office quarters. County employes were paid extra for services in the line of
their work. Was any responsible person short of money and the treasurer a
good fellow, a loan was negotiated, and the money came forth from the public
treasury, evidenced by personal note of the borrower. Supervisors met quar-
terly only, and the "per diam," as their minute clerk insisted upon writing
it. was ten dollars, besides mileage.
FIRST ERECTED MILLERTON CALABOOSE
It is recorded as a commentary upon the looseness of the times that
at the initial meeting of the first board of supervisors on June 23, 1856, after
the county organization preliminaries consideration was given the subject
of a jail. A county rate of fifty cents was levied as a tax for jail and court-
house, and one of seventy cents on the $100 for state purposes. The jail
contract was awarded to Henry Burroughs, the hotelman, for $6,000 on Sep-
tember 15, and the structure accepted on February 25, 1857. The story is
that the calaboose was so flimsy that on the day for its examination and
acceptance the lone inmate exultingly offered to demonstrate how easily he
could scratch his way out with a nail. Burroughs begged him to delay any
demonstration and the prisoner obligingly complied. Upon the sworn testi-
mony of Alexander Wallace, who was the unsuccessful bidder with Burroughs
as_ one of his bond sureties, acceptance and contract payment followed. This
jail proved a veritable white elephant, what with frequent repairs beginning
as early as May, 1857, and November, 1858, the guarding of prisoners with
Burroughs among others as a jailor, hisjh priced ""hotel meals and ten-doUar
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 97
blankets for prisoners until in tlie course of time a ten-dollar a week meal
rate was established in November, 1863, by the supervisors, and in May,
1865, contract was made with McCray of the Oak Hotel on competitive bids to
feed them for $1.33 a day payable in scrip and $1.66 a day for board and
keep, however long or brief the individual incarceration. In the 50's as
much as six dollars a day was charged by the sheriff, but the board reduced
the per diem to four dollars.
The dilapidated jail having been pulled down as a preliminary in one
of the frequent spurts to build a courthouse and jail, arrangement was made
with the sheriff of Mariposa, for a time, to feed and guard Fresno's pris-
oners. At the last, so the story runs, the inmates of Burroughs' corral pro-
vided themselves with a conveniently concealed exit hole for frequent ex-
cursions into the open, always returning in time to incarceration and the cer-
tainty of meals and a bed for the mere inconvenience of temporary restrictions
in personal liberty.
Eighteen per cent, remuneration was allowed for the collection of the four-
dollar foreign miner's tax, but at the third meeting George S. Harden com-
plained that because of the treasurer's change in the gold rate valuations and
the consequent loss in blowing off sand from the dust his percentage as
deputy sheriff in collecting was "too small to live on." The percentage was
fixed at twenty-two per cent, and gold made receivable at fourteen dollars an
ounce in value.
Earlv trouble was had with Bradley, the first selected sheriff, and pend-
ing action on a resolution of Clark Hoxie to depose him on August 7, 1857,
he peacefully resigned. Harden succeeded him. Bradley had an insufficient
bond. Supervisor J. R. Hughes, one of his sureties, having moved out of the
county, and another, Alexander Ball, being a bankrupt. Bradley was lax in
not making returns of his collections, failing to make seizures and sales for
non payment of taxes, and in general conducting the collections in "a care-
less, loose and incompetent manner."
So loosely and slovenly drawn was the act creating and defining the
county and the boundary lines that it was not until May, 1878, that the last
complaint on this score was received from Tulare asking for a joint resur-
vey. It was not the first time either that the line with Tulare, one of the
contiguous counties, was in contention. Fresno could not perceive that any
material benefit would result to either from the survey and curtly dismissed
the proposition, as it did a similar one from Inyo in June. 1873. Resurveys
were, however, had at intervals with every contiguous county under the orig-
inal creative act, besides the attempted territory grabs, notably later by Kings
in April, 1909, of a 120 square mile slice under the Webber bill, and the sensa-
tional effort and defeat after long and bitter litigation and the indictment of
three of the commissioners to divide the county for the enlargement of Kings
with the annexation of the Coalinga oil field in 1907-08.
As early as August, 1857, it was agreed between joint commissioners —
Hewlett Clark, then a justice of the peace, and James Smith, ferryman at the
Tulare Mansion at the Lower Kings crossing near Reedlev. for Fresno —
that $2,609.55 was due— $744.16 to Mariposa, $1,362.42 to Tulare and $502.97
to Merced for the land taken in forming the county. The various surveys
were made necessary largely by th,e faulty legislative description of the
southeast boundary of Merced.
The first defeated land grab was in February, 1859, against the separation
of the Upper and Lower Kings River territory to be attached to Tulare.
Effectual protest was on the ground that the dismemberment was against
every interest of Fresno, taking as it would two-thirds of the then small
vote of 264 and a proportionate amount of taxable property, "which can illy
be spared and which, if lost would greatly injure our county finances and
perhaps lead to an abandonment of our county organization." for which
"there is no good and sufficient reason and which is of no special value
98 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
or necessity to the advantage and rapidly increasing prospects of Tulare
County," and being "a movement so unnecessary in every respect."
In February, 1860, Fresno also successfully combatted the effort of
Merced to diminish its territory, "contrary to every interest," reducing its
income by more than $1,000 a year and jeopardizing its chances to elect a
legislative representative independent of Tulare, with no special advantage
to Merced, "further than robbing us of a large amount of revenue."
After the lapse of so many years, it would seem that all boundary line
questions might be at rest, but in 1917-18 arose another as to the line be-
tween Fresno and Merced, which following the crest of the Coast Range
in part and never having been run on the ground left in doubt in which
county in reality respective assessors were placing values on land for taxa-
tion purposes. To run the extended line according to a joint agreed upon
survey, Aladera's surveyor furnished the known and accepted starting point
in the lower moult of cottonwood timber of the original legislative described
northern boundary line of Fresno, surveying the line in ]\Iadera to tie in with
Fresno as now bounded with the severing of Madera, then to be taken up
by the joint survey. That survey was never completed because of the death
of Surveyor McKay and on account of the war.
So also on a survey of a few years ago between Fresno and Kings with
the Kings River as the Une, the expected problem was to locate the channel
center after all the years with the changes in the river bed but it was made
easv witli the fortunate discovery of the tree benchmark making the location
of tile channel center of the years before a simple matter of measurement.
The new line was run on the zigzag section lines, where before the diagonal
bisected properties, ran through houses and left part in one or the other
county so that it was no fiction for a man in his house to sleep in bed-
chamber in one county and stepping across the line sit down to a meal in
kitchen in the other county.
FERRIES AN IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION
As a new county, the safety and convenience of the increasing settlers
was early brought to the attention of the supervisors in frequent applications
for and renewals of licenses to conduct ferries at favorable points on the
travelled roads, doing away with fords which were not always safe. The
earliest fords on the San Joaquin were at Cassady's Gravelly Ford and at
oth.er points at and below Millerton. The first ferry was the one of Ira
]\IcCray, the political nabob and popularly accepted "mayor" of Millerton,
alongside his hotel and opposite the courthouse. The earliest licensed fer-
ries were these:
August, 1856 — McCray's at ^Millerton, on the San Joaquin.
Stephen Gaster at ^lono City, on the San Joaquin.
November, 1856 — C. P. Converse across San Joaquin below Millerton
at Converse Flat, afterward known as Jones' store.
]\Iay, 1857 — James Smith across the lower Kings at Smith & Crumbley's.
John Poole, across the upper Kings at Campbell's Crossing.
February, 1858 — ^^^ W. Hill at Poole's crossing of the Upper Kings near
Scottsburg (Centerville).
February, 1859 — L. A. Wliitmore, on Lower Kings at Kingston.
Firebaugh's on the lower San Joaquin.
These ferries paid monthly licenses of five dollars and three dollars
and were under bonds of $3,000 reduced later to $2,500. They multi-
plied fast, and for a time were evidently good investments. There was more
or less trouble on their score because of the varying tolls and popular
opposition because of th.e tax, so that in February, 1860, a regular schedule
was adopted borrowed from Merced, after the road approaches had been
declared public highway and the county mapped off into districts with
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 99
roadmasters. Incidentally, "Mayor" McCray charged the county four dollars
for ferrying a corpse across the river for burial, a tariff not taken cognizance
of in the toll sheet.
By August, 1869, general traffic had so increased in volume that a new
rate list was established, made necessary also by the heavy Stockton freight-
ing business with trail wagons, and the ferriage of cattle and sheep. One
Millerton ferry boasted of having on one day in June, 1871, ferried across
the river 24,000 sheep without the loss of an animal. The new rates, incor-
porating those of 1860, were these:
1 horse wagon or buggy $ -50
2 horse wagon or buggy 1-00
4 horse wagon, loaded 1.50
4 horse wagon, empty 1-00
6 horse wagon, loaded 2.00
6 horse wagon, empty 1.50
8 horse wagon, loaded 2.50
8 horse wagon, empty - 1.75
10 horse wagon, loaded 3.00
10 horse wagon, empty 2.00
12 horse wagon, loaded 3.50
12 horse wagon, empty 2,25
Horseman 50
Footman - 25
Pack or lead animal, each 25
Loose cattle or horses, per head 10
Hogs 03
Sheep - 02
In use by 1869-70 were the fords at Cassady's Bar, at McCray's (ferry
having gone out with the flood), and at Fort Washington, the Walker, Fay-
monville & Company ferry at Rancheria Flat, that at Jones' store (formerly
Converse's), one at Sycamore railroad crossing (now Herndon). Gravelly
Ford at where Skaggs' concrete bridge is now, Watson's ferry on the slough
(now Whitesbridge), another at the Gus Herminghaus ranch and the one
on the slough at Casa Blanca. On the Upper Kings were Poole's and
Smith's, and on the Lower Kings, Whitmore's to which O. H. Bliss suc-
ceeded, and Van Valer's five miles above. The Gaster ferry at Mono City
was where the first electric generating power house is located now on the
San Joaquin. Royal & Gaster had a big two and one-half story adobe trading
store at this stage station.
IN THE SIERRA TIMBER COUNTRY
The toll road from the Henry Burroughs ranch to The Pineries — the
Pine Ridge road with the beast-killing grade above the tollhouse — was com-
pleted in August, 1867, and the tolls were :
Wagon, span of horses, mules or oxen $1.50
Each additional span 50
Horse and buggy 100
Horseman 50
Pack or led animal 25
Loose horses, mules or cattle 10
Sheep or hogs 02
This roadway, popularly known as the Tollhouse grade, was for years the
burden beast killer as the highway for mountain travel and freighting. Opened
to replace the ox trail and facilitate lumber shipping from Pine Ridge mills, it
gave rise at the base of the grade to the settlement of Tollhouse, where Abe C.
Yancey kept a roadhouse in 1868, and Henry Glass a blacksmith shop. The
100 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
grade is the steepest on any public highway in the state save one, traversing
hills in places on a long and steady grade of thirty-three percent. It has
been the scene of several auto hill-climbing contests, the first in April. 1909,
when A. J. Hudson established the record in a Dorris in twenty-four minutes
and forty-eight seconds to Armstrong's seven and one-half miles above the
Pine Ridge divide.
Up this murderous grade the heaviest freight wagons for years hauled
laboriously to supply the mountain saw mills, as well as tugging the heavy
machinery for their operation. Donkey engines, carwheels and track rails
and a small locomotive were freighted up the mountains for the plant con-
struction notably of the Fresno Flume and Lumber Company for its lumber-
ing enterprise in the region about the dammed artificial Shaver Lake, and
later as far back in the timber forests as Dinkey Creek. So fearful is the
grade that passengers by stage were cajoled, threatened or commanded to
walk it to relieve the jaded animals in the ascent.
Early historic paragraphers from Faymonville down have credited Alex-
ander Ball with erecting the first sawmill in 1854 on Pine Ridge. The first
man was James Hulse. He located below Corlew's Meadows, and according
to the story staked the mill as a wager in a poker game at a ball and lost.
Then it came into the possession of Ball, who lost it by fire, hastening on his
bankruptcy in 1857, one of the very earliest if not the first in the county.
The original toll grade was cut by two trappers and hunters, the Woods
brothers, under a charter of 1866, starting from the upper end at a place which
later became known as the Widow Waite's. Their grade was about 150
feet higher than the later improved one, that first trail being yet discernible
in places.
J. W. Humphreys and Moses Mock established in 1866 a mill which
became in 1870 the property of M. J. Donahoo. who also bought from Glass
and others the toll road to the mills that had passed into their hands. Dona-
hoo improved the grade, and in 1878 sold it to the county for $5,000, where-
upon it became a free road, though still continuing a beast killer. Donahoo
erected a planing mill in 1876 at Tollhouse, which became a busy mountain
settlement, a halting station on the stage line, and before the flume a shipping
point for the Pine Ridge lumber cut, already a county resource. The sites
of these many early mills may be located today on the edges of the deep
ravines that have Jjeen filled with the heaped up great accumulations of
rotting saw-dust.
The timber belt that in the course of years has been pretty well denuded
was an extensive one, over twenty-five miles wide and sixty long, embracing
over 1,500 square miles, estimated at 8,000 feet an acre to contain over 9,600,-
000.000 feet of lumber, considered a low average, and placing the value at ten
dollars per thousand the aggregate would be $96,000,000, considered not fiftv
percent, of the real value. The Pine Ridge district was in its day a perfect web
of sawmills and camps, with Ockenden as the center of the mills and timbering
operations. It was the most important mountain settlement, contributing to
the wants of thousands engaged in the industry, which was an important one
of the county, coming next to mining and agriculture. It has been said that
there have been as many as eighty-four mill sites, according to the tell-tale
saw dust dump piles during the years when the lumbering operations were
at their height.
Equally as extensive lumber operations were prosecuted in the Kings
River region, not even sparing Big Trees, with Sanger later as the flume
receiving point and the mill headquarters of the Kings River Lumber Com-
pany, and at a still later date of the eastern capitalized Hume-Bennett Lum-
ber Company which revived activities in that quarter. It undertook a great
piece of work in moving mill and plant at Millwood across a range to a
more promising location on Ten Mile Creek which was dammed to form a
lake by an original piece of concrete construction work, the conception of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 101
Civil Engineer J. S. Eastwood. There the mill and mountain settlement of
Hume has been established on the never completed state and county fostered
scenic road through General Grant National Park via the Sand Creek road
from Reedley and Dunlap. The dam was completed late in November, 1908,
at an approximate cost of $35,000, creating an eighty-seven-acre lake with a
maximum depth of fifty feet and draining an area of twenty-five square miles.
It is 677 feet long on the crest and fifty-one high at its highest point, ground
for it having been broken on June 26, 1908, and 2,207 cubic yards of con-
crete, besides eight miles of old steel cable entering into the construction.
CHAPTER XVII
Historical Courthouse a Worry for Ten Years. It is Aban-
doned IN the End to the Owls and Bats After Seven Years
Upon Removal of the County Seat. Financial Difficul-
ties Long Stood in the Way of Its Realization. It Was a
Model for Honest Construction, and the Boast and Pride
of the People. Courtroom Becomes the Town Assembly
Hall. Building Recalls Tragic Mystery in Fresno's
Official Annals and the First Defalcation.
"When in 1874, the county seat was removed to Fresno, the entire town
of Millerton was abandoned, and the splendid courthouse which had cost
the county many thousand dollars, was left there standing b}' itself, a refuge
for owls and bats, and the drunken orgies of the 'noble redman,' a dumb,
silent, and yet an eloquent witness of the folly and short-sightedness of those
who formerly directed the aiifairs of the county."
These are the parting words of Historian Faymonville in 1879.
The decision to vote on the county seat removal was the death-knell of
Ira McCray's future activities in Millerton, as witnesseth the following pub-
lication on a certain February day in 1874:
SHERIFF'S SALE — On Saturday, Sheriff Ashman sold the following property situate
in the town of Millerton at public auction to satisfy an execution against it. Jesse Morrow
was the purchaser and the property sold for the following figures : Oak hotel building
and lot and liver>- stable $250, blacksmith shop $50, Joe Royal storehouse, $15, "Negro Jane"
house and lot $13. The election ordered by the hoard of supervisors for the purpose of
removing the county seat does not add to the value of property in Millerton.
James McCardle became proprietor of the Oak Hotel.
Can Sheriff Ashman have had hopes that the end of Millerton might be
averted? If so, he was challenging manifest destiny. On March 11, 1874,
appeared the following announcement of an actual improvement in the expir-
ing village.
IMPROVEMENTS— Just think of it— a new building is being erected in Millerton:
a dwelling house, too, and just now of all times, when the county seat is about to be
removed. But such is the fact, nevertheless. Those two indefatigable knights of the saw,
hammer and chisel — they haven't got any plane for we inquired — Joseph Lamper Smith and
Henr>' Roemer are hard at work on a dwelling for J. Scott Ashman.
Until that historical courthouse and jail of 1867 was completed, to be
abandoned with removal of the county seat after only seven years of occu-
pancy, the housing of the officers and courts was a perennial subject of worry
for the supervisors. They were scattered in as many as four difTerent build-
ings at a time under one year leases, because from the time of the earliest
discussion of the subject in June, 1859, the hope was ever entertained of a
county-owned official home. But the finances never would permit. The tax
rate with the early sparse population and scarcity of assessable property was
102 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
not sufficient to perceptibly augment the created building-fund nest-egg.
Besides l:>uilders were not inclined to bid for a contract with pay forthcoming
in the scrip or bonds of a fledgling county, wdiich had not yet attained a settled
basis but was in the throes of development. While the community had, with
the years, been educated up to an acceptance of the public necessity of a
courthouse, another educational campaign was necessary to endorse a legis-
lative appeal for a bond issue. Even after all these preliminaries were suc-
cessfully overcome, the resolution to build was carried in the board by only
a bare majority and over the formal protest of S. S. Hyde, one of the three
members.
In those days under the '49 constitution, liberal a document as it was
asserted to be, the legislature was entrusted with more regulative and super-
visory powers over local government than it has today under the shot riddled
constitution of 1879, which enlarged upon the home legislative body's govern-
ing powers in local matters. All these things are to be borne in mind to
account for the years of wearisome delay before the county could luxuriate
in its own courthouse. It may be soberly questioned even, whether in 1856,
the territory with its scant population, its lack of known resources, save
in the placers, the life of which no one could foretell, and with its future a
serious problem, was prepared to assume every responsibility of independ-
ent county government. One local historian has epitomized the situation
in the words that "Fresno had undertaken in county organization to satisfy
a champagne appetite on a small beer income."
In June, 1859, in response to a call to buy a suitable county building,
McCray" offered his Oak Hotel building for $8,(XX), and Henry Burroughs his
much older wooden hotel structure and also to repair again the jail — the
one with the voodoo on it, that he was paid $6,000 for. The upshot was a
decision to secure plans for a courthouse building, and there the matter
rested until November, 1862, when the subject was revived and a set was
accepted in April. 1863. Meanwhile, in February, a site was bought from
L. G. Hughes and Stephen Gaster, in the store and stable ground of Hughes,
for $600, occupied by Gaster and J. B. Royal, and William Rousseau's
adjoining lot, for $150.
No response forthcoming to the advertisement in the Mariposa Free
Press from builders, another call for bids was inserted in June in the San
Francisco Weekly Bulletin, and Weekly Sonora Union-Democrat and still
no response, and with like experience a third call made in August, in the
California Weekly Republican of Sacramento. One A^ear elapsed, and then
it was resolved to fence in the site.
In February, 1866, the Mariposa Free Press and Visalia Times were
tried as advertising mediums and as a result Charles S. Peck of Mariposa
offered plans, which later were accepted. In May proposals to build were
invited and an issue of $20,000 bonds at ten percent, was authorized to
meet the obligation. The bidding contractors were :
Charles P. Converse, $17,008.25; Peck & Hillenhagen, $18,500; George
Chittenden. $20,000.
To Converse was awarded the contract under a $34,000 bond. His offer
was raised $1,600 in August on account of authorized changes. Construction
began in the winter of 1866 and ended in the summer of 1867, the brick was
burned on the ground, and the granite and rock quarried near by. On settle-
ment Converse claimed $7,599 additional, $2,000 by reason of depreciation
of county bonds and interest paj'ments on loans by reason of non acceptance
of presented warrants because of the treasurer's defalcation. This $2,000
claim was disallowed, but in all he was allowed $5,728.25 above his contract
price.
It must in all fairness be admitted that the building was most sub-
stantially constructed, the jail portion in the rear basement with its great
granite slabs and heavy iron doors being second to none then in the state
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 103
for fortresslike stability. Converse really took a pride in givino; the county
a durable and solid structure, the two dufigeon walls being of granite blocks
some weighing a ton or more. The building will serve, standing to this day,
as a mute object lesson to present-day contractors of shoddy and ginger
breaded public work. It made no pretense to architectural beauty. It was
plain and simple and planned for use and not empty show. It could be made
tenantable at no great expense in the refitting of the woodwork.
It is remarkable that after the years of agitation for a courthouse and
a total expenditure of more than $24,336 so little in the end should have
been thought of the enterprise as to overlook a celebration to mark its
completion, or even in the beginning in the laying of the cornerstone. Vandals
have burrowed through and under the front brickwalls for the cornerstone
box of coins and relics, but in vain, for none was ever deposited. The old
courthouse was the boast and pride of the Millertonian. Long after the
desertion of the village, it was carried as a tangible asset on the books of
the county, though it had legally passed into the possession of Charles A.
Hart, who became the owner of the land by reason of a government home-
stead location.
The makeshift outside courtrooms had been the place for general public
assemblies and traveling shows, such as in those days at great intervals
lost their way into this far away neck of the woods, principally sleight of
hand performers. lecturers on phrenology and stranded negro minstrels
working their hazardous route homeward and during whose stav the hotel
landlords kept watchful eye on stage departure days. The tribunal chamber
in the Converse courthouse also became the townhall, but under the restric-
tions of August, 1867, forbidding traveling shows or exhibitions of leger-
demain, and making exceptions as to musical concerts, vocal or instrumental,
lectures on the arts and sciences and political and religious exercises. Balls
and receptions were given and fraternal societies held forth there, the Odd
Fellows' lodge on Monday and the Independent Order of Good Templars on
Saturday evenings at the early hour of seven, besides the religious services
at eleven in the morning on the fourth Sabbath of the month, conducted by
Rev. J. H. Neal, who, on the other Sundays, preached in rotation at the
Mississippi, Scottsburg and Dry Creek schools.
The erection of the courthouse recalls the first tragic story and mystery
connected with the official annals of the county in the defalcation and dis-
appearance of Gaster, the treasurer, well to do and a highly respected citizen
— in fact there were defalcations in the treasurership by successive elected
incumbents. Sixteen days had elapsed on August 28, 1866. that Caster had,
according to the formal official record, "without apparent cause absented
himself and failed and neglected to discharge the duties of his office," where-
fore it was resolved to open the office and force the safe. Investigation
showed that $6,603.06 was missing, and County Judge E. C. Winchell de-
clared the office vacant. Thomas J. Allen was later appointed to the vacancy,
but failing to qualify. George Grierson was named.
In the safe were found five packages containing county scrip, notes, and
a buckskin sack with $1,800 and memoranda of ownership, besides fifteen
loose twenty-dollar pieces in several compartments. A. M. Darwin estab-
lished his ownership to this money and it was legally surrendered to him.
The Gaster estate later offered to compromise the shortage for $2,000, but
it was declined and little was recovered by suit. Caster's defalcation has
never been satisfactorily accounted for. At the time he and Converse were
close friends — in fact Gaster financed him in enterprises and possibly in the
courthouse construction.
Gaster's disappearance on August 11, 1866, left Mrs. Emma C. Gaster to
face the world, handicapped with the care of four children. About two and
one-half years later she married Converse, who in February, 1868, had
been divorced. His end was also a tragic one.
104 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XVIII
No Civic Progress or Spirit ix Millerton. Never Was There
Town Plat or Incorporation. Its Site Was on Unsurveyed
Government Land. Its One Village Street a Double Ender
CuL de Sac. Nearness to Rich Placers Controlled Choice
OF Site. Traditional Estimate of Near by Gold Yield.
Rural Conditions Were Almost Primitively Ideal. Stage
Lines and Slow Mail Deliveries. War News Rushed on by
Stage Coach After Purchase by Club in Visalia.
Tlie eighteen years of village life history of ]\IiIlerton, with the added
burden of misfit county-seat honors, are singular for the lack of civic prog-
ress, remaining during that period practically at a standstill and positively
retrograding. Was a structure dismantled for removal, which was not in-
frequent, was one destroyed by fire, or washed away by flood, there was
no replacement. It was never predestined to live as a town, and the fact
was emphasized at the county seat removal election in March, 1874.
The only noteworthy building spurt was at the founding in the first
half of the 1850 decade. The only picture of the ragged village is from a
photograph of 1870, by Frank Dusy, after the big flood. It shows a scattered
collection of sixteen houses and local landmarks, including Chinatown at
the upper end of the village street into which it debouched, the Indian
rancheria on the bluf¥ across the river, with the courthouse and Oak hotel
looming up as the principal stone structures, and with more vacant than
occupied spaces on both sides of the roadway.
There was an Indian rancheria above the fort and another below the
village, hence the ferry landing name, "Rancheria Flat."
The hotel was erected by Ira McCray in 1858, at a cost of $15,000, with
brick burned and stone quarried right on the ground, and for the day it
was a pretentious structure and a comfortable caravansary that the flood
razed to one story. McCray never recovered from this misfortune, it was
the turning point in his affairs.
Never was there a town plat of IMillerton. There never could have been
one. It never had town incorporation or officers. The county supervisors
were the town governing body, if any assumed the prerogative, and before
county organization it was practically without government, because of its
remoteness from Mariposa's county seat. The village site was on no man's
land, on unsurveyed government land in which no one could have owner-
ship, yet buildings were erected, leases entered into, lots sold and bought, the
courthouse site included, and no one had more tangible claim than a squat-
ter's possessory holding from which he might be turned oflf at any time,
but was not — another evidence of the "loose, devil-me-care" spirit of the
times. When the fort was abandoned at the close of 1863, the late Judge
Hart bought the government buildings for a song as a home residence,
and after the land survey he located a homestead on the surrounding land,
including the fort site.
So it was with the village on the river bank. The homestead filed by
George McClelland, whose house was central in the village, embraced the
site as far as McCray's, the township line cutting across the town riverwards
just beyond the opposite courthouse. This homestead right came to the
late W. H. McKenzie by purchase, and so his estate (he was born at the
fort as was his half brother, Truman G. Hart) is the owner of the fort,
village and courthouse sites, besides the 12,000-acre cattle range on both
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 105
sides of the river, excluding only the eighty-four-acre sulphur springs prop-
erty below town and in the river bed in part, which the Collins brothers
never would part with.
Judge Hart owned the crowded quarter of the Chinese at the upper
extremity of the village, occupied by them for years after the evacuation.
He was their trusted legal adviser, and business agent, and regarded by
them as a man second to none in power and influence. He was a man of
ample physical girth, and this alone gave him distinction, so that on his
later day business visits to Fresno his progress through Chinatown was
always one long welcome ovation. This Chinatown of Millerton was typical
as the most populous part of the village, in little one-story structures, prin-
cipally of brick. It was as every other Chinatown distinguished for squalor,
crowding of human beings into narrow confines, with all the characteristic bad
smells and grime, and sublime indifference to sanitary measures that marks
the oriental's quarters. The river water was used for drinking, and Hotel-
man Henry, as one of the committee of citizens, presented protest to Hart
against his tenants dumping stable manure and house sweepings into th^e
stream to pollute the water. In 1860, the census showed a population of 4,605,
of which 4,305 were whites, 300 Chinese including five women, besides 3,294
Indians.
There never was but the one bisecting roadway or street in the village,
on either side of which the scant buildings of the day were irregularly located
or faced. The roadway traveled today to the fort is not the one of Miller-
ton. From Pollasky, winding along the riverbank to 'merge into the village
street, it is a later creation, primarily for the convenience of the ranch. In
the olden time, Millerton was entered by two stage lines from the back hills
beyond the fort, or from across the river at the ferries and fords. The river-
side road was not laid out until nearly twenty years after scattered settle-
ment towards the plains had begun. Before the advent of the railroad, with
the Central Pacific Railroad opened in May, 1869. Millerton was on one of
the seven eastern wagon roads — the longest one, the Tejon route, through
the interior valley. It was from Stockton by way of the village and the
Kings River, south through the Tehachapi and Tejon passes to Los Angeles
and San Bernardino and the military road to Salt Lake City, 1,100 miles.
It was a stage station on the Stockton-Visalia route with Kingston on the
river as the next halting place. From the Santa Clara Valley, ran another
road, entering the valley at Pacheco pass from San Benito, traversing the
West Side plains, following the Elkhorn grade used to this day, and striking
the main Kings River road. The name was taken from the fact that over
the door of the great barn of the stage company there was fastened the head
and horns of a huge elk. Elk's head is no more, but the road is there yet
to the Kittleman plains in the oil field.
With all the cobbles and gravel in the river bed, the one village street,
ending practically in cul de sacs at both ends, never was paved or macadam-
ized. In dry seasons it was a dusty path ; in wet, a thick mud pudding. There
was no alignment of the houses, more vacant spots in horse and cow corrals,
littered up house yards and stable grounds than occupied ground, low one-
story adobe, or up and down boarded wooden structures with a few notable
exceptions, and cow and footpaths connecting with the main street as side-
paths. That main street never had official name. It was variously referred
to as Main, Center or Water, the rear of the houses on the river bank crowd-
ing upon the latter, even hanging over the water, or being built up on stone
l)ulkheads to bring them on a level with the street in front.
What really possessed the early villagers to locate where they did, and
why was so much built on the riverbank, when as much and more could
have been located back of the courthouse, on higher and better drained ground,
removed from all flood danger? In the flood of Christmas eve 1867, the
water rose in the river thirty feet higher than ever before known, covering
106 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
townsite to the very courthouse steps. From that flood visitation, the village
never recovered. It was then in the stage of decadence ; the flood accelerated
the finale. The question regarding the site location cannot be satisfactorily-
explained. The fort was undoubtedly placed at the highest and most prac-
tical military point on the river, one mile above the village. As to the latter,
it was probably governed by the fords and ferries for the stages, and the
accessibility to the river water for domestic purposes.
There have never been authentic figures estimating the yield of the
gold placers at, near and above Millerton. In 1856, the county had a revenue
of $1,000 to $1,200 from the four-dollar foreign miner's tax representing
from 250 to 300 delving miners. Their average individual daily earnings were
ten dollars— collectively $2,500 or $3,000 a day, $75,000 or $90,000 a month,
and continuing with fluctuations for soAe years. There is a well authen-
ticated tradition given corroboration by Jesse D. Musick, as an accepted
authority on early historical subjects, that by 1852 one million dollars in
gold dust had been extracted from twenty acres of the parcel of eighty-
four, three-eighths of a mile below the town, where the mineral water gushes
out of a cleft granite boulder at the Collins' sulphur spring in the bed of
the river, and in which parcel ]\Ir. ]\Iusick had an interest. This is said to
have been one of the richest placers, and according to the quoted tradition
the village site was located where it was because midway between that busy
placer and the next richest across the range above the fort, in propinquity
to the others on the riv.er, and all within convenient reach of military succor
when needed. Is it to be wondered that there were "loose, devil-me-care" times
with that much dust in circulation, and the tables at McCray's loaded down
with gold in the games of chance that ran uninterruptedly the night through
and until early cock-crow?
John C. Hoxie, Fresno pioneer and miner, and a man with such a
marvelous and accurate memory that he was often called upon as a court
witness to give litigants the benefit of his recollection of early day events
and localities, bore personal witness to the richness of the placers of the
Southern Mines. He recalled publication years ago of a series of articles in a
San Francisco mining journal by B. D. James, popularly called "Brigham,"
giving estimates from reliable sources such as express companies and the
like of the yields of the mining districts. For the period approximately from
1850-55 the estimate for the Southern Mines was given as thirteen millions
and several hundred thousands.
But whether considered as a roaring mining camp, or a county seat,
twice visited by river floods and slowly dying from dry rot after the passing
away of the mining period, Millerton never was more than a straggling
mountain village, and from the very force of circumstances and conditions
surrounding it could never have been more than that. There was an idealistic
ruralness as witness the following published news brevity anent the court-
house :
ABOUT A BIRD— In the courthouse at this place, a little bird has builded its
nest in the chandelier in the courtroom, and frequently when the court is in session, or
when a religious meeting is being held there, the little fellow will flit backwards and for-
wards from its nest to the open air, passing out of the window, or sit in the nest and
chirp and twitter right prettily. We think our judicial officers should be well pleased with
their little feathered compeer.
As late as the 70's, the supervisors allowed a claim for four dollars for
a pole with which to demolish the nests that the swallows built under the
courthouse eaves. The San Joaquin was a stream of pure icy water, and
clear as a crystal where not muddied by mining. Salmon ascended to the
spawning grounds by the myriads, and, when the run was on, the fish were
hunted with spear, pitchfork, shovel, even with shotgun and revolver. Sal-
mon appeared in such shoals that as late as July, 1870, it was recorded that
restful sleep was disturbed because "myriads of them can be heard nightly
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 107
splashing over the sand bars in the river opposite town as they make their
way up." Hogs roamed at large unhindered as the self constituted village
scavengers.
Fresno was a paradise for the Ninirod. They tell of great herds of an-
telope scouring over the desert plains where Fresno City is located. Today
an antelope is as rare as the ichthyornis. Along in December, 1870, mention
was made on the authority of a Crane Valley man that an Indian named
Tom, shot, killed and dressed twenty-one deer in three days within a circle
of one mile from a given spot. Even this was regarded as extraordinary
enough to warrant publication at a time when the plains, mountains, foot-
hills and rivers teemed with game and fish.
\A'ith such delightfully primitive conditions, the flutter may be faintly
appreciated, when a't the close of March, 1871, announcement was made of
a change in April in the stage schedule, for all of which Contractor Bennett
was publicly thanked for his "enterprising and accommodating spirit." North-
bound stages were to connect with Fisher's stages at Snelling (county seat
of Merced and a \illage that went through the same lingering dying experi-
ence as Millcrtiuii, instead of Hornitas'in Mariposa. The Snelling stages
arrived at ^lillertun at the ungodly hour of five a. m., and passengers were
piloted to hotels Ijy the pale glimmer of whale oil lanterns. They departed at
eight in the evening, arriving at Snelling at eleven on the following morning.
The A'isalia stage'left immediately on arrival of the northern stage, and
returning also made close connections. By this new arrangement MUler-
tonians could go through to San Francisco in twenty-four hours, a gain of
nearly one-half in time, and no unnecessary laying over en route. And this
was hailed as rapid transit !
All of which recalls the "unbearable outrage" of July, 1870, wdien INIiller-
ton. Big Dry Creek and Kings Riven were relegated from a four to a single
weeklv mail by reason of the abandonment of the mail route. Otto Froelich
was then Millerton's postmaster. The Expositor, wdiich had never a good
word for the national Republican administration said "There is nothing too
corrupt or contemptible for the Radical officers to do." In August, Sillman's
opposition stage to Stockton began running, leaving Millerton every Thurs-
day morning with through fare of eight dollars. About the middle of Decem-
ber, Contractor P. Bennett bought off Sillman & Co., wdio had the mail con-
tract and he served again the tri-weekly mail.
Talking about stages, here is another piece of evidence to accentuate
the isolation of the village. In July of this year broke out the Franco-German
war. The Expositor gave on July 20, 1870, the news of the outbreak based on
a dispatch from Visalia brought by Russell Fleming the Saturday before to
the effect that France had determined upon a declaration against Prussia.
And as for war news thereafter, it was so scarce that a club was formed at
Millerton to buy war dispatches at Visalia to be brought by Fleming as "the
genial Jehu" of Bennett's stages. Fleming is a familiar Fresno character, re-
puted to have been the first appointed postmaster of Fresno City, of which
he is one of the earliest settlers. He was the first livery man in the town and
his stables and corral at H and Mariposa were long a landmark.
The gathering of news for a weekly issue for ^Millerton, with a popula-
tion of 200 to 300 at the most, was no easy task, when so much was sup-
pressed, and so much space wasted in fulminations against the "radicals."
The "unbearable outrage" in the reduced mail delivery made the task the
more difficult, with "not a single exchange under ten days old," and "no
communication with anv portion of the county either." But all things come
to those who wait. Things hummed again in the first week in September,
according to the Millerton pace. An editorial squib read:
"MILLERTON has been quite lively thus far this week. The county
court has been and is still in session and a very large number of jurors and
108 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
witnesses are in attendance. \\'hiskey has flowed pretty freely and some con-
siderable skirmishing has taken place."
There may have been no connection whatever between the two, but in
the next column was this pithy, two-line penitential announcement:
"EXCUSE the lack of editorial matter in this issue as we have been
sick."
CHAPTER XIX
Characteristics of the Early Settlers. Political Opinions
During and After the War Often Led to Bitter Per.sonal
Animosities. Firing on Fort Sumter Stirred up Strong
Union Sentiment in California. Fresno Settlers Hospit-
able and Wholesouled as a Class. Gambling and Drinking
a State Wide Habit. Chronic Intemperance Not a General
Vice. Leveling Tendencies of the Pioneer Days in Democ-
racy OF Labor. A Tribute to Womanhood.
"The earlier settlers of the county cared little for politics. They were a
plain, hard-headed, sensible people, who worked the placers, tilled the soil,
raised cattle, herded sheep, made money, reared large families, feared God,
respected the laws and were happy. The interest they took in politics was
largely of a personal character, to secure the maintenance of order, the
enforcement of the laws and the making of needful internal improvements.
It may be that this indifiference to politics was due largely to the fact that
the county has always had a safe Democratic majority. The early settlers
very generally came from the southern states, and at the breaking out of
the war their sympathies were with the Confederacy and they voted that
way."
These observations, in so far as they relate to the earlier settlers, and
written in April, 1891, may be accepted as fairly accurate, though the state-
ment that they "cared little for politics" must be taken with a grain of salt,
because with the war influx the political interest was bitter, even vindictive.
There was also personal animosity displayed during the period of the war
and after. So much so that a time was when a Republican was a lusus
naturae as much as ever a five-legged lamb, or a double-headed rooster was,
and also when it was not always politic or safe to announce one's affiliations,
if .they were not friendly to the southern cause. That cause had in this
county and in Tulare and Kern many unreconstructed adherents, whose
opinions had not been changed with the result of the war, but had become the
more fixed, and probably not without cause, by reason of the indignities
heaped upon the vanquished by the carpet-bagging administrations foisted
upon the Southern people. The passions and prejudices of men ran high
in those days, and the resultant conditions are not to be wondered at.
Leland Stanford, elected governor in September, 1861, was the first
Republican chosen to that office in California. For more than a decade after
admission into the union, the state was controlled by the pro-slavery wing
of the Democratic party. The news of the firing upon Fort Sumter came
to San Francisco on April 24, twelve days after the fact, and was sent across
the continent by pony express. It stirred up a strong Union sentiment in
the state, and the lines were sharply drawn as between northern and south-
ern men. In parts of the state. Confederate sympathizers were largely in
the majority, notably in Los Angeles and in various localities in the San
Joaquin \''alley.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 109
Still there never was a more hospitable, a more wholesouled and a more
mutually helpful people than those early settlers of Fresno. This is conceded.
A stranger, destitute, or sick, or unfortunate, found himself among sympathiz-
ing and helping people, who ministered to his wants, not with the hope of
reward, but out the goodness of heart prompted by the spirit of the broth-
erhood of man. In Millerton was an aged black woman, known the county
over as "Negro Jane," who had come as a slave with Henry Burroughs.
She was a character, earning a livelihood as a washerwoman, nurse, or
whatever came her way. She was the Good Samaritan of the village, and
was there a miner in a camp sick, destitute or neglected she was the first
to be at his side. "Negro Jane" has long passed away, but there are still
some among the living to recall the voluntary acts of charity of this black-
skinned sister of mercy.
Hugh A. Carroll was another of the original -Fort Miller garrison
and with him came as a camp follower the wife, Elizabeth, mother of the
first white girl child born in the county territory. She was of decided mas-
culine character and temperament, as the result of army life associations.
She could swear and anathematize on occasions, like a trooper or a pirate,
but she had a heart for the sick and afflicted and her memory is recalled
for many voluntary visits of mercy to sick and neglected miners. There is
the story that with the location of the garrison she and Mrs. Ann McKenzie
were the first of their sex in this region, and such a curiosity for the squaws
that meandering from the fort in company on an occasion and approaching
one of the rancherias they were seized and the squaws rubbed and pinched
their faces to satisfy themselves that their skins were white and not painted,
believing in their ignorance at sight to them of these first whites, that none
of their sex could be of color other than tlieir own. The two women were
alarmed at the demonstration. Mrs. McKenzie escaped early in the demon-
stration but Mrs. Carroll was stripped naked before the dusky sisters satis-
fied themselves that not only was she white in face but in body also.
Dr. Leach was of a philanthropic bent of mind, and Dr. Chester Rowell,
who came to Fresno from San Francisco early in 1875, was of the same
stamp. The world will never know the many acts of quiet charity of these
two men. No man or woman, destitute and in need of medical treatment
or medicinal remedy, ever appealed to either in vain. The names of Mrs.
Carroll, "Negro Jane" and Drs. Leach and Rowell are called up in grateful
remembrance by old timers of Millerton and Fresno.
GambHng and the prodigious drinking of alcoholic beverages among the
Millertonians were no more characteristic of them than of Californians
generally in the mining regions. Chapters on this subject are devoted in
every history of Early California, and the causes lengthily and plausibly
gone into. It is admitted that the prospect of gain before the advent of laws
or rules or customs of binding authority and the lack of restraints attracted
many vicious and dissolute after the discovery of gold.
The presence and assertiveness of this class, combined with the absence
of the repressive influence of decent women and the lack of refined or rational
amusements to ease the daily toil, hardships and coarse living, encouraged
dissipation and vice. "Gambling and drunkenness became not uncommon,"
says Hittell, and he is borne out by others, "and ruined many who under
ordinary circumstances might have escaped the contamination."
This writer, speaking from personal observation adds: "In no part of
the world perhaps was there so much gambling and so much drinking as in
California, Not everybody gambled, not everybody dissipated, but so
many did, and the gambling and drinking houses were such public and well
patronized places of resort that it almost seemed that everybody was given
over to these twin vices. Throughout the entire country, wherever men
congregated and even where they sojourned with any regularity, and in any
number on their way to other localities, there were sure to be places for drink-
110 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ing and gambling, and among the supplies carried into the mining camps
liquors and cards and their usual concomitants found a very large and expen-
sive proportion."
When drinking and gambling were so generally the vogue, was it to
be expected that Millerton would be the one notable exception? Does it not
smack of satire almost, to read in one of the earliest recorded deeds in
Fresno County, under date of August 18, 1856, that Levi'Steinhoff sold lor
$350 to Frank Rowe his "right, title and interest to the house or building
known as the Temperance Hall," with the 85x100 lot in the town of Miller-
ton? "A Temperance Hall" in the town of Millerton in 1856, when whiskey,
brandy and gin were sold not by the drink but by the quart bottle and the
gallon !
But in extenuation, let it be recalled that these conditions obtained in
the days when "every possible luxury connected with drinking procurable
in California could be found in the mines, and there was hardly any drink in
the world too rare or too expensive for importation into that paradise of in-
dulgence. It is doubtful whether there ever was before so ready a market
for the costliest brandies and most exquisite champagnes, and no business
afiforded such profits as the liquor business," while "hardly a team left Sac-
ramento or Stockton, or train threaded the mountain trails, that did not
carrv more or less spirituous or malt drink, and hardly a man lived or worked
in the mines that did not contribute to some extent to the fortunes of those
who managed its importation and distribution."
It is stated that as a consequence of the indiscriminate drinking in those
early days delirium tremens became a common ailment, and pathetically
huniorou's in overlooking the superinducing cause of it, is the record of the
belief that there .was supposed to be something in the very climate of Cali-
fornia peculiarly favorable to "the jim-jams" as they were called. Still it
is also of record that while there was a great deal of drinking, there was
very little habitual drunkenness among the earliest pioneers. There was a
plausible reason for it. The confirmed toper was physically unfit for the
hardships and exposure of the across-the-plains, or the around-Cape-Horn
journev to California, and the Avrecks of subsequent days had not yet become
the habitual topers.
To quote history: "But even including those who were so much addicted
to gambling and drinking as to deserve the name of gamblers or drunkards
— and as soon as they were such they were no longer counted among the
heroes of the early years — it may still be reiterated that the pioneers were
the most active, industrious and enterprising body of men in proportion to
their numbers that was ever thrown together to form a new community.
Four-fifths of them were young men, between eighteen and thirty-five years
of age, and they came from all sections of the country and many from for-
eign countries. They all came to labor and found at the mines that to keep
on an equality with their neighbors they had to labor."
A noteworthy feature of the times and the conditions was "the extra-
ordinarv leveling tendency" of the life, a tendency upon the efl'ects of which,
it has been asserted, have been based to a great extent the readjustnients
and developments on new lines that have constituted the peculiarities of
California civilization. As printed history has it : "Every man finding every
other man compelled to labor found himself the equal of every other man,
and as the labor required was phvsical, instead of mental, the usual superi-
ority of head workers over hand workers disappeared. This condition of
things lasted several years."
The more common and general efifect was to level pride, and everything
suggestive of the aristocracy of employment. The California pioneer has
had" to stand sponsor for much. It is only truth and justice to record that
the pioneers that founded the state constituted a race of men, whose superior
is not readilv found. And in this tribute should not be overlooked the priva-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 111
tions, toil, hardships and dangers borne and the civilizing influences wielded
bv the brave and undaunted pioneer women and mothers, honoring in this
category also the delicate and refined women of the South, who cast their
lot amidst rough and primitive conditions to battle anew with life after the
distressing days following the war, when the future was so blank and deso-
late in contrast with the comforts and affluence that had gone_ before in
the sunny and beloved Southland. Never had men such self-sacrificing and
brave helpmates as in these honored early and later pioneer women of
California.
By 1865, there was an appreciable increase in the population of the
county as demonstrated by the greater bulkiness of the assessment roll.
CHAPTER XX
Changes in Millerton Retrogressive Rather Than Progressive.
First County Seat Removal Suggestion in 1869. The Ex-
positor AS A False Prophet in 1870. Premonitions of the
Period Change About to be Ushered in. Surroundings of
the Village. Residential Exclusiveness About the Fort.
Big Fire Visitation Was on the Eve of the Fourth of July
IN the Year 1870. Unaided by Fort, Millerton Never
Housed Its Fixed Population.
After the county seat removal, Millerton was still spotted on maps for
some years. As a village it lingered along, dying from dry-rot, slowly but
positively. Habitations were literally carried ofif on wheels. Chinatown held
out longest. Future it had absolutely none. Its history was a closed chapter.
"Finis" had been written. It could only recall the past with its memories
of the gold mining days, the days when it was a halting place on the stage
line routing and when it was overburdened with the weight of county seat
honors. But for them it would have been of¥ the map long before.
It is recalled that as late as the year 1879 the handful of children left
in the school at Millerton had formed the habit at recess of digging for gold
under the blufif bank near the school. They washed the "dirt" in the river
hard by and were rewarded by fifty to sixty cents during the noon hour.
On a certain Wednesday they dug too far under the bank and the latter
caved in on them, overwhelming Charlie and Willie, sons of Sam Brown,
Jeffie Donahoo and two of Labe Mathews' children. A passing Chinaman
removed the soil from Jeffie's face so that he might breathe as he was covered
all but the head, while a little girl ran to the schoolhouse to give the alarm.
It took seventy minutes to rescue the children but one of them, Johnny
Mathews, aged fourteen, was dead. He was buried next day at the fort
cemetery and the school took a vacation.
Four years and two months before the vote on the county seat removal
but after the flood and before the fire, it is recorded that in June, 1870 there
were in Millerton:
Four stores (three Chinese), express and postoffice, two stables, black-
smith shop, barber shop, furniture and cabinet maker, printery, physician,
hotel, three saloons, butcher shop, druggist, saddlery and harness shop,
tailor shop, four lawyers, Millerton Ferry Company. "And quite a number
of private residences."
Between 1865 and 1870 the village business changes had been few.
These few were retrogressive rather than progressive. Business activities
during the period were these:
6
112 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
Hotels — Oak, Ira McCray; Henry House, S. W. Henry. (Both had livery
stables attached.)
Butchers — Stephen Caster & Co., James Thornton.
Blacksmiths — McCray & Shannon, S. W. Henry.
Saloons — "Challenge," Folsom & Gaster; "Court House Exchange," T.
J. Payne; Farmers' Exchange of S. Levey; and Allen's, T. J. Allen.
Dry Goods and Groceries — George Grierson & Company, Otto Froelich.
Notary Public — William Faymonville.
News Depot — W. A. Grade & Brother.
Newspapers — Times ('1865), Expositor (April, 1870).
Saddle and Flarness— D. B. McCarthy.
Photographer — Frank Dusv.
Lawyers— E. C. Winchell.'C. G. Sayle Jr., C. A. Hart and S. B. Allison.
Livery — M. J. Donahoo.
Justice of the Peace — William T. Rumble.
Ferries — McCray's, Converse's and Millerton Ferry Company (Walker,
Faymonville & Company).
Postmaster — Otto Froelich.
The earliest published suggestion to move the county seat from the
mining center was in 1869. The railroad was already heading southward
through the valley from the junction at Lathrop. In July, 1870, there was
the following first concrete, sporadic wail :
"Everything is dead or on the rapid decline. No buildings of any value,
no churches, no society, and no appearance of permanency about anything.
Such should not be the case in a growing, prosperous county like Fresno,
and such would not be the case were the town located almost anywhere else in
the county. As it is, it is unhandy for all sections. It is off the line of
travel and has no inducements for people to settle in it, even though there
was room to build suitable houses to live in, which there is not."
In April, 1871, the Expositor in self-contradictory editorial review, also
assuming role of prophet, boasts, notwithstanding the "continued assertion"
of many that Millerton "was a dead cock in the pit," that it "has made some
considerable advancement." In proof it cited that two societies had been
formed and a third was forming, that it has increased in population and
business, that there was not an unoccupied house, and yet that it was a
fact apparent to anyone that "Millerton will always exist as a town, even
after the county seat is removed." As a prophet, the Expositor was a rank
failure, except in the statement that the district school would become a
graded one.
True. Millerton was not yet the dead cock, but it was in the pit in
dying struggles and last squawks. The fact is a great change was about
to come over Fresno, a new period was about to be ushered in with irriga-
tion to bring about the transformation. True, there had been increase in
population and business, but that was in the county, and Millerton reaped
the indirect benefit. True, in November. 1870, there was not a vacant house
yet a demand for residences. But half the town had been washed down the
river, the number of houses had been reduced, there never were too many,
and no new ones were being erected to meet demand or replace the destroved
ones — and all because of the uncertainty over county seat removal, which
like Banquo's ghost "would not down." Any kind of a house rented from
six dollars to twelve dollars a month, and there was not an empty one
even up at the fort, old time barracks and hospital included. Land through-
out the county was assessed at $1.25 an acre awaiting the time to be boosted
up with irrigation
In August, 1870, it was said that the mountain saw-mills could not
turn out lumber fast enough for the demand. The price was cheaper than
almost anywhere in the state at twelve dollars per thousand at mills, with
the added twenty dollars for hauling it thirtv miles to the village.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 113
But that lumber was not wanted for improvements at Millerton, but through-
out the county in the spreading farm settlements, and especially in the
more rapidly filling up Kings River bottoms, near water. There was never
such a hegira as when they began to move away from Millerton. In 1871
the business changes and dissolutions had already begun, and upon the
result of the election, with the significant vote, the village sank to the
obscurity of a hamlet, for everything movable was carted of¥, leaving only
the ferry landing places, the house cellars and foundations, the courthouse
and its conspicuous neighbor in Payne's adobe Court House Exchange Sa-
loon, and Hart's Chinatown brick houses, as reminders that a village once
stood on the river bank, and that it had once close relation with the govern-
ment fort in the N. E. J4 of Section 3-11-21, four miles above the present
Pollasky railroad terminus.
Unaided by the fort. Millerton never did house all its population. A
landmark stood for many years half a mile or more below the village in the
Jenny Lind bridge, condemned on account of age a decade ago and carried
"awav by winter freshets, the last standing concrete tubular iron encased
supports snapping off when the waters also floated off the buildings at the
Collins' sulphur springs. The Millertonites made pretension to residential
exclusiveness. A favorite spot was Hill's Flat, named for S. H. Hill, who
taught school in the village in 1862 and later at Centerville and Kingston,
and" from 1864 to 1867 and again in 1870-71 was county superintendent, and
whose brother, W. W. Hill, was treasurer from 1864 to 1874, dying in
office. Hill's Flat was nearer the river than the fort; yet part of the semi-
circular table land of the fortsite, and to the left on approaching it from
the village. Here were located the Hill residence, also the Clark Hoxie
home, known as the Garden house, besides a cluster of other pretentious
homes of the day. Pretentious was the house that boasted two stories, an
attic, and say a balcony entrance. Hill's Flat was edged by the creek that
emerged from AVinchell's Gulch, a dry arroyo in summer but turbulent in
winter as the drain way of the nearby low hills.
Winchell's Gulch brings up tender memories as a favorite picnic ground
and trysting place for lovers. The gulch is a horse-shoe shaped ravine, en-
circling the base of a succession of low hills overlooking the river between
fort and townsite, its eastern extremity fortwards a projecting rocky promon-
tory that the river washed away to make the bank roadway to the fort. The
gulch was approachable on the western edge of the hills by a road from
the lower end of town, passing the ancient Odd Fellows' cemetery, dedicated
in 1873 and now enclosed with a circular cattle-proof fence, the few grass-
grown mounds of the dead unmarked, unknown, or long since forgotten,
and anyhow out of the course of all present day travel.
Near the mesa at the head of the gulch, one mile east of the village
and three-fourths from the fort, was another cluster of homes, at Mountain
Side so called, notably the E. C. Winchell residence and the select boarding
school for young misses, conducted by Mrs. A^'inchell. The glen was a
romantically delightful and restful spot.
At the present day extreme western approach was J. R. Tones' store,
also known as Jonesville, a trading post of some note, located on the site
of the gum tree park and grove at Pollasky, and on the approach to the
fine concrete span bridge into Madera county. The record of 1870 is that
Millerton had the largest collection of houses at one place in the county,
Centerville. or Kings River, the largest population and Kingston the wealth-
iest, not any settlement in the county arising to the dignity of a town — large
or small. It was in this year also that Walker. Faymonville & Company
as the Millerton Ferry Company established themselves below town at
Rancheria Flat.
The big fire was on Sunday night July 3, 1870. Saddler D. B. McCarthy
and three others had entered the shop to go to bed. In the place was a lot
114 HISTOR\ OF FRESNO COUNTY
of fireworks received the night before from Stockton for the celebration.
Tradition has it that McCarthy had celebrated alcoholically, and a question
arose about the pyrotechnics which he proceeded to settle. He lighted a
Roman candle and walking towards the door, the candle sputterings
alighted on the fireworks with the result that there was an unlooked for dis-
play then and none on the following day. The building burst into flames
which communicated with S. W. Henry's hotel, the Farmers' Exchange
saloon of S. Levey also contributing to the fire. Then the flames veered,
and Henry's livery stable and blacksmithy across the street were destroyed.
The roof of the courthouse caught fire, but the flames were extinguished.
]\Irs. Henry and children escaped in their night robes. Henry's loss was
$8,000. Henry had been the financial backer of McCarthy, who was the
unintentional cause of his ruin after a streak of bad luck.
He had been flooded out, his blacksmithy burned down and thereafter
blown down, and now he was burned out of everything. He published a
card of thanks for the aid given him and his family, and the money donation
of $323.50. Late in September the old wooden courthouse was overhauled
and refitted as a hotel by Henry, who in the meantime had also opened a
smithy near Darwin's ranch on Big Dry Creek. On October 12, the over-
hauled hotel was opened and continued the hotel until the end of Millerton.
A large livery stable of Henry's occupied the site of the burned hotel.
The historic Oak hotel and McCray had seen their best days, and
overcome by financial troubles he took to drink. He disappeared anon from
Millerton, but returned, not like the Prodigal Son for whom the fatted calf
was killed. The hotel building razed to one story after the flood rented out
as a saloon in the basement, also as a butcher shop to James Thornton, who
sold to J. B. McComb, who renovated the house as a hotel, but it never
regained prestige. C. A. Hart and S. B. Allison had law offices in the build-
ing, and McCray was disposing of everything before leave taking. The
Oak in its palmiest days was the sporting house of the village ; Henry's
the staid, family house.
Part of the refitted hotel that was the one time courtroom stands today
a weather beaten, moss covered and time corroded farm house ofif the Dry
Creek road to Millerton, eleven miles away, having been removed after
the village evacuation. Dorastus J. Johnson, who was deputy county clerk
and died in November, 1862, rented it to the county for years for public
purposes. It stood to the left of the stone courthouse and Paj'ne's adjoin-
ing saloon, the two IMillerton buildings that were not removed or dis-
mantled at the finale of the village.
There is no picture of Millerton before the damaging winter flood of
1861-62. In photography it was yet the day of the primitive daguerreotype.
There is only one known pictorial of the townsite after the flood of 1867-68
which proclaimed Millerton's doom. It is the frontis-piece to W. W. Elliott's
History of Fresno County published in 1882. It is a zincograph illustra-
tion of "Millerton as It Was in 1872," a reproduction of a photograph by
Frank Dusy. Dusy had many photos of early scenes, but they have long
since been destroyed. E. R. Higgins later had many photographs of early
Fresno City. The negatives that were not destroyed in fires were cast in
the refuse pile years ago. Some of the notable panoramic photos of early
Fresno are today highly prized and interesting enlargements of his originals.
The amateur photographer who has contributed so much to the advance-
ment of the art was unknown in their days.
Today nothing stands to mark the site of Millerton save the courthouse
building of 1867 and the adobe walls of what was Payne's saloon, a little
to the left and slightly in advance of the courthouse. Foundations of the
Oak Hotel, with the cellar holes of one or two other structures and domiciles,
remain of the mining hamlet and the county seat village on the stage route
and the one-time center of placer activities on the San Joaquin. The site
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 115
memories of Millerton are two — one before the first flood and the other
after the second. Millerton never made advance. Its history is one certain
and positive retrogradation. A good portion of the first townsite went
down the river with the first flood. The second finished the job.
Millerton, before the first flood, was strewn along the shelving southern
bank of the river for about 300 yards. It extended from the rocky point
half a mile below the fort on the river bend above the town to the low
ground and the last house, about 400 yards above the medicinal springs,
among the cobbles and boulders in the river channel, on a slight turn of
the stream below the town. Rocky point and springs are location points to
this day. The village was located to face the river. The latter ran a straight
course before the town and was a deep channel. Floods and disturbances
of the bed in mining operations changed, bared, shoaled and widened the
channel.
The river runs here almost due east and west. Townsite is on a down-
hill grade. The river flows towards the plains. Originally at the town's
edge on the river there was a beach of rocks and boulders. The first bench
above the water level was as high in places as ten to fifteen feet. Three
gulches headed for the river marked oft" the townsite at almost equal dis-
tances from each other. Two winding roads divided the site in strips
paralleling the river. The lower of these went out with the flood. The upper
and second was the stage route through the town. Its route is today the
road across the deserted site to the ranch headquarters at the fort site beyond
the rocky point. This became the town's main street after the flood.
Behind the houses that fronted on it was an irregular foot path to
town from the highest part of the townsite level, at the upper end. Cross
paths traversed townsite in every direction. Houses were located as whim
or convenience directed. Regularity there was none. The earliest houses
were shacks. At no period in the history of Millerton were there more than
about four houses two stories in height. These were the wooden Burroughs
Hotel, the stone and brick Oak Hotel, the wooden Henry House, the solid
granite and brick courthouse and the wooden Ashman-Baley domicile. The
courthouse and the Oak were the two notable structures. Little wonder
that they were regarded in the light of architectural marvels in their day.
You approached town from the lower end on an easy up grade. Fort
was established before the town and first improvements were at the upper
end on the town's side of the rocky dividing line. The washed out bench
level between beach and first wagon road was in large part owned by T. C.
Stallo, who in the sixty's went to Arizona and of whom all trace was lost.
He is remembered as a companionable bachelor, who not infrequently enter-
tained the young for whom he had a partiality. There are gray haired
today who recall as children that he had a cousin relative who was a con-
fectioner by trade and whose creations were the delight and admiration
of the younger generation at these entertainment feasts.
The main thoroughfares never had official designation. Records refer
to them as River, Front and Main streets, dependent on whether before or
after the one or other flood. Coming to town by the lower road there was
before reaching the first gulch an open level on which at your left stood
the Shannon (1) and BiirParker (2) houses and then to nearly the second
gulch scattered habitations of miners. Then came another large vacant
space to the third gulch near which stood a small shack (3) almost hanging
over the river, appurtenant to the Oak Hotel and in which was located, in
1865, the Times and the first print shop, shaded by a great oak tree. The
lower road practically ended here. Gulch was an approach to the deep
water ferry crossing here, the cables to the ferry pontoon being fastened to
the tree.
Entering town on your right at the lower end was vacant space until the
first gulch was passed.' Then came a cluster row of Hugh A. Carroll's house
116 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
(4) fronting on the road. Simon Henry's barn (5), his blacksmithy (6),
John Linnebacker's house (7), the Morgan house (8), Denny & Darwin's
establishment (9), a group of shacks (10), Millerton's first Chinese quarter,
and William Fielding's saloon (11), close to the second gulch. Between it
and the third was more open space and then the Oak Hotel (12) facing
the lower road and the river, two stories in front and erected on ascending
ground one story in rear which after the floods became the front with a
side main entrance. Beyond the Oak, the stage road inclined toward the
river, Init later was continued as the traveled route to the fort. Townsite
ground was rough and undulating, rising as the rocky point was approached
and sloping towards the river. First flood washed away all below the lower
road and what was not carried away then was with the second, when the
water came up as high as the steps of the courthouse on the highest ground.
Beyond the Oak which was diagonally across from the courthouse
location were the barn and stable corral (13) of the hotel, formerly Ira
Stroud's, and halting place for the stage, and further beyond the open
space on which the second Chinatown was located with its brick and adobe
shacks and Judge Hart as the Poo-Bah. Here was a notable brick structure
(14) first occupied as an office by Dr. Leach, later by Hart as a home
before his purchase of the fort property, for years rented to the county for
public offices, and lastly by Tong Sing, Chinese merchant, who also located
in Fresno.
Entering Millerton by the stage route you passed Rancheria Flat below
town, so named because of the early location of an Indian rancheria there.
Here a ferry was located later. It was the horse racing ground for the vil-
lagers. The earliest arriving families camped there before locating domiciles.
After evacuation the fort houses were sought for temporary as well as
permanent domiciles. The first large structure on entering town was Grier-
son & Froelich's store (IS), back of it the Froelich domicile (16) and along-
side of store the office (17); then the Caster (18), Stroud (19) and John
McClelland (20) domiciles. The Caster house was the first location, in 1870.
of the Expositor print office. Beyond the first gulch were Henrv's barn
and stables (21), along side the two story, double peaked roof Henrv Hotel
(22) fronting on the stage road ; further along Burroughs Hotel (23) also
rented for courtroom and county office purposes, and next to it Payne's
adobe saloon building (24). In rear of these were Dr. Leach's barn (25),
Mrs. Converse's domicile (26), and Leach's office (27).
Standing back from the roadway line was the 1867 courthouse (28)
and on the upper bench level and well back of it the county hospital (29).
Alongside the courthouse was the Faymonville residence (30) and forward
more on the line of the courthouse Fritz Friedman's saloon (31) ; bevond
the gulch Allen's saloon (32) and "Nigger Jane's" house (33). On the
higher hillside and well to the rear was the Ashman-Baley domicile (34).
Alongside and back of it was the barn and stable where the E.xpositor long
was located and to the right of the domicile was the site of the historical
first county jail built by Burroughs in 1857 and from which on the dav of
acceptance a lone prisoner oft'ered to demonstrate the ease with which he
could scratch his way out with a ten-penny nail.
The Dusy picture of 1872 shows sixteen points. It was evidentlv taken
from the high north bank of the river at the Indian camp there with the
sweep of the stream as foreground. It shows the Chinatown location (13)
after the 1861-62 flood, back on the hill side the Baley domicile (34), the
Oak Hotel (12) with the oak tree to the right; on the opposite side and on
a line with the courthouse Allen's saloon (32), to the left and back of the
courthouse the Faymonville house (30), the courthouse (28), Payne's sa-
loon (24), the Henry Hotel (22), far in rear and in line the county hospital
(29), at opposite ends of corrals the Leach office (27) and the Converse
home (26) and three small structures between, next the JMcClelland house
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 117
(20), the express office possibly the Stroud (19) house, another possibly
the Caster (18) house, and the Froelich house (16).
Make due allowance for ample barn and stable corrals and yards ;
weed and wild flower grown vacant spots ; elbow room in plenty ; houses
scattered here and there as if sprinkled from a pepper box ; weather and
sun beaten and blistered if any ever were painted ; some little effort made
at rustic palings and gardening of old fashioned flowers ; foot, cow and hog
tracks in every direction : trees a scarcity and shade a luxury ; the one thor-
oughfare a streak of dust in summer and a churned up trough of mud in
winter; shack architecture predominant, the better class of domiciles up
and down, boarded and battened structures and pretentious if provided with
attic; the bare hills across the river for a monotonous vista; a burning sun
beating down to make things sizzle by day and stew and sweat by night ;
postal and all connection with the world through the agency of stage coach ;
nearest populous centers pioneer Stockton and Visalia ; pioneering life at its
hardest and roughest ; lacking almost all things that conduce to comfort
in life ; conceive all these conditions and you can mentally picture what the
life in Millerton was.
Was the printer in the Expositor shop at his case setting type, the
horses in the corral poked their noses in at the window to neigh a cheery
how-do-ye-do. Did the printer plunge his hand into a box on the shelf for
some material as likely as not he brought out a wriggling bull snake to
restore him to sudden sobriety.
CHAPTER XXI
Early Flood and Drought Periods Recalled Briefly. Scotts-
BURG on the Kings Washed Away in 1861-62 Winter
Flooding. Millerton Unheeded the Timely Warning. It
Never Rallied From the Christmas Eve Disaster of 1867,
With Centerville a Second Time Sufferer. Twenty-nine
Houses Destroyed in the Millerton Overflow of the San
Joaquin. The Stream Was its Blessing but Also the Agent
IN its Undoing. Some XTotable Enterprises to Amass For-
tunes With Its Aid. A Gigantic Irrigation Project
Failure.
The winter of 1849-50 was one of excessive rains throughout the state,
with storms commencing on November 2 and continuing almost without
cessation for six weeks. The interior valleys were waterlogged and the
city of Sacramento was under four feet of water. In January another storm
flooded that city, but the threatened March and April inundations were pre-
vented by river bank damming. Extensive and costly levees constructed
after these experiences proved ineffectual for in 1852, 1853 and 1854 floods
did much damage. The levees were strengthened and much damage was
averted until 1861-62, when they succumbed to water pressure and a loss
of over $3,000,000 resulted, perhaps the most disastrous visitation.
The San Joaquin and Kings flooded in 1849-50, 1852-53, 1861-62, 1867-68
and in 1875. The one of 1861-62 is known as "the great flood." Since then,
there have been no comparable high water periods, nor such general losses
suffered. In the years named, save the last, there had not been such material
building up of the county that a winter's flood would result in a calamitous
loss in property destruction. The winter of 1889-90 was one of excessive
rainfall with streams overflowing, but the damage was mainly to farm
118 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
lands in the inability to put in seasonal grain crops. For destruction of
property, it may be said that the subsequent floods in the state are not
comparable with those of the first decade and a half of its history for obvious
reasons, one of these being the greater number of undertaken preventive
measures.
As there was flood loss during the earlier years of settlement, so there
was also damage in the state from drought periods in that time, but with
a steady decrease in the frequency of dry seasons, the losses from which
have been minimized in large part by irrigation. The first noteworthy dry
season was in 1851. There was then little agriculture, so the loss fell mainly
upon the cattle men, who depended upon spontaneous herbage and lacking
it were forced to the alternative of allowing the stock to die from starvation
or kill the herds for hides and tallow. Five years later came another
drought, which while not as severe, fell more heavily on the farmer because
more land was under cultivation.
The drought of 1864 was the most severe and disastrous that the state
had experienced up to then. The grain crop was almost a failure, and owing
to the absence of grass sheep and cattle perished by the thousands. Many
were bankrupted. Seven years of plenty followed, with another drought in
1870-71, grain crop scant, great loss in stock and yet not so general as in
1864. Six years of prosperity, with the "boom" in Southern California ush-
ered in, and in 1876-77 came a drought, second as a state-wide disaster to
the memorable one of 1864. Cattle literally died in droves, so did sheep,
millions were lost by the stock raisers, and the industry received a setback
from which it never recovered in particular localities. This was California's
last serious drought. There have been since seasons of scanty rainfall, but
with spread of irrigation there is less to fear, and a dry season has little
appreciable effect upon business, though seized upon by the speculative mid-
dleman to corner products and boost the price to the consumer.
Fresno's history has to do principally with the 1861-62 and 1867-68
winter rush of waters in the Kings and San Joaquin. By the first, Scotts-
burg, a stage station on the line to Hornitas in Mariposa, located on Moody's
slough in the Kings River bottoms was washed away. The settlement was
moved three-quarters of a mile south of where its successor (Centerville) is
today, but being again flooded in 1867-68 was a second time moved to the
present site, and still in the bottoms. The 1861-62 flood overran the low-
lands bordering on both rivers. The warning to Millerton was unheeded.
The village low ground was under water, stocks in cellars damaged and
foundations of river bank buildings sapped or weakened by the ramming
floating debris. Farmers and stockmen were the principal sufferers. William
Caldwell had the Falcon Hotel on the Upper Kings on the best road be-
tween Millerton and Visalia, with "a good and safe ford where the road
crosses the Kings River." Ford may have been such, but the site was not,
for the rush of water carried it away and left the Falcon a collapsed ruin.
The 1867-68 flood is the memorable one, because from the loss suffered
Millerton never rallied, nor were the twenty-nine destroyed buildings on
any part of the half remaining village site ever replaced — only another proof
of the instability of things. Centerville (Kings River) was again a suf-
ferer, necessitating a second relocation on its present site, hotel, hall and
other structures removed, the hall eventually to Fresno where it became
Len Farrar's Metropolitan saloon on H Street, around the corner of Mari-
posa. The flood water spread over an area two and one-half miles or more
wide, and the river bottom was piled up with driftwood. It is a tradition
that for five years and more thereafter no one living near the Kings River
had need to buy firewood. There had been a warm rain for three weeks
with consequent melting of the snow in the mountains. The soil was so
loosened that acres bordering on the river and covered with timber slid into
the stream, spreading the silt from Hazleton Canyon to Tulare Lake sink
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 119
Near where the bridge east of Centerville spanned the river, J. W.
Sweem had a gristmill operated by an undershot water wheel, with nearb>
brick dwelling, orchard and garden. After the flood not a vestige of these
was left. The river main channel directed by the millrace tore open a new
one seventy-five to 100 feet further away, leaving the old a bed of exposed
cobbles and gravel. The night of the flood and part of the next day until
rescued, Sweem, wife and ten children roosted in trees with such scant
clothing and coverings as they could gather in the excitement of the moment.
Knolls showing above the surface of the sea of water were crowded with
jack-rabbits that stirred not on the approach of man but had to be kicked
out of the way.
MILLERTON CHRISTMAS EVE FLOOD
The following account of the overflow at Millerton is reproduced from
the San Francisco Alta California and was presumably written by Otto
Froelich:
THE OVERFLOW AT MILLERTON
Terrible Destruction of Property
(From an Occasional Correspondent)
Millerton, Fresno County, January 19, 1868. — I will endeavor to give
you a few outlines of the general sufferings and losses which we in this
county have sustained by the late doings, of which you have probably seen
some notice in the newspapers. On the evening of the 24th of December
(Christmas eve) in the middle of the darkest night known, the citizens of
this place were awakened by a sudden thundering and roaring of the San
Joaquin River, and in less than one hour after, the whole. place was over-
flowed, with the exception of the ground upon which the court house stood
and a few private residences. All the buildings and stores filled with mer-
chandise gave way from their resting places. The frame houses took with-
out pilots a passage down the river, stocked with provisions and furniture ;
part of them were wrecked on the cliffs and rocks, and the others which
escaped have taken the plains as their resting place, perhaps giving lodg-
ment to the poor cattle grazing along in the vicinity. The brick and adobe
houses with apparent fear, trembled as if aware of their perilous situation.
The day following nothing was left of them but piles of brick and sand,
mixed with timber, drift wood, iron doors, tin roofing, etc., as warning
monuments not to locate any town on sand and gravel, especially in close
proximity to a river. The loss at this place in buildings and personal prop-
erty, at the lowest estimate, is $30,000. I am pleased to say my individual
loss is but small. I began as soon as I apprehended danger, to remove my
merchandise from the store into the court house and not more than ten
minutes after I removed the last case of goods the storehouse was entirely
destroyed. In the surrounding country also, on Upper and Lower Kings River,
all the farmers and stock ranchers have suffered serious loss. All is now at
a standstill : all the crossings on the rivers are gone and traveling stopped for
the present. — F.
The story is authenticated that great damage at Millerton was done
by the battering-ramming of a great raft of uprooted trees that the surging
wave of water brought down to clog the river channel. The townsite of
today is practically the diminished one that the flood left. It carried away
a considerable portion of the bluff on the north side of the river facing the
village. This is recalled because there was an early burying ground there,
and after the flood there was not a grave left. A large Indian rancheria was
also located there.
120 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
A tradition is that because of heavy rains a timber covered hillside
had sHd into the river damming up the channel, some twenty miles up in the
mountains above Millerton. until the accumulated back mountain drainage
and the stream flow broke through the dam, liberating the stored up water
to overwhelm the village. The onrush was swift carrying on the crest
of the huge wave an immense raft of uprooted trees. The channel could
not carry water and timber, and so the flood water spread to a height of
thirty feet, covering townsite to the very steps of the courthouse on the
highest ground, the oncoming backwater propelling the trees as battering
rams.
This great mass of tree logs was left stranded where the river lost
its velocity by spreading over the low plains on the Chidester place, near
where Kerman and the Skaggs concrete bridge are today, probably fifteen
or twenty miles below ]\Iillerton. So great was the accumulation that
Badger & Bellas, with whom one Jenkins was associated, erected a small
saw mill there, and for a season and longer cut up the trees into lumber.
Much of it was used by Majors S. A. Holmes, W. B. Dennett and others
for fencing and buildings in the newly colonized Alabama Settlement at
Borden (in Madera now). Even thereafter, the tops and trimmings served
the cattle and sheepmen as fuel for years. These flood logs may have been
treasure trove, but in the flood descent they gathered so much gravel and
stones in the grind that they were ruinous of the saws in the mill.
A BLESSING AND ALSO A CURSE
And thus the San Joaquin, which helped to make Millerton with gift of
its rich placers, also led to its undoing — was its blessing and also its curse.
What stories that stream suggests of human hopes and disappointments!
Its romance is interwoven with that of the men who made fortunes out
of it, and of those who failed in the effort to wring more gold from its bed.
To this day may be seen in the river, several hundred yards above
the fort, the remains on the south bank of the Fort Miller Mining and \A'ater
Company, ambitious enterprise of 1853 of Quartermaster Thomas Jordan,
"shrewd, cunning and crafty," to dam the stream, divert the water into the
ditch and glean the gold from the shallowed stream. The enterprise failed,
and "no one came ahead except Jordan."
Across the river from the old fort, the bluff is all but washed away.
In a corner stands remnant base of a brick chimney, and along the brow
of the bluff a six-mile ditch to Fine Gold Creek — another promising scheme
of the Kentucky Gold Mine. Water was brought by ditch for ground sluic-
ing away the bluff. It was sluiced away, but it is not recorded that the
sluicers were rewarded.
Above Pollasky on the river bank, lay corroding, for some twenty
years, a huge, iron-riveted, boiler-like, bottle-shaped structure, all that is
left to recall another enterprise to take gold out of the shifting bed of
the river. The boiler was the invention of a local genius, Peter Donahoo.
It was to be set upright in the water, sand and gravel pumped out to be
worked over for the gold, boiler sinking deeper to bedrock as the pumping
proceeded. Ingenious, but a failure, and good money was sunk.
Then there was later the magnificent scheme of the Ohio Mining Com-
pany. It swallowed up $2(X),0CX) of eastern money and was exploited by
W. C. Barrett and Karl Brown. Where Fine Gold Creek, once a rich
placer, joins the San Joaquin a whirlpool is formed. If the creek was once
so rich, why should not be the deep hole at the confluence of the streams?
Capital was interested on the showing of a diver, who had brought up
from the bottom of the whirlpool a pan of gravel which showed up twelve
dollars of gold. A dam was built above the whirlpool and the banks cut
into to divert the creek water — a laborious and costly undertaking. The
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 121
rush waters of two winter floods carried away ditch and dam. A third
season and the hole was pumped dry. The first panful showed up about
eighty cents worth of gold. Another fiasco was recorded.
The Ohio tried another plan later with local capitalists interested to
the tune of many thousands to sluice gold out of the river bank, four miles
above Cassady's bar. A costly pumping plant was erected, and when all
was ready to hydraulic away the bank discovery of a fatal error was made.
The power plant had been so placed that the gravel washings worked in
on the pumping apparatus and placed it out of commission. Disgusted with
the outcome and doubtful of its ultimate successful operation, the Iowa
marked another failure.
These costly ventures cover a period of many years. Yet gold has been
taken out of the river in paying quantities since the mining days, and suc-
cess made with primitive means. A notable one in this line was about 1898
when the late Charles A. Hart hired a crew of Chinese, who constructed
their own devices and midway between Millerton and the fort placered gold
in remunerative returns out of the river sand and gravel. Operations have
been pursued as late as 1908 from floating dredges, but not with known
success.
The most gigantic failure connected with the San Joaquin — though not
a mining venture — was that of the Sunset Irrigation Company, exploited in
the early 80's. It voted $200,000 bonds for the largest irrigation scheme in
the world under one management to reclaim by irrigation 400,000 acres of arid
West Side lands by an immense ditch, miles and miles long, tapping the
river a mile or so below Pollasky. The ruins of the granite dam are there,
so is the great ditch scooped out of the sides of the hills, but the lands are
as arid as ever they were. The water would not stay in the ditch. There were
costly wash outs of dam and ditch, the surface soil of the latter so frequently
volcanic ash which water would not solidify or hold.
Engineering errors were made, discovered too late in the attempted prac-
tical demonstration and not to be remedied save at great cost. The project
was given fair test, but in the end was abandoned after an immense loss of
money, time and labor. The ditch is grass grown and honeycombed with
squirrel holes, and the river flows by as ever.
Sporadic efl^orts have been made at various periods in the years gone by,
more especially during and after the Civil War times, to wash the sands of
the river for gold. Chinese were employed in this labor. Experiments were
made in even much later years in the line of dredging for gold but never
with compensating returns. Possibly the most ambitious efifort at a revival
of river sand gold washing was the one in the summer of 1878 as recorded
incidentally in a newspaper brief of forty years ago in the following words:
"The San Joaquin River is falling rapidly and is now fordable at many
points. About 300 Chinamen are scattered along both banks of the river for
a distance of thirty miles, beginning about five miles below ]\Iillerton and
extending up into the mountains, and are washing the sand along each bank
in rockers just as fast as the waters recede. By careful inquiry among them
they are found to gather from $1.50 to $2.50 a da}' each, and this will continue
till the water rises next winter — and each succeeding rise deposits a new
supply of gold."
The wealth production of the river as a gold yielder has passed into a
tradition. Its present day contribution to the wealth production of the valley
and for years to come is in the use of its snow melted waters from the High
Sierras for the irrigation of the cultivated areas of the plains which it traverses
in its long course to the Pacific Ocean. In that wealth production aid. it is a
greater yielder annually than all the gold ever washed out of its sand and
gravel banks.
122 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XXII
Three Families Singularly Linked With Millerton's History.
Notably so the McKenzies, Harts and Hoxies. They Were
Among the Earliest Prominent Settlers. Personal Recol-
lections OF Them and Other Located Families. Gillum
Baley Elected County Judge, Though No Practicing
Lawyer. Shannon a Prominent Citizen and Morrow a Pic-
turesque Character. Personal Recollections of Others
Who Filled Important Places in the Early Politics and
Historic Periods of the County.
As in ever)' small settlement, so at Millerton certain families were
first and foremost in the history and activities of the community as people
to be looked up to, as it were. Three in particular are linked with Miller-
ton's history whether as pioneers, by marriage connections, by present day
ownership of the land, or by subsequent prominence in person as well as
through their descendants in the later history of Fresno, of which they are
also pioneers. The three families are the McKenzies. Harts and Hoxies;
but notable also besides them are the Balev. Shannon, Morrow. Musick,
Winchell, Ashman, Boutwell, S. H. and W.' W. Hill, ]\IcClelland, Henry,
R. H. Daly, McCardle, Bernhard, Borden, Blasingame, Braley, Birkhead,
Collins, Cole, Darwin, Donahoo, Dixon. Dusy, Draper, the Fergusons, Fay-
monville, Firebaugh, Goldstein, Gundelfinger, Hedgpeth, Hughes. Kutner,
Nelson, Smoot, Statham, Sutherland, Tupper, Wickersham, White and the
Yancey farailies to mention only at random a comparative few. There were
other notable resident families in the county in the days before and after
Millerton. To enumerate them would make a long list and tax the memory.
As pioneers they all contributed to the slow development of the county in
its various material and spiritual periods. And this is not to say that there
were not others whose past may not be too closely inquired into for the
disclosures that inquiry would reveal.
James ]\IcKenzie, who died in January, 1864, aged only thirty-three,
was of the pioneer Fort Miller garrison, and after termination of his mili-
tary service in 1858, located above the fort as a stockraiser. He entered the
army in 1852, and his regiment was ordered from New York that year to
this coast to subjugate the Indians. The travel was by steamer to Aspin-
wall, by mule across the isthmus, thence by steamer to San Francisco and
the arsenal at Benicia Barracks and thence by land to Fort Miller. He was
a sergeant in Lieut. Lucien Loeser's battery of the Third Artillery, serving
also in Oregon in the Indian hostilities. A son, Edward P., who died in
1888, may be recalled, if at all. only by early pioneers as the storekeeper
at Hamptonville, the settlement charted on early maps at the ferry cross-
ing, where now stands the enclosed park at Pollasky.
William H. McKenzie
The other son, \Mlliam H., born at the fort in March, 1857, left five
children to perpetuate the name. Alfred H., an enterprising young business
man being the active executor of his father's trust estate. He lived at the
fort home until 1874, when he came to Fresno as a deputy of Sherifif Ash-
man. Two years later, he was a deputy under Assessor J- A. Stroud, con-
tinuing in various official deputyships until 1880, when he was elected county
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUxNTY 123
assessor for three years under the new constitution. In 1882, he was asso-
ciated with A. M. Clark in the land title abstract business, which they
incorporated and expanded. They also secured an interest in the Fresno
Loan and Savings Bank, incorporated in January, 1884, Mr. McKenzie
being cashier and manager. The bank has long since been liquidated.
With Fresno's city incorporation, Mr. McKenzie was appointed treas-
urer, continuing for twelve years. He was interested with Clark and John
C. Hoxie in mining operations, and at his death left a valuable estate, with
notable chief assets the expanded abstract business, a large interest in the
$300,000, Griffith-McKenzie ten-story sky-scraper, which is such a dis-
tinctive object in Fresno's sky line, and the 12,000-acre cattle range which
includes Millerton and fort sites. Neither of these would he part with for
sentimental reasons. Various efiforts have been made, plausible but not
always practical, by the Pioneers' Society and the Native Sons of the Golden
West to gift the old courthouse with a site of two acres as a public park
and a monument and with restoration and preservation make it a museum
of pioneer antiquities. The widow was born at ^Millerton and was Carrie
E. Hoxie before marriage. An only sister is IMrs. Mary J. Hoxie, widow of
John C. Hoxie, pioneer and expert quartz miner of the county, and one time
inexhaustible treasure mine of information on early Fresno history.
Mrs. Ann McKenzie, the mother, who was eighty-five years of age
at death in November, 1910, married Charles A. Hart at Millerton in
March, 1865, and as the result of this union was born, at the fort, in April,
1866, Truman G. Hart, prominent citizen of Fresno of the younger genera-
tion of the old county seat, in his earlier days connected with the national
guard ; also with the volunteer fire department and as its chief, elected in
1894 county clerk, later a city trustee and identified prominently with the
Republican party, and a pioneer in oil well development, besides general
mining ventures. He is an administrator of the valuable trust estate of his
half-brother, W. H. McKenzie.
Mrs. McKenzie-Hart came to New York from Ireland, in 1848. to visit
a sister : her first husband and she were natives of County Sligo. The wed-
ding journey across the isthmus was made on mule back. The McKenzies
and Harts lived at the fort until 1861, when they located on a nearby 3.000-
acre ranch and range. Besides farming the home place, young McKenzie
became extensively interested in mining. With S. N. Grifiith, the Fresno
Electric Railway Company was capitalized and the system expanded to one
of twelve miles when they sold out in May, 1903. He aided to develop the
Kern River oil resources, sinking the first wells at Bakersfield and at McKitt-
rick, was financially interested in the Four Oil Company and in two other
locations adjoining the Kern River property, also in the famous Section 28
in the Coalinga field, all of which yielded rich returns. He was moreover
a leader in Democratic politics, county and city.
Charles A. Hart
The late Charles A. Hart was for years after county seat removal,
the lone resident of the fort and of once prosperous Millerton, living in easy
contentment his declining days at the old homestead, which was his love
and pride and to abandon which in life seemed to him a sacrilege. He was
a graduate of the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, N. Y., took up sur-
veying and engineering as a special study, for a time surveyed and set
grades on the New York and Erie Railroad in 1841. returned home to
Palmyra, N. Y.. studied law for four years, practiced for one year and then
entered the wool and hide commission business in New York. He joined
a party of forty from Massachusetts that, in December, 1848, started for
California via steamer to Brazos, Texas, overland through the Lone Star
State and what is now Arizona, across the big desert, entered California by
124 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the southern route, journeyed north through Los Angeles, then only a
Mexican pueblo, to the San Joaquin Valley and arrived at Hill's Ferry in
Merced County, August, 1849, after numerous skirmishes on the journey
with Navajo and Apache Indians.
For two seasons, he and party mined on the Merced, their efforts with
old fashioned rockers yielding a pound of gold to the man daily. In 1853
he settled at Millerton, and upon county organization was elected the first
county judge. After his term, he returned to the law until 1874, when with
removal of the seat he devoted himself to ranching, cattle and horse raising
on 2,000 acres of land. He was the first fruit grower in the county at the
fort, experimentally planting oranges and figs about 1878, and himself
carrying the water in buckets for irrigation from a nearby spring. The
fort being abandoned in 1863, he bought all the improvements at auction.
By homesteading, purchase of the McClelland homestead covering the vil-
lage site, and by inheritance and other acquisitions the McKenzies and
Harts became the owners of the 12,000-acre cattle range on both sides of
the river, and all thereon.
Clark Hoxie
Clark Hoxie, who died in 1866 at Sandwich, Mass., at the ancestral home,
came to California via the isthmus in 1852 and locating at Tuttletown in
Tuolumne County built the first quartz mill in that locality, besides engag-
ing in mining. In 1856 he was at one of the Fresno reservations to teach
the redman carpentering, but by 1858 was located at Millerton as a black-
smith and wagonmaker, and participating in local administration affairs.
He earned the title of judge as a justice of the peace, and tradition has it
that court was held not infrequently on short notice in the shop, the judge
astraddle of a wooden horse as a judicial bench and the litigants and others
similarly accommodated. Clark Hoxie was a supervisor in 1857, chairman
of the board during the term, and a true type of the sturdy and honest
pioneer. His descendants are :
John C. Hoxie, who married a McKenzie, and aforementioned.
Sewell H. Hoxie, who resided in later years at Pasadena, Cal.
George L. Hoxie, for successive years county surveyor, afterward city
engineer of Fresno, planned its enlarged sewer system with septic tank
plant at the city sewer farm, and at present lumbering in Trinity County.
Mrs. Elizabeth J. Hoxie-Barth, who at Fort Miller in 1865 married Capt.
Charles Earth of the quartermaster's department of the United States Army
and later moved to San Francisco.
And her sister Mrs. Carrie E. Hoxie-McKenzie, the younger daughter,
who married W. H. McKenzie and was born in the old wooden hotel and
courthouse building that was moved in part, miles below ]\Iillerton on the
banks of Little Dry Creek.
John C. Hoxie prided himself that all his education was received from
his mother, who in 1859 was postmistress at Millerton, also organized the
undenominational first Sabbath school and among the early white women
in the district was looked up to intellectually as a superior personage.
Gillum Baley
High in public esteem and regard in IMillerton as well as in Fresno,
the career of the late Gillum Baley, an lUinoisian, born in 1813, was typical
of the adventurous early comer. At the age of nineteen, he participated
until its close in the Black Hawk War, and in 1835 married in Missouri,
the wife who died during the second year of the union, leaving a son Moses,
who died in 1885 in California. Following farming in Missouri, Gillum mar-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 125
ried in 1837 Miss P. E. jNIyers of Jackson County, the companion of his
later days, and the mother of eleven children. It was in 1849 that he came
overland, for two years followed mining and rejoined his family in Missouri.
The call to California was, however, too insistent, so in April, 1858, via
the southern route the second overland journey was undertaken with wife,
nine children and a brother, W. R., the five ox team wagons with 100 head
of cows and stock cattle joining^ the L. J- Rose partv in the Colorado River
Valley.
The sufferings of the party were great because of the heat and super-
induced thirst. Besides, the party of sixty was fiercely attacked and as
determinedly repulsed an assault on the camp by 800 Mojave Indians, with
loss to the party of nine dead and seventeen wounded and of savages eighty-
seven killed, wounded unknown. Having escaped massacre, the route was
changed by retreat to Albuquerque, N. M., the men trudging along barefooted
with feet lacerated by the cactus thorns and sleeping at night on the sand
under the wagons. The Baley party recuperated for seven months at Albu-
querque, and finally set out for California, resting at Visalia, locating on the
Chowchilla in mining, then moving to the Tollhouse, where he farmed and
raised stock, eventually settling at Millerton. It was in February, 1861,
that he entered upon public life as appointed justice of the peace to suc-
ceed John Letford in the second township.
A notable incident in his long and honorable career was his election
in October, 1867. as county judge.
A remarkable story has always attached to this worthy man that he
was elected judge though having no knowledge of the law and untrained as
a lawyer. The truth is that, he had read law in Missouri and had been jus-
tice-court bench-rider. Experience as a practitioner he had none, nor was
he familiar with the technical forms of procedure. He was admitted to
practice at Sacramento. Cal., after an examination as to his qualifications
by a committee of three lawyers appointed by the supreme court on his
application for admission to the bar as was the practice of the day and the
times.
Yet with an interim, he occupied a seat on the county bench for twelve
years, and his decisions met with general approval. The historical fact is
that few, if any, of his judgments were reversed on appeal. The lack of tech-
nical knowledge was replaced in the man by an intuitive insight into human
nature, judged by experience and common sense. Retiring from the bench,
Baley followed the grocery business for eight years in Fresno, located on
the ground floor of the Odd Fellows' hall building at the corner of Mariposa
and I Streets where now stands the Farmers' National Bank, part of the
time associated with the son Charles, during this period serving a term as
county treasurer, elected November, 1884, and in 1888 withdrawing from
business activity. He died at the age of eighty-five.
He was the organizer of the Methodist Episcopal Church. South, in
Fresno in 1872, with twelve members and a start with five, four of these of
his own family. The house of worship, the first in Fresno, in the erection of
which he was instrumental, was completed in 1876 and the first sermon
preached in it on March 3. There were eleven children by the second mar-
riage. The dead are : an infant that passed away on the overland journey ;
Mrs. Elizabeth Ashman that was the wife of the sherifif; Lewis Leach Baley
who died at the age of seventeen, Mrs. Rebecca M. Shannon of Alameda,
who has been dead, for a decade, and Mrs. Catherine Krug of Brazil, who
left Millerton in 18/1-72 and is survived by four children. The living of the
Balev family are :
Mrs. Frances Yancey, widow of Charles Abraham Yancey, of Toll-
house.
George Baley. rancher of Sentinel.
Mrs. Ellen G. McCardle, widow of James McCardle, millman of earlv
126 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
days, and mother of j\Iiss Sarah McCardle, the county Ubrarian of Fresno
and of Edward McCardle, the title abstractor of Madera and historical
authority, and of James who was county recorder of Fresno for a term.
Charles C. Baley, long with Las Palmas winery and now watchman at
the courthouse park, one of the few reliable authorities on early Fresno his-
tory. At the old Academy school he was known as "Dates" because of his
gift for recollecting dates in history. This gift he inherited from his mother.
Of her it is said that she had at her finger's ends the birthdays of her eleven
children and was an authority on the marriage, birth and death dates of
the pioneer acquaintances of her day.
Mrs. Nancy J. Greenup-Black of Academy.
Mrs. Parthenia Hill-McKeon, widow of Spencer J. Hill, and wife of
R. B. McKeon of Los Angeles.
Jefferson M. Shannon
Prominent in political and public life was Jefferson M. Shannon, a
Missourian born, of whom they tell so many amusing tales that he must
have measured up to Hamlet's description of Yorick as "a fellow of infinite
jest and of most excellent fancy." Shannon first appears on the local hori-
zon as a pork raiser and seller in 1854 at Coarse Gold Gulch, "making money
hand over fist" in his dealings with the Chinese. He crossed the plains in
the spring of 1850, as did his father before him, though the son did not
learn of his death in the fall of '49 in El Dorado County until his later
arrival. Jefferson located in Sonoma County as a butcher, and then came
to Fort Rliller, after a time serving two terms as under and deputy sherifT
and collector of the foreign miners' license tax.
After removal to Fresno in 1873, he became connected with the land
department of the Southern Pacific as general townsite agent for California,
Arizona and New Mexico, also engaging in the new county seat in the
wholesale and retail liquor trade. Removing to Alameda in 1888, he con-
tinued as land and confidential agent until his death in June, 1902. At one
time at Millerton, he reopened McCray's blacksmith shop with "an experi-
enced and skilful workman," one Ah Kit, the most expert in his line in the
county, and devoting special attention to the shoeing of horses and oxen.
Shannon's dealings with the Chinese were so extensive and covered so many
years that he came to speak their language fairly well. Business relations
with Kit were so cordial that in appreciation the latter named his Millerton
first-born, Jefferson Shannon Kit. This Chinese-American youth, who died
in Fresno in January, 1908. was given a notable funeral, which was a curious
combination of the modern and barbaric, the cortege led by a band which
played rag-time and quick steps for dirges. Shannon died well-to-do as the
result of judicious land investments. Children that survived him :
Mrs. Mary Idria Toms, wife of \V. E. Toms of Alameda, now of
Fresno.
Scott Ashman Shannon, who manages the Fresno estate.
Sidney J. Shannon from 1889-1901 in the accounting department of the
Pacific Improvement Company, for some years thereafter land agent at
Los Banos for Miller & Lux, now deputy ITnited States marshal : and
Leland Stanford Shannon, rancher of Fowler. The older brothers are
prominent Elks. Save Leland, who saw the light of day at Millerton, the
others were born at the fort.
Their mother taught the first private school in the county, receiving
seventy-five dollars a month for a term of three months, this school
at the fort barracks having an average attendance of fifteen.
Jesse Morrow
A picturesque character was Jesse Morrow, an Ohioan, who
was lured by the '49 story of gold, crossed the plains to pass the winter
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 127
at Salt Lake City, but being driven off by the Mormons pushed on with a
smaller party which entered California by the Southern pass and disbanded.
Morrow and six others, with food and blankets, trudged on westward
through Cajon pass, trading rifle for beef, which was "jerked" for food,
and crossing the Kern, met at Posey Creek, two survivors of a party of
sixteen massacred by Indians. All returned to the Kern, there met an emi-
grant train, of which Dr. Lewis Leach was a member, and pushed on north-
ward. At Woodville (Tulare County) they came upon the scene of the
massacre and buried fourteen corpses. Camping under guard and killing
wild cattle as a food supply, they moved on to the Kings and the San Joa-
quin, and a part of the party was engaged for Cassady & Lane to mine
for them at Cassady's Bar.
Morrow mined at Fine Gold Gulch and on the San Joaquin until 1856,
when he removed to Los Angeles. He engaged in stock raising, and driving
1,100 head of cattle to the San Joaquin continiK<l here in the ^tuck l)usiness
until 1874. One year later, he took up sheep rai'-in- nii the plains, continuing
this pursuit until 1882, having at times flocks \arying in number IrDUi 4.000
to 20,000. Mr. ]\Iorro\v was at one time one of the richest men in the county,
interested in mining, lending money but losing $160,000 through poor secu-
rities, and owning land in the two county seats. In 1874, he was instrumental
in erecting the Southern Pacific hotel, which came into his possession two
years later. It was the caravansary par excellence of Fresno and bore his
name for a time. It was on the site of the present Fresno postoflice building,
was the Southern Hotel and the Henry House (Simon \\\ Henry of Miller-
ton"), and later known as the ]\Iariposa Hotel. It was mo\'eil to the corner of
Mariposa and Al nn the Jefif D. Statham property, in rear of the courthouse,
but afl' r partial ilestruction by fire a few years ago removed to a third
site an.] pr. ^rnt 1(. cation at the corner of Diana and Silvia streets.
The Morrows were absentees from the Kings River ranch for fifteen
years as residents of San Jose, and in his day he was probably the county's
most extensive sheep raiser.
Morrow was one of fate's victiius for at death in 18^7 he was practically
a ruined man. Yet there is the authenticated tale that in one live stock
transaction alone about $80,000 was piled up in payment on a table in one
of the rooins of the old ^Morrow house. The kitchen portion of this structure
was part of a building wheeled to Fresno from Alillerton. Two earliest deeds
under date of June 9, 185.^, were by Morrow to McCray. one tnr .S-'K) inr
the Millerton lot on which the Oak Hotel was erected, and the other for $2,300
for the ferry formerly known as Morrow & Carroll's. It was the irony
of fate perhaps that in June, 1874, McCray was sold out by the sheriff on
execution, and that Morrow was the judgment creditor buyer, taking back
some of the ver}^ property sold to ^NlcCray, when he came to Millerton a
rich man. Morrow was associated with George C. Ferris and J. A. Van Tas-
sell in a flour mill at Centerville, and retaining all interest on dissolution
bought the grist mill of J. W. Sweem, three miles northeast of there, and
for a time had the milling monopoly of the county.
E. C. Winchell
The E. C. Winchell family did not come to Millerton until 1859, but its
position and standing in the community was a commanding one. For two
years by a special dispensation from the government care-taker, it was
permitted to occupy as a domicile the hospital building at the fort, and
then moved to a settler's primitive cabin in Winchell's Gulch until a resi-
dence could be erected. The family lived in the gulch for fifteen years. It
continued as residents of Fresno i7ntil 1896, wdien it moved to Oakland, Cal.
Judge Winchell, who died July 24, 1913, at Berkeley, Cal., was a
recognized leader of the local bar, and influential in educational circles. Mrs.
128 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Winchell conducted a select school for young ladies. He was of a literary
turn and was in frequent demand for addresses on public occasions and cele-
brations. He was county judge from 1864-67, district attorney from 1860-63,
and the first county school superintendent appointed in February, 1860,
with the organized Scottsburg, Millerton and Kingston districts. Mr.
Winchell was a large property holder in the heart of Fresno City on Mari-
posa, near J, and on J, between Mariposa and Fresno, but it passed out of
his hands at loss. On this property he had erected in 1889 improvements
involving a total investment of $42,000. Three children survive him namely:
L. A. Winchell, a well-known citizen of Fresno, an authority on local his-
tory and secretary of the Fresno County Pioneer Association.
L. F. Winchell of Oakland. Cal., long connected here with the national
guard in the days of the Third Brigade under Gen. M. W. Muller with
Fresno headquarters and the Sixth Infantry battalion (later a regiment of
six companies) under Cols. Eugene Lehe and J. J. Nunan, both of Stock-
ton, and S. S. Wright of Fresno, as the organized military.
Miss Anna Cora Winchell, newspaper woman, music and art critic for
one of the San Francisco dailies.
CHAPTER XXIII
A Consideration of the Social Side of Pioneer Days in Fresno.
Rough the Manners, the Labor and the Amusements.
Woman's Lot a Specially Trying One. Big Families the
General Rule of the Day. No Marriageable Woman
Needed to be Without Husband. Weaker Sex in Numer-
ical Minority. First White Children Born in County.
Practical Jokes Characteristic of the Devil-me-care
Spirit of the Times. Artlessness of the Political Candi-
date. No Mincing of the King's English.
The mollycoddle was unknown in the pioneer days. Had he existed,
life would have been made an unbearable burden for him. They were
rough times those days, especially in a mountain mining, or railroad border
village. The men had rough ways and hard labor, were rough and plain
spoken in language, rough in their games and amusements, and lacking the
restraint of social environments and of the refining influence of the presence
of good women, even their horse-play was the quintessence of boorish
roughness. Life amidst such rough surroundings was to be borne only with
the philosophic reflection that when among the Romans do as the Romans do.
In the early days, every miner was a walking arsenal. Naturally, a
popular amusement would be rifle and pistol practice, and tempted by the
surroundings hunting and fishing. A game of cards called "rounce" was a
prime favorite. Of course all the card and mechanical devices for gambling
were at hand to tempt the unwary and reckless. And scrub mule and horse
races had their attractions. Refining and intellectual entertainments were
unknown in ]\Iillerton's earlier days. The coming of a political stump
speaker, as in later times, was a veritable godsend, though as caviare to
the multitude, because what need of Democratic pabulum in a hide bound
Democratic stronghold — carrying coals to Newcastle as it were
Woman's social lot was a specially trying one. No literary club, the
time was not ripe for suffrage, no sewing cjrcle, no relief society meeting, no
weekly evening prayer meeting. Not until county seat removal had been
practically resolved upon, was there church service once in a month, and not
until shortly before the removal was there a Sunday school established.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 129
Eighteen years of village life with never even a missionary chapel cabin.
At great intervals, mass was held on stated church festival days, with a
clergyman sent for the occasion from Visalia for the benefit of those of
the Catholic faith at Millerton. Masses were held on improvised altars at
the fort residence, ]\Irs. McKenzie-Hart being a member of that faith.
Supervisor J. B. Johnson recalls as a boy living at Visalia accompanying
the priest several times to act as acolyte.
The annual Methodist circuit camp meeting was always a great event
and an opportunity for the exchange of social amenities. The main camp
ground was on Big Dry Creek, near the Musick residence, though protracted
meetings were also held near Centerville and at other points. Mrs. E. Jane
Hyde kept the public table where board could be had at reasonable rates,
a corral was maintained for the feed of horses by the day or week, and due
reminder was given that "those expecting to remain overnight will please
bring their bedding."
No Millerton hubby could habitually absent himself from home at night
on the lodge meeting plea, for it was not until almost the last that Odd
Fellow and Good Templar lodges were formed, and they met at seven
o'clock in the evening, and there was no "missing the last car home." True,
there was the even then threadbare excuse to fall back on of "seeing a man
on business," but if hubby overstepped the time allowance it was ten to one
he could be speedily rounded up at Lawrenson's, or Friedman's or at Mc-
Cray's, the latter the popular resort with sundry drawing attractions other
than monte, faro, roulette, chuck-a-luck and the other devices.
Mothers with their large progenies had their days fully occupied, so
that after the domestic toils they were in no mood after supper hour for
sociabilities. Family social calls were the main expedient for killing an
idle period and exchanging the latest village gossip morsel. There was no
threatened danger of race suicide then. Big families were the rule — the more
the merrier apparently — and with no school and no compulsory education
law there was not the frequent scrubbing, washing, combing and brushing
of the voung hopefuls to pass the critical muster of the schoolma'm. It was
an ideal existence for the young ones compared with the present day school
attending preliminaries.
BIG FAMILIES WERE THE RULE
To hark back to big families. There was the Baley household of ten
with eight budding girls, the Sample colony of twelve with six buxom las-
sies and the "Uncle" S. H. Cole aggregation of ten by a first and third mar-
riage, the Helm progeny of seven, the Gower of nine, the nine living of the
eleven of John A. Patterson, a founder both of Fresno and Tulare counties
and an organizing supervisor of them, the living three of the S. A. Holmes
familv of ten, the surviving six of the nine by the first marriage of the late
Dr. W. J. Prather to which were added two by a second marriage, John
Sutherland with six, John H. Shore with seven, A. H. Statham with eight,
and Russell H. Fleming and John Krohn each with nine, and Henry N.
Ewing, the father of Treasurer A. D. Ewing and of D. S. Ewing, the lawyer,
with eight, of which six lived to come to California. He hit upon an idea
in giving the children names, the initials of which from A to H established
their natal sequence. This is no fiction for here is the proof in names:
1 — Achilles D. Ewing of Fresno ;
2— Belle Z. Ewing (deceased) ;
3 — Cora L. Clasby (deceased) ;
4 — David E. S. Ewing of Fresno:
5 — Emmett Mc. Ewing (deceased) ;
6 — Forrest B. Ewing of La Habra, Cal. :
7 — George M. Ewing (deceased) ; and
8 — Harry M. C. Ewing (deceased).
130 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
But instances of such large families are easily multiplied. The numeri-
cally large family circle was the rule : the small or childless, the exception.
Ponder a moment on the battalion of kin that the marriages in one family
of the offsprings and relatives can in time muster up. A case in point is
that of Mr. and ]\Irs. Josephus Hutchings, who in April, 1911, at Belmont
in this city celebrated their golden wedding anniversary with a reunion of
kindred. The Hutchings have three children and his living relatives then
were four married sisters. A tally was made out of curiosity at the celebra-
tion, and the exhibit of local kindred was the following:
Hutchings, 32; Stevens, 10; Nolans, 23; Burnetts, 23; Pecks, 28. Total
116.
The Hutchings are ox team emigrants from Iowa, who arrived in
California in October, 1861, lived eight years at Stockton and then moved
to near what is now Fresno, he and his brother, \\'illiam, being credited as
the first to sow a crop of grain on the plains at what is now the Fairview
vineyard, eleven miles east of Fresno. Robert Edmunds, a neighbor, erected
the first domicile so far out on the plains, standing today at Fairview;
\\'illiam, the second, and Josephus, the third. The latter and P. E. Daniels
were first to enter the Coalinga field and develop it for oil, sinking, about
1899, a well on the Wabash holding, proving it a million-dollar property.
William surveyed and built under contract the big Gould irrigation ditch
and system.
Another notable illustration was furnished on April 13, 1917, at Clovis
in the annual home-coming of the descendants of Mrs. Jane Sweany-Cole,
"Grandma Cole" as she is known, to make joy over her eighty-seventh birth-
day anniversary on the fifteenth. As the result of the marriage with \^'illiam
T. Cole in 1854, ten daughters were born, nine living, the one deceased Mrs.
Alice Hoskins (wife of the late William Hoskins) having lived to be aged
forty years. Mrs. Cole counts eighty-two living descendants, all save ten
resident in the county. Death has invaded the family to remove the father
in June, 1907, one child, six grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
The surviving family members are :
Children, nine; grand children, forty-one; great grand children, twenty-
one. Total, seventy-one.
The daughters are : Mesdames Sally, wife of D. C. Sample ; Angeline,
wife of I. T. Birkhead ; Mary, wife of J. A. Stroud ; Jane, wife of F. S. Estell ;
Ida, wife of John Bell; Kate, wife of W. F. Shafer ; Grace, wife of R. L.
Hoag; Emily, wife of ^^^ J. Heiskell ; and Flarriet, wife of A. H. Blasingame.
"Grandma" Cole crossed the plains with parents from Missouri at
the age of twenty in 1830, family consisting of nine children. The journey
occupied five months, California was entered at Emigrant Gap via Truckee
and halt was made in Solano County. Cole came overland in 1849. also
from ^Missouri. The Coles came to Fresno in 1860 and have lived here since,
forty }'cars at Academy where he died, whereafter she moved to her present
Clovis home.
William Temple Cole named for his American progenitor, who was a
Kentucky companion of Daniel Boone, was the eldest of nine brothers and
five sisters, but the only family representative in California. He possessed
remarkable physical strength and endurance, never met his superior in
wrestling and in St. Louis attracted attention by lifting 500 pounds. Of
splendid physique, he was noted as a pedestrian and runner, beating the
stage often and walking fifty miles in a day from Auburn to Sacramento,
carrying $5,000 in gold dust. He was a volunteer in the ]\Iexican War. At
twenty-one he was an Indian trader in Kansas for two years, crossed the
plains with mule team upon the report of gold, leaving the party at Goose
Creek and pack-horsed to San Francisco, arriving August 10, 1849. Return-
ing with the company's mail, he met the party on the Bear River, near the
present site of Nevada City, closed up its affairs and then mined on the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 131
Yuba until sickness compelled a change in location. He embarked in stock
raising, two miles from Sacramento, also furnishing river steamers with
wood for fuel. He prospered but lost all in floods.
Ten years later he moved to Fresno, settling on the- Kings River and
two floods left him poorer by $15,000 and a good farm. Moving to Academy
for the superior school there, he engaged in stock raising on a section of
land and in 1897 retired from active pursuits. The wife whom he married
in Solano County, was the daughter of James Sweany, a pioneer of 1850,
who lived in Nevada City, farmed in Solano and died in Visalia. In public
affairs, it was said of W. T. Cole that he took no part "aside from casting
a straight Democratic ticket at all elections."
The pioneer men lived up truly to the biblical injunction that it is
not good for man to be alone, and the women included themselves in the
category. Second marriages were common and third not unusual. No mar-
riageable lass in Millerton, or early Fresno, had to seek a beau. She had
her absolute pick. The supply of girls did not meet the demand. No widow
had need to repine for a provider. Every marriageable woman had only to
say aye and she was snapped up in a twinkling. R. W. Riggs. the local his-
torian and Pine Ridge philosopher, came to Fresno in February, 1881,
and he is authority for the statement that he had reason for learning
that even at that late day there were only fourteen marriageable girls in
Fresno city but 200 willing ones to take them off their parents' hands. In
the early days there was a disproportionate ratio between the sex representa-
tives, and it continued until after Millerton had ceased to exist and Fresno
was no longer a railroad border town.
That white woman was no drug on the market was given published cor-
roboration in the Expositor on August 7, 1872, in a humorous news item to
the effect that ten or fifteen marriageable young ladies, "either of comely or
plain appearance." are wanted immediately, Millerton being then without
"a single one" and "at least twenty-five old bachelors in search of ribs."
The inducement was held out that "there will be no necessity of long court-
ships as they all mean biz."
The marriage relation naturally suggests the question, \\dio was the
first white child born in Fresno County? At the Millerton second reunion
of the Pioneers' Society in Jnne, 1915, Stonewall J. Ashman went through
the public mock ceremony of being crowned such. The honor was not dis-
puted by the then living holder of the distinction, though commented upon
at the time by her and W. J- Hutchinson, the president of the society, who
had attended her wedding. The distinction then belonged to Margaret A.
Boutwell, daughter of Hugh A. and Elizabeth Carroll, who married B. S.
Boutwell, while a deputy of Sheriff Ashman. The first horn white girl in
the territory was her older sister Mary, born in 1854 and died in 1865. Mrs.
Boutwell died April 6, 1916. The newspaper "send off" on her wedding read:
"In Millerton, April 26th, 1872, by Hon. Gillum Baley, Bedford S.
Boutwell to Miss Maggie A. Carroll, all of Fresno County. Bully for you,
Steve. We congratulate you. We hope that you and your blushing bride
may have a long, pleasant and prosperous journey through life and finally
die happy, and while we do not wish that your issue should be so great as
that of vour namesake, the treasurer of the United States, we do hope that
your offspring mav be sufficiently numerous to gratify your every desire
and that they be honored at home and abroad."
A specimen of the bucolic style of journalism, was it not?
The first white male child born in the county is said to have been Scott
Burford, who is living near Clovis. This is on the authority of John C.
Hoxie.
Charles C. Baley names Allen Stroud, late of Coalinga, and son of the
pioneer Ira Stroud, as the first white male child born in the county. Of half
132 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
breed children, there is a plenty in the county, offsprings of white fathers
and of Indian and even Chinese mothers.
BUCOLIC AMUSEMENTS AND JOKES
The roughness of the bucolic amusements and practical jokes was in
accord with the "loose devil-mc-care style" of the times. Early historians
ever noted with elaborate glee the story that has become a stock one since
1853, how Quartermaster Jordan of the fort — "shrewd, cunning and crafty,"
but for Jordan "first, last and all the time" — was checkmated by one John
Newton. Jordan contracted with him to deliver all the hay he could furnish
at fifty dollars a ton. Newton cured in the spring ten tons that he gathered
in an immense stack. It was measured and accepted at fifty tons and paid
for. The first load that Jordan hauled away laid bare the imposition. The
hay was only a thin covering of a great rock boulder. Newton conveniently
decamped, Jordan was beaten at his own game and the populace said it
served him right.
Another shop-worn tale is the one of 1856, anent T. J. Allen's restaurant
with bar and justice of the peace annexes and the trial before a jury of
three of Dr. Leach"s case on a claim of $350 with full verdict, notwithstand-
ing that the court's jurisdiction was limited to $300. On the last day of
grace for an appeal. Lawyer James T. Cruikshank came from Millerton to
perfect that appeal on the unimpeachable ground of lack of jurisdiction.
Warned of his coming and errand, the genial and frisky spirits that hovered
around Allen's bench and bar to make themselves serviceable occasionally
as jurors plied him with drink so assiduously that he was unable to prepare
the papers, and at midnight was tenderly put to bed, the legal time for
appeal having then expired. Cruikshank took in the situation next day
(Sunday) and tramped home an euchered man.
There was always something astir when Shannon was at leisure. He
had a little horse known as "Jeff Davis" that held the blue ribbon in the
county and brought him in many a dollar at races until he was matched
one day at Kingston and met his Waterloo. But long before that in the
summer of 1856, according to another tale that has been worn to a frazzle.
Shannon and James Roan discovered a new sport — a footrace between
buxom squaws. Shannon backed and trained the red, Roan the blue. The
red won and Shannon was the richer by $150. Editor L. A. Holmes of the
Mariposa Gazette commented on the novel- race to record that if Roan had
kept his squaw in as good training as Shannon the race would have had
another ending.
The name of "Gabe" Moore, an Arkansas slave, black as the ace of
spades, and brought to this state by Richard and \Mlliam Glenn, early set-
tlers on the Kings River, has been handed down, because he "contributed
more toward the fun and amusement of those people than any other man
in the settlement," for which reason some of his transgressions were winked
at. Gabriel was once in serious trouble, having coveted a squaw of Kings
River Agent Campbell, who had introduced the Brigham Young custom of
a plurality of wives with the red-skinned damsels. Tempted to his melon
patch, Gabe committed an act comparable to the incident that befell the Sa-
bine women, and Campbell vowed to kill him but consented to submit the
matter judicially before W. W. Hill. The cabin courtroom was crowded at
this cause celebre, Gabe who always appealed to his former masters when
in trouble, was in fear and trembling at the outcome, nothing very intel-
ligible was extracted from the native daughters, but the case being sub-
mitted acquittal followed, after consideration of the case far into the night
and the free introduction of liquid stimulants to ward off slumber. Years
after in condoning his act, Gabe chuckled and grinned, "Ah massa, 'omen
was scarce dem days."
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 133
Gabe died in May, 1880. leaving for one in his station in life a nice
little estate in trust for his black widow, Mary.
McCray had a Newfoundland dog named "Dawson," whose wonderful-
sagacity is the subject of many a tale. There was no fish for the hotel
guests one Friday and McCray confided the fact to "Dawson." The dog
jumped into the river from the ferry scow, swam about and anon returned
with a fresh salmon in his mouth. They had fish for dinner that day. On
another occasion and being overcome by too many of the cups that cheer
even singly, McCray turned to "Dawson," intimating that it was bedtime.
"Dawson" scampered off, returned with the candle stick for lighting and
piloted his master to bed. "Dawson" was made a gift to Len Farrar, a
Fresno saloon keeper and there long exhibited his intelligence for the amuse-
ment of many a patron in the role of valet in the bringing of hats on de-
parture and in like tricks.
Recklessness in gambling was characteristic, with Converse a notable
example of it. There was nothing that he would not risk the hazard of
chance on. He would wager any stake on who could expectorate closest
to a given mark. He and McCray laid a bet whose road was the longest
from their respective ferries. Converse lost, and after the wager was paid
it leaked out that the night before the surveyor's measuring chain had been
shortened by several links. On another occasion, it is related. Converse was
in a card game for high stakes — gold dust in buckskin sacks — at McCray's
with cutthroat "greasers," and Converse was cleaned out. Undismayed, he
excused himself, asked that the game be not halted, and on return reentered
it, won back all he had lost, and more too. The buckskin with which he
regained everything contained only sand that he had scooped up on the
river bank during his temporary absence.
Theodore T. Strombeck, a member of the Mariposa Battalion, known as
"Swede Bill" — in those days a nickname was fastened on every one and
surnames had not come into fashion — came nearest losing life as the result
of a practical joke. He had placed a dab of limburger cheese in the hatband
of a ]\Iillerton dandy, who resented the familiarity with a loaded shotgun.
He met Strombeck and fired, but the latter being alert dodged behind a
protecting rock and saved his life.
Strombeck was another squawman. He died at the age of eighty-two
in November, 1910. He was one of the Mariposa Battalion in the Indian
War of 1851. He was a Stockholniite born, and in him the history of the
territory for nearly sixty years was epitomized. He gained his nickname at
a convivial gathering at T. J. Allen's Coarse Gold Gulch store of which he
was keeper and at which all the Bills had been toasted and a second bottle
was brought out for another round beginning with a pled.ge to the long
life of "Swede Bill." The name ever after stuck to him, though William was
not his. In January 16, 1918, John Strombeck, aged thirty-four of Auberry,
and a descendent, took out license to marry Topsy Buffalo, aged thirty-eight,
also of Auberry and the half breed couple matrimonized.
PRO BONO PUBLICO APPEALS
Published card appeals of political candidates were frank and artless.
Here is an example :
For County Surveyor
The undersigned respectfully announces himself a candidate for County
Surveyor of Fresno County at the ensuing election to be holden in Septem-
ber next, 1871. Having been a permanent citizen of this county since organi-
zation is believed to be a reasonable apology for not traveling over the county,
renewing old acquaintance and establishing new, and having no inclination
and but little tact for electioneering, I will not be found among the canvassers
discussing the issues of the day.
Millerton, May 2nd, 1871. M. B. LEWIS.
134 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Unique was tlie following asking reelection as county judge, after a
first election to the bench :
For County Judge
Millerton. Fresno Co., April 12th, 1871.
FELLOW CITIZENS: — I take this method of announcing through the
FRESNO EXPOSITOR, our county newspaper, that my name will be
placed before you at the ensuing Judicial Election for reelection to
the ofifice which I have the honor now humbly to fill. My official acts as
County Judge for the past three years are known to the voters of this county
(whether good or bad). I do not claim that I have not committed any errors,
but I do claim that whatever those errors may have been, they were of
judgment and not of the heart. I feel a desire to fill the ofiiice for another
term, as I feel that I can do so more satisfactorily to myself, having gained
some knowledge of the statute laws and practice of courts of this State.
Feeling thankful, fellow citizens, for past favors, if reelected will continue,
to the best of mv abilitv, to discharge the functions of the ofifice conscien-
tiously under oath of ofifice. " GILLUM BALEY.
In those daj's people minced not the King's English in newspaper pub-
lished declarations over their signatures as witnesseth the following:
Caution
Under the above caption a notice has been published in the Fresno
Expositor by J. C. Wood warning all persons not to trust his wife, Annie
Wood, on his account, as he will not be responsible for any debt contracted
by her. He need not fear or bother himself about me, he cannot pay his
own debts, let alone mine ; he was run out of Stockton for not paying his
debts and then beat me out of $600 and left me and my little children to
starve. He has come here for me to support him, or he says he will kill me.
It is a shame that our little quiet village of Fresno should be disturbed by
such a worthless blackguard as he is. Even the clothes he has on his back
the vile wretch robbed me of the money to purchase. The citizens should
tar and feather such a miscreant and ride him on a rail.
Fresno, February 8, 1877. MRS. ANNIE WOOD.
But with all crudities and shortcomings, and after all is said and done,
be it recorded to the credit of Millerton, at least, that it masterfully dodged
the pitfalls of church choir, amateur choral or dramatic societies and silver
cornet band.
CHAPTER XXIV
A Chapter, the Saddest in the County's History. Pathetic
End of Three Men Prominent in the Early Times of
Fresno. Caster as a Defaulter Dies Unmourned in a For-
eign Clime After Thirty-two Years of Disappearance.
Converse, Whom Fate Linked With Him as His Evil
Genius, Fills the Neglected Grave of a Suicide. Closes a
Checkered Career Fighting off Starvation at the End.
McCray, Once Rich, Influential and a Prodigal Dies a
Cancer Afflicted Pauper. He Lies in a Lost Sepulcher,
THE Third Since Heartbroken Death.
No chapter in early* Millerton history, and that means of the county,
is sadder and more pathetic than that dealing with the lives and tragic end
of three once prominent men — Stephen A. Gaster, Charles P. Converse and
HISTORY OF. FRESNO COUNTY 135
Ira AlcCray. The order of mention is not a measure of their relative im-
portance or prominence, Ijut a sequence for the ijreater convenience of the
narrative. Ciaster rests in an unknown grave in a far off land, (."<in\erse, in
a suicide's, in the San Francisco potter field, and McCray in an unmarked
and lost one somewhere in Fresno, after two exhumations. Of the trio, Gas-
ter paid the heaviest penalty for the one great mistake of his life in trusting
pretended friends too implicitly.
STEPHEN A. GASTER
Fate ordained to connect Gaster and Converse in extraordinary manner.
Converse, who was a singular and incomprehensible character, may be re-
garded as having been Caster's evil genius. Caster's disappearance and re-
ported later end in a far tropical clime furnished the basis of a mystery that
never has Iieen satisfactorily cleared. The man, who, it is believed, might
have thrown all light on the subject, took the secret with him into the grave.
Gaster never was heard from in self defense, but bowed submissively to his
fate. No one has removed the stigma that rested over this unfortunate man
without a country, with the name and memory of being Fresno's first oiificial
defaulter and a fugitive from justice, whereas while technically a defaulter
he was more the victim of fate and of cruel circumstances.
Converse came to California in 1849, mining for gold on the Mother
Lode in Mariposa County, later marrying and coming to Fresno, adding the
cattle business to his mining operations and running a ferry at Millerton.
He acquired wealth rapidly and spent it but not in dissipation. Neglecting
a young wife, she took a divorce and in October, 1873, married Dr. Lewis
Leach, whom she survives. After the separation. Converse became more
"restless and reckless." His courthouse building contract was completed in
admittedly "honest, skilful and creditable manner." It was during the pro-
gress of the work that Gaster departed one day for San Francisco, ostensibly
to be away one week. When he did not reappear. Converse gave out that
he had a large sum of money deposited with him and needed it urgently
to pay off his laborers. There was no deputy treasurer, the safe was locked,
and the key was with Gaster. Converse hurried to the city ostensibly in
search of Gaster, returning with the information that he had disappeared,
leaving no trace. A warrant was issued for Caster's arrest for the embezzle-
ment of public money.
While all these circumstances looked bad for Gaster, still there was no
proof that the money might not be in the safe. The doubt was judicially
resolved by County Judge \\^inchell before whom the criminal proceedings
were pending. He ordered the safe cut open in the county clerk's yard in
the presence of nearly the entire assembled male population of the village.
Fifteen twenty-dollar gold pieces were in the safe, which upon unquestion-
able proof and according to the attached tags to the buckskin bag were the
property of Andrew M. Darwin of the Upper Kings, to whom they were
delivered, he having deposited $3,000 with Gaster several weeks before. The
safe had otherwise been cleaned out of money. According to the report
to the supervisors, of which there is minute record, some of the twenty-dollar
pieces had found their way out of the bag, and in the removal of the safe
from the courthouse had scattered into various compartments.
It has always been a debatable question whether Gaster took any of
the public money for own use and benefit. He was an old resident, of ex-
cellent repute and lived with wife and children in simple manner. The last
seen of him was at noon on a hot summer's day in August, 1866, walking
from the front gate of his cottage yard, and upon approaching the stage-
coach rumbling down the street on its way to Hornitas, thrusting arms into
the sleeves of a thin alpaca coat. He was lightly attired, burdened with no
baggage or incumbrance, entered the coach and never was again seen.
136 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
At this time coin was the circulating medium, unless mayhap gold dust.
There was no bank, express or post effice money order offices in the county,
nor any form of printed money, except greenbacks for a brief period during
the military occupancy of the fort, and these had disappeared quickly. It
was physically impossible for Caster to have conveyed with him any con-
siderable portion of the $6,600 missing funds in coin or dust without attract-
ing notice, nor could .he have drawn on the alpaca coat, so burdened. Caster
had no evil habits, did not drink, gamble, play the races or speculate. Nor
was there proof that Converse knew what became of that money.
Caster was an amiable and generous fellow, ever ready to aid or assist
a friend. Inexperienced in public life, or in caring for large sums of money,
he was such an impressionable man that "trusted friends" might have in-
duced him to loan out $1,000 or $2,000 of the idle public money in the safe
for brief periods to be returned on call, and "overborne by such specious
arguments he may have loaned to trusted but faithless friends nearly all of
the public money in his hands," and "when they treacherously failed to repay
it his only escape from arrest and imprisonment would be in flight."
Not a dollar of Darwin's money was touched. No receiver of Caster's
favors has ever been mentioned by name. Intimation has been that Converse
received large sums that were not returned, but there was never proof of it.
Both are entitled to the benefit of every charitable doubt. Following Cas-
ter's disappearance, some believed he was in concealment, others that he
was dead, asserting he had been murdered. The wife obtained, two and one-
half years later, divorce on the ground of desertion, married Converse and
after a few years was divorced from him, also because of desertion. Thirty-
two years after vanishing from sight in Millerton, Caster passed away in
Central America, possessed of a little property.
Caster was a man who weighed 140 to 150 pounds and was as dark as
an Indian — in fact the general belief was that he was of Indian blood. His
induction into office was under Ceorge Rivercombe, the first county treas-
urer from 1856 to 1863. Rivercombe was a "squawman," living as a patri-
arch among the Indians. He had so long and so thoroughly merged himself
into their free and unconventional mode of life that it has been said of him
that he was more Indian than white man. Caster succeeded him from 1864
to 1866, closing his career with the disclosure of the defalcation. Caster was
a butcher at one time with J. B. Royal and later with Ira Stroud, also in
the saloon business with one Folsom, the estate continuing it until sale to
Theodore J. Payne, who was shot and killed near the Tollhouse in the sum-
mer of 1873. Folsom was a full blooded Cherokee, described "as an educated
ward of the nation and a magnificent specimen of physical manhood."
Twenty years ago, when the Caster case had been well nigh forgotten
save only by the older residents, light was thrown upon it by the publication
of an account that the theory had been generally accepted that he had been
murdered probably for the money that he was supposed to have taken with
him on disappearance. The last seen of Caster was when he left Millerton
on the stage for Stockton whence he was to go by river steamer to San
Francisco, the traveled route before the railroad's coming. Converse accom-
panied him on the stage to the bay. Converse returned after a few days.
Caster was never again seen. Converse said they parted at Stockton but
that Caster had said that he would return home also in a few days.
Suspicion fastened on Converse for Caster's disappearance, based on
the ground that he was the last man known to have been in his company
and that suspicion was never fully removed. However, after nearly three
decades had passed, and while engaged in mining in Nevada and Utah — and
quite successfully as the doubtful report had it — Converse made attempt to
clear himself of the murder charge at least by locating Caster as a hale and
hearty old man at Leon, Nicaragua, whither he had gone in 1866 after disap-
pearance. The information was imparted in a letter by Converse to a friend.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 137
and announced the successful result of his efforts to locate Caster through
and with the assistance of the Washington Department of State.
Appeal had been made to Secretary Olney who directed United States
Minister Lewis Baker at Managua to investigate with the result of the fol-
lowing letter from James Thomas, general agent for Central America of the
Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and stationed at Leon.
The letter read :
"Replying to your favor of the 9th inst., I have to state that Mr. Stephen
Caster resides in this place (Leon) and is running a sawmill.
"Mr. Caster is an old man of seventy years but as energetic as most men
at forty-five, and leads a very laborious life as he has always done since com-
ing from California thirty years ago. He is generally esteemed for his hon-
esty, industry and other good qualities, and though he has not been very
successful in his business pursuits, has a few thousand dollars out at
interest.
"Caster was born at Baton Rouge, La., and went to California in 1850.
He is of a respectable Creole family. He lived in California until 18fi6 when
he came here. I have often advised him to go back to California and end
his life with his children."
In that letter Converse stated that he had located Caster eight years
before through the efforts of Secretary Blaine, but the documentary proofs
had been lost. It was said that an estate left by his father awaited the son.
According to Converse's letter he (Converse) had made good the amount
of Caster's defalcation. This statement was pure fiction because no restitu-
tion was ever made. The Converse letter established nothing more than that
Caster was alive.
After the disappearance, the wife accepted the theory that so many
others entertained that he had been murdered, though probably not sharing
in the popular suspicion of Converse, for she secured divorce and married
him. In February, 1900. Emma R. Clark as a daughter, aged thirty-six, peti-
tioned the superior court to administer upon the estate of her father, which
was represented to consist of sixty acres valued at $7,500 in Madera County,
the site of the Ne Plus Ultra Copper Mine. The distribution was to the
petitioner, to a son Henry M. Caster, forty, of Madera, a daughter, Arza D.
Strong, thirty-eight, of Oakland, and another daughter, Orena V. Lowery,
thirty-seven, of Visalia. Their mother could not participate in the distribu-
tion because she had been divorced and could lay no claim.
In later years in Fresno, when she kept a rooming house in the Gari-
baldi-Olcese building at Mariposa and K, report had it that she was cogni-
zant of Caster's existence in Nicaragua and report also had it that she was
in correspondence with him.
CHARLES P. CONVERSE
Converse, who erected the courthouse, was also the first man to occupy
one of its dungeon cells as a prisoner for the homicide of William H. Crowe
on election day in September, 1876. The grand jury liberated him on the
theory that he had acted in self defense. The homicide historically illus-
trates the passions that political campaigns aroused in those days. With
the exception of William Aldrich, the pick and shovel miner, as the sole
Republican for years before and after the war, every other man in the county
was either an Andrew Jackson or a Jeff Davis Democrat, excepting a few
old-line Whigs, who though their party expired with Daniel Webster, still
held to their beliefs and scouted the new Republican doctrines. Thus any
political quarrel in the county could only arise in the house of Democracy
itself. It arose during the shrievalty campaign of J. S. Ashman and James N.
Walker, honest, capable and uncompromising Democrats, and both incum-
bents of the office for two terms each.
138 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Converse announcing himself for rotation in office, espoused the cause
of \\'alker with all energy and activity in a "'hot and exciting canvass" not
so much between the principals as between "rash and reckless adherents."
Election day passed off quietly with the exception of the presence of armed
men in public. The vote was light, and all qualified electors had voted by
three o'clock in the afternoon when by common consent the count was started
in the courtroom. Converse was in front of Payne's saloon, when a cobble
hurled from within by a half drunken fellow passed close to his head. He
fired at his assailant, missed aim and ball lodged high in the wall. Crowe,
a confederate of the cobble thrower, sneaked up behind Converse and struck
him on the back of the head with slungshot, only the thickness of a felt
hat protected the skull from fracture.
Stunned by the blow. Converse fell to his knees but arising fired and
shot Crowe through the body. Crowe fell on hands and knees ten feet away,
and tried to arise. and_ mutual friends rushed in to aid. In the general melee,
John Dwyer, teamster with the original fort garrison and for years later
in Fresno the driver of the "sand wagon," took to his heels to avoid the
bullets and in the flight his hat was blown off by a leaden messenger. Con-
verse struggled against a throng whom he fought as supposed assailants, but
was landed finally on the courthouse steps and by multitude of hands his
Samson like strength was overcome. After this tragedy, be became "more
uneasy, irresolute and unsettled."
He withdrew into the mountains, south of the Kings River. There he
laid claim upon location to "a large amphitheater of forest and chaparral en-
circled by mountain ridges." It bears to this day the name of "Converse
Basin," though he never secured title. It has been ruthlessly denuded of its
timber, including Big Trees, in the Millwood lumber mill operations. Upon
return to the plains, he professed reformation, was admitted as a member of
an orthodox church and publicly baptized in a font excavated for the cere-
mony. For a time he discharged faithfully the newly assumed responsi-
bilities, regained the confidence of former friends and secured that of new
ones. He was in the real estate business, but the old unrest seized him and
he drifted to San Francisco, where for ten years or more "his checkered
life was spent in desultory endeavors to keep starvation at bay." He an-
nounced himself as a mining expert and engineer. Converse was a striking
figure, six feet tall, weighed 200 pounds or more, and in later years was
largely developed abdominally. He was a man of great physical strength,
and an expert swimmer, a demonstrated accomplishment that is cited to
refute the assertion by some that his drowning in San Francisco Bay was
accidental. The fact is that he met death in a second attempt at suicide,
and when the waters of the bay gave up the corpse it was weighted with
rocks, a circumstance that alone effectually disposes of the accidental death
claim. He was a sociable companion, but a change came over him after
Caster's disappearance. A shadow seemed to hover over him, say those who
had known him in the days of abandon, when he was not always overneat
or precise in attire, and yet was remembered for kindly and animated
face, topped by a shock of stand-up-straight-in-the-air hair.
For one of his physical proportions. Converse was of intense mental
and business activity. He was a man of means in his day. Among his activ-
ities were the lumbermill at Crane Valley, which after the 1862 flood passed
into the hands of George McCullough. The ferry below Millerton, likewise
the property on the village side of the river, also went to others. He was
known as far back as 1851, when he and T. C. Stallo were general mer-
chants at Coarse Gold. So well established was his reputation for restless-
ness and financial improvidence, that despite strong partisanship and posi-
tion he was never seriously considered politically. In connection with his
Kings River sojourn, he tried to exploit a plan to cut the virgin timber in
the basin, float the logs down the stream to railroad connection, and from
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 139
there out as lumber from the saw uiill. Converse was a glib and plausible
talker and almost interested capital in the enterprise. Logs had been floated
to prove the feasibilit}- of the water transportation. A financial panic came
on and capital dropped him.
^^'ith the building- of the railroad. Converse is found on its payroll as
a legislative lobbyist and an active partisan of its proposition of a $5,000 a
mile subsidy for constructing the road through the valley counties. Senator
Thomas Fowler made one of his record fights against the measure and the
legislature killed it in the end. The closing years of Converse's checkered
career were spent in San Francisco as a curbstone broker and mining expert,
pursuing such a precarious course that not infrequently he was on the verge
of starvation. To hail a former Fresno acquaintance was like clutching at
the straw by the drowning man, for it meant a temporary loan, never to be
repaid, to hold off the gaunt wolf of hunger. A perfunctory coroner's inquest
with no relatives or acquaintances attending, and with no effort at a positive
identification of the barely recognizaljle remains has left a doubt on which
has been impinged a far fetched belief, entertained by some, that he returned
to his native state and there ended his days a charge on the bounty of an
old negro "mammy" in Georgia. This is manifestly incorrect for well is it
remembered that A. H. Statham financed Converse to go to Georgia to
claim an inheritance. It was thought he had been rid of for good and always,
but the surprise was when he returned to close a subsequent precarious
career in San Francisco.
Extraordinary physical energies and activities, excellent intellectual
abilities and fine social qualities were combined in a strange make up, with
many elements of goodness that would have made him a useful and influen-
tial citizen, had he not lacked the regulating balance wheel of rigid principle,
or perhaps if his lot had not been cast among the turbulent and restless
scenes of early California life. Converse and Gaster are in unmarked graves,
yet singularly on the present site of Millerton stand, side by side, only two
structures of the days when they lived, monuments to their memory — the
courthouse that Converse built and the adobe saloon where Folsom & Gaster
held forth, and Payne after them.
Payne was shot in the leg in JNIay, 1873, and bled to death at Tripp &
Payne's store on the Tollhouse road to Humphrey & Mock's mill. It was a
wanton act, claimed to have been an accidental shot after target pastime
by John Williams, a negro, who in December, was sent to the penitentiary
for tvvo years for manslaughter. Payne had sold his saloon to retire from
business, and was buried at the fort.
IRA McCRAY
Ira McCray came to Millerton a rich man, credentials which made it
easy for him to jump into prominence, to be public spirited and as early as
1857 to erect a $15,000 stone and brick hotel structure that was in all Mil-
lerton's time surpassed only by the courthouse. He was the prince of good
fellows, liberality personified, and if he had no other redeeming quality
would have stood high alone for his credit, for it was said of him that "his
word was as good as his bond," in marked contrast to Converse.
McCray was a man physically as large as Converse, but better propor-
tioned, weighing about 180 pounds. Bearded and mustached, he passed for
a handsome man. As early as 1854, he and George Rivercombe, as hotel and
liverymen, did "an enormous business," thanks probably in a large measure
to the side issues. McCray was for years the popular idol, heart and soul
in every public enterprise and movement, and an influence in the county to
be reckoned with. He was one of the commissioners named in the act for
the creation of the county. He filled the office of coroner from 1861 to 1871,
acted in that capacity before that, under appointments, no one presuming
140 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to test popularity with him at elections. The coronership was peculiar in
that in the very early days the office sought the man, and by tacit consent
the award was to the most popular saloon man.
The Oak Hotel was the popular resort. No bar was better equipped
for the times. It was so commodious that four billiard tables were set out
on one floor. Any game of chance was at call. There were card dealers
under regular stipend, and one of these, it was said, was a backsliding Stock-
ton preacher who had been a professional gambler before conversion. The
Oak may not have been as lu.xuriously equipped as the modern hotel, but
it was comfortable and well kept. It was prominently located across the
way from the courthouse, the rear overhanging the river. Alongside were
capacious stable and barn and the ferry, the river bank shaded, and con-
nected with the house a park like retreat, very popular in the hot summer
evenings. IMcCray was not a hotelman. He was a bachelor, accounting in
part for the easy code of morals that reigned in the house. His factotum
was a dandified negro known as Tom, such an amusing and forward fellow
that he presumed at times on his familiarity with the whites in those easy
and loose times.
Various were the enterprises of IMcCray. He grubstaked miners and
lumber prospectors, ran stages, including one to the discovered gold deposits
at Sycamore Creek in the county in 1865. In the 60's he was in the zenith
of full prosperity. The 1861-62 flood was only a temporary setback which
was overcome for the overwhelming with other financial complications by
the greater flood of that Christmas eve night, necessitating razing the
hotel to one story, and ferry carried down stream and left a wreck at Con-
verse's ferry at Rancheria Flat. His affairs had not prospered in the later
60's. He was struck a hard blow in this flood, at a period when he could
least bear it. Neither he nor the village recovered from the disaster. His
losses drove him to drink, and he never again took courage. Efforts were
made to recoup but it was a vain effort to retrieve a lost fortune. The Henry
hotel opposition was enjoying the trade. Intoxicated with popularity and
prosperity, JMcCray had neglected his own interests, being much of the time
an absentee — known over the route to San Francisco as a prodigal spender,
and his clerk, named Sullivan, equally as neglectful in his absence. The
downgrade was swift and litigation followed on inability to realize on out-
standing loans, accelerating closing out by the sheriff while on the brink of
bankruptcy.
IMcCray was probably the first man to set out a vineyard in the county.
It went out in the 1861-62 flood of the Kings. But dejected over his deser-
tion by fickle fortune, McCray closed out his affairs and as a practically pen-
niless man disappeared in the summer of 1874 from Millerton. Report had
it that he was mining in Arizona. He is back again in August, 1877. The
prodigal had returned but Millerton was no more, those he once knew were
scattered, and he, broken in spirit, health and purse, a dependent on the cold
charities of the world. He tarried awhile with charitably inclined friends
near Kingston, was also given shelter by the Baleys in Fresno, and was a
sufferer from cancer of the right hand which Dr. J. A. Davidson of Kingston
amputated.
So wretchedly poor was he, that his removal in September, to the county
hospital at Fresno City was at public expense. McCray was dying of cancer
and a broken heart, an inmate at the hospital on the bounty of his old time
friend. Dr. Leach. The thought of neglect and desertion by those whom he
had aided and befriended in the days of affluence, when they were in need,
embittered him and made him cynical. The cancer on the back of the hand
was rapid in the developing, and despite the amputation spread and fastened
upon him in the back of the right shoulder. He realized that the end was
approaching. He was at the hospital less than three months and died on
October 5, 1877, at the age of fifty 3-ears. Seven days after publication of his
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 141
obituary, appeal was made in behalf of a raffle of an oil painting to raise
money to fence in the grave.
Even in the expressed choice of a last resting place, fate denied him.
McCray and a boon companion named ]McLeod had chosen their burial
spots on the banks of the San Joaquin River, where two oaks grew which
for some unexplained reason leaved in the spring earlier than the surround-
ing trees. McLeod was interred at the chosen spot on the Madera side of
the river. McCray was to have been on the Millerton side on the sloping
hill that merges into the river bank townsite and beyond the Baley residence.
He was fated not to rest at peace even in the grave.
The first interment was in the Fresno pioneer cemetery on what is
now Elm Avenue, embracing part of Russiantown. With the building up
of this quarter the cemetery was closed for a new one in the hollow east
of town, in the vicinity of the Pollasky depot, including a portion of Hazel-
ton Addition. The remains were presumably exhumed and removed thither.
The living crowded out the dead even there, and when M. J. Church donated
for a public cemetery a portion of the sandy tract, now in Mountain View
Cemetery, northwest of town, McCray's remains were supposedly a second
time taken up for a third burial in a spot that no one could locate today.
McLeod was a clerk for the L. G. Hughes merchandizing firm at Mil-
lerton and the son of a Hudson Bay Company trapper, inheriting the roving
spirit of his parent and Indian mother. He returned to the Far West after
his education in Scotland, allured by the discovery of gold. McCray being
of Scotch ancestry, a natural bond of union sprung up between them, sev-
ered only by death.
After closing out his sawmill interests at Sawmill Flat, Tuolumne
County, in 1852, IMcCray set out for Texas with his accumulations amount-
ing to $40,000, purchased cattle and drove the band to California, locating in
the valley and starting out on his early career of prosperity. He left no
known kin. He ended his career as a pauper, when once he did not value
money save for the pleasures it commanded. And yet from another viewpoint,
it can be and has been said of him that the good in him outbalanced the bad.
As with Caster, so with Converse and equally so with McCray : "The
evil that men do lives after them ; the good is often interred with their
bones."
CHAPTER XXV
Southern Secession Sentiment Strong in the County. Mil-
lerton Born Newspapers Kept Alive the Political Rancor
and Personal Animosities Engendered by the War. Dese-
cration OF the Flag Incidents. Fort Miller Reoccupied by
Soldiery in 1863. First Two Publications of the Swash-
buckler Class Reviled and Villified the Administration.
Fresno a Graveyard for Newspapers. Assassination of
Editor McWhirter, a Bourbon Reform Democrat. The
All Surviving Republican, the Conspicuous Journalistic
Success in the County.
If it was the covert design of the Millerton born newspapers to stir
up and keep alive the rancor, personal animosities and political hatreds
unfortunately engendered by the Civil ^^'ar, they succeeded. As news givers,
they were parodies.
It is to smile to read in historical reviews that "the earlier settlers of
142 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the county cared little for politics." Fresno was ever a Democratic hotbed
of politics, and things were done and said sometimes that were repented of
in later years. This subject phase is one that conservative old-timers prefer
to gloss over in charity. Like the record of "crime and deeds of blood and
violence" that marks the first twenty-eight years of the county's history, it
did much to retard progress, and it was longer than a generation before
the evil ef¥ect was lived down. And in this chapter, the term "Secesh" is
employed in no detractive sense, but is used as an expression that was on
the tip of the tongue more often then than it is today.
The people of the South suffered poignantly as the result of the war
and the subsequent "Reconstruction Period." All honor is due the brave
and chivalrous, who staked their lives, health and property in upholding
what they religiously regarded as a just cause and a principle. It was nat-
ural that they should stand with their native states. But the early Democ-
racy in Fresno of some swashbucklers, who had placed nothing at stake for
the cause and kept a continent between them and the scenes of battle strife,
was nut always a sane, rational or safe one. It was of the fire-eating, un-
forgiving, scditional brand that lived up to the declaration that the war was
a failure, that reviled Lincoln as a despot and tyrant, even secretly exulted
over his assassination.
The two I\Iillerton papers were of the stamp tliat never made allusion
to the Republican administration — Radical they called it — save to abuse
and vilify. The short-lived Times was the fiercer, the Expositor the milder
of the swashbucklers. The honest conservatives — the Democrat and South-
erner from principle for principle's sake — were not with them. So bitter was
the hostility that in the face of this "Secesh Democracy" in control, ever
rolling under tongue its "constitutional rights and privileges" as a tender
morsel, and holding on to office, it was not always safe to proclaim 'one's
self a Republican or a sympathizer with the LTnion cause. This state of
affairs was not singular to Fresno. It was duplicated in other localities in
the state. Fresno had as loyal and high minded citizens as there were in
the land, whatever their politics, but they were sometimes in the minority
in places as against the bravos. There was no lack of desperate adventurers
as shown in the recruiting for various Central American filibustering expe-
ditions in California.
A great change has, since the old days, come about in public sentiment.
What with the population accessions, Fresno cannot be absolutely reckoned
as once as in the Democratic ranks. In county and municipal affairs, party
is no longer a fetich, but non-partisanship rules — it is the man and not his
party. The old time party-line distinctions are not drawn or considered in
home government affairs, and Fresno with county offices fairly well divided
as between Democrats and Republicans has boasted for some years of its
government administrations. Party lines are not even so strictly adhered
to on legislative and representative offices. The ideal has not yet been at-
tained, but the progress toward it has been more than satisfactor3\
Of the things above referred to there is no hint or suggestion in the
local prints or reviews. The military administration kept watchful eye and
ear, and took measures accordingly as in the reoccupation under Col. War-
ren Olney of Fort Miller, in August, 1863, owing to a rumor of an intended
uprising in the valley in support of the Confederacy. Possibly it was an
exaggerated report, but nevertheless serious enough to be acted upon, with
no telling what repressive effect the presence of the military had, even though
it was well disposed enough toward the citizenship to aid in getting out a
seditious Times paper publication.
It was reported about this time there was at ^Millerton a military com-
pany that drilled in secret, composed of avowed Southern sympathizers, and
that when the federal soldiers came it disbanded and concealed its arms.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 143
As late as in the 70's, there was another, or perhaps the same, secret society,
oathbound never to assist at the political preferment of one who had ever
borne arms against the Confederacy. The flag was desecrated and worse
than dragged in the mire. A show of the banner on the national holiday
was as likely as not to invite a demand to lower it, enforcing the mandate
with show of Derringer or Colt revolvers. These are facts. There is no
record proof of them. You have to learn them from living survivors of
the times.
Such an incident occurred at Centerville at a popular gathering. The
flag was torn down, trampled upon, tobacco juice spit upon it as one version
has it, defiled with human ordure according to another. The offender was a
Confederate veteran, but a later loyal man, who deeply repented his act.
At Areola, where Borden stands today, the townsite of the Alabama Settle-
ment, one of the first agricultural communities of Southerners after the war.
the German hotel keeper, a Union man, was almost beaten to death in a
general melee over his refusal to lower the fiag on the 4th of July after
demand.
At Merced, Harvey J. Ostrandcr, a pioneer, the father of e.x-Judge F. G.
Ostrander, a former attorney of Fresno, and one who cast his presidential
vote for Fremont in 1856 at the mouth of a six-shooter, vowed he would
kill whoever pulled down the fiag to be raised on the news of the firing
on Fort Sumter in April, 1861. The excitement was so intense that the
Unionists decided to defer the flag raising until the 4th of July, but the
night before the pole was chopped down. In 1862, with the consent of
those who had contributed to the buying of the flag, Ostrander unfurled it
on his premises. It was not molested, but was kept flying during the war.
Ostrander was a man whose word was not to be doubted. He died at the age
of ninety-one, remarrying at eighty-three.
The late Frank Dusy, who was in many early day fields of activity, had
a more pleasing ending to his experience at Hornitas in Mariposa on the
national holiday, when he drove into town, displaying two little flags in the
harness of his mules. He was commanded to remove them. He gave re-
minder of the day, and announced he would display them in his drive through
town, and let the man beware that touched them. Dusy whipped out two
revolvers and with one in each hand drove through the village street from
one end to the other with flags and revolvers in defiance. His spirit and
courage won the day. An impromptu parade formed, and those that had
gathered to molest him tarried to listen to the village orator spread eagle
harangue. Snelling, former county seat of Merced, was another hotbed of
Secessionists. When the news came on August 9, 1861, of the bloody defeat at
Manassas Junction, the Snellingites fired salvos of cannon in rejoicing over
the slaughter of 10,000 "Yanks." P. D. Wigginton stumped the county several
times for the anti-union candidates, aided by one Jim Wilson, who fiddled to
songs. Two of his favorites were: "We'll Hang Abe Lincoln to a Tree," and
"We'll Drive the Bloody Tyrant, Lincoln, from Our Native Soil."
Wigginton became, in 1886, the candidate for governor after the Fresno
state convention of the new born American party, and John F. Swift was the
Republican nominee for governor, and Bartlett the Democratic. The vote
was: Bartlett (D), 84,970; Swift (R), 84,316; and Wigginton (A), 7,347.
The Merced Banner was the war time sedition spreader. William Hall
of the Merced Democrat was arrested in July, 1864, for uttering treasonable
language and cooled of? on Alcatraz Island. The day after, Charles L. Wel-
ler, chairman of the Democratic state central committee, was also arrested
on a similar charge in San Francisco. He took the oath of allegiance and
was liberated after three weeks spent on the island.
144 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
One form of disloyalty among the so-called Copperheads in California
was the advocacy of a Pacific Republic by northern men with secession
leanings. There was not infrequent reference to this movement in the Demo-
cratic journals. It was a thinly disguised one in aid of the Confederacy. Its
flag was actually raised at Stockton on January 16, 1861, on a craft in Mor-
mon Slough, but the halyards were cut down and a small boy climbed the
mast and hauled down the banner. But while other instances can be cited,
sufficient as showing the intolerant spirit of the times. The subject is not
a pleasant one, and is dismissed with the following quotation from an Ex-
positor editorial of January, 1871, defining its attitude. It said:
"We are not in favor of Union, if it means that we must unite with
a party composed of scalawags, political demagogues of the meanest and
most corrupt order, negroes, thieves and every other class of nondescript,
such as are found in the ranks of the so-called Union party."
And as late as 1879, when war animosities should have been mollified,
the Expositor had this contemptible allusion in a historical review to the
military reoccupation of Fort Miller:
"When President Lincoln died, men had to be very careful about ex-
pressing themselves in regard to the matter, for spies were employed to re-
port to headquarters any thoughtless or inadvertent expression of satis-
faction at Lincoln's death."
Lincoln's assassination referred to as a "death !" That "any expression
of satisfaction" over a murder should be mitigated as "thoughtless and in-
advertent !"
Fort Miller was evacuated September 10, 1856, after the Indian troubles
and placed in charge of T. C. Stallo as government caretaker. It was re-
occupied in August, 1863, by the Second California Infantry under Lieut.
Col. James E. Olney and garrisoned during the war by various organiza-
tions as late as November, 1865, when again abandoned to a caretaker, Clark
Hoxie, and the buildings sold later to Charles A. Hart as the best bidder
for a bagatelle.
CALIFORNIA IN THE WAR
Fort Miller was the first permanent post south of the next nearest mili-
tary establishment at Benicia Barracks and the arsenal there. There is no
disguising the fact that the military authorities kept watchful eye on the
region in the San Joaquin Valley which was believed to be a stronghold of
Southern sympathizers with nests at Snelling, Millerton, Visalia and in
Kern County. Camp Babbitt was located in Tulare County as next to Fort
Miller, and Fort Tejon as the last in the string in Kern. There is no record
proof of the fact but the incident was a matter of common knowledge as
indicative of the spirit of the times and recalled by old timers that early in
the war a lot of young university students, including a handful from Fresno,
enlisted in the army (Second California Infantry) organized at San Fran-
cisco and Carson City, Nev., in October and November, 1861, with earliest
enlistments in September. The plot was to enlist ostensibly to be sent to
fight the Indians notably the Apaches that were on the war path, but to
desert en masse in the field and join the Confederate troops. The story is
that the plot was discovered and instead the program was changed after
regimental organization by sending five companies to Oregon and AVashing-
ton territory to relieve the regulars and two to Santa Barbara. Thus the plot
was foiled.
The Second's first colonel was Francis J. Lippitt, who was mustered
out in October, 1864, and in March, 1865, brevetted brigadier general. He
had come to California as a captain in Stevenson's New York regiment in
1847 to occupy California after the war in Mexico. He was also a member of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 145
the 1849 constitutional convention at Monterey. After the muster out of
the original regiment, the veterans were reorganized with new recruits into
a regiment witli Thomas F. Wright as colonel. He was a son of Brigadier
General George A\'right of the Ninth Infantry regiment who during the war
commanded the Department of the Pacific. The son was brevetted a briga-
dier in 1865, was mustered out in the spring of 1866, subsequently became
a lieutenant in the regular army and was assassinated at the peace palaver
with the Alodoc Indians in the Lava Beds in Northern California April 26,
1872. Gen. Geo. Wright was drowned July 30, 1865, in the wreck of the
Brother Jonathan en route to assume command of the Department of the
Columbia.
To nip in the bud any Confederate uprising in the valley region the
Second California Infantry garrisoned Fort Miller during the following
periods:
Regimental headquarters and Company A, August 3, 1863, to October
9, 1864; Company B, August to December, 1863; Company G, August 1 to
August 23, 1863; Company K, December 26, 1863 to October 1, 1864.
Company A, Second California Cavalry, September 30 to November 31,
1865, then moving to Camp Babbitt, near Visalia, until called to Camp
Union, near Sacramento, for muster out in April, 1866. The following troops
of the regiment also garrisoned Camp Babbitt: E from August 31 to Oc-
tober 31,'l865; G from February 1, 1864, to August 1, 1864, an^d I from April
30, 1863, to January 1, 1864.
Fort Tejon was occupied at various times during this period and July
24, 1864, a detachment of Troop F of the Second Cavalry was sent to Snell-
ing, Merced County, from Camp Union to arrest William Hall of the Merced
Democrat for treasonable publications and to convey him to the military
prison at Alcatraz Island.
Located so far away from the more active scenes of the war, California
was not called upon to furnish troops for immediate service against the
Confederacy. No quota was assigned it. Yet during the war calls were made
upon it for two regiments of cavalry, a battalion of four companies of Native
Cavalry notable for the "unusually large number of desertions from it,"
about eighty from one and more than fifty from another troop, eight regi-
ments of infantry, a battalion of seven companies of Veteran Infantry, and
one of six companies of Mountaineers, serving in the northernmost counties
as infantry. There was also the "California Hundred" company that went
East accepted as Troop A of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry and later
the California Battalion also attached to the Massachusetts regiment as
Troops E. F, L, and M. These Californians were in hard service for nearly
two and one-half years participating in over fifty engagements. They were
at the surrender at Appomattox courthouse and in the grand review at
Washington on May 23, 1865, when and where "the California companies'
colors were greeted with enthusiasm by the highest and bravest in the land."
Eight companies of the First Regiment of Washington Territory Infantry
Volunteers were also recruited in California, making altogether 17,725 volun-
teers furnished by the Golden State.
With the exception of those in the IMassachusetts regiment, the Cali-
fornians took no part in the great battles. Their service was notwithstanding
of as great importance as that rendered by those from other states. It was
as severe and entailed long and fatiguing marches across burning deserts
and over almost inaccessible mountains. They were engaged in hundreds of
fights with Indians and small forces of Confederate troops on the frontiers
in Texas and New Mexico. They never knew defeat. The government for
good reasons deemed it wisest to keep them on the Pacific Coast and in the
territories. They occupied nearly all posts from Puget Sound to San Elizario,
146 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Texas, and by their loyalty preserved peace in the western states and terri-
tories and drove the flag of rebellion beyond the Rio Grande.
It will be recalled that at the outbreak of the war the United States
forces on the Pacific Coast were under command of Brev. Brig. Gen. Albert
S. Johnston. His loyalty was in doubt because he was a southern man. Brig.
Gen. E. V. Sumner was ordered under date of March 22, 1861, to leave New
York April 1 to relieve Johnston and "for confidential reasons" the order
to sail was to remain unpublished until his arrival at San Francisco. Having
arrived Sumner reported officially that it gave him pleasure to state that
the command was turned over to him in good order. In a later report he
stated :
"There is a strong Union feeling with the majority of the people of
this state, but the Secessionists are much the most active and zealous party,
which gives them more influence than they ought to have from their num-
bers. I have no doubt there is some deep scheming to draw California into
the secession movement; in the first place as the 'Republic of the Pacific,'
expecting afterwards to induce her to join the Southern Confederacy. . . .
I think the course of events at the East will control events here. So long
as the general government is sustained and holds the capital the Secession-
ists cannot carry this state out of the Union."
General Johnston was a high minded man. History has done him in-
justice. He was committed to the doctrine of state allegiance. He had de-
clined the command of the Southwestern Department because he held that
if Texas seceded he would be bound in honor to surrender to the national
authorities the public property intrusted to his care. Persuaded that his na-
tive state had a permanent claim on him he would not place himself in the
position where he might be compelled to antagonize it. Letters written by
him at the time viewed with alarm the threatening dissolution of the Union
and many believed that he had asked assignment to the Pacific Department
that he might be removed from participation in the impending issue. He
always congratulated himself that no act of his contributed in bringing on
the issue.
General Johnston had sent on his resignation before Sumner's arrival
and with his relief severed forever connection with the United States Armv.
His resignation was withheld from the newspapers until after he had been
relieved to guard against any ill effect that his act might have upon others
and he declared that so long as he held a commission he would to the last
extremity maintain the authority of the government. "If I had proved faith-
less here," said he, "how could my own people ever trust me?" Johnston was
ordered to report at Washington for active service ; he was advised by
letter that he enjoyed the confidence of the secretary of war; and when
President Lincoln learned the facts he executed a major general's commis-
sion for Johnston but the latter having already started for Texas the com-
mission was canceled. Johnston accepted a general's commission in the
Confederate army and was killed while in command at Shiloh. When in-
formed that a plot existed to seize Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay
he caused several thousand muskets to be removed from Benicia arsenal
to the island where they would be less exposed and informed the governor
that they could be used by the militia to suppress insurrection if necessary.
His integrity was so universally recognized that he was not approached on
the subject of a Pacific Republic favored by many in the event of a disso-
lution of the Union.
The first call for troops from California was in a telegram at eight-
thirty P. M., July 24, 1861, to farthest point west and thence by pony express
to California, accepting for three years a regiment of infantry and five
cavalry companies to guard the overland mail route from Carson Vallev to
Salt Lake and Fort Laramie. The First California Infantry of ten companies
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 147
and the first battalion of five companies of the First California Cavalry were
raised. In 1863 seven more cavalry companies were raised, making a full
regiment. August 14, 1861, a telegram to Fort Kearney and thence by pony
express and telegraph came as the second call. It was for four regiments of
infantry and one of cavalry. The Second Cavalry and the Second, Third,
Fourth and Fifth regiments of infantry were mustered in.
There were at this time and later many evidences in this state and
adjacent territories of sympathy with the rebellion and there was a feeling
that "California is on the eve of a revolution." The Confederate govern-
ment had entertained hopes in the earlier period of the struggle to secure
New Mexico and Arizona and thus if possible gain foothold in California
to obtain supplies, horses and money. A large force did come through
Texas, captured New Mexico and advanced almost to the Colorado River.
A party of seventeen organized in California by one Dan Showalter was
surprised near Warner's Ranch on the border of the desert between that
place and Fort Yuma, Ariz., by First California Cavalry and Infantry de-
tachments. It was loaded down with arms and ammunition, armed with re-
peating rifles and from dispatches intercepted and also found on their per-
sons it was discovered that several of the party were commissioned as
officers in the Confederate service. The entire party was confined as pris-
oners of war at Fort Yuma until exchanged.
At this time it was considered that "there is more danger of disaffection
at Los Angeles than at any other place in the state," and troops were trans-
ferred there from Forts Mojave and Tejon. Insurgents were also designing
to seize upon the province of Lower California as a preparatory step to
acquiring a portion or the whole of Mexico and having possession cut off
American commerce, seize the Panama steamers and with the aid of the
treasure extend the conquest to Sonora and Chihuahua at least. With the
check at Los Angeles, the Secessionists became active in Nevada territory
then without a civil government and the country "a place of refuge for
disorganizers and other unruly spirits." It was a time for vigilance on
every hand save in Oregon where there was no secession element.
When the first call for troops came it was understood that they would
be used to guard the overland mail route via Salt Lake. But it was after-
ward decided to use them for an invasion of Texas by way of Sonora and
Chihuahua, landing at Mazatlan or Guaymas in Sonora, permission having
been granted by the governors of those Mexican states and by the Mexican
government. General Sumner was assigned to the command and the expedi-
tion troops were selected. This proposition to send California troops out
of the state created intense excitement and feeling and in response to an
earnest appeal the secretary of war countermanded the order. The protest
was by sixty-five business men and firms of San Francisco dated August 28,
1861, and it stated among other things that their advices "obtained with
great prudence and care" show "that there are upwards of 16,000 Knights
of the Golden Circle in the state and that they are still organizing even
in the most loyal districts." The protest had its effect.
It is not the intention to follow the movements of the California troops
during the war further than to emphasize that there was danger from the
Secessionist movement on the Coast. The Texas invasion having been
abandoned. General Sumner was ordered East and was relieved by General
Wright. The California troops were stationed at various places throughout
the state. The regulars with the exception of the Ninth Infantry and four
companies of the Third Artillery were ordered East. At this time (Novem-
ber. 1861) there were in the department a force of 200 officers and 5,082
enlisted men. Then followed the organization of the California Column that
recaptured New Mexico which at that time comprised territory within the
present limits of Arizona. The column proceeded as far as Texas and the
148 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Rio Grande, driving the Confederates before it, a military achievement re-
ported to have been creditable to the soldiers of the American army, the
march of the column from California across the Great Desert having been
in the summer months in the driest season that had been known for thirty
years.
California and the Pacific Coast states and territories remained loyal
to the Union. The secession movement was after all mere propaganda as
the sequel proved.
TIMES OF MILLERTON
Fresno went along for nearly nine years after county organization before
it had a home paper in the Times, whose first pubhshed number ap-
peared on Saturday January 28, 1865. It was delayed two weeks in coming
out. It issued ten weekly numbers and its last was on April 5, 1865. The lack
of a paper was not that there was dearth of news, but that the time was not
ripe for one, primitive and apologetic as were the "cow-county" publications
of the day, hazardous financial undertakings at best, and ever remembering
Millerton's isolation and as yet comparative sparse population. Ira McCray
was the financial sponsor of the Times. His own affairs were not flourishing.
The Times was published in a shanty on the river bank, opposite McCray's
Hotel and poorly equipped.
In the 50's and early 60's, the Millertonites had the Mariposa Gazette
for county official organ (merged with the Free Press in 1871, as a Demo-
cratic paperj and others that had a local circulation were the weekly Vi-
salia Delta (a pioneer of October, 1859), and the Argus of Snelling, Merced.
In vogue among the miners was the Sacramento Union (now the Record-
Union and oldest continuously published newspaper in the state), and from
San Francisco the pioneer Alta California and the Bulletin, both boosted
into prominence by the Vigilance Committee of 1856, and during and after
the war the original Examiner as an evening paper concerning whose true
blue Democracy there was not the shadow of a doubt and whose editorial
declarations were accepted as articles of faith. In 1856, when Fresno had
its birth, there were in the state 116 publications classified as follows: Dai-
lies twenty-five, weeklies seventy, steamer day or semi-weeklies sixteen,
monthlies four, quarterly one. Politically twenty-three were Democratic,
nine American, eight Republican for that party was in the gestation and
thirty-three independent ; seven were in languages other than English ; and
thirty-two in San Francisco, seven at Sacramento, five at Marysville and
three at Stockton as the commercial and population centers. In fourteen
counties there was no paper issued.
The Millerton Times' delayed first issue was brought out with the vol-
unteer aid of citizens and the soldiers at the fort to run the Washington
hand press. The plant was that of the defunct Tulare Post of Visalia. The
editor of the Times was Samuel J. Garrison, also of Visalia, who died
three or four years ago, and who was a bitter, uncompromising, fire-eating
Secessionist. He was a Son-in-law of T. O. Ellis, who was for three terms
county school superintendent of Fresno and who asserted that the blood
of Princess Pocahontas coursed in his veins. Before coming to Fresno,
Garrison was the junior of Hall & Garrison, who in September, 1862, at
Visalia, began the publication of the Equal Rights Expositor. It raved so
loud and persistently in seditious, treasonable and personal utterances that
on a certain March evening in 1863 a long sufifering populace sacked the
printery and flung the type out of the window into the street. The immediate
provocation for the outbreak was an article headed. "California Cossacks."
This at Visalia, a stronghold of Southern sympathizers, with a camp of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 149
federal soldiers on the outskirts of town, sent as at Millerton to curb any
threatened or proposed demonstration.
There is in existence only one known file of the ten issues of the Times.
It was the one preserved by William Faymonville while county clerk, pre-
sented by him to J. W. Ferguson and being bound with the first volume of
fifty-two weeklies of the Expositor came after his death into the possession
of Edward Schwarz, bibliophile and curiosity collector. He made gift of
the first number, protected in glass frame, to the late Dr. Rowell, the founder
of the Republican. The Times was a little six-column folio publication and
unique, aside from the fact that it was the pioneer journal in the county
and six weeks in the travail of birth. Neat and clean in typography, the
Expositor was so similar in size and make-up that there was little to
distinguish them, save in the first page headlines. During its brief career,
the Times flatly repudiated the Democratic party wing in power in the
state, asserting that "the party claiming to be Democratic is a_sham," with
"no fixed principles," lacking "the courage to defend the past nor the sense
to grasp the future," etc., and that "no great party will submit to the lead-
ership of such men as ]\IcClellan, Seymour, Weller, Bigler," etc. As a
curiosity the file repays examination. In course of time the printing plant
was hauled back to Visalia.
FRESNO WEEKLY EXPOSITOR
An interval of five years elapsed before the second journalistic venture
at Millerton on April 27, 1870, in the Weekly Expositor, published on
Wednesdays by Peters & Company and launched with the coming of J. W.
Ferguson, a California pioneer of August, 1849, from Yuba City, J. H. Peters
retiring in November, 1871 ; then by Ferguson & Heaton until purchase of
the latter's interest in October, 1873, C. A. Heaton going into the real
estate and agency business at Millerton.
The Expositor's birth was in humble surroundings, and its first issue,
200 copies, was worked oft' on a Washington hand-press. The printing ma-
terial was hauled from Stockton for a supposed rate of two cents a pound.
The bill was seven cents and the plant was mortgaged to meet charges to
Chicard & Company, who took part pay in advertising. Being notified to
secure other quarters within three days, the Expositor was installed in a
stable. Eight months were passed there, with the journalists cooking in
the printery on a second-hand stove, because business would not justify
boarding at a hotel. A carpenter shop was the next locale.
The Expositor moved with the town to Fresno and on April 22, 1874,
was the first paper issued in the future Raisin City, in a building, the lum-
ber of which was brought from Millerton. It was located on the site of
the Fresno National Bank, and now by the Bank of Italy's skyscraper. In
1881 the paper moved to a location midway in the block on J Street, the
first daily was issued on April 3, 1882, followed by several enlargements, the
erection of a $12,000 two-story brick building, with other enlargements up
to January, 1890.
The Ferguson residence was on the bank corner in which depression an
orange grove was planted, later removed and now surrounding the Ferguson
Mansard roof residence at J and San Benito, in its day one of the most pre-
tentious city residences and long a notable landmark.
The Expositor ceased publication during the Spanish-American War.
It had lost prestige in its last years with ownership changes as the personal
organ of ambitious political aspirants, dying slowly from inanition and neg-
lect after losing the patronage and support of its own party following one of
the many divisions and quarrels in its ranks. For years it did "a land office
business" in a most lucrative field, with practically no opposition. A sensa-
150 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
tional episode connected with its long career was the alleged assassination
of Louis B. McW'hirter, a Democrat of the Bourbonistic school, who after
disposing of his part interest in the daily Democrat in August, 1888, became
editor of the Expositor and was a leader in partv reform politics in the early
90's.
The first trial before the late Judge Holmes of Richard Heath for the
killing, on August 29, 1892, was one of the celebrated cases in the county,
the evidence supporting the assassination theory being largely circumstantial.
The claim was set up on the trial that McWhirter had committed suicide — one
of several constructive defense pleas.
Heath was indicted in March, 1893, with Fred W. Polley, a carpet layer,
by a grand jury of which the late ex-Judge Hart was foreman. The June
trial lasted thirty-two days ending in disagreement. The jur}^ stood eleven
for conviction and one for acquittal — ^Juror J. H. Lane who made declaration
that firearms were coercively exhibited in the jur}^ room. Change of venue
was denied and the thirty days' second Fresno trial in March, 1894, before
Judge Lucien Shaw of Tulare, also ended in a disagreement. Change of
venue was granted to Los Angeles County, but the case never again came
up. The Polley indictment was dismissed in October, 1893, and Heath died
later in Alaska in the Klondike gold fields.
FRESNO REPUBLICAN
In March, 1875, Heaton mentioned before, issued the weekly Review. It
lived only a few weeks, followed on September 23, 1876, by the Fresno
Republican as a weekly, established by the late Dr. Chester Rowell with
whom were associated representative citizens. Republican in politics, popu-
larly called "The One Hundred," and the founders of the party in the county.
The first issue of 750 copies created a stir, herald as it was of the party
that was to combat Democracy in its stronghold.
After the presidential election that year, it was $900 in debt, with prac-
tically no subscription list and only limited advertising patronage. Dr. Rowell
a.^sumed personal management and all obligations. He kept it alive bv fre-
quently meeting its labor hire demands, for the struggle was a hard one
calling for frequent sacrifices to make deficiencies good. The conduct of
the paper gave him, however, the popular confidence and respect, that in
1879, elected him a state senator from a strong Democratic district.
In April, 1879, sale was made to S. A. Miller, stipulating that its politics
and name should never be changed, nor its policies as regards public mat-
ters and never to amalgamate with its rival Expositor for business or poli-
tics. Under Miller the paper prospered. John W. Short from Nebraska be-
came associated with the paper in May, 1881, for four years, and with J. W.
Shanklin as partner they bought a half interest and' on October 1,1887,
established the morning daily and met with success. A sale followed in
May, 1890, to T. C. Judkins, whose regime lasted about one year with many
improvements. Financial obligations undertaken were so great and pressing
that Dr. Rowell came again to the rescue and the incorporated Fresno Re-
publican Publishing Company took charge with a clean slate and has con-
tinued ever since. After being in various locales, the Republican was located
under Short & Shanklin in the Grand Central Hotel annex, then in the Edg-
erly block, and in a brick structure in rear on J Street, and in 1903 moved
into its present commodious home opposite the postoffice.
The directors are: Chester H. Rowell fpresident, editor and general
manager), John W. Short, Milo F. Rowell, F. K. Prescott and Williarn Glass
(secretary and business manager). The personnel is practically that of the
incorporators, Milo F. succeeding the late Dr. Rowell in the board and the
nephew, Chester H., to the presidency, when before he was vice-president.
The Republican has a splendid plant, and while it is the paper of the San
Joaquin Valley it is ranked also as one of the foremost journals in the state.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 151
OTHER NEWSPAPERS
Fresno has been a veritable newspaper graveyard. The list of dead ones
is a formidable one. The Republican is the one conspicuous success and the
survivor of all. W. S. Moore of Franklin, Ky., began in March, 1883, the
publication of the weekly Democrat, issued as a daily in 1886, discontinued
and revived in November, 1887, as the Weekly Inquirer issued in March,
1889, consolidated in February, 1891, with the three-year-old weekly Budget
as the weekly Central Californian in espousal of the Farmer's Alliance cause.
Another daily, the Evening Democrat, was launched in 1898 in con-
solidation in September, with the weekly Keystone and in August, 1899,
with the weekly Watchman, prospered for a time but went by the board be-
fore a decade closed over it with confessed liabilities of over $50,000. It
was under four or five different managements afterward, including the Calk-
ins Syndicate in the defense cause of "the Higher Ups" in the San Fran-
cisco graft prosecution, and finally became what is the Fresno Evening Her-
ald of today.
It is published by two enterprising young newspaper men from ]\Iich-
igan, George A. Osborn and Chase S. Osborn Jr.. who have made a manful
and successful struggle to live down the evil reputation of the paper by
reason of its numerous proprietorship, policy and political changes and have
established it on a firm and certain basis in its own home at Kern and L
Streets. It is the second largest newspaper in the valley. Democratic strong-
hold that Fresno was once, as a county, it has for years not had a party organ.
Before the county lost the territory north of the San Joaquin River,
there was the Madera IMercury in 1890 by E. E. Vincent, also John McClure's
County Review, both weekhes then. Selma's Irrigator first issued in 1886 as
a weekly and as a daily in 1888 by W. L. Chappell and W. T. Lyon is still
in existence as a semi-weekly under J. J. Vanderburgh. The Enterprise dates
from 1888. Sanger has a breezy little Herald that saw the light of day in
May, 1889, under E. P. Dewey and does to this day. Reediey has the Ex-
ponent started by A. S. Jones of Mandan, N. D., in March, 1891, and still
publishing. Fowler in the Ensign, Kingsburg in the Recorder, Clovis in the
Tribune. Kerman and Raisin City have their local publications. Coalinga
has the Oil Record (Shaw Bros.) as the survivor of a batch of ventures that
marked the oil development period. Fresno has a freelance in R. M. Mappes'
Sunday Mirror that has passed the fortieth semi-annual volume mile-stone.
CHAPTER XXVI
County Seat Removal in 1874. Big Defalcation is Discovered
IN the Treasury. "Fresno Station" is Staked Out in May,
1872, in a Most Forlorn Spot on the Plains. Millerton
Deserted as Rats Leave a Sinking Ship. First Railroad
t Passenger Train Schedule of 1873. Departure From
Original Plan in Laying Out the New Town. Court-
house Corner Stone Laying a General Festival Day.
Fresno Takes on City Ways. Visit of First Circus to
County in 1874. 1895 Fire in the Enlarged Courthouse.
Throbbing with sensations and promises of great changes in the future
for the Millertonian, was the year 1874. The new railroad town — in embryo
— first called "Fresno Station," won hands down at the county seat removal
special election. Historic Millerton, the mining village, was officially aban-
doned by September 25 for the first meeting of the supervisors in
the new county seat on October 5. General dismantling of houses for the
152 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
lumber and timbers kept the villagers busy while bewailing fate. The senti-
ment to abandon the place was almost unanimous. Its desertion has been
likened unto that of rats leaving a sinking ship. Contemporaneous with the
petition for seat removal election was the discovery of a defalcation in the
treasurer's office, the largest in the history of the county, followed by a
smaller one in the office of the district attorney, S. B. Allison for $882.41, less
$250 due for the closing quarter of the j^ear.
"Fresno Station" had been surveyed and staked out in May, 1872, as
a tovvnsite on the barren sand plain in lots 50x150 with intersecting alleys
between streets by the Contract and Finance Company, a subsidiary of the
Central Pacific Railroad building the Southern Pacific line. The latter
had not yet reached the site in the sink of Dry Creek. Water was no nearer
than the San Joaquin, ten miles away, no settlement of any kind, not a shack.
Nothing there but a vast prospect. It w.as a most forlorn looking spot.
None but an optimist would ever be tempted to locate there.
The old-timer relates that there was not a drop of water to be had on
the journey from the settlements on the Kings to Millerton — from river to
river — and of course none plainwards towards the new town which was
not on the traveled way : that not a human habitation was passed en route ;
so desolate was the plain that one could journey twenty miles or more in
any direction without so much as finding a brush large enough to cut a
horse switch ; and so level and unobstructed that long in after years on a
bright day the courthouse dome could be discerned by the wagon traveller
as far as Centerville, fifteen to twenty miles away.
By September, 1872, a postoffice was established at Fresno with Rus-
sell H. Fleming, the stagedriver and liveryman as postmaster. Before that
the mail was brought sixteen miles. By November, there were four hotels
and eating houses, three saloons and as many livery stables and two stores,
besides one or two living shacks, the railroad employes living in tents. By
July, 1874, there were fifty-five buildings in the town — twenty-nine business
and twenty-six dwelling houses. There were optimists in the land.
The petition for the seat removal election was presented February 12,
1874, signed as required by a number equal to one-third of the qualified
electors at the last previously held election. The supervisors had no dis-
cretion on such a request in legal form and granting it set the election for
March 23. Millerton's doom w^as pronounced on that Monday. Three days
after the Expositor exultingly flared out with the following scarehead an-
nouncement :
THE COUNTY SEAT ELECTION!
FRESNO AMXS TTTF A'ICTORY
OLD FOGYISIM PLAYED OUT
OUR COUNTY HAS IMPROVED HER
OPPORTUNITY
HER FREEMEN SPEAK
THORN ELECTED TREASl'RER
A DAILY MAIL. TELEGRAPHIC AND
RAILROAD COMMUNICATION
VOTE OF THE PRECINCTS AS FAR
AS RECEIVED
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 153
The vote was :
Fresno 417
Lisbon 124
Centerville ; 123
Millerton 93
Total 757
Out of sixty-six votes cast at Millerton precinct, thirty-nine were for
Fresno. Fresno cast 112 in all, 111 for herself, Centerville 101 for herself and
the largest other precinct vote was Kingston's sixty for Fresno. It was the
participation in the election of the railroad hands that carried the day. The sec-
tion boss was kept busy hustling voters to the polling place, and as an induce-
ment to vote for Fresno tradition has it that whiskey was carried in bucket
and ladled out in tin cup. But the Expositor's "freemen" dealt the solar plexus
blow and the "old fogyism played out."
It is not to say that the site contestants oflfered at the time accommoda-
tions or inducements superior to or even equal to those at Millerton, save
Fresno in location on the railroad and central as to the count}', and in mag-
nificent prospects — in the hazy future. There had been more site offers but
with withdrawals before election day the contest was reduced to four.
Alfred F>aird had offered forty acres of his Poverty Rancho, town blocks
to be each one acre and stipulating among other things to reserve two blocks
for a gravej'ard. Chairman Henry C. Daulton of the supervisors had ofifered
1,000 acres of his farm, if gift of land was the consideration in selecting town
location. Fresno City citizens published notice that they "will run this place
for the countv seat," and "ample ground will be donated for all public build-
ings." A "place" to be called "Lisbon" in S. 22. T. 12 S., R. 21 E., with thirty
acres donated to the county, was also "run," and Centerville ofifered "all
necessary lots for county buildings" over the announcement of Mrs. Paulina
Caldwell. One argument advanced was that, if removal be had, it should be
to a locality which would "never need moving again," an impression prevail-
ing that the county would be divided by the next legislature and that the
northern boundary of the southern county would be the San Joaquin. That
division came, but nineteen years later.
DEFALCATION IN COUNTY TREASURY
W. W. Hill, who succeeded the unfortunate Caster as treasurer and
himself filled the office for so many years, died on February 3, 1874. The
safe being opened, there was found $27,497.25 cash, when there should have
been over $80,000. A statement at the time was that "notes held against
private persons will probably make good this deficit." The supervisors ap-
pointed N. L. Bachman treasurer and increased the official bond from $60,-
000 to $100,000. At the special election A. J- Thorn was elected treasurer
for the unexpired term. In April Mrs. Paulina Hill for the estate was given
credit for $3,257.27 on account of redeemed warrants, still leaving $56,313.20
as a deficit. The bondsmen were sued, and, while after the appeal had gone
against them and they asked in vain for more time to pay the judgment,
little was ever recovered. The district court judgment against the sureties
was for $31,313.20 with ten per cent interest from March 4, 1874.
The Hill and Caster defalcations have one feature in common in the
general belief that neither was beneficiary from the money shortages, but
both were the victims of misplaced confidence. The Hill affair was another
evidence of the "loose, devil-me-care style" in which the public's business
was conducted. The general belief was that FTill had loaned out the money
on notes to importuning friends, who ignored or delayed meeting their
obligations. In these days the cash in the treasury is counted and verified
154 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
monthly by law designated officials ; in those days it was done at long
intervals, quarterly or semi-annually. And it is a tradition of the times that
when cash counting time approached the money needed to correspond with
the auditor's vouchers, if not on hand, was expressed in as an accommoda-
tion and reshipped before the ink was dry on the report of the count. It
was not the counters' inquiry to "go behind the returns," so to speak. For
them it was enough that the cash presented to view corresponded with the
total called for, it mattered not whose money it was in fact.
Two months after the staking out of the new townsite, the supervisors
were appealed to for wagon roads to "Fresno Station" from Centerville and
Dry Creek in anticipation of early railroad connection. In fact the first
passenger train service was not operated until Sunday May 4, 1873. accord-
ing to the following meager schedule from Fresno :
Northbound
2:10 A. !M. — Daily except Sundays to Merced, Lathrop, San Francisco,
Stockton, Sacramento and East.
4:50 A. M. — Sundays only.
Southbound
2:10 A. M. — Daily except Sundavs to Goshen, Tulare and Tipton.
9:45 P. M.— Sundays only.
Previous to the above and on December 2, 1872, a tentative schedule was
in efifect as follows :
Northbound
Local Passenger Train to Alerced, Lathrop, San Francisco, Stockton and
Sacramento: 4:30 A. M.
Freight Train to Merced and Lathrop: 6:35 A. M.
Southbound
Local Passenger Train for Goshen, Tulare and Tipton: 2:10 A. M.
All above trains excepted on Sundays.
Even this was a vast improvement on the old stage coach routings.
The vote on seat removal was too decisive, so there was naught to do
but "pull up stakes." In April, 1874, proposals were invited in San Fran-
cisco and Sacramento for courthouse plans. Those of A. A. Bennett of
Sacramento were accepted and visit was made to Fresno to locate on Blocks
105 and 106, the proposed building to face Mariposa Street and the depot.
Before contract award on May 14, Merced was visited to view the courthouse
there, which was and is a $55,970 duplicate of the one erected originally for
Fresno by the same company, the California Bridge and Building Company,
Alfred W. Burrell president. The Fresno award for $56,370 was $1,105 less
than the next lowest of four bids and $2,530 lower than the highest. For
change of county seat and necessary expenses a bond issue of $60,000 was
authorized, one of the last acts of the supervisors at Millerton at its Septem-
ber, 1874, session. A. M. Clark as county clerk moved the county's archives
and property, and until the courthouse completion housed the public offices
and jail in a 24x80 temporary structure on the Tulare Street side of the
courthouse reservation, the building sold in September, 1875, to A. J. Thorn
for $146 at public auction.
The Millerton orders were for removal by October, 1874, according to
a resolution passed on Admission Day. The last transfer was on Saturday,
the third of that month, of the county hospital inmates at Millerton in stages
of Fleming under supervision of Dr. Leach, he following with family and
friends and completing the official exodus, with the exception of the jail
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 155
incarcerated left in the care of Charles J. Garland of the Courthouse Ex-
change Saloon. Subsequently a $400 offer was made for the old courthouse
and spurned. The last assemblage in it was of thirty-three of the thirty-six
shareholders of the Ne Plus Ultra Mining Company, with H. C. Daulton as
president. It formally voted to move to Fresno and reelected Daulton presi-
dent. Dr. Leach treasurer and Judge Winched secretary, completing trans-
fer of the last organization having birth and headquarters at old Millerton.
Fresno's townsite occupied a spot unfrequented save by roaming wild
cattle, mustang horses, antelope, elk and coyotes. The original town plan of
the C. and F. Company was signally departed from in the end because of
a notion that provokes a smile at this day. It planned that Fresno Street
as the only eighty-foot wide business thoroughfare in the city should be
the main artery through town, obstructed though it was at that time in the
center by a partially covered ditch from M. J. Church's Champion flour mill
at N and Fresno, carrying off westward to the plains the surplus water from
the mill race supplied from Fancher Creek. With this plan in view, grant
was made for courthouse site of Blocks A, B, C and D bounded by Merced,
Mariposa, N and P as the first recorded town plat of December 12, 1873,
shows, with courthouse facing Fresno Street.
But nearly all first private improvements and business locations grouped
on H Street, facing the projected depot, crossing or slowly groping their
way into Mariposa Street. The cry was that the four blocks "were too far
out of town," and so a compromise arrangement was made by which the
C. and F. Company deeded for county public purposes Blocks 94, 95, 105
and 106 as platted June 8, 1876, the present location. Mariposa Street became
the retail center street, though thoroughfare is blocked at H Street west-
ward by the railroad reservation and passenger depot, and eastward at K
by the courthouse reservation. One of the original four blocks at Fresno and
N, opposite the mill, was taken as a schoolhouse site, now the Hawthorne.
It is in fact only one block removed from the exchanged site, being the
block Fresno, Merced, N and O. Thus a pretty sentimental idea was knocked
on the head to have wide Fresno Street as the main business boulevard of
Fresno City in Fresno County.
COURTHOUSE CORNERSTONE LAYING
At the first supervisors' meeting at Fresno, the tax rate was fixed at
64.9 for state and 83.1 cents for county purposes — total $1.48. Contractor
Burrell for material and labor was given bonds for $9,900 gold value, hav-
ing agreed to accept them at ninety-nine cents on the dollar, and the offer
of J. M. Shannon for $1, "for any length of time," was accepted of a room
in his building on H Street, near Tulare, for court purposes. Courthouse
cornerstone was laid on Thursday afternoon October 8, 1874, and building
reported completed for acceptance August 19, 1875. Cornerstone day was
a festival occasion in the new town. According to the Expositor, never be-
fore had the county "known such a large and fashionable assemblage," com-
ing from Merced, Modesto, Lathrop, Stockton, Visalia and all portions of
the county.
The day was pleasant, the heavens overcast with clouds preventing the
scorching rays of the sun from pouring down, and a li.ght rain sprinkle at
noon purifying the atmosphere and rendering it refreshing. The Masonic
fraternity had charge of the ceremonies with Isaac S. Titus, M. W. G. M.,
attending and Merced lodges, Free and Accepted Masons, and Independent
Order of Odd Fellows participating with the county officials and citizens in
the parade headed by Woodman's brass band from Stockton. The choir at
the stone laying comprised : Mesdames W. W. PhilHps, who was also the
organist, J. C. Hoxie and William Lambert and Messrs. William Faymon-
ville, A. W. Burrell and S. W. Geis of Merced. District Attorney C. G.
156 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Sayle for the supervisors invited the grand lodge to lay the stone for an
edifice which when completed, he said, "is expected to stand the heats of
summer and the storms of winter for a period of 1,000 years or more." The
Masonic ritual was proceeded with, and at the close Judge E. C. Winchell
delivered the prepared oration of District Judge A. C. Bradford, who being
in the East could not return in time to fill the engagement. In the casket
were deposited nineteen miscellaneous contribution parcels, mainly docu-
ments and newspapers, besides a twenty-dollar gold piece of 1874 by A. W.
Burrell, by the supervisors eleven pieces of coin of the realm, nineteen dol-
lars and sixteen cents in all from a ten-dollar gold piece to a copper cent, and
as historical documents contributed by Justice of the Peace W. T. Rumble
and Dr. Leach notes of the first twenty years of the San Joaquin Valley
with a copy of the Fort Barbour treaty of peace of 1851 with the Indians, and
a copy of the 1851 muster roll of the Mariposa Battalion of Major James D.
Savage. A bible contributed by Dr. Leach was a notable presentation,
because according to the tradition it was the only one in town available for
immuring.
That night Magnolia hall was filled to repletion at a ball with over 150
couples attending, the dance continuing until about one thirty in the morn-
ing when the INIerced excursion car came to bear away the guests and the
music and close the festivities. The supervisors had appropriated $200 for
the day, and of the $326 ball receipts a balance of sixty-six dollars was do-
nated to the city school fund. Tickets to the ball were three dollars.
The walls of the building that was erected stand today in the present
courthouse after the addition of the wings and other changes. Building was
sixty by ninety-five, three stories high, surmounted by a cupola topped by
a plaster figure of Minerva. It was brick with granite trimmings, covered
with cement. Plaster figures of Justice ornamented front and side window
arches. The building was fifty-seven feet high above the grade and 112 to
the top of the cupola figure. In the basement was a six-cell jail and all in
all it was ornamental in exterior. Eight hundred thousand bricks entered
into the construction. Designer Bennett planned other public buildings for
the valley counties, and the company of Oakland erected them according
to stock designs. Windmill and tank were erected and well sunk near the
northwest corner, grounds graded by J. B. Stephens, parked and planted
by A. J. Witthouse and fenced in by L. D. Fowler later, a special act of
the legislature authorizing the expenditure of $20,000 for various public
improvements.
The enlarged and winged courthouse building caught fire on the night
of July 29, 1895, in the copper sheeted dome, the glare lighting up the city.
The flames were so high up that the fire apparatus could not reach them.
The dome was 223 feet from the ground and "a veritable forest of timbers,"
built two years before. A strong north wind blew and dome finally collapsed
upon the south wing, carrying down tons of burned timbers. There was
general wreckage on the second and third floors of the central structure of
1874 and in the south wing, entailing a loss of over $75,000. It was a spec-
tacular fire. But this is anticipatory.
Fresno was cityfying at the dedication period. All the vagrant cows
were taken up under the trespass act. General appeal was made to clean up
premises. The press of advertisements was so heavy that the Expositor had
in one issue to leave out two columns of "live ads." New buildings were
going up. The hope was expressed that the hotels would be enlarged be-
cause beds were not to be had on cornerstone day or the night before. "The
Grandest Organization that Ever Crossed the Continent, Montgomery
Queen's Gigantic Menagerie, Circus and World's Fair," the first circus that
ever struck the county with two shows given at Borden on the Saturday be-
fore, exhibited on Monday October 19, 1874, at Fresno, and in its next
Wednesday issue the "county official paper" recorded that besides nine in-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 157
fants baptized at the Dry Creek church the Sunday before, "nearly a dozen
fights" had occurred in town since that Sunday — circus, court week and too
much whiskey producing the result — and confessing that "we can go without
food and clothing on a pinch but we will see every exhibition of horse opera,"
and that "the circus attracted all alike 'colored and plain,' " and the Indians
from the foothills.
CHAPTER XXVII
Industrial Periods in State and County. Lumbering Was
Conspicuous in Fresno From Early Times. It Had Its Pic-
turesque Side. Habitations Were Then Mere Makeshifts.
First Handworked "Sawmill" Was at Fort Miller. Hulse
as the Historian's Overlooked Pioneer of Millmen. Pine
Ridge the Busy Mountain Scene of Mill Activities for
Years. Industry is the Basis for a Frenzied Craze in 1890.
Directory of First "Bullwhackers" and Sawmill Men.
Corporate Pluming Operations. Small Enterprises Are
Crowded Out of the Field by Them. .
According to Historian Bancroft, the state's industrial periods have been
the age of grass, the age of gold, the age of grain and the age of fruit. He
comments thereon to say that the golden age was neither the age of gold,
nor the pastoral age of grass, but the age of fruit, meaning thereby the real,
positive, lasting and substantial economic wealth basis. Fresno County has
also passed through four stages of industrial development.
Its birth was during the mining period, which while it cannot be con-
fined to hard and fast lines of demarcation any more than can the others,
lasted until about 1860-64. It was followed by the stock raising period (cat-
tle and sheep), growing out of the gradual decadence of placer mining and
lasting until about 1874. though sheep raising continued for years later.
Third, the springing up of farming about 1868, more especially in the growing
of grain, or "dry farming" as it was called. Before the advent of the railroad
in 1870, agriculture may be said to have been in the experimental stage.
Fourth, and assuming importance in the early 80's, the viticultural and horti-
cultural period, with the introduction of irrigation.
These last have become the leading and distinctive industrial features
of the county, and as California holds first place among the states for irri-
gation, so is the county the leader in the state, having more than double
the acreage under irrigation than has any other in California. The develop-
ment periods followed one another by slow and gradual processes, at the time
almost imperceptible, so easy the merging of one period into another. The
above general division omits one early and large industry, conspicuous for
its scope even during the mining era and before the passing of that pic-
turesque period. The lumber industry had its picturesque side in the men
that "toyed with the lash and goad long before Fresno City was built," or
even dreamed of; that hauled lumber, shakes, posts and shingles with mule
and ox out of the mountains over the roughest of roads through the uncut
timber and underbrush, descending trails so precipitous that great trees were
tied on behind the wagon or truck as safety drags in the passage of narrow
ravines or washed out creek beds.
In earlv days most of the lumber was hauled to the mining camps on the
San Joaquin, or to the Upper Kings settlements above Centerville. Later and
after the war, the Alabama Settlement at Borden, down about Gravelly Ford
on the Sycamore bend, called for teaming. By this time not a few mills were
running at full capacity as Ball & Rimmell on Pine Ridge at Corlew Meadow.
158 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the first and for a time only steam mill in the county. C. P. Converse, then
in prosperity, ran one with water power at Crane Valley, associated later
with George McCullough and Thomas Winkelman on the north fork of the
San Joaquin. John Dwyer hauled from the nearby and then untouched moun-
tains the logs from which the lumber was cut for Fort Miller, or rather the
blockhouse. An ordinary cross-cut saw was used. In the work with him were
engaged Peter Fink, George Newton and Clark Hoxie. This was the first
sawmill in the county, the forerunner of all on the north sides of the San
Joaquin and the Kings, and on Pine Ridge crest between the rivers. Joseph
Elliot, George Green, Abe Yancey and Bill May were the first "bullwhackers"
working for Alex Ball as far back as 1854 and making their starts in life.
The acknowledged historian of the Pine Ridge lumber region is R. W.
Riggs, who being also a photographer, has spent many a season in the mill
and lumber camps. Few, save the very earliest, that he did not know per-
sonally. He gave his efforts for three years to gather "from the earth's four
corners" 361 pictures of teamsters alone, classifying them in four groups :
(1) the earlv ones before 1875, (2) the Glass and Donahoo, Lane & Frazier
and Smyth & McCardle men and (3) those of 1888 to 1900. The collection was
short some 100 pictures.
In the first classification may be named the following:
Abe Yancey, Dan Bruce, Andrew Farley, Peter Fink, V. F. ]\Ioore, Bill
Wyatt, Ed. Burnett, Tom Bates, Steve Boutwell, Cub Jacks. Ransome Mc-
Capes, Jim Mitchell, Fred Winkelman, Pack Quails, Joe Medley, Alfred
Haecker, Joe Carter, Bill May, Mark Chapman, Ellis Pitman, Charles Beard,
Joe Hutciiins, Jim Wyatt, Cy Dean, Billy Anderson, Mark Gentry, Dave
Watson, Bill Holmes, John Moore, Gassy Rodgers, Joe Taylor, Dan Clark,
Charles Williams. Dan INIiller, Lije and Jim Perry.
The earliest habitations, if such they can be designated, were of canvas,
old sacking and the interlaced branches of small trees, sides, ends and roof
of the same material. Not a few lived in wagons, utilizing in favored places
rocky boulders as walls. Cooking was done principally at open camp fires.
The Dutch oven was an important culinary utensil, and many an appetiz-
ing "flap-jack" was browned on a shovel. A cast-iron stove was a curiosity,
flour a luxury at fifty cents a pound, beans or rice seventy-five cents, sugar,
bacon or dried fruit cheap at a dollar, and tea and cofifee reasonably so at
two dollars. And there was no hue and cry about the high cost of living,
either.
The first Pine Ridge sawmill man was in 1852, James Hulse, who two
years later sold to Alexander Ball. He moved mill farther back into the
forest at the upper end of Corlew Meadow. Historians have to a man with-
held credit from Hulse, accorded it to Ball and referred to the surrounding
country as "Ball Mill Eleadow." Ball was "a rough and ready and good
natured man, a hard worker by day and an ardent poker player by night"
— $7,000 of debts with burning of mill landing him a bankrupt early in his
career.
After this for a time, the lumber supply source was Crane Valley on
the other side of the San Joaquin, where Converse and George Sharpton lo-
cated a mill in 1860, and George McCullough, who built the first house in
Fresno, Jeff Dunlap and one Brown had another, both run by water power.
About 1866 John Humphrey imported a mill from Mariposa, and Moses Mock
buying the McCullough water mill, the consolidated Clipper was moved up
Pine Ridge, below Kenyon's or Armstrong's, and eight years later became the
property of Donahoo & Glass. C. D. Davis. ]\Iilton Jacks and James J. Phil-
lips formed a partnership, built the then largest and finest mill at ^loore's
Flat and not inappropriately called it the Lightning Striker, for it was reduced
to ashes that same year and another replaced it.
In 1875 Henry Glass bought the Flintlock from Humphrey & Mock
and moved the Clipper farther into the woods at Hoxie's Flat, taking in
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 159
next year as a partner Jeff Donahoo, who had been his foreman the season
before. After Glass' death, Humphrey took up the Glass interest and Dona-
hoo & Humphrey sold in 1887 to Wil'liam Ockenden. In 1879 Alonzo Little-
field dammed creek on his timber claim, and by a series of wooden wheels
and cogs turned out brake blocks and later erected a more elaborate mill,
operated as a one man concern. Cv Ruth of Big Sandy built the Paiute mill
on Rush Creek in 1880 at the base of Old Baldy, but sold out to C. M. Ben-
nett, who had a planing mill at Tollhouse and who continued the Paiute
for twenty-five years at various locations, the last one quarter of a mile
below the Ball mill site at Corlew, destroyed by fire in 1905.
William Foster and August Behring ran for a season the Phoenix on
Riley Anderson's claim with James Fanning and L. B. Frazier as lessees for
the second. On Behring's death, Adolph Lane and Frazier bought the mill
and moved it down near the old Flintlock site at the present Pine Ridge
postoffice. Here was made the first experiment on the coast with horses in
logging. The firm dissolved in 1885 and the mill was burned in storage.
]\Ioses Alock reentered the field on Rush Creek. John Smyth, sawyer for
Donahoo & Humphrey, and James McCardle bought him out and theirs
was for a time the largest mill on the Ridge until the one at Shaver.
The Lane-J. J. Alusick copartnership lasted several years until the
withdrawal of the first named. The Musicks owned several sections of the
finest timber land. In 1886 A. C. Grossman, who was city engineer of
Fresno, leased the mill but before three months assigned to AA'illiam Black
and John Nelson of Tollhouse, who ran it for the first season. Upon the
death of Musick, the sons, Henry and Charles, carried on the business
until fire in 1893 led up to merger with the Fresno Flume and Irrigation
Company, the "irrigation" part of the name inserted to facilitate rights of
way for the flume for supposed irrigation. In 1887 or 1888 W. S. Bouton
and W. M. Ewing built a box factory on the Dinkey road beyond Ocken-
den, first enterprise of its kind on the Ridge. Fire destroyed it. \\'illiam
Ockenden, who for a decade had conducted hotel and general store at Dona-
hoo & Humphrey's mill yard, bought the mill at this time with Henry Ham-
ilton and Frank Peabody, and after a season moved it down hill, with a
road leading out from Kenyon's. That summer welcomed back John Hum-
phrey with a mill on the Swanson lands and with Swanson as a partner.
On the latter's death Richard Beall and Joseph Paddock bought the dead
man's interest. The mill went up in fire.
In 1890 and for six years there was a veritable craze for sawmill owner-
ship— "frenzied finance" on a small scale to swallow up many a modest
competency. As was said, it "looked as though whoever had a tin can, a
buzz saw and six bits started a sawdust factory," and "when the can blew
up, the saw became bent or the hands wanted their pay. the concern shut
up shop or the creditors took it and ran it on the dividends that didn't
divide." But what need to follow the many, frequent and bewildering
changes? In early days what later was known as Kenyon's was Behring's,
afterward Pine Ridge or Armstrong's: in 1881 it was Donahoo's mill, later
and now it is Ockenden. The locations of early mills would be difficult to
trace with names as the only guide.
It was in 1892 that the F. F. & I. Company commenced damming of
Stephenson Greek to create Shaver Lake, and to build the flume to Clovis,
and the next year it was in operation, cutting more timber and bringing
out more lumber seasonally than all mills combined, with possible exception
of the Herman Peterson mill ritn by a stock company and formerly the
Smyth & McCardle mill. The Fresno railroaded logs from the forest.
The Pine Ridge sawmill men come under two general classifications.
In the first are these:
From 1852 to 1892 following as near as can be learned the order of
their entering the business — James Hulse, Alex Ball, John Humphrey, Moses
160 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Mock, C. D. Davis, J. J. Phillips, Milton Jacks, Henry Glass, M. J. Donahoo,
Cy Ruth, C. M. Bennett, William Foster, Gus Behring, Alonzo Littlefield,
Joseph Bretz, James Fanning, L. B. Frazier, Adolph Lane, J. J. Musick, W.
S. Bouton, W. M. Ewing, John Smyth, J. McCardle, H. Peterson, Wm.
Ockenden, Andrew Swanson, Joseph Paddock, Richard Beall, A. C. Cross-
man, John Nelson, W. Block, C. Ciimmings, Henry and Charles Musick,
Warren Brown, Jerome Bancroft, Winn Lichfield, Frank Peabody, Henry
Hamilton, William Kip, James Kerns and John Sage — forty-two.
From 1892 to 1907— A. T. Moore, Theodore de Marias, W. H. Hollen-
beck, E. E. Bush, Martin Fahey, Al ]\IcMurdough, Bert. Moore, C. B.
Shaver for the Fresno Flume and Irrigation Company, later changing the
name by substituting the word "Lumber" for "Irrigation," M. W. Madary,
W. W. Wilson, Frank, George and James Landale, Conn Short, C. G.
Sayles, S. Lehman, E. C. ^A'inchell, Lew Roland, Elmer Damon, Frank
Bacon, J. F. Rouch, Weaker Pixicy, W. H. Walsh, J. C. Huston, C. C. Cor-
lew, W. H. Barnes, William :\Ickinzie, A. W. Petrea, Daniel and Forest
Dake, B. Payne, Marshall Cardwell, J. F. and L. Shafer, S. J. Finley, Ed-
ward and George Chambers, Ray and John Humphrey Jr., Reuben Morgan,
T. J. Ockenden, E. J. Van Vlette, Roy "and Arthur Bennett and John Beguhl
— forty-five ; total eighty-seven.
Great have been the modus operandi changes since the early efiforts
by individual partnerships. Today a lumber enterprise can be only under-
taken by associated capital, so costly is the initiative outlay. The 1874
California Lumber Company laid out in 1876 the town of Madera and there
terminated its flume on the gift of W. S. Chapman and Isaac Friedlander
who owned the land site and nearly all the adjacent territory. It became the
Madera Flume and Trading Company of 1878 with its two mills, fifty-two
miles east of Madera, on the headwaters of the Fresno and on the north
fork of the San Joaquin. They are connected with the town yards by a
thirty-inch V flume constructed in 1876 at a reported cost of $460,000, vvith
a daily transportation capacity of 50,000 to 75,000 feet. It was the longest
flume in the world. Mills had an annual capacity of 10,000,000 to 12,000,000
feet of yellow and sugar pine and fir. The original Soquel mill has moved
location innumerable times. The two mills had a daily productive capacity
of 130,000 feet of lumber. In 1881 the companv made a 'cut of over 11,000,000
feet.
Sanger of 1888, fifteen miles from Fresno, is the flume terminal of the
original Kings River Lumber Company of A. D. Moore and H. C. Smith,
with timber interests and two mills on the head waters of the Kings and
mill at Millwood, sixty-five miles from Fresno. Running ten hours a day,
they had a capacity of about 3,000,000 feet a month. Its flume with a
daily capacity of 250,000 feet was sixty miles long with laterals. Mills
and property passed into the hands by purchase of the Hume-Bennett Lum-
ber Company of Michigan capitalists, who moved the plant across a moun-
tain ridge, greatly improved and enlarged it and founded the settlement at
Hume on Ten-Mile Creek, a lumber mill mountain communitv, seventv-five
miles away in the Sierras. Its annual approximate output is 35,000.000 feet.
Its_ flume is the longest in the world. The company filed amended articles
of incorporation in February, 1917, with name changed to the Sanger Lum-
ber Company.
The lumber mill town of Clovis, eleven miles from Fresno, is the ter-
minal of the forty-five-mile flume of the Fresno Flume & Lumber Company
at Shaver, where it operates a tow steamer on the lake in the Sierras and
a twelve-mile mountain logging railroad. ]\Iill capacity is 35,000,000 feet
yearly and flume capacity 200.000 daily. The Shaver-Swi'ft interests sold the
property a few years ago to ^lichigan capitalists through Ira Bennett.
These large enterprises introduced two new features — the sinuous flume
traversing mountain, valley and dale, ravine, gulch and stream like a huge
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 161
serpent for the floating of the cut kmilier to the mill ; and the damming of
creeks to conserve the water in artificial lakes for the reception of the logs,
where practical, and to furnish water for the flume to be used for irrigation
after it has served the transportation purpose. Ten-Mile Creek feeds Hume
Lake, Stephenson and other rivulets form Shaver Lake, and at Millwood
at the edge of General Grant Park is Sequoia Lake. These sheets of
water are stocked and are popular trout fishing grounds. Eastern visiting
journalists have made much in their write ups of the mountains of the hair-
raising flume journeys in a trough shaped shell, a sensation compared with
which the descent on a scenic railway is as slow running as molasses in
December.
Lumber making was next to agriculture and mining a leading industry,
and the annual output, up to the time after 1890 when the business was con-
centrated in the hands of a few of the larger companies, now reduced to
two. of the leading mills was: Ockenden'" 1,200,000, Smyth & IMcCardle
1,000,000, Stephenson 1,200,000, Musick 3,000,000, Humphrey 4,000,000,
North Fork Lumber Company 2,000.000, Kings River Lumber Company
30,000,000, and the Comstock mill atiove Camp Badger at the edge of Tulare
County across the line with timber region about Mill Creek in Fresno, about
3,000,000. The flume solved the question of freight teaming and the lack
of railroad transportation from the foothills and crowded the smaller con-
cerns out of the field.
The horse and mule killing Tollhouse grade was sold in 1878 to the
county for $5,000. In July, 1892, A. AT. Clark, George L. Hoxie and others
incorporated the Fresno and Pine Ridge Toll Road Company and furnished
a much easier graded mountain road, which in December. 1896, was sold
to the county for $7,500. Both roads became free and opened the mountains
to the public.
The county's annual lumber output ranges from 60,000,000 to 75,000,000
feet, including 5,000.000 in shakes, shingles and box and tray material,
representing a value of from one and one-half to two millions or more —
almost ten percent, of the state's lumber production, a material addition, but
at the sorry expense of denuding the forest shaded slopes of the Sierra
Nevadas.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Pastoral Period Naturally Succeeds Placer Mining in 1864.
Stockraising Becomes the Dominant Industry. Dairying
is Practically Neglected. Early Stock Was of Inferior
Breeds. Unlimited Was the Range. The "No Fence" Law
Proved the Turning Point to Favor Agriculture. It
Tolled the Requiem of the Stock Business. The "Sand-
lapper" Comes to the Fore. Tribulations of Cattle and
Sheep Men. Wool Raising an Important Consideration.
Prominent Stockmen Listed. They Discovered the Sier-
ra's Scenic Wonders in the Quest for Pasture.
It was natural that with the passing of placer mining in 1864, except
for sporadic and speculative efforts, the people of the county should turn
next to stockraising and make it the dominant industry. Every condition
favored it. There was the suggestive precedent of the mission fathers and
of the Spanish and Mexican eras, when herds counting up in the thousands
were slaughtered for beef, or for the tallow and hides as the territory's sole
export. There was a limitless open range on the plains. Climatic conditions
the year around were ideal. There was no need for herding. The owner
162 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
concerned himself about the stock once a yea'r only at the spring rodeo for
the counting and branding.
A market was always to be found by simply driving the cattle there.
The stockman waxed fat and was the monarch of the plains and the grassy
foothills. It was in one sense of the word an ideal existence, with nature an
important member of the business copartnership. Cattle of every kind and
age ran wild. They multiplied and in great herds grazed on the hills and
roamed the valleys and plains as freely as deer. The industry in Fresno
County was at its height in 1870. The early Californians introduced their
cattle from Spain and iMexico: the Americans, the longhorns from Texas,
driving the herds across the desert and the plains. To market, they were
driven in the summer to the mining camps, or to San Francisco, following
the river courses and foothill creeks for convenient camps and water en
route. In this county the range was an immense one, extending from the
Chowchilla to the Kings River and from the foothills of the Sierras to those
of the Coast Range.
In the 70's and the days before the introduction of superior stock had
absorbed the original Spanish cattle, herds of these and mixed cattle yet
ran wild, especially in the southern part of the state. These "resembled the
wild beasts of the forest more than cows," it is said, and as herders and
vaqueros were always mounted these beasts unaccustomed to seeing man
afoot would encircle him and often furiously attack him. Cattle, as well as
other live stock in California, ran at large, never were housed, and had no
food other than that which nature spontaneously provided, and this was
ample save in dry seasons. In periods when pasturage was scarce, or in
summer when the plains were parched and feed lacking, bands in great
number were driven into the mountains to the very summits to graze in
the natural meadows on the succulent wild herbage and brush.
Before the American occupation, little or no attention was paid to milk
and butter. With irrigation and alfalfa growing, dairying became an indus-
try which has grown wonderfully. Notwithstanding the genial climate, the
open range and splendid pasturage, one-third of the butter used in California
in the 70's was imported from the eastern states. The state produced about
six million pounds of butter annualh' and one-third of this came from j\Iarin
County, with 24,000 neat cattle out of about one million in the state. The
largest dairy farm was the 75,000-acre ranch of the Shafter brothers in that
county. JNIerced was credited with 60.000 neat cattle and only produced
about 9,000 pounds of butter. Kern, Tulare, Colusa and San Diego were
the next largest cattle counties.
The state produced then annually 5.000,000 pounds of cheese, of which
3,000,000 were credited to Santa Clara and Monterey Counties. Santa Clara
with 22,000 cattle, 7,000 of them cows, made as much cheese as the entire
state, the two counties excepted. It was solemnly asseverated in "The Gold-
en \\'est" — a book on California — that in a part of the southern counties,
where cattle were so numerous that they swarmed about telegraph poles to
scratch themselves and rubbed down the eight-inch square masts for miles,
one could not taste butter, nor cheese, nor milk in a journey of 200 miles!
Fresno was one of the interior "cow counties." As late as 1890, when
it was out of that classification, there were about 70,000 head of cattle in
the county, and fully 1,000,000 sheep, wool being an important export item.
This section is also favorable for the raising of horses and mules. The
ranges became more limited, however, with the spread of farming from year
to year, yet even today cattle raising is no small industry. Alfalfa cultiva-
tion has made it more profitable, though on a reduced scale in scope, while
giving dairying a great stimulus. The cattle, sheep and wool business repre-
sented a million-dollar asset in 1890. Today it is a combined asset of more
than $3,923,000 in value. In 1861, Spanish stock cattle were assessed at ten
dollars per head, American stock at twelve dollars and twenty-five dollars
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 163
was the valuation placed on the better above three-year-old.
The "cattle barons" of Fresno had bands ranging- in number from 200
to 3,000 and 4,000 and over. They contributed to their own undoing when
farming and irrigation came on. Cattle were not herded as sheep are, but
roamed at will over boundless areas. Every man marked his by a particular
brand burned into the left hip, and these "irons" were as title deeds recorded
and it was a felon}^ to obliterate or alter them.
NO-FENCE LAW OBLIGATIONS
In the San Joaquin A^alley generally in connection with the spread of
orchards, vineyards and farms, and locally due to the agitation of the Ala-
bama Settlement of grain growing colonists at Areola (Borden), the adop-
tion of the "No Fence" law was the turning point in agricultural advance-
ment and prosperity. P.cfore, the stockmen lorded it over all, and regarded
it as an encroachment on their rights to sow a field of grain, and to that
extent abridge their open pasture, or restrict their horizon between the foot-
hills of the eastern and western ranges. The question at issue in the law was:
which was the most desirable industry for the permanent settlement and
development of the virgin land, the farmer or the stockman?
The pastoral period brought the "sandlapper" to the fore. The deriva-
tion of this term is obscure, but the appellation was one given in contempt
and derision by the stock owners to a class that loaded all worldly goods
on a wagon and with family drove out on the plains to take up a quarter
section of government land out of the stockman's self-appropriated range.
It was then yet a question whether the soil of the plains, away from water,
could be successfully farmed without irrigation, but the "sandlapper," whose
coming was almost contemporaneous with that of the railroad, was quite
willing to assume the risk, with transportation to a seaboard market as an
incentive.
It cost, so it is said, $2,240 to fence a quarter section against the inroads
of roaming herds. The "sandlapper" was in a large measure responsible
for the "no fence" or "herding law," the agitation over which started about
1870 and continued with much bitterness and personal animosities until the
enactment in 1874. The stockmen came to a full realization of the new order
of things, when a heroic remedy was employed in ranging up marauding
cattle and shooting them. This enforced compliance with a law that at
first was generally ignored by those whom it most directly afifected.
The "no fence" law obligated the stock owner to herd his cattle and
sheep, whereas before the stock roamed at will and was not assembled ex-
cept for the annual rodeo. He was also made responsible for damage done
by his beasts. The farmer was not required to fence his holding, though as
a custom, "more honored in the breach than in the observance," he occa-
sionally did so. In particular localities hedges served more as sheltering
wind breaks than farm dividing lines. Senator Thomas Fowler, then a cattle
king and for whom the village ten miles from Fresno was named, cham-
pioned the opposition against the law in the legislature, and paid the penalty
in defeat at the next election. The law requiring the stockman to herd on
his own land tolled the requiem of the pastoral period in Fresno, and passed
the land over to the husbandman, though the tillable area was so vast that
years elapsed before the small farmer ceased to be the exception and be-
came the rule. The stockman gradually retired from the field. Sheep re-
placed cattle in thinly settled localities, but agriculture in time encroached
even there upon them.
In springtime the rodeo was held. The word is from the Spanish verb
meaning to gather, to surround. It was a rounding up of the cattle to en-
able the owners to select their own, count them and drive them ofif to their
own pastures with the calves following the mother cows, and to brand the
164 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
calves and mavericks. Rodeos were held at stated places and at pre-arranged
times, succeeding one another until all cattle had been counted in a district,
and the calves marked. At times 20,000 head of stock would be gathered on
a plain for singling out. Clever feats of horsemanship and of lasso throw-
ing marked the rodeo and with the trained character of the horses put to
blush the exhibitions at Wild West shows.
STOCK INDUSTRY ON THE WANE
Cattle and sheepmen had other troubles. There were early losses by
reason of floods in destruction of pasture. The drought of 1856 was too early
to afifect the infant local industry. That of 1864 was disastrous, cattle and
sheep starving by the thousands in the state. The one of 1870-71 was not
productive of such general ruin. But in 1876-77 followed another as disas-
trous as the one of 1864, with perishing herds and bands. An industry of
the drought year of 1877 was the stripping of the carcasses of cattle for
the hides and of sheep for the pelts. Since that year the stock business has
never regained the importance that it once held as a general industry. Oak
and other trees were felled for the animals to browse on the foliage and
tender twigs. Bands of sheep numbering thousands were abandoned to die
of starvation. Animals were killed for their pelts and in districts the air
was polluted with the stench of thousands of corrupting carcasses and the
sky blackened with attracted carrion birds. Bands of sheep were sold for a
bit (twelve and one-half cents) a head, when ordinarily worth two dollars
and three dollars, and thousands were killed and tried for the fat. The
stockman's losses were very heavy, and in certain sections the industry
never recovered, many abandoning it. With the continued encroachment of
agriculture, the consequent cutting of the pastures and the advanced
value of tillable land, the larger surviving stockmen took themselves off to
Nevada and Arizona. As ineffectual was their opposition to the introduction
of irrigation in the valley.
Raising sheep for the wool was commenced in California in 1853 and
the 1855 first exportation was 360,000 pounds. As showing the development
of wool growing, the following figures are illustrative :
Year. Pounds. \'alne.
1857 1,100.000 $ 173,500
1862 5,900,000 1,062,000
1868 13,225,000 2,428,000
1870 - 19,010,000 3,506,000
1871 22,323,000 6,697,000
Original stock was of poor quality, the remnants of old mission flocks
and bands of inferior sheep brought into the state overland from New Mexico.
As wool growing attracted attention, blooded stock was introduced. Still
flocks of the old Mexican stock roamed the sandy plains of southern Califor-
nia, described "as much like wolves as regards wool as like sheep." This
class averaged a fleece of wool, sand and dirt as sheared of only two pounds,
the inferior American sheep of four and improved breeds and Merino from
six to eight, often as high as ten to fifteen pounds. In 1875 there were about
2,500,000 sheep in the 'state, flocks of 3,000, 8,000, 10,000 and 20,000 being
not uncommon. California was highest on the list of wool growing states.
The first shipment of freight from Fresno City was wool that Frank Dusy
loaded on the cars on the track before a freight depot had been built.
Sheepmen underwent the same trials and tribulations as did the cattle-
men. The great flocks have fallen ofT since 1870, when they numbered 4,152,-
349, reduced in 1910 to 2,417,477, a decrease from the year preceding of
1,734,872. 1880 was a banner year with 5,727.349. After the "no fence" law,
sheep were herded where there was no farming, and at this day they are
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 165
pastured principally on the uninhabited West Side plains to feed on the wild
alfilaria, or driven by the shepherds to rented stubble land and vineyards in
season to clean them ofif.
Sheep had once, as the cattle have, the unlimited range of the mountains
until the organization of the National Forest under the act of March, l'^07.
Then followed a practical exclusion, except in restricted number and under
regulations, the claim being that their cloven hoofs and their presence de-
stro}' and spoil pasturage for cattle, the latter never feeding in pasture that
has been ranged over by sheep. Before the above act, the areas were called
Forest Reserves. Of course there is no restriction on land patented or deeded
before the act, but the passage to and from these lands is under guard of the
rangers. Sheep first began to go into the mountains for pasturage in 1877,
a "dry year." In March, 1899, the supervisors through the legislature at the
behest of the sheepmen memorialized Congress to open the forest for the
grazing of stock to avert financial disaster to the industry that 3'ear because
of the lack of rain and consequent lack of natural feed.
Firebaugh, which is near the great Miller & Lux cattle ranch domain,
was the shearing center for years, the aggregation of Basques. Portuguese,
Mexicans, Italians and Indians giving it riotous life in season, but the sheep
business does not longer measure up with its picturesque past. In its day
shearing stations were at Alillerton, Centerville, Dry Creek and at Laton on
the Laguna de Tache grant.
The readily accessible western slopes of the Sierras have been pretty
well gone over for the trees in the timber belt varying from twenty to forty
miles in width. The sawmills surely left their impress, but as seriouslv main-
tained and as stoutly disputed the sheepmen destroyed as much as ever did
the mills in a year. The sheep were not corraled in the mountains, but to
protect them at night from prowling wild beasts encircling bonfires were lit
to keep them ofif. These fires being negligently left burning were spread bv
the wind and at times covered wide areas. It has been asserted that the
evidences of fires can be traced seventy-five miles into the mountains at the
base of great sugar and yellow pines.
The roll of Assessor Thomas W. Simpson for 1870. the year when the
stock business was at its height, is interesting as showing the countv's wealth
during the pastoral period. Total acreage was 1,3-14,078. Total valuations
were $3,219,503 — land and improvements $1,575,761, personal propertv $1.-
545,034; taxes on same $68,673— $27,832.49 state, $40,219.07 county and
$532 on dogs. Common sheep were assessed at $1.50 a head and this was
the general character of the stock in 1870. M. J. Church, "the Father of
Irrigation," is assessed $1,950 for 1,300, Supervisor D. C. Dunagan $2,700 for
1,8(X), William Helm $9,000 for 6,000, while Sheepman Gus Herminghaus is
assessed $10,000 for 8,997 sheep and $9,100 for 5,800.
Incidental showings are these : Judge Hart total assessment $2,825 —
Fort Miller improvements $800, Millerton Chinatown $500, 600 goats one
dollar each. Ira McCray assessed for a total of only $740. The New Idria
quicksilver mine with 1,920 acres $102,130, Peters & Ferguson in the Exposi-
tor plant $700, William C. Ralston. Bank of California president, $53,000 on
dollar-an-acre land, W. S. Chapman, Edmund Jansen, Frederic Roecling
et al $77,000 for like valued land. Besides his vast land holdings. Chapman
with J. M. Montgomery was associated with William Deakin in 7,572 head
of cattle. Darwin & Ferguson with three stock establishments, had 7,429
acres assessed at $9,300, besides 2,200 at $3,000. In the early 80's along the
Kings River and near Traver in Tulare lay large tracts owned by them.
Their brand known in al! the region about was "76". and the land was
called "the 76 countr>'." T^aac FririllamkT, "the wheat king," had in Fresno
County 57.360 acres ;i.-:^i--((l at S,^r,4i)n. Scnat^irs Fowler and Kerman had
300 steers at $7,500 and 3.(i(i:) luad nf stock ln<ides at fourteen dollars each.
John Heinlcn 1,000 at $14,000, Jeff G. James and Selig & Company (whole-
166 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
sale butchers of San Francisco) assessed for 16.877 acres at seventeen an
acre, 200 beeves $5,000, 2,600 head of stock at $36,400, total $60,900, Miller
& Lux assessed $102,600 for land. $61,250 for personal propertv and 4.000
head of stock $56,000, L. Perez and E. Alttube 3,000 at $49,000. John Suther-
land 600 stock horses $6,000. 500 beef cattle $12,500 and 5.000 stock cattle
$70,000.
AMONG THE BIG SHEEPMEN
Among the big sheepmen in 1870 may be recalled W. T. Cole with a
band of 5;0O0, William Helm 6,000, E. J. Hildreth 4,000, James R. Jones
5,000. J. A. Patterson 4,500, Frank Dusy who counted 13,300 in his band
in 1882, Alexander Gordon and W. C. Miller 10,000 in one year, John Suther-
land who drove 12.000 to Texas one dry year. B. S. and J. T. Birkhead
who counted 4,600 in their possession and J. N. Walker 6.000. Charles J.
Hobler, who was an extensive raiser, was the first after 1872 to introduce
the French Merino. \A"illiam Helm, who came to Fresno in 1865 from
Placer County with sheep, was probably at one time the largest individual
sheep raiser in this section. He bought 2,640 acres of land on Dry Creek
at one dollar an acre and established winter camp on the site of the present
county courthouse, having at one time 22,000 sheep that browsed in the
mountains in the summer. In conveying his wool to market at Stockton, he
employed three wagons, each drawn by ten mules, spending twelve days on
the round trip.
The following from a newspaper publication of forty years ago is of
passing interest as marking the scope of the sheep industry at the close
early in May, 1878, of the shearing season :
"In the two shearing establishments here over 80.000 sheep have been
sheared up to date and dipped and not more than 10,000 have been engaged
for the next week. Frank Dusy has sheared a little over 42.000 and has not
more than 4.000 more engaged. He has employed white men, has superin-
tended the work himself and has paid from six to seven cents a head for
shearing, the men boarding themselves. His dip has been lime and sulphur
and he charges two cents each for sheep and one cent for lambs. Mr. Foster
has sheared over 40.000 sheep and has between 6,000 and 8.000 yet to shear.
William Helm and Jesse Morrow have had over 20,000 sheared at his
corrals. He has employed white men, paid the same wages, and has charged
one and one-half cents for dipping sheep and three-quarters of a cent for
dipping lambs."
Just as today, everj^ other farmer or retired land owner may be either
a vineyardist or an orchardist. so in the 60's and 70's every other one in
the county owning land was a stock raiser. In the county recorder's office
are two interesting book records of the registered cattle brands. They are
of historic value as the brief abstracts of the cattle period, and of the men
who were the backbone of that once dominant industry of the county. Ex-
amination of this register is like turning back the pages of time with recall
of the familiar names of the long ago dead associated with Fresno's second
industrial period. The record runs up into the thousands.
The stockmen were the discoverers of the scenic wonders and the Big
Trees of the Sierras. They were the pioneers that opened and marked the
trails to the most inaccessible places in the search for feed for their animals.
The name of many a pioneer stockman is perpetuated in the government
quadrangle topographical maps. They are responsible also for the uncouth
nomenclature of the landmarks. The forest service has improved their trails
but adopted their routings as shown by the blazes on the trees. The stock-
men's early mark is a rectangular chip clipped deep from the bark : that
of the foresters on the same trees a chip the width of the ax blade and under
it a longer vertical strip, the combination suggestive of the letter "i."
Dinkey Creek was named by Frank Dusy for a little pet dog that was
HISTORY OF FRESXO COL'XTY 167
killed there by a bear. An enthusiastic naturaHst and mountain climber,
describing a journey to the High Sierras, put in i)ook print that Tunemah
Pass takes its name from the melodious Indian! In fact, it is the vile epithet
that was uttered by a Chinese sheep herder of Dusy in giving vent to his
opinion after descent of that well nigh impassable mountain ridge cleft
from the north to the middle fork of the Kings River and the Tehipite
Valley, rival of the Yosemite. Dutch Oven Creek gives reminder of the dis-
aster to a party in fording that swift stream and the recovery of the indis-
pensable oven as the only article of the camping outfit.
CHAPTER XXIX
Agriculture Formally Takes Possession of the Valley in the
70's. Grain Growing or "Dry Farming" Conducted on a
Gigantic Scale. Belt Extends From River to River. First
Colonists Had Much to Overcome in Lack of Faith in
Farming by the Old Residents. Stockmen Discouraged
Them. Fertility of Soil Demonstrated. Development of
Labor Saving Machinery. Improvements on Early Meth-
ods. First Far^iing on the Plains. Failure of the Ala-
bama Settlemfxt. Wheat as the Agricultural King of
California with the "Dry Farmer" as his Prime Minister.
The third general industrial period in the county's development came
with the springing up about 1868 of farming, more especially grain growing,
or "dry farming" as it was called. It was far more important in its effects
than the superficial reader of local history wots of. It proved the agency
that blazed the way for the fourth and most distinctive era that has made
Fresno what it is in the line of fruit growing and in the products of the
grapevine.
The "dry farmer" disproved the popular fallacy entertained in the mid-
dle 60's that the valley plains were unfit for agriculture because of the uncer-
tainty of the rainfall, and anyhow because "farming was too much of a
gamble." In the 70's the valley was throughout almost its entire length and
breadth used for grazing, and the cattle barons doggedly disputing ground
with the few widely scattered farmers. Then came the notable conflict,
with the No-Fence law as the result and small farming as the heritage.
Before that the belief was tenaciously held that the plains had value only
as pasture. One journeyed for miles and saw nothing save cattle and sheep
and an occasional herder's tent or brush shelter. Cattle roamed the plains
practically from Stockton to Bakersfield.
In the 70's agriculture formally took possession of the valley. In due
time the two valleys "began on a great scale the first experiment in irriga-
tion that the Anglo-Saxon has undertaken." It resulted in a remarkable
success. The important fact must not be overlooked here that agricultural
land in California means good, rich soil, free from rocks or trees and almost
wholly fit for the plow. Valleys and rolling hills are as a general thing
covered with wild oats and grasses and free from timber, brush, stones
and other obstructions. Wheat growing was once on a colossal scale in
the valley. Nothing attempted in California was done on a minor scale,
it would appear. Measure was taken from the lofty mountains, the big trees,
the great territory and the broad valleys as the scale. It was moreover "the
thin edge of the entering wedge that displaced the stockmen and pushed
them back, step by step, until the only refuge left them was the remote
and less desirable land for cultivation," or the vast Spanish land grants.
168 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The wheat ranches were of great size, operated necessarily on a gigantic
scale and corresponding cost. One thousand to 3,0(X)-acre grain fields were
not uncommon. The individual largest grower in Fresno was Clovis M.
Cole, who in 1891 had 10,000 acres in wheat. Instead of enriching him, it
impoverished him in the end. Cole and his grain domain was a frequent
subject of magazine articles and newspaper write ups. The rapidity of the
growth of farming with irrigation once under way, the one naturally lead-
ing up to the other, was noticeable. Fresno's grain belt lay between the
eastern foothills and the railroad, with exceptions at Borden, Kingsburg
and Selma. The rainfall almost double in the foothill country was as a rule
ample for the well tilled soil. That soil was better adapted for cereal crops.
The time was when you could say that the eastern foothill country from
the Chowchilla to the Kings River was one vast grain field, and what is true
of Fresno was equally so in the adjoining counties.
Experimentation with irrigation was in progress during the "dry farming"
period. The first colonists had many discouragements to overcome and espe-
cially to contend against the lack of faith of the old resident in the possi-
bility of successful farming on the plains, even with irrigation. There were
no pessimists like the stock and sheepmen, and none more heavily stocked up
with hard luck tales of dismal failures of health and crops.
The climate? \\'orst in the world — they had seen the thermometer 130
degrees in the shade, and no shade, and had seen birds drop dead from the
heat. Fruit? Oh, it grew, but it also baked on the trees before ripening.
Vegetables? Wouldn't grow even when irrigated, and then either rotted in
the water or dried up in the sun-baked mud. Butter was out of the question,
except during the winter, rainy months. Potatoes? Invariably crop failures,
and what few were raised rotted when dug up. Trees and vines? A losing
proposition, because the pestiferous jack-rabbit overran the plains, and the
durned rabbit-proof fence was a snare and a delusion because the rabbits
burrowed under it. Chickens had never done well on the plains and could
not be profitably raised, and besides there were the coyotes. Sandstorms,
hot and cold winds and whirlwinds made life a burden. Instances were de-
tailed of fever and ague following up the bringing of water for irrigation,
and as a finale the truly sympathetic stockman earnestly and charitably
advised the listener to hurry away before his last dollar went for grub to
keep body and soul together.
WHEAT GROWING LONG HELD SWAY
The fruit and vine industries had inception about 1880, but wheat
growing held sway for about thirty years. Unceasing repetition of crops
with consequent impoverishment of the soil and added indifferent cultiva-
tion had their effect. Grain growing did not then bring in the returns that
the earlier years had. Resort was had to summer fallowing and irrigation.
This proved an aid in the crop production, but even then the soil did not
yield as once, and the profits grew beautifully less in the face of the large
acreage sown. This led to the consideration of other crops, and fruit and
vine attracted attention. Bees and poultry were found to give good returns
on small investments and comparatively little care. Alfalfa proved a
specially adapted forage plant. Trees and vines returned greater profits,
and so orchards, vineyards and alfalfa fields eventually supplanted the grain
ranches. They ushered in the wine, raisin and cured fruit industries, while
the pastures gave stimulus to dairying and live stock.
With average rainfall the plains produced rich grain crops, j-ielding
from fifteen to twenty bushels an acre, varying according to climatic and
rain conditions. San Joaquin Valley wheat was, all in all, of excellent qual-
ity and considered as among the best milling wheat anywhere. The grain
crop values proved greater than the gold yield. In 1860 the wheat crop
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 169
was 2,530,400 bushels, in 1870, 6,937,038, in 1880, 29,017,707 and in 1889,
40,869,137, the largest wheat crop save that of Minnesota and wheat worth
a dollar a bushel, equaling the gold yield before 1856 and almost doubling
any two seasons in wheat since.
The success of farming on the plains, with proof of the fertility and
possibility of the soil, was stimulating. Population increased and the build-
ing of permanent homes resulted. The coming of the railroad was, to be
sure, an important factor to help bring about the new life. Fresno city grew
— indeed outdistanced its rivals, notably Stockton, Visalia and every other
new town on the railroad. In 1870 the countv had 6,336 population, in 1880
9,478, in 1890 32,026, in 1900 37,862 and in 19'lO 75,657. Land that had been
in the market for two and one-half dollars an acre sold for fifty dollars, $100
to $200 and more where under irrigation. The changed conditions neces-
sarily made cultivation and harvesting more rapid and economical. Cradle,
reaper and single plow were too slow for the San Joaquin Valley big wheat-
grower. Implements and machinery adapted to the times and needs were
improved upon as in the great gangplows and combined harvesters.
Cultivating from 400 to 1.200 acres, a single plow was first used, then
two were fastened together. Then came the gangplow with one man and
ten horses plowing ten acres in a day turning up a three-foot swath. Then
it was eight feet, sowing, and harrowing at the same time with an oil burn-
ing machine. The pioneer used the old fashioned mower for grain cutting.
Then came the invented California Header, levelling a twenty-foot swath
and sending a steady stream of grain into the receiving wagon. Later the
great hay-fork operated by horsepower lifted the grain from wagon and
stacked it. The McCormick thresher burned straw for fuel instead of wood,
threshing 2.000 bushels in a day. James Marvin, a San Joaquin farmer, con-
trived a combined header and harvester, but it was not successful until after
improved. Then when drawn by thirty horses, it cut, threshed and sacked
fifteen acres in a day and later it was operated by its own motive power.
The threshing machine is popularly supposed to have been first operated
in Fresno County on Dry Creek in 1870 by Hewlett, Jack and Wyatt. The
heading machine was a notable improvement on the thresher. It was worked
by the team pushing, as it were, instead of drawing it. The driver lowered
or raised the sickle bar according to the height of the grain stalks. The heads
dropped into a traveling gangway attached to the machine and into a
wagon driven alongside of the header, the side of the bed next to the header
receptively lower. Wagon after wagon followed the header, the loaded
going to the thresher and dumping grain on a platform to be cleaned at the
rate of hundreds of bushels in a day. This machine was superseded by a
most economical and ingenious contrivance, the combined harvester driven
by fifteen to twenty-four horses, harnessed six abreast, attended by four
to five men cutting, threshing and sacking grain on thirty to thirty-five acres
in a day, twenty to thirty bushels to the acre.
The grain threshed in the field filled sacks of 100 or 200 pounds each.
The long dry season dried the grain ready for the mill or for shipment
in bulk or in sacks. The sacked grain was left in heaps in the field measurably
secure from rain until November, or if transported to shipping points piled
up on wdiarves until loaded on shipboard. So dry was the grain that it went
direct from the thresher aboard ship or car without damage. Mills have
had to dampen it before grinding into flour. A peculiarity of California
wheat is that the kernel does not shell, however ripe, or how long it stands
in the field. Rain or weather change does not open it. In ordinary seasons
enough grain was shelled in the handling to make seed for a volunteer crop,
and good harvests were had for several seasons without plowing or sowing.
But best crops follow the annual sowing with deep plowing and summer fal-
lowing. Custom was once to burn the straw on the field where the thresher
stood, and with fire to clean of¥ the stubble. Drought and cold and long
170 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
winter rains tauglit the farmers the lesson and straw burning was aban-
doned. It was stacked, shedded and secure from rain and summer's scorch-
ing heat the feed was saved for a time of need.
Prior to^l868, settlements for farming operations were few in the county
save in the foothills as on Dry Creek, and on the lower Kings River. The
great waterless plain between the rivers "was common pasture ground for
whosoever chose to turn stock upon it." The government had surveyed and
sectionized most of the land, but no one was tempted to acquire or occupy
on account of the lack of water. Land was acquired for speculative purposes
in great blocks and sheep turned out upon it when driven out of the moun-
tains by the snow. Here and there a venturesome farmer sowed grain upon
the too dry soil, took desperate chances on the season, and harvested only
too frequently defeat, ridicule and I-told-you-so triumph for the sheepman,
who having crowded out the cattleman himself stood in fear of speedy
elbowing out by agriculture.
Still one of the large productions of the county was wheat in its day.
The area devoted to wheat during the season of 1880-81 was 100,000 acres,
the county export about 800,000 bushels, worth not less than $750,000. It
was the high price of wheat that induced grain farming on a large scale in
Stanislaus County, and in turn prompted William S. Chapman and . Isaac
Friedlander, the wdieat market manipulator in California, to take up great
tracts of "plain lands" in this countv in 1868 and 1869, around Borden and
covering the present site of Fresno City.
"Dry farming" in grain growing was at best a venturesome undertak-
ing. There had been droughts and short crops in 1869. 1870 and 1871. Other
years to 1876 were more or less fraught with woe for the "dry farmer." The
very instability of this "dry farming" suggested the thought of irrigation,
but "the man of the hour" had not yet come to the fore. 1862 was a set-
backing year — year of the big flood — with the valley basin from Sacramento
to Visalia under two feet of water, fifty lives lost and damage estimated at
fifty millions entailed. Two years later was another dry period, with
scarcely any rain in the winter of 1863 or the spring of 1864. Little hay was
cut. The wheat crop was a failure. Hay went to sixty dollars a ton and
wheat was scarce at five dollars a bushel. Horses, cattle and sheep perished
wholesale. The poorest beef sold at twenty-five cents a pound. Hay and
grain were imported from Oregon and Nevada.
But aside from all these causes, the time came wdien it was apparent
that there was no longer profit on the big grain ranch. There was the fall
in the price of wheat to seventy-five cents due to financial panics, the re-
duced yield in ever taking from the soil and adding nothing to overcome
its impoverishment, the increased value of land for the more profitable or-
chard and vineyard and alfalfa field, all leading up to the practical surrender
of the field to the small farmer and his varied crops.
FIRST FARMING ON THE PLAINS
It is a disputed question who first farmed on the plains of Fresno. The
account most susceptible of proof is that the late A. Y. Easterby of Napa
and a pioneer in development about Fresno, became the owner in July,
1868, for $14,496 of about 5,000 acres, which an association of San Francisco
merchants, mainly Germans, bought in a block of 80,000 acres from Chap-
man and Friedlander, who had purchased from the government for scrip.
The purchase price from them was one dollar and eighty cents an acre and
the highest hoped for selling price was five dollars. An experimental crop
of wheat was put in by Easterby in November, 1869, on land near Miller-
ton as the nearest populated point, on which alfilaria and sunflowers ten feet
high were growing luxuriantly, being in the northwest corner of Section
8. Township 14 S., Range 21 E. M. J- Church, "the Father of Irrigation,"
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 171
whom Easterby had permitted to bring his sheep there to save them from
starvation in Napa, bored the well and a man named ^NIcBride sowed wheat
and barley.
The seed germinated nicely, but for lack of spring rain dried up and
what survived the drought was eaten up by roaming horses and cattle.
Easterby had four sections set aside later for his own use after survey. They
constituted the Easterby Rancho, first named the Banner Farm because of
the raising of the flag on the barn staff on July 4, 1872, prol)a1)Iy the first
display on the plains of which there is record. The story is added that when
Easterby presented the deeds for recording, County Recorder Dixon hesi-
tated to accept the fees, intimating that the man must be crazy who thought
of cultivating the plains. In 1S71 l-'astcrliy put in wheat 2,000 acres, parti}'
irrigated, paid in 1872 ."^1.2(17.32 frciL;lit mi lumber and $2,574 for fencing
and lumber and in August and Sei.)tember shipped 20,000 sacks of wheat
to Friedlander, the first wheat shipment from the plains of Fresno over
the Southern Pacific. The eighteen carloads of lumber for fencing was the
first shipment of the kind over the new road to this locality. Outlay on crop
was $2,600; for lumber and freight $3,781. The Easterby rancho is a few
miles east of town, comprising some of the best known pioneer vineyards
in the district now called Sunnyside.
The Alabama Settlement of 1868 formed of Alabamans. Mississippians
and Tennesseeans who came after the war, was the first concerted eft'ort on
the plains to raise grain. They had a drought the first year, suft'ered several
more in after years, water was not always available for the irrigation of
other crops, and besides they were in frequent conflict to sa^e their scant
product from roaming cattle. The Alabama proved a failure, as did in after
years the much vaunted and advertized John Brown Colony. The southern
enterprise did not prosper, most of the founders removed to other localities
and those who remained drifted into more congenial and lucrative fields —
politics was a popular one — so that in 1874-75 the place had few of the
original settlers. The failure was a conspicuous one. Besides the local con-
ditions contributing to it, there was the important fact not to be overlooked
that the southern planter and gentleman was evidently not cut out for the
new and untried conditions of the life of pioneer farming in the Far West
with accompanying hard labor and struggling poverty.
The first name of the settlement was Areola from which town in Ala-
bama the leading colonists came. It was afterward named for Dr. Joseph
Borden, one of the leading spirits of the enterprise. Among the prominent
colonists, who became men of note in Fresno politics and circles, were the
R. L. Dixon. S. H. Holmes, W. B. Dennett, J. A. and J. H. Pickens, C. A.
Reading and other families. Hardly a notable but had a military or judicial
title.
The cereal acreage of the state has greatly decreased in recent years.
The soil has yielded much greater profit when devoted to fruit, vine and
forage, alfalfa giving from four to six cuttings. As far back as 1852, Cali-
fornia has held first place for barley, North Dakota and Minnesota slightly
exceeding it in 1915. Since 1901 the acreage has been upwards of one mil-
lion. That of 1910 with 1,195,000 and a product of 36.000,000 bushels is
the largest on record. In 1915 the estimated acreage was 1,360.000 and the
acre average twentv-nine bushels. In wheat the production notablv de-
creased between 1900 and 1910. The acreage in 1915 was 440,000 and the
acre yield sixteen bushels, one less than in 1914 with 400,000 acres. Rice
growing is comparatively new in the state. In 1915 the state's acreage was
32,110, with 3,135 in the San Joaquin Valley and Fresno leading with 1,120.
The state's production was about 888,000 100-pound sacks, average return
one dollar and eighty-five cents per hundred. The 1916 crop was almost
double that of 1915 with more than 2,500,000 pounds harvested. Rice growing
was started as late as four years ago on a comparatively large scale with
172 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
50.000 acres under cultivation in the state in 1916. The prospect is for a
100,000 acreage in 1917 of the "short kernel" variety of rice.
Passed, however, is the day when wheat may be hailed as the agricul-
tural king in California with the grain grower as his prime minister. It is
Charles NordhofT in his remarkable little book, "California for Health, Pleas-
ure and Residence," unquestionably the best, most truthful and oft quoted
of practical works on the subject for travellers and settlers, who relates in
connection with the phenomenal and rapid production with labor saving
machinery in the field the incident that with combination steam header and
thresher the grain in the field in the morning was in sacks and frequently
at the shipping depot for steamship or car to market before night, or even
carried to the mill to be returned to the ranch as flour, so that the laborer who
helped harvest it in the morning bolted it down at supper time in the eve-
ning as hot yeast powder bread or saleratus biscuits. NordhofT locates this
story in Fresno, but leaves it to the imagination to conclude that the stunt
was a performance on the Cole 10,000-acre grain ranch, which embraced the
region about Clovis, named for the P. T. Barnum of "dry farmers." Cole
is, by the way, engineering a steam thresher in his old days at a per diem.
CHAPTER XXX
Vasquez and His Robber Band in the Limelight Focus. Mil-
LERTON is Given a Great Scare. Audacious Twilight Rob-
beries Committed Within a Few Miles From the County
Seat. Murieta's Retreat in a Defile of the Coast Range
IN THE County is the Haven of Refuge and the Starting
Point on Raids. State is Terrorized and Half a Dozen
Sheriffs Are Kept Busy in the Pursuit. Vasquez the
Most Daring Rascal Since Murieta's Day. He is Hanged
AT San Jose for a Murder at Tjies Pinos.
Towards the close of the year 1873, and while warming up to the sub-
ject of county seat removal, ilillerton was given a great scare by Tiburcio
Vasquez and his robber gang. It was not groundless as were the periodical
Indian uprising reports started on the occasion of every pow-wow by the
excitable located remote from the settlements. A considerable portion of the
state was likewise agitated and for the same long suffered reason.
The robber gang came as near to Millerton as Jones' store, three miles
below, and at Bliss" ferry at Kingston, being driven off here by armed
citizens and leaving one bandit dead on the field. Sheriff's posses pursuing
the robbers were out several times, but never with any result. Vasquez
and his gang had become such a terror that the sheriffs of a half a dozen
counties were in pursuit, and the state had offered such a large reward for
capture, dead or alive, that speculative bands of man hunters were tempted
to go on the trail. Millerton so confidently expected a robber visit that as
a precautionary measure the two mercantile establishments expressed out
all their unused money.
In the history of California highwaymen, this Vasquez made a record
for himself second only to Vurieta for notoriety and achievements. Ban-
croft says that except "in skill of horsemanship and dexterity in catching
and killing men," one was opposite to the other. Murieta was "of gentle
blood, handsome, gay and chivalrous" : Vasquez, a "hybrid, half Indian,
coarse, treacherous and brutish." His boyhood was "spent in taming wild
horses, cutting flesh with bowie knives, and shooting, dancing the bolero
and fandango, and betraying young damsels." Bancroft adds that he was "a
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 173
be-deviled Don Juan at love, for repulsive monster though he was the dear
creatures could not help following him."
Vasquez had selected Cantua Canyon, a defile in the Coast Range, near
the New Idria mine, as a retreat and a starting point for robber descents.
This was generally known and his proximity made the Millertonians so
fearful of a visit as to necessitate especial watchfulness — "preparedness" as
it were. Vasquez ended his career on the gallows in the Santa Clara County
jail on March 19, 1875, for one in a series of murders in the raid of the store
at Tres Pinos in San Benito County on the evening of August 26, 1873. He
was not apprehended until March 14, 1874, near Los Angeles. The near-
home robberies that so agitated Millerton were at Jones' November 10, and
at Kingston December 26, 1873.
The Jones' affair occurred early in the evening, when ten or a dozen
were smoking or playing cards in the store. Front and rear doors opened
and three men entered with drawn and cocked revolvers. The inmates were
ordered to lie down and keep quiet. They obeyed and submitted to be
bound. Smith Norris, the clerk, was forced to open the safe and it was
cleaned out. The robbers helped themselves to clothing, firearms and each
to a saddle. Their visit lasted nearly an hour and a half, and when they
departed they left the bound victims prone on the floor.
The store was on the main stage road at the ferry, and no house near
save the hotel in rear. Jones was there, but had no inkling of what had
gone on. The robbed were : John E. Bogg, John Gilmore, Capt. E. P. Fisher,
Smith Norris, Jack Hazlett, H. Ivohlman. John Fuqua, Hugh Clark, Walter
Brown, John Berry and Bob Trumbull. All were searched. The old Chinese
cook, who lay near Fisher, unbound him and he in turn liberated the others.
Fisher took the information to town, arriving about eight thirty o'clock,
and Sheriff Ashman and posse set out in fruitless pursuit on the following
morning, which was a Tuesday. Raid enriched the robbers in goods and
money to the value of $1,000.
For audacious daring, this exploit was surpassed in the little town of
Kingston on the Kings River flowing along the southerly edge of the settle-
ment and spanned by a bridge owned by O. H. Bliss. On the south side
of the one street were two stores and a hotel, and fronting them to the
north Bliss' bridge and stable. L. Reichert had the hotel. Stores were owned
respectively by E. Jacob & Louis Einstein, and by S. Sweet. The robbers
crossed the bridge on foot and encountering Bliss compelled him to lie down,
tied his hands and feet and searched his person. He complained that his
head was in an uncomfortable position, and a blanket was brought him for
a pillow.
Next were halted John Potts, Pres Bozeman and Milt Brown near the
stable yard gate. Bozeman and Potts laid down, but Brown objected and
being marched to the hotel laid down there. Potts and Bozeman were
searched and the last named yielded $180. The road being clear, a guard was
placed at each store. In the hotel saloon were ten or more, who were made
to lie down, tied and relieved of watches and money, realizing $100, besides
Reichert's watch. In the dining room was Edward Douglass of Visalia, who
would not lie down but being knocked down with a revolver lost money
and watch. Launcelot Gilroy was at supper, when a bandit entered, where-
upon Miss Reichert screamed and ran. Gilroy concluded he had insulted
her, arose to his feet and gallantly floored the robber with a chair, but in
turn was pounded with a pistol. ■
At Jacob & Einstein, Edward Erlanger, the clerk, instead of lying down,
ran to Sweet's store and gave the alarm. Sweet thrust his head out of the
door, was seized by the guard, shoved back and made to lie down and be
tied. After Erlanger's exit, Einstein was asked for the safe key, but pleaded
that the clerk had it. He was forcibly prevailed upon to produce another,
and the safe viekled about $800 cash. At Sweet's $34 had been secured, when
174 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the crack of a Henry rifle was heard, followed by another, and the guard
sprang forward against the door, exclaiming, "I'm shot!" ^lore shots fol-
lowed and the robbers beat a hasty retreat across the bridge and scampered
off on horses.
J- W. Sutherland and James E. Flood had learned what was going on
and arming themselves arrived at the moment of the attack on Sweet's store.
Flood armed with a revolver in which only one charge was left tried to head
off the fugitives at the bridge, but failing gave them the parting shot. The
robbers secured over $2,500 in money and jewelry. They bound and robbed
thirty-five individuals. Great excitement prevailed, a crowd collected, but
nothing was done in pursuit that night. Next morning Sutherland and others
found about four miles from Kingston a Mexican in the brush and he con-
fessed that he was one of the party.
He told a story in effect that he was going to Kingston for clothes, was
overtaken by the party, robbed of $20 and then upon threat of death compelled
to go on guard at the hotel. He disclaimed acquaintanceship with anyone in
the party. Ignacio Ronquel, which proved to be the name of this fellow
arrested near the California ranch, pleaded guilty before Judge Baley in
February, saying he was "one of those fellows at Kingston," but he "did not
go into the houses with the rest of them and attended the horses." He pleaded
for mercy and it was meted out to him in ten years in the penitentiary.
Two weeks after the robbery, a party of Kingstonians satisfied that they
could not have been such bad marksmen visited the California ranch and
extorted information from an old Mexican suspected of knowing more of
the late raid than he would volunteer to tell. He chose to remember that a
Mexican named Ramona, a sheepherder, was killed in the affair and he pointed
out his grave. The body was exhumed and one bull's eye was scored.
Not long after, the legislature appropriated $15,000 as a reward for the
pursuit and capture of \'asquez and his gang and so many were in the field
spurred by the offer that undoubtedly some of these amateur man chasers
themselves overstepped legal bounds by threatening innocent ^Mexicans. The
consul of Mexico made protest from San Francisco and Sheriff Ashman
received this caution :
Sacramento, Cal., January 20, 1874.
TO SHERIFF OF FRESNO COUNTY: I understand from the
Mexican Consul that the Mexican settlers of Las Juntas and
Rancho California, near Palo Blanco, are threatened with vio-
lence and their lives are in danger. You are required to protect
them.
NEWTON BOOTH, Gov.
Twenty years or more elapsed between the bloody reigns of Murieta and
Vasquez, though two decades also intervened between Vasquez's first and
last murders. Tiburcio slew his first man at the age of fifteen and almost
within the year after Joaquin's worldly exit.
Vasquez stole the wife of his most devoted follower, a cousin, but as
Bancroft sarcastically pleads for him, "who could resist Vasquez, the
adored of all, he who never sighed to senorita or senora in vain, the
fleet of foot, the untiring dancer, the fearless rider, the bold brigand?" Vas-
quez was cunning, had always ready conviviality for his comrades, money
for the needy, and a smile for everybody. His personal magnetism and in-
fluence over others are said to have been wonderful, and followers joined him
because forsooth they could not resist him.
Vasquez was born at Monterey in 1835, of Indian and ^lexican parentage,
and was bold, cruel, alert and cautious. In 1859 he was a convicted horse
stealer but escaped in June to be again convicted in August, his terms expiring
in August 1863, when he walked forth free but not reformed. A third time
was he convicted of cattle stealing in Sonoma in 1867 and he was immured at
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 175
San Ouentin until June 1870. Before this in 1865, he was wounded in the
arm in a pistol duel with a Mount Diablo farmer with whose daughter he
had eloped. In the autumn following his last penitentiary release, he and
associates overran Santa Clara, Monterey, Fresno and Alameda counties,
robbing stage passengers, plundering ranchos and running ofif horses in swift
and startling succession. One associate was shot dead in a hand to hand
battle with Sherif? Morse of Alameda, the others skedaddled to Mexico but
shortly returned to San Francisco, where a new combination was formed and
Cantua Canyon was selected as a retreat and refuge. It was once the favorite
camp and shelter of Murieta.
In the hills here, \'asquez was comparatively safe. White settlers were
few, and the native Californians almost to a man aided and befriended him,
largely through fear. He was known to have appeared openly at the New
Idria mine on various occasions. The law-abiding were prevented from doing
anything towards bringing him to justice, fearing the consequences. It is
probable that the Mexicans there would have resisted any attempt at an
arrest. One superintendent permitted Vasquez from motives of policy to
come to the mine as long as he committed no depredation there and \'asquez
never did trouble the miners or cast covetous eye on their horses. Several
attempts at capture were made by Sheriff Adams of Santa Clara, but on
every occasion and in spite of disguise and the utmost secrecy, so Vasquez
stated, he was apprised of Adams' movements and designs before half the
journey was made.
The robber band halted the Visalia-Gilroy stage near San Felipe, robbed
passengers, tied them, laid them on their backs in the field to face the sun
for hours and drove the stage around a hill point out of view of travellers.
They held up three or four teamsters en route to Hollister and later on the
same day \'asquez alone robbed Thomas McMahon, later a Hollister leading
merchant, of $750 in gold. These successive outrages stirred up the country
and a Santa .Cruz constable following on Vasquez's trail overtook him and
in the fight both were severely wounded. Vasquez rode sixty miles to his hid-
ing place in Cantua and arrived almost dead from loss of blood.
Weary of small game, the project was conceived of robbing a railway
pay car between Gilroy and San Jose. Too slow however in the work of
tearing up the track, the pay car train came ten minutes ahead of time and
they scattered. At Tres Pinos. while the brigands ransacked Andrew Sny-
der's store, Vasquez held "a Iiloody carnival outside" as watch. Among the
slain Leander Davidson was shot in the heart with a bullet that pierced the
door that he was closing and which the wife had opened to see what all the
shooting outside meant. After the murderous raid in which Vasquez was
such a conspicuous cold-blooded figure, seven horses were commandeered out
of the stable and the gang hurried to its Cantua retreat.
Half a dozen sheriff's and their posses camped on the trail of Vasquez,
and as a result of a plan for his capture he was surprised unarmed at the
dinner table of a friend near Los Angeles. Leaping through a back window,
he rushed for his horse but was struck by rifle ball after rifle ball, where-
upon he threw up hands, faced his captors with blood streaming from wounds
and surrendering said: "Boys, you have done well. I have been a damned
fool !"
The capture, which was hailed with delight and joy the state over, was
preceded by a series of bold robberies. His penny-a-liner biographer records
that he was "betrayed for coin." May be so. Not until after lie had partially
recovered from his eight wounds was he transferred to San Jose's jail as
Hollister afiforded no secure guarding place. "While the notorious bandit was
in jail in San Jose, thousands visited him. He usually sat in a chair and with a
smile gave all courteous reception, apparently taking delight in his position.
His vanity was inordinate and whenever a young woman (half the visitors
were of the weaker se.x) would approach he appeared as pleased as a monkey
176 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
at the present of a tin trumpet. He evidently regarded himself as a hero
and from the false sympathy received from a portion of the other sex it is
no wonder that his head was slightly turned.
He was tried in January 1875 for Hotelman Davidson's murder, the de-
cision on appeal being rendered about two weeks before the day for the execu-
tion. The day before, he asked to see the coffin and measured it with hands to
satisfy himself that it would fit in length. Sheriff W. R. Rowland of Los
Angeles received in June 1874 the state reward for the capture of "the most
daring rascal since Joaquin Murieta's time."
CHAPTER XXXI
Water for Irrigation and the Advent of the Railroad Two
Powerful Agencies in the Upbuilding of City and County.
Sycamore as a Projected Rival Town to the New County
Seat. Failure of a Gigantic Irrigation Project. Railroad
Exacted Tribute From Farmer and Towns. Leland Stan-
ford's Prophecies. Fresno Given all Encouragement by
Railroad Builders. Sycamore Passes Out of Recollection.
Historic Transaction Giving Rise to the Familiar Harris
Land Title. Railroad Comes in for Fresno Townsite.
But for the assurance of bringing water for irrigation on the plains and to
the townsite, Fresno might not have been encouraged when and where it was.
The water and the railroad came practically together. This fact should not
be overlooked in a consideration of the first days of Fresno City.
Previous to 1866, there had been no notable appropriation or diversion
of water from the Kings River, the stream which furnishes the major por-
tion of the irrigation water of the county. The railroad that headed this way
was the Stockton and Visalia division of the Central Pacific Railway, branch-
ing of? at Lathrop on the most direct and straight line through the valley
counties.
Give ear to the doleful tales of early and later pioneers and one cannot
imagine a more inhospitable spot on desert plain for the location of a com-
munity or townsite. A "growing village" was a description of Fresno as
late as 1881. On this barren plain, every want of man "from a pin to a gang
plow had to be provided," as has been said. Every supply to the commonest
necessary of life had to be transported from Stockton by freight train. In its
infant days, Fresno was a railroad fostered town. Along the line, new towns
sprang up to transform in the course of time the general character of the
country and establish new lines of industry. The process was a tedipusly
slow one, but the transformation came about in time.
The practice of the railroad was in connection with these new towns to
sell off at public auction a given number of choice lots as a settlement nucleus.
In the case of Fresno, no buyers rushed forward for lots at this "desolate and
forlorn looking station," and the company magnanimously permitted new
comers to squat on the lots and improve them with the understanding that
they would pay for them if they concluded eventually to locate permanently.
It was anything to give the new town a start and a beginning. There were
however influences as potent as the bringing of water to the plains and the
advent of the railroad working for the location on the desert plain of the
great interior valle)'. The railroad, it may be conceded, had not contemplated
a town, possibly nothing more ambitious than a station, where Fresno stands.
The fact is the Central Pacific had no generous government land grants
through the valley, and therefore it was a beggar for land for townsites. It
probably did not seriously consider planting a rival so close to its own town
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 177
of Sycamore, afterward named Herndon for an humble Irish section-boss,
on the south bank of the San Joaquin. Watson's Ferry, eight miles above
Firebaugh on Fresno Slough, was the head of steamboat traffic on the San
Joaquin in the days before irrigation, when the river was used for navigation.
Small steamboats and light craft ascended as far as Sycamore, and there are
rare old maps that mark the head of river navigation as at that point. Syca-
more Station was a railroad creation and location of the year 1872, and it
was deemed of sufficient importance to warrant a postoffice in September of
that year with Charles A. Strivens as postmaster, the postoffice officially
known as Palo Blanco. It was an important ferry crossing point for that
section. Along in 1881 a new ferry scow was put on, sixty-five feet long by
seventeen in width, described as "a better and more substantial affair than
the old one."
The railroad laid out a town there, and it was thought that it would
have a future with the completion of the big irrigation ditch out of the San
Joaquin, abandoned in the end notwithstanding the fortune spent on it. It
was at this point that the railroad bridged the river originally. Sycamore
was for a time a divisional construction point, and a spur track was placed
along the south bank to take out tons and tons of gravel for the ballasting of
the road from Lathrop. It had been ballasted largely wnth sand and gravel
brought from as far as Auburn in Placer County. The irrigation project re-
ferred to must not be confounded with the Herndon Ditch as known at this
date, but was the Herndon Canal. Evidences of it may be seen in the ditch
along Big Dry Creek and the river bluff on the south side, and the dam
remnants in the river.
It was a conception of the Upper San Joaquin Irrigation Company, and
report has it that nearly three million dollars were sunk to demonstrate its
impracticability. This project undertaken in 1880-82 was the largest and most
ambitious irrigation plan attempted up to then in the county to divert from
the river about four miles below old Millerton by means of a rock dam across
the channel. It was designed to water 250,000 acres lying west of the rail-
road. The dam was 800 feet long, calculated to raise the water in the channel
six feet, canal to be twenty-five miles long and where crossing the railroad
on the plains to be about twelve feet above the river bed. It proved a failure,
because on account of the nature of the soil the ditch banks would not hold
the water, and moreover the river dam was washed out several times by
freshets so that the raise of water in the basin was never attained.
The Bank of California, which was heavily interested in the project for
the marketing of its western plains lands in the territory now covered by
Kerman, Barstow Colony and the agricultural neighborhood, completed the
canal at a dead loss as the sequel proved. The canal was an engineering and
construction failure. The original plan was to tap the stream at the rocky
gorge below Millerton, where the Jenny Lind bridge bought by the county
in February for $9,000, spanned the river for a generation, carry it through
the rocky blufif tunnel and thus make' the level of the plains. The cost of
tunnelling estimated at about one million was deemed too high, and this
plan was rejected for the one that was attempted to be put through and to
make the level by running the canal along the blufif. Herein lay the weak
feature, for the north side of the canal scooped out of the bluff would not
stand. The water seeped into the loose soil and breaches many followed,
letting out all the water. Repairs were made until patience was exhausted,
and at best, wdien completed, the water could not be carried down more than
five or seven miles. The project could have been saved by cementing the
canal, but this meant another great outlay and Portland cement in those
days was a costly import. Perhaps the bank concluded that to sink more
money into the venture was throwing good coin after the bad and the
undertaking was given up.
Activities centered at Sycamore, where the railroad had four sections of
178 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
land, were sufficient to warrant the generally entertained belief that here it
had resolved to build a town. Rival townsites were located by speculators,
but nothing more tangible ever came of them save the platted maps recorded
as reminders of the unrealized hopes of their projectors. So great were the
expectations based on Sycamore that it is pathetic to look over in the county
recorder's office the ponderous volume of 1.054 printed pages intended to
record as many sales deeds by H. Deas as the agent and factotum of the
high sounding Central California Land and Immigration Company. A book
of printed deeds must needs be furnished to save the time and labor of
copying work. It records twenty-two deeds to as many individuals of actual
lot sales made in 1879.
With the prospect of a railroad after all the years of preparatory agi-
tation, a few men had become the owners of liberal chunks of government
scrip. They filed it on the best located plains tracts, also in the foothills
and a speculation in Fresno lands opened. In this speculative field entered
an association composed largely of wealthy Germans in San Francisco un-
der the name of the San Joaquin Valley Land Association. It bought from
William S. Chapman, whose ownership embraced 80,000 acres, as it had done
also from others. A. Y. Easterby of Napa, later intimately associated with
Moses J. Church, "the Father of Irrigation," as he has been called, in 1871
had contracted to cultivate 2,000 acres of the Easterby Rancho to wheat.
Church to bring the water for irrigation from the Kings River. Every one
awaited with anxiety the outcome of the Easterby wheat experiment.
The association was probably not the lever that moved the railroad mag-
nates to favor the site of the future Fresno City, but its members were, and
they were the medium through which an arrangement was made for a
gift or a sale to the railroad of land including the townsite. The Fresno
Canal and Irrigation Company had also become a verity and all things con-
sidered there is probably color of truth for the story that when the canal
had been extended to the ranch, not more than three miles from the town-
site, the railroad people consulted with the canal projectors and were given
the assurance that the plains at and around the town would and could be
brought under water for irrigation.
The railroad was not a philanthropic movement. Indeed it is history
that it demanded and exacted tribute from farmer as well as town in rights
of way or subsidies and meted out punishment when the demands were not
accorded. Stockton, which because of its location and at the head of water
transportation could afford to assume an independent attitude, was threat-
ened with a day when the grass would grow in its streets, and Lathrop was
founded in opposition. Goshen was placed on the map as a train change
station, because Visalia did not comply with the demand made upon it, and
Sumner (East Bakersfield) was made a divisional point to spite Bakersfield
for the same reason. With Fresno, the railroad was friendly and gave it en-
couragement. Leland Stanford paid a visit in November, 1871, en route to
\'isalia and took a long distance view of conditions. It may have been on
that occasion, according to the old story, that he uttered the confident pre-
diction so many times quoted since that Fresno would be some day the
best town on the railroad between Stockton and Los Angeles. If he ever
made the prediction, it has been long verified.
Be that as it may, the visit had undoubted beneficial results. Easterby
was earnestly progressing with his 2,000-acre wheat venture, the irrigation
canal map had been recorded on June 9, 1871, and the Centerville ditch
brought in in September. Stanford and accompanying officials were driven to
the rancho to look over the situation, and there is another handed down
story that as he stood on the later site of the station depot he indulged in
another prophecy when he remarked to the Reception Committee : "Gentle-
men, this town can never go bankrupt with a fund like that to draw on."
He alluded to the waters of the two rivers and the melting snows of the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 179
Sierras that fed them. He was prescient in beholding in his mind's eye
Fresno City as the great shipping point for a rich agricultural district.
At the rancho the sprouting grain was beheld— a veritable oasis in the
desert — and they regarded it as a revelation, being, as they asserted, the first
green spot that they had set eyes upon since leaving Stockton. "Here," said
Stanford, "we must locate the town." The San Joaquin Valley Land Asso-
ciation later did arrange for the sale on easy terms of the townsite, and in
December, 1875, the Contract and Finance Company deeded as recorded to
Charles Crocker 4,480 acres including the townsite of Fresno, excepting only
the lots that had been before then sold and conveyed.
Incidently may be recalled the fact that the division never was pushed
to Visalia, oldest and most important town in the valley, as old as 1852.
Visalia was not so accommodating or compliant as Fresno. It ignored the
demand for a 160-acre townsite donation. The railroad switched ofi on its
projected line that was to come southward via Pacheco Pass and the West
Side of Fresno and made its terminus at Tres Pinos in San Benito County.
A switch off on the valley division was made to Goshen on the Tulare alkali
waste, which like the famous mythical Shelbyville in Fresno County was
simply a point on the railroad map.
Visalia secured railroad connection with the main line at Goshen by
private enterprise, but eventually the main line swallowed it up when the
San Joaquin Valley Railroad came through. Instead of the terminal at
Visalia as contemplated, the division road was run due west via Hanford
to Huron, then "a desolate waste" as was Fresno, given over to sheep graz-
ing on the wild grasses and in later years to "dry farming."
Visalia had its revenge though, for in the construction of its line from
Goshen to Tipton the railroad laid steel rails imported from Germany and
shipped around the Horn, in violation of its grants conditioning that only
American steel be used in rail laying. The Visalians exploited this depart-
ure, and not to jeopardize its land grants the German rails were torn up
and the home made article substituted.
The Fresno land transaction referred to was such an important one
from the historical standpoint, though overlooked by reviewers, as to merit
more than simple mention. The bigness of the deal, the acreage involved
and the amount of money covered by the trust deed, combined to make it
such, aside from the influence it had in the development of county and city.
The transaction is covered by a deed of August 4, 1868, from William S.
Chapman to Clinton Gurnee recorded September 1, 1868, to centralize sales,
followed by a deed of trust from Gurnee to Chapman, Edmund Jansen and
Frederick Roeding for themselves and other purchasers, the magnitude of
the transfer being evidenced by the fact that to this instrument war tax
stamps of the value of $87.50 are attached. Chapman is described as having
"entered the land described," and the consideration stated is $83,700. The
total acreage covered by the trust deed to facilitate sales was 79,921 and
the conveyances as to acreage :
Chapman 31,421, Jansen, Roeding, Isaac Friedlander 5,000 each; Chris-
tian H. Voigt, Charles Baum, William Scholle and George H. Eggers 2,500
each : Edward Michelsen, Frederic Putzman, Henry Schmieden, William
Kroning, Rudolph, Hochkofler, Gottlieb Muecke, Francis Locan, Thomas
Basse and Albert L. Wangenheim, 2,000 each; Henry Balzar, Frederick
During and Charles Adler, 1,000 each.
Then there were individual deed transfers by Chapman. Later compli-
cations arose when landowners began to sell among themselves or to others
and subdivided their original acreage. In October, 1871, Gurnee deeded
back to Chapman with covenant to pay all assessments due the Fresno Canal
and Irrigation Company, and Chapman made deed under date of February
28, 1873, to George Harris, bookkeeper for Francis Locan, for whom the
Locan vinevard was named, and who was then a vineyardist in Napa
180 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
County. The new deeds for the land all around Fresno and beyond were
made to the individuals by Harris and the "Harris title" is as familiar in
every title abstract office in the county as the A B C.
As the result of this transaction, a great tract of long neglected land
came into various uses, in its development and improvement new blood was
injected into the life pulse of the county, even though few of the large buyers
became actual settlers on this land bought for $1.50 to $2.50 an acre, Still
the changes in ownership and the improvement of the favored spots served
to bring to public notice as no agency had before the so-called arid lands
surrounding Fresno.
The eastern boundary of the township in which the city is embraced
was surveyed by Alexis W. von Schmidt, and the other township lines
by J. D. Jenkins in 1853, and the section lines in 1854 by James G. McDon-
ald. Von Schmidt was a pioneer land surveyor and civil engineer. He was
for several terms president of the Society of California Pioneers and the
family became in later years Fresno County land owners. His greatest civil
engineering achievement was the blowing up in San Francisco harbor of
Blossom Rock, which in the main channel of navigation was such a menace
that the government decided upon its removal, a successful piece of work
that was made as much of at the time as the much later blowing up of
Hell Gate in East River channel. New York Citv.
CHAPTER XXXII
Irrigation and Its Gradual Development. M. J. Church Re-
membered After His Death in a Bequest. First Farm
Demonstrations With Water Applied. Easterby Makes a
Success of Wheat Farming. Church Champions Irrigation
AND Develops it Despite the Most Implacable Hostilities.
His Life is Plotted Against. Systems of the County and
Its Water Possibilities. A AIarvelous Transformation
Comes About in the First Decade. Water is Nowhere
Cheaper or More Plentiful Than in this County.
"I give, devise, and bequeath to my executors in trust the sum of five
hundred dollars ($500) ; with which such moneys I direct such executors to
erect over the grave of my friend, M. J. Church, a suitable, substantial.
square granite monument, with the inscription thereupon, 'From F. G.
Berry, a friend who appreciated his worth.' I make this bequest for the
reason only that I consider that of all other men who have wielded an in-
fluence for Fresno County, which has been my home for so many years, my
friend, M. J. Church, by the development of the present irrigation system
deserves more than any other this recognition at my hands."
The quoted bequest is from the probated will of August 25. 1909, made
by Fulton G. Berry, whom death summoned on April 9, 1910. The trust
has been fulfilled. The monument is of Fresno granite from the mountain
quarry above Academy. Church long preceded Berry to the grave. Both
are interred here in Mountain View Cemetery.
The language of the bequest fairly states the claim for recognition due
M. J- Church, popularly acclaimed to have been "the Father of Irrigation in
Fresno County." It is not the purpose to detract in the slightest from the
credit that is due him for his achievement ! Truthful history must, however,
record facts as they are. It is true that the Ufe work of M. J. Church was
rounded out in Fresno in all its amplitude ; that the result was startling in
effect and that mankind was the beneficiary. But this is not to say that
it was he that conceived the thought that irrigation would convert the arid
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 181
region into fertile fields, though he undoubtedly appreciated the fact after
the more than satisfactory demonstrations. Nor was he the first irrigator,
though he was the first to make a successful application of the idea on a
scale more ambitious than an experiment. In the notable first demonstra-
tions, he had the financial and moral cooperation and incitement of Easterby
as shown in a previous chapter.
Thereafter and in consequence, he became the foremost champion of
irrigation, and through his efforts as the executive head and front of the
movement he developed what is the present irrigation system. In the long
and exasperating conflict, he was beset by obstacles that would have driven
the ordinary mortal from the field disgusted and vanquished by the unap-
preciativeness of his fellow men. Having aroused the implacable animosity
of the alarmed stockmen by reason of his leadership in the No-fence law
agitation and application of the theory of irrigation in connection with
grain farming, he literally carried his life in his hands in the work. Three plots
against it were confessed to him in warning, and yet he persisted, and bore
as a martyr with set and unbending purpose
"... the whips and scorns of time.
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
. . . the law's delay.
The insolence of ofifice and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes."
The previous chapter has treated of the Easterby-Church-McBride grain
growing experiment in the Millerton foothills in 1869-70. The next experi-
ment was in 1871-72 with Easterby as the irrigation projector and Church as
the active coadjutor and later developer of it. Two thousand acres of the
rancho were sown to wheat. Easterby engaged for the venture Charles M.
Lohse, an experienced farmer from Concord in Contra Costa County. Be-
fore his coming, Church and son had by September, 1871, flooded three sec-
tions with aid of two ditches. Church having been engaged at $100 a month
to superintend the getting of water. By February, 1872, the wheat was all
in, in May the land was fenced, and in August and September 20,000 sacks
of wheat were shipped as the crop.
FIRST EFFORTS AT IRRIGATION
Irrigation had made a start even before this venture was conceived. In
October, 1871, Easterby bought for $1,800 the Sweem mill ditch at Center-
ville, newly started but about to be sold under an attachment for debt. It
was then that Church was engaged to run the water to the ranch and used
the bed of Fancher Creek as the part channel medium. J. B. Sweem had
recorded notice in August, 1869, of his water diversion from the Kings
just below the existing Centerville Canal.
In the summer of 1866 Anderson Akers and S. S. Hyde had a four-foot
wide and two-foot deep ditch taking water from the river below William
Hazelton's farm to theirs on the west side of the river, and they continued
its use for two years when they sold the water right to the Centerville
Canal and Irrigation Company. The latter was in existence under an in-
corporation of August 9, 1868, and by a twenty-four-foot widened and four-
foot deepened ditch ran considerable water to the farms about Centerville.
Church recorded intention in July, 1870, to appropriate 3,000 feet of water,
but to convey it to the ranch the Centerville ditch had to be crossed. The
owners objected and so Easterby was constrained to buy it in May, 1871,
and thus the water was secured from the Kings.
To Lohse is due the credit of being the first large grain grower, not
alone in the county but in the valley, and his success with wheat stimulated
the entire region. The long anticipated railroad was in Fresno by April 19,
182 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
1872, and others followed Easterby's example notably Frank Easterby, An-
tonio Day, George Boggs, Robert Brownlee and presumably others. Easter-
1)y pioneered also with cotton and shipped two bales to Manchester. The
high cost of labor for picking made the venture prohibitive. Rice, ramie
and flax did well. Tobacco was grown and being made into cigars in San
Francisco he was offered a dollar a pound for his Havana leaf. The success
with wheat suggested a larger appropriation of water for enlarged activities,
and Chambers' Slough was chosen as the most available and accessible
channel.
Appropriation notice was nailed on a tree and a copy filed with the
county clerk on May 16, 1872. Contract followed for a headgate excavation
below the river level to avoid the necessity of a dam, and the channel cutting
and clearing of it of boulders between gate and river was completed in the
fall. In 1873 he further contracted with .farmers at Kingsburg to excavate
a mile cut below Chambers' headgate, the consideration being twenty-four
cubic feet of water delivered at Lone Tree channel, the farmers digging their
own two ditch branches towards Kingsburg. Conveyance was made in
1874, and the main canal was meanwhile enlarged and by 1876 extended
through Easterby rancho and west through Central Colony to land in T. 15
S., R. 19 E.
Thus much for the first efforts at irrigation on any scale. The Fresno
Canal and Irrigation Company, whose maingate was completed in 1872 and
parent organization of the present system, was organized by M. J. Church
with Easterby, F. Roeding and W. S. Chapman as associates. No one man
has contributed a more important or integral chapter to the industrial his-
tory of the county than has M. J. Church, or as the bequest stated wielded
a greater beneficial influence for the county than he. He cannot be robbed
of this due.
It was in 1868 that he came to Fresno with a thirteen-year-old son from
Napa and a band of 2,000 sheep in search of pasturage, after selling out his
business as a wheelwright and farrier. He located here on government land,
three miles northeast of Centerville, intending to make a home, and in
preparation erected cabin and corral. At ooce the stockmen began to harry
him. Hostile demonstration preceded denunciation as a trespasser with
warning to move off. The moving spirit in this inhospitable reception was
one "Yank" Hazelton. Upon a second demonstration with accompanying
covert threats, he was given a definite time when to make his departure,
and in his absence to accelerate his leave taking cabin and corral were torn
down, the horses turned loose after having had the hobbles removed and
the winter's supply of provisions and the wheat seed eaten up by a driven
in band of hogs. One month later, he took up with Easterby in the history
accelerating demonstration of the necessity of irrigation to produce the fullest
crops.
The subject of irrigation now fully possessed him. He made survey
and ascertained that by connecting the dry channel of Fancher Creek with
the Kings about 1,000 feet of water could be conveyed on the plains sixteen
miles to Easterby's located four sections. He secured appointment as a
deputy land agent to locate settlers as well for neighbors as protectors
against the cattlemen, recruiting among friends and acquaintances over 200
such settlers. Selling his sheep, he gave himself up wholly to his newly found
task and prosecuted the work of channel digging with the contracted for
labor aid of the new comers. All along the line of the canal and of Fancher
Creek wheat crops were put in, this alternating canal and field work arous-
ing only the more the hostility and ire of the stockmen, who drove in their
herds at night to eat up the young wheat and so dishearten the settlers and
force them to pack up and leave.
Easterby and Church were personally assaulted at Centerville by
William Caldwell to bring on a conflict or show of arms as a pretext for
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 183
a shooting in self defense and thus end the irritating twin irrigation and set-
tlement projects. The insults were borne with, Init a money and water
right compromise of the disputed right of way was arranged by Easterby.
Work on the canal progressed with two feeders out of the river, joining
about a mile and a half on the plains, the canal 100 feet wide and six deep
to Fancher Creek. The demonstration of the value of the plains soil when
irrigation was applied proved successful.
The No-fence law agitation was on now. The farmers were powerless
as yet because outnumbered at the polls. They put in a second crop and
trouble was experienced with the headgates of the feeders of the canal.
A large opening into the river was made at another point, but of same
size as the canal with a dam across the stream, and a strong headgate
and supply ditches were opened from the main canal.
CHURCH'S LIFE PLOTTED AGAINST
Consternation had seized the men of cattle and sheep. The railroad was
taking practical shape and upon Church fell all tlie animosity for his activity
in fostering irrigation and wheat farming, the herding legislation and the
projected railroad. Three plots to take his life were divulged to him by two
members of the conspiracy, neither knowing of the other's confession. Their
story agreed that William Glenn of Centerville was to shoot him down in
Jacob's store after spitting tobacco juice into his eye in provocation. Church
having been forewarned evaded by a stratagem a meeting with Glenn. ( )n
another occasion sand was flung into his face, a blow on nose and in
face drew blood and he was viciously kicked at to hasten his exit from the
store, followed by Dutch-couraged armed ruffians but escaped to the head-
gate camp for the protection of the laboring men who took up arms to repel
any assault.
Experiences such as these marked the progress of the development of
irrigation, but it had no deterring effect on the man, nor on the settling of
the country under the impulse of the No-fence law, the coming of the iron
horse and the extension of the branch canals to the new farms. By the year
1876, M. J. Church had also for himself developed a valuable property and
secured a competency. Riparian right claimants harassed him sorely with
suits, asserting first right to the water for stock, and he defended more
than 200 such actions. He was quoted as saying that "the cost of defending
these numerous trumped up suits has by far exceeded the entire expense of
constructing all the canals." During this long continued legal warfare, the
work on the main and lateral canals and the distributing ditches did not
cease. One thousand miles was their aggregate length, when in 1886 sale
was made of a controlling interest in the canal property to Dr. E. B. Perrin
with whom were associated the seller, Robert Perrin, T. De Witt Cuyler
and W. H. Ingels. In the end, the property passed into the hands of British
capital which is now in ownership.
Church, very naturally, became largely interested in land operations. In
1875 he placed on the market the Church Colony of a full section ; in 1883
he took over the Bank of California tract of eleven sections, irrigated, sub-
divided and sold off in small farms ; the Houghton tract, also of eleven sec-
tions, in which he had a third interest was also brought under irrigation ;
likewise Fresno Colony for which he received a half interest. Besides,' he
erected in 1878 and conducted for five years the Champion grist mill at N
and Fresno Streets, an enterprise that in later years was enlarged and is
now one in the chain of Sperry's flour mills. He it was that fostered the
organization of the Adventists' Church, donating land and making deed of
gift of the auditorium building. He also made donation of five acres for a
public cemetery, making it possible for every church and lodge that chose
to provide itself with a burial plot. Politically, he was one of the handful
184 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
that organized the first Republican County Committee, and he was the first
delegate sent from this county to a state Republican convention.
As regards his irrigation work, it may be said that the system in prac-
tice here is substantially the same in detail as his pioneer plan and that his
ideas have been followed in the other large similar undertakings of later
date. Never but once did he have to pay for right of way, and that was
through 160 acres when he first tapped the Kings. Even in that bit of sharp
practice, he evaded in large part by condemnation proceedings.
The channel of the San Joaquin is at places from seventy-five to 200
feet below the level of the flanking rolling lands, hence making it more dif^-
cult to draw water from it for irrigation. The Kings rises as high in the
Sierras, drains a great area in its passage to the plains, is not navigable and
has no tributaries. Its drainage area is 1,855 square miles. Its general course
is in a southwest direction with few abrupt turns. From foothills to Tulare
Lake, sixty-two miles, it has as a perennial tributary Wahtoke Creek only.
As with all Sierra headed streams, it has two annual high water periods.
The first, usually in December and continuing through January, is caused
by the winter rains. The other begins late in May after the rains, and con-
tinues through June and part of July, caused by the melting of the snow
and is of longer duration than the winter rise. After this the stream falls
to the low water stage. The time when water is in greatest demand is for-
tunately during the high water periods. The estimate has been made that
the Kings pours into the valley from January to July sufficient water to
irrigate more than a million acres.
The largest part of the irrigated land of the state lies in the southern
portion of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valleys and in the northern
section of California. In twenty-four of the fifty-eight counties of the state
more than one-half of the farms are irrigated. Imperial leads with ninety-
four and six-tenths percent, of farms irrigated, and Inyo comes next with
ninety-three and two-tenths. In 1900 and 1910 Fresno reported the largest
irrigated area, 283,737 and 402,318 respectively. Tulare irrigated 265,404
acres in 1910 and five other counties each exceeded 100,000. Existing enter-
prises in 1910 were preparing to supply water to irrigate 3,619,378 acres, or
955.274 more than were watered the year before. The acreage included in
projects exceeded by 2,826,256 acres the 1909 irrigated acreage, or more
than twice the acreage brought under water in the decade.
IRRIGATION ENTERPRISES
California irrigation enterprises — federal and state — cover 2,664,104
acres — the public districts 173,793, the cooperative 770,020, the commercial
746,265 and the individual or partnership 961,136. In California, wells sup-
ply much more land with water than in any other state. Of the total
2,664,104 acres irrigated 350,723 were from wells — 2,361 flowing wells irri-
gating 74,218 acres. The majority of these are in southern California and in
the San Joaquin Valley. The 10,724 wells irrigated 276,505 acres in two
groups of counties. The cost of irrigation enterprises, including only con-
struction of works and acquisition of rights, is reported to have been:
Year. Total. Acre Average.
1900 - $19,181,610 13.27
1910 - 72,580.030 20.05
Of the irrigated orchard fruits, Fresno has 31.9 percent, of the irrigated
crop acreage of the state, and of grapes 62.6. Of the total irrigated acreage
of fruit trees and vines not bearing in 1909 (50,031), Fresno had 36.1 percent.
The state had 88,197 farms in 1910 against 72,542 in 1900; irrigated 39,352 as
against 25,675 ; respective percentage increases 21.6 and 53.3.
The only irrigation district in the county operating under the Wright act
of 1887 (amended in 1897) is the Alta of Reedley and operating in Fresno,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 185
Tulare and Kings Counties. Tlie district covers 130,000 acres extending from
the east and south bank of the Kings to the Sierra foothills. It was organ-
ized in July, 1888, and the 1876 canal system was bought to supply the
water. It did not have an early right on the Kings. Water is cut off annually
in July, but is turned on again in October and November by agreement with
the earlier appropriators. About 80,000 acres are irrigated, principally
around Reedley and Dinuba. Of commercial systems there are three. The
Fresno and Consolidated, are two, which though kept separate are operated
by the same investors. They cover practically all the irrigated lands in the
county. Their points of diversion are on the west bank of the Kings and
close to where it enters upon the plains. The Consolidated includes the
Fowler Switch, and Centerville and Kingsburg Canals, besides a majority
of the Emigrant Canal, the latter diverting on the lower Kings, six miles
west of Kingsburg, to irrigate Laguna de Tache rancho lands, and all Brit-
ish capitalized enterprises. The Consolidated has later priorities on the river
with flow cut ofif for a time in August so that its rights are not as valuable
as the Fresno's. For maintenance of canals, the Fresno makes an annual
charge of sixty-two and one-half cents and the Consolidated of seventy-five
cents per acre. No measurements are made to users, but each irrigator
takes what he needs according to the water rights held. Considering its
area, the district is the most highly developed in the state.
The San Joaquin and Kings River Canal and Irrigation Company diverts
from the west bank of the San Joaquin, north of the town of ^lendota. It
is the oldest canal in the county, organized in February, 1871. The country
tributary to it extends for seventy miles along the west bank of the stream
in Fresno, Merced and Stanislaus Counties. Miller & Lux, who are the
owners, have riparian rights on the river, and their own lands are largely
included in the system. About 340,000 acres are irrigable from this system,
though only aljout one-third is served, of which 40,000 are in private owner-
ship, purchasing water from the company. No water rights are sold. The
lands under this system include a large area of swamp and overflow.
Central California has 9,665,000 acres in irrigation zones fit for agricul-
ture, 1,959,000 irrigated and 4,300.000 ultimately to be. The San Joaquin
Valley has 6,530,000 acres of agricultural land, l',046,000 of them plains and
1,728,975 irrigated. Fresno County had at the last census 6,245 farms (ex-
ceeded by only one other California county), 5,310 irrigated (no other
county had so many), 402,318 acres irrigated, 560,326 susceptible of irriga-
tion and 633.652 embraced in projects. Cost of enterprises up to July, 1910,
was $1,898,460; average acre cost of capable irrigation $3.39. Main ditches
numbered 254 of 831 miles; laterals 688 of 1,354 miles; three flowing and
855 pumped wells.
Water users in the Fresno district of the irrigation zone pay less than
in any other district in the state — five dollars for water right location and
in most cases sixty-two and one-half cents for water delivery per acre. In
this district there are approximately 242,000 acres and 202,000 under water
rights. The irrigation companies have 258 miles of canals and their prop-
erty valuations including water rights are placed at $4,805,382 on which an
option of $1,500,000 was olTered on its valuation appraisement, in a tentative
popular district project to take over the consolidated system on expiration
of the franchise. The franchise of the principal company will expire by limi-
tation in 1925 and looking to the future a great project is under way, known
as the Pine Flat reservoir, the magnitude of which rivals the Roosevelt dam.
It involves a $9,000,000 reservoir located on the Kings River with the dam
twenty-five miles from the city. The horseshoe wall 300 feet high, making an
impounded body of water 600,000-acre feet in all, fourteen miles long and
averaging one-half to two miles in width.
The project contemplates irrigating in Fresno, Kings and Tulare Coun-
ties 600,000 acres and developing power to irrigate 400.000 more by pumping.
186 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
besides reclaiming alkali land and making it all productive. This gigantic
undertaking is one of the largest construction enterprises ever contemplated
in the state. One report is that in the event of its construction the Sanger
Lumber Company would move its mills to the head of the reservoir from
Hume. It is also stated that the construction of the reservoir will result
in time in the cementing of all district canals.
The Madera Irrigation District covering lands in that county and in
Fresno also is another great surplus water impounding enterprise, involving
construction of an immense dam on the San Joaquin. It has passed the or-
ganization stage. When its great lake in the gorge of the river is a fact, no
more the village site of Millerton and its last relic in the old courthouse and
no more the Fort Miller site with its old buildings will be on the surface
of the earth. This region about which centers so much of Fresno's earliest
history will be submerged hundreds of feet.
The transformation that irrigation wrought in Fresno County was truly
marvelous, placing it in its leading position as an irrigation, horticultural
and viticultural region. Nordhofif wrote his book, already referred to, after
a first visit to California in 1872. He revised it nine years later upon a sec-
ond visit and he draws the contrast. He records "such great and often start-
ling efifects" were produced during the interim by the introduced new cul-
tures and methods that while all that he had foretold had been realized and
more too, great tracts, which had the appearance of sterile desert in 1872,
were literally "blossoming as the rose." He observed that "the extension
of irrigation has not merely enabled farmers to plant and sow where nine
years before sheep found only a scanty living, but in the mild climate of
California trees and shrubs have grown so rapidly that to his amazement
he beheld many places, which on his first visit were bare and apparently
sterile plains, presenting then the appearance already of old settled farming
tracts," besides "prosperous homes and farmsteads where nine and eight
years before he drove or rode fifty or 100 miles without seeing a tree or
house."
Such is the transformation brought about by water, as portrayed by one
who beheld the "before and after." There is a material side shown in figures
which was as remarkable as it was rapid in the development and settling up
of the county on a permanent basis. A few figures of the first decade cover-
ing this fourth era in the county ushered in about 1880 will suffice :
Acres Assessed
1880 1,631,972
1885 1,803,331
1890 2,108,668
Value of Property
1880 $ 6.028.960
1885 14,430,487
1890 35,600.640
Assessed Taxes
1880 $ 120,865.60
1885 245,318.28
1890 469,081.28
What is the measure of due of those, who boldly pioneered and patiently
developed and worked out the experimental ideas with and growing out of
irrigation, if the gratitude of a world is owing him "who makes two blades of
grass grow where one grew before" ?
HISTORY OF FRESNO ■ COUNTY
CHAPTER XXXIII
Fresno is the Center of the Sun-dried Raisin Industry. Spain
AS the Leader for Centuries Outdistanced in 1892. Ton-
nage and Acreage Have Made Great Gains. Vineyards
Have Not Lost in Productiveness. Stabilization of Prices.
California Acreage the Largest in the World. First
Raisin Exhibit at 1863 State Fair. Seeded Raisin a Fresno
Creation. Notable First A^ixeyards and Packers.
The raisin industry of America is centered in Fresno County, thougli the
raisin is produced in other parts of California. Exceptional advantages in
climate and soil have made the raisin a specialty of this region. It has aided
more to make the county knov^m than any one other product. The county
is known as "The Raisin Center" : the city as "The Raisin City." Yet the
industry represents only about one-tenth of the total income, so varied and
many are the resources.
Fresno was once Spain's principal competitor. In 1892 the home crop
first equaled Spain's. The difference has increased steadily, and today
Fresno produces double the quantity of Spain, which held the lead for cen-
turies. A normal crop ranges between 160 to 170 million pounds, often ex-
ceeded as with 182 millions in 1914 and about 256 millions the year after.
Less than a dozen of the state's fifty-eight counties produce raisins. Fres-
no's raisin grape acreage of over 150,000 is b}^ far the largest in the world.
Kings and Tulare counties are the next largest producers, but their com-
bined crops do not exceed one-fifth of an annual normal Fresno crop.
When one talks raisins, the subject is Fresno. The raisin acreage and
tonnage have both made great gains in the last few years. The crop of 1917
was estimated at 137,500 tons. The tonnage was 132,000 against 125,000 for
the year before. The prediction is that tonnage and acreage will reach 200,-
000 in a year or two. The acreage in 1917 was estimated at 165,000 but with
unlisted holdings and yearlings and two-year-old vines the total is well above
the figure.
Owing to improved methods of culture, average production of bearing
vineyards has considerably risen, and yet due to the great acreage of young
vines not in bearing the average for the whole has not raised. Fruit men
estimate the total muscat crop of the state at 100,000, the Thompson seedless
at 43,000, the Sultanas 8,500, Feherzagos, etc., at 6,000, all largely handled by
the association. The largest increase has been in Thompson's and the pros-
pects for the year 1918 are for an increase in that variety. Planting in 1917
was about 10,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley and perhaps 8,000, largely
seedless, in the north. The increase has not been large in the last three
years. That of 1916 was probably of 15,000 acres. The biggest and most
numerous plantings were of Thompson's.
The vineyards seem to have lost little or nothing in their productivity.
The deterioration of the old ones, when given anything like proper care, is
not nearly so rapid as the development of young vinej'ards, and as a con-
sequence of this and of better culture methods and pruning, there has re-
sulted, over large areas, a steady increase of crops, in remarkable contrast to
the years before. In 1903 for the first time the crop reached 60,000 tons.
188 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
It fell off then and in 1907 reached 75,000 tons. The total productions for
the decade have been estimated from careful figures kept b}' the California
Fruit Grower to have been :
1907 75,000 tons
1908 65,000
1909 70,000
1910 62,500
1911 65,000
1912 95,000
1913 - 65,000
1914 98,000
1915 125,000
1916 132,000
1917 157,500
Since the formation five years ago of the growers' association steady in-
crease in crops and improvement in conditions of the grower have resulted
in the raisin district of Fresno. The increase in tonnage has demanded new
markets and these have been developed. With a normal season, it is likely the
tonnage will become even larger in 1918 and the years to come. The California
Associated Raisin Company has set the mark at a high percentage to retain
control when the big crops are produced and to keep up the standard of pro-
duction for the benefit of producer and consumer.
The prices of raisins have been stabilized and doubled over those that pre-
vailed before the company was established. Even under the old contract
which made compromises with and concessions to the packers and the
brokers, the growers had practical control of the situation and the ruinous
career of speculation with two-cent a pound raisins and mortgages as nat-
ural consequences was stopped and the industry has been placed on a finan-
cial basis. Instead of pulling up vines, vineyards have been made to produce
and the immense crops brought in millions to the growers. The 1917 crop
will by the time the last payment is made have brought $15,000,000.
In 1872 Californians produced in limited quantity an article called "dried
grapes." It was sold in mining camps and among the poor as a cheap sub-
stitute for raisins. They were usually mission grapes, but did not keep,
nor bear transportation to long distances, were not cured soundly, and any-
how were not raisins. The product was of no commercial importance. Nord-
hoft" predicted that unless for some reason not then apparent it receives a
check, California would in ten years (1892) supply a large part of the raisins
of commerce. At the time of his book revision, it was one of the most prom-
ising and important of the then comparatively recently introduced industries
of the state.
The California State Board of Agriculture reported in 1912 that "one
of the largest and most important branches of fruit growing is the cultiva-
tion of the raisin grape, the acreage in which is now by far the largest in
the world." It credits the introduction of the raisin vine into California in
1851 to Agostin Haraszthy of San Diego from muscatel vines from seeds of
Malaga raisins. In March, 1852, he imported the Alexandria muscatel from
Malaga in Spain, and ten years later on a visit in September, 1861, selected
cuttings of the Gordo Blanca, afterwards grown and propagated in his San
Diego vineyard. Yet another importation of the Alexandria muscatel was
that in 1855 by A. Delmas, planted near San Jose. G. G. Briggs of Davis-
ville, Cal., was still another importer of muscatel grape vines from Spain.
Raisins were produced first on a considerable scale in the southern part
of the state, but they found it more profitable there to ship as table grapes
or set out vineyards to wine grapes. Riverside entered the field in 1873
when John W. North, the founder of the colony that bore his name, first
planted the Alexandria muscat, though not until three years later did grape
growing become general in that district. In 1873 also, R. G. Clark planted
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 189
the same variety in EI Cajon \'alley in San Diego County, but the vine-
yards there were not planted until 1884-86. MacPherson Brothers at one
time the largest growers and packers in the state, planted raisin grapes in
Orange County about 1875-76. San Bernardino and Los Angeles produced
raisins in former years, but the Anaheim vine disease ravaged thousands of
acres between 1884-89, growers lost heart and citrus fruit in large part
replaced the vine. It was in 1876 that W. S. Chapman, whose name is so
prominently identified with the farming era of Fresno, imported Spanish
muscat vines for Central California Colony. They did not differ materially
from those already growing in the county.
Positive proof is lacking as to who produced the first California raisins.
According to the California State Agricultural Society, an exhibit was made
by Dr. J. Strentzel at the 1863 state fair. Its report notes that there were
two features "which rendered it remarkable — these were dried prunes and
raisins." The first successful vineyards to perfect raisin culture in the state
were those planted by G. G. Briggs at Davisville and by R. B. Blowers of
Woodland, also in Yolo County, the first mainly of Alexandria muscatels,
the other of Gordo Blanca. Both produced raisins as early as 1867, but not
until 1873 were any placed on the market in quantity. Blowers was in 1882
one of the largest single producers in the state. His advice and methods
were followed in large part by Fresno pioneer growers. About 1887 Fresno
appears to have shipped a considerable quantity for the first time, and
market reports noted that "Fresno raisins of excellent quality are now on
the market, especially from the Butler and Forsyth vineyards."
The varieties of raisin grapes are few in number. The seedless Sul-
tana grown extensively near Smyrna in Asia Minor was first brought to
California by Haraszthy in 1861. Thompson's seedless was named for W.
Thompson Sr. of Yuba City by the Sutter County Horticultural Society.
He procured the cuttings in 1878 from Erlanger & Barry of Rochester, N.
Y., who described them as "a grape from Constantinople, named Lady de
Coverly." The names of the Hungarian Haraszthy and of his son, Arpad,
are inseparably linked with the California grape and wine industries. The
white Muscat of Alexandria and the Muscatel Gordo Blanca are the raisin
grapes of California as they are of Spain. The Gordo Blanca is considered
by many the most delicious California grown table grape.
Until the fall of 1881, the few that cultivated the raisin grape also
packed their raisins. The process is not difficult and requires no complicated
or costly devices. The sun is the best dryer and in this regard Fresno is
liberally endowed. Artificial drying, which has in wet seasons been re-
sorted to, is found to produce too often a raisin that is shrivelled and over-
cooked, dry and hard. When the California sun-dried raisin was first shipped
in quantity to the eastern market is not recorded. Efforts along this line
by the pioneers were individual ventures, but it is recorded that by Novem-
ber, 1875, New York had received 6,000 twenty-two-pound boxes. A con-
siderable quantity was shipped about 1888. The growth of the industry was
remarkable, though a slow process for the first years. In 1879 the crop
first exceeded one million pounds. In 1885 it was over nine millions and
next year it jumped to fourteen millions, until with steady increases it
reached in 1912 the enormous total of 140 millions.
SPANISH COMPETITION OUTSTRIPPED
Raisins were at first principally produced in the San Bernardino Valley,
but the industry gradually spread northward. About 1887 California raisins
began to be in demand in the eastern states, and by 1892 the United States
Department of Agriculture reported that the western supply source was
190 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
reducing the foreign imports by twenty percent. As showing how Cahfor-
nia has outstripped her Spanish rival, the following figures tell a tale :
Year. Spain. California.
1904 25,000 40,000
1906 15,800 45,000
1909 24,000 70,000
1912 - 12.000 85,000
1913 18,500 65,000
1914 13,500 94,000
1915 10,500 128,000
The Spanish crop is given in long and the Californian in short tons. \"ic-
toria and South Australia produce raisins and currants, but they are disposed
of in home consumption.
The raisin industry is an asset the direct outgrowth of irrigation. Re-
markable as its development has been, the record is exceeded by that of
the seeded raisin industry and the marketing of that popular form of the
sun-dried grape after mechanical elimination of the seeds. This business
originated in Fresno County, and its twenty years' increase has been won-
derful. The following returns are from the state Board of Agriculture's
report on the output:
1896—700 tons, 1899—12,000, 1905—21,000, 1910—31,500, 1912—45,000,
1913_49,000, 1914—35,000. 1915—50,000.
The seeding machine was the basic creation of the late George E. Pettit
as a poor and struggling inventor in New York, taken up and put to prac-
tical use by the late William Forsyth, one of the leading pioneer raisin
growers, whom it enriched, while Pettit was too poor even at one time to
prosecute the litigation to enforce his rights and claims as the inventor.
Forsyth introduced to the public the seeded raisin. When first marketed,
it was with difficulty that about twenty tons were disposed of. The seeded
or "stoned" raisin has a reputation of its own. It has become the most
important branch of the raisin industry. The waste from seeding and cap-
stemming is from ten to twelve per cent. Formerly the seed was burned as
fuel : now it is used as a by-product from which alcohol and various other
products are chemically produced.
GROWTH OF RAISIN INDUSTRY
The growth of the raisin industry was a slow one, because it was in a
new experimental field, many difficulties in cultivation and in marketing had
to be overcome and lessons learned with time in the hard school of experi-
ence. The early successes gave encouragement to persevere though, and
once established there were not lacking those who claimed the credit for
having fathered it. The credit for producing the first Fresno raisin may,
however, be safely awarded to T. F. Eisen, a pioneer of 1873 in grape grow-
ing. His production was the result of chance rather than of deliberate de-
sign, according to popular tradition.
It was in the very hot year of 1877 and before the Muscats were picked
that a considerable portion of the grapes dried on the vines and, to save
them, were treated as raisins, stemmed, packed in boxes and sent to San
Francisco for sale by fancy grocers, who exhibited them in the show win-
dows as a Peruvian importation. Inquiries were made and revealed that
they were a Fresno product of the Eisen vineyard. This advertisement was
the foundation of Fresno's reputation for raisins. It served to attract others
to enter the field. In 1876 W. S. Chapman imported his Spanish Muscatels
for Central California Colony. That same year T. C. White planted the
Raisina vineyard with rootings from Blower's Woodland vineyard. In 1877
and 1878 the Hedgerow was set to vines: in 1879 the A. B. Butler vineyard,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 191
then one of the largest for raisins in the state, and the J- T. Goodman and
William Forsj'th vineyards followed about 1881-82. These were early curi-
osities in a way and continued as show places for interested visitors for
years. They were the pioneer, large vineyards.
The Hedgerow was one of the noted earliest successes, located by the
late Miss M. F. Austin on Elm Avenue, about three miles south of the city
and comprising lOO acres — seventy-four in vines and nineteen in orchard.
The Raisina was equally as notable. What made the Hedgerow specially
notable was the fact that it was established and conducted by ladies. Miss
Austin was a New England teacher, who came to California in 1864, was a
teacher of note in private schools in San Francisco, but failing in health in
1878 came to Fresno to enter upon a new field of activity. The vineyard
derived its name from its varied hedge enclosure. She was one of the first
to appreciate the possibilities of raisin culture, and to her efforts and pioneer
experiences the county owes much. Man}^ an object lesson did she teach.
With her were associated the Misses Lucy H. Hatch, E. A. Cleveland
and J. B. Short, all teachers, who pooling their savings bought the 100
acres in 1876 from Chapman in his Central Colony and expended much
money in experimental plantings. Miss Austin came to the vineyard in 1878
to reside. Miss Hatch was her assistant, coming here after January, 1879.
As trees failed in the first experiments, they took up viticulture. Their
first raisin pack was in 1878 of thirty boxes under the Austin brand: in 1879
they put up 300 boxes and in 1886 7,500. Packing was then given up and
owing to the failing health of Miss Austin thev afterwards sold the raisins
to packers in the sweat boxes and Miss Hatch became the active manager.
The Hedgerow was a practical object lesson of what intelligent and perse-
vering efforts can bring about.
The eighty-acre Raisina was planted for the lady that became Mrs. T. C.
White, nee Fink, and for her sister. W^hite enlarged the original muscatel
planting and was one of the very first to pack raisins commercially, acquir-
ing from Blowers of Yolo the practical knowledge of cultivation and proc-
esses. His experiences and knowledge aided much in giving the industry a
start. The home market at first readily absorbed the local output, but when
it became too large for the limited consumption a period of temporary stag-
nation followed that had to be overcome by opening an eastern market.
This was another tribulation that attended the infant industry. But a proni-
inent feature of the county, borrowed from the south, was introduced at
this period in the colony system of settlement to add to the wealth, pros-
perity and upbuilding. These surrounded Fresno city on all sides and grew
into each other with the entire country merged into one cordon of farming
settlements of fifty, twenty and ten-acre parcels. Central Colony was the
first laid out in 1874, embracing six sections of land southwest of town and
sold in small tracts with twenty acres as the average. Taken as a type, it
afifords contrast between the wheat growing and horticultural eras. During
the "dry farming" period, this land yielded an annual return of not to exceed
$35,000 and only one family had its home on the 3.840 acres. Settled as a
colony, the cash return was' from $300,000 to $400,000, 150 families had com-
fortable homes and most of them enjoyed competencies.
The Butler vineyard of over 600 acres was famous in its day, yielding
not less than 110,000 twenty-pound boxes and considerably more ^n good
years at a time when raisins averaged one dollar and seventy-five cents to
two dollars and twenty-five cents a box. The Forsyth of 160 acres was a
model property with a product of upward of 40,000 twenty-pound boxes and
such a well established reputation for pack that output was engaged in ad-
vance at fancy terms. Despite all setbacks and obstacles, raisin growing ex-
tended in all directions around the city for miles until wherever water was
procurable the big and small vineyard flourished. Shipments increased an-
nually and to cite 1890 as a precedent establishing year the total shipment
192 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was 21,691,618 pounds, or about 1.084,580 twenty-pound boxes for the in-
dustry fostered by tariff protection, one feature at least on wiiich Demo-
crats were agreed with Republicans. That shipment was distributed as
follows as regards local output :
District. Pounds.
Fresno 15,430,313
Malaga 3,459,240
Fowler 2,178,438
Selma 469,746
Madera 112,710
Borden 73,226
Kingsburg 67,945
The subject of the California raisin industry is a large one. Its various
sidelights have been extensively treated. Almost every large vineyard has its
particular history. Where there are so many only general features can be
alluded to in a comprehensive history. A list of the large vineyards would
mount into the hundreds. Passing reference can only be made to the more
notable as the Hedgerow (Austin), Raisina f White), Butler, Minnewawa
(Eshelman), Oothout, Forsyth, Gartenlaub, Kearney, Talequah (Baker),
Paragon (Nevills), besides many others and all those conducted as corporate
enterprises. Then there are the wine grape vineyards, notably the Eisen, Bar-
ton, Eggers, Tarpey, Malter, Mattel, Great Western, Las Palmas, the Califor-
nia Wine Association, a letter combination of whose title evolved the name of
"Calwa" for the distillery, revenue warehousing and shipping point and the
Swiss Italian Colony.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Raisin Industry is the Financial Barometer of the Commu-
NiTv's Prosperity. Twenty Years Ago, Its Outlook Was Not
Encouraging. Many Were the Efforts at Cooperative
Control of the Output. Another Crisis Was Faced at the
Close of the Year 1917. Spectacular Campaign is Staged
for New Contracts. Percentage of Control the Greatest
Ever Secured. Felicitations Over the Victory. Prosper-
ity Underwritten for Six Years.
On the subject of the raisin, the Fresno grower takes himself and the
industry seriously. The industry is regarded as typical and dominant of the
region and the financial barometer of the community's prosperity. The close
of the year 1917 and the opening weeks of 1918 mark an epoch in that in-
dustry. It was a period more exciting and spectacular than any in its his-
tory with the efforts to sign up new contracts with the association, com-
parable in strenuousness and scope with the Liberty bond subscriptions and
other "drives" of the war times.
It is not the purpose to follow the complicated history nor the efforts
of the various cooperative raisin associations under the Kearney and suc-
ceeding regimes, nor of the industry's troublous times without association
control endeavor covering the 1908-12 period. Nor is it the purpose to draw
invidious comparisons, but as has been stated the defunct association "a
good thing while it lasted" unfortunately "had within itself the seeds of its
own dissolution," its end when it came was inevitable and looked for, "it
lived its life in turmoil and it paid the price of politics for its intermittent
business success." The existing association conducted under different busi-
ness policies and methods has secured confidence and accomplished all that
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 193
the old did and strived for, and more too, and has been establislied in per-
manency as the saving and fostering organization of the raisin industry of
Central California.
The California Associated in its larger and more successful field of
operations is after all following up on other lines the plans and policies con-
ceived by Kearney whose misfortune was in the application of them. He
was possibly as the theorist ahead of the day and the times with his ideas
on associated cooperation to place every stage of the industry in the control
of the growers. The things accomplished by the California Associated have
not been original in the conception but in the carrying out. At the very first
of the Kearney movements there were two proposals made. One was a busi-
ness stock company or an organization under a cooperative form of asso-
ciation in which every member had equal voice. It became evident that the
latter form was unbusinesslike but it was also recognized that it was the
only one acceptable then.
Experience next demonstrated that a twelve months was too brief a
period of organization but evident was it also that this was the best that
could be hoped for. The industry would have to become sufficient unto it-
self. Growers must do their own packing, their own advertising, their own
selling, Kearney went so far as to demand that the growers do their own
financing. These were things for the future. Lack of faith in each other
was the great weakness in these early eiTorts of the growers to come and
stay together.
The average price of raisins to the producer, fluctuating as manipulated
by the speculating commercial packer, was at one time and for ten years
or more seventy dollars a ton. With associated cooperation and control,
marketing conditions were improved and cheapened, consumption increased
and prices enhanced with the result of seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents
per ton for Muscats, about eighty-five dollars for Sultanas, and about ninety-
five for Thompson's Seedless. Under ordinary conditions there is a profit
to the grower in selling at three cents a pound. Yet a time was when rais-
ins found no market, growers fed them to the chickens, to the hogs, the
horses and the cattle and vineyards were uprooted so discouraging was the
outlook. As indicative of the spirit of the times and the apparent future
hopelessness of the industry may be reproduced this interesting publication
of twenty years ago:
"P. P. Brooks, living eight miles west of Fresno on Kearney
Avenue is feeding raisins successfully. He said to a Republican re-
porter :
'Barley is worth thirty dollars a ton and raisins from eighteen
dollars to thirty dollars. It is difficult to sell good raisins for over
twenty dollars a ton. Some days ago I concluded to use raisins as
horse feed instead of grain. As an experiment I bought an old horse
and fed the animal twelve pounds of raisins a day. The nag was worn
out and poor, but in a short time he began to fatten and grow sleek.
The food seemed very nourishing and the horse became plump and
full of hfe. I sold the animal back to the original owner for thirty
dollars — three times what I paid for him. Twelve pounds of raisins
a day is equal to twenty pounds of barley. At the present price of
grain this would make a food value of raisins of about sixty dollars
a ton, leaving a profit of forty-two dollars a ton over the actual sell-
ing price of eighteen dollars. Raisins also make good cattle and hog
food, but I have not experimented much in that line. Horses seem
to relish the raisins and keep in good condition while being worked.
Several of my neighbors will follow my example and use raisins for
stock feed. This is a good way to get rid of the surplus in the
hands of the farmers.' "
194 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUXTY
The future of the industry hung trembling in the balance. Various plans
were considered to organize the growers for mutual protection and benefit.
The pioneer combination after a long campaign of agitation was The Cali-
fornia Raisin Growers' Association, the conception of the late M. Theo.
Kearney, and founded in 1898.
From 1889 until 1893 growers were enabled to average five cents a
pound, but with the financial panic of the year 1893 prices fell again, and in
1897 raisins were quoted as low as three-quarters of a cent per pound. They
were even sold on commission at prices that often did not cover the shipping
charges, and fortunate the shipper that did not find himself still in debt to
the broker. Conditions were so unprofitable that many despaired, and it
was estimated that in this county 20,000 acres of vines were uprooted. The
lesson of the absolute necessity for organization had to be driven home by
costly and bitter experience. For about six years the association was more
or less of a success, though at no time had it ever a controlling percentage of
the crop signed up, while as one result of its operations it "held up the um-
brella" of benefit and protection for those who while not averse to accept
benefits contributed nothing to bring them about but withheld their crops
from the pool.
Crucial difficulties arose late in the 1903 season owing to a fall in prices.
Personal animosities were stirred up. directed for a time specially against
Mr. Kearney as the president of the combine. Besides the directorate fell
into the hands of men, some of whom did not measure in capacity up to
the task before them. The association being unable to sell, man}'^ growers
received no returns and in August, 1904, with only thirty percent, of the
estimated acreage signed up contracts were surrendered to growers and
shortly after the association passed into the hands of W. R. Williams as
receiver and long litigation followed in liquidation. The largest crop was
the one of 1903, the association packing 97,001,854 pounds.
Such low prices resulted in 1904 that another effort at organization was
made with M. F. Tarpey as the leader, elected as president, and the com-
pany incorporated on May 6, 1905. Returns made to signed up growers
averaged three cents a pound amounting to $1,205,546. Some 38,000 acres
were signed up. Prejudice arose against cooperation. Growers did not sup-
port the company for various reasons and it dissolved on ;\Iay 1. 1906. Years
elapsed and a new and by far the strongest organization was established early
in 1912 under the name of the California Associated Raisin Companv with
one million dollars capitalization, adopting the basic plan worked out bv \\'.
R. Nutting but elaborated upon in the light of experience.
This association is a cooperative institution "that stands for construc-
tion and not for manipulation," whose aim is to find as a sales agent a market
for the grower by aiding the wholesaler to sell more raisins to the retailer
and help the retailer to move raisins from his shelves to the ultimate con-
sumer. The developed plan of cooperative efifort is not alone for a better
marketing but to standardize the product, secure appreciation of distributor
and consumer, and thus plan for the future, when increased tonnage will
mean low prices unless demand has kept a step in advance of production
at all times.
In the closing statement to stockholders on the 1915 crop, Vice Presi-
dent and ATanager James Madison congratulated them on having disposed
at fairly remunerative prices of the largest crop of raisins that this state has
ever produced. In fact, the prices obtained Ijy the company are as high,
in his judgment, as they ever should be, if it is the desire to maintain the
proper relation between consumption and production, and this the directors
have always borne in mind as a vital factor in the continued success, so that
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 195
raisin vineyards may be considered a safe and profitable investment. The
financial statement as indicative of the vohime of business done shows:
Gross receipts $11,853,930.89
Packing and shipping 3,456,452.46
Net sales - 8,396.578.43
Cost of raisins $7,084,463.60
Receiving, etc 224,226.50 7,313,690.10
Amount due on final settlement $ 1,082,888.33
TONS HANDLED
Ton Rate
on Final. Tons.
Muscats - - 7.72 77,951
Thompson's 29.67 10,589
Sultanas 28.81 5,499
Malagas 10.00 623
Feherzagos _ 10.00 234
94,896
The 1916 crop was approximately 126,000 tons or 2,000 greater than that
of 1915, according to the state viticultural commission. Thompson's seedless
gained 100 per cent, with a yield of 32,000 tons. The Muscat yield was
83,000 tons against 93,000 in 1915. Heavy rains caused the shortage. Accord-
ing to Association President Wylie M. Gififen, the loss is the more notice-
able, because it came on the eve of what promised to be one of the best years
in the history of the industry. With the possible exception of the 1915 crop,
that of 1916 was the largest in history, and with the high prices prevailing
it looked like a banner year for the raisin growers, and every one dreamed
dreams of the things that would be done as soon as the crop was oflf.
The close of the year 1917, fourth of the Associated, marked it as the
most successful cooperative producers' organization j-et undertaken in the
state. Yet it faced a crisis. Contracts with growers expired with limitation.
New ones had to be entered into to continue the association. A three months'
campaign "drive" followed, the greatest and most sensational and spectacular
in the history of the industry and that history has been a spectacular one.
The county was kept at the fever heat of excitement until success was an-
nounced through the press on the morning of February 1, 1918. The associa-
tion was saved and given a life lease for six years.
That campaign was reminiscent of the earlier days of raisin cooperative
association enterprises when the "drive" was an annual afifair. Tuesday,
January 29, was declared a business holiday for a last general efifort to
save the industry from destruction, and over 400 committeemen, including
merchants, bankers, professional and non professional men, assumed charge
of one great auto caravan "drive" to penetrate every nook and a corner of a
territory of 250 square miles surrounding the city. Stores and offices were
closed and the day was given over to a canvass for contracts for the California
Associated Raisin Company.
Newspapers had been full for days and days with columns upon columns
of appeals and reasons for coming to the association's rescue, nightly meet-
ings had been held in the school districts, individuals were not lacking to
induce signatures by means that were subject to criticism and acts of sabot-
age were committed to coerce others into signing. The victory was hailed as
remarkable in the annals of cooperative farm marketing. One week before
defeat stared the growers in the face afterall the efforts made, loyal farmers.
196 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
merchants, financiers, professional and laboring men had by the thousands
labored wherever raisins are grown, had gone to the unsigned and reminded
them that the unprecedented prosperity is a result of cooperative marketing
and to stay out and kill the association meant the ruin of the grower and of
the business man.
The thousands that feared their contracts in escrow would be burned
with a failure to sign up were relieved. The joy apparent in Fresno when the
result was made known was shared wherever in the state raisins are grown
in any quantity. Thousands who had worked voluntarily for success were
repaid. President W. M. GifTen of the association notified the Fresno Clear-
ing House Association that the crop contracts delivered with the notice
with those previously delivered numbered 6.980, representing 131,530 acres
in raisin vineyard. This acreage was well over the 123.000 minimum required
bv the agreement with the signers to make them effective and request was
made that the escrow contracts be delivered as soon as practical.
Editorially one of the newspapers described the achievement in the fol-
lowing language :
"The result of the successful conclusion of the Associated Raisin Company
campaign represents the biggest achievement of this state, possibly of the
nation, and to look at it only from the material standpoint it underwrites
the prosperity of the community for the next six years. It means sane market-
ing conditions, good prices and extended markets to take care of the yearly
increasing acreage. AVhen there is "money in raisins" it naturally means
more planting, but the continuance of the national advertising will make
the demand keep up with the supply."
In this felicitation over the economic advantages, the social and spiritual
were not overlooked. In fact the latter were regarded as the greater victory
in that 7.000 men and women of the raisin belt are one in an economic
brotherhood. Only in the perspective of twenty years or more was the feat of
the three months viewed in its real magnitude and significance in the culmina-
tion of a long apprentice period. The growers had learned a lesson and reduced
to its fundamental basis it was a moral, perhaps a religious rather than an
economic lesson, that the growers trust one another and faith has made
them one.
Six days before the end there was still lacking a 15.000 acreage. The
minimum considered necessary to be signed up if the company \yas to con-
tinue as a growers' concern was 125.000. The crop is between 150.000 and
160.000 tons but within a few years will be increased to between 200,000 and
225.000. For the next six years the average crop will in all probability be
200,000 tons. There was needed eighty or eighty-five per cent, of it signed
up. A difificulty of the campaign was that twenty per cent, of the growers
could not be approached by solicitors.
The acreage obtained was 131.350 and better than eighty-five per cent, of
all the raisins grown in the state, the strongest control ever had. Under the
new contract the starting point was the lowest, as nothing was lost then by
transfer of places and every contract added to the percentage, whereas under
the old the starting point was the highest and continually there was lost more
through the place transfers than gained through the solicitors. While every
effort was centered on the 125,000 acreage objective, this was not all that
was accomplished. There are in the state scattered from Marysville to San
Diego 10.000 growers and of this number 8.500 approximately signed the
contract and there is not one that has a more favorable contract than another.
Contracts were lost because of "arbitrary methods" pursued but the fact
remains that no favor was shown in the taking of them. Not an option was
stricken out. not a contract was taken that did not run with the land and
not a promise was made to an individual that is contrary to the general policy
applying to all.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 197
A fine public spirit was manifested in the campaign and without excep-
tion every community, newspaper, civic organization, ladies' club, growers'
committee arid thousands of individual workers from every calling of life
did their part. As it was said: "Even the packers in their frantic attempts
to prevent success furnished the spice which is invaluable in a campaign of
this kind." The percentage summary according to grapes is as follows:
Muscats 88%
Thompson's 88
Sultanas 87
Malagas 90
Feherzagos 85
Average of All 88%
The Yuba and Marysville districts have about eighty-five per cent., a
remarkable showing for an outside district. The experience has been in all
campaigns that it is more difficult to secure the required percentage in the
districts farther away from the center. Exceedingly gratifying was the
showing of the township final percentages with not one in the thickly settled
vineyard district not running better than eighty per cent. The township in
which Selma and Kingsburg are located tied with that in which Rolinda is
located and the township east of Reedley, all having ninety-eight percentage ;
Biola is second with ninety-seven: Dinuba third with ninety-six: Fowler
fourth with ninety-five and every other township in the thickly settled district
better than ninety per cent, with the exception of the six tributary to Fresno
and they averaging eighty-si.x. There are townships in outlying districts that
have only forty or fifty per cent, but in many of these there are only two or
three vineyards and in all the acreage is so small that it only affects the
whole slightly.
The new contract guarantees to stockholders eight per cent, earning on
monev actually invested for the next six years and bv a simple clause the
stock' is automatically increased from $1,040,000 to $2,500,000 or $3,000,000
in the next three or four years in such a way that some stock goes into the
hands of every grower without his feeling the burden. This increased stock
will provide adequate packing facilities to handle the crop without the con-
gestion and delay that has prevailed and at the same time make the growers
who own it the eight per cent, earning.
The new directors of the association for one year are : Wylie M. Gififen.
Hector Burness, A. G. Wishon, H. H. Welsh, Hans Graff, F. H. Wilson
and M. V. Buckner of Hanford. They chose as officers: President. W. M.
Giffen : Vice Presidents, Hector Burness and F. H. Wilson : Assistant to the
President, F. A. Seymour: Secretary, C. A. Murdoch: Assistant, F. M. Cleary ;
Cashier, A. L. Babcock. Appropriation has been made of $375,000 to be spent
in sales and advertising during the fiscal year commencing June 1, 1918.
This is $19,000 more than appropriated last year but will give more publicity.
A feature of the advertising will be the almost exclusive use of page adver-
tising in colors in leading magazines. There will be an increase in trade
press advertising with particular reference to the candy, confectionery and
baking trades.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XXXV
California an Agricultural Wonder, and Fresno a Prominent
Factor. Many Resources of Both Are Yet Undeveloped.
Great Proportions Attained by the Wine Industry. Fresno
Leads in Sweet Wine and Brandy. Orchards a Develop-
ment Feature of the County. Conditions Ideal for Sun
Curing of Their Products. Citrus Growing Belt of the
Valley. Local Nursery Stock of a Year Sufficient to
Supply the Entire State. The Farmer Has Yet to Learn
THE Important Lesson of the Value of the By-Product
OF THE Farm.
California may well claim to be an agricultural wonder. Its farming
presents more interesting features and aftords greater opportunities than
does any other state what with its wide range of products, soil, climatic and
weather peculiarities. That "everything will grow in California" has been
accepted as a fact. There is basis for it at least in that no farming ever tried
has proven a failure from the productive point. Yet no part of the state
has been developed to capacity, either as to output or selection of product
that will prove of greatest and lasting profit. Its limit of production equals
almost the range of semi-tropical and temperate lands. Fresno has been
one agent to establish that reputation for the state, yet it is itself far short
of having developed its cultivable area in the more valuable crops. Foremost
in the line of fruit production, Fresno is the home of the grape, whether for
the raisin, for wine, or for table use.
The great grain fields such as made Fresno notable in former days have
been converted into small acreages for intensive farming, yet California is
still a cereal grower. The opening of eastern and foreign markets for green
deciduous fruits and canned and sun-cured products has left as a' primary
problem only the selection of the fruit varieties that are most successfully
grown and best marketed. The caprification of the fig in Fresno may some
day crowd out Smyrna as the world's suppl}'. This is no irridescent dream,
for Fresno snatched the raisin scepter from Spain as Santa Clara practically
drove the French prune from the American market and is crowding the for-j
eign mart, while the northern and central portions of the state furnish eighty-
five per cent, and more of the canned and dried fruits of the American and
export trade.
The opportunities are here for important development. A quarter of
a century has demonstrated enough to justify expectation far beyond the
present stage of development. The increased alfalfa area has animated live
stock interests and stimulated dairjnng. Breeding of horses and mules should
be a greater development factor. No reason why live stock raising should
not continue a large and profitable industry. Nor the sheep business for
mutton and wool. In 1876 it was a leading industry with nearly 7,000.000 head
and an annual wool product of 56,500,000 pounds, bringing to the state over
ten million dollars. Hog raising as a branch of farming has big possibilities.
The present product is insufficient for home needs. Rice, beet sugar to rival
the tropical cane, beans, peas, cotton and tobacco are inviting fields. The
area in fruit is ever expanding and the outlook is hopeful for figs, dates and
the olive.
Failure of a fig crop in Fresno or in California has never been known.
Fig buyers are so certain of an annual crop that it has become the custom
in the county to make one to five 3'ear contracts with growers for the crops
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 199
on their avenue border trees and for entire orchards and purchaser paving
in advance for the expected crops.
There were fourteen beet sugar factories in operation in the state in 1917
using 1,318,400 short tons of beets from which 200,100 tons of sugar were
made. This was the output from 154,700 acres planted for the season. The
beets averaged fifteen and eighteen one-hundredths per cent, of sugar, the
highest reported from any sugar-beet growing state. The average price to
the farmer was seven dollars and fifty-two cents per ton.
In citrus fruit, California is crowding ahead. The Central California
citrus belt is being enlarged. The raisin has beaten every record with its
acreage. California is a wine producer of over 30,000,000 gallons annually,
competing with the old world countries. Almost all the sweet wine and
brandy made in America is Californian, with Fresno leading, even though
the output has greatly decreased owing to the heavy tax on brandy for
fortifj'ing. Owing to this tax, the production fell off enormously during the
1915 season, sweet wine about one-fifth, the lowest since 1893, and brandy
one-third, the smallest since 1899—3,882,933 and 2,613,286 gallons respectively.
The farmer of California has yet to learn the lesson of the value of the
farm by-product as in butter, eggs, poultry, honey and the like. The day of
immense cultivation with the small things overlooked has passed : replaced
by that of intense cultivation with the small things closely looked after.
Private enterprise largely rrrlaimcd a portion of California's irrigable lands.
Great natural resources in ' ■: ' ' water remain undeveloped and await
concerted action in a t:i ' le. A\'ith irrigated agriculture as the
dominant industry of the : ' i Fortier, an expert writer on the sub-
ject, declares that "the same inlelligence, energy and perseverance which
wrested 2,500,000 acres from sands and low producing grain fields can reclaim
other millions of acres."
As a report of the California Development Board observed : "With abun-
dant oil for fuel for manufacturing power and motive power on the one side
and with over 9,000,000 horse power in water power yet to develop, and a
widening of markets both at home and in the Orient, California can face
her industrial future with confidence." Well it is also to remember that be-
cause of the high economic value of the climate, it has been said that "there
is no time in California when all nature is at rest or plant life is sleeping.
In the field, orchard, garden, factory and in the mines, on the stock farm and
in the dairy every day is one of productive labor."
WINE INDUSTRY ENORMOUS
California's wine industry has attained great proportions in extensive
vineyards of 170,000 acres as well as in enormous capital investments. Sweet
wine production more than doubled in the ten years before 1912, the output
as well as that of brandy much greater than all the states combined, 9,502,391
gallons port and 7,904.955 sherry, a total of 22,491.772 for seven varieties of
sweet wines against 605,004 for the four varieties of all the other states. A
little more than a century ago, Madeira was the favorite wine and Jamaica
rum, the spirit. Whisky and Ijrandy were unknown. Brand}'- was not statistic-
ally named apart from spirits until 1842. Cahfornia's 1915 sweet wine product,
in which brandy enters largely in the fortification, was 16,868,374 gallons
against 300,324 "for five other 'states, and of fruit brandy 7,906,380 against
615,571 as against all other states.
The introduction of European vines into California dates back to 1771 by
the Catholic missions from Spain via Mexico. The first vineyard was the
one at Mission San Gabriel near Los Angeles, extended thereafter from mis-
sion to mission from San Diego to Sonoma in five to thirt_v acre vineyards.
One variety of grape was grown, the Mission, which is still grown. With
the confiscation of the missions in 1845, the vineyards fell into neglect. In
1850 two southern counties produced 50,055 gallons, ten years later the state
200 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
production was 246,518. In 1856 there were 1,540,134 vines in the state, two
years later 3,954,548. At this later period the wine industry was promoted and
greatlv encouraged. In 1861 A. Haraszthy as a member of the newly created
state commission on viticulture visited the European wine districts and bought
100,000 vines of 1,400 varieties which were propagated in Sonoma. Cuttings
were distributed among growers and from that time wine manufacture has
had a continuous growth interrupted only by depreciation during particular
years. In 1870 farms produced over 1,814,000 gallons and Los Angeles, Sonoma
and Santa Clara were leading producers. Besides, wineries capitalized at
$658,420 produced wine of the value of $602,553.
A great acreage increase between 1870 and 1875 caused a wine over-
production followed by ruinous depreciation in prices. Many vineyards were
uprooted and in ten years the number of wineries was reduced to forty-five.
The largest vineyardists continued to improve properties and by 1879 because
of the growing demand for California wines consumption overtook production
and prices advanced. Since 1880 the progress has been continuous. In 1890
the vintage had increased to 14,626,000 gallons, Fresno with 1,200,000 gallons
being the fifth largest producer; In 1900 the production was 8,483,000 of
sweet and 15,000,000 gallons of dry wines, a total of 23,483,000^ The $160,300
product value of the eleven wineries of 1850 increased to $1,738,863 for 128
in 1890, $3,937,871 for 187 in 1900 and $8,936,846 for 181 in 1910.
This state has some of the largest and best cultivated vineyards in the
world. The Italian Vineyard Company has 3,200 acres in San Bernardino of
all the best varieties : in this county is the Wahtoke of 3,631 acres with twenty
of the leading varieties, near Sanger and Reedley: and in Tehama County the
Stanford Vina of 1.500, mostly Zinfandel and Burger. The vines of the
Vina have been uprooted to make way for orchard trees and crops, a step
made necessary because while the vineyard was remunerative it had been
fouled with Johnson grass which could not be eradicated with the vines in
place. The Wahtoke as the largest Fresno winery has an annual capacity of
2,000,000 gallons. The Italian-Swiss Colonv has a 750,000 gallon winery at
Selma and another of 1,000,000 capacity near Kingsburg. M. F. Tarpey's
La Paloma, a model institution with an output of 1,500,000 gallons, was
absorbed, as so many others have been, by the California Wine Association.
Other large wineries in the county are the Great Western of 2,500 acres
east of Sanger, the Eisen, Eggers, Barton capitalized in England, the Fresno.
Margarita, Calwa, Scandinavian, St. George, Las Palmas, Mattel's and the
Kearney. With few exceptions, these are such large ventures that they have
become corporate enterprises.
California grows the principal wine grapes of France, Italy, Spain, Portu-
gal and Germany, and the produced beverage type varieties are unequaled.
Indeed, California raw wine is shipped to the old country, aged and processed
and after a time reimported and drunk as a foreign product under continental
labels and none but the expert can tell the difference. It is also the fact that
California winemakers have been awarded high prizes for their products in
competition at European expositions. In this state the surplus table and
shipping grapes are used for wine making, but the desirable qualities in a
shipping grape differ from those of a good wine grape and the product is
inferior. They are more suited for brandy making, which is their principal
use. Surplus raisin, grapes are also used for brandy, and the quality is better,
though the bulk of dry and sweet wines and of brandy is from a special wine
grape unsuited for other purpose.
The wine producing areas of the state are the dry and sweet wine dis-
tricts. The dry are principally in the hills and valleys of the Coast Range
counties from Mendocino to San Diego. The interior valleys from Shasta to
Kern comprise the other. The classification may not be logical, yet is fairly
accurate as to the practice and the products, because in fact sweet and dry
wines can be made in nearly, if not all, the grape growing districts. The
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 201
Zinfandel is California's typical rcdwine grape, and from it the bulk of all
dry and sweet red wines is made. Considerably more than half of the Cali-
fornia brandy output is used for fortifying the sweet wines. The 1915 brandy
output was '7,906,380 gallons, 4,425,747 used in fortifying, and the dry wine
21,571,000 gallons which is short of the normal 25,000,0(X). The Fresno dis-
trict, which is not a dry wine district, produced 250,000 gallons, Sonoma and
Napa being the leaders. Winemakers are meeting with success in the making
of sparkling wines, with naturally fermented champagne increased from 580,-
000 bottles in 1911 to 1,100,000 in'l914 but with a falling of? to 732,000 in 1915.
The following figures show Fresno's lead as a sweet wine and brandy
producer in gallons in the state's production :
Sweet \\'ine Brandy
1907— State 15,600,000 3,900.000
Fresno 6,000.000 1,250,000
1908— State 10,500,000 4,200.000
Fresno 6.800.000 1,000.000
1909— State 14.300.000 3,600,000
Fresno 7,.500,000 1,200,000
1910— State 18,000,000 4,700.000
Fresno 6,000,000 750.000
In twenty years the sweet wine product has increased from 1,083,000
gallons in 1891 to 23,467,000 in 1912, the heaviest in history. Port and sherry
are leading wines, sherry generally leading as in 1903 and 1912 with upwards
of eight million gallons. Yet again for 1910-12 the port output was upwards
of nine millions. Import of foreign wines has remained steady for some years,
annually some ten millions. Grape juice making as a beyerage is on the whole
decreasing. The quantity made in California was never more than 60.000
gallons, it is claimed that there is no profit in the making. An estimate of
the selling price of 8.814 cars of table grapes shipped east in 1915 was $8,814.-
000 and of 1.000 cars expressed and consumed in the state $700,000, total for
the crop of $9,514,000. This was an unusual year because of the shortage by
reason of late frosts in the Concord belts from Michigan to New York.
The California Wine Association representing one-half of the industry
in the state faces a critical situation. Its directorate has recommended to
manufacturers to sell their stocks and prepare for the beginning of the end
on account of the national prohibition movement. Its report in 1918 sum-
marized the agitation for prohibition, and after pointing out that "prohibition
leaders would not tolerate any suggestion that compensation should be made
for the destruction of property, or provision made for the support of the
thousands who would thereby be deprived of their means of living," said:
"Under these circumstances, the directors have reached the conclusion
that the further pursuit of a business with a future so uncertain is not wise ;
that any plans for its continued development are not warranted. Already
a considerable progress has been made in this direction. Lands and buildings
for which there was no further use in wine making have been sold whenever
a price anywhere near satisfactory under present circumstances could be
obtained, but always at a great sacrifice upon their original cost."
The retrenchment policy is made manifest in a showing that in 1916 the
association inventoried its wines and supplies at $6,729,394.27. December 31,
1917, the value was placed at $5,201,484.94, more than $1,500,000 less._ Re-
ferring to repeated campaigns in California the published statement said :
"No legitimate business could long be conducted successfully in the face of
such never-ending opposition, with an unavailing supply of money."
The statement adds that the wine industry represents investments aggre-
gating more than $100,000,000 and brings into the state annually more than
$20,000,000. Federal and state taxes on wines in California amounted to
$3,421,884.85 in 1917 as against $1,791,555.63 in 1916.
202 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Little was attempted in the fruit line in tlie early days outside of the
missions. After their secularization in 1834, Fremont says on his visit in
1846 that vineyards and olive orchards were decayed and falling into neglect.
First plantings in the north by the Americans were generally near the mines,
but little care was bestowed upon them, and fruit growing was not the science
that it is today. California, Missouri and New York were reported four
years ago as the three largest orchard tree states, California leading with over
30,895,000, and New York in fruit product value.
Deciduous fruit shipments of an approximate value of $34,500,000 were
sent to eastern markets from California for the season of 1917 in November.
A total of 22,954 carloads of apricots, cherries, pears, peaches, plums, grapes
and miscellaneous fruits went forward and it was estimated the total would be
23,000 cars before the close of the season. Shipments the season before totalled
17,389 carloads. A total of 12,349>4 carloads of grapes was shipped. This was
within a few hundred carloads of the shipment of all varieties of deciduous
fruits in 1913, when the total for the season was 13,332 carloads. So much
in illustration of the immensity of California's fruit business. The peach is
California's second ranking orchard fruit, including the nectarine in the classi-
fication as a botanical variety. The state exceeds all others in dried and
canned peaches, though Georgia leads in fresh peach shipments.
Fresno County produced in 1917 more than one-half of the state's $6,000,-
000 crop of dried peaches. AMiile it was generally recognized that it was the
banner county of the state it was for the California Peach Growers Inc. to
discover the position of the county by checking up the acreage. The figures
show that Fresno is well over the fifty per cent, mark and that Fresno,
Tulare, Kings and Merced counties have nearh' seventy-five per cent, of the
dried peach orchards of California. Within a radius of seventy-five miles from
Fresno grow seventy-five per cent, of the peaches. About four and one-half
of the six millions received from peaches in 1917 came to the Fresno district.
The state has a monopoly in apricot growing, and leads in the canned
and dried export. Apricots fell off eight millions from forty millions, but it
is an uncertain fruit, bearing largely every other three years. The 1914-15
season shows a heavy increase in lemon shipments and a falling off in
oranges. Dried figs increased from four to fourteen million pounds. Raisins
made a larger increase than any other fruit with imports greatly reduced.
California leads for the prune and plums. The first large prune orchard was
established in 1870 at San Jose. The production of the pear has declined with
the blight, but is recovering. The Bartlett as the chief product grew nowhere
more luscious than in Fresno. The French prune industry has become a
large one and the olive is an old mission fruit that has come to the front in
late years. Experimentation goes on with the date with encouraging results.
California and Florida lead as the sub-tropical producers.
DISTINCTIVE FEATURE IS THE ORCHARD
The orchard may be said to be one of the highest development features
of Fresno County. The conditions that distinguish it as the raisin center make
it ideal for sun drying of fruit as a big revenue producing item. The peach
as the leading fruit totals four and one quarter million trees, an acreage of
42,500 speaking off hand. The apricot ranks second with an acreage of over
7,000. No other county probably has as many peach trees. Selma is the peach
growing district of the county. The average profit on peaches is high, but
the field has its good and bad marketing years, and to standardize the output
the peach growers have taken a leaf out of the experience book of the raisin
men and established a protective association patterned on the same lines.
Peaches have gone as high as $220 a ton but that was during an exceptional
year when the general supply was poor.
February 1918 the California Peach Growers Inc. of Fresno made a $40
a ton payment on delivered peaches of the 1917 crop. This was a second pay-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 203
ment of $1,150,000, or two cents additional on Stocks one and two, bringing
the total to date seven cents per pound or $140 a ton. There was yet a final
payment to be made. On the 1916 crop Stocks one and two averaged about
^120 a ton and the second payment on 1917 crop with final yet to be made
is $20 above the previous total. The 1917 crop was practically cleaned out.
The 1916 crop handled by the growers totalled 25,000 tons, while the 1917
totalled 30,000. On the association's first year's business a $60,000 first div-
idend of seven per cent was paid to stockholders, besides an average of six
per cent, per pound on peaches. The 1917 crop netted eight cents.
The olive is a most profitable tree, a slow grower to be sure but long
lived, and it is a specialty of Fresno and gaining so in favor that nurserymen
cannot meet the demand for trees. The field opened for the Calimyrna fig
may be judged from the circumstance that in 1911 the United States produced
600,000 pounds of Smyrna figs against an importation of 26,000,000 pounds,
paying moreover a duty of two and one-half cents on every pound.
The northern California orange crop matures from four to six weeks
earlier than in the southern part of the state, notwithstanding a location from
300 to 500 miles farther north, an advantage due to topography in being
enclosed by mountain ranges causing higher night temperatures during the
summer and hastening maturing. The citrus industry is relatively new in
the San Joaquin Valley, but the acreage in Fresno, Tulare and Kern was
increased in 1915 by 3,000 acres, l)ringing the total to considerably over 12.000.
1.1 Northern and Central California, Tulare leads with 801,150' trees, Butte
147,412, Fresno 85,781, Kern 80,900 and Sacramento 46.256. The first Fresno
Citrus Fair of Fresno, November. 18':'(), purely a local afifair, was a revelation.
The production four years later was ''^.fUO Ixixes. A high prize was taken
in 1912 at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino. The development
of a rich and promising citrus belt has been one feature of the county's recent
growth. This belt runs along the eastern lower foothills and thousands of
acres await development.
The state's orange industry represents an investment of about 150
millions. Florida lost its lead after the "great freeze" of 1894-95, the shipment
falling from six millions to 75.000 boxes. California's citrus production for
1913-14 was a record breaker of 4X,,xi8 cars as against 18,331 for the previous
season as reduced by a killing frost to tlic lowest production in twelve years.
The lemon is less hardy than the orange and though grown for half a century
it is onl\- (hiring the last twenty years that it has assumed importance, com-
prising ten to fifteen per cent, of the citrus crop. The year 1915 was a dis-
astrous one in marketing at a loss of about thirty cents per box to the grower,
due to the great crop and the heavy supply of fruit in storage, much of it in
bad condition.
Instructive as showing the direct effect of irrigation on dairying are the
following figures from the State Dairy Bureau giving the Fresno butter
product in pounds during notable earlier years: 1905 — 1,619,746; 1907 — 2,786,-
817; 1909 — 3,721,262. Humboldt with its copious rainfall making irrigation
unnecessary is the banner county for butter output. The increase in dairying
is principally in counties where irrigation is practiced. The butter supply, by
the way, is far short of the home demand. The state's dairy output is one
valued at over twenty-seven millions. It is probably not generally appreciated
that Fresno is preeminently a tree nursery district. There are more than
half a hundred nurseries. The Fancher Creek Nurseries of George C. Roeding
are world famous and his clientage co-extensive. One recent year there were
raised in this county one million and a half deciduous and one-half million
citrus trees and three million grape vines. The statement has been made that
citrus trees are raised here in quantity sufficient to supply stock for all Cal-
ifornia. The district around old Centerville on the Kings River and near
Sanger is a great nursery field in the hands of Japanese.
204 . HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
To generalize in conclusion: Fresno holds high rank in raisin drying,
sweet wine and brandy making and in the shipping of table grapes, the chief
viticultural divisions. It is an important factor in the green, dried and canned
fruit lines. The grape alone brings into the county annually over nine mil-
lions, half of this credited to the raisin. It has ten and three-quarter millions"
wine grape vines, and thirty-seven millions raisin and table grape vines. Then
there are to be considered the secondary profits from the vineyard as the
second crop of muscats sold to the distilleries, the fertilizer from the stemmed
grape pomace, besides use as a silage for sheep and cattle feed, oil extracted
from the seeds, also tannin. The raisin is a leading specialty representing
about one-tenth of the county's income, while Raisin Day on April 30th as
an annual celebration has for four years attracted more than state wide
notice for its spectacles. Fresno produces more raisins than all the rest of
the state and twice as much as Spain. The seeded raisin is singular to Fresno.
The output runs as high as 33,000 tons annually.
The associated raisin company in February, 1918, authorized on the
seedless variety a second payment of $50 per ton, added to the $70 upon de-
livery bringing the total to $120 a ton. On the 1916 crop it paid $131 upon
final payment.
In the 7,000 acres devoted to table grapes, the Malaga and Emperor are
the chief varieties. The Thompson Seedless is extensiveh^ shipped, valuable
raisin grape though it is. The perfection of a method of shipping in saw dust
has given the fresh grape industry an impetus and permits competition for
the eastern holiday trade. The region about Clovis is a more important and
greater producer of the IMalaga grape than is the original district in Spain.
Fresno is a great producer of alfalfa, acreage over 50,000, yielding eight tons
as an average to the acre. In dairying the county ranks fourth in the state,
yet not until 1902 did it pass the million pound mark for butter and this was
more than doubled three years later. The great bulk of the honey output
of over twelve million pounds comes from the San Joaquin Valley and the
counties south, the bees extracting the floral nectar from the alfalfa and sage
in the one and the orange blossoms in the other district.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Farm Product Values Place California in the Tenth Rank
Among the States. Raisin Production Outranks all In-
creases IN Fresno County. The Output is the Largest in
THE World. It Has the Credit For More Than One-Half
of the State's Dried Peach Crop. For Hay and Forage it is
Third. Rice Growing is Making Great Strides. Sacramento
Valley Raises Ninety-Five Per Cent, of the Cotton in the
State.
Sun-kissed California is a state where things are done on a big scale.
Farm products of the United States totaled in 1917 the unprecedented
value of $19,443,849,381. This is an increase of more than $6,000,000,000 over
1916 and almost $9,000,000,000 more than in 1915. The estimate of the U. S.
Department of Agriculture is made up as follows :
Farm Crops $13,610,462,782
Animals and Products 5,833,386,599
Crops represent seventy per cent, of the farm products value. California's
farm products are given a value of $432,285,000. Its rank is tenth among the
states.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 205
Interesting facts as to the 1917 dairy production are contained in the
state dairy bureau report. The l^utter production showed a marked decrease.
In 1916 it was 70,030,174 pounds, as against 68,373,021 in 1917. Notable
however that while the yield was almost 2,000,000 pounds less, its value was
over $6,000,000 more, being $19,181,264 for 1916 and for 1917, $25,345,879.
The total 1917 cheese output was 9,236,663 pounds as against 11,745,124 in
1916. Santa Clara leads all counties with 1,567,305 pounds, Monterey second
with 1,336,727, a reversal of places for these counties as Monterey led in 1916.
The value of the cheese output was $1,827,012. The increase is over 7,000.000
pounds in condensed, evaporated and powdered milk and in casein over 200
per cent.
Dairying has become such a notable industry in the central portion of
the state with its alfalfa fields and climate, the latter permitting dairy stock
to be out in pasture all the year, as to warrant the formation of the San Joa-
quin Valley Milk Producers' Association to control it. The Danish Creamery
as a notably successful business institution of Fresno of twenty-two years of
standing and one that has been awarded a succession of first prizes in state
butter competitions, reported an increase in business for 1917 of thirty-nine
per cent. The gross business was $858,560.86, an increase -principally due to
the high price of the article. The butter made also showed a substantial
increase over the previous year — total made 2,073.185 pounds. For January
1918 by way of illustration, it may be cited that the price of butter fat was
fixed at sixty cents a pound, the amount paid for butter fat was $71,034.67 and
for the corresponding period the year before $56,156.24.
Outranking all others is Fresno's 1917 increase in raisin production.
There was produced in 1916 more than three times as much raisins as all
California and in 1917 alone almost as many pounds as the 1916 grand total.
Less than half a dozen of the fifty-eight counties of the state produce raisins
in commercial quantity. Since 1913 the raisin crop has steadily increased.
The crop in 1912 was 170,000,000 pounds but fell off in 1913 to 130.000,000.
In 1916 it was up to the enormous total of 264,000,000 pounds which crop was
exceeded the year after by 36,000,000 pounds.
Exports have made satisfactory increase from 14,000,000 in 1914, to
24,000.000 in 1915 and 75,000,000 pounds in 1916. Tl;at crop would have been
the largest on record but that rains damaged Muscats and the loss was esti-
mated at twenty-five per cent, with drying not completed until December.
Thompson's and Sultanas being earlier escaped.
The state 1917 raisin crop was estimated at 150,000 tons, if not in excess,
and of this production Fresno vineyards furnished seventy-five per cent, or
112.500 tons. The revenue from this large output averaged $100 a ton, giving
the Fresno County raisin crop a money value of $11,250,000. The county's
raisin crop for 1917 figured 225,000.000 pounds. Preeminence as a raisin
producer is shown in the following tabulation on the basis of the 1916 totals :
Countv Pounds
Fresno 207,000,000
Tulare 22.900,000
Kings 17.820,000
Sutter 8,320,000
Madera 3,320.000
Kern 1,560,000
San Bernardino 1,340,000
San Diego 1,200,000
Merced 480,000
Stanislaus 60,000
206 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The 1917 state raisin crop-was at the least 300,000,000 as against the 264,-
000,000 of 1916 and measured b}' these figures Fresno's crop would be the
greatest in the world :
Tons
Fresno Countv 112.500
Greek Currants 100,000
California (outside of Fresno) 37,500
Turkish Sultanas 30,000
Spain 5,500
Fresno's peach production in 1916 was 18,000 tons with estimates of
20,000 to 22,000 representing the 1917 crop. Figuring on the minimum, the
value would be $3,200,000 or more than fifty per cent, of the state's dried
peach crop. The green peach production amounted to about 800 cars, chiefly
from Selma, "The Home of the Peach," and from Fowler and Reedley.
Green peaches averaged the grower $30 a ton, thirteen tons to the car, total
value of the crop $312,000.
Of table grape varieties largest shipments were Malagas, 2,000 cars
representing Fresno's 1917 export. In addition probably 300 cars of Tliomp-
son's seedless and 400 of Emperors represented the total from the county
for the season and the value :
Malagas ....- $1,040,000
Emperors ..- 312.000
Thompson's 195,000
Tlie 1916 green grape tonnage was valued at $174,300: in 1917 almost
doubled. The wine grape production for 1917 was near the three million
dollar mark.
Rice culture made a long step in advance as one of the possible industries
of the state with $1,000,000 worth of the grain practicalh^ on the way to the
mills from the 1917 harvest. In five years it has grown from a $75,000 per
annum experimental industry. Over ninety-five per cent, of tlie rice raised
in California comes from the Sacramento Valley and while only 84,000 acres
were harvested in 1917 the applications for water to canal companies and
other sources up to February, 1918, indicated increase in acreage in excess of
the water supplying capacities.
The larger growers contracted with mills at Lake Charles, La., and
Beaumont, Texas, for over one-third of the 1917 crop. Returns from the mills
show net average of about three dollars and seventy-five cents per 100 pounds
to the grower, in some cases as high as four dollars and five cents. The cost
of rice production in 1917 was abnormal. A conservative estimate is that it
cost the planter in excess of two dollars and twenty-five cents per sack of
100 pounds to place the crop in warehouse. The acreage in this county fell
ofif from 1,120 in 1915 to 280 in 1916 but regained in 1917 to bring the total
to an estimated 500 acres.
According to federal statistics there were 117,000 acres planted to cotton
in California for the 1917 season, more than double the 52,000 acreage of 1916
while that of 1915 was only 39,000. For the 1917 season the yield per acre
showed a decided decrease. The average was 275 pounds per acre, 400 for
1916 and 380 for 1915. While this yield is notably less than that of past years,
it is yet the highest acre 3'ield of any state. Louisiana ranks second with 218
pounds. Average price for 1917 was twenty-eight cents a pound, twenty for
1916, and 11.2 for 1915. The farm value of the California cotton crop was:
1917_$9,380.000; 1916— $4,362,000 and 1915— $1,599,000. Average acre value
of crop: 1917 — seventy-seven dollars as the highest reported by any state;
1916 — eighty; 1915 — forty-two dollars and fifty-six cents.
California's corn crop was doubled in 1917 and the bean and oats crops
trebled during this year when war's demands called for increase in staple
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 207
farm products. Green fruit production during 1917 gives the county's orange
crop at 300 cars or 114,000 boxes valued at one dollar and twenty-five cents
a box at $142,000. The oranges are chiefly from the pioneer Centerville dis-
trict, the nearby Sanger and the later developed Wahtoke district. The acre-
age in bearing is only 400 or 500, though in the Wahtoke district 2,000 acres
have been planted.
The plum production will not exceed 100 cars valued at $52,000. There
are 72,788 olive trees in bearing in the county and it is fifth in the state
for olive production. The county's acreage under irrigation in crop is 259,607,
under irrigation not in crop 76,311 and 10,075 summer fallowed.
In hay and forage the county ranks third with a $2,000,000 1917 product.
The Turkish tobacco output of Fresno and Tulare with the only available
figures those of the joint production is of about 200,000 pounds. The bee
colonies in the county exceed 10,000. The production is in round figures
700,000 pounds of honey and upwards of 8,500 in wax. In ordinary years
the county ships 20,000 cases of honey annually which at 1917's prices would
represent $240,000. The 1917 harvest Avas only one-fourth of the normal,
valued at $60,000.
According to the Forest Service report the state's lumber cut in 1917
leads all records. It places the cut at 1,424,000,000 feet board measure ex-
ceeding the 1916 cut by about 4,000,000, the 1917 figures representing fif-
teen mills less than reporting the year before, but indicating greater activity
on the part of individual mills in meeting demands of the war. Mills to
the number of 169 reported for 1917 a cut of 1,417,068.400 feet, with 1,317,-
245.000 as the output of the forty-eight larger mills. In the cut are repre-
sented the following:
Redwood 487,458,000
Western Pine 478,458,000
Douglass Fir 156,083,000
Sugar Pine 1 127,951,000
White Fir 120,661,000
Cedar 21 ,310,000
Spruce 20,659,000
In Fresno County lumber interests were not active. The Shaver mills
were not in operation and the mill at Hume cut about 20,000,000 feet. It
had shut down two weeks when on the morning of November 3, 1917, it was
visited by fire causing a loss of half a million.
Estimates ol other products increasing the aggregate wealth of the
county and not including lumber and oil are these for the year 1917:
Manufacturing $3,200,000
Canned Fruit 3,120,000
Dairv Products 2,850,000
Minerals 2,225,000
Nursery Stock 860,000
Poultry and Eggs 510,000
Melons 290,000
W^ool and Mohair 160,000
The fruit item above recalls that twenty-five years ago when the first
small cannery had been in operation here two years the San Francisco
canners held obstinately to the theory that deciduous fruits grown on the
irrigated soil of Fresno were unfit for canning.
208 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XXXVII
Romantic Side of Horticulture. The Story of the Minute Fig
Wasp in the Introduction of a Coming Industry. Early
Experimentation in Caprification. Fresno Furnishes
Half of the Fig Crop. Commercialization of the Black
Mission. Grape Industry of Valley to Be Revolutionized,,
Magnitude of the Dried Fruit Output. The Rabbit Drive
as a Sport of the Valley. California the Land for Sci-
entific Farming.
Horticulture in California has its romantic side. No phase of it is
more striking than that of the introduction of the fig wasp with the result
of an industry yet in its infancy that in time may equal the grape, the peach,
or the raisin outputs.
As interesting is the history of the searches for and discoveries in for-
eign lands and the importation and home progagation of beneficial insects
that wage relentless warfare on the harmful tree and vine pests.
The state horticultural commissioner has discovered a new field for
the California ladybird beetle that has played such an important part in
nature's economy. It is to be sent for colonization to the melon patches in
Southern California to make war there on the destructive vine bugs. A
wonderful and entrancingly interesting work is being prosecuted by the
state horticultural board and the Department of Agriculture in the line of
natural economics with these numerous and varied beneficial insects. The
future of important fruit and vine crops has been saved by the introduction,
propagation and naturalization in California of these insects. "Bugology."
as it has been popularly termed, has become an important scientific branch
of horticulture.
The fig wasp is hardly larger than the gnat, but to propagate it in
Fresno for the commercial production of the dried Smyrna fig has cost
thousands of dollars, years of discouraging effort and journeys to the Orient
for sojourns in the districts where it makes its home. Consular service, the
resources of the Department of Agriculture and the enterprise and money
of private experimenters overcame difficulties with the result of an industry
that yields half a million dollars annually to California orchardists and
which with time may attain great proportions.
The fig has long been cultivated in this state, but Turkey, Algeria and
other countries on the INIediterranean held the dried fig trade as a monopoly.
The home product was so inferior despite fruitfulness of trees that compe-
tition was out of the question. California varieties were the ^lission figs
introduced by the Franciscan padres more than a century ago, and the later
European imported White Adriatic. Dried, the home article commanded
from seven and one-half to ten cents a pound in the market when no Smyrna
figs were on hand. It was theorized that the fault lay in the California
cultivated variety. Introduction of the Smj'rna followed with a shipment
in 1879 by G. P. Rexford of the San Francisco Bulletin. The consul at
Smyrna assisting, thousands of cuttings were imported and distributed
among nurserymen and growers. They rooted readily, but the fruit never
grew large and fell from the trees as the experience of years. The only
explanation was that there had been an inifxisitidu with a worthless variety
to defeat introduction of the true Smyrna fig in America.
Some dug up their trees: a few let theirs stand as ornamentals and
warnings against embracing a fad too readily. Most of the Black Missions
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 209
were planted along ditches as borders or wind breaks. F. Roeding and his
son, George C, of Fresno, scientific nurserymen, were among the earUest
interested and in 1886 sent W. C. West to Smyrna to investigate. He learned
things that would not have been believed but for confirmation by Dr. Gus-
tav Eisen of the California Academy of Sciences in discovered ancient writ-
ings of the practice of Orientals in picking the wild or Capri figs at a cer-
tain time of the year and hanging them in the branches of the cultivated
trees. And what Dr. Eisen discovered in ancient tomes, concerning the
mirxute insect that issued from the wild fig and entered the cultivated to
fertilize the latter with pollen and thus cause them to mature, West learned
by observation in the Maeander River Valley, the world's principal supply
source of the Smyrna fig.
California figs contained "mule flowers," as they were called. Fruit
progressed to maturation without agency of wasp, seeds were hollow fruit
inferior in flavor and deficient in sweetness. The Smyrna containing only
female blossoms, will not mature unless fertilized by pollen from the Capri
fig, and this is the life work of the blastophaga grossorum, the little wasp
that breeds in the Capri fig. The process of transferring this pollen has
given rise to the term "caprification," and to enable the wasp to perform
this function the practice of the Orientals has been for ages to hang the
Capri figs among the branches of the Smyrna trees yielding the fig of com-
merce. The Capri fig is in fig producing lands an article of commerce for
the very insects that it contains. Strange indeed that California fruit men
were so slow in discovering the reason for their failures with Smyrna trees.
But it was the fact nevertheless. The bug story provoked ridicule. The
Roedings constituted themselves the champions of the blastophaga and made
plantings of the two cuttings sent on by '\\'cst. In 1890 they bore and arti-
ficial pollenization was attempted. The fertilized fruit matured, but the figs
were still inferior to the imported. The e.xperimentation of several years
was successful in part only, and the conclusion was that the wasp must be
naturalized, or the efifort in California to grow Smyrna figs abandoned.
Capri figs were imported in June, 1892, and hung in trees covered with
cloth to prevent escape of the insects. Other shipments followed but all
to no satisfactory purpose. The Secretary of Agriculture was induced in
1897 to take up the subject with the result of more recorded failures. Finally
out of a lot sent in 1899, each fig wrapped in tinfoil and all in cotton in a
wooden case, the insects emerged and fertilized orchard growing fruit dur-
ing the summer. They bred, passing through several generations. The
hibernation period was outlived and next summer the Capris were trans-
ferred to the Smyrnas. A crop of fifteen tons was harvested, tested chem-
ically and found to contain one and four-tenths percent, more sugar than
the imported. The problem of producing commercially valuable California
dried figs was solved. In overcoming the difflculties, the Department of
Agriculture has the credit of importing the insects and Mr. Roeding of
naturalizing them in the long and wearisome experimental processes, bear-
ing the financial loss of the failures and 'the ridicule in assuming that such
an insignificant insect should play such an important part in nature's econ-
omy. In ]\Iay, I'-'Ol. Air. Roeding went to Smyrna to familiarize himself
with details of caprification, curing and packing. The nature of his mission
preceded him and he found the people averse to teach a threatened com-
petitor. The benefit of his information and experiences he has gi\en in a
book, "The Smyrna Fig at Home and Abroad."
And thus liy accident it was that in June, 1899, the discovery was made
after persistent effort and discouraging trials that the little gnat or wasp
had consented to be listed among the prize emigrants. The wasp was alive
and propagating in some of the Capri figs sent in March and April of 1898
and 1899. The fig growers of Asia ]\Iinor, who had practised caprification
210 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
for over a thousand years, had been found to be amazingly ignorant. They
knew that figs cannot be obtained without the agency of the little insect
but in what manner it benefits the figs or how it propagates was a sealed
book to them.
California is practically a lone producer of the fig in commercial quan-
tities, with Fresno as the leading grower of what has been described as
"perhaps the grandest fruit tree of California." The White Adriatic was
largely planted from 1884 to 1897. Markarian introducing and planting it
as a vineyard border tree, and ten years later packing the fruit. In 1897
as stated, the Smyrna was introduced by George C. Roeding and he origi-
nated an important fruit industry with his improved caprified "Calimyrna."
The fig industry generally faces such a hopeful outlook that as a result of
an institute held in Fresno in January, 1917, the growers of the state and
especially of the San Joaquin Valley took steps to organize for the marketing
of crops on a better business basis. As a result of the preliminary pool,
when only ten to twenty percent, of the fig area had been signed, two-cent
selling prices of a few years ago advanced from five to ten cents according
to variety.
Problems confronting the fig men are not the same that face raisin
and peach growers, though many belong to both organizations. They have
long considered their border trees as a side issue without realizing their
true market value until of late. The fig man is having much the same ex-
perience as the raisin and peach grower has had dealing individually with
the packer. Congratulating himself that he is securing a top price, not until
after sale or contract signature does he learn in comparing notes with
neighbors that he has not been favored but often that he has been dis-
criminated against.
On account of the European war. Asia Minor fig importations have
been cut ofif for two years, this import being about 18,000 tons annually.
About 1,500 tons for each of the two years have come to America from Por-
tugal and Spain, a tonnage that usually goes to Denmark, Norway and
Sweden. This diverted supply is what is known as a manufacturing or
baker's fig and does not compete with the California fig as the true Smyrna
does. This state produces from 6,000 to 8,000 tons of figs yearly. The prod-
uct is annually increasin,g by reason of new plantings, so that with normal
imports there should be over 25,000 tons of figs on the market, with a hold
over crop in most years.
While the imports are cut of?, California growers are producing nearly
all the dried figs consumed in the United States, and over fifty percent, of
this crop is raised in Fresno County. It will be several years probably after
the war ceases before the tonnage of import will equal that before the war.
Report is that many fig trees in the foreign centers have been ruined or cut
back for fuel. This would set back their crops for some years, and as the
last two years' crops have been consumed there is no danger of a large accu-
mulation of foreign figs to crowd the American markets after the war.
And while on the subject of. this war there is the interesting circum-
stance that in March, 1918, the University of California rejected all bids
for the fig crop of the Kearney Farm in Fresno, although they ranged near
$23,000 for a crop that theretofore had sold on the trees'for $3,000 to $5,500.
It was probably the first time in history that a producer had refused a price
because it was deemed too high. The university men declared they would
not take advantage of offers that were out of proportion to the value of the
fruit or at least were greatly inflated. There are some 2,100 trees on the
estate practically all on the borders. Some are poor producers, others among
the best in the county. Most of them are the white Adriatics. Some fig crops
in the county were bought up- at thirteen and thirteen and one-half cents a
pound; some even higher.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 211
REVOLUTIONIZING THE GRAPE INDUSTRY
Pomologist George C. Husniann in charge of viticultural investigations
for the United States Department of Agriculture, has made announcement
of successful experiments in currant and table grape varieties that may-
revolutionize the grape industry of the valley. The currant varieties have
been tested on resistant stock and results have been secured to make it
certain that the grape will thrive here. Many vines at the experimental
plot yielded sixty to eighty pounds to the vine and some have gone higher.
Over 50,000,000 pounds of currants from this small grape are imported
yearly, and the Department of Agriculture believes this industry can be
switched to the San Joaquin Valley^ The fruit is said to be a delicious eat-
ing grape, as well as a currant grape, and capable of being shipped to long
distances.
Experiments with the Black Minukka, a large berried, big clustered
seedless grape of the Thompson Seedless family, demonstrated it to be a
good shipping grape. It is said to surpass in flavor nearly all other varieties.
A grape that may supplant the Emperor is the Hunisa. It ripens at about
the same time, packs well and is in keeping and shipping qualities the equal
of any, while better flavored than most. Experiments with this variety have
shown that it will grow in this valley, and should bring greater returns than
the Emperor, which it has almost supplanted in other districts. The belief
is that those varieties combining flavor and quality with shipping capability
will sell best in the eastern markets. Many in the East are disappointed in
Tokays because they lack flavor.
According to the State Agricultural Society, the California dried fruit
industry made noteworthy gains during the year 1915, and the following
figures indicate the magnitude it has attained. The value of all imported
fruit in 1913, including dates, Greek currants and bananas was $32,100,392;
in 1914 $32,235,011 and in 1915 $23,046,778. The largest falling off was in
figs from 20,506,000 pounds to 8,327,000, while olives dropped from 5.743,000
gallons to 3.713,000, indicative that the state crops are becoming large
enough to supply the country's demands without going abroad. Exports
of domestic dried fruits increased from $28,868,000 to $36,924,000, indicating
what strides the horticultural interests are making. Raisin importations
which a few years ago were 40,000,000 pounds have been reduced to 1,604,000,
the lowest on record. Records steadfastly show that imports of raisins have
decreased while exports increased.
Notable changes are in dried apricots from 16,541,000 pounds in 1914
to 25,747,000 in 1915, the bulk going to England. Exports of oranges de-
creased from 1,839,000 boxes to 1,588,000, nearly all of which for the two
years went to Canada. Dried peaches increased from 7,387,000 pounds to
18,720,000. Exports of California prunes increased from 35,228,000 to 50,-
775,000 pounds, 15,677,000 going to England, 10,941,000 to Canada and 18,-
572,000 to other European countries. Exports of raisins make a remarkable
showing in an advance from 16,594,000 pounds for the calendar year of
1913 to'" 2 1,688,000 in 1914 and 58,497,000 during the twelve months of 1915,
demonstrating the results achieved by the California Associated Raisin
Company.
THE RABBIT DRIVE AS A SPORT
The early colony settlers bore up with experiences to try the patience
of the bravest, as in the times of "dry farming," when a band of roaming
cattle would in a few hours over night devastate an entire grainfield. With
budding vines, roofings, sprouting tree cuttings, germinating alfalfa or
grain seed, grasshoppers have swooped down like a cloud and devoured
every vestige of green above ground. The jack-rabbit, with which the coun-
212 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
tr_v was infested, was the most formidable competitor. Bunny was a prolific
breeder, and to reduce the species to save entire crops from destruction the
rabbit drive was a valley conception. Rabbit proof wire fencing, tubular
tree protectors and poison were no protection. The drive was made the
occasion of a popular outpouring and a community recreation, cruel as was
the sport as some classified the drive.
Described in brief the drive required a large wire-screen fenced-in
corral, seven feet high, varying in diameter, the entrance narrow and chute
like, provided with gate and the corral approached by lateral wings spread-
ing half a mile and more in length screened three feet high. Men, women,
children in carriages, vehicles of every description, on horse, afoot, were
started often by the quickstep of a band in a line abreast and with whoop-up
and as much noise as possible moved over the land to be covered, driving
the rabbits in the brush and everything else in front of them in the direction
of the corral. The aim was to continually move forward and to keep the
rabbits before and prevent retreat to the rear of the onmoving line. Excite-
ment ran high as the rabbits were driven between the wings to certain de-
struction, rushing and crowding into the corral, frightened almost to death
by the roar of shouts and yells.
Once driven in in solid living mass, the gate was closed and the indis-
criminate slaughter began in the corral to the accompanying shouts and
noice of the excited populace and the terrified almost hum^n cries of Bunny.
Hundreds committed suicide by rushing against the wire fence and knock-
ing themselves senseless. Corral fence was lined outside with onlooking
busy spectators to knock on the head any rabbit attempting to force an
escape under the wire. The bloody work within the corral was swiftly
accomplished in time. Sometimes the eflfort was made to count the slaughter.
As often it was not. Often the corral and the entrance would be covered
several feet deep with carcasses of dead rabbits. The slaughter was fre-
quently immense. These two-hour drives were attended by hundreds and
even by thousands, exciting as much popular interest at first as the old
time rodeo.
Coyotes, badgers, skunks and other animals were not infrequently
caught in the drive to death. Carcasses were taken away to hogs and chick-
ens, but the greater part was left on the field to be later buried. These drives
had their effect for a time in districts in depopulating the Bunnv tribe. The
destruction of the rabbit as well as that of the ground squirrel was at all
times encouraged. The interests of the farmer demanded it in self preserva-
tion. The encouragement took the form at various periods in five-dollar
bounty for a coyote scalp, five cents on rabbit and ground squirrel and two
cents on gopher, appropriations by the county for wire fencing for com-
munal district drives, extermination by poison and campaign taken up and
conducted on systematic lines by federal authority as a measure against
the spread of bubonic plague and communicable diseases "for the destruction
of agricultural pests serving no known purpose in nature's economic plan."
^^'ith the passing of the years, the rabbit drive as a sport unique in the
San Joaquin Valley was neglected and became almost unknown to the
younger generation. It was with the increase of the rabbits revived on a
comparatively small scale as community afifairs during the 1917-18 season
with the introduction of the farm adviser bureau. A fish packing company
from Monterey was in the field with offer to buy up the carcasses for canning
in_ an expected meat food scarcity by reason of the war. These revived
drives, however, lacked the popular, picturesque and spectacular features of
those of the early days of farming on the plains when they were gala occa-
sions attended by the thousands as on the lines of the rodeos of the
cattle davs.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 213
Romance? The greatest chapter in the stor}' of the state and of the
county is that which tells of the farm and the marvelous transformation
from the mining camp to the farm — the small farm with the certain and
lasting wealth greater than all that was wrung from mine and placer. Nord-
hoff of whom allusion has been made before was enamored of California
even in the infant days of fanning and was amazed with what he beheld
in the big interior valleys, likening the San Joaquin to "a region as rich
as the Nile." Contrasting what he saw in 1871 and what he beheld ten
years later in this valley, he remarked:
"The remarkable change that came about is due to the small farmers,
for it was the}' who year after year discovered what the soil and climate
produced best, perfecting raisin culture, proving the value of the apricot
and prune, the olive, the fig, the orange and lemon, etc., introducing prac-
tically the profitable dried fruit business and bringing alfalfa, the boon of
the small farmer, to its greatest development perfection. This was accom-
plished by the small farmers when they were comparatively few as to num-
bers. They sought at first the plain, because it was the most available place,
instead of the sheltered foothill lands which the grain men had appropriated.
Experience has demonstrated that the settlement of small farmers in colonies
is the ideal condition rather than the scattered individual farms for many
and obvious reasons."
And liis final word to all who might turn their faces toward California
was that it is no country for idlers or "clerks," but "a paradise for men who
will work with their hands, and the better if they will also put brains into
their work."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Possibilities of Cotton Culture in the Valley. Warning is
Given Against a Repetition of the Mistakes After the
Civil War. The Egyptian Variety is Recommended. Fig
Production Will Play an Important Role. Four Varieties
Are of Demonstrated Worth. Currant Grape is Another
Commercial Factor of the Raisin Belt in Competition
With the Old World.
Three new agricultural possibilities are receiving attention in Fresno
County — cotton, fig and currant grape growing, besides the experimenta-
tions with rice and Turkish tobacco. A revival of interest in the possibilities
of cotton culture resulted in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys from
favorable reports of experimental plantings. The idea that cotton could
become an important crop in California has been persistent with the rapid
development of the production in recent vears in the Imperial and Colorado
Valleys.
The warning is given by the Department of Agriculture that the mis-
takes of the ante bellum efforts of the 60's be not repeated. In the period
of high prices following the Civil War, short staple cotton was grown in
commercial quantities in this valley, and importations of Southern negroes
were even made to promote its culture. The eflforts were abandoned as
soon as normal conditions were restored in the southern states. European
war conditions and high prices are making even short staple cotton a prof-
itable Californian crop, but there is little prospect of maintaining a short
staple industry after normal conditions are again restored.
The danger of the direct competition with the south is to be avoided.
Instead of the short staple upland type of cotton of the southern belt, it is
of distinct advantage to the southwestern farmers to plant Egyptian cotton.
214 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
It is adapted to the conditions of the irrigated valleys of Arizona and Cali-
fornia. With cotton as with every other crop, a failure to take account of
differences in varieties may lead to costly failures. The Egyptian differs
from the upland variety as a taller and more slender plant with narrower
leaf-lobes and smaller bolls. This last feature has led southerners to believe
that the yield must be small, whereas the Egyptian often yields very well,
a 500-pound bale or more per acre having been obtained on many farms in
the Salt River Valley of Arizona.
Thirty thousand acres of the Eg^'ptian grown in the valley in 1917
gave a return to the farmers estimated at $5,000,000. Estimates from it and
other valleys indicate that nearly 100,000 acres would be planted in 1918 in
Arizona. The Arizona varieties have been grown not only in the Yuma,
Palo Verde and Imperial Valleys of Southern California, but have been
found well adapted to the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley around
Bakersfield and Fresno, and in 1917 grew and ripened satisfac-
torily at several points in the two great interior valleys. The season may
have been unusually favorable for cotton ripening in the Sacramento Valley.
The scarcity of extra-staple cotton may be appreciated from the fact
that seventy to eighty cents a pound was paid for superior grades of the
Arizona grown Egyptian for which twenty-five cents was considered a good
price.
There were other considerations in this connection, but if the needs
of American manufacturers for cotton of the Egyptian type are to be met by
a home production the call would be for the planting of several hundred
thousands of acres. Experts' figures are that California's central valleys
can produce more cotton to the acre than any other region in the world.
The California yield is 400 pounds per acre with 315 as the next highest
in Virginia for thirteen cotton growing states, and with Texas 157 pounds.
State university experiments at the Kearney Estate are that California
is able because of the climate and the soil conditions and when one kind of
cotton is grown to produce the finest grade outside of Egypt. An influence
working detrimentally in all areas is the diversity of varieties produced.
Cotton cross-pollinates readily and when varieties are grown in the same
community crossing is brought about by wind and insects, causing deteriora-
tion in quantity and quality of yield of each. This has been demonstrated by
conditions in the Imperial Valley, where many varieties are grown so close
together that at this time no superior variety possesses superior quality or
yield.
Agitation of the subject in Fresno has resulted in the formation here
of the California Egyptian Cotton Growers' Association after an unequivocal
declaration in favor of using every effort to confine planting in the central
part of the state to the Egyptian long staple variety and to urge the potential
cotton growers of two valleys to do their own ginning on a cooperative plan.
Quite generally through the San Joaquin the counties passed at the associa-
tion's instance ordinance similar to the one enacted on Washington's Birth-
day, 1918, in Fresno as the first prohibiting the planting of any save Egyp-
tian cotton. Several cotton planting enterprises have been incorporated.
One of them known as the Fresno Liberty Cotton Company will cultivate
1,000 acres of Miller & Lux land near Oxalis on the west side of the county
on both sides of the railroad.
_ One of the very first results of the passage of the Fresno ordinance
limiting character of the planting was an action at law in the federal court
by an Imperial Valley grower attacking the ordinance after a shipment of
short staple cotton staple seed had been seized at Firebaugh for condemna-
tion.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 215
FIG CULTIVATION BOOMING
As the result of a fig institute held in January, 1918, and taking a lesson
out of the book of experience of the raisin, peach and other fruit growers,
the California Fig Growers' Association has been formed in Fresno with
Henry Markarian, a pioneer fig grower as the first president of this latest of
cooperative organizations.
Its objects will be to act as a cooperative marketing agency and as
such set at each season a standard minimum price for the different varieties
of figs to all growers, to plant a Capri fig orchard in a thermal belt of the
San Joaquin as suggested by Mr. Markarian to be maintained by the associa-
tion for early caprification and as a dependable supply source at minimum
cost and eventually to make a better or standard uniform pack of figs, fol-
lowing on the lines that the raisin and peach men are pursuing in their market-
ing of their products. A first step in February was to advance for 1918 the
prices about forty dollars a ton for all varieties on future sales. A fig exhibit
will be made and the suggestion has been favorably received to promote a
California Fig Day similar to the Fresno Raisin Day for the mutual benefit
of growers and consumers.
It is not many years ago that merchants in California and in the East
as well were of the decided opinion that this state would never produce a
fig equal to the imported. The prejudice has been overcome. Figs have
been grown in California for over 100 years. The padres brought them in
the variety that has been named the Mission Black. In later years the
California White Adriatic was introduced and fifteen years ago the Cali-
myrna fig — the name a contraction of California-Smyrna — from Europe
through the efforts of George C. Roeding. From a very small beginning,
with the figs in many cases allowed to go to waste, trees neglected and
principally used for shade, the industry began to be a factor seventeen years
ago when small and indifferent packs were shipped.
During the year 1917 the estimate of W. F. Toomey, mayor of Fresno
and one of the chief fig shippers in the county, is that between 6,500 and
7,000 tons of the three varieties were shipped from this county. The major
part of these was White Adriatic. The frost the year before had greatly
reduced the crop. That the industry will be an important one is not only
evidenced by the fact of thousands of trees being planted but that packing
firms are going into the manufacture of byproducts as fig coffee, fig pulp
or paste used in the making of cake and fig cereal. The 1916 figures present
a fair basis for a comparison between the production of the county and the
state, the production in other sections not showing a great increase while
Fresno's output has increased from 1,500 to 3,000 tons:
Variety. State. Fresno.
White Adriatic 5,000 tons 3,800 tons
Smyrna 600 400
Black Mission 300 100
California produces some 16,000,000 pounds of figs, mostly Adriatics. Be-
fore the European war, there was an importation of 20,000.000 pounds an-
nually mainly of the Smyrna variety. During the next ten years there will
be gradually produced from California fig orchards planted and being planted
an additional 20,000,000 pounds. The optimistic look to see in the next
twentv years a production in California and largely in the vicinity of Fresno
of 100,000,000 pounds and each year better figs and better packed, for it
is argued if the 100,000,000 Americans are going to eat American figs there
must be American methods of growing and of packing and in this connection
the word American means Californian in so far as the fig is concerned.
216 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Of the figs grown in Fresno, "The Garden of the Sun" — as it has been
denominated in the latest slogan officially adopted by the county chamber
of commerce — there are four varieties that have demonstrated their particu-
lar value and merit. The Black Mission is the oldest and most frequently
found under cultivation. It is a heavy producer, particularly desirable for
bakers' use and a good short distance shipper when green. Next comes the
Adriatic, also a heavy producer, of fine appearance and suited to many uses.
The Smyrna is the recognized fig for drying and unsurpassed for packing
qualities. The Kadota is a luscious and golden-yellow-hued fruit whose
strongest recommendation is as a green shipper to most distant continental
markets in refrigerator cars as are grapes and other fruit, arriving in eastern
markets in such fine condition that for two seasons it has commanded prices
ranging from fifteen to fifty cents a pound, meaning from $300 to $1,000 a
ton. It is a favorite for cooking purposes and the fact that no caprification
is required to produce a crop is an important point. When caprified, it is
of size equal to the Sm3'rna, takes on an added appearance for shipping and
is materially improved. The smaller variety of the fig which is about thirty
percent, of the crop is in demand b}' canners and for glace fruit and it lends
itself to the other uses that the fruit is put to.
The J. C. Forkner Fig Gardens are one of the wonders in the process of
the development of the fig in Fresno County — a great fig orchard of 5,000
acres not to be held by a corporation but subdivided for homes and in prepa-
ration for them an adjunct nursery that has 200,000 cuttings growing and
flourishing. The buyer of the land is permitted to plant whichever variety
he chooses. By far the greater majority of the figs planted and to be planted
are the Calimyrna, with 500 acres in the spring of 1919 to the Kadota. The
territory under development is a 10,000-acre tract near the San Joaquin
River, north of the city. It is land that has been slighted and neglected be-
cause it is of the so-called "hog wallow" conformation and lacking as long
claimed depth of soil because the hard pan is so close to the surface, neces-
sitating the use of dynamite in penetrating that hard pan to the soil under-
neath.
An imaginative writer has declared that it required 6.000 years to bring
about a full realization of the fig gardens of Smyrna and at most there are
20,000 acres monopolizing a world's trade. Here on the outskirts of Fresno
City beginning has been made on a great orchard of 5,000 acres, one-fourth
the size and promising of a greater production than that of the old world.
Below the protecting hard pan surface was revealed a stratum of from five
to fifteen feet of soil and analysis has proven it to be ideal for the fig. The
way to this subsoil has to be dynamited and the land of hog wallow knolls
levelled during the first year. During the first year in this planting work
$12,000 worth of dynamite was used. For the second $3,000 worth is being
used monthly. In this plan to plant 5,000 acres, 1,500 have been put in; for
1918 ground is in preparation for 2,000 and for 1919 1,500 with all the prepar-
atory work and -the growing of the serving nursery.
A beginning was made with 10,000 acres of land. Four thousand of
these were sold before conceiving the plan of the 5,000-acre fig garden. The
original idea was to handle the tract as millions of other acres in the state
have been previously subdivided and sold. The fig garden came as a later
inspiration. No nursery would of its own initiative plant 200,000 or even
100,000 fig cuttings because forsooth no nursery in the history of the
state had ever sold 200,000 or 100,000 in a year. No nursery could undertake
this risk. This suggested the adjunct nursery in a frostless, foothill section,
every fig cutting from the 160 acres of Henry Markarian, the pioneer fig
grower, was bought and 500,000 planted and today the day is awaited when
200,000 fig trees will be planted. It is the most marvelous fig nurserv stock
the world has seen. The time is coming when the 5,000 acres will' be fig
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 217
producers and continue to be after many a man, woman and child in the
community will long have been forgotten with the passing of tlie years
for the fig like the olive is of long life. It will be the day when California
through Fresno will be controlling the world's production and market of
the fig.
CURRANT AND SHIPPING GRAPES
Another predicted industry is that of the currant grape and a great
one if taken up on commercial lines by the vineyardists of the San Joaquin
Valley. George C. Husman, pomologist in charge of viticultural investiga-
tion for the United States Department of Agriculture, states as the result
of trials and tests at the government's experimental station at Fresno Vine-
yards Company's property with more than 500 varieties of grapes that it
is no longer an experiment but that the growing of currants as a com-
mercial factor should be vigorously pursued by the growers of the state
and notably in the raisin belt and established as a variety of California's
^orld controlling raisin industry. From Greece, the Zante currant so-called
of commerce has been yearly imported in quantity of 45,000,000 pounds but
now as the result of the war the currant country has become devastated or
neglected and it is the opportunity for the vineyardists to plant currant
grape vines.
There is the important fact that the currant grape may be harvested,
cured and stored for consumption before the harvest of the raisin crop com-
mences. This solves the labor problem as vineyardists may give employ-
ment for months before the Thompson's, Muscats and other varieties are
placed on the trays for sun curing. Testing out the annual incision of the
currant vine to promote the successful setting of the fruit of this variety,
experiments have led up to the quadrupling of the crop on particular vines.
The currant vine will bear within three years and in production will surpass
the Muscat and equal the Thompson and the Sultana.
Attention has also been paid to the development of a real choice produc-
tive variety of table, shipping and storage grapes. Investigation shows de-
cidedly that the higher quality of grapes of better shipping, storage and sell-
ing qualities than those grown for that purpose has been developed and
there is no hesitancy in the declaration that among these varieties are such
as the Ohanez which stands in a class by itself so far as late storage and
keeping qualities are concerned. This is the variety that for so many years
has been so extensively cultivated and imported from the Malaga districts
of Spain, at least 1,600,000 barrels of these grapes packed in cork dust coming
into this country.
The California Wine Association has given the Agricultural Department
a fifty-year lease, with annual renewal, on the experimental property so
that experiments may be undertaken by the government without fear of
molestation before the work is complete.
218 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XXXIX
M. Theo. Kearney, the Man of Mystery in Private Life, the
Autocrat in Public. He Lived in Solitary Grandeur in a
Chateau Without Companion or Friend. As a Personage
He Was Popularly Misunderstood. Yet No Other Rich
Man of the County Has Made a Greater Public Benefac-
tion. Died Unattended on the High Seas. Championed the
Formation of the First Raisin Growers' Association. Sand
Lot Kearney Set Up Claim of Heirship on a First Cousin
Relationship.
Germane to the story of the raisin industry, an important chapter would
deal with the life and public career of M. Theo. Kearney, so notable in the
business activities of the county. He was a remarkable character and per-
sonage. In private life, he was the man of unfathomable mystery. In public
life, he was the autocrat, overbearing, uncompromising- — a very "bull in a
china shop." He died without clearing the mystery of his life that was the
subject of so much discussion and conjecture.
After his death, not even the oldest or most trusted employe could with
certaintv affirm what his age was, nor what his nativity. No man so prom-
inentlv in a public career for a time was so widely known and so little
known also. To suggest that he was an Irishman was to give affront. He
maintained on the rare occasions when it is recalled that he ever let slip
any information concerning his antecedents, that he was Liverpool born
and came with parents to Boston at an early age. In style, comportment
and grooming, he posed as an Englishman, and by many was taken as
one. He lived the life of a crabbed bachelor, without close friend or bosom
confidant, in solitary grandeur in the erected wing of an ambitious chateau
designed after an historical French feudal castle. He died suddenly from
heart trouble on May 26, 1906, at sea in his stateroom on the steamship
Caronia, Europe bound, attended as in life by no friend or sympathizer.
The remains were cremated upon arrival at Queenstown and in time were
received at the Kearney estate, where the metallic box container is the subject
of no one's care, solicitude or reverence but is shifted from here to there
as a thing which for the space it covers is neither useful nor ornamental.
Kearney was either a man of fair lineage, who had a past great dis-
appointment or woe in life to turn him cynical, or he was a parvenu, who
having met with financial success in new surroundings would have it
thought that he was patrician, wherefore silence as to his past was the
safest course to pursue in blocking inquiry, the while living up to the pre-
tension. The fact is that nothing certain is known as to his antecedents, or
early life. His age, birth, and ancestry were never the subject of communion
even with the oldest business associate. His acquaintances — friends he did
not court — never went beyond the cold business relationship. Effort has
been made to weave a romance into his life's history in that his souring
upon the world was in consequence of a disappointment in love. Nobody
knows. No woman ever passed the portals under the tiled roof of his cha-
teau. He was brusquely coarse in withholding invitation to enter when,
chaperoned by male, one visited the well kept flower gardens and spacious
grounds of Kearney Park, also known as the Fruit Vale Estate. So deep
rooted was this antipathy against the sex that never a female servant was
countenanced about Chateau Fresno.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 219
There is one remembered exception of a female guest at the Chateau. It
was the occasion of a theatrical engagement in Fresno of Lily Langtry, "The
Jersey Lily," with whose name that of an heir apparent to the British throne
was once on gossip's tongue. She was Kearney's guest at the Chateau at
lunch. It may have been the time she became, in Federal court in San Fran-
cisco, an American citizeness to take up land near Calistoga. Kearney's equi-
pages in the days of horse-drawn or horseless vehicles were always the very
latest. He himself drove his four-in-hand to town for her and returned her to
her special car, and the town talked about it for days after.
Kearney was ever the well groomed man of fashion. He was a lover
of the beautiful, of the esthetic. He had the means to indulge himself. The
Chateau Fresno Estate and everything about it is proof of his love for the
beautiful, if proof were needed. He loved horses and he was an expert
handler of them. This was his only known leaning in the line of sports.
His equipages were the English drag, high-trap and the four-in-hand tally-ho,
but he was always the solitary driver or rider in the absence of attendant. He
was never credited with knowledge of music yet had a collection of libretti
of the best known operas. His esthetic spirit was reflected in the wall paper
designs of the chateau and in the pictures that hung from the walls, some of
these replica of works of art. and in the furniture and furnishings. Lovely
woman was the theme of most of the pictures. However lowly his own origin,
his surroundings evinced a taste that the most critical could not but approve.
Many a storv has been told of his admiration for and attentions to the
fair sex. His collection of pictures of actresses was a large and interesting
one. Some were autographed. The Jersey Lily's was a prized one. Pictures
mav have been personally presented. More than likelv they were store
purchases of stage beauties and celebrities of the day. Thousands of others
possessed these same photographic creations of Bradley & Rulofson, of Taber,
of Marceau. Coming to Fresno, Kearney had business association credentials
that had he the means then to indulge in the luxury could have given him
entree into the society of the nouveau riches. At the least thej^ brought him
in touch with the jeunesse doree in the mining stock broker and the real es-
tate class. A home in San Francisco he never had. After fortune smiled on
him, he was a frequent visitor to the city and the guest at the most prominent
hostelry there or at Calistoga Springs or at Del Monte on vacations.
He may have had renewed social yearnings in his later days. It was not
at all impossible to have made the acquaintanceship of stage celebrities. The
possession is readily explainable of the photographs in his day of such stage
divinities as Lily Langtry, of Adelaide Neilson most beautiful of Juliets (pic-
ture was, in fact, taken after her death out of her book), of Alice Dunning
Lingard, stunning English beauty, who, with her sister, Dickie, popularized
"Tlie Two Orphans," French melodrama in San Francisco : of Fanny Daven-
port and Ada Rehan as Daly's comedy leading ladies, of Clara Morris, emo-
tional actress, of Alice Oates, comic opera singer; of Ida Scott Siddons, loveli-
est of dramatic readers, but lacking the genius of her theatrical ancestress,
Sarah Siddons, greatest English actress of her day and times; of Bella Bate-
man, Elbe Wilton and Belle Chapman cf the old California Theater Stock
Company; of Kate Castlcton, the bewitching, of the "For Goodness' Sake,
Don't Say I Told You" song of the little Quakeress; of Helene Modjeska
(Countess Bozenta), Polish and English speaking tragedienne, and of a host
of others, whose pictures might have been found on the dresser of the man of
fashion.
European travel, no doubt, polished of? some of Kearney's western
rough edges and at Bad Nauheim and on the transatlantic voyages undoubt-
edly he met personages of rank, station and gentle breeding to account for
his numbered and labeled photographic collection. He was himself included
in some of the pictured groupings. He had one photograph of the German
royal familv with the ex-kaiser as the central figure. This is not to inti-
220 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
mate that he hob-nobbed with royalty, even though the ex-kaiser was very
liberal with his autographed photos.
He lived a life of solitary grandeur, sitting majestically alone at table,
wearing out his heart in this strange sequestered existence, without friend
or companion, and playing the grand role of cynic and misanthrope, sur-
rounded by the luxuries that wealth commanded, and amassing a valuable
estate with not a relative in the world to bequeath it to upon death. There
was a tragic solemnity in his singular life. It was given a farcical turn
when after his death, Dennis Kearney, he of the San Francisco sandlot
agitation days, came forward to claim heirship on a pretended first cousin
relationship with no more apparent basis for the assertion than his own
self-serving statements. Right here, be it noted that M. Theo. Kearney pro-
nounced his name "Karney." and took oiifense and petulantly corrected who-
soever ignorantly addressed him as "Kurney." Dennis Kearney, who passed
away at Alameda in April the year after, and before death assigned formally
to a married daughter his inheritance claims, asserted under oath that the
real name of his kinsman was jNIichael Timothy Kearney. This heirship
claim was effectually disposed of at an early stage on a petition for a partial
distribution of the estate. The decision was sustained on the appeal taken
by the daughter after her father's death, so that the disposition of the Fruit
Vale Estate was as contemplated by the testator.
Cold and impartial history must record that no man in Fresno County
was more generally and cordially disliked — hated is perhaps too strong a
term — than was M. Theo. Kearney, as he signed his name. This he was
cognizant of. It may have been one reason for his reclusive existence. May-
be, it was a reason for ofifering' himself sacrificially on the commercial altar
as a martyr in the cause of the raisin men. Mayhap, it was a moving cause
for his bequest to the people of the state in amelioration of the past, and
yet how otherwise could he have disposed of it, in view of his disinheritance
of any legal heir, if living? Nobody knows. At any rate, there was no
change in the attitude and bearing of the man during life, so that it is a
question whether he was actuated in either act by placating motives. At
home in Fresno, he was not known socially, never was seen at a social
function, or even at a place of public amusement. It is doubtful whether he
had the entree to one private home. His acquaintances were limited by
choice apparently to business connections. He was a frequent business
visitor to San Francisco and known at the principal hotel, but his life there
was as sequestered as at the chateau.
And yet after his death and after his will was made public, men had
one considerate, charitable word for him. That will condoned sins of omis-
sion and commission of the past. In the history of Fresno, of all the
rich men that have died, none has made such a princely public gift as did
M. Theo. Kearney, the man from whom it was the least expected. In that
will, he bequeathed everything to the Regents of the University of Cali-
fornia with the direction that the Fruit Vale Estate be created a station to
be called the "Kearney Experimental Station" as an adjunct of the College
of Agriculture in accordance with views embodied by him in a document
in the possession of his attorney. The estate has been distributed in accord-
ance with the will to the regents, and with their entering into possession
in trust for the state one large asset item was stricken from the county
assessment roll.
When the regents were considering establishing an agricultural branch
college in the north central part of the state and were asking for site dona-
tions, Kearney offered 180 acres of his estate gratis to secure the location
for Fresno as the typical irrigation district. The offer was declined and the
branch was located at Davisville in Sacramento County. Great was the
local chagrin. In time the state came in not for a part of the estate as a gift.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 221
but for all of it as a bequest. It has not been executed in the establishment
of the branch college and consequently there has been newspaper and public
ill-considered and unjust criticism, with the insinuation that the regents
have diverted the income from the Fresno property to equip, improve and
maintain the other establishment. The truth is that in round numbers the
estate has a valuation of about one million, was indebted for a quarter of a
million and has a yearly income of about $50,000. The regents have made
many improvements, notably expending over $25,000 in a tile drainage sys-
tem for the reclamation scientifically of an alkalized section of land, and
cleared the estate of debt, besides continuing all its activities.
The cold truth is that after cost of maintenance the estate does not
provide an endowment fund sufificient to establish the college with build-
ings, faculty, laboratories, apparatus and all the necessaries for an institu-
tion such as the landed gift warrants and contemplates, while at the same
time making use of that land with a management and retinue of laborers to
continue the revenue. The condition of the accepted trust that the branch
be called the "Kearney Experiment Station" would probably preclude other
philanthropically minded making an endowment to help perpetuate the name
and memory of a man with whom the later donor was in no wise associated,
or to aid with gift an enterprise that may not appeal to him as strongly as
it did the originator. The least, however, that the regents could have done
in these years would have been to give the box of ashes prominent entomb-
ment on the grounds with a monument in memory of the man in recognition
of his gift to promote the science of agriculture.
In the later years of his life, it was the annual summer practice of Mr.
Kearney to journey to Europe to take treatment of the medical waters at
Bad Nauheim in Germany. He left on his last journey on May 9, 1906, and
the news of his death at sea was received on the 29th, three days after
the fact. He was a sufferer from cardiac trouble and subject to attacks of
heart failure. Fle was in San Francisco during the fire and earthquake in
April but escaped from the scene of destruction in his automobile.. Out-
wardly calm and imperturbable, which was his characteristic bearing, the
general excitement undoubtedly aggravated his ailment. He was aged about
sixty, claimed to have been born in Liverpool a fact not disclosed by a
searching examination of the parish birth records, was probably of Irish
parentage, and asserted American citizenship by virtue of his father's natu-
ralization of which there was no proof. In politics he took so little interest
that it is doubtful whether he ever registered to vote.
According to affidavits filed in a threatened contest of the will dated at
Chateau Fresno Park November 1, 1905, the family came to Boston to live
and there presumably he attended the common schools. The story is that
the father was a victim of drink, that the family was at times in semi desti-
tution, an older brother died, and the mother's death followed from a broken
heart, in short that early in life he was left in the world without kith or kin.
The wretched death of his father and the sorrows of his home life so im-
pressed him that fearful of falling into the habit by inheritance he signed
the pledge as an abstainer from liquor.
M. Theo. Kearney may be said to have been a good theoretical and'
speculative business man, but he lacked the qualifications to make a success-
ful executive. He was a forceful and terse writer, showing that he had a
good elementary education but nothing more. In all his writings and pub-
lished appeals, addresses and raisin association arguments and discussions
is an utter lack of historical, literary or scientific allusion or quotation save
the most commonplace and familiar. A man of aiTairs supervising large un-
dertakings, he was no bookkeeper. Until his appearance in San Francisco
in the earlv 70's as a clerk with W. S. Chapman, whose name recalls the
earliest large Fresno land speculative operation, there is a long unfilled
222 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
gap in Kearney's life from the days in Boston. Evident that his business
connections in San Francisco gave him some standing in the community in
a secondary capacity, there is proof of his efifort "to break into society,"
and of not infrequent vacation visits to the fashionable watering and sum-
mer resorts of the day. His coming to Fresno was in 1873 or 1874 and his
arrival on a rainy night has been recalled as that of a dapper young fellow
in a long duster and carrying a hand satchel, unknown, unacquainted but
backed by self assurance and good credentials. He was profitably associated
with Chapman in the sale of a tract on the San Joaquin, and through this
connection was appointed about 1877 agent of the Bank of California in the
sale of a 2,S00-acre subdivision of the Easterby rancho.
Some years elapsed before he came through some speculative arrange-
ment into possession of 3,000 acres of what became the Fruit Vale Estate,
ten miles west of Fresno townsite, put it under irrigation and in time sold
about one-half of the acreage to settlers under cast-iron contracts to improve
and plant the land, conditionally upon forfeiture of everything in case of
delinquency in installment payments, with twelve percent, compound in-
terest on deferred payments. The highly improved and beautified estate
domain embracing 5,182 acres is approached from the city at the western
terminus of Fresno Street by Kearney Boulevard, an eleven-mile-long wind-
ing triple driveway, lined and shaded with palms, alternate white and red
flowering oleanders, pampas grass clumps and eucalyptus trees. It is a
show driveway over which every visitor is taken to view Kearney Park on
sight-seeing tours. This boulevard Mr. Kearney in his life-time donated to
the county as a public thoroughfare for which gift the populace gave him
scant thanks or credit. The boulevard is advertized as one of the attrac-
tions of Fresno and has been compared with pride to the Alameda, San
Jose's famous driveway.
The estate comprises 250 acres in a central park surrounding the
chateau, fifty acres in oranges, twenty-five in olives. 850 in Muscat grapes,
4,000 in alfalfa, and also a dairy farm. At the main entrance of the park
stands a castellated lodge. The Chateau Fresno project was never completed
because of his precarious health, though plans with that end in view were
under consideration at the time of his death, ^^'ith his solitary life, the
necessity for enlarging the structure, or even the reason for its original
conception, are not apparent. It was perhaps only a rich man's folly or whim.
During the panic of 1893 many of the land buyers defaulted in their
payments. Kearney enforced the forfeiture clause, increased his holdings
by seizing possession of the lands and improvements of the purchasing ten-
nantry, held on to every cent of money payments made, foreclosed mort-
gages, enriched himself and turned the unfortunates out of home and living,
bankrupt, whether man of family or single, widow or maid. He was con-
sistent in making no distinctions. The feeling of bitterness against him was
intense and general, and he was execrated and ostracised. He enforced for-
feitures through the courts and was sustained. Shylock like, he demanded
what was his, even though to the pound of flesh, and the courts awarded it,
for was it not so nominated in the bond? Yet such same Shylock contracts
are enforced today in all lines of business and excite no longer even ripple
or murnisr of comment. They were yet new in his time, but heartless was
the manner of their enforcement to fatten on the misfortune of others. In
cited cases the victim was inveigled by fair promises to mortgage to make
improvements, hence the execration. The Kearney Vineyard Company was
incorporated about 1900 and efifort was made to float the shares in Europe,
but no sales were made.
Kearney's public career begins with the organization of the first Cali-
fornia Raisin Growers' Association. He was prominent as an advocate in
the long agitation and campaign resulting in its formation. The growers
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 223
hailed him as the Moses to lead them to the promised land of a stable market
and good prices. In the formation of the association, his pooling plan was
given preference over T. C. White's capitalization scheme on a basis of a
minimum two and one-half cents per pound. Fifty percent, of the acreage
signed up in the pool, and on June 4th the association was organized with
M. Theo. Kearney (President), T. C. White, Louis Einstein, W. S. Porter,
Robert Boot, L. S. Chittenden and A. L. Sayre as directors. In the be-
ginning it had general support and hopeful stability was given an industry
which without organization had carried the grower to the ragged edge of
financial despair. So notable was the early financial success that it was the
boast that growers paid off mortgages as never before in years, and general
were the prosperity, good feeling and better times brought on through co-
operation.
In time differences developed as to policies, intolerance of opposition
and clashes in opinions created factions of Kearneyites and .\nti-Kearney-
ites, and this warfare continued through the life of the association pool,
fostered by the commercial packers in opposition to it, and led ultimately
to its undoing. In this unfortunate state of affairs, Kearney displayed often
the characteristics that so marked him in his business relations and asso-
ciations with his fellow men. He petulantly resigned to enforce his con-
tentions without, however, ceasing to serve, and at another time refused or
declined to serve, the while remaining in office, though no longer persona
grata. The public, fickle as a drab, shouted for him at one time, cried him
down at another. One year it hooted him out of the assembly hall dishon-
ored and repudiated at the close of his term ; the very next year it acclaimed
him joyfully and almost unanimously reelected him to the directorate. It
was declared that he must truly have been of Irish blood for to fight was
his nature, and he was never more urbane than when embroiled.
His character was such, however, as to brook no opposition, scorning
the best meant advice and refusing pacific compromise measures, once he
had set his mind on a purpose and plan. He had in the time of success a
large following that regarded him as the one man in the raisin business
that was in experience and temperament most peculiarly fitted to cope with
the presented details of the situation. He was haughty, imperious and arbi-
trary. He exhibited a frigid friendship for him that could aid or whose
services he was in need of: he had no consideration but contempt for him
that opposed him and took no pains to conceal the fact. He was skilful as
a politician but by methods the reverse of the usual artifices of the politician.
He antagonized instead of placating many helpful agencies in the unsigned
growers, in the commercial packers and in the banking interests, so that a
continual warfare was maintained, the factional strife became bitter and
personal, and the end was the desertion and disruption of the association.
It will not be denied that Kearney was the first leading grower and citizen
to awaken the raisin grower to the need of associated cooperation and to
present a practical working plan that more judicially operated would have
been successful but for his intolerance of the opinions of others, an exag-
gerated estimate of his own importance and a rasping domination in attempt-
ing to bring to bear ftpon business associates the same arrogance that marked
his relations with hired dependents on the estate.
Said it has been that Kearney died of a broken heart over the monu-
mental failure of his raisin association. What was his own opinion of that
failure and his ill-requited efforts? Fortunately he left the answer to the
question in a written memorandum that after his death was found among his
effects. This incomprehensible cynic had penned the following words:
224 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
When the time comes to write my epitaph, the following might
well be copied:
WARNING.
Here lies the body of M. Theo Kearney, a visionary who
thought he could teach the average farmer, and, particularly, the
raisin grower, some of the rudiments of sound business manage-
ment. For eight years he worked strenuously at his task, and at
the end of that time, he was no farther ahead than at the beginning.
The effort killed him. M. THEO. KEARNEY.
The same spirit tinged his will. It was drawn by one of the most skilful
lawyers, and the one he most trusted in the delicate legal questions con-
nected with the raisin association. For one who had ever maintained that
he had no kin in the world, he was scrupulously careful that no part of his
estate should by any manner of means revert to any legal heir, if one sur-
vived. The bequest to the state was in entirety, but he made also a saving
disposition of it as a trust, in the event that it be held that the first con-
travened the code section against bequeathing more than two-thirds to char-
itable or eleemosynary institutions. The court ruling was that the state uni-
versity was not an institution coming under this category. To the woman
who could prove to be a legal wife he left fifty dollars and to any legal
heir a dollar each, and then there was the additional specific clause directing
that it was his desire that no portion of his estate go to legal heirs, if any
there were living.
Dennis Kearney claimed to have known him as a cousin in San Fran-
cisco since 1869, when he (Dennis) was a steamship dock foreman. He told
a story that the relationship had been acknowledged in mutual confidences
and he gave it an amusing variant in reciting that their recognition and
acquaintance grew out of a proposed duel that M. Theo. Kearne}' and Captain
Floyd, steamship dock superintendent, were to have had over a girl that
both were courting. Dennis Kearney said that he was approached to arrange
the details for the duel on the deck of the old steamship John L. Stephens,
but that it "ended in smoke" by reason of his friendly intervention in behalf
of his cousin. This narrative was so laughingly improbable that no one ever
took it seriously in any part. No detail of it was corroborated in the most
remote degree by any offer of proof.
Recalling the haughty bearing of M. Theo. Kearney, carried to the degree
of superciliousness, it would have been wormwood and gall and an unbear-
able humiliation to have been saddled with the equality of first cousinship
with the beetle-browed, furtive-eyed and foul mouthed agitator of the sand
lot days in San Francisco in the late 70's, and in the 80's.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XL
The Litigious Side of the Raisin Business. Delivery Rejec-
tions ON A Falling Market. Pettit's Long Fight as the
Lmpoverished Seeder Machine Inventor. Early Efforts to
Work Up a Trade in the Hand Turned Out Product. His
Assigned Patent is Held Up as the Pioneer Against In-
fringement, Though Anticipated Theoretically. Forsyth
Pre-seeding Process is Rejected as Lacking Novelty.
Liquidation of First As.sociation Lags in the Courts for
Six Years.
Quadrennial presidential contests or periodical "wet and dry elections" are
apparently subjects of relatively minor moment in drawing out local news-
paper discussion and in exciting popular interest and comment in Fresno
County at least, compared to the recurrent campaigns of education for the
formation of a raisin growers' association when there has been none, or to
prolong the chartered life of an incorporated one by the signing up of a
controlling percentage at time of expiring old contracts. The success or
failure in marketing a year's crop of the leading specialty is regarded as a
barometric gauge of the prosperity or lack of it in the community, and every
one has come to believe that he is personally affected in pocket in conse-
quence.
The raisin is, to be sure, a big subject in Fresno, and being so it has
been a fruitful source of litigation. Its history would be incomplete without
allusion to that phase, now practically closed and determined as to disputed
questions as were the many problems that grew out of the introduction of
irrigation. The oil period is also marked by litigation that is being threshed
out to a finality in the federal courts. Land titles were never a prolific source
of litigation as in other counties as the result of conflicting and loosely
awarded Spanish grants. There was only one notable grant in the county,
^that of the Laguna de Tache, and its title was fully determined before the
time of selling to settlers.
Before the days of an organized raisin industry, and during the intervals
when it was in chaotic state, differences between grower and packer, who
purchased and marketed his product, were frequent. The disputes were most
conspicuous as to number during periods of a falling market. Contracts were
repudiated, deliveries declined, and product rejected, wherefore litigation
followed mostly on the part of the grower to enforce contract. An easy
method was afforded for repudiation and rejection under the contract itself
in that the product was not merchantable because not properly cured, the
grapes had been picked too green or too ripe, or had been in the rain, had
not been properly cared for afterward and had mildewed or had become
sanded. Rejections on a falling market were so common that the grower
had no guarantee under his contract, and no wonder the relations between
the parties were strained.
Trials of this class of cases involved mainly expert testimony on both
sides as to the condition of the product, and preponderance of reliable, dis-
interested witnesses. The general history of this litigation shows the grower
as favored in the results, for if need be on a falling market few would have
been the crop deliveries that would have passed the e.xpert and exacting
fault finder. In a later phase when the packer in turn had "combined," the
attack was directed against the contracts but herein again the trend of de-
226 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
cisions favored the grower and in an appealed test case the supreme court
laid down the law and this litigious field became barren. As in accident cases
against corporations, the general demand was for a trial by jury in these
raisin and dried fruit cases.
The seeded raisin machine patent was the subject of long, complicated,
exasperating and costly litigation with two important results — to uphold the
Pettit patent against various infringements and to rule in favor of the
independents and against the United States Consolidated Seeded Raisin Com-
pany, popularly called the "High Five," in control of the Pettit patent, that
the pre-seeding process of the dried berry is not patentable because lacking
novelty. The story of the case of George Pettit Jr. against William Forsyth
(both dead) instituted in August, 1900, is the old one of many a notable
creation in that the inventor enjoyed few if any of the results from the child
of his brain, while others who secured by fair or other means control of
the mechanism reaped the benefit and enriched themselves.
SEEDER INVENTOR PETTIT IN COURT
The Pettit-Forsyth case bufTetted along in the courts for ten years on
the sea of litigation before the supreme court granted a rehearing in July,
1910, on the decision of the appellate tribunal upholding the judgment in
favor of Pettit, but it was also the step that ended the litigation with pay-
ment of the judgment in April, 1911, of $9,111 on the verdict of jury in
October, 1907 for $15,200 from which $7,581.76 was afterward remitted on
the theory that the stock shares lost to Pettit were not of par value at the
time. Case hung fire so long before coming to trial because as Pettit repre-
sented in affidavit he was too poor to prosecute it, procure the evidence or
engage an attorney to take it up, and that when he found himself in Decem-
ber, 1898, "frozen out" of his interest he was "high and dry" financially and
at the age of fifty-three compelled to earn a living as a day laboring mechanic.
It was in 1894-95 that Pettit, John D. Spromer and Walter G. Hough
experimented with the first raisin seeding machine. Associated as the Pioneer
Seeded Raisin Mills with one hand operated machine they made efforts
to place its product on the market through large grocers in New York and
Brooklyn, in which last named city they were operating. It was according
to all accounts a discouraging experience for the man whom the courts
have declared to be the originator of the raisin seeder as a physical creation
theoretically, mechanically and commercially, and who but for the ending
of the litigation when it did in California was drifting helplessly on the
current of poverty towards the Fresno poorhouse. Having completed their
first seeder so that it would operate, they took their product to New York
wholesale grocers, notably Austin & Nichols and Francis H. Leggett, to
handle it for sale. Their appeal was in vain. It was not believed that
the raisins were seeded mechanically, the seeded raisin was unheard of,
the thing was a pretense and a fraud and they met with absolutely no
encouragement.
Retail grocers and bakers in New York and Brooklyn were tried with
no better success, for who had ever heard of a machine seeded raisin? The
offers to leave the new product on trial and make no charge were even de-
clined, but when forced on and sold, which was not frequent, a small order
would be the result. An artificial demand was created, notably through the
largest retail house in Brooklyn, Lockett & Son on Fulton Street. The
women friends of the seeders were sent for two or three days to the store to
inquire for the Pioneer brand of seeded raisins, and thus attention was drawn
to the article. The result was an order for a case, and Lockett & Son became
ultimately one of the big customers of the pioneers. The retailers and bakers
of New York were importuned and Pettit's son made the round of the baker-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 227
ies on Third Avenue from one end to the Harlem bridge talking up the new
article. The bakers were the first to take it up and give commercial en-
couragement, and in one year was worked up quite a little trade in twenty-
five pound boxes. The raisin was used in cake making and the seeded proved
a great saving in time and labor for the girls who stoned by hand.
Efforts such as these continued during the fall of 1894 and the spring
of 1895 and until about August of that year when such a promising trade
among the retailers and bakers was worked up that Austin & Nichols took
notice, wrote apologizing for their first scant courtesy and undertook to
handle the product on a larger scale. Pettit asserted that with this first
seeded machine the product was of better quality than the later because the
operators were part of the working mechanism. It was driven by hand
power, and if fed a little too fast or not sufficiently the effect was apparent
and the operation gauged accordingly. It took two men to operate the first
machine, Spromer and Pettit alternating in turning the operating crank,
not having the means to install power and apply it. According to the evi-
dence, the first machine seeded raisins were thus put out in June, 1894,
and the Fruit Cleaning Company of Brooklyn, the first competitor, put out
its product in 1895, but as also claimed it did not compare, the Brooklynites
not seeding as well and undertaking to process the raisins with flour, after
seeding to prevent them sticking together but producing a pasty stuff that
would not sell as readily.
It was in December, 1895, before a pound of raisins had been seeded
in Fresno, that Pettit and Spromer became acquainted with Forsyth in New
York. As the result three contracts were entered into, the Forsyth Seeded
Raisin Company was subsequently incorporated in Fresno and of the original
stock 167 shares were issued to Pettit, reduced in time by change in capitali-
zation and by reason of other causes to 152 in April, 1899. They were then
sold for nonpayment of an assessment of six dollars per share and Pettit
was at the end of his resources, bereft of whatever corporate interest he
ever had, and with a change of management left without employment from
which he had been unceremoniously dismissed under the new regime under
A. Gartenlaub. Claiming that he had been literally "frozen out" of his in-
terest, Pettit sued for the par value of the 152 shares at $100 each and non-
assessable according to one of the three contracts entered into.
These stipulated that for money advanced and to be advanced Pettit
and Spromer were to devote three years to build and improve seeding ma-
chines for which application for a patent was later made. Hough dropped
out of the combination early and Spromer later, Pettit coming out in the
summer of 1896 to Fresno to install machines and superintend their opera-
tion. He and Spromer were to receive one-third of the 1,000 shares of the
incorporation, the shares to be non-assessable and Forsyth by one of the
contracts agreeing to protect Pettit in this regard. The third agreement was
for Pettit's employment at $1,200 a year. It is needless to follow up all the
ramifications of the case, because it is sufficient that the verdict of the jury
was in favor of Pettit after a presentation of all his claims and the judg-
ment as reduced was in the end paid after all patience and the delays of the
law had been exhausted.
Forsyth claimed that the business was not remunerative at the outset,
that he expended from $8,000 to $10,000 in experimenting with pre-seeding
processes, that Pettit's undoing was due to his own lack of business foresight,
that he hvpothecated his shares and thus lost them and that in his pioneering
raisin seeding he (Forsyth) financially embarrassed himself and that he met
with hcavv losses as when packing house and machines were consumed in a
great fire that swept almost every raisin and fruit packing house on Raisin
Row on the line of the railroad reservation.
228 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Forsyth died in May 1910 and his estate was valued at much less than
he was rated popularly in his life time. He had been conspicuous in the
raisin and business world as the pioneer commercial seeder, as the owner
of a vineyard which with age however had retrograded and having in large
part been uprooted was replanted to citrus fruit, and as the owner one time
of the Forsyth building, the first constructed in the city of the modernized
large office structures, originally tenanted as apartment rooms. Pettit sur-
vived him and in his closing years did not suffer so acutely the pressing pinch
of poverty. With his experiences of the past, he embraced Socialistic prin-
ciples and at one time was actually a candidate of that faction for a municipal
office. The judgment money that came to him in the end — and he readily
accepted the reduced award on the theory that half a loaf is better than
none — was after settlement with his lawyers improvidently invested in lots
and in the erection of a house far in excess of his temporal needs and require-
ments. The story was circulated and generally accepted that in consideration
of his aid and evidence in support of the patent litigation in the infringement
cases, A. Gartenlaub financed Pettit in the suit against Forsyth and thus made
it possible to continue the long fight. In the patent cases, the testimony of
Pettit was of the first importance and he gave it in several depositions.
So ended this chapter in the story of the raisin industry litigation.
PRE-SEEDING PROCESS NOT PATENTABLE
From Forsyth the Pettit patent passed into the ownership of the U. S.
Consolidated Seeded Raisin Company. The industry had become a great and
valuable one. Ownership of patent gave a virtual monopoly. Many were
•the infringements on the basic idea of the operating mechanism to evade
payment of royalty on every pound of raisins seeded. Litigation was fruitful
as between corporate interests in the federal courts with the Consolidated
as the complainant controlled by Gartenlaub, the leading spirit in the com-
bination and the owner of a governing interest. In Gartenlaub centered for
a time the commercial manipulation of the raisin industry. It was in June
1910 that U. S. Circuit Judge Wellborn rendered decision in the suit against
the Selma Fruit Company, tried nearly three years before, toppling in a heap
half of the claims for the exclusive right to seed raisins. His ruling was that
the process of preparing raisins for seeding under the patent secured by
Forsyth some 15 years Ijefore is not patentable because it lacked novelty,
having been used in the treatment of other fruits long before it was applied
to the raisin.
The decision was regarded as a victory by the independent packers,
a dozen or more, who were not under control of the High Five combine and
resisted paying tribute to it in royalties. With the advance of the seeding
industry, the Consolidated, popularly known as the Seeded Trust, had gained
control of the Pettit seeding patent, but various other seeders had been in-
vented claiming not to be infringements. Rather than meet the issues on a
test of every alleged infringement, another tack was tried and a first test
was on the processing patent — the Forsyth process as it was known — said
process being employed on whatever seeding machine used. If the Con-
solidated could maintain the validity of the process patent, it could effectually
control seeding of raisins and maintain its monopoly. This process was an
alternating heating and chilling of the raisins to separate the meat from the
seeds so as to efifect the mechanical elimination of the latter without the
bruising or tearing of the berry skin. For years in the original Forsyth plant,
this process was guarded from curious eyes, and only trusted employes were
permitted to gain knowledge of the secret.
PETTIT SEEDER PATENT UPHELD
Four months after the process decision or in October 1910, the U. S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of the Consolidated against the Kings
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 229
County Raisin and Fruit Company made its ruling on the merits of the con-
troversy upholding the Pettit patent and decided that being a ]>irineer inven-
tion the letters patent are entitled to a liberal construction. In this case it
was contended that there was theoretically in existence a iMccnling seeding
process known as the Crosby patent, but the court held that even so it did
not detract from the Pettit patent. The decision was a big victory for the
trust as emancipation from it would be only in the invention of a non-infring-
ing fruit seeding machine as covered by Letters Patent No. 619,693 issued
February 14, 1899, for the Pettit creation. The Crosby patent was No. 56,721
for an improved raisin seeder and issued July 31, 1866. The differences in the
two devices are described in the decision which then recited :
"The Crosb)' invention undoubtedly anticipated and described the whole
theory of the Pettit patent, but it does not appear ever to have been put
to use and there is no evidence that a^^y niachine was ever constructed under
it. It is one thing to invent the theory of a machine. It is quite another thing
to invent a successfully operating machine. A third of a centiny passed be-
tween the date of that patent and the date of the Pettit patent, and in that
time the evidence is conclusive that raisin seeding was done by hand and
that seeding by machinery was an unknown art. The Pettit machine was the
first to go into very extensive and successful use. ... It would seem that
it (the Crosby) was one of those unsirccessful and abandoned machines which
are held to have no place in the art to which they relate."
It is needless to enter into other considered particulars, so sweeping was
the decision on this one point.
FIRST RAISIN ASSOCIATION LIQUIDATION
Not often is it that a considerable percentage of a particular industrial
population of a county is haled into court as in September 1905 when the suit
was brought by the California Raisin Growers' Association against Andrew
L. Abbott and 2,800 other defendants for an accounting of the proceeds from
the sales of the 1903 raisin crop in liquidation of the affairs of the combine.
The suit was in the courts until September 1911 when the last 600 overpaid
appellants abandoned further fight and final judgments were entered up to
close the case. Never has there been a case in the Fresno courts with so
many individuals involved as defendants. Not all the judgments were realized
upon on execution, but speaking generally as the result of the long litigation
and receivership about sixty per cent, was realized on the face value of the
claims by the 1903 season raisin contract signers.
The suit was not alone for an accounting for the individual but also for
a distribution of the assets and a refund of excess payments made to particu-
lar signers and for payment to those underpaid. Judge G. E. Church of the
Superior court tried the case and ordered judgment in April 1908 on the
accounting taken by Walter S. Johnson as referee. Some had received no
returns or only partial returns on the 1903 crop sales and others had to refund
excess advance on the three cents selling price before the market broke that
vear to accelerate the association's lingering death. The gross deliveries by
signed growers were for that year 95,014,195 pounds: net 92,435,066, the
sales amounting to $3,926,220.22, though the total money judgments involved
exceeded that sura. The association directors at the dissolution of the pool
were : Robert Boot, A. L. Sayre, A. V. Taylor, D. D. Allison and T. C. White.
The appeal from Church's decision was passed upon in August 1911. The
main controversy on the appeal was whether or not the association was a
trust and monopoly in restraint of trade, the contracts made with it void
therefore, and that having made unlawful payments in advances for deliveries
it could not maintain suit to recover them as it had originated the contract.
The association contended that at suit bringing for the dissolution it was
no longer in active operation and the action was to determine property rights
in a fund on hand, independent of how acquired, and that in the acquiring
230 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of it as mutually agreed upon no wrong was committed against the general
public or in restraint of trade. The decision was to find nothing in the record
or in the evidence that the association was engaged in a conspiracy in restraint
of trade to arbitrarily fix prices or to exclude raisins from packing houses
not signed up to it.
The appellants who numbered some 600 who had received excess advances,
abandoned further proceedings after the decision of August 1911, sustaining
the lower court and delivered by Justice Melvin, concurred in by Justices
Henshaw and Lorigan. The point on which the decision turned was the
special defense that the association was conceived as a monopoly in restraint
of trade and therefore that its contracts were not enforcible. But in this
regard the decision was that the most that can be claimed with reference to
the guilty knowledge of the raisin growers that the association was trying to
form a monopoly was a published statement, which was admitted, that it was
determined to secure eighty-five per cent, of the year's production. "But
granting that those who delivered raisins knew of this design," said the de-
cision, "that fact alone would not prevent them from recovering the full value
of their merchandise, or from participating in the distribution."
In the existing share owned capitalized association, the pitfalls of the
past have been avoided, and success has followed the broader and better or-
ganized plan of a cooperative enterprise to create a demand and market for
the raisin, to undertake the packing of the product in leased, purchased or
erected establishments, and to act for the grower as a general sales agent to
the best advantage and profit.
CHAPTER XLI
Few of the Rich Have Out of Their Bounty Given to the
People. Frederick Roeding, M. Theo. Kearney and William
J. Dickey Have Made the Most Notable Beneficences. The
Second Named of These Willed to the State a Princely
Estate for an Agricultural Experiment Station. Dr.
Lewis Leach is Remembered as a Prominent and Note-
worthy Personage in the History of the County as Well
as of the City. Frank H. Ball Made Large Bequests to
Public Institutions.
The history of the county and of the City of Fresno is a subject so vast in
scope and covers such a stretch of time that it is hopeless in a work of the
present character to elaborate on all entitled to notice, either because of
picturesque or successful careers, or achievements and positions in public
or private life.
There were not lacking those that rounded successful careers ; there were
others that flashed like meteors, made lurid showing and pretense and ended
in sputter; and too many were there that never arose above the common-
place, even with all the opportunities that surrounded them in a new country.
None deserved more at the hands of Fortune than the earliest pioneers ; none
were more shabbily rewarded in the end. The experience is not singular to
Fresno.
Looking back, it has been often commented upon how few of the rich
have out of their plenty made public bequest or gift for educational, artistic,
benevolent or religious purpose. The earliest recorded exception is Dr. Lewis
Leach to erect in unfrequented and almost forgotten spot a costly monument
to mark the grave of his picturesque business associate. But he did this in
life. Later in 1910, Fulton G. Berry made in his will Iiequest for a monument
to recall "The Father of Irrigation."
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 231
The man in the county who made the greatest public benefaction was
one of whom it must be said he was in life also the one the least esteemed
by that public and whose unheralded coming has been recalled as of a young
man stepping ofi" a belated train at night, dressed in flapping linen duster,
grip in hand and rich in nothing save self-assurance. It was in 1906 that
M. Theo. Kearney, leaving no kin or kith, gave his princely estate to the
State of California through the University of California for an agricultural
experimental farm. That university has not even acknowledged the munifi-
cent gift or honored him by giving the metallic box containing his ashes a
place of sepulture marked by memorial stone or tablet. He was a strange
character, misunderstood in life, his memory nnhonored after death save
through his magnificent gift.
Before this, Frederick Roeding, pioneer landowner who died at the age
of eighty-six years in San Francisco in July. 1910, had in his life time made
two gift tenders to the city of land making up the present acreage of Roeding
Park, one of the most attractive municipal recreation spots in the state. This
park reclaimed from a sandy waste is today the pride and boast of Fresno
City and was donated to it with no other condition attached than that the
city expend in improvement a stated sum annually for a given number of
years.
Yet when the original offer was made of the greater acreage, it was
regarded as a gift horse and its mouth looked into, while a sapient board
of city trustees declined it for the specious reason that the donor was actuated
in his offer by a desire to enhance the value of his surrounding holdings one
mile outside of the city corporate limits. Several years elapsed before the
first offer was renewed and accepted, and people marvel today at the short-
sightedness that ever prompted its declination.
George C. Roeding, famous horticulturist, is at this writing (March,
1918) one of the commissioners of the city parks. He is a son of the donor.
To mark his entry as a member of the commission and to expedite a more
rapid planting of the parks of the city, he made tender to the city that for
every dollar it spends for the plant beautifying of the parks controlled by it
he would for the year donate in plants an amount equal to the city purchases.
The offer was accepted and at the same meeting that the agreement was made
the commission gave out plant orders on bids for $700.
William J. Dickey
Noteworthy bequests were contained in the will of W. J. Dickey who
died in July 1912 and devised $25,000 for public purposes. His estate was an
ample one and yet not comparable with many that preceded and followed it.
The sum of $10,000 was willed to the City of Fresno to be used by it in the
purchase of apparatus for the children's playgrounds and "of such a character
and kind as will be most beneficial and enjoyable for the children using such
grounds." The bequest came at a time when the city playground department
was a new municipal experiment in Fresno and the city embarrasseji for
means to equip grounds after having expended the bulk of the voted $73,000
bond issue in acquiring sites. The pioneer Dickey playground on Blackstone
avenue stands a monument to the generosity of the man who made his all in
Fresno.
Another $10,000 was directed to be by his executors given for such charity
or benevolence as to them after consultation with his wife might seem best,
it being understood that it be used "in and about the city." The income from
this legacy supports a university scholarship for a deserving student. Lastly
$5,000 was bequeathed to the Fresno County Humane Society, an institution
that once was a potential power for good but whose field of activities has been
supplanted by later benevolent organizations.
Its pioneer work was notable in moulding public sentiment, especially in
the more humane treatment of dumb animals, and it brought to the fore as its
232 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
agent, \\illiam Harvey, who on account of his activities became a local char-
acter of note and because of his English birth, manners and pompous de-
meanor was popularly known as "Lord Harvey." He is a man who has never
been given full credit for a great humanitarian work accomplished in times
and under conditions when a rough public sentiment was not always in accord
with his reform movement.
The Dickey bequests were the more appreciated because coming at so
opportune a time and because absolutely unlocked for. He was an Ohioan born.
Fifty-nine years of age at time of death, a most approachable man, genial and
unassuming and one whom prosperity had unchanged from the days of
Fresno's beginnings, when he came as a dry goods clerk, was so employed
by Kutner. Goldstein & Co, and later as the desk clerk at the Morrow House,
the caravansary of the day. He dabbled on the side in wool, and also wrote
insurance, and was a leader in jeunesse doree circles in the wretched little
village seat of a cow county.
Samuel L. Hogue recalls as if it were only an incident of yesterday how
as a federal census enumerator on Jnne 30, 1880. he and Dickey collaborated,
figured and figured in the hope of crediting the village with a population of
1,000 but after recalling every known resident and counting babes born and
in expectancy, and this was not such a stupendous task, they could not inflate
the total to exceed 930 and Dickey in his beautiful Pinafore "big, bold hand"
entered the result on a page of the IMorrow House register as an unofficial
record.
Dickev was a public spirited man. allied with the First National Bank
as a stockholder, also as a shareholder in the People's Savings Bank, inter-
ested in the first water supplying company, a promoter of the Fresno Street
Improvement Company and its enterprise of the day in the brick structure at
Fresno and I Streets, and in later years prominent in the Mountain View
Cemeterv Improvement Association, organized as a popular movement of
the citizens in response to an agitation to rescue the city's burial ground from
the neglected condition that it had fallen into.
_ At the height of his financial prosperity he made a luck}' strike when at
the crest of the excitement oil was discovered on a parcel of land at Coalinga
which he had bought for a trifle at a tax delinquent sale, yielding him an
eighth of a million after compromising with the original owners for $25,000
a threatened title litigation on account of doubtful procedure leading up to the
delinquency sale by the state.
Dr. Lewis Leach
This publication would fail of an essential purpose as a historical record
were it to ignore mention of a few chosen personages, all but one now dead,
that were foremost in the development of county or city and whose names
were household words. Nestor of them was indisputably Dr. Lewis Leach.
When he died March 18, 1897, there passed away one of the first per-
manent settlers, who later was a foremost citizen and one of the very few
who linked the Fresno of the days of the Indian and the miner with the
Fresno of the days when it was exciting public attention as an agricultural
wonder, and Fresno the hamlet of the desert and waterless plain with Fresno
the growing city centering in encircling vineyards and orchards. His early
career was as varied and picturesque as that of his first business associate in
California, Major Savage, whose exploits never have been given the credit
they deserve because so barren are the early records.
Born in 1823, Dr. Leach had at death outlived the Psalmist's allotted term
of life. He died in the harness. He might have retired with a competency 20
years before, yet until the middle of the week before his passing away his
office in the Farmers' Bank Building was open to his patients, ^^'hatever his
youthful ambitions of a life career, he was the child of circumstances and the
fact is that when he went west from Binghamton. N. Y., and located in the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 233
primitive St. Louis in 1840 at the age of seventeen he had two accomplish-
ments. He was a good fiddler and had a natural gift for drawing. He so ex-
cited the admiration of the dean of the medical college of the State University
at Jefferson City, by a humorous cartoon of him being chased around a tree
stump by an enraged steer that he was invited to take up a course of medical
lectures. Young Leach accepted, graduated at the 1847-48 term and for two
years practiced medicine in St. Louis.
To reach California was his ambition as it was of so many others. The
opportunity came with a party bound for Salt Lake City with a stock of
merchandise for barter. There he organized a party to continue the journey
and eleven men joining him, "Westward Ho !" was the watchword on start in
October 1850. Fifty miles west from Salt Lake was met a party of thirteen
families that had lost its way. The two companies joined forces and the
young doctor was offered the leadership of them. He accepted on condition
that his word should be the law. The Southern route was chosen. They were
among the first to follow it and therefore travel was attended by more than
the usual care and precaution. At the Mojave River the parties divided. The
families headed for Los Angeles, the Leach section crossed the desert to
Tejon Pass over the mountains toward the Kern River.
Here it met a party of refugees from the Indian massacre at Woodville,
near the present site of Visalia. They had escaped with their lives and were
in distress. Relief was afforded in a division of food supplies, even then not
overabundant. Evident that danger was to be apprehended ahead. The arm-
ament consisted only of a rifle and a shotgun and seven pistols. Every un-
armed man was provided with dummy wooden gun and such a formidable
armed showing was the result that although the party was surrounded by
Indians on the march it was not attacked nor molested.
A sight was presented at Woodville at the scene of the massacre. Many
were the reminders of the savage brutality of the Indians. A ghastly one was
the sixteen unburied corpses, some of them mutilated as was the not infre-
quent practice to discourage the advance of the whites. Sepulture was given
the dead. A destroyed bridge was another reminder of the raid. A halt was
made with night camp on the field of the massacre and next morning cross-
ing of the stream with wagon bed raft. Hardships followed, constant vigilance
against surprise by the hovering Indians, and food allowances reduced on
account of the division with the refugees. Reaching the San Joaquin, they
had been twenty-five days without flour, for coft'ee they had been boiling
roasted acorns, of rice they had little left, of salt pork only a limited quantity
and of fresh meat only the flesh of a wild bullock shot by one of the party.
The animal had head 'down charged him after wounding. The horns entan-
gling in the underbrush the beast was tumbled over and in the fall broke neck.
At Gravelly Ford on the south bank of the San Joaquin they came upon
the mining camp and store of Cassady & Lane, sold to them their draught
Uve stock, taking flour at a dollar a pound in large part in trade and treated
themselves to the luxury of tobacco. A bread feast was the first piece of
domestic extravagance at the next meal after the long abstinence. It was a
baking of water and flour dough, cooked in skillet by a St. Louis boy named
Herman Masters, marked out and cut according to diagram so that each might
have a section. Eight miles above Gravelly Ford and two above the later Fort
Miller site, Cassady & Lane were engaged in river mining for gold at Cas-
sady's Bar and all save Dr. Leach accepted employment as miners.
Leach was not favorably impressed with the aspect and conditions of
the new country — and well might it be asked who could have been in those
earliest days of the white man's presence? He resolved to return east with the
first passing train party. The tale has long been current and was corroborated
by Dr. Leach himself' that he had horse saddled and all preparations made
for that departure when Lane— "Major" as he is always referred to— pre-
vailed on him to tarrv as there was a young man in camp who needed surgi-
234 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
cal attention to save his life. He was one of the Woodville refugees that rode
to Millerton to spread the alarm, was wounded in the arm, had been under
the care of two Arkansans, who instead of tying up the arteries had resorted
to compression with the result of blood poisoning in the arrow wounds.
Out of humane consideration, Dr. Leach delayed departure. It was the
turning point in his career. He never did leave California. He lived and died
in Fresno. The arm of the wounded man was amputated and he recovered.
Having no surgical instruments as the contents of his case had been lost or
stolen on the plains journey, the operation was performed with common wood
saw and jack knife, set and sharpened for the occasion, and without anesthetic
the sufiferer was a conscious looker on of the surgeon's work.
On the second night of the Leach party's arrival Indians had made a
descent on the camp at the ford and stolen the very cattle that the emigrants
had traded off. Other raids followed with near by killings including that of
Cassady as incidents that led up to the Indian War and the calling out of the
volunteer three companies of seventy-five each that constituted the Mariposa
Battalion under Maj. James D. Savage. Leach joined as a private, participating
in the several preliminary brushes, but in two weeks was appointed battalion
surgeon. The two assistants were dispensed with and the medical department
was placed in his charge. Commissary headquarters were located on the
Fresno River, fifty to sixty miles due north, and here with driven stakes,
poles cut and laid on crotches, with sides and roof of willow matting and
roof of green brushes the hospital department was improvised. The war
operations lasted about four months and peace was restored.
Major Savage resumed business in partnership with Captain Vinsenhaler.
A strong bond of friendship grew up between the doctor and the major and
thus it was that in April 1852 Leach was taken into the partnership of three
that continued until the sensational murder of Savage. Vinsenhaler and Leach
continued their association, taking into partnership Samuel A. Bishop, later
of San Jose. The Indian reservations were established after the peace. The
store supplied them, the business flourished and expanded and a branch was
located at Fort Miller. Vinsenhaler was the inactive member of the trio.
Bishop had charge of the farm on the Fresno, and Leach without mercantile
training managed the store. The custom in vogue on the frontier was followed
of marking up goods 100 per cent, on the cost, taking gold dust or equivalent
in value from those that could pay and seldom bothering those that had credit
and paid when they could. The business was profitable. Bishop went into
business with Indian Agent Beall at Fort Tejon and the Vinsenhaler-Leach
partnership dissolved, Leach taking the store and the other the ranch. Not a
scratch of pen was made in all these transactions. The words of men in
those days were as binding as written contracts or bond. The Fort Miller
store was closed in 1859 but the one on the Fresno was continued until the
winter of 1860-61.
IMeanwhile at the latter location he also conducted a hospital with patients
coming from as far as Visalia. and as many as fifteen to twenty under treat-
ment at a time. On a visit to Millerton to a patient in December, 1860, he was
waterbound on account of a winter flood and detained for six weeks. He de-
cided not to return to the Fresno but to close out and disposed of the stock in
the store at private sale. At Millerton and as the only established surgeon and
physician in the county for a time, he was in charge of the county hospital
and the medical authority for A'ears. He saw the beginning and the end of
Millerton. He lived the life of the busy country doctor, treated the sick and
the wounded, eased the last moments of the dying, ministered at the births
of hundreds who even to this day boast of the fact, as the family physician
was welcome in every home, and had friends coextensive in number with the
population of the county among the whites as well as the aborigines.
His location in Fresno City as the new countv seat was not until October
4 1874, and he was the last official to leave old Millerton in Russell Flem-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 235
mg's stages with the hospital patients and the women left behind until new
homes could be provided in the hamlet on the plains.
The hospital in the city was established in rented quarters and four days
after coming- the cornerstone of the new courthouse was laid with Masonic
ceremonial. For deposit in the cornerstone receptacle the only Bible that was
available was Dr. Leach's. In the new county seat, Dr. Leach was as prom-
inent medically as he had been at Millerton and he became a conspicuous
figure in its civic and commercial life.
Was a new public enterprise contemplated. Dr. Leach was consulted and
became its sponsor. He fathered the first water works with the pumping plant
so long located on Fresno Street at the corner of the alley between I and T,
was president of it until 1890 and sold it for $140,000. He was president of the
first bank in Fresno, a private enterprise in one of the early brick houses
on the north side of Mariposa midway between H and I and of which Otto
Froelich was the cashier. He was an organizer of the Bank of Fresno and
its president until it went out of business on account of the provisions of the
new constitution of 1879 regarding stockholders' liabilities for indebtedness ;
an organizer and president of the Farmers' Bank ; fathered the gas company ;
was identified with the first electric light company and the first street car
company with the fair grounds as its terminus and was one of the pro-
moters of the fair association with its races and agricultural exhibitions.
Professionally as a representative of the old medical school and in civil
life, Dr. Leach was a prominent figure. It was during his long service as
county health officer that the first county hospital was erected under his di-
rection on the block bounded by Mariposa, Tulare, P and O, then considered
so far out of town that many years would elapse before the growth of the city
would crowd it out and yet in his life and while still in charge the removal
was made with the location on Ventura avenue opposite the county fair
grounds where today stands one of the best equipped and modernized estab-
lishments of its kind in California.
Forty-two years a bachelor, the marriage of Dr. Leach in 1872 to INIrs.
Mathilda Converse, former wife of C. P. Converse, was an event as fortuitous
as was his decision to remain in Fresno when he had resolved to return east.
He was a boarder with Mrs. Converse. She had decided to give up catering
to boarders and not knowing where to find a home table he proposed marriage
and was accepted. The Leach residence in Fresno City was for years on K
street (officially designated Van Ness Avenue) on the location now occupied
by the Sequoia Hotel. There was a rise here in the level of the flat plain of
four to five feet gradually rising from the courthouse reservation and because
the early, well to do city residents erected their better homes here the locality
was popularly known as "Nob Hill."
By reason of his long local associations, his confidential relations with so
many of the earliest families as their medical adviser, his active and useful
public career though never tempted by political aspirations, he was regarded
at death with greater love, respect and veneration than any other individual in
the county before. His funeral is said to have been the largest that had been
accorded any one before. It is recorded that "upwards of 100 vehicles" were
in the cortege. Fulton G. Berry was in charge and the pall bearers were:
A. Kutner, Louis Einstein, William Helm, Alexander Goldstein, William
Somers and Leopold Gundelfinger, of whom today the last three named are
living. The funeral was a popular demonstration ; twenty-four aged inmates
of the almshouse hospital when he was in charge attended and so did Ah Kit,
the Chinese blacksmith and horseshoer of Millerton days, as one of the sincere
mourners.
Dr. Leach was accounted in his life time one of the substantial men of
the city but after his death his estate was found to be much involved. Friends
saved out of it sufficient for a competency for the widow.
236 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Frank H. Ball Made Large Bequests.
Genuine was the surprise furnished by the filing for probate of the will
of Frank H. Ball, who died March 4, 1919, because of the $45,000 legacies for
benevolences and semi-public institutions. The surprise was great because
the benevolences were unlocked for. The Ball will provided for the largest
money bequests in any testamentary document oflfered for probate in the
county. The total of these is e.xceeded only by the princely endowment under
the trust will of M. Theo. Kearney. The two estates are not comparable in
aggregate value.
The money bequests under the will are $75,500, namely $13,500 to three
relatives in the East, $10,000 to a life long friend, Frank M. Romain, $7,000
to five employes and one of these, the faithful Chinese servant who had been
in his service for twenty-six years and was rewarded with $2,500, and the
following public bequests:
Y. W. C. A - $10,000
Y. M. C. A - - 10.000
City Playgrounds 10.000
Firemen's Baseball Relief Fund 5,000
Fresno Relief Society 5,000
Citizens' Relief Committee 5,000
Total - $45,000
The Ball estate consists of two valuable pieces of landed property. One
of these is the city block at J and Kern Streets which whatever its value
was deeded in his life time independent of testamentary disposition to the
widow whom he had married in December, 1915. The other is the 113-acre
vineyard and orchard just outside the city limits at California and East
Avenues set out as one of the earliest and largest in the county. Because of
its proximity to the city and in a locality that has been set aside for indus-
trial enterprises, it is of greater value for commercial purposes than for
grape culture. Payment of the legacies is contingent upon a sale of the
vineyard property. The testator himself placed a valuation of $1,200 an
acre a few years ago when the Santa Fe was in the field looking for ground
for enlarged switching facilities.
Frank H. Ball was a native of Grand Rapids, Mich., and came to Cal-
ifornia thirty-five years ago. He was fifty-four years of age when he died.
His death was unlooked for as he was ill from heart disease only twenty-four
hours. After a residence of about two years in San Francisco and having
come with some means, he moved to Fresno about the time of the Centen-
nial year and opened one of the first drug stores at Mariposa and J Streets,
site of the city's first sky scraper. This property he disposed of in part con-
sideration for acreage land southeast of the city and entered upon the career
of a vineyardist and orchardist. The Ball city residence on the site of the
business block was one of the notables in the city for its spaciousness and
surrounding shading umbrella trees. It was removed in later years to clear
the site for the Novelty Theater, the first in the city devoted exclusively
to vaudeville.
Frank H. Ball was not a man that ever took part in public affairs, where-
fore, all the more surprise when his will was made public. Prosperity favored
him and he lived a retired life at the country home as a capitalist. He was
thrice married. Threatened legal complications prompted him to place his
belongings in trust with a life long friend, who managed his affairs and it
was in appreciation of his services that the $10,000 bequest was made.
It was said of him that he was one of the earliest, if not the first, to
build a drier and resort to artificial heat in the curing of fruit and raisin
grapes in the county.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 237
The popularity and success of the playgrounds department inspired the
late Louis Einstein to direct that after his death his estate make gift to the
public of location and an equipped playground. His wishes have been com-
plied with by the family in the "Einstein Memorial Playground." Mrs. Julia
A. Fink-Smith was the first woman who made a gift to the public. It was a
block of city land, lacking two lots afterward Ijought by the city, on which the
playground named for her has been located.
Supplementing the five years' antecedent gift to the city of her sister,
the late Mrs. Julia A. Fink-Smith, J\Irs. Augusta P. Fink-'White, wife of
Truman C. White, the pioneer, presented to the City Playgrounds Com-
mission, through her attorney, at a meeting held June 5, 1919, a deed for
City Black 363, excepting two lots not owned by her, for a site for another
municipal playground for children. The block is separated from the sister's
donated block (362) only by the width of a street. The condition of the gift
was that the blocks be made one continuous playground, with closing of
alley and street, and that they be improved for the purposes of the gift, be
fenced in, and that on the east side there be placed above the gateway a
sign, "Fink-Smith Annex." The special request was made that a municipal
swimming pool be constructed on Block 363 as soon as the finances of the
city warranted.
The Southern Pacific made practical gift of Commercial Park facing its
passenger depot under a 99 year lease at the nominal dollar a year rental ;
and the Santa Fe the triangular Hobart Park named for its district agent
at the time of the gift. And this completes the list of public benefactions, not
overlooking the Carnegie City Library Building conditionally upon acquired
site and guaranteed yearly appropriation for its upkeep by the city adminis-
tration in its tax levy.
CHAPTER XLII
Six Words on His Monument Tersely Epitomize the Busy
Life's Work of Dr. Chester Rowell in This Community.
His Influence in the Upbuilding of It was as the Family
Physician, the Founder of a Newspaper, the Organizer
AND Leader of a Party, the Public Official and the Cit-
izen. Unique Local Character was Fulton G. Berry. To
the Last He Loved His Jest. His Funeral was a Remark-
able Spectacle. He Fills a Place in the Historical Liter-
ature of the County.
ERECTED 1914
To Dr. Chester Rowell
GOOD PHYSICIAN— GOOD
FRIEND — GOOD CITIZEN
1844—1912
So reads the inscription on the monument in the county courthouse park
erected at a cost of $10,000 subscribed by admiring and appreciative friends to
the memory of a man who was held in universal public esteem as no other
man in the county save possibly Dr. Leach before. Dr. Rowell's coming to
Fresno dated from 1874. The living today in the modern Fresno City cannot
realize the influence that the lives and services of these two men had in the
building up of the community.
The impress left by the later comer was possibly the greater from the
sentimental view because he was the founder of a great newspaper, the father
of the Republican party in the county, wielded political power in the state's
238 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
councils and personally rejoiced in the coming of the day when as the results
of years of elifort the county could no longer be safely counted upon as one
of the uncompromisingly Democratic banner counties of the state. The Re-
publican newspaper established in 1878 experienced every vicissitude but he
was always there to come to its rescue with purse. His interest in it was
that of a parental aiTection for it; he rejoiced in its virtues and accomplish-
ments ; he sorrowed over its failures and shortcomings.
Politically he was an uncompromising partisan of the old school. He
believed implicitly in partisanship politics and pinned his undeviating faith on
the Republican party above any other. Not that he did not respect the honesty
and faith of those opposed to him politically, but in his own mind he enter-
tained not the shadow of a doubt that they were misguided. As with Dr.
Leach, he was known and beloved as the self-sacrificing country physician
in a rough, pioneer country, ignoring no call for his services whatever the
hour in a community of great and wide distances and of few practitioners.
The question of money reward was until the last, for he also died in the
harness, the least consideration. It was more often refused in charity than
demanded as his due.
New Hampshire born in 1844, the years before maturity were spent in
Illinois whither the family emigrated to Stout's Grove, near Bloomington, in
1849. The father died a year later, the eight pioneering farming sons were
known as "Widow Rowell's Boys" and as models for others to pattern after.
Five of them answered their country's call at the outbreak of the war. The
voungest of them, a boy of fifteen, was taken ill and was compelled to return
home" The others remained in the service as soldiers for forty months in the
Department of the Tennessee, and though wounded none was ever ofif duty
during his term of service. Chester Rowell was of an age that forbade enlist-
ment, but he served in the compan}- of an elder brother, though never carried
on the muster roll.
After the war, he attended for a time Lombard College at Galesburg,
then moved to Chicago for a business college course, also studying medicine.
The latter was continued more systematically in San Francisco after arrival
in 1866 and crossing the plains. He was associated with an elder cousin. Dr.
Isaac Rowell, and graduated in 1870 from the medical department of the
University of the Pacific, later Cooper's Medical College and now affiliated
with Stanford University. Dr. Levi Lane, a celebrated surgeon, as was Dr.
H. H. Toland, the medical college named for whom became the medical
department of the state university, was the dean and for years after graduation
it was Dr. Rowell's practice annually to attend in San Francisco the Lane
course of lectures. A year was spent in teaching school in Oregon, but re-
turning to San Francisco he took up the practice of medicine until removal
to Fresno to undergo all the hardships and trials of the pioneer practitioner
in an unsettled and new country, took up early an active part in the politics
of the day and two years after coming launched the weekly little newspaper
publication that is today one of the leading newspapers of the state.
Proof of his early high standing in the community is evidenced by the
fact of election to the state senate as a Republican in 1879 at a time when the
county was vet strong for Democracy and nomination by that party was in
those days equivalent to an election, sitting in the last legislature under the
constitution of 1849. He was the first Republican ever elected to office in
the county. As senator he served until 1883, and was reelected in 1898 and in
1902. His independent course and stand against the railroad's domination in
the political affairs of the state gained him its enmity and its influence de-
feated him for the railroad commissionership in 1882 and again in 1886. In
1890 he aspired for the nomination for congress from the sixth district,
recalled by a memorable contest with W. W. Bowers of San Diego, and
Lindsay of Los Angeles as his opponents in the convention. Sixty ballots
were cast without choice whereupon after an adjournment to Ventura, the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 239
opposing forces combined and the hard fought nomination went to Bowers.
Dr. Rowell was also a central figure in the 1900 legislative session in the dead-
lock over the U. S. Senatorial nomination of Dan Burns as the avowed rail-
road candidate but without votes enough to elect. Dr. Rowell as the dis-
coverer of the man, as he was jocosely referred to later, voted continuously
for Thomas R. Bard and the latter finally gained strength enough that al-
though the session closed without choice he was nominated at the called extra
session the year after, but failed of reelection in 1905.
Dr. Rowell was appointed a regent of the state university in 1891 and
continued in that honorary position until his death. He was a member of the
state board of health in 1884, and in 1900 a delegate to the Republican national
convention of which he was one of the committee that framed the party plat-
form for the McKinley second campaign. His last national political partici-
pation was in 1912 as delegate to the Taft nominating convention at Chicago.
In 1909 against the urgent advice of most intimate friends and advisers yet in
response also to a strong public demand in a local political agitation over
the saloon closing question he was prevailed upon to stand for the office of
mayor of Fresno City, was elected b}^ a flattering vote and served three years
of his term. Dr. Rowell married in 1874 the widow of his medical associate
of younger days. She died in 1884. He was a pillar of the Unitarian Church
of Fresno and himself as a labor of love financed the erection of its unique
place of worship; and was associated as president and a director with the
People's Savings Bank.
As mayor he served harassed by perplexing difficulties, anxiety over
which acknowledgedly shortened his busy and active life. He felt keenly the
public and private criticisms for his exercise of independent and best judg-
ment of mind in not surrendering to fanatical clamor on the saloon problem
yet as a progressive step affixing his signature to a reform ordinance that lim-
ited the number of drinking establishments, closed them on Sundays and on
holidays and after midnight daily and brought them under a closer police
regulation. He took to heart the denied responsive cooperation of the public
in a subscription for the erection of a municipal convention hall building on
one of the acquired playground sites. The result was financial and legal com-
plications over his effort to build it with public funds on personal authority
and individual financial obligation.
I'nconipromising political partisan that he was and committed to the
second-term cause of President Taft, a heart-breaking and bitter disappoint-
ment was the advocacv of Theodore Roosevelt, the defeat of Air. Taft with the
division of the Republican part\- lirl|>c(l out by the newspaper that he was
the founder of. of which he Ii.mI tlic Imancial control yet not of its editorial
policy transferred to his nephew. ( hr^tcr II. Rowell. and which newspaper has
been truly described as "the child of his adoption and nurture."
Dr. Rowell was a man much beloved and lovable, modest, unassuming
and approachable ; a man not to be thwarted in will nor contradicted or op-
posed in purpose; in politics unbending and one who knew no middle course
as between likes and dislikes. The devoted and admiring friends that erected
the monument to his memory caused it to be placed for sentimental reasons
in an angle of the public park at Tulare and K (Van Ness) Streets where the
life-sized seated figure faces the scene of many years of activities in the great
newspaper that was the idol of his heart, the corner publication house of that
organ and in which he also had his offices ; while on the opposite corner looms
up Fresno's second, towering, modern sky scraper — the Rowell-Chandler
office building on the site of the modest, little, moss-grown and orange tree
surrounded, rustic covered cottage that had been his humble home for years
continuous so many that it had become a landmark of the city.
"Good Physician, Good Friend, Good Citizen" is his well-earned epitaph.
His memory is enshrined in many a grateful heart.
240 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
Fulton G. Berry
Unique spectacle was presented in Fresno City Tuesday April 12, 1910,
at the funeral of Fulton G. Berry. Known the state over, he was because of
his genial personality one of the most potent publicity agencies that the county
and city ever had. Truly was it said of him that to the last he loved his jest.
No solemn dirge or funeral hymn or chant timed his obsequies but his
favorite popular airs marked the last rites over his remains. In the services
at Elks' hall as the public was taking a last look at his familiar features,
Theodore Reitz's orchestra played "La Paloma." A brass band of twenty
pieces headed a parade of the business district by the cortege and entering
the cemetery struck up for a march Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes For-
ever." Following out the dead man's instructions, cortege moved through
the streets at brisk walk and to the cemetery the vehicles traveled at smart
speed. Passing the Grand Central Hotel, with which the name of the decedent
was so long identified, the band played "Auld Lang Syne."
The funeral service was conducted in the Elks' lodge room, the same
in which December 31. 1907, many feasted as guests on the golden anniver-
sary of his wedding. Lodge room was not funereally draped but elaborately
decorated along the same general lines as at the wedding celebration. The
walls were covered with palm and green branches surmounted by a frieze of
magnolias. There was no suggestion of the solemn, or of the dead. The
first music played was Alendelssohn's "Spring Song" and to its soft strains
the family party entered. The music was according to the dead man's wishes.
"Just Some One" was one favorite and "Home Sweet Home" was another.
The Elks conducted their ritualistic work and the principal address was
delivered by an old friend, 'M. F. Tarpey, who said truly of the departed:
"No place could be cheerless where his voice resounded ; no heart sor-
rowful in the presence of his contagious good nature. He was a specific
entity; in everything exceptional; in nothing commonplace. Self reliant and
courageous in character, he met fate's rebuffs with undaunted composure ;
the threats of either adverse fortune or physical decline were powerless to
stay the flow of his sunny epigrams, or cloud his intellect to the mirth of a
witty sally. He loved his jest to the last; the weary, the despondent, the
heartsore took new courage from the example of his untiring energy, one
of his strong characteristics; his wise and quaint counsels silenced com-
plaint with a quip, dispelled despondency with an epigram ; hope and good
will gushed spontaneously from him in a stream, carrying away care, sor-
row, despondency and these could find no permanent lodgment in his aura."
At the grave and still carrying out the expressed wish to have nothing
suggestive of cold formality or elaborate ritual at the funeral. Frank H.
Short made a few simple remarks such as he believed the dead man and
friend of many years would wish him to utter. Two thoughts are worth
the preserving:
"It was more than a quarter of a century ago that Mr. Berry came here
and he was then fifty-two years old. Most men at that period would have
sought a place to rest in, l3ut Mr. Berry never wanted to rest. He was a
young man as long as he lived. He never succumbed to any misfortune or
to any foe, until he surrendered to that to which we all must sooner or
later surrender. . . .
"You know Mr. Berry always had a horror of being considered a Chris-
tian. He did not want to be considered a 'good' man. Yet his life through-
out was one of helpfulness. When we remember how he used to assist, and
call on to assist in the work of the Salvation Army and other worthy char-
ities, we may feel safe in saying that if every person to whom he had done a
kindness in this world should cast a flower on his grave, there would be
even more flowers than are here today, although there never were so many
flowers at a funeral here before."
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 241
The grave was banked up with flowers and an impressive token was a
wreath presented by ^Ir. Berry to his daughter, Airs. Maude LilHan Fisher-
Moulan, known on the comic opera stage as Maude Lilhan Berri, the night
before his death when she received an ovation at the Barton theater on her
appearance after a long professional absence. The wreath bore the welcome
"To Our Lillian." The pall-bearers were: Frank H. Short, M..F. Tarpey,
D. S. Ewing, Clarence J. Berry, the Klondiker, Jack McClurg (since de-
ceased), Emanuel Katz, ^^'. H. Harris and George M. Osborne (the actor
since deceased) in place of Alexander Goldstein who could not attend be-
cause of illness.
This remarkable funeral was in accord with the expressed directions
of the will of August 25, 1909, which after the request that the Elks' ritual
service be used at the funeral stated :
"That instead of the ordinary funeral sermon customarily used on these
occasions, I feel that it would be pleasant to me to have one of my friends,
Frank H. Short, or M. F. Tarpey, or in their absence or inability to act
on such occasion, then D. S. Ewing, deliver on that occasion just such
an address, oration or eulogy as they may think proper and fitting under the
circumstances, feeling that they have been in closer touch with the emotions
of my life than others could have been ; I also feel that I would be pleased
to know that on this occasion that I was surrounded by a profusion of
flowers, and that appropriate vocal music was a predominant part of said
ceremony."
Another bequest of the will was in the following provision :
"8 — Recognizing the faithfulness with which my old Chinaman. George,
has served me for the past sixteen fl6) years at the ranch, I hereby direct
and instruct my executors to purchase for him in the event he should ever
desire to return to China, all necessary transportation, of such class that
George may return to his native land in equally as good if not better style
than he reached the shores of America."
There was expression of the pleasure to know that his casket should
be borne to its last resting place by the hands of dear friends, naming those
that in fact with one exception did act as the pall bearers. This testament
was a unique document in Fresno County records. The estate was valued
in excess of $100,000 but incumbered.
To jest was Fulton G. Berry's ruling passion. Countless are the jests
and pranks ascribed to him. One historical and extravagant one to recall
was on the occasion of the fiftieth jubilee celebration in San Francisco by
the Native Sons of the Golden West of the admission of California into the
Union. The resuscitated parlor of Fresno made its initial parade in the
celebration and Berry headed the Fresno section as marshal mounted on a
fine horse and picturesquely attired in costume of Spanish-Californian don in
white with red silk waist sash and wearing umbrageous sombrero imported
from Mexico as were the sombreros worn by the parlor members. Parade
over, Berry created the sensation of the day in San Francisco in riding
that mettlesome animal into the famous marble-tiled bar room of the Lick
House on Montgomery Street. Only an ebullient spirit such as Berry's
could have conceived such a piece of theatricalism. It was with just such
pranks that he kept before the state Fresno's name and fame.
On another recalled hilarious gala occasion during the memorable boom
era, when every corner and nook in the Grand Central as was the custom
was monopolized by gaming tables and the play was high. Salvation Army
lassies entered to make their collection. Berry seized the tambourine, flung
into it a five-dollar piece and requiring every man in the bar to do likewise,
cajoled every table keeper and card player to contribute from five dollars
to one according to the size of the pile of chips or money before him, turned
in a record collection to the lassies with an invitation to step up to the bar
to drink at his expense and no oft'ense if the invitation were declined. The
242 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Salvation Army never had a better friend nor more ardent champion than
in Fulton G. Berry.
The vital energy of the man was extraordinary. He was like a pent up
volcano. An eruption in an extravagant exploit as the one related was
necessary to maintain his spiritual equipoise. He was an enthusiastic yachts-
man, born in Maine amidst marine surroundings. On a visit back home
in the spring of 1908, he must indulge himself in his passion for the sea by
assuming command of the oldest two-masted schooner in the United States,
if not in the world, and in actual service at the time — the Polly, whose his-
tory antedated the War of 1812 when she traded between Boston and Penob-
scot Bay, was a privateer in that war, also during the Civil War. He sailed
her from Belfast to Castine, Maine, and was proud of the honor.
Not many bore a more active part than he after coming to Fresno in
1884, just before the memorable "boom times," in aiding and encouraging
the work of developing the city at a time when it had a population of scarce
2,500, yet soon to seethe with the excitement of the times. Enterprise and
energy were characteristic of him. He became associated with the leading
improvements and industries. He was one of the most enthusiastic in per-
ceiving the future possibilities with irrigation. He started the first steam
laundry, aided in building the first street railway with imported discarded
"bob tailed street cars" from San Francisco, was the principal owner of
the gas works until the plant was sold, one of the original owners of the
electric light plant, was one of the leading spirits to bring to Fresno the
first steam fire engine afterward taken over by the volunteer city depart-
ment ; and with Ryland Wallace set out the first orange grove in the San
Joaquin Valley, seventy acres of trees at Orangedale on the Kings River,
promoted the first chamber of commerce, the first county citrus fair which
proved a revelation, the county fairs of a week with their horse racing, open
gambling and all the revels in their wake with money spent like water ; it
was a time when they were grading the streets and making a beginning on
paving them : when Fresno was emerging into a wild and speculation reck-
less town out of the village chrysalis into the glare of the lime light and
was the talk of the state.
Fulton G. Berry's death April 9, 1910, was from paralysis of the heart.
He was always a liberal supporter of all sports. One of his last acts was to
write a letter to James J. Jeffries, of whom he was a great admirer, accom-
panying the box of raisins sent the pugilist by the Raisin Day Festival Com-
mittee as an attraction on the day. By the members of the United Commer-
cial Travelers, who made his Grand Central and Fulton Hotels headquarters,
he was hailed as a genial soul and as "the traveling man's friend." The title
of Commodore attached to him because of his yachting activities in the San
Francisco days and as one time commodore of the Corinthian Yacht Club
and ownership of the fast little yacht "Nixie" which outsailed everything
on the bay.
He was identified with business and financial interests in San Francisco
before coming to pastures new in Fresno. He was a state character, his
name known from one end of it to the other. He missed being a Californian
of the '49 period, still came during the height of the mining period and gold
excitement. He arose from comparative poverty to affluence and influence.
Vicissitudes also fell to his lot and when he came to Fresno he was a ruined
man financially, Fresno County never had a more consistent booster than
in him. Here he retrieved his fortune and he ever was grateful. Visiting
his home after an absence of fifty-three years and noting how people econo-
mized to exist, he returned declaring that should any reverses overtake him
he would never leave the county to start life elsewhere.
Born in Belfast, Me., February 10, 1832, of Scotch ancestry of Massachu-
setts colonial times, he was the youngest of a family of twelve. At seventeen
after the discovery of gold in California, like so many thousands of others
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 243
he concluded to try fortune in the mining fields. From New York he sailed
by way of the Isthmus of Panama and after a tedious voyage arrived at
San Francisco ]\Iay 20, 1851. He mined in the old diggings at Forbestown
and on return to the bay sent to his mother some of his first accumulations.
Subsequently he mined on the American River, and on the Yuba, also at
Cherokee. Locating in San Francisco in 1853, he shoveled sand and placing
his earnings in a horse and dray teamed for seven years, cooking his meals
and sleeping in the stable loft.
Another six years was spent in the grocery business at Jackson and
Stockton Streets. During the stirring times of those early years he was an
active member of the historical Vigilance Committee of 1856. He grew up
with San Francisco, lived its strenuous life through until the end of the
mining stock speculation craze. In the later years he was in the real estate
business, associated with Alexander Badlam who was so long assessor of
San Francisco, and at the height of his financial career was a member of
the San Francisco Stock Exchange and paid for a seat the record breaking
price of $30,000. He was a charter member of the Pacific Board— the little
board as it was called — but sold the seat for the other. Later in San Rafael
he leased the Tamalpais Hotel for two years and for three years thereafter
served as commissary at San Ouentin prison, then coming to Fresno.
Friends who had known him in his days of affluence financed him and
he bought a half interest in the Grand Central Hotel here, was successful,
bought'out his partners in 1888 and made house the best known and most
popular caravansary in the valley. He came in advance of the boom times,
$16,000 in debt, and accumulated in time some of the best paying property
in the county and notably the 140-acre Grand Central Farm located about
three-quarters of a mile on the celebrated Kearney Boulevard, devoted to
general farming and dairying, besides valuable city holdings and blocks
of what was afterwards platted as Arlington Heights.
He was one of the executive committee of the Midwinter fair held in
San Francisco with great success; was a Republican in politics and always
prominent at conventions ; served one term locally as city councilman ; was
in many fraternal orders and held membership in San Francisco and Fresno
clubs.
He early discerned the great possibilities of Fresno and lent his aid
and encouragement in the promotion of public utility enterprises. He was
public spirited as a citizen and assisted materially to advance the industrial,
commercial and social interests of the city. He was one of the most loyal
champions that Fresno ever had and earned for himself a permanent place
in the historical literature of the county.
244 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XLIII
First of the Optimistic Land Promoters and Commercializers
WAS Thomas E. Hughes. His Meteoric Activities Fastened
ON Him the Appellation of "Father of Fresno." Louis
Einstein was a Pierstone in the Substantial Foundation
of the Conservative Commercial and Financial Life of the
City. Recognized Also as a Factor in the Social and Civic
Uplift of the Growing Community. Pioneer Merchant and
First Banker was Otto Froelich.
First great promoter with no more substantial backing than optimism
was Thomas E. Hughes. He gave evidence in his prime of such speculative
energv and activity that his name has been appreciatively handed down in
local annals as "The Father of Fresno."
He was born in North Carolina Tune 6. 1830. and was possessed of a
character that made it possible for him to become an agencv in shaping
and advancing the destiny of the undeveloped community that he found
on arrival here in June, 1878. With him speculation was a ruling passion.
Nature had fitted him to be a boomer and promoter and in Fresno he
found a virgin field for the exercise of his extraordinary capabilities in this
line. His stock in trade was optimism. Financial means to launch his first
enterprises he had little or none. In the zenith of his career he was accounted
one of the rich men of the county. Fortune favored him several times but
with the fickleness of that goddess his experience has been that of others
before him to be deserted in the end. Financial reverses, and in his career
the experience became a familiar one, left him undaunted.
After several years of ill health and failing mentality due to advanced
age, the pioneer builder of Fresno City died at the home of his daughter,
Airs. W. D. Foote, near Los Angeles, April 19, 1919, and his remains were
sent to Fresno to be buried. His first love for Fresno was so deeply im-
planted in his heart that although his home had been for upwards of a dec-
ade in the southern city a promise had been exacted from his eldest liv-
ing son that wherever he might die he should be laid away amidst the scenes
of his greatest activities and lasting accomplishments. That wish was re-
spected and the funeral was under the auspices of the Masons, with which
fraternity he had affiliated before his coming to California. At the time of
death he lacked one month of the age of eighty-nine years.
Much could be written of his remarkable active life, the city develop-
ment and farm colonization work that he pioneered in Fresno. His op-
timism was boundless. His experience was that of many others in reverses
of fortune as the result of the panic times of 1893, and while he had to
abandon many of his interests here and was left financially embarrassed
he did not lose heart but retained the courage to make still another be-
ginning, far advanced in life though he was. After leaving Fresno, which
for a period of more than ten years he visited only at intervals and on an-
niversary occasions or family reunions, he undertook lastly an agricultural
land development enterprise under a Mexican grant.
Conditions did not please him, especially not the high-handed methods
of the landed proprietorship in the promotion of labor peonage. He had
also turned his attention to mining development and was believed to have
been on the road to success when the Madero revolution of 1909 broke out,
and he returned home to await the time when there would be more settled
business conditions. He had always hoped to return and take advantage
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 245
of the possibilities that he said awaited him there. The hope was vain. He
had not reckoned on his advanced age and his health. In his last years he em-
braced the Christian Science faith.
At the funeral the pallbearers were Masons and old-time friends. The
general public was not in attendance as mourners at the funeral of one who
had done so much for the city that he was known as "The Father of Fresno,"
whose name and deeds were in the mouth of every one. Such a chano-e in
the population had come about during the years of his absence from the
city that he builded that it was only another generation that could recall
him from a personal knowledge and association, so rapid and great had been
the changes. The flags were raised at half mast from the city pulilic build-
ings on the day of the funeral.
Surviving him are the daughter, ]\Irs. ^^^ D. Foote, of Los Angeles,
and three grandchildren ; the sons James E. Hughes of Fresno and \^'illiam
M. Hughes of Madera and Arizona, and their grandsons Edwin E. Hughes
the Fresno postmaster, and Kenneth L. Hughes of Tranquillity, and the
great grandchildren. The son, James E. Hughes, desired at the funeral of
his father to chose for pallbearers the intimate friends who were chosen
companions of him on a memorable excursion in July, 1892. He was unable
to find a sufficient number, so great had been the changes between the day of
Thomas E. Hughes' departure from Fresno and that of his death. In
grateful acknowledgment of many uniform courtesies shown him by Mr.
Hughes and other prominent citizens on his visits to Fresno, A. N. Towne,
general manager of the Southern Pacific, tendered the use of the private
car "Carmello" for a visit to the Sacramento River Canyon to the then
newly opened Castle Crag Tavern, to Sissons at the base of Mount Shasta
and over the Siskiyou Mountains, the visit in fact not ending until Portland
Ore., was reached.
The car was at disposal on Thursday, July 14, and, according to the
directions "there will be no charge for the use of the car, the servants or
the passage money ; the only expense you would be to would be for pro-
visioning the car to suit your own taste." The party returned by way of
San Francisco and visited' Stanford University before coming home. Mr.
Hughes invited the following named to accompany him and wife: 'Mr. and
Mrs. Fulton G. Berry, Miss Maude Berry, Mr. and Mrs. M. K. Harris, Mr.
and Mrs. H. D. Colson, Mr. and Mrs. F. K. Prescott, Mr. and Mrs. L. L.
Cory, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. McKenzie, Mr. and Mrs. O. J. Woodward, Mr.
and Mrs. T. C. White, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Einstein, Dr. and Mrs. Lewis
Leach, Miss Imogene Rowell and Mr. and Mrs. J. R. White. Of the gentle-
men of the party the living on the day of the funeral of their one-time
host were Messrs. M. K. Harris, T. K. Prescott, O. J. Woodward, T. C.
White and L. L. Cory.
Thomas E. Hughes was a man of dynamic force of character. He was
a bold and successful operator in enterprises in which his neighbors would
not dare. He made many successes; he had failures and yet it seemed to
onlookers that he had in his grasp the wand of magic and that whatever he
touched turned to gold. It was said of him that within five years after
settling in Fresno he was paying out as interest $18,750 a year on $150,000
that he had borrowed from bank's and individuals to float his projects. With
his earlv career in Batesville, Ark., this history is not concerned. It has to
deal with him in California as connected with Fresno and the development
with which he had so much to do. Thomas E. Hughes married Miss Mary
J. Rogers, daughter of a clergyman, December 18, 1850, at Batesville and in
the spring of 1853 he sold his business and on the overland journey to Cali-
fornia was accompanied by a brother-in-law, William R. Feemster, sister
and youngest brother, traveling up the Kansas River. He became a Mason
before departure. The cattle drivers working their way across, deserted
in the sink of the Humboldt, believing they could travel faster and become
246 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
rich before the arrival of the main party in California. The women rode in a
wagon to which a yoke of four cattle was attached, drove the yoke or fol-
lowed the Feemster leading wagon. Hughes and brother, John, drove cattle
for four days, and then hiring help on the journey met between the Hum-
boldt and the Carson River the oldest brother, William C, who had come
from California to intercept them with fresh teams and provisions.
He had bought an additional band of cattle and the party crossed the
Sierra at the old Carson River road and arrived eight miles north of Stock-
ton, October 5, 1853, with two wagons and 200 cattle. William lived at
Murphy's Camp. Here the brother-in-law also settled and here, March 28,
1854, Thomas E.'s first son was born. It was to be Hughes' first experience
in farming. He traded for a squatter's claim to 160 acres, in the winter of
1853 bought seed wheat at three and barley at two and a half cents and
with a twenty-four inch plow and four yoke of cattle plowed and seeded
100 acres of grain. Wheat crop turned to smut and the barley harvesting
cost him more than he could sell it for after sacking. Discouraged, he de-
cided to rent land claimed by three neighbors and take stock to ranch. He
solicited the horses and cattle of others and in less than thirty days the
story is that he had stock enough to give him an income of $800 a month
and he was soon on his feet.
The second son, James E., was born December 26. 1855. The relatives of
Mrs. Hughes had for a year importuned her to return to Arkansas. Stock-
ton was left in March, 1856, for San Francisco, for a steamship return to
New Orleans and by land on to Batesville. There, after brief stay, the
wife was taken ill and the decision was made to return to California in the
spring of 1857. The Californians were prevailed upon to delay departure
that her father might close his aiTairs to accompany them westward, and the
third son, William M., was born February 15, 1858. The actual departure
was on April 1, 1859, with five emigrant wagons, a carriage and 400 head
of cattle, owning at start only a small part of the outfit. ]\Irs. Hughes
suffered from lung trouble, had to be conveyed in the carriage and was im-
proving during the first month of the journey, but an unfortunate accident
took place. The carriage was about to cross a small stream, a dog jumped
in front of the horses causing them to turn to one side, the vehicle was
upset. Mrs. Hughes was thrown into the water, took a bad cold, began
to sink fast and on the morning of the arrival at Fort Laramie breathed
her last. The remains were preserved in charcoal and conveyed to Stock-
ton for burial after arrival late in September.
The stock was kept during the winter of 1859 some twenty miles north-
east of Stockton. In the spring of 1860 Mr. Hughes bought 240 acres in
what was known as Bachelors' Valley, commanding the waters of a small
creek. The father-in-law having left unsettled business in Arkansas and
Tennessee prevailed on the son-in-law to return East and Thomas E. left
San Francisco, December, 1860, for New York on the steamer "Sonora."
He returned to Stockton bringing the trotting stallion known as "Washtinaw
Chief" and as "Niagara" after sale by him for $5,000. There was loss of
cattle during the dry season of 1862, and in the notable wet season of 1864
he sold what he had left for five dollars to ten dollars a head and turned
his attention again to farming. He had only 240 acres, which was deemed
insufficient. A friend had just sold a copper mine. He had cash and from
him Hughes borrowed $4,000 to enter upon more land. He paid two per cent,
interest per month, payable monthly or to be added to principal, mortgaging
the 240 acres and also the 3,000 acquired by entering soldier warrants
bought for fifty cents on the dollar. Here were then 3,240 acres but no
money to farm them. Crop was mortgaged at the same usurious rate and
the next summer the crop paid the debt with something left over.
Hughes had his three boys with him and they lived in a bachelors' hall.
The second marriage followed in December, 1866, with Miss Annie E.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 247
Yoakum of Alameda County. The daughter was born August 19, 1872, of
this union. Hughes found his way into Stanislaus County and in 1867 was
elected, and served for one term as county clerk and ex-officio recorder.
Term of office having been expired, he bought sheep and land and accounted
himself worth $100,000. He rented land in Merced for the sheep and for
farming, put out some 7,000 acres to grain, principally in Merced. One dry
year succeeded another and in 1873 he was so heavily in debt that he
looked for an opening elsewhere and went to Lower California to examine
a grant of 300,000 acres as to its possibilities for colonization. Creditors
concluded that he had left the country for good and on return in five weeks
he found everything in the hands of the sheriff and no compromise for
further time obtainable. The assignees in bankruptcy so ill managed affairs
that assets were, sold for $46,000 and as claimed they paid the creditors noth-
ing on the assertion that all was consumed in litigation expenses.
Mr. and Mrs. Hughes and daughter moved to San Francisco in the
spring of 1874, arriving there with a capital of $130, the savings of himself
and boys from wages as herders 'of their sheep for the creditors. At so
low an ebb were the fortunes of Mr. Hughes at this time that he was given
free desk room with T. L. Babin at Pine and Kearney Streets, he to ad-
vertise all real estate Hughes might secure for sale and divide the com-
missions. This gave a scant living, but the three boys were brought together
in time and in June, 1878, 7,000 sheep were taken on shares from Dr. E. B.
Perrin, the latter to furnish the range in Fresno and the Hughes' to have
one-half the wool and increase. The boys attended, to the sheep ; the father
turned his attention to real estate.
The Southern Pacific made him agent for the renting of its grant lands
for farming and grazing, and he had also the agency for the renting of at
least 100,000 acres of non-residents at a compensation of ten per cent, of
rentals received. The Central California Colony was a verity at this time
and he was seized with the farm land colonization plan. Edmund Jansen
owned 6,080 acres adjoining Fresno townsite between Central Colony and
town, but it was rough and waterless land and no one would buy. A colony
proposition was suggested, Jansen to procure water rights and supply ditches.
An agreement was made. Jansen died and the widow agreed to sell the
land for ,$40,000, Hughes to pay $5,000 in six and twelve months and as much
annually at eight per cent, from date of purchase.
Hughes had no money. He must have water rights and ditches which
would cost about seven dollars an acre, and so he agreed to give M. J.
Church five land sections for the water and ditches for the other four and
a half sections. Arrangements were made for the advertisement of the
project on credit, the railroad was induced to run an excursion to Fresno,
and Hughes and Judge North, who was the selling agent of Washington
Colony, which had then been thrown on the market, went to Sonoma, Napa
and Solano Counties, presented tickets to prominent men, and North lec-
tured on the advantages of Fresno soil with water applied. The excursion
brought about 300 men to Fresno. There was little to show them on that
dry and barren plain other than the beginnings in Central and Washington
colonies and that what was there could be reproduced on adjoining land.
Hughes sold $30,000 worth of land to excursionists in twenty and forty-
acre tracts, receiving some cash payments at fifty dollars an acre, and after
a few davs disposed of 640 acres to G. G. Briggs at forty dollars, which notes
being discounted $1,000 paid the colonizer cash. Paying out on the land,
there was still left money to make a fourth payment on other lands and as
fast as he sold and realized he bought more. It was the talk that he would
buy anything that he could have on credit. He advertised that he would
sell to any one that would improve, giving him credit for one to three years,
and the result was that in thirty days he sold from $85,000 to $90,000 worth
of land on the promise of improvement and enhancement of value. He was
248 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
prospering. Thus in 1881 he was one of the organizers of the Fresno
County Bank that afterward became the First National. In the fall he in-
corporated the Fresno Fruit Packing Company, taking one-third of the paid
up capital stock of $25,000. This was done to find a market for the grown
fruit and to encourage the planting of fruit trees. It was a financial failure,
though it did induce the buying of land and the growing of fruit. He
and others organized the gas-making plant which was sold after two years.
A profitable joint venture with J. R. White, pioneer miner from Mariposa
for whom Whitesbridge was named, was the purchase of 230 acres from the
railroad at $25 an acre covering in part the town site. A portion of this con-
stituted at the southern end of town beyond Ventura Avenue very first terri-
torial expansion of the town. A small portion was sold in town lots for
sufficient in comparative brief time to pay for the entire tract. For the re-
mainder in lots $1,000 an acre was realized and the speculation netted over
$100,000.
In 1884 the idea of a Masonic Temple was conceived. The corporation
was organized with $25,000 capital, Hugiies took half the stock and carried
it for two years. Building fell into the hands of the Fresno Savings and
Loan Bank on foreclosure. It was at the corner of I and Tulare, opposite
the Hughes Hotel and original Hughes residence site. Dr. Lewis Leach
and Hughes took up the idea of race track and fair grounds in 1883, Hughes
furnishing almost half the capital. Dr. Leach was the president and man-
ager of the association for about twenty years and until his death. The
track was one of the best in the state, and eventually became the property
of the county by purchase as a public park and playground.
It was in 1885 that Hughes organized the company to build a hotel to
cost $100,000, others taking one-half the stock and he the other. Bids were
advertised. Rivalry had sprung up as to the location at I and Tulare, and
others boomed the erection of the Grand Vendome Hotel. This so fright-
ened the Hughes subscribers that on the day for the opening of the bids
all of his associates had withdrawn from the enterprise. They had organized
and elected directors but had bought no property. Hughes took the enter-
prise on his own shoulders, opened the bids and awarded contract to a
Sacramento firm for $87,000 after completion of the foundation by private
contract at a cost of $25,000. Hughes had no ready cash and depended on
property sales and collection of debts due.
The enterprise was ridiculed as "Hughes' Folly" and "Hughes' Ele-
phant" and his bankruptcy was prophesied. The second story was up and
a loan of $45,000 was made on property. Construction progressed slowly.
Seeing the opportunity, he bought a corner lot for $15,000 and before he
needed the money in three months sold the property for $25,000. Not satis-
fied to hold money waiting until payments should be due be bought, by
making a $10,000 payment, 5,000 acres in Madera for fifteen dollars an acre.
Followed then the enterprise of erecting the three-story brick Hughes Block,
then and for years the finest in the city. He borrowed $35,000 on the property
and while it was under construction bought 3,400 acres more in Madera
for $95,000 by paying $5,000 cash with promise of $10,000 in four months.
By this time the hotel was completed and rented for five years for $1,000
a month and a commencement was made on the sale of the Madera lands.
The terms were the usual — one, two and three years without cash pay-
ment— at prices from fifty dollars to $100 an acre. He bonded 9,000 acres
belonging to others for two years at thirty dollars and forty dollars. He
sold the first 5,000 acres bought for $274,000, making within a few dollars a
clear $200,000. The second purchase of 3,400 acres was disposed of on
time to buyers who opened a large territory to small holders. The 3,400
acres bought for $95,000 realized'" $200,000 and he had still 160 acres in
Hughes' Addition to Madera, valued then at $25,000. He had agreed with
all the bonded to give them one-half of all he sold for over thirty and forty
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 249
dollars. He sold in 1886, 5,640 acres of this land, clearing him for his part
$75,000 and was satisfied that he would -clear another $50,000 on the remainder,
realizing for the owners the same amount over and above the prices they
would have sold at the time that they bonded. The contracts not completed
were assigned to others.
In the spring of 1887 there was a move to build a street railroad up
Mariposa Street. Hughes wanted it in front of his hotel, then still under
construction. He organized the stockholders in the fair association, they
incorporated, Hughes took one-third of the stock and the street car line
was run to the fair grounds from the railroad depot, up Tulare, turning
the corner at the hotel, and along I to Ventura and on that avenue to
the grounds. The foothill country attracted his attention and in 1886 survey
was made for a railway to the mountains in the expectation that capital
and land owners along the right of way would assist in the building. The
project failed. It was revived in the summer of 1888, two surveys were
made, the route mapped and such progress made that money was paid in to
incorporate and secure rights of way.
From Detroit, Mich., came in the spring of 1889 an agent to look into
the timber belt in the eastern Sierras. He made report to his principals, who
sent out more agents ; and Hughes and associates organized again to build
a road to Kings River Canyon, but it was another failure. February 1,
1891, "the bold and beardless boy," Marcus A. PoUasky, loomed up on the
horizon for the third time and launched on a meteoric career to induce
the giving to him of subsidy for a railroad to the mountains. J. D. Gray,
F. G. Berry and Thomas E. Hughes agreed to raise $100,000 for him and
secure rights of way, provided he would build 100 miles of road, equip and
maintain it. February 23, 1891, the San Joaquin Valley Railroad was incorpo-
rated with the above-named as directors, Pollasky, president, and Hughes,
vice-president. The subsidy was raised and work was promised to be com-
menced in thirty days. Hughes threw the first shovel of dirt. It was the
sixth time, as Hughes said in a speech, that he had put his name to sub-
scriptions to aid a mountain road. The celebration of the throwing of the
first shovel was on the 4th of July.
The "Father of Fresno" was in a prophetic mood on that day. The
mountain road, he said, meant "millions of dollars to be invested in fac-
tories of various kinds and is but a small part of what will follow. Three
years from today 1,000 towboats will be used to transport your products to tide
water. Three years from today you will have two other railroads running
through your city competing for your patronage. Ten years from today your
imports will be, instead of $10,000,000, increased to $50,000,000 and the
end not yet estimated."
About twenty-five miles of the road were built to the San Joaquin
River to a newborn town named Pollasky, and afterwards renamed Friant.
This Pollasky was after all only a secret agent working in the interests of
the Southern Pacific, which absorbed the road as a feeder to shut out any
competition. There was a hue and cry that was not hushed for years and
the experience was a block to every projected competing railroad enterprise,
even the coddled San Francisco and Valley Railroad on which the people
had pinned their faith as a pledged independent competing road, being ab-
sorbed by purchase by the Santa Fe Railroad as regards the line from
Rakersfieid to San Francisco. The valley had again to acknowledge that it
was again bitten after its liberal subscriptions, bonuses and grants of rights
of wa}'.
In the year 1893 no man in the central part of the state was better
known than Thomas E. Hughes. He was at the head of almost every enter-
prise in Fresno and Madera Counties. He had made a great deal of money.
Came then the panic period of 1893 with collapse of the boom. The land
250 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
did not realize the value that he set on it and as mortgage on mortgage
was foreclosed and deficiency judgments were piled up as liens against his
properties he was forced into insolvency. The petition was filed January 8,
1894; liabilities placed at $176,520.24; assets nil. The San Francisco Theo-
logical Seminary of San Francisco was a secured creditor for $90,000, the
hotel the security property. The insolvency came not as a surprise. Mrs.
Hughes had filed insolvency petition on her separate property two months
before. And this was the end, where once he had owned almost everything
in sight.
At the age of sixty-nine and accompanied by wife, in 1899 he cast his
lot in Mexico in the state of Oaxaca in the mining district of Taviche, and
for nine years acquired mining properties, sold mines to advantage and
bonded to English capital for sufficient to place him, as was believed, once
more in the list of the rich. It was delusive. So was his later grant coloniza-
tion project. He made his home in Los Angeles after his return from Mexico
first, in 1908. The colonization scheme was in connection with a tract of 130,-
000 acres near Manzanillo.
The Hughes home vineyard was only saved by a lucky stroke of for-
tune. That property was made a gift to the daughter and was saved from
the wreck. It has since been subdivided and sold as residence lots. "The
Father of Fresno" told this story of the windfall ; "In 1891 I was in need
of money and I induced my wife to place a mortgage of $10,000 on eighty
acres of her land which adjoined the City of Fresno (on Ventura Avenue),
deeding her the Hughes Hotel and furniture. Raisins and dried fruit be-
came so low that people who owed me money could not pay even their in-
terest. Suit was brought to foreclose the mortgage of $10,000 and it was
advertised to be sold in twenty-five days, and I had no idea how I could
raise the money to save the eighty acres. My wife drew $15,000 in the old
Louisiana lottery, paying ofif the mortgage and saving her land."
The oldest son of Thomas E. Hughes, named Thomas M., died in this
city at the age of thirty years and eleven months, February 23, 1885. His
first wife was Huldah, daughter of Jesse Morrow. The second marriage was
in June, 1884, to Miss Annie Johnson, and shortly after their return from
the bridal tour he took to the bed from which he never arose a well man.
Mrs. Annie E. Hughes died at Los Angeles, May 20, 1911, having been a
resident of California for sixty-three years.
Louis Einstein
A man of retiring disposition, shrinking from a public life, never more
contented than when in the privacy of the home circle, one who was the
personification of old-fashioned conservatism and yet in his very passiveness
filled a part in the upbuilding of Fresno City, was Louis Einstein. He died
in November, 1914, honored and mourned. This pioneer merchant and banker
of years of experience locally, of judgment and tact, was very generally
appealed to as a counsellor whether in matters of private or public concern.
He was respected because of his business integrity.
Born in Germany, he came to .America at the age of eighteen, engaged
in the dry goods business at Memphis, Tenn., and in 1866 at the invitation
of a relative came to the budding little city of San Francisco as bookkeeper
for Wormser Bros., subsequently going to Portland, Ore., and establishing
a wholesale liquor house. Three years later, he returned to California and
attracted to the San Joaquin Valley in January, 1871. here he established
his permanent home, here he grew up with the country and here he died
and lies buried.
He became associated in business with Elias Jacob at Visalia under
the firm name of Jacob & Einstein. It had a branch store at Centerville in
this county as far back as 1870 in charge of H. D. Silverman, whose home
residence later in Fresno early pioneers will recall as having been on the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 251
bluff now occupied by the Forsyth building at the prominent business cor-
ner at Tulare and J. Mr. Einstein entered the Visalia firm in August, 1871,
and the announcement in the public print at the time was that it had com-
pleted "a fine one-story house at Kingston, twenty-four by fifty feet," also
"a warehouse which they have filled with grain, flour and provisions" and
that building, not designating which, was regarded "as an ornament to
Kingston." It was the store which while in charge of Mr. Einstein was one
of the several places that was looted in the memorable robber raid by the
bandit gang of Vasquez, when the hamlet on the Kings River was shot up
by the desperadoes and the pursuing villagers, and that Mr. Einstein was
left a gagged and pinioned victim by the robbers.
The Visalia firm did a large business and in June, 1874, buying the
pioneer store of Otto Froelich at the new railroad town of Fresno, articles
of association were entered into between Jacob, Einstein and Silverman as
Jacob & Company at Fresno, as E. Jacob & Company at Centerville, as Jacob,
Einstein & Company at Kingston with Launcelot Gilroy as an associate
and as Jacob & Einstein at Visalia. Mr. Einstein moved then to the new
county seat and in February, 1875, he and Silverman bought out Jacob &
Company of Fresno and E. Jacob & Company of Centerville. The new
Fresno firm became Silverman & Einstein and continued as such until the
death of the first named in August, 1877, Louis Gundelfinger purchased the
estate's interest later. Mr. Einstein on a visit to Germany had induced him
to come to California and a $200,000 capitalized stock corporation resulted
in December, 1888.
Firm name was changed to Louis Einstein & Company and years later
the various interests were reincorporated. From the pioneer location at
Mariposa and H in a store erected in 1875 as the third brick structure in
the city, enlarged and improved with expansion of the business, it moved
uptown to Tulare and K (Van Ness) on completion of the Rowell-Chandler
modernized building. In the original location also were because of prox-
imity to the railroad station across the half square the telegraph, express
and post office, the latter the second in the little town with Charles W. De
Long as the second postmaster appointed in November 1873 to succeed
Russell J. Fleming, still in the land of the living as is De Long. The latter
received the munificent annual remuneration of twelve dollars.
Mr. Einstein was founder and president of the Bank of Central Cali-
fornia organized February 26, 1887, for years located at Mariposa and the
alley between H and I. It is now known as the reincorporated Bank and
Trust Company of Central California with the estate represented by his sons
in controlling interest. At his death, he was accounted one of the richest
men in the county. It was a question which was the richer, he or John W.
Patterson of the' Fresno National Bank whose wealth came largely by
inheritances.
Mr. Einstein early devoted his personal attention to banking. He had
other interests as in a smaller bank in Coalinga, besides large real estate
holdings in the choicest residence and business districts and in outlying
locations toward which the city's growth was trending, all of them en-
hancing in value as the city grew. Before the day of banks, Einstein & Sil-
verman, Kutner, Goldstein & Company, other mercantile firms and the large
grain, sheep and cattle buyers were the money brokers and providers and
during the dry farming era financed the ranchers and carried them over bad
periods until the lucky year came when with one fortunate season the
accumulated debt was wiped out. A close observer of human nature and
character, many a tale is told of Mr. Einstein's helpful financial aid given
at times on no' more tangible security than his faith in the integrity of the
applicant.
He was never allured by political life, though never holding back his
influence in whatever was helpful to the moral and civic uplift of the com-
252 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
munity. He gave his aid in organizing the free Ubrary movement, was a
patron of the Uberal arts and of music and took an active interest in the
formation of the Unitarian Church of the city. The Einstein and Gundel-
finger families are related by marriage.
The residences of Einstein and of the Gundelfingers on "Nob Hill" were
most pretentious in their day. They were specially designed by an architect
from San Francisco to meet the climatic conditions of the hot summers in
being provided with latticed high basements, lofty attics and window open-
ings in plenty for air and free ventilation. The Einstein residence was re-
moved in the fall of 1917 to clear the site for the Liberty theater and the
Louis Gundelfinger residence in the same block for the Liberty Market.
The other two Gundelfinger residences between Kern and Inyo are no longer
used as such because encroached upon by the business district.
Otto Froelich
Mention of Louis Einstein recalls the name of Otto Froelich, pioneer of
the county and also of the city, when the latter boasted two houses only
and he was its first merchant and banker. He died in San Francisco in
March, 1898, at the age of seventy years. He was a Dane who had come
to Millerton when it was yet a thriving mining camp and the county seat
early in the sixties. He was for a time a clerk in George Grierson's store and
succeeding to the business removed it to Fresno on completion of the rail-
road in 1872. He was the first to start the hegira to the plains to lay the
foundations of the future Fresno City.
As before stated, that business was transferred to Silverman & Einstein
and with Dr. Lewis Leach, William Faymonville and Charles "H. Barth he
established the first Fresno County bank of which the First National is
today the successor. The banking firm was known under the name of Barth
& Froelich and was in a small brick building on the north side of Mariposa
between I and the alley. In 1880 he was appointed post master which posi-
tion he afterwards resigned to devote his entire time to the business of wine
making which he and Dr. Leach had established. He was also a land owner.
Later he moved to San Francisco and save for a year or two as cashier
of a bank at Pasadena was in the employ of August Weihe, a moneyed man
of the city who while never a resident of Fresno had large investments here.
Mr. Froelich was a man of scrupulous integrity, bright and accurate in busi-
ness afifairs, impulsive yet kindly in nature, public spirited and honorable in
every relation of life. His name is prominent in the early records of the
county and of the city. He left an only child, Miss Maren, an artist of
repute in San Francisco.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 253
CHAPTER XLIV
In Jefferson G. James Passed Away One of the Last of the
Picturesque Cattle Kings of Early Days of California.
Land Baron Henry Miller Never Did Know How Much
He Possessed in Terrain or Livestock. Frederick Roeding
Was an Agency to Make Known the Agricultural Possi-
bilities OF THE Desert Land Around Fresno City. S. C.
LiLLis AS One of the Last of the Land Holding Barons.
The Romance of Other Days Crowded Out by the Grinding
Materialism of the Present Era and Times.
The life histories of so many pioneers are intertwined with the besjin-
nings of state, county or city and are as full of adventure as the wildest
tale of fiction. Characteristic is that of Jefferson G. James, pioneer of state
and of county and one of the last of the cattle kings. He died March 28,
1910, at his home near San Francisco. He left widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Rector
James, and a daughter, by a first marriage.
James was eighty-one years of age at time of death. His estate was a
large one, estimated to be 'worth between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000. In it
were included about 100,000 acres of the James ranch in this county. This
great tract on the \\'est Side watered by Fresno Slough has passed by sale
to Los Angeles capitalists and colonizers and has several times changed
corporate name.
Mr. James spent life's closing years in San Francisco conducting a great
wholesale cattle business. He was prominent for the legal battles that he
waged in the courts of the state for eleven years. These were begun in
1889 and involved not only Miller & Lux, the greatest cattle and irrigation
land holding firm in the state, but also the California Pastoral and .\gricul-
tural Company, a British corporation, and the San Joaquin and Kings River
Canal and Irrigation Company, another Miller & Lux enterprise. In all,
Henry Miller instituted six suits against James, while the latter had one
against him. These were waged with bitter determination by the cattle
kings yet never became personal in nature.
The point whether James could take water from the San Joaquin and the
Kings was involved in all. James' lands did not abut directly on the river
but were on the slough and watered by the overflow. He contended that
this entitled him to take water from the river above him. The contention
was resisted. The decision by the supreme court after long litigation was
for James. The decision only precipitated another battle with the San
Joaquin and Kings Company which has a contract to take prior water from
the river. The point then was whether James had to wait until it could have
its 760 cubic feet of water before he could be served with any for his lands.
In this suit the superior court gave judgment for him three days before his
death.
lames was prominent locally also through his connection with the
Fresno Loan and Savings Bank, capitalized at $300,000 and organized in 1886
and with him as president two years later. In the panic of 1893 it closed its
doors and there was a scandal that it should have received a large deposit
of public funds only a few hours before the closing of the doors. Its affairs
were liquidated and settled by the late Emil F. Bernhard after long years.
The bank erected the Land Company building at Mariposa and J, which
passing through several hands at price record deals is the present property
254 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of the Einstein interests. James, it was, that erected the so-called Masonic
hall building at Tulare and I.
Born in Pike County, Mc, December 29, 1829, his education was that
of the primitive log cabin school, and in 1850 with relatives he came over-
land with a party captained by Jeflf Alman. the caravan of "prairie schoon-
ers" toiling wearily toward the west by the famous South Pass and the
Green and Raft Rivers. At the last named stream, James and party decided
that the locomotion was too slow. They removed the wheels from their
wagon, sawed out the spokes and fashioned paek saddles from the wood.
They packed their outfit on the backs of eight fractious mules. It was a
task that demanded patience and determination but the effort was success-
ful. On the first day with the pack they passed 1,400 emigrant trains.
They reached Hangtown. now called Placerville, in August, 1850, and
turned out their pack animals to graze on the Hicks ranch on the Cosumnes
River. The James brothers went to Greenwood Valley on the middle fork
of the American River where each cleaned up $3,500 prospecting with sluice
and rocker. Returning to Hangtown in April, 1852, they went back to Mis-
souri via the Nicaragua route, traveling home from New York by rail.
Next year, James returned to California alone bringing with him ninety-
one young cows which being fattened sold at a profit. He engaged in mining
at Placerville and in the business of buying gold dust. In June, 1857. he
made another change and left for Los Angeles and on this trip laid the
foundation of his cattle raising career with the purchase' of 960 head of
cattle. In the fall of 1857 he drove his cattle to the famous "25" Ranch near
Kingston in this county, then called Whitmore Valley, and next year accom-
panied by old time vaqueros engaged in several rodeos. After gathering his
cattle at these round-ups, he drove the animals to the head of Fresno Slough
and tarrying there five years bought the ranch near the San Joaquin River
on Fresno and Fish Sloughs.
In 1850 he returned to Missouri and married ]\Iiss Jennie L. Rector
whom he brought out to California. One child, Maud Strother James, was
born. to them. The daughter married Walker C. Graves, a San Francisco
attorney. After the death of the first wife, who was twelve years his junior,
he married her sister, Elizabeth, in 1903. In San Francisco which was his
residence and home he dabbled in politics and in 1882 was elected a super-
visor, four years later a school director and reelected to a second term.
Later he was the Democratic candidate for mayor but was defeated by the
late Adolph Sutro who carried the day with his promise that if elected he
would give San Franciscans a single and five cents street car fare rate to
the ocean beach for popular recreation.
Henry Miller
A penniless butcher boy, at twenty working in the Washington Market
in New York, in 1849 following the horde of gold seekers to California and in
1850 still a butcher boy in the village of San Francisco, Henry ]\Iiller was
at death at the age of nearly ninety a notable man of California, a cattle
king of the West and founder of the famous firm of Miller & Lux, land and
cattle barons. He died in San Francisco at the home of an only daughter,
Mrs. J. Leroy Nickel. He had been confined to bed for nearly two years
and was unconscious for two days before death.
He owned an empire described as "twice the size of Belgium." He never
himself knew how much land he possessed. At the death of Charles Lux, the
partner, their estate was valued at twenty millions, mostly in live stock and
land. They were wholesale cattle butchers of San Francisco and with Dun-
phy & Hildreth enjoyed a monopoly of the business. Lux attended to the
city butchering and selling; Miller to the ranches, the breeding of stock,
the buying and driving of stock to market, was a man of unlimited powers
of endurance and reputed one of the best buyers in the state. Estimate was
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 255
made after Miller's death by experts that he had approximately 22.717 square
miles or 14,539,200 acres under his control in California, Nevada, Oregon and
Arizona. It was an ancient saying that Miller & Lux could drive cattle from
Arizona to Oregon through Central California and nightly camp on their
own land, at any stage of the journey not being out of sight of a firm ranch.
It owned much land in Fresno in the vicinity of the triangle formed by the
junction of Fresno, Merced and Madera counties, the great ranch being the
Sanjon of Santa Rita in Merced and Fresno, and it was in continuous litiga-
tion over its asserted rights over the bulk of water for irrigation from the
San Joaquin by reason of appropriation and riparian rights.
Miller held more land on the Pacific Coast than probably any other one
individual. At times 150,000 cattle and 100,000 sheep grazed on western pas-
tures, bearing the "M" brand. The firm operated a chain of slaughter houses,
banks, stores, and hotels in addition to the ranches and ranges. Managers,
clerks and foremen were in employ by the score, vaqueros by the hundreds :
traction engines bought by the dozen, barb wire fencing by the mile and
seed by the carload, for the reckoning was not in acres but in miles. The
tale was that Miller never sold but always bought. He had a juvenile dream
of wealth, bought land when the Spanish and American government sold
cheap, hoarded his property and realized his fantastic dream. In Visalia
once he made on one day entry upon six townships of land.
It was in 1851 that he launched into business on his own account. He
had met Lux and six years later they formed the partnership that made his-
tory on western ranges. Their acti\'e days were when the great sweeps of
California valleys stretched unenclosed from the Sierra Nevada foothills to the
Coast Range and when the vast land grants were devoted to cattle raising.
They watched the land settlers come, saw their ranches marked ofif by barb
wire fences and farms and orchards grow where the cattle had roamed at
will. He married ]\Iiss Sarah W. Sheldon in 1860. After Lux's death in
1877, the business was incorporated, IMiller retaining large interests. In his
later years he remained in the seclusion of daughter's home. He was the
last of the great' land barons of California. Dismemberment of the vast do-
mains will come, for conservation policies, population increases, high taxes
and clamoring demands of settlers are making impossible the holding of
the cattle empires of old. Lux and Miller were both German born, hard
workers, and shrewd, and Miller all bone and muscle with no surplus flesh.
L'Util the last he talked with a strong accent. He was prompt and decisive,
made examination of cattle, followed up with ofifer and seldom varied from it.
It was not unusual for him to ride seventy to eighty miles a day. If
cattle bogged on account of high water, none worked harder in the rescue
than he. None knew better than he the value of an efficient, trustworthy man.
Such were always rewarded. RTany afterward financially independent owed
their advancement to him. He allowed nothing to go to waste; his most
frequent differences with ranch foremen were on this score. On trips from
ranch to ranch extending over thirty days he would borrow from one to
pay up another, keeping no memoranda and no accounts, carrying the trans-
actions in mind, giving accurate account to bookkeeper upon return to the
city and the monthly statements to foremen were always correct. The
practice for years was to give on every ranch a night's shelter and supper
and breakfast to every applying tramp for the washing of dishes or other
service on the theory that this was a cheaper method than to court their
enmity or invasion of hay stack with loss by fire b}' reason of carelessness or
malice. The practice was discontinued in later years. So great were the
cattle herds that neighborhood raids were frequent and secret service men
were under retainer to trace down the thieves and prosecute them. Miller
was about five feet eight inches in height, weighed about 150 pounds and was
a bunch of nervous activity in prime.
256 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Sensation followed the seizure, in June, 1918, by the internal revenue
department, of the Miller properties for non-payment of $6,000,000 federal
income taxes due. In Kern County the estate has from 140,000 to 150,000
acres tributary to the Kern River and Lake Buena Vista, at Conner's Station,
Millux, Buttonwillow and the lake, the bulk estate holdings being in Kern,
Fresno, Madera, Merced and Santa Clara counties. In 1913 he placed the
holdings in trust for the daughter and when the government sized up the
estate there was found standing in his name only apparently from $35,000
to $40,000. It sued for the income taxes and after its claim the state has
another of four millions. Heirs claimed that to meet these taxes it would be
necessary to sell off much of the acreage and in the war conditions of the
market these sales would not net enough to meet the claims.
The plan of seizure and sale was welcomed in some quarters as encourag-
ing agricultural development and the fact that the subsidiary corporations
in the irrigation counties had tied up water rights in a jangle of legal de-
cisions as to rights and rates had enabled them to monopolize first rights.
Heirs applied for leave to appeal from the ruling enabling the collector of
internal revenue to take control of the $40,000,000 estimated properties, un-
der a warrant of in distraint for non payment of $6,961,240.47 with sale an-
nouncement June 29, also for an injunction to restrain him until the appeal is
passed upon. With the close of the month of June. 1918. Miller & Lux. as a
Nevada corporation filed as covering holdings in eighteen California counties
deed of trust to the Mercantile Trust Company of San Francisco for $10,000,-
000, securing first mortgage and refunding gold bonds for $5,000,000 as a
transaction of July 1, 1910. and added indebtedness under a resolution of April
30, 1918. The Miller & Lux lands in this county are of 268,092.42 acres
in entire sections, many parcels and include the townsite of Firebaugh. The
increased indebtedness, it was believed, was to meet the income tax demand.
According to a report filed June 20. 1919. by R. F. Mogan as state inheritance
appraiser, the Miller Estate owed the state $1,859,961.52 tax, being approxi-
mately $4,000,000 less than the unofficial estimates of tax due. According
to the report. Miller owned 119.781.25 shares of the total issue of 120.000 of
the Miller & Lux corporation and this stock, exclusive of all indebtedness,
was at his death valued at $31,039,143.15.
Frederick C. Roeding
Frederick C. Roeding. the father of George C. Roeding, who is such a
prominent personage of Fresno, was one of the earliest large landholders
in this section of the San Joaquin Valley and the donor of Roeding Park
to the city of Fresno. He died in San Francisco from a stroke of paralysis
in July, 1910, at the age of eighty-six. He was a pioneer of California of
1849. His early education he received in Germany along business and mer-
cantile lines. In 1846 he emigrated for South America, sailing around Cape
Horn, landing at Valparaiso. For three years he engaged in mercantile busi-
ness in Chili and Peru, and in 1849 left South America to seek his fortune
in California.
As all others he went direct to the mines but after a hard and cold
winter returned to San Francisco where he opened a general merchandise
store as a member of the firm of Larco & Company. He was heavily inter-
ested in this firm until 1878. when he retired from business. In that citv
he was one of the first Vigilance Committee of 1849 in the suppression of
"The Hounds." In 1868 he was one of the incorporators of the German Sav-
ings and Loan Bank, later elected vice president and cashier which position
he held for twenty years. In that year his health failed and he retired from
banking.
It was in 1869 that he organized a company of well to do German busi-
ness men which purchased 80,000 acres of land on the plains covering the
afterward chosen site of Fresno. He was chosen one of the trustees of the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 257
syndicate to look after its sale and management and thus became interested
in the county and its future. In 1872 this land was divided and Roeding
acquired eleven sections. He made the first sale to F. T. Eisen who bought
640 acres paying ten dollars an acre, and was one of the first to enter upon
the cultivation of the raisin and wine grape and was one of the pioneer
authorities on the subject. A second sale was made to Charles J. Hobler,
also of a section and at the same price. Hobler was the first after 1872 to
introduce the French merino sheep in the county in the improvement of the
breed.
In 1879 Roeding interested Jefl^ Donahoo to sow 320 acres of grain as
an experiment, Donahoo to pay twenty-five cents an acre for the use of the
land. This was the rich sediment land bordering on Fancher Creek east of
the city. The German syndicate was the agency and means that attracted
settlers to the county with the possibilities of the soil under irrigation. It
was one of the first that brought the land under cultivation on a large scale
and led up to the extensive grain growing enterprises. It played an im-
portant part in the agricultural development of the county, especially in the
neighborhood where Fresno City was afterward located, and was an agency
that was instrumental in the location of the county seat where it was placed
by the railroad when the latter came.
Mr. Roeding was a large land holder but before his death had disposed
practically of all his holdings in the county. For several years prior to 1900
he lived in Fresno, occupving the house that his son did east of Fresno.
It was destroyed by fire December 22, 1917 at loss of $20,000. At his death
his holdings consisted of only five lots in the city. These were in the 1200
block on J Street, three of these occupied by the Fancher Creek Nursery of
which the son is the manager, and two long occupied by the Borello Brothers
as a soda water factory, afterward sold to Mrs. C. B. Shaver and on which
the Sierra Hotel is located. In addition to the above there were several
fine ranches west of the city. The nursery covers about fifty acres of ground,
a specialty being made of fig, fruit, olive and ornamental trees. Its ship-
ments go to every habitable part of the globe almost.
The park on Belmont Avenue which bears the name of the deceased
was a gift to the city. The oiTer of it was first made during the Spinney ad-
ministration of city affairs in 1898. The original offer comprised a donation
of twice as much land than incorporated in the park. The city trustees
refused at the time to accept the gift and Mr. Roeding withdrew his offer.
Under the L. O. Stephens' administration, the first under a charter, the
city decided that it would like to have the land for a park and that the rejec-
tion of the offer was a mistake. Roeding was piqued that his offer had been
rejected and when the request came he decided to give the city only seventy
acres but on further consideration after an inspection of the park decided
that he had not given enough and enlarged the gift to 117 acres, the present
acreage. Roeding Park is today a beautiful landscape garden that once
was a sandy grain field, the stubble of which was fed to sheep.
Angus M. Clark
Prominent figure in his day was Angus M. Clark, a Millertonite that
helped make county and city history. He died December 2, 1907. He was
a Mason, a Knight Templar and Shriner and a charter member of Fresno's
first Masonic lodge and its first master. He came to California at the age
of nineteen during the gold excitement in 1850 and after following mining
for seventeen years in various parts of the state came to Fresno in 1867 and
worked in the copper mine at Buchanan, early enterprise of great promise.
He abandoned mining work when in 1873 he was elected county clerk
and recorder, assuming the duties of the office in March at IMillerton. In
the fall the county seat was removed to Fresno and to Mr. Clark as the
custodian of the public archives fell the task of removing the records to
258 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the new town on the plains, and he assisted at the laying- of the corner
stone of the second county courthouse. He held the office for eleven years
and in 1885 its business had so increased that the work of the office was
separated and he resigned. He was elected to the state legislature this same
year. Other political activities included two terms as district school trustee
and two or three terms as city recorder before there was a police judge under
a charter.
All through the earlier years, Mr. Clark continued his mining interests
and was associated with W. H. McKenzie in the abstract and land title
business and owned at one time. a controlling interest in the Fresno Loan
and Savings Bank, for a time a prosperous financial institution. Ill health
and reverses in fortune shadowed his latter days.
William R. Hampton
With the aged husband William R. Hampton, in one part of the house
struggling feebly against certain approach of death, the wife, Catherine, died
June 13, "l908, in another part of the house of the surviving daughter of a
family of seven with whom the aged parents spent the declining days of a
long and adventurous life of pioneer experiences. He died July 13, 1908, she
at the age of seventy-six, he at the age of eighty-three.
The name of Hampton recalls the days when early activities centered
largelv on the river in the vicinity of Millerton. The name had been for-
gotten by all save the early residents because of the Hampton's long retire-
ment. She had come to California from New York with her family in 1855
to Stockton, where he had also settled on coming from Grand Rapids, Mich.,
in 1849. There they married September 4, 1862, he being in the general
merchandising business. The Hamptons came to Fresno in 1867 and he
entered the employ of J. R. Jones who was a general trader on the San
Joaquin River about three miles below Millerton at a point where a ferry
was located with the little settlement popularly known as Jonesville.
Hampton later acquired ownership of a tract of land on the Fresno side
of the river and embarked in the merchandising business, locating his build-
ings at the present townsite of Pollasky which as the terminus of a branch
railroad from Fresno to serve the mountain region opened great expecta-
tions which have never been realized. The place is shown on early maps as
Hamptonville and the old store building and hotel and family residence
stand at the upper end of the park enclosure at Pollasky where the first
large re-enforced concrete river bridge in the county was erected replacing
the ancient Jenny Lind bridge a little distance above and carried away in
one of the spring freshets. With the extension of the railroad Hampton sold
his interests to it and with his wife moved to Fresno in the late 80's to
end their days.
Simon W. Henry
The death at Stockton March 24, 1918, of Simon W. Henry at the age
of eighty-two recalls one who was a resident of the county for nearly sixty
years, a pioneer of the county of 1859 and of the city since 1874 and one
who participated in their stirring times. Coming to the new county seat
when the old one was virtually moved to the plains on wheels, it is of in-
terest that he it was that erected the once well known hotel on the site of
the postoffice.
He owned practically the half block through fronting on Tulare and
between I and K with a 250-foot frontage on J, now occupied by the Patter-
son building, conducting a blacksmith shop and livery stable that at first
fronted on the alley in rear of the postoffice and locating his home on the
property. That cottage stands to this day on the quarter block corner not
included in the city owned Emerson school block.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 259
Henry held a fortune in that Tulare Street property but let it slip
through liis hands. He was offered $90,000 for that half block by a syndi-
cate and a $2,000 deposit was made to bind the bargain. He made offer to
Jeff M. Shannon to exchange options, the last named owning the quarter
block at Fresno and J as far on the latter as the Strand theater with the cot-
tage home surrounded by an orange grove. The exchange was declined.
Henry raised his price to $92,500. It was accepted. Then he raised to
$95,000. This was declined, the pending deal fell through, and Henry lost
the opportunity of his life and as the result of financial entanglements the
property passed into other hands.
The Henry Hotel was a popular house of entertainment. It passed un-
der the control of various managements, known in turn as the Henry, ]\Ior-
row. Southern Pacific, Cowan and Mariposa and the building is still in ex-
istence but serving other purposes on the second site since its original.
Robert Perrin
On Sunday, Mav 5, 1918, at Williams, Ariz., and at the age of eighty-one
years died Robert Perrin, who was a factor in the upbuilding of Fresno in the
development of the irrigation system in the county. After the Civil War, in
which he had commanded an Alabama battery of artillery that he had re-
cruited and equipped, he returned to farming but in 1869 came to California
and Fresno and purchased land. He was at first largely interested in sheep,
associated for a time with Thomas E. Hughes and it was he, by the way,
that introduced M. Theo. Kearney to Fresno.
He and others conceived the plan of the upper San Joaquin River canal
to take water from the stream near Friant (Pollasky) to be delivered on the
plains above the river at Herndon. Later they became the controlling owners
of the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company. It was involved in vital litiga-
tion involving the right to take water from the Kings River and this litiga-
tion was ended with the purchase by the canal company of the Laguna de
Tache Grant lying along the lower Kings. This move made the later develop-
ment of the canal system a comparatively easy matter and much additional
land was brought under water.
Largely through the work and influence of Perrin and associates was it
that in the 80's and the early 90's was created the idea now hailed as
national conservation and later the forest reserves to protect the natural
supply of the irrigation districts. The feature of the canal company manage-
ment under the Perrin regime was to sell a cubic foot of water per second
for a quarter section of land in perpetuity, using the money to build and
extend canals and laterals, while reserving the right to charge and collect
sixty-two and one-half cents per acre for delivery of the water to the user.
Disposing of his canal interests, Perrin went to Arizona in 1894 to enter
the sheep and cattle business. His first visit to Arizona was in 1877 to look
for ranges, going by steamer to Guaymas, traveling overland on horse-
back with small party across a country infested at the time with hostile
Indians and predatory Mexican bandits and taking up two large grants in
the then territory of Arizona. These were stocked with sheep and cattle.
For fifteen years before his death he had retired from active life, having
practically divided his property between a brother. Dr. E. B. Perrin of
Williams, Ariz., and sisters, Mrs. S. A. Thornton and Mrs. F. B. Minor of
Fresno. The extensive Fresno Perrin Colony lands are named for him.
S. C. Lillis
A decree and order of distribution placed on record here from the San
Francisco superior court January 19, 1918, is of historical note as showing
the landed possession of S. C. Lillis, who died in Oakland almost a year
before lacking a few days, and was one of the last living of the early land
barons of California. ,
260 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
According to the will the distribution was in equal shares to the widow
and only daughter, Miss Helen C. Lillis, who is cashier in the First National
Bank at Hanford. The distribution was as to land :
In Fresno County — 41,966.82 acres of grazing land;
Twenty percent, interest in 4,937.97 acres.
Half interest in another block of 15,946.47 acres.
In Kings County an interest in 3,831.31 acres.
In San Benito County 480 acres.
Total— 67,162.57 acres.
William L. Apperson
William L. Apperson, who had passed the ken of all when he died at
the age of ninety-three at the home of daughter, Mrs. Edward Miles, of
near Reedley January 31, 1917, arrived at Sacramento, Cal., by ox team in
September after leaving St. Louis, Mo., in May, 1849. He followed mining
and made and lost several fortunes. About 1865 he forsook mining and fol-
lowed his trade working for the government at Mare Island navy yard. The
family came to Fresno to reside in the early 70's and being a carpenter and
cabinetmaker by trade he opened a shop on the present site of the Grand
Central Hotel and probably the first coffins used in Fresno were made by
him. He had a sign over his shop "Coffins Made to Order." At one time
he owned the two J Street lots adjoining the hotel. He was in his last days
a great lover of pets and had chickens, quail and birds so tame that they
could be approached and picked up.
CHAPTER XLV
The Small Farm in a Settlement Group Not an Idea Original
With Fresno. Large Holdings That Recall Days of a Land
Baronage. Central California Colony the Pioneer in the
County and the Typical Enterprise. The Alabama and
Holland Failures. Colonization Projects Brought on the
Boom Period of Feverish Speculation. Sixty or More
Agricultural Projects Floated in 1900. Early Farmers
Were Extravagant With the Use of Cheap Water.
Sterilization of Soil With the Appearance of Alkali is
a Consequence.
Distinctive feature that the small farm was in the colony settlement
system as a contributor to the agricultural development, the general wealth
and the individual prosperity, it is not to claim that the idea originated in
Fresno, successful on a large scale the demonstration as nowhere else. The
colony or settlement of small places was a borrowed one from Southern
California in the notable examples of Anaheim thirty miles south of Los
Angeles, Orange, Riverside in San Bernardino and the Indiana Colony which
yielding to the quicker and large returns from lot sales resulted in the town
of Pasadena.
NordhofT. whose little book with its revised edition did as much to
make agricultural California read about as all the boom literature since,
traveled over the state making notes and acknowledged that he was amazed
in the fall of 1881 at the great changes after an absence of nine years wher-
ever the small farmer had come in with his careful culture and scientific
planting. Said he: "Fresno County, which eight or nine years ago was
given over to cattle, and where a man put in a hundred acres of wheat at
the peril of his life and with an almost certainty that cattle would destroy
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 261
it before it was half grown is now dotted with colonies, where after five or
six years only of settlement trees and vines are coming into bearing and the
former desert has become a prosperous and happy country side."
Nordhoff quotes the assertion that "California was made by Providence
for the small farmer." Californians once denied the allegation, declaring
that in general it was fit only for great holdings on which the moneyed,
absentee owner could raise cattle, sheep and wheat in the loose and wasteful
manner of the Californian as did the Spaniard before him, with the aid of
unskilled labor directed by a foreman. Big ranches there are yet but they
are hazardous ventures, and the fact is that in the big valley the twenty,
forty and eighty-acre farmers brought the lasting and real agricultural pros-
perity. There, where wheat was once the big and only crop, the man with
less than 320 acres classed himself as an humble small farmer. Slowly but
gradually the conviction forced itself that eighty acres with water on a
good location was a little too much, forty a liberal plenty with which to
make a fair start in life, and twenty just enough for one man on which to
make a comfortable living for self and family and have something over with
industry and health for the proverbial rainy day. Wonders have been accom-
plished with ten acres by men who were not overambitious, not overbur-
dened with money and hesitated not to combine brain and brawn in the
labor in the field. Intelligent twenty-acre men are laying up what eastern
farmers would consider a fortune and are enjoying during the accumulation
process more of the comforts and pleasures of life.
Interesting from a historical standpoint and as recalling the days of
land baronage is the following list of large block holdings once owned by
Fresnans. In the course of time changes in ownership and subdivisions of
the tracts have come about, but not in connection with the early coloniza-
tion enterprises. In the list are eleven as follows :
ADOBE RANCH of 68,000 acres on the Fresno River, ten miles from
Madera, J. G. Stitt owner.
DAULTON— 16,000, ten miles from Madera, H. C. Daulton.
FISH SLOUGH — 40,000, twenty miles southwest from Fresno, J. G.
James.
HAZELTON— 3,800 on the Kings River near Centerville and twenty
miles east of Fresno, William Hazelton.
HELM — 14,000, four miles north of Fresno, intersected by Kings River
and San Joaquin Canal, William Helm.
HERMINGHAUS— 20,000 on south side of San Joaquin, twenty-five
miles northwest of Fresno, Gustavus Herminghaus.
HI LDRETH— 12,000, fifteen miles east of the railroad and five north of
the San Joaquin, Charles IMcLaughlin.
LACUNA DE TACHE — 48,000-acre Spanish grant to Jose Castro on
the Kings River, twenty miles south of Fresno, Jeremiah Clarke.
MILLER & GORDON— 5,700 on north side of San Joaquin, twenty
miles north of Fresno, W. C. Miller and Alexander Gordon.
MILLER & LUX— 200,000 acres extending from Coast Range on the
west to the Central Pacific Railroad line on the east with over seventy miles
of board fencing and about fifty of irrigating canals, Henry Miller and
Charles Lux.
SUTHERLAND — 14,000 on both sides of the Kings, twenty miles south
of Fresno and ten from the railroad, John Sutherland.
Without extension of irrigation, it goes without saying the colony farms
that sprang up all around Fresno and the county over would not have been.
Results came after patient waiting, much planning, hard labor and many a
setback. Had development of Fresno's dry plains been an easy task, there
262 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
would have probably been no colonization, or rather the more favorable
conditions and superior natural advantages of other localities would have
attracted for settlement the people of moderate means. It is needless to con-
sider the difficulties that were in the way of the early colony farmers, or the
reasons why the productive acres of the valley lay unused so long, despite
the cheap and rich virgin land and the abundance of water. Relatively the
same condition exists today in lack of water and transportation as regards
the West Side region where lie thousands of acres of the best tillable soil
utilized only for sheep grazing or cultivated in small patches near some
creek, the flood water of which can be conserved for the time when needed
at seeding and after germination. The development of this area is such a
vast undertaking that it has been doubted whether it can be carried through
without federal government aid in a water conservation plan.
PIONEER SETTLEMENTS RECALLED
Central California Colony was the first in the county, fathered by Bern-
hard Marks of San Francisco, former miner and later teacher. His plan
was followed in main features by subsequent similar enterprises. He con-
tracted with ^^^ S. Chapman for twenty-one square miles of best land sur-
rounding the new town, selected six out of the center, divided this tract into
192 twenty-acre farms, surveyed and laid out twenty-three miles of avenues
and caused to be extended the main irrigation canal from its terminus then
at the Henrietta Ranch and across the railroad through the proposed colony
tract in three branches. \A'ater rights were bought from the company in per-
petuity as a notable departure at the time from its policy of dealing with
land only in quarter sections, practically excluding the small farmer, who
was as yet unheard of. This very feature with other considerations sug-
gested the adoption of the colonization plan.
Seven broad avenues, each two miles long, were laid out running north
and south: East Avenue bordered with almonds alternating with red gums,
Cherry with nine varieties of cherries. Elm with cork elms, Fig with the
White Adriatic, Walnut with the English walnut. Fruit with a variety in
systematic alternation and West was to have been set out to eucalyptus
but never was. Three miles long North Avenue was planted to Monterey
Cypress and Central to Black Mission figs in all thirty-six miles of trees.
Avenue planting was insisted upon to overcome the caprice or indifl;'erence
of settler and to insure uniformity and system. Considerable of this planting
was lost for lack of water at the right time but enough survived to mark this
distinctive feature. In two and one-half years the lots were ready for irri-
gation and fruit culture. The installment plan of payment without interest
was allowed and included planting of two acres of raisin vineyard on every
twenty to be cultivated and cared for without expense to the purchaser. In
the first two years such vineyards were set out on 119 lots but lost for
the want of water. The phylloxera vastatrix was at this time ravaging
European vineyards. Timely warning was sounded. The only known remedy
was submersion, easily accomplished here, before planting. The company
was generally relieved of this in consideration of allowing colonists the esti-
mated cost of this planting. Intention was to surround colony with a rabbit
proof fence, project was abandoned and estimated cost divided pro rata.
The work of surveying and constructing began in August. 1875, contin-
ued until the winter of 1877 and the first settlers came on the land to erect
their rude shanty homes in the autumn of 1875, hopeful, anxious and ever
fearful of the water problem. For lack of experience, there was ignorance
as to choice of and adaptability of the fruit varieties to plant, and how to
irrigate scientifically, necessitating costly and aggravating experiments. The
fate of the colony hung in the balance. Marks and Chapman seriously de-
bated abandoning the venture by buying out the settlers and Chapman of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 263
relieving Marks on his contract. Better counsel prevailed, the third man
in the project, W. H. Martin, was bought out, and the enterprise was pro-
ceeded with on the original lines, even though Chapman was not an en-
thusiastic believer in the colonization system. Fortunately many of the
first settlers were of the Scandinavian race, thrifty, plodding and home
building settlers. During the second year of the colony's existence S. A.
Miller, a former Nevada miner then in charge of the Republican, became
the promoter and within three years the last lot was sold. M. Theo. Kearney
was a sales factor with judicious advertising and business energy. Central
California Colony became a notable "beauty spot on the arid plain." Its
history is typical of the others.
Washington Irrigated Colony of five sections of land afterward en-
larged to eleven lying south of and adjoining Central California was the
next project organized in March, 1878, by J. P. Whitney, O. Wendell Easton
of San Francisco, A. T. Covcll who was resident agent and superintendent
with Easton as the nominal owner and general manager. In June, 1880,
J. W. North, whose name is associated with the Riverside Colony, located
in the colony and assumed the agency preceded by Easton and Walter
J. Whitney. In January, 1882, G. G. IBriggs, vineyardist and fruitman of
Yolo County, bought the unsold land and fencing in 100 acres began im-
proving a holding of nearly 1.000 acres. The colony became an industrious
and thrifty settlement of varied nationalities.
The Nevada of three sections was promoted by S. A. Miller among his
Nevada mining acquaintances whom he induced to invest in the western
third of the tract while still with the Central California, whose w.estern
extension was blocked by litigation. In Washington Colony only three-
quarters of a section was sold as at first contemplated in twenty-acre tracts,
the remainder in eighty-acre lots and quarter sections going to purchasers
of means. Impetus was given the enterprise by the former land owners —
Church and Roeding — in a gift of a 160-acre tract with water right for the
erection by the colony of a fruit dryer to stimulate orchard planting. M. J.
Donahoo was the first buyer of land and improved it notably. Among the
early big settlers were J. S. Goodman. John R. Hamilton, William Forsyth,
J. M. Pugh, B. R. Wood'worth and Henry Donnelly.
Scandinavian Home Colony resulted from an organization in San Fran-
cisco of October, 1878, to colonize either in Oregon or Washington. A visit
was made to Fresno with the result of location on a land section, three
miles northeast of Fresno bought from Henry Voorman of San Francisco
on liberal terms, among others ten years' credit at low interest. Within one
week the thirt^•-two twenty-acre lots were taken up and by the middle of
1879 the first settler families arrived. Two adjoining sections were added
giving the colony 1,920 acres in ninety-six lots, practically all disposed of
in 1882 save five choice reservations. While at first the membership was
restricted to the Scandinavian born, the bar of nationality was afterward
let down. Scandinavian proved a distinctive success. A notable improvement
was a winery, but the orchard was not neglected. Throughout the county
the Scandinavian has proven himself to be a desirable and welcome settler
and as making the best citizen. Lots bought in the Scandinavian in 1880 for
$450 were valued unimproved two years later at $1,000 and upwards, while
improved land was held from $100 to $300 per acre.
The Easterby Colony of the historical ranch of A. Y. Easterby of Napa
came about 1877 into the ownership of William O'Brien of the Nevada
Bank and the Bonanza firm of Flood and O'Brien, upon whose death the
bank had the management. It was sold to N. K. Masten and I\I. Theo. Kear-
ney to colonize in June, 1880. Improvements followed with enlarged irriga-
tion facilities. Here were located some of the best known first large raisin
and wine grape vineyards such as Maker's. Butler's, the Fresno of 400
acres organized by Kearney with Lachman & Jacobi and other prominent
264 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
wine men. Some 90O acres were sold off in smaller forty and twenty-acre
tracts. The colony was intensively cultivated and highly improved. It was
located three miles east of Fresno and in later years with the general growth
became a cluster of pretentious suburban farm residences of the well to do.
Fresno Colony was the speculation of Thomas E. Hughes & Sons upon
purchase of 2,880 acres in August, 1881, from the estate of E. Jansen and
nearly one-half of the tract was sold in three months. The land was bought
for six and one-half dollars an acre and sold for forty dollars and fifty dol-
lars, over $30,000 having been realized on sales in six months. One-half of
the land was deeded for water rights on the other half. The colony joined
the town of Fresno immediately on the south, stretching northward to the
boundary of Central California. It was virtually part of the town: is in
fact part of the school district. Colony was in twenty-acre parcels, sold for
fifty dollars an acre, $300 cash at purchase and balance at ten per cent. To
the original tract an addition of 960 acres was made, giving a total area
of 3,840 acres, or six miles.
The Coulson Colony named for Nat. T. Coulson was a project of 1882
of Dr. J. L. Cogswell with others, one mile and a half from old Centerville.
It involved a trust estate.
The American comprised 3,200 acres adjoining the Washington on the
west and the Central on the south. Its twenty-acre lots sold at $700 or in
160-acre tracts at fifteen to twenty dollars an acre with water right.
Temperance Colony adjoined the Nevada with ex-Supervisor G. W.
Beall as one of the larger and more prominent settlers. It was launched in
December, 1880. Temperance and Nevada were enterprises of M. J. Church,
the land owner, who was a total abstainer, always a temperance man, and
in his later days embraced the faith of the Seventh Day Adventists. Accord-
ing to the platted map, the canal branch contemplated to run on each side
of every avenue, and on all lines of lots for the convenience of irrigation.
SUCCESSES, FAILURES AND RESULTS
Within a radius of less than ten miles from Fresno, there were then
in 1882 nine wholly or partially improved colonies as above outlined, rang-
ing in acreage from one to eleven sections. The substantial financial and
economic success of many of these and others that followed them does not
signify that there were no failures.
Notable as the first failure was also the pioneer effort, the Alabama
Colony or Settlement of 1868-70 around Borden, the pioneers mostly Ala-
bamans. It was the only settlement south of Mariposa Creek for farming
purposes on the plains in the sense of grain farming. It was practically
abandoned about 1874-75. Without inquiring into all the causes for the
failure, suffice it that "the Southern planter did not make a successful
farmer," even with water for irrigation, and that when another set of men
succeeded them "with other methods more adapted to the requirements of
the times" they were more successful.
Equally notable — though at the time considered notorious — was the
Holland Colony of Dutch immigrants located about five miles from Fresno
where a mansion headquarters with broad porticos was erected and stood
until a few years ago when it was destroyed in an incendiary fire. The Hol-
land Colony has been put down as a bare faced swindle. In one sense of
the word it was in the representations made to induce colonization. If what
is known now had been known then, the failure might have been retrieved in
part. The colonists were placed on "hard pan" land which pick would not
disintegrate and which was impervious to water. Experience since the
colony's day in that neighborhood and on that very land has been that "hard
pan" surfaced land is fit for agriculture but the original cost of preparing
it for development and cultivation is much increased by reason of the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 265
added one of blasting the "hard pan" to reach the sub drained subsoil.
Where this has been done, the soil has been found excellent for peaches,
apricots, grapes and other fruits. In time the "hard pan" can be by constant
working crumbled to assimilate with the unbared soil. It is a laborious and
costly undertaking. With the increased value of land, while "hard pan" is
not anxiously sought, neither is it absolutely condemned.
These and other failures did not prevent the spread of colonies in every
direction to which water could be directed. Features of the colonies were
that later many purchasers were non-resident investors. Along about 1885
when the colonization fever was at its height, Fresno was receiving extra-
ordinary advertising all over the state. Large real estate sales agencies in
San Francisco handling tract colonizations ran train excursions with bands
and lunches on the grounds on the sales days, and thus brought people to
view the country. Another feature borrowed from the Central was the plant-
ing of border trees on the avenues. The White Adriatic was a favorite, and
thus Fresno's prominence as a dried fig producer had its beginning. The
Australian gum was another favorite because as a rapid grower it gave
shade, was evergreen and furnished wood for fuel. The mulberry had its
champions with the reorganization in 1880 of the State Silk Culture Asso-
ciation which later became dormant. This recalls a one time popular craze.
The Riverside Colony founded in 1870 bought its land from the California
Silk Center Association which gave up the ghost with the recall of the state
bounty of 1866 of $250 for every plantation of 5,000 two-year-old mulberries.
Bounty demands were so many that treasury was threatened with bank-
ruptcy, for the estimate was that in 1869 there were 10,000,000 mulberry trees
in the Central and Southern portions of the state. Bounty had stimulated
tree planting but the silk production (3,587 pounds of cocoons according to
the 1870 census) was negligible, evidenced in a few specimen flags and orna-
mental doilies at state and county fairs.
With the colonization of Kearney's Fruit Vale Estate in August, 1885,
the Chateau Fresno Avenue or boulevard was laid out to float the colony
scheme, but conditions were exacted from land buyers on the avenue look-
ing to its maintenance in perpetuity, even though it had not later been made
a gift to the county. -
Colonization projects and their promotion brought on naturally the land
and town lot boom times of the early 80's. Curbstone brokers would turn
a piece of property two and three times in a day. each turn at an advance,
making big money on the day's transactions and having nothing more sub-
stantial as the basis for the day's business than an option limited in hours
as to time. It was big money, of course, for the owner of land not too far
from town and accessible to water to make the necessary arrangements
and sell a five-dollar acre for ten times that much and more as land values in-
creased with the feverish boom demand. With the call for acreage land,
Fresno city boomed speculatively and villa and homestead additions were
hung on at every conceivable angle to the old boundary limits, causing
much expense and trouble in later years in the extensions of city streets
to the outlying districts. Vineyards and orchards were torn up and town
contiguous acreage was cut up into city lots to bring material advances on
sale. A sorry day came with the collapse of that unhealthy boom, due to
inflation of values and abnormal demand not warranted by the conditions
and the times. Years of stagnation followed before the reaction came about
with sane, slow but substantial and apparent progress. Meantime, however,
fortunes had been turned by those who let go on the crest of the wave and
lost by those who held on too long and did not know when that wave had
crested but imagined that the cresting would continue indefinitely.
266 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
MANY PROJECTS ARE FLOATED
In 1900 when conditions had taken a decided turn for the better, there
were sixty or more projects floated in the county. Not all successfully
breasted the times. Most of them did. It is a tax on memory to remember
the names of many of these. They have been forgotten in the passage of
time to be recalled only by an occasional transfer deed or an examination
of the referred to descriptive recorded plat. Among the better known these
may be recalled:
Bank of California Tract (West Park Colony garden spot) ; Brigg's
Selma Tract ; Caledonia Tract adjoining the county fair grounds floated by
Alexander Gordon and Bank Cashier John Reichman succeeded by the late
Archie Grant : Clay's Addition between Fresno Colony and the city on the
south ; Curtis & Shoemake near Reedley : Eggers' named for G. H. Eggers
adjoining Kutner's; El Capitan in the Malaga Tract; Enterprise of J. A.
and A. R. Cole adjoining Eggers'; Kearney's Fruit Vale with its Monarch,
La Favorita, Estrella, Nestell's and Paragon vineyards; his Fruit Vale Estate
with avenues named for the Presidents and the Fruit Vale Raisin Vineyard ;
the Fortuna of the P. I. Company in T. 15 near lands of I. N. Parlier;
E. S. Kowalsky's Gould Ranch north of Scandinavian and the later British
capitalized celebrated and mode! raisin and wine grape vineyard of the late
Robert Barton, who expended $450,000 in the improvement of the estate
when sold to the English syndicate and which stood as one of the foremost
landmarks in the county ; the Indianola at Sanger and the Kingsburg near
the town of the same name.
The Kingsburg was an example in the reclamation as a garden spot of
a veritable sandy Sahara through the advisory and practical eiTorts of the
late F. D. Rosendahl, a graduate of the University of Sweden and a Cali-
fornia pioneer of 1849. He had made botany a special study, was a lover
of nature, and having traveled much had large experien'ce in liis field. He
aided in the landscaping of Central Park in New York, Golden Gate Park
in San Francisco and the Kearney Fruit Vale Estate in Fresno. He was
the pioneer nursery man in this territory that stocked the vineyards and
orchards of the neighboring counties in the Kings River watershed. It has
been said about him that if one-half of the unsettled for nursery stock in
plantations furnished by him on time contracts was paid for he would have
had a competency in his old age. He was one of nature's noblemen and of
such a philanthropic spirit that he wrought more for the community than
in his own interest. For years he was the township justice and in office
prevented rather than encouraged personal litigation and in that capacity
was the father confessor, repository and pacificator of community and in-
dividual troubles. He recognized early the possibilities of the land and was
a factor in its improvement and development.
Then there were the Kutner Colony one section removed from Tem-
perance and a corner crossed by the mill ditch from Fancher Creek, the
water of which ran the grist mill in town and passed on in ditch along
Fresno Street for irrigation of the plains to the west of town ; the Muscatel
just below the third Standard line southwest of Herndon of three sections
embracing the plat town of Sycamore and avenues named for big men of
finance — Gould, Vanderbilt, Astor and Huntington ; the Norris colonies of
C. H. and L. E. D. Norris and J. C. Kimble, who had also one named for
him adjoining Del Rio Rey Fig and Raisin Company in T. 15; the Nye-
]\Iarden near Fowler of iNIrs. E. M. Nye and W. H. Marden ; the numerous
Perrin colonies of Dr. E. B. Perrin, head and front and controlling owner of
tlie irrigation system before it passed into English hands with Lord Fitz-
^\'illia^ls as the titled money holder and one of whose land holdings com-
panies trust deeded in the spring of 1917 for one million dollars covering a
loan floated to meet a bond issue of an older corporation that had fallen
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 267
due : Reedley of S. L. Reed around the town ; the Richland Tract adjoining
the Caledonia and A. S. Butler vineyards and the tract with the sale of
which the name of M. Theo. Kearney is first associated; Riverside at Reed-
ley ; the Salinger Tract, a large body of land northeast of town comprising
Belmont Addition and which contributed to the eastern expansion of the
city into acreage land ; the Sierra Park Colony and Vineyard of C. K. Kirby,
the distiller, west of Fowler, besides many others.
Nor should be overlooked the J. T. Goodman, Frank Locan of 800 acres,
the William Forsyth and R. B. Woodworth Las Palmas vineyards in the
three sections of Nevada Colony; the G. H. Malter, M. Denicke, Dr. W. J.
Baker's Talequah, the A. B. Butler, Fresno, Margherita and H. Granz vine-
yards in Easterby Rancho and in the Fancher Creek Nursery neighborhood
the equally prominent W. N. Oothout. Dr. Eshelman's Minnewawa, the
Minneola in T. 14, the T. F. Eisen vineyards and the F. Roeding sections.
The sorry fact must be recorded that the early small farmers and
their successors for years after were extravagant in the use of water
for irrigation. The problem that they have left as an heritage is how to
reclaim within reasonable cost and with assurance of successful reclama-
tion land that was once fertile but now is barren because surcharged with
alkali. The government has demonstrated that theoretically it can be done
by sub-drainage and leaching. The state university on the Kearney estate
has drain-tiled a section of land with reported reestablished fertility, but time
must more fully determine the practical success of the leaching process.
The soakings that the large dry areas received with first and long continued
application of water for many seasons resulted in such a saturation of the
bone-dry subsoil that for miles about in the irrigated districts the water
level arose from fifty to fifteen and twenty feet from the surface. In Fresno
city at Mariposa and H Streets, the level in gauged wells there arose from
seventy to twenty and twenty-five feet.
Beneficial experience has taught that after a primary thorough satura-
tion, a little water judiciously applied suffices. Too much injures trees and
vines and forces the alkali to the top. Too many noting the marvelous effect
of irrigation on new and raw land with the cheapness of water in Fresno —
cheaper than elsewhere in the state — imagined that they could not abuse
such a good thing and irrigated to excess without a thorough plowing and
cultivating that should succeed every water application. Of late years,
orange, citrus and alfalfa growers have turned to pumping from wells by
electric power for irrigation in localities not served, or where the supply
is not dependable for various causes. A flowing artesian well will irrigate
twenty or thirty acres of alfalfa or orchard land and in cases even more.
The more experienced farmers use water sparingly now — verily a case
of locking the stable door after the horse has been stolen. Once upon a time
orange orchards were drenched six or seven times in a season ; now three
or four are considered sufficient. Vineyards were watered several times;
now the best vineyardists irrigate once during the winter and at the most
another slight app'lication in May. Grain land where irrigated is watered
before ploughing. The result of over-irrigation has been to alkali sterilize
large areas of the first colonized lands about Fresno that were once things
of beauty and joy and show places to take the visitor to, but now are night-
mares around which wide detours are made.
Land has risen so in value that these sterilized spots must in time be
reclaimed, even though there are other large tracts in the county awaiting
the husbandman. The colonization enterprise supply in tract sales is far
from exhausted as the recorded plat filings and real estate column adver-
tisements in the newspapers will show. But it is colonization on altog:ether
different lines. The day of pioneering is no more.. The worth of the soil has
long been demonstrated. The present day colonizations are purely commer-
ciaf affairs for seller as well as buyer. The man without money or securities
268 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
need not apply. Where once ten's of dollars were paid for an acre, now it is
in the hundreds, depending upon conditions or how many. Looking back
though, it must be conceded that the country progressed more rapidly than
did the city, and sorry indeed the city without the sustaining basis of a back
country as in Fresno.
CHAPTER XLVI
Newer Town Locations Represent Later and Modern Develop-
ment Period. Their Origin Briefly Reviewed. Fresno in
1879 Still "A Cow County Village." Burials in Town
Ceased Only in 1875. Two Transcontinental Railroads
Serve County. A Remarkable Mountain Railroad Into
THE Sierras. Automobile Has Solved Problem of Inter-
urban Communication.
The newer towns of the county today are "the product of the new
blood, the newer order of things in the county," representing a later modern
development period. In a write up published on New Year's day in 1879,
Fresno is "damned with faint praise" and given distinction as "the largest
place in the county," and as "one of the most flourishing villages" in the
valley with "about 2,000 inhabitants including Chinese."
The Expositor feigned to "know of "many elegant residences surrounded
by beautiful gardens within the limits of the town." It also recorded that
"unlike oth'er California towns the Chinese quarter is not located in the white
portion of the town but is located to itself on the west side of the railroad
track and fully one-fourth of a mile from the town proper." Much was made
in the write up of the $10,000 "elegant" two-story, seven-room school house
that was being erected on "a rising piece of ground north from the court-
house." That old building turned to face another street and moved to an-
other site on the same school block is still in use. For the period of 1876-78
Fresno was credited by another authority with a population of "about 700
inhabitants" and boasting "of courthouse of elegant design erected at a cost
of $60,000" — not the present structure.
The fact is that at this time Fresno was "a cow county village." It had
not yet awakened to its possible future, and while there were things to
commend many more were there to damn. It was yet in the village forma-
tive period with a world of experiences to undergo before striding out on
the quick march of advancement. It was still in the shanty period. The
bungalow had not been dreamed of. The two-story brick building, plain to
ugliness, was an architectural eighth wonder ; the sky scraper unthought of.
The graded, chuck-hole street, deep in dust in summer a muddy quagmire
after every shower, was a step in advance but the paved or oil surfaced
roadway was not to be realized until years later. If you arrived by train
at night, you were piloted with lantern across the rubbish and dumppile fac-
ing the depot where now Commercial Park is laid out; and were you a
resident you would be met with lantern also to pick your way across lots
homeward. It was only about January 20, four years before in 1875, that
burials had ceased in the first "old cemetery in the north part of town" and
the bodies "some nine in number" were being exhumed for removal to the
second burial ground "lying south of Chinatown" off Elm Avenue. That
old city cemetery was at what is today M and Stanislaus Streets, less than
six blocks east and three north from the railroad depot, then the business
center of Fresno. When the cemetery was located there, so far out on the
prairie, little was it thought that the town would in a few years have spread
to there. Yet again at county seat removal time, the gift of a courthouse
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 269
site, only one block northeast of the present location was declined and
exchange made because too far out of town. So much for the faith that
some then entertained as to the future of Fresno.
There have been town locations in the county that not passing beyond
the initial stage of founding were overcome by arrested development. There
is not lacking in the record projected and platted towns that never had
material existence as :
Butler partly on the Easterby and Flenrietta ranchos on land of W. N.
Oothout, A. B. Butler and W. D. Parkhurst and bisected by the projected
Stockton and Tulare Railroad.
Co veil (Easton postoffice) in Washington Colony with four blocks re-
served for townhall, school and two plazas on four central surrounded
blocks.
Clifton on Washington Avenue one mile east of Prairie school house
and on fifteen acres.
Riverview on the north bank of the San Joaquin at the railroad bridge
crossing and as the rival of Herndon on the south bank.
Shelbyville in T. 14 S., R. 16 E, a notable swindle.
Smyrna on the Kearney Fruit Vale Estate alongside of the chateau
grounds, besides others.
Among Fresno's newer towns may be mentioned :
Clovis northeast of Fresno was once a grain growing country. Today
it is a producer of more Malaga grapes than the original district of Spain.
It is a bustling little town, the creation of the lumber company with operat-
ing mills at Shaver in the Sierras as its flume shipping terminal with mills
on the plains. Its payroll alone is $450,000 a year. Town has a population of
1.500 and is the gateway to a rich section of mountain territory. It is a
naturally favored, modernized little town with a future exceeded by none
as the logical trading post of a 125,000-acre region for the most part in
the thermal footbelt and awaiting development. Two colonizing companies
will in time bring nearlv 8.000 acres under fig cultivation, one of these selling
land at $400 an acre.
In 1880 Fowler was marked by two shanties and the railroad siding.
Fruitful harvests made it a large warehousing and grain shipping point.
Fruit and raisins followed and in 1890 shipments included 688 carloads of
grain, 153 of raisins and fifteen of green and dried fruit. Three irrigation
ditches supply it with water. During the last ten years town and country
have made prosperous strides. It is one of the favored spots in close rela-
tion with the county seat since the automobile has annihilated time and
distance. With a town population of 1,200, the tributary district claims
5,000. To tell of all its varied resources would smack of advertising litera-
ture.
Sixteen miles from Fresno to the west is Kernian, central point in a
26,000-acre colonization tract. It has had rapid and substantial growth, is
residentially a grouping of bungalows and as with all the new settlements
in the county is liberally provided with school facilities in modernized
buildings with district high school af^liations. An agricultural center and
a railroad freight transfer point, Kerman has been laid out and built up on
progressive lines as to public utilities. Dairying is an industrial specialty.
Laton on the Santa Fe is the natural result of the development of the
Laguna de Tache and Summit Lake lands, as a trading center at the junc-
tion of the transcontinental road and the Laton & Western branch. Laton
is a village of some 600 people, in oak tree shaded and parklike surroundings
and in a fertile territory noted for dairying, alfalfa and hog raising. It is
picturesquely situated and though not more than ten years old is advancing
despite a destructive fire in its eighth year. Lanare is the terminus at the
other end of the branch road.
270 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Malaga is a triangularly platted hamlet central to Malaga Colony, just
east of Central California Colony, and established by G. G. Briggs pioneer
raisin grower of the state. The tract was of ten sections in twenty-acre farms
and vineyards. It is in a fertile section and thickly built up with attractive
and prosperous rural homes.
Oleander village, seven miles southeast of Fresno and three from Fow-
ler, is essentially an intensive farming community with 2,500 acres of raisin
vineyards and an equal acreage in orchard, alfalfa and grain tributary,
and with several raisin and fruit packing houses. The work in these estab-
lishments in season is not performed by transient labor but by the villagers,
the men, women and young people. Rural life in the Fresno settlements
with all their comforts and social surroundings borders on the ideal.
A great wheat field marked in June, 1888, the townsite of Reedley named
for the late T. L. Reed. It is on the two railroads almost in the southeast
corner of the county, twenty-five miles east of the county seat and about
sixty from the Coast Range on the south bank of the Kings. Contributory
to the town are 160 sections of land. It is in the Alta Irrigation District.
Wheat and raisins are the two important exports. The region is one of
fertility, a part of the citrus belt, and one of great promise. The first sale
of town lots was on April 25, 1889, with the foundation of the town laid
after the 1888 wheat crop was ofif and Mr. Reed giving the railroad company
a half interest in 360 acres to plat and locate the townsite. On the <^
salesday $16,000 was realized. Reedley is contiguous to the Blount Camp-
bell orange country, a sight of which is an inspiration.
As late as May, 1888, a spreading wheat field covered the ground where
today the bustling little foothill town of Sanger is as the result of a location
on a division line of the Southern Pacific. It is fourteen miles east of Fresno
and was founded as the industrial terminus and mill-town of the 'Kings
River Lumber Company with its fifty-four miles of flume to float down
from Millwood, high up in the Sierras, the lumber cut in Converse Basin,
around Millwood and the nearby timber forests, operations which with the
changes of time and ownership successions are being conducted by the
Sanger Lumber Company in the new mountain sawmill town of Hume on
Ten-Mile Creek to which the base of operations was moved across a moun-
tain ridge from Millwood in the upper Kings River region. Ground was
broken for the $35,000 concrete dam to create an eighty-seven-acre lake of
impounded water from the creek on June 26, 1908, and work completed late
in November. The dam project was worked out by Civil Engineer J. S.
Eastwood on original lines as a unique piece of engineering and construction
work. The dam has the appearance of a long bridge of arches and buttresses
set on edge, with the rounded arches withstanding the immense pressure
of water in the lake behind thern, but receiving it equally distributed at all
points. The dam is the first of its kind in the world. The town was laid out
on sanitary lines and seventeen and one-half miles were added to the flume,
joining the old one at Mill Flat Creek. The first lot sale in Sanger was
held in June, 1888, and the result of the location was the depopulation of
pioneer Centerville. Sanger is on the edge of the thermal belt and in a rich
fruit and raisin country. Centerville was only three miles awav southeast.
East of Sanger is the foothill orange belt, west and south the famous "red
lands" so adapted to raisin grapes. Sanger is a wide awake town of cnsv and
pretty homes, and an estimated population of 2,500 in 1914, has steadily
grown and advanced and has a magnificent future.
Selma on the line of the Southern Pacific, about fifteen miles southeast
of Fresno and five miles from Kingsburg, once on "a sandy desert," was
located on his soldier's land warrant in 1878 by Jacob E. Whitson, a veteran
of the Civil War, former county treasurer and founder of the town. As late
as 1879 the country about was utilized by the herdsman for the wild grasses
as stockfeed. \A'hitson's location was 160 acres and he laid out the town in
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 271
1882. It was for a money consideration paid by him, aided by E. H. Tucker,
M. Snyder and G. B. Otis, whom he gave equal interests in town lots, that
the railroad was induced to build a small switch to the town, which in
1882 had a population of less than 250 but of 1,000 five years later. The
neighboring land was brought under irrigation by the main branch of the
Centerville and Kingsburg Ditch Company and vineyards, orchards and
alfalfa were the plantings. The soil is sandy and specially suited for the
peach which is the leading specialty. The town draws its support from the
cultivated area surrounding it and its growth has been despite discouraging
reverses, especially in destructive fires. The community is a prosperous one,
overshadowed commercially as it always will be by reason of its proximity
to Fresno. It is preeminently an ideal town of attractive homes, churches,
schools, fraternities and of high moral tone, having early in its career no
less than ten organized churches. Selma is typical of the best developed
phase of semi-rural life in the San Joaquin Valley with a population 3,500.
Mendota is a divisional point on the Southern Pacific. Friant, or Pol-
lasky as once known, is on the San Joaquin as the brancli terminus serving
the Millerton region and the northeastern mountain country (jf Fresno ancl
Madera. A fine, arched, concrete bridge spans the river at this point, and
another below Herndon, Skagg's bridge, at an old time ford crossing. Oak-
hurst on the Santa Fe is the center of the Kings River Thermal Tract and
Wahtoke at the terminus of the Reedley branch is in the orange belt.
A region west of Fresno on the Southern Pacific line, south from Ker-
man, was opened to development about five years ago and given over to
alfalfa, fruit and grapes. Located on the line are Raisin City, a community of
Dunkards, nine miles west from the county seat, and five miles south of Caru-
thers, both central to 50,000 acres susceptible of development.
Parlier is in a rich strip of territor}-, northwest of Reedlev and is a
grape center on the Santa Fe. Del Rey, north of it, is a raisin shipping point
with three packing houses.
Evidences of the new blood are to be seen also in the many changes
in the Pine Ridge mountain region, once monopolized by the saw mills.
Apple and fruit orchards and berry and vegetable patches now mark the
meadows and plateaus; there's Ockenden, popular mountain resort; Shaver,
the lumlier mill village with its Sulphur Meadow as a favorite summer
camping ground, and beyond it on lake the headquarters of the Shaver Lake
Fishing Club, unique organization of trout anglers. On the other side of
the Kings divide there is, starting out from Reedley, the county built Sand
Creek mountain road with hardly a perceptible grade to Sequoia Lake,
trout fishing, camp ground and the popular General Grant National Park
resort, the road continuing to Hume and joining the state projected exten-
sion to open up eventually the Kings River Canyon as accessible playgrounds
in a scenic region that when better known will rival the Yosemite. In its
mountains Fresno County has a valuable scenic asset that has too long
been neglected.
ON THE RAILROAD LINES
.\ few years ago when there was agitation for interurban railroads,
the map of the county was described as looking "like a gridiron of rail-
roads." The description was fantastic rather than real. A great ado was
made over several projected enterprises, but after all the smoke and noise
the net result was onl}' two small electric lines, one running out east of
Fresno, never completed to Clovis as the planned terminus, camouflaged as
an interurban road, operated at a loss and in court in foreclosure litigation
based on its quarter of a million bonded indebtedness, and the other a city
line extension to new farming settlements west of Fresno. Talk alone will
not build interior and seaboard connecting railways, however urgent the
272 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
need for them. The promoter faces the fact of the Southern Pacific and
the Santa Fe in control of the situation, working in harmony to maintain
the monopoly and blocking competition by open hostility or extinguishing
it by absorption, when not actually promoting a "feeder" branch under
guise of an independent enterprise of private capital. The interurban prob-
lem has been solved in part by the automobile.
Two transcontinental roads serve the county. Many villages and settle-
ments have of late years sprung up on the branch lines as the result of the
colonization and sale of tracts for orchards, vineyards and alfalfa. With
the consequent development of the county, there are many central points
that could be catalogued, but with a sameness in detail and altogether lack-
ing the picturesque features of the early settlements. As the inspirations
of speculative colonization and industrial enterprises, they are too numerous
for detailed mention. The Southern Pacific main line passes across the
county on a direct line at its narrowest from Herndon on the San Joaquin to
Kingsburg on the Kings, and south of the county seat through Calwa Junc-
tion, Malaga, Fowler and Selma. Another line enters the county from the
northwest through Firebaugh, Mendota, Ingle, the site of Jameson, Ker-
man to Fresno, and from Fresno south and to the east of main line through
Sanger and to Reedley on the Kings. Jameson is named for the late Jefifer-
son G. James of San Francisco, pioneer cattle man and one time owner of
the big Jefif James ranch in the West Side slough country.
West of Fresno the main line is paralleled by a branch starting from
Kerman running south through Dubois, Raisin City, Caruthers to Lillis
named for S. C. Lillis, who died January 22, 1917, at Oakland, Cal. Lillis
was a picturesque relic of the pioneer land baron of early California, owned
at one time one quarter of the great Laguna de Tache cattle ranch of the
Spanish days, occupied the headquarters Grant House as his home, and
could •claim possession of 140.000 acres of land. His name is associated with
the Laguna lands and lawsuits with the government, serving a term of
imprisonment for the ofl-'ense of fencing in public lands.
Still further west of Kerman, branching at Ingle and running south is
a line through Tranquillity, Graham, Caldwell, Helm and other slough set-
tlements to Riverdale on the Laguna, the Hanford and Summit Lake Rail-
road. This line is in the rich slough country formed by the back water
from the San Joaquin and the overflow from the Kings. A great reclama-
tion work is in progress there. The 72,000-acre James ranch has been
opened to colonization and is being developed by its syndicate successor, the
Graham Farm Lands Company incorporated for $3,000,000 to handle the 113-
square-mile farm project. Jameson and Tranquillity Colony and town have
been relegated to the past. The Laguna de Tache is a British capitalized
enterprise, the same that controls the irrigation system. Its colonization
was begun a decade ago and thousands of settlers have been brought on
the land. To the original ranch grant have been added the Summit Lake
lands rounding out a tract of 40,000 acres. Laton is the seat, with Lillis
one mile and a half west, Kingsburg at the eastern end of tract, Lemoore
in Kings County near the western, and the railroad to Coalinga a little to
the south, flanking it the full length. This slough branch joins an east
and west road touching the Southern Pacific main line south of the county,
running west again into the cgunty, passing through Rossi, Huron and
Stanley to Coalinga and beyond to Alcalde on Warthan Creek, a stock ship-
ping point for the Coast Range foothills. A northeast Southern Pacific
branch from Fresno passes through Clovis with Friant on the San Joaquin
as the terminus in the Millerton country. This is the Pollasky road, so-called.
Above and west of development arrested Herndon, the Santa Fe enters
the county from the north and heads direct for Fresno, passing through
the city on O Street, four blocks behind the courthouse. It branches with
one fork southeast, later joining the main line further down but passing
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 273
through Lone Star, De Wolf, Del Rev and Parlier to Reedley from whicli
latter extends a branch northeast through Vino, Wahtoke to Piedra on the
upper Kings where the magnesite mountain mine, the street-paving rock
quarry and crusher are located, where canal companies take water from
the stream and in which foothill region there is a well marked thermal belt.
Main line headed south touches Oleander, Bowles with its colony of in-
telligent and thrifty colored settlers from the south, Monmouth, Conejo and
Laton, and out of the county. At Laton in the southwestern part the Laton
& Western runs to Lanare as a feeder in a newly opened district. One
mile southeast of Fresno is the railroad town of Calwa through which the
Southern Pacific passes and where the Santa Fe has expended one million,
it is said, for terminal switching facilities not to be had in the county
seat, and for homes for railroad employes and those of industrial plants
that time, it is hoped, will bring forth.
North of Clovis at El Prado is the terminus of the San Joaquin &
Western, the unique mountain road to the great Power House No. 1 of
the San Joaquin Light and Power Company. Its terminus is high up in
the Sierras at Cascada where a stupendous construction feat was accom-
plished in the erection of an immense dam to impound the waters of Big
Creek to form Huntington Lake for the generation of electricity and its
transmission for power and light. A mountain resort has been established at
the lake. Much has been said and written about the Mount Lowe scenic rail-
way at Los Angeles and the tortuous railway to the top of Mt. Tamalpais on
San Francisco Bay, but neither can compare with the Fresno scenic railway
in the ascent of the Sierra Mountains and on shelving mountain side fol-
lowing for miles the winding course of the San Joaquin in its rugged and
wild canyons. Its scenic pictures are bewildering. A feature of the road is
that the rolling stock is not hauled up the snaky mountain track but is
pushed up by the locomotive placed where one looks to find the homely
caboose. The descent is by gravity with the locomotive in rear that the
train may not run away. This mountain road serves all the accessible Sierra
timber region on the San Joaquin River divide of the county. The story is
told that the cost of blasting out the original wagon road, which the rail-
way follows in its sinuous track, with the added construction, equipment
and operation of the steam railroad was found to be a substantial saving
in the estimated mountain freighting of the cement and the construction
material for the dam, tunnels and big power house, wherefore the San Joaquin
& Western was conceived as an cconomv.
274 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER XL VII
Incorporated Cities of the County Number Nine. Newness of
THE Towns on the Plains With Fresno as Oldest Located
AND First to Incorporate. Settlements Existing Before
1872 ARE Memories of the Past. Clusters of Population
Before 1880. Earlier Trading Points Recalled to Mind.
With Madera's Divorce in 1893 Went the Early Histori-
cal Region of Fresno County North of San Joaquin River.
Incorporated towns and villages in the county today are nine with the
date of and vote on incorporation as follows :
Election Date Vote Cast
Fresno September 29, 1885 277—185
Selma March 4, 1893 124— 54
Coaling:a March 26, 1906 99— 28
Kingsbur? Mav 11, 1908 72— 34
Fowler .^ ^la'v 25, 1908 74— 63
.San-cr _ __MaV '>. 1011 130—104
Clovis rel.riKirv 15, 1912 169— 83
Reedlcy February 14, 1913 310—104
Firebaugh September 10, 1914 56 — 7
Fresno is also the oldest town in the county reckoned from the year
1872 wlien townsite was staked and located, unless you would include
moribund Centerville in the Kings River bottom lands and Firebaugh in
association with the ferry of the same name established in the earlier days,
which would place Fresno third in the list. If not, Kingsbnrg would be the
second oldest, having been founded in 1873 as a grain shipping station. At
any rate not any of the nine incorporated population centers today are con-
nected with the pioneer history of the county. ^Vith the location of Fresno
on the plains, the center of population also changed, the county began a
new historical era and all before became practically a sealed and closed book,
so all comprehensive were the changes that followed.
This accounts for the comparative newness of the towns on the plains.
The settlements before 1872 are today little more than memories, decaying
and toppling ruins, as notably Centerville, Kingston, Tollhouse, Dunlap,
Herndon, Millwood, etc., besides all the roadside hamlet stations, once bus-
tling spots but perpetuated today only in post office names and stores. The
cutting off of the territory north of the San Joacjuin to the Chowchilla to
form 5ladera County in 1893 bereft Fresno of its principal historical region,
leaving iiiil\ the strips immediately about [Nlillerton and Centerville" and
the I'liu; I\ii1l;<- region to link it witji the past. Even the Fresno Jiiver is in
another c<iunt}'. so is the historical Chowchilla and so is Madera, once the
largest town next to the county seat, and Borden, Fine and Coarse Gold and
Grub Gulches, and all the other mining camp locations that contributed to
earliest history even to the last resting place of ^lajor James D. Savage,
the most picturesque character in the region's annals.
In January, 1879, the postoffices in the county — towns or settlements
as they were denominated — were: Berenda, Borden, Buchanan, Big Dry
Creek, Fresno, Fresno Flats, Firebaugh, Huron, Kings River, Kingsbnrg,
Kingston, Liberty, Madera, New Idria, Panoche, Tollhouse and \Mrdflower
• — seventeen in all and six of these not now in the county. To dispose first
of the six:
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 275
SETTLEMENTS BEFORE 1880
Berenda called into existence in June, 1872, when Leroy Dennis, former
sheriff, erected store and hotel, is still a station on the Southern Pacific
Railroad and was terminal for the mail stage route to Buchanan and Fresno
Flats, located in the mountains forty miles from Fresno. It is a relic of
the past.
Borden, seventeen miles from Fresno and on the line of the Southern
Pacific, was a busy station when Fresno was a barren plain. Its settlement
was in 1868, and in 1873 as post office and trading point for the Alabama
Settlement of Southerners, which ended in a fiasco. Borden aspired to be
county seat to succeed Millerton. With the failure of colony, it was prac-
tically abandoned. It was overshadowed at best by its proximity to Madera,
and existing today only as a railroad point on map lives in a dead past.
R. Borden was Central Pacific Railroad agent and R. P. Mace the hotelman
in 1876-78. It was dignified once in a description as "the metropolis of
Fresno County."
Buchanan's glory has long departed. Located in the northern foothills,
it was called into life by the discovery of copper ore veins, notablv the Ne
Plus Ultra. Much money was spent in development but high cost of labor
and transportation made the venture unprofitable. In the vicinity ranching,
sheep and stock-raising were followed. H. C. Daulton had near here his
large and valuable Poverty ranch, and Buchanan boasted of a $2,000 school-
house.
Fresno Flats is today a tumble-down mountain camp near the head of
the Fresno River in a farming, mining, lumber and stock raising country.
The Yosemite road passed it and the head of the Madera flume is eight miles
away. Discovered cpiartz outcroppings once promised a future never realized.
T. J. Allen was postmaster and general merchant, R. T. Burford lawver
and Thurman & Dickinson lumber men there in 1876-78. Smaller camps in
the hills to the south and east in the 80's were Michael's and Walker's
ranches. Brown's store and Oro Fino.
As the child of a flume enterprise, Madera, twenty-eight miles northwest
of Fresno, was laid out in 1876 by the California Lumber Company on the
south side of the Fresno River on the Central Pacific line, as the terminus
of the first great lumber flume from the mountain pineries forty-five miles
distant. Its population in 1882 was about 500, and until the formation of
Madera County of which it became the seat was the second largest and
most flourishing town in Fresno County. R. P. Mace, who represented this
county in the legislature at two sessions, was the pioneer settler securing in
September, 1876, first choice at the auction of town lots and located thereon
the hotel bearing his name and facing the railroad depot. The Madera
Flume and Trading Company supplanted the California in 1878, and has
continued as one of the dominant industrial enterprises of the town. Madera
was the terminus for the stage route to the Yosemite Valley and Big Trees.
It is a thriving community centered in good farming land, much of which
was held in large undivided parcels. It was a political center while a part
of Fresno County with ambitions not to be satiated save through county
division. Seven miles south was located the much advertised John Brown
Colony enterprise of 3,500 acres in five-acre farm lots. The industries and
enterprises that give life to Madera are on the same lines as those of the
parent county. For years after first settlement mining, stock raising and
grain farming ruled in turn and orchard and vineyard demonstrations
brought about a transformation. It had in 1900 a population of 1,500. The
Fresno River is the principal irrigation water supply, helped out by the
north fork of the San Joaquin, and Big Dry Creek as a tributarv of the
Merced.
276 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
New Idria was at the quicksilver mine in San Benito County in a region
fit otherwise only for grazing. Inhabitants were mostly Cornish miners
and Mexicans, the latter numbering 500 at times when the furnaces were
in full operation. Stage line from Hollister via Big Panoche connected it
with the outside world. New Idria was by annexation of territory lost to
Fresno sequestered as it was in a remote pocket corner. The mine was long
idle during the costly litigation to the United States Supreme Court of the
McGarrahan title claim. Three quicksilver furnaces were in operation in
1875. These were the $5,000 plant of the Little Panoche of 1874, the $10,000
of 1873 of the Cerro Gordo in Moody Canyon and the $100,000 of 1858 of
the New Idria on Silver Creek.
Raymond in Madera was laid out by C. G. Miller in April, 1889, as the
terminus town of the Yosemite division of the Southern Pacific from Berenda
completed in the spring of 1885. The famous granite quarries are located
near here. The staging and freighting that once animated Raymond exists
no longer, Yosemite travel having been diverted and the mines and settle-
ments in this section, once in the northeastern part of this county,
depopulated.
FRESNO EARLIER TRADING POINTS
The old settlements of Fresno County were ephemeral and characteristic
of the unsettled state of the times with their industrial revolutions. Not one
has survived to become a notable factor in the subsequent great develop-
ment of the county.
The first settlement in the extensive Dry Creek stock and farming com-
munity dates back to 1852 with John G. Simpson, W. L. L. Witt and William
Harshfield, the latter returning later to Arkansas and Witt removing to
the San Joaquin River. In 1856 they raised hay for sale to the Fort Miller
garrison and then sold possessory ranch title to C. P. Converse, who for
three years raised fodder for the fort and became a settler. The region was
dotted with cross road trading stores, such as Jensen's among others, with
a post office established at Big Dry Creek in 1870. In this foothill region
were the settlement groupings of Academy named for the pioneer incorpo-
rated school, Mississippi for the settlers from that state and Big Dry Creek.
Irrigation never was run to this stretch of the county. It was the great dry
farming region and prominent in the days of cattle and sheep. The Collins
brothers had store, shearing and dipping corral at Collins' Station, also a
stage halting point. Above Academy is a fine quarry of granite. The Dry
Creek region was prominent in early days socially, and industrially and in
all the better attributes of settlers in a new country.
Firebaugh's Ferry on the San Joaquin was named for A. D. Firebaugh,
who died in June, 1875, and years before conducted a ferry there. The vil-
lage has been a dependent upon the great Miller & Lux cattle ranch along
the river and the later grain and alfalfa and stock farms. It is one of the
oldest sheep shearing stations for the annual season of six weeks. The
Italian population predominates. At high water light steamers ran up the
river in earlier days as far as W'hitesbridge, ten miles above on Fresno
Slough, though practical navigation ended at the ferry drawbridge. It is
not denied that town incorporated to place itself beyond the operation in
the district of the Wylie local option law.
Huron as the terminus of the Southern Pacific branch running west
from Goshen was located in a desolate waste and has stood absolutely at
a standstill. Considerable farming in cereals is done here with results in
wet seasons: otherwise it is a sheep grazing region as most of the West
Side land of the county is where petroleum has not been discovered. Huron
was described in 1890 as "an embryo settlement." It has never passed that
stage. A time was when trains ran beyond it to Coalinga three times a
week.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 277
Centerville or Kings River as tiie post office designated this pioneer
settlement on the Upper Kings, was once the principal stopping place on the
Stockton-Visalia line. With abandonment of the route and later location
of the near by lumber mill town of Sanger on a branch railroad from Fresno
the settlement has been buried in its past. Centerville is today a collection
of ruinous, weather and time beaten, toppling rookeries of a past era. It had
in 1882 a population of about 800, besides 300 Indians, one of the two reser-
vations of early days having been located near here. Settlement was orig-
inally named Scottsburg, a name changed to Centerville about 1870, and
the post office serving all the Upper Kings River country. It was once the
center of population of the county, outrivalling ^lilierton and controlling
the county's political destinies. It had a flouring mill antedating the one
at Selma, pioneered in irrigation because of its proximity to the river but
was also subjected to inundations in wet winters in its bottom land loca-
tion, which was considered unsurpassed for corn. The thrice moved settle-
ment is located about sixteen miles from Fresno and at the base of the
foothills bordering on -the Kings. Jesse Morrow erected in 1872 the three-
story Centerville flouring mill at a cost of $22,000, using in the construction
part of Sweem's mill further up on the stream. Centerville is the pioneer
orange growing district. Its navel orange has high repute. It is largely
populated by Japanese in the citrus nursery industry. In 1879 Fresno alone
exceeded the old settlement in population. Centerville and its people con-
tributed much to the county's history making. It was thought for years to
be the center of the valley until survey accorded the distinction to the county
seat.
Saloonless Kingsburg on the line of the Southern Pacific, twenty miles
southeast of the county seat and one mile and a half from the river for
which named, was founded in August, 1873, by Josiah Draper, who moved
to what was then called Kings River S\\itch run by the railroad on his land.
He erected the first habitation of posts set in the ground and covered with
willow brush. His purpose was to freight with teams to Jacobs & Einstein,
merchants at Kingston west of the railroad. Some forty-eight carloads of
grain raised in the vicinity of Grangeville were shipped from the switch
during the season. The next nearest settlement was Centerville, only one
other farmer having located near the switch to raise grain hay. The first
store in the town was Simon Aaron's in the basement of Farley's hotel, the
second Simon Harris' in a structure erected for him, and the third was a
saloon. In the fall the railroad erected a station house cubby, a post office
was established called Wheatville with Andrew Farley as postmaster, and
Wells, Fargo & Company opened an office with Harris as agent. In the
winter of 1874-75 two sections of land were put to wheat and barley.
Irrigation was agitated in the spring of 1875 and twenty-four of the
settlers organizing with the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company started
work on June 21, 1875, on a canal. Eighteen months elapsed because of the
heavy work before water was brought up, and about this time the village
name of Wheatville was changed to Kingsburg. Water was sold to incor-
porators for $250 per right represented in labor, and an annual tax of twenty-
five dollars per share. Two dry seasons retarded the progress of the town.
In 1878 another compan}' was formed and ditch pushed to completion in a
dry summer. Water changed the drear aspect of the country and in 1880
16,000 acres were in grain in the visinity, j'ielding 4,000 tons, with about a
third more in 1881. In 1882 Kingsburg had a population of about 400, and
was a grain shipping point, having in 1881 in three warehouses 7,000 tons
or fourteen million centals of the grain output of the vicinity. Village was
shipping point for the Tulare country and the Laguna de Tache grant, and
a busy little place as a stage line station. Louis Einstein and Leo Gundel-
finger were pioneer general merchants. It was an early beneficiary from
irrigation in the Centerville and Kingsburg Irrigation Ditch Company. Lo-
278 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
cated today in a fertile fruit and grape section, it is one of the loveliest vil-
lages, and is a strong religious and moral community, the home of thrifty,
industrious Swedes induced to locate through the efforts of the late F. D.
Rosendahl. Kingsburg and Riverside colonies are prosperous syndicate
enterprises.
Kingston on the south bank of the river and twelve miles from Kings-
burg was located in a fine body of farming land but held in large tracts
for stock raising. Edward Erlanger erected a store there in 1875, but it
was long before that the Kings River ferry crossing for all that section
of country on the southern highway of travel back to very early days. It
counted in 1876 one general store, two hotels, saloon, livery stable and sev-
eral residences, and as late as 1879 was accounted "some place" with three
hotels, of G. N. Furnish, John Potts and Louis Reichert. It was the scene of
one of the Vasquez holdups. It is not on the railroad, wherefore Kingsburg
extinguished its future, while later Laton displaced it as the trading point
for the Laguna de Tache. Kingston is recalled only for its past.
Riverdale, formerly known as Liberty Settlement, changed its name
about 1875. It is located about twenty miles from Fresno near Cole's Slough,
a branch of the Kings and ten miles from Kingsburg. It is an alfalfa and
dairying country.
Panoche VaHey post office and settlement was established in 1870
with R. Burr as postmaster in a fertile and broad nook in the Mt. Diablo
chain of the Coast Range on the AA'cst Side of the county. Stock raising and
farming were and are the pursuits. All this country is now tributary to
Coalinga.
Tollhouse, picturesquely located at the foot of the first mountain of
the Sierra base, is thirty-two miles from Fresno and was in its day a bustling
lumber depot and shipping point for the mills on Pine Ridge. Its 1868 found-
ers were Henry Glass as blacksmith and A. C. Yancey as the hotelkeeper.
In 1882 250 and more found employment and had homes there, and it had
a tri-weekly stage mail service. M. J- Donahoo built there in 1876 a steam
planing mill. Thousands have traveled over the old Pine Ridge road to
the pineries in the Sierras, chartered in 1866 and sold to the county in 1878,
with the stage line and the freighting traffic with the mills adding to the
life of the place. Tollhouse was to the Sierra lumber region what Miller-
ton was to the county, Centerville to the Upper Kings, Dry Creek to the
foothill region, and Kingston to the Lower Kings. Many a pioneer lies at
rest in the little cemetery there.
Wildflower, postoffice name of Duke Settlement on the Emigrant Ditch,
twelve miles south of Fresno, was a cattle and grain country. Its original
settlers were people from the South. General farming and stock raising
followed up irrigation.
In 1876-78 Millerton was still classed in statistical works as a town of
Fresno but with the fort as the postoffice and Charles A. Hart as postmaster.
It was hoped that it would not "entirely disappear" as a town with its mines,
forests and fertile soil surroundings but in vain. Its Chinese quarter held
out to the very last. In 1879 it was a deserted village beyond the wildest
hope of resurrection short of a miracle.
Markwood Meadows in the high mountains, fourteen miles east of Toll-
house on the stockmen's earliest trail to the Sierras, form a plateau of
preserved virgin forest land and for years have been a favorite summer re-
sort for campers, as was Dinkey Creek in the same locality. W'ith the de-
nudation of the timber by the mills, the Meadows are a veritable mountain
oasis.
Pleasant Valley in the mountain range with New Idria and Panoche
was a flourishing stockraising settlement. It is an agricultural tributar}' to
Coalinga.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 279
Sycamore located in 1872, postofficed in September as Palo Blanco, was
a ferry station on the south bank of the San Joaquin at the head of river
navigation. Much was expected of it, but the location of Fresno and the
failure of the big irrigation enterprise on the river doomed it.
Watson's Ferry as the head of steamboat navigation on the San Joaquin,
eight miles above Firebaugh on Fresno Slough, was a busy shearing station,
200,000 sheep having been sheared in a season.
^^'hitesbridge, ten miles above Firebaugh on Fresno Slough, derives its
name from the bridge erected by James R. \Maite, who came a pioneer to
Fresno from Alariposa. It was a sheepshearing station, the clip shipped to
market by steamer. It is a stock and alfalfa country.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Phantom Shelbyville Recall.s a Widespread Swindle of the
L.A.ND Boom D.avs. It Wa.s a Lottery Conception of an East-
ern Circuit Theatrical Man. Town Had No Existence
Save in the Mind and on a Filed Map. Site Has Long Re-
verted to the State for Unpaid Taxes. Not for Years Have
the Lots Been on the Assessment Roll. Fresno as the
First Town Lncorporated in the County. Chance Discov-
ery of Earliest Recorded Townsite on Dry Creek in 1865.
Shelbyville? Have you never heard of the phantom town in Fresno
that had existence only in an imaginative brain, and on a beautifully designed
plat in the county recorder's office?
Shelbyville has been a standing joke at the county courthouse since
about 1890 to recall one great swindle of the land boom era, for there were
others as the Holland Colony scheme. Hundreds have had deeds to Shelby-
ville town lots, and mailing them for recording from all parts of the United
States on the bare supposition that they had a valuable present or prospec-
tive property learned sorrowfully that they had long before forfeited to the
state for non-payment of taxes, and title deed was not worth the postage
wasted on the letter of inquiry. Ever)' now and then one of these deeds
comes by mail to the surface with anxious inquiry as to the value of the
lot or lots that it calls for. So numerous once were these inquiries that the
recorder had printed slips run off of a newspaper account of the story of
Phantom Shelbyville and printed slip was sent to enlighten the inquirer.
Shelbyville is a part of the history of the land boom in Fresno, when $100
was paid in gold for what in land would normally have been worth at most
ten dollars.
Shelbyville was the brilliant conception of a theatrical man on the
circuit of the Central states as Indiana and Illinois, Ohio and Nebraska.
Having drifted through Fresno, he conceived the idea of tempting people to
liis show with a gift lottery proposition in which Fresno County, then
springing into prominence as an agricultural country, flowing with milk and
honey, was to figure. Every one patronizing his show was given opportunity
to become a lot owner in Shelbyville, Fresno, Cal., so beautifully and regu-
larly laid out on plat as a city within close distance from the Raisin Center.
The townsite was and is a desert waste. There are never lacking people
with eyes wide open to secure something for nothing, and these wise ones
argued that if they could obtain a town lot for nothing in Sunny California
and in the great and fertile San Joaquin Valley they could either sell out-
right for a good sum of money or take possession and await destiny.
280 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The philanthropist who was deeding away lots thus had good title, and
in fact made more money out of the scheme than has any owner of a lot
in the visionary town. The highest value ever placed during the boom
times on a Shelbyville lot was four dollars, and the big hearted, aforesaid
philanthropist collected almost as much from every lot owner for deed,
notarial attestation and seal. Hundreds of such deeds are in the recorder's
office with recording fee unpaid. The greater part of the townsite is owned
by the state, having reverted to it for delinquent taxes. Lots are not worth
the taxes assessed against them, and how little that is may be computed on
an assessed four-dollar valuation, the highest ever placed on them, with a
rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents to one dollar and forty cents on the
$100. If all the taxes on deeded lots were paid, it would hot compensate
for the services of the deputy's handling of the assessment book covering the
property.
There is in Indiana a town called Shelbyville, and it may have given
title-name to the scheme. The printed deeds that floated in were indorsed
"Dan'l of Shelby," probably some theatrical character name. The scheme
was a gold mine for the speculator, who had bought the land for a song
very likely, and turned the title deed on a subdivision principle loose among
gullible patrons who attended his show anyhow. The name of the enter-
prising showman was Guy Webber, who described himself as of Jersey
City, Hudson County, N. Y. Earlier deeds were made in his name as grantor.
After a time, they were in the name of one Hoytt, and lastly in that of one
W. H. Whetstone. Webber was not long in the enjoyment of his monopoly
for a similar theatrical swindle was operated in connection with the mythical
town of Sam'l of Posen in some part of California. As to title, Webber
could read that clear. He bought and paid for it. and had the deed recorded,
but as to the value that is quite another story.
The townsite was in view from the Jameson depot of the Southern
Pacific, one-half mile northeast of it, and between the depot and the San
Joaquin River, covering four sections or 2,560 acres, less half a section
immediately contiguous to the depot. It was described as the purest alkali
land, on which not even a mortgage or salt grass could be raised, and not
unlike the country around the Dead Sea in Palestine, where the birds fly
high in passing over it. West and south of Jameson station, there is good
land, within half a mile of the depot, but Shelbyville was in a class of its
own. Value it had once as grazing land, but with the bringing of water
for irrigation the alkali in the subsoil was forced to the top and not a blade
of grass was on the land. The leanest and hungriest coyote or jack-rabbit
that crossed the plain to the wheat ranches beyond made detour rather than
shortcut across inhospitable and desert Shelbyville.
By the time that lot and lottery victims became acquainted with Whet-
stone in the scheme, the panic of 1902 was on. Of the hundreds of non-
resident lot owners, few kept up tax payments and in large part the town-
site was sold to the state for the unpaid taxes. Indeed so valueless were
the lots that the assessor has not listed them for years. The recorder has
at times been deluged with inquiries as to the cash value of them, and ex-
pressing readiness to part with them for anything from fifty dollars to
$5,000. ]\Iost of the inquiries came in from 1892 to 1894, but every now
and then one bobs up serenely. Assessed once at four dollars per lot, it
was pay taxes with the back claims or quit. They quit, and this is why
the state came in and why the site is sacred to the cuckoo owl, the coyote
and the nomadic and rattle-headed jack rabbit. It was a wide spread and
successful swindle, and its promoters probably justified themselves by plead-
ing that no one really suflered much. Those that attended the show had
their entertainment for their money, some drew lots in Shelbyville and
were out only two dollars with about as much more- for a deed to a piece
of land surely worth that much. Very much like the ancient justification
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 281
of fox hunting — the huntsmen liked it, tlie hounds like it also, and it has
never been proved that the fox entertained other views.
It is a noteworthy circumstance that until Fresno City took the step
after several preliminary failures in that direction, there was no incorporated
town in the county from 1856 to 1885. Millerton, though county seat, never
assumed that dignity, never had a board of councilmen with chairman as
ex-officio mayor, and never any town governmental supervision save such
as the county supervisors chose to bestow upon it. Fresno followed Miller-
ton's example for thirteen years until it incorporated. Millerton could not
assert to have had a townsite in which anyone owned a foot of earth, because
it was on unsurveyed government land and holdings were no more secure
or substantial than possessory claims. The county was a notorious trespasser
when it erected the courthouse on Uncle Sam's domain without as much
as by your leave.
Which recalls the discovery in the examinations of filings in the data
preparation for this history that the earliest recorded townsite in the county
is that of Jnne 14, 1865, by George Rivercombe of Georgetown, of thirteen
lots on Jones' Flat west of Big Dry Creek. Discovery was made in the
record book of mining claims. Lots one to seven, each fifty by 100, ran
back to the hills, and eight to thirteen to the creek, lots located on both
sides of a central street. The ink sketched townsite notes the existence of a
"China house" on lot eleven, and south of townsite and at right angles with
it marks out a 400-foot wide mill lot. The lot owning locators were ; J- D-
Woodworth, Henry Burroughs, Ira McCray, Dr. Lewis Leach, William
Faymonville, and Rivercombe. It was probably a mining camp, but the old-
est Dry Creek pioneer has no recollection of it and the record might not
have come "to light but for an accidental discovery.
Only a few years ago, a mild craze followed the publication and circu-
lation of a government bulletin telling of the money possibilities in a
commercialization of the eucalyptus. Stock corporations were formed. Land
was bought on option agreements or long term contracts. Eucalypti groves
were planted. Craze died out. Corporations disincorporated or forfeited
charters. Shareholders relinquished stock rather than pay more promotion
assessments. Some of the scattered groves are still in existence, trees un-
cared for and growing wild and rank. No factories were erected to manufac-
ture the highly polished eucalypt veneer, the beautifully grained hardwood
for furniture, pianos, organs and the like, the axe, hatchet, hammer and other
tool handles, the imperishable ties and whiffle-trees and all the other things
that were to have been made from the eucalypt tree.
The short lived craze benefitted no one save the stock sellers and the
corporation promotion agents. It was a craze that ran its brief day as did
the later one for the cultivation of the cactus after the loudly heralded an-
nouncement that Luther A. Burbank, the plant wizard of Santa Rosa, had
evolved a spineless species; For a time public attention was diverted by pro-
moters to the fortunes to be made from the growing of the cactus as a
forage plant and from the commercial fibre to be extracted from it. This
craze also had its brief run. The location of one -of these eucalypti groves
and the association of a cactus plantation with that location on the river
recalled another well nigh forgotten town swindle on the banks of the San
Joaquin, ver}- prettily and appropriately named Riverview and harking back
to the memorable boom period of 1887. The map of Riverview is a record
in the county archives. And that is all that there is of it, or ever was.
The town was actually staked out with the lots and the avenues on the
ground ten miles north of Fresno on the river. There was the announcement
November 4, 1887, by Fleming «&: Waterman that the sale of lots in their new
town would take place on the Tuesday after and the sale was conducted
by a picturesque character, who was known as "Cactus Ed" Fleming. He
was one of the creations of the boom days as was manv another character
282 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of the day. The two days' sales of Riverview lots resulted in disposing of
632 on the first and of 427 on the second day. and among the buyers were
men whose business sanity was considered to rate normal. After Fresno
was given ground-floor favors, Riverview lot sales were transferred to San
Francisco, Stockton and Sacramento with varied results and "Cactus Ed"
disappeared from public view for a time. Incidental mention was made of
him in a local publication of December 2, 1887, as follows:
" 'Cactus Ed' Fleming is home again, but it is not the 'Cactus Ed' of
yore, he who wore the broad sombrero and who, with pants in boots and
in short sleeves laid out the town of Riverview. The 'Cactus Ed' that re-
turned yesterday is dressed in the height of fashion, wears a silk tile and
gives other indications of being a bloated bondholder or a capitalist. The
transformation is due entirely to Riverview, for since his departure from this
city a few weeks since, he has been selling lots in his town at an astonishing
rate, and reports that the building up of the town is not a question of years,
but of months."
Years have elapsed and never any Riverview. It was an iridescent
dream of the speculator, based, if it had any basis ever, on a gamble on
the coming of a side line railroad in the direction of the river. There have
been other railroad building reports in connection with this particular
locality on the river where the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe cross it.
Sycamore and Herndon were in their day dreamed of towns following rail-
road building reports for speculative purposes. Sycamore, Herndon and
Riverview are in the same category as myths, save only that Riverview was
a swindle and Herndon never anything more than a switching station.
How much foundation there was for the Riverview railroad side line
report time proved when a line was built out of Fresno due east to the rail-
road fostered town of Sanger and there turning abruptly southward and
through Reedley ran out of the county southward to Porterville in Tulare
County. And Riverview was on the river north of Fresno. Did the singed
moth return to flirt with the flame?
It did when one Marcus Pollasky appeared on the horizon as a secret
agent, cut a wide swath as a railroad promoter and worked the moth for
rights of way concessions and bonus subscriptions and saddled upon the
city a right of way grant for a jerk-water line to a new town of Pollasky
oil the San Joaquin below Millerton, and there ended what was held out
might be a transcontinental line across the Sierras tapping the mountain
region. And what of Pollasky or Friant as it was afterward named? Mori-
bund a settlement almost as Millerton, Riverview is found as a spot an the
map only because the Fresno Traction Company runs an occasional car to
the river picnic ground there and the spot has been dignified with the name
of "Fresno Beach" for the swimming in the river during the sultry summers.
The nickname of "Cactus Ed" recalls Fleming's boom time exploitation
of the cactus hedge business in association with J. M. Statham and William
Wilkenson with dissolution of copartnership in April, 1887. He was a
voluble fellow who took up this short lived fad as a "get rich quick" scheme
and the name stuck to him. The cactus was a round, spinv species with
stem not much thicker than a pencil, full of thorns and when grown and
interlaced was represented as making a hedge or fence well calculated to pre-
vent stock attempting to break through or over it. In the summer of 1876
Heming planted a demonstration hedge at the Mariposa Street entrance
of the courthouse park and county officials and other citizens signed a pub-
lished testimonial certifying that the cactus hedge would be the coming
fence of California and representing Fleming in that testimonial as a bene-
factor and the agent in saving thousands of dollars in the cost of fencing
The cactus hedge enterprise was abandoned for the Riverview town lot
scheme as promising of greater and quicker returns. And it was. No more
was heard of the cactus hedge.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 283
CHAPTER XLIX
CoALiNGA Oil Field is the Largest Producer in the State. An-
other Interesting Chapter in the History of a Wonderful
County. A Great Industry Established in a Waste Sheep-
Grazing Region. Coalinga in Infant Days Typical of the
Western Mining Camp. First Oil Excitement of 1865 is
Recalled. California's Petroleum Possibilities First
Recognized About 1900. Coal Deposits Had Proven Inade-
quate TO Meet the Demand for a Fuel Supply. With 1907
THE Petroleum Output Exceeded the Value of the Gold
IN California.
Accordino- to the Standard Oil Bulletin, there has been a production of
crude oil in California since the beginnino; of the industry to and includinof
the year 1917 of 1,040,350.164 barrels. Industry dates from the reported
1876 product year of the Newhall and Ventura County field. It was until
1894 the sole producing field with a reported output of 17.5,000 barrels prior
to 1876.
There are today eleven recognized producing and proven oil fields in
the state. Besides, there are smaller producing localities with an output
since 1897 of 964,721 barrels. The named field is the oldest. The next two
are Los Angeles and Salt Lake and the Snmnierfield of 1894. The fourth
is the Fresno Coalinga of 1896. It is the third largest producer with 196,-
872,731 barrels of lighter g:ravity fluid. The Coalinga field is another of the
great resources of this wonderful county. It has added much to the county's
wealth. It has brought into existence a new crop of millionaires. It has
impoverished perhaps more than it has enriched. It has written in one of
the most interesting .chajiters to the history of the county.
Discovery and development of field established an industry in a waste
section of the county where there would have been and had been nothing
save sheep grazing. It located in this isolated nook a modern and enterpris-
ing little city, the wealthiest with the exception of Selnia and the larger
county seat. Oil field as with mi many other things in the county can only
be treated in superlati\e terms.
An enthusiastic write up in 1910 likened to a fairy story the tale of the
growth of the little city of Coalinga in the foothills bordering- on the semi-
arid sage brush plains. A few years before, name stood for a wretched vil-
lage in the crudest stage, little more than a hurried thrown together mining
settlement, surrounded by black oil "rigs," many on land of doubtful pro-
ductive value, settlement overrun with wreckless men and worse women,
gambling resorts, saloons or deadfalls rather, wild with money excitement
and the smell of petroleum all pervading. In 1910 there was a rich proven
oil field and there had blossomed a modernized city of 5,500 people, a bustling
business community supported by one of the greatest and latest proven oil
fields in the world, a city the abode of substantial well to do people and
one marked by modern steel buildings, banks and business ventures of mag-
nitude and everyone prosperous and content.
Its history as a place of habitation may be traced to M. L. Curtiss'
homestead entrj' of 1882 covering the site of the city, with his cabin relic
still standing on C Street a few years before the birth of the city. District
was included in the original land grant to the Southern Pacific with an
apology of a railroad completed to Huron in 1877. Curtiss came before the
rails were laid to Coalinga ten years later. Coalinga's early history is bar-
284 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ren of picturesque incident. It was first the home of the homesteader, living
in rude cabin and eking out an existence on blue beans, bacon and jack
rabbit flesh. Then came the railroad and next the saloon as "the inevitable
harbinger of civilizing influences."
In that early history is mentioned the name of Frederick Tibbits. He
landed a grub stake, opened a saloon and after a lucky turn at cards bank-
rupted the miners of Robinson & Rollins, Englishmen interested in an in-
different coal mine in the nearby hills at Alcalde. Next comes Louis O'Neil
with a store. Coalinga became a trading place for a cattle and sheep com-
munity, for the coal mining colony whence its name, and for grain farmers
in propitious seasons which were dependent on rainy winters and this was
not often. Its advance was retarded by remoteness of location, lack of a
water supply, wretched transportation facilities, lack of faith in oil field
and all in all unpromising business conditions in that desert location. In
1900 it was a collection of about twenty houses scattered along Front Street,
"Whiskey Row" as it was long after known. It was from near Coalinga
that the output of the Robinson-Rollins coal mine was shipped out on a
little railroad to Hanford, as the nearest accessible point, much nearer and
more accessible than Fresno. Output was meager. The market for it also.
Louis Einstein was interested in the coal mine. The enterprise was aban-
doned. When the price of steel went up, rails were torn up and some of
them were brought to Fresno for the building of the horse car lines. Drilling
for oil progressed in the meanwhile in an experimental way. The progress
was slow, even after Chanslor & Canfield had proven the field workable.
First companies met with discouragement.
There was little about the place or its surroundings to attract. Water
to drink was brought from Hanford in rail tanks and for years was sold by
the bucket or barrel. Oil supplies were brought from Los Angeles or San
Francisco. Oil transportation was by horse or mule to railroad shipping
point and until the coming of the railroad cut deeply into the profits.
Thus things pothered along until 1902. They improved then slightly. Three
years later the boom was on. In 1907 oil rose from eighteen and twenty
to forty cents a barrel. The rush came on with advances to sixty
and in the fall of 1908 to sixty-two and one-half cents and in 1909 the oil
fever was on in the county. It is said that "the town grew by leaps and
bounds over night," a collection of shack houses at first, "because busy
people were too busy to build better."
People with beer appetites indulged in champagne. Along ^^'hiskey
Row congregated the fortune seekers. The faro table was never idle. The
hum of the roulette was incessant : twenty-dollar pieces were stacked up
as the stakes. Money came easily. It went more easily. Coalinga was the
typical western mining camp — instead of gold or silver it was oil. The
saloon was as much of a fortune as the "gusher." Did not Edward M. Scott
sell his saloon business in October, 1909, for $15,000 to devote time to im-
proving his city properties and give attention to his oil interests? The spirit
of the gold epoch of '49 hovered over the mushroom settlement in the sage
brush desert waste following the oil strikes, the first comers the same ad-
venturous spirits that rushed to the Klondike in frozen Alaska and the later
gold fields of Goldfield and Tonopah in Nevada.
With the greater profits of 1907-09 came also a greater stability.
Throughout the days of the fever, substantial men and corporations had
been at work. Development of the field had proven it. Its possibilities were
demonstrated. Then the permanent improvements in the city began. Better
homes were established. Neat cottages were erected. Substantial blocks
were constructed. Whiskey Row went up in fire. The shack era passed
away. A city of brick, steel and concrete buildings, with cement sidewalks
and paved or oiled streets, pretty homes and social, sanitary and public
utility demands followed. Population of town and fields in 1907 was 2,400.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 285
In 1910 it was estimated at about 10,000. Buildings in 1900 numbered a
score. In 1910 it was 1,000 with 600 in July, 1909,' year of great improve-
ments.
The district bonded itself later for $100,000 for schools. City has a
bonded indebtedness of some $20,000 to complete a municipal water system.
It is the largest city in California supported alone by the oil industry. Its
elementary schools are as good as the best in the county. Its high school
holds high rank. The school houses are overcrowded. It was the first and
only community in the county to organize a library on the union district
plan. The seven elementary schools in the high school district have bonded
themselves for an intermediate school and to build a larger high school.
Churches are not lacking when at incorporation as a city there was only
one minister of the gospel and death overtook him while participating in
tlie pnlilic exercises in celebration of city incorporation, the last appeal
from his lips a reform in social conditions in the closing of the saloons. The
rough mining town with the saloon as a dominant industry, with all the
other side issues of a wild western frontier camp, its most prominent high-
way facing the railroad euphoniouslv designated even unto this day "Whis-
kev Row" voted itself "drv" April 8, 1918. bv a majoritv of eightv-eight in
a total vote of 1,304.
Tlie first recorded oil excitement in the county was in February, 1865.
Springs and seepages were discovered on the eastern slope of the Coast
Range near Vallecito Canyon, some two miles from the Griswold and An-
derson ranch. They were the outcroppings of the subterranean oil reservoir
that is the basis of the wealth foundation of the Coalinga field. Credit seems
to have been given for the discovery to Frank Dusy and John Clark of Bear
Vallev. At any rate, thev took up 160 acres in December, 1864. Others did
likewise and Dusv, Clark and W. A. Porter as a third associate assigned
their claims to the San Joaquin Petroleum Company, the first of the hun-
dreds of stable as well as wild cat organizations to follow in time and the
crop of which has not yet been exhausted.
A word or two in passing concerning this man, Dusy, whose name was
perpetuated until late years l)y a son in the Selma drug firm of Dusy &
Sawrie. Here was a man who was a pioneer at almost everything. He was
a discoverer of things. An early comer to the county, yet a much later one
than many. Pioneer photographer of Millerton was he. Shipper of the first
freight from the new Fresno railroad station. It was wool, because he was
one of the big sheep men in the county at the time. He was one of the
number that founded the first Republican newspaper. He was one of the
original lot of Republicans in a county that was a seething stronghold of
war time Southern Democrats. He was a pioneer explorer of the mountains
in seeking ranges for his sheep. He discovered the grove of big trees above
Dinkey Creek. He named the creek for a pet dog that a bear had devoured.
He gave the name to Tunemah Pass and to many other locations and land
marks in the Sierras that have been perpetuated in the government's quad-
rangle maps. He pioneered from Selma the first exodus from the county
to the Klondike. The rear steps of the courthouse were his gift to advertize
his granite quarry at Academy. It would seem that almost everything had
to bear the trade mark of Dusy.
The 1865 petroleum excitement in Fresno County proved a veritable
craze for a time. As an ancient record had it, it assumed "from day to day
a more firm, fixed, undeniable, self-evident reality." Locations were recorded
by the scores. The Elkhorn mining district was organized. Gallons in sam-
ples of the precious fluid were hawked about in Millerton by dusty and wild-
eyed locators and prospectors, who like Col. Mulberry Sellers perceived
"millions in it." The newspaper record has it that the excitement "has al-
ready become a furore and will ere long terminate in a mania." Companies
for working the springs were formed, and "there never was such a hurrving
286 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to and fro; everybody is 1)usy, wild and in fact nearly crazy." The craze even
extended to San Francisco.
Its start was in the sale by Talleyrand & Choisier and two others of
their claim in Tulare County for $20,000 in greenbacks to a New York
company. By May, 1865, 2,000 acres of waste barren land, the same as it
is today superficially, had been located as possessory claims, besides thou-
sands of feet in this county held under mining locations of the Elkhorn min-
ing district formed at the Chidester ranch on the San Joaquin River with
M. T. Brady as chairman with associated others, the only remembered
names being those of Galen Clark, so long state guardian of the Yosemite
Valley, and of Cuthbert Burrell.
Money and effort were expended in superficial development. Great was
the confidence in the richness of the field, but the usual quarrels and wrangles
attendant upon new and rich mining discoveries. followed. There was the
usual "jumping of claims." Xo one was safe or protected in his holdings.
Filings were made in Millerton on holdings that were in another's possession
or actually being worked. The county government was a careless and loose
one. The location of the oil seepings a remote one and difficult of access.
The oil was there but it was another problem to get at it and having gotten
it to transport to a market, even if there was one and a demand for fuel oil
or other purpose. Ill smelling petroleum was not a medium of circulation
as was the clean gold dust; Gradually the excitement subsided. It ended
in nothing.
While it lasted, correspondents in the field filled the papers with accounts
of the "glorious prospects of boundless wealth." They fired the excited
brain with accounts of "the rich springs that in their natural undeveloped
state yield a thousand gallons daily of their precious fluid." They drew
mental pictures of "the subterranean ocean of petroleum that is now known
beyond a doubt to exist in this region." Basis there was for all this verbal
description. It was not "the vague, uncertain and chimerical speculations
of some deluded prospector," nor "the fantastic hallucination of some crack-
brained philosophical alchemist." It was quite true, but it was not to enrich
the pioneer discoverers. A later generation was to be the beneficiary.
As suddenly as the craze was started up as suddenly ended the swarms
that passed Firebaugh's Ferry in the spring of 1865 "like unto a battalion of
soldiers — some in wagons, some on horse and mule back and many on foot,
all bound for the land of petroleum" — at any hour of the day "with squads
of two, four and six" coming from the remote counties and "all wending
their way toward the oil region." The prophet was wrong in his vision that
this portion of the county "will shortly be thickly settled" and as the oil
excitement soon abated groundless also his fear that there would "ere long
be a great many applications for admittance to the insane asylum at Stock-
ton."
The existence of petroleum in California had in fact been known for
years before. The Indians made use of asphaltum for various purposes. The
padres used it for roofing the mission and other buildings. It is tradition
that Andreas Pico distilled petroleum on a small scale for the- San Fer-
nando mission, using crude oil from Pico Canyon near Newhall in Los
Angeles County. He was probably the first refiner. In 1856 a company
commenced crude oil refining at La Brea ranch in Los Angeles. In 1857
another attempted at Carpinteria in Santa Barbara to produce illuminating
oil from the crude. Similar attempts were made in localities prior to 1860
but with no success.
Prof. B. Silliman made in 1865 the first scientific report on petroleum
in California. The decade following "was marked by a considerable oil ex-
citement in California." Many companies were formed. Most of these
achieved no success. Pioneer oil men had not the drilling machinery of the
present day and little or no knowledge of the geological conditions. Dis-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 287
tillers expected to obtain the same results as eastern distillers. They were
disappointed in products from fractional distillation. The development in
time of the Coalinga lield in Fresno County as one of six in four counties
is one of the remarkable features in the history of the oil industry.
In 1887 when the State Mining Bureau m^de reconnoissance only four
companies were operating. In July, 1900, there were 250 producing com-
panies and some 1,500 producing and 470 prospect wells. The first com-
mercially successful refinery was that of the California Star Oil Company
near Newhall in Los Angeles, followed by the Pacific Coast Oil Company
at Alameda and by the Union Oil Company at Santa Paula. Today there
are ten or more. The most bewildering figures might be cited in the com-
parison of the Fresno field and the state growth of the oil industry to em-
phasize the immensity and value of the petroleum yield of California, today
the country's largest producer. A few generalities must suffice. As indica-
tive of the enormity of the industry, it may be cited that in April, 1910, as
an instance, for the companies listed on the California Stock and Oil Ex-
change in San Francisco the dividends were $710,368, while the total paid
on all stocks to the end of that month was the large sum of $2,958,276.
Beginning with 1907, petroleum has exceeded the gold output. Califor-
nia has produced a total of about $1,547,967,468 in gold since 1848. This
gold would weigh 2,580 tons and to move require a train of fifty-two freight
cars, each holding fifty tons. Expert authority is that the production is being
swelled annually at the rate of about $20,000,000 and likely to become more
rather than less for some vears. The largest production for any year was in
1852, $81,294,700, and the' next largest in 1854 with $69,433,931; The year
1852 was the one of most active development of the superficial placer areas.
Thousands were at work with pan, rocker, Long Tom and sluice, and even
the hydraulic in a small way had been introduced. Petroleum leads by a
wide margin in the output for 1911 with 84.684,1.59 barrels, valued at $40,-
552,088; gold $19,738,908, and cement third with $9,085,625 among the min-
eral products of the state. Statistics on this line might be multiplied.
The productive fields opened and developed in the San Joaquin Valley
are in the Coast Range foothills and the lowermost Sierra foothills at the
southern extremity. At Oil City, near Coalinga, an oil remarkable for its
low specific gravity has been obtained from formations underlying rocks
containing fossils of the eocene (Tejon) age. According to the geological
story, these rocks were deposited when the California coast line was east
of the area now occupied by the Sierra foothills and the valley was covered
by the ocean and the Coast Range only partly above the water. The eocene
period was one of land depression with deposit of shale formation over
much of the tertiary deposit. During the later neocene epoch, there was a
marked period of elevation.
It was about 1900 that the importance of the state's petroleum possibili-
ties was recognized. The question of petroleum as fuel assumed special
importance because the discovered coal deposits in the state were found to
be inadequate to the steadily increasing demand for fuel. Exclusive of asphal-
tum and gas, the value of the industry is represented in the extraction and
handling of the oil by the price for that which is exported and by the value
of that which is consumed at home, the latter as fuel constituting the bulk
of the output and a factor in commercial economy. There is a tradition
that the earliest mention of the valley oil fields was by Father Garces, the
intrepid missionary, in the region about the neighborhood of the present
Maricopa in Kern County. This was in the spring of 1776 when Washing-
ton was such a conspicuous figure on the world's stage. More than a cen-
tury passed and yet, while the deposits in the Coast Range were long defin-
itely known and in Fresno County at least as far back as 1865, general de-
velopment of the oil deposits was not commenced until about 1888-89, and
most of it during the decade following in the rich vallev section.
288 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Fortunes did not always reward the drilling- companies or the individual
in the Coalinga field. Riches were more often the result of lucky strokes
in real estate. The fact is well substantiated in numerous instances. The
late W. J. Dickey took up a section of sheep land for debt security at a small
valuation per acre, held on to it because he could not well dispose of it and
when discoveries were made around him sold the land for $450,000. The late
H. H. Brix loaned a small sum of money on a homestead in the proven field
and during the boom when every one was wild over oil realized nearly a
million. The rise in land values was phenomenal as in the days of farm coloni-
zations, values went up by jumps.
A syndicate of Fresno capitalists bought land around Coalinga for
twelve dollars and fifty cents an acre and sold 600 for fifty dollars an acre
and later 200 of adjoining same land for $600,000. These spectacular leaps
marked all the oil towns. Nowhere though were the results so material as
in the phenomenal building up of the surroundings of Coalinga as the town
on the West Side that jumped in population, wealth and possibilities during
the field development to a place in the county next to Fresno. The site of
the Bank of Coalinga valued as much as the corner lot, which sold for
$14,000, was ofifered in 1894 for twelve and one-half dollars. The site was
one of two lots ofl^ered once for $375 and bought by the owner for $275.
Prices of oil land in the Coalinga oil field ranged in 1910 from $500 to $7,000
an atre. A feature of the times was the invasion of British capital, notably
the investment of four and one-half millions in May for Section 2-20-15,
adjoining the famous Coalinga-^Iohawk well on the east side anticline.
CHAPTER L
Central California Oil District is One of the State's Great
Wealth Producers. Early Drilling Methods Were Crude.
Tales of Frenzied Einance, Disappointed Hopes and Un-
LOOKED FOR RETURNS MaRK EaRLY DEVELOPMENT DaYS. DIS-
COVERY Showings Were Sm.\ll Compared With Later
Brought in Wells. Picturesque Eeatures of the Eirst
Efforts in the Exploitation of the West Side Eield. A
Story as Interesting as that of the Gold Period of the
Argonauts. Proven Success of the Eield Marks a New
Era of Prosperity and Construction Activity in the
County.
The Central California oil district stretching from southwestern Fresno
County at Coalinga to the Kern River at Bakersfield in a half moon, so to
speak, is one of the great wealth producers of California. It has put forth
a product more profitable than its gold. The rise of this industrv is astound-
ing. From 3,600 barrels in 1870 worth $3,125 to 56,982,070 barrels in 1909
worth thirty-three millions. The story of this industry is as interesting as
that of the gold period- of the Argonaut days. There were failures, many of
"dry holes," and of companies insufficiently equipped financially and ven-
turesome at most that went down during the -hard times before 1907. There
Avas also shameful wild catting but it was a time for money gambling as in
the wildest days of Comstock mining gambling in the exchanges of San
Francisco, of poor men made rich, rich men made poor, stockholders en-
riched or impoverished, fortunes made and lost.
Early oil drilling methods were crude, tools less efficient and where
failure consequently was recorded often flowing wells were opened bv later
and more experienced operators. The money did not flow alone into the lap
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 289
of the well or stock owner. As in the days of gold, everything that was
touched in the oil field turned into money. All reaped the general harvest.
Those who made their piles invested in real estate and erected fine residences
and business blocks in Fresno and elsewhere. Coalinga's rise was one result
in a bustling, modern, well built up city which was the wonder of the visitor.
To it once for the lack of drinkable water the fluid was conveyed in tank
cars and peddled out and distributed at so much per pail. With the notable
increase of the assessment roll on account of the development of the field,
Fresno practically dates from then its most recent constructive era, the day
of sky-scrapers and big buildings and general improvement of the city on
lines broader and more ambitious than before.
Conspicuous among the corporate enterprises is the California Oil
Fields Ltd., one of the largest operators in the field, having the best camp
in it. It is an English concern capitalized at $2,000.(XX) and for years has
yielded dividends ranging from thirty to forty percent. It bought up hold-
ings which one time were considered undesirable. The Union Oil Com-
pany is another large independent operator. The Standard and the Shell
also have extensive holdings, as has the Southern Pacific, and all with many
producing wells. Clarence J. Berry, whose name is associated as a grub
staker in Alaska in the wild days of the Klondike, made more money in oil.
He invested in Fresno real estate and farm land and becoming a modern
Monte Cristo dared finance a baseball nine. Fie placed money in Coalinga
and McKittrick holdings, in the latter making a big thing of the C. J.
lease, a close corporation, paying its owners more than $25,000 a month.
Upon return from .Alaska, he owned the heart of McKittrick and sold out
early all but forty acres for $50,000. W. F. Chandler, H. H. Welsh, G. L.
Warlow, H. H. IJrix and others, living and dead, enriched themselves not
only by drilling for oil and striking, but in real estate and investment enter-
prises, in the oil transportation lines and sales agencies, and in the public
utility companies.
Tales of frenzied finance and remarkable and unlooked for returns are
told of the days of development almost unbelievable. The Peerless for in-
stance owning originally 160 acres in the Kern River field bought in 1897
Coalinga and Sunset properties which improved cost about $500,000 yet re-
turned^to stockholders in dividends $810,000, equal to more than $5,000 an
acre on the original tract.
The Sauer Dough of Coalinga was a wonderful dividend payer. It held
thirty acres only, capitalized at $300,000, yet by 1910 had returned $517,303.50
in dividends.
The Lucile of Coalinga was another record maker. Drilling for two
years against everv difficufty, shares selling as low as four cents and taking
pay in ""shares, $42,727 was' paid, in dividends on 26.704 shares when they
"struck oil" and stock was quoted at fifteen dollars per share.
Joseph H. Canfield for years president of the Associated Oil Company
with C. A. Chanslor were the early successful developers of the Coalinga
field, and their returns were enormous — no one knows how much.
Greater efficiency of methods used and the more sulistantial liasis on
which the business was conducted are illustrated in the twenty-vear well
record of the state from 1888 to 1908 showing 5.611 wells an<l 1,017 dry-
successes eighty-one and nine-tenths, failures eighteen and one-tenth percent.,
very low indeed compared with the United States record since the beginning
in 1859. The 1908 record of California was 617 wells, 323 drilled—successes
ninety-six and three-tenths, failures three and seven-tenths percent. The
town' of Coalinga, sixty miles south and west of Fresno, in 1900 numbered
some twentv habitations with Whiskey Row- in the foreground; in 1910 its
horizon had' greatly extended and it had an estimated population of 5,000.
290 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The field is regarded as probably the greatest in untapped possibilities
of development, transportation facilities and fixed output. It has been
worked since 1896 and with the resuscitation of the industry in 1907 the
output has made the semi arid territory the richest in the state. In 1910
it numbered 654 producing wells with probably 150 companies operating,
the field tapped by five pipe lines with daily capacity of 95,000 barrels, ap-
proximately double the output of the region. At the then rate of develop-
ment, it was figured that it would take fifteen years to cover the absolutely
proven ground. As evidences of the faith in the future, buildings in Coalinga
were of best modern construction, oil camps were laid out as small towns
on sanitary and architectural lines, pipe lines and machinery of a type to
last were installed at high cost. Coalinga, purely an oil city, passed the
stage of the frontier type of town of its early career and its floating popula-
tion vanished.
The proven territory of the field covers 20,520 acres and figuring a well
to every six the total in expectancy is 3,420. Completed wells in 1910 were
650, leaving according to figuring 2,970 to be drilled, estimating 200 per
year. These figures are only an index as to time for drilling and no indica-
tion as to the producing life. The Coalinga district adjoins on the north
the Kreyenhagen, partly east of the western boundary of Fresno and Kings
Counties. The Oil City field is north of the north fork of Los Gatos Creek
and the Alcalde between Alcalde and the north fork of Los Gatos. Oil
City is about nine miles north of Coalinga.
The first Coalinga district well was drilled about 1890, 163 feet deep,
yielding green oil, twenty barrels pumped up by windmill in two days and
seven on the third. Rowland and Lacy of Los Angeles drilled four wells in
1891-92 and one of these 400 feet deep yielded on testing nine barrels daily.
The others were never pumped. In 1893 there were five wells full of oil
and plugged. In 1895 the Producers' and Consumers' Oil Company of Selma
(J. A. :\icClurg and others) sunk a 695 and a 700-foot well on Section 20-19-15,
southeast of Rowland & Lacy. They yielded fifteen and twenty barrels daily
of thirty-four degrees B gravity oil. In 1896 the Producers on Section twenty
brought in a sixty-barrel well. Chanslor & Canfield and the Home produced
in 1896 oil of thirtv-four degrees from depths of 500 to 600 and small wells
on Section 17-19-15. The P. and C. of Selma was drilled 300 feet east
of the other wells, and at 890 struck oil, yielding 300 barrels a day. In
1897 the Home Oil of Selma organized by G. W. Terrill and others drilled
on the N. E. Y^ of Section 20-19-15 ranging in depth from 900 to 1700.
Other wells were drilled in endeavor to extend the limits of this pool but
excepting sixteen on property of the Home and of the Coalinga companies
were failures — thirty dry holes, each probably averaging $25,000. The next
strike was in 1898 by the Independence on 29-19-15 on Hanford Oil Com-
pany leased land, a good well on the East 'Side field. Late in 1898 the Con-
fidence which had drilled three dry on 25-19-14 brought in a sixty-barrel and
shortly a 200-barrel well, making the first strike on the \\'est Side field.
The third Blue Goose at 1,400 conipleted in 1898 produced from 900 to 1,000
barrels a day. In 1899 there were many to commence operations without re-
sulting successes ; the year after there was more exploiting further east
and in the early development there was much inconvenience from the lack of
water. The 1899 output was of 439,372 barrels and an eight and one-half
inch pipe line was laid from Coalinga to Ora station. The above were some
of the discovery wells from which as centers development work was extended
to open up the proven territory covering an area fourteen miles long and
from one-half to two and one-half wide and with oil ranging in gravity
from fourteen degrees in the shallow West Side to thirty-four and one-half
degrees in the Home pool and averaging respectively sixteen degrees and
twenty-two degrees.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 291
Many of these discovery showings are small compared with the later
productions. Verily the industry had a day of small beginnings. In 1910
the number of new wells spudded in had not been large for the fore half
of the year but much was being done in the deepening of some old wells
and the redrilling of others, the history of which would indicate that im-
proved methods of working would have better results. In some instances
this drilling was done to a depth of several thousand feet at great cost and
with necessarily elaborate equipment. With this in mind, it is recalled what
expectations and how much satisfaction resulted from the small pioneer dis-
covery showings and what encouragements they were. It recalls the jubila-
tion of the Coast Range Oil Company of Los Angeles in 1890, when at a
depth of 163 on 20-19-15 that greenish' Hght gravity oil was struck, and that
wind mill pump brought up ten barrels in two days, less than ten after the
third and the yield thereafter lessened gradually. Two years later, Rowland
& Lacy of Los Angeles brought in the first deep well in the field at 400
feet with an initial record of nine barrels. The real "first big well" in the
district was in 1896 by Chanslor & Canfield at 890 and 300 barrels a day
• — the reward to these pioneers.
The field has produced some notable wells. Recalled with thrills by
oilmen are the "gushers." The original Blue Goose (Home No. 3) on
20-19-15 was a wonder of wonders in 1897. The Independence on 28-19-15
made good showing for a time in March, 1904, and in 1905 California Oil-
fields No. 25 on 27-19-15 was a big one for those days. Blowout caught the
perforator in the hole preventing finishing the well but later it came under
control and made about 600 barrels a day. The next big one was W. H.
Kerr's Missouri-Coalinga in the summer of 1906 on 34-19-15, production
estimated to have been^from 10,000 to 18,000 a day. It shot itself to pieces.
In the fall of 1S)04 Art Anderson in Section Seven Oil Company's No. 1
well on 7-20-15 brought over 400 barrels in a day. It came under control
and yielded over 1,200,000 barrels. In February, 1905, No. 1 of the P. M.
D. & O. made over 100 barrels per hour for ten days. Anderson drilled in
this well, controlled it and it yielded over 770,000 barrels and continued a
good yielder at about 200 a day. A spectacular well of the spring of 1905
was Guthrev No. 1 brought' in by H. B. Guthrey on 31-19-15. It
made over 7^000 barrels one day when it was at its best. Gas pressure was
so great that well cut itself to pieces and it became dead.
The Standard Oil Company in 1906 had a blow out on 28-19-15 after
striking a gas pocket in the water sand. Blowout rose so high in the air
that it was visible in Coalinga. Greatest gusher was Well No. 1, the Silver
Tip on Section 6-21-15 brought in by Z. L. Phelps September, 1909, making
4.000 barrels a day while under full control. The Section 7 No. 1 well pro-
duced 1,000 barrels a dav for a vear and had to its credit in 1910 over 1,500,-
000 barrels. Two 1907 wells of the K. T. O. on 25-20-14 are credited with
1,000.000. No. 23 of the California Limited of March, 1905, initial production
14,300 barrels for twenty-four hours fetched up at 1,115,000, Coalinga-Pacific
No. 1. on 7 of August, 1904, over 750,000, Pittsburg No. 1 on the Califor-
nia Limited, 390,000 in thirteen months, Lucile No. 1 of September, 1908,
450.000, Sauer Dough No. 3 nearly one million, P. M. D. O. Company No. 1
of April, 1904, over 500,000, Ame'rican Petroleum twenty-eight wells drilled
after December, 1908, averaged 300 barrels to well. Silver Tip with 36,000
barrels tanked in seventy-two hours flowed normally 300 in a day.
The history of the oil business has its fantastic side as in the develop-
ment of the East Side field with the coming in of the Mohawk "gusher"
in what was considered to be wild cat territory. W. H. Kerr drilled in 1904
on 34-19-15 in the Pittsburg-Coalinga of four years before but abandoned
on account of water. Kerr drilled with moncv of his own and of R. H. and
T. E. McCleary and at 2,640 opened a well that yielded 500. to 800 barrels
daily for a vear. The California Oil Fields came in with Twenty-three, start-
292 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ing- off with 4,000 barrels a day and this until the Silver Tip was con-
sidered the greatest well in the field. The Coalinga-^Iohawk started a well in
a corner of 12-20-15 in 1907, drilling 4,100 feet with indifferent success, re-
drilled to 3,960 and struck a 1,400-barrel producer.
The Standard Oil Company has become one of the dominant factors
in the Coalinga field and according to its bulletin the proven acreage in all
California fields for 1916 was 86,550 acres, Coalinga ranking second with
14,611 acres and Midway-Sunset first with 39,404. Total state production
for the year was 91,976,019 barrels.
According to figures of the California Independent Oil Producers' Agency
the 1916 shipments were 104,312.905 barrels. Petroleum stocks were reduced
by 12,336,586 barrels, a figure unprecedented in the California industry. The
year's daily output averaged 251,989 against a 1915 total yield of 89,725,726
and dailv average of 245,824 Avith 18.000 dailv estimated shut in. A banner
year also was i914, with 102.871,907 and daily average of 281,841. Above
reported 1916 shipments figure a daily average of 285,789 compared with
191 5's total 92,007,715 or daily average of 252,076, while 1914's total record
was 94,470,989 or daily average of 258,825. In round figures 1916 exceeded
1915 bv over 12,000,000 barrels and 1914 bv nearly 10,000,000. Reported pro-
ducing wells were, in 1916, 6.542: 1915, 6.016: 1914, 5,867; and abandoned
wells. 18, 15 and 11 ; and there was a drilling of 238, 153 and 222 for the re-
spective years. The demand for the California crude oil product in 1916
exceeded the supply by 35,822 barrels daily, with the result of a decline in
stocks, for the year ending December 31. 1916, of 13,110,861 barrels. No two
reporting agencies absolutely agree in their figures, some including in the
output the quantity used in the field and estimated at 5,000.000 gallons an-
nually.
Producing wells reported in ]March, 1917. for the state were 7.427 with
a daily production of 262.528 barrels — Coalinga with 941 and 42,486 barrels.
For California in 1917 the proven area is shown to have been 88,745 acres.
It should be stated that in the determination of these area figures the boun-
dary lines of proven area are drawn 200 to 300 feet outside the proven field.
In outlying single wells, the field is credited with about fifteen acres. The
figures presented are of actual proven area, no consideration being given to
territory regarded as proven and not fully drilled. For instance large areas
of undrilled territory are in the Buena Vista Hills which regarded as proven
are not included. Coalinga field is credited with 14.771 proven acres.
California is the largest petroleum producer in the United States, and
the latter leads in the world's production, supplanting Russia which holds
second, having led for nearly half a century. Overproduction in 1914 in the
California field reduced activities to the lowest practical minimum in 1915,
estimated production 89,000,000 barrels. New wells drilled during 1915 were
240 compared with 400 in 1914. The latter year's product of 102,881,907 bar-
rels was valued at $47,487,109; average price in counties 46.1 cents, a reduction
of 3.2 cents over 1913.
California total crude oil shipments for 1917 furnished an unprecedented
record: Total, 108.764,487 barrels; dailv average, 207,986. Shipments for
1916, 104,312,905 barrels; 1915, 92,007,715; 1914. 94,470,989; the increase for
the year 1917 being 4,451,967 over the year before.
The state mining bureau's compilation of oil and gas produced during
1917 is based on sworn statements from all producers and shows a total petro-
leum of 94,433,547 barrels. This is an increase of 7,370,352 over 1916. The
official figures are less than the total published by private concerns. The latter
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 293
make, however, no allowance for water and other impurities in the oil when
first produced and gauged.
There were no important additions to the proven oil land in 1917 as deter-
mined by the state bureau for the 1918 assessment. The new Montebello field
production was one feature of the year. The production increase as above
given was brought about by marked drilling activity throughout the state.
There was an increased output in every petroleum producing county, Los An-
geles showing the highest percent, increase, fifty-two over last year's produc-
tion. There were 984 wells reported to the bureau for drilling in 1917. The
rate of assessment levied to support the work of supervision of drilling opera-
tions and to protect the fields from damage by water is based on the quantities
of oil and gas produced and of proven oil land. The total collected for
1917 was about $130,000. The state's reported figures on production are:
Land Oil Gas Wells
(Acres) (Barrels) (10 M.) Number
Fresno 12,993 16,146,797
Kern 56,947 52,688,711
Los Angeles 2,401 4,357,162
Orange 3,418 14,568,980
Ventura 1,726 989,726
Santa Barbara.... 9,023 5,589,223
San Luis Obispo 772 74,143
Santa Clara 80 18,855
59,189
1,131
1,927,506
4,716
24,175
748
655,027
467
355
60,157
385
18
14
Total 87,360 94,433,547 2,726,054 7,834
Final statistics on the California petroleum industry for the year 1917
made public by the Independent Oil Producers' Agency show stocks at the
close of the year of 32,656,996 barrels as against 43,640,294 on the first of the
year, indicating a reduction of 10,938,298, and daily average of 30,091. This
record compares with the total withdrawal during 1916 of 12.336.886 barrels
or a daily average of 32,800 indicative of a total decrease of 1,353,588 or
daily decrease of 3,709.
This same authority gives California's oil production in 1917, 97,781,574
barrels, a daily average of 267,895, compared to a yield in 1916 of 91,976,019,
a daily a\erai;c of 251, '''S''', indicative in turn of a production increase in
1917 of 5,»:)5.553, a daily average of 15,906. California's 1917 production is
the third highest in its history, exceeded by the years 1913 and 1914. The
shipments of 1917 broke all records and totalled 108,764,872 barrels, a daily
average of 297,986 and comparing this total with the movement in 1916 of
104,312,905 and a daily average of 285,789, the year 1917 shows an increase
of 4,451,967, with a daily average of 12,197. Three hundred eighty-two new
wells were being actively drilled and there were 7,742 active producers — in
Coalinga field five and 1,045 respectively with production of 15,898,912.
In the light of the above generalized figures and facts to give a bird's
eye view of the subject, it is no exaggeration that the topic is one that can
only be done justice to in the employment of superlatives. The use of crude
oil solved one of the difficult problems in the keeping up of public highways
and city unpaved streets. It has become a universal fuel as substitute for
coal in industrial and manufacturing enterprises. The railroads converted
their locomotives from coal to oil burners and the navy and merchant marine
steamships likewise adopted it.
Conceive for a moment the wealth that Frank Jennings was the agency
in producing for others. He was the pioneer drilling superintendent in the
Coalinga fields when he resigned in 1918 to take well earned rest after ten
vears of continuous service under two companies. He came to the old Cali-
fornia Oilfields Limited a decade ago and was connected with that com-
pany as its drilling superintendent for seven years. After the company sold
to the Shell Oil Company, he remained with the latter for three years.
294 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
During his ten years of service he has sunk 245 wells with the assistance of
crews and deepened and redrilled many others.
\\'hen he came to the Limited in 1908, the field was not what it is now.
On Section 27 there were then thirty-three wells, now ninety-one; on Sec-
tion 26 one, now twenty-six : on Section 14 two, now thirty-six ; on Section
34 nine, now thirty-six; on Section 10 one, now ten; on Section 2, twenty-
four, now thirty-seven ; on Section 36 one, now three ; on Section 29 two,
now six.
In the drilling- of these wells he had many experiences. He made the
acquaintance of "jonah wells" and saw others blow ofT the top of the derrick.
He noted many things as to formation in the well logs invaluable to geolo-
gists in their work on other wells and in the ten years that he spent in the
field he became familiar with the strata to a degree that made him one of
the best informed men. He came to Coalinga from the Pennsylvania field
and his first experience there was to bring in the old Mathews well in
Allegheny County, which flowed more than 25,000 barrels in a day. The
well was owned by J. M. Guffey, well known eastern oil magnate.
The great production of the oil fields suggested another great field
of operation in a more rapid and economical means of transporting that
product to market and shipboard. The pipe line was the result. Many mil-
lions are invested in the California pipe lines. It was with the oil business
as with the lumber industry. The latter suggested the use of the water of
mountain streams to flume lumber to mill and market. The splendid pro-
duction, the high price of oil and the great increase in development through-
out the fields aroused discussion among operators as to the output facilities
for transporting the product of the fields in the years to come. The pipe
lines carrying petroleum from the fields to market have done and are doing
a most useful part in the important work in developing the giant industry.
The Standard Oil Company has a branch of the Bakersfield-Richmond
pipe line from Coalinga to Mendota, twenty-nine miles. Its lines from Bakers-
field to Richmond and from Midway to Bakersfield are the largest convey-
ors, the capacitv of each being 65,000 barrels a dav. The others range from
28,000 to 1,400' a day.
The Producers' Transportation Company has six lines, one of the three
largest being the eight-inch from the Coalinga field south to Junction Sta-
tion in Kern County, forty miles.
Two pipe lines are operated by the Associated Oil Company and one
of these is a six-inch from Coalinga to Monterey, a distance of 105 miles.
It has a capacity of 15,500 barrels a day.
Conveying oil for the Associated Oil Company and the Kern Trading
and Oil Company, the Associated Pipe Line Company operates two lines.
One of eight-inch runs from Vulcan, three miles east of Bakersfield, to Port
Costa on San Pablo Bay. It is 281 miles long. The other eight-inch extends
from the Midway-Sunset field 278 miles to Port Costa also. The capacity of
the first is 13,000; of the other 26,000 barrels a day. The oil carried on these
lines for the Kern Trading and Oil Company comes from the leases operated
by that company and is delivered to and used by the Southern Pacific Com-
pany and all transported to the account of the Associated is either produced
on its leases or purchased for it in the fields and sold by the Associated on
the market.
The total capacity of the four lines is 98,000 barrels a day, 50,000 in
excess of daily production. Producers and Associated pipe lines were com-
pleted in 1910 at an approximate cost of $2,570,000.
Investments in California petroleum production mount into the millions,
when represented by such great concerns as the Standard, the Union, the
Shell, the Associated, the Oil Fields Limited and all the others that might
be named. The figures of their operations are staggering. To quote only
the returns of operations of the Associated Oil Company" for the first half
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 295
of the year 1918 and made pul)lic at the close of July. They make the
greatest showing ever of the company with its subsidiaries and' reflect the
boom condition that has prevailed in the California industry since the
opening of the year. They show earnings for the six months at the rate
of eight and twenty-four hundredths percent, on the $40,000,000 authorized
stock practically all outstanding. This would be at the rate of more than
sixteen percent, for the year as compared with a little less than ten percent,
for 1917.
Gross earnings for the half }-car after deducting all costs were $5,692,-
235.72 as against $7,598,220.90 for the twelve months of 1917. Surplus trans-
ferred to profit and loss was $3,296,110.28 after all charges and allowances
for depreciation and amortization as against $3,895,713 for the entire year
1917: During the six months there was expended in drilling operations
and improvements $1,808,828: current assets exceeded current liabilities by
$6,604,565, dividends paid amounted to $"^93,91 5.08 and the balance reported
was $2,302,195.08 on a net income of $4,671,914.20.
The Oil City (Pa.) Derrick recently quoted ]Milton McWhorter, whose
name will be recalled by early Coalinga operators and who is described as
an "old time scout and pioneer developer of oil in California." He is now
connected with the petroleum industry in the Pecos \'alley in New Mexico.
Which also recalls that the late Gen. W. R. Shaffer of the Spanish War
and so long colonel of the First United States Infantry owned a large body
of land in the valley and his nickname in his old regiment was "Pecos Bill."
suggestive of the comradery between the American soldier and his superior
officers. Pershing is "Black Jack" to his men.
McWhorter being reminiscent referred to the many claimants to the
discovery of oil in the Kern and Coalinga fields, stating that while the credit
for locating the first Kern River well is generally given to the late Thomas
Means he (McWhorter) drilled the well that first produced oil and which
started the later development that brought the Coalinga field to notice and
resulted in the development of one of the greatest fields in the world. His
explorations were in the years from 1886 to 1888. Impressed with the out-
look, he secured money to drill and arranged with Charles A. Canfield to
finance him. Canfield died one of the richest oil operators in the state. He
agreed to drill a well at one dollar and forty cents a foot and McWhorter
returned to Coalinga to await his coming. After delay, the outfit arrived
at Coalinga, and so did also Canfield but without money enough to pay for
the hauling from the railroad station to the well location. McWhorter per-
suaded a relative to lend him $150, the equipment was forwarded and spud-
ding in began.
"Our tools were out of date," narrated McWhorter. "I fitted them up
myself and we started a sixteen-inch hole when the drilling cable pulled
out of the socket and we were up against a fishing job with no tools of
any kind. There was a man named Fish working on the job, a very slim
man and some one suggested he might crawl down the hole and with a
small chain loop it around the collar of the stem and the tools could be
pulled out. It was one of the funniest experiences I ever had. We tied a
rone around one of his legs and lowered Fish down into the well. He called
back all the time until his voice sounded like as coming from a phonograph :
'Careful boys! Go it gently!' He made the connection and we raised the
tools. This well was either 400 or 600 deep and was the first one in the field."
Fame . and fortune rewarded Canfield in later years, and McWhorter
recalled : "I can never forget his early struggles. He was never despondent,
always hopeful and resourceful. He won through sheer grit and never for-
got his friends or those who had helped him. Flis contributions to insti-
tutions and for charity and in helping unfortunates must have amounted to
thousands."
296 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER LI
EVANS-SONTAG TERROR ReiGN OF 1893. ThE MoST LurID Ch AFTER
IN THE Criminology of the County. Many the Armed Con-
flicts With Pursuing Officers of the Law and Escapes
OF THE Bandits. A Delectable Populace in the Foothills
Comforted Them and Blocked the Authorities. Murder
AND Blood Traced the Career of the Train Holding Up
Trio. Its Leader Ended His Days in a County Poor Farm,
A Wrecked Old Hulk of a Day When He Was a Respected
Farmer.
Much could be written on the subject of the crimes of earlier years in
the county. It is not a pleasant nor an inspiring subject. The old timer
would expunge it from the record, could he do so. It must be sorrowfully
admitted that Fresno's reputation for lawlessness was a bad one.
The remarkable development of the county in the 80's gave it wide
publicity and the latter attracted bad men who made it a most profitable and
fertile field. The better element in the city organized vigilance committees
and well recalled are the sessions at the old J Street armory, when in the
efforts at a civic and social purification drastic measures w-ere taken against
the canaille that fattened and idled on the earnings of fallen women and
fastened that evil reputation on the growing town.
It has taken years to outgrow and live down that reputation. The
wonder is today not so much that the conditions existed and were so rotten,
but that a marvelous transformation has taken place and that recollecting
the past Fresno is one of the best governed, law abiding, and as the war
experience has demonstrated one of the most enthusiastically patriotic com-
munities in city and county in the state. No chapter, however, in the crim-
inology of the county is more lurid than the one dealing with the Evans-Sontag
band of outlaws and its reign of terror in 1893. It is comparable only to
the bandit reigns of Murieta and Vasquez.
Chris Evans died February 9, 1918, at the age of seventy in a Portland,
Ore., hospital to which he had been removed from the Multonomah County
poor farm at the instance of a son living in Clark County, Wash., who saw
that he should not want in his closing days. John Sontag died July 3, 1893,
in the Fresno County jafl from wounds received. George Sontag and Edward
Morrell served their penitentiary terms and are now social reformers.
Evans had lived in Portland since 1911 when Governor Johnson of Cali-
fornia paroled him with later pardon and he was released from Folsom
penitentiary on the pleas of wife and daughter and the showing that his
physical infirmities, his left eye and right arm being gone and suffering con-
stant pain from old wounds, were such that his days were numbered, and
on condition that he leave the state. He went to live with his aged wife in a
wretched cottage and eked out a precarious existence, as it must have been
obvious that he could not earn a living. Evans' sufferings became so acute
in 1917 that he came to California to be operated on the head for the removal
of a bullet. He received temporary relief, the pain returned later and dis-
couraged he applied for relief as a public charge. His sojourn at the county
farm was of only a few days. His days were numbered. There are four
sons to survive but of late years they had known little of their father.
Evans was one of this state's most notorious outlaws and yet a popular
one also with a certain class that would make of him a martyr and an
adorable villain. Seventeen years in the penitentiary probably reformed him
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 297
but also left him physically a wreck of an old man. After he was sent to
prison in February, 1914, wife and daughter, Eva, appeared through the
state in a penny-a-line lurid melodrama, "Sontag and Evans," depicting the
murderous bandits as persecuted heroes and martyrs. In places the
authorities interdicted its presentation and anyhow the enterprise bank-
rupted. In later years and after his parole the bandits were filmed but this
also proved a failure, and the film if not destroyed is being held as chattel
mortgage security for money loaned to finance the project.
The Sontags were Minnesotans named Contant. Their father died
and the mother remarrying they took the name of their stepfather. George
was sent to the Nebraska state prison for embezzlement, served one year,
escaped, but committed burglary in convict garb with a companion and
voluntarily returned and served his term until 1887. John came to Los
Angeles in 1878. became a brakeman with the Southern Pacific, was injured
and nursed a grievance against the railroad for some fancied ill treatment
while convalescing. He secured employment with Evans at Visalia, Cal., a
typical farmer, reputedly honest and hard working and family respected.
It was a time when the railroad, whether deservedly so or not, was exceed-
ingly unpopular and therefore his activities against it, especially in the
money losses as the result of train hold ups gave him popularity of a kind.
Evans and John Sontag entered into a conspiracy against the railroad
to satisfy their revenge. Tlicir first exploit was January 21, 1889, to board
a train at Goshen, Tulare Conntv. putting on masks, climbing over the ten-
der, ordering the engineer at instol's mouth to halt, rifled the express car
of $600 and escaping on horses returned to Visalia the next day. Washing-
ton's Birthday a train was held up in like fashion at Pixley, Cal.. and with
the S.xOOO booty they opened a livery stable at Modesto, but it was destroyed
in an incendiary fire. In May, 1891, John visited his brother, George, and
confided to him the train robberies. In June John returned to California
but not without telling George that he and Evans had planned to hold up
a train at Ceres in Stanislaus County.
The attempt was in fact made with dynamiting of the express car, but
Southern Pacific Detective Len "Harris was aboard. He fired at Evans, the
latter returned with buck shot. No one was seriously hurt, the bandits fled
to r\Iodesto. John returned to Minnesota, related what had taken place and
asked whether there were any trains in that neighborhood that could be
held up. riioA- dill scciiri' ^^'^sn^l in the hold up of a train at Western Union
Junction \ii\cni!ii r .^. IS''], .nid joined their relatives whom they had sent
on to Racine. W is. 'I'litii ii was agreed that George go to Visalia, meet
Evans and John to follow. He found Evans at Visalia with his patriarchal
beard as "one of the twelve good men and true" sitting on a jury. George
met Evans at home at the noon hour, prospective enterprises were discussed,
Evans was loaned $200, George became ill and returned east. John in Cali-
fornia wrote to him as to eastern opportunities and Evans going on he and
George attempted a hold up of the Omaha train at Kasota Junction, July 1,
1892, but profited nothing. John tarried in California and George announced
he would come on to Fresno and Evans would follow.
The trio assembled here August 1, 1892, and agreement was made to
hold up the San Francisco-Los Angeles passenger train at Collis (Kerman)
on the night of the third, Evans walking out on the road and the Sontags
overtaking and carrying him to the scene. John Sontag did not board the
train but awaited his companions with the team at an agreed upon place.
Needless to follow up all the details. sufSce it that the express car door was
dynamited, three sacks of money were seized, fireman and expressman made
to carry them, the engine disabled by Evans with dynamite, the treasure
bearers accompanied a short distance, ordered to give up the money and
return to the train. George Sontag was driven to the suburbs of Fresno,
bought a ticket to \'isalia and traveled home on the delayed train that had
298 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
been held up and was an interested auditor of the stories of the hold up.
Evans and John drove on to Visalia and examining the contents of the sacks
in the barn were disappointed to find that they had for their risk only $500
American money, all else being Mexican or Peruvian coin.
So bold and audacious had the trio become in its operations that clues
were left on this last enterprise. George Sontag's actions in Fresno planning
the la?t had aroused suspicion. The team that had been driven was recog-
nized in ownership. Officers called on George at Evans' home to learn
whether he was not a passenger on the held up train. Sontag was detained
and a return visit was made to the Evans' house, and as it was approached
John was seen to enter. Evans' daughter acting on instructions informed
the callers that John was not in. Evans made like reply but a portiere
being pushed aside there was John, shot gun in hand. Officers drew their
revolvers, Evans laid hands on a shot gun. The officers of the law were at
a disadvantage, realized the fact, turned and made ofT. Evans pursued Deputy
Sherifif Al Whitty and seriously wounded him, and the latter falling had
pistol at his head but Evans did not fire as the prostrate man pleaded not
to shoot as he was dying. Sontag fired at Detective George Smith but
missed the mark.
The two bandits returned to the house and after taking a supply of
ammunition escaped in the buggy of the officers. They returned to the
Evans' house that night and again on the next afternoon because a posse
surrounding the house saw them take horse and buggy out of the stable.
Oscar Reaver commanded them to halt. Each side opened fire. Beaver was
riddled with buck shot and killed. Sheriff Tom Cunningham of San Joaquin,
one of the bravest men in the state and one of the most celebrated sheriffs,
heard the fusillade and came with a posse but too late. There was a respite
then in the pursuit until September 13.
Another posse with two imported Arizona Indian trailers drove up to -a
cabin of a man named Young, ignorant that the fugitives were concealed
there, though having reason to suspect that they were in the neighborhood.
As they approached the gate, posse was fired upon. Vic Wilson of El Paso,
Tex., and Y. McGinnis of Modesto fell dead,* George Whitty brother of the
man wounded in the first encounter was shot in the neck. Constable Warren
Hill's horse was killed and again the desperadoes escaped. Meanwhile
George Sontag who had been detained from the first was placed on trial in
Fresno for the Collis train robbery and October 29, 1892, after a hearing of
four days found guilty after the jury's deliberations for ninety minutes and
November 3 was sentenced to life imprisonment at Folsom.
Months elapsed before there were new developments. The bandits were
in concealment in the foothills of Fresno, above Dunlap, where they were pro-
vided with provisions and kept informed as to the movements of the posses
sent after them from time to time. They occupied a cabin which commanded
such a wide view that they could overlook the plain before them and note
the movements of pursuers hours before the latter could reach the pursued,
even if they had knowledge of the place of their concealment. It was on a
bend of the road on the side of the hill known as Lookout Point, and after-
ward and to this day as Sontag Point. And the delectable citizenry of the
neighborhood was liberal in furnishing the officers with misinformation.
Safe and protected as the bandits were, they might have continued there
indefinitely or until the next summer but that decision was made to escape
to Mexico, that other delectable land of bandits, and they would probably have
been successful but that Evans insisted on a farewell visit to his family. This
was not such a feat because the distance between Dunlap and Visalia is
not so great, the first named being close to the Tulare County line, the roads
not frequented until the plains are reached and even then travel compara-
tively safe by night. At any rate as afterward learned frequent visits were
made to the X'isalia home of Evans.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 299
So it was that June 11, 1893, a posse of United States Marshal Card,
Deputy Sheriff Hi Rapelji of F'resno and others were in a vacant house and
observed Evans and Sontag come down a hill and pass to the rear of Evans'
house, which was under surveillance. Evans perceived Rapelji and opened
fire. One Fred Jackson fired and wounded the bandits. The latter retreated
behind a straw stack and escaped, Sontag badly wounded. On the following
day E. H. Perkins from nineteen miles from the county seat came to the
jail at Visalia to report that Sontag was wounded and helpless in a straw-
stack, near the Perkins house. There was a race to capture him and he
fell an easy victim. The day after. Sheriff \\'illiam Hall and Deputies Al
Whitty and Joseph Carroll arrested Evans at the Perkins house. The bandit
surrendered as he was exhausted and weak from loss of blood and raving
in delirium. An eye had been shot out and the right arm so shattered that
it had afterward to be amputated. This affair is known as the Stone Corral
battle with the bandits. Sheriff Jay Scott headed the Fresno posse. Sontag
was so badly wounded that he died in jail and none came to claim his
remains.
To divert in the sequence of the story, George Sontag at Folsom con-
spired with one Frank Williams, also a life termer, to plan an escape, Wil-
liams undertaking to have smuggled in the weapons that Sontag might cause
to be provided. This smuggler according to a confession that has been made
was William Fredericks, who had then been released after service of a term
for robbing a Mariposa stage, but later was hanged for the murder of the
cashier of the San Francisco Savings Union Bank at Polk and Market
Streets in an attempted daylight burglary. He it was that furnished the
weapons and ammunition in the attempted jail break, leaving them in the
prison quarry wrapped in blanket and on the day of the break was in a
deserted stamp mill hard by with clothing to be exchanged for the convict
garb. Williams was to write to Fredericks to call on Mrs. Evans, and Son-
tag to her also, informing her of the call and the letter was for the delivery
by introduction to "Betsey" (a pistol) and to "^^rr. Ballard" (a sawed off gun).
The letters were mailed by a clergyman who was taken in by the peni-
tential professions of the fellows. Mrs. Evans declined to give the assistance.
June 27 the attempt was made. Guard Lieutenant Frank Brairre was seized
to be used as a shield, a desperate conflict ensued, the gatling gun was let
loose, the conspirators were armed with rifles and knives, a gulch was
jumped over, refuge was taken behind a rock to escape the gatling fire, sur-
render was signaled with show of hat at the end of a rifle barrel and waving
it. The escape was completely and tragically frustrated. Sontag was badly
wounded but eventually recovered though crippled for life. The bodies of
the dead were used by the prisoners as a barricade in the attempted escape.
A young prisoner named Thomas Schell from San Francisco came within
range of the fire and was killed by a chance bullet. He was not of the escap-
ingparty. One Anthony Dalton, who lost his life, was a Harvard graduate
serving a twenty-year sentence for the burglary of a San Francisco gun
store. While being conveyed to Folsom, he jumped out of the car window
while train was moving at full speed. Frank Williams was a life termer as
a stage robber, having held up twelve stages in five months and one of
these twice on the same day.
November 28, 1893, the trial was begun of Evans for the murder of
of Wilson, the Texas man, and December 14 after deliberations for seventeen
hours the verdict was guilty, the jury fixing punishment at life imprisonment.
Before impanelment of the jury Sontag had confessed his crimes to War-
den Aull for the reasons as he stated that Mrs. Evans had ill-treated his
mother when she came to Visalia to nurse John and also had not given her
any proceeds from the Collis robbery ; also because crippled for life in the
attempted escape he hoped by assisting the authorities to secure their aid
for a pardon. Sontag testified at the trial against Evans.
300 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Awaiting sentence, Evans was permitted while in the Fresno jail to be
visited by wife and to have meals sent in to him, the restaurant waiter
being one Edward Morrell, who was deluded into believing Evans to be a
hero and who was himself a bidder for notoriety. On the evening of Decem-
ber 26, 1893, Mrs. Evans was making her prison call, Morrell came with the
meal and Evans was permitted as customary to leave cell to eat the meal
in the corridor, Ben Scott being the jailer. This ended, Alorrell asked to be
let out with the tray of dishes. As Scott opened the jail gate, he had a knife
pressed to his heart with orders to hold up hands. Evans whipped out a
revolver which the waiter had smuggled in. Mrs. Evans tried to seize the
pistol, Evans pushed her aside, Scott opened the door and Evans and ^lorrell
walked out, Evans declaring to Scott that the wife had nothing to do with
the affair and to take good care of her.
Scott was made a forced companion of the escapes and ex-Mayor S. H.
Cole involuntarily joined the party when Evans placed a pistol against his
chest. At the Adventists' Church at ]\Iariposa and N, one block from the jail,
City Marshal John D. Morgan and William Wyatt, a citizen, were met.
Morrell thrust a revolver into their faces and Morgan was so taken by sur-
prise that he held up hands but when ?iIorrell began searching his person
Morgan wrapped his arms around him and he and ^^'yatt soon overpowered
him. Morrell called to Evans for assistance, being a little behind him with his
two involuntary prisoners. He hurried up and fired twice at Morgan who
relinquished his hold and sank to the ground while Wyatt ran off for assist-
ance as did the others. Morrell armed himself with the marshal's revolver
and he and Evans ran to a team hitched near by. but the animals were fright-
ened by the shooting and as soon as untied made oft" and the outlaws had
to escape on foot. After some blocks they seized a newsboy's horse and
cart and oft' they were.
Seen thereafter several times, they were at liberty until February 8, 1894,
when a posse came upon them, shots were exchanged and they escaped.
February 19 they were so emboldened that they visited Evans' home at
Visalia, the information was conveyed to the sheriff's ofifiice and a cordon was
placed around the house at 3 A. M. Sheriff Kay of Tulare sent a boy to the
house with a note that further resistance would be useless. It was daylight
and Evans could see that they were trapped, the occupants not knowing of
the siege before then. Evans sent a note by his little son. It read:
"Sheriff' Kay — Come to my house without arms and you will not be
harmed ; I want to talk to vou.
"CHRIS EVANS."
Several notes were exchanged and it was agreed that Kay and William
Hall enter Evans' yard unarmed. They did so. Evans and Morrell shook
hands with them and surrendered unconditionally. Morrell was charged with
robbery in taking the marshal's pistol and life imprisonment was his sentence.
Likewise was that pronounced on Evans February 20, 1894.
In their train robberies the modus operandi was to conceal themselves
near the engine, wear masks and after holding up the engine crew, cause the
engine to be detached and run oft" for a distance, ^^'hile one dynamited the
express car, the other would hold off interference by raking the side of the
train with buckshot. Evans had been a soldier in the Union Army in the
Civil War, and before taking up train robbing had been a Visalia resident
for twenty years.
Sontag was pardoned March 21, 1908, and took employment as "floor
manager" in Tim McGrath's Barbary Coast resort on Pacific Street in San
Francisco. Fie left this position soon, was financed in a book dealing with
his past and warning others against the folly of wrong doing. He and Morrell
blossomed out afterward as social reformers. Sontag and Evans made the
most of efforts in the commercialization of their criminal records.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 301
\\'hile Evans and Sontag were in concealment in the Fresno foothills
aided and abetted by an unprincipled citizenship that placed every stumbling
block in the way of the officers of the law, the reporter of an ultra sensational
newspaper of San Francisco readily arranged through this delectable citizenry
and its Fresno agents for a meeting with Evans and the publication of an
interview with him as a distinguished personage. It was hailed and made
much of as "a feat in journalism."
As illustrative of the efforts to commercialize the murderous deeds of
the robber band, may be cited the publication one day in the Herald of Sanger,
Fresno County, twenty-five years ago in 1893, and a decade after the bandit
reign of terror of the following :
"The cabin at Stone Corral (in Tulare County) which sheltered U. S.
Marshal Card and his posse while awaiting the approach of Evans and Son-
tag passed through Sanger on the cars last Saturday. It has been taken to
pieces and placed on the cars at Monson destined for the Grove street theater
in San Francisco, the manager having paid SlOO for the structure. The cabin
will be erected inside the theater and exhibited in a melodrama, 'The Train
Wreckers.' "
And people at Sanger actually broke off pieces of the timber to keep as
souvenirs.
CHAPTER LII
Location in April, 1872, by the Railroad of the Townsite of
THE Future Fresno City. Tradition Has it That A. J.
Maassen Was the First Actual Settler. City Clerk Wil-
liam H. Ryan Was at Death in 1918 the Oldest Continuous
Resident. Russell H. Fleming Now Holds That Distinc-
tion. Jerry Ryan Was a Notable Personage of the Infant
Village. Early Recollections of Some First Comers Nar-
rated on Later Day Visits. The Popular Myth That
Fresno Marks the Geographical Center of the State.
Buried Section Survey Stake is at K and Mariposa Corner.
Chosen Townsite a Most Woe-begone Little Settlement
ON the Arid and Limitless Plains. Contrast of the Years
Emphasized in the Ownership of Automobiles.
Accepted tradition is that A. J. ^laassen was the first town settler in
Fresno, locating a little to the southeast of the railroad depot. He had a
shantv there, a water well with trough attached and the home made sign :
HORSE RESTAURANT
Bring Your Horse In
One Horse Bv Fresh Water One Bet
One Day Hay Water 3 Bet
The teamster pumped up the water, slaked thirst of himself and horses
and the "bit" was twelve and one-half cents. The same year ;M. A. Schulz
and Henry Roemer erected a saloon and refreshment stand, with scant sleep-
ing accommodations on the future H (or Front Street") fronting the railroad.
Otto Froelich, who was the first to desert Alillerton. put up a board shanty
near the corner of what is now Mariposa and H and opened a merchandise
store with Julius Biehl as manager in charge. Frank Dusy was the first to
ship wool from the station. Depot there was none and he loaded on the cars
from the wagons. Railroad construction hands lived in tents. Original freight
depot was and continued for years along the reservation betw-een Inyo and
302 HISTORY OE FRESNO COUNTY
Kern. First hotel was the Larquier's Bros, on H Street between Mariposa
and Tulare after the depot was built and facing it across the square. It was
known as the Larquier's and later as the French Hotel. Preceding it perhaps,
but certainly contemporaneous, was the little Railroad Hotel at the upper
end of the railroad ticket office sentry box. Russell H. Fleming started the
first livery stable on the ground where the Kutner-Goldstein stores were
afterward" located. George McCollough came along with an insurance cabin
and invested in town lots. Later he was the first justice of the peace and
still later with Lyman Andrews established the first water works, doing away
largely with the private wells and windmills, and so long located on the south
side of Fresno Street at the corner of the alley between I and J. J. W. Williams
located early in 1872 the first blacksmith shop on the site of the later Grand
Central Hotel at Mariposa and J Streets.
Few there were to realize March 6, 1918, when William H. Ryan, city
clerk of Fresno, at the age of fifty-one years and nine months lacking only a
few days, died so unexpectedly and so calmly after having romped with the
children before retiring to bed for the night, that in him passed away he who
was for continuous residence the oldest city inhabitant. His continuous resi-
dence was one of forty-six years.
Literally he had grown up with the town. His acquaintanceship was a
wide one. Friends and acquaintances he counted by the legion. He was in
youth "a mother's boy." Companions of his age there were few in his day
in the wretched little village. Its population could readily be enumerated
on a slip of paper. All were acquainted with each other. There was as much
use for a directory as a fifth wheel to a coach. His parents were thrifty, plain
people beginning life over in a rough new country after better days in Texas
before the war. He was throwni much into the companionship of a good, hard
working mother and so fell naturally into domestic ways and habits. It was
said of him that he was a good cook and that as a cake and pie maker few
excelled him. He was a graduate of St. ^Mary's College of the days when that
institution of learning was located oa the. peninsula of San Francisco, far
out on the old Mission Road and almost at the San Mateo County line.
His first election as city clerk was in 1905. He was the second under city
charter organization. The first was Supervisor J. B. Johnson, who was also
the first Postal Telegraph Company operator in Fresno City. At the time
of death, William H. Ryan had completed the first year of his fourth successive
term as cit}^ clerk. His elections had been practically without opposition so
popular was he.
Townsite of Fresno was located in April 1872. It was platted the month
after, and the special election for the removal of the county seat was not held
until February 1874. The Ryans came to Fresno in December 1872 from the
native state of the son, Texas, when he was six years of age. They have never
severed their relations with Fresno, they have died here and are buried here.
Three sons and two daughters and grandchildren are the living descendents
of a family of nine children in the direct line. It is not to say that there
were not men and women in the county long before the Ryans came, but
they never became residents of Fresno City. Others wdio had preceded them
in the coming did become such residents but it was after them, and others still
were here at and before the time of their arrival but moved away afterwards
or have long passed away.
With the death of \Villiam H. Ryan, the oldest living continuous city
resident and also for age is Russell H. Fleming, who in the palmy days of
Millerton was the driver of the mail stage between Stockton and Visalia, with
Millerton as the most important stopping place en route. He was in the
county years before the coming of the Ryans. He became one of the first
permanent residents of the village county seat. Familiar with the country of
the seat site even before it was platted, his stage route from Millerton to the
Kings River ford or bridge-crossing took him far out of the course from the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 303
later located railroad settlement. Direct as was the route between the points
not an habitation stood, not a drop of water was to be had on the line.
Permanent residential locator at Fresno he did not become until after the
coming of the Ryans as the pioneer livery stableman as one of the first
established business enterprises in the village. Mr. Fleming is a remarkably
well preserved man. His name is associated in after years with many of the
first things in city and county.
Jerry Ryan was here with the railroad construction gang. He was the
section boss over the division between Fresno and the San Joaquin River, as
was Luke E. Shelley later of the other division between the railroad village
and the Kings River south of it. Jerry Ryan and his father had seen better days
before the war in Texas. He had come to America as a child. Father and
son were engaged as railroad construction labor contractors. They employed
200 teams. They constructed the first railroad in Cuba. The civil war proved
their undoing, the experience of so many others. The son looked about for a
new field. Sacramento was headquarters of railroad activities in California.
His former railroad affiliations aided him in his search. He cast his eye upon
Oregon as a new and promising field and made a journey to look over the
ground. Choice was offered him of employ at Sacramento or Fresno. He
chose the latter because of the superior school facilities promised for his
large and growing family, moved also by pioneering and adventurous instincts.
And so the family came here before there was a town.
He located long before the vote to change the county seat. That special
election day was a memorable one. Railroad carried the day for removal of
the seat. All hands were rounded up to vote from the Kings on the south
to the Chowchilla on the north as the county boundaries and were brought
to the village precinct polling place that day. Tradition has it that whiskey
was peddled that day free out of bucket in tin cups for votes for Fresno as
the county seat, and the victory was with hands down. Charles C. Baley cast
his first vote at that special election. His twenty-first birthday anniversary
fell on the day after. He arranged under the new registration law to be qual-
ified to vote and vote he did.
Jerry Ryan continued with the railroad a little longer than a year and
launched out for himself. He opened the Star Hotel and boarding liouse at
the corner of Tulare and H on the site today of the Olender block, later was
associated there with Michael Slaven from April to September 1873 and there-
after alone in the building of C. G. Sayle known as the Court building adjoin-
ing that of Shannon & Hughes before occupied by B. S. Booker; later was
associated with James Mooney, who bought him out and renamed the house,
the Morning Star. During that association he bought the present Hughes
Hotel corner at Tulare and I Streets, and erected a house to occupy it as
the ^^'ashington Hotel. This was in May 1876. One of the disastrous fires
of the early days wiped him out there. Undeterred by this loss, he resolved
in August to erect the two story brick hotel building at the corner of Mari-
posa and I Streets, one of the early larger structures and a notable one also.
Here he conducted the United States Hotel popular as an eating house.
Here he continued until he leased the place to Sam Toombs, saddler and har-
ness man, for whom afterward was named the large brick structure at J and
Merced Streets known as Toombs Hotel and still standing-.
Ryan moved in 1883 and next as a Boniface he was on J Street between
Mariposa and Tulare, facing the courthouse square. This was the California
Hotel. In 1886 he was in the Arlington House at Inyo and J, a three story
brick building and a notable one in that section. At one time, he had also
erected a family residence in the select section at Inyo and K. Ryan was a
man who was ever retiring from the active pursuits of busv life, but so rest-
less that he invariably returned to them after brief intervals, accounting for
the oft changes and locations. Twice during his Fresno career he took up
long residences in Oakland and San Francisco, though he always retained
304 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
his property interests here. He could not remain away from Fresno. His
last return was to make his home at the Arlington surrounded by most of his
grown children and there died and the wife before him. Ryan invested wisely
in real estate and died a well to do man, to the last plain and unassuming
in style and living. He was one of the best known local characters of the vil-
lage and the later town.
As a young man in the Civil War, he served in the Seventh Texas Cavalry
and was taken a prisoner. And thereby hangs a tale. While such prisoner
at Rock Island, he became the prison hero for beating to his knees in a
pugilistic set-to, both combatants stripped to the waist, a fellow, who accord-
ing to the varied versions had either affronted him or was a bully who had
lorded it over every one until it was no longer to be borne with. Condi-
tions in the prison were at the time not the pleasantest because of the retali-
atory measures pursued for the cruel treatment of Union prisoners at Ander-
sonville. At any rate, it was a ring fight to a finish and Ryan was crowned the
victor. Years after at Fresno, J. D. Collins and Major T. P. Nelson were in
town one day from Academy and entered the United States Hotel for the
noon day meal. Collins had also been a war prisoner at Rock Island, having
been taken with a Tennessee cavalry command in Pegram's brigade after a
defeat in the Cumberland Mountains. While paying the score, Collins thought
he recognized the voice of the man who was receiving his money. A question
or two sufficed to establish his identity as the prize fighting hero at Rock
Island. A comradeship sprung up between the Confederate veterans that was
broken only by the death of the erstwhile Lone Star state trooper. Both had
been exchanged and set at liberty before the close of the war. The meeting
under the circumstances was a pathetic one.
The most valuable realty asset of the Ryan estate, the landmark at the
corner of Mariposa and J streets, 125x50, popularly known as "Degen's Cor-
ner" for William Degen, who conducted a corner saloon for eighteen years
there, was reported July 1, 1919, to have been sold for $125,000, or $1,250 a
front foot.
In November 1917 hved at Porterville in Tulare County j\Irs. :\Iary
Haskell, pioneer of that district and also of Fresno before the coming of the
Ryans and the days of earliest beginnings.
"Henry Glass would sure have a time job on his hands if he had to take
care of this year's raisin crop alone," she remarked after noting the figures
of the estimated Fresno district raisin yield for that year. "Glass said back
in the seventies he could eat the whole crop. Away back then, when I lived
in Fresno and when all the country round there was a barren plain there was
talk of taking water from the San Joaquin and irrigating the land on the
plains for raising grapes and fruit. Glass was a lumberman and lived over
Millerton way, and he said he could eat all the raisins they could ever raise
on the plains."
Mrs. Haskell and husband who died years before came to Fresno from
the east in July 1872. There were then according to her recollection two
buildings in Fresno. One was the railroad station, a story and a half box
with office, dining room and kitchen below. The upper half had two small
bedrooms, partitioned ofif at one end and the remainder was one large bunk-
room. Mr. Haskell worked for the railroad then in course of construction
south to Visalia and she managed the dining room in the depot building. The
other structure was a little one-room box called an "Irish shanty" in which
Otto Froelich conducted a merchandise store. It stood a little to the north-
east of the depot site (Mariposa and H). AVar time prices prevailed yet,
potatoes as high as five cents a pound and sugar from twelve and one-half
cents to fourteen cents a pound.
Drinking water was brought in railroad tank cars. A man put down a
deep well a little southeast of the depot and in the summer made money
selling water to teamsters. He sold water for a "bit" (12!2 cents) a bucket,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 305
l)uyer hauling bucket up by windlass, so by the time his horses were watered
he'had spent several "bits" and money not plentiful. This man was the same
one that perceived and seized the opportunity for commercializing the Fresno
heat. Mrs. Haskell told of Maassen's "underground garden," dug to a depth
that made it cool all the time. This resort so pleasurably remembered by
surviving early settlers was covered over and filled in in the erection of the
Ogle House by the Blasingames in later years, and uncovered in part nearly
forty years after where not filled in, in the demolition of the Ogle for the
building of the Collins Hotel, the foundations of the first named having sunk
for lack of proper support in the unfilled excavation and throwing the old
building out of plumb.
To recall another phase of those first days of Fresno was the visit in
April 1910 of Mrs. Martha Patten Owen, first woman teacher, and widow of
T- J. Owen, founder of the San Jose Mercury. She was still a school girl
attending the State Normal School at San Jose when Professor Allen, the
principal, called her into his office one day and asked her whether she would
like a little experience in teaching before finishing her course. If so, the
opportunity presented itself in a request for an assistant at Fresno. The
offer was accepted and homesick she was after entering upon the journey at
thought of going among strangers, so far from home, inexperienced and in a
new and rough community. Her fears vanished, said she, in the warm welcome
received.
"It was scarcely more than a little settlement at that time but the lack
in size and people was made up in the character of those few who were the
founders of the city of today. The weeks and months passed so rapidly and
joyously that Fresno has ever since been a charmed picture for me and
among the cherished recollections in my memory are the dear delightful days
passed in Fresno. It was to the kindly and helpful suggestions of the prin-
cipal of the school, R. H. Bramlet, that I owe what success attended my early
educational efforts. My home was with Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Ferguson and
from this association a warm friendship sprang up," narrated the lady.
The school term ended. Miss Patten returned to the Normal to complete
her studies. Upon graduation, she took a position in San Jose, later becoming
principal of the school and resigned to marry Mr. Owen. She is the author
of "A Portrait Gallery of American Women," telling of noted American
women in American history.
Yet another interesting and semi-historical visitor to Fresno in May
1910 was R. M. Brereton, M. I., C. E., who pioneered irrigation in this state
forty years ago and at the time of visit at the age of eighty years was pioneer-
ing pump irrigation. He has been referred to as "The Father of Irrigation"
and on that visit was leisurely making a tour of California, proud of "his
child," as he remarked. Included in his itinerary was a trip to Coalinga to
behold the famous Mohawk oil gusher of the day.
After building railroads in India, Brereton came to California in the late
60's and later interested W. C. Ralston of the Bank of California in irrigation
in this state and also presented the subject to President U. S. Grant and
Secretary of State J. G. Blaine. One result of his early recognition of the
possibilities of utilizing the snow of the Sierras on the parched and waterless
plains was the present reclamation system of the United States. Of those
who then made a report on irrigation in California in 1872 were living in 1910,
Mr. Brereton and Prof. George Davidson of the Coast and Geodetic Survey
(since deceased).
Mr. Brereton surveyed this valley for a comprehensive system of irriga-
tion in the early 70's and built the West Side Canal from Firebaugh to Los
Bancs. This system is worth thousands today to Miller & Lux. Ralston and
others were the financial backers and to evidence his own faith in the project,
Brereton invested all his money in the ditch amounting to $40,000. Then the
bank collapsed one day and Ralston found surcease in the waters of San
308 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Francisco bay at North Beach, off Selby's smelting- works east of Black
Point, now Fort INIcDowell. In the smash up, Brereton sought to recover
his money or some portion of it out of the ditch. He approached Charles
Lux on the subject. The latter would only offer $1,000. It was that or
nothing. The ditch proved such a profitable enterprise that it was one of the
assets that helped to reestablish the bank through its large land investments.
The M. J. Church system of irrigation in this county followed the plans
of Brereton JDUt it was for others to reap the financial profits. In the early
irrigation days Brereton knew well the late M. Theo. Kearney as a clerk
in San Francisco with W. S. Chapman, land speculator. He induced Kearney
to come to Fresno and settle on the Fruit\'ale Estate. Later in London this
early acquaintanceship was renewed but Kearney was to him the man of
mystery as he was with every one. Brereton last made his home at Port-
land, Ore., and was the author of a paper on "\\'ell Irrigation for Small
Farms," having particular reference to the great valleys of California and
Oregon.
In J\Iay 1872 it was, as stated, that the Contract and Finance Company
as a subsidiary of the Central Pacific Railroad surveyed and staked out the
ground on which the town of Fresno was located. The lots were 50x150.
Water was no nearer than the San Joaquin and the Kings Rivers. A
more desolate, discouraging spot could not elsewhere have been found. It is
tradition that Capt. A. Y. Easterby and Moses J. Church were anxiously
consulted by the railroad builders and they gave solemn assurances that
water woulcl be conveyed to the new town in time. Water was a necessity.
The town to be inhabitable must have drinking water supply, being then
served by car tanks. It was essential for irrigation in the reclamation of the
soil as a supporting and sustaining background for the projected city. Of
the possibility of the soil located near water, or as the result of copious winter
rains, or where water had been conveyed to it in the few and notable experi-
ments that had been made no doubt was entertained, and raisins and fruit
not thought of yet. Upon the water problem hung the future of the town.
Its railroad founders staked their all on water to make Fresno the produce
shipping point of the great interior valley.
The arid aspect of the plains was not to be wondered at. The sandy
parched and dry soil, the relentless sun beating down on them, the remote-
ness from water and streams made people honestly dubious as to the agri-
cultural future of these plains, and the city planted on that desert plain.
Early settlers dug wells to depths of forty, sixty, and 100 feet to tap the
drinkable water strata. One of the first notable wells was at Fleming's stable-
yard at Mariposa and H. It was the gauge for years for noting the rise of the
water level with the bringing of irrigation water to saturate the soil. \\'ater
in that well tapped at forty feet or more rose to fifteen feet from the surface
as the result of irrigation. This was the experience also in the country sur-
rounding the city to which ditches were run.
This irrigation which was the agency in the reclamation of the desert
land to make it wondrously prolific has also been the means of ruining acres
of the most fertile cultivated land. Show places of the days of yore are to-
day abandoned to Bermuda and salt grass and will grow naught else, because
impregnated with the alkali that an overabundance of water and the raising
of the levels brought to the surface. A problem is to reclaim once more this
land and make it again cultivable and profitable. Equally as important the
regulation and control of the subterranean levels against return to the desert
and profitless wastes.
About 1910, the Chamber of Commerce and kindred bodies began an
agitation for a canal to drain through Selma. Fowler, Fresno, Kerman and
all the land on to the slough on the west side of county miles away. The
dire consequences of raised water levels were pointed out. It was predicted
by experts and observers that the country about Fresno would become a
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 307
swamp unless the drainage canal were built. The country faced then a
drought. There had been seasons with only about six inches of rain — no satu-
ration of soil and no deposit and packing down of snow for the irrigation
season. Irrigation water was not overplenty. The dry season brought about
the installation of pumps operated by electric, steam and wind power. Each
season added to the nunilu-r of pumps installed to be independent of the
seasonal variations. Poinilation was ever increasing. Canal company water
supply was irregular when water was most in demand. Canal company sold
more water rights than it could serve. Aside from the agricultural demands,
city water systems pumped an ever increasing home and municipal supply.
In 1908 Fresno City cellars deeper than si.x feet were necessarily cemented
to keep water out.
\A'hen the subway on Fresno street was built across the railroad reserva-
tion for traffic to the western side of the city because of the railroad's block-
ing of the nearest other street crossings from the city's commercial center,
the contractors described it as a great concrete ship floating in an under-
ground sea. It was literally true. The water table was lowered at least
fifteen feet. In West Park, ten miles from the city, the table, except in the
vicinity of the city sewer farm, lowered from four to ten feet. In the Kerman
district standing at four feet in many places, it lowered twelve to twenty.
George C. Roeding installed tile drain system on his east of Fresno farm
and will never have need of it with the lowering of the table. Billions of
cubic feet of water once in the soil about Fresno have disappeared wafted
into the air. Acreage of irrigated land has doubled in a decade. There is no
more irrigation water now than there was then. But the ground water has
been drawn up, spread on the surface, taken up by the plants and verdure and
dissipated.
Estimated it is that it takes 500 to 800 pounds of water to make a pound
of dry matter as hay or corn, raisins or a crop of watermelons. An acre of
alfalfa producing ten tons of hay would, if it could reach all the surface water
it needs in the production of that hay, reduce the water level from fifty to
sixty feet, taking all the soil water that could be contained in fifty feet of
soil under 160 rods in the production of those ten tons. These figures illu.s-
trate what would result with this soil water with no application to the surface
and no underground flow. Before irrigation in the county the water table
was forty to 100 feet from the surface. Pump irrigation was considered im-
practical. In the Dos Palos district. Miller & Lux forbade pumping water for
irrigation for the reason that the water in the soil was placed there by them
and to take it up was to infringe upon their rights. In the foothill orange
districts wells that started at twenty-five feet are as low as 200. A test well
in the Kerman district to gauge pumping possibilities lowered the table for a
half mile around as determined by small test wells. After several weeks of
operation of this pump the table in the vicinity was drawn down from four
to seventeen feet, the depth decreasing gradually over the radius of half a mile.
Increased cost of water must result from a lowering of water in the wells
in the increased cost of sinking them and of lifting the water. Increased irri-
gation cost lowers the land value and decreases the profits. The solution
offered is in storage of flood water with drainage canal to offset the land
depreciation and reduced crop production with decreased profits. The prac-
tical operation of such a drain was one of the arguments in favor of the con-
necting canal between Fresno and the river in the agitation for the opening
to navigation of the San Joaquin to give Fresno water transportation to
compete with a reduction of freight rates against the discriminating terminal
point charge. It is one of the strong arguments being made in support of the
Pine Flat and other flood water impounding projects.
A popularly entertained belief going back to early days and strengthened
bv so oft repetition in Chamber of Commerce and other boom literature that
it' has been accepted as a fact is that Fresno County is the geographical center
308 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of the state and Fresno the center of that center because the center stone is
there within her limits in a surveyor's monument in Russiantown, across the
track, in the alley between C and D, just south of Kern, and not far from
the Japanese Buddhist mission building. This block of stone has been the
subject of conjecture and discussion for years. The markings on the stone
disclose its purpose. On the top is the chiseled legend:
LONGITUDE AND LATITUDE MARK
U. S. Geographical Survey
West of the 100th Meridian
War Dept.
An "S" (South) on one side and an "N" (North) on the other mark
the bearings of the stone. It may mark the geographical center of the state.
It it does not, no need of splitting hairs from an engineer's or surveyor's view
point. It comes very nearly marking that center and the monument has been
accepted as the state's center stone. It has been so regarded as far back
as 1876 and who will gainsay it today and shatter a popularly accepted myth?
The townsite's streets were laid parallel with or at right angles with
the railroad running on a due line northwest and southeast. The section
corner which is the accepted basis for all surveys is reputed to be in the
center of K Street, a few feet north of what would be the present property
line on Mariposa Street extended across to the courthouse park. At any
rate there was there once upon a time a post set in charcoal to preserve it
from the rotting in the soil's moisture, but post was splintered and ground
down by traffic. Charles C. Baley is authority for the statement that he and
Gus Wliitthouse carried a broken iron axle from Simon W. Henry's smithy
at Tulare and J to the spot, set it up in place in the charcoal with top
showing a few inches above the surface, rammed back the wooden post to
steady it and that later when streets were graded and hollows filled in
the section axle mark was buried under several feet of surface soil. The
point is the common corner of north Sections 3 and 4 and south Sections
9 and 10, 14 S., 20 E., M. D. M. The line between Sections 9 and 10 were
it run from Blackstone Avenue on would come to the corner ; carried on
would bisect the Bank of Italy building at Tulare and J Streets and con-
tinued across town would strike the line of Elm Avenue to the south.
There was an extensive depression in this vicinity, running clear across
the Fresno Street side of the courthouse reservation and so low that in
rainy season a large pond of rain water formed, and it is recalled that the
small boy, who was in existence even in that day, navigated the pond on
rafts and in punts.
At the northeast corner of the property at Stanislaus and T stands a
plain granite monument with elevation above the sea level. It is the guide
for establishing official street grades and sewer levels of the city. The
elevation at this point is 292.50 above sea level. Tradition is that presumably
the Coast and Geodetic Survey placed other such bench marks about town,
but that this is the only known one now.
Fresno City in its early days, and for )'ears after for that matter, was
admittedly the sorriest and most woe-begone little settlement on the map.
Town was located on and a pretense of cross streets was made on the ground
as it was when a vast prairie, with all the natural water courses left intact
and no effort to grade or level humps, bumps or hog wallows that the sweep
of the wind over the limitless plain had raised or scooped out. Mariposa
Street, the main artery, was a rough depression, billowy, dusty in dry
weather and in winter a mud hole for its three blocks to the railroad station.
GEOGRAPHICAL CENTER OF CALIFORNIA
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 309
Mariposa and J was a deep depression and there the Grand Central was
afterward located. It has today a full basement underground. The depression
stretched across the block to the Ferguson print shop in the hollow at J
and Tulare, said shop on stilts to bring it four or five feet to the surrounding
level and then with steps entrance.
Mariposa and H was another large depressed area with the railroad
reservation block, now a park, a great hole in which winter rains were im-
pounded. Eventually it was filled in with coal clinkers and general scraps
and refuse. The wonder is that anything will grow in that park with the
thin soil surface. This reservation block was such a pitfall that after night
no one dared traverse its footpaths, even only to go to the hotels facing
it on H Street, without being lantern lighted. Near the townsite to the
north was the sink on the plains of the waters of Dry Creek. Along Mariposa
Street property owners set up on stilts and props lumber or packing box
walk-paths. These were at levels according to the original conformation
of the ground. A promenade along these walks was a continuous stepping
up and down, according to whether walk was in depression or on bump. Off
the four or five main blocks, there was not even the semblance of these
makeshifts. It was a beautiful vista of flat land and space. There was so
little to obstruct the vision beyond the clustering shacks nearest the rail-
road station that the small boy played hide-and-seek in the close by first
cemetery to take advantage of the few graves as places of concealment.
Horses and cows but especially canines and hogs roamed the village at will.
In August, 1872, there was no postoffice in Fresno. Mail was brought
sixteen miles. Russell J. Fleming was appointed the first postmaster in
September and located the of^ce in livery stable at Mariposa and H, where
the Kutner & Goldstein stores were afterward built. In November the town
had four hotels and eating houses (all presumably with bars attached), three
livery stables, three saloons and two stores. The railroad construction gang
of track graders and track layers was housed in tents along its work. The
freight depot platform was 'located along the reservation between Kern
and" Inyo. In July, 1874, there were fifty-five buildings of all kinds in the
village, including the Expositor shop which had been moved from Millerton.
Contrast that Fresno of 1872 with the city of 1918 and recall what
the traveling salesman said :
"I have been in the merchandising business for twenty years as a
general sales manager and have traveled all over the United States, Canada
and Central America. I cannot recall a city anywhere in the United States
that has made the rapid and substantial growth that Fresno has. I do not
know of a city anywhere with the same population that is as clean and as
up-to-date. This growth has been caused by the prosperity of the people
and in turn this prosperity has been due to the fact that people have organ-
ized and put their business on a solid footing with something back of it A
stranger within the city for the first time has not to ask whether business
is good in Fresno. All he has to do is to look up and down the streets and
note the hundreds of automobiles parked on either side, then look at the
parking space around the courthouse square. Note also the character of the
cars parked there. By far the greater number of them are 'automobiles.' few
'flivvers.' All of this denotes prosperity."
According to the state motor vehicle department the registration figures
show Fresno County to stand fourth in automobile registration. Considering
its population this is an encouraging report on the wealth and prosperity of
the residents. Los Angeles County with its many beaches, ten times the
county's population, millionaire colonies and boulevards leads with triple
the number of its nearest competitor San Francisco, Alameda County with
its bay cities to draw from is third and Fresno in the valley and distant the
310 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
greater part of a day's journey from the bay is fourth. Here are the official
figures :
Los Angeles County 91,731
San Francisco County 30,568
Alameda County 20,658
Fresno Countv - 15,641
Butte County' 13,076
San Diego County 10,725
Santa Cfara Countv 10,164
Total Automobiles in California, in 1918 311,634.
CHAPTER LIII
First Beginning.s in the Building Up of Fresno City. Its
Growth for Ten Year Period Was a Slow One. Livery
Stable and Saloon Periods in the Village. Activities All
Centered on the Coming of the Railroad. First Write Up
OF the New Station. First Locomotive Crosses San Joaquin
March 23, 1872. Renewal of County Seat Removal Agita-
tion. Railroad Freight Shipments Astonishingly Large.
First Permanent Improvements in Town. Practical
Demonstrations in Irrigation. Appeal Made to Plant
Shade Trees.
The first Republican convention in the county, of which there is public
record, is the one that assembled at the Millerton courthouse Saturday April
13, 1872, to chose two delegates to the state convention and a county com-
mittee to serve for two years. Russell H. Fleming called the meeting to
order, E. Miles was the chairman and Frank Dusy the secretary. M. J.
Church and Fleming were chosen as the delegates and the committeemen
were the following named : Thomas Seymour, Otto Froelich, Russell Flem-
ing of Millerton, Frank Dusy, F. Jensen of Big Dry Creek, E. St. John of
Kingston, JefT Donahoo of Yancey's, J. Minturn of Buchanan, E. A. Morse
of New Idria, M. J. Church of Centerville. Seven were in attendance. The
names are of historical interest as identifying acknowledged Republicans
in the county who dared make known their affiliations.
Considered in the light of events that have come to pass, it was well
that on March 23, 1874, the people voted for Fresno as the future county
seat. It was about the time that Merced changed its county seat from
Snelling to Merced, another new town on the railroad, and that Kern
swapped Havilah for Bakersfield, also a new town on the road, though the
latter did not come through with bonus and the railroad sought to strangle
it at birth, set up Sumner as the railroad station and division point as a rival,
but failed dismally in the strangling process.
Fresno was not without rivals. Their claims and pretentions were
amusing in the light of the present day. True. Fresno had nothing more
substantial to offer than they. It had, however, distinct superiority in two
things. It was on the railroad and geographically it was central in the
county, though possibly not at the time because tlie population was in the
western foothills and mountains, on the San Joaquin on both sides tributary
to Millerton, and along the Kings from Kingston to Centerville. Had not
Fresno been chosen when it was, it goes without saying that the county
seat located anywhere else would have had to be relocated later. The ad-
vent of the railroad was the turning over of a page to take up a new chapter.
The old timers were disposed to linger longer over the old chapter and
disinclined to turn leaf.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 311
And as to Fresno's claims, Sycamore or Herndon on the San Joaquin,
also projected settlements, could maintain them equally. The railroad and
the residents in that part of the county north of the river to the Chow-
chilla were for a county seat on the river and both boomed it for a time. But
it is also history that the north-of-the-river never did agree on anything
with the south-of-the-river until they chose to cut loose as Madera County
and of this act they afterward also repented.
The growth of Fresno during its first ten years was slow. It required
a boom to arouse it. That boom of 1887 was conceived by the new comers.
The first decade in the city's history may be described as the livery stable
period, when the "long, low, rakish Iniilding that was a stable below and
a hayloft above," never complete without outside a weather vane — galloping
horse with streaming mane and flowing tail — and inside ill smelling billy-
goat at large, was in foremost locations on main streets, when the livery
man was the village nabob and law giver, the stable the fountain source
of the latest gossip and news transmitted by the stage driver and the barn
crowds were the politicians of the day, the statesmen and the sages of the
village. As a writer has described this democratic forum :
"The livery stable was the last remnant of the stage coach period. It
preserved for three-quarters of a century in the United States the traditions
of the inn. In the village and smaller town it was the resort of the mascu-
line gossip and the small politician. To be received into the 'barn crowd'
was a distinction; to be able to maintain one's place in it was to be able
to be considered some day for something in the county convention. The
livery stable was the center of democracy. Every man of any consequence
dropped into it and left his opinion with the livery man, or with one of
the hostlers, or with one or more of the regular patrons or sitters at least
once in a week. There was no better place in any neighborhood or small
community a few years ago for gauging the trend of popular opinion than
the livery stable. In the winter time the livery stable office with its hospi-
table drum or straight draft stove would hold the company until the livery
man arose, yawned and said he guessed he'd make for home.
"In its place," this writer recalls, "we have the garage instead of the
odor of hay : there is the smell of gasolene : instead of the hostler there is
the chauffeur ; instead of the family carriage there is the automobile. There
is nothing in the garage to invite sitters or to hold a group of gossipers or
politicians. The atmosphere of hospitality, so characteristic of the livery
stable, is absent; the garage is no more inviting as an evening resort than
a machine shop. One misses the scent of leather, the clanking of bits, the
straining at halters, the sound of restless hoofs on the floor, the soothing
voice of the hostler and the whinny of his favorite horse."
Fresno's first days also were to live through the livery stable era. No-
where was that period more typical of a region than in the west. Here
the pony express, then the stage passenger, mail and mine bullion coach
era with all its western romance made the last stands against the on coming
railroad and the later automobile. But neither livery stable nor village inn
of the eastern states filled a part in the community life as the barroom — the
saloon of the west, truthfully and aptly described as "the poor man's club."
No institution more typical of the rough and romantic early da3rs than the
saloon, none more hospitable. It was the common meeting place.
Millerton and Fresno had their livery stables as popular forums, but
both were long on saloons as to number. The Expositor so long the only
newspaper in the county was the official organ of them. No activity which
the war of 1918 has classed as a "non essential" was so largely advertised
and no class received more publicity in the scantily recorded events of the
times than the barkeeper. First business activity in newly founded western
camp, hamlet or village was always the saloon. Little wonder perhaps that
it was classed as "the harbinger of civilizing influences." The early experi-
312 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ences in the west in the building up of communities with and around the
saloon have been repeated time and again since the Days of '49, with every
mining rush, in Alaska, on the Klondike, in Nevada, in Arizona, in every
western state and territory.
In a May, 1872, issue of the Expositor, county official paper, appeared
the squib:
"Fresno now has fifteen public bars! 'Whar's' the temperance orator?"
The reference was evidently to the county. At any rate, seven of these
"public bars" were carrying their ads in that same weekly issue. At Miller-
ton as at Fresno, the Expositor was county official organ as well as of the
saloon. The saloonmen were steady advertising patrons and the bulk of
local news in many an issue was in personal mention of the saloonmen, or
return of thanks with fulsome personal flattery for cool beverage gift on
a sweltering day, or donation on any other day of sample of newly received
drinkable stock. Such was the journalism of the day. Yet the pioneers were
making history in every nook and corner, in every gulch and canyon, on
plains and in mountains, on creeks and rivers. Seldom a word about these
doings in the local paper. The art of news reporting had not yet been dis-
covered ; the newspaper reporter had not yet been evolved. The editor pro-
prietor published a weekly paper as a side issue to his job printery to
accommodate the county printing and official advertising. That was his
mission in life, with the added self appointed task of giving free advice on
how to run the government and to claim free pass to everything under the
sun as a special privilege.
The truthful and observant western historian cannot ignore the in-
fluence of the advancing railroad and the tagging after saloon in the early
western settlements. It was no different in Fresno than elsewhere. It was
typi-cal not only of the region but of the times and of the day. Much of that
history of first beginnings as related to Fresno City has been overlooked.
It is interesting in contrast in measuring the splendid achievement in the
city of the valley, which had its rise and progress from such humble and
uninviting Ixginiiings. That record begins with the coming of the railroad
piercing its way in direct line through the magnificent valley, steel track
the connecting link to unite south, future center of population and commer-
cial activities, with San Francisco, central of the state as distributor with
one of the world's greatest seaports, while tapping the valley, its granary
and wealth producer, and locating there in its lap what is to be one of the
largest and most important cities of the state, the Fresno of wonders, of
the smallest beginnings, the front and center as it is already. Few con-
ceived in their mind's eye even the Fresno of 1918 in the following
beginnings :
—1872—
February 7 — Arthur Brown, superintendent of bridges of the Central
Pacific Company, is preparing for the erection of the San Joaquin River
bridge with a large force of men. . . . The truss bridge is framed and ready
for shipment at the company's yard at Oakland as soon as the railroad
reaches the stream. . . . The graders are preparing the road bed in the
county and weather favoring the grade will be completed as far as the
San Joaquin by the middle of March. Surprise was expressed if the cars
were not running by the first week in June.
February 14 — The Snelling Argus reports that the \lsalia division of
the Central Pacific is advancing southward and was then completed to a
point near the Chowchilla, southern boundary of the county of Merced. At
the mile rate a day of progress, the road to Visalia would be completed
about the last of May.
February 28 — Pile drivers are at work on the bridge across the Fresno
and graders on both sides of the stream preparing the road bed. Track is
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 313
laid, construction trains running to the south side of Ash Slough, six miles
south of the Chowchilla, and progress being made at the rate of a mile a day.
The Chowchilla bridge is a temporary one. The Expositor was informed that
at least 2,000 laborers, white and Chinese, are constructing the road in the
county, and prophesied that "the iron horse will be snorting and panting, on
the banks of the San Joaquin before the end of the month."
March 6 — It is stated that the rails of the San Joaquin Valley branch
of the Southern Pacific will be completed to the San Joaquin within two
weeks. ... It is learned that the railroad has bought two sections of land
immediately south of the river for a townsite there and there is talk among
Millerton business men of moving to it.
March 8 — Road completed to a point within four miles from the San
Joaquin.
March 13 — Track completed to the Fresno on the 11th, and bridge also.
A switch will be put in south of the Fresno for freight cars and goods may
be hauled to that point from Merced. Mule teams are hauling the river
bridge timbers from the end of the road. "The traveling is horrible and
twenty-four mules were attached to a timber hauling wagon."
March 27 — Locomotive crossed the San Joaquin on Saturday the 23rd
and track laying south of it is begun. The grade is finished to near Dry
Creek. Work on the permanent river bridge is pushed vigorously to be
completed in six weeks. Switch and station south of the river will be
about five miles from the river. Report was that the railroad would build
a hotel there.
April 6 — Grade is completed to fourteen miles south of river and track
laid for six miles. It looked as though the road would be at Visalia by
May 1.
April 10 — Otto Froelich erected warehouse to forward wool or other
freights from the railroad station on the San Joaquin south side, Julius
Biehl in charge. . . . The first wool shipment from county by rail and the
first in anywise this season was one day last week, Louis Studer consignor.
It was loaded at the station on the cars on the south side of the river. (Wool
was fifty cents a pound ; sheep five dollars a head.)
April 2-^1 — Track is completed sixteen miles south of the river and grade
nearly to the Kings River. During the week workmen built side tracks, and
turn tables at the station on Dry Creek (Fresno). . . . The Millerton Expositor
noted that IMr. Hoff, right of way and local agent of the San Joaquin Valley
Railroad Company has located a town near Dry Creek to bear the name of
"Fresno." Engineers are preparing grounds for side tracks, turning tables
and other conveniences generally provided at located towns. The Expositor
had not seen the spot yet was advised "it is a desirable location and not ex-
ceeding six miles from the center of Fresno County."
May 1 — The first write up of Fresno appeared in the following:
"We learn that business is very lively in the railroad station on the
San Joaquin River. Immense quantities of freight for different parts of the
San Joaquin, Tulare and Kern valleys. Wood is pouring in at a lively rate
and the number of teams which arrive and depart daily reminds one of the
palmy days of teaming Stockton used to enjoy. The station is a railroad
town in the strictest sense of the word. It abounds in tents, 'rot gut' and
roughs."
May 8 — The Expositor breaks out in one of its periodical editorials on
the removal of the county seat and says :
"The most prominent candidate for the honor at present is the embryo
railroad town near the sinks of Big Dry Creek, dubbed 'Fresno City.' The
location of this proposed town is the center of the finest agricultural land
in the county, most of which is susceptible of irrigation from one of the
branches of the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company's ditch, besides being
314 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the outlet for the Dry Creek ^'alley, one of our most prosperous farming
regions."
. . . News travelled slowly in those days. Foreman K. Maher of the
advance grading gang reported that on the 29th of the month before twenty-
five teams were at work in the advance six miles from Kings River and
eighteen from Sycamore Station, the then terminus. Good water was struck
at twelve feet.
May 15 — The permanent bridge across the San Joaquin is completed and
the track is being laid. As soon as cars are running, the road will be opened
to "Fresno" and run on schedule, it was promised. Passengers were then
being carried as far as Kings River by special train. On the 14th Bennett's
stages commenced connecting with the cars at Fresno from Millerton and
the trip was shortened one hour at least each way than when the connection
was with Sycamore Station.
May 22 — E. H. Mix. civil engineer, in charge of the work platting the
town of Fresno visits Millerton. He reports that the field work will be
completed in a fortnight. . . . The courthouse square is located "on one
side of the townsite upon a knoll which gives a commanding view of the
balance of the town." Lots will be probably ofifered for sale in the course
of three or four weeks. . . . Otto Froelich merchandising in the new place
has been appointed agent of \A'^ells. Fargo & Company and opened a branch
office. A daily express is run between Millerton and Fresno.
May 29 — The telegraph office at Sycamore was moved Sunday the 26th
to Fresno and henceforth passenger trains will run through to that point
re.gularly. . . . Stages from Millerton changed schedule 'to connect with
Fresno cars at three A. M., and passengers from "below" will arrive at mid-
night and be conveyed direct to Millerton. . . . Notices of publication for
new roads from the town of Fresno to other settlements in the county are
being made. It is stated that "Fresno seems to be the grand center to which
all eyes are turned."
June 5 — Another editorial in Expositor urges reasons for the removal
of the county seat, petitions for which to the supervisors were being cir-
culated to be presented in July and the election call mandatory on 243 signa-
tures. One of the arguments for a removal was that the county had no
quarters for its officers and business, and it was cited that the Ridgway
murder jury had to be removed to the county hospital as a place for delibera-
tions and to permit the district court to proceed with its business and that
it would be folly to expend more money on county buildings in Millerton
for there are none to deny that the county seat must be moved sooner or
later. . . . The Expositor experiences a change of heart and having con-
versed "with several gentlemen" reports them as saying that they were
highly pleased with the new townsite. The land for miles around is excel-
lent, is as level as a floor, it is capable of being irrigated, water can be
flown through the streets, used for irrigating, ensuring the decoration of
the town with handsome trees, shrubs and flowers and making it delightful
and attractive. . . . The railroad is putting up an immense depot 60x120
feet. Fresno will be the depot for Dry Creek, Millerton and Centerville.
There is no question that it will soon be the most flourishing locality in the
county.
June 12 — Jefferson M. Shannon appointed agent for the Central Pacific
at Fresno. . . . Again an editorial urging action on the county seat removal,
agitated and debated upon for years. Constant agitation prevents anything
being done to improve Millerton. Removal should not be to a corner of
the county. . . . Efi'ort being made to dedicate the freight depot at Fresno
by a "grand ball" as soon as the "edifice" is completed, running an excur-
sion to Stockton and way stations and building "sufficiently large to accom-
modate a host of dancers."
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 315
June 19 — The Millerton-Fresno mail stage goes via Big Creek twice a
week. "This seems something like going back to first principles" and "to
be within twenty miles of daily communication with the outside world, yet
literally to communicate with it but twice a week seems hard."
July 3 — Two column letter from "the pen of one of our heaviest tax-
payers" with editorial comment published. The writer made argument in
favor of Centerville as against Fresno for the county seat. This false prophet
said "Fresno Station has no claims on our people for making it the county
seat, neither can it advocate a situation that promises to be permanent. On
the west side of the track you find a barren desert, extending to Hawthorne
station ; on the north side of said station towards the San Joaquin distance
of fifteen miles is equally unproductive, while on the south side toward
Kings River the entire route being dotted with drifted sand hills resembling
India sands, not a settlement to be seen in either of the above directions,
and if an experience of thirteen years residence in this region is of any benefit
to predict the future I predict that said deserts are likely so to remain —
then what is there that entitles said station as making it the capital city
of our county? Why distance the county seat in an open prairie without
a tree nearer than twenty miles — depending on transported fuel and trusting
to a soulless corporation to bring to the settlers many delicacies that are
now grown on our rich bottom lands?" . . . All county removal petitions
have not been filed hence the application before the supervisors went over
to the August term. . . . Superintendent Lohse of the Easterby rancho con-
tracted with the railroad to transport 100 tons of wheat to San Francisco.
. . . The first grain ever exported from the county to the San Francisco
market was last week from the A. Y. Easterby rancho on Fancher Creek.
. . . Also from Berenda copper ore, a lot of thirty-five tons, from the Balti-
more mine at Buchanan at five dollars and fifty cents a ton. . . . June 25
lots in Fresno were sold at private sale. Prices ranged from $250 to sixty
dollars, the first for choice corner lots. The sale was not what it was ex-
pected it would be, but "as it was not announced no one outside of the
town knew of the sale until after it had transpired."
July 10 — Thomas Whitlock is first in Millerton to announce intention
to move to Fresno to go in the carpenter business. . . . Agitation begun
in Fresno for a school house. . . . Building operations are so brisk "that
within a few months' time Fresno will be the largest town in the county."
. . . One stable is completed, Russell H. Fleming and J. T. Wyatt were to
erect another, French of Centerville was to build a butcher shop, M. A.
Schultz a large building and Otto Froelich a store, and a hotel has been
completed. "\\ atcr, very good at that, can be obtained at forty feet." . . .
There has been much talk about the sand hills and the dust and the desert
like appearance, but the Expositor editor "was unable to see these horrors"
notwithstanding that, as he says, it was his business to do so. . . . At the
Easterby rancho with Charles S. Lohse as superintendent, three headers, a
steam thresher and upwards of fifty hands had harvested the crop and there
were yet three weeks of work ahead. Forty tons of wheat were being shipped
daily by rail to San Francisco — the product of this farm and 1.000 tons be-
tween then and the 1st. of August. There were twelve acres of corn stand-
ing ten feet high and melons and pumpkins in abundance. "This 'piece' com-
pares favorably with the balance of the 'sand heap' (Fresno) which stretches
over a scope of country of about thirty miles one way and fifty the other. It
is certainly not so good as a large area of the country in the vicinity is."
luly 12 — First reported fire in Fresno ; bag of mail destroyed ; originated
from engine spark.
[uly 26 — H. B. Underbill, the town lot agent, visited Fresno and ordered
oflf all settlers on the railroad reservation who had not purchased lots and
instructed those who had purchased to pay up. All the "railroad traders"
316 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
who go forward with the railroad folded tents and departed, leaving none
behind but actual settlers, in consequence of which the town looks and
is deserted. Whatever progress it now makes will be permanent. . . . School
apportionment for fifty-three children eighty-one dollars and fifty-eight cents,
number in county 812, per child one dollar and fifty-three and nine-tenths
cents.
August 7 — Wheat yield of Easterby Rancho, 1,783,117 pounds shipped;
20.000 sacks still on the ground; 4,000,000 total yield in pounds. With a
reduction in shipping rates 12.000 acres would be put into wheat next season.
August 10 — Large land owners from San Francisco were met by M. J.
Church and taken on tour of inspection of the canal of the Fresno Irrigation
Company. A. Y. Easterby and W. S. Chapman were in the party.
August 14 — M. A. Schultz commences erection of large two-story house.
. . . Otto Froelich's new store will be ready for occupancy in two weeks —
"a fine structure." . . . Dancing party at the passenger depot on 10th. It
was an impromptu affair by pleasure seekers from the Kings River. . . .
Fresno and neighborhood want a postoffice. Nearest postofifice is sixteen
miles distant and yet all mails have to pass through the town.
September -^1 — The Millerton-Fresno stage has been made a tri-weekly
affair running Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
September 18 — Dancing party announced by P. J- Larquier for the 23rd
at the County Seat Hotel. . . . Postoiifice at Fresno established with Russell
H. Fleming as postmaster. Office at Leroy Dennis' Fresno Station on the
Fresno River discontinued.
September 25 — City children of school age, forty-six boys and thirty-
four girls, total ninety; in county 473, and 452, total 925 — a gain of 113. . . .
Postofifice established at Sycamore on the Central Pacific Railroad, Charles
E. Strivens postmaster.
October 5 — First political meeting held at Fresno at passenger depot.
William Faymonville chairman, A. W. Roysdon of Stockton spoke, as did
Judge Robertson and Russ W'ard of Snelling and Attorney General Jo Ham-
ilton, he for an hour and paying a "beautiful tribute to Fresno, the banner
county of Democracy in California."
October 10 — Ball at Larquier's was "well attended" and "the supper
was excellent." A bibulous IMexican became enraged because "a young lady"
refused to dance with him and because at supper he was denied drink. He
was induced to surrender knife and pistol but in the handling of the latter it
was discharged and there was a promiscuous stampede. Some twenty shots
were fired but only one took effect in the fleshy part of a greaser's leg.
October 25 — There are three patients at the Millerton County hospital
and one prisoner at the county jail. . . . The immense amount of wool being
shipped to the railroad station is astonishing, even to the "oldest residenter."
The cotton field of C. D. Fields near Centerville "presents the appearance
of snow banks."
November 6 — The first Fresno business "ad" in the Millerton Expositor
is that of B. S. Booker & Company, grocers and general produce and provi-
sions at Tulare and Front.
November 13 — John T. Wyatt starts feed and livery stable in Fresno.
His is the second Fresno "ad."
November 18 — Otto Froelich contracted to carry the mail from Fresno
to Millerton thrice a week.
November 27 — Fresno residents will petition for a public road to Miller-
ton. . . . The town is "still improving" and contains "two stores, four hotels
and eating houses and three whiskey mills." . . . Complaint made that lots
have been sold to Chinese in the center of town ; they might be kept on the
southwest side of the railway track.
December 3 — Water is flowing in the big San Joaquin and Kings River
canal. "It looks like a huge river." . . . For the "first time in many years
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 317
water is runnino: in the Fresno River within about three miles of the Monte
Redondo. . . . E. Jacob of Centerville announces the erection of "a large
and substantial store" at Fresno. . . . Miller & Lux are fencing their land
near Firebaugh's Ferry with lumber from steamers that ran up the river
during high water. They had up one string of fence, five boards high, for
upwards of thirty miles. . . . The San Joaquin and Kings' River Canal
Company leased for five years from Miller & Lux 5,000 acres of fenced in
land to he put into grain the first year. At the end of the first 1,500 will be
put into alfalfa and revert to owners. At the end of the five, the remainder
was to be similarly seeded. . . . Report is that the plain on both sides of
the railroad from Fresno "is alive with new settlers." Houses are going
up in all directions and general preparations are being made for land farm-
ing. Many are being assisted by large land owners ; others are locating on
government land of which there is considerable unoccupied. "Verily Fresno
County is coming out." . . . Business is reported brisk "down at Fresno."
Besides being "the debouching point for a large portion of the county,"
local trade has sprung up with "the large number of new settlers." B. S.
Booker & Company bought and shipped to San Francisco fully 1,000 turkeys.
. . . Land transactions are so many that the Expositor begun the periodical
publication of "Real Estate Transactions," unheard of before thing in the
county. . . . First newspaper pul^lishcd notice of a birth in the new town
was of the following, nearly one month belated:
"At Fresno, November 9th, 1872, the wife of John T. AVyatt, of a son."
Coincidentallv was a Stockton "ad" announcing "babv carriages, perambu-
lators." . . . There was agitation at this time in favor of a movement origi-
nating in Stockton for "a second railroad down this valley," a narrow gauge
line to serve the county east of the Central Pacific because "the business of
this valley demands its construction," with Stockton as the natural market
and outlet. The project reached the point later of two route surveys.
December 11 — Appeal made to plant shade trees in the new town. . . .
E. C. Winchell announced for sale at his ranch one mile east of Millerton
"5,000 Cottonwood shade trees, straight, tall and thrifty and of all sizes."
December 18 — The editor of the Expositor rambles in Fresno and notes
Fleming's livery and stage stable, also that he has completed a dwelling
24x16, kitchen Uxli'i. also barn 52x40. John T. \\'vatt has completed his
58x40 stable and ako a dwelling. B. S. Booker had finished a 42x18, one and
a half story building with merchandising store room 30x18, and sinking
a well nearly in front of the house for public use. M. A. Schultz is complet-
ing a 44x24 two-story hotel with large kitchen in rear. These are only a few
of the "many improvements now being made at this place" and "business
of all kinds appears to be increasing" and it "must soon become the center of
trade for Fresno County." . . . Discovery made of what appeared to be
"a dead man hung by the neck to a telegraph wire." A coroner's jury was
summoned before the practical joke was revealed. . . . M. A. Schultz will
dedicate his hotel about January 1. . . . Martin McNully starts a black-
smith shop. . . . Otto Froelich announces himself as a general merchant at
Fresno, with Julius Biehl as manager. ... A party was given on the 11th
at Booker's store with supper at Larquier's. . . . Booker shipped 1,000
pounds of old rags to San Francisco. This is "a. new business." . . . School
apportionment for Fresno is $122.50. . . . Augustus Weihe on the line of the
canaf near town is putting in a section of land to grain and 100 acres to
cotton and corn. He has built house and barn and dug well. (The
section is now covered by one of the finest residential parts of Fresno.) . . .
Drought threatened, there having been during the season "nothing wetter
than a heavy dew." A five-inch rain storm visited the section Sunday the
22nd as the season's first, rain again on the 24th and on Christmas day.
318 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER LIV
Irrigation and the Trees are Attracting Bird Life. Agitation
IS ON FOR Railroad Competition. School District is Estab-
lished. Grain Growing Acreage Extending. Settlers'
Cabins Are Springing Up On Government Land. Town Im-
provements Are Brisk But Not Stable. First Fourth of
July Celebration in New Town. Twenty-four Individuals
Hold Over 681,000 Acres of Land in County. Candidates
TO the Fore for the County Seat. Fresno's Dominant In-
dustry is in the Bar Room.
Not all the changes that were taking place were of man's origin. Bird
life began to invade man's newly appropriated domain. So inhospitable had
been the place where the town was located that the twitter of the bird was
unknown. As a phenomenon was hailed the town visit on Sunday, September
12, 1874, of myriads of field or meadow larks. They appeared to have come
from a distance. Their appearance was so unusual that the Expositor con-
sulted "Ye Oldest Inhabitant," Johnnie Hoxie. and he sagely declared that
the appearance of the birds betokened an early and heavy winter. As an-
other marvelous change that had come over the country, it was noted
b}' the Expositor April 26. 1876, that three years before the only birds in
the neighborhood were ground owls and a few predatory birds, except in the
winter and spring when aqueous fowl abounded. Since the irrigating ditches
were excavated and trees and shrubbery planted, twenty or more varieties
of birds had made their appearance as permanent settlers.
—1873—
Januarv 1 — Because of the rains M. A. Schultz postponed the "grand
ball" at his hotel to \\'ednesday the 8th. anniversary of the Battle of New
Orleans. . . . Silver cup received as a Christmas present from Gov. Leland
Stanford by the youngest son of Jefiferson M. Shannon, born July 4, 1871,
and christened at the Stockton Presbyterian Church, April 22, 1872, Leland
Stanford Gillum Shannon. . . . All communication with northern part of
county cut off. Ferry at Jones' store (below ]\Iillerton now Friant) not
operating and Charles Halin's (formerly the Millerton Ferry three-fourths
of a mile below town) having parted new cable the Sunday before. The near-
est crossing of the San Joaquin was at the railroad. . . . Well attended
dance on New Year's eve in Booker's new building — "a rather impromptu
affair gotten up on twenty-four hours' notice." One night's dancing was
not enough, so another dance was had on New Year's night with "ad" an-
nouncing \A'ashington's Birthday ball at Booker hall February 21, tickets
including supper three dollars. . . . The new Sunday law is in effect. Nerv-
ous system of many ]\Iillertonites shattered. James E. Faber of Fresno has
the Expositor's thanks for a bottle labelled "Kentucky Favorite." The print
shop at Millerton "never had so many friendly visits before in a day." Mr.
F. had just completed and opened a saloon at the town of Fresno. It
was the Senate and "The 'smiling' public is invited to call around." accord-
ing to the "ad" in the official organ. . . . Over 200 shares taken in the county
for the narrow gauge railroad. . . .
January 15 — The supper at Schultz's Hotel opening was according to
the editor "one of the best we have ever sat down to in this county." . . .
\\'ater was "a scarce article" the summer before in Fresno. Then it was
that a German located there, sunk a well, put up a shed, bought hay and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 319
started a stable and "Horse Restaurant." . . . First published Fresno death
notice: "At Fresno City, January 8tli, 1873, Adam Nievling, a native of Ohio,
aged sixty-eight years."
The local account had it that he had "a singular accident." Having in-
dulged too freely, he was put to be<l at Schultz's Fresno hotel. It is sup-
posed he fell out of bed, for when found on the floor "his head was doubled
under the body, the face pressing against the pit of the stomach," neck was
either dislocated, or he was stunned and sufTocated. The body when found
was cold. . . . Report is that "Fresno is a live town even if it is situated
on Stanford's railroad" and "everybody seems to be doing well." Johnny
Wyatt has his stable going ahead at full tilt. Russell Fleming is in the same
line. Larquier Bros.' is the pioneer stable. Faber's Senate is opposite
Wyatt's. Froelich's store "is one of the most substantial buildings in town"
(at Mariposa and H, also called Front). Booker has a large two-story build-
ing and doing a good business. Schultz's hotel is "an excellently finished
building." Barroom handsome and bar well stocked. P. J. Larquier's County
Seat Hotel fronting the railroad depot "a good house, most excellent rooms
and beds." Fresno "is a pleasant place to visit" and "we shall go again soon."
. . . Millerton has subscribed 4,700 $100 shares to the narrow gauge road.
January 22 — J. W. Pearson of San Francisco advertises 60,000 acres in
Fresno to sell or lease for cash or on shares at twelve and one-half cents an
acre per annum or sheep owner to put sheep thereon and the net proceeds
of three or five years transaction to be equally divided between sheep and
land owners. ... J. R. Heinlein on the 8th rafted 10,000 feet of lumber in
two lots from the railroad crossing on the Kings to his ranch on Tulare
Lake, the first time that this method of transporting lumber on the lower
Kings has been tried. . . . The Expositor does not recall a livelier day than
the Sunday before, at Millerton, so well worked the Sunday law. The Satur-
day night before everyone that could "provided himself with a bottle of his
favorite 'pizen,' all the horses in the vicinity were brought out and Sunday
was spent in horse racing. Never did the street present a livelier appearance."
January 29 — Robert Simpson is building butcher shop at Fresno. . . .
R. H. Fleming and others are ready to apply to the supervisors for a school
district contiguous to the town, taking in portions of Dry Creek and Miller-
ton districts.
February 5 — ^Meeting was held to locate suitable point for school house.
The railroad donated a block for the purpose. . . . Schultz and the Lar-
quiers talk of additions to their hotels to meet demands. . . . On the other
hand the Expositor noted: "It has been horribly dull in Millerton during
the past week. A stranger was a curiosity not seen in that time."
February 12 — Application of J. G. James and others to abandon the "Old
Overland Stage Road" between Watson's Ferry and Hawthorne Station
pending for many months was after a hearing lasting three days granted by
the supervisors. ... So dull are things at Millerton that the Expositor gives
a three-inch review of its San Francisco advertisements — five in number — ■
one of a tobacco and cigar house and three of "drink emporiums." . . . The
Ne Plus Ultra Copper Mining Company at Buchanan shipped twenty tons
of ore to the city. After paying expenses of taking out the ore and twelve
dollars for freight shipment returned nine dollars and fifty cents a ton. Mine
is twelve miles from the railroad. . . . Fresno City School District estab-
lished. . . . Salary of county school superintendent raised from $300 to $900,
there being eighteen districts with 925 census enrolled children, Millerton
leading with 126, New Idria ninety-four, Fresno eighty and Dry Creek
seventy-two as the largest.
March 5 — Contract and Finance Company sells lot to B. S. Booker in
Fresno for $250 (at Tulare and Front or H).
March 12 — The renovated Railroad House located on the reservation at
the upper end near the little ticket station comes under the management
320 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of R. Daley. He died, the widow Louisa Daley married M. A. Schultz, and
when he died she married C. E. Brimson who had been railroad station
agent. . . . August Weihe is planting 120 acres to grain four miles from
Fresno, also 100 to alfalfa, sowing barley with it, also 100 of Tahiti cotton,
also planting 7,000 almond and gums to form a row around 100 acres. H.
Voorman puts in 950 to wheat and George H. Eggers 1,280 six miles from
town which with the acreage of the Gould, Easterby and the 1,000 of B. C.
Libby "will sum up very handsomely for the section around Fresno." C. G.
Frash and F. T. Eisen, the first named in charge before of the Groezinger
Napa vineyard and the latter of the San Francisco Pioneer Mills are located
four miles east of town and had 1,280 acres. They had 200,000 grape cuttings
of foreign varieties and were to plant 100 acres to cotton with corn and
grain enough for their own consumption.
March 19 — Settlers' cabins are springing up on unoccupied government
land in the county like mushrooms. . . . The Larquiers will make addition
32x42, two stories to the County Seat Hotel, to occupy the bar room site.
. . . The price of land that three years ago went begging at three to five
dollars an acre finds ready purchasers at three times that.
April 2— Clerk J. ^^^' Williams. B. S. Booker and R. Daley of the dis-
trict call an election at the railroad depot for April 16 to vote a tax of $3,000
to build a school house. . . . Rumor is that the Central Pacific will "com-
mence the erection of a large hotel at Fresno City." . . . County removal
petitions are in circulation in the Coast Range and on the west side of the
county. . . .
April 16 — E. C. AVinchell announces for sale four-eighteenths share in
Ne Plus Ultra copper mine, also his 320-acre possessory tract ranch and
residence in the foothills one mile east of Millerton and half mile south of
Fort Miller, "perfect title against all the world except the United States gov-
ernment." . . . Fresno City school opened on 14th, Miss Mary J. McKenzie
as teacher. . . . Building goes on despite the hard times. Dr. H. C. Coley of
Merced was building drug store adjoining the Fresno Hotel and a new store
was going in south of Booker's saloon .... Surveyors for the narrow gauge
road were in the field expecting to be at the San Joaquin in a month. . . .
William Helm shipped his spring clip of wool amounting to 45,200 pounds.
Freight to San Francisco by rail is seventy-nine dollars by carload and one
dollar and forty-nine cents per hundred for less quantities.
April 30 — No opposition developed to the $3,000 school building tax.
. . . The Larquiers will open their new hotel June 17 with a "grand ball" —
it was to be the "largest and finest private building in the county." . . .
WMUiam C. Caldwell died at Centerville. He came to California at twenty
by the southern route arriving in Mariposa County in the fall of 1852, re-
turning across the plains to Arkansas one year later and coming back to
]\Iariposa in the spring of 1855 by the northern route with a band of cattle.
He continued in the stock business until the spring of 1857. sold out, went
to Los Angeles, returned with cattle which he drove to the Kings River and
there lived until his death. In November, 1864, he and wife (Pelina Glenn,
sister of Richard and William Glenn) opened the Falcon Hotel on the south
side of the river, in 1865 moved into the bottom on the south side and opened
hotel which was swept away in the flood of January, 1867. This led to the
settlement of Centerville where the Calderwoods were hotel keepers. . . .
News comes of the shooting of Jerry P. Ridgeway at Cerbat, Mojave County,
A. T.. "killed with buckshot from a gun, four of them passing clear through
his head, killing him as dead as ever man was with that kind of arm." Ridge-
way had been indicted for killing B. R. Andrews on the Kings River three
3'ears before, after later arrest escaped from the Millerton jail January 13, 1872,
and state and county rewards of $500 each were ofifered for his arrest. He
was brought back from Arizona for trial at Millerton, escaped justice as was
too common in those days and returned to former haunts. He was killed
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 321
April 11 by a "mere boy of a man" whom he had seized by the collar and
with six-shooter in hand threatened to kill him in less than thirty minutes.
Thus ended a notorious bully. ... A new Fresno railroad time table is an-
nounced. Instead of leaving at four A. M., the hour is two and on Sunday
a train was put on leaving at four fifty A. M.
May 8 — T. J. Payne, one of the oldest residents of the countv, was killed
by John V\'illiams, a colored teamster and charcoal burner. The homicide
was at Tripp & Payne's store on the Toll road leading to Humphrey &
Mock's sawmill, twenty-eight miles from Fresno. Payne was shot in" the
right leg below the knee and bled to death, the bullet from a Henry rifle
passing through open door after piercing the house outer wall. Williams
claimed the shooting was accidental after words while he was at mark
shooting with George R. Tripp. Williams rode off on Payne's horse after
Tripp had advised him to escape from the county and refusing to stop John
Morrow and Riley Anderson arming themselves as Morrow's life had been
threatened both shot at him. killing horse and Williams having a finger
blown ofif. Morrow sprang on the negro as he was about to shoot and bound
him and the arrival of deputy sheriff probably prevented a lynching.
Payne was buried at F"ort Miller. Williams was sentenced in October to
two years imprisonment for manslaughter. . . . Rooms and horses are en-
gaged for the engineers from Washington to make survey and report to Con-
gress on the practicability of turning the waters of various streams out upon
the San Joaquin Valley, visiting the head of the Kings at Centerville, thence
down to Kingston and Tulare Lake, then on the west side of the San Joaquin
on the proposed great canal to Antioch. . . . Millerton has daily stage com-
munication with Fresno. . . . Schultz of the hotel is digging a well and was
sixty feet in the earth and no water.
May 28 — Narrow gauge railroad surveyors are between the Fresno and
Chowchilla Rivers.
June 4 — The Larquiers' Hotel dedication ball was postponed until July
4. Engineers surveying the San Joaquin and Tulare Valley Narrow Gauge
Railroad encamp on the northwest bank of the San Joaquin five miles- below
Millerton. The heaviest piece of work discovered is the crossing of the
stream.
June 11 — The first Fresno City medical man in Fresno to insert adver-
tising card is Dr. H. C. Coley with office next door to Schultz's Hotel, be-
sides engaged in grocery, provision, general merchandising, drugs and medi-
cines hard by on Front Street. . . . Announcement made of the first 4th of
July celebration on that Friday in an afternoon "Social Festival" in aid of
the public school by the ladies of Fresno (admission fifty cents), and "A
Social Party" at night at the Larquier's new hotel (tickets three dollars).
Committee on Festival : Mesdames B. S. Booker, H. C. Coley, Miss Mary J.
McKenzie, Mesdames R. Daly, George McCoUough and E. C. Blackburn.
Floor Managers at the ball were to be: W. J. Lawrenson, C. E. Blackburn,
B. S. Boutwell and W. E. Williams, while Russell H. Fleming was to be
the dance prompter.
June 18 — The railroad tariff on grain is $140 a car; seventy dollars on
special contracts.
June 25 — The irrigation commissioners have gone to the Sacramento
Valley, "and if they do no more in that region than they have in this, it
would be nearly as well they had never been appointed." They did not ex-
amine the San Joaquin above Watson's Ferry and as far as was learned went
hurriedly in a company conveyance over the surveyed lines of the great San
Joaquin and Kings River Canal and Irrigation Company which had applied
for government subsidy at the previous session of Congress, the company's
chief engineer acting as guide. . . . The estimate is that 60,000 sheep have
been driven from other counties into the mountains of Fresno bv those who
322 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
pay no taxes in the county and whose sheep eat up the range from those
that do.
July 2 — Davis & Sons are building a new store. . . . George Zeis and J.
Weber have opened a boot and shoe store. ... A man named Maassen has
been "constructing a cellar of gigantic dimensions for the purpose of keep-
ing a beer cellar." A Chinaman engaged on the excavating broke a leg and
was bruised by the ground caving in on him. . . . Thomas Whitlock an-
nounces himself as a contractor and builder "in any part of the county."
July 4 — The celebration was "a grand success." George Zeis was mar-
shal of the parade which disbanded at the railroad freight depot for the
literary program. The Glee Club of Messrs. Williams and Son, W. T. Rum-
ble, and George Zeis, Miss Mary J. McKenzie, Mrs. Whiteside and the
Misses Melissa and L. Gilkey sang a "patriotic ballad." Rev. T. O. Ellis Sr.
made the invocation. The choir sang again and J. W. Ferguson read the
Declaration of Independence. More singing and the poet of the day read
"An Invocation to Liberty," ]\Iiss Lizzie Gilkey impersonating the Goddess
of Liberty. More singing and J. D. Collins, the teacher of the Academy
school, delivered the oration of the da3^ introduced by B. S. Booker as Presi-
dent of the Day. Then followed a song of patriotic nature and the benedic-
tion. Then the festival in aid of the school with "grab bags, ice cream stands,
fruit stands, ring cakes and 'sich like' " and "the whole affair passed oflf with-
out a single thing to mar it." Ball in the evening was "a grand afifair." About
fifty couples attended and "the supper was strictly first class as was indeed
the whole afifair," with general good feeling prevailing.
July 9 — The new hotel of P. and J. Larquier is declared to be "without
doubt the most elegant building in Fresno County." It is described as "a
main building 32x42 and two stories in height," containing nine rooms up-
stairs, and a parlor, dining room and two small rooms down stairs, "hard
finished throughout and is elegantly furnished." . . . George Sutherland and
W. E. Williams open a meat market in rear of Booker's store. ... In the
absence of a district convention, the Republican County Committee meet-
ing at Fresno, Russell Fleming as chairman and T. Seymour as secretary, en-
dorsed Alex Deering of IMariposa as judge of the thirteenth district.
July 23 — Rumor circulated that Republicans would bring out candi-
dates for county clerk and treasurer — just to show that there were some of
that faith in the county. ... Of the county Democratic delegation to the
district convention at Visalia. John Barton and N. L. Bachman as proxies
and H. C. Daulton withdrew and the remaining nine indorsed Thomas Fow-
ler for the senate, though an avowed opponent of the No-fence law. But for
Fresno's Fowler pledged delegates, J. D. Collins of Fresno might have been
nominated on the first ballot. . . . Republican special county committee
named M. J. Church and Otto Froelich delegates to the district convention.
. . . Centerville connected with the outside world by telegraph at Elias
Jacob & Company's store.
August 6 — L. Davis of Snelling opens grocery, clothing and variety
store. . . . W. H. Sullivan, fruit store keeper, appointed Fresno City agent
of the Expositor. . . . Twenty votes in convention and eleven necessary for
a choice on first ballot, A. C. Bradford of Fresno received four votes, each of
the four counties in the joint judicial district conventions voting for its man.
LIpwards of thirty ballots were cast before there were changes until the
fifty-eighth when Bradford received the necessary eleven and the Democratic
organ said that "during the entire session the Ijest feeling prevailed."
August 13 — Conklin's Great United States Circus exhibited at Fresno
on the 14th. at Centerville on the 15th and on the day after at Millerton.
The first Fresno circus lot was at the northern end of the railroad depot.
Among the novelties that the circus advertised was "the handsomest lady
gymnast in the world," and John Conklin "the Modern Milo." . . . John T.
Wyatt died April 30 aged thirty-four. George Sutherland followed in busi-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 323
ness at his stand. . . . The narrow gauge surveyors were at the Chowchilla
with the second line of survey. . . . The Buchanan copper mine closed, the
prohibitive freight rates making it impossible to ship any save the best grade
ores at a profit. . . . Over 5,000 head of loose stock is ranging in the vicinity
of the Alabama Settlement and a constant watch has to be maintained "to
prevent destroying all the farms in that section." . . . The county shows a
greater increase in taxable property than any other in the state. Increase for
the year was $1,291,412 or $814,972 more than any other one county in the
state and more property than Tulare and Kern combined, no bonded and a
small floating debt. . . . The Mutual Land Benefit Association has a tract
of 10,000 acres near Sycamore Station on the San Joaquin Valley Railroad,
in tracts of eighty, 160 and 320 acres offered to settlers at ten dollars an
acre in currency with a lot in Vinland town in the center of the tract, four
years with interest to pay two-thirds balance. . . . O. P. Maddock appointed
constable at Fresno Cily.
August 20— L. Davis, late of Davis & Sons of Merced and Snelling,
opens general merchandise store on Front Street to "sell at small profit."
. . . Among the new accessions to Kingston's population is Louis Einstein
of E. Jacob & Company of Visalia.
August 27 — Russell H. Fleming accedes to request of citizens as the
first Republican to announce himself in county for supervisor of the second
district. . . . The narrow gauge survey has been completed. The new line
crosses the San Joaquin six miles below the first surveyed and ten below
Millerton. Estimate is that the road can be completed and equipped for
$10,000 a mile. . . . E. C. Winchell announces public auction of Millerton
ranch September 20.
September 3 — It was expected that the water would be running into
Fresno in a few weeks. . . . Maassen is erecting a building for another
saloon. . . . The term "Fresnoite" appears for the first time in print.
September 24 — J. W. Ferguson editor of the Expositor, having been
elected to the assembly the next plunge into publicity was the following:
"At the residence of the bride's father near San Jose, September 10th, by
Rev. J. C. Simmons, John W. Ferguson to Miss Agnes L. Ralls." . . . C. R.
Tufifrell reports that during the two months of his railroad agency in Fresno
shipments were eighty cars of wheat, thirty of cattle and hogs, and 100 of
merchandise received. Seventy-five cars of wool were to be shipped.
October 1 — Robert Simpson emancipates his seventeen-year-old son,
John Duncan, to do business under own name and for himself and holding
himself no longer responsible for any contracts made by him. . . . The
Winchell auction was indefinitely postponed, "owing to the slim attendance
of bidders."
October 9 — At the Stockton meeting of the narrow gage railroad direc-
tors, report was made that the 175 81-100 miles from Stockton to Visalia
according to the first survey could be built for an average of $11,122.23 and
according to the second 164 miles for $11,147.66. There was less than $300,-
000 subscribed, the agreement being that no further percentage call would
be made until $500,000 stock is taken, there was no other alternative than
to make another canvass for stock subscriptions and a majority that con-
trol of the road might not be lost on mortgaged bonds. . . . Word came
from Firebaugh of the finding of an unknown dead man, American or Eng-
lish, of thirst on the Cantua road about September 28. He was supposed to
be afoot as his blanket was lying near. He was about sixty yards from the
water and his struggles must have been fearful as the ground was torn up
with his hands trying to dig for water.
October 22 — Notice published of the marriage at the home of C. A.
Hart at Fort Miller by Judge Gillum Baley October 13 of Dr. Lewis Leach
and Mrs. Mathilda Converse, both of Millerton. . . . C. A. Heaton and J. W.
Ferguson dissolve partnership in the publication of the Millerton Expositor.
324 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
November 5 — The assessor's books show that twenty-four persons own
in the county 681,320 acres. The laro;est area owned by any one of the
twenty-four was Miller & Lux's 128,640 acres: the smallest 10,000. Among
these 'larger were Edward Applegarth 49,146, Cuthbert Burrell 23,403, W. S.
Chapman 35,712, W. S. Chapman & Company 69,886, H. C. Daulton 14,834,
James, Selig & Company 26,664, G. W. Kid'd 10,755, M. T. Kearney 9,596,
Morton and others 11,860, T- M. Montgomery 12,700, Henry Voorman 9,521,
T. O. Earl 22.209, Isaac Friedlander 47,450, 'j. H. Goodman 19.111, William
Helm 17.924, Gus Herminghaus 10,356, W. "F. Hale 12,525, W. Pierce and
others 25.765, N. B. Stoneroad 10.787, E. and A. St. John 41,720, J. Suther-
land 12,167, E, T. Smith 10,745, W, D. Tirilock 12,450. There were in this
list four farms of 20,000 acres, four of between 40,000 and 50,000 and one of
oyer double that acreage. Twenty-four farms of 10,000 acres and upwards in
one county was said to be without parallel in the United States outside of
California. This was at a time when the land was used as yet principally
for grazing, and two dozen persons owning the extent of the county for
cattle to roam over at will. Fresno and Kern statistics were cited as a com-
plete answer to the question, "Why does not California increase more rapidly
in population?"
November 12 — The town of Borden, the site of which was owned by
John Burcham, was surveyed and located. The Borden saloon of Bowman
"& Company placed its first "ad" this day also.
November 26 — Charles W. De Long appointed postmaster of Fresno
Cit}', vice Russell H. Fleming resigned. ... A visit records that the "town
is gradually building up," but buildings "are not of a very stable character."
Business "appears good," many strangers noticed in town. People looking
anxiously forward to the time for voting on the county seat removal ques-
tion. . . . The proposition of building a school abandoned. School tax voted
was levied illegally, there was no money to build and the hard times were
against a special tax. Another election will have to be called. . . . Only
half a dozen drunken men were noticed about town, hence "the moral tone
of the place must be improving." Effort is on foot to form a temperance
society in town.
November 26 — County seat removal discussed. Candidates are Center-
ville. Big Dry Creek, King's River, Borden and Sycamore. \\'hile the}' are
claiming, Fresno is not asleep but had a man out at three dollars a day on a
horse signing up the petition to the supervisors.
December 18-^Married. At Millerton Mr. John Clark Hoxie to ^Ilss
Mary Jane McKenzie. ... In the assembly at Sacramento, J. W. Ferguson
of Fresno and the Expositor introduces his bill to protect agriculture and to
prevent the trespassing of animals upon private property in the counties of
Fresno, Tulare and Kern — the No-fence Law.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 325
CHAPTER LV
The Year 1874 Saw the End of Pioneer Millerton. Everything
Was Moved or Carted off to Fresno. Old County Seat is
Left Deserted. Bids Invited for a New Courthouse. Big
Defalcation Discovered in the Treasury. Not a Vacant
House is Reported in Town. Lots Are Selling Fast. In-
crease IN Population and Wealth of County. Anti-
Chinese Agitation Acute. First Brick Building Erected.
Courthouse Cornerstone Laying. First Bank in County
Opened.
The year 1874 witnessed the end of Millerton. The last arguments on
county seat removal were made in February. The decision to remove the
seat was made at the election in March. The legal change was authorized by
legislature for October 1. Fresno boomed, town lots sold briskly and busi-
ness and residence locators were numerous. The exodus from Millerton be-
gan in August, was at its height in September and was ended in October,
with none remaining save the prisoners in jail. Millerton was a deserted vil-
lage. Its obituary was on the birthday anniversary of the state, in the fol-
lowing words :
September 9, '74 — The glories of INIillerton have departed and in a few
more days it will live only in name. One by one the buildings are being torn
down and moved to Fresno. Last week Faymonville's and Dr. Leach's offices
were torn down and Judge Sayle's residence and office is following suit.
Dixon's residence will soon go the way of the rest. Henry's blacksmith
shop, stable and portions of his old hotel are already here, and who knows
where the end will be? Over two years ago Otto Froelich led the van by
tearing down his store, and last spring the Expositor ofifice followed suit,
and during the last month the great exodus commenced. The last harvest of
the town is being gathered this week and the next, and but few husband-
men are left to gather the crop. The grand jury, which met this week Mon-
day, and the trial jury, which gives the hospitalities of the town trial next
week, will have evidently to rustle to secure accommodations as only one
hotel is left to minister to their wants. Farewell, poor Millerton !
September 16, 1874 — Freighter Sam Brown is arriving in town every
day or two with the remains of poor Millerton. He says that he has made
arrangements to remove the county offices and will soon have the county
treasury safely located here. Alas ! Poor Yorick !
Saturday, October 4, 1874 — The patients in the county hospital were
transferred by Dr. Lewis Leach in Fleming's stages from Millerton to Fres-
no. The day was cool and pleasant. They reached the county seat at five
o'clock. The county physician with his family arrived at about the same
time, finishing the exodus of county officials from the late county seat. The
last business of importance transacted in the now deserted old courthouse
was by the Ne Plus Ultra Copper Mining Company at noon in the district
courtroom, thirty-three out of the thirty-six shareholders attending, with
H. C. Daulton presiding. Resolution was adopted transferring business
headquarters to Fresno and the old officers were reelected. The mine is now
326 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
paving a small dividend and last month shipped 130 tons of ore to San Fran-
cisco." "Thus was completed the last transfer to Fresno of the last of the
organizations having their headquarters and office at Millerton. After the
•company had adjourned, they reassembled at the 'Salon de Garlande' near
the postofifice where awaited them a cup of 'the nectar that Jupiter sips.' "
All the attachments of the county seat are now in Fresno, excepting the
jail birds and they remained at Millerton for the present with Charles J.
Garland, the postmaster and. Courthouse Exchange saloonkeeper, as their
guard. His was the last running advertisement of any thing left at deserted
Millerton.
—1874—
January 11 — Religious services held at school room by H. H. Brooks,
an Episcopalian missionary. House well filled, though it was chilly and
rain threatened. Sabbath school organized with A. C. Nixon superintendent,
John Fuller secretary and Otto Froelich treasurer and librarian. . . . John
Fuller of Centerville' opens butcher shop. . . . William Helm received 6,000
almond trees to plant on his ranch, six miles north of town. . . . Levy &
Brother from San Francisco open merchandise store.
lanuarv 2S — Trinity ^Mission of Fresno as a branch of the Diocese of
California, Right Rev. William Ingram Kip, Bishop, organized and H. H.
Brooks invited to become pastor. . . . First lithographic map of the county
published.
February A — W. W. Hill, county treasurer, died at Fort Miller on the
third. Was treasurer since 1867. . . . L. Farrar proposes to build at Fresno
a two-story building, upper story to be used as lodge and public hall and
lower as a saloon. This was Magnolia Hall on Front Street. . . . Firewood
commands a price of twelve dollars per cord in town.
Februarv 10 — County seat removal petition presented and granted on
the 12th, with election set for March 23d. ... Ira ]\IcCray was on the 14th
at Millerton sold out by the sheriff on execution and Jesse Morrow was the
purchaser ; Oak Hotel, lot and stable $250, blacksmith shop fifty dollars, Joe
RoA-al storehouse fifteen dollars, Negro Jane house and lot thirteen dollars.
February 25 — Discussions and meetings on county seat locations and
advertised offers of sites begin. Fresno announces:
"To the Voters of Fresno County
"Notice is hereby given that WE the citizens of FRESNO CITY will
run this place for the County Seat at the Election March 23rd. Ample ground
will be donated for all Public Buildings.
"CITIZENS OF FRESNO CITY."
March 11 — First lawyer to locate in Fresno City is A. C. Bradford.
March 23 — Fresno carries the election and "now we can have telegraphic
and railroad communication with the world at large and can enjoy some of
the comforts of civilization." ... Tariff on wool from Fresno to San Fran-
cisco reduced from $140 to $100 a carload ; rates on cattle and sheep reduced
to fifty-four dollars and forty-six dollars.
April 1 — Since the election, the town has been "extremely lively." All
appear anxious to secure as many lots as possible. . . . One hundred were
sold in one day.
April 15 — Last number of the Expositor (No. 52, Volume 4) published
in Millerton. . . . Gov. Newton Booth, March 30, approves county seat re-
moval bill, location change October 1, 1874; or before if necessary and
advisable. . . . Hotels so crowded that when sleeping quarters are desired
application must be made a day in advance. "Whiskey flows rapidly and
steadily and 'drunks' are plentiful. In two days last week a square half dozen
fights and 'knock downs' occurred and those were dull days." . . . Lumber
is worth thirty-five dollars, to fifty dollars per M. This makes building costly.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 327
April 22 — First issue of the Expositor at Fresno. . . . Supervisors accept
the plans of A. A. Bennett, state architect, for a courthouse and advertise
for bids. The plans are the same as for the Merced courthouse which was
let for $55,970.
April 29 — Deed presented to county for four blocks of land for courthouse
grounds and accepted. . . . Supervisors declare that there is a deficit in the
sum of $56,313.20 in the accounts of W. W. Hill as county treasurer. . . .
April 26 Sheriff Leroy Dennis died at Millerton from bronchitis and consump-
tion, leaving sick wife and five children destitute. . . . On the same day the
supervisors located the courthouse site on Mariposa Street, where the alley
through blocks 104 and 105 intersects it, "the ground at this point being ele-
vated and affording a commanding view of the entire town." . . . There is
not a vacant building in the town and they would all be occupied "if there
were as many more as there is. The most ordinary shanty brings from eight
to twelve dollars a month rent."
May 6 — Anton Joseph Maassen announces the International Hotel
fronting the railroad depot "with the coolest and best place to keep the beer
well." This was the three story basement cellar, the lower of which was
forty-eight feet under the surface "and as cool as an ice house" for beer
drinking patrons. . . . The August AVeihe farm, four miles east from town,
and of which J. D. Forthkamp was the superintendent, was one of the show
places of the day. . . . Kutner & Goldstein will erect 60x100 warehouse for
wool and grain on the reservation. . . . Movement on foot to organize a Ma-
sonic lodge, with first meeting at Farrar's hall on the afternoon of May 22.
May 20 — A. W. Burrell builder of the courthouse asks for bids for 400
cords of wood suitable for burning brick for the building. His bid was $56,370.
May 27 — Agent H. B. Underbill was besieged on his visit by applicants
for lots. . . . S. W. Henry of Millerton proposes to build blacksmith shop,
stable and hotel at J and Tulare, so also near there a blacksmith shop bv one
Conner from Knight's Ferry About 10.000 sheep were sheared this sea-
son and the wool shipped from Watson's Ferry bv steamer to San Francisco.
June 3 — A. J. Maassen is out also for 400 cords of wood for burning brick
for proposed building. . . . Opening of Magnolia Hall with ball on the 12th.
It can accommodate ten sets of dancers. . . . W. W. Phillips is about to build
a dwelling house on J between Fresno and Mariposa.
June 10 — A. C. Bradford and E. C. \\''inchell constitute the first law part-
nership. . . Meeting held June 5 to consider town incorporation. Warren
Spencer of the Magnolia Saloon chairman and A. Y. Betts secretary. Russell
Fleming. M. A. Schultz and Dr. H. C. Coley named to canvass the town.
. . . Otto Froelich retiring from business sells out to Elias Jacobs & Co. of
Visalia, H. D. Silverman from the branch at Centerville to be in charge.
Froelich was at Mariposa and H. . . . Chinatown is building up. . . . Western
Union about to open telegraph office.
June 17 — Townsite Agent Underbill reports that every lot in Blocks
sixty-one and sixty-two, seventy-one and seventy-two, eighty-three and
eighty-four has been sold, in adjoining blocks more than half and others
in other portions of the town Woodward and Turton of .Sacramento,
brick work contractors on the Merced and Fresno courthouses are burning
the locally needed brick.
July 1 — Sixty thousand brick have been moulded for the courthouse kiln.
Chinese are employed in running the mud mills in the brick moulding. . . .
AAHieat freight rate reduced to five dollars a ton or fifty dollars a carload.
. . . Maassen was moulding 7,000 brick a day and in a month expected to
have 100,000 on the market. . . . Otto Froelich and J. W. Ferguson elected
school trustees vice R. H. Fleming and J. ^^^'Williams, terms expired.
328 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
jvily 4 — The national holiday was ushered in with anvil salute, fired
again at noon and at sundown. A short parade was marshaled by Thomas
Pryce and at the freight room of the depot the exercises were held with the
aid of the Lewis Bros.' troupe that was in town and on the Saturday and Mon-
day before showed thrice at the depot and at night at Maassen's Hall. Harry
S. Dixon was the president of the day. Joseph Meyers the singer, J. W. Fer-
guson the reader of the Declaration. Mrs. J. L. Smith read Drake's Address
to the Flag, E. C. Winchell made the four-column published oration and
tableaus were presented by little girls and arranged by the show people. In
the afternoon the Calithumpians gave mock parade and exercises at the depot.
At night seventy couples danced at iMagnolia hall and "one of the best sup-
pers ever spread before the public of Fresno," prepared by Mrs. Lord, was
served to the dancers at Velguth's new building on I Street. As with every
public function in Fresno, as if there should have been riot or uprising, the
sententious observation was that "throughout the day and the evening every-
body demeaned themselves well and not a single harsh word was passed to
mar the harmony and good feeling." This was the sublime height of descrip-
tive reporting that the Expositor could ever attain. . . . •. W. J. Lawrenson
having moved from Millerton bought Larquier's Occident, changed the name
to the Exchange and was to make such improvements as to make it "at once
one of the most commodious and magnificent places of resort in the interior."
It is laughable to recall these superlative descriptives in relation to the early
structures in Fresno, with not yet a brick building standing. . . . School
children in the district eighty-six; number that had attended school, thirty-
nine. . . . The only piece of fire apparatus in town was a Babcock fire ex-
tinguisher kept at Jacob & Co.'s store and of which Charles W. De Long
was the carrier and chief engineer.
July 15 — The following notice is given publicity:
NOTICE
FROM AND AFTER THIS DATE My Beer Cellar will be closed at
nine o'clock P. M. At that hour the Saloon opens in the hall above. Persons
visiting the Cellar can either go in by the back stairs or go down by the
Elevator.
A. J. MAASSEN.
. Creighton, Johnson & Struvy open the Fresno Meat IMarket on H Street,
adjoining the L. Davis store, Fred C. Struvy in charge. . . . King's River
Switch has been made a postoffice and named Wheatville with Andrew Farley
as postmaster at $12 a year In Fresno, McCollough & Andrews erect
a dwelling at Fresno and J, Whitlock & Young a carpenter shop on J "near
Printing House Square," "S. W. Henry stable and blacksmithy near Tulare
and J, Mrs. Lord added to her I Street boarding house, C. E. Blackburn com-
pleted residence in the south east part of town. Henry has in mind building
a hotel. Dixon & Faymonville law office and dwellings, also John C. Hoxie,
A. M. Clark and J. S. Ashman 4th of July receipts were $367.50 with
$204 from the ball, expenditures $360.35, and "the town had a couple of drums
left over for future occasions." . . . Government survey completed embraces
land on both sides of the river from near Millerton down. Located farmers
are warned to perfect their titles. . . . The jury before the county court gave
judgment for H. A. Carroll on appeal against M. A. Schultz and Dr. H. C.
Coley of the citizens' committee securing signatures to the county seat re-
moval petitions. Costs totaled nearly $250. . . . Ofifers made to take at par
and at 99 cents on the dollar at private sale the issued courthouse bonds.
. . . 40.000 brick are moulded at- Maassen's brickyard and the first burned
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 329
kiln will contain 150,000 with 100,000 of these contracted for to be used in a
brick structure. Turton & Co. are making brick for the courthouse.
July 22 — The following "New To Day" was published :
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Fresno, July 20th, 1874.
Would it not be advisable for a noted physician of Fresno to stay away
from the funerals of his patients? It looks too much like a fashionable tailor
carrying home his own work. Wm. H. McCracken.
. . . Also the following in the same issue :
A CARD
To the Citizens of Fresno County and Surroundings. The Fresno Drug
Store is a fraud and is kept by W. Y. Betts. — W. J. Wheeler.
. . . C. Richot and Thomas Johns as Johns & Richot open as carpenters and
joiners with shop on Mariposa between I and J. . . . Bryant & Carter adver-
tised for rent the Baker "Canal Grant," 89,000 acres of swamp land, and
47,800 of the grant in the county have been leased, the last 44,000 acres to
Kettleman & Sutherland for stock grazing. There were about 42,000 acres
more in Tulare and Kern counties open to leases The supervisors
decided to erect a 20x80 wooden building for county purposes as it would
take about a year to have the courthouse rearly for occupancy, the
officials being in the meantime in scattered places. That wooden building was
located where the fountain is at the entrance of the present courthouse park.
. . . Townsite Agent Underbill donates eight lots to the district for a school
house. The lots are 200.xl50 at the southwest corner of block 101. He also
donated a lot to the Odd Fellows for a hall. . . . The Expositor recalls
to the old settlers "estranged to many of the conveniences of civilization"
that the town is the only place in the county "that boasts of all the modern
comforts such as barber shops, drug stores, butcher shop, printing office, tel-
egraphic offices, fruit stores, ice, fighting whiskey and last but not least, a
milkman." The last named was W. A. Baker serving twice a day. "Who
says we are not getting civilized?" asks the Expositor. . . . Agent Underbill
offers the two outside tier blocks around the townsite for sale for private
residences at $300 per block.
July 29 — Canvass shows : four merchandise and two fruits stores, a
drug house, three hotels, two restaurants, two stables, six saloons, two law-
yers and two physicians, barber, tinsmith and saddler, two butchers and three
blacksmith shops, a wheelwright, tailor and a printery. Variety store, carpen-
ter shop and stable are under construction. The town has fifty-five completed
structures — twenty-nine devoted to business and twenty-five dwellings and
one not occupied. Five buildings are being erected, three for business and
two as dwellings, the list not including the railroad buildings, nor those in
the Chinese quarter. Attention is called to the fact that there are more bus-
iness houses than dwellings and that during the next month at least twenty
new structures will be erected. . . . R. H. Bramlet was engaged as teacher for
the five months' school term.
August 5 — The city's and the county's great need is a bank with a capital
of $100,000. . . . The San Francisco Circus and Collection of Performing
Animals announces a visit Monday, August 10 "on a tour through California
after an unparalleled season of 120 nights in San Francisco." Admission $1.
William H. McCracken publishes notice as to his "To Whom It
Rlay Concern," wishing it to be distinctly understood that he had no reference
whatsoever to his fellow townsman Dr. Charles Spiers. ... In six years "the
aggregate wealth of the county has increased from about $800,000 to over
$7,000,000 and the population has more than doubled and must now be over
10,000 all told," and yet with the immense territory of the county "it looks
330 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
as though it was almost devoid of population, and even at its present rate
of increase it will take many years before it will be thickly settled." . . .
Sunday meeting held at Magnolia hall to take steps to stop, if possible, en-
croachment of the Chinese upon the white portion of the town. Thomas
Pryce chairman, J. W. Ferguson secretary of the meeting. S. W. Henry, L.
Davis and Ferguson appointed a committee to circulate agreement not to sell,
lease, or rent to Chinese any property on the east side of the railroad track
and to discourage all from so doing. In the very early days Chinese secured
land and erected houses on I Street near Schultz's saloon, but so great the
opposition of the people that they compelled their removal. The town agent
refused to sell any more to Chinese so located. In the winter of 1873 a
Chinese blacksmith leased shop at Mariposa and I and a washhouse was
located in the southern part of the town and the week before the holding
of the meeting erection was commenced of a washhouse in the heart of one of
the most rapidlv growing blocks in the town surrounded by residences. This
resulted in the 'meeting. The signature of nearly every resident was secured
to the pledge. ... A rush was made for land on the river newly surveyed
and placed on the market, the land office at Stockton receiving filings this
day. There was land jumping in disregard of prior rights. . . . W. H. Mc-
Cr'acken is out for constable to succeed John F. Parker The first kiln
of 500,000 courthouse brick is ready for burning. . . . The supervisors were
to meet for the first time August 6.
August 12 — E. F. Manchester offers for sale 130 Spanish merino bucks
imported from best flocks in Addison County, Vt. . . . Capt. Charles A. Earth,
U.S.A., and Otto Froelich contemplate opening a private banking house as
local capital was too timid to undertake the venture. . . . The supervisors
spent two days in town and contracted with A. W. Burrell to bore a well on
the courthouse grounds and erect windmill and tank and carry piping to the
building at cost "of $1350. . . . Fresno Lodge No. 186, I.O.O.F., has petitioned
to remove its charter from INIillerton to Fresno and to meet at the county
seat after October.
August 19 — M. A. Schultz married two days before at Visalia the widow,
Louisa Daley of Visalia, formerly 6i the Railroad Hotel. . . . Fresno has its
first midwife and nurse in Mrs. Anna Cramer. . . . The firm of Dusy & Co.
dissolves, Frank Dusy and William M. Coolidge selling to William Helm.
. . . Fleming erected two lamps on Mariposa Street and Lawrenson two more
and having been lighted for the first time on Saturday the 15th "gave that
street the air of a city." ... J- C. Hoxie having gone out to examine the
dwelling that was being erected for him, and the one that he occupies to
this day, lost a roll of $180 in gold notes. The loss was not discovered until
after nightfall. With lantern and accompanied by Fleming, search was made
and the treasure found. What primitive idealistic days those were in Fresno!
September 2 — The streets and alleys "are in a disgustingly filthy con-
dition" as are some of the vacant lots. The statement is that they "are cov-
ered with old bones, hats, boots, dead dogs, decaying vegetable matter, old
clothes, tin cans and the like, and the consequence is a most disgusting and
pestilence breeding effluvia constantly pervading the atmosphere." . . . The
first brick building in town is announced to be the one that Dixon and Fay-
monville will erect on the north side of Mariposa between H and I. Froelich
& Earth will erect another for their bank immediately east, C. G. Sayle talked
also of erecting a brick structure. . . . The school building tax election was
successful, fifty votes were cast, forty-eight for the tax and two against it.
September 9 — The plans for a school house call for a wooden or brick
building to cost from $3,000 to $4,000. School term opened in the upper story
of the Booker Euilding at Tulare and H. . . . Bryant & Carter for themselves
and for Center & Boyd sold a quarter interest in the Canal Grant for $60,000
to Withington, Dean & Co., who had recently purchased all the stock in the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 331
county of John Sutherland paying more than $160,000. The purchasers were
San Francisco wholesale butchers, succeeding Dunphy, Hildreth & Co.
September 16 — Phillip Schussler from San Andreas locates as a watch-
maker and jeweler in Schultz's hotel on H Street. . . . Brubaker & Taber
lease the Larquier Hotel. . . . Not being able to obtain sufficient support,
George Cain, the night watchman, relinquishes the job. . . . To J. L. Smith
was awarded the contract for $125 for the 24x80 building for the
temporary accommodation of the county officials while the courthouse is
being erected, the rookery to be finished September 25. . . . The public school
opened with about forty pupils, two-thirds of them girls. . . . Fresno Lodge
of Odd Fellows appointed H. C. Daulton, R. H. Bramlet and C. G. Sayle a
committee to select and buy a lot for a lodge hall, and negotiated with J. C.
Hoxie for one of his town lots. . . . Jacob & Co. have bought Julius Riehl's
lot adjoining for $1,000. They propose moving the wooden building to this
lot and erect a brick store on the vacated 50x150 site .... Supervisors were
to hold their first formal session in the new county seat October 1.
September 23 — Death is announced of Clark Hoxie at the age of seventy-
four at Sandwich, Mass., Sept. 10. . . . Laying of courthouse corner stone is set
for Thursday, October 8. ... A party of seven masked Ku-Kluxers served
notice on William H. McCracken to leave town before morning. McCracken
went to Millerton, laid his case before the district attorney and was coun-
selled to return to Fresno which he did. He was described as a "sport" of no
"particular advantage to the town." On Monday the 21st there was a free
fight in town, pistols were drawn but not used. Two warrants were issued
for McCracken's arrest. He disappeared, was later overhauled at Visalia and
was sentenced to 100 days imprisonment. One Tom Johns was fined thirty-
five dollars, Bryan Bradford also arrested for running McCracken ofT was
discharged as the evidence was insufficient. . . . All bids for the school house
are rejected because plans too ornate for the money on hand. Plans were
changed to a one-story building 30x68, with surrounding portico, two rooms
each thirty feet square divided by hall and with twelve-foot ceiling.
September 30. — Meeting held and Citizens' committee of W. J. Lawren-
son, Peter Larquier and Julius Biehl named to wait on all and request a clean-
ing up of streets and alleys for cornerstone laying day. . . . The morrow
was hailed "as the dawning of a new era in the history of the town of Fresno"
to be known in the statutes as the count_v seat. All the county offices have
been located in the temporary building and elsewhere, the jail at Millerton
to be used for the incarceration of prisoners and Dr. Leach having rented
building in northern end of town as temporary hospital quarters. The district
attorney is in one of the anterooms of Magnolia hall awaiting removal to the
temporary "courthouse" at Tulare and K. . . . George Hampson appointed
night wat-chman. ... A stream of teams with grain, wool, wood, and lumber
rolled into town during the week imparting to it a thrifty and business-like
appearance. Seventeen were counted on Saturday at one time on H Street,
thirteen of these four and six teams with grain. Bustling village that ! . . .
Laying of the courthouse foundation commences tomorrow. . . . The express
office at Millerton has suspended, W. T. Rumble having moved to Fresno.
. . . Montgomery Queen's Circus and Menagerie is announced to show in
Fresno Saturday, October 17. . . . David P. Blevins of Fleming's stages re-
ports seeing a herd of over thirty antelope between Fresno and Jensen's store
on Big Dry Creek.
October 7 — George Bernhard opens merchandise store at I and Tulare.
. . . Supervisors met on the 5th for the first time in Fresno and levied one
dollar and forty-eight cent tax rate. . . . City school district assessment foots
up $633,760. . . . The charter of the I. O. O. F. lodge has been removed and
first session in Fresno was on the 5th.
October 14 — E. P. Nelson opens as a butcher on Second Street (I). . . .
S. W. Henry as a boarding house keeper at Tulare and J. . . . Thomas Pryce
332 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
as notary and conveyancer, justice of the peace and general agent. . . . Peter
Larquier and Simon Camy dissolve as copartners. . . . Expositor publishes
week old account of the courthouse corner stone laying, never "such a large
and fashionable assemblage" having before gathered and as usually reported
"the whole ceremony passed off as well and pleasantly as could be desired."
Another story was told in a paragraph in another column under the sidehead
"Drunks." Total expenses for the day $260; receipts from ball $326, balance
of $66 to be donated to city school fund. . . . Beds were not obtainable on
the day of the cornerstone laying, or the day after. . . . District court met
for the first time in Fresno on 19th, the term calendar the largest ever before
a Fresno county court.
November 4 — Twelve thousand pounds of the first of the cotton crop of
the season came to the depot from the A. H. Statham farm on the Upper
Kings, being a trifle over one-third of his crop, ginned and baled, ranging 300
to 400 pounds and averaging about 250 pounds of lint per acre, the equal of
any from the southern states and land that was not irrigated producing best.
. . . New Year's ball at Magnolia hall being arranged for the benefit of the fire
protection fund. . . . Scarcely a day passes but two or three wagons loaded
with immigrants seeking places to locate are in town. Kings River is the
chief point of attraction, though many go further down the valley. . . . Winter
temperance meetings are resolved upon at Shannon & Hughes' hall, the lead-
ing lights being Judge Gillum Baley, Rev. L. Dooley, W. J- Young and E. C.
Winchell. . . . Report is of "quite a settlement" near Wheatville on vacant
government land, and simultaneously that Theodore Schultz "will immediate-
ly commence the erection of a large and elegant saloon" at the place formerly
known as King's River Switch. . . . W. T. Rumble appointed justice of the
peace, vice J- R- McCombs.
November 11 — Fresno Dashaway Literary Association formed with
E. C. Winchell president and H. C. Shelton secretary as a temperance organ-
ization. Twenty signed the pledge. . . . Social club organized to give
winter season hops.
November 18 — Contract and Finance Company sells to Russell H.
Fleming Mariposa Street lot for $125, Fleming to Dixon & Faymonville $400.
A. J. Brawley to H. D. Silverman a lot for $2,000. ... Dr. Lewis Leach
building dwelling on K near Tulare adjoining C. G. Sayle's. George Mc-
Collough completing tenement on Mariposa near his residence. . . . Froelich
& Earth's brick building is the first in the town. The name of the Larquier
Hotel is changed to California House.
November 25 — As high as forty teams a day loaded with emigrant fami-
lies bound for Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties have crossed Fresno Slough
at Watson's Ferry during the last thirty days. . . . Brick work on the court-
house is up to the second story. . . . R. H. Bramlet appointed deputy county
school superintendent.
December 2 — Reported sale of lots : L. Farrar to J. L. Smith lot $600,
B. B. Sheldon to J. W. Hutchinson one-half of two lots $1,200, C. & F. Co. to
F. Jensen two lots $187.50, to M. A. Schultz two for $375, to George McCol-
lough for $250, to A. M. Clark a block and a lot $362.50. . . . H. "^D. Silver-
man of E. Jacob & Co. announces intention of erecting a 30x100 brick build-
ing at Mariposa and H. two stories, with basement, practically three stories.
. . . Maassen is excavating for brick edifice on H adjoining the International
Hotel.
December 9 — Bierstadt. who made the Yosemite Valley famous with his
paintings, completes a magnificent picture entitled "Kings River Canyon."
Eastern dispatches say he sold it to an English nobleman for $50,000. . . .
Twenty families have settled on government land at Wheatville in the past
month. Si Draper is the father of the town and in it are blacksmith shop,
two stores, hotel and two saloons. . . . Louis Einstein, late with E. Jacob
& Co., buys the L. Davis building and two lots on H Street for $1,400. . . .
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 333
B. S. Booker is building fruit store on Mariposa, adjoining Nelson's meat
market, J. M. Taber a dwelling on J near Tulare and j. W. Williams a two-
story building on Mariposa. . . . Only twenty-one marriage licenses were
taken out in the county for the year.
December 23 — Eugene J. B. Du Gas locates as physician and surgeon at
Bishop's drug store. "A share of public patronage is solicited." . . . Brick
work on the third story of courthouse is half completed. . . . Lowest local
bid for the Henry Hotel was that of Shanklin & Co. for $6,850. . . . Rev. L.
Dooley bought two lots adjoining the Baley house for a dwelling. . . . Sab-
bath count made showed 109 buildings completed in town, or with finishing
touches being put on. over double the number five months before. Besides,
there were about thirty in the Chinese quarter. Simon Camy and M. A.
Schultz talked of brick buildings and Maassen of a large one on the vacant
lot adjoining the International on H, Flenry Glass having bought the Mari-
posa and I Street corner will remove blacksmith to the rear and erect a sub-
stantial substitute. The demand for houses is an insistent one, the most tem-
porary aiTair finding ready occupancy at large rental. The town is keeping
pace with the advance over the county. The construction work has attracted
considerable of a floating population. . . . The name of the Millerton post-
office has been c+ianged to Fort jMiller. and Charles A. Hart named postmaster.
Thus is expunged even the last official record of the existence of the pioneer
county seat. ... It was a most depressing closing of the year. The unprece-
dented cold and fog continued over the valley. A month had passed without
rain. In Fresno, Christmas passed ofl: quietly. "Of course," said the official
organ, "the usual amount of eggnog was drank and a few drunken fights
occurred."
CHAPTER LVI
Steady and Substantial the Progress of the Town. Greatest
Changes Are Noted in the Farming Environs. Village is
Classed Already in 1875 as "Elourishing." Eirst Cemetery
IS Abandoned. Eire Protection a Much Felt Want. Pros-
pectus IS Published of the Central California Colony,
Pioneer of a Host of Such Land Enterprises. Granice
Merced Murder Trial Commences. Agitation for a Church.
Completion of Courthouse. Land Colony Railroad Ex-
cursions Begin. A Fresno Grown Orange is an Exhibited
Curiosity of the Day.
Fresno City was making steady and substantial progress, even though on
a comparatively small scale. The great change was being made in the out-
lying farming district with the organization of colonization enterprises, which
proved to be the basis of Fresno's future stability. In the less than three
years of the existence of the new county seat more substantial progress was
made, more land opened up to colonization and more done in development
with the spread of irrigation than in all the years of history with Millerton
as the official center since organization of the county.
The fact was commented upon at the beginning of July 1875 in the state-
ment that "the improvements that have been made about the town during
its short life have been wonderful." Mushroom mining towns had been seen
to make greater growth in a few months than Fresno had but they had also
languished and soon gave up the ghost leaving only a memory of the brief
bustling past. As to Fresno, "it was scarcely three years since the first shanty
was erected, and now it was a flourishing town with 1500 inhabitants and
comprising more than 150 houses including four or five brick edifices and as
nice a courthouse as there is in the interior of the state."
334 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
People had settled with the intention of staying. Some nice dwellings
had been erected, gardens laid out, trees and shrubs planted, "and an air of
refinement imparted to the village." The one great requirement for making
gardens thrive was water and the means for securing it was found in raising
it in wells by windmills. People visiting the town wondered when informed
that the village was less than three years old and that not a tree or plant
in town was over eighteen months old. Another year would see a forest of
young trees lifting its heads throughout the town to add to the appearance of
the village. Otto Froelich was the pioneer tree planter and garden maker
one year before in spring and he had a splendid lot of thrifty trees, plants
and vines to make as neat a home as could be desired. M. A. and Theodore
Schultz, L. Andrews and others planted trees along the roadway about the
time that Froelich did "and in every instance where the roving stock left to
pillage for a living from the public had not destroyed the trees they have
made a good growth and are looking ornamental." There was reason to
believe, and the later years confirmed it, that the town of Fresno "instead of
being a lot of houses on a dry and barren plain will be a pleasant village en-
vironed with trees and decorated with beautiful gardens."
—1875—
January 6 — Julius Biehl died at the age of thirty-seven on the last day
of 1874. ... A "Grand Calico Ball" is announced at Court house hall for
]\Ionday. February 22. . . . School opened on the 4th in the new house with
over 100 children in the district and not over half receiving schooling under
existing arrangements.
January 13 — The Expositor says that the name of Fresno should
be changed to Dogtown because there are not less than three dogs for every
human being in it.
Januarv 20 — The remains in the nine graves in the first cemetery in
northern part of town are taken up for removal and reinterment in the new
cemetery south of Chinatown on the resumption of fair weather. ... A lodge
of the Good Templars was organized on the 25th bv Jabez F. Walker,
G. W. C. T.
February 3 — James McCardle is building a dwclHng at ]\Iariposa and K.
A residence for Dr. Chester Rowell at Tulare and K is near completion.
February 10 — The large brick store of E. Jacob & Co. will front 100 feet
on ^lariposa and fifty on H. . . . The firm has dissolved partnership, H. D.
Silverman and Louis Einstein purchasing the Jacob interests at Fresno and
Centerville, and Jacob retaining the interest at Kingston and Visalia. . . .
The remains of ^^^ \\'. Hill interred in Odd Fellows cemetery at Alillerton are
reinterred at Centerville March 7th. . . . Meeting held on the 6th to secure
fire protection and committee appointed to devise means and possibly also
to incorporate. One of the means suggested was to bring water to the town
bv pipe from one of the irrigation ditches. The 17th of March was selected
for another party for the benefit of the fire protection fund.
February 17 — Announcement made that C. A. Heaton is about to publish
the Fresno Review.
February 24 — Mrs. Mattie Card is estalilished on I Street as a milliner
with Miss A. MacDonald as a fashionable dressmaker. . . . The school dis-
trict is in a financial pickle. Over ninety children are attending school. The
census under which the district was formed returned only sixty-four and
fourteen of these were lost with the formation of the Red Banks district.
Jt required about $250 to continue as an eight months school. Judge Gillum
Baley and Sherifif J. S. Ashman consented to solicit funds for the district and
had indifferent success. . . . Saturday morning the 19th another providential
escape from fire thanks to the still air. Fire broke out in the loft of the J.
Lamothe large stable near Mariposa and I, in the hay on which drunken
Indians had slept. Only the active exertions of citizens prevented a spread.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 335
. . . The Silverman & Einstein store has been moved to a place a few feet
north of the IMagnolia to make room for the corner brick building. . . .
Washington's Birthday the flag was unfurled from the dome of the court-
house ninety feet from the ground, at sunset the workmen were addressed
assembled on the pinnacle and then marched through the streets.
March 3 — The Good Templars' lodge has over forty members. . . .
There are eight prisoners in the county jail when in former times it would
be empty for months. "But things have changed," notes the Expositor, "the
advent of the railroad and the increase of the population did the business."
March 10 — First recorded game of baseball was on Sunday be-
tween the Fresno and Magnolia clubs. . . . William Vellguth is adding wind-
mill and tank for a bath house in connection with barber shop. . . . Walter
Tupper appointed justice of the peace. . . . Schultz is grading Tulare Street
near his hotel; Maassen, H Street on the railroad reservation, and Silverman
and Einstein, iMariposa. . . . H. D. Silverman, Lewis Leach, ^^'illiam Fay-
monville. Otto Froelich, W. J. Lawrenson, J- C. Hoxie, R. H. Fleming and
Leonard Farrar bought seven-eighths interest in 100 acres from William
Helm for a fair ground and race track, a stock corporation to be formed. . . .
The long promised Fresno Weekly Review has appeared.
March 21 — The Sunday meeting of the Dashawa}^ Society had as a
special attraction after the lecture the marriage by Judge Gillum Baley of
Frank Henley and Miss L'r/.zlc Shanklin and "the venerable judge brought
down the house by the skill with which he stole the first kiss from the bride."
April 1 — The cattle buying and selling firm of St. John, Abbott & Co.
has failed with liabilities of $250,000. It was the lessee of the Laguna de
Tache grant. . . . Henry's Hotel is completed and is described as "the finest
edifice yet completed in Fresno and in finish is equal to any hotel that we
know of outside of the cities." The horizon of the Expositor was limited.
. . . The Odd Fellows' lodge is negotiating for a Mariposa Street lot for a
hall, though the Finance and Contract Company had donated it three lots
for that purpose.
April 10 — Dr. Joseph Borden died at Borden at the age of sixty-nine.
April 28 — The Henry Hotel fronts sixty-six feet on Tulare and sixty on
K, with wing 30x40 and a kitchen addition 16x18 and two and one-half stories
high. It was stated that the house and furniture cost over $15,000. . . . The
walls of Maassen's brick house on H Street are going up and it will break
the long row of wooden structures in that vicinity. . . .The freight train from
the south, two days before, consisted of twenty-nine cars, evidence it was
pointed out "that the railroad Inisiness down the valley is building up." . . .
The spelling match craze has struck Fresno. ... So has the bovine gum-
chewing habit. . . . The Odd Fellows celebrated on Monday with parade,
oration by James A. Louthitt of Stockton and a ball at Magnolia Hall at
night the fifty-sixth anniversary of the establishment of the order in America.
The only complaints made of the celebration "were in regard to the music
from Stockton" and "this for the price paid was very poor/' . . . The public
exercises of the Dashaways were suspended on account of the weather. . . .
Alarm was caused by the report that "grasshoppers were swarming the
plains."
May 5 — Simon W. Henry's new hotel will open on the 10th. . . . May
day the town was thrown into excitement by fire on the roof of the California
House. The International Hotel force pump and the bucket brigade over-
came the blaze. . . . Fares reduced to San Francisco to $11.35, to Stockton
$8.35, to Merced $3.85, to Goshen $2.35, to Sumner $7.55. Passenger train
from Fresno south leaves at 1:25 A. M. ; north 3:12 A. M. ; freight south at
12 :10 A. M. and north 6:45 A. M. . . . Applegarth ranch of about 50,000 acres
was sold by the sheritif for debt on the 3rd for $210,000. . . . Ex-judge A. C.
Bradford is the avowed Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor before
the state convention at San Francisco, June 20. . . . Whitlock & Young start
336 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
city planing mill, followed by C. M. Bennett at Pine Ridge with the latter
to turn out rustic, flooring and surfaced lumber for building. . . . Many
irrigation schemes are in the air. The Expositor publishes a two-column
account of the project of the San Joaquin and Fresno Canal Company involv-
ing the diversion of 30.000 miners' inches of water from the San Joaquin at
a point above Fort Miller conducting the water by canal to the plains, thence
via Fresno to the so-called Fresno City across Fresno Slough, there connect-
ing with a projected canal from Summit Lake to Antioch, diverting as much
water from the lake and conducting it by canal running near the base of the
foothills to Antioch, opening canal navigation from tide water through one
of the most fertile portions of the state. It was one of other grand schemes
that was never realized.
May 10 — Montgomery Queen's Caravan. Circus and Menagerie — "Great
Representative Show of California" — exhibited in Fresno. The town took
great credit to itself that "the expenses of this monster establishment are so
great that it can only afiford to show at the largest places" and "that the mam-
moth tent was filled to repletion both afternoon and evening," despite "the
dismal croakings of hard times, the failure of the crops and the like." It was
yet the day when circuses and menageries travelled not by special railroad
trains but traversed the country with their caravans, following the public
highway making the towns from day to day. . . . Henry's Hotel .opened this
day. Fresno is cityfying with the hotel's "free carriage to and from all trains"
and because "a bath room is attached to the hotel for the use of our guests."
. . . Troupe show is announced at Magnolia Hall for the 18th, including
"Senator Pinchbeck (colored) who was refused his seat in the U. S. Senate."
. . . One Martin Vivian cut down one of the largest "big trees" in the
King's River grove to convey a section to the Centennial exhibition at Phil-
adelphia. He then went before a justice of the peace and informing against
himself for the act of vandalism pleaded guilty and was fined $50. He there-
after appeared before the supervisors for a remittance of one-half of the fine
against himself, because he had been the informer. The claim was rejected
because not a legal charge. The comment was that "this man has cheek
enough to make a good witness in the Tilton-Beecher case," which was then
agitating the newspaper reading world. . . . Cranes are gathering in bands,
following up the grasshoppers and feasting on them. . . . Survevors are lo-
cating the route for a ditch from the Kings River to lands of W. S. Chap-
man south of town to divert 30,000 inches of water. . . . Master Masons or-
ganized a lodge on the 9th with W. H. Creed as W. M., George Bernhard
S. W., A. Kutner J. W., S. Goldstein Treas., A. M. Clark Sec, W. L. Nelson
S. D., C. G. Sayle J. D., P. H. Schussler, Tyler. . . . Sundav preaching was
a regular forenoon and evening thing by Revs. L. Doolev and A. Odom at
the temporary court room.
June 2— Closing exercises at ]\Iagnolia hall of the city public school, IMay
29, with R. H. Bramlet and Miss Mattie Patten as the teachers. . . .' Cole
Slough settlers change the name of the settlement from Liberty to Riverdale
. . . Another meeting held May 28 with H. S. Dixon as chairman and W. H.
Creed as secretary to consider fire protection. Dr. Leach, R. H. Fleming, G.
McCollough, W. J. Lawrenson and Warren Spencer named a committee to' or-
ganize a fire company and Dr. Leach, A. Kutner, A. M. Clark, R. H. Fleming
and George McCollough to organize a joint company to supplv the town with
water. The Expositor had no faith "in anything being done, at least not until
after the town is burned down." . . . Organization o'f grange lodges is a pop-
ular fad in the farming settlements. . . . More windnrills are going up in town.
. . . Another cityfying fad is the publication of the Henrv" Hotel guest list.
. . . Land tract owners in the county publish warnings to sheep men against
trespass by herding or driving across their holdings en route to mountain
ranges. . . . Glass & Donahoo of the Clipper Mills at Pine Ridge offer to sell
at mills: Common lumber at $11 per 1,000 feet, clear flooring at $15 clear
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 337
sugar pine at $18 and refuse at $6. All classes purchasable at Tollhouse
yards at foot of grade at uniform advance of $8 a thousand.
June 6 — The Sabbath school and Bible class were organized.
June 16 — Jackley's Vienna Circus with the remnants of the bankrupt
Signer Chiarini Circus is announced for Saturday the 19th. Shows at the
county seat are of frequent occurrence. . . . The water from Kings River is
flowing into the San Joaquin through the slough. The San Joaquin is falling
rapidly and the steamers have made their last trips to Watson's Ferry for
the season. . . . The B. S. Booker fruit and variety store and newspaper
agency on Mariposa Street is bought by Presley Fanning. . . . The first irri-
gation decision is given by District Judge Deering in the case of the Fresno
Canal and Irrigation Company against the Kings River and Fresno Canal
Company ruling as to the right to use water channels.
June 26 — A. D. Firebaugh dies at his Big Creek ranch at the age of
fifty-one, a pioneer of a very early day and the founder of Firebaugh Ferry.
Death was from cancer of the tongue.
June 30 — Prospectus of the Central California Colony is out under the
auspices of the California Immigrant Union, taking up 4,000 acres of the Chap-
man tract to be divided into 200 holdings of twenty acres each, two acres
of raisin grape vines to be planted on every twenty, water distributing
ditches to traverse the tract and sales to be made at fifty dollars an acre,
$100 down, twelve dollars and fifty cents a month for five years and $150 at the
end of the fifth, additional vine acreage to be furnished at fifteen dollars an
acre with a dollar a month for care and cultivation. Prophecy was that it will
be surprising if in a few years Fresno "is not one of the leading raisin and wine
producing sections of the world." . . . There are 151 children for whom school
money can be drawn : 114 attended school during the term: sixty-six — thirty-
two boys and thirty-four girls — are under five years of age. ... A band of
antelope raided the Henrietta Rancho one day last week and J. D. Forthcamp
and another man of the ranch gave chase on horse and lassoed one of the
fleet quadrupeds. This was less than three miles from the present town center.
July 3 — The Saturday celebration of the Fourth was only an indiiTerent
one according to the public print, notwithstanding the elaborate promised
program. "But a small amount of tangle-leg comparatively was drank in town
on the occasion." Centerville celebrated and on Monday July 5 also there
was a social picnic at Glass & Donahoo's saw mill at Pine Ridge, likewise
on Sunday at the starting up of the Champion quartz mine of Jensen & Keys
at the head of Big Creek. . . . July 4 at the residence of M. J. Church near
town Charles W. De Long was married to Miss Maria Church.
July 7 — Trial commenced on change of venue of H. H. Granice for the
killing at Merced December 7, 1874, of Edward Madden, editor and proprietor
of the Tribune on account of a publication two days before of an article con-
cerning his mother, the wife of Robert J. Steele of the San Joaquin Valley
Argus, also of Merced. The article was a scandalous one attacking the chastity
of the woman, stating that she had been inmate of a house of ill fame and in-
timating that a sensational book that she had published was a recital of her
experience in that life. The killing was a cowardly one, Granice took Madden
by surprise and unguarded after lying in wait for him, firing six times at him
with pistol, wounding him five times and one of the six shots coming so close
as to burn the cheek of the shot-at-man. The homicide was the sensation of the
day. There was danger of mob violence, Granice was spirited away for safety
after the Argus office had been partially looted and the Steeles had been or-
dered to leave town by the excited populace. Granice escaped from his guards
at the Halfway House, six miles from Merced, in the confusion resulting from
a supposed mob visit, and three days later Granice was taken at Modesto
after having been found lost and starving in his wanderings. On the 10th of
July after five hours of deliberations the jury found Granice guilty of murder
338 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and fixed imprisonment for life as the punishment. October 20 time set for
pronouncing judgment.
July 22 — The first time that a candidate for governor of the state visited
Fresno politically was on this evening when William Irwin spoke at a Demo-
cratic rally. . . . William Frank Lethers visits town thrice a week to deliver
ice from Waggle's mill. An ice house is promised next. . . . Failure of crops
has greatly checked the growth of the town this season. . . . Here was a
locarannouncement: "John Bidwell, the land grabber, will tell the people of
Fresno on the evening of August 4th how he stole that 23,000 acres of land
and why he ought not to be elected governor of California. Take a cherry, sir."
August 4— J. M. Shannon and A. J. Hughes dissolve partnership, the last
named retiring and Shannon still wanting hogs and announcing he will pay
the highest cash prices. . . . W. H. Creed is building a substantial residence
on K Street, south of that of Dr. Leach. . . . The Expositor submits "it is
a disgrace that a town as large as Fresno should be without a church edifice,"
because "a town without a church looks a little uncivilized." It may be noted
that Millerton never had one. . . . Deeds recorded from Thaddeus B. Kent
to Thomas Brown and from the latter to the Bank of California for 49,161
acres for $210,000 and from F. B. F. Temple to Miller & Lux for 23,240 acres
for $10,080. ... Dr. Chester Rowell appointed district school trustee
The courthouse is completed and awaits delivery to the county.
August 25 — The "rookery" on courthouse square, known as the clerk's
office and for ten months occupied by the county officials, is announced for
sale.
September 5 — The courthouse with basement jail having been accepted
by the supervisors August 19 and Charles B. Overholser having been ap-
pointed the first janitor at seventy-five dollars a month, supervisors met for
the first time in the building September 6.
September 8 — Richard Glenn died at Centerville at the age of forty-eight.
. .. . The public school opened on the 6th with R. H. Bramlet in charge of the
higher and Miss G. H. Ellis of the primary department. . . . The C. P. R. R.
is selling return tickets between Fresno and San Francisco for fifteen dollars,
good for ten days to visitors to examine lands of the Central California Col-
ony. . . . First newspaper mention of M. Theo. Kearney in connection with
his exhibition "of an enormous peanut vine with its roots crow-ded with nuts
in all stages of growth." It was grown on irrigated land at the Gould ranch
near town. He was taking it to San Francisco to exhibit it at the Mechanics'
Fair.
September 22 — Former Judge Abram C. Bradford voluntarily files in
bankruptcy. . . . The grand jury of which P. C. Appling is foreman files
report finding fault with almost everything in connection with the courthouse.
. . . \^'onde^ of Wonders ! The Magnolia saloon has been closed under at-
tachment for a $299 debt owing to C. W. De Long and in two other suits for
$604.
September 29 — The first located piano teacher is "Prof." E. Steinle,
former music instructor at IMills' Seminary. . . . Freight charge on wool to
San Francisco is $100 a carload. . . . Rev. Father C. Scannell was to cele-
brate mass at the section house on Sunday. . . . The courthouse rookery
was sold to Treasurer A. J. Thorn for $146. . . . The county jail has twelve
inmates. . . . Shannon's hall at H and Tulare — "Court Building" — is on
wheels to be moved to Mariposa and I on the lots of the Odd Fellows,
the upper story to be occupied as a lodge hall and the lower to be rented
"probably as a saloon." . . . Total tax rate is- one dollar and thirty-five
cents — sixty and one-half cents for state and seventy-four and one-half cents
county purposes — an excellent showing considering that the county had
erected a $60,000 courthouse. . . . The county register has 1,640 names.
October 20 — The reported first oranges grown in Fresno county
ripened at W. Hazelton's place on the Kings River this summer. . . . Al-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 339
falfa is selling at twenty-two dollars a ton. . . . Sixteen prisoners in jail,
mostly for petty offenses.
November 17 — Theodore Schultz died on the 16th at the age of forty.
. . . Night Watchman B. S. Booker furnishes evidence of attempt to fire
the roof of the Rosenthal cigar store on H Street. . . . The grand jury
makes report with testimony of experts that the report of a previous grand
jury on the construction of the courthouse is a case of much ado about
nothing and a veritable tempest in a teapot. . . . The first break out of the
jail was on a Monday, November 14, when four prisoners, who had been left
in the open c.ourt for exercise, pried open the back door in the absence of
the deputy sheriff, who was seeking a surgeon to attend to a wounded Mexi-
can, who had been brought into the lockup. Three were retaken in a day
or two.
December 1 — The name of the postoffice at Wheatville is changed to
Kingsburg. . . . The orange from an eight-year-old seedling bearing for
the first time is such a curiosity that it is on exhibition at the Henry Hotel
. . . Wood is selling at nine dollars and ten dollars per cord which is more
costly than coal, the usual price being eight dollars. The rains made it im-
possible for teams to come from the mountains and supply the town.
December 8 — Preliminaries undertaken for the formation of a social
club with E. C. Winchell as chairman and Timothy Holland as secretary
to maintain rooms and a library. . . . Dancing parties are all the go. . . .
Jesse Morrow as purchaser of the line is running a daily four-horse stage
between Fresno and Centerville, the latter the most populous center in the
county. . . . Central California Colony "is looming up in importance." Lo-
cated are thirty-six adults with eighteen children and over forty tracts be-
sides sold to non residents. To carry out designed work will involve an
outlay above $100,000. "The town of Fresno is already appreciably feeling
the influence of this new tributary." . . . Robert Brownlee, ex-supervisor of
Napa County, leases the A. Y. Easterby four-section ranch in this county,
three miles from the railroad ; "and 100 miles south of Lathrop," so vague
is the popular knowledge of localities in Fresno. Brownlee and son were to
seed 1,500 acres to grain and on the remainder raise hay, the ranch being
near the Kings River and south of the canal.
December 15 — Supreme court grants Granice a new trial, judgment re-
versed because the indictment had been altered from one charging man-
slaughter to one for murder after the instrument had been recorded before the
defendant had pleaded to it. . . . District Judge Deering gave judgment in
the case against Jesse Morrow and other sureties for $31,320 with ten per-
cent, interest from March 24, 1874, as deficit on the bond of W. W. Hill as
treasurer, the largest in the history of the county. . . . Supervisors call for
sealed proposals to fill in "all depressions around the courthouse."
December 22 — Judge Alexander Deering died at Merced on the 18th.
December 29 — Deed recorded from Contract and Finance Company to
Charles Crocker for one dollar for 4,480 acres including the Fresno town-
site, excepting the lots heretofore sold by the company. . . . Thirty-eight
marriage licenses recorded during the year 1875. . . . The Review died after
an existence of nine months. The Expositor commented that "one paper can
live in Fresno County while two are sure to starve." . . . That moulder of
public opinion observed also that "Christmas proved too much for a large
number of the reformed tipplers in this neighborhood. They fell in the
highways and by ways."
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER LVII
Six Years of Astonishing Changes up to Centennial Year.
County Boundary Line Controversy. Irrigation Problems
Command Legislative Attention. First Wine Making in
THE County. Reorganization of the Bank. Founding of
THE Town of INL-vdera. Panic Year Among the- Sheepmen.
Water Reaches the Pioneer Colony. Raising of Water
Levels in Wells. Gold Placer Mine Bubbles. Sale
OF Grapes for Wine Pressing. Church Building is Begun.
Advance in Land Values. Pioneer Flouring Mills
The changes in Fresno, once a start on them was made, were many,
varied and astonishing. It was a transformation from the desert to the
flower garden, the vineyard and the orchard, from the wild grass plain to
the cultivated farm home. Forty years ago in the year 1878, the Republican
newspaper noted the change and this is what it said :
"Fresno County has witnessed as rapid growth of population within
the last six years as any in the state. In 1850 there were a few miners,
hunters and gamblers, besides a few families and soldiers at old Fort Miller.
In 1860 there were three or four towns, if towns they could be called, in
the county, and the principal one was Millerton, the county seat, situated
half a mile below Fort Miller on the San Joaquin River, and a few settlers
scattered here and there on the plains at great distances apart. Most of the
latter were stockraisers and many of them, among whom were Miller &
Lux, Jeff James. John Sutherland, made their fortunes in a few years.
"Except in the towns, the county was but thinly inhabited six or seven
years ago and upon the plains could be seen thousands of cattle and horses.
But since the Southern Pacific Railroad was built through, which was done
in 1870-71, the county has been completely changed. From that time the
growth in population has been very rapid, emigrants coming in every year.
In the winter of 1872, the 'No-fence law' was passed which compelled the
cattlemen to drive their stock from the county or to keep it confined. This
gave the farmers a chance, and now, instead of the countless herds of cattle
are farms rich in grain, fruit and vegetables. These are all raised on the
dry and sandy plains, which a few years ago nearly every one declared
'good for nothing except grazing.'
"In 1873 an election was held in regard to the count_y seat. Some wished
it to remain at Millerton, others wished it removed to Kings River, and still
others to Fresno, a small place which then consisted of only some half
dozen houses and a number of saloons. But in spite of its apparent insignifi-
cance, Fresno carried the vote by a large majority, because of its being the
most central of the other places, and was situated on a railroad, advantages
which none of the others possessed. Since that time Fresno has grown
rapidly and now contains between 1,000 and 1,400 inhabitants and boasts of
a three-story courthouse.
"The county of Fresno now promises to be and will be in time one of
the most wealthy agricultural counties in the state."
— 1876 —
January 5 — The Centennial year was ushered in with a rainstorm. . . .
\\'. D. Tupper and W. H. Creed are associated as lawyers with office in a
courthouse rented room. . . . The Fresno Social and Literary Club was
organized with E. C. \Vinchell as president. Dr. Lewis Leach as vice, Tim-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 341
othy Holland secretary, William Faymonville financial secretary, A. M.
Clark treasurer, Leopold Gundelfinger librarian. . . . James B. Campbell
of Mariposa was appointed by Gov. William Irwin to the vacant district
judgeship, the appointee having been district attorney of Mariposa. . . . Since
farmers began irrigating the water in wells in the Borden settlement has
risen over ten feet, bringing it to within seventeen feet of the surface. . . .
Contract for grading the courthouse grounds was awarded to Jerome B.
Stevens at twenty-five cents a cubic yard and 3,000 required to do the filling
in. . . . Mariposa County jail has five prisoners charged with murder. . . .
On habeas corpus, Granice was admitted on the 10th to reduced bail in
the sum of $8,000.
January 12 — Fire broke out on the night of the 4th in Bishop & Com-
pany's drug house near Mariposa and I, the largest fire to date. Lawren-
son's saloon. Bishop & Company's drug house with the building owned by
R. E. Hyde, and R. H. Fleming's ofifice building were destroyed, total loss
$13,700. The flames were fought as long as the water lasted in the barrels
on roofs. Gables were covered with wet blankets, two lines of buckets were
started, one from the tank in rear of the Fleming home and one from large
I Street puddles. Fanning Bros.' and Tombs' saddlery on the east side were
wet down and the fire kept from spreading in that direction. W. B. Bishop
& Company of Visalia did not resume business. Charles F. Burks opened on
his own account on one side of Fanning Bros.' store. . . . Citizens' meeting
held the day after the fire, H. D. Silverman chairman and A. Kutner secre-
tary. George McCollough, S. W. Flenry, Jesse IMorrow, S. Goldstein and
H. S. Dixon appointed a committee on finance ; C. G. Sayle, W. J. Lawrenson
and R. H. Fleming to organize a fire company, and J. W. Ferguson, H. S.
Dixon, E. C. Winchell, C. G. Sayle and W. H. Creed for incorporation of
town. . . . Harry Mendies with Lawrenson opens Courthouse saloon at Mari-
posa and I in the Knott vacated restaurant premises. . . . Postofifice is re-
moved from Silverman & Einstein's to the Fanning's variety store at ]\Iari-
posa and I, express oiifice remains at old location. . . . About $500 is in the
fund to purchase hooks, ladders and buckets for fire purposes.
January 19 — Bill has been introduced in the legislature to make the
Kings River the boundary line between Fresno and Tulare from Tulare
Lake to Smith's Ferry at Kingston. Residents about Kingsburg sent petition
to attach the territory north of the river to Fresno, Tulare having long cast
covetous eyes on the strip. . . . C. W. De Long is about to erect postofifice
and merchandise store on Mariposa Street, about twenty feet east of Fanning
& Bros.' store. . . . Again the wail that "Fresno has no church house, and
while the town contains about 200 children it cannot boast of a Sunday
school."
January 26 — The Kings River Lumber Company incorporates with
Charles P. Converse, B. F. Scott, John Sutherland, Jesse Morrow, J. M.
Gregory and William Helm as directors. . . . Remonstrances are being
signed against the passage of the Kings River boundary line bill.
February 2 — As the result of the storms there was a fall of thirteen feet
of snow at the Clipper Saw Mill at Pine Ridge with a reported ten feet at
date when seldom there had been more than seven during a winter. . . . The
irrigation problem is receiving attention in the legislature with no less than
a dozen measures introduced on the subject but not one of them, as claimed,
fully meeting the requirements of the people. . . . Assemblyman J. D. Col-
lins has introduced a bill to reestablish the original boundary line between
Fresno and Tulare. . . . The publication of the 1875-76 delinquent tax list
requires ten columns of the smallest type in the Expositor.
February 9 — Sale reported from M. J. Donahoo to H. L. Rea of one-
third interest in four possessory claims and Clipper sawmills for $7,000,
Henry Glass and Donahoo same to I. A. Carter for $7,000, Glass and Rea
one-sixth interest to Ira A. Carter for $3,500 and by Rea to Donahoo half
342 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
interest in the Tollhouse road and Big Corral blacksmith shop, store and
dwelling house for $4,000. . . . Property owners on Mariposa Street have
raised the money to grade that street between H and J. . . . Piper's Opera
House Company from Virginia City played "Rip Van Winkle" on the 7th
to "a hall crowded to its utmost limit," and "Under the Gaslight," the night
after. . . . Petition circulated for a new road district taking in Fresno and
Central California Colony.
February 16 — Charles W. De Long opens with postoffice his new general
merchandise store on Mariposa Street.
February 23 — The stairs leading to Magnolia hall were removed to the
alley between it and the Larquier Plouse, an addition 18x80 to be erected
"making it the largest and finest hall in the San Joaquin Valley." ... It
was the report that Fresno County will loom up in grape vine statistics this
year, because upwards of 500,000 will be planted. . . . The Eisen vineyard
will make wine this season. T. F. Eisen has opened a champagne
manufactory in New York and all wines made on the farm will be shipped
there. Vineyard comprises 120 acres of choicest varieties of wine grape vines
and the entire product will go into wine. The vines are three years old.
Prophecy: "It is evident that grape culture is soon to form an important
element in the products of the county."
Alarch 1 — The F. L. and S. C. announces its first social reunion for the
17th at Magnolia Hall ; tickets two dollars. It has leased the hall for one
year. . . . Record made of the sale by J. C. Hoxie to William Flelm and
W. J. Lawrenson of city block 338 for $5,020. . . . Charles Crocker makes
deed to county of all streets and alleys in the town for public highways.
. . . Wednesday night before the Law and Foster carpenter shop in the
rear of the McCollough & Andrews tenement house, near the corner of
Mariposa and I and Fresno, was destroyed by fire: loss $600. Comment:
"Wonderful to relate no fire meeting was held next day." . . . After in-
numerable breaks in the ditch, the water has at last reached Central Califor-
nia Colony. ... An immense quantity of grape cuttings has arrived for
Mrs. J. A. Smith. They are of the raisin variety and will be set out in the
colony on three twenty-acre tracts.
March 8 — Articles on raisin and orchard culture have become the fad.
On this date the Expositor printed on first page cuts of Central California
Colony and of the courthouse, and on the fourth page a real estate selling
map of the colony. It was probably hailed in its day as a journalistic feat.
Around the court house are shown trees and foothills ! The colony picture
is a dream. The artist drew it from a description given him and with the
aid of the selling map. The large trees shown in the foreground were only
in his mind's eye. Likewise the shrubbery connecting Elm Avenue with the
town. The trees that lined the avenues and the vineyards, orchards and gar-
dens are not in the picture. Instead of the two groupings of three houses in
the foreground, there were at the time not less than eighteen with others
in construction. The town located in the distance is in a valley gorge, be-
tween two mountains, on the right of the picture the Sierra Nevada in fact
twenty-five miles awa}^ on the left the Coast Range and in turn seventy-
five miles away. . . . Yale lock boxes at two dollars and three dollars a year
are introduced in the postoffice. . . . For the season, twenty and thirty-one
hundredths inches of rain had fallen.
]\Iarch 15 — H. H. Granice was brought to second trial before Judge Camp-
bell on the Merced County grand jury indictment, which he ruled was one for
manslaughter. After all testimony was in, the, prosecution asked that the
case be resubmitted to the grand jury to find an accusation for murder. The
motion was not contested and it was granted.
March 29 — Resale recorded from W. J. Lawrenson to C. J. Hoxie of his
interest in Fresno block 338 for $2,066.66. . . . The bill establishing the
boundary line between Fresno and Tulare signed by the governor. . . . State
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 343
supreme court issues writ of habeas corpus on petition of H. H. Granice re-
turnable April 10. . . . J. W. Dunlap and Thomas Jones bring the story of
quartz mining operations on the upper Fresno River with the owners of the
Confidence mine running a 150-foot tunnel to the ledge with about fifty
feet more to run to strike the ledge. The fall season before shaft was sunk
to the depth of over 100 feet but abandoned on account of water, the ledge
being then four feet thick, 500 tons of rich ore on the dumps and if the ledge
developed good on tapping mill was to be erected. The tradition was that in
1850 Maj. Janies D. Savage, the pioneer citizen of the region, being in pur-
suit of hostile Indians, discovered the ledge outcroppings and that it was
so rich that he picked the gold out with butcher knife. Savage carved his
initials on an oak tree to mark the location. The exact location was lost with
his death. The discovered ledge is supposed to be the Savage. It was thought
the ore would mill $200 a ton, assays being as much as six times that. . . .
There was local excitement over the assignment to the government by Capt.
Charles H. Barth to secure shortage in accounts of some $60,000. Barth was
of the Fort Miller garrison during the Civil ^Var and for the two years last
past engaged in Fresno in the banking business under the name of Barth
& Froelich with Dr. Lewis Leach interested. The financial difficulties in no-
wise afifected the bank, though the latter declined to do business except to
pay demands as presented. Its capital was $50,000 and its liabilities $4,800.
Earth's interest in the bank was assigned to Louis R. McLane of the Bank
of Nevada.
April 5 — Merced county scrip received to pay jurors in the Granice case.
Merced's general fund was exhausted and scrip was sold at ninety cents on
the dollar. . . . The theft is reported of the brick that covered the cemetery
grave of a child of County Treasurer A. J. Thorn. . . . The Millerton post-
office has been discontinued.
April 26 — Supervisor I. N. Ward died Sunday the 23rd at the home of
the Birkhead Bros, on the San Joaquin River. The county judge appointed
Maj. John J. Hensley to the vacancy.
May 10 — The Ne Plus Ultra Copper Mining Company has incorporated
with $200,000 capitalization. . . . Silverman & Einstein will erect a 30x100
warehouse on the reservation near the head of Tulare Street where the stock
corral was located. . . . Fresno has 15 bars.
May 17 — Ladies of the Methodist Church call a meeting for the 29th
at the home of Judge Baley to organize a sewing society and to make a
start toward raising money to build a church. . . . Superintendent Bernhard
Marks of the colony brings a silver cup inscribed : "To first born in Central
California Colony, May 4th, 1876," to be presented to Mr. and Mrs. George
Smith in trust for the son. . . . Former Senator Thomas Fowler has bought
the interest of Charles H. Barth in the bank. Efifort was to be made to in-
corporate and increase the stock. ... A lot of barrel stock has been received
by the Eisen Vineyard Farm for the season's vintage. . . . The California
Lumber Company expects to complete in another six weeks its flume to ship
lumber from mountain mills. This enterprise resulted later in the year in
the location of the town of Madera. It promised to sell lumber at the rail-
road for twenty dollars a thousand or twenty-two dollars loaded on cars.
. . . C. M. Bennett has removed his planing mill to near Tollhouse and is
running it by steam power. The Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company is
extending its main canal twelve miles westerly from Central California
Colony.
May 24 — William Helm deeds to j. G. James 14,623 acres, also half of city
•block 383, and 1,920 acres besides, for $20,000, subject to mortgage. . . . The
depression in the wool market continues and has caused a panic among the
sheep men. . . . Machines are set to work heading the barley crop at the
Easterby Farm. . . . The Eisen vines are heavily laden with fruit for the
production of a considerable quantity of wine this season.
344 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Alav 31 — The Eisen Vineyard is described as a property that "at no
distant day will be one of the most noted places in California." It is under
the supervision of Prof. Gustaf Eisen, "a gentleman of refinement and cul-
ture." There was being erected at this time one of the most complete wine-
making establishments in the country, a building 50x100, and two stories
high, wine presses to be on the upper floor and the lower to be used for
storing must, wine, etc. The capacity is for the storage of 40,000 gallons of
wine, the estimated yield for the season, with the capacity to be enlarged
as required. A substantial residence was also to be erected. . . . Efifort will
at last be made to raise funds for ''a union church in this village." Rev. L.
Dooley has taken up the matter and Otto Froelich, A. Tombs and Charles F.
Burks accepted the trusteeship to receive and disburse contributions and
supervise the project. . . . Walter D. Tupper will erect a fine residence at
K and Kern, south of the W. H. Creed premises.
June 7 — He who visits Fresno County five years hence will hardly
recognize its plains as the barren waste that existed a few years ago. Here
and there on every hand bright spots of green and clumps of thrifty young
trees surrounding comfortable farm houses can be seen from any elevated
position. The sinuous lines of the irrigating ditches can also be traced by
their fringe of green willows. The trees in town present an attractive appear-
ance, some of them over twenty feet high. The places of Otto Froelich, W. J.
Lawrenson and J- C. Hoxie and of others northwest of town "look like young
forests," while gardens in other portions of town "give brilliant promise of
great beauty." The statement was made : "Add five years to the growth
of the trees already planted and this portion of the San Joaquin Valley will
bear some more favorable cognomen than 'the treeless plains.' "... Seventh
Day Adventist missionaries that lal)ored in this vicinity for two months
moved with their tent to Visalia. While in the Georgia Settlement they made
twelve converts — ten of them adults — and these were baptized in the irriga-
tion ditch the Sunday before. . . . Law & Foster have commenced on the
Silverman & Einstein warehouse and promise to have construction suffi-
ciently advanced to permit of the use of the structure for the exercises on
the Centennial 4th of July celebration. . . . Announcement is that the two
Odd Fellows' lodges, the Good Templars, the Grangers and the citizens
generally will participate in the celebration in procession, exercises and ball.
Harry S. Dixon to read the Declaration of Independence, \^^alter D. Tupper
to be the poet, J. G. McElvaney the orator, George Zeis the marshal and
J. S. Ashman the chief aid. . . . H. G. Silverman will this summer improve
his lots near the corner of Tulare and J Avith a fine dwelling house, intending
to bring his family out from New York in the fall. The site of the lots is
occupied today by the Forsyth building and then was on quite a high
eminence. As stated at the time the lots were among the most sightly in
the town "as they possess a commanding view of the whole village." . . .
Twenty-two men are engaged in irrigating the trees along the avenues at
Central California Colony. The condition of the soil and the newness of the
ditches "made irrigation at the colony a herculean task."
June 14 — C. B. Overholzer and I. W. Byington of the colony are the
town's teamsters. . . . W. D. Grady and R. H. Daly are associated as lawyers
with office in the courthouse. . . . Sheep are selling in the county by the
embarrassed at fifty to sixty cents a head. . . . A. H. Statham has located as
a stable keeper at Tulare and I. . . . The Eisen vineyard is experimenting
with the growing of pineapples. . . . Monday the 12th there was alarm over
a report that the courthouse dome was on fire. Investigation disclosed that
"an immense band of flying ants circling about the dome" gave the appearance
of smoke rising through the windows. . . . R. P. Mace of Borden will be
the president of the day on the 4th of July.
June 21 — Notice is given of dissolution of the Barth & Froelich bank-
ing firm, Thomas Fowler becoming the owner of the Barth interest and he,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 345
Froelich and Dr. Leach to organize and incorporate a banking institution
with larger capital. . . . They had hot days. Here are samples: Sunday the
11th, 100 degrees; 12th, 105 degrees; 13th, 110 degrees; 14th and 15th, 106
degrees; 16th, 113 degrees, that Friday afternoon a strong wind set in and
continued Saturday but the thermometer went up to 106 degrees. The
ground was so heated that the air seemed like a blast from a furnace and
leaves on plants were withered and scorched as if by fire, so intensely hot
were the rays of the sun.
June 28 — A. M. Clark and James McCardle elected Fresno school dis-
trict trustees. . . . Census shows 158 children between five and seventeen
years of age in the district.
July 5 — A son was born on the 4th to the wife of Jans Hansen of Central
Colony. The Hansens were among the first settlers of the colony, having
come to better their fortunes. With the birth of the colony, they married,
and on the national holiday the first born saw the light of day. . . . Fire
broke out on Tuesday on the west side of the colony and spread rapidly.
There was considerable damage on the Jo Spinney tract and the dwelling
was with difficulty saved. The flames extended south and east burning
everything in the path across the land, destroying 900 acres of drv feed of
A. T. Covell, 400 of Rowell Bros, and 200 of W. F. Coughell, and burning
over 2,500 acres. The fire started from the spark of a stove pipe. . . .
Nearly eight miles were constructed of the extension of the Fresno Canal
and Irrigation Company's ditch west of the colony. ... It was said to have
been the best 4th of July celebration yet had in the county, notwithstanding
the unexpected opposition that it encountered.
July 12 — The church fund was started with ten $100 subscriptions. . . .
There is a deficit of $175 in the 4th of July expense fund. . . . Ex Judge
A. C. Bradford is chosen secretary of the California Society of Pioneers.
July 26 — Operations on the western extension of the canal are suspended
for the season after reaching out twelve miles. ... A Tilden & Hendricks
and a Hayes & Wheeler club liven up town politics.
'August 2 — Wells have raised two feet during the summer, attributable
to the irrigation ditches, though none was within three miles of the city.
The phenomenon was even more remarkable at Borden. At Central Cali-
fornia Colony the water level rose five feet. . . . Tilden & Hendricks Club
organized with 153 members. On the Saturday following, it raised a ninety-
foot flag pole in front of headquarters. It was a pine tree cut in the moun-
tains. . . . Report is that $1,800 was subscribed for the church
building fund, the Missionary Society of the M. E. Church South
to furnish $500 additional. . . . The California Lumber Company's
flume has been completed to the railroad. ... Ice is sold in Fresno
at three cents a pound. . . . McCollough & Andrews announce readiness to
supply water, if the public will give them encouragement in the enterprise.
August 9 — Henry Glass of the Clipper mill announces rough lumber at
mills in quantities of 50,000 feet nine dollars cash per thousand, in less quan-
tities ten dollars per thousand cash and eleven dollars on credit. Clear lum-
ber at mill cash eighteen dollars. At Tollhouse at an advance of six dollars
per 1,000 on above prices. . . . Jerry Ryan is building a two-story brick
house at Mariposa and I. . . . Dr. Leach vaccinated forty-seven on Sunday
and twenty on Monday because of small pox epidemic in San Francisco.
. . . According to the Expositor, "the baker's dozen constituting the Repub-
lican Club of Fresno" named Dr. Chester Rowell and Samuel Goldstein as
delegates to the "Radical state convention." . . . The Centennial mining dis-
trict was formed to cover the placer mines discovered by Fresnans and
Tulareans in old Mill Creek in the eastern part of the county — George Sar-
geant president, W. F. Flournoy secretary and Nelson Harlan recorder. The
placers were said to be of coarse wash gold with evidence of quartz vein
drift, similar to the gold taken from Sycamore Creek in earlier days, the
346 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
purest in the county and bringing eighteen and one-half dollars an ounce.
The existence of these placers was known but the winter water had always
been so high as to cover the gold channel in the creek bed. . . . Bank of
Fresno incorporated with a capitalization of $250,000. . . . School opening
on the 28th with John Dooner in charge and R. H. Bramlet of the primary
department. Bramlet was afterward county auditor, and when he retired
from public office remarked that he had no complaint for the people of
Fresno had been good to him in permitting him at fifty-one years of age to
have spent seventeen years or one-third of his natural life in office. . . . Dr.
Leach appointed by the supervisors city health officer for six months from
August 9. He was at the time county physician in charge of the county
hospital and in both positions continued for years. . . . Frank Dusy and F.
B. C. Duff report discovery of good gravel diggings on one of the bars in
Dinkey Creek, yielding an average of three dollars a day per man. Some
excitement and prospectors' claims located. . . . Dr. Chester Rowell elected
Republican central committeeman from the county. The Expositor says he
is "the most zealous Republican in the district without a doubt." . . . The
passenger train schedule to be changed from midnight to daylight running
time. . . . Ex Senator Thomas Fowler subscribes $50,000 to the banking
fund.
August 28 — William Markwood for whom Markwood's Meadows are
named died on the 15th following an accident. On Sunday the 13th he and
Abe Childers engaged in horse racing on the grade near Tripp's old store.
The horses shied and carried the riders over the bluff. Childers recovered
consciousness afterward. . . . Conflicting reports circulated concerning the lat-
est reported gold discoveries. . . . Friday the 18th the dry grass in the
cemetery on Elm Avenue caught fire and 160 acres were burned over. Sup-
position was that the fire started from a joss stick on a Chinese grave. . . .
Machinery is placed at the Eisen vineyard for the making of wine. . . . H.
H. Granice indicted at Merced for murder.
August 30 — On this Wednesday appeared the first call for grapes as
a commercial commodity as follows :
Grapes Will Be Bought at $30 per Ton at
Eisen's Vinevard, East of Easterby Farm.
Apply to F. T. EISEN.
. . . "The new Golcondas," as the gold placers are described, are pronounced
a fraud. . . . The frame work is up to support the water works tank on Fresno
Street, west of J, so long afterward a city landmark.
September 6 — Meeting of Republicans announced for the 14th to be
addressed by John F. Swift, or as the Expositor stated to "flaunt the bloody
shirt in this village." . . . The railroad having been completed to Los An-
geles an extra freight emigrant train was placed on the run from Tulare
to San Francisco, meeting a similar train from the city here at seven A. M.
September 13 — The grand jury finds the county hospital a building "to-
tally unfit" for the purpose.
September 20 — The California Lumber Company is fluming as much as
30,000 feet of lumber daily from the mountains to the plains at Madera. . . .
Fresno's assessment roll totals $8,025,381.
September 27 — Sunday the 26th, the jail was without a pris-
oner for the first time since occupation of the courthouse, the last one on
hand having been shipped after sentence to San Quentin.
October 4 — Construction is progressing on the 36x60 M. E. Church
South building at Fresno and L, with ceiling sixteen feet in the clear, belfry
and exterior corniced and as planned "an ornament to the town."
October 11 — The California Lumber Company announces the sale of
town lots at Madera for Tuesday, October 24. . . . Banquet is given Saturday
the 14th at Faber's by citizens to McCollough & Andrews in appreciation of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 347
their enterprise in construction of water works which are in operation. Tests
of pressure made on Mariposa Street for fire purposes showed that it was
satisfactory.
October 18 — Tlicre is gratification over the advance in land values. Land
that had gone begging at three dollars an acre four years before is held at
fifteen dollars and twenty dollars — some irrigated land including water priv-
ileges selling as high as fifty dollars an acre. There is much land open yet
to preemption and homesteading. . . . The Fresno Bank organizes with Thomas
Fowler, Dr. Lewis Leach, William Faymonville, J. A. Blasingame, Jesse
Morrow, Otto Froelich and H. C. Daulton as directors to open for business
December 1. . . . There are 1,671 names on the great register.
November 8 — C. E. Brimson from Tulare succeeds J. R. Hooper as rail-
road station agent. . . . Notice published of the marriage November 8 at
San Buenaventura of C. G. Sayle and Miss Nettie Burks, and at Visalia
November 5 of Lefonso Burks and Miss Mollie Sayle.
November 22 — August Weihe sells to H. Voorman and W. S. Chapman
the Henrietta ranch of 18,186.40 acres for $8,000, a very low price. . . . M. A.
Schultz died Friday, November 24.
November 29 — Wine is ofifered for sale as a native product for the first
time at the Eisen vineyard. . . . The Fresno bank will open Friday, Decem-
ber 2, Thomas Fowler president. Dr. Leach vice president and Otto Froe-
lich cashier. . . . M. Theo. Kearney receives appointment as managing agent
at San Francisco for the proprietors of the Central California Colony and
the Expositor stated that as he is largely interested in land in this county
he will therefore feel an extraordinary interest in the success of the colony.
December 2 — Granice was convicted at Merced of murder in the second
degree after the jury had deliberated for twelve hours. Judge Campbell of
Fresno sentenced him to thirty years imprisonment.
December 6 — Mrs. Black and Miss Williams announce themselves as
fashionable dressmakers located on I Street, near the Statham residence.
. . . The county asks for plans and specifications for a hospital to accom-
modate at least twenty-five patients and to cost not to exceed $9,500, the
award of seventy-five dollars to be made for the best plans. . . . Report is
that a new front is being put on Kramer's saloon. This with other recent
improvements will give a solid frontage on H Street in city block sixty-one.
. . . Waterpipe mains are being laid in the alleys for distribution of the fluid.
December 31 — M. Theo. Kearney was a caller in Fresno on the last day
of the vear.
January 10, 1877, appeared an advertisement of the Central California
Colony for the sale of its lands through M. Theo. Kearney as manager, also of
lands of W. S. Chapman, adjoining the colony, through him as agent. This
was the beginning of Kearney's career in Fresno County.
The Expositor published a brief review and an enumeration of structures
in the town at the end of 1876, showing 253 dwellings, ten stores, black-
smiths three, barbers two, butchers two, livery stables three, boots and shoes
two, saddleries two, saloons twenty, paint shops one, planing mill in con-
struction one, drug stores two, photograph gallery one, lawyers' offices four,
L O. O. F. hall one, public hall one, county hospital one, church one, bank
one, school one, printeries two, doctors' offices two, court house one, twenty-
five buildings and the water works were under construction, two lumber
yards and a third contemplated, two physicians, two ministers and nine
lawyers. When the railroad was completed, there was not a habitation ; at
this' time the boast was of over 320, not including those in the Chinese
quarter.
It may be added that the city steam planing-mill enterprise was never
launched. Late in 1876 C. M. Jones bought the two Whitlock lots and on the
348 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
brick basement foundations built a flouring mill. The location was on the
east side of I Street between jNIariposa and Tulare, in part covered today
by the Mason block. It did not operate long. The historic flouring mills was
the Champion of M. J. Church on the site of the Sperry mills at Fresno and
N. It was later destroyed by fire. It was operated by a water wheel in a
ditch carrying water from Fancher Creek, the surplus conveyed by canal
(which was bridged at intervals and for safety covered in parts) through the
town along the center of Fresno Street to land of the Church's west of
town and beyond the Kearney Fruitvale Estate.
In time this canal became a public nuisance as a dumping ground for
refuse and ofifal. Time and again the board of health declared it a nuisance
to be condemned, and the city council ordered it discontinued. Long con-
troversy and litigation followed and despite an existing injunction irate citi-
zens aided, abetted, encouraged and assisted by the health board took the
matter in hand one Sunday in the latter 80's after all patience had been ex-
hausted and secretly organizing and preparing swooped down on the canal
and filled it up with shovelling in of the banks before another injunction
could be sued out, or process be served. The late Dr. W. T. Maupin as city
health officer was a leader in this popular movement. So ended the Fresno
Street Canal. The people had been trifled with too long by the corporation.
CHAPTER LVIII
Located Townsite of Fresno a Forlorn and Unattractive Spot
ON Sagebrush Desert Plain. M. K. Harris in Diary Gives
Mental Picture of the Village of 1879. All Business Was
Centered About the Railroad Station. Saloons Were Not
Lacking. Brick Buildings Numbered Six. All Other
Structures Were One Story Frame of Lightest and Cheap-
est Make. Surroundings Not at all Pleasing to the Ex-
pectant Newcomer. Coyotes Howled at Night in Village
Backyards. A Glimpse Into Early Politics.
Admittedly "a new and wonderful country," there was in the village of
Fresno in the year 1879 little as yet to attract to the spot that in 1872 had
been described as uninhabited save by wild cattle, mustang horses, antelope
and coyotes. There was as yet not much of a village. \\'hat little there
was covered the four blocks from Tulare to Fresno, and from H to K, east
of the railroad station, with fringes of widely scattered abodes but many
more vacant spots than occupied ones in the habited territory.
First courthouse had been erected and was the most prominent structure
in the village or town and continued such for years. The four blocks which
it centered "were levelled and trees planted that year. The first public owned
schoolhouse had been put up at L and Tulare Streets, just across the court-
house park. The nine graves in the first city cemetery, a few blocks from the
courthouse site, had crowded the living with their suggestive propinquity
and had been removed.
Streets, blocks and lots were staked out on the rough rolling prairie land
as it was when town was located by the railroad on the limitless plain. The
very first demand for a townsite in drinking water supply was lacking.
Windmills to pump up water from the deepest wells marked the inhospitable
landscape in the first years. The sale of water for beast was the first com-
mercial enterprise b}' the pioneer settler. Vacant blocks and lots fringing
the town habited quarter were traversed by cow and footpaths to objective
points. Streets there were none ; neither sidewalks. Walked you four to six
blocks in any direction east of the railroad, and you had passed the last
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 349
habitation : you were out in the country and on the rolling hog-wallow plain,
with the vision on a clear day unobstructed as far as the eye could see on
the undulating plain. Trees and shade? Heaven save the mark! There were
none and the sun shone blisteringly and swelteringly hot. Another early en-
terprise was the digging of deep cellar on H Street near Tulare where the
thirsty congregated and in the subterranean cool guzzled Philadelphia Brew-
ery beer imported from San Francisco. When, nearly thirty years after, ex-
cavations were made in the. tearing down of the Ogle House for the larger
Collins Hotel they came on a portion of the unfilled cellar, people wondered
what the excavation was and wrote to the papers until some pioneer solved
the question by recalling the cool beer-guzzling cellar.
Can you imagine the one time Burleigh premises at J and Merced Streets,
today one block from the city hall, and two from the nearest corner of the
courthouse square, located so far from the center of town as to be connected
by ground sluice ditch to convey water from the mill race ditch waste on
Fresno Street with which to irrigate ornamental and vegetable garden? A
two-story house was a thing to gaze at in wonder for its rarity. The prevail-
ing architecture was the one-story, rude, clapboard shack such as would not
even tax the constructive ingenuity of the carpenter with only saw, hammer
and nails. Where ground space ownership was limited, steps to upper story
or attic loft were hung outside the house if location was conveniently on
street or alley corner.
At what are today the corners of Fresno and T and Tulare and T — the
Shannon and Ferguson corners — were orange and fruit orchards as sore
temptations for the small boy. The blocks between Tulare and Kern and
T and ]\I formed the ridge of a hilly prominence, six to ten feet above the
present street level, sloping to naturally low ground with surface-water drain-
age channels on Inyo Street on the one side, on Fresno and Merced on the
other, with deep depressions as at J and Tulare and at J and Mariposa con-
tinuing as far as the railroad station for the formation of spreading sheets
of water during rainy winters, when with later street grading and levelling
the natural drainage channels were destroyed. Verily it passeth understand-
ing why the railroad located the town where it did. It was the most unlikely
and god-forsaken place imaginable. But having located it, it has always been
remarked that the mistake was made in not placing it on the west side of
the railroad on the higher ground for the more commanding position and
the better drainage which always has been a problem in its present low loca-
tion. Still it was no better and no worse than other locations on the railroad
when building through the valley with original town locations invariably
almost on the left side traveling southward.
A mental picture of what Fresno was in 1878 is recorded in a diary of
M. K. Harris, who came from Tennessee arriving August IS, 1878, as a
young lawyer graduate to grow up with the town and the country, to sit
twice on the bench of the superior court, early in his career to enter the
field of politics, and today one of the best known practicing lawyers in the
county and an estimable gentleman. The diary has its interest as a record.
"I arrived here about ten o'clock in the morning on a Saturday," runs
the diary. "Coming down on the train, I met Mr. Ashbrook of Liberty and
he was the first new acquaintance I made in the country. That night I
stopped at the French Hotel, a little two-story building on H Street and
run by Simon Camy, a clever Frenchman, who was killed in the mountains
in 1883 in a difficulty over range for sheep. The next morning I looked over
the town, presented a few letters of introduction to gentlemen, went into
the cupola of the courthouse and took a view of the surrounding country. I
cannot say that I was at all pleased with my surroundings, or with my fu-
ture prospects, but there have been such marvelous changes both in the town
and the surrounding country that I pause to recall and describe what I saw
during the few months following my arrival.
350 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
"As to the town of Fresno, I discovered that the principal business street
was H Street, also called Front Street. On this street Einstein conducted a
general merchandise business in a one or two-story brick house at the corner
of Mariposa. A little further down. Charles De Long had a store in the front
part of which was the postoffice over which he presided. About_ where the
Ogle House now stands, J. Brownstone had opened a store which the old
time merchants viewed with rather hostile eyes as an intruder. Fred Kramer
ran a saloon a little below Einstein and a man named Beagle (Biegel) ran
one just north of the French Hotel before mentioned. Edouard Faure con-
ducted a small barber shop in the hotel, while George Bates had a small
fruit stand next to the barber shop.
• "Mariposa Street began to increase in importance about this time. Kut-
ner & Goldstein had just completed a one-story brick building on the corner
of H and Mariposa Streets with a number of stores under one roof. William
Faymonville and H. S. Dixon occupied adjoining offices in a one-story brick
building about half way between H and I Streets on the north side of Mari-
posa. L. Burks had a drug store a little further down in a franie building
owned by C. G. Sayle and on the northwest corner of I Street Bill Lawren-
son had a saloon.
"Across I Street, P. R. Fanning had a little miscellaneous store in a
one-story frafne house and adjoining it on the east O. J. Meade and Henry
Austin conducted a saloon; next to them was George Bernhard's butcher
shop; across the alley was George Studer's residence and tailor shop; next
was Judge Winchell's law office, then George !McCollough's residence and
across T Street was Fleming and Wimmer's livery stable which extended to
the alley.
"On the south side of ^lariposa Street commencing next to Einstein's
brick building was a row of little frame buildings extending to nearly J
Street. On the corner of J, where the Farmers' Bank stands now, was the
Odd Fellows' hall, a two-story frame house, next to it a few little cabins,
while T. ^^'• -Williams owned and ran a blacksmith shop where the Grand
Central stands, and this about completes the description of INIariposa Street.
The different buildings mentioned were all one-story frame structures of the
lightest and cheapest make.
"The only brick buildings in town were Kutner & Goldstein's, Einstein's,
Faymonville & Dixon's offices, the Fresno Bank, the courthouse and an old
building where the Ogle House now stands. The Expositor office and J. W.
Ferguson's residence were located on the ground now occupied by the
Fresno National Bank building (The Bank of Italy at Tulare and J).
"I Street between ]\Iariposa and Fresno was built for residences by
• Kutner, Goldstein and others. Statham's livery stable occupied the northeast
corner of I and Tulare. The only school house was a two-roomed one-story
frame building standing where are now the Fresno Agricultural Works. The
onlv church was that of the South Methodists on Fresno Street and in which
religious worship was had, I think, every two weeks.
"The hotels were the French on H Street, already mentioned, and the
Morrow House owned by Jesse Morrow and conducted by ]\Irs. AIcElveney
on the corner of Tulare and K, which is still there but in an enlarged form.
(This is the postoffice corner.) Mrs. Johnson, Dr. Leach, W. H. Creed, and
W. D. Tupper lived on K street between Tulare and Kern ; also Dr. Rowell
and one or two others. About the only houses north of Fresno Street that I
remember were the residences of A. M. Clark, H. S. Dixon, J. C. Hoxie,
C. L. \\'ainwright and the Methodist Church. Possibly there might have
been others but that part of town was simply a part of the plains on which
the wild flowers grew in the spring without the sign of streets or roads.
The only buildings east of M Street were the residences of Judge Baley, Mrs.
Daly and J. Scott Ashman and they resided on M Street facing the court-
house yard. Not a white person lived west of the railroad.
LAW OFFICE OF lUDGE E. C. WINCHELL. 187
BUILDING SITE
-LXIOX NATIOXAL BANK
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 351
"The cemetery was just to your right as and before you entered Fresno
Colony on Ehn Avenue as you left Fresno City. William Faymonville re-
sided in a small frame house adjoining the Olcese & Garibaldi building on
K Street (corner of Mariposa).
"As to the country. I went into the dome of the courthouse the morn-
ing I arrived and could see only two signs of life or habitation, the Central
Colony and the Gould ranch. The colony had been started about four years
before, I was informed. Temperance and \A^ashington colonies had also been
laid out, I think ; Risen vineyard, the only one in the county, had begun to
bear crops. All the balance of the country, so far as the vision extended was
one bare, hot, sandy, desert plain, which ran right up into the streets of
the town, with scarcely one object to relieve the eye or cheer the heart.
"Sunday night after I arrived. I went out with W. W. Phillips in his
buggy (one of the few then in the county) to Centerville ; on my way to
see my brother the next morning, I secured a seat in the wagon with Mrs.
Gilbert with whom I rode several miles, when she pointed out a cabin away
off in the distance which looked like a mere small brown spot on the desert
as the residence of my cousin, Gen. T. H. Bell. I started for it loaded with a
heavy valise and on my way crossed the C and K canal which had been
made the year before and then had water in it. I finally arrived at the gen-
eral's, a small shanty without shade tree or other ornament, where I was
cordially received by his wife. Cousin Mary, the general being away from
home. That afternoon I went to my brother's a half of a mile further. He
lived in a small cabin on a place which a man named Stumpf afterward
bought from Solomon Gates. All this country was unimproved, much of it
was virgin soil, and I saw several large stacks of wild alfilaria hay near some
of the residences.'
"Selma had not then been laid out and I remember going from General
Bell's across the country that winter to a dance at a schoolhouse at or near
where Selma now stands. The only canals in the county then, I think, were
the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company's system, including the Gould
ditch, and the Centerville and Kingsburg canal, also the Emigrant ditch.
Land everywhere was very cheap and there was still some g-overnment land
that had not been entered as late as 1880. I entered a quarter section in
the Bethel neighborhood of good land which I afterward abandoned and
which my brother entered under the homestead act. In those days antelope
were quite plentiful on the plains and I remember seeing herds of them
several times within seven or eight miles of Fresno City. The coyotes were
numerous and troublesome close to town. I have heard them barking at
night while I was in bed in Fresno so close did they come around.
"J. B. Campbell was judge of this district at this time and he went out
of office a year later when the new constitution was adopted in 1879. Judge
Gillum Baley was county judge and he also went out of office the next year.
E. Hall was the sheriff and A. M. Clark the county clerk and recorder. The
attorneys here were then H. S. Dixon, W. D. and H. C. Tupper, C. G. Sayle ;
the latter three forming a partnership with offices in the Kutner-Goldstein
building; E. C. Winchell, W. D. Grady, E. D. Edwards and W. H. Creed.
Creed was district attorney and Edwards his deputy and partner, S. H. Hill
was the justice of the peace and held his office and court in the front part
of a saloon on H Street.
"After I had been here awhile, I sent for G. H. Vaughn, who was in San
Francisco and he, Grady and. I formed a partnership under the firm name of
Vaughn, Grady & Harris. We had our law office up over some saloon on
H Street and did a pretty fair practice in a small way. The first lawsuit I
ever helped in was the case of one Curry against Thorn et al. at Borden. It
was Grady's case and he took me along to help him. His opponent was a
lawyer named Gardner from Merced. After many speeches and much wran-
352 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
gling- between Grady and Gardner, we secured a verdict in our favor for the
plaintiff. For my trouble and valuable time, Grady gave me a five-dollar
gold note and paid my expenses, which I am free to state was much more
than I had earned.
"This partnership continued until January 1, 1879, when we dissolved by
mutual consent. Vaughn and I forming a partnership and having our office
upstairs in the Donahoo block, near I Street, which had been built since my
arrival. We remained there one year, when we moved into an office upstairs
in a brick building where Donahoo, Emmons & Company's store is at present
(east side of I near Mariposa).
"During the year 1879, S. A. Holmes was elected superior court judge
defeating H. S. Dixon who ran against him as an independent. For the Demo-
cratic nomination, his opponents were Judge Gillum Baley and W. D. Tup-
per whom he defeated. W. D. Grady was elected district attorney. On the
6th of September, 1880, my partner Vaughn got into a difficulty with John
Donahoo (candidate for sherifif) and shot and killed him. At the time the
shot was fired. Donahoo had Vaughn down and was beating him. Donahoo
had made previous threats to do Vaughn harm. Great indignation among
Republicans was excited against Vaughn and a mob was even formed to
lynch him, but this was quickly put down and after a fair trial the following
January before a jury above the average in intelligence and in which \^aughn
was defended by Judge (D. S.) Terry and myself he was acquitted. This
afifair dissolved our partnership as ]\Ir. Vaughn practiced here no longer, and,
in February, 1881, Judge C. G. Sayle and I went into partnership.
"In 1882, E. D. Edwards and I were candidates for the Democratic
nomination for district attorney and I was defeated after a close contest. I
should have been nominated (I don't mean that I was more deserving than
Edwards) and would have been but I had an idea that all a man had to do
under such circumstances was to announce himself, show himself to the
people and stop. I had no system to my canvass, no workers and nothing
that is necessary in such cases, because I knew nothing about politics my-
self. On the other hand, my opponent had experience in such matters, was a
shrewd manipulator and consequently beat me in some precincts where he
had but little strength while I had a good deal. But I had and have no
complaints to make over the result, and stumped the county for the ticket
after it was nominated. In 1880, two years previously, I also stumped the
county for the Democratic ticket.
"After my defeat in 1882, the Democratic convention in my absence and
without my knowledge instructed the delegates to the district senatorial
convention to vote for me. Though this was contrary to my ideas and feel-
ings, after earnest solicitations by many friends, I finally consented to allow
my name to be put in nomination. In Tulare County at the Democratic con-
vention, the delegates to the senatorial convention were instructed to vote
for a citizen of that county and for me for second choice. Pat Reddy was
the candidate from Mono County and was my choice for the place, not ex-
cepting myself. The convention met at Bakersfield and for about eighty
ballots. Mono, Inyo and Kern voted for Reddy, Tulare for its man and
Fresno for me.
"Finally seeing no disposition in the delegates from Tulare to carry
out the instructions of their county by voting for me, as second choice, I
notified them that I would withdraw after one more ballot. They evidently
thought I was not in earnest and that it was a mere ruse to obtain their
votes. But I did withdraw and on the next ballot all the counties went for
Reddy except Tulare. This action was a mere matter of choice between
the men as Reddy was incomparably the superior. I was well satisfied with
the result — in fact I held on as long as I did in deference to the wishes of
my county.
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 353
"In 1886 I ran against Reel B. Terry for district attorney and attribute
my defeat in this race to the fact that at this time the Chinese question was
violently agitated. Terry took a pronounced part in the agitation which
secured for him the support of a large element. I was not what was called
anti-Chinese, as I thought it would seem too much like acting the demagogue
to join the crusade against the heathen, even going so far as to boycott
persons employing them at that time. This year I was elected chairman of
the Democratic County Committee, of which I had been a member since
1882. I believe I have been elected a delegate to every Democratic state con-
vention that has been held since but only attended one, the memorable one
at Stockton in 1884.
"In I\lay, 1883, learning that my father whom I had not seen since I
left Tennessee in 1878, was in a low state of health, I made a visit back to
Gallatin, where I remained until about the middle of August. I found my
father very feeble and declining and a few months after my return to Cali-
fornia he died.
"In December, 1882, I received a letter from W. S. Moore, who had been
publishing a paper at Franklin, Ky., for a year or two, stating that he would
make a change soon and inquiring about Fresno as a field for a newspaper.
Knowing that he was not very strong physically, greatly desiring to have
him near me and believing there was room for a bright Democratic weekly,
I conceived the idea of publishing such a paper and placing Moore in charge
of the business. A little inquire' satisfied me that the plan was feasible and
I telegraphed Moore to come. He arrived in Fresno early in January. 1883.
In a short time I had a company incorporated for the purpose of publishing
a newspaper and doing a general printing business.
"The outfit was purchased and we' named the paper the Fresno Democrat.
The first number was dated, I think, IMarch 12, 1883. The first office was
under the Ogle House on Front Street, then it was moved into the second
story above Furnish's butcher shop on Mariposa Street, then into one
of the stores on the west side of J, just a door or two above Maripo'sa, and
there it remained until we sold out. From the beginning, the Democrat was
opposed, assailed and the motives of its projectors impugned b}' both the
Republican and the Expositor, especially the latter.
"A serious but rather ludicrous effort was indulged in by the proprietors
of both of these papers, to use a slang phrase, to 'sit down on' the Democrat
and its editor, through the columns of their papers, but it was a good deal
like a shirt-tailed boy sitting down on a redhot stove. They got up very
quickly with disastrous results and with a strong disinclination to repeat
the experiment, for Moore was full of fight, a brilliant, witty and powerful
writer and utterly fearless in the expressions of his convictions. The Demo-
crat under him soon took high rank among the country papers. I am glad
to be able to state that its course was never once influenced by sordid or
improper motives, as I think it shows for itself. In December, 1883, Mr.
Moore returned to Kentucky, married, returned at once and took up resi-
dence again in Fresno.
"The legislature of 1886-87 created a new department of the Superior
court for Fresno County, the business of the court having grown too large
to be transacted by one judge. W. D. Tupper, E. D. Edwards, S. S. W'right,
S. A. Holmes and I were applicants before Governor Bartlett for the posi-
tion and I received the appointment on the 12th of March, 1887, and at once
entered upon the discharge of my duties. The next year 1888 was the general
election and I was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Superior
court judge with my old antagonist, Judge Holmes, as my opponent. I de-
feated him by a large majority. Shortly after the primaries. I went to San
Francisco for a week's rest and while there I received the gratifying intelli-
gence that the Republicans had endorsed me and placed me on their ticket.
354 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
At the election I received within seventy-five votes of the combined number
received by the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees in the
county."
The diarist recites that he graduated from the law school of Vander-
bilt University at Nashville, Tenn.. in August, 1874, and left his Gallatin
home for Fresno, "which place he had selected for his future home think-
ing that a new country offered a wider scope and a more promising field
for a professional young man than an old one." A brother, C. C. Harris, had
located in Fresno eighteen months before and on the journey the diarist
was accompanied by George H. Vaughn, whom he had known since they
were boys but with whom he had had little association, the latter living
at Nashville. There are interesting references to this journey in a day when
travel was not the luxurious experience that it is today. To the diarist who
had hardly been outside of Kentucky and Tennessee all his life, the nearly
3,000 miles long journey to California was a revelation. "It first gave me,"
says he, "something like a just idea of the extent, of the wealth, of the future
of this country of ours."
At Omaha, then a town of not much importance, cars were changed
and the travelers were given seats in what was known as the emigrant car.
The accommodations were by no means good. Seats were not upholstered,
no place to wash, two persons to a seat and no porter. Car was attached to
the end of a long freight train which moved exceedingly slow, but the trav-
elers were a good natured lot, all became acquainted and passed the time
pleasantly. Each seat of persons furnished its own bedding, all had baskets
of lunch "of sufficient dimensions to last to the journey's end." Fare from St.
Louis to California was fifty-five dollars each.
The morning after, the travel was "over an unbroken and a seemingly
boundless prairie covered by a thick carpet of verdure, variegated with
bright sunflowers. Nowhere did it seem that the soil had ever been broken;
indeed it had the appearance of having just come from its Maker's hands."
Scarcejy any farmhouses were seen anywhere in the state of Nebraska and
no buildings anywhere except a few small ones clustered around the railroad
stations and the latter at long intervals. "We saw," reads the diary, "large
bands of sheep and cattle feeding on the rich herbage and not infrequently
bands of antelope could be plainly seen in the distance. The entire country
had that air of western frontier life that has such a charm for the young."
Approaching the summit of the Rocky Mountains, reached late one
evening at Sherman, the air was crisp and bracing though it was in August.
Some of the travelers frequently rode for hours on top of the caboose and
every moment over the wild, diversified country was full of interest. "In
Nevada," says the diary recorder, "I saw my first Indian at a little alkali
station in the person of a stalwart brave, a captain somebody wearing a silk
hat but not much else, chasing a gaunt old sow that carried a small bundle
of meat and bread in her mouth after having purloined it from Mr. Indian.
This specimen of the red man of the forest was not in keeping with what
James Fenimore Cooper had told about them in his interesting but romantic
novels."
Utah, the country of the Mormons, seemed better cultivated than any
seen on the journey. Crossing the Sierra Nevadas was seen Donner Lake,
memorable scene of the ill-fated California pioneer pafty of travelers. The
Tennesseean arrived at Sacramento on the morning of August 15, there
Vaughn and the new acquaintances of the rail parted to proceed to San
Francisco by river steamer, while the diarist came on to Fresno, which has
been his home since with one other journey back home to marry the sweet-
heart of his youth.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHAPTER LIX
Every Change of the Landscape Was One of Note in the Days
OF Beginnings. In 1881 Fresno Was Yet a Handful of
Houses in a Desert of Sand. Locators Did Not Locate as
the Town Projectors Had Planned. Metropolitan Hall
THE Graveyard of so Many Travelling Shows. O Street
Was Out of Town. Nob Hill the Residential Quarter.
Rabbits and Squirrels in the Backyards. Beyond Chin.a.-
TOWN it Was Space as Far as the Slough. Unoccupied
Stretches of Land to the Nearest Country Settlements.
Located as was Fresno on a barren plain with nothing to obstruct the
visual horizon nearer than the Coast Range on the west and the Sierras
foothills on the east side, little wonder that any change in the landscape
was one of note. The beginning of Fresno was literally one from nothing.
Even after the location of the town, its growth was slow. The first begin-
nings with the coming of the railroad have been traced. Judge M. K. Harris'
mental picture of the town in 1879 is incomplete in many details. His diary
was a composition of later years. Not so startling were the changes between
1878-79 and 1881 as in turn recorded in a diary of R. W. Riggs, whose arrival
dates from February 1 of the latter year but whose recollections cover other
details that had escaped the memory of the earlier diarist. Riggs' impres-
sion of Fresno was that it was "not much of a town, a handful of houses
in a desert of sand." Riggs has been a frequent newspaper contributor of
historical sketches.
It is not to be gathered from the two diaries in the location of the busi-
ness places in those days that the described blocks were of solidly built up
blocks. Far from it. The unoccupied space was far greater than the occu-
pied. The only solidly built up block in those years was the one on H, or
Front Street, facing the railroad station block afterward turned into a park
under a ninety-nine year lease to the city and on which the Chamber of
Commerce building was erected facing the town. That railroad block was
long an eye sore — a muddy water hole in winter, a bed of dust, sand and
refuse heaps at other times and anything but an inviting front entrance into
the city from the railroad.
Fresno Street, eighty feet wide, was to have been the main artery
through the city, running east and west, and beyond the town limits. So
planned the projectors. The locators squatted on H, and then turned into
Mariposa Street, which became the center of the retail trade and continued
such for many years. The railroad barred Mariposa westward at the reser-
vation ; the county blocked it eastward with the erection of the courthouse,
facing the railroad. Courthouse grounds of four blocks were granted with
the idea of having the courthouse face on Fresno looking northward ; it
was located in the center of the grounds facing the railroad station and
westward. With the growth of the town and the traffic, there were no safe
or convenient crossings of the railroad tracks and the subway on Fresno
Street was the result under the administration of Mayor W. Parker Lyon.
The railroad was forced into the building of this costly subway for conces-
sions in closed certain other track crossing streets. The future will demand
other subways or viaducts to accommodate the traffic.
The Santa Fe as the successor to the rights of the San Joaquin Valley
Railroad runs through the eastern part of town, on O Street and out of the
city through Belmont Addition. It was so crowded for switching space and
356 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
conveniences that it removed its yards to Calwa and there started a new rail-
road town a few miles from the city. The Southern Pacific plans to locate
switching and freight depot on reservation in the northern end of town follow-
ing the example of the Santa Fe but war conditions delayed the project.
There has been agitation to move both railroads out of the populated and
busy portions of town and erect a union passenger depot but these periodical
agitations have not materialized.
In 1917 there was agitation for the industrial zoning of the city through
the efforts of the City Planning Commission and a beautiful scheme was laid
out with a Civic Center planned around the courthouse. The plan aroused
much opposition. The war suspended active operations and the plan has been
shelved for the time being. One result of the agitation and the zoning move-
ment has been however to designate a territory in the southern end of town,
and including \\^oodward's Addition, as an industrial zone, and here are being
located the large plants of the California Associated Raisin Company, of the
California Products Company, of the Rosenberg Bros, packing house, the
Hollenbeck-Bush planing mills and other enterprises. A like industrial zone
has been established at the southern end of town on the line of the Santa Fe.
But to return to the Riggs' diary, commenting on "the rapid travel in
the days of 1881 he states that he left the city of San Francisco at 6 :30 on the
evening of one day and arrived at Fresno at three on the following morning
and stepping off the car dropped into a foot of storm water at the depot.
He expressed astonishment as he had expected to come to a dry country. It
was the first rain that had fallen in fifteen months and the diarist comments
that it was also the only one in the next ten months. He was driven to the
Morrow House, W. J- Dickey was the night clerk and gave him a hospitable
California welcome and the stranger from the east was introduced to the
Mexican tamale. It was "not much of a town," says the diarist, "a handful
of houses in a desert of sand." The census of 1880 credited the town with a
population of 800 people. There were only two negroes, one the porter at
Einstein's and the other "Gabe" Moore of Centerville and a historical character
of the county. But many of the race came afterward.
The business of the town was centered about the railroad depot and on
Front Street between Mariposa and Tulare. "It was a solid block of build-
ings." At Mariposa and H, he first notes the Einstein two-story brick, next
the two-story Magnolia hall managed by the "only Jo P. Carroll," famous in
his day from Stockton to Bakersfield as "a square sport." Next was the
French Flotel, another two-story of fifty feet frontage, two or three saloons
and small places and then the Ogle House and on to the corner opposite on
Tulare the Star Hotel "and so ended Front Street southward." On the north
side of ]\Iariposa was Kutner, Goldstein & Co., back of them Russ Fleming
had his stables and beyond the Pine Ridge ( Behring) mill had a yard in charge
of Walter Foster. Away out on the corner of Amador lived the widow of
"Doc" Glass who completed the Tollhouse grade and in his day was one of
the big men. From her house to the San Joaquin River, "it was sand and
sand and more sand."
Back to Mariposa and there was S. Goldstein's stove and tin shop with
a splendid stock in trade for a small town. Between him and Kutner, Gold-
stein & Co. was the Reese cigar and fruit stand, and across the alley on the
same side William Faymonville had abstract and land office and Harry Dixon
his law office, next door Sayle's drug store in charge of W. T. Burks and
assisting him W. R. \\'illiams afterward state treasurer. Alongside was the
post office (?) with Otto Froelich as postmaster (?). In rear of this office
Sayle, Harris and J. B. Campbell were lawyers. Upstairs the Weekly Re-
view was published on a Washington hand press with S. A. Miller manager,
W. T. Shanklin editor and A. G. Greeley as "devil." Under this building,
notes the diarist, was one of the three cellars in the town ; the others were
"The Cave" and at Einstein's. "The Cave" was next door to the Ogle, twenty
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 357
feet below the surface, fifty feet long, ten or twelve feet wide and eight high.
There was said to be another cellar below this one. After the big fire in
1882, the cellar was filled with ashes and never cleaned out.
At Mariposa and I was C. W. De Long's store and across the way on the
south side Sol Wolner's IX L store: between him and Einstein's Edouard
Faure had a barber shop and there he continued until his death. Gus Young
and Chris Arkel made shoes in this locality and John Johnsen in the same
line of business was on Mariposa near J aljout where he was in 1911. On I
Street, A. Vellguth had a barber shop and his wife kept a notion store, and
next door was the Metropolitan Hall, "the graveyard of over half the shows
that struck town," Stockton, Merced, Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield being
the show towns between San Francisco and Los Angeles. John Hicks had
a tin shop near the hall and across the street was Statham's stable and
Tupper & Tupper had a law office. Back of there on the alley Simpson
Bros, had the largest blacksmith shop in the valley.
At Mariposa and I was Masonic hall (it was the I. O. O. F. Building)
and "beneath it good old Judge Baley had a grocery and crockery store."
Across on the north corner was the Donahoo hardware store and Fanning's.
Eastward, Charles Burks had stationery store with H. C. Warner as a jeweler
in the other half. Next door was M. A. Blade's saloon and on the corner
Bernhard and J. W. CofTman, butcher and grocer. George Studer's tailor
shop was next across the alley and W. E. Gilmour merchant was next. On
Mariposa and J stood McCollough's "first famous Fresno residence." The
Bradley block at Mariposa and J was covered by the Wimmer and Fleming
stables running nearly to the alley, where in small brick building Creed &
Edwards had law and Bernard Faymonvillc real estate offices, and ending the
occupancy on the north side to K Street. Around the corner toward Fresno,
Frank McDonald had small furniture store. On the south side of Mariposa,
Greening & Reid, Chaucer & Brown, M. R. Madary, Riggs & Son and Jones
photographer were located. On J toward Tulare on east side was Jones'
flour mill, and beyond and running to the corner Henry's stable and stock
corral. Opposite the street at the corner where the Fresno National Bank
was were the residence of J. W. Ferguson and the Expositor office and back
to Mariposa Mrs. Jones' hotel and the Williams' blacksmith shop on the Grand
Central Hotel lots. The Morrow House stood on the post office site and north
of it Greening's hotel. Most of the dwellings were on Nob Hill taking in the
territory bounded by Tulare and Kern, I and N, also back of the courthouse
and the block north on M. Q Street was considered "out of town" as late as
1883. Zach Hall, W. W. Phillips and William Sutherland built on N between
Mariposa and Tulare in 1882 and Charles W. Wainwright who in 1891 was
deputy school superintendent was out on O Street and always apologized
when ordering a bill of groceries to be sent out so far through Riggs & Son.
Judge Holmes, Cal. Davis and Walter Pickett lived far out on the site
of the high school. The ditch on Fresno Street came into town from back
of the Fresno flouring mills at Fresno and N with "bully swimming hole" be-
yond there. Where the traction company barns were later located was
considered far enough out in 1880 for McCollough and W. H. McKenzie to
locate an eighty acre cemetery. This was the third cemetery. On J and I
to Merced were a few scattered houses and the boys matched horned toads
on the hot sands to see them fight. Jack rabbits and ground squirrels occu-
pied many a yard and many a jack rabbit was chased up Mariposa Street.
As late as 1884 a rattle snake was killed in S. B. Bresee's cellar at M and
Merced. Runaways became so frequent that the farmers used to say that
the teams were untied for the fun of seeing John Stephens flash out from
his corral on speedy horse and run down the runaway.
S. B. Bresee, T. J. Kirk, who was afterward county and also state super-
intendent of schools, James Fanning and George Bernhard lived in a row of
houses on L between ]\Ierced and Tuolumne, and across the way in a house
358 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
there Frank Chance, the base ball player, whose nick name was "Husky,"
was raised. Away out on Stanislaus, Bernard Faymonville lived in the only
brick dwellino: in town, afterward the home of Mrs. C. B. Shaver. Next door
was Mrs. Clifford and that ended L Street. On I or J near San Joaquin were
several houses back of a row of tall poplars and one of these was occupied
by Mrs. Sophie Lawrenson who was a horse trainer and equestrienne and
the Mrs. Zapp of her day.
West of the town on the other side of the track was Chinatown consist-
ing of two blocks facin.s: the railroad on G Street. North of there were a few
residences, George Snell and William Sallinger among them. Back of them
there was nothing but space until you reached the Herminghaus, Jeff James
and W. R. White ranches on the slough of the Kings and the San Joaquin.
The diarist recalls that on a drive to Firebaugh in March 1881 the wild geese
were so thick as to obstruct the right of way and in clearing it with a whip
he killed two of the honkers. One was impressed with the distance to the
country settlements. It was five miles to Nevada and Temperance colonies
with only the Barton vineyard between. On Ventura Avenue after Eisen's,
you passed only two houses to Centerville. Out southeast seven miles to
the T. E. Hughes ranch and two others were passed in travel to Mendocino
school district. South only half a dozen houses were passed to Central Col-
ony and to Washington colony and still new and beyond there was only
Jones' store at Wildflower and a few scattered places in evidence clear to
Kingston on the Kings River.
Selma had three stores, saloon, harness shop and less than twenty houses
in sight. Kingsburg had a saloon, two hotels and a blacksmith shop. Fowler
"was only a chicken coop" owned by J. S. Gentry & Son. Kingston was a
toll bridge, had a store and the big Sutherland Ranch with several others
extending up and down the river. In fact nearly all the settlers in the county
lined the streams or were located near them. Centerville was the largest
town after Fresno, with two stores, two hotels, a livery stable, drug store,
millinery, four or six saloons, two blacksmiths, a flour mill and a meeting
house.
For years property in Fresno within five blocks from ]\Iariposa and J
went begging at $62.50 for inside and $125 for corner lots. They took a
spurt during boom times in 1887, and in 1911 within a radius of five miles
they ranged from $150 to $200 and as high as $300 for a pair.
CHAPTER LX
Fresno's Memorable Boom Was Not an Unlooked for Period
BUT an Awaited One. 1887 Was the Hectic Year of Great-
est Land Speculation With Conditions Seething and Boil-
ing. The Period Also Marked the Transition From Vil-
lage to Town Stage. Recording of Land Transfer Instru-
ments Phenomenal. Many of the Larger Buildings
Erected and Outlying Territorial Additions Made to the
Town. Every One in the Business of Selling Land and
Lots. Speculative Fever Germ in the Air. Abnormal Con-
ditions OF the Day Anticipated the Later Ruling Land
Valuations. Excursions Run to Bring Moneyed Land
Buyers as Colonists.
A chapter in the history of Fresno affecting the city as intimately as
the county while giving both wide publicity covers the year 1887 — memo-
rable one of the boom. As with every boom ever launched followed a col-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 359
lapse, and a flattening- out with dull and panicky times until the reactionary
efTcct with renewed growth and expansion that was suspended for a time.
1887 was the hectic year of wildest speculation — after that the panic and
years before the return to normal and healthy growth and with it in due
sequence the realization of the Fresno of today.
The growth of new western towns is comparable to that of the infant
child. The latter must undergo the ordeal of the mumps, chicken pox, whoop-
ing cough and all the other infantile ills. The town must have the experi-
ences of boom, its panic period with reactionary return to normal state, if it
has primarily tlie natural resources, favorable locations and supporting con-
ditions to maintain itself. Fresno had these experiences and out of them
came forth the Raisin Center, and Imperial Fresno to outdistance its rivals
and be firmly established as the city of the great San Joaquin Valley, veritable
giant among the youn.ger communities of California, admittedly the most
prosperous interior town in the state with no limit in the horizon of possi-
bilities.
The boom did not burst forth in all fullness in the one year of 1887 as
the mushroom in the rain sodden soil after a warming- sunshine. It was not
that conditions of the year 1887 were more especially favorable to the nurture
of and development of a full-fledged boom. Rather be it said that the years
before led up to this looked-for land boom and it having blossomed it attained
its zenith and was full blown that year. Other cities had or were having
their booms. San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, Stockton and Bakersfield
might be mentioned, even San Francisco and the sister trinity of cities in
Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley across the bay. The infantile Board of Trade
of Fresno "resoluted" solemnly but amusingly that the boom was not a spec-
ulative gamble but an evidence of a demand resulting from a well founded
and recognized even though supernormal -rriwth. But it was a boom, the
resolutions to the contrary notwithstrimlinu-. Many of the dreams that were
dreamed during the illusionary period of Spanish air castle building were
realized but it was in the after years after the boom had been dissipated,
and when people were back on earth again, dealing with realities and poten-
tialities rather than with the things imaginary, intangible and speculative.
There was never a time after the introduction of irrigation when the
pioneers of agriculture did not have an abiding faith in the future based
on the wealth of agriculture and farm colonizations. There was absolute
consciousness of its future with the manifest possibilities of the soil after the
first demonstrations of its productiveness. The gambling spirit and the ele-
ment of chance were of course features of that boom. But there was basis
for the inflated land values during the hectic days of the boom. With the
return of normal conditions after the fuller development of irrigation and
agricultural expansion, orchard, vineyard and alfalfa land values went back
to the values that they commanded in the days of boom gambling, illusions
and dreams. That boom was not unlooked for. It burst forth as to time per-
haps as unexpectedly as it passed away. As a fever seizes one and is cast
ofif by the system, so it was with the boom. The year 1893 was the most
acute of the after the boom stringency. It is recalled as the first year of
Cleveland's second administration. Some people drew their own conclusions
from this circumstance independent of any boom consideration.
Fresno was the creature of a railroad in 1872. Six years later the Church
water ditch had been extended to lands surrounding- the new county seat.
In 1884 it was claimed that it had a population of about 4,000. Town incor-
poration was agitated. It was not realized at the time. There was still a
leaven that was wedded to the old ways of doing things. Farm colonization
enterprises organized and developed by outside capital marked the early
years of the 80's. Fresno was advertised as no other locality had been and
people had their eyes opened to this interior "cow county" wonder. The
years rolled on until 1887, when the boom was at its highest pressure. It
360 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was hailed as a matter of fact. The only wonder was that it had not come
before. Fresno awoke at a time when the state was also wide awake with its
own boom that subsided between 1890 and 1893. Fresno's swaddling clothes
in original mile and a quarter square townsite were ready to burst at the
seams and the buttons to fly oft" in 1887. It had outgrown them. It was ready
for the knee breeches.
In that year the business center was still confined to :Mariposa Street
and one or two cross streets and blocks contiguous to the railroad depot.
The business houses were yet small, frame, one and two-story structures,
though a show of permanency in some brick buildings was in evidence. The
courthouse was the largest building in the county. Original structure was
damaged in part by a spectacular fire, later rebuilt and enlarged with the
wings and the larger dome in the present building, the central portion the
original building. Largest other brick building was the three-story Masonic
Temple at I and Tulare Streets, erected by J. G. James but lost in the sus-
pension of the Fresno Savings and Loan Bank of which he was the president.
The Hughes Hotel named for Thomas E. Hughes, one of the first to discern
the future of Fresno and pioneer to accelerate the coming of the boom and
nurture it, was not completed until the year after. Work on its foundations
was commenced in April, 1887.
There were not lacking dwellings sandwiched in between the early bus-
iness structures. The most pretentious out of the commercial district clustered
on K Street between Tulare and Inyo, or in vicinity, scattered here and there
and far and wide apart. O Street as a residential street was considered then
as "out in the country." The J. W. Ferguson residence in the hollow at
Tulare and J was surrounded by an orange orchard. There was also an orange
and fruit tree orchard at Fresno and J to tempt the small boy in fruit time.
The W. H. McKenzie home at K and Calaveras was looked upon as a man-
sion of the day ; that of William Helm at Fresno and R, later remodeled and
now the home of Dr. J- L- Maupin was regarded as a suburban home. At
Tulare and J, on the sand hill there was perched the Silverman cottage home ;
on Nob Hill were centered the residences then and later of Louis Einstein,
Dr. Chester Rowell, the Gundelfingers, Dr. Lewis Leach, City Clerk W. B.
Dennett, H. C. and W. D. Tupper,. George E. Church, AV. D. Grady, A. J.
Thorn and others.
With the money made in land speculations William Faymonville built
a fine home at K and Stanislaus which became the residence of C. S. Pierce,
the lumberman; that of J. C. Herrington, the saddler and city councilman,
was at T and Stanislaus ;" that of County Clerk A. M. Clark at L and Cal-
averas; "that of W. H. Chance at N and Tulare; that of S. N. Griffith, real
estate dealer and general promoter, at Voorman and San Pablo; that of
William Harvey at"S and Kern ; that of H. P. Hedges on Fresno beyond O ;
that of T- C. Hoxie at 2035 Stanislaus; that of M. R. Madary of Madary and
Gurnee," planing mill men, at 503 T: that of M. W. MuUer at K and Stan-
islaus; that of F. K. Prescott at Tulare and T; that of C. G._ Sayle at 1358
J; that of Frank Short at I and San Joaquin, to mention only a few of the
notables, and last but not least the two-story with mansard roof mansion
with the transplanted orange orchard of J. G. Ferguson of the Expositor at
J and San Benito, the largest residence structure in the southern section of
town and long its landmark. This section was also an early day favored
residential quarter of New Englanders among whom may be mentioned the
Chaddock, Colson, Buker, Shaver, Snow and other families.
The boom era and the years that preceded it immediately marked
Fresno's transition from the village to the town stage. The census of 1890
credited county with a population of 31,158 and the city of 10,890. Fresno
was already recognized as the center of the raisin industry of America.
Assessed value of property was $35,525,021. City shipments by rail were
nearly 400,000,000 pounds. The number of farms in county in 1890 was
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 361
2,352. The boom marked the period of the construction of many of the first
notable larger buildings, altered or enlarged later as more modernized struc-
tures that came in with development of the wonderful oil field of Coalinga.
The city's banking institutions date practically from boom times. The clear-
ing house reported a business of $4,800,029 for the first year of operations
for a town of reputed inflated 12,000 population.
The Fresno National was organized in May 1888; the First National
became a national depository in March, 1885, originally incorporated October
1881 as the F'resno County Bank, O. J. Woodward becoming the president
in 1888; the Fresno Loan and Savings Bank incorporated in 1884 erected the
Mariposa and J Street building at a cost of $65,000; the Farmers' National
Bank of California, whose interests are controlled by the firm of Kutner,
Goldstein & Co. at Mariposa and I, organized in March 1882 ; the Bank of
Central California originall}^ a private bank was organized in 1887, and the
People's Savings Bank is and was a state corporation. It and the Fresno
National have been merged into the Bank of Italy.
The Fresno Board of Trade was an organization of 1885, active and
energetic but during the real estate excitement was neglected by its members
most prominent in the large transactions of the day. It would have
disbanded with the tendered resignations of its officials in 1887 but that the
Real Estate Fxchange came to its rescue and there was a reorganization,
followed by another in October 1900. The board merged ultimately with the
newer Chamber of Commerce and the latter had after the boom a rival in the
100,000 Club with an ambition to realize a population of 100,000. That am-
bition has with the years been half realized. A fiasco connected with the
early history of the Chamber was the enterprise of Dr. Leach in the erection
of the corner building at J and Kern for a home. Here was held the first
exhibition of Belgian hares when that fad had the populace by the throat and
when from $200 to $300 was naid for a pedigreed jack rabbit for propagation
purposes. The 100.000 Club had a natural death.
W^oodward's Addition at the southern extremity of town and first terri-
tory to be annexed to it was a creation of the boom year. The growth trend
was manifestly to the north, the east and the south. Farm and suburban
land was cut up and parcelled out into town lots and tacked onto the city
haphazard, making awkward junctions and intersections with the original
site that paralleled the railroad track, which did not run due north and south.
S. N. Grif^th had laid out several additions and others there were by the
score encircling the town. Town lots represented a greater cash value than
when in vineyard or orchard land. The land speculation fever germ was in
the air. Many the willing, nay the anxious ones, to be inoculated. Wood-
ward's Addition for example had little to ofifer the buyer save platted and
tree-lined streets. It was placed on the market IMarch 7, 1887 by O. J. Wood-
ward, Braly & Harvey; 396 lots were offered for sale and in sixty-one days
327 had been disposed of. By June 7th the fifteen blocks of twenty-eight lots
each had changed ownership.
With the boom on once, the business was so great that in April 1887 to
keep with the rush in the recording of instruments, County Recorder Charles
L. Wainwright was allowed two additional deputies by the supervisors.
Possibly having no relation to the boom yet looking to the future, the boring
of wells was in progress in April 1887 for the enlarged city water works at
Fresno and O, the original water sj^stem being taxed to its capacity.
The principal hotels for transients were the Morrow and (William) Fahey's
(later the Ogle), the Grand Central and others of lesser note. The Grand
Central was favored by commercial men and theatrical parties. The tale is
told that Am. S. Hays, now a bank cashier, and Jean F. Lacour divided honor
and responsibilities as clerks and became prematurely bald with the daily
problem of accommodating 250 guests to eighty beds. According to John
A. Slater's first directory of Fresno pulilished for 1890, S. Reinhart was
362 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
proprietor of the Grand ; W. JM. Ward, manager ; Hays, clerk ; and Lacour, pro-
prietor of the Grand Central Laundry, while Fulton G. Berry was rated as
a capitalist with residence at the hotel.
The Morrow, then known as the Southern Pacific, later as the Cowan
and lastly as the Mariposa after removal from the postoffice site, was con-
ducted by Frank A. Rowell & McClure ; the Russ on I near Fresno by John
I. Albin. That spring- C. J- Craycroft, later a city councilman under the
Spinney political regime and a brickmaker, built his Fresno House at M
and Tulare. The building contract for the Hughes for $87,335 was awarded
April 30, 1887, with $15,000 added for the brick foundations. It was not
completed until the following year. There was at one time such a dearth
of accommodations for transient speculators that in December of the boom
year the Board of Trade printed lists of available rooms in private houses
that the stranger need not walk the streets at night, or sleep on billiard
tables, or rest in lobby chairs.
The boom resulted in the erection of hotels and in 1890 are noted as
legacies the Tombs at Merced and J (S. B. Tombs and J. H. Tynan), the-
Pleasant View House at Fresno and J (George Pickford), the Kohler at I
and Inyo (George M. Kohler), the Hughes Block at I and Tulare (I. N.
Patterson), the Pleasanton Hotel at I and Merced ("John I. Albin), the Russ
having been destroyed by fire. There was a score of other less pretentious
lodging- and boarding houses. Not forgotten should be the unique and histor-
ical "Home Sweet Home" on J between Stanislaus and Tuolumne conducted
on a co-operative expense-sharing plan with a salaried chef whose wife was
the housekeeper mothering a lot of homeless, young bachelor bloods. The
Home maintained its distinctive popularity for years, waged an incessant
warfare against Cupid but matrimony in the end closed it out. There were
at the time forty marriageable young clerks in the town to enjoy all the
comforts of this monastic home.
The city was incorporated October 27, 1885. The Expositor newspaper
was a veritable gold mine during the boom times. It not infrequently pub-
lished eight pages daily but the news was scant. It was the day of hand
composition and the time of the printers was monopolized in the more profit-
able setting up of double column, display type advertisements of real estate
brokers, insurance agents and land tract sales, with which the paper was
top heavy. The Republican was in existence as a morning publication but
having a comparatively hard row to hoe in competition with the older estab-
lished Democratic journal with a cinch on the county and city patronage
in a Democratic stronghold politically. The year of 1887 was one of dy-
namics ; the town one great real estate brokerage community ; every one
almost a land seller.
Recalled will be that, in January, Timothy Paige and T. C. AVhite set
out a section of land to raisin grapes and it was stated to have been the largest
raisin vineyard in the world in one body. February 26 the numbering of houses
in Fresno was begun and a system was employed of beginning nowhere on
the outskirts with number one so that in the center of town the number-
ing was up in the 1,000 or 2,000. July 21 the famous Barton vineyard of 640
acres with 200.000 gallons of wines and 320 acres additional, buildings, im-
provements and splendid residence was sold to an English syndicate for a
million dollars, the seller taking one-quarter of the selling price in stock and
to be retained as managing director of the magnificent property that he had
builded. September 4 contract was let for the county jail; on the 17th ground
was broken for the first street car line — the one out to Arlington Heights.
October 20 arrived a carload of immigrants from DeWitt, 111., as located
colonists and settlers. This was only one of many such parties to settle
on tracts previously chosen by advance agents. November 16 the first train
load of Fresno grown and cured raisins was shipped to market in New York.
December 6 the real estate exchange was organized, and on the 28th went
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 363
to the wall George W. Meade & Co., the Fresno Raisin and Fruit Packing
Company, pioneer raisin and dried fruit house. It made assignment as the
result of overloaded boom speculations in land; liabilities $175,000; assets
$350,000. The firm resumed fruit operations during the following season.
Things verily seethed and boiled during the boom. Everyone was in-
oculated with the speculative fever. The buyers were eastern immigrants
and also Californians from San Francisco and other cities, many from the
metropolis being victims of the reckless Comstock mining share speculations
that enriched the new western crop of Bonanza Kings. Every other man
was a real estate broker or insurance agent. Brokers and agents became
bankers, directors or shareholders. Every one that could dabbled in land on
commission and there was a wilderness of curbstone brokers. Their hats
were their offices, the coat pocket their desk, and options their stock in trade.
Even the colonists turned to and made an honest dollar selling land to former
townspeople or neighbors and helped swell the incoming throng of new
settlers and non-resident raisin vineyard buyers.
Money was "turned hand over fist."' The same piece of property was
not infrequently turned over several times in a day but always at an advance.
Brokers bought options from each other and then disposed to a ready buyer
at an advance and yet made commission profits. It was speculation running
riot. The tales told of the spurts of property valuations were scandalous. As
scandalous were population claims for the city, which in a few months went
to 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000, figures that no one could verify but which did not
deter setting 100,000 as a goal to be ultimately attained so wildly optimistic
were some. "Figures of real estate transactions have their present day interest
to emphasize the magnitude of boom day dealings.
On April 4, 1887, Braly & Harvey had sold twenty-six unimproved tracts
in the new Washington Irrigated Colony to locate a band of Texan immi-
grants. April 5 it was reported that on the dav before thirty-five deeds were
recorded representing transactions aggregating $96,607.50, the sales with
deeds naming nominal consideration exceeding $100,000, "the biggest day
yet" with the boast "that the boom hasn"t exactly flattened out yet." This
was in the summer season, the heated period in the valley when business is
at ebb and commercial activities, realty transfers, construction work and
every pursuit are at the minimum. The figures quoted are the more interest-
ing in proof of the abnormal conditions in time anticipated land values and
the riotous speculative spirit of the times.
For the first three days of the week of April 7 real estate worth $141,778
changed ownership. "How's that for high?" was the delirious boast. The
Expositor featured these real estate records frequently. The following day
the records totalled $77,540 or $219,318 for four days of the week. "And thus
the boom is flattening out," was the boastful jest. April 9 report was of ninety
deeds for the week and valuation stated to have been $231,339. Saturday
April 16 report was of eighty deeds for the week with expressed consideration
of $90,416.90, and thirteen nominal consideration deeds with absolutely known
consideration exceeding $100,000, making a total for the week of over $200,-
000. April 22 there were sixty deeds with expressed consideration of $170,421
and in fact of over $195,000.' For the April 29 week 200 deeds represented
$147,707.50 in property valuation changes and the recorder reported for the
month 375 deeds with stated consideration of $789,089 and actual trans-
actions totalling over a million. May 7 week ninety-one deeds or $124,276.40
and nineteen others with probable valuations of $100,000 additional. May 16
week seventy-five deeds represented $95,918 and twenty-two others $200,000
additional. May 23 were forty-three deeds with $52,905 and as much more
represented by deeds naming nominal considerations. In June month 302
deeds were recorded and fifty-two June 25 representing $141,235 with four-
teen nominals swelling the total to estimated $200,000.
364 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Figures such as these could be multipHed. Later in the year the regu-
larity of the publication of these returns was interrupted and the publicity
was only periodical — presumably on the occasion of big totals — the boom
was flattening. December 17 week 155 deeds represented stated consideration
of $355,119 and the actual total probably $500,000. December 21 rolled up
twenty-one deeds or $42,450. For the times in the first experience with a
real estate boom, these total sales for a week or a group of days were un-
doubtedly extraordinary. But it is to smile to compare them with the pres-
ent day and especially the records during the first half year of 1919 when a
single transaction involved a third, a half and even more than the total of a
day of the boom period, or when a day's sales exceeded the consideration
that passed in the changes of ownership of farm and vineyard property for a
week in the wild days of the boom.
At the height of the boom, railroad excursion trains were run by enter-
prising colony and land selling agents of Fresno and San Francisco. At
first the special reduction in fare was to eleven dollars and in 1887 to seven
dollars good for May 18-22. Bands accompanied the excursions, teams con-
veyed the visitors to the land and as a further hospitality lunches were served
on' the ground. The May seven dollar excursion brought 133 excursionists
as telegraphed from the Lathrop junction point.
Some of the large transactions will interest the present day land buyers
that regard productive raisin grape land as valued high at $600 to $1,000 an
acre. May 27, 1887, the 160-acre Phelps vineyard adjoining the Butler was
sold to A. B. Butler for $48,000. Two years before Phelps had bought it for
$26,000. Notable wine grape vineyard sale was that of the before mentioned
Barton: 640 acres were improved and 320 unimproved; sale was for £95,-
000 cash and £90,000 in stock, more than $925,000 or $1,000 an acre, not
an unusual selling price these days although a high buying one. Alexander
Gordon, who came to Fresno from San Joaquin in 1874 and with W. C. Miller
was for seventeen years in the sheep business with flocks of 10,000 to 12,000
sheep, started in 1888 a 145 acre vineyard bought from T. E. Hughes and
y. H. Hamilton, adjacent to the Butler, improved it with residence and build-
ings and in 1890 was offered $600 an acre. In 1887 the M. J. Donahoo Build-
ing at K and Mariposa was sold to him for $30,000. In a few days after,
Gordon sold to S. N. Griffith and R. B. Johnson at an advance of $5,000.
In 1888 structure was demolished by fire and Griffith and Johnson re-
erected it as the Temple Bar block as it was before it passed into the owner-
ship of O. J. Woodward who made extensive interior improvements.
Mr. Gordon was long the land appraiser for the Sacramento Bank.
He was the owner and projector of the Caledonia Colony and placed it on
the market in twenty-acre tracts. He owned a thousand acres of land near
the city, besides land in the county improved and unimproved. He and I.
Manasse of Madera built the Kohler House on I Street and they were asso-
ciated in twelve other houses and properties in Fresno, besides a business
block with 150 foot frontage in Madera. Gordon came to California in De-
cember 1869 forty dollars in debt, his first employment was at twenty-five
dollars a month and after the boom he was rated at $150,000.
J. M. Braly sold his forty-three-acre farm to James Brodie, late from
Honolulu, for $20,000 before moving to San Diego to participate in the boom
there. D. W. Parkhurst for whom was named the addition to town south
of Ventura Avenue sold in four days to local and to Los Angeles buyers
$16,000 worth of the newly marketed lots. Fulton G. Berry sold $186,000 in
county and city real estate in five days. Berry came to Fresno practically a
ruined man as the result of mining stock gambling but he had the financial
backing in Ex-County Clerk Thomas H. Reynolds, Ex-Assessor Alexander W.
Badlam and of a brother-in-law Ex-Supervisor E. N. Torrey. all of San Fran-
cisco, well to do men and influential in politics. T. C. White, one of the first
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 365
to make a commercial success of the drying of raisins, bought a section of
land for $12,000 and disposed of it at an advance of $8,000 in sixty days; 160
acres bought near Selma for $3,500 were parted with in less than two months
for $6,400. In January 1888 lots in Arlington Heights suburb were sold to the
amount of $160,000 worth.
The record could be multiplied if need be. Sufficient shown that there
was a basis of verity in the assertion that the period was not a boom and a
bubble without other foundation and reason than a lust for gambling but a
real growth in the discarding of the village swaddling garments and that
Fresno had the goods to deliver, even though the method of placing them
on the market was theatrical and ultra sensational. Thomas E. Hughes was
one of the foremost to start and nurture the boom, coming to Fresno with
no capital other than assurance, as did M. Theo. Kearney, but with good
recommendations as to business capacities, despite previous reverses. The
firm of Hughes & Sons — James E. and William AI. — introduced the practice
of railroad excursions of investors, carrying much of the financial burden.
It may be truly said of Mr. Hughes in the words of the toast of the late
Fulton G. Berry at a banquet at the Hughes Hotel December 4, 1888, in
honor of O. J. Woodward : " 'Twas Thomas E. Hughes who cleared the
stumps, the brush, the stones and weeds away and paved the way for all
of us to travel."
Robert Barton was also a factor of the day. He died at the age of fifty-
one in 1891. He was German born of a noble Polish family, was lirought
to America at the age of eleven by an uncle and coming west when a young
man and taking up mining and mine promotion work acquired a fortune
in the Comstock days in Nevada and cast his lot in Fresno in 1881. He had
anglicized his name. An incident recalling the artistic temperament of this
pioneer of Fresno is the one that his youngest son, Leland, was baptised in
Yosemite Valley in the pool of Bridal Veil Falls.
The Barton vineyard was showplace par excellence. It had a national
reputation. It was the subject of a series of articles in Harper's Magazine.
It was the guest house of every European viticultural expert investigating
California's wine industry. Not in these respects alone did Barton make
Fresno's name known, but also in association with the best in theatricals.
This was through the Barton Opera House at the corner of Fresno and
J Streets with its companion Armory Hall building. Theater was erected in
1890. It was the boast of the city and one of the best equipped on the Pa-
cific Coast with a seating capacity of 1,500.
At this theater during its quarter of a century career appeared the fore-
most dramatic, operatic and theatrical attractions and Fresno achieved the
reputation of one of the most appreciative theatrical towns in the California
circuit. C. M. Pyke of the Pyke Opera Company was the first manager suc-
ceeded by Robert G. Barton who was the youngest theatrical manager in the
land. He continued in the management until the last. The estate eventually
lost the property. It passed into the hands of L. L. Cory, attorney at law
and large city property owner, who has leased the remodeled theater to a
vaudeville circuit and dismantled the Armory Hall building for a modern
office structure.
The Barton replaced the two first showhouses of Fresno prior to which
the Magnolia and Metropolitan halls on H and I Streets accommodated the
travelling companies that visited this territory. Besides there were variety
halls which no self-respecting woman or man would care to visit and have
it known. The first theater was the (W. D.) Grady opera house on the east
side of I Street, seventy-five feet from Mariposa, with fifty foot frontage, two
stories in height. It passed into the hands of J. D. Fiske, who died a violent
death, was known as the Fiske opera house and afterward as the Fresno
opera house ; falling into neglect was turned in part into a beer hall varieties
(The Fountain), in its last days was occupied by the Salvation Army then in
366 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
its infancy, declared officially a nuisance to be condemned as an unsafe build-
ing, bought by Kutner, Goldstein & Co. and converted into a store building.
This theater was supplanted by Armory Hall, known also as Riggs'
theater, Charles T. Riggs manager. The wooden structure of one story was
erected by a corporation of members of the two military companies of the
city. Neither it nor the Grady was commensurate with the demands of the
growing community, yet the best theatrical companies appeared in
them. The Riggs ended its career as the Armory stables until dismantled
to clear site for the reinforced concrete E. Gottschalk & Co. Department Store.
The Grady was destroyed by fire a few years ago, the ruins torn down and
thus another landmark was obliterated.
A time came when even excursions were no longer necessary adjuncts to
entice land buyers to Fresno. It is the record that in November, 1887, 1.100
deeds were filed with the recorder. The last of the seventy lots of the Central
Pacific's original townsite holdings were bought by Attorney Jefiferson Guy
Rhodes in August of that year. Such an appetite for land buying had been
stimulated that the supply was not equal for a time to the demand. Then
came subdivisions of town adjoining acreage property in additions and in
connection with one of these, Prather's Addition named for a pioneer dentist,
a lottery scheme was even exploited to stimulate sales of lots. Some of these
additions were failures financially because of locations or overstocking of the
market and the lots reverted to acreage property. Most of the additions
proved profitable ventures and all have been annexed to the city.
It is not to be denied that the boom years were the times of town growth
and development. They were the years for the granting (stimulated by the
boom) of franchises of public utilities. Many of these were forfeited, having
been speculations to hold advantageous routes for street railroad lines.
In luly, 1886, was granted the first franchise for an electric light and power
company : in 1887 of six street railroad franchises, two forfeited and one
repealed ; besides in April, 1887, the Fresno \A'ater Company and the West-
ern Electric : in ]\Iay. George H. and Herman C. Eggers for a telephone were
franchised ; in 1888 half a dozen more franchises for street railroad lines were
granted and also forfeited, and so on not overlooking the May, 1891. franchise
for the San Joaquin Valley Railroad Company — the Pollasky road popularly
called — obtained after a bamboozlement of the people.
Principal events of the year 1889 following the hectic boom were these :
January 2 — Ahrens fire engine tested and accepted, being the city's first
owned piece of fire fighting apparatus.
January 16 — Foundations laid for the City Hall on I Street, lower floor
occupied as' a fire engine house and upper as sleeping quarters for the firemen
and as city offices.
Tanuarv 25 — First cars run on the Tulare Street car line, the first in
the county.
February 2 — Death of William Faymonville, pioneer of the county.
February 16 — Organization of the Fresno Clearing House Association.
March 5— Margherita vineyard fire; loss $200,000.
March 20 — Thirty-one thousand dollars subscribed for the Adventists'
Church at Mariposa and O, patterned after the Metropolitan Temple in San
Francisco and one-quarter its size.
March 23 — Sale of 200 lots in Butler east of town on projected rail-
road. Town never passed the map stage.
March 24 — Sale of county hospital lots at Tulare and O for $16,345.
June 2 — Jollification over the supreme court's decision upholding the
Wright irrigation law.
jm-ie 9 — Fire south of the Masonic temple covering three blocks ; loss
$130,000.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 367
August 12 — Most disastrous fire for years at one A. M. starting back
of the Donahoo building at jMariposa and K, covering two blocks; loss
$160,000.
August 15 — Popular invitation to the rifif-raff to march out of town on
account of the incendiary fires.
With the close of 1888, M. Theo. Kearney had blossomed out as a land
promoter and his Fruit Vale Estate was on the market. Pictorial publicity
was given his ambitious project of a costly estate residence, to have been
a replica of the Chateau de Chenonceaux near Tours, France, most artistic
existing specimen of the 15th and 16th centuries architecture. Kearney never
progressed farther with his plan than to complete the residence wing of
the chateau and the porte cochere to the grounds.
The death December 5, 1888, at Stockton, Cal., from Bright's disease
at the age of si.xty-three of J- B. Sweem is worthy the recalling. He had been
a resident of the county in 1855, settling on the Kings River near Center-
ville and operated the first flour and grist mill in the county. The tale was
that the dam for the race supplying mill with operative power broke one
day and flooded the adjacent territory. The result was springing up of
vegetation and germination of grass seeds with the receding of the flood
water. The demonstration led to the digging of a ditch to carry water from
the river to irrigate his grain land. It was the first irrigation ditch in the
county. Later it was sold to M. J. Church and associates — Church "The
Father of Irrigation." The canal was the outgrowth and with irrigation
agriculture in small farms became the paramount industry and the basis
of Fresno's 'wealth.
CHAPTER LXI
Public School Department of Fresno County. It ls Clcser to
THE Home and the Family Than Any Other Governmental
Branch. Moreover it is a Truly Democratic Institution.
One of the Largest in the State. The Normal Established
a State Interior Educational Center. Public Activities
OF the Children. Schools the Pride of a Cosmopolitan
Citizenship. Their Growth Was From a Small Beginning.
Statistics in Proof of the Scope of the County's Teaching
AND Americanizing of the Youth.
No governmental branch of state, county, city or district is in closer
touch with the home and the family than the public school department.
It is the most democratic institution of the republic. During the school age
minority of the child, the teacher has the direction of the child as proxy
of the parent. As prescribed by law in this state, the duties of the superin-
tendent as the head of the department are so many and varied that they
"seem at times to spread him out pretty thin." The district school trustee
is the last connecting link between him and the home through the teacher.
The superintendent is secretary of the county board of education : he is
its executive officer ; he is the distributor of the text books ; he apportions
the school funds : he sends out the blanks and reports ; keeps the records and
statistics and visits the schools under his jurisdiction. Without assistants,
the work imposed on him could not be done at all. He is the official and
practical head of the schools and through him every activity and new move-
ment is launched.
The official that deals in such familiar way with the public direct cannot
possibly "carry out all these things in exact, cast-iron, business channels,
cutting off people with a word and working for efficiency only." A kindly
368 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
human element and a necessity for counsel and helpfulness are involved
that must be reckoned with. These conditions and necessities every county
superintendent meets with.
And above all, it is a democratic institution, closer to the people than
any other of the government. This feature was emphasized in a recent bien-
nial report of the state superintendent of public instruction in the answer
to the question. Can a district trustee hold office, if he can neither read
nor write the Eng-lish language?
The answer was that he can, because there is nothing in the law to
prevent it and because the only qualification of the law in this state is that
he shall be a citizen, a resident of the district and shall have received a
majority of the votes at the district election for school trustee. "Such is the
freedom of our glorious country," it was remarked, adding that the above is
also true in the selection of a county, and for that matter, of a city school
superintendent. No certification is prescribed. It is only necessary to secure
the popular voice. "Strange as it may seem," the further comment was that
"the matter is never abused. The trustee may be a very valuable one who
knows nothing of letters. The superintendent is from the school teaching
class. The freedom is not abused."
The public school department is one of the boasts of the citizenry of
California. It is one of the big things of the state government in the Ameri-
canization of the boy and girl, a feature that received more attention than
ever before as the result of the war in Europe in which the United States of
America proved the deciding factor. California expended for all school pur-
poses in 1916 the great total of $36,927,109.0.S as against $35,379,946.68 in
1915, and of the first named sum the kindergartens expended one-half mil-
lion, the elementary as the backbone of the school system twentv-one and
one-half millions, the high ten millions, and the other institutions one and
one-half millions. For the biennial, state school funds apportioned to the
fifty-eight counties totaled $11,386,957.03 for the elementary and $1,524,752.91
for the high — roughly five and one-half millions a year for the first and
three-quarters of a million for the second.
Fresno County has one of the largest public school departments in the
state, yet a goodly portion of its territory is mountainous, and a no incon-
siderable area of it sparsely inhabited or not at all. At the close of 1916
it had 145 elementary school districts, exceeded in number only by Los
Angeles with 156. It had 541 teachers, exceeded only by Los Angeles, Ala-
meda and San Francisco as counties with more dense populations. Fresno's
elementary graduates in 1916 were 18,344, Alameda, Los Angeles and San
Francisco exceeding it in point of number. Fresno's apportionment of state
funds for 1916 was $257,154.13 ; total receipts $1,044,017.95. Its expenditures
for all purposes were for the vear $826,268.15; total valuation of property
$1,807,128; its total bonded indebtedness $968,136. The daily average at-
tendance was 15.840 in 1916 as against 15,378 in 1915 with enrollment in
elementary schools of 18,344 and 17,977 for the respective years.
Fresno City's schools are under the direction of an elective city board
of education and an appointed city superintendent, though of course under
the general co-ordination of the county department. They have striven to
keep pace with the growth of the city in population, but the latter has out-
run them in the race. Despite the several voted bond issues for new or en-
larged school building facilities, the accommodations have not met the en-
rollments at the school term openings.
Fresno was made an educational center when the state legislature se-
lected it as the place for the new state normal school. This educational
institution cost $150,000. The bill for the necessary appropriation was intro-
duced at the 1910 legislative session, but on account of a shortage of funds
an allowance of only $10,000 was made for maintenance in temporary quar-
ters for the succeeding two years. The regular appropriation to defray the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 369
cost of buildings was provided at the succeeding session. The normal school
in Fresno is the only one in the valley- When students whose homes were
in the valley of which Fresno is the center desired to continue their studies
through a normal school they were compelled to go to other portions of
the state. The train service from Fresno to valley points enables the student
to spend the Sunday and holidays at home, and for this reason if none other
the Fresno school will have an advantage over the others at more distant
points in the matter of securing attendance. The central interior has become
too important to he longer ignored in the affairs of the state. The site for
the normal was donated by Fresno people and surrounding the college build-
ings a new residential suburb has sprung up, where a few years ago there
were vineyards.
The schools of the county and the city fill an important part in the
social and public life of the communities imder the direction of the earnest
and inspirational work of the teachers. It might be asked, where would
have been the magnificent Raisin Day pageants but for the enthusiastic
cooperation of the schools? What of the board of health's clean-up and
fly-swatting campaigns? Where today would be the city playgrounds de-
partment with all its varied activities? What would have become of that
bond issue election to acquire city playgrounds but for the school children's
twelfth-hour street parade as the culminating demonstration of a campaign
resulting in practically unanimous carrying of that bond issue? Where
would be the school grounds and city beautifying projects, the school and
war times gardens, the over-the-top suliscriptions to the Liberty bonds, the
sale of government war and thrift stamps and all the other varied patriotic
services by the boys and girls that ha\e been given by the youth of Fresno
under the inspiration of teachers and the spirit of the times, the while
Americanizing all these white, yellow and black cosmopolite and impres-
sionable children of the public schools? There is not another such a "melt-
ing pot" as the American public school. It is the very foundation stone of
American democracv.
Is the enthusiasm of the child not overtaxed? Superintendent of Public
Instruction Edward Hyatt alluded to this feature in the following paragraph
in his 1916 report :
"Here comes in the flag lady to urge that we organize at once a cam-
paign to put a flag in every school house ; and a committee from a society
upon the Stanislaus to promote humane education in the schools ; and some
people who want to know the extent to which the anti-fraternity law is en-
forced ; and a delegation to call attention to the necessity for the metric
system, or simplified spelling in the schools of the state; and a number of
ladies to urge medical inspection for the public schools ; and a representative
of the Thrift Organization urging that his work be taken up ; and some good
citizens pleading for a clean-up day, or ripe olive day, or water conservation
day, or bird day, or mothers' day, or honest measure day, or country school
day, or old home day, until the wonder is whether any day is left for an
ordinary school day."
The school department is a progressive department. One of its activities
is the distribution of state textbooks, a work that is in "exceedingly satis-
factory condition" with books costing the state much less than had been
expected. When the law was passed, the estimate was that half a million
would be necessary to introduce the system and $200,000 annually thereafter.
Actual necessities demanded only one-half of these sums. There are over
400,000 children in the schools and the cost of their text books is a little
more than $100,000 a year, an average cost of twenty-five cents per year
per child, or as reported to the governor "less than that of six cigars, less
than six glasses of beer, less than six daily papers, less than six movie
shows." The free distribution amounts to about half a million books a year
to somewhat less than half a million of children. The sales of books are
370 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
insignificant, only about $6,000 a year, sold at cost to dealers, schools and
individuals and used chiefly to supply private schools.
During the 1914-16 biennial the period of the school term has decreased.
The number of schools maintaining 160 days or less has risen from 482 in
1915 to 1,018 in 1916, while those maintaining 200 days or more have fallen
from 252 to twenty, an average loss for every child of six days in the state.
The reason for this is in the reduction of school money when the poll tax
was abolished in 1914. There was $22,592.93 less for teachers' pay in 1916
than in 1915.
Another feature of the public schools is an unusual growth in the
evening or night school, due to the agitation for the education of the adult
foreigner. The average cost per pupil in high school has fallen from eighty-
seven dollars and nineteen cents in 1915 tO seventy-six dollars and seventy-
two cents in 1916, due to the increase of the evening schools which are
cheaper and adding their enrollment to the whole for the state reduce the
average cost for all. Even this decreased high school education cost is high
compared with the common schools where the average cost per pupil is
thirty-eight dollars and four cents, only half that of the high school figure.
The latter is twice as expensive because the studies are so differentiated
that small classes are the result and these cost as much as the large ones,
raising the per capita cost in small high schools while high school teachers
cost more than those of the elementary grades.
At the close of the biennium there were 17,840 teachers employed in the
state. In the elementary the proportion of women to men was still growing
being about ten to one; in the high school one and one-half to one, for 2,389
women to 1.610 men. There is, however, the gratifying fact that the state's
schools have on the whole been growing. Property valuation of the ele-
mentary schools increased for the two years from fifty-five and one-half
millions to fifty-eight and one-half millions: and in the high schools from
twentv-three to twentv-six millions. Average dailv attendance has risen from
331,000 to 341,000; enrollment from 415.792 to '423.562. Expenditures for
the elementary schools have increased less than $1,000 for the state, while
the high schools with only one-fourth as many children increased notably
much more.
A remarkable showing covering the years from 1907-16 is the one that
the state enrollment in the elementaries has increased forty-three percent,
for boys and forty and six-tenths for girls, while the graduation has
increased 151 percent, for boys and ninefy-two and four-tenths for girls.
In years gone by, the boys dropped out of school in the fifth and sixth
grades. The schools are not holding them all now but a creditable showing is
made. High schools show no such graduation gains over enrollment as the
night schools have thousands who attend only from day to day for certain
work. Still a gain of 304,3 percent, in boy enrollment and 204 of girls with
243.7 gain for boy and 133.2 for girl graduates would show that tlie schools
are holding the boys and meeting the wants of the people.
Fresno's school system has grown from small beginnings. The state's
system dates from 1852. When Fresno County was organized April 18,
1856, out of territorial chunks of old Mariposa, Merced and Tulare, the
population was a sparse one, there w^as a lack of women, of homes and of
children. No wonder that no attention was paid to schools. It is an ancient
tale that when the Mariposa Gazette was started there was not a woman
in the town and that when not long after several families did move in
the editor complained in his paper of the wailing of the children. Another
ancient tale of the mining days is the one that when the miners learned
there was a woman in town all suspended work and trudged the road four
miles to meet her, several arches were erected over the highway and an
impromptu band led the procession into town to the accompaniment of
cheers, huzzahs and the waving of hats, and the bars did a land office busi-
DRV CREEK ACADEMY SCHCJOL HOCSE IX 1872
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HALF OF FIRST COUNTY OFFICE BUILDKNG WHICH WAS HENRY'S
HOTEL AT MILLERTON
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 371
ness in celebration of the event, the town swarming with miners from the
hills for a glimpse of the woman and to take part in the celebration.
That first woman was a married one at that, the tale has it, and accord-
ing to tradition she started a pastry business and sold pies at five dollars
per pie. Some complained of the pies (dried apples never did make good
apple pie), but she was independent and retorted that if they did not like
her pies they needn't buy them and she wasn't particular whether she sold
pies at five dollars anyway. That silenced the criticism concerning the pies.
The first school superintendent in Fresno County was the late E. C.
Winchell, a lawyer. A clever and well-equipped man mentally but so timid
in manner and so retiring in ways as if lacking to assert his own powers
that this timidity shadowed his unquestioned abilities. His appointment by
the supervisors dates from February, 1860, when Scottsburg, Millerton and
Kingston were organized as the first districts. Ten years later there were
twenty in the county. The first school in the county was the one taught in
the old Fort Miller barracks by Mrs. J- M. Shannon, who received seventy-
five dollars a month, recorded an attendance of fifteen and maintained a three
months' session. There were other such schools in some of the populous
nooks in the county taught by young women to earn "pin money" while
making no pretense as teachers. The schools were little more than kinder-
garten gatherings, the children taught the A B C's of " 'ritin', readin' and
'rithmetic," and the mothers happy in the thought that when at school they
were for the moment relieved of the care of the youngsters with the knowl-
edge that while under the eye of the teacher they were at least also out
of mischief.
First schools were supported by subscription and rate bill and as late
as 1865 the amount thus raised was $1,120 and often with dif^culty. The
first school in Fresno City was one of these private kindergartens taught by
R. H. Bramlet and gathered on the upper floor of a rented shack located
about the center of the block at one corner of which stands today the Hughes
Hotel. The railroad donated in 1874 eight lots on Tulare Street for school
purposes, site covered in part today by the Elks' lodge building. Here a
two-room school house was erected at a cost of $2,669 and opened January
3, 1875, with Mr. Bramlet as the principal. In 1879 was erected on pur-
chased lots on Fresno Street, opposite the flour mills, a larger building at
cost of $7,500 with additional $10,500 for equipment. And such was the be-
ginning of the city school department, and R. H. Bramlet the father of the
institution. Mrs. Mary J. Hoxie, nee McKenzie, and a graduate of the State
Normal School at San Jose, taught the first private school in the city, of fif-
teen pupils. School was located in a room over the Booker store. This was
in 1874, school maintained by public subscription to demonstrate the need for
the apportionment of public money for schooling and the organization of a
district.
Nor should be forgotten among the early institutions the select board-
ing school for girls of Mrs. Winchell in Winchell's Gulch, one-half mile from
the old fort. This was quite a fashionable school for the day. Nor the
academy at Academy on Dry Creek, erected in 1874 by a $50,000 capitalized
corporation of members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. As a
private institution it did not live long. It was too far in advance of the
times. The first teacher was the late J. D. Collins, one of the most univer-
sally beloved and respected of pioneers who came to Fresno after the war.
Other teachers of note taught here and the academy was rated as one of
the best in the county. The. corporation has long gone out of existence but
the academy building has always been used for the purpose for which it
was erected. That building was only a 36.\54 affair with verandah on two
sides, but at the time was described "as the handsomest building in the
county."
372 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The splendid school system of the county is an outgrowth of humblest
beginnings as statistics emphasize. As late as 1882 there was not a high
school in the county. The county superintendent started at a $250 annual
salary. This was doubled in 1868 when there were 10 teachers and 488
census children, with 193 of them enrolled. The first teachers' institute was
one of three days held at Centerville December 7, 1870. with the fifteen
teachers attending and the session one of drills rather than of talks an'd
addresses. The next was held at Millerton in February, 1872, the third in
December, 1872, at Fresno with fourteen of the twenty-three teachers in
attendance and visited by State Superintendent Henry N. Bolander, who
will be recalled as botanical expert who defaulted in office and became a
fugitive to Guatemala or some other central or southern American republic.
Fresno City had another institute November 10, 1875, when Prof. W. A.
Sanders was the star attraction as a lecturer on grammar.
It was at this time that the county superintendent reported that "Our
needs are beyond the powers of legislation. We want a more dense popula-
tion and that composed of persons able to appreciate the benefits resulting
from schools. Six years ago, we had thirteen districts ; now we have thirty-
six. Our teachers are better qualified, the schools larger and the attendance
better. The people are building better houses and as soon as they are able
to do so furnish them with reasonably good furniture."
The following comparative statistics will give comprehensive bird's eye
view of the scope of the public school department of the county of Fresno:
KINDERGARTEN
Year: 1915 1916
\^'omen teachers 3 " 3
Enrollment 170 184
Dailv attendance 96 99
Schools days 188 171
Receipts $2,885.15 $3,813.40
Expenditures $2,454,54 $2,479.86
Property valuation $3,725.00 $3,739.00
ELEMENTARY
Year: 1915 1916
Districts 144 144
Teachers allowed on attendance 506 529
Actually employed (467 women) 526 (482 women) 541
Enrollment of boys 9,400 9,529
Enrollment of girls 8,577 8,815
Total 17,977 18,344
Graduates (440 girls) 946 (558 girls) 1,026
Average attendance 15.378 15,840
School days 172 161
State funds $248,370.66 $257,154.13
Total receipts $1,180,598.70 $1,044,017.95
Expenditures $874,143.68 $826,268.15
Property valuation $1,756,590.00 $1,807,128.00
County tax rate $.25 $.32
Bonded indebtedness $993,023.00 $968,136.00
Average interest rate $.055 $.0586
Maintenance tax rate '$.43 $.194
Building tax rate $.04 $.236
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
373
HIGH SCHOOLS
Year: 1915 1916
Teachers (66 women) 124 (54 women) 100
Special (12 women) 31
Total, 1916 131
Regular Certificates (26 special) 98 (30 special) 101
Enrollment (1,197 girls) 2,257 (1,273 girls) 2,458
Post graduates 107
Graduates (183 girls) 300 (171 girls) 300
Daily attendance 1,905 2.015
State funds $29,311.44 $32,522.61
Total receipts $431,882.00 $483,888.41
Expenditures $324,318.80 $327,824.83
Property valuation $588,705.00 $681,222.00
Maintenance tax rate $.45 $.344
Building tax rate $.20 .^...-
County tax rate $•1-'^
Bonded indebtedness $143,000.00 $180,500.00
Average interest rate $.0525 $.053
MISCELLANEOUS
County superintendent's office $9,947.73
County Board of Education $1,846.00
City superintendent's office $7,940.00
FRESNO STATE NORMAL
Year: 1915 1916
Teachers 26 19
Men 10 , 9
Women 16 10
Pupils 288 343
Bovs 15 15
Girls 273 328
In training school 284 379
Bovs 155 196
Girls .- 129 183
State funds $414,909.50 $362,335.00
Tuition - $1,959.32 $1,780.75
Total receipts $427,328.06 $369,506.32
Expenditures :
Teachers $32,638.99 $47,943.79
Labor and supplies $6,156.23 $5,348.88
Sites, buildings, etc $43,693.03 $142,192.45
Books and apparatus $1,245.93 $989.18
Total $83,734.18 $196,474.30
Balance $343,593.88 $173,032.02
Area of site in acres 25 25
Ground valuation $37,000.00
Buildings valuation $11,000.00 $370,000.00
Furnitu're valuation $4,735.00 $3,500.00
Library $1,800.00 $5,000.00
Apparatus $2,939.00 $6,000.00
Total valuation $57,400.00 $422,000.00
Library books 1,697 2,875
Graduates (81 girls) .-. 89 (110 girls) 111
Since organization (411 girls) 438
374 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The Kearney vineyard income to the state university from Fresno was
$40,000 for the year 1916.
The school income and expense increase in the county has been remark-
able according to the following comparative figures:
ELEMENTARY
1907-08 1917-18
Total income $254,441.20 $755,553.37
An advance of 198%.
Total expense $216,471.94 $826,073.06
-An advance of 281%.
HIGH SCHOOLS
Total income $70,827.91 $481,742.22
An advance of 580%.
Total expense $70,767.97 $497,627.78
An advance of 600%.
As regards the high schools, the comparison shows that the expense is
forty-five percent, lower than the increase of income. That of the elementary
increased eighty-three percent, over the income.
CHAPTER LXII
A Chapter the Darkest in the History of the County. Thirty-
nine Years Ago a Reviewer Observed that the Sickening
Atrocities in Deeds of Blood and Crime Marked for All
Time Black Stains Upon the Record. His Fervent Hope
Not Realized that Twenty-eight Years Thereafter There
Would be Less of Taking Life and Violence to Relate
Than Was Interwoven in the Quarter of a Century His-
tory Before. Record of the County is of Three Death
Sentences Pronounced and of Only One Legal Execution
in Sixty-three Years.
An historical review of the early times in Fresno County was published
in a holiday number of the Expositor on New Year's day of 1879. It was
up to that time the most comprehensive one printed and since the most
quoted because of its authenticity, written as it was by one who treated of
personal knowledge and recollections, inclined though he was to be biased
because of that personal participation in the events of the times recorded.
That review, a sketchy efl^ort, of no literary merit, treats incidentally of the
lawlessness of the times, and declares that "numerous other murders and
homicides" than those enumerated "were committed in different parts of
the county" up to the period of writing, nearly all of them, he said, still
fresh in the minds of citizens. Writing thirty-nine years ago of the early
deeds of violence and crime, he employed the following words as pertinent
then as they were for years after:
"Deeds of blood and violence were committed at lower and upper King's
River, at the San Joaquin River near Temperance Flat, at Firebaugh's, at
Buchanan, on the road leading from Crane Valley to Millerton, at or near
the Tollhouse, at McKeown's old store on the Fresno, at Texas Flats, at
Fresno Flats, and in fact human life has been sacrificed in almost every
neighborhood in the county where a whisky mill has been established. . . .
But we will turn aside from the nauseating spectacle ; a sufficient number of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 375
murders and deeds of violence has already been mentioned to demonstrate
the lawlessness which has prevailed heretofore, and the laxity and almost
criminal indifference with which the law was formerly administered by
juries; it is not necessary here to go into further detail of the sickening
atrocities which were committed and which appear today and for all time
to come as black stains upon the record of the county.
"And if perhaps," said this writer in conclusion, "twenty-eight years
hence some one should see fit to continue the 'Reminiscences of Fresno
County' it is to be fervently hoped that the recital will contain less crime and
deeds of blood and violence than is interwoven in the history of our county
for the twenty-eight years last past."
Some of these recalled deeds of blood were of a time before organization
of Fresno County out of Mariposa with the district seat of justice at Mari-
posa and the Fresno territory a remote corner of it. The early treatment of
the Indian was characteristic of the cruel roughness of the times. The aborig-
ine had apparently no rights that the white man seriously respected. He
was given little consideration as a human being. Force, crueltv and taking
advantage of his ignorance characterized the general dealings with him. This
was all the more remarkable, when it is recalled how many of the first
whites, in the absence of women of their own race, readily took up relations
with the young squaws and profited materially thereby. The California
Indian, although classed low in the scale of humanity, was at least racially
docile and amenable to kindness and fair treatment. The squaws were in-
variably loyal to their white protectors. When by way of reprisal according
to his view point, the Indian rebelled against the barbarity and cruelty of
the white man. there was a hue and cry, an excited round up and the Indian
fighting in self defense when pursued was massacred and done for by superior
armed force.
At this late day, it were vain to recall "the deeds of blood and violence"
enumerated in the review of 1879. They have no bearing on the history of
the times, save to emphasize the admitted lawless character of the period.
Yet even in that respect, conditions were probably no more acute in the
Fresno region than elsewhere in California in the pioneer days when there
was little or no government, when human life was valued at so little and
every one was a walking arsenal. Nor does one have to go back to the days
of the pioneers to find warrant for the complaint of the almost criminal laxity
with which justice was administered. Only once in the sixty-three years of
county organization of Fresno has there been an execution of a murderer
under the sentence of court. That was twenty-six years ago. And fearful
murders were committed before and have been since. The wretch that was
hanged in the courtyard of the old jail in rear of the courthouse was a dipso-
maniac and a drug fiend. The others before and after him that cheated the
hangman were given life sentences, or escaped altogether, though their
crimes involved every legal element of fiendish deliberation, premeditation
and preparation, with avarice as a motive for taking life.
Murder of Major Savage
As foul a deed as recorded in the criminal annals of the county was the
murder in August, 1852. at the King's River Indian reservation by Walter
H. Harvey, county judge of Tulare, of Maj. James D. Savage, one of the
most heroic and picturesque characters in Fresno County's history. The
effort to bring Harvey to justice, with the murderer appointing the special
justice of the peace to hold the preliminary examination, was a travesty.
After Savage's death, many aspired to be his successor in gaining the
prominence among and control over the Indians but no one filled his place
— they felt like orphans and realized that their best friend was gone.
376 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Murieta's Career Ended
Next to be recorded is the bloody, meteoric and historic career of the
bandit, Joaquin Murieta, which ended with his death in Jul.v, 1853. The
retreat of this cutthroat was in the Cantua hills of the Coast Range in this
county. At Millerton was made the first exhibition of the trophy of his
decapitated head as proof of the successful termination of the man hunt for
him, the killing of his principal lieutenants and the scattering of the bandit
gang to the four winds, with peace returned to a sorely tried and raided
state.
Murders Common In 50's
Murders of whites by whites and of prospectors by Indians were com-
mon in the 50's. If the murderers did not escape, the grand jury ignored the
charge, or if it found true bill the trial jury at Mariposa or Millerton ac-
quitted. There was poetic justice in many of these cases. Very often these
gun men died violent deaths with their boots on. Often also in these mur-
ders evidences w^ere left to make it appear that the crimes were the work of
Indians.
Mining Camp Burglaries
In 1858 there was an epidemic of burglaries of Chinese stores and mining
camps and notorious among the thieves were Jack Cowan and one Hart, the
first named a half breed Cherokee. They lay in concealment by day in
cool retreat and at night sallied forth robbing inoffensive Chinese at point
of pistol and hesitating not at sacrifice of life if their demands were not com-
plied with or resisted. The pair was encountered one day in August by cattle
rangers in the hills between the Fresno and the Chowchilla and a battle
ensued. Hart was wounded, crippled for life and upon recovery from wounds
was sent to the penitentiary. Cowan was shot through the skull and the
perforated skull was in the possession of Dr. Leach as a paper weight on
his desk as a memento for years.
Last Indian Uprising
The last serious Indian uprising was in the summer of 1856 among the
Four Creek Indians of Tulare. The soldiers from Fort Miller under Captain
Livingstone were dispatched to the scene of hostilities, also a company from
Millerton and vicinity under Capt. Ira Stroud and another from Coarse Gold
Gulch and Fresno River under Capt. John L. Hunt. The Fresno contingent
achieved the name of "The San Joaquin Thieves." The campaign over. Fort
Miller was evacuated September 10, 1856.
Acts of Disloyalty
It was reoccupied in August, 1863, by L'nited States troops and a volun-
teer company under Col. Warren Olney was dispatched also. Acts of dis-
loyalty were numerous. The offenders were rounded up at the fort and
made to walk a beat carrying a bag of sand as a punishment. Peter van
Valer was the provost marshal, and other disloyals were transported to cool
their ardor in the military prison of the bleak and ocean wind swept Alca-
traz Island in San Francisco Bay.
Looting of Chinese
In 1863 the looting of Chinese stores and camps was resumed with at
least eight known desperadoes in the gang. The China store at Andrew
Johnson's place at Coarse Gold Gulch was robbed three times and patience
had ceased to be a virtue. A company of about a dozen men organized and
one dark night in the dead winter of 1864 it invaded the camp of the des-
peradoes. Whether warned or not of the coming, only one of the gang — Al
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 377
Dixon — was caught that night and found a corpse hanging from a tree next
morning between Coarse Gold Gulch and the Fresno. The life of the
brother" John, was interceded for and six of the gang left the county and
were not again heard from. The eighth, James Raines, remained to
weather it out and came in conflict with the provost marshal in the latter's
prosecution of his duties. A squad from the fort was sent to arrest him.
Raines appeared pistol in hand to resist arrest and himself was shot and
wounded in the arm. After having convalesced at the fort, Raines was taken
to Alcatraz and spent several months at hard labor on the rock. Following
release, he moved with his family to Raines' Valley, cast of Centerville. He
and others took up cattle and hog stealing until the neighborhood decided
that it had enough of this business and one fine morning Raines' carcass
was found dangling from a tree in or near the valley that bears his name.
Indians Hanged
It was about this time that an Indian killed a sheepherder of E. J. Hil-
dreth, burying the corpse under a log in a corral. An old squaw betrayed
Mr. Indian and in daylight he was hanged in the gulch near Judge \\'incheirs
home, half a mile from the fort and the judge's calf rope was borrowed for
the event.
Died With Boots On
A sensational case of the day was that of J. P. Ridgway, who in the
summer of 1868 shot and killed P>. A. Andrews at Kings River above Center-
ville. Ridgway escaped to Arizona where he engaged in mining. About
two years later he appeared in San Francisco, was arrested and brought to
Millerton. He was indicted but before tried escaped from the jail and made
his way back to Arizona. Flis escape was with confederates who aided him
with horse. A reward of $1,000 was offered for his arrest and a San Fran-
cisco detective earned the money by going to the Cactus state, arresting
and bringing back the fugitive. At the May, 1872, district court term, Ridg-
way was tried and acquitted and shook the dust of Millerton from his feet
and a third time made tracks for Arizona. This time the bully met his match
and received a load of buckshot in the head and died with boots on.
Killed in Petty Squabble
At the October term of the county court, John AA^illiams, a negro, was
sentenced to a term of two years in the penitentiary for the killing of Theo.
J. Payne, whom he had shot in the knee at a store near Tollhouse. Payne
was so wounded that an artery was severed and he bled to death. The shoot-
ing was over a squabble at target shooting.
Chinese Hanged
That same year vigilantes hanged two Chinese just below Jones' store
("Pollasky or Friant as now known) for having killed a countryman. On a
Sunday afternoon that year, another was found hanging from a tree a quar-
ter of a mile from Millerton, the county seat, for having committed a name-
less crime.
Vasquez and Robber Band
The state at large was agitated during the years 1873 and 1874 with
the bandit exploits of Tiburcio \^asquez and his robber band. Vasquez
ended his career on the gallows at the San Jose jail in March, 1875. He
and his gang operated in the central portion of the state, committed several
robberies in this county and like Murieta and his band made the Cantua
hills their stamping ground and retreat in hours of idleness.
378 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Killing of Fiske
John D. Fiske was killed July 26. 1890. J. L. StiUman shot him thrice
in the back. He pleaded insanity on his trial but was found guilty and sen-
tenced to life imprisonment. The homicide followed a wrangle and demand
for royalties on a car-coupling patent. Fiske was a promoter in the early
days of Fresno City, conducted the Fiske Theater and for him was named
the showy and cheaply constructed building on the Mariposa and J present
site of the first "sky scraper" in the city.
Hanged for Wife Murder
One man and one only was ever legally hanged in this county. He was
Dr. F. O. Vincent and he was hanged in the court of the county jail in
the courthouse park at noon October 27, 1893. Jay Scott was the sherifif
in office at the time and F. G. Berry — not Fulton G. — ^was the under sheriff
that made the return on the death warrant that the order and judgment of
the court had been duly executed. The death sentence has been only three
times pronounced in the county for the crime of murder; first time on Vin-
cent in April, 1891, second time on Elmer Helm in 1906 and third time in
1908 on Charles H. Loper. After the Vincent case, the law was changed to
make the warden at the state penitentiary the state executioner. Before
that, the sherifif was the official to carry out the death penalty on the mur-
derer convicted in his county. Vincent's case is No. 651 in the register of
criminal actions in the superior court of the county. He was informed against
December 31, 1890, for the murder of wife, Anna L., on the 18th of the
month. The trial before the late Judge S. A. Holmes opened March 11, 1891,
continued for eleven days and ended March 24. Sentence of death was pro-
nounced April 8, 1891, and two days later the death warrant was delivered
to the sheriff. Appeal was taken, judgment affirmed August 25, 1893, and
fixing time of execution under the original sentence was on September 21,
1893^ On hanging day people climbed the trees around the jail for a view
of the spectacle in the little court yard of the jail. The indecent curiosity
of the populace was editorially commented upon in the newspapers of the
day and rebuked. The record in the Vincent case is sufficient as to the pro-
crastinations of the law in the prosecutions of that day. The attempted
defense on the trial was that the act of homicide was not premeditated because
the accused was an irresponsible dipsomaniac and drug user. The late
County Recorder W. W. Machen was the foreman of the jury. There was
little brought out at the trial to arouse sympathy for the prisoner. On the
contrary, the showing was that the married life of the Vincents was any-
thing but a • happy one and that the suffering wife had been for years the
victim of his cruelty and harshest treatment and neglect. There was not an
extenuating circumstance in the case. The Vincent case is a notable mile-
stone in the criminal annals of the county.
Assassination or Suicide?
Cause celebre was that of Richard S. Heath indicted March 16, 1893,
for the alleged assassination of Louis B. McWhirter while entering his home
at the rear entrance on the night of August 29, 1892. The case attracted
widest attention as it was claimed that the assassination was a political one
on account of the division in the Democratic party in the county at the time
over the presidential candidacies of Cleveland and Hill. McWhirter was a
Tennesseean who a few years before had come to Fresno, engaged in the
practice of the law in association with M. K. Harris, made a failure of the
law and as an erratic Bourbon reform Democrat was engaged as editorial
writer for the Evening Expositor. He had been a reform politician in Ten-
nessee which state he left to come west after a homicide, also growing out
of political dissensions in the Democratic party. Much feeling was aroused
over the McWhirter case here because at the time the Tennesseean wing
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 379
of the local Democracy was in control of the county offices. So intense was
the "interest and indignation" over the affair that in addition to the $10,000
offered reward by the citizens for the arrest and conviction of the assassin,
the widow, Mrs. L. B. McWhirter, also offered a reward of $10,000 and
the Blasingame family into which McWhirter had married made offer of
an additional $5,000. The rewards were never claimed because there never
was a conviction and dismissals were entered against the two accused. The
first trial of Heath before the late Judge Holmes commenced June 12, 1893,
lasted for thirty-two court days and ended in a disagreement of the jury.
The evidence supporting the assassination theory and Heath's connection
with a homicide was largely circumstantial. The plea set up at the trial was
that IMcWhirter had comrtiitted suicide. This was one of several construc-
tive defense pleas. The trial jury stood eleven for conviction and one for
acquittal — Juror J. H. Lane making the declaration that firearms were co-
ercively exhibited in the jury deliberation room. Motion for a change of
venue was denied and the second trial commenced March 5, 1894, was before
Judge Lucien Shaw of Tulare. It lasted thirty days and also ended in a
disagreement. Change of venue was granted for a third trial to Los Angeles
County but the case never again was taken up. Heath later died in Alaska
in the Klondike gold fields. His co-defendant was Frederick W. Policy, a
carpet layer, the accusing joint indictment having been found by a grand
jury of which the late ex- Judge Hart was the foreman. Policy had one trial,
the jury disagreed and the indictment against him was dismissed in October,
1893. Heath was a young man related to the Perrins and employed as a
sub-foreman on the "Sam'l of Posen" vineyard, the property of M. B. Curtis
and wife. Curtis was an actor who had made a success of the dialect charac-
ter acting of the Polish Jew, made a fortune, invested in Fresno real estate
and also founded a town near Berkeley which he named after his play. He
was impoverished afterward defending himself on a charge of the murder
of a San Francisco policeman. Sensational disclosures were made in that
prosecution that the defense was predicated on suborned testimony. Heath
was defended by a strong retinue of lawyers retained by the Perrins and
Mrs. M. B. Curtis, while the special prosecutors were as distinguished attor-
neys in the pay of the Blasingame family. Few cases in the county aroused
a greater interest than the Heath prosecution, divided as public sentiment
was on the question of assassination and suicide and this division made
more acute by the political differences of the respective theorists. Known as
a barroom politician. Heath was lifted into sudden and unenvied notoriety.
Mc^^'hirter had made political enemies by reason of his editorial writings
and the division in the county Democracy was at the fever heat. However,
public opinion was never settled as to whether his end was the result of
assassination to silence him politically, or whether an act of self murder.
He had his life insured for a large sum and it was known that his financial
circumstances were such that but for friendly aid the policies would have
lapsed because of inability on his part to meet the premiums due. His career
as a lawyer had proven a failure. It was also known that he had spent the
marriage endowment of his wife. He had become confirmed in habits of
which the wife declared in her testimony she knew nothing about and which
in fact she denied. The political stir and enmities that he aroused by his
writings obsessed him with the thought that he was tracked as a marked man
for assassination. Many believed then and do now that McWhirter took
his own life when he realized that he was at the end of his financial career.
The widow married a second time and recovered the insurance on the poli-
cies which did not contain the suicide clause. If McWhirter was assassinated,
it was a cowardly murder by plotters that lay in wait for him to take him
at a disadvantage. If so, the case would not have commanded the wide at-
tention that it did for the political and personal interests that raised it above
the ordinary. The end of McWhirter is one of the unsolved mysteries.
380 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Evans-Sontag Reign of Terror
The years 1891-94 have to do with the lurid chapter of the crimes of the
Evans-Sontag train robber bandits, their pursuit, bloody and murderous
resistance when driven at various times to bay, their final capture and the
trials in Fresno. The details are given in another chapter. Chris Evans and
John Contant fSontag) were indicted November 22, 1892, for murder and
Evans after a November and December trial of seventeen days was found
guilty in 1893 and February 20, 1894, was sentenced to life imprisonment
at Folsom. The operations of the gang in California began with the train
hold up in February, 1889, south of Pixley in Tulare County. Contant died
at the county jail in Fresno from the wounds received when he and Evans
were captured after a battle. One Clark Moore indicted as an accessory
after the fact on December 2, 1892, was tried on the second of three such
charges March 14, 1892, and acquitted. The other charges were afterward
dismissed. The newspapers at the time were full of the exploits of the
bandit gang, sent special correspondents into the field to tell of the many
efforts to capture it, the man hunts, pursuits, final capture and the trials,
centering all these activities in Fresno and giving it unenviable notoriety
for crime, criminals and the head-hunters fattening on the business of pur-
suing marked and proscribed men to capture them for rewards, dead or
alive. The exploits of the gang were retold with renewal of the various
applications of Evans for parole. One of these applications in January, 1908,
inspired an "appreciation" of the bandit by Joaquin Miller,""the Poet of
the Sierras," ha\ing at least curious interest if nothing else. It was pub-
lished in the Pacific Alonthly in the course of an article on famous bandits
of the early and later days in California. In this "appreciation" at a time
when Evans had served thirteen years of his life sentence, Miller made the
point that Evans had never been tried for a train robbery. afTected to believe
that it was only the railroad influences that kept the crippled, blinded and
dying outlaw in the penitentiary and introduced his subject with the follow-
ing words :
"And now a few pages about the most famous gun-fighter of all ; a well-
bred and well-read man ; a man with a most bloody record, yet a man who
never fired a shot except to defend ; so say his hosts of friends."
The publication provoked criticism and indignation in Visalia and those
familiar with the unsavory history of Evans in that locality declared the
Miller statements to be a tissue of misrepresentations and almost devoid of
truth. There was there practically unanimous opposition against the libera-
tion of Evans and the effort of the poet, at best an erratic and theatric
personage, was little more than attempt to create sentiment through callous
misstatements, unseemly and not calculated to inspire confidence even in
Miller's veracity. The Times published in answer to the poet a statement
that had been prepared on a previous attempt to secure a parole or pardon
giving brief history of the many crimes of Evans, including the wanton kill-
ing of five men and the wounding or crippling of nine more, clinched by the
recital of Evans' boasts of his crimes while yet at large and pursued, and his
threats of death for any and all who would give information of his move-
rnents to the officers of the law. Which recalls also that in May, 1908, after
his sixteen years and more spent in Folsom penitentiary and crippled with
a limp after the desperate attempt to escape in 1893 after one year's con-
finement under his sentence, George Sontag appeared in Fresno looking for
work, seeming to think that if he were given employment as a barkeeper the
saloon would lose nothing by the advertisement of his presence. After recov-
ery from the wounds received in the attempted jail break, Sontag came at
the request of Wells. Fargo & Company to Fresno to give state's evidence
against Evans. His final release from prison was on the authority of the
governor.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 381
Wooton Mystery
Celebrated case of mystery was the one that grew out of the unac-
counted for disappearance "on or about February 1, 1894," as the lawyers
would say, of William Wooton, a well to do farmer of near Kingsburg.
Murder prosecution could not be instituted because the first link in the
proof was lacking — the corpus delicti — proof of death. Wooton's body never
was discovered, although there can never have been moral doubt that he
was the victim of foul play and the body disposed of in some unknown
manner. In one of the proceedings, legal recognition of death was given
in a ruling by Judge M. K. Harris in this language of his written decision:
"The disappearance of William Wooton last February, an old man and a
highly respected citizen of this county, is darkly mysterious. His habits of
life, business jnethods, and neighborly associations added to his sudden and
utter obliteration from the gaze of man but deepen that mystery." A near
neighlior of Wooton was Prof. W. A. Sanders, who was regarded as one
of the foremost educators in the county. As a teacher his specialties were
arithmetic, botany and chemistry. At one time he was instructor at the
Academy which was in the county the only institution where the higher
courses could be pursued preparatory for entrance here to the state uni-
versity. Sanders was a prolific writer on the subject of botany. He con-
ducted an experimental farm and experimented with many foreign botanical
importations. He \\as the man that introduced in this county the Johnson
grass as a forage plant. It has become such a pest for the farmer that if
had to be legislated against. And it has passed into a saying "that if Profes-
sor Sanders was not hanged for the murder of Wooton, he should have
been for introducing Johnson grass in the county." Suspicion pointed to
Sanders several months after Wooton's disappearance when he presented
for ncgdtiation a warehouse receipt for grain in the name of the absentee.
Thereupon fullowed also his presentation of a deed to the Wooton property,
fortiiied by an unlikely story that Wooton had left the country and had
vested him with authority to dispose of his property without a power of
attorney, and thus he came into the possession of the documents in ques-
tion. Sanders was indicted for forgery May 19, 1894, and during his long
incarceration several attempts were made to learn from him the mystery
of Wooton's disappearance and Tyndall, the mind reader, had interviews
with him to worm the secret from him. The interviews never had result,
because Sanders never would subject himself to the test but resisted every
advance on this line. A fourteen days' trial in June and July, 1894, had no
result; another fourteen days' trial in April, 1895, resulted in his being found
guilty and the sentence was ten years' imprisonment. Appeal was taken
and new trial granted in a decision of October, 1895. The third trial in
January, 1897, resulted in a disagreement of the jury and the fourth of six-
teen days in April resulted in conviction with fourteen years imprisonment
as the sentence. Sanders served his time and came out of the penitentiary
broken in health. He entered it a bankrupt as the result of the long litiga-
tion. He died wretchedly an outcast in the county poorhouse. There was
some testimony that might have connected Sanders as being in Wooton's
company the night before a large brush fire on one or the other's premises
about the time of the disappearance date, but it and other circumstantial
details were so remote and lacked such definiteness that in connection with
the inability to prove the death of Wooton no charge of murder could have
been maintained. It was only when he made effort to realize on the Wooton
property that he set for himself the trap that he fell into and raised the
more than strong moral Ijelief that he was the agency in the removal of
Wooton. Various have 1)cen the theories how the body was disposed of.
One has been that the corpse was buried in some secluded nook and with
the lapse of years the place has been lost and all evidences of burial dis-
382 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
sipated. Another was that the body was consumed in fire and still another
that chemical means were employed to dispose of it. At any rate no one
knows how, when or where Wooton disappeared from the face of the earth.
Human bones or remains of skeleton have not been discovered these many
years in the vicinity of Kingsburg in a circuit of miles but to revive in the
newspapers the storv of the Wooton disappearance, and the speculation as
to whether thev might be Wooton's or not. The latest such revival was in
November, 1917, anent the finding of a skeleton on the Fortuna ranch north-
west of Reedley. The assembled bones led to the conclusion that they had
been buried "about twenty years ago," had been those of a man about fifty-
five years of age and about five and one-half feet tall. The solution of the
mystery of Wooton's disappearance was taken by Sanders with him into the
grave.
Tweedle-dee Tweedle-dum
Sensation was made public in April, 1899, when the city attorney pre-
sented before the city trustees affidavit that City Clerk J- W. Shanklin was
an absentee from the city and his whereabouts unknown. Examination of the
book showed a defalcation but in how much never was ascertained because
under the circumstances the fact could not be learned. The office was de-
clared vacant and the vacancy filled. The absentee was and remained with-
out the state until early the following year when the grand jury indicted
him on January 13, 1900, four times for embezzlements of small sums. Shank-
lin was learned to be in a small town just across the Oregon line, where
he was doing business openlv as a potato merchant. Brought back he was
placed on trial in May, the jury acquitted him and thereupon the other in-
dictments were dismissed and the affair ended in a farce. The sums alleged
to have been embezzled were business taxes, perhaps liquor license moneys,
that had come into his hands. It was not the duty nor an obligation of
the city clerk to receive or make these collections but the task of the city
license collector, though the money was receivable at the office as an accom-
modation, with the cferk giving receipt. The acquittal was on instructions
of the court that no public offense had been committed and no embezzle-
ment from the city of public funds. Inasmuch as the money was not pay-
able to the clerk, he was not receiving it for the city and if the city did not
receive it it was then a matter between the private and unofficial receiver
of the monev and the person to whom he had given receipt for the money.
So ended Shanklin's Republican city political career and Fresno no longer
knew him as a resident.
The Case of the Helm Boys
The verdict returned at a late hour on the night of June 19. 1908, by a
jury in the city of Stockton, Cal., sealed the doom of the brothers, Elmer
and Willie Helm for one of the most diabolical crimes ever committed in
this communitv. The trial was had in Stockton on a change of venue be-
cause of the represented prejudice against the boy murderers in Fresno. The
verdict was accompanied by recommendations of life imprisonment for both.
The verdict saved Elmer from the death penalty passed upon him after con-
viction of murder in the first degree in Fresno in June, 1906, on first trial.
The younger boy gained nothing by the second trial because after the first
in September, 1906, the sentence upon him was life imprisonment at San
Quentin. The case of the Helms was one of the most atrocious brought to
the attention of a public prosecutor. Their crime was the wanton murder on
the evening of October 30, 1905, of William J. Hayes and wife while camp-
ing out near a deserted cabin on the Whitesbridge road, about eighteen miles
west from Fresno. The murderers rewarded themselves for the double crime
with about three dollars taken from the person of the murdered man. Clues
to the murderers were meagre. The authorities worked long and diligently
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 383
with little success and they might have been baffled in the end but that the
fiends, the elder aged twenty-one and the younger nineteen at the time, were
not content with their work but undertook another man killing a few months
later. Singularly enough the father of the boys was the one to discover
the second murder antl to report it. Circumstances directed attention to the
Helm boys and thev were connected with the three murders. The late
Sheriff Walter S. McSwain. ihcii a township constable, made a name for
himself in working up a wciiuKM-ful case of circumstantial evidence. The
story of the crimes and the l)ringing of the youths to justice is replete with
incident and detail. The Ila\e^ were an aged couple who lived at peace with
the world and no other motive for their taking off could be conceived than
robbery. Hayes had been a justice of the peace at Mendota and lived in
Fresno. They owned a tract of land on the West Side, which it was their
habit to visit at intervals. The murder was on the home coming from one
of these periodical visits. .At \\'hitesbridge stop was made to huv hay for
their horses and paying with check he received about three dollars in change.
They were overtaken by night on the journey home and camped near a
deserted Mexican cabin, having food and bedding with them. Horses had
been fed and picketed and the evening meal was being prepared when the
murderers pounced upon them, shot both to death and levanted with the
paltry booty. Conditions at the camp indicated that the Hayes were taken
unawares. The canvas bed lay on the ground as it had been taken down
from the wagon and the uncooked potatoes were in the frying ]ian. Re-
mains were discovered next day by a passing traveler. .Vutoiisy showed
that Hayes had received gun shot wound, six inches in diameter in the
breast and the heart was literally filled wnth shot. Her wounds were almost
identical. Death came to both instantly. A single barrelled shot gun with
which the murders were committed was found not far from the scene of
the crime, but whose gun was it? Two boys riding bicycles and carrying
a package that might have been the shot gun wrapped in gunny sack had
been seen on the Whitesbridge road on the day of the murder. But who
were these boys? About February 8. 1906, Henry Jackson, a bachelor of
over sixty years of age, was surprised in his little cabin home a mile or so
out of Fresno and murdered. He had sat at the table and the murderer let
loose through the window glass a charge of shot that shattered the old man's
neck and almost tore the head from the trunk. The window sill was left
powder-marked. The murderer sawed a strip from a near-by board and
nailed it over the powder-marked spot. The body was covered in bed quilt and
with the aid of buggy axle and two wheels was conveyed to a culvert on
the Southern Pacific railroad miles away and jammed therein. The I-Ielm
family of husband, wife, daughter and two sons lived only about a quarter
of a mile from the Jackson cabin. They were practically nearest neighliors.
Helm missed the old man several days, visited the cabin and found it a
veritable shambles. He gave the alarm. Days were spent in locating the
body and it was found in the siphon, five miles from Fresno near Herndon.
There was also a bruise on the head where it had fallen forward on the table
after the firing of the shot. Suspicion fastened on the Helm boys. Their
reputation was not the best, especially that of the elder. On or about the
night of the Jackson murder, Elmer had spent paper money lavishlv in
Fresno's tenderloin. The youths were taken to prison and the gathering of
evidence began. The father was also imprisoned on suspicion but soon re-
leased. The owner of the shot gun was discovered, the chain of evidence was
started and the links were added. A resident of Fowler, who had been a
neighbor of the Helms about the time of the Hayes double tragedy, recog-
nized the gun as one that had been stolen from him. \A'itnesses were found
who saw the gun in the possession of Elmer. Paper money identified as part
of that he had spent in the tenderloin was identified by denominations and
name of issuing banks as money received by Jackson liot long before. The
384 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
brothers were identified as the pair that was seen on the Whitesbridge road
with the package in gunny sack; fabric threads of the sack were found
clinging to the gun ; the movements of the pair on the day of the murder
were traced to the neighborhood of the Hayes camping spot. The formal
accusation for the Hayes murder followed and on it Elmer Helm was first
brought to trial June 16, 1906. It lasted sixteen days with much difficulty
experienced in securing jury. The verdict was guilty as charged and July
16, 1906, the death sentence was pronounced. Willie's trial in September
lasted twenty days. It resulted in a verdict of guilty as charged but with life
imprisonment recommended as the punishment. Appeals were taken in both
cases. The supreme court granted new trials in December, 1907. In the Elmer
case a sapient supreme court reversed the judgment though holding that the
evidence while circumstantial was sufficient to sustain the verdict. The ruling
was against the appellant on the point that the information was void because
filed on one of the continuous holidays declared by the governor following the
earthquake and the fire in San Francisco. The reversal was on a purely techni-
cal ground that it was prejudicial error to overrule good challenge for cause
compelling exhaustion of peremptory challenge to be relieved of jurors who
should have been excused under the challenge for cause. The alibi defense of
the boys had fallen before the strength of the people's case. For the second
trial the county roads near and about Fresno were canvassed for declarations
of people as to their prejudice for or against the accused. They were used on a
motion for a change of venue to some other county because of the prejudice
in Fresno against the Helms for their crime. And so it was that the case
went to San Joaquin County for the second trial in June 1908 lasting sixteen
days. This trial was notable for the unexpected reappearance of chief wit-
ness, Charles Molter, for the prosecution who had disappeared after the
first trial. Without him the prosecution would have been greatly weak-
ened in its case. On account of the notoriety because of his connection with
the case, he had concealed his whereabouts and for months had been searched
for high and low without locating him. Notable as new evidence was the
testimony of Willie Helm's cellmate, one Kaloostian, who told of a con-
fession made to him with various threats by Willie as to what he would do
when out of the toils. McSwain's evidence was also very material in the
tracking of the defendants by the corrugated bicycle tire and a heel-worn
shoe. After this second conviction, there was talk of another appeal but it
was abandoned and the prisoners left the Stockton jail on their life im-
prisonments, Elmer to Folsom and \^'illic to San Quentin.
Murder of Policeman Van Meter
Policeman Harry S. Van Meter was murderously shot while on duty
on the night of February 20, 1907, and died on the following day. He en-
countered a suspect at the corner of I and Inyo Streets. Three shots were
fired by the night prowler and all took eflfect. Van Meter wearing a heavy
overcoat was unable to open it to draw revolver to defend himself. One Er-
nest C. Sievers was arrested suspected of the murder but never prosecuted
as the evidence proved insufficient. Van Meter twice identified him as his
murderer, the last time on his death bed. but there was no corroboration
save in a gray hat such as Van Meter stated the fellow, who had shot him,
wore. Sievers claimed an alibi and that at the time of the shooting he was in
a certain saloon. This was in part corroborated, but not positively as to the
hour. The murder of the young policeman created such a sensation that a
public money subscription was raised for the widow. He was a son of City
Attorney E. S. Van ^Nleter. Early in December 1909 came a story from Fol-
som penitentiary of the murderer of Van Meter in February 1907." One Mack
Reed imprisoned under a life sentence claimed to be the murderer accord-
ing to admissions to a cellmate. The latter drew the story from him, in-
formed a guard and former resident of Fresno of the details, and the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 385
guard writing to the police and learning that no reward had been offered
for the apprehension of the murderer related the confession on a visit to Fres-
no. The prisoner's confession was made four months before the official recital.
No action was ever taken on the supposed confession. Reed is under sen-
tence for a criminal assault upon his ten year old daughter in the fall of 1907.
Ernest Sievers, the man that Van Meter had identified as his assailant, was
tried for his life and acquitted and after liberation returned to his home in
Missouri. Reed in his confession claimed to have shot Van Meter five times
after having been detected in a burglary of dye works on South I Street.
Escaping at the rear door he met the patrolman in the alley at Inyo Street
at the spot where the shooting took place.
Watchman Murdered
There was an epidemic of night store burglaries during the fall and
winter season of 1907. L. C. Smith, night watchman in the city business
center, was found shot and killed on the morning of October 10 in the alley
off Fresno Street alongside the Barton theater. He had evidently surprised
a housebreaker and in the rencontre was murdered. The attempted burglary
was of the Opera Bar at the back transom. Seven shots were fired in the
alley flight of burglar or burglars in the direction of Merced Street. Three
times was "Dad" Smith wounded in the right side, two shots high and the
other low, all evidently from a large caliber revolver and at short range
judging from the powder burns. No weapon was in the hand of the watch-
man when found dead, or near him. The murder was never cleared up.
Tax Defalcation
In December 1907 report was made to the supervisors in 141 type-
written pages covering an exhaustive investigation of the books of the
county tax collector's office from January 1, 1899 to July 2, 1907 following
discovery of defalcations by W. M. Walden. who was deputy and cashier
under the administration of the late J. B. Hancock. The net balance found
due was $2,130.14 with discovery of numerous errors and disbursements in
a debit originally by the collector of a total of $4,141.77. Walden was in-
dicted, pleaded guilty, sentenced and later liberated on probation. The pecu-
lations were in small sums and covered a long period. Discovery of them
was made incidentally in examination of the collector's books in the auditor's
ofifice while working over them at night. In turning over the leaves a page
of an account book was held up for better reading with the electric light
behind it. This showed erasure with chemical fluid so that the spot was
transparent. This excited suspicion and the volume being closer scrutinized
against the light numerous other like erasures were discovered. A sensation
followed that was at once taken before the grand jury for investigation with
stated result. Walden was indicted July 9, 1907 for falsification of public
records and pleading guilty October 4, was sentenced to the penitentiary
at San Ouentin for seven vears.
Fifty Years for Highway Robbery
"\\'hy didn't you bury me alive?" hissed back Julius Smith one day in
December 1907 upon Judge H. Z. Austin's sentence of fifty years imprison-
ment at San Ouentin after he had pleaded guilty to the charge of highway
robbery. His accomplice had previously confessed and would have been used
as state's evidence against Smith. The time was when highway robberies
were epidemic. The sentences came under fierce criticism by the prison
commissioners sitting as a board of pardon. The sentence was equivalent
under the prison credit system for good behavior to twenty-nine years and
ten months. Smith was aged twenty-two and his co-defendant, William
Harvey, who received the same sentence, about sixteen. They had been con-
386 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
nected with other robberies and burglaries. These and the other robberies on
the highway were committed by holding up the victims at point of pistol,
or blinding them by throwing sand into their eyes after pouncing upon them
from place of concealment. The same sentence was passed upon Harry
Finnerty and Charles Washburn arrested at Seattle. Wash., and brought
back for robbery, and upon a negro named Archie Scansell. There was a
letup then for a time on robberies and burglaries.
Murder of Deputy Sheriff
A fearful crime with escape from justice was the murder of Deputy
Sheriff Joseph D. Price ]\Iarch 13, 1907 by Joseph Richardson, who with the
price set upon his head became an outlaw and fugitive from justice. In his
capacitv as a peace officer, Price had arrested Richardson for a minor offense
and accompanied him in buggy to the lockup at Reedley as the nearest
place. Richardson was not bound nor handcuffed, a piece of neglect for
which the deputy paid with his life. Richardson turned upon him in an
unguarded moment and slashed him to death with knife and then made his
escape. The murder was on a long, unfrequented roadway and was not
witnessed by any one, and it is a question what would have been the out-
come of a trial, even though Richardson had been arrested. Reports have
been many of Richardson having been seen and recognized in various local-
ities in the county and elsewhere in the years after, some of these reports
strengthened by details, but the murderer has eluded arrest and the crime
has gone unavenged. If some of these reports were true, the outlaw was
taking desperate chances and tempting fate.
Wife Murder at Sixty-five
At the age of sixty-five, and on his plea acknowledging the murder of
wife on Sunday September 8, 1907 James P. Leighton, expressman, was sen-
tenced January 4, 1908 to imprisonment at San Quentin for the remainder
of his natural life. The wife that he murdered was the third that had borne
his name, Hattie Leighton, nee Coppin. She had returned on that fatal
Sunday from a vacation spent w'ith relatives at Long Beach, Cal. Leighton's
first wife left him for cruelty and secured divorce ; the second became insane
and the third was murdered premeditatedly. The showing for Leighton was
that he labored under great mental stress on the day of homicide over the
thought that the wife was maintaining improper relations with another man,
a four year old daughter being the informant as to the frequent visits of
this man to her stepmother in the absence from home of her father. Leighton
was reputed to be a drinking man and a constable testified that several days
before the killing Leighton had come to borrow a revolver, saying he wanted
the weapon to kill annoying dogs and cats. The theory of premeditation
was well established by the evidence of attempts to borrow revolver as much
as ten days before the killing, his brooding and crying, and his declaration
that something terrible was to happen and the plea that whatever would re-
sult care be taken of his child. Leighton's only living relatives were two aged
aunts and they were pathetic in their recitals to give the impression that he
was not in his right mind when the shooting took place. An occupant of the
front portion of the house in which the Leightons lived overheard a conver-
sation immediately before the tragedy. He had said: "Hattie, this will end
it." Her plea was: "For God's sake don't kill me!" The shots then followed.
From the evidence adduced the sentencing judge was of the opinion that the
case was not one for imposing the death sentence. Mrs. Leighton was killed
in the bed in which she lay partly undressed. The body bore two wounds.
On the floor lay Leighton near the bed almost unconscious from a bullet
Avound to the right of the right eye. Near his head on the floor was an empty
phial marked "Poison." The theory was that he had essayed to force her to
take poison. Leighton's plea of guilty was accepted by the court without the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 387
assent of the district attorney. A month before the day that the plea was
taken, Leighton's attorney offered that his client would plead guilty if assured
that life imprisonment would be the sentence. The offer was rejected. After
a long term of imprisonment, Leighton was pardoned and he is again a free
man.
Domengine Kidnaping
With a far-away reminiscence of the romantic days when Italian brig-
ands seized and made captive of select, hustled them into mountain cave or
gorge to be held for liberation on delivery of the demanded money ransom,
but in this instance with a local stage setting in the canyons of the Coalinga
oil region, and a more modernized ending in penitentiary sentences follow-
ing arrest and rapid pursuit in automobiles by the sheriff and citizens' posse
was the remarkable Domengine kidnaping case in July 1908. The enterprise
was a hare-brained and desperate one but the sensation created by it great.
The result was the sentence October 3 of Z. T. ("Tony") Loveall as the chief
conspirator for thirty years ; also of Grover Cleveland Rogers as accomplice
for twenty years in consideration of his turning state's evidence ; and later
Charles Barnes, who had also turned state's evidence and pleaded guiltv but
whose connection with the mad enterprise was a secondary one compared
with that of the others, released on parole with judgment suspended. The
kidnaping of eighteen year old Miss Edna Domengine on the night of July
29 from the ranch of her father, A. Domengine, on Section 29-18-15 is a fa-
mous one in Fresno criminal annals as well for the incidents of the case as
the rarity of the crime. Domengine was a well to do freeholder and sheep
raiser living on the wild and desert A\'est Side. The ranch home is typical
of that section of the county, conifnrtal>le, commodious and unpretentious.
The bandits had been in concealment hard by all day on the Alondav pre-
ceding the kidnaping. They were in hi<ling behind two water tanks below
which the house lies in a pocket of the hills rising bare of vegetation all
about. A barn to one side of the house and slightly in rear was set fire to
at night and when the inmates assembled on the back porch in response to
the aiarm of fire the two bandits met them, the porch being on the far side
of the house. After tying the hands of the family and of the three hired men
who had responded to assist in putting out the fire in the barn, Rogers and
Loveall commandeered a team of Domengine and drove away with father and
daughter. Arriving at the ranch gate about two and one-half miles from
the house, Domengine was commanded to leave them after Ixirgaining for
the ransom for the daughter.- The price first set was $10,000 hut the final
arrangement was for one-half of that sum. Leaving the father at the gate
to find his way homeward, the kidnapers drove with Miss Edna to the town
of Coalinga and near there turned the team loose and it was afterward found
wandering about the outskirts of town. Loveall here left Rogers and the
captive and returned to Coalinga. The younger proceeded with the girl to a
place known as Jack's Springs in Jack's Canyon, one of the offshoots of
Warthan Canyon, back of the oil town. Here during the day word was
awaited from Loveall. Rogers concealed the girl in a rocky and rugged
place in the canyon, where there was a clump of trees and a dense under-
growth. Here it was that Coalinga posse discovered them, the trail leading
straight into the bushes and cottonwood trees, the canyon being shaped like
the inverted hoof of a horse. The place was surrounded by the posse and
when cornered Rogers shot at them from behind the girl and over her
shoulder. Realizing that resistance was useless and that he was trapped,
Rogers dragged his captive through the undergrowth up the side of the can-
yon rising abruptly to a rocky cleft. Here he compelled her to crouch in
the shelter of the jutting out rock and cowered behind her. He wore a mask
to conceal his features and had a strip of cotton cloth bound around his head
to hide his red hair. The cloth was torn from him in the first scurr^' of the
388 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
capture. Following her rescue, Miss Domengine was taken to the home of
Robert L. Peeler at Coalinga, one of the pursuing posse, and there kept until
her parents came for her. Rogers was taken to the flimsy calaboose at Coal-
inga. There were threats to lynch him but he was saved from this end by
Sherifl^ Robert L. Chittenden. He broke down under interrogation and named
as his accomplice Loveall a known character in the oil fields with unsavory
reputation. Loveall had been with one of the posses searching for the girl
during the day but when search was made for him after Rogers' confession
he had taken to the sand and rock hills surrounding the town on the sun-
blistered and desert plain waste. The reason for Loveall joining the posse
was stated to have been well recognized by the search party as an effort at
self-preservation. Rogers was recognized by the searchers and the belief was
that Loveall had resolved in his own mind to kill Rogers should the latter
be taken. Succeeding in this, he would have destroyed the principal evidence
of his connection with the kidnaping; there was little else then to trace the
crime to him and the great danger was in the possibility of the accomplice
confessing. Loveall led the posse in automobile pursuit a merry chase, plung-
ing into the heart of the Coast Range, his career as a market game hunter
making him familiar with every nook and cranny. Loveall was traced to a
ranch fifteen miles from the oil town seething with excitement over the kid-
naping. Here it was learned that he was willing and even anxious to sur-
render provided he was given guarantee of protection against the wrath of
an outraged community. The hills and the country were searched for two
days for the brigand and then came word that he was in concealment under
the house of a cousin at the pumping station at Camp No. 2. There the fellow
was found asleep and readily made a prisoner. Miss Domengine had a sight
acquaintance with her captors, said she was not ill treated during her captivity
and truth to tell did not take her kidnaping seriously. Loveall was a married
man. The evidence in the case was complete, even without the confessions of
the accomplices. It was a sensational episode at a period when the Coalinga
field was overrun bv a floating and irresponsible population attracted by the
activities of the field. It contributed largely to the criminal annals of the
county with corresponding expense in the administration of the department
of justice.
Joseph Vernet Murder
The disappearance on or about July 15, 1908. not confirmed and made
public until the last day of the month of Joseph Vernet, aged sixty-eight, and
the search without result then for three days for the remains was regarded
as another Wooton case by the authorities and the foothill dwellers between
Letcher and Sentinel in the country where the eccentric old mountaineer had
made his home for years. For nearly one week before August 1 one Charles
H. Loper had been detained in the county jail pending a rigid investigation
and search for the body of the old miner for the recovery of which a reward
of $100 was offered. Loper had shared the old man's cabin, was the last man
in his company before his sudden dropping out of existence, and later an-
nounced that he had authority to settle up the old man's aff^airs. The finding
of the body revealed the commission of one of the most fiendish, calculating
and deliberate crimes ever committed in the county with avarice as the motive.
Every step of the crime bore the evidence of cold, calculating premeditation
in the details. On the last day that it was recalled that Vernet was seen alive,
he had called at the Sentinel postofiice and engaged in a casual conversation
with Henry Rae, deputy sheriff. He also posted two letters. The conversa-
tion was about nothing in particular. This was the verv significance of it
for it was rightly concluded that if the old man, who had lived in that neigh-
borhood for thirty years, had contemplated departure on a long journey with
possible non return, as Loper eave out, he would have made mention of this
important decision. Rae was the last man known to have seen Vernet alive.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 389
The evening after, Loper called at an adjoining ranch. He mentioned that
he would not stay longer at the Vernet cabin because Vernet had left and
he would not abide there alone. Loper made himself a guest for the night
at the ranch and slept there. At breakfast he repeated the remark concerning
Vernet's departure and that day left for Fresno by stage and five days later
on the 22nd returned wearing new apparel and outfit, had money and pre-
sented a general air of prosperity. Meanwhile Vernet's absence had aroused
the suspicions of Rae. On return from Fresno, Loper had informed him that
Vernet had turned over to him all property and in corroboration produced a
copy of a Fresno newspaper, then returned to the visited ranch and after a
few hours proceeded to the Vernet place. The produced paper contained the
following- notice :
NOTICE
Any one owing me money will pay same to Charles H. Loper. Any debts
of mine will be paid bv him until further notice.
JOSEPH VERNET,
P. O. Address, Sentinel. Cal.
Satisfied that all was not well, Rae sent notification on the 25th to the
sherifT and a systematic inquiry was instituted. In the thirty years that Vernet
had lived in the hills, he had never left home even for a few days without
asking a neighbor to look after his pet cats, his only companions. When Ver-
net disappeared, there were five cats at the cabin and when they were later
found they were almost starved. Upon his return from Fresno, Loper cir-
culated the information that he had been to the county seat to look after
Vernet's affairs, that the latter had gone to Oregon and he (Loper) pro-
posed to sell oil all property on hand. He had sold for $300 a span of horses,
wagon and harness. He had also offered at ridiculously low figure 125 cords
of wood that the old man had cut. He had also collected some small bills
but as Vernet always paid cash there were few debts to be paid. Loper
remained at the Vernet place until the 28th, when he started on a second
visit to Fresno. Although he had mone}' and it had been his practice to
go by stage, this time he walked to Fresno thirty-one miles and there en-
gaged a room at the Ogle House. Loper was taken into custody, the in-
vestigation as to his connection with the disappearance of Vernet having
already been instituted Avithout his knowledge. He was questioned and in
the hearing of a stenographer told a long story that Vernet was in Oregon
somewhere ; they were to meet at Portland in two or three weeks ; he had
caused the notice to be published on the authority of Vernet but no power
of attorney was given. He claimed to have sold only the team and wagon
receiving a note for $300 due in nine months : Vernet had talked of closing
out his business for two months or more; he left on the night of the 15th,
walking to Fresno as he was wont to do nine out of ten times and his
reason for leaving his old home was that he was disgusted with the people
up there ; there was nothing to hold him, he wanted to get out of the country
and to go away to find a new home at the age of sixty-six. There was much
more told but it was all a tissue of lies. Loper made no remonstrance against
being detained, except to remark that he thought this thing would get him
into trouble, referring to the insertion and publication of the newspaper
notice. Every circumstance mentioned by Loper was in direct conflict with
Vernet's known habits and practices. An examination of the cabin did not
lend color to the departure theory. Vernet had left every thing intact ; his
best clothes were there, money in drafts : he had disappeared as he was
dressed when he last talked with Rae. There was found a pair of Loper's
trousers stained with what appeared to be blood. But as in the case of
Wooton there was as yet no evidence of foul play. The body of Vernet
must be found. This must be the first established link in the chain of evi-
dence to base a charge of the murder of the old miner and stockman. Loper
390 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was a man about thirty-five years of age and liad lived with Vernet for
several months. He had been reared in the country, had good family con-
nections but was regarded as a roaming, idle character and possessed of not
the best of reputations. He was a dreamer and irresponsible ne'er-do-well,
worked at odd things and the wonder was how he made a living. It may
be charitable to believe that he labored at times under fits of mental aber-
ration. It is not to say that he was insane, though at the trial there was
testimony to show that there is a taint of insanity in the family. If insane,
the devilish details of the crime and the consummate preparations for it
would dispose of the theory of mental irresponsibility. The investigation
that progressed daily resulted in discoveries to give the lie to the many false
statements that the prisoner made under interrogation. The chance dis-
covery of the brutally butchered body of Vernet crowded into a narrow hole
established the fact of the murder. Seven times had the party of searchers
passed and repassed the spot where chance finally led to the clearing of
the mystery through the humble instrumentality of a mountain squirrel
whose disturbance of the ground in its tunnelling operations in a tree shaded
nook attracted attention. The remains were exhumed. The legs had been
chopped from the trunk. The remains were wrapped in burlap sacks bound
with wire from bales of hay and conveyed for more than a mile from the
cabin home, of the murdered man. Word was conveyed to Loper of the
finding of the body and he sent for the sheriff and submitted a long and full
confession, accentuated all the hideous details, declaring that he had shot
Vernet through the neck killing him instantly, that he cut up the remains to
make their removal easy, conveyed them to the burial place in wheel barrow
and told of many more of the details of concealing the body in the cabin,
bringing it out for the mutilation, describing the knife and hatchet with
which the operation was performed, the wrapping of the body and the re-
moval at dusk, and the cleaning of the cabin and the instruments after the
bloody business. The manifest purpose of the prisoner was to give the im-
pression that the killing was in a fit of insanity. The mute evidences found
about the cabin were corroborative of the confessed details. The six-day
trial of Loper in February, 1909, resulted in a verdict of guilty on the evening
of the 8th of the month with death as the penalty. The late J. S. Jones was
the foreman of the trial jury and the verdict was unanimous on the first
ballot of the jury. The sentence of death was pronounced April 12. Upon
first arraignment Loper had pleaded guilty to the charge of murder but this
plea he was afterward permitted to withdraw for the later trial. He was
unmoved by the verdict, but on return to the jail remarked to the sheriflf:
"It don't matter much to me. If I am going to be hanged, I want to
be hanged by the law and not by those people up in the mountains."
After the conviction, Loper was transferred to a cell in the "felony
tanks" and had as cellmate one Edward Turpin under life sentence for the mur-
der of a Fowler ranchman. From the day of his imprisonment Loper had never
been visited by friend, acquaintance or relative save once and that his aged
uncle of Sentinel, J. H. Loper, cattleman, who attended every moment of
the trial true to a promise to a brother in Adel, la., the father of the prisoner,
that he would see that the son and nephew should at least have a fair trial.
So absolutely deserted had been the defendant that he would have suffered
even the deprivation of the solace of tobacco but for the kindh^ consideration
of the sheriff. It was always considered that Loper's stolidity and absolute
lack of interest or appreciation of his surroundings while in the courtroom
was an assumed and acted part. In the hurried passages from courtroom and
jail he was always in pleasant and talkative humor with his guard, while
in jail he was more than sociable, enjoyed smoking, was a great reader of
magazines and always eager to participate in a game of cards. The death
verdict passed on him was the third in sixteen years. The defense on the
trial was an attempt to prove the defendant to be insane and there were
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 391
depositions tending to show that the family was tainted with insanity on
the maternal side. The prosecution described the prisoner as "a man with a
rational mind and a crazy heart," belittled his defense as "flash light insan-
ity" and a sham and subterfuge, and the murder a diabolical act for greed
deserving the highest punishment under the law. The hanging was of course
stayed by the appeal to the sujireuK- cnurt. A new trial was granted, Loper
pleaded guilty and March II, l''ll, was sentenced to life imprisonment at
Folsom. It was said of this fellow: "Probably Loper is without parallel in
Fresno County history. Not only because of his crime, one of the bloodiest
and brutal ever committed. But because he is without exception the most
striking example of 'exaggerated ego" ever known, outside of the Thaw case."
Sentenced in the Jail
Deserving of mention was the case of Edward Delhantie, a giant, burly
negro accused of an unmentionable crime. One of the criminal puzzles of
1909 was "Is Delhantie crazy?" He assumed the ferocity of a tiger and his
every appearance from jail meant physical o\erpo\vcring of him. He made
on one court appearance an assault on the unoffending courtroom clerk.
There was apparently no physical control of him sa^■e when he was manacled
and shackled. He entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to imprison-
ment at Folsom for fourteen years. The sentencing was in the county jail,
the burly giant behind bars and the attending court officials in the corridor.
An imaginative writer referred to the episode as one that "will long remain
as one of the most Dantesque events of 1909 silhouetted on the brain until
time shall efiface the memory of all things."
An Unpunished Homicide
Because denied a second time permission to see his wife stopping at
a lodging house at 625 K Street, J. E. Kerfoot, a packing house laborer,
shot and killed Hamlet R. Brown, proprietor of the house, on the night of
November 16. 1909. The police was notified but was given the number 645 J
Street. There is no such number. People in the vicinity thought they had
heard three shots fired coming from a lumberyard two or three blocks away.
This also proved a delusive errand. A second police call, nearly one hour
and a half after the fatality, gave the right address. Brown was found dead
in the house hallway near the back door with a bullet wound in the left
breast. Kerfoot had escaped and he never was arrested. The Kerfoots had
come to Fresno from Bakersfield about two months before, lived together
at the Brown house about a month when a separation took place and Ker-
foot left, owing one month's rent. Kerfoot had come drunk to see the wife
and was denied admission. Brown telling him to come in the morning when
sober and making a taunting remark about the rent due. Kerfoot returned
later, was again ordered away, there was a scufifle, a slap in the face and
the shooting followed. The woman was in the house when the afifair took
place but remained in seclusion.
Madman Runs Amuck
Three dead, one supposed to be fatally injured and two others slightly
wounded was the bloody record achieved by George C. Cheuvront, a local
rancher, who in a fit of insanity attempted on the morning of December 23,
1901, to exterminate a family of five with hatchet at his home at 167 Nielsen
Avenue while preparations were being made for the breakfast. After the
ghastly deed, Cheuvront apparently regained his mind and escaped from
the house. He hurried in the direction of his peach orchard, west of town,
but crossing the Southern Pacific tracks he became either remorse stricken
or attempted to board a train and fell — at any rate the passenger train passed
over him, mangled him to death and the remains were later in the dav found
392 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in a culvert into which they had been tossed by the swift moving train. Next
day the remains were at the morgue with those of the murdered wife and
of twelve-year-old son, Claude, while at a sanitarium lay little nine-year-old
Blanche Gladys, not expected to live but proving a physical marvel, fighting
a long fight against death and after months of suffering recovering to baffle
every surgical diagnosis. The act of Cheuvront was that of an insane man
as abundantly established by proof. The instrument in his hands was an
axe in the hands of a man who weighed 200 pounds and who for his age
had remarkable physical strength. The wife and son did not expire until
the day after the murderous attack. She was struck three blows from behind
in the back of the head near the left ear. She died in the operating room
at a sanitarium. The boy died without regaining consciousness. He had
wound in the back of the head similar to the one of his mother and the
brains oozed at the gaping wound. With the loss of several ounces of the
brain, the lad lived nine hours. Little Gladys received a hard blow on the
top of the skull and face was cut about eyes and nose — the skull bone pressed
against the brain. The assault on the wife was committed in the kitchen.
No words were exchanged in the house. The first intimation of a tragedy
was her piercing screams as she attempted to retreat at the kitchen door.
The children leaped from their beds when they heard the screams. Cheuv-
ront rushed into adjoining bed room brandishing the blood covered axe and
heeded not the terrified pleas of Gladys. Cowan M. McClung, nineteen-year-
old step son, and George Cheuvront, the older son grappled with the de-
mented man but their strength was not equal to the occasion and the little
girl was struck a glancing blow. Claude, the other son, received his fatal
injury a few seconds later, falling back on bed with blood streaming from
wound. Gladys also sank on her bed unconscious and bed clothes were
crimsoned with blood. Then Cheuvront turned his attention to McClung
and the son George, striking the latter several glancing blows on head, face
and body but they proved only abrasions. McClung attempted to wrest
the axe and Cheuvront pausing and placing hand to forehead surrendered
possession of the weapon to the step son and fled from the house. The
struggles carried the trio from the bedroom out to the front porch, where
Cheuvront staggered and fell on his head. He was fifty-one years of age
and a Frenchman by nativity. The wife was of the same age, her maiden
name was Blanche Sanders ; Cheuvront was her second husband. By a pre-
vious marriage with McClung, she had two sons. Cheuvront had been a
resident of the valley for twenty 3'ears coming from near Visalia to Fresno
fifteen years before and residing for a time at Easton. His specialty was
hog raising. He was a man of some property and for a year or more before
the tragic event of December, 1909, had on divers occasions manifested evi-
dences of insanity. He had been arrested once, was kept in detention await-
ing examination as to his sanity but had apparently recovered it before
the examination as the medical men pronounced him sane.
Saved by a Miracle
Coming upon a suspicious character named V. L. Johnson on the night
of January 30, 1912, in the alley in rear of the Union National Bank and
the order to halt being unheeded, an exchange of pistol shots followed. The
shot of Policeman James L. Cronkhite killed his man dead in his tracks.
Cronkhite's life was miraculously saved, the bullet striking bis metallic star
and being deflected. For his heroic act the bank presented him a gold watch
and chain as a testimonial. Cronkhite died September 8, 1912, after a surgi-
cal operation, having long suiifered from cancer of the stomach. He wore
Star No. 2, was six years a fireman and seven a policeman, promoted from
roundsman to be detective.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 393
Traced by a Rag
Clarence French and George H. Ashton, professional safe crackers, with
a record of prior convictions which they acknowledged, were sentenced
November 22, 1913, each to fifteen years imprisonment at San Ouentin. They
were arrested in San Francisco for the dynamiting in Fresno of the safe in
October before of Holland & Holland's grocery store. They were placed on
trial and so strong was the case presented against them that their attorney
abandoned further effort and the prisoners pleaded guilty. A third defendant,
John O'Keefe, was discharged. The principals were expert safe crackers and
a perfect case of circumstantial evidence was presented by the detectives of
the two cities. The clue against them was a piece of rag torn out of a shirt
cloth in which the burglarious tools were wrapped. The piece was dropped at
the safe door and was of a particular pattern. Raided in their apartments
in San Francisco, tools and wrapping shirt cloth were found in their posses-
sion. Piece fitted the tear and the pattern. The couple was suspected of
other safe cracking jobs in the county committed at the time but they were
such expert operatives that only the Holland job could be definitely saddled
upon them by legal proof.
Murder by Man and Wife
Women have not figured conspicuously in Fresno in the annals of crime.
A notable exception came to light in the murder March 31, 1917, of Faustin
Lassere, a well to do farmer of National Colony. The murderers, according
to their pleas of guilty in the expectation that this would save them from the
gallows, were C. L. Hammond and wife, Anna. Avarice was the motive for
the crime. The woman was young and by some might be regarded as pre-
possessing in appearance. The couple was not given the best of records by
the authorities in that pretending that she was single and marriageable sev-
eral attempts had been made to obtain money and property from aged
bachelors or widowers on her promises of marriage. This was the plan
adopted to worm herself into the confidence and good graces of Lassere.
Hammond and wife both made confessions when they realized that there
was no further hope. He declared that the murder was her inspiration and
suggestion, and she that he planned the crime and forced her to be his accom-
plice. At any rate, she became the housekeeper for Lassere and on the day
in question before the meal Lassere was bludgeoned into unconsciousness
and slashed with knife until there was no doubt of his death. Then both
dragged the body out and having opened a grave to receive the remains
they were buried under a manure pile and the grave frequently watered to
accelerate decomposition. The Hammonds were never allowed after arrest
to communicate with each other. They were not even brought into court
together. They were arraigned on separate occasions and they were to have
been tried separately. On the day set for her trial June 7, she pleaded guilty
and after a long statement of the crime was sentenced to life imprisonment
at San Ouentin. Thereupon she had an attack of hysteria and had to be re-
moved from the courtroom. He was brought in later in the afternoon after
a change of mind and heart and also pleaded guilty, made his statement of
the crime, declaring that he was moved to act as accomplice because of
his love for her. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment but at Folsom
penitentiary. In their statements both unbared their past and revealed cir-
cumstances which were not to the moral credit of either. Both, it was under-
stood, would have pleaded guilty in the first place if any promise had been
held out to either that their lives would have been spared for their diabolical
crime. \A'hether the crime was her inspiration or not, certain it was that
Hammond was the cringing yellow cur in the court after his plea when he
attempted to fasten all the blame for the crime and the program of its details
on the woman. The Hammonds were comparatively }^oung people. Their
394 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
life imprisonment left parentless two young children, who became county
charges, who if they ever learn their antecedents will in shame abjure their
names. So with the murder of Lassere three children were left orphaned.
He left an estate of about $8,600 after payment of expenses. A relative was
appointed guardian of them to receive the estate on distribution, and there-
after the children removed to make their home with the guardian at Law-
ton, la. The confessed details of the butchery of Lassere were as revolting
as in the case of Vernet.
A Costly Jamboree
Constable A. B. Chamness of Fowler was run down and killed on an
evening in September, 1917, on the state highway near Calwa by an auto-
mobile driven by W. A. Johns, while intoxicated, a prominent vineyardist
of Parlier. He was arrested and held to answer for manslaughter and for
neglecting to render aid to those he had injured in his wild ride. Chamness
fell in front of Johns' car while trying to arrest him. Before this accident,
Johns had demolished a wagon in which rode a woman and two girls. They
also were injured. The constable alighting- from the Fresno-Selma stage in
pursuit of Johns fell and his skull was crushed. Johns pleaded guilty before
the Superior court and was released on probation, one condition being that
he abjure the use of intoxicants for the remainder of his life, his state at the
time of the accident disproving malicious intent. The representation was
also that he had made "restitution" to the widow in the sum of $2,500. also
recompensing the other injured. Chamness was sixty years of age, had
been constable of Fowler for seven years and at one time was town marshal.
Johns was sentenced on the lesser accusation of failing to render aid to
the injured victims of his reckless exploit.
A Woman Forger
A dynamite explosion early in the morning on the last day of October,
1917, wrecked the home of ^^^ R. Holmes on the William Newman ranch
about twelve miles northeast of Fresno. Holmes sleeping on the porch was
covered with debris but uninjured. Later in the day Mary L Black, a for-
tune teller and divorced wife of Holmes, was arrested for the forgery of
his name to a note for $6,000 in her favor. A year before, she had sued him
on that note, claiming that it had been given her in a property settlement
agreed upon at the time of separation and she was given judgment. For
this forgery she was later found guilty, denied release on probation and
suspended judgment and sentenced to the penitentiary. There was no proof
as to the dynamiting but it was strongly suspected that the woman placed
the sticks. Roof of the house, a two-room building, was blown off, parts of
the floor torn into splinters and the walls fell out intact. A rocking chair was
blown through the window near Holmes" bed and landing on him shielded
him from the smaller debris that covered him in bed.
Murder of the "Old Broom Man"
May 16, 1919, Edwin S. Taylor, a well known character of Fresno City,
known as "The Old Broom Man," was treacherously and foully murdered
in the tractor shacjc on the L. W. Gibson ranch, three miles northwest of
the town of Clovis. Friday, June 6, the murderer, Ernest Nakis, was in cus-
tody as the murderer, and two countrymen were in jail as accessories after
the fact in having harbored and concealed him after the crime. The search
for the principal had been a long one, involving a journey to towns in Lower
California. Taylor was an inoft'ensive old fellow who was a street and house-
to-house peddler of brooms. He affected great poverty, and, to give sem-
blance to his pretensions, went for days unshaven, wearing cast-off and
patched clothing, looking the part of a very^ beggar. He had money, though,
and this led to his undoing. After his death the public administrator un-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 395
earthed thousands of dollars on deposit in l^anks. He was supposed to carry
considerable money on his person — no one knows how much. It was to gain
possession of this that he was lured to the Clovis ranch on some pretense of
a sale of the place to him. Whatever the plan, the old fellow fell into the
trap, and his life was the forfeit. The murderer was seen to arrive at the
ranch in an auto, with the murdered man, to inspect the ranch ; the report
of shots within the tractor shed was heard, Nakis was seen to come out and
walk around to the front of the ranch, until he drove away; and later curiosity
drew attention to the shed and Taylor was found there shot to death. Nakis
was arrested at the Fleener ranch, two and one-half miles from the scene
of the murder, sleeping on a mattress under the bed. The identification of
the prisoner was complete. Placed between five prisoners, the brothers
Edward and Frederick Smith, ranchers, who had seen Nakis drive up to the
Gibson ranch with Taylor, identified him positively, and Edward created a
dramatic scene. The latter had also made note of the numbers of the auto.
Besides there was the identification of Nakis by a policeman as the man he
had seen on May 16th, in an auto on Callisch street with Taylor, and the cir-
cumstance was not one to be forgotten, because it was probably the one
occasion in Taylor's long residence here that he had ever been seen riding
in an auto. There was also a fourth identification by a woman caller at the
jail, who had known the old man well and who recognized Nakis as the auto
companion of the broom peddler on the morning of that ride to his death.
The arrest of Nakis occurred in an unoccupied house on the Fleener ranch,
which is said to have once been leased and occupied by the accused. It was
stated that the blood-stained coat of Taylor, besides a .38 caliber revolver,
and $137 in currency, were found in the prisoner's possession when arrested.
The accessories were the lessees of the ranch who harbored Nakis on the
premises, Nakis probably having been animated by the same lure that has
led to the undoing of many another criminal, in a return to the scene of his
crime.
CHAPTER LXIII
Picturesque Narr.a.tive Revealed in a Madera Trial for Mur-
der. Thrice the Case Was Submitted to Juries. Victim
Was a Pioneer of the Days of the Discovery of Gold, and
One of the Squaw-men of Early Fresno. No Proof on the
Trials of a Motive for the Killing. Remarkable Rebuttal
OF Circumstantial Evidence. Tale of a Feud with the
Mono Tribe of Indians. Mute Evidences of It in a Hillside
Collection of Graves of Victims Who Died with Their
Boots On.
A picturesquely interesting narrative was revealed on the ten days'
trial in Madera County in November, 1908, of T. H. Muhly for the murder of
James W. Bethel, an old resident of Fresno County and a pioneer of Cali-
fornia of 1848, who participated in some of the Indian wars and took part
also in the wild and rugged life of early days. A lack of motive for the
killing was one of the unexplained features in the remarkable case. This was
taken advantage of in behalf of the prisoner to give basis for the theory that
the murder ma}^ possibly have been committed by Indians in revenge because
of ancient feud between the Bethel family and the remnant of the Mono tribe.
Recital was made of a story of bloodshed fitting a yellow-backed dime novel.
Details of this tale were furnished in large part by the late Judge George
AN'ashington Smiley, then eighty-five years of age, and an old timer who had
crossed the plains with Bethel upon the discovery of gold. Much of this
testimonv was ruled out because hearsav.
396 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Various features made the case one of the most remarkable. The first
trial resulted in the finding of Aluhly guilty of manslaughter with recom-
mendation to mercy in the sentence. The sentence was imprisonment for ten
years. The prisoner had to combat on the trial not alone the public sentiment
in a community that is noted for its clannishness but also the evidence at-
tempting to connect him with the homicide. The jury used the courtroom
for its deliberations and after its discharge there was found a tabulation of
its seven votes up to the time of a halt when the court was asked for a ruling
on certain disputed points in the case. The tabulation is interesting for
the remarkable fluctuation of sentiment among the jurors on the first seven
successive ballots. The showing was this:
12 3 4 5 6 7
Guilty 5 4 6 7 8 9 10
Not Guilty 7 8 6 5 4 3 1
Appeal was taken and new trial was granted which resulted in another
disagreement, the jury standing nine for not guilty. On the third trial in 1909,
Muhiy was found guilty of manslaughter and the ten-year sentence was
again pronounced. While serving the sentence, Muhly was paroled.
The accusation was that he had shot and killed Bethel on the 28th of
February, 1908, on premises on the Crane Valley road three miles from Power
House No. 3 and four miles from North Fork. Bethel was wounded first with
fine shot from a gun in the left side of the face and then had skull crushed
either with the barrel or the stock of the gun. Muhly was a rancher who in
1904 had bought a half interest in the premises from Bethel. The latter as a
pioneer of the earliest days had as many others in those times married a
woman of the Mono tribe and raised a family of half breed children. Muhly
had also entered into relations with the tribe through his marriage with
Polly Walker, a half breed of the Walker family of Fine Gold and niece of
the Walker, who was one of the pioneer sheriffs of Fresno. Muhly was a
man about fifty years of age, and Bethel although seventy-six years of age
had taken up with a married white woman of Tulare County, and it was un-
derstood intended to marry her as soon as he could divorce the Indian wife.
He was one of the best known of the living early pioneers and came in 1870
to the place where he was living and where he was killed. For a time he
conducted a roadhouse tavern and store, though for several years preceding
his killing he had only the store. He was once a well to do man.
Muhly possessed a No. 12 shot gun which it was abundantly proved
was used in common for quail hunting. Bethel slept in the tavern premises
at Bethel's Station and Muhly and wife made their abode in a house sixty
yards from the tavern. Bethel taking his meals with them. Muhly admitted
that on the day of the murder he had the gun hunting quail but left the
fowling piece with Bethel to try his luck. Bethel was late for supper that
night but after the meal returned to the store, Muhly remaining at home to
clear up the table and dishes. Shortly thereafter two shots were heard and
between the shots some one exclaimed excitedly, "Boys, don't do that!" At
the trial the gun had disappeared and it never was found, though effort was
made to locate with divining rod its place of concealment on the ranch. Mrs.
Muhly testified that her husband was in the kitchen shortly before the report
of the shots. He ran out in time to note the flash of the second shot in the
gathering twilight. After a time he went to the store and found Bethel dead
on the ground by the side of the porch.
Investigation next morning disclosed that one of the shots struck the
wall of the building about one foot above the porch and at close range. The
shot in Bethel's face and in the wall was No. 8 fitting the gun. The car-
tridges were the only kind about the house. The gun contained two empty
cartridges and the porch showed a blood patch. On the trial was introduced
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 397
as an exhibit a handkerchief found in the barn forty or more days after the
homicide — a silken, dirty rag with blood spots. ]\Iuhly said the handker-
chief was not his and he had never seen it before. Then there was evidence
that teamsters were accustomed to use the barn on their journeys, and well
it might have been that some one of them had cast the rag aside. This was
plausible enough.
Thirty days or so after the homicide the Bethel-Muhly premises were
gone over carefully and on a flat rock near the chicken house was found a
mass of overall strips cut from the hip down. Some of these were blood
marked. These and a pair of blood spotted shoes were submitted to a San
Francisco chemist for analysis. He deposed that they were blood spotted
but whether blood of human or animal he was not prepared to state, nor did
he so state. To offset this testimony there was evidence that teamsters and
workmen on the power house dam had been in the habit in traveling along
the road to use the granary frequently as a night resting place and overalls
in plenty had been discarded there by them. An Indian squaw, Mrs. Gait,
the mother of Mrs. Muhly, gave in evidence that she had cleaned out the
barn and had found sixteen pairs of overalls, had carried them to the flat
rock and there stripped them to make rugs and quilts. One of the attorneys
in the case had counted fourteen pairs of remnant overalls.
Then there was that pair of blood stained shoes discovered a few days
before the trial and overlooked on a previous search of the premises when
the overalls were found. The shoes were found in a rocky crevice about 100
yards from the Muhly house. Attempt was made to connect Muhly with
the crime by reason of the blood spots. These shoes were much worn, heel-
less and the left shoe was broken at the arch and patched. It was a No. 7
shoe. Muhly demonstrated at the trial that he wore a No. 9 shoe. Again
Mrs. Gait, the squaw, came to the rescue to exonerate Muhly. She declared
that the pair of shoes was an old one discarded about a year before by Justice
Thomas Jefiferson Rhodes, then of O'Neal's and before of Fine Gold. She
stated that she had salvaged the shoes, chopped oil" the heels and patched
the arch of the left shoe and had worn them on the very day of the killing
of Bethel and even on the day after. In fact she had worn them until the
June before the trial when her boys bought her a new pair and one day
while bathing in the creek discarded the old shoes and cast them aside in
the crevice where they had been found. With the shoes were the rags that
she had wrapped about her feet for lack of stockings.
Justice Rhodes testified that he had always worn a No. 7 shoe. He
was not prepared to identify the discarded blood-stained pair, though he
said it looked familiar to him because of the pegging. The spectacle was
then witnessed in the courtroom of Rhodes and the accused in turn fitting
the shoes, Rhodes finding them to fit and Muhly that they were too small
and did not fit. Then it was also shown that Rhodes' left leg is longer than
his right and in consequence he had contracted the habit in walking to place
his weight on the ball of the left foot, likewise bending that foot when
sitting, accounting for the break in the shoe sole at the hollow of the left foot.
There was testimony by a Mrs. L. A. Banta that on the evening of the
homicide she saw a light about seven o'clock in the direction of the Bethel
premises, about three-quarters of a mile distant. A. lantern was in fact found
near the body but to whom it belonged was another of the undetermined
facts at the trial.
But what was the motive for the murder? That was another undeter-
mined fact in the case. Eflfort was made to saddle a motive on Muhly but
it was a failure. Bethel could neither read nor write. It was claimed that
Muhly bore him a grudge and only awaited the time and opportunity to
revenge himself for Bethel's encumbering the property in some manner in
the half interest sale. The contention was in accounting for a motive that
Bethel was the sole owner and occupant of the premises on which he had
398 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
built; that the half interest never was conve}'ed to ^luhly ; that the property
was sold for delinquent taxes and bought in by Muhly on the tax deed to
gain title and oust Bethel. This was disproved by the showing that the built
on land was deeded with the half interest and moreover that there never
was charge or lien against the property from the time of Bethel's deed until
after the murder, when mortgage was clapped on to raise money for Muhly's
defense on the murder accusation.
On the other hand the plausible theory was advanced for the prisoner
that the murder could have been the deed of Indians for revenge on account
of a feud between the Bethel family and the Monos. Followed the recital of
Judge Smilie who was a walking encyclopedia of the neighborhood and
familiar with the history of ever}' one who had ever lived in the region.
And in this connection it is interesting to record as a historical fact that
the division of the county to form the later IMadera left the larger number of
earliest pioneers located north of the San Joaquin River as the common
boundary ; also necessarily the greater number of these survivors are to
this dav in the younger county. Reason there was for this. The greatest
mining acti\ities. with exception in a narrow belt along the San Joaquin
about Alillertnn, had been in that portion of Fresno County north of the San
Joaquin; the northern portion of the county lying between the San Joaquin
and the Chowchilla and on the Madera and the Fresno between the two
first named contributed more to the making of early history than did the
southern portion between the San Joaquin and the Kings wnth population
nuclei in the Millerton foothills, on the Upper Kings at what is today Cen-
terville, on the Lower at what is today the Kingsburg and Reedley country
and in the Coast Range on the west in a nook at what is today the New
Idria quicksilver mining country in San Benito County, all between these
points being a waste, desert plain awaiting the bringing on of water and
the coming of the husbandman to cultivate the parched and baked virgin soil.
Putting in sequence the tale narrated by Pioneer Smilie, it appeared that
when Bethel settled in the Crane Valley country more than a quarter of a
centurv ago and took as a companion an Indian woman he liad a quarrel
over her with one of her tribesmen and shooting him thrice, killed him.
This was so long ago that even Smilie would not hazard giving the year of
the occurrence. Bethel had declared that he expected he would forfeit his
life some day to an Indian assassin. However, early in the 80's Bob Bethel,
a half breed son, shot an Indian in the leg but a white man's jury cleared
him. About 1885 this Bob married according to the tribal custom the daugh-
ter of Mono chief named Pemona, who hankered for a rancheria for his sub-
tribe on' the Bethel ranch. With the marriage, Pemona secured that ranch-
eria. A day came and Bob deserted the chief's daughter, took up with an-
other marriageable squaw of the tribe and the proximity of the rancheria
having become objectionable (a circumstance not to be wondered at). Bethel
tried to have it removed and of course trouble arose.
Pemona came to pow-wow with Bethel, who supposed at first that the
chief had come to kill his half breed son for the desertion of the chief's daugh-
ter. Bethel aided the son's escape with the help of a horse, but Pemona tarried
all day and drinking too much there was a quarrel. Pemona advanced in
menacing manner with a rock in hand and Bethel blew the top of his head
off and killed him. ]\Ionths thereafter, mayhap a year, the tribe had a gather-
ing to grieve over the leaving from the rancheria and partly in memoriam of
the dead chief. Bob Bethel was at the gathering standing at the camp fire.
A shot rang out in the still of the night. A bullet struck him in the back
and there was a dead half-breed. The shot was from a nearby house and the
supposition has always been that the murder was by an Indian who had
taken up the quarrel of Bob's wife.
Bethel feared to go among the Indians to rescue the body of this son
because he would be fouUv dealt bv for the hostility between the Bethels
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 399
and Mono tribe was at this period at fever heat. Bethel induced Smilie to
accompany him in the recovery of the body for burial. Smilie acquiesced
but for his pains was shot at mistakenly for Bethel. The body of Bob was
recovered. About two years before the murder of Bethel, Barge, a younger
-brother of Bob, was found dead one day at home with bullet wound in the
head. At the time it was declared to have been a suicide and the coroner's
verdict so declared and found. Since that finding the impression gained
ground that it was a murder because it was impossible for Barge to have
shot himself in the location of the rifle wound, the fact that there were no
powder marks on him as there would have been had the firearm been dis-
charged at so close range as it necessarily must have been if it was a suicide,
and lastly because it has never been known for a half-breed to take his life.
There was also evidence at the trial that Bethel had ordered an Indian
off the premises some weeks or months before, that on the morning following
the murder an Indian had been seen prowling about the Bethel store at
North Fork, that he had been drunk and excited suspicion. The above
fragmentary and disconnected recital was furnished as a basis for the jury
to believe or conclude in the absence of any proven or indicated motive for
the killing of Bethel on Muhly's part that the murder must have been com-
mitted by an Indian, who had taken the law into his own hands as avenger
of a series of outrages suffered by his tribe through acts of the Bethels.
"Last scene of all,
"That ends this strange, eventful history."
On the hillside near the Bethel roadhouse is a collection of graves, most
of them unnamed, forgotten, dilapidated, weed or grass overgrown and
dank. Four mark the earthly resting-places of known dead. One is the
sepulcher of Ben Harding called before his Maker unprepared for the jour-
ney into eternity many years ago. In the other three graves lie the remains
of the three Bethels, father and two sons.
And all died with their boots on !
CHAPTER LXIV
Conscienceless Effort of 1907-08 to Divide Fresno County and
Lop off the Coalinga Oil Field Territory. A Land Grab
Initiated in Hanford for the Enlargement of Kings
County by Conquest. Animosities Created that Continued
A Rankling Thorn for a Decade After. Commissioners In-
dicted Criminally for Refusal to Canvass Vote Cast at
Division Special Election. Appeal to Courts to Compel
Their Performance of a Sworn Duty. County Division
Conspiracy Defeated. Compromise Follows with Loss by
Fresno of a 120 Square Mile Strip of Land.
Fresno was agitated to its depths in 1907-08 over a conscienceless effort
made with apparent support of a ring in the legislature to divide the county
by lopping off western territory embracing the Coalinga oil field developed
in large part by Fresno men and capital and annexing it for the enlargement
of Kings County to satisfy an insatiate greed.
Kings contained then 1,200 square miles. The Coalinga district em-
braced 1,242 square miles. It is one of the richest oil fields in the world.
The proposed steal of the land south of the Fourth Standard Parallel would
have more than doubled Kings' area. In the proposed change, Coalinga was
sought to be voted by hook or crook from one of the richest to one of the
poorest counties in the state : from one of the largest to one of the smallest.
400 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Fresno ranked then sixth in the state in order of population and wealth.
Its immediate future according to every reasonable prospect was to rise to
fourth place. Beyond that it could not well advance. To do so, it would have
to pass San Francisco, Los Angeles and Alameda. Kings was then not so
large as the rich district upon which it had cast covetous eyes.
The ambition of Kings was to improve its river and swamp land at the
expense of the taxes to be levied on the land and improvements of the oil
district with which it was perhaps in closer relation because of the poor
railroad connections and the lack of roads across the plains between Fresno
and Coalinga. Indeed the railroad connection was by a circuitous route via
Hanford in Kings. As a bribe to cajole it into annexation, the coveted terri-
tory was promised a supervisorship in the enlarged Kings County, besides
other empty inducements, which with the ultimate defeat of the annexation
project no attempt was ever made at fulfilment. Coalinga by going over into
Kings was asked to forever cut ofif the chance for a big West Side county
with itself as the largest community the possible county seat. A develop-
ment had then been started and has since continued, and a population might
be looked for to warrant some day the formation of a county with the oil
district as the nucleus. Had Coalinga gone into Kings, the latter would never
have population enough to sufifer the territorial loss of Coalinga annex, and
Coalinga, so the anti-annexationists argued, would have shut of? its oppor-
tunity for a big county north of the Kings River to satisfy the ambitions of
a few politicians south of the river. It was after all is said and done a raw
effort by Kings to grow by conquest.
This county division plan never had inception in Fresno but was con-
ceived in Kings. Two years before the Hanford papers began the agitation
and campaign to enlarge the territory of the vest-pocket county for the
sake of the enlarged ta.x income, Kings having reached the limit at home
and Coalinga being a convenient and contiguous field with possibility of
exploitation and assuredly worth the efifort. There was everything to win
and nothing to lose. In April, 1906, the Coalinga Record, under another
management than that which dictated its policy later, denounced the Han-
ford county division of Fresno project and the manifest efifort to divide
sentiment in the Coalinga district by fomenting dissension and declared
that it was content to remain in Fresno. What induced the change in policy
in the sheet is left to conjecture. Certain it was not in a change of conditions
because they were improving. The annexation scheme was an inspiration of
Kings for its material benefit, carried through its' first steps in the legisla-
ture by a combination of politicians and thereafter attempted to be pushed
through to a successful consummation by methods suggestive of the most
questionable tactics of the pothouse politician.
The annexationists were beaten in the end at their own game ; the result
on the division vote was attempted to be arbitrarily set aside and an-
other election called ; the popular indignation was great over the tactics pur-
sued: the Fresno grand jury took up the matter of the election commission's
refusal to perform an official duty in the canvass of the vote, and of the
fraud in voting and registration ; three of the commissioners were criminally
indicted for felony ; injunction was sued out to desist from holding a second
or other election on division; the district appellate court issued writ com-
manding canvass of the election returns and declaration of the result ; the
indictments were afterward set aside on a legal technicality ; the annexation
swindle was defeated but based on the showing of the vote the Webber bill
as a compromise was passed at the March, 1909, session of the legislature
and 120 square miles were lopped of¥ from Fresno instead of the 185 asked
and the Laguna de Tache grant was cut almost in two. The ramified litiga-
tion over the annexation steal created intense and bitter animosities. It was
a rankling thorn for a decade after.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 401
The legislative measure that initiated the division election was one by
Assemblyman William L. McGuire of Kinos who politically has passed into
oblivion. Under that bill were appointed i\'larch 25, 1907, the following named
as commissioners to conduct an election to ratify the boundary change :
J. W. Herbert of Laton ;
L. P. Guiberson of Coalinga :
Scott Blair of Coalinga ;
D. M. De Long of Coalinga ;
George Robinson of Coalinga.
They had made call for an election in the affected district for Tuesday
the 10th of December, 1907. Things were in a muddled state the month
before and registration of voters for that election had been reopened in the
district under the expectation and theory that the election would not be held
on the day set under the call and that the call was an illegal one. A test
case had been taken to the supreme court against the advice of the Fresno bar
and the decision declared that the election call could be issued at any tin.ie
within sixty daj's after the remittitur of the court. The latter had not issued
when the December 10th election date was set as notice had l)een filed of
intention to ask for a rehearing of the case in the supreme court. The law re-
quired that the election proclamation be published twenty-five days before
the day of election and under the attempted call for December 10 issued on
November 13 there was a bare twenty-five days intervening and registration
closing fort)^ days before election. However that may all be, the election was
held on December 10.
On the Saturday night before the election, the opponents of division
held a rally at the Coalinga Theater which was literally jammed to the doors
with the more than half a thousand people in attendance. The assemblage
was an enthusiastic one and the sentiment decidedly in favor of Fresno and
staying with it. Tom O'Donnell, one of the largest oil operators, who had
at the election before been a candidate for the assembly, was the chairman
and touched upon the personalities that had been injected into the campaign
as uncalled for while not afTecting the issues at stake. He declared that
the attitude of many of the leading men of Coalinga had been misrepresented
and lied about by the divisionists. He cited examples of misrepresentations,
among others one by Assemblyman McGuire that the interests of the Asso-
ciated Oil Company were being jeopardized by Guiberson as its local man-
ager in efforts to coerce local men because he favored Fresno interests. The
refutation was given in a letter by business men of Coalinga.
David S. Ewing defended Fresno's interests on the division question.
The oil field had been developed by Fresno capital and operated by Fresno
men. Kings County men came in after the field had been developed and
been proven and there were no longer risks to take. He himself had been
among the first to invest in West Side oil lands ; was a member of the com-
pany that secured the first lease ; and the company that discovered oil in
1899 on the West Side; and he was attorney for the men that discovered oil
in the Coalinga field in 1894. He pointed out the loss to Coalinga in taking
the di\ision step and the burden that it would shoulder as it would be looked
to to furnish much of the taxes for the building up of Kings County.
H. H. W^elsh, another large oil operator interested in the pipe transpor-
tation lines, also pointed out the greater interests that Fresno men have
in the district compared to the Kings agitators and therefore better able
to form opinions on the subject of division than the outsiders. He referred
to the change of policy of the Coalinga newspaper though two-thirds of its
stockholders favored remaining with Fresno County and its unfair means
and arguments. He asserted that the district supervisor had more than
redeemed the one promise made that all money raised by taxation in the
district should be devoted to improvements and needs of the oil district. He
ridiculed some circulated rumors, one of these that if division carried the big
402 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
oil companies would reduce men's wages because involving the supposition
of a location in a county affected by the laws of supply and demand of the
country at large. And as to the matter of roads of which much was made,
he asserted that Coalinga had the best roads in the state and the winter
before their condition was nothing to compare in badness with those of
Fresno and in the vicinity of Hanford.
The speaker of the evening was Senator G. W. Cartwright of Fresno,
who elaborated upon Kings County's ambition to grow by conquest, its
greed and the fact that county division had its inception in Hanford. He
made sport of the argument of the excess of love of Kings for the Coalinga
people because Fresno officials had not visited the field as often as the Han-
fordites. The sum total raised by Kings County for roads was $35,000, while
the supervisorial district in which Coalinga is located alone raises $52,000.
Kings County could not therefore fulfil the road promises it had made,
giving it credit of wishing to make good on its word. The supervisors prom-
ise to spend district tax raised money in the district had been fulfilled and
the spending of the money was placed in the hands of De Long. If not
spent to the best advantage, then it was De Long's fault, or going back
of that of the supervisor, but in any event the county should not be held to
blame. The remedy is not to leave the county. Under the existing arrange-
ment in Fresno, Coalinga received a lot of tax money, but under the Kings
system the plan was to place Coalinga into a district to be included with a
large part of the Tulare lake bottom. This swamp country has comparatively
small taxable resources, the Coalinga district is rich and the oil field would
be called upon to build roads and bridges for the lake and swamp district.
As to the bait promise of a supervisorship, the Senator said that nothing
had prevented Coalinga having a supervisor in Fresno other than that no
man had been enterprising enough and up to snufif to run for the office, yet
the district had elected a county recorder and small precincts had sent many
a county officer to Fresno. Some of the circulated lies that had been nailed,
proven untrue and having no foundation were reviewed. Among these were
the assertions that Fresno County does not own its courthouse property ;
that there is a clause in the deed for reversion if the land is not used for
court house purposes ; that the county is in debt ; and the like. As an argu-
ment clincher there was exposure of the plot in the showing that on Novem-
ber 19, 1907, at Laton, Ben McGinnis had in the presence of ten people, some
of whom had made affidavit, said with regard to the question of who would
pay for the proposed improvement of river and swamp land in Kings County :
"Those people over in Coalinga are not paying anything like the taxes they
should and we are going to raise their taxes to pay for all those improve-
ments."
As one of the big jokes of the campaign was the statement that a subur-
ban line would be built in the event of county division to run from Coalinga
to Kanford crossing the river twice and passing through Lemoore and Laton.
This was passed off as buncombe, as an election and not an electric road and
ridiculed was the thought that a county would expend $100,000 in bridges
and in an electric road to accommodate the travel of a few hundred people.
The day may come when a main railroad will connect Fresno and Coal-
inga. Hanford located as it is will be always on a branch line and Coalinga
annexed would be connected with its county seat by a jerk water line and
the main line closely connected with Fresno. To emphasize the contrasted
public improvements of Fresno and Kings Counties, stereopticon views were
shown and the exhibition was of things that Fresno had, and that Kings
lacked; and that Coalinga might expect to pay for what Kings lacked.
The night before election the divisionists had their final meeting. A
Tulare senator and Hanfordites were the speakers, it was noted. Theelec-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 403
tion was held with the following result, nine precincts in the affected district
voting:
For division 643
Against division 521
Total vote 1,164
Necessary sixty percent, to carry 698
Division lost by 55
Coalinga precinct voted for 329
Coalinga precinct voted against 229
Total precinct vote 558
Necessary sixty percent 334
Division lost by 5
It rained on election day. Had it not rained, the anti-divisionists would
have probably polled more votes. The rain impeded the automobiles as the
swifter means of bringing men in from the oil fields to vote. Coalinga was
the center of the day's conflict — a veritable "bloody angle" for there the Han-
fordites were in strength and marshaled their forces, contested every inch
of the ground with shifty tactics and methods to put to blush the boldest
of metropolitan ward bosses. As Senator Cartwright stated after the thing
was over, not dreaming of what was to come thereafter: "Every inch of the
ground was contested, but Fresno did not lose any tricks, even though the
cards did seem to be stacked at one stage of the game."
The first bomb cast into the camp of the anti-divisionists was a ruling
early in the day by the election board that whoever had registered, even up
to and including the day of election, could vote. This ruling was on the advice
of a Visalia attorney, who represented the annexationists in all the legal pro-
ceedings. The ruling cast to the winds the general election law provision that
a voter must be registered a certain number of days before the election day.
The Fresno committee protested against the ruling but it was of no avail.
So it decided to take the bull by the horns and it also went after anti-annexa-
tionists that had not registered within the forty-day limit. Such votes were
offered but being anti-division voters their ballots were refused on the ground
that their names were not on the register. Kings County men were permitted
to vote on a certification by a deputy registration clerk, who b}^ some well
directed mischance seemed to have omitted the names of those who might
have been favorable to Fresno.
In the confusion that ensued the Visalia attorney was besieged and com-
mitted himself to a proposition on registration. The Fresno committee pre-
pared certifications and forty-five or fifty votes were polled on the same basis
as the Kings County "emergency voters." Registrations were also proceeded
with but these were not voted or made avail of. As a matter of fact 270 names
had been added to the great register since October 30, the day when registra-
tion for the election should have ceased. Challenges at the polls were in order
all day long, a total of twenty-six from Fresno. It was also stated that for
divisionists as well as the antis some 300 affidavits had been taken during
November and December of persons whose names did not go on the register
because the time was after the forty days before the election. These had been
taken for possible registration on the first entertained theory that the election
might not be held on the 10th as there was a question as 'to the legality of
the election call issued before the remittitur from the supreme court came
down in the first test case. Election day was a day of excitement wild and
long to be remembered.
404 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
But if beaten at the election, there were other shifty tactics to be resorted
to and they were on Tuesday, December 17, at Coalinga, when three of the
commissioners actually declared the election held null and void and made an-
nouncement of another election to be held on the 14th of January. 1908. The
commissioners were to have met to canvass the vote on Monday the 16th
but did not. In a sworn affidavit made by Commissioners Guiberson and Her-
bert they deposed that they met at the appointed hour at the office of the
commission with an attorney who was clerk of the commission in Coalinga
to canvass the returns. The clerk locked the door, refused them entrance, or
to have access to the returns, or to inspect them, whereupon the commis-
sioners met outside the door and by resolution adjourned until two o'clock
on the day after. The affidavit also stated that Scott Blair, another of the
commissioners, was present in the building at the time and although requested
to do so refused to meet with the two commissioners or to canvass the returns,
the meeting having been at the call of the chairman theretofore given.
The reason for not holding the meeting became apparent at the proceed-
ings on the day after. Evidently the program had not been completed the
day before and had not been rehearsed. It was an excited meeting this assem-
blage of the full commission with enough legal talent on hand to back the
hope of the chairman that it would put them right in the proceedings to fol-
low. The returns of the Coalinga precinct were produced for canvass. The
precinct register index was missing but as it did not show who had voted it
was inconsequential. Its absence was seized upon by the chairman, De Long,
to raise the point whether it was not for the commission to question anything
done at the election outside of and not according to law, in other words to
go behind the returns.
This was the cue for the Visalia attorney, who launched forth in an argu-
ment that the election was not conducted according to law and that it was
for the commissioners to determine whether the returns had come to them in
a manner provided by law, maintaining also that it had appeared that people
had voted at the election that were not qualified to do so because they were
not on the great register.
Reply was of course made by the attorneys representing the anti-division-
ists and the question was squarely presented whether the duties of the com-
mission were not purely ministerial in the canvassing of the votes cast and
certifying the result, and not judicial as maintained by the divisionists in going
behind the face of the returns and passing on whether ballots are legal or
illegal for any reason.
The law giver for the divisionists went further to declare that there is
no legal procedure to contest a special election such as this, and maintained
that if any illegal votes had been cast it was the duty of the commission to
declare the election null and void.
Commissioner Guiberson in Anglo-Saxon more forcible than elegant or
parliamentary asked how the board was to determine this question?
Without attempting to answer this problem. Chairman De Long an-
nounced flat-footedly for an inquiry into the legality of the votes. The lawyers
argued and argued but all in vain. A program had been resolved upon and
it was the intention to carry that program over rough shod, if need be. Gui-
berson forced on the issue to proceed with the canvass. The vote was a tie, he
and Herbert voting for the motion and De Long casting the deciding vote,
making it; Ayes two ; noes 3. Efl^ort followed to take up the returns of an-
other precinct but it proved a failure, for at this point advance prepared reso-
lutions were introduced and of course adopted by a vote of three to two.
If evidence were. needed to prove the existence of a pre-arranged program,
tile resolutions furnished it.
After this there was nothing more to do before the commission. The
question was asked of the chairman : "Would this action have taken place
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 405
had the election gone the other way?" The reply: 'Tt would in my case, so
far as I am concerned," provoked incredulous smiles.
After long recitals, the resolutions declared that the election held on
the 10th of December "was not in truth, or in fact, or in contemplation of
law, such an election as provided for in said act ;" all proceedings taken in
relation to holding the election were voided and set aside and another election
was ordered for January 14, 1908, and the secretary was ordered to demand
of the county clerk a certificate showing the names of all qualified electors
resident in the district prior to three months before the new date of election
and registered.
It was a remarkable piece of work that of those three commissioners.
As H. H. Welsh remarked : "This thing has positively reached the degree
of indecency." As monstrous a lie as could be manufactured out of whole
cloth was the declaration in the program resolutions that County Clerk \V. O.
Miles had refused "to furnish the board of commissioners any certificate
under seal showing the additional names of the voters on the great register
of the county of Fresno registered as residing in said territory described in
said act, since the last register." He did furnish a copy of the great register
and of all additional certified to names of voters on the register within forty
days of the election and of those who had transferred within twenty-five days
of the election. All who attempted to register after the forty or twenty-five
days were not entitled to vote, and these he did not register nor certify to.
The county grand jury took up on December 20, 1907, the matter of the
alleged conspiracy in relation to the division election and as the first phase
the refusal of the three commissioners to perform a specific duty in the can-
vass of the returns, in pursuance of a conspiracy. It was a coincidence that
Commissioner Herbert was a member of the grand jury and he was excused
from participation in the inquiry on the first phase, but called for the second
phase as regards the fraud in voting and registration. The plea for the refusal
to canvass the vote was that this action was based on the advice of the Visalia
attorney. The reason given for the non-holding of the called meeting of the
commission for the canvassing of the returns was that it was not required
to be held until six days after the receipt of the votes. That ]\Ionday was in
fact the sixth day after the election and all returns had been received the day
after the election.
There was a circumstance in this connection. It may have been that this
Monday called meeting of the commission was not held because not until
night of that day was the town council of Hanford to award to F. S. Granger
franchise for an interurban road between Hanford and Fresno. Perhaps it was
desired to have this matter settled before taking action to set aside the election
and calling for another so that the matter of the franchise grant could be used
as an argument for winning over votes at the second election. As a matter of
fact this interurban road failed to materialize because its bonds could nc\er
find sale.
Confusion was worse confounded January 8, 1908, when there was a call
out for the second election by the commission for the 14th but on which 8th
day the grand jury returned indictments against Commissioners David M.
De Long, Scott Blair and George Robinson for a felony under Section 41 of
crimes against the elective franchise in the refusal and neglect to canvass
the December election vote. The indictments were not expected so soon
after the mandamus hearing at Sacramento the Monday before on the order
to show cause before the district appellate court why they had not canvassed
the vote. The petition was by John Cerini, an elector of the Liberty precinct,
who had also petitioned in the Superior court of Fresno County to enjoin the
holding of the January 14th election held up by order of Judge H. Z. x\ustin.
The foreman of the grand jury was T. C. \\'hite and the indictments were
returned by fifteen subscribing grand jurors out of nineteen.
406 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
There was a reason for advancing the finding of the indictments. The
electors of Laton had voted strongly against division, in fact their vote had
been a deciding factor, the divisionists having their support in the out-of-
town voters in the Laguna country. To change the possible vote at the 14th
of January election the commission removed the polling place from Laton,
where it had been for years, to the district school house seven miles from
town. The purpose of this change could have been to reduce the Laton vote
against division because of inability to attend at the polling place, and thus
increase the vote for division in the southern and western part of the county
in the district before offset by the town people. Undeterred by indictment,
mandamus and injunction, but determined to carry out the program to void
the result of the December election, the personnel of the precinct boards of
election in the affected district had also been changed for the election on the
14th, a new set of officials was practically named and anti-divisionists declared
that the precincts were placed in control of sympathizers with Kings and
partisans of division. The time for forbearance and temporizing had passed
and the contempt of the commissioners was met by the indictments. INIean-
while no canvass of the vote and no official declaration of the result.
January 10th the appellate court issued its writ ordering the commis-
sioners to canvass the result of the special election in December, the man-
damus case having been referred to it for hearing and decision by the supreme
court. The decision was an unanimous one and for the time killed the divi-
sion movement. The pleaded refusal to canvass was on the ground that
309 voters registered within the forty days preceding the election were
denied ballots by order of the county clerk.
The superior court injunction case as regards the called for second
election on the 14th was independent of the mandamus case. It was held in
abeyance until after the attitude of the refractory trio -was further made
manifest after receipt of the mandamus order. The injunction forbade making
any preparation for this election. The commission had no paraphernalia for
it save the sealed and bank-vaulted election papers of December and if the
returns were canvassed and the result against division declared manifestly
there would be no need for another election under the act. The county clerk
refused to issue new papers for an election in January. The question of
illegal votes was not a matter for the commissioners as it had always been
contended and as it was held. Theirs was to canvass the vote and declare
the result. And if any one desired to contest the election, how was he to
institute that contest when no official declaration of the December vote had
ever been made? Moreover, had it come to the question of that fraud, it
would probably have been found where the initiative was and there would
have been no likelihood of a contest by the divisionists.
The mandamus decision was to order the refractory ones to do under
the law the thing that they had been asked to do but which they stubbornly
refused to do and for which they were indicted. Their defense was that they
had acted as they did on the advice of a Visalia attorney. Lawyers will
tell you that it is no defense in law that a client has acted on the bad or
fool advice of a lawyer. The commissioners abided by the mandamus order
and canvassed the December vote. They had been hoisted by their own pe-
tard. They had chosen to accept the sole and unsupported advice of this
Visalian as against that of other lawyers and that of the county's law giver
inthe deputy district attorney in opposition to the ^"isalian but conformably
with the court ruling in the mandamus case.
But there was discovered another strong piece of evidence as showing
intent. It was brought to the attention of the grand jury, and as report
had it, was a strong determining factor resulting in the presentation of the
indictments. It was in effect that after the day of the December election
and after defeat of division was known from the unofficial returns, and before
the day for the canvass at Coalinga, the commissioners under indictment
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 407
afterward communicated by telephone with county division headquarters at
Hanford and all or some attended a meeting of the division campaigners in
that town. The communications that passed and the instructions from the
meeting were in effect of the character of the acts done in the refusal to
canvass the returns, and brought about the complications that actually arose.
The four indictments against the three refractories and their ill advising
Visalia attorney were stricken from the court files by a decision on January
23, 1908, by Judge J. A. Melvin of Alameda County, who had been called
into the case and whose technical decision was that the substantial rights of
the defendants had been violated in that G. P. Beveridge and William For-
syth as grand jurors had voted to find indictments when they had not been
present at the grand jury meetings when testimony was given on the 20th
and 21st of December and that what evidence they were in possession of was
not legal but hearsay evidence, having been the stenographic report of the
testimony given on the two days. Judge Alelvin declared that he was loath
to grant the motion on a technicality, but said that the people's rights would
not be sacrificed by a granting of the motion for he instructed the district
attorney to resubmit the case to another grand jury. The attention of the
court was directed to the fact that even with the two grand jurors eliminated,
there had still been a quorum of twelve to find the indictments. The answer
was that the duties of a grand juror are not alone to vote but to hear and take
the best evidence and to discuss it and not having heard all the testimony
presented they were disqualified, biased or prejudiced.
The two jurors had testified that they were not prejudiced. In behalf
of Beveridge, it was admitted that he had contributed $200 to the Fresno
anti-division campaign fund. Three interesting facts were brought out in
a reading of the testimony given by Commissioner Guiberson before the
grand jury and they were:
(1) That it was understood at the meeting of the commissioners for
the canvass of the votes that the Visalia attorney came with a prepared reso-
lution to declare the election void and of no effect, with onlv the date line
blank.
(2) That Guiberson could not comprehend that this Visalian's advice
could be right because he quoted no law and had he said that black was
white the board would also so have declared in following any advice from
him.
(3) If any lawyer in Fresno had advised contrarily, the board would not-
withstanding have acted upon the .Visalia advice.
The conspiracy matter was never submitted to another grand jury. Divi-
sion was effectually squelched. Kings County's land grab took another form
and on March 10, 1908. Senators Cartwright of Fresno and Miller of Tulare
arrived at a compromise and the Webber bill was passed after two roll
calls on defeated amendments and with no reasons given for the passage of
the measure. The bill established a new south boundary for Fresno County,
the original bill asking for 185 square miles and the last amerudment calling
for 120. Miller had tied up a bunch of votes with a fairly close prospect
on the final result : Cartwright recognized that he had been beaten and
Miller was not certain how long he could hold his block intact. In the contest
on the floor, Cartwright first proposed the river as a boundary giving Kings
thirty-eight and Fresno in return thirteen square miles. This was defeated
by a vote of seven to twenty-six. Then came his proposal to give Kings the
district in Fresno south of the river; defeated by a viva voce vote. Then was
made the offer to give the south of the river land and that about Heinlein
understood to have a pro-Kings County population. This was defeated fifteen
to eighteen.
In the debate on the floor on the third reading of the bill with demand of
roll call, much was told of the history of the county boundary question in
the effort of Kings to secure more taxable property, showing how the cam-
.408 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
paign was started in Hanford to arouse discontent, carried on for two years to
set up a revolt against Fresno and ending in a vote and defeat of the propo-
sition. Cartwright and Miller had made agreement against any lobbying on
the bill in the hope of a vote on its merits. On the showing made at the
election, it was claimed that the people north of the river were averse to
going into Kings but those south of it desired a change.
Cartwright presented protest from about seventy-five percent, of voters
in districts north of the river against any change ; showed that ninety
percent, of the people of Laton did not want to go into the smaller county
and nearly all the families in Riverbend desired to be in Fresno. ^Miller's
reply was almost wholly an attack on Assemblyman A. M. Drew of Fresno
for instituting the injunction suit of two years before and lost to prevent
the election, denouncing the act as a breach of faith in a matter submitted
by the legislature. Interviews with senators on the Webber bill were ex-
cused on the plea that two years before Cartwright had beaten Miller in
pledging senators on the boundary question. The further plea was that as
above sixty per cent, in the territory asked by Kings so voted the change
should afifect the land on both sides of the river. Kings could not afford to
accept the river as a boundary as it would have to spend too much money
in bridges without recompense in taxable property.
Objection being made to the reading of more telegrams from Fresno
against a change in boundary, Cartwright had his last fling in the arguments
on the amendments to show up Charles King for his welching after making
a $1,500 wager on division and losing. Cartwright admitted that this had
nothing to do with the bill but he wanted to show the senate what kind of a
man was behind the bill.
As passed, the bill gave Kings about half the valuable territory that it
had asked for, leaving to Fresno the town of Laton and placing the line
about six miles south of the fourth parallel line south which was the line
that Kings desired. Fresno saved three-fourths of those that desired to re-
main with Fresno and lost nine-tenths of those that wanted to go to Kings.
And thus ended the chapter on the Kings County grab, denominating the
attempted act of brigandage by the mildest of terms.
OFFICIAL DIRECTORY
f Fresno, forty-first county of fifty-eight in the order of formation, was
created under the act of April 19, 1856. The seventh legislative session at
Sacramento adjourned two days after the date of the county creative act.)
STATE SENATORS
1857-61. S. A. IMerritt. 1862-63, Thomas Baker. 1863-68, J. W. Freeman.
1869-72, Thomas Fowler. 1873-76. Tipton Lindsev. 1877-78, Thomas Fowler.
1879-82, Dr. Chester Rowell. 1883-86. Patrick Reddv. 1887-94, George G.
Goucher. 1895-98, Dr. A. T. Pedlar. 1899-1906, Dr. Chester Rowell. 1907-14,
George W. Cartwright. 1915, W. F. Chandler. 1919, M. B. Harris.
ASSEMBLYMEN
1857, Orson K. Smith. 18.58, A. H. Mitchell. 1859, Tames M. Roan.
1860, T. M. Heston. 1861, Orson K. Smith. 1862, James Smith. 1863-64,
Tames N. Walker. 1865-68, R. P. Mace. 1869. P. C. Appling. 1871, J. N.
Walker. 1873, T- W. Ferguson. 1875, T- D. Collins. 1877, R. P. Mace. 1879,
C. G. Savle. 1881, E. T. Griffith. 1883, T- F. Wharton. 1885, A. M. Clark.
1887, J. P. Vincent. 1889, E. H. Tucker. 1891-94. G. W. Mordecai and 1893-94,
H. J."T. Tacobsen. 1895, N. L. F. Bachman and W. F. Rowell. 1897, G. W.
Cartwright and L. W. Moultrie. 1899, John Fairweather and T- M. Griffin.
1901, W. F. Chandler and IMarvin G. Simpson. 1903, A. M. Drew and T- O.
Traber. 1005-08, AV. F. Chandler and A. M. Drew. 1909, W. R. Odom and
A. M. Drew. 1911. W. F. Chandler, W. A. Sutherland. 1913. Chandler, Suther-
land and L. B. Carv. 1915, L. D. Scott. Ffenrv Hawson and Rov C. Traber.
1917, A. A. Carlson, Henry Hawson and Melvin Pettit. 1919, S.'L. Strother,
B. D. McKean and Melvin Pettit.
DISTRICT JUDGES
Fresno County was in the thirteenth judicial district until the system
was changed with the constitution adopted in 1879.
1856.'Ethelbert Burke. 1864, T. M. Bondurant. 1865, Alexander Deering.
1868, A. C. Bradford. 1873, Alexander Deering. 1875, J. B. Campbell and the
last on the district court bench.
COUNTY JUDGES
1856. Charles A. Hart. I860, James Sayles, Jr. 1864, E. C. \A^inchell.
1867, Gillum Baley and the last under the judicial system of the old consti-
tution.
SUPERIOR COURT
1880. S. A. Holmes. 1884. J. B. Campbell. 1887. M. K. Harris (appointed
to the newlv created Department two of the court and in November 1888
elected to a 'full term). 1890, S. A. Holmes. 1894, J. R. Webb previously ap-
pointed to the additional Department three, and E. W. Risley elected to
Department two. 1895. Stanton L. Carter appointed, vice Holmes deceased.
1896, George E. Church elected to fill out that unexpired term. 1900, H. Z.
410 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Austin and George E. Church, both on the bench in Departments one and
two and reelected thereafter. 1918, D. A. Cashin appointed by the governor
to the Third Department judgeship created at the legislative session before.
1919, H. Z. Austin, reelected; D. A. Cashin, elected, Departments one and
three; M. F. McCormick, elected, Department two.
COUNTY SUPERVISORS
(There has never been published a complete, correct and reliable county
official roster. The early records are incomplete and perplexing. The pro-
vision of filing a bond as an official qualification was often neglected, and by
the early supervisors apparently ignored — at any rate none are of record.
Not until after 1862 was there record of election returns or of official declara-
tions of results. The first name for every yearly grouping that follows is
that of the board chairman.)
1856 — John R. Hughes, John A. Patterson, John L. Hunt.
1857— J. R. Hughes, Jam"es E. Williams, Clark Hoxie.
1858 — Clark Hoxie, Tames Smith, James W. Rankin.
1859— H. E. Howard, C. D. Simpson, A. C. Bullock.
1860—1. B. Roval, L. J. Carmack, Justin Esrev.
1861— G. B. Abel, J. B. Roval, L. f. Carmack.
1862— W. H. Parker, John L. Hunt, Reuben Reynolds.
1863 — John L. Hunt, James Blackburn, J. G. Simpson.
1864-65— John L. Hunt, J. G. Simpson, W. W. Hill.
1866— J. L. Hunt, J. G. Simpson, S. S. Hyde.
1867— J. G. Simpson, S. S. Hyde. H. C. Daulton.
1868— S. S. Hyde, J. G. Simpson, H. C. Daulton.
1869 — H. C. Daulton, J. G. Simpson, John Barton.
1870 — J. G. Simpson, John Barton, H. C. Daulton.
1871 — John Barton, H. C. Daulton, Michael Donahoo.
1872— H. C. Daulton, Thomas F. Witherspoon, J. N. Musick.
1873— T. F. Witherspoon. H. C. Daulton, J. N. Musick.
1874— H. C. Daulton, Austin PhiUips, J. N. Musick.
1875— H. C. Daulton, J. N. Musick, A. Phillips.
1876— J. N. Musick, A. Phillips, I. N. Ward
1877— Austin Phillips, J. J. Hensley, T. P. Nelson.
1878— T. P. Nelson. J. J. Hensley, Thomas Waggener.
1879— T. P. Nelson, Thos. Waggener, T. ]. Dunlap.
1880— Thos. Waggener, T. P. Nelson, T. ]. Dunlap.
1881-82— T. J. Dunlap, T. P. Nelson, Austin Phillips.
1883-84— H. C. Daulton, W. L. L. Witt, A. T. Covell, Thomas Wag-
gener, D. C. Dunagan.
1885-86 — A. T. Covell, J. J. Dickinson, Stephen Hamilton, John Yeargin,
D. C. Dunagan.
1887— A. T. Covell, W. M. Raynor, S. Hamilton, C. L. Walter, D. C.
Dunagan.
1888— S. Hamilton, W. M. Raynor. T. C. White, C. L. Walter, D. C.
Dunagan.
1889-90— D. C. Dunagan, W. M. Raynor, T. F. Letcher, T. C. White,
C. L. Walter, William Hanke (elected June 1890 on the death of Dunagan).
1891-92— T. C. White, J. Myer, T. F. Letcher, R. B. Butler, W. Hanke.
1893— T. F. Letcher, R. B. Butler, J. Myer, F. P. Wickersham, J. H.
Sayre.
1894— T. F. Letcher, R. B. Butler, F. P. Wickersham, T. R. Foster, J. H.
Sayre.
1895-96— F. P. Wickersham, T. F. Letcher, J. H. Savre, M. S. Rose,
C. AV. Garrett.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 411
1897-98— T. H. Sayre, C. W. Garrett, W . P. Alanley, A. E. Smith, James
A. Ward (appointed by Governor Budd April 1907 upon the accidental death
of Smith), M. S. Rose.
1899-00— J. H. Sayre, H. E. Burleigh, W. P. Manley, Phil Scott, Thomas
Martin
1901-04— Phil Scott, PI. E. Burleigh, E. ]. Bullard, Thomas Martin, W.
D. Mitchell.
1905-06— Thomas Martin, H. E. Burleigh, G. W. Beall, J. B. Johnson,
W. D. Mitchell.
1907-08— G. W. Beall, Thomas Martin, Chris Jorgensen, I. B. Johnson,
W. D. Mitchell.
1909-10— Thomas Martin, C. Jorgensen, M. D. Huffman, J. B. Johnson,
W. D. Mitchell.
1911-12 — Chris Jorgensen, M. D. Huffman, J. B. Johnson, Thomas Mar-
tin, W. D. Mitchell.
1913-14 — Chris Jorgensen, M. D. Huffman, J. B. Johnson, Thomas Mar-
tin, W. A. Collins. "
1915-16— Chris Jorgensen, M. D. Huffman, J. B. Johnson, Charles L.
Wells, W. A. Collins.
1917— Chris Jorgensen, Robert Lochead,-J. B. Johnson, C. L. Wells, W.
A. Collins.
SHERIFFS
(Up to 1889 the sheriff was also tax collector.)
1856-57 — W. C. Bradley. 1857— George S. Harden (appointed on resig-
nation of Bradley). 1858-^W. Y. Scott. 1859— J. S. Ashman. 1867— J. N.
Walker. 1871— J. S. Ashman. 1873— Lerov Dennis. 1874— J. S. Ashman
on the death of Dennis. 1877— E. Hall. 1882— M. J. Donahoo (the first Re-
publican elected in the countv as a public official). 1884 — O. J. Meade. 1890
—J. M. Henslev. 1892— Jav Scott. 1898— J. D. Collins. 1906— R. D. Chitten-
den. 1910— Walter S. McSwain. 1915— H. Thorwaldsen appointed on the
death of McSwain. 1919— W^ F. Jones.
TAX COLLECTORS
1889— Achilles D. Ewing. 1890— ^\^ C. Guard. 1894— N. W. Moodev.
1898— J. B. Hancock. 1906— A. B. Smith. 1914— R. W. Baker; reelected in
1919.
COUNTY CLERKS
(This office combined up to 1877 the auditorship and up to 1885 also the
recordership.)
1856— James Savles, Jr. 1859— D. }. Johnson. 1862— William Favmon-
ville. 1867— A. G. Anderson. 1869— H. St. J. Dixon. 1873— A. M. Clark.
1886— A. C. Williams. 1892— W. A. Shepherd. 1894— T. G. Hart. 1898— G.
W. Cartwright. 1902— W. O. Miles. 1910— David M. Barnwell ; reelected in
1919.
AUDITORS
1877— R H. Bramlet. 1892— R. H. Austin. 1894— H. E. Barnum. 1914
— Charles E. Barnum appointed in June by the supervisors on the death of
his father, and at the November election popularly chosen for the next full
term ; reelected in 1919.
RECORDERS
1886— Charles L. Wainwright. 1888— T. A. Bell. 1892— Smith Norris.
1894— W. W. Machen. 1898— J. M. Kerr. 1902— R. N. Barstow,_ whose elec-
tion was successfully contested by Charles McCardle, the decision rendered
in midterm so that it was divided in tenure. 1906— R. N. Barstow ; reelected
in 1919.
412 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
■ TREASURERS
1856 — George Riverconibe. 1863 — Stephen Gaster. 1866 — George Grier-
son appointed in September on Gaster's disappearance. 1867 — W. W. Hill.
1874 — N. L. Bachman appointed on HilFs death. A. J- Thorn elected in
March to fill the unexpired term and thereafter four times. 1884 — Gillum
Baley. 1886— T. P. Nelson. 1894— Jacob E. Whitson. 1898— S. W. Marshall.
1906— J. R. Hickman. 1914— A. D. Ewing ; reelected in 1919.
DISTRICT ATTORNEYS
1856— T. C. Craddock. 1857— T. T. Cruikshank (resigned February 1858).
1859— Hewlett Clark (named in September). 1861— E. C. Winchell. 1864—
C. G. Savle (Supervisor of Tulare in 1854, assessor in 1855 and county judge
in I860).' 1868— S. B. Allison. 1871— C. G. Savle. 1878— W. H. Creed. 1879
W. D. Grady. 1882— E. D. Edwards. 1884— J. H. Dalev. 1886— R. B. Terrv.
1888— W. D. Tupper. 1892— Firman Church. 1894— Alva E. Snow. 1898—0.
L._ Everts. 1902— G. W. Jones. 1906— Denver S. Church. 1913— Manson F.
McCormick (appointed on the resignation of predecessor). 1914 — M. F. ]\Ic-
Cormick. 1919 — C. E. Beaumont.
ASSESSORS
1856— J. G. Simpson. 1859— \V. H. Crowe. 1861— William Faymonville
(named in February), Thomas J. Allen (in September). 1863 — W. W. Math-
ews. Alexander Kennedv (in April). 1866 — W. S. Wyatt (resigned before
term expired). 1868— t! W. Simpson. 1875— J. A. Stroud. 1879— W. H.
McKenzie. 1882— W. J. Hutchinson. 1894— J. P. Vincent. 1898— J. W. Fer-
guson. 1900 — G. P. Cummings (appointed on predecessor's death). 1902 — G.
W. Cameron. 1906— G. P. Cummings ; reelected, 1919.
SURVEYORS
1856— W. W. Bourland. 1857— O. M. Brown. 1858— T. C. Stallo. 1859—
M. B. Holt. 1863— J. C. Walker. 1872— M. B. Lewis. 1878— C. D. Davis.
1884— H. B. Choice. 1886— C. D. Davis. 1889— J. S. Bedford. 1892— George
L. Hoxie. 1902— Scott McKay reelected thereafter; Obit May 14, 1918 and
Chief Deputy Thomas R. Harrold appointed by supervisors to fill unexpired
term. 1919 — Chris P. Jensen.
SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS
1860— E. C. Winchell. 1861— E. S. Kincaid (appointed in October). 1862
— H. M. Ouiglev. 1863— S. H. Hill. 186&— T. O. Ellis (held same office in
Tulare County in 1865). 1870— S. H. Hill. 1872— T. O. Ellis. 1876— R. H.
Bramlet. 1882— B. A. Hawkins. 1890— Thomas J. Kirk. 1898— George S.
Ramsay. 1902— G. N. Freman. 1906— E. W. Lindsay. 1919— C. E. Edwards.
CORONERS
(The records are very confusing as to the coronership and public admin-
istratorship, the coroner often acting in ex-officio capacity in the other office.
As to the coroner there is no straight record until after 1883. From scattered
data, it would appear that the following named have filled the two offices.)
1856— H. A. Carroll. 1857— Dr. H. du Gay. 1860— Ira McCrav. 1868—
Frank Carroll. 1870— Ira McCray. 1871— W. J. Lawrenson. 1874— C. A.
Heaton, followed by Thomas R. Lowe. 1875— T. W. Simpson. 1877— N. P.
Duncan. 1879— E. C. Cram or Crane. 1882— A. J. Witthouse. 1883— J. J.
White, followed bv S. B. Bresee. 1886— E. J. King. 1888— W. N. Bishop (re-
signed in June 1890) G. N. Freman appointed. 1891— E. E. Brown. 1892—
L. O. Stephens. 1894— Dr. G. L. Long. 1902— Dr. A. B. Cowan. 1906— W.
A. Bean. 1919— John N. Lisle.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 413
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS
1856— Joseph Smith. 1864— N. L. Bachman. 1866— Clark Hoxie. 1868
—J. R. Jones. 1869— William Faymonville. 1872— T. W. Rich. 1877— N. P.
Duncan. (Here follows a long: lapse in the record.) 1882 — A. J. Witthouse
followed by J. J. White. 1885— E. J. Kin.?. 1888— W. N. Bishop, who re-
signing was succeeded by G. N. Freman. 1891 — J. M. Johnson. 1892 — G. A.
Everts. 1894— L. H. Church. 1898— W. O. Miles. 1902— R. D. Chittenden.
1906— G. R. Andrews.
SPECIAL ISSUES
County Seat Removal Election held iMarch 23, 1874, Fresno receiving
417 out of total vote of 757.
S. A. Holmes elected delegate from this county on June 19, 1877 to the
constitutional convention.
Constitution ratified in this county at the election on Mav 7, 1879. For
975, Against 398: total 1373.
County divided into five instead of three supervisor districts in June 1882.
Courthouse bonds issue of $100,000 defeated at election in November
1892: Yes 2903, No 3247. Again failed to carry by necessary two-thirds at
election in September 1893— Yes 1010, No 904.'
Hal! of Records proposed bond issue defeated at November 1908 election
lacking the necessarj^ two-thirds.
"Wet" or "Dry" election in May 1912 on the question. Shall the Liquor
Business be Licensed in the County Outside of Incorporated Towns? The
vote according to supervisor districts was :
District Yes No
One 415 763
Two 398 865
Three 87 177
Four ; 437 1,731
Five 801 1,425
All county liquor licenses were cancelled beginning August 14, 1912.
At the November 1916 election the vote on the two constitutional amend-
ments was :
Yes No
Prohibition 14,906 12,463
Second Amendment....l6,165 11,093
A proposed county bond issue of $3,600,000 for "Good Roads" was de-
feated at the special election held on October 25, 1916 by the following vote:
Yes 9,421
No - 7,136
Total 16,557
Necessary to carry 11,038
Defeated' by '. 1,617
The welfare department was created to go into operation January 1, 1918,
taking charge of all the eleemosynary work of the county under the most
modern, scientific and practical lines as well. Before the close of the 1917-18
fiscal year, it had dispensed with the county orphanage, putting the children
out to board in families on the theory that it will make them better citizens
not to hamper them by the shortcomings of an institutional training. The
department was working so well that Miss Beulah ^Miller, assistant secretary,
was given six months' leave of absence to introduce the S3'stem by invitation
in Humboldt County.
414 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
In June, 1918, was made to the supervisors, after a preliminary survey
by W. H. Lynch as senior engineer of the U. S. office of public roads and
rural engineering, report of a system of county highways contemplating 170.75
miles at an estimated cost of $2,393,192, including the so-called Coalinga lateral
to the state highway from the valley to the sea coast with Fresno's share
of construction cost $425,842. No need of going further into details of this
proposed system. The recommendation was that while the county needs
very much a system of improved roads a bond election for permanent road
improvements is not advisable until after the war, and if conditions then per-
mit steps be taken to start the construction of the planned roads to place
the county on an equal basis with adjoining counties and give it the type
of roads that its traffic demands.
POSTMASTERS
The following named are the presidential appointees who have served
as postmasters at Fresno from the establishment of a post office at that place
in 1872 with dates of their appointments:
Russell H. Fleming August 28, 1872
Charles W. De Long November 14, 1873
Otto Froelich March 29, 1880
Nathan W. Moodey July 6, 1882
Wesley E. Hughes April 14, 1886
Marv C. Hughes March 10, 1887
Mary C. Hughes December 21, 1889
Nathan W. Moodev March 29, 1890
William L. Hedrick May 5, 1894
John W. Short May 5, 1898
E. E. Hughes June 6, 1913
(Wesley E. Hughes died in office ; his widow was appointed to fill the
unexpired term and reappointed with the name of the postoffice changed
from Fresno City to Fresno, January 31, 1889. These Hughes and E. E.
Hughes, grandson of T. E. Hughes, "the Father of Fresno," are no kin.)
FRESNO CITY
(Incorporation Election September 29, 1885. Polling place at Court-
house. Total vote 462— For 277 ; Against 185. Incorporated October 27, 1887,
under state law of March 13, 1883 and as amended. First named trustee
until the 1901 election acted as the mayor.)
1885
Trustees — William Faymonville, Dr. W. L. Graves, T. E. Hughes, J- M.
Braley and A. Tombs, Graves and Hughes drawing 4-year terms, the others
in for two years each.
School Board— T. F. Wharton, W. W. Phillips, Dr. C. D. Latimer,
George E. Church, M. K. Harris.
(Appointed)
Clerk and Assessor — W. B. Dennett. Marshal — C. T. Swain, resigned
August 1886. J. H. Bartlett. Treasurer— W. H. McKenzie. Recorder— S. H.
Hill. Attorney — H. S. Dixon. Engineer — J. S. Eastwood. Office vacated
October, 1886, John Stevens succeeding as street superintendent in Novem-
ber and J. C. Shepherd as engineer in December, 1886.
Health Board — Drs. A. J. Pedlar and C. D. Latimer, Louis Einstein,
W. T. Riggs and Engineer Eastwood (Secretary). Board organized Tan-
uarv, 1886.
1887
(Election April 11, 1887. Polling place at Courthouse.)
Trustees— Dr. W. L. Graves, A. tombs. Dr. A. J. Pedlar, H. P. Hedges,
A. M. Clark (Chairman, October, 1887), J. H. Hamilton vice Graves deceased.
School Board — J. F. Wharton, Colin Chisholm, George E. Church, J. W.
Short vice Wharton.
Clerk and Assessor— W. B. Dennett. Marshal— J. H. Bartlett. Treas-
urer— W. H. McKenzie. Recorder — Phillip Stewart succeeded by James H.
Daly. Health Officer— Dr. Lewis Leach (April, 1887). Fire Marshal and
Chief — A. H. Cummings (November, 1887).
(Election April 8. Five polling places.)
Trustees— Dr. A. J. Pedlar, S. H. Cole. John N. Albin, Tombs, Clark,
Fulton G. Berrv vice Clark. B. T. Alford vice Albin in 1890.
School Board— T. J. Kirk. M. K. Harris, Frank Laning, 1890— J. D.
Gray vice Church. George E. Church vice Kirk.
Clerk and Assessor — W. B. Dennett. 1890 — Louis E. Prusso vice Den-
nett assessor. Marshal — J. H. Bartlett. John Barker vice Bartlett adjudged
insane. Treasurer — W. H. McKenzie. Recorder — Dante R. Prince. Fire
Chief — E. R. Higgins (March) vice Cummings resigned.
1891
(Election April 13)
Trustees — S. H. Cole, Firman Church, J. C. Herrington, William Fahey
(resigns October, 1891, resignation declined and held up and he is reappoint-
416 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ed when eligible in residence qualification, being a new comer from Merced,
B. T. Alford. This was the celebrated "Triangle Board" with Cole, Fahey
and Alford in control.
School Board — O. J. \\'oodward. George E. Church, H. Z. Austin. Clerk
— W. B. Dennett. Treasurer — ^^'. H. McKenzie. Recorder — Frank Laning.
Marshal — John D. Morgan. Assessor — C. C. Lyon. Fire Chief — Tim Wal-
ton vice Higgins on a department shake up by the "Triangle." Library
Board — M. K. Harris, T. L. Heaton, Colin Chisholm, Mrs. J. R. White and
Mrs. Emily E. Phillips.
1893
(Election on customary April date.)
Trustees' — Firman Church, C. J. Craycroft, E. C. Adams, Joseph Spin-
ney, J. C. Herrington. (The four last named made the board Republican in
politics.)
School Board— G. P. Cummings, W. ^^'. Eden, J. P. Vincent, S. F. Had-
sell.
Clerk — J. \V. Shanklin (April 17, 1893) vice Dennett, a Democrat. Treas-
urer— W. H. McKenzie. Recorder — A. M. Clark. Marshal — J. D. Morgan.
Assessor — C. C. Elliot.
1895
(Election April 8)
Trustees — Craycroft, Spinney, W. F. McVey, F. M. Chittenden, E. L.
Austin.
School Board — George E. Church, George H. Monroe.
Clerk— J. W. Shanklin. Treasurer— ^^^ H. McKenzie. Marshal— M. L.
Woy. Recorder — A. M. Clark. Assessor — J. AI. Collins. Attorney — L. A\'.
Moultrie.
Library Board— :\I. K. Harris, C. Chisholm. T. L. Heaton, ]\Irs. E. R.
Higgins, Mrs. Cassie S. White. Offices vacated, though the last named re-
signed previous to the order of May, 1896. Succeeded by H. Z. Austin,
Eleanor M. Risley and Caroline P. \\'ebster, the ladies resigning later and
being succeeded by J. ^^'. Short and J. O. Anderson ; A. M. Drew and F. E.
Cook.
1897
Trustees — Craycroft, Spinney, Mc\'ev, Chittenden, Austin.
School Board — L. O. Stephens, Samuel L. Hogue, George B. Noble.
Attorney — Lewis H. Smith. Marshal — M. L. Woy. Assessor — J. 'M.
Collins. Treasurer— Charles H. Swett. Recorder— A. M. Clark. Clerk— J.
^^'. Shanklin and Theodore Madsen tied on vote of 686 each. At the special
election on September 27 Shanklin was elected — 582, against Madsen 499.
The special election cost no less than $302. George O. Duncan appointed
April 3, 1899 on Shanklin's disappearance. Fire Chief — T. G. Hart resigns
and E. R. Higgins is appointed.
1899
(Election April 10. Total vote 1705. Charter is adopted at election Oc-
tober 19. \'ote— Yes, 844. Noes, 107.)
Trustees — Craycroft, Spinney, John C. ]\loore, Taylor Albin, H. C. Tup-
per.
School Board — J. A\'. Gearhart, O. Al. Thompson.
Clerk — J. B. Johnson. Attorney — Frank Laning. Assessor — J. M. Col-
lins. Marshal — J. D. Morgan. Treasurer — C. H. Swett. Recorder — Dave
Cosgrave.
Library Board- M. E. Daily, H. M. Johnston, Fred Aliner, W. \\'. Par-
sons, Chester H. Rowell.
Freeholders on Charter Board — E. F. Bernhard, Tames Gallagher. Alex
Goldstein, L. Gundelfinger, M. K. Harris, T. G. Hart," Herman Levy, W. P.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 417
Lyon, M. R. Madary, C. S. Pierce. E. W. Risley, Edward Schwarz, Frank
H.- Short, Mark ^^^ebster. T. C. White.
1901
(Election June 14. Total vote 2,196 at fourteen precincts. Officers are
the first elected and appointed under the charter approved by the legislature
February 6, 1901.)
Mayor — L. O. Stephens.
Trustees— G. M. Boles, ^\^ \V. Eden, J. B. Myers. S. F. Cowan, Horace
Hawes, W. J. O'Neill, J. P. Strother, and Thomas Dunn. A. D. Olney vice
Hawes. J. O. Anderson, vice Strother.
School Board — Dr. \V. T. Maupin. O. M. Thompson. G. B. Noble, George
W. Jones, M. K. Harris, H. C. Tupper, J. \\'. Gearhart and Dan Dismukes.
Chester H. Rowell vice Noble. J. C. Cooper vice ;\Iaupin.
Clerk — J. B. Johnson. Chase H. Sayre appointed vice Johnson elected
a supervisor.
Police Judge — Dave Cosgrave.
Attorney — J. M. Johnston. Surveyor — I. Tielman. Street Superintendent
— P. Le Blanc, succeeded by A\'. S. Smith.
Police and Fire Commission — W. T. Mattingly, George H. Monroe, W.
H. McKenzie, F. M. Miller, T. G. Hart vice Monroe resigned.
Fire Chief— James A. ^^^^rd (June 1902) vice W. F. Leavitt. The paid
fire department was developed under the \\'ard regime.
Library Board — Chester H. Rowell, W. \A'. Parsons, Louis Einstein,
H. H. Welsh, Charles E. Jenncy, A. E. Snow vice Rowell. S. L. Strother
vice Welsh.
Health Board— Drs. J. L. ]\Iaupin, G. H. Aiken, J. D. Davidson. T. M.
Hayden, G. A. Hare. D. H. Trowbridge vice Aiken. G. L. Long vice Hare.
1905
(Election April 10. Votes cast within the city 3,365 ; within the school
district 3.503.)
Mayor — W. Parker Lyon. Resigns March 1908, succeeded by Edward
E. Bush.
Trustees— J. M. Collins. F. W. Keisker, J. B. Myers, J. D. Statham,
William Shaw," Grant Falkenstcin, J. O. And'erson, A. E. Sunderland, J.
Wrightson vice Shaw resigned to become police chief. John Suglian vice
Sunderland. E. E. Bush vice Anderson, resigning to be named mayor on the
same night. Ernest Klette vice Wrightson. C. M. Chalup vice Keisker ap-
pointed license collector. F. J. Nolan vice Bush.
School Board— A. B. Clark, W. B. Holland. A. B. Smith, O. M. Thomp-
son. Dan Dismukes.
Clerk— William H. Ryan. Police Judge— H. F. Briggs.
Attorney — D. S. Ewing. Street Superintendent — Wright Spencer. He re-
signs and P. T- Reardon is not confirmed. W. L. Hills. Engineer — George
L. Hoxie, resigns and is reappointed. License Collector — J. H. Coleman (de-
ceased). Ben brenth. F. W. Keisker. Electrician — C. T. McSharry (resigns)
Perry Brown.
Police and Fire— Henry Pratt, J. W. Cate, F. M. Chittenden. E. A\'. Ris-
ley H H. Welsh, vice Cate. A. ]. Hill vice \\'clsh. J. P. Bernhard vice Rislcv.
' Health Board— Drs. G. L. Long vice T. M. Hayden, P. X. Russell. AV.
T. Burks, J. H. Parsegian, A. N. Loper, J. L. Martin vice Long. \\'. T. Barr
vice Parsegian. J. L. Maupin and J. D. Davidson vice Burks and Loper.
H. 1. Craycroft vice Davidson and resigns to become assistant health officer
and is succeeded by Dr. Aiken.
418 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Library Board — W. P. Thompson, Henry Brickley, James Gallagher, G.
M. Boles, Lee D. Coates. J. W. Gilkyson vice Thompson. S. B. Goodman
vice Coates. Willis M. Pike vice Gilkyson.
Park Commission — Charles Chambers, G. C. Freman, S. George.
1909
(Election April 12 — total vote 3,996. Saloon license referendum carried —
1.821 to 1.764. Playgrounds $60,000 bond election :\Iarch 19, 1910. carried—
847 to 2.999. Freeholders elected January 16. 1912. Charter election July 26,
1912, defeated— 660 to 1,064.)
Mayor— Dr. Chester Rowell. May 28, 1912, A. E. Snow vice Rowell
deceased.
Trustees— T. M. Collins, J. C. Pottle, E. Klette, S. F. Cowan, H. F. Martin,
O. V. Cobb, G. W. Pickford, A. E. Snow, G. W. Jones vice Cowan died
August, 1909. J. C. Ferger vice Snow. T. G. Hart vice Klette.
School Board— L. L. Archibald, W. T- Kittrell, F. A. Homan, Robert
Lochead. J. L. Beall.
Freeholders — Truman G. Hart, Robert Lochead, L. O. Stephens, Joseph
P. Bernhard, W. W. Eden, H. E. Barbour. A. E. Snow. E. S. Van Meter. W.
H. Ryan. George H. Aiken. Louis Gundelfinger, W. T. Mattingly, W. H.
Alexander, Charles IMiller, J. T. Anderson.
Attorney — Frank Kauke, resigns June, 1912, E. Klette succeeds. Street
Superintendent — Thos. T. Thorn. Engineer — Chris P. Jansen. License Col-
lector— Frederick Mortimer. Electrician — Thomas M. Robinson (September
1910) vice Brown.
Police and Fire- T. G. Hart. Jos. P. Bernhard. W. G. Holland, L. O.
Stephens, Henry Pratt (June. 1912) vice Hart.
Library Board — James Gallagher, W. W. Parsons, D. A. Cashin. A. O.
Warner. William Glass.
Park Commission — Thomas Dunn. Louis Gundelfinger. Charles Cham-
bers. (January. 1913) J. S. Jones vice Dunn deceased.
Health Board — Dr. L. R. Willson vice Aiken chosen Health Officer.
(March. 1911) Dr. A. H. Sweenev vice Bert B. Lamkin. Assistant Health
Officer— Dr. Floyd L. Burks.
1913
(Election April U — total vote in city 8,965. in school district 9,149. Ref-
erendum on "dry" town after September 1 defeated — 3,202 against 5,060:
on "near dry" ordinance 2,533, against 5,144.)
Mayor — A. E. Snow.
Trustees — George S. Waterman, G. M. Boles. T. G. Hart. J. D. Statham,
F. L. Irwin, O. V. Cobb, George Pickford, J. C. Ferger. (June. 1914) G. W.
Jones vice Statham deceased.
School Board— D. D. Allison. H. D. Carver. H. T. Humphreys, A. E.
Sunderland. J. R. Walker. Harry Wilbur vice Carver deceased. W. A. Conn
vice Humphreys.
Clerk— W. H. Ryan.
Police Judge — H. H. Briggs.
License Collector — Frederick Mortimer. Attorney — Lewis H. Smith.
Street Superintendent — E. H. Chapin. Engineer — Bert E. Cronkite.
Police and Fire— Calvin S. Hill. H. A. Pratt, T. F. Saunders, L. O. Ste-
phens. Robert Lochead vice Hill.
Park Commission— Charles Chambers, Louis Gundelfinger, J. S. Jones
(September, 1915), W. S. Marshall vice Chambers. Aubrey Frink vice Jones
deceased. Charles E. Jenney vice Frink. E. J. Crawford vice Jenney.
Health Board— Drs. W. T. Barr, J. L. Maupin, A. H. Sweeney, George
H. Bland, C. Mathewson (April, 1915). H. H. Hopkins vice Sweeney ap-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 419
pointed Health Officer. C. F. Dickenson vice Mathewson (July, 1915). K. J.
Staniford vice Barr.
Health Officer— Dr. L. R. Willson.
Playgrounds Commission — Mrs. George H. Taylor, Miss Ruby E. Gra-
cier, J. O. Anderson, F. M. Lane, Benjamin Epstein, W. D. Eastman, C. C.
Starr. Mrs. S. S. Hockett vice Gracier.
City Planning Commission — Miss Frances A. Dean, Mrs. W. J. McNulty,
Charles E. Butner, Miles O. Humphrey and G. M. Boles.
This commission was a successor of an informal City Beautiful Com-
mittee of ladies and gentlemen named by the mayor to employ moral suasion
in an improving and beautifying of the city on sanitary lines, in the planting
of flowers and trees, in a clean-up day, in the removal of tawdry cloth awnings
and especially in the prospect obstructing wooden balcony awnings of a day
gone by style of architecture, notably in the landmark sidewalk covering,
pillared balcony on the J and Mariposa Streets frontages of the Grand Cen-
tral Hotel. Its activities were prognostic of what the future had in store
in the city planning and zoning commission with the authority of the reform
immigration and housing laws of the state.
1917
(Election April 19. City vote 9,859; School district, 7.755).
Mayor— William F. Toomev (2,696) as against L. O. Stephens (2.849),
Edward Tones (2,222) and C. Anderson (92).
Trustees— G. S. Waterman, S. M. Ballard, A. W. Goodfellow, W. S.
Johnson, F. L. Irwin, George Pickford, T. M. Anton and L. W. Wilson for
the eight wards in the order named. Ballard relinquished his seat in the
contest instituted on the ground that he was not a resident of the ward at
the time of the election and therefore disqualified. W. L. Cole, who was a
candidate for the trusteeship at the election, was appointed to the vacancy.
Wilson resigned 1919, succeeded by O. V. Cobb. Cole resigned April, 1919,
succeeded by Henry M. Dermer. Irwin resigned in June, 1919, succeeded
by J. J. Creem.
School Board — George Cosgrave (chairman), W. A. Conn, Berton Ein-
stein, Elma P. Giiifen, Dr. J. R. Walker. Jerome O. Cross of Pasadena was
chosen by the board city superintendent of schools and inaugurated an enter-
prising and most satisfactory administration.
City Clerk— William H. Ryan (6.065). Upon his death Charles Dillon,
license collector, was appointed to the vacancy.
Police Judge — H. F. Briggs.
Police and Fire Commission — Mayor, J. E. Davis; T. G. Hart, William
Shaw, Andrew Duncan.
Park Commission — Mayor, Thomas E. Risley; C. B. Harkness, E. J.
Crawford and City Engineer Clarence Murray. Risley resigned, succeeded
by Roy L. Payne chosen chairman ; Crawford resigned, succeeded by George
C. Roeding.
Library Trustees — William Glass, Ray W. Baker, John A. Neu, John
Braves, Mrs. W. A. Fitzgerald. With the merger of the city library into the
county library, the commission was legislated out of office. The supervisors
are now the authoritative power. Public Librarian Miss Sarah E. McCardle.
Health Board— T. M. Hayden chairman, A. B. McConnell, J. H. Pettis,
Kenneth J. Standiford and Clifford D. Sweet. Dr. Standiford resigned and
Dr. H. H. Hopkins was appointed and numerous other changes followed
during the war period.
Playgrounds Commission — Benjamin Epstein chairman, Mrs. S. S. Hock-
ett, W. D. Eastman resigned, H. J. McFarland named; Mrs. G. H. Taylor,
F. M. Lane, J. O. Anderson resigned, J. H. Henderson named and also re-
signed, Berton Einstein succeeding (June, 1918), Bart A. Harvey. R. L.
Quigley superintendent. Clerk of Commission, j\Iiss Flossie Kidd.
420 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Board of Freeholders elected June 11, 1918, to frame a city charter —
Robert Lochead (900). Charles Dillon, Alexander Bartlett. A. V. Rowe, H.
A. Breusinq; H. E. Barbour, L. O. Stephens, A\'. B. Munson, Alva E. Snow,
:\Irs. S. S. Hockett, Ben Epstein. ^^Irs. W. J. McXulty. R. F. Felchin, B. O.
^^'arner and A J- Kemalyan {732).
City Planning Commission — Miles O. Humphreys, Charles E. Butner
resigns to enter the war and is succeeded by LeRoy R. Payne, City Trustee
A. W. Goodfellow succeeds Trustee G. M. "Boles, Mrs. W. J. McNulty and
]\Iiss Frances .\. Dean, the mayor, city engineer and attorney members of the
commission; Charles H. Cheney, consulting architect. The proposed reforms
of the commission were regarded as too radical for popular approval. Its
activities were suspended during the war and no budget allowances having
been voted for its continuance the commission went out of existence. Its
work had efifect, however, in popular educational results and its existence was
not altogether in vain.
FRESNO CITY ASSETS
The city balance sheet at the close of the year 1917 makes the following
showing ;
City hall $ 130.000
Police department 2,500
Fire department 218,200
Librarv property — - 75,000
Parks ' ' 307,500
Hospital cciuipment 500
Pound site 5,000
Convention hall 100,000
Van Ness property 10,000
Corporation vard 3,500
Playgrounds' 100,000
Sewer farm 75.000
Street department equipment 8,500
Total $1,035,700
Citv sewer system 381,722.26
Libertv bonds 5,000
Cash 504,048.71
Total assets $1,926,470.97
CITY LIABILITIES
Bonded indebtedness $ 767,500
Bond reserve 20,791.88
Unexpended income 208,196.09
Unexpended 1916 bond proceeds 275,060.74
Surplus 654,722.26
Total liabilities - $1,926,470.97
BONDED INDEBTEDNESS
Acquiring and Completing Sewers $ 18,000
Citv Hail 53,000
Sewers 125,000
1910 Playgrounds Purchase 46,000
1910 Convention Hall Building 37,500
1916 Storm and Sanitary Sewer 487,500
Total Indebtedness $767,000
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 421
FIRE AND POLICE
July 1901— John D. :\Iorsjan first appointed chief of police under the
charter.
December 1901— William F. Leavitt last elected chief of tiie volunteer
fire department.
June 1902 — James A. Ward first appointed fire chief under the charter.
Call "system instituted and vote of thanks tendered for the very efficient
services in the past of the vokmteer department which passed out of exist-
ence. The basis of a paid department was laid during Ward's reconstructive
regime.
Tune 1903 — Appropriation estimate for police $17,100; for fire purposes
$37,071.
July 1903 — Police chief directed to devote entire time to the ofifice. an
officer to be detailed to collect city licenses. William H. Ryan so appointed,
succeeded by N. P. Justy in November 1904, and thus the license collectorship
was instituted.
March 1905 — Morgan resigns and John J. White is appointed, verbally
resigning in April but resignation declined by the commission.
August 1905 — Fire companies reorganized with officers on service and
merit basis.
January 1906 — White resigns, Sergeant R. M. DeVoe left in temporary
charge.
July 1906— Fire estimate $42,650; police $23,280.
September 1906 — DeVoe resigns. W'illiam Shaw appointed.
March 1909 — W'ard resigns, .Assistant \A'. C. Poison appointed chief.
June 1909 — Poison resigns in Idaho while on leave of absence. Assistant
John G. Wintemute appointed chief.
June 1911 — Firemen's relief, insurance and pension fund created.
September 1911 — Shaw resigns as police chief. Edward Jones appointed
to succeed him.
June 1913— Fire estimate $65,000; police $35,000. Motorization of fire
apparatus is begun.
July 1913 — Police Chief Jones resigns.
September 1913 — .Assistant Fire Chief Thomas H. Baird retired on half
pay because of disability.
January 191-4 — Police Sergeant T. F. Coyle confirmed as chief.
April 1915 — Coyle resigns.
1919 DEPARTMENTS
Chief of Police — Frank P. Truax, appointed to succeed J. G. Goehring,
wlio had held the position since April, 1915, but resigned in March, 1919. Tlie
appointment of Truax was ten years to a day since he joined the force April 1,
1909, as desk sergeant. He was a detective inspector at the time of his ap-
pointment as chief.
As at present constituted the force consists of chief and two patrol ser-
geants, inspectors (detectives) five, desk sergeants two, police court baililT,
patrol wagon drivers two, traffic officer, department clerk and twenty-three
patrolmen — total thirtv-eight.
Fire Chief— W. C. Berkholtz. Assistants— James E. Caldwell and W.
A. Washburn. Berkholtz entered the department July 1, T'OS, was appointed
assistant chief October 1, 1913, and chief November 1, I'M 7, ^urm-ding John
G. Wintemute who had resigned. O. J. Normart entered ilic -ii \ ii c August 1,
1904, and reentered May 3, 1907, became assistant December 1914, and re-
signed July, 1918. Caldwell entered the service June 15, 1911, was an engine
company captain and on Normart's resigning was advanced to first assistant.
To the vacant position of second assistant, W^ashburn, captain of Engine
422 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Co. 3, was appointed. The force consists of fifty-nine regular firemen and
eight callmen. The department is motorized and the apparatus consists of
three gasoHne pumping engines, three steamers, three hose, three chemicals
and a service truck. The oldest department members in point of service and
all having been connected with the volunteer department are:
W. H. Harris, engineer of Engine one, born Nov. 21. 1855 ; joined 1887-88.
Ezra M. Packard, captain Engine one, ]\Iav 26, 1871 ; July 14, 1904.
H. C. Pabst, lieutenant Chemical two ; May 9, 1871 ; May 5, 1905.
Former Chief Wintemute had for his dates August 4, 1872 and June 9,
1891.
The playgrounds department which is now a big affair, had a small be-
ginning from a citizens' "labor of love" movement boosted into prominence
by the children themselves with parades and their influence on parents and
friends to vote for the bond acquisition of grounds inspired by the W. J.
Dickey legacy of $10,000. It has now seven established playgrounds taken
over and "opened in the following order oi priority: Dickey at Blackstone
and Sylvia ; Holmes' Athletic Field at First and Inyo named for School Prin-
cipal Holmes who sacrificed his life at the fair grounds to save injury to chil-
dren under his charge by reckless horse racing, an incident that gave the
plavground movement much impetus ; the Cosmos at G and San Diego, a
veritable "melting pot" for the children of foreign born parentage in that
district: the Fink-Smith Field at C and Amador, a donation to the public;
the California Field at K and San Diego; the Washington as an expansion
of the Washington school ground at Glenn and Thomas Avenue ; and the
Einstein Memorial playground on Roosevelt Avenue. The pioneer demon-
stration playground was in the courthouse park and it is annually resurrected
during the three hot months of the summer for the small children of the
down" town district. Out of the bond issue that the children were instru-
mental in carrying by such a decisive vote was also bought the site for the
municipal convention hall at Kern and M, one block from the courthouse.
The electric is another expanding department. It has in June 1918 four
electrolier street districts in operation as follows: The pioneer down town
business street district 488 lights, the block I and J, Merced and Stanislaus,
thirteen. South I eighty-eight. South J sixty, Fresno Avenue west in course
of completion 118, the extension on Van Ness (K) out to the city limits at
California Avenue 108, making with two at the railroad subway a total of
877 electrolier lights.
Since the institution of the city free market at the courthouse park under
the regime of Mayor Snow to bring the producer and the consumer together,
the small fees charged have been up to June 1918, $13,227.40. The market
masters in charge have been: City Trustee Geo. Pickford, W. H. Haugh-
awout, R. L. Bettis and J. P. Cole who aids also as assistant license collector.
OBITUARY LIST
The following data will be of interest and useful also in connection with
a history of Fresno County and City. They will serve as directions for news-
paper research to learn more of the personages. It is the first list that ever
has been made of men and women who played a part in the history, growth
and development of the county and city. It will not be pretended that the
list is complete.
Abbott. Osmer, November 13, 1917. Abbott, O. L., October 14, 1912.
Akers, Henrv F., November 19, 1916. Akers, Harvey, June 17, 1911. Akers,
W. Albertus, September 15, 1908. Albaugh, Helen I., October 27, 1917.
Albin, T. N., May 13, 1902. Allen, Thomas J., December 28, 1879. Allison,
J. R.. March 21, 1889. Allison, Mary (Molly Livingston), January 1, 1910.
AlHson, R. C, October 1, 1893. Allison, R. M., June 13, 1907. Andrews,
Lyman, September 29, 1885. Anton, Charles B., April 24, 1910. Apperson,
W. L., lanuary 31, 1917. Appling, P. C, February 16, 1908. Appling, R. A.,
Tune 5," 1881. Appling, William M., August 24, 1894. Arrants, f. G. S.,
October 23i. 1914. Ashman, H. G., November 14, 1889. Ashman, J. S., De-
cember 31, 1878. Aten, Thos., Tune 24, 1912. Austin, E. Lewis, Tanuarv 31,
1918. Austin, Miss M. F., MaVch 29. 1889.
Bacon, Thomas E., September 15, 1915. Baker, Lucius, Tune 22, 1918.
Baker, Mrs. Adora B., June 29, 1918. Baker, Alice C, August 16, 1917. Baker,
Thomas, November 24, 1872. Balthis, James H., May 11, 19n. Babcock,
George, Tanuary 25, 1917. Ballard, James W., June 18, 1918. Bailey, W. W.,
May 17, 1918. Bailey, Caleb, September 8, 1912. Bailey, Margaret T., Feb-
ruary 8. 1917. Baley, Nancy, March 6, 1900. Balev, Gillum, November 11,
1895. Bailey, W. E., February 16, 1912. Balthis, Mary T-, December 14,
1915. Baird, Alfred, November 22, 1914. Baird, Andrew, 'November 15, 1914.
Bachman, N. L. F., April 6, 1903. Balthis, Tohn A., Tanuary 21, 1903. Ban-
croft, H. H., March 2, 1918. Backman. N. L., November 22, 1880. Barnum,
H. E., Tune 15, 1914. Barron, Rev. James, Tune 22, 1910. Barton, Robert,
May 26, 1891. Barrett, Benj. H., April 28, 1916. Bassian, Tohn, April 18,
1901. Barron, T- A., Tune 24, 1915. Bates, C. M., November 18, 1896. Beall,
Z. A., December 19, 1910. Beatty, Alexander, October 29, 1909. Behvmer,
H. M., Tanuarv 4, 1912. Bernhard, E. F., March 9, 1910. Berbora, N. B.,
August 23, 1911. Berry, Fulton G., April 9, 1910. Bethel, James, April, 1908.
Betteridge, William, December 20. 1896. Beveridge, George P., October 1,
1916. Beveridge, Mrs. Margaret M.. December 9, 1918. Berbora, J. N., June
5. 1913. Birkhead, :\Iary A., Tune 1, 1898. Birkhead, T- T., March 14, 1891.
Birney, Tohn, December 14, 1898. Bigler, Tohn, November 29, 1871. Birk-
head, G. W., June 13, 1879. Blasingame, T- A., April 19, 1887. Blair, Thomas
F., October 15, 1913. Blasingame, Mary T- April 30, 1908. Boles, Cornelius,
February 20, 1909. Boling, Tohn F., May 11, 1918. Boltinghouse, Phoebe,
March 3, 1894. Bondurant, J. M., November 10, 1865. Bonnaflfon, G. H.,
April 2Z. 1915. Booth, Newton, July 14, 1892. Booker, T- W., September 27,
1914. Boole, F. A., February 17, 1908. Boutwell, B. S., January 1, 1909.
424 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Boutwell, Margaret A., April 16, 1916. Boutwell, S. A., January 12, 1907.
Borello, F. M., May 8, 1912. Boyd, Rev. Thomas. August 28, 1917. Boyd,
Nellie, November 6, 1909. Boyden, J. P., January 1, 1916. Bozeman, Pres.,
October 16. 1900. Braley, F. E., May 23, 1892. Braverman, Louis, March 31,
1909. Bradford, James C, December 21, 1901. Bradford, A. C, February 15,
1891. Brantford, Robert, September 1, 1890. Brix, Paul, November 3, 1914.
Brooks, A. B. R., January 25, 1912. Bretz, Joseph S., October 23, 1911.
Braley, J. M., February 11, 1911. Bramlett, Burford, April 17, 1876. Brix,
H. H., September 15. 1915. Briggs, A. W., December 16. 1915. Bruce,
Joshua. January 18, 1915. Burleigh, Mrs. Marv E., June 26, 1918. Burleigh,
F. J., September 6. 1914. Burleigh, F. M., March 13. 1909. Burleigh, J. M.,
October 29, 1891. Burgan, S. O., Mav 27, 1912. Burnett, C. C, October 17,
1918. Burks, Dr. W. T., October 21, 'l918. Bush, Edward E., June 19, 1916.
Butler, R. B., March 12, 1917. Burns, Joseph. December 13, 19"l8. Burnside,
W. A., April 30, 1916. Burton, C. N., June 26, 1913. Burleigh, F. J., Septem-
ber 6, 1914. Burrough, W. H., August 4, 1914. Burks, N. B., January 8,
1901. Bullard, W. P.. June 21, 1901. Burke. E., April 28. 1892. Byrd, John
H., October 5, 1913. Ball, Frank H.. March 4. 1919. Baker, Sands, April 13.
1918.
C.
Cathay, John, October 16, 1894. Carter, Stanton L., December 31, 1910.
Campton, Nancv R., January 14, 1912. Carey, Algernon, April 4, 1914. Camp-
bell, James R., May 14. 1914. Campbell, James B., September 15. 1916. Cal-
derw^ood, F. H., May 28, 1915. Caldwell. W. W., August 5, 1917. Carver,
Mrs. H. D., November 2, 1918. Caldwell. W. C, April 28. 1873. Carlan,
Hugh, May 6. 1862. Carman, Jacob. December 4, 1866. Carver. H. D.. August
3, 1915. Church. Mary J., July 16, 1913. Church, Emery J., March 25. 1912.
Church. John M.. January 7, 1912. Chidester. J. G., March 14, 1908. Clark,
Angus M., December 21, 1907. Chapman, W. S.. July 1, 1906. Church, M. J.,
March 20. 1900. Church, Firman, December 17, 1899. Chance, William H.,
July 29, 1892. Clark, George F., March 13, 1918. Clark, Galen, :\Iarch 25,
1910. Clark, John P., December 22, 1918. Clinch, Henry W., November 13,
1917. Cobb, Van Buren, December 7, 1911. Cobb, Minerva, December 12,
1915. Cobberly. Isaac. June 30, 1911. Coffman, William F., March 18, 1898.
Cole, Jacob A.", July 20," 1909. Cole, William T., June 27, 1907. Cole, George
N., April 6, 1892. Collier, J. M., Mav 22, 1907. Colson, Owen, February 9,
1897. Colwell, G. W., June 7, 1894. Coldwell, Colbert, April 18, 1891. Col-
son, B. Y., February 14. 1918. Collings, James D., September 29, 1918. Con-
way, John, March 13. 1917. Compton, Nancy R., January 14, 1912. Comp-
ton, Warren. January 17, 1912. Conard, R. G., June 3, 1909. Conn, W. A.,
February 17. 1909. Corbley, P. AI., July 7, 1898. Cowan, S. F.. July 16,
1909. Cronkhite, James L., September 10. 1912. Craycroft, Columbus J.,
November 17. 1915. Cronkite, James L., September 10, 1912. Cranmer, F. J.,
March 15, 1876. Cranor, A. C, December 31, 1918. Cummings, John. Feb-
ruary 11, 1892. Cummings, A. H., December 2Z. 1897. Curtin, Cornelius,
January 23. 1918. Cutler. H. N., November 23, 1917. Collins, Hal C, April
14, 1919.
D.
Daly, R. H.. February 3, 1877. Dane, Herman, February 8, 1917. Darby,
William E., January 10. 1899. Darwin, James, March 15. 1894. Davidson,
Dr. J. D., November 30, 1908. Davis, C. D., October 21, 1903. Dean, William
M., March 19, 1917. Deakin, Elizabeth, June 11, 1914. De Lanov, John A.,
June 23, 1890. De Masters, Jasper N., March 9. 1914. Denny. J. E., Novem-
ber 18, 1907. Deakin, William, August 14, 1897. Dennett, Caroline, Novem-
ber 13, 1901. De Witt, Rev. H. G., January 19, 1918. Dennis, Leroy, April
25, 1875. Deering, Alexander. December 18^ 1875. Deuel, J. C, Julv 3, 1901.
Dickey, W. J., July 5, 1912. Dixon, Henry S., August 27, 1898. Dixon. James
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 425
P., :\Iarch 2^. 1882. Dixon, R. L., May 11, 1889. Donahoo, Elizabeth A.,
September 21, 1917. Donahoo, T- M-. September 6, 1880. Dore, Benjamin,
September 30. 1906. Draper, Eli'as J., June 8, 1914. Dunagan, D. C, May 4,
1890. Dunham, W. E., February 2, 1877. Dunn, Robert F., March 5, 1918.
Dunn, Mattie E., June 11, 1916. Dunn, Thomas, January 2, 1913. Dunnagan,
Crockett, March 16, 1916. Dunlap, T. J., June 27, 1917. Dumas, John W.,
October 8, 1917. Dusy, Frank, November 9, 1898. Duval, E. H., December
30, 1918. Dwver, John, July 23, 1912. Dennett, William E., May 24, 1919.
Dailev, Morris E., July 4,- 1919.
E.
Easterbv, A. Y., June, 1893. Easton, Pulaski, November 2, 1917. Eccks-
ton, Robert,' Februarv 1, 1914. Edgerlv, A. S., June 18, 1918. Edgerly, WW-
liam, September 27, 1908. Edmiston, Robert, December 17, 1918. Edwards,
J. E. F., October 31, 1902. Einstein, Louis, November 9, 1914. Eilert, L. J.,
October 29, 1907. Eilert, Ernst, August 10, 1902. Elmore, Andrew J., July
10, 1916. Ellis, T. O. Sr., March 25, ^879. Elwooci, John H., March 10. 1917.
Elam. Mary S., December 24, 1916. EI wood, Jonathan, December 15, 1915.
Elam. J. H.. May 28. 1912. Elam, B. W. W., May 13, 1896. Ensminger, D. L.,
July 7, 1916. Epperson, J- K-. T"ne 20, 1909. Epperson, Jesse E., October 9,
1917. Epperson, J. K., June 20, 1909. Eshelman, Mary j.. January 19, 1903.
Eshelman, Isaac S.. June 15, 1902. Esrey. Jonathan, December 19, 1904.
Esrey, Justin, June 4, 1900. Esteil, John S., September 7, 1905. Evans, Chris.,
Februarv '^, K'17. Ewing, Henry N., January 5, 1892. Evmann, D. T., Octo-
ber 30, 1911. Eguinian, Haag, March 25, 1919.
F.
Farley, Andrew, July 13, 1910. Faure, Edouard, February 17, 1917. Fay-
monville, Bernard, November 11, 1918. Faymonville, William, Februarv 8,
1882. Ferguson, E. C, December 24, 1882. ' Ferguson, J. W., July 29, 1907.
Ferguson, J. W., Julv 26, 1900. Fiester. Frank, September 26. 1900. Fike,
D. P., October 21,' 1900. Firebaugh, Susan, Mav 11, 1912. . Firebaugh, A. D.,
June 26. 1875. Fisher, Fred W.,"january 7, 19'l0. Fiske, John D., Julv 26,
1890. Fleming. Frank D.. October. 1918. Florin, Sister Mary (Hackett),
August 10. 1910. Forthcamp. J. D.. May 21, 1866. Foster, Nancy M., Decem-
ber 28. 1914. Forsyth. \\'illiam, May 3, 1910. Fowler, Thomas, April 7, 1884.
Foye, Unity A. Cranmer, June 2, 1914. Franscini, L. S., February 9, 1915.
Freeman, J. W., October 10, 1890. Freman, G. C. November 26, 1916. Fris-
selle, Ralph, September 16, 1912. Froelich, Otto, March 18, 1898.
Gailev, Charles, Januarv 29. 1917. Gallowav. Amanda M., October 26,
1916. Gaihnan, J. F.", December 11, 1913. Galloway, J. D., Julv 2?,, 1908.
Garner, W. L., Januarv 12. 1899. Gaster, Stephen, August 8. 1866. Gearhart.
Charles W., Januarv 10. 1901. Geis, S. W., August 15. 1890. Gilmour, Wil-
liam E.. January 9. 1918. Glass. Henrv, June 26, 1878. Glenn, Richard,
September 9. 1875. Glenn, G. R. C, April 17, 1915. Glassford, George H.,
June 12, 1910. Gordon, William B., January 29. 1918. Gordon. John H.,
"November 27. 1909. Graff. Hans. September 24, 1918. Grant. Archie. Novem-
ber 16, 1915. Greelev, Margaret, December 5, 1915. Greenup. ]\Iarv E..
December 25, 1907. Grebble, Thomas \V.. Mav 3, 1905. Guard, Mrs. M. A..
Mav 29, 1909.
H.
Haddon, James E., May 16, 1861. Hall, W. H.. April 14, 1892. Ham-
mond, Hannah. Alarch 3. 1918. Hamilton, Steven, December 27, 1898. Haight,
Henry H.. September 2. 1878. Hansen. Jacob, September 29. 1918. Harbi-
son, Abraham, February 9, 1901. Haraszthy. Augustus. July 6. 1869. Hart,
426 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Charles A., May 13, 1913. Hart, Mrs. Ann McKenzie, November 12, 1910.
Hampton, W. H., Tulv 13. 1908. Hampton, Catherine, July 13, 1908. Han-
cock, J. B., July 14, 1907. Hawkins, Rev. B. A., November 8, 1898. Hawes,
Horace, December 2, 1911. Havner, M. B., October 24, 1917. Hay, T. J.,
February 1, 1905. Hazelton, William, July 20, 1906. Hawn, James H.,
January 19, 1894. Heaton. Thomas L.. December 31, 1918. Hearn, Nancy,
March 17, 1876. Hedges, James D., November 3, 1917. Hedges, Mary A.,
January 23, 1916. Henrv, Simon W.. March 24, 1918. Herminghaus, Gustav,
November 18, 1904. Hedgpeth, Joel, Tune 12, 1874. Hedgpe"th, Hester A.,
January 28. 1914. Heston, Thomas M., June, 1863. Hedges, H. P., September
8, 1906. Hite, J. R., April 18, 1906. Hickman, John D., May 14, 1918. Hill,
Millie, December 19, 1917. Hill, Mary W., January 7, 1915. Hittell, T. H.,
February 23, 1917. Hill, W. W., February 3, 1875. Hill, Calvin S., August
7. 1916."Hixson, J- F.. July 15, 1913. Hinds, S. J., July 3, 1912. Higgins,
E. R., March 20, 1911. Hicks. John D., April 28, 1910. Hills, W. H., Feb-
ruary 14, 1907. Hite, John R.. April 13, 1906. Hoernecke, G. H., July 23,
1903. Hodgkin, W. H., June 8. 1909. Homan, Jacob, November 28, 'l915.
Hopkins, Dr. St. George L., May 25, 1914. Houghton, J. S.. September 16,
1909. Holmes, Marvin P., May 23, 1908. Holden, B. S., January 14, 1918.
Holmes, Catherine L., Tune 6, 1918. Hollingshead, Daniel, .August 27, 1909.
Holmes, S. A., December 10, 1894. Hoxie, Susan, May 16, 1889. Hoxie,
Clark, 1866. Hoxie, Tohn C. November 21, 1918. Huffman, Milton, Octo-
ber 24, 1910. Hunt, Thomas H., October, 1909. Hyde, Isaac N., August 13,
1900. Hyde, J. D., April 15, 1897. Hyde, S. S., April 15, 1869. Hargrove, Robt.
L., April 28, 1919. Harlan, Elisha, February 27, 1919. Harless, Margaret,
April 16, 1919. Hatfield, ^^^iIliam R., May 1. 1919. Helm. William, April 10,
1919. Hughes, Thomas E., April 20, 1919. Hutchinson, B. E., Mav 11, 1919.
Hague, Berry M., June 30, 1919.
I.
Imperatrice, Giaccomo, June 23, 1889.
J-
Jack, Marv E., June 8, 1918. Tagger, W. E., December 8, 1906. James,
C. W., April 22, 1916. James, Jeff G., March 28, 1910. Jensen, Francis,
February 13, 1878. Jensen, Martin, January 27, 1913. Jones, J. R., May
1, 1877. Jones, J. S., September 17, 1915. Jonsen, John, January 5, 1916.
Johnson, R. S., October 31, 1908. Johnson, J." Neely, August 31, 1872. John-
son, D. J., October 23, 1862. Johannsen, Henry L., June 16, 1914. Jorgen-
sen, Boletta, April 20, 1918. Tudv, O. M., August 25. 1900. Tustv, N. P.,
November 18, 1912. Tennev. Charles E., April 7, 1919. Toplin, Marv A., May
8, 1919. ' " ■ '
K.
Kanawyer, P. A., Tanuarv 30, 1908. Kearney, Dennis, April 29, 1907.
Kearney, M. Theo., Mav 26.' 1906. Kelley, Rev." D. O., Tanuarv 12. 1918.
Kerr, William H., February 26, 1918. Kerr, William H., February 16, 1918.
Kinsman, Joseph M., December 6, 1916. Kirby, F. W., August 30, 1912.
Kirbv, C. k., Sr., April 5, 1870. Kittrell, J. R., Febraarv 1, 1915. Kittrell,
Mrs. Elvina A. H., Mav 8, 1909. Knepper, C. A., January 28, 1916. Knepper,
Emily A., December 18, 1907. Knepper. A. B., March 20. 1912. Klette, C. ]
M., Tune 8, 1909. Kutner, Toseph. Tune 27, 1910. Knepper, Hugh, March 26,
1919". Kern, John J., May 24, 1919.
L.
Lane, J. P., December 6, 1878. Latimer, Dr. C. D., January, 1887. Lai-
ferty, Mary. February 9, 1917. Lane, Polly, August 7, 1912. La Rue, J. H.,
September 16, 1917. Lassere, Faustin, .April 30, 1917. Lawson, I\Iar_v Emma,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 427
December 22, 1917. Le Blanc, Perry, Tune 3, 1904. Leach, Dr. Lewis, March
18, 1897. Letcher, F. F., September 8, 1900. Levis, Mahlon November 10,
1914. Levy, Herman, March 6, 1918. Lew, M., September 16, 1909. Lewald,
Herman, November 14, 1912. Lewald. Jacob, March 3, 1913. Lewis, M. B.,
February 13, 1913. LilHs, S. C, Tanuarv 12, 1917. Littlefield, Alonzo, April
30, 1913. Lindsay, Tipton, March 2, 1884. Lloyd, Nancy E., July 7, 1916.
Lowden, Mehitable W.. December 26, 1895. Lonsdale, Mrs. Hannah L.,
lune 7, 1918. Loinasz, P. R., Jnlv 14, 1913. Long, A. B., November 9, 1912.
Loucks. Wallace E., May 7, "1908. Locan, Frank, February 4, 1903. Lux,
Charles, 1887.
M.
Martin, John ^^^, December 2, 1908. Marshall, William H., December
3, 1908. Manning, E. A., January 27. 1918. Maxwell, Z. T., September 21,
1912. Markarian, Henry, November 14. 1918. Madary, Mrs. Julia A., Sep-
tember 19, 1918. Manning, E. A., January 27, 1918. Manley, G. P., October
9, 1914. Martin. J. Fount, December 6, 1918. Markarian, M., November 21,
1914. Martin, Rev. W. H., July 15, 1914. Manson, Dr. P., December 29,
1914. Machen, W. W'., August 18, 1913. Mace, Mrs. Jennie E., July 17,
1916. Maupin, Dr. W. T., June 19, 1911. Malsbary, job. May 21, 1910.
Marlar, J. C. February 14, 1912. Marshall, S. W., April 15, 1909. Martin,
John W., December 2, 1908. Mace, R. P., April 24, 1894. Markwood, Wm.,
August 15, 1876. Mekeel, D. L., February 13, 1918. Medley, Joseph, July
7, 1917. Merriam, C. C, December 14, 1917. Melvin, Isaac A., November
25, 1917. Messick, T. \N .. March 14, 1916. Merriam, E. D., April 8, 1913.
Meux, J. P., February 6. 1899. Miller, Henry, October 14, 1916. Minturn,
J. B., May 27. 1917. Minard. J. H.. July 16, 1909. Mock, Moses, March 29,
1912. Monaghan. P. H.. December 13, 1910. Mowat, A. H., October 18,
1905. Montross, David, Mav 23, 1891. Morrow, Jesse, April 10. 1897. Moore,
Gabriel, May 26, 1880. Moody. W. A.. February 14, 1917. Moulthrop, Isaac,
September 5, 1916. Muir, Jolin, December 24, 1914. Musick, Isabelle, Octo-
ber 12, 1915. Musick, H. L., July 7. 1912. Musick, J. D., January 29, 1903.
Musick, J. J., March 10. 1901. Musick. Jeremiah J., 1904. Musick, Thomas
L., February 8, 1893. Munn, Rev. C. A., June 27, 1910. Mullins, Amasa,
February 26, 1914. Myers, J. B.. September 19. 1912. Myers, Darius, Sep-
tember 14, 1897. Musick, Jasper N., June 4, 1918. Miley, Julian J., June
19, 1919.
Mc.
McClelland, George, September 24, 1884. McCardle, James, February
11, 1898. McCrav, Ira, October 5, 1877. McDonell, Amanda J., June 23,
1914. :\IcDougall, Gov. John, March 30, 1866. McElwee, Rev. W. B., No-
vember 19, 1918. McKay, Scott, May 4, 1918. McKenzie, William H., De-
cember 21, 1909. McKenzie, E. P., 1888. McKeown, Charles S., September
1, 1871. McKenzie, James, January 1, 1864. McLeod, John, July 11, 1866.
McSharry, J. P., September 12. 1916. McSwain, Walter S., December 6,
1915. McWhirter, L. B., August 29. 1892.
N.
Napier, Andrew, February 5, 1910. Nelson, Thomas P., January 1, 1910.
Nelson, Mrs. Helen B., December 22, 1909. Nesbit, Rev. A. Z., March 26,
1907. Newell, Robert, October 13, 1913. Nidever, Mark L., January 12, 1918.
Norris, C. H., May 7, 1899. North, J. W., February 22, 1890. Nourse, Mrs.
Abv E., June 1, 1913. Nourse, G. A., June 30, 1901. Nye, S. G., April 2, 1906.
Odom, Alexander, February 20. 1916. Olufs, O. B., December 7, 1914.
Oothout. William N., July 11, 1893. Otis, George B.. April 30, 1918.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Packard, Mrs. S. A., December 19, 1917. Paddock, Cassander. March 9,
1906. Parkes, Louisa, November 10. 1916. Parlier, Allen, June 5, 1916. Par-
lier, I. N., February 20, 1916. Parkhurst, D. W., December 31, 1899. Par-
sons, Wick B., June 16, 1903. Patterson, T. W., March 14, 1916. Patterson,
I. H., August 14, 1914. Patterson. Mrs. Margaret M., January 1, 1919. Payne,
T. J., May 18, 1873. Patterson. Mrs. Rebecca, June 13, 1910. Peckham,
Joshua. January 30, 1915. Perrin, Robert, Mav 5, 1918. Perry, John W.,
June 14. 1913. Pettit, George, June 3. 1914. Phillips, Mrs. Emily, May 30,
1907. Phillips, Newton, TanuarV 28, 1916. Pierce, Chas. S.. April 18, 1919.
Prather, B. F., March 18, 1910' Prather, ^^'. T.. September 7, 1907. Price,
Joseph D., Alarch 13, 1907. Perrv, Amanda, ":\larch 23, 1919.
Quails, D. C, November 13, 1909. Oualls, N. E.. November 7, 1906.
Oualls, R. :\1.. Mav 27. 1910. Oualls, ^V^H., Mav 26, 1891. Oualls, Mrs.
Marv, i\Iav 10. 1919.
R.
Raynor, \\'. M.. April 18. 1894. Reed, Sarah R., April 18. 1903. Reed,
Mrs. Amanda A., June 17, 1916. Rehorn, Frank, August 3, 1916, Reddy,
Pat, Tune 28, 1900. "Reese, John, September 15, 1895. Reichman, John, June
24, 1898. Revburn, J. D., January 15, 1914. Renfro, C. K., December 21,
1916. Rhodes. Raleigh M., Februarv 25. 1915. Rice, H. M., January 28, 1918.
Rice. W. T., May 7. 1914. Riggs, ^^'illiam T.. March 7. 1912. Ridenour. W.
W., December 11, 1891. Rislev. E. \V., December 15, 1918. Roberts, Return,
September 18. 1917. Robinson. J. T.. October 15, 1917. Rosenberger. J. A.,
August 15, 1916. Rosendahl. F. D., August 16. 1915. Rogers, 'lames J.,
March 6, 1904. Roeding. Frederick. July 17, 1910. Rose, J. M., March 3,
1906. Rose. Alat S., January 28, 1903. "Ro'nev, Hugh, January 5, 1873. Roun-
tree, E. C, June 16, 1892. Roval, J. B., August 15, 1863 . Rowell, Dr. Chester,
May 23, 1912. Rowell. George B.', December 27. 1907. Ruschhaupt, Karl W.,
December 22, 1917. Rutherford, Harrison, January 27, 1917. Rumble, A\'il-
liam T.. March 31, 1883. Rutherford, James, Mav 16, 1910. Rvan, Jere,
August 23. 1909. Ryan, ^^'illiam H., March 6, 1918. Rapelji, Hiram" L.,
July 4, 1919.
S.
Sachs, A.. December 22. 1910. Saffell. Marv. July 9. 1892. Sample, Mrs.
Sallie Cole, December 27, 1917. Sanders. \^■ infield S".. :\Iarch, 1910. Savage,
Maj. James D., August 16, 1852. Sayre, James H., July 26, 1906. Savre, A. L.,
December 17, 1917. Schulz, M. A., November 24, 1876. Scott. Phillip. Jan-
uary 18, 1919. Scott, W. Y., February 28, 1861. Seropian, Jacob M., October
6, 1883. Sewall, William G.. March 15, 1912. Shaver, Mary E., November 22,
1915. Sherman, Minnie Eshelman, April 21. 1913. Shannon, William R., June
17, 1910. Shaver. C. B., December 25, 1907. Shannon, Jeff M., June 8, 1902.
Shanklin, J. T.. October 18. 1901. Shipp, W. W.. January 16, 1900. Silverman,
H. D., August 18, 1877. Simpson, J. G., September 24, 1877. Simpson, Sarah
M., May 3, 1918. Sliter, Ben F., June 8, 1918. Sledge, IMartha, December 12,
1913. Smith, C. L. (Dad). October 10. 1907. Smith, A. E.. October, 1897.
Smith, J. B., December 23, 1893. Smith, Mrs. Julia A. Fink-, January 14, 1919.
Smith, Orson K.. February, 1871. Smith. James, December 7, 1862. Snod-
grass^D. S., April 13. 1912.' Sontag. John, July 3, 1893. Spencer, W. C, Octo-
ber 27. 1903. Spinney. Joseph, September 28, 1903. Spence, W. Y., December
19, 1918. Stoneman, Gov. George, September 5, 1894. Steaddam, Jas. M.,
October 26, 1863. Statham. J. D., Mav 28, 1914. Statham, A. H., February 6,
1909. Strombeck, T. T., November 6,' 1910. Streeter, Jarvis, March 24, 1910.
Story, William H., Mav 3, 1908. Strother, S. L., May 25. 1907. Stoneroad,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 429
\\'. P., August 17, 1904. Studcr, Louis. January 1, 1882. Stiddam, Eus^ene,
October l,l861. Sutherland, lohn Sr., August 26, 1881. Swift. L. P., Januarv
29, 1901. Swoap, \\'. C. February 6, 1901. Sweem, T. B.. December ".\ 1888.
.Swift, Haryey W'., April 11, 1915'. Shelley, Luke. April 2i, 1919.
Taft, George \\'.. March 17. 1916. Taplin. Joseph. October. 1909. Tay-
lor, John \\'.. March 19. 1891. Terry, David "S. August 14. 1889. Thorn,
Robert C. December 25, 1912. Thornton, H. L. February 25, 1895. Tim-
mins, L. P., April 1, 1915. Tinnin, W. J., November 24, 1910. Traber. Charles
P., Tune 5. 1878. Trevelyan, H. A.. September, 1900. Tucker, E. H., April
18, 1912. Tunzi, Norberto. Tulv 16. 1917. Tupper, W. D., October 7. 1906.
Tinnin. Airs. Anna I.. May 10, 1919. Tabor, George C, May 13, 1919.
U.
LTrquhart. James. May 12, 1909.
V.
\'anderburg. I. K., lanuarv 2;i. 1900. A'andor. ]\Irs. Pauline. Mav 7,
1907. Van Valer. Peter, "OctMlu'r 28. 1917. Van Meter, Ilnrrv S., FrI.ruarv
21. 1907. \'eith. AV A , M.n M. I'il5. Vernet. Joseph, lulv \u. l')iis, \ c^tal.
Sarah A.. September 5, T'Lv \ mcent. Dr. F. 6.. O.ctohcr'27. lS'),v \ ,,uent,
Annie L.. Decemlier. 1S''U. \ lahusic, C. B.. December 27. T'OS. N'ogcl, }ilr.
and Mrs. Jacob, February 11. 1015. \'orce. O. A.. Alay 17, 1908.
W.
\\'akefield, W'm.. January 25, 1919. \\'all, Sidney J.. December 26, 1918.
Walker. J. X.. January 22, 1^16. \\'alton. John Tim. November 2. 1917.
Wallace. "Miles. YV-hruary 24, 1917. Walton. Josiah. ( )ctul)er 2, 1918. W'ar-
low. George I.., < )ctober 17, 1918. Waterman, Catherine S.. February 22,
1915. AWainwright. Chas. L., August 22, 1908. W arlow. J. B.. JanuarV 28,
1901. \A'aggener. Thomas, April 7, 1897. Walker, C. F., June 28, 'l877.
U'eaver, Mrs. Nancy J., May 19, 1909. Weilheimer, Aaron, December 28,
1900. W^eller. Gov. f. B., August 17, 1875. Webb, J. R., July 29. 1916. West.
M. M., Mav 16, 1915. Wells, Lee W'., February 7, 1917. Wcldon, A. J., Mav
17. 1918. Weyant. John W^, June 14. 1917. W^eyant. Wnolsev, October 10.
1902. White. J. R., Mav 6, 1907. Whitson. Jacob E.. Tulv 2\K VK)6. Whar-
ton, James F.. March 17, 1889. \A'hitmore, L. A.. March 18, 185''. Whitney.
Walter. January 22. I'U;. Williams, Ben. May 28. 1918. Williams. James E.,
November 17. 1917. Williams. Percy. October 2, 1890. Williams, J. W.,
November 3, 1898. Willis, R. V., December 25, 1906. Wickersham. F. P.,
March 14. 1900. Wiseman, Geo., October, 1909. W^iener, A. J., July 27,
1897. W'inckle, Ben W' . Van. February. 1908. Wlnchell. E. C. July 23, 1913.
Wing, R. W^, October 9, 1900. Wightman, Alex. C, March 3, 1896. Winkle-
man, Jane M., November 22, 1874. Witham, F. E., December 18, 1916.
Wittmack, C. J., December 27, 1914. Wood, Geo. W., February 9, 1917.
Woods, Geo. W'., February 10, 1917. W^ooley. William R., September 16,
1915. W'ootton, William, February 1, 1894 (about). W^olcott, Oliver, June
3, 1905. Wolters, J. C, October 9, 1917. Wristen, A. C. August 24. 1894.
Wristen, W'. D., January 3, 1901. W' right, Elisha, November 11,^1914. Wvatt,
J. T., T"Iv 26. 1873. W^yatt. W\ M.. November 24. 1908. Wyrick. T" L.,
bctobe'r 10. 1915. Winnes, Harry F., Alarch 1. 1919. Woodward. Mrs. Anna
L., April 28, 1919,
Y.
Yancey, Charles A.. July 23. 1909.
Z.
Zapp. John. December 4, 1918. Zapp, :\Irs. Leota I., :\Iay 23, 1919.
COUNTY TABLOIDS
The big fire at the Sanger Lumber Company plant at Hume, sixty miles
in the mountains from Sanger broke out during the forenoon of November 3,
1917. Reported loss was half a million. The mill had closed down for the
season two weeks before, the season's cut was 20,000,000 feet of board lumber.
Will the Fresno Canal and Land Company as a private corporation, or
as a public utility, have right to the water in the canals of the Fresno district
after 1920 is a question. If the decision of the courts is that the contract be-
tween water user and company is inviolable, that those of the old Fresno
Canal and Irrigation Company are valid as long as they stand and that the
utility view does not prevail, the new corporation first named will have no
grip on the water at the expiration of the old fifty-vear contracts, September
i, 1920, or possibly February 21, 1921.
Tuesdav, April 30, the day for the annual Fresno Raisin Day celebration,
was for 1918 officially designated as "California Raisin Day Patriotic Demon-
stration" in keeping with the war spirit of the times and to find the more
detailed expression in the fact that little money was spent upon features to
make for pleasure alone. The feature was the parade on furlough of Fresno
soldiers in training at Camp Kearny at San Diego, Cal.
Formal acceptance of the new $55,850 annex to the county hospital was
had by the supervisors March 8, 1918.
The California Associated Raisin Company began in the spring of 1918
the erection of the first unit of nine buildings on its twenty-acre tract on
the Southern Pacific line between the Fresno Cooperage Works and the Cali-
fornia Products Company plant. This seeder plant will be of reenforced
concrete, four stories in height, 100x300, costing equipped nearly $300,000.
It was to be finished by October 1 to take care of the season's products. The
seeding plant will be the center unit. Tributary to the twenty-acre plant
construction was ordered of five new packing houses to be located at points
in the valley to be designated. The Fresno city plant will be a model indus-
trial plant, representing a million-dollar investment.
The first verdict in the county with women as members of the jury was
rendered before Judge H. Z. Austin March 5, 1918, in the case of Tom Ryan
for robbery. The women jurors were Mrs. Marguerite W. Lopez of Fresno
city and Mrs. Jennie E. Barclay of Fowler. The latter was the foreman.
The second annual balance sheet of the California Peach Growers In-
corporated, presents a record for the handling of the 1917 crop to be proud
of Quick assets are: $1,556,928.42; total assets, $1,998,105.12; current liabil-
ities, $830,395.14; total liabilities $1,998,105.13; total reserves $101,555.29;
total surplus $216,139.38; net worth per share sixty-six dollars as against fifty-
three dollars the year before. Amount invested in real estate, buildings and
plants $480,974.66 with $57,000 owing and reserve for depreciation of struc-
tures and equipment $38,027.10. Investments in buildings and packing and
grading facilities have been practically doubled, and likewise the quick
assets over the liabilities. Figures showed that eighty and three-tenths
per cent, of the selling receipts were returned to the producer, leaving nineteen
and seven-tenths per cent, as the cost of selling and marketing a crop thirty-
three per cent, larger than that of 1916. Out of the operating allowance,
there has been placed in surplus $163,497.04. The 1916 crop returned growers
seventy-seven per cent, of sales.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 431
In 1<^18 for the first time in its history, the county organized systematic
fire protection in the country districts against destruction of crops, grazing
land and stubble and other' property during the summer fire season with
selected points in various sections where fire fighting equipment is main-
tained and wardens and volunteers patrolling the main roads favored by
Sunday picnic parties.
General Grant Park covers four sections of land, located half and half
in Fresno and Tulare Counties. Its Big Trees are not the least of its many
attractions. It is the national park nearest to Fresno city. The crowd that
visited it during the IMav 1 — November 30 season of 1917 is the largest in
its history. During that season 21,657 people entered the park— a little more
than 6,000 more than entered it and Sequoia Park in 1916; 2,828 cars en-
tered the park and nearly forty per cent, of these a second time ; 17,496 people
visited it in autos and 4,161 came in other conveyances.
Doomed is the old town site of the first county seat, Millerton ; also the
site of the older Fort Miller and in fact all the immediate neighboring, hill-
enclosed territory in the river gorge, today in the county the earliest, most
interesting and historic ground down to and including the sulphur springs
gushing out of a cleft granite boulder in the one time channel of the stream.
Futile "the long nurtured hope of the Native Sons of the Golden AWst to
have some day the old courthouse for a museum of pioneer aiiti(|iiiiit-; and
the ground there, or perhaps the fort property with its ancient Ixiililni^^s, set
apart for a public memorial park. The Madera district contemplating irriga-
tion of a large acreage of land in that county has been organized, and its
plan involves" the construction of a great dam to impound the flood waters,
submerging all the hallnwrd -rdund of the forefathers and the stage setting
of the countv's earliest lii-idi \ . Such a body of water will be impounded that
Millerton's townsite will br timk-r 100 feet of water.
During the first half of the month of Februar}', 1919, there was a record-
ing of 6.250 new raisin contracts by the association under the new regime,
each record fee being two dollars. It took thirteen volumes of 500 pages
each to contain them. On one day 2,716 contracts were filed for record, the
greatest filing day in the history of the county. The extraordinary recording
feat resulted in bitter litigation contesting the claims of ten women copyists
each for $599.10 for work done in February and jNIarch charging six cents
per folio for the printed matter of the recorded contracts.
Fresno is a county with a reputation for the large number of owned
automobiles, paying into the state more than $160,000 annually for licenses.
The return contribution for the upkeep of the roads for 1917 was $54,523.01.
A branch oi^ce for the registration of motor vehicles has been established
by the state in this city, county receiving half of the turned in money, less
cost of administration.
Figures of the vital statistics show that the rural population is increasing.
Records outside of the nine incorporated towns are :
Year Deaths Births Marriages
1917 673 1,278 1,155
1916 633 1,093 1,059
1915 642 1,194 895
1914 623 1,116 986
Fresno County constitutes one of the largest hunting and fishing dis-
tricts in the state. Fees for licenses in 1917 were $12,654 — $6,404 from an-
glers and $6,250 from hunters, 6,185 paying the dollar license.
Treasurer A. D. Ewing handling the monev of the countv as well as
that of the city paid out m 1917 $695,012.76 of city and $4,224,746.96 of
county money — a total of $4,919,759.72, the largest aggregate in the history
of the office, due to the natural and material increase and enlarged business
of county and city. November, 1917, was the largest one month of record;
432 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
next largest was January, 1917, with $339,512.07; and next July the third
as another interest paying month with a total of $326,506.23. The lightest
month in the year was September with $223,862.69.
The November, 1917, grand jury returned indictments against John G.
\Mntemute and Arthur Ellenberg. ^^'intemute as the victim of "money
sharks" confessed to a padding as city fire chief of the department pay rolls
at various times in an aggregate amount of $835.50, pleaded guilty, made
restitution that bankrupted him, and was liberated on probation. Ellenberg
was an attorney accused on one of several charges of the embezzlement of
money entrusted into his keeping by clients. He was found guilty by jury
and sentenced to an indeterminate sentence of one to ten years. At San
Quentin he was assigned as teacher of the prisoners' school.
The January, 1918, drawing by the three judges of thirty names eligible
for grand jury duty comprised those of eight women. They were Mesdames
H. H. Alexander, Minnie R. Fitzgerald, Geo. H. Taylor, L. L. Cory and the
Misses Marguerite and Breeze Huffman of Fresno, Mrs. Florence B. ]McAl-
Uster of Sanger and Dr. Flora Smith of Kingsburg. It so happened that the
grand jury of nineteen was accepted and sworn in on St. Valentine's day be-
fore Judge Cashin and the six women chosen were : Mesdames Alexander,
Tavlor, McAllister and Smith, and the Alisses Huffman and Humphreys,
the latter the secretary of the body. In 1915 Mrs. Taylor, Miss Frances A.
Dean and Mrs. Marie E. McMahon were on the grand jury venire, Mrs.
Taylor was excused and the other two served.
What is said to be the largest jury award of damages for personal injuries
sustained and returned in this countv and in this state — and some claim
in the United States— was the one of $100,000 of December 31, 1906, in the
case of Willard R. Zibbell against the Southern Pacific Company. Zibbell
was run over by a switching train on the night of July 12, 1906, while cross-
ing the reservation on Tulare Street between G and H. He was literally
ground to pieces, and after months of agony and various amputations sur-
vived his fearful mangling a cripple and a physical wreck, though before the
accident in perfect health and unimpaired in body, earning much as a trainer
of fast horses. He sued for $102,883.25 damages and J. E. Burnett was the
foreman that returned this unparalleled verdict. The railroad asked for a
retrial. It was denied if the plaintiff remitted $30,000 from the verdict award.
The reduction was consented to and the appeal followed by the company
on a judgment for $70,000. That judgment was affirmed on appeal and in the
end the railroad paid $92,335.82 in satisfaction of it. Zibbell is a real estate
agent. He must have aid to assist him in every physical want. Having lost
one hand and the other being crippled, he has a mechanical contrivance that
permits him to operate his auto. The lawyers that undertook his case are
said to have done so on a contingent fee of half what might be recovered.
After the accident but as a convalescent. Zibbell was the principal in a sensa-
tional marriage in an automobile, the incident being a culmination of a ro-
mance, whose ending was hastened on by his helpless state by the bride
offering herself in sacrifice. The married life of several years was broken by
her death.
Kerman had a costly fire on the morning of November 20, 1917. The
Fresno Farms Company block was destroyed with the cutting off of all
telephone communication with the wiping out of the local exchange. Fresno
sent a motor engine in the afternoon but it was useless because there were
no water mains. The Kerman Hardware Company was a heavy loser carry-
ing a stock of $30,000. The fire damage was more than $75,000. The town
had a hand drawn chemical but the fire had too great headway when dis-
covered to make use of it.
The home place of George C. Roeding, three miles east of the city and
located between Belmont and Ventura Avenues, comprising almost the en-
tire Section 3-14-21 was sold in May, 1918, for $300,000 on long term pay-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 433
merits. The Roeding; property was one of the show places, one of the most
beautiful and best maintained in the state. Within a year the three-story
residence of substantial proportions was destroyed by fire at estimated loss
of $20,000, though many of the prized contents had value far beyond their
intrinsic worth. "The purchasers were a group of eastern dealers in oriental
rugs. One of these bought at this same time the 160-acre vineyard of the
Mount Whitney Vineyard Company of ex-Supervisor Phil B. Scott and
others, two miles northeast of Malaga and about five miles from Fresno.
Consideration was $102,500, or $640 an acre, gross income of the property
last year $30,000. Another big deal of June was the sale in the Orangedale
and Centerville districts of 435 acres of the D. L. Bachant grape and fruit
ranch for $170,000. It is a great producer and Bachant had taken first prize
for Emperor grapes at the district fairs for five consecutive years. It is
noted that in the last few years all the large sales have been to Armenians,
many of these on long term payments, with little cash passing in the transac-
tions and payments under the contracts to come out of the crop proceeds.
Phenomenal weather characterized January and February, 1918. The
latter, however, raised desponding spirits. Crops and cattle were thought to
be lost. The rainfall raised the seasonal from the lowest to almost the nor-
mal. That seasonal normal was passed March 7 — seven and fifty-seven hun-
dredths— and from the driest season up to February 14 in three weeks the
normal and more was made up. The aspect of the crop situation changed.
Snow in the mountains was not sufficiently heavy or lasting to warrant high
hopes for irrigation. This absence of snow was taken advantage of by the
light and power company to base a plea for the raising of rates for the reason
that on account of the shortness of water fuel oil more costly on account
of the war would have to be employed in the operation of the mountain
power generating plants. Because of the drought there was loss in cattle
and the necessity of feeding high priced hay. February rain was timely and
a godsend : for the season seven and fifty-seven hundredths, the normal six
and eighty-six hundredths, for the same period the year before six and thirty
hundredths, the seasonal more than for the entire season of 1916-17 closing
with seven and twenty-five hundredths, June 30.
At the biennial Central California Conference of the Seventh Day .Adven-
tists in tent encampment at Recreation Park, May, 1918, growth in church
activities was reported. Income for the last two years was $79,602.82, and
the interest in the doctrine was shown by the sales of literature in the con-
ference amounting to $11,256.01 ; 536 pupils are in the intermediate parochial
schools in the local field as against 252 in 1915, five schools and ten teachers
having been added in two years. Young People's societies have grown from
twenty-eight to thirty-seven and in membership from 561 to 812; Sabbath
school membership from 1,602 in 1916 to 1,886 in 1918 and offerings $16,709.14.
The Southern California Edison Company has expended sixteen and
one-half millions of dollars in the development of its power generating prop-
erty in Central California. It made in January. 1918, application to the state
water commission for the appropriation of more water from the San Joaquin
River for the generation of more electric power in two new plants to be
erected at a cost of several millions. Also for the storage of water of Pitman
Creek in this county, the impounding dam of the latter to cost $842,900. The
applications are parts of one project. \A'ith the storage of Pitman's waters,
it is proposed to divert a portion to the reservoir on Big Creek, the remainder
to go to conduits leading to plants below. The Pitman reservoir dam will
be 103 feet high, 860 long on the top and fifty at the bottom, of reenforced
concrete, multiple arch-buttress type storing 3,780 acre feet. The dams at
Huntington Lake are being raised several feet to add many thousands of
acre feet to the capacity and increasing the flow to the lower plants, two
plants now using the water of the lake. The Edison company as the successor
of the Pacific Light and Power Company will build two additional plants
434 H-ISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
below the present lower ones. The water will be used in the operation of
the quartet and having served its purpose will be returned to the San Joa-
quin. 1930 has been set by the Forest Service as the time limit for the com-
pletion of the project.
Report was in the summer of 1917 of a project for the organization of
an irrigation district under the Wright law to be known as the Tierra Loma
Irrigation District, embracing 144 sections of prairie land, bounded on the
north and east by the line of survey for the Panoche and Kings River Canal
Company ditch and on the south and west bordered by the foothills taking
in all the plain lands under an elevation of 700 feet. This district would be
below the junction of the San Joaquin with the I<Cings Slough, comprising
one-ninth of the territory entitled to water from the San Joaquin. That
stream's estimated annual flow, including flood waters, has iDcen for seven
years as measured at Hamptonville 1,800,000 acre feet a year, the one-ninth
applied to the district equalling a little more than 200,000-acre feet. The plan
for conducting this water and distributing it is by a concrete aqueduct and
lateral with one foot meters on all section lines, thus supplying every quarter
section. The point of diversion will be four and one-half miles above Fort
]\Iiller at an elevation of 700 feet above the sea. The mountain will be tun-
nelled at this point for almost a mile, tapping the bed of the river after the
aqueduct leaves the tunnel, passing through open country, laid well under
ground, extending southwesterly and passing diagonally across the district.
The main aqueduct will be fifty-two miles and the lateral over 283 miles.
The district proposes to join others in the impounding and regulation of the
river's flow contributing a ninth part of the $9,000,000 estimated cost of im-
pounding tlie San Joaquin's storm water. Cost of the main aqueduct with
its laterals is estimated at about $3,000,000, added the million for impounding
the water, bringing the cost to about four millions, or near forty dollars an
acre. The system will be a gravity system, good for all time, with system
belonging to the land. There are 290 land owners in the district, requiring
a two-thirds vote to organize and a majority to vote bonds for construction
work. No tax on the land until the bonds are issued.
The state public employment bureaus filled 92,959 positions in 1917, an
increase of 100 per cent, over the 46,442 of 1916, the first year of their exis-
tence, or a total of 138,003 if the 45,044 placements of the city of Los Angeles
are added. The Fresno office was in operation a little over four months
placing 6,999 persons, 289 of them women. Fresno city took 1.895 and the
others went into the country; agriculture took 171 of the women, the hotels
sixty-seven and private homes forty-seven. Of the 6,070 men, 3.307 went
into agriculture, lumber taking 668 and building construction 623. Of the
138,000, only 13.425 or less than ten per cent, were placed on farms, where
the labor demand was the greatest. Fresno holds the record with fifty per
cent, agricultural placements, showing that the nearer the bureaus to the
farming communities the more assistance they are. The bureau helped to
supply labor to harvest the largest raisin crop on record.
The Riverdale Farm Center announced a rabbit drive for Saturday,
February 2, 1918, under the auspices of the Fresno County Farm Bureau,
with the proceeds from the kill going to the Red Cross fund, and publicly
announced : "Warning is made that the rabbits are for human consumption
and should not be bruised unnecessarily."
"The Garden of the Sun." This is the adopted slogan so far as concerns
the publicity work of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce and especially in
drawing attention to the valuable commercial asset that it has in the sun's
caloric. The committee that was responsible for the decision in the compe-
tition was William Glass of the Republican, Chase S. Osborn Jr., of the
Herald and C. A. Paulden. In the consideration of the designs offered, all
were rejected as a whole with exception of the slogan, suggested by Grovine
Hadsell of 1311 Ferger Avenue. The design is the work of M. V. Donaldson
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 435
of the chamber who borrowing the slogan worked out the idea, his own
rejected slogan having been "In the Center of the Sun." The design reveals
the outline map of California, the sun-kissed Golden State in the center of
the orb, Fresno County in the center of the state and Fresno City in the
center of the sun blessed county, the most fruitful section of the earth. For
more effective use of design and slogan, the sun's disk and rays will be
printed in gold, the central state in deep red, with the lettering in black
and the county and slogan in gold.
Owing to the large increase in business, the Fresno postofifice was
placed January 1, 1917, in the 200,000 class, with increase of salaries for post-
master and higher officials.
Fresno with 521.7 miles of post office rural delivery service covered
daily ranks second in the United States. Indianapolis, Ind., ranks first with
693 miles, but serves partly by horse while Fresno's ten routes are covered
by automobiles. This rural service was extended 125 miles in July, 1917,
and revolutionized by automobile delivery, aided by the level country and
the fairly dense population on the rural routes. Each extends from fifty
to fift}--four miles, and 15,000 persons representing 4,000 families are served by
the city office. Capacity of a car is 800 pounds and eighty cubic feet space.
December was the climax month in the steady business increase in
1917 of the Fresno postoffice. The total was $34,356 as against $23,025.73
for the same period the year before, an increase of forty-two per cent. For
the comparative years, the increase was about twenty per cent., the increase
in postal rates only covering the last two months of the year. The quarterly
business returns for two years are shown in the following tabulation :
1917 1916
First quarter $54,970.37 $44,543.51
Second quarter 54,798.76 46,862.19
Third quarter 53,416.00 49,797.39
Fourth quarter 84.028.25 65,128.68
$247,213.38 $206,231.77
Firebaugh is unique in that it has no city taxes but the saloons and
other licenses run the town government. The revenue is about $5,000 of
which the saloons contribute $3,200, the restaurants $300 and about $1,000 by
other lines. Eight saloons pay $100 quarterly and three restaurants twenty-
five dollars. The town assessed property valuation is some $68,000.
The "Sun Maid" raisin brand of the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany has been changed for a new carton design. The former picture of a
pretty girl trimming a raisin pie aroused infringement complaint by a mince
meat maker. The new picture shows head of a pretty girl set in the light of
a rising sun.
Despite the loss of sixty-five sections of land to Kings County, figures of
the county assessor show an increase of 300 per cent, in assessment roll
valuations in fifteen years: 1900— $26,879,811 ; 1910— $58,929,496; 1911— $61,-
483,833, the year that operative property was withdrawn from local operation.
1912— $69,716,137; 1913— $80,920,688; .1914-^82,652,510 and 1915— $84.-
096,506.
Distribution of the AI. Theo. Kearney estate to the state university was
made in lune 1910. It was inventoried at $1,471,118.06 and the executor
charged with $1,542,238.53. In the distribution $1,075,790.40 in stock was
transferred and $338,795 of property was on hand — the Chateau Fresno
Park and stock in syndicate.
The historical Grand Central Hotel block, 100 feet on J and 150 on Mari-
posa, was sold January 27, 1918, by Judge J. A. Cooper to Radin & Kamp
for $300,000. It was and is the first three story brick building in the city
erected about 1882 by J. W. ^^'illiams, who had conducted a blacksmith shop
436 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
on the site. Fulton G. Berry bought half interest in the property in 1884
and in 1888 acquired a full interest. He paid $55,000 for the property and hi
November. 1905, sold to Cooper and his brother. Dr. J. C. Cooper, for $147,-
500. The latter sold back a half interest to brother, the valuation about
doublin.o- in a dozen years. J. and Mariposa holds the title of "the center of
Fresno."
The I-'resno Canal and Land Company was authorized in February
1917, to sell to the Fresno Canal and Land Corporation for $1,000,000 its
stock and entire property, excepting only the interests in the Laguna Lands
Limited. The corporation was authorized to issue 10,000 shares of $100 par
value in payment executing a trust deed and issue $600,000 bonds at not less
than ninety'per cent., the proceeds to discharge the first mortgage bonds of the
company. The latter sold water for irrigation in Fresno and Kings to owners
of approximately 200.000 acres of land. It is a public utility and has outstand-
ing $1,250,000 capital stock owned by the L^nited Guardian Company, Ltd.,
an English corporation, and its total indebtedness of $1,573,862 is mortgage
secured. It was incorporated in januarv, 1917, for the purpose outlined, cap-
italized at $1,000,000 and $600,000 of 'the bonds to be substituted for the
mortgage indebtedness, the balance to be paid by the original company
stockholders.
According to the will of William H. McKenzie, dated October 19, 1907,
a trust was created to include the Fort Miller ranch and adjoining lands
(Millerton site) in Townships 10 and 11-12 and lot 2 in the S. W. V^ of
Section 6-11-12, with instructions that it shall not be sold unless by
unanimous judgment it is for the best interests of the estate, "it being in
fact my desire that if possible said property be not permitted to go out of
the family."
In the spring of 1918 sale was reported to E. \". Kelley and W. I. Simp-
son of Fresno of the 160-acre Alta Sierra vineyard and fig orchard in the
Clovis district for $110,000, also about the same time of the Glorietta Vine-
yard for $100,000 and the ^^'awona for $70,000, besides a half section of the
Webber lands. A few years ago all this land was in grain.
Fresno raised from $13,000 to $14,000 as its share of the Methodist state
fund of $1,125,800 for the University of Southern California to endow pro-
fessorships, purchase equipment and erect buildings.
A gigantic enterprise is involved in the proposed Kings River Irrigation
and Conservation District. It is the plan to form a lake of the sinuous chan-
nel of the Kings above Pine Flat with construction of a $9,000,000 reservoir,
backing the water into the hills si.xteen miles and impound 600,000 acre feet.
The dam site would be only twenty-eight miles from the city and be a horse-
shoe shaped wall 300 feet high, letting the water out at spillways and gates
100 feet below the surface of the water. It rivals the much vaunted Roose-
velt dam project. It is proposed with the stored water to irrigate 1,000,000
acres in Fresno, Kings and Tulare during entire season with never danger
of a dry year. The dam would be between two hills and of rock and concrete.
The little place known as Trimmer Springs and the flumes of the Sanger
Lumber Company to convey lumber from Hume to Sanger would be under
water. Report is that in event of the construction of the reservoir the mills
may be removed to the head of the reservoir. Not only is it intended to
irrigate but also to drain the lands and lower the water levels. Ten districts
are proposed and the estimated cost of construction varies in them. It is
the project also to cement eventually all the canals in the district. There are
242,0OO acres in the Fresno district and about 200,000 under water rights.
Irrigation companies have 258 miles in canals, property and water rights
are valued at $4,805,382.78 and a $1,500,000 option has been given. The Pine
Fiat project will give water to irrigate 600,000 acres and sufficient power
will be developed to irrigate 400,000 more by drainage, the present alkali
land can be reclaimed and all the land be made productive. Incorporated
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 437
cities will be not asked to contribute but to give their moral aid and support.
The district when organized will place the entire area under public control
and ownership.
Notable land purchase among many that might be recorded is the one
in January, 1918, for $125,000 by J. C. Forkner and associates 'of 1.700 acres
including the railroad townsite of Herndon, near the San Joaquin River.
The destructive fire at the Eggers winery, east of town, was on January
14, 1913. Excepting the Eisen vineyard, it was the oldest in the county. It
was purchased in 1897 by the California Wine Association and consoliflated
with its other wineries located at Selma, Wahtoke, Calwa, Rcedley, Smith
Mountain and Fresno. The combination of "Cal W A" gives the name to the
town and Santa Fe switching yards at Calwa.
Advantageous, noteworthy and significant was the reported sale closed
June 24, 1918, by W. N. Rohrer to John B. Newman of Los Angeles and
Visalia of 500 acres of raw land in the proven Mount Campbell orange dis-
trict for something over $40,000. The land is between the Alta Canal and
Wahtoke Park on the one side and Mount Campbell on the other, about six
miles north of Reedley, at the foot of the mountain, sloping gently and soil
dry bog and of unusual depth and fertility, the seller retaining eighty-five
acres in oranges for a home. Rohrer took up the tract in 1900 when from
the mountain could be seen miles of grain fields and a dozen or more com-
bined harvesters operating in the field at a time and the soil thought fit only
for grain. The Mount Campbell section has made a reputation for grapes,
oranges and deciduous fruit and the plain has been transformed into vine-
yards, fruit orchards and orange groves, with Navelencia bordering on the
tract, a lively and thriving community. The Navelencia orange crop of the
Rohrer home place brought in eastern markets eight dollars a box this year.
The section is ideal for the orange and lemon and is one of the county's
largest citrus belts.
The largest number of women to sit in the county in a civil action for
damages on account of injury received in a collision between a liicycle rider
and auto in a demonstration was in the case in which a verdict was returned
June ly , 1918, for $5,000 damages. The number was six and the jury women
were Mesdames L. M. Cross, J. B. Guinn, Gertrude Hewitt, Alice Powell.
Leona Christensen and Fannie Berry, with the tirst named as the forewoman
of the jury.
First step in a series of formal preliminaries in the formation of a great
irrigation district on the West Side and embracing the counties of Merced.
Stanislaus and Fresno was taken in July, 1918, at Merced when petition signed
by freeholders of Merced was presented to the supervisors to pass on the
sufificiency of the signatures. If sufifiicient to meet local demands, copy of the
petition was to go to the state engineer for approval and back again to the
supervisors to settle the boundaries before calling an election to organize
the district. And so as to the other counties in turn. As the greater acreage
is in Merced County, proceedings were initiated there. Acreage and valua-
tions in the three counties are these:
Acres Valuation
Merced 297,553 $5,137,730
Stanislaus 70,562 2.915,6.=;2
Fresno 58.012 1,659,695
Total 426,127 $9,713,077
The territory embraces all the land under the service of the San Joaquin
and Kings River Canal & Irrigation Company (Miller & Lux) and organiza-
tion contemplates the purchase or condemnation for public use of the com-
pany's rights. Of the land included in the proposed district, less than half is
under water or cultivation. The Miller & Lux monopoly has protested against
438 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the district enterprise and pursued the ancient camouflage of inducing signers
to withdraw their names from the filed petition on the plea that they signed
under a misapprehension of the effect and nature of the enterprise. The
Southern Pacific Railroad has fifty miles of reservation in the district and
it also has protested against taxing it on a basis equal to that governing irri-
gation taxes of farm lands. The proposed district is said to be second only to
the one organized last year in Imperial Valley and embracing one-half million
acres.
After having been in operation for eight years. Coalinga discontinued
July 1, 1918, free delivery of mails. The reason was that the government only
pays carriers thirty-five dollars a month and men could not be secured at that
wage in these times when man power is in such demand. The matter was
taken up with Washington but no larger appropriation- was to be secured.
Coalinga went dry May 19, 1918, leaving in the county as the two "wet"
towns Fresno and Firebaugh. It was a woman, Genevieve C. Baumbach, that
was the first ofifender arrested for a violation in the sale of liquor in dry
territory. The jury deliberated two hours before finding her guilty and the
fine imposed was fifty dollars.
The big excursion to Berenda to meet President Theodore Roosevelt on
coming out from the seclusion of a visit to Yosemite Valley was on Monday,
May 18, 1913. Eleven coaches of welcomers went from Fresno alone.
December 27, 1890, the rain storm for the season was reported to have
had no equal since the winter flood of 1861-62. The day after, the canal head
gates at Centerville washed out and there was flood damage all over the
county.
Picnic with barbecue at Sanger September 3, 1890, marked the comple-
tion of the Moore & Smith lumber flume from Millwood in the Sierras, a
noteworthy accomplishment of the times.
Report was made December 12, 1890, of the discovery by S. L. Packwood
and I. N. Barrett of the remains of a petrified man in the Cantua Canyon.
The sensation was great. Geologists, who examined the alleged petrifaction,
pronounced it a genuine one of a giant. The find was exhibited for a time
and hawked the country over. The hoax was in the end exposed. It was
manufactured from cement for speculative show purposes and buried to be
conveniently "discovered" in due time. The expose was complete, even to
the person who was the mould for the "petrifaction."
Coalinga voted April 8, 1918, dry by a small majority out of a total of 1,304
votes. At the same election, $20,000 bonds were voted to complete the water
works system.
On the 30th of May of the Centennial year — forty years ago — a news-
paper item recorded the fact that J. E. Longacre and J. C. Berry riding across
the plains from Fresno to Kingsburg observed a band of antelope huddled in
consternation. A coyote had been surrounded by the antelope, striking at
him with their fore feet while he snapped in every direction in self defense.
The combat was watched for a distance of two miles and the coyote finally
escaped.
A. J. Law advertised forty years ago in June, 1876, in Fresno city that
he had received an invoice of forty-eight coffins "of all sizes, styles and prices."
He received them direct from the factory, he sold a coffin as low as six dol-
lars per and announced his ability "to supply this entire section of the valley."
At the Sanger town incorporation election in April, 1908, the vote was
ninety-six against, seventy-seven for and seven did not vote on the question.
Fort}' years ago at the close of the month of May, 1878, the record is
that the steamer Clara Belle, Capt. Jack Grier, unloaded lumber and posts for
Gustavus Herminghaus at Parker's Old Store, fourteen miles below the rail-
road at Sycamore, the highest point on the river ever reached by a steamer
and the only time that one had come up so far since 1867. Herminghaus own-
ing a large tract on the river and Fresno Slough had then received 250,000
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 439
feet of lumber by steamer from San Francisco to fence in 15,000 acres of ,c:raz-
mp; land. The fence followed the line of the surveyed road from White's
bridge to Fresno for seven miles and diverted travel from the long used route
along the river.
It was in May. 18'),S, that there was excitement over the discovery by •
J. M. Lowe of gold bo.-iring (|uart/. at Trimmer Springs, and there was a
"rush" and considerable ni ,ni cxddiis fi'om Sehna. It was a pocket, which as
stated at the time "may turn out $50,000 or it ma_v peter out." It did peter out.
It was about the middle of May, 1898, that fig growers were interested
in the arrival from Naples and receipt bv George C. Roeding from the agricul-
tural department of a consignment of Capri or wild figs containing the blas-
tophaga or fig wasps for the pollenization of the female or Smyrna fig.
At the special election held in May, 1908, in Kingsburg, the vote was
seventy-two for and thirty-four against incorporation and a "dry" board of
city councilmen was elected. Tlie town was the second in the county to vote
"dry."
There were many, but they were late comers, who believed that the 1898
season was the hardest in the history of the state as a drought year. Edward
Lane of Lane's bridge who came to the valley in 1869 and drove sheep over
the territory now within the city limits recalls that the drought }-ear of 1877
was much more severe, there was comparatively little feed in the valley, the
supply was not more than to last about six weeks and the price of sheep
dropped from three dollars a head to twenty-five cents. Nearly all the sheep-
men of the valley were bankrupted that year.
At the 'School election in Easterby "district in April, 1908, Mrs. William
Forsyth, ]\Irs. Hector A. Burness and Mrs. James Y. Beveridge were elected
trustees, defeating by a vote of fourteen to six Burness, Beveridge and L. R.
Rogers, being the first time in the county that a school board of women was
elected. They served their term but never again has the experiment been
tried, though women are members of many school boards in the county.
The Margherita vineyard of 307 acres was sold in Jt'ly, 1918, by Mrs. E.
B. Rogers for $150,000 and the deal was the largest about that time. Vineyard
was one of the best known in the county, located about four miles east of the
city and was one of the show places of the county. The sale was to New York,
San Francisco and Fresno capitalists.
There was a registration in the county for the August, 1918, primary elec-
tion of 34,883, of which 15,574 were Republicans and 13,688 Democrats, as
against 28,465 in 1916.
With from 7,000 to 8,000 acres signed up in August, 1918, for the Califor-
nia Alfalfa Growers' Association Fresno County became the banner county
of the state as the result of the organization campaign. The state has about
20,000 acres in alfalfa.
The first woman constable in the county is Miss Rae Gayton of 482 San
Pablo Avenue, appointed in August, 1918. She had been doing clerical work
for Township Constable George E. Machen and was deputized to serve civil
attachment papers.
Another notable vineyard sale of August, 1918, was that of the Glorietta
of 160 acres for* approximately $128,000 or about $800 an acre. The buyer
was an Oakland American-born Chinese. The sale of the vineyard was its
second during the year, and the buyer in spring bought the quarter section
Wawona vineyard across the road from the Glorietta which is three miles
north of Clovis.
A vineyard section of the Alvina Land Company, about ten miles south of
Fresno, was for $180,000 another August, 1918, sale. The buyers were the
Kamikawa Bros. Five hundred forty acres of the section are planted to
vines and peaches. The land lies near Monmouth, one mile west of the
Santa Fe Railroad. One hundred acres were to be planted and payments
will cover a period of eight years.
440 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
The first formal reunion picnic of the Fresno County Pioneers' Associa-
tion was held at grass-carpeted and tree-shaded Riverview Saturday, Tune
20, 1914.
Of interest was the sale in August, 1918, of twenty acres in alfalfa, one
mile east of the county fair grounds, by Mrs. M. E. Carlisle to B. N. Hall
of Madera for $14,000. the price of $700 per acre considered reasonable in
view of the location so near town. The ranch is a noted one in Fresno an-
nals, once a part of the Fresno Winery Company tract and when first seeded
the pioneer alfalfa tract in the county. Transfer was to take place January
1, 1919, and seller had for years advance sales for the crops.
An August, 1918, sale that was remarkable for the price involved and
for the history of the property was the passing of the noted Glen Ellen
orange and lemon grove of N. W. Moodey, one mile north of Centerville,
to Mrs. May Perkins McKinnon of Oakland, Calif., daughter of George C.
Perkins, former governor of California and later United States senator from
this state. The sale was for a little over $2,000 an acre for twenty-nine and
three-fourths acres. This property is noteworthy as the pioneer citrus grove
in the Centerville district established after years of persistent and costly
effort in the demonstration of the adaptability of the soil and climate oi
Fresno for the cultivation of citrus fruit. The twenty-two and one-quarter-
acre old place includes the twenty-four-year-old lemon orchard and one of
the oldest in the county. The fruit has always taken first prize when ex-
hibited, and in the market brought fancy prices because of quality and supe-
rior picking and hand packing. Sales of the crop were always in advance to
eastern dealers.
Notable incident was the closing August 21, 1918, of negotiations for
the purchase from the California Associated Raisin Company of over half
a million dollars' worth of Fresno raisins by the British government, J- S.
Marple representing the British Food Ministry conducting the negotiations
with the co-ordination and purchasing department of the U. S. Food Ad-
ministration. The purchase was of Sultanas wholly, contract called for im-
mediate shipment and purchase practically cleaned out the 1917 Sultana crop.
The British government has always bought San Joaquin Valley raisins
through the spot markets but this was its first great purchase direct from
the association. A large part of the purchase was to be rationed to the
soldiers in the army.
Opportunities yet ofifer themselves in Fresno, notably in the real estate
line, witness the September, 1917, experience of David Andreas in the sale
of a 160-acre vineyard to Mrs. Alfreda Verwoert of San Francisco who is
largely interested in realty in the Hanford, Kings County, neighborhood. The
sum of $93,000 was paid for an eight-year-old Muscat vineyard, located nine
miles east of Fresno city. One year before, Andreas added the property to
his holdings paying $64,000. In the interim, he harvested a crop valued at
$20,000. \\'ith the $29,000 difference between buying and selling prices and
the crop return a net increase of $49,000 was enjoyed on the one year's in-
vestment. The estimated crop for 1917 went to the buyer.
July 7, 1917, ground was broken at Piedra in the foothills on the Kings
River, above Sanger, by the Piedra Magnesite Company for 'one of the most
modern calcining plants in the country, if not in the world. The mine of
which there is a mountain and the equipment represented an investment of
nearly a quarter of a million of dollars, financed by former Portervillians
who have had experience in this line. The capacity of the plant is over a
carload per day. Magnesite is used in manufacture for various purposes
but is essential in the making of fine steel for cannon and rifles and cannot
be substituted because of its heat resisting qualities. The kiln is eighty-three
feet long, tapering to eight in diameter and weighed over eighty tons when
ready for burning, filling two cars in the transportation of the parts. The
trunions supporting the kiln are erected on thirty-two cubic yards of -con-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 441
Crete bases. The cooling tower rises to a height of sixty feet and is fed by
125 feet of chain buckets, another chain automatically distributing the cal-
cined product to various parts of the shipping building. The fire and heat in
the kiln to burn out tlie ore adulterations are so intense that the flames can
be viewed only through heavily sinoked glasses, being too bright for the
naked eye. The machinery is driven throughout by electric motors of special
design. The plant began operations September 21, 1917.
The California Associated Raisin Company has become an immense
business corporation. According to its published financial report made in
November, 1917, the 1916 raisin crop of 103,800 tons was sold for $13,595,-
070.50, good progress was being made in the marketing of the new crop to
be about 35,000 tons in excess of that of the year before and the final pay-
ment of $1,739,503.70 on the 1916 crop was ready to be made, making the
record price for raisins. The expense was $3,381,105.82 for packing, selling
and maintenance of the association, leaving a net balance of $10,213,964.68
for division among the associated growers. The figures on tonnage were:
Variety Tonnage Receipts Gross
Muscats 75.049 $9,226,467.65
Thompson's Seedless 19,235 2,992,247.39
Sultanas 5,911 822,899.91
Malagas 312 42,531.88
Feherzagos 499 39,802.57
Northern Bleached Thompson's.... 2,783 469,640.63
Northern Bleached Sultanas 11 1,980.47
103,800 $13,595,070.50
The financial statement showed:
ASSETS
Quick assets $3,991,753.18
Invested assets 556,428.18
Deferred charges 10,742.02
Total assets $4,558,923.38
LIABILITIES
Current liabilities $3,040,263.95
Special reserves 92,205.38
Capital and surplus 1,426,454.69
Total liabilities $4,558,923.38
The grape industry of California is an immense one. According to the
bulletin of the State Board of Viticulture Commission $63,000,000 is the value
placed on California's 1917 grape crop and $150,000,000 on the state's grape
industry. 1916 was the greatest in returns that the industry has experienced,
the raisin crop was 30,000 tons above normal and amounted to 155,000 tons,
the wine production of 37,000,000 was almost normal and the grape crop the
greatest known.
The first all woman jury in the county and all married impanelled be-
fore Justice C. C. Hudson of Fowler found guilty on the night of February
21, 1917, Apel Tikijian, aged twenty-two, as the first of eight co-defendants
accused of sabotage in the wanton burning and destruction of 8,000 raisin
trays on the A. Rustigian vineyard, located two miles east of Fowler. The
ofTense was committed January 24 and 25, 1917. during the height of the
"drive" for signatures to continue the corporate life of the raisin association,
Rustigian being a non-signer. The formal accusation was malicious mischief.
442 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The value of the trays was ten to fifteen cents each but with prevailing labor
and material prices, they could probably not be replaced for less than eighteen
cents each. The women were not moved by the sophistry of the appeal to
sentiment and prejudice of the community in the virtual plea that the end
justified the means. The fine imposed was a nominal one, afterward remitted
and all were permitted to go free. The trial was the sensation of the district.
The jurors were Mesdames A. B. Armstrong, J. W. Jones, L. Crawford,
George James, R. R. Giffen. T. L. Brown, J. S. Manley, T. W. Fork. C. E.
Flack, C. E. Powell, R. H. Ramsey and A. L. Donahoo. The tray burning
was only one of many overt acts that accentuated the campaign for associa-
tion contract signatures and committed by hot headed individuals in the
countv and publicly denounced and repudiated by the association.
Two large plants estimated to increase the waterpower taken from Big
Creek in the" Sierras in this county to a total of more than 700,000 horse
power is part of the project of the Southern California Edison Company
according to formal announcement. These plants will be an addition to
the construction work planned, announced and well under way. They will
use over again the water impounded by the dams above in Huntington
Lake and passing through the upper power house. To double the size and
capacity of the Big Creek power producing plants, the dams were raised
thirtv-one feet giving them a maximum height of 160 feet. This project
added $2,000,000 to the Edison undertaking at the lake, bringing the total
cost up to $17,000,000. Besides the two plants, a nine-mile tunnel will
divert the water of the San Joaquin through the mountain and run it
through the lower power houses. This power development would deliver
a total of double the power now utilized in Southern California. The plants
are the outcome of the belief that the price of fuel oil will not materially
decrease and that waterpower must supplant in large- part oil generated
power, this substitution releasing annually for use by the government in its
navy upwards of 600.000 barrels. The company will besides save annually
$1,000,000 and thus pay the cost of the improvement in two years. A small
armv of men began work in September, 1917, on this enlarged project
in the raising of t"he three dams from 129 feet. Approximately 100,000-acre
feet would be stored in the lake for the generation for electric power and
illumination in Southern California 240 miles from the mountain seat of
operations, 1,250,000 inhabitants in the south to be served, 150 cities and
towns and approximately 175,000 consumers. An idea of the magnitude
of the work in the mountains may be gathered from the fact that daily
during the work 1,600 yards of concrete were poured, that 52,000,000 pounds
of cement were employed on the work and that the cost of the sacks con-
taining it was alone $70,000. Three concrete dams and two power plants
with 40,000 horse power capacity each are the original plants. The raised
dams will double the storage capacity of the reservoir. The huge project
involves a greater power development than the famous Keokuk dam on the
Mississippi River with a fall of twenty-three feet in twelve miles. The
fall of Big Creek is 4,000 feet in six miles : the drainage basin covers eighty-
eight square miles, the rainfall is eighty inches and the run off fifty. The
water is led ofif through a tunnel and steel pipe line to the first power
house half way down. Here it gushes out of six-inch nozzles at 350 feet
per second or 240 miles an hour against the impulse bucket wheels of
ninety-four inches in diameter. From these it escapes into a creek blocked
by dam and diverted into a second tunnel four miles in length and through
a long series of conduits to the second power house.
It was a jury before Judge H. Z. Austin in the case of W'illiam Louk-
onen, accused in six counts of an assault upon a female minor, that on
October 4, 1917, exercised for the first time in this county the then recently
acquired right to name in verdict the place of confinement of the accused.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 443
It declared for county jail instead of penitentiary incarceration. The accused
was a married man and the prosecutrix a kin.
With the institution of Department 3 of the Superior court in October,
1917, and appointment of D. A. Cashin as the presiding judge, the latter
occupied the bench rostrum and desk from which in the -county courthouse
a quarter of a century before the life sentence was pronounced in the same •
apartment on the bandit, Chris E\'ans. The jury box is the same that was
occupied by the twelve men that listened to the testimony on the trial of
the famous Evans and Sontag cases. Bench and box are placed in the same
positions as they were then. In the long interim, they had been used as the
furnishings of Township Justice G. A\'. Smith's courtroom down town.
The second all woman jury in the county was the one that before Justice
of the Peace L. S. Beall of ciovis failed October 1, 1917, after deliberating
for two hours, to agree upon a verdict in a case between two women for
a malicious diverting of the water from a lateral irrigation ditch. A jury
of men also disagreed the month before in a similar case before the same
magistrate. The later case was one of a jury of married women, namely
Mesdames C. M. W. Smith, Percy Magill, Carl S. Merriman, Milo Hole,
Sterling \A'illiams. William Otts, Edyth Hyatt, Ovid Ingmire, Iva Sprague,
Chris Castncr, A\'illiani Heiskell and H. E. Armstrong.
Fresno bank clearings for the month of October, 1917, disclosed an
increase of ,'^,^, (100.000 over the month previous and of more than 235 per cent,
over the orr. ^i.nndin- month of 1916. The 1917 figures were $14,118,389.92
as against S'i,J41 ,;j''.SO for September of that year, and $6,139,991.26 for
October, 1916. Bank officials declared the increase a remarkable one, prob-
ably unequalled in the state. It was a record not easy to duplicate by any
city of equal population with Fresno. In monthly bank clearings Fresno has
consistently exceeded its old-time rival, Stockton.
The county's record for phenomenally large damage awards by court
juries was a second time cinched in September, 1917, before Judge H. Z.
Austin with an award of $64,000 in the case of Airs. Harriett C. James against
the Campbell Electric Company of Lynn, Mass., and the Bowman Drug
Company of Oakland, Cal.. for the fatal poisoning of her dentist husband
with barium carbonate, administered preparatory to an X-ray demonstra-
tion during the state medical society meeting in this city in 1916. The
judgment prayed for was for $100,000 and on one of the informal ballots by
the deliberating jurors four voted for the full award. March 28, 1919, the
appellate court in San Francisco ordered the judgment reversed and the case
remanded for another trial. Next day the attorneys appeared before the
Fresno superior court and Judge Austin and on the testimony given at the
former trial a stipulated judgment for the widow was entered for $25,000
and $700 costs. The entire proceeding with regard to the reduced judgment
award beginning with the reversal on appeal was the result of a compromise
stipulation. The judgment was paid in court with check. The rapidity with
which final proceedings were had was the feature in the matter. Lawyers
declared that this original verdict in the case for damages for accidental death
is the largest ever returned by a jury in the county and also in the state. The
larger verdict in the Zibbell case was for injuries received for being run
over and mutilated by a railroad switch engine.
Twentv-six years ago in November, 1892, workmen were erecting the
frame work foundation support for the new dome of the county courthouse.
Some of these timbers were sixty feet in length and heavy in proportion.
The dome was several times larger than the one preceding it, being forty
feet wide at the base, octagonal and rising 120 feet above the courthouse
roof. From the ground to the apex of the dome, the height is 180 feet.
Under date of August 24, 1917, record was made of the gobbling up by
the Southern Pacific Company of the forty-two and seven-hundredths-mile
444 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
feeder line in the Hanford «& Summit Lake Railway Company. The stated
purchase price was $58,305.26.
Contract was placed of record under date of April 16, 1916, by D. J.
Guggenhime of San Francisco of the sale to Joseph E. Foster of Fresno and
Berthold Guggenhime and Bert Katz of San Francisco of a portion of the
Home ranch for $125,000 and of the Fortuna for $75,000 as land described
in a trust deed to the seller from the Abraham Gartenlaub estate. The con-
tract stipulated that the interests shall not pass from control of seller for
five years from date of contract and establishing prices of sale in the event
of the death of any.
One of the largest lease transactions in a long time was the one con-
summated August 2, 1917, involving the Kings County vineyard holdings of
West & Son of Stockton — the Lucerne, Little Lucerne, Felicia and Central
Lucerne — embracing 1,880 acres of Muscat and seedless grapes. The lease
was to Wylie M. Giffen of the California Associated Raisin Company,
paying $55,000 for a five-year leasehold, part of said sum secured bv crop
mortgage. The lease was made with the approval of the San Joaquin County
Superior court for the West minors.
The crop in 1913, which was the first vear that the associated raisin com-
panv did business, amounted to about 70,000 tons, a practical average for the
preceding five vears. In 1914 it was about 98.000 tons, in 1915 about 130.000,
in 1916 about 132,000 and would have run to 150,000 had it not been for the
loss on account of rain. The 1917 crop was as much. In five years that the
association has been in business, the crop has practically doubled, due in
a measure to increased planting of Seedless Thompson vines and in a large
measure to better cultivation of old vineyards with double production in
many instances.
It is a long stretch for the imagination to play upon between the finan-
cial statement of the county for the fiscal year 1917-18 and that for the
July 1-December 1, period of the year 1856 when the county was organized.
During this latter period, the receipts were $6,281.15, and also $1,200 monthly
collected as foreign miners' tax; the expenditures, $4,268: the value of the
ta-xable property, mainly stock, $400,000. The 1917-18 receipts were
$5,085,256.50 less a balance of $1,394,947, and $551,532.93 of the total city
money. Total disbursed was $4,014,450.54 and of this sum $827,334.06 city
money. Balance at the end of the year in various general and special school
funds was $1,070,805.06. Many a present school district handles more money
than did the county during the first years of its political existence. During
the period covered by the report, the county used in its various departments
$5,080.75 alone in postage stamps. The \\'ar Exemption Board cost $7,438.98.
The schools cost $1,437,223.95.
Articles of incorporation of the California Fig Company with a capital-
ization of $500,000 were filed October 4, 1917, to finance the fig culture ex-
perimenting on the Bullard tract by the incorporators with 1,400 acres already
planted, including all standard varieties with the Smyrna as the specialty.
The following tabulation is of interest as showing the final crop price
paid for the varieties of raisins to members of the association since its
operation as their selling agent:
Variety 1913 1914 1915 1916
Feherzagos $50.00 $50.00 $60.00 $ 61.00
Malagas 60.00 50.00 60.00 76.49
Muscats - 69.30 66.20 71.71 84.18
Sultanas 65.66 77.28 88.81 118.10
Thompson's 78.27 92.50 99.67 131.51
Not in twenty-five years had two successive crops sold for so high an
average as the last two : never a crop larger than the last and never a more
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 445
favorable season for curing. The associated members were urged to invest
their settlement money in Liberty bonds.
It was a little more than ten years ago that court officials came from
Los Angeles and packing up the last court property in the county court
house for removal prepared also the new quarters for the May, 1908, session
and first sitting of the federal tribunal in the completed postoffice building.
It was in October, 1917, that mining lease under date of August 22 was
recorded by the Copper King Mining Company of Texas with option to buy
225 acres from the \\'abash Alining Company, a corporation that had forfeited
its franchise in 1909 for failure to pay the corporation license tax. The valu-
ation of the leased property was placed at $175,000, a figure named as the pur-
chase price, if the Copper King people should exercise the right to buy during
the life of the three-year lease. They were to pay twelve and one-half cents
royalty on net smelter returns, expend $6,000 in improvments during the
first year and $12,000 during the second and third. The property in this county
includes thirteen \^'abash and Lode mining claims of 224.97 acres.
As far back as the year 1888 when the boom was yet at its zenith, the
county rated sixth among the eight leading counties of the state for property
values. The assessed value of real estate and improvements in the state was
returned at $900,440,491 and the personal propertv at $170,661,836. Fresno's
figures were $30,112,433 and $3,381,896.
The first orange trees planted in the county were seedlings set out in
1867, nearly fifty-two years ago, on the Kings River at Centerville by Wil-
liam Hazleton.
There were in 1889 in the Fresno district twenty-three commercial
raisin packers. During the year cooperative packing houses were established,
notably two in Oleander and one each at Fowler, Selma and Malaga. Fresno
alone had fourteen packing houses, four large ones employing from 300 to 400
hands each and boxing 100.000 each. The largest and finest raisins were
undoubtedly packed by the larger home growers. The crops and packing of
the Butler and Forsyth vineyards and others were never surpassed even in
Spain. It is of historical interest to enumerate some of the larger packers
and the brands that they made known in the markets in the establishment
of a new industry in America and which in the end crowded Spain
out of the field. Thev are these: Fresno-American Raisin Co., Eagle and
Star; A. D. Barling, El Modelo and Golden Gate; A. B. Butler, Butler's and
Gordon's; California Raisin and Fruit Co., Seal and Eclipse; H. E. Cook,
Cook's; William Forsyth, Imperial, Tiger, Forget-me-not; Fresno Fruit and
Raisin Co., Lion and Golden Gate; Griifin & Skelley, Grififin & Skelley's ;
Geo. and John H. Leslie, Liberty and Royal; J. W. Reese, Cartons; Barton
Estate Co., Peacock ; James Miller ; Mau, Sadler & Co., Sierra Park and
Parrot; Malaga— E. H. Gould, Olivet and El Monte; N. Viau, Viau's ; S. P.
Viau ; Oleander — Curtis Fruit Co., Greyhound and San Joaquin ; Fresno
Raisin Co., American Flag; Fowler — Fowler Fruit & Raisin Co., Pride of
California and Comet; Rodda & Nobmann, Maple Park; Selma — S. B. Hol-
ton, Golden West; Tulare — Page & Morton, P. & AI. and Brown & Co.
Fire destroyed November 12, 1889, what was declared to have been at
Centerville the first two-story house erected in the county.
June 26, 1889, decision was rendered by the late Judge James B. Camp-
bell giving so much elation that the residents of Selma and vicinity fired a
salvo of fOO guns. The decision found in the celebrated Laguna de Tache
grant case that judgment should be entered rescinding and cancelling the
agreement of the contestants of date May 1, 1880, upon the payment by the
plaintififs to the defendants of $154,400 and upon payment restore to the
plaintifT, Jeremiah Clarke, possession of the lands described in the agree-
ment. Clarke was the holder of the title to the ranch, the only old Mexican
land grant to a vast domain in this county on the Kings River and like all
such grants the subject of litigation. The grant is now the possession of
446 . HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
a corporation with an English lord as its main financial representative. On
the trial of the case 239 witnesses were examined and 100 more were sub-
poenaed but not called as their testimony as to facts already established was
admitted.
A $30,000 fire September 8, 1912, wiped out Coalinga's red light district
located on Whiskey Row, facing the railroad depot. It was only a temporary
purification and fumigation.
As an aftermath of the excitement and litigation and criminal prosecu-
tion following the eflfort in 1907 to divide the county with all the Coalinga
oil field territory to be annexed to Kings County, Fulton G. Berry. Emanuel
Katz and Sherifif R. D. Chittenden brought suit in ]\Iarch 1909 against
Charles King, one of the pro-annexationists to recover $1,500 on his endorsed
note made at Hanford, December 10, 1907, and deposited with the Laton
Bank to cover a wager on the election but repudiated by him December 15
when that wager was lost on the result of the election. The case went to
trial February 25, 1907, before Judge H. Z. Austin and the plea of the de-
fendant was the claim was for a gambling debt, therefore against good morals
and public policy. The contention was sustained. Berry had never an idea of
recovering judgment and, as he stated, his reason for bringing suit and
pressing it to trial was to publish King to the world as a "welcher" and
"trimmer." The public feeling over the attempted land grab by Kings County
was intense. Fresno's representatives in the legislature were caught napping
when the scheme was put through.
April 30 has been set for the annual Fresno Raisin Day celebration and
the first Year's campaign was in 1909. The celebration is a part of the
county advertising campaign to popularize the raisin as a food product. The
celebrations have been uniformly held in Fresno city in splendid parades and
symbolic pageants.' An incorporation has been formed to promote the
annual event.
The two greatest days in the life of County Treasurer A. D. Ewing (best
known as "Chill," short for Achilles) were January 7 and 8, 1890. On the
first he drew on the Fresno Loan and Savings Bank a check on himself as
county tax collector for $200,000 and on the next he tackled the problem of
removing to the courthouse, two blocks off, the $195,000 gold in sacks and
the $5,000 currency in his pocket. Ewing was the county's first tax collector,
the sheriff having been the tax gatherer before him, and Sheriff O. J. Meade
the last collector. Ewing was closing the first year of his term of two and
the money must be physically transferred in settlement of 1899's taxes into
the hands of Treasurer Major Thomas P. Nelson. The bank was given four
or five days notice of intention to draw the money in lump sum and the
young collector, who was just a man in years, considered his check-drawing
the most momentous event of the decade and that when he removed that
money he would leave the financial centers of the country dry. The money
was on hand on the 6th, the late \V. H. McKenzie was the bank cashier and
the sacks of gold were ranged along the floor as they had come from the
mint for the count on the 7th, because there must be assurance that $200,000
was there before it was moved and he personally responsible for every dollar.
Trust was reposed in only four men to make the transfer. These were David
S. Ewing, brothier of the collector and deputy in his office, and Nathan Hart,
expressman in the employ of Bartlett & Ewing, draymen of the city, H. N.
Ewing, father of the collector, and J. H. Bartlett, city marshal. Three were
armed, Ewing on watch at the dray while the others transferred the twenty-
dollar and ten-dollar sacks from the bank into the dray. The intention was
to approach the courthouse at the rear and there make transfer to the treas-
urer in same fashion as at the bank. But the count at the bank had delayed
matters until five o'clock, night was coming on and a mist and fog gathering.
The risk was too great to reach the courthouse by circuitous route so the
dray was ordered driven up ]\Iariposa Street and via the main approach
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 447
direct for the front steps of the courthouse and arrived as the supervisors
and county officials were leaving for the day and wondering what a dray
was doing at the front of the courthouse, one block in every direction from
the nearest street. The orders were to answer no questions after leaving the
bank, but to shoot the first man to approach the dray in menacing mien.
The money was transferred but at so late an hour that a verification
of the count could not be made until the following day. That night Treas-
urer Nelson and two deputy sheriffs slept in the little dark office of the
treasurer on the ground floor, the courthouse then not being the large one of
today. But with the last sack in, a great w^eight was lifted from the shoulder
of the collector. That same boy tax-collector after thirty years entered on
a second elected term as county treasurer. The full story of that exploit was
not given to the world until June 14, 1908.
August 16, 1911, was the date on which the supreme court on appeal
sustained the judgment of Judge G. E. Church in the case against Andrew F.
Abbott and some 2,800 others to liquidate the affairs of the California Raisin
Growers' Association and on account of the raisin crop of 1903. Approxi-
mately $100,000 tied up by the litigation and more to be collected on execu-
tion saw distribution. The decision in the case was to adopt as judgment
the referee report of W. S. Johnson. The case had been in litigation since
September, 1906. With this decision about sixty per cent, of the face vakie
of the claims was realized. The decision on appeal was to hold that there
was nothing in the record or in the evidence to show that the association
was a trust in restraint of trade. The trustees at the time of the 1903 crop
for which accounting was sought were Robert Boot, A. L. Sayre, A. V. Tay-
lor, D. D. Allison and T. C. White. The 600 in behalf of whom the appeal
was taken gave up the contest and abandoned further proceedings on the
notification of their attorneys under dated circular of September 14, 1911.
A landmark, in the fermentation room of the Eisen winery on Belmont
Avenue, eight miles from Fresno, and the oldest wine making plant in the
valley, was destroyed by fire on the afternoon of September 21, 1911; loss
about $75,000. The fire followed explosion upon explosion of wine vapor
in a sherry tank entered by a Chinese employe of twenty years' standing,
with a lighted candle to clean it out. There was a loss of 50,000 gallons of
fermenting must which flowed at loss in absorption in the soil. The fire
burned for four hours.
On a Juiie day of 1914 were recorded in this county five sale contracts
of April, 1908, confirming deals involving Coalinga oil lands for $1,406,000
as the principal sums of purchase price, saying nothing of accumulating
interest paid ofif in blocks as high as $24,000 at a clip. One of these recalled
sale of land for $2,000 an acre which two years before was unproductive but
had risen in value to $10,000 an acre, not taking into account the improve-
ments placed to make it productive. One contract was for the sale bv H. U.
Maxfield, A. V. Lisenby, and H. H. \A'elsh to E. L. Dohenv and Norman
Bridge of Los Angeles 253.3 acres described in Section 30-20-'l5 for $506,600
or $2,000 an acre. Another was dated two days prior and was for the sale
by the Pleasant Valley Farming Companv to the American Petroleum Com-
pany of 320 acres described in 6-20-15 and 320 in 18-20-15 for $900,000 and
at time of recording there were indorsements of $200,000 paid on principal
and $45,000 as interest. The deeds called for by the contracts were held
in escrow by Los Angeles banks to be delivered' when full pavments shall
have been made. The tale is told that Mr. and Mrs. Lisenhv riding about
Los Angeles one day passed the Doheny residence and :\[rs. Lisenhy thought
the place a replica of fairyland and' went into ecstasies over it. Her enthu-
siasm abated after her husband informed her that while Mr. Dohenv owned
this section of fairyland he, the husband, had paid for it in selling to him
for $2,000 what was then worth $10,000 an acre.
448 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The mountain natural and artificial lakes in the Sierras and the streams
arising therefrom or fed by the snows of winter are the fisherman's paradise
for trout as are the lazier streams and sloughs for salmon, bass and cat-
fish. The mountain fastnesses are the lairs of the nimble footed deer and
of the carnivorous, wild and predatory animals that the huntsman pursues,
while the foothills are the hunting grounds for the mountain and valley quail,
the orchards the favorite places of the little quail and the cooing dove and
the marshes and the sloughs of the honker and the quacker. The Fresno
district is the largest and most accessible hunting and fishing ground for
the city resident in the state. Fish planting operations in the Sierras are
frequent happenings to overcome the over-zealous activities of an ever-
growing army of anglers. The operations that were conducted during the
summer of 1914 were on a scale unprecedented and of a magnitude never
since equalled. The famous Golden trout was transplanted to various bar-
ren waters in the Fresno Sierras from Volcano Creek and the few minor
streams in the Mount \\''hitney region which was the exclusive home of
this wonderful and most beautiful of the species of the trout. The Wawona
hatchery was drawn upon for spotted trout fry. In Yosemite National Park
fish were planted in waters that were barren ; twenty pack-mule loads of the
golden hued trout were brought down to the Kings River water shed, miles
upon miles of the unstocked mountain territory were covered and the range
of the Golden trout extended for a full 100 miles northward from his native
habitat. The season's operations w^ere under the direction of District Deputy
Fish and Game Warden Andrew D. Ferguson, consuming from two and one-
half to three months in time and completing that season what he could not
otherwise have hoped according to the usual mode to have accomplished in
ten years. The expansion of this fish planting work was made possible by
the increased revenue from the new dollar angling licenses. It also made
possible increase of the capacity of the state hatcheries for the propagation
of fish.
It snowed on New Year's day in 1910. It w-as the first time in twenty-
eight 3'ears. The other fall was in January, 1882. Before that, it snowed at
Millerton December 3, 1873. The 1910 and 1873 snow falls lay on the ground
a very short time. That of 1882 stayed longer. There may have been other
light snow falls but the oldest settler cannot recall them. The 1910 snow was
preceded and followed by rain, in fact the rain was interrupted by a sudden
cold wave turning it into snow.
In May, 1909, the Redemptorist Fathers launched an enterprise which
in time will develop into a large modern college for Fresno on a par with
Santa Clara and St. Mary's Colleges at Santa Clara and Oakland. Two blocks
of land were bought west of town on Kearney Avenue, a grammar school
was built as the first unit of the educational institutions and a chapel was
erected which has been named St. Alphonsus' Church. Report had it that
the enterprise involved about $250,000. Fresno w^as chosen as the site be-
cause of complaint to the archbishop that youths from this portion of the
state desiring to pursue their higher education in the Catholic schools are
required to go to the bay or Los Angeles schools. The same argument as
aflfecting the public schools resulted in the institution of the Fresno Normal
state school in a Fresno suburb with school opening in the city high school
in September, 1911, until gift of site and appropriati(.in liy the legislature
provided for the erection of school buildings and for improvements. Charles
L. McLane, former city superintendent of schools and later head of the
high school, was chosen president of the Normal school board.
Who is the largest single taxpayer in Fresno County? The cattle raising
and land owning Miller & Lux Inc. .\ccording to the 1917-18 tax roll its
total was $51,643.94 on direct assessments on property owned in the county.
Its ownership of the Kings and San Joaquin Irrigation & Water Company
as a subsidiary concern enlarged that tax. Second largest corporate tax-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 449
payer was the Southern Pacific Land Compan_y, a liolding comisany. It paid
$46,841.38. The Kern Land and Trading Company materially increased the
railroad's county tax bill on account of Coalinga oil land holdings. The
California Associated Raisin Company through its holding Associated Ware-
house Company was listed high among larger taxpayers with $26,541.35.
The group of buildings for the Coalinga union high school district
was erected under a contract of September 11, 1917, for $78,106 to be finished
in 200 days after signing of contract.
The first bale of cotton of the 1918 season and grown in Fresno County
Avas in the gin October 22, 1918, of the California Products Company. The
grower was G. F. Bias of the old Malsbary place, near Conejo, and the species
grown the Durango. Specimens of the cotton showed lint in the bowl of the
plant over two inches long.
Fire believed to have resulted from the bursting of a feed pipe in
distillery engine room caused August 29, 1917, a $50,000 loss at the St. George
winery, three miles east of Fresno on Tulare Avenue. Forty thousand gal-
lons of wine and several thousand gallons of other liquors were destroyed.
The closing week in November, 1908, witnessed the completion of the
reenforced concrete dam in the Sierra mountains at the new lumber town
of Hume. The construction of dam cost approximately $35,000. Dam created
a lake of eighty-seven acres in area impounding the water flow of Ten-l\Iile
Creek, draining an area twenty-five square miles. Lake has a depth of fifty
feet at its greatest. The dam was the conception of Civil Engineer J. S. East-
wood and it is the first of its kind. The new settlement of Hume is a model
lumber town, the enterprise in a virgin lumber district of the Hume-Bennett
Lumber Company which with later changes in share holdings became the
Sanger Lumber Company of Michigan with flume terminus at Sanger.
If according to the saying that "justice delayed is justice denied" the
late George Pettit had a well grounded grievance. He was the man who
while enriching others with his invention of the raisin seeding machine suf-
fered "the oppressor's wrong" and all "the law's delay" in being denied his
share of the profits of that invention which revulutionized the raisin indus-
try. It was in August, 1900, that he brought suit against the late William
Forsyth, who first commercialized the invention, seeking to recover his
share in the commercialization of the invention. Years passed with the case
slumbering because Pettit was too poor even to prosecute the case. After
many years it came to trial before a jury and Pettit won the case. During
the month of July, 1914, the supreme court granted on appeal a rehearing
on the decision of the appellate court of the month before sustaining the
Pettit judgment for $7,581.76. The jury had given him judgment for $16,000
but Judge H. Z, Austin reduced the award to the smaller sum with interest
from October 25, 1907, date of judgment, on the theory that the stock in-
volved was not of par value when Pettit lost it. His contention was that
he was made to lose his stock in the Forsyth Seeded Raisin Company with
loss of employment and sale of his guaranteed shares to meet assessments in
the process of "freezing him out." The reduced judgment was in the end
paid with interest. Pettit invested the major portion of the money in a home
and freakishly constructed dwelling which after his death was occupied by
the Salem Rescue Home. But after having borne "the whips and scorns of
time" and in his declining days reduced to day labor, it was not to be won-
dered at that Pettit embraced Socialism as a panacea against "the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune." In the Chaddock & Company raisin seeder
machine patent infringement case heard and argued before United States
Judge Olin Wellborn, was read an affidavit of 200 pages of typewritten
matter by George S. Pettit Jr., as he once called himself, giving a history by
the man whom the courts have declared was the original inventor, with his
associates, of the raisin seeder as a physical creation, theoretically^ mechan-
ically and commercially.
450 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
It was on Monday, March 23, 1908, that the postoffice opened for busi-
ness in the federal building at the corner of Tulare and K Streets, one block
east from the old location on the ground floor quarters in the Edgerly build-
ing at Tulare and J Streets, whither it had been removed under the second
administration of N. W. Moodey as postmaster in 1890. Fresno's first post-
office in 1872 was a cracker-box or something very little better in the Ein-
stein general merchandise store at Mariposa and H in the days before the
railroad. Fresno was hardly more than a cluster of shacks and' as described
"a typical cow town without the cows." The real growth of the office was
under De Long, still in the Einstein store but in an alcove with half a dozen
post boxes and a drawer or two for stamps and cash and a stamp or two.
De Long moved the postoffice during his term to the Donahoo building at
Mariposa and I. Moodey moved the office to the building erected bv the
late E. C. Winchell at the corner of Fresno and J at a cost of $22,000. It
was at this time that the force was increased from one clerk and two carriers
to five and ten. LIpon Moodey's second term succeeding Hughes and wife,
the office was moved to the Savings Bank on Tulare Street and then to the
Edgerly corner, also on that street. The office force was then increased to
ten clerks and twelve carriers. In all the years of the Fresno postoffice,
there has been only one case of fraud or theft in the postoffice proper. It
was the case of a young man who had opened a few registered letters and
purloined the contents. There being extenuating circumstances connected
with the case, he sufifered only a fine. Save in additions in rear, the federal
building has no room for the growth of the postoffice business.
The year 1909 is recalled as one not so much for startling or picturesque
incidents but rather as one for "clearing up old scores." dealing with
and removing the effects of the depression of 1907 and clearing the way for
a year of progress such as would have been impossible a year or two before.
Especially noticeable had been the growth of such towns in the county as
Selma, Fowler, Sanger, Clovis. Most surprising was the expansion of Coal-
inga. It had doubled its permanent population in a little over one year. It
became a city of 5,000 people with business houses approaching the standard
for one of the greatest oil fields in the world. The most important financial
problem of the year 1910 was the success or failure of the agitated "million
dollar" raisin growers' cooperative company headed by Wylie M. Giffen.
The year 1909 was a most successful one from the promotion standpoint.
President William Taft was entertained for a day on his visit to Fresno
that year.
The "Fairweather Raisin Pool" collapsed January 12, 1909. The packers
would have nothing to do with it. The Consolidated Seeded Raisin Company
in San Francisco declared that such a pool arrangement would be a violation
of the Cartwright law and they could not touch it. R. K. Madsen of Parlier
then attempted to secure a power of attorney contract from enough growers
to handle the raisin market. After a fortnight of publicity effort the project
was abandoned. February was at hand with an unsold holdover crop of
1907 and 1908 in the hands of groAvers of about 30,000 tons, a dead market
and no one wanting raisins at any price. While the campaigns were on
came a Mississippian with a commission to organize California into the
Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America, establishing head-
quarters at Kingsburg. Locals were formed and out of them was evolved the
commercial branch known as the Farmers' Union Inc. It was too late in
the season for profitable operations as the eastern raisin market had subsided.
California Raisin Day — April 30, 1909 — was "invented" and people talked
raisins from Maine to Texas and from Florida Keys to Puget Sound. There
was never another such an experience on record. In a few weeks the raisin
hold over was taken up and disposed of and new life and hope warmed up
the raisin grower. The "eastern trade" played Fresno County producers of
other fruits the same trick as it did the raisin men of the vallcv. F)Ut there
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 451
was no "Dried Fruit Day" to save the day and situation. And so the way
was paved for the Milhon Dollar plan for uniting the raisin men under a
contract for a period of five years. And that successful plan has been fol-
lowed by the peach, the apricot, the fig and the alfalfa men.
One result of the failure of the "Fairweather raisin pool scheme" of
December, 1908, and January, 1909, was an agitation for the repeal of the
anti-trust law of George W. Cartwright, state senator from Fresno. Although
this law had never been invoked in the county and for that matter to no
appreciable extent in the state, the repeal movement met with little popular
support and subsided soon.
Sylviculture had its awakening in Fresno and adjoining counties in
1909. Holdings from twenty acres to quarter sections were planted to euca-
lypti notably about Wheatville and west of Fresno bordering on the White's-
bridge road. The plantings were mostly of the blue and the red gum. The
growth of these plantings of 1907 and 1908 were satisfactory but that is all
that can be said of the fad, except that there was never a cent of return on
promotion stock subscriptions in the incorporated ventures that zealous
agents boomed.
The county fair of Octolser, 1909, was a financial success for the first
time in the history of the Fresno County Agricultural Society.
Fresno County was given shabby treatment at the hands of the legisla-
ture during the first three months in 1909. The strong plea for a normal
school at Fresno, heartily supported by all the counties of the valley, was
disregarded in the two houses. That of Kings County to the south for the
annexation of a slice of the larger county was approved and 150 square
miles were severed. There was decided difference of opinion north and
south of the Kings River as to this severance, but the matter was not sub-
mitted to a referendum. Assessed valuation of the territory for the year
before was a little over $2,000,000. It included a considerable portion of
the Laguna de Tache grant with the town of Hardwick.
Notable event of the legislative session of 1909 was the introduction of
the "alien land bill" of Assemblyman A. M. Drew of Fresno, who by reason
of his opposition to the increase of the Japanese population on the Pacific
Coast gained a nation wide name. The measure was aimed at preventing the
further acquisition of land in California by Japanese. The measure was killed
or at least emasculated by administrative pressure wielded from Washington
by President Roosevelt and supported by Governor Gillett. The representa-
tion was made that the bill's passage would embarrass the national govern-
ment in the effort to solve the immigration problem by agreement with the
Mikado's government. An attempt in San Francisco to exclude Japanese
from the white schools, it will be remembered, was also defeated through
the same means and agencies.
The top record figure paid by the Danish Creamery Association for
butter fat on the October output was seventy-one cents, four more than
paid for September, 1918, and nineteen more than for the September, 1917,
output. The latter was then the highest ever paid in the San Joaquin Valley
and checks aggregating $79,496.37 were given the association creamery men.
The proposition to bond the county for $100,000 for a hall of records
was defeated at the election November 3, 1908, lacking a two-thirds majority
on the vote cast. Total vote was 5,669; for 3,555; against 2,114; failure to
pass was by 223 votes.
The various bans placed on the population, including the wearing of
gauze masks to cover the mouth and the nostrils, during the six weeks con-
tinuance of the "Spanish influenza" epidemic were lifted Sunday, November
23, 1918. In Fresno County, the report was of about 3,000 known and re-
ported cases and of 128 deaths, eighty per cent, of the cases classified as of
a mild type. Two weeks before, the deaths in the United States in forty-six
large cities having a population of 23,000,000 totalled 78,000, these cities
452 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
representini? less than one quarter of the population of the country and the
epidemic far from running its course. It was thought a low estimate to double
the figures and make the death toll over 150,000. On the other hand, the
figures then given out of the killed and deaths from wounds in the American
army in the war was 36.154, less than the deaths from influenza alone in
the armv in the camps in America. The influenza had killed of the popula-
tion certainly at least five times as many Americans than had the Huns. It
was actually safer to be in the battle line in Europe than in the comfortable,
sanitary and dangerless army cantonments in America under the best care.
The New York Scientific Am'erican observed : "It is certainly a disconcerting
fact that at the very time when the country had organized itself through the
Red Cross and other famous organizations to fight disease and prevent suf-
fering, we should be smitten with a visitation which caused more casualties
and deaths in the home land than occurred among our troops in the great
world war."
November 26, 1918, Fresno County saw the first two bales ginned from
home grown cotton of the short staple variety, the California Products
Company having ginned the first cotton crop in the valley. It was a signifi-
cant exhibit in view of the hope of the valley becoming a cotton producing
area. The company hpped to deal with the total product of the valley coun-
ties and had confidence enough in the future to erect a quarter million dollar
plant. Ginning plant has a capacity for sixty bales of short staple cotton
and twelve of Egyptian staple, and is large enough to double the capacity in
production. Fresno will be the center for the cotton and the by-products,
with cotton gin and receiving house located at Bakersfield and another plant
at Corcoran. When the business is under way, a cotton spinning mill may
be erected. The first cotton to be brought in for ginning was grown by
A. J. ]\Talsbary and G. F. Bias on a thirty-acre field, fifteen miles south of
Fresno and yielding over a bale to the acre.
The feSeral postoffice and courthouse building at the corner of K and
Tulare Streets was practically completed early in January, 1908, for occu-
pancy on the first of the following month. It is a structure of steel, stone and
brick after the conventional governmental style of such structures. The cost
of construction was $122,000 out of an appropriation of $150,000. Work on
building was begun in July, 1907, though contract was let to W. H. Maxwell
in April to be completed in December. The building stands on part of a
corner lot and measures 90x100, is two stories high and has a basement.
The postoffice occupies the entire ground floor with a work room 60x80. It
compares favorably with those of the other cities of the state, larger than
the one at Stockton and a little smaller than the one in Oakland. The federal
courtroom upstairs is 40x60. The building is none too large for the steady
growth of the postoffice business.
The Fresno Chamber of Commerce had in December, 1918, begun on
after-the-war activities. The question of good roads is one of these, empha-
sized by the geographical position of the county and the city in relation to
the scenic beauties, national parks and undeveloped resources to be found
within a radius of 100 miles from the county seat. In a conference with the
grand jury on the subject, it was pointed out that the people of the county
had subscribed $13,000,000 in war work and the sentiment was general to
favor spending some money at home in a bond issue heavy enough to give
the county roads the equal of any in other sections of the state. A map
illustrating the geographic relationship of Fresno demonstrated that with
accessible roads all national parks have their place within the 100-mile en-
circling radius. The highest Sierra Nevada peaks are within the range
including Mt. ^^■ hitney, the highest peak in the United States ; the largest
and oldest group of sequoias in the world is in reach of the city ; within the
radius is also one national monument, the Devil's Post Pile ; that these
sights are not more frequently visited is because of the inadequacy of the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 453
road system ; the lack shuts out the Kern and Kings River Canyons admit-
tedly the grandest scenic wonders in the land. Commercialized these natural
wonders should be exploited as a part of the resources of the valley. An
air plane mail service is another activity. Another project involves an indus-
trial survey of the city to make it a manufacturing center and to ascertain
what industries to locate and just where. Until the irrigation question is
settled, it is impossible to do more than speak of the land already accessible
for irrigation. For the placing of returning soldiers on the land, the pro-
posed irrigation plan involving such enterprises as the Pine Flat irrigation
district holds out prospect of opening thousands of acres of valuable land for
cultivation.
The final payment of the California Associated Raisin Company on the
1917 crop was rnade December 5, 1918, amounting to $1,230,000 at the fol-
lowing rates: Muscats $7.04 per ton, Thompson's $17.70, Sultanas $10.88,
Malagas $13.80 and Feherzagos $11.50. The "C" grade of raisins turned
out better than the three and one-fourth price formerly named. The rains
of the season cut the crops twenty per cent, is the estimate. The rainy days
were considered the "most disastrous spell of weather ever experienced in
the raisin business." The 1918 crop was estimated at about 160,000 tons,
the largest in history excepting in 1917. As ten per cent, of the crop had
been sold when the rains came, it was impossible to raise the price. Two
years before the price was raised one cent per pound, with only twenty per
cent, of the crop sold at the time. Moreover in 1918 the government denied
the request of the association to raise the price on unsold Thompson's.
The trial before the federal court at Sacramento of the forty-six defend-
ants in December, 1918, for plotting violent opposition to the United States
war program was of particular interest to Fresno, especially in reference to
"the cat" which is alleged to be the I. W. W. symbol for sabotage. The pris-
oners were accused of unlawfully circulating pamphlets, newspapers and song
books included among the treasonable documents. In the progress of the
trials the following were matters of investigation :
History and structure of the I. W. W.
Strikes and sabotage as methods and tactics.
Attitude toward war, registration and the draft.
General strikes to release men from jail and for other unlawful purposes.
Testimony was given with regard to a series of costly fires in this
county during the summer of 1918 and the destruction in this city of the
Fresno Planing Mill, the Hollenbeck-Bush Planing Mill, the Madary Planing
Mill, the plant of the California By-Products Company, the Fresno Hay
Market and the large merchandise store of the Kutner-Goldstein Company,
and in the country of hay stacks and barns. The city fires were all from the
exterior of the structures. The modus operandi was to employ a handful of
matches and in the center of the bunch insert a Turkish tobacco cigarette
that burned until entirely consumed. The match bundle was placed jn com-
bustible matter raked up against the doomed building. The cigarette was
lit by the incendiary and its combustion until it reached the heads of the
matches, when a flare-up resulted, was so slow that the fellow had ample time
to make tracks from the vicinity and present himself at some place in time
to furnish the basis for an alibi. The secret service had spies in the ranks
of the I. W. W.'s who kept it informed of the Hun plots and boasted deeds
of sabotage.
The three months' notes given by the California Peach Growers' Asso-
ciation as part payment for crops were to fall due in February, 1919. They
aggregated about one million, bore seven per cent, interest but were not
renewed at the end of three months. During the first year of operations the
association gave renewable notes and it was glad to have the growers leave
the money in the hands of the treasurer to finance the association. It is now
on its feet and does not need the additional funds. This is a marked departure
454 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
from tlie way the peach business went begging a few years ago. The pay-
ment was in part of the eight cents on peaches sold in the fall of 1918,
growers netting about eleven cents.
It was twenty years ago on December 18, 1898, that the late Judge Car-
roll Cook of San Francisco sentenced Myron Azhderian and Mrs. Elsie Wil-
liams to imprisonment at San Ouentin for five years for conspiracy in extort-
ing $2,000 from the late Capt. William A. Nevills, then a wealthy Fresno
vineyardist and mine owner of Jamestown. The sentence was the maximum
under the law despite the recommendation of the woman by the jury to the
mercy of the court. The trial of the case was a sensational and salacious one.
Azhderian was a vineyard foreman of Nevills: she a kept housekeeper and
an attractive woman. Azhderian died of consumption contracted during the
long jail confinement awaiting the end of the protracted prosecution.
The county seal of Fresno is a nondescript aflfair. The design is a circle
within a circle and in the space between the inscription: "Board of Super-
visors. Fresno County, California." In the center of the smaller ring is an
escutcheon with a four footed animal courant that may be taken for a horse,
mule or bull ; above the escutcheon is an uplifted arm holding evenly bal-
anced scales and below a swallow tailed ribbon encircling the escutcheon
with the quadruped and flaunting the hog Latin sentiment. "Rem Publicam
Defendimus." When that seal was palmed off on the board anything in the
line of hog Latin could have passed muster on the supervisors with no one
the wiser.
As a 1918 Christmas present stockholders of the California Raisin Asso-
ciation received an eight per cent, dividend aggregating $80,000 on the orig-
inal million of stock and distributed among some 3,000 stockholders. This
dividend is an annual feature, most of the money going to growers and all
else to business men wdio subscribed at organization of the association.
Two dates of historical interest worth remembering are that the over-
land telegraph from west of the Missouri to San Francisco opened for opera-
tion October 22, 1861, and the Central Pacific Railroad in California began
operating trains in May, 1869.
The big fire that destroyed the county hospital was on the night of
October 17, 1900. Until the hospital was rebuilt the patients were housed
in the rented brick Tombs Hotel block at Merced and J Streets in town.
The countv school system was organized with three districts in Febru-
ary, 1860, the districts being Scottsburg, Kingston and Millerton. Hazelton
was next organized in February, 1865, Lake in August, 1865, and Dry Creek
in June, 1866.
It was in March, 1870, that C. P. Converse exploited his project to make
use of the Kings River for the floating of lumber logs from the forests in
the Sierras and made practical demonstration of the fact. Capital did not
bite at the bait to do away with teaming from the mountains via Tollhouse.
In November, 1876, the county bought from Charles Crocker block 153
bounded by Tulare, Mariposa, R and S for a hospital site. The price was
$300. The site was considered far out of town. It is today within a stone's
throw from the Santa Fe passenger depot and not purchasable for many
times $300. The hospital building that was erected was limited in capacity
to twenty-five patients and not to cost more than $3,500. Built in March,
1877, it cost in fact $3,527 and was accepted in June.
In July, 1874, the county assessor placed a valuation of sixty-three dol-
lars on Fresno city lots.
The first county horticultural commissioners were : Thomas Gourley,
Andrew Jackson and W. M. Williams, appointed February, 1882.
W. F. Plate promoted a scheme for the incorporation as a town of the
populous Washington Irrigated Colony and an election was held December
1, 1883. The scheme was defeated — 245 against, 77 for. E. J. King, W. J.
Dickey and W. S. ^Vyatt were the precinct election officers.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 455
The first license operative in Fresno city before it was incorporated
was enacted by the county supervisors in May, 1883. Incorporation was de-
feated at an election May 3, 1883 — 215 to 161. In May one year later, a
sanitary and police district was formed to regulate the town but an election
held voted down the proposed sanitary tax — eighty-five to forty-three.
For the general election November 4, 1884, sherifif and constables were
given special instructions to enforce the state law against electioneering
within the 100-foot limit at any polling place.
The county horticultural commission of 1882 was abolished because it
had resulted in no substantial good or benefit.
The first lithographic map of the county was published in March, 1887,
by J. C. Shepard at a reported cost of $1,249.
In March, 1887, the county purchased for $4,000 the Yosemite Turnpike
Toll road from Fresno Flats to the Mariposa County line.
Fresno's first civic organization was in March, 1887, in the inclusion
of the town site in a pound district with W. R. Neil, J. R. Allison and T. L.
Reed as the trustees. That same month the county was given its second
department of the Superior court.
J. L. Smith was awarded the contract in February, 1888, to build an
enlarged hospital buihliny- fur seventy-five patients for $25,240.
The county jail IiuildiiiL; in the courthouse park was built under a con-
tract with A. J. Meany aw.-iidcd in September, 1877, for $24,195.
The first public use of electricity was made in September, 1887, when
four sixty-foot electric light masts were erected in courthouse park. Today
the park is lighted by a system of electroliers in style the same as those
about the city.
The important announcement was made in April, 1919, of the sale by
the California Wine Association of 3,700 acres of vineyard land for $1,300,000
to a Fresno syndicate for subdivision into twenty to i60-acre tracts for early
colonization. The land is more particularly known as the Great Western
Vineyard, the second largest in California and one of the largest in the
world. The Great Western embraces 1,250 acres of wine grapes located
north of Reedley. W. B. Nichols and J. H. Lindley of Dinuba were reported
to be two members of the purchasing syndicate. A total of 2,551 acres is
planted to wine grapes. Muscats and Thompson's, and while much of this
is in bearing there are some 1,100 acres of virgin land. The deal had been
under consideration for a month before. Surveys had been made and the
work of cutting up the largest wine grape vineyard in this section of the
state was to have begun April 25. Those who claim to be in close touch with
the situation aver that the great sale portended that the California Wine
Association was "getting out from under" on account of the prohibition
situation, as in fact announced in one of its annual statements to stockhold-
ers and to the trade. The purchasing syndicate plans to make the vineyard
property the center of a colonization community and has set aside 160 acres
for a townsite. The belief is entertained that the wine grapes will not be
a financial loss with prohibition because they will be picked green for ship-
ment as table grapes, or will be dried into a class of raisins. The selling
agency through which the deal was negotiated had completed about this
time the subdivisions of the Alamo and Riverside vineyards, a tract of 470
acres near Reedley, and previously the Smith Mountain Vineyard of Dinuba.
These sales were considered as indicative of the times by reason of the pro-
hibition enactments.
Expansion of the California Associated Raisin Company with an increase
of capital stock by $1,360,000 in three years, making a total paid up capitali-
zation of $2,500,000, is foreshadowed with the recording of second amended
articles of incorporation April 15, 1919, reducing par value of shares of stock
from $100 to $1 each but increasing the number of shares from 25,000 to
2,500,000. Under the new contracts the signing grower obligates himself to
456 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
accept a small percentage of payment for raisins in capital stock. The reduc-
tion in par value is made to enable payment in stock of sums as small as
four dollars and five dollars. According to this arrangement, the estimates
are that the sales of stock will be so general that the paid up capital now
$1,04€,000 will be $2,500,000 in three years, the estimate to be raised in 1919
$750,000. As a part of this campaign of expansion, three-quarters of a million
will be expended during the present year in enlargements and improvements
of the association's plant, popularly known as "Sun Maid City," to handle
the production this year and the succeeding years as the business thrives
and enlarges under the successful regime of the association. These improve-
ments are not to be restricted to the parent plant in Fresno City, but include
the packing plants at Fowler, Selma. Kingsburg, Hanford, Armona, Dinuba,
Reedley, Del Rey, Lone Star, Sanger and Clevis. The association has be-
come one of the established financial institutions of the county managing
a great business, and upon the profitable and successful handling of it the
prosperity .of the county in a large measure depends. Reference need be
orily made to the circumstance that on the first payment for raisins at the
rate of seventy dollars a ton on Sultanas and Thompson's Seedless, the outgo
into circulation was $3,500,000, the second was $2,500,000, checks were mailed
to over 5,000 members and there will be a third and final payment in the fall.
The industrv is growing amazinglv. The proof is that the second pavment
in 1918 was greater by $500,000 than that in 1917. The total budget for
1919 for the sales and advertising department is $440,000 and of this sum
$260,000 will go into publicity, the budget exceeding the 1918 allowance by
$65,000. The directorate of the association is the following: Wylie J\'I. Gif-
fen, president; F. A. Seymour, assistant; Hector Burness and F. H. \\^ilson,
vice presidents ; C. A. Murdock, secretary ; George C. Taber, cashier, and
Alilo F. Rowell, treasurer.
According to Bulletin 271 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture there
are three sections in the United States classified as regions where the date
palm will grow and ripen fruit. Fresno is one of the three. To determine
where the temperature is high enough to ripen the edible date the sum of
the daily temperatures from May 1 to October 31 was taken. Accordingly
Fresno has a higher temperature (with a total of 1,054 degrees centigrade)
than Orleansville in Algeria, where early dates mature and ripen and which
for the fruiting period noted has a total temperature of only 788 degrees
centigrade. The other regions are the semi-tropic plains of Arizona and the
Salton Basin or Coachella Valley of California, where dates are grown com-
mercially. At Tempe, Ariz., date palms grow on alkali land where not even
weeds nor grass will grow as a cover top between trees. Such conditions in
Fresno would make it necessary to provide for the overhead for four or
five years, because a date orchard of any type will produce little income
under that period. Only early varieties could be counted upon to mature
fruit in the Fresno region. The date palm is known to be more resistant to
alkali' than ordinary field crops but it is by no means able to grow in the
worst alkali lands. While it may grow with a considerable alkali percentage
on^the surface, unless the roots can penetrate strata with no more than six
per cent, alkali the date will not successfully fruit.
In the month of April, 1919, work commenced on the power plant of
the San Joaquin Light and Power Company on the San Joaquin River about
one-half mile above Big Sandy, near Auberry, in the western foothills. The
estimated $2,500,000 cost of plant is exclusive of the distributing lines and
will cover the preliminary work and the erection of power house. When
completed, the plant will develop from 27,000 to 28,000 horse power. The
preliminary work is in the building of roads to reach the site for the trans-
portation of material. Start was made on the tunnel that will tap the river
six miles from the plant ; it will be nearly two miles long and cut ofif the
i)end in the stream ; dam is also being made at the tunnel entrance. As a
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 457
reason for choosing the tunnel as a means for feeding the power house, it
was stated that from the point where the stream is tapped the fall is from
fifty to seventy-five feet per mile and by tunnelling across the land the
grade is reduced and at the point where stream is again met by the tunnel
exit there will be a vertical fall of 400 feet. The construction of the plant
is made necessary to meet a demand which is greater than the capacity to
supply. It will take one year to erect the plant.
Tuesday, April 1, 1919, became efifective General Order No. 28 of the
U. S. Railroad Administration authorizing a flat increase to three cents a
mile in all state and coast passenger rates, the object of the tariff being to
establish the mile rate as a general one as basis of cost. Exclusive of the
eight per cent, tax, some of the more important increases in rates from
Fresno were the following:
Destination Old Rate New Rate
Berkeley .- -- $5.70 $6.15
Eakersfield 3.10 3.25
Coalinga 2.40 2.55
Goshen Tunction 90 1.05
Lathrop ■ 3.40 4.1 5
Los Angeles - 8.25 8.40
Oakland Pier 5.70 6.10
Sacramento - 5.05 5.15
San Francisco 5.70 6.20
San lose fS. P.) 7.20 7.65
Stockton 3.60 3.70
Tracy 3.75 3.70
The Pullman war tax was reduced also from ten to eight cents with no
tax on passenger fare charge of forty-two cents or less.
In March, 1919, the regents of the state university announced for sale
480 acres of the Kearney estate on terms of 25 per cent, down, the remainder
in one year and all proceeds to be expended on the estate. The section of-
fered for sale was that bounded by Pierce, Cleveland, California and Madison
avenues, running from $250 to $400 an acre and with the Kearney Boule-
vard (officiallv platted as Chateau Fresno Avenue) running through the
ofifered tract. ' The 400 acres sold April 2 brought $125,000. The largest
purchaser was Lester L. Eastin, 140 acres for $48,000.
Contract of sale recorded April 3, 1919, confirmed sale of 520 acres of
vineyard land three miles east of Reedley by James Madison, formerly vice
president and manager of the California Associated Raisin Company, to a
syndicate of Fred Nelson, E. V. Kellev, W. T- Simpson, A. L. Nelson and
W. W. Parlier for $250,000 payable $50,000 cash and the balance in $25,000
annual payments. Six years before, it was claimed, the property could not
have been sold for half' that sum, evidence, it was asserted, of the enhanced
value of property in the development of the valley and of the county with
the stability of vineyard land prices by reason of the success of the raisin
association.' Forty acres of the land is in Producers' Colony and the re-
mainder near or adjacent to Reedley. Sixty acres are set out to figs, twenty
to eucalvptus and the remainder to vines. The property will be subdivided
into forty and eighty-acre tracts for sale. The disposal of the entire vine-
vard at a price of nearly $500 an acre was one of the largest deals in the
county up to that time for the year. Owners of other large holdings were
planning also to subdivide them into twenty to eighty acres for popular
colonization. The iMadison vineyard was known as a "two ton" vineyard
and as one of the heaviest producers. The 520-acre holding was divided
for the sale on sealed bids into seven parcels of 160 to forty acres, ranging
in prices from $100,000 to $16,000 according to productivity of soil, the total
458 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
asked $375,000. The sale was on one day. bids opened on the ranch and
awards made then.
, Another large sale in the month of April, 1919, was that of the improved
Alta Sierra ranch, near Clovis, for $126,000 to A. E. and F. H. Holmes of
San Jose and E. Roediger of Oakland. The 160 are forty in eight to twelve-
year-old figs (Smyrna) and the remainder in Thompson's seedless. Emperor
and Malaga grapes. F. H. Holmes has been a packer and fruit grower in
the Santa Clara Valley for upwards of thirty years. The brothers have also
an orange grove near Porterville.
The S. E. Black 120-acre vineyard on Ventura Avenue, nine miles east
of Fresno, with fine residence and all save seven acres planted to producing
vines and peach trees, was sold in April, 1919, under contract to Alexander
Lion of Fresno for $90,000. The Black vineyard was one of "the show
places." Its purchaser will use the place as a country residence, not expect-
ing to move on the place until 1920. The vines are from seven to twelve
years of age, seventy-two acres planted to Muscats, twenty to Malagas and
twenty to peaches. The sale enabled the seller to move to Long Beach for
his health.
The lOO-acre Gordon vineyard, one-quarter of a mile east of the city
limits, was sold about the middle of the month of April, 1919, to Arthur
Perkins of the Barrett-Hicks Company to be developed into an exclusive
and restricted residential tract to be known as Gordondale. The sale was
for $60,000 by Alexander Gordon, who was a Fresno County settler of 1874,
coming to California in December, 1869, soon after the completion of the
overland railroad, settling in San Joaquin County where he entered the part-
nership with W. C. Miller in the sheep business with about 2,000 head,
moving to Fresno in the same business and flocks averaging 10,000 to 12,000
and continuing the partnership for seventeen years. Mr. Gordon was a
factor in the early building up of Fresno City and made the sale to retire
from active life after recent expiration of his term as railroad commissioner
for this district to spend the remainder of his days quietly on part of his
former ranch. For his use he retained twelve acres for a permanent home.
The Gordon vineyard had been cultivated for thirty-one years and as one
of the large holdings east of the city was noted for the richness and pro-
ductivity of the soil. Eighty acres of the place were in alfalfa and the other
twenty in Muscats. The strip was said to be the largest residential addition
to the city, with which it must necessarily be connected at some time,
accessible as it is by the Ventura Avenue street car line and close to the
county fair grounds at Butler and Cedar Avenues. The purchaser has been
active in other residential property development, notably a subdivision near
the normal school.
The 1919 fig crop of the Kearney Estate was sold April 20, 1919, to the
Roeding Fig and Olive Company on a bid of fifteen cents a pound, estimate
being that the crop would range from eighty to 100 tons. At this price the
100 tons would bring $30,000. ^The year before the 100-ton crop with ten of
culls brought the record price of $33,000. There are 2,400 fig trees at Kear-
ney Park and all save five acres are border trees, making the return there-
for in larger part "velvet."
The Holstein-Friesian heifer, "Dora Walker," the property of Mrs.
Annie Donders of Fresno, set a new state record for combined milk and
butter production in the senior two-year-old class. That record is stated to
be the second highest in the world. It was for seven days in April, 1919, a
product of 664.4 pounds of milk and 24.144 of butter. On her best day
during the test conducted under the supervision of the University of Cali-
fornia this heifer produced 99.7 pounds of milk and 4.24 of butter. The test
was conducted on the W. J. Higdon Tulare-Holstein farm. Mrs. Donders
owns a small herd of registered Holstein cattle. She won in 1917 at the
Fresno County fair the blue ribbon with her junior yearling bull. "Dora
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 459
Walker's" record is all the more remarkable as she gave birth to two calves
within ten months and made the last test after a rest of only six weeks.
A transaction in West Side lands worthy of note was the option sale
recorded April 30, 1919. to Henry E. Monroed by Emma P. Harper for
7,360 acres in the Big Panoche and Silver Creek drainage area for a stated
consideration of $130,000. This land is located in Sections 36-14-12, 28-33-
14-13, 1 and 2 and 12-15-12, 5 to 9-15-13 and 11-15-12. A few days after the
recording of the option, suit was brought by the assignee of the buyer against
the seller for specific performance of the contract and $100,000 damages. It
was claimed that after payments made in accordance with the terms of the
contract she failed to make transfer, having deeded to another February 11,
1919, for no consideration to evade the contract. The land is six miles
south and twelve west of Mendota, a noteworthy locality because of the
efforts to tap well-water sources for pumping to make otherwise arid lands
productive.
On May day, 1919, was recorded a sale contract by the Frankenau In-
vestment Company to Leslie Einstein, of about 200 acres, adjacent to the
Fink Colony, of highlv developed agricultural land northwest of Reedlev, for
$150,000, payable $20,000 cash, and''balance $20,000 annually, except the last,
when the final of $30,000 will be made. Another contract was that of the
sale by the Alta Muscat Farms, a Japanese corporation, to Smith Thomas, of
sixty acres in Section 19-15-24, three miles east of Reedley, for $42,500.
Statistics of 1918 of the State Motor Vehicle Department credited Fresno
with the ownership and actual operation of 16.610 niachines, an average of
about one for every five inhabitants. This is in marked contrast with the
record of ten years before when the county was credited with 80O — a strik-
ing illustration also of the increase of the automobile industrv and the pros-
perity of this section of the state.
The report in May, 1919, was that S. A. Guiberson, Jr., formerly of Coal-
inga, had purchased the Coalinga Petroleum Company interests of the Bakers
for over $100,000. The purchase embraced eighty acres in the east half of
the northeast quarter of section 14-20-14. with eight producing wells pumped
by jack with electric power, producing close to 4,000 barrels a month, and
being in shallow territory easily drilled up. Originally the property was the
w'ell known Samuel Adams homestead on which R. C. Baker secured a lease.
He organized the Coalinga Petroleum and with his brothers, J. E. and A. A.,
took three-fourths of the stock, and Stanley Morehead, the other quarter.
Guiberson had located at Dallas, Texas, wdiere he has shops and manufac-
tures patented oil-well machinery.
On May 6, 1919, there was voted in the county a roads' bond issue of
$4,800,000 for a system of 315i-2 routed concrete or other road miles, to be
completed with the close of the year 1921, and first survey to have been
commenced Mav 12, 1919. The vote on the bonds was: For, 12,187; against,
1,972; total, 14,159; necessary two-thirds, 9,432; to the good, 4,727. This was
said to have been the largest road bonds ever voted by a county in the state,
Los Angeles coming next with one of $3,500,000. The Fresno roads will be
forty feet in width and the paved portion sixteen feet. The routed mileage
under the bond issue was stated to be only the beginning of a main trunk
line to be added to and expanded with connecting and cross-roads. The
routed mileage includes the Coalinga state lateral to Monterey.
First county appropriation to advertise the resources of the county and
induce immigration hitherward was of $1,000 in December, 1887, to the
Board of Trade.
Much was made of the fact that in January, 1888, County Treasurer
Nelson had $120,000 surplus and disengaged funds of the county on deposit
at the time in four local banks.
The United States Weather Bureau was established in Fresno in March,
1888.
460 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The second horticultural commission was appointed in March, 1889. The
personnel was of A. H. Cummings, T. \V. Borchers, F. D. Rosendahl, Gus
Eisen, J. W. Ferguson and Richard Wheeler. In February. 1888, S. H. Cole
was appointed the first quarantine officer. In May, 1891, George C. Roeding,
J. R. Baird and J. W. Wilkins were appointed commissioners and in Decem-
ber one year later Roeding was succeeded by Edward \'. Upton and ^^'ilkins
of Madera was re-appointed.
Under an act of March, 1887, cession of territory was made to San
Benito County embracing the quicksilver mines in the northwestern corner
of Fresno.
In March. 1891, the county bridges were the Jenny Lind above Pollasky,
at Firebaugh, Lane's, and at Sycamore below Herndon on the San Joaquin
and at Smith's Ferry, at Kingston, and at Centerville on the Kings.
The Valley railroad that was to open a new era in railroad competition
threaded its way through the county in May, 1891, in the construction of line
from Bakersfield to San Francisco. It w^as a competing factor until absorbed
by the Santa Fe and Fresno became a station on the second transcontinental
line.
The courthouse additions on the present lines were decided upon in
July, 1891, according to plans of Curlett & Eisen of San Francisco and in
December the contract was awarded to Smilie Bros, of Oakland for $99,387.
The work was completed in November, 1893, and $11,297 in new furniture
was bought.
The countv law library was established in September, 1891, with Judges
Holmes and Harris, T. C. White of the supervisors and J. P. ]\Ieux and
Newman Jones of the bar association as the first board of trustees.
In July, 1891, 7,662 school children were reported in the county.
To a ship canal convention were named as delegates in January, 1892:
T. E. Hughes, F. G. Berry. S. X. Griffith, Return Roberts of Madera and
E. B. Perrin but nothing substantial came out of the project.
For county participation at the Chicago Columbian exposition an appro-
priation of $7,500 was made in April, 1892. The personnel of the commission
after many individual changes was: ^^^ M. Hughes, T. M. Collier, D. T.
Fowler, L. J. Miller, J. H. Harding, ^^'. M. Williams. George Wilson, ]\Irs.
M. B. Stuart, and the Misses L. H. Hatch and Nellie Boyd, the actress.
Dr. Lewis Leach, who almost since the organization of the county had
been in charge of health matters as county physician, resigned the office in
January, 1893, and was succeeded by Dr. W. T. Maupin.
First town in the county outside of Fresno to incorporate was Selma
in March, 1893. The vote was 124 to fifty-four.
First reclamation district organized in the county was in March, 1893.
W'. S. Badger, S. B. Marshal and D. T. Fowler were named in August,
1893, commissioners to arrange for county participation in the Midwinter
Fair in San Francisco.
Fritz Paatsch has the distinction of being the first Boniface convicted
under an ordinance for a violation in keeping his saloon open on Sunday
April 1, 1894.
The 100,000 Club of Fresno city saw the light of day about April, 1895.
It was a boosters' organization. Its name was wish and father to the thought
of the day when the town would have a population of 100,000.
F. A. Rowell was under appointment in April, 1895, the first county
game and fish warden, succeeded by W. H. A. Shaver in September, 1896,
and by Andrew D. Ferguson in January, 1897, he continuing in the office
for many years thereafter, and then as district field deputy under the state
commission. The game and fish stocking of the county is due largely to
the work of this official, who has made the subject a life study and a labor
of love.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 461
The presentation to the county of the Salvation Army fountain at the
entrance of the courthouse park was made by D. E. Nichols in May, 1895.
It was a boon as thousands have slaked their thirst here during the hot and
sweltering summer months. The city long afterwards erected four spout
drinking fountains about the city. All are iced in the summer.
The fifty-year franchise to the San Joaquin Electric Company was
granted in September. 1S')3.
The spectacular fire that created such havOc in the central and original
portion of the courthouse building and in the topping bronze cupola broke
out on the night of July 29, 1895. Defective electric wire insulation was the
cause of the fire in the dome. The flames were at such a height that the fire
department could not do anything in subduing them. It rendered efficient
service in salvage and the volunteer department was made a gift of $500 by
the county in appreciation of its services. An appraisement report was that
it would cost $36,256 to repair the damage and in January, 1896, contract for
the repairs was awarded the Pacific Bridge and Construction Company for
$46,700 and in the reconstruction the corridors were wainscoted with Ellis
pink Tennessee marble slabs. The completed work was accepted in
November.
The revived rock pile with prisoners in the chain gang like so many wild
beasts breaking granite was abolished in ^lay, 1896, but reestablished for a
time one year later.
The residence of the late George A. Nourse with its snrrnundiiig ten
acres on \^entura Avenue was purchased by the county in l\lirn;ir\ , 1897,
for an orphanage in charge for many years of a board of trustees of women.
It continued until the year 1918, when all charities were placed in the hands
of a Public AA'elfare Department, the orphanage abolished and the orphans
boarded out in private homes. The mansion was thereafter to be used as
the almshouse.
The first application to lay an oil transportation pipe line was by J. A.
Chanslor in November, 1898, from Oil City and Coalinga.
Coalinga's incorporation election was on March 26, 1906 — ninety-nine
for and twenty-eight against.
To secure the sittings in Fresno of the federal circuit court, tender was
made by the county of courtroom facilities in the courthouse in February,
1900, and the ofifer was taken avail of until the completion of the postoffice
building.
Following the 1900 fire, there was rebuilding of the county hos]3ital on
substantial lines and on estimates in January, l903, of $19,700 for the main
structure and $23,700 for the wings — total $43,400. Various departures were
made from the original plans as emergencies and the cost was $48,450 with
departures and emergencies calling for $28,441. In 1917-18 various additions
and enlargements were made to meet the crowded conditions at the hospital
and the frequent turning away of patients because the institution was full.
The first arched concrete bridge in the county, the one at Pollasky or
Friant, was erected in July, 1905, to replace the pioneer Jenny Lind wooden
bridge below Millerton. The cost was $49,583. The second at Skaggs Crossing
below Herndon was erected in July, 1907, at cost of $44,297. The old Kings
River bridge at Reedley was also rebuilt in May, 1906, at a cost of $12,500,
being the county's two-thirds share of the reconstruction cost. Every an-
cient bridge has been reconstructed, even Lane's in 1917 after a band of
cattle had tumbled through the flooring into the San Joaquin in the weakened
condition of the structure and overtaxing its carrying possibilities. The
bridge on the Kings at Hardwick erected November, 1907, cost $14,983 and
the other at Kingston in April, 1908, $8,900.
In the year 1889 there was set out four miles south from Reedley and
just over the line of Tulare County a little plant, ten inches high and of
knitting needle size. For rapid growth it is given the world's record and
462 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
is said to be the largest known tree of its kind and age in existence. It is
an eucal3^ptus viminalis, a branch of the gum tree, semi tropical and native
of Australia but dififerent from the so-called gum tree of the southern states.
This tree is a curiosity. It has been photographed hundreds of times and
has been illustrated more than twenty-five times in newspapers, magazines
and booklets. Thousands of visitors, many from distant parts of the world
have gazed upon it enraptured and amazed over its grandeur and beauty. A
register has been placed in a case for visitors to inscribe their names. The
tract of land on which the tree stands has been sold but a clause in the deed
reserves the tree from destruction. This tree at the age of twenty-seven years
measured September 12, 1916, seventeen feet and eight inches in circum-
ference three feet above the ground and twenty-three feet three inches at the
ground. Measurements were begun in August, 1896, and data covering
them are on file in the office of the U. S. Forestry Service at Washington,
D. C. The tree in question is popularly known as the Manna gum. Having
planted the tree with his own hands at a time when the district began
transition from the desert and having observed its unparalleled growth, it is
natural that a seeming personality on its part should at times cause J. C.
McCubbin of Reedley to experience a feeling not unlike that engendered by
ties of parental consanguinity. The Australian gum was a favorite planting
in the early colonization of Fresno, because of its rapid growth and shade
where there was no vegetation or wood growth save on the creek and river
banks, and also for their economic value in firewood with frequent topping
and trimming. A greater combination of more favorable conditions in soil,
water, sunshine and absence of strong winds for the growth of the eucalyptus
is found in the San Joaquin Valley than elsewhere in the world, saving per-
haps in Australia where the tree is indigenous. In 1909 when the Reedley
tree had a circumference of eighteen feet six inches above the ground four
inches, it was 120 feet tall with a spread of bough of eighty-eight feet six
inches. On account of its spreading habit, it has form unlike the ordinary gum
tree, and for that reason was discernible by the traveller miles away on
the approach.
The freighter and the stage coach driver were picturesque personages
in the mining days of the county and for years thereafter. The story of
them has yet to be written. The principal early stages ran from Sacramento
and Stockton, which were then as now water terminal points from which
all interior travel started from San Francisco. Stages conveyed passengers,
baggage, mail, express matter and bullion in quantities ranging from $10,000
to $20,000 per coach. As may be supposed stage hold-ups were many. There
was a record of over 400 of them. The Mariposa journey was the longest, 120
miles, and it took two days to cover them. In 1850 the fare was thirty dol-
lars, and ten years later twelve dollars, the average fare being ten cents a
mile. Staging was a nerve racking, long and tedious experience with every
inconvenience of summer heat and dust or winter rain and mud. besides the
ever present danger of an enforced contribution on the journey by some
intercepting "road agent." The stage business fell into .the control of
monopolies : on the northern routes to the California Stage Company and on
the southern to Dooley & Company and Fisher & Company. In the 50's
the mining camps consumed the major portion of food products and of
material and the freighting business was the employment of thousands of
commission men, teamsters and animals. From Sacramento to the Northern
and from Stockton to the Southern mines transportation was by pack mules.
Fifty to 100 animals composed a pack-train. Later wagons were used be-
cause costing less, saving time and better securing freight. Mountain
trails were widened and graded and the "prairie schooner" became the vogue.
Six hundred tons were transported weekly to the Southern mines and over
1,800 teamsters and 3,000 mules and horses were in the work.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 463
During the cold and frosty spell in December, 1918, Fresno broke on
the last day of the year a record with a minimum of eighteen degrees at
seven A. M., the lowest since January 6, 1913.
Call was made for a long distance reference on the county free library
for books on fruit canning and the like, the inquiry coming from Welling-
ton, Cape Town, South Africa, under a December, 1918, date. The inquirer
was Mrs. Isabel Bensburg, nee Hoover, formerly of Fresno and the wife of
Ferdinand Bensburg. superintendent of one of the seven big farms in the
Cape territory and the books for the company. The inquirer was a former
assistant in the local library and removed to Africa in September, 1915.
Forty years ago the Gould was one of the notable farms and the boast
of the county as "an illustration of what can be done by a little effort on
Fresno County's plains where a supply of water can be obtained for irriga-
tion." The farm was of about 600 acres, four miles north of Fresno and was
laid out by J. L. Gould of Santa Clara in 1873. Of the farm 300 acres were in
orchard, vineyard and nursery, the remainder used as pasture, grain and
hay lands, with water obtained from the Kings River and Fresno Canal
Company's ditch. The Gould was considered "some ranch" with 7.000 almond
trees, 2.400 of assorted peaches. 2,400 pear, 1,000 plum, 1,200 oranges, 600
lemon, 70O apricot, 500 cherry, 400 prune, 200 pecan and 100 English' walnut,
with a young forest of eucalyptus, pepper and other ornamental trees.
According to a decision of June 6, 1919, by the state railroad commis-
sion, water service rates by the Fresno Canal and Land Company were fixed
at 621/ cents per acre annually. All other rates were ordered abated as dis-
criminatory, excepting that certain customers who had enjoyed free service
in return for granted water rights may continue to receive that special con-
sideration. The further order was that the practice of collecting an initial
charge of $500 to $1,600 on every 160 acres, for so-called water rights, is ab-
solutely illegal and the decision was to hold the company a public utility.
The decision was of public interest, in settlement of a case initiated by the
company more than three years before. Some 300 users had their rates in-
creased. Some 30 would continue to enjoy the free water privilege. The 300
paying as low as 16 cents an acre faced the standard 62% cents charge to pre-
vent discrimination. This was a ruling favoring the canal company as was that
which declared it a public utility, and that its rates are subject to adjust-
ment by the commission. Fifty "free-water-right" users operated their own
community owned irrigating ditches and systems years ago, but deeded them
to the corporation in consideration of perpetual free-water rights. The pub-
lic utility ruling was of special moment. There had been discussion and
debate what the rates would be after the expiration in 1921 of the present
contracts. It is now settled that the commission will have the fixing of
them. The canal company declared that there were only about 1,100 acres
involved in the free-water contingent ; 300 would pay the standard rate and
some had been paying as low as $25 for a quarter of a section, while the regu-
lar rate is $100. Others paid $37.50. The installation charge was of no great
moment, as under the new management, as successor to all previous inter-
ests, the company was not collecting that charge.
The Japanese community furnished evidence of the prosperity that it
enjoys in the county when, June 5, 1919, the Industrial Bank of Fresno, a
Nipponese financial concern doing exclusively a business with that race, filed
notice, in accordance with the decision of the stockholders on Mav 17th, of
the increase of its capital stock from $28,300 to $100,000, and the number of
shares from 283 to 1,000._ Paid capital is $60,000. The bank is in the Chinese
quarter in its own building at F and Tulare.
A largely attended meeting of the Armenian population held at the city
auditorium, June 1, 1919, resulted in pledges of $30,000 for immediate aid for
the Armenian refugees in the old country who were being decimated by the
after-the-war starvation process. The contribution was to have been doubled
464 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
by committee canvass and the total within a fortnight cabled to the Armenian
delegation at Paris, to be transferred to the relief committees operating in
conjunction with American relief committees. The executive committee that
had for weeks prepared for the meeting was Rev. Theodore Isaacs, H. Mir-
zoian, Richard Yezdan, H. \'artanian, George Elanassian and Arpaz Setra-
kian.
On the night of May 24, 1919, closed the centenary anniversary of the
Methodist churches and the observance of it in a nation-wide effort to raise
$105,000,000 to place the churches and their institutions on a financial basis
for the coming five years. For a century previous, the financing of the Metho-
dist Church has been by appeal to sentiment and generosity, as missionaries
returned from foreign shores and told of the needs for carrying on the work
among the benighted. The reports were that the drive proved successful.
In the San Francisco area, with quota of $3,300,000, there had been raised
$4,452,510: in the Fresno district, quota $268,210. there was raised $240,000.
not all churches reporting; in the Fresno church group. $62,000 was raised
on a $53,000 quota ; Bakersfield group, $43,567 on $37,895 ; Lindsay group,
$54,969 on $50,840; Hanford group, $24,975.
According to a statement put out in May, 1919. by the Fresno Irriga-
tion District, sub-irrigation of the soil will soon be a thing of the past because
of the drainage and the pumping of water, with resultant lowering of level
in the county. Organization of the irrigationists under the Wright law was
declared to be the solution of the problem for owners of arid land or sub-
irrigated land that will become arid. The fact was noted that not so many
years ago it was difficult to dig a cellar under many houses in Fresno city
without encountering water, whereas the Bank of Italy put down its founda-
tions over twelve feet without touching water. Alexander Gordon, living just
outside of town, told how, a few years ago, he could dig in his vineyard
three to four feet at most and strike water, but that in boring wells for lands
just sold the first water was reached at ten feet. If this lowering of the
water level continues, sub-irrigation is doomed. Experts declared that some-
thing more than a light rainfall must account for the low water table.
Pumping and drainage were declared to be the causes. With seventeen
pumps at work supplying the city alone and hundreds of punips going in the
county over, the answer to the question must be evident, and the waste
water from the Kings River must be conserved.
One historical tree of the county is the giant fig at the I. N. Parlier
home, a landmark of the county and one of the largest trees in the United
States. It was thirty-two years ago that the pineer farmer and town-builder
of Parlier (named for him) planted the cutting for shade, and he made the
journev to Centerville, then a village in its prime, to secure the cutting, of
nameless variety, but since called Calimyrna. He planted it near his house
and little did he dream of the size it would attain. Three times was the
house removed that it might not embarrass the growth of that tree ! The
third removal was to such a distance that it was thought that a future removal
would never be necessary, while yet furnishing shade from its luxuriant and
spreading foliage. Today the' tree is reaching out as if a fourth removal
might have to be made. The huge tree has spread so that supports are re-
quired that the limbs may not break with their weight of fruit and foliage.
Electric lights are placed in the branches and the area under the tree has
been made a playground. Five years ago Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Parlier cele-
brated their golden wedding anniversary and 300 persons gathered under that
tree at a feast, and there was room for more. This tree is the largest in
this part of the valley and probably one of the largest fig trees anywhere, if
not the largest. At its greatest stretch it has a spread of eighty-eight feet.
The trunk is small for the great top, measuring nine feet in circumference two
feet from the ground. At a height of four feet, nine large branches shoot out
to support the canopy. No record has been kept of its fruitfulness, but it has
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 465
home heavily yearly. The planter of the cutting is dead, but the tree Hves on.
Miss Felita M. Smith, a teacher of the Fresno Normal School, was ap-
pointed a member of the county board of education in June, 1919, to fill an
unexpired term. It was stated that she was the first woman appointee in
the history of the county, but the fact is that, during the 1897-1900 supervisor-
ship term of the late J. H. Sayre, Mrs. Carrie J. Goodwin, nee Wea\-er, and
Miss Mollie IMcLaren were members of that board. \Uss Smith is the sister
of Mrs. Chase Sayre, wife of the son of the late supervisor. Supervisor Robert
Lochead, who voted to appoint her a board member, also voted on her first
appointment as a school teacher in the city department twelve years before.
During the week of June 8-14, 1919, the announcement was made of the
close of the deal, under a renewal of option that had expired in January, for
the purchase of the Shaver Lake milling and timber propertv in the Sierras,
by the Southern California Edison Company, as an electric power -encrating
jiroject, from the Fresno Lumber and Irrigation Company wliirh, witli the
deaths of C. B. Shaver and Harvey W. Swift, had undergone several stock
ownership changes and was in the market for sale after the last absorption
by a syndicate of Michigan lumbermen. At the time of the last sale the
mill property had been inoperative since the season of 1914. Confirmation
of the deal was given June 18th by the filing of incorporation papers by the
Shaver Lake Lumber Company. It took over the interests of the Fresno
Lumber Company and its virgin timber lands in the Dinkev Creek district,
capitalized for $1,200,000, in 1,200 shares, the incorporators" holding for the
electric company being Southern Californians. The sale involved 30.000
acres of land and the milling plant at Shaver Lake. The sale was said to
have been for $2,000,000. The project is to develop an $8,000,000 electric-
power generating-plant to supply Los Angeles with cheaper power, and as
an adjunct, the enlargement of the Big Creek-Lake Huntington plant, and
making of the combined units the largest power-generating enterprise in
Central California. The outlined plans involve a notable enlargement of
Shaver Lake by means of a dam 215 feet high, for the conservation of water,
considerable land to be submerged, and the enterprise to vie with nature itself
to change the aspect of the Shaver Lake vicinity, in the creation of a new fish-
ing and scenic region, with twenty-one miles of railroad to the lake for
construction material and transportation from Auberry. The forty-five miles
of flume for floating lumber to the yards at Clovis will be abandoned, the
Shaver Lake plant and another, a few miles further back in the Sierras at
Big Creek and Huntington Lake, ultimately serving to supplant the steam-
operated plants. The demand for electric power in Southern California, it
was stated, is so great and insistent that, although there are ten plants in
operation on various streams in that section, these steam plants are used to
supplement the water-power stations. Two of the latter are in the San Joa-
quin Valley, one at Big Creek and the other on the Kern River, and the
third to be at Shaver, the first and third on streams tributary to the San
Joaquin. Popular disapproval followed the policy announced by the Edison
Company, to exclude campers and fishermen from the territory surrrnuifling
Shaver Lake, and to close it as a public resort and playground, a pri\ilcge
that the people of the county had enjoyed for a quarter of a century under the
regime of the former owners of the mill property. The supervisors and other
public bodies took measures to combat this policy and secure a continuance
of the privilege in an exchange of concessions, the Edison Company being
desirous of diverting the water from Pitman Creek by means of a tunnel
across the ridge from Shaver, to the lake, to make the latter a larger water-
impounding body for the operation of its power-generating plant.
What was probably the largest payment made to the state as inheritance
tax, on an estate in the county, was the one of June 20, 1919, in the estate
of the late Judge E. W. Risley. Value of estate was placed at $430,957.75 gross.
466 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and clear market value, $426,344.75. The son, Thomas E. Risley, paid, as tax
on his share, $21,284.47, and as trustee for his married sister. Marguerite
Rowe, $3,350 additional ; total, $24,634.47. The trustee is to pay her and any
children $500 a month during life, paying all taxes and depositing mortgage,
as security for payment, in the sum of $100,000, said mortgage redeemable
at any time by paying in that sum in government bonds or other collateral
securities and a delivery of $10,000 in Liberty bonds having been made.
Estimate by the officials of the California Associated Raisin Company of
Fresno, as a basis for the 1919 marketing, was that there would be a crop of
200,000 tons of raisins in the lower San Joaquin Valley this year. This will
be an excess of 30,000 tons over any year in the history of the industry. And
although the greatest crop in history, market conditions were such that the
entire product would be practically sold out in advance of drying. Controll-
ing 90 per cent., the association had, at the close of June, 1919, made no an-
nouncement of opening prices.
The Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture has taken the ini-
tiative to make Huntington Lake, in the Fresno Sierra National Reserve, the
greatest popular summer-camping resort, where people of moderate means
can establish summer homes at $15 a year and enjoy lake-boating, lake and
stream trout-fishing and backwoods hunting of big game. The Forest Serv-
ice and the county are building a six-and-one-half-mile scenic road around
the lake, as a land route to the people's playground at the head of the lake,
and service employes have laid out sites for summer tents or cottage homes,
with a half acre of ground for campers and tourists. More than one hundred
of these sites have been taken and half a hundred cottages erected. Sanitary
conditions will be rigidly enforced and also building restrictions against
marring the natural landscape. Sites have been reserved further back for
tent and cheaper structures. Fresno sent, the year before, two thousand
people to the lake. It is the mountain resort most accessible to Fresno,
seventy miles from the city, and has the highest altitude of any resort within
that distance. The lake is a fine body of water five miles long and averaging
one-half mile in width, stocked with trout in season from May to November.
So attractive scenically is the neighborhood that two motion picture compa-
nies are there almost continuously during the season. Following a visit, in
1918, of Landscape Engineer Waugh from Boston, the recreational area was
so laid out as not to mar the scenic beauty. The resort may be reached by
wagon or auto, by the new road to be finished this season. The road will
start from Dam No. 3 and run to the north side of the lake, following the
shore where possible and taking in the camping-places as a combination scenic-
service road. There are public camping-grounds for the tourist, and 150
boats will be placed on the lake. Home-rented sites will be secure, as the
land cannot be taken for agricultural or for other purposes, and may be
leased from year to year.
The oil and gas production for the year 1918 is shown in the following
figures: Oil production in 1918 — eight counties, 99,459,177 barrels: increase
over 1917, 5,025,630 barrels; increase over 1916, 12,395,982 barrels. Oil pro-
'duction in Fresno County, in 1918, 16,068,919 barrels; decrease on 1917, 912,-
122 barrels. Gas production, in 1918, eight counties, 3,216,149 (units of ten
thousand cubic feet) ; increase over 1917, 490,095. Gas production, in 1918,
Fresno Countv, 80.300 (units); increase over 1917, 21.111. Land (acres),
in eight counties, 89,212; Fresno County, 13,319. Wells, in eight counties,
9,188; Fresno County, 1,168. The oil production of 1918 was second only
to that of 1914. a demonstration that regulation is not a hindrance to develop-
ment. The increased oil acreage is 1,852.
The county election held in May to vote on a $4,800,000 bond issue for
a county road system, supplementary to that of the state with its highways,
was carried by a majority of almost 7 to 1. Total vote, 14,157; for bonds,
12,187; against, 1,970. Sale by the supervisors of the first million-dollar
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 467
block of the bonds was on June 12, 1919, on a bid of O. T- Woodward (local
representative) and Cyrus Pierce & Company of San Francisco on a basis of
4.69 per cent, for pnr, accrued interest to date of delivery and premium of
$18,817. The next best offer was of a premium of $18,392.' The competition
was keen. Financial men said it was the highest figure paid in recent years
for a county bond issue. Bonds are one thousand in number, of $1,000 denom-
ination, drawing 5 per cent, interest, payable semi-annually. Bid was made
by a San Francisco bank, with local banks, of a premium of $120,000 for the
entire issue, payable in Liberty bonds, but it was not considered because not
called for in the invitation for proposals. Another such offer was of a $76,-
320 premium for entire issue. The larger ofifer was the same proposition as
offered for the million-dollar block. The vote in the state, Julv 1, to issue
$40,000,000 bonds to extend and complete the California state highwav, was
196,084 for, and 27,992 against the bonds.
Figures submitted at the close of the 1919 tax year disclosed that the
county tax delinquency has decreased 100 per cent, in four years, from 1.868
delinquents in the year 1915, to 913 in 1919; town of Firebaugh had no delin-
quent in 1919, as against one the vear before. Comparison of the vears 1919
and 1918 follows:
For Year 1919 For Year 1918
Fresno County 640 676
Fresno City 130 108
Eight Incorporated Towns.. 143 156
Total County 913 940
This notable tax-delinquency decrease in four years, with assessed val-
uations and number of taxpayers increased more than 25 per cent., is an indi-
cation of the prosperity in the county, and especially in 1918, with war
prices and demands prevailing.
There was never such an all-prevailing spirit of optimism in the countv
as that which pervaded every channel of enterprise at the close of the month
of June, 1919. The county at large faced an unparalleled season of prosper-
ity. In the city, dwellings were only with difficulty to be had. City build-
ing operations, especially in the line of residences, were particularly active.
The sale of vineyard and farming lands throughout the county was extra-
ordinary in number and in the high prices per acre. It was the estimate that
over ten millions worth of building construction was planned for the city
and vicinity for the year, and half as much in the smaller communities, in
business blocks, so great the prosperity, and the outlook for the future war-
ranting these large investments. Only the more important of these may be
mentioned: First, as receiving a large share of public attention, is the ex-
penditure, under the $4,800,000 bond issue, of the first block of a million on
the county highway system, affecting every part of the county. The Califor-
nia Associated Raisin Association is spending many thousands in new pack-
ing plants, and in additions and enlargements of the existing ones in smaller
centers in the county. Then there is the $2,000,000 to be spent by the Fresno
City Board of Education in the erection of new high school and grammar
schools. There is also much building of improved and modernized school-
houses in the country districts under bond issues. The city high-school proj-
ect involves a series of grouped buildings on a campus, allowing for en-
largement (with the growth of the city to attain a population of half a million)
bybuilding wings or additions to the grouped structures. Also there is the
project of a $550,000 Roosevelt Hotel, of twelve stories, at Tulare and M
streets, with 300 rooms, roof garden, outside sleeping-porches, and what not;
cost of reinforced concrete building is estimated at $400,000, and furnishings
at $150,000. There's talk of a $200,000 brick and concrete building at Los
Angeles and L for a bakery, to supply, as a distributing agency, baked goods
468 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
for the Central California region, instead of making it dependent on the San
Francisco and Southern California bakeries. This local iDakery will cover a
ground space of 145x280, will be two stories, contain a battery of a dozen
ovens and have a daily capacity for 15,000 loaves of bread — and Fresno has
already become the distributing commercial point for the Valley region in
other commodities, as well. The most recently announced project is the
$400,000, 12-story, Class A business block of Andrew Mattei, at J and Fresno
Streets, to be the tallest structure between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Erected and to be constructed are too many automobile salesrooms and gar-
ages about the city to enumerate ; Fresno ranks fourth in the state in auto-
mobile ownership and the congestion on the city's streets has been one of
the most serious problems to face the city council, a parking limit of one
hour having been decided upon, effective July 1, 1919. City building is in
evidence on all sides and the agitation is at fever heat for the early annexa-
tion of the territory bordering the city on the south, including the thickly
populated district known as Russian town. There is also the expenditure of
the $200,000 bond issue for sewers in North Fresno, the latest city-annexed
territory. A big proposition is that of the San Joaquin Light and Power
Company, in the erection of a power-generating plant at a cost of two and
a half millions, on the San Joaquin, with headquarters and administration
office and labor camps at Auberry, and new roads to be laid out to the works
on the river. Plant is calculated to develop 40,000 horse-power. A still
greater proposition than that is the latest project of the Southern California
Edison Company in the construction of a dam and a steam-operated power-
generating plant, transforming the Shaver Lake region in the development of
an eight-million-dollar enterprise. The Alta Irrigation District has plans and
specifications drawn and the ground landscaped for an unique $100,000 office
building with fireproof vaults, for lovely little Dinuba. Sanger is out with a
$30,000 reinforced concrete and terra-cotta First National Bank Building, and
the Reedley National Bank figures on a one-stor}- building at a cost of $70,000,
in the Italian Renaissance style of architecture. A modern building is being
erected by the Bank of Del Rey, costing about $30,000; Parlier Bank is putting
up a $45,000 building. All these, and many more, are not indicative of another
boom — that word has been expurgated from Fresno's vocabulary. Fresno is
only growing and expanding normall}'. She had made the start but suspended
progress because of the war's demands — nothing to hinder now, and the pace
has been set.
The 1919 spring activity in vineyard property throughout the county
was unprecedented, as were also the high prices for raisins and fruit prod-
ucts. Sales of vineyard and fruit lands have been up in the millions. Sub-
division and sale of the holdings of the California Wine Association marked
the disintegration of one of the picturesque industries — one that made a name
for California the world over and in the encouragement of which the state had
appropriated millions of the public money, and the private promoters expended
many more millions. A remarkable fact in this connection is that, while the
great association was practically forced out of business by the threatened pro-
hibition regime, and naturally would be expected to unload at a loss, it is
selling vineyards at unheard-of prices. The fact is that, while the wine-grape
vineyards are no longer an asset as regards wine-making, still the vineyards
are in demand and are being eagerly bought. Some of the winery structures
are being sold for fruit manufacturing and packing purposes. — some are
being wrecked, and others are being withheld to await future development.
The belief is that there is a large field for the development of table and raisin
grapes by grafting these varieties on the old stock. Growers base their hopes
largely on this, to turn the new conditions to their advantage. There is
talk of factories for the making, of grape and fruit syrups, jams and jellies,
fruit extracts, and the like. The future is an uncertainty, but judging from
the present ruling prices of land, no trepidation is felt. A notable event was
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 469
the sale, about June 13tli, of the some 630 acres of the historical Eisen Vineyrad
Company property for $375,000, to the Croxton Land Company of San
Francisco, represented by Silas A. Lines as president, the fruit-buyer of
the San Francisco Earl Fruit Company of Sacramento. The vineyard is six
miles east of Fresno and was planted by the late F. T. Eisen as the first large
wine-grape vineyard in the count}-, on a commercial scale. It is a heavy
producer, practically the entire acreage being devoted to grapes for wine.
In the last few years old vines have been uprooted, and raisin and table
grapes substituted. An interesting feature of the vineyard is found in fifty
forty-year-old date palms planted in a strawberry bed, and since bearing
fruit. The}' constitute the oldest grove of fruit-bearing dates in the valley
The Eisen was not a part of the California Wine Association. The Virginia
Food Products Company, of C^akland, Cal. (a bidder for the Eisen), bought,
for $100,000, M. F. Tarpcy's La Paloma ^\■i^ery, to convert same into a plant
for making grape drinks and fruit foods. This company has become the owner
of the 1,000-acre Mission \'iiieyard at Cucamonga, in San Bernardino Countv,
and has also secured an option on a Lodi vineyard. The Great "\^'estern
Vineyard, including the Alma, Riverside, and other smaller ones, with 3,700
acreage, five miles from Reedley on the Santa Fe and its feeder, the Minkler
& Southern, was bought by Nichols, Lindley & Farrar, who have sold sub-
divided acreage for approximately $1,185,000. The Great Western Vineyard
was recognized as the second largest and one of the best producers in the
state. The winery and brick sherry house were reserved for future sale
and possible use for packing-house purposes. The plant of the association
at Calwa will also go for manufacturing and packing purposes. There has
also been the sale of the Smith Mountain tract of 200 acres, including the big
winery between Dinuba and Sultana, for a price in excess of its value as a win-
ery, the winerv building being reserved. The sale of La Paloma Vinevard
was for $55,000. It is 'in the^N. W. H of the S. W. Y^ of the N. W. i\ of
Section 31-12-21, comprising ten acres traversed by the San Joaquin Valle}^
Railroad. The winery will be converted into a food-product plant. From the
California \\'lne Association was bought for $205,000, by Paul Mosesian 370
acres of the old Fresno Vineyard on Ventura Avenue, four miles east of
Fresno, to be cut up and sold in 5, 10 and 20 acre tracts. The Fresno was
one of the larger holdings of the Association. Twenty acres of the place are
in alfalfa, 250 acres are in wine grapes, and the remainder in raisin grapes of
different varieties. What will be done with the winery buildings depends
upon prohibition legislation. The winery had at time of sale over 800,000
barrels of cooperage. Wine grapes have been profitable of late and the vines
will not be dug up for a time. His purchase of the Fresno Vineyard gave
Mosesian a holding of nearly 800 acres in the county, with 340 acres one and
a half miles east of Parlier, and 60 on the Locan road. The Fresno is on
the Fresno street-car line, which would make it desirable for suburban homes.
Early in June, 280 acres of grape land five miles north of Clovis were sold
for $280,000 to a San Francisco syndicate of Chinese. This syndicate recently
acquired raisin and fruit acreage near Rivervicw, Glorietta, Wawona, and
Lemon Center. Japanese corporations, with two-thirds of the capital in the
hands of Caucasians, have been active in long-term buys ; notably, a Japanese
syndicate which recently took an option on 171 acres near Parlier for $1,000
an acre. The Clovis land purchase is of two tracts, 120 acres of the \^'ilson
Vineyard, for $100,000, and the 160 acres of the Bissell adjoining, at a stated
price of $1,000 per acre. The Wilson is in the Garfield school district, and
has 80 acres in vines and the remainder in orchard. This purchase would
mean consolidation of the two, and their settlement with Chinese. The syn-
dicate owns also the 80-acre Moodey ranch at Lemon Center, 80 acres of
young vines near Riverview, 160 acres near Glorietta, and as many at \^'a-
wona. The 171-acre bearing vineyard, two miles south of Parlier, property
of the A. B. Clark and the J. S. Jones estate, was sold to the Garfield Farming
470 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Corporation. Another large transaction — and mention is made only of the
larger for the number of the lesser and minor is too great — was that of the
]\lill Valley Farms Company, to George E. Emerzian, of 160 acres for $100,000;
72> acres in figs, 80 in olives, 35 in Malagas, and 30 in Emperors. This land is
three miles north of Orange Cove, in Hill's Valley. There is a 9-story stone
house on the tract, said to be one of the finest country houses in the interior.
The Emerzians have a home tract near Tulare of 220 acres, besides hundreds
of productive acres elsewhere in the Valley. Antonio Justesen bought 85
acres of vineyard adjacent to Reedley, for $54,000, or $650 an acre, from the
buvers of the Great Western. B. Soglian sold 200 acres, five miles northwest
of Fowler, in Section 32-15-21, for $29,000. H. P. Helmuth realized $1,000
an acre in the sale, to E. G. Ghoran, of ten acres, five miles southeast of
Clovis, in Section 30-13-22. T- C. Forkner sold a ranch east of Fresno, in a
portion of Section 32-12-20, for $34,000, subject to deed of trust for $24,479
of February before. Another large transaction was the sale of the A. J. Jones
40-acre ranch and vineyard between Fowler and Selma, in Section 25-15-22,
to H. L. Suderman for $80,000, subject to a $9,000 mortgage. Another was
the sale, for $40,000, subject to an $8,000 mortgage, by Fred Hansen, of a
ranch near Clovis, to Gee Tong Sing of San Francisco. A large number of
agreements to purchase has been recorded by buyers of Armenian nativity,
with comparatively small cash first payments and long-term annual pay-
ments out of the proceeds of the crops. The number of these, together with
purchases by Chinese and Japanese, has caused alarm as to the future landed
proprietorship in the county, and there is talk of a revival of the alien land-
ownership law, that raised such a stir between the United States and Japan
during the Roosevelt administration.
CITY IN PARAGRAPHS
Of the twelve larger cities in the state, Fresno for the month of May,
1918, stands sixth in the amount of bank clearing's and fourth for value of
permits for building operations. Clearings in May, 1917, were $6,863,938
and in 1918 $8,127,600. Permits in 1917 $171,200; in 1918 $217,490^increase
of a little more than eighteen per cent, in clearings and of over twenty-seven
in permits.
There was a registration of 10,747 for the election June 11. 1918 to choose
fifteen freeholders to frame a new charter for the city of Fresno.
A 4,900-ton steel steamship, the fourth built and completed under the
authority of the U. S. Shipping Board for the food trade transportation,
was launched from the ways on the Alameda estuary on San Francisco
Bay, named the "Fresno" and christened by Mrs. W. F. Toomey, wife of
the mayor. Fresnans to the number of nearly 1,000 attended the launching
going to Oakland in an automobile caravan to make the event a notable one.
The launch was on the evening of May 18, 1918. The craft was built by
the R. S. Moore Ship Building Company.
^^'illiam F. Toomey, a member of Fresno Parlor No. 2S and mayor of
the city of Fresno, was elected grand president of the Native Sons of the
Golden West at the annual grand parlor meeting at Truckee in June, 1918.
The 1919 grand parlor meeting held in the Yosemite Valley, was the forty-
second convention as guests of Merced Parlor No. 24.
A run of forty or more auto cars was made from Fresno City to the
Yosemite Valley June 8, 1918, under the direction of the Fresno County
Chamber of Commerce as a demonstration that the run to the valley is only
one of the pleasure drives of this sunkissed portion of the state and that the
city of Fresno is the logical point of radiation to all the middle of the state
Sierra resorts, particularly those of a national character from the Yosemite
on the north to General Grant and Sequoia National parks on the south
with the marvelous Kings River three canyon region as the middle section.
The chamber has come to realize that the scenic wonders of the county have
not as yet been made an asset, as they should be.
It was on March 5, 1917, that Mrs. Eda Einstein gave to the City of
Fresno deed to block 12 of La Sierra Tract, asking in the accompanying
letter its acceptance, for the children of Fresno, as a playground in memory of
Louis Einstein, whose wishes she and his children were carrying out in
this respect. The block is bounded by Park Boulevard, Roosevelt and Ferger
Street and the playground was tendered equipped with apparatus, specifying
that it should be designated the "Louis Einstein Memorial Playground."
Fresno was sixth for 1917 of the twelve cities of the state whose monthly
bank clearings and permits for building the California Development Board
bulletins quote to point out the commercial activities of the state. The Clear-
ing House figures are these, for the twelve cities:
1917 $108,414,657.96
1916 71,926,313.11
1917 Gain $ 36,487,344.85
472 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
November was the banner month for both years according to the fol-
lowing showing:
November, 1917 $15,586,608.61
November, 1916 11,120,913.98
Fresno was sixth in January and seventh in March, 1918, for bank
clearings :
1918 1917
January ..- $10,040,076 $8,435,317
March 8.352,734 6,977,623
Citv business licenses collected is another evidence of the growth of the
citv. Annual collections have been: 1917 $103,092.75; 1916 $94,206.80; 1915
$93,552.36 and 1914 $95,760.15. Up to January, 1918, total of $12,554.30 had
been taken in fractional small licenses for the privilege of selling on the free
market. Out of this fund the trustees took $5,000 to invest in the second
Liberty bonds.
It was in April, 1898 — twenty years ago — that the Fresno city public
library moved from its two rooms in the brick building at the corner of I
and Fresno to the upper floor of the then newly constructed E. W. Risley
brick building, opposite the courthouse park on K Street near Mariposa,
where it continued until its removal later to the Carnegie gift library build-
ing on I Street opposite the \\^hite Theater building, where the merger into
the county library resulted in 1917. At first removal. Miss Alice Armstrong
was the librarian and Miss Daisy Williams, the assistant of the infant insti-
tution.
Of the eleven reported present at a conference in the office of E. C.
Winchell, Friday evening, IMarch 22, 1878— forty-one years ago — when the
subject of the incorporation of the city was for the first time considered, only
one, Leopold Gundelfinger, was among the living in 1918. An act of incor-
poration was ordered drawn up, but not finished until the general meeting
for the following Monday evening at ]\Iagnolia hall on H Street, when thirty
or fortv assembled, organized with A. Kutner as chairman and H. S. Dixon
as secretary. George Bernhard, George ]\IcCollough and S. W. Henry were
appointed to secure signatures for and against incorporation for the meeting
on Tuesday but on that occasion chairman and secretary were absent and so
few attended that the meeting adjourned to the call of the chair. This effort
at incorporation had in the end no result for city incorporation was not voted
on until September, 1885, after several efiforts.
The Kinema, first theater erected in Fresno devoted exclusively to the
showing of "movie pictures," was opened on the evening of November 30,
1918. It is on J Street, near Fresno.
The old Barton opera house in the Barton block on Fresno and J, so
gratefully remembered by the amusement lovers of Fresno and a theater
that in its day was considered one of the best equipped in the state, had
auspicious opening on the night of September 29, 1890. There was a crowded
house, the fashion of Fresno attended, speeches in dedication and in felici-
tation of Robert Barton, the owner and builder, were made, notably by
Judge G. E. Church and the attraction on the opening night was Henry E.
Dixon in the burlesque, "Adonis." The Barton continued the theater of Fresno
for twenty-three years, all the great actors that visited California made
appearances there, and Fresno had the reputation in the theater world of
being "one of the best show towns in the state." C. M. Pyke was the first
manager, succeeded by Robert Barton, the son, in 1893. The latter relin-
quished possession November 28, 1913, to L. L. Cory, the lawyer, who
had bought the Barton block in which was also located Armory hall. Cory
took over the unexpired lease and installed Frederick \V. Voigt as manager.
The latter made great promises on assuming management but his tenure
was shortlived under the new name of the Theater Fresno. The building
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 473
was finally torn down and replaced by the Cory office building, covering
every portion of the site. That portion covered by the theater at Fresno
and the alley was remodelled, the front changed and in 1917 leased for a long
term as the Hippodrome, devoted to continuous Vaudeville. The last per-
formances under the Barton regime were on Thanksgiving afternoon and
evening (November 27, 1913) of Johann Strauss' comic opera "The Merry
Countess," the operetta it was said that cost Cornelius Vanderbilt $100 a
minute with which to entertain Newport society. Sunday November 30 "A
Girl of the Underworld" was announced and was poorly attended. The first
notable engagement under the Voigt shortlived management was for Thurs-
day December 4 in the F. C. Whitney Opera Company in "The Chocolate
Soldier." Fresno has had many theaters in its day. Its first of note was the
■ Grady Opera House located on I on the site of the one-story business stores
adjoining the Farmers' National Bank. It fell into disrepute in the end and
was condemned as unsafe for public assemblies. The next theater of note
was Riggs, tlie Armory hall, located on J and today site covered in part by
the Gottschalk building. This was after 1885. The Barton was the third.
Popular permanent houses for a time in later years were the Novelty at J
and Kern, first to introduce two nightly vaudeville shows and later cheap
stock company, and the Empire in the Barron building across the street,
now covered by the Cooper department store, where under the management
of Edward Hoen vaudeville was given and later stock company productions.
Open air theaters and "movie shows" have been too numerous to mention.
The general surgery clinic at the emergency hospital at the city hall was
opened November 10. 1917, and six cases for the removal of tonsils were
listed.
The new schedule of tarififs issued by the interstate commerce commis-
sion operative ]\Iarch 15, 1918, was a source of great satisfaction to Fresno.
It was a consummation that the Fresno Traffic Association had long striven
for to remove the discrimination against Fresno on terminal rates as an in-
land town without water transportation facilities. The schedule placed it on
an equality with San Francisco. Portland, Los Angeles and other cities of
the coast.
A special election held l\Iarch 18, 1918, resulted in the annexation to
the city of the North Fresno territory, said to contain approximately 5,000
inhabitants and a rapidly improving residence section. The vote was 529
for and 142 against annexation.
Fulton G. Berry was a man who was always in the public eye. In 1908
on a certain day, street platform was erected in front of his Grand Central
Hotel, band tooted and he auctioned off 250 lots in Arlington Heights, realiz-
ing $23,451. This was before the Heights had been annexed to the city.
There's one man in Fresno who will not accept pay for public service.
It is ^Vylie M. Giffen of the raisin association. In January, 1918, fifty dol-
lars was coming to him from the city for services as an arbitrator in a
damage claim by a vineyardist on account of the construction of the enlarged
city sewer system. Mr. Giffen returned the check and in a letter to the mayor
wrote: "You can do anything you see fit with this check — either return it
to the fund from which it was taken or use it in behalf of the playgrounds,
but as far as I am concerned I do not desire any pay for this work. Fresno
has been good to me, and I would rather render any service that I
can without compensation than with it. If at any time I can be of use to
you in your work or can do anything for the city and county of Fresno in
any way, I want you to call on me, but I do not want you to feel that I
must be paid for it."
The so-called Library building at Fresno and I was sold in June, 1918,
by Mrs. ]\Iinnie K. Swift to Andrew Mattel of the winery that bears his
name for $130,000. The building covers a site 100x150 with twelve ground
floor store rooms. It was erected a quarter of a century ago by the I Street
474 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Improvement Company, was a notable improvement of the day and a source
of great pride. The late Harvey \V. Swift bought it in 1908. It was the first
home of the city public library in two rooms. This deal recalls that the price
on one corner of city property just on the outskirts of the business district
trebled in value in seven years. In March, 1917, James Porteous bought four
lots at the corner of M and Kern for $30,000. becoming the owner of twelve
lots facing on M and of uniform depth of 150 feet, giving him a 300-foot
M Street frontage. The Fresno Republican Publishing Company bought the
four lots in 1910 for $10,000, the ea.stern seller having planned to sell for
$5,000 but after a visit to Fresno doubled his price. The corner was offered
to Porteous but he would only pay $9,500 and the deal was not made. The
companv held the property for three years and then sold to J. S. Fleming of
Shanghai, China, then a resident, for $20,000 and he after four years to Por-
teous" for $30,000. Such tales of real estate deals are numerous in Fresno.
The Porteous purchase also recalls early city history. He has twenty-one lots
in that block. The lowest price that he paid when he bought from the railroad
in 1879 was $62.50 for a lot and his highest $7,500 for a corner holding. With
his M and Kern property, Porteous has the largest frontage owned by an
individual in the near business section so fast expanding on all sides.
Two notable improvements are marked by the year 1917 on Van Ness
between Tulare and Kern, the Nob Hill of the infant days of the city. On
the vacated site of the Louis Einstein mansioiT home of thirty-six years ago
and adjoining the Rowell-Chandler second sky-scraper structure of the city
has been erected the Liberty Theater, the third largest in the state, with
a seating capacity for 2,000, whose opening was delayed until late in Sep-
tember because of labor troubles in the construction. Cost of this improve-
ment was $125,000. The entire building is devoted to the theater in movie
pictures. The premises have a frontage of seventy-five feet and a depth to
the alley of 150. It is a building that in construction and equipment will
compare with any. Covering a frontage of 100 feet further along the block
and adjoining the Milo Rowell building at Kern and Van Ness, has been
erected on the site of the Louis Gundelfinger mansion residence of 1879 the
$65,000 one-story Liberty Market building, floor space subdivided and leased,
marking a new type of store for Fresno. Einstein and Gundelfinger houses
were removed to other locations, leaving in the block two small bungalows
as reminders in this business block of the days when it was the fashionable
residence district. The bungalows are on lots which were the home of W. B.
Dennett, first city clerk and assessor and pioneer of the colonization enter-
prise of southerners at Borden. Across the street on the west side were the
Lewis Leach, G. E. Church, H. C. and W. D. Tupper homes now replaced
by the Republican newspaper. Sequoia Hotel and the Graff-Rowell store
buildings. The Rowell-Chandler building at Tulare and K covers the site
of the little cottage home of the late Dr. Chester Rowell that stood on the
terraced ground of the street surrounded by orange trees. Thirty-eight-
year-old and over forty feet high palm trees, the tallest in the city, standing
in front of the Einstein home, were uprooted and transported for replanting
at the normal school grounds but on account of inadequate moving facilities
were damaged and broken in the moving and were sawed up for fuel. The
mansions named, as well as the other two Gundelfinger and the Herman
Levy houses in the block beyond between Kern and Inyo, were specially con-
structed by a San Francisco architect to meet the local climatic conditions.
The great fire in the plant of the California Products Company broke
out early on the morning of Thursday, November 8, 1917, and the firemen
worked more than forty-eight hours before they had control. The loss was
$150,000. The warehouse with its tons of raisin seeds in bins offered the
most discouraging resistance to all efforts to save from fire and damage by
water. Attack was made with dynamite on the walls to reach the fire but
this was only partially successful. It was also a difficult fire to combat as
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 475
tile plant was located more than 2,000 feet from the nearest hydrant, located
as it was beydnd the city corporate limits, and water had to be relayed
through a second engine to give the working pressure. There had been also
a great headway before discovery of the fire. The raisin seeds are used
in the making of alcohol and oil. The loss was an accruing one because parts
of the plant would not be able to resume for months with some machinerv
not replaceable during the war. Fire had origin in the elevator conveying
seeds from the dryer to the warehouse. Plans were laid to operate such
portions of the plant as could be made ready at an early d^te.
At the close of June, 1917, announcement was made after a long agita-
tion by the Merchants' Association that on policies issued since April 22,
1917. the Board of Fire Underwriters of the Pacific had ordered into eflfect
a new insurance rate schedule, estimated at about ten per cent, less than
those prevailing since 1914. That year Fresno was penalized six points of
deficiency and the general increase was about twenty per cent. The 1917
decrease on credit corrections was for an expenditure of $72,000 in improved
apparatus, the buying of more hose, and the appointment of a fire marshal.
Authorized reductions applied only to the business district, figuring up an
estimated saving of about $22,500 in premiums, yet new schedule was about
ten per cent, higher than the schedule that obtained before 1914, and not-
withstanding reduction of board company rates the latter were said to be
from tv^-enty to twenty-five per cent, higher than those of the non board
companies, though the last had no uniformity of rates.
In June, 1917, Fresno reached, according to official report, the lowest
per capita fire loss ratio in its historv — that is since such account has been
kept of fire losses. The figures are: 1916-17, $2.68; 1916 $2.86; 1915, $6.24;
1914, $12.03; 1913, $5.52:^1912, $7.75. The January-June 1917 fire loss was
onlv $29,970.97, or seventv-five cents per capita, figured on a basis of 40,000.
The total fire loss for the 1916-17 fiscal year was '$107,921.98.
It was on July 12, 1909, that Judge G. E. Church in the case of Henry
P. Black ruled that the anti-saloon ordinance adopted as the result of the
April election is invalid because the polls had been closed at five o'clock.
The same reasoning would have unseated the elective officers but the point
was not raised as to them and any how the time had passed then for a con-
test of their election, that limit being thirty days after the declaration of
the result. The proclamation called for closing of the polls at six o'clock,
and on election afternoon City Attorney D. S. Ewing ordered the election
officers to follow the proclamation when a question was raised. The state
law fixing time and place for an election is mandatory; the city charter is
governed as to elections by the general election law provision and there is
no avoiding that conclusion. That general law had been variously changed
between 1905 and 1909 when the time was fixed from five to six o'clock and in
that year amended to permit only those actually in the voting booth to vote
after closing time. There was no authority to change the voting time
from six to five.
At a dinner at the Normal school cafeteria January 18, 1918, of the
Americanization Committee of the Community Welfare League, Jerome O.
Cross, city superintendent of the public schools, made the astounding aft-
nouncemcnts that sixty-two per cent, of the population of Fresno city is
foreign-born ; that in one school ninety-nine and two-tenths per cent, of the
attending children are of foreign parentage, the Americans consisting of only
three families : and that in other schools the foreign element ranges from
these figures down to the most American school which gives six per cent, as
its proportion of foreigners. The anomaly was pointed out that the same
curriculum of education is used in the school with the six percentage for-
eign children as in the one having ninety-nine and two-tenths per cent. The
plea at the dinner was to extend the hand of friendliness to the foreigner
within the gates of the city.
476 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The two sky-scrapers of Fresno are the Griffith-McKenzie and the
Bank of Italy buildings at Mariposa and J and at Tulare and J respectively,
one square apart, like a pillar gateway entrance into the city. In the con-
struction of the bank building, the steel columns were 130 feet in the air
and as high as the ten-story office building. The bank building while only
eight stories high devotes twenty-six feet to the banking quarters on the
ground floor and each floor has a higher ceiling.
The year 1917 established the record for building operations in the city
of Fresno. Systematic record keeping began with the year 1910. The record
is the following:
New buildings ._ - $1,768,353
Alterations and repairs — 253,103
Total for year $2,021,456
The million dollar mark was attained in July 1917. The yearly records
are these: Year New Alterations
1917 - $1,768,353 $253,103
1916 - - - 747,050 221,325
1915 854,266 170.144
1914 47,065 13,800
1913 130,110 37,603
1912 169,558 125,083
1911 77!d77 83,772
1910 - 207,937 70,605
1917's larger construction work includes the following:
January— Pacific Coast Grocery warehouse, $42,000. February — San Joa-
quin" Grocery warehouse addition, $20,000; Geo. Schorling brick apartments,
$40,000. March — Mason six-story store and office building, $122,000. April —
Einstein Improvement Company auto supply house, $11,750: City of Fresno
fire engine house on Van Ness, $14,200; Einstein Improvement Company,
Liberty theater, $100,000. May — Western Meat Company refrigerating plant,
$12,000. Guggenhime & Co. plant addition, $10,000; H. M. S. Investment Com-
pany, brick block, $22,000; City of Fresno schoolhouse, block 244, $18,480;
Louis Gundelfinger, Liberty ]\Iarket, $31,000; S. P. Company, Pullman car
concrete shed, $8,000. June — E. Y. Foley packing house, $9,776; Einstein
Improvement Company, Herald newspaper office, $13,750; Danish Lutheran
Congregational Church, Sunset tract. $9,000; Cobb Bros., Irvington addition
garage.^ $8,000; Bank of Italy eight-story building, $191,800. August— Jacob
Richter store building, $10,000; Fresno Planing Mill, planing mill, $25,000;
Frank Short, garage, block 90, $60,000. November— Fresno Natatorium,
$33,100; Dr. D^ H.^Trowbridge, garage, block 87, $11,000; Frank Short and
Roos Bros, store building at Merced and J, $148,000. In the l_ine of repair
and alterations may be noted: April — Guggenhime & Co., $4,250 alterations
to packing house. May — Burnett Sanitarium fire loss repair, $15,000. Au-
gust— Warner Jewelry Store alterations to premises, $6,000; Santa Fe depot
extensions. $14^246 ; Catholic Church, $4,500 additions in block 164. Septem-
ber— L. L. Cory, alterations to Barton Theater Building, $17,860; C. H. Riege,
alterations to J Street fire house to convert it into store building, $7,000.
December — Einstein Improvement Company, alterations and additions in rear
of Patterson block, $8,860.
Building operations kept up well in the 1918 war year what with the
scarcity of labor and the high price of all material. The figures :
January - ....:.'-...$ 57,845
February 104,387
March 456,708
April 384,953
May 217,190
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 477
For the vear 1917 Fresno ranked fifth in the state. For March 1918 it was
third in the state, exceeding^ by $102,996 its own laro;est monthly record of
June 1913 which was $353,372. May broke another record in the alteration
and repair work estimated at $92,510 and the largest for a month ever re-
ported. Among the large permits for the five months of the year are these:
Cahfornia Raisin Association, $200,000 seeder plant: Paul Mosesian, $100,-
000 warehouse on R Street; Rosenberg and Co., $200,000 first unit of its
large packing plant on Cherry Avenue : California Products Company, $20,000
concrete storehouse on P.titler Avenue; D. Yesdan, $14,000 warehouse on
J Street.
The old engine house on J Street — once the city hall — was sold to Charles
H. Riege, August 6, 1917, for $37,550. It was considered a fine bargain. The
rebuilding cost $15,000.
The farewell services at the First Christian Church at N and ]\Iariposa
Streets were held Sunday, February 21, 1915, and the new $80,000 church at
Tuolumne and N was opened on the Sunday after.
The ^^'hite, Fresno's latest and finest theater, was opened with "The
A\'hip." which was given four representations on the afternoons and evenings
of Christmas. Friday and Saturday, 1914.
Propertv valuations involved in 1917 fires were $3, .595,727.68 — on build-
ings, $1,154;830, and on contents, $2,440,897.68. Insurance, $1,327,328— on
buildings, $612,585, and on contents, $714,743. Insurance loss, $221,986.89—
on buildings, $87,985 and on contents, $134,001.89. Direct loss, $20,542.14; ex-
posure, $51,447, as against $114.605. .50 in 1916 and insurance loss of $82,798.
The California Product Company fire of over $70,000 and of the Fresno Plan-
ing Mills of over $45,000 is accountable for the fact. The loss report is based
on a 45.000 population and an area of 6.15 square miles. There were 316
alarms, twenty-one false and twenty-one outside calls as against 249 in 1Q]6;
265 fires — 127 in frame buildin-s .ind ninety-eight other than in buildings; 239
in place of origin, twenty-fi\c extending to adjoining premises and 198 con-
fined to floor of origin. The ]jercentage of fires to 1,000 population was 6.31 :
ninety per cent, were confined to original place ; loss per capita was $6.09 and
fire loss to valuation involved 7.1 per cent. Among recent large fires have
been these :
1918 — ]\Iarch 19, Studebaker garage and bowling alley.
1917 — December 17, clothing store Tulare and I. November 8, Califor-
nia Product Plant, .\ugust 11, Palms. July 21, Fresno Planing :\lills. April
10, P.urnett Sanitarium. l\].ruary 10, Hill's hay market.
1916— December 25, ( J'Xeilf building. July 14, Cudahy Packing Com-
pany. July 6, Willys-Knight garage. July 8, open air theater at Van Ness
Avenue and Holland building. June 20, Cudahy Packing Company.
1915 — November 29, Hickman haberdashery 1922 Mariposa, confessed
incendiary. July 3, 1044 to 1048 I, site of old Grady opera house and Red-
lick's store, attacking rear of stores fronting on Mariposa.
191.:| — December 14, W. Parker Lyon building 144-148 J. August 8, spec-
tacular fire in Fulton Hotel, attacking Grand Central on one side and J. \V.
Short building on the other. July 24, big fire in 900 block on J. June 16, Roed-
ing Fig Packing Company plant with loss of over $63,000. May 6, ^^^onder
store fire at I and Tulare. February 14, 'San Joaquin Planing Mill.
1913 — June 8, great fire in Russian town district. May 26, fire in Mari-
posa hotel at M and Mariposa. May 20, at 1025-1039 K, adjoining postofifice.
1912 — August 25, Thompson Bros.' barn at Stanislaus and H. June 18,
Holland & Holland's store. June 19, Cadillac garage. February 14, big fire
at Cherry and I.
1911 — December 1, fire at 732-762 J. July 1, S. P. passenger depot. April
16, paste factorv at 1823 San Benito, januarv 6, burning of a S. P. locomotive
at loss of $9,000.
478 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The city library established a record for circulation of books and mag-
azines in January 1917, namelv 14,417, the largest previous record having-
been 13,040 in March 1915.
The free market conceived under the regime of A. E. Snow, former
mayor, as a municipal institution to bring the producer and the consumer
in direct relation, was opened to the public September 25, 1912.
The Commercial Club formed as an exchange meeting place for business
and professional men was organized January 1913, located in the third story
of the Holland Building, with the roof as a summer garden. Henry F. Pratt
of the Phoenix Packing Company was the first president.
The Library building at Fresno and I so called because the city free
Hbrary had its humble beginning there was bought by the late H. P. Swift
from the Fresno Improvement Company for $125,000, a notable investment
at the time. The Shaver and Swift interests invested all the proceeds from
the sale of the Sanger Lumber Company in city real estate and in notable
building improvements in 1913.
A Tune 1918 purchase was one by Frank Helm for $38,000 of 150 feet
frontages in six lots at the southeast corner of H and Tuolumne Streets,
opposite the Southern Pacific railroad freight depot, as a site for the distri-
bution depot of the Jersey Farm Dairy in a two-story, concrete plant build-
ing.
The playgrounds commission established records during the 1917-18 fiscal
year. The record of attendance at the playgrounds is of an approximate
485,000 children as against 483,000 the year before. There would have been
an additional 30,000 attendance had the public swimming pool been con-
ducted as the year before, and had not night activities at the Fresno Audi-
torium been prevented by so manv war emergency public assemblies. Of
the $17,500 annual appropriation, a balance of one dollar and eighty-five cents
was left, showing that with the cooperation of other city departments the
service was not abridged and the children were given play opportunities at
a cost of about four cents per individual.
June 1918 holds the record for long continued great heat. Other June
months have recorded higher temperatures but it was for brief periods and
no other in more than a quarter of a century has averaged so high. The
mean was eighty-two and one-half degrees or half a degree higher than the
normal for July and three degrees higher than in June 1889, which held the
record. Average maximum was ninety-nine degrees and average minimum
sixty-six degrees as compared with ninety-one and fifty-nine respectively.
The highest was 106° June 9 and the lowest fifty-seven June 23. This last
day and the one after were the only days in the month with the temper-
ature below the normal, the excess on all other days ranging from four to
fourteen degrees above the normal. Humidity was not high and the wind
movement was lighter than normal. It was a month of unusual weather dis-
comfort to be remembered.
The official seal of the City of Fresno is a beaded double circle enclosing
the legend; "City of Fresno. Incorporated Oct. 27, 1885." \\'ithin the cen-
tral circle is pictured a double leafed and very full bunch of grapes.
The first official body having purely municipal functions was a board
of fire commissioners appointed by the supervisors of the county Alay 12,
1881, under a state act to establish fire limits in the town and organize fire
protection means. The board was Dr. Lewis Leach. George McCollough
and William Faymonville. It made an estimate of $14,200 to carry on its
work and called for an election for June 2 to vote a tax lew to raise the
money. In IMay 1883 S. A. Miller, t. E. Hughes and W. H.' Chance were
appointed commissioners and in July 1884 a hook and ladder truck was bought
for a total of $500.50. The commission and its successors continued until
October 30, 1885 when the town having incorporated the apparatus on hand
was turned over to the city. That apparatus consisted of a hand engine, cart
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 479
and hose, hook and ladder truck, a fire extinguisher, an engine liouse and
several fire wells, or cisterns, at the Grand Central corner and the other at
the Kutner, Goldstein corner. A volunteer fire department took charge.
The phonograph was introduced in Fresno January 2, 1900. La grippe
also seized the town at this time.
Articles of incorporation of the San Joaquin Valley Railroad Company
— the so-called PoUasky road to Pollasky or Friant on the San Joaquin in
the Millerton vicinity — were filed January 7, 1890.
It is recorded that on March 29, 1890 the first negro jury was impaneled
in town to try Henrietta Sadler for a disturbance of the peace. Trial resulted
in her acquittal.
April 3, 1890 the Fresno water works plant was sold for $200,000. The
price paid was not so much for the plant as for the franchise.
June 3, 1890 the historical Larquier or French Hotel went up in fire.
Talk of filling in the mill ditch on Fresno Street which had become a
public nuisance, an eyesore and a stench commenced January 7, 1890. June
12 the citv council officially declared it a nuisance and ordered its al^atement
and suit was brought. Trial of the case commenced before Judge M. K. Har-
ris October 1, and judgment went for the city.- Long litigation with injunc-
tions followed by the canal company and on expiration of the time limit on
the last one the late Dr. W. T. Maupin as city health officer took the matter
in hand and on Saturday, March 19, 1892, with a force of hired men and vol-
unteers filled in the ditch and completed the work on the following Sunday
from the flonr mills to the western town limits. The proceeding was one
of the sensational events of the day. The time for the abatement of the
nuisance was chosen that no court injunction might be sued out to hinder
the work. For lack of a city sewer, the ditch had been used as an outfall
for house laterals.
A newspaper squib of forty years ago — in April 1878 — observed : There
are only fourteen public bars and five other places where liquor can be had
in town. A good field for temperance lectures.
Those were easy and happy-go-lucky days in Fresno forty years ago.
In April 1878 editorial apology in the Republican begged the forbearance of
its patrons for the delay in the Saturday issue because of unavoidable deten-
tion in San Francisco and illness among the compositors preventing the ap-
pearance on time of the issue with its one week old news. Promise was made
of endeavor to make amends "for delay now by promptness and interesting
reading matter hereafter."
Because a man and woman would not give up the use of the telephone
which they were using in spooning and permit of an alarm of fire being
turned in, the Eagle Packing and Storage Company's plant at K and San
Diego Streets was destroyed by fire one morning in June 1908. Loss was
$30,000. The request for "Central" was coolly ignored and the spooning con-
tinued for five minutes before the line was cleared for business by the love
sick couple.
It was in March 1877 that the S. W. Henry House, then the hotel of
Fresno, passed into the hands of the late Jesse Morrow and became the
Morrow House under a lease to A. B. Anderson, who had been in the hotel
business on the line of travel between Fresno and Stockton for twenty-three
years. For ten of these, he kept the Anderson Hotel at French Bar or La
Grange as it was sometimes called, and for thirteen years thereafter the Gait
at Snelling, first county seat of Merced.
It was on Saturday evening February 24, 1877 after many fires and long
continued agitation that a citizen's meeting was -held at old Magnolia Hail
for the organization of a hook and ladder fire company. Leopold Gundel-
finger was the chairman and Charles L. Wainwright the secretary of that
meeting. The organized company located afterward with a hand drawn ap-
paratus soon lost the latter in one of the periodical fires. The company was
480 HISTORY (IF FRESNO COUNTY
to have a membership of twenty-five and the charter members at the organ-
ization meeting were the following named: L. Gundelfinger, A. Basso, C.
Overholser, C. L. Wainwright, N. Rosenthal, William H. AIcKenzie, W. W.
Phillips, G. Winters, Henry Rea. Toe Moody, Charles Brimson, Charles W.
De Long. H. Borchers, Dr. N. P. Duncan, A. G. Bell. J. P. Luke. W. Silver
and Charles Hahn. Of the above named Gundelfinger, Phillips and De Long
are living.
Reasons were advanced in the newspapers as early as February 1877
why the town of Fresno should incorporate, not the least of these that "there
is a very large and unwieldly population that the general administration
of the law seems unable to reach." It was pointed out that there is no power
to abate nuisances, to repair streets, to safeguard against fires or at all times
to preserve the peace. "We have a cemetery," said the Republican, "but no-
body owns it, and nobody has charge of it. Graves are dug in such manner
and wherever it pleases the ones who dig them. We have a watchman but he
has no legal authority' to make arrests or preserve good order and he has
to depend upon gratuities for a living." Those were free and loose days in
Fresno.
After a career of about nine years, the Fresno Evening Democrat made
an assignment for the benefit of creditors in February, 1907, Mark R. Plaisted
stepping out and C. T. Cearlev placed in charge as trustee. The confessed
liabilities were more than $50,000.
The Kutner. Goldstein & Co. store building was destroyed by fire in
August, 1918. It was a landmark and was referred to as their "new store,"
when construction of it was begun in May, 1878, as one of the first two-story,
brick structures in the infant village.
Twenty years ago the Fresno city trustees unanimously passed the "high
hat" ordinance against the wearing in theaters by women of view obstruct-
ing hats. There was objection that it was discriminating legislation because
drawing distinction between theater and church. No one ever contested the
ordinance and it is on the books to this day. Trustee Spinney was the ob-
jector but voted for the ordinance.
Blissful days of forty years ago! C. M. Jones & Sons at their Fresno
Flouring Mills located within 100 feet of the present business center of town
ground grain on Mondays and Saturdays for patrons. They announced that
they had ground feed always on hand and fine corn meal for sale at reason-
able rates. This was the year when Ross, the father of Charles, was moving
heaven and earth for aid in the search for his stolen, lost or strayed boy and
the nation was moved with sympathy for him.
It was in January, 1898. that the Sisters of the Holy Cross conducting
St. Augustine's Academy purchased the W. M. Williams residence property
at R and Mariposa Streets with two lots adjoining to establish the school
there, the quarters adjoining the Catholic parochial church on M Street back
of the courthouse square being too small for the growing institution. The
seller took in trade seven lots on N Street next to the flour mill, purchased
the summer before when the old high school building was moved there but
fire destroyed the site buildings with heavy loss to the sisters.
Accept the figures for what they are worth. The publishers of the Fresno
city directory for 1918 give the city a population of 52.374, exclusive of the
Orientals, but adding them, estimate that the 60.000 mark has been reached.
The city section of the directory contained 19.589 names, or 1,264 more than
the one for 1917. As the names of married women and girls living at home
and having no occupation are eliminated, the multiple of two and two-thirds
has been used to give an estimated population of city and environs as stated,
an increase of 4,607 over the year before.
Up to the middle of the month of August, 1898. the city's most disastrous
fire was the one starting at midnight that swept the space on the west side
of the railroad reservation from ^lariposa to Mono for about four blocks
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 481
and made a clean sweep of it in part or entire destruction of the warehouses
and packings houses, besides the home of Yardmaster John Doyle and about
twenty freifjht cars and several sleepers. The conservative aggregate loss
was nearly half a million.
Imcsum Cit\'s registration for the August, 1918, primary election was a
total of 1 I.r,i5 with Republicans numbering 6,372 and Democrats 6,027.
IVoiii. t'ity has a woman policeman by brevet. She is Mrs. A. L. Ras-
mussen. She is rated as such following appointment in August, 1918, as clerk
of the police department. She sought the post because her husband was sub-
ject to the military draft.
The assessment valuation of the city for 1918-19 is $25,603,436, making-
with the eight other incorporated towns in the county, a total of $31,215,626.
The city has four district tax rates.
"Intelligence and Fashion Attend the Consecration" was one newspaper
sub-head in the "scare head" to the article describing the opening night of
the Barton opera house on Monday, September 29, 1890. It was, to be sure,
a notable gathering and the Expositor as usual had to take up its ancient
song with the threadbare chorus that "nothing occurred to interfere with
the happiness or pleasure of the audience." Ceorge E. Church delivered the
congratulatory address in culogism of Robert P.arton. Henry K. Dixcy in the
burlesque "Adonis" was the theatrical attraction and to read the next day's
account la jeunesse doree of Fresno went wild over the female chorus. After
the curtain went dov^^n, Robert Barton was called for and in turn delivered
himself of a speech. The following false prophecy is recalled because it had
been preserved in cold type. It was this : "This city will have 75,000 inhabit-
ants inside of ten years and in less than five years from now — just think, less
than five years — we will be close on the heels of our sister city, Los Angeles,
in population and most of you know how many theaters she has." This was
after the big boom and prophecy was one of the echoes of it. It may be added
that the erection of the theater was an after thought. Robert Barton bought
half of the half block with frontages on J and Fresno Streets and the alley
as a venture purely, intending to hold the idle terrain as an investment. He
was induced to erect the corner building with basement, street floor as stores
and the upper as a hall for military drills and for public assemblies, with
the appurtenant rooms as headquarters for the then two national guard mil-
itary companies, hence the name Armory Hall. As the plan progressed, the
scheme enlarged and decadence of the Armory Hall theater and his own
abiding faith in the future of Fresno led to the construction of the adjoin-
ing theater structure, the whole representing an investment of $100,000.
It was at the close of the month of November, 1878 — again forty years
ago — that a geographical survey party in charge of Lieut. H. H. Ludlow,
Second United States Artillery, appeared in Fresno to undertake extensive
topographical work in this part of the state, establish base or starting
point in Fresno from which to proceed to the mountains, erect monuments
upon prominent points for the further prosecution of the work in the higher
regions, also place bench marks of altitudes and levels in a thorough mapping-
of the county with base line for the continuance of the survey to Los Angeles
to tie in on. The survey was part of the geog-raphical platting authorized
by Congress. It is no violent stretch of the imagination to suppose that this
was the party that erected the local monument that Fresno has accepted as
marking the geographical center of the state.
It was about September 15, 1918, that the Fresno Traction Company
under authorization of the state railroad commission began to charge a six
cent fare on its city street car system and increased its commutation rates
ten per cent. The increase from the long established five cent rate was au-
thorized also in other cities. The cost of everything connected with street
car construction and operation had gone up and the competition of automo-
biles had decreased the revenue. It only required this with the war taxes
482 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to usher in the day of the copper penny in California, and there was nothing
to do but to carry a vest pocketful of coppers to make exact change, and put
up with this bother rather than a ten cent fare. A day was when paper money
and coppers were curiosities in California. Times have changed !
The big fire that destroyed the pioneer establishment of Kutner, Gold-
stein Co. and for a time endangering also the older landmark of the Louis Ein-
stein Pioneer building at the opposite Mariposa and H Street corner broke
out on the night of August 9, 1918. The Kutner-Goldstein Co. two-story
brick proved a total loss. The firm sent a $250 check as a contribution to the
firemen's relief fund.
The first official act of Former Police Chief Edward Jones in the newly
created office of city purchasing agent was on September 23, 1917, to replace
by the Stars and Stripes the torn, tattered and sun-bleached "Old Glory"
that flew from the city hall. There was with the war spirit general replacing
about town of the tattered national emblems following the agitation by the
newspapers.
August month in 1917 established a record for attendance in the Fresno
City playgrounds. Grand total was 60,586 as against 39,673 for the same period
the' year before, since which two playgrounds had been added besides which
for the 1917 season there was the city swimming pool in the use of Dry Creek
with an attendance of 15,625 alone.
Fresno's then newest $200,000 city block in the Mason building occupy-
ing on T Street, near Mariposa, the one time site of Jones' flour mills, was
opened "with the start of the elevators March 1, 1918. The property is owned
in England. A few days after the opening of the block, news was received
of the death of the maiden lady absentee landlord.
As a war time food conservation measure, whale meat made its first
appearance in the city markets October 13, 1917 and was extensively adver-
tised. It sold for ten cents a pound. Candor compels the statement that the
public did not take kindly to the meat of the sea mammal.
It was forty years ago in October, 1878, that the commissioners appointed
by the Roman Catholic bishop arrived to solicit subscriptions and donations
towards the enterprise of building a Catholic church in Fresno. Plans and
specifications were looked over, Ijut the decision was for a brick building,
30x50, plans and specifications for which were adopted and construction con-
tract awarded. The railroad company donated two lots for a site and the
commissioners purchased two adjoining at the corner of M and Fresno Streets.
This church stood until 1902, when it was demolished and the property sold
after acquiring a more advantageously located site at the upper end of Mari-
posa Street to meet the growing demands of the parish with a congregation
of communicants the largest in the territory embraced in the parish and in-
cluding several missionary chapels in neighboring adjoining counties. The
original church site passed by purchase eventually into the possession of the
Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Twenty-one years ago in 1897, twelve persons organized in Fresno the
First Church of Christ Scientists. October 16, 1918 the new church building
at N and Calaveras Streets was formally dedicated and as it is the policy of
this denominational cult to pay in advance for church properties and not sad-
dle itself with debt the dedication was not without significance. The handful
of adherents in 1897 was content to meet in a public hall and few hoped for
such a growth as followed. In 1903 it became urgent to seek larger quarters
and the First Presbyterian Church property at 2027 Merced Street was bought.
Another ten years and the capacity was taxed and the present location was
bought and building operations were begun in April, 1916. Services were
held in the Sabbath school room November 26 before the main structure was
finished. In j\Iay, 1918, the congregation held first service gathering in the
main auditorium. The building is a classical one in design.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 483
Fresno is today a city of churches, strongest evidence of the change in
the moral atmosphere in contrast between forty years ago and the present.
Every denomination is represented in the list of churches, with services in
the English, Armenian, Danish and Swedish languages, besides the Orientals
in Chinese and Japanese houses of worship. November 18, 1917, was
dedicated the new Bethel Danish Lutheran Church with the presiding church
official. Rev. G. B. Christiansen of Audubon, Iowa, A. R. of D., bishop of the
Danish Lutherans in America and generally known as the president of the
United States Evangelical Lutheran Church. The pastors of churches of Los
Angeles, San Francisco and of Easton, Fresno. Selma and Reedley in this
county were at the dedication.
The dedication of the Liberty Theater was an event on Tuesdav. Novem-
ber 7, 1917. That this theater was considered a factor in the moving picture
world was evidenced bv the fact that outside of the San Francisco Panama
Canal Exposition in 1915 it was the first time in the historv of the industry
in the state that managers and leading directors of film productions dropped
their engagements to be at this initial exhibition of a motion picture theater.
The new Burnett Sanitarium on S Street, south of Fresno, as one of the
most modernized institutions of the kind on the coast with accommodations
for 120 patients, was completed November 25. 1917. The Sanitarium had its
origin twenty-one years ago in a residence on North J Street, known as "The
Palms," and destroved by fire in the summer of 1917. Sanitarium was moved
to S and Fresno before that and there the first unit of the original building was
constructed. Additional units were made necessary and a fire with a consider-
able loss made incumbent the present building and equipment ?epresenting an
outlay of $150,000.
Notable business property sale of October, 1917, was that of the pioneer
Wiener block on Tulare Street between I and J bought by Charles R. Puck-
haber and Frederick J- Dow from Mrs. Selma S. Wiener for approximately
$75,000. The block is a two-story brick structure, 75x75, and dates from the
boom year with its characteristic style of architecture.
A small army of children attends the Fresno city schools. The enroll-
ment for 1917 was 7,641 as against 7,047 for the year before for the twelve
elementary and one high school. The increase was entirely in the elementary,
the high school enrollment standing at 1,200 for the two years. The Fresno
school district includes territory without the city limits but abutting.
The fall season of 1917 was a notable one in the line of construction of
business blocks. New buildings totalling over $900,000 were listed in October
and all were erected and completed the following twelfth month. The show-
ing was a remarkable one considering the war times, the high cost of material
and labor and the scarcity of skilled labor. In the list were the following.
not including the new packing plant of the California Associated Raisin
Company at the southern city limits and the other plants that it and the
peach growers erected at various localities in the county, the great raisin
and fruit plant of Rosenberg Bros., also in the new industrial district, the
plant buildings of the California Products Company replacing structures de-
stroyed by fire and new ones to take up the handling of cotton, the enlarge-
ments of quarters by the Farmers' and Union National Banks and various
other notable though lesser costing business block structures, all going to
demonstrate that there was no apparent hesitancy on the part of capitalists or
land owners to invest in new buildings with no shadow of a doubt as to the
484 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
resumption of this rapid and substantial growth after removal of the govern-
ment's hindrances with the cessation of the war. 1917 listings were these:
Bank of Italy $200,000
Mason Block :.... 187,000
Frank Short for Roos Bros 146,800
Einstein Investment Company Liberty
Theater '. .' 125.000
Burnett Sanitarium 90,000
Frank Short for Willys-Overland 60,000
Louis Gundelfinger for Liberty Market 35,000
Fresno Planing Mill _ ' 25.000
Jacob Richter Building 22.000
Mrs. Pat Culleton Building 10.000
Dr. D. H. Trowbridge for Superior Motor
Sales Company 10,000
Total $935,800
The Bank of Italy eight-story sky scraper is at the corner of J and
Tulare; 285 tons of steel entered into the construction; it is from an artistic
standpoint the finest edifice in the city. The Mason Block is a six-story build-
ing and architecturally notable. The Sanitarium addition is of five stories,
reenforced concrete, with a $30,000 equipment, finished throughout with oak
and with linotyling flooring in the corridors. The Liberty Market on Van
Ness, near Kern, is one-story of pressed white brick and has a 100-foot
frontage. The Liberty Theater on Van Ness is as fine a moving picture
^house as there'is to be found on the coast. The Roos Bros.' building at J
and Merced is two stories but the foundations are laid for an eight-story
structure. The day is not far distant when the three Mariposa and J Street
corners will mark the site of sky scrapers to keep the Griffith-McKenzie
pioneer at the northwest corner company. It is an open secret that the
Bradley estate for the northeast corner, the Einstein Investment Company
for the southeast corner and Radin & Kamp as owners of the Grand Central
Hotel corner have plans drawn for sky scraper buildings and that construc-
tion work might have been commenced before this writing but for the
government's war inhibitions.
Forty years ago (August 10, 1878) the city school district trustees ac-
cepted the bid of Frank & C. S. Peck for the school bonds authorized by
the legislature and made award at ninety cents on the dollar. Contract for
the erection of the building went to Shanklin & Donahoo of Fresno for
$7,900 but there was error in the calculation in the estimates for plastering
and as they could not correct it then and declined to accept the award or
file the required bond the award followed to the Pecks of IMerced for $9,195
as the next lowest bidders. The building was erected on the block of land
bought for a school fronting on Fresno Street, two blocks from the court-
house. The building stands yet and is used for school purposes, though it
has been turned and placed on another site in the block to make room for
the brick Lowell school building.
^^'iped out by fire in July in the 600 block on I Street, the Fresno Planing
^lill Company started machinery November 23, 1917, in its new plant at H
and Monterey representing an investment of $80,000 and provided with
appliances to handle 1,000,000 feet of lumber in a year. It lost half a million
feet in the fire. The new plant is in a fire-proof brick building.
Along in August, 1918. various fires broke out with accompanying large
losses. There were evidences warranting the strong suspicion that these
burnings were incendiary as acts of sabotage by the I. W. W'.'s in revenge
for the arrest and indictment by the federal courts of twenty-five leaders and
members for treasonable acts and utterances. On the night of August 28 the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 485
E. Schmitz Fresno City Hay Market was destroyed and the flames swept
the half block at Mariposa and E, razing the market, also the Fresno Horse
and Mule Market, 600 tons of hay stored in the first and burning to death
four horses and three mules. The loss was over $20,000. To the same cause
was ascribed the origin of the fire a few days before which destroyed the
Madary Planing Mill at H and Kern, the night being a windy one and the
flames working through the block enveloping and spreading havoc in the
Hollenbeck-Bush mill on Inyo Street. In these and other instances the evi-
dence was that the fire was set from the outside. The Madary mill rebuilt
a concrete and steel mill on another site to cost approximately $200,-
000. It was the second time that the other mill had been burned out at
the same site with neither fire originating in the mill but in the Madary
wooden structure. After the second, a building was erected that was thought
to be fire proof. The Hollenbeck-Bush corporation acquired a five-acre site
on Cherry Avenue on the railroad and in the southern end of the town.
This mill will cost about $100,000 and will be served by a spur-track.
January 7, 1889, work was commenced on the first Fresno sewer system.
Eighteen months before $175,000 was voted at a special election in bonds,
$100,000 to be spent on the sewer system and the remainder for school, fire
and water purposes. Contract was awarded to a company to lay the sewer
piping but after long delay it decided not to proceed with the work. Con-
tract was annulled in June, 1888. New bids were called for and in Septem-
ber, 1888, contract was relet and 200 men were placed on the work. The
sewage farm was of 320 acres, five miles southwest of town and the sewage
was conveyed from the foot of Merced Street in twenty-four-inch pipe to
within half a mile from the farm and then by open ditch. Contract was also
entered into with the canal company for two cubic feet of water per second
for flushing the pipes. The sewer contractors obligated themselves for five
years to dispose of the sewage at $4,900 annually. Thirty-nine thousand
feet of pipe were laid.
Petition to change the postofflce name from Fresno City to Fresno was
circulated January 16, 1889.
The city was divided politically into five wards by the town trustees
February 4, 1889. Two days later was held one of the great sales of land
near Fresno.
City trustees declined to repeal February 12, 1889, the ordinance for
the midnight hour closing of the saloons. March 19 the ordinance was de-
clared invalid.
Oscar Beaver was on February 26, 1889, found guilty of manslaughter
in the killing of J. N. Cripe and two days later was sentenced to imprison-
ment for one year at San Quentin. Beaver was one of the "gun men" and
"man hunters" in the pursuit of the bandit gang of Sontag and Evans.
There were others.
March 14, 1889, Fresno banks adopted a uniform opening and closing
hour.
Simon W. Henry's livery stables at Tulare and J Streets in Fresno
caught fire on the morning of June 8, 1889 ; si.x horses were burned ; loss
$io,'ooo. ■ • "
July 1, 1889, Fresno inaugurated free mail delivery.
Charles Reavis murdered Deputy Sherift J. N. ^^'ren July 6, 1889, and
next day Reavis was killed by peace of^cers while resisting arrest. He es-
caped after the murder with a revolver in each hand.
July 12, 1889, fire partially consumed the Fiske block at Mariposa and J.
August' 1 Charles Hogan and' Ilonas Ricker, bellboys of the Grand Central
Hotel, were rewarded" with gold watches and chains for heroic work at the
fire.
The Russ House at the corner of Fresno and I, the livery stable, two
486 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
adjoinini;^ residences and twenty-eight horses were burned in a fire on the
morning- of July 17, 1889.
December 9, 1889, A. H. Cummings was awarded judgment for $17,000
against John D. Fiske in an accounting case as to royalties on a patent
car-coupler. A verbal squabble over this claim resulted in a street brawl
and the fatal shooting of Fiske by Cummings.
The year 1889 was a notable one in the line of city building operations
under the stimulus of the optimism that accompanied the boom. Manv of
the earlv notable business blocks were completed during this year. Many
of these stand to this day. They are readily identified because of their archi-
tecture of the day with the Mansard roof, bow windows and corner steeples
or cupola as distinguishing features. They were substantial blocks that com-
pare favorably with many of the present day constructed, showy buildings.
This building era activity resulted in a wonderful improvement of the busi-
ness district in departure from the wooden shacks. A partial list of the more
notable completed brick and stone buildings of the year is the following:
Kutner, Goldstein & Company three-story brick on west side of I be-
tween Mariposa and Fresno, $50,000; Einstein business block and hall, east
side of I between Tulare and Kern, two stories, $30,000; Farmers' Bank,
three stories, Mariposa and I, $40,000: Donahoo, Emmons & Company, three
stories adjoining the bank on I and on Mariposa, $30,000; H. C. Warner
three-story on Mariposa between I and J, $15,000, also on north side of
Mariposa between I and T ; O. T- Meade three-story building, $19,000; Ber-
nard & Monaghan two-story, $9,000: J. F. Haviland two-storv, $8,300; M.
Denicke two-story with vaulted basement, $14,000; W. E. Gilmour two-
story, $7,000; A. F. Baker three-story at Fresno and J (afterward the Pleas-
ant View and later the Helm block), $50,000; A. S. Edgerly three stories at
Tulare and T. $60,000; R. B. Johnson's Temple Bar, Mariposa and K. three-
story, $65,000; Olcese & Garibaldi, two stories at Mariposa and K, $18,000;
G. W. Herminghaus three-story north side Mariposa between I and J, $7,500;
also J. Brownstone's three-story, $8,000, and J. C. Walker's three-story,
$9,000; M. E. Gonzales' Excelsior Stables east side of I between Mariposa
and Tulare, two and one-half stories, $23,000 ; Pleasanton Hotel three stories
at Merced and I, $40,000; Y. M. C. A. first unit three stories, $30,000; W. W.
Phillips' two-story on J between Mariposa and Fresno, $8,000; Fresno Na-
tional Bank three stories at Tulare and J, $40,000; Fresno Loan and Savings
Bank four stories at Mariposa and J, $60,000; Jerry Ryan's Arlington three-
story brick at T and Kern, $14,000; First National three-story bank building
at Mariposa and I, $28,000; Dr. Maxon's bath house, 49x132, west side of
N between Mariposa and Fresno, $8,000; City school at Santa Clara and K,
$20,000; C Street school, $16,500; Southern Pacific depot, $30,000; Adven-
tists' Church at Mariposa and O, the finest in the interior of the state, with
schoolroom and capacity for 800, $30,000; it is 58x120, has a 3,000-pound
bell and a $2,000 clock in belfry tower 104 feet high. It is the town clock
since the demolition of the Fiske building to clear the site for the Griffith-
McKenzie first sky scraper whereupon the town clock was presented to the
city and is preserved in the second high school building ; Presbyterian
Church at K and Merced, $12,000; Southern Pacific freight depot remodeled
and enlarged making old passenger depot with' additions 525 feet long and
fifty wide ; Henry Voorman had in construction a $20,000 two-story block
on the west side of I between Mariposa and Tulare and was making $10,000
additions to his adjoining property on the south; M. J. Church was build-
ing a 125x125, three stories Sanatorium at N and Mariposa to cost $75,000;
Robert Barton his basement and first floor market and second floor Armory
Hall, with theater adjoining; John D. Fiske three-story, fifty feet on Mari-
posa and 150 feet windowed frontage on J, at cost of $60,000 and adjoining
on J, William Helm was erecting a $25,000 three-story with basement busi-
ness block. S. Williams a reported member of Parliament and of Liverpool,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 487
Eno-., was erecting a $22,000 two-story brick at F and Tulare. And the above
list embraces only the notable and takes no heed of the residences that
were making a town of the shack village. The business blocks were the
creations of two or three architects ; hence the sameness of the architectural
designs.
Fresno has sixtv-seven churches representing every shade of religion
under the sun. The pioneer nine were located in or close to what is now
the business district. ^Vith a few exceptions in the growth of the town,
they have moved to and erected larger houses of worship in the residence
districts, all save the Adventists, having years ago outgrown their first
places of congregation. The pioneer is the M. E. South fFresno and L")
organized in 1876 with Rev. A. Odum pastor in 1876-77. The original
membership consisted of Judge Gillum Baley and family and Mrs. Phillips,
seven in all. The judge was their leader and filled the offices of steward,
class leader, trustee, Sabbath school superintendent, janitor and local
preacher. The little wooden church at Fresno and L was the first in Fresno
and long the only one. It was moved over into the quarter west of the
railroad and there damaged one night in a Fourth of July fire beyond salvage.
First services regularly held by a minister of the Episcopal Church were
in 1879. A "mission" was organized in December by Rev. D. O. Kelley as
St. James Protestant Episcopal Church and in 1881 brick church was erected
at Fresno and N with parsonage on six lots. This building was enlarged and
completed and consecrated in 1884. Still later it was further enlarged and
is the pro-cathedral of the bishop. The 1884 consecrated church cost v$4,000.
At organization of mission in 1879 less than a dozen communicants were to
be found and these women. In 1888 mission was organized on a more inde-
pendent footing as St. James' parish with a vestry of seven men and the
pastor. Rev. Kelley has been its longest serving rector. St. John's Catholic
(Fresno and M) was founded June 26. 1880, by Rev. Father Valentine Agui-
lera, who long continued the pastor of the parish. His congregation did not
exceed eighty in number "nearly all as poor as the desert they lived m."
The church that was erected "was far too large then and a titanic enter-
prise for their number and means." The good father boarded here and there
and lodged in a single room back of the church sacristy. A priest's home
was in time erected and with the growth of the city a much larger church
with residence for the clergy and parochial school was erected at Mariposa
and R. The first Seventh Day Adventist to come to this county and settle
near Kingston was Jackson Fergerson from Sonoma. His stay was brief for
he moved to Nevada where he organized a church and for two years was
a state legislator. The Adventists' Church in Fresno dates practically from
the fall of 1873 when Moses J. Church identified himself with the faith
and labored to spread it. Three years later ministerial aid was secured and
a church was organized in Fairview school district as the first. The work
spread in this and Tulare counties and in 1880 regular services were com-
menced here on the seventh day, Saturday, congregating in private home,
then in a Mariposa Street and later in a K Street hall, and finally in the
temple at IMariposa and O. This was the gift and endowment of Church
completed and dedicated in 1889. Church and the trustees under his deed
of gift had diflferences ; he sought to rescind his endowment ; the elTort was
resisted ; they went to law over it but the trust was sustained. The building
was and is a notable landmark and the congregation and adherents to the
faith strong in number. G. R. G. Glenn, W. P. Haber, R. FI. Bramlet and
Dr. C. D. Latimer with jMesdames William Donahoo and E. P. Gilmour
were the organizers of the Baptist Church, holding first meetings in 1881,
formally organizing March 18, 1882, with the assistance of Rev. H. S. Ab-
bott. Church organized with seven members, Messrs. Haber and Bramlet
still continuing as such. The first pastor was Rev. T. T. Potter who con-
tinued until April 1, 1884, and soon after passed to his reward. The
488 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Chinese Mission House was a gift from the hand and purse of ilrs. Potter
to the Home Mission Society and the cause to which dedicated. The second
pastor was Rev. J. C. Jordan called from Nebraska. A $6,000 house of wor-
ship was built during his pastorate at Merced and N, subsequently improved
by gifts from Dr. Eshleman, wife and daughter. Mr. Jordan resigned April
1, 1889, and Rev. H. G. De Witt, D. D., of Rochester, N. Y., was the third
pastor. Organization of the Congregationalists was had in the .public school
house in May, 1882, with eight members under Rev. Blakeley, a state mis-
sionary. Services were suspended with his failing health and in January,
1883, with Rev. George E. Freeman and as the result of a first service
held in the old Odd Fellows' hall at Mariposa and I, then being used as a
private school, reorganization was had and the membership increased from
eleven to fifty. The preacher secured a hall on Mariposa Street over an un-
dertaker's, fitted it up largely by his own hands and at own expense and
paid the twenty dollars rent, also largely out of his pocket. Here the congre-
gation remained nearly a year until the church at Inyo and K was built
at a cost of $5,000 after much difficulties and discouragements. It was first
occupied in June, 1884, and dedicated in September with all expenses pro-
vided for. Mr. Freeman after three years was succeeded by Rev. Mr. Mes-
serve and he by Rev. Mr. Voorhees until the autumn of 1887 when he re-
signed and Rev. E. L. Chaddock was called and remained longest in the local
ministry. In 1889 a fine parsonage was erected and in the end after various
vicissitudes and changes in pastorates new life was injected into the congre-
gation, another site was chosen and a church erected at M and Divisadero
while the abandoned one was sold to the Armenian Congregationalists. A
local preacher named F. M. Pickles organized about April, 1883, the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church (M and Tuolumne). J. R. Gregory served until Sep-
tember, 1883, when Rev. S. J. Kohler was assigned as regular pastor, fol-
lowed by Rev. G. W. Goodell until 1887 and by Rev. M. Judy for two years
when the conference appointed Rev. A. B. jMorrison. the term of service of
M. E. ministers being then five years with appointments made for one year
at a time, subject to renewal, for five. The original church property was at
L and Merced. The Christian Church (Campbellites) was organized June
16, 1884, with thirty members and has become the largest church organiza-
tion, save perhaps the Roman Catholic. Among its pastors may be named
Revs. James Logan, W. T. Shelton, J. B. Johnson, Carroll Ghent, J. W.
Webb, W. H. Martin and H. O. Breeden. Its house of worship at Mariposa
and N. one block in rear of the courthouse, was erected at a cost of $3,300
in 1886, but a larger and more commodious one was a few years ago erected
at Tuolumne and N. The Presbyterian is the youngest of the pioneer churches
organized in 1885, supplied by Rev. Mr. Budge with Mr. Hurd as the first
installed pastor. Place of worship was for a time in Nichols' hall until the
erection of the church at K and Merced in the summer of 1888 and first
occupied in September. Its $2,000 organ was the gift of J. H. Hamilton. The
church is located now at M and Merced Streets. The history of the churches
of Fresno is an inspiration ; their upbuilding the work of the good men and
women in a town once regarded as a western Sodom and Gomorrah.
The city free market of Fresno was opened Saturday, September 22,
1912.
The street car system in the branch to Roeding City Park was opened
September 9, 1912 — California Admission Day anniversary.
William H. Bryan addressed a great assembly for thirty minutes in
Fresno on Tuesday, September 24, 1912. Roosevelt was to have spoken
about the same time while on his Yosemite Valley tour but could not make
the connections. Bryan spoke at the courthouse park when he first ran for
President. It was commented upon at the time as a coincidence auguring
no good that on this occasion a runaway collided with the Democratic flag
pole at the entrance of the park and snapped pole oil' short at the ground.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 489
Tliis was the end of the Repviblican and Democratic town flag poles, first
erected during the Haycs-Tilden campaign on Mariposa Street below I
and afterwards replanted at the courthouse park entrance. Both succumbed
to the rotting of time, with the Bourbon liberty pole as the survivor.
An amusing controversy arose between rival insurance company agents
October 21, 1889, with regard to their respective newspaper representations
as to business methods and each deposited $1,000 in escrow awaiting deter-
mination by a committee of citizens as to the truth or falsity of the repre-
sentations, the money in bank escrow to be forfeited to the city by the loser
on the committee report. The committee reported that both forfeit to the
city. That committee was W. W. Phillips, G. A. Nourse, E. J. Griffith. IT. D.
Colson, John Reichman, Louis Einstein and Dr. C. Rowell, who was alone
to hold that the representations were not false. The warring agents the
brothers, R. H. and W. G. Baker and A. D. Thomas and R. B. Schwartzkopf
litigated their idle wager and while the matter was in the courts the city
in behalf of the newly created free library also went into court to seek
the recovery of the forfeited $2,000 in behalf of the institution. It failed
in the suit. The agents had in November, 1889, sued the respective banks
for injunctions and the return of the money and judgment was rendered
in Jnne and August, 189.i, and thus the whole matter went up in smoke
after much publicity fire to contribute to the sporting gaiety of the com-
munity.
The petition for the incorporation of the city of Fresno was filed with
the county supervisors Tuly 22. 1885. It was based on a representation that
the city had a population of "about 3.000." At the September 5 meeting
of the Supervisors an election on incorporation for September 2,S was ordered,
with the polling place at the courthouse, E. K. King as inspector and C. AV.
Remsberg and K. G. Luke as judges. The vote was for incorporation 277;
against 185 ; total vote cast 465.
The first meeting of the first elected city trustees was held on the eve-
ning of .October 27, 18S5, at the ^Mariposa Street real estate office of T. E.
Hughes. Half a dozen im n in-, were held in nightly succession until the
city government organi/atn m was completed. John Hurley and Martin Mc-
Nally were appointed the lirsl city policemen at sixty dollars a month and
the salary of the town marshal was fixed at eighty dollars.
Fresno's incorporation petition was presented before the supervisors by
the late J. F. Wharton. It was determined that the territory to be incor-
porated had a population of 3.459.
The city incorporation petition of 1885 had 102 signatures. The living
signatories in October, 1918, are the following named: I. Teilman, N. W.
Moodev, Dr. J. C. Cooper, T. E. Hughes, J.'E. Hughes. W. W. Phillips,
M. W.'Muller, L. Gundelfinger, F. H. Short, M. K. Harris, W. T. Mattinglv,
Alex Goldstein, Dr. W. T. Burks, Geo. E. Church, S. N. Griffith, AV. P.
Haber, Lucien Shaw, S. C. St. John, R. G. Harrell, W. D. Grady, J. D. Mor-
gan, S. S. W'right, E. F. Lacour, J. \A'. Gearhart — twenty-four.
William H. Bryan's first visit as a presidential candidate was on Satur-
day evening, July 3, 1897, and he was received with a salvo of 100 guns.
The big fire in the Grady Theater building at the time occupied by the
Redlick Brothers' general merchandise store was on February 27, 1900.
L. O. Stephens as Fresno's first mayor under a charter retired April,
1905. It was declared that under his administration Fresno had prospered
and experienced the cleanest and most business like administration in its
history for which the citizens and taxpayers were to be congratulated.
It was at a meeting in March, 1904, that a resolution was passed for-
bidding the smoking of tobacco at the sessions of the city trustees. Another
departure from wild and woolly western methods.
The first city general election under a charter was held June 4, 1901.
L. O. Stephens was elected mayor. The vote was 2,196.
490 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Fresno's so-called "new charter" was ratified at the election October 19,
1899. Vote: 844 for and 107 against.
The first district street paving in the city was in 1889 as follows: I from
Kern to Fresno, J from Tulare to Fresno, and Mariposa from the court house
to the railroad depot. The material was bituminous rock, steamed and
crushed and underlaid by cemented rock or gravel. The contract was thirty-
three and one-third cents per square foot with bared stone work extending
four feet from the sidewalk curb. Fresno was the third city in the state
thus paved. The cost was levied against the property.
March 19, 1910, a special election was held to vote $60,000 bonds for
city playgrounds. The bonds carried by a vote of 847 to 299. The school
children carried the day. It was their campaign with parades and personal
solicitations for days before.
The free market proved such a success that the trustees were soon
urged to look for a larger and permanent site, occupying for the market
by suflferance part of the courthouse park frontage on Fresno Street. January
19, 1913, ofifer of a site was made of one-half of city block 115 in rear of
the courthouse for $112,500. The site problem is still in the air.
The city playgrounds commission was created July, 1913. It maintained
for a time a little model playground in the courthouse park. It made its
official start in November, 1913, with an appropriation of $4,500.
The municipal convention hall, the construction starting of which was
with bond money voted for the playgrounds of which it was originally in-
tended to be a part, was dedicated with ball and concert on the night of
Thursday, March 12, 1914.
The month of April, 1914, was made memorable by the city board of
health's fly-swatting campaign.
It was on July 12, 1886, that the city trustees rented three corner rooms
in the Masonic Temple at Tulare and I at thirty dollars a month for council
chamber and offices.
The dedication of the new Masonic Temple at Merced and K Streets
was a noteworthy occurrence on the evening of June 3, 1911, the founda-
tion stone of the building having been laid the fall before by Grand Master
Dana R. Wells of Los Angeles. The temple was erected in the name of the
two Fresno lodges, Nos. 247 and 366, ownership vested in the seven Masonic
organizations.
The forty-six-acre additional gift to enlarge Roeding Park was sketched
out for improvement in ^Nlay, 1908. the addition being on three sides of the
park site and making one large 118-acre tract conforming to the original site
ofifered to the city by F. Roeding and wife but for some unaccountable rea-
son declined by the city trustees under the Jo Spinney regime. Roeding
Park is considered one of the finest in the state and exceeded in area by
only one. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The park is a reclamation of
a sandy grain field.
Following sale of the property. Monday, August 27, 1917, witnessed
the abandoning by the fire apparatus of pioneer Engine House No. 1 on J
Street, for so many years also the city hall. The bell that had sounded so
many alarms of fire and which for years also tolled the warning hour of
curfew was sold by the city trustees to the town of Kingsburg. Long after
the sale, discovery was made that it belonged not to the city for sale but to
the members of the volunteer fire department who had contributed their
half dollars and dollars to melt into the bell metal. Suggestion having been
made that the old bell be brought to Fresno as a float for one of the Raisin
Day celebrations, Kingsburg discerned in the move a cunning plot to recover
possession of the bell and solemn protest was made. The bell was in fact
not "floated" in the Fresno celebration.
Commencing with September 14, 1917, the tooting of whistle to give
announcement of the location of a fire ceased in Fresno. Thereafter general
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 491
notice of a fire "somewhere" was ,Q:iven by three sharp blasts from the flour
mills, three times repeated. The tooting of whistle was a twelve-year-old
practice, before which the box alarm was given by sounding of bell taps. The
last change was only another step in the "cityfication" of the Raisin Center.
The work of excavating for the concrete foundation for the Bank of
Italy's eight-story "sky scraper" at Tulare and J Streets commenced with
the last week in August, 1917. It was one of the most difficult tasks in the
construction line ever undertaken in Fresno involving the underpinning of
the four-story department store building of Radin & Kamp on the west
line. The concrete foundation was laid nineteen feet below the street sur-
face in three feet of subterranean water accumulation. The erection of the
steel frame work was planned for ?t.|itcnilnT 13 and it was at the close of
October, 1918, that tenants of the olhco lluors l)egan to move in. The bank
building with fixtures cost a quarter of a million dollars.
On INIonday, August 27. 1917, was pul)lished the first number of the
Fresno Evening Herald from its newsjiaper building at the corner of L and
Inyo Streets. Owing to an accident to the machine, the edition was printed
on the press of the Republican.
One of the large 1909 fire losses in Fresno was the destruction of the
California Fruit Canner's Association's plant May 25. Total loss was half
a million, with insurance of $200,000 and the season's run prevented.
The year 1910 opened with promise of being a banner year in building
in Fresno city. A building boom was due, it was launched and continued
until the conservation measures of the war called a halt to new construction
work during the second half of 1918. The Fresno-Hanford Interurban road
promoted by F. S. Granger was being agitated and had first place among
the big things in prospect, involving as it did a million-dollar project. It
was never financed and as with several other interurban dreams is a recol-
lection of the past. Building operations had been quiet for a year and a half
before the close of 1909. Considerable remodelling of old buildings had been
done, fronts of business houses modernized and the general appearance of
the city greatly improved in that period. The business district expanded
to take in the lower and southern portion of I Street and Tulare with the
side streets, and there was also a steady expansion north of Fresno. With
the passing of the years all available space on the railroad reservations was
taken up for industrial enterprises and it was necessary to set aside in the
southern part of the city a district for the exclusive location of these indus-
tries. The Southern Pacific started preliminary work for buildings to cost
$200,000. These were a 3O0.x6O foot freight receiving shed between Merced
and Tuolumne, and a 300x60 forwarding shed between Fresno and Merced,
both on concrete bases, and a remodelling and modernizing of the main
passenger depot. The Santa Fe completed during the latter part of 1909 its
enlargement of passenger station. Significant among the building move-
ments on foot was that of the fraternal orders. It was on a parity with the
church building boom as an evidence of public improvement and as a dis-
tinctive feature of the construction impulse of the times. The Masons bought
on the southwest corner of Merced and K and later erected a temple for
the order. The Eagles bought the church property at M and Fresno and a
building association was formed. The Knights of Pythias secured site oppo-
site the Masons and eventually will build. The Woodmen of the World
bought corner lots at Tuolumne and Van Ness and erected the finest lodge
building of the order in the Pacific Jurisdiction. The Elks had the upper
story of the building at Tulare and L specially constructed for their accom-
modation ; likewise the University Club the front of the WHiite Theater
building. Enlargements and improvements of the Fresno Traction Company
called for an outlay of $200,000 in the erection of car barns near the Pollasky
railroad depot, double tracking of the city system with addition to the roll-
ing stock. The water company expended $25,000 for new mains in the city
492 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and extension of service to outlying districts. During the following years
the city authorized extensive street paving and sewering work chargeable
against the property benefitted. Boulevarding of some principal streets across
town was resolved upon and electrolier districts followed in the business
section and along Van Ness, J and I, and out on Fresno and a half mile be-
yond on Kearney Boulevard as the result of the building boom that was
ushered in with the year 1910. Private enterprises that had inception then
were the quarter of a million Hotel Fresno at I and Merced, really the first
"sky-scraper" in Fresno, followed by the Rowell-Chandler building at Tu-
lare and Van Ness, the Griffith-McKenzie monolyth at Mariposa and J,
the Holland on Fresno east of Van Ness, the \^^^ite Theater on I near Mer-
ced, and apartment, business houses and residences too numerous to men-
tion. As the business section expanded and modernized, so the residence
district spread and annexation of considerable territory to the city followed.
The year 1910 was one of awakening and for the eight years following more
substantial progress and improvement came about than for anv like term in
the history of the city. A great agricultural experimental farm was be-
queathed to the state with the distribution to the University of California of
the Kearney estate, and a belated state recognition of Fresno was in the
location of the Normal school here.
The vear 1909 was one also of notable commercial advancement for the
raisin center of the United States measured by the development and improve-
ments in the transportation service. Great projects were launched and costly
betterments were made in road equipment for the accommodation and safety
of the traveling public. Most noteworthy undertaking of the year was per-
haps the investment of approximately two millions by the San Joaquin Power
and Light Company in beginning construction of the new power plant in
Crane Valley in Madera County. Work was commenced in May, 1908, to be
in operation in August, 1910, to supply the valley with power and electricity.
The reservoir capacity of Bass Lake was stated to be 50,000-acre feet against
4,300 of the old mountain plant, with enlarged conduits carrying off 150 feet
of water per second as against twenty before, besides construction of two
new pipe lines allowing a flow of seventy-five feet per second, and installa-
tion of machinery for generating 16,000 kilowatts of electric fluid. The com-
pany was serving twenty-four towns in the valley and eight of these — Sanger,
Orosi, Sultana, Clovis, Lenioore, Malaga, Coalinga and Friant — were first
served in 1909. The Fresno Traction Company as a sub-company added to
its equipment in Jime, double tracked on Tulare out to Recreation Park and
on J and Fresno Streets. It built an extension traversing the quarter west of
the railroad known as the Russian quarter along F Street via the subway on
Fresno Street under the railroad reservation. The large car barns were also
erected near the end of Tulare Street. The Fresno A\'ater Company as an-
other sub-company installed five new city water mains and a company was
incorporated for two millions to supply Coalinga, water to be pumped at
Lemoore, piped to Coalinga and the oil field. The 1909 business of the
Southern Pacific was so heavy that two additional Fresno-San Francisco
trains were placed on the run as locals and the chair car on the Owl was
taken oflf and it was made a vestibide train making only three stops between
termini. It was at the beginning of 1908 that the company introduced the
motor car service in the valley on all local runs, the longest between Fresno
and Stockton. The motors were in addition to the regular steam trains to
nearby towns. The motors were unable to accommodate the travel and for
other reasons also they were taken off and additional steam car trains were
the result. There was a lurking suspicion that these much lauded motors
did not come up to expectations. The Fresno-Coalinga service was im-
proved and it was strongly demanded that the journey to and back might be •
made in a day. The track was also ballasted. Freight business increased so
that the side tracks in local yard had to be lengthened to accommodate long
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 493
trains a\'eras^ing forty to fifty cars, an increase from thirty to thirty-five.
On the Santa Fe roadbed and bridges in the valley were reconstructed,
heavier rails laid, new steel bridges substituted across the Merced at cost of
$193,365 and across the San Joaquin for $147,356, with duplicates across
St. John's, the Kings and the I'Cern south of Fresno. The ballasting of the
roadbed in the valley kept nine work trains bus}' during the summer. Pas-
senger and freight traffic demanded additional trains. Up to 1908 the Santa
Fe had no local freight service from Fresno. In 1909 four local freights
were established to Corcoran Junction, two via \'isalia and two via Han-
ford. The "Maverick" was a San Franciscd freight train carrying stock
and fruit. A new passenger train to San Francisco was put on in August,
1908, leaving here at eight A. M. The local freight yards were extended be-
cause of lack of space for side tracks and, to make room, the Hammond fig-
packing plant, the Einstein, W^ormser and other warehouses moved. The
platform for interchange freight was lengthened 300 feet and two new "team"
tracks for unloading were built on each side. Change was made from the
telegraph system of dispatching trains to the telephone. The passenger
depot at Tulare and O, the largest on the division between Richmond, Cal.,
and Albuquerque. N. 'SI.. \\as enlarged at a cost of $25,000 and made two
stories high in the expectation that the enlarged floor space would meet the
demand for ten years tn come. Three weeks after completion, the baggage
room that was enlarged was taxed to' the maximum. The depot is of the
Mission stvle after the model of all on the Santa Fe line. Passenger directors
were another inno\'ation. Due to the increasing business of the Santa Fe
and its cramped quarters within the city limits projected for the local San
Joaquin Valley Railroad and not for a transcontinental road, the Santa Fe
has had to locate switching yards and fruit car icing depot at large outlay
beyond the city limits. There a new railroad town has sprung up known as
Calwa. Fresno has become one of the railroad centers of California. Leland
Stanford's prophecy of forty years ago has come true.
The city free library, which in 1917 became a county institution, is
located on North I Street between the Odd Fellows' Hall and the Y. M. C. A.
The ground on which it is located was donated to the city by adjacent prop-
erty owners, who clubbed and bought the lots from the old California Raisin
Growers' Association. There was as much difference of opinion as to the loca-
tion as there was as to the site of the city hall, half a block away at the
corner, but the I Street hustlers won the day on both propositions and there
has been a great change in the locality with the erection of these two munic-
ipal buildings in that ^■icinity. The lots donated to the city in 1900 are
worth today many times more the $4,000 paid for them. Andrew Carnegie
made gift of the building, the property owners gave the lots, Louis Einstein
gave $500 for the purchase of books ; Robert Kennedy, W. T. Mattingly and
others made donations from their private libraries and this was the begin-
ning of the library in its own home. With its branches, the library now
serves the entire county and the schools besides, an expansion that has been
wrought by the eflforts of Miss Sarah E. McCardle, the county librarian.
The Parlor Lecture Club house was opened in October, 1908. It is on
Van Ness Avenue and club is the representative women's organization of the
city.
I'uilding operations in the Fresno city school department were at the
crest in the year 1910. .'\ $150,000 bond issue voted during the summer of
1909 realized $168,000 and all that money was spent to secure more room.
Fresno ranks seventh in California in point of school attendance, placing it
in advance of San Jose and Stockton. The need for more school room had
pressed itself for some years upon the attention of the board of education.
Fresno had grown so rapidly in population that the school buildings did not
keep pace. And yet after those $168,000 were spent, there was no great margin
for future expansion, without another bond issue for more school room.
494 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Twelve lots were bought for an eight-room annex to Lincoln school ; four
for Emerson and thirteen for Lowell for as large annexes ; other additions
and improvements were arranged for, but the biggest one thing was the
construction and equipment of a polytechnic school annex to the high to cost
$60,000, including in the high school building an auditorium with seating
capacity for 1,100, a balcony and a stage.
The interest in the city election April 12, 1909, was less as to the officers
to be elected, though there were four candidates for mayor, but greater in
the contest as to the anti-saloon closing ordinance. The latter was submitted
at this election after a vigorous campaign of propaganda by the Anti-Saloon
League, led by Rev. Irving B. Bristol as its agent. The ordinance was car-
ried by a vote majority of fifty-seven. It would have abolished the bar-room
but not the wholesale house nor the liquor serving restaurant after the first
of August but that the ruling was made in the test case of Henry P. Black
for a recount that the vote on the ordinance was void because the polls on
April 12 were closed at five o'clock instead of six. according to the state law.
No point on this was made as to the officers chosen at the same election.
In September before, the trustees lost out, on a tie vote of four to four, a
motion to pass to print an ordinance to close the city saloons on December
1 following. This ordinance was amended to meet certain objections and
October 18 was passed to print by a vote of five to two, one member (George
Pickford) tendering his resignation rather than be forced to vote. The mayor
refused to accept the resignation at the moment and it never was accepted.
The ordinance as passed was in brief to confine the liquor traffic to whole-
sale dealers, pharmacists and to restaurants at meals under restrictions and
regulations. Pickford declared for high license, Sunday closing, and regula-
tion and did not consider himself bound to vote for the ordinance popularly
accepted because he was an unpledged and independent candidate for trustee
at the election and opposed to absolute closing. This ordinance was in the
end vetoed by the mayor for the reason that no provisions financial had been
made to substitute revenue source for the saloon licenses, that as drawn the
ordinance was discriminatory as betweeen classes of citizens and because
sentiment had changed on the ordinance since the popular vote. This action
on his part brought on him much criticism and even censure from the pulpits
and he took this much to heart. However, he and the trustees agreed upon
a stringent liquor ordinance and at the meeting on December 6, 1909, it was
passed unanimously. This was Ordinance 601 of fort3'-seven sections- and
went into efifect on passage but placed in actual operation January 1, 1910
because of a decision that a granted liquor license privilege is for one year
and quarter license payments having been accepted the privilege could not
without cause be suspended before the expiration of the quarter. The adopted
ordinance was regarded a drastic one. It raised the retail license from $600
to $800, raised and fixed other license charges, called for midnight and Sun-
day closing, prohibited drinking in drug stores, abolished the free lunch,
limited the number of all saloon licenses issuable in one year to forty-nine
and provided for a reduction of the number of saloons to forty as a maximum
and in short called for so many restrictions that on a Sunday not even
wine or beer can be had at a meal at a restaurant. This action b}' the city
made it necessary for the supervisors in the county to help make the city
ordinance operative. There were three propositions before the supervisors: a
prohibited zone about the city with midnight and Sunday closing, or a
closed belt from five to eight or ten miles wide, or to extend the closing rule
the countv throughout or at least around the incorporated cities and towns.
The problem was solved at the county election under the Wylie local option
law with four of the five supervisorial districts voting "dry." the exception
being the third district embracing in large part the city of Fresno. The in-
corporated towns all voted "dry" in turn and for a time the only places in
the county that were not "dry" were Fresno, Coalinga (which in 1917 so
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 495
voted) and Firebaugh which incorporated as a "wet" town and which derives
its town revenue from the liquor hcenses. "Boot legging" then became an
art in the county.
Twenty years ago December 15, 1908, at night broke out one of the
costliest fires" in the history of the city. It was in the rear of the Radin &
Kamp White Front department stores on I Street near Tulare. The flames
were extinguished after about two hours of work but fire smoldered for
davs. Theproperty was a wreck. The loss of about $1,'^0,000 made it a
memorable fire.
On the night of December 4, 1918, the lights were turned on for the
first time and the Kearney Boulevard electrolier system was turned over to
the city. The system extends from the Southern Pacific Railroad sub-
way at Fresno Street and along that eighty-foot thoroughfare to the western
city limits turning into the boulevard drive for half a mile to Tehama Street.
This part of the electrolier system was installed at a cost of about $20,000, an
expense borne by the property on the line of the system and more especially
benefitting the district known as Kearney Boulevard Heights. In the system
are 118 electroliers, the- unit stretching twenty-eight blocks with four and
five lights in a block for over two miles, being the longest unit in the city.
The lighting of the boulevard at night makes the drive one of the show
places for the touring autoist.
Of the twelve larger cities in the state Fresno held fifth place in Novem-
ber, 1918, for bank clearings— $14,423,195 as against $15,58r,.r.()8 f,,r the same
month one year before. All fruit growing centers show a similar decline due
to losses on account of the unseasonable rain which cut the crop totals.
Building permits were $45,946 as against $294,391 for the year before month
and in the larger cities no larger than Fresno's record for the fall of 1917.
AA'ar restrictions of course caused these conditions.
At the general election November 5, 1918, Fresno electors ratified by a
vote of 3,582 for and 1,829 against a proposed charter submitted by a board
of fifteen freeholders. It called for a combination commission-city manager
form of government, and for that reason attracted not a little public atten-
tion at home and elsewhere in the state. The proposed charter was
to supersede the one ratified by the election held on October 19, 1899,
with amendments also ratified February "13, 1905. That 1899 charter
was considered a model fundamental city guide. The dollar tax limit was
one of its features with other limitations which the times at the framing of
the document demanded. It was a charter that for years had withstood every
test and attack. It was such a hard and fast document that it lacked flexi-
bility to keep pace with the times, growth and changed conditions and de-
mands of the city and especially in not providing sufficient revenue for the
enlarged needs of the city which avails itself of the services of the county
assessor in the annual property valuation assessments. For some years re-
peated efi"ort had been made in Fresno to secure a new charter adequate to
the demands of the city and the efforts were in new charter drafts or needed
and imperative amendments to the existing charter. All these ef?orts resulted
in failures. When therefore after all these vain efforts the proposed charter
of 1918 was ratified, theoretical and experimental as it was in many of its
features, it was thought that one great advance had been made and a clear
path was discerned following which the city might avoid all the stumbling
blocks against its progress and expansion. Another disappointment was,
however, in prospect. After the ratification of the proposed charter more
electors began to read and study that charter than had done so before the
election — in other words people had voted on a charter while knowing
little or nothing of that document and had voted for it on the general prin-
ciple that, as the cry had been for years for a new charter, anything the
free-holders offered would be acceptable and fill the bill. To make a long
story short the proposed charter was attacked in many particulars, especially
496 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in a lack of definitiveness and in not conferring; necessary powers on the
commissioners to make the charter operative. Here was a pretty how-do
ye-do. The charter had yet to be approved by the legislature but the legisla-
tors elect were not for reporting it for approval because they considered it in-
operative and inadequate and so confusion was worse confounded. Confer-
ences were held with a view to decline to certify the charter to the legisla-
ture, whereupon mandamus was sued out for a test case to ascertain whether
the charter was constitutional and operative. The mandamus case proved
an abortive effort. Such legal questions had been raised as to the validity
of the charter that the city's representatives in the legislature would not as-
sume the responsibility of oiTering it for ratification because it invited costly
litigation and because the city would be thrown out in its financial arrange-
ments and these were chances that could not be taken. To make a long and
complicated story short, the opinion of a committee of the Fresno Bar Asso-
ciation— namely, L. L. Cory, H. M. Johnston and L. B. Hayhurst — was ac-
cepted that the charter was never properly ratified by the citizens, that in no
respect had the statutory requirements been complied with, for all purposes
the election was invalid and any attempt to have charter ratified by the legis-
lature would be to plunge the city into confusion. On the unanimous vote
of the city trustees the model and reform charter was relegated to limbo and
another charter is not a possibilitv before two years hence and the next
legislative session for ratification.
Since 1888 there have been ten city bond issues voted. Not all submitted
to vote carried. There were elections at which the result was indecisive,
or the issue defeated, or not carried by the two-thirds majority required.
The first bond issue was for fire apparatus and land for engine houses, bonds
issued in 1888. They expired in 1908. For a sewer system $100,000 was
issued in 1887, and in 1895 $40,000 to complete and enlarge it. In 1905 there
was an issue on a vote of October 31 of $175,000 for a sewer farm and septic
tank system 1,778 to seventy-one, besides $75,000 for a city hall 1.598 to 215.
January 20, 1902. there had been an indecisive vote to bond for $55,000; for
the system, a majority 408 to 234; for the bonding a majority (but not a two-
thirds), 364 to 216; and the direct tax defeated. 197 to 297. March 31, 1903,
the sewer $55,000 bond issue was defeated, 271 for as against 355 in the
negative. June 3, 1904, a proposed issue of $20,000 for sewer and septic tank
was also lost not having been carried by a two-thirds vote. March 19. 1910,
$60,000 was voted for playgrounds— 847 to 299. May 3, 1916, $500,000 was
voted for a storm and sanitary sewer system to meet the growth of the
city — 1,822 to 710. In l')12. $45,000 was voted to complete the municipal
auditorium, originally contemplated to be a part of the playgrounds depart-
ment but with failure to erect it by popular subscriptions. This auditorium
was one of the hobbies of the late Mayor Rowell and its non-realization ac-
cording to his preconceived plans one of the disappointments of his regime,
necessitating a $45,000 bond issue in 1912 for its completion according to the
accepted plans.
October 21, 1912, Mrs. Julia Fink-Smith made gift to the city of Block
362, excepting lots 11-16, for a playground. The Einstein Estate later made
gift to the city for the same purpose in an equipped playground. February.
1914, Fairmont Park was donated by a land company to be added to the city
park system.
All proposed amendments to the existing charter were lost at the elec-
tion held January 25, 1913. The years 1912 and 1913 were a time for special
bond and annexation elections, with varying results and incidentally an elec-
tion April 14, 1913, on the liquor ordinance which was the storm center of
an agitation by the Anti-Saloon League.
The first election for the annexation of Arlington Heights to the city
was defeated November 25, 1912 — 110 to 114, Arlington and Fresno Heights
voted July 3, 1914, to come into the city— 170 to 157, and October 15 the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 497
city voted in the territory and Dean Park — +36 to fifty-four and 428 to forty-
two, tfie latter having voted itself in September 4, 1914 — twelve to nothing.
Hazelwood Addition voted itself in August 7, 191-1 — forty-seven to twelve —
and November 5 was annexed — 316 to three.
The municipal Labor Bureau was placed in operation February 19, 1914.
The Fresno Interurban Railway Company was franchised in January,
1915. It was promoted by one John B. Rogers. It proved a failure and
never went further than to build an electric railway to near Clovis, the con-
struction bankrupting the contractors, who took stock in the enterprise in
pay. The company abandoned its city franchise in the fall of 1918 and the
railroad commissioners after a hearing upheld it in December in that action,
because it was not a paying investment though the abandoning of the fran-
chise had preceded the hearing by a month or more. The company is a
bankrupt institution.
South Fresno including the Russian-German quarter voted September
24, 191,^, by fifty-six to se\"oiitv against annexation to the city: so did North
Fresno by 146 to 208. Xintli Ir. -mi voted to annex in 1918 and a section
with a population of some r.diH) lia- come into the city.
The citizens' City Beautiful Commission was an inspiration of the year
1913-14 followed in March, 1915, by the establishment of the City Planning
Commission under the state law. The latter's work was purely advisory
but it laid out a groundwork plan before it ceased operations and was rele-
gated to innocuous desuetude in 1918 by reason of the war-time restrictions
and the disinclination of the cit}' trustees to continue it by making appropri-
ation in the budget for the continuance of its work.
The first bond issue October 29, 1887, for $12,500 for fire protection
and $25,000 for schools carried 219 to two, also $12,500 for flood preventive
measures carried by 218 to two. The $100,000 issue voted in December for
a sewer svstem had only three votes against it. Bonds sold at par in April,
1888, and' they expired 'in 1907.
The first annexation election was on June 14, 1890, in the Bartholomew
barn in Woodward's Addition. Vote was ten against two ; in the city
seventy-seven to four. The second decisive one was in October to annex
Roberts precinct and additions. It was lost — eighty-seven for and eighty-
eight against and in the city 207 for against thirty-one.
The election September 29, 1885, for the incorporation of the City of
Fresno was carried by a vote of 277 for, 185 against. The elect and candi-
dates for city officers at this election were the following named with the
returned vote, names marked with asterisk being of those that have since
died: Trustee.s— W. L. Graves* 351. J. M. Braly* 344, A. Tombs* 262, T. E.
Hughes* 250, William Faymonville* 210, Dr. Lewis Leach* 192, Dr. A. J.
Pedlar* 2O0, W. T. Riggs* and T. R. Brown* 142, W. M. Muller 178. School
Board— -J. F. Wharton* 313, Dr. C. D. Latimer* 313, W. W. Phillips 306,
George E. Church 246, M. K. Harris 228, A. Tombs* 201, S. W. Henry* 121,
D. S. Snodgrass* 150, W. H. McKenzie* 146, E. J. Griffith 195. Assessor—
W. B. Dennett* 235, K. G. Luke* 186. Marshal— C. T. Swain* 230, J. H.
Bartlett* 225. Treasurer— W. H. McKenzie* 445. Recorder— S. H. Hill*
262, Frank H. Short 190. The vote was canvassed October 5, 1885.
At the November 18, 1885, meeting of the city council citizens asked for
concrete action against the impending overflow of the southern part of
town and the Southern Pacific reservation which was on low ground, and
M. J. Donahoo was appointed to supervise the ditch and levee in the threat-
ened territory and to do this the city had to borrow $1,000, being at the start
necessarily without funds. In December the city was so church poor that
it had to borrow $100 to "pay small bills." Various flood claims were re-
jected in November as insignificant in damage and caused by seepages on
J and K Streets.
498 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
November 28, 1885, Ordinance 7 was enacted establishing- municipal
regulations in 510 sections. Evidently the town needed salutary regulationing.
The second city council chamber was located in December, 1885, in a
suite in the C. G. Hutchinson building at Mariposa and J Streets on the
present site of the bank building. It was rented for fourteen dollars a month.
The demoralizing influence of the Chinese population was attested as
early as December, 1885. It was deemed necessary to enact an ordinance
against the oriental practice of the use of opium.
Street grades were established at the council meeting December 22,
1885, for the baby incorporated town, and at this meeting town lots were
also designated by numbers by Ordinance 11.
February 1, 1886, the city took over the first engine house on J. near
Fresno, and the nucleus apparatus of the volunteer department that was
organized was a hand engine and hose, a hook and ladder, an extinguisher
and an alarm bell. The fire company was in debt seven dollars and seventy
cents. J. M. Braly, H. P. Hedges and Dr. A. J. Pedlar made the tender to
the city.
Conditions were such in the new city that in January, 1886, an ordinance
was necessary for the impounding of estray dogs. Before incorporation
Fresno city was regulated by the supervisors under the general county
ordinances.
The first public action against the Church irrigation ditch running
through the middle of town along the center line of Fresno Street was in
March 22. 1886, in a protest to the city by Judge Baly, School Superintendent
B. A. Hawkins and T. S. Duncan with a warning that all lawful remedies
would be invoked against said nuisance and prosecuted.
The juvenile population came under notice at an early period of the
newly incorporated town of Fresno. In July. 1886, ordinance was enacted
against the sale of cigarettes to youths under sixteen, and there was the
ringing of the curfew bell at eight-thirty P. M. as a warning to all under
twelve to "scoot home."
In August the school board estimated that $9,155 would be required
for the department of principal, vice and eight teachers and a nine months'
term commencing September 1, 1886. There were 680 census school chil-
dren. The city tax assessment roll totalled $1,861,202. The tax was
one dollar on the $100 apportioned as follows : General fund forty cents,
street twenty-five, school fifteen, sewer ten and river and harbor ten. A com-
mission assumed control of drainage and flood conditions, which were an an-
nual winter menace. The 1886 appointed commissioners were : Thomas E.
Hughes, W. L. Graves. M. J. Church and William Helm.
Salaries were small with the start of the incorporated Fresno city as
witnesseth the following in April, 1886: city clerk eighty dollars, marshal
ditto, policemen sixty dollars, street superintendent twenty-five dollars,
recorder the like sum and civil fees, city attorney twenty-five dollars. It is
amusing to read in the records that the city had at this time nine fire hy-
drants. There were also some fire cisterns. September 30, 1886, ofifer was
made to sell to the city a Silsby fire engine for $3,000 at seven per cent, for
three years. The ofifer was accepted for $2,750 and wait for your money.
The Silsby remained in the department as a reserve until the very last and
motorization of the apparatus in 1918. That Silsby was a fearful consumer
of coal and during her service had spent on her in repairs many times the
cost of the- original purchase price. Working at a fire the old Silsby was a
grand imitation of a Fourth of July pyrotechnic show.
Things were yet in primitive condition as late as November, 1886. when
Ordinance 36 of Municipal Regulations was expanded to 838 sections and
that year in December, J. A. Campbell asked the council that O, Mariposa and
Fresno Streets be opened to traffic back of the courthouse by bridging the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 499
gullies and water gulches and filling the holes on the line of the streets. It
was during this month that I, J and K were opened throughout their length
and Mariposa between K and H in the middle of town was guttered. January,
1887, the city having been fourteen months incorporated, the town receipts
had been $26,563.68, the expenditures $17,717.55 and the cash balance was
$8,846.13.
May 16, 1887. lots 26 and 27 in block 85 were bought by the city from
A. Tombs for $1,500 for a fire engine house site. In October the fire house
was moved to the rear of the premises preparatory to the erection of a city
hall and engine house 45x65 with contract awarded to R. G. Wood for
$7,500. With the motorization of the apparatus later that old city hall
and the lots were sold to Charles H. Riege for $40,000 and the money in-
vested in new apparatus. Systematic organization was had in, November,
1887, of the firt department with Silsby engine, hose cart and hook and lad-
der, E. R. Higgins and others of the volunteer association turning over the
apparatus on acceptance of their tender of services. In December the pur-
chase of the Silsby was completed for $2,000, and in January of the year
after an Ahrens was bought. Up to September, 1887, the apparatus was
horseless and T. E. Hughes presented to the city a fine span of horses and
J. C. Herrington the harness for them.
There was such a menacing smallpox scare in March, 1887, that 130
had themselves vaccinated and Dr. Pedlar was authorized to secure 250
more vaccine points.
It is amusing to read in these days that in the efforts at street open-
ings and extensions in 1887, the work was impeded by the brick kiln ex-
cavations that were encountered as encroachments on the lines of surveyed
streets. Also that the various early efforts to raise money by bonding the
city for public improvements were sorely trying, vexatious, exacting and
altogether fruitless because of the complex and exacting nature of the stat-
utes governing such proceedings.
Recalling the day of small beginnings there is the fact that for the
twelve months ending with 1887 the receipts of the city were $42,192.89,
the expenditures $28,543.40 and the balance on hand $13,649.40.
It was in the early months of 1888 that exhumation began of the city's
dead buried in blocks 11 and 12 bounded by Ventura, Santa Clara, B and D,
the second city public cemetery. The first was in the vicinity of M and
Stanislaus, six blocks east and three north of the then center of town. No
more than nine graves were in that pioneer cemetery. The third cemetery
was located in low ground near where the Pollasky depot and the traction
company barns are located. It was such water soaked ground that it was
said the coffins floated. The second cemetery was reached over the prairie
land via Elm Avenue. It is recalled that in March, 1917, while grading C
Street, near Ventura, the site of the second cemetery, a box was unearthed
containing human remains. So also at the building of the Lincoln school in
1902 at C and Mono half a dozen remains were unearthed in excavations for
the foundation. Such discoveries in excavations or the digging of cellars
have not been infrequent. The dead were supposed to have all been ex-
humed in 1888, when the district, now the Russian quarter, was devoted to
residences. Apparently many dead of unknown identity or whose graves had
been covered over by the shifting sands were left by those engaged in the
work of removal. The burials in the third cemetery were few. Mountain
View is the fourth city cemetery.
The police of Fresno was first uniformed in October, 1888.
The question of closing the saloons was first before the city council
in November, 1888, with a proposition to close doors at eleven at night. The
compromise was on the hour of midnight from an all night institution. An
attempt to repeal the midnight hour ordinance failed.
500 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
February 4, 1889, marks the date of the division of the city into five
wards with a councilman from each elected to sit in the board.
Much street improvement work was ushered in in February, 1889, com-
mencing with H, I, J, K and L Streets and the cross streets of Mono, Inyo,
Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Calaveras. In the laying out of the new streets,
a mistake was made in grading down the natural contour of the land and
establishing a grade to conform with which the city was left on a plain as
flat as a pancake. So also in sewering the city, one of the lowest points at
Mariposa and J Streets was chosen as a starting point, there being there
a natural depression. All sewering of the city has had to conform with that
level. This has involved the cost of thousands upon thousands upon property
owners in grading to meet that level and making drainage a problem difficult
enough with the flatness of the prairie townsite. A story was long current
that the late Fulton G. Berry was the responsible one for this street grade
and sewer level because of his Grand Central Hotel, the foundation of which
had been laid in the comer depression, and the raising of the brick struc-
ture being at the time impractical and cost prohibitive. The story was also
that Berry had elected himself a councilman for this purpose and having
gained his point his resignation followed soon after. At any rate the filling
in of the street corner of the hotel left the basement below the street level.
The feeling between Republicans and the dominant Democrats was acute
in early days. In point was the diiiference which was taken official cogni-
zance of by the council in October. 1888, at the instigation of the Demo-
crats for the removal of a festal Republican arch at Mariposa and J Streets
under which the Democrats declined to march in a political procession
scheduled for the twenty-fifth of the month. They demanded that the arch be
demolished or the Republican mottoes covered from sight. The arch re-
mained but the Republican offending legends were covered and there was
peace.
W. H. Harris was appointed engineer of the Silsby fire engine July 9,
1889. He is still in the service as an engineer, the oldest in the department
for age and for continuity of service also.
The first city defalcation came to light in July, 1889, in the office of the
marshal, when J. H. Bartlett became insane. His cash of $785 was intact
but he was owing the city $432. In July, 1890. report was made that his ac-
counts showed $1,148 to be due, $785 was in bank to his credit, $309.15 was
collected from his bondsmen, leaving fifty-four dollars and seventy-five cents
still due the city. February, 1892, offer was made to compromise a claim for
over $300 for half that sum.
The city assessment roll in August, 1889, showed a total property valu-
ation of $6,858,188— city lots $4,613,051 and improvements thereon $1,416,625.
September 8th the council considered acquiring a city water supply. There
were pending thirty-eight resolutions of intention to do as many street work
jobs and fifty-one on sewers.
It was in May, 1890. that the city council instructed that suit be brought
to abate as a nuisance the mill ditch on Fresno Street. The matter procras-
tinated with court injunctions and delayed hearings. February 29. 1892,
the city board of health of which T. R. ]\Ieux was president and ^^'. T.
Maupin the secretary and health officer demanded that because of the danger-
ous and threatening sanitary condition of the Mill Ditch it be abated, filled
up or flushed. Citizens demanded that the two months' old judgment for
the abatement of the nuisance be executed. It was March 21, 1892, with the
popular filling of the ditch at a cost of $1,684.20 for filling in and ninety-two
dollars for grading in April.
Postmaster N. W. Moodey complained in June, 1890. that the free postal
delivery service in Fresno was inadequate to the necessities of the residence
district and asked for the services of at least three more carriers.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 501
The first chemical fire engine was purchased by the city for $2,000 to
be dehvered January 10, 1891. At a meeting of the council that month the
declaration was made that the erection of a city hall would "soon be a
necessity."
The one time opposition to the methods of the Salvation Army is recalled
by the ordinance of October, 1891, forbidding street parades with drums
and music. It was passed. Later it was amended to forbid the performance
or the making of any noise on musical instrument in public places or in the
streets without permission.
It was at a meeting in October, 1891, that the council denounced as
"barren and unsightly" the Tulare, Mariposa and H Street vicinity of the
Southern Pacific reservation. In November one year later, lease was made
of a block of the reservation afterward transformed into Commercial Park
at the city's railroad entrance. In February, 1893, there was protest against
the obstruction of the view westward along Mariposa Street by the inter-
vening eating house location, suggesting its removal and it was done.
So many applications for franchises for public utilities had been filed
with no materializing in anything real that in December, 1891, Councilman
Alford fathered a resolution that was passed that whoever applied for a
franchise whether for railroad, water, gas, electric light or power, or tele-
phone, accompany the application with a $500 bond guarantee for the faithful
performance and commencement of work, if request is granted.
The year 1892 recalls that in its glory was and on the crest of the
wave rode The Triangle in absolute control and dictation of the city political
administration. The triple entente and combination was of Councilmen
Fahcy, Cole and Alford. To their credit be it said however, there had never
been a time of greater street and sewer improving, and that the town was
beginning to make appreciable showing in cityfied ways. Fahey resigned in
October,' 1891, but it was only a bluflf.
Be it remembered also among other things that the State Democrats
"conventioned" in Fresno May 10-24, 1892, and the Prohibitionists for eight
davs also that month. The Veteran Volunteer Firemen of the state came
September 8, 1899.
W'ith the Prohibitionist meeting in Fresno in May, 1892, there was the
offsetting report the month after that the Raisin City had seventy-one sa-
loons— forty-six retailers, ten hotels and restaurants selling alcoholic bever-
ages and fifteen wholesalers. Petition was filed with the council against the
granting of more liquor licenses. In February, 1893, was started the move-
ment of the Salvation Army for the installation of the drinking fountain at
the entrance of the county courthouse park, the county contributing $500,
the city $250 though it was asked for $500 also, and the army contributing
the remainder on the installation cost of the cast-iron affair.
Would you believe it? The city council in February, 1893, declared
Fresno's Chinatown a nuisance that should be abated. It never was abated,
it goes without saying.
In November, 1893, the barbers obeying some trade closing regulation
asked for a general closing of business from midnight on Saturday until the
following Monday morning. This was too suggestive of enforcing a Sunday
closing law and proposed ordinance was rejected.
In July, 1894, when an appropriation of $1,840 was asked for the free
library, the city's answer was that there would-be no tax levied for the pur-
pose for that fiscal year because of a general business depression.
The San Joaquin Electric Company entered the local field in July, 1895,
and in December the San I-Vancisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway Com-
pany asked for a franchise through Fresno City via O Street. The Santa
Fe afterward swallowed up the Valley railroad.
Ye gods and little fishes ! In August, 1897, the city marshal was ordered
to close the keno games in the burg.
502 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
It was at a council meeting in November 1897 that "Boss" Spinney made
his grand stand play and resigned as a councilman to lessen the friction be-
tween board and employes of the city. The resignation was tendered because
he knew it would not be entertained and it was not.
The pioneer Fiske opera house on I Street near Mariposa was ordered in
September, 1898, to be abated as a nuisance.
In response in February, 1899, for sites for a city hall in the district west
of I, south of Merced, east of K and north of Kern, George A. Smith made
oiTer of lots twenty-eight to thirty-two in block seventy at I and Merced
for $5,100. The offer was accepted eventually. In January, 1900, offer of a
three-floor city hall building was made for $45,000. January 3, 1905, the
building committee recommended a $50,000 city hall. In May, competitive
plans were asked for, not to exceed $75,000 in cost. Eugene R. Mathewson
was the successful competitor, receiving the $100 prize. In March, 1906. C. J.
Lindgren oft'ered to construct for $70,000, or $60,436 exclusive of the base-
ment detention jail. The alternative tender was accepted. The corner stone
was laid during the L3'on mayoralty" regime.
February, 1899, ushered in a period of considerable street paving with
bitumen rock as the material for the first time.
The newspapers were in bad odor with the administration in November,
1899, and for spite the latter conceived a business license of five dollars per
quarter on the daily publication and one of two dollars and fifty cents on
the weekly.
It was in the month of February that the Chamber of Commerce, the
Merchants' Association and the 100.000 Club started agitation for a board
of fifteen freeholders to frame a charter for the city. First meeting of free-
holders was held July 8, 1901, and the submitted charter was adopted at an
election October, 1899, 844 voting for and 107 against it. Eleven amendments
were carried by 1,179 votes February 5, 1905.
The health officer and the board of health made a sanitary investigation
of Chinatown in May, 1900, with no other result than an attempted clean up
comparable in effort to the cleaning up of an Augean stable. Russian town
was also to be sewered but has never been.
In June, 1900, the life of the juvenile was made miserable again with
the ringing of the curfew at 8 P. M. nine times.
The thanks of the community were transmitted in the summer of 1900
to Andrew Carnegie for his gift of a $30,000 library building and the city
appropriated $3,000 annually for the equipment and maintenance of the in-
stitution.
S. N. Griffith, H. A. Voorman, W. H. McKenzie, H. C. Tilden and Claus
Kroeger were given fifty-year franchise May 16, 1901, for an electric street
railway, to pay the city three per cent, on gross proceeds after five years. The
corporation obtained control of the horse car lines and electrified them. Sale
was later made to the Fresno Traction Company, the present owner.
Police and firemen received increase in pay July 15, 1901. The paid fire
department was called into existence November, 1901, and call men were added
to the force. James A. Ward was the chief that introduced many changes in
the fire service.
In July, 1901, offer of sale was made on an estimate asked for acquiring
by purchase the city water works, electric power and electric light service
by taking over the existing corporate public utility. Special election was
held in December on the propositions with following results : Power, 280
for, 285 against ; water 538 for, 557 against ; light 195 for, 406 against.
The state encampment of the Odd Fellows was held in Fresno in Octo-
ber, 1901, with the Patriarchs Militant tented in the courthouse park.
Councilman Horace Hawes (now dead) achieved undying fame with
introduction September 16, 1901, of his ordinance 394 against the trespass
of domestic fowl on the premises of a neighbor. It was passed by a vote
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 503
of four to four and a veto overruled in October. The ordinance was amended
in November to include pigeons as offending trespassers. In October the
agitation against the slot machine was conceived and resulted by a vote of
five to three in the passage of an ordinance. Pool rooms also came under the
ban. It was at this period that experiments were begun in the use of crude
oil for laying down the dust on unpaved streets, giving the appearance of
bitumen surfaced streets after having been worked solid by traffic. In June,
1902, with further experimenting oil was used in the grading of streets and
slot machine licenses were revoked.
It was May 3, 1903, that F. and Marianne Roeding deeded lots in Roed-
ing's Villa Colony for Roeding City Park and an unanimous vote of thanks
was passed to the donors by the council, after a previous administration's
turning down of the gift because it would demand a bond issue to improve
the land.
A forty-two-year franchise was granted the Santa Fe July 6, 1903,
through Fresno City. In December the Fresno Traction Company loomed
up on the horizon.
In June, 1904, ordinance was passed requiring the use of gloves in boxing
matches.
The Mountain View Cemetery Improvement Association was organized
in March, 1905, for the systematic and permanent improvement of the city's
home of the dead which had lieen so neglected as to be an eye-sore. The
effect of its work is apparent. The Arbor Club first gave attention to this
subject in the planting of trees on Belmont Avenue, the principal thorough-
fare to the cemetery.
The liquor question has been a vexatious one for city administrations.
In November, 1903, there was demand for the closing of saloons between the
hours of 1 and 5 A. M. The nightly curfew at 8 o'clock had been discontinued
for the juvenile population. Three years later in March there was an inhibi-
tion against the service of liquor in restaurants after 1 A. M. and none to be
served at banquets save by special dispensation. In April there was the move-
ment to limit the number of saloons to forty and increase the license to $1,000
beginning one year later. In April one year later the move was to increase
the license from $500 to $600 in July. In February, 1908, a proposition to re-
duce the number of saloons to thirty was tabled ; likewise the proposition to
close at midnight. In July the Saturday midnight closing was tabled, the
vote being four to four and the mayor voting for tabling. In September a
referendum on the saloon was asked of the trustees at the next genera! elec-
tion by Rev. Irving B. Bristol of the Anti-Saloon League which had inter-
jected the liquor question in the political affairs of the city and forced it on
as a public issue. In January, 1909, test case was submitted in court whether
the saloon referendum is mandatory, also advancing constitutional and other
objectionable features to the movement. That month the proposition was
advanced to rescind the liquor licenses granted to Chinese and Japanese
aliens. In February Ordinance 599 was submitted to be voted on April 12
that no liquor be dispensed save on a medical certificate, or with a twenty
cent meal or generally in quantity less than a quart to be drunk on the
premises. The measure was drastic in many features and in October the
wine grape growers and wine and brandy makers petitioned the trustees not
to pass the saloon closing ordinance. An ordinance doing away with the so-
called open saloon met with the usual board vote result — four to four. At
the November meeting Mayor Rowell vetoed Ordinance 599, which was the
result of the referendum vote by a small majority, and the motion to over-
ride the veto was lost — five voting aye, and one noe, one member not voting
and one absent. There were at this time forty-nine liquor retailers, eight
wholesalers, four Class B restaurants, twenty Class A and two club licenses.
The parental school, which afterward became a county institution, was
established and equipped by the city school board in July, 1905.
504 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
There being no proper safeguards for pedestrians or traffic on tlie streets
crossing the railroad reservation, several fatal accidents having occurred to
agitate the popular mind and the railroad taking no heed of the warnings
to provide guards, the trustees recommended in September, 1905, that Mari-
posa Street be opened to traffic across the reservation, that gates and watch-
men be placed at the five crossings serving the city from the business dis-
trict in travel to and from the west. The railroad took notice. Counter prop-
ositions resulted. One to open Mariposa with a subway and closing Fresno
and Tulare at the surface. Yet another was to open Fresno and place safety
gates with guards at all crossings, and to open Mariposa. The result was the
acceptance of the compromise of a subway at Fresno instead of a viaduct at
Tulare where gates were placed for a time and thus the traffic congestion
was in a measure solved after official jockeying.
Sensational incident of the Lyon regime was the one in September, 1905,
when the Japanese prostitution houses were closed, twenty-eight arrests were
made and the enclosing board fence that concealed the restricted district
was torn down by the police. This incident was followed by another staged
by a fool chief of police named DeVoe in apprehending the white demi
monde, making a daylight parade of the dishevelled and scantily appareled
women through principal streets of the city to the county jail. The exhibition
was as disgusting as it was typical of the character of the fellow that con-
ceived the spectacle.
The Santa Fe offered Hobart Park in January, 1906, to the city as a
"breathing spot" and it was accepted at a nominal rental.
There was in March, 1906, one of the perennial periods of excitement in
the city over a threatened inundation by reason of the excessive rains and
the flooding by the waters of Dry, Dog, Red Banks and Fancher Creeks.
The flood was prevented. Followed the perennial long discussion but no
permanent remedial measures were undertaken. There had been floods in
times gone by when the railroad reservation and other low ground of the city
was under water and the flood water was embanked until lakes were formed
and boating was the popular diversion until the rains ceased and the soil
took up the water.
In April, 1906, $1,000 was made as a first donation for the relief of San
Francisco after the earthquake and fire. Train was sent with clothing and
bed coverings and food and the refugees passing through Fresno from the
disaster were publicly fed at the depots. The town's military companies were
dispatched to the city to guard property and police the terror stricken city.
F. S. Granger came in September, 1908, with application for a franchise
for. an interurban railway. The granted franchise of December 7 was forfeited
in June, 1909, and application was made for a twenty-five-year franchise for
the Fresno, Hanford and Summit Lake Interurban Railway with Granger
as vice president, general manager and promoter. The scheme ended in a
colossal failure. Right of way was graded in part for an interurban to Sanger
but the scheme came to naught as the project could never be financed.
The city playgrounds commission decided in December. 1909, on six avail-
able and purchasable sites and in February advocated that $50,000 be raised
bv bond issue for the purchase of them. The bond election for $60,000 was
held March 19, 1910, and was carried— 847 to 299.
On the same day that the playgrounds election was held in I'llO, Engle-
wood Addition, Bloomington Park Tract and Buena Vista Addition voted
to annex to the city — ninety-one to sixty-two — and the city voted them in
— 443 to twenty-eight.
The rock pile was revived in the courthouse park in March, 1911, for the
special benefit of the I. \V. W.'s, whose presence had then begun to be felt
in the city. When these Bolshevikis had filled the jail and hung up the
business of the police court with demands for jury trials for disturbances of
the peace with addresses from soapbox rostrums, they mutinied. They were
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 505
brought to terms with half drowning in cells with fire hose under steam fire-
engine pressure. They barricaded themselves behind mattresses in their cells
until they cried out "Kamerad" in surrender. The strange thing in connec-
tion with this memorable water bombardment was that neither Mayor Rowell,
nor Sheriff Chittenden, nor Fire Chief AVard knew who had given the orders
for the employment of the fire engine and hose and engine crews for the
flooding of the jail.
In May, 1911, there was a scare over the rabies. An ordinance to muzzle
dogs was laid on the table by the trustees. In July it was adopted on the
recommendation of the board of health.
In July, 1911, endorsement was given the project for the opening to
steamboat traffic and navigation of the San Joaquin to Herndon. A steamboat
came up as far as the drawbridge at Firebaugh to demonslrate the naviga-
bility of the stream. There was popular agitation and the government was
petitioned to make survey of the river in anticipation of dredging the river.
After the survey the engineers reported against the project on the ground
that the commerce in sight from the country watered b}' the river would not
warrant the expenditure of the cost to make the stream a navigable water-
way at all times of the year. .And the San Joaquin still rolls on to the ocean
and Fresno swallowed the deep disappointment of not having been made an
inland port.
Freeholders were again selected January 16, 1912, and the amendments
to the charter submitted to a vote July 26, were rejected — 660 to 1.064. June
27, $45,000 was voted for the completion of the convention hall of the play-
grounds, officially named Rowell Auditorium but popularly called and known
as the Auditorium.
After an agitation in protest permission was granted in April, 1912, to
the Fresno Traction Company to continue its tracks on a branch through
Roeding Park to the cemetery beyond on the west and across Belmont
Avenue.
Four years after the first plantings in Roeding Park, it was published
to the world that "the landscape effects are an example of what can be accom-
plished within a short time when public moneys are expended by men whose
hearts are in their work and who are not bound in any way by political affil-
iations."
The first platted maps of Fresno were recorded December 12, 1873, and
June 8, 1876, of 150 and 149 blocks respectively. Came then Hughes and
White's supplemental of June 22, 1882, covering the territory south between
K and V and between Monterey and Mono Streets four blocks south of Mari-
posa. Then February 15, 1884, S. N. Griffith's ten-acre addition tw.) Mocks
north of Voorman and his Villa Addition of four blocks ^larcli 22. 1884.
Thomas E. Hughes recorded a second supplemental map of June 9, 1884,
covering the plains between San Diego and IMono, A and G. Followed an-
other, a northern supplemental of June 19, 1884, between Calaveras and
.Sutter and A to G. Griffith's second addition of November 5, 1884, was of
three blocks and his Villa addition of twenty-six lots on Glenn Avenue of
November 7, 1884. Then came the Villa Homestead of one block of February
17, 1885. at Diana and Effie. No. 11 was Park Addition of thirty-one acres
August 5, 1885. Up to November 25, 1887. a record had been made of forty-
two additions and territorial enlargements. \\'oodward's addition of fifteen
blocks was platted ]\Iarch, 1887. It was the first addition to be annexed to
the cit}- and the one to have been also the most neglected in all that time in
improvements.
The three annexation elections that brought into the city the largest
slices of territory were these: Belmont Addition, IMarch 26, 1910, outside
territory 182 to 124. inside 443 to twentv-eight ; Arlington Heights, Julv 3,
1914, 170 to 157, and North Fresno, March 18, 1918, 527 to 152.
506 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The city free library became a part of the county library system with
the consent of the city government June 4, 1917.
Lieut. W. H. Stevens arrived at March Field, Riverside, Cal., December
27, 1918, from Fresno on the last leg of a flight from Mather Field, near
Sacramento, completed in six hours, five minutes actual flying time. This
was stated to be the record between the fields. The Fresno-Riverside leg
was covered in three hours and five minutes. On the twenty-seventh two
parties of aviators were guests of Fresno, one from the north, the other
from the south. The northern party was of three military aviators who
had started from San Francisco to San Diego on the return journey of a
mapping trip for a proposed aerial mail service : the other was making for
Sacramento on a similar duty. The San Francisco-Fresno flight was made
without stop and was accomplished in two hours and twenty-eight minutes.
The other party of three in one machine flying to the state capital made the
flight from Los Angeles in two hours and fifty-five minutes. On Christmas
Day a flight of three army airplanes from San Diego to San Francisco was
completed in ten hours and fifteen minutes actual flying time. The flight
which had commenced on Friday the 20th was made in the following laps:
San Dieeo to Los Angeles 2:0.^: Los Angeles to Mojave 2:20; Mojave to
Bakersfield 1 :20 ; Bakersfield to Fresno 1 :36 ; Fresno to Stockton 1 :50; Stock-
ton to San Francisco 1:10. The Los Angeles-Fresno flight was made in two
hours fifty-five minutes. From San Francisco to Los Angeles is practically
half the extreme length of the longest straight line that can be drawn in
California. The flying time for these machines, by no means the fastest
possible, would for the extreme range be eleven hours. The round trip flight
of the three military planes between San Diego and San Francisco was com-
pleted December 29 at the first named city. The actual flying time for the
600 miles of the return was seven hours and twenty-eight minutes. The time
between points going south : San Francisco to Fresno, 2 :38 ; Fresno to
Bakersfield, 1:40; Bakersfield to Venice, 1:45. and Venice to San Diego,
2 :05.
There was a recurrence during the second week in December of the
Spanish influenza and for the period from the seventeenth to and including
the twenty-seventh 915 cases were reported, the daily range during the
period being from sixty-seven to 109. At the close of this period the belief
was that there were 1,600 cases in the city as many as were ailing at the
height of the first visitation. This estimated number probably did not repre-
sent the total as the isolation was not so complete, the belief being that
only one in six was properly isolated so that the epidemic would have to run
out its course. At one time during the previous outbreak seventy-six cases
were isolated at the county hospital, seventy-four at the Christian Church
emergency hospital, thirty at the Day Nursery hospital and twenty-six at
the Parlor Lecture Club hospital, whereas on the twenty-eighth there were
only eighty-one isolated at the Red Cross hospital, and one-third of these
probably from the city. At the county hospital there were fifty-five mixed
city and county patients. Physicians were remiss in reporting cases and
the figures are therefore not absolutelv correct. After December 1, marking
the beginning of the flare up, the deaths to the twenty-seventh were forty-
eight, and for the two months of the former epidemic, 125. With the return
of the epidemic, the wearing of masks was again insisted upon, and the
ordinance was amended to make no minimum punishment for infraction,
whereas before it was twenty dollars. The result was that before infractors
pleading guilty had their cases continued and paid no fine; under the
amended ordinance the fine imposed was five dollars or imprisonment at the
rate of a dollar a day. The board of health recommended a cessation of all
business save drug stores and restaurants after seven o'clock in the evening
and with no public gatherings or assemblies. To this latter restriction the
trustees did not give formal recognition in an ordinance, though by resolu-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 507
tion endorsing the recommendation. The result was in effect to enforce
onlv the wearing of the masks. To save patients who were in dangerous
state appeal was made for volunteers to give up their blood for transfusion
and the appeal was generously responded to. The restrictions during the
first epidemic continued for two months. With the closing of the year
there was serious disagreement between the city trustees and the board of
health as to the restrictions to be enforced to wipe out the second epidemic,
notably in the recommendation to close the city absolutely to business and
enforce quarantine. The health board was so incensed over the apparent
lack of cooperation that the members tendered their resignations as a body.
The county also passed ordinance with restrictions affecting the county at
large outside of the incorporated towns, especially in the matter of the
quarantine of all infected households.
The city building record for the year 1918 shows a total investment of
$1,498,850, a decrease of $284,803 on 'the year before, traceable to the war
conditions and the non-construction restrictions. The decrease was largely
in new construction work. When non essential construction work was halted
in September the total for the year was $1,436,455, an increase of $76,362
over 1917 at the same time. For the year the alteration and repair work
total was $323,368, an increase of $70,365 over the year before.
Bank clearings for 1918 total $127,739,180.12 as against $108,314,637.96
for the year before, the lowest monthly in 1918 in June and the total $7,601,-
976.03 and the top notch in November' with $14,423,195.21. It was a splendid
year of business, despite the setback of the late rain and the influenza. They
did not affect the Liberty loans nor all the other war work contributions.
A product of Fresno City is Frank Chance, known to his intimates as
"Husky," and in his day regarded as one of the greatest of baseball players,
whether as an exponent of the game as first-baseman, or as the manager of
the Chicago Nationals who won the pennant for them three times, or whether
as manager of the New York Yanks. It was the boast that in his day on
the diamond Fresno never had a more potent advertising agency. The
baseball fans raved over him as "Peerless Frank."
Fresno received national recognition at the hands of Maj.-Gen. Charles
T. Mencher, as director of the air service, in selecting it in the first batch
as one of the thirty-two cities in the United States where municipal flying
fields would be established by the post office department and where the air
service cross-country routes required intermediate aerial mail stations.
On June 12, 1919, was held an election in the city to vote a bond issue
of $2,000,000 to provide enlarged school facilities. Of this sum $880,000 was
alloted for the improvement of the elementary schools and $1,120,000 for the
improvement of the high schools, including in this sum $750,000 for a new
high school, $50,000 for a site, $95,000 for equipment, $200,000 for inter-
mediate schools, and $25,000 for the old high schools, making of the latter
four junior high schools. A citizens' committee endorsing the bond issue
advanced the interesting campaign argument that the city had doubled
population since 1910: the increase in the number of school children had
kept pace with the population, but the school facilities had fallen short
of the requirements demanded by the great enrolment increase. The in-
crease in pupils since 1908 was set forth in the following figures : 1908, 4,977 ;
1909, 6,256; 1910, 5,216: 1911, 5,538; 1912, 5.926: 1913, 7,203: 1914, 8.312;
1915, 8,540; 1916, 8,764; 1917, 8,299; 1918, 10,439. The result of the election
was to carry the bonds, and, as on the occasion some years before at the
special election to vote bonds to acquire sites for the city playgrounds, a
parade with banners was held the day before and thousands of school
children were marshaled to influence public opinion. The vote was: For
High School Bonds, for, 2,022; against, 252. For Elementary Schools, for,
2,082 ; against, 202. The new high school will be on a thirty-acre site on
the Sweet Tract.
508 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
As a part of its 1919 fall program of service improvement and develop-
ment, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company announced the ex-
penditure of between $50,000 and $60,000 in an extension of its cables in
northern and eastern Fresno. The company made the more interesting
announcement that, as the result of its house-to-house canvass, the city
proper was shown to have a population of 55,000. If all the territory im-
mediately adjacent to the corporate limits were added in this -canvass, the
population would be approximately 60,000.
Report was made June 2, 1919, of the sale, by A. B. Clark and O. L.
Everts, to Charles R. Puckhaber, of the 23^4x150 lot and brick building on
J Street, between Mariposa and Fresno, for $57,000. As representing the
highest paid price of $2,000 a front foot for a city business property, the
deal was significant. The sold property was the site of the Olney & Johnson
shoe store, the buyer owning the adjacent property of like size.
A city election is to be held about September 9, to vote a special tax
levy to carry the citv over the fiscal vear 1919-20. The monev needed is
for the following: Street Lighting Fund, $75,000; Budget Increases. $39,000;
Liquor License Revenue Loss, $75,000; Salary Increases, $36,000; Total,
$225,000. There are five tax rates in the City of Fresno. The tax rate for the
coming fiscal year will be an increase of $1.50 to $2.08, including the special
levy. This will be the rate in the original territory of the city; the other
rates cover later territorial additions which are not taxable for general
bond issues voted before they became a part of the city. The charter limits
the rate to $1 on the $100 for general administrative purposes. Manifestly
that rate could not raise the above special demands of the times.
The movement was started at a Commercial Club gathering, June 6,
1919, on the suggestion of Charles L. McLane of the Fresno Normal, that
the new Fresno high school be erected as a memorial in honor of the Fresno
boys who went to war. One detail suggested was to have inscribed on the
walls of the auditorium of the building the name of every Fresno soldier,
sailor or marine, in the service of his country during the war in Europe.
The newly organized Jewish congregation of the Temple Israel in
this city celebrated, at its then meeting-place in the auditorium of the Wood-
men of the World, on June 3, 1919, the festival of Schoubuth. It was the
first observance in Fresno. The service was conducted by Rabbi Julius
Leibert, formerly of South Bend, Ind. At this service was presented the
sacred scroll known as Torah, by S. Hartman, a pioneer of Merced, who
had owned the scroll for thirty years, having received it from his father
who had sent it from Jerusalem. This Torah had been in the Hartman
family for sixty years. These sacred scrolls are the work of the rabbinical
schools in Palestine.
The announcement was made, June 4, 1919, that the wrecking of the
buildings at the corner of J and Fresno Streets would begin in September, to
clear the site for a 12-story, reenforced terra-cotta, steel-frame building to
be the tallest between San Francisco and Los Angeles, 153 feet from the
sidewalk to the cornice. It will be erected for Andrew Mattei, the wine-
maker, will cost approximately $400,000, and will be completed for oc-
cupancy, September 15, 1920. Ice-cold water in every room will be a feature.
The building ground-area will be 150x50, the latter on J Street, with en-
trance. It wiil contain 225 offices, have its own electric and water-plant,
and the vestibule and stair hall will be elaborately finished in Italian marble.
The grape bunches to be used in ornamentation are an emblem of the owner
in his business as a winemaker. The structure will also have a 10-foot base-
ment -covering the ground area. It will be a splendid edifice and the third
sky-scraper in Fresno.
A notable sale reported early in July, 1919, was that of the pioneer
southwest corner at I and Mariposa, 125x50, for approximately $1,200 a
front foot. The corner was popularly known as "Degen's Corner," from the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 509
fact that ^^'^lliam Degen conducted a saloon there for some eighteen years
after the erection of this, one of the first two-story brick buildings in the
city. Sale was by the Jerry Ryan Estate to O. J- Woodward, Thomas E.
Risley, and A. V. Lisenby. The five-year leases will prevent building for
several years to come.
It was found necessary to hold a second special city election, in August,
1919. to vote $200,000 bonds for the sewering project of North Fresno (an-
nexed territory to the city). All proceedings in connection with the sale
of bonds to a Sacramento bank were found to be invalid. The initiating
resolution of intention was found to be defective, in that it did not declare
when it should become effective. The project was contemplated under a
state improvement act of 1915 and nothing being contained in the city charter
on the subject, it became a legal question whether, for such an improvement,
a special assessment district can be formed, within the city, of territory less
than the city itself in area. In any event, and even after another special
election to ratify and legalize the issue of the bonds, the legal question will
have to be litigated in an agreed case.
Following organization of the teachers in the Fresno High School as a
local union of the American Federation of Teachers, those of the elementarv
and grammar grades of the city schools voted on the night of April 23, 1919,
to form a second local of the federation which is affiliated with the American
Federation of Labor. The high school local also affiliated with the Fresno
labor cnimcil and the other was expected to do likewise. Eighty-four signed
the articles of federation and eighty the application for a charter. The articles
read that: "^Members shall co-operate in securing and maintaining efficiency
along all lines in the school department, co-operate in all the movements
looking toward better working conditions, and co-operate loyally in sectiring
and maintaining all the rights and benefits to which teachers are entitled."
In passing, it might be mentioned that the Ministerial Union of clergvmen
was upon a time, and probably is yet, affiliated after a fashion with the labor
council and entitled to have representatives at its sessions.
Notable city sale was that reported April 28. 1919. by Frank H. Short
of "The Palms," four lots 150 feet on Calaveras and 100 on J. to John Ride-
garay for $32,000. It was the original location of the Burnett Sanitarium.
There was talk of the purchaser erecting a $200,000, seventy-apartment, six-
story house with roof garden, open court entrance on Calaveras and another
on ]. Equally notable sale was the one of a few weeks before of the Gen.
M. W. Muller four lots at Tuolumne and Van Ness for $42,000. The original
Muller cottage was in 1885 one of the most attractive Fresno City homes
and two blocks from the courthouse was considered as being in the suburbs.
The $200,000 bond issue for the sewering of the newly annexed North
Fresno territory was carried at the election March 25, 1919, bv a vote of 485 to
three. The negatives, it was said, represented the father, wife and son in one
household. Had the bonds not carried it was understood that the state
board of health would have intervened and compelled construction of sewer
as a sanitary necessity. Sale of bonds and award of contract for a portion
of the sewer were followed by rescinding of all proceedings on account of
various legal defects. The proceedings had to be begun anew and another
election to vote the bonds was to have been held during the latter part of
the month of August 1919.
The project to erect the first synagogue in the county so far advanced
that a meeting of the Jewish population was had on the night of April 3, 1919,
to choose a site and take steps to raise $30,000 to buy two lots and erect the
building. The committee in charge of the project was Harry Coffee, L. I.
Diamond, L. M. Mendelsohn, J. H. Mittenthal, and Saul Samuels. Jewish
worship has been had at long intervals and on the great holidavs by visiting
or invited rabbis and the members of the faith had come to the belief that
the time was at hand for a synagogue not only as a place for worship but
510 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
also as a center of Jewish activities. The nearest synagogues are at Stock-
ton and Sacramento. The plan involves the calling of a rabbi from the Cin-
cinnati rabbinical college to be permanently located.
Recording of amended articles of incorporation by the Sperry Flour
Company showing an increase of the capital stock from $4,200,000 to $6,000,-
000 in 60,000 shares in accordance with a vote of the directorate on March
31, 1919, contemplated, it was said, an extension of the flour mill holdings
and purchase of warehouses, storage plants and steamers for ocean and river
transportation, and also the expenditure of $400,000 in construction of new
mill, grain elevator and warehouse in Fresno City. The latter will be erected
on a triangular property acquired from the Southern Pacific on its right of
way on San Diego Street with the larger frontage on the extension of Van
Ness Avenue through Woodward's Addition. The grain elevator is already
constructed, receiving the grain direct from the cars, but it is trucked to the
mill uptown. The pioneer mill erected thirty or more years ago and located
at Fresno and N Streets will be disposed of when the new plant is in exist-
ence. However great the increase in the orchard and vineyard plantings, it
is figured that Fresno will always be the main distributing point for the
valley and that there will always be such an acreage in grain as to warrant
location here of one large flouring mill. This is cited as another strong
piece of evidence of the confidence that capitalists have in this city as the
commercial center of the valley and of Central California.
At a meeting and banquet of ISO men of St. Paul's M. E. Church South
held on the evening of April 28, 1919, it was voted to construct a greater
church at a cost of $75,000 to $100,000 and a building fund was started with
subscriptions then and there obtained amounting to $6,500. The canvass
was conducted by Bishop H. M. Du Bose, whose diocese covers the territory
beginning at the eastern boundary of Montana and includes the states of
Idaho, \^'ashington, Oregon, California, Arizona and New Mexico. St. Paul's
was the first church building erected in Fresno, and it is the oldest congre-
gation. '\\'hether its highly valuable property with the adjoining parsonage
at Fresno and L Streets, opposite the courthouse square of four blocks, shall
be sold for S75.000 and this used as a fund to locate and build elsewhere or
whether the present brick building shall be razed and the larger house of
worship be erected on the oldest church site in the citv. has yet to be de-
termined. The sense was in favor of a sale and to add $25,000 to the realized
sale price to construct elsewhere the finest church building in Fresno, de-
sirable sites being purchasable not far away at prices ranging from $18,000
to $25,000, though there is a division of opinion as between a site in a thickly
settled residence district and the down-town location. The plan according
to the bishop is to construct here a large central church with at least two
secondary churches to form a link in a chain extending from Seattle to New
Mexico in the diocese. The other churches that were located in close prox-
imity to the courthouse square have been the Episcopal, still at Fresno and N
and the second oldest, the Roman Catholic that was at Fresno and M and
the Cumberland Presbyterian that was at Tulare and N Streets.
That Fresno City is a labor center is evidenced by the figures of the
State Public Employment Bureau. For the fiscal year that ended March
1, 1919, the Fresno bureau filled 9,315 positions and ranked fourth in the state.
San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento made greater returns. Since the
opening of the bureau August 23, 1917, and to the 1st of ]\Iarch, 1919. 22,100
men and women were placed in positions in Fresno and surrounding country.
The bureau sounded the death knell of the old-time "intelligence offices,"
so-called.
Announcement was made at a meeting on the night of April 22, 1919,
of the consummation of plans in a merger of all the creameries in the valley
from Bakersfield on the south to Merced on the north as the largest co-
operative undertaking in California in the San Joaquin Valley I\Tilk Producers'
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 511
Association with headquarters in Fresno. The county contributed as merg-
ing units the Danish Creamery of Fresno, the Riverda'le Co-operative Cream-
ery of Riverdale and the Caruthers Cheese Factory of Caruthers. The stated
combined output of the merged creameries is $15,000,000 annually and the
capital in the transaction approximately $1,000,000 in equipment and buil'd-
ings. It is proposed to erect at Tulare City a plant for the manufacture of
all by-products of milk.
The city board of education announced about the middle of the month of
May, 1919, an approximate estimate of $1,500,000 to be voted on as a bond
issue June 10 to be expended in the construction of a new high school build-
ing and in the remodeling and building of the elementary and other schools.
The high school would alone cost $750,000. In this connection it was stated
that on the basis of the growth of the high school in six years from 700 to
1703 pupils the bond issue would not alone be helpful to the present but to the
future. The city schools were expanding rapidly and if the increase was
maintained in the high the number of pupils in another half dozen years
would be 3,750.
Supplementing the five years' antecedent gift to the city by her sister,
the late Mrs. Julia A. Fink-Smith, Mrs. Augusta P. Fink-\Miite, wife of Tru-
man C. White, the pioneer, presented to the City Playgrounds Commission,
through her attorney, at a meeting held June 5, 1919, a deed for City Block
363, excepting two lots not owned by her, for a site for another municipal
playground for children. The block is separated from the sister's donated
block (362) only by the width of a street. The condition of the gift was that
the blocks be made one continuous playground, with closing of alley and
street, and that they be improved for the purposes of the gift, be fenced in,
and that on the east side there be placed above the gateway a sign, "Fink-
Smith Annex." The special request was made that a municipal swimming
pool be constructed on Block 363 as soon as the finances of the city war-
ranted.
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
Brigadier General Jacob H. Smith, U. S. A. (obit at San Diego, Cal.,
March 1, 1918), was a retired veteran of the Civil War, participated in Indian
campaigns and saw service in the Spanish ^Var in the Philippines. Fresno
Camp No. 6 of the Spanish War Veterans is named for him, as many of
the members served under him. In the service, he was known under the
nickname of "Hell Roaring Jake."
Mrs. Mary E. Lawson, who died December 22. 1917, came with husband,
B. F. Lawson, to Fresno from Ohio in 1884, locating at the Lomasco vine-
yard. She was for a decade matron at the county almshouse. •
James E. Williams, who died at San Luis Obispo November 7, 1917,
was with his father, Samuel H., one of the first undertakers in this city,
located on H Street near where the Collins Hotel stands now. He was also
engineer of one of the first trains that ran out of this city.
Pulaski C. Eastin who died near Merced November 2, 1917, was
prominent as a rancher and stockman in Madera, Cal., where he had lived
since his seventh year, born at Knight's Ferry, Cal., July. 1854, and the
son of J. T. Eastin, who came as a pioneer to this section in 1850 from Ken-
tucky. The latter outlived him.
C. C. Merriam was sixty-eight years of age at time of death, December
14, 1917. He was a member of the bar and in the days before the charter
acted as the city attorney of Fresno.
William F. Cofifman. who died at the home of a daughter at Madera in
the year 1898, was a state pioneer of 1849, and the man that built the first
wagon road into the Yosemite Valley.
Mrs. Hannah Hammond (obit Fresno, March 3, 1918) was a pioneer of
Kings, coming across the plains in 1863 and later to this county.
George F. Clark (obit March 13, 1918) was one of the oldest veterinari-
ans in the valley, twenty-three years a city resident and at death lacked a
few months of being eighty-nine years of age. He served in the Confederate
army.
The death, March 5, 1918, at Dinuba of Robert F. Dunn recalls the
haberdashery firm of Chisholm & Jones, once located at Mariposa and J,
with which he was connected. He was one of the pioneers of the Dinuba
region in the transformation of it from grain fields to orange orchards and
vineyards. For eight years and up to 1916 he was the Dinuba manager of
the Griffin-Skelley Packing Company.
E. L. Austin who died in Oakland January 31, 1918. was a Fresno resi-
dent from 1891 to 1911 when he moved on account of his health. Fie was a
grocer on Tulare Street and in 1895 was elected a city trustee for one term,
when a Republican was a rarity.
Ben Williams, who passed away IMay 29, 1918, was an old resident and
a local character in his day. He was one of the drivers of the early day one-
horse car line on Tulare Street with town terminus at Mariposa and J. Every
man, woman, child knew him. The pioneer street car lines were wonderful
institutions — jokes in comparison with the present day electric line and its
branches. There were three pioneer lines : one from down town out Black-
stone Avenue to the car barns at White Avenue and Efifie Street : one from
Mariposa, up Mariposa along K to Tulare and out to the Pollasky depot,
and the third starting from the Hughes Hotel along I to Ventura Avenue to
the fair grounds. The lines ran "bob tailed" little cars, discarded from the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 513
San Francisco line to ^^'oodwarc^s Gardens, the g^reat Sunday public resort.
Mrs. Sallie Cole Sample, who died December 27, 1917, at the a^^e of
sixty-three, was a resident of the county since childhood and lived for years
at Academy. She was the wife of David C. Sample, well known cattleman,
and the mother of eleven children, ten of whom survived her, as did her
mother. Mrs. W. T. Cole of Clovis. All the children were at the bedside
when slic died. She was a native born of Solano County. Eia^ht sisters also
survived her. Pall-bearers at the funeral were: M. K. Harris. E. E. Man-
heim, George Cosgrave, Dr. J- C. Cooper, Dr. Geo. H. Bland and E. D.
Edwards.
The oldest pioneer resident of Fresno City and the one credited with
the longest continuous residence is Russell H. Fleming. His name will be
found frequently mentioned in this history. Fie was a resident of the county
as a stage driver long before Fresno City was thought of, and after its found-
ing was its first postmaster. In his day he was an important personage.
Henry W. Clinch died at the age of sixty-eight in Fresno, November
13, 1917. Thirty years a resident, he was until about twenty years ago con-
nected with the Expositor newspaper in the mechanical department and
when it suspended founded the Franklin Printing Company.
William H. Kerr died at Loma Linda, Cal., February 26, 1918, whither
he had gone for medical treatment. He was a pioneer of Alcalde of eighteen
years before, several years later was elected justice of the peace and moved
to the new Coalinga, serving until January, 1918, when he resigned to accept
the postmastership. Fie was active in politics, a kindly rugged man of the
old western type and numbered friends by the thousands.
A California pioneer of 18.'i2 was Mrs. Hannah L. Lonsdale, who at
the age of seventy-nine years died in Fresno, a widow, June 7, 1918. She
crossed the continent in wagon, settled in flumboldt Countv, went through
the early Indian trouble'^ in that northern county, and was a school teacher
for years. .A sister is ^Irs. W. F. Leavitt. school teacher, and wife of the
last fire chief of the Fresno city volunteer fire department.
First white male child born January, 1841, in Kent County, Mich., with
Indians as his playmates at Grand Rapids was Benjamin F. Sliter, who died
in Fresno City at the age of seventy-seven years June 8, 1918. He was a
Michigan pioneer, taught school, was a lawyer but on account of failing
eyesight never practiced in California, came to this state in 1903 and to
Fresno after residing in three other cities.
James Madison, who was manager of the California Raisin Association,
has returned to his former haunts on California Street in San Francisco and
is a regular again in maritime circles, enticed by the seductive influence of
the salt water and the fog of the bay. While today one of the big men on
shipping row with his brokerage and shipping interests, time was when
his career was a much more humble one in the 80's, associated with Joseph
H. Redmond in the tugboat business and "Jim," as he was hailed then, very
much on deck on "steamer days" collecting tug hire bills. He became after-
ward a partner in the shipping firm of Lorenz Ford and was associated in
the successful salvage of the wreckage of the several men of warships
stranded at Apia harbor in the memorable hurricane of March 16, 1889,
which providential interference stayed then .America's punishment of Prussia
for an insult to the American flag. Later he Ijought an ancient Norwegian
bark, renamed her the Margaret and after placing her under American regis-
ter sailed her the seven seas over, added to the Madison shekels which
were invested in Fresno and paved the way to enter the raisin business.
Jasper N. ("Uncle Jess") Musick, who died in June, 1918, was probably
in membership the oldest Odd Fellow in the county.
George E. Andrews, aged a little over eighteen, and son of Public Ad-
ministrator G. R. Andrews, was killed February 20, 1918. His slayer received
in Alay the court sentence of one year's imprisonment in the penitentiary.
514 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The slayer was Giuseppe Imperatrice. The slain youth was not forty-eight
hours old, when in a spirit of fun application was made in his behalf for
membership in Manzanita Camp No. 160 of the Woodmen of the World, of
which his father was then and for years after the clerk. The application was
duly recommended and favorably voted on and safely stored away in safe by
the proud parent. On the eighteenth anniversary of his birthday, June 19,
1917, which was also camp meeting night, the lad was initiated on that
resurrected membership application.
Mrs. J. H. Minard, who died June 4, 1918, was the widow of a former
elder of the Christian Church and the mother of twelve children. The Min-
ards came to California in 1877, locating at Butte City and removing to
Fresno in 1888.
Miss Boletta Jorgensen (obit Estrella Vineyard. April, 1918) was a
daughter of Chris Jorgensen, chairman of the supervisors, and sister of
]\Iiss Fannie Jorgensen, deputy county treasurer. She had been a teacher
in the Madison and Wolters districts.
June 6, 1918, died at Selma, Catherine L. Holmes, at the age of seventy-
four, a resident for twenty-seven years, and wife of George W. Holmes, for
many years postmaster of Selma. Three sisters and two brothers, seven sons
and daughters, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren survived
her.
Mrs. Sarah M. Simpson, who died at Exeter in May, 1918, at the age
of seventy-seven, was one of the earliest pioneers of the Academy region.
She was of the Baley family.
Scott McKay, the county surveyor who died in May. 1918, was noted
for the accuracy of his work. It is he, who is responsible for the easv grade
(averaging six per cent.) mountain scenic roads in the county. A monument
to his road building capacities is the Sand Creek road. He ran in late years
the boundary line surveys between Fresno and Kings and Tulare Counties
and left unfinished the Coast Range crest line survey with Merced.
John F. Boling, who at the age of sixty-two died May 11, 1918, at Lane's
Bridge where he located in 1877, was the eldest son of the John Boling, a
sherifi" of ]\Iariposa of the late 50's and the man who commanded a com-
pany of Major Savage's Mariposa battalion that pursued the renegade Yo-
semite Indians into the famous valley, one of the first parties of whites to
enter the great gorge. John F.'s aged mother still lives in San Francisco.
He has been given the distinction of having been the first white born, or
one of the first, at old Hornitas in Mariposa.
The death at the home of his son, Luther E. ^^'eldon, city trustee of
Clovis, of A. J. Weldon in May, 1918, was the first in the family in forty
years. The decedent was seventy-nine years of age, for nearly thirty years
a resident of the locality and prominent as a grain farmer in that section.
He entered the Confederate army from Texas, served four years and was
taken a prisoner. In the family are eight children and nineteen grand
children.
John D. Hickman, who died in Fresno City in IMay, 1918, founded
shortly after arrival from Illinois the national bank at Fowler, retiring after
about five years to look after his Fresno and Madera ranching. He came
from Monmouth, where he was in business with his brother J. R. Hickman,
former Fresno County treasurer. He financed here the colony named for the
Illinois town, a prosperous colony of a superior class of colored people.
The decedent was seventy years of age at death.
William H. Story, a Tennesseean who died in May, 1908, crossed the
plains to California late in '49, mined in Plumas and then in Nevada where
he lived sixteen years, coming to Fresno in 1883, engaging in the dairy
business and made his home in the suburbs of this city on Echo Avenue,
when that locality was considered to be out in the wilderness, as it were.
In religious belief he was a Spiritualist.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 515
Mark I. Nidever ((obit January 12, 1918) was seventy-five years of
age and could relate a world of experiences as a California pioneer of sixty-
four years ago and of Fresno of thirty-two years. He was Arkansas born.
Cornelius Curtin (obit January 23, 1918, at sixty-seven) was one of
the first settlers in 1877 of Madera when it was part of Fresno and long
before dream of separation. His surviving son, County Clerk William R.
Curtin, was his only child. Curtin was a man of property and a familiar
figure in the little northern town. He died in Fresno.
At the age of eighty years H. G. De Witt died. (January 19, 1918) at
Berkeley, Cal, at the family home. The wife's death preceded his by about
four years and shortly after the couple had celebrated its golden wedding
anniversary. Dr. De Witt, as he was known, had a busy career. He was a
Baptist minister in early life and for thirty-two years in evangelistic work
holding meetings in the southern states during the Civil War and also in the
Mormon settlements when his doctrines were not popular with that sect.
Twenty years ago he resigned the charge of the First Baptist Church of
this city and as the representative of the Bank of Sacramento's large hold-
ings in the Clovis district took up the work of selling them and placing
settlers, acquiring himself considerable property which is yet in the family
or under sale contracts and also owning property in Oakland and Berkeley.
His name is a frequent one in the records of the county recorder and the
clerk in transfers of land or suits to enforce contracts or foreclose.
William E. Gilmour, who died in Oakland at the age of about seventy-
five, will be recalled as a former owner of valuable city property, notably
the one acquired on Mariposa Street by the Union National Bank, which it
remodeled in an enlargement of the premises. A foster daughter is Mrs.
Samuel D. Hines, wife of a lawyer of Fresno who made criminal law a
specialty and was counsel in some of the most celebrated cases in the county.
With the death in November, 1917, of Osmer Abbott passed away a
man prominent in educational circles. He had taught in Hawaii before
coming to Fresno in 1899, was principal of the Fresno high school, for eleven
years principal of the Easton school, later for six years of the Coalinga school
and organized the town's public library, and at the time of his death had
been for three years the supervising principal of the schools at Hanford in
Kings County. He was for two terms before that a member of the Fresno
County board of education.
Isaac A. Melvin, eighty-one years of age at death in November, 1917,
was a resident for nearly forty years and on coming here from Pennsylvania
was in the sheep business on a large scale. The warehouse on the Santa Fe
is named for him. A son-in-law is the chairman of the city planning com-
mission, Miles O. Humphreys.
Henry M. Rice (obit at Madera at eighty-four) was the father-in-law
of former Sheriff W. B. Thurman of Madera and a man that experienced
all the vicissitudes of the early comer, in his life making and losing several
competencies. Bostonian born, he was named for an uncle governor of
Minnesota; came to California in 1852 via the isthmus route, followed the
cattle and mining business for a decade in this state ; moved to Oregon as
one of the pioneer settlers in Grant County; dabbled in politics and was a
supervisor; married and the ceremony was performed by Joaquin IMiller,
"the Poet of the Sierras," then a judge in the county. For the last quarter of
a century he made homes in Mariposa, Fresno and Madera Counties, the last
ten years spent in the last named county.
The pioneer minister of the Episcopal Church in the San Joaquin \'alley
was Rev. O. D. Kelley, aged seventy-four years and eighteen days. Wife
and four sons survived him. He served three years in the Union army as an
Ohioan ; spent fifteen months as a prisoner of war; studied law and practiced
in California until 1870 and was ordained in 1872; became rector of
St. James Church of Fresno in 1879 and served in that capacity until 1891 ;
516 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
also began the Episcopal Church work in Modesto, Merced, Visalia, Tulare,
Selma, Hanford, Madera, Reedley and Lodi. The little rcctorate has grown
into a diocese with a bishop and the little church at Fresno and X Streets has
become the pro-cathedral.
The claim for mention of Mrs. Sarah Reed, who died in Fresno at the
age of eighty-seven in April, 1913, after widowhood for twenty-five years,
was that in her younger days she was the boarding house mistress of James
A. Garfield, when he was a lad of eighteen and attending the seminary at
Chester Cross Roads in Geauga County, Ohio. It was there that he met
Lucretia Rudolph who' afterward became Mrs. Garfield. The winter after
Garfield's stay at Chester took him to Cleveland to ship as a sailor on lake
schooners.
The death of A. L. Sayre at his ]Madera home in December, 1917, was
sudden following an illness of only a day after having taken for breakfast
a little grapefruit and a glass of milk. He was a leading citizen of Madera
interested in creamery and vineyard and at one time conducted a packing
house. He was a director of the first raisin association and at the time of his
unexpected death was a director of the California Peach Growers" Company.
Sudden was death's call to ]\liles Wallace (February 24, 1917), lawyer,
U. S. commissioner and only a few weeks before elected president of the
Fresno Chamber of Commerce at the time in the midst of a membership
campaign to rehabilitate that organization. Mr. AA'allace was for thirty
years an active man in civil and political life in Fresno and Madera coun-
ties. His health was never good and he suffered intermittently as a result
of the crushing of an ankle in an accident when nineteen years of age,
necessitating operations at intervals. He was born at Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
February l9. 1861 ; studied law in Kentucky ; practiced in Texas and later
in .Arkansas : came to Sanger in Fresno thirty years ago and after living
there six years, cast his lot with Madera. He was one of the advocates
of county division and was elected the first district attorney of the new
county, and also married Miss Anna Dickinson, daughter of the late James
Dickinson, lumber man of Madera. Next he was for two years under the
Budd administration guardian of the Yosemite Valley as a state park, re-
turning thereafter to Fresno to resume the practice of the law and had
continued here since. Mr. Wallace was accounted a "spellbinder," was fre-
quently called upon to make campaign speeches, to preside at public meetings,
act as toastmaster at celebrations : took an active interest in politics and
for a time was lecturer for the chamber of commerce in Los Angeles to
secure homeseekers for the San Joaquin Valley, acting in the same capacity
at the Panama Canal Exposition in 1915. In 1902 he made an unsucces.sful
campaign as a candidate on the Democratic ticket for the state senate
against the late Dr. Chester Rowell ; in 1915 was appointed U. S. Land Com-
missioner for the district but resigned after one week because of ill health
and was succeeded by Frank Laning of Fresno, former city attorney, and
one year later was appointed federal commissioner. Mr. Wallace's mother
and brother, Lee, perished in the Galveston flood.
Hedge's addition, one of the acreage enlargements of the city after
cutting up into town lots, recalls the name of James D. Hedges, who died at
the age of eighty-si.x November 3, 1917. The wife Rebecca still lives.
Many incidents cluster about the memory of George B. Otis, who
claimed direct descent from the James Otis of Revolutionary fame, who was
the last of the group of four that founded the town of Selma and himself
was the man that gave the town its name. His death on the last day of
April, 1918, was at the family home homesteaded in 1876 on the sand plain
where stands today Selma, "the Home of the Peach." The Otis family
came to California in 1856 via the isthmus from Wisconsin, settling iii
Sonoma County. It was in the centennial year that he accumulated' 600
acres, established his home at what was to be in time Selma and in 1880
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 517
with three others platted the town, and lived there until he removed to
Berkeley, his father having died there in 1865 on the site of what is now
the state university grounds. The son was a charter member of Selma Lodge
No. 309, I. O. O. F., one of the founders of the Episcopal Church and one
of the builders of the first canal system in the section, the plans for which
were laid out on the tables of the Otis house which were the headquarters
of the constructing engineer. From the sand wastes he presciently selected
properties destined to become the most valuable city business sites and
time justified his judgment. The sweep of the wind over the sand plains
often effaced all surveyor's marks and many are the stories told of ]\Ir. Otis
giving his time unsparingly and with no hope of reward bringing about
agreeable settlement of disputes, having the faculty of being able to locate
points and digging down uncover the charcoal deposit in which the surveyor
had set stake but which cattle had trampled down or wind covered with
sand. The founding of the town of Selma was a long and discouraging
undertaking.
Identified for forty-four years with the history of the cit}', it was
always the pride of the late Herman Levy that the distinction of being the
first man to be made a Mason in Fresno was his as a member of Fresno
Lodge No. 247, F. & A. M. His death was on March 6, 1918, at the age
of sixty-two. His long connection with merchandising had given him a
most extensive acquaintanceship. His coming here was in 1874; his earliest
business connection was with Kutner, Goldstein Company: afterw'ard at
Borden eighteen miles northwest and at the time. the great rival of Fresno
and later back to Fresno in the clothing business, first located at the drug
store corner at J and Mariposa, later at other locations on Mariposa, and
eighteen years ago retiring to take up life insurance. He was an ardent
Democrat ; interested in public affairs and was one of the freeholders that
drafted the charter under which the city operates. The Levy home on Van
Ness Avenue is one of the residence land marks of the days when the im-
mediate neighborhood was known as "Nob Hill."
\\'hen John Tim Walton died November 2, 1917, there passed away a
charter member of the Veteran Firemen's Association, an enthusiastic fire-
man, a former chief of the volunteer department days and one of the greatest
"base ball fans" that an}' town could boast of. He was a grocer in business.
Few knew that the name "John" was his.
The name of Mrs. Millie Flill (obit December 19, 1917) is linked with
some of the earliest pioneers of the county. She was eighty-three years of
age, the sister of the late Mrs. J. W. Reese, aunt of Mrs. A. D. Ferguson
wife of the fish and game warden and of Dr. T. J. Patterson of Visalia son
of a member of the first board of Fresno's supervisors on organization of
county.
One of the largest funerals held in Reedley was the one February 13.
1918, of Daniel L. ]\Ieekel, a settler of the town thirty years ago, long in
business there and for the last fifteen years as a land and insurance agent.
Pioneer and builder was Elisha A. Manning (obit at Hanford at age of
eighty-three, January 27, 1918). He went to Hanford from Oakland, "1872,
attracted by the opening of the country with the building of the railroad;
took up government land; was a prime mover in the building up of the
irrigation system in the Mussel Slough district (recalling the railroad mas-
sacre of settlers over disputed lands) extending fur 125 miles and the first
big irrigation enterprise in the then "Baby Kings County;" after thirteen
years of activities moved to Fresno and entered the business partnership of
Thomas, Sharp & Manning colonizing the Perrin lands. Manning interesting
himself in bringing water there ; later he moved to Kerman, in this county,
building himself a ranch home and starting another colonization as a pioneer
and a member of the partnership of Manning & ]\IcCullen ; in December,
1917, ill health because of declining years compelled return to Hanford.
518 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
An active man in his day and like General Grant never seen without a
cigar in mouth was Richard B. Butler, one of the first to take up raisin
growing on a large scale. A North Carolinian, born in May, 1846, he spent his
youth in Alabama and in 1862 at the age of sixteen enlisted in the Con-
federate cavalry under Gen. Jos. Wheeler, served throughout the war and
was wounded several times. Three years after the war he and an associate
drove a band of cattle from Texas to California for sale ; returned to Alabama
but in 1871 moved with family to Yolo County, Cal. He farmed and in
1875 was business manager for a large mercantile house and four years later
married Miss ]\Iary Francis Stephens, a sister of L. O. Stephens, later the
first mayor of Fresno under a charter, and moved to a home in Fresno.
Butler planted what became the well known Butler vineyard, engaged also
in cattle raising and was a prime mover in the formation of the Fowler
Switch Canal Company and was its president. Elected a supervisor in 1890
for a term ; he sold his vineyard in 1902 and moved to San Francisco, living
there and at Modesto until in 1915 he took up mining operations in Mexico;
but it was not until February. 1917, that he won the litigation securing title;
he was taken ill, hurriedly returned to America; but the ailment was a fatal
one. He was a familiar figure around the iron basement railing of the old
Fresno National Bank building, now covered by the Bank of Italy's sky-
scraper.
The eyes of a patriarch were closed when death summoned William T.
Cole pioneer of Academy at the age of eighty-seven years in June, 1900.
\\'idow and nine daughters survived him then. The daughters were : Mrs.
D. C. Sample (since dead) of Fresno, Mrs. J. A. Stroud of Oakland, Cal.,
Mrs. A. Birkhead of Fresno, Mrs. F. A. Estill of Academy, Mrs. J. R. Beall
of Clovis, Mrs. W. M. Shafer of Selma, Mrs. Robert Hague of Fresno, Mrs.
W. Haskell of Clovis, and Mrs. A. H. Blasingame of Academy. There were
said to be thirty grandchildren and many, many more distant relatives.
B. Y. Colson, who died at the age of seventy-three at San Diego, Cal.,
February 14, 1918, was a Malaga rancher of thirty-five years ago when he
came to California from Massachusetts, later he moved to Fresno and took
up the painting business. Mrs. Alva E. Snow, wife of the former mavor of
Fresno, is a sister and Capt. H. D. Colson, formerly of Fresno, and Will Col-
son of Berkeley and former druggist of this city, are brothers.
William B. Gordon (obit January 29, 1918), a resident for nearly eigh-
teen years and blacksmith by trade, was one of the three members of the
board of city trustees that passed the ordinance that made Selma the first
"dry" town in the San Joaquin Valley.
In April, 1918, Lawrence Jensen, city trustee of Selma, was forced to
resign on discovery that he is not legally an American citizen but technically
an alien who cannot become naturalized, however loyal he may be. His
father was a Dane, born in that portion of Denmark later taken over by
Germany, making him a German technically. He took out naturalization
papers making the son in minority automatically an American, but unfor-
tunately the papers were lost and he cannot establish the proof and must
wait until after the war before he can be Americanized.
Emile F. Bernhard was a native of Agua Fria in Mariposa, came to
Fresno with his parents in 1874 and resided here until death. He was ad-
mitted to the bar, was a deputy under District Attorney W. D. Tupper
but the law did not appeal to him. He was in land developing enterprises
and in mining and was the trustee that liquidated the affairs of the Fresno
Loan and Savings Bank, paying off dollar for dollar. After that he engaged
in oil development work and lived for a time in the field. Brothers are George
and Jos. P. Bernhard ; sisters Mesdames J. W. Coffman, T. W. Patterson
and Henry Avila. Fraternal life appealed greatly to him and he devoted
much of his time to Fresno Lodge No. 247, F. and A. M. He was energetic in
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 519
the Hundred Thousand Club which never attained the population mark for
Fresno.
Andrew Farley was of a type that has almost disappeared. He came
in 1867 from Petaluma to the section that is Kingsburg and preempted the
townsite land. He was its first postmaster, erected the first hotel, had sheep,
cattle and horses roaming over the plains and was a lover of blooded equine
flesh to the last. The story is that "Uncle" Cy Draper "jumped" his land.
Long litigation followed, ending in a satisfactory compromise, Farley taking
the land west of the railroad and Draper that east. Thereafter Farley took
unto wife Draper's oldest daughter, Delia, and permanent peace ensued be-
tween the families. Fate was harsh to him in his last days. He was a crip-
pled paralytic and mourned the loss of all save the youngest of four children.
Mrs. Rebecca Patterson, who died at the age of seventy-six, crossed the
plains in 1852 and with the family of ten resided for a time in the stockade
that protected \^isalia against the Indians. There she met John A. Patterson
whom she married in July, 1854, eleven children being born, eight surviving
their mother. Patterson and \\'illiam Hazleton cattle ranched on the Upper
Kings, ten miles above Centerville then part of Mariposa, and here the family
lived until the early 60's when it returned to Visalia. Patterson was an
organizer of Tulare in 1852 and one of its first supervisors. He assisted at the
organization of Fresno and was in its first board of supervisors. ]\Irs. Pat-
terson died in this city at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Andrew Darwin
Ferguson.
William R. Shannon of Fowler was a veteran of the ]\lexican and of
the Civil War and a pioneer of 1849 from Ohio via the Cape Horn route. He
died at the age of eighty-five. In youth he was secretary to his uncle, Wil-
liam Shannon, U. S. ]\Iinister to Mexico, studied law but left Mexico before
the war broke out. He served for six months in Willock's battalion of
mounted volunteers from Marion County, Mo., and after discharge went to
Ohio and from there set out in February, 1849, for California. After four
years of mining he went to Texas, near Dallas, engaged in the law and ac-
quired livestock interests. From 1855 to 1887 he was in the Texas legisla-
ture, save during the war for the Confederacy, serving as captain and lieu-
tenant colonel of the Tenth Texas regiment and twice wounded. He re-
turned to California, for a time lived in Ventura County, then moved to
Fowler and was the justice of the peace there. At the 1905 centennial Lewis
& Clark Exposition at Portland, Ore., Shannon was honored as a direct de-
scendant of the youngest member of that expedition of 1802, his father,
George, who was with the explorers when only sixteen years of age.
Joseph Kutner, who died at the San Francisco home, was the father of
Alfred and Louis Kutner of the Kutner-Goldstein Company of this city,
brother of Adolph, founder of that mercantile house and himself senior mem-
ber of Kutner-Rosenthal of Madera with a chain of valley stores. His was
cited as an example of what thrift and perseverance will accomplish. His
start was as a poor and resourceless lad to lead up to wealth and mercantile
leadership.
Airs. Margaret T. Bailey died at eighty-one, came with husband to
California in 1856 by way of the Isthmus, located in Amador, later in San
Luis Obispo and at death had been a resident for fifteen years, three married
(laughters surviving her here.
Lee W. Wells came here from Los Angeles and was a well known candy
maker. He was sixty-nine at death.
George W. Woods died at Pine Flats whither he had moved for his
health ; was a resident of near Sanger for a quarter of a century ; eighty-four
years of age and a veteran of the Civil War and in 1890 crossed the plains
after a six months journey behind a yoke of oxen.
Rev. Father Joseph Barron, whose funeral was held in Los Angeles in
June, 1910, was a figure in the early days of Fresno as rector of St. John's
520 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Catholic Church for eleven years. On leaving Fresno in 1899, he was given a
long vacation because of his services and after a visit home to Ireland assumed
the pastorate of St. Mary's at Los Angeles. Time was when at Fresno there
was not a Catholic Church in the county and on high church occasions priest
was sent from Visalia for stated services. He was succeeded in the pastorate
by Rev. John M. McCarthy from Riverside whom the Pope honored with
the titular reward of Monsignor for signal services in the building up of the
parish. Father Barron left Fresno about the time when negotiations be-
gan for the sale of the church corner property at Fresno and M, deeded
to the Catholic archbishop by C. F. Crocker of the railroad in perpetuity
for religious purposes, the Fraternal Order of Eagles becoming the pur-
chasers. The little parish of Father Barron has enlarged territorially and is
one of the most important with one of the largest communicant bodies in
the diocese. Father Barron was aged seventy when he died. He came to the
diocese in 1889. His predecessors were Father Aguillara, who was trans-
ferred to San Luis Obispo, and Father Careaga.
The sad and untimely death of Frederick W. Fisher, January 7, 1910,
was the result of an automobile explosion. On the day of the funeral the
prominent business houses closed for one hour. The tale was circulated
that he had premonition of his death in the very manner that befell him
while filling auto with gasolene and burning him. Moved by the dream, he
took out accident policy for S5,000 with a doubling clause. This feature of
the tale was verified.
When Mrs. Mary Allison died in Oakland. Cal., there passed away a
well known character of early Fresno. As IVIollie Livingstone, she kept in the
70's the Blue Wing at I and Merced, the present site of the city hall. It
was the first large dance hall, the center of the night life of Fresno and its
fame was known throughout the valley coextensively with that of the youth-
ful and comely Mollie. As the city grew, the Blue ^^'^ing was carted across
the railroad track to the corner of Tulare and E and there it stood for years
known as the Diamond Palace. The additions and enlargements to it made the
pioneer structure unrecognizable. It was destroyed by fire and never re-
built. Until about 1899, Mollie Livingstone herself conducted the establish-
ment. During her Fresno residence she made money and saving it invested
in real property in the district bordering on the Chinese quarter until she
owned practically two blocks of land. She left her property to three sisters
and a brother, naming a prominent lawyer as her executor but he declined
the trust. Her death was on a visit to nurse a sick sister. She had submitted
a year before to an operation for the removal of cancer and before leaving
was advised to undergo another, but declared she would never again permit
surgeon's knife to touch her body. She had premonition that her end was
not far away. She gave orders that wherever she might die her remains be
returned to Fresno for burial, bought a cemetery lot and selected the coffin
in which she desired to be buried in. This woman was sixty-five years of
age at death. She came to Fresno from Inyo County, was there married to a
miner and bore his name, but he was unknown here and she took a divorce
from him some five years before her death.
When Thomas P. Nelson, better known as ]\Iajor Nelson, retired at
eight o'clock on New Year's day 1910 at the home of a son at Pollasky he
made intimation that he did not expect to survive the night. Silent watch
was maintained and one hour after he fell asleep it was the sleep of death.
The wife, Helen Barber Nelson, died eleven days before. He had pined
away and expressed the hope that death unite them in the other world. He
was eighty-five years and six months of age to a day on the day of death,
and one of the most honored of citizens. He was at Durant, Miss., in the
mercantile business, one of the most prosperous merchants and also one of
the wealthiest. In the Civil War he entered the Fourteenth Mississippi
Regiment, was elected captain, promoted to a majorship and retained that
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 521
rank until the close of the war. He was in many of the great battles, Fort
Donaldson and Shiloh among others and in the last days of the siege of
Vicksburg was in command of the Confederates as the senior commanding
officer had been killed. The war left Nelson with fortune shattered and in
1868 he came to California and after a sojourn of two months at Sonoma
came on to Fresno near where the Fresno Copper mine was at Letcher in
the Mississippi district, where so many from that state had located after
the war. This was so also in the Big Dry Creek country ; here he had for
neighbors the later Sheriff J. D. Collins, also a veteran of the Confederacy,
G. R. G. Glenn and man}' scattered others and he embarked in the stock
and cattle business. He also entered politics as an uncompromising Demo-
crat, being in religion a devout member of the Methodist Church South.
He served two terms as a supervisor, was under-sherifif for as many terms
under James O. Meade, and county treasurer for eight years and then re-
tired from public life. After 1905 his condition was an enfeebled one. In-
deed only thrice did he leave his home in this city after moving here after
a residence of twenty-one years in the Mississippi district, to go to the polling
place at Tulare and M in 1906 to vote for governor, in 1908 to vote for
president and the last time to be at the funeral of the wife. He rode to the
cemetery, contracted a slight cold to which his death was attributed.
Jacob A. Cole, brother of the late S. H. Cole, came to this country in
1873 from Kansas and at death had been a resident for thirty-six years. He
was thrice married. He became one of the prominent wheat growers in the
Big Dry Creek settlement, where he and nephew, Clovis N. Cole, were the
first to operate a combined harvester, then regarded as a wonderful piece of
agricultural mechanism. He sold his farming interests to a son, Alvin R., in
1886 and moving to Fresno entered the real estate business as one of the
firm of Cole, Chittenden and Cole.
Passing away at the age of over eighty-one. Rev. Charles A. Munn
closed a busy career of fifty-eight years as a preacher and church builder.
His last sermon was a memorial address May 29, 1910, at the Presbyterian
Church at Laton. A resident for sixteen years, he had in his last years
preached for his brother ministers and though beset with many afflictions
in loss of four children, notably that of a son James I. Munn mortally injured
in an accident in the San Joaquin Ice Company plant June 26, 1908, the
closest companion of his aged father, he alwaA's beheld the rainbow hues of
promise. He realized that his last illness forecasted the end ; he was resigned,
made final plans and requests and comforted his family. An 1849 graduate of
Jefferson College with preparation for the ministry in the Western Theologi-
cal Seminary, later included in the cit}' of Pittsburg, he was licensed to
preach by the Coshocton, Ohio, presbytery, served as pulpit supply at Green-
ville, Ohio, was called to the Muncie, Ind., church pastorate and in October,
1855 married Sarah A. AIcLean of Pittsburg, Pa.; in 1856 was called to
Frankfort, Ind., and was instrumental in erecting a fine edifice. He entered
the war as chaplain of the One Hundredth Indiana Regiment ; at the close
of the war was pastor of the Waterloo and Auburn, Ind., churches ; in 1867
of the Taylor Street Mission in Chicago and later pastor at Kendallville,
Ind.: 1871 saw him at Big Rapids, Mich., continuing for sixteen years and
building another handsome church ; in 1887 in charge of the Presbyterian
Church at McComb City, Miss., and the neighboring village of Magnolia
and here completing yet another church building. In this county the family
was located at Oleander and in Fresno. The Belmont Avenue Presbyterian
Church was organized as a mission and thereafter he was its pastor for ten
years, resigning in 1896, serving as pulpit supply and virtually dying in har-
ness. Fraternal life found in him a congenial spirit. For more than twelve
years he was prelate of Fresno Commandery No. 29, K. T. ; was also chap-
lain of F"resno Lodge No. 247, F. & A. M., and was an officer in the Odd
Fellows and in the Grand Army of the Republic. His life was one full of
522 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
good deeds, of happiness in his family and in his chosen work for the Master.
A strong faith withstood the sorrows that gathered over him in his last
years.
Galen Clark discovered the Mariposa grove of big trees, was for twenty
years guardian of the Yosemite Valley, ninety-six years of age at death and
sleeps in the valley within stone's throw of the Yosemite Falls. Intimate
friend of Joseph Le Conte, John Muir, John Burroughs and other nature
lovers that made the valley famous, he was first to enter it in the spring and
the last to leave in the fall during his long guardianship and met all the
world's notables on their visits to the great gorge. He was a Californian
of 1853, discovered the giant sequoias in 1857 while hunting. He was author
of a book on the Big Trees, besides others dealing with California early
history and was an authority on Indian lore, customs and manners. They ac-
counted him their staunch friend. He died at the Oakland home of a
daughter. Dr. Elvira M. Lee.
A San Francisco will contest which several years ago ended in a settle-
ment of the wife's claims recalls John R. Hite (obit April 18. 1906) picturesque
frontiersman, explorer, miner and "squawman" of earlier days, owning large
land tracts in this valley in several counties and the Hite ranch in Fresno. His
will was the subject of more or less litigation owing to disagreement among
the natural heirs. The contest was by Lucy, the Indian wife at common
law, to revoke probate of the will, charging undue influence by the heirs,
adding that he was seventy-four years of age at death and, addicted to the
use of intoxicants, susceptible to these influences. Declaration was made that
she was ignored in her community interest and that on the ground that
they were never legally married he pretended a marriage with Cecilia Noyes
October 13, 1897, persuaded the squaw to acquiesce and not to sue for
divorce on promise he would recompense her in his will.
In evidence of his faith, Joseph Taplin was one of the first to set out a
raisin grape vineyard about 1886 near Oleander. He was the grandfather
of Eddie Taplin, famous little horse jockey.
Resident for nearly a quarter of a century, Charles B. Anton was one
of the pioneer carpenter contractors and a leader in the Scotch Colony and
in St. Andrew's Society, the life and soul at the latter's reunions. Death
cause was paralysis resulting from an accidental fall at Caruthers. He was
a Californian of thirty-seven years, following mining in Mono after a resi-
dence in Virginia City, Nev. Sons here are Thomas M., city trustee, and
James, city building inspector.
The name of William Forsyth is inseparably connected as its pioneer
with the seeded raisin business. He had the title of "Colonel" derived as
commissary on the military staff of Gov. Geo. Stoneman. A Canadian by
birth, he had been a resident of the States since his nineteenth year. He
was a hotel man and in his California career was the landlord of Bartlett
Springs when it was one of the celebrated summer resorts. His Fresno in-
vestments dated from 1885 ; the first state guard company in Fresno was
named for him, the Forsyth Guard. After retiring from active business he
joined T. W. Patterson in the construction of the Forsyth building at
Tulare and J, first notable large business structure in the architectural mod-
ernization of Fresno. The Forsyth vineyard in Nevada Colony was a model
and one of the most beautiful and delightful homes. The widow, nee Ver-
denal, later married Dan Brown, the bank cashier.
H. A. Trevelyan — "Colonel" as he was known — died at sixty-six; was
the factor for the British syndicate operating the Barton vineyard and
was one of "the noble 600" of Balaclava of the poem. Trevelyan was in
fact at the time an ensign carrying dispatches and did not participate in the
poetically immortalized charge.
E. R. Higgins, who died at sixty-six, is recalled as a Californian of
1864, a Fresnan of 1884, a photographer and the maker of the best recalled
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 523
outdoor views of Fresno of those days, a volunteer fireman who was chief
of the department and as such a factor in its organization and in placing
the citizen volunteer on a basis of efficiency with improved apparatus
replacing the hand drawn equipment.
James E. Denny (obit at Visalia at seventy-two) was a Sierra County.
Cal., settler of 1854 and in 1859 came to Kingston in Fresno, bought an
interest in the ferry on the Kings River, conducted hotel and store, was the
first postmaster and gave the place its name. Later at Visalia in the livery
business until 1865. he moved to Millerton in general mercha!idising but
the 1867-68 flood swept away all his possessions. Returning to Visalia he
entered upon a long political career. He was in 1886 the nominee of the
Republican state convention for state comptroller with endorsement of the
American party at the convention in Fresno September 28 under the call
of Thomas E. Hughes as chairman and E. F. Selleck as secretary following
the declaration of principles of the Fresno mass meeting of May 27. It was
not a year for the Republicans and Denny was defeated — J. P. Dunn (D.)
receiving 95,469 votes and Denny 94.833.
Mrs. Emily A. Knepper. nee ^^'harton. who died at sixty-nine, was
the mother of John W. and Frank H. Short, prominent citizens of Fresno,
born in Shelby County, Mo. Their father. Hamilton Short, died at the
early age of thirty-two from exposure in the federal service during the
Civil War. She married in 1866 Hugh Knepper. copper miner of Fresno
and early resident of California who had returned on a visit to his former
Missouri home. The family removed to Nebraska and in 1881 came to
Fresno. A sister, Mrs. W. M. Cardwell. the husband and the son. Charles
A., by the second marriage, the brothers. F. A. and W. W. Wharton of
Fresno Colony, survived her. The deaths in Fresno of her father and of her
eldest brother, J. F. ^^■harton. preceded hers. She was of the type of revered
western pioneer women.
C. K. Kirby Sr. (obit at Los Angeles at eighty-four) will be recalled as
a pioneer capitalist, proprietor of the Sierra Park vineyard and winery near
Fowler, and of a distillery business near Selma, both model enterprises.
The death and funeral of Charles L. Wainwright was in Oakland, Cal.
He was a lovable character and a gentleman, a pioneer of San Francisco,
of Kingston, of Millerton and of Fresno city engaged in mercantile lines,
or holding public office deputyships. His beautiful handwriting in the office
records of county recorder and clerk is a pleasure to behold. The pall bearers
at the funeral were men whom he had held in the highest esteem in life.
Thev were: Frank Yale, Geo. E. Evans, Ward B. Walkup. Angus M. Clark,
Will G. Blaney and Charles Burks.
Jarvis Streeter Sr., who died at eighty-eight, crossed the plains from
New" York to California in 1850, mined, settled in Mariposa County about
1860 and after 1892 made his home in Fresno or in Los Angeles. At eighteen he;
enlisted in a New \'ijrk \olunteer regiment and under General Taylor served
throughout the Mexican War. He married Lizzie J. Cocharan at Snelling,
Merced County, November 16. 1868. and was county clerk of Mariposa from
1876 to 1887. Mrs. E. J. Bullard and Jarvis Streeter of Fresno are daughter
and son.
The experience of Alexander Beatty, who died at the Madera County
hospital at the age of seventy-two, is typical of many of the pioneers. He
located in Stanislaus County in 1868 herding sheep for Thomas E. Hughes
and until 1874 looked after the Hughes herds on shares and made a success
financially. He was the first to introduce Scotch methods into the business
in this valley. Later he moved to Merced and while there it was estimated
that he was worth $50,000. He came to ]\Iadera in later years, herded sheep
for H. F. Daulton and died a charge on the county.
George Wiseman (obit at Malaga at the age of seventy-one) was one
of the discoverers of the Kern River oil field, learning of the presence of
524 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
oil in that section while farming near there. His death followed one week
after that of the wife, Susan B. He enlisted in Company E of the Second
California Regiment serving as a cavalryman from 1863 to 1865. The Elwood
family, into which one daughter of the seven surviving children married,
had much to do with the early development of the Kern River oil field.
Thomas H. Hunt came to California as a '49er when nine years old.
Thirty continuous years of his sixty in the state were spent in Fresno. The
pall bearers at his funeral were city school janitors, he having also been
one for years.
In the passing away at her vineyard country home on Elm Avenue of
Miss Nellie Boyd, the community lost a well known, a much beloved and
a highly honored woman. She was professionally an actress. She was a
pioneer raisin grower of 1885, a successful business woman and active in
the affairs of first raisin associations. She was of the old school of acting
and before coming to California had made a name in New York. In the
early 70's she came west and for a decade was leading woman for various
traveling companies organized in and sent out on coast tours from San Fran-
cisco. She was the first woman to head her own company and playing
the principal cities in Pacific Slope states. It was on one of her local engage-
ments that she decided to end her days here when she retired from the stage.
In 1893 Miss Boyd prepared with others the county exhibit for the world's fair
at Chicago. She was the first president of the Parlor Lecture Club and took
a lively interest in the State Federation of Women's Clubs. She often offered
her services to direct club and school benefit theatrical entertainments.
At death at Lone Star, James Rutherford was within a few months of
attaining his ninety-first birthday, and wife, eighty-two years of age, and
ten children survived him. March 9, 1908, the sixtieth anniversary of wed-
ding had been celebrated. It was April 13, 1849, that he set out by ox team
to cross the plains, arriving at Hangtown in 1850, mining, for a year on
the American River and when the first excitement had subsided returned
to Missouri, farmed until 1887, when he again came to California to make
his home and settled as one of the first farmers at Lone Star in a colony
of Missourians, a pioneer of the gold era and of the fruit period.
The name of Alichael Levy (obit Oakland, Cal., at forty-five) recalls
one who for over fourteen years was of the firm of Levy Bros, who conducted
the Red Front clothing and furnishing goods store on I Street near Tulare,
one of a chain with the one at San Bernardino as the largest. In the late
70's and early 80's the brothers were in the same business in San Francisco,
when the retail trade was concentrated at the Telegraph Hill end of Kear-
ney Street. In Fresno the firm was in other enterprises, notably in the
ownership of the remodeled Edgerly block at Tulare and J.
Thousands who have traveled over the' old Tollhouse road to and
from the Pine Ridge Mountain section grieved over the death on Christmas
morning, 1907, of Mrs. Mary E. Greenup, better known as "Aunt Polly." At
the time of death, she lacked ten days of having rounded out her eighty-
fourth year. Thirty years before, she came to California, settling on a
hill ranch one mile above Letcher and living in that section save three years
spent in Fresno. Since husband's death in 1886 she had made her home with
daughter, Mrs. Frances A. Phillips, at the hotel at Letcher. This was a
stopping place of the stage and a rest station and thousands came to know
her by reason of her genial hospitality, kindly benefactions and her strong
and interesting personality. She was the oldest member of the Clovis Bap-
tist Church.
George B. Rowell was a pioneer of the pastoral period of the county
and witnessed its growth through the succeeding stages. In 1865 he came
across the plains with his brother, the late Dr. Chester Rowell, to Montana,
engaged for six years in mining and three in ranching and after a winter
in San Francisco came to Fresno early in 1875. In December, 1881, in Illi-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 525
nois, the home of his youth, he married Adelpha H. Warlow, sister of
George L. Warlow, lawyer of Fresno, and of Mrs. George L. Johnson of
Easton. He engaged here in the sheep business with J- E. Dickinson and
Dr. Rowell. in 1888 in mercantile business at Easton with G. L. Johnson
under the name of Rowell & Johnson until sale in 1904, the firm in 1902
opening a store at Oleander. Five brothers survived him ; Dr. Rowell of
Fresno, W. F. Rowell of Easton, A. A. Rowell of Selma, Jonathan H. Rowell
of Bloomington, 111., and Milo Rowell of Fresno. He was also a Washington
Colony vineyardist.
Theatrically sensational was the end March 26, 1908, of Rev. A. Z.
Nesbitt, Coalinga's only minister of the gospel at the time. He was struck
down by heart failure at the Coalinga Theater while finishing an impas-
sioned appeal to the saloon men of the town to clean out the Augean stables
of their trade. He was speaking at the public celdiration of the incorpora-
tion of the town. Fifteen hundred people were at the theater including the
minister's wife and daughter. The speech, which proved to be the last
one of the Presbyterian minister, was a historical sketch in part, of the
locality but toward the last l)ecame almost a so1)bing appeal to the saloon
men and their friends to end the evil of the traffic.
G. B. Vlahusic, a Slavonian, was a character of remarkable intellectual
attainments. He was a linguist and had a wdde knowledge of astronomy,
mineralogy, geology and chcmistr^'. He was born and christened a Roman
Catholic but in his mature ^•ears had not affiliated with the church. His
funeral was from the Episcopal Church. An important service of his to
the communitv was his aid in the introduction of the Smyrna fig. He was
generous in responding to appeals for charity and personally sent $500 to
the relief of the San Francisco fire sufl^erers. He was for years the book-
keeper for Borello Bros, and a leader in the Slavonic Colony.
Mrs. J. R. Kittrell, mother of Mrs. H. H. Welsh, passed away in 1909
on the fifty-eighth anniversary of her wedding day at the age of eighty-one
years.
Mrs. M. A. Guard, state pioneer of 1853, and one of the earliest of
Fresno city and the mother of William C. Guard, former tax collector and
charter member of the Fresno parlor of the N. S. G. W., died at the age of
seventy-one years May 21, 1909. Pathetic feature was that while the son
was at the bedside at the last, his wife, who shortly after passed away,
was attending the funeral of her mother, Mrs. Nancy J. Weaver, who
had died at the age of seventy-four on the nineteenth, her husband having
died four years before. Mrs. Weaver was the mother of IMrs. John R. Austin
since dead. Mrs. Weaver was a Californian since her sixteenth birthday
and a resident of Fresno for twenty-eight years.
Benjamin W. Van Winkle, whose funeral at Los Banos was lield
February 15, 1908, came from Los Angeles in 1896 as foreman for the Sanger
Lumber Company and until 1900 was in the same capacity in this city for
the planing mill of HoJlenljeck & Bush and then for two years in San Fran-
cisco. It was there that he was employed to take charge of the Miller & Lux
mill at Los Banos and for five years successfully competed for mill work
in the territory on that side of the San Joaquin between Tracy and Fresno.
His first wife of Ogden, Utah, is buried at Sanger and he married Ethel Hil-
grove in Fresno in 1898.
P. A. Kanawyer, pioneer of the county, will be recalled with his wife
for their resort in the Sierras, where pack outfits could be had for mountain-
eering on the three forks of the Kings River. He was postmaster of Dunlap
when about eight years before his death he shot and killed J. C. Collier in
the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel in this city in a dispute over the post-
mastersliip. Acquittal followed on a showing that the killing was in self
defense. Mrs. Kanawyer remarried after eight vears of widowhood.
526 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Robert S. Johnson of the Excelsior stables and a five-year resident from
Stockton was a member of the Elks and of the Grand Army of the Republic.
He was captain of Troop K of the First California Regiment of Cavalry in
the Civil War, resigning after two years following muster in at Stockton
in February, 1863. A son, W. R. Johnson, was captain for many years of
a Stockton guard company and terminated his military service as colonel of
the Sixth Infantry Regiment, N. G. C.
John W. Martin was an old and respected district school teacher, sixty
years of age at death. He married in ]\Iarch, 1882, Miss Vienna Neal, daugh-
ter of Rev. J. H. Neal, the pioneer minister of the county. Widow and six
children survived. His last school engagement was at Sweetflower in Ma-
dera County; in Arbor Vitae Cemetery his remains lie.
The death of Dr. Joseph D. Davidson, eminent surgeon of the county,
was not unlooked for. It had been expected for several months, having
suffered from heart trouble for five years. His last wish was that he be
returned to Fresno from a San Francisco sanitarium to die, and he was
conscious to the last. He was a graduate of the Vanderbilt Medical School
of Nashville in 1881 at nineteen, coming to Kingsburg, Fresno, in 1886,
and four years later to the county seat, associating himself with Dr. Dear-
dorfT. Shortly after, he was appointed county physician, made a specialty
of surgery until failing health forced him to retire from practice, his later
years being devoted exclusively to surgery. It was he that organized the
Burnett Sanitarium and in 1901 he had built the structure on Fresno Street
and was president of the corporation from its inception. He devoted much
study to modern surgery, took a post graduate New York course, visited
the leading American hospitals and spent a summer in study and travel
in Europe, attaining more than local distinction. At the time of the Owl
train disaster at Byron in December. 1902, Dr. Davidson was at Byron
Springs, was hurriedly summoned to the scene of disaster and it was re-
marked that it was a relief to every one as soon as he arrived, so vigorously
and capably did he handle the awful situation. Personally he was a most
likable man — gruff and not employing the choicest language but he had
a heart and it has been known of his being in tears in informing a friend
he must be operated upon at once for appendicitis. On a visit home to
Tennessee in 1901 he married Mrs. Louise Peden, a Southern beauty. The
much lamented surgeon breathed his last in his beautiful colonial mansion
on K Street. Cremation was the end of his mortal remains.
George E. Babcock was prominent as an Elk and as a choir singer. He
had been a resident for twenty years. He was circulation manager for the
Republican for three years and later of the Portland Telegram. Upon return
to Fresno he was associated with his brother-in-law, C. T. Cearley, as man-
ager of the wholesale paper department. He was one of the organizers of
the Unitarian Society.
A California pioneer of 1865 was Miss IMary Lafferty, who died at
eighty-five in February, 1917, after a city residence of nine years. For
twenty years she kept the Grand Hotel at Sanger.
Charles Galley's claim to notice was that he was a Mariposan of 1861,
followed carpentering, removed to Merced and eventually to Madera and
erected the first dwelling in the town. In 1891 he made Sanger his home
and his was one of the first brick buildings erected in that town.
R. H. Daly was a \'irginian with a fine literary and legal education.
He settled in Mariposa in 1850 and served terms as district attorney and
county judge. He participated in the organization of Fresno County, was
an earnest advocate and an indefatigable worker. His standing in the pro-
fession was the equal of any one in this part of the state. Physical infirmi-
ties beset his last years. He died at the age of fifty-six, leaving widow and
eight children.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 527
Mrs. Catherine S. Waterman, who died at seventy-nine at Tulare, was
the wife of Rev. J. H. Waterman, canon of St. James pro-cathedral, and was
the mother of John, Edward and George Waterman, the latter city trustee,
federal food administrator and a former president of the Commercial Club.
The sons, son-in-law and a grandson were pall bearers at the funeral.
At his death, J. R. Kittrell was the Nestor of the Fresno bar, most
highly revered in the profession. In his prime he followed such men as
Chief Justice William H. Beatty. who was an intimate friend. John Garber,
Harry I. Thornton, Hall McAllister and other notable colleagues of the
day and leaders at the California bar. He was a man of intellect with a
command of language that gave to his eloquence great force and conviction
' as well in "the dew of pathos as in the sheen of wit." At nineteen and until
1852 he was probate clerk at Enlam. Alabama: married then Elmira Hall
and came to California via Panama. He was paymaster at the Mare Island
navy yard, and thereafter practiced law. Failing in the effort to return to
the south to join the cause of the Confederacy, he left for British Columbia,
tarried there several years, returning practiced law at Portland and eventu-
ally came to San Francisco, associating himself in the law with Zach Mont-
gomery but the latter receiving a federal appointment he went to Carson
City, Nev., and was state attorney general for four years after 1875 : back
to California he located at Modesto, later in Fresno and in 1908 retired
from practice. He was in his day an able criminal lawyer. He was an active
political partisan, always aligned with the Democratic party, as far back
as 1858 with the division of the party when he was of the resolutions com-
mittee of the Lecompton state administration convention, and again in
1861 at the Breckenridge Democratic state convention, when he moved an
amendment to the convention resolutions that President Lincoln deserved
impeachment. The amendment was lost by a close vote. The "general," as
he was always known, was an uncompromising states rights man.
Thomas Dunn was at death at the age of sixty-eight a man of property,
well preserved, prominent in public alifairs, known for his private and
Masonic charities, and foremost in the work of that fraternity with its various
branches, and also in the Grand Army of the Republic. A Canadian by birth,
he came to America at the age of one and one-half years, spent his boyhood
at Racine, ^\'is., and at maturity came to Colorado and followed the cattle
business. He served in the Civil W'ar in the famous Black Horse Cavalry
of the U. S. A. Later he was a jMontana cattleman, came to California and
Fresno in 1887, was highly respected for his sterling western ruggedness
and worth ; was a city councilman from 1901 to 1905 and after 1909 a park
commissioner, in that year having been considered for the ma^'oralty but
relinquishing in favor of the late Dr. Rowell to solidify a movement in
behalf of good government.
When he died in 1914, Horace E. Barnum had the distinction of being
the man in the state who had longest been in continuous service in office
as county auditor. He died in June of that year and had he lived until
December would have been twenty years in that public service. He was
recognized as an invincible candidate, had a remarkable personality as a
campaigner and never was at a loss to call a man by his name and very
generally by his Christian appellation. The son, Charles E.. a deputy in
the office, was appointed to fill the unexpired term and then was elected to
succeed himself. H. E. Barnum was a pioneer of the county of 1875 and
interested with the late T. R. Reed, for whom the town of Reedley was
named, in the breaking up of ground and pioneer farming of the contiguous
land, taking up about seven sections, using from eight to ten horses to a
plow and reaping such a grain harvest that it required more than a score
of sixteen, eight, six and four-mule teams to convey it to a shipping point.
He also followed farming in Tulare, was a hotelkeeper at Lemoore, where
he was burned out, returning to Reedley in the hotel business, entered
528 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
politics, held minor positions and first was elected auditor in 1894. He had
lost the left arm by the accidental discharge of a shot gun ; despite that
crippling he was an expert fisherman and hunter. They tell of a courthouse
wag who for Christmas bought a pair of fine gloves and presented the left
one to Barnum and the right handed one to Treasurer Ewing. Even the one-
armed receivers appreciated the humor of the gifts.
James W. Ballard, a Kentuckian born, lived in Clark County, Mo., until
1911, when he came to Reedley in which community he was prominent and
was its first recorder. He was a veteran of the Confederate army, enlisting
from Missouri at sixteen. He was a great-great grandson of Capt. Bland
Ballard, Kentucky pioneer and Indian fighter and comrade in arms of Daniel
Boone. The remains were sent to Kanoka, Mo., for burial in the family plot.
The war flag that he presented to the Boy Scouts to be hoisted over the
Methodist Episcopal Church of Reedley was at half mast at the funeral.
The decedent was one of the founders of the Mount Carmel M. E. Church in
Clark County, Mo. He was always a central figure at reunions of war
veterans.
Lucius Baker, wdio died at the age of seventy-two at the home place on
Fig Avenue, three miles south of Fresno city, had the distinction of having
lived in that one place in Fresno Colonv school district for nearly thirty-
five years. He was born in Michigan, graduated from Ann Arbor as a civil
engineer, moved to California in the 70's, in 1881 laid out the large additions
in southwest Los Angeles and in 1882 with others the northern branch of
the Southern Pacific into Oregon. His residence in Fresno dated from 1883
and he was engaged in farming. He was one of the seven trustees of the
First IMethodist Episcopal Church of Fresno city and the six surviving ones
were the honorary pall bearers at the funeral. Mrs. Adora B. Baker died at
the age of sixty-two at the home place one week after to a day.
Mrs. Mary E. Burleigh, who died aged over seventy years, was the
widow of Frank J. Burleigh, pioneers of Fresno city of forty-four years ago,
when it was only a village railroad station. For about ten years before and
until 1878 they were residents at Pine Ridge where he was engaged in the
lumber business. He was one of the first city warehousemen in 1880 at
Inyo and Kern, engaged in the sale of lumber, stock and pigs, grain and
hay, and in 1888 erected the second warehouse at Mono and Ventura. Mov-
ing to the plains in 1878, he brought a six-horse load of lumber for a two-
room house at J and Merced which with later additions was for many years
a landmark. Covering the years before and after the war, he was engaged
in freighting between Manhattan and Fort Leavenworth, Kans., also serving
in the army and seeing much service against the hostile Indians. As with
.so many other pioneers, he suffered in later years several reversals in fortune.
A. S. Edgerly was another pioneer and well known character in his day
and in the 80's an active operator in the development of the city, then attract-
ing so much attention throughout the state. He died at the age of eighty-
four after an illness of more than six years following apoplexy, with mental
impairment. He was the builder of the Edgerly block, a notable landmark
at Tulare and J. In the collapse in values after the boom period, he lost
most all his property but in spite of his years resolutely set himself to
accumulate another competency. He was a most indefatigable spirit. He
published an autobiography which was a literary curiosity. Surviving kin
are four married sons and daughters, seven grandchildren, six great grand-
children all of Fresno, and two sisters and a brother in New Hampshire.
Capt. A. Y. Easterby died at his home in Napa in June, 1893. He was a
San Franciscan of 1849 and one of the founders of the first Masonic lodge.
The large ranch tract east of Fresno was named for him ; he was one of
the very earliest extensive land settlers in the county ; a pioneer of the agri-
cultural era ; one of the agents in the first successful application on a prac-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 529
tical scale of the theory of irrigation and instrumental with other landed in-
terest to bring M. Theo. Kearney to start on his Fresno career as a land
boomer and seller.
Mrs. Emily Phillips was a prominent and lovable woman in the early
and rough days of Fresno, her residence dating from the year 1873. Her
death was at Los Angeles in May, 1907. She was foremost as a musician,
with the late Judge Gillum Baley was one of the founders of the Methodist
Episcopal Church South, and during the village days of Fresno gave concerts
to help build the little, frame, first house of worship that was erected at
Fresno and L. It was used in God's service for many years, afterward sold
to a colored congregation, removed to a site west of the railroad and on a
certain 4th of July night in part or wholly destroyed by fire. Mrs. Phillips
was the relict of S. M. Phillips who died at Pensacola, Fla., in 1861 from
pneumonia contracted in the Mexican war service under Jefferson Davis.
They met at Jackson at the inaugural ball of Gov. Henry S. Foote and fell
in love. Mrs. Phillips was a typical woman of the South with influential
connections: the influence of such women in the rough days of Fresno's
infancy cannot be gauged today.
J. M. Collier will be recalled through his long connection with the first
water and light company in the struggling village of Fresno, and his mem-
bership in the first state guard company of the town ; also as deputy under
Recorder C. L. Wainwright after that office was divorced from the county
clerkship and also under his successor. Gen. Tyree A. Bell.
One of the leaders in the campaign for moral and civic reform closing
the 1890 decade and ushering in the 190O with the change from the border
town conditions to one approaching civic decency was the late J. P. Strother,
who had long held an honorable position at the bar, who was regarded as
a man of inviolable integrity and as a lawyer one of exceptional ability. A
Kentuckian by birth, he was the second son of an M. E. South minister of
the gospel, graduated in the law in 18.^9 from the Louisville Law School, was
prominent in Missouri legal circles and during the Harden administration
was a member of the state senate, and from 1881-87 judge of the sixth judicial
district. He practiced law at Marshall and came to Fresno in 1892. In 1901
he was elected a city trustee as a member of the first board under the charter
and after serving three years resigned to undertake the revision and rewriting
of the charter which as it stands today is largely the result of his work and
experience, although it is admitted that with the great expansion of the city
it has outgrown many of the salutary limitations that once were demanded.
He was an elder of the M. E. Church, South, and a frequent lay delegate to
its convocations ; an exemplar of the true American citizen.
Newspaper mention was made of the visit at the close of June, 1918. of
George E. Field to purchase 160 acres west of the state highway on the
Madera County side of the San Joaquin River at $150 an acre or perhaps 100
times more than what he could have had it for when he first was located in
this section. He came from Los Angeles and made the purchase, he said,
to do his bit in this war raising corn to feed the world with. He installed a
pumping plant and prepared to drill the corn kernels. Few probably recalled
him as the engineer, who in the early 80's was in charge of the river irrigation
project with rock dam at above Hamptonville, later known as Pollasky and
still later as Friant, which proved such a colossal failure after eating up
money as a gopher hole will absorb a stream of water. Profiting by the ex-
periences, the Herndon canal was constructed to serve the lands of the Rank
of California in that section. After leaving Fresno, Field put his eni^incering
knowledge to use in the construction of dry docks at Philadelphia and in
dredging large tracts in Florida and in other parts of the world. He recalled
among his early experiences having driven sheep to market from Millerton
and herded them on the site of the courthouse when the v'illage of Fresno
had barely 250 population. The pioneer is a man of seventy years.
530 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The last day in the month of June, 1918, marked for Leopold Gundel-
finger severance of business connections with the Bank and Trust Company
of Central California in the founding of which he assisted thirty-one years
ago, his retirement as vice-president and a director and withdrawal from
active business life after forty-four years dating from his arrival July 1, 1874,
when valley, county and city were yet in embryo and when only the visionary
and the most optimistic could conjure up what the future had in store. The
retirement came unannounced and therefore excited comment in the local
business world and financial circles. Mr. Gundelfinger had been active in
the civic and business life of the community and influential in banking circles.
With the exception of the late Louis Einstein, he was the largest stockholder
in the company, long known as the Bank of Central California, popularly as
the Einstein bank, and was with it since the first day it opened its doors
in March. 1887. It opened with Mr. Einstein as president and Gundelfinger
as cashier. They conducted the business alone for six months, ^^'hen Mr.
Einstein died he was continued as cashier but at the stockholders' meeting in
January, 1915, he was also made vice-president. The first clerk in the bank
was Frank Helm and he entered in September, 1887, when Mr. Gundelfinger
went east to be married. The Einstein estate has large interests that are
being improved and exploited through the Einstein Improvement Company,
and among them may be mentioned the Liberty theater property, the Patter-
son building, the Land Company building in which the bank is located and
on which site but for the war probably a beginning would have been made
ere this on a great skyscraper building, improved business properties in Inyo
Street, La Sierra Tract, and various other scattered city holdings, most ad-
vantageously located with the later growth of the city. In the first days of
Fresno, Mr. Gundelfinger was a leading spirit in public enterprises, even to
being an organizer of the first citizens' volunteer fire companies having the
only piece of hand apparatus in the city and that lost in one of the early
large fires, when hand pump and fire house were consumed. He was asso-
ciated originally with the pioneer mercantile firm of Jacob & Co., which was
succeeded by Silverman & Einstein and later became Louis Einstein & Co.
with branches in man)^ activities. It was in 1878 that he went to Kingston
in charge of the firm's mercantile house there, remaining until 1886 when he
took a pleasure trip to Europe. Few are there living who have been longer
and so continuously associated with the business life of the city from the
day of small beginnings and so intimately related with the growth and
progress of the community as Mr. Gundelfinger. None has so well earned
rest and retirement. In the conservative operations of the associated Ein-
steins and Gundelfingers are epitomized the best achievements recorded in
the history of the city's commercial, banking and sane speculative enterprises.
When Joseph Spinney died in San Francisco after an illness that had
for more than two years sapped his vitality, leaving him a living corpse as it
were, there passed away a local character of note and one who in his day
helped to make history of a kind. His last illness was characteristic of him
in life in tenacity of purpose. He combatted death long beyond the time
expectations of his friends. He suffered from a complication of ailments to
which the ordinary man would have succumbed early. Among these were
cancer of the stomach, dropsy and peritonitis. Medical men had long given
him up : his was a long and lingering death while breathing the breath of
life. The name of Jo Spinney — no one ever called him by other term — and
his career are inseparably connected with the early business and constructive
period of the city and later with its political history. His own boast was
that he was the man that built up Fresno. It was literally true. It has been
written of him that his name will live as long as the records of the city hall
are preserved, as long as those of the county are in existence and as long
as Fire Engine House Number Three erected by him will stand as a monu-
ment to him as the visible cornerstone is a granite slab bearing his name
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 531
and of the others with him as members of the city board of trustees at the
time and in power. One other board in later years thus perpetuated its names
in the granite slab of the city hall under the regime of W. Parker Lyon as
mayor and provoked as much public criticism as the Spinney slab. A living
generation will have passed away before Spinney's unique methods will have
been forgotten and passed into tradition. He was a native of Cadiz, Spain,
and though he came to America at the age of twelve he never mastered the
English language. A story was current concerning him that he was the illegit-
imate offspring of a Spanish don as father and a peasant girl as mother. It
must be accepted with a grain of salt. The fact is that he was sorely handi-
capped in life. He could not read nor write and until the last never mastered
more than the ability to write his name. Yet in his day he could make his
check for thousands and it would be paid without question and he was the
political boss of the city, the power behind the throne and exercised it. He
was a man under normal stature, of appearance an3'thing but prepossessing
and lacking personal habits of physical cleanliness. And yet he was a re-
markable man. possessed a most active brain, was big hearted, true to a
friend in rewarding him and punishing those that thwarted him in his de-
signs and ambitions. He landed at Cape Ann, Mass., farmed for three
years, then apprenticed himself to a brick maker at Booth Bay. Maine, and
serving his four years, mastered the trade and masonry in addition. Spinney
was of course not his name. He was quick to enter business on his own ac-
count, shipped brick to Boston, came to California and Fresno in 1877 with
little of this world's goods. His first employment was as a laborer with the
late Frank J- Burleigh. He established one of the first permanent brickyards
in the building up of the village, and also entered the masonry building con-
tracting business at a time when there was no established brick kiln nearer
than Visalia. For the courthouse and other brick structures erected up to
that time, special kilns were set up, ending operations with fulfillment of the
particular contract. Spinney erected many of the early brick structures of
Fresno, many standing to this day. Among the notable ones may be named
the Bradley Block at Mariposa and J, the Farmers' Bank at Mariposa and I,
the rear and original portion of the Y. M. C. A., the Odd Fellows' Building,
the Barton Theater and Armory Hall Building, the latter portion demolished
for the Cory Building, the Patterson Block, the Fresno Brewery and so many
others of less note as to be too numerous to mention. Spinney became a
wealthy man and in the 80's and 90's owned city and county property and
buildings, the Spinney or Odd Fellows', the three-story West Side hotel
erected in 1891 at the west side exit of the subway, also 160 acres west of
town planted to vines. Following the bent of the times he set out Spinney
colony to sell in subdivisions : was a stock holder in three of the local banks
and in the Belmont-Blackstone Avenue horse car line and a man of large
business interests. He entered local politics about 1893, when he defeated
for the city trusteeship from the fifth ward B. T. Alford, who was
and had been the political manipulator of the day and was a past master in
the art of politics as pursued in those times. He continued in the office as
the result of successive reelections until finally defeated for the place under
the charter by W. J. O'Neill and political career ended. When he entered
the board, it was divided and represented by two Democrats and two Re-
publicans. Spinney was a Republican by choice and while a city trustee held
the balance of power and was Republican, Democrat, or Populist as the
exigency of the moment and the matter in hand and his particular political
interests demanded. In 1895 when the board was evenly divided as between
new members and hold overs. Spinney was the central figure in a spectacular
bit of political hocus pocus. The man who could not read nor write nor
do more than sign his name to a public document caused himself to be nom-
inated and elected chairman of the board and ex-ofificio mayor. He had his
triumph. He assumed the chair and in his unintelligible language thanked
532 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
his colleagues for the honor, trust and confidence reposed in him. Marcus
Antonius on the Lupercal thrice presented Caesar with a kingly crown which
he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition ? Jo Spinney was not patterning after
Caesar, probably never having heard of him. He was acting an original part.
He relinquished the distinction and after resigning cast his vote so that C. J.
Craycroft was chosen ex-officio mayor by the grace of Jo Spinney and the
latter attached to himself another adherent out of gratefulness. In 1897 in
a four-cornered fight Spinney received more votes than his three opponents
combined, so well had he mastered the art of election manipulation. Spinney
plaved the game of politics of the day as it was taught him but outgeneraled
and outmastered his tutors. His own ward's interests he considered supreme :
the general interest of the city was a matter for second consideration for
him "in action, which is not to say that he did not take an interest in the gen-
eral affairs of the city. Like so many ignorant and illiterate men, he had a
wonderfullv retentive memory. His was an active brain. No one was better
informed than he on the municipal ordinances. Often did he correct the
reading of the board's minutes before approval. Not infrequently would he
present questions on legislation or interpretation of ordinances to puzzle city
attorney and the other wiseacres, to hesitate and ponder before making reply.
The police and fire departments were his creatures to manipulate as the foun-
dation of his source of political power. He used them as playthings to serve
his purpose and he rewarded those that served him. He was not without
virtue to exhibit when the opportunity offered to make the show. He was
good of heart also : faithful to friends ; implacable towards an enemy ; un-
reliable in his relations with a political enemy or opponent. While in power,
he had hosts of friends: when sick, poor and dying, the I. O. O. F., true to its
obligations, was his only succor. Jo Spinney's life was a human tragedy.
J. A. Blasingame, one of the county's early settlers, died April 28, 1887,
at the age of sixty-one and left an estate valued at a quarter of a million
dollars, many of the holdings greatly advancing in value with the later years.
He was one of the big men in the sheep business and had ranges widely
scattered and counting up in the thousands of acres, following the custom
of the day in herders taking up government land homesteads and buying off
the entry makers. Blasingame also owned advantageously located town prop-
erties. He was a veteran of the ^^'ar with Mexico.
Only the living early settlers recalled J. B. Folsom, who died at the
county hospital from heart disease ]May 6, 1887, at the age of sixty-one. He
was a native of Mississippi, a half-breed Cherokee. As far back as 1851, he
was the chief hunter for the military garrison at Fort Aliller. Later at Miller-
ton he was engaged in the saloon business for a time with Stephen Caster.
His end was that of so many of the first comers as a public charge.
Fulton N. Berry, who died at the age of twenty-six, May 12, 1887, was
the only son of the late Fulton G. Berry and wife. He was engaged in San
Francisco in the insurance business.
Mrs. Helen I. Albaugh (obit October, 1917) will be recalled as the first
milliner in Selma, having moved thither over thirty-one years ago with the
early group of settlers. She was the widow of Solomon A. Albaugh and
marrying him in 1862 made the ox team trip across the continent as wed-
ding journey, settling on land now covered by the townsite of Modesto.
She was one of the faithful members of the First Presbyterian Church of
Selma, made her home with a daughter, Mrs. Fred C. Berry. Death resulted
from a hip fracture, the result of an accidental fall.
Airs. Alice C. Baker, who died in August, 1917, was the second widow
of the late Dr. Westwood J. Baker, who owned the Talequah vineyard, one
of the show places east of town. While a resident of Fresno, she was identi-
fied \vith the work of the Parlor Lecture Club and other social activities.
She died at Memphis, Tenn., at the home of a sister. Miss Elizabeth Cooke,
where she was on a visit. The burial was at Memphis.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 533
The reported death in Oakland of Mrs. Elizabeth A. Donahoo recalled
that it was at her home in this city that the First Baptist Church had its
organization. She was the wife of William H. Donahoo; they moved to
Fresno in 1881 and after a few years returned to Oakland. In 1907 they cel-
ebrated their golden wedding anniversary. She was the mother of the wife
of the late Charles L. Wainwright, who was among the early younger pioneers
of Millerton, Kingston and Fresno and prominent in county official circles.
It was with Masonic rites that the funeral of H. N. Cutler was conducted
in this city November 23, 1917. He came to California in 1860 via the Pan-
ama Isthmus route, settled in Santa Clara Valley, taught school at Saratoga
and marrying Hester J. Don Allen in 1869 moved to Panoche Valley in the
westernmost part of Fresno County, where as a trustee he organized the
first school district and erected the log school house in which the late Thomas
J. Kirk, afterward county and state superintendent of schools first taught
in California. He served as a deputy assessor under the late ^\'illiam H. ^Ic-
Kenzie, and in 1879 moved to Central California colony, and later to his ranch
near Selma, which until the last was his home.
John W. Dumas died in San Francisco at the age of seventy years. He
was for years a city and county peace officer and a man of whom it was said
that he did not know physical fear. He served in the Confederate Army with
the Texan Rangers. He was a Georgian born.
Late in the afternoon on the 24th of October, 1917, M. P.. Havner, a resi-
dent since 1906 and a life insurance agent, was killed and his machine re-
duced to splinters in a race to drive his automobile over the Washington
Avenue crossing of the Santa Fc. near Del Rey, ahead of an oncoming train.
Widow and six children, also a brother, a physician of Troy, Tenn., survived
him. The belief was that Havner was on his way to visit a son, who having
been called to report in a few days to go to American Lake, ^^^ash., as a
national army soldier was finishing up work on a ranch near Del Rey. The
decedent was a member of three fraternities, naming the Masonic lodge
master to administer his estate and be guardian of his minor children.
Return Roberts, who was prominent in affairs at Madera as well when
t was a part of Fresno County as when it undertook separate county organ-
zation died at the age of seventy-five years at Livermore, Cal., having been
n ill health for about one year before death. The burial was at Cypress Lawn
Cemetery at San Francisco, where the remains of the predeceased wife are.
Roberts crossed the plains with parents in 1849, settled at \\'atsonville. later
was educated in the San Jose schools and became connected with a bank
which had loaned money to the Madera enterprise which became the Madera
Sugar Pine Company and which later acquired the property, to manage which
Roberts was sent in 1878. He was identified with the greatest periods of
growth of Madera County, himself erected two substantial blocks in 1890 and
in 1893 organized the Commercial and National Bank and was reputed to be
the wealthiest man in the county. The wife to whom he was married in
1869 died in San Francisco August 17, 1916, since which he had made a home
with a married daughter in San Francisco. He retired from business life
in 1915. The Roberts banking interests have been taken over by the Bank
of Italy. Political life had never attraction for him : financially he was the
power in the county.
John T. Robinson, who was known to pioneer city residents as Jack
Robinson, came to Fresno in April, 1889. He was upon death survived by
widow and nine children, one of whom is City Electrician T. M. Robinson.
He was for eight 3^ears engaged here in the transfer business, the pioneer in
that line when the Kearney estate, the boulevard and the neighboring vine-
yards were being laid out and transported the trees and plantings. He opened
the first hay market in the city, locating at H and INIerced Streets opposite
the S. P. freight sheds, and later on the site of the present city hall. In his
534 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
later years he ranched. He was a pioneer member of Fresno Lodge No.
343, I. O. O. F., and at the time of death sixty-eight years of age.
The name of Peter Van Valer is often met with in the earUer records.
He was a pioneer of Tulare and Kings counties and prominent in the 70's
in the sheep and cattle business in Fresno. His death at Hanford was at the
age of eighty-five 3^ears. He was a New Yorker born and at the age of twenty-
seven in 1859, came to Stockton to join a brother, .Andrew, in the cattle
business. In 1861 he last returned east to enlist in the One Hundred and
Seventy-second N. Y. Infantry Regiment, later reorganized as the Sixth N. Y.
Heavy Artillery, serving on detached duty as quartermaster and on discharge
went to Stony Point, N. Y. He returned to California in 1869 and settling at
Visalia, resumed the cattle business with the brother named and took up range
land along the Kings River, in 1874 adding sheep to the venture and running
about 8,000 to the band of 1,000 head of cattle and 200 horses. The business
prospered until the disastrous "dry" year of 1877 when half the sheep was
lost. For seven years after 1874, he was deputy district revenue collector
while retaining his stock interests until 1886. In 1875 he bought out the
brother's interest, remaining at Visalia until 1884, when he moved to his
1,000-acre ranch, eight miles northeast of Hanford on the river. He retired
from the ranch and removed to town and was elected countv tax collector
for the term 1898-1910. He was a member of the Elks and of the G. A. R.
The death of Julius C. Wolters at the age of seventy-nine at the home
of his daughter, ]\Irs. Charles G. Bonner, on the Bonner vineyard recalls that
he and his brother, Henry, laid out forty years ago Wolters Colony. The
decedent came to America from Germany when fourteen years of age. Three
years after founding the colony, and having disposed of all his holdings he
moved to Sierra County and engaged in mining and merchandising for more
than thirty years, and about 1914 returned to Fresno to make his home with
daughter. Another daughter in San Francisco and a son in Fresno, W. H.
survived him.
A visit to Fresno in October, 1917, by Charles M. Pyke working up a
Symphony Orchestra Association recalled one who has been connected with
theatrical, musical and amusement enterprises nearly all his life, commenc-
ing with remote past when Dion Boucicault, the adapter of plays from the
French, the impersonator of Irish characters with the ever present shillelah,
whose Irish plays are numbered by the dozens and whose most famous
was perhaps "Conn, the Shaugrauhn," hired Pyke to sing behind the
scenes "Maryland, My Maryland" in the forgotten production of "Belle La-
mar." He was the head of the Pyke Opera Company with his wife the light
opera prima donna. He was the first manager of the Barton Opera House
and continued as such for about three years after its opening. The engage-
ment followed his coming to Fresno with the opera company and playing
as he said "in the old Armory Hall, a wooden shack down on J Street." After
the engagement, the opera company was invited out to the hospitable Barton
vineyard and there Barton unfolded his plan and declared that if Pyke would
remain and manage the theater he would build it. The theater was built and
it was considered one of the finest in the west. Even Fanny Davenport,
daughter of John L. Davenport, tragedian and foremost actor of his day, pro-
nounced it "a beautiful theater." Pyke hung up two records at the old
Barton. The first was when Sarah Bernhardt appeared acting in French with
an English speaking support and the receipts were over $3,200. This stood as
a record for twenty-two years but was broken when Pyke came with Tetraz-
zini, opera singer, and the first record was beaten by about $200. The prices
of admission were special ones, accounting for the large receipts.
During the first week in October, 1918, Monsignor J. M. McCarthy sev-
ered the rectorship of St. John's Church to become rector of St. Andrew's
Church at Pasadena. Not only the Catholic but the community at large lost
a commanding figure in the religious life after a residence of twenty years,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 535
having been appointed to the field in October, 1898, since which every church
in Fresno has had chanoe in ministry, Monsignor McCarthy holds a (hstin-
guished place in the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles. Though seldom
appearing before' the public, no movement for the good of the community
but had his fullest co-operation and aid. It was during his incumbency that
the parish became the largest and most influential in the valley territory of
the diocese. His interest was keen in building up the parish school, intro-
ducing new methods and doubling the capacity of its school buildings. The
Monsignor was ordained June 24, 1890, and coming to California was assigned
as rector of the Old Plaza Church at Los Angeles, October 20, 1890. In Au-
gust. 1893, he was appointed rector of St. Francis de Sales' Church at River-
side by the late Bishop Mora. This five-year pastorate was followed by ap-
pointment in charge of St. John's of Fresno. The present church with the
adjoining parish school are the result of his eflforts. When he assumed charge,
parish was a small but promising one. According to the diocesan records,
St. John's parish is regarded as one of the most important in the diocese.
Nor was he left unhonored by the Mother Church. It was through his eflforts
and not without opposition from a portion of the parish that the church was
removed from its pioneer site ; that the large and handsome edifice was
erected in 1902 and remodeled and decorated in its present completed form
in October, 1915, to do which the brick structure was en masse lifted bv
jack-screws from its foundations to enlarge and heighten the nave. Church
honors that were conferred on the young priest were to be made Diocesan
Consultor in January, ]^0f\ in November named Private Chamberlain to
His Holiness, the late Pope Pius X with the title of Very Reverend Mon-
signor, in June, 1909, by appointment as Domestic Prelate with the church
title of Right Reverend Monsignor and in June, 1917, reappointed Diocesan
Consultor to serve on several boards having to do with diocesan affairs. It
was in June. 1905, that he celebrated his silver jubilee and received testi-
monials of honor not alone from his parishioners but from citizens at large.
Monsignor McCarthy is a native of Brooklyn, N. Y., an accomplished musi-
cian, completed theological studies at All Hallows in Ireland following his
philosophical studies in the College of the Propaganda in Rome. His suc-
cessor as rector of St. John's is Rev. Leo J. Foin from St. Paul's at Los
Angeles. He was educated in the schools of Fresno, completed his theological
studies in the east, attended St. Vincent's College in Pennsylvania and on
graduation entered the seminary of the College. He said his first mass at
St. John's on ordination. The Foin family is an old and respected one of
Fresno.
Charles L. Walter, capitalist of Fresno and property owner of Fowler,
was one of the youngest soldiers regularly enlisted in the LTnion Army. He
was left an orphan at nine years. The war broke out when he was eleven
vears of age. Two years later, he enlisted in an Illinois regiment and upon
discharge re-enlisted in the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry commanded by Col.
Robert Ingersoll and served to the end of the war. After mining in Nevada
and Arizona, he came to Fresno in 1881 and becoming interested in land near
Fowler colonized the tract as Walter Colony, realizing good profit. Walter
was born near Aledo, 111., July 16, 1850.
O. J. Woodward, who succeeded to the presidency of the First National
Bank upon removal to San Diego of J. H. Braly, January 1, 1888, is a man
of business acumen. He is from"^ Clinton, DeWitt County, 111. At nine years
of age, his father lost all by fire and later a few years upon his death became
the sole support of widowed mother and a younger sister. At twenty he
graduated from high school and after teaching a country school for one term
entered the employ at Clinton of Jacob Vogel in a shoe store at twenty-five
dollars a month. Three years and a half later his employer failing in health
projected a tour of Germany and entrusted the management of the business
as partner to his clerk in his absence. The partnership lasted for six years,
536 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the stock was sold and Woodward came to California in 1880 to look the
field over. Returning home, he reentered the shoe business and continued for
three years, forming a new partnership with his former associate. A journey
to Arizona resulted in the purchase of cattle ranch of whicVi he took charge
leaving partner to manage the home business. After eighteen months, the
ranch Was sold at great profit, he tarried three months at Los Angeles and
came to Fresno to establish a home. Money was invested in land, he engaged
actively in the sale and booming of real estate until he joined the bank as
stockholder, then as cashier and next as president. His former partner was
persuaded to come out to Fresno and he became vice-president of the bank.
The two associates were the means of attracting to Fresno as settlers a de-
sirable contingent from Clinton. Mr. and Mrs. Vogel were murdered in their
home in Alameda.
T. C. White dates his residence in Fresno from the 27th of April, 1877,
coming with $325, all that he had. which he deposited with the First National
Bank of which he afterwards became a director. The sale of a Central Colony
lot bought in the summer of 1877 yielded a profit and w^hile not ashamed to
make use of a violin to give him a living he became the owner in time of the
historic Raisina Vineyard, model institution that it was. It was the first
raisin vineyard and he one of the pioneer raisin producers in the county.
The Raisina took six first premiums at the California state fair and one silver
and two gold medals for the best California produced raisins. Mr. AVhite
is a large city property owner. The AMiite Theater and the adjoining Pleas-
anton Hotel are his properties.
J. H. La Rue, who died at the age of eightv-four. was a vineyardist and
a resident for thirty-one years. He was survived by widow, three sons, eleven
grand and ten great-grandchildren.
Rev. Thomas Boyd was pastor emeritus of the First Presbyterian Church
oi Fresno City. He was pastor of the church for fourteen years, and during
his pastorate it was that the church at I^I and Pierced Streets was built and
the number of communicants more than doubled from the time that he
answered the call. Before his coming, the congregation worshipped in an
assembly hall on Merced Street, opposite the Masonic Temple. He resigned
about three years before his death, at the age of seventy.
Dr. W. T. Burks w^as a pioneer physician identified with the life of the
city and county for nearly forty years, professionally, as a member of the
city board of health or as county health officer. It was related of him that
in early manhood he served as ship's surgeon on a Pacific liner and in that
capacity visited the South Sea Islands on a cruise for one year. On returning
in 1890, the vessel touched at a Mexican port and President Diaz enlisted
him to stamp out the yellow fever then raging in Mexico, investing him with
full authority and placing at his command the services of the military and
navy. The epidemic was controlled in three months and after a residence of
ten months in Mexico he returned to California. Dr. Burks' death was the
first notable one in the city during the Spanish influenza epidemic in October,
1918.
Edward E. Bush was mayor of Fresno preceding Dr. Chester Rowell,
elected April 12, 1909. He was chosen by the board of city trustees of wdiich
he was a member to fill the unexpired term of W. Parker Lyon, who had
resigned aljout a year before. The same political power placed him in ofifice
that was instrumental in elevating Lj'on to the mayoralty. Bush declined
to be a candidate at the election because of ill health. A non-partisan pri-
mary law being in effect, all candidates went on the ballot by petition and
there were no partv nominations or conventions. The contest for the mayor-
alty was a four-cornered one with Trustees J. B. Myers and J. D. Stathani,
W. F. Toomey and Dr. Rowell as the candidates, the Good Government
League having: to do with the selection of candidates. Mr. Bush was a mem-
ber of the milling firm of Hollenbeck & Bush and was a relative by marriage
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 537
of Clarence J. Berry, the Klondiker. His administration was a negative one
after the troublous one of Lyon and the policy constructive one of his suc-
cessor.
Rev. W. B. McElwee, who died at the age of eighty, had preached from
valley pulpits for nearly thirty years coming from ^Missouri in 1886 to occupy
the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church of Madera and remaining in
charge for nineteen years. He became in 1906 pastor of the Belmont Presby-
terian Church of Fresno which later merged with the Calvarj^ and became
the Westminster. He retired from the active ministry six years ago. His
wife died two weeks before him.
Rev. Benjamin A. Hawkins, who died at St. Helena Sanitarium, was
county school superintendent of Fresno from 1883 to 1891 and after the di-
vision, superintendent of the Madera County schools. Death was from a
cerebral trouble.
Mrs. H. D. Carver, widow of B. F. Gray, was one of the many victims
of the Spanish influenza epidemic in November, 1918. She was principal of
the Emerson and Kirk school kindergartens, a resident for twenty years, one
of the guiding spirits of the kindergarten schools, active in club work and
in the Baptist Church. She was a member of the City Beautiful Commission.
Henry Markarian, president of the California Fig Growers' Association,
was another victim of the Spanish influenza. A resident of the county for
thirty-six years coming from Armenia at the age of ten years, he devoted
a life to the study of the fig industry and was a recognized authority on the
subject. He owned the well known Markarian Fig Gardens, one and one-half
miles north of the city where at the time of death he had completed a beau-
tiful home.
Bernard Faymonville, chairman of the board of directors of the Fire-
men's Fund Insurance Company, who died in San Francisco, was a resident
of Fresno for five years after 1877. While here he was in the insurance bus-
iness and in abstract offtce of his brother, William Faymonville. an early
pioneer. He removed when appointed special agent of the insurance com-
pany. He was one of the trustees of the W. J. Dickey estate. He had a fatal
stroke of paralysis while playing golf.
W^. M. Wyatt, who died at the age of seventy-nine years, had been a
resident of Fresno for about three decades. He was a North Carolinian,
who after the Civil ^^^ar went to the northwest, engaged in the freighting
business amassing a fortune for the times, lost it in the panic of the early
70's, took up the cattle business in Montana, recouped his losses and in 1886
came to California and a year later settled in Fresno. He invested in land
near Fresno and Fowler. He had planted several vineyards near Lone Star
and at the time of death was considered well to do.
From a vegetable garden to the pomp of court life is the romance in
the life of Lily Haw, a pretty native born Chinese girl of Fresno. She was
born in the country near the Eisen Vineyard, where her father Fernando
Haw raised vegetables for the Fresno market. She was nineteen at the time
of her marriage. Her education was received in the public schools of the
city, she was a student of the Washington grammar school and ready to
enter the high school. She was as bright and clever as any American girl
and had inherited much of her mother's shrewdness. Haw was a character
of Fresno's Chinatown. He had a shrewd and intelligent wife and they were
the head of a thoroughly Americanized household and a family of ten. Lily,
the second daughter, as she was known under her American name, forsook
the parental roof-tree in July, 1907, and with Ben O. Yung and the latter's
match-making wife as the official "go-between" in the affair journeyed to
New ^'ork where the wedding, according to the Chinese custom, was had
at the Hotel Astor. The husband was Kang Yu Wee, Chinese consul general
to Stockholm and a leader in the much talked of Chinese reform movement.
Unlike the majority of Chinese brides, who do not set eyes on their liege
538 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
lords until the marriage ceremony, Lily had once looked upon him, though
never formally introduced. It was about two years before when Wee visited
California and spoke in Fresno on the reform movement with which he was
associated. Then it was that Mrs. Yung was commissioned to find a wife
for him. She was found, and after all the necessary arrangements, financial
and otherwise, were made, the bride was claimed one year after the com-
mission. Arrived at Stockholm after a tour of the continent, the little bride
discarded her Oriental apparel and resumed her American dresses as she
wore them in Fresno, and from a simple, crowded home circle she was
established in her own and ruled over three servants. The husband's con-
sular duties ended in the summer of 1908 and after some travel the Wees
planned to go to China to live. As far as customs and ideals of living are
concerned, the little Fresno bride was to all intents an American girl in
everything save religion as the family retained the worship of Confucius.
Three Fresno men that dabbled more or less in oil entertained wfth
the developments of March, 1910, in the Maricopa and Coalinga fields in
Kern and Fresno Counties the belief that fortune played them a scurvy
turn but for which they might have been in a class with John D. Rocke-
feller. They are Fritz Bader of the Worswick Paving Company, Louis
Scholler of the Grand Central Cafe and the late Peter Rice of the Sunset
Realty Company. Bader, Scholler and certain Hanfordites were interested
in a Maricopa enterprise and might have been owners in the Lake View
oil volcano which was erupting 40,000 barrels- of oil a day and had been con-
tinuously for ten days in March, 1910, the product erupting so fast that there
was no tankage for it and the oleaginous fluid was banked in a great lake.
Bader is one of the vallev's pioneer oil men and learned what he knows
of oil in the Baku field in Russia on the Caspian Sea. Their Maricopa enter-
prise was one of 1892 in a companv that drilled 800 feet, drilled until they
could raise no more money with which to drill and finally lost all they had
invested. Bader, who owned the two and one-half-acre location, even for-
feited ownership of the land because of inability to keep up the assessment
work, though he continued operations for one year after the others had
abandoned all hope and let their stock go for delinquent assessments. The
gusher in 1910 spouted 40.000 barrels a day from a well at 2,400 and the
development of which cost the interested and stock controlling Los Angelans
approximately $90,000. Bader went bankrupt over the enterprise and re-
turning to Hanford began business anew but on other lines. Scholler rumi-
nated over a roll of $25,000 worthless delinquent share certificates of the
original company on whose abandoned location the Lake View pumped up
daily those 4O,O0O gallons, doing so in part through the very casing that
they had put down in the hole drilled for 800 feet eight years before. Rice's
experience at Coalinga was on diliferent lines in his sale of a quarter section
of land for $150 an acre, when on the day after the sale he was offered $750
an acre. The rise in value was on account of the bringing in of the Coalinga-
Mohawk gusher, the sale having been consummated at an all night seance
at Coalinga on the day before the gusher was Ijrought in. Rice had been
carrying an option of $100 an acre on the northwest and southwest quarters
of Section 14-20-15, adjoining the Mohawk, and on the night of the sale
before the next day's strike closed with G. R. Umbsen of San Francisco
for $150 an acre. The next day's $750 an acre offer came too late. True the
deal netted him a net profit of $16,000, but at $750 he might have realized
six times as much. On the strength of the Mohawk gusher C. G. Wilcox,
one of the organizers of the Mohawk and then largely interested in Coal-
inga. sold the northwest quarter eighty acres of 14-20-15 for $100,000.
Robert Edmiston was an after-the-war pioneer of Fresno and before an
Indian fighter. At death at the home of his son, Robert W. Edmiston, near
Clovis, he lacked thirty days of attaining the ripe age of eighty-two years.
For some years before he suffered from the effects of the exposures and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 539
hardsliips of army campaigning life. He was a native of Ohio and came
west in 1852. entered the army and was engaged during his military service
in campaigning against the Indians in Arizona and New Mexico. Eleven
years later he enlisted for the Civil War and saw service with the First
California Infantry Regiment, principally in Arizona. After his war
service he located in Napa County, farmed for about two years and
then made a home in the San Joaquin Valley. A reference to him in the
newspaper obituary was as the first to conduct irrigation operations on
the plains near Fresno. This may or may not have been so. The distinction
has been credited to others. History does not record who was that pioneer.
If history leaves in dispute as to definitiveness of day and date an event
of such world significance and moment as the discovery of gold in Califor-
nia, setting in motion one of the greatest waves of immigration, resulting
in rapid settlement of a western wild, adding another star to the American
constellation of sovereign states and writing in one of the most picturesque
and unique chapters in the world's annals, it may be pardoned if history
has not fixed the identity of the man that first irrigated the arid plains where
Fresno stands today, event of relatively minor importance yet pregnant
in local interest though it was. In any event, Edmiston was among the
very first to irrigate the plains and he did have to do with the surveying
and construction of the earliest ditches taking water from the Kings River
which after all is the great irrigation water source in Fresno Count}'. Robert
Edmiston was first sergeant of Company K of the First Regiment Infantry.
enlisting in San Francisco November 22. 1862. He was promoted second
lieutenant of Company D in April, 1863, enrolling at Fort Craig. N. M. From
the Company K sergeantcy he was promoted second lieutenant of Company
A of the First Battalion of Veteran Infantry, enrolling April 27. 1863. and
May 17. 1865. was promoted first lieutenant at Fort Sumner, N. M.. vice
Erastus W. Wood promoted captain. Edmiston was mustered out with
the battalion at San Francisco Deccm1>cr 31. 1866. Battalion was formed in
November and December, 1864, by con-^nlidating veterans of the First In-
fantry \Vilimteers into two companies .iiid rnnsolidating companies of the
Fifth into five of the battalion. The stalimis dI" the companies had been in
New Mexico. Texas and Colorado territory, but at muster out of battalion
in September, 1866, such officers and men as wished to be mustered out in
California were consolidated into a company and marched to the San Fran-
cisco Presidio. Lieutenant Edmiston was with this return column.
Prominent in the political and civil life of Fresno was for many years
the late E. W. Risley. In poor health for a long time, his last fatal illness
was of a fortnight's duration. The immediate cause of death was arterial
sclerosis. The services at the crematory were simple, ex-Judge M. K.
Harris, a friend of many years delivering the eulogium. Judge Risley's
request had been that at death there should be no flowers, "but dust to
dust and unto dust to lie without glory, without pomp, without end." The
career of the decedent was, before his coming to Fresno in 1885 at the height
of the boom, conspicuous in the history of the rapid development of Arizona.
He was born in New Haven, Conn., and was a direct descendant of Richard
Risley, founder in 1635 of Hartford, Conn. His youth he spent at Gales-
burg, 111., and at the age of twenty-one graduated from Knox College, hav-
ing studied law during the last two years of his collegiate life. He headed
westward in 1874 with California as his goal and during the silver boom
sought foothold in Nevada and in California from Shasta to San Diego. At
the time of the great mineral discoveries at Tombstone in Arizona, he crossed
the desert by pack train. He met the usual fortune and experiences of the
prospector — a millionaire at one time in his mind, a pauper in fact at an-
other. During his Arizona career he was at one time the official court sten-
ographer for the territory necessitating travel from one end to the other
of the vast domain. In political life he was a deputy U. S. marshal, deputy
540 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
district attorney of Cochise County in which is located the town of Tomb-
stone, was clerk of the board of supervisors of Pima County wherein is located
Tucson and during his residence in Tucson was in turn deputy U. S. district
attorney, a member of the town council during the change from ancient
Mexican pueblo to American city. Later also as a member of the territorial
legislature he was chairman of the judicial and appropriations committee.
After removal to Fresno following a stay in San Francisco, he was admitted
to practice as an attorney at law in the state and also the U. S. Supreme
court and was a deputy under the late Firman Church and Walter D. Tupper
in the days when the district attorneyship was no sinecure in the prosecu-
tion of criminal cases. Afterward he was city attorney under the Spinney
city regime and diplomatic in preventing open ruptures between the oppos-
ing factions in control of the administration of the city of Fresno in his
insistence upon the enforcement of enacted ordinances. For six years he
served as judge of the Superior court. A Republican in politics, he was
elected as a candidate on the Populist ticket with endorsement by the Demo-
crats. This was at a time when the Populists were on the crest of the politi-
cal wave to be later swallowed up by the Democrats by coalition. During
his career on the bench, he tried many criminal cases and his boast was that
he was never reversed on appeal. At the close of his term he retired to
private life, being a man of considerable business property most advanta-
geously located. Still he devoted time as a freeholder in the framing of the
first charter of the city and that document was largely the work of himself
and of the late J. P. Strother. It was a document which was calculated to
call a halt to many of the abuses that the city government had previously
labored under at the expense of public economy and administration of the
city's affairs. It was a document that was called for b}^ the times and was
not challenged until 1918 by a proposed charter as the old one with its dol-
lar tax limit on the $100 for general administrative purposes and various
other limitations was no longer suited to the times but a blocking stone to
the growth of the city under new conditions and the expansion of the city.
'Sir. Risley was also police and fire commissioner for four years during which
both departments were improved and enlarged. He left surviving a son
Thomas E., who is in public life, and a daughter. The death of wife two
years before was a great shock. He abandoned his Fresno home and a change
came over him, so affected was he by the bereavement. It was also a great
surprise to the community when on the day after his death there were
placed on record documents executed after the death of the wife deeding
all property to the son. He died at the home of the son and with death
passed away one who was a wonderful example of nervous and vital energy
and industry even unto the smallest detail.
Mrs. Margaret M. Beveridge, a prominent member of the Scottish Col-
ony, a native of Dollar, Scotland, died in 1918, aged fifty-two j'ears ; she came
to the county as a girl and was a resident of it for thirty years. She married
June 26, 1889, George P. Beveridge who died in 1916, and for many years was
the district agent of the California Wine Association. The surviving family
consisted of four daughters and an only son named for his father. He was
at Camp Middletown, Pa., in the aviation service during the war with Ger-
many.
A Honolulu dispatch of December 3, 1908, announced the death of Wil-
liam H. Marshall, a newspaper man who had a picturesque though stormy
career. He had worked on the old Expositor of Fresno and in his day was
connected with the newspapers of San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton
and afterwards at Manila and Honolulu. He was known in Fresno as
Maverick Marshall because he had at one time edited a publication known
as the ^laverick. Marshall was accounted a brilliant writer, though an erratic
character. His leaning was to champion the oppressed and in his writings
hesitated not to criticise federal judges and the military, not infrequently
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 541
paying with loss of his personal liberty for the freedom of his printed utter-
ances. An incident famous in California journalism was a decade or more
ago when he was with the Bee of Sacramento and when a particularly scan-
dalous legislature was in the closing days of the session. He headed his
article: "Thank God, the Legislature Is About to Adjourn." It so offended
the legislature that resolutions were passed favoring the removal of the
state capital to San Jose. "The Third Estate" was in such bad odor with
the state's solons that an act was passed requiring the printing of every
thing in a newspaper over the signature of the writer. It was such an idiotic
piece of legislation that it was generally ignored. No attempt was ever
made to enforce it.
John W. Martin, who died in 1908, was an old and highly respected
country school teacher. He was a Kentuckian born in 1848. It was in 1882
tliat he married here Miss Vienna Neal, daughter of the pioneer minister of
the gospel. The widow Martin and six children survived.
Dr. J. Fount Martin died at the age of eighty years at the county hos-
pital after a residence in the county of half a century. He was a graduate
of a California medical college, an author, teacher and editor. School he
taught here for nearly thirty years. He published after his teaching days a.
magazine called "Fresno Forward" and later a religious book "His Master's
^^'ill.'" besides other religious works. Many will recall him as one of the
city's striking personalities. Fortune deserted him in his last days. He
was a scliolarly gentleman of the old school.
The juvenile population especially received with genuine sorrow the
announcement of the death of John Zapp, pioneer of Fresno, founder of
Zapp's amusement park and zoo, the local P. T. Barnum of Fresno, a lover
of animals and the friend of children. His death was a pathetic one. Death
was from pneumonia contracted while visiting wife at a local hospital. The
Zapps had been cstram^cd, liad been separated and divorced. The wife was
in the hospital awaiting to undergo a capital operation. He had also survived
a series of operations that left him a shadow of his former physical strength.
She had him summoned for a farewell and a reconciliation. He responded
and contracting the fatal illness in his weakened and debilitated state fell
a victim of death a few days after. John Zapp was born at Reno, Nev.,
more than a half century ago. He farmed near Marysville in the Sacramento
Valley, came to Fresno about thirty years ago and in the early days was
connected with various mercantile firms. He then took up the (iraying
business and made a financial success of it during the ten years that he was
engaged in this line, having the monopoly in the excavating contracting
business. He was then in his physical prime and a marvel for strength and
muscular power. It was in the early part of 1900 that he married Miss
Leota Burnside and securing the property beyond the city limits where
Zapp's park is located on the banks of Dry Creek started a public amusement
resort, equipped with zoo and various attractions bought from dislianding
or overstocked circuses. The property enhanced in value with the extension
of the city, the amusement resort was greatly improved and became a popular
institution especially favored by the younger generation for its many allure-
ments. He had in his optimism expressed the desire of dedicating the park to
the city for the benefit of the young. This was liefore the conception and
installation of the city playgrounds. After installing a swimming plunge, a
skating rink and other amusement features, Zapp became financially embar-
rassed and lost his interest in the park. Sickness overtook him and that he
survived the ordeal of the operations that he submitted to is short of a
miracle. It left him a wreck of his former self. Things went from bad
to worse and the separation and divorce followed. Mrs. Zapp was an eques-
trienne and a great lover and trainer of blooded horses.
Pathetic were the circumstances attending the death of Will Y. Spence
in the prime of life at the age of forty years. He was a newspaper man, vine-
542 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
yardist and musician. When the United States entered the war he devoted
his energies to the program of food production and at the second draft call
in September, 1918, his name was drawn. To fit himself for the service in
expectancy of a call to the colors, he underwent an operation for appen-
dicitis. It left him with impaired vitality. He had not recovered from the
operation when he returned to the drill activities of the drafted men in train-
ing. He fell easy victim in the flare-up of the Spanish influenza during the
second week in December, 1918, the contracted cold developed into pneu-
monia and in less than one week he was dead. Surviving him are a mar-
ried sister, a brother David A. with the raisin association and a veteran of
the Spanish-American War and a younger brother, John Y., a lieutenant
who was at the training camp at Camp Lewis, Wash., summoned in
response to the first war draft call. The decedent was a Scotchman, born
in 1878, and came in 1886 direct to Fresno with parents, the late Alexander
D. Spence and wife, who settled in the Scandinavian colony district. He was
a graduate of the Fresno high school. He served on the stafifs of the Demo-
crat, Tribune and Herald newspapers, was editor of the Tribune and city
editor of the Herald. His last newspaper engagement was as editor of the
country news page of the Sacramento Bee, returning then to Fresno about
'fifteen months ago to edit the Sun Maid Herald, the monthly bulletin publi-
cation of the raisin association. W. Y. Spence was an accomplished musician
and for years the organist of St. John's Catholic Church. He was a member
of St. Andrew's Society and the family prominent in the Scottish colony.
The death at Oakland December 22, 1918, of Jolin P. Clark following an
operation for appendicitis recalls one who was an organizer of irrigation
projects in this county. The funeral was held in Kingsburg and the remains
were buried in the cemetery there. Clark was a Kentuckian and in early
manhood came to Kingsburg where he clerked for years in the S. Davison
store. His opportunity came when he was chosen secretary of the Center-
ville & Kingsburg Irrigation Ditch Company, acquiring later ownership of
the controlling stock in that company, the Fowler Switch and the Emi-
grant canals. All these made possible the development of the land in the
southern part of the county and still serve that region. Clark consolidated
the three interests and all the territory between the Fresno Canal and the
Kings River came under the control of the Consolidated Canal Company
organized about 1900. Later he sold his interests to the capitalists who con-
trol the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company and the chief irrigation in-
terests in the county came under one head. Clark moved from Fresno to
Oakland fifteen years ago.
Edgar H. Duval of Kingsburg and principal of its high school was a
victim of the prevalent Spanish influenza on the last day of the year 1918,
after an illness of about one week. He took his college degree in Stanford
in 1905, taught in the Visalia high school and in 1907 was chosen for the
Kingsburg principalship when school was in its second year of existence,
having a hard struggle to maintain itself with one assistant, occupying va-
cant rooms in the grammar school building, pupils scarce and considerable
opposition to the continuance of the institution. He overcame the obstacles,
tided the institution over that second year, won the community's coopera-
tion and during the third secured a $5,000 building. The growth thereafter
was easy and natural and a few years later a new building was erected cost-
ing over $40,000. He was born near Ventura in January, 1878.
A. C. Cranor was a well known cattleman and active in food administra-
tion work in the state during the war employed by the government in find-
ing cattle feed. He was a native of Kentucky, aged forty-eight. He was a
veteran of the Spanish-American \A^ar and served under Pershing as a scout
in the subjugation of the wild tribes of the Philippines.
Mrs. Margaret M. Patterson was a resident of the county for thirty-
nine years, of the city for fourteen, and nearly sixty-seven years of age at
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 543
time of death. She was survived by five children and eight grandchildren.
She was the mother of Mrs. George R. Andrews, wife of the county's public
administrator. A brother is John Mitchell, many years president of the
United Mine Workers of America and a leader who served on several federal
labor commissions.
The death in San Francisco with the close of the year 1918 of Thomas
L. Heaton recalls a man who held once important place in the county's edu-
cational circles. He was an early city school superintendent and principal
of the high school from inception in 1889 until the summer of 1896. For
the last fifteen years he was assistant superintendent of the San Francisco
city schools until illness compelled his resignation. He was a native of Ken-
tucky and sixty-one years of age at time of death. It is recalled that under
his Fresno superintendency many of the first schools were erected and
notably the first high school building at Santa Clara and K in the upper
floor rooms of which the classes were organized under his direction with
the assistance of Prof. Carey Jones, now of the state university. The rooms
becoming too crowded the classes removed to rented quarters on N Street,
and later to a temporary building on the Central school premises, close to the
courthouse. The high school building on the Tuolumne and O Street site
was completed in the final year of his connection with the local schools.
From Fresno he went to Eureka as superintendent, continued there for two
years, became a member of the university faculty and remained in that work
even after he entered upon his duties with the San Francisco schools.
Frank D. Fleming was a young newspaperman connected with city pub-
lications at various times and with the first Y. M. C. A. war work campaign
in November, 1917. In February, 1918, he was appointed publicity director
for the Hank' of Italy with headquarters at San Francisco and in October in
that city fell a victim of the Spanish influenza.
The story of the life of Mrs. Julia A. Fink-Smith and her coming to
Fresno County is woven into that of the history of the raisin industry of
which she was a pioneer with a small band of Boston teachers who came
from San Francisco, promoted and settled Central Colony, introduced the
raisin grape in the county and first commercialized the product of their
own packing. Associated with her in the colony were her sister 'Mrs. T. C.
White, the late Miss Nellie Boyd the actress. Miss Lucy Hatch, and the
Misses Austin, Cleveland and Julia Short. JMrs. Smith's was the Raisina
vineyard in its day and long thereafter one of the show places. She was
ninety-two years of age at death and came to California in 1852 by the isth-
mus route to make her home in San Francisco until 1876. Her husband,
Lyman K. Smith, <lic(l sixty years before her. She came to Fresno when
more than fifty years of age, saw the village grow to a city and helped lay
the foundation of an industry that has made that one time village famous
the world over as its raisin center. She spent forty-two years of her life in
this county and was one of the surviving pioneers of the agriculture and
irrigation era. Her name is also associated with the donation to the city
of the playground named for her. She was a member of the Unitarian Church
and made gift to the trustees of the church building site. She was one of
the earliest members of the Parlor Lecture Club and one of the founders
of the Leisure Hour Club devoted to literary work, also actively interested
in the Y. W. C. A., besides public charities'
Phillip Scott, who was for two terms a member of the county board of
supervisors, was for over forty years a resident of the San Joaquin Valley
and seventy years of age at death. He was one of the earliest trainmen in
the service of the Southern Pacific, connected with it in 1866, coming to
the valley in 1875 as a conductor in the days of railroad pioneering between
Fresno and Bakersfield and for years after enjoying a large acquaintance-
ship. It was in 1890 that in a hunting accident at Bakersfield he lost an
arm. He was a member of the Elks and after retirement from public life
544 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
engaged in successful vineyard cultivation. Flis brother, Jay Scott, was at
one time sheriff of the county.
William ^^'akefield was aged eighty years at death at the home of a
daughter at Ripon, after having taken cold which resulted in pneumonia after
a holiday family reunion in this city. He dated his first residence in Cali-
fornia from the overland ox team journey in 1853 with a brother, Henry, a
resident of this city, returning to the south and making a home in Texas
for a time and back to California thirty years ago. He was a mining man,
making his home in Fresno during the winter seasons and prospecting dur-
ing the remainder of the year. He was familiar with the mountain country
of the county with much of his mining activities in the ^•icinity of Dinkey
and Laurel creeks.
J. R. White, who died at the age of seventy-eight, was a carpenter by trade,
born of Puritan stock at Georgetown, Me., was a pioneer of the state and of
several of its counties, and as with so many others of the early comers had
a varied career checkered by successes and failures. The gold fever tempted
him and in December, 1848, with a company of thirty Bath friends and com-
panions left New York for the new El Dorado in a chartered schooner. From
Chagres they poled in a boat to Gorgona and from there "footed it" to
Panama. The next problem was how to reach San Francisco or Yerba Buena.
For three weeks they sought a charter and enlarging the company an English
bark, the John Richardson, was secured and the voyage terminated May 18,
1849, after a passage of ninety-two days. Mr. White made for the gold
mines, visited Stockton and traversed the San Joaquin Valley. For a time
he left his mining partners on the Tuolumne for the more certain returns of
running a ferry scow on the river but later returned to mining." It was
said of him that he was probably one of the earliest of the gold miners that
explored the central section of the San Joaquin Valley, gaining personal
knowledge of the Indian depredations and making the acquaintance of Major
James D. Savage whom he came to know well. December, 1849, found him
at Stockton where he built a house : next at San Francisco where he fol-
lowed his trade for some months. Back to Stockton and the mines near
Sonora meeting with success. It was at the time of the outbreak of the
foreigners who threatened to drive the Americans out of the countrv as they
witnessed their prosperity and the rapid settlement by them. Back again
to Stockton he engaged with a brother, who had come to California in 1850,
in a small way in the mercantile line. In the fall of that year he invested
in stock, moved to Mariposa County and a dry year following he was forced
to sell at a sacrifice. The gold fever had not left him and for a time he mined
at Dry Diggings, and for sixteen years lived in the mining district. For
years he was deputy sheriff at a time when it was necessary that an officer
of the peace needs be a brave and courageous man. For one year he ran the
Gilroy stage line ; in 1867 he was in Tulare as a rancher and house builder
and later at Whitesbridge in this county, named for him, making his home
there for eighteen years, successfully engaged in ranching, sheep raising
and merchandising. It was in 1885 that he moved to Fresno and made large
investments during the land boom, became a director of the Fresno Loan
and Savings Bank, president of the first street railroad company, was iden-
tified with other corporate enterprises and was a man of afifairs. He held
valuable properties in Fresno, owned a 17,000-acre wheat ranch in the valley,
also two fine wheat and vegetable ranches and large warehouses near Stock-
ton. Politically he was one of the advocates and organizers of the American
Party, Thomas E. Hughes, Fulton G. Berry and others being associates
with him. The \A'^hite home at I and Stanislaus Streets was in its day "one
of the finest in Fresno." The eldest son is John J. White well known as a
peace officer, long connected with the Miller & Lux interests and chief of
police under the W. Parker Lyon city regime.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 545
Mrs. Margaret Harless, who died at the age of eighty-eight, was a
resident of the county for a quarter of a century, for many years making
her home with a daughter at Academy. She came to CaUfornia with hus-
band in 1859 by ox-team, were harrassed on the journey by hostile Indians
with several of the party murdered. On the journey was born her son L. J.
Harless, now of Lewis, Cal. The Harlesses first settled at Farmington, Cala-
veras County, later moved to Salt Spring Valley in Mariposa and lastly came
to Fresno, the husband engaged in cattle and sheep raising and farming and
the family maintained a city home and a Fruit Avenue ranch. She was a
cheerful worker in the M. E. Church, South. She was hale and hearty until
almost the very last.
An illness of only five days from pneumonia carried off Charles S.
Pierce, president of the C. S. Pierce Lumber Company, and a well known
citizen who had lived in Fresno for over thirty-five years, or half his life
time. November 22, 1919, would have marked the fiftieth anniversary of
his marriage to Mary E. Fitchpatrick. He came to Fresno direct in 1S83
from Cherokee, Iowa, whither he had gone at twenty-one shortly after mar-
riage. Here he entered the lumber business with his brother-in-law, F. K.
Prescott, the firm of Prescott & Pierce continuing for ten years, until 1895,
when the partners severed business relations and the C. S. Pierce Lumber
Company was formed and is today one of the leading retail lumber com-
panies in the valley. The Tulare County Lumber Company with yards at
Visalia and Lindsay was another enterprise of his of eight years ago. He
was a director of the Farmers' National Piank, for over twenty years a direc-
tor of the People's Savings Bank until its sale to the Bank of Italy, which
also took over the business of the Fresno National Bank to establish in this
city one of its numerous branches. The subject of this obituary sketch was
a staunch Republican in politics, stood high in Masonry, was prominent in
the Elks and for over a quarter of a century was affiliated with the First
Presbyterian Church in this city. At his death Fresno lost a public-spirited
citizen. Widow and five married daughters and a sister survived him.
An historical character in one sense of the word was Elisha Harlan, who
at the age of eighty-one died February 27, 1919, at Riverdale in this county,
survived by widow and four children. He came to California as a boy at
eight years of age and as a member of the George Harlan party from Niles,
Mich., that preceded the ill-fated and historical Donner party in 1846, cross-
ing the plains and entering the state via the Hastings Cut-off. As a young
man he turned his attention to farming an'd stock raising in Alameda, Napa,
San Luis Obispo and Fresno counties. In the early 40's the father came into
possession of a little brochure descriptive of Oregon and California. He
resolved to come out west in 1845 with family and earthly chattels to seek
a new home. The train was of ten wagons and with it came 150 head of
cattle. The winter season was spent at Lexington, Mo., and in the spring
the advance was made to the edge of the settled country on the Kaw River
in Kansas. Here a rest was taken to fatten the cattle on the grass and gain
strength for the arduous and trying journey across the continent. Other emi-
grants to the number of over 500 joined them here and a general start was
made under the leadership of Captain Ahrens. It became soon apparent that
such a large party with so many animals could not well keep together on
account of the scarcity of forage at times and so at the imminent risk of
the hostile Indians the party divided into small caravans of about a score
of wagons each. At Fort Bridger. Harlan, the father, met Hastings, the
author of the little book that had lured him westward, and the latter told
him of a cutoff' that would save 300 miles of travel and offered to be the
guide. Four trains chose to take the shorter route, these being in the order
named : the Files. Donald, Harlan and Donner, for whom Donner Lake was
named and all treated of in history. The Harlan party, reaching the canyon,
found it overgrown with willows, but the Files and Donalds having driven
546 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
over the obstacles it did so also. Hastings traveling with the Harlans posted
notice on a tree for the Donners that there was another trail further up
on the mountain side, a little longer but probably safer. The Donner party
followed it, was caught in the snow at the summit and not a few perished.
The Harlan and other parties were compelled to make roads for days to
overcome the boulder obstacles, suffered for lack of water for days and lost,
for the same reason, many of their cattle. Finally when humans and animals
were almost dying from thirst, they came on to a little stream of trickling
pure water and were saved. Late in the fall they emerged from the Sierras
on Bear River and after seven months of journeying arrived October 8 at
Sutter's Fort, from which relief was sent out to the Donners. The Harlans
were at the Santa Clara mission during the closing days of the Mexican
War, when every one at the mission assisted to repell an attack. Elisha
Harlan was a lad of only eight years when he participated in these scenes,
the recollections of which ever remained clear in his memory. He located
as a farmer or stock raiser at Mission San Jose in Alameda County, near
San Lorenzo, at Calistoga and at San Ramon. In 1860 he bought land near
Kingston on the lower Kings and became a stock raiser and seller. Nine
years later he moved to near Riverdale, where he homesteaded 160 acres,
adding to them by purchase until at death he had nearly 1,000 acres, besides
cattle on pasture range near Paso Robles. For eighteen years he was post-
master at Riverdale and thirteen years ago he moved to a farm on the Laguna
de Tache Grant and there he died. Lucy L. Hobaugh, whom he married
September 14, 1871, at San Luis Obispo, survived him. likewise four chil-
dren and a sister, Mrs. Mary Smith of Livermore, Cal., aged ninety-four,
the last survivor of the George Harlan familv of seven children. During
the gold excitement of 1848 George Harlan mined for six months at Coloma
in E;1 Dorado County. From Santa Clara he and son, Joel, enlisted for serv-
ice in the Mexican War. He died at Mission San Jose in June, 1850. Elisha
was next to the youngest in the family.
Luke Shelley was one of the very earliest pioneers of Fresno City. He
died at the age of seventy-two after a continuous residence for forty-eight
years. There are very few living who knew as he did the city in its days of
beginnings. He came with the railroad and was one of the first located
section bosses. He became the owner of city lots which enhanced in value
with the growth of the town and which a provident wife saved for a com-
petency in old age. Mrs. Isabelle Shelley and a family of eight children and
a sister, Mrs. Ann Quinn, survived* him.
Harry F. Winnes, who had been a prominent business man of Reedley,
died at Boston, Mass., March 1, 1919, and was given funeral here with Chris-
tian Science services, followed by those of the Masonic fraternity. Winnes
had been a resident of Reedley for a quarter of a century, was a former
president of the national bank there and a director at the time of death. Old
friends and business associates were the pallbearers at the funeral, namely:
W. W. Parlier, J. C. McCubbin, Marion Dineen, J. J. Eymann, Edwin Reed
and Clyde Howell.
Mrs. Amanda Perry, nee Lowrey and widow of Peter Perry, was an-
other of the almost extinct band of intrepid pioneers that braved the perils
of the transcontinental journey by ox team, the toilsome passage enduring
six months with the travelers frequently exposed to hardships and danger.
The Perrvs married in Tennessee in 1857, the crossing of the plains was her
wedding trip and her residence in California was of sixty-two years. On this
ox-team journey the leaders of the combined parties disagreed as to the
best route to be followed, the caravan divided and the Perrys remained with
that portion that selected the further north routing before reaching Salt
Lake City. The other section was massacred by the Indians. The northern
section arrived safelv in California and the Perrys became early settlers at
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 547
Centcrville on the Upper Kings River. The Perrys followed the Donner
Lake trail. Mrs. Perry died at the age of seventy-nine, having lived for many
years at Sanger. Four children, twenty-four grandchildren, seven great-
grandchildren, a brother and two sisters survived her.
When Mr. Eguinian was suddenly called by death, March 25, 1919, while
at his desk preparing the next issue of his paper, the Armenian colony of the
county in particular, and the Armenians in America in general, lost a man
conceded to have been an outstanding character. Born in Armenia in 1865
of a well-to-do family, it was reported that he received his early education
at the parochial school of his native town. Actuated by a desire to aid
his parents who had been impoverished by the tax exactions of the Turkish
government, he came to America in 1885 to work out his own salvation. For
five years in New York he worked in the silk factories and acquired a
knowledge of the English language, using it for the betterment of his coun-
trymen and co-religionists who were about that time beginning to come to
the United States, driven from home by the persecutions and tyranny of the
Turks. Eguinian mastered the art of printing and he it was, so it is said,
that was first, scant though his means, to introduce into this country the
Armenian letter types from Venice in Italy and published in New York
the first Armenian newspaper "Arev" (The Sun). Despite financial stringen-
cies and other discouragements, he "published various Armenian periodicals
until twenty years ago when he sold his latest, "The Tigris," to an Arme-
nian political party. He came to California in 1899, settling in Fresno at-
tracted by the large Armenian colony here, and associated with the late
M. Markarian, published an Armenian song book, and later in 1903 founded
the first Armenian newspaper in California and the west, "The Citizen."
four years ago changed to "Nor Giank" (New Life), on which he was at
work when death's call came after a few days of indifi^erent health. Eguinian
was a Mason and a man actively useful to his compatriots in Armenian
and American political life.
Mrs. Anna L. Woodward was the wife of O. J. Woodward, president of
the First National Bank of Fresno and a resident of Fresno for thirty-four
years, being the first of a colony that came from Clinton, 111., arriving in
1885 at the beginning of the big boom and among them being the Lisenbys,
the Vogels, besides others. At Clinton the husband and Jacob Vogel had
been engaged in the shoe business for fourteen years before. The Wood-
wards were in 1883 the advance guard to come West, sojourning one year
at Prescott, Ariz., later moving to Los Angeles, and to Fresno December 5,
1885. Mrs. Woodward was a woman of retiring disposition and humble
aspirations notwithstanding that in later years she was in affluence. She
took an active interest in the affairs of the First Presbyterian Church with
which she affiliated in July, 1890. Her death followed a long illness.
Death removed, March 26, 1919, from this world Hugh Knepper, whose
life activities were part of the history of California and of the county of
Fresno. He was a Pennsylvanian by birth and eighty-two years of age
when the summons came. It was at the age of fifteen that in 1852 he came
to California and remained a resident until the Civil War when he enlisted
in the Second California Cavalry at San Francisco, September 30, 1861, and
mustered out from Company A at Fort Douglas, Utah, October 4, 1864.
Regiment was organized under the President's second call August 14, 1861,
and companies first assembled at Camp Alert in San Francisco located on
the ground embraced within Mission, Folsom, Twenty-fourth and Twenty-
fifth Streets, then known as the Pioneer Race Track and afterwards as ball
grounds. The company was at Fort Miller in September, 1865, for one month.
Leaving the army, he returned to Missouri and there in 1867 married the
widow, Emily Short, mother of John W. and Frank H. Short so prominent
in Fresno. A son named Charles was born of the union but he died three
years ago. The stepson, John W. Short, preceded the Knepper family by
548 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
one year in coming to Fresno in 1881. Hugh Knepper engaged in cattle
raising on Fancher Creek, thirty miles northeast of Fresno and this was
his home until the death of his son. He engaged also in mining and his
name is associated with the discovery and development of the Copper King
mine, which was afterward sold to an English syndicate. He was also a
vineyardist in the Fowler vicinity. He was identified with the Prohibitionist
political movement and a decade ago was a candidate for the state assembly ;
he was affiliated with the First M. E. Church of Fresno, and prominent in
the G. A. R. The death of the wife preceded his.
Hal C. Collins, born in Fresno County in 1875, and a Native Son of
the Golden West, was in the earlier part of his life associated in farming
and stock raising with his father, the late pioneer and ex-Sherifif J- D. Col-
lins, was later a deputy under Sheriff R. M. Chittenden, and since then en-
gaged in farming at Lone Star. His widow is a daughter of the pioneer,
A. D. Sample, whose family is as prominent in the annals of the county since
the days of the Southern war as the Collins family.
A noteworthy incident at the funeral of William Helm, April 12, 1919,
was that the pallbearers were all grandsons, namely: Paul Cox, DeWitt
Helm. Henry Walrond, Lawrence Maupin and Robert Thomas. William
Helm was prominent in the early development of the county, in his day was
perhaps the largest sheep raiser, drove" his flocks over the range between
Fresno City site and the foothills and as the story has it camped the winter
of 1865 on the town site and where the courthouse now stands. He died at
the age of eighty-two from the infirmities of old age and after an illness that
had lasted some seven months. A Canadian, born of Scotch parentage,
he headed "AA'estward Ho," spent three years as a lumberman in Wisconsin
on the Chippewa and on attaining majority in 1859, turned toward San
Francisco and after a sea voyage from New York of twenty-five days via
the isthmus arrived with cash capital of five dollars and this he spent for a
river steamer fare to Sacramento. He settled first in Placer County, mined
without great success, and after various occupations followed butchering
three years, engaged in the sheep business on Bear River, closing out in
1864, and driving his sheep to Oregon where he sold out for about $15,000,
representing his profits. He returned to Sacramento, bought more sheep
and in July, 1865, drove them to the San Joaquin Valley, since which he
had continued his residence, except for a time when he lived about the
bay after his second marriage to the sister of his deceased first wife. His
mother died at the age of eighty-two and was the mother of nine children.
William Helm's coming to Fresno was at a time when it was only a vast
vista (if space and distances, with not a foot of railway and when the sheep
and the cattleman was a law unto himself and maintained it with show of
force. c\cn though he might be trespassing on the prior rights of others.
Especially was this so in the matter of feed ranges. On Section 4 on Dry
Creek, six miles northeast of what was afterward chosen as the town site,
he bought 2,600 acres of land from W. S. Chapman at one dollar an acre
and launched out as a sheep raiser and dealer. His herd increased and at
one time numbered 22.000 head. He bought subsequently to add to his do-
main until he had 16,000 acres in a body. At a later period he also had a
vineyard. For eight years after settlement at Dry Creek, he had no neighbor
nearer than twelve miles; his was the only settlement between the foothills
and the future townsite. Helm was at that time conceded to be the largest
individual sheep grower in this section of the state. He carried his wool or
sheep to market to Stockton, and if there was reason for it went as far as
Arizona. His residence in Fresno City dated from 1877 on a five-acre tract
that was afterward the corner of Fresno and R. It was one of the finest in
the city for the day with tastefully laid out and attractive grounds. He had
also other valuable city property as for instance the Helm Block at Fresno
and J. He was vice-president of the Bank of Central California, president
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 549
at one time of the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company, and a stockholder
in the Morning Republican. The improvement of his country holdings en-
gaged his attention and he built a ditch to carry water, for irrigation, from
the Kings River; afterward he was one of the stock company that built
the Gould ditch with laterals running over his land. When irrigation had
made these lands desirable, he sold at advantageous prices until he retained
only 3,000 acres. Large crops of wheat, barley and alfalfa were raised, and
his 400-acre vineyard was one of the most extensive in the county, with
wine grapes a specialty. At the sheep ranch located two miles west of
Fresno 3,000 Merinos were kept. It had been swamp land but was reclaimed
and a part of it transformed into an alfalfa pasture. His marriage was in
Placer County to Fannie S. Newman, born in England but brought up in
New York. She was the mother of seven children, and at the time of his
second marriage, in 1909, and before it, he made division of his property among
the children, five of whom are daughters. It must be conceded that William
Helm inherited the Scotch habit of thrift, was a man of industry and energy
and personally took part in the great scheme of the agricultural and horti-
cultural development of the county that he among others considered was
worth nothing save as a vast feed range for the sheep and cattle. Be-
fore his property division the Helm Company was formed in 1900 with his
sons associated to manage his diversified interests, the son Frank Helm
president and manager. That son was the first office boy and later assistant
cashier of the Bank of Central California. The father was also interested in
the Farmers' National Bank, and always was a stanch Republican in politics.
As a bit of family historical gossip, it is recalled that four of the five married
daughters are living today on the block bounded by Fresno. S, R. and Mer-
ced, part of the original family home, and that besides his children he is sur-
vived by fifteen grandsons and granddaughters. The old Helm family resi-
dence at 2823 Fresno Street, enlarged and beautified, is occupied by Dr. J. L.
Maupin, whose wife was Mary H. Helm. The funeral was from the Maupin
residence with Episcopal service and of this church the first wife was a de-
voted member. Only the members of the family were bid to the funeral.
One of the most modest and retiring of men was Charles E. Jenney,
who passed away April 6, 1919, at Colfax, Cal., where he had lived four years
receiving treatment for asthma and other complications. He was a poet of
some merit, a philatelist, a numismatologist, a conchologist, a naturalist and
a botanist. He had been a resident of Fresno for nearly thirty years, coming
from Massachusetts as a young man, was for years with Noble Bros., one of
the early raisin and fruit packers, and with the dissolution of the firm on re-
moval of the senior member of the firm to Ocean Beach engaged in the insur-
ance business until his going to Colfax for the outdoor treatment. In his
spare hours he devoted himself to literary and scientific studies and contrib-
uted to newspapers and monthly publications on the subject of California
natural history. He was also a poet and newspapers and magazines have
published his verses. He himself published a volume of poetry under the
title of "California Nights" Entertainment.". His verses may be found in
most of the latest anthologies of California poetry. The verses were gener-
ously criticised for their metrical descriptions of California scenery. In a
more recent volume on "Literary California" some of Jenney's poems find
place with those of Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller and others and the prose de-
scriptions of scenery of John Muir. Two of his poems, "The San Joaquin"
and "The Sequoias," are reproduced in full. He was recognized as a botanist
and geologist and he it was that arranged the collection on the natural his-
tory of California at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco.
It included his own private accumulations of natural history specimens, and
it is said to be one of the largest and most comprehensive in private owner-
ship. His collection of stamps established his standing as an expert in this
line. He took interest in medals and coins, in botany and in shells and was
550 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
an amateur authority on these lines. His love for the outdoor was his recom-
mendation for appointment as a member of the city park commission from
which he resigned only when he removed from Fresno. At one time he was
also a trustee of the city free library. He was a prominent member of the
First Congregational Church. He had come to California for his health and
though never robust, found time with the inclination for his favorite studies
and his ambitions were rewarded. About ten years ago, while returning from
a home visit with wife, he was a sufferer in a railroad accident at Kansas
City, lost a limb and so seriously injured the other foot that he was per-
manently crippled and his never strong health was seriously impaired. Not-
withstanding the disability he continued his interest in outdoor sports in
which he had been markedly proficient. His removal to Colfax was on the
advice of doctors to go to a higher altitude and live in cottage in the woods
near Colfax. There was a pathetic side to his life in that his talents might
have had greater result but that the inspiration was not always at call in the
long and overmastering struggle for health.
" Robert L. Hargrove (obit April 28, 1919) was a lawyer of Madera and
a recognized authority on the law pertaining to irrigation. He came to Fresno
from Kansas in 1890 and associated himself with the firm of Van Meter
& Warlow but settled that same year in Madera where he continued practice
until health failed him. He was for years the attorney and manager of the
Afadera Canal & Irrigation Company, was also the attorney for the Italian-
Swiss Colony and a member and first president of the Madera Chamber of
Commerce. He owned one of the most valuable mining properties in the
county and was high in the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities.
The death of William R. Hatfield at the age of seventy-four. May 1, 1919,
at the cottage home at Pacific Grove in Monterey County, recalls a vet-
eran, who had a part in the making of Fresno history. He was born in Ohio
in 1845, but parents moved to Illinois and there he received his education
and at Chicago his training in a military school. At sixteen he enlisted for the
war and served two years. After the war, he took up railroading and, com-
ing west, was an engineer with the Central Pacific as a pioneer of the rail-
road era in the state and known throughout the valley through his long resi-
dence. He was with the Southern Pacific during the construction period
through the valley south from Lathrop, and was the locomotive engineer
on the first train from Bakersfield to San Francisco. In 1893 he was placed
on the pension list and he was one of the oldest if not the senior on that list.
Because of his personal knowledge, applications for pension retirements were
frequently referred to him for approval.
Mrs. Anna I. Tinnin, who died at the age of seventy-five following a stroke
of apoplexy, was the widow of Wiley J. Tinnin, who died in 1910. He was
a lawyer here of the days of a quarter of a century and more ago. She came
by oxteam overland with her brother sixty-four years ago at the age of eleven
and settled at Weaverville in Trinity County where she married at the age of
seventeen. The Tinnins were prominent in Masonic circles and she in club
life here. Mr. Tinnin was a miner in the early days in Trinity but all his life
interested in politics as a Democrat. He is recalled as an assemblyman at
the nineteenth and twentieth sessions (1871-74) from his home county and
as a senator at the twenty-first session of 1875, elected to succeed William
Irwin, who became governor, representing the counties of Modoc, Shasta,
Siskiyou and Trinity. Tinnin was a non-partisan candidate and elected mem-
ber of the second constitutional convention from the third congressional dis-
trict. He was nominated for secretary of state at the May, 1879, Democratic
state convention but at the election was third of the four candidates in the
race, Daniel M. Burns, Republican, elected. He was defeated for the same
nomination at the next Democratic state convention at San Jose, and in 1884
elected a Cleveland elector from the Trinity first district. His political career
closed with the incumbency of the United States Surveyorship of the port
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 551
of San Francisco under a Cleveland appointment 1885-89. He was a fine old
gentleman of the ante bellum type.
The death of Mrs. Mary E. Joplin, May 8, 1919, was at the age of eighty-
seven and closed a residence in the county since 1875. Her early childhood
was spent in Missouri, where at Sedalia she married Charles Joplin, a
farmer, who died in 1905. The Joplins and their surviving children and the
B. M. Stone family, also of two children, came to California, arriving at Kings-
burg November 1, 1875, a period when it may be recalled that neither Fresno
nor Kingsburg could yet iDoast of permanent improvements much less even
of sidewalks. The families took up preemption claims about ten miles west
of Kingsburg and on these lived until the Joplins moved to Fresno in 1912.
In their new home conditions were so primitive and the neighborhood so
thinly populated that there were only three other white women within a ra-
dius of twenty-five miles from the farms. The families assisted in putting
through the first Emigrant irrigation ditch and the work demanded their
absence from home in the field for the greater part of nine months. School
there was none until 1878 when there was found a sufficient number to per-
mit of the organization of the Duke district with nine children and Miss Ella
Guard as the first teacher. An abandoned settler's cabin was used as a school
house, the children coming miles to attend. Mrs. Joplin had been a member
of the M. E. Church South since her eighteenth year, and was born in the
District of Columbia. The Duke settlement was one of strong sympathizers
with the Southern cause.
Mrs. Mary Quails, who died at Sanger when seventy-four years of age,
was a native of Ireland, who came to California from Missouri in 1867 and to
America from the old country at the age of nine years. She was the widow
of N. E. Quails, known to earlier residents as "Uncle Nick" Quails, whose
death had preceded by twelve years. Their residences in California were:
first in Stanislaus County, and after 1873 in Fresno County, locating near
Fairview.
B. E. Hutchinson, who died from an illness of six years aggravated by
a street car accident in Los Angeles with spine injury, would have been
eighty-three years of age had he lived until June, 1919. He had been a resi-
dent of the county for thirty-five years, locating at Fowler after coming from
Des Moines, Iowa. He was interested in the organization of the Iowa and
California Fruit Company and in a half section of land which was developed
into one of the model fruit farms of the county. The Hutchinson home was
a part of the property of which he was the managing superintendent. He was
considered an expert on fruit growing and in the early days identified in this
section with fruit growing activities. In later years he was engaged in the
insurance business in Fresno and also in San Francisco. His second wife
and widow is Marie Van Loo of Fowler.
George C. Tabor, who died at the age of forty-nine from pneumonia, was
at the time of his demise cashier of the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany. Although a member of the state bar he had never practised law in
California, though he was a practitioner in Boston, Mass., before coming to
Fresno seven years before. With the organization of the association he was
in charge of the law department, but during the war period accompanied the
president, Wylie M. Giffen, as secretary of the Fresno City Exemption Board,
returning to the association work as cashier. He was a native of New Bruns-
wick and a sister was Mrs. G. R. E. MacDonald, wife of the rector of St.
James Pro-Cathedral. His fatal ailment followed an operation for appendi-
citis, which at the last took on an acute stage.
Notable in the pioneer and official life of Fresno, in the days after the
war, was William B. Dennett, widely known as Major Dennett. He died
at the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle, Los Angeles County, admitted thereto by
virtue of his service in the War with Mexico. He was the first city clerk
of Fresno and his official records are models of punctility and method. He
552 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
came to the county about 1870, from Alabama, with the "Alabama Colony"
that settled, for agricultural pursuits, in that part of the county now known
as Borden, in Madera. The party came via Panama, and included families
that later took a prominent part in the political and social life of the county,
but who came, as war-impoverished Southerners to make new homes, at-
tracted by the glowing accounts of those who had preceded them to Cali-
fornia and settled in the San Joaquin Valley. It was these Southerners who
gave cotton-planting here the impetus that it enjoyed at one time. The
Major engaged in wheat-farming, but farming was not to the liking of these
Southerners, who had been accustomed to have their labor performed by
negro slaves. The settlers had their successes and failures. The settlement
was finally abandoned after several dry years, following the ravages of the
loose cattle, before the days of the No-Fence law. The Major lost his
home by fire, and while a farmer had an unfortunate accident in operating a
harrow, almost losing an eye and receiving a scar that remained with him
until death. Major Dennett was a fine gentleman of the old school and
none will recall him save in kindliest remembrance. Mr. and Mrs. Dennett
came to Fresno about 1880 and bought a small cottage on the terrace on
the west side of Van Ness Avenue, between Tulare and Kern. It stood as
one of the city's landmarks until about 1900, when, after the death of his
wife, the property was sold and the house moved to Diana Street, where it
now stands. The Dennett cottage was on the four lots immediately ad-
joining the present Libertv Theater property. It had been constructed by
Mr. Hale, father-in-law of the late Dr. Chester Rowell. With the incor-
poration of the City of Fresno and the organization of the municipal govern-
ment, the Major was appointed city clerk, also serving as city assessor, and
held the former until the political upheaval of 1893. when the Democratic
"triangle" that had held swav in the city board of trustees was ousted, to be
followed by the Spinney Republican administration, which transition was
characterized by some as jumping from the frying-pan into the fire. The Ma-
jor retired from political life and was appointed secretary of the chamber of
commerce, in charge of its exhibit and publicity work. In this activity he
continued until the summer of 1902. Thereafter he lived a life of congenial
ease, active until the last, claiming two states as his home, and one year
making a last visit to his native state. The Major was a native of Hunts-
ville, Ala., born June 12, 1829, and early in life was apprenticed to the print-
er's trade and worked in his day as a compositor on the papers of New Orleans
and other southern cities. He maintained to the last, and even in his days
of affluence, his membership in the International Typographical Union, and
was always proud of that membership. He was a youth in years when he
enlisted, from his native state, for service in the Mexican War, and he was
in some of the early engagements in the northern part of Mexico. The
spirit of adventure fastened strong hold on him and, in the late fifties, when
filibustering was the fashion, especially along the Gulf of Mexico, he joined,
as a volunteer, the ill-fated Lopez Cuban filibuster expedition, a desperate
adventure, that challenged the sanity of its members. He related many
romantic and hair-raising tales of his connection with that ill-advised proj-
ect and of escapes from military execution after capture by the Spaniards.
Having had a taste of soldiering as a private in the Mexican War, he
volunteered on the side of the South in the War of the Rebellion, in an Alabama
regiment, and having influence, was given a commission and rose to the
rank of major. In fact, during the war, he was practically in command as
acting lieutenant-colonel, and thus he was "Colonel" to his friends and ac-
quaintances in Alabama and "'Major" to his later and newer friends in
California. Coming to Fresno from the "Alabama Settlement" at Borden,
Dennett worked at his trade as printer on the Fresno papers, but after final
retirement he spent the following seventeen years, part of the time in San
Diego with the family of Mrs. D. A. Dunbar, an adopted daughter, partly in
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 553
Colorado at the Printers' National Home, and, when tiring of it, coming to
California to tarrj' awhile in the sunny clime here at the Soldiers' Home. His
last visit to Fresno was about 1910, and three years later he suffered a
stroke of apoplexy from which he never fully recovered. Mr. Dennett was
twice married, the first wife being a Miss Amanda Hope, who died early,
and the second was Caroline Horton, of Alabama, who came with him and
the "Alabama party." She was a member of the Presbyterian Church and
her death was in Fresno, December 13, 1901. Major Dennett became a
Mason in Alabama, transferred to Fresno and, as with his printing card,
maintained that membership until the end. An only known relative in
California is a nephew, Wilson D. Dennett of San Francisco. "Dennett
Avenue" is named for the Major. At the time of his death he was a few
days less than ninety years of age. He could hold his auditors for hours
with the tales of experiences in his adventurous and picturesque career.
John J. Kern's death followed an illness of only a fortnight. Thirty-
two years a resident of this country, twenty-four of them were spent here.
He was one of the oldest saloon-keepers in the city, a genial and kindly
man. A son, Sergt. Harry Kern, of Company E, One Hundred Sixty-
second U. S. Infantry, returned from over-sea service only the day before
his father's death. The decedent was a member of the chamber of com-
merce, the Owls, Foresters of America, the A. O. U. W. and the Sons of
Hermann. In his latter days he impoverished himself in oil exploitations on
the West Side of the county, in the vicinity of Silver Creek, and while in-
dications were found the Kern Oil Company had located too high up on
the mountainside and the deep and costly drilling crippled it financially.
Mrs. Leota I. Zapp, nee Burnside, and widow of the late John Zapp,
died, from cancer of the stomach after a long and lingering illness, at the
age of forty-one. Their name is connected w-ith the amusement resort here
when it was the only one in kind, and she will be remembered as a skil-
ful and clever horsewoman, with a reputation as such earned in participa-
tion in many street parades and at county and state fairs, as a celebrity
with her pretty and well-trained horses. She was a native of Monterey
County, moved to Hollister when a child, and to Fresno at the age of
thirteen. She was a charter member and first treasurer of the Fresno Parlor,
N. D. G. W., and remembered the organization at death with the gift of
a glass punch-bowl and cups. The Native Daughters officiated at the
funeral. An intimate friend sang, at request, a favorite selection of the
decedent, and at her special request, also. Rev. Duncan Wallace, as the
clergyman, conveyed a message to the mourners from her, of the pathetic
reconciliation with her husband, summoned at her request, he falling a
victim of the Spanish influenza and both at reconciliation after divorce,
realizing that their days were numbered. Once well-to-do as the Zapps
were, the petition for the probate of her will was in an estate valued at less
than $10,000 consisting of an equity in two parcels of land of forty-five
acres and a city-addition lot.
Julian J. ]\Iiley was a settler in the county in 1889 and later became
prominent in the business world. He devoted himself to farming and was
interested in Kern County oil during the development stage. At the time
of his death he was a stockholder in two of the local banks and president
of the Fresno Crematory Company. He was a director of the Chamber of
Commerce and member of the Commercial Club. He was prominent also
in fraternal orders, especially in the Knights of Pythias, of which he was
elected a Grand Trustee at the state Grand Lodge meeting in Fresno, in
May, 1919. He was also affiliated with the Woodmen of the W'orld and the
Alodern Woodmen of America. He had political ambitions and several
times was a candidate for supervisor but never held ofiice. After the oil
discoveries in Oklahoma, he was an absentee from Fresno for a few years,
as the business manager there of the interests of A. B. Butler, formerly of
554 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Fresno, who was heavily interested in the territory and recouped a fortune
there.
Morris E. Dailey, for eighteen years president of the State Normal
School at San Jose, was found dead at his summer home at Pacific Grove,
on the morning of July 5, 1919. Death was presumably from apoplexy. The
decedent was fifty-two years of age and a man of fine physique. He was
principal of the Fresno high school for two years, 1897-99, from here going
to the vice-principalship of the Normal and succeeding to the presidency
two years later. He was a graduate of the Indiana University.
WAR REMINDERS
No "slacker" was Fresno in this allied war against the Hun but it
"went over the top" on every war measure. No county in the state has
perhaps a greater cosmopolitan population. The war spirit was intense.
Popular petition before the city trustees resulted in the change of the name
of "Kaiser" Street to "Liberty," and another before the supervisors of "Ger-
man" to "Kirk Avenue" after the near by school named for the late Thomas
J. Kirk, who was county school superintendent and later state superintendent
of public instruction. Private citizens also changed their names of German
origin. Notably among the latter was the former secretary-manager of the
Commercial Club, E. A. von Hasslocher, who was at the time immersed in
Red Cross work and would not have his patriotism challenged. He changed
his name to "Vaughan" and dropped the "von."
The 1917 quota of Fresno was $1,600 towards the million-dollar fund
to provide books for the soldiers at the American military training camps.
The campaign for the third Liberty loan opened April 6, 1918, first
anniversary of the declaration of a state of war between America and Ger-
many, a day to be in future remembered as Liberty Day.
To such proportions had grown the business of the salvage department
of the Red Cross Chapter that early in June, 1918, it was reported that the
time had come when the work should be placed in the charge of a wide-
awake business man to devote his entire time to it. An institute of the bureau
of salvage of the Pacific Division of the American Red Cross was held this
month to make Fresno headquarters for the southern part of the valley in
the work from Merced to Bakersfield. The encouragement that this work re-
ceived was an inspiration. Even boxes were hung to the electroliers in
town for the reception of tin and lead foil.
Interesting figures are disclosed in the City Exemption Board's report
of the first call for selective men for the service : Registrants 3,718, quota due
152, called for examination 854, absent fifty-two, accepted on examination
434, rejected 163, certified up 189, ordered to camp 165, failed to report three
and nine rejected. Exemption claimants 469, allowed 443, denied twenty-
six. Claimants included four clergymen, a German and 171 other aliens,
two postoffice and a government employe, two hundred twelve married men,
twenty-four with widowed mothers to support, twenty supporting aged and
infirm parents, two supporting motherless children under sixteen, three claim-
ing religious scruples, and two felons. Registered married men 1,722, unmar-
ried 1,996. Married men called 390, accepted seventeen ; single men called 462,
accepted 172 ; married exempts 373, single 292.
The "small boy" could not contain himself while the war spirit was
rampant. There was a battalion of six companies of the Junior Marine
Scouts and another of three troops of the Boy Scouts of America with un-
attached troops in country towns. These boys gave much help in war work.
The Junior Scouts for instance placarded the town one night with over 10,000
third Liberty bond posters and pieces of literature : the American Scouts in
June made a canvass of city and county to locate every black walnut tree,
securing options for the government use of the trees for the manufacture
of rifle stocks and aviator planes. Who will say hereafter that there is no
place in this world for the small boy and his invariable companion, pet dog?
In the foyer of the city hall was displayed for the first time on a day in
February, 1918, a silken flag with twent3--nine stars in the union representing
556 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
as many city employes as had entered the military service. The number of
stars has been increased to thirty-five, and they represent the following:
Fire Department — James H. Brewer, \^'illiam Nelson, John A. -Brame,
Samuel Parks, Chester A. Packard, Harrv Hicks, T- C. Wagner, R. S. Shoun,
W. S. Gilliam, J. A. Devlin, Tref Lassenay, John F. H. Fickel. L. M. Trivly,
Walter I. Enright, Charles F. Freeman — fifteen. The name of Samuel Parks
represents the first golden star on that flag.
Play Ground Department — W. F. Marsh, \Vallace Boren, Alark Ivellogg,
Adrian Harp, Miller Allen, Miller Henderson — six.
Health Department — Drs. K. J. Staniford and W. L. Adams; Drs. J. H.
Pettis and Clifford H. Sweet; Inspectors G. R. Hilliker and G. M. Jovich
■ — six.
Street Department — G. W. Barnes and V. A. Shaw — two.
Electric Department — C. T. Coyle, Herold Hiatt and K. AV. Schroeder
— three.
Parks Department — George L. Lambert and Claude Alexander — two.
Police Department — J. P. Murphy — one.
Service flags are shown everywhere, corporations employing large num-
bers of men and fraternal organizations rivaling with each other in show of
stars. To mention only two — there's the raisin association with 177 stars
in the flag and the San Joaquin Light and Power Company with 101 for
the district served by it.
Uncle Sam's postofifice has a service flag with ten stars in June, 1918. in-
cluding Leon Camy and Fred P. Reiss, former employes over in France. The
others in training camps were : C. W. Benedict Jr., Edward Hoffman, H. A.
Fages, James Camel, Walter Moore, John A. Flaynes, Dillon A. Wilkins
and Fred Gallman.
In Department 1 of the Superior court of Fresno County over the judge's
bench hang the American flag and a service flag, the latter showing the
younger members of the bar that were in the service of the country. They
are : Arthur Allyn, Loren A. Butts, Royle A. Carter, Floyd Cowan, G. Penn
Cummings, Arthur H. Drew, Earl Fenstermacher, Bertrand W. Gearhart,
J. C. Hammel, Ray W. Hays, Floyd H. Kellas, Herbert F. McDowell, John
A. Shishmanian, Strother P. Walton, Chester Warlow, Earl Wooley —
sixteen.
In government employ — H. AA'. Stammers, Charles Hill, Earl J. Church — -
three.
Registrants of twenty-onesters June 5, 1918, in the state with a few
country and mountain districts not reporting, totalled 16,891 — white citi-
zens and declarants 13,105, negro declarants 205, aliens all races 3,581.
Before the war, Fresno city had Companies C and K of the Second In-
fantry Regiment of the National Guard of California as part of the valley
battalion of which Will Kelly was the major. The companies were sent for
service and were for seven months on the Mexican border, returning and
on the declaration of war were federalized and sent for duty in scattered
parts as far as Nevada, Company K being on guard at the Union Iron Works
in Alameda. Cal. Later the companies were concentrated at Camp Kearney
— C under Capt. Frank D. Hopkins and K under Capt. Claude Fowler and
still later consolidated as Company L of the One Hundred Fifty-ninth LT. S.
Infantry, the company officers assigned to other commands in the service
and Kelly continuing as battalion major in the regiment. A machine gun
corps was recruited in Fresno by Capt. T. L. Stephenson and sent to Camp
Kearney at the inception of that training camp, leaving here August 4, 1917.
All the Fresno company Commanders were severed from their commands
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 557
and assigned to other organizations in the interest of disciphne. The ma-
chine gun corps became Company C of the One Hundred Forty-fifth
Machine Gun Corps Battalion. It was officered then : Captain Hugh Syden-
ham of Sacramento : First Lieutenant Frank G. Everts and Second Lieuten-
ants James Madison and Irving L. Toomey, the subalterns from Fresno.
Fresno has a Homo r,uar<ls r.attalion of Spanish War veterans and
others who because of age were excluded from active service. It was originally
of four companies and in November, 1917, was officially constituted and
designated as the Third Battalion of California Flome Guards. Its fourth
company was heavily drawn upon later to recruit up two companies of Na-
tional Guards under some mistaken interpretation of the slate adjutant gen-
eral's office, creating much disappointment and dashing the hopes of many
an ambitious young fellow. After heroic efforts at recruiting two national
guard companies for home service, replacements were made drawing from
the Fifty-ninth Company of the Home Guards battalion but they liarl never
much more than a beginning when the held out hope of active ser\icc in
training camp proved a delusion. The officers held commissions in com-
panies that had existence only on paper. One of these companies was
officered by S. L. Gallaher as captain and B. U. Brandt and Ray ]\T. Car-
lisle as lieutenants, and the other by B. A. Primrose as captain and Fcrd
Detoy and Marvin J. Nichols as lieutenants. Carlisle and Xiclmls entered
the service: Carlisle in the engineer corps as a railroad man. crossei! the sea
and was assigned to other duty, and the other entering the naval training
school at San Diego.
The main business of the Fresno City High School with its state recog-
nized and armed battalion of cadets was to help teach how to win this war.
A total of 345 students and alumni represented the school in the service,
seventy-one having gone from the school this year of 1918. The school
contributed about $120,000 to the various phases of war work in 1918 — ■
more than $90,000 to the second Liberty loan, $24,000 to the third and $4,500
to War Savings Stamps and Red Cross work. The spirit of war had infused
every department of school work ; the details are too many to particularize ;
not a department or class in high or junior college but has done something.
April 30, 1918, War Savings Stamps sales amounted to $213,871.74, plac-
ing Fresno third in the list of cities of the state for total subscribed.
All Liberty loans were oversubscribed. City quota on No. 1 was $1,1'2S,-
000: subscribed $1,402,950. Quota on No. 2 was $2,500,000; subscribed
$2,980,000. Ouota on No. 3 v^as $1,865,000 and over the top went Fresno
April 20 rolfing up a total of $1,875,000. In the Red Cross drive of 1917
the Fresno Chapter, which does not include Selma or Coalinga, raised $89,-
000. The Red Cross has 8,000 members in Fresno city and 32,000 in the
chapter district. Speaking in round figures, Fresno raised $50,000 for the
Y. M. C. A. war fund, $25,000 for Armenian relief, $13,000 for the Salvation
Army Hut fund, $12,000 for the Y. W. C. A. war fund, $10,000 for the Bel-
gian relief, $6,000 for the Knights of Columbus war fund, $3,250 for Smile-
age books, $1,500 for athletic outfits for soldiers, $1,100 for the mess fund
of the machine gun corps, $275 for the mess fund of Companies C and K, has
sent .Christmas and Raisin Day packages by the ton to the soldier boys
besides tons of clothing and shoes to Belgian sufferers. It has turned a deaf
ear to no appeal on account of this war.
The showing on the third Liberty loan was a remarkable one. It was
100 per cent, all over — 100 per cent, for the county as a whole and 100 per
cent, for every community moreover. All towns in the county were honor
towns and all have flags : some stars in addition ; Del Rey three stars and
each star represented 100 per cent., and all this accomplished in six work-
ing days. Fresno went $10,000 over the quota and the county $494,400 —
proof again of the great resources and wealth of this county. Fresno's Honor
Flag was raised from the courthouse pole on Raisin Day of 1918 as part of
558 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the day's exercises. The record is of interest how the towns ranked in "going
over the top," listing them in the order of subscriptions:
Town Subscription Quota Honor Reward
Fresno County $3,044,400 $2,550,000 Flag
Fresno City 1,875,000 1,865,000 Flag
Coalinga 237,500 117,100 Star
Selma 208,800 151,250 Flag
Reedley 130,000 100,600 Flag
Kingsburg 119,000 83,000 Flag
Sanger 110,500 77,050 Flag
Clovis 87,900 41,000 Star
Fowler 77,350 52,000 Flag
Riverdale 70,650 22,750 2 Stars
Parlier 64,200 27,750 Star
Kerman 36.500 16,150 Star
Del Rev 36.000 9,000 3 Stars
Laton ' 13,200 13,000 Flag
Kerman was reported to be the first town in the state to go over the top.
During the third Liberty loan drive, five teams of city letter carriers sold
in two weeks $49,750 of war thrift stamps.
November 4, 1917, saw depart for Camp Lewis at American Lake,
Wash., Fresno's fifth contingent and the last lot of men under the first draft
army call. In the number were 172 from Fresno and ten from other counties
and cities. Fresno had sent quota as follows: District 1, 380; District 2,
351 ; Fresno Citv, 152 — total 883. To secure these there had to be examined:
District 1, 2,460: District 2, 2.300; Fresno City, 854— total 5.614 men.
Olaf C. Neilsen of Route H, Box 81, was the second Fresnan to be
wounded in action in France, according to a message of May 3, 1918. He was
in the Fifth Regiment U. S. M. C, arriving at the front in July, 1917.
Harold Franck of Clovis was mentioned by Admiral Davis for heroic
rescue of thirty-five of the crew of seventy-five of the American munition
ship "Florence H" which caught fire April 7, 1918, in French waters and
broke in two. Franck is nineteen years old and the French admiral joined in
the commendation. He was one of four brothers in the national service.
'As a war measure in 1918. the Yosemite ^^alley was opened as a range
for the small cattlemen, the allotment for Fresno being about 6,000 head of
cattle. On account of the 1917-18 drought season, cattlemen were also privi-
leged in 1918 to use the Fresno Forest reserve ranges one month in advance
of the season to conserve the winter feed on the plains and in the foothills.
In the latter part of May, 1918, 170 tons of flour in four cars were
sent on to the allies in Europe, each sack bearing the inscription : "Flour
saved by Fresno, California." Shipment was the first tangible result of the
campaign in the reduction in the use of flour in the city alone by bakeries
and households. Administrator G. S. Waterman estimated at this time that
housewives had reduced flour consumption seventy-five per cent, since the
rules went into effect.
In one city lodge room alone — that of the ^^'oodmen of the ^^'orld —
hung five war service flags showing in June, 1918, stars as follows : Man-
zanita Camp No. 160, ^^^ of ^^'.. fortv-nine ; Fresno F. O. E. Lodge No. 39,
thirtv-three ; Pitiaches Tribe No. 144, I. O. R. M., twentv-one ; K. of P. Lodge
No. 138, fifteen, and I. O. B. B. Lodge No. 723, five.
Thirty members were at the dissolution June 11, 1918, of the German
Language Club of the city high school. The German Club as it was known
was next to the oldest existing organization in the school, formed under
the leadership of Miss Florence Robinson, the teacher, in September, 1913,
the Senate with its twenty-eight years being the oldest organization. Other
school clubs have been formed and disbanded, but the German after five
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 559
vears disbanded in the face of public opinion on the war. Besides taking
part in war saving stamps, Red Cross and soldier activities, it adopted a
French orphan and bought a fifty-dollar Liberty bond which has been given
to the Red Cross.
Fresno contributed $1,259.98 to the million-dollar national fund for
technical books for the soldiers of the army and the sailors of the navy.
The feature in the 4th of July, 1918, parade in Fresno city when every
participant was on foot was the display of service flags by individuals, socie-
ties, churches, mercantile and business enterprises showing in stars the
number of relatives, members or employes in war service. The procession
was headed by a banner with seventeen golden stars as the number that had
given up their lives in action or in training camps. Another feature was the
unfurling from the courthouse of a county service flag with the figure of
"5740" as representatives in war service. The honor of hoisting this flag
was conferred on Mrs. Mary E. Mankins of 2056 South Van Ness, the
mother of Homer H. Blevins, the first Fresno city youth killed in action in
France as a Marine Corps soldier.
The statement was made at the Red Cross Institute meeting in Fresno
by A. B. C. Dohrmann as assistant manager of the Red Cross Pacific Division
that the salvage work will eventually prove to be one of the great sources
of income of the society, taking its place with the annual membership sub-
scriptions and annual war fund campaigns. In holding the institute June
18 and 19, Fresno was making history. It was the first institute in the divi-
sion and the first salvage institute in the United States. The Lower San
Joaquin Valley Salvage division of ten chapters was formed with Fresno
as central headquarters.
The returns on the last of the ten days of the drive of June 28, 1918,
for pledges for War Savings Stamps with quota placed at $2,000,000 were:
Citv and Rural Districts $1,400,000
Outside Towns 650,000
Total $2,050,000
According to olificial figures, Fresno led all the counties of the state in
this war savings drive. In actual dollars turned in on the quota, San Fran-
cisco was at the top of the list with Fresno second. But in proportion to
population and quota. Fresno is first. Four counties in the state exceeded
their allotments by more than $100,000, namely:
County. Excess.
San Francisco $756,720
Fresno 360,610
San Mateo 167,283
Yuba 1 12,910
San Francisco with a population of over half a million had a quota of
$9,420,460 ; Fresno with a population of 103,000 a quota of $2,054,000, giving
an excess which is nearly half of San Francisco's over subscription with its
more than five times the population. In all nineteen counties over subscribed
and Los Angeles again failed in its quota.
It was stated that the impossible had been accomplished by pledging
over $1,000,000 in about six hours and that the amazing feature of the
achievement was that no figures had been held back to be cast into the total
at the last. Yet only a day or so before, it was heralded that the county
was $1,000,000 short in the drive and the county as one of the richest com-
munities in the world, worth in round numbers $300,000,000, was in danger
of having the "calamity" and "humiliation" befall it of "being classed as a
slacker," because at date it had paid into the war funds only two and one-
half per cent, of its wealth and three-fourths of this of interest bearing bonds.
It was too much of the "Wolf! Wolf!" crv of the fable. The drive was
560 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
started with $412,000 already saved and invested in savings stamps, leaving
$1,588,000 as the goal. The following table gives the quotas for the towns of
the county, in the ^^^ar Stamps drive :
Fresno $1,407,100 Clovis $ 40.000
Coalinga 119,700 Kerman 30,900
Selma 123.000 Parlier 30,200
Reedley 83.800 Riverdale 19,300
Kingsburg 69,700 Laton 16,300
Sanger 60.000 Del Rev 13,900
Fowler 50,500
County registrants of 1918, being those that attained the age of twenty-
one since the first military draft registration of June 5, 1917, numbered less
than 700 distributed as follows :
County Board No. 1 234
County Board No. 2 201
Fresno City Board 243
Total 678
The steamship "Fresno" was launched in the Alameda estuary on the
evening of May 18 and Thursday, June 20 steamed out of the Golden Gate
for the successful trial test of her machinery. This was considered speedy
work on war time shipbuilding schedule. The mayor of the city and his
wife, who christened the vessel, were on the trial trip.
Reuben Tufenkjian, living on ranch three miles northwest of Fresno,
was the first, at the close of June. 1918. Fresno boy to be returned home from
France wounded. He was pilot of a large American bombing plane and
severely wounded in combat with German plane on the western French
front. He had enlisted four months before in the engineer department as a
truck driver, later transferred to the aviation and within three months after
enlistment was in service in the American sector. During his six weeks at
the front, he was in six combats with German machines and though wounded
more than once not until the last did he receive injury severe enough to com-
pel temporary retirement from service. Observer and bomb thrower were
also hurt and plane of the Hun captured shortly after.
Fourth of July, 1918, a service flag was hoisted from the courthouse
to show that 5,740 men from the county had entered the war service. The
figure represented the men that had been drafted and those that had volun-
teered in local recruiting offices, according to data secured by the exemption
boards but not including volunteer enlistments before America declared war
or enlistments of Fresnans in other cities and recruiting offices and not
■credited to the county. The figure is, however, approximately correct. The
flag shows in fact the figure of 5,700, the idea being to record the service
men according to hundreds to make it unnecessary to so frequently alter
the displayed figure.
One of the most touching letters is the one that was received from
Homer H. Blevins. the first Fresno boy to be killed in action in France. It
was written before he went into battle and his whole heart went out to his
"dear little mother." It was his goodbye letter and was as follows:
"May 15, 1918.
"Dear ^lother: — ^^'ell. Mamma. I guess you have received my letter
by this time. I am writing you this letter and am leaving it with the Y. M.
C. A. man so that if I am killed you will get this letter. If you will receive
this letter, you will know that I have done my bit in this war. And do not
grieve over my death for we have only one life to live and one time to die.
"Tell Walter and Ollie that their brother's last request is to take care
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 561
of their dear old mother, till the good Lord takes her away from you, for she
is all you have in this world and when you lose her you have no other.
"Well, mother, I can say this — I died for my country and for my people
and I died with a smile on my face, thinking of my dear little mother.
"\A'^ell, Mother. I will close for I haven't much time t,o write.
"\\'ell, good-bye and God be with you till we meet in Heaven.
"Your Son,
"Pvt. Homer H. Blevins,
"France. Co. E., 8th U. S. Inf."
This letter came with another from "the Y. M. C. A. man" dated June
8, 1918. The boy's mother hoisted on July 4th the county service flag at
the courthouse after the morning parade. To make a presentable appearance
she had to make appeal to the Citizens' Committee on Arrangements to
provide her with a black garment fitting the occasion.
Death came suddenly to Caswell B. Howard Jr., member of the Home
Guards, after the 4th of July, 1918, parade in which he participated. It was
from heart failure. Having been accepted, signed up and awaiting call to
service in the naval reserves, the fact entitled him to military funeral and
burial in the county Liberty Cemetery for soldiers. He was a barber by
vocation, whose relatives lived at Clovis and who had a brother in the naval
service in Virginia and another in Alaska.
In response to an appeal from the Gas Defense Service. I). S. A., the
California Peach Growers, Inc., forbade its members to use peach pits in order
to reserve all from the 1918 crop for the government, which would pay
$7.50 a ton delivered at any of the warehouses on the railroad main lines.
The pits were desired in the manufacture of patent gas masks. The pit
charcoal has extraordinary qualities of absorption making it possible for
men to remain in "gassed" trenches for eighteen hours, while with ordinary
charcoal the masks become saturated in three hours. The secret process of
manufacture was guarded by the government and early action was taken to
prevent cornering of the pit market by enemy manipulation.
An interesting coincidence was connected with Seth McConnell, son of
Mr. and Mrs. W. F. McConnell of near Clark's bridge, east of Kingsburg,
who in July, 1918, was with the colors at Jacksonville, Fla. He was a student
of the Fresno State Normal School after graduation from the Kingsburg
high school. During the Civil War, grandfather was a prisoner of war at
Jacksonville, during the Spanish-American War an uncle was stationed
there, and Seth is the third of consecutive generations to be in Jacksonville,
each in connection with a different war in the history of the nation.
Drs. J. H. Pettis and C. D. Sweet resigned from the Fresno city board
of health in August, 1918, and also Dr. A. B. McConnell, they having been
called into war service. Drs. C. P. Kjaerbye and George H. Aiken were
appointed in their places. Dr. C. D. Collins, resident physician at the county
hospital, resigned on like call and so did Drs. W. L. Adams and F. K.
Pomeroy of the city emergency hospital. Not a few of the younger surgical
and medical practitioners of the city and county answered the call of the
government. Former City Health Officer L. R. Willson was another.
Corporal James Bonnar of Battery A of the Thirteenth Field Artillery
was the first Fresno hero to return home September 28. 1918, from the battle
field of Chateau-Thierry. He came from Fort Bayard, Texas, in the hospital
of which he was under treatment after having been seriously gassed in the
historic dash of the Yanks resulting in the smoothing out of the Rheims-
Soissons salient. He returned home at the request of the citizens' commit-
tee to aid by his presence in raising the fourth Liberty loan but missing
railroad connections arrived the morning after the campaign opening parade
of the night before. He was accorded manv honors.
562 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
At the ceremony attending the dedication of the state service flag at
Sacramento August 16, 1918, reminder was given that a total of 130,339
Californians had then entered the military or naval service of the United
States, either voluntarily or through the draft, distributed as follows as to
service branches^:
Armv Draft 66,862
Enlisted 32,686
National Guard 10,110
Navy 17,458
Submarines 3.254
Naval Militia 969
The number reported then killed in action or in service was 218.
No war record can ignore the wonderful achievement of the people in
the subscriptions to the Liberty loans. It is without precedent in the his-
tory of the world for the enormity of the sums of money loaned to the
government for the conduct of the war. It is the best answer to the question
whether the heart of the people was in the war. The United States of
America entered that war on April 6, 1917, and eighteen days later congress
authorized the Liberty Loan Bond Bill by which popular name it will go
down into history. On ]\Iay 2 the First Liberty Loan was announced and
twelve days later the details were given out ; one day later the campaign
opened and one month later it was closed. The issue was for $2,000,000,000,
bearing three and one-half per cent, interest and running for fifteen-thirty
years. Bonds carried the conversion privilege entitling holder to convert
them into bonds of a later issue bearing a higher interest rate. Four and
a half million subscribers in every section of the land representing every
class, race and condition subscribed for more than $3,000,000,000 but only
$2,000,000,000 was allotted. Features of this loan were the promptness with
which it was arranged and conducted, the universal patriotism with which
the people labored for its success with the result of the over subscription of
more than fifty per cent. Equally as notable a feature was the one that
there was no interruption of the country's business by reason of this un-
precedented demand upon the nation's money resources. On October 1,
1917, opened the Second Liberty Loan campaign and it closed on the twenty-
seventh. The bonds bore four per cent, interest and run for ten-twenty-five
3'ears, carrying the conversion privilege. It was announced that one-half
of the over subscriptions would be accepted. Nine million subscribers took
$4,617,532,000 of the bonds, an over subscription of fifty-four per cent, and
$3,808,766,150 were allotted. The enthusiasm was as great as that which
supported the first, labor and fraternal organizations being especially active
in the campaign and the women of the land giving splendid organized work
to contribute to the success of the campaign. On the first anniversary day
of the country's entry into the war, the Third Liberty Loan campaign opened
on April 6, 1918, and closed May 1. These bonds bear four and one-quarter
per cent, interest, run for ten years but are not subject to redemption before
maturity and do not carry the conversion privilege. The loan was an-
nounced for $3,000,000,000 but the right was reserved to accept all additional
subscriptions. Seventeen million subscribers signed up for $4,170,019,650
and this was also the amount of the allotment. Feature of this loan was
its very wide distribution and notably that the country districts so promptly
and heavily subscribed, in a great measure making up their quotas before
the cities. This loan was pronounced to have been the soundest of national
financing. About a year before there were some 300,000 LTnited States bond
holders; with the third loan there were between 20,000,000 and 25,000,000.
The Fourth Liberty Loan campaign opened Saturday, September 28, and
closed October 19,' the goal $6,000,000,000, the most stupendous financial
achievement for any purpose ever undertaken by this or any other nation
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 563
in the world's history and one which no other nation than this would attempt
or could carry out to success. Six thousand million dollars — six thousand
times a thousand thousand dollars ! The human mind cannot grasp the
enormity of these figures. The mere mention of them gives no adequate idea
of their stupendousness. They are incomprehensible. Some one somewhere
has tried to convey the idea of what this mountain of money represents,
pointing out that it would take 200 years to count it a dollar at a time, that
it would meet the pay rolls of the contending armies in the American Civil
War for fifty years, endow the world's universities and build all the canals
the world would ever have need of. Magnificent showing of the American
spirit in this war, backed by the soul of the greatest republic in the world's
history. Fresno's quota was $4,500,000— the city $3,009,200, the county
$1,490,800.
Miss Margaret Staples, formerly of Fresno where she was employed
in a bookstore, gained the distinction in October, 1918, of being the first
San Francisco girl to apply for admission and enlistment in the Marines
as a marinette, as alSo the first to be sworn in as a private in the service.
The marinette wears uniform, her work is that of a clerical stenographer and
for every woman enlisted a male marine is sent back to barracks for duty
as a soldier.
According to returns under date of Sacramento, October 11, 1918. Cali-
fornia's service flag was entitled then to show 296 golden stars. Killed in
action numbered 158; died from wounds forty-nine; from disease thirty-
four; in airplane accidents sixteen; from accidents and other causes thirty-
nine. As the total number of Californians was then more than 131,000. the
percentage of actual loss was deemed small. No considerable portion of
Californian troops had then crossed the ocean.
J. B. Welliver, who with wife conduct the club at Fresno Beach on the
San Joaquin River, claim to have contributed the prize war family to the
war with nine sons enlisted or in the selective draft. Welliver himself served
in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865, then in Indian wars in a Kansas regi-
ment. He was seventy-seven years of age and the sons ranged in age from
thirty-nine as the oldest to twenty-one as the youngest.
April 6, 1917, the date that President Wilson signed the war resolution,
is formally fixed as the legal date of the beginning of the war with Germany.
This is according to an opinion of the judge advocate general of the army.
The forward change or "daylight saving" move was made on the last
Sunday in March, 1918, the 31st. The clocks were set back one hour to
normal time Saturday, October 27. 1918. Officially the hour hand was moved
back to one at two o'clock on the following Sunday morning.
The two national dates for registration for the army were June 5, 1917,
and September 12, 1918. There was also a registration June 5, 1918, of
those who since one year before had attained the age of twenty-one. The
first registration under the selective service law was of those between the
ages of twenty-one and thirty-one ; those of September, 1918, between the
ages of eighteen and forty-five. The latter was estimated to have given
4^950 city and 10,050 county men — total 15,000, and in the state 406,700'. The
twenty-onesters' registration returned about 800 in county.
October 6, 1917, collection was made of old shoes by the Red Cross for
shipment to Belgium. The footwear was deposited at the entrance of the
courthouse park, back of the Salvation Army fountain. The pile of shoes
made heap as wide as the thirty-foot wide circular base of the fountain and
as high as the height of the central figure of the fountain. The "guess" was
that 30.000 pairs of shoes of every size, color and condition were gathered
and every pair worth a dollar.
The Fresno Home Guards Battalion of four companies was mustered in
in November, 1917, in the service of the state. Edward Jones, former chief of
police, with a record of a quarter of a century's military training, a captain
564 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in the Spanish-American \A"ar and for some years a major in the State Na-
tional Guard, was afterward elected and commissioned major commanding
the battalion. It was uniformed and armed with rifles. Coalinga, Fowler,
Selma and other communities in the county had unattached Home Guard
companies for protective police duty.
In September, 1917, the University Club had thirty-one of its members
in the army in various branches. Many of these same members weie credited
as war service men by other organizations to which they belonged.
With its two national guard companies accepted in the service, and the
Home Guards drilling in the Fresno Auditorium, the state under orders
received October 18, 1917, abandoned the lease of the city armory on I
Street and surrendered possession. A rental of $150 a month was being
paid for the upstairs premises with no present use for them during the war.
Not since 1884 had there been a time when Fresno was without a city armory.
A warm greeting was given Fresno's Companies C and K of the Second
Infantry Regiment as they passed through Fresno with -the other companies
of accepted state regiment from the north in two sections of a train of twenty-
one passenger cars with a dozen freight car loads of equipment en route
on the evening of October 29, 1917, to the army cantonment at San Diego.
The first men from the county to leave for the national army training
camp at American Lake in \\'ashington brought to Fresno something of the
war consciousness. The early draft departures werf these: September 9,
1917, as the first contingent forty-five men; September 20 second of 352;
October 5 third of 353; November 4 fourth of 183. There have been other
draft departures, small and large since then, including one of colored boys
exclusively. The two national guard companies took away 240 men, the
company recruited as a machine gun corps seventy, another as an artillery
battery as many and probably 500 from the county enlisted in the regular
army and navy branches and marine corps, all of which found Fresno a
good enlisting field.
Monday, the 11th of November, 1918, will be a memorable date in his-
tory. It was Der Tag of the acceptance of the armistice conditions exacted
by the allied nations from conquered and vanquished Germany in the most
cruel and inhuman war waged since the days of the early barbarians. The
beaten Huns were given a taste of some of their own schreckUchkeit in the
conditions. The news of the signing of the armistice came long after the
hour of midnight. A great din was raised with the blowing of sirens and
whistles and the ringing of bells. There was a wild and delirious parade
between the hours of two and two-thirty A. M., to be resumed by another
noisy and riotous parade at nine A. M. with speechmaking from the steps
of the courthouse. A public holiday was proclaimed and the jubilation con-
tinued throughout the day and was furiously resumed at night until every
one was exhausted. On the afternoon of Friday, three days before, false
telegraphic report had come of the signing of the armistice and the expectant
started a jubilation parade that did not grow to great dimensions so rapid
was the circulation of the falsity of the telegraphed report.
Total subscriptions to the Fourth Liberty Loan were $6,989,047,000,
the oversubscription having been $989,047,000 or 16.48 per cent, and every
federal reserve district having exceeded its allotted quota. The fourth was
by far the greatest war loan ever floated by any government. All the over-
subscribed war loans and the war savings stamps raised $17,852,000,000 in
popular loans, not including the not accepted over-subscriptions. The
San Francisco district's quota was $402,000,000, the subscription $4.S9,-
000,000, percentage 114.17. The district was seventh in over-subscrip-
tions in the twelve federal reserve districts in the nation. The war savings
amounted in November, 1918, to $879,300,000. By the terms of the bonds,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 565
the treasury by exercising its options can cancel in the nation's war debt for
redemption in installments every five years until 1947.
December 1, 1918, the chairman of the History Committee of the State
Council of Defense reported that California was entitled to carry 1,033 gold
stars in its war service flag and of this number 421 were killed in action, 139
died from wounds received in battle and the remainder made the sacrifice
in airplane accidents and as the result of other causes. Los Angeles county
made the largest contribution with 315, San Francisco is next with 134, and
Alameda County with 102. Fresno reported seventeen killed in action, six
died of wounds, sixteen of disease and ten from other causes; total forty-
nine, being fourth in the list of counties. The state furnished for the national
army and navy a total of 137,033 men between the time the national guard
of tile state was ordered mobilized March 26, 1917, and the signing of the
armistice. The first men called into the service were the three state infantry
regiments, the Second, Fifth and Seventh. The naval militia was called into
the service April, 1917, the day that the declaration of war was signed. All
state organizations were called into the federal service on or before August
5, 1917, and made up a total of 11,562. California's contribution of men to
the national service was made up as follows :
State troops - 11,562
Army volunteers 32,686
Navy volunteers 17,458
Marine Corps 2,254
Draft inductions 73,073
Total 137.033
The armistice had been signed, the censorship lifted and the war was
practically over before the people of Fresno first learned of the career on her
first trans-Atlantic voyage of the good ship Fresno built in record time,
launched on the Alameda estuary on the bay of San Francisco and unheralded
sent on her mission as one of the vessels of the war emergency Yankee
merchant fleet. The news came in a round-about way and because of the
censorship escaped the notice of the newspapers. After her launch and trial
trip, the people of Fresno had lost all trace of the existence of the craft. The
news came to the city clerk of Fresno from the city clerk of Manhattan
Beach, Cal., Llewellyn Price, who is also the city recorder and assessor. The
writer's oldest son Llewellyn J- Price had volunteered into the service, was
assigned to the Fresno, rated quartermaster, third class, and having had sea
experience was the first hand to take the wheel as she left the dock in San
Francisco on her first across-the-sea voyage. That voyage was not without
incident. "My idea in writing to you," said the writer, "was in the belief
that the citizens of Fresno should know and be proud of the record of the
ship bearing the name of Fresno." After taking on a general cargo at San
Francisco, the Fresno made the trip to New York via the Panama Canal
and joined a British convoy of thirty-one vessels all told with a British bat-
tleship at the head as flagship with admiral on board. AVhen only a few
hours out of New York, the convoy was attacked by a German submarine.
Young Price was sleeping at the time but awakened by the rush of shrapnel
overhead rushed on deck to behold the sub not far astern coming after the
Fresno and firing 4.7 shell and shrapnel. Orders were signalled to disperse
at top speed and in an hour the Fresno had caught up with the admiral,
the boys in the fire room blowing the boilers ofif all the time. As they made
the first quick turn to dodge, the sub dropped a shell in the Fresno's wake.
One of the convoyed having engine trouble had dropped astern and the
sub gave this vessel battle. In an exchange of shots the sub was hit and
at once submerged. An American destroyer leading the convoy circled back
as the sub arose badly damaged and after taking ofif the crew blew up sub.
566 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
On the voyage a sailor on one of the ships died and was buried at sea with
half mast colors and other ceremonies. Nearing the British coast, the con-
voy was joined by more destroyers, also hydroplanes and dirigibles until
the craft were covered from every angle. The fleet laid over one night at
Spithead, Eng., proceeding next morning across the Channel to Le Havre
to discharge cargo, returning to England where it joined another convoy
homeward bound, the vessels scattering after getting through the submarine
zone and making good sailing time until within 100 miles from the American
coast. About an hour before sunset a hydroplane was sighted and were
found aboard three men almost dead — two ensigns and a machinist — who
had been adrift two days and three nights having run out of gasoline. They
had drunk all the water from the radiator and had only a five-cent bar of
chocolate. between them in that time. Their joy was frantic at being rescued.
After hoisting the plane aboard, the Fresno proceeded to New York.
"My boy says," wrote the informant, "the crew is sure a nervy bunch, all
of them being real men. and the City of Fresno can well be proud of them
and the record of the ship. They are now (November 15, 1918) on their
second trip, and it is hoped that it will be as successful as the first was."
Fresno County and city had nearly 800 technical army deserters accord-
ing to the final report of the exemption boards — that is to say that number
of registrants did not answer questionaires or appear for physical examina-
tions. The 800 were nearly all of foreign birth and illiterates, hundreds of
them working at the time in the district but leaving afterward and to locate
those transients would have been equal to the task of finding the needle in
a haystack.
Audit for two years of receipts and expenditures of the Fresno Chapter
of the American Red Cross showed income up to June 30, 1918, $92,622.48,
cash in bank $4,989.24 and cash in hand $45.80.
The Fresno report on the fourth Liberty loan made the following
showing :
County subscription $5,946,550
County quota 4,501,000
Oversubscription $1,445,550
Fresno city subscription $3,886,900
Fresno city quota 3,009,200
Oversubscription $ 877,700
County subscribers 11,732
City subscribers 20,381
Total '. 32,1 13
Each of the twelve community centers oversubscribed.
No military organization of Fresno found its way as an original and
intact unit to the battle fronts in Europe. The machine gun company of
eighty-seven men recruited in Fresno was attached as a unit of a regimental
organization that was sent across and was in the Ninetieth Division. The
"Grizzlies" from California were still in military training camp in France
when the armistice was signed. The "Grizzlies" (One Hundred Forty-
fourth Field Artillery), Col. Thornwell iNIullaly, were among the first troops
returned to America from the continent and Bordeaux for San Francisco
to be quartered at the Presidio for demobilization. Fresno's Companies C
and K of the Second Infantry Regiment of the State National Guard were
accepted for the national army but afterward consolidated as Company L
of the One Hundred Fifty-ninth Infantry Regiment. After acceptance into
the service the Fresno units lost their local officers bv transfer in the regi-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 567
mental organization for the good of the service and to break up the too
personal relations between ofificers and men from a common home locality.
The Grizzlies, notable California regiment, of the Fortieth Division — fifty-
eight officers and 1.440 men, arrived at New York January 3, 1919, by the
transport Matsonia. This division composed of Colorado, Utah, Arizona,
New Mexico and California troops was located at Revigny and St. Dizier
when the armistice was signed. Fifty-five per cent, of the 691 men of the
One Hundred Forty-third Artillery of the division were members of the
California National Guard, the returning units comprising headquarters,
supply and Batteries C, D, E and F. The returning number by the Matsonia
was 3,207 officers and men, with 140 wounded.
Rand McCabe, who had the distinction of being the first Fresno boy
in France to have his name appear in the casualty list, added later the further
distinction of being with the first Yanks to enter for occupancy the German
principality of Luxemburg, as he wrote to his father.
Lieut. Harry Tanson of Bakersfield. son of H. D. Janson, a former raisin
grower of Fresno, looked not upon the price to hear his mother's voice
upon arrival at New York from France on Christmas eve. He called her
up on the long distance telephone at the Hotel Tegeler at Bakersfield. Step-
mother and son talked for four minutes and the charge was twenty-four
dollars.
The story of California's participation in the government's war meas-
ures has vet to be told. That task will be accomplished by the County War
History Committees named under state authority in connection with the
State Council of Defense. The matter is being collated as available in com-
pleteness and not neglected as to time as was done after the Civil AVar, be-
cause it will be a record of the greatest war of all times for which the masses
were called upon to make personal sacrifices, money contributions to the
nation, and comply with demands as never before exacted. In California's
contributions to the war, the San Joaquin Valley did its full share. To the
four Liberty bond loans nearly 100,000 individuals and firms in the valley
subscribed $45,178,810. Counties and towns went over their quota, some as
high as 300 and 400 per cent. over. War saving stamps of the value of
$3,978,774 were bought. The pledges were for almost as much more. Four-
teen chapters of the Red Cross in the valley counties contributed $753,316.88.
This money for war work was raised in two war fund drives. The membership
of the chapters was in the hundred thousands and the war articles that were
manufactured are counted by the millions. For United War Work the seven
organizations were given a half million in the last drive and in the previous
one a quarter of a million. More than $30,000 was given in the valley for
Belgian relief, besides tons upon tons of clothing and shoes. According to
draft figures and recruiting estimates, nearly 19,000 went forth to the war
in army, navy and marine corps of America, or of allied nations. The exemp-
tion boards inducted 9,336 men into the military service. A total of 90,216
registered for service. Available records show that 451 secured com-
missions in army or navy, thirty-five in the navy. Casualty lists up to De-
cember 21 showed that ■142 men were killed in action, thirty-five died from
wounds, thirty as the result of accidents and 142 from disease — total of 349.
There were forty-six listed as 'missing, five of these located afterward in
German prison camps. Total wounded at the date named 328, making the
then known casualties of the valley 723.
Company C of Fresno of the Second Infantry of the National Guard en-
trained for service April 2, seventy strong, and Company K, 112 strong,
April 4, 1917. They were officered as follows: C — Capt. Frank D. Hopkins;
Lieutenants Beach'E. Traber and Edward C. Neal. K — Capt. C. H. Fowler;
Lieutenants Arthur H. Drew (afterward taking training in officers' school,
attached to U. S. Infantry Regiment and sent on the Siberian expedition via
San Francisco) and Emery C. Burroughs. The orders to recruit to war
568 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
strength and be ready to be nationalized were received March 25 and the
call to report at state camps on the thirtieth.
Sergeants M. Abbey and Phillip H. Williams were the longest stationed
in Fresno in charge of "the U. S. marine and army recruiting service respec-
tively. The Canadian and British recruiting offices had joint use of the recruit-
ing offices for a time.
The Home Guards of Sanger were mustered in with seventy-five on
the roll which roster was reduced and maintained at fifty-seven. Leroy Wal-
ton, principal of the Tampa, Ariz., high school, was the organizer while at
home on, summer vacation but returning in September. Ensign J. L. Hand
elected captain was called for service in the navy and Ben Rose, captain of
the high school cadets, was chosen commander. As the other guard com-
panies in the county they were uniformed in khaki and equipped with Win-
chester rifles.
\\'ithout entering into all the details, suffice it to say that the District
Board for Division No. 2 of the Southern District of California handled after
organization August 1, 1917, the largest number of cases of any of the five
district boards in the state. As organized George C. Roeding was its first
chairman. He resigned to take up work with the National Food Administra-
tion at Washington. He was succeeded by W. B. Nichols of Dinuba who
was called into like service. The district board sat at Bakersfield.
The Coalinga Home Guard Company officially known as the Forty-fifth
Company, California ]\Iilitary Reserves, was organized with a charter roll
of sixty-nine in August, 1917. Its officers were : Capt. E. J- McCroskey ;
Lieuts. L. D. Goldman and R. J- Swanzey, veterans of the Spanish War. It
steadily maintained a full membership complement of seventy-five and organ-
ized a rifle club.
It was in June, 1917, that Capt. L. T. Stephenson, a veteran of the
Spanish War and a company commander of the national guard, was author-
ized to organize a machine gun troop in Fresno. Eighty-five were enrolled,
the number was reduced by enlistments into active service in other organi-
zations but by July 27 the company was inspected for acceptance into the
service with eighty-eight men and as officers: Capt. L. T. Stephenson, First
Lieutenant F. G. Everts and Second Lieutenants I. F. Toomey, a son of
the mayor, and James Madison Jr. The corps entrained August 14, 1917,
with a $1,500 mess fund and train loaded down with presents, for the "Lucky"
Baldwin ranch, near Los Angeles, and prepared for service at Camp Kearney
later. With troop fairly w^ell filled, attention was turned to the field artillery
battery that was being organized by JelTerson G. Graves and Dewitt H.
Gray and as such mustered in August 4 as a detachment of Battery C with
the recruits from Fresno and vicinity. It was encamped at the old Tanforan
race track and 104 strong was accepted as a unit for the service and went
across sea. It lost its individuality after acceptance into the service.
In connection with the raisin association is a Sun Maid Patrol, a semi-
military organization, which sent about 200 of its members into the service
after America was engulfed in the European war. The original purpose of
the patrol was for a better discipline and spirit and to encourage more
effective work by the packing house employes and the members of the Sun
Maid W^elfare League of the association. The organization of which L. R.
Payne was a leading spirit dates from January, 1916. The drill companies
of about 250 association operatives were first formed to give special eclat
to Raisin Day. They became proficient and by Raisin Day, 1916, were nattily
uniformed and were led by a forty-piece band and a drum and bugle corps.
They were always features in the public and war parades. The officers were
Patrol Major James Hartigan ; Captains Roy A. Bishop and T. E. McKeig-
han. War having been declared, the patrol desired to enter the service in
a body so high was the spirit but it was not to be and the ranks thinned
out with individual, enlistments of the eligible.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 569
Dikran Davidian of Reedley, who was killed in action November 2, 1918,
in France (place of the fighting not named), was the first Armenian youth
in the county to volunteer for war service. His last letter to parents stated
that he was receiving then special instruction in the use of a new gas.
The Home Guards as at first called was an organization active and fore-
most in all the military and practical war work from the first to the last.
With an enrollment of from 175 to 200 men at organization in four com-
panies reduced later to three, it gave military training to hundreds, fur-
nished a half hundred for active duty in the service, was called out on four
emergency occasions to patrol the lines at fires, was depended upon as a
reserve police force, cleared buildings for the influenza epidemic, furnished
all the guard duty on public occasions, participated in numerous parades,
helped in the war fund drives, escorted departing draft soldiers, officiated
at the burials of the dead and rendered the last honors — in short was a bus}'
organization ready for every call of duty. Six of the officers had seen service
in the Philippines and three, long service in the national guard. Scarcely
had the latter been called for war service, than the Home Guards were or-
ganized as a home military force, the first signing, up on the night of April
6, 1917. and the organization perfected November 1 as a battalion of four
companies, later designated officially as the Third Battalion, because the
third organized in the state. Battalion was later reduced to three companies,
the Fifty-ninth forming the nucleus of a national guard company that was
never officially organized. The guards were armed with Winchester rifles
and unlike the other military organizations wore a distinctive steel blue
instead of brown khaki uniform. The major commanding was Edward Jones,
who had held like rank in the national guard, with G. C. Hughes as organi-
zation adjutant, C. B. Jackson quartermaster and ^^'illiam Glass commissary.
The original companies with their officers were:
Fifty-sixth — E. B. Russell captain : Fred IMeyer and G. R. Walling lieu-
tenants.
Fifty-seventh — C. W. Kepley, captain ; lieutenants, William Ross and
H. H. McClung and D. D. Dennis.
Fiftv-eighth — H. A. Sessions, captain ; lieutenants William Ross and
L. H. Corse" Jr.
Fifty-ninth — S. L. Gallaher, captain ; lieutenants, B. U. Brandt and Bert
A. Primrose.
The tentative national guard organization movement during the war
was abandoned, the U. S. Military Guards of men who qualified for mili-
tary war service but not physically fit for the across-the-sea service, taking
their place in the government plan at first misconceived and assigned to duty
at various posts.
The Fresno County Food Administration which had intimate relation
with the home life of the people and with the wheat flour substitutes not
soon forgotten was in charge of George S. Waterman, one of the trustees of
the city. He had as assistant Miss Flora M. Ebby. The conservation of food
stufifs in the county was closely looked after and an immense amount of
work undertaken. With this work was connected the Car Service Section
of the Division of Transportation, U. S. Railway Administration, with J. W.
Walker of the Santa Fe as the chairman.
Fresno is given credit of having been the first community to have set
aside a cemetery for the soldier dead in this war — the Liberty Cemetery as
it is known. It was formally and publicly dedicated ilemorial Day in 1918.
The location of this cemetery was made possible by the deed gift by the
trustees Sol B. Goodman, Louis Solomon and the late Herman Levy of the
four acres of the B'nai B'rith in Mountain View Cemetery and adjoining
the G. A. R. cemetery plot. The configuration of the donated acreage is
such as to lend itself admirably to landscape purposes. The laying out of
the grounds April 11 was by volunteers headed by the mayor. It is planned
570 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to permanently improve and beautify it. It has been undertaken to raise by
popular subscription $30,000 to erect memorial gates at the entrance and
deposit a great granite stone as a monument which shall on four bronze
tablets bear the names of Fresno's soldier dead, this monument to be erected
on the crest of the rolling hill forming the center of the cemetery acreage.
T. J- Hammond is the chairman of the cemetery committee of citizens.
The Fresno Fuel Administration opened its activities November 14,
1917, and the city committee was Charles H. Riege, A. O. Warner and W. B.
Holland. A. G. Wishon of the San Joaquin Light and Power Company and
other enterprises was county administrator. Its conservation campaign with
the Monday and Tuesday lightless nights will not soon be forgotten, nor its
campaign in May, 1918, urging the purchase then of wood and coal to save
cars in the fall and winter for the transportation of soldiers and food across
the continent and on to Europe — to Berlin as the schedule called for then.
No pretense will be made to enumerate all the restrictions that were placed
and complied with at the request of all the war-time administration boards.
Not until September 30, 1918, were offices opened nor called into being
by the State Council of Defense was the Non War-Construction Board. The
Fresno committee was constituted of H. A. Pratt, Thomas E. Risley and
William Newman. Its duties never went beyond the limitation of construc-
tion of buildings of over $25,000 in cost. Its work continued not long before
the armistice was signed. For a time and excepting for unfinished work,
there was an almost total cessation of new construction.
No organization so jumped into public favor during the war as the
Salvation Army and it was because it so speedily found its way into the
hearts of the soldiers themselves according to all the advices from the front,
where it operated in its huts to cheer the doughboy spiritually and physically
with its hot coflfee, doughnuts or pies. The aim of the army was at first
to work outside of the camps, but the chaplains themselves sought its co-
operation. The Salvation Army was close behind the front trenches with
its workers and especially the lassies to give the home touch and the cheery
smile in providing the field comforts for the men in the trenches. Its work
proved one of the features of the war. At inception it was backed by volun-
tary subscriptions but demands became so great on it that subscriptions on
a large scale were invited. The local county chamber of commerce under-
took to raise money for the purpose and though the demand was not great
the amount asked for was raised. The boys in the army take their hats off
to the men and women of the Salvation Army and its work assumed such
proportions at the front, behind the lines and in the training camps that it
was one of the war services included in the U. S. War drive of November,
1918. It started its work imostentatiously with the outbreak of war and
earned the gratitude of the allied world.
The patriotic record of war service participation by the faculty and
student body of the Fresno State Normal School was a creditable one not
only for practical and substantial achievements but for uplift of ideals. The
contributed aids are too many to name in detail. The money contributions
alone amounted to $32,645. The assurance was that from this institution
would go out each term groups of teachers imbued with the American ideal
of right and justice as factors to help make those ideals more a part of the
national life.
There was active drilling of "Crowder's Men" — those between sixteen
and forty-five years of age — to hasten the training and seasoning of those
who were expected to be called into the service under the second registration
and draft call but it was a measure that in the last months of the war did
not yield direct results because that war was so abruptly ended. The speed-
ing up on training was recommended in orders from the state adjutant gen-
eral announced by District Chairman F. A. Homan of the Council of Defense
September 20, at a mass meeting on the twenty-sixth 375 men volunteered in
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 571
one night, like meetings were held throughout the county and in about two
weeks there was an enrollment of some 1,200. Officers of the Home Guards
and of the former national guard were the drill masters, but the Germans
met their match at Chateau Thierry and the end was soon in coming.
So it was also when the call came to organize twelve new state na-
tional guard companies in the state in 1916. December 7 the Sixth Sepa-
rate Company of one hundred forty men was a fact in Fresno. By February
26, 1917, a second company, the Tenth, was ready for muster. The recruiting
for them was attended by many discoura;^eiuents. No sooner was the maxi-
mum reached than there was a wholesale departure in enlistments for army or
navy war service. The national guard plan was abandoned long before the
armistice. The Si.xth Separate Company first designated as F Company was
officered by Capt. S. L. Gallaher and Lieutenants B. U. Brandt and George
Walling. Ray Carlisle later succeeding ^^'alling: the Tenth by Bert A. Prim-
rose as captain and by Fernand Detoy and Alartin Nichols as lieutenants.
The Home Guards continued as the military organization to fill the interim
between the demobilization of the national army and a time when the gov-
ernment decides how tn fill the place of the state guards.
A live Home Guard was the one of Selma organized early in April,
1918. with fifty members and certificated June 4. It was mustered up to a
membership of seventv-five that was maintained with a waiting list. Its
officers were: A. M. Frost as captain and organizer; Lieutenants J. J. Van-
derburgh and G. M. Black.
The early and varied work of the County Council of Defense would of
itself fill a volume. It was organized as all the others were in the state of
designated county officials with civilian members. Its work was of an ad-
visory and protection suggesting body. It had to do with uncovering sedi-
tion and alien activities, it dealt with the growing and increase of crops, the
supply of labor, to produce as well as to garner and generally to augment
the food supply by everj^ manner of means with a great army to be sent
to another continent and its every want to be supplied from home. The
first chairman of the council was Judge H. Z. Austin of the superior court.
With the reorganization plan of the state council all county official mem-
bers or candidates for reelection resigned as requested. September 1, 1917.
F. A. Homan vice chairman and one of the three holdover members was
made chairman and council became the Fresno Di^•ision of the State Council
of Defense of California. The chairmen of war work committees were at
the close the following named :
W. O. Miles of the General Liberty Loan,
E. F. Manheim of War Savings,
M. P.. Harris of Four-Minute Men,
William Glass of Red Cross,
George S. A\'atcrman of county food administration,
Charles H. Riege of city fuel administration,
A. J. Wishon of county fuel administration,
Mrs. E. A. Williams of \\'oman*s Committee.
F. P. Roullard, county horticultural commissioner,
H. A. Pratt of Non ^^'a^-Construction Board,
Harry C. Wilber of Community Councils.
Leroy B. Smith, Farm Adviser,
C. L. McLane of History Committee,
Mrs. Henry Hawson of Woman's Food Administration,
Dean G. R. E. MacDonald of Americanization work,
M. L. Neeley of War Donations,
L. R. Payne of Fire Protection Committee,
R. Schmidt of War Gardens.
Mrs. H. A. Goddard and Senator W. F. Chandler, unassigned,
Louis Detoy, secretary.
572 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Ahead of the council is the task yet of looking after reconstruction work
upon return of the soldiers, the work of Americanization and the history
record of the county's participation in the war. Much was done for the
security of the community. Grain production was increased 100 per cent.
During the period of I. W. W. incendiary fires when much foodstutif and
feed material were burned, armed guards were placed at every plant and
lights were multiplied as a further protection, this work in charge of L. R.
Payne. Providentially that at this time the secret service jailed the incen-
diarists, and remarkable incendiarism also ceased with their incarceration.
Tt was the council that took charge of the first training of the eighteen to
fortv-five men, of the hunting down of slackers and draft deserters, hunted
out the disloyal and the over-zealous pro-German and fostered the I-fome
Guards. The evidence at the Sacramento trial in the federal court and also
at Chicago of the I. W. W.'s was proof of the thoroughness with which
one phase of this work was pursued in Fresno and in the San Joaquin Valley.
Red Cross activities in the county lacked not money backing as the re-
sult of three campaigns. The first drive was June 18-25 in 1917 and the
result was $104,000. George C. Roeding was chairman of the committee
with H. E. Patterson as manager and E. E. Manheim, Wylie M. Giffen. Milo
F. Rowell and E. A. Berg. In May, 1918, was the second campaign to raise
$100,000 quota; drive May 21-27 and $204,000 was raised. W. F. Chandler
was the chairman with Ward B. ]\Iinturn as the manager and assisting F. A.
Homan, W. M. GifTen, William Glass, E. E. Manheim, M. B. Harris, H. E.
Patterson and George C. Roeding. The Christmas Roll Call quota was
$22,000 and on that day $12,090.20 \vas in hand, the drive much impeded by
the influenza epidemic, wherefore the time for contributions was extended
into January with not the slightest doubt of reaching the 22.000-dollar
membership. Another membership campaign will not be made until Christ-
mas, 1919. The last drive committee was: Chase S. Osborn Jr., chairman,
H. E. Patterson assistant: Mrs. A. S. Baker cashier: David Anderson pub-
licity man : Hugo F. Allerdt speakers" bureau, L. J. Allen supply manager
and Miss Sarah McCardle in charge of woman's participation work.
The Fresno Chapter of the Red Cross made a stupendous growth during
the war. It was organized with eighty-three signing members at a meeting
on the morning of April 3, 1917, at the Kinema Theater. Three days later
war was declared and out of this small beginning at the theater the member-
ship has grown to 20,871 with the Christmas roll call addition, and there
have developed twenty-two branches and sixty-two auxiliaries, covering the
territory of the county with exception of Coalinga and Selma which have
their own chapters. The original officers were: Chester H. Rowell honorary
president ; William Glass, chairman ; Mrs. W. A. Sutherland, vice chairman ;
Berton Einstein, treasurer, succeeded by Bishop L. C. Sanford, and Mrs. Al
Braverman, secretary. The activities of the Red Cross were varied. There
was the Alilitary Relief or Productions Department for the making of refugee
and hospital garments and linen, surgical dressings and knitted garments and
socks. The Salvage Department proved one of the most remunerative
branches. The Civilian Relief accomplished its work in a confidential way.
The Junior Red Cross brought together in closer relation the schools of the
county and in this connection it should be stated that no class devoted to
the war work more time, enthusiasm and effort with results than the teach-
ers. The young ladies' canteen company of the Red Cross did much appre-
ciated work in lunch services to departing men of the draft, military organi-
zations passing through the city when notice was given of their coming,
which was not always because of the secrecy maintained as regards the
movement of troops, and later again in the welcome receptions to home com-
ing organizations after the armistice for demobilization. A motor corps was
another adjunct which was of service in connection with the salvage work
and during the influenza epidemic assisted in conveying patients to the emer-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 573
gfency hospitals. The Red Cross is an institution that is enshrined in the
grateful hearts of the people for the devoted work of the women who at home
were one of the factors in this war, and abroad close to the battlefields and
in the hospitals conspicuous. The Fresno chapter sent several representatives
from home to Red Cross work, notably Miss Florence Phillis in response to
the appeal for clerical assistance and in service at Paris ; David L. Newman
who went to fill a demand in Italy; Mrs. Eve S. Bangs called by Pacific
division headquarters in San Francisco to fill a niche in the publicity depart-
ment and Robert J- West to enter the chapter organization department in
San Francisco. It provided soap, emergency cots, pads, and jellies for Cali-
fornia convalescent camps, assisted the Belgian Relief Commission on two
occasions in campaigns for clothing, helped to send remembrances at Christ-
mas to the boys in home camps and overseas and took over the emergency
hospital at the high school during the second city influenza visitation. The
Red Cross like the Salvation Army was an organization that by its unselfish
work commanded the fullest confidence and support of the masses. A chapter
alone might be written on the work of the Coalinga chapter organized June
8. 1917, with twelve general and ten school auxiliaries and A. E. Webb as
chairman. ^Ux Shaffroth as vice, Mrs. A. S. Taylor as secretary, and J. A.
Fluetsch as treasurer and R. W. Dallas, S. A. Buchanan, Miss Anna M. Steele,
Mrs. H. G. Anderson, A. T. Borst, Dr. C. W. Hutchinson and Miss Pearl
Watkins as the board of managers. The Fresno military relief department
committee was headed by E. B. Walthall as chairman with Mrs. W. J- Mc-
Nulty as vice. As one of the twentv-five canteen stations in the state that of
Fresno was organized in June, 1918, and Carl E. Lindsay was the chairman
with the personnel mostly women. Its train service was established in Octo-
ber. The salvage department as before stated proved a lucrative source of
income. Mrs. George H. Taylor was the guiding spirit of this work with
Ivan McAdoo as her lieutenant, E. C. Madden as the manager and H. A.
Goerz as the accountant with the work later brought under a system by F. M.
Frazer and assistants. When he retired from active participation he was
succeeded by Mrs. W. B. Isaacs. The first salvage sale shop" was opened
after hasty preparations June 1, 1918, in a store room placed at service by
the late Hans Graft, collection of salvaged goods started in the Chaddock
& Company raisin warehouse March 29 with paper and junk as the first
merchantable collections. A branch of this department was originated by
Miss Jane Whitney in June to serve tea at the Liberty Theater, ice cream at
the district fair and at the Sunday night public concerts at the courthouse
park. For the months of Mav to October, 1918, the shop receipts were
$9,137.16 and the tea room $2",892.33, a total of $12,029.49, a net profit of
$9,030.46. Where so much wonderful work was done, it is impossible to give
individual credit to all entitled to it. It would be gross ingratitude, how-
ever, to overlook the 100 per cent. Americanism of the ^Musicians" Union in
its unselfishness in furnishing the music for all the public occasions that the
war work projects demanded. Nor should the members of the city fire de-
partment be overlooked. In addition to their duties, they devoted their
resting time to the work of the Red Cross, the fire houses being made sub-
stations for the receipt of salvageable goods and the firemen giving their
time to the collection and segregation of the material in their districts.
Fresno is a remote corner on this continent but the whole souled patriotism
evinced in that corner is an evidence of what was many thousand times
multiplied in the nation in a wonderful and glorious spirit. Little wonder
that the fighters at the front accomplished what they did, once permitted
to take active part and confident of the spirit backing them at home. With
that spirit and that undivided patriotism behind them, the end could not
have been other than what it was. It was one of the many things in America
that the pig-headed Hun overlooked in his calculations.
574 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The Selma Red Cross chapter was in the county work. It was organized
May 5, 1916, and has substantial accomplishments to its credit. It had an
adult membership of 1,497 and 1,027 juniors with St. Ansgar auxiliary of
November 8, 1917, of seventy-two members. The chapter handled finances
amounting to $8,740.69 with balance in treasury of $2,146.65. It responded to
every call upon it. A detailed account of its activities could not make this
assertion any the stronger.
In November, 1917, a campaign was made for funds for the War Camp
Community Service. In this county the campaign was under the care of the
Chamber of Commerce with A. Mattei Jr. as the vice chairman in charge.
The national quota was $3,750,000 and the county's $4,000. The women called
into the work under the leadership of Mrs. W. F. Chandler organized a
Harvest Home Festival at the city auditorium resulting in a contribution of
$1,600. The quota was raised. The service was one factor that proved to
be a potent agency in keeping up the morale and spirit of the soldiery in
training camps at home and abroad — the morale and spirit that as Marshal
Foch conceded made the American such a superb soldier.
The Y. M. C. A. was perhaps the one large organization that the gov-
ernment found ready at the declaration of war to undertake the task that
was to be shouldered upon it at home and abroad because of the important
bearing that it was to have on the war through the individual soldier. That
work is familiar. The Fresno organization did its part and demonstrated
its usefulness as a contributory war work activity organization. Its general
local secretary W. D. Eastman entered the service early in August, 1917, at
San Diego. The assistant, L. T. Lewis, next entered that service at Camp
Fremont. Following the national Y. M. C. A. war work drive, George A.
Forbes, general secretary at Spokane, was assigned to the general secretary-
ship here and entered upon his duties December 10, 1917, contributed notably
in the activities of the times, especially in the recruiting of war work secre-
taries to send out men of character beyond the military age and yet bursting
with patriotism to serve in some capacity whether in camp, on the front line
or at home in keeping the home fires burning. The Fresno Y. M. C. A.
established 'an enviable record. It sent out as war workers the following
named as recalled: R. C. Avery who gave up business pursuits to become
secretary of the naval training station camp at San Diego. L. T. Lewis,
assistant secretary, who was sent to Camp Fremont as a volunteer. He was
early in the work and had charge of supplying books and magazines for the
soldiers passing through Fresno en route to various training camps. Charles
H. Tooze, who was physical director of the Y. M. C. A. and at the time of
assignment, city sanitary inspector. He was sent to the work in France.
Another one sent to France was Leslie M. Drew, who had been secretary
of the consolidated irrigation canal companies and resigned his position to
be with the soldiers. A younger brother is a lieutenant in the Eighth U. S.
Infantry sent with the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia. Hayden
Jones who had been in the real estate agency business and prominent in the
affairs of the Fresno "Commercial Club was another that was sent to France
and was with the boys at the front in the last days and at the signing of the
armistice. In this war work the Y. M. C. A. departed notably from its too
narrow and restricted lines in peace times. It is agreed that in countenancing
of entertainments, notably in dancing, in the distribution of tobacco, in
cigarettes, and cigars and pipes to the soldiers it actually "became human"
and the spirit had its effect on the soldiers. Hayden related that his record
was the distribution of 3,500 cigarettes in a day to the boys behind the line
awaiting the word to go over. He had three assistants to distribute the
cigarettes, he following briquet in hand for the boys to light their smokes
with. The First Congregational Church gave its pastor. Rev. T. T. Giffen,
leave of absence for the duration of the war rather than accept his resigna-
tion for the war work secretaryship of the naval camps about San Diego
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 575
with headquarters at Los Angeles. He was a man active in many Hnes of
civic welfare. John H. Lyons, teacher of vocal music in the public schools
and for several years director of music of St. James' Pro-cathedral, was sent
to Camp Lewis and there made a reputation as a leader of mass singing. He
became known as "Everybody Sing" Lyons from a favorite expression of his.
As a leader in mass singing he achieved a reputation in all the training
camps. At the Tacoma Stadium he led, it is said, a chorus of 50,000 voices.
While on furlough, he organized street concerts at home to aid the United
War work. His song, "Here at Home \\'e're Backing You," was chosen as
the campaign song of Washington state for the Fourth Liberty Loan drive
and locally for the United War Work drive. The smiles and the singing of
the American soldiers were two things that all the war correspondents com-
mented upon as evincing the remarkable spirit of the Yanks. A. E. McGuf-
fin, D. R. Aimsley and J. J. Gofnett, who was with the Fresno Rescue Mis-
sion, also were sent to France. Harry A. James, a newspaper reporter with
a talent for musical and monologue entertainments was sent to Kelly Field,
Texas, and later took up Red Cross work. Rev. Sidney Pope was another
accepted worker sent on to Rockford, 111., also L. R. Elliott and C. F. Cowan
to Camp Kearney ; and Charles Kerney, who was a real estate agent and
deputy tax collector, sent to San Diego as a co-worker with Secretaries R. C.
Avery and Rev. Gif¥en. Former Secretary Eastman volunteered for foreign
service and from San Diego went on to France. Others that went on to
camps were Elbert L. Evans of Selma, Tracey Cox who was ph}-sical in-
structor at the Fresno high school. Rev. S. Mogensen of C)leander and Wil-
liam Virgo. Rev. H. N. McKee of the Christian Church of Fowler was as-
signed overseas in April, 1918, and wounded by shrapnel on the front line
receiving six wounds but recovered and took up the work again. Rev. Jerome
G. Van Zandt of the Baptist Church of Fowler who entered the work in
March and for two months did relief work at San Pedro was sent to France
and in August was also wounded. He was a Southern California settlement
worker and had come from San Bernardino to Fresno, where he was con-
nected with the Fresno Junior College. The Y. M. C. A. participated locally
in many activities, not to be forgotten the recruiting of young men to go out
into the vineyards and the orchards to save the crops by reason of the short-
age of labor depleted in the county by the draft calls. Never in its history
had the Y. M. C. A. done more practical work.
The Knights of Columbus was one of the seven war service organiza-
tions included in the United W^ar Work drive in November, 1918, for pro-
viding recreational and physical comforts for the soldiers in camp and to give
the religious comforts to soldiers of the Catholic faith. The national drive
quota o^pened November 29, 1917, was for $12,000,000, California's quota
$300,000 and Fresno County's $5,000. The subscriptions though open to the
public were for the most part obtained from members of the local council
of the knights and the quota was made up in three weeks. The executive
committee in charge consisted of: John Birmingham, chairman; B. J. Mal-
trv, treasurer, and H. A. Formaneck, Eugene Rahill, James Gallagher,
Thomas Collins, Rev. Daniel O'Connell, E. A. Thoman, S. L. Riddell, Oliver
Kehrlein and H. G. Nolan.
For the first Y. M. C. A. War \^'ork campaign the national quota was
placed at $35,000,000, California's at $750,000. Fresno City's at $25,000 and
the county's at $18,000. Originally it was intended to appeal for an additional
$30,000 to meet local needs of the association, making the city's quota $55.-
000. There being opposition against comhiniuL; the two funds compromise
was arrived at by which the local association should receive $18,500 and all
else of the $55,000 and whatever over to go to the war fund. The city sub-
scribed $26,409.85 and the county $22,000, the city went $1,409.85 to the
good and the county $4,000. The drive lasted November 11-20, 1917, and
had been preceded by the first two Liberty loans. The war work campaign
576 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was something new directed to the moral and physical well Ijeing of the
young soldiers and sailors. The one appealed to patriotism ; the other to
sentimental and other considerations of a personal character, essential though
the government regarded them. A campaign of education was necessary.
The drive was to be unsectarian. John Fechter, a former Fresno and later
Oakland general secretary of the Y. M. C. A. but at the time of the cam-
paign war work secretary in army and navy camps about San Diego, was
appointed manager in charge by the state committee for the valley district.
The executive committee for this county was named of Max Cahen as chair-
man, M. B. Flarris, Hans Graflf, F. D. Prescott, Barton Einstein, Peter Droge
and Frank H. Homan and as a general committee of team captains the fol-
lowing named: Dr. L. R. Packwood, H. H. Holland, W. H. Peterson, Ed-
ward Hughson. Chester Stewart, C. H. Cobb, Frank G. Hood, George S.
Waterman, R. B. Covington, Edward Hertweck, R. W. Potter, Horace Thor-
waldsen. Dr. T- M. Crawford, Ben Epstein, F. L. Swartz, W. H. Henderson,
S. S. Hockett, G. E. Kennedy, J. F. Dickinson, N. E. Carnine and Arthur
Bernhauer. The canvass was organized on an elaborate system for the $25,-
000 war fund, $18,500 for the association budget for that year and all in ex-
cess of the $43,500 apportioned to the general. The county canvass was
carried on by local committees under the charge of Neil Locke as manager.
The success of the drive was a source of much gratification. It was the
first in the county on a broadly organized basis. The Liberty bonds were an
investment: this a gift with no selfish returns. The people were educated
in the idea of giving. Whether investment or gift both were essentials in
the prosecution of the war.
Not behind the work of the Y. M. C. A. was that of the Y. W. C. A.
which latter in camp and field made the Blue Triangle as its association
insignia familiar and beloved. The part of the American woman in this war
is one of the chapters that the future historian will write about. All the
home activities that the Y. W. C. A. encouraged and sponsored, a publica-
tion having the limitations of this work cannot deal with. The best
women were associated with them locally. The list of names is such a large
one that it cannot be reproduced. Their work contributed to the national
spirit which was such a magnificent thing during the war. Where woman
will lead the way, man will follow. Woman blazed a wide path of patriotism
in the war, the effect of which was felt to the farthermost listening post
looking out on No Man's Land beyond the farthest front trench line. Woman
made as great sacrifices as the men in the field. The war work campaign
of the Y. W. C. A. December 3-10, 1917, came after the Y. M. C. A. and the
two first Liberty loans and there never was doubt of its success. Another
surprise was in store locally. The national fund to be raised was $4,000,000,
the state's quota $350,000, Fresno County's $10,000. The purpose of this
fund as well as of the others every one knows. The local campaign was
opened at a meeting of women at the Hotel Fresno November 25, 1917, ad-
dressed by Mrs. Gaillard- M. Stoney of San Francisco. The executive com-
mittee and officers appointed were the following: Chairman, Mrs. Berton
Einstein; vice, Mrs. E. A. Williams and W. A. Fitzgerald; executive secre-
tary, ]Mrs. Thomas F. Lopez ; recording secretary. Miss Belle Ritchie ;
treasurer, Mrs. Anna Newman ; directors, Mrs. W. F. Chandler and Mrs.
Chester Rowell besides a large membership in the war work council com-
posed of the best known women of the county. All the minutiae of organiza-
tion were undertaken by these enthusiastic women, the interest was kept up
at fever heat and on last day of the campaign the quota was exceeded with
$10,978, the county had again been placed in the class of exceeding its quota
and this whirlwind campaign was carried through at an expense at $110.
Martyred Armenia's agonizing appeal for aid was made even before the
United States' entry into the world's war. America answered these appeals
and since the organization of the central committee in New York in 1915
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 377
over $8,000,000 has been the response distributed in mone}^ or in kind. In
no part of the west probably is there a larger Armenian population centered
than in Fresno County. For years there has been relief going on from liere
to the old country. The influx of emigrants also has been steady to find
here a haven of refuge and safety among relatives and friends who have
prospered following agricultural occupations in a climate not unlike that of
the home land. An executive and general coinniittee as a part of the national
relief movement was not organized here until December, 1917, before which
there were two other independent agencies interested in the work of gather-
ing money relief for the Armenians and Syrians, one a branch of the national
fund for Armenian and Syrian relief and the other an independent committee
of Armenian citizens working to the same end. The executive committee for
the local campaign was constituted of E. A. Williams, chairman : K. Ara-
kelian, vice chairman; E. S. Ardzrooni, secretary; E. E. Manheim, treasurer;
G. L. Aynesworth, George Ohannesian and Rev. T. T. Giffen, besides a gen-
eral committee of twenty-six largely of Armenians. Following the launch of
the campaign December 10, 1917, a great meeting at the city auditorium ad-
dressed by Dr. Riggs, an American missionary from Armenia, resulted in a
collection of $4,500 mainly the contribution of the Armenian race while an-
other and similar meeting at Turlock, attended b}' Rev. M. G. Papazian of
the Pilgrim Congregational Church of Fresno, added $2,000 to the fund.
Local records show "a total of almost $27,000 subscribed with $19,700 for-
warded to the national treasurer in New York. Individual service stands
pre-eminent in the undertaking. Rev. Mr. Papazian was asked by the na-
tional committee to tour the United States and speak in behalf of the fund
and left Fresno September 18 and returned December 15, 1917, speaking en
tour 111 times in thirty-eight days and traveling 13,400 miles. He is one
of the ablest exponents in this country of the cause.
Coalinga had a District War Fund Association organized January 21,
1918, to divide equally between all people in the territory the calls upon the
community for war funds, the association to be kept intact until peace terms
were signed and the war declared officially ended. Since organization the
agency paid in $38,576.49 for various funds and had a balance of $2,975.40
after having met every quota call on Coalinga, with expenses less than seven
per cent, of the money handled. C. A. Hiveley was the president; R. H.
Stickel and P. A. Hussey, the vice presidents; A. H. Good Jr., secretary and
G. S. Hughes, treasurer of the association.
The Jewish Welfare Board also was included in the government's recog-
nized United War Work. It organized in the spring of l9l7. Fresno County
had a committee of the board and it did its work unostentatiously, collecting
and forw^arding contributions to national headquarters. No race is more
given to works of charity than the Hebrew. The Fresno officers are Ben
Epstein, chairman; L. I. Diamond, secretary; L. M. Mendelsohn, Saul Sam-
uels and Harry Ziedell. The committee never made a so-called "drive" until
its inclusion in the United War Work. The money raised by the Jewish
Relief Committee was expended for the benefit of Jews in all the countries
engaged in the war. The contributions have been from the members of the
race, every cent going to the sufferers and the cost of administration borne
by the officials and workers. The Jews of Fresno County contributed $2,500
a year since the war to the fund and after the armistice have been called
upon to raise $10,000 for the cause. The relief committee work was carried
on since 1914 and contributions have been free will offerings. The commit-
tee: M. L. ^lendelsohn, chairman: L. I. Diamond, secretary; Ben Epstein,
Saul Samuels, Harr}' Ziedell and Sigismund Wormser.
The Smileage book sale campaign of January, 1918, by the Rotary Clubs
of the state resulted in the disposal of about 4,500 such books in Fresno city.
^^^^en Servia was invaded after the declaration of war against it by
Austria, the Serbs gathered and organized in Fresno a branch of the .Serbian
578 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
National Defense League of America, a body that originated during the Bal-
kan War. The Serbs generally in the valley became members and several
thousands of dollars were subscribed to the Servian Red Cross fund. The
local organization was officered by Charles Jovanovich as president ; Veljko
Radojevich secretary and Milan Vucovich treasurer, John Miscovich under-
taking a tour of the valley to call on compatriots for funds in the appeal to
save the Servians from extinction as a nation. In this county the Servians
sent on $10,000 to the Serbian Red Cross and War Orphan funds. Some 100
young men from the valley enlisted for service early in the -war and the fares
of not a few of these to Servia were prepaid. The local Servians have con-
tributed to the home cause independent of the funds, and for American
Liberty bonds they are said to have invested as much as $7.^000. Among the
active local workers were Lazar Popovich and the most prominent, Dusan
Tripce\-ich, who was head accountant for H. Graff & Company and placed
himself at the disposal of the home government. The supreme president in
New York of the Servian Federation chose him as his personal representa-
tive to go Servia and consult with the government regarding the disposal
of the American collected funds. Through this agency shiploads of food and
medical stores were sent from New York and this relief came at opportune
time during the typhus epidemic that ravaged the people when the army
lost almost everything in the retreat over the Albanian Mountains. The
Fresno man was called upon to render important work in London and Paris,
was decorated with the Servian Cross of Honor, on his return to America
was made supreme secretary of the federation and joining the American
army became a lieutenant.
The appeal to Fresno for relief in behalf of poor little outraged Belgium
was not in vain, drained as she was of resources and population during the
four vears of occupation by the soulless and pitiless Hunnish hounds. Her-
bert Hoover of the food administration bureau was in charge of the Belgium
Relief Commission and the local aid given to it was largely again in the
sympathetic work of the women. It was in November, 1917, that field secre-
taries of the relief movement made survey of Fresno to arouse interest, and
other visitors told the harrowing tales to maintain that interest. A drive
for funds followed and pledge cards were signed up as a result of which
the local relief was enabled for the first few months after organization to
send monthh' $500 for the cause and after that $700. Funds and subscriptions
then began to run low and to replenish them another "drive" was the project
for the year 1919. The shoe-drive in November, 1917, was a great success
with four tons of footwear as the result. So again in March, 1918, the appeal
for clothing filling thirty-nine packing boxes weighing five tons, and again
in September when it required a furniture car to ship the twelve and one-
half tons of clothing that came in response to appeals. Benefit teas and
concerts were given to add to the fund and Belgian children were adopted
and cared for by the French class of the Fresno high school, the Student
Body of the school, the Parlier Country Club and the Misses Marian and
Dorothy Payne. The Ladies' Relief Society has had for its officers : Mrs.
L. L. Cory, chairman ; Mrs. Anna Newman, vice ; Mrs. Milo Rowell, sec-
retary-treasurer ; Miss Adeline Thornton, secretary, with E. E. Manheim,
treasurer, besides a board of directors and auxiliary committees at Clovis,
Fowler, Kingsburg, Laton, Reedley, Tranquillity and Corcoran in Tulare
County. Milk bottles were placed about town to catch the pennies and small
change for the milk fund for Belgian babes. There was probably not a war
time activity not represented in the county. There was a Red Cross auxiliary
of the colored women of Fresno city and it sponsored an ambitious public
entertainment on the occasion of the draft contingent departure of the col-
ored youths to join the service. The Japanese more than the Chinese took
a large part in the patriotic and Liberty loan parades, though both races
were liberal contributors to war funds and bonds.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 579
The United War Fund Drive had behind it perhaps one of the most
comprehensive organizations of workers in any of the war fund raising
campaigns. It continued November 11-18, 1918. It was not opened under
the most auspicious conditions for its success, yet again the county "went
over the top." The seven war service organizations which the fund was to
help out were the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., the Knights of Colum-
bus, the Jewish Welfare League, the Salvation Army, the War Community
Service and the American Library Association. The national quota was
$170,500,000 and the percentage apportionments to the services the follow-
ing: 58.65, 8.80, 17.60, 2.05. 2.05, 8.80 and 2.05. The time for the campaign
was made a late one that it would not interfere with the Red Cross war
relief efTort, the welfare organizations having been alloted the winter season,
the relief efforts the spring time, and the Liberty loans between times as far
as practical. With the last campaign started, things looked bad for the
German armies and while there was general behef that the end was near it
was not believed it would come so soon. The end was not expected until
the spring of 1919. This big war drive had by reason of local conditions to
be continued until after the cessation of hostilities. It opened on the very
day of the signing of the armistice with suspension of hostilities. Fresno
was in the midst of the influenza epidemic, there had been no great meetings
and in the street corner gatherings the speakers wore masks. Lastly there
was indifference to subscribe, now that for all practical purposes the war
had ended. The greatest indifference was shown on the two first days of
the campaign. The preparations for it were elaborate, and it was no time
to abandon the effort, as the argument was made that with hostilities ended
the work of the war service would be greater than ever until the soldiers
came home to be demobilized, and how long they might be kept over as the
army of occupation and reconstruction and for what ever else the future
might have in store no one could tell. The work went on despite the inter-
ruptions and adverse conditions. Well it was that the efforts had been con-
centrated. The newspapers were the only means of publicity, and as with
everything connected with the war efforts that publicity was not spared.
In Liberty loan publicity the newspapers of the land gave the government
column space, the value of which cannot be estimated in dollars. The news-
papers with rare exceptions were 100 per cent. American. At the close of
the alloted time the subscriptions came in and on the last day the report
was that Fresno had exceeded its quota of $146,250 by $9,361, and state re-
turns showed that Fresno ranked fourth for the amount subscribed and
third among those that had exceeded their quotas. For the nation the total
was $203,179,038 or $32,679,038 in excess of what had been asked for the
demobilization period. The sum subscribed is said to have been the largest
ever raised as an unqualified donation or gift in the history of the world.
It was the answer whether the people at home were backing the American
soldier abroad. The Fresno County Executive Committee in charge of this
splendid campaign was of the following named : F. D. Prescott, chairman ;
H. E. Patterson, campaign manager; H. F. Allardt, John A. Neu, Ben Ep-
stein, Miss' Julia Sayre, Miss Sarah McCardle, E. W. Lindsay, Raymond
Ouigley and George A. Forbes. It had as assistants the Fresno city and
county general committees, the school district committees, a Japanese com-
mittee, a women's committee, rating and preliminary gifts committees, and
specials with Wick W. Parsons as the campaign treasurer and Mrs. A. S.
Baker cashier.
One of the monumental achievements of the war times was the virtual
breaking up of the I. \\'. \\'. organization with its reign of terror as the
result of investigation and plot disclosures centering out of Fresno. For
nearly ten years "this organization had been a menace. In the winter of 1917
there' were' probablv about 2.500 of these plotters in the state. California's
"arson squad" operated over the west coast and in the northwestern states.
580 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Its activities went back to pre-war days. Its first positive overt acts in the
San Joaquin Valley came early after the country entered the war. They ante-
dated by nearly one year the arson fires in Fresno. The "Reign of Terror"
at Modesto was precipitated on the night of October 6-7 when the confeder-
ates of one of the agitators that had been jailed set nine fires in Modesto,
terrorized the inhabitants but made for other parts after the population had
organized 1,000 men to apprehend and deal justice to the arsonists. Space
Avill not permit following up all the activities of the plotters. The invasion
of Fresno was in August, 1917, followed September 3 by the setting fire with
phosphorus of barn and seven haystacks north of Fresno. This was on the
eve of the raid on I. W. W. headquarters in many parts of the United States
bv the federal authorities September 5, 1917. United States Deputy Marshal
S. J. Shannon conducted a noon day raid on the Fresno local headquarters
at 816 I Street, catching nineteen fellows, and among them the local secre-
tary, one Glenn A. Roberts. The round up lasted an afternoon and 125
fellows were searched and questioned. A wagon load of "literature" was
confiscated. The I. W. W.'s claimed to have at the time a membership of
half a thousand in the county. Fred Little, who was hanged at Butte, Mont.,
was a Fresno product. The raiding was authorized by federal search war-
rants for inciting insubordination, disloyalty and mutiny and refusal to per-
form duty in the army and navy while the country was at war. The raid
sweep continued throughout the district and the jail colony in the end
numbered thirty-five. The federal grand jury indicted locally twenty-five of
the number. Notable is the fact that three, James Elliott, C. McWhirt and
G. A. Roberts, secretaries of the local, were later indicted at Chicago and
imprisoned after conviction. Most of the twenty-five were dismissed at the
time, but eleven of them were one year later indicted at Sacramento for
complicity in a conspiracy to burn fifteen million dollars worth of property
in the state, millions of which were actually destroyed. Eleven of the eighteen
indicted at Sacramento were siftings of the 1917 local catch. The 1917 raid
climax was followed October 6-7 by about a score of incendiary fires simul-
taneously at Stockton, Modesto and at Alanteca, according to a pre-arranged
plan. Followed then a lull for about eighteen months but the arsonists were
busy plotting in a jungle in the neighborhood of Knights Landing and the
secret service had its operatives in the councils in July. A defective ship-
ment of phosphorus delayed the game and the springing of the traps. The
mistake was rectified, in August began the trapping in various parts of
the state, and by October 14 there were fourteen of the leading firebugs of
the west in the jails of half a dozen counties. In the technical language of
the I. W. W.'s the arsonist is a "cat." At least four "cats" were busy in
Fresno and vicinity. The Madary and Hollenbeck-Bush mill fire was one
piece of work of the "cats ;" loss about $500,000. On the same night there was
a $3,000 haA^stack fire at Rolinda. About the same time, August 15, a $750,000
canning plant fire at Hanford in Kings County and so on at various places in
near by valley counties. Following that fire was that on August 17 of the
Fresno hay market and of the Kutner-Goldstein fire in Fresno city, five in-
effectual attempts to fire the Grifiin-Skelley packing house in F'resno, and
the previous fire of the California Products Company with loss of nearly a
million in buildings, machinery, food and other products. That the "cats"
did not destroy more was because of the swift and secret action in round-
ing them up. The federal trial at Chicago and at Sacramento resulted in
wholesale convictions. The work of the assisting U. S. Secret Service and
the U. S. Army Intelligence Bureau was an invaluable aid and how well
pursued was made manifest in the disclosures at the two trials with the
mass of incriminating evidence adduced.
The Boy Scouts of America consisting of three troops in Fresno city
organized in March, 1918, with thirty-five boys helped to make the city's
war work a success. They sold $9,500 of the War Savings and Thrift Stamps.
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 581
In the third Liberty loan the}' turned in $1,650 in sold bonds. For that loan
campaign and also the fourth they distributed all the campaign literature
and placards, several times placarding the city in a night. They also acted
as the messengers at suljscription loan meetings, • were in attendance
at loan campaign headquarters and the three troops increased in membership
to ninety. ■\\'hen the aviation and ordnance branches of the army and navy
sent out call through the forestry department for "black walnut wood" for ■
air-ship propellers, blades and rifle-stocks, the Boy Scouts made the census
of the trees. When the gas defense league through the Red Cross appealed
for fruit pits to make charcoal for the gas masks, the Scouts gave their aid.
In the fourth Liberty loan with a memlDership of about seventy, the Scouts
started out to establish a record in the last eight days and turned in a total
of 363 bonds sold valued at $31,250.
Fresno sent its men into national war work and also to enter the service
of the state in carrying out the national emergency food and war material
policies under Flerbert Hoover, who is a California man. In the dried fruit
and fuel oil lines, California and Fresno men were of signal service in safe-
guarding the rights of consumers as well as of producers. In the U. S. Food
service was J. F. Niswander, manager of the California Peach Company, who
was made director of the division of dried fruit of the U. S. Food Adminis-
tration, May 9, 1918. He was one of your dollar-a-year men. Niswander
took up his duties at Washington with Charles Bentley, also a Californian.
Their work was to encourage maximum production and prevent hoarding,
speculation and unreasonable profiteering. W. B. Nichols, a Dinuba banker,
went in July to Washington on appointment to be Niswander's assistant.
H. H. Welsh, attorney, oilman and rancher, abandoned his work with the
county exemption board to go to Washington as a dollar-a-year man to
join the stafif as a member of the fuel oil board and became assistant to
Mark L. Requa in shaping government policies regarding the California oil
fields. George C. Roeding did not take up his residence at the national
capital but he was a member of the original Agricultural Producers' Advis-
ory Committee to the Hoover administration and made frequent journeys
east to advise on national and regional agricultural policies. He was of
the district board of appeals in the draft exemption work at home. He also
took up the contract to buy up the peach and apricot pits in California for
the war department to prevent their passing into the hands of enemy agencies
in the gas mask making service. Thomas H. Lynch became a captain in
the army quartermaster corps for the New York department to avail itself
of his business capacities. Connected also with the food department adminis-
tration were Charles A. Hill, formerly with the law firm of Barbour & Cashin,
and H. W. Stammers, who was with L. L. Cory, the lawyer. S. P. Frisselle,
superintendent of the Kearney Farm for the state university, was called to
San Francisco to become an assistant of Ralph P. ]\Ierritt as food adminis-
trator for California, and was in charge more particularly of the feed and
coarse grain department. L. A. Nares of the canal and irrigation company
was live stock commissioner to avert the feed shortage that enabled the
state to produce its quota of stock. Milo F. Rowell had charge of the perish-
able department in a consolidation of the cold storage interests to save and
cheapen foods and in the distribution of vegetables, cheese, eggs and milk
and to bring berry and fruit canners together. Aside from his work in the
live stock line, L. A. Nares as president of the highway association and of
the California Automobile Association served the government and the army
in organizing western transportation service as director for three states.
Lieut. Lester H. Eastin was first assistant to Milo F. Rowxll, assisting to
supply and distribute sugar in California and encourage the production of
more beets, and became head of the manufacture and purchase of gas service
supplies. F. M. Hill, as a member of the Highways Transport Committee of
the National Council of Defense was director of traffic in California with
582 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
general supervision over the highways of three states organizing traffic in
the state and arranging to co-ordinate the three branches of railroads, water-
ways and highways. Miss Maud L. Mast, in charge of the children's depart-
ment of the free libr-ary and formerly with the Madera library, went to
AVashington to do classification work; likewise Miss Norah Sullivan and
Miss Jeanette Morgan, formerly in the cataloguing department to do clerical
work, and ^liss Sarah F. Rabourn of the high school faculty to take up
clerical and statistical work for the war department. Chester H. Rowell, was
in the state council of defense.
The speaking bureau for publicity work at the theaters of the country
was known as the "Four Minute Men" as their talks to audiences were lim-
ited to four minutes. M. B. Harris was appointed Fresno County chairman
in September, 1917, and named as his executive committee Floyd W. Cowan,
Arthur Allyn and Robert J. West. The first Four-minute speeches were
made on Saturday night, September IS, 1917, and the subject was; "What
Our Enemy Really Is," speaking for the second Liberty loan then and also
for all the governmental activities thereafter at the theaters and the school
houses in the county in the war drives. In December, 1917, Cowan enlisted in
the navy, and later was commissioned an ensign, Allyn enlisted in the in-
fantry, and West took up Y. M. C. A. work at San Francisco and the execu-
tive work was carried out to the end by Frank A. Willey, he having been
named to succeed Cowan as secretary. One of the most effective pieces of
work of the Four Minute Men was in response to the appeal, "Eyes for the
Navy," for powerful glasses which were absolutely necessary for the work
of the enlarged navy, the stock in the hands of dealers exhausted and the
urgency of the need of them precluding the waiting of the long process of
manufacture. In response to the appeal the assistant secretary of the navy
calculated that 23,852 glasses were turned in and probably the 13,000 more
that came in later could also have been traced to the same effort. Fresno
County loaned to the navy some 200 such glasses. The Four Minute Men's
organization was discontinued December 24, 1918. It is stated that approxi-
mately 1,000 speeches were made in the county and the speakers were the
lawyers, the preachers and almost every young man of note before the public.
Fresno County has every reason to be proud of its achievements in go-
ing well over the top on every subscription in the four Liberty loans. They
demonstrated the patriotic spirit of the citizenry. The responses were hearty
and every town in the county made good. The first and fourth loans were
carried through against heavy handicaps. The best obtainable returns at
this writing are given in the following tabulation :
Maximum Over
Quota Subscription Subscription
First loan $ 2,000,000 $ 2,300,000 $ 300,000
Second loan 4,016,982 4,117,000 100,018
Third loan 2,545,175 3,949,050 1,403,875
Fourth loan 4,501,000 5,946,550 1,445,550
Total $13,063,157 $16,312,600 $3,249,343
The following figures of individual subscribers may be illuminating as
showing the steady growth of the "war consciousness :"
First loan 7,200
Second loan 14,800
Third loan 20,284
Fourth loan 32,213
The "Liberty Loan of 1917" was launched in May and was for two
billions. The bonds of this first issue will probably always be regarded with
more sentiment than the others. Thev are held bv some 3.300 subscribers.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 583
That loan drive reached its height with the issue of the first draft call and
when men were registering. The public sentiment in America had not yet
been welded. It had not yet awakened to the German propagandism in
America. It had not yet heard of Gerard's reported" threat of the kaiser:
"We'll stand no nonsense from America after this war is over." Nor to the'
other threatened uprising of 500,000 Germans in this country, and Gerard's
reply as to the handiness of lampposts for these uprisers in Yankeeland.
Many things had not yet happened to unify the Americans. There was yet
a too great divergence of popular views. That first drive was an unorganized
effort popularly, carried out in the main by the bankers and not to be com-
pared with the subsequent efforts when the countrv was thoroughly awak-
ened to the situation. No country was more woefully unprepared for every-
thing than America save in its resourcefulness and latent wealth. There
was yet no war consciousness in the west with the call for this first loan
to the government. Even the federal reserve bank records of that first
subscription are limited or lacking. There was another spirit with the
second loan. Pershing was in France with a quarter of a million of those
wonderful Yanks and he had made his reported speech over Ea Fayette's
tomb, "La Fayette, we are here." The second contingent of future soldiers
drafted into the service was in training camps. The thrills of war were
being felt. In Fresno County the raisin growers had harvested the greatest
crop in history. In this drive the government had set a minimum and also
a maximum quota for Fresno, $2,410,189 on a three billion loan and $4,106.-
982 on a five billion allotment. The third loan came after the Yanks "had
made good" at Chantignv and the marines had been baptized by the Huns
with the name of "Die Teuffels Hunde." The Tuscania transport had been
torpedoed and there were American soldier graves on the northern shore of
Scotland. There had also been a change of policy. Honor flags were awarded
every town and county that exceeded its guota, with a star added when
the quota was doubled. The war was being brought nearer home, the county
was better organized, returning wounded of the allies appeared before the
public and confirmed the atrocities of the Huns. The loan was oversub-
scribed and the achievement was considered a notable one. Came then the
fourth and the result was almost beyond belief. It was conducted under the
greatest handicaps, yet the record is unique in that in spite of them it was
again oversubscribed, notwithstanding a German peace offensive, locally a
great loss in raisin crop by reason of rain, and the outbreak of the influenza
epidemic. It was the largest loan oversubscription and the number of sub-
scribers was the largest, remembering that the population had been reduced
by the demands of the service in some 8,000 men. And the time for the
drive was one week less than any other. A volume might be written of the
concerted and individual efforts in carrying through these loan campaigns.
Never was there more earnest, patriotic and unselfish labor. That first fight
to carry Fresno over the top was a difficult one. That first issue of bonds
carried only three and one-half per cent, interest and the lenders of money
to the government must be taught to disregard interest rates when placing
their dollars behind the government at the lesser rate, not as an investment
but as a necessity and to credit the dift'erence in rates to duty and patriotism.
O. J. Woodward of the First National Bank was the general county chair-
man of the first campaign with E. E. Manheim of the Farmers' National as
the vice, W. O. Miles of the Union National, Berton Einstein of the Bank
and Trust Company of Central California and Dan Brown of the Bank of
Italy as the executive committee. The theaters were in this campaign first
used for publicity speeches, the bankers for a time carried on the drive without
outside aid, the period June 3-8, 1917, was designated as Liberty Loan week,
the slogan was "Pay Up or Go to War," June 1 Frank H. Homan of the
Merchants' Association named a merchants' committee to lend aid, William
Neilsen came from the federal reserve bank in San Francisco to establish
584 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
loan headquarters locally. Chase S. Osborn Jr. was named chairman of pub-
licity, E. A. Berg of the display advertising, Carl A. Lisenby of public
utilities and manufactures, L. R. Payne of the raisin and Samuel Samelson
of the peach industry, and June 15 after strenuous efforts the drive closed.
The result a city oversubscription of $250,000 and the county communities
of $50,000. Reedley was the only town community that failed in its quota—
$22,600 short on quota of $47,400. In the end the government returned all
oversubscriptions on the first loan. The second drive was launched Septem-
ber 31, and unlike any of the others was directed for the four counties of
Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare from Fresno by William Neilsen as special
representative. This plan was afterward abandoned as impracticable be-
cause of too great an area to be covered and too large a population to be
reached. There was then another general organization of committees. With
a total of $6,779,100 the four counties exceeded their minimum allotments
and only Kings and Tulare did not come up to their maximum. That second
drive in Fresno city was carried by a wonderful eleventh hour drive on an
announcement that it lacked $490,000 on its maximum of $3,000,000. An-
other strenuous effort and the limit on the last da)' was exceeded by $11,750.
O. J. \^'oodward retired from the general chairmanship and with the third
loan approaching \\'. O. JNIiles was chosen and another campaign manager
was sent by the reserve bank. No announcements were made and Fresno
prepared to raise a great quota. The plan adopted provided for an educa-
tional campaign of one month before taking subscriptions to be undertaken
by the Four Minute Men and the newspapers to make clear the atrocious
character of the foe that would be faced overseas. Another general com-
mittee organization of the county followed until the formal opening of the
drive April 6, 1918. There was a great demonstration in a parade followed
by a mass meeting in the city auditorium, Frank G. Hood as the marshal
of the parade. The country wag invited to parade and participate, the fra-
ternal societies were a feature, the women's division was another, so were
the labor organizations and the Masons. So great the throng in the pageant
that the auditorium could not contain it and overflow meetings were held
at the courthouse park, that night over $700,000 was subscribed and the
fraternal organizations came in with their subscriptions. It was a night of
greatest excitement and enthusiasm. Tremendous work was done day after
day. Through the Parlor Lecture Club the women contributed $350,000.
William Farnum, the movie star, spoke for eight minutes at the Liberty
Theater and the speech yielded at the rate of $1,000 a minute. On Monday
following the opening day there had been subscribed $1,331,600. The high
school pupils had pledged $100,000. The country district campaign was car-
ried even into the mountain regions. April 11 a great mass meeting of the
women was held and on that day every town in the county had gone over
the top save Fresno, and the total paid on subscriptions was only $812,000.
Display advertising in the newspapers was paid for by patriotic merchants
or groups of merchants as a feature. Sunday, April 14 the Armenians at a
special service subscribed $16,450 in addition to their previous large sub-
scriptions. Saturday, April 20, was held a mass meeting for the distribution
of the honor flags that had been earned, and on that morning Fresno city
was alone in not having such a flag while many of the towns had won stars
for their flags. Fresno struggled to the last to earn the star but it could
not double its quota. On the afternoon of April 23, Maj. Gen. E. D. Swin-
ton of the British army, inventor of the tanks and commander of them in
their first appearance at the front, addressed a great meeting, declaring that
the fight was against "Hun savages led by gorillas." In all the drives Fresno
was visited and addressed by notable speakers of the war days. Every ex-
pedient within reason was taken avail of to keep the public interest at fever
heat. Frida}', April 26, was designated as Liberty day and honor flags were
raised over the city hall and from the flag pole in front of the county court-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 585
house with parades and speechmaking. That same night "Doc" Wells, the
Canadian sergeant that lost an arm and was bayonetted and gassed in the
first attack on the Canadians at Ypres, was brought to Fresno by the Ro-
tary Club to speak "to men only" at the big auditorium on the atrocities of
the Huns, and there was gathered the greatest throng that had ever assem-
bled in that capacious edifice. His visit resulted in a big jump in the sub-
scriptions on the following day. "Don't Quit" was the slogan of the closing
week of the drive. Thursday, May 2, Marie Dressier, the actress, was a
speaker making her 340th speech during the drive. She was accompanied
by four sailor boys and their appeals brought in $25,000 in money. Of course
with such unremitting and unflagging efforts the drive was bound to prove
a success, although there was well founded criticism that the promoters
were always raising the cry of "Wolf! W'olf!" to frighten the people into a
belief that failure threatened and Fresno would be disgraced. Signal as in
the end the success of this third drive was, it was to be outdistanced by
another. The figures for the third loan are these :
Fresno Countv Fresno Citv
Quota $2,545,175 ' $1,858,682
Subscribed $3,949,059 $2,340,850
Percentage subscribed 155.15 125.94
Subscribers 20,284 11,627
Population (Census 1910) 75,657 42,892
Percentage subscribing 26.81 24.89
The fourth loan was the biggest of all. It was for six billions. In Fresno
the obstacles against it have already been alluded to. There was another
element that called for action. It was that there were "slackers" — people well
able to lend the government money but who did 'not or made ridiculously
small subscriptions considering their means. A meeting of the county Liberty
loan chairmen was held in San Francisco in August, 1918, and the powers
approved of the publication of the names of the slackers to bring them to
shame. County Chairman Miles of Fresno opposed the plan but as a matter
of fact such an inquisition committee of citizens did meet and slackers were
brought before it and informed that the}' would be expected to contribute.
The affair was done in secret to apply "moral suasion" arguments. However,
the drive was conducted in the county without any outside aid, the first so
conducted, and the record "was the county turned over a pile of dollars in an
oversubscription to the greatest loan in history that ever a nation has asked
of its people. It is true that the morale of the atrocious Hun across the sea
was at this time at low ebb, but it must have fallen to zero when the Junkers
over there learned that the nation had oversubscribed the loan, that Yank
soldiers were landing daily on French soil by the thousands, that the sub-
marine had been driven from the surface of the sea and depth-bombed to
smithereens to "Davy Tones' Locker," that the Yanks were at the front and
making possible the off'ensive of the allies and forcing the "tactical retreats"
of the Hun legions. "Fresno Never Fails" was the campaign slogan. The
campaign was organized September 5. Frederick B. Fox was named cam-
paign manager, Charles T. Ccarley city manager and Mrs. W. A. Fitzgerald
director of women's efforts as she had been in all the other like efforts. The
campaign organization was the best yet. The experience of the past had
taught a lesson and the combing for dollars was complete. The drive was
opened by a night pageant followed not bv one great mass meeting but
by three. The victorv at St. Mihiel to be followed by the pressing in of the
salient at Chateau-Thierrv had taken place. The time had come to deliver
the last money blow home. The singing was a feature of that parade. The
church choirs took part, the schools organized choruses, the Normal also
and the Fresno Male Chorus. The marching was to the singing. And if
there were 20,000 in that third Liberty loan parade, there were 35.000 in that
586 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of the fourth. It was probably the largest street demonstration witnessed
in the city. Corporal James Bonnar, Fresno's first returned war hero, a vic-
tim of a Hun gas attack, was to make appearance at the auditorium but did
not arrive until the following morning, because of government red tape at
the army hospital in Texas, though after coming his tales of life in the
trenches and of the soldiers at the front sold thousands of dollars' worth of
bonds. At the auditorium meeting $1,776,000 was pledged, at the two over-
flow meetings $60,000 and the first day's total was $1,382,200. It rained on
the opening night of the celebration and for two days after and following
an interval of a day more rain. People had hardly begun to count the loss
on a drying raisin crop from the rain when the beaten German began with
his peace offensive. Peace? Unconditional surrender, yes; otherwise "On to
Berlin !" Redemption of pledges after the first meetings was so slow that again
the cry of "Wolf! Wolf!" was raised for two weeks. Redemptions were dis-
appointing. October 1 one-third or $1,540,000 on a quota of county fixed at
$4,501,000 had been subscribed. War movie pictures were exhiljited and
Liberty Loan posters in the theaters. Theaters which had aided every war
move helped as never before. Four days before the close of the drive, Fresno
was still nearly one million behind the goal. The epidemic was on and indoor,
public meetings were under the ban. A day was set apart as "Save Fresno
Day," and in the down town district street corner meetings were held and
appeals made and pledges taken up. "\^'ar heroes were drummed up to talk
to the people from the street corners. Tanks bearing the names of the battles
in which the Canadians and Americans had participated were placed at nine
corners, and from these Four Minute Men addressed the populace. These and
other devices were made use of to keep up the spirit on the day that closed
with a great mass meeting in the courthouse park addressed by Edward F.
Trefz who had spent months investigating for Hoover the food conditions
in the French trenches. This day and for several following the confidential
committee went on with its sessions which ran far into the night. And it is
said that every one that was hailed before that committee "came through."
October 19 — a Saturday — the report was that the county and the city had
both gone over. The figures were :
Ouota Subscribed
Fresno City $37009,200 $3,107,550
Fresno County 4,501,000 4.774,300
The final figures showed that with the $4,501,000 quota the countv had actu-
ally subscribed $5,946,550 only $54,000 short of $6,000,000, making a total over-
subscription of $1,445,550. This by about one-third of the estimated popu-
lation.
Of unquestioned educational value was the yard garden planting cam-
paign begun in April, 1918, by the children of the public schools under the
supervision of Richard Schmidt, war garden director and supervisor of voca-
tional agriculture in the city high school. The work was confined to the
pupils of the grammar schools from the fourth to the eighth grades. County
Horticultural Commissioner F. P. Roullard gave his services to familiarize
student inspectors with the insect pests, and give in the schools illustrated
lectures on insects of economic value, the film illustrations being by Claud
C. Laval the photographer and moving picture man. Besides aiding in the
raising of vegetables, the children made exhibition at the county fair in
October, 1918, and prizes amounting to $100 in thrift stamps were awarded
as follows:
Thirty dollars. Grand Prize — IModena Prouty.
Fifteen dollars. First Prize — Helen ]\Iacon, James Shelbourne and J. B.
Ostrander.
Nine dollars. Second Prize — Frederick Hammond, Silvio Digiola, Gerald
Wenke and Richard Dwyer.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 587
Three dollars, Third Prize — John Riggins, Eral Ritter and Clement
Edwards.
Fresno led in the state with a record for War Savings Stamps pledges
on National War Savings Day— June 28, 1918 — memorable year of won-
derful achievements in the war. In six hours pledges were added which
totaled $2,360,000 and carried county over the year's allotment of $2,000,000
until a surplus of $360,000 was rolled up. With the close of the year a drive
was on to collect on the unredeemed pledges to Avipe out the million dollar
indebtedness to the government to start out the new year with clean slate
and it was done. The June big drive was from the 18th to the 28th. The
result was to show Fresno in first place among the counties for percent-
age of oversubscriptions : in second for total oversubscribed ; San Francisco
with a population of half a million had oversubscribed three-quarters of a
million. Retarded two months in the start, Fresno ended first. The work
of the campaign was under the direction of the following named : County
Director — E. E. ]\Ianheim ; Assistant and Campaign Manager — Harry C.
\\'ilber : City Director — Thomas E. Risley ; Postmaster Earle E. Hughes,
Ralph W. Woodward, Ben Epstein and W. A. Durfey. The personnel under-
went changes. M. B. Harris succeeding Woodward, City School Superin-
tendent Jerome O. Cross supplanting Epstein and D. S. Ricker, Durfey. In
the pledge redemption campaign, Mrs. E. A. Williams directed the women's
activities and A. E. Berg was director of display advertising. A campaign
of education was launched, the W. S. S. and T. S. plan of aiding the allies
financially being a new gospel of thrift. The speaking campaign was organ-
ized and conducted by the Four Minute Men and 800 stamp selling agencies
were established in the county. The two million quota had been arbitrarily
set to be saved by self-denial, the elimination of non-essentials and the sav-
ing oi the cost of living in every department during the year 1918. The in-
culcation of thrift was the cardinal aim. The schools were thoroughly organ-
ized, even to weekly thrift-stamp school parades. No child paraded thathad
not saved and bought at least one twenty-five-cent thrift stamp. And the
children of foreign parentage told of it at home. The first street drive was
opened March 9, Mrs. W. A. Fitzgerald was the leader of the women, with
]\Irs. Pete Droge in charge of the store booths, and Mrs. O. L. Everts as
the treasurer. The work in these booths overcame the loss by a delayed
start for a total of over $300,000 had been rolled up by April 1. New devices
to stimulate the sale of stamps were devised week after week. And in the
county communities the work proceeded as tirelessly. A notable achieve-
ment was that of Letter Carrier C. A. Tockstein who had read that a Spring-
field, 111., carrier held the national record for the largest sale of stamps in a
one-day drive by one man in the postal service. The mark was $3,000. Tock-
stein chose his own day, confining himself to his own route and he turned in
for the day $9,640. smashing the record by $6,640. The Junior Americans of
the city schools undertook a week's drive June 3-8, had a general campaign
committee, conducted a school children's parade, with Alfred Serpa as mar-
shal. Junior American four-minute speakers invaded the theaters, barkers
and spielers addressed the crowds from street rostrums, held a big meeting
at the auditorium with Claude Minard as chairman with a play picturing
a boy who would not save his money on candy and the movies for war stamps,
had bad dreams and awoke a patriot, and the drive resulted in the sale of
$20,000' in stamps. About this time the plan was changed giving up the
thrift idea and going out after the money in five-dollar stamps and under
the readjusted program a ten days' drive was put on during June 18-28. On
the starting dav Fresno's taken up stock of stamps was $412,000 and to make
up the $2,000,000 quota $1,.S88,000 in pledges were required. The city's goal
was $1,200,000, the difTerence between amount of stamps sold in the city
and quota $788,000. A house to house canvass was resolved upon by the
women and placed in charge of an executive committee of four, namelv :
588 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Mrs. C. F. Reilly, Miss Emma Brix. Mrs. \V. F. Fitzgerald and ^Mrs. llont-
gomery Thomas with district captains. The letter carriers also put on a
drive and in one week gathered in $49,000. The campaign resulted in an
oversubscription as follows:
War Savings Stamps sold 212,351; face value $887,502.
Thrift Stamps sold 573,995 ; face value $143,498.75.
Total face value $1,031,000.75; maturity value $1,205,253.75.
The women's committee was an important adjunct of the Fresno County
Unit of the Council of National and State Defense organized July 1. 1917,
with Mrs. H. A. Goddard as president, Mrs. S. L. Pratt as treasurer and
Mrs. C. Matheney of Clovis as secretary. The committee's first activity was
the distribution of the pledge cards for conservation of food on the lines
laid down by Herbert Hoover, resulting in signatures to about 3,000 cards.
The committee work was extended to the county towns. Next was taken
up the question of house deliveries especially by the grocers and that service
was cut down to two daily deliveries. August 24, 1917, a swimming party
was given and funds were raised to finance the committee for the first six
months of its existence. August 1 slips had been printed which merchants
distributed with every purchase parcel giving the following reminder:
Your country needs your help.
Eat no white bread on Wednesdays.
Eat no meat on Fridaj^s.
Eat no lamb nor veal at any time.
Help to feed the boys who are fighting for us.
In November. 1917, the second food campaign was started and con-
tinued for one month and in its interest Edward F. Trefz of Hoover's staflf
made his first appearance in Fresno. Nearly 25,000 signatures were secured
and window cards distributed with the shield of the U. S. Food Administra-
tion. In November Mrs. E. A. Williams succeeded to the presidency, the
work was more definitely organized by state headquarters and fifteen chair-
men were named to conduct the work of the various departments. Thus
Mrs. W. A. Fitzgerald was in charge of the work for the four Liberty loan
drives. Miss Beulah Miller with Miss Isabel Tapscott in charge of the
weighing and measuring of babies needing medical attention to the end of
bringing up "Better Babies." Two thousand seven hundred forty-one chil-
dren in all were medically examined. Dental examination was also given.
Miss L. Dahlgren as teacher of domestic science of the high school was in
charge of the Flome Economics Department and had to aid her the domestic
science teachers in the county high schools. A booklet of conservation rec-
ipes was published and distrii)uted and a series of food conservation demon-
stration lessons was given on these and other lines. Posters were placed in
theaters and stores during the week of the potato drive. Plans for a com-
munity kitchen were well under way but interrupted by the influenza epi-
demic. j\Irs. Henry Hawson had charge of the food conservation after the
November drive with ten active assisting sub-chairmen in the outside towns.
Special drive eflforts were made for 400 fruit jars to teach the Indians how to
preserve their fruits and then there was the potato drive. Survey was made
of the foreign population patronized groceries for cooperation and the use
of recipes for the use of substitutes and 2,000 such printed recipes in foreign
languages were distributed. Mrs. C. M. Hill had charge of the publicity
and was aided by the county librarian Aliss Sarah McCardle in the distri-
bution of literature and the exhibition of placards and posters in the main
library and its branches throughout the county. In all the loan drives the
committee lent assistance and Vice Chairman Mrs. H. E. Patterson under-
took a drive for nurses to enter the Army School for Nurses as well as civil
hospitals to release trained nurses for service across the seas. Forty-five
were enrolled and most of these were assigned for duty in hospitals in Cali-
fornia and out of it. As did most of the women's committees, at a standstill
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 589
during the epidemic, it gave over its office and helpers to the work of sup-
plying nurses for influenza sulTerers.
Registrations in Fresno city under the selective draft calls were :
Tune 5, 1917 3,784
Tune 5 and August 24, 1918 326
September 12, 1918, 18-4Sers 8,023
Total 12,133
Claiming exemption and classed as aliens were 2.253. Total Class 1
subject to military service 2,172. Physically examined 2.315. Qualified for
general service 1.161. For limited service 230 — total qualified 1,391. Ordered
to camp 919. Inducted Students' Army Training Corps sixtv-five — total in-
ducted 984. Delinquents 270. Deserted six. Physically disqualified 217.
Statistics of registrations prior to September 12, 1918, are:
White 3,797
Colored 57
Oriental 255
Total 4,109
Examined physically 1,756. Qualified for general service 833. For special
or limited 199 — total qualified 1,032. Ordered to entrain ^06. Failed to report
at camp six. Rejected at camp seventy-two — total soventv-eight. Remaining
in service 828. Employed by Emergency Fleet Corps twelve. Registrations
cancelled thirty-one. .According to citizenship the figures are:
Native born 2,638
Naturalized 129
Aliens 1,311
The aliens in Class 1 numbered 210: in the deferred class 1,099. The
married men in Class 1, 156: deferred 1,608 — total 1,764. The single in Class
1, 975; the deferred 1,339 — total 2,314. According to ages from twenty-
one to thirty the number in Class 1 was 1,131 and the deferred 2,947. Total
registrations after all cancellations 4,078; total delinquents reported sixty-
four. The youngest registrant was \A'^ebster R. Davis, then of 654 M Street,
fifteen years of age on March 4, 1918. On the September 12. 1918. regis-
tration eight men of the age of forty-si.x and four between the ages of forty-
seven and fifty-seven registered. One hundred eighty aged between twenty-
one and thirty-one who were required to register at previous registrations
came to the fore. The city exemption board continued almost until the end
with only one change in personnel. Wylie M. Giffen retired on the opening
day of the Fourth Liberty Loan because his personal and other public work
would not longer permit giving so much of his time to war work. So also
George C. Tabor retired from the clerkship and returned to his former duties
as attorney for the California Associated Raisin Company. At the end the
city board's personnel was of Alva E. Snow, Pete Droge and Charles T.
Cearley, with Thomas E. McKnight as clerk.
Among the minor organizations that lent their aid in 'vvar work should
not b'e forgotten the junior Naval and Marine Scouts, fostered by the local
marine recruiting station, chartered by Marine Scout headquarters in New
York, January 1, 1918, with Raymond L. Ouigley, city superintendent of
playgrounds, as the county commissioner; David L. Newman as quarter-
master and the city playgrounds commission as the executive committee
with the five companies taken under its protecting- wines. The recruited
boys were from the city schools and gathered in Incilitics contiguous to
the various playgrounds. The organization was a semi-military one and no
task, however small in connection with the patriotic efforts of the times,
590 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was disregarded by the Scouts but taken up with all the enthusiasm of the
restless small boy. Notable was the work in connection with the fourth
Liberty loan when it sold 184 bonds amounting to about $20,000. The other
semi-military organization which had its origin in a desire of the playgrounds
commission to furnish recreation for working girls was the four-company
battalion of Sammiettes commanded by Mrs. Ethel Grififin as majorette to
whom was assigned the task as one of the playgrounds supervisors, the cap-
tains being assistant supervisors. The girls wore a neat khaki uniform. Like
the Scouts and the other organizations, the Sammiettes were never back-
ward to offer their services because the girls were not one whit less patriotic
than the boys. One of the year's notable events was the twelve-day camp
that the girls held at General Grant Park and the expense of the outing was
limited to about five dollars per participant. The organization has a beautiful
battalion flag that was the embroidery work of the girls themselves. The
Scouts and Sammiettes had marine or army recruiting sergeants as drill
masters.
The first registration for the war of all males between the ages of
twenty-one and thirty-one inclusive was held June 5, 1917, and throughout
the nation on that day a census was taken in twenty-four hours of all mili-
tarv eligibles. The declaration of war was on the memorable date of May 18.
According to the plan in all cities of more than 30,000 inhabitants the city clerk
and the mayor were to conduct that registration and in the counties the
sheriff and the county clerk. Clerk D. M. Barnwell and Sheriff Horace Thor-
waldson located the registration centers in every precinct voting place as
on the occasions of an election, from two to four registrars were appointed
for every precinct, all the preliminary arrangements were made by the clerk's
force, supplies delivered to the registrants, additional supplies and registra-
tion cards, in this work citizens lent their assistance with loans of autos
and the day's work was done and the services rendered as a patriotic tender
as the government made no appropriation for that great day's work. The
result of the day's registration was to be delivered to the county clerk at
noon on the day after and the clerk to report returns to the provost marshal
at Washington, D. C, and to the governor of the state. Fresno County was
divided into three general districts, the city constituting one. County Division
No. 1 embracing the Fiftieth Assembly district and that part of the Fifty-
first lying outside of the city and Division No. 2 taking in the territory of the
Fifty-second district. The two county exemption boards were organized
July 3, 1917, and the county clerk delivered all records to them. They con-
ducted their business in the cramped and inadequate quarters of the county
clerk at the courthouse until December 1. 1917, when they and the city
board removed to quarters in the Cory building and there continued their
activities with the second day of registration, September 12, 1918, until the
closing up of the records following that day of great rejoicing in the signing
of the armistice. That second but smaller registration was on June 5, 1918,
of those who reached majority since the first registration: a third on August
24 of those who had become twenty-one since the previous registration and
the fourth and last to take in then all between the ages of eighteen and forty-
five inclusive. The original personnel of the two county boards was of the
following named :
Division No. 1— Dr. R. B. Hollingsworth Jr., R. C. Baker and L. J.
Arrants.
Division No. 2— H. H. Welsh, W. H. Shafer and Geo. B. Possons.
December 7, 1917, E. J. Bullard succeeded Arrants and Geo. Feaver Jr.,
took the place of Shafer, both taking up other essential government work.
April 6, 1918, L. W. Gibson succeeded Welsh appointed assistant to IMark
L. Requa of the fuel oil administration and August 12, 1918, Charles G.
Bonner succeeding Possons who resigned because of ill health, leaving to
the last on the board Dr. Hollingsworth and Baker of the original member-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 591
ship. The three boards performed an immense amount of labor and the
work in connection with the registrations and the drafts demanded a large
clerical force. Roy D. Marshall was the secretary of the county boards. The
county physical examinations were conducted in the courthouse law library,
those of the city drafted at the city hall council chamber and for these the
physicians, dentists and citizens volunteered their professional and clerical
services. So also in the filling out of the questionaires, the county bar asso-
ciation made details of its members to give aid to those not familiar with
these complicated forms. These questionaires were not used prior to De-
cember 15, 1917. In this registration and draft work, the first general activ-
ity in connection with the war, a splendid example of the whole souled
patriotism and accord of the people that was to follow was furnished. Regis-
trants under the two county boards were :
Division 1 10,565
Division 2 - 10.009
Total - 20,574
For the four registrations the number- was :
Tune 5, 1917 7,634
Tune 5, 1918 440
August 24, 1918 119
September 12. 1918 12,381
Total 20,574
Native born registered 13,299
Naturalized registered 7,375
Native born examined 5,980
Naturalized examined 611
Of the registered naturalized the national contributions were : Austria-
Hungary 189, Belgium 1, Bulgaria 137, Central and South Americas
thirteen, China fiftv-two, Denmark 217, France eighty-four, Germanv fortv-
six, England and colonies 482, Italy 790, Japan 1,988, Mexico 1,089, Nether-
lands twenty-one, Norway twenty-four, Portugal 124, Roumania one, Rus-
sia 671, Servia forty-four, Spain 227, Sweden 110, Switzerland sixty-nine, Tur-
key (Armenians) 545 and all others 207.
A vivid tale was outlined, June 6, 1919, in court, in support of the ap-
plication of D. L. Bachant for letters in the estate of his son, Jesse R.
Bachant, who had been a Fresno high-school boy and manager of the Bachant
ranch. He was killed in the fighting in the Argonne Forest in France,
October 15, 1918. The youth left school in his second year to take charge
of his father's ranch near Sanger. His estate consisted of forty acres of
promising oil property near Coalinga, a birthday gift from his father. Bach-
ant's comrades were, at the time of the court application, with the Army
of Occupation and the remains of the young hero were buried under a white
cross on Magdalene farm, near the forest, where he and sixty-nine comrades
were mowed down by machine-gun fire. Bachant had enlisted here in Septem-
ber, 1917, was sent to Camp Kearney, remained there eleven months, and hav-
ing been sent across sea, arrived in France, in July, 1918. According to the
story of his comrades, he was sent with Company K. Thirtieth United States
Infantry, of the Third Division, to Chateau Thierry, and there volunteered
as a dispatch runner, carrying orders and messages through barrages, rifle
and machine-gun fire, to and from the front lines. He escaped here un-
scathed, but having been transferred to the Argonne, he was killed in an
attack after the objective had been attained, and sixty-nine that fell around
him on the field were buried with him in a common grave. There was also
592 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the story that single-handed he had captured and brought into the American
hnes eleven German prisoners, and that while yet in the United States he
had declined a commission because it would have kept him out of the fight at
the front.
According to report made in June, 1919, the Fresno City Fire Depart-
ment contributed $16,237.50 to the Liberty loans and other war work relief,
besides being active in Red Cross work and giving service during the in-
fluenza epidemic in the fall of 1918, each fire-house being a depot for Red
Cross salvage, and the firemen driving the truck, assisting in the improve-
ment of the Liberty Cemetery, and driving an ambulance during the epi-
demic. Loan subscriptions were: First and second, $1,500; third, $4,750;
fourth, $4,250, and fifth, $5,000; total, $15,500. Donations were: Red Cross,
$285; War Work, $250; Salvation Army, $53.50; Coast Department Fire
Ambulance, $75 ; Liberty Cemetery, $74; total, $737.50; grand total $16,237.50.
The Fresno City Police Department is also proud of its war-contribu-
tion record. Libertv bond subscription bv the relief association was $2,000,
other subscriptions. '$100; total, $2,100. tinfoil (3,260 pounds collected for
Red Cross), $456.40; individual Libertv bond subscriptions, $7,600; war
stamps, $845.45; Red Cross, $307; Y. M. C. A., $78.50; Y. W. C. A., $21.50;
other organizations, $162. Grand total, $9,470.85. There is also to be credited
the service that the police were called upon to render the government in
assisting the secret service and federal operatives, in the great amount of
work that they were not equipped to undertake, unassisted, and with danger
lurking in unlooked-for places.
Fresno Post of the American Legion was organized on the night of May
29, 1919, as the first unit in the league of veterans of the European war, the
coming soldiers', sailors' and marines' national organization as formulated at
the convention at St. Louis. The post was said to have been the first in
the state. With the post organized, there ceased to exist the tentative
soldiers' organization known as the World War Veterans. The legion is
on broader lines than the Grand Army of the Republic of the Civil War or
the United Veterans of the Spanish American War. An auxiliary of the
mothers, wives and sisters of the legionaries is proposed. The post started
with a signed-up membership of over 400. Abolition of rank-distinction
between officers and men of the legion and prohibition of any state or county
political office-holder filling a station of power or trust in the legion were
amendments at the second organization meeting of the post. A portion of
the upper floor of the Short Building, at 1033 J Street, was leased for one
year for meeting-place, reading-room and rendezvous. B. W. Gearhart,
J. G. Crichton and Arthur H. Drew were the committee to present the
formal draft of the post constitution. No post of the legion may be named
for any living participant in the war, this being regarded as a posthumous
distinction and honor.
A pretty story published in the New York papers and confirmed in
part in correspondence between Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and
George C. Roeding, under dates of March 18, and June 19, 1919, is the one
that the Fresno president of the state board of horticulture refunded to the
government $50,000 for patriotic reasons, turning back checks for that amount
"due him for the purchase of peach, apricot and nut pits and shells, for the
manufacture of carbon for war gas-masks. The government had allowed
him $12.50 per ton, but he was able to buy the material for $6.80, and the
Fresno man gave Uncle Sam the "war profit". Altogether he bought 17,000
tons when the world's supply of cocoanut shells had been exhausted. Mr.
Roeding took up the work while in Washington, in March and April, 1^18,
at a session of the national advisory board of the food administration. The
point was to buy pits quickly and secretly to prevent German agents from
cornering the market, destroving the visible supply or inflating the price.
He was' authorized to buv all that was offered at $12.50 a ton. The 1917
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 593
crop of shells was taken up at $6.80 and the 1918 crop of peach pits at $7.50.
At the time of signing the armistice, 8,000 tons were piled up at the San
Francisco Potrero to be manufactured there into carbon, to reduce the
shipment weight from 100 to 15 tons per lot. The carbonizing was done
by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. In the purchasing work Mr.
Roeding was greatly aided by C. W. Griffin of the California Packing Cor-
poration. Of the 1917 crop alone, costing $29,524.19, the refund was $20,-
153.91. The utilization of the charcoal from fruit pits in the saving of
American lives in gas-attack warfare is interesting. It was soon found that
wood charcoal became saturated with the gas, making the masks ineffective
after three hours in action, whereas the charcoal from cocoanut shells, fruit
pits or nut shells was effective much longer.
The final report for the County on the Fifth Liberty Loan is as follows :
Subscribed. Quota. Per ct. Subscribers.
Fresno City $2,526,850 $2,515,950 100 8299
Coalinga 273,800 165,600 165 1155
Clovis 73,800 58,700 126 453
Del Rey 19,750 15,750 125 136
Fowler 76,450 62,550 122 442
Firebaugh 15,200 21,100 72 36
Ker.man ., 23,700 19,600 121 209
Kingsburg 121,700 119,000 102 904
Laton 21,050 14,400 145 142
Parlier ..- 47,800 38,000 126 402
Reedley 173,650 159,100 109 914
Riverdale 36,950 34,200 108 194
Sanger ..- 115,600 101,000 114 77Z
Selma 224.050 197,100 115 818
$3,750,350 $3,522,150 106 14,877
City of Fresno oversubscribed, $10,900.
County as whole oversubscribed, $228,200.
The Civil War had its famous Gridley sack of flour for Red Cross war
funds. The European War had its equally famous Shriners Red Cross Sack
of Flour. The Shriners' sack beat the long held record of the Gridley
sack in two regards. Mark Twain says that the Gridley sack largest sale
was among the Virginia City (Nev.) Comstock miners, and it was $40,000.
Oklahoma's Shriners doubled that sale. The Gridley sack traveled 15,000
miles, while the Shriners' sack traveled 35,000 miles and wore out twelve
commercial flour-sacks in the handling. On May 21, 1919, John D. Mc-
Gilvrey, potentate of Islam Temple of San Francisco, received the famous
Shriners' sack of flour, started in that Temple by Historian Clarence F.
Pratt, in May, 1917. The sack visited fourteen states, including Ohio, Ala-
bama, Iowa, Montana, Virginia, Wyoming, New Jersey, North Carolina,
Oklahoma, Tennessee and Michigan. It was sold at Honolulu ; was twice
sold on the Pacific Ocean, and sales in California were held at San Fran-
cisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Santa Rosa. It was sold twenty-three times in
the fourteen states, and the total was $134,512.84. The largest sale was by
Oklahoma's Shriners for $86,675. San Francisco was next, with $28,701.25.
Oklahoma's challenge to every temple in North America to meet its mark
was never equalled. Sack was routed and booked like a traveling theatrical
companv because of the long jumps to accommodate Shriners' meetings
and ceremonials, and frequently the booking had to be done by telegraph
from San Francisco. Sack was lost for two weeks on the journey from
Wyoming to New Jersey, but arrived at the temple at Trenton one hour
before the announced sale. At Honolulu the island Shriners wove a lauhala
covering around the commercial covering. At Helena, Mont., the nobles
594 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of Algeria Temple placed a bearskin over the Honolulu covering; at Butte,
Mont., Bagdad Temple made a copper fez and band out of native copper,
and the Oklahomites built a miniature oil derrick of silver and nickel and
placed it over all the coverings.
Revised figures, by the war department. May 15, 1919, of the casualties
of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe are : Killed in battle, 48,909 ;
wounded, 237,135; total, 286,044. Loss in prisoners, 4,434. The number
of wounded represents a duplication of some 7,000, that many being wounded
more than once. The losses in prisoners were no longer included as casual-
ties because of their having returned to their regiments.
A hospitable welcome was given the eight officers and 137 men that
constituted the representation of the Fresno company of the One Hundred
Forty-fifth Machine Gun Corps Battalion which was permitted by the
War Department to stop over in Fresno, Tuesday morning. May 20, 1919,
en route over the Southern Pacific on the final journey from France to the
San Francisco Presidio for muster out. So many had been the changes in
the organization since it was formed in the summer of 1887 that only one
officer of the original organization and not more than thirty of the enlisted
men returned with it for welcome in the home town of the company. That
welcome for "Fresno's Own" was none the less hearty. Company was re-
ceived at the depot by a committee representative of the Rotary Club, Cham-
ber of Commerce and Raisin Festival Association, the original intention
having been to have the company here on Raisin Day to participate as the
guest of honor on that festive occasion, but it was the old tale of man
proposing and some other power disposing. Capt. Clyde E. Ely, who was
not a Fresnan, was in command of the detachment. The corps members
were escorted to the Elks' Club and breakfasted, those w^ho could go home
taking advantage of the occasion. The Elks were the waiters at the break-
fast and the Club was headquarters for the guests of the day. There was a
parade at 11 A. M., starting from and ending at the Elks' Club, the high
school closing a few hours for its cadet battalion and band to participate in
the parade. At noon the gunners were assembled at the Forum Cafe for
luncheon. The mayor made an address of welcome, and there were other
short talks and responses. Girls decorated every soldier with a carnation
button-hole bouquet. The siren whistles announced the parade and the Elks
pinned on every soldier a purple and gold badge, with the legend "Welcome
Home." In the afternoon the boys were left to follow their own bent and
the theaters and the natatoriums were open to them. Every man had also
been given a ticket entitling him to dinner at the principal cafes and res-
taurants. For the officers there was a dinner in the evening at the Budo
Cafe with twenty-five plates reserved. At night there was a reception and
dance at the Commercial Club. Frank Everts, who went out as second
lieutenant, and Donald Forsyth, as sergeant, returned with the rank of
captain. The company did not see service under fire.
Miss Wilhelmina Miller, admitted to citizenship on May 21, 1919, before
Judge H. Z. Austin, was said to be the first woman alien in the land to
receive that recognition at the hands of Uncle Sam for her war service
as a nurse. On her discharge from the United States Navy Nurse Corps,
she did not have to file declaration of intention. She is a native of Denmark,
entered the service October 22, 1917; was discharged February 24, 1919, and
returned to America, landing at Boston, Mass., Rlay 4, 1919. She crossed
the submarine-infested seas, to care for the wounded in a base hospital in
Scotland and, returning to California, became a nurse at the Burnett Hospital
and decided to become an American under the war emergency measure favor-
ing service men and women, which was given a liberal interpretation with
regard to nurses.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 595
"Welcome Home Day" celebration, for the returned soldiers, sailors
and marines from California, has been set for September 9th, which is the day
of the admission of California as a state of the union and therefore deemed
an especially apt and appropriate one. The day set earlier in the year had to
be foregone as the returning soldiers were too few in number to warrant
a state-wide observance. The matter was submitted to a referendum of the
counties and they being undecided as between the 4th of July and September
9th, the latter date was chosen by the State Committee on Readjustment.
According to an official report of July 8, 1919, including all corrections
and alterations to July 2nd. the total casualties in the American Expeditionary
Forces were given as 297,147. This was a net increase of 1,565 over the re-
port of June 25th. Battle deaths were increased by 321, to a total of 50,150,
and the" total deaths by 400, to 78,917. The wounded numbered 216,309,
and the missing 1,921, a decrease from the last previously reported total.
On June 20. 1919, the army local recruiting office received a few of the
silver Victory Buttons, the first instalment issued to discharged soldiers.
The bronze buttons are given to all who served in whatever capacity between
April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918; the silver buttons are given to those
who received wounds in service. The first was issued to Private of the
First Class, John B. Bingham of Fresno City, who lost his right arm in the
Argonne Forest near Very, France, September 29, 1918, as a member of
Company A, Three Hundred Sixteenth Engineers, of the famous Ninety-
first Division. The second was awarded to Lieut. Edward Kellas, also of
this city, and a member of the Ninety-first Division, in command of the
supplv company of the above engineers. Kellas is a young attorne_y.
The participation of the county in the Great War is in the hands of the
Fresno County War History Committee to prepare a complete and verified
casualty list of the soldiers in the war from the county, working in collabora-
tion with a state committee. This history was scheduled to be completed
about May 12, 1919. The question arose in the committee whether Homer H.
Blevins listed as the first Fresno youth to lose his life in the war is entitled
to classification as a Fresnan. Report was made and on the statements of
facts made and learned the committee confirmed Blevins as on the casualty
list. It is not to establish without controversy that his was the first life sac-
rificed. At any rate there is no report of any previous death loss. The investi-
gation established that young Blevins lived with mother and other members
of the family in Fresno from February to April, 1914, when they removed
to Tacksonville, Ore. In February, 1917, he went to Dallas, Texas, on a
visit and while there enlisted in the infantry, U. S. A. About the time of
his enlistment, mother and family, she being a widow who had remarried,
returned to Fresno and had since lived here. In his enlistment he gave his
address as with his mother, Mrs. M. E. Mankins of 2056 South Van Ness
Avenue, Fresno. Blevins was born August 27, 1900, and was less than
seventeen years of age when he entered the army and less than eighteen
when his life was sacrificed to his country. She it was that as the mother of
the first one from Fresno to fall in battle was accorded the honor of drawing
the string that unfurled the county's service flag that waved from the court-
house entrance during the period of the war.
The brave exploit of a Fresnan was pictorialized in a film by the govern-
ment for exhibition in connection with the Victory Loan — an exploit that
cost that hero his life. The film was shown here at the Liberty Theater, it
was the first official film sent through California by the government to carry
the loan, and the 100 feet of film came in a box bearing on its face the an-
nouncement : "Official Film. \'ictory Loan. Property of the United States
Government." Inside was the title of the life drama as the plea of one \vho
would never come back but who sleeps under a white cross on the field
where Pershing's Yanks fell on the Prussian Guards and so hotly pressed
596 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
them as to turn the tide of the battle and also end the war at Chateau
Thierry. The simple title was:
Dramatization of the Heroic Deed
— of —
James I. Metrovitch
<r7i(^ of Fresno, Cal.,
■ ' Sergt. Co. M.. 11th Inf.
Metrovitch lost his life August 10, 1918, and strange to say his name
was not in the war history list. He died on the field carrying one of his
wounded comrades on his back from the scene of carnage and forfeiting his
own in the act. The French Croix de Guerre and the American Distin-
guished Service Cross were awarded him after death. Of the fourteen heroic
acts of the war selected by the government to be filmed in an awakening
of America to a sense of the obligation to the boys who were sent across
the sea to make the sacrifice for victory that of Sergt. Metrovitch was one.
It was the Elks' Club of Fresno that on the evening of IMarch 6, 1919,
launched locally the country wide campaign to raise the $822,000 fund for
the support of the home service of the Salvation Army. Fresno County's
quota was $15,500 or approximately eleven per cent, of its quota in the last
United \\'ar work. The campaign lasted one week from Salvation Army
Sunday, March 23-31. The Elks the country over directed the national drive.
Dr. Charles Wheeler of Chicago was one of the orators sent to Fresno to
carry it over the top and tell of the Army's work in war. The sale of dough-
nuts, March 29, in the streets by seventy-five Salvation Army lassies netted
over $1,000, and the highest price paid for a doughnut was twenty-five
dollars. Fresno easily made up its allotment and a little more.
Miss Leona B. Mitchell of Selma had the distinction of being one woman
entitled to wear the United States uniform of a yeoman attached to the naval
service. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James W. Mitchell and was
a graduate of the Selma high and grammar schools, of the Fresno Normal
school, and of Heald's Business College of Oakland, Cal. She volunteered
as a second class yeomanette August 25. 1918, and in January received second
highest standing in her class in the examination for first class rating. She
was serving as a telegram clerk in the issuing section of the supply depart-
ment at the Mare Island navy yard.
It was Countv Recorder R. N. Barstow that was first in the state with
the approval of the supervisors to suggest the free recording of the army
and navy discharges of returned men from the service. It was Fresno County
that suggested the introduction in the legislature of such a bill as a matter
of public interest and one to be strongly recommended not only by the citi-
zens of the state at large but by official bodies and organizations as furnish-
ing a record of the military service of its citizens of the counties and tending
also in a measure to express the appreciation of the state for the services of
its citizens. It was Senator B. M. Harris of Fresno who introduced the bill
in the senate and it was passed and signed by the governor. The recording
fee was eighty cents and many a soldier appeared that did not have that much
to spare to preserve his discharge paper as a public document.
To help out the quota on the Fourth Liberty Loan, the county made a
subscription of $100,000 purchased through the five commercial banks of
the city. This gave the county an investment of $400,500 in government war
bonds. The $500 represents a Fourth Liberty bond left with the supervisors
to guarantee the donor a permanent home with the County Home for Old
People.
Instructions came May 10 from Provost Marshal General E. H. Crowder
for the official disbanding of the selective draft organization in the state,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 597
May 15, 1919. The state adjutant general planned then to begin at an early
date to reorganize the National Guard and restore it to its pre-war authorized
strength of 8,000 officers and men, which it never had.
The fifth Victory Liberty Loan was for a total of $4,500,000,000. It was
announced to be the last of the Liberty loans. The buyer was given six
months to pay for his bond. The quota of Fresno County was $3,522,150, and
of the city $2,515,950. The drive was to continue eighteen days and close
May 10. There were three days of volunteer subscription-taking with a total
of $200,000, requiring a total of $2,315,950 to be collected to carry the city over
the top in the alloted time, in other words daily subscriptions of $128,499.
The county loan quota was made up as follows according to towns and com-
munity centers:
Clovis - $ 58.700
Coalinga 165,600
Del Rev 15,750
Firebaugh 21.150
Fowler 62,500
Fresno Citv 2,515,950
Kerman 19.600
Kingsburg 1 19.950
Laton 14,400
Parlier 38,000
Reedlev 159,100
Riverdale 101,000
Sanger 101 ,000
Selma 197,100
The tag day. Friday, April 5, 1919, for the relief of maimed and disabled
French soldiers broke the record for city tag day subscriptions and bv $500
exceeded the quota expected to be raised. The cash collections were $1,748.03,
added to which was a donation of a lot of at least $100 value. The 5,000 tags
sent here by the central committee in San Francisco were exhausted early
in the day. The tags sold for twenty-five cents each. City School Superin-
tendent Jerome Cross had the management of the campaign, and with the col-
lection of $100 at the auditorium meeting at the illustrated talk on the "Battle-
fields of France" a round $2,000 was Fresno's contribution to this cause. Never
had there been a tag day in Fresno with the receipts over $1,000. The lot
donor was Mrs. Viva La Moine of 1515 J Street, who gave deed to a lot at
Port Angeles, ^^'ash. The tag day fund was for "La Protection du Reforme
No. 2," those maimed and disabled soldiers who, actually suffering as the
result of the life and exposures in the trenches, are not eligible for French
government pensions. The government pensions only those who are wounded
in action and so sorely was the French national treasury depleted by the war
that however much the government wished it there "was not money to meet
the demand for pensions for these poor fellows.
Revised army casualties made public April 15. by the war department,
showed major casualties of 244,759 as follows :
Killed in action (including 381 at sea), 2,284.
Died of wounds received in action, 13,435.
Died of disease, 22,656.
From accident or other causes 4,248.
Wounded in action with over eighty-five per cent, returned, 197,574.
Missing in action (not including prisoners released and returned), 4,562.
A striking feature of the record was a reduction of 337 by reason of the
identification of dead and the return of prisoners. Rechecking of the records
resulted in the report May 1, 1919, of additions to the list of major casualties,
bringing the total to 275,820. Corrected total of wounded was 201,847.
598 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
On the 20th of February, 1919, Mrs. Fannie H. Paine of Twin Willow
Vineyard near Fowler enjoyed a happy family.reunion with the gathering of
five sons from war service in the American navy, the first reunion of the
group to have been featured in twelve years. In the party were : Ensign
Harry F. Paine, who had come overseas to visit mother on a furlough ; Jack
C. Paine, first class boatswain's mate who had arrived from China and the
Philippines stations after four years, and on the torpedo destroyer Williams
to leave San Francisco for New York and oversea service ; J- Lee Paine who
had come from the East where he was fireman on the U. S. ship New Mexico ;
Lyman H. Paine also from the war zone and chief machinist on submarine
chasers and mine sweepers ; James S. Paine who having served a previous
enlistment had come from San Francisco where he was engaged in the build-
ing of torpedo destroyers.
According to the grand jury report the supervisors allowed the following
total claims on account of national administration war demands :
Countv Exemption Boards $14,312.72
Council of Defense 1,188.45
Food Administration 1,180.44
Total $16,681.61
The figures of the state registrar would show that during the war years
of 1917-18 there was a decrease in marriages in the state in the leading coun-
ties with notable exception of San Diego, where the increase was from 1,690
to 2,008 and where Camp Kearney training camp was located. Fresno's figures
were, for the years named 1,155 and 909.
February 20, 1919. was the date in company orders for the assembly of
members of the Sixth and Tenth Companies of the California Infantry for
muster out, S. L. Gallaher and Bert A. Primrose, the respective captains.
They were at the time paper companies in a misunderstood plan of an organi-
zation to replace the state guard companies during the continuance of the war.
The companies had existed in name only since their strength went into
federal service, when it became apparent that they would never be called
upon for other than armory service at home, after all the representations
made to induce men to join.
The orders from Provost Marshal Enoch H. Crowder were for the clos-
ing of the two county and the city exemption boards in Fresno March 31,
1919, after having been in the service of the government since July 3, 1917.
These orders were for the discharge of the clerical help, the members to con-
tinue until later in the year. In round figures the county boards examined
and classified 20.500 and the city board approximately 12,500 men under the
various calls. The last job was the assortment of the registration cards in
dictionary alphabetical order and the filing of all duplicate cards returned
to the boards by the district board at Bakersfield as to age classification
from eighteen to forty-five, also in the order as the other. All cards were
sent to Washington, there to be re-classified according to the same system
for the state to become a permanent government record of men under the
draft regulations.
Mrs. Carrie S. E. Thompson of 141 Fresno Avenue was regarded as one
of Fresno's greatest knitters. She was eighty-three years of age and besides
doing the housework for herself and son knitted 175 pairs of socks, also
making pneumonia jackets during the influenza epidemic. She was a member
of the First Christian Church auxiliary of the Red Cross but also knitted
for St. John's and the Masonic auxiliaries. She knitted for the boys in the
World War and had also knitted for those in gray in the Civil War.
The "daylight schedule" was revived by government request in 1919
on Sunday, March 30, and clocks were set one hour ahead as during the year
before.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 599
Miss Edith Evans, daughter of Mrs. G. B. Evans, was in March, 1919,
the first woman from Fresno to return from France as one of a detachment of
nurses attached to the American base hospital at Royat and after nine months
work abroad. Her turn at work at the front trenches had not come Novem-
ber 11, when the armistice was signed. The Hospital at Royat was closed
January 19. Royat was a popular summer resort with mineral springs in
the hills, several large hotels having been assigned as quarters. The work
there was continuous, with as many as 3,000 wounded at a time. It received
the men from Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood and those burned with
chlorine fumes and mustard gas.
Lieut. William Ross, aged thirty-four years, of the tank corps died in
France February 27, the day before his organization left for home. He was
a former chief clerk for the California Peach Growers, Inc. He was buried
at Marseilles with military honors and had served with the first American
tank corps of the British forces in several of the big battles of the last year
of the war.
The Fresno committee for the Belgian Relief fund announced that official
collections for the fund ceased March 31, 1919, and the monthly $700 con-
tribution ended. Fresno, it was published, had been the fifth city in the
state for the amount of money contributed for Belgian relief, having sent
on $10,906 since relief work began in November, 1917. At first the committee
set its mark at $500 a month but responses to appeals made a monthly
remittance of $700 possible. A total of $13,625 was taken in but a portion
went for expenses. The relief ended because "the Belgian government, al-
though sadly handicapped by the ruin left by the Hun invasion, takes the
brave attitude that it can now work out its future without the further need
of charity." The directors of the Belgian relief were : Mesdames L. L. Cory,
G. H. Aiken, Frances E. Dean, Louis Einstein, W. B. Isaacs, Edna R. James,
W. B. Holland, W. J.^ McNulty, Anna Newman, H. E. Patterson, Chester
Rowell, W. R. Shoemaker, Milo F. Rowell, W. A. Fitzgerald and the Misses
Sarah E. McCardle, Blanche Schaeffer and Adeline Thornton.
CASUALTY LIST
(Because of the government's restrictions on the publication of the casual-
ties in the war, the following list cannot be ofifered as an officially complete
one of Fresno County. It is a fairly accurate one up to January 1, 1919,
based on department returns and private advices. Where not otherwise
designated the casualties are of those claiming Fresno as home town.)
IN MEMORIAM
THOMAS A. O'DONNELL— Obit December 7, 1917, at Camp Lewis,
Wash.; Fresno funeral December 15, 1917, with burial at Calvary Cemetery,
the first military funeral in the city of a Fresno soldier in the war.
W. LESTER CARTWRIGHT— Obit December 19, 1917, in San Pedro,
Cal., harbor in the sinking of the submarine F-1 ; body never recovered ; he
was of the Cartwright family of Malaga.
RAYMOND L. DENNIS— Killed in action January 12, 1918; enlisted
April 23, 1917, in LT. S. M. C. : marker to be placed in Liberty Cemetery.
CLYDE JENKINS— Obit February 5, 1918; of Coalinga ; a victim in
the submarining of the Tuscania ; buried with 164 other Americans on the
southwest coast of Scotland.
CARL A. ANDERSON— Obit March 7. 1918, at Fort Sill, Okla. ; from
injuries received February 6 in explosion of a field gun; funeral March 16
with burial in A\'ashington Colony Cemetery.
PETER BARSAGLINI— Obit at Camp Alerritt, N. J., February 13,
1918; Fresno funeral February 22 with later burial in Liberty Cemetery;
was to have been the first buried there.
JULIAN VARGAS— Obit March 4, 1918, at home on Maple Avenue on
sick leave ; funeral March 8, burial in Catholic Cemetery.
LESTER M. RAY KUCKENBAKER— Obit March 7, 1918, at Rock-
well Field, San Diego, Cal.: buried at Laton.
HOMER L. TROWER— Obit March 19, 1918, at Fort Vancouver,
Wash., funeral April 20, body having been vaulted awaiting later burial on
completion of the Liberty Cemetery. He was the first city draft man to
die in the service.
HARRY W^ MURDOCK— Obit Camp McArthur, March 23, 1918; fun-
eral March 30, burial in St. lames' Episcopal Cemetery.
NEIL MANDEVILLE— Obit April 5, 1918, at Camp Funston, Wasco,
Texas: funeral .'\pril 13. first body laid in Liberty Cemetery.
TIMOTHY HURLEY— Obit at U. S. A. General Hospital No. 1 at
Williamsbridge, N. Y., April 21, 1918; funeral April 29 with burial at Cal-
vary Cemetery ; five brothers were in the service.
'CHESTER D. MALOTTE— Obit May 1, 1918, at Camp Lewis. Wash.;
funeral with burial at Sclma in family plot. He was a member of the I. O.
R. M.. of the Stags and of the Sheet Metal Workers' Union.
IRVING BULLOCK— Took his life at Camp Lewis, January 20. 1918;
buried in family plot in Mountain View Cemetery.
JOHN C. 'cox— Of Clovis;- killed in action in France, June 7, 1918,
as a member of Company B, Second Engineer Corps; son of John M. Cox
of the Clovis high school faculty; enlisted April 1, 1917, with Idaho uni-
versity class of 133 out of 140: would have been twenty-one July 21, 1918.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 601
Telegraphic notification of death crossed mailed letter of parents with birth-
day money gift for a pleasure visit to Paris.
CLAUDE BERNSDORFFER— Resident of Selma since 1910, died about
June 22 from wounds received in action in France, June 16, 1918, as a mem-
ber of Ninety-sixth Company, Second Battalion, Sixth Regiment, U. S. M. C.
He was from Oklahoma City and enlisted in Fresno.
HOMER H. BLEVINS— Killed in action in France May 27, 19]8, and
the first Fresno city man to make the great sacrifice ; born August 27, 1900.
He was a private in Company E of the Twenty-eighth U. S. Infantry. He
enlisted at Dallas, Texas, where he was on a visit, having served four months
under Pershing on the Mexican border and was on French soil just one year
lacking a day. From early youth he craved for the life of a soldier and his
ambition was to live and die in the military service.
ELWOOD MILLER — Died in training service at the naval camp at
San Diego, Thursday, July 4, and his body was sent home to Reedley for
burial. He had enlisted several months before in the navy. He was the son
of Rev. M. Miller of the Church of the Brethren. The funeral was Julv 8.
HENRY J. ALLMAN— Reported in casualty list of July 10, 1918, killed
in direct action in France as a member of Company E, Second U. S. En-
gineers. He enlisted in October, 1917, through the Sacramento recruiting
office, was given intensive training at Camp Lewis and arrived in France
before Christmas. He was twenty-four years old, the son of A. H. Allman
of Lanare, in this county and is survived by father and sister in that town
and by a brother in service somewhere in France. Young Allman was en-
gaged at Lanare in reclamation dredging after removal thither from Healds-
burg, Cal.
FRED E. PROSSER— Reported in casualty list of July 13 as killed in
action. He enlisted here July 30, 1917, in marine corps and was a carpenter
by occupation, resident of Fowler and before coming here of Seaside, Ore.
He was thirty years of age, a single man and at enlistment passed a perfect
examination. His nearest relative was William Bynard, Route D, Box 232,
Fresno, on Peach Avenue two miles west of Fowler.
JOHN S. PARKES— Killed accidentally in explosion on U. S. S. Brook-
lyn in port of Yokohama, Japan. His death, December 11, 1918, marks the
first golden star on the city of Fresno's service flag. He was a member of the
Fresno city fire department and the remains were buried in the Fresno
Liberty Cemetery.
KILLED IN ACTION— Henry H. Allman, Lanare. Harry Adelsbach,
Alfred E. L. Anderson, Homer H. Blevins (first Fresno boy killed). Voltaire
Baker, signal corps, Selma. Jesse L. Bachant, Sanger. Carol C. Carter, John
C. Cox, Clovis. Clarence Chevoy, Charles Clayton, Tranquillity. Emmett M.
Combs, engineer. Oleander. George W. Camp and Ralph G. Creighton. Erwin
E. Davis, Coalinga. Dikran Davidian, Reedley. Morten E. Foster, Dunlap.
Loman O. Elias. Aloysius S. Feeley and John Gorehoit. Ezra Gray, Lanare.
Robert S. Gray and Robert Godwin, Canadians. Paul J. Gutierrez. George
H. Hathaway, Canadian, Coalinga. Corp. Clark W. Hinrich, Charles E. Ir-
win and Arthur C. Jacobsen. Fred C. C. Johnson, Coalinga. George Lam-
bert and Elmer G. Larson. Frank Lamoreux, Kerman. Stanley Lilburn and
John Mortensen. Johannes S. IMikelsen, Del Rev. A. G. McKewen. Alonzo
Aliller. Sanger. Harry A. Miller. Fred Nelly (British), Coalinga. Fred E.
Proesser (marine). Fowler. Edwin P. Pielop, Tranquillity. John H. and \\^il-
liam Pierce, Clovis. Charles H. Parke, Harry C. Roberts (marine), John
Radojevich. C. A. Rasmussen (engineer), IMonmouth. H. P. Robinson (Brit-
ish), George Stephenson (Canadian) and David Schledewitz. Harry Snyder,
Coalinga. Maurice Thrupp (British), Clovis. Lloyd E. Thrush and Floyd
T. W^enks. Samuel L. Catlin, Kingsburg.
602 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUxNTY
DIED FROM WOUNDS— Claude Bernsdorffer, infantry, Selma. John
J. Cress, infantry, Reedley. Leonard Elliott, infantry, Selma. Manuel J.
Hauff, infantry. Alfred S. Haynes, infantry, Sanger. Bud L. Huston, infan-
try. Edmund A. Johnson, infantry. Otto Kintz, infantry, Reedley. Albert
W. Long. William B. Minck, infantry. Tranquillity. Capt. Herbert Moore
(British navy). William L. Netzer, infantry, Sanger. Joseph B. Pelphrey,
infantry. Oilfields. Vernon A. Peterson, infantry, Selma. William B. Wood-
house, infantry, Fowler.
DIED OF ACCIDENT— Harry Albright, navy. John Allen, infantry
(drowned). Carl Anderson, artillery (gun explosion), Lieut. Harold Blakely,
aviator (airplane fall). Irving Bullock, infantry. Simon Campas, infantry
(hit by train). William L. Cartwright, navy (lost on Submarine F-1). Lieut.
Louis E. Davis, aviator (airplane fall). Charles Fisher, navy (drowned on
the Ticonderoga). Edward L. Griffin, navy. Fowler (lost on the Westover).
Clyde G. Jenkins, aviation, Coalinga (lost on the Tuscania). Frank Lynn,
navy (fall). Lieut. Roy McGiffin, aviator (airplane fall). Howard B. Mills,
medical (poison). Peddy D. Register and Joe Rodgers, infantry, Selma. Ben
Woodworth, aviation (airplane fall). William G. Wright, Calwa.
DIED OF DISEASE— James E. Allen, Friant. Oliver Bear, Auberry,
Peter Barsaglini. Angelo Barti, Firebaugh. Charles A. Boling. Coalinga.
Joseph C. Conn, Coalinga. Virgil E. Clark. Eugene F. Carmichael, Selma.
Henry Clark, Kingsburg. S. W. Cunningham (Y. M.). John Cullen, navy.
James A. Cowan, medical corps, Coalinga. Russell C. Doyle. Alfred A.
Drew, aviation. Arthur A. Duus, O. M.D. Sergt. Otto E. Dahlgren, Kings-
burg. Raymond P. Gavin, Coalinga. Peter (jiesbrecht. Timothy Hurley,
Auberry. Victor Hurlburt, Selma. H. B. liockett, marine. Nathaniel Hud-
son, medical corps, Wheatville. Homer Hatfield and George W. Harkness,
aviators. John M. Harris, C. C. Jenkins, Coalinga. Lester Kuckenbaker,
aviator, Laton. Addie S. Kaster. Howard Kavanaugh, Calwa. Emery L.
Kafader, Selma. Harry Cole. Neil Manderville and Harry Murdock, aviators.
Elwood Miller, navy, Reedley. Chester D. Malotte. "^Walter H. Martin.
Kingsburg. Claude McCamish. Darrell C. Mitchell, aviator. Virl McFar-
land (nurse). Morrell C. McKenzie, navy, and James P. Miller. Samuel
Martin, Sanger. Wallace H. Miner. Louis Nebes, Reedley. Fred Newell,
Coalinga. Niels J. Nielsen and Thomas A. O'Donnell. Lawrence Pozzi. John
Ouantrim, Kingsburg. Theodore E. Royer, Q. M. D., Auberry. Maurice A.
Reed, signal corps. Sparton W. Rhea, West Park. Lieut. Walter D. Rheno,
aviator. Otto J. Runge Jr. Jonas Stohnan, navy, Caruthers. Charles M.
Smith, Laton. Isaac Shahbazian aviator. Aaron B. Suderman, Parlier.
Homer L. Trower. Holly Turner, Canadian (died in prison camp). Julian
Vargas. Jesse D. Van Fossen, Laton, and James York, Tranquillity. Charles
F. Warnock. Raymond L. Dennis.
OTHER CASUALTIES
REPORTED MISSING— William J. Bent. Jesse L. Blank, Kingsburg.
John M. Dill, Selma. Fred G. Estep. (jeorge Hurst, Kingsburg. Simon R.
Kludjian. Roco Marfio. Alfred McKewan, Canadian. Alfred Nunes, Cen-
terville. Martin G. Peterson, Kingsburg. Hans H. Poulson, Selma. Robert
A. Rogers, Coalinga. A. H. Sanderson, Sanger. Leon Setrakian, Arthur W.
Ulrich and Louis Valente.
WOUNDED — Leonard Anderson. Selma. Dan J. Allen, Raisin. James
S. Anderson and Louis Arieta. John Anthony, Canadian, Clovis. Harvey U.
Abrahamson, Kingsburg. Percy D. Alspach. Kerman. Harrold C. Brodine.
William H. Brown, Selma. Jesse L. Blank. John M. Benson. Frank Bell,
Clovis. Louis Brockett, Clovis. Sidney Bell, Phillip R. Boyce, Coalinga.
Harry and George Brumbach, marines, Clovis, James Bonnar (gassed). T. J.
Brown (Canadian). John B. Bingham. William J. Brazil], medical. George
E. Bonner. Harold G. Brown. l\Iilo R. Brown, Fowler. Otto Bier. George
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 603
D. Bruns. Louis A. Boyer. Creed H. Clark. R. S. Coleman. C. T. Coyle.
Herbert Carpenter, Reedley. Anthony Catlin, Coalinga. Levi Church, navy.
Jerre A. Coleman. Fred Cann, Riverdale. Corporal W. Colby. Neil G. Coker,
Selma. Raymond S. Coleman. Hil^e Christensen, Clovis. Lloyd E. Crosby,
Del Rey. Lisle L. Case. Charles P. Cole, Kerman. Cecil Dunham, Clovis.
Alex Damichalis, Centerville. A. M. Donabedian. Fred B. DeSoto, Joseph
Dunton, John Donato, Otto E. Dahlgren and Joe E. Davis. Samuel J. Eng-
holm, Oleander. Setrek Eshkamian. Frank Field, Oleander. Sergt. Andrew
Folmer. Leroy Freer, marine. Fowler. Forest L. Farr and Antonio Goeta.
Gordon Gouldy, Reedley. Mallin Glud and Ralph E. Grote. Sidney R. Gould,
Clovis. Arthur G. Gunnerson. Sydney Gardner, Clovis. Harry George. John
E. Graves. Selma. Lieut. W. H. Hammond. Lieut. Geo. B. Hodgkin (air-
plane accident). Stanley V. Hopkins. Finlay R. Hoffman, Calwa. William
Hansen, Oleander. Corp. C. W. Hinsh. J. Henschel, Canadian, Kerman.
A. R. Hopkins, Canadian. Earl Higdon. Riverdale. G. W. Hurst. Jens P.
Hansen, Oleander. John E. Hohn, Kerman. Berney Joslyn. James B. Ive-
son. Cecil R. Johnson. Carl S. Johnson. Emil Kohnan. Lieut. Edward L.
Kellas. Adam Kerber. Magos S. Kooyumjian and Harry Kulkjian. Will
King, Selma. Carl E. Larsen, Kingsburg. Edward C. Lander. Rodney D.
Murdock, Corp. John W. ATurdock. Walter T. Moore and John Minini. Roy
L. McATahaffey, Calwa. John M. Miller, Academy. Lawrence McGowan,
aviator (accident). J. L l\Tetrovich. Mikoli Miklovich (Servian). Frank
Martinez. C. Mills, Canadian, Recdlev. Rand McCabe, signal corps. Rev.
H. N. McKee (Y. !\r.). Fowler. Bruce McCubbin. Donald McPherson,
Canadian. Lieut. Louis B. McWhirtcr (airplane accident). Melik M. Mer-
zoian. Olaf C. Nielsen, marine. Roy E. Newington. Ben B. Nordstrom,
Kingsburg. Ohannes S. Nalpantian. Arthur Olsen and Karikin Ohannesian.
Fred C. Phillips, Coalinga. Lieut. J. L. Paiva. John S. Parkes, navy (acci-
dent). John C. Palmquist. \\^illiam C. Patterson. Charles Petrott, Reedley.
Kenneth Paterson. Charles D. Printz, Caruthers. Charles N. Parlier, marine,
Parlier. Conrad Price. Hans Rasmussen. Virgil Roullard. Clovis. Clarence
A. Rice, El Prado. O. H. Rasmussen. C. D. Rowe, Calwa. Albert K. Rog-
ers. Henry T. Stokes, Tranquillity. Ralph W. Shearer, Clovis. Amos L.
Salisbury, Laton. Angelo J. Sophia, Roy Stewart. Russell J Sullivan and
Bert M. Smith. Leo Sweeney, Selma. Guy C. Scheeline, Kingsburg. Clarence
O. Strange. Selma. Aram Shahbazian. James Stevenson (British). S. J.
Sorensen. Roger S. Smith. Clarence W. Simons, Oleander. Harry Stark,
Caruthers. Russell E. Troutner. Ruben Tufenkjian, aviator. Warren Ten
Eyck. Grover F. Thomas, Laton. Wilbur Taylor, Clovis. Peter Valla. Rev.
J. G. Van Zandt (Y. M.), Fowler. Ed Vander Dusen and Lawrence Viau.
Ray A\'underlich, Riverdale. C. H. Walker, Coalinga. Edward J. Woods
(accident). George Wolfe. Fred A. Wehe, Coalinga. Wood ]. W^elliver.
Alexander Bell, Merrill Day. Clark W. Hinton, J. B. De Jarnett, Henry D.
Nunez, Coalinga. Manuel Mathias and Alfred C. Fish, Oleander. Orville
Johnson, John Hughes, Sergt. Gerald James. M. D.. Henry S. Williams. Ray
Bolton, Coalinga. Rufus O. Hoover, Roger Steele, Selma. Alvin C. Davis
and Maurice E. Jones, the latter two accidental.
VOLUNTEER WAR NURSES
OVERSEAS — Elizabeth Holcomb, Carrie Woolsey, Margaret Sinclair,
Laura Main, Lillian Hoffman, Christine and Anne Pilegard, Julia Tra-
bucco, Phillipa Nelson, Lena Young, Marian Smith, Lou Adams, Evelyn
McClure, Miss Curtis, Alberta Johnson of Parlier, Mathilda Frost, Esther
Roach, Jeanne Beveridge,' Nora Day, Emma Legros, Dorothea Peterson.
Wilhelmina Miller, Maude Nicholson and Edith Evans.
IN HOME CANTONMENTS— Florence M. Paton, Effie Foltz, Virl
McFarland (died), Mary W. Mc]\Iahon, Harriette Erickson, Matilda Brooks,
604 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Nellie Sessions, Minnie Gitchell, Dorothy Harrison, Bertha Eva, Millie
Webster, Ada Woodward, Mildred Alexander, Adelaide Peyton, Laura
Smith, Elizabeth Beveridge, Frances Elwell, Hallie Scott, Freda Russ (died).
AWAITING CALL— Dora Bangs, Helen Wager, Frieda Peterson,
Magdeline Neilson, Mabel Kish, Lottie Parnell, Edith Hanson, Rachel Dale,
Anna Marie Sackle, Olga Weisse, Letitia Tonsea, Frances Simi, Deborah
Bell, Emily Satterberg, Pauline Nelson, Anna Edland, Hilda Burton and
Ida Carlson of Kingsburg.
HONORABLY DISCHARGED— Nora Kenyon.
^^^>:;^<^
BIOGRAPHICAL
JOHN C. HOXIE. — Eminent among the early pioneers of real accom-
plishment who will be long and pleasantly remembered for what they
contributed to the general advancement of California life, while carving out
a fortune for themselves, must be mentioned John C. Hoxie, who was born
on March IS, 1848, and died on November 21, just seventy years later. The
end came at his home at L and Stanislaus Streets at ten o'clock in the evening
after an illness of several months caused by a sunstroke sustained on a trip
to the mountains the preceding June.
Mr. Hoxie's family was of English ancestry, and members resided for
many years in Massachusetts. There the paternal grandfather died, leaving
among others in his family a son named Clark Hoxie. He was born in Sand-
wich, Barnstable County, and in young manhood became a contractor and
builder. In 1852, following the westward trend of civilization, he came to
California via the Isthmus of Panama and located in Tuttletown, Tuolumne
County, erecting the first quartz mill ever built in that vicinity. He also en-
gaged in mining for some time, and served as justice of the peace there. In
1856 he located on the Indian reservation, where he was employed to teach
carpenter work, but in 1858 he had moved to Millerton, where he conducted
a blacksmith and wagon shop. He became one of the most influential men
in that community and took a prominent part in local affairs, serving as a
member of the first board of supervisors and also as a justice of the peace.
Returning to IMassachusetts in 1866 via the Isthmus, he died at the old
family home-place in Sandwich. His wife, before her marriage, was Susan
Fessenden. She was born in Sandwich, a daughter of Capt. Sewell Fessen-
den, a sea captain and hotel man there. He was a doughty patriot, and during
the Revolutionar}^ "War rendered valiant service to his country as captain
of the state militia.
Born at Sandwich in the year when struggles for liberty were rocking
the thrones of Europe, John C. Hoxie was only ten years old when he accom-
panied his family to California. The journey was made via the Isthmus, and
then on the steamer Golden Age to San Francisco, by boat to Stockton, and
thence by stage to Millerton. There were no schools in that locality at the
time, but Mr. Hoxie was fortunate in having a mother of rare intellect and
many accomplishments, who taught him instead. Mrs. Hoxie taught a small
class, privately, in ]\Iillerton in 1859-1860. and at the same time had charge of
the postoffice at Millerton. Inspired with the pioneer spirit of the region and
age, John Hoxie, at the age of fifteen, engaged in the stock business, and in
that field he continued successfully for many years. In time he located on a
ranch, which he purchased near Millerton, and engaged in farming and the
raising of cattle and sheep until he had so increased his holdings that he
owned several thousand acres. In 1874 he removed to Fresno, bought a
block, and built the residence later occupied by Frank H. Short ; and still
later he erected a residence at the corner of L and Stanislaus Streets, where
he was living at the time of his death.
In the early eighties Mr. Hoxie became interested in mining properties
and in extensive mining operations in the mountains of Fresno and Madera
Counties, and also in In3'o and Mono Counties. In conjunction with ^^'. H.
McKenzie and T. C. Hart he purchased the Mud Spring Mine, developed
and operated it, and made it one of the finest mining properties in this part
610 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of the Pacific Slope. He acted for some time as superintendent of the prop-
erty, and by his rare skill and wise management did much to further the best
interests of the company. His final illness was caused by a trip he was taking
in the exceptionally hot weather of June to a mine beyond Piedra, on
Hughes Creek.
To his many friends, Mr. Hoxie was a source of interesting reminiscence
of the details of life in the days when Afillerton was the leading town in Cen-
tral California ; for he had a marvelous memory for details, and could recount
many circumstances connected with the early struggles of the pioneer miners
and settlers, both in their efforts to win a livelihood and in the factional dif-
ferences incident to politics, in which he was always actively engaged as a
thoroughgoing Democrat. For half a century he was known to everyone as
a kindly, helpful member of the community, his activity continuing up to
the time of his illness. A shrewd judge of human nature, reserved in tem-
perament, quiet in demeanor, and of much personal dignity, he was loyal
and helpful to his friends and charitable towards the errors of his fellow
men. With a quiet humor that recognized the inconsistencies and follies of
others, he gave expression to comment without the sting of censure. John
C. Hoxie will be long and kindly remembered by his intimates, and admired
as a historic figure by those who knew of his large experience of affairs and
his close association with the times of the pioneers. Among the many public
services that he rendered, perhaps none pleased him more to remember than
his part in the Panama Pacific International E.xposition at San Francisco.
He was engaged by the directors to make a collection of minerals and metals
of Central California for the California building, and in this work he spent
about a year in traveling through Central California gathering specimens
from mining men and collectors. His intimate knowledge of mining condi-
tions for fifty years enabled him to make a collection that was remarkably
extensive and that commanded wide-spread attention.
On December 18, 1873. Mr. Hoxie was married at Fort Miller to Miss
Mary J. McKenzie, who was born at the Fort, a member of a Scotch-Irish
family hailing from County Sligo, Ireland, where their home was for several
generations. Alexander McKenzie was a large landowner there, a gentle-
man of means and education, who provided every possible advantage for his
family. A son, James ]\IcKenzie, who was born in County Sligo, came to
New York about 1848, and in 1853 joined the United States Army. The
regiment was ordered to the Pacific Coast in 1854 to subdue the Indians.
They traveled by steamer to Aspinwall, thence across the Isthmus on mule
back, thence by steamer to San Francisco, and from there to Benicia and
by land to Fort INIiller. Mr. IMcKenzie became sergeant of his company,
which was commanded by Captain Loeser, and remained at Fort Miller until
the company was ordered north to Oregon to serve in the Indian wars there.
Having been honorably discharged in 1858, Mr. McKenzie engaged in the
raising of cattle and sheep on a ranch just above the Fort, and there he
remained until his death, which occurred at the early age of thirty-three, on
January 1, 1864. Ten years before he had been married in New York City
to Ann Brennan, also a native of County Sligo. where she was born Novem-
ber 7, 1826. She came to the United States in 1848 to visit a sister, and her
wedding journey proved a trip to the far West. Like her husband, she rode
a mule across the Isthmus and passed through many experiences incidental
to pioneer life. She and her husband made their home at the Fort until 1861,
when they located upon a ranch a few miles distant. It was here that Mr.
McKenzie died, and thereupon the Avidow and her children returned to the
Fort to live. She afterwards became the wife of Judge Charles A. Hart, a
pioneer of California and the first judge of Fresno County. Three children
were born to Mr. and INIrs. IMcKenzie: Mary J., who became Mrs. John C.
Hoxie ; William H., who married Carrie E. Hoxie : and Edward P., who be-
came a merchant at Pollaskv and later died in Fresno. Another surviving
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 611
sister of Mr. Hoxie is Mrs. L. Z. Rarth of San Francisco; and there are two
surviving brothers, Sewell F. Hoxie, of Pasadena, and George L. Hoxie, for
many years county surveyor and city engineer of Fresno.
Mrs. John C. Hoxie was the first school teacher in Fresno City and
will thus always enjoy an enviable relation to the cause of popular educa-
tion here. After her graduation from the San Jose Normal School in 1872,
she returned to Fresno County and taught the first school — a private one —
in 1873. This was done to demonstrate the need of a public school and as
a requirement of the law at that time before county money could be appor-
tioned for school purposes, the county schools not yet having been opened.
The school was held over a grocery store owned by B. S. Booker and located
at the corner of Tulare and 1 Streets, where the Hughes Hotel now stands,
and was attended by fifteen pupils. Mrs. Hoxie also helped to organize the
Catholic Church in Fresno and the Leisure Flour Club, devoted to the study
of literature. That was twenty-five years ago, and Mrs. Hoxie was president
of the club for four years.
HENRY CLAY DAULTON.— An early pioneer of real accomplishment
in California, whose memory deserves especial recognition at the shrine of
American patriotism, because of his membership in a family noted for its
association with American history and the building of a nation, was Henry
Clav Daulton, the son of a soldier who went through the campaigns of 1812
and the grandson of a soldier who was among the first to seize his musket
and fight in the War of the Revolution, for the freedom and founding of our
countrv. The eighth among ten children, he was born at Marysville. Ky.,
April 7, 1829 ; but remained only a short time in his native state, inasmuch
as the family moved to Hannibal, Mo., while he was yet a child, making
their home near what was to be immortalized by the famous humorist, Mark
Twain.
The death of his parents, when he was only fourteen, threw him entirely
upon his own resources, and for a while he worked for wages as a farm
laborer. On the anniversary of his birth in 1850 he started across the plains
for the Pacific Coast. He was accompanied by his brother, and they traveled
with ox-teams. They had the usual experiences, sometimes thrilling, some-
times amusing, often calling upon them in one way or another to show the
stuft' that was in them, but, on August 11, luckily arrived all right at Placer-
ville, in Eldorado County, and there, for a couple of years, Mr. Daulton tried
his luck at mining. In 1852, when it was evident to him that the steady in-
flux of gold-seekers would demand, more and more, supplies with which to
subsist, he returned East by way of Panama to buy sheep and cattle, and
the following year, driving his stock before him. he once more crossed the
plains. Again it was necessary to show bravery, endurance and the capacity
to meet and overcome obstacles not generally contended with in the more
settled and comfortable East: but the party arrived safely in Los Angeles
early in November, and for a few years he remained in the San Gabriel
Valley.
Later Mr. Daulton settled on a farm twelve miles northeast of Madera,
where he purchased a large tract of Government land. He had served as jus-
tice of the peace in Los Angeles during his stay in the Southland, and when
he came North he brought with him a certain dignity and status that was
helpful and enabled him more easily to lead and help others.
In 1857. feeling that another change was desirable, Mr. Daulton settled
on what is known as the Santa Rita ranch in Fresno County, and later pur-
chased the "Shepherd's Home," an attractive farm that he made his home-
place. L'sed to develop everything to a high standard whenever it was pos-
sible to do so, Mr. Daulton made both the necessary improvements and such
as appealed to his fancy, and so made of his property such attractive places
that many came from a distance to enjoy the scene and to get the benefit
of whatever was new in plans or devices.
612 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
But it was not only as a successful rancher that Mr. Daulton was entitled
to recognition: he held public office, and he discharged his responsibility as
a public trust that had been solemnly committed to him. In 1860 he was
elected supervisor of Fresno County, and held that position until 1875. He
helped to organize Madera County, and was chairman of the commission
when Madera County was formed on May 20, 1893. He was also elected
supervisor of IMadera County, was chairman of the first board, and was in
office at the time of his death, on October 28, 1893.
At the San Gabriel Mission, in 1854, Mr. Daulton married Mary Jane
Hildreth, a daughter of Jesse and a sister of Thomas Hildreth, who had
crossed the plains in the same party with her husband. She was a woman
of sterling character, and her demise in 1907 was widely regretted. Ten
children were born of the union, and five are still living: JNIrs. Ida Saxe of
Fresno ; Mrs. Maude L. Mann of Oakland ; John, Jr., and Jonathan of
Madera; and James William.
A self-made man, Mr. Daulton started in life very poor, yet when he
died he left an estate of 18,000 acres, all in ]\Iadera land. Fle had, besides, a
beautiful home in Oakland.
SAMUEL BROWN.— One of the first pioneers of Fresno County,
Samuel Brown accomplished much good work toward starting this section
of the state on its upward course of development. A prominent sheep and
cattleman of the county, he reached success in life through habits of in-
dustry and thrift, as did the majority of our pioneers. Samuel Brown was
born in Augusta, Maine, January 4, 1832. \\n:en twenty-one years old, in
1853, he sailed with a party of friends around Cape Horn for California, the
trip, an arduous one of eleven months, costing two hundred dollars from
Boston to San Francisco.
After his arrival here Mr. Brown went to work on the Dr. Marsh stock
ranch, ten miles south of Antioch, Contra Costa County. During the last
six years in their employ he was foreman of this vast stock ranch, over a
league in extent. He next engaged in the butcher business, in Antioch,
remaining there five years. At the end of that period, he sold out his inter-
ests and drove a band of sheep into Fresno County, in 1869, when this
section of the state was one vast plain, with no sign of the present teeming
city of Fresno, nor her surrounding tributaries of commerce. Here he ran
sheep over the valley for many years. He homesteaded 160 acres of land,
and bought an additional like amount, four miles south of Millerton, and
engaged in grain farming and stock raising, also leasing three sections of
land in the Garfield school district, and farmed this extensive acreage for
twelve years.
The marriage of Mr. Samuel Brown, which occurred in Martinez, Con-
tra Costa County, in 1868, united him with Sarah Jane Gift, who was born
in Memphis, Tenn., June 28, 1849. She came to California with her parents,
via the Isthmus of Panama, in 1856. Her father, William A. J. Gift, was a
pioneer of the state, a prominent rancher and cattleman, and served as
deputy sherifl:' of Contra Costa County. Seven children were born to Mr.
and Mrs. Brown, as follows: Charles, born May 21, 1870, now deceased;
George, born October 2, 1871, resides in Alpio ; Mary, born January 9, 1873,
is the wife of E. M. Kenneson of Fresno: John H., born September 17, 1875,
now deceased; Maude S., born November 17, 1882, wife o'f C. A. Sample;
Mrs. George Cobb, of Fresno, born December 2, 1885 ; and Mrs. Nellie Cole-
man, born April 17, 1886. Mr. Brown died on August 5, 1897.
Mrs. Brown lived near Millerton on the stock ranch until 1917, which
year she moved into Fresno and bought the property at 394 Glenn .Avenue,
where she now makes her home. Always a devoted wife and mother, she
has borne her full share of the labor and hardships encumbent on the pioneer
men and women in building up our commonwealth, and to the women, no
less than the men, is due our appreciation for the work so nobly done.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 615
FRANK H. SHORT. — Among the leading attorneys and business men
of the San Joaquin Valley, is Frank H. Short, who is prominent in legal, finan-
cial and social circles. Of a strong personality, great force of character and
rare mental attainments, he is justly entitled to the honorable position that
he holds as one of the most brilliant lawyers, and energetic and safe business
men of this part of California. Through persistency of purpose and zeal, in-
telligently and unerringly directed, he has achieved success at the bar and in
financial circles, the influence of his masterful intellect being felt by judge
and jury as well as by his associates and clientele. He is and always has been
an inveterate worker, deep thinker and great traveler; has a high sense of
honor and integrity, belongs to a good family and is of a genial and hospitable
nature. He is philanthropic, large-minded, liberal and public spirited, and has
always been in advance of the times in matters relating to the public welfare,
and for many years has been recognized as one of the leaders of the Repub-
lican party of this state.
Mr. Short was born on September 12, 1862, in Shelby County, Mo., a son
of Hamilton and Emily (Wharton) Short. His father, Hamilton Short, and
his grandfather, John Short were both born in Delaware, of English ancestry,
w^ho immigrated to Shelby County and became pioneers. Hamilton Short
was a farmer; upon the outbreak of the Civil A\^ar he enlisted in the ^Tissom-i
state troops, and while serving in the army died from drinking poisoned water,
being but twenty-nine years old at the time. His wife, who was born in Mount
Pleasant, Ohio, spent many years of her life in Fresno, Cal. Her father, W^il-
liam Sayre Wharton, was a descendant of one of the early families in Dela-
ware and was born and reared in Ohio, where he learned the trade of saddler.
He located in Shelby County, Mo., and farmed until removing to California,
where he spent his declining years, dying in Fresno in 1900, aged eighty-
eight years. Two of his sons, Frank and F. A., served in the Union Army
during the Civil War. Frank Wharton, who held a commission as lieutenant,
removed to Fresno in the early days of its history, and until his death in 1889
was one of its leading citizens, being a prominent attorney, and at one time
served in the state legislature.
Of the children born of the union of Hamilton and Emily (Wharton)
Short, two attained maturity: John W., well-known as editor, postmaster and
property owner of Fresno ; and Frank H. The latter attended the public
schools of Shelby County, Mo., and Hastings, Nebr., and at the age of nine-
teen he was engaged to teach school for a year. Removing to Fresno, Cal.,
in 1881, he continued teaching, in the meantime beginning the study of law
under his uncle, Frank Wharton. In 1887 he was admitted to the bar, and
since that time he has been successfully engaged in practice. He has con-
ducted many important cases, and has ably filled the position of attorney for
various corporations. Associated with Judge Chapman of Los Angeles, he was
connected with the litigation over oil lands between scrippers and the min-
eral locators, and was successful in obtaining decisions of the Supreme Court
of the United States and from the Secretary of the Interior in favor of the
mineral locators. In his earlier practice he assisted in the prosecution of
Heath for the murder of McWhorter, and defended Professor Sanders, ac-
cused of forgery and suspected of the murder of William Wooton. In pro-
ceedings before the railroad commissioners he succeeded in procuring a re-
duction of ten per cent, in the rates of transportation for oil, thus saving the
oil-shippers about half a million a year at that time, now amounting to con-
siderable more than double that sum. More recently Mr. Short has repre-
sented the principal water and electric power companies of the Pacific Coast,
both under state and federal laws, and many of these cases are reported in the
State Courts and the United States Supreme Court. In connection with ques-
tions involving use of public lands and water rights he has conducted hear-
ings and appeared frequently before committees of Congress on issues of
vital public importance. These are but few of the important cases with wliich
616 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Mr. Short has been identified, and the success which attended his conduct
of them has given him a position among the leaders of the bar in California.
Outside of legal circles, Mr. Short is best known as one of the most ag-
gressive and dependable leaders in the ranks of the Republican party in Cal-
ifornia. In 1884, at the age of twenty-two and three years before he was ad-
mitted to the bar, he was elected justice of the peace. He has been prominent
in county and state conventions for years. In 1896 he was chosen as a delegate
to the Republican National Convention at St. Louis, when McKinley was
nominated for the presidency. In 1904 he was a leading member of the Cal-
ifornia delegation to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, at which
Roosevelt was nominated. He took a prominent part in that convention, was
one of the sub-committee chosen to frame the platform upon which the cam-
paign was conducted. In 1898, Governor Gage appointed him a member of
the State Board of Commissioners for the preservation of Yosemite Valley.
Fle was for one term a member of the board of trustees of the San Jose State
Normal School. Mr. Short was for years a director of the Fresno Canal and
Irrigation Company ; was one of the original stockholders and a director of
the Fresno National Bank, besides having other property interests in city
and county.
In Fresno, 1897, Mr. Short was united in marriage with Nellie C. (Curtis)
Rorick, who was born in Iowa, but was reared and educated in Los Angeles.
She had one daughter, Mildred. By his first wife, Emma Packard, Mr. Short
has one son, Frank H. Short, Jr. Fraternally, Mr. Short is a member of Fresno
Lodge, No. 127, F. & A. M. ; Trigo Chapter, No. 69, R. A. M., Fresno Com-
mandery, No. 29, K. T., and of Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of San Fran-
cisco. In his social relations he is a member of Pacific Union Club, of the
Union League Club, and the Bohemian Club of San Francisco, and of the
Sequoia Club of Fresno. He is also a member and ex-President of the State
Bar Association, and ex-President of the Fresno County Bar Association.
There is no movement projected for the upbuilding of Fresno County that
does not receive his hearty support and he is looked upon as one who has
been active in laying the groundwork of present-day prosperity of the San
Joaquin Valley. His work has made a marked impress upon the trend of
events in California, and the record of his life is entitled to a place of dis-
tinction in the annals of the state.
MRS. ELIZA FINK. — If there is any corner of this highly-interesting
earth and any class among its highly-favored groups which recall to one's
mind the blessed words, "Their works do live after them," it is California the
Golden and her worthy pioneers, so many of whom have passed hence with
scarcely a memorial of their names or faces, and yet leaving behind the most
precious monument a man can conceive of — the record for a life properly
lived and some definite, needed work well accomplished. \\'ith little or no
thought of reward other than the imperative daily wage to which it is declared
in holy writ that the honest workman is always entitled, the early settler
threw himself into the game, disposed of each play as best he could, and left
the result to the judgment of posterity. Nor could he have entrusted his fate
to better hands ; for the modern burgher looking back finds a delight in tracing
the institutions and comforts of today to those who were identified here with
the beginning of things, and gratitude is felt and often expressed to the men
and women who did so much to start California on her wonderful course.
Among the pioneers who should thus be honored in the chronicles of the
State is the late Peter W. Fink, a native of New York State where he grew
up and learned the carpenter trade. By principle as well as by habit, he could
not be anything else than a first-class journeyman; and this proficiency stood
him well in hand when, later, he found that he had to adapt himself to the con-
ditions of a new and expanding country. When twenty years of age, Mr. Fink
left home and the East and came to California ; and on his arrival here, in
1849, he made haste to try his luck in the mines. The returns for labor and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 617
risk were not of the highest, and he turned to teaming; and in that rather
strenuous line he was active for a couple of years.
In 1852 he first came to what is now Fresno County, and here he branched
out into something new — the stock business. He took up Government land
on Kings River near to what is now Sanger, and he also engaged in trade.
Resuming carpentering, he had charge of building Fort Miller in 1854, and
taking up teaming again, he drove between Stockton and Centerville for a
number of years. About 1863, Mr. Fink began farming on Kings River, where
the Fink homestead now stands, planting his acreage to grain ; and being very
successful in this agricultural venture, he continued a fanner until his death,
which occurred on March 7, 1912, when the community and county lost one
of their most estimable citizens, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
one of its most active members.
On May 26, 1861, Mr. Fink was very fortunate in his marriage to Eliza
Deakin, at Centerville, the bride being a daughter of William Deakin, who
married Elizabeth Leasley, like himself a native of England. After their union
in that country, Mr. and Mrs. Deakin came to the United States and Salt Lake
City, and there they lived over two years. Pushing further West, they came
over the Mormon trail to San Bernardino, and in that town they spent another
couple of years. In 1855, they came to Fresno County and located on Kings
River ; and when they had secured land favorable to such enterprise, they
raised stock and farmed. Their land at first was Government acreage, and
being a man of some experience, Mr. Deakin prospered through his choice.
He also came to be looked up to as a man of leadership, and served his fellow-
citizens two terms as Justice of the Peace.
About 1892, ]Mr. Deakin passed away, especially honored by the Masons
of Visalia, of which lodge he was a member. In June, 1912, Mrs. Deakin
died, mourned by all who knew her as a lovable woman, devoted wife, good
neighbor. The only child in the family, Mrs. Fink has inherited the home ranch
of 120 acres, which she now manages with rare business ability. Thus both
her husband and herself have contributed to the proper and rapid develop-
ment of this great commonwealth with its unequalled opportunities.
Of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Fink there were born six children : Alice
Nancy, wife of J. F. Hill of Sanger; Julia Ann, widow of Harry Jacobs, living
on O Street, Fresno ; Augusta, wife of Thomas Street, of Clark's Valley ; Ro-
sie, Mrs. John Deason, residing in Fresno; Mary Eliza, wife of Charles Hack-
ett, in Fresno ; and Peter Elliott, who married Miss Emma Van Fleet, and
resides on the Fink homestead.
After the marriage of Mr. and ]\lrs. Fink the 3'oung folks rode horseback
to the ranch where Mr. Fink had taken up ranching, located about two miles
south from the present Fink home place. Here they kept house for two years,
when they removed to the place that has been the home of Mrs. Fink for al-
most sixty years, and is now owned by her son, at least forty acres of the
property being still in the name of Fink. Air. Fink became owner of about
1,000 acres before he died, but this has all been sold off by his widow, and
a part of it is the site of the Fink Colony.
As Eliza Deakin was growing from young girlhood to womanhood, she
witnessed the barren aspect of the country all the way from Alillerton to
Centerville, only a stage station marked the immense cattle ranges, and the
cattle grazing on the plains and hills numbered into the thousands, where
now are the homes of hundreds of contented and prosperous residents of
Fresno County. Mrs. Fink is a member of the Reedley Study and Civic Club
and is greatly interested in the preservation of local history.
618 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
GEORGE W. TAFT. — A successful pioneer rancher who did yeoman
service in advancing the science of agriculture in both the \A'est and the East,
and yet found it possible to serve his country as an intrepid and aggressive
Civil War volunteer, was George W. Taft, a native of Vermont, now deceased.
He was born at Starksboro, Addison County, on Independence Day, 1847,
and was reared at Middlebury, near by, later the seat of the famous college,
where he attended the ordinary public schools. He also learned to care for
sheep, and was finally entrusted with a large herd of valuable wool-bearers
owned by Hammond Bros., the noted sheep men.
As a true Yankee Vermonter, George from boyhood had been inspired
with love for liis native land ; and when the war broke out. and he realized
that the preservation of the Union was at stake, he was quick to enlist and
do his duty. In 1861, at the first tap of the drum, and when he was only four-
teen, George W. Taft ran away from home'with his brother and walked thirty
miles to join the Fourteenth Regular Vermont Volunteer Infantry, but being
too young for mustering into service, he was refused by the recruiting officer.
He insisted, however, upon remaining and helping in the service, and finally
was made orderly to Dr. Gale, the surgeon. After roughing it for a while,
he looked older and was finally accepted and mustered into the Fourteenth
Regiment ; and for three years, or until 1864, he served in the ranks. Return-
ing luckily safe and sound from the battlefields, he resumed the raising of
sheep ; and in time he became one of the most experienced men in the service
of the Hammonds.
When only nineteen, Mr. Taft made his way to California, having readily
found employment with Flint, Bixby & Co., to bring a bunch of fine-blooded,
Merino sheep to California, by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Each animal
was crated and carefully provided for, and he brought them successfully
to San Juan, and then continued for a time with the well-known ranch pro-
prietors. When he left them, he was employed by J. B. Hoyt, in Solano
County, to care for their extensive herds, and then he had charge, for a
number of years, of the Pierce property in the Suisun Valley.
Coming to Fresno, Mr. Taft became manager of the Eggers Vineyard,
in August, 1880, and soon set out, for the owners, that valuable acreage.
This work, complicated in many ways and involving the breaking into new
paths, took him four years and was one of considerable responsibility ; but
he was fortunate in having clearly before him a definite idea of what was
needed, and following out his plans, boldly and conscientiously, he produced
one of the model properties of Central California. His reputation was ex-
tended far and wide, and he was next called to Yolo County to care for the
Charles F. Reed place on Grand Island, at Knight's Landing. After that,
he put in over two years on the Pierce estate, already referred to, in the
Suisun Valley.
His ownership of property, requiring some personal supervision, brought
him back to Fresno, and in 1888 he took cha,rge for three years of the Forsyth
place ; and then for seven years he directed the improvements in the Estrella
vineyard which he developed from a grain stubble-field. With each suc-
ceeding contract, new experiment and increased responsibility, his experience
widened, so that he was steadily preparing for his greatest success, on his
own farm.
In January, 1898. ]\Ir. Taft came onto his own place, which he had
bought in 1883, and began to improve the raw land. It then consisted of
eighty acres, but he added to it, so that today it comprises over two hun-
dred acres of very choice soil. It was Mr. Taft's way, when undertaking to
do anything, to do it thoroughly, and his long years of success in enhancing
the value of property for others added to his ambition to do the best he could
with what he himself controlled. About 1905, however, his health began to
fail ; in 1908 he had a stroke of paralysis ; and on St. Patrick's Day, 1916, he
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 623
passed away, mourned by many friends, among them his brother Odd Fel-
lows and Elks. His death was the more regretted because it is to men of
Mr. Taft's laudable ambition and restless energy that Fresno County owes
so much of her present greatness. Were it not for their foresight, discerning
the wonderful possibilities of soil, climate and water, their faith in the future,
their indefatigable labors and unceasing energy, the county would not so
soon have reached its present producti\itv and wealth. These facts should
be treasured by all who love justice and truth, and who would really do
honor to the memory of George W. Taft.
In Fairfield. Solano County, on December 25, 1876, Mr. Taft was mar-
ried to Miss Emma M. Walter, a native of pastoral Devonshire. England,
through whom he has had two children, both now deceased. Mrs. Taft came
to the United States and to California when she was eight years old, travel-
ing with her parents, Charles and Susan E. (Wilton) Walter, and settled
at Suisun, Solano County, where they spent the remainder of their days.
She was educated in the schools at Suisun. and in all of their years in Fresno
County was closely associated with her husband in his viticultural and horti-
cultural undertakings, so that at the time when he was called upon to pass
from temporal to eternal scenes, she was familiar with the many details
necessary for the successful conducting of their large ranch. As a life-long
Republican, Mr. Taft took a live interest, like his distinguished namesake,
in politics and civic affairs, and was an enthusiastic supporter of all that
makes for the public good ; and this enthusiasm was shared by his good wife,
one of whose notable attributes has always been versatility of mental equip-
ment. Most of her life has been passed within the boundaries of the common-
wealth, and her education reflects the training offered by its schools, while
her refinement of taste indicates a cultured environment from earliest years.
Thus it was that, being intensely interested in her husband's work, she kept
in closest touch with him and maintained herself abreast of the times, and
was well fitted to take up the management of their large affairs. Mr. and
Mrs. Taft were members of the Raisin Association and active workers in its
campaigns, believing it the only way to make a success of the raisin industry,
and as a matter of course, they belonged to the present California Associated
Raisin Company.
Since Mr. Taft's death, Mrs. Taft has continued to reside on her vine-
yard, managing her extensive interests there, and continuing to improve the
place. In this she naturally strives to carry out the ideals of her husband,
who was among the best-posted viticulturists in the Valley ; and the well-
kept Taft vineyards demonstrate the length and breadth of her accom-
plishment.
GILLUM BALEY. — Among the men from all sections of the country
who thronged to California during the excitement following the discovery
of gold was a young American of Scotch ancestry, Gillum Baley, who was
born in Pettis County, Mo., June 19, 1813. His youth and young man hood was
spent in Sangamon County, 111., where at the age of nineteen he was an or-
dained minister of the Methodist Church, although he never held an itinerant
pastorate. At the age of about twenty-one, he chose Missouri as his place of
residence, settling there in 1834. He was admitted to the bar in Missouri
but never practiced, although he served for sixteen years as Associate Justice
in the counties of Andrew, Jackson and Nodaway, in that state. In 1849 he
crossed the plains to California with his two brothers, Caleb and W. Rite
Baley. Leaving their home in April they arrived at their destination in Sep-
tember, and worked in the mines with more or less success for several years.
In 1852 young Baley returned to Missouri via Panama, but the memory of
California's charms lingered with him in his eastern home and he was not
content until he was again en route for the Golden State. In 1858 he gathered
200 thoroughbred Durham cattle and with his wife and nine children and his
624 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
brother W. Rite in the party, again started for the Pacific Coast. Near Fort
Hardy the party was attacked by Indians, and losing their cattle and sup-
plies were obliged to return to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a new outfit,
starting again for the coast in August, 1859, with six mules and wagons.
This time they were more fortunate and reached their destination, arriving
at Visalia in November, 1859. January 17, 1860, Mr. Baley moved to Miller-
ton, Fresno County, leaving his brother, W. R., in Visalia. He made a num-
ber of trips from Stockton to Millerton, driving a six-mule team with sup-
plies, and also mined on the San Joaquin River three miles above Fort Miller,
and on Fresno River, until 1866, when he moved to Fort Miller on account
of the school advantages for his children.
In 1867 he was elected Countv Judge of Fresno County and served
twelve years on the bench. AA'hen the county seat was moved to Fresno in
1874 he located in that city and was elected and served two years as treasurer
of Fresno County. For a time he was engaged in the grocery business in
Fresno with his son Charles C. He owned 160 acres of land at Tollhouse,
Fresno County, also 1,000 acres in small tracts in different parts of the countv.
He was a charter member of Fresno Lodge No. 186, I. O. O. F., and with his
son Charles C, contributed largely in founding and building the Methodist
Church South, at the corner of Fresno and L Streets. An active member of
this church, he contributed generously to its up-keep and to charitv. He was
among the leading public-spirited citizens of Fresno, and after retiring from
active life resided at his comfortable home on M Street, where he died in
December, 1885.
Mr. Baley was twice married, his first wife was, in maidenhood, Cather-
ine B. Decker, who died after two years of wedded happiness, leaving a son,
W'illiam Moses, now deceased. By his second marriage, August 16, 1836, in
Jackson County, Mo., he was united with Permelia Myers, a native of Green
County, Tenn., who died at Fresno in 1906. The children by his second mar-
riage were : Rebecca M., deceased, who married J, M. Shannon ; Catherine,
deceased, married William Krug: A. Frances, the wife of Charles A. Yancy.
of Tollhouse ; Elizabeth, wife of J. Scott Ashman, is now deceased ; George
W., who resides near Academy: Ellen G., the widow of James McCardle of
Fresno: Charles C, deputy sheriff of Fresno County: Nancy J., wife of H. P.
Black, of Academy : S. Bertha, wife of Charles R. IMcKeon of Los Angeles :
and Louis L., who died at the age of seventeen, being the only one born in
California.
Charles C. Baley, deputy sheriff of Fresno County, was born in Nodaway
County, Mo., March 24, 1853, and came across the plains with his parents in
1859. In his youth he attended the old Dry Creek Academy and learned the
printer's trade but never followed it. He engaged in the occupation of mining
and worked in lumbercamps and sawmills. He served as deputy sheriff under
his brother-in-law. Sheriff J. Scott Ashman, for four years, afterward follow-
ing the occupation of mining and prospecting. He spent the season of 1887
in Alaska on the Yukon, then mined in Fresno and Tuolumne Counties and
prospected in L'tah, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. He has served as deputy
in nearly all the county offices in Fresno County at different times. By his
marriage June 28, 1916, he was united to Mrs. Delia (Hough) Yale, a native
of ^lississippi, who has resided in California since the age of five years.
EDMUND WESLEY FOWLER.— Prominent among the honored
pioneers of the San Joaquin Valley who sturdily cast their lot there when the
great destiny of Central California lay in the minds and hearts of the trusting,
is Edmund Wesley Fowler, now one of the most esteemed citizens of River-
dale. His father's family had lived several years in both Stanislaus and Solano
Counties before coming to Fresno County, when they settled on a farm four
miles southeast of Hanford, at that time in Tulare County. He rode across
the range and traversed the site of Hanford long before there was to be seen a
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 625
single building of the town. His father was Edmund L Fowler, who had
married Kizziah James, a native, like himself, of Indiana ; and in that state
they were made man and wife. A Mr. Fowler, an uncle of our subject, who
was six feet seven inches tall, compiled the genealogy of the Fowler family
which came originally from England and was prominent in Indiana in early
days. Edmund I. Fowler, who had followed farming in Indiana, brought his
wife and three children, among whom Edmund W. was the youngest, a baby
of three months, across the great plains in 1854. There were ninety souls in
the train, and they were drawn by ox teams. His birthday was the eighth
of February, and when a year had passed the family was settled in the Golden
State. The parents pulled up at Oroville, and the father mined awhile on the
Feather River and did very well for a new-comer. In fact, he was encouraged
to stay there for five years. He then moved to Woodland, where he re-
mained four months, and after that to Solano County, in which district he
farmed for seven years. The parents next lived seven years near Los Banos ;
their next move was to Hanford, where they lived sixteen years.
At FTanford", therefore, Edmund Wesley grew up to vigorous manhood.
He was sound of body, but most sadly aiTlicted through an accident which
had happened far back in Indiana when one eye Avas destroyed in a corn-
field, so that later the other was affected through sympathy, and at thirtv he
was almost blind. Unfortunately, also, he had only a poor schooling, because
he had to work. From his fourteenth year, therefore, he was harnessed to
daily toil, and each day did a man's work, sharing the burden with his brother,
James Marion, who has been deceased for the past twenty-five years. Four
children were born to the parents in California. The father died on the farm
at Hanford at the ripe old age of eighty-four, and the mother outlived him,
dying in her eighty-sixth year.
Mr. Fowler was married at Hanford, on January 21, 1883, to Miss Mattie
Kirby, a native of Hydesville, Humboldt County, and one of the nine children
of Samuel A. and Sarah C. (Cox) Kirby, both of whom were born in Salem,
111. When she was two years old, her parents moved to Garberville, Cal, and
there she grew up and went to school. She was a girl of fifteen when her
folks came to Hanford, and she was married in her seventeenth year. Mr.
and Mrs. Fowler have three children : Fred A. served in the United States
Army, at Fort Eaker, in the heavy artillery, and was honorably discharged
and came home December 24, 1919; he is now a plumber and electrician and
makes his home at Riverdale. He is single, and up to the outbreak of the war,
he had served a year as justice of the peace, and he was the first peace officer
in Fresno County to enlist in defense of his country. For seven years he
had done business as a plumber at Laton and Riverdale, and his reputation
for square dealing was well established. Lloyd F. married Ethel Alay Splawn
of Riverdale. He is a tractor engineer and a tinner by trade, and resides
with his family, which includes a child. Glenn A., six months old, at River-
dale. Floretta May is the wife of W. P. Bourne, the electrician, formerly with
the Santa Fe at Bakersfield, but now a resident of Oakland ; they have one
child. Jack ^^'allace Bourne, now two years old.
After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Fowler farmed for six years at Han-
ford, and then removed to Bakersfield, where they took up a homestead in
the \A'eed Patch southeast of that town, later proA'ing up. In 1891 they moved
back to Hanford and farmed for eight years, then they farmed at Laton, and
afterward, in 1911, came to Riverdale. where Mr. Fowler engaged in plumbing.
The son Fred A., commencing at the age of eighteen, had learned that business
in Laton, and now he is a practical, competent plumber. In fact, the father
and his two sons, Fred and Lloyd, were in the plumbing and tinning business,
Lloyd being equally clever as a tinner. When Fred enlisted, the business
was broken up, and the firm retired, with excellent credit and reputation ;
and they rented the large building, owned by them and which they had used,
for a garage.
626 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
In 1915, Mr. Fowler built a beautiful bungalow at Riverdale ; and there
he and his wife, kindly disposed toward others and highly respected by every-
body, live a simple Christian life, committed to the faith known as "The Jesus'
Way." Mr. Fowler is well preserved, and his wife is bright and well as ever.
At sixty-four years of age, in 1919, Mr. Fowler put in sixty-two days of
hard work in the harvest fields on the AVest Side, on a combined harvester
and thresher, and came out strong and vigorous as a man of forty.
HENRY CLAY TUPPER.— Easily distinguished among the men learned
in the law who early chose Fresno for their forum and gladiatorial combats,
to say nothing of their oratorical triumphs, is Henry Clay Tupper, the son
of Tullius C. Tupper, also a lawyer of prominence who resided in Canton,
Miss., from about 1835 until his death on August 14, 1866. Henry's mother
was, before her marriage. Miss Mary Harding Drane.
Born in Canton on December 29, 1842, Mr. Tupper entered Princeton
College, in New Jersey, and was graduated with the Class of '61, receiving
the Bachelor of Arts degree. Four years later, the same institution honored
him with the degree of A. M. In May, 1861, shortly after war was declared
between the North and the South, young Tupper enlisted in the Confederate
Army, and was made a lieutenant of a company in the Twenty-fourth Mis-
sissippi Regiment. Before he was mustered out, he saw a great deal of hard
service, first at Pensacola and Fernandina, during the first year of the war,
and afterwards in the Battle of Corinth. In 1862 he was with -Bragg in Ken-
tucky, was wounded at Perryville, in that state, and was in most of the bat-
tles in Tennessee. He was an aide-de-camp on the stafif of Lieutenant-General
John Cliflford Pemberton in battles preceding and during the siege of Vicks-
burg, was exchanged as a prisoner of war, and afterwards served in Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston's command from Dalton to Atlanta. Ga., and in all the
battles around Atlanta. He was severely wounded at Jonesboro. Ga., but
recovering was with Lieut. -Gen. John Bell Hood in the famous Tennessee
campaign. Again he was severely wounded at Franklin, while serving as
inspector-general on the staf? of General Brantley, commanding the ^lis-
sissippi Brigade, was afterwards commissioned major, and finally, in the
spring of 1865, he surrendered with General Johnston.
Taking up the life and duties of a civilian again, ]\Ir. Tupper was ad-
mitted to practice law in Mississippi about 1872, and in July, 1877, he was
admitted to jiractice law in California, and ever since that time, he has been
in active practice.
On December 25, 1878, Mr. Tupper was married in Trinity Church, San
Francisco, to Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of James and Jane Johnson, who
came to Fresno County in 1853. Her father was a stockman, and she was
born in Merced County, Cal. Several children resulted from this fortunate
union. Hampton and Henry Walter are both deceased ; James Tullius mar-
ried Annabel, daughter of G. P. Cummings, and is in the real estate and in-
surance business in Fresno. Then there are Roland Beatty, William Charles,
Anna Elizabeth, Mary Helen, Donald Lewis and Sidney Johnston. Roland
Beatty' served in the World War in Europe, as surgeon in Navy Base
Hospital Unit No. 2. He is married to Gertrude Lindgren and lives in San
Francisco ; William Charles served as ensign in U. S. N., and is still in the
service ; Mary Helen was married March 4, 1919, to Dr. Niel Jorgensen, an
active practitioner in Fresno; Donald Lewis qualified for a commission as
ensign but, with Sidney Johnston who enlisted in the arm}', returned to the
University of California.
For years Mr. Tupper has been one of the attorneys for the Fresno Canal
and Irrigation Company, which for a long time engaged in extensive litiga-
tion ; and he has also served as bank attorney, and attorney for leading cor-
porations. Under the Democratic banner, and with an eye for the enduring
interests of the public welfare, Mr. Tupper has been a safe and inspiring guide
in civic affairs.
C^^G^^^aUb
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 629
FRANK HAMILTON BALL. — Eulogy is often as grossly misdirected
as censure, but if ever there was a man concerning whom it might well be
said that the good he did was not "interred with his bones," but would
assuredly live after him, that man was the late Frank Hamilton Ball, capital-
ist, rancher, fruit-raiser and substantial upbuilder of both the city and
county of Fresno, where he was esteemed for his astonishing versatility as
an aggressive and progressive pioneer, and his ever accumulating successes
in each field into which he ventured, heart and soul. He was one of the
oldest and best-known citizens of Fresno, a city which from the beginning
attracted pioneers, and which has come to number in its citizenry some of
the most distinguished and influential of Californians. He was born at
Grand Rapids, IMich., on September 13, 1855, the son of Sydney Silas Ball,
who died in October, 1893, and who married Amanda Nancy Wood, also
now deceased. In his native city Frank received the foundation of his educa-
tion, and then he continued his studies at a military school and in well-known
institutions of higher learning in eastern New York. As a boy and also as a
young man, his character and mental alertness impressed those with whom
he came into personal contact, and by many such acquaintances, among
whom were often the most representative men and women, a distinguished
career was predicted for him.
Setting out from his birthplace with the good-will of his neighbors
and friends, Mr. Ball came to California in 1876, and for six years settled
in San Francisco. On August 7, 1882,' he first came to Fresno with a view to
opening here a drug store and establishing himself in business. He located
in the Clark & McKenzie Building on Mariposa Street, and there, in one
of the first drug stores in town, he soon built up a thriving trade. It was
only a short time, in fact, before his success warranted his purchasing a
part of the corner where the Grififith-McKenzie Block now stands. This
first investment comprised a lot 50 by 125 feet on J Street, to which he
afterwards added another lot, measuring 25 by 150 feet. These two
plots of ground together make up the lot covered by the Griffith-^McKen-
zic Piuilding. and on this property Mr. Ball built a two-story structure, to
which he moved his drug store in 1883. and where he continucfl in business
until 1S8.T. Then he sold the ground and building to H. Thompson, and pur-
chased the site of his late business block at the corner of Kern and J Streets.
On that site, in 1905, Mr. Ball erected a theater which, for its time, did credit
to the city and also served the pleasure-seekers in a way that was educational
and uplifting. This theater he later removed to make way for the modern
business block that was so agreeably identified with his name, and which
was totallv destroyed by fire on Jnly 19, 1918. With his customary energy
and enterprise Mr. Ball immediately rebuilt, putting up a modern concrete
fire-proof structure, and this was practically completed when he was so sud-
denly called to leave the scene of his earthly labors and benefactions.
.After disposing of his former property, Mr. Ball acquired some land
southeast of the city and, giving up the drug business, became interested in
vineyard ranching and was soon devoting much of his time to the raisin
industry. Such was his customar}' way of doing things on a generous and
go-ahead scale, when once he had committed himself to an enterprise, that
the Ball A''ineyard. at California and East Streets, with its beautiful palm
drive, became the largest, as it was one of the first, in all the valley. .Several
years ago, however, he gave up the vineyard and turned the property into an
orchard. The land, as well as the Ball Block at J and Kern Streets and other
valuable city property, was in his name at the time of his death.
From 1905 to 1915 Mr. Ball was also engaged in the wall-paper and
paint business, although he was carrying responsible investments in the
fruit business since 1886. The growth and success of all his enterprises are
evidences of his aggressive attitude toward the great question of the solid
630 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and permanent development of Central California. He was public-spirited to
a marked degree, and was always deserving of the confidence and esteem
which his fellow-citizens accorded him. In political matters of national or
other than strictly local import, Mr. Ball was a stanch Republican. Frater-
nally, he was an Odd Fellow and a Woodman of the World ; and he was a
member of the Sunnyside Country Club.
Mr. Ball was married at Fresno on December 29, 1915. to Mrs. Bessie
May (Webb) Hill, a native of Marshall, Ind., who came to California in
1893. Having traveled extensively in the state, Mrs. Ball has watched the
growth of California during its era of progress. A cultured and refined
woman, possessing much natural ability and business acumen, she became
actively interested in Mr. Ball's enterprises for the development of his
property and the upbuilding of Fresno, and so is today well qualified to
take up the management of the large interests left by him, and to continue,
in his optimistic and large-hearted way, the carrying out of his ideal plans.
Previously to the time of his death, Mr. Ball had been slightly ill for
several days, but he had not taken to his bed until the evening before he
died. Heart-failure, at 4:30 o'clock the next afternoon, deprived Fresno of
her great friend. Reviewing the exemplary career and good works of this
estimable and influential Californian and citizen-leader of Fresno City and
County, one feels how appropriately these words of benediction from the
inspired Bard of Avon might be applied to his life :
"You have the grace of God, sir, and He hath enough."
In this connection, it may be most appropriate to reprint here an edi-
torial published by the Fresno Herald on March 19. 1919, soon after Mr.
Ball's demise. It reads as follows, and undoubtedly reflects the sentiments
of many of Mr. Ball's fellow-citizens:
"It seems to the Herald that there should be some adequate recognition
bv the communitv for the generous and gracious bequests of Frank H. Ball.
As Fresno read of the benevolences— $10,000 to the Y. W. C. A., $10,000 to
the plavgrounds. $10,000 to the Y. M. C. A., $5,000 to the Firemen's Relief,
$5,000 to the Fresno Relief Society, and $5,000 to the Citizens' Relief Com-
mittee— there was a certain thrill that comes from such substantial recogni-
tion of the worth of these organizations to the public. It is fine to know
that our institutions are appreciated, and that their services are placed at
a distinct value, that they receive merited reward. The Ball will provided the
largest bequests ever public!}- distributed in Fresno. Certainly we are grate-
ful for the measure of ^Ir. Ball's appreciation of those organizations which
attracted his generosity, for his public spirit, and finally for acting on that
spirit. May his memory be graced with the community's gratefulness. Per-
haps, after all. we could bestow nothing more acceptable than our sincere
appreciation. But let us do that."
JOHN M. PUGH. — Among the prominent and worthy pioneers of Cali-
fornia who are sure to be lastingly remembered as among the broad-minded,
far-seeing builders of Fresno County, and one equally certain long to be
honored by those who knew him personally as the high-principled founder and
thrifty head of a famih^ now well-established here, was John M. Pugh, born on
May 9, 1839 in Carroll County, Ohio. He removed to Missouri where, at
a very early age, he worked hard at farming. When a young man of about
eighteen, in 1856, he crossed the plains with ox teams and came to IMarysville,
near which place he drifted into the stock business. In the spring of 1867 he
returned to Missouri and was there married to Miss Ruth Sallee, a native
daughter of that state: and a year later, after their first' child was born, they
came out to California.
At first Mr. Pugh located on a farm at North Butte, Sutter County, near
Pennington, and there engaged in grain and stock raising; but in 1874, having
sold his ranch at North Butte, he removed to Stonvford, Colusa County and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 631
settled on a claim of 160 acres, where he continued farming and stockraising.
His efforts having proved successful, he in time bought out the land of other
settlers, and became owner of 4,500 acres on Stony Creek, which he im-
proved with a good residence and buildings, and brought to a high state of
cultivation. He was the first man on Stony Creek to sow alfalfa ; and as the
experiment proved that the soil and climate was adapted to its culture, it
was taken up by other settlers and alfalfa growing has become popular in
that section, the land being irrigated from the waters of Stony Creek.
In June, 1888. Mr. Pugh sold his ranch and removed with his family to
Fresno County where he bought 160 acres of land in the Central Colony, on
East and North Avenues, and engaged in viticulture, farming and stock-
raising. Later he sold this property and moved to a ranch near Fowler. His
wife died in 1904, and in 1905 he removed to Kutner Colony and bought 140
acres of the old Limbo ranch. Forty acres of this was already in vine-
yard : and with the aid of his sons he set out the rest of the ranch in the
same manner; and there he resided until in 1913, when he died widely mourned
by those who had come to know him and to appreciate his exceptional per-
sonality. In Masonic circles the demise of Mr. Pugh was deeply regretted ;
he was made a Mason in Marysville and was one of the founders of Snow
Mountain Lodge, F. & A. M., at Stonyford, in which he was also Master.
The seven children thus honored by this good man's name are : Hannah
Pugh. who became Mrs. J. A. Baile3% and now resides in Willows, where
her husband is Sheriff of Glenn County: Edward M. Pugh, of Pugh Bros.:
James V., who is associated with Edward in the same firm : John S. Pugh, in
the Granville district: A. U. Pugh, of Fresno: Perley Pugh, of Sanger: and
Ina, now Mrs. James Rose, who lives in the Granville district. All were
born in Stonyford except the three oldest: Hannah was born in Missouri;
E. M. and John S. were born in Sutter County.
SIMON WILLIAM HENRY.— The fundamental characteristics shown
in the life of Simon William Henry illustrate the energy and usefulness to
humanity for which so many of our pioneers were noted. A broad-minded
and public-spirited man, his adaptability and resourcefulness of mind, shown
in the various enterprises in which he engaged, brought him a due meed of
success in life and a memory which lives in the esteem and respect of all
who knew him.
Born in County Conant, Ireland, December 8, 1834, Simon AVilliam Henry
crossed the seas to Ontario, Canada, at the age of thirteen, in 1847. He
learned the blacksmith trade in Ontario and Michigan, and followed that
business until he came to California, via the Isthmus of Panama, in 1859.
After his arrival in this state he first settled in Suisun, Solano County, but
soon migrated south to Fresno County, arriving here in the fall of that same
year, and found employment with Judge Hoxie. Later he bought out his
emplover and ran a hotel, livery stable and blacksmith shop at Millerton,
until 1874, also engaging in ranching at that place. In 1874 he came to Fresno
and built Henry's Hotel, corner of Tulare and K Streets, on the spot where
the post-office building now stands. This hotel was later moved to the
rear of the courthouse, and was torn down in 1915.
In 1889, Mr. Henry built a blacksmith shop and livery stable on the
corner of Tulare and J Streets, on the spot where the Patterson Block now
stands, and ran this business until 1899. A part of his home on that corner
was moved from his former location at Millerton, and part is still incorpor-
ated in the home at 422 South Van Ness, he later engaged in farming and
teaming, and his death occurred on March 24, 1918. In early days in the
county, Mr. Henry was an active member of the Episcopal Church in Fresno,
and he donated all the iron used in the building of the church and installed
the same himself, also donating freely to the support of the church. A public-
spirited man, he was actively interested in the anti-Chinese question, and was
632 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
one of the leading spirits in that movement. In politics he was a strong Re-
publican, though he never sought public office.
On April 3, 1862, in San Francisco, Mr. Flenry was united in marriage
with Annie Mitchell, a native of Devonshire, England, who survives him,
as do six of the seven children born to them, as follows : William E., of Fresno ;
Fred, of Fresno ; Albert E., of Stockton ; John, of Hanford ; Simon William,
Jr., and Frank R., of Fresno. One daughter, Annie, formerly a clerk in the
county recorder's office, is now deceased.
LEVI C. GOODELL. — A Fresno County pioneer who has done much to
develop important interests in his part of California, and was largely instru-
mental at one time in affording better irrigation facilities for a large and fast-
growing area, is Levi C. Goodell, who was born in Hancock County, 111., on
January 4, 1849. His father was Joseph Goodell, a native of Maine, who emi-
grated to Illinois in early days, and later crossed the plains to California,
using oxen to draw his wagons, and taking six months for the trip. He had
married Nancy Bloyd, a native of Kentucky ; and she accompanied him on
the perilsome trip. He located in Tehama County, and with true Yankee
enterprise, farmed to grain; and in 1865 he died. Later, the devoted widow
passed away.
As a boy Levi Goodell worked on ranches and when he was able to do
so, he located with his brother, Robert W. Goodell, near Honcut, Butte
County, where they farmed 500 acres to grain. At times conditions were
dispiriting, and there was generally need of courage and "backbone ;" but
Mr. Goodell had inherited qualities such as frequently had their best "try
out" in undeveloped California, and he was the last man to think of doing
anything else than going forward. In the fall of 1878 he sold out and located
southwest of Selma, where he bought 160 acres of railroad land. This he
farmed to grain and alfalfa, and made such a success of the venture that
three years later his brother joined him. They farmed together the land
already under control, planting to grain, and then rented other land besides.
Having again sold out, in 1886, Mr. Goodell settled in the Wheatville
country, where he owned 400 acres of grain and alfalfa land. He operated
on a generous scale, showing his entire faith in the country, and continued
to live and farm there for twenty-four years. Wheat averaged ten sacks to
the acre; and he raised, besides, high grade horses and mules. When he took
possession, the country was wild and the land had no water; and seeing the
great need of better irrigation facilities, he helped to start the Crescent Canal
Companv of which he was at once a director, and he was its president for
ten years. He planted a family orchard, and he also laid out a good vineyard,
both of which undertakings added to his valuable experience.
In 1910, Mr. Goodell sold his ranch and bought 187 acres northwest of
Kerman. The land was raw, but he graded and checked it, and planted alfalfa.
He sank two wells, installed a pumping-plant, and brought the place up to a
high state of cultivation.
On the death of Mrs. Goodell, on ^May 16, 1917 — an event that cast a deep
shadow over the community in which she had been both an honored resident
and a beloved neighbor — Mr. Goodell rented out his land and moved into
Fresno. He still retained his valuable undeveloped ranch-lands in the Clovis
district, and his oil-land interests in the vicinity of Coalinga, but he has wisely
preferred the quiet, restful life, in which he may look back, and with much
satisfaction, we are sure, to the stirring past and his active share in it.
When ]\Ir. Goodell married in 1876, he took for his bride Florence L.
Loshbough, a native of Michigan who came to California in 1875, settling
near Honcut, Butte County, and with her he enjoyed years of the happiest
married life. The union was blessed with two children ; and these sources of
comfort are still left to him. The elder is Calvin C, living in Stockton; and
the younger, Efifie, the wife of Harrison Forsyth and the mother of one son
living, Harrison. She lives in Los Angeles.
is
>^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 635
HON. ELISHA COTTON WINCHELL.— A resident of Fresno County,
from the very early pioneer days to tiie end of his life, none will be more
kindly remembered than Judge Winchell. A man of high ideals and of fixed
principles, his example and precepts were ever factors in the substantial im-
provement of all conditions, social, moral and political. A lawyer by profes-
sion, he was temperamentally of distinct judicial mind and of pronounced
literary inclination and ability. Withal companionable, kindly, entertaining
and youthful to his last days, these qualities especially endeared him to the
young, with whom he was in sympathetic touch ; many of whom, still living,
will hold his memory in affectionate regard.
Elisha C. Winchell was born in West Springfield, Mass., July 25, 1826,
a lineal descendant of Robert Winchell, who came over from England and
settled at Windsor, on the Connecticut River, in 1634. Elisha C.'s father,
Elias, was a merchant and manufacturer; his mother was Fanny Ely. a de-
scendant of another early Colonial family of New England, and a woman of
great talent. Suffering business reverses after the panic of 1835. the father
and family moved westward; reaching the hamlet of Quincy, 111.. August 9,
1837, they remained there till January, 1838, when the Mississippi, frozen
over, allowed passage on the ice to the Missouri shore.
Traveling thirty miles still westward, they settled on a lonely prairie,
built a double log cabin, made rails and fenced land, broke sod with oxen,
planted crops, and established a home in the wilderness. Once a week the
mails from Palmyra were brought on horseback to the lonely cabin, which
became, in September, 1838. the "West Springfield" postoffice.
After a term in the Marion College, Elisha C. entered, as student, the
law ofiice of Thomas L. Anderson and John W. Dryden, his brothers-in-law,
at Palmyra. Mo., and in June, 1848, was admitted to the bar. In November,
following, he opened a law office in Paris, Monroe County, Mo., fort)^ miles
west. Fascinated, however, by the tales from the far western Eldorado, he
started, with three companions, on April 11, 1850, for California. They out-
fitted at Saint Joseph with wagon and six horses, and, bidding goodbye to
civilization, advanced on the road to the Pacific. On June 25th they crossed
the South Pass ("the roof of the continent") at an elevation of 7,490 feet,
whence they plunged into the silent expanse of waterless, yellow deserts that
lie between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas. July 27th, at the Humboldt
River. 600 miles from Sutter's Fort, their provisions nearly exhausted and
their animals unable, from starvation, to haul the wagon further, they made
pack-saddles from the wheel spokes and wagon box. Abandoning everything
except their arms, a little food and their blankets, they took their way down
the Humboldt Valley, a hideous desert, which for 300 miles was strewed with
animals and wreckage. For many weeks they had been accustomed to see
abandoned property and dead and dying animals, but these scenes were now
doubled and trebled ; as they advanced the scenes became more dreadful,
the heat of the day increased, and the road heavy with sand ; the stench
arising was continuous and terrible. Horses, mules and oxen, suffering from
heat, thirst and starvation, staggered along until they fell and died, on every
rod of the way. Both sides of the road for miles on miles were lined with
the carcasses and abandoned wagons ; around were strewn yokes, chains,
harness, guns, tools, bedding and clothing, in utter confusion. The owners
had left everything except what scant provisions they could carry, and hur-
ried on to save themselves.
During the night of August 11th and the forenoon of the 12th, our adven-
turer led his staggering horses through these scenes of death and desolation,
to the ice-fed waters of the Carson River. Resting there till somewhat re-
cuperated, he followed this stream eight miles to the Carson Canyon, and
on August 26th crossed the territorial line of California. Abandoning here,
on a grassy meadow, his faithful but almost helpless animals, and shoulder-
ing a thirty-pound pack of law-books, bacon and biscuit, he crossed the moun-
636 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
tains. At dark of August 31st, he camped for the night under a live-oak
tree, sleeping soundly, without blankets, till the frost of the dawn awakened
him. He was soon on the way; Sutter's Fort was forty miles distant; at sun-
set, half starved but in robust health and high spirits, in tatters and penni-
less, he entered Sacramento, a mushroom city of cloth and clapboards ; half
hidden in the willow thickets by the river. The first of the \\'inchell family
in America, so far as known, to set foot on California soil. He never left
its confines.
In January, 1851, the young pioneer opened a law office in Sacramento,
and in 1832 was elected justice of the peace, with an annual salary of $5,000.
In 1855 he was elected city assessor of Sacramento.
On July 7, 1853, Elisha C. Winchell was united in marriage with Laura
C. Alsip, who had come to California by steamer in 1852, with her widowed
mother, and was living in Sacramento. The wedding ceremony was per-
formed by Rev. O. C. Wheeler, D.D.. the first Baptist minister in Sacramento,
at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Ledyard Frink, the latter being a sister of
the bride. Four children were born to this pioneer couple : Lilbourne Alsip,
born October 9, 1855; Iva Mary, born 1857, died 1858; Ledvard Frink, born
November 30, 1859; and Anna Cora, June 24, 1870.
Remaining in Sacramento until the spring of 1859, Judge Winchell be-
came interested in the reports of an old friend regarding the general terri-
tory of the "southern mines" and of the growing pastoral industries of the
San Joaquin Valley. His friend urged that there was a promising field for a
lawyer at Millerton, the county seat of the }'oung coiintv of Fresno, as most
of the lawyers at that time resided at Mariposa and \'isalia. This resulted
in his moving from Sacramento to ^Millerton, witli his wife and young son,
in May, 1859. The family made their first, temporary home in the large
adobe house at Fort Miller, wliich stands at the southeast corner of the
plaza (and is still, in 1919, in an almost perfectly preserved condition!.
Living there until October of 1859. they moved to another adobe building,
apart from those that surrounded the fort quadrangle, known as the "Hos-
pital," having been constructed by the government for use as such. This
was a commodious structure, having two large rooms with a smaller apart-
ment between them (apothecary shop, for the use of the post surgeon), and
entered from an open vestibule in front. In this home, November 30, 1859,
was born Ledyard Frink, the second son.
Judge Winchell soon established his office in the Colonel Burrough Hotel
in ■\iillerton, and resumed his practice. This was the building afterwards
used as the courthouse. Governor Downey appointed him notary public
about this time. In 1860 he was appointed superintendent of public instruc-
tion, the first in the county, and he proceeded to establish three districts;
Millerton, Scottsburg, and Kingston. At Scottsburg he selected three trus-
tees, assembled them in the saloon, which was also the postoffice, wrote out
their appointments on top of a battered card-table on which was a deck of
very dirty cards; he swore the trustees in and. after he had been invited to
"take something" by the barkeeper, which ofifer he declined, climbed into
his buggy and departed.
In September, 1860, as a candidate for the state legislature, against three
opponents he canvassed on horseback the counties of Fresno, Tulare and
Buena Vista, but was defeated by a small vote. In 1861 he was elected dis-
trict attorney, and in 1863, county judge. In the spring of 1864, an Indian
killed a white man during a drunken brawl, was arrested, tried, found guilty
and sentenced to be hung ; after which the prisoner was remanded to the cus-
tody of the sherifT, and court adjourned for dinner. During the noon hour
lynchers took possession of the Indian (the sheriff being complaisant) and
started with him out the trail which led past Judge Winchell's home. Appar-
ently having forgotten in their haste to get a rope in town, they supplied
the need bv entering the judge's field, taking the rope with which a calf was
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 637
staked out, and with it hung the Indian to an oak tree in a canyon a half
mile south of the judge's house — the judge at dinner in ]\IcCray's hotel,
wholly unaware of the proceedings.
The old adobe "Hospital" remained their home until the fall of 1861,
the family moving then to a little valley half a mile south of the fort; the
creek running through this valley is named for the family, and the canyon
gorge is known as \\'inchell Gulch. A good house was built, of lumber cut
in Crane Valley and hauled by ox teams. The doors, windows and redwood
shingles came by freight wagons from Stockton. This became a true home ;
many improvements were made ; fences were built, roads graded ; fields cul-
tivated, and crops raised. Judge Winchell had planted here an orchard of
various fruits in the winter of 1859-1860, before moving his family from the
fort. He had obtained from Sacramento, from the nursery of W. R. Strong,
600 assorted fruit trees and a variet}^ of the best grapes. The great grass-
hopper plague of 1861 destroyed many of the settings, but by employing over
100 Indians from the nearby rancherias, who fought the pests with fire and
smoke, they succeeded in saving trees that afterwards flourished and for
many years produced the only fresh fruit in that locality, and which was
much in demand by the neighbors and passersby. Many flowering and orna-
mental plants were also set out.
In July, 1869, Mr. Winchell and Capt. J. N. Appleton, with "Billy"
Haines as guide, visited the Kings River Canyon and the Big Trees in what
is now Grant Park. Mr. AAHnchell wrote a descriptive article that was pub-
lished in the San Francisco Call ; this was the first descriptive article ever
written of that section.
A\'hen the county seat was removed to the site now Fresno, Judge
Winchell opened the first law office there, locating on the south side of
Tulare Street near H Street, or, as it was then called, "Front Street." This
was advantageously situated, being near the courtroom, which was on the
upper floor of the building on the corner, the lower floor being utilized as a
saloon. This propinquity of court and bar was a familiar and welcome ar-
rangement for some of the old JMillertonites, as in those cherished days fre-
quent stimulation was needed. He afterward moved his office to the north
side of Mariposa Street (this spot is now covered by the Union National
Bank Building).
Acquiring a number of lots in the block bounded by I, J, Fresno and
Mariposa Streets, he erected a large two-story brick building on the corner
of J and Fresno Streets ; in this he made his headquarters. The lower floor
he fitted up for use as a postoffice, and contributed it to the government and
people of Fresno, free of rent for five years. He also erected a business
building on Mariposa Street near J. This later was destroyed by fire, which
also ruined many other buildings, on the night of July 13. 1889, but was re-
placed by a finer structure, which still stands. Other buildings were erected
on J Street for business purposes. In 1876 he established a home for his fam-
ily on the corner of K and Merced Streets (now the site of the Masonic
Temple), where they resided until his departure from Fresno, in 1897.
Always public-spirited, this sturdy pioneer inaugurated many enter-
prises, among others the street-car line running from the Southern Pacific
depot up Mariposa, J, and Tuolumne Streets, and Blackstone Avenue to Bel-
mont Avenue. He was the principal stockholder and president of this road,
which he named the Fresno, Belmont and Yosemite Railroad. The construc-
tion of this road led to the rapid development of the territory to which it
contributed. In 1880 he organized a corporation which constructed the sec-
ond large irrigating canal in Fresno County. The taking of irrigation water
from the Kings River aroused autocratic opposition by the cattle-barons,
who, as riparian owners, bitterly contested the settlers" efforts. ^lanv years
of litigation followed ; and Judge Winchell. defending the claims and inter-
ests of the settlers in many hard-fought legal battles, succeeded eventually
638 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in obtaining final decrees of the courts which left the farmers in the enjoy-
ment of the free use of the water.
In this instance, as in many others, Judge Winchell ever defended the
cause of the righteous and oppressed. Notable among these cases was one in
which, during over five years as sole attorney for defendants against a series
of malicious prosecutions, he not only obtained signal victory and final judg-
ment and execution in the courts, but he carried the burden of the costs of
the suits (which he was ill able to do), because of his faith in the justice
of his cause and the inability of his clients to provide the fees necessary to
keep the case in court. For his well-recognized attitude toward injustice and
oppression, as for his high principles and consistent life, Judge Winchell held
the esteem and confidence of those who knew him.
During the period between 1888 and 1892, he erected several business
buildings on Mariposa Street and on J Street, but during the state-wide and
nation-wide financial depression of following years he, with many others,
suffered severe reverses. His increasing age and the serious condition of
his wife's health required a change. Retiring from the active labors of his
profession and disposing of his Fresno interests, he moved with his wife to
San Francisco, hoping to benefit her health. They continued to live in that
city until Mrs. Winchell's death, in 1908. He then moved to Berkeley, near
the University grounds.
On the 24th day of July, 1913, rounding out exactly eighty-seven years
Judge Winchell crossed the last frontier to that undiscovered realm of the
Great Adventure. His ashes repose in the family plot in IMountain View
Cemetery, Oakland.
LAURA C. WINCHELL.— The wife of Judge E. C. Winchell, and a
pioneer with him in the early days, a history of .Fresno County would not
be complete without a mention of this notable woman. She was born at
Shepherdstown, Va. (now \\'est Virginia), ]\Iarch 28, 1833. Her father, Joseph
Alsip, a planter and mill-owner, also holding slaves, and her mother, Mary D.
McKim. were natives of Maryland, and descendants of early colonial ances-
tors who came from England and Scotland in 1635. The land upon which
Shepherdstown stands was ceded by her paternal grandfather, who owned
much circumjacent territory; and the house in which she was born was used
as a temporary hospital for the wounded soldiers of both armies, during the
severe battles around Frederick and Shepherdstown, in the Civil War. The
stone dwelling still stands and its walls bear the marks of cannon-balls and
bullets. Her grandfathers fought through the Revolution, and the maternal
grandparent through the War of 1812. Her father dying while she was a
child, her mother continued to administer the work of the plantation until
her daughter finished her education in Cincinnati Seminary, 1852.
Gold having been discovered in California, and an older sister and
brother having already crossed the plains in 1850, her mother sold the farm,
freed her faithful servants and sailed from New York to Nicaragua, crossed
the Isthmus on mule-back, thence by steamer to San Francisco, and by river
boat to Sacramento, where they made their home with those of the family
who had preceded them. July 7, 1853. Miss Alsip married E. C. Winchell,
a young lawyer of Sacramento, who had come across the plains in 1850. The
house in which she lived and was married, was brought around the Horn
in sections, by raft and ship, from Indiana in 1850, and was erected in Sacra-
mento by Ledyard Frink, her brother-in-law. Four children were born of
the union (see sketch of Judge Winchell on another page of this work).
By instinct and temperament a teacher, and fitted by education for this
work she taught in Sacramento (where teachers were few), both before and
after her marriage, and until domestic and maternal demands required her
resignation. In May, 1859, she came to Fresno County with her husband
and young son. They made their first residence at Fort Miller — where, at
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 639
the time of her arrival, there was but one other family living — James Mc-
Kenzie, his wife and two children. In November of the same year, Mrs.
Winchell became the mother of her second son, Ledyard Frink Winchell.
E. C. Winchell having been appointed, by the supervisors, as superin-
tendent of public instruction (the first in the county) and a district having
been organized, it was with difficulty that a teacher could be found. But Miss
Rebecca Baley, recently arrived with her parents from Missouri, and living
at the Fort, was accepted by Mr. Winchell, after some questioning by him,
and employed for a month at a salary of fifty dollars. No schoolroom being
available either at the Fort or at Millerton, Mrs. Winchell gave up her dining-
room, and provided tables and benches for the use of teacher and pupils. On
Monday morning, March 19, 1860, in the western room of this building, which
was built by the government for a hospital, school was opened with eleven
attendants, and Miss Bale.v, with the advice and supervision of Mrs. Winchell,
who lived in the house, taught here three months. This was the first public
school in Fresno County. The pupils were John C. Hoxie, Sewall F. Hoxie,
Ellen Baley, Charles Baley, John Parker, Mary Parker, Jane Richards, Allen
Stroud, Arza Stroud, Nevada Clark and brother, and the small son of Mrs.
Winchell.
In the fall of 1861 the Winchell family moved to a new home half a mile
south of Fort Miller, situated in a picturesque valley, through which ran a
stream, since then known as Winchell Creek. During the residence at this
place Mrs. Winchell in 1864-1865, conducted a private school, for advanced
as well as primary pupils. The public school having been discontinued from
the summer of 1861, for lack of competent or available teachers, Mrs.
Winchell, at the earnest solicitation of parents from the Chowchilla on the
north to Dry Creek on the south, consented to give herself to what she con-
sidered as her duty to the young people of the region. A school building was
erected and furnished near Mrs. Winchell's home ; and, devoting her entire
time to the advancement of education, she was instrumental in giving to her
pupils much that, owing to the absence of opportunity and the peculiar en-
vironment of those times, they otherwise would have failed to receive. Not
only was she teacher, but friend, counsellor and companion as well.
As a matter of historical interest, a list of the names of the pupils of
Mrs. Winchell's classes is here given. Including her two sons, Lilbourne and
Ledyard, there was a class of twenty-one : Mary J. McKenzie, Fort IMiller
(now Mrs. John C. Hoxie), Ellen G. Baley, Fort Miller (now Mrs. James
McCardle), and Elizabeth Johnson, Stonehouse, Merced County (now Mrs.
H. C. Tupper) — all now living in Fresno County; Mary Daulton, deceased,
and Minnie Rea (now Mrs. Brock of Kings County), both from Buchanan
Hollow; Tillie Gilmour (Mrs. Dr. Brown, of Madera), and John W. Gil-
mour, on Saginaw Creek, Madera County, both children of the late Mrs.
R. P. Mace of Madera, then of Fort Miller; William H. McKenzie, late of
Fresno, and Edwin P. McKenzie. deceased, both of Fort Miller; Allen Stroud
and Arza Stroud (now of Phoenix, Ariz.) ; Sewall F. Hoxie, Fort Miller (now
of Pasadena) ; George W. Baley and Charles C. Baley, both in Fresno
County ; Maggie Carroll (the late Mrs. B. S. Boutwell, of Dry Creek) ; George
and Belle Winkleman, from Crane Valley ; and two of the children of Henry
Glass.
The home of Mrs. Winchell was the center of attraction to the young
people of the neighborhood, as many innovations in the way of social gath-
erings, parties, picnics games and other entertainments were introduced.
In these efforts she had the hearty cooperation of her husband. After coming
to the new county seat at Fresno she continued to contribute to the pleasure
and social elevation of the community. Here, again, her home was the ren-
dezvous for the young people, and ever hospitably open for their entertain-
640 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
merit. To the sick, needy or afflicted she gave her sympathy and attention,
bringing hope and light into darkened homes. Her love and self-sacrifice en-
deared her to many.
In after-years, her health being seriously impaired, she moved, with
her husband and only daughter, to San Francisco. The terrors of the earth-
quake and fire of 1906 hastened the breaking-down of her vitality, and on
November 18, 1908, surrounded by her husband and children, she peacefully
passed to that Great Beyond, where her reward awaits her. A noble, self-
sacrificing and sympathetic woman, her ashes repose with those of her family,
in the beautiful Mountain ^'iew Cemetery in Oakland, Cal.
GIDEON BOWDISH. — Among the prominent early settlers of Central
Colony, Fresno County, was the late Gideon Bowdish, who came to this
county in 1882, although he had previously lived in Siskiyou County, as
early as 1862. He was a native of the Empire State, born July 13, 1833, a
.son of William Bowdish, a native of Saratoga, the same state. The Bowdish
family originally came from England and were members of the Society of
Friends who settled at New Bedford. ^lass.. where some of the family were
merchants.
Gideon Bowdish followed farming at ^^'aterloo, N. Y., and in 1862,
accompanied by his wife, came to California, locating at Scott Bar, Siskiyou
County, where he followed placer mining for four years. In 1866 Mr. Bow-
dish returned to Waterloo, N. Y., going east via the Isthmus of Panama.
After reaching his native state he engaged in farming for fifteen years when
he yielded to the allurements of the Golden State, this time coming to Fresno
County, where he located in the Central Colony and purchased a ranch.
Afterwards he sold his ranch and bought eighty acres of raw land, \\-hich
he improved.
In 1888, Gideon Bowdish located in the city of Fresno and operated a
blacksmith shop on the corner of K and Fresno Streets two years. His next
move took him to .Ashland, Ore., where for three years he engaged in horti-
culture. Again he longed for the old home state and from Oregon he returned
to Rochester, N. Y., in 1895. The call of the Great West seemed to ring in
his ears, for he did not remain long in the East, but in 1898 came again to
the Pacific Slope, this time to Seattle, Wash., from where he went to Cook's
Inlet, Alaska, where he engaged in mining. In the fall of the same year he
returned to California, locating in Fresno, where he lived at 363 Glenn
Avenue. During his trip to Alaska, Mr. Bowdish's health became impaired
and on January 12. 1908, he passed away.
In Rochester, N. Y., on October 17. 1860, Gideon Bowdish was united
in marriage with Miss Jenette Smiles, a native of that city and a daughter of
Dr. John Smiles, a native of Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Smiles was graduated
from the University of Edinburgh and a medical college at Glasgow, after
which he became a very eminent physician and surgeon, and for several
years was surgeon in the British barracks in Demerara, Guiana, British \\'est
indies. Afterwards he settled at Rochester, N. Y., where he practiced medi-
cine until he retired, and passed away in ]\Iarch. 1882. His wife, in maiden-
hood, was Isabella \\'ilson, a native of Scotland, born in Dalkeith, in Sep-
tember, 1811. She emigrated to the United States in 1833, and was married
to Dr. Smiles at Rochester, N. Y., although the A'oung couple were engaged
before leaving their native land. She passed away in Rochester, N. Y. Both
Doctor and ^Irs. Smiles were members of the Presbyterian Church.
^Irs. Gideon Bowdish continues to reside at the old homestead in Fresno,
363 Glenn Avenue, and. although advanced in years, still retains a clear mem-
ory and talks very entertainingly about the early days in the Golden State.
JMr. and INTrs. Gideon Bowdish were the parents of two children : Percival,
a successful rancher at Kerman, whose sketch will be found upon another
page of this history; and John Smiles Bowdish, who is also a rancher at
Kerman.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 641
ALBERT ABBOTT ROWELL.— It would be difficult to find a man
more emphaticalh' in accord with the true western spirit of progress, or
more keenly alive to the opportunities awaiting the industrious and intelli-
gent man of affairs in Fresno County, than is Albert Abbott Rowell of Selma,
who has built up a far-reaching reputation and identified himself with the
best interests of his district until he retired from active life. The Rowell
family is of English ancestry, coming originally from London. The grand-
father was an officer in the Revolutionary War. Jonathan Rowell, the father
of Albert Abbott, was born in New England in 1800. He farmed in that
part of the country until the middle of the forties, then with his family he
migrated to Illinois, going to Chicago via the Erie Canal and the Great
Lakes and settling in McLean County where he resumed his occupation and
continued until his death. He married Cynthia Abbott, also born in New
England, and upon his death she was left with a family of small children
and no means of support; she had inherited $800 from her father. Grand-
father Rowell lived to be ninety-seven, while Grandmother Rowell almost
reached the century mark. In the family of Jonathan Rowell and wife there
were eleven children. Two girls died aged sixteen and eighteen respectively;
one child died in infancy; and eight sons grew to maturity, namely: Ira,
who was a farmer in Illinois and died at Eureka, that state, and one of whose
boys, Homer Rowell, is connected with the Fresno Republican ; Hon. Jona-
than Harvey, who served for twelve years as a member of congress from
the sixteenth district of Illinois, and who was Captain of Company G. Seven-
teenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, for three years, and who was the father
of Chester Rowell of Fresno, and who died after a long and useful life :
Charles Carroll, who was a grocer at Danvers, 111., where he died; William
Franklin, who served as a private in Company D, Eighth Missouri Regiment
of Infantry, and who after the war came to Fresno County and later moved
to San Jose, where he died; Milo, who is now living in Seattle, Wash., a
retired merchant, and who also served in Company D, Eighth Missouri Regi-
ment : George B., who crossed the plains to ]\Iontana with his brother,
Chester, in 1866, and who later returned to Illinois (Chester coming on to
California) and lived there a short time, then went to Montana again and
taught school two terms at Egan Canyon, then came to Fresno County
and was engaged in the sheep business with his brothers, Chester and our
subject, and who died in Fresno County, in 1913; Dr. Chester, who was one
of the best loved men of Fresno County, who studied medicine under his
uncle. Dr. Isaac Rowell, a 49'er in California and a prominent politician and
physician in San Francisco, and whose monument adorns the Courthouse
Park in Fresno, who also served three years in Company G, Seventeenth
Illinois Infantry, and who grew up with Fresno County, served as mayor of
Fresno, and died about five years ago ; and Albert Abbott, of this review.
Albert A. Rowell was born in Essex County, Vt, May 30, 1846, and at
the age of four years was taken by his parents to McLean County, 111., where
he lived for several years. The year following their removal to Illinois the
father died, leaving his widow with a large family of children and no means
to provide for them. The education of Albert A. was very limited as his
services were needed on the farm to help with the work and provide for the
other children. At the age of fourteen he began working as a farm hand,
continuing until the breaking out of the Civil War, some eighteen months
later. He enlisted as a private in Companj' G, Seventeenth Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, was mustered in at Cape Girardeau and served in the Army of
the Tennessee. He was taken ill with pneumonia and chronic diarrhoea and
was discharged on account of physical disability, after a service of fourteen
months. He returned to Illinois and remained until 1871.
In that year ]Mr. Rowell went to York County, Nebr., where he took
up a homestead, proved up on it, and during the intervening time he worked
at carpentering. In 1874 he arrived in Fresno County, Cal, where he en-
642 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
tered the employ of his two brothers in sheep-raising. He took up a pre-
emption claim of 160 acres, located two miles west of what is now the town
ot Selma, improved it and sold off all but eighty-seven acres, of which eighty
acres is in vines and trees, in full bearing. In February, 1879, he became one
of the first workers on the old Centerville and Kingsburg ditch, contracting
for the woodwork. Soon afterwards he went to Washington Colony, assisted
in laying it out, dug ditches and otherwise labored for the comfort and con-
venience of the early settlers and for the profit of those who have followed
later. Mr. Rowell cut the first stick of timber for the warehouses at Fresno,
for the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Fresno, and for the water-works
building in Fresno. He erected the residence for his brother, Dr. Chester
Rowell, at Fresno, that stood where the Chandler-Rowell building now is.
He built the Rowell Building in Selma, which bears the inscription "Pro-
hibition Row;" also his own residence on Sylvia Street, and his handiwork
is seen in many of the other residences in the little town of Selma. In 1901
he retired to live in Selma.
On December 22, 1878. Mr. Rowell was united in marriage with Miss
Nancy Ann Booth, born at Stillwater, Minn., the daughter of the late Stephen
Booth, who moved from ]\Iinnesota to Illinois, thence to Colorado, and back
again to Illinois, and back again to Colorado, and from there he came to
California. Her mother died when Nancy was a baby and she was brought
up by her step-mother. She came across the plains with the family with
cow teams. Her father was a carpenter and millwright by trade and became
owner of a ranch in Central Colony, Fresno County. Mrs. Rowell has proved
an able helpmate to her husband, encouraging him in his successes and help-
ing him in every way to win a competence.
Mr. Rowell is a Prohibitionist and has ever been in the vanguard in
fighting the liquor element and kindred vices. He is a member of the Grand
Army, Post No. 193. of Selma, of which he is Past Commander and now
Chaplain. Mrs. Rowell belongs to the Ladies' Circle of the G. A. R. He
attended the National Encampment of the Grand Army at Los Angeles. Both
Mr. and Mrs. Rowell are members of the Christian Church, Mr. Rowell
having served on the board of trustees and as superintendent of the Sunday
School. In every way he has assisted to build up the town and county and
is counted upon to do his share in all projects for the betterment of local
conditions. When he landed in the county he considered it one of the "most
God-forsaken" sections of desert he had ever seen and would have moved on
to other fields if he had been able, but he was broke and had to remain, a
circumstance that he has never regretted. He is a clean, moral man of
generous impulses and practical common sense. He enjoys life and lends a
helping hand to those less fortunate than himself.
MRS. MARY J. HATCH.— The distinction of being the oldest living
pioneer of the Elkhorn school district, of Fresno County, belongs to Mrs.
Mary J. Hatch, widow of the late Dennis Hatch. Mr. and Mrs. Hatch home-
steaded 160 acres, where Mrs. Hatch now resides, and which has been the
home place since September, 1881, when they secured it from the Government.
Dennis Hatch passed away Alay 18, 1900, his death being mourned by
many who through years of association had learned to honor and highly re-
spect him. He was born on April 4, 1849, at Eaton, N. H., and was reared
and educated in that state. His father, Ephraim Hatch, was a New England
farmer; his mother, in maidenhood, was Jane Bean, both families tracing their
ancestors back to Revolutionary Days, who came originally from England.
Mrs. Mary J. Hatch, the subject of this review, is a native of Brownfield,
Oxford County, Maine, her maiden name being Mary J. Hartford, daughter
of George and Belinda (Wormwood) Hartford, both families being Maine
farmer folks. Mr. and Mrs. George Hartford had seven children who reached
maturity, Mrs. Hatch being the only one of the family now residing in Cali-
fornia. She has one brother residing in Standish, Maine, H. B. Hartford, who
^^^ f,L.C.r-<^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 645
is in the telephone business; a sister, Mrs. Belinda Newcomb, resides at
Bridgton, Maine ; another sister, Mrs. Cora B. Lewis, lives at Brownfield,
Maine.
When Dennis Hatch was a young man he lived just across the state line
of Maine, in the state of Nev^f Hampshire, and the young couple were married
at Brownfield, Maine, on December 13, 1873. After their marriage Mr. and
Mrs. Hatch farmed for two years in New Hampshire, and in 1876 migrated to
the Golden State, arriving at Merced, in May of the Centennial Year. At
first Mr. Hatch farmed at Snelling, Merced County, and in September, 1881,
moved to Fresno County, locating in what is now known as the Elkhorn
school district. Mr. Hatch gave a plot of two acres of land as a site for a
school, as long as it should be used for that special purpose. When he came
to Fresno County, Mr. Hatch homesteaded a quarter section of land which
he improved with a house and barn. He engaged in stock-raising and lived
to see this section of the county developed into a prosperous farming dis-
trict, and was proud of the fact that he had greatly aided in its development.
Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Hatch were the parents of two children : Mabel E.,
born in New Hampshire, died in infancy; Alice M., married S. E. Williamson,
whose sketch appears on another page of this history, and she is the mother
of six children, and the family lives with Mrs. Hatch on the old home place.
Mrs. Mary J. Hatch is an estimable woman, loved and highly respected by
the community, where she has lived for thirty-seven years, and in her home
she still continues to dispense the good old California hospitality.
CHARLES S. PIERCE.— A truly great man, especially in the develop-
ment of both the city and county of Fresno along broad and enduring lines,
and one whose confidence in the locality and the future grew and kept pace
with his own ever-increasing success, was the late Charles S. Pierce, presi-
dent of the C. S. Pierce Lumber Company, who died at his home at 1509 Van
Ness Avenue, Fresno, on April 18. 1919, after having built up and thoroughly
established the largest lumber business in the county. He had lived in Fresno
for over thirty-five years, or one-half of his life-time, and had he survived
until November, 1919, he would have celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of
his fortunate marriage. Death came as a great surprise to his many friends,
for he had been active in business until almost the last, and was sick with
pneumonia only five days.
He was born at Syracuse, N. Y., on November 15, 1848, the son of Ly-
man Pierce, a New Yorker, who married Miss Phoebe Dean, also of the same
state, and then removed to Michigan and after that to Iowa. At the breaking
out of the Civil War he showed his patriotism by enlisting in an Iowa regi-
ment, with which he served through the worst of that awful conflict, and
after the war he removed to Story County, Iowa, where he took up farming.
When he and his good wife retired, they came west to Fresno ; and here
they lived until their death.
Charles S. Pierce was sent to the public schools of the districts in which
he lived, and being quick to grasp what was taught him. he made unusual
progress despite the obstacles of the ante-bellum and war days. He seemed
to have a special penchant and talent for business ; in course of time he in-
dulged in business ventures to his heart's content, and little by little he
succeeded beyond his boldest anticipation.
When he was fifteen, he moved with his parents to Waterloo, Iowa, and
six years later, at Ames in the same state, he was married to Miss Mary
Ellen Fitchpatrick, a native of Washington County, Ind.. and a member of
an old Virginia family. Her parents were William and Sarah V. (Heggy)
Fitchpatrick, who came from Virginia to Indiana, and then settled at Ames.
There they were early pioneers and owned and operated a farm that now
adjoins the State Agricultural College, and at which homestead they in time
died. Besides Mary Ellen, they had four children, all of whom grew to
646 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
maturity: Joseph went ftito the Civil War as a member of the Twenty-third
Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and now resides in Nevada, Iowa ; William was
also in the same regiment, but died in Mexico ; John was in the Eighth Iowa
Cavalry, and at present has his home at Hebron, Nebr. ; and Sarah is Mrs.
McElyea, of Ames. Joseph and John were both taken prisoners and sent to
Andersonville, where they finally met — not altogether, on account of their
environment, a joyous union.
Shortl)^ after his marriage, Mr. Pierce moved to Cherokee, Iowa, where
he engaged in farming and also in the general merchandise business. Leav-
ing there, he came direct to Fresno, in 1883, destined to remain here ever
since, and in September he engaged in the lumber business with his brother-
in-law, F. K. Prescott, forming a firm styled Prescott & Pierce, which con-
tinued for about ten years. In 1895 he severed his connection with Mr. Pres-
cott and organized the C. S. Pierce Lumber Company, which is now one of
the leading retail lumber concerns of the San Joaquin Valley. Some eight
years ago, he organized the Tulare County Lumber Company, with yards at
Visalia and Lindsay. He was also interested in many other business con-
cerns, being a director in the Farmers' National Bank of Fresno, and for
over twenty years served as director of the Peoples Savings Bank, which
was sold to the Bank of Italy two years ago.
Five children blessed the union of Mr. and I\Irs. Pierce : Maude Phoebe
is now Mrs. S. S. Parsons of Pacific Grove ; Mae is the wife of H. E. Norton
who is now president of the C. S. Pierce Lumber Company : Blanche Bee
married Dr. T. N. Sample, a prominent physician of Fresno ; Ethel Jane is
Mrs. Leland Cutler, of San Francisco ; and Bernice Lucile is the wife of
Ernest ]\Iiller of Visalia.
Mr. Pierce was a member of the Commercial Club afid was a prominent
Mason, a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason, as well as a Shriner.
Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Pierce has continued to reside at the
old home on \''an Ness Avenue, surrounded by her children and friends. The
daughters are all devoted to their mother, and through their assistance she
is able to manage her extensive affairs. She is a member of Raisina Chapter.
No. 89, of the O. E. S., as well as the Order of Amaranth, and is an earnest
Presbyterian.
HON. CHARLES A. HART. — Foremost among the pioneer settlers of
Fresno County was Judge Charles A. Hart, who in young manhood daunt-
lessly pushed his way across desert, plain and mountain to a new and uncul-
tivated country and after his arrival he threw himself into its development
and advancement with all the energy he possessed. He descended from a fine
old New York family, was well-bred and educated and rapidly became an ac-
knowledged leader in the establishment of beneficent enterprises in Millerton,
the first county seat of Fresno County, and for over half a century occupied a
post of honor and influence in legal, financial, political, agricultural and social
circles.
Judge Hart was born in Geneva, N. Y.. November 7. 1820. a son of Hon.
Truman Hart, a well-known banker of western New York and for several
terms a representative from his district in the New York State Senate. Judge
Hart's mother was Susan Carpenter, a native of the Empire State and a rep-
resentative of a prominent family there. \Mien Judge Hart was a small boy
his parents moved to Palmyra, N. Y.. where he attended the grammar and
high schools, and later graduated from the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at
Lima, that state. The year following his graduation he was employed as a
civil engineer and surveA'.or on the New York and Lake Erie Railroad, having
charge of the construction of the portion of road between Elmira and Bing-
hamton. At the expiration of his contract he went back to his home, entered
the office of Theron R. Strong in Palmyra, studied law and was admitted to
practice in the state of New York. He practiced one year in Palmyra, then
went to New York City and entered upon an entirely new avocation, that of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 647
a commission merchant, dealing in wool, hides and leather, in which he was
successful.
Enterprising and far-seeing, and doubtless actuated by a spirit of ad-
venture, he decided to put his fortune to the hazard on the Pacific Coast,
where he hoped to find a realization of his dreams of future prosperity. Join-
ing a party of New England men in 1848, he proceeded by steamer to Alat-
amoras, Alexico, where the company purchased a good outfit and with pro-
visions a-plenty started on their journey across the country for Southern Cal-
ifornia. The journey was leisurely made through Mexico, across the great
American desert to the Gila River, thence through the Indian country in Ari-
zona to the Colorado River, landing near the present site of Yuma. While
crossing the great desert the party found many immigrants who had illy
pro\ided themselves with food and water and were in great distress and to
these they gave of their own precious stock of food and water, even to the
last, when their last two days were made with nothing to eat, but with the
satisfaction that they had aided their fellowmen to the best of their aliilit}'.
In their stock of supplies they had added quantities of leather and of this they
made boats with which to cross the streams. The Colorado River was only
about a half mile wide but the current was swift and in crossing their boats
were carried down stream about a quarter of a mile. The region they traversed
was one of the least known and most dangerous routes overland, though the
shortest. They crossed the Mojave desert and there they suffered untold
hardships from lack of water for man and beast. Judge Hart learned to speak
Spanish while they were leisurely crossing the ^Mexican country and this came
in good play for, after he reached Alillcrton he soon had as clients manv of
the Spanish-speaking residents of the county. Their journey took them
through Los Angeles, up the coast to Santa Barbara and on to San Jose and
San Francisco, from which place they journeyed inland and finally, after seven
months on the road, arrived at Hill's Ferrv in Merced Countv, on August
7, 1849.
Although entirely ignorant fjf mining, the party started for the diggings
and on their way were fortunate in meeting with Captain Cutler, who had
served in the Mexican War under General Taylor, and from him received
some excellent advice and information as to the placers. For two years Judge
Hart and his companions worked successfully, finding gold in large quantities,
not infrequently averaging sixteen ounces per day each. About 1833 or 18.S4
Judge Hart located at Millerton, then Mariposa County, opened a law office
and entered upon the practice of his profession. When Fresno County was
created in 1856, from a portion of .Mariposa County, and Millerton was made
the county seat, Judge Hart was appointed the first county judge and filled
that office with great satisfaction for one term, when he retired to resume
his law practice. He continued in the law until 1874, when on account of ill
health and upon the advice of his physician he retired to his ranch of over
2,000 acres of very valuable land. AVhen the government abandoned Fort
Miller as a military post in 1863, Judge FTart bought the post buildings, one
of which he remodeled and ever after occupied as a residence. Upon his ranch
he gave especial attention to stock-raising and the culture of fruit: in the lat-
ter industry he was recognized as a pioneer in the San Joaquin Valley. Judge
Hart made the Fort his home until his death, whicli occurred on May 13, 1903,
at the home of his son, Truman G. Hart, 251 Blackstone Avenue, Fresno.
Judge Hart was united in marriage with Mrs. Ann (Brennan) McKenzie,
a native of Ireland, February 18, 1865. She was the widow of Sergeant James
McKenzie, by whom she had three children : William H. McKenzie, now
deceased, formerly a capitalist in Fresno ; Mary Jane, widow of John C. Hoxie,
of Fresno: and E. P. McKenzie. The onl}- child born of the union of Judge
and Mrs. Hart is a son, Truman G. Hart, capitalist of Fresno.
Tudge Hart belonged to that rare type of men who pursue to a consum-
mation their plans in life in spite of all obstacles which may arise in their
648 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
paths. Throughout his life he was actuated by the highest motives, and though
the early days of California were fraught with opportunities to gain wealth
and eminence by the adoption of questionable means, he was never known
to pursue a policy in any way subject to adverse criticism. His life was pure
and blameless, both in public and private affairs. He frequently manifested
his public spirit and liberality of heart and mind in a way that endeared him
closely to a multitude of friends. The beneficent effect of his life and work
upon the welfare of Fresno County cannot be overestimated, for during the
days of the county's development he was one of the most potential factors in
placing it upon a sound and substantial basis. His participation in public
affairs was governed by high-minded and unselfish motives. His name will
be handed down in history as that of one of the most striking characters and
finest citizens in the San Joaquin Valley.
DENVER S. CHURCH.— Well known as a successful and skilled lawyer,
Denver S. Church, of Fresno, represents a prominent family connected with
the development of the state of California, and has served as Congressman
from California, and is a native son, born at Folsom, December 11, 1864. His
father was E. J- Church, a native of Pennsylvania, who crossed the plains in
1852, with ox teams, in company with his two brothers, one of whom, M. J.
Church, was the founder of irrigation in Fresno County. After mining at
Diamond Springs unsuccessfully for a time, E. J. Church moved to Wood-
bridge, San Joaquin County, and worked at the blacksmith's trade, and very
soon afterwards he moved to Folsom, where he continued at the trade and
also engaged in raising stock. He went to Napa Count}^ and was engaged in
the stock business and in general farming near St. Helena, for many years.
or until advancing years made it unwise for him to continue further manual
labor ; he retired, in 1898. and lived in Fresno in the enjoyment of a well-earned
rest. His wife was Catherine Rutan, a native of Illinois, who crossed the
plains in the early fifties, with her father, Samuel Rutan, settling on a farm
near Woodbridge. She died in 1868, when her son Denver S. was but four
years of age.
The youngest child in the family, Denver S. Church attended the public
schools at St. Helena and later Healdsburg College, where he completed the
regular course. In 1877 he came to Fresno and joined an uncle, M. J. Church,
and helped carry the chain during the survey of Temperance Colony. In 1887,
having settled permanently in Fresno, Mr. Church took up the study of law
and in 1893 was admitted to the bar and thereafter carried on an independent
general practice, meeting with good success, both in the results obtained, from
the cases handled, and from a financial standpoint. From January, 1899, to
January, 1903, he served as deputy district attorney under O. L. Everts. He
has always been a prominent factor in Democratic politics and on that ticket
was elected a member of Congress. Air. Church is a member of the Fresno
County Bar Association ; Fresno Parlor No. 25, N. S. G. W. ; Fresno Lodge of
Elks, and the Woodmen of the World. Sharing with Mr. Church in the esteem
of the community is his wife, whom he married in Reno, Nev., and who was
Miss Louise Derrick, born in Reno, her parents having been pioneers of Car-
son Valley.
TRUMAN G. HART.— Prominently identified with the best interests of
Fresno County, the San Joaquin Valley and the State of California, is Truman
G. Hart, a man of large affairs, a native son and distinguished as an excellent
representative of a distinguished pioneer family of the county, being a son
of the late Judge Charles A. Hart, the first judge of Fresno County. Truman
G. was born at Millerton, the original county-seat of Fresno County, April 9,
1866, and he attended the public school of his birthplace in pursuit of the rudi-
ments of an education, which was supplemented by an attendance of the
schools of Fresno City, and in 1882, he entered St. Augustine College at
Benicia, from which he was graduated in 1886.
- ^^^BpSBHI^^^™^-
i
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 651
Mr. Hart returned to Fresno and soon became identified with the Fresno
County Abstract Company, working his way to the position of manager, which
he held a number of years. He was always active in local politics and in 1894
was elected oh the Republican ticket for the office of county clerk, receiving
over 700 votes majority, which at that time, the county always being con-
sidered a Democratic stronghold, was unusually large. He served from Jan-
uaiy, 1895, till January, 1899, and declined a renomination.
Mr. Hart is a pioneer in the oil industry in the San Joaquin Valley, as
one of the organizers of the Producers and Consumers Oil Company, in which
he served as a director. This company put down three wells on Section 20,
Township 19, Range 15, and got oil in commercial quantities; this was the
beginning of the greatest industry in the entire valley. ]\Ir. Hart disposed of
his interest in this company and organized the Oil City Petroleum Company
and became its president, he also helped organize the Twenty-eight Oil Com-
pany and was president of that concern. He has been interested for many
years in many companies organized to exploit the oil-fields of the San Joaquin
Valley and has met with more than the usual degree of success in his oper-
ations.
In Fresno, September 29, 1892, Truman G. Hart was united in marriage
with Augusta A. Trowbridge, a native of Illinois, and she presides over their
well-appointed home at 251 Blackstone Avenue, Fresno. Mr. Hart has always
been a leading spirit in the advancement of all interests for the development
and upbuilding of the county. He is recognized as an authority in financial
circles and his business ability and judgment are unquestioned.
DAVID COWAN SAMPLE.— When David Cowan Sample arrived in
California it was with empt}' hands and pockets. The success that he has
achieved has been the result of his own efforts, for he has applied the three
P's of success — Prudence, Perseverance, and Push — in all his career. In the
evening of his days he can look back upon a life well-spent, and with the
knowledge that he has done his duty as a citizen to his county and his fellow
man. A native of Mississippi, he was born at Lexington on February 12,
1849, a son of Isaac and Mary H. (Dulany) Sample, both born in the Caroli-
nas. the former in South Carolina and the latter in North Carolina. They
were farmers and followed that occupation near Lexington until the death
of the father, when his son David C. was a small child. Mrs. Mary H. Sample
was a daughter of Daniel Dulany, who served as a colonel in the War of
1812. He was a large landowner in Mississippi, where his death occurred.
Mrs. Sample died in that state, leaving three sons and one daughter of whom
David Cowan was the youngest.
David Cowan Sample was reared on his mother's plantation, the "Cy-
press," located about nine miles from Lexington, where he attended a private
school until he was fifteen years of age. He then left school to join the
Confederate forces and acted as a scout under General Forrest. He furnished
his own mount and was assigned to the Sixth Texas Cavalry under Captain
Scott, and served until the close of the war. During this memorable struggle
the home plantation was devastated, the slaves and stock disappeared, and
the farming implements were destroyed. Upon his return to civil life, Mr.
Sample found employment as a clerk for one year, when he once more en-
tered a private school in Lexington and remained for a like period. He then
came to California via Panama, in company with Major Thomas P. Nelson
and his wife, arriving on June 18. 1868. a stranger in a strange land. He went
to Solano County, where he found work in the harvest fields for a short time,
and then to Dry Creek, where he worked as a farm hand two years. After
this he went into the sheep business for himself in Fresno County. As he
succeeded with his sheep business he invested in land, first taking up a pre-
emption claim, which formed the nucleus of his large holdings in later years,
when he had some eighteen sections of land on the plains and in the foot-
hills, farming land along Dry Creek, and stock ranches on Sayles and Hoi-
652 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
land Creeks. In the latter section he has a fine lemon and orange orchard.
The land is in the thermal belt and is well adapted to the growth of citrus
fruits. Pie raised sheep profitably until he sold out in 1904, when the ranges
were included in the forest reserves, in the latter years keeping about 10,000
head. After he sold his sheep he started in the cattle business, making a
specialty of shorthorn Durhams, full-blooded and high-grade stock, and it
was through his leadership that the grade of stock was perceptibly raised to
a higher standard in the county. His range land is all under fence and modern
improvements have been added from time to time. The property is one of
the show places on Dry Creek, and is located some nineteen miles from
Fresno. His land of later years has been farmed to grain. As he prospered
he became interested in property in Fresno and maintained his interest in
several enterprises in that city, one being the manufacture of buggies and
wagons, before the advent of the automobile, under the firm name of Carl
& Sample. The firm sold out to Cobb & Evans, now in the automobile
business. He was one of the organizers of the Fresno ]\Ieat Company, in
January, 1904, and acted as president and manager. Under his directions the
packing house was built along modern lines and completely equipped with
up-to-date machinery. He was likewise one of the originators of the Fresno
Flume and Irrigation Company, but the panic of 1880 necessitated a change
of the original plans; however, the project was completed, much to the credit
of the projectors, and is of much benefit to the county. He is a director in the
San Joaquin Abstract Company (jf JM'esno, and is also interested in the W. M.
& M'. Oil Company of Fresim Cdunty and ser\cd as its secretary.
At Millerton, in 1872. Mr. Sample was united in marriage with Miss Sal-
lie Cole, born in Solano Count}' on December 23, 1854, the daughter of
^^'illiam T. Cole, who came to California in 1849. He was engaged in the
stock business, becoming one of the pioneer stockmen of Fresno County,
where he was a large sheep raiser on Kings Ri\er at Cole's Slough. ]\Ir. and
Mrs. Sample became the parents of eleven children : William C. ; j\Iaud, Mrs.
John Shipp ; Thomas N., a physician of Fresno; Mary. Mrs. J. A. Blasingame ;
Annie S.. Mrs. Dr. B. B. Lampkin ; Estelle, Mrs. Frank W'yatt ; David Cowan,
Jr., who enlisted for service in the World War and was assigned to duty as
farrier in the Remount Division, with rank of sergeant; Sallie ; Fillmore C,
a student in the medical department of Stanford rni\ ci sit\', who enlisted
for service in the medical unit in the American ExpeditiMn.ii y Forces and is
still in service; Ruth; and Harry. Mrs. Sample died im Dfcrniher 27, 1917.
She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and had devoted her
life to the rearing of her children and the care of her home. Mr. Sample is
a Mason, holding membership in Fresno Lodge, No. 247, F. & A. M. Polit-
ically he is a stanch Democrat and has served as a member of the county
central committee. He belongs to the chamber of commerce in Fresno and
supports all worthy enterprises that have for their object the betterment of
business, social and moral conditions. Since 1910 the family home has been
in Fresno, where Mr. Sample moved to take a well-earned rest after many
years of hard labor to obtain a competence. He is highly respected by all
who know him, and their home is a place where a charming hospitality is
dispensed to friend and stranger.
ENOS FROST ST. JOHN. — When a man is able to look back upon a
long line of honorable ancestry and to realize that he, himself, has added
to its luster, it affords him no little satisfaction. Such in the evening of his
days is the experience of Enos Frost St. John. He was born in Troy, Oak-
land County, Mich., April 10, 1835. His father, Daniel St. John, was a pioneer
of Southern Michigan. The grandfather, Enos St. John, was born at Canaan,
Conn., and emigrated to Rensselaer County, N. Y., and later to Genesee
County, N. Y. The St. John family is of English origin, and rose to great
prominence in the fifteenth century. They settled in Connecticut in colonial
times. The late John P. St. John, Governor of Kansas and Prohibition candi-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 653
date for President of the United States, was from this famih'. The mother
was Olivia Marsh, from the early Marsh family, of Hartford, Conn. She was
married in New York State near Rochester, and became a pioneer of Oak-
land County, Mich. She died in Milford in 1873. There were six children:
]\Tartha E., William G., Enos Frost, Charlotte A., Oliver H., and Frances
Eugenia, wife of Floyd Burnham, of Fresno, Cal. The father was a miller by
trade, and for five years worked in Solomon Frost's mill at Genesee, N. Y.
The Frost family was a very prominent one. Going to Michigan, the father
bought a farm in Oakland County, and raised his six children. He came to
California and died at Fresno, at the age of eighty-eight years and nine
months.
E. F. St. John helped to clear up his father's farm in ^Michigan, re-
maining at home and attending the public schools of his township and at
]\Iilford. He came to California in 1857, by railway to St. Louis, and by
river boats to Kansas City, then a very small place. He left there in the
early spring of 1857, crossing the plains with an ox team. The Kansas-Ne-
braska troubles were at their height, and he saw some of the border ruffian
warfare. The Lawrence Republican had just been burned, owing to the
fierce strife regarding slavery that existed then. He had strong anti-slavery
sympathies. After working a week on the Republican, on May 24, 1857, he
started for the AA'est. \\'hen about five hundred miles out, he had trouble
with his employer. IMcGowan, and joined a party headed by a man bv the
name of McW'hinney, They reached the Yuba Ri^•er above Downieville in
the latter part ..f September, 1857. He hired out 1. 1 work on the reservoir
that supplied water at Camptonville, a gold-mining town. Later he went to
Marysville and went to work for G. G. Briggs, and this was the beginning of
an acquaintanceship that lasted for a good manv years and resulted in es-
tablishing the future of Mr. St. John in California. Mr. Briggs was a well-
known California pioneer, a horticulturist and extensive landowner. With
him Mr. St. John remained for eight years, helping to set out orchards and
vineyards at Marysville ; and later, as Mr. Briggs had large landed holdings
in Santa Barbara County, Mr. St. John was sent to what is now Ventura
County and worked in his orchards and on his farms for one year. He then
went back to Marysville and remained there two or three years.
In the spring of 1865 Mr. St. John left for his old home in Michigan,
going by water via Aspinwall, Panama, and New York, sailing in Vanderbilt's
boat Ocean Queen, one of the largest and best boats of that day. After
visiting relatives at New Canaan, Conn., and in New ^'ork State, he went to
his old home in Oakland County, Mich. He was married at Ann Arbor, in
the fall of 1869, to Mrs. Sylvia A. St. John, widow of Solomon St John, a
cousin, by whom she had one child, Anna A., who now lives at home in
Fresno. Mrs. St. John's maiden name was Lowry: She was a daughter of
James Lowry, of Washtenaw County, Mich., where she was born on a farm
on the Lodi plains. Of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. E. F. St. John were
born five children: Bessie, who died in Michigan in 1883 at the age of twelve
years, seven months and three days ; Irma, now the wife of Dr. Barr, of Fresno ;
Fred E. and Fannie O., twins, at home, the latter graduating from the
University of California, and is a teacher in Fresno County ; and Daisy, wife of
F. R. Cabot, a rancher, who lives across the road from the old home.
After his marriage Mr. St. John remained in the East, engaged in farm-
ing and horticultural pursuits. He had conceived the idea of engaging in
market gardening at some point convenient to the great cities of Philadelphia
and New York, and in 1867 he had invested in twenty acres of land between
Camden and Philadelphia, about thirty miles from the latter city. He im-
proved this tract, and now the Government has the largest shipyards in the
world there where fifty vessels can be built at one time. After three years
in New Jersey, Mr. St. John returned to Michigan, where he became the
owner of a 159-acre farm near Plymouth, A\'ayne County. This farm, which is
654 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
well improved, he sold in the spring of 1888, to come to California. Arriving
in this state he settled with his family within a half mile of Malaga and bought
land from the Briggs estate, and also some town property in Malaga. He im-
proved sixty acres, planting it to vines, principally muscats, and kept it until
it came into bearing and for two or three years later, selling in 1892 at a good
profit. While living at Malaga he became agent for the Briggs estate, and
sold the most of the townsite at Malaga for this estate.
In the spring of 1902 Mr. St. John purchased his present ranch of forty
acres, one mile south of Fresno, where he resides. This ranch, which is
highly improved, is located on Cherry Avenue, in what is known as the
Fresno Colony. He also owns forty acres of unimproved land in Tulare
County.
Mr. St. John cast his first vote in Santa Barbara County, for Abraham
Lincoln, in 1864. He is a Republican in politics, and takes a great interest
in all that is going on in the world. He has been active in the Raisin Growers'
Association and is much interested in the growth and development of Fresno
and Fresno County. His home abounds with refinement and good cheer, with
music, current periodicals, books, and literature of the day, all of which sat-
isfy the cultured tastes of his accomplished daughters and family. He and his
family belong to the First Baptist Church of Fresno. Mr. St. John was a friend
of the late Dr. Rowell of Fresno.
LEWIS LEACH, M.D.— It has been truly said of a great man that
"nothing in his life becomes him like the ending of it." Dr. Lewis Leach,
county pioneer physician, died at his residence on K Street, Fresno, March
18, 1897, and at his passing the county lost one of its few remaining links
between Fresno, the desert hamlet, and Fresno, the modern city. Dr. Leach
died in harness. He might have retired many years ago with a competence,
but his office in the Farmer's Bank building was open to patients up to the
middle of the week prior to his death. He felt that his time had come and he
quietly met the "grim reaper" and reverently bowed his head and awaited
the change to a brighter and happier world.
Dr. Lewis Leach was born in Susquehanna County, N. Y., in 1823, and
at the age of thirteen he removed to Binghamton. where he attended the
public schools until in 1840, when he went to St. Louis, Mo., to study medi-
cine and fit himself for the profession he was destined to follow to the end
of his days. He graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1848, thoroughly
equipped to hold his own among professional men of his time. He came at
once to California, crossing the great plains and en route picked up thirteen
families that had got lost, and by common consent he was made leader of
the little party. After successfully battling the dangers and difficulties of
the long and tiresome journey to California, the party arrived at the Mojave
River, where they divided, some going on to Los Angeles and the rest cross-
ing the Tejon Pass to the Kern River. Just a few days before the Doctor and
his party arrived there, they successfuliy passed a band of Indians by carry-
ing durtimy guns, and as the brave little party arrived at the present site of
Woodville' they found the Indians had massacred a party there and left
the bodies unburied, which sad duty was performed by the newcomers to
California. The Doctor and his party were on their way to Millerton. Fresno
County, but before they reached there they ran out of provisions and were
in dire distress, having subsisted on acorns and such limited amount of
meat as they could secure on their way. The party went on to the mines
above Alillerton, on the San Joaquin River, where they mined for gold for
a time. The Doctor was about to return to the East when he learned of an
interesting surgical case that demanded immediate attention. It was a
young man who was threatened with death from blood poisoning from a
badly' treated wound. His professional instinct was at once aroused and he
saved the patient's life by amputating the limb with a wood saw and a jack
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUiNTY 657
knife. After another night's s]sirmish with Indians, Dr. Leach was made
surgeon of the local volunteer companies and established his hospital on the
Fresno River, about fifty-four miles from the present site of Fresno City.
After peace was restored with the Indians, Dr. Leach and Major Savage,
of the volunteers, established a store on the Fresno River, with a branch
at Millerton. Between the store and the practice of his profession the Doctor
made money, and in 1860 he devoted his entire time to his practice and took
charge of the county hospital at Millerton. On the transfer of the county
seat to Fresno he came here and assumed charge of the county hospital in
the new town and held the position for a number of years.
Dr. Lewis Leach married Miss ]\Iatilda Converse in 1865. In politics the
Doctor was a Democrat of the strictest and best kind and was chairman of
the county central committee for a number of years, resigning in 1886. In
politics as in everything else the Doctor was an honest, upright and honor-
able man. He was a good business man and established the first bank in
Fresno, and later organized the Farmers Bank, of which he was the first
president ; he also organized the gas company ; was interested in the street-
car lines and in the fair grounds association. Among his many intellectual
gifts was that of an artist, and the special paintings that hung in the Odd
Fellows hall were executed by him. He was also a musician of more than
ordinary ability.
To few communities comes the fate, to few the fortune, to hondr and
revere the memory of such men as Dr. Lewis Leach — as man. citizen, physi-
cian, philanthropist and neighbor. God has given few men who have, with
so much modesty, radiated blessing, happiness and sunshine all about them
with less ostentation. To those of his friends who survive him is left his
memory, and the impress upon his times which will serve for an inspiration
long after monuments to his memory shall have crumbled. He passed into
the presence of the Great Master, leaving those behind to say that "the
elements were so in him mixed that all the world might stand up and say,
'This was a Man.' "
CHARLES FRANKLIN HART.— .V man of forceful character and
an energetic pioneer, who has done much to improve conditions in Fresno
County, is C. F. Hart, a resident of California since 1886. He was born in
Newark, N. J., in 1853. the son of Charles and Susan (Bigler) Hart, both
natives of Germany. The father left his native land to get away from mili-
tary oppression and came to New Jersey when a young man and followed
the trades of cabinetmaking and carriage-making there. To better his con-
dition he went to Missouri, lived for a time in Ashley, then in St. Louis,
and while there he made the first carriage built in that city. In 1856 he
removed to Louisiana, that state, continuing to work at his trade and owning
his own shop, as he had done in the various places where he had lived. His
next move took him to Curryville. Mo., and there he set up as a carriage-
maker, finally taking up the blacksmith business as a requirement of the
times. At the breaking out of the Civil War he entered the struggle as
a member of a Missouri regiment, and at the end of hostilities he returned
to civil life, settled at Vandalia, IMo., as a farmer, and erected and conducted
the first blacksmith shop there, continuing the business for nine years, or
until his death. His wife, to whom were born three children, two of whom
are still living, also died in Missouri.
The oldest of the children, Charles F. Hart was reared in Missouri and
there attended the public schools and the Curryville Seminary. While the
father was serving in the army the family moved to Peoria, 111., but when
the war was over they returned to Curryville, only to find that ever3'thing
they had owned was gone, and so they moved to Vandalia. At the age of
eighteen young Hart went into the employ of the Chicago & Alton Railroad
Company, where as foreman, he ran a tread-power wood-saw to turn out
658 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
fuel for locomotives, with headquarters at Fulton. After that he worked as
a brakeman four years, then as a conductor, first on freight trains and later
on the passenger trains. In all he was with the road sixteen years.
Mr. Hart was united in marriage at Vandalia, Mo., March 29, 1878,
with Miss Davidella Daniel, born in Yolo County, Cal., the daughter of
James Daniel, who had come to California in an early day but had taken his
family back to ^Tissouri to make their home. Mrs. Hart was reared in
California and educated in the public schools and Hesperian College at
Woodland. She told Mr. Hart so much about California that he made up
his mind he would come and see for himself, and on August 13, 1886, he
arrived in Fresno. As soon as he could find a satisfactory location he was
joined by his wife and daughter, five weeks later. He engaged in ranching
on what is now known as the Grand Central farm and tilled the soil where
the Columbia school now stands. He later entered into a partnership with
his brother-in-law, J. N. Daniel, in leasing land west of what is now Rolinda,
some three sections which they farmed together until the dry season "broke"
IMr. Hart, and he had to make a new start. He went to work for J- G. James
as superintendent of a large cattle-ranch in San Luis Obispo County: later
he was superintendent of a large raisin vineyard for Mrs. Briggs, the Raisin
Queen, near Watsonville. Once more having gotten on his feet, Mr. Hart
leased some land and a vinevard from M. Theo. Kearney, and made a suc-
cess of the venture. In 1900 Mr. Hart purchased his present place of ten acres
at the corner of Braly and Church Avenues, west of Fresno, and set out some
of the choicest vines obtainable ; he erected the buildings and made all the
other improvements on the place. He also bought forty acres on Blackstone
Avenue, north of Fresno, and here he has fifteen acres in peaches, and raises
berries and vegetables.
One child, a daughter. Pearl, blessed the union of ^Ir. and Mrs. Hart.
She w-as born in Missouri, and is a graduate from the Vacaville (Cal.) High
School, and is now a deputy in the office of the county assessor. The Harts
belong to the Christian Church. Mr. Hart has been prominent in the circles
of the Democratic party and has served as a member of the county central
committee for years. He has been an advocate of good roads and for twelve
years ran the road grader in his district. He is a member of Fresno Lodge,
No. 186. I. O. O. F., and formerly was a member of the B. of L. F. and of
the O. R. C, and has a host of friends in the county.
WILLIAM P. THOMPSON.— The transformation wrought in Califor-
nia during the past thirty or forty years is due to the energy and perseverance
of those men, who, leaving comfortable homes in the East, identified them-
selves with the newer West and out of its crudity evolved the present-day
prosperity. The life of William P. Thompson began in the town of Sun-
bury, Pa., where he was born into the family of Newton and Susan (Drake)
Thompson. He attended the grammar and high schools at Mt. Pleasant,
Iowa, whither his parents had moved when he was a small child, until he
was fifteen. He then began to travel over the eastern states and worked in
various places for three years, when he returned to ^It. Pleasant. He attended
the Wesleyan University until 1871, then matriculated in Cornell University,
from which he was graduated in 1874. For the next three years Mr. Thomp-
son taught school in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Iowa, and in the mean-
time he read law and was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1877. He
went to Lake City, Colo., and practiced his profession two years, then
went to Leadville, where he built up a large and lucrative clientele. In 1884
he came to California and for six months practiced in San Francisco, then
went to Santa Rosa and spent six years as a law3^er.
We next find INIr. Thompson in Fresno, where he soon formed a partner-
ship with Judge King, and, under the firm name of Thompson & King -car-
ried on a lucrative practice until 1892. He then became a member of the
firm of Thompson & Prince, and for seventeen years this was one of the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 659
leading law firms of the San Joaquin Valley and handled many important
cases. In 1909 Mr. Thompson withdrew from the firm and since then has
been doing an independent business in the general practice of the law.
On August 18, 1879, Mr. Thompson married Miss Mary E. Harris, in
Virginia City, Nev., and they have two children : Marguerite, who received
a fine musical education and is now the wife of William Zorach, of New
York City : and Edith, who is at home. Mr. Thompson is a member of the
University Club and is prominent in Democratic circles, but not an office
seeker. He is liberal, public-spirited and enterprising and. at all times, is
willing to do his part towards making Fresno a better place in which to live.
He belongs to the locaj, bar associations.
HARVEY W. SWIFT.— When Harvey W. Swift closed his eyes to the
scenes of this world the State of California, and especially Fresno County,
lost one of her most public-spirited citizens. He was manly, fearless, honor-
able and liberal, alwaj's willing to back his judgment with his money, and
to aid those who were less fortunate than himself to get a start in the world.
A native of New York State, he was born at Penfidd, May 21, 1853, and
removed with his parents to Hillsdale, ]\Iich., when he was sixteen and there
assisted his father with his farm work until he was twenty years of age.
He then became interested in the lumber industry, working in all branches
of the business and, becoming familiar with all the details, soon erected a
shingle mill at Edmore. that state. He was also engaged in the lumber busi-
ness at Chebo_vgan with his brother, the late Lewis P. Swift, and when the
latter sold his interest to a Mr. Clark, he continued the partnership under
the name of Swift and Clark.
He came out to California many years ago and was one of the original
owners and organizers of the Fresno Flume and Irrigation Company, but
eventually sold out to his brother, Lewis P., who wanted to settle in Cali-
fornia, whereupon Harvey W. returned east and entered into business. In
1901. upon the death of Lewis P., he returned to California and bought back
his brother's interest in the above company and carried it on very success-
fully, with his partner and brother-in-law. C. B. Shaver, then president of
the company. When the latter died in 1907, Mr. Swift became president and
general manager, serving until the business was sold, and he then turned
his attention to other lines of business, particularly the oil industry. With
others he sunk some wells, and he also became a stockholder in the Hicks-
Hofifman Navigation Company. Mr. Swift became interested in the develop-
ment of land, bought a half section of the Bullard tract, planted it to alfalfa,
also bought sixty acres near Centerville and set that to oranges.
H. W. Swift was one of the best boosters Fresno County ever had. He
was the means of bringing the Orpheum Circuit shoAVs to this city; was one
of the promoters of the Fresno County Fair Association, and was one of
the organizers of the good roads movement in the county. He gave freely
to worthy charities, especially the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. 'W. C. A., the Sal-
vation Army and kindred charities that had for their objective the better-
ment of conditions for mankind.
Harvey W. Swift was united in marriage at Blanchard, Mich., in 1884,
with Miss Minnie K. Roberts, a native of Pennsylvania, who survives him,
and who shared in the esteem and respect in which he was held by all who
knew him throughout the state. I^Ir. Swift was an active member of the
Sunnyside Country Club, was a Thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner,
and also a member of Fresno Lodge No. 439, B. P. O. Elks. He was beloved by-
all his fraternal brethren, with whom he mingled on all occasions when it
was possible. In politics he was a stanch Republican. He died after an illness
of but a few hours, April 11, 1915.
660 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
AMOS AND ANTOINETTE HARRIS.— Admired, confided in, beloved
and honored in his day, and now eminent in the history of the San Joaquin
Valley as a successful farmer and an exemplary citizen, Amos Harris, the
father of Howard A. Harris, is still remembered for traits and virtues of
especial value in a society such as this used to be, largely in the forming.
Born in Cayuga County, N. Y., on May 29, 1831, he was the son of Howard
Harris, a native of Connecticut who migrated to New York about the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century, there grew to manhood, and vigorously
participated, like the true patriot that he was, in the War of 1812. There-
after, he took up farming as a livelihood, and continued at it until he could
work no longer. He died in Locke, Cayuga County. His wife, who had been
Melinda Hurlburt, was also born in Connecticut, and died in New York
state. Ten children blessed their union, six sons and four daughters ; and
Amos was the sixth in the order of birth.
Amos Harris attended the public schools, and in 1851, stirred by the
gold excitement, he hurried off to California by way of the Isthmus of
Panama. For six years, he tried his luck at mining in Placer and Nevada
Counties, and having met with moderate success, he carried back to his
eastern home a snug little fortune. In December of the same year he located
at Jackson, ]\Iich., and engaged in the mercantile business for three years.
He had a keen eye to the wants of the public, a pleasing personality prompted
by a kindly heart, and he never wanted for patrons of the most depend-
able sort.
It was in Jackson that Mr. Harris met, wooed and won the lady who
was thereafter to share his eventful life. She was Antoinette Pelham, a native
of Clinton, Mich., where she was born on October 22. 1837. the fourth child
in a family i>f six. Her father had died when the children were small, and
much responsibility fell to the mother, who desired that Antoinette should
receive the education she so craved. Before she was fifteen years old she
was teaching her first spring term, and the next year she taught her first
winter term of school. As soon as possible, she attended the Olivet College,
and from there she went to the normal department of the State University
at Ann Arbor. In 1857 she joined the Methodist Church, and two years later,
on September 14, she was married to Mr. Harris at Jackson, the wedding
being one of the social events of that year.
In 1860, Mr. and Mrs. Harris removed to Iowa where they stayed for a
short time, but returning to New York State, Mr. Harris took up his resi-
dence for a couple of years at the old Harris homestead. Fond as they were
of New York, however, Michigan still had greater attractions, and in 1862
they shifted to Coldwater, and there Mr. Harris started farming. In 1864,
he became a pioneer in JNIontana and mined at Virginia City. A few months
satisfied him there, and then he moved on to Lawrence, Kans.
In 1874, Mr. Harris said good-bye to the "Garden of the West." and once
again came to California, and spent three years in Marin, Sonoma and Men-
docino Counties, and three years later Mrs. Harris and the children joined
him, coming to Turlock. At first he engaged in farming in Stanislaus County
on rented property; and in that half-settled state he remained until 1881,
when, on October 2, he came with his family to Fowler Switch. Mrs. Harris
never forgot the first ^impressions of the district to which she had come, ex-
pecting to found there a home and to find there something to cheer the home-
maker. Instead of vineyards and orchards and pretty bungalows or cottages
to greet her, she saw a sandy waste with not one spear of grass in sight,
and only a turkey ranch and a sheep-shearing camp to break the line of the
horizon.
Mr. Harris then purchased 320 acres of land, much of which he gradually
sold off in small tracts, and retained eighty acres as a home farm, one mile
southeast of Fowler; and Mrs. Harris realizing only too well the significance
of theirs being the only house near the railroad between Selma and Fresno,
1
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 663
bravely set out to make the desert bloom as the rose. The result was that
when the weary travelers stopped at her door and complained of this "God-
forsaken country," she told of her vision of this desert as it was yet to be, and
she lived to see her dream come true. Her home very naturally became a
kind of community center in this new country, and here were held picnics
for the schools, and parties and all kinds of old-fashioned social affairs.
As the years went by, Mr. Harris devoted twenty acres of his fine ranch
to the cultivation of the raisin grape, ten acres to a fruitful orchard, and ten
acres to alfalfa ; and little by little he improved the rest. He made a specialty
of cultivating fruit, but he was also successfully interested in stock. In addi-
tion to his Fowler property he came to own 160 acres in Kern County, and
320 acres in Kings County.
Mrs. Harris vied with her husband in a lively interest in civic matters
— he having served as school director for many years, and acted as clerk of
the board for two decades, or more, and taken an active part, as a Republican,
in national politics — and she, as a charter member of the Fowler Improve-
ment Association, was one of a group of women who set to work to make
Fowler so good a place in which to live. As a friend, writing in tribute to
her memory, has pointed out, in the records of this association we find that,
twenty-six years ago, Mrs. Harris, with her associates, was planning to pur-
chase Block Nine in the town of Fowler for a city park, and also to build
a reading-room. To such an extent, in fact, did she even then enter into
the spirit of sociological work for others, that she volunteered to spend each
Thursday afternoon at the reading-room to entertain the children. And so
her life went on, opening her home to the strangers who came from the East,
working for the public good, planning entertainments, and in every way pos-
sible trying to do good. She was one of the board of directors of the Fowler
Improvement Association for many years, and was twice president of the
club, in 1894-95 and in 1897-98.
She helped organize the first Sunday School held in Fowler in 1886, in
the old school house, which was since burned down. She also organized a
chapter of the King's Daughters and the Band of Hope. Her views and
sympathies were very broad ; she worked for many years in the Episcopal
Guild, and in her last earthly year was one of the mission study class meet-
ing once a week in the First Presbyterian Church. She was faithful in the
work of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and a life-long worker
in the cause of temperance. At the age of fifty she took up the Chautauqua
course of study and secured her diploma. Dearly beloved by all who really
knew her, Mrs. Harris passed away on October 25, 1916, the day after she
had presided at her club and recited Longfellow's "Psalm of Life."
Of this blessed union were born four children: Frank B., of Waverly
ranch, and his twin-sister, Ella Belle, who became the wife of Edwin Bruce
of Lawrence, Kans., and who died just one year after her marriage : Howard
A., long the able editor and proprietor of the Fowler Ensign ; and Robert,
who died in infancy.
REUBEN G. HARRELL.— The old pioneers of Fresno County can
best appreciate its gradual transition from a sterile spot on the landscape to
its present floral wealth and luxuriance of plants, trees, and vines, which to-
day greet the eye on every hand.
Reuben G. Harrell is one of the old pioneers and recalls shooting doves
on the present site of the city of Fresno when the country was in its in-
fancy. He is a native of Gallatin, Tenn., born December 20, 1845. Reared on
a Southern plantation in ante-bellum days, he received a common school
education, and as a lad of fifteen, at the outbreak of our great civil strife
in 1861, enlisted, serving for one year as a scout on the Confederate side. In
1862 he entered the regular service in the Forest Command of Cavalry, Army
of the Tennessee, under Gen. T. H. Bell. For two years he was assistant
adjutant, and took part with the Army of the Tennessee in all the big bat-
664 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ties, surrendering at Gainsville, Alabama, May 10, 1865, to Gen. R. N.
Canby. After his return home he was employed in a store until 1875, then,
hearing -much about the resources of California and the attendent results
for ambitious and energetic young men, he sought his fortune in the Golden
State, arriving in Fresno the fall of 1875. From 1875 to 1882 he was en-
gaged in the occupation of farming and stock-raising, and from 1882 to 1885
was in a general merchandise store in Fresno. For eight years he served as
deputy county assessor for Fresno County, and since 1885 has practiced law
in the United States Land Courts, connected with the United States Depart-
ment of the Interior. He has been of great assistance to homesteaders locat-
ing in the Valley.
December 20, 1866, he was united in marriage with Miss Susie B.
Bell, a native of Tennessee and daughter of Gen. T. H. Bell, the com-
mander of Mr. Harrell's old regiment. Their union was blessed by the birth
of seven children, four of whom are living: Margaret, the wife of Dr. D. C.
Farnham of San Francisco ; Maud, the wife of the attorney, D. E. Perkins
of Visalia, is the mother of two daughters; Catherine, married Dr. E. M.
Doyle of Sacramento ; and Myrtle E., who is at home, is an artist of note, and
is now chief deputy county school superintendent.
Mr. and Mrs. Harrell have enjoyed more than fifty years of domestic
happiness, and on December 20, 1916. surrounded by their children, friends
and neighbors, celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Mr. Harrell is
a notary public and is trustee of the Southern Methodist Church. He is
held in high esteem by his fellow citizens.
JABEZ H. La RUE.— The ancestors of the La Rue family, for years
prominently engaged in viticulture and agriculture in Fresno County, were
from France, where thev were Huguenots in religious faith. Three brothers,
William, Isaac, and Jacob, came to America at an early date. Jacob La Rue
was the progenitor of the family now located in Fresno County. He became
an early resident of Kentucky. William H. La Rue, the grandfather of Jabez,
is said to have owned a mill where Abraham Lincoln was born.
The father of the subject of this sketch was Jacob H. La Rue. a native of
Hodgen\ille, La Rue County, Ky., where he was born in 1799. He moved
his family to Missouri in 1838, settling in Lewis County, where he engaged
in farming until 1884, when he migrated to California, where he passed away
at Sacramento, having attained the advanced age of eighty-five years. His
son, Jabez H. La Rue. was born in Elizabethtown, Ky., on February 16,
1833. He was but a small boy when his father moved to Missouri and it was
there under primitive conditions that the young lad received his education.
His early life was spent on his father's farm until he reached his majority,
when he began farming for himself.
Jabez H. La Rue was united in marriage first with 'Margaret Haycraft,
a native of Kentucky. This union was blessed with three sons and one
daughter: Hugh William, whose sketch appears upon another page of this
history ; Sarah C, now deceased ; Edwin H. ; and .Samuel Robert, a review
of whose career will be found upon another page of this book. The second
marriage of Jabez H. La Rue occurred in 1891. when he was united with
Helen H. Christie, a native of ^^'inchester. \^a., the ceremony being solem-
nized in Missouri.
Jabez H. LaRue made his first trip to the Golden State in 1863, when he
drove a team of mules across the plains, and after remaining two years in
California he returned to his farm in Missouri. In 1886, he made another trip
to California, and in the fall of the following year he was bereft of his wife's
companionship through her passing to the Great Beyond. Upon his arrival
in California, Mr. La Rue settled in the ]\Ialaga District, Fresno County, and
purchased forty acres which he planted to grapes. As he prospered he added
to his original acreage until he possessed 120 acres: thirty-three acres devoted
to grapes and the balance of the land was used for general farming. He passed
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 665
away in September. 1917, at the advanced age of nearly eighty-five years.
He was a man of high character and greatly esteemed in his community
where he had resided for so many years. Fraternally he was a prominent
Mason and was a member of the Baptist Churcli.
SAMUEL ROBERT La RUE.— The youngest son of Jabez IT. La Rue.
an honored pioneer of Fresno County, is the suljject of this sketch. Samuel
Robert La Rue. better known as "Bob." He first saw the light of dav in
Lewis County, Mo., on July 25, 1857, and his younger days were spent on
his father's farm and his education was received in the countv schools of his
native state. When Rob La Rue had attained his majority lie began farming
operations for himself and by untiring efiforts and good management he
achieved success in his undertaking.
On January 5. 1885. he left Missouri for California, and after his arrival
in the Golden State he and his brother. H. W. La Rue. purchased a tract of
raw land at Malaga. Fresno County, consisting of 160 acres. Thev set about
to improve the ranch and planted a portion to grapes and also raised alfalfa.
The brothers being very companionable, conducted their enterprise together
and to their praise it can be said that they continued to operate tlieir ranches
in the same way until Bob sold out and moved to Fresno. Their farms ad-
joined and were located on Central Avenue, in the Malaga District. Bob La
Rue has been very successful in the cultivation of raisin grapes and is con-
sidered an authority on viticulture. He is a member of the California Asso-
ciated Raisin Company of Fresno. He bought forty acres of grain land in
the Newhall Tract, on Chestnut Avenue, which he has set to vines.
S. R. La Rue was united in marriage on January 13, 1880, in Lewis
County, Mo., with Belle Bradshaw. a native of Rlissouri, and this union was
blessed with four children, two sons and two daughters : Mrs. Thomas M.
Sims, who resides in Sanger, and who is the mother of five children ; Mrs.
Lola Porter, who lives in Oakland, and she is the mother of one child ; Rainey
H., engaged in ranching for himself on the Newhall Tract near Fresno, and
who is married and has one daughter ; and Robert J., living at home. Fra-
ternally, S. R. La Rue is a member of the \\^oodmen of the World.
EDWARD DARNALL EDWARDS.— A fine representative of the old
school of lawyers which flourished best when integrity and unimpeachable
honor were prime requisites for success, and a member of one of the noted
American pioneer families which long figured prominently in the industrial
and political affairs of the South, is Edward Darnall Edwards, prominent
among the sons contributed by Missouri to the upbuilding of the ^^'est.
He was born at Liberty, Clay County, Mo., on January 23, 1846. and now
enjoys the unique distinction of being the Nestor of the Fresno County bar,
with a record for longer continuous service in the practice of law here than
that of any other member.
His father and mother were Pressiey N. and Naomi D. Edwards, and he
was educated in his home town at William Jewell College. In Union City,
Tenn., he began to practice law, and as early as the great Centennial Year he
came to California. Two years later he came to Fresno, and forming a part-
nership with W. H. Creed, he began to take his place among the California
jurists.
He was elected to the office of District Attorney of Fresno Countv. and
served from 1882 to 1884; and the Democratic Convention having nominated
him for Superior Judge in 1900, he was defeated only by a very close margin.
In 1861 Mr. Edwards entered the Confederate Army and' for four years
served with distinction as one of Henderson's Scouts, operating under Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston.
.^t Paducah, Ky.. he was married to Anna, the daughter of Paulena
Finch, by whom he has had three children, Ernest H., Jefferson J., and
Clarence W. Edwards.
666 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
He is a stanch Democrat, and has served on the State Central Com-
mittee from 1890 to 1894. He has also done good civic duty, and has made
his influence felt for good in the community. He is a man of keen intellect,
retentive mind and wonderful vigor at the age of seventy-three ; and in
many ways is a gentleman of fine attainments. He belongs to St. Paul's
M. E. Church, and is a member of Fresno Lodge No. 247, F. & A. M.. where
he held the office of Worshipful Master. Fresno County is indeed to be con-
gratulated on the rounded out life of this distinguished citizen, who can
look both backwards and forwards in the history of Central California with
so much satisfaction and faith, and who may rest assured that the record
of his own accomplishments here will not perish.
HANS GRAFF. — A pillar of strength in the highly important grocery
trade of Central California, and an inspiring leader in the development of the
raisin, fig and creamery interests of this part of the Golden West, was the
late Hans Grafif, who, at the time of his death, September 24, 1918, was the
president and manager of H. Grafif & Company, of Fresno. All Fresno joined
in sympathy with the mourners at his bier. He died from the eflfects of an
automobile accident which occurred August 29, 1918. Accompanied by his
wife and members of his family, Mr. Graff was returning from Los Angeles,
when, in the Tehachapi Mountains, the driver attempted to pass a stage : the
embankment gave way and the car rolled down more than three hundred
feet, seriously injuring Mr. Graff, who was later taken to the Fairmont Hos-
pital, at San Francisco, where, following an operation, he passed away almost
a month later.
Hans Graff was born near Kolding, Denmark, May 26, 1863, and came to
the L'nited States when he was a young man, locating first at San Francisco.
After years of hard work, in which he gained valuable experience, but very
little capital, he came to Fresno, this being about thirty-three years ago, where
he entered the employ of Louis Einstein & Company, in the grocery depart-
ment, remaining with this company about four years, when he established
a store at the corner of Inyo and H Streets, having as partners, H. A. Han-
sen and Nis Johnson. Fresno was then an unimportant city, but with its re-
markable growth came the expansion of the grocery trade, and in course of
time the modest business, through the efficient management and business
sagacity of Hans Graff, became large and prosperous, under the firm name
of FI. Graff & Company, and they built the present large concrete store build-
ing on the corner of Kern and \^an Ness Streets. At an early date \h. Graff
introduced the cooperative feature which has made the management of this
firm famous, and whereby opportunity is offered to the hundred clerks or
more now employed there to acquire an interest in the company, after stated
periods of service ; and soon the firm was rated as the largest dealers in gro-
ceries in this part of the state, the company maintaining complete hardware
and crockery departments also. During his leisure hours, until the new in-
terests also became one of his important financial investments, Mr. Graff gave
much attention to the raisin and fig industries, becoming at one time the
treasurer and was a director of the California Associated Raisin Company.
He was the prime mover in the organization of the Danish Creamery Asso-
ciation, and served as its secretary, treasurer, and as a director for over twenty
years, resigning during the summer of 1918 on account of the pressure of his
other affairs. This association had the largest creamery in Fresno County. At
the time of his death, Hans Graff was vice-president of the Fresno Building
and Loan Association, Trustee of the Fresno State Normal School, Treasurer
of the Traffic Association, member of the Chamber of Commerce, Merchants
Association, Commercial Club, and affiliated with the Riverside Country Club.
In Fresno, June 29, 1889, Hans Graft" was united in marriage with Miss
Margaret Petersen, after an engagement of three years. INIrs. Graff was born
at Varde, Denmark, and was the daughter of Soren Petersen, an architect and
builder of much ability. Mrs. Graff was fortunate in being reared in an en-
iF^iiy CampbsllSimliers forl&iaric
n/L
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 671
vironment of culture and refinement. She came to New York City, accom-
panying her aunt and uncle who had been home on a visit, and later she con-
tinued her journey westward, until she reached Fresno in May, 1885, where
she decided to make her home. The union of Mr. and Mrs. Graff proved an
unusually happy one, and was blessed with two sons and one daughter: Ar-
thur, and Lieut. Chester Graff, both of whom are actively associated with the
management of H. Graff & Company; and Agnes, who assists her mother
in presiding over the home. The children are kind and affectionate to their
mother, and aid her in looking after the large interests left by Mr. Graff, thus
shielding her from business care and worry. Mr. Graff gave no small degree
of credit for his success to his estimable wife, often saying that her encour-
agement and loving care were an inspiration to him.
Fraternally, Mr. Graff was a prominent member of the Odd Fellows and
stood high in local Masonic circles. He was a Knight Templar and Scottish
Rite Mason, having the honorary degree of K. C. C H., and was also a Shriner.
In his religious life he was a Lutheran, the family being members of the
Danish Lutheran Church of Fresno. Mr. Graff made a place for himself in
the citizenship of Fresno, such as few men attain. To his business successes
were added : public spirit, public service, and leadership. In his passing away,
a fine, strong, gentle spirit has departed and a place is vacant, which, in quite
the same way, will never be filled.
LEWIS LINCOLN CORY.— A man of literary and scholastic attain-
ments, possessing a vigorous mentality and well-trained mind, Lewis Lincoln
Cory holds an assured position among the leading attorneys of Fresno. A
son of the late Dr. Benjamin Cory, he was born in San Jose, May 4, 1861,
and therefore proud of his claim as a native son. Dr. Cory was born and
reared in Oxford, Ohio, and with an aptitude for learning he was given the
best of educational advantages. After receiving his degree of A.B. at the
Miami University he was graduated from the Cincinnati Medical College
with the degree of M.D. He became a pioneer of California in 1848, settled
in San Jose, then the capital of the state, becoming the first American physi-
cian to locate in the Santa Clara Valley. He took a prominent part in local
affairs, being active in the capital fight, was influential in advancing the in-
dustrial, social and business growth and prosperity of city and county. He
was the first person to set out a vineyard for commercial purposes. For a
number of years he served as county physician, and until his death, in 1899,
at the age of seventy-three years, was the leading physician of Santa Clara
County.
Dr. Cory married Sarah Braly, who was born near St. Louis, Mo., a
daughter of Rev. John Braly, who brought his family westward to Oregon,
being at Whitman Station just prior to the massacre. From there he came
on to California, located at Santa Clara, where he improved a farm. He
also continued his ministerial labors in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,
being the first Presbyterian minister in this part of the state, until his death,
at the age of seventy-three years. He married a Miss Hyde, of English de-
scent. Of the union of Doctor and Mrs. Cory eight children were born:
Lewis L. of this review being the fourth child.
After Lewis L. Cory had completed the studies in the grammar and
high schools in San Jose, he entered the LTniversity of the Pacific, after
which, for two years, he attended Rutgers College at New Brunswick, N. J.
In 1879 he entered the junior class of Princeton University from which he
was graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1881. He then became a student
in the Columbia Law School and two years later was graduated from this
famous school with the degree of LL.B. Mr. Cory was admitted to the
bar in New York in 1883 and began the practice of his profession and for
two years was in the office of Judge William Fullerton. In 1885 he returned
to California and for one year practiced in San Jose, after which he came
to Fresno and opened an office where he has since carried on a growing
672 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
practice. As a general practitioner he has built up an extensive and lucrative
clientage. Mr. Cory has been associated with some very important land
cases, was attorney for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the First
National Bank, the Street Railway Company, the Water Company, the Elec-
tric Light Company, and other equally important concerns. Mr. Cory in-
spires his clients with the greatest confidence in his judgment and upright-
ness, is well versed in legal lore, wise and firm in his decisions, and is highly
respected by his brother members of the bar, and by all with whom he is
brought in contact, either in business or a social way.
Mr. Cory was united in marriage in New York City with Caroline A.
Martin, a native of Rahway, N. J., and they are parents of five children:
Edith M., a graduate of Stanford University; Catherine J.; Margaret E. ;
Martin, and Benjamin. Mr. Cory owns the Cory Building, one of the finest
store and office buildings in Fresno and is also the owner of the Hippodrome
Theater Building which is located on the same corner, the lot being 150x150
feet, one of the most valuable corners in the cit}^ of Fresno. Politically Mr.
Cory is a stanch Republican, and socially he belongs to the Delta Upsilon
Fraternity of Rutgers College and is a member of the Fresno County Bar
Association.
THOMAS J. DUNCAN. — Among the old pioneers of California and of
Fresno County, Thomas J. Duncan is a well-known figure. He is a man of
sterling worth, with the strength and indomitable spirit of the pioneer. A
native of Illinois, he was born near Springfield, Sangamon County, Novem-
ber 30, 1835, but when he was six years old his parents moved to Lawrence
County, I\Io., where the lad received his education. His father and mother,
Hiram and Nancy f^McKinley) Duncan, were natives of Tennessee and Ken-
tucky respectively.
In May, 1853, Thomas J., a sturdy and energetic young man in his
eighteenth year, in company with his parents and five brothers, started with
eight wagons drawn by oxen, and with 500 head of cattle, to cross the plains
for California in quest of the greater possibilities and advantages to be had
in that land by the sunset sea than were available in their eastern home.
They arrived safely at Stockton, in September, 1853, and settled fifteen miles
east from that city near what is now Linden. In this locality the parents
lived until their deaths.
Thomas J- Duncan established domestic ties on September 18, 1870, at
Stockton, when he married Miss Martha Miller. She was born in Missouri,
September 27, 1851, a daughter of James and Rosanna (Gann) Miller, both
born in Tennessee. The Miller family crossed the plains in 1860 and located
in San Joaquin County on Farmington plains. Later Mr. Miller and his
wife removed to Mendocino County and there they both passed away. Of
the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Duncan four children were born : Andrew F.,
of Fresno, who married Lizzie Calhoun, and they have a daughter Dorothy;
Ella May, married J. A. Ward and they reside in this city; Roy E., is mar-
ried and is engaged in the music business in Los Angeles — he was in the
service of the United States during the war. enlisting in the Submarine Base
Band, and was stationed at San Pedro ; F. Ray is married and makes his
home in Fresno, where he is employed.
In the pioneer days in California the sheep industry was carried on
extensively in various sections of the state, and Mr. Duncan was among the
successful men who engaged in that industry. At one time he owned a
cattle ranch near Lathrop. In 1871 he came to Fresno County. At that
time the country was one vast, treeless plain, and about the only living
things to be found were jack rabbits and horned toads. There was no hotel
in the little town and Mr. and Mrs. Duncan and their little son had to seek
such accommodations as the place afforded until they could get out to the
ranch he had bought. He had brought a band of sheep to this county and
in time his band numbered over 10,000 head and he ranged them on his
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 673
land ten miles southwest from Fresno. In order to better educate his children
and to give them the advantages of the Fresno schools, Mr. Duncan sold
off his land in the country and bought ten acres of land on what is now
Diana Street, paying fifty dollars per acre for it. He put up a house suitable
for his needs and in time sold off the tract in lots or larger parcels of prop-
erty, and this section now is included in the residential part of the city. At
different times he has bought and sold land and has met with considerable
success financially, so that in the evening of his days he can enjoy the fruits
of his early labors.
Some years ago he retired from active life and now resides at 304 Abby
Street. He has been a liberal contributor to church and charitable work,
although not a member of any church. He has been a Democrat in his
political affiliations, but never an aspirant for office. At one time he was a
director and vice-president of the Fresno Loan and Savings Bank, and he
helped to organize and became a director of the Fowler Switch Canal
Company.
MRS. JOHANNA OSTENDORF.— The oldest settler in the section in
which she resides in Fresno County, and a splendid woman highly esteemed
for her own sake and as the widow of an industrious and upright citizen
active in good works in his time, is Mrs. Johanna Ostendorf, who came to
Fresno Count_y in 1883. She was born in Oldenburg. Germany, on Septem-
ber 28, 1856, the daughter of John Henry Steenken, a native of that region
and who was a farmer there. He had married Margareta Bergman, who
had also been born there ; and in that locality both died. They had three
children, two girls and a boy, all of whom grew up ; and our subject is
the second eldest of these, and the only one in the United States.
She was brought up on a farm and educated at the public schools until
she was fourteen, when she was confirmed in the Lutheran Church and be-
gan to take up the more serious problems of life. On April 30, 1880, she
was married to B. D. Ostendorf. who was born there on March 16, 1847.
He was educated at the public schools, and as a boy also worked on the
farm. He continued farming until 1883, when he came to California. He
located in Fresmi County, and the next year settled on their present place.
He bought twenty acres from Mr. Wylie, in whose service he entered, and
for whom he became foreman: and he continued with him until 1896, when
he left to look after his own ranch. He drove the wagon for the Danish
Creamery, and he died on January 11, 1900, aged fifty-two years.
After Mr. Ostendorf's death, his widow continued to farm. She made
improvements, put in alfalfa, and engaged in dairying; and now the sons
manage the place. Six children had blessed the union, so that there was
assistance enough, and of the best kind : Henry B., who is the right hand of
his mother, looks after her interests and makes for them both a host of
friends ; Marguerite, who is at Berkeley : Bernhard, who served in the United
States Army at Camp Lewis for five months, when he was honorably dis-
charged and is now at home ; Marie, who is Mrs. A. P. ]\IcLean, of Enterprise
Colony, and who has two children, Andrew and Eleanor ; ^linnie is at home :
and Gustav, who entered the army October 5, 1918, trained at Camp Lewis.
was assigned to Company B, Three Hundred Sixty-fourth Infantry, Ninety-
first Division and served with honor in France ; and was discharged in March,
1919, and is now at home. The family attends the Lutheran Church at Fres-
no, and Mrs. Ostendorf and children are loyal Republicans in national politi-
cal affairs, and generously support any good movement for local advancement.
674 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
LILBOURNE A. WINCHELL.— A prominent Central Californian who,
in the opinion of those most competent to judge, is the best-posted man on
early days in this locality, is Lilbourne A. Winchell, the secretary of the
Fresno County Pioneer Society and vice-president of the Fresno County
Historical Society, and a native son always proud of his identification with
the great Pacific commonwealth. The Winchell family, which includes such
distinguished and even famous members as Alexander and Newton Horace
Winchell, brothers and noted geologists, may be traced back to Robert
Winchell, who came from England in 1634. and settled in Connecticut: and
our interesting subject belongs to the ninth generation bearing that name in
America.
L. A. Winchell was born at Sacramento, Cal., October 9, 1855. in a cot-
tage built of yellow poplar and white ash lumber, cut in Indiana in 1849,
rafted down the Ohio and jMississippi Rivers to New Orleans, thence by ship
around the Horn to Sacramento, and erected in the spring of 1850, on the
west side of M between Seventh and Eighth Streets. His father, the late
E. C. Winchell, of whom mention is made on another page of this history,
crossed the great plains in 1850; and his mother, in maidenhood Laura C.
Alsip, came to California via Nicaragua, in 1852, both settling in Sacramento,
where they were married in 1853. The family moved to Fort ^liller. Fresno
County, in May, 1859, and continued to reside in that locality until 1874, when
they moved to Fresno, the newly established county seat.
Among interesting reminiscences, Mr. Winchell recounts one of being
present, in Sacramento, January, 1863, at the ceremony of the inauguration
of the Central Pacific Railroad, when he saw Governor Stanford climb onto
a wagon loaded with dirt which was drawn by four white horses bedecked
with ribbons and flags, and throw oflf the first shovelful of dirt.
Receiving his early education from his parents, young Winchell was
then sent to San Francisco and entered City College, a private institution,
situated on the northeast corner of Stockton and Geary Streets, whose presi-
dent was Dr. Veeder. Later he graduated from the public schools, and Heald's
College. As a young man he was engaged in various businesses and enter-
prises— clerk in his father's law oflice. clerk in the Recorder's, Tax Collector's
and Sheriff's offices, and was chief deputy in the Assessor's office, from 1880
to 1895. He also engaged in buying and selling land, in sawmill and timber
enterprises, in farming and stock-raising; and in experimental work of hy-
bridizing and plant-breeding.
With an inherited love of books, and under the influence of a home
atmosphere congenial to the pursuit of knowledge, L. A. Winchell has been,
since childhood, a delver into the treasures stored through the ages; being
especially interested in ethnologic, archaeologic and geologic subjects. Of
an adventurous disposition, with a love of the wild, and an ardent worshipper
of nature, he was led to gratify his spirit by early explorations into the moun-
tains. From boyhood till the present time he has devoted many months to
this fascinating appeal. After the perfection of the photographic "dry plate"
there was presented opportunity, heretofore denied, to picture the unknown
beauties and wonders of the great alpine regions of the Sierras. Among other
achievements, he photographed, in detail, all the great walls, domes, recesses
and crests of the Tehipite Valley — a yosemite of entrancing beauty and
grandeur, in the canyon of the middle fork of Kings River. These were the
first photographs ever made of that region, excepting three made by Frank
Dusy, in which Mr. Winchell assisted.
Mr. Winchell sketched a plat of the Valley and named all of the prom-
inent points. The names bestowed by him are of record and have been used
many times by writers and are perpetuated in the United States Geological
ijurveys. In this connection it may be mentioned that Mr. Winchell was
one of a party of five who, in July, 1879, took the first mules and horses into
the Tehipite Canyon. This was accomplished after desperate struggles over
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 677
terrible ledges of granite and porphyry, through dense thickets that were
all but impenetrable and through which they cut their way with axes and
sheath-knives, following, at favored times, a dimly-marked deer trail, and
all down a declivity of 45 degrees and less, for a distance of 4,000 feet. Fur-
ther explorations of the high alpine region of the Sierra Nevadas, embracing
the serrated summit known as the Palisades, and the circumjacent territory
which contributes to the sources of the San Joaquin and Kings Rivers, were
made during the summer of 1879 and succeeding years.
He furnished to the public the first map of this terra incognita, with
notes, sketches and names bestowed by himself upon prominent features of
this wonderland ; including a description of the great residual glacier which
lies in the deep gorge at the foot of the "Mother Palisade," and whose exist-
ence was hitherto unknown to the world. To the highest of these palisade
spires were given the names of "Winchell's Peak," in honor of Alexander
\Vinchell. the eminent American geologist and author; "Agassiz Needle,"
and the "Mother Palisade," all rising about 14,000 feet. Mount Goddard, a
comparatively isolated peak, at the head of the south fork of the San Joaquin
River, was scaled by him on September 23, 1879. This was the first successful
effort to reach the pinnacle. A monument was built on the summit and a
record left. At a later ascent he took photographs from and at the summit.
In his forty-five years' explorations Mr. Winchell has familiarized him-
self with all that vast mountain-world from the head of the Tuolumne to the
Kern and Kaweah. His familiarity with the mountains and forests led the
United States Government to appoint him to a position in the Forestry Ser-
vice, which he held for five years, resigning to devote himself exclusively to
his farming and fruit-raising interests. While in the government service he
made an official report on the surveys, plans, dam sites, wagon-, rail- and
power-line routes of the electric company that afterwards constructed the
Big Creek reservoir, now known as Huntington Lake ; and reported, ad-
versely, on a proposition by a power company to convert into a lake the
Blaney Meadows, on the south fork of the San Joaquin, and saved this beauti-
ful playground for the enjoyment and benefit of posterity. Segregation of
the meadow lands, examining doubtful surveys, establishing new lines and
monuments, and making plats and reports, were the principal duties occupy-
ing most of his time during his five years' of service.
On September 7, 1883, at the residence of his uncle and aunt in Oakland,
Cal., L. A. Winchell was united in marriage to Miss Ernestine Miller, de-
scendant of Revolutionary ancestors on the maternal side, and eldest daugh-
ter of John Alan and Phydella Mary Ann (Roberts) Miller. The ceremony
was performed by Rev. O. C. Wheeler, D.D., who had officiated at the mar-
riage of Mr. Winchell's parents in Sacramento, in 1853. Mrs. Winchell, of
literary inclinations, has written widely for magazines, short stories of the
mountains, presenting striking portraitures of aboriginal character, and
sketches of life among the Indians of California. To the ]\Iothers' Magazine
she has contributed many most excellent articles devoted to the study of
child life. She is a woman of generous impulses ; loyal and self-sacrificing
in the interests of her friends, ever ready to give assistance in time of trouble
and need ; thinking little of her own comfort, but devoted to her sense of
duty ; and she is loved and admired by those who know her.
Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Winchell : Geraldine, July 28,
1884, married Charles F. Ramsey in 1913, and lives in Fresno; Donald R.,
September 4, 1886, died March 1, 1889; and Lilbourne E., May 10, 1890, mar-
ried Clara Mary Heidenreich in 1918, and resides in San Francisco. Lil-
bourne E. entered the service of the United States Navy in 1907, went round
the world on the battleship Nebraska, with the fleet from San Francisco, in
1908, and has since been in all foreign waters; he holds rank of chief petty
officer in the engineer's branch and is now at San Francisco engaged in
destroyer trial service. As a matter of record it may be mentioned that the
678 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Winchell name has been prominent in every war of the United States from
the French and Indian to the great World War.
Mr. Winchell belongs to the California Peach Growers, Inc., and the
California Associated Raisin Company. He is an Independent Democrat in
national politics, and was one of the early members of California Parlor
No. 1, of San Francisco, Native Sons of the Golden West
LEDYARD F. WINCHELL.— Born in one of the now historic build-
ings at Fort Miller, Fresno County, November 30, 1859, the second son of
Judge E. C. Winchell and his wife, Ledyard Frink Winchell lived during
his youthful days in that romantic region, and until the family moved to the
new county seat in 1874. He received his early education from his parents,
later he attended the schools of San Francisco, finally graduating from a
commercial college in San Jose. From 1877 to 1880 he was a clerk in his
father's law office in Fresno, and later was a deputy in the county recorder's
office.
On December 7, 1878, he was made secretary of the first hook and ladder
company of Fresno, whose equipment was stored in the old Metropolitan
Hall building on Eye Street, and was burned in the big fire of July, 1882,
which destroyed the whole block. This outfit was replaced by a hand engine
and hosecart (venerable relics of 1850, procured in San Francisco), which as
assistant foreman, he operated with his company until 1885, when the first
steam fire engine was brought into use, with Mr. Winchell as assistant chief
of the department. He continued an active member of the volunteer depart-
ment up to the time of his leaving Fresno, in 1900. In recognition of his con-
spicuous services he was, in 1889, elected, in San Francisco, "honorary mem-
ber of The Veteran Volunteer Fireman's Association of California."
After a second term in the tax collector's and recorder's offices, he was,
in 1884, elected constable of the third township (included Fresno) and he
afterwards served as a deputy sherifif during 1886-87 and 1892-93. One time
Sheriiif O. J. Meade and Mr. Winchell left Fresno after dark, in a buggy, and
after driving hard all night, camped at daylight in the mouth of Silver Can-
yon and remained in seclusion till darkness came again, then proceeded on
their way to the New Idria quicksilver mines. At the proper moment they
gained entrance, quickly and unexpectedly, through a small door, into a
cabin in which there were several Alexicans, drinking and gambling. Cover-
ing the astonished inmates with their six-shooters and ordering "hands up,"
they allowed all to leave except the man they were after. W'hile one kept
him covered, the other disarmed him of his "gun," which was a powder-and-
ball Colt's 45 dragoon, loaded to the ends of the cylinder. While his hands
were still extended above his head they handcuflfed him and took him out-
side— all the while he was cursing and raving fiendishly. This was the no-
torious bandit and murderer, Juan Galindo, wanted for years in several of
the coast counties for desperate crimes, and who, it was well known, had
many times said no officer could take him alive. They tied him in a buck-
board and brought him to Fresno, where he was tried, found guilty and sen-
tenced to prison for life. This was but one of his experiences in man-hunting
while an officer : but space will not allow their narration, though the experi-
ences were thrilling.
In June, 1885, Mr. Winchell aided in the organization of, and enlisted as
a private in Company C. Sixth Regiment of Infantry, N. G. C. ; became Cor-
poral in 1887; Second Lieutenant in 1889; elected Captain, December 16,
1891. In December. 1893, by Governor Markham, he was appointed Brigade
Inspector, with rank of Major, on the staff of Brig.-Gen. M. W. Muller.
During the railroad strike in 1894. he was detailed Commissary and Quarter-
master of the military camp at Bakersfield, whence the first strike-bound
trains in the state were moved, opening the traffic on the Southern Pacific
through to Los Angeles. His services were commended in the military
reports.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 679
On June 17, 1885, Mr. Winchell was married to Miss Marie Louise
Packard, at her home in Fresno. Four children were born to them: Adele C,
born April 10, 1886, now the wife of Laurence B. Morton, living in San Fran-
cisco ; Marie Louise, May 9, 1888. now Mrs. Ralph Stout, who lives near
Raymond: Laurel E., December 11, 1891, who married George Wenzel and
lives in San Francisco : and Ledyard F.. Jr., February 4, 1890, in Fresno. The
latter moved to San Francisco with' his parents and while still in school, aged
fourteen, enlisted in the Starr King Cadet Corps, which organization was
active durin^g the panic following the fire in 1906. They were busily engaged
in patrolling, food distribution and giving aid to the refugees. In May, 1906,
he enlisted in Company H, Fifth Regiment Infantry, N. G. C, known as
the Nationals, and the oldest in the state; in 1915 he was elected Second
Lieutenant. In the spring of 1917 he entered the army in the Marines, was
sent to Ouantico, Va., then to France, where as a member of Seventy-ninth
Company, Sixth Regiment, Machine Gun Battalion, he saw heavy fighting
in the bitter contests of that body of Americans. After the armistice he went
with Pershing's army to Coblenz, where he served till his discharge. He
married, in San Francisco, July 10, 1919, Miss Edith Tuck, and they make
their home in that city.
In 1900, Ledyard F. Winchell moved with his familv to San Francisco
and engaged in the real estate business and mining enterprises. All his
records and papers were destroyed at the time of the fire in 1906. He con-
tinued in business, however, until September, 1918, when he was suddenly
stricken by a paralytic stroke from which he never recovered. He died on
September 23rd. His ashes are interred with those of his parents in Moun-
tain View Cemetery, Oakland, Cal. Led, as he was familiarly known, was
a man of great activity of mind and body, was a "mixer," widely known and
universally liked by his friends for his genial disposition and upright
character.
ANNA CORA WINCHELL.— The youngest child of Judge E. C.
Winchell and his wife, Laura C. Winchell. she was born June 24, 1870, while
her mother was visiting with her sister, Mrs. Ledyard Frink, in Solano
County, Cal.. near the town of Rio Arista, on the Sacramento River. Coming
back to the old home near Fort !\Iiller, with her mother, she remained there
till her parents moved to Fresno in 1874. She attended school in Fresno, and
later was sent to Oakland, Cal., to finish her education. In 1889 she was
graduated from Field Seminary, California's oldest private school for girls,
and returned to Fresno to live.
Displaying, at a ^ery tender age, a passion for music, she early, at the
age of four years, began acquiring the rudiments of harmony. As time passed
she was given special instruction on the piano, for several years, by the fore-
most teachers of Oakland and San Francisco, also completing a course in
pipe organ.
She was recommended for Eastern Conservatories, although not availing
herself of the opportunity. She became a most delightful and finished pianist ;
and is now a thoroughly recognized and competent critic of the several
branches of music.
With a pronounced literary taste, as well, and a natural talent for writ-
ing, she early engaged in newspaper work. In 1902 she became music and
drama critic for the San Francisco Dramatic Review, and at the same time
held the position of pipe-organist at Howard Methodist Church. In 1904 she
joined the staff of the San Francisco Call, then a morning daily, as associate
society editor.
During the 1906 earthquake and fire disaster she escaped from the falling
walls of her hotel, the Argyle, with nothing but her nightrobe and a bed
quilt wrapped around her, barely escaping the heavy brick cornice of the
roof, as it fell in crashing masses behind her. ^^'aiting in this plight, with a
680 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
group of other women at the corner of Larkin Street and Golden Gate Ave-
nue, she watched the dome of the city hall come tumbling down. After many
exciting experiences she finally reached her family.
Shortly after the fire, she accepted a position on the San Francisco
Chronicle, and was assigned to the Army and Navy, and the Relief and Red
Cross Funds Corporation, in addition to handling special Sunday features.
She is the art and music editor of the Chronicle at this time, besides con-
tributing to other departments.
FRANCIS SHERIDAN BLAIR.— Varied as the numerous chapters in
the marvelous history of California's development, are the different stories of
the sturdy pioneers who, by their lives of hard work, sacrifice and accomplish-
ment, made that history possible. A certain similarity, to be sure, runs like
a thread, and often a thread of pure gold, through most of them but each
dififers in characteristic details, as the settlers themselves differed in personal-
ity, and what one pioneer lacked in initiative, experience or foresight, the
other frequently supplied. Thus, working in generous rivalry, each contrib-
uted his share toward the founding of the present great commonwealth ;
and ofttimes the humbler a man was in his calling, the more valuable was the
contribution he made in the direction of genuine progress.
Francis Sheridan Blair belongs to a family and a group of pioneers who
may well be proud of their association with the Golden State. His father
was Thomas Franklin Blair, a native of Missouri who farmed awhile in that
State and first came to California in 1852. For a couple of years, he went
into a mine where he was fairly successful ; and settling for a time in Sacra-
mento County, he busied himself with fruit-farming and a truck garden. He
had crossed the great continent bv means of ox team, and it was a small
matter, therefore, in 1866, to move into Contra Costa County, where he took
up general farming.
In 1875, however, convinced that Fresno County offered, after all, the
best of inducements, he came here and went into grain-farming near Center-
ville. After a year, he moved to New Auberry Valley, continued his farm-
ing, but added stock-raising to his ventures. He was a thorough, progressive
man, and results of a satisfactory kind usually rewarded his conscientious
efforts. In 1889, he moved out on the plain, six miles north of Clovis ; and
there he died, in 1913. He was survived by his wife, who had been Lucy E.
LeMoin before her marriage. She was a native of Ohio, came west at an
early age, met Mr. Blair in Sacramento County, and there was married. She
rejoiced as the mother of seven affectionate children, in the devotion of her
husband, and the esteem of all who knew her.
Francis was born, the fourth child in the family, on Grand Island, Sacra-
mento County, on October 18, 1864, and spent part of his youth in Contra
Costa County and New Auberry Valley. When he was eighteen, however,
he started to farm for himself, taking a ranch north of Clovis. He settled
still nearer Clovis in 1889, and for sixteen years farmed grain-land, changing
only when, in 1905, he sold his property and moved to Madera County.
There he farmed for three years.
Returning to Fresno, he resumed farming, but disposing again of his
agricultural interests, he came to Friant and bought out the general merchan-
dise business of Collins Bros. He increased the extent and variety of the
stock, improved the furnishing and arrangement of the store, and took pride
in not only conducting the one general merchandise establishment in this
section, but in making it quite equal to any in the state located amid such a
limited population.
While at Auberry Valley in 1897, Mr. Blair was happily married to Susan
B. Ruth, a native of Linden, Stanislaus County, and they have had three
children: Francis, Geneva, and Truman. The Blair home is a center of
California hospitality, and few persons, if any, are more highly esteemed
than this representative merchant and the companion of his joys and sorrows.
cJlamd (Ij^/jzon^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 685
JAMES JOHN REYBURN.— A sturdy pioneer of the early seventies,
and one who had an active part in the making of California in his period,
James J- Reyburn will be long remembered and honored for what he so un-
ostentatiously accomplished. He was the father of C. J. Reyburn, the vineyard
rancher, whose sketch is given elsewhere, and whose success indicates that
he is a "chip ofif the old block."
James J. Reyburn was born in Miami County, Ohio, on August 14. 1836,
the son of John Stewart Reyburn. a native of Kentucky. His father had been
a soldier in the A\'ar of 1812 and no one ever questioned the patriotism of a
Revburn. Arriving at manhood. J. S. Reyburn removed to Ohio; and there,
in Miami County, he worked as a cabinetmaker until 1839. Then he moved
on to Burlington. Iowa, and bought a farm near that city, on which he was
living when he died, on May 31. 1840. His wife had been Nancy Davidson
before her marriage, and she was born in old Virginia ; she died on September
30, 1860. in Iowa. Four children were born of this union, two of whom have
become known as Pacific pioneers. Joseph trailed across the plains to Oregon
as early as 1862. and later came south to California and Stanislaus County.
Then he lived in Fresno County, and still later in the Jefferson district.
The third child. James J. Reyburn. a mere boy when his father died, ob-
tained only a limited education and had to make his own way when most
lads are having an eas}- time. He first hired out as a farm laborer five miles
west of Burlington, and later he entered a flour mill, succeeding there so well
that he bought an interest in the Franklin Mill at F)es Moines. A\'hen he
sold out. in 1866. he moved t( i Missouri : and in Scotland Cmmty he engaged
in general farming and stock-raising. Missouri was all right, but bv 1873
]\lr. Reyburn had discovered a country with still greater attractions; and
disposing of all his interests in the East, he made haste to come to California.
He first settled in Stanislaus County and started in raising Avheat near
Salida ; but still having an eye on the highest and best goal, in 1875 he moved
to the Big Dry Creek district in Fresno County. Here he preempted and
homesteaded a tract of land, later purchasing more in the same body, until
he owned 640 acres at Red Bank on the creek, fourteen miles northeast of
Fresno. Here he lived until the spring of 1890. raising wheat and operating
so extensively that at times he had also many acres of rented land under
cultivation.
At the beginning of that decade he bought eighty acres of land ten miles
northeast of Fresno, which he set out as an orchard and vinewird. The soil
was good, and when all was in liearing. he sold fort>" acres. While here, Mr.
Reyburn also raised fancy chickens, and at exhi1)itions of poidtrv, carried
off many leading prizes. In 1903 he disposed of his ranch on Big Dry Creek
and located in Fresno, where he lived in comfortable retirement a couple of
years and then on his ranch, giving only general supervision to business in-
terests. He and his wife were both active members of the First Presliyterian
Church in Clovis.
AA'hile at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in 1859, ?ilr. Re^'burn had married Mary
McDonald, and their home came to be merry with the \oices of fivc children:
John S. died at twelve years: Chester H. is a minister in the Presliyterian
Church, now located at Mountain View: W'illiam D.. witli Title Insurance
and Trust Company. Los Angeles ; Clarence J., a viticulturist near Clovis :
and Nancy, who married M. M. Sharer. On October 27. 1909. ]\Ir. and Mrs.
J. J. Reyburn celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary at their home,
when thev welcomed their children, grandchildren and their other relatives
and old-time friends. Two of those present attended their wedding at INIount
Pleasant, Iowa, in 1859. namely, Joseph Reyburn and Minnie P. McDonald.
After a life of unusual activity, in which he had done his civic duty as
a Republican in national affairs and as a school trustee knowing no party
lines, Mr. Reyburn died on March 25. 1914. Mrs. Re3dDurn resides with her
son. Clarence.
686 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
JOHN W. SHORT.— To old settlers of forty years ago John W. Short
is best known as editor of the Fresno Republican, the duties of which posi-
tion were confided to him at the age of twenty-four, within a year after
coming to Fresno in 1881. The first year in Fresno he worked as a printer on
the paper, of which he was later the editor for more than a decade, and one
of the owners and publishers for many more years. The period of Mr. Short's
editorship was a time of rapid growth in Fresno, and the change from pioneer
conditions filled the columns of the paper with the record of tragic friction
between discordant elements, now but a matter of memories to be happily
forgotten. Under Mr. Short's direction the paper persisted stanchly and
successfully for the forces of law, order and moral advancement, and its in-
fluence laid a foundation upon which has since been built a structure of
community cooperation and public service that has few if any counterparts in
American communities.
To those of more recent arrival Mr. Short is better known as Fresno's
Postmaster, in which place he served for fifteen years, and as a director and
ofiicer of the Chamber of Commerce, and a worker and builder in Fresno's
development. In politics Mr. Short has always been a Republican, and his
first appointment as Postmaster was by President McKinley. his second by
President Roosevelt, and his final appointment by President Taft.
John W. Short was born in Shelby County, Mo., October 8, 1858. He is
a brother of Hon. Frank H. Short, in whose sketch the family history will
be found. In 1869 he preceded the family to Hastings, Nebr., which was then
beyond the confines of civilization. As a boy he endured all the hardships
incident to life upon the frontier. However, he was not entirely deprived of
advantages, for he went to school a few years and laid the foundation of the
broad education subsequently gained through reading and observation. His
education in the printing business began at the age of fourteen, when he
entered the office of the Sarpy County Sentinel. A year later he went with
the Papillion Times, where he worked his way up from the lowly position
of "devil." Returning to Hastings, he was employed on the Hastings Journal,
first as typesetter and later as a reporter and assistant editor.
Leaving Nebraska and joining his uncle, the Hon. J. F. Wharton, in
Fresno, in 1881, Mr. Short secured employment as a compositor on the
Fresno Republican. A year later he became the editor of the paper, in which
capacity he continued for years, meanwhile becoming a half owner in the
plant, his partner being J. W. Shanklin. Together they established the
Daily Republican, the first morning paper published in the city. After twelve
years the paper was sold and then Mr. Short traveled through California in
search of an attractive location, but, failing to find a place that suited him
as well as Fresno, he returned to this city. Soon afterwards he assisted in
organizing the Republican Publishing Company, of which he was vice-
president and a director, and which he promoted through his successful
editorial work on the paper. He identified himself with the California
Press Association and gained many friends among the leading journalists
of the state. With his brother, Frank H., he erected the Short Building on J
Street, and other buildings in the city. He served as a member of the Fresno
Board of Education, in which position he contributed effectively to the wel-
fare of the city schools and elevation of the standard of scholarship. Another
position in which he has rendered service is that of a member of the board
of library trustees. As a director of the Chamber of Commerce for many
years his work was notably practical and efifective.
The marriage of Mr. Short united him with Miss Jessie Francis of Calis-
toga,. Napa County. Mrs. Short was born at Silver Mountain, Sierra County,
whither her father, James Francis, had come from Wisconsin during the
memorable year of 1849. Of this marriage there are two sons who have
grown to manhood: James V., who graduated from the agricultural de-
partment of the State" University, who is now married and is the principal
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 687
owner in the Modesto Milk Company ; and John Douglas, also a graduate of
the University, and Hastings Law School, also married, and engaged in the
practice of law in San Francisco.
During his long residence in Fresno there has been no movement for
community upbuilding which has not had Mr. Short's hearty cooperation,
and from the pioneer days to the present time there are few if any more famil-
iar with the history of the city and county.
J. E. CARTWRIGHT.— The name of Cartwright suggests characters
of history: "circuit riders" of the early days filling many appointments;
men shaping the trend of civilization not only in this country, but in the
old world. It is an honorable name and has always stood for progress both
of the individual and of the nation.
Born in Coles County, 111., October 16, 1855, J. E. Cartwright is a son
of John Cartwright, also born in Coles County, where he had a small farm and
operated a wagon and blacksmith shop. He was a soldier in the Civil War,
and J. E. Cartwright remembers the time his father bade the family good-bye
when he went to the front. The mother was Martha Ashby, also a native
of Coles County. Six children were born in the family, of whom four are
living.
J. E. Cartwright was raised on the farm in Illinois, and at the same
time worked in the blacksmith shop with his father. At an early age he
went with the family to Cumberland County, 111., where they lived for
five years before coming to California. In March, 1869, the Cartwright fami-
lies and their outfits left Coles County. 111., for California. There was a train
of thirty-two wagons when they left Platte City to cross the plains, and on
August 17, 1869, they landed at Dayton, Butte County, Cal., where they
remained for one year. Then they moved to the Sacramento River and set-
tled in Butte City, and here the father put up the first blacksmith shop. He
took up 160 acres of government land near Princeton, on the east side of
the Sacramento River, and later went to Willows, where he rented 900 acres.
He built the two first dwelling houses at Willows, and put up the "Star"
public hall.
Mr. Cartwright continued in the Sacramento Valley from 1869 to 1885,
engaged in farming, having from 1,200 to 1,500 acres in wheat every year.
In 1885 the Cartwright families moved to Malaga, Fresno County, where
they purchased land from the Briggs estate. Here the father died, and the
farm he owned was purchased by J. E. Cartwright and now is his home.
In 1883 J. E. Cartwright was married' to Miss Elizabeth R. Bressler, a
native of Iowa, but who grew up at Woodbridge, Cal., and at Medford, Ore.
On a visit to Willows they met, and the marriage took place at Colusa, the
county seat. They are the parents of four children, all boys : William
Walter is employed in the shipyards at Wilmington, Cal.; he married Gladys.
Scott, and they have one child. John Stanley was in the St. Helen's ship-
yards but is now back at Malaga in his shop, he married Ruth Rice, and
the'y have one child. Eddie is at home on the farm ; he married Helen Johan-
sen. Joseph Leslie was in the radio service. United States Navy, but is now
at home. These sons have graduated from the Easton High School with
high standings in scholarship. They were leaders in athletics. Baseball
especially appealed to them, and they are semi-professionals in the game.
For eight years, from 1899 to 1907, Mr. Cartwright served as first deputy
in the county clerk's office, and during that time lived in Fresno, but in the
latter year he moved back with his family to the home farm, which is
operated by Mr. Cartwright and his son Eddie. They also rent and farm
other lands and also operate a small dairy in connection with their other
interests. Mr. Cartwright is a man who does not say much, but he is a clear
thinker on all subjects and what he does say is always to the point. He is
a man of high ideals, noble impulses and advanced thought.
688 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
SAMUEL L. HOGUE. — Perhaps there is no resident of Fresno County
who has the best interests of the community more at heart, or who has a
much wider acquaintance throughout the San Joaquin Valley than Samuel
L. Hog-ue. He was born near Monmouth, 111., July 21, 1857, a son of Thomas
G. and INIary J. (Reed) Hogue, natives of Virginia and Kentucky respec-
tively and who were early settlers in Warren County, 111., where they were
farmers. Thomas G. came across the plains to California in 1863, settled in
Nevada County where he was engaged in lumbering and mining, which he
continued after he came to Fresno County, also taking an active part in
Republican politics. He finally located at Fresno where he died, in 1893.
S. L. Hogue attended the public schools in his native county and at the
age of fifteen joined his father in California, in 1872. His mother died when
he was about seven years old, after which he lived with an uncle. After his
arrival here he worked with his father a short time, then began making shakes
and had a record of splitting 10,000 shakes in ten hours, at Pine Ridge. He
had a desire to complete his education and therefore attended the San Jose
Normal, taking a teacher's course, qualified, and was given a certificate to
teach, and for five years was one of the popular educators of Fresno County,
the last term acting as principal of the Selma school. Mr. Hogue saw oppor-
tunities offered a wide-awake hustler in the real estate business and engaged
in that line of work in Fresno and Selma and met with well-deserved success
during the time he was thus engaged. He also broadened his acquaintance
with the people and got a good knowledge of conditions as they existed at
that time in the county. He was elected justice of the peace and served four
vears in the office in Selma and two years in Fresno, after which he was ap-
pointed chief deputy under County Auditor Barnum and for the following
fourteen years gave his attention to the increasing duties of that office. In
the meantime he had bought some land at North Fork, Madera County, and
began to develop an apple orchard on his forty-six acres. The elevation is
4,200 feet, and the soil is especially adapted for growing apples of fine qual-
ity. From time to time he has been interested in raising hogs as well. After
serving for fourteen years in the auditor's office Mr. Hogue resigned to give
his whole attention to his orchard, which he did for eighteen months, then
returned to resume his old position in the county office, where he now is em-
ployed. He has always been prominent in the ranks of the Republican party
and has served as a delegate to nearly all the county and state conventions
of his party, since he has been of age. He was appointed and served from
1900 to 1904 as internal revenue collector for a district embracing eight coun-
ties in the valley. He was a member of the State League of Republican Clubs ;
served as a member of the Fresno Board of Education and did much to pro-
mote the cause of education while in that position. He belongs to Fresno
Lodge No. 247, F. & A. M., of which he has been secretary : to Fresno Lodge
No. 439, B. P. O. Elks ; and to the Independent Order of Foresters.
On December 3, 1881, at Ventura, Cal., S. L. Hogue was united in
marriage with Miss Effie H. Brown, a native of Yolo County and a daughter
of an old pioneer, J. W. Brown, who crossed the plains at an early day in the
history of the state. Of this union two sons and two daughters have been
born. Lassen E., an employe in the county assessor's office in Fresno ;
James T., a volunteer in the late war who was graduated from the officers'
training school at Camp Pike and received his first lieutenant's commis-
sion, and is now in the U. S. Reserves. He is married and has one daughter,
Rosalie Jean. Mrs. Hazel E. Powell, a daughter, resides at Long Beach, Cal..
where her husband is in the banking business. She has a son, Guy Raymond,
and a daughter, Eleanor. Lucille became the wife of C. C. Williams, a dentist
in Fresno, and is the mother of two children, Helen ]May and Charles C, Jr.
All the children have graduated from the Fresno High School. The family
are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Hogue is recognized as a high-
^4U<:jJ^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 691
minded and useful citizen and has been a loyal supporter of all movements
for the upbuilding of Fresno County and the advancement of the interests of
the citizens.
MILUS KING HARRIS. — Prominent among the distinguished mem-
bers of California's bar must be mentioned Milus King Harris, a native of
the State of Tennessee who, taking up his residence in the Golden West,
has risen to the position of a Judge of the Superior Court, with forty years
or more of background experience as an attorney and a reputation for unim-
peachable integrity. He was born in Sumner County on March 31, 1853, the
son of Isaac W. Harris of Tennessee, a farmer who married Miss Martha K.
Hassell, also of that state ; and through them he descended from sturdy
ancestors who hailed from Kentucky and Virginia. The lad's boyhood,
therefore, was spent in the pleasurable and profitable environment of
country life.
Having graduated from the University of Kentucky at Lexington in
June, 1873, young Harris engaged from 1873 to 1877 in teaching at St. Elmo,
Ky. Then he matriculated at Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, from the
law department of which he was graduated in 1878, receiving his parchment
in June. In August of the same year he came West to California and hung
out his shingle as an attorney at Fresno. At that time the city had a popu-
lation of less than a thousand ; and while not one of the first pioneers of
the county, he was early enough to know all those who had already cast in
their lots here as foundation-builders.
On December 3, 1884, Mr. Harris was married to Miss Julia Tyree,
daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Tyree and also a native of Sumner
County, and a niece of William B. Bate, who was a major-general in the
Confederate Army, was Governor of Tennessee from 1883 to 1886, and for
the terms beginning 1887, 1893, 1899 and 1905 was United States Senator-
dying in office in 1905. In 1912 Judge Harris and his wife travelcfl abroad
extensively. Always popular in social circles, they have been lifelong mem-
bers of the Christian Church. Tudge Harris is a member of the L^nivcrsitv
Club.
On March 11, 1887, Mr. Harris, already a well-known Democrat, was
appointed by Gov. W^ashington Bartlett, shortly before the latter's death.
Judge of the Superior Court; and the following year he was nominated by
both the Democrats and the Republicans, and there being no opposition, he
was elected, receiving within one hundred of the total number of votes cast
by the electors of Fresno County for both Harrison and Cleveland. AAHiile
he was serving as Judge, many notable cases were tried before him, includ-
ing some relating to water rights, and that of the state against the notorious
train robber and bandit, Chris Evans, who terrorized this section of Califor-
nia for a year or more and killed three or four men in his various battles
with officers. In 1894 Judge Harris was renominated by the Democrats : but
this time he was opposed by the combined votes of the Republicans and the
Populists, and was defeated. In 1908, he was chosen a delegate to the Na-
tional Democratic Convention at Denver. In 1912 he was unanimously
chosen president of the State Bar Association, and served the usual term of
one year.
Since the middle nineties Judge Harris has devoted himself to private
practice, enjoving a large and highly creditable clientage, especiallv among
corporations, including the Raisin Growers' Association, the Bank of Central
California, and the Consolidated Canal Companv. He was president of tlie
Board of Freeholders that framed the charter for the City of Fresno in 1899,
and he was also president for many years of the Traffic Association of Fresno.
In fraternal matters, he is a Mason.
692 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
MRS. FRANCES T. BARKER.— A native daughter of the Golden State
who has wielded an influence in the educational affairs of Fresno County, both
in the capacity of an instructor and as assistant county superintendent of
schools, is Mrs. Frances T. Barker, of Fresno. She was born in Eldorado
County and is a daughter of Heth P. Kinch, one of the early pioneers of this
state who came around the Horn, from New York State, when the gold ex-
citement was at its height. That was the time when the lucky gold seekers
would wander into the different camps with their tales of discovery of ledges,
nuggets and wonderful strikes or near-strikes of pay dirt. Mr. Kinch was
closely identified with the life of Eldorado County and it was in that county
that his wife passed to her reward, when her daughter Frances was a girl of
seven.
As a girl Miss Kinch attended the public schools of her native state and
after her mother's death she became a resident of Merced County, and it was
there that her first school was taught. In 1884 she came to Fresno County
and four vears later she began teaching in the elementary schools of this city.
Her ability won for her the appointment, in January, 1907, of deputy county
superintendent of schools under the very efficient superintendent, E. W. Lind-
say, with whom she remained until January, 1919, when Mr. Lindsay's term
expired and he did not again seek the position. During the intervening years
Mrs. Barker was his chief deputy and gave her entire time to the discharge
of the duties of the position. When she retired it was with the satisfaction
of a work well done and with the good will of a host of close friends.
Mrs. Barker is the mother of a daughter, Mrs. Elsa Signer, now of San
Francisco.
INGVART TEILMAN. — A man of forceful character and fine profes-
sional attainments, Ingvart Teilman, chief engineer of the Fresno Canal and
Land Company, is another of Denmark's sons who have sought a home and
made a name for themselves in the state of California.
He was born at Ribe, Denmark, February 15, 1860, and is the son of
Hans Nielsen Teilman and Dorthea Katrine Teilman. His parents were
farmers and owned a small farm in the old country. Ingvart Teilman grew
up in his native country and was educated in the common schools. After
coming to America he supplemented his education by a course at Van Der-
Nailen's engineering school at San Francisco, and graduated July, 1883, as
a civil engineer. He was engaged in surveying and engineering for a number
of years, and in 1887 became city engineer of the city of Fresno. Shortly
afterward he became associated with J. C. Shepard, a civil engineer graduate
of Ann Arbor, Mich. They constructed the first sewer system for Fresno
City, and became engineers for the leading land and water corporations, em-
ploying a number of engineers to lay out additions and colonies during the
boom days of 1888 to 1890. During the stringency of the money market of
1892 to 1895, the partnership was dissolved, Mr. Shepard going to South
America. In 1896 Mr. Teilman became engineer for the Fresno Canal and
Irrigation Company, and engineer also for Mr. L. A. Nares, the English
representative of the owners of the canal systems and the large grant, com-
prising 60,000 acres of land, known as the Laguna De Tache. From the
date that Mr. Nares got control of the canals and the grant, the development
of the country began. The canals were put in shape to serve the public with
an abundance of water and the grant reclaimed and the land sold to settlers
on easy terms at low prices.
It was under Mr. Teilman's directions that the Laguna De Tache was
surveyed and irrigated, and also the holdings of the Summit Lake Land
Company, the Laguna Lands, and the San Joaquin Valley Farm Lands Com-
pan}' ("formerly the Jefferson James ranch) comprising 73,000 acres.
The most important engineering project planned by ]\Ir. Teilman is the
Pine Flat project, which contemplates the building of a dam across the
Kings River, forming a reservoir out of Pine Flat impounding 600,000 acre
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 693
feet of water, which will produce 40,000 horse power from the fall of water
going over the dam. This water project will put under irrigation and pro-
vide drainage for over 1,000,000 acres of land tributary to Kings River in
the central San Joaquin Valley.
Mr. Teilman is a director of the Fresno Canal and Land Company and the
Consolidated Canal Company, and also manager and chief engineer of the
two companies.
He was married at Fresno, September 27, 1887, to j\Iiss Annie Katrine
Holm, and they are the parents of four children, namely: Ingyart Holm
Teilman, who married Elmina Gardner, February 24, 1917; Maren ; Dora;
and Henry Nelsen Teilman.
Since 1.882 Mr. Teilman has been a member of Fresno Lodge No. 186,
L O. O. F., of which he is a Past Noble Grand. In his church associations
he is a member of the Danish Lutheran Church. Politically he affiliates with
the Republican party, and he is a member of the Commercial Club of Fresno.
IVIr. Teilman is a man of broad caliber, possessed of a quiet dignity, kind
and courteous to all, generous and public spirited, moving in the best finan-
cial, professional and social circles of Fresno. It is as an irrigation engineer
that he is most widely known, having made a place for himself among the
foremost engineers of the Pacific Coast. He resides with his family in
their beautiful residence on Kearney Boulevard, Fresno.
WILLIAM CARUTHERS.^Californians will never cease to honor the
pioneers, through whose self-denial and real hardships the foundations of
the great commonwealth were laid ; and among the builders of the Golden
State, the name of William Caruthers, popularly known as Billy Caruthers,
will not soon be forgotten. He was born in Vermont about 1840, and in that
sterling old Yankee corner was reared on a farm. He came to California a
young man and engaged in the sheep business in Fresno County, taking his
sheep into the mountains in the summer time and bringing them back to
the valleys in the winter. He became the owner of the southeast quarter.
Section 7, Township 16, Range 20 (which is now the home-place of John G.
C. Sinclair), and three whole sections in the neighborhood of Caruthers,
including Section 18, where the present town of Caruthers is located. He gave
the Southern Pacific Railway Company a half section of land for a town
site, with the understanding that as the lots were sold, half of the proceeds
should go to him. Mr. Caruthers also owned 1,200 acres on the Kings River,
southwest of the bridge, known as the Kingsburg Picnic Grounds. He owned
in all seven sections of land, all excellent soil, and some of it is now the
most valuable in the county. He bought the land at Caruthers from the
State, and as it was regarded as desert land, he paid only $1.25 an acre, a
price astonishingly small compared with its present valuation.
Mr. Caruthers married Miss Ellen .Wikson, the eldest daughter of old
"Tobacco" Wilson, the pioneer cattleman of this section. He raised sheep
until about 1888, and then he changed to grain-farming and the raising of
cattle. The Southern Pacific Railway had graded a line from Collis, which
is now Kerman, in 1886, and the iron was laid in 1891 ; so that when the rail-
way began operations Mr. Caruthers had his three sections here in wheat,
and had been raising wheat here for three or four years. This looked good
to those who came to see the town site, and it attracted prospective settlers.
Billy Caruthers was a man of positive convictions and a strong Repub-
lican, whose influence was felt in the councils of the party at that time. He
continued to prosper and was highly respected. An imfortunate litigation,
however, occurred about 1888. when a slander case in which he was the
defendant was tried, and ended disastrously to him. Owing to his loss of
this suit, together with the court costs and costs of litigation, he was prac-
tically ruined, and he was forced to place a mortgage upon all his lands in
favor of the San Francisco Savings Union (Bank), to the amount of twelve
dollars per acre, the hard and panicky times of the early nineties forcing him
694 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
eventnallv to sign it over to the bank. After that he rented lands from the
old left fames Ranch, but he never regained his prosperity and prestige.
"He later went to Hanford where he farmed his wife's land until he died,
about 1911, about seventy-one years of age. He was certainly a progressive
spirit in the improvement and advancement of Caruthers and Fresno County.
He was associated with the late Timothy Page, capitalist of San Francisco,
in the building and extension of the Fowler Switch Ditch, and encouraged
the building of the railroad and starting the town of Caruthers. He was the
person who first successfully grew Australian white wheat and introduced it
into the San Joaq-uin Valley in 1888. and exhibited some of the wheat at the
Chiciigo Exposition in 1893, when he took the gold medal.
PERRY C. and ELIZABETH PHILLIPS.— Among the highly
honored pioneers of Fresno and Tulare Counties are Perry Commodore
Phillips and his most estimable wife, Elizabeth (Hildebrand) Phillips, pros-
perous ranchers and wealthy landholders, who for nearly sixty years have
resided on their home place, known as the Woodlawn Ranch, situated one mile
south of Laton and lying south of the Kings River. Their ranch was formerly
in Fresno County but since the recent change in the boundary line the ranch
is now located in Kings County.
Great honor is due the courageous pioneers of the Golden State, and
in view of the great hardships they experienced, the perils they braved and
their untiring efforts in the development of the country's resources, their
names should be perpetuated in the history of both state and county, and
prominent on such a list will be the names of Perry Commodore and Eliza-
beth Phillips. The exact date of their arrival in Fresno Cotmty was October
23, 1860, and their first purchase of land consisted of eighty acres located
near Kingston. In those early days their muniments of title were recorded
at Millerton, which was then the county seat of Fresno County.
Perry Commodore Phillips was born April 7, 1838, near Princeton, Gib-
son County, Ind., a son of Robert and Celia (j\Ielbourne) Phillips. The father
was a native of South Carolina, who migrated to Indiana. Mr. and Airs. Rob-
ert Phillips were the parents of four sons and four daughters. Perry C. being
the sixth child. His early education was received in the public and subscrip-
tion schools of that day, and was somewhat limited for at the age of fourteen
his father died and afterwards he was obliged to work on farms. Perry was
possessed of a great desire to see more of the big world so he decided to
leave his native state and made his way to Missouri, and in 1854, accom-
.panied by his brother William, joined an ox-team train composed of Illinoians
bound for California. After safely crossing the plains and arriving in the
Golden State, Mr. Phillips located at Grizzly Hill, Nevada County, on the
Yuba River north of Nevada City, where he was engaged in mining for five
years, and where sometimes he, with his helper, took out as high as $125
worth of gold in a day. Later he was engaged in gold-mining on Beaver
Creek, Siskiyou County where he remained until 1859, when he removed
to Solano County where he was employed on farms and for a short time
attended school. Perry C. Phillips possessed those indispensable traits of
character so necessary to success — industry and economy — and by the time
he had decided to discontinue his search for gold he had laid up $3,000.
In Vaca Valley, Solano County, April 29, 1860, Perry C. Phillips was
united in marriage with Elizabeth Hildebrand. a native of Flat Rock, Shelby
County, Ind., where she was born October 22, 1840. Her father, Joseph
Hildebrand, a native of Lancaster County, Pa., and a farmer of that state,
was married in ]\Iontgomery County, Ohio, to Anna Harkarader, a native
of the Buckeye State, whose father was a miller at Miamisburg, on the Miami
River near Dayton. Mrs. Phillips' grand-parents were natives of Pennsyl-
vania but moved to Ohio and later to Shelby County, Ind., where Grand-
father Hildebrand died, when she was four years of age. Grandfather Hilde-
^cO-j^/X^^^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 699
brand was in the War of 1812, when Mrs. Phillips' father was born. During
the ?ilexican War, Joseph Hildebrand, Mrs. Phillips' father, was a drill-
master and she well remembers seeing him in uniform, drilling soldiers for
the war. When she was eight years of age her parents removed to Iowa and
in 1853 she accompanied them across the plains with ox teams to California.
At first the family settled in Sierra County where the father followed mining,
and in 1854 she moved with her parents to Nevada County, and it was at
Grizzly Hill, in this county, that she first met Mr. Phillips, who was then
a young man of about seventeen, while she was about fourteen years of age.
Their acquaintance soon developed into courtship and on April 29, 1860, their
wedding ceremony was solemnized in Vaca Valley. Solano County, where
her parents were th<?n residing.
In October of this same year the young couple journeyed to Fresno
County, seeking a place to locate and establish a home. On October 23, 1860,
after driving the team all day, Mrs. Phillips had become very tired and
said : "This is as far as I am going," and that sentence was the determining
act in fixing upon the place of their settlement, for at the time of writing
this sketch, over fifty-eight years afterwards, this happy couple are still
living in the same place. Mr. Phillips' initial purchase of land was eighty
acres from Oliver Childers, which is part of the present Woodlawn Ranch,
the Phillips' home place, and was the nucleus of his later extensive land-
holdings. At the time of their settlement here their principal trading-place was
Visalia, twenty-five miles away. By efficient management and industrious
efforts Mr. Phillips subsequently added to his initial purchase of eighty acres
until the home place contains 240 acres. As he prospered in ranching he
purchased more land until at present he owns several ranches, and in July,
1918, the P. C. Phillips Corporation Company was incorporated under the
laws of the state of California, and this company now has charge of his entire
land holdings. Besides the home place Mr. and Mrs. Phillips own the follow-
ing ranches which are controlled and operated by the P. C. Phillips Cor-
poration Company : Fairvicw Ranch, on Last Chance Ditch, one and one-
half miles up the Kings River, which contains 280 acres. Oakdale Ranch,
containing 360 acres located one-half mile down the Kings River from the
home ranch. On this ranch, in 1860, when Mr. and Mrs. Phillips first settled
in Fresno County, there were about 250 Digger Indians, but they were us-
ually quiet and peaceable. Lakeside Ranch is situated east of Guernsey, in
Kings County, and contains 400 acres. Cross Creek Ranch contains 2.900
acres and is located six miles east of Hanford, the State Highway running
through this property. Ducor Ranch contains 320 acres and is located near
Ducor, Tulare County.
The officers of the company are: P. C. Phillips, president; Robert H.
Phillips, vice-president; George H. Phillips, secretary; First National Bank,
of Hanford, Cal., treasurer. The board of directors comprise: P. C. George
H., and Robert H. Phillips. In the early days of the irrigation movement Mv.
Phillips became very prominent and was one of the men of foresight who
saw that by constructing irrigation ditches water could be conducted from
the river to irrigate a large area of improductive land and by which means
this section could be converted into one of the world's garden spots. How
well he and his associates planned is evidenced by today's history of this
whole region. Air. Phillips served as a director of the People's Ditch Com-
pany for one year.
In 1869, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips built their home and have occupied it all
of these 3'ears. Today it is as cozy as ever, with its large and cheerful fire-
place ; and their home has been a center of hospitality for visitors, and for
many social and musical functions and happy family reunions.
Mr. and Mrs. Phillips are the parents of eight children of whom they
are justly proud : Florence Ellen, who is the wife of Edward Morton, form-
700 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
erly of Bremerton, Wash., but now living in Kings County where he is an
orchardist, and who has two children — William P. and Carrie, both of whom
are married and have children; Isabelle L., who is the wife of W. D. Run-
yon, a rancher living one mile east of Lemoore, Kings County, and who is
the mother of two living children by her first husband ; Carrie Winifred,
who is the wife of L. L. Lowe, and the mother of one child, they residing on
a ranch northeast of Hanford ; Ada Bianca, who is single and makes her
home with her parents; Dora Elizabeth, who passed away at the age of
twenty years ; George Hudson, who is a graduate of the University of Cali-
fornia, class of 1900, and for several years was a leading dentist of Hanford
but is now the manager of the Cross Creek Ranch of 2,900 acres near Han-
ford, and who married Miss Annie Rey, of Kings County, and who has two
children ; Robert H., who is single and is the enterprising proprietor of the
Phillips Mercantile Company at Laton, the principal general store of this
thriving new town ; and Oscar Le Roy, who is an extensive sheep-raiser and
operates a large ranch near Laton, and who married Miss Gladys Irene
Darby of Kings County, and who has one child. In addition to their own
large family, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips have brought up in their home Miss Lil-
lian Emmett, who still resides with them.
Although advanced in years. Mr. Phillips being past eighty-one, and his
■wife in her seventy-ninth year, thev are both well and active and still take
a great interest in life. Mr. Phillips is a large and dignified man and is still
engaged in general farming, raising hogs, sheep, cattle and conducting a
dairy. He has owned and sold valuable oil lands at Coalinga ; one piece of
property consisting of eighty acres brought the handsome sum of $40,000.
At one time he also owned the tract consisting of 1,780 acres, 960 of which
now constitutes the celebrated Lucerne Vineyard, the largest raisin-grape
vineyard in the world and at present owned by W^die Giffen, president of
the California Associated Raisin Company.
'Mrs. Phillips has a most remarkable memory concerning interesting
events of pioneer days in Fresno and Kings Counties. She well remembers
the Mussel Slough Fight, which occurred May 11, 1881, when five men were
killed and two wounded over a land controversy between the settlers of that
section and the railway company. She also remembers the early owners of
the Laguna de Tache Grant, Messrs. Foley, Clayburg, and S. C. Lillis, also
a Mr. Heilbron, who owned but one share. This original grant from the'
Spanish government comprised 67.000 acres of land in Fresno and Kings
Counties and was purchased in 1900 by Nares and Saunders. W. E. G.
Saunders was a resident of Emmetsburg, Iowa, and has been a most wel-
come visitor at the Phillips" home. This great tract has been opened to
settlers and sold in small ranches, the enterprise having been very successful
and having developed this section of the state to the great advantage of
landowners, Mrs. Phillips has the distinction of having been one of the first
passengers on the first regular passenger train on the Southern Pacific Rail-
way in Fresno County, when she rode from Fresno to Goshen Junction, in
September, 1872.
The interesting record of this honored pioneer couple's useful and suc-
cessful career, perpetuated in the annals of Fresno County, should prove a
source of inspiration to the younger generations and of gratification and
pride to their descendants.
CAPTAIN EZRA M. RUSSELL. — An honored place among the pioneers
of Fresno County is due Ezra M. Russeli, who has been privileged to live
through years marked by great growth, wonderful changes and marvelous
development along all lines of industry in Fresno County. He is a native
of the Empire State, having been born in Oswego County, N. Y., on January
16, 1841, a son of Jonathan W. and Elizabeth (Secner) Russell. Ezra's
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 701
grandfather was an English sea captain who settled in New York State,
and his maternal ancestors, the Secner family, were of Dntch origin.
Jonathan W. Russell, the father of the subject of this sketch, was a
brick mason by trade and. in 1847, when Ezra was but a small boy, he re-
moved from New York to Illinois where he resided until 1853, when he
moved to Iowa. There he engaged in farming and also worked at his trade.
In 1866, he sold out and started to cross the plains, but owing to the activi-
ties of the Indians he was compelled to abandon his venture and, having
reached Denver, remained there for a short time, but subsequently re-
turned to Iowa. He remained in Iowa until 1872, when he migrated to Cali-
fornia, locating near what is now Kingsburg, where he purchased land and
followed farming and fruit-raising until his death. His wife also passed
away in California. Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan W. Russell were the parents of
ten children, Ezra IVI. being the fifth child.
Ezra M. Russell was reared in Iowa, near Fredericksburg, Chickasaw
County, and received his early education in the district school. From early
manhood he has made his own way in the world, his success being the re-
sult of hard work and persevering efforts. In 1862, fired by the true spirit
of patriotism, he volunteered his services in the defense of his country and
in the month of January he enlisted in Company B, Thirteenth Regiment,
United States Volunteer Infantry, being mustered in at Dubuque, Iowa, but
was sent to Jefferson Barracks, Mo., for training. His company was as-
signed to the Army of the West and he fought valiantly under General
Sherman, until he was severely wounded at the Battle of Vicksburg, where,
on May 19, 1863, he received seven different wounds, in making the charge
on the stockade, being seriously wounded in the left foot, which crippled him
for life. On account of his disability he was honorably discharged in 1864,
but in the spring of 1865. he assisted in organizing a company of which he
was elected the captain.
After returning to Iowa, Ezra M. Russell was united in marriage with
Miss Sarah Jane Jones, a native of Lake County, III., where she was born on
January 12, 1845. Her father, Jonathan Jones, was a native of the state of
New York, but who migrated westward and first settled in Illinois, after-
wards he located in Iowa and it was in this state that he passed away. After
his marriage, Mr. Russell, although badly crippled and for five years com-
pelled to use crutches, did what work he could as a brickmason, having
learned the trade in his younger days from his father.
In 1873, the year after his father had located in California, Ezra made
the trip to the Golden State and at first settled at Oakland, where he worked
at his trade. While in Oakland he became acquainted with Leland Stan-
ford, who told him about the new railroad and of the country around Kings-
burg, Later, Ezra, with his family, moved to Fresno County, arriving in 1874.
Soon after his arrival he took vtp a soldier's homestead claim of 160
acres of land near Kingsburg and has lived on this place ever since, making
over forty years' continuous residence in Fresno County. He still retains
sixty acres of the original ranch and also owns an eighty-acre ranch about
a quarter of a mile south of his home. Many acres of his ranches are de-
voted to vines and fruit. His home is located two one-half miles west of
Kingsburg, near the Franklin School. At the time he located here the rail-
road was finished only as far as Kingsburg, which had only two stores, and
the Kings River was crossed on a temporary bridge ; and Selma consisted of
a section house where the Chinese laborers for the railway company lived.
]Mr. Russell says that, in taking a trip across the country to Fresno, you
would not see a single home, but here and there you would see a sheep
corral.
Mr. and Mrs. Ezra M. Russell are the parents of eight children, seven
of whom are living. One son, Adrian, when a boy of twelve years, was ac-
cidently killed by a saddle-horse. T,|je seven children still living are : Alice,
702 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
who is now Mrs. Enos Sylvia, residing in Selma, is the mother of three
children : Rena, the wife of Elias Van Winkle, a rancher near Fresno, has
one child, Newton ; Nellie, who is the widow of Charles Brown, resides at
Hanford ; Benjamin at home with his father ; Cassie the widow of O. N.
Healton, who died November 14, 1918, has one child, Russell V., and now
lives with her father; Clark, married Miss Lottie Grimshaw, from Hanford,
and is operating- a ranch near Selma, and they have three children, Ezra,
Evalena, and Richard ; Chester, who is a rancher near Kingsburg. married
Addie Mayfield and they are the parents of three children, Louise, Pauline
and Clark, Jr.
On December 27, 1917, Mr. Russell was bereft of the loving com-
panionship of his estimable wife, who passed away at the age of seventy-three
years. Mr. Russell is an honored member of Atlanta Post, No. 90, G. A. R.,
at Selma. Fraternally, he belongs to the Knights of Pythias. For nine years
he was a director of the high school in his district. He is highly esteemed
in the community where he has lived for so many years and is always
willing to do his share in promoting the best interests of his section.
RICHARD NASON BARSTOW.— Over forty years ago Richard Nason
Barstow cast in his lot with other California homeseekers and for nearly
thirty-two years of that time he has lived in Fresno County, and has been
interested in its development. A native of New Hampshire, he was born at
Haverhill, February 3, 1853, a son of the late Hon. James Townsend and
Sarah J. (Brown) Barstow, both life-long residents of Haverhill, and farm-
ers by occupation. The elder Barstow was active in the management of
public affairs, for many years serving as town clerk, and for two terms repre-
sented his district in the state legislature. He died at the age of seventy-
six years. Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Barstow, four reached
maturity, and two are still living. Many members of the Barstow family
have acquired distinction in professional, business, political and military
circles. William Barstow, great-grandfather of Richard Nason, was a pioneer
of Haverhill, and served in the War of the Revolution. William Barstow,
Jr., grandfather of R. N., was born, lived and died there ; he served for many
years as postmaster and was the leading merchant of Haverhill. He served
in the War of 1812. One of his sons, George Barstow, was a prominent at-
torney in San Francisco during the fifties, and was a member of the Cali-
fornia state legislature, where he served as speaker of the house for one term.
The eldest child of his parents, Richard Nason Barstow, was reared in
his native town and acquired his education in the public schools and the
village academy, as well as the school of practical experience. At the age
of eighteen he left home to accept a position in a wholesale oil store in
Boston, remaining for five years. In 1880 he came to California as superin-
tendent of the Jones-Hill Hydraulic Mining Company, at Georgetown, Eldo-
rado County, where he had charge of two giants until the passage of the
Anti-Slickens law, and was subsequently general manager until the business
was closed up. In 1887 he came to Fresno County and bought a lot in
Central Colony where he immediately began setting out a vineyard and after
he had developed it to a high state he sold out in 1895. His next venture
along agricultural lines was the leasing of 3,000 acres of CaHfornia Bank
land in the county, and upon this property he was successful as a wheat
and barley raiser. In 1901 he purchased 320 acres of land in what is now
called Barstow Colony, being named for him as he was the founder. He put
it under irrigation and began raising alfalfa ; being the first to start intensive
farming in that section. He found it uphill work and was ridiculed by others
for his attempt. In spite of this he persevered and demonstrated that it
could be done, and through his successful efforts Barstow Colony is today
a thriving agricultural, horticultural and viticultural section. He has cut
five crops of alfalfa a year, which yielded an average of one and one-quarter
^2^cyfy3 (Z^ui/^^-t-i-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 705
to one and one-half tons to the acre per cutting. In 1902 Mr. Barstow was
nominated as a candidate on the Republican ticket, for the office of county
recorder, and was elected by over one hundred majority, and assumed the
duties of the office in January of the following year. He was reelected in
1904 and each succeeding four years; the last time being in 1918, and at the
close of this term will have held county office longer than any former county
official of Fresno County. In the system of keeping records he has introduced
the latest devices and methods for transcribing, such as typewriters and
loose-leaf record books. His system has been appreciated by other county
recorders, who have introduced it in their offices.
Mr. Barstow has watched with much interest the development of Fresno
County, and has played a prominent part in its business, social and political
life. He still contends that the great resources of the county have hardly
been touched. Mr. Barstow is still interested in agricultural pursuits, having
250 acres in alfalfa, a large vineyard, and a dairy of seventy-five fine cows,
all of which adds handsomely to his annual income. He devotes the greater
part of his time to the duties of his office, and prides himself in the knowl-
edge that it is efficiently and carefully conducted.
In 1881, at Auburn, Cal., Richard Nason Barstow was united in mar-
riage with Agnes H. Baldwin, a native daughter, born in Coulterville, Mari-
posa County, and a member of a pioneer family who came from Illinois.
Mr. and Mrs. Barstow are the parents of two sons: George, a graduate of
Fresno High School, is deputv county recorder under his father : I.nmes Town-
send, graduated from the University of California with the (li'jrce of LL.B.
and during the \A"orld W^ar served in the United States Navy until his honor-
able discharge with the commission of ensign, and is now practicing law in
Fresno. Mr. Barstow is a stanch Republican, and has served as a member of
the state central committee. He is a member of Fresno Lodge No. 186,
I. O. O. F., and an active member of the County Recorders Association of
California. He is one of the most highly esteemed residents of Fresno
County, is a self-made man in every sense of the term, and owes his position
in the community to his own personal eiiforts and integrity of character.
JAMES PATRICK FARLEY.— The able blacksmith at the Hub. a little
station on the Hardwick & Summit Lake Branch of the Southern Pacific Rail-
way, the next station to Riverdale. is James Patrick Farley, who came here
in 1911, just when this line of railroad was completed. He bought an acre lot
upon which he built his blacksmith's shop, and nearby a comfortable dwelling,
and these have been his home and workshop ever since. He has bought an-
other half-acre lot, which he may improve in time, when the growth of this
little but promising place justifies it. He has worked at his trade with success,
a matter of more than ordinarv satisfaction, for Mr. Farley not only came
here to make a living and establish a home but he was ambitious also to help
build up the town. He does horse-shoeing and general blacksmithing, and is
now working into auto truck and tractor work and accessories in order to
meet the demands of the time.
Mr. Farley carries with him the air of good cheer and whole-heartedness
■ — a trait no doubt inherited from his ancestors in the Emerald Isle, where
his paternal grandparents. Patrick and Mary (Tiernan) Farley, were both
born. The grandfather migrated to America and settled in Philadelphia, and
soon after his arrival in the United States our subject's father, Philip Henry,
was born. He became an operator in the woolen mills, and followed that
trade until he moved west to California in 1886. He settled at Redding and
tried to farm ; but being wholly unused to agriculture and to out-door life,
and having spent so much of his time and vitality in the woolen mills of the
East, he made no headway as a rancher and died five years after his arrival.
He had bought 160 acres of railroad land in the vicinity of Redding, and this
he owned at the time of his death. Philip Henry Farley was married at Utica,
706 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
N. Y., where he worked in the woolen mills, to Miss Mary Tiernan, whose
father, James Tiernan, was born in Ireland, while her mother, Mary Gray,
was an own sister of Samuel Gray, the founder of Gray's Harbor, Ore.
Seven children were born to Air. and Mrs. P. H. Farley, and James Pat-
rick was ten years old when his parents came to California and fifteen years
old when his father died. This bereavement meant much to him, for it com-
pelled him to push out into the world for himself. It necessitated also his
helping his mother and other members of the family. He did what his hands
found to do, and being in close proximity to the gold mines he engaged in
mining, beginning at the Calumet Mine and later working at Harrison Gulch,
Old Diggings and other places in Northern California and Southern Oregon,
but principally in Shasta County. In Oregon he worked in the mines adjacent
to Grant's Pass, and in fact helped prospect as far south as Crescent City, in
Del Norte County, Cal., a distance of fifty miles or more from Grant's Pass.
Being handy with tools and having a liking for the smithy James Patrick
began as a helper around the blacksmith shops in Shasta County, and rather
naturally grew into the blacksmith trade — sharpening tools, shoeing horses,
building and repairing machinery, and doing a thousand and one things neces-
sary to be done in and around gold-mining camps. When, therefore, he came
to the new town of Hub he was a competent workman in his line and a God-
send to the locality. A sister, Mrs. Charles L. Montgomery, was then as now
living on a ranch near-by, and was the means of calling his attention to the
attractiveness of the country in that vicinity (a very fertile dairy district, by
the way) and the advantages that might be reaped in his line of work.
Before leaving the gold mines, Mr. Farley was married at Grant's Pass
to Miss Edna McManus, a native of Missouri, but a resident of Grant's Pass
at the time of their meeting. After their marriage they went to Redding,
where Mr. Farley worked at his trade for a year, and then he moved to Stock-
ton, where he set up a shop of his own, and for two or three years carried on
a successful business. Then, having decided to settle in Hub, he built his
house and shop here in the Fall of 1911.
Mr. Farley takes an active interest in the upbuilding of the community,
and especially in the welfare of the North Fork School in his home district;
for they have three children of their own ; Philip James. Helen, and Louise.
RICHARD THOMAS OWEN. — A rancher now enjoying a well-earned
period of retirement, but who in his time did much for the development,
bv the most scientific methods and on a large scale, of grain-farming in
California, and who also spared neither pains nor expense to improve the
breeding of horses here, is Richard Thomas Owen, the son of the well-known
Ohioan, George W. Owen, a pioneer who was born in Cincinnati. He grew
up on a farm and followed farming and stockraising, although he had put in
some years in the hard life of a river steamboatman. George W. Owen was
united in marriage with Miss Eleanor Long, also a native of Ohio, and after
his marriage, having a desire for more settled labor, he moved to Illinois,
where he secured a farm. In 1550, he came to Iowa, and after that, removed
to Nebraska. Wherever he went, he proved himself a man among men. so
that one of the most valuable inheritances enjoyed by Richard has always
been the good name of his father.
In 1862, George Owen fitted out the usual ox-team equipment and
joined a company of about one hundred families bound for California ;
and enduring all the hardships and the stirring adventure, he succeeded in
reaching the promised land by means of the trails across the Plains. At first
he located in Yolo County, where he embarked in general farming and stock-
raising; but later he pushed on to Sonoma County, next taking up the dairy
business. In the fall of 1868, he went over into Modesto County ; and it
was after that when he first came to Fresno County. In 1876 he took up some
Government land near the foothills, bought other land in addition ; and he
was still in the stock business at the time of his death, in 1880. Ten vears
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 707
later his good wife, who had been a most devoted mother to seven children,
passed to her eternal reward.
Richard was the fourth of these fortunate children, and was born at
Freeport, in Stephenson County, 111., on the fourth of July, 1846. He went
to school for a short time in the East before coming- to California with his
parents. He also lived at home, so that he enjoyed what many a boy has
lacked, good home surroundings : he also had the advantage of knowing
something of the life of the older East as well as the vigorous and ambitious
West. With his parents, he came West to Stanislaus County.
On Washington's birthday, in 1872, Mr. Owen was married to ]\Iiss
Mary Weaver, a native of Clark County, Mo., who had come to California
a couple of years before. Once well established in domestic comfort, he
took up farming and stockraising on a larger scale. All this time, and up
to 1882, he was in Stanislaus County: then he came to Fresno, reasoning,
very naturally, that after all there is but one county in the state offering
the many and varied advantages found here.
After his father's death. Mr. Owen was appointed administrator of the
estate ; and on settling in Fresno County, he bought a section where a part
of Clovis is now located. The purchase was really made in 1881, but it took
some time to wind up his affairs in the other county. With his brother
Charles, he entered into partnership in the raising of race-horses and stock;
while, farming to grain on a very large scale one year, he harvested as much
as 37,000 sacks. They also rented large tracts of land and continued grain
farming until 1902. Then his brother was killed, and he sold out and retired
from active duties save in connection with his personal estate.
For twenty-five years Mr. Owen was devoted to the raising of fine
horses, traveling through the state both to see what others were doing in
that line, and to give fellow-breeders everywhere the benefit of his wide
experience.
Three children — George ^^^, Arminta Ellen and Sadie Louise have come
to bless the family life of Mr. and Mrs. Owen, and to enjoy their residence,
the first fine house in Clovis, now surrounded by a productive vineyard and
orchard.
JAY SCOTT.— Through his identification with public affairs of Fresno
County, Jay Scott, now living retired in Fresno, is widely known through
the effective service he gave to the people of the county as sheriff, during
his two terms in the office, from January, 1893 to January, 1899. A native
of Illinois, he was born in Will County, January 13, 1850, a son of J. H.
Scott, a native of New York state. When he was a lad, J. H. Scott was
taken to Illinois by his parents and was reared to manhood on a farm which
his father took up in the vicinity of Chicago. He married Anna Chamberlain,
a native of Canada, and at once set up for himself and remained a farmer
in that state until 1852, when he brought his family to California. Crossing
the plains with ox-teams, he located in the Sacramento Valley and farmed
there until a few years before his death, which occurred in Fresno in 1894,
when seventy-six 3'ears of age. His widow died in 1905 aged eightv-two
years.
Jay Scott was but two years of age when he was brought to this state
by his parents and he remembers nothing about their long and dangerous
trip across the plains. He is typically western, as all but two years of his
life has been spent here, and he is keenly alive to the possibilities of this
great commonwealth. He was reared in the Sacramento A^alley and attended
the schools near his home place. He railroaded through Fresno County in
1876, and then spent two years in Cazadero, Sonoma County, where he en-
gaged in the hotel business, and in 1888 located in Fresno engaged in busi-
ness until 1900, when he located on a ranch he had bought and which he
improved. He made of it a valuable propertv and after several years given
up to agricultural pursuits he disposed of the farm and moved into town.
708 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
On his ranch he planted vineyards and orchards and carried on diversified
farming. He owned 160 acres in one tract and forty in another, all improved
under his capable management.
Mr. Scott was united in marriage in Tulare County with Ida Burch,
and they have had four children : Oliver C. ; Myrtle, who married Robert
Clare and is now deceased. She left two sons. Jay Scott and Robert Burch.
Philip B. Scott, married Mabel McFarland and they have two children,
Elizabeth and Oliver. Jay Scott, the youngest, died at the age of four years.
Mr. Scott is a stanch Republican and has been a potent factor in politics
in Fresno County. He is a charter member of the Elks and belongs to the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows. A hale fellow well met, Jay Scott has
a host of warm friends throughout the county and has always done his part,
as a public-spirited citizen, towards the upbuilding of the county.
WILLIAM SUTHERLAND.— The early life history of most men who
have passed the allotted term of three score years and ten is usually an un-
eventful one. Such, however, is not the case of William Sutherland, who
while yet but a lad made the voyage to California, coming via the Isthmus of
Panama, landing in San Francisco in 1862 and since then has made his home
under the sunnv skies of California. He was born in New Durham, C'mnty
Durham, England, February 18, 1844. His mother, Hannah (Armour) Suth-
erland, died when he was but eleven years old and his father, James Suther-
land, when he was fourteen. Thus at that early age he was left to shift for
himself. He was the youngest of eight children. FTis fatlier while living, was
superintendent of a coal mine at AMiitwell, County Durham, I'jiuland. Young
William, as a lad, attended school, receiving a fair education. During his
spare time from school he assisted his father in the offices of the coal com-
pany, thus becoming conversant with bookkeeping and business methods.
After his father's death, as he grew older, he worked for a time in the mine,
leaving the employment of the company in 1862 when he sailed for the United
States" In due time he arrived in New York from the steamer Aetna but
soon left for Aspinwall on the side-wheel steamer xA.riel. The trip lasted
twelve days. Arriving at Aspinwall, he crossed the Isthmus on the railroad
and took "the steamer Golden Age, on the Pacific side, for San Francisco,
arriving there, after fourteen days on the water, in October. 1862. He had
a brother James and two uncles living in Fresno County who came to Cal-
ifornia in 1850. Starting out, he arrived at Stockton without a dollar in his
pocket. Upon walking down the street he entered into conversation with a
gentleman who soon learned that the lad was without funds, and the man
gave him ten dollars, telling him he might repay it when he found work.
From Stockton he walked south to Graysonville, and on the way met his
uncle William who was coming to Stockton for supplies. Returning with his
uncle he sought out the man who had so kindly loaned him ten dollars and
repaid him. At this time his uncle was living near Kingston, Fresno County,
as was also his brother James. In the fall of 1862 he cut timber and made oak
rails. In the spring of 1863 he began to drive cattle to Amador County, and
continued in this business for some time up and down the San Joaquin Val-
ley. Later he worked for his uncle John, on a ranch, driving cattle to Nevada
for him. In the fall of 1869 he located near Alviso, Santa Clara County, con-
tinuing the same occupation until 1873. His uncle John had large interests in
Stockton and he went there to work for him, remaining with him until 1876
when he and his uncle made a trip through Colorado and Texas by wagon,
the trip occupying six months. His uncle then sent him to Fresno County to
buy sheep. He bought twenty thousand at an average price of fifty cents per
head, that being a dry year. Many of the sheep died. His uncle had also 5,000
horses and 12,000 head of cattle on the plains, which young Sutherland took
care of. After the death of his uncle John he was made administrator of his
estate, and after settling up his business affairs came to Fresno City, where
he has since remained, and where for some time he was engaged in buying and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 711
selling farm lands. Later he was in charge of the shipping and distribution of
ice for the San Joaquin Ice Company at Fresno, retaining this position until
1910 when he resigned and has since lived retired. He owns 154 acres of land
in Tulare County, near Angiola, which he rents. In 1883 he bought the home
in which he now resides on N Street in Fresno.
He was married January 15, 1883, to Annette Bacon of Michigan, who
died in 1915, leaving two sons, Walter James, a mail carrier, and William
Bacon, who holds a responsible position with the San Joaquin Light and Power
Company, both of whom make their home with him. Mr. Sutherland is now
one of the oldest settlers remaining in Fresno County where he is well known
and is beloved by all who know him.
OLUF BERNARD OLUFS.— Fresno County is indebted to O. B. Olufs,
more than to any other man for its standing- as the raisin center of this
country. He put into practical application his ideas of cooperation in han-
dling the raisin output of this section, soon after his settlement in the county,
by establishing and managing, for several seasons, packing houses at Malaga,
Fowler, Kingsburg and Oleander. He was a far-sighted man and with his
systematic training, lost but little energy in whatever he undertook. The
California Associated Raisin Company, organized in 1912. has continued
business along the lines he advocated.
A Frisian, O. B. Olufs was born under the Danish flag on the Isle of
Fohr. in the North Sea on May 25, 1849. His father was Capt. Volkcrt Olufs :
and his grandfather was closely allied with the rulers of Denmark and was
an admiral in the Danish Navy. O. B. Olufs received his early schooling in
his native land and his college course in a university in Hamburg, Germany,
as there were no advanced schools in his country. He served one year in
the German army, then secured his release. At the age of nineteen he came
to San Francisco, Cal., and there he mastered English in the schools and
a business college. He was a linguist, speaking German, French and Spanish
fluently, and his services were soon sought as an interpreter. He was also
associated with the Danish consulate in that city. Lie later was employed in
Colusa and Glenn Counties, and still later conducted a general store at
Davis, Yolo County. For one year he was in the employ of Eppinger and
Company, large grain merchants in Oakland.
In 1883. Mr. Olufs came to Fresno County and was so impressed with the
wonderful possibilities he saw on every hand that he decided to locate here.
Entering at once into the spirit of the times he bought land at Oleander and
soon had a thriving vineyard of 160 acres, while on another 240 acres he
raised grain. He extended his operations to a peach orchard near the town
of Kingsburg and also had valuable holdings in that town that are now a
part of the town site. The more he entered into the business life of his
adopted county the more determined he became to make his work a success
and to lead others to the same goal ; he organized a cooperative association
among the early raisin growers in order to maintain prices and to market
their product. He personalh' managed the packing houses at Oleander.
Fowler, Malaga and Kingsburg for several seasons. The result of his work
at that time has been the organization and maintenance of the California
Associated Raisin Company of tod.ay. Mr. Olufs was a personal friend of
I\T. Theodore Kearney, the first president of that wonderful concern. In
every way Mr. Olufs aided every worthy movement that would mean pros-
perity for the citizens of the county and that would enhance the realty values.
He was active in the Chamber of Commerce and served as secretary of that
body in an early day.
To further prove his confidence in Fresno he erected a fire-proof ware-
house at 201 Santa Fe Avenue, a model of its kind, having every known
facility for the quick and easy handling of goods in large quantities. It was
established in 190(i. the original building embracing more than 13.000 square
feet of floor space. Its capacity was soon taxed, and four years later an
712 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
additional 10,000 square feet of floor space was added, thus making it one of
the largest and leading warehouses in the entire San Joaquin Valley. It is
used for the housing of large quantities of merchandise and the company
does a general warehouse and storage business, numbering among its patrons
some of the largest and best-known firms of Fresno. The company also
represents some of the large eastern manufacturers and wholesalers, who
distribute from this warehouse to the territory adjoining Fresno. The
business is under the management of L. F. Matthes. Mrs. Olufs is the
proprietor.
O. B. Olufs was married at Davis, Yolo County, to ]\Iiss Luella M.
Wristen, a native of Illinois. Four children were born of this happy union:
Clarence D., who graduated from the Fresno high school and was a student
in the University of California at Berkeley when he met his death in a train-
wreck, in 1902. He had been in the employ of the First National Bank in
Fresno. Elmo B., the second son, also graduated from the Fresno liigh
school and was for a number of years in the hotel business in the Yosemite
Vallej^ He died in 1913. Freda O., is the only daughter. She graduated
from the Fresno high school and completed her education at ]\Iiss Head's
school in Berke!e}^ She -became the wife of Norman C. Ginn, a well-known
traveling salesman, who was born in Iowa and had been a resident of
California ten years, three of which were spent in Fresno. Mr. Ginn died on
October 27, 1918, leaving his widow and a daughter, Betty Ann. The fourth
child of the family is Dick Wristen, who was educated in the public schools of
Fresno and is now an employe in the county assessor's office at Fresno.
Mr. Olufs sold off his ranch property in different parts of the county
and purchased forty acres of vineyard on Princeton Avenue where a modern
•country home has since been erected. He died on December 7, 1914, mourned
by a wide circle of friends. He was a member of the INIasonic fraternity and
was a man of liberal and progressive ideas whose name will long be associated
with the growth and upbuilding of Fresno County.
WILLIAM D. CRICHTON. — A prominent jurist whose ever rising
career is a splendid example, first of the opportunities offered the aspiring
American in this, the freest and most promising of all lands, and secondly
of that disposition, so often manifested by our people, to take advantage of
and profit by such chances, no matter what exertion or cost is necessary
to win the coveted goal. The jurist referred to is the Hon. William D. Crich-
ton ; and the story of his life is related to the stories of millions of other
Americans in so far as they have overcome obstacles that discourage many,
set a high mark and finally attained it, and in reaching and climbing for
themselves, have carried upward a considerable pace the high standard of
their country's progress.
Born under romantic conditions — on no less a stormy place than the
Pacific Ocean, while his parents, David and Honorah Crichton, were on their
way from Australia to San Francisco — William first saw the light of day
on the twelfth of July, 1863. the summer when his father reached California.
The family tarried but a short time in the bay metropolis, and then went to
Humboldt County, where Mr. Crichton engaged in farming and stock-
raising. He was always a progressive -man, and led the way among the
pioneers in the most up-to-date methods of which he was cognizant : and
there he tilled the soil and threw in his moral weight and material aid in
advancing every worthy movement for the local good, imtil his death in 1891.
A manly and most influential man, I\Ir. Crichton's demise was mourned on
every harjd.
William attended the public schools until he was fourteen, and then he
went to work as a ranch hand, finding employment on different ranches in
Humboldt County until he was twenty-three. After that, he went into
Eureka, and finding a good opening in the lumber business, he served in
different capacities with various concerns.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 713
Meanwhile, however, having no idea of remaining either a farmhand
or a lumber-yard helper, Mr. Crichton studied law nights; and in the great
boom year of 1887, he came south to Fresno and here entered the law offices
of the well-known firm of Webb & Van Meter. There, under exceptional
advantages, he continued his legal studies until 1890; and at the beginning
of the last decade of the century, he was admitted to the bar.
At the same time that he thus took his place in the law world, ]\Ir. Crich-
ton, whose personality and professional proficiency were becoming known,
was elected justice of the peace; and so well did he fulfil his duties and
pledges, that he was permitted to hold the office for four years. It was
really during his incumbency of that responsible position that he was ad-
mitted to practice in all the courts of the state.
Since then. Judge Crichton has been conducting a private practice, and
has very successfully handled many important cases. His personal character,
as well as liis acknowledged ability, has had much to do with the confidence
of his fellow-citizens ; and in no more satisfactory way was this confidence
expressed than when, some years ago, he was made the honored nominee
on the Democratic ticket for a member of Congress. This was in 1900, when
Republican opposition was strong and well organized ; so that, without
really reflecting upon him, he was defeated after a brilliant campaign.
At Dyersburg, in romantic Tennessee, on December 28, 1801, Mr. Crich-
ton was married to Alice Stephens, who has proven the most companionable
of wives for a professional man, and who shares with him the pleasures and
the duties of membership in the Methodist Ciiurch, South.
The Judge belongs to the Odd Fellows and the Elks, and there is no
more popular, loyal member in either lodge.
HERMAN H. BRIX.— This man so lived that since his passing his
accomplishment and exemplary life have been a constant reminder to those
left behind that what really counts for good in the lives worth recording
was preeminent in his life. Born at Namslau, Silesia, Germany, February
16, 1862, Flerman H. Brix received his education in his native country and
after graduating from a military academy at Potsdam, he served three years
in the army. In 1882, then twenty years of age, he came to the United
States and located in Iowa the first year, with a brother. Mr. Brix then
came to California and for a number of years was engaged in agricultural
pursuits near Hanford. He next engaged in the mercantile business at
Huron, Cal. This did not satisfy him and he went to Coalinga and took
up a homestead, proved up on it and for eight years farmed it to wheat.
Low prices made the work discouraging and he decided he would take a
chance in the Alaska gold fields, so he left his ranch and w^ent to Dawson
City in 1898, and was fortunate enough to accumulate about $13,000.
While he was in Alaska the news of the discovery of oil in the Coalinga
district reached him and he decided to return to California, which he did
in 1901, and thereafter devoted his time and talents to the accumulation of
a fortune, making his home on his homestead and awaited results of the
oil development. He worked in the oil fields to acquire first-hand knowledge
of the business and valuable experience. Then the demand for water arose
and as he had a plentiful supply on his ranch, he organized a company, laid
pipe lines, erected tanks and supplied a number of oil wells with water for
the following five years. During this time he made investments in oil
stock, bought land in favorable locations and sold it at high prices. Although
he began with limited capital he had unlimited confidence in the district,
made a special study of geology of the section round about and finally
sold his water business and dissolved the company and gave his attention
to the oil business entirely, buying and selling oil lands.
His original investment was in the Confidence Oil Company, with its
property located six miles from Coalinga. With a Mr. Bunting, he organized
the B. & B. Oil Company, which was located on his homestead property
714 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and as this company succeeded he soon bought out his partner and managed
the business alone. He also owned lands now operated by the Nevada Oil
Company; was a heavy stockholder in the St. Paul & Fresno Oil Company,
besides being a one-sixth owner in the Coalinga Syndicate. His estate still
owns valuable holdings in the Coalinga district, where with others Mr. Brix
owned many acres of valuable oil lands.
Mr. Brix was a heavy stockholder in the Fresno Hotel Company and
he personally superintended the construction of the building, one of the
finest inland hosteleries in the state : The Brix Apartments, a four-story
concrete building, and one of the finest and first modern apartment buildings
erected in the San Joaquin Valley, was built and owned by him. He was
very much interested in the upbuilding of Fresno County and gave very
liberally towards all worthy enterprises, and was a leader in many.
While accumulating these numerous and valuable holdings, Mr. Brix
found time to meet his fellow men in a social and fraternal spirit. He be-
longed to the various Masonic bodies and was a Shriner. In politics he was
known as an independent but he never cared to hold a public office. Reli-
giously, he was a believer in Christian Science in his latter years.
The marriage of Mr. Brix in 1890, united him with Miss Helene Schemel,
and three children came to gladden their home, viz. : Emma M., a graduate
from Stanford University; Karl H.. a graduate from the Mt. Tamalpais Mili-
tary Academy, who, when the war broke out, was a student at Stanford, and
volunteered for service in the United States Navy and spent ten months
at Mare Island, when peace was declared and he was mustered out ; Theodore
Frederick, is a student in the Fresno schools, .\fter a very useful and suc-
cessful career H. H. Brix passed to his reward on September 20, 1915, since
which time his capable helpmate has assumed the responsibilities of manag-
ing the estate. The family occupy a palatial home at 2844 Fresno Street.
MAHLON LEVIS. — An old pioneer of Fresno County, and also a forty-
niner of the gold days in California. ^lahlon Levis deserves mention when
compiling the biographical historv of this section of the state. He was one
of the very first men to plant grapes on a large scale in the Selma district,
and helped to establish and promote the raisin industry in its pioneer days,
and it is to such men as he that the present prosperity of Fresno County is
due.
Born in Bucks County, near Philadelphia, Pa., February 28, 1825, Mahlon
Levis was one of seven sons, all reared on the home farm. Upon the death
of the father of the family, in 1838, the home was broken up and Mahlon
first went to Illinois. Later, with three of his brothers, in 1842, he en-
gaged in the lumber business in the pine woods of Wisconsin, and con-
tinued thus engaged for several years. Then, when the discovery of gold
in California turned men's footsteps west, he journeyed to the Coast, in 1849,
and for two years tried his luck in the mining districts of the state, meeting
with fair success. His companion in mining enterprises, a man by the name
of Pomeroy, and himself then returned to Wisconsin, via New Orleans. The
two men had $1,600 apiece with them as a result of their labors, and, upon
crossing the Isthmus, Mr. Pomeroy was robbed; Mahlon Levis, with the
ready generosity of the old pioneers, divided his $1,600 with his unfortunate
partner and so the two continued to their destination.
After his return from California, Mr. Levis again devoted his attention
to the lumber business in Wisconsin, and here his marriage occurred, uniting
him with Maria E. Olden, a native of Canada. He later engaged in farming
and remained in the eastern state until 1873, when he disposed of his 160-acre
farm and went again to California.
Finding conditions here to his liking, j\Ir. Levis returned to Wisconsin and
brought his family back to California with him, locating in Tulare County,
wdiere he purchased a large band of sheep, 3,000 of which perished from the
drought in" 1877. Nothing daunted, though financially embarrassed, the sturdy
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 717
pioneer came to Fresno Count}- in that year, and settled upon 300 acres of
Southern Pacific Railway land one one-half miles north of the Canal school
and four miles northeast of Selma. Here he started in the planting of grapes,
one of the first viticulturists in that section. In 1878 he planted one acre of
mixed varieties, of which the muscats tested out the best. In 1880 he planted
four acres to grapes which are still bearing and in vigorous condition. Before
1890 he had fifty acres of his ranch planted to grapes. The rest of his land
was devoted to grain and alfalfa. Later he planted more grapes, until he
was one of the largest raisin-growers, as well as the pioneer of the industry
in the district. It must be remembered that the gr(5wers of those days did
not have the easy access to water facilities that are prevalent in the county
now, and it was only by constant and persevering devotion to the culture that
they succeeded, so all honor is due to these real developers of the industry in
which Fresno leads the entire United States.
Mr. and Mrs. Levis were the parents of eleven children, as follows : Fmina,
the wife of I. C. Houghton, a farmer of Humbird, Wis. ; Ella, who died in
California, she was the wife of Frank Peters and mother of one child, Maud.
now Mrs. Johnson of Taft : Alvin. the third child and eldest son ; W. F., rancher
of Selma, married Adah Cockran ; Florence, now the widow of C. N. Carring-
ton of Selma ; Georgiana. wife of J. C. Rorden of Selma ; E. A., a rancher
of Selma; Annetta May, wife of Chester Dusy, a druggist of San Francisco;
John E., a rancher of Selma ; his twin, Kate, died single in San Francisco ;
Minnie, wife of Dr. O. E. Bronson of Fresno.
As can be seen, the descendants of this worthy pioneer couple are carry-
ing on the developing work started by their parents, and are counted among
the representative citizens of the county.
JAMES DARWIN COLLINS. — A broadminded and progressive edu-
cator and legislator, who did much to develop the early, sound educational
standards in Fresno County, was James Darwin Collins. Indeed, he was
active in all movements tending to build up the county and to promote the
welfare of his fellow citizens, and eventually, as the result of his most notable
school enterprise, he was associated with the naming of the district in which
he lived and toiled.
James Darwin Collins was born in Rhea County, Tenn., on October 30,
1843. His ancestors, of rugged, vigorous Colonial stock, traced their family
history back to the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. His father, James P.
Collins, was a first lieutenant under General John Ellis Wool, when he was
commissioned with the duty of removing the Choctaws and Chickasaws from
Alabama and Georgia into the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Great-grand-
father Percv, on the maternal side, took part in the famous battle of
Cowpens, in Tanuary, 1781, when Tarleton, the British commander received
his crushing blow ; and his son, grandfather to James, fought at the Battle of
New Orleans, at the beginning of 1815.
Although only eighteen years of age at the outbreak of the Civil War,
Tames D. Collins enlisted in the Confederate Army; and during the third year
of the great struggle, he was captured by the Union forces and spent eighteen
months in a militarv prison, after which he was exchanged. When the War
was over, he came West to California, and settled in Fresno County.
The first work that he undertook was teaching, and his first school in
California, opened in the summer of 1870. was at Wagy's Mill in the moun-
tains of Tulare County. In the fall of that year he established a school on
Dry Creek, at what is now known as Academy ; and with the exception of one
year. Mr. Collins taught school there and later in the Mississippi school dis-
trict" until 1880. It is" stated that the name was given to the settlement be-
cause it was built around Collins' school; for the reputation of the young
schoolmaster drew many of the pioneer families to the vicinity, and they
pitched their tents and made their homes on Upper Dry Creek, m order to
718 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
give their children the benefit of his tuition. Finally, the settlers built a sub-
stantial schoolhouse and named the town Academy.
In 1876, Mr. Collins was elected to the State legislature, where he served
one term, and in 1898 was elected sheriff, and served two terms of four years
each. It is said that while he was sheriff he astounded the supervisors by
appearing before them with a request that they cut down his allowance per
meal for the boarding of prisoners. He explained that he had found that the
established rate allowed a margin of profit, and that his interpretation of the
law was that merely the actual cost should be covered. On relinquishing his
duties of sheriff, to the regret of many, Mr. Collins devoted his time to his
vineyard and orchard ne'ar Lone Star.
On December 15, 1869, Mr. Collins married Miss Ann Caldwell, a native
of the same town in Tennessee in which he was born, and together they mi-
grated to Fresno County. Here they became the parents of eleven children,
three of whom are deceased. James died at Dry Creek in 1875, when two
years old ; Thomas M. died on December 5. 1903, in Fresno County, at the
age of twenty-four: and Henry C. passed away at Oakland on April 14, 1919.
after spending much of his life in Fresno County. Mary E. married Robert
Heiskell, a vineyardist in the De'\\^olf district, Fresno County ; William A.,
supervisor of the Fifth District of this county, is mentioned in detail on an-
other page of this work ; Catherine became the wife of Charles H. Byrd, horti-
culturist and farmer, in the same district, and is interested in lands on Kings
River; White, a graduate of the Fresno Business College, is a farmer; Clinton
Darwin was the County Physician of Fresno County until he resigned in
1918 to enlist in the War. He served until after the armistice was signed,
having attained the rank of lieutenant, and he is also mentioned elsewhere
in this work. Robert F. is a vineyardist in the DeWolf district ; Annie is
the wife of Dr. James W. Nicholson, physician and surgeon at Porterville.
Cal., and Joseph P., of Fresno, who served in the naval reserve at San Pedro
until the War ended.
Many of the leading men and women of Fresno County today were once
pupils under James D. Collins, and look back with fond recollection and deep
gratitude to his help and influence ; and it is no wonder that, when once he
had consented to become a candidate for public office, he was elected as one
to whom a public trust could well be committed. The fact is that, whether
or no he inherited the sterling qualities from those forebears of virility who
wrested commonwealths from a wilderness and made them blossom as the
rose, he had in a large measure the cardinal virtues of honesty, candor and
fearlessness as part of his make-up, as was clearly shown in his discharge
of public duties. Mr. Collins was affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, at Academy, and for many years served as steward.
WILLIAM H. RYAN.— In the passing of William H. Ryan, March 6,
1918, Fresno sustained a great loss, and the hearts of- those associated with
him for many busy years were saddened as they realized that this genial,
lovable man's earth life was ended. He was one of the oldest continuous
residents of the city, covering a period of forty-six years, he was born at
Galveston, Texas, June 10, 1866, and was the eldest son of the late Mr.
and Mrs. Jerry Ryan, who were among the very earliest residents of Fresno.
The family moved to Fresno from Texas in 1872, attracted to the place by
the superior school facilities promised, the father of the family first visiting
Oregon in expectation of locating there. Jerry Ryan was the section fore-
man, and marshaled the railroad employes on the day that the vote was
taken to remove the county seat from Millerton to the projected railroad
town of Fresno. He was a railroad man and veteran of the Civil War. having
in early manhood served in a Texas cavalry regiment in the Confederate
Army. He and ex-Sheriff J. D. Collins were war captives in the same prison
in the North, and in later years in Fresno renewed their war time chance
acquaintance.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 719
William H., a lad six years of age when the family first came to Fresno,
continued to be a resident of the city until death ended his earthly career.
He was a graduate of St. Mary's College when it was located on the San
Francisco peninsula. Mr. Ryan had been city clerk for thirteen years. His
first public ofifice was as a deputy in the county recorder's office, followed
by the license collectorship under town Marshal John D. Morgan. He was
first elected city clerk in 1905, and was the city's second elected clerk under
the present charter. The first was J. B. Johnson, the present supervisor, who
succeeded William F. Shanklin. Mr. Ryan was elected clerk four successive
terms, no one ever ofifering serious opposition to his candidac}'. He was
also elected a free holder, that framed the last charter submitted to the
people but not ratified, and was secretary of the charter framing board.
He was president of the Jerry Ryan Company, holding the estate of
the father for the heirs, and incorporated with Louis F. Ryan as secretary.
The company owns the pioneer corner hotel building at Mariposa and I, the
old Arlington hotel property at J and Inyo, the Yosemite apartment house
on J opposite Gottschalk's, three flats on R Street, twenty acres in farm
land at North and Fruit Avenues, and 160 acres of pasturage land on the
West Side in the Cantua Creek district.
For many years a sufferer from heart trouble, Mr. Ryan frequently had
attacks which compelled his temporary retirement from official duties. A
few months before his death he had a serious attack, and was under the
treatment of Dr. W. L. Adams and had apparently recovered. On the night
of his death he played with his children in the evening, and one hour after
retiring at nine o'clock passed away of heart failure. It was the death he
had often expressed might be the one to visit him when his time came.
He is survived by five brothers and sisters, a sorrowing wife and four
children. His living brothers and sisters are : Maurice, a druggist formerly
in business in Fresno, now in San Francisco ; Louis F., deputy county clerk
of Fresno ; Mrs. Josephine Hinkle, a widow, of San Francisco ; Mrs. E. W.
Gardner of Sacramento, wife of a deputy in the office of the secretary of
state, and Charles Ryan, a deputy in the office of the motor vehicle license
department at Sacramento. There was another brother whose death preceded
that of the father and mother by many years, and also an elder brother
named for his father, who died a little more than a year ago.
William H. Ryan's wife was before marriage, Margaret Kennedy, a
native of Tipperary, Ireland, who came to Fresno when a small child with
her mother, brother and sisters. Her father, John Kennedy, a native of
the Emerald Isle, located in Fresno in 1883, and followed the trade of tailor
until his death. Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Ryan's children are by name : Mildred,
aged thirteen ; William H., Jr., aged ten ; Josephine, aged nine ; and Jerry,
seven years of age.
One of his official associates said of him: "He was one of the squarest
men that I ever knew. His integrity was unimpeachable, and with him his
word was good as his bond. The community has lost a good man and one
of the most accommodating public officials. It will be difficult to replace Bill
Ryan, as every one lovingly called him."
WILLIAM GLASS. — Prominent among the men of present note and
widely-felt influence in California, who have contributed more and more
toward the development of the state since they first came to the Pacific
Coast and cast their lot here, may well be mentioned William Glass, a native
of the Empire State, who first came to Fresno County in 1890. As the
business manager of the Fresno Republican since 1890, he has had much
to do with directing the progress of Central California along broad and per-
manent lines, and it is safe to say that no one in this city of representative
Americans is more highly esteemed both for what he has already accom-
plished, and for what he is disposed and able yet to do.
i He was born at New York City on March 22, 1860, the son of John
720 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Glass, who first saw the light there on the 10th of November in 1832. He
came of a family not so widely extended in America, and yet including in
its branches men distinguished in classical learning and the fine arts. He
married Alargaret Hart, a native of the delightful old New York State town
of Binghamton, where she was born on May 10, 1840. She was an accom-
plished and worthy representative of another American family of high attain-
ment, numbering in its ranks some famous in letters and art, at the bar, on
the battle-field and in publishing enterprises.
While a lad in New York, in the early seventies, William Glass attended
Grammar School No. 2, after which he completed his formal education at
Cooper Institute, a part of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science
and Art opened in 1859, commencing his studies there in the Centennial Year,
when Peter Cooper was a candidate of the National Independent Party and
polled about 100,000 votes for the presidency, being then a very familiar
figure in the metropolis.
Having completed the course there in 1878, ^Ir. Glass served as a book-
keeper for a stockbroker in New York City, and in 1882 became cashier in
a stockbroker's office. An opening as purser on a Pacific Coast steamer,
the following year, began to associate him with California, and a compli-
mentary engagement with the San Francisco Bulletin from 1883 to 1890
demonstrated his ability to adapt himself fully to the more exacting condi-
tions of the newer, bustling western life. Since the beginning of the closing
decade of the last century, Mr. Glass has directed the aflfairs of the Fresno
Republican's counting room, and his past experience, together with his
admirable foresight, have helped make that paper one of the best in the
United States — to California quite as valuable an organ for the public weal
as its namesake, the Springfield Republican, so long proved to the great
commonwealth of Massachusetts. With the entry of the nation on its second
century, in 1876, the Weekly Republican was established as the proper ex-
pression of the new life and enterprise developing here: and in 1887 the
Morning Republican became a reality, and has ever since continued the ex-
ponent of Fresno and its unrivaled county. More than that, it has proven
the faithful expositor of conditions in the San Joaquin Valley, and with its
Associated News service has enabled the patrons, scattered in towns and on
outlying ranches, to keep in close touch with the pulse of the country at large.
As far back as 1896, Mr. Glass was a member of the Executive Council
of the One Hundred Thousand Club, and today he is president of the Cham-
ber of Commerce and a member of the Commercial and Isdtary Chilis. He
was a member of the Promotion Committee of tlic Raisin I'.xchanQc. out of
which grew the California Associated Raisin Company. He was chairman of
the Promotion Committee of the California Peach Growers, Inc., and he
represented the State of California on the Board of Directors of the San^
Joaquin Valley Milk Producers Association. He is president of the Fresno
County ^^'elfare Department, and chairman of the Fresno Chapter, American
Red Cross. He is also chairman of the Odd Fellows Hall Company, treasurer
of St. Paul's M. E. Church, South, and secretary of the Fresno Republican
Publishing Company. Since 1908 he has been a trustee of the Fresno Public
Library. Mr. Glass is a Democrat in matters of national politics.
At San Francisco, on January 17, 1884, Mr. Glass was married to Miss
Theresa ]\IcKittrick, the daughter of Edward McKittrick, a well-known
early Californian pioneer. Two children have blessed this fortunate union —
a son, Edward Glass, and a daughter, Emma Theresa. The family attend St.
Paul's Methodist Church, South. Mr. Glass was made an Odd Fellow at
Occidental Lodge, San Francisco, on August 6, 1886; and in 1888 was Noble
Grand. He was Chief Patriarch of Fresno Encampment, 1910, Commandant
of the Fresno Canton, 1909, and Chairman of the Fresno General Relief
Committee, 1899.
^i^.^s^tT^r^'^
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 723
SCOTT McKAY. — In all of the offices connected with the administra-
tion of county affairs there is none more important than that of county
surveyor. Upon his work depends the proper location of all boundary lines,
and it is necessary that only men be called to that position who are especial!)^
qualified. They must bring to their work not only natural aptness, but
this must be supplemented by a thorough course of study, coupled with
earnestness and a conscientious discharge of their duties. Scott McKay was
thus equipped, as the people of Fresno County thought, for after he had
served as deputy county surveyor, he was elected for four consecutive terms'
of four years each, making a term of sixteen years of continuous service in
that office.
Mr. McKay came from good old Hoosier stock, being born in Vevay,
Ind., July 17, 1868. His father, George W. McKay, was also born there. In
early manhood he was employed as civil engineer, and was county surveyor
of Switzerland County, Ind. He was a strong Republican and active in
public affairs. Two of his brothers served in the Civil War. He married
Mary Siebenthal, who was a native of Vevay, and she passed away in 1899.
Her father, Benj. Siebenthal, was a lifelong resident of Vevay. his parents
having located in Switzerland County, Ind., when they came to this country
from Germany. Three of his sons served in the Civil War. The grand-
father, Isaac McKay, was a resident of Vevay, also, his parents migrating
there from Virginia.
After completing his studies in public schools and in the Vevay High
School, Scott McKay entered the scientific department of the Indiana State
Normal, at Terre Haute, and later taught school one year. Entering the
senior class of the University of Indiana at Valparaiso, in 1890, he graduated
in 1891 with the degree of C. E. Coming to Fresno Countv soon after, he
became construction engineer for the San Joaquin Light & Power Company,
and had charge of the building of the reservoir pipe line ditches. At the end
of sixteen months he was made deputy county surveyor under Surveyor
Hoxie. In 1902 he was nominated on the Republican ticket for county
surveyor of Fresno County, and elected by a large majority. He was re-
elected in 1906, 1910, and 1914, a remarkable attestation of his popularity
and a just recognition of his services. He was married to Helen Jewett, a
native of \^■isconsin, daughter of George D. Jewett. They have two children:
a son, Warren Scott; and daughter, Helen Lois. Mr. McKay was a member
of the Independent Order of Foresters, Woodmen of the World, and of the
Chamber of Commerce.
It is said that "Death loves a shining mark." Neither pomp nor circum-
stance, popularity nor efficiency avail anything upon the approach of the
pale horse and his rider. Care abundant and love unlimited, evoked with
all the skill and intelligence of human hands and hearts, were impotent to
stay the course of disease ; and so, at three quarters of an hour after midnight
of May 4, 1918, the spirit of Scott ^McKay was wafted away, and those Avho
knew and valued him so highly will know him no more in this life. The
immediate cause of his taking away was pneumonia, contracted while on a
professional journey to Tollhouse. Thus do men come and go, working
through their brief span until the evening comes, and the morning breaks
upon a world bereft of all joy to the hearts of those who have loved and lost:
but surely there must be some mitigation of their sorrow when they con-
template the success of the life that has ended. There must have been, too,
in the mind of Scott McKay something of pride as he thought of the work
he had accomplished for his neighbors and countrymen, work that would
endure long years after he had passed away. There would be occasion for
this pardonable pride, for he bequeathed to his county a record of activities
that stamp him as a man of vision, and intelligence to make that vision a
reality. His trail may be traced through the water, lumber and road enter-
prises in the upper and foothill regions : the great piece of engineering and
724 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
construction work on the Sand Creek mountain road on a six per cent,
grade, and built under his personal supervision ; the reduction of the grades
on the Squaw Valley foothill road in overcoming by a six per cent, grade
the Squaw Valley, Boren and Irwin hills, making it one of the finest foothill
scenic roads in the county. Other results of his professional activities will
be revealed in the future, and accentuate the value his friends now put upon
his work. Mr. McKay was conscious for a greater part of the time until his
death. And so, at last, he "wrapped the drapery of his couch about him and
lay down to pleasant dreams."
GILES N. FREMAN. — No history of California would be complete
without the acknowledgment of the generous and effective service rendered
the commonwealth by the members of the teaching profession, a profession
for years represented with honor and dignity in the life and work of Giles N.
Freman, and also by his wife, who has been his able assistant. Now he
lives retired on his Central California ranch, happy in the recollection of
years of service well done, and service that again and again left its mould-
ing mark on the evolution of the community.
In Abingdon, 111. where he taught in Abingdon College, Giles N. Freman
had married Mary Martin, born in Missouri, and together they came to
Yolo County. Cal., in 1863. They had three children : G. Clarence, who was a
member of the law firm of Snow and Freman at Fresno, died in 1915; F. H.,
is advertising manager for the Los Angeles Examiner, and resides in that
city ; and Frank Forest. Mr. Freman taught for many years in Yolo County
as principal of the Woodland schools, and in Hesperian College for five years,
also served as county superintendent of schools for two terms.
On account of failing health, caused by too close application to his indoor
work, Mr. Freman went to Arizona and for two years was superintendent of
the McMillen Silver Mining Company, near Globe. Upon his return to Yolo
County, Cal. he engaged in the mercantile business at Capay, with G. C.
Grimes for a partner, continuing till 1885. In 1887 he removed to Fresno
and engaged in the real estate business and bought his ranch of forty acres,
part of the holdings of the Iowa and California Fruit Company, the oldest
horticultural project in the Fowler district.
In time Mr. Freman came to own 100 acres, with which he produced
some notable results and acquired fame as an enthusiast in the cultivation of
the Calimyrna fig. of which there are, on his ranch, over 250 trees of the
Adriatic variety, grafted over fifteen years ago, and are now thrifty and pro-
ductive. Much as he was absorbed in fruit culture, Mr. Freman could not
give up his educational work, and he became principal of the Easton school.
In 1901 he was appointed county superintendent of schools to fill the unex-
pired term of Mr. Ramsey, and in 1902 he was elected to the office and served
until 1908. During this time his wife acted as his deputy.
Mr. Freman lived in Fresno for five years and then settled on his ranch.
His first wife died in Woodland in 1883. His present wife was in maidenhood.
Miss Sarah DeBell, a native of Kentucky who grew up in Mattoon, 111., and
in that state taught her first school ; later she taught in Sedalia, Mo., and
after that came to Modesto, Cal., in December, 1884 and taught for two
years. She married Mr. Freman in October, 1887, and ever since has been an
able helpmate in all his endeavors. She is a member of the Peach Growers'
Inc., and of the California Associated Raisin Company.
Central California will not soon forget the services of Professor and Mrs.
Freman, whose traditions for useful life and work are at present so admirably
carried on by the son, Frank Forest Freman, who is making good as manager
of the home ranch and as fruit buyer for the Bonner Packing Company. He
was born at Woodland, Yolo County, November 30, 1876, and attended the
public schools in Fresno from his eighth to his thirteenth year, after which he
made his home on the ranch, completed his schooling and remained at home
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 725
and became a proficient horticulturist and business man. Since 1916 he has been
a buyer for the Bonner Packing Company, of Fresno, a field of work that
occupies about ten months of the year. He operates the home ranch, which
is devoted to Thompson seedless grapes, figs and peaches.
F. F. Freman has been twice married, his first wife was Cornelia Gower,
of Fresno County, by whom he had a son, Giles E., born in 1907. The wife
and mother passed away in 1913. In 1917 he was united in marriage with
Miss Sarah McClure, daughter of J. P. and Annie (Young) McClure, of
Shamokin, Pa. Mr. Freman is always ready to cooperate, to the full extent
of his ability, in the promotion of California industry.
GEORGE H. MALTER. — More than 150 years ago the culture of the
grape was introduced on the Pacific slope by the Padres. Could they have
looked into the future and beheld the wonderful development of their land
of manfina in the opening years of the twentieth century and have seen the
extent that the grape industry in its various ramifications has attained, they
would have opened wide their eyes in astonishment.
George H. Malter, the owner and founder of the St. George Vineyard
which w^as one of the largest sweet wine and brandy producing establish-
ments in the world, was born in Silesia, Bohemia, March 25, 1852. Educated
in the Polytechnic school, he became a mining engineer and while still in his
teens came to the United States, locating in Chicago for a short time, after
which he came to California, via Isthmus of Panama, in 1869. One of For-
tune's favorites, his success in his business ventures, was from the first
assured. He was engineer on many large mining projects and put in one of
the first blast furnaces in the United States for the Union Coal, Iron and
Transportation Company, at Chicago. He was engineer in the construction
of the rolling mills at Joliet, 111., and built the Marsac mills, in the silver mine
at Park City, Utah,, in 1872, which after all these years are still in operation.
After following mining engineering all over the mining section of the ^Middle
West and West he returned to California and began to make investments.
In 1878 he purchased his first piece of land in Fresno County, consisting of
480 unimproved acres, and from time to time added to his holdings until he
owned 4,000 acres along Fancher Creek in Fresno County, 2,000 of which
were planted to vines.
The St. George Vineyard was started in 1879, when 160 acres of vines
were planted. It eventually comprised six vineyards, aggregating nearly
2,000 acres which were planted in choice imported varieties of wine, brandy
and raisin grapes. These vineyards produced annually upward of 6,000 tons
of grapes. About one-third of this amount was used for raisins. A large
quantity of table grapes were grown and shipped annually to Chicago, New
York and other large cities, where they were sold at auction to fruit dealers.
The remainder of the St. George Vineyard grape-product went to its winery
and distillery in which about 10,000 tons of grapes were annually crushed for
wine and brandy purposes. A large amount of the grapes so used were bought
from neighboring vineyards during each season.
The St. George Vineyard had its warehouses in San Francisco, New
York and New Orleans ; its winery for making dry wines at Antioch, Con-
tra Costa County, and its sweet wine producing vineyards, winery, and dis-
tillery at Maltermoro, Fresno County. The first winery at Maltermoro was
built in 1884. It was then a comparatively small concern, but grew to be one
of the largest in the state with a capacity of working 200 tons of grapes per
day, crushing 10,000 tons of grapes during the vintage. It was totally de-
stroyed bv fire on December 12, 1902, with all its contents of nearly a million
gallons of wine and brandy, together with the adjoining packing house, the
raisin seeding plant and cream of tartar works. Tliis fire, the most extensive
and disastrous which had ever occurred in Fresno County, destroyed over
one-half million dollars in property, only $75,000 of which was covered by
insurance. The St. George winerv at Maltermoro was reconstructed as a
726 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
fire-proof structure, fully as large and efficient as its predecessor. Among the
new cooperage in the reconstructed winery there were ten wine vats, each
of which was of double the capacity of the famous Heidelberg tun, the great
size of which made it one of the marvelous sights of Europe. The Antioch
winery was located at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Rivers and had its own wharf and warehouses. The grapes were shipped to
this winery by rail from various grape producing sections of the state and
converted into dry wines and brandies.
The St. George Vineyard enterprise was entirely independent of any
wine trust. Its management aimed to reach the wine merchant directly, with-
out the intervention of middlemen or blending or stretching establishments
and it furnished wines ready for the consumer.
Mr. Malter never personally conducted the vineyard, always having a
superintendent. He made his home in San Francisco until the great fire in
1906 when he settled in his Fresno County home. In early days he was a
member of the San Francisco Yacht Club and his yacht, "The Emerald," won
the cup for three successive years. He has been a member of the Bohemian
Club of San Francisco since 1877. and belongs to the Sequoia Club in Fresno.
Mrs. Malter was, in maidenhood, Miss Mabel P. Richardson of San Fran-
cisco, a woman of good business acumen. They are the parents of one son,
George H. Jr., thirteen years of age.
Since taking up his residence in Fresno County, Mr. Malter has been
selling of¥ his holdings and retiring from the arduous cares of business life
and is enjoying the fruit of a long and prosperous business career. Fie has
always been a loyal supporter of projects for the upbuilding of the state and
has made a large circle of friends wherever he is known.
ELISHA ARNOLD MANNING.— The title of pioneer was justly
merited by Elisha Arnold Manning, who left the established civilization of
his native city, Boston, Mass., to come west and take part in the hardships
and adventures of a civilization still in its growing pains and needing men
of his caliber to help in the good work, for Elisha Arnold Manning was
known as a man who did things ; what he set out to do he did with all his
might ; obstacles never discouraged him, nor did disappointments and de-
feats. He knew how to push on and he gave of his courage and his vigorous
activities to the accomplishment of whatever interested him or whatever he
planned to do. He was a fine example in that phase of his sturdy character;
exacting in business, but generous in his friendships and his heart was as
big as it was stout. Wise in counsel and efficient in execution, his life was
an admirable example to every citizen because of his patriotic, pioneer labors
for the welfare of the communit}^ and for his breadth of disinterested devotion
to worthy causes.
A descendant of a prominent Eastern family. Mr. ^Manning received good
educational advantages, through his own efforts, which fitted him for his
duties in later life. After reaching young manhood his desire was for greater
adventure in life than that afforded by his environment, and 1856 found him
crossing the plains with ox teams to California, by way of the sink of the
Humboldt. Soon after his arrival in the state he engaged in freighting be-
tween San Francisco, San Bernardino and Salt Lake City, and during this
time he became very familiar with the Bay section, also the San Joaquin
Valley, which, at the time he freighted through it abounded in wild horses
and hogs, which roamed at will over the great expanse of plains.
Before leaving the East Mr. Manning had learned the shoe manufactur-
ing business thoroughly, and after he quit freighting he established a shoe
factory in Oakland, the first one on the coast, and on account of a strike
among his workmen he was the first man to employ Chinese as shoemakers,
he and his wife having first taught them the business. This was in the sixties,
and he operated the factory a number of years.
MR. AND MRS. MANNING
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 729
While on one of his freighting trips to Salt Lake, Mr. Manning met
and later married Adeline Hogle, a native of Pennsylvania who had come
to California via Panama in 1856 to make her home with her uncle, Eugene
Walker, who was the proprietor of a hotel in Redwood City in the year 1866.
^^'ith her uncle she went to San Bernardino, and later to Salt Lake City.
Selling out his fajitory interests, Mr. Manning came to Hanford in the
seventies, and there he built and owned the Mussel Slough Ditch, which
caused so much trouble in later years between the settlers and the Southern
Pacific Railroad. He also built and was one of the owners of the 76 Ditch
in Fresno County, and in that undertaking was cotemporary with Dr.
H. P. Merritt, Moses J. Church and others in early irrigation work. He ran
the ditches until 1888, when he retired to a home in Fresno, and here first
M-ith \N'. R. Thomas, and then with John McMuUen. he was engaged in real
estate business in Fresno for many years. He came to own a tract of 1,600
acres south of Kerman. He put the land under the Fresno canal, and moved
onto it to personally superintend the operating. Flis land was planted to
alfalfa and he engaged in the raising of stock and in time sold of? some of
his holdings. He laid out and surveyed, with Col. Josiah Hall, all the Perrin
Colonies. 1 to 6. It was through his influence that many men, who later be-
came prominent in Fresno County affairs, were attracted here to make their
homes. The Manning scliinil district, west of Fresno, was named in his
honor. While interestcrl in irrigation, he had charge of all the ditches for
the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company. Prominent throughout the cen-
tral counties. Mr. 'Manning is best remembered for his humanitarian char-
acteristics; kindly, just, charitable, he was a friend to all, and any project
for the advancement of his county and state had his hearty endorsement
and active cooperation. His death occurred on his ranch in Fresno County,
January 29, 1918, at the ripe age of eight}'-three. and he lived to see many
of his prophecies for this section fulfilled. ^Mrs. Manning passed away on
April 11, 1918. She shared with him all his trials and tribulations as well
as his successes and triumphs. To this pioneer couple seven children were
born : Mary, widow of Albert Gribi, resides in Hanford ; Elizabeth married
Charles Coe, of Hanford ; Nellie, wife of L. E. Jones, of Porterville ; Thomas
G., of Hanford; Nannie M., Mrs. E. H. Smith of Fresno County. Orson and
Marcus are both deceased.
NATHAN D. GILBERT. — The pioneer painting contractor of Fresno,
Nathan D. Gilbert has witnessed the wonderful transformation of California
in the forty-eight years he has made it his home. He was born on a farm on
Knob Prairie, in Jefferson County, 111., July 3, 1847, and attended the local
district schools and Eastman College of Chicago. His father left the farm
and engaged in the general merchandise business at Ashley, Washington
County, 111., and after having completed his common school education,
Nathan D. entered the store as a clerk. He later entered the college at
Chicago, and when he had completed the course, went back to the old farm
in Jefferson County, and engaged in farm pursuits until enlisting for service
in the Civil War, in 1864. He volunteered in Company F, Forty-ninth Regi-
ment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under Captain Laur, and was stationed at
Paducah, Ky., doing garrison lUity until the war ended.
After returning ti> ci\il life in Illinois, Mr. Gilbert married Phoebe
Welsh, and farmed on the Welsh property, in Jefferson County, until the
fall of 1870, when he decided to come to California and locate in a newer
section of country. He settled on the Merced River, in Merced County,
and engaged in ranching. When Merced was started, Mr. Gilbert moved
to the new settlement and was one of the founders of the place. He bought
some of the first lots sold, built one of the first houses in the town and
began working at the painter's trade, soon becoming very proficient and
began taking contracts in that line of business.
730 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Looking for a broader field, in 1874, l\Ir. Gilbert came to Fresno, then
a small hamlet, but with superior possibilities. He had passed through
Fresno in 1871 on his way to Pleasant Valley, and remembered it as one
vast plain, with but few houses. He painted the first schoolhouse in Fresno,
erected and endowed by Joseph Smith. Soon after, he formed a partnership
with J. J. Boyle, under the firm name of Boyle & Gilbert, and carried on busi-
ness "for some time. After they dissolved their partnership, Mr. Gilbert
bought and sold considerable town property which included the Dunn prop-
erty at the corner of J and Kern Streets, for which he paid only $100 and
upon it erected three houses and sold at a good advance. This increase
shows the wonderful advance in property values in Fresno. Mr. Gilbert's
work has been that of a painter, and he was the second man to engage in
that trade in the town. He has a record for reliable work and satisfied
patrons and enjoys the confidence and esteem of those who know him.
During early days in Fresno's development, Mr. Gilbert had some ex-
periences with Vasquez and his gang of outlaws. He was on a trip to the
California Ranch, west of Fresno, and had stopped at a store when he was
told by a Spanish girl that Vasquez and his followers were in the neighbor-
hood. She hid him in the store until the gang had departed, and he has
always felt that he owed his life to this girl's brave act. Once again he
escaped the gang at Firebaugh Ferry. Mr. Gilbert was prominent in the
social and civic life of the early days in the county. He was a member of
the hook-and-ladder company of the first Volunteer Fire Department of
Fresno. He and L. Gundelfinger are now the only survivors of the original
company. Mr. Gilbert was a member of the first Fresno Brass Band, and
played the alto horn in that organization, of which J. J. Boyle was the
leader; today there are only three left of the first "band boys." Mr. Gilbert
was the first president of the local Painter's Union, and now belongs to the
Union of Master Painters. He also belongs to the Owl Lodge.
Mr. Gilbert had four children by his first marriage, John L., and Mrs.
Lillie Wright, both of Fresno ; Herman W. and Andrew Asa, are deceased.
The second marriage united Mr. Gilbert with Augusta Steinberger, who was
born in Mariposa County, a daughter of a pioneer merchant of Mariposa
who died there. By this marriage two children were born ; Charles E.. who
died leaving a son, Charles Nathan ; and Waldo A., who is in the United
States Army, attached to Letterman Hospital at the Presidio in San Fran-
cisco. In the life of this successful citizen, self-made in every sense of the
term, are illustrated the results of perseverance and energy, which make
of him a citizen of whom any community might well feel proud.
FRED J. DOW. — An enterprising citizen and upbuilder of Fresno
County, Fred J. Dow has been identified with the viticultural and business
interests of the San Joaquin Valley since 1884. A son of the late William
H. Dow, he was born on a farm in Switzerland County, Ind., February 13,
1865. His early training was along agricultural lines, interspersed with
attendance at the public school in his home district up to the age of nineteen.
His father, who was also born in the Hoosier state, decided to come to Cali-
fornia to escape the rigorous climate of the IMiddle West, and in 1884, with
his family, settled in Fresno County. At that time the country was little
better than a desert and Fresno as it is today was little dreamed of. Mr. Dow
purchased a forty-acre tract of raw land and began the development of a
raisin vineyard. In time he became a well-to-do man and was well known
throughout the county. He died here in 1910.
After Fred J. Dow arrived in Fresno County, then a youth of nineteen,
he entered the employ of the Grififin-Skelley Company and for twenty years
was a valued employe of that concern. He began at the bottom of the ladder
and in time worked his way to a position of responsibility and learned the
various phases of the fruit business. As he prospered financially he bought
town lots in Fresno and ranch acreage. In 1904 he resigned his position to
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 731
purchase an interest in the Merchants \\^arehouse Company of Fresno, and
gave his attention to the upbuilding of that business for two years, when
he bought a half interest in a shoe business, having two stores in the tfity.
In 1912 Mr. Dow organized the contracting and building firm of Dow &
Cannon and since that period he has been identified with the building
business and has handled some large contracts, in fact in every line of busi-
ness in which Mr. Dow has been interested he has made a success by his
indomitable energy and business acumen. Mr. Dow has increased his finan-
cial interest by becoming a stockholder and a director in the Fresno Savings
Bank and the Union National Bank of Fresno ; he also owns a business block
adjoining the Griffith-McKenzie Building.
In 1(S93, in his home city, Fred J. Dow married ]\Iay Lundy, born in
Bakersficld, the daughter of a pioneer family. Their home life has been
brightened by the birth of a son. Kenneth L. Dow. In all his efforts towards
the development of the county, ^Ir. Dow has been generous of his time and
means in bringing the possibilities of the county to the notice of those look-
ing for desirable homes.
JOSEPH DAVIDSON REYBURN.— A progressive pioneer who braved
and surmounted primitive scenes and experiences often fraught with danger,
and disparaging conditions, and in the end made a svibstantial contribution
to the development of the fast-growing commonwealth of California, himself
living to see changes which must have seemed to him as miraculous as any
ever recorded, was Joseph Davidson Reyburn, who came to the Pacific in
the days of the argonauts, and died only three or four years ago. He was
born at Burlington, Iowa, on Christmas Day. 1840. a son of John Stewart
Reyburn and a brother of John James ; and in his native state he was reared,
attending log-cabin schools. He started to work on a farm and continued
to plow and till ; and when he was old enough to work for others, he hired
out as a farm hand.
In 1862 he broke away from the environment under which he had thus
far grown up and, joining a companv traveling with mule teams, crossed the
plains by way of the Platte River and made for The Dalles. Ore., after which
he went down the Columbia River to Portland — a journey he never ceased
to talk about, for at the end, on their arrival in the embryo town, he and his
companions got the first good meal they had enjoyed since leaving home.
Then thev proceeded to Marion County, where they wintered in Howell's
Prairie ; but becoming disgusted with the persisting rains, they pulled up
stakes and in 1863 drove south over the stage route to California. From the
Sacramento they went to Folsom ; and heading for Nevada, they crossed
the mountains into Carson City. There Mr. Reyburn found work as a team-
ster, driving to Virginia City, and so continuing until the fall of that year.
In September he hitched up the same team and drove it to Stockton : and hav-
ing disposed of his mules, he camped for the winter in the vicinity.
The next vear Mr. Reyburn returned to Nevada and there he was kept
busy until the fall of 1864. when he returned to California and settled on the
Stanislaus River; and there on the present site of Salida. he preempted and
homesteaded 320 acres. He had run a lumber yard in Oregon, and for the
first two years he engaged in the lumber business on the Tuolumne River.
He was married in 1869 and then began the cultivation and improvement of
his property, increasing his holding to 400 acres. He farmed to grain until
1881, when" he sold out for fifty dollars an acre.
The same year Mr. Reyburn came to Fresno County and with J. P. Vin-
cent purchased three sections of land on the plains, but later sold two to
his partner. The next year he bought three sections more ; and although he
let lohn Lester secure one of them, he made good use of the remaining three.
For thirty-eight years he raised little but wheat, and in that field he became
a path-breaking specialist. After a while he rented some land to his son ;
and getting old, he gave each of his children forty acres ; retaining 1,980 acres
7Z1 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
until his death. All this he accomplished despite the fact that he was forced
to go through some very hard times. In 1892 he erected a large and hand-
some residence on one of the sections he owned, and a couple of years later
set out a vineyard of forty acres of muscats, near which he planted twent}^
acres of a peach orchard and in 1908 he set out eighty acres more of vineyard.
Mr. Reyburn was twice married. The first time he was united to Mary
Ella Lester, a daughter of Iowa, who came to California and located near
the Stanislaus County homestead he had started to prove up. When she
passed away in 1893, she was the mother of nine children, one of whom died
in infancy: Charles T., Leslie D., Glenn W., Emery Everett, C. Ray and
Ida May (twins), \A"alter P., and John L., were children of this union. On May
9, 1897, at San Jose, Mr. Reyburn married Annie P. Buckley, a native of Au-
burn and a graduate of the State Normal at San Jose, who was a teacher for
eleven years before her marriage. Six children came to them, and they are:
Gilbert Rowell. who died at the age of two : and Gladys, .\lfred, Doris. Mary
Margaret, and Adda.
Reared in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, IVIr. Reyburn became an
elder in the Clovis Church, and filled that ruling office for twenty years. He
was also their popular Sunday School superintendent. In national politics
he was a Republican ; but he put aside preferences in local movements. He
threw himself heart and soul into the organization of the Jefferson school
district, of which he was a director for years. He gave needed and appre-
ciated assistance in the organization of the state grange in Napa, in 1876,
and when the branch at Salida was formed, he was the first master. The last
six years of his life he made his home at Pacific Grove, and he died in 1914.
He 'was a man of the highest probity and for many a year his name will be
mentioned with both respect and affection.
JOHN G. S. ARRANTS.— The life of John G. S. .\rrant5 began in Sulli-
van County, Tenn., on September 9, 1838, and closed in Selma, Cal.. on Octo-
ber 23, 1914. ^^'ithin these seventy-six years is a record of much accomplished
for the benefit of his fellow citizens, many improvements introduced of last-
ing value to Selma, and substantial interests established that left his family
in comfortable circumstances at his death.
John G. S. Arrants grew to a sturdy manhood in his native state and
received such educational advantages as were offered by the subscription
schools. He came from a prominent Scotch family that settled in eastern
Tennessee. When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Arrants went with his
state and the South, and joined the Confederate Army. He became captain of
a company and served until the close of the struggle. In 1870 he left Ten-
nessee for ^Missouri, and engaged in mercantile pursuits in that state for
the following ten years, when he closed out his interests and came to Cali-
fornia, locating in Selma.
Here, in the then small village, IMr. Arrants started the first exclusive
grocery store in the place. He formed a partnership with a cousin, under
the firm name of Arrants & Longacre, and for many years this establish-
ment was known as a reliable place to trade, and as the locality became more
thickly populated, the business of Arrants & Longacre expanded to meet
every demand. Mr. Arrants laid out Arrants Subdivision to Selma, one of
the main residence sections of the city, and Arrants Street was named in
his honor. He promoted the Selma Gas Works, and became interested in
organizing the First National Bank of Selma, became a director and was
ser^-ing as its president when his death occurred. As a business man he
was the acme of honor, and as a financier, one of the most conservative, yet
liberal. Mr. Arrants was a prominent factor in the growth of Selma, which
expanded by reason of the display of wisdom, generosity and the sagacity of
its pioneer business men, of whom perhaps none were more far-seeing than
Mr. Arrants, whose keen business judgment and liberal character were im-
pressed upon the very life of Selma, which is today one of the best towns,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 733
for its size, in the San Joaquin Valley, and which was not built by railroad
influence. He was one of the first men in the Valley to appreciate the
value of cooperation among the peach and raisin growers, and helped to
establish the first Cooperative Fruit-Packing House at Selma, which was
later incorporated under the name of the Selma Fruit Company, with some
fifty or sixty stockholders. Upon the organization of the California Associated
Raisin Growers Association, for the sake of harmony, the Selma Fruit Com-
pany sold out to the latter concern.
Mr. Arrants was twice married. His first wife was ]\Iiss ]\Iary Alice
Gray, born at Nashville, Tenn., September 1, 1855. and died in Selma, on
November 2, 1904. Three children were born of this marriage: Lulu, who
died at the age of four; Annie, and Elizabeth, both single and residing in
Los Angeles. The second marriage of ^Ir. Arrants united him with Mrs.
]\Iary A. Freeland, who survives him, and who is mentioned on another page
of this history.
JOSEPH BURNS. — Great honor is due the courageous pioneers of the
Golden State, and one of these deserving especial mention is J"seph Burns,
late of Sanger. He was known as a man who did things, and what he set
out to do he did with all his might; obstacles never discouraged him, nor
did disappointments and defeats. He was a fine example in that phase of his
sturdy character. He was exacting in business, but generous in his friend-
ships, and his heart was as liig as it was stout. He was alwa}-s brave, always
ready, always loyal, following where duty led. He was wise in execution
and in counsel, and his life was an admirable example to every citizen be-
cause of his patriotic, pioneer labors for the welfare of the community and
for his disinterested devotion to worthy causes.
Joseph Burns was born in South Carolina, September 13, 1830. a son
of Stewart and Sarah ( Gillispie) Burns, pafents of six sons and four daugh-
ters. One son is now a resident of Illinois and another lives in Kansas, and
these are the only survivors of the family. At the age of twenty-three, in
1853, young Burns left Sparta. Ill, with two companions, and traveled to St.
Joseph, Mo., where they joined a party consisting of thirty-five persons bound
for California. They outfitted with provisions twenty-two wagons drawn by
ox teams, and began the long and tedious journey across the great plains
and desert and mountains. Some members of the train conceived a clever
idea bv which the party would profit financially — that of transporting freight
from ^lissouri to Salt Lake City, and other merchandise from the Mormon
capital through to the coast, there to dispose of it at a profit. The project
of freighting merchandise across the plains was an unusual one at that time,
and it proved all that was claimed for it by the promoters. The trip was
made in safety, and at the end of six months the train arrived at Truckee,
Cal., by way of the Humboldt desert.
Leaving the party Mr. Burns worked in the mines for a time, but like
many others he found it unprofitable as well as uncertain and abandoned
it to take a position on a stock ranch. Later he engaged in freighting sup-
plies from Stockton to the mines, using oxen to haul the big wagons. Sub-
sequently he engaged in ranching at Coarse Gold for six years, giving especial
attention to raising hogs, which then commanded high prices, and at one
time had over 200 head in his drove. To his stock interests he added the
raising of cattle, horses and sheep, owning over 2.000 head of the latter. For
vears^he had the finest horses in this part of the Valley, and his driving
"teams were the comment of all who saw them, as they were of the finest
standard-bred stock. When he began in the stock business he bought 160
acres of land, and as he succeeded he added to his holdings from time to time
until he owned 1,150 acres, part of it given over to general farming, and part
to an orange grove. He was one of the first to set out orange trees here,
securing his stock in Florida and having it brought around the Horn, the
trees costing him three and a half dollars each. He also set out the first
734 HISTORY OF FRESKO COUNTY
peach trees, the fruit of which he sold readily at fifty cents per pound ; and
he was the first man in Fresno County to dry peaches. After six years at
Coarse Gold he moved to Kings River, and while there secured the contract
to build a part of the Gould Ditch, the first to take water for irrigation
from the river and the beginning of irrigating land in the county. While
he was building the ditch he secured a cook and boarded the men working
under him. In all his undertakings he had the helpful cooperation and en-
couragement of his good wife, who shared with him the hardships and trials
incident to pioneer life in California.
On August 17, 1862, Mr. Burns was united in marriage with Miss Mary
A. Lewis. Their marriage license was the first one issued in Fresno County,
and the ceremony was performed by Justice McLaughlin at the bride's home
in Fine Gold Gulch, twelve miles from IMillerton. With his bride riding a
horse beside him, Mr. Burns went to his mountain ranch at Coarse Gold,
where they lived for six years. Mrs. Burns was born in Austin Countv.
Texas. Februar},'- 17. 1848, and was the daughter of James Henry and Mal-
vina (Akers) Lewis, who crossed the. plains from the Lone Star State in
1852. The daughter, Mary A., then in her fifth year, remembers very dis-
tinctly how the wagons of their caravan were drawn up in a circle each
night in order to protect the women and children from any surprise attack
of Indians. After their arrival in California the Lewis family settled in Fine
Gold Gulch, where Mr. Lewis kept a general store and a hotel. He built the
first lumber house in Fine Gold Gulch. Mrs. Lewis was the first white
woman in that section. Gold was plentiful in those days and prices were
high ; regular meals cost from one dollar and up ; ordinary work shirts, which
Mrs. Lewis made by hand for the miners, were readily disposed of for five
dollars each ; and other necessities were proportionately high. I\Ir. and Mrs.
Lewis were parents of ten children, eight of whom are now living: William
H. ; Jane. Mrs. F. J. Finch ; John A. ; Frank ^I. ; Thomas Jeflferson ; George
W. ; Robert L. ; and Mary A., Mrs. Joseph Burns : and seven of these reside
in California. Two, Mrs. Margaret A. Witt and Harvey, died in Fresno
County. On the maternal side Mrs. Burns is connected with the pioneer
family of Akers, long identified with the best interests of Fresno County,
and whose names appear frequently in this history.
Mrs. Burns received her education from private tutors, her father hir-
ing, with some of the immediate neighbors, an instructor for their children,
tintil such a time as a public school could be organized. Among her teachers
was Judge Lynch, the pioneer. She grew up amidst pioneer surroundings,
littledreaming of the wonderful progress the county would eventually enjoy.
Mr. and Mrs. Burns became the parents of six children : Ella A. became the
wife of Simeon Evinger and the mother of a son and a daughter, Joseph
Burns and Eleanor. Joseph Burns Evinger is married and has a son. Robert
Burns Evinger. The Evingers live in Fresno. William Burns owns an orange
grove adjoining the old home place, where he lives and looks after the family
interests ; Agnes J. is with her mother and is acting as librarian of the Sanger
Branch of the Fresno County Library : Florence M., who married Fred ]\Ic-
Allister, resides with her mother at Sanger and is engaged in newspaper
work ; Pearl is a copyist in the county recorder's office : and Archibald J.
married Annie M. Overholt and is the father of a daughter, Mary Elizabeth.
He is attendance officer for the county schools. These children are all na-
tives of Fresno County and have been given the best of educational advan-
tages, for Mr. Burns was a strong advocate of good schools. In his district,
when it was organized, he gave the land for the schoolhouse and yard, gave
money towards the erection of the building, and even "boarded" the teacher;
and he also served for almost forty years as a trustee in Hazelton school
district. It was in order to give their youngest daughter the advantages of
better school facilities that the family removed from the ranch to Sanger,
soon after the town was established ; and there ]\Ir. Burns erected a com-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 735
fortable and even pretentious house for those days, where he lived until
the Master called him, on December 13, 1918.
Mr. Burns was a Republican after the party was organized, and cast
his first vote for Gen. Winfield Scott. It was said of him that at all elections
"Joe Burns cast a Republican l)allot and said but little about it." His was
the only Republican vote cast for years in Fresno Count^^ He was one of
the ten men (Republicans) of Fresno County who banded together and
started the Fresno Republican. Dr. Rowell was selected to go to San Fran-
cisco to buy a small hand press on which the paper was first printed. This
was the beginning of the paper that is now the leading daily in the San
Joaquin \''alley and wields a strong influence for good in thousands of homes.
Joseph Burns showed his faith in Fresno County by inducing many-
people to settle within her borders, and to them he gave valuable aid and
advice. At the ranch home of Mr, and ^Irs. Burns, as well as in their town
abode, a charming and typical California hospitality was always extended to
friend and stranger alike. When "Uncle Joe Burns" died, there passed awav
one of the true upbuilders of this great commonwealth, and he was mourned
by hundreds who had met him in business and social relations. ]\Ir. Burns
held membership in the Ancient Order United Workmen Lodge.
FRANK A. DRAPER. — A California pioneer with an interesting history
and a record for enviable accomplishment both in the Golden State and
Alaska, and a representative of one of the few families able to claim a part
in the foundation of Kingsburg. is Frank A. Draper, the son of the late Elias
J. Draper, and a nephew of Josiah Draper, who took up the land upon which
a part of Kingsburg is now located. The father came to California from Iowa
in 1852, crossing the continent with his half-brother, George Harlan, when
the two brought a large drove of cattle, one of the first ever driven across
the mountains. His full name was Elias Johnson Draper, and he was born
in Vandalia City, Wayne County, Ind., on August 21, 1830. He even belonged
to the pioneer days of Indiana, but he so far improved the educational ad-
vantages of the log school-house that he became a teacher himself. At six-
teen years, also, he became a Christian, and always thereafter he lived the
life of a professing Christian, holding steadfast to his dying day, June 7,
1914. In 1851 he was married to Miss Elizal>eth Hobaugh, by whom he had
three children : Theodore is now a rancher in Monterey County ; Francisco
Americus (named by his mother), or Frank, is the subject of our interesting
sketch ; while the third child is Sarah Elizabeth, who was born in Iowa.
With their first-born child, subject's mother and father crossed the plains
to California. Soon after reaching California, their second child, the subject
of this review, was born. The parents engaged in dairy-farming and stock-
raising, for a short while, and then returned to Iowa via the Isthmus, The
third child, as before stated, was born after they returned to Iowa, where
the mother died on the fifteenth day of June, 1857, leaving her husband and
three small children and the blessed memory of noble life.
In the state of Iowa, in 1858, the father married his second wife, Mrs.
Lydia Hobaugh, who was the widow of George Hobaugh, by whom she had
one child, Lucy Hobaugh. who married a California pioneer, of Donner
Party fame, namely, the late Elisha Harlan, extensive land-owner and
farmer and stockman, in what is now the Laton-Riverdale section of Fresno
County. In 1863, Elias J. Draper and family returned to California by ox
team, the second Mrs. Draper enduring the privations and hardships of those
pioneer days. After trying their fortune in different lines of business in
various parts of California they settled at Kingston, Fresno County, and
ever after were well satisfied with their choice. Mrs. Lydia Draper passed
away on July 10, 1887, fifty-seven years of age.
Born near San Jose, Santa Clara County, on February 13, 1855, Frank
Draper remembers the trip in 1863 very well, when the partv drove three
ox teams across the plains to California. They attended the funeral of the
736 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Government agent who kept the stage station which was burned, and who
died from wounds received while fighting the Indians of the Little Sweet-
water. From his eighth year, Frank grew up in California ; and on January 1,
1864, the family settled at Kingston, on the Kings River, what is now Laton,
where the father bought a squatter's claim which afterwards proved to be
on grant land. They continued to live there five years, and then they went
to Monterey County and preempted 160 acres, and lived there six years.
In 1872, Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Draper and a part of the family moved to Kings-
burg, but Frank remained in Monterey County and continued to take care
of the ranch there, and five years later reached Kingsburg and rejoined his
father. The latter, who was early honored by his fellow citizens as justice
of the peace, was then proprietor of the Temperance House, which he had
built, and which was later burned. Frank became a partner with his father,
and the hotel was one of the well-known hostelries of the time.
On September 21, 1878, Frank Draper was married to Miss Florence
Livermore, a native of Iowa who had come to California when she was eighteen
years old. and who was the daughter of Wilson and Huldah (Russell) Liver-
more. Pennsylvanians, who settled in southern Fresno County, where they
improved a farm and were among the first settlers. Mrs. Draper well re-
members the outlaw Vasquez and a party of six followers, coming to
their home early on the morning after the hold-up at Kingston. They were
hungry and asked for breakfast. The mother appreciated the situation, and
without arousing fear or alarm in her children (by herself showing fear), she
prepared the best meal she could from their scanty food-supply and set
it before the desperadoes, who voraciously devoured it, and showed gratitude
for her kindness. The sheriff's posse appeared a few hours later, and Vas-
quiz was duly apprehended, tried and brought to justice.
Continuing in partnership with his father until 1882. Frank Draper
then bought his forty acres and built a home upon it. Altogether he bought
and sold between two and three hundred acres, in vines and trees, among
which eighteen acres are in muscats, six acres in Thompson seedless, and
eight acres in peaches. For a while he cultivated his land himself, but now
he has it leased to others.
An adventurous chapter has to do with Mr. Draper's several trips to the
tar North in search for gold. He first went to the Klondike in 1898, when he
was one of thirt)'-five thousand to rush there because of the excitement
about the yellow metal, but he came back the same fall, only to return to
Nome the next year and the year following. In 1901, too, he was back in
the North, but in that same fall he was smilingh^ greeting his friends in
Kingsburg. having acquired some profit, if not a fortune, by going to Alaska.
Before he went to the Klondike, Mr. Draper was a grain-farmer, but
since he returned he has devoted himself to the fruit and raisin industry. He
has long been a member of the Raisin Growers Association and the Cali-
fornia Peach Growers' Company, and has helped all movements for better-
ing California husbandry. His choice ranch of forty acres is only three
miles southwest of Kingsburg.
Mr. Draper has been local superintendent of the Fulgham Canal Com-
pany's draining ditch, which runs from Selma. where it connects with the
Centerville-Kingsburg Ditch, four miles south, and supplies water for ir-
rigation purposes to Mr. Draper's section of the county. It is now a part
of the Consolidated Canal Company, and in its management Mr. Draper has
proven very able and efficient.
The Drapers were among the first settlers at Kingsburg, and Draper
Street will always be a memorial of their association with the foundation-
layino- of what is bound to be one of the most prosperous and attractive small
cities of Central California. They were good, honest, sober-minded folk, and
in a measure Kingsburg has partaken of their character.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 739
The two children of our subject are: Clayton F. Draper, who is Justice of
the Peace and the Assistant Cashier of the Kingsburg IBank, in which town
he resides, happy as the father of one child, Pauline ; and Flossie E. Draper,
who became the wife of Arthur Blair, and has her home at Richmond, Cal.
Frank Draper is a courteous, generous man, and is a member of the
Christian Science Society at Selma. Mr. and Mrs. Draper have recently
purchased a residence-property on Draper Street in Kingsburg, whither
they will soon retire and tliere enjoy the fruits of well spent lives, and the
distinction of belonging to the first generation of honored pioneers of Kings-
burg.
PROF. JOHN W. TRABER. — There are men whose lives are so
fraught with interesting and important events, that the writer, after he
thinks he has done justice to the subject before him, declares as did the
Queen of Sheba of King Solomon, "The half has not been told." Perhaps
there is not another man in Fresno County who has done more along the
same lines and under the same circumstances for the betterment of the
county than has Prof. John \Y. Trabcr, a man of broad mental caliber and
a keen sense of perception.
The parents of John W. Traber were Peter C. and Harriet (Jacob-
son) Traber, of Holland Dutch extraction, forefathers of whom came with
the Van Rensselaer party and settled in Albany County, N. Y., near
Schenectady, and the fam'ily is still represented there as property holders
of the orig'inal lands obtained at that period. Peter C. was prominent in
politics in Albany County: he died in 1859, and his wife lived until 1867,
passing away in Milan, Mo.
Jo'hn W. was born near Albany, N. Y., on May 22, 1849, where he lived
until four years of age, when he was taken by his parents to Platteville,
Grant County, Wis., where he was reared and attended school until he was
sixteen. He moved with his mother, his father having died when he was
ten, to Northern Missouri, and at Kirksville he fitted himself for the profes-
sion of teaching. He taught in ]\Iissouri until 1872, when he migrated to
the Pacific Coast.
Upon his arrival in California, Professor Traber taught school in Men-
docino County for two years. Then, in 1874, with a brother and other rela-
tives, he came to Fresno County and took up government land in what is
now the Parlier district. He improved a home on a quarter section of land
and has ever since made that place his residence. He engaged in general
farming, stock-raising and fruit-growing. With twenty-three neighboring
ranchers, Mr. Traber was one of the first to take water out of Kings River
to irrigate the land in his section. He has assisted materially in changing
the once arid desert into a veritable garden where almost everything in plant
life will thrive. In all the years that Professor Traber has been a resident
of the county he has continued his educational labors, teaching school winters
and giving his attention to the cultivation of his ranch during the summer.
Todav he ranks among the oldest, as well as the ablest teachers, in this
section. For three years he served as justice of the peace of the Fifth Judicial
district in the county, but declined the office longer on account of his educa-
tional work and the added cares of the ranch.
Mr. Traber was married on August 13, 1871, to Miss Anna Kane, a
native of Vermont and a daughter of Dennis Kane, a native of Ireland wdio
immigrated to America and made settlement in Vermont. During the Civil
War he was employed as a railroad contractor, which occupation he subse-
quently followed in Michigan and Ohio. He spent his last days in Indiana.
Of the' marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Traber four children were born : J. Orra,
who is a welf known lawyer in Fresno; Charles H., who was formerly a
teacher but is now a well known and successful physician at Reedley : Roy C.
who is a rancher and owner of the original home place near Parlier ; and Cul-
740 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
len B., well known in the oil business of the San Joaquin Valley, later en-
gaged in ranching and during the war was employed in shipbuilding at Mare
Island.
As a kind and indulgent father, Mr. Traber has deeded to each of his
sons twenty acres of land, while he retained eighty-two acres until selling to
his son in 1918. On this ranch are grown peaches, prunes and grapes, all
yielding abundant harvests and adding to the annual revenue. The Traber
home is a modern structure and the family radiates good cheer and dispenses
a kindly hospitality to neighbor and friend. Professor Traber is devoted to
his profession, having taught for over thirty-five years in Fresno County,
and continued up to the age of sixty-nine to direct the pathways of the
young, when he retired to private life and is living in Fresno. He is a con-
sistent member of the Methodist Church and for years has taught in the
Sunday School. Mr. Traber has always been in favor of cooperative market-
ing for the fruit-ranchers of Fresno County, and he holds stock in the raisin,
peach and apricot, and prune associations. He is a man of high moral principle
and most highly respected by all who know him.
LEWIS P. SWIFT. — Men possessing the fundamental characteristics
of Lewis P. Swift have ever been regarded as bulwarks of the communities
in which they have pursued their active lives. A native of Perry County,
Ind., he had a common school education, and when quite a young boy, left
school to earn his own way in the world. Self-made and self-educated, he
followed the lumber business all his life, and erected mills in various parts
of the country. He built a mill at Cheboygan, Mich., and ran it a number
of years ; also built another at Ouincy, 111.
Arriving in Fresno, Cal., February 5, 1893, Mr. Swift erected a sawmill
in the mountains, sixty miles northeast of Fresno, with Charles B. Shaver
as partner, this being the eighth mill Mr. Swift had erected ; it was called
the Fresno Flume and Irrigation Company, and Mr. Swift brought thirty
families from the East, the men to work in the mill and lumber yards, many
of them having worked for him in eastern cities. The town of Shaver was
established on this spot, Mr. Swift became known as the father of the town,
and erected a school, dwellings, a general store, and other necessary build-
ings for a growing community. It took two years to complete the mill in
the mountains and there abundant timber of sugar and white pine was found.
Oxen were used at first to haul the logs, next electric power was installed,
and now railroad locomotives and cars, tugboats and booms are used. The
■capacity of the mill is about 40.000,000 feet of lumber annually and during
the time when Mr. Swift had charge of the immense plant there were more
than 500 men employed in the mill and timber during the busy season. \A'hen
the town was first established and a postoffice asked for some of the men
who had been with Mr. Swift for years wanted him to have it called Swift,
but his innate modesty forbade it, although he was prevailed upon to write
to Washington, D. C, but was informed there were other names of Swift and
it could not be allowed, so it was called Shaver, in honor of his partner.
Later Mr. Swift erected a box factory at what is now Clovis, in fact his
was the first industry to be built in what is now a thriving little town. A
flume was constructed, over fortv-eight miles in length and requiring over
9,000,000 feet of lumber which to'taled a cost of $200,000. The planing mill
and box factory, also the dry kilns are located here and many men are
given emploj'ment at this establishment. Of an inventive turn of mind, Mr.
Swift constructed a "Nigger," used to turn logs in the machine carriage : he
also invented other valuable labor saving devices that are now in use in mills.
Mr. Swift was known as the friend of the working men and it was his
greatest delight to make them and their families happy. It was said of him
that he was the largest bu3'er of toys in Fresno County for he always saw
that the children of his men were supplied with amusement and thus en-
deared himself to the rising generations. He was one of the foremost develop-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 741
ers of the lumlier industry and was known as a man who did things; what he
set out to do he did with all his might; obstacles never discouraged him,
nor did disappointments and defeats; he knew how to push on and he gave
his courage, his strong will and his vigorous activities to the accomplishment
of wdiatever interested him or wdiatever he planned to do. He was a fine
example in that phase of his sturdy character and his memory is revered
because of his patriotic, pioneer labors for the welfare of the community,
for his breadth of interests, and for his disinterested devotion to worthy
causes, and the mill at Shaver and factory at Clovis stand as monuments
to his memory. His death occurred January 29, 1901. Fraternally, he was a
member of the Fresno lodge of Masons.
The marriage of Lewis P. Swift united him, in 1888, with Ella C. French,
a native of New Orleans, La., and two children were born to them ; Lewella,
wife of J. C. Forkner, and the mother of three children — Mary Jane, James
Swift and Robert Lewis; Gertrude, wife of Edwin M. Einstein, and the
mother of one daughter, Evelyn T. The widow, who resides at the family
home, 1661 M Street, is very active in philanthropic work; for five 3^ears
•she was treasurer of the local V. W. C. A., and is now on the board of trustees
and an active worker in the society ; she is also a most active and con-
scientious worker for the Red Cross, and had a class of 130 knitters who
did noble work for the association, knitting sweaters, bandages, etc. Mrs.
Swift has been a member of the Parlor Lecture Club for twenty-four years.
She attends the Episcopal Church.
RUSSELL HARRISON FLEMING.— Probably no other state in the
LTnion has such an aljsorbingly interesting (because ultra-romantic) pioneer
histfiry as California, and most likely no commonwealth excels this in
cherishing every memorial of those who paid so dearly, in the matter of
their health, comfort and worldly prosperity, in order that others who have
come after them may enter into a promised land. Among the truly, if some-
what humbly great of this path-breaking army of American patriots is Rus-
sell Harrison Fleming who was born on April 12, 1832, at Kingston, Luzerne
County, Pa., the son of John Fleming, a native of the north of Ireland with
enough enterprise and endurance to cross the ocean and settle in the still
freer United States. Ardently patriotic, he shouldered a musket when the
War of 1812 began, and did his duty there as a soldier, along with the Yankee
natives. At the age of sixty-five he died in the Quaker State, survived by his
wife, who had been Annie Karle, a popular belle of Massachusetts, before
her marriage. Mrs. Fleming must have come from especially good Colonial
stock, for she lived to be ninety-seven years old.
Russell had the ordinary education of a grammar school boy of that
period and section, and when he grew to manhood and found his way to
California, he busied himself at farming and mining, as so many pioneers
came to do. When the mines no longer had an attraction for him, he took
to staging; and getting worn on the road, he opened a livery for the service
of others. In all these undertakings, honesty and conscientiousness charac-
terized his varied and often risky dealings, and a good nature and kindheart-
edness won for him a host of friends.
On January 18, 1863, Mr. Fleming married Elizabeth Dorgan, a native
by birth of Cork, Ireland, from which city her parents came; the marriage
occurring in Mariposa County. While she was a mere child, she had been
brought to the United States, and at the same time, she had lost all trace
of her nearest relatives. A goodly family blessed this union, and several
of the sons and daughters are still living to further honor an honored name.
John Daniel and Mary Ellen died; Elizabeth married C. A. McCoy; Alice
is ]\Irs. Jarvis Streeter, Jr. ; Emma is also dead ; Russell Anthony is also
married; Anna is the wife of J. P. Coyle ; George died February, 1917;
Rozillah was joined in wedlock to George F. St. Louis; Julia Ellen (whose
742 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
career is so interestingly sketched elsewhere in this volume) is also, like
her two younger sisters Florence and Isabel unmarried; nor has William
Timothy as yet taken a wife, he is now in the One Hundred Sixtieth I'nited
States Infantry in France. Mrs. Fleming passed into the great beyond Tulv
30, 1913.
Ever since attaining his majority, when he could understand political
issues and think and act for himself. Mr. Fleming has been inspired with
civic pride and a desire for public-welfare service, and until three years ago
he has been active as a citizen proud of his franchise rights, in the ranks
of the Republicans. Fond of social life, he joined the Masons far back in
1858, and was a Master Mason and held the office of Senior Warden. To
know Mr. Fleming has been to like him, as by the most natural of processes :
and to live and work with him has always resulted in an increased respect
for human nature, and an enthusiasm for what is so typically American.
JOHN M. FLEMING. — Few persons, on seeing the valuable and attract-
ive vineyard of John M. Fleming, the pioneer who came to Fresno in the
early nineties, would picture the sorry plight in which he found himself
at first on account of the squirrels and jack-rabbits, and the almost insur-
mountable difficulties with which he had to contend in getting vines well
started. He persisted, however, and by extraordinary and patient labor, he
made for himself a finely improved place.
The father of our subject was John Fleming, an Irishman by birth and
a native of the County Antrim, while the grandfather was James Fleming,
who joined the father later and resided in New York with him until he died.
While yet a lad. the father crossed the ocean to the New World and at New
York he completed his schooling. After that he was in the mercantile busi-
ness at Lewiston. N. Y., until he retired, and when he died he closed the
record of four-score years. The mother was Margaret Miller before her
marriage, and she was born at Glasgow, Scotland, from which country she
migrated with her parents to New York. She died four years older than
her husband, the mother of eight children, seven of whom are still enjoying
life. Among these John M. was the second oldest, and the only one in
California. John attended the public school at Lewiston, Niagara County,
where he was born, and when twenty years of age entered the employ of
the New York Central, having secured a clerkship in the freight department.
He was with that company for fifteen years, but desiring a change of climate,
he came to Dinuba, Cal., in 1892, and in a short time to Fresno County. He
found that outdoor work was beneficial, and so he labored in the vineyards.
He studied viticulture and then leased one of the vineyards and engaged in
growing raisins. These were sold as low as one and a quarter cents a pound,
however, and there was no profit in the venture.
In 1902. Mr. Fleming located on his present ranch, a fine tract of 160
acres five miles east of Clovis. It was stubble-field at first, and it was no
wonder that, when the grasshoppers came in the year of the first vineyard,
the experiment was a failure. But he set out a new vineyard and worked
hard four years in succession, and later he was able to sell ofl^ forty acres
and to retain 120, both proving profitable. He has about forty-five acres in
vineyard, of which ten acres are zinfandels and the balance muscats ; and
there are five acres of peaches, with alfalfa. All this was possible only after
a bitter fight carried on against the ground squirrels, the almost equally
numerous rabbits, and Jack Frost, so that it was necessary, in some cases,
to set. and reset the vines four or five times. He made the usual improvements
of buildings, and built himself a fine residence, for Mr. Fleming duly became
a married man, and his family is noted for social life and the dispensing of
hospitality. He was always in the successive raisin and other fruit associa-
^^caML. J- '^OUiWl.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 745
tions and has long supported the California Associated Raisin Company and
the California Peach Growers, Inc.
The marriage of Mr. Fleming to Miss Emma Odell, a fair daughter of
Michigan, took place at Niagara Falls and resulted in the birth of five chil-
dren : ^lay is ]\Irs. Hamilton and resides at Clovis ; John Harry has become
a promising and successful viticulturist, and is with his father; Carrie Irene
is better known as T^Irs. Burk of Squaw Valley; Florence, who graduated
from the San Diego Normal, was a teacher in Clovis, till she married Sidney
I. Drake, and now resides in Squaw Valley; and Benjamin, who responded
to the call and is serving in the United States Navy. Mrs. Fleming is a
member of the Methodist Church at Clovis.
Civic affairs have long interested both Mr. and Mrs. Fleming, who
usually work for national reforms along the lines of the Republican party.
When it comes to local issues, however, these good citizens do not talk poli-
tics, but support men and measures for the good of the community generally.
STEVE TODOROVICH BAKER.— Industry, thrift, unceasing toil, at
least during those times when a man should work, are excellent requisites to
success, but these alone will hardly cause the plums desired to fall into one's
waiting basket. The career, phenomenally successful, of Steve Todorovich
Baker, the well-known viticulturist. shows the value, in addition, of having
a good head for business and being a first-class manager; for he has pros-
pered where others have failed, and in prospering he has brought all these
conditions and qualities to aid him in his years of struggle. What adds to
the interest of his story is the fact that he accomplished so much in a rel-
atively short time, but the truth of the matter is, very likely, that in order
to make such a rapid run, Steve put on fas so many are unwilling to do) just
so much more steam.
Born in the city of Krushovatz, Servia, in 1854, Steve was the son of
Theo. Todorovich Baker, a merchant, who reared him in that vicinity, and
had him educated in the local public schools. When sixteen, he was appren-
ticed to a baker, from whom he learned the baker trade ; and two years later
he enlisted in the Servian army. Fie joined the Morava Artillery, and became
a gunner in 1876 during the A^ear of war with Turkey. When the Balkan
Wars took place in 1877-78, he volunteered in the Russian Army, and he was
in the Battle of Plevna, between Russia and Turkey, and assisted the Rus-
sians to free the Bulgarians. He was then made a sergeant, and served as
such until the close of the war.
In 1878 he went to Egypt and engaged in the grocery business in Alex-
andria, in which line he continued until 1881 when he enlisted in the French
Army as a volunteer and served a year during the occupation of Tunis, 1882.
Then he returned to Alexandria and enlisted in the English army as a private,
and under the famous General Gordon he went through the campaigns of the
Soudan War.
Having had enough of war, Mr. Baker came to the United States in 1887,
and at Pottsville, Pa., engaged in coal-mining, but a strike taking place there
a vear later, he left the district and came west to Denver, Colo. To his dis-
appointment, however, he found a strike in progress there, and disgusted, he
took the train and sought the land of gold and sunshine, — at least the country
where, he had heard, gold might be readily picked up, but where, he was yet
to learn, the unrivalled sunshine was itself prosperity. He found himself in
San Francisco a stranger and friendless, and soon without money ; and he had
to hurriedly get something to do in order to have something to eat. He was
glad, therefore, to get a place with Post & Larkin, at fifteen dollars a month
and his board.
Three months later he quit this undertaking and made his way to Seattle,
in 1889, where for eleven months he was engaged as a fisherman on Puget
Sound ; after which he returned to San Francisco. The big city did not seem
746 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to offer him much, and perhaps it was well that it did not, for in 1890 he
came on to Fresno, luckily heading for this promising center, although he
arrived with but ten cents in his pocket. He found work in a restaurant at
the same wages as before — fifteen dollars a month and his board. In the fall
of 1891, he advanced a peg by obtaining a place to prune vines in Butler's
vineyard, at fifty cents a day; and feeling the attraction of out-door labor,
he continued in that line. He was wide-awake and observing, and soon ac-
quired a very valuable knowledge in the caring for vines.
In 1892, Mr. Baker branched out by taking contracts for the pruning of
vineyards, and the next year he began buying and drying figs in fig-orchards,
curing them carefully and selling them to Griffin & Skelley. He made many
friends by the quality of his service, his business increased, he obtained
credit, and he made a success of the enterprise. For ten years he was on and
off in the employ of George H. Malter of the St. George vineyard, and he
also bought figs of him.
Finally, Mr. Baker leased from Captain J. E. Youngburg his present
place, and in five years bought the 120 acres on North Avenue nine miles east
of Fresno, in the Kutner Colony. This splendid tract is devoted to raising
malagas and muscatel grapes, and Avhite .-Vdriatic figs. Since then, he has
bought 160 acres more located on National Avenue, ten miles east of Fresno,
where he is building a modern residence for his permanent home. On this
ranch he has set out a vineyard, which takes all of his time, but he sees that
it is well cared for, and therein lies one of the secrets of his success. Mr.
Baker has been a benefactor in the growth of Fresno County in other ways,
also. In 1898 he imported Blue grapes from Sen'ia, known here as the Fresno
Beauty. Twelve rooted vines arrived in March, 1898, and he was successful
in raising seven of them ; the next year he saved all the cuttings, giving them
away, and thev proved a success, and now there are hundreds of acres of
Fresno Beauty grapes growing and bearing in the County.
While at Pottsville, Pa., Mr. Baker took out his first citizenship papers,
and at Fresno in 1894 he secured his second and final documents making him
an American citizen — a fact of which he is justly proud. In national politics,
he is a Democrat, but his first interest is for local advancement, and for that
he sees no party lines. He has never regretted coming to Fresno, and for
Fresno's prosperity he gives time, thoughtfulness and good-will.
CHRISTIAN SAXE. — Whenever the history of California is recom-
piled, the historian will need to review, and with grateful recognition, the
splendid accomplishments- of Christian Saxe, who was born in Audrain
Comity, Mo., November 20, 1852, and died in Fresno, February 6, 1913. His
father,' Jackson Saxe, was a native of Pennsylvania and settled in Missouri
as early as 1835. The lad was educated at the local country schools, and
reared on the home farm until he was eighteen years of age. He then started
to learn the trade of a plasterer; and having finished his apprenticeship,
worked at his trade in the East until 1879. Thoroughness was always a
marked characteristic of his method, and fidelity to employers a dependable
stamp of his character; and so it happened that, no matter how adverse the
"times," or wherever he wandered, he was seldom or never in want for
employment, and at a very fair compensation.
It is hardly true that he tired of the East, in which he had met with
such a hearty reception ; but his curiosity was aroused as to the Great West,
and at the end of the seventies he came out to California to see what the
country was like. For a while he located in Modesto, Stanislaus County,
and later moved to ]\Ierced County, where he went in for sheep-raising. In
1884 he went to Madera and engaged in the mercantile business with A.
Cohn as a partner ; and at the same time he owned a band of sheep near by.
In 1905 he located in Fresno and entered the field of cement and plaster
contracting and building, and soon became a leader among his competitors.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 747
He was original in his ideas, abreast of the times and even a forerunner of
much that eventually came into great vogue, careful and very conscientious
in his execution, and in time erected some of the best private buildings in
Fresno, including the Forsyth building, the Unitarian Church and the Chester
Rowell home.
During 1881 Mr. Saxe was married to Miss Ida Daulton, the eldest
and accomplished daughter of Henry C. Daulton, the well-known Califor-
nia pioneer who proved himself so hardy in opening some of the paths to
civilization. Mrs. Myrtle Halberson, of Coalinga, is one of the children of
this union; Enslen Clay Saxe, her brother, is another; he is now in charge
of his inother's ranch in Madera County, where he shows the clear indica-
tions of inherited ability. Henry Clay, another son, is married and lives
in Pomona; Barbara Naomi, is a daughter, and Madeline is the youngest.
The Saxe ranch referred to is one of the famous estates of its kind in
California, comprising as it does some 1,800 acres, and being one of the
most productive grain ranches in Madera County. Its purchase, equipment
and development have always reflected creditably on the good judgment
of the deceased, who willed it to his wife as her share of the estate, and its
maintenance and management reflect with equal credit on those now re-
sponsible for its administration. Mrs. Saxe has perpetuated in her Red Cross
and other humane and charitable work the traditions started by her lamented
and honored husband, and all who know the estimable lady will rejoice that
she has thus been so nobly provided for. The women as well as the men of
California have done the empire building; and California has always had a
kindh- thought for its daughters as well as its sons.
GEORGE W. SMITH.— A well-known and highly esteemed resident of
Fresno County is to be found in the person of George W. Smith, now serving
his fifth term as Justice of the Peace in Fresno. Of Southern birth and
lineage he was born in Tennessee, March 27, 1851, into the family of Dr.
John D. and Isabella (Dickson) Smith. Dr. Smith was a native of North
Carolina who moved to Tennessee in the year 1827, and, in the locality where
he settled became a very prominent physician. His wife came from good
old Colonial stock, her two grandfathers, Capt. I):uiiel McKissick and Col.
Joseph R. Dickson, both served with distinction in the Revolutionary War.
Five sons of Dr. and Mrs. Smith served in the Confederate Army.
George W. Smith received a public school education, was reared on a
farm and devoted some years of his Ufe to farming, until in 1880, when he
left his native state to locate in Booneville, Ark. He lived in that city for
five years, when in 1885, he felt the call of the West and came to California
and settled in Fresno County. He was a young man, full of energy and
soon made his influence felt in political circles and during President Cleve-
land's administration he served four years in the Internal Revenue service,
in Fresno County. His next occupation was as a vineyardist in Temperance
Colony, where he lived for ten years, and at the same time he bought fruit
for George West & Son. He was also interested in the oil business in Kern
County for some years and in 1902 he was elected to his present office and
has succeeded himself in office at each election ever since, which in itself
speaks for the satisfaction he has given in the discharge of the duties of the
office.
On December 31, 1871, Judge Smith was united in marriage with Miss
Mary E. Kerr, who proved her worth as a helpmate and counsellor for many
years. She passed away at their home in Fresno on February 9, 1919, mourned
by a large circle of sincere friends. Besides her husband, she left a daughter,
(jlive Bell Smith, and a son, James Dickson Smith, to mourn her passing.
Mrs. Smith was a member of the Baptist Church.
The promising son of Judge Smith, James Dickson, who was born on
November 27, 1898, graduated from the Fresno high school, then took a
748 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUxNTY
two-3'ears' course at the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy, and was captain
of the High School Cadets until he enlisted in the U. S. Navy on October
20, 1917. He was sent to Goat Island, San Francisco Bay and from there he
was sent to Harvard University, where he graduated in the Radio service
and received a rating of first class. He then was sent to Pensacola, Fla.,
where he won a rating as first class machine gunner. He served his country
until his discharge on February 10, 1919, when he returned home. He is
now employed in the electrical department of the General Chemical Company
at Nichols, Cal.
Judge Smith is a Democrat and active in the councils of the party. He
is a Thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to the Lodge, Chapter, Consistory,
Council, Shrine and Eastern Star. He is Past Commander of Fresno Com-
mandery No. 29, K. T., and Past High Priest of Fresno Chapter, No. 69, R. A.
M. He also belongs to the Eagles and to Fresno Lodge No. 439, B. P. O.
Elks, where he is always warmly welcomed. He is a true type of the South-
ern gentleman, high-minded, generous, hospitable and is a genial friend and
companion.
G. P. CUMMINGS. — The transformation wrought in the San Joaquin
A^alley during the past thirtv years is due to the energy and patient persever-
ance of its pioneers who, leaving comfortable homes in other parts of our
country, identified themselves with the newer sections and out of its crudity
evolved the present day prosperity. G. P. Cummings is a true representative
of this class of pioneers, and has been serving the public of Fresno County
since January, 1899, at which time he became deputy county clerk and acting
clerk of the board of supervisors, a position he filled most acceptably, as was
evidenced by his being chosen in July, 1900, by the board of supervisors to
fill the office of county assessor. Since that period he has served the public in
various capacities with the same efficiencv and in his usual painstaking and
genial manner, that characterized his duties as deputv county clerk.
G. P. Cummings was born near McMinnville, Warren County, Tenn.,
May 30, 1856, the youngest in a family of ten children, all of whom reached
mature years. The family came originally from Virginia, where his father,
G. P. Cummings, Sr., was born, and he was the youngest son born to Col.
Joseph Cummings, a Scotchman who went to Virginia and won his title in the
war of 1812. Colonel Cummings engaged in farming near Spencer. Van Buren
County, Tenn., after the war was over, and there he died at the advanced age
of ninety-nine years. G. P. Cummings, Sr., was also a farmer and he served
as sheriff of Van Buren County, whence he moved to the vicinity of McMinn-
ville. He served in this district as assessor, and also engaged in farming until
he died, aged sixty-four years. His wife was in maidenhood, Elizabeth Plum-
lee, a native of Virginia, and daughter of John Plumlee, who was a soldier in
the war of 1812. She died in Tennessee.
G. P. Cummings of this review received his education in Burritt College,
at Spencer, Tenn., and at the age of nineteen began teaching school, which
profession he followed for nine years. He won a position on the county board
of teachers' examiners, of Warren County, through his thoroughness as a
teacher. Deciding to locate on the Pacific Coast, he came to California in 1885,
and in Fresno County taught school at Eastin (now in ]\Iadera County). Two
years later he came to the small town of Fresno and secured employment as
a clerk in a grocery store, remaining for one year. He then engaged in bus-
iness for himself on I Street, under the firm name of Cummings and Higgins.
This business was continued successfully until 1894, when the partnership was
dissolved and the business sold out. Mr. Cummings was then emploved as
traveling salesman. On January 1, 1899. he was made deputy in the office of
George W. Cartwright, county clerk of Fresno County, and was the clerk of
the board of supervisors from that period until July 30, 1900, when he was
appointed by the board of supervisors to fill the vacancy in the office of
'AyZA.-L^'-t--'(^ty(^'^^t.^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 751
assessor, caused by the death of J. AV. Ferguson, county assessor. He filled
this office with satisfaction until the end of the term, when he retired and
engaged in the real estate business \inder the firm title of Murdock, Cum-
mings & Murdock, with offices on Tulare Street. One year later, January,
1904, the partnership was dissolved and Mr. Cummings accepted a position
with the county recorder to make abstracts of mortgages for the county
assessor, but on February 1, of that year, he was appointed under-sheriff
by J. D. Collins, and he discharged his duties here with the same fidelity that
characterized his other positions. In 1906, Mr. Cummings was elected county
assessor and he is still in that office. He was an active member, from its
organization, of the County Assessors' Association of California, and served
as its President in 1912-13, and at present is secretary of the association.
Mr. Cummings was united in marriage with Miss Bettie Smartt. who
was born in AVarren County, Tenn., a daughter of George M. Smartt, a
Tennessee farmer, and a grand-daughter of William C. Smartt, a soldier in
the war of 1812, who emigrated from Virginia to Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs.
Cummings are the parents of the followinc;- children: Bonnie Jean; George,
the wife of C. E. Hamilton, cashier of the Bank and Trust Company of Cen-
tral California, who resides in Fresno; Annabel, wife of J. T. Tupper, who
also resides in Fresno; G. Penn, Jr., was a practicing attorney in Fresno, un-
til he enlisted in the United States Army, and is now serving overseas as
First Lieutenant and Adjutant on the Major's Staff. First Battalion. Eighth
U. S. Infantry, and is a member of the Courtmartial Board at Brest, France.
Mr. Cummings has taken an active interest in educational matters in
Fresno, sersnng for five years on the city board of education. During the
building of the high school, the Park Avenue, and the remodeling of the
Emerson school, he served as secretary of the board, and was an important
factor in the progress of the school system.
Fraternally, he was made a Mason in Las Palmas Lodge No. 366, F. &
A. M., Fresno, and was exalted to the Royal Arch degree in Fresno Chapter,
No. 69, R. A. M., and Knighted in Fresno Commandery No. 29, K. T. Mr.
Cummings became a Scottish Rite, 32nd degree Mason in Fresno Consistory
No. 8. and is a member of Islam Temple, A-. A. O., N. M. S., of San Francisco.
With his wife, he is a member of Fresno Chapter No. 295, O. E. S., of which
he is Past Worthy Patron. He is a member of Fresno Lodge No. 439, B. P.
O. Elks ; the Independent Order of Foresters, of which he is Past Chief
Ranger; the AVoodmen of the AA^orld ; St. Andrews Society; and is also
a prominent member of the Knights of Pythias, of which organization he is
a Past Chancellor Commander, and at present is Grand Chancellor of the
Grand Domain of California.
In his political affiliation, Mr. Cummings is a Democrat and has served
as a member of the county central committee. Mr. Cummings is endowed
by nature with a very pleasing personality and an affable manner, and during
ail the years that he has lived in Fresno County, has made many warm
friends and possesses the faculty of retaining them. He is square in all his
dealings and no man living in the county is better liked or more highly
respected than G. P. Cummings.
HUGH WILLIAM La RUE. — Prominent among the raisin growers of
Fresno County, residing in the vicinity <<{ :\!;daga, is Hugh AA'illiam La Rue,
the eldest son of the late Jabez H. La Rue. an honored pioneer of the county.
H. AA''. La Rue was born in Lewis County, Mo., on December 1, 1851, and
his early days were spent on a farm. In 1873, he migrated to the Golden
State and secured employment on his uncle's ranch located near Davis, Yolo
County. His careful performance of his duties and good business manage-
ment soon won for him the responsible position of foreman of the ranch.
The year 1885 marked the advent of H. W. La Rue into Fresno County.
His first investment was fortv acres of raw land situated at what is now
752 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Cahva, which he improved by cultivation and the planting of an orchard and
vineyard, but his high hopes of a promising enterprise were soon blasted, for
the following year this section of the county was visited with the grasshopper
pest and his orchard and vineyard were both ruined. With the characteristic
spirit of the pioneer he was undaunted and determined to succeed as a viti-
culturist, so in company with his brother, Samuel R., he purchased 160
acres of raw land at Malaga, which they improved. At first they planted a
portion of the land to grapes and later began raising alfalfa.
The old adage, "If at first you don't succeed try, try again," was heeded
by ]\Ir. La Rue and his second venture in viticulture was a splendid success
and he believes in using the latest methods in the cultivation of his land.
By close attention to details and excellent business management he has be-
come one of the most successful raisin growers in the valley.
In 1916, FT. W. La Rue was united in marriage with Emma Hall, a native
of Missouri. Fraternally, Mr. La Rue is a member of the Knights of Pythias,
in which circle he is very popular and has passed through all of the chairs
of the lodge.
HUGH KNEPPER.— A self-made man who has been privileged to be-
come one of the real builders of Fresno County and has been rewarded with
a large measure of prosperity, is Hugh Knepper, now living retired at 357
Glenn Avenue, Fresno. He was born in .Somerset County, Pa., on January
16, 1837, one of a family of fifteen children, only three of whom are now living.
He comes from a pioneer Dutch family, his ancestors having been pioneer
settlers in Pennsylvania. While he was still a young man. the family moved
to Missouri.
In 1853 he crossed the great plains with a small party in three wagons,
and landed at Hangtown : and later he mined at Forbestown, in P)Utte County.
In 1861, however, stirred by the call of the L^nion, he enlisted at San Fran-
cisco with the Second California Cavalry, and so long as his services were
needed he did faithful and expert scout and patrol dut}- in both California and
Arizona. He passed through Fresno County in 1863. and the same year was
sent to LTtah for patrol duty there ; and at Camp Douglass, Salt Lake, he
was mustered out in 1864.
Free again to pursue the avocations of a peaceful life. Mr. Knepper
started back to his home in Missouri b\- the overland route, driving a team of
horses. Fie was exposed to terrible storms, being three times snowed in, and
altogether he suffered many privations. For eight years he farmed in Mis-
souri, and for another eight years he followed agriculture in Nebraska.
In November, 1881, \It. Knepper arrived in Fresno County, to remain
for the rest of his life. He bought ten acres east of the town on Tulare
Street, and greatly improved the property ; and when, after residing there
for four years, he sold out, he located in the foothills on 160 acres in Section
11, Township 12, Range 23. This was along the headwaters of Fancher Creek,
and was so favorably situated that he kept adding to his holdings until he
owned 1,300 acres, — 800 in Watts Vallej^ and 550 on the headwaters of Fancher
Creek. There Mr. Knepper lived for thirty years, engaged in stock-raising,
with cattle, horses and mules, steadily increasing his reputation as a scientific
and progressive farmer. During these years he owned the Copper King
Mine, at the head of Dog Creek, which he sold to an English syndicate. On
his mountain ranch he had six acres of apple trees, and these produced an
average of seven tons of fruit a year. He had one lemon tree which pro-
duced 200 dozen of lemons yearly, and one season it yielded as many as 220
dozen. He was particularly able in the cultivation of large fruit, and fre-
quently made displays in Fresno that attracted wide attention. In his latter
days Sir. Knepper owned a vineyard of forty acres near Fowler, and this
he rented for a number of years, finally selling it for $15,000, in 1917. He has
parted with all his ranch acreage, and now lives retired.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 753
Mr. Knepper married Emily Short, a native of Ohio, a widow and the
mother of Frank and John W. Short, of Fresno ; and of this fortunate union
one son was born — Charles Knepper, who died in 1916. Mrs. Knepper died
nine years previously. She was a noble woman active in many charities.
Mr. Knepper is a charter member of Atlanta Post, No. 92., of the G. A. R.
of Fresno, and also a charter member of the First Methodist Church of that
city, with which organization he has always been identified in good works
and every movement for the improvement of public morals and the elevation
of good citizenship. He has been a strong and effective advocate of prohibition,
and the happiest birthday he ever celebrated was his eighty-second, in 1919,
when the constitutional amendment became an assured fact through the ratifi-
cation of the prohibition clause. With his devoted wife he conducted a
Methodist Sunday School for twenty years at the foot of the hill ranch;
and he was a school trustee for manv years in the Hawkins school district.
All in all, Mr. Knepper has had an enviable career, highly profitable both to
himself and to many others, and he will be long and agreeably remembered
as a pioneer of the sterling order. (Since the above was written, Mr. Knepper
passed away at the home of his sister, 357 Glenn Avenue, on ]\Iarch 26, 1919.)
JOHN FELIX HILL. — A ranchman who, by up-to-date methods, steady
and hard labor, has made a success of his later agricultural undertaking, is
John Felix Hill, of the Sanger district. He was born in Bosque County,
Texas, March 24. 1854, a son of Harrison Hill, a soldier who died while
serving in the Civil War, and of Mattie Moss Hill, who like her husband
was a native of Arkansas. They had six sons and one daughter: A\'arren,
who died at Bakersfield, was a former constable rif Sanger and had had a
bout with the famous Sontag and Evans gang duriiv:;- th 'ir ilepredations in
this county: William D., of Fresno; John Felix: 'I'luinnm. .if Phoenix, Ariz.,
formerly a hotelkeeper at Dinuba ; Mrs. Mandeville Williams, who went to
Phoenix in 1872; Preston, of Phoenix; Harrison, a miner in Nevada. A
second marriage united Mrs. Hill with Samuel Stroud, father of J. A. Stroud,
and by that union she had three children: Mattie Keeler, of San Diego:
Laura, Mrs. George Dameron, of Selma ; and Ira, a cattle-buyer of Fresno.
John Felix Hill came to California with his step-father and the family,
reaching the Sample ranch at Academy, on October 17. 1869, and there in the
Dry Creek district he went to school for a short time, having for his teacher
the late J. D. Collins. When he began to work for others he took up the
sheep-shearing business and the driving of ox teams, putting in ten years
on the old Armstrong ranch. The days were weary enough and the labor
was hard, and the modern citizen will never know the price paid by our
forefathers that we might enjny the more comfortable things of an advanced
civilization. His first Inisincss \rnture was a partnership with W. D. Hill,
when thev carried on a hog-raising luisiness at King's River; after two years
they divided their interests and John began raising grain in the vicinity of
what is now Sanger. This he continued till he went broke and he next
went into the dairy business, about 1900. and delivered milk to customers in
Sanger until 1906. He profited by all that could be learned about the enter-
prise, but he was not a man to rest there. He made his own experiments,
installed the latest and best of apparatus, devised several things which seemed
to him superior to what one could buy, and soon had a dairy of which one
might well be proud, since there was not only every convenience, but all
the operations were carried on in the most practical, as well as the most
rational and safe way. INIr. Hill has always believed that one could not afford
to spare either pains or expense to get the very best results in the production
and the handling of such an important commodity as milk, and it is pleasant
to know that his many patrons appreciated all he sought to do for them.
Recei\ing an offer from W" . W. Phillips to improve some eighty acres
of land for him, he undertook the contract, the agreement being that he was
to be given half of the vineyard in return after leveling, irrigating and work-
754 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ing it three years. This fine stretch of land, inchiding forty very choice acres,
an"d one of the most valuable in the section, he at present owns, and where
he has made all improvements and makes his home. Mr. Hill also has twenty
acres of land set out to orange trees ; and in addition he holds 175 acres not
yet improved and only awaiting the most favorable time and conditions to
be made equal to the best in a high state of culture.
On September 20, 1877, IMr. Hill was united in marriage with Alice N.
Fink, oldest daughter of jMrs. Peter W. Fink, the oldest living woman settler
on the Upper Kings River, whose sketch is given on another page of this
work. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hill : William
P., a molder by trade, residing in Oakland, who married Althea Crosswaith
and has three children; John Felix, Jr., who married Mrs. Edith Markle,
and who is constable at Sanger; Allen H., ranching at Round Mountain,
married Nellie Giffen and has one daughter; and Eliza May, who is Mrs.
Herman Hanke of Sanger and has a son.
Mr. Hill has worked on nearly every irrigation ditch in this part of
Fresno County; has built many miles of roads; and there are many tracts
of land he has leveled, plowed, planted and cared for on contract, in fact
the best money he has made since he quit grain-farming was in this kind of
work, until he made a success of his own fruit and grape-growing. He has
helped to organize schools and served as a trustee for years. A Democrat
in national politics, Mr. Hill has always placed patriotism and devotion to
local interests above party matters, and is ready at all times to do his full
duty as a loyal citizen.
ALEXANDER TAYLOR.— A venerable pioneer in the great San Joa-
quin Valley who has long been a successful grain-grower, ranking among the
best farmers in the State, is Alexander Taylor, who lives ten miles northwest
of Lanare and two miles northwest of Wheatville, where he is ably assisted
by his youngest son, who lives with him. In addition to the large holdings of
the subject, they farm two sections of rented land; and being scientific, prac-
tical farmers, competent machinists and able business men, they enjoy their
full share of prosperity.
Mr. Taylor was born in Nova Scotia on February 15, 1839. the son of John
Taylor, who was also born in No-\'a Scotia where he was married to Sophia
McCoy, a native of the same district. Grandfather Taylor was a sailor who
came from Scotland to Nova Scotia when a young man, while Grandfather
(Alexander) McCoy was born in the highlands of Scotland. He was called
the "faithful Alex," as he would act as a guide for the early settlers of Nova
Scotia, and especially the early Presbyterian missionaries in their hard and
dangerous work there.
John Taylor died when Alexander was a boy, leaving to his widow, be-
sides the enviable reputation of an industrious, honest farmer, five children:
William, Ann, Alexander, Thomas Trotter, and Hannah Bell. The mother
died in Nova Scotia when she was seventy years old. bequeathing a blessed
memory, and our subject is the only one of the five children now living. He
was brought up in Nova Scotia, and when seventeen went to learn the black-
smith trade at South River, Antigonish, N. S., where he served the full four
years' apprenticeship. From his tenth year he had lived with an uncle, Mag-
nus Taylor at Pictou, in Pictou County, N. S., and there he had worked on a
farm, enjoying but limited advantages of schooling. Having learned the trade
of blacksmith and horseshoer, he started out as a journeyman.
His older brother, William, was then located in Marin County, and he
wrote to Alexander to come out to the Pacific Coast. So he bade good-bye
to his mother and home, took the train to New York City, and from there
the steamship to Aspinwall, and crossed the Panama Railway to Panama,
from which port he proceeded by steamship to San Francisco, where he
landed in May, 1862. He then went on to Marin County and there joined his
brother William.
f^^"^^ ^%^Z^^^2!-^-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 757
For two years Mr. Taylor worked at teaming, drawing wood from Mt.
Tanialpais in the service of an employer, and then for two or three years he
ran a team of his own. After that he accepted a post at the SchaefTer saw mill
in Marin County ; then he went to Stockton ; and next he rented land at Plains-
burg, in Merced County, continuing there for three years.
In the year of the Philadelphia Centennial, Mr. Taylor came to Hanford
and pioneered in Kings County. He bought a farm three miles east of Han-
ford and improved it ; and while there he was married to Miss Fannie Smith,
a native of Missouri. She died in 1912, the beloved mother of four children:
John Ernest ; Arthur, who died when he was ten years old ; Chalmers Alex-
ander, who died of influenza in December, 1918; and Orvie Ruskin. The two
last-named helped to run the 160 acres owned by Mr. Taylor and planted to
grain, and the 320 acres on the plains, twelve miles to the southwest. Chal-
mers was single, but Orvie Ruskin married Levira Haskell of Fresno, by
whom he has had one child, Orvie Earl. All reside with Mr. Taylor. Their
farm and home are seven miles southeast of Helm and about four miles west
of Burrel.
Mr. Taylor has continued in grain-farming and is one of the really success-
ful grain-farmers of Kings and Fresno counties. He has a Rest combined har-
vester and thresher, and a large Best tractor. They plow, harniw, seed, har-
vest and thresh by means of these wonderful machines, and Icul tin- wav, in
their advanced methods, for others. As a pioneer of Kin_!u:;> rMunt\ , he farmed
in the vicinity of Hanford when that country was a part of Tulare. Countv,
and he cut and threshed grain where Hanford now stands, and before that
town was started.
Although a Republican in national politics, Mr. Taylor is a supporter of
President Wilson. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church at Hanford,
and is a strong advocate of temperance, and he was superintendent of a Sun-
day School held in the Eureka schoolhouse at Hanford. He served in that
capacit}- for three years, and also helped create an interest in the big camp-
meeting held there in 1876. He assisted in the building of the imposing church
structure at Hanford. ]\Ir. Taylor finds himself at eighty, hale, heartv and
happy. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and her mother were all admirers of John Rus-
kin, the great English author, and Mr. Taylor's youngest son was named after
that celebrity. In his home library may be found many rare and valuable
books by English and .\merican authors, reflecting the literary taste of the
family circle.
MATHIAS ASMUSSEN.— A most estimable and highly-respected
pioneer, who for years has given his best energ}^ and unabated enthusiasm
to the upbuilding of Fresno County, is Mathias' Asmussen, one of the oldest
settlers of Rolinda. He came to California in 1882. and a year later was for-
tunate in beginning to lay the foundation of his prosperity in this most fav-
ored portion of Central California. He was born at Christiansfeld. near
Hadersleben, Schleswig, Denmark, on November 27 . 18.^4. the son of Jens
Asmussen, a farmer there, owner of the same farm that his fatiier liefore him
had owned. He had married Annie Marie Johansen, and they both died
there, the mother passing away in 1912 at the age of eighty-nine, and the
father in 1898 at the age of seventy-two. They had four children, and Mathias
was the third oldest.
Mathias was brought up on a farm, attended the local public schools, and
when seventeen years of age concluded to come to the IJnited States. He
spent a year at St. Louis, and then moved farther west to Cedar Falls, Black
Hawk County, Iowa, where he worked on farms and continued his schooling
for a winter, studying English. In 1881 he made his first trip back to Den-
mark, to see his parents and friends; and after such a good time there as
one would expect who knows Danish life, he returned to Iowa in 1882, and
came to San Francisco, where he worked on the street-car line, acting as
both driver and conductor on the South San Francisco line from Fourth
758 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and Townsend Streets. It was one of the old horse-car lines. After that he
came on to Salinas for the summer, and then, in the fall of 1883, to Fresno.
Mr. Asmussen had worked for Alexander Smith in Salinas Valley and
drove a team for him to Fresno County, when Mr. Smith moved from Salinas
to Fresno ; and he worked for him for three years on a farm that is now
the American Colony. Then he bought eighty acres of land east of Fowler,
at what was known as Clifton, that is now Del Rey, and after running the
same for two years, sold it at a profit. Then he came to Houghton district,
to his present place, now called Rolinda, before the railroad was put through
or there was a station by that name; and in 1888 he began with his original
purchase of forty acres here. It was raw land, but he leveled and checked
it and planted it to alfalfa and vines, setting out muscats. He soon found,
however, that they were not good bearers: so later he set out Thompson
seedless, for which he finds the soil well adapted, so that he has good crops.
He also engaged in dairying, and later bought twenty acres two miles west
of, and twenty acres on the corner of his place, on Coalinga Avenue.
He improved these to alfalfa and vines, and still later bought forty acres
half a mile north of Rolinda. After that he disposed of the three pieces at
various times at a good profit. In March. 1919. he bought eighty acres of
raw land on ]\IcKinley and Coalinga Avenues, which he intends to develop
in alfalfa and vines. He retains the old forty-acre place where he had made
splendid improvements, and has a fine vineyard and good alfalfa. Mr. As-
mussen was one of the organizers of the Danish Creamery Association, and is
still interested in it. He also belongs to the California Associated Raisin
Company, and was in all the raisin associations from the start.
Mr. Asmussen was married at Rolinda to Miss ]\Ieta Enemark, a native
of Schleswig and a member of an old Danish family ; and two children have
added to the life and joy of the Asmussen home. They are Annie and Arthur,
and both live at home. The family attends the Lutheran Church. Mr. Asmus-
sen follows the lead of the Republican party in matters of national politics.
In 1892 he made his second trip to Denmark, and was more than compen-
sated in finding his mother still living.
B. D. MAXSON. — An honest, thoroughly reliable, kind-hearted and
public-spirited gentleman, Avho has the distinction of having been one of the
rig-builders in the Coalinga field ever since the start of the oil-development
there in 1896, is B. D. Maxson, who first came to Fresno in the great boom
year of 1887. He was born in Richburg, Allegany County, N. Y., on Sep-
tember 18, 1847, the son of David Maxson, who was born in Rhode Island
of Scotch descent. He was a farmer in Allegany County, who worked hard,
accomplished much, but he -died soon after oil was discovered on his farm,
about 1873 or 1874. He had married Jane Coon, also a native of that county,
although she came of old New England ancestry ; and she died in New York.
Both were members of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. They had seven
children, three of whom are still living; and the subject of our story was
the fifth eldest in the order of birth. A brother of B. D. Maxson, Cassius,
was in the One Hundred Sixtieth New York Regiment serving in the Civil
War, and was killed in the fighting before Petersburg.
B. D. Maxson was brought up on a farm in New York, and there attended
the common and the Alfred high schools, ^^^^en twenty-one he began to
work at the carpenter's trade, and for some years worked as a contractor and
builder. This led him naturally into the enterprise of rig-building in the
Bradford oil field in Pennsylvania, and later he built rigs in Allegany County,
so that when their old farm was leased for oil, he built the first rigs erected
there.
In the late eighties he came to Fresno, drawn here by the residence at
the corner of N and Alariposa Streets of his brother. Dr. Willis H. ]\Iaxson,
who had arrived in 1885 and had opened a sanitarium. He worked here as
a contracting carpenter and builder, helped put up the Adventist Church
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 759
and many of the most substantial and ornate of the early buildings, and
thus contributed to laying the foundations of the great city that was to be.
About 1889 he bought his present place of twenty acres on California Avenue,
three miles west of Fresno, and two years later moved onto it. He im-.
mediately improved it with a muscat \'ineyard ; and when he decided to
live here, he pulled up some of the vines, built a residence and planted orna-
mental trees. One of the fine features of the place that his wisdom and
taste brought into existence at that time was a long, beautiful fig-arbor, or
fig drive, of white Adriatic figs.
In 1896, at the beginning of the oil development at Coalinga, he went
there and constructed rigs for the Home, the Phoenix, the Crescent, the
Coalinga & Mohawk and other oil companies ; and having successfully fin-
ished the first work there, he proceeded to Bakersfield and to Ivern River,
where he made the rigs for the Independent and other oil companies. He
continued this difficult, and more or less pioneer work, all along the Coast,
and put up rigs for test wells in Monterey County, as well as in Contra Costa
County, near Mt. Diablo. He put up rigs for two test wells near Herndon, and
one near Lane's Bridge, as well as a rig at Silver Creek, north of ]\Iendota.
As one result of this work for oil companies, Mr. Maxson has from time to
time become interested in oil-well projects, but his investments have ne\er
brought him the returns hoped for, or that they ought to have yielded.
It is as a vineyardist that Mr. Maxson has had his greatest success in
California ; for he has improved several vineyards in Fowler and West Park,
selling them at a fair and just profit. He was a member of the California
Fig Growers Association from its start, and of all the raisin associations,
and is now a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
While in Allegany County, N. Y., Mr. Maxson was married to Miss Vina
Mix, a native of that section, by whom he has had three children : Bertrand
resides in Fresno and is a carpenter ; Genevieve, educated at the Fresno
High School and the Pacific Union College at St. Helena, is now at home :
and Louise, also a graduate of the Fresno High and the Pacific Union Col-
lege, is teaching school in Kings County. Mr. Maxson used to be a member
of the Seventh Day Baptist Church at Richburg, but was transferred as a
member to the Church at Riverside, Cal. Wherever Mr. and Mrs. Maxson
and their attractive family are known, there the}^ have friends, the truest
evidence of their value as citizens in the community, the county, and the
great nation whose welfare they have so much at heart.
LEE A. BLASINGAME. — The history of the pioneers of California, who
laid the foundations of our social conditions and contributed to what they
themselves could not enter into and enjoy, is the history of men who tried
first one thing and then another, sometimes shifting through necessitv. and
sometimes changing because they did not at first find that which was best
suited to them ; and their history is often repeated in the lives of their de-
scendants, who, in making their destiny a part of the common weal, have
had to experiment in order to discover in which field they could be most
useful and attain the most of real success.
This is well illustrated in the life-story of Lee A. Blasingame, for some
time one of the well-known young financiers here, but more recentlv active,
with exceptional rewards for his labors, in various departments of agriculture.
As a native son, he was born on Big Dry Creek in Fresno Ciuinty, and at
Academy he attended the public school. Ambitious for higher learning, the
young man entered the Methodist College at Santa Rosa, where he continued
his studies over two years. Still desiring a more definitely practical training,
he took a course at Heald's Business College in San Francisco, and when he
had accomplished all that was there expected of him, he pushed out into
the business world.
He began his business experience in Fresno, where he became a book-
keeper for the First National Bank; and proving his fitness thoroughlv, he
7(-,0 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was made cashier. That responsible post he held for five years, drawing much
patronage to the bank which has so long been rated as one of the best bul-
warks of Central California, and himself making many warm personal friends ;
and only when he felt the call to an altogether new field, did he resign from
an activity always congenial to him.
Joining his brother, Alfred Blasingame, he has since engaged in farming
and stock-raising, especially sheep and cattle. Their operations are carried
on from their headquarters on the old Blasingame ranch. He is interested in
viticulture and owns a 145-acre ranch seven miles northeast of Fresno, and
there he has developed a most interesting and valuable vineyard. He en-
deavors to have the most up-to-date devices and also specimens most prom-
ising for culture. He has applied himself early and late to the problems pre-
sented ; sought and given others cooperation, and been one of the active sup-
porters of organizations designed to advance vineyard interests.
Of a pleasing personality, and decidedly social by nature, Mr. Blasingame
has been active in fraternity life, and is a popular and influential member of
the Fresno Lodge of B. P. O. Elks, the Sequoia Club in Fresno, and the Bo-
hemian Club of San Francisco. In both commercial and social circles, he is
a familiar figure that counts, and it may safely be predicted for him that he
will be more and more identified with Central California as the years roll
onward.
ROBERT BAIRD.— It is pleasant to recall the lives and activities of
those who have bravely and cheerfully done their duty in life, and have
thus contributed much to make life well worth the living, and especially to
repeat such a life-story as that of Robert Baird, a Scotchman who became
one of the best of American citizens, was a devoted husband and father, and
left in his widow an estimable woman upon whom his children shower their
affections. He was born in Scotland on November 20, 1851, came to the
United States, and for a while settled at Virginia City. Nev., where he tried
his luck at mining and prospecting. Moving still further to the West, he
became a pioneer of Fresno County, and about 1882 engaged with his broth-
ers, Andrew, Dugal and John, in dairying, estal)lishing in the Washington
Colon}' what was known as the Baird Dairy which retailed milk in Fresno.
As Baird Bros, the firm enjoyed an enviable reputation for honesty and en-
terprise, and prospered from the start.
When Robert Baird sold out his interest in the concern, and the partner-
ship was dissolved, he located in the Kutner school district in 1901 and
bought the tract of forty acres which soon came to be identified with his
name. It was a stubble-field, but by hard labor he so improved it that it
smiled as a choice vineyard and orchard. On January 5, 1909, however,
INIr. Baird, widely honored by all who knew him and especially esteemed by
the ]\Iasons, to whom he was affiliated through the Fresno Lodge, passed
away in his fifty-eighth year.
Mr. Baird was married while at Fresno in 1887, and his bride was Miss
Charlotte Rogers, a native of Birmingham, England, who had been orphaned
when she was very young. In her twentieth year she came to New Zealand,
after a trip of three and a half months on the sail-boat Chili, and finding it
such a beautiful place, she remained at Aukland for about eight years. Then
she crossed the ocean once more and landed at San Francisco ; and after a
while she came on to Central California, arriving in Fresno in 1884. There
she met and married Mr. Baird.
Six children — all of whom were born in \\'ashington Colony — blessed
this fortunate union : Elsie became Mrs. O. M. Campbell ; Evelyn and Robert
assist their mother on the ranch ; Florence is Mrs. H. N. Hansen ; Edward
also assisted his mother until he entered the service of his country, in
]\Iay, 1918, assigned to the Hospital Corps of the United States Navy,
and' is now in the transport service ; and Winifred, a graduate of the Fresno
High School, is at home.
^^r-"
^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 763
Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Baird, with the aid of her children,
has continued the interesting work of viticulture, although she sold ten
acres of her original holding and cut out the peach orchard. The remaining
thirty acres, however, are well-improved and well-situated, eleven miles
east of Fresno, and entirely set out to vines, especially to Thompson's seed-
less and muscat grapes. The Bairds have always been supporters of the
different raisin associations, anrl ^Irs. I'.aird is a member of the Califnrnia
Associated Raisin Company. She is a mcml^er of the Alethodist l^piscopal
Church at Fairview, and her son Robert is a trustee of the congregation and
assistant superintendent of the Sunday School. The Bairds are interested
in any movement for the betterment of the community ; and for improving
the tone of politics, and they generally work with the Republican party.
J. F. NISWANDER. — Prominent among the builders of Fresno County,
whose splendid foresight and extraordinary vitality and energy have already
accomplished so much in its development, and who are most optimistic for
its future and the future of the central part of the Golden State, is J- F.
Niswander, the efficient and popular general manager of the California Peach
Growers, Inc., and one of the best-posted ranchers, through whose instru-
mentality many orchards and vineyards have been developed and changed
hands. He is a native of the proud old State of Virginia, having been born
at Staunton, in Augusta County, in November. 1871. His father was Isaac
Benjamin Niswander, also a Virginian and a planter, who served in a Vir-
ginia regiment of the Confederate Army throughout the Civil War. He mar-
ried ]\nss Barbara Frank, a member of one of the long-established Virginia
families: and both died at the old home. Of the nine children born to this
worthy couple, Mr. Niswander was the fifth eldest and the first of the family
to come to California.
He attended the public schools until he was seventeen and then set out
for California, arriving in Fresno in the year 1889. Here he immediatelv went
to work to earn his own livelihood, laboring for a while in orchards Imt cliietly
at farming for grain. He drove the big teams in the grain fields and other-
wise made himself not only useful but indispensable. After three years he
returned to Virginia and invested his savings in a three-year course at Bridge-
water College.
As with so many thousands of others who have once beheld the attrac-
tions of California, the call of the West was too strong for the young man
and he returned to Fresno in 1897. For a year he cng,igcd in horticultural
work, and subsequently performed the clerical diitirs I'mf the Alnhiga Co-
operative Packing Association. Three years later. ^Ir. Xiswandor was made
secretary and after another three years, during which time he filled the office
with signal ability, he purchased the entire packing plant. At that time the
business was small; but. through his experience, ability, untiring energy and
tact, the volume of trade was rapidly increased. In the meantime he estab-
lished another plant at Del Rey which he also ran with success. In 1914 he
sold both plants to the California Associated Raisin Company.
During all these years, Mr. Niswander had engaged in farming and in
improving ranches, and in setting out orchards and vineyards; and little by
little he acquired more and more property for himself. At present he owns
a ranch of 287 acres in Madera County devoted to vineyards, orchards and
the growing of alfalfa, and a vineyard of 160 acres at Clovis, raw land when
he bought it, which he himself improved, planting around the place a fine
border of figs. He also improved a home place of forty acres on North Ave-
nue, just east of Fresno, wdiich he set out as a vineyard and an orchard, build-
ing a large, comfortable residence, where he lived with his family until Feb-
ruary, 1918, when he ^old it and ]uireli;ised hi'^ i)resent home. This comprises
sixty acres <il' \ine\,ird and oiehard witli a coiniiiodious and modern residence
on Butler and \\ illuw .\\enues. jidjuinino Fresno on the east.
764 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
Believing implicitly that cooperation is the only successful method of
marketing vineyard and orchard products, j\Ir. Niswander was actively and
prominentlv identified with the organization of the California Peach Growers,
Inc., assisting vigorously from the time when the first steps were taken in
that direction in 1915 until the aim was accomplished in the following Alay,
when the organization was completed. Since that time Mr. Niswander has
been vice-president and general manager of the association, and it w'ouid be
difificult to find one better qualified for this responsible and influential post.
The headquarters of the Peach Growers are in Fresno: but the organization
is state-wide in its scope, and the association includes a membership of some
6.500 producers of peaches throughout California, or about eighty per cent,
of all the peach-growers of the state. The capital stock is $1,000,000, with
$830,000 paid up', and the average total crop handled amounts to about
$6,000,000. The association operates twenty-six different plants, each plant
being equipped for grading, processing, packing and shipping: and through
the machinery and service of these plants the entire product of the 6,500
members is marketed to the wholesaler. Dried peaches are shipped to all
the markets in the United States. Canada. South America and other foreign
countries, in both the Occident and the Orient, where the Blue Ribbon Brand,
the trade-mark, is best advertised through the superior and maintained qual-
ity of the delicious output. ]\Ir. Niswander is also a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company.
At Fresno, on June 19. 1901. ^Ir. Niswander was married to Miss Fula
P. Shipp. a native of Texas who was reared in Fresno. She is the daughter
of R. B. Shipp, the well-known viticulturist of Jensen Avenue, and is a grad-
uate of the Fresno High School. She was engaged in teaching at the time
of her marriage. Four children have blessed their union : Roy. who is at-
tending the Fresno High ; Edna. Horace and Virginia. The family are mem-
bers of and attend St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church South, in whose
benevolences and charities he is very active. In national politics Mr. Nis-
wander is a prominent and .influential Democrat, while fraternally he is an
Odd Fellow and a member of the Manzanita Camp of the ^^'oodmen of the
W'orld. He is also a welcome member of the Rotary. Commercial and Se-
quoia Clubs.
WILLIAM F. HANKE. — Among the experienced California stockmen
who have later made great progress, both for themselves and the common-
wealth generally, in other fields, and who have also found time to perform
public service of one kind or another, must be mentioned, William F. Hanke,
now retired at Sanger, a native son full of the spirit of the Golden West,
who was born at Dixon, in Solano County, December 21, 1861. His father
was H. H. Hanke, a native of Germany, who came to the Pacific slope in
pioneer da_vs. He first settled at Sacramento, where he followed draying
and teaming, and later he took up government land near Dixon, coming to
own a ranch of 800 acres, on which he engaged in farming. After a while
he located in Fresno County, and here he owned a ranch of 2.452 acres east
of where the town of Sanger now stands. \Mth continued success he fol-
lowed stock-raising and farming, and in 1878 closed a busy career, crowned
with a fair share of this world's prosperity, but what was more, the well-
merited esteem of those who knew him.
William w^as educated in the public schools of the county and at the
Sacramento Business College, and at still an early age he was given the best
opportunities to judge of cattle. When only ten years old he owned thirty-
five cattle that he had acquired through his own speculation, and when
eighteen he traveled through ^^^ashington. Nevada and Oregon, buying cattle
for the San Francisco markets. After the death of his father, Mr. Hanke
managed the Dixon ranch and engaged in the butcher business in Dixon ;
and he also ran the Fresno County ranch, to which he moved in 1883. Besides
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 765
raising cattle and sheep on the Sanger ranch, he had 700 acres planted to
grain.
In 1903, Mr. Hanke gave up stock-raising and began the development of
a fine orchard of 170 acres, planted largely to peaches and prunes, with some
alfalfa sown near by; but later, after he had amply demonstrated the value
of his methods of culture, and had made a veritable show-place of his little
estate, he sold out and retired. In doing so he left a record for definite con-
tribution to Californian agricultural advancement. At present Mr. Hanke is
interested in the development of a gold mine on the San Joaquin River, and
in this he has again shown his capacity for enterprise. Sanger is especially
gratified at his success, for he may truly be called one of the fathers of the
town. When he came to Fresno County, Sanger was not yet on the map,
and it fell to his lot not only to establish the first butcher shop in the young
town, but to build there the first dwelling-house. In fact, he helped to lay
out the town, and the value of his common-sense judgment and foresight is
shown today in the well-planned community.
In June, 1890, Mr. Hanke was elected, on the Republican ticket, super-
visor of Fresno County, from the Fifth district, which happens ordinarily to
be strongly Democratic, but by polling a large vote he became the first
Republican so elected there. He also served as school trustee of the first
grammar school erected in Sanger, and held the oflice many years ; and when
the high school was built, he was on the board for seventeen years. He has
always taken a deep interest in educational affairs, and he has done what
he could to found and advance mercantile and financial interests. It was
natural enough, therefore, that he should become one of the organizers and
directors of the Bank of Sanger.
During the year 1882, Mr. Hanke was married in Lake County. Cal., to
Miss Clara Bell Sweikert. a native daughter. Their only daughter is Pearl
Edna, born on Washington's birthday, 1884, and who married Edwin Stevens,
and they have two children, William Hanke and Pearl Isabell Stevens. In
all their associations Mr. and Mrs. Hanke have been exceedingly fortunate,
and the family is held in high esteem.
MRS. MARY A. ARRANTS.— To the pioneer women of California, no
less than to the pioneer men, are due the honor and respect of the generations
that have followed. To Mrs. Mary A. Arrants is due much credit for the
part she has taken in pioneering in California. She was born in Scotland
and attended the schools and grew to young womanhood near Edinburgh.
While living there she married James Freeland, a native of the same country
and by trade a blacksmith. With him she came to California and settled at
Soquel, Santa Cruz County. Mr. Freeland was employed on a large ranch,
his services being valuable as there was a large blacksmith shop on the place
and considerable work to be attended to. Four years later Mr. Freeland
brought his family to Selma, Fresno County, where he resided until his death.
Two children were born to this worthy couple : W. C. Freeland, now cashier
of the First National Bank of Selma, and Marion, wife of John E. Levis, a
successful rancher of Selma.
The second marriage of Mrs. Freeland united her with I\Ir. Arrants, one
of the substantial men of Fresno County and a pioneer upbuilder of the town
of Selma. A more complete sketch of his life will be found on another page
of this history. Mrs. Arrants is prominent in philanthropic work, social and
church affairs, and is an active member of the Selma Red Cross. She is a
member of the Presbyterian Church, and a liberal supporter of all movements
for the development of the county. She lives in a comfortable home at 2515
North McCall Avenue, where she is surrounded by all the comforts of city
life. She has a wide circle of friends who esteem her for her many fine
qualities of mind and heart.
766 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
MARQUES MONROE SHARER.— If you wish to know what Fresno
and vicinity were like in the "good old days" when there wasn't much of any
Fresno, you should seek out Marques j\I. Sharer at his well kept vineyard
ranch, and ask him what he saw and experienced when he first came to Cen-
tral California. For Mr. Sharer was here in the beginning of things : he
helped place the foundation for Fresno's phenomenal growth ; he knows who
did this and did that, and why that or this was done : and if anyone else has
a more interesting story to tell, the story isn't known.
Mr. Sharer was born near Griggsville, Pike County, 111., on September
28, 18.S4. His father, Peter S., was born near Philadelphia. Pa., whose father,
John Sharer, was a miller in Pennsylvania. Peter S.. when a lad. was a tow-
boy on the Canal ; when he was grown he came west to Pike County. 111., and
followed farming and there he married Rachael Moore, a native of Maryland,
of Scotch ancestry and the daughter of John and Sallie !\Ioore, early settlers
of Pike County, 111. Rachael Moore Sharer died in Illinois in 1864. Peter S.
Sharer, when he retired, came to California and made his home with his son.
Marques M., the father dying in February, 1906. Of the union of Peter S.
and Rachael Moore Sharer, five children were born, of whom Marques Mon-
roe is the eldest.
Marques M. received a good education in the public schools, worked on
the home farm and lived with his parents until he was twenty-one years of
age, when he moved to Carroll County, Mo. There, for three years, he worked
on farms in the service of others ; but having a chance to come to California
with B. F. Giffin. he set out for the Pacific Slope. He reached Fresno on Octo-
ber 6, 1881, and his first work was driving teams on a grain ranch, within
sight of what is now his home farm, a line of work he followed for eleven years.
In 1888. when California was feeling the great boom. Mr. Sharer struck
out for himself ; and having rented land three-quarters of a mile from where
he now lives, he planted it to grain for a couple of years. He continued to
farm the Joe Reyburn place for five years ; and then he bought the property
including 92.40 acres of land so dear to him as the scene of the happiest days
of his life. It was quite unimproved when he bought it : but with character-
istic enterprise, he lost no time in setting it out as a vineyard. They called the
section Enterprise Colony, and his was one of the first vineyards to be started
there. He used to gather twenty-eight or more tons of raisins, for which he
received only a cent a pound. He was also at one time interested in a co-
operative store in Fresno.
Mr. Sharer, besides his home ranch, also owns forty acres more in Enter-
prise Colony and forty acres in Red Bank district. His home ranch is devoted
to raising Malaga grapes and muscat raisins, which he originally set out
when it was a stubble field, giving the vines the best of care. He also planted
a border of figs around his ranch. Aside from water from the Enterprise
Canal, he also has a pumping plant for irrigation. The balance of his ranch
property is devoted to raising grain and hay. Alarques Sharer's home ranch
is beautifully located three and one-quarter miles southeast of Clovis, where
he has built a large modern residence, surrounded by a beautiful park of
ornamental trees and flowers, — and it is known as one of the show places of
the district. He also owns valuable residence property in the city of Fresno.
He believes in the cooperation of the fruit growers and has been active in all
the ditiferent raisin associations and is now a member of the California Asso-
ciated Raisin Company.
On September 26, 1888. Mr. Sharer was married to Nannie ^Mary Rey-
burn, a native of Scotland County, Mo., who came with her parents to Cal-
ifornia, being a daughter of James J. and Alary (McDonald) Reyburn, pio-
neers of Fresno County, who are represented on another page in this book.
Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Marques Sharer: Florence is the
wife of Ira Arbuckle, a viticulturist of the Jefferson district; Clarence mar-
ried Emily Westrup, also a vineyardist in the same district : Ethel is the wife
1 1« -^
^^:^r^^ Ch^ ^^'
i^i^z,.exy
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 771
of Walter C. Brown, a rancher in Red Bank District : and the others are Wil-
bur. Mary, Bertha. Ressie. Margie, and Ray. who died in infancy.
Their home life is delightful and in their house the friend or stranger
never fails of a welcome and their hospitality is dispensed with a true gener-
osity of the old time Californian. The family are members of the First Pres-
byterian Church at Clovis. where Mr. and ]Mrs. Sharer were charter members,
and Mr. Sharer has been both deacon and trustee. He h;is .-ilwa^s l)een a friend
of the cause of education and served acceptably as a tni~tef nf the Jefferson
School District and also of the Clovis Union Fligh Sclionl. Indeed, both Mr.
and Mrs. Sharer take a live interest in the prolilems of the town, and in any
movement which will advance Fresno County.
^^'hen Mr. Sharer first came here, most of the countr\- at all improved
was farmed to grain, and there were no such vineyards as that he now owns
which produces some of the famous raisins of the State. Throughout the
whole sectioa between Centerville and the San Joaquin \'alley there were
only four houses. Mr. Sharer was one who looked beyond the hardships and
saw the future recompense, and of course he won out, and is now one of the
substantial citizens of his locality.
JORGEN HANSEN. — An interesting man of both afifluence and influence,
respected both for his enterprise and his honesty of purpose, is Jorgen Han-
sen, one of the pioneers of "Washington Colony, who came to Fresno in 1878.
He was born in Fyen. Denmark, on April 18. 1853, the son of Hans Jensert.
who was also born in that country. Hans become a miller, was widely es-
teemed for the quality of his products and the reliability of his dealings, and
passed away in the country where he first saw the light. He had married
Anna Christophersen ; and when she died, she was the mother of seven
children, six of whom grew to maturity, while five are now living.
Jorgen was the second youngest of the family and was destined to be
the only one in California. He was brought up in Fyen. attended the public
schools there, and from fourteen years of age until he was nineteen, he
worked at the miller's trade. In 1872 he swung away not only from that
occupation, but from his native country, crossed the ocean to the United
States, and, arriving in Chicago, was employed on a farm sixteen miles from
that bustling city. Six months of that experience sufficed, and then he moved
to ^Michigan and settled at AMiitehall, in Muskegon County. He was there
two years, lumbering and saw-milling ; and then he went back to Chicago.
During the Centennial year, when America began to expand so wonder-
fully with her national spirit, Mr. Hansen came to California, and for a couple
of years he was active in one way or another in San Francisco. Then he
moved inland to Fresno, and bought twenty acres in Washington Colony,
where he at once began to lay out the raw land. By hard work of the in-
telligent order he greatly improved his purchase, leveling the surface and
planting to trees and vines ; and while he also sowed alfalfa, he built for
himself a residence.
For six or eight years Mr. Hansen remained there and then he sold his
property, which had come to have a much appreciated value, and moved
to the Central Colony, where he had a forty-acre ranch devoted to a vineyard,
orchard, a dairy and the growing of alfalfa. Owing to the coming up of alkali,
however, he found the section unsuitable ; and after a residence there of about
twenty-five years, he sold out and bought his present place in the Madison
district. Here he also located, building a residence, a barn, a windmill and
a well ; and now he has his entire tract in vineyard, save some three acres
which are devoted to a peach orchard. He has twenty acres of Thompson's
seedless grapes, seven acres of muscats, and seven acres of Feherzagos ; and
these are situated most conveniently, only three miles west of Fresno. From
his first activity as a rancher in California, Mr. Hansen has been a member
of every raisin association, and he is now an enthusiastic supporter of both
772 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the California Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers.
While living in the Central Colony, Mr. Hansen was married to Mrs.
Jorgina (Jorgensen) Rasmussen. She was born in Fyen, Denmark, a sister of
Chris Jorgensen, the county supervisor, and by her first marriage she had
one child, Herman Rasmussen, a farmer living near Clovis. Mrs. Hansen
came to Fresno County in 1881, having an aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs.
Jens Hansen, living in Central Colony, and there her first marriage occurred,
to Mr. Rasmussen, a blacksmith and rancher there till he died. Mr. and Mrs.
Hansen have been blessed with eight children : Annie is Mrs. Field, now
residing in Fresno; Meta, is I\Irs. jMoller, living near; William is a machinist
in the same city ; Louis assists his father ; Emma lives at home ; Lillian and
Elsie are bookkeepers in Fresno ; and Harry attends the High School.
Mr. Hansen belongs to the Danish Brotherhood, and is popular in that
organization. He was an original stockholder of the Danish Creamery As-
sociation, and one of the early directors. Mrs. Hansen is a member of the
Danish Ladies and of Fresno Chapter, Red Cross. Mr. Hansen has long been
a loyal Republican, but he is independent in local matters. His good citizen-
ship has been recognized as he has been twice elected school trustee for the
Central Colony district.
THOMAS F. MOODY.— A well-to-do pioneer California rancher, who
is historically interesting as one of the earliest settlers in the Laguna Tract,
and today well sustains the honorable and enviable traditions of one of the
best early families, is Thomas F. ]\Ioody, who resides three miles west of
Hardwick. He was born near Santa Clara, in Santa Clara County, on May
31, 1855. the son of George W. Moody, who was a native of Jackson County,
Mo., farmed there and was there married to Emily Lynn. Grandfather Daniel
bloody was born in \'irgiiiia and there became a planter. He came to Ken-
tucky, and from Kentucky to ^lissouri ; and thence to California, ten years
after George Moody arrived here. The Moodys came from England, settled
in Virginia, and had a very creditable part in the Revolutionary War. The
Lynns were likewise of English blood, although ]\Irs. Moody's mother was
born in Indiana. The paternal grandmother, Hannah King, was an own cousin
of Daniel Boone. Back in ^Missouri in the early days there was a trapper, and
he came all the w^ay out from Missouri to Oregon for trapping, thence moving
south into California in the early thirties, when George was still a bo^^ Re-
turning to Missouri, he 'related stories about California, and the lad George's
imagination was fired and he resolved to come to California. Luckily, he was
able to see his dream come true, for he was one of the few whites, forty in all,
who came to California from Jackson County, Mo., in 1847, Grandfather James
Lynn being one of them, and the captain of his company. This company came
through Colorado. L^tah, and Nevada, and on September 12, 1847, they halted
at where Stockton now stands. George Moody brought with him to California
his young wife and first-born, W'illiam, who was then only one year old, and
having established himself in the Santa Clara Valley, he engaged principally
in store-keeping, farming and stock-raising. He owned the Fremont Place in
that valley near Mountain View, at one time the headquarters of General
Fremont while he was stationed on the coast ; but through failure of title he
lost it, and he died a comparatively poor man, in 1910, aged eighty-four years.
The mother died in Santa Clara County, aged thirty-six, leaving eight chil-
dren: William A. is at Elko in Nevada: John J. is at Boulder Creek, Santa
Cruz County, Cal. ; Mary is now Mrs. McDonald of Hanford ; George M. mar-
ried, lived and died in Nevada and left three children ; Thomas F., who is the
subject of this sketch; Charles S. resides at Elko, Nev. ; Ellen, the widow of
Stephen Henlev, also lives at Elko; and Emma is the wife of Major IMiller
of Elko.
Marrying a second time, George Moody chose for his wife IVfrs. Ellen
Deitzman, widow of Henry Deitzman of Santa Clara, and the mother at that
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 773
time of five children — Lovey J., Nellie, John, Emma, and Frank; and by her
Mr. Moody became the father of three more : Lee, who resides at Stockton ;
Daniel lives in Lompoc ; and Lena, the wife of Henry Barker, of Santa Cruz
County.
Thomas Franklin Moody's early life was passed in the Santa Clara Valley,
where he grew up on his father's ranch and went to the public school until his
mother's death, which occurred when he was fourteen years old. Then after
his father's second marriage, he started out for himself. He went to live with
an uncle for a year, and worked for his brother-in-law McDonald ; and from
that time on until he was twenty-one he hired out by the month for various
farm-labor. Then he was married to Miss Lovey Jane Deitzman, his step-
sister ; but she died in 1906 and left seven children : Pearl lives at home ;
Ernest resides at Elyria, Ohio, where he is married and is the foreman in a
rubber-heel manufactory ; George Cleveland is a rancher in Kings County ;
Lela resides nearby in Armona, the wife of Kenneth Starr, a rancher ; Le Roy
married Edna A. Laidley, and is now in Belgium, a lieutenant in the United
States marine aviation service: Lester is in the marine aviation service at
Pekin. China ; and Irene is at Berkeley, a junior in the University of California.
On Mr. Afoody's second marriage, he was joined to Mrs. Daisy Mylar,
wddow of Fred Mylar of San Juan Bautista in San Benito County, by whom
she had three children: Fred, Leslie and Elmer Mylar.
After his first marriage, Mr. Moody ranched for a couple of years in San
Benito County: and when the extremely dry season of 1877 hindered oper-
ations, he went north into Napa County and worked around with his four-
horse team. Having returned to San Benito County, he moved in the Fall of
1878 to the San Joaquin Valley and settled near Lemoore, which was then in
Tulare County, but now in Kings, and farmed for a year. Then he went to
the south of Hanford, and farmed there two years; and next he came to the
Liberty Settlement, about half wa_v between Riverdale and Caruthers ; and
there he resided for ten years.
In 1898, Mr. Moody came to the Laguna de Tache Grant, where he rented
for three years, after which he bought sixty acres from Nares & Saunders.
He has not only improved the place but added to it b}^ purchase from time to
time till it is now 200 acres in extent. He and his sons, George C. and Pearl,
own a place of sixty acres in Kings County, south of the railway tracks near
the county line between Fresno and Kings counties. He also owns a piece of
land in the slough on Murphy Creek, consisting of twenty-eight acres, and
owns a quarter interest in his wife's place of forty acres in Fresno County,
near the Kings County line, where he now lives, three miles west of Hard-
wick. In 1909 he had an interest in city property at Coalinga, but he has dis-
posed of his holdings there.
A Democrat in matters of national politics, Mr. Moody is non-partisan in
his service as Trustee of the Laguna Grammar School and the Laton High
School. He was also Road Supervisor for two years under John Clough, and
he has done jury dut}^ He is one of three directors of the Riverdale Federal
Land Association, and passes upon land values before loans are made. This
is a plan by which any person owning real estate to the value of from ,$500
to $10,000 may borrow money to the latter sum, for from five to forty years,
at six per cent, interest.
An interesting bit of local history associating the Moody's with Santa
Clara Avenue, on which they reside, is furnished in the story of how that
thoroughfare came to be named, \\nien the Rural Free Delivery was estab-
lished, the Postal Department expressed the wish to have the avenue named :
and Mr. Moody, as the oldest resident, selected Santa Clara because that was
the county in which both he and his wife were born.
Mr. and Mrs. Moody were for years identified with the LTnited Brethren
Church, and Mr. IMoody belongs to the Woodmen of the ^^'orld.
774 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ALBERT ANDERSON BLASINGAME.— One of the most prominent
stockmen and pioneers of Fresno County, himself a worthy descendant of an
honored pioneer, is the subject of this sketch, Albert A. Blasingame. He was
born in Eldorado County, Cal., January 12, 1858. the son of the late Jesse A.
and Mary Jane (Ogle) Blasingame, pioneers of Fresno County, who settled
near Academy, when Albert was a very young child. The land in this section
was a vast uncultivated wilderness, and Albert has ridden after bronchos over
the land where Fresno is now situated.
The interest which attaches to the life story of California pioneers, is a
visible expression of the gratitude which all men feel towards the forerunners
of civilization, in the Far ^^>st. The life of Albert A. Blasingame has been
full of interesting incidents. From associating with his father, from boyhood,
Albert at an early age became an expert cattle bu3'er and manager of stock.
When a boy of about thirteen years, he assisted his father in driving a herd
of some 2,000 head of cattle across the plains from Texas to Nevada. Albert
was often left in charge of the whole band of cattle, but his experience was
such that he could, with the aid of riders, manage the whole herd satisfac-
torily.
An interesting incident occurred one night while he slept in the Raton
Mountains, with his head on his saddle and his horse tied to it with a rope of
rawhide: during the night the covotes ate the rope to within six inches of
the saddle. Fortunately for the }'oung man his, faithful steed was undisturbed
and awaited his master in the morning.
In 1870, his father, f. A. Blasingame, took his wife and Albert back East
to his old home state, Alabama, where he went to settle an estate. They spent
one winter in Bell County. Texas, and Albert, being but a boy of about twelve
years, attended school for six months. In the spring, the father began to
purchase cattle to drive across the plains. His first lot was purchased at San
Antonio, Texas, and consisted of 1,200 head. As he continued his journey he
made other purchases, paying from one to two dollars per head. Although
Albert was but a boy in years, he possessed a man's judgment when it came
to selecting cattle. At Denver he helped to select 200 fine steers from a herd
of 5,000. Albert cut them out of the large drove and superintended the brand-
ing of them with the Blasingame brand, a letter B with a bar under it. This
lot of cattle, for which they paid fourteen dollars per head, proved to be the
best they had purchased. \Mth their 2,000 head of cattle they continued their
journey over mountains and prairie until the}' reached Brown's Hole, in \\'y-
oming. where they spent the winter. The next winter found them at the end
of their trail. Humboldt Wells, Nev., the destination they had planned to
reach. The railway company built a corral for their cattle and Albert .Blas-
ingame and his father were the first shippers to use it. From this place they
shipped their cattle to San Francisco, Sacramento, and Colfax. The cattle
reached the various destinations in such fine condition that Mr. Blasingame
received most excellent prices ; in fact, the lowest price was seventy dollars
per head. The enterprise proved a most gratifying success. Albert Blas-
ingame was filled with justifiable pride to know that he was instrumental in
making the undertaking such a splendid success, he being but a boy of four-
teen. He continued with his father for some time and was actively interested
with him in his stock interests, looking after all of his sheep, having at times
as high as 16.000 head under his care. Later in life he engaged in the stock
business for himself and made a splendid success.
On ]\Iay 2, 1884, Albert A. Blasingame was united in marriage with Jen-
nie P. Cease, the ceremony being solemnized in Kingsburg. Cal. She is a na-
tive of Lexington, Va., and was the daughter of H. P. and Frances (Johnson)
Cease. Her mother passed away in 1861. H. P. Cease was a merchant in Vir-
ginia and at one time kept a hotel at Lexington. He brought his family to
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 777
California in 1883 and settled on a vineyard near Kingsburg. Mr. Cease was
born in 1826 and passed away in Fresno at the age of eighty-nine years.
After his marriage. Albert Blasingame started in the stock and sheep
business on the old Pitman place, located at the forks in the road between
Centerville and I-"resno. thirty miles east of Fresno. He purchased this place,
which contained 620 acres. As he prospered he purchased more land and kept
on adding to his initial ranch until he possessed 2.200 acres. He makes a
specialty of raising short-horn cattle of the Hereford strain. Mr. Blasingame
has his father's old branding-iron, and it is the first one that was recorded at
Fort Miller. On his ranch, at the head of Dry Creek, there is an excellent
spring and the ranch also contains valuable mineral land, with gold and
chrome ore. A few years ago he took a trip to Arizona and New Mexico and
purchased 400 head of cattle, which he shipped to Fresno, and disposed of
them at various times.
About 1902, Mr. and Mrs. Blasingame removed to Fresno where they
built their new home on Blackstone Avenue, where they own forty acres.
They are the parents of four children that are living: Albert A., Jr., a deputy
sherifT ; Mary, who is now Mrs. Arnold, and who resides in St. Louis, Mo. :
Edna, attending the Fresno State Normal; Janet, a student at Fresno High
School. For over twelve years Mr. Blasingame was a trustee of Mechanics-
ville School District and was acting clerk for years. He is a member of the
California Cattle Men's Association, and politically is a Democrat. Mrs.
Blasingame is a member of the ^Nfethodist Episcopal Church South, of Fresno.
CLARENCE JAMES REYBURN.— A broad-minded and liberal-hearted
man, whose hospitality and generosity are evidences of the appreciation of
his own prosperity and his belief in the excellent doctrine of "live and let
live," is Clarence J. Reyburn, the well-known rancher and son of James John
Reyburn, so widely and well-known as a pioneer of the San Joaquin \''alle3'.
He was born near Memphis, Scotland County, Mo., on December 21, 1865,
his parents having just come to that state from Iowa. His father was a
native of ]\Iiami County, Ohio, and traced his lineage to John Stewart Rey-
burn, his father and the Kentucky pioneer, and to Grandfather Reyburn, who
was one of the heroes of the ^^^ar of 1812. Striking out bravel}' for himself
when a mere boy, J. J. Reyburn worked on a farm near Burlington and after-
wards purchased a share in a flour mill at Des Moines. At Mount Pleasant,
in the same state, in 1866, he married Mary A. McDonald, a native of Henry
County, Ind., where she was born on July 29. 1831. She came to Iowa with
her parents, John and Mary (Dyson) McDonald, who had three children:
Mrs. Revburn ; Leander, who served in the Twenty-fifth Iowa Regiment in
the Civil War and now resides in Oklahoma; and Minnie P., who resides
with Mrs. Reyburn in Enterprise Colony. In the middle sixties Mr. and IMrs.
Reyburn migrated to Scotland County, Mo., and there engaged in raising
grain and stock ; and in 1873 they came far westward to California, into
which section a brother had already come and settled. J. J. Reyburn raised
wheat near Salida, and then preempted and homesteaded at Red Bank,
on Big Dry Creek. After a while he bought eighty acres ten miles from
Fresno, where he had a notable vineyard and orchard ; and when he retired
and sold his 640 acres in the Big Creek district, he resided in Fresno until
his death, on Alarch 2i, 1914. Mrs. Reyburn still lives, honored as was her
husband, and makes her home with our subject. She is the mother of fi\e chil-
dren, four of whom grew up: Chester H., lives at Mountain View; William
D., in Los Angeles; Clarence J., of this review; and Nancy, who is Mrs. M.
W. Sharer. All have chosen the better paths leading to honorable careers,
and all have prospered.
Brought up in Missouri, Clarence Reyburn came to Stanislaus County
in 1873, and two years later to the Red Bank district, where he also attended
the public school. He was fortunate in being able to remain at home, and
778 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
there thoroughly learned the ins and outs of farming and stock-raising. Even
after his majority he continued to run the home farm with his father ; and
together they raised grain and stock. When his father retired, he took up
his residence and work on the place of 640 acres now owned by R. jMadsen.
In 1889, Mr. Reyburn with his father purchased eighty acres of his
present place in the Jefferson district, and the following year began the diffi-
cult and arduous work of improvement. A first-class \-ineyard resulted, and
in time forty acres were sold. The estate still owns forty acres devoted to
the growing of muscat and INIalaga grapes. In the meantime, Clarence J.
Re3'burn bought forty acres of wheat stubble adjoining, which he cleared
up, leveled and otherwise so improved that it now bears the highest grade
of muscat and malaga grapes. His home was destroyed by fire July 7, 1907,
and he immediately erected the present large modern residence of fine
architecture. He has always been a member of the California Associated
Raisin Compan}- and is proud of his support of an organization that has done
so much for the interests it fosters.
Mr. Reyburn modestly stands for what is edifying and inspiring in reli-
gion, and takes pleasure in doing his part as a member of the First Pres-
byterian Church in Clovis. He has been deacon of the church, and at Jeffer-
son he was superintendent of the Simday School. He is a Republican and
yet loyally supports the present administration ; and he aids in all worthy
movements for local expansion and improvement.
JACOB VOGEL AND HERBERT E, VOGEL.— The president of the
Fresno Hardware Company, H. E. A'ogel is well known to the citizens of
Fresno County as a man of high business standing and as a progressive and
loyal resident, who is ever ready to assist in the advancement and general
upbuilding of the county. His father, the late Jacob Vogel, was prominent
in financial circles in the San Joaquin A^alley and gave his best efforts
toward the development of this section of the state.
Jacob Vogel was born in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, November 27, 1830.
His father was Baltasar A'ogel, a native of the same locality and a well
known and prosperous farmer and merchant until his death in 1848. He was
a Lutheran and a strong moral citizen who ga\'e his best efforts to advance
the welfare of his community. His wife, formerly Christine Hoft'man, was
also a native of Germany, where she died. They had five children, of whom
Jacob Vogel was reared on the home farm and educated in the public schools
until he was fourteen wdien he was confirmed. He was then apprenticed
to learn the trade of shoemaker, remaining three years, when in 1857 he
came to America. He took passage on a slow steamer, the voyage occupying
three weeks. Landing in New York, he went on to Chicago, arriving there
with a single dollar in his pocket. He found work there for four months,
then went to Bloomington, 111., and for three months worked for a. mason,
as he was unable to follow his trade. He received one dollar a day for his
services and then found work at his trade until the breaking out of the Civil
W'ar. He had taken a keen interest in the questions of the day and in 1858
had heard Lincoln and Douglas debate five times in as many cities in Illinois.
In the spring of 1862 he became a volunteer among three hundred, a company
raised in one night to go to Springfield to guard prisoners. In July he en-
listed in Company A, Ninetj'-fourth Illinois Regiment, Volunteer Infantry,
being mustered in at Bloomington, after which the regiment was sent for
service in Missouri and Arkansas. With his regiment he participated in the
siege of Vicksburg, then the regiment was sent to the relief of Port Hudson
and thence to New Orleans, where a greater part of the command was in-
capacitated through fever. When the Thirteenth Army Corps was organized,
four months later, all that was left of the regiment became a part of same.
They were then sent to the Rio Grande, in Texas, then to Mobile Bay, where
they took part in the battles of Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines. The troops
were again sent to Texas, where at Galveston, ]\Ir. Vogel was honorabh'
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 779
discharged from the service in July, 1865. He was wounded in the right
hand at the battle of Vicksljurg.
After his discharge Mr. Vogel returned to Bloomington, worked at his
trade for a time, then traveled some, going as far west as Omaha. His em-
ployer suggested to him that he start a store and shop of his own, so he went
to Clinton, 111., where he became established in business. He met with success
from the start and soon his business grew to such proportions that he had to
make two trips East each year to visit the factories, where he purchased his
goods. He invested in farming property, owning a farm of 480 acres, which
he improved. In 1886 he came to California as a delegate to the National
Grand Army Encampment at San Francisco. It was but natural that he
should visit several sections of the state while he was here, and he became
so charmed with the climate and the business possibilities of the state, that
vipon his return to Illinois, he sold out his interests and returned to make his
home in California. lie invested in lands, real estate and stock, in the vicinity
of Fresno. He erected a fine home in the city of Fresno, bought and im-
proved a forty-acre vineyard : improved a fine tract which he planted to alfalfa
and made other wise in^■estments. In 1900 he bought a home in Fruitvale,
to which he retired, although he looked after his business interests in Fresno
in person. He was vice-president and a director of the First National Rank
of Fresno ; president of the Fresno Street Improvement Company, which
owned a brick block at Fresno and I Streets. Fle was also a stockholder in
the Peoples Saving Bank of Fresno, the Fresno Abstract and Title Company,
the First National Bank of Selma, the Selma Savings Bank, the First National
Bank of Dinuba, and the Dinuba Savings Bank. He was also interested in
business property in Sanger.
Jacob Vogel was married in Bloomington, 111., to Eliza Ludolph, born in
Kur-Hessen, the daughter of Martin Ludolph. who became a farmer in In-
diana, where he died. Mr. and Mrs. Vogel became the parents of six chil-
dren: Amelia, Mrs. A. Hall, of Fresno; Mrs. Louise A. Aldrich, of Fresno;
Olivia, Mrs. Charles McCardle, of Dinuba ; Herbert E., of this review ; Velby
and Bernal. Mr. Vogel was an Odd Fellow, belonging to the Lodge and
Encampment ; a member of the Grand Army Post ; a Lutheran ; and a Re-
publican. He died on February 11, 1915, in Fruitvale. Mrs. Vogel died on
the same date.
It will thus be seen that H. E. \'ogel, who was born in Dewitt County,
111., on May 16, 1877, has a ^•alid claim to the best interests of Fresno County
as an inheritance from his worthy sire who contributed to the best of his
ability to the betterment of business, social, religious and agricultural con-
ditions of the central part of California. Herbert E. attended the public
schools of Fresno, graduating from the Fresno High in 1895 with honors,
after which he worked in various places and gained valuable experience,
for the next two years. He then started on his own account as a rancher
and gradually developed a model ranch from its primitive condition. His
property consists of about 400 acres of fine land and is located about ten
miles west of F"resno and south of Kearney Avenue. Here will be found one
of the finest dairy ranches in the county upon whicli all improvements have
been made by its owner.
Mr. Vogel began breeding Holstein cattle in 1899, beginning on a small
scale and against heavy odds, for many said the business would not pay. He
brought his bulls from the East, having only the highest grades to be found
and now he has 200 registered Holstein cattle and much of the stock in the
county has been bred from his herd. He has done much to bring into being
a higher grade of stock than hitherto thought of by dairymen in the San
Joaquin Valley. He is one of the oldest and best known breeders of Holstein
stock in California and he belongs to the Holstein-Friesian Association of
America and the California Holstein-Friesian Association. He exhibits at the
State Fairs and at the Fresno District Fairs, and at both places he has won
780 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
many premiums for his fine grade of stock. He has been a director of the
Fresno District Fair Association for the past ten 3^ears. In all matters for
the betterment of conditions in the county he has followed in the footsteps of
his father. In 1910 he became a stockholder and was elected president of
the Fresno Hardware Company.
Mr. Vogel was united in marriage in Fresno County with Miss Irma E.
Foley, a native daughter of the county, and they have a daughter, Verna V.
Both Mr. and JNIrs. \"ogel are highly esteemed and have a wide circle of
friends. He is a IMason and a Shriner.
JOHN W. SHUEY. — Pride of ancestry will not alone achieve success.
It will assist, for the stirring blood of men who have wrought for the well-
being of the nation will tell in the generations coming after them. To be well
born is an asset that counts tremendously in the world effort to promote
progress, provided the possessor of such birthright exerts himself in the di-
rection of growth. There are many who do not thus exert themselves, but are
content to live their lives depending upon their forbears to carry them along.
Preferring to add to rather than detract from such ancestry, John W. Shuey
stands today an example of the type of men who will reflect credit upon
their forefathers.
Mr. Shuey was born near Ouincy, Adams County, 111., June 23. 1852. His
father, John Shuey. was born in Ohio, but early went to Illinois and was a
pioneer farmer near Ouincy. In 1847 he came to California with one comrade,
crossing the plains on horseback and with pack animals, but went back East
again. In 1850 he started a second time for the Great ^^'est, as before on
horseback and with pack horses, trading in stock. Again he returned East,
this time via Cape Horn and New York, and in 1856 brought his family,
consisting of wife and eight children, to San Francisco via Panama. They
landed in the northern city the day Casey and Corey were hung. He located
in Contra Costa County, buying a farm in the Moraga Valley, where they
remained four years. He bought land in Fruitvale, 100 acres, where he resided
until his death. The grandfather was Colonel Martin Shuey, who was a native
of Pennsylvania : he gained his title of Colonel in the War of 1812. He enlisted
in the War with Mexico, but was not sent out. Colonel Shuey, accompanied
by his wife, drove a horse team across the plains in 1862, when he was seventy-
five years old. He died in Oakland at the age of ninety-three years. The
mother was Lucinda Stowe, a native of Massachusetts. They were married
in Illinois, and to them were born six boys and four girls ; two boys and three
girls are living. Mrs. Shuey died in Berkeley.
John W. Shuey and brother Henry were twins, the youngest in the fam-
ily. The brother now resides at San Lucas. San Luis Obispo County. John
was brought up in Alameda County, getting his education in the public schools
and at the same time working on the farm. He stayed at home until he was
twenty-two years of age, when he went to Crow Canyon, near Hayward.
where he and his twin brother bought a farm and engaged in raising grain
and stock from 1875 to 1883, when they sold and dissolved partnership. Dur-
ing one of the years they farmed together they raised 38,000 sacks of wheat.
John then went to Green ^'alley, Contra Costa County, and bought a ranch.
In 1881 he made a trip to Fresno and never forgot it, and in 1887 returned
there and engaged in farming on land owned by the California Bank. He was
the first man to lease lands in this district, which is now Barstow District.
He remained here three years, and then removed to Douglas County, Ore. He
and his brother Henry bought a ranch near Oakland, and engaged in stock-
raising, continuing there for five years. They lost out in the panic of 1893.
After the panic. Air. Shuey returned to Fresno County and located on
the Sharon estate, leased about 1,000 acres and engaged in grain-raising the
first year ; the second year he added another section where Biola is located : he
drove two eight-horse teams and continued on the Sharon estate for three
vears and on the Biola six vears, and was reasonably successful. In 1898 he
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 783
bought his present place, beginning with twenty acres in the Empire Colony ;
upon this he raised alfalfa and also ran the Biola ranch and other land upon
which he raised grain. This he continued until 1902 when he gave this up
and farmed on the Jeff James tract five years, retaining his original twenty,
to which he added twenty acres. In 1907 he came back to his home place and
has since given his entire attention to it. In 1905 he had set out ten acres to a
vineyard. He bought more land, and now has sixty acres, all well improved.
There are thirty-five acres in Thompson seedless grapes, and the balance is in
alfalfa. One year, at the Fresno County Fair, he exhibited in the Kerman
booth a cane, about thirty inches long, cut from his vineyard, that had bunches
of grapes attached, weighing forty pounds. At another time he exhibited a
bunch weighing eight one-half pounds.
Mr. Shuey was married in Alameda County, Cal., to Miss Mary Cull,
who was born in Kentucky, but came to California early in life. She is the
daughter of S. T. Cull, one of the early settlers of Alameda. Mrs. Shuey was
educated in the public schools of Alameda. They have four children : Bertha,
now Mrs. Wm. Harrison, rancher in the Vinland District; Harry A., rancher
near home, where he owns sixty acres in the Empire Colony ; Grace, now Mrs.
Arch Boucher, of Clovis. whose husband served in the Field Artillery. Ninety-
first Division. U. S. A. ; and Mary, wife of A. G. \^''etmore of Kerman.
Mr. Shuey was at one time a member of the Board of Trustees of the
Empire School District, and is a member of the California Associated Raisin
Company. A descendant of one of the oldest families in the State. !\lr. Shuey
is maintaining the reputation of his forbears. He has seen his district develop,
from barren sheep-ranges, sand hills and weed patches, to one of the most
productive in the state and one of the best known in the Avorld. He has seen
prices so low that he could not make expenses, but he stuck to it and has been
very successful.
GEORGE BUELL OTIS.— Historically interesting as a member of one
of the oldest and most notable families in America, and himself locally dis-
tinguished as the last of the four original townsite men who laid out the city
of Selma, George Buell Otis, when he breathed his last at twenty minutes
after ten on April 30, 1918, both merited and enjoyed the hearty good-will as
well as the highest esteem of everyone. To the last he retained his mental
faculties ; and having been the author himself of some reminiscences of
"Early Days." published in July, 1911, and dealing with the pioneer events
of Selma and the surrounding country, he never lost his interest in and
advocacy of every responsible movement for the collection and publication
of pioneer data and records. He lived on a farm in Santa Clara County when
the Stockton and Fresno branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad was built
through, and he never forgot the stir that the coming of the iron horse made
among the expectant settlers in the sparsely populated district.
Born near Bolton, Vt., on September 16, 1844. George B. Otis lived in that
state until 18.S6, when the family came to California and settled in Sonoma
County. They crossed the Isthmus and landed in December of that year at
San Francisco, and almost immediately pushed on inland to Sonoma County
where the father, having a good deal of the spirit characteristic of the typical
Yankee soon acquired land for himself.
It was during the centennial year that George B. Otis came to Fresno
County, then a forbidding desert, and having looked over various districts,
he took up the northern half of the northwest quarter of Section 8-16 S.,
Range 22 E., and settled upon it as his homestead. It was rough land at
best, and a doubtful project; but he commenced the improvements and little
by little worked the transformation for which he was widely known. There
was no railroad depot at Selma then, and no switch between Kingsburg on
the south and Fowler's switch on the north ; and he was compelled to haul
water twenty-two miles from King's River. It took courage in those days
784 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to start anything new involving much labor and expense, for one hadn't the
remotest idea as to where such a beginning or those making it would end.
George Buell Otis, E. J. Whitson, Monroe Snyder, and E. H. Tucker had the
honor of laying out the original townsite. although since then thirteen addi-
tions have been made by subsequent platters ; and how the town started is
a story of more than passing moment.
The establishing of the Selma ' Flouring ]\Iill, by Samuel, John and
William Frey, and the consequent necessity for a shipping point, were the
primary causes for the building up of the new town of Selma, a name selected
by Mr. Otis at the suggestion of the Freys. There had been some controversy
regarding the best name for the proposed community, and it had finally nar-
rowed down to Dalton, Weymouth. Sandwich and Selma; and on the mill
owners' stating that "Selma" was a name often very fondly used in German
Switzerland to denote a beautiful, amiable and sweet-tempered maiden,
the gallant Mr. Otis threw his influence in the balance, and "Selma" was
the appellation unanimously chosen by the committee and approved by the
railroad company. Now there are a dozen post-offices by the same name in
as many different states.
The first wells were not very deep, reaching down only about forty or
fifty feet, but thanks to efforts of ]\Ir. Otis and others, the water supply has
been much increased and improved. The' water table has been raised many
feet since water from Kings River has been introduced, and now Selma has
the cheapest water system on the Pacific Coast, the rate being only seventy-
five cents per acre a year. In many ways, as might have been expected from
one who was here at the beginning of things, Mr. Otis was identified with
the development of the fast-growing town.
George Buell Otis was the son of Albert Hinsdale Otis, a native of
Massachusetts and the only child of Joseph and Viola fHinsdalel Otis, of
English ancestry. Albert Flinsdale Otis was reared and educated in Massa-
chtisetts, and was graduated from the Wesleyan University, where he re-
ceived the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His wife was a daughter of Jesse
Tewell, one of Bolton's earliest settlers. . In 1838. with his wife, he migrated
"west to Wisconsin and bought government land at Southport, near what is
now Kenosha. He was a circuit-rider in the Methodist ministry; but as the
missionary clergy of those days generally had to support themselves from
other sources than the church, he followed millwrighting for years, and
with success. He improved a farm in ^^'isconsin, and gave it up to his father,
at the same time preparing another home for himself on an adjoining farm.
Both sides of the family had interesting forebears. Five children were born
to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hinsdale Otis. One, a daughter Ruby, died in early
childhood. Charles Wesley, the eldest, became a teacher; Sarah Anna mar-
ried George P. Laird; Philo J. was a farmer, having in early manhood lieen
a teacher; and George B. is the subject of this sketch. The father came to
California in 1851. and located in Grass Valley. He assisted in putting up
the first quartz mill in California, and for some time after that was engaged
in mill building. On his way to California, he crossed the great plains ; but
in 1854 he went back to Wisconsin, this time traveling via the Isthmus of
Panama. It was two years later when he brought his family to California
and settled down to farming in Sonoma County. When he died, in 1865, he
breathed his last on what is now a part of the site of the University of Cali-
fornia. Mrs. Otis died in 1887, and both are interred in Petaluma.
After coming to California, George B. Otis took a six months' course at
the University of the Pacific. In 1864 he went to Nevada and followed mining
for a time, but not being altogether successful he returned to California — a
choice he never regretted — and with his brother purchased 160 acres of land
near Petaluma. Having later disposed of the ranch, in 1866 they drove a
band of dairy stock to Salinas Valley and there leased a part of a Spanish
HISTORY OF FRESNO. COUNTY 785
grant near Castroville. They added to their herd and continued dairying for
some years with success.
It was at that time and place that ]\Ir. Otis met the lady who became his
wife. She was Elizabeth Roadhouse, a daughter of Joseph and Charlotte
(Norriss) Roadhouse, and she was born near Stockton on November 20, 1851,
and was the first white girl born there. Four children were born to the happy
couple. Albert Joseph is proprietor of the Los Angeles Fencing Company,
and resides in that city; George Fredron is a well-known bean-grower of
Marysville ; Elizabeth married Jacob Boehler of Watsonville. and is now
deceased ; and Earl Norriss is in the real estate business at Selma.
In 1872 the lease of the Otis brothers terminated and they removed to
Santa Clara County. There they followed the dairy business, as previously.
but four years later they dissolved partnership. It was then that George B.
Otis removed to Fresno County, where in time he acquired several hundred
acres of land, and also participated, as has been told, in the laying out of
Selma. He erected a comfortable home, and he and his family became
closely identified with the life of the town.
Mr. Otis was a Republican in national politics, deeply interested in the
elevation of the ballot, but was disinclined to accept anv public office, al-
though often solicited to be a candidate. In his church aflSliations he was an
Episcopalian, with broad religious views and responsive sympathies. He had
a desire for good schools and became an active spirit in working up a senti-
ment for the founding of the .Selma Union High School District and the
organization of the Selma High School. He was also one of the prime movers
in the establishment of the Selma Carnegie Library, to which he donated
largely both money and books. Fie laid out South Park Addition to Selma,
opened and successfully conducted a real estate office, and was one of the
pioneers in the packing of raisins, having built a packing house for his own
vineyard and organized the Otis Fruit Packing Company, which he operated
for several 3'ears. The motto of his life was well expressed in his admonition,
"Be sincere in your undertakings and absolutely honest in all your transac-
tions," and he lived up to this ideal to the letter. He was one of the si.K
charter members of Selma Lodge, No. 309, I. O. O. F., where he had passed
through all the chairs, and when his funeral took place from St. Luke's
Episcopal Church on May 2, 1918, that fraternity conducted short services at
the Odd Fellows' Cemetery. He was seventy-three years, seven months and
fourteen days old when he died, and was counted one of the really dis-
tinguished citizens of Selma and of Fresno County.
STEPHEN E. BENNETT.— Representing some of the finest of South-
ern families, and the personification of all that is associated with the name
of gentleman, as well as of that type of sturdy Californian rancher who is
able to get down to hard work and sacrifice when it is necessary, and one
who had, as his wife, a native daughter, interested, like himself, in California
annals and especially in the early history of Millerton, was Stephen E.
Bennett, who was born near ^^'est Point, in what is now called Clay County,
Miss., on January 31, 1858, the son of Ste])lu-n Dudley Bennett, a native of
Alabama, who had married Ann Dorsc\ Aii]iliiig\ who was born at Atlanta,
Ga. Their marriage took place in Mis^issipiii, after which the father served
in the Confederate Army and shared all the hardships of campaigning. The
parents had four children, the eldest of whom ^vas Afartha Corinne, now the
widow of B. G. Plaskett. She lives near Salinas, with her ten children, and
owns a ranch at Gordo. John M. resides at ]\Iadera, is married to a second
wife, and has three children living. Sarah P. also lives at Madera, the wife of
S. P. Hensley. and the mother of three children.
Stephen E. came to California in 1867 with his parents, when he was
nine vears old. ha\ing attended school awhile in ]^Iississippi, and there felt
the pinch of the terrijde Civil AA'ar. The family settled at the junction of
Fresno, Merced and INIariposa Counties; and there, while the father went to
786 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ranching and stock-raising, improving and proving up a homestead of 160
acres, the mother taught school and was one of the first school-teachers in
Fresno County. Stephen enjoyed some schooling here also, but he acquired
much of his formal learning in the office of the Expositor when it was printed
at Millerton. In 1870 he was apprenticed there under J. W. Ferguson and
C. A. Heaton, now both deceased, but then editors and proprietors of what
was the pioneer newspaper of the county. Ferguson was elected to the assem-
bly and bought Heaton out; and then he moved the Expositor to Fresno. For
eight months Stephen worked on the newspaper as typesetter, job-printer
and reporter, while it was established at Millerton, and for another eight
months he was with the paper after it had been removed to Fresno. His
apprenticeship then being concluded, however, he embarked in the_ sheep
business; and as he was single and able to give it his whole attention, he
made money for six or eight years. Then he came to Selma and, in 1888,
bought a farm; and about that time he was married.
Tlie lady who consented to share his joys and responsibilities was Miss
IMartha A. Mullins, a native of Mariposa County and the daughter of A. and
Angeline (Castell) Mullins, born in Tennessee and Missouri respectively. Roth
came to California in the real pioneer days ; the father crossing with ox teams
in 1851, and the mother in 1852, and eventually marrying at Diamond Springs.
At first Mr. Mullins engaged in mining, but later he became a stockman in
Mariposa County, and there developed and owned a large stock-ranch. Mrs.
Mullins died in' 1881, in her forty-eighth year, when Martha A. was only
sixteen, and left ten children: John married Frances Beevers, and was a
laborer in Fresno, where he died, the father of ten children. May became
the wife of T- T. Elam, now deceased, and lived in Mariposa County. Amasa,
who married Mollie Appling and has made a success of the automobile busi-
ness, resides at INIadera. ]\Iartha Adeline is the wife of our subject. Burrell
married Kate Elam, by whom he has had four children, and is a dairy rancher
at Kerman. Emily is the wife of A. A. Parsley, a rancher, and is the mother
of six children, at' Los Banos. Janie resides with her two children in Selrna,
and is the wife of V. Reed, who is in business in Visalia. Lucy married
J. B. Cook, a rancher west of Selma, and has four children. Lilly lives in
Phoenix, Ariz., where she is married to C. A. Orr, who owns a garage, and
she has one child. James is a rancher and teamster at Kerman, where he
lives Avith his wife, "formerly Belle Underwood, and her three children.
Mr. Bennett rented several farms, and also bought ranches and developed
them. In 1891 he bought thirty acres which became his home place; he
first purchased and improved ten acres, and then he added twenty acres
more, until he had fourteen acres devoted to peaches, eight acres of raisin
grapes and three acres planted to alfalfa, all nicely located one mile and a
half east of Selma, on the Canal School Road. He was an active member of
the California Associated Raisin Company, and of the Peach Growers. Inc.
Mr. Bennett was prominent in the activities of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South, of which he was a steward. He was also a member of the
Woodmen of the World, at Selma. Mrs. Bennett is a teacher in the Sunday
School and a particularly active church worker. Three children came to share
with them, from time to time, this religious and social life : Lorenzo, who
married Emma Campbell, and has a ranch one mile west of Selma, and
there they live with their four children — Steve, Jewell, Orville, and \^erna.
Earl, who married Maggie Kienitz, by whom he has had three children —
Roberta, Eunice, and Earlita ; and they are ranchers on the State Highway
one mile north of Selma. ]\Iarion, single, is at home, and helps run the ranch.
Mr. Bennett died a victim of influenza, on November 18, 1918, and was
buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery south of Selma. Notwithstanding the
contagious nature of his disease, his funeral was one of the largest held at
Selma for years. Two truck-loads of floral offerings attested the love and
esteem in which he was held.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 789
COLONEL JOSIAH HALL.— It is appropriate in this instance to men-
tion the great service rendered the America of today, not only by the pioneer
who broke new paths, but by the citizen whp, having by the hardest of labor
established a certain amount of prosperity and home comfort, left fireside,
family and all that was dear, at the call of his country, justice and right,
fought the good fight, and then, when war was np more, returned to the
avocations of peace, taking up the usual responsibilities of life, side by side
and in friendliest relations with those who were once enlisted in the ranks of
the enemy. Foremost among such sterling citizens must be mentioned Col.
Josiah.Hall, a native of Westminster, Vt., and the son of Capt. Edward Hall
who was born on Cape Cod. Mass., and who was taken as a child to Vermont,
where he grew up and became a farmer, proud of the traditions of his old
New England family, and always ambitious to have one of the best of farms
anywhere to be found.
Colonel Hall was a graduate of Norwich University, Vermont, frcim
which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Finishing his studies, he
taught school and also served on the Staff of the Governor as Major of the
Second Regiment of Vermont Troops. In course of time he came West to
Greenfield, Mo., and with his cousin, George McClure, he bought a herd
of cattle in Missouri and Indian Territory, and drove them across the plains
to California in the fifties. They themselves traveled on horseback and,
reaching California, they disposed of the cattle in the Sacramento Valley.
Afterward, Colonel Hall returned Fast by way of Panama and went back to
Greenfield, Mo., where he remained until the clouds of war obscured the
heavens. Then by wise precaution, he managed to get away from the state
in safety.
On his return to his native Vermont, Mr. Hall enlisted as a private in
the First Vermont Cavalry, and such was his preeminent ability that he was
commissioned captain before he left the state. He was in active service and
was promoted, from time to time, until he was commissioned colonel of his
regiment. He was captured and imprisoned in both Libby and Anderson-
ville prisons, and served a combined period of ten months. Then he was
exchanged and returned to his regiment; and, fighting to the last, he was in
the latest big battle of the war, at Appomattox, and afterwards took part in
the Grand Review. On June 21, ISfiS. he was mustered out of service. His
regiment was in .seventy-eight battles: and at the reunion of the First Ver-
mont Cavalry in November, 1917, at their headquarters in Norwich Univer-
sity, a large portrait of Colonel Hall was presented by his nephew, Dr. Ed-
ward Campbell, to Norwich University, and hung in Dewey Hall. The fol-
lowing verbatim "Report" of Colonel Hall constitutes an interesting docu-
ment of the Civil War:
"Report of Col. Josiah Hall, First Vermont Cavalry, to Peter T.
Washburn, Adjutant and Inspector General.
"On the 7th inst. (April, 1865), we passed through Prince Ed-
wards, C. H., on our way to Appomattox Station, which we reached
on the evening of the 8th. Here we met the enemy again, and after
a most stubborn and hotly contested fight, he was driven from the
field, leaving trains of cars, wagons, ambulances and artillery in our
possession. The casualties of this day's work were one killed and five
wounded. We went into camp just in rear of the battlefield and re-
mained until morning, being relieved from picket duty by other divi-
sions which came up after we had become masters of the field. On
the 9th the fighting commenced by sunrise and, as the infantry had
arrived during the night, we were soon in motion. Our brigade was
in advance and my regiment in front, the Eighth New York Regi-
ment having been placed on the skirmish line. We moved out on the
trot, forcing the enemy's skirmish line back rapidly, leaving the
"90 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY '
ground to be taken up by the Fifth Corps, which came up at the
double quick. After passing the enemy's entire front, and running
the gauntlet from the united fire of two batteries, we came around on
their flank and rear, and in full sight of their supply trains. At this
point General Custer ordered me to charge the train with my regi-
ment. I immediately made the proper disposition of the command.
The front battalion .had already broken into the gallop, and the
others were following at a fast trot, when a staff officer of General
Custer came charging down and ordered me to halt the regiment,
saying that General Lee had sent in a flag of truce, offering to sur-
render his army. The two rear battalions were immediately halted,
but the front one had got so far that they captured the last post be-
tween us and the train before they covdd be halted. The regiment
was at once formed and brought up into line of battle, while the
preliminaries of the surrender .were being gone through with. At
about 5 P. M. General Custer rodt along the lines and announced
that the terms of the surrender had been agreed upon, and signed,
and directed us to go into camp where we were. This was the last
time the regiment was called upon to face the enemy and it was
the source of much gratification to the regiment, as well as myself,
to know that we were present to see the grand rebel army of North-
ern Virginia find the 'last ditch.' "
(Signed) "JOSIAH HALL, Colonel First Vermont Cavalry."
On November 29, 1865, Colonel Hall was married at Montague City.
jMass., to Miss Delia Elizabeth Adams, who was born there, the daughter of
Amos Adams, a native of New Salem, Mass. He was both a merchant and
a farmer, and belonged to the family of Adams that is traceable at least as
far back as the Seventeenth Century, to a Sir Knight, in Wales. Her mother,
Sarah W^ard Whitney before her marriage, was born in Orange, !Mass., and
died in ^lontague City. Mrs. Hall was educated at New Salem Academy,
and after their marriage lived in Greenfield. ^lass., where Mr. Hall reestab-
lished himself as a farmer.
In 1875, however, still under the spell of golden California, he made his
second trip to the Coast, and again brought out cattle. In keeping with the
changed conditions, however, he shipped them this time on cars. In Cali-
fornia he practiced surveying and was one of the engineers who laid out the
Mussel Slough ditch. He also directed work on the San Joaquin ditch, but
later took to farming and stock-raising. He thus saw Fresno grow and de-
velop from almost the first houses here, and found much pleasure, when he
returned to Massachusetts, in 1884, in telling his old neighbors of the Cali-
fornia miracle. In March, 1887, he brought his family to Pasadena, where he
engaged in farming.
In November of the following year the Colonel became a resident of
Fresno County where, for a year, he was part of the Central Colony, next
going to Parent Colony No. 1. For seven years he engaged in grain-raising,
and then he bought a ranch of 200 acres ten miles west of Fresno, which he
soon greatly improved, adding several buildings. He raised alfalfa and stock,
and followed dairying, and assisted by his family, he made the farm a very
valuable holding, and was active in its management up to the time of his
death on March 12, 1912, in his seventy-seventh year. He died with the con-
sciousness that he had rounded out a useful and honorable career not per-
mitted every man. He remained most loyal to the Grand Army of the Repub-
lic, and he was equally stanch as a Republican.
Since the Colonel's death, Mrs. Hall, now seventy-three A-ears of age,
has resided with her children, who have continued to operate the farm. The
two children are George Warren and Carrie Luella, both graduates of the
Montague City High School, and both, in numerous ways, honoring the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 791
honored family name. The family went through all the pioneer experiences
and hardships'of early days in Fresno County, but with characteristic optim-
ism and great faith in the future they stuck to the new country of their
adoption, winning success where others failed, and their industry has brought
them, as it was sure to do, a handsome competency. Their 200-acrc ranch
is irrigated by the Church ditch and two electric pumping plants, and is
devoted to growing alfalfa, dairying and stock-raising. They were the first
in their section to install milking machines.
Miss Carrie Hall was for many years bookkeeper for the Hughes Hotel.
being the first woman in the state to become a hotel accountant. Thereafter
she was employed by other concerns, until she was made auditor at the
Hotel Lankershim, in Los Angeles, and in that responsible position continued
for about ten years, or until her father died, when she returned to the home
farm, to be a comfort and a companion to her mother and brother. She is a
woman of much business acumen, well-informed, and a good con-
versationalist.
In 1915, George Hall purchased a twenty-acre alfalfa ranch, nine miles
west of Fresno on California Avenue ; and there he raised high-grade Hol-
steins until selling out in 1918, his painstaking efforts and scientific methods
producing excellent results. Mr. Hall is a stockholder in the Danish Cream-
ery, and has been, since its organization, also a stockholder in the San Joaquin
Valley Milk Producers Association.
J. W. BEALL. — A sturdy pioneer and his good wife, whose descent from
two signers of the immortal Declaration of Independence gives them a unique
association with some of the most interesting chapters of American history,
are Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Beall, who reside in Laton and own a fine large ranch
near Riverdale. Mr. Beall, who was a bosom friend of M. J. Church, Fresno
County's pioneer ditch-builder, has for years been interested in irrigation and
conservation, and has won an enviable distinction for his part in some of the
greatest projects for the betterment of Central California.
Born in Ripley County, Ind., six miles east of Versailles, on September
14, 1849, Mr. Beall grew up in the days when there was no railway there. His
father, John T. Beall, was born on the same farm, and the grandfather,
Zephaniah Beall, took up the 160 acres of land from the Government. It was
then covered with heavy timber, and he had to do a lot of chopping to get a
clearing large enough for his house and yard. Aurora, Ind., was then the
main trading-place and the principal steamboat-landing in that locality: and
there our subject went as a boy, and saw for the first time a steamboat, long
before he ever saw a railroad train. His mother was Elizabeth I^allowell
Flancock, a direct descendant of old John Hancock, President of the Conti-
nental Congress and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
His father had married and died, at the age of seventy-four, on the land on
which he was born; and there his wife outlived him five years. The parents
had eleven children, and nine of them they reared to maturity. J. W. is the
third in the order of birth, and second son that gladdened the good folks'
hearts.
Educated mostly at the district schools, and then only for three or four
months each winter, but later becoming a student at Aloore's Hill College,
J. W. Beall became a teacher himself, by hard private study, and from his
twenty-second year taught school for several seasons. In August, 1874, how-
ever, his enterprising spirit had brought him to California, where he first
stopped at San Francisco. Then he went for a couple of months to San Joa-
quin County, and after that for two months to Tulare County. There he took
up and preempted 160 acres of land and lived for a couple of years. He saw
Fresno for the first time in November of 1874, and returned here to live in 1876.
After a year at Fairview, where he was married, Mr. Beall came, in 1877.
to the AI. J. Church colony, then known as the Temperance Colony. He imme-
diately identified himself with the most important interests 'there, and with
792 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Judge Munn and M. J. Church served on the Board of Trustees for the district.
Later lie became a director in the M. J. Church Canal Company, and in that
office, as in his school trusteeship, he worked to advance the permanent in-
terests of the community. The school house was early constructed, and in a
couple of years the colony had been so enlarged that the school became large,
too. Through his progressive participation in irrigation work in Fresno. Mr.
Beall formed personal relations not only with Mr. Church, but with the late
George S. Manuel, and I. Teilman, the well-known irrigation engineer of
Fresno.
Mr. Beall is particularly interested in the Murphy Slough Association,
and at one time owned one-third of the stock and was a director in the asso-
ciation, and also owned 680 acres, right where Riverdale now stands. He sold
out most of his interest, howe^•er, excejit the water-rights to 280 acres of land,
which he owns and which is located six miles from Riverdale. He is now a
director in the Conservation District which plans to build the projected Pine
Flat Reservoir, which is the largest project of its kind ever undertaken in
Fresno County, if not in the state. Mr. Beall is an experienced orchardist and
vineyardist, as well as alfalfa -grower ; he prefers to grow alfalfa and has put
his entire 280 acres into alfalfa.
For fifteen years Mr. Beall farmed grain in Fresno County. He lived in
the Church, or Temperance Colony, and rented land on the outside, putting
from 100 to 200 acres each year into wheat and barley. But while yet in the
grain growing business, he experimented with raisin vineyards. There was
then no market, however, for raisins, which sold at from one to one and a half
cents a pound. This made that industry unprofitable at the start. Neverthe-
less, he remained in the Temperance Colony until the great boom year of
1887. Two years before this, he went to Fresno and bought the Arlington
Heights quarter section, and in three years he sold it again. In both places he
farmed for several years. He bought the 160 acres in Arlington Heights for
$50 per acre, and sold the land at an advance of $75 per acre over the purchase
price. Since then Mr. Beall has both bought and sold many different pieces
of land, and has been very successful in real estate deals. His method has
been to buy land in large tracts and to sell in smaller parcels, after it had been
improved. He bought, for example, 680 acres where the town of Riverdale
now stands, and sold the same again in eighty-acre tracts, the buyers still
further subdividing the property and disposing of it in lots. He bought the
Mills College Tract of 2,000 acres, put water on it, and sold it to L. A. Nares,
or rather the Summit Lake Investment Company, in which he was interested.
For a year or over, he maintained a real estate ofRce in Fresno, and bought
and sold many tracts of suburban property.
The year 1893 brought him disaster but, happy to relate, no such mis-
fortune that he could not in time recover. During the wide panic, he and
man}^ others went to the wall through the great financial crash : and instead
of being worth about $40,000, he was not only worth nothing, but was in debt
besides. He started anew, and in time paid off all that he owed, even to one
hundred cents on the dollar.
In January, 1877, Mr. Beall was married to Miss Martha A. Hutchings,
a native of Iowa who came to California in 1861, having crossed the plains
with her parents, traveling by ox team. They settled at Stockton, and there
she grew up and attended school. Her parents had a large farm eight miles
northeast of Stockton, and from there she came, a young lady, to Fresno
County in 1868, settling in Fairview, east of the Temperance Colony. The
parents were William and Eliza fCameron) Hutchings, and among her direct
forebears was George Wythe, another signer of the Declaration of Independ-
ence. The Camerons were old settlers at Harrisburg, Pa., and Mrs. Beall's
grandfather, William Cameron, was an own cousin of Senator Cameron of
Pennsylvania. The Hutchings were from Indiana, and Grandmother Hutch-
ings was a Sawtelle, and her mother was a DeMaurice of French origin, and
Q-QaJ.MalajUo
yijd£,j^ ^. ^ LcumA.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 797
among the early settlers at Old Vicennes, Ind. The Hutchings were of English
blood. The Camerons were Scotch, and Grandmother Cameron was a St.
John of England, descended from the good King John. Mrs. Beall has no
recollections of Iowa, but she does remember the old ox team. These associa-
tions of Mr. and Mrs. Beall with the signers of the Declaration of Independ-
ence are of particular interest since John Hancock was the first to sign, as
the famous document shows, and George Wythe the last.
Mr. and Mrs. Beall have reared three adopted children, although two
others died while little. Mrs. E. P. Blanchard of Laton died in 1911 and left
one son, Laurence Eduard Blanchard, whom they are now rearing. Mrs. Beall
is very active in the Red Cross work and the Women's Christian Temperance
Union, and did what she could to promote the liberty loans, as did also Mr.
Beall. P)Oth Mr. and Mrs. Beall have been consistent Christians, and they use
neither coffee, hog-products, nor liquor ; and they are strong advocates of
temperance. Mr. Beall is an ardent Seventh Day Adventist, as was his part-
ner, M. J. Church: while Mrs. Beall is a member of the L'nited Brethren
Church. She helped to build the church at Laguna. Mr. Beall and ]Mr. Church
were on the building committee, bought the lots upon which their church is
located, and deeded the property to that congregation.
JOHN WILLIAM SHARER.— An enterprising and progressive viti-
culturist, and an authority on the laying out of fine vineyards and kindred
lands, and a business man who, having early in life declared himself for
the walk of a consistent Christian, has endeavored in his spare time to
promote the cause of holiness and has never swerved from his allegiance to
the Christian Chvirch, is John William Sharer, who was born near Pittsfield,
Pike County, 111., on January 23, 1869, the son of Peter and Elizabeth (John-
son) Sharer, natives respectively of Pennsylvania and Ohio. His father was
a pioneer farmer in Pike County, and after the death of his wife, he retired
from active work and spent his last days in Fresno County, where he died
in 1906, at the home of his son, 'M. M. Sharer, and in his eighty-fourth year.
John William Sharer's schooling was limited, as he was compelled to
lay aside his books when he was only sixteen years old ; and he had both
the advantage and the disadvantage of growing up in the country districts
until he was eighteen years of age. Having a brother living in Fresno Count}',
Cal., he came west in the "boom" year of 1887, and began to work for Steve
Hamilton. In the middle of October he joined the threshing crew on Gover-
nor Edmiston's place, and put in there two seasons. He early worked for
Charles H. Boucher, and also spent some three years in the employ of other
people in and about Clovis : and, at the end of the first three years in Fresno,
he made a visit home.
In 1890 or 1891, Mr. Sharer rented one-half of the Tarpey lands, which
he farmed to grain. About the same time, he took hold of some ranch acreage
in the Red Bank section which he ran for many years ; then he secured the
Elvira section, Avhich he had for five years, and then he quit farming alto-
gether. During the years 1890 to 1894, when the Enterprise Colony was
coming to the fore, he and his brother set out the first piece of vineyard in
the Colony, the place he now owns. He also farmed grain land up to 1899.
This he did, that while improving his vineyard, he might keep up the running
expenses. He found it profitable, besides, in the fall of the A^ear, to haul
lumber from the mountains for the building of many of the homes in and
around Clovis.
In 1896 Mr. Sharer located on the home place, a tract of twenty acres,
then only partly improved, but which his industry has expanded into 100
acres, while he has witnessed the growth of this entire section. He installed
a pumping plant, and a first-class water system for irrigating the land. At
the time when he came to this section of the county, there was no thought
of using the land for any other purpose than that of grain farming and
stock-raising, and for some time thereafter he could tell the name of each
798 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
family living between Lane's Bridge and Centerville. It was necessary to
get the entire Garfield, Jefferson and Red Bank districts in order to have
enough people for a Thanksgiving festival dinner. After a while, viticulture
demanded a share of attention, and ]\Ir. Sharer is proud of his part in vine-
yard development.
But as a man endowed Avith a natural bent for material progress, Mr.
Sharer has come to have other interests besides those of the fields. He has
invested, for example, in a steam laundry, and, in keeping with his usual
standards, has gone in for the most up-to-date service that could be provided ;
and he has also come to own valuable business and home property, and is
a director of the Scandinavian Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Mr. Sharer
was also one of the organizers of the Clovis Farmers' Union, and a member
of the original board of directors, and at the first meeting was elected presi-
dent of the board. His company established the large warehouses at Clovis.
Mr. Sharer and K. M. Hansen purchased machinery at San Jose, and the
warehouse was equipped for both the seeding and packing of raisins : and
within three years their efforts resulted in such success that when the Cali-
fornia Associated Raisin Company was formed, their equipment was pur-
chased and became Plant. No. 1.
Mr. Sharer was one of the original organizers of the Melvin Grape
Growers' Association, formed in 1916. and was a member of the original
board of directors, and was secretary from the start — a position he has held
ever since, and to which he has given his best efforts and experience. The
association built a packing-house at Melvin, 50x100 feet in size; in 1917
they added another floor space of 50x50 feet, and in 1918 they built two
new packing-houses, each of the same dimensions, with skylights and most
modern equipment at Glorietta and Bartels.
The success attained by this association was recognized by other com-
munities, and being intensely interested in cooperative movements, Mr.
Sharer as a director lent his aid, visiting different localities and explaining
their plan and success, and recommending similar organizations. There are
now various associations throughout the valley, all shipping through the
California Fruit Exchange. Its growth can be estimated from the fact that
the first year's shipment was only 120 cars, w'hile in 1918 some 1,400 cars
from these organizations were despatched through this exchange from this
valley, and a conservative estimate for 1919 is over 2,100 cars. The local
association at Melvin alone has saved its growers- over $35,000 in packing
and selling within three years' time. When the Melvin Grape Growers Asso-
ciation became a member of the California Fruit Exchange, Mr. Sharer was
elected the representative from his association, and at the stockholders meet-
ing of the California Fruit Exchange in Sacramento, January, 1917, he was
elected a member of the board of directors, and was again reelected, having
served acceptably and well.
On October 17, 1894, Mr. Sharer was married to Miss Nellie Dawson,
who was born near Arena, Wis., the daughter of John A. Dawson, also an
early settler. Mr. and Mrs. Sharer have three children: Ralph Vernon, a
graduate of the Clovis High School, who superintends his father's ranch,
and who served seven months in the United States Naval Reserve; and
Alice Gertrude, and Everett Eugene, all of whom are at home. \\'ith com-
mendable pride, Mr. Sharer took his family to the World's Fair at St. Louis,
in 1904, and while East he had various novel experiences. Some one asked
him the question, "How much sugar do you Californians put into your
raisins?" and another, "How do you get the sugar into the raisins?" and
another question propounded was, "Can a man start in California without
money and expect to pull through?"
When thirteen years of age, Mr. Sharer joined the T^Iethodist Church,
and finding no church of that denomination here, he joined the First Pres-
byterian Church of Clovis, in- 1900, and he has since been an active member,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 799
and of late an elder, while for ten years he was clerk of the session. In the
spring of 1904, he went to Alberta, Canada ; and while there the San Joaquin
Presbytery elected him delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church held at Dallas, Texas, which he attended, and then took his family
east to the St. Louis Exposition and visited relatives in that vicinity. In
1914, on the death of Judge Law in Merced, he was selected director of the
San Joaquin Presbytery, and has been reelected each year since. In 1918
he was again elected a delegate from the San Joaquin Presbytery to the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church held in May, at Columbus,
Ohio, and attended the session. On the same trip he visited his old home in
Pike County, 111., also in Missouri, Nebraska and Colorado, and then returned
home, more than ever satisfied that he had cast his lot in the land of sun-
shine and flowers. As the result of this Christian experience in an everyday
world, Mr. Sharer's advice is to be honest among one's fellowmen, and having
thus met and disposed of the duty of each day, to leave the future to the
God of all time.
Emphatically a man of energy, ]\Ir. Sharer is never idle, and is one of
the most enterprising and active of men in Fresno County, giving substantial
encouragement to every plan for the promotion of the public welfare, for
the upbuilding of its institutions and its development, thus aiding materially
in bringing about the prosperity we all enjoy.
W. J. KILBY. — Fortunate in having personally witnessed all of the
important discoveries of oil and other developments in Fresno County, Judge
W. J. Kilby enjoys the distinction of being one of the best-posted men in
Central California, and an authority on the section in which he has so long
been active. He was born at Freeport. Maine, of old New England stock
descended from the Cromwellian Puritans and including today, among others
of note, the well-known writer. Quincy Killiv, also a native of Maine, and the
historian of the Boston theater. These ancestors were in the Revolutionary
War and the W^ar of 1812, and both grandfathers on his mother's side were
not only in the great struggle of 1776, but were with General Washington
when he crossed the Delaware. l\Tr. Kilby's father was Charles S. Killi>'. a
builder, and his mother was Cynthia Moses before her marriage, and she also
was born in Maine.
Having graduated from a high school in Maine, W. J. Kilby in 1885
came west to California and Fresno County and in April of that year arrived
at the Pleasant Valley Stock Farm. The railroad then came only as far as
Huron, but in 1888 it was extended to Coalinga, which was laid out on paper
and sold off in lots. After being employed on the Pleasant Valley Ranch for
a while, Mr. Kilby took a homestead preemption and timber claim on Los
Gatos Creek, and engaged in stock-raising and farming, in which field he
showed his natural ability.
In the early nineties Mr, Kilby was induced to run for the office of jus-
tice of the peace ; and his peculiar fitness for that responsibility having been
recognized, he was elected. Soon thereafter he moved into Coalinga, and
about the same time was appointed postmaster. The post office and the
court r{join of the justice were in the same building on Front Street, and this
fact recalls an amusing anecdote told of the Judge. A constable brought
in an Irishman who had committed some offence, and as the officer was in
a hurry and wished to take him away on the train, there was nuthing left
for him to do but to bring him before the Justice, who was then \ cr)- busy
making up the out-going mail. The Judge heard the case, the olTcndtr [ileaded
guilty, and the postmaster-justice pronounced sentence of sixty days without
stopping his postal duties ; whereupon the Irishman, seeing the funny side
of the incident, remarked that he had had all kinds of packages handed him
through the post office, but never before had he been parceled out sixtv days.
Judge Kilby was reelected, and served two terms, and never was there a
more efficient, more just and popular jurist on the justice's bench.
800 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Judge Kilby still owns his old ranch and several other ranches in the
county, for he has also engaged in real estate, handling for the most part his
own property, and because of his judgment, honesty and good nature, giving
satisfaction to all concerned, and so succeeding with each transaction. He
has erected a number of residence and business buildings in Coalinga, includ-
ing the Kilby Block on E Street, and he has also been in demand for insur-
ance and as a notary public. Long a prominent Republican, Judge Kilb}' is
still an influential man.
He was married at Freeport, I\Iaine, on April 18. 1884, to I\Iiss Helen
Murtagh, of Boston, and they have had five children: Mollie is Mrs. G. M.
Hughes of Coalinga ; Ben W. is a merchant at Helm ; Beatrice is Mrs. C. N.
Ayres of Coalinga : Colon is a graduate of the Coalinga High School and is
now at Redlands University, where he holds the qviarter-mile record as a
foot-racer of the Pacific Coast : and Neta is studying to be a nurse, in San
Diego. Thus all the children of this distinguished citizen have been heard
from.
ANDREW ABBOTT.— A perfect type of the attractive American, sturdy
of body and a giant in intellect, and with little wonder, when one learns of
his relation by blood to the family of Rowells, so eminently connected with
the development and history of Fresno County, is Andrew Abbott, who owns
a finely-improved ranch of eighty acres, on Adams Avenue, two and a half
miles south of Del Rey. He came to California on January 18. 1879, and
landed at Fresno with just eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents in his pocket.
Since then he has faced such hard times, together with thousands of others
caught in the vortex, that he was compelled to part with his farm-lands ;
but by a brilliant stroke he was successful in buying the property back, and in
making of it what no one in the beginning thought it would ever prove to be.
He was born in the White Oak countr}^ seven miles northwest of Bloom-
ington. III, on his father's farm, for he was the son of Milo J. Abbott, who
descended from English stock that traces its ancestry back to the Mayflower,
and came from New Hampshire. He is a cousin of the late A. A. Rowell
and also Dr. Rowell, whose lives are sketched elsewhere in this work, and
a second cousin of Chester H. Rowell, the distinguished journalist and
scholar. Having first seen the light on January 12. 1854, he was educated in
the public schools of McLean County, 111., and at the business college in
Bloomington ; and then he worked at home on the farm until he was twenty-
one. Frank Rowell, his cousin, at that time ofifered him work on his farm;
and he accepted, and he continued five years.
California made its irresistible appeal about that period, and on the sixth
of January, 1879, he took the train for the far West. Twelve days later he
walked about Fresno, or what there was of it then, for the town had scarcely
begun to grow. He lost no time in finding something to do; and again he
entered the service of a relative. His cousin, George B. Rowell, wanted him
in the sheep business ; and to sheep-raising he turned, getting more than a
start, for, as was customary with him in all that he did, he learned the business
thoroughly.
In 1883, Mr. Abbott was married to Miss Addie Barnes, a native of
Chico. and a daughter of G. W. Barnes, and after the ceremony, he went
with his bride to the Washington Colony, where he had acquired, the year
before, a twenty-acre tract of land. It was at best a humble home : but
assisted by his good wife, he planted it to vines and trees, and made there a
domicile in which they were happy.
After a while, however, he sold that place and then bought the forty
acres where he makes his present home, afterwards adding forty acres im-
mediately adjoining on the west. All of this choice land he long since
leveled and otherwise improved, and planted ; and there he built, in 1908, a
beautiful one-story cement bungalow, 33 by 60 feet in size. He is a member
/
/3I
^Z^f^J^ru^u-, ^^^^^^-/-^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 803
of the California Associated Raisin Company, and cooperates enthusiastically
in its work for the advancement of California vineyarding.
Mrs. Abbott passed away on September 8, 1917, at the age of fifty-three,
and to the sorrow of many. She left a daughter, Georgia, who is the wife of
Anderson R. Miner, and lives in Fowler with her five children — George A.,
James H., Eleanor, Anderson R., Jr., and Mary. Mr. Abbott attends the
First Presbyterian Church at Fowler, and for twenty years he has been a
Knight of Pythias — first at Fowler, then at Selma. He still endeavors to
practice the Golden. Rule; and perhaps this is why Fate has so happily smiled
upon him that the ranch he lost in the early nineties, and was enabled a
few months afterward to buv back, he has been asked to part with for almost
$100,000.
FRANK L. COOPER. — A pioneer and a native son, who was always a
hard-worker and for years held responsible positions, is Frank L. Cooper,
a man having the steady ambition to lead a useful life and so coming through
unscathed, though surrounded by the temptations of the bar and the gaming
table. Now, well-preserved, he is a strong advocate of temperance and all
that makes for decent living. He resides a mile northwest of the Laton Cream-
ery, maintains a first-class dairy, and is one of the representative farmers and
stockmen of Central California.
Born near Santa Rosa, in Sonoma County, on August 17, 1867, he is the
son of B. F. Cooper, who came to California from New York State when he
was eighteen years old, in 1859, traveling by wa}- of the Isthmus. The same
year he settled in Sonoma County, and there married Miss Mary Schultz, who
died when Frank was only nine, leavin- iVmr children. These included two
sisters, who died of scarlet fever when sc\'en years old, and a brother, Fred
D. Cooper, who is a farmer near Stratford, in Kings County. The father is
now about seventy-six, and lives on California .Vvenue south of Rolinda and
about ten miles out of Fresno. He resides with his third wife, but he had
children only by Frank's mother. When he came from Sonoma County he
settled in Alameda County, then went to Contra Costa County, and after
that to San Luis Obispo County. Then he moved to Fresno, and then to
Stanislaus County, where they lived seven years; and finall)^ the family came
back to I^^resno County.
Frank Cooper came to the Laguna de Tache in the fall of 1890, and he
helped James Downing move over from Kings Cit;^, Monterey County. Mr.
Downing bought land at Burrel, then known as Elkhorn, and he also bought
a forty-acre vineyard near Fresno. Frank thus rode over all of the Burrel
ranch in the early romantic days, when the tules were thick and tall. They
were so thick and tall, in fact, that a rider on horseback could not see about
or ahead of him, and when the cattle strayed off and got lost, the only way
for the cow-boy to do was to ride into the tules, make all the noise that he
could, and thus scare the cows into coming out on higher ground.
In the summer of 1905 Mr. Cooper bought his present place, at first in-
vesting in forty acres, then thirteen and a half, then twenty. Like his father,
he has farmed grain extensively at what is now Riverdale, and there he has
had a chance to display his ability in the driving of horses. He has driven
thirty-two horses with a combined harvester, and once he drove forty horses
over the rough hills of San Luis Obispo County. He is a true native son, and
has been out of the State onlv once in his life when he made a trip to Reno,
Nev.
It was in September, 1890, that Mr. Cooper came to Fresno County, soon
after beginning his three years' work for Cuthbert Burrel on his 2,0b0-acre
ranch at Visalia. Mr. Burrel also owned the Burrel Ranch of 18,000 acres, an-
other ranch, of 2,000 acres, at Visalia with a section at Riverdale, and the
lumber yard at Visalia. He did a good deal of heavy hauling for Mr. Burrel.
He drove eight horses and superintended the work of the other drivers, haul-
ing lumber for the ranch houses, which were being built in the vicinity of
804 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Barrel and Riverdale. He also hauled the lumber for the barn where H. M.
Hancock now lives. During these years Mr. Cooper became a very trusted
employe of :\Ir. Burrel, and almost assumed the relation of a son to him. Cer-
tainly "he formed a strong attachment for the rancher, and will always recall
him as one of the noblest of the old pioneers of the San Joaquin Valley.
Mr. Cooper has always been a stockman and is. therefore, thoroughly
familiar with the problems of stock-raising and the varying markets. Now
he has a good ranch of seventy-three and a half acres, and rents an adjoining
pasture of about 200 acres. He and his good wife have worked hard, and they
deserve all that represents their wealth. As has been stated, he is an expert
driver, and guides forty horses when the occasion demands. He had 480 acres
of the Burrel ranch under lease when he was married, and ran it several years
when his father cooperated with him and farmed grain. He cut his father's
grain, his own and sometimes the grain of others besides.
His associations with Mr. Burrel led him often to conjure up the historic
past, once so full of early California glory. While ISIr. Burrel was running
the 2,000-acre ranch and lumber yard at Visalia, he was also engaged in build-
ing up and developing his 18,000 acres at Burrel and his section at Riverdale.
In carrying on this work a great deal of lumber, machinery and other material
had to be hauled to Riverdale and Burrel. most of which was brought from
Visalia before the advent of the railroad. Great eight-horse wagons were
used, and the drivers would usually stop at old Kingston, now no more, but
which was then a very lively and a very rough and tough place. In the real
early days gambling was constantly carried on, and scarcely a night would
pass without some shooting affray or fight; and often thousands in gold would
change hands on the turning of a card. Kingston was on the line of the main
freight trail from Stockton to Visalia, and was therefore a much-frequented
place. It was the last scene of Vasquez looting, and now there is little to
remind the wayfarer that it was once the scene of a wild and woolly western
business town.
While living at \'isalia, Air. Cooper was married to Airs. Alay Norton, a
daughter of Oscar Stanton of Fresno ; and by her he has had four children :
Fred S. was in the United States Navy, on a transport ship, and made ten
trips across the Atlantic; Alargery Lillian is the wife of Edward IVIcKenzie
of Corcoran, the transfer man, and they have one child ; Elizabeth married
Harrison Askew, jr., and^thev reside in Laton, with their two children, where
Mr. Askew is a baker; and Bernice is still at home. It was shortly after their
marriage that ]\Ir. Cooper rented the 480 acres of the Burrel ranch.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF DEL REV.— If there is one thing that
Californians have a right to be proud of, sensitive as they always have been in
matters of financial and commercial integrity, and conscious of the high stand-
ing of California and its credit in the outside money-world, it is that their
banking institutions, both with respect to the character of the men behind
them, and the sanely conservative way in which they are administered, are
without doubt of such a grade, strength and vigor that they have long since
come to set a pace for similar institutions in many of the much longer estab-
lished'and more populous commonwealths. And prominent among these live
wires of trade, social life and political administration on the Pacific Coast
must be rated one of the undoubted bulwarks of Fresno County, the First
National Bank of Del Rey.
This well-equipped and fully-manned house of business was incorporated
on July 20, 1917, under the banking laws of the State of California; and on
thesix'th of August it opened its doors and bade the public welcome.
Its officers, to whom the people looked for confidence and leadership.
were as follows: President, H. S. Hulbert, the rancher two miles south of
Del Rey; Vice-President, H. J- Hansen, also a rancher, two miles west of Del
Rey: and A. A. Werner, Cashier and Secretary. Board of Directors: H. S.
Hulbert, H. T- Hansen, A. A. Werner, George Meyers, rancher two and a half
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 805
miles southeast of Del Rev, and Ralph Mitchell, manager of the California
Associated Raisin Company at Del Rey.
Prosperity has smiled upon this bank since it was first thrown open for
transactions, as may be seen by its report of the Spring; I'f 1918. Its total
resources and liabilities were $139,870.89, and of the latter the paid in capital
stock was $25,000, with nearly $95,000 of individual deposits subject to check.
State, county or municipal deposits aggregate $4,500: there were $2,525 worth
of certificates of deposit other than for money borrowed : and over $10,000
of time deposits, subject to reserve. Of the resources, on the other hand,
there were loans and discounts totalling $70,226.08, L'nited States Bonds to
the extent of $5,000, Liberty Bonds amounting to $1,000, $5,000 worth of bonds
and securities pledged as collateral for state or other deposits, postal excluded
or bills payable, stock of the Federal Reserve Bank (fifty per cent, of the
subscription) to the extent of $850, furniture and fixtures valued at $2,147.36.
lawful reserve with Federal Reserve Bank of $7,500, cash in the vault and net
amounts due from the national banks aggregating $48,147.45. the whole show-
ing what even a town of the size of Del Rey, if it but have the Del Rey spirit.
can do.
Already this bank has played its role in the development of the town and
outlying districts : and it bids fair to be of more and more service to the com-
munity and the count}^ in the bright days of the near future, dawning for
Central California.
The bank will move into its new concrete structure about August, 1919.
This new building is a model of its kind and is equipped with the modern
appliances of banks in the larger cities, viz., electric wiring protection, safe
deposit vaults and accommodation for the storage of private boxes.
The organization of the bank was due finally to the efforts of its presi-
dent, Mr. Hulhert. Attempts had been made to establish an institution, but
not until Mr. Hulbert and ]\Ir. Werner put their shoulders to the wheel, was
the organization completed. Mr. Hulbert is the leading spirit of Del Rey
and is now erecting three substantial buildings, with a frontage of ninetv-si.x
feet. These buildings are to be occupied by entirely new concerns which will
add much to the now constantly growing prospects of Del Rev.
RT. REV. LOUIS CHILDS SANFORD, D.D.— The Rt. Rev. Louis
Childs Sanford, D.D., first bishop of the Episcopal Missionary District of
San Joaquin, was l)orn at Bristol, R. I., July 27, 1867. He was educated
in the public schools of his home town and then entered Brown University.
from which he was graduated in 1888. with the degree A.B. His desire had
been to enter the ministry of the Episcopal Church and his studies were
directed along those lines. He was graduated from the Episcopal Theological
School of Cambridge, Mass., in 1892, and received the degree S.T.B. In
1913 Brown University conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
After graduating from the theological school at Cambridge he came to Cali-,
fornia and was appointed to the pastorate of the Mission Church at Selma,
Fresno County. He also served the congregation of Fowler, and it was
through his ministrations that the present edifice was erected in that town.
From 1898 until 1900 he was rector of the Episcopal Church at Salinas,
Monterey County, and for the next seven years he was stationed in .San
Francisco as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church. The years 1908-1910
he served as secretary of the Eighth Missionary Department of the Episcopal
Church, which included all of the United States west of the Rocky ]\Iotin-
tains. His circle of friends increased; and many congratulations were received
upon his election, in October. 1910, at the general con\ention held in Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, to the bishopric of the Episcopal ^Missionary District of San
Joaquin. He was consecrated in St. John's Church, San Francisco, on Janu-
ary 25, 1911, and at once assumed the duties of his office with Fresno as
his home.
The Missionary District of San Joaquin was constituted in October,
806 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
1910, it being the fourth division of the Diocese of CaUfornia. Rev. Louis
Childs Sanford was nominated for bishop and was elected without opposi-
tion. The district comprises fourteen counties in Central California ; viz.,
Fresno, Madera, iMerced, Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Kings, Tulare, Kern, Cala-
veras, Tuolumne, Mariposa, Alpine, Inyo and Mono. The primary convoca-
tion of the district was held in St. James Episcopal Church in Fresno on
May 9, 1911, with an attendance of eleven clergy and twenty-five lay dele-
gates, representing twelve parishes and missions. Rev. L. A. Wood was
elected secretary and registrar, and the first council of advice consisted of
Revs. H. S. Hanson, G. R. E. ]\IacDonald, H. C. B. Gill and B. L. Barney.
The bishop announced the selection of Fresno as the see city of the district.
St. James Episcopal Parish Church became the Pro-Cathedral of the district
in December, 1911. The bishop nominated Rev. G. R. E. MacDonald first
dean of the Pro-Cathedral, and he was installed on May 12, 1912. The activ-
ity of the bishop and his superb leadership on all occasions, together with the
loyal support of the clergy and laity of his district, are evident in every
department of church work and church life. Under his able leadership the
debt of the church has been liquidated and, as the country of the district
has been more thickly populated, new churches and missions have been
established, among which we mention the Mission of the Holy Spirit, erected
at the corner of Van Ness and McKinley Avenues, with Rev. F. G. Williams.
vicar in charge. The ground upon which St. James Pro-Cathedral stands
consists of six lots fronting 150 feet on Fresno Street and 150 feet on N Street,
all very valuable property.
Bishop Sanford was united in marriage with Ellison Vernon, a native
of London, England, and they have three children : Edward, born on Decem-
ber 17, 1902: Mary, born on ^larch 27, 1906: and Royal, born on March 7,
1910. Rt. Rev. Sanford. aside from his duties as bishop, is very active in civic
and kindred work. He is treasurer of Fresno Chapter of the Red Cross, a&
well as active in all war and relief work. Fraternally, he is a member of the
Zeta Psi.
JOSEPH MARTIN GRAHAM.— Among the successful and public-
spirited dair}-men of Solano and Fresno Counties was Joseph Martin Graham,
who was liked by all who knew him and who attained his prosperity, partly,
as he himself used to say, because of the wise counsel and unfailing sympathy
of his excellent wife, who has survived him. She both understood and at-
tended to his wants and comfort, and since his death she has shown much
natural ability in her management of the interests left to her care.
JNIr. Graham was born in the north of Ireland, of Scotch descent, in 1861,
and as an infant came with his parents to New York City, after which he
was reared at Port Byron in New York state. His father, William Graham,
had married Mary J. Martin : and about 1875 they came west to Solano
.County and located at Benicia, when they engaged in the dairy business,
continuing in that field of activity until they died. There were five children,
four girls and a boy; and Joseph was the second oldest. While working in
San Francisco, he attended the night school, thus paying for his education ;
and being quick in learning, he soon obtained a good schooling. He was
naturally a good mathematician, was a wide reader, and had the blessing
of a good memory.
On September 26, 1888, he was married in San Francisco to Miss Nellie
Agnes Drum, who was born at Mokelumne Hill, in Calaveras County, the
daughter of Patrick Drum, a native of Ireland who came to New Jersey,
with his parents, where he was reared to manhood. When the gold excite-
ment in California drew thousands west he came with the tide across the
plains and mined at IMokelumne Hill ; and later in California he married
Bridget Brady, a pioneer. He followed mining for many years and then
settled at Antioch, where he was a farmer and dairyman until he died. I\Irs.
Drum died in Dixon, Cal, the mother of two boys and two girls. A brother.
\ '■ I
^Wisi;
-..-^L^^^i
^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 811
Henry, who died when he was nineteen, and Mrs. Graham were twins. She
received her education in San Francisco in old St. Mary's Academy, which
was conducted by the Sisters of Mercy on Rincon Hill, and there completed
the course with honors.
After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Graham engaged in dairying, and
soon they bought a ranch one and a half miles south of Cordelia in Solano
County. It was known as the old Page ranch, but after they bought it, it
was always and is to this day called the Graham ranch. He became an ex-
tensive dairyman, and at one time he had four different dairies in operation
and milked no less than four hundred cows. In those early days they panned
all the milk and skimmed it by hand. They used horse-power in making
butter and cheese, and their brand of "G. Butter" became famous. Mr.
Graham ran four dairies and shipped the milk to San Francisco, sending as
many as fortv-two ten-gallon cans a day. They had a r'anch of 640 acres,
finely adapted for dairy purposes, and it attractefl attention as a model farm.
The oldest son, Joe, of this worthy couple died of appendicitis, and on
a trip to Fresno to dispel his sorrow, Mr. Graham bought an eighty-acre
vineyard west of Fresno. Three years later they rented their ranch at Cor-
delia and in October, 1909, he moved their dairy herd to Fresno County. He
always rented his eighty-acre vine3'ard on California Avenue to others. Bring-
ing his dairy-herd, he leased his present ranch from D. C. Sample and con-
tinued dairying. The vineyard still belongs to the estate. In 1912, Mr.
Graham bought the place they had been renting, comprising 160 acres on
Belmont Avenue, ten miles west of Fresno; and there he continued success-
fully in business until he died, on August 11, 1916.
Mr. Graham was a trustee of the Houghton school district, and was much
interested in the cause of education. He was a member of the Knights of
Pythias, and in national politics was a Republican. He supported generously
all mo^'ements for local uplift. Since Air. Graham's death, Mrs. Graham has
continued the business and is meeting with deserved success. She has a herd
of sixty milch cows and uses the Empire ^^lilking ^Machine. They have an
electric pumping-plant for irrigating their broad lields of alfalfa and use a
gas engine for power-milking and another for their domestic water plant.
]\Irs. Graham is a member of the San Joaquin Valley Milk Producers' Asso-
ciation, and is a stockholder in the Danish Creamery Association. She also
belongs to the California Associated Raisin Company.
Ten children were given ■Mr. and Mrs. Graham, and seven were priv-
ileged to grow up : Eunice was the wife of Maurice Burns who died at Benicia
on October 12, 1918, and IMrs. Burns and her one child, Raymond Lee, now
reside with Mrs. Graham; Joseph ^^'illiam's death has already been referred
to ; Eloise C. manages the Graham Dairy ; Edna is a graduate of the Kerman
Union High School ; Nellie is also a graduate of Kerman Union High as
well as Heald's Business College, Fresno ; Cyrus and Howard are operating
the ranch for their mother. The children are all very helpful and thoughtful
for their mother, being ambitious to succeed and always busv and dependable,
assisting her in their respective ways in the management of her large affairs.
Mrs. Graham, like lier esteemed husband, is a friend of popular education,
and serves as trustee of the Houghton school district.
JOHN MARION CARTWRIGHT.— Among the representatives of
historic families, who have contributed largely toward the development of
our American commonwealth, is J. M. Cartwright, a progressive business-
man and public-spirited citizen, who has become the leading man of affairs
at ]\Ialaga, where he manufactures the widel\--known Cartwright Pruning
Shears that now meets over ninety percent, of the requirements of the Pacific
Coast trade. He is the seventh in order of birth in a family of eight children
— five sons and two daughters — and was born at Willows, then in Colusa,
but now in Glenn County, March 16, 1874; and there he lived until the winter
of 1885.
812 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
When John Cartwright, the father, in the middle eighties, bought forty
acres from the Briggs' estate, and Ijegan farming two miles southwest of
Malaga, his enterprise aiifected the residence of J- ^I- and helped to shape the
later course of his life. The town had just then been laid out, subdivided
and sold ; and having learned the blacksmith's trade at his birthplace, near
Charleston in Coles County, 111., the prospect of development there attracted
the artisan. This fact as to the father's handiwork is all the more interesting,
because the Cartwright family — so distinguished through such members as
George Cartwright, the Englisli traveler who explored and wrote aljout Labra-
dor; John Cartwright, the English author who advocated peace with the
American Colonies ; Peter Cartwright, the apostle of ^lethodism ; Sir Richard
John Cartwright, the Canadian statesman ; and Dr. Samuel Cartwright, Gen-
eral Jackson's surgeon, — received its name from the occupation of the found-
ers, and a branch 'of the family is still conducting a wagon-making factory
in England.
J. M.'s grandfather was Reddick Cartwright, a pioneer of Coles County
who came there from North Carolina, was a second cousin of Peter Cart-
wright, the famous circuit rider just referred to, and was said to have been a
man of great physical strength, as was his son, John Cartwright, our sub-
ject's father. The latter was one of a family of twenty-three children. He
was also distinguished for his moral and mental qualities, and these found
expression in his work as a minister of the Baptist Church, which ordained
him in Boone County, Iowa, whither the Cartwrights had removed. He had
learned the blacksmith trade and wheelwright trade in Illinois, as has been
said, and was such a first-class workman and mechanic that, arriving in
California, he was able to help himself and his family much better than the
average pioneer.
The elder Cartwright first settled at Butte City in Colusa County, and
in time became a large wheat-raiser, having as high as 3,000 acres. It was
when he came to Fresno, in 1885, however, and set out a vineyard, and
realized his wants in a somewhat primitive community, that he was led to
take a step even momentous in the history of his family. He needed some
pruning shears, and finding none adapted to the local requirements, he set
about to make a pair in his own little blacksmith shop on the home farm.
They proved to be better than anything on the market, and neighboring
ranchers having borrowed and used them, ordered some for themselves. The
result was that Mr. Cartwright made thirty pair the second 3^ear. and two
hundred pair the third year; and from that time the output has been greater
and greater each succeeding year. For the past thirty-three years the Cart-
wrights have manufactured these shears, and now over 200.000 are in use.
^Ir. Cartwright makes three sizes of the shears, one being a tree-shear
with handles twenty-two inches long and twenty-nine inches over all, while
the over-all length of the others is twenty-six and twenty-one inches respec-
tively. They are used for pruning grape-vines. The Cartwright pruning shears
are recognized as the best on the market today ; and while retailing for three
dollars a pair, they form ninety percent, of the shears for this purpose now
sold on the Pacific Coast.
John Cartwright, the father, died here aged sixty-seven years, but the
mother, whose maiden name was Martha Ashby, lived to be eighty, and
was the last of a family of eighteen children. She was born in Coles County,
111., and grew up with Mr. Cartwright.
J. M. Cartwright attended the Fresno County public schools and also
the high school at Fresno, and grew up to work in his father's shop at Malaga.
At the age of twenty-five he was married to ]\Iiss Maud E. Wilkinson, the
daughter of James \\'ilkinson, late of Le Grand, Merced County, where her
father died in 1918. aged sixty-three years. She was born in ^Iissouri and
reared in Fresno County. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright have two children. Vera
Mae and John Marion, Jr. The valuable years of our subject's life, therefore.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 813
have been spent near Afalaga. and there or in that vicinity has he accom-
plished most.
Among his enterprises is the improvement of a forty-acre vineyard at
Clovis, which he has since sold, for even some of the lessons learned at forg-
ing for years in his fatlier's shop served him in other fields. \Anien his father
died, Jnliii Clarion succocdcfl him as the head of the business, l)uying out his
brother's interest: altlioiigli the cild name of the firm, J. Cartwright & Sons is
still retained. In 1910, Air. Cartwright built his brick factory at Malaga;
and since 1914 electricity has been the power used. He employs from five to
six workmen and continues to turn out a strictly hand-made pruning shear,
of oil-tempered steel, "the best that is." The same year in which he con-
structed his shop, he built his residence on Front Street, immediately .south.
Mr. Cartwright is a friend of education and has served nine years on the
Malaga school board. Politically he is a Democrat, and fraternally belongs to
Fresno Parlor, No. 25, N. S. G. ^^'., and Central California Lodge, No. 343,
I. O. O. F.. at Fresno.
MAJOR M. SIDES. — Honored and conspicuous as one of Selma's olde-st
living pioneers, it is easy to comprehend why Major M. Sides has become
Selma's foremost financier and equally distinguished as a highly representa-
tive citizen. He was born seven miles southeast of Perryville, Perrv Countv,
Mo., on January 27, 1838, and grew up on a farm in ]\Iissouri where his
father, Elihu Sides, died when the lad was only six vears old. The father
had come to ]\Tissouri when lie w.i-^ :i }-imng man, a member of a f:unil^- that
came from Fngland and was s( ttlr.l line before the .American Re\iilntinn.
Elihu Sides was a native of Nnrth ('arolina, and married Miss Daisy Welker.
She died at the old homestead in Missouri, about 1875, aged seventy years
or more, and her native state was Missouri. At the death of her husljand,
Mrs. Sides was left to provide for six children : Almina, the eldest, is the
widow of Lawson IMiller. and resides in Chicago. Marshall married and
lived in Missouri, where he farmed the old Sides' place : he was taken with
pneumonia and died, at the age of sixty, leaving a widow and a son. Marion,
(christened Newton Marion Sides) is the subject of our review. Belfina be-
came the wife of Frank Nance ; she lived, married and died in Perry County,
AIo., dwelling on a farm, and left two children. Veries. the fifth in order of
birth, ser\'ed in Company M of the Missouri State Alilitia for three years, and
then reenlisted ; he married in Missouri, and has four children, and he is now
in the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle. Harry is a farmer in Perry County. Mo., is
married and has several children.
Growing up on the little sixty-acre farm that the father left, Marion
had to live economically. He stayed at home until he was twenty-one, to
help his mother, having in the meantime a chance to go to school for only
three or four winters and for three or four months of each season, and hardly
was he ready to push out for himself when the Civil War came on. He at
once enlisted in Company M of the Missouri State Militia, where Captain
Lee Whybark appointed him sergeant; and having served for three vears.
he entered Company D of the Forty-eighth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and
there arose to the position of Quartermaster of the regiment, was duly com-
missioned Major and has since borne that title. He was mustered out in
Chicago, and honbraI)ly discharged in April, 1865, at the close of the war.
After the long, hard service in the field, j\Iajor Sides went home to
Perry County, and there returned to the plow, farming in Alissouri for ten
years. He next moved to Dent County, and married the girl with whom
he had become acquainted during the war, while he was encamped in that
county. After their marriage they lived awhile in Missouri : and being taken
up by his neighbors, Major Sides was elected to the legislature from Dent
County, and reelected, serving two terms.
Stimulated by what he read in the. newspapers as to the completion of
the Central Pacific and L'nion Pacific railwavs, and about the Golden State
814 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in general, Major Sides sold his farm and came to California with his wife
and two children. He first went to Petaluma, Sonoma County, and from there
came down to Ivingsburg, Fresno County, to look around ; and so favorably
was he impressed with the southern end of Fresno County that he wrote his
wife to join him with the children. When he arrived in Fresno County, about
December 20, 1875, there was no Selma, and even Fresno City had only about
three hundred people, and there were scarcely fifteen to twenty families at
Kingsburg. He therefore came up toward what is now Selma, and took up
a soldier's homestead of 160 acres, two and a half miles north of the present
town site. The Southern Pacific Railroad graded its lands at that time, and
he bought a half section the second year, which later became the home of
T. B. Mathews.
Major Sides was among the first to foresee the necessity for irrigation,
and that the settlers must have water if they were to do much with their
land. He accordingly helped to build the Centerville and Kingsburg Ditch.
He took one share in the ditch and he worked ofif the payments with his
span of horses, doing the excavating himself. Meanwhile, when he was gone
all the week, and returned only Saturday nights, he left his wife and family
in the little cabin on the homestead. But he was healthy, happy and hope-
ful, and little by little "grew up with the country." He saw the switch built
at Selma, and he has seen every building go up in the town. He has also
welcomed everybody and everything, including the packing houses of Libby,
McNeill & I^ibby, and the organization of the raisin and other associations.
.\s is. elsewhere told in the more detailed story of the First National
Bank of Selma. Major Sides helped organize the first bank here, namely a
state bank called the Bank of Selma, which later became the First National
Bank, and for some time he has been the head of the First National. Besides
being a director in the Selma Savings Bank, he is also a stockholder in the
First National Bank of Fresno ; the First National Bank of Kingsburg ; the
First National Bank of Fowler; the First National Bank of Caruthers, and
the First National Bank of Sanger. However, he has been mainly engaged in
farming and horticulture. For eight or ten years he was a grain-farmer;
and when the ditches were built, he became a pioneer horticulturist, having
planted some of the first peaches as well as the first grapes. He has thus
improved several ranches, bringing each to a high state of perfection, plant-
ing and cultivating in all over 500 acres.
Alajor Sides was twice married. His first wife was Miss Casander
Mathews, a native of Dent Cotmty. Mo., the daughter of Mrs. Birchie
IMathews, a widow, and the mother of T. B. Mathews, sketched elsewhere in
this work. ]\Irs. Sides died in 1893, the mother of two children: Ira, who
died when he was twenty-one years old ; and Effie. who married C. F. ^Valker,
and had one child, which also died. True to his first wife's dying request, he
deeded 120 acres of land to her brothers and sisters, that they might be
properly provided for. By his second marriage. Major Sides became the
husband of ^liss Ollie M. Davies, a native of Tennessee, in which state she
was brought up, being educated at the Lebanon College for Girls. She came
to Selma about twenty-five years ago, and the following year was married.
Two sons blessed their union, the elder being Douglass R. Sides, a graduate
of the Selma High School and the University of California, and the younger,
Thomas Marion, who is a graduate of the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy
and will go to the State University in the fall of 1919. Douglass, who was
in the base hospital service abroad for eighteen months, returned from
France in May, 1919, safe and sound, and was honorably discharged.
Major Sides was brought up in the Methodist Episcopal Church South,
but Mrs. Sides and her family were Presbyterians, and in that church she is
a member of the Ladies' Aid Society, and also an active Red Cross worker.
The Major helped to erect the first building occupied by the Presbyterian
congregation of Selma, a small and unpretentious house of worship, in Call-
y'tri^^Ayi^c.^L£yH._^
818 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
During his years of planning with the other members of the board, !Mr.
Jorgensen has seen much permanent improvements and building accom-
plished. These include the County Almshouse, the rebuilding of the County
Orphanage, the erection of an annex to the County Hospital, and the remodel-
ling of the old hospital. The Fair Grounds have also been greatly improved
and beautified. Large cement bridges have been built over the San Joaquin
and Kings Rivers and the Fish Slough, and there has been much building
of new roads and improving of old ones. In 1919 the supervisors united on
a bond issue of $4,800,000. which w^as voted, and with this additional money
they improved the 315 miles of roads in the county.
Mr. Jorgensen was one of the original stockholders of the Union Na-
tional Bank of Fresno, and he is still a member of its board of directors. He
is a director in the Fresno Savings Bank, and has been for many j'ears presi-
dent of the Scandinavian Mutual Fire Insurance Compan3^ He was also
interested in the organization of the Danish Creamery Association ; he is a
member of the California Associated Raisin Company, has been a supporter
of all the raisin associations from the first, and has been a director of the
California Peach Growers, Inc., from the time of its organization in May, 1915.
At Fresno, i\Ir. Jorgensen was married to Aliss Hannah Larsen, also a
native of Fyen, Denmark, who came to Fresno in 1883, and they have had
three children: Chris P., a rancher and viticulturist in this district; Boletta,
a graduate of the San Jose State Normal and a teacher here until her death
in April, 1918; and Fannie, at home with her parents.
Mr. Jorgensen was made a Mason in Las Palmas Lodge, No. 266, F. &
A. M., and he is a member of the Fresno Consistory, No. 8, Scottish Rite
bodies. He belongs to Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S.. San Francisco, and
he is a member of the Danish Brotherhood. Still in the prime of life, with
apparently many years of usefulness before him, Mr. Jorgensen already en-
joys a prestige and confidence accorded to but few.
CHRISTIAN BACHTOLD.— Interesting both as a pioneer of the event-
ful "ijoom" eighties, and as the Nestor of Selma's men of commerce, hiving
been in business continuously here longer than anyone else, Christian Bach-
told enjoys the esteem and good will of all who know him, and especially of
all who have had business dealings with him. He was born at Schafthausen,
the beautiful "Niagara of Switzerland," on January 20, 1853. and there re-
ceived his elementary education. When about thirteen he was confirmed
in the Evangelist Reformed Church of Switzerland, in the faith of Zwingli,
and at sixteen he was apprenticed to a miller, taking a position in the large
merchant flour mill at Stulingen, in Baden, just across the line of Switzer-
land, where he worked for three years. He still possesses the certificate of
his proficiency as a journeyman miller, issued to him at the end of his ap-
prenticeship, which he prizes highly, as he also has the passport issued to
him by the Swiss Republic, permitting him to leave his beloved fatherland,
in order to come to another Republic that was to become to him quite as dear.
For a year he worked as a journeyman miller in Alsace-Lorraine and
Belgium, and then he sailed from x\ntwerp for New York, by way of Liver-
pool, .arriving at the old Castle Garden on May 1, 1873. He had a brother
at Syracuse, N. Y., and having made his way to that city, he engaged as a
miller with the Jacob Amos Flouring Mills in Syracuse, with which concern
he remained for a couple of years. Then he came west by rail to the Coast,
arriving in San Francisco, in December, 1875.
Having answered an advertisement of George McNear, at Petaluma, he
engaged with him as his first miller in his large steam mill at Petaluma, and
after two years of successful employment, he arranged to go out to Winne-
mucca. Nev. This engagement was effected through John Frej-, whom he
met at San Francisco, and who promised hiin the position of head miller
in the Charles Kemler mill at Winnemucca. For eight years he remained at
\\'innemucca, and then he returned to San Francisco. There Jacob Hauptli
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 819
induced him to come to Selma in January, 1886, to see the mill property
which he had bought at sheriff's sale, and to buy the same for himself; and
on the fifth of April he took possession.
The Selma mill certainly had a history. It was built by Samuel. Jacob
and William Frey, fellow countrymen of Mr. Bachtold's, completed in 1880
and fitted with machinery hauled from Bakersfield. It was originally built
as a water-mill, water being provided by the Centerville and Kingsburg
Canal ; and later the Freys' put in a seventy-five horsepower steam engine,
so that the establishment was a four-burr steam and water-mill when Air.
Bachtold bought it. The Freys became financially embarrassed and were
closed out by the sherifl'. As already stated, Mr. Bachtold took charge in
the spring of 1886; and ten years later, in December, fire destroyed the old
mill, after its owner had changed it to a roller mill, and changed the name
to the Selma Flouring Alills. It was partly insured, but Mr. Bachtold lost
$12,000 by the conflagration.
In ninety days, however, he had the present mill running, and this new
establishment also goes by the name of the Selma Fouring Mills. It has a
capacity of seventy barrels of wheat flour daily, and there is a full equipment
for crushing barley and grinding corn meal. This means really a capacity of
three and a half tons of wheat per day, of twelve hours, and this is manufac-
tured into the Charter Oak Flour, and Magnolia iM-ands, justly famous
throughout the San Joaquin Valley for their purity and high qunlit}'. Approxi-
mately 15,000 sacks of barley are also worked up in a vear. and this is
prepared for feed by rolling, steaming and crushing. Mr. Bachtold, in addi-
tion, buys about 150 tons of corn ])er year, which he makes into corn
meal and feed. To meet California conditions, he has made a special study of
all kinds of stock and poultry foods, and he prepares a number of special
brands, such as the Imperial Chicken Food, and the Imperial Egg Food. He
also carries a full line of mill stuffs, while the grain. and corn he uses are
largely grown in Fresno, Madera and Kings Counties. In 1908, Mr. Bachtold
equipped his mill with electricity, but he retains a seventy-five horsepower
steam engine in reserve.
In 1888, Air. Bachtold was married to Airs. Libbie Hartman. nee Hursh.
a native of Indiana, who had three children by her first husband, all of whom
are now living in San Francisco. One child, John C. Bachtold, a partner
with his father in the Selma Flouring Mills and acting as the outside man,
resulted from the second union. He was married, in turn, in Selma, to Miss
Ada Snyder, a daughter of C. C. Snyder, and a granddaughter of Selma's
well-known pioneer of the same name, whose life-story is elsewhere given
in this work. He stood high as a Mason, and was one of the four original
townsite men of Selma. They are the parents of two children. Dorris and
Max.
These descendants of Mr. Bachtold recall the matter of his progenitors.
His father was Hans Kasper, who married Verena Meier; and they both
were born, married, lived and died in Switzerland. His father was a tool-
smith, who made all kinds of tools and razors. Our subject, therefore, is a
fine mixture of the old Roman and German blood. He was brought up, on
account of his particular environment in that corner of Switzerland, to use
the German language, but he also became proficient in French and in English.
Most of his parents and grandparents have lived to become between eighty
and ninety years old. It "runs in the family" to have large heads, full chests,
square shoulders and powerful hands and arms.
In 1904 Mr. Bachtold bought and rebuilt his residence in the block
northeast of the mill. On February 5, 1897, his fellow townsmen presented
him with a fine regulator clock, which still adorns the office of this mill. It is
inscribed: "Presented to C. Bachtold by his friends of Selma, February 3,
1897." His friends surprised him, took possession of the mill, and old and
young danced there until the small hours of the morning.
820 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Mr. Bachtold was very active in encouraging the establishing of a fire
company in Selma, and encouraged the old fire commission, a quasi-public
organization for fighting fires in the early days. The town of Selma was
incorporated on November 15, 1893, and Mr. Bachtold was elected to serve
on its first board of trustees. He was repeatedly reelected, and served eight
3'ears in all. In 1897 he was elected President of the Board, practically Mayor
of the town, and for years he served to the entire satisfaction of everyone,
and with great credit to himself. During the time that he was on the city
council, and largely through his eflforts, the property of the old fire commis-
sion was taken over by the city of Selma, which ever since has maintained
a very efficient fire department. There was considerable wrangling about
prices of the old fire apparatus, and it was largely through his good judgment
that an amicable adjustment of differences was made, and the affairs of the
old fire commission were finally settled. As maj'or, Mr. Bachtold kept
strict tab on all the city's business, and he allowed no graft or dishonesty
on the part of the city officers.
Mr. Bachtold served for many years as vice-president of the Old State
Bank of Selma. which was the forerunner of the present First National Bank,
and, together with T. B. Mathews and Major \I. Sides, he was among its
early stockholders. He is now a stockholder in the Selma National Bank,
and is valued in all his transactions for his honesty and integrity. In national
affairs, Mr. Bachtold is a Republican, of Progressive tendencies, and was a
great admirer of the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt and a stanch friend of
Senator Hiram Johnson. He has clear views and decided opinions on political
matters pertaining to nation, state, countv and city, and at times he has
made some enemies by the firm stand he has taken. But even those who have
opposed his political views are ready to admit his honesty and sinceritv. All
in all. Mr. Bachtold is easily one of Selma's most efficient, most valuable and
most highly respected citizens.
Mr. Bachtold is an honored member of the Selma Lodge of the Knights
of Pythias. He is also a prominent Mason, and a member of the Selma Blue
Lodge and the Roval Arch Chapter in Selma. He is best known, however, as
an Odd Fellow. He is Past Grand of the Selma Lodge of the I. O. O. F.,
and helped organize Encampment No. 76, at Selma, of which he has repeat-
edlv been Chief Patriarch. He is the District Deputy of District No. 45,
which includes IMadera and Fresno Counties.
DANIEL BROWN, JR. — One of the substantial and prominent men of
Fresno is Daniel Brown, Jr., formerly the president of the old Fresno Na-
tional Bank. A native son of the state, he was born in Petaluma, Sonoma
County, in 1863, a son of Daniel Brown, who was born in Tipperary, Ireland,
and who came to the LTnited States in an early day and eventually came
to California via the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in 1851, when the excite-
ment over the discovery of gold was at its height. He engaged in the mer-
cantile business in San Francisco and in 1856 he started in the banking busi-
ness in Petaluma, whither he had moved a short time before, becoming
vice-president of the Wickersham Banking Company, and later president of
the same and also vice-president of the Savings Bank of Santa Rosa. He was
well and favorably known as one of the pioneers of Sonoma County and for
the fifty years that he made it his home, he was identified with almost every
project that had for its aim the development of the county. He died in 1902,
active up to the last, in the business that had been guided by his masterful
mind for so many j'ears. He was one of the prominent Democrats of the
county and served on the state and county central committees at various
times. His wife, formerly Annie Ferguson, survived him. She had seven
children, of whom Daniel Jr., is the second in order of birth.
Daniel Brown, Jr., was reared in Petaluma and received his preliminary
education in the public schools of that city, after which he entered the
LIniversity of California, then the Hastings Law College, from which he was
a
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUXTY 825
graduated in 1884 with the degree of LL.B. He was admitted to the bar of
the state and practiced his profession about a year. He then secured a
position in the cashier's office in the United States Mint at San Francisco,
where he remained until coming to Fresno in 1890. He was here engaged
in the livery business for six years, having a stable on I Street. In 1900 he
accepted a position as assistant cashier of the Fresno National Bank, in
which he had been a director for several years. In 1902 he became cashier
and held that position until the death of the president. Mr. Patterson, when
Mr. Brown was made president of the institution, a position he occupied
until the bank was purchased by the Bank of Italy. He devoted many years
to the upbuilding of this bank, which was one of the most substantial organi-
zations in the San Joaquin Valley. When the bank was re-organized as the
Fresno Branch of the Bank of Italy, Mr. Brown became a director and chair-
man of the advisory board, the position he now occupies. He is also a direc-
tor of the Fresno Building and Investment Company and the Central Land
and Trust Company, besides being interested in several other financial affairs,
all of which have the hearty cooperation of Mr. Brown, whose whole time
is given over to the management of the interests in which so many others
have become interested, and that have done much towards the development
of the varied interests of both city and county. Mr. Brown is a charter mem-
ber of the Sequoia Club, University Club, Sunnyside Country Club of Fresno,
and the Bohemian Club of San Francisco. Politically he supports the policies
of the Democratic party and has served on the county central committee for
years. He is public-spirited, successful, and among the most enterprising
citizens of Fresno, in which city he wields a strong influence for the good
of the community.
ADOLPH KREYENHAGEN.— A ranchman who started life with the
inestimable heritage of superior parentage, and who has, as might have been
expected, attained to a success that has enabled him not only to do well by
himself and his immediate circle, but to serve the state, in which he is a loyal
citizen, and to advance California husbandry on a large scale, is Adolph Krey-
enhagen, who was born near Gilroy, in Santa Clara County, on August 9,
1864, the son of Gustaf and Julia (Ilering) Kreyenhagen. both of them natives
of German}'. The father enjoyed all the benefits of a higher education in his
native land, and when he sought greater freedom and opportunity in the
United States in 1846, he became a professor of Latin, Greek and mathematics
in St. Louis, Mo. Four children were born to the worthy couple there, but
three died in the city of their birth : the other, Emil, is now living near
Coalinga.
In 1854, aroused by the wonderful stories of mining adventure coming
from the Pacific Coast, the father hurried across the Isthmus with thousands
of others to California, and for a time conducted a mercantile establishment
in San Francisco. Then he located on a ranch near Gilroy and at the same
time he also operated the Peach Tree Ranch in Monterey County and engaged
in sheep-raising, but he had hardly begun to prosper when he lost nearly
all the sheep he had in the floods. This was in 1865. Then he removed to Los
Banos, in Merced County, and there ran not only a store, but a hotel and a
stage station. The place was then a large center for freighters who were
hauling supplies from San Francisco to Visalia and Bakersfield through the
valley fjefore the time of the railroads ; and it was almost impossible that one
who rendered the proper service should not do well. Mr. Kreyenhagen was
just the man for such a place, although he was also capable, as we shall see,
of better things; and in thus maintaining his several establishments, he con-
tributed his share toward the rapid development of that part of the state.
In 1875, Mr. Kreyenhagen located in Fresno County, at Posa Chene, now
called Kirk Station, east of what is now Coalinga. Once more he opened a
general store and hotel, and went into the sheep and cattle business as well ;
826 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
he built a sheep-shearing station and some seasons handled as many as 150,-
000 sheep in the public corral. In 1887 he retired, and three years later, the
favorite of a large circle of friends, he breathed his last. Among other notable
holdings, the Fresno Hot Springs was owned and managed by Air. Kreyen-
hagen, and this famous resort is still the property of the estate's heirs. His
widow survived him until August 2, 1906, passing away at Fresno Hot
Springs.
Adolph Kreyenhagen was reared in this valley from 1865, coming to
Fresno County in 1874, and receiving his education in the public schools, St.
Mary's College in San Francisco and at Heald's Business College in the same
cit\'. From the time he was a bo)' he rode the range and learned the stock
business and after his schooldays were over devoted his entire time to it. As-
sociated with his three brothers, Emil, Hugo and Charles, they have engaged
in cattle-raising and for the purpose purchased and leased large tracts of
land. They incorporated as Kreyenhagens, Incorporated. They own 10,000
acres of land and lease about 37,000 acres more. The three ranches they own
are known by their Spanish names, Las Canoas, Zapato Cheno and Las Pol-
vaderas, and they are located southeast of Coalinga. Kreyenhagens, Inc., is
one of the largest cattle-growers and landowners in the county. Their brand
being the bar C, is a C with a bar through the center. The brothers are also
interested in the Hays Cattle Company of Kirkland, Ariz. For two years
they also owned and managed the Crescent Meat Market of Coalinga. In
early days, in fact, they did teaming and hauled freight between Posa Chene
and Gilroy, and between the former and Banta Station, using an eight or ten
horse and mule team for the purpose, usually taking ten days to make a
round trip. While their main business is cattle-raising, they generally sow
about 2.000 acres to grain each year.
Adolph Kreyenhagen is a stockholder in the A. P. May Company in
Coalinga. He was one of the organizers of the Bank of Coalinga, and a di-
rector until the consolidation with the First National Bank, continuing as a
stockholder in that substantial institution.
Mr. Kreyenhagen was married in Fresno, June 26, 1888, to Miss Eliza-
beth Crump, born on Fancher Creek, Fresno County, the daughter of John
G. and Nancy Ann (Cox) Crump, natives of \'irginia and Missouri, respec-
tively. Her father crossed the plains in 1850 and was a miner in Calaveras
County. In 1861 he came to Fresno County and married Nancy Ann Cox,
who crossed the plains with her parents in 1849. In 1872 he located on the
West Side, becoming a cattle-grower and landowner in ^^'arthan Canyon and
was a man of influence and prominence. Her parents passed away at their
home. Mrs. Kreyenhagen was reared and educated in this county, residing
with her parents until .her marriage to Mr. Kreyenhagen. They have three
children : Edna is a graduate of the L'niversity of California and was formerly
a teacher in the Coalinga L'nion Fligli School. She is now the wife of Elmer
M. Leinzen of San Francisco. Theodore was educated in Hanford High and
Oakland Polytechnic College and resides on the home ranch where he is of
invaluable help to his father. He is also a director and secretary of Kreyen-
hagens, Inc., as well as a stockholder in the Hays Cattle Company. \'ioia is
still attending the Coalinga High School.
When Mr. Kreyenhagen came to Posa Chene there were only a half-
dozen white families living here. The rest were Mexicans living mostly in
the mountains. The country was given over to stockmen's camps at the few
watering places. Mr. Kreyenhagen's father was the first to begin raising
grain on the West Side. Adolph Kreyenhagen now sees the many opportu-
nities that they had of obtaining valuable lands and water rights, yet the
early settlers did not grasp them as it was impossible to foresee the future
possibilities. In early days the Kreyenhagens sold 1,080 acres for $12 an acre
— Sections 25-36-30-2^1 — that are now producing oil and are among the most
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 827
valuable in the Coalinga oil fields, beitio; worth millions. Mr. Kreyenhagen
in 1895 planted the first fig orchard on the Zapato Cheno Ranch, the first figs
set out on the West Side. They have grown to gigantic size and produce
abundantly. He also set out a family orchard and finds that apricots, Bart-
lett pears and plums do excellently, but the figs take the lead. Thus his ex-
perimenting in fruits will undoubtedly some day also bring horticulture to
the front on the \\'est Side. IMr. Kreyenhagen is enterprising, a believer in
building up the community, ever ready to assist others who have been less
fortunate, but always in an unostentatious manner. In fraternal matters he
is a Modern Woodman. Mrs. Kreyenhagen comes of a splendid family and
is a very refined woman, always encouraging her husband in his ambitions,
and both hold an estimable place in the hearts of the people of Coalinga,
where thev are among the leading citizens.
REV.' F. FELICIAN FRITZLER.— As pastor of the Wartbnrg Evan-
gelical Lutheran Church, Rev. F. Felician Fritzler is faithfully carrying on
the work to which he has been called. Of German parentage, he was born
in Southeastern Russia, and was educated in that country in the grade
schools and a school which corresponds to our high school, only that it in-
cludes two years of university work. After finishing his education, he taught
in the public and high schools of his native land for nine and one-half years,
in "Norka" Russia. Seeking greater opportunities in the new world. Rev.
Mr. Fritzler arrived in New York, June 24, 1911, and from there went to
Atchison, Kans., where he entered the Theological Seminary, in the fall of
1911. He completed the course in the spring of 1914, and the following fall
entered the University of Nebraska, at Lincoln, and graduated from that
institution in June, 1915, with the degree of A. B. After his graduation.
Rev. ^Ir. Fritzler taught German in his Alma Mater for one year, during
which he completed his course for the Master's Degree. He was ordained a
minister on October 24, 1915, at Iowa City. While teaching at the state uni-
versity he organized a "Zoar'' Evangelical Lutheran Church at Havelock,
Nebr.. erected a church, and secured its incorporation.
On October 4. 1916, Rev. Mr. Fritzler took his present charge, and since
that date has worked unceasingly for the welfare of his church and congre-
gation. A highly educated man, with a fluent command of English, he is
meeting with deserved success in his labors and is held in higli esteem by
his church members and by the community in general. The Wartlnirg
Evangelical Lutheran Church was first organized and incorporated in r)04,
the Rev. Lutz Horn being its first resident pastor. His successor was Rev.
H. S. Feix, who came in 1905 and erected the church building; and he was
followed by Rev. W. J. Roehmer, who remained as pastor four years, and
was succeeded by Rev. John Gutleben, after whose removal, the pulpit was
filled by William Brandes until Rev. Mr. Fritzler took the charge. The
church building has been remodeled and improved under the direction of
the present pastor. There are 250 communicants, a Ladies' Aid Society of
forty-two members, and a Sunday School of 174 members.
LOUIS PETERSEN.— A model self-made man who has contributed
much to the development of Central California, both commercially and in
artistic matters, is Louis Petersen, the pioneer painting contractor of Fresno,
who was born at Seland, Denmark, February 27, 1856. In his native land he
learned the trade of painter and followed it until coming to America in 1881.
For a couple of years he worked at his trade in Chicago, and then he located
in South Dakota, where he took up a Cjuarter section of government land,
proved up on the same, and remained there for four and a half years. This
was just long enough for him to lose all that he had put into the place, and
he came to California in the great "boom" year, broken in pocketbook, if not
in spirit.
He was bound to succeed, however, and so started again to work at his
trade ; at first in San Diego, and then in Ventura County. Two years later,
828 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in 1889, he arrived in Fresno, and in 1890 he bought ten acres of raw land
near Selma, which he improved with vines and sold at a good profit about
twelve years later.
In 1903 Mr. Petersen started in business for himself as a contract painter;
and in that field, where he maintains his leadership, he is still active. He has
painted the Brix Block and residence, the Einstein residence, the Lynch Block,
the Teilman residence, the Milo Rowell block, and the Kern-Kay Hotel, as
well as many others. He is a member of the Painters Union of Fresno, and
at one time was treasurer of the Danish Brotherhood.
Fortune has smiled upon Louis Petersen, to the great satisfaction of
his many friends, and he has been able luckily to subdivide part of an acre
he bought at 137 Seventh Street, his home place, and to dispose of the same
in choice building lots. He also owns other real estate, including a flat build-
ing on O Street, and takes great pride in maintaining the same in such
"apple-pie order" as adds to the local wealth and artistic standards of the
neighborhood.
CHARLES TEAGUE. — A prominent and unusually successful operator
of California land, who has handled the largest properties in Fresno County
and, while advancing his own interests, has aided thousands in oppressed
foreign lands to acquire a title to homesites in the Golden State, is Charles
Teague, who has sold a larger acreage to absentees than any other operator
in Fresno County. He pursued the policy of offering the best to people who
were not on the ground to make their own investigations. Even with this
conservative policy, homeseekers are often discouraged by hearing disparag-
ing statements relative to conditions in Fresno after their arrival — state-
ments emanating from local people who do not appreciate local advantages
— which is most discouraging to new arrivals. These new arrivals, however,
have grown wealthy on lands the wiseacres condemned. It is stated that
ninety percent, of the land sold by Mr. Teague was marketed for less than
sixty dollars an acre. Much of this property has sold, after being planted to
vineyard and orchard, for more than a thousand dollars an acre, and there
is not an acre that has not greatly advanced in value. Mr. Teague has always
had the greatest faith in Central California, and contends that the oppor-
tunities are as good in Fresno now as at any previous time.
Mr. Teague is a native of Devonshire, England, where he was born
in March, 1869. His father was William T. Teague, who came to San Fran-
cisco in 1871, bringing his family with him. The lad attended the San Fran-
cisco schools until 1881, when he came to Fresno. By 1890 he had acquired
land for himself, and ever since then he has been buying and selling Califor-
nia acreage. In 1892 he organized the Shephard-Teague Land Company,
and in 1912 he brought into existence the Teague Investment Company, of
which he is president and manager. He is also interested in and manager
of several other large land companies.
Through his efforts, mainly, the First National Bank of Clovis was
organized in 1912, and he was its president for several years, until he could
no longer devote his time to the institution. He organized the Producers'
Oil Company, the first company to develop oil in commercial quantities
in the Midway field; and in the spring of 1913, when the fate of the Asso-
ciated Raisin Company was in the balance, the future of that concern was
assured largely through Mr. Teague's public-spiritedness and sacrifice. Ac-
cording to the Fresno Republican of that period, it was Mr. Teague's ener-
getic action that saved the day. He was the first subscriber for stock, opening
the oft'ering with a subscription of $2,500 ; "and then," says the report, "came
what had been expected and feared — the dropping out of the stockholders
until no more takers were heard. One of the most critical moments in the
meeting had come, and Charles Teague proved himself equal to the occasion.
T will take $500, if nine others will do likewise,' shouted Mr. Teague from
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832 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
brother James, he took up the dry-wine manufacture. The firm was known as
Rennie Bros., and their headquarters were at St. Helena. Thus, when he
first reached the State, he got into the wine business, and he has been identi-
fied with it for thirty fruitful years, during which time he did much to raise
the standards governing that industry. He bought property in St. Helena,
Napa County, set out his vineyard, and constantly adding improvements,
kept it until 1904 when he sold it. Besides building the finely-planned and
equipped winery at St. Helena, he was also instrumental in putting up the
first stone bridge — of gray stone blocks — constructed in Napa County.
When Mr. Rennie came to Fresno County in 1900, he took charge of
the Barton Vineyard which included 960 acres of land situated about two and
a half miles northeast of the court house, succeeding Colonel Trevalyan who
had been superintendent of the place for fourteen or fifteen years. Wine,
raisin and table grapes were grown, and there was plenty to do. The Barton
Vineyard, in fact, was one of the first vineyards to be set out in that section;
there were 150 acres given to raisin grapes. 100 to table grapes, and 500 to
wine grapes; 100 acres were also devoted to grain and buildings; 4,500 tons
of grapes a year were turned into wine, making about 325.000 gallons of the
favorite beverage; while for ten years, from 1905 to 1915. the average crush
was 11,800 tons, aggregating almost one million gallons of wine, and from
100,000 to 250.000 gallons of commercial brandy a year. In 1915. however,
fire destroyed a part of the winery, causing a loss of $190,000. including coop-
erage, wine-making machinery and buildings, and 800,000 gallons of wine.
Mr. Rennie also owns other acreage devoted to horticulture and viticul-
ture, and he is interested in quicksilver mining in Napa County. He was a
director in the Central Bank of California at Fresno, and both because of
striking personality and high, unswerving standards in all of his business
methods, and his long career as a man of afifairs, he is still looked to as a
pillar of financial strength and a leader whose experience and judgment are
of real value in commercial undertakings. He is a stanch Republican and
Protectionist, and not only supports every movement for the betterment of
the locality, but takes an active part in national politics and the advancement
of American political and commercial interests.
Modest by nature, yet liberal-hearted, Mr. Rennie finds pleasure in doing
and giving, but all his benefactions are wrought in an unostentatious man-
ner, so that often the right hand does not know what the left has accom-
plished. Particularly may he be proud of his Masonic record, for he was
made a Mason in one night, by special dispensation of the Grand Lodge of
Scotland, at the Robert Burns Lodge at Dumfries. He was also a member
of the Knight Templars and affiliated with the Napa Commandery.
Two children, a daughter and a son. are the joy of Mr. and ]\Irs. Rennie's
home. Miss Elizabeth leads in social movements, while William Rennie is
at present serving in the LInited States Army, and was recently for thirteen
months over-seas. He belonged to the American Expeditionary Forces that
have effected so much for the military glory of the nation; and, just before
the armistice was signed, he passed all the requisite examinations as a can-
didate for officer.
CHARLES G. BONNER. — In the life of this successful citizen of
Fresno are illustrated the results of preseverance and energy, coupled with
judicious management and strict integrity. He is a citizen of whom any
community might well be proud, for men possessing the fundamental char-
acteristics of which Charles G. Bonner is heir have ever been regarded as
bulwarks of their communities. A native son of the Golden State, he was
born in San Francisco, February 4, 1869, the youngest child and only son of
Charles and Rosa (Gore) Bonner. Charles Bonner was born in Canada
and was a descendant of an old and honored family of New York State. At
the age of sixteen he came to California, via Panama, and upon his arrival
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 833
went to the mines and in time he became an expert mining man. He went
to Nevada and became superintendent of the Gould Curry mine at Virginia
City. He died in San Francisco in 1871. His wife was born in Cambridge,
Mass., and was a granddaughter of ex-Governor Gore of Massachusetts.
She came to California in an early day, where she grew up and was married
to Mr. Bonner. She passed away in San Francisco.
Charles G. Bonner was educated in the schools of San Francisco and in
the University of California, which he entered in 1885 and from which he
was graduated four years later with the degree of B.S. It was that same
year that he came to Fresno County and purchased an interest in a tract of
some 640 acres of land, from his stepfather ]\Ir. Frank Locan. Of this
tract 400 acres was set to vines and trees, and on the balance stock and
alfalfa were raised. In 1892 the property was incorporated as the Bonner
Vineyard, with Mr. Bonner as president, the existing partnership with Mr.
Locan having been dissolved. From a modest beginning the Bonner Vine-
yard became a business of large proportions. Mr. Bonner began buying
and shipping raisins and as the business expanded he erected a packing
house suitably equipped to fill his demands, the machinery being operated
by steam power.
In 1899 Mr. Bonner formed an as^^nciation with James Madison, then
of San Francisco, in the packing aii<l ^hii>ping (if fruit, the firm being known
as Madison and Bonner, under wliich title it was incorporated in 1903. with
Mr. Bonner as secretary and manager. The companv own five acres at
Locan's spur where the packing jilant i^ located. In 1911 Mr. Bonner suc-
ceeded to the ownership of the business, the Bonner Packing Company
being among the largest of its kind in the county and having a large volume
of business. The same year the entire plant was destroyed by fire and the
following year Mr. Bonner rebuilt and today owns one of the best equipped
plants in the entire valley. The business extends throughout the United
States and Canada.
The first marriage of Charles G. Bonner took place in Boston, in 1893,
when Louise Tripp, a native of Fairhaven, Mass., became his wife. She
died in San Francisco in 1895 leaving one daughter. Beatrice Louise. The
second marriage was celebrated in 1903 in San Francisco, Marie Wolters.
born in Sierra County, becoming his wife. Her father J. C. Wolters, was
one of the founders of the Wolters Colonv in Fresno County. Two chil-
dren have blessed this union, Doris and Charles G., Jr. Mr. Bonner is a
member of Fresno Lodge No. 439, B. P. O. Elks: holds membership in the
Chamber of Commerce of Fresno; is a charter member of the University
and Sequoia Clubs, also the Sunnysidc Country Club : and belongs to the
Commercial Club. He is a stanch Republican, a booster for Fresno County
and a man who has made and retained friends wdierever he has been.
During the World War he served on the Exemption Board in Fresno.
District No. 2.
ROBERT D. CHITTENDEN. — An enthusiastic promotor of good
roads and kindred advancements, and a student with wide experience of
public transportation, is Robert D. Chittenden, the enterprising President of
the California Road and Street Improvement Company. His parents, now
both deceased, were J. W. and Mary C. Chittenden, farmer folk of the sturdy,
honest sort so helpful to our expanding country ; and it is probably as a
farmer's lad, in the days when American country roads were none the best,
that he first had his attention directed to the great gain in store for the agri-
culturist if he would but solve the problem of a quicker, perhaps shorter and,
therefore, more economical route between his outlying farm and the city
market.
Born in Indiana February 30, 1870, Robert was educated in the public
schools of the East. When he came out to the ^^'est, in November, 1887, he
834 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
engaged in the fruit business and he helped install and operate the first
raisin seeding outfit in this country. In 1903 he was elected on the Demo-
cratic ticket to the office of public administrator, for a term of four years,
and from 1907 to 1911 he was sheriff of Fresno County. Mr. Chittenden's
ne.xt move was to experiment with street paving and road construction, and
in the years intervening, his company has come to do much work in Cali-
fornia. This manifestation of enterprise has been responded to by state
and county authorities, and ;\Ir. Chittenden has frequently employed large
forces of men.
In 1907, Mr. Chittenden and Corynne L. Jones were united in matri-
mony, the ceremony being solemnized at Fresno; and today two children —
Russell and Catherine — brighten the Chittenden home. The family worship
as Protestants.
He is a stanch advocate of good roads everywhere, and believes there
should be at least one good road built into the high Sierras, in order to give
the people an opportunity to enjoy the fine summer climate to be found
there, and enable them to maintain summer homes in the mountains.
H. MADSEN.— One of its original settlers, H. Madsen located in Cen-
tral California Colony, where the first canal system of importance was con-
structed and the real beginnings were made in the small-farm development
of the county, ^^'ater had been brought from Kings River far out upon the
plains, but the project was largely experimental in character. The story of
the vicissitudes of these early day farmers, who were ignorant of what to
plant and were greatly handicapped in marketing the crops thev raised, makes
one of the most interesting chapters of the history of Fresno County.
]\Ir. ]\Iadsen came to Central Colony with his family from Alameda
County in 1877. A few others had preceded him a year. All about Fresno was
still a treeless plain. His faith was never shaken, he explains, because of
the remarkable production that resulted from irrigation of the soil of the
plains. Among other difficulties there were contests with riparian claimants
to the water of Kings River: and convinced that orange culture was just
what the Colony was suited for, a considerable area was planted to young
trees brought from Southern California, only to encounter severe frosts that
came the following winter and all that remained of this enthusiasm was the
name of Orange Center, which had been given the school district ; and there
were other disheartening failures, but the joy of pioneering knew no dis-
couragement. Grapes, deciduous fruits and alfalfa, it was finally demon-
strated, were what Central Colony was adapted for, and soon it blossomed and
flourished into a most beautiful and productive spot. The success of this Col-
ony proved what irrigation would do, and exploitation of the plains for other
than sheep-raising then began in earnest.
It was Mr. ]\Iadsen and the other Central Colony pioneers who led the
way in the intensive cultivation of lands, which has been the basis of Fresno's
upbuilding and prosperity. To these courageous early settlers considerable
measure of the credit is due for Fresno's emergence from a frontier city and
county into one of the great productive centers of California.
In 1906, ^Ir. Madsen sold his Central Colony holdings and located in the
Fairview district, five miles north of Sanger. He is a native of Denmark and
was one of the first to locate in Fresno County, of the great number of people
from that country who have chosen this section for their homes.
FRANK M. LANE. — Identified with the educational interests of Fresno
for more than a quarter of a century, during which time he has taught in
the principal schools of the city, Frank M. Lane has made his influence felt
for the good of the rising generations. He is a native son, born on Chow-
chilla Creek, Mariposa County, November 3, 1864, a son of "Col." Joseph
Parker Lane, who was born in North Carolina, a son of John Lane, who
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 837
removed to Tennessee. His mother was a niece of Nathaniel Macon, United
States Senator from North Carolina.
Joseph Parker Lane was educated in Knoxville, Tenn., then took up
the study of law and was admitted to the bar in Tennessee, and when twenty-
two years of age he went to San Antonio, Tex., where he practiced his pro-
fession.
In 1849 he came to California, riding mule back the entire distance to
Los Angeles, thence to Stockton, where he engaged in trading and packing
to the mines in the mountains. In 1850, together with N. Fairbanks, he
opened a wholesale liquor business on Main Street, Stockton. By his com-
rades, and members of the train who had chosen him commander of their
company, he was given the title of "Colonel," which he bore until his death.
In Stockton, "Colonel" Lane married Ann Mary Barnett, born in Ten-
nessee, November 6, 1851, a daughter of Bird B. Barnett, who was a large
planter and tobacco grower. Her mother was Martha (Walker) Barnett, a
native of South Carolina. The Barnett family came to California in 1850,
crossing the plains via Salt Lake, and arriving in California, Mr. Barnett
opened a hotel in Stockton. In 1855 Joseph P. Lane moved to Monterey
County where he farmed and raised stock for several years. During this time
he served as justice of the peace, and two terms as county supervisor. He
then engaged in the cattle business in Mariposa County till 1868, then was in
the sheep business for two years in that county. He sold out and settled at
Lane's Bridge, ten miles north of the present site of Fresno and during his
busy life accumulated some seven thousand acres of land. He was ac-
cidentally killed on December 16, 1878. Mrs. Lane carried on the business
until 1897, when she removed to Fresno and lived until her death, on March
7, 1907. She had five children: Joseph A.; Mary, Mrs. Liddell ; Edward;
William H. ; and Frank M. Politically, Joseph P. Lane was a Democrat and
ready at all times to give his support towards the upbuilding of California,
particularly Fresno County.
I"raiik M. Lane received his education by private instruction and at the
San Ii)-c Stale Xormal, graduating from the latter institution in the class of
May, 1888. He at once began his professional career as a teacher and has
continued ever since. For twenty-six years he has been interested in ad-
vancing the Fresno schools and during that period he has taught in the prin-
cipal schools in the city, at this writing he is principal of the Washington
Grammar school. During the quarter of a century that Mr. Lane has been
teaching in Fresno he has done much toward advancing the high moral stand-
ing of the schools.
Frank M. Lane was united in marriage in December, 1892, with Miss
Mamie Balthis, born in Stockton ; a lady of culture and refinement who
died September 7, 1914, mourned by a wide circle of friends. Professor Lane's
second marriage took place in Fresno, June 29, 1918, when he was wedded to
Miss 'Mary L. Hines, a native of Tennessee, who came to Fresno with her
parents in 1890. She graduated from the Fresno high school and at the time
of her marriage she was a teacher in the Fresno city scliools.
Professor Lane has ever taken an active interest in agriculture, especially
in grain and alfalfa raising, in which he is an expert. He has been interested
in developing lands in Fresno County ever since his graduation, and has im-
proved several farms, among which may be mentioned the F. M. Lane ranch,
near Lane's Bridge. It consists of ninety acres, seventy acres of which he has
leveled and checked and has also installed a pumping plant, pumping water
from the river to irrigate seventy acres of alfalfa. Mr. Lane was one of
the first to install a pumping plant, for alfalfa. He raises six tons per acre
per year, in six cuttings. He also owns a valuable grain farm of two hundred
forty acres, one and one-fourth miles east of the ninety acre place which he
operates under a system of dry-farming. I\Ir. Lane well remembers when
838 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
there was not a house where the city of Fresno now stands, and rightly
feels that he has materially aided in the development of one of the most
important cities in the state. He has been a member of the Chamber of
Commerce for twenty-two years, and is a prominent member and an ex-
president of Fresno Parlor, No. 24, Native Sons of the Golden West. He was
one of the orjjanizers and is now president of the Grammar School Prin-
cipals of Central California. For the past two years he has served on the
State Council of Education as a representative from Central California.
Politically INIr. Lane is a Democrat and a stanch supporter of President
Wilson in his conduct of the World \\'ar.
GEORGE F. WILLIAMSON. — One of the sturdiest, most experienced,
aggressive and progressive of pioneers who have contributed so much to
make California the real Golden State, and a pioneer who has long been
blessed with a companion who is a genuine native daughter, was the late
George F. Williamson, who died at his country home near Riverdale, July
11, 1919. He was a successful farmer and a good business man, capable of
driving his twent3^-four horses when need be, and the proprietor and the
manager of a very fine ranch, such as gladdened the eye to see.
Mr. Williamson had been in California since he was five or six years
old, having landed in San Francisco on January 24, 1854, after a very event-
ful trip by water and the Nicaragua route. His father was Philander L.
Williamson, and he had already crossed the great plains once in 1849-50. He
had made good as a gold-miner, and had returned to the East. He was born
and reared in Tompkins County, New York, and moved to Michigan with
his parents. There he married Ann F. Inwood, a native of England, who
came to Michigan with her parents, both of whom were born in England.
They settled in Romeo, ]\Iacomb County, near Albion and not far from
Detroit; and as the father was a blacksmith and machinist, and a good one,
he was never in want of plenty of profitable work. The mother lived with
William French, the editor of the Detroit Tribune, and was brought up in
that family. William French later came out to California, and he and Philan-
der Williamson conducted a hotel just above Sacramento. Mr. and Mrs.
Williamson were married in Michigan, just before coming out to California,
and Mr. Williamson had a large blacksmith shop in Detroit, equipped with
several trip hammers, and he installed a number of steam engines in various
parts of that city. Originally, his family was of Scotch blood, but he was
American " 'way back," his forefathers being here in Colonial times. He was,
in fact, a descendant from Colonel Samuel Williamson, a Colonel in the
Revolutionary \\'ar. Tradition says that three Williamson brothers came to
America from Great Britain, and that the descendants of one of these brothers
settled in Tennessee, while those of the second settled in ^Michigan, and those
of the third in the Far \A'est.
Philander Williamson was married in the latter forties, and George F.
was born at Albion, Mich., on April 23, 1849. In that town Mr. Williamson
left his wife and child and, as a typical, doughty, and far-seeing '49er, he
crossed the plains to California. Here he staked his luck in mining for gold;
and having been one of the fortunate chaps who struck vein after vein, he
returned to his home by way of Panama, in 1852. After he had been in Albion
long enough to get his bearings again, he took his wife and child and moved
to a place near Gaine's Mills, Va., attracted there by an offer to install the
machinerv in the new flour mill. At that time he was still subscribing to the
New York Tribune, which proved a red flag to the Southern bull : and find-
ing that the people around him, with their strong pro-slavery views, were
more and more unsympathetic and uncongenial, he resolved, on finishing
the work at the mill, to leave that neighborhood and to come to California
with his family. The student of American history who recalls the P.attle of
Gaine's ]\Iills, in the latter part of June. 1862, and the fierceness with which
the Confederates fought here, will understand the unreasonable, bitter preju-
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 839
dice entertained in the South against anyone who would commit such an
unpardonable offence as to have in his possession a copy of the "Whig"
New York Tribune.
With his wife and only child, George, therefore. Philander \\'illiamson
sailed from New York on January 1, 1854, and on the very first lap of the
journey, on the Atlantic, they all came within an ace of going down in a
storm. George has a vivid recdllcctidn of that terrible gale, and often today,
when the elements rage, he imagines that he is living over again this trying
experience. His father went up to Sacramento and ten miles beyond, where
he ran a hotel : but later he came back to Stockton, and that pleasant town
continued to be his home and headquarters. He built up a large machine
shop, and created a good business ; he was highly respected, and he pros-
pered. His good wife died, however, and left four children. George F. was
the oldest in the family; Dean S., who died in 1894, came next and was the
father of two children : Charles lives at Martinez : and there was Letta, now
Mrs. Long, at Lodi.
George attended the public schools at Stockton, but his education was
limited, owing to an affection of the eyes. Whooping cough and measles
weakened them, and for a long time he could not study books. Therefore,
while yet a mere youth, he went to work in his father's blacksmith shop in
Stockton. The glow of the fire again hurt his eyes, and, threatened with
blindness, he began to work around by the month on ranches, principally at
dairying and in caring for stock. Through this experience, he became a good
horseman.
While at Lathrop, he was married to Miss Sarah Ann Ballard, the
attractive daughter of Simeon M. and Amy E. (Dye) Ballard, well-known
representatives of a family that came originally from Wales, but which
had been several generations in America, — in the East before coming to
California. On the mother's side, the forefathers were German. Her father
was a gold miner in Tuolumne County, although he was married back in
^lissouri. He had been born in Kentucky, while her mother was born in
Ohio. He crossed the plains with his wife in 1852, and for a while settled
near Sonora, on Shaw's Flat, in Tuolumne County ; and in 1860 they moved
to San Joaquin County, where they engaged in dairy-farming. Eleven chil-
dren were born to these worthy parents, six girls and five boys : John B.
died suddenly on March 26, 1918 ; and the others were Mary F., Sarah Ann
(now Airs. Williamson), James Leander. Thomas, Martha, Simeon M., Ver-
dir D.. Eliza E., Alice V., and Noah W., who died December 13. 1918. at
Coalinga. The remarkable vitality of the family is shown by parents and
children. The father died in 1890, aged seventy-nine years and seven months:
and the mother passed away six years later, having attained to sixty-five
years and five months.
George ^^^illiamson and his good wife went to live near Stockton, where
he worked on a large dairy-farm. In 1881 they moved to Oakdale, Stanislaus
County, but three years later they settled in Fresno County, south of
Caruthers.
In 1892 they came to Riverdale, and rented and dairied ; and seventeen
years later, they bought their present place. It is a fine dairy ranch of
eighty acres, and has two fine barns and large yards. Their house was un-
fortunately burned on April 16, 1912: they then built a large modern bunga-
low, with all up-to-date appointments and conveniences.
Mr. and IMrs. Williamson are the parents of eight children : Simeon
Edgar, whose biography and portrait appear elsewhere in this volume, mar-
ried Alice Hatch, and they had six children ; Amy A., who was married in
1902 to Donald Esrey, died in 1913 and left three children — Amy L., Donald
S. and Douglas AV. : Jesse F., a rancher southwest of Riverdale, married
Theresa Tavlor, and they have five children — Claude, Lloyd, Ruth, Pauline
and James ; George Freeman died in 1882, aged sixteen months : Leslie A. is
840 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
at home, unmarried, as is also Ethel ; while Raymond C. and Gordon F.
both served in the army. Raymond C. was in the Twelfth Infantry, and did
clerical work in a statistical bureau of the War Department, before the war
he was manager of the Riverdale Mercantile Company. Gordon F. serA^ed
in the cavalry at Camp Joseph Johnson in Florida ; before entering the ser-
vice, he was employed by the Oakland ^Sleat Company, and now he breaks
horses for the government. He is a Rough Rider in the true sense of the
word, being an expert "broncho buster," and has given exhibitions at fairs
and carnivals. He gave an exhibition at Salinas in June, 1918, and another at
the district fair at Fresno, the same year. Owing to his excellent daredevil
work at Salinas he received the title of "The Pride of Salinas."
George F. Williamson made four trips back to the East. The first was
in 1859, when he went to New York by way of Panama, and returned in
1861 by the same route. He later mad'e three different trips overland to
Texas, traveling in 1869 by the Southern Route through Arizona, and re-
turning that season by the same route. In 1870 he went to Texas with an-
other band of horses, and that time he took the Northern or Salt Lake Route.
And in 1871 he went to the Lone Star State again, and once more journeyed
by way of Salt Lake.
An honored pioneer, he was followed to his grave on the 14th day of
July, 1919, by a large concourse of friends and neighbors, and his remains
were interred in the Washington Cemetery. Few men have had more or
better friends.
FRANK COLEMAN. — Though not a native son, Frank Coleman has
lived most of his life within the state, having been brought here in pioneer
days by his parents. He was born in Jersey City, N. J., April 19, 1857, while
his mother was there on a visit. His parents, Patrick and Ann (Groganl
Coleman, were both natives of Ireland and had settled in Rochester, N. Y.
upon arriving in the Llnited States and there they lived and prospered until
in 1864, when the father brought the family to California, via the Isthmus of
Panama, and settled in Contra Costa County near San Pablo, and later
located near Martinez, where he followed farming and dairying. Both he
and his wife died in Martinez. Frank Coleman was educated in the schools
of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and worked on his father's dairy
ranch. He was later in the employ of Bray Bros. Company, and Blum
Company, owners of grain warehouses in IMartinez, as foreman of their
warehouses.
In 1888 Mr. Coleman went to San Francisco and secured employment on
the Market Street cable railway as gripman, remaining in that position
four years. He was sent to Fresno, in 1893, to recover from an attack of
lagrippe, and has been a resident here since that date. Soon after his arrival
he found employment with the Madary Planing Mill Company, as driver of
a lumber wagon. For the past fourteen years he has been foreman of the
yard and tallyman, in all having put in twenty-six years with the company,
a record for steady application in which any man might well take pride.
Mr. Coleman is a member of the Moose and in politics is a Progressive.
The marriage of Mr. Coleman united him with Mrs. Nancy Pitts, whose
maiden name was Gift. She was born in Memphis, Tenn., and came with her
parents across the Isthmus to California in 1856, and was raised and educated
in Contra Costa County. She has two sons and a daughter by a formed
marriage, William F. Pitts, and Robert Pitts. William F., the eldest, was
born in Antioch, Contra Costa County, September 18, 1871, and attended
the public schools of Martinez. He later took up the study of telegraphy
and was operator for the Western Union Company in San Francisco. In
1892 he was sent by that company to Fresno, and later became' telegraph
operator for the Associated Press in the office of the Fresno Republican. In
1900 he left Fresno and became salesman for the Pacific Paint Company of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 843
San Francisco, later becoming sales manager for the Standard Paint Com-
pany of Chicago. In 1915 he returned to California and became business
manager of the Burbank Seed and Nursery Company of San Francisco. At
present he is traveling salesman for the Cutter Laboratory of Berkeley, Cal.
Fraternally he is a member of the Knights of Columbus ; the B. P. O. Elks ;
the Woodmen of the World ; and the Native Sons of the Golden West. His
marriage united him with Winnie Hodqett, a native of San Francisco, and
they have two sons, W. F. Jr., and James H. Both boys are graduates of
the Morgan Potts Military Academy of Chicago, with a captain's rank, and
■are now in the service of the U. S. Army. W. F. is lieutenant in Battery
A, One hundred and Forty-fourth Field Artillery, (The Grizzlies) ; James
H. is in the Aviation Corps, U. S. A.
HANS HANSEN. — A pioneer of the Mount Olive district. Fresno County,
and one who has made a decided success of his life work, is found in the per-
son of Hans Hansen, who has always been ready and willing to lend a help-
ing hand to those less fortunate than himself and to give valuable advice as
well as encouragement to the homeseeker and home-maker. A native of Den-
mark, he was born at Bornholm, March 6. 1845, a son of Hans and Ingburg
(Kofoad) Hansen. They were parents of eight children and Hans is the only
member of the family now living. He was educated in the public schools of
his native land and was reared to hard work from a lad, so that when he struck
out in the world for himself he was able to handle almost any kind of a job
where strength was a requirement.
In 1872, Mr. Hansen came from his home place to the United States and
for two years worked in Iroquois and La Salle counties, in Illinois. His one
desire was to come to California and when he had made enough money to de-
fray his expenses he immediately made what he considers the best move he
ever made during his life. He came to Fresno County and the first two years
he chopped wood, then he bought a team and did a general teaming business ;
in fact, for fifteen years he was busily engaged in that occupation and fortu-
nately made money. He hauled the brick for the first school house, and for
part of the court house, in Merced County, and from there he went to Bakers-
field and hauled the brick for the first court house in Kern County. So well
did he do the work he set out to do that his services were always in demand
and he was kept unusually busy.
Mr. Hansen bought his first land. 320 acres in the Wahtoke district, in
1901. For a good many years he was a large grain farmer, right in the location
where he now makes his home. He also raised cattle and hogs in the foot-
hills of the mountains, where he had about 6,000 acres of range land. He con-
tinued as a stockman for about nine years. He is now fl919) raising grain,
fruit and alfalfa. He owned forty acres of good land in Tulare County which
he sold at a good profit. He now has eighty acres that he intends to put in
vines and trees, also another eighty nearby that he is developing for a home
place.
\Vhen IMr. Hansen settled in this section of Fresno County there were
but three houses between his place and Reedley, and the latter was just
started and he little thought that it would grow to its present size in so short
a time. Ever since he has been in the county he has helped to promote all
enterprises for the building-up of his section of the county and for the better-
ment of social and moral conditions. He is a booster for all cooperative asso-
ciations among the ranchers and fruit-growers, believing them to be the
salvation of the producers. He has fostered every movement of the raisin-
growers and now is a stockholder in the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany and the California Peach Growers, Inc. A friend of education, he helped
organize the Mount Olive School district, and served for nine years as a
trustee. When the time came for starting a bank in Reedley, Mr. Hansen
came to the front and helped organize the Reedley National Bank, in which
844 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
he is a stockholder; also helped organize the Farmers and Merchants Bank,
now the First National in Reedley. In politics he supports the Republican
candidates but he has never aspired to any office.
]Mr. Hansen is a practical rancher, using the most up-to-date machinery
and implements to carry on his operations. He reads the best literature on
the live topics of the day relating to viticulture and horticulture and his ad-
vice is very often sought in these 'matters, for his experiences have been
varied and in all his operations he has met with good results. He spent the
summer of 1889 in Europe, visiting his old home and other places of interest
on the Continent, but was glad to return to the land of sunshine and gold, and
the county of the raisin and the peach. Mr. Hansen is a young-old man. easily
taken for one-half his age. He makes and retains his friends, and when Hans
Hansen says a thing is so it is considered to be so. for he is a man whose
word is as good as his bond. He looks back upon a life well-spent and forward
to the future without fear, for he has done his part in the making of this
commonwealth.
GEORGE L. WARLOW. — A highly-honored member of the legal pro-
fession-was the late George L. Warlow, a native of Bloomington, 111., where
he was born on July 1, 1849. His father was Jonathan B. Warlow, while his
mother before her marriage was Catherine B. Hay. George attended the
public schools of his locality until he had thoroughly prepared for college,
and then he went to the Northwestern University at Indianapolis, Ind., where
he remained until 1872. In that year he matriculated at Eureka College, in
Eureka, 111., from which he graduated with honors in 1874. Having a first-
class general collegiate training, Mr. Warlow put it to the test by teachmg
school, in Bloomington, 111., where he had charge of classes for a year.
Resolved upon prosecuting a professional career, he then entered the
law office of Stevenson & Ewing, and read law under the late Adlai Ewing
Stevenson, later Vice-President of the United States, and then again sought
the lecture-room, this time registering in the Bloomington Law School of
the \\'esleyan University, at Bloomington, 111., from which he was graduated
in the Centennial Year. That same year he continued the study of law in
the office of the well-known firm of Bloomfield, Pollock & Campbell, where
his facilities were exceptionally good ; and in July, 1876, he was admitted to
the bar.
Mr. Warlow then went to Virginia, Cass County, 111., and formed a
partnership for the practice of law with State Senator A. A. Leeper, under
the firm name of Warlow & Leeper; and this partnership was continued
until 1889. Few men were better or more favorably known there at that
time, and he served with general satisfaction as IMaster of Chancery at
Virginia.
In 1889 Mr, Warlow first came to Fresno; and here, until 1914 he
practiced for himself with flattering success. Then he took into partnership
his son Chester, and the firm, — now so widely and favorably known —
became Warlow & Warlow.
While residing at Virginia, in Illinois, Air. Warlow was married, on
September 23, 1880, to Ella Knowles, by whom he had four children. Trenna
died in Fresno, at the age of ten, of the ]:)lack diphtheria : George, when seven
years old, also died here a week after, of the same malady — Trenna's case
being the first known in the community. Zoe died in \'irginia. 111., an infant.
All four children were born at that place.
George L. Warlow died on October 17, 1918, and was buried privately at
Mountain View Cemetery. He left his widow and son, Chester, as his only
heirs. He also left a will making his son, (who had been associated with
him in practice and was already a rising attorney,) his executor. At the
time of his father's death, however, Chester was in' the United States Air
Service at Kelley Field, San Antonio, Texas, and it was impossible for him
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 845
to act; so an uncle, \\'. T. Knowles, well known to Fresno and the oil in-
terests at Coalinga, was duly appointed administrator with the will annexed.
Chester H. Warlow, the youngest of the four children, was born on
June 3, 1889 and was only six months old when he came to Fresno with his
parents. He attended the grammar schools and then went to the Kemper
Military Academy at Boonville, Mo., one of the best military schools of its
size in the country, from which he was graduated in 1906. He then entered
the Leland Stanford University and took the prelegal course and was gradu-
ated in 1911 with the degree of A.B. ; and in the fall of that year he matric-
ulated at the Harvard Law School, at Cambridge, Mass. For a year there
he specialized in law, and the following year returned to Leland Stanford
and completed the Stanford Law School course. When he graduated, as
a member of the Class of '13, he received the degree of Doctor of Law.
Returning to Fresno, Mr. Warlow entered the law office of his father,
and father and son formed the partnership of Warlow & Warlow. At the
opening of the World War, Chester volunteered in the regular army, and
was sent to Kelley Field, Texas ; and later on he was assigned to the One
Hundred Fifth Aero Squadron there, where he attained to the rank of
First Lieutenant. He was honorably discharged on December 24, 1918, and
arrived home on the following New Year's Day. The first of February he
opened his law office at 812 Griffith-McKenzie Building, and since then has
been busy at the commencement of his independent career in which, it is
safe to say, he will ably and conscientiously maintain the enviable traditions
of his honored father.
MRS. MYRA SHIMMINS. — A place among the women who have left
their impress on the development of Fresno County should be accorded Mrs.
Myra Shimmins, a native daughter of California, born in Yorktown, Tuo-
lumne County, and a resident of Fresno for the past twenty-eight years.
She is a descendant of pioneers of the state from both sides of the family.
Her father, Samuel Piatt, a native of Maine, came to California in early days,
and was a miner in Tuolumne County, having discovered one of the suc-
cessful and productive mines there, known as the Piatt and Gilson Mine.
He lived all his time in Tuolumne County, and died there. Mrs. Shimmins'
maternal grandfather was Fred Klein ; he came around the Horn to Cali-
fornia in '49, and arrived in San Francisco when it was a city of tents, with
all the excitement and lawlessness of a new frontier town. He went to
Tuolumne County, established a store at Yorktown, planted a vineyard and
orchard, and died there.
After the death of Samuel Piatt, his widow moved the family to a
ranch in the county. Later the family removed to the Livermore Valley,
and there Myra Piatt married William F. Shimmins, a native of Wisconsin,
who had come to California in 1885, and located in Livermore Valley. He
was a railroad man, and later was baggage man in the Southern Pacific
depot, at Los Angeles. In 1890 Mr. and Mrs. Shimmins moved to Fresno,
and here Mr. Shimmins was in the employ of the San Joaquin Light and
Power Company for many years. His death occurred in February, 1915.
Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Shimmins: William F., a sergeant
in the United States Army ; Mrs. Ida A. Perry, of Chicago ; IMrs. Hazel R.
Paul, of Hanford; and Olen L., who has charge of his mother's florist shop
in Fresno.
Always fond of flowers, and a great lover of the beauties of nature,
Mrs. Shimmins decided to put this talent to practical use, and in 1902 started
a florist shop in a small way, locating at 1145 I Street. With a natural in-
centive for the work from the beginning, she soon built up a fine business,
and now occupies one of the stores in the Griffith-McKenzie Building, on
T Street. In 1900 Mrs. Shimmins bought two and one4ialf acres in the Sierra
Park tract, on Belmont Avenue, near Van Ness. This property she let re-
846 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
main idle for a few years, then subdivided the land, and it is now all built up
with fine homes. She was a pioneer in that district and the first to build a
home there, the land being originally in orchards and vineyard.
Mrs. Shimmins recalffe her early days in Fresno, when irrigating ditches
ran through the heart of the city and all the important corners in the busi-
ness district were occupied by blacksmith shops. The courthouse park was
as popular then as now, and the mothers took their children to the park in
summer to enjoy the shade and flowers. Mrs. Shimmins has cheerfully done
her share in building up the city to its present prosperous condition, has
shown much business acumen and public spirit, and withal has been an ex-
cellent mother, giving her children a good education and fitting them for the
battle of life.
LEWIS O. STEPHENS. — As a native son of California, this well-known
member of a well-known pioneer family has had ample opportunity not only
to witness the growth of the state, but to contribute to it a large share him-
self. His father, Joseph J. Stephens, left his home in Missouri in 1854 and
crossed the plains to seek his fortune in the land of golden opportunity. By
dint of hard work and close economy, in two years he was able to return to
Missouri to claim his bride. Elizabeth Davis. A year later, accompanied by
his wife, he again made the slow journey across the plains. Arriving in Yolo
County, he engaged in stock-raisifig near Madison, and was well known in
this section for many years as a progressive, honorable citizen. He estab-
lished his family in a home in AA'oodland, where he and his wife enjoyed the
fruits of their early labor through a long and useful life, until death claimed
them.
Such were the parents of L. O. Stephens, and from whom he received
the early training which prepared him to take a prominent place among his
fellow citizens. Born in Yolo County on May 31, 1859, he was one of a family
of eight children and he was educated in the public schools, then took a course
in Hesperian College at Woodland. As a young man he spent a number of
years working with his father. Later, he devoted some time to the study of
architecture, and for two years he operated a farm on his own account.
Finally he decided to enter the commercial world and engaged in the furniture
and undertaking business in his home town. Woodland, where he continued
until his removal to Fresno in January, 1891. Here a partnership was formed
with W. A. Bean, under the firm name of Stephens & Bean, since which time,
until the summer of 1919, when Mr. Bean retired from the firm, a successful
business has been conducted by this enterprising firm. They started in bus-
iness at 1141 I Street, and remained there until they erected, in 1912, one
of the finest buildings of its kind, and with every modern convenience, to be
found in the entire west, and they have always enjoyed a well-deserved
patronage. When Mr. Bean retired from the firm the ownership and man-
agement was taken over by L. O. Stephens and his son, J. D. Stephens, and
at that time, June 1, 1919, there was a complete reorganization on the profit-
sharing basis, all profits being shared with employees. This was the first
firm in Central California that was known to take this progressive and pop-
ular step.
In 1886, yir. Stephens was married in Alissouri to ]\Iiss Bettie Bean,
daughter of the late Daniel Orr Bean, who died in August, 1919, aged eighty-
six years. Of this fortunate marriage one son, J. D. Stephens, was born.
After attaining his majority he became a member of the firm of Stephens &
Bean. Mrs. Stephens was born in Paris, Monroe County, Mo., and was edu-
cated in the public schools of that place, finishing at the ^Music Institute of
Professor Dana, near Chicago, 111. In Fresno, Mrs. Stephens has always been
active in the First Christian Church, and also in the ^^'omen's Club work,
and with three other ladies organized the first kindergarten work in Fresno
City.
C(^Ms^L^
1 ?? £
t ft i ^ *l
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 851
L. O. Stephens adheres to Democratic principles, and was elected Mayor
of Fresno for a term of four years, 1901-1905. In several different capacities
he has faithfully served the city and county, as well as holding the office of
County Coroner for two terms while residing in Woodland, Yolo County.
He has not only filled the office of Coroner for Fresno County four years,
but was elected a member of the Board of Education, and under Mayor
Rowell he served on the police commission for four years, and also served
in the same capacity under Mayor Snow. All of these varied duties were per-
formed with tact and ability, and he holds an enviable place in the esteem
of the people of Fresno City and County.
]\Ir. Stephens attends the First Christian Church. Fraternally he is a
Mason, holding membership in Fresno Lodge; Trigo Chapter; Fresno Com-
mandery ; Islam Temple ; and the Eastern Star ; he also is an Odd Fellow,
Knight of Pythias, Fraternal Brotherhood, Woodmen of the World, Modern
Woodmen of America. Independent Order of Foresters, and Fresno Parlor
Native Sons. He is a member of the Commercial Club, Chamber of Com-
merce and the California Associated Raisin Company. In 1906 he was re-
quested to conduct the Raisin Growers' campaign and reorganize the associa-
tion, which he did, and he has the satisfaction of seeing the successful com-
pletion of his work, with the association in a flourishing condition.
DAVID S. EWING. — .Vmong the professional men who occupy positions
of prominence in the esteem of the citizens of Fresno County, David S. Ewing
has proven his worth as an attorne}- and has won popularitv throughout the
San Joaquin Valley. He was born in Fulton, Callaway County, Mo., October
24, 1866, a son of Henry Neal Ewing. a native of that same locality. The
grandfather, James Ewing, was born in Kentucky and migrated to Missouri
in 1820, following in the footsteps of his father who moved westward from
Virginia into Kentucky. The Ewings are of Scotch-Irish ancestry and in-
herited the sturdy traits which have made of these people some of our most
desirable citizens.
Henry Neal Ewing was reared in Missouri and educated at Yale Uni-
versity, after which, in 1849, he crossed the plains to California with ox teams,
and upon his arrival engaged in mining for several years, after which he re-
turned to Missouri. He again crossed the plains, and once more returned to
Missouri during the Civil War. In 1874 he moved to Kansas City, where for
six years he was engaged in business, then, in 1880. he brought his family to
California, locating in Fresno. He was the third colonist of Fresno Colony,
where he purchased a farm, set out a vineyard and a forty-acre orchard, and
made many other valuable and permanent improvements. In 1887 he sold this
property and moved into Fresno, where he died in 1890. His wife was
formerly Carrie Martin, born near Fulton, Mo., the daughter of William
Martin, a Virginian who was a pioneer of Missouri, settling on property ad-
joining that of James Ewing. He was of French and German ancestry. Mrs.
Ewing died in Kansas City, in 1878, leaving a family of six sons and two
daughters, David S. being the second son.
David S. Ewing was reared to manhood in Fulton, Kansas City, Fresno
and on the paternal ranch in Fresno County. In 1883 he was employed in
the surveying corps on the survey of the upper San Joaquin canal, where he
remained for about two and one-half years. In 1887 he attended the Pacific
Business College in San Francisco, and upon returning to Fresno, he was
employed in the office of the city tax collector, and the following year became
deputy county school superintendent under B. A. Hawkins. In 1890 and
1891 he served as chief deputy in the Cdunty tax collector's office. In all his
official positions Mr. Ewing acquitted himself honorably. From early boy-
hood he had an eager desire to study law, and was not content even with
the good positions he so easily secured. At every opportunity he read law
from the books he could obtain and in 1893 he was admitted to the bar to
practice in the superior courts of California, and entered upon the practice of
852 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
his profession. He formed a partnership with O. L. Everts, under the firm
name of Everts and Ewing, and together they built up a good general practice.
This partnership still exists and is the oldest legal firm in the county. In
1895 Mr. Ewing entered the University of Michigan as a senior in the law
department, being graduated therefrom in 1896, with the degree of LL. B.,
and again taking up his practice with his partner in Fresno.
David S. Ewing was united in marriage, in Fresno, on May 1, 1898, with
Grace Maul, a native of Illinois. She was the daughter of Frank Maul, a
native of Germany and a prominent merchant of Kewanee, 111. He even-
tually retired to Fresno, Gal. Mrs. Ewing is a graduate of the Kewanee
high school. To Mr. and Mrs. Ewing, August 15, 1901, were born two
daughters, Blanche and Mildred, both of whom are students in the Fresno
high school. In his fraternal relations IMr. Ewing is a member, and Past
Exalted Ruler of Fresno Lodge, No. 439, B. P. O. Elks; a member and past
officer of Manzanita Camp, No. 160, \Y. O. W. He is a Scottish and York
Rite ]\Iason and a member of Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. of San Fran-
cisco. Socially he is prominent, holding membership in the following clubs:
Sequoia, Commercial, University. Sunnyside, Country and Elks, of Fresno;
Sierra Madre Club of Los Angeles ; and the Bakersfield Club. He is a member
of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce and the Fresno County Bar Associa-
tion. Since 1897 Mr. Ewing has been directly interested with the oil industry
of Fresno and Kern Counties and is a member of the executive committee
of the Independent Oil Producers Agency, since 1912. The selection of Mr.
Ewing, by the Democratic State Central Committee at their committee
meeting in San Francisco in September, 1918, as chairman, is but another
tribute to his standing throughout the state in political circles. As a pro-
gressive citizen ^Ir. Ewiiig has been associated with the development of
California, particularly the San Joaquin Valley and Fresno County, for many
years and is always ready and willing to lend his aid to all worthy projects
for its upbuilding. He is well and favorably known throughout the entire
San Toaquin Vallev.
HONORABLE ALVA E. SNOW.— In the person of Alva E. Snow,
Fresno has a citizen of sterling integrity and worth, a lawyer of skill and
ability, who, as district attorney for four years rendered excellent service to
the county, and whose administration as mayor of the city was marked as
one of the most progressive the city had experienced. He comes from dis-
tinguished ancestors, being a descendant of the Pilgrims who came to Ameri-
can shores in the Mayflower. This immigrant ancestor was Nicholas Snow,
who came from England and married at Plymouth, Mass., prior to June 1,
1627. Constance Hopkins, who came over with her father, Stephen Hopkins,
on the Mayflower in 1620. Nicholas Snow died in Eastham, Mass., November
25, 1676. His descendants were for many years active in the management
of public affairs of Plymouth County, Mass., which was the birthplace of
Alva E. Snow and his father, the late Harvey Snow. Capt. Prince Snow,
grandfather of Alva E., was born, hved and died in Plymouth County. He
was a seafaring man and to some extent was also engaged in farming pursuits.
Succeeding to the occupation to which he was reared, Harvey Snow was
a New England farmer, and was engaged in mercantile pursuits at Matta-
poisett, Plymouth County, where he reared his family. He died at the age of
sixty-five years. He was held in high esteem as a citizen, serving as select-
man and as school trustee : he was liberal in religious beliefs, and a member
of the Universalist Church. His wife, whose maiden name was Bridget
Marron, was born in County Mayo, Ireland, makes her home with her son
Alva E., in Fresno. He is the oldest and the only one living, of the children
born to his parents.
Alva E. Snow was born at ]\Iattapoisett, Plymouth County, Mass., Octo-
ber 13, 1860, was reared in that county and educated in the public schools,
and at Taber Academv at Marion, ]\Iass., then at Tufts College, from which
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 853
he was graduated in 1887, with the degree of A. B. He then entered Harvard
Law School and was later admitted to the bar in Massachusetts in 1889.
Coming at once to California, he stopped for fifteen months in San Francisco,
where he was with the law firm of Herman & Soto. He located in Fresno
on January 1, 1891, practiced his profession two years and then served two
years as deputy district attorney, under Firman Church. As the nominee on
the Republican ticket, Mr. Snow was elected to the office of district attorney
of Fresno County in 1894, serving for four years, and having the distinction
of being the first Republican district attorney of Fresno County. As deputy
district attorney, ^Ir. Snow succeeded in convicting the train robber, Chris
Evans, securing life imprisonment ; he also conducted the prosecution of
Sanders, the noted forger. He was successful, as district attorney, having
conducted several cases of importance, and established an e.nvinl^le reputa-
tion as an able prosecutor. In 1909 Mr. Snow was elected to the city council
and in 1912 was appointed mayor. In 1913 he was elected to that office for
a term of four years and ably filled the position, reflecting great credit to
himself, his constituents and to the city. During the term many necessary
improvements were made in the city government, new methods instituted
and new problems worked out, in all departments the administration was one
of progress. After his term expired, Mr. Snow resumed his law practice,
which has grown to be of large proportions.
On December 12, 1891, Alva E. Snow was united in marriage with Miss
Dora P. Colson, born and reared in Plymouth County, Mass., where her
father, Owen D. Colson, was a prosperous merchant. In 1903 Mr. and Mrs.
Snow visited their old New England home county, afterwards made a trip
to England and the continent, traveling throughout Europe. Mr. Snow was
made a Mason in Marion, Mass., but is now a member of Fresno Lodge, No.
274, F. & A. M.; of Fresno Lodge B. P. O. Elks; and is a member of the
County Bar Association. He is a member of the Congregational Church.
Socially he is a member of the University Club, of Fresno and in politics he
is an unswerving Republican.
JUDGE SAMUEL A. HOLMES.— How much California owes to the
best blond of the South, and especially, perhaps, what inestimable contribu-
tion has been made to the California Bar by the commonwealths of the so-
called Southern States, may be seen in the splendid career of the late Judge
Samuel A. Holmes, who was a native of North Carolina, born at Wilmington,
in 1830. He was educated in the same State, first at the well-known academy
at Chapel Hill, and then in the University of North Carolina, from whose law
department he was graduated with special honors.
For some years after being admitted to the bar, Attorney Holmes
practiced in North Carolina, and also served as a member of the State legis-
lature, leaving an enviable record for painstaking fidelity to his constituents.
Then he farmed a large plantation in Alabama ; but the Civil War breaking
out, he was impelled to uphold the cause of his native section, and so he
entered and served in the Confederate ranks. After the War, like so many
others he returned to the cultivation of the soil in Mississippi ; and always
believing in doing as best he could whatever he undertook to do at all, he
made such a success of his plantation that it became, so to speak, a model
for the community.
In 1868, Mr. Holmes came to California by way of the Isthmus and
joined the Alabama settlement near Madera, where he farmed successfully
for several years. He became a Director of the Stockton Asylum for the
Insane, and was also honored by election to the Constitutional Convention.
The Convention having provided for this district of the Superior Court, Mr.
Holmes was appointed the first Superior Judge here; and in 1880 he was
elected to the same office. So well did he satisfy the public, while fulfilling
his obligations to the State and meeting his own high sense of honor and
854 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ethics, that again in 1890 the voters of the district chose him for Judge. His
courtliness, of the old-school type, together with his known integrity capti-
vated everyone, and he was filling the high office when, in December, 1894,
he died.
Judge Holmes had married ]\Iiss Mary Strudwick, a native of Mobile,
Ala., and the daughter of an extensive planter, the ceremony taking place
in 1851, and from their union were born Owen and John, both of whom are
now dead; Mrs. W. J. Pickett, and W. A. Holmes. W. A. Holmes was the
Southern Pacific City Passenger Agent at Fresno, and in August, 1918. he was
appointed the chief clerk of the Fresno office of the United States Railroad
Administration. The family belongs, therefore, to that group of early and
prominent pioneers of which Fresno Count}' is and always will be very proud.
CHARLES A. MARSHALL and EDWIN C. MARSHALL.— Eye wit-
nesses of the niany changes that have taken place in Fresno County since
the Marshall family came to California, has been the lot of Charles A. and
Edwin C. Marshall, pioneer ranchers of the Centerville district. They recall
the time when the present fertile and productive fields were but wind-swept
desert wastes covered with cacti. They are descendants of an old Kentucky
family and sons of Louis and Mary (Foree) Marshall, natives of the Blue
Grass State, and where the former died. Three brothers, Charles A., Edwin
C, and Albert R. Marshall came to this state and located in Fresno County in
1886. They bought thirty-five acres of land at Centerville and embarked in
the nursery business for some time, when they disposed of it and set their
ranch to trees and vines. Their good mother joined her sons in 1889, made
her home on their ranch and enjoyed the comforts of California life until her
death in 1910. Louis and Mary Marshall have the following surviving chil-
dren: Mrs. Mary Wiley, of Whittier ; Mrs. Jennie Clopton, of Los Angeles;
Charles A., of Fresno; Albert R., of Santa Ana; Edwin C, of Centerville;
and Mrs. Josie Fernald, of San Francisco.
Charles A. Marshall was born in Ballard County, Ky., April 25, 1866,
received his education in the public schools of his native state and was reared
there until the age of twenty when he came with his brothers to Fresno
County and ever since that date his interests have been closely interwoven
with the history of the growth of the county. He lived on the ranch and
assisted in its development for many years and in 1917 he was united in
marriage with Mrs. Caroline (Dickson") Dodd. who was born in Humboldt
County, Cal. Mr. and Mrs. ATarshall reside in Fresno and enter heartily into
the social life of their community.
Edwin C. Marshall was born in Kentucky on May 10, 1870, and was
educated in the schools with his brother and with him came to make a home
in the Golden West. He has lived on the ranch at Centerville ever since the
property was acquired by the brothers. He served as horticultural commis-
sioner of Fresno County for a few years. Edwin C. Marshall was united in
marriage with I\Iary Lockhart, a native of Missouri and they dispense a
charming hospitality at the Marshall ranch.
The Marshall ranch at Centerville is a very productive property, the
deep, rich fertile soil producing banner crops each year. In 1918 the yield of
fifteen acres planted to Emperor and Malaga grapes was 127*tons of Em-
perors and 29 tons of Malagas, and the 1917 crop was of still larger propor-
tions. This land was developed from its raw state. Two irrigating systems
have been installed, with an extra pumping plant for the orange grove.
_ In 1914 in order to stabilize the market prices and build up the fruit
business Charles A. Marshall began shipping green fruit to points in the east,
on a strictly commission basis. In the above year he became associated with
B. W. Shepherd, as buyer of green fruits in the Sanger district, shipping to
the well-known commission firm of Sgoble and Day, New York City. In this
^ , ^2. i^^^c^^^^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO -COUNTY 857
business Mr. Marshall has been very successful. He is very public-spirited
and heartily cooperates in promoting those movements that have for their
aim the upbuilding of city, county and state, and is recognized as a man of
unquestioned integrity.
JOHN J. KERN. — Among Fresno's worthy citizens of foreign birth is
John J. Kern, proprietor of the liquor store at 2033 Mariposa Street. His
store is one of the landmarks of Fresno, as he has been in the liquor business
in this building continuously for more than twenty years. He recalls shooting
rabbits in the earl}- days on the present site of the city of Fresno. His earliest
recollections are in connection with the Fatherland, for he was born in the
Kingdom of Bavaria, Southern (Germany, April 8, 1854. John J. Kern was edu-
cated in the common schools of Germany and in early life learned the brew-
ing business, which he followed in his native country until 1880, when he
came to America. The first six years, after his advent in the New W'orld,
were spent in a Buflfalo brewery and on a farm in the country. In 1886 he
came to the Pacific Coast and worked for the National Brewing Company in
San Francisco until 1895, when he located in Fresno and opened a liquor store
at his present stand.
In 1881 Mr. Kern entered the matrimonial state, choosing as his life com-
panion a daughter of the old Fatherland, Elizabeth Kaufer. Five children were
born to them : Ida. is now Mrs. Moisen of Patton ; Emma L. is Mrs. Delk
of Fresno and is the mother of one daughter; Harry L., who served in the
United States Expeditionary Forces in Europe : two daughters died in child-
hood and are buried in San Francisco. Mr. Kern owns one hundred sixty
acres of unimproved land west of Fresno and several town lots. Fraternally
he is affiliated with the Foresters of America, the Owls. Sons of Herman,
and is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
A. D. EWING. — Among the many native Missourians who have con-
tributed to the development of the city and country adjacent to Fresno
there are few names better known than that of A. D. Ewing, county treasurer
of Fresno. He is the son of Henry N. and Carrie (Martin) Ewing, and was
born in Callaway County, Mo., February 14, 1861, just prior to the opening
scenes of the great drama of the Civil War. The elder Ewing followed the
occupation of farming until he came to California in 1882, when he pur-
chased forty acres of land and engaged in fruit raising, following the oc-
cupation for six years ; afterwards engaging with Mr. Bartlett in the dray
and transfer business, continuing in this business until his death in 1892.
His wife died in 1879, three years prior to his coming to California.
At fifteen years of age Mr. A." D. Ewing had the misfortune to lose his
right arm in a railroad accident. Notwithstanding this handicap he has
made a success of life, standing shoulder to shoulder with his compeers as
a man of ability. He received a public school education, and coming to
California in 1883 engaged in fruit raising. After completing a course in
business college in San Francisco in 1886-87, he returned to Fresno and in
1888-89 was elected the first tax collector in Fresno County. He was united
in marriage June 2. 1800. with Aliss Mollie Munday, of Kansas City. The
union has been childless. Finishing his term of office he joined his brother,
D. S. Ewing, in improving forty acres of land, continuing in this occupation
until 18^3 when he accepted a position to do clerical work in the auditor's
and assessor's office, acting in that capacity until 1899, in which year he was
appointed deputy county clerk, serving under George W. Cartwright for
four years, afterwards serving for eight years under \A". O. Miles and another
four years under D. M. Barnwell also acting as clerk of the court. In August,
1914, he received the exclusive nomination for county treasurer for a term of
four years and in 1918 was renominated for said office without opposition
and in November, 1918, was elected. He is an active member of the Christian
Church, serving as an officer in that church for eighteen years, ten years
.858 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of which he was the treasurer. He is also a director of the Young Men's
Christian Association. In politics he is a Democrat. He has passed the
chairs of the Lodge and Encampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fel-.
lows and for over eleven years was the financial secretary of Fresno Lodge,
No. 186, I. O. O. F. He is a member of the Woodmen of the World and
also belongs to the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, acting in the capacity
of secretary for that organization for a period of ten years. During his long
term of efficient service in office he has won an enviable reputation for
probity and has made many warm friend?.
JUAN CAMINO. — Pastoral occupations are imbued with a charm pecu-
liarly their own, and this is particularly true of this occupation when it is in
combination with the old world life found in the country of Northern Spain.
Juan Camino, one of Fresno County's early settlers and sheep men, was born
in the northern part of that picturesque country, coming as a Christmas gift to
liis parents, December 25, 1857. Brought up and educated on the farm he
herded sheep for his father, a sheep raiser, until 1881, when he came to America
and arrived in Fresno with a small amount of money. He continued the
occupation of sheep herding in Fresno County until 1885, when he bought a
few sheep with money he had saved and engaged in business with his brother
Domingo. The flock increased until at one time they owned 7,000 sheep
and some cattle. They ranged the sheep all over the county, also drove them
into ]\Iono and Inyo Counties for feed. Domingo sold his interest to his
brother and returned to his native country, Juan continuing in the sheep raising
business until 1904, when he sold out and retired from active business life.
A selfTmade man, Mr. Camino has acquired considerable property interests
in Fresno County. He is the owner of 1,500 acres of grazing land near Coal-
inga. also a five-acre peach orchard north of Fresno, as well as houses and
lots in Fresno.
In 1895 he was married to Grace Etchegoin, a native of France, who has
borne him an interesting family of four children, namely: Marie, Raymond,
Micaela and Marv Jane. I\Ir. Camino is a well known and influential member
of the Catholic Church.
C. S. HARDWICKE.— Mr. Hardwicke is of English descent, having
been born in Rotherham, Yorkshire, England, on August 26, 1869. He spent
his youth in his native countrj-, attending the Tonbridge and Oundle High
Schools. His parents are Eugene and Martha (Saunders) Hardwicke, and
to them were born five children, of whom four are living.
In 1886. at the age of seventeen years, C. S. Hardwicke came to Fresno
County, stopping at the Washington Coloiry. He was a young man of means ;
yet he was ready to do his bit and went right to work the day after arriving,
and that spirit has stayed with him ever since and is one of the telling
characteristics in his make-up today. In 1891, five years after his arrival
in Fresno County, he bought his first piece of land. Misfortune lurked just
around the corner for him, and in the early nineties, like so many others, the
panic struck him and he lost his place with all the improvements he had
worked so hard to make. The place he lost would now easily bring $12,000,
and he lost it on a debt of $700. Discouraged somewhat, but not vanquished,
Mr. Hardwicke went to Orosi, in Tulare County, where he developed another
vineyard. Here he was married to Miss Margaret Forseman, a member of a
pioneer family at \^'ildflower. They had two children, Constance and Ken-
neth. Mrs. Hardwicke died in 1913.
In 1906 Mr. Hardwicke sold out in Tulare County and, returning to Fresno
County, bought the place he now owns. He has forty acres two miles south
of Fresno on Jensen Avenue, just ofif of Elm. There are ten acres in bear-
ing Emperors and eight acres of young Emperors, four acres of Cornichons,
seven acres of Sultanas, five acres of Thompson seedless, five acres of
M'uscats, and one acre of naval oranges. He has experimented with all the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 859
grapes and is satisfied in his own mind that the emperors are the most profit-
able. He has remodeled his home and bnilt barns and other needed build-
ings, and was one of the first in this section to put in the now justly cele-
brated "Kewanee" Water System. His native energy, directed by intelli-
gence, has enabled him to possess one of the most productive vineyards in
Fresno County. As has been seen, he specializes in table grapes.
Mr. Hardwicke is a good friend to education and progress, and for many
years has served as trustee of the Fresno Colony school district, which
maintains one of the best schools in the country districts in Fresno County,
and much of the credit for the excellence of the school is due to him. He
is a stockholder in the Raisin Association, is progressive and wide-awake, and
may be counted upon to lend a hand when any forward movement looking to
the advancement of Fresno County is begun.
TAYLOR M. ELAM. — A master of his environment and the formidable
obstacles that once confronted him and, for the time being, brought disaster.
and therefore the skilful mariner successfully directing his own destiny, is
Taylor M. Elam, who has twice made a fortune, and whose many friends
rejoice in his present prosperity. He was born near Knoxville, Tenn., De-
cember .T, 1849, the son of Joel Elam. a native of Old Virginia.
In that commonwealth the father married Sarah Callac, who was also
born there, and they moved to Kentucky, then to Tennessee, and after that
to Texas. The father's health urged him. however, to migrate still farther,
and in April, 18.^3. he started for California, with his wife and five children,
but when five weeks out, he died on the plains. His widow and the children
continued the journey in the ox-team train, and were seven months en route
ere they reached Los Angeles. Then they went to Redwood City, where
the mother took up land, but it proved to be a grant, and after two years
she had to give up all she had acquired. Then she located at San Juan,
bought a farm and once again started to make a home, but this also proved
a grant, and she lost what she had invested. Coming to the Sonora Mines
at Shaw's Flat, she ran a small hotel and eating-house. Later she moved to
Stockton and farmed with the aid of her children, and then she moved to
Modesto, Stanislaus County. They were the second family into Paradise,
then Mariposa County, and soon after they located at Pea Ridge, where
they remained about twenty-five years. Some of the children married there,
and Mrs. Elam resided with her children, till she died at the age of sixty-
four, the mother of five sons and daughters: John Henry, a dairyman four
miles from Kerman ; Fannie, who is ^Irs. Smither of Mariposa County ; Tay-
lor, the subject of this review, Tabitha, who married Neal Robinson, and
who died at Raymond : J. Thomas, residing on Effie Street, in Fresno.
Brought up in California, Taylor M. remembers the trip across the plains
and his early life on the farm in Mariposa County, where he had his introduc-
tion to the stock business. He attended the public school, learned to ride
the range, rope, brand and care for cattle, and for twenty-two years was in
the saddle every day. In 1878 he was married at Fresno to Miss L'ucy AVain-
wright, a native of Kentucky who came across the plains to California with
herparents. Prior to his marriage, Mr. Elam and his brothers were in the
stock business together, but when he became a benedict, they divided up their
interests. In 18S4 he came to Fresno and engaged in the livery business, and
ran the Front Street Livery Stable, and also operated a stage from Fresno
to Easton and White's Bridge for seven years, when he sold out and ran a
stage to Fine Gold, now ]\radera County. He also engaged in the dray and
express business, and quit to take up real estate, in which field he met with
success.
He bought lands and lots, subdivided and sold, owning and disposing of
both the Gladys and the Irvington additions ; and by improving .wisely, he
realized well on what he had sold prior to two years of panic. That cold
860 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
blanket to business and prosperity, however, nearly cleaned him out in 1889,
and he went to Merced County to work on a ranch and recuperate. He drove
a ten-mule team at one dollar a day and farmed, and made strenuous efforts
to get another start ; he saved money and bought the Last Chance Mine on
Whitlock Creek in Mariposa County. He operated it vigorously and met with
success ; so that in two years he cleaned up $6,000.
He and J. Thomas, his brother, then went in for dairying and were the
first to engage in that business on the Kearney ranch, where they conducted
a fine dairy for three years, but not finding their arrangements with Kearney
satisfactory, they gave it up and bought bank-lands, four miles south of
Kerman, where they continued dairying. They leveled and checked, and
were the first to sow alfalfa in that vicinity. They sold cream and also rented
900 acres for range purposes, and they are still renting 700 acres there. They
own the fifty-five acres on North Avenue, fifteen miles from Fresno, and
four miles from Kerman, where they built a residence and barns. In 1918
the brothers bought forty acres on Kearney Avenue, thirteen miles west of
Fresno, which is devoted to the growing of alfalfa. They put in a pumping-
plant and have fifty cows in their dairy. They also raise cattle, horses and
hogs.
Two children blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Elam : Frank lives in
Sacramento ; while Gladys, who is a graduate of the Chico State Normal, is
teaching at Berkeley. The family attends the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mr. Elam is an Independent Democrat in national politics. He is a stock-
holder in the Danish Creamery Association.
JOHN GERNER. — Owner of an eighty-acre ranch on Jensen Avenue,
eight miles from Fresno, John Gerner had been a resident of this section
since 1891 and was associated with the building-up of the agricultural and
horticultural interests of this part of Fresno County. He was born in Wash-
ington County, Wis., July 14, 1856, a son of Christian and Johanna (Seider-
mann) Gerner, natives of Germany, but married in Wisconsin. The father
was a wagonmaker by trade but followed farming after reaching the United
States. Both he and his good wife died in Wisconsin. They became the
parents of nine children, seven of whom are still living. John was the second
child and oldest son and the only one to live in Fresno County.
The elder Gerner appreciated the advantages of an education and the
son was sent to the district school during the year until he was old enough
to assist on the farm, after which he attended the winter terms-. John learned
to care for stock, helped operate their farm when the work was done by ox
teams and he began to plow at the age of ten. As the dairy interests became
more important in their section the lad became familiar with it and they
furnished milk to the creameries there. In time he became owner of 100 acres
in Washington County, which he improved and farmed until he came to
California, in 1888.
During his residence in his native state John Gerner was married to
Mary Eager, by whom he had three children: Robert, born in 1881, was
killed by the kick of a horse in 1894; Arthur E., who was born in Wisconsin
July 23, 1883, raised on the California ranch, educated in the public school,
now owner of 130 acres improved to vines and trees, besides his interest in
the home place, and who is a trustee and for years clerk of Highland school
district, and who belongs to the Peach Growers, Inc., and who married
Edna Orich and has three children — John, Allen and Carl; and Anson J.,
the third son, is a civil engineer by profession, a graduate of the University
of California, who spent six years in the Government reclamation service in
Utah, and who was in the eiagineer officer's training school at Camp Hum-
phrev's, Va., and who will operate the home place in partnership with his
brother, and who married Sophia Hazelton.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 863
John Gerner decided he would come to CaHfornia where he felt greater
opportunities awaited him, and accordingly he sold out and arrived at San
Bernardino, where he remained one year, then went to Los Angeles. He
was looking over the country in search of a suitable ranch and made his
first visit to Fresno County in 1891. He liked the looks of the country, saw
the possibilities of irrigation, and made the purchase of eighty acres. This
was a part of a large grain-field from which a heavy yield of wheat had been
harvested. He moved his family to a rented house in Fresno until he could
prepare a suitable home for them on his ranch, which he did in December,
1891. Part of his ranch had been used for a sheep fold and this contributed
to the fertility of the soil. He began to set out a vineyard in the spring of
1892, and now there are fifty-five acres of muscats, and fifteen acres of mala-
gas, and the balance is used for farm buildings, pasture, and a family orchard.
When he settled on the ranch there was no road into Sanger, and the nearest
neighbor was one and a half miles away. Mrs. Gerner died at this home in
1915.
]Mr. Gerner's second wife was Mrs. Harriett L. Darling, widow of A. P.
Darling. Mr. and Mrs. Gerner met an accidental death by being struck by
a Southern Pacific train at the Minnewawa vineyard, on April 29, 1919, and
the funeral, one of the largest in Fresno, was held at the home on May 6,
1919. Mr. Gerner was a progressive worker and thinker, always ready to
cooperate in all forward movements for the good of the county and com-
munity. He helped to build the highways and to organize the Highland
school district.
EDWIN GOWER, SR.— Prominent among the scientific farmers of Cal-
ifornia who, in winning their own prosperity, have furthered the development
and permanent welfare of the state, is Edwin Gower, the well-known rancher
and nurseryman living four miles northeast of Fowler. He owns 160 acres in
a state of high cultivation, ten acres of which is given to a nursery, while the
balance is set out with vines and trees.
]\lr. Gower was born at Gold Hill, Nev., in an emigrant wagon, on Sep-
tember 14, 1860, the son of Sewall Gower, who was a native of Maumee City,
Lucas County, Ohio. His grandfather was Robert Gower, a surveyor by
profession, who was the surveyor of Lucas County, and who is said to have
first plotted out the city of Toledo. An uncle, A. G. Gower, studied civil
engineering under Roebling, the celebrated Prussian-American who built
the Brooklyn Bridge ; and this uncle engineered the building of the first sus-
pension bridge across the Ohio River at Cincinnati.
The Gowers trace their family history back, to Wales, and in the brilliant
years of their forebears they were memorialized by no less a person than Sir
Walter Scott. A distinguished member of the family also is the Rt. Hon. Lord
Ronald Sutherland Gower, the gifted sculptor and author. This brancli of
the Gower family, in extending to the New World, first settled in Colonial
times, in what is now the state of Maine, and thus became connected with
the early history of that state. As a result of these Maine associations, the
Gowers became intimate friends of the Nortons, the family from which Lillian
Nordica, the famous opera singer, sprang; and her first husband was F. A.
Gower, our subject's third cousin, an electrician who was lost in a balloon
ascension in 1887. Mr. Gower's paternal grandfather moved to Cedar County,
Iowa, in 1838, and there established Gower's Ferry across the Cedar River.
He was a member of the first constitutional commissiim and convention that
drafted the first constitution for the state of Iowa : and Edwin's uncle, James
H. Gower, was a member of the convention that drafted the second consti-
tution for Iowa.
Sewall Gower was a mere child when he came to Iowa. He 'was one of
the early graduates of Knox College, in Illinois. While still in Iowa he was
married to Miss Cornelia E. De Voe, a native of Auburn. N. Y., and a mem-
ber of an old New York State family, among whom was Thomas Farrington
864 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
De Voe, the author. In 1860 he and his young wife started with a mule team
to cross the great plains from Iowa City. They stopped for a while at Gold
Hill, Nevada Territory, and there the subject of our sketch was born. During
the delay, Sewall Gower prospected, and it was he who brought in the first
gold ever found at Gold Hill. That fall he moved on to California and pulled
rein at Stockton, where he taught school for two years, settling on a farm,
which he later bought, in the San Joaquin Valley. He had been admitted to
the bar at Iowa City, but had never practiced the legal profession.
From Stockton Mr. and Mrs. Sewall Gower moved to Santa Cruz, and
there they passed the last ten years of their lives. They had four children,
and Edwin, of whom we write, was the eldest. Marv became the wife of A.
C. Blayney, the rancher living south of Fowler, and she died and left three
children. Rosamond is the wife of Jeremiah Turner, now retired and living
at Santa Cruz. Bordell, who married Cyrus Bolly, resides at Oakland.
Edwin Gower grew up at Stockton until his fourteenth year, when he
went back to Cedar County, Iowa, where he remained until he was nineteen.
He grew up on farms, and his father gave him the older Gower homestead
with Gower's Ferry. In his nineteenth year he returned to Stockton, but
after two more years in California he went back again to Cedar County. There
he married his sweetheart. Miss Cora C. Perkins, and for a couple of years
thereafter stayed in the vicinity of her home. Then he sold the Gower ranch
and once more came AA'est to Stockton. In 1887 he moved south to Fresno
County and bought his place of 160 acres, and since that time much of his
increasing prosperity has been coincidental with the development of- the county
in which he has become such an active and important leader.
Mr. Gower has specialized in olives, walnuts, almonds, nectarines, and
Zante Corinth grapes, having eight acres of the latter. He got his first cut-
tings from the United States Government, and now flPlO) he has the largest
producing Zante Corinth grape (commonly called the Zante currant) vine-
yard in Fresno County. Since taking up this choice edible from the Ionian
island of Zante, he has cooperated with the Government and has been instru-
mental in introducing many novelties such as pistachio nuts from Turkey,
queen olives, fifteen varieties of walnuts, and twenty different varieties of
grapes. Among these are the IMarville de Malaga, probably the best shipping
grapes, and heavy producers of good (|uality: of these he has ten acres of
four-year-old vines. Of the queen olive ( Sevillians, as they are ordinarily
known) he has in bearing ten acres of trees thirty years old. He has dis-
covered and grown the Gower Nectarine, one of the earliest shipping varieties.
In order to test out a theory. Mr. Gower began girdling some of his grape-
vines. This has resulted in a better and earlier grade of fruit. His example
has been followed by many others, even by the United States Government
experts.
For some years Mr. Gower was a partner with George C. Roeding. the
president and manager of the Fancher Creek Nurseries in Fresno, whose in-
teresting life-review is elsewhere printed in this volume under the title of
Roeding 8z Gower. the pioneer olive-packing firm. Mr. Gower is now the
owner and proprietor of the "Bois d'Arc" nurserv% which is on a part of his
160-acre farm and includes ten acres of his ranch. In his walnut culture, Mr.
Gower has specialized in Franquettes. which he introduced into Fresno
County. He was the first to encourage the ranchers of the San Joaquin \'alley
to plant the seed of the California black walnuts, and to graft the Franquettes
on their stocks.
In national politics Mr. Gower is a consistent Democrat, and has been
an active member of the Democratic Central Committee. He has cast parti-
sanship to the winds, however, in deciding local civic questions. Especially
active in promoting popular education, he is a trustee of the high school board
at Fowler, helped to organize the school, and has served in its interests con-
tinuouslv since the establishment of that well-conducted institution. He now
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 865
proposes a new high school building, tfi cost $150,000. He belongs to the
Magnolia Grammar School district, and has been a member of the board for
the past twenty-five years.
Mr. and Mrs. Gower are the parents of nine children. Cornelia E., now
deceased, married Frank F. Freman and left a son, Giles Freman ; Emma, un-
married, resides at Oakland ; Violet married Clark Hastie, a prosperous
rancher who lives at Fowler; Rosamond is the wife of William Coleburg, who
is a river transportation man at Stockton; Millicent is the wife of John H.
Graff; Sewall is a druggist, who has just returned from the army, and who
married Miss Ruth James, of Fowler, and resides at that place; Edwin, Jr.,
owns an adjoining ranch of 160 acres and married Grace Raphendahl. of
Fowler; Gei'trude lives at Oakland; and Cora N. is also in that city, where
she is head nurse at the Merritt Hospital.
Mr. Gower is powerful physically. Good-natured, generous-hearted, and
gifted with an extensive knowledge of horticulture and the nursery, he is at all
times interesting as a conversationalist. He is a member and Past Nol)le
Grand of the Odd Fellows Lodge at Fowler, and member of the Grand Lodge.
LAWRENCE VOUGHT.— California, in the earlier days, appealed most
to the young men, those who were not afraid of hardships nor unwilling to
work, and these have made the State what it is today. Among those who have
thus stamped themselves a part of this great commonwealth, is Lawrence
Vought, who, though encountering hardships, has courageously overcome
them, and today he enjoys the fruits of his labor.
Mr. A^ought was born in Decatur, Van Buren County, Mich., June 5, 1S65.
His father. Samuel, was born in Michigan, and was a farmer. During the
Civil War he served his country in a ]\Iichigan Regiment. ha\-ing si.x brothers
also in the war. all but one of whom returned. He died in Michigan at the
age of sixty-five years. His mother was Phoebe Goble. born in Indiana. Her
family was from Kentucky. There were five children, three girls and two boys,
of wliom Lawrence was the oldest. The mother died in Michigan.
Mr. V^ought was reared on a farm, and early laid the foundation for that
industry and knowledge which have enabled him to achieve the success he
has gained. He received his education in the public schools, assisting his
father on the farm until the spring of 1888, when he came to the Coast, going
first to Washington, and later in the same year to Visalia. Cal.. where he
engaged in farm work for two years. In 1890 he came to Fresno. This was
comparatively a small place in that day. He went to work and saved his
money, which enabled him to lease some land on Fish Slough, where he fol-
lowed farming for twelve years. But prices were low when he got a crop,
and this, with the dry years and the floods, made it impossible to get ahead,,
so at the end of this time he quit there, coming out about even. He then
made a trip to Michigan but returned to California and was employed as a
driver for a harvester that fall.
In 1903, Mr. Vought bought forty-five acres on McKinley and Rolinda
Avenues, which he improved and planted to alfalfa, remaining there until
1907, when he sold to Mr. Houghton. He then purchased his present place
of sixty acres on Rolinda Boulevard, McKinley and Belmont, ten and a half
miles west of Fresno. He set out twenty acres to wine grapes and the balance
he sowed to alfalfa. The grapes were a failure, so he dug them all up, putting
the whole ranch in alfalfa. He then engaged in dairying, and now has twenty-
five of the finest Holstein milkers in that region ; there is a sanitary dairy
barn and the milkhouse has a cooling arrangement; he also has two pumping
plants with two twelve-horsepower engines with four- and six-inch pumps.
In September, 1907. Mr. Vought was married in Hanford, Cal.. to Mrs.
Renvig (Bryan) Glass, who was born in Florida. She was the daughter of
H. P. and Rebecca (Myers) Bryan. She was orphaned at six years of age, and
there were six brothers and sisters besides herself. She came to California
with two brothers and three sisters, having been sent for by her grandparents,
866 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Mr. and Mrs. Darius Myers, and lived at Malaga, where she was reared and
educated. She was married first to Jeff Glass, a blacksmith who died in Ma-
dera. To this union there were two children. Francis H. and lone R. Mr. and
IVIrs. Vought are the parents of one child, Samuel.
In politics Mr. Vought is a Republican, and takes great interest in public
affairs. He is a member of the San Joaquin Valley Milk Producers Associa-
tion, and is a stockholder in the Danish Creamery. He is one of the old-
timers in this section, and he and his wife are well known for their liberality
and kindness.
DUNCAN WALLACE, A.B., B.D., A.M.— AMiat California owes to the
scholarly and conscientious members of the clerical profession who have
helped evolve the crude commonwealth into the great Golden State, is well
illustrated in the life and work of the Reverend Duncan ^^'allace, who came
to California nearly two decades ago and has since then shown himself to be,
in his interest in varied human affairs, and in his sensible enjoyment of the
present life, both a man of and above the world. He was born in Six Mile,
Bibb County, Ala., on January 20, 1868, the son of John Lee Wallace, a native
of the highlands of Scotland. His grandfather, Duncan Wallace, brought his
family to Gallatin, Tenn., when John Lee was eight years old: and there he
busied himself as a farmer. Later, the family located on Cahaba River, in
Bibb County ; and there, prominent as a planter, the senior Wallace lived
and died, mourned especially by the members of the Presbyterian com-
munion, to which he belonged. John Lee ^^'allace served in the Civil ■\^^ar in
the Sixth Alabama Cavalry, being a sergeant under General Bedford Forrest :
and he was afterwards a farmer and a planter, making a specialty of cotton,
and raising grain and stock. He married Mary Elizabeth Pratt, who had been
bom in that vicinity, and the daughter of Hopkins Pratt, a native of Georgia
who was later a planter in Alabama. Both Mr. and I\Irs. ^^^allace are now
dead. He was twice married. By the first marriage, he had one son; and by
the second, two daughters and four sons, all of whom are still living.
Duncan ^^'allace was the oldest child of the second union, and was edu-
cated at the public schools, and at Six Mile Academy, whose course he com-
pleted in 1888. He then entered Cumberland University, from which he was
graduated in 1892 with the degree of A. B. From the undergraduate depart-
ment he went into the theological at Cumberland, and at Lebanon. Tenn.. in
1894. was graduated with the degree of B. D. He then entered the Union
Theological Seminary in New York where he remained for a year, and from
which he was graduated in 1895. After that he took a postgraduate course,
first in Columbia University and then in the LTniversity of the City of New
York, and he received from the latter institution the coveted degree of A. M.
By 1888, Air. ^^'a^ace had joined the Alabama Presbytery and was re-
ceived as a candidate for the ministry ; and in 1892 he was licensed to preach.
In August. 1895, he was ordained at Oak Grove, Ala., and then he came di-
rectly north to Walla Walla, Wash., as a pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church there. He continued in that field five years and a month ; and having
a desire to come to California, he accepted a call to Fresno and resigned his
Washington pastorate. On October 1. 1900. therefore, the Reverend Wallace
became pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at the corner of N and
Tulare Streets, at that time housed in a small frame building. In 1905 the
congregation built the large brick church on the same location at a cost of
$18,000.
After a most successful pastorate of fourteen years, the Reverend Wal-
lace resigned and accepted a call to become the pastor of the Belmont Avenue
Presbyterian Church, but at the end of two years and three months he re-
signed to take the pastorate, in 1917, of the United Presbyterian Church in
the Barstow Colony, where his ministrations met, under God's blessing, with
the same satisfactory results.
^1
i4^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 869
Meantime, Mr. \\'allace had become interested in both viticulture and
horticulture, and for the purpose of experimenting, he bought ten acres on
Tulare Avenue, east of Fresno. Soon after the introduction of the street-
car to that neighborhood increased his land-values, and he also found it too
small ; so he sold the holding at a good profit, and then bought his present
ranch of eighty acres on McKinley Avenue, twelve miles northwest of Fresno.
He releveled it, improved the ranch with a residence and other buildings, set
out thirty acres of Thompson seedless grapes, and planted the rest to alfalfa
and grain. As a ranchman interested in the development of Central Cali-
fornia's resources and industries, Mr. AVallace is a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company and of the California Alfalfa Growers Association.
In October, 1900, the Reverend Wallace was married at Portland, Ore.,
to Miss Eva Westfall, a native of Echo, Ore., and the daughter of a well-
known Oregon pioneer. Her grandfather was also a pioneer in Oregon. Five
children blessed the union, all of whom are at home : ^^^estfall, Duncan, Nor-
man, and the twins, Hugh and Reryl.
When active in the work of the ministry. Reverend Wallace was IModer-
ator of the Presbytery and for five years the Presbytery's Stated Clerk, an
office from which he eventually resigned, but not before he saw the San Joa-
quin Valley Presbytery grow from twelve to sixty-five members. He was
made a Mason in Walla Walla Lodge No. 7, F. & A. M., and he is now a mem-
ber of the Las Palmas Lodge No. 247, F. & A. M., Fresno. As a sportsman,
Mr. Wallace is fond of both hunting and fishing. He has killed many deer and
even brown bear (in Granite Canyon) together with four other Coast bears,
and when he takes his rod and reel he is fairly sure of a catch.
LITCHFIELD Y. MONTGOMERY.— A rancher who has been very
successful in breeding full-blooded cattle and hogs, coming to own a couple
of valuable farm properties, and yet a citizen who has found time to serve
his fellow men in the responsible office of supervisor, is Litchfield Y. Mont-
gomery, who resides in the Alta Vista restricted district in the city of Fresno,
and is also the proprietor of 240 acres two and a half miles from Riverdale and
a forty-acre fruit ranch near Hanford. He was born eleven miles west of
Maryville. Blount County, Tenn., on May 17, 1857, the son of a farmer who
owned 444 acres and followed general farming. It is said that his .paternal
grandfather, W. G. Montgomery, built the first brick house in Blount County
— a pioneer farmer of Irish-Presbyterian stock. Litchfield's mother had been
Mary Jane Burton before her marriage, born in Virginia, and when a babe
she was taken to Tennessee by her parents. The parents of both Mr. and
Mrs. Montgomery, as well as his grandparents, died in Tennessee.
Eleven children made up the family, and eight are still living, three
having died in childhood. Of the eight, four are in California. Litchfield, of
this review ; John, a stockman and a farmer near Hanford ; Margaret, the
wife of J. W. Goodnight, a carpenter and a rancher who resides in Fresno ;
and Elbert R., a rancher near Hanford. Of the other four, Samuel C, who
was the oldest, is a rancher in the northeastern part of Texas ; while William
G., a clothing salesman, resides at Knoxville, Tenn. ; Miss Elizabeth M.
^Montgomery lives at Greenback, Tenn. ; and George W. is a farmer on the
old Montgomery place. The latter's son and a grandson reside on a part
of the place that his Grandfather Montgomery entered from the government,
making five generations of Montgomerys on the same land since the title
was held by Uncle Sam.
Litchfield grew up on his father's farm, attended the schools in Eastern
Tennessee, and for a term and a half studied at IMaryville College. He has
faint recollections of the Civil War and heard the windows shake from the
concussions of the cannon at the Battle of Concord, eighteen miles from his
home. When twenty-one, he went to Louisiana and spent two years on cot-
ton, rice and sugar plantations. And from there, in January, 1881, he came
to California.
870 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
He first settled at Grangeville, then in Tulare and now in Kings County,
and worked out for wages. At Grangeville he was married to Miss Jennie G.
Latham, daughter of Charles and Frances (\\'emple) Latham, the former a
native of the region near Ottawa, LaSalle County, 111., and the latter from
the vicinity of Lakewood, N. Y. Her. parents were married in Sutter County,
Cal., in 1868, six years after Mr. Latham crossed the great plains with wagons
and horses, and seven years after Miss Wemple came across the prairies with
her parents. After their marriage, they settled in Sutter County and there
farmed, and then they moved to the vicinity of Grangeville, where the father
died aged seventy-four years. The widow is still living, at the age of sixty-
five, the mother of six children, all of whom are also living: Jennie, who is
Mrs. Montgomery; George E., a rancher at Lemoore ; Charles F., a farmer
near Hanford ; ]\iollie, the wife of O. W. Railsback, a farmer near Grange-
ville: Grace, the wife of Leonard Cardwell. a clerk in a store in Hanford;
and Harold, a farmer at Grangeville. Mrs. Montgomery grew up in Colusa
County, where her father lived and farmed five years before coming here.
After they were married, ]\Ir. and Mrs. Montgomery came to the vicinity
of Riverdale, and for five years farmed there. Then Mr. Montgomery bought
eighty acres of land north of Hanford, of which he still retains forty acres.
But prior to that he purchased 140 acres, the first part of the ranch of 240
acres two and a half miles southeast of Riverdale, which his sons Cloyd and
Russell are now renting. There he breeds full-blooded Poland-China hogs
and Holstein cattle.
Mr. Montgomery served as supervisor of Kings County, and during his
incumbency the old Fair Grounds at Hanford was purchased and a county
hospital erected on a part of the grounds, and the County Fair also was
permanently established. Mr. Montgomery is still a director of the Kings
County Fair Association. He is also a director of the Riverside Ditch Com-
pany, and is president of the Western Water Lasers Company, which he
helped to organize in 1914 and has defended valiantly in court, winning out
for the rights of the water-users. The valuable water-rights of the residents
on the Laguna de Tache Grant were being encroached upon by the Fresno
Canal and Irrigation Company, and through Mr. Montgomery's plucky fight,
he obtained a ruling that was satisfactory to himself and co-plaintiffs. He
made complaint before the Railroad Commission ; the case was hotly con-
tested, but the subject and his company won out.
In the fall of 1917, Mr. and Mrs. Montgomer\' moved up to Fresno, and
now they are enjoying life in their beautiful two-story stucco residence in
the Alta Vista district. They have three children: Cloyd B., who married
Mary Shellaberger of Hanford, and who by her had one child, Leland Niles,
who took the first prize at the "Better Babies" exhibit at the Kings County
Fair in 1916 and also in 1917, and the grand sweepstakes over all the Better
Babies at the Kings County Fair at Hanford. Russell L., who enlisted in
1917 in the One Hundred Forty-third United States Field Artillery at San
Francisco, signing up on December 14. and was honorably discharged in the
same city on January 5, 1919, after training at Camp Kearney at San Diego,
from there being sent to New York, and in August, 1918, sailing for Europe,
and after being in England three months he crossed the English Channel on
the old S. S. Harvard and was landed in France on September 1st and was
standing guard near Bordeaux, when on November 11, 1918, he personally
received the telegram announcing the signing of -the armistice, bringing the
.same to his commanding officer. Creed L. Montgomery, who is a graduate
from the Fresno High School. Class of 1919.
Mr. and ]\Irs. Montgomery are members of the Kings River Methodist
Episcopal Church, situated near their ranch of 240 acres, which they helped
to organize and build. He is a trustee in the California Peach Growers, Inc.,
and also a stockholder in the California Associated Raisin Company.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 871
MRS. DOTTIE ALICE BROWN.— Since the death of her husband, the
late Charles J. Brown, who was one of the largest and most successful ranchers
in his section of Fresno County, Mrs. Dottie A. Brown, has had the manage-
ment of the large estate, and by her wise and capable operation of her large
ranches, with the aid of her sons, she has proved herself to be an excellent
business woman and efficient manager.
Mrs. Dottie A. Brown is a native daughter of California, having been
born near Modesto, Stanislaus County, a daughter of Jacob ^^^ and Rebecca
E. fWeaver) Browne. Her father, Jacob W. Browne, is one of the oldest
settlers of the San Joaquin Valley, and a native of Philadelphia, Pa., where
he was born on April 7. 1851, a son of Isaac E. Browne, who was a native of
New York, but later took up his residence in the Quaker City, where he
worked at the trade of a machinist. Grandfather Isaac Browne migrated with
his family to Illinois, settling at W'inchester, Scott County, and after remain-
ing there for seven years moved to Benton County, Mo., locating near Ver-
sailles, where he engaged in farming and in which place he passed away.
Jacob W. Browne, the father of the subject of this sketch, was reared in
Illinois and Missouri and at the age of nineteen he took up his residence with
an uncle, Dr. Horace A. Browne, who lived in IMercer County. I\Io., and who,
in addition to practicing medicine, conducted a drug store. Jacob Browne
was employed in this store for two 3'ears, and about this time, 1871, he was
united in marriage at Princeton, Mo., with Rebecca E. ^A'eaver. a native of
Clark County, Mo. Soon after his marriage, Mr. Browne migrated westward,
stopping first in ^^\voming and in 1873 settling in California, his first home
being located near Modesto. Stanislaus Countv. where he engaged in grain-
raising. In 1878. on account of his father's health, he returned to Missouri to
visit him, and was persuaded by him to buy a farm and remain. ?Ie stayed
for five years, during which time his father died, and afterwards he returned
to California, locating in Fresno, in 1884. He purchased 340 acres of land in
the Garfield district and engaged in raising grain, in which business he was
very successful and continued in it until he retired. Jacob AV. Browne and
his estimable wife are still living, surrounded by the comforts of life, in their
splendid home place on Clay Avenue. Fresno. Seven of their children grew
to maturity: Dottie A., Mrs. Charles J. Brown; Daisy, the wife of Ray G.
Johnson, of Fresno : R. Lee. who owiis a part of the old home place where
he raises figs ; Ella. ]\Irs. G. T. Ellithorpe. of Fresno ; V. E.. residing in Fresno ;
I. Wise, a viticulturist, who owns a portion of the old home place; Amanda,
the wife of Rufus Jones, of Selma.
Mrs. Dottie A. Brown received her early education in the pulilic schools
of Missouri, and after her father returned to California, she attended the pub-
lic school of Garfield district, Fresno County. On May 22, 1895, she was
united in marriage with Charles J. Brown, wlio was a native son of California,
having been born near Millerton, Fresno County, on Mav.21, 1870, a son of
Samuel Brown, a native of Maine. When a young man Samuel Brown came
to San Francisco by the way of Cape Horn and after his arrival he located
in Contra Costa County where he engaged in the stock business, later settling
on Little Dry Creek, Fresno County, where he engaged in the sheep business
and afterwards in the cattle business, but was engaged in farming at the time
of his death, in 1895.
Charles J. Brown made his own way in the world after reaching his six-
teenth year, and was very successful ; although still a young man when he
passed away, he had accumulated a large estate and was considered one of
the leading agriculturists of the county. He operated at one time 2,500 acres
of the Helm ranch and was so successful in his business ventures that he
bought 175 acres of the Helm ranch and also purchased 1,125 acres of the old
Birkhead ranch, situated in the Pollasky district on Little Dry Creek, but
he made his home on his place in the Garfield district. The home place, which
consists of 175 acres, is devoted principally to the culture of figs, of the Cali-
872 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
myrna variety, although forty acres are planted to vines. The large ranch
containing 1,125 acres, situated in the Pollasky district, is devoted to grain
and stock, but it is the intention to devote a portion of it to raising figs.
Charles J- Brown's successful career was cut short by his passing away in
1907, at the age of thirty-seven. He was mourned by his many friends, having
been highly esteemed as a citizen, active in the county's best interests. Mr.
and Mrs. Charles J. Brown were blessed with four children : Floyd C. ; Stan-
ley F. ; Lawrence B. ; and Edward Wise, all of whom are at home and assist
their mother in the operation of her ranch.
Mrs. Dottie Brown is a member of the Clevis Women's- Club, and of the
Fresno Parlor of the Native Daughters of the Golden West, and she also
belongs to the California Associated Raisin Company, and California Peach
Growers, Inc., and is active in the Clovis local of the Fresno County Farm
Bureau. She attends the Christian Church.
HENRY STEPHEN HULBERT.— A splendid type of the self-made
man. and as fine an example of the true American, is Henry Stephen Hulbert,
president of the First National Bank of Del Rey, and an extensive and suc-
cessful raisin and peach grower who, as a pioneer of Selma, has been inti-
mately connected with the growth and development of this part of the San
Joaquin Valley. He came here in 1879, and has ever since been an active
factor in the development of Fresno County and the neighboring territory
of Central California. He was born at Victor, Ontario County, N. Y., the
son of Mark Hulbert, a hard-working farmer, who was a native of Massa-
chusetts and first saw the light near Barrington. on the Housatonic River,
in a district long the seat of the Hulbert family. Grandfather Hulbert came
from Massachusetts to New York with his family in 1831. and on the way
drove a bull team on the tow-path of the Erie Canal. Mark Hulbert was
then twelve years old : and he grew up in Ontario County. N. Y., and lived
and died on a farm of eighty acres, part of which the grandfather took up.
There, too, he was married: but the mother of our subject died when he
was only three years old, and after his father remarried, the lad's early life
was no longer liappv, nor is it pleasant now to remember.
By his first wife, Mark Hulbert had four boys and two girls, among
whom Henry Stephen was the youngest. John Russell, the eldest, went out
with the first company that left New York State for the Civil War in 1861,
and his regiment was known as the First New York Mounted Rifles. He
fought bravely and died of typhoid fever while campaigning in Suffolk, Va.
Sheldon, the second son, was equally patriotic ; he went out in the train
service in the Civil War, and was killed in a railway accident between Mead-
ville and Salamanca, Euphemia died young. Marcus enlisted in 1863 in
Companv M, of the Twenty-first New York Volunteer Cavalry, passed
through all the hard service, serving his full time, and came home so broken
in health that he died within a month after his return. Hettie became the
wife of W. P. Davis, who worked for the Union Pacific Railway in early days
and died in Kansas : and she also passed away in that state.
Henry Stephen Hulbert was born on Washington's Birthday, 1851, and
grew up with five children by his father's second wife. Two of these are
still living in Victor. N. Y., and in Shortsville. near by. He attended the
district schools, and then worked on his father's farm. He was faithful to his
father, and remained at home until a few years after attaining his majority,
when he made up his mind to come West. Finding it necessary to stop a
couple of years in Cheyenne, he wiped engines on the main line of the Union
Pacific, later became a fireman, and still later was a brakeman on a freight
train. Finally he was promoted to be a freight conductor; and he made his
headquarters in Cheyenne from April, 1874, to 1876. Pushing further west
in the latter year, at length he arrived at Sacramento, where he tried to get
work as a brakeman, but was unable to do so ; and on that account he went
on to Lathrop, where he was more successful. But he had to wait for thirty
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 877
days, and then commenced as brakeman on the Visalia division of the South-
ern Pacific. After a 3'ear. he was given a freight train, which he ran until
December, 1879, when he quit and started for Arizona.
Now it so happened that A. L. Bartlett, the ticket agent at Kingsburg
at that time, had had an unfinished business transaction with Mr. Flulbert,
which induced the latter to stop at Kingsburg on the way and try to settle
up the matter. The agent wished him to wait until pay-day, and so Mr.
Hulbert loafed at Kingsburg and ran over to Selma from time to time. He
had a particular interest in the place ; for while he was conductor, he had
set out the first car of freight ever consigned to the Selma switch. The car
contained machinery for the flouring mill then being built there by Frey
Bros. Getting interested in the prospective town, ]\Ir. Hulbert bought for
$200 the first lot ever sold at Selma for money. It was on the northwest
corner of West Front and Second Streets. Several lots had been given away
before, but I\Ir. Hulbert became the first bona fide purchaser, and the deed
was signed by the four fathers of the town. Being now a lot-owner, Mr.
Hulbert put up the first two-story building for store purposes erected in
Selma. It had a public hall in the second storv, and this was Selma's first
public hall; and therein, on February 22, 1880, the first public ball was
given, the proceeds constituting the first money taken in by the way of rent
or profit in Selma. This building had been opened a year and nine months,
and Mr. Hulbert was just getting ready to start a restaurant when, in the
winter of 1881-82, a fire occurred that burned him out and destroyed much
else of value there. He decided not to rebuild, and sold his property for just
what he had paid for it, $200, and then turned to other fields of enterprise.
Mr. Hulbert had already applied for the purchase of the 160 acres he
came to own in Selma, filing his petition in 1879, but there arose a question
as to whether he or another applicant should be awarded the land. In the
spring of 1880, however, the contest was settled and the land was awarded
to Mr. Hulbert, as he had the best intentions of improving the same; and he
then accepted any kind of a job he could get, such as carpenter work and
work in the warehouse at Selma, to help him live and pay the interest and
taxes. While thus occupied, he was married, in 1882, to Miss Emma Litch-
field, of Lathrop, Cal.. an attractive daughter of Illinois, from Fulton County.
Her father had come to California seven years before and had taken up farm-
ing. Her mother, now Mrs. Bailey, is still residing at Lathrop. aged
eightv-six. Mr. Hulbert went to work for the California Pacific Railway
Company and again ran freight trains from Vallejo to Calistoga, and out to
Willows ; and in railway work he continued for a year, when he prepared to
engage, as already stated, in the restaurant business at Selma ; but the third
night after he had returned, the building burned. It was then that he built
a shack on his farm. There was just enough grass on the 160 acres to make
a hen's nest; the nearest switch was at Fowler, and the nearest business
point was Selma. His first crop was wheat and barley. Farming was very
uncertain without irrigation, and he hardly made small wages. But he con-
tinued to farm and to cultivate his land, and in 1884 he planted his first
vines. For a good while, the returns were very discouraging; he had to sell
fine muscat raisins for eighteen and a half dollars a ton. Such prices being
ruinous, he cooperated with his neighbors in trying to secure a stable and
reliable market. He took a live interest in all the movements to provide a
market and living prices, but all these eflforts failed until the California Raisin
Growers' Association finally made a success of its project. Mr. Hulbert, in
looking back to these dark days, finds satisfaction in the thought that he
was in the forefront in taking stock in the Raisin Growers' Association, as
well as in interesting his neighbors in it. He was the first man in this neigh-
borhood to try to sell stock in this association, and he personally took stock
and sold it to others. He succeeded in getting two or three neighbors to join,
and together they took $40,000 worth of stock— subscriptions that meant a
878 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
good deal in those days. Now he has one hundred acres of muscats, and also
fine vineyards of Malagas and Thompson Seedless, and an orchard of peaches.
Mr. and Mrs. Hulbert have five children. Hettie is the wife of Joseph A.
Kenry, a rancher living near Selma, and is the mother of three girls and two
boys. May is the wife of X'ernon Matlock, also a rancher near Selma. Goldie
California graduated from the University of California and taught two years
at Santa Ynez, in Santa Barbara County. Victor operated his father's ranch
until he left home in September, 1918, to enter the service of his country and
went into training at Camp Kearney, where he died of pneumonia on Novem-
ber 20. 1918. Velma attends the Selma High School.
Besides being prominent as a stockholder and member of the Califor-
nia Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers. Inc., Mr.
Hulbert, as president of the First National Bank of Del Rey, is able to effect
much good as a capitalist and a money lender. Upon the reorganization of
the Farmers' National Bank as the Selma National Bank, Mr. Hulbert be-
came a stockholder, and he has since served as a director. He also was one
of the organizers of the Le Grand Bank, in Alerced County. He is an A-1
citizen, ever mindful of the ideal in politics, voting for principle and for men
of principle, and placing conscience above party affiliation ; and with his
good wife he stands ready to promote local movements for the public weal.
He was chairman for Del Rey of all the Liberty Loan issues after the first,
and the town went over the top in every instance. The quota of the Second
Loan was $9,000; amount subscribed, $13,700. For the Third Loan the quota
was $12,000; amount subscribed, $36,000; number of subscribers, 235. For
the Fourth Loan the quota was $17,000; amount subscribed, $35,650. For
the Victory Loan the subscriptions were $20,000, the quota being $15,750.
Besides this, the ^^"ar Savings Stamps and Thrift Stamps approximated about
$15,000.
JOHN KAISER.— Born in Alsace, France, I\Tarch 5, 1863, John Kaiser
was the son of Manuel Kaiser, a doctor doing government work. His parents
came to New York State where his mother died. The father died at Fresno,
where he came to make his home with his son.
John Kaiser was the third oldest of a family of six children, and was
reared and educated in Alsace. At an early age he was apprenticed to a
machinist and learned the trade thoroughly. In 1880, in his seventeenth year,
he went to Rochester, N. Y., where he worked at his trade until 1887, then,
in the fall of that year he, with two brothers, started for California, making
the trip on horseback from Nevada. They eventually reached California, rode
down the coast to San Luis Obispo, then to San Diego and back across the
Tehachapi to Fresno, early in February, 1888.
Mr. Kaiser located on a 120-acre ranch at Raymond, now in Madera
County, which he preempted, and then came to Fresno, shortly thereafter
purchasing ten acres of land in the Kearney tract. This was raw land, and he
started to improve by planting a vineyard. During this time he was in the
employ of M. Theo. Kearney, as foreman of the Kearney (Fruitvale) Ranch;
he directed the planting of 70,000 trees along Kearney Avenue and superin-
tended the first buildings in Kearney Park. He also superintended the first
planting of Kearney Park, and became well acquainted with Mr. Kearney,
which intimacy led him to remain there from 1888 to 1893, when he resigned.
Moving into Fresno, he engaged in business for two years, then went back
to his own little ranch, besides which he leased other vineyards and remained
there four years.
Then came the Alaska gold excitement. His brother, H. G., was one of
the first pioneers at Nome, and one of a party which originally discovered gold
on the Beach. He wrote for his brother John, who went to Alaska remaining
there for a season. In 1902 he returned to his ranch and later bought his
present place, forty acres eight miles west of Fresno. In 1903 he began im-
proving it, setting out peaches and sowing alfalfa and in 1905 built his present
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 879
residence. He leased forty acres more and operated eighty acres for ten years.
His ranch is now in peaches and Thompson seedless grapes.
Mr. Kaiser was married in Rochester, N. Y., to Miss Anna Doaring, a
native of that city, and they have had eight children, three now living: Lucile,
Mrs. Hayes of San Francisco ; Fred E. and George E., both in Fresno. Mr.
Kaiser is an expert horticulturist and viticulturist, and has a splendid record
in planting. He is interested in public affairs, in politics a Democrat, and
altogether a man whom it is worth while to know, for he has succeeded in
makinn- two blades grow where only one grew before.
JOHN NEWTON HINES.— No class of California pioneers came to
better understand the early conditions peculiar to the Pacific Coast than such
business men as John Newton Flines — men who saw the inside as well as
the outside of the cup, and who. adapting themselves to changing circum-
stances succeeded in much that they attempted, and became masters in more
than one field of endeavor. ]\Ir. Hines' grandfather was Isaac Hines, a na-
tive of Marjdand and a soldier in the War of 1812, who settled in Tennessee
and there built both flour- and saw-mills. His father was Archilaus D. C.
Hines, who was born in the same vicinity and followed the same line of
business. He had a saw-mill on the Tennessee River, at the mouth of Chook
Creek, where he obtained his water power; and he furnished lumber for
building up much of Knoxville. He continued the industry for fifteen years
after the Civil War, and then sold out and moved to Carthage, Mo., but re-
turned to Tennessee to look after his father's farm. Still later in life, in 1892,
he came to California, and since then he has made his home in Fresno. He
is now ninety-four years old. and lives at 333 Blackstone Avenue. During the
Civil AVar, he passed through some very trying times — due to his Union
sentiments at a time when he was among or near so many Southerners. He
believed that the Union must be upheld, and discountenanced Secession; and
even his life was threatened in consequence. He was willing at any time to
give up his property to save the Union, and he was proud of the fact that
a brother was a captain in the Union Army. ]\Irs. A. D. C. Hines was Mar-
garet P. Bowman before her marriage, and she came of an old Southern
family. She was born near \\hitesburg, Ala., and died at Fresno in April,
1915. She was the mother of six boys, all but one of whom are still living,
and three girls. Those living are: Dr. J. B. Hines, a practicing physician of
Fresno, the eldest; John N., the subject of our sketch; F. M. Hines, a farmer
at Tranquillity; .Samuel B. Flines, who resides at Fresno; Dr. A. Don Hines,
of San Jose; Edith M., and Mrs. Mary L. Lane, both of Fresno; and Alice,
now Mrs. Williams, of the Temperance district.
Born at Knoxville, Tenn., on November 14, 1858, John Newton Hines
was brought up in Tennessee, where he attended a private school until he
was twelve years old, when he removed to ]\Iissouri ; and after finishing with
the elementary and secondary schools, he attended the State Military School
at Knoxville. Finally he entered the East Tennessee Wesleyan University,
from which he was graduated in 1884 with special honors and received the
degree of Bachelor of Arts.
In 1885, Mr. Hines came West to California and to Fresno, where he
was soon engaged as bookkeeper for Kutner, Goldstein & Co., which posi-
tion he held to everyone's satisfaction for a couple of years. Then he was
advised by Dr. Rowell, on account of illness, to give up all indoor work,
or he would not recover. He therefore resigned, and with his brother, F. M.
Hines, bought teams and engaged in teaming, hauling lumber from Pine
Ridge. The outdoor work agreed with him, and he again became robust.
Before the flume on which they were working was completed, the}^ sold their
teams, and John, with John Albin as a partner, then ran the Pleasanton, now
the California Hotel. 'After that, with his brothers, F. M. and S. B.. he
started a grocery business, under the firm name of J. N. Hines and Bros.,
at the corner of I and Fresno Streets, and soon built up a very prosperous
880 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
business. This interest he sold in 1906 in order to give his attention to his
vineyard and farm ; for some years before he had purchased 160 acres nine
miles northeast of Fresno. He began to improve the holding by setting out
a vineyard and planting alfalfa ; and later he erected a brick residence and
other buildings. As the acreage is under the old Gould ditch, the grapes and
alfalfa do well, and always there is a bumper harvest: and it is little wonder
that, wishing to retire from farming to devote his attention to his other
business affairs, Mr. Hines readily sold his home place of eighty acres for
the magnificent sum of $70,000. At present the place is used largely for a
vineyard for table and raisin grapes. JNIr. Hines also owns other valuable
lands, including twenty acres near Roeding Park and eighty acres at \Vah-
toke. He has valuable business and residence lots in Richmond, some of
which are in the Inner Harbor, and he holds the title to considerable real
estate in Fresno. Believing in cooperation, he is a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company.
In Fresno, Mr. Hines was married to Miss Annie May Owens, said to
have been the first girl baby born in that city. She was the daughter of
William and Julia Owens, and her father was a well-known pioneer contrac-
tor, who died here. Mrs. Owens resides at Santa Rosa. Mrs. Hines was
educated at the Fresno High School. All too soon, in 1906, she passed to
her eternal reward. She was the mother of si-x children : Dorris E., attending
Junior College at Fresno ; Archie B., Gertrude E., and Margaret, attending
the Fresno High School ; and John B. and Mary J. Mr. Hines is a member of
Lodge No. 186, I. O. O. F., of Fresno. In politics he favors the policies of
the Republican party.
JOHN H. KELLY. — A man who may justly be called a pioneer up-
builder of Fresno County is found in the person of John H. Kelly, a resident
of the county since the spring of 1887. He was born in Cortland County,
N. Y., October 14, 1842, where his parents, Patrick and Bridget Kelly, had
settled when the country was in an almost virgin condition, and carved out
a farm and home, where they lived in comfort. While he was growing from
youth to manhood, John H. Kelly assisted in the development of the home
farm, and when not at work with his father, went to the district school in
their neighborhood in pursuit of an education. Conditions were crude; the
schoolhouse was constructed of logs and the floor was of puncheon. It was
here, under such pioneer conditions, that the sturdy character of this youth
was moulded up to the time he was sixteen years of age. He then went on
a trip of exploration to the Mediterranean Sea, sailing from New York City,
via London, to Spain. He spent some time at the celebrated fortress of
Gibraltar, and returned home after an absence of two years, during which
time he gained a fund of valuable information.
In 1860 John H. Kelly returned to the United States and located at Mid-
land, Midland County, Mich., where for two seasons he engaged in lumber-
ing with his brother, William Kelly, after which he opened a general merchan-
dise store in ]\Iidland and carried on a prosperous business for five years,
when he gave it up. Later he was appointed postmaster of Midland, his
appointment being among the first made by President Grover Cleveland dur-
ing his first term, and he served four years.
In the spring of 1887 ]\Ir. Kelly came to California, and during his travels
stopped at Fresno, making the newly built Grand Central Hotel his head-
quarters. ^^'^hile there he met Mr. Ferguson, then editor of one of the local
papers, who drove him about the city and country. Mr. Kelly had brought
a carload of buggies from ^Michigan, intending to sell them in California.
During the drive about the country he was much impressed with the
possibilities of this section, and soon negotiated for a forty-acre tract one
and one-half miles south of the city limits, and traded in his buggies as part
payment on the $8,000 deal. The land had just been set to muscat grapes,
and a house had been built on the property by the owner. After the vines
X
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 883
came into bearing, Mr. Kelly, with others, erected a packing-house on the
site of the plant now owned by the Hammond Packing Company ; a coopera-
tive raisin association was formed, the first of its kind in California, with
T. C. White as the first president. Mr. Kelly was sent East to sell the output
of the association, and made stops at Chicago, Detroit, Boston and New York
City, besides many other important cities throughout the East and South.
After a tour of two months the crop was disposed of and agencies were
established in various cities for future business. On his return to California,
Mr. Kelly was elected president of the company and W. F. Forsythe was
made secretary. Two years later Mr. Kelly left this concern, to become a
member of the firm of the Chaddock Packing Company, where for twelve
years, including his services before and after his trip to Alaska, he was
manager of the packing-houses and devoted his time and attention to the
building-up of that concern.
In 1897, when the gold excitement broke out in Alaska, Mr. Kelly went
to Dawson, and during the journey experienced many hardships. After pack-
ing over the Chilcoot trail, on reaching the Yukon River the party built
boats and went down stream, making the journey to the new Eldorado in
safety. Mr. Kelly met with fairly good success. With three partners he
engaged in the general merchandise business in Dawson and owned the
Skokum Mine on Bonanza Creek, famous in Alaskan history. This com-
pany cleaned up about $60,000 in four months. Some time after this Mr.
Kelly sold out his mercantile interests in Alaska and came back to Fresno.
The next year he made the second trip to Dawson, going by steamer and rail
all of the way. On this trip he sold out all of his mining interests. On his
return home he became interested in the oil business, and with others in-
vested a^30ut $120,000 on Binoche Creek, Fresno County; but no good results
came from the venture.
The real estate business appealing to Mr. Kelly, he bought a tract of land
located about three blocks southwest of the new State Normal School, and
this deal he considers one of the best he ever made. He subdivided the tract
and sold lots on ten-dollar monthly payments, with seven per cent, interest
on deferred payments. He built manv homes for his purchasers, as well
as houses on his own lots, selling the latter on the installment plan, the in-
stallments ranging from fifteen to thirty dollars per month. He preferred
to sell in this way rather than for cash, as he would have a certain amount
of money coming in each month. So successful was he in this venture that he
bought a tract west of Russian Town, which he subdivided and handled in
the "same manner. Mr. Kelly is still building on his lots in the two
tracts, and has his offices at 1033 J Street. He is very well pleased with
his venture in the real estate business in Fresno County.
Mr. Kelly has always been a lover of fine horses, especially of trotting
and pacing stock, and has owned some very fine standard-bred animals,
among them the pacing mare Diablo, with a record of 2 :0S. Lottie Lilac
was another of his favorites, and both were well known on the various cir-
cuits, where he won his share of the purses that were put up for the races. In
1903 he assisted in organizing the Gentlemen's Driving Club, of Fresno, and
races were held at the local park which were a source of much pleasure to
the lovers of the sport.
The marriage of J. H. Kellv in ]\Ianteno, 111., on yiay 1, 1873, united him
with Mrs. Almira M. fSeaver) Flood, a native of Craftsburv, Orleans County.
Vt., and the daughter of William and Hannah Seavcr, of A'ermont, in which
state her mother passed away. In 1854 her father removed with his children
to Illinois, locating at Manteno. where he followed farming until he retired.
He spent his last years with Mr. and Mrs. Kellv in Fresno. Mrs. Kelly was
educated in Cottage Grove School, Chicago. Her first marriage occurred in
1863, when she was united with Henry Flood, a soldier in the Civil ^^'ar, and
thereafter a farmer until his death in 1868. Five vears later she met and
8^ HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
married Mr. Kelly, and they became the parents of one daughter, Florence,
who married MilHdge Sherwood, and died in Berkeley, Cal. Mrs. Kelly is
a member of Fresno Parlor Lecture Club. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly are both very
enterprising and have given freely of their time and means toward the further-
ance of all projects that have had for their aim the upbuilding of the State
of CaHfornia and of Fresno County in particiilar, and no more public-spirited
citizens are to be found in the countrv than these two "honored pioneers.
WILLIAM FRANKLIN ROWELL.— Prominent among those New
Englanders who have upheld the best of "Down East" traditions and at the
same time have contributed greatly to elevating that standard which has
given a definite and higher significance to the name of Californian, was W. F.
Rowell, of special interest as having been a member of a sturdy old family,
the great majority if not all of which have in some way distinguished them-
selves. He was a brother of Dr. Chester Rowell, George B. Rowell, and Al-
bert Abbott Rowell, all of them renowned pioneers and commonwealth build-
ers like himself.
William Franklin Rowell was born in ^^'oodsville. N. H.. the son of Jon-
athan and Cynthia fAbbott) Rowell. who mo^-ed west in 1849 with their
eight sons, and settled at Stouts Grove, near Bloomington, 111. There, under
truly wild and unsettled conditions, his father died the next year, and then
he lived and worked on an Illinois farm, doing bis bit toward the support of
the mother, until the outbreak of the Civil \Va.T. The Rowells have in all
generations been distinguished for their Americanism, and in short order
not less than five of the bovs, including our subject, had enlisted in defense
of the Union. W. F. Rowell put his name to the paper that bound him for
military duty on Tune 14. 1861, and became a member of Company D of the
Eighth Missouri Infantry. The fact is that he was originally in an* Illinois
contingent, but the quota for Illinois being full, he joined the Missouri regi-
ment, which was largelv made up of Illinois boys. He served throueh the war
with commendable fidelitv and more than one exhibition of marked bravery;
was veteranized : and on Independence Day. 1864. was duly mustered out as a
corporal.
Having laid aside arms for the more peaceful implements and agencies of
rebuilding a nation. Mr. Rowell spent some years in the ISIiddle West. In 1883
he followed the trail of his brother. Dr. Chester Rowell, who had come to the
Pacific Coast in 1866. and of Albert .-\bbott, who migrated in 1873. and found
himself in California just before the great realtv boom. He looked over the
ground carefully and decided to cast his lot with Fresno, and in a short time
he had entered the field of viticulture in which he became a leading spirit and
a most successful producer. He was active in the first cooperative raisin asso-
ciations, and had a cooperative packing-house at Easton. where his vineyard
was located and where he made his headquarters.
Developing his ranch properties with foresight and judgment, he de-
veloped himself and steadily came more and more before the public, and
hence it was natural that he should be tendered the honor of representing the
Sixty-second District in the Assembly of the State Legislature. It happened
that J:he representative from the Sixtv-third District at that time was N. L. F.
Bauchman. who had served in the Confederate Army, and it is indicative of
the superior character of each gentleman that, when they found, by com-
paring records, that they had fought opposite each other in a number of bat-
tles, they became intimate friends, and so remained, for years helpful in their
fraternal exchanges.
When Mr. Rowell retired, he removed to San Jose, and there, on April
13, 1912, he died, ten days before his brother. Dr. Chester Rowell, passed
away. His esteemed widow continues to make her home at San Jose, the
recipient of every honor and courtesy that is naturally due to the companion
and helpmate of one to whom California owes so much. Of their eight chil-
dren, six are living: Gertrude F., head of the Psychology Department of San
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 885
Jose State Normal; Milo L. and H. D., connected with Hobbs-Parsons Com-
pany, Fresno; Edna Ellen, Mrs. W. C. Claybaiigh of Jefferson District; Ola,
Mrs. C. H. Reynolds of San Jose ; Isabel. Mrs. S. B. Smith of Los Gatos ; Jen-
nie and Jonathan, who died in their vouth.
Mr. Rowell, as might be expected from one of his old Yankee traditions,
became not only a strong Republican but one prominent and guiding in the
councils of the party ; and his influence was felt not merely throughout the
state, but in the legislative halls of the national capitol. He never allowed
party politics, however, to interfere with his energetic cooperation in local
affairs ; and his good works in ci^-ic reform will help to keep alive that altru-
istic spirit needed more and more as society becomes complex and self-
centered.
JOHN R. GLOUGIE. — .A most excellent man, with an enviable record
for real accomplishment, whose memory is the blessed heritage of the man
who knew him as one of the most progressive of Central Californians by
adoption, was John R. Glougie. who passed away somewhat over a decade
ago. His grandfather was John R. Gladu, a native of France who migrated
to America fat which time he changed the family name to Glougie) and set-
tled in Vermont. He had a son, John R. Glougie, who was the father of our
subject. Both grandfather and father made their mark, although in a modest
way, as French-American citizens, contributing something to the early devel-
opment of the neighborhood in which he lived.
John R., of this sketch, was born on February 18, 1839, at Jeffersonville,
Lamoille County, Vt., where his father was a farmer. AVhen the Civil War
broke out and his country needed his services, he served under General Grant
in Company H of the Second Vermont Regiment, and after some of the hard-
est fighting during the Battle of the Wilderness, in 1864, he was wounded
and for the time put out of commission. Fie received the coveted honorable
discharge, however, and in time returned to Vermont.
At Jeffersonville, on January 1. 1865, Mr. Glougie was married to Miss
IMartha Hull, the daughter of John P. Hull, also a soldier in the Civil War,
and an Englishman, who had married Rozina Edwards. Mrs. Glougie's grand-
father, William Edwards, served in the English Army during the AVar of
1812 and afterwards located with his family in \^ermont, and he lived to such
a ripe old age that he was one of the centenarians at the Centennial Exposi-
tion in Philadelphia. After some of their children had settled in Iowa, John
P. Hull and his wife removed there also and resided in the Hawkeye State
until their death. This association of the names of Edwards and Hull is the
more interesting as a part of the life-story of Mr. Glougie because of the
valiant performance of General Oliver Edwards at the Battle of the Wilder-
ness when, on the second day, he broke through the Confederate lines, giving
a splendid example of Yankee prowess.
After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Glougie removed to Austin, Mowpr
County, Minn., where they homesteaded land and engaged in farming. Later,
they sold out and moved to Adair County, Iowa, where they purchased a
farm. Not finding there exactly what they wanted, they sold again, and this
time moved to Prescott, Adams Countv, in the same state, where they became
well-to-do farmers and resided until they moved to Corning, the county seat.
On account of impaired health, Mr. Glougie at length turned his face
toward California, which he and his wife first visited in l505. They liked the
climate and country so well that they concluded to locate here, and in 1907
they came to Fresno, and soon after purchased their residence. Sad to relate.
yir. Glougie closed his eyes to the scenes of this world in June, 1908, a good
man, widely esteemed and by many beloved, and nowhere more welcome
than in the circles of the ]\Iasons, to which time-honored organization he be-
longed.
Since her husband's demise. Mrs. Glougie has resided at the family home.
loved, revered and assisted by her children in the care of her property. She
886 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
is a member of the Christian Church of Fresno, and as a cultured, refined
woman loving the beautiful and the things of good report, she is interested
in the genealogy of her family and in the annals of Fresno County and in all
that pertains to its promising future.
Nine children blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Glougie : Albert, a farmer
near Kerman ; Cora, who is Mrs. Shafer of El Centro ; Eugene, a retired ranch-
er in Fresno; Clyde and Cleon, successful real estate men in Nampa, Idaho;
Irene, who is Mrs. Anthony of Fresno ; Pearl, who married F. T. Bingham and
assists her mother in presiding over her home in Fresno ; Irma, who is Mrs.
C. F. Gallman of the same citv ; and Inez, who is Mrs. F. M. King of Bakers-
field.
RICHARD A. CAMERON.— A native Californian, and one of the fore-
most ranchers and dairymen, who deserves material success as well as a high
place in the history of the dairy interests in Central California, is Rich-
ard A. Cameron, whose father, Alexander M. Cameron, was a native of Ten-
nessee, having been born in that state about 1822. In his youth the father
was a farmer, and then he took to school-teaching; and in both these fields
he excelled. Manly, sympathetic, and naturally observing, so that he studied
both nature and human nature, he made many friends and accomplished much
good before he began his greatest tussle with the world. In the exciting year
of 1850, stirred by news from California, Alexander M. Cameron left for the
Pacific Coast. He had served a couple of years in the Mexican ^^'ar. and that
contributed to develop his hard}^ qualities. He came up to Monterey Bay,
and walked across to Millerton. Then he mined in Fresno County, and was
successful where others failed. In 1852 he went into the stock business, going
to Yuma, where he bought and sold for three or four years. Having lived
in Ventura until 1889. he went to Mexico and took up land f and after oper-
ating there for three years, he died there. His wife, a native of Arkansas, was
Margaret Glenn before her marriage: they were married at Visalia. and she
had many good stories of how her folks crossed the plains in 1852. She was
the mother of six children, and her third child was Richard A.
Born in a part of Santa Barbara County that is now Ventura County, on
May 12, 1863, Richard A. grew up to join his father in stock enterprises and,
finally, on the twelfth of July. 1881, he came to Fresno County. He located
at Kings River, three miles east of Fresno, and went into stock-raising, in
which he has been interested to the present time. He secured 180 acres of
land, and then and there began his important association with California
dairying.
At Centerville, on New Year's Day, 1898, Mr. Cameron was married to
Annie Douglass, a native of Denton County, Texas, who came to California
with her parents in 1887. Her father was Theodore Douglass, a farmer, and
her mother was a member of the well-known Darden family. They were mar-
ried in Texas, and coming to Fresno County, located the Sunny South Or-
chard, which they improved by planting thirty acres to oranges; the father
died at Centerville in 1916. Two children resulted from this ideal marriage,
and they are Douglass and Margaret Cameron. Wherever the Cameron name
is known, there it speaks for what Californians hold most dear.
CARL F. HEISINGER. — Comparatively few of the present-day resi-
dents of Fresno County have any conception of what the early settlers en-
dured, to make it possible for later generations to live in comfort, if not in
luxury, brave of heart and strong of body, must always blaze the way that
others may follow. He opens the paths that generally are lost in broad high-
ways, and too frequently the trail-maker hardly finished his task ere he is
called to his last couch and rest.
Among the notable path-finders is Carl F. Heisinger, whose name, now
so familiar to many, heads this article. His life story is as profitable as it is
absorbing. He was^ born in Ray County, Mo., August 11, 1872, and is the son
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 889
of Fred and Mary A. (Harris) Heisinger. of that state. Their family included
eight children, two of whom are now living, Paul E., in Sacramento, and
Carl F., of this review. The father died in Missouri, suddenly, after having
made all arrangements to come to California ; the widow, taking her eight
children, carried out the plans he had made and arrived in San Diego, in 1886,
and the following year, 1887, she came to Fresno County. There were six
deaths in the famih' in California, leaving the two children now living. The
mother is now making her home in San Jose, hale and hearty at seventy-seven.
Carl F. Heisinger attended school until the family came to San Diego,
and there he had to work to help support the younger children and himself.
He was soon employed and was the first bell-boy in the then new Hotel Cor-
onado. A year later, in 1887, he accompanied his mother to Fresno County,
and. here drove the first bus for the then New Hughes Hotel; he was healthy
and strong, and of a willing disposition, and early thought of making his own
way in life. Seeking employment in any honest work he could do. he took
to ranching, learned the details, and then concluded that if he could make his
work profitable for anyone he could make it more so for himself, and in 1894
bought his first property, raised grain on the ranch, near Selnia, hut it proved
a poor investment and he lost his earnings. His next \enture was in l^^Ol.
when he bought forty acres, tipon which he resided fifteen years. It was far
from ideal when he bought it, hut he made many needed improvements and
little by little increased its attraction and value. AMiile living on this forty-
acre ranch he purchased his present place of eighty acres.
Mr. Heisinger was the first man to buy property in the new section, then
called "hog-wallow" land, and people said he would never make it pay as a
vineyard. There were no vineyards then except a few old ones between his
place and Parlier, but Time has verified his judgnient. He has made the place
"blossom as the rose:" others followed his lead and today the entire section
is covered with vineyards and orchards. This land was bought for $75 per
acre and $1,250 per acre has been refused for the property. Mr. Heisinger
leveled the land, put in ditches so the entire acreage could be irrigated with
an electric pumping-plant, and during eight years of this development work
he "batched if on the second ranch while his family lived on the other place,
and his good wife would drive up nearly every day with an old horse and
buggy, through dust in summer and mud in winter, to bring some provisions
and homemade delicacies to him and his men. Always prudent, he was far
sighted enough not to give up his old home until he could see his way clear
on his new place. In the course of time, he reached that stage, and in 1916
he moved onto the new tract of eighty acres and gave it that more vital touch
possible by near personal oversight.
AA'ithout doubt the ranch is one of the finest home sites in Fresno County;
Mr. Heisinger has spared neither pains nor expense to develop its varied pos-
sibilities; he has it most beautifully laid out for complete irrigation by means
of an electrically-operated water system. He erected, in 1918-19. a fine mod-
ern bungalow, with electric lighting system, hot and cold water, and all other
modern conveniences, which, with the grounds and vineyards, make it a
show-place of the county.
In Sacramento, September 23, 1896, Mr. Heisinger was married to ]\Irs.
Anna R. Ratlifif, a native of California and daughter of Charles and Sophia
Byrd, who came to this state from Texas, in 1840. in which state :Mrs. Byrd
was born, the father having been a native of Mississii^pi ; they crossed the
plains with oxteams and settled near Porterville. Tulare County, took up
Government land and proved up and developed it. living on this ranch until
their death. These pioneers were the parents of six children, all of whom
are now living. ]Mrs. J-Ieisinger was married, prior to her union with her pres-
ent husband, to George Ratliff. by whom she had a daughter. Ruby E. Four
children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Heisinger. The first was
Everett C, a graduate of Heald's Business College, who learned ranching
890 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUXTY
under his father and helped develop the home place, and who married Violet
Toler of Tulare Count.v, a daughter of ^^^ E. Toler of Orosi, and who had one
child, now deceased ; this patriotic son felt the call to serve his country, and
left his wife behind to enlist for service in the ^^'o^ld War with the U. S.
Navy; he was stationed at Philadelphia during all but three months of his
service, which time he spent at sea, and was discharged in January, 1919,
when he came home and is now engaged in ranching two miles south of Par-
lier. The remaining three children were : Clyde F., the second born, who
died : Jack, who is developing a ranch owned by his father near Kingsburg ;
and Harold J., a student and coming rancher, who from his first attempt, won
first prize for an eight-months fat pig, second prize for most gain for least
expense, and special mention for grade and condition. This was at the Reed-
ley Pig Fair, held in 1919. for the grammar and high school boys, numbering
some seventy-five boys of the various country schools in the Reedley section.
Mr. Heisinger has always worked for good schools; he helped to organize
the River Bend School District and advocated the best of teachers. He has
been associated with every cooperative raisin association from the beginning
and now is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company. He never
turns a deaf ear to any mortal in distress, believing that a good word and a
little financial aid may help them to success. He lives bv the Golden Rule
as the true religion : however, he has always put his hand in his pocket to aid
the churches, regardless of creed. He loves his home and his ranch work —
loves to watch things grow and develop, and sees some good in everything.
Those who are fortunate in knowing this interesting and representative
couple are duly impressed by their qualifications as citizens and neighbors.
A self-made man in the true significance of the term, Mr. Heisinger has al-
ways pursued a straight-forward way and always operated bv the most hon-
orable methods ; with the result that today he enjovs the fullest confidence,
and commands the widest respect of his fellowcitizens. ^Irs. Heisinger is
not only the most companionable and helpful of mates, but she is a citizen
who takes a li^-e interest in the welfare of her community, and is ever willing
to help in all movements for its advancement.
AMBERS BROWN. — ^The popular and efficient Justice of the Peace
of the First Judicial Township of Fresno County, Judge Ambers Brown is
an able, conscientious and impartial dispenser of justice, whose wise counsel
and advice are eagerly sought by the residents of Tranquillity and vicinity.
Judge Brown is a native of the Hawkeye State, born in Washington County,
Iowa, June 3, 1849, son of James and Agnes (Johnson") Brown. His father
was a native of Kentucky, who moved to Indiana, where he married Agnes
Johnson, a native of the Hoosier State, and they migrated to Iowa about
1845, where they were among the early pioneers of Washington County. The
Indians were still to be seen in the county when Mr. Brown located in Iowa.
He improved a farm and followed farming until his death in 1878, and his
wife passed away in 1855. James and Agnes Brown were the parents of
three children. Judge Ambers Brown being the only member of the family
living. He remained at the Iowa home until he was twenty-one years of age,
when he was united in marriage with Miss ^Mary Pike, a native of the Buck-
eve State, born near Columbus, Ohio. She came with her parents. Jonathan
and Louisa (Umbel) Pike, to Iowa. They were pioneer farmers of the
Hawkeye State.
In 1875, ]\rr. and ^Mrs. Ambers Brown removed to Hamilton County,
Nebr., where they homesteaded eighty acres of land, twelve miles from
Aurora, on the Little Blue River. i\Ir. Brown broke up the virgin prairie soil,
and raised corn, wheat and stock, continuing his operations in this locality
for about twelve years, when he sold his farm and returned to Fremont
County, Iowa, where he followed farming for four years. In 1891 Ambers
Browii decided to migrate to the Golden State, and after arrival in California,
he located at Dos Palos, where he purchased twenty acres and improved it
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 891
by planting alfalfa and fruit trees, and also engaged in dairying. While
living there he was honored by l)eing elected to the office of justice of the
peace and also served as school trustee. In 1910 he sold his ranch and hicated
at Tranquillity, Fresno County, where he purchased twenty-two acres. The
land was raw and unimproved, but Mr. Brown soon leveled and checked
it, set out an orchard, planted alfalfa, built a residence, engaged in dairying
and raising hogs and cattle.
In 1914 he was elected justice of the peace of the First Judicial Township
of Fresno County, after which he moved into the town of Tranquillity and
bought his present home, and has established an office on the same lot, rent-
ing his ranch for three years. In 1918 Judge Brown was reelected, evidence
of the satisfactory manner in which he has conducted the affairs of his office.
He is also notary public and grain-buyer for Gen. M. W.' Muller Company,
of Fresno. Judge and Mrs. Brown are parents of two children: Dennis \'.,
the owner of a ranch at Tranquillity; and Robert E., residing in Hamiltnn
County, Nebr., where he is a farmer.
Judge and Mrs. Ambers Brown are active members of the Church of
Christ and were instrumental in the organization of the congregation at
Tranquillity, aiding substantially in building the house of worship, the
Judge l^eing a member of the building committee and a trustee. Judge Brown
is an exceedingly pleasant and affable man and is highly esteemed in the
community.
WILLIAM CLOUDSLY CORLEW.— Californians can never be too
grateful to those pioneer farmers and stockmen, such as William Cloudsly
Corlew, who, daring and sharing, through self-denial and hardship have won
success and so strengthened the various social and business activities, crown-
ing the whole, as has Mr. Corlew, by a live interest in local historv and the
preservation of historic records. Born at Rocheport, Boone Countv, Mo., on
December 16, 1862, William's father was John Corlew, a native of that state
who married there, Eliza Sexton, a worthy helpmate. William C. was the-
youngest of the three children ; a brother, Clifford, is still living. The
mother died in Missouri when our subject was born. Soon after, the father
abandoned farming for the more hazardous but more profitable enterprise
of teaming across the great plains to California ; and as a path-breaking
pioneer he made several trips to the Pacific Coast. Among all the sturdy
Americans who thus contributed to conquer the great continent, none was
braver or more surely deserved the reputation he acquired for safeguarding
the lives and property of those confiding in him, while serving them to the
limit of his strength and endurance.
In 1875, John Corlew came to California to locate, having by that time
caught the "fever" sure to seize all who had a chance to become personally
posted as to the superior advantages of the Golden State ; and he settled at
]\Iodesto, where he established himself in the stock business. Later, he
brought his sheep to Auberry Valley, at the same time he filed on a claim
in the Valley. He continued in the sheep business until 1879, when he sold
his sheep and engaged in cattle-raising at the same place. After that he
moved to Big Sandy, and raised cattle and hogs; and finally he took up his
residence at Fort Washington, at which place he died, honored by everyone
who had known him and had dealings with him.
\\'illiam C. was reared in Missouri by his grandmother Sexton, and at-
tended the schools of his district. In 1878, when he had just passed his fif-
teenth year, he came to Fresno to live with his father, helping on the farm.
He went to school at Big Sandy, grew up as a farmer, and remained at home
until he was twenty-four. Then he started out for himself, having been well
prepared for the battle of life in a country of such keen but honest competi-
tion that to succeed in one's chosen field is indeed a high honor. He rented
a farm and engaged in the raising of hogs and cattle : and as soon as he was
able, he bought 160 acres at Big Sandy from his brother. Clifford. Then he
892 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
bought still more land, until he had 290 acres of choice farm territory. This
ranch he continued to run for the next three years.
lii the meantime, Mr. Corlew married, at Big Sandy, in 1887, Miss Annie
Hall, a native of Solano County, Cal., born near Suisun, the daughter of
Thomas and Mary (Jeans) Hall. Her father was a well-known pioneer and
stockman of Fresno County who located in Red Bank district in 1870. Four
children were born of this union: Vera, Harland, Lurline and Winnie. In
1904. Mr. Corlew also bought eight and one-quarter acres at the corner of
Blackstone and Weldon Avenues, Fresno, and having improved the same
for the growing of alfalfa and peaches, he built for his family a fine residence.
They attend the Christian Church.
During all these years Mr. Corlew was engaged in hauling wood to retail
in Fresno ; and of late years, or since the construction of the San Joaquin &
Eastern Railroad, he has shipped the wood into town from his place, thirty-
eight miles northeast of Fresno. In 1914, he sold all of his ranch property
except twenty-five acres, but in the spring of 1918 he bought 160 acres in
Old Auberry Valley, at the foot of Corlew Mountain, and there he is still
engaged in stock-raising and in handling wood.
Always public-spirited, interested as a wide reader in politics generally,
Mr. Corlew has long supported the platforms of the Democratic party on
national issues, and the best men and the best measures on strictly local ques-
tions of the day. For years he served as clerk of the school board at Big
Sandy. Mr. Corlew has done what he could to elevate the standard of good
citizenship, and it is not surprising that prosperity has come his way.
HANS HANSEN. — A hardy, energetic and thorough viticulturist. who
has done his share towards developing the county's resources, is Hans Han-
sen, known for his high standards of character. In the early nineties he came
to Fresno County, equipped with fanning experience acquired in one of the
fertile regions of Northern Europe.
Born in Gjestelev, Fyen, Denmark, on September 6, 1865, his father was
Niels Hansen, also a native of Fyen, and a farmer there. When Denmark
was in her death-grapple with Germany, Mr. Hansen fought as a soldier in
the Danish army : and when peace enabled him once again to apply himself
to his private ai^airs, he married Anna Nielsen, also a native of that district.
Both are now dead, but they were the honored parents of six children, four
of whom grew up and are yet living, three being in California: Hans, the
subject of this sketch ; Peter, a viticulturist in the Madison district ; and
Christ, also a viticulturist at Orosi.
Brought up on a farm in Denmark, Hans was educated in the common
and the high schools of his home district, after which he went out to work
on farms near-by. When twenty years of age he entered the Danish army,
as a member of the First Company, Third Regiment and Seventh Battalion,
and having served the time required, he received an honorable discharge with
a good record. He thus balanced his account with his fatherland and is today
free to return there and enjoy all that is so attractive in Danish life.
In 1892, Mr. Hansen came to the United States, convinced that America
afforded opportunities not obtainable in the crowded Old World, and arriving
in Fresno County in the month of April, he made haste to engage himself for
vineyard and grain-farm work. The work was new and hard, but at the end
of three years he had so far progressed toward self-independence that he
bought his present place of forty acres on Johnson Avenue, four miles west
of Fresno. Here he engaged in viticulture, erected a fine residence and put
up barns and other ovitbuildings, and he also set out an orchard of three acres
in apricots and peaches. Later still he bought twenty acres adjoining, which
he set out and otherwise improved, and still later twenty acres on Kearney
Boulevard, so that now he has eighty acres, sixty in vines, bearing muscats,
Thompson seedless, and sultanas. He also bought and improved eighty acres
near Orosi, which he carefully set out to vineyards, but later sold. No one
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 895
welcomed the early movements for a raisin association more heartily than
Mr. Hansen, and it is only natural that he should be active in the California
Peach Growers, Inc., and the California Associated Raisin Company. He was
one of the original stockholders in the Danish Creamery Association.
Among the social events in Madison District, was the marriage of Hans
Hansen to Miss Elina Nielsen, a native of Fyen, Denmark, and the daughter
of Hans and Marie Nielsen, farmers there ; and four children have come to
them : Finer, Holger, Kenneth Ernest, and Anna who died in infancy. Mrs.
Hansen came to Fresno in 1905 and was married in June the same year.
In 1894 Mr. Hansen made a trip back to Denmark; and there he spent
some four months visiting his old home. He is a member of the Danish
Brotherhood, and was for some years also a member of the Dania, and with
his wife is a member of the Danish Sisterhood, an auxiliary of the Danish
Brotherhood. Mrs. Hansen is a member of the dififerent ladies' societies of
the Lutheran Church, as well as the Danish auxiliary of the Fresno Chapter
of Red Cross. Mr. Hansen is a Republican in national politics. He was one of
the organizers of the Scandinavian Fire Insurance Company and is still a
member.
THOMAS BETTIS MATTHEWS.— \Miat the right kind of a man can
accomplish when adversity has overwhelmed his parents, hurrying the one
to the grave and exacting from the other the bitterest ordeal and sacrifice ;
and to what heights he may attain when, in the beginning, he has been blessed
with a loving and devoted mother, and when, in addition, he has been fortu-
nate in the selection of just the right helpmate for life, so that, having put
behind himself the struggles of years, he finds himself honored as one of the
earliest pioneers, one of the successful and conservative financiers, and one
of the most public-spirited citizens. — is set forth in the interesting story of
Thomas Bettis Matthews, the extensive farmer and banker who is still re-
siding on the same property that he bought in 1879, before Selma was on the
map.
His father. Ransom B. Matthews, was a native Kentuckian who came to
Missouri while he was a young man. He died at an age of thirty-five, in Jan-
uary, 1861, when Thomas B. was only two and one-half years old. The father
had become the owner of a fine farm of 1,280 acres in Missouri, but during
the war the records at the county seat as well as the deed itself, were all
destroyed and they had to pay for their land a second time. Thus with all
his property and striving the father had been unable to do anything financially
for his baby-boy; but he had come of excellent lineage and in his blood he
bequeathed a fortune such as many would envy. His mother also belonged
to a pioneer family. Her maiden name was Burnette Anderson, and she was
born, grew up and was married in ^Fissouri. After her husband's untimely
death, she proved her sterling character by de\nting all her energies to keep-
ing the family together. So great was her affection and fidelity in those try-
ing hours, so much did she do for the children who needed her guidance and
help, and to such an extent did she influence and mold the life of our subject
that no memory is sweeter to him than that of his mother. There were seven
children in the family, and four of these came to California with the mother.
It was really due to the second daughter that the Matthews family turned
their gaze toward the Golden State. She was the first wife of M. Sides, pres-
ident of the First National Bank of Selma, who came to Fresno County in
1875 and to Selma in November of the same year, and was thus one of its
earliest pioneers. She urged her mother to make the move ; and, accompanied
by her eldest daughter, then a widow, Mrs. V. Brewer, and her three children,
and another younger daughter, ?tfrs. McCartnev fwhose husband had come
out here three months before), and Thomas P.ettis. then twcnt)- \ears old,
and the youngest daughter. Miss Hettie, arrived at Schna on January 10. 1879,
bv wav of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railways.
896 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUXTY
The party landed at Kingsburg, for there was then no station at Sehna,
and drove up to the place where Mr. Sides then lived.
For the first four years young J\lr. Matthews worked day and night to
provide and maintain a home to be presided over by his sainted mother, labor-
ing on the Centerville and Kingsburg Canal, and buying 82.93 acres of rail-
way land, the nucleus to his present home farm of 168 acres, the balance of
which was purchased two or three years later. His mother kept house for
him, as she had done in Missouri ; and aside from her hallowed associations,
the place has historic interest from the fact that the owner has lived there
continuously ever since, and is the only pioneer to reside for the same length
of time on' property hereabouts. On November 21. 1887, Mr. Matthews'
mother died.
As might be expected, something worth while in the way of accession
to tlie ranks of the pioneers came from the settling here of the Matthews fam-
ily, which included seven sons and daughters. Jennie, the widow of V. Brewer,
resides at Long Beach; Cassandria was Mrs. ]\I. Sides and died at Selma in
1894; Ama C, the widow of P. Baricklow, lives in Los Angeles; Sarah Jane,
the wife of G. J. Nees. came west to Selma in 1884 and now lives at Fresno ;
Fannie L., the widow of W. S. McCartney, lives near her sister Ama ; Thomas
Bettis, who married Miss Allari, resides on the home farm ; while the youngest
sister married J. E. I^ongacre, one of the earliest business men of Selma, and
now lives on an Imperial \'alley ranch at Elythe, Riverside County.
Thomas Bettis was the only boy in the family, and the duty fell to him
to remain at home and, from his tenth year, to work on his mother's farm.
In that way he succeeded in paying off some liabilities due to the war, and
great was his satisfaction, and that of the rest of the little circle, when he
was able to do so. In 1882, at the suggestion of his mother, he went back to
Missouri and sold his mother's farm, and then divided the proceeds between
the children, share and share alike. The mother kept nothing for herself, but
continued to reside with her son. This generosity on her part was typical of
the high ideals which always animated her. As indeed a noble woman, she
looked after the sick and the needy, and was to everybody the epitome of hu-
man benevolence. She had never studied medicine, but long experience en-
abled her to administer home remedies with great success. Though lonely
and sometimes despondent on account of the loss of his mother, Thomas stuck
bv his farm and thus continued the proprietorship which has now become
historic.
Mr. Matthews was married, in 1888, to ^liss Annie Allari. a native
daughter who was born in San Francisco and grew up in the metropolis.
Her father, Henry Allari, was a native of Geneva, Switzerland, but came
from Parisian French blood. With his parents he crossed the ocean to New
York, and there he studied navigation. Her mother had been Annie Haines
Penney before her marriage, and she came of good old British ancestry, the
Pennevs being Scotch and the Haineses, English. Mr. Allari and Miss Pen-
nev were married in New York, and their wedding tour was a trip to San
Francisco by way of the Isthmus. The crossing was made in 1862, and when
he arrived at San Francisco, he operated for a while a box and trunk factory.
His main occupation became mining, he becoming interested in mines in Ari-
zona, and Old Mexico, where, for a year and a half as a child, Mrs. IMatthews
lived. Her father could speak seven languages very fluently, and was in
manv respects a remarkable man. He finally died at Darwin, Inyo County,
while crossing Death Valley to reach his Arizona mine : after which Mrs.
Matthews' mother continued to live in San Francisco until her daughter mar-
ried, when she divided her time between the home of Mrs. Matthews and the
other daughter, Mrs. W. T. Lyon, the wife of the founder of the Selma Irri-
gator. Mrs. Allari died at the Matthews home on February 22, 1917, at the
ripe age of seventy-five. Mrs. Matthews, who is an accomplished woman,
was educated in the public schools of San Francisco and possesses knowledge
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 897
and experience which have enabled her to assume most responsible positions
in society and affairs.
Mr. Matthews enjoys the distinction of being the only person who is a.
stockholder and director in all four of the banks at Selma, namely: the First
National Bank, the Selma Savings Bank, the Selma National Bank and the
Farmers Saving Bank. A large cattle ranch of 1,080 acres near Trimmer is
owned and operated by Mr. Matthews and Douglass Sides, a son of Mr. M.
Sides. Mr. Matthews is also largely interested in the Crescent Land and Cat-
tle Company, Inc.; while he is a director in the Wheatville Ranch Company of
Fresno County, and has other agricultural interests : he is heartily interested,
also, in the California Raisin Association.
Mr. and Mrs. Matthews have had two children : Thomas A., who died when
he was eighteen months old. and Ransom B. Matthews, now associated with
his father. He is only twenty-three years of age, but he has already demon-
strated his ability as a student and as a thorough machinist, a farmer and a
business man, his liking for machinery aiding him materially in the compli-
cated management of a ranch. Airs. Alatthews and her son are members of
the Presbyterian Church at Selma. Mr. Matthews served on the building
committee for the new church in 1917, he having donated funds to help put
up three edifices on the same spot. His mother was a charter member of the
Presbyterian Church of Selma, as were also his eldest and youngest sisters.
In the erection of business buildings, also, Mr. Matthews has had a pioneer
part. It was he who built the first Ijrick store structure in Selma, which was
burned three years ago; it was called the Matthews Block, and was an orna-
ment to the town.
Although widely known for his public-spiritedness, Mr. Matthews has
consistently declined public office. His first refusal was announced when
friends had him appointed as the second postmaster of the town, but he de-
clined to serve, and since then he has repeatedly refused honors of this kind.
The Matthews old home place is located about one mile northeast of
Selma, and there he has a beautiful country home nicely furnished, its fine
array of pictures in particular reflecting the exquisite taste of the lady of the
house. Despite his struggles in early life, Mr. Matthews has been a real home-
maker, and even in days of poverty and distress he took the pains to plant
trees in regular ^Missouri style. These, now grown large and stately, adorn
his yard and afford refreshing shade. When he was again in Missouri in 1882,
Mr. Matthews brought with him from his old home several young seedling
trees, and four of these are still living in this yard ; two are Missouri black
ash, one is a slippery elm, and the other is a wild Missouri persimmon. He
also set out Italian cypress trees, Monterey cypress, and two beautiful sequoia
trees which are now like the forest trees in Grant National Park, whence they
came as tiny seedlings and were set out by Mr. Matthews' own hands.
The ranch of 280 acres which he maintains in partnership with his son,
eleven miles southwest of Selma, is devoted to alfalfa and vines. One hundred
acres are planted to raisin grapes, and sixty acres more have lately been plant-
ed to Thompson seedless. Other properties attest the worldly prosperity of
this man. who, overcoming material obstacles at the outset and keeping his
eyes fixed on the high ideals he early set before him, has made good in a
thousand ways, not only for himself but for others.
WILLIAM O. BLASINGAME.— The descendant of an honored and
successful pioneer of Fresno County, W. O. Blasingame was born November
11, 1875, on the home place, five miles northwest of Academy. He is a son
of the late J. A. Blasingame, who was a prosperous stockman and early
banker of Fresno County, a more extended notice of whom will be found
elsewhere in this history.
After completing his education, which included attendance at the gram-
mar and high schools of Berkeley and Oakland, W. O. Blasingame entered
upon the activities of a business life, selecting stock-raising as an occupation,.
898 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
one in which his father had achieved such splendid success. In 1898 he en-
tered into partnership with his brother, J. A. Blasingame, Jr., in the cattle
.business on the old Blasingame Estate ranch of 11,000 acres. As their herd
and business increased they bought more land and now they own 5,000 acres
adjoining the old place on which their cattle range. They use their father's
old brand, B with bar underneath. W. O. Blasingame being very ambitious,
began to improve 320 acres of raw land, which he owns on North Avenue,
Kutner Colony. Here he set out vines and now has the entire acreage in a
vineyard, under fine cultivation, and here he raises table and raisin grapes.
He also owned 320 acres on Belmont Avenue, 120 acres of which he also
improved to a vineyard and orchard, and after bringing it to a high state of
cultivation sold out at a good profit. The success he has attained in cattle-
raising and in viticulture and horticulture is attributed to his close attention
to the details of his business, as well as to judicious management.
W. O. Blasingame was united in marriage with Edna Leonard, a native
daughter of California, born in Berkeley, where the ceremony occurred.
Their marriage has been blessed with three children : Frank ; Florence ; and
Billie. Mr. Blasingame is a member of the Sequoia Club and the Commercial
Club in Fresno. A firm believer in cooperation for those engaged in the rais-
ing of fruits and vines, he has been a supporter of every cooperative raisin
association, and is a member and stockholder in the California Associated
Raisin Company. As early as 1903, Mr. Blasingame erected a modern resi-
dence on his ranch and beautified the grounds with ornamental trees, among
them an orange and lemon grove, and he has a border of figs around the
ranch. The ranch is under the ditch, but he has installed four pumping plants,
which furnish ample water for irrigation.
PHIL SCOTT. — Not many men have been able to close their eyes to the
scenes of this world with greater satisfaction than that which doubtless
soothed the last moments of the late Phil Scott, one of the prominent up-
builders in his time of Fresno and Fresno County, who made an envialde
record as Supervisor, and who was true to his trust so that his honesty and
integrity were never questioned. In those eventful moments, he must also
have been comforted with the thought of his faithful wife who was indeed
a helpmate to him, for many years. A native daughter of California, she well
knew Californian conditions and so could the better aid and encourage him ;
and today she recalls many an early experience, in a way both absorbingly
entertaining and instructive.
Born at Joliet, 111., on May 3, 1848, Phil Scott was the son of Jediah Hub-
bard Scott, a native of New York State who was born on an island in the
St. Lawrence River, in 1818. The father was a pioneer farmer in ^^^ill County,
111., and in 1851 brought his wife and four boys to California, crossing the
great plains with ox teams. In Sacramento County he became a farmer and
stock-raiser, and in that field of activity he continued until he retired and spent
his last days in Fresno County. He had married Miss Anna Chamberlain, a
native of Canada, and she also died here, the mother of thirteen children,
among whom Phil was the second oldest.
Phil Scott was a child of three years when his father crossed the plains
in 1851, and he was reared on a farm three miles out of Sacramento. When
seventeen years of age he entered the employ of the old Central Pacific, and
was the seventh man hired by that company in the train department for work
on the construction of its line. He was conductor of a construction train from
the start, and for years continued with the company as conductor. As early
as 1875 he came to Fresno while railroading, and he ran the overland passen-
ger between Oakland and Bakersfield. While hunting quail in 1890. his left
arm was accidentally shot ofl:' by a comrade, and when he recovered, he con-
tinued as conductor on the Porterville branch.
He was always interested, as the result of the first favorable impressions
that he received, in the growth and development of Fresno County, and in
62/c^X.-^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 903
1893 he purchased in the Nevada Colony a vineyard of forty acres, which
he improved and which is still owned by Mrs. Scott. In 1906 he and his
brother, Jay Scott, the ex-sheriff, and son-in-law, J. C. Clark, bought 160
acres in Lone Star. They set out vineyards of malagas, emperors, muscats,
Thompson seedless and other grapes, turning stubble-fields into model ranch-
land, and together they operated their property. In 1893 he and his family
located again on the ranch, but in 1895 he moved to Fresno.
Soon afterward he was elected supervisor of the Third Supervisorial
District in Fresno County, to fill an unexpired term caused by the death of
Supervisor Smith ; and two years later he was reelected for a full term, and
during that time was made chairman of the board. After he retired from
the board, in 1904, at the close of his second term, he returned to the ranch
of forty acres located on Lone Star and Las Palmas Avenues, which is de-
voted to the culture of muscat and malaga grapes. In November, 1918, he
moved to Fresno, where he purchased a comfortable home on ^^'ishon Ave-
nue, and there he died, on January 18, 1919, nearly seventy-one years of age.
He was a member of the Fresno Lodge of Elks.
At Sacramento, on December 23, 1873, :\Ir. Scott was married to Miss
Alice Leonard, a native of that city where she was born on August 11, 1852.
Her father was Albert Leonard, a native of Springfield. Mass.. and when
he was twenty-one he joined others in buying a barque and sailing around
Cape Horn, in 1849, to San Francisco. He was therefore a true .\rgonaut,
and he mined for a sliort time, and then became one of the early insurance
and real estate men of Sacramento, where he finally died. His wife was Miss
Caroline Merrill before her marriage, and she was born in Conneaut, Ohio.
Grandfather Isaac Merrill was a native of New York state, and with ox
teams and wagons, he brought his family across the plains in 1849. When
Caroline was sixteen, they located in Sacramento, and there she met Mr.
Leonard. She also died in Sacramento, the mother of fifteen children, ten
of whom are still living. Mrs. Scott, the eldest, was brought up in Sacra-
mento, and well remembers the flood of 1861-62. The mother and children
were in the house when the flood came, and they were deep in the water
before a boat came to rescue them. Soon after they left the house, it toppled
over. Mrs. Scott was educated at the Sacramento grammar and high schools.
Four children blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Scott: William M., for
years a conductor on the Southern Pacific, is now engaged in viticulture east
of Fresno ; Jessie is the wife of P. B. Donahoo, of Fresno ; Nan C. is the wife
, of Robert Barton, proprietor of the ^^"hite Theater ; while Blanche, who died
in March, 1906, became Mrs. J. C. Clark.
Mrs. Scott continues to reside in Fresno, surrounded by her children
and friends, who love and esteem her for her splendid traits and amiable
disposition. As a Christian Scientist she has ever been known as a benevolent
Christian.
E. W. LINDSAY. — Fresno County is noted for its excellent school sys-
tem, and its high standard is due to the efficiency of those in charge. From
1907 to 1919, E. W. Lindsay served as county superintendent of the schools
and during that period the increase in efficiencv has been marked.
Mr. Lindsay was born in Halifax County. Nova Scotia, .April 8, 1861, the
son of Alexander and Charlotte (Guild) Lindsay, farmer folk of the Dominion.
Mrs. Lindsay passed to her reward in Canada, and soon after Mr. Lindsay
removed to the United States and located in Colorado and there he lived
until he answered the final summons. E. W. Lindsay received his early edu-
cation in the country schools of Canada, later attending the Truro Normal
School and Pictou Academy, and he taught school four years in Canada.
Feeling that a greater field awaited him on the Pacific Coast, Mr. Lindsay
came to California in 1888 and at once settled in Fresno. He soon took up
his chosen profession and taught in the public schools of this city for a num-
ber of years. His success as a teacher soon brought its reward and he was
904 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
prevailed upon to accept the office of county superintendent of schools, taking'
charge in January, 1907. When he assumed the duties of the office there
were but 124 districts in the county and the average daily attendance was
8,150 pupils. Ten years later there were 156 districts and an average daily
attendance 15,140 pupils. There were ten high schools in the county in 1906,
and their average daily attendance was 650 pupils. In the ten years there
was an increase of four high schools and the attendance was 2,015. The
corps of teachers increased from 287 to 541 in the ten years. To what extent
the successful management of the office was due to the splendid system inau-
gurated and supervised by Mr. Lindsay is well known to the citizens of the
county and needs no recounting here. After diligently serving the public
from 1907 until 1919, Mr. Lindsay declined to be a candidate for reelection,
deciding that twelve years in office were sufficient for any man. His great
endeavor while in office was to secure the best instructors available and He
enthusiastically encouraged the consolidation of county schools. No incum-
bent in the office ever worked more indefatigably for the upbuilding of the
school system of the county than did he. Since leaving the office of county
superintendent Mr. Lindsay has become associated with the Fresno State
Normal School.
On August 8, 1894, E. W. Lindsay and Miss Rebecca L. Fader were
united in marriage. Mrs. Lindsay is a native of Nova Scotia and she shares
with her gifted husband the esteem of their many friends. Mr. Lindsay is an
active worker in St. Paul's Methodist Church and for years has been a mem-
ber of the Board of Stewards, also superintendent of the Sunday School and
a director of the Young Men's Christian Association. In national politics
he is a Democrat and fraternally he is a member of the Masons, Odd Fellows
and Woodmen of the World.
HOWARD A. HARRIS. — Prominent because of his association with af-
fairs of the greatest importance in the community. Howard A. Harris has for
years been influential in assisting to direct the destiny of Fowler as the editor
and proprietor of the Fowler Ensign. He is welcomed everywhere as a man
whose juds^'ment is sought and prized.
FIc was horn at Lawrence. Kans.. on December 8, 1867, the son of Amos
and Antoinnette Harris, the well-known and highly-esteemed pioneers, whose
interesting lives are outlined in another part of this work. The father was a
native of the Empire State and came to California as early as 1851, to seek for
gold. He mined in Placer and Nevada counties, found the shining dust that
he was after, and returned East with several thousand dollars. He took up his
residence at Jackson, Mich., and there opened a hat store : and while fhere he
married Miss Antoinnette Pelham, who had studied at Olivet College and the
State University, and had been a successful teacher, working in a field that
peculiarly prepared her for the great work she was to be privileged to do when
it fell to her lot to be one of the foundation builders of Fowler, years later.
Mr. Harris removed to Kansas, invested in lands in Chickasaw County, and
there, face to face with the plague of grasshoppers, lost the last of his Califor-
nia gold. When, therefore, he came back to California, in 1874, and settled
in Fresno County, in 1881, it was to begin life anew.
Howard A. Harris followed his father and came with his mother, brother
and sister, to Turlock, on December 23, 1877, the worst of all years, for it
went into history as abnormally dry. In October, 1881, however, the entire
family came to Fresno County by team, when it took five days to make the
journey. They settled a mile southeast of Fowler, and took up railroad land
which was then selling at from three and a half to five dollars an acre. The
family then consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Harris, and their children, Frank B. and
Howard A.
Howard's childhood was passed on the frontier, under pioneering condi-
tions, and his schooling was therefore limited. He had to work hard to make
a living, and this experience in getting the necessaries of life was continued
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 905
after he arrived in California. The first two crops were absolute failures ;
and it required backbone, and plenty of it, to keep up the game. He and his
brother Frank still own the original Flarris ranch of seventy-four acres, but
today its well cultivated, and the fruitful fields tell an altogether dififerent
story. It is planted to muscats and Thompson seedless grapes and there are
five acres of alfalfa. Through thick and thin the boys stuck by their devoted
parents, and no one was ever more honored by those who gave them being
and a higher development. Amos Harris served as a school trustee for years
and was in every organization for the public good, being, with his entire fam-
ily, an outspoken advocate of temperance, and living to witness one triumph
after another of the blue-ribbon crusaders; and when he died, in 1911, he
had rounded out eighty most useful years. Mrs. Harris also came to be
greatly interested in community affairs, and so endeared herself to the neigh-
borhood that she was universally beloved and when she passed away, in the
fall of 1916, about seventy-nine years of age, her demise was generally
regretted.
Howard Harris's greatest activity in a semi-official capacity was as a
progressive journalist idcntiruil with the Fowler Ensign for twenty-two and
a half years. This paper \\a> started as the Fowler Courier, on April 19, 1894,
by C. P. Ruffner, and on ( )ctolier 13, of the same year, when the infant was
likely to give a last kick and go the way of so many newspaper enterprises,
it was re-christened as the Fowler Ensign, and Air. Harris became proprietor
and editor. In an account published in the Ensign on JMay 30, 1917, he tells
the story of the journal's vicissitudes, and speaks a good word for the suc-
ceeding editor, Charles A. Foster. The Ensign played more than an ordinary
part in boosting Fowler, and the town will never forget the long 3'ears of
labor, including altogether too much night work, by which Mr. Harris rescued
more than one enterprise from disaster, and won success where many prophe-
sied failure.
Among these ventures, difficult enough at first, was the introduction
here of insurance as a definite business ; and now Air. Harris writes for nine
leading old-line fire insurance companies. He was a promoter, director, sec-
retary and manager of the Fowler Independent Telephone Company.
On November 15, 1897, Mr. Harris was married, at Pomona, to Aliss
Tabitha Close, a native of Ledyard, in Cayuga County, N. Y., where she was
born on July 14, 1875. Ill health, due to the strain of caring for a sister
through a long illness from which death finally resulted, led Miss Close to
come out to California in 1895 ; and as Amos Harris was distantly related to
her mother and a childhood friend, she came directly to the Harris home.
There she remained for fifteen months, when she returned to New York ;
but in the following November she again came to California, and was met
by Howard Harris, to whom she had become engaged, and they were married
in the Southland. On January 12, 1902, their child, Howard Avery, was born
- — now in the Fowler High School.
From her advent as a citizen of Fowler, Mrs. Harris took a deep interest
in everything pertaining to the development of the town, and to gratify a
wish of her own, she worked with her husband in the Ensign office and often
added many a touch that gave some reader pleasure. At her father's death,
she invested most of her share of the estate in Fowler property ; and when
she came to have their residence built, she had a care not only as to tlie
interior conveniences, but to the exterior design, solicitous that it should
be a credit to the town. She was an active member of the Fowler Improve-
ment Association, serving both as treasurer and director, and took a leading
interest in the laying out and beautifying of the town park. She was also
an active participant in welfare work of the Presbyterian Church, and such
was the success of her efforts to lead an unpretentious, consistent Christian
life that her bereaved husband could say of her, 'Tn all of the eleven and a
half years of our married life, I have never known her to speak an unpleasant
906 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
word intentionally." When, therefore, she passed away in the night on
July 20, 1909, her'untimely end came as a terrible shock not only to her im-
mediate family, but to all in the community who knew and loved her, as
the numerous and heart-felt tributes to her memory, at the funeral and
afterward, amply testify.
S. M. ANDREWS. — A hard-working, self-made man owning one of the
best-located, most productive and extremely beautiful ranches, acquired
through toil and sacrifice, and developed by foresight and sensible attention
to the experience of the past, is S. M. Andrews, a resident of the vicinity of
Parlier, which he helped to organize. He has a new and attractive bungalow
residence, one of the ornaments of the fast-growing district, and there Mr.
and Mrs. Andrews dispense a hospitality typically Californian.
He was born at Farmington, August 30, 1874, the son of G. W. Andrews,
a well-known farmer in San Joaquin County, who came to California fifty-
five years or more ago. and settled near Stockton. He attended the schools
at Farmington and had the usual experiences of a California boy, although
he was more fortunate than some, for he grew up when the great state was
growing, and both had a chance to try for himself one thing or another, and
to learn to lean upon his own powers.
In 1890, when he was sixteen years old, he first came to Parlier, and
soon after bought twenty acres half a mile southeast, which he planted, im-
proved and then sold. Then he bought another tract of forty acres, which he
likewise prepared, planted and greatly improved, and finally sold at a profit.
He soon demonstrated that good judgment and square methods assisted him
in such transactions, and that he had special gifts for operating in that new
field.
Ten years ago he bought the Preacher Miller ranch of fifty acres, and in
the fall of 1917 he sold twenty acres, leaving him thirty. This he made his
home ranch, and there, during 1916 and 1917, he erected the residence
referred to.
During 1910. Mr. Andrews was married to Miss Nellie Tremper. who was
born in Lower Lake, Cal., and grew up in Lake County. She is a sister of
Chris Tremper, a prosperous rancher who lives between this place and Kings-
burg, and is a charming woman such as one would expect to find gracing
the Andrews household. Both Mr. and Mrs. Andrews aim to endorse and
support every movement for the general betterment of the community.
Active for years in the commercial as well as the industrial development
of the county, Mr. Andrews helped bring into existence the First National
Bank of Parlier, and to well establish itself; and he did so by the practical
method of becoming a stockholder. He also helped to organize the Cali-
fornia Associated Raisin Company and became a stockholder of that also.
He is a Republican, and has worked for the elevation of the ballot and na-
tional politics, and as a loyal American has vigorously supported the admin-
istration in all its war work.
PERCIVAL BOWDISH.— Among the early settlers of Fresno who
contributed to the development of some of its surrounding colonies, was
Percival Bowdish of Central Colony. Though born in San Francisco, he spent
his boyhood and early youth in New York State, coming to Fresno as a
young man of twenty. He soon realized the extent of the opportunities
ofiFered in the vastness of the San Joaquin Valley, and in this particular
district. The tract around Fresno had an irrigation system, then partially
completed by the late M. J. Church, and some orchards and vineyards had
been planted. From the Bowdish's home place in Central Colony, the eye
could traverse the plains as far as the three buttes which now form the back-
ground of Fresno's irrigation supply. The foothills supplied the winter wood
which was hauled across the plains over roads broken b}' the farmers. In
1886 the family bought an eighty-acre tract at Malaga and planted a vine-
:M t 9 ^ .
^4 ;
■■• .-I, ♦! V,
• t » .
il ^ II
- y\ ^ « f
910 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in 1903 : the grounds have ornamental trees and are surrounded by an orange
orchard. On the same section they purchased forty acres which they have
improved to a muscat and Malaga grape vineyard. They also purchased 100
acres at Clotho which they set out to Malaga vines, with a border of figs.
In 1916, they also built one of the most modern packing houses in the county
on this place, with a switch from the Southern Pacific Railroad. The fruit is
packed and loaded in cars and consigned directlv to eastern cities. Thev sold
this 100 acres in 1918 to L. Powers for $100,000, at that time the highest
price paid in Fresno County for 100 acres in vineyard, straight through. Thus
they have improved 145 acres of land, although they have owned other places.
They found the marketing of fruit in the early days very unsatisfactory
because the shipper often came back to the producer for money to pay the
freight. Believing a cooperative sales company was the only remedy, they
joined the movement from the starting of the first raisin association bv Mr.
Kearney, and they are active members and stockholders in the California
Associated Raisin Company.
The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Gunn has proved a happy one, especially
since their coming to California and their commencement in the absorbing
work of building home and fortune. Mr. Gunn is a member of the \\'oodmen
of the W'orld, and Mrs. Gunn shares the social life incidental to that affiliation.
Both are public-spirited and ready to do their part to advance community,
state and nation, along broad-minded ideals. All who know Mr. and !Mrs.
Gunn esteem them highly.
MISS MAGGIE P. RUCKER.— A kind-hearted, broadminded and ex-
ceedingly charitable lady of prominence in Kingsburg church and social
circles is Miss Maggie P. Rucker, the daughter of .Ambrose B. Rucker, a
California pioneer of 1853, who first settled in the Salinas Valley. He was
born at Richmond, Va., and in that old Southern city was educated, taking
a theological course and becoming a minister of the Methodist Church. In
time he moved to Ohio and Iowa; and assisted liy his good wife, who was
IMargaret Atkinson before her marriage, he left a record for faithful pastoral
labors, the influence of which was felt for years. \\'hen he came to the
Salinas \'aliey he chose a piece of land which he thought belonged to the
government, but which proved to be included in an old Spanish grant; and
having become convinced that the title was really owned by another, he
moved oft', taking with him, through the consideration of the authorities, his
house and certain improvements. He then moved nearer to the Coast and
once more took up government land ; whereupon he built a second home,
where he brought up his five children.
W. A. Rucker, now deceased, was the eldest and came to Kingsburg in
1882, when he bought and improved a place half a mile to the east of the
town. And at Kingsburg, on February 27, 1914, he passed away, eighty-two
years old, never having married. He was eminently prosperous, and was
probably the heaviest taxpayer at Kingsburg. He was kindly disposed, and
evervbodv was his friend. He was born in the state of Ohio, and came with
his father to California, and at first settled in ^Monterey County. There he
became an extensive cattleman ; and he continued as such in Fresno County.
He raised and bought and sold cattle, and kept cattle on the Coast Range.
After coming to Kingsburg, he became the owner of a ranch of 160 acres;
and his mother, who was a native of Ohio, and two nieces and a nephew
stayed on the Rucker ranch, known as the Rucker home. In 1890 they
moved to the present home in Kingsburg, and here the mother died, eighty-
three years old. The father had previously died in Alonterey County, in his
forty-seventh year.
Lydia Jane married William Curtiss of Monterey, and they are now
both deceased. They left four children, however, each of whom has reflected
most creditably on the family name. E. E. Curtiss is the well-known news-
paperman, at present residing at Berkeley, and for years associated with the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 911
Fresno Republican, the San Francisco Chronicle and other journals. In
fact, he was the first editor of the Republican, and in the issue for January
1. 1917, of that famous paper he published some exceedingly interesting
reminiscences under the title, "Fresno City Forty Years Ago, when the
Republican was Founded," in which he told of his early experience as a
newspaperman in Monterey, the cradle, it will be remembered, of California
newspapers ; the scattered appearance of Fresno and the uninviting character
of the surrounding country ; the first location of the newspaper founded by
Dr. Rowell, and the peculiar politics of that time. Mr. Curtiss still writes
for the press and magazines, and looks back with pride to his connection for
years with the Associated Press. He is married and has two children —
Emmett and Madeline. Lydia, another child, resides in Calaveras County,
the wife of James Cosgrave, a rancher and cattle-raiser. They have five
children — Laura ; Clarence, who is in the army : Harold, a rancher and fruit-
grower in the state of \A^ashington ; and Ernest and Ruth who are both at
home, attending school. E. A. Curtiss is a fruit-raiser at Kingsburg, and
resides on the Rucker place. He married Dina Johnson, of Kingsburg. and
they have two children — Frances and Howard. The fourth child is Dolly,
the wife of W. W. Grimes, a rancher and fruit-raiser near Centerville, and
the mother of four children — Loren, Evelyn, Blanche, and Lila.
Isabella married J. B. Stinson at Salinas ; and two years ago she died.
Elizabeth became the wife of W. L. Apperson. and li\ed in Fresno,
where he was a cabinet-maker and carpenter. She died and left three cliil-
dren — ^Margaret Isabella, the wife of Ed Miles, a rancher who resides three
miles east of Reedley ; Harriet, the wife of Daniel Calcote of \'isalia; and
W . H. Apperson, wlio is dead.
The y(.uni,'-i>t i<\ this interesting family is Miss ^laggie P. Rucker. our
subject, who was lH,rn in the state of Iowa and was a baby of three months
when her parents left Iowa to cross the plains with ox teams to California.
She attended the public schools in Sacramento, where her mother and
brother, W. A. Rucker. lived after her father's death in Monterey Countv :
and later she attended the Methodist College at Santa Clara. In 1881 she
accompanied her mother and brother to this place and settled on the ranch :
and nine years later, they removed to Kingsburg.
Besides being active in the Red Cross, Miss Rucker is a hard-working
Methodist, particularly active in the Rucker Memorial Methodist Episcopal
Church of Kingsburg. so named in honor of the pioneer work in the Method-
ist ministry done by her esteemed father and mother, and because of the
generous contributions made by \A'illiam A. Rucker and herself to the
building fund. The history of this church was outlined in an absorbing ad-
dress made by the pastor, the Rev. D. A. Allen, at the watch meeting on
New Year's Eve, 1913. and published in the Kingsburg Recorder on fanuarv
3. from which one may gather the full significance of the Memorial. Indeed,
as long as the history of Kingsburg shall be recorded, the family name of
Rucker will never cease to be honored, and among these beloved will be
the lady whose good works will live after her.
MADLAIN DeWITT.— A distinguished lady of Selma. the descendant
of noted American forebears, and highly esteemed in the town where she is
best known as the widow of a very worthy citizen, Mrs. Madlain DeWitt en-
joys a wide circle of friends. She was born in Sullivan County, Mo., and is
a daughter of John ]\IcCullough who married Elizabeth Bell, a native of
Pittsburgh, the ceremony taking place in Pennsylvania. He had been born in
Ohio, went South to Louisiana, then North again and \'\'est to Missouri,
where in Sullivan County he developed a farm : and when the Civil War broke
out, he enlisted in the Union Army, served with the Twenty-third Missouri
Volunteers, and was made a major. Eight children were born to these de-
voted parents, among whom our subject was the fifth and the oldest girl.
She grew up in Sullivan County, attended the common schools, and when
912 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
twenty-one years of age was there married to Thomas Buffington DeWitt,
a native of Virginia who served in the Home Guards at Milan, Mo. He was a
farmer and stock-raiser, at first in Adair County, that state, in 1872, and in
1884 came to Fresno County, where they settled on a ranch four miles
north of Selma, on what was known as the Russell Quarter. They had ten
children, of whom the second daughter, Luella E., now Mrs. Garnet Adkins
of Los Angeles, was married in Missouri, and the seventh child, a little girl
named Alta, died there ; so that they brought with them to California eight
children, namely: Mary Elizabeth, who is Mrs. W. H. Say; William Henry,
the blacksmith at Caruthers ; Oscar, a well-borer at Selma ; Florence, the
wife of W. J. Boles of Fresno, a rancher near Caruthers; Viola, wife of R. M.
Pettus, a housepainter in Oakland; Shearon, an engineer at Sacramento; and
Thomas Buffington. at Selma.
This son, Thomas Buffington, recalls Mrs. DeWitt's husband, who was
born at Wheeling, Va., in 1833, the son of Thomas DeWitt. a Virginia farmer,
whose estate near \A^heeling is still owned by a member of the De\^'itt family.
His father, in turn, was born in France, became a soldier in the French
Army, and came to America with Lafayette, to aid in the great struggle for
American Independence.
Mrs. DeWitt is an active member of the Presbyterian Church and there,
as well as in such circles as the Red Cross, works for the betterment of
society. Her daughter, Mrs. W. H. Say, is a well-known club-woman, and
was president of the ^^'oman's Improvement Club at Selma for five
consecutive years, an organization that has accomplished much for that beau-
tiful town. Upon leaving that office she turned over $1,200 in cash, which
had been raised during her incumbency, and was in turn presented with a
beautiful hand-painted jardiniere, Ijv the club, in appreciation of her vahied
services.
ALFRED H. BLASINGAME.— Among the pioneers of Fresno County
who were successfully engaged in the stock-raising business, and one who
eventually became an extensive landowner, and one of the first bankers in
the county, was J. A. Blasingame, the father of Alfred H. Blasingame who
was born near Vallicita, Calaveras County, on December 28, 1855. J. A.
Blasingame was a native of Talladega County, Ala. Becoming enthused with
the glowing reports that reached him of the discovery of gold in California,
he decided to try his fortune in the Golden State and in that memorable
year, 1849, he came via Panama to California, bringing with him several
men to help in the mines. For a while he engaged in gold-mining, but like
many other men endowed with keen business acumen he discovered other
ways and means of securing gold that were not as hazardous and uncertain
as mining. Subsequently he entered the stock-raising business, and by good
judgment and wise management he achieved signal success. In 1862 or 1863,
he located in Fresno County where he purchased land near Big Dry Creek,
in the vicinity of Academy. His land holdings accumulated until he was
the possessor of between ten and twelve thousand acres. In 1869 he was also
interested in the sheep business. That his splendid business ability and wise
counsel in financial matters were soon recognized in the community is
recorded in the fact that he was for a time the vice-president of the Bank
of Fresno County, the first bank in the county. In 1878 or 1879, he retired
from active participation in business and moved to the city of Fresno. He
was interested in educational matters and helped to build the Academy
school house, which was one of the first in Fresno County. He also gave
his aid to the church work of the community. J. A. Blasingame was united
in marriage with Mary Jane Ogle, a native of Missouri. They were married
in Calaveras County and the union was blessed with seven children : five
boys and two girls.
Alfred H. Blasingame, of this review, was the oldest child. In the
fall of 1869, just after the golden spike was driven. Alfred H. accompanied
^UiJ^ "^VK)
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 915
his parents back to Alabama, then to Texas, and about 1870 they crossed
the plains, with a drove of cattle, which they had to guard every night,
and after a hazardous but interesting trip they arrived safely in California.
Alfred's education was received principally in the school at Academy, where
he attended up to about the year 1872. After his school days were over he
remained with his parents, assisting his father on the ranch until the latter's
death in 1881, when Alfred assumed charge of the ranch. Alfred, with his
brother, Lee A., engaged in the sheep business, running as many as 15.000
head of sheep. About 1911, Alfred disposed of his interest in the sheep busi-
ness and since then has been successfully engaged in raising cattle. They
make headquarters on a part of the old Blasingame ranch, which has numer-
ous springs, making it very desirable for growing cattle. They lease other
lands and own about 1,200 head, which are well known by their brand. H.
At Academy, on February 8, 1905, A. H. Blasingame was married to
Harriet S. Cole a native of Academy, the daughter of William T. Cole,
who was born in IMissouri and who served in the ]\Iexican War. In 1848
he crossed the plains to California. For a time he followed mining. He was
married in Solano County in 1854. to Jennie Sweasey, who was born in
Maine, and who also crossed the plains, coming with her parents in 1850.
Mr. Cole farmed in Solano County till 1860. when he located in Fresno
County, being engaged in the sheep business on Kings Ri\er until 1870,
when he located at Academv. He helped build the Ac'ademv school build-
ing in 1872. He died in 1907. aged eighty-two years, while his widow sur-
vives him. residing in Clovis. being now ninety years of age. They were
the parents of a family of ten girls, eight of whom are living. Mrs. Blas-
ingame was the youngest, and for some years was engaged in educational
work in this county. Air. and Mrs. Blasingame moved to Clovis in 1914.
where they reside with their four children: Alary Jane. Alfred, Jr.. Julia
and Kate. Mrs. Cole is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Churcli South.
In the line of his business, Mr. Blasingame is a member of the State Cattle
Growers Association.
MATIAS ERRO. — Identified with Fresno County as a stockman and
man of affairs. Matias Erro has always maintained his home here, and would
like to be associated with this section as long as he lives. He is a well-to-do
sheep-man and farmer who must be numbered among the most hospitable of
adopted Californians. and whose prosperity and wealth are no cause of sur-
prise to those who know of his activity as an inveterate worker. He was born
in Navarra, Spain, on February 13, 1863. the son of Jose Erro. a miller of flour,
who ran his mill w-ith waterpower. while he also gave of his attention to farm-
ing. His daughter now owns the historic establishment and runs it after the
manner of the sire. Nine children were born to Sefior Jose Erro and his good
wife, but only five are now living ; and the single one to come to America is
the fifth youngest, Matias Erro.
Brought up on a farm, he attended the Spanish public schools, and hav-
ing early heard of the opportunities afforded in California, he concluded to
try his fortune here. When not over seventeen, he embarked at Bordeaux
for Liverpool and sailed to New York, and by Ma\' 1, 1880. arrived in San
Francisco. He pushed on to Tres Pinos in San Benito County and, since his
funds were low, he immediately went to to work on a ranch at $15 a month,
and being anxious to give satisfaction, he worked from da3dight until dark.
In the fall of 1881, he removed to where King City now stands in Alonterey
County, and there he was in the employ of a sheepman, with whom he re-
mained until 1885. In October of that year he returned to San Francisco, and
on the thirtieth of the month crowned the first chapter of his life in the Golden
State by becoming a naturalized American citizen. He next went to Castro-
ville, bought a new wagon and two horses and drove through the Pacheco
Pass to Los Banos. In November the heavy rain began and he went to Mer-
ced with a partner and bought 1,100 ewes at $2.25 a head, and drove the band
916 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
to Fresno County, and having pitched their camp at Cantua, in the fall of 1886
he boug:ht his partner out and continued alone. Ever since he has been in the
sheep business for himself.
In 1891. Mr. Erro bought a ranch on Jacobitos Creek near what is now
Coalinga, and there for a few years made his headquarters. Then he moved
to Madera and bought a ranch of 420 acres four miles south of the town. Part
of it was given up to the growing of alfalfa and a dairy : there were thirty acres
of orchard and another thirty acres of vineyard : and some of the land was
used for sheep. In 1909 he sold the ranch and removed to Fresno, and from
that date ]\Ir. Erro has been reckoned a man of affairs here. He is one of the
organizers of and a director and vice-president in the Growers National Bank
of Fresno. Here he bought a residence, while he continued farming and the
raising of sheep in Coalinga. on leased land, and later he bought a ranch of
220 acres at Rolinda where he is now raising alfalfa and grain. The tract is
under the canal and also has two pumping-plants, for which Mr. Erro put in
two electric pumps, one of five inches, the other of six. He also owns 200
acres at Tranquillit}'. 120 acres of which he has in alfalfa. He has sunk deep
artesian wells, and has a splendid flow of good water, so that he is able to
irrigate the entire ranch. Besides the above, he owns 640 acres at Tulare
Lake, on which he very successfully raises grain.
Mr. Erro is still engaged in leasing lands near Coalinga for sheep-raising,
and there and in the mountains he has about 6.000 head of sheep. In 1916 he
bought a place of forty acres on Church Avenue, Fresno, where he resided
until 1918, when he purchased his present large ten-room residence at 340
North Van Ness Street, where he resides with his family. For some years he
has belonged to the National "\^'oolgroAvers Association.
Mr. Erro was married at Hanford to Miss Javera Huarte, a fair daughter
of Spain, who was born at Navarra. She died in 1910 from the result of an
automobile accident. Five children were born to them : Agnes, Annette, An-
gelina, John, and Phillip, all at home. Mr. Erro was married a second time
on May 27. 1913, in Los Angeles, to Mrs. Marie (Noussitoul Camy, who was
born on River Pou, Basses Pyrenees. France, and came to Fresno in 1889,
where she was first married to Jean Camy, a prominent stockman and dairy-
man who died February 17, 1905. the result of the union being five children,
four of whom are living: Henry A. a rancher on Belmont Avenue; Julia A.,
who is Mrs. J. P. Sagouspe of Nevada : Alfred, serving in the Aviation Section
of the United States Navy; and Lawrence L.. attending St. Mary's College.
Oakland. The Jean Camy estate owns valuable lands on Belmont Avenue and
an orange grove near Centerville.
Besides Mr. Erro's interest in oil-lands, he is a capitalist of value to fin-
anciers. He has encouraged every good movement likely to advance local
business interests, and he has especialh' supported the First National Bank
of Coalinga. In national politics IMr. Erro is a Republican, but when voting
on matters near at home, he votes for Fresno every time, and stimulates many
to vote likewise.
JOHN CALVIN BRANDON.— One of the leading contractors and
builders of the city of Sanger is J. C. Brandon, better known to his intimates
as "Cal" Brandon. He has specialized in this particular work since 1903
and has erected enough substantial buildings in Sanger and vicinity to justify
the statement that he is a master builder and a leader in his craft, as Brandon-
Built Buildings are known for their beauty and durability.
Cal Brandon was born in Mercer County, Ohio, December 14, 1862, a
son of William A. and Sarah (McDonald) Brandon, parents of nine children,
seven now living, namely: Cal; Lewis, in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Z. Z., in San
Francisco; Lydia E.. Mrs.' W. F. Baker, of Fresno; Minnie, ]\Irs. Frank Hells-
worth, of Hanford; Pearl, Mrs. John TMoore, of Porterville ; and M. V., of
Sanger. Cal Brandon was educated in the public schools of Ohio, learned
the carpenter trade from his father, who was a master workman; then, de-
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 917
siring to see more of the world, with his brother, M. V., he came to the Pacific
Coast in 1882. They stopped for a time in Placerville, but in 1884 located in
Fresno County, where Cal has since resided. He was engaged in the stock
business in Watts Valley, where he homesteaded 160 acres of land, and suc-
ceeded. For two years he raised corn on the river bottom, east of Sanger, on
land that he and his brother leased. While he was ranching he occasionally
was called upon to do building for his neighbors, and in 1903 he beg:an that
work exclusive of all else and has won an enviable reputation in Sanger and
vicinity, where he has constructed many of the finest homes in both city and
on the ranches.
In Watts Valley. Fresno Countv, in 1885, Cal Brandon and Catherine E.
Hole, an lowan and daughter of J- B. Hole of Fresno County, were united in
marriage. There have been born six children as follows : Pearl, Mrs. Arthur
Bradford: Grover A.; Clara B., Mrs. Elbert Hamilton: Marvel B., IMrs. Clete
Allred : Vivian. Mrs. Houdashelt: and Alice N. Fraternally Mr. Brandon is
a member of the Eagles and Modern A\'oodmen of America. He is interested
in educational matters and served as a trustee in \\''atts \'"alley, also three
years in Sanger, where his influence was felt for the good of the schools. Mr.
Brandon has seen the development of Fresno County from grain and hog-
wallow land into vineyards and orchards, and has noted with satisfaction the
building of towns and cities on the wide plains of the Valley.
SAMUEL J. CULL.— A resident of the Golden State for forty-five
years, and an honored pioneer of Fresno County. Samuel T- Cull is one of
the early settlers of his section of the cciunty. having purchased his present
ranch of forty acres in the Empire District in 1905. A native of the Blue
Grass State. S. J. Cull was born in Washington County, Ky., October 17.
1873, a son of Hugh and Jennie (Taylorl Cull, also natives of Kentucky. His
father was a Kentucky farmer who migrated to California in 1874, settling
at first near Hay ward. Alameda County, where he followed farming for one
year, when the familv moved to Livermore, and there Mr. Cull continued
to farm until 1884. In the fall of that year, Hugh Cull moved to Fresno
County, where he followed farming at what is now Rolinda, continuing
there until shortly before his death which occurred in Selma in 1887, his
devoted wife having passed away at Livermore, in 1883. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh
Cull were the parents of four children: Samuel J., of this review, being the
eldest: James P., is a rancher in the Empire district; Carrie, is now de-
ceased : and Frank, who resides in Kentucky.
AA'hen one year old, Samuel J. Cull accompanied his parents to Califor-
nia from his native state, and was reared in Alameda County until 1884,
when the father and children removed to Fresno County. His early educa-
tion was obtained in the public school of the Herndon district. At the early
age of ten years he was able to drive a team in the grain-fields, early learn-
ing the rudiments of grain-farming while living west of Fresno.
After the death of his father, Samuel J. Cull returned to Alameda
County, where he made his own way in the world by working on ranches.
When he reached his majority. Mr. Cull returned to Fresno County and,
after working on a ranch for one year, leased land in partnership with S. T.
Cull, and they engaged in raising grain. The first year they seeded 2,500
acres to grain : they had 110 head of working stock, their equipment including
two combined harvesters and a stationary threshing machine, but the first
year, being a dry one, there was not much need for the harvesters as they
cut only forty-nine sacks of grain from the large acreage, the enterprise
proving a total loss. Undaunted by their heavy loss, a spirit so characteristic
of the early pioneers, Mr. Cull was hopeful of better results in the future, so
they increased their acreage for the second year to 4,000 acres, but the Fates
seemed unpropitious to these optimistic and industrious ranchers, for the
second year proved to be another dry one and the total number of sacks
from the large acreage was only 4,000. In 1899, ]\Ir. Cull leased 320 acres of
QIS HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
land in the vicinity of where he now resides and was very successful in
raising grain in this section for six years. Afterwards he leased 900 acres
of the ^^'illiams ranch which he operated for two years and then leased 900
acres at Round Mountain, where he raised grain until 1916.
In 1905. Samuel J. Cull purchased his present place of forty acres from
A. R. Briggs, paying $40 per acre, ^^'hile raising grain at Round Mountain
Mr. Cull improved this place by setting out twenty acres to a vineyard, an
orchard of three acres and the balance to alfalfa. His ranch is in a high state
of cultivation and its appearance bespeaks the enterprise and progress of
the owner.
In 1900, Samuel J. Cull was united in marriage with !Miss Ella Beatty,
a native of Missouri, who came with her parents to California when she was
ten years of age. This happy union has been blessed with three children :
Hugh, James and Raleigh.
Fraternally. ]Mr. Cull has been a member of the Foresters of America,
at Livermore, Cal., since 1898, and is also a member of Manzanita Camp,
W. O. W., at Fresno. He is well posted on viticulture and horticulture, and
keeps a record of his production each year. !Mr. Cull is one of the original
members of the California Associated Raisin Company, also belongs to the
California Peach Growers, Inc., and is regarded as one of the most enter-
prising and progressive ranchers in his section of the county.
FRANK PETER LEISMAN.— A Hoosier who, having cast his lot in
California, has come to reflect most creditably on the stanch State of Indiana,
is Frank P. Leisman, who was born in St. Anthony, Dubois County, on
August 27, 1863, the son of Frank Leisman whose birthplace was on the
storm}- ocean. He first saw the light on an American sailing vessel, three
weeks before his parents landed in the United States in 1835. These worthy
people. John P. and Mrs. Leisman, grandparents of our subject, settled at
Pittsburg, Pa., where Mr. Leisman got work in the iron mines; and later
as memlicrs of a colony of sixteen Germans, they moved to Dubois County,
Ind., where they engaged in farming. In 1888, they went to Missouri and
there spent their last days.
Frank Leisman, the father, was reared in Dubois County and there he
married Christena Berg, a native of Indiana. For a while he was a school
teacher as well as a farmer, but in 1888 he located in Atchison County, Mo.,
where he bought a farm. He sold it in 1910, however, and settled in Nebraska
City, Nebr., and there, in 1917, he died. Mrs. Leisman passed away in iNIis-
souri, the mother of thirteen children, seven of whom are still li^■ing.
Frank P. is the oldest of all and the only one in California ; and he
was brought up on an Indiana farm until he was eighteen, when he learned
the carpenter's trade. In 1885 he went to Spearville, Ford County, Kans.,
but he soon removed to Atchison County, i\Io., where he worked on a farm.
It was there, on February 17, 1890, that Mr. Leisman married Miss Carrie
Gude, who was born in Dubois County, Ind., the daughter of Benjamin and
Marie (Kemper) Gude, who came from Holland and settled in Indiana. They
were farmer folk, much respected, and the}- died there leaving many friends.
Mr. Leisman paid his fiancee the compliment of going back to Indiana for
her, and bringing her to their new home.
Following his marriage, Mr. Leisman bought a farm at \\'atson, and
raised grain and stock. As the pioneer in that field there, he made a specialty
of Durpc Jersey hogs, and was an organizer of the National Duroc Jersey
Breeders' Association. He continued here until 1897, when he spent a year
in traveling the great Northwest, and after that he lived two years at Par-
nell, I\Io., where he farmed.
Convinced of the superior advantages and prospects of Central Califor-
nia, Mr. Leisman in 1902 located in Fresno County, and soon after became
one of the earliest settlers at Empire. He followed the carpenter's trade,
worked in both Fresno and Empire, and built some of the most attractive
f 4 '^^^^£^-,^<^inXt'
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 921
residences first erected here. In 1911, Mr. Leisman purchased twenty acres
of raw land that he rapidly improved to his present place. He built service-
able ranch buildings, and set out Thompson seedless vines which are now
the chief feature of the fine place. He is a member of the California Asso-
ciated Raisin Company, and was active in securing new memberships.
Mr. and Mrs. Leisman have two children : Ludvig, who served in the
American national army until his discharge ; and Bertha, who is Mrs. A. A.
Lowe of Kerman. The family attends the Kearney Park Catholic Church.
Mr. Leisman has always been a Democrat and has also always been an
American, and places patriotism above partisanship, "every time."
JOSEPH E. WOODWORTH.— A typical California rancher who comes
from one of the "good old" pioneer families and has been very successful,
especially in the raising of fine corn, alfalfa hay and high-grade hogs, is
Joseph E. Woodworth, who lives on the Laguna, six miles southwest of
Laton. A native son proud of his association with the Golden State, he was
born near Sacramento on October 24, 1857. the son of Alonzo Woodworth,
who came from Rochester, N. Y. In company with his uncle, Lot W'hitcomb,
he had crossed the plains to Oregon in 1847 and settled near Baker City
where the ^^'hitc^mbs have ever since been leading people, but in 1850
Alonzo \A"(.M id worth came down to Sacramento, lured by the discovery of
gold. In that city and year he was niarried to Miss Julia Malissa Twitchell. a
member of a family, like the Woodworths. of English origin and identified
with the English-settled East. Grandfather loshua Twitchell was married
in Ohio to Arsula Knight, the ceremom taking |)lace on June 25, 1816; he
was born in Vermont on September 12, 17'H. and his wife was born on
July 1, 1797, her birthplace being Northampton, ^fass. They were, therefore,
all Colonial families. Joshua came from Ohio to Illinois, farmed there for a
while near Monmouth, and in 1848, right after the gold discovery, he sold and
outfitted for California, crossed the plains with ox teams and reached Sacra-
mento in the early part of 1849, after wintering at Salt Lake. Joshua Twitchell
was a physician, and so became one of the earliest practitioners at Sacra-
mento, following the medical profession until he died at San Juan on August
24, 1867. Grandmother Twitchell reached the age of eighty-nine years, three
months and twenty-four da.ys, and on October 24, 1886, she died at San
Juan. Dr. and Mrs. Twitchell had six living children of whom Joseph's
mother, Julia, was one. She was born in Ohio, on February 20, 1833, and
reared at Monmouth, 111., and married Alonzo Woodworth at Sacramento,
in 1850. He worked out on farms, was a good stockman and a teamster.
He settled at San Juan, formerly in Monterey County, but later in San
Benito, and owned "and farmed 160 acres. The Woodworths had thirteen
children, eight boys and two girls of whom grew to maturity: and Joseph is
the third living son. The parents moved up to Sacramento and lived there
when our suliject was born.
Joseph E. grew up at San Juan until he was twenty-five years old, and
there, in his twenty-first 3'ear he was married to Miss Mary F. Shook, a
native of Sacramento County and the daughter of Fortunatus and Cornelia
fDoane) Shook. Mr. Shook was an old river-man and a jolly old soul, a
good singer and a good dancer. Two children were born as the result of this
union : Josie May, who is the wife of S. F. Carper, the well-known carpenter
and builder at San Jose, and who is the mother of two children ; and Pearl,
the wife of Earl Campbell, also a well-known carpenter and builder in the
same town, the mother of one child.
On Washington's Birthday, 1883, Mr. Woodworth came to the San Joa-
quin Valley and farmed for three years near Newman, Stanislaus County,
and in 1888 bought 320 acres known as the Samuel Hill Estate. Here he
raised fine Durham cattle until 1896, when he sold to Miller & Lux and he
then moved to Dos Palos, and in 1901 he came to Laguna bringing with him
a fine herd of Durham cattle. He bought forty acres from Nares & Saunders,
922 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and in 1905 he purchased an additional thirty acres, thus making seventy acres
which he has since well improved. He has a beautiful row of Lombardy
poplars, set out in 1906, now grown to be almost forest trees and beautiful
as ever; and he also has a lot of fine North Carolina poplars, equally well
developed. His ranch boasts of good barns, a tank house, and a milk house,
with cement floor ; there is a well, furnishing an abundant water supply, from
which the water is piped to his barn. So many are the improvements that
it is easy to see how he has put in a life-time of work to bring about the
happy results.
In 1902, Mr. \\'oodworth was married a second time to Aliss Ola Allen.
a native of North Carolina, who came to California when she was twenty
years old. Her parents had died in North Carolina when she was only five
years of age, and she was reared in the family of a cousin. She came out here
to join her brothers, Thomas J. and William H. Allen, whose life-stories are
given elsewhere in this volume. She attended the common schools of North
Carolina, and there enjoyed the foundation of a liberal education.
A Native Son. affiliated with the Parlor at San Jose, and a Republican in
national politics, Mr. Woodworth is a friend of Charles King, the banker
and railway builder of Hardwick, and he helped to start the Hardwick Bank.
He also welcomed the Hanford & Summit Lake Railway, and he helped to
organize and develop the Laton Creamery, now a mournful memory.
On the old home place where Mr. AA^oodworth was reared, one-quarter
of a mile southeast of San Juan, there are now eight market-gardens, among
the finest in a'll California. They are managed by a great seed firm. The old
Twitchell house still stands with its majestic fireplace. As our subject grew
up, he followed his father's occupation of farmer and teamster, and attended
the public schools of San Juan. He teamed with oxen, horses and mules
before there was any railroad through the San Joaquin ^"alley. He hauled
merchandise from San Juan and San Jose, and helped to freight grain produce
and to drive hogs and cattle on the hoof — a distance of forty miles. He could
ride expertly and became a "bronco buster" and a general all around buchero.
He can lasso cattle to perfection. In those days there were many Spanish
cattle with great horns, and he often attended Spanish bull-fights. There
were some Spanish cattle here with horns two and a half feet long when our
subject came to this grant. His father once lassoed an elk near where Pleas-
anton now stands, and this animal was tamed and stayed on the Woodworth
farm many years, and grew to be about as tall as a cow. The father suf-
fered a stroke of paralysis when our subject was twenty-six years old. and
remained a speechless invalid for nineteen years, when he died at Dos
Palos aged eighty-two years, two months and two days. Joseph was asso-
ciated with his father from the time that he was twelve 3'ears of age. and
worked with him up to 1886. He was a noble old pioneer. One reason the sub-
ject does not know more about his father's former history is on account of his
paralysis and subsequent speechlessness. Joseph Woodworth himself has
met with misfortune. In 1892. while brisking horses, he was kicked in the
left eye by a colt, and the injury resulted in blindness to that eye.
FRANK SILVA. — A sturdy pioneer of the section in which he has
attained so great success, and now one of the oldest residents in the vicinity,
enjoying a well-earned rest after years of strenuous labor which lead back
to a boyhood in the balmy Azores, Frank Silva is among the most popular
ranchers in Fresno County, and enjoys with his family the esteem of a
wide circle of friends. He was born in the Island of Flores, on March 9,
1862, and was brought up on a farm as a member of a large family, a cir-
cumstance that compelled him early to set to work. In the spring of 1879,
when he was only sixteen years of age, he came to Fresno, attracted here be-
cause a half-brother had preceded him to the land of promise. For two years
he worked for Alex. Gordon and herded sheep ; and then he was with other
ranchers and sheepmen.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 923
In 188", Mr. Silva started in business for himself, by buying a drove of
sheep which he ranged where he could in the county. His returns were suffi-
ciently encouraging for him to continue in that enterprise for sixteen years ;
and he came to have as many as from three to four thousand head. He next
engaged in grain-farming and for that purpose leased land in the Houghton
tract. He broke it up and put in there the first crops planted. But the prices
were so low that he did not realize the profit that he ought, and it required
faith and courage to go ahead. Later, Mr, Silva bought his present eighty
acres — Section 25 of the Barstow Colony — and still later he purchased the
forty acres adjoining, on Section 24, Still later he secured another twenty-
. five acres from Section 25, This gave him 145 acres together, which he has
improved, putting sixty-five acres in Thompson seedless grapes, and the
balance in alfalfa, making a specialy of A-1 hay. He also built a fine resi-
dence. When he had finished what has proven the oldest place thereabouts.
he could survey the developments and improvements of many others, un-
doubtedly inspired by his own pioneer enterprise. He is a member of the
California Associated Raisin Company,
At Fresno, Mr, Silva married Miss Mary Brickley, a native of Liberty,
Fresno County, She is the mother of three children: Maggie, who is Mrs.
Fred Kaiser of Fresno ; Mamie has become Mrs, George E, Kaiser, of the
same city; and Benjamin Franklin is at home, Mrs. Silva is the daughter
of John and Dorah ( IVIcCormick i Rricklev, born in New York and Ireland
respectively. Her father served in the Civil AA'ar. In the latter sixties he
came to California and soon afterwards located in Fresno County, being
one of its early, upbuilders. All in all, a ver}- attracti\-e family is that of ]\lr.
and ]\Irs. Silva, each one devoted to promoting the general welfare of the
community.
CHARLES SCHARER.— During his many years of residence in the
county, Charles Scharer has weathered the vicissitudes of agricultural de-
velopment work, and by diligent application and perseverance has won
success in his later years. Born in Straub, Samara, Russia, November 26.
1859, he is a son of Philip and Louise (Schaefifer) Scharer, both of whom died
in that country, the father in 1875, Of their union two children were born,
and Charles was the eldest and the only one now living. He was reared on
the home farm in that far country, and after his father's death assisted his
mother there until his marriage. This occurred in Straub, in 1881, and united
him with Miss Maggie Schwabenland, also a native of that province.
After his marriage, Mr. Scharer raised grain and stock, owning a farm
on the River Volga, where he engaged in farming on a large scale. In 1888
he brought his wife and family to Fresno, and here he first engaged in build-
ing, the Farmer's Bank being among the buildings he worked on. Later,
he bought twenty acres of land in Perrin Colony No, 1 and improved the
barren land to alfalfa ; three years later he sold the property as it proved
alkaline. He then bought forty acres on IMcKinley Avenue, five miles from
Fresno, leveled and checked another ranch from the raw land and planted
it to vineyard and orchard ; again he was disappointed, as the water rights
he purchased with the property were not forthcoming. He abandoned this
project and returned to Fresno to begin again. He then rented forty acres
in alfalfa on Kearney Avenue for three years; then rented fifty acres in
vineyard and orchard at Fowler and ran the property one year.
After these ranching activities. Mr. Scharer returned to Fresno and
bought six lots on F and Inyo Streets, filled in the lots and improved them
for a feed yard and livery barn and here he ran the F Street Livery and
Feed Yard for twelve years, meeting with success. His real liking was for
ranching, however, and in 1912 he sold his business and property and settled
on the 160-acre ranch in Gray Colony, which he had purchased in 1905, This
property he had partially developed while in business in Fresno ; had leveled
and checked it and put in orchards and vineyard, 113 acres in muscats and
924 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
a ten-acre orchard. In 1906 he gave each of his two sons forty acres to
develop, and kept the remaining eighty acres until 1918, when he sold his
acreage, and in that same year bought forty acres of unimproved land in
Barstow district, and this property he is also setting to vineyard, of the
Thompson seedless variety. While carrying his other development work, in
1915 Mr. Scharer also bought a seventy-acre ranch in Del Rey, improved
to vineyard. In May, 1919, he bought twenty acres in Biola, fifteen acres
of which were in Thompson seedless. As can be seen, he is a man of
diversified abilities, always putting forth new eflforts and meeting with the
success due to a man of energy and farsightedness.
To Mr. and Mrs. Scharer six children have been born: Charles, a*
rancher in Parlier; August, a rancher at Fowler; Marie, whose death oc-
curred shortly after their arrival in California ; Margaret, Mrs. Tripple of
Fresno: Philip, assisting his father in ranch development: and Mary, Mrs.
Will of Caruthers. The family attends the Christ Lutheran Church in
Fresno, and Mr. Scharer has served as trustee of that church. In national
politics he is a Republican. A man of public spirit and progressive mind, he
has done his share in the upbuilding of Fresno County and enjoys the respect
of his man}' friends in the community. He is a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company and a firm believer in the further development
of the resources in which this county abounds.
R. C. HEIMS. — A pioneer merchant of the town of Kerman, Fresno
County, Cal., R. C. Heims began his business career in that place in 1906,
in a store-room twenty-five by forty-five feet. He carried a stock of general
merchandise such as is required in that section, and it was not long before
he had to move to more adequate quarters, where he has since conducted a
prosperous and increasing business. He is interested in all that helps to build
up Kerman and vicinity. The packing-house at Kerman was one of the
results of his spirit of enterprise, so that the fruit-grower of that district
could dispose of his product at home ; another public necessity was the
cieamery, in which enterprise lie is heavily interested. This institution has
been the means of developing the alfalfa lands into prosperous dairy ranches,
and has added materially to the development of the surrnundin>.; country.
Besides these activities he is president of the Kerman Commercial Associa-
tion ; president of the Kerman Building & Loan Association, which he
helped organize, and no one is more loyal in the support of all movements
for the upbuilding of this section of Fresno County than Mr. ?Ieims. He
also was one of the organizers and a charter member of the Kerman Cham-
ber of Commerce.
Mr. Heims was born in Lancaster County, Pa., August 16, 1865. and his
education was obtained in the grammar and high schools there. At the age
of seventeen, he learned the business of manufacturing furniture, and at the
age of twenty-five was superintendent of a furniture factory in St. Paul.
He first married, in St. Paul, !\Iinn., Katherine Schneider, who was born in
Bloomington, III. and who died in November, 1918. His second marriage
took place in Madera, where he was united with Anna Schallman, a resident
of San Francisco, and she presides over his home at Kerman.
ERNEST KLETTE. — A Fresno attorney whose natural ability and
steadily increasing knowledge of the law has verv naturally brought him
increasing patronage, confidence and esteem, is Ernest Klette,' who was born
at Montreal, Canada, on July 17, 1874, the son of C. J. M. Klette, a furrier,
who married Marie Held. Through the methods he" had developed in his
business career, the elder Klette came to occupy a good position wherever he
operated, wliile his good wife helped to add, by her personal traits, to their
circle of friends.
In the centennial year of the republic, when attention was directed anew
to the advantages of the United States, the family first came to California
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 929
and settled in Fresno County, then hardly yet entering; upon its era of pros-
perity. They took a farm about five miles from Millerton. and the family
ranched and engaged in the stock business. After a busy and useful life,
the elder Mr. Klette died June 8, 1909, honored by all who knew him, while
Mrs. Klette, equally well liked and mourned, passed away December 28, 1903.
Ernest Klette was educated at the county school in the district eighteen
miles square which his father had organized, and then he helped on the fam-
ily ranch until he was past twenty years of age. He early interested himself
in local civic affairs, and during this period of apprenticeship to agricultural
pursuits he became Justice of the .Peace and in that office conscientiously
served his fellow men. In 1902 he resigned the responsibility, determined
upon a forward movement demanding increased eiiforts for a new field.
Having studied privately, he entered Stanford University and took the
law courses there ; and in December, 1904, at San Francisco, he was admitted
to practice at the California bar. For a year and a half he practiced in Selma,
and since then he has been one of the most active and prosperous attorneys
of Fresno.
On April 4, 1904, at Fresno, Mr. Klette was married to Miss Ada Knight,
a resident of Fresno, who passed away November 4, 1908, the mother of a
daughter, Ruth. On September 18, 1912, he was wedded to Olga Sorensen.
He belongs to Camp 160 of the \Voodmen of the World, and has passed
through the chairs. He is a member of the Fresno County Bar Association,
supi^icirts the Republican platform, and is untiring in efforts for local advance-
ment and uplift. In I'^OJ he was ap])()inted a city trustee of Fresno to fill
the unexpired term of Mr. AX'rightson : in 1909 he was reelected to this
position : and in 1912 he was appointed city attorney of Fresno.
Mr. Klette has been a frequent contributor to the press, of articles upon
public questions.
LESLIE DEVOE REYBURN.— A successful vineyardist who may
proudly look back to the accomplishments of his pioneer father, nor fear a
comparison between what was wrought in an earlier generation and what he
himself has achieved, is Leslie Devoe Reyburn, who owns one of the scien-
tifically developed and artistically arranged places at Clovis, and quite as
nice a ranch home for its size and pretensions as any in Fresno County. He
was born a native son at Salida, Stanislaus County, on September 7, 1876, the
son of Joseph D. Reyburn, a native of Des ^loines, Iowa, where he was born
in 1840. After attending a log-cabin school there, the father grew up appren-
ticed to farming, worked out as a farm laborer, and in the early sixties joined
a mule-train company about to cross the plains. They traveled along the
Platte River and finally- rr.ichcd distant (Oregon, where Air. Reyburn had some
experience in lumbering; 1)ut .ilthmigli he had planned to stop in that state,
he was so dissatisfied with the long rains that he and his party came south
into California, to the Sacramento River and Folsom. and finally crossed over
the mountains into Nevada. There he teamed between Carson City and Vir-
ginia City, then he drove to Stockton, sold his mules and camped for the win-
ter. He returned to Nevada, but in the fall of 1864 came back to California
and settled on the Stanislaus River. He homesteaded and preempted on what
is now Salida, and again engaged in the lumber business, this time on the
Tuolumne River. In 1869 he was married to Miss Mary Ella Lester, an lowan
who had come to live nearby, and by whom he had the following children :
Charles T. ; Leslie D., of this review; Glenn W.; Emery Everett: C. Ray;
Ida May ; Walter P ; John L, and a child who died in infancy. He continued
to raise grain until 1881, and then he came to Fresno County and bought a
farm in the Red Bank district. He owned over 2,500 acres in a body, some
of which he eventually gave to each of his children, while he was yet alive.
He also set out a vineyard of 120 acres. On JNIay 9, 1897, ]\Ir. Reyburn re-
married at San Jose, and six more children were born to him : Gilbert Rowell,
930 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
who died a baby ; and Gladys, Alfred, Doris, Mary Margaret and Adda. After
a particularly active life, in which he sought to contribute toward civic reform
under the banners of the Republican party and endeavored to exert, as a
ruling elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, such religious influence
as he could, Mr. Reyburn lived in retirement at Pacific Grove and quietly
passed away, full of honor, in 1914.
Educated at the public school at Red Bank, and also in the Jefferson dis-
trict, Leslie Reyburn assisted his father until he was twenty-one and then
engaged in farming for himself. His father gave him an outfit, and leased him
some land : and he engaged in grain-raising, in which field his father had been
so successful. This he continued for six years, but light crops decided him
to enter another field.
He then tried viticulture, and toward this end his father gave him forty
acres of stubble field, three and a half miles southeast of Clovis. -He leveled
and improved it, and set out a vineyard ; in 1907 he built himself a handsome
residence. He set out twenty acres of muscats, ten acres of malagas, five
acres of seedless grapes, and planted the balance to figs : and when well estab-
lished, he energetically supported each of the raisin associations, and par-
ticularlv the good work of the California Associated Raisin Company, and
the California Peach Growers. Inc.
The La Frances \'ineyards, as he has named them, are well kept, sightly
and beautiful, and reflect great credit on the enterprising owner. To what
he had inherited of intuition, foresight and a natural aptitude for agricultural
endeavor on a high plane, Mr. Reyburn has added an invaluable experience
of his own. so that today he is rated as one of the ablest viticulturists in this
section of the state.
In the TefFerson district. October 22. 1902, Mr. Reyburn was married to
Miss Frances Dawson, a native of Arena, Wis., and the daughter of John A.
Dawson. She came here when she was eleven 3'ears of age, and has grown
up practically as a native daughter. She has three children: Harold. Milton
and Leland, and with her husband is active in Concordia Chapter. No. 320,
of the Order of the Eastern Star at Clovis. The family attends the First Pres-
byterian Church at Clovis, of which Mr. Reyburn has been a trustee for years,
and was secretary of the building committee when the new church was built.
Public-spirited in everv respect, Mr. Reyburn is a school trustee of the
Jefi'erson district and for six years has been clerk of the board. He is also a
"member of the board of trustees of the Clovis L^nion High School. In 1917
he served on the Grand Jury, and he has been ready at all times to respond
for war-service of any kind. He was made a ]\Iason in Clovis Lodge. No. 417.
F. & A. M., and belongs to Pine Burr Camp, No. 254, at Clovis, of the Wood-
men of the \\'orld.
BERNHARD KOHMANN. — A vigorous upbuilder and a generous im-
prover, who has effected all that he has accomplished with his own unaided
efforts, is Bernhard Kohmann, who came to Fresno County in the early
eighties. He was born near Lahr, Baden, Germany, on August 14, 1858. and
there he was reared and received a good education. When sixteen he was
apprenticed as a wheelwright, and when he had reached his eighteenth year,
he had completed his trade. He then went as a journeyman through southern
Germanv and northeastern Switzerland, and while in the little Swiss republic,
he determined to come to the United States. He saw an advertisement in a
German paper calling for men to work in the vineyards and setting forth the
prospects in Fresno County for viticulture, and having visited and said adieu
to his parents, he crossed the ocean and wide continent, and in November,
1883, arrived in Fresno.
At first Mr. Kohmann went to the Eisen vineyard, which had been men-
tioned in the advertisement referred to, and found employment; and there
he continued until he was foreman in that and other wineries. He later
worked at his trade in the Fresno Agricultural Works, and he was the first
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 931
man to carry a ladle of molten iron to the molds there, in May, 1887. After-
ward he worked in the Donahoo-Emmons hardware store awhile, and then
in different shops at his trade, both as a wheelwright and a blacksmith.
In 1892, Mr. Kohmann rented an alfalfa ranch from A. V. Lisenbv in
West Park, who advanced him the means to start in farming; and he con-
tinued until, on January 2, 1900, he finally bought his present place. This
consists of twenty acres on Belmont Avenue, two miles west of Fresno, for
which he paid thirty dollars an acre, fifty dollars down, while the balance
was to be paid within nine years. While he leveled and improved the place,
he worked out for others, leveling lands, making roads and ditches, and con-
tracting generally. From time to time he improved his property, setting out
a vineyard and building a residence and barns, which he erected himself ; and
then he bought five acres more, near it, also a vineyard. He now raises
Thompson seedless grapes, but at first he set out zinfandels, which were
later grafted, and he also set out malagas. He joined the California Asso-
ciated Raisin Company and the California Fruit Growers Association, and
thus helped to advance California husbandry.
At Fresno on September 11, 1888, l\Ir. Kohmann was married to Miss
Mary Duss, a native of Emmendingen, in Baden, Germany, and thev have
six children: Adolph B., who assists his father; Emil J-, who was educated
in Fresno County, entered the United States Army on August 10, 1917, trained
at Camp Kearney with the Grizzlies, went overseas with the Field Artillery
and later was transferred to the Army of Occupation and served there until
June, 1919, when he returned to the United States; Otto Francis, who entered
April, 1918, trained at Camp Lewis, went overseas with the Ninety-first Di-
vision and came back with them ; was discharged in IMay, 1919. and is now
at home ; Bertha, a twin of Otto F., now Mrs. John Kooyman, ranching near
Rolinda ; and Emma and Gerald, at home.
Mr. Kohmann, who is a Roman Catholic, belongs to the Knights of Co-
lumbus and the Young Men's Institute. He is a Democrat in national politics,
and an American citizen, who believes in casting aside partisanship in local
issues, for the welfare of the community.
M. BOS. — A progressive farmer and viticulturist who has the distinction
of being the oldest settler still living in the Holland Colony is M. Bos, who
has not only cared industriously for his own interests, but has found time
willingly and efiiciently to serve his fellowmen as well. He was born at
Appeldoorn, Holland, January 1, 1861, the son of Dirk Bos, a farmer and
lumberman, who died there. His mother was Hendrika von Logem before
her marriage, and she also died in her native land. She was the mother of
five children, and the second eldest of these is the subject of our sketch.
Mr. Bos is the only one of the family who came to the United States.
He enjoyed the excellent public school advantages of Holland until his elev-
enth .year, but then began to work to help his parents, and from that time on
he had something of a struggle with the world. In July, 1884, he was mar-
ried to Miss Antonia Pol, who was born in Holland and w^as the daughter
of Andrew and Eva Pol. For a while after his marriage he rented a farm and
practiced agriculture as the Dutch understand it.
By 1891, however, Mr. Bos had decided to leave the country of dikes
and canals and try his fortunes in the New World. His attention was already
fixed on California, and in due time he arrived at Fresno and soon was em-
ployed at a vineyard in the Holland Colony. Three years later he was able
to rent a vineyard, which he ran for a couple of years; and this experience
as well as the profits of his labor put him on his feet sufficiently to enable
him to take another and important step forward. In 1896 he bought his
present place of twenty acres on Blackstone Avenue, four and three quar-
ters miles north of Fresno, where he engaged in ranching ; and later he bought
forty acres more, half a mile to the north. He went in for grain raising, and
932 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
made of the home place a fine vineyard with the best of muscat vines. He
also bought twenty acres a quarter of a mile nearer Fresno, and set out
vines and an orchard there. He has become one of the notable producers of
high-grade apricots, figs and grapes, and is an active member of the Cali-
fornia Associated Raisin Company.
Eleven children were born to Mr. and ]\Irs. Bos, and ten are still living.
Dirk assists his father; Andrew is in the United States' service; Everett
resides in this vicinity ; John is also serving his country ; Temmen is living
not far away; and besides these there are Marie, Albert, Eva, Johanna and
Hendrika. Henry died when he was seventeen years of age. Mr. Bos has
taken a very active part in civic afl^airs, and has given his services freely
for sixteen j^ears as a trustee of the Wolters school district. He has been
clerk of the school board for ten years and was a member of the board when
the new school building was erected.
DR. HIRAM P. MERRITT.— Of Huguenot stock, the Marriatts came
originally from France to Florida; three brothers located there, and their
descendants gradually drifted northward, some of them to Vermont. The
name was always Marriatt until later generations Americanized it. Noble
M. Merritt was born in Vermont and was married to Elizabeth Bates, a Vir-
ginian ; they were the parents of three children, the eldest of whom, Hiram P.,
was born at Fair Haven, Rutland County. Vt., January 24, 1828, and when
three years old his parents removed to Cuba, N. Y. When a lad of fourteen
he became filled with the desire to "go west," and accordingly went to
South Bend, Ind., where he made his home with an uncle. Dr. A. B. ]\Ierritt,
and soon found employment in his uncle's drug store. He occupied his spare
moments in the study of pharmacy, and later on medicine. Six vears after
his arrival in South Bend he went to Laporte, where he entered the Indiana
State Medical College, graduating in due time, and he gave promise of a
brilliant career in his chosen profession.
In the spring of 1850 he and five of his comrades fitted out a company
and started on that long and perilous trip across the plains. The trip was
attended with many exciting and trying incidents. Owing to inexperience
and poor advice, they had not provided sufficient provisions and were obliged
to live on half rations, at one time being so famished that they were unable
to travel. In Utah they had all their horses stolen, and it was some time
before they recovered them. Many and thrilling were the hairbreadth escapes
of these young men from the Indians. After six months of travel, foot-sore
and weary, the little party arrived in Sacramento.
When he had recuperated from this exhausting and perilous trip, Mr.
Merritt bought a lot of provisions and other necessaries and went back into
Nevada to meet incoming emigrants. He traded these supplies for their
famished stock, which he put on good pasture and soon had in salable con-
dition, and thus laid the foundation of future prosperity. From this on he
traded extensively with the emigrants and miners, and had pack trains
running as far north as Siskiyou and Trinity Counties. On one of these
trips one of his pack mules fell into a creek and was drowned, losing a pack-
load of cofifee. From this circumstance Mr. ]\Ierritt named the stream Cof?ee
Creek, which has since become famous for its gold mines.
In 1851, Mr. Merritt first passed through Yolo County on one of his
trips from Sacramento to Siskiyou, and the following year returned to what
he believed would be the future garden spot of California. B)' this time he
had accumulated enough means to begin stock-raising on an extensive scale,
and later on wheat-growing, and by perseverance and industry he became the
most extensive stock-raiser and mule-breeder in Central California. At the
time of his death, in 1893, he was the owner of large tracts of land in Trinity,
]\Iendocino and Fresno Counties, Cal., and in ^Morrow County, Ore., and
also had the largest sheep-ranch in Nevada, his flocks feeding over four
H. F. MERRITT. M. D.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 935
counties, besides his holdings in Yolo County. He was the organizer of the
76 Land and Water Co., \\liich built the 76 Canal, purchased and devel-
oped thousands of acres of land in Fresno and Tulare Counties, making the
desert blossom like the rose. He was largely instrumental in starting the
Bank of Yolo, of which he was president up to the time of his death, and was
one of the charter members of the Yolo County Savings Bank also. As a
public-spirited citizen he gave many rights of way for irrigating canals and
railroads, and aided in everything that had a tendency to develop the country ;
he was also liberal in giving to churches and took great interest in educational
matters.
Mr. Merritt was married in 1868 to Jeanette E. Hebron, a woman of
many accomplishments and the mother of his four children : Lanson, who
died in 1898, after having made a name and place for himself in both Cali-
fornia and Navada as a stock-raiser and business man ; George N., vice presi-
dent of the Bank of Yolo and a prominent capitalist ; Florence, Mrs. C. C.
Gardner, of Alameda ; and Jeanette, who married Roy P. Mathews of
Navelencia.
After the death of her husband, Mrs. Merritt took up the burden of
business and the management of the afifairs left by him. How well she has
managed these afifairs is shown by her adding to the holdings and greatly
increasing the value of them. Besides the items enumerated above, ]\lrs.
Merritt owns with her son, Merritt Terrace, a thirty-acre subdivision of San
Francisco, and other realty holdings in various parts of the state. She is
liberal and progressive and has carried out faithfully the ambitions and
ideals of her husband and herself with remarkable success.
MRS. JULIA ANN JACOBS.— The distinction of being a native daugh-
ter, as well as being a daughter of a fortv-niner, and of an honored pioneer
family of California, belongs to Mrs. Julia Fink Jacobs, who was born in
Fresno County, in 1863, the daughter of Peter and Eliza (Deakin) Fink,
natives of AA'isconsin and England, respectively. In 1849, Peter Fink, in-
spired by the reports of the discovery of gold, migrated to California. How-
ever, like many another miner, Mr. Fink decided that farming ofifered a
safer and more dependable means of livelihood, so he took up agriculture
and followed it successfully the remainder of his days. Peter Fink's demise
occurred in 1904. Mr. and Mrs. JMuk were the parents of six children, as
follows: Mrs. J. V. Hill: Mrs. Julia A. Jacobs; Airs. T. W. Street: Mrs. Rose
Deason : Mrs. Mary Hackett : and Peter E. Fink.
In 1886, Julia Fink was united in marriage with Alfred T. Marsh, at
one time a deputy sheriff in Arizona, where they lived for twelve years.
This union was blessed with seven children; four of whom are li\'ing: Mrs.
E. C. Pulliam : Maggie: Alice: and Ralph, who is now in the I'nitod States
Navy. The second marriage of Mrs. Julia ]\Tarsh was solemnized in l')n2,
when she was united with Harry Jacobs, born in Kentucky. They settled
down to farming on part of the Fink estate. In 1918 she moved to Fresno
where she now resides.
For a more extended account of the pioneer Fink family, see the sketch
of Eliza Fink on another page of this history.
CHRIS L. HANSEN. — A pioneer whose early life was a struggle for
existence, but wdio has prospered since he came to Fresno County, is Chris L.
Hansen, who has a record of thirty-five years of faithful and honorable ser-
vice for the Valley Lumber Company in their Fresno yards. He was born
on April 21, 1859, in Schleswig-Holstein, under the Danish flag, five years
before Germany took it from Denmark, and grew up to attend the local school.
Inasmuch as the territory there came under German rule in 1864, he had to
study German in the schools much against his wishes. But he studied Danish
also, and for the most part, and was brought up in the Danish Lutheran
Church.
936 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
His father was Ehm Hansen, a farmer operating on a small scale, who
owned a few acres and kept two or three cows, making most of his living
working out on larger farms. He was in the Danish army in the War of 1848
with Germany, and proved himself thoroughly patriotic. He lived to be forty-
eight, and died when Chris was only twelve or thirteen years old. He was
married in Schleswig to Elsie Hansen, who died there in February, 1917,
almost ninety years old. The good couple had four children: Christian L.,
the oldest; Alethe, who married Christian Iversen, and now resides in Scherre-
beck, Schleswig; Niels P. Hansen, a vineyardist and rancher near Oleander;
and H. A. Hansen, agent at Selma for the Valley Lumber Company.
In 1876, before he was seventeen, Chris Hansen went to Denmark in
order to get away from German militarism, and there he worked at farm
labor. At twenty-one, he enlisted in the Danish army, served two one-half
years, and was honorably discharged. Then he returned to Schleswig and
bade good-bye to his mother and home, and bravely made off for the United
States. He sailed from Hamburg, and landed at Castle Garden in New York
City on November 1, 1882. His taking up residence in Denmark was due to
the fact that when Gemiany annexed Schleswig-Holstein it was provided that
any boy born before 1870 might remain a subject of Denmark by removing
to Denmark before he was seventeen.
An old army friend knew something about Paterson, and that drew ^Ir.
Hansen to New Jersey, but he left the city after thirtv days' work on a dairy
farm, where he had received seven dollars for his labor and had to pay an
employment agency one dollar to get the job. He then went to Perth Ambov,
where he secured work at one dollar a day, digging clay for a brick and tile
factory, and where he had to pay sixteen dollars a month for board ; and he
stayed there until August, 1883, when he concluded to try California.
He arrived at Fresno, therefore, in the latter part of August, 1883, and
from the first thought that he had reached next-door to heaven, with the
result that, with the exception of the time when he went back to Denmark
for a visit and traveled to Paris and other parts of Europe, he has never been
absent from the county since. He had only a good head, generally favor-
able health, and two willing hands, but he set to work with a resolution to
earn and to win. He first worked on the San Joaquin canal, and then on Canal
76 ; and then he entered the service of F. K. Prescott, in the vineyard of his
little ranch on Elm Avenue. Not having work for him all the time, Mr. Pres-
cott took him to Fresno and employed him in the Prescott & Pierce Lumber
and Wood Yard. This gentleman soon found out that Mr. Hansen was a good
penman and quick at figures, and gave him a clerkship ; and Avhen the foreman
of the vard was taken sick, he gave him his place, and he held the foremanship
from the summer of 1884 to 1918— a wonderful record of fidelity. In 1888, the
company was incorporated as the Valley Lumber Company with yards at
various places ; and Mr. Hansen's foremanship extended to the Fresno yard.
\^^orking for wages, he saved his money, and in 1887-88 he made a few
wise investments and got a good start. He was married in 1894 to Miss Ingel-
borg Madsen, a native of Denmark, where she was born at Heibol, Jutland,
and who had come to California a young lady. Nine children resulted from
this union: Elsie, who died when she was two and a half years old; Emma;
Anton and Henry, on the home farm; Eleanor, Meta, Christopher, Herbert
and Anna.
As has been said, ^Ir. Hansen saved his wages and speculated in a small
way. He bought and sold city lots in Fresno ; improved city property and
sold it, and also built three houses in that city. He purchased 300 acres here
three years ago, and this choice land now lies one one-half miles southwest
of Helm station. He owns 240 acres of West Side land. He bought three
quarter-sections on the West Side several years ago, and later sold half of
it for as much as he paid for the entire 480 acres, so that he has his 240 acres
as profit. The three quarter-sections he bought cost him seven dollars an
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 937
acre. In 1918, Mr. Hansen resigned his position with the Valley Lumber
Company and since then, he has put all of his time and energies on the im-
provement of his holdings, which he had rented out in 1916 and 1917.
Mr. Hansen is trying out an important experiment in prune-growing. He
set out 1,600 French prune trees in 1918 and in 1919 set out several acres more
of the same variety on his West Side ranch. Thev were all doing well up to
this time, July 26, '1919.
A Republican in national politics, ]\Ir. Hansen gives his support to meas-
ures for local improvement, regardless of party lines. He finds the greatest
opportunity for religious work in the Salvation Army.
Together with his three sturdy sons. Mr. Hansen devotes most of his time
to the work on his West Side ranch. His wife and the rest of the children
reside at his little fruit ranch on Willow Avenue in Fresno, when every week-
end is happily spent in religious observance and family reunion.
ANDREW MATTEL— A. Mattei was born on a small farm in Canton
Ticino, Switzerland, on August 9, 1855, a son of Francisco and Ursula
(Pelanda) Mattei, farmers in their native canton. Before his marriage Fran-
cisco Mattei was a teacher, and his son Andrew received a good common-
school education. As a youth he was strong and rugged, used to hard work
and simple living. He came to the LTnited States when he was eighteen
years of age, arriving in April, 1874, and going direct to Eureka, Nev., went
to work in the timber where he continued that kind of work for twenty-six
months, meantime becoming used to the wa>-s of this part of the country
and learning English. In July, 1876, he went to San Francisco and from
there to Modesto, Stanislaus County, where he found work in a dairy owned
by George Owens, for the following six months. His next move took him
to San Jose, where he continued working at the dair}' business, and then he
went to San Francisco for eight months. He returned to San Jose and for
three years was again employed in a dairy. On January 1, 1882, he arrived
in Los Angeles and was engaged in the manufacture of cream of tartar for
six months, then leased some land where he began the dairy business for
himself, delivering his product to customers in the city. After renting four
years Mr. Mattei bought the ranch and cattle, and so continued until 1890,
when he located in Fresno County, but he continued to own the Los Angeles
ranch, which he had leased for dairy purposes, until 1894.
In 1887 he had made a visit to Fresno County and purchased the nucleus
of his present holdings, foreseeing the great possibilities of what was then
desert country, \^^^en he became owner of the 320 acres it was part of a
large grain field, but he started in to develop the property as he intended
to make it a permanent home place. In 1890, after settling here, he set out
eighty acres in vines and has continued to increase his acreage until today
he is the largest individual vineyardist and wine-manufacturer in the United
States. By 1910 he had 1,200 acres set to vines, of many varieties of wine
grapes as well as raisin. He made his first wine in 1892. starting on a small
scale, and by 1902 he made 300.000 gallons of wine and 1,000 gallons of proof
brandv, all of which he sold in carload lots. He enlarged his scope of opera-
tions by erecting more buildings and now can store over 3.0OO.O0O gallons of
wine ; in his bonded warehouse he can store 350.000 gallons of brandy. His
business is done only on a wholesale plan. Mr. Mattei bought grapes where-
ever he could find them, employing many men in his various branches of
business. He created a local market for his wine and gave but little attention
to outside business, but about 1913 he began to ship to eastern and other
markets. In 1915, at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, he
was awarded twenty-two prizes for his products, including the Medal of
Honor, gold medals and other premiums. The yearly production of wine by
the wineries owned by Mr. Mattei averages from 800.000 to 1,000,000 gal-
lons. His plant resembles a small city, for the buildings cover a large area
938 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of land, located near Fresno, where Mr. Mattel settled when he first came
to the county.
In 1886, in Los Angeles, Andrew Mattel was married to Miss Eleanor J.
Joughin, born in Rockford, 111., who came to California with her parents in
1860, locating in Los Angeles in 1866, where she was reared and educated.
Her father, Andrew Joughin. was born in the Isle of Man, on February 23,
1824. He was a blacksmith in his native place and also after coming to the
United States, in 1854, when he settled in Rockford, 111. In 1859 he came
via Panama to Sacramento, Cal. ; in 1866 he established his home in Los
Angeles where he made investments that caused him to be rated among
the wealthy men of that city. He died there on February 7, 1889, when about
sixty-five years of age. Mr. and Mrs. ]Mattei have three children: Andrew,
Jr., Anne Joughin, and Eleanor Theadolinda, who, with their parents enjoy
the esteem and good will of their many friends.
Mr. Mattel recalls Los Angeles as a small city, when the vicinity of
Fourth and Broadway was considered in the country ; he also has recollec-
tions of Fresno County when there were but two vineyards in the entire
section between his place and Malaga. He has done much to develop the
wine and grape-growing industry ; and he has helped organize the school
districts in his locality giving land for the school in his district. While he
has given his attention to the building up of his own business and fortune
he has ever had in mind the welfare of the count}- and has supported every
movement for the bettering of conditions. Mr. ^Mattel has never aspired to
public office but has served as a trustee of his district for years. He is a
member of the ■\Ierchants Association, the Traffic Association, the Sequoia
and Commercial Clubs. He is honored for his integrity and unswerving
principles of justice.
FRANKLIN PIERCE and ALVIRA BOLLMAN.— The story of two
highly interesting families — one that of a California pioneer, used to the
burden and heat of the day. and identified with Del Rev when it was called
Clifton and had neither railroad facilities nor even the beginnings of horti-
culture, and the other a "Pennsylvania Dutch"' family of great virility of
mind and Ijody. that has produced some of the most progressive leaders of
our country — is interwoven in the lives of Franklin Pierce Bollman and his
good wife Alvira, wdio have one of the finest improved ranches in Fresno
County, a handsome tract of forty acres one-half of a mile north and one
mile west of Del Rev.
Mr. Bollman was born in Davis County, Iowa, on January 2, 1853, the
son of Samuel Bollman, a native of Pennsylvania, who went to Ohio and
from Ohio to Iowa, as early as 1844; so that Franklin was brought up in the
Hawkeye State. While in Pennsylvania, Samuel Bollman was married to
Susanna Good, by whom he had eleven children. Franklin was the youngest
of these, and passed his boyhood on his father's farm. He was so much a
fixture there, in fact, that he was never off his father's property, for any con-
siderable time or distance, until he was married, at the age of twenty-two.
His mother died in 1872, when she was sixty-three, and the father died ten
years later, when he was seventy-eight.
Samuel Bollman was indeed a remarkable man. He was born on New
Year's Day. 1804. in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania — the very day on which
Napoleon Bonaparte gave to the world his notion of a civil code — and there
he attended the log-cabin school and grew up. When he removed from that
section, he went to \'irginia, where he served an apprenticeship for three
years to a miller. His fiancee, Susanna Good, was a daughter of the Old
Dominion, and cheerfully accompanied her husband to Ohio the following
year, 1831. after their marriage, and faithfully bore her share of fourteen
years of pioneering in Ohio. Toward the middle of the forties, Mr. and Mrs.
Bollman moved to Davis County, Iowa, and there, too, they went through
manv hardships. For a long time, for example, he had to get along without
{)JilJlj2yCi. fijM^^^^tOAt.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 941
a team ; and it was not until the Mormons came through and afforded him
his first chance to buy a couple of horses that he was able to secure the means
of properly breaking his land. Five years later he had brought 160 acres to
a very fair state of cultivation ; and from that time he prospered, so that some
return and reward were allotted the intrepid couple. After a while he came to
own 385 acres of good farming land, and also town property at Bloomfield,
the county seat. When Mrs. Bollman died, seven children had grown to
maturity. These were William N., John A., George W., David M., Samuel
N., Margaret, who became the wife of Kirk Pearson, and Franklin Pierce.
F. P. Bollman's marriage to his first wife took place in 1875, and the
bride was Miss Mary Jane Bivins, who later died in Montana. One of their
children, named Bertha, became the wife of Charles Cox, of Missouri, and
has three children ; and the other child, also a daughter, Annie, is the wife
of Oliver Dixon, and dwells in Des Moines, Iowa. For years the Bollmans
continued to farm in Iowa, and then, believing that California offered still
greater agricultural inducements, Mr. Bollman prepared to come to the Coast.
He arrived in California in 1912. and soon after was married to Mrs. Alvira
McCloskey, whose maiden name was Alvira Griffeath, and who was born
and had grown up in the same county in Iowa, a daughter of David and
Delilah (Bivins) Griffeath, natives respectively of Pennsylvania and Iowa.
Mr. Griffeath was born in Perry County, Pa., on July 10, 1828. When he
was ten years of age his mother took him to Van Buren County, Iowa, near
Birmingham, and in 1866 he came to Davis County, then wild land. He had
received a common-school education, 'supplemented with instruction in the
great school of life, and at the time of his first marriage, on June 20, 1850,
he was able to provide an excellent home for his bride, whose maiden name
was Nancy Wilfrong, and who became the mother of his first child, William
W. She died on February 20. 1852 ; and Mr. Grift'eath married again, on the
4th of October, four years later, this time choosing as has been stated. Miss
Delilah Bivins, of Jefferson County, Iowa. Seven children were born of that
union: and Nancy'Alvira. one of the subjects of this interesting review, was
the eldest. The others were David Fremont, Marion C., Madison M., Susan
D., and Washington Jefferson and Clinton Clay.
While at Bloomfield, 111., and when she was twenty-four years of age.
Miss Griffeath was married to Benjamin W. McCloskey, in 1881, and came
with him to California the same year. About 1875 he had become a pioneer
of Fresno County by homesteading here the land his wife now owns, and
still more near by : and he had gone back to Davis County for his wife.
When she came to Clifton, afterwards Del Rey, wheat farming- only was prac-
ticed ; and for years they farmed all their land to wheat. Mr. McCloskey died
in 1913, aged sixty-three; and now 'Mrs. Bollman owns, as the result of his
success in developing the land to more intensive purposes, twenty-five acres
planted to Thompson Seedless grapes, nine acres of muscats, and five acres
of apricots, while the balance of the forty acres is given up to alfalfa, build-
ings, dry yards and other features of a well-platted ranch.
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. McCloskey. Gale Forest mar-
ried first, Ethel Elder, by whom he had four children, Leora (McCloskey)
Comar, DeWitt, Howard and Ernest. He now resides in Butte County, Cal.
Ina is the wife of E. W. Johnson and resides at Sumner, Wash. One son,
George W., has been born to them. Sophia married G. E. Clayton, and lives
at Chico. They have one son, Kenneth. Ralph B. resides in Watsonville, Cal.,
and is the father of a son, Charles R. Laura is the wife of C. A. Huntington,
and lives on Cherry Avenue, on a ranch eight miles south of Fresno. She
has three children, Fred, Alice and Byron. ]\Irs. Bollman is a member of the
Methodist Church: the California Associated Raisin Company; the California
Peach Growers, Inc., and the Apricot and Prune Growers Association. She is
proud of the part she has taken in bringing about the present prosperity of
Fresno County.
942 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
CHESTER H. ROWELL. — Prominent among- the newer generation of
Californians whose character, intellect and ideals have given them power and
influence, and who have made marked use of privilege and opportunity, must
be mentioned Chester Harvey Rowell, whose national reputation as editor
of the Fresno Republican and as a public man has placed him in the front
rank, not only of California's commonwealth builders, but also of scholarly
American publicists, and whose personality and achievements have long
since made him easily the best-known citizen of Fresno. He was born in
Bloomington. 111., on November 1, 1867, the eldest son of Jonathan Harvey
and Maria Sanford (Woods) Rowell, and received his earlier education at
the common and high schools of his native city, and at the Illinois State
Normal School.
In the fall of 1885 :\Ir. Rowell matriculated at the University of Michi-
gan, and three years later he was graduated with the degree of Ph. B. after
which he took an additional year there for post graduate study. He there
laid foundations of learning and of training which enabled him in later life,
when called upon to assume unusual responsibility and leadership and be
equal to the task.
The three years immediately following Mr. Rowell spent in Washington.
D. C, where for two years he was clerk to the committee on elections of the
House of Representatives, of which his father was chairman, and then for
a year he gave himself up to private literary work, making use of material
to' be found only at the national library. While in Washington he compiled
a digest of the contested election cases of the Fifty-first Congress, which
was published by Congress. He also then got together most of his volume
on the contested election cases in all the congresses, which was afterward
also published bv Congress. At the nation's capitol he met the nation's
leaders in all departments of activity, and he thus naturally became familiar
with most phases of public and strenuous life.
Less for the sake of rest than to continue in his characteristically ener-
getic fashion the hard work he had driven through. Mr. Rowell next visited
Europe, where he spent a couple of years in travel and study. He was en-
rolled as a post-graduate student in the German universities of Halle and
Berlin, and later he studied in Rome and in Paris. During the long vaca-
tions, he traveled a-foot across Germany, Switzerland and Italy, seeing both
land and people at first-hand and mastering the dialectical peculiarities of
everyday foreign speech in French, German and Italian, and he also made
an interesting and instructive foot-tour in Bohemia.
On his return from Europe, Mr. Rowell began his experience as a
teacher in Baxter College, Kans., and Racine College, Wis. He taught for
two years in the high school at Fresno, and soon after was added to the
modern language force in the University of Illinois, where he had charge
of the course in scientific German. At other times and places, he taught
mathematics, French and Latin.
In 1898 Mr. Rowell returned to Fresno, in which expanding city he had
already established valuable social and professional connections, and assumed
the editorial management of the Fresno Republican, in which he has been
continuously engaged ever since. After the death of his uncle. Dr. Chester
Rowell. in 1912, he became the principal owner of the paper, and president
of the publishing company. Mr. Rowell has done much to direct local thought
and to guide Fresno County to its deserved destiny, but he has also found
time to accomplish a good deal for both California and the nation. He spent
the winter of 1900-01 in W^ashington, and further studied national politics.
In 1901 he accepted the Republican nomination for mayor of Fresno, but was
defeated.
Mr. Rowell served as one of the trustees of the Fresno Free Public
Library, and was instrumental in securing from ,\ndrew Carnegie the gift
of $30,000 for the construction of a library building. He has also served as
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 943
a member of the Fresno Board of Education. During tlie summer of 1911
he delivered a series of lectures on journalism before the University of
California and at varidus times, in diiTerent sections of the United State's he
has lectured upon political. ci\ic and educational subjects. He has also con-
tributed numerous articles to the leading- magazines and reviews of the
country.
Among Mr. Rowell's civic and other work may be noted his organization
with others of the Lincoln-Roosevelt Republican League, of which he was
president, which was the first organization of the reform movement in Cali-
fornia, out of which the Progressive party afterwards grew. It was their
organization which nominated Hiram W. Johnson as a candidate for the
Rei)uI)Hcan nomination for governor in 1912. Mr. Rowell was chairman of
the ceimmittee in charge of the Johnson campaign.
He was a member of the Republican State Committee from 1906 to
1912, and from 1916 to the present time (1919). In the interval from 1912
to 1916, he was a member of the Progressive State Committee. He was
chairman of the Republican State Convention of 1910, the last delegate con-
vention held in California, and was chairman of the Republican State Com-
mittee from 1916 to 1918. He was delegate to both the Rejinlilican and
Progressi\'e National Conventions in 1912, and had the unique experience
of serving (jii the subcommittees on platform, of nine members, of each of
these committees, thus assisting in the drafting of the national platform of
two political parties the same year. He was also a delegate to the National
Progressive Convention of 1916. From 1912 to 1916 he was National Com-
mitteeman for California on the Progressive National Committee. Returning
to the Republican party in 1916, he was elected state chairman of the party
committee the next day after he had changed his registration to Republican.
He was a member of the National Campaign Committee of sixteen members,
in the Hughes campaign of that year. Since 1918 he has not taken active
part in organized politics, though retaining his membership on the Repub-
lican State Committee.
Mr. Ro\\ rll was a member of the board of state commissioners of the
Panama-Pacific I'.xposition, is a regent of the University of California, and
a director in the California Development Board and was a member of the
executive committee of tlie California State Council of Defense. He served
as vice-president of the National Municipal League, is a member of the
Associated Press and the American Publishers' Association and of numerous
scientific and literary bodies. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and
Golden Bear, college honor societies, and of the Delta Tau Delta college
fraternity.
At Chicago, on August 1, 1897, Mr. Rowell was married to Miss Myrtle
Marie Lingle, of Webb City, Mo., and they have three children, Cora W.,
now a student in the State University, Barbara and Jonathan.
C. T. CEARLEY. — Prominent among the business men and worthy citi-
zens of Fresno stands the name of C. T. Cearley, a native son, born in Ala-
meda County, November 21, 1865. The greater part of his boyhood was spent
in the bustling city of San Jose. As a young man just entering business life,
his inclinations turned in the direction of newspaper work, resulting in his
securing- a position with the San Jose Times, and later in his purchasing a
one-third interest in that paper, which he retained for four years. Disposing
of this interest, he removed to Fresno in September, 1891, in the interest of,
and as agent for, the San Francisco papers. Recognizing in Fresno, the center
of the raisin industry of California, the brilliant prospects of future advance-
ment which have since been more than realized, Air. Cearley, with keen busi-
ness discernment, saw a good openmg in that city for a stationery store, which
he at first established on a small scale. The business prospered until it
reached such proportions that in 1906 he incorporated it under the name of
C. T. Cearley, Inc. The firm continues to do a large and growing business
944 HISTORY OF FRESXO COL'XTY
in the sale of books and stationery. The most important branch of the
business, however, consists in wholesaling paper and paper bags. At present
there are twelve employees.
Mr. Cearley was appointed by President Wilson as a member of the ex-
emption board for Fresno Citj' and served with his usual ardor and zeal. He
was also city director of the Fourth and Fifth Liberty Loan Drives.
Shortly after coming to Fresno, Mr. Cearley joined the Masons, and he
has since taken an active part in Masonic affairs. He is a Past High Priest
of Fresno Chapter and Past Commander of Fresno Commandery, as well as
a prominent Shriner, and is also a member of the Benevolent Protective
Order of Elks.
MARTIN LUTHER WOY.— One of the best-known ranchers and
oil and real estate men in the state is Martin Luther Woy, the son of George
Woy, a Pennsylvania farmer, stockman and horse fancier who emigrated
from Ohio to Illinois in 1864 and drove to Clinton, Dewitt County, 111.,
the first band of sheep. In 1884 he came to California and located at Pomona,
and there he retired to enjoy some years of well-earned leisure. This bless-
ing, however, was afTected by the death there, on May 2, 1886, of his good
wife Elizabeth, who passed away in her seventy-ninth year. Mr. Woy died
at his home, aged eighty-seven years, on June 20, 1906, the father of five boys
and nine girls, all of whom except one girl and two of the sons are living
today.
Born on June 3, 1854, in Hancock County, Ohio, the eleventh child in
the family, Martin attended the country school until he was seventeen years
of age, when he started out to earn his living. He secured a position in
mercantile business, and in that line continued until 1887, when he came to
California. For a while he was at Fresno, and then he had a store at Pomona.
When this was sold he returned to Fresno and on J Street embarked in
the livery business. He commenced in May, 1889, and during the next eight
vears, while continuing in business, was very successful. In 1897, however,
he sold out and took up what has proven far more remunerative — the real
estate and oil business. Among Mr. Woy's real estate ventures may be men-
tioned the buying and plotting, with two partners, of the Poppy Colony, one
of the largest real estate tracts subdivided in Fresno. He was also one of
three partners who plotted the W'yhee home tract. He is interested in farm-
ing, and owns a ranch of 640 acres in the American Colony, which he im-
proved as an alfalfa and stock ranch. He also owns a large ranch in the
Tehachapi fruit section of Kern County.
Mr. Woy is interested in raising fine stock, particularly standard-bred
horses, which he has bred and trained for years. He himself owns some of
the finest pacers and trotters in California. Among these is Lulu B., who
made a trotting record, as a three-year-old, of 2:1154- Another notable horse
raised by Mr. W^oy was Miss Macklie, a fast trotter. He owns the pacer
J. C. L., who won all the races in which he started in California in 1918,
and received the mark of 2:05j4. He also owns Pavana and other horses of
note. He maintains his racing stables in Fresno and takes keen delight in
training his steeds.
Mr. W^oy was one of the early pioneer oil men in Coalinga and Kern
County. W'hen he went to Coalinga, only Chancellor & Canfield and the
Confidence Oil Company were operating, on Sections 20, 31, 19 and 15. When
the first development began there, he became actively identified with the
movement, organized the Commercial Petroleum Oil Company, and imme-
diately began developing the oil in the Coalinga field. He was vice-president
and general manager of the company, and much of the enterprise that marked
that concern's aggressive programs must be credited to him. He also or-
ganized and accepted the presidency of the \^'oy, IMachen & Madsen Oil
Company, which has been so successfully operating in Coalinga. Superin-
J ]un^yi^tAA.^^^^^--<^--^'^i--^ — -^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 947
tending the drilling of the second oil well in the Alidway field in 1901, Mr.
Woy, as might be expected, was identified with the control of large tracts
of land in the Midway section, and he owns outright a large body of land
in the Midway field now under lease to the Midway Oil Company of Port-
land, Ore. His career as an operator in oil has been exceptionally successful.
For four years Mr. Woy was chief of police of Fresno. Always a lead-
ing Republican, he has taken an active part in public affairs, and has con-
tributed to the growth of Fresno and vicinity. He is a leader in the Chamber
of Commerce.
Mr. Woy was first married in 1875, to Miss Martha McCaudless of
Kansas City, Mo., who was an exemplary Christian woman and an active
worker in the Methodist Church and its charities, always aiding those who
had been less fortunate. After a happy wedded life of thirty-five years, she
passed away. No children came to bless the union. Four years later Mr.
Woy was again married, at San Francisco, on May 16, 1914, to a most esti-
mable lady, Miss z\lice Kelly, a native of California : and one child, a son
named Martin Luther, Jr., has come to gladden their hearts. The Woy home
is the center at all times of true California hospitality, and Mr. and Mrs.
Woy enjoy the good-will of a very large circle of friends and admirers. He
is a member of the Sequoia Club.
THOMAS DUNN. — One of the prominent pioneers and developers of
Fresno County, Thomas Dunn left his imprint on the community where he
spent so many years of his life, and where he gave of his vigorous activities
to the accomplishment of pioneer labors for the welfare and upbuilding of
his section of the state. His life was an admirable example because of his
breadth of interests, his sturdy character, and for his disinterested devotion
to worthy causes. A native of Canada, when a babe in arms the family
moved to Racine. Wis. The parents both died when Thomas was a small
lad, and he was placed with a family that raised him to manhood.
Ambitious, even at that early age, he started west with a prairie schooner
to Pike's Peak, Colo., during the famous gold rush to that region. Then the
Civil War broke out, and he enlisted in the Thirteenth Colorado Cavalry
and served three years. Later, with a partner, he went to Texas and from
there drove a herd of longhorn cattle to Montana, the first man to import
Texas cattle into that territory. He remained in Montana, in the cattle
business, until 1885.
In 1886. Mr. Dunn located in Fresno, and engaged in ranching, purchas-
ing, in 1888. eighty acres of vineyard near Malaga, planted to two-year-old
Muscat grapes. For fifteen years he operated this ranch, in the meantime in-
vesting in other ranch and city property. In 1890 he bought a forty-acre
vineyard southwest of Fowler; he invested in Fresno real estate and built
the Dunn Block, on J Street, and also a business block at 827 I Street, both
buildings standing today; in addition to this development, he owned a busi-
ness block at Sanger. Mr. Dunn had large oil interests in Kern County and
in the Coalinga district. His death occurred January 2, 1913.
The marriage of I\Ir. Dunn united him with Mattie Iliff. a native of
Cincinnati. Ohio, but reared in Illinois; her death occurred in Fresno. June
11. 1916. Five children were born to this worthy couple, as follows: Mattie I.,
wife of Arthur Perkins, stockholder, director and manager of Barrett-Hicks
Hardware Company of Fresno; William F., district manager for the Asso-
ciated Oil Company, Fresno; Lieut. Thomas M., now with the United States
Army: Lillian S.. wife of the late Edward M. Voigt of Fresno; Herbert I.,
the onlv one born in Fresno, and who is First Lieutenant in the One Hun-
dred Twentv-eighth Field Artillery. LT. S. A., and who served as an Aviation
Observer overseas; he was a student at Stanford University and attended
the first officers' training school at the Presidio, San Francisco, receiving his
commission.
948 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
AMiile devoting his energies to business and developing his interests,
Thomas Dunn was ever a willing worker for the good of his community, and
served the public with the same devotion to duty that he gave to his per-
sonal affairs. He was a member of the board of trustees of the City of Fresno
under the new city charter, from the Eighth ^^'ard, and served four years
in that capacity ; he also served as park commissioner under Alayor Chester
Rowell, and in all other work for the advancement of Fresno, city and county,
he was wise in counsel and efficient in execution, and his passing removed
from the community a man in whom reposed the sincerest respect and
admiration of all who knew him. He was a prominent and well posted jMason
and stood high in his lodge. Thomas Dunn was a candidate for mayor of
Fresno, but withdrew in favor of Chester Rowell. He was a member of
Atlanta Post, G. A. R., at Fresno, taking an active interest in all of its affairs,
and showing his sympathetic spirit and loyalty by always attending the fun-
erals of its members. In the cause of temperance he was an active worker
but was not radical.
HONORABLE ANGUS MARION CLARK.— As one of the old
pioneers of the state, A. M. Clark, who passed away December 2, 1907, is
remembered by his friends as a man who did much to further the growth
and interests of California, where he chose to cast in his lot. He was born
in Madison County, Aliss., August 25, 1831, and was brought up on a farm
in that southern state until he attained the age of nineteen, attending private
school in a log cabin schoolhouse. In January, 1850, he started for the
Pacific Coast to join his father, Angus Archibald Clark, of Scotch descent,
who was living in Nevada County, Cal., and one among the manv who
came west in 1849 seeking golden rewards in the mining camps of those
early days. Crossing Mexico to Mazatlan, young ]\Ir. Clark took passage
from that seaport to San Francisco, where he arrived in May, going thence
to Nevada County. For sixteen years he followed the occupation of mining,
and in 1867 came to ]\Iillerton, Fresno County, and engaged in copper mining
at Buchanan, for six j'ears, meeting with varying success.
In 1873 he was elected by his appreciative fellow-citizens to the com-
bined offices of county clerk and recorder of Fresno County, taking office in
IMarch, 1874, at Millerton, then the county seat. In the fall of 1874 he moved
the county records to Fresno and in September of that year assisted in lay-
ing the corner stone of the new court house. In 1878 he formed a partner-
ship with AA^ H. McKenzie. as Clark & McKenzie, in the abstract business
in Fresno, which continued for some years. x'\fter eleven years service as
county clerk, he retired from the office, and in 1884 he and Mr. McKenzie
bought a controlling interest in the Fresno Loan & Savings Bank. Mr. Clark
was elected to the Assembly of the State Legislature in 1885, from Fresno
County, serving the term to the satisfaction of his constituents. In 1885 he
also served as school trustee in Fresno, and in 1887 was elected to the Board
of City Trustees, resigning in 1889. His last political office was that of
city recorder of Fresno, serving several terms, and as Judge of the City
Court his decisions were rendered with the greatest fairness.
He organized and was one of three owners of the Harrow Gold Mining
Company. Their mines, located in the foothills near Millerton and equipped
with modern machinery, were good producers for a number of years. In
later years of his life, "Sir. Clark had gold mining interests at Auberry \'alley.
He was also a large owner of city property.
His first marriage occurred in 1865, at Sacramento, when he was united
with Emma Glidden, who died in Fresno in 1880. They were the parents
of four children, all of whom are living. Ada Belle, who is the wife of L. R.
Williams, is now residing in Cottonwood, Shasta County, and is the mother
of two children, Marion, now Mrs. A. T. Brown of Cottonwood, and A.
Bush Williams, serving in the LT. S. Army. Their second child, Sadie P. Clark,
is assistant librarian of the Fresno County Library. Angus Clark, assistant
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 949
secretary and land agent for the Keyroute System, resides in Berkeley. He
married Martha Fisher of Woodland, and they are the parents of two children :
Katherine Janette and Angus. The fourth child, Frank Marion, is with the
Western Pacific Railroad in San Francisco.
By his second marriage, which was solemnized December 2S, 1882, Mr.
Clark was united with Sarah Bemis, a native of Framingham, Mass., who
came to San Francisco in 1876. Mrs. Clark is the only charter member of
the First Baptist Church now living in Fresno, having always been an active
worker in the church, and has done grand work in the organization of
charity in Fresno. Mr. Clark was a very prominent Mason, being a Past
Master of Fresno Lodge No. 247 F. & A. M. and was also past FTigh Priest
of Fresno Chapter No. 69 and Past Commander of Fresno Commandery
No. 29, K. T., and a member of Islam Temple A. A. O. N. M. S. in San Fran-
cisco. Mrs. Clark and the two daughters, Mrs. AVilliams and Miss Sadie,
were members and Past Matrons of Raisina Chapter No. 89 O. E. S.
It is to such men as A. M. Clark, that Fresno County today owes much
of its present greatness, development and prosperity, for with his energy
and optimism he was always working to build up the county; was aggressive
in the cause of education and zealous for a splendid school system, and a
high standard of morals. Thus the best interests of his town and county
were always nearest and dearest to his heart.
FRANK HOLLAND. — To serve for thirty-six years in the employ of
the same corporation is a record of which any man mav be proud. This has
been achieved by Frank Holland, who was Imrn in ^Marietta, Ohio. January
9, 1854, and crossed the plains to Virginia City, Nev., with his parents in
1863, a boy of nine years. He remembers many incidents of the trip, and a
diary his mother kept of experiences on the way is prized very highly by
the son. A few extracts from the diary are given here : "Started across
the plains with wagons drawn by horses, April 16, 1863. Passed many ox
teams of emigrants bound for California. Game is very plenty. Visited by
friendly Indians. Saw buffaloes by the thousands. Traveled all day with-
out water. Passed a grave of an emigrant who died August 31, 1862. Cele-
brated July 4th with big dinner and games. On July 8, Mrs. Miller, one
of our party, gave birth to a son. Passed a spot where a train was attacked
bv Indians and some of the emigrants were killed. Arrived Virginia Citv,
August 7, 1863."
Frank Holland received his early education in Keokuk, Iowa, from whicJi
place the family started across the plains. He attended school in Virginia
City, where his parents resided for many years. He saw the place grow and
was there during all the gold-mining activities in pioneer days. In 1868 he
was sent to California to attend Brayton College, Alameda County. Later
this college became the California College, founded by Prof. F. M.
Campbell, who later became State Superintendent of Schools. The present
L'ni\crsity of California was formerly the California College, and was moved
to the present site in Berkeley. As assistant to the landscape gardener i\Ir.
Holland helped lay out the University grounds and set out many of the
trees that now adorn the campus.
In 1870 Mr. Holland went to work for Bamber & Company, who ran
a local express company, having charge of the delivery of newspapers. He
also worked in and had charge of the old Badger Park in Oakland, an old
picnic ground in the pioneer days. He carried papers of the pioneer news-
papers of Oakland, The Evening Termini, and Oakland Daily News. While
here he learned the printer's trade. Later he returned to his home in Vir-
ginia City, and after two years went to Bishop Creek, Inyo County, Cal.,
and with a partner tried ranching for a time. After this he went to Bodie,
Mono County, Cal., and worked in the grocery store of KirschBraun & Son.
He returned to Bishop Creek and entered the employ of J. W. Stoughten-
950 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
borough, general merchant. In June, 1883, Mr. Holland went to Los Angeles
and entered the employ of the Wells Fargo Express Company, and since that
time has not been off the payroll of that company. This is certainly a great
record, and he wears a gold button given by the president of the company
which reads: "Faithful service thirty-five years. Wells Fargo Express Com-
pany." He went to Tucson, Ariz., from Los Angeles, _ and_ drove the first
express wagon for the company there, and in 1888 he arrived in Fresno, when
the present city was but a village. He drove the first and only express
wagon in Fresno, did all the collecting and delivery, tending the train, and
helped do the office work. George Edmonds was the local agent for the
company at that time.
Mr. Holland has seen many changes in Fresno since those early days.
At one time he owned and conducted a wholesale and retail confectionery
and ice cream parlor on J Street. For the past few years he has been an ex-
press messenger for the company, with headquarters in Fresno, and is still
at work. He is an active member of the local lodge of the Loyal Order
of Moose.
JOHN NEAL. — A highly-esteemed pioneer, hale and hearty at the age
of eighty-one, is John Neal whose wonderful memory recalls in vivid detail
the most interesting incidents of earlier California history, in the making
of which he played more than an ordinary part. He was born at Veve, Ind..
on December 3i, 1837, the son of William A. Neal, who first saw the light
in Scott County, Ky., on February 4, 1804. He had married Ruth Leap,
who was born in Lancaster, Pa., on February 14, 1811. The grandfather
Neal was of Scotch-Irish descent, in a family originally called O'Neal, but
the first syllable of the name was left off when members migrated to America.
Here he became an orderly sergeant on General Washington's staff, and
representatives of our subject's family have served in all the wars from the
time of the Revolution down to the present war against the Germans. Two
uncles of John Neal were with General Jackson at New Orleans, and two
other uncles served with General Harrison at Tippecanoe. Among John's
mother's ancestors. Grandfather Leap came from Bingen on the Rhine, and
some of his brothers served in the War of 1812.
John was reared on a farm in Indiana, worked there during the summer-
timeand attended the district school during the winters. When, however, the
Civil War started, and President Lincoln issued his call for troops, for three
months' service, he was one of the first to enlist. At Bennington, Ind., he
joined the Seventh Indiana Infantry, and when the three months had elapsed,
he reenlisted in the Sixth Indiana Infantry, formed a company and became
second lieutenant. Later he was promoted to be first lieutenant, and as
such he served with valor throughout the war, participating in many of the
important battles, including those of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga and
Atlanta. He was with the squad who fired on Gen. Robert Selden Garnett
at Carrick's Ford, the first Confederate general killed in that war, and he
was present when Gen. Joseph Eggleston Johnston surrendered his sword
to General Sherman at Raleigh. On August 12, 1865, he was mustered out
at Indianapolis, and brought home with him the last shell fired by Gen.
John C. Breckinridge's brigade at the Battle of Shiloh, together with the
old sword he himself carried through the war. When the civil contest was
over he followed the trade of wagon maker at Bennington, Ind., for many
years.
His first trip to California was made in 1884, when he remained for
a couple of years. He engaged in building lumber mills, and erected one in
Tulare County, on Redwood Mountain, two on Pine Ridge, the latter
for A. W. Petrie, and one on Hopkins Creek in Humboldt County. But,
despite the agreeable experiences he had in California, he returned to his
home town in Indiana and there asrain followed wagon-making.
^^^oA. <y^i^crv\^
/u^rT-i^^pC^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 955
In 1900 he arrived in Fresno and built the home in which he now lives
at No. 530 Raisina Avenue ; and he followed here the trade of a carpenter
until he retired. He had married Alary Jane Day, a native of Bennington,
Ind., where she was born on March 2, 1840. but she died at Fresno on
December 12, 1904, leaving four sons who are still living. These are : William
C, Charles C, John W and Edward C, who is a first lieutenant in the Ameri-
can Army, belonging to Company L., One Hundred Fifty-ninth Infantry,
Fortieth Division, in active service in France. He was a member of the
Californian National Guard at Fresno, and when the Mexican trouble com-
menced in 1916, he was made sergeant-major and went with his regiment
to Nogales, Ariz. On his return home, mindful of the enviable record of so
many Neals in various American wars, he reenlisted to war on autocracy.
Mr. Neal is a Democrat in national politics; is one of the influential
G. A. R. men of Indiana, and in that state he was also made a Mason and
an Odd Fellow. Now in the years of his well-earned retirement he can
proudly contemplate the fact that he is grandfather to eleven children and
great-grandfather to six, and that like his own oi?spring, they reflect great
credit on the family name.
GEORGE W. BONDS.— One who has aided materially in the develop-
ment of the natural resources of Fresno County, is George W. Bonds who
was born in Paducah. Ky., in 1847, the second oldest of a family of eight
children born to AA'illiam D. and Charity Elizabeth fClark) Bonds, natives
of Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively. William D. was a blacksmith and
followed his trade in Kentucky and later in Douglas, Union County, 111.,
until he retired and there both parents passed away.
George W. received a good education in the public schools and when
school days were over he learned the blacksmith trade under his father and
then he served an apprenticeship as a machinist, learning the trade thor-
oughly and becoming as well a draftsman and patternmaker, showing much
mechanical aptitude, continuing at the machinist's trade in Illinois until
1875, when he came to San Francisco, Cal., where he secured work as a
machinist, in time becoming foreman for the Byron Jackson ]\Iachine Works,
a position he filled for nine years. Mr. Bonds was more than a machinist,
for if given the idea he could make the drawing, then make the pattern, and
complete the invention. It was during this time that the Byron Jackson
pump was perfected, and later on when Mr. Bonds was manufacturing the
Bonds gas engine in Fresno he introduced the Byron Jackson pump, using
it in connection with the Bonds gas engine when installing pumping-plants.
In 1889, Mr. Bonds came to Fresno County, locating at Sv-lma, where for
a time he followed his trade and then moved to Fresno and established a
machine shop, which he built up under the name of Bonds Machine Works,
located on Mono near I. Here he manufactured the first gas engine made on
the Coast, and here also was built the largest gas engine (a forty-five horse-
power) ever built in the county. He put in the first pumping plant for irriga-
tion in Fresno County, using his engine and a Byron Jackson pump, and
showed it to be a success, thus introducing the system of irrigating from
wells in the county, a thing that has been of the utmost importance in the
building up of Fresno County, resulting in its present wonderful state of
development.
While in Fresno he met his future wife. Miss Lena Sophia Backer, born
at Eureka, Sierra County, Cal. She is a daughter of Henry H. and Augusta
(Busch) Backer, both pioneers of the state. Henry H. Backer was born in
Holland and was a sailor. He came as a young man to California, a Forty-
niner, and early pioneer miner of Sierra County, operating mines in that sec-
tion. In 1878 he came to Fresno County and bought land in Church Colony,
now known as Temperance Colony. Locating his family here on a sixty-acre
ranch, he returned to Sierra County to settle up his affairs, and while there
he took pneumonia and died, in April, 1879, aged fifty-six. He was a member
956 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of the IMasonic Lodge. The mother, as Augusta Busch, came to New York
with her mother, and thence to California with a brother, to Sierra County.
After her husband's death. Mrs. Backer continued to reside on the ranch in
Temperance Colony and with the help of her children improved the property
to vineyards. They added to their acreage, and at the time of her death,
September 1, 1904, the family owned 160 acres. Mr. and Mrs. Backer were
the parents of six children: Lena, j\lrs. Bonds; Hilca. Mrs. Hagerty. de-
ceased; August H. ; Henry H.; Dora W. ; and George W., all residing in
Fresno County. After the mother's death, the heirs incorporated their hold-
ings as the Backer Vineyard Company, and now own, besides the home
property, 800 acres at Sanger. Mrs. Bonds was reared in Sierra County until
fourteen years of age, coming with her parents, in 1879, to Fresno County.
On completing her education here she assisted her mother until her marriage
to Mr. Bonds, which took place on December 27, 1896. After their marriage,
Mr. Bonds continued his machine-shop for a few years, and they then re-
moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a machinist for nine years.
At the end of that period they returned to Fresno, to the old home ranch, ]\Ir.
Bonds taking charge of the work there and followed viticulture until 1918,
when the}' gave it up and returned to Oakland to reside. Of their union two
children were born, one of whom is living, Elwin, who was attending the
Oakland high school when he enlisted in the United States Army and is now
serving over-seas; Mr. Bonds had six children by a former marriage, four
of whom are living: Harry, proprietor of the I Street Garage in Fresno;
George, a machinist in San Francisco ; ^Milton, a machinist in Mare Island
Navy Yard ; and Lamlsert C in the LTnited States Customs House, San
Francisco.
Mr. and IMrs. Bonds are members of the Fraternal Brotherhood. Too
much credit cannot be given men like Mr. Bonds, who has given his years
of experience and his best energy and efforts to utilize the natural resources
of this great commonwealth by aiding in the development of intensive farm-
ing. His faith in Fresno County's future greatness has never been shaken.
EDWARD A. WILLIAMS. — Owing to a long period of residence in
Fresno County, and close identification with its legal interests, Edward A.
Williams, the successful attorney of Fresno, is well and favorably known
throughout this section of the state. His life began in Virginia City, Nev.,
on July 17, 1874, but since five years of age his home has been in Fresno
County, where he received his preliminary education. Having chosen the
practice of the law as his life work, he entered the office of attorneys Sayle
and Caldwell, in Fresno County. Being intensely interested in the study of
jurisprudence, he made rapid advancement, and in 1895 was admitted to the
bar. His comprehensive knowledge of the law and his energetic application
to its practice soon gained for him ready recognition, and for four years he
occupied the responsible post of deputy district attorney of Fresno County,
under Alva E. Snow. Preferring to establish the private practice of his pro-
fession, he relinquished public office and began to specialize on corporation
law. The high degree of confidence reposed in Mr. Williams as a wise coun-
selor is best understood when one realizes that he is the attorney for fifty-
two corporations in California. When the Webb alien land bill became a
law in this state, it was E. A. \\^illiams who suggested the idea of organiz-
ing into corporations the Japanese engaged in farming the San Joaquin
Valley, which he accomplished.
Mr. Williams has acquired local appreciation and prominence in literary
work, having written short stories and poetical works that have elicited
favorable comment, and given much enjoyment to his many friends and ac-
quaintances. He has been honored by being elected to man}' important posts,
among which are : President of the Commercial Club ; president of the Ar-
menian Relief Association; director of the Raisin Day Festival Association;
president of the Boy Scouts of America, Fresno Division. Fraternally, he is
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 957
a member of the Odd Fellows and for the past ten years has been Regent
of the Roval Arcanum. He also holds membership in the Sunnyside Country
Club.
Edward A. ^Villiams was twice married. His first wife was Mary E.
Lynn of California. She passed away in 1910. This union was blessed by
one son, Edward A., Jr., who is a student at the University of California,
and during seven months of the war was an Instructor of Military Law in
the Aviation School at the University of California, at Berkeley. In 1913
Mr. Williams was united in marriage with Catherine E. Fenstermacher, a
native of Pennsylvania. By a former marriage she was the mother of a son,
Lieut. Earl J- Fenstermacher, and a daughter, Dorcas, whom Mr. Williams
adopted. Lieutenant Fenstermacher is serving over seas in Company No. 348,
Ninety-first Division, Light Field Artillery.
Mr. Williams had charge of "putting over" the Smileage campaign in
Fresno County, and was a regularly enlisted "four-minute man," he served
on the law committee of the draft board, and assisted in organizing the
Girls' \\'ar Welfare League. In fact there was not a local mo\-cnient started
for the aid and successful prosecution of the war, in which he did not take
an active part.
LLEWELYN ARTHUR NARES.— An interesting revelation of the
extent to which British brains, experience and capital lia\c assisted in the
steady, peaceful and permanent development of California, reclaiming great
areas of waste land, representing thousands of fertile acres, and bidding colon-
ists from all over the globe welcome to the Golden State, is afforded in the
story of Llewelyn Arthur Nares, the well-known director of realty enter-
prises, who is a native of Haverford West, PcmlTnikeshirc. iMiL^land, where
he was born on Tulv 1'). 18r,0. Ilis father was ( )\vcn Al.x.md. ,- Xares, who
married Emil}- Margaret Lewellin. and through their a|>iinTi;iti(in of educa-
tion, he attended the fine public schools at Haverford, later topping off
his studies at Godolphin School in London, where he remained until 1876.
In that year he returned to Haverford and engaged with the National
Provincial Bank ; but after a couple of years he went back to London, and
for a year was in the employ of the Delhi & London Bank. In 1879 he came
out to Montreal, Canada, and took a position of responsibility with the Bank
of British North America ; and with the extensive operations of that great
house of finance he was identified until 1881.
He then moved to Winnipeg, where he followed surveying, for a short
time, in the Canadian Rockies, first becoming acquainted with field work in
land manipulation, and then he entered the service of the ]\Ierchants Bank
of Canada. Later he became the financial representative for English capital-
ists in Northwestern Canada, and finally, equipped with a most valuable ex-
perience, he organized the firm of Nares. Robinson & Black, which was well
and favorably known, from the middle nineties, as one of the most reliable
and aggressive forces for the development of Canadian interests in all the
Dominion.
Continuing in the same field of activity, Wr. Nares first came to the
United States as the representative of English interests, and now his opera-
tions extend all over the western and southern part of the United States.
These interests had made their initial investment in California as early as
1881, but the\- had not progressed far until he took charge of their projects.
Since then they have ac<|uired ninety-five per cent, of all the irrigation canals
on the north side of Kings River, and the area irrigated has increased in
this period from eighty to more than 400,000 acres.
Under Mr. Nares' direction, in fact, lands acquired by the companies
about the time he took hold have been greatly developed and colonized; and
subsequent land purchases by these and other interests have been splendidly-
developed and form part of one of the most extensive and successful coloni-
zation projects in the L^nited States. The various colonization enterprises
958 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
extend for seventy miles along Kings River, and a veritable garden of the
richest land, of which the Laguna de Tache grant, alone comprising about
68,000 acres, was the first principal part, has been reclaimed and thrown
open to settlement.
It is but natural that scientifically directed energy, of the kind that Mr.
Nares demonstrates, should take tangible form, and it is not surprising to
find him president of the Fresno Canal & Irrigation Company, the Consoli-
dated Canal Company, the Summit Lake Investment Company; while he
is also managing director of the Laguna Lands, Ltd.
On January 26, 1909, Mr. Nares was married at Los Angeles to Kathryn
Evans, a woman of intellectual attractiveness and social charm. He is a
member of the Union League Club of San Francisco, the Fresno Sequoia and
Commercial Clubs, and the Sunnyside Country Club of Fresno, of which he
is also a director.
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL FINE.— From boyhood until the present
time A. C. Fine has been a resident of the Golden State. He came with his
parents when he was a lad of ten years and from that time to now he has
been interested in ranching pursuits of one kind or another, and as a rancher
he has gained an independent footing and won recognition among his fellow
citizens.
A. C. Fine was born in Lafayette County, Mo., June 20, 1839, a son of
Morgan and Louise (Belt) Fine, natives of Tennessee and Kentucky, respec-
tively, the former born in 1800, and the latter in 1809, near the Mammoth
Cave. This worthy couple had six children, the first five being born in
Missouri; they are: Liggerd B., deceased; Alexander C. ; Dr. Andrew, also
deceased ; Mrs. Maria Riche ; and Amanda. John, the sixth and youngest,
was born in California in 1852. Morgan Fine, with his family, left Lafayette
County, Mo., in the spring of 1849, in a company of one hundred persons
bound for California. The train consisted of thirty wagons drawn by ox
teams and it was six months ere they reached the end of their journey. The
trip was without incident, no Indian troubles worried the party, although
they were continually on the lookout for a surprise attack. The lack of water
was their greatest hardship. En route the party heard about the Humboldt
hot springs, and their supply of water running low for their stock, Mr. Fine
rode ahead two days and dipped the water from the hot springs and poured
it into holes in the ground to cool so it could be drunk by the oxen when
they should arrive. Mrs. Fine fastened a ham to a wire and dipped it into
the spring and cooked it, also made coflfee with the water. Arriving in
California, the party made a short stop in Sonoma County, then came on
down to Santa Clara County. Mrs. Fine had brought a good supply of
baking soda among her other supplies and her surplus she readily disposed
of at one dollar per pound in San Jose. Anxious to secure a home for his
family, Morgan Fine took up a government claim of 160 acres, two miles
from San Jose and near what is now known as College Park. In that early
day the Spanish Grants were difficult of transfer on account of insecure
title, and it was twenty-five years before Mr. Fine could obtain a deed. He
farmed and raised stock, and later specialized in hogs, which proved very
profitable. This good man died July 17, 1878. and his wife lived until Decem-
ber 22. 1891. They were of that sturdy pioneer stock that laid the foundation
of California's greatness, and at their passing were mourned by many friends
who knew them for the good they had done.
A. C. Fine, although but ten years of age when he came across the wide
plains to California, well remembers the long journey; he enjoyed the trip
and thought nothing of the hardships. He was reared and educated in Cali-
fornia and from his earliest days has been interested in agriculture. After
leaving home he went to Santa Cruz County, bought a quarter section of land
and farmed for a time with considerable success. AVhen he sold out it was
to come to Fresno County and cast in his lot with the pioneers of the Parlier
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 961
section, althoug-h there was no sign of a town in the vicinity then. His
thirty acres, named the "Quieta Rancho," lying two miles north of the town,
are devoted to a vineyard and peach orchard. He developed the place out
of a stubble field, beginning in 1892. and today his little ranch is one of the
most valuable in the entire district and all the improvements seen are the
result of his hard work and good management. In order to pay for his prop-
erty he worked for others on salary till such a time as he could move onto
his own property. In all his discouragements and rejoicings he has had the
encouragement and help of his good wife, who shares with him the esteem
of all who know them.
In 1876, Mr. Fine and Miss Eva J. Burrows were married. She was born
at Carson, Cal., December 25, 1854, a daughter of Phillip and Sarah (Knight)
Burrows, pioneers of California that same year, having come by the way
of Panama. Mrs. Burrows was the only white woman in the mining camp
for about two years. Mr. Burrows engaged in mining for a time, but like
many others he found that vocation very uncertain. He concluded that it
was necessary to have considerable capital to make mining a success, and,
although he was more fortunate than the average, he lost it again trying to
make more. He had an extensive knowledge of the manufacture of woolens
and was engaged b)^ various companies to install the machinery used in
their manufacture, and was the first to start in the industry in this state.
Subsequently he bought 160 acres of land in Santa Cruz County, farmed for
twenty years, sold out and bought the same amount near San Miguel, San
Luis Obispo County, which he farmed. The children born to Mr. and Mrs.
Burrows were: ]\Irs. Eva J. Fine; Phillip, at Cupertino, Cal.; Mrs. Eulu
Wooster, of San Jose ; William, of Fresno ; Stephen, living in the San Joaquin
Valley; Annie died at the age of eight years, and Mary Louise died, aged
two. An historic incident in connection with the death of this child is worthy
of mention here. She died while the parents were living at Murphy in
Calaveras County, and on the day of burial, and after the body had been
carried to the church, the town caught on fire and was entirely wiped oflf
the map, all houses and buildings, except the Burrows' home. This was
saved by cutting the reservoir, letting the water run over the ground and
thus saving the house. Mrs. Burrows, being left at the church with the
body of her child when the male population went to fight the fire, took the
coffin and, with her daughter, Eva J., went into the Catholic burying-ground
some distance away and remained there until twelve that night, when she
was found, and the burial took place at one o'clock in the morning by the
light of torches. Mrs. Burrows died in San Jose, December 2, 1902, aged
sixty-eight, and Mr. Burrows passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs.
Fine, in 1905, at the age of eighty-one.
When Mr. and Mrs. Fine settled in Fresno County they developed their
ranch to its present high state of productiveness. It was a frequent happening
for horses, and even people, to mire down in the boggy soil, so deep often
that it was necessary to dig them out. One did not dare get of? the beaten
roads in those days, particularly in rainy seasons. Mrs. Fine was often called
upon to care for the bodies of the neighbors who died, there being no under-
taker available, and she was soon known as the community undertaker. Mr.
Fine has always been ready to aid in all movements for the benefit of the
settlers, and he supported the raisin associations and now is a stockholder
in the present company, also in the Peach Growers, Inc.
Not having had any children of their own, Mr. and Mrs. Fine adopted
a daughter, Ina May, to whom they have given the love and care as to
one of their own blood. She is married to Charles Forsyth and has two chil-
dren, Orafino and Charles, and with her little family makes her home at
Selma. Now in the evening of their days, this young old couple, for they
have kept young in spite of the hardships undergone, live at peace with their
fellow citizens, and maintain the true Californian hospitality.
962 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
HON. F. E. WELLS. — Among the most public-spirited men of Central
California, no one bids fair to be more honored, both for ability and con-
scientious application to duty, and especially for unselfish devotion to the best
interests of the town in which he lives, than F. E. Wells, the diplomatic and
genial chairman of the Board of Trustees of the City of Fowler, who has dis-
tinguished himself as mayor, and is the brother of Supervisor Charles Wells,
whose sketch is to be found elsewhere in this volume. He was born at Osceola,
Iowa, on October 12, 1869, a member of a virile family and the son of Abra-
ham Wells, a native of Columbus, Ohio, who married ]\Iary Jane Ray, of
Niles, Mich., in which state the marriage ceremony took place.
After completing his studies at the pleasantly-situated Baptist college
at Kalamazoo, the father served four years in the Civil War, although he was
married, as a member of the Twentv-fifth Michigan Infantry, and at the con-
clusion of the dreadful struggle was ordained a Baptist minister. During the
^var he had acted as chaplain but he carried a gun. also, and with true muscu-
lar Christianity did what he could to preserve the Union. Then, with his wife
and two children, he moved to Illinois, where two more children made their
advent in the family: and having gone to Iowa to preach, the family Avas
enlarged by another twain, still another child being added later at Hastings.
Nebr., to the group. Reaching California in 1891, and settling at Selma, he
took up the work of the Christian Church, having changed to that ministry,
and remained faithful to his new trust, until his death in 1905. As was his
custom, he had supported himself from his farm a couple of miles northeast
of Selma, and so gave his services as a minister of the Gospel quite free, closing
his three-score and ten years with an enviable record of which anvone might
justlv be proud. At the age of eighty-four, his good wife is still living.
F. E. Wells was only three years old when his parents moved to Nebraska,
and he grew up at ^^'ebster and Adams in that state, attending the public
schools there, and afterward studied at the college at Hastings. While there,
his father met with financial reverses and his health failed, so that the son
was obliged at once to become a bread-winner.
Mr. ^^^ells therefore took the examinations for teaching, and taught three
years in Nebraska. This was before he came to California, and he was the
last of the family to remove here. Abraham Wells first settled in INIadera
Countv, but soon removed to Selma, where he purchased some land. In this
up-hill step, he has assisted our subject, and it is ever a matter of modest sat-
isfaction to him that he was thus able to help the one who had so devotedly
helped him. F. E. AVells came to California in 1891. and for a year taught
school near Oroville, in Butte County. He found teaching too slow, however,
as a means of material progress, and so he bought thirty acres of land, two and
a half miles northeast of Selma, which he improved. He planted vines, set
out trees, and erected thereon the necessarj' buildings, and in time it became
one of the attractive ranches of the neighborhood.
On December 2.^, 1892, Mr. Wells was married to !\Iiss Nannie Flint, a
native of Missouri, who had become a resident of Selma. She grew up in
Nebraska and for a term taught school there, being popularly known as the
gifted daughter of J. L. and Mary Flint, now of Fowler, who have had four
children. The happy young couple made the thirty-acre ranch near Selma
their home until 1911, when they also moved to Fowler. Mr. Wells built a
large house, barns, fences, etc., and sunk wells, and now he owns two fruit-
ranches — one a forty-acre farm near Fowler, which he bought already im-
proved. He has prospered wonderfully, and these two fine farm properties
are worth more than $50,000.
Mr. and Mrs. \\'ells have three children : Lyal Logan, a member of the
Class of 1918 at the State Normal School at Fresno, and who was a student at
Berkeley for a while, and graduated from the Fowler High ; .-Mta, who is a
senior in the Fowler high school : and .\dna, who has just finished the gram-
mar school here.
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 963
Air. and Mrs. Wells are members of the Christian Church at Fowler, of
which Mr. Wells is also a trustee, and both are exemplary citizens. Especially
as a city official, applying business methods to the administration of public
trusts, is Mr. Wells honored, and no wonder, for he takes great pride in the
civic aft'airs of Fowler, and rejoices in its growth and progress as one of the
wide-awake and growing towns of Fresno County. He helped to incorporate
the city in 1909, and also to root out the saloons and questionable resorts, .so
that the Fowler of today is a clean and wholesome community, with ten
churches and excellent schools and business houses, as well as fruit-packing
concerns and warehouses — a part of the natural equipment of Fowler as a
center of a great fruit district. He favors temperance and the adoption of a
national prohibition amendment.
Air. A\^ells places principle and men of principle and public spirit above
party considerations ; and it is not surprising that, with such sentiments in-
fluencing his official life. Fowler now owns its water-works system. It has
also its own sewer system, and the telephone system is a cooperative, share-
holding affair. The city is also contemplating the acquisition of its electric-
lighting plant, as well as other municipal and public utilities, and. with this
awakened public spirit. Fowler will grow very rapidly. The city's bonded
indebtedness is small ; it has an abundance of the best water for domestic,
fire and irrigation purposes; it has, in fact, better and cheaper water than any
other city in Fresno County, a minimum of only one dollar per month being
charged, allowing the householder to use 4,000 cubic feet.
FRANK M. ROMAIN. — How much of the prosperitv of a great business
concern depends on the make-up of its leaders, and especiallv on the person-
ality, as well as the varied capacity of those actually managing the details,
may be deduced from the perusal of the biography of Frank M. Romain.
at this writing manager of the California Packing Corporation. He is a
Canadian who has helped to swell the vast number from over the border
and among the most enterprising developers of California and her countless
interests.
Frank M. Romain was born at Toronto, on September 4, 1861, a son
of W. F. Romain and his good wife, formerly Ann Chisholm. They gave
him every advantage within their reach and he was educated in the very
thorough public schools of Upper Canada, and completed his studies at the
Upper Canada College in Toronto, taking a business course. His motto was
to learn a subject from A to Z, and to finish a work if it was once begun.
In his first brush with the practical world, he secured employment with
the Canadian Pacific Railroad. He liked the work, and stuck to it for the
term of five years. From the railroad office in Canada to the great outdoor
life of Riverside, Cal., was a big spring, but Mr. Romain took it, and landed
in a post of responsibility at the disposal of the Griffin & Skelly Company.
He went into the packing house, in a modest place at the start, commencing
as it were with the lowest rung of the ladder and slowly climbing to greater
usefulness ; and in one year he had charge of the Riverside plant. He looks
back upon his days there with that satisfaction which one always feels who
has done his duty.
It was the great, booming year of 1887, when all California, and espe-
cially the southern and central parts, was alive with a wave of new life
and unparalleled development, that Mr. Romain fixed upon for his entry into
Fresno ; and once in this most favored section, he established the Griffin-
Skelh- Company's plant. It had to begin in a small way ; but through his
experience, enterprise and hard work, his care to details and his satisfactory
manner of doing business with others, Mr. Romain built up the business to
immense proportions as a dry fruit-packing plant, employing 500 people dur-
ing its busiest season. He installed the most approved methods and appa-
ratus, and made it an enterprise of which Fresno may well be proud.
964 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
On November 1, 1916, the Griffin & Skelly Company was merged with
the J. K. Armsby Company and the California Fruit Canning Association,
together with the Central California Canning Company and the Alaska Pack-
ers' Association, and the great California Packing Corporation was brought
into existence, with Mr. Romain as manager and director of the sixteen pack-
ing houses in the San Joaquin Valley, employing, in their total, several thou-
sand people.
During his residence at Riverside, Mr. Romain was married, in April,
1892, to Lelia Quinn, a lady of unusual charm and a sweet personality not
soon forgotten, who closed her eyes upon the scenes of this world on
February 6, 1917.
Partaking of such social life as his busy career permits, Mr. Romain is
a welcome member of the Odd Fellows and the Elks, and has been president,
too, of the Sunnyside Country Club. He is also a member of the Sequoia and
the Commercial Clubs, and is high in the councils of the Republican party,
under whose banner he has steadily marched for years. In matters of pro-
fessed religion, Mr. Romain is an Episcopalian.
SIGMUND WORMSER.— Since leaving his home in southern Ger-
many, where he was born December 11, 1859, Sigmund Wormser has trav-
eled extensively over the globe. While acquiring his education he received
the advantage of the excellent schools of his native country, and as a youth
worked in a mercantile store in Ulm, Germany, later going to Ireland, where
he attended college. In 1879, when not quite twenty-one years old he
arrived in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he followed the mercantile business for
three years. From thence he went to Cape Colony and the diamond fields.
South Africa, looking for work but was unsuccessful, and from there he went
to Sydney, Australia, going from there to the South Sea Islands where he
followed the mercantile business.
He arrived in San Francisco, Cal., in 1886, and after a short sojourn
there finally located in Kingsburg, Fresno County, and opened a mercantile
store, which he conducted for twelve years. He was also the owner of a
forty-acre vineyard. In 1889 he located in Fresno and for five years specu-
lated in oil and real estate. He was one of the organizers of the Oil City
Petroleum Company (now the Standard Oil Company, Section No. 28) of
Coalinga. He also drilled for oil in the Eakersfield district, and sold out
to the Associated Oil Company.
Mr. Wormser owns a 120-acre ranch at Stone Canyon, which was unim-
proved when he purchased it, upon which he developed water and set the
land to oranges, vines, olives and figs. It is now one of the best fruit ranches
in the county." In 1904 he opened a furniture store at 1022 J Street, Fresno,
in connection with which he operates a large three story and basement ware-
house, 50x150 feet. In 1918 he made substantial additions to his furniture
store, which is now the largest store of its kind in the San Joaquin \'alley
and one of the largest in the state, and does the leading furniture business
in Fresno. He has always taken an active part in civic afTairs, and was one
of the organizers of the Merchants Association of Fresno, of which he was
a director. His greatest activities, however, have been devoted to charity
work, in which he takes great interest, and for the past twelve years has
been actively and successfully associated, and done grand work with the
Humane Society, the Citizens Relief Association and the County Relief
Commission.
He married Anna Jacobson, a native of San Francisco, Cal., and. they
are the parents of one child, a daughter, Elka, who is the wife of Emil Gun-
delfinger. In his fraternal associations Mr. Wormser is a veteran Knight
of Pythias, being a charter member of the lodge at Kingsburg, Cal., which
he joined thirty-two years ago. He is also a member of the Commercial
Club and of the Chamber of Commerce.
^^^/?a.,.o^.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 967
THOMAS T. BARRETT. — Future historians of Fresno County cannot
fail to accord due honor to the well-known pioneer brick contractor, Thomas
T. Barrett, who has been a decided factor, since 1883, in the upbuilding of the
county. Not only is he a direct descendent of one of the historic families of
Revolutionary times, of interest to every patriotic American, but he himself
is widely esteemed for his many good qualities, while in brick construction
work — his particular field — his judgment is unquestioned.
Thomas T. Barrett was born at Rockport. Knox County, Maine, on Jan-
uary 21. 1853, the son of Amos and Julia (Tolman) Barrett, and the grandson
of IDaniel Barrett, and a great-great-grandson of Colonel James Barrett, of
Revolutionary fame. The family originally came from England and settled
in the Bay Colony of Massachusetts in 1680, where they became leading cit-
izens of that commonwealth. The old Barrett house is still standing at Con-
cord, one of the most prominent there, although too far from the center of
the town to be seen by the average tourist. Colonel Barrett, its proprietor.
led a company to the historic bridge, and his undeniable courage, when the
fate of the Colonists hung in the balance, is commemorated by the following
inscription on the boulder at Battle Lawn, close to the gate of the Concord
Bridge:
"FVom this hill Colonel James Barrett, commanding the Amer-
icans, gave orders to march to the bridge, but not to fire vmless fired
upon by the British. Captain Nathan Barrett led his company to de-
fend the bridge, pursued the British to Charlestown, and, though
wounded, captured Major Pitcairn's horse, saddle and pistols, and
returned home with his trophies."
Daniel Barrett, who was born at Concord, Mass., went to Camden, Maine,
in the winter of 1792-93, and on the fourth of August, 1794, he married Rena
Grose. He served in the War of 1812, and on returning to Maine bought a
large tract of land on Beauchampneck, making the purchase from the General
Molineux Estate. He then built a large, two-story mansion, near where he
carried on farming on an extensive scale, and he also operated lime-stone
quarries and burned lime on his place. Having been a ship-builder and an
architect at Rockport harbor, he undoubtedly bequeathed to our subject some
of that spirit of exactness and a desire to do things on the square, for which
he is noted. Later he bought a large body of land on Mt. Alegunticook and
built the Camden and JMegunticook turnpike road connecting Camden with
Lincolnville, one of the most beautiful drives in the State of Maine. He was
a man of great business acumen, force of character and executive ability.
He died on December 1, 1859, at the age of ninety, having been, as was his
wife, a disciple of Wesley for over fifty years. During that time, he gave the
land for, and built the first Methodist Church at Rockport.
Thomas T. Barrett was reared in Maine and there attended the public
schools and Kent's Hill College, from which he was graduated after a four
vears' course. He learned the trade of brickmason, worked at it in Boston
and in ;Minneapolis. after which he returned to Alaine, and from there, in 1883,
came to Fresno ; and here he has followed his trade ever since. In 1883 he
built the Farmers' Bank Building on Mariposa Street; two years later, the
Bradley Block : and later still the following structures : the Dunn Block, the
Green Block, the City Water Works tower, the Fresno Brewery and bottling
works and ice plant'; the Lyons Block, the First National Bank Building;
Macy's Hotel at Madera; the cellars of the St. George, Henrietta, Margherita
and Barton wineries, and many brick residences in various parts of Fresno
and Fresno County. He was also foreman of construction of the Fresno Flour
Mill. These structures, of varied architectural design, are interesting as show-
ing the development of Fresno and the country adjacent, and some are there-
fore landmarks, while many are of recent construction. In 1906 Mr. Barrett
went to Sonoma County, to build the I. de Turk W'inery, which was destroyed
by the earthquake of that vear, and to erect other buildings, from which it is
968 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
fair to assume that his fame as a builder is more than county-wide. It is no
wonder, therefore, that patrons who have once sought his cooperation go no
further on getting his carefully-prepared estimates.
Mr. Barrett has taken a prominent part in building up the labor affilia-
tions in the State, and for some time he was engaged in organizing unions.
He is very naturally a member of the International Bricklayers' Union ; a
charter member and president of the Bricklayers' Union of Fresno: and pres-
ident of the Brick Contractors' Association of the same city. Aside from his
other work, he has bought and sold lots and residence property in Fresno,
and at one time owned twent}' acres west of the town, which he later sold.
The first wife of Mr. Barrett was Lena Packard, the daughter of Capt.
Cheney Packard, of Rockport, Maine, and two sons and a daughter were the
result of the union: Maurice A., a merchant in Boston, is married and has
a daughter, Helen, and they live at ^^'eymouth, Mass. ; Frederick died in
boyhood ; Marian married Arthur Haines, a banker in Boston : they reside at
East Braintree, Mass., and have two children, Charlotte and Wendell. The
second marriage united him with Miss Maria L. Dix, a native of Shasta
County, and a daughter of William C. Dix who was born in Lexington, Rock-
bridge County, Va., and who came across the plains to California in 1850,
and was a miner and storekeeper in Shasta County.
Fraternally, Mr. Barrett is a Mason, belonging to St. Paul Lodge, Rock-
port, Maine. A man of sterling worth, and prominent in all good works in
Fresno County, he has been the favorite candidate of many, although he never
held out his hand for public office.
MRS. LOUISA (DUMONT) SCHELL.— A prominent place among
the women who have left their impress on the development of California must
be accorded Mrs. Louisa Dumont Schell. of Fresno County, wife of the late
Hiram Schell, one of the foremost men of Monterev County, and later a well-
known citizen of Fresno County. Before her marriage. Mrs. Schell was Louisa
Dumont, a daughter of Samuel Dumont. a native of New York who removed
to Ontario, Canada, in young manhood. He married Mrs. Mary (Sherman)
Van Evry, who was also a native of New York, and was an own cousin of
General .Sherman. Samuel Dumont was a very successful farmer near Oxford,
and his farm was one of the show places of Oxford County. His residence
was a handsomely designed building, surrounded by beautiful lawn and gar-
dens. Both Mr. and ]\Irs. Dumont died in Oxford County. They had nine
children, of whom four are living. Besides Mrs. Schell, only one member of
the family came to California, William Dumont, now eighty-five years of age,
one of the pioneers of Church or Temperance Colony, who resided on a ranch
adjoining that of his sister until 1916, when he sold out. He now resides in
San Jose.
Louisa Dumont was born near Oxford, Oxford County, Ontario, on Au-
gust 15; 1839. She received a good education in her native county, and was
reared in an environment of culture and refinement, which influence has been
felt by her friends and neighbors, for it is a part of her daily life. In Wood-
stock, Ontario, in 1858, Miss Dumont married Hiram Schell, born in On-
tario in December, 1839. ]\Ir. Schell had a brother Robert, who was captured
by the Indians in Ontario and was being taken away when he made his
escape and reached his home safely. Hiram Schell learned the blacksmith
and horseshoer's trade and became a fine workman. Like other blacksmiths
of the earlier days, he could make his own horseshoes and nails. He was a
lover of fine horses, and could doctor their various ailments. Once when
treating a horse for glanders he caught the disease, but the treatment given
by his physician and the careful nursing by his wife brought him back to
health. According to medical journals his was the second case on record
in medical science where a person recovered from glanders taken, from a horse.
This was in 1892.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 969
A sister of Mr. Schell's had moved to California and was living in Santa
Clara County ; and in 1862 Mr. and Mrs. Schell embarked from New York
on the steamer Ariel for Panama, and while enroute to their destination the
vessel was captured by the Alabama. The late Colonel Forsythe of Fresno
was also a passenger on the Ariel. After being detained for a time, the steamer
was allowed to continue on its journey. In due time the passengers arrived
in San Francisco.
Mr. and Mrs. Schell made their way to Santa Clara County, but soon
afterwards went to Virginia City, Nev., where Mr. Schell worked as a black-
smith for a time and later was a tool dresser at the Norcross Mine, from
which place he went to the Empire Mine in the same occupation. During
the time he lived in Nevada he had his residence on Gold Hill. After spend-
ing seven years in Nevada the Schell family came back to California and
located in Salinas, where Mr. Schell established a horseshoeing shop and kept
a livery stable. Salinas was then a stage station, and he cared for and shod
the horses belonging to the stage company as well as doing a general horse-
shoeing business. He was also interested in a shop in Monterey. Mr. Schell
became a well known and successful man in IMonterey County and was a
straightforward and honest workman.
Mrs. Schell's brother, William Dumont. had located on a ranch in Fresno
County, and Mrs. Schell's son Ed. had bought a twenty-acre tract here, which
is now owned by Mrs. Schell. She was looking for a different climate from
that found in the Salinas Valley and came to Fresno on a visit, to look the
countv over with a view to locating here. Her impressions were favorable
and she decided to remain and make it their home. In July, 1880. with her
daughter Ethel Lena, she bought the twenty acres owned by her son, to
which she later added another twenty acres. In the meantime Mr. Schell
had built a horseshoeing shop in Fresno and was carrying on a successful
business. He died in Los Angeles in May. 1907, mourned by a large con-
course of friends. Since his death. Mrs. Schell. assisted by her daughter and
son-in-law, has carried on the ranch with profit.
Mrs. Schell became the mother of eight children: Thaddeus Seymour,
formerly a miner, but now in charge of the electric light plant at Big Creek ;
Edwin Herbert, a resident of Visalia : Nettie, who died at the age of three
years; Andrew, who died in infancy; Frank, who passed away at the age of
thirty-seven; Hiram Lewis, a miner, residing at Fowler; Warren, who died
at three years of age ; and Ethel Lena, Mrs. Charles Lee O'Brien. The Schell
brothers mined on Hughes Creek and took out some $50,000, after which
the}' sold the mine.
Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien manage the Schell property. Mrs. O'Brien was
born in Salinas, but was reared and educated in Fresno County, graduating
from the Fresno High School at the age of seventeen, after which she took
up the study of viticulture. Her husband. Charles Lee O'Brien, was born
in Louisville, Mo., and was reared to the life of a farmer. He came to Cal-
ifornia in 1898 and for twelve years was superintendent of the Wallace vine-
yard, and in the meantime assisted Mrs. Schell with her property. Their
vineyard is very productive. In 1917. from twenty-six acres, they "obtained
fifty tons of raisins, all from muscat grapes. Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien are
members of the California Associated Raisin Company. They have two chil-
dren. Warden Lee and A^'iIma ]\Iary. Mr. O'Brien is a member of the Ma-
sons. Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Knights of Pythias and the Mod-
ern Woodmen of America. Mrs. Schell and the O'Briens belong to the
Methodist Episcopal Church of Fresno.
ARTHUR W. ALLEN. — One of the young and prosperous ranchmen of
the county is Arthur W. Allen, the viticulturist. Mr. Allen is a stepson of
Jacob Hinsberger, who is mentioned elsewhere in this work. He was born
at Chico. in Butte County, on February 16. 1879, the son of ^^'illiam and
Sadie Allen ; another son, still younger, is Herbert Allen, who is with the
970 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
Sugar Pine Lumber Company of Madera, where he is an expert master me-
chanic in the mills. When two years of age, Arthur Allen came to Fresno
Flats with his parents, and in 1887 to Fresno, where they settled in the
Scandinavian Colony. He worked on his father's ranch and attended the
district public school ; and while thus assisting his parents, he learned the
ins and outs of vineyarding.
On 'March 26, 1908, Mr. Allen took possession of his present place, a
fine tract of about forty acres that was purchased about fifteen years ago
by Mr. Hinsberger, whom he assisted from the beginning to improve the
land. It was stubble and hog-wallow, located in the Wolters Colony, some
four and a half miles north of Fresno, on the Virginia Way; but it was
soon made to bear in luxuriance both muscats and wine grapes. He sunk a
well and installed an eight horse-power gasoline pumping plant, with a four-
inch pump, which provided perfect irrigation, and he also had service from
the Gould ditch. He built a residence and the usual out-houses : and to his
vineyarding he added the raising of alfalfa.
On the same date that he entered into the proprietorship of his present
home. Air. Allen was married to Miss Ida Anderson, a native of the Scandi-
navian Colony and the daughter of Fred Anderson, who was born in Sweden.
He was a cabinet-maker and carpenter who came to San Francisco and there
followed his trade ; and he was one of the first of the Scandinavians who
formed their colony in Fresno County. He improved his vineyard and had
a fine place, and both he and his wife died there. Mrs. Allen was educated
at the excellent public school, and has had two children, Blanche Bernice,
whose untimely death, on January 12, 1918, when she was only eighteen
months old, fell as the heaviest of blows on the devoted parents, and the
baby born on February 6, 1919.
Mr. Allen is an active member of the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany, and in connection with that live organization advances all the interests
allied to his field of work. Mrs. Allen joins her husband in participating in
all that makes for the upbuilding of the community.
SAMUEL SAMELSON. — A renowned musician whose fine talents and
superior professional accomplishments contributed to his attractive qualities
as both a husband and a father, was the late Prof. Samuel Samelson, a
native of Ulster County, New York, where he was born on the Fourth of
July, 1838, of German parentage. He was naturally a musician and, having
studied music as a young man, he became the leader of an orchestra at
Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and there taught music, making the violin a specialty.
In 1856 he came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and for
awhile ran a store in North San Juan. Nevada Count}-, at the same time
teaching music. He was one of a family of ten children, all now deceased
except a sister, Pauline Schwerin, who is living in New York; and doubtless
his family ties drew him back to New York State in 1866. when he returned
to Poughkeepsie and again taught the violin, mandolin and guitar, and con-
ducted his own orchestra.
In 1889. a year or two after the great real estate boom in this part of
the country. Professor Samelson returned to California and bought eighty
acres of vineyard in the Perrin Colony No. 1 in Fresno County. He lived
there until 1896 and when he sold out he moved to Fresno. Here he taught
music and turned out some fine violin players. He became prominent in
musical circles of the city and had much to do with directing the musical
taste of Fresno.
On December 12, 1861, Professor Samelson was married at North San
Juan to Alice M. Prior, born in New Zealand. Her parents were John A.
and Alice D. (Moat) Prior, both born near London, England, but became
early settlers of New Zealand, where three of their children were born. Mr.
Prior was a '49er in California, arriving on a sailing vessel that cast anchor
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 973
in San Francisco Bay. He mined in Nevada County and when he decided
he would make this state his home he sent for his wife and three children.
There were five more children born in California and of these only one,
George W. Prior, now of South Bend., Wash., is living. For fifty-seven years
Mr. and Mrs. Samelson lived an ideal life as a married couple, happy in the
enjoyment of a large circle of friends.
Three children were born to this estimable pair ; two sons, Samuel J-
and William L. have both identified themselves in an enviable way with
Fresno, while a daughter, now deceased, was Mrs. Alma L. Scheppegrell.
She left five children: Mrs. Alice Burchard, George, Samuel J-, William and
Mrs. Luella Richardson. These children were reared by their grandmother
after the death of their mother. William L. Samelson has one son, William
Gilbert, who for six months was in the service of the United States t^(i\ern-
ment at Fort McDowell, during the war. There are nine great-graiidchiMren
in the family, and as Mrs. Samelson has always been a home-loving woman
she has both endeavored and succeeded in giving those dependent upon her
the most motherly and conscientious care.
WILLIAM McCREARY.— The building of a community, as well as a
nation, depends, for success and permanence, on the foundation laid. All
through the history of the development of the New World, and in every
chapter of the history of the United States, this great truth has been shown.
In no other state has the importance of the early settler, the forerunner of
civilization, the maker of paths and highways, and the builder of homes and
schools, been so much emphasized as in California.
In the true value of his foundation work, William McCreary, the well-
known resident of the Reedley section of Fresno County, has shown him-
self to be such a community-builder. He is one of the few pioneers who are
still living to enjoy the full fruits of their labors. He was born near Belle-
ville. Ala., on March 31, 1861, a son of Lorenzo I. and Elizabeth (Autrey)
^IcCreary, also Alabamans, and parents of seven children, five of whom are
still living, and all residents of California. The famil}- removed to this state in
the early sixties, locating in what is now Madera Countw then Fresno County.
Lorenzo I. was an extensive landowner and stockman, having at one time
over 3,000 head of sheep. He continued in the sheep business for over fifteen
years, during which time he homesteaded 320 acres of Fresno County land,
subsequently purchasing 160 more, besides owning some fine property in
Fresno. He died August 2, 1890, on his 160-acre ranch near Parlier, which
was valued at $160,000.
William McCreary was reared and educated in Fresno County, and from
a small lad has grown with the country. He worked at various things from
time to time, followed ranching and .stock-raising, as did his father. He
hauled the first load of lumber onto the Reedley town site, which was used
in the construction of the first building in the town. He has seen the country
grow from a desert to a garden spot, has endured many hardships, suffered
privations, and has worked hard in order to accumulate a competency ; and
he rejoices to see land increase in value from $2.50 to over $1,000 per acre.
He owns sixty acres of fine productive land, which he has developed from
hogwallow grain-land into a vineyard of Thompson seedless, Muscats and
Emperor grapes, and white .Adriatic figs are being set out on part of the
ranch. He built his fine home and outbuildings suf^cient for his needs, and
he farms in the modern way with all the improved machinery and implements
that are available. He has lived on his present place, three miles northeast
from Reedle}'. since 1912, and his place is well-known as McCreary's Corners.
For a few years he has been preparing land and planting trees and vines for
others, and he holds the record of h.ixiiii;- graded, for irrigation, more land
than any other man in the Reedle\' section, his services being much in de-
mand because of his experience and reliabilit}-.
974 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The marriage of Mr. McCreary took place June 4, 1889, when Miss Lottie
Fairweather, daughter of John and Mary (Rippen) Fairweather, became his
wife. She was born in England, April 28, 1871, was brought to the United
States when a child and was reared in Ohio, where her education was ob-
tained. She is the mother of six children : John Lorenzo, a rancher and the
husband of Lucilla Belknap, by whom he has a daughter, Margaret Olive ;
Minnie Ethel, who married Alex Rankin, and is the mother of two daughters,
Minnie and Marian ; Elizabeth M., lives at home and is attending the Fresno
State Normal school ; Irma A., married C. E. Venard, a rancher, and they
have a son. Charles William. These children are all residing in Fresno
County, where they were born and raised. Minnie Ethel and Irma A. hold
teachers' certificates from the State Normal. Two children, Naomi and \^'il-
liam Irvin, died at the ages of thirty months and seven months, respectively.
In politics Mr. McCreary is a Democrat in national affairs, but in local
matters he supports men and measures regardless of party lines. He has
served as a trustee in both the Hills Valley and Sand Creek school districts.
He was one of the organizers and is a director of the Reedley branch of
the Federal Farm Loan Bank Club of Berkeley, to supply home-makers
with capital on long-term-payment plan. He is a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company and of the California Peach Growers, Inc. and
believes in everything that is progressive. He is a member of the Woodmen
of the World and of the Odd Fellows. He is sociably inclined, big-hearted
and true, the maker of friends, and enjoys the confidence and esteem of all
who know him, and with his good wife dispenses a true California hospitality
at their home.
WILLIS D. WEAVER. — A pioneer of Fresno County, and also a pioneer
in the line of business he still follows, that of fruit buying in the San Joaquin
\'alley, \\'illis D. A\'eaver is the representative of that business in this section
of the state, and is now the highest salaried fruit buyer in the valley, as
well as one of the best known and most successful. A native son of Califor-
nia, he was born in Redwood City, March 23, 1868, a son of Jacob A\'eaver,
a native of Pennsylvania, and Nancy (Squires) Weaver, a native of Missouri.
The father crossed the plains to California by ox team in the days of Forty-
nine, and ran a store and sawmill near Redwood City. He later engaged in
coal mining in Sonoma County, near Mark West Springs, then returned to
Redwood City, and in 1880 located in Fresno, his family joining him the
following year. Here he bought three blocks on the edge of Fresno, and
farmed on a small scale, later buying forty acres of land near Calwa, where
he set out a vineyard. He retired, in Fresno, in later life, and died there,
at the age of seventy-eight. To this pioneer couple were born nine children,
viz.: — John F., now of Richmond, Cal. : Simon J., of Selma ; James B., of
San Luis Obispo; Mrs. I\Iary McDonald, now deceased; Mrs. Emma Austin,
deceased wife of J. R. Austin, of Fresno ; Jacob, died early in life ; Nannie,
deceased wife of W. C. Guard, of Fresno : ^^'illis D.. of this review : and
Walter Elmore, deceased.
Willis D. Weaver was educated in the Fresno schools, and then entered
the employ of his brother, John F., who ran a hardware store in Fresno.
In 1893 he began his career in the fruit packing business, and has since
that date been engaged in this line. He first entered the employ of the
Cutting Fruit Packing Company, and remained with them until 1898, when
he went with the Golden West Fruit Packing Company. In 1899 he went
with the Fresno Home Packing Company as fruit buyer ; then was with
the J. K. Armsby Company in that capacity, and now is with the California
Packing Corporation, his territory extending from Bakersfield to Merced.
In the midst of his business activities, Mr. ^^'eaver has found time to
interest himself in public affairs, and served as a member of the Republican
County Central Committee from 1896 to 1902. He was also one of the three
members of the Horticultural Committee of Fresno for two vears, from
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 975
1900 to 1902, his experience and knowledge in that branch of the county's
development making him an important factor in this work tln'oughout the
valley, and he stands ready at all times to give of his time and knowledge
in promoting the resources of Fresno County.
The marriage of Mr. Weaver, on August 6, 1893, united him with Miss
May Osborn, a native of Tennessee, and three children have been born to
them: — Landis O., was a student at Stanford University at the time of his
enlistment for service in the World War, January 3, 1918. He was sent to
the Ordnance School at the University of California, at Berkeley, and after
graduating from there was ordered to the special school at Benicia Bar-
racks, and when he had graduated was sent to Tours, France, where he was
assistant to the chief ordnance officer, in charge of the telegraph desk ; Helen
Estelle, is a student in the University of California at Berkeley ; and Esther
Leah, is attending Stanford University.
Fraternally Mr. \Veaver is a member of Fresno Lodge No. 439, B. P. O.
Elks, and of the Odd Fellows. It is to such men as Willis D. Weaver that
Fresno County owes her phenomenal progress and development, men who
have worked loj-ally and constantly for the advancement of their home
county.
JOHN R. AUSTIN. — Among Fresno's retired pioneers is John R. Aus-
tin, who came to California in his vigorous young manhood and who, in his
declining years now enjoys the fruit of his industry'. Of Southern extraction,
he was born in Jackson County, Ala., February 7, 1851. He received his edu-
cation in private schools and as a young man followed the occupation of
farming. Removing to western Missouri in 1868, he continued to farm, and
in 1875, allured by the future possibihties of the great West, came to Cal-
ifornia where he worked on grain ranches in Merced County. After two years
he returned to Missouri, remaining there five months, but the call of the
West was so strong that he again turned his face in that direction, this time
driving across the plains with a team, making the journey in three months.
He located in Walla Walla, Wash., and followed farming until December,
1879, when he came to Fresno and located. In 1882 he entered the grocery
business in Fresno, continuing the business for several years. For many
years he dealt extensively in Fresno real estate, buying and selling city
property, and at one time was the owner of the land on which now stands
the Republican building. He also owned the land where the Edgerly build-
ing stands and was an extensive dealer in vineyard property south of Fresno.
John R. Austin was married in Stockton, Cal., September 5, 1890, to
Emma Weaver, one of the fair daughters of Redwood City, Cal., who was
born at that place February 28, 1862, and who died in Fresno, September 30,
1916. One son was the result of this union, Lloyd C, the well known dentist
of Fresno.
While living in Missouri Mr. Austin was made a Mason and has been a
member of that order for the past forty-two vears. Lie belongs to the Fresno
Las Palmas Lodge. No. 366, F. & A. M.
MILES WALLACE. — Some of the ablest attorneys in California are
located in the enterprising city of Fresno. Among those who rank high in
the estimation of their fellow members of the bar is IMiles \\^anace, a native
of Tennessee, born in ]Murfreesboro, February 19, 1861, a son of William H.
and Caroline (Miles) Wallace. Mr. W. H. Wallace, was a minister of the
gospel, and in that capacity was often privileged to speak comforting words
to the hearts of those sorely bereaved who were mourning the loss of a
dearly beloved one who had been claimed by death, the common enemy of
all mankind. In due time Mr. Wallace also passed into the land of the
unknown. His beloved wife followed him later, perishing with so many
other of Galveston's citizens in the great disaster which came upon that
city a few years ago.
976 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Allies A\'allace took an academic course at Russville, Kentucky, after-
ward taking a special course at Bethel College in Russville, graduating in
high honor in 1880. He then entered the journalistic field as newspaper
correspondent, but after a few years experience in newspaper work, believing
that the law oflfered greater opportunities for an ambitious young man, he
entered the Cumberland University law school at Lebanon, Tenn., receiving
his diploma from that institution June 1, 1882. Seeing, as he believed, a good
opportunity for a hustling young lawyer in Palestine, Texas, he opened
an office there, and the steady increase of his practice during his four years
sojourn at that place proved that his judgment was correct. After settling
his affairs in Palestine and turning over his clients to a fellow attorney, he
returned to Murfreesboro, Tenn., the place of his birth, where he remained
three years and again built up a large practice, but getting a severe attack
of California fever, in February, 1889, he came to the Golden State and
located at Fresno, where he again entered the practice of the law. In 1891
he removed to Madera where he was employed by the county preparing
transcripts, and while there made many friends among the legal fraternity
and the people generall)', and was elected district attorney, holding that
office until 1894, when he returned to Fresno, where he resided at 482 Glenn
Street until his death February 24, 1917.
His widow was formerly Miss Anna Dickenson, to whom he was mar-
ried December 16, 1894. Her father, J. J. Dickenson, was a California
pioneer, crossing the plains in 1846 by the ox team route and settling in
Fresno. Mr. and Mrs. Wa.llace have two children, Cuba and Lee.
Mr. Miles Wallace was an influential member of the Democratic party,
was president of the Chamber of Commerce, and United States Commis-
sioner, and always deeply interested in the development of Fresno.
JAMES W. SMITH. — One of the pioneer contractors of Fresno, James
W. Smith was born at Kempt, Hants County, Nova Scotia, November 23,
1844. He learned the ship carpenter's trade, and worked as ship joiner at
Windsor and Halifax, N. S. In 1867 he came to Boston, Mass., and there
worked at ship building for F. H. Flynn and Kirby. the ship builders.
In 1868 Mr. Smith came to California, via the Isthrnus of Panama, on
the old side-wheeler steamer Sacramento, leaving New York on September
30 of that year and arriving in San Francisco just one month later. In San
Francisco he followed carpenter work, in the shop of A. A. Snyder, and
worked on the building of the Baldwin Hotel Annex, and other large build-
ings being erected at that time. From there he went to Yuba County, and
for seven years worked as carpenter for the Excelsior ^^'ater and Mining
Compan}^
Mr. Smith first came to Fresno on August 3, 1880, and has since that
date made his home here, becoming prominent in the business and social
life of the city, and is still actively engaged as a contractor and builder at the
age of seventy-four years. He bought twenty acres of land near town and
for four years farmed this property to grain and alfalfa and vineyard. He
later sold the property to O. J. Woodward and that twenty acres is now a
part of the Woodward Addition, a real estate subdivision. In 1884 Mr. Smith
erected his own home at 807 M Street, which location at that date was
called "out in the country." In early days in Fresno l\Ir. Smith worked at
the carpenter trade for Fred Banty and also for M. R. Madary in his planing
mill, which had just started. He engaged in planing mill construction and
ownership and built and ran the first Mechanics Planing Mill ; this was de-
stroyed by fire and he then built the second Mechanics Planing Mill and the
California Planing Mill and operated both mills. Later he engaged in con-
tracting and building in Fresno and among other work he built the Masonic
Temple, Risley Block, First Presbyterian Church ; First Methodist Church,
Elm Street School and other buildings too numerous to mention. He also
^,/^?a
f'O^Oy'^yi^iMpJLVTX-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUXTY 979
was foreman in the building of the Barton Opera House, in Fresno; and built
the Presbyterian Church at Fowler.
The marriage of Mr. Smith united him with Mary M. Alurdock, a native
of Nova Scotia, and six children were born to them, as fdllnws: Laura F.,
the wife of Albert Alexander and mother of three children, the eldest son,
George Alexander, now being in the United States Aviation Service in
France, having joined General Pershing's forces soon after our entrance
into the war, and was the first man to be picked from California for this
service: Mrs. Lillian A. Scott; Herbert A., in the mill business at West-
wood, Cal. ; Ernest E., a sign painter of Fresno; \^iola, wife of Herbert
Collins and mother of two daughters; and James H.
While taking a prominent part in the development and upbuilding of
Fresno's business interests, Mr. Smith has at the same time given of his
time and interest to the fraternal organizations of the city. He is a Thirtv-
second degree Mason, being a member of Las Palmas Lodge, F. & A. M.,
of Fresno ; also of the Fresno Chapter and Commandery ; and of the Con-
sistory and Shrine. He is also a member of the Fresno Lodge of Elks, and
of the Odd Fellows.
MRS. REBECCA A. BONNIFIELD.— One of the very oldest settlers
of the Round Mountain district in Fresno County, who can relate most inter-
esting stories of early days, is Rebecca A. Bonnifield, who was Rebecca A.
Parsons before her marriage. She was born in Tucker County, W. Va., on
January 25, 1843, the daughter of job and Sarah (Losh) Parsons, natives re-
spectively of Randolph Count\-. W. \',i., and Rockingham County, Va. Job
Parsons was born in 1789 and scrxcd in the War of 1812, and was a farmer
in Tucker County, where he was also elected magistrate. He died in 1883,
aged ninetv-four, while his wife passed away in 1903, in her ninetv-fifth year.
Eight children came to bless this worthy couple, and among them Mrs. Bonni-
field was the third in order of birth.
Her childhood was spent in Tucker County, where she attended school
in the primitive log schoolhouse with its slab benches and puncheon floor,
and on November 23, 1860, she married Thomas B. Rummell, a native of Ran-
dolph County, W. Va., who was an attorney at law. In April, 1861, he en-
listed in a Virginia regiment, and served until he was captured while home
on furlough. He afterwards took the oath of allegiance and went to Kansas
City, where he resumed the practice of law. but he was soon shot down in
cold blood.
Rebecca Parsons Rummell resided in Tucker County during the War,
and went through all the hardships of those heartless days when crops were
devastated and stock taken. She had many unpleasant as well as interesting
experiences, among them that of saving the old family horse ; it was the last
left them and had laeen seized by a Buckeye Yankee boy, but he was choked
and made to yield up his prize. She has other stories to tell, and being a good
conversationalist, never wants for listeners.
In 1867, Mrs. Rummell married agajn, this time becoming the wife of
Arnold T. Bonnifield, also a native of Tucker Count)^, where he was reared
until 1859. Then he came to California by way of Panama, but in 1866 he
returned to Virginia. After their marriage, 'Mv. and ]Mrs. Bonnifield came to
California, following the route of the Isthmus ; and after a short stay in Marin
County, they removed to Napa County. In 1869. they came to Fresno County
and located on Dry Creek, where they homesteaded and engaged in farming
and stock-raising. The county seat was then at Millerton, on the Overland
stage route, and provisions and freight were brought from Stockton. In the
seventies, the Bonnifields sold out and purchased land in Round ]\fountain
district, where they owned a ranch of 640 acres. It was then all range land,
-where cattle and antelope roamed — very different from the well-kept vine-
yards and orchards of the district of today, a wonderful transformation having
been efifected in a short time.
980 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The Bonnifield family still owns (for Mr. Bonnifield died while on a visit
in Texas), 300 acres, under irrigation from the Enterprise Canal, with orchards
of peaches and figs, and vineyards of malagas. emperors and muscat grapes.
Of Mrs. Bonnifield's first union, two children were born: Garnetta, who
died in infancy, and Icilina, now ]\Irs. Carlisle of Lemoore. By her marriage
to Mr. Bonnifield. she had three children : Joseph Elliott died in his eighteenth
year; Lizzie May is the wife of 'M. G. Vernon. \yho is a prominent rancher in
the Round Mountain district. He is a native of Boone County. Iowa, and was
left an orphan at twelve years of age. Nevertheless, he managed to reach
California and Fresno in 1886, when he was eighteen. He married in 1889,
and is now farming the Bonnifield lands. He is a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc. They
have had ten children, nine living: Bonnie B., deceased; Gladys, who is Mrs.
Martin and has one child; Raymond G., a rancher and viticulturist in this
district, as is Leroy T., who served in the United States Army during the late
war; Morris G., assisting his father on the home ranch ; Earl V., attending the
University of California; Clinton B. ; Charles Oliver; Milton Maxwell: and
Robert Lee. Emma, the third child, was I\Irs. Patton. and resided in Salinas
until her death, in 1897, leaving three children: John Vernon, of Gilroy; Fran-
ces Irene, Mrs. Bubar, who has two children ; and Earl, who resides in Salinas.
]\Irs. Bonnifield is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South,
and a member of Kings River Rebekah Lodge, No. 51 ; is a Past Noble Grand
and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge. Since coming to California she
has made two trips back to her old home in Tucker County, W. Va., in 1881,
and in 1900, but each time on returning to California was more than ever
pleased with her environment.
JAMES E. BURNS.— Born May 29, 1843. at Wellsburg. \V. \'a., James E.
Burns was brought up in Morgan County, Mo., where he attended the country
schools and later at Versailles Academy, Missouri. At the beginning of our
Civil War, with characteristic loyalty to his country and enthusiasm for
the cause, he responded to the call for volunteers, enlisted August 18, 1861,
in Company A, Thirty-ninth Indiana Volunteer Cavalry, and was mustered
in at Indianapolis. He had the honor of taking part in the first skirmish in
Kentucky at the beginning of the war and served with distinction up to the
time of the firing of the last shot of the war in North Carolina. He had an
unusual record in that in all the time of service he was never ill, wounded
or captured. Mr. Burns was a member of the Army of the Cumberland and
took part in the battles of Shiloh, Perryville. Stone River, Chickamauga and
Missionary Ridge. In 1864 he was appointed military agent of the state of
Indiana. He and an assistant had entrusted to their care the granting of fur-
loughs to 27,000 soldiers. Later he was assigned to the headcjuarters of Gen.
J. F. Miller, Post Commander at Nashville, and took part in the battle of
Nashville. He was also with Sherman in his famous march to the sea, and
participated in the battles of Bentonville and Averysboro, where his regiment
suffered severe losses. During these eventful years he held the offices of cor-
poral, sergeant and hospital steward and was mustered out at Indianapolis,
Ind., August 8, 1865, after which he returned to his old iNIissonri home and
became deputy county clerk under his father.
In 1868-70 Mr. Burns located at lola, Kans. He also owned a farm in
Wilson County of that state. In 1876 he entered the grocery business in lola,
Kans., and from 1880-82 was deputy clerk and deputy county treasurer of
Allen County, Kans. In 1886 he was traveling salesman for a hardware and
implement company and in 1888 became deputy county registrar of deeds.
In 1889 Mr. Burns removed to Oklahoma and on April 22, of that year,
became cit}- clerk of Kingfisher. He was privileged to take part in the ex-
citing scenes attending the rush for government land in Oklahoma, and ob-
tained a claim for 160 acres in Cimarron township. Kingfisher County, where
he farmed for ten years and in January, 1898, was appointed officer in the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 981
Tnited States Land Office at Kingfisher, serving eighteen months. After-
wards he became salesman for the W. H. Mead Agricultural Implement Com-
pany. In 1898 he was elected county clerk of Kingfisher County, and in 1900
reelected to the position, and again reelected in 1902 on the Republican ticket.
He was also chairman of the Kingfisher County Republican Central Com-
mittee. Tames E. Burns came to Fresno, November 1, 1906, and purchased
a 20-acre ranch near Kerman, selling it after ly, years, and then retiring.
Mr. Burns is an active member of the G. A. R. Post, joining the organ-
ization January, 1866, at Versailles, Mo. This Post was the fifth G. A. R.
Post organized' in the United States. He joined the McCook Post No. 51, at
lola. Kans., in 1880, and was also a member of the Kingfisher, Oklahoma G. A.
R. Post, No. 8, of which he is Past Commander. In 1891 he was appointed
Adjutant General of Department Territory of Oklahoma, and was later raised
to the rank of colonel. He has been on the stafT of two National Commanders
of G. A. R. and was Department Commander of the Oklahoma Post in 1901-2.
In his domestic relations he was united in the bonds of holy matrimony,
September 7, 1865, to Sarah A. Dufif, a native of Miami County, Indiana. The
children resulting from this union are: Rhoda, wife of L. C. Gould of Lassen
County, Cal.; Peter R., a commercial traveler of Canadian, Texas; Sarah E.,
wife of F. D. Jenkins, a rancher in Roosevelt Colony, nine miles west of
Fresno ; James A., deceased ; and Elgie L., at home.
Mr. Burns is adjutant of Atlanta Post G. A. R. No. 92, of Fresno. This
post was started in October, 1885, and the first commander was C. A. Fuller,
who was appointed to serve until January 1, 1886. when Fred Banty was
elected the First Commander. There are six charter members of this lodge
living, namelv : Henrv Bantv, Fred Banty, Frank P. Love, L. Kenepper and
Frank Millcn The officers for 1918 are: John M. Ryan, Commander: G. W.
Collins. Senior Vice Commander: F. M. Briggs, Junior Vice Commander;
Leroy Tavlor, Officer of the Dav ; F. P. Love, Quartermaster : William Freese.
Clerk; G.' W. Clark, Officer of 'the Guard: J. E. Burns, Adjutant. The Post
has a membership of eighty, and through their efforts have secured a modern
breech-loading cannon from the United States Government, which they have
placed in the new plot of the G. A. R. Cemetery. The Spanish AVar Veteran
Lodge has received Atlanta Post No. 92 as hfjnorar}- members.
Mrs. Burns is very active in the order of Ladies of the G. A. R. She is
past pre.sident of the local circle of Fresno and past president of the Depart-
ment circle of Oklahoma for two terms. She is at present patriotic instructor
of the Ladies G. A. R. of Fresno. During her stay in Oklahoma she attended
all the Department Conventions, eighteen in number, and has attended all
of the Department Conventions in California Ijut one.
The Ladies of the Fresno G. A. R. at present have eighty members. In
order to become a member one must be either wife or blood relation of a
veteran. The present officers for 1918 are: Mrs. Jennie Stevens, president;
Mrs. Josephine ]\Tackrill, senior vice president; Mrs. Thomas F. Williams,
junior vice president; Mrs. Hattie Richter, treasurer; Mrs. Mary IMcDaniel,
chaplain: Mrs. Sarah A. Burns, patriotic instructor; ]\liss Jennie Walganott,
secretary: Mrs. Lottie Pollar, conductor ; Mrs. L. Clark, assistant conductor;
Mrs. Eva Miller, guard; Mrs. Bessie Jackson, assistant guard. The society
has done grand work in conjunction with the male members of the G. A. R.
Post in improving the G. A. R. cemetery. They raised $100 for a coping
around the old plot, put an iron fence around the new plot, assisted in putting
the cannon in position and have also worked for the Red Cross and organized
a social club called the B. A. Custer Circle, No. 18.
In her church affiliations Mrs. Burns is a member of the Presbyterian
Church. Mr. Burns stands high in Masonry. He was a member of the Ver-
sailles, Mo., Blue Lodge, No. 117, and is now a member of Oklahoma Blue
Lodge, and also a member of the Chapter, the Commandery, the Consistory
and Scottish Rite. He is a Shriner and a member of the Eastern Star.
982 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
HENRY GRIES. — A successful horticulturist and viticulturist who had
resided in Fresno County for more than thirty years, and who was one of
the most prosperous and highly respected residents of the community south-
west of Sanger, was Henry Gries, a native of Germany, where he first saw
the light of day on August 10, 1846, a son of Claus Gries. His early boyhood
days were spent in his native land where he received his education and re-
mained until he attained the age of sixteen years, when he choose a sea-
faring life and became a sailor, and while on one of his trips around Cape
Horn journeyed as far north as San Francisco, making his advent into the
Golden State in 1868, when about twenty-two years of age. For two years
he served as a sailor on the revenue cutter Reliance which plied along
the Pacific coast. After discontinuing the sea life, Mr. Gries made his
home in San Francisco until 1886, where he was engaged in various pursuits
for which he was by nature and education best fitted, and during this time
he saved sufficient money to warrant an investment in land.
In 1887 special inducements were being offered to settlers in the San
Joaquin Valley, which attracted Mr. Gries to Fresno County, where he pur-
chased eighty acres in the Bethel school district, near Del Rey. When this
land was first purchased, in August, 1887, it was in its primitive state, but
Mr. Gries was fully determined to develop the property into a prosperous
fruit ranch and vineyard, and set to work at once to accomplish his aim,
which he lived to see consummated. The wonderful results of those long
years of hard labor and tmtiring efforts can be better appreciated by obser-
vation than by description. His land is devoted to raising peaches, prunes,
malaga and muscat grapes. The appearance of the ranch bespeaks thrift,
prosperity and efficient manasjement, and it is adorned by a modern and
commodious residence with all conveniences.
In 1902, Mr. Gries was united in marriage with Airs. Ella S. Berry,
widow of John Berry and the mother of a son, Wilbur T. Berry, who served
his country, during the World War, ten months on the Steamship Seattle,
attached to the Naval Reserves, receiving his discharge after the signing of
the armistice.
Mr. Gries always promoted the organization of the fruit and raisin grow-
ers, and was a member of all the raisin associations and also of the Peach
Growers, Inc. He was a patriotic citizen, highly esteemed for his good quali-
ties and integrity, and had served as a trustee of the Bethel school district.
His motto throughout life was to live up to the tenets of the Golden Rule.
Mr. Gries died at his home, south of Sanger, Friday night, July 25th,
after an illness of several months. This marks the passing of another old
pioneer of Fresno County. Mrs. Gries survives her husband.
C. TELIN. — A very industrious, frugal, and steadily successful ranchman
who, starting without money or influential friends, has nevertheless attained
to a'comfortable position such as many a person might well envy, and who
has also intelligently worked for the best interests of himself and other fruit
and raisin growers in this vicinity, is C. Telin. the always entertaining Swed-
ish-American agent of the Fancher Creek Nurseries of Fresno, of which
George C. Roeding is the president and manager. In all his work and respon-
sibilities, as indeed in all his pleasures, his good wife, also a native of that
famous Scandinavian country, shares his lot; and together they are actively
interested in the common welfare, on which account the}' have the good will
of everybody.
Mr. Telin was born in Sweden, on June 3. 1854, and grew up there, while
he attended the common schools. He also attended the Lutheran church, and
at fourteen, according to national custom, was confirmed in its rites and be-
liefs. When old enough to learn a trade he was apprenticed to a tailor; and
at twenty-one, he joined the Swedish Army, in which he served for seven
years, receiving at the end an honorable acquittal and praise for meritorious
"^.^^4-VUM
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 985
service. He had first served two years in the primary military school, starting
with the expectation of following a military career ; then he was sent to the
regular military school at Carlsborg, and in the fifth year of his service, he
became a corporal.
Before it was too late, however, Mr. Telin came to the conclusion that
such a profession did not offer a sufficient remuneration for the future ; and the
best alternative before him appeared to be a voyage to America and a trial
of his luck here. He therefore bought a ticket from Christiania to San Fran-
cisco, by way of New York. Chicago, and the Southern Pacific route, and,
leaving Norway, he arrived on the Pacific Coast in the fall of 1883. The first
year he worked as a common laborer in San Francisco, and then he went up
to Mendocino County, where he was in the employ of the Gualala Mill Com-
pany for four years. Misfortune stalked across his path at this juncture of
hie experience in the land of opportunity, and he was taken to the hospital
at Oakland, almost dead from asthma. In a short time, he spent all his spare
money doctoring, but he could get no relief. Fortunately he had a friend. Mr.
G. Jonason of Washington Colony, and the doctor advised him to make a
visit there. He did so and arrived at his longed-for destination near Easton,
in Fresno County, in 1889. He came to Fresno that June, sick and with only
fifty cents in his pocket, and was about as much "down and out" as any man
could be. Luckily, three days after he came to the Washington Colony he
had no more wheezing, and a month later he could do light work. In a short
time, he got well enough to work in the harvest field, and since then he has
never had the asthma. His experience is the same as has been that of thou-
sands, demonstrating that Fresno County is favorable to a cure of this dread
disease.
Before leaving Sweden, Mr. Telin was married to Jennie Matilda Volleen,
by whom he had one child, Sophia, who was only six months old when he
left Sweden. This devoted wife died while the daughter lived to be twenty-
two ; and having married, she left a child, Erik, who is still living in Sweden.
Later, Mr. Telin married a second time, in Calif<irni.i. choosing for his bride
Miss Annie Person of Minneapolis, but who orii^iiiall}- cime from Sweden
and then worked in Minnesota eight years before coming farther west. They
have had three children, one of whom died in infancy ; and those living are
Moody, who married Bertha Johnson and is a farmer at Orland, in Glenn
County ; and Jennie, now the wife of Andrew Christensen, the well-known
rancher near Kingsburg. They have three bright children. Helen. Ernest, and
Wallace.
Mr. Telin improved twenty acres in the Washington Colony, then sold
out after a discouraging experience, and finally came to his present site north
of the incorporated limits of Kingsburg. There he bought fifty-two acres
fifteen years ago, and since then he has sold twelve acres, leaving him forty.
He has twenty acres in peaches, five acres in apricots, five acres in plums and
eight acres in vines ; while two acres are devoted to yards and a corral, and
to his handsome house and good outbuildings. All that he has of living things,
he has planted with his own hands, so that he ma}' be pardoned for feeling
unusually proud of the result.
A decade and a half ago Mr. Telin became interested in the nursery
business, mainlj^ for the reason that he wished to secure tested and reliable
nursery stock for himself and neighbors. He has built 2,000 feet of concrete
pipes, and can now irrigate every foot of his land. He has two wells and ad-
equate pumping-plants, and also belongs to the irrigating system known as the
Consolidated Ditch. This triumph and reward has come after years of hard
work and many sore trials and reverses. He sold raisins during the panicky
vears for one cent a pound, and received only fifteen dollars a ton for malagas.
He worked hard to build up the company operating the packing-house at
Easton, and also the company operating the creamery and the packing-house
at Kingsburg, and now he is an active member in the California Raisin Grow-
986 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ers Association, the California Peach Growers Association and the Prune and
Apricot Association. His bitterest experience was at Easton. After spending
many years to improve his twenty acres, the drainage formed a kind of pond
in the center of his ranch ; and when he had struggled for ten years against the
increasing hindrance, paying in the meantime ten per cent, on the purchase
price, he was forced to sell his twenty acres for only $3,000. Thus he had
much less than $1,000 with which to start on his home-place, now a highly-
improved and valuable ranch of forty acres on Grand Avenue, adjoining Kings-
burg.
For the past thirteen years Mr. Telin has been agent for the Fancher
Creek Nurseries, and in representing them he sells only the very best of thor-
oughly reliable nursery stock in healthy condition and thoroughly tested. The
superiority of this output has long and widely been recognized, and the result
is that Mr. Telin is kept moderately busy in this field of enterprise.
About the same time that !\Ir. Telin assumed this responsibility, he made
a trip back to Sweden. He found many changes, and not all of the old-time
friends and relatives ; he passed pleasant hours, and was glad of the expe-
rience, but he was more than ever satisfied to get back to California. Mr. and
Mrs. Telin are members of the Swedish JNlethodist Episcopal Church at Kings-
burg, and delight in doing good whenever and wherever possible.
GEORGE WAMPOLE HORN.— A specialist in the feeding and raising
of hogs, who was a successful stock-raiser in Kansas and Iowa, and who now
owns eighty acres, part of which is devoted to raisins and peaches, is George
Wampole Horn, whose wife is well known for her ad\'ocacy of certain school
reforms, notably the consolidation of the Eschol and Kingsliurg districts.
He was born in Clearfield County, Pa., on January 7. 18.^1, the son of Elias
W. and Nancy Jane (Smith) Horn, with whom he came west to Illinois,
after which he went to Iowa, where he grew up. His school facilities were
limited, but he made the best of them. Still later he moved to Kansas, in
which state, as well as in Iowa, his father farmed. The latter moved back to
Iowa, and there he died, at the age of sixty-nine. George's mother had died
when he was only three years old, and his father married again, having, by
both marriages, twenty children; eight were of the first wife, George's
mother, and two of his own brothers were in the Union Army ; and twelve
were children by the second wife. George is the only one now in California.
The month of January. 1877, first saw him at Fresno, and then he went
up to Tollhouse and worked until the following August, when he shifted
to the Eschol district. For five years he worked for wages, and then he took
up a homestead of forty acres southeast of the town. Now he has eighty
acres and is engaged with remarkable success in mixed farming.
In the meantime Mr. Horn had married Miss Ella M. Hofifman, who
was born in Calaveras County, the daughter of Simon E. and Phoebe E.
(Allen) Hofifman, who came to California with ox teams from Minnesota in
1859. Mr. Hofifman was born in Germany, and he came to New York with
his parents, who settled in Illinois. Later he removed to Minnesota, and
there he was married. In 1871 Mrs. Horn came with her parents to Tulare
County, and in Calaveras County her father was both a farmer and a fruit-
raiser, and set out the first muscat vineyard there. In Tulare County, on
the other hand, her father followed grain-farming and stock-raising, and be-
came quite a large landowner ten miles southwest of Tulare city. After
having made his home with the subject of this sketch, he died two years ago,
aged eighty-seven. Mrs. HofTman also made her home for part of the time
with the Horns, although she lived for the most part at Tulare, and there
she died, at the age of eighty-two, on ]\Iarch 3, 1918, and was buried at Selma
beside her husband. There were eleven children in the Hofifman family, one
of whom died in infancy ; and all the ten still living were at the mother's bed-
side at her death, and attended the funeral. ]\Irs. Horn is the only one living
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 987
in Fresno County, although she has brothers and a sister in other parts of
the state and in Oregon. She is a member of the Baptist Church at Sehna.
Mr. Floffraan's part in educational matters has special interest. He came here
in 1880, when the PVanklin was the nearest school, five miles distant.
Desiring schooling for his children, he was the mainspring in organizing the
Eschol district, and he suggested the name of Eschol, since he had every
faith that this country would be as productive as the Eschol of Holy Writ.
Mr. Horn now has ten acres in muscats and ten acres in Thompson seed-
less, eight acres in peaches, and the balance in grain, hay and pasture. FTe
has twenty-three head of cattle, six horses, and twenty-four Poland China
hogs. He was the first to plow with a bull-team in this part of the county,
and in various ways gave an impetus to agriculture. He worked for John
Humphries when he first came down from Tollhouse, and he brought down
for him 400 hogs and so made $8,000 for his employer. How to care for
these he learned many years ago, for when as a young man he moved back
to Iowa from Kansas, he became a cattleman, and fed and finished cattle
for nine years, making thercb\- some of the good money that he brought to
California. TTe wont intn mining djicrations. using hydraulic power on Dry
Creek: and there lie lost all that lie had. He started over again, has worked
hard, and has met \\-ith reasonable success.
In 1912. Mrs. Horn was elected trustee of the Eschol school district,
and she is still serving on the board. This district was consolidated with
Kingsburg. and the move — one of great moment for the section — was en-
thusiastically supported by l\Trs. Horn. There is an excellent grammar school
with ten teachers, and the children are gathered up, taken to school and
brought back to their homes by an auto bus, driven by one of the teachers.
Mr. and Mrs. Horn have eight children : Phoebe is the wife of Charles
Lambert of Modesto, a blacksmith known for his skill, and they have three
children — Elton, Fern, and Fay : Irene is Mrs. George Lambert, an orange-
grower near Honcut, in Butte County, and they have two children — Dorris
and Elvin ; Mary is at home ; Nellie is Mrs. C. C. Culbertson, on a ranch
near Selma ; Alfred married Goldie Cook, in the Eschol district, with their
one child, Evelyn ; Andrew is at home and manages the ranch : George is a
mechanic and works for L. H. Byron in the Ford Garage at Lemoore : and
Ella is in school.
JAMES MARSHALL McDONALD.— tThe efficient manager of the
California Associated Raisin Company's plant, at Biola, Fresno County,
Tames M. McDonald is especially qualified for this important post. He is a
native of the Buckeye State, born between Bellefontaine and Urbana, Ohio,
July 9, 1870, the son of John B. and Lydia (Marshall^ McDonald. His father
was a native of Virginia, being of Scotch and Scotch-Irish descent ; his grand-
mother's maiden name was Patterson. John B. IMcDonald was a farmer and
during the Civil War was a captain in Company Eight, Berdan's New York
Regiment of sharpshooters. At one time he held the prominent military post
of Lieutenant Colonel in the Ohio National Guards. His mother in maiden-
hood was Lydia Ann Marshall, a native of Vermont, and in March 26, 1903,
she passed away at Fresno. In 1886 the father migrated to California, locating
at Fresno where he was employed in the post-office, until his death on Octo-
ber 20, 1904.
James was their only child and he came with them to Fresno in 1886.
At first he learned the trade of an upholsterer, with "Mr. Jones, at G and Tuol-
umne Streets, remaining with him about three years, leaving to enter the
post-office when Mrs. Hughes was postmaster; afterwards he was a mail-
carrier under N. W. ]\Ioody.
James McDonald has the distinction of being one of the old volunteer
firemen of the city of Fresno and served as a driver of hose company No. 1.
Upon the organization of the first paid fire department of the city, under
988 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Chief Higgins, when the chemical engine was introduced, he was the first
engineer. Afterwards he served on the police force under Chief Morgan, for
about one year, when he resigned and started a private detective agency.
His new enterprise developed into a large and extended business, employing
about ten detectives, the field of his operations extending as far as Alaska.
After successfully conducting this enterprise for about ten years, he disposed
of it and engaged in the real estate business at Fresno.
In September, 1913, Mr. McDonald became the superintendent of the
Villa Land Company, owners of the Biola townsite and Biola Acres. He lo-
cated on the tract and became actively engaged in superintending its im-
provements, including the installing of a water plant, and has been in charge
of the project ever since. The Villa Land Company constructed a packing-
house for the handling and shipping of ripe fruits. The building ^vas leased
for two years, after which he ran the plant until 1915, when the California
Associated Raisin Company leased the packing-house and engaged Mr. Mc-
Donald as its manager. The first year 1,500 tons of raisins were handled but,
through his efficient management and organization, in the third year the ship-
ments increased to 3,500 tons. In 1918 a new brick plant was built and equipped
with the most modern machinery for packing and preparing raisins, the latest
methods were introduced and electric power installed.
On December 24, 1894, Jaines M. McDonald was united in marriage with
Miss Ollie V. Richter, a native of Illinois, daughter of Charles R. Richter. an
early settler of Fresno County, the ceremony being solemnized in Fresno.
WILLIAM A. EDGERLY. — An interesting, energetic man, always bent
upon improving and enhancing the value of things, and resolved to contribute
in some wav or other to the progress of the world, is William A. Edgerly,
who, with his brother, has made the Edgerly vineyards, now among the
oldest in the county, so valuable. He is the son of a pioneer, Asa S. Edgerly,
who was born in New Hampshire, in March, 1834, and was educated in the
public schools there and in New Hampton College, from which he was
graduated. For nineteen years he taught school, a part of the time in the
South : after the close of the war he returned to Alassachusetts and taught
at Monument and Sandwich. He next became state agent for the Continental
Life Insurance Company in Vermont. In 1872 he removed to Nebraska and
bought 720 acres of land near Palmyra, Otoe County. In 1874 he moved
into Lincoln and was engaged in the hardware business for three years,
when he sold out and began erecting houses for rent. In time he owned
five buildings, the site of which was afterwards sold to the Young Men's
Christian Association for their building.
In 1887, A. S. Edgerly came to California and in Fresno Count}' bought
280 acres of land on what is now Blackstone Avenue, then a trail through
the hogwallow, and with the aid of his son William, began improving the
place. He also embarked in the real estate business with T. C. White and
William Harvey, and they bought eighty acres and laid out Belmont Addi-
tion. In laying out the tract, Mr. Edgerly named Blackstone Avenue, owing
to the fact that several lawyers lived on the street. He burned his own lirick
on the present site of Zapp's Park, and in 1888 built the Edgerly Builtling,
at the corner of J and Tulare Streets, now one of the oldest buildings in
Fresno. He was an energetic dealer in property, and after a time traded
the building for a ranch near Yountville, Napa County, where he resided
a few years; then he lived a short time in Oakland, and afterwards spent
two years in Los Angeles as manager of an apartment house, then returned
to Fresno. He was proprietor of Hotel Portland until he sold it and bought
lots at the corner of Kern and M Streets. Later he erected three buildings
at Tulare and O Streets. In 1909 he retired, since which time he made
his home on a part of the original Edgerly ranch. In his retirement he was
still planning improvements, but he was forced to refrain from much active
work. This enterprising old pioneer passed to his reward in June, 1918.
k ^r^-^-4'
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 991
Mrs. Edgerlv was Lydia Crowell before her marriage, and she was
born at Sagamore, Cape Cod, jMass., June 28, 1837. She came from Puritan
stock, and was able to trace her family back to the Mayflower, 1620. She is
still living, the mother of si.x children, four of whom have grown to maturity
and are living: William A., the subject of this review; Nellie E. D., who is
Mrs. Wheeler; Lillian M. R., who is Mrs. Gardner; and Charles D., all
farming on a part of the original Edgerly ranch.
Born at Springvale, Ga.. September 5, 1860, William A. Edgerly was
educated in the different states in which his parents resided, especially
Massachusetts, Vermont, and Palmyra, Nebr., where he went to school in a
dugout. He later attended the high school at Lincoln, and after completing
the courses there studied for a year at the University of Nebraska ; then
he spent a year teaching school near Lincoln. He then tried the sheep
business and was in Colorado, Kansas and Indian Territory, during which
time he lived in a wagon for about seven years, traveling with the band as
a sheep-grower through the various states and territories. He had many
stirring frontier experiences, and made his headquarters for four years at
Harper, Kans. To show the low prices prevailing for stock during some of
those early years, we may mention that one season he bought sheep as low as
from twenty cents to thirty cents a head, which he shipped to Topeka, where
the wool was secured and tallow saved, and fertilizer was made out of the
carcasses.
In 1887, Mr. Edgerly came to Fresno Countyand bought an interest with
his father in ranching and this caused him to turn his attention to ranch
work and fruit-growing. With the aid of his brother he began to set out
vines and fruit trees, and in time the entire 200 acres at the corner of Black-
stone and McKinley Avenues were improved, and it is now owned and
occupied by the two brothers and two sisters. He also owns a twenty-acre
peach orchard north of the Normal school. Mr. Edgerly is president of the
Edgerly Company, Inc., which owns the property on Tulare and O, and
Kern and M, in Fresno, now occupied by business buildings, all built up by
members of the family. As with so many other pioneers, the early fruit-
growing business proved uphill work for some time, and Mr. Edgerly was
compelled to raise grain and hay to keep things going, but he won out,
gave his support liberally to the various fruit associations, and has been
from the first a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
At Eureka Springs, Ark., in 1888, Mr. Edgerly was married to Miss
Carrie L. Rice, a native of Illinois, but reared in Kansas. Two children have
come to bless this union: Pearl I. is Mrs. A. J- Smith, and resides near
Fowler: and Lyman E. is ranching near Tulare.' Mrs. Edgerly is a member
of the Methodist Church, and in its circles labors for the advancement of
the community. Mr. Edgerly is a Republican in national politics. He is
afifable and friendlv bv nature, and is a member of Fresno Lodge, No. 343,
I. O. O. F., and of' the Woodmen of the World.
CYRUS BELL McCUTCHEON.— A self-made man. in the best sense
implied bv that term, is C. B. McCutcheon, who was born in Wayne County,
Iowa, on April 21, 1855. His parents were John and Mary (Akers) McCutch-
eon, both natives of Indiana, but who migrated to Iowa where they were
engaged in farming. During the year 1865, the McCutcheon family decided
to 'move farther westward, having the Golden State as their ultimate goal.
Other families were also enthused with the project and joined with the l\Ic-
Cutcheons. With ox teams, cows and horses, their caravan started on its
long and perilous journey across the deserts and Indian-infested plains. A
very sad incident occurred while crossing the plains, the father. John Mc-
Cutcheon, passing away. Their immigrant train finally reached Salt Lake
City, Utah, where the party remained during the winter and in due time re-
sumed its journev westward. After reaching California, the McCutcheon
familv resided for'one vear at Los Angeles, but later finally settled at Marsh
992 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Creek, Contra Costa County, in 1866. Mr. and Mrs. John ^McCutcheon were
the parents of six children, three of whom are living. Some years after the
death of her husband, Mrs. Mary McCutcheon was married to B. H. Kerrick,
and they became the parents of three children, one of whom is now living.
The family removed to Tulare County, where Mr. Kerrick was engaged in
the sheep business and in which he was very successful. At one time he
owned from 4,000 to 6.0O0 head. He continued in the sheep business fourteen
years.
C. B. McCutcheon received his early education partly in Iowa and partly
on the plains en-route and finished his schooling after coming to California.
In 1888, C. B. McCutcheon was united in marriage with Miss Annie Stayton,
the daughter of John F. and Martha Jane (Hawkins) Stayton. John F. Stay-
ton served in the Mexican War, a member of the Scouts who blazed the Santa
Fe trail. He came to California in 1849, settled in San Joaquin County and
engaged in ranching and stock-raising, and was the planter of the first wheat
there. His stock range extended to Los Angeles and he became one of the
wealthiest men in California. He owned 1,200 acres bordering Porterville
townsite, and crossed Kings River many times, and put in a brush dam at
the present location of Emigrant Dam below Kingsburg ; he crossed Kings
River at Reedley townsite in 1850. In 1872 he went to .\rizona. New Mexico
and Utah, and engaged in mining, but was not successful in this. After thirty-
nine years he returned to California and died within a week, at Kingsburg,
December 30, 1911, aged eighty-seven vears, eleven months and fi\e days.
Mr. and Mrs. McCutcheon had two children, one of whom survives : Clifford
W., a most worthy and dutiful son, born at Springville, Cal., June 27, 18%.
C. B. IMcCutcheon, with but a meager beginning, has by perseverance,
thrift and industrious efforts succeeded in making, practically from virgin
land, a most productive ranch, and in building a delightful home which is
surrounded by modern conveniences. He has owned his present ranch since
1905, and it is devoted to raisins, peaches and other fruit. He belongs to the
California Associated Raisin Company.
ANDRES C. HANSEN. — Among Fresno County's enterprising and
progressive Danish-American citizens is A. C. Hansen, who lives on his
ninety-acre ranch located on ]\IcKinley Avenue, fourteen miles west of
Fresno. He was born in Sjaelland, Denmark, in 1859. and is the son of a car-
penter and shipbuilder. He is the only member of his family in America.
Brought up on the farm and educated in the public schools of Denmark,
until the age of fourteen. Andres C. was then apprenticed to the blacksmith
trade for three years. He afterwards returned to the farm and engaged in
farm work until nineteen years of age, when he enlisted in the Danish army.
After serving the required time he was honorably discharged, when twenty-
two years old. In 1881 he removed to Skane. Sweden, where he continued
the occupation of farming. He went thence to Smoland, Sweden, and en-
gaged in the same vocation, but not meeting with success, after five and
one-half years spent in Sweden he returned to his native country where he
was employed in Copenhagen until he came to the United States.
In 1890, Mr. Hansen came to Fresno County, Cal., and went to work on
a ranch near Selma, afterward working at Fowler. He spent eighteen months
in the two places, then became foreman of the Briggs ranch near Kearney
Park, retaining the position for two 3'ears. In 1893 he located in the Empire
district, and purchased twenty acres of land, a part of his present place. He
made all the improvements on the place, leveled the land, checked it. sowed
it to alfalfa and engaged in dairying. He also rented land and raised grain.
He was not successful in grain-raising, but his dairy paid out all the losses
he incurred in grain-farming. He also set out an orchard and vineyard, still
continuing the dairy business. He purchased more land and is now the
owner of ninety acres all in a body, thirty acres of which are planted to
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 993
Thompson's seedless vines and fifteen acres are in peaches ; the remainder
is planted to alfalfa and grain.
Mr. Hansen was married in Denmark to Anna Sorensen, a native of
that country, and their union has been blessed with the birth of three chil-
dren: Christian, who died at the age of four; Ernest S. T., a prominent
rancher and horticulturist at Empire: and Mary, the wife of J. P. I. Black, a
large rancher at Empire.
Mrs. Hansen was an experienced buttermaker before she came to this
country, and she and her husband established a creamery in the Kerman
section. She was employed by the largest creameries in Denmark and was
the highest salaried buttermaker in that country, holding the medal for the
best butter in the English market at that time. She was repeatedly offered
positions in her line of work from creameries in the United States and Russia.
She started one of the first cooperative creameries in Denmark and also tried
one of the first De Laval separators when they were introduced in that
country. In 1896 she established a creamery on their ranch in Empire and
made butter, purchasing milk from the Sycamore ranch. She first handled
milk from thirty cows, and in 1905, when they discontinued the creamery,
they were handling the milk from 150 cows. She deserves great credit for
her enterprise and public spirit, and much food has been produced, as well
as a great deal of wealth created, from the establishment by her of the Em-
pire Creamery, the first creamery in the Kerman section.
Mr. and Mrs. Hansen made a trip to Denmark in 1910, also visiting
Sweden and Norway during their eleven months' absence from their Cali-
fornia home. Mr. Hansen was one of the first stockholders of the Kerman
Telephone Company that built telephone lines in the farming sections of
Empire and Kerman, and he was trustee of the Empire school district for
several years. In his political affiliations he is a Republican. He is a member
of the California Peach Growers, Inc., the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany, and the San Joaquin Milk Producers Association. He and his wife are
highly respected and enjoy the friendship of a large circle of acquaintances.
GRANT D. G. SAY.— The representative of a family which settled in
Fresno County fifty years ago. Grant D. G. Say is a native son of California
and was born in Mendocino County, September 24, 1866. His father, the
late James H. Say, was born in Venango County, Pa., February 14, 1834,
and when only eighteen years of age landed in San Francisco. He went to
the mines in Placer County and later engaged in the hotel business as pro-
prietor of the Nine Mile House, on the road to Placerville. He was married
in 1863 to Laura J. Coates, who was born in Platteville, Wis., a daughter of
George I. Coates, a well-to-do miller of that place. In 1862, with his wife,
formerly Loretta Jones, two sons and six daughters, Mr. Coates crossed the
plains to California and made this his home the remainder of his days. One
son, Henry, came west after having served in the Civil War.
After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Say conducted the hotel for a
few months, then sold out and moved to Mendocino County, where Mr. Say
worked at the carpenter's trade and farmed for nine years. In 1872 the family
settled in Fresno County, then almost a desert country. Here Mr. Say home-
steaded 160 acres of land and later took up a timber claim of a like amount,
proved up on both and held them awhile and then sold at a fair profit. He
bought 160 acres of railroad land in the Parlier district, improved a good
ranch and was one of the pioneers in setting out vines and trees. He sold ofif
eighty acres of the land, retaining the other eighty, of which fifty-five acres
are set to vines and trees. In 1884 he erected the Renfro House in Selma and
ran it several years, living in town to give his children the advantages of
the good schools for which Selma has always been noted. Here he died
on October 15, 1902, leaving a widow, who still makes her home in Selma,
and six children: William H., a prosperous rancher of Fresno County: Grant
994 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
D. G., of this review; Elenora, wife of William Matlock, of Selma ; Luther,
a fruit-grower in the Parlier district : Maude, Mrs. George Fred Otis, of
Oakland ; and James Holton, a rancher near Selma.
Grant Say was but a child of six when his parents came to Fresno County
to make their home. He attended the school in the Parlier district and fin-
ished his education in the Selma High School. He grew to manhood on the
ranch and became familiar with horticultural pursuits at an early age. This
interest has developed and today he is one of the prosperous fruit-growers
and alfalfa-raisers of the county where the greater part of his life has been
spent. He has watched with growing interest the progress made towards
bringing Fresno County to the van of Californias counties and firmly be-
lieves that this is the best section of the state in which to make money. In
1890 he started out for himself and now owns eighty acres of the old home
place near Parlier, which is planted to vineyard and orchard ; the former pro-
duced, in 1917, an average of two and one-half tons of grapes to the acre.
He owns a section of land south of Kerman which is being developed into
a fine alfalfa ranch, over 120 acres already having been planted. Mr. Say
also owns 320 acres of land sixteen miles south of Fresno, and four and a
half miles southeast of Caruthers, and this is being developed, 100 acres
now being in vines and thirty acres in alfalfa. This activity shows what
can be accomplished by a man who sets out with the determination to
succeed.
When called upon to aid projects for the betterment of conditions of
the citizens or the advancement of the prosperity of the county, Mr. Say
readily responds with his time and means, for he realizes that contented
home-builders are the bulwarks of the future, and they must have encour-
agement to succeed. Mr. Say is a self-made man and holds the respect and
good will of all with whom he has had business or social intercourse. He has
four interesting children: Gladys Leonora, Elgie, Marvin, and Ferol.
W. C. BEATY. — Midway between Sanger and Del Rey, on a sixty-acre
ranch of rich and productive soil devoted to peaches and grapes, resides the
subject of this review, W. C. Beaty, a well-known and highly respected citizen
of Fresno County. He is a native of Missouri, where he first saw the light of
day on January 24. 1857, his parents being William and Martha (Templeman)
Beaty, also natives of Missouri, who were the parents of five children, three
of whom are now living: John W., Milisa, and W. C, the subject of this
sketch and the only member of the family living in California.
W. C. Beaty migrated to California in 1881, locating at first in Tulare
County, where he rented ranches for ten years, and in 1891 removed to Fresno
County, where he has since resided, having lived twenty-two years on his
present ranch.
On February 13. 1879. W. C. Beaty, was united in marriage with Miss
Mary E. House, a native of Missouri, and the daughter of Thomas and Sarah
(Clarkl House. Mr. and Mrs. Beaty were blessed with seven children: Ida
M., the wife of P. W. Carr ; Lillie E., who is now Mrs. J. H. Williams : Joseph
R. ; William E. : Thomas E., who served his country in the \\'orld War for
the liberty of all peoples as a member of Company F, Three Hundred Sixty-
fourth Infantry, and saw active service abroad, going over the top three
times: Eva G., the wife of James McPike: and Alice G., now Mrs. Lee Cobb.
Thomas House, the father of l\Irs. Beaty, was born in Edgar County,
111., in 1823. He wa-s twice married, his first wife having been Hannah Cole-
man. For his second wife he chose Sarah A. Clark, and the ceremony was
solemnized on September 12, 1854. This union was blessed with five children:
George A.; Mary E., who is now Mrs. W. C. Beaty: Mrs. Fannie Ceaser :
Emeline, who is now Mrs. Rost; and Mrs. Caroline Daily. Thomas House
served gallantly in the Civil War for four years as a member of Company D,
Merrill's Horse, IJ. S. Army.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 997
William Beaty, the father of the subject of this sketch, also saw service
in the Civil War; he was commissioned Captain of the Home Guards, and
proved to be a very courageous and patriotic soldier. In 1864, during the
sickness of one of his little children, he returned to his home to see the little
one before it passed away, and while he was there the house was surrounded
by rebels, who shot and killed him before he could make his escape.
W. C. Beaty's ranch consists of sixty acres of rich and productive soil,
but when he purchased it, in 1891, the land was practically in its virgin state.
Since then he has bestowed much labor and has expended considerable
money upon the place, and has brought the land up to a high state of culti-
vation. It is now devoted to grapes, peaches and alfalfa. Twenty-eight acres
are set out to Muscats and twenty acres to Thompson's Seedless grapes, the
average yield being one and one-half tons of the former and two and one-half
tons of the latter variety.
Mr. and Mrs. Beaty are enjoying the afternoon of life in their pleasant
and convenient home, surrounded by modern comforts and highly esteemed
by a large circle of friends in the community where they have lived for the
past twenty-two years.
WALTER S. McSWAIN. — A noble hearted and truly good man, a
kindly and helpful neighbor, a patriotic and public-spirited citizen, and a
conscientious, efficient officer who faithfully discharged the duties of his
important office, was Walter S. McSwain of Fresno County. He was born
on October 4, 1865, fourteen miles west of Merced, on the Merced River,
the fifth in a family of ten children. His parents were A. C. and Sarah (Cox)
McSwain, who had settled on a ranch on the river in 1854. when conditions
were rather primitive in California. Few of the present day can fully appre-
ciate the value of the work accomplished by the pioneers in building wisely
and well in order to insure the present conditions by which we are sur-
rounded. Such was the work done by this pioneer rancher and his good wife.
Walter S. McSwain spent his childhood on the ranch and grew up amidst
the primitive conditions of the place and period. In 1876, when eleven years
of age, he accompanied his parents to Tulare Lake, and there the father
engaged in the sheep business. The next move made was to Huron, where,
with the aid of Walter S., the father erected the first house in that town
and became one of the prominent citizens until he removed to Lemoore. Still
later the family resided at Selma, and in 1882 came to Fresno ; and here
the son, then twenty-one years of age, associated himself with John Zapp
in the transfer business. On August 23, 1897, he was appointed a special
patrolman on the Fresno police force, and a year later became a regular
patrolman under Marshal M. L. Woy. On July 16, 1901, he was installed as
a regular member of the police force, by Mayor Stephens.
While performing the duties of a patrolman, Mr. McSwain was severely
wounded in September, 1901, by a Japanese murderer who had killed one of
his countrymen in Chinatown. Mr. McSwain was pursuing the murderer
when he turned very suddenly and shot the officer, the bullet passing through
his hand, which he had thrown up for protection, into his chest, just grazing
his lung. The bullet was later extracted from beneath the shoulder-blade.
After lying near death's door for some time, Mr. McSwain finally recovered
and returned to duty as a special officer. It should be added, in connection
with the shooting, that officer Frank Nelson pursued the man who shot his
brother officer, and shot and killed him within a few blocks of where Mr.
McSwain fell.
On January 3, 1903. Sheriff J. D. Collins appointed Mr. McSwain as
one of his deputies, and he served until 1906, when he was elected constable.
In the fall of 1910, he was elected on the Democratic ticket to the high
responsibility of sheriff of Fresno County, and he served with such satis-
faction that he was reelected to the office in 1914. AVhile discharging the
998 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
duties of the office he died, on December 6, 1915, mourned by all who knew
him. IMr. ^IcSwain was a self-made and self-educated man. While his edu-
cational advantages were somewhat limited, he was well-read and had a wide
education in the hard and stern school of experience, which thoroughly
fitted him for the strenuous and difficult work pertaining to the of^ce he
held. He acquired some valuable city property and a 200-acre ranch that is
devoted to a vineyard and peach and lemon groves.
The marriage of Walter S. McSwain and Miss Susie Hartigan was cele-
brated on December 2, 1892. She was born in Davis, Yolo County, a daughter
of John and Ann (Traynor) Hartigan, who were among the worthy pioneers
in Yolo County. Mr. Hartigan died on his ranch near Davis, and later the
family moved to Fresno. One child, a daughter, Annie Irene, blessed the
union of Mr. and Mrs. McSwain. She is attending Miss Hamlin's School
in San Francisco. Mr. McSwain was a member of the Knights of Pythias,
the Woodmen of the World, the Odd Fellows, and the Native Sons of the
Golden W'est. He was also a member of the Commercial Club in Fresno.
In line of his office he was a member of the Sheriffs' Association of the
State of California. At the first meeting of the association after Mr. Mc-
Swain's death, the members passed resolutions of sympathy which were
extended to the widow in her bereavement. These resolutions were inscribed
in a handsomely bound volume and are prized very highly by Mrs. McSwain.
I\Ir. McSwain was one of the volunteer firemen of the city, and in that
service alone might be found the key to his idea of duty as a plain citizen.
At every opportunity he performed his duty to the best of his ability. Since
the death of her husband, Mrs. McSwain continues to reside in Fresno and
look after the interests he left to her keeping. She is a cultured, refined
woman, and is highlv esteemed by her many friends. She is a member of
the Native Daughters of the Golden West, the Degree of Honor, and the
Ladies' Auxiliary of the Spanish War Veterans.
GEORGE FEAVER, SR.— Prominent among the highly intelligent and
equally industrious horticulturists of Central California, who have become
extensive owners of choice land and are now enjoying the rewards of their
years of hard labor and fortunate foresight, must be mentioned the family
of George Feaver, the early settler near Fowler and perhaps the wealthiest
representative of his famed fatherland. Unlike many who came from across
the ocean to cast their lot here, both IMr. and l\Irs. Feaver were well-to-do
in England and brought considerable means with them to Fresno County
at a time when it was not over inviting here, the country then being much
like a wilderness. Since coming here, however, they have worked hard to
help develop the country, and much of the comforts of modern life now
enjoyed must be credited to such pioneers as these.
Mr. Feaver was born in Somersetshire, England, the son of William
Feaver, a free-holder and farmer, who lived and died in England, as did his
wife. Ann Sealey, also of a well-known Somersetshire family. He first saw
the light on April 16, 1836: and his boyhood was that of the typical English
lad who enjoys many advantages, especially in regard to sport, not found
perhaps in other countries. He was brought up in the Church of England,
and is today a stanch Episcopalian. He remained on the farm of his father
until he was twenty-six, when that beloved parent passed away, and then he
farmed for himself. In 1867 he was married at ^^'ells, in Somersetshire, to
Miss Ellen Andrews of A\'ells ; and he continued to farm there. In some way,
he became interested in Texas and its land attractions, but through the efforts
of the land department of the Southern Pacific Railway, his attention was
diverted to California. Seeing the railway's advertisement, he went to Lon-
don to meet the agent, and being assured that the products he saw did not
grow under glass but flourished in the open, he bought forty acres of land
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 999
without further ado — a tract tha-t proved a part of M. J. Church's holdings.
Thereupon he sold his Somersetshire property and came on to California
and Fresno County with his family. It may be imagined that the move was
not easy to make on account of their ties to the Old World, for Mrs. I'eaver's
father was a distinguished English gentleman, and was known as Magistrate
Albion Andrews of Wells. However, Mr. and Mrs. Feaver and all the eight
children sailed from London to Antwerp and then went by French steamer
to New Orleans, where the}^ landed in May, 1884; and on the thirteenth of
the same month they arrived at Fresno. Mr. Feaver at once commenced to
farm ; and as the great task of clearing the way for the founding of an empire
still remained to be done, it may well be said that he bore his share of the
burden and heat of the day. Now it is a great satisfaction to their many
friends that the pioneer is so bright and active despite his advanced age, and
that both enjoy such widespread respect.
Mr. and Mrs. Feaver have had eleven children. George is a rancher near
Fowler ; Ethel is the wife of Frank Bennetts and resides at Monmouth ;
Eleanor Ann died in England when she was a little girl ; May is the wife of
Charles Bennetts, a rancher at Bowles ; Ernest is a rancher at Hanford ; and
John has a farm near-by; Claude is also there following farm work, and
Cecil, whose review is printed elsewhere, farms near Fowler; Maurice has
a ranch near Cecil ; Lillian, who married Ernest Hefflebower and lives at
Dinuba; and Helen K. is at home.
Mr. Feaver, who has entered into both the privileges and the responsi-
bilities of citizenship in his adopted coimtry, is a stanch Republican, but in
local measures he knows no party lines. The Feavers have long been iden-
tified with the best movements for advancing the community and common-
wealth of which thev are a part.
WILLIAM DAVID WRISTEN.— A pioneer of California who crossed
the great plains with teams and became a man. of importance in the various
places where he made his home was W. D. Wristen, a native of the Blue
Grass State. He became a large grain and stock farmer near Davis, Yolo
County, later removing to Oleander, Fresno County in 1881 where he con-
tinued his chosen occupation. He dispensed a typical Southern hospitality
at his residence for many years. Eventually he retired and moved to Los
Angeles, where he died March 5. 1901. His wife was in maidenhood Agness
Dew and she was a member of one of the prominent families of Virginia,
where she was born. Mr. and Mrs. Wristen were members of the Methodist
Church, South. The children now living who were born to this worthy
pioneer couple are Mrs. O. B. Olufs, of Fresno; Josie, the wife of W. E. Cook,
of Los Angeles; Elizabeth, wife of E. H. Bentley, also residing in Los
Angeles ; Anita, wife of Theo. Schmidt, of Chicago ; and William Lee. in
California. Mrs. INIary Graham and Mrs. Nellie M. W^aters,. two other
daughters, are deceased. Mrs. Wristen died in Los Angeles, January 3, 1913.
HANS JORGEN NIELSEN.— A hard-working," successful ranchman
and an excellent citizen, of honest and upright character, is Hans Jorgen
Nielsen, who has a fine home place of thirty acres one mile south of Del Re_v.
He was born at Jylland, Denmark, on March 21, 1860, attended the thorough
Danish public schools, and was duly confirmed at the age of fourteen in
the Danish Lutheran Church. Soon after reaching his majority, he sailed
from Esljerg, Denmark, on the Cunard line, and landed at Boston on Febru-
ary 17, 1882. He had taken three days to cross the North Sea to Newcastle;
and having journeyed across England, he waited three days longer at Liver-
pool before he could sail. His ticket read from Esberg to San Francisco;
but Fresno County was from the first his point of destination, the fame of
Central California ha\inL;' reached the Danish kingdom and had been the
theme of many a chat li\ fireside and in the tavern.
As has often hap|iciie<l with those from foreign shores who have steered
their way to America and been guided locally by the presence here, in ad-
1000 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
vance, of one or another near of kin, so the fact that he had two uncles in
Fresno, established in the tailoring trade, conditioned to a great extent his
coming hither. He reached Fresno on March 3, and soon found employment.
His first engagement was with I. W. Byington, the foreman on the old Ex-
positor ofifice in Fresno ; and on his ranch he worked for four years. In the
fall of 1886, when the great boom was beginning to grow, he bought and
again sold forty acres, at the same time continuing to work out. He next
went to the Scandinavian Colony and there bought twenty acres, which he
improved and sold, the following year, at a good profit. This successful oper-
ation did not prevent him from accepting an ofifer from J. M. Shannon, who
then lived in Alameda, and for whom he worked for four years, also in the
Scandinavian Colony.
In 1890 Mr. Nielsen married Miss Louisa Nielsen, a native of Denmark,
but in nowise related to him save by name. Three years later he bought his
present choice place. For a time he continued with Mr. Shannon ; but since
1897 he has lived on his home place altogether. It was merely a wheat field
and a marsh when he took hold of it ; but he has so improved it, bringing
it under the Garfield ditch, erecting buildings, and properly tilling the soil,
that he now has sixteen acres of Thompson Seedless grapes, two acres of
young Thompsons, one-fourth of an acre of sultanas, and two acres of mus-
cats, while he devotes ten acres to the growing of alfalfa and to the purposes
of an orchard, as well as for buildings and a yard.
Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen. Maren Chris-
tine, is now the wife of George Jepsen and resides in Del Rev ; Maria Louisa
married George Madsen, and resides with him at Bowles; Henry F. was
formerly the proficient bookkeeper of the Raisin Association at Fresno, hav-
ing graduated with honors from Heald's Business College, and now he is an
aviator in the service of his country, and is stationed at Camp Green, N. C. ;
while Theodore N., twenty years of age, is a successful rancher near Del Rey.
Mr. Nielsen and family attend the Danish Lutheran Church, of which they
are members, and Mr. Nielsen is the popular ex-president of the Danish
Brotherhood. In politics he is progressive and aims only to support the best
men and the best measures. Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen are, in their attitude as
citizens, first, last and all the time American.
DAVID F. APPLING. — Although a comparatively new man in Fresno,
David F. Appling has taken a position as one of the leading merchants of
the city. As president of the Valley Hardware Company, he is at the head
of a firm doing a large retail and wholesale business in that Une of mer-
chandise. Managed in an efficient and modern way, the business has in-
creased over one hundred percent, in the last five years, and is the largest
strictly hard\yare establishment in the San Joaquin Valley.
A native of West Virginia. Mr. Appling was born in Monroe County,
June 11, 1877. He finished school at the age of thirteen, and has since made
"his own way in the world, his success in later life being due entirely to his
own efforts and enterprise. On finishing his studies he went to Greenbrier
County, W. Va., and started to learn the hardware business. He has ever
since been engaged in that line of trade, and such concentration of effort
has naturally resulted in a most thorough knowledge of the business in all
its branches. He next located at Huntington, that state, in the employ of the
Emmons, Hawkins Hardware Company, wholesale and retail. He went
through all the departments of the establishment, as salesman and traveling
salesman, and later became a member of the firm and manager of the retail
department.
In 1910, Mr. Appling sold out his interest in the eastern firm,
and came to Fresno, becoming manager for Donahoo, Emmons Hardware
Company, until February 1912, when, with his brother, Fred A., he bought
out the Donahoo, Emmons Hardware Company, and incorporated it as the
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1004 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Then he bought forty acres on Kearney Avenue near Fresno, improved the
same with vines, and' sold it at an advance of $4,500 over the purchase price.
He next invested in forty acres on McKinley Avenue, for which he paid
$3,900: he improved the same by the planting of vines, and sold it after three
vears for S12,000. At one time he owned 440 acres near Henrietta, but after
holding this for several years, he sold it at a good advance. In all, he has
improved 160 acres of vineyards, and he owns valuable real estate in Fresno.
^^'ith his brother Andrew lie owns eighty acres at Madera, set out to Thomp-
son and Emperor grapes— a fine estate, handsomely improved; and he still
owns 160 acres at Henrietta, which he bought for $200 and which is now
worth over $5,000.
While in the Madison district, Mr. Iversen was married to Elisebeth
Beck, a native of Slesvig. by whom he had four children. They are Sophia,
Edna. Leland and Evelyn. The two oldest attend the Fresno High School.
The children are all promising in their studies and show marked musical
talent, being far advanced in the piano, their parents giving them every ad-
vantage within their means. Mrs. Iversen is the daughter of S. M. and Anna
Beck, who brought their family to Fresno in 1892 and became viticulturists,
improving a place on Church Avenue. Mr. Beck died in 1917, his Avidow
surviving him, and she makes her home in Fresno. Of the seven children
born to this worthy couple. INIrs. Iversen is the second oldest, coming to
Fresno County when in her thirteenth year. She completed her education
in the Fresno schools. Thus she has naturally seen the wonderful develop-
ment of the county, she and her enterprising husband having done their share
in its development, and she is very optimistic and sees a great future for the
county.
Air. and Mrs. Iversen are very patriotic and took an active part in the
different war drives. She was an acti\-e member of the Danish Ladies" Auxil-
iary to the Fresno Chapter of the Red Cross, and both of them did all they
could to aid in the successful prosecution of the war. For years Mr. Iversen
has been a trustee in the ]^Iadison school district; he is an ex-president of
the Danish Brotherhood as well as Dania ; and is a member of the California
Peach Growers, Inc., and the California Associated Raisin Company, and has
been a supporter of all the fruit association movements. As adopted citizens
of the American Repuljlic, who have labored long for the growth and im-
provement of American institutions, Mr. and Mrs. Iversen are the kind of
Californians of which the Golden State. is always proud.
WILLIAM H. VAN NESS.— Of good old New England and York State
stock, W. H. Van Ness has the further distinction of being the son of a Cal-
ifornia pioneer and of having been born in San Francisco. ]\Iay 23. 1860. Cal-
ifornia's seaport metropolis and a city hallowed by memories of early ro-
mantic episodes.
Mr. Van Ness's father, Henr}-, was a native of New York city, and his
mother, who in maidenhood was Mar}' Ann Elliott, was born in the old Bay
State, at Pepperell, Mass. The father's love for adventure led him away from
home, at the age of sixteen, to drive a boat on the Erie Canal. He afterwards
chose a sea-faring life, and arrived in San Francisco in 1848, having sailed
around Cape Horn. He tried his luck at mining for a time, then returned to
San Francisco, and from 1849 until 1867 was a pilot on the Bay and coast.
He was wrecked off Golden Gate on the Dancing Feather, and after swim-
ming for a time was picked up. On April 6, 1867, while he was pilot on the
Caleb Curtis, which was also wrecked off Golden Gate, he was drowned and
his body was never recovered.
Mr. Van Ness's mother made her home in San Francisco and afterwards
in Fresno County, later going to Madera, where she died August 21, 1908.
Of her four children three are living. W. H. Van Ness, the youngest of the
familv, was seven years old when he was orphaned by his father's death. The
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1005
family then moved to Oakland wliere he was educated in the public schools
and, later, in Stockton business college, in 1889. He worked on a ranch in
Alameda County, later going to Point of Timber in Contra Costa County,
where he and other members of the family bought a farm and lived on it six
years. In 1885 he came to Fresno County, rented land near Round Mountain
and engaged in grain-raising for two years. He then leased land in Madera
County and raised grain for two more years, having as much as 730 acres
in grain in a season. He afterwards moved to San Luis Obispo County and
located a preemption near Creston. His mother and sister also homesteaded
land west of Creston and proved up on it, and the family still owns the land.
Mr. Van Ness, howe^•er. abandoned his place, and after three years spent in
San Luis Obispo, returned to the San Joaquin Valley and engaged in grain-
raising in Madera County on the Fresno County line. He then located a 160-
acre homestead on Pine Ridge, which he improved and in due time proved up
on it and sold it. He next bought forty acres in Wolters Colony, Fresno
County, at the corner of Fresno Avenue and Clovis road, leveling and setting
it to fig, peach, and apricot trees and vineyard. In the meantime he purchased
forty acres on Belmont and Monroe Avenues, eight miles west of Fresno,
in 1910, and with the aid of his sons leveled and checked it, sowed it to alfalfa,
installed a six-inch pump and a sixteen-horsepower engine and engaged in
dairying and raising Holstein cattle. This he sold, as well as the fruit ranch,
and in October. 1918, bought 160 acres on Coalinga and California Avenues.
Fie was married in Fresno on April 6, 1890, to Miss Emma Frances Lewis,
a native of Merced County, and daughter of David E. Lewis, an old settler
and prominent stockman of the county. Of the ten children that were the
result of this union H. Elmer is a farmer at Clovis, is married and has three
children — W. Eugene, ^^'ilbur Lewis, and Eleanor Frances: \\'illiam H. en-
tered the LI. S. Army and was with the Ninety-first Division until his dis-
charge on April 27, 1919; Albert F. served with the Sunset Division and was
discharged May 10, 1919: Roy D. and Ray D., twins, entered the service in
June and July, 1918, serving in the 159th and 160th Ambulance Corps. Roy
returning in June. 1919, and Ray, in May, 1919, both from overseas duty;
Vern F., Lila M., Cecil, Laurin M., and Lorena are at home.
A man of fine character, ]\Ir. Van Ness is a great lover of books and has
a large and well selected library. He has been a student for many years, and
his extensive course of rending has given him an excellent knowledge of many
subjects, making him an unusually interesting conversationalist. In politics
he is a conservative Socialist in his views. He is a member of the California
Peach Growers, Inc. Mr. Van Ness declares that he lives in the best section
of California, the best State in the Union and the best countrv on earth.
H. J. HANSEN. — A successful viticulturist and a citizen of educational
ideals, who warmly advocates the best possible educational advantages for
children and youth, is H. J. Plansen, a native of Denmark who came to Cen-
tral California in the middle eighties. He was born near Bons, F3'en, on
July 21, 1870, and is a son of Iver Hansen, who owned his place and was in
moderately comfortable circumstances. Preceded by two of his sons, J. P.
and Nils C, Iver Hansen crossed the ocean with his wife Marie in 1884 and,
making his way west to California, located with them in Fresno Count}^,
settling down in the Central Colony, where he engaged in viticulture. He
owned several different places in succession, finally living at \Vest Park,
where he died. Nine children made up their family ; and eight of these are
still living. Nils, now deceased, came to California in 1882 ; Jens P. came to
this state in 1880 and now resides near Melvin on a ranch of forty acres set
out to wine grapes; H. J. is the subject of this sketch; Martin lives near
Sanger; Carl is at West Park; Morton is deputy county assessor; Theodore
lives at Sacramento; Thea is Mrs. Ostergard and lives on Whites Bridge
road ; and Marie is !Mrs. L. J. Larsen, of \\'olters Colony.
1006 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Having passed through the usual Danish public schools, H. J. Hansen
came to Fresno when he was fourteen, and at once went to work assisting his
father. He was early possessed of the ambition, however, to do for himself,
and so in 1895 he bought an outfit and leased some grain land near Academy,
where he engaged in grain-raising with his brother, J. P. Hansen. They
had 800 acres, which they continued to till, with ups and downs, for five
years. Their third year's crop was a total failure, but the average of the five
years was reasonably good. Selling their outfit, in the fall of 1900 they dis-
solved partnership and Mr. Hansen bought his present place of twenty acres
in the Wolters Colony. The land was rough when he took hold of it ; but
the soil was good and the location advantageous. With his own labor, early
and late, he set out the vineyard and developed the property, on which a
fine residence and other ranch buildings have been erected. There are four
acres of peach orchard ; and a fine acreage of wine-grapes, muscats and
sultanas.
In Fresno Mr. Hansen was married to Miss Lowena Anderson, who first
saw the light in Denmark ; and by her he has had six children : Laura, Elsie,
Louis, Walter, Martin and Carl. The family attend the Lutheran Church.
Mr. Hansen is a Democrat in national politics, but by no means a partisan
in local affairs. He has been a trustee of the Wolters school district for the
past six years, and had much to do with the building of the well-lighted and
well-ventilated school house, designed in the Mission style of architecture
by Ernest J. Kump, and erected at a cost of nearly $13,000. Mr. Hansen has
long been a member of both the California Associated Raisin Company and
the California Peach Growers, Inc. He used to be active in both the Dania
and the Odd Fellows.
ROBERT McCOURT. — Nothing, perhaps, has done more to place Cal-
ifornia in the foreground among progressive American States than the rapid,
scientific development of her educational institutions, credit for which belongs
to such far-seeing and broad minded educators as Robert McCourt, who has
the remarkable record of more than twenty-three years as principal of the
Columbia and Lincoln schools of Fresno, without the loss of a single day.
As a matter of fact, many of the business and professional men of the Valley
look to him with pride and gratitude as having given them the first inspiration
to study and work, instilling in them the necessity of early choosing their
career, and then encouraging them to strive to higher and greater things.
Today he enjoys an enviable popularity, the highest and truest testimonial
of the worth of his own life and work.
A native of Canada, Mr. McCourt was born in Ontario, on March 19, 1856,
the son of James and Sarah (McGee) McCourt, who emigrated from Glas-
gow, Scotland, to Ontario where they passed the remainder of their lives.
Robert received his early training in the common schools, and later he at-
tended the advanced grammar school at Donegal, at which he prepared for
teaching.
In April of the eventful Centennial Year of 1876, he came to California
and located in Sacramento County, where he taught school for three years,
and then he removed to Humboldt County, to which he was called to teach
at Table Bluff and Fairhaven for a year and a half. Returning to Sacramento
County, he taught for three years more, and following that he presided over a
school for a like period in San Joaquin County.
In 1889, Mr. McCourt began his professional work at Fresno, a work that
has proven of the greatest advantage to the thousands of pupils who have
come under his care. His first seven years here were spent in teaching in the
grammar schools, and then he became principal of the Columbia School and
served there for a period of seven years, or until he was elected principal of
the Lincoln School, of which he has been head for the past sixteen years. So
well, too, has he performed the many and onerous duties of that position, that
(%Uoi;tM^0.<^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1009
he is now supervising principal, as well ; and as both teacher and supervising
principal, he has accomplished much towards bringing the schools of Fresno
to their present high standing. Some of these desirable results have been
possible because, having had the ambition to specialize in various branches,
Mr. McCourt took courses in agriculture, manual training and drawing,
through which he eventually graduated from the Fresno State Normal. Now
he is a member of the Schoolmasters" Club of Fresno County, and is treasurer
of the local University Extension course. He has also served most capably
on the County Board of Education for ten years, two years of which time he
was chairman. On the organization of the Fresno Chapter Junior Red Cross,
Mr. McCourt was appointed as treasurer, in September, 1917, a position he
filled ably, although it required much time and arduous work, until he was
finally relieved in September, 1918, three months after he had sent in his
resignation.
Near Lodi, San Joaquin County, on January 24, 1884, Mr. McCourt was
married to ]Miss Alartha J. \\'oodson. a native daughter, who was born near
Lodi, and whose parents were B. A. and Mar}^ A. (Bounds') \A'oodson, who
migrated from IMissouri, crossing the plains to California in 1852 by means
of ox teams and wagons. The father followed mining, then teaming and lastly
farming near Lodi, during which time three children were born to him and his
good wife. Mr. and Mrs. McCourt. also, have three children : Irma May is
the wife of C. L. Crow, roadmaster of the Napa division of the Southern Pa-
cific Railroad, with headquarters in Vallejo. The second in order of birth
is Chester Elwood, who managed a clothing store in Porterville until he en-
listed in the United States Army; when he was honorably discharged, on
May 30, 1919. he was stationed at Baltimore, Md., where he was a member
of Company A. Repair Unit 311, M. T. C, with the rank of sergeant, and
since his return he has resumed his former position, and has also become a
member of the firm of Lamkin, McCourt & Co., with his brother, Hugh Har-
old, as a partner. The latter also enlisted for the War but was not called out :
and now he is managing the clothing store in Tulare owned by this company.
The McCourts are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. McCourt is also
a member of Fresno Lodge, No. 186, L O. O. F., of which he is past grand,
and belongs to the Encampment, and with his wife is a member of the Re-
bekahs. Mr. ]\TcCourt has also been a prominent member of the Independent
Order of Foresters, and has served two terms as Chief Ranger.
Mr. McCourt has shown his confidence in the future of the San Joaquin
Valley by investing his savings in a quarter section of land near Lemoore ;
and in many ways he has lo3'ally supported movements for the upbuilding
of both the county and the state.
ARCHIBALD W. CLARK. — A successful rancher and dairyman who is
enjoying prosperity as the reward of industry and right principles, is Archi-
bald W. Clark, popularh'^ known as "Archie," who comes of a good old Penn-
sylvania family, and who moved from South Dakota to California, and now
owns and operates 110 acres of well improved land two one-half miles south-
west of Riverdale. A self-made man, he came to the Dakotas when young,
homesteaded and married in Day County, S. D., and rented Governor Shel-
don's ranch for several years. A wealthy brother, Samuel, is living at A\'eb-
ster in that state, and there he helped to build the Mill Elevator Store, the
creamery and other live establishments. Archibald W. became interested in
Day County politics, and stood high in the councils of the Republican party.
He brought with him, as the reward of his work, hardships and privations in
South Dakota, a neat sum when he came to California, and now he is more
than ever on "Easy Street."
A. W. Clark was born at Wilkesbarre, Pa., on January 25, 1870. and grew
up in Pennsylvania until he was eighteen. His father, John M. Clark, was a
Pennsvlvanian farmer and an old Union soldier with stirring memories of
1010 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the Civil \\'ar, and he died at Harvey's Lake, Pa., on March 28, 1918, aged
eighty years and six days. Mr. and Mrs. Clark went home to visit him and
attend the birthday party on March 22, 1918— Archibald Clark not having
seen his old home for thirty years — and then the old gentleman seemed hale
and hearty, but he died in a few days, sitting in his chair. John Clark's wife
had preceded him to the grave the year before. Her maiden name was Sarah
Rhone, and her parents visited Fresno County ten years ago. They had
thirteen children, nine of whom grew up. Five of these are now living, one
of the sons. George Clark, owning a forty-acre dairy ranch lying immediately
south of the subject's, in Kings County.
Mr. Clark attended the public schools, and when nearly through with
his teens, went to Webster, S. D., then Dakota Territory, arriving at his desti-
nation on February 10. 1888. He threw himself into the Dakota game, and
lived through all the blizzards, droughts and panics. He helped to build the
first flour mill at Webster, a cooperative venture, in which he lost heavih'.
Next he homesteaded at Lily, in Day County, securing 160 acres and
proving up.
After that ^Iv. Clark went to Pierpont, S. D., and there married Miss
Mary Lawrence, who was born in ^Michigan, came to South Dakota a girl,
and farmed at Pierpont when the subject was renting the Sheldon ranch
of 640 acres. After marrying, he ran the ranch for four years, then sold out
and came to Visalia, Cal., where he lived for a season and then moved up
to the Laguna de Tache Grant, in Fresno County. This was in 1903, and he
bought 120 acres and improved the same, erecting a house, in which he now
lives, and a barn. He sold forty acres and bought another thirty, and now
he has seventv acres of alfalfa, raises hogs and runs a dairv. All in all. he
may well be numbered among the prosperous agriculturists of California. Mr.
and ^Trs. Clark' have six children : Hazel was born in Day County. S. D.. as
were r,cnl:ih. and Ruth who married Roy P.lackwell, a rancher now residing
near Riverdale : and Florence, Lawrence, and Ethel were born in California.
Mr. Clark belongs to the Odd Fellows, and in politics is a Republican.
He has not been active in politics in Fresno County, but, as has been said,
while in South Dakota he took an active part in the polifics of Day County
and numbered among his personal friends such political leaders as Judge
McCov, who later became the Circuit Judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit of
the State of South Dakota ; Judge Lund, who became County Judge of Day
Countv, the late Frank Sears, prominent attorney: and Dave Williams, then
the Republican boss of Day County, now the millionaire lumberman and
banker of West Superior, AVis.
WILLIAM C. HAGEN. — A well-to-do and highly-respected rancher who,
after manv years of toil and varying prosperity, enjoys the fruits of a well-
spent life, is William C. Hagen, the proud father of two sons who have loyally
served in the World War, and two daughters, one a nurse, the other already
beginning to attain distinction as a pianist. He owns a ranch of fifteen acres
four miles northeast of Fowler, at the corner of Washington Avenue and the
GifTen road, and there he lives with his second wife, in a happy household glad
to do its own work.
Born in Pomerania, Prussia, November 9, 1852, the son of Carl Hagen,
who had married Minnie Hopp, William C. was the oldest boy and the second
in the order of birth of a family of nine children. His father was a stone-cutter,
who made curbs and the paving for highways. He attended the public schools
of his Fatherland, and was brought up in the Lutheran Church.
When only sixteen years of age, he bade good-bye to his parents and rel-
atives and sailed from Bremerhafen on the old sailing ship, "George and John ;"
and after forty-seven days on the ocean, he landed at Castle Garden in New
York, July 5, 1868, and almost at once proceeded westward to Chicago, where _
he had relations. For a while he stopped with his uncle. John Hopp, a tailor *
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1011
on North Clark Street, in that city, and ver_v gladly worked at anything he
could find to do.
After he learned the English language, he became a brakeman on the
Michigan Central and later, he "broke" on various roads until he went to
Oregon in 1882, where he settled down as a farm laborer in Umatilla County.
Two years of residence in Oregon, however. (|uite sufficed for him, and in 1884
he came to Fresno County, where he began to work by the month.
Here in 1891 Mr. Hagen was married to Miss Nettie Halburg. a native of
Norway. Mrs. Hagen died in 1S''8. the ninther of three children. Ernest served
as a marine in the l^^orld ^Var: Chester is in the artillery in France; and ]\Iar-
tha served as a trained nurse in the Letterman Hospital in San Francisco.
Mr. Hagen's second marriage occurred in 1900. when he chose Miss Sophie
Carson as his bride : she also was born in Germany, and they have one child,
Minnie, the talented musician.
After his first marriage, Mr. Hagen worked out liy the month ; then for
eleven years he rented land in the Oleander district. In 18'18 he came to his
present holding, where his house now stands, and bought fifteen acres of un-
improved land, which he soon set out to vines and planted to alfalfa. Bv a
subsequent purchase, he bought twentv acres more, and still later he added
anothe-r twenty acres, until he liad fifty-five acres, all in bearing trees and vines.
For a man who liad only sixty dollars Ui his name when he was married, this
is a most creditable sliowing. A\'hen liis sons enlisted in the regular armv,
Mr. Hagen found that he was endeavoring to manage more than he could
well attend to. and he sold all but fifteen acres.
Besides vigorously supporting the cooperative programs of such associa-
tions as those for bettering the interests of the raisin and the peach growlers,
and thereby helping to advance the state of husbandry in California, Mr.
Hagen has done his dutv as a citizen, serving on juries and otherwise per-
forming what he was called upon to do for the benefit of the Cdmmunitv at
large. Since 1895 he has been a member of Court Fowler Xo. 7f)7. Independent
Order of Foresters. He is a naturalized American citizen, and in political
matters very properly holds himself an Independent.
JAMES R. CLARK. — A hard-working, progressive, patriotic and emi-
nently successful rancher, whose modest holdings in land do not begin to
represent the sum total of his achievements, is James R. Clark, justly re-
spected and even popular among his fellow-citizens who know the extent to
which he has been living and doing for others, and who are glad to call them-
selves his friends. He lives and labors three and a half miles southwest of
Kingsburg, but follows with keen interest every stage of the development of
Fresno County as a whole.
He was born in Massac County, 111., October 29, 1851, the son of Wesley
and Levina (Bailey) Clark, natives of Kentucky and East Tennessee, respec-
tively, wdio were married in Illinois. When the lad was only two years of
age, his father died, and before he had attained his seventeenth year, his good
mother passed away. They had two children: James, the subject of this
sketch, and William Wesley, who was born in 1853 and now lives at Selma,
where he has made an enviable reputation as a machinist and engineer, with
a specialtv in well-boring. James was reared in Southern Illinois, where he
had but limited educational opportunities, and was early compelled to apply
himself to such hard work as the clearing of land. He lived close to the mouth
of the Tennessee River, however, and so caught something of permanent
value in his knowledge of life and the world from the river scenes daily before
his eyes.
in 1881, and while still in Illinois, Mr. Clark was married to Miss Penola
Moorehead, the daughter of Flenry Moorehead, a native of Kentucky. He
had married Jane Ann Metcalf, also of the Blue Grass State, and had come
to be highly esteemed, with his lady, for personal qualities, the inheritance
1012 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of which has undoubtedly contributed happily to Mrs. Clark's known strength
and amiability of character.
In 1886, Mr. Clark came to California with his wife and two children, and
settled one and a half miles southwest of Selma, where he has improved and
sold two ranches, and for ten years was on the west side in the bee business.
In this field he led the way, and he still has seventy-five stands of bees. In
1908 he came to take possession of his present place, and now he is both a
member and a stockholder in the California Peach Growers Association and
in the Kingsburg Packing House.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark have had six children, four of whom are still spared
to them, the others having died young. Artemas, a well-borer and land owner,
resides at home, unmarried ; W. H. married Josie Thornburg, and has one
child. Flla Ellen. He is a rancher in the Eschol school district; James Rob-
ert, ]r. served in France, enlisting with the Twenty-sixth Engineers ; he was
trained at Camp Dix, in New Jersey, being transferred to the One Hundred
and Fifty-third Depot Brigade, from which he was honorably discharged
November 30, 1918; he has been married and has one child, Iva R., who lives
wfth his grandpa and grandma ; Viola, married Thomas R. Brown and re-
sides on the Kettleman plains, twenty miles south of Coalinga, where he is
homesteading. They have no children.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark have set an excellent example as citizens in first pro-
viding for their near of kin and for themselves, and then reaching out and
doing what they could for others. They have shown, for years, the right kind
of public spirit; and they and their family are always ready to cooperate in
movements for the benefit of society, the raising of political standards, and
the improvement of the neighborhood.
FRITZ WEHRMANN. — An American with an interesting and enviable
record as a citizen who did his duty as a soldier, and a man who was a good
husband and father, was Fritz Wehrmann, who died on February 26. 1908.
He was bom at Bromberg, Germany, on October 19. 1857, the son of Michael
Wehrmann, who died when the lad was only sixteen years of age. Soon after,
having remained just long enough in the Fatherland to profit by the best
side of German life, Fritz came to America and to Chicago, and identified
himself with the younger and freer Republic at such an age that he was
able to imbibe fully the true spirit of Americanism. Growing up here, he
twice volunteered "for service in the American army, the two enlistments
covering ten years. He first joined Captain Keller's Company G., Second
Regiment Infantry, U. S. Army, being mustered in on January 19, 1871, and
mustered out on January 18, 1876 ; and then he reenlisted at Columbus, Ohio,
on February 1, 1876, when he joined Company H, Twenty-first Regular In-
fantry, of vvhich he became first sergeant, and from which he was mustered
out at Fort Canby, Washington Territory, on January 31, 1881.
Having thus done well by the country of his adoption, Mr. Wehrmann
turned his gaze westward toward the broad Pacific and, coming to California,
located in Fresno County. He went to work as a vineyardist in the Temper-
ance Colony, and was there for many years as one of the most efficient and
faithful of hands. Being observant by nature, and diligent by habit, he
learned viticulture thoroughly.
While in Chicago, Mr. Wehrmann had met Miss Louisa Pettelkau, and
on November 16, 1890, they were married in the Temperance Colony. She
also was born near Bromberg, in the province of Posen, and was the daughter
of Carl Pettelkau, a merchant tailor of that region; while her mother was
Juliana Zoch before her marriage, a native of that section. Both parents
of Mrs. Wehrmann died where they were reared, leaving three children.
One of these is a brother, Gustav, who was a resident of Chicago until his
death, December 18, 1918. Mrs. Wehrmann, the youngest, spent some years
in Texas, when she first came to America, and then went to Chicago.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1015
After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. W'ehrmann bought twenty acres
in Kutner Colony, situated one mile north north-west of the present place, and
began to improve it and to set it out as a vineyard, with muscat and malaga
grapes ; and there they built a good residence. Twelve years later they ac-
quired the ten acres that have become the home place, now much improved
with vines and peach trees, and also a nice residence and other needed build-
ings. The old place has been retained, and is set out as a vineyard and
planted to alfalfa.
Six children, five of whom have grown up, were born to this worthy
couple. Ernest assists his mother in the management of the estate. He
served in the United States Army, Company B, Seventy-fifth U. S. Infantry,
Thirteenth Division, until he received his honorable discharge. Lena has
become Mrs. Warner, and resides in Fresno. Helka. now Mrs. Fuchs, has
her home adjoining the old home. Clara and Edna are at home. Mr. and
^Irs. W'ehrmann were identified with the German Lutheran Church from its
organization, and ]Mrs. Wehrmann still belongs to the congregation, which is
one of the live spiritual bodies in Fresno. She feels a keen interest in all
civic affairs and in movements calculated to improve the community, and
is active in national politics, working usually under the banners of the Re-
publican party.
GEORGE H. WEITZ. — A conspicuous example of what an energetic
man can accomplish in carrying to successful completion projects that he
has full faith and confidence in, is found in George H. Weitz, pioneer and
founder of the Empire and Vinland Colonies and prominent in the general
development of Fresno County.
Mr. Weitz is a native of the Buckeye State, and was born at Edgerton,
Williams County, Ohio, April 17, 1853, and is of German parentage on the
paternal side. His father, Adam, who was a native of Hessen-Darmstadt,
Germany, came to the United States at the age of twenty-eight and settled in
Ohio, where he was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth Yeager, a native
Pennsylvanian. The parents were farmers and lived the remainder of their
lives in Ohio. ( )f their elc\-en children ten grew to maturity, and two of their
sons served in the Civil War, and nine are still alive.
George H., next to the youngest of the family, was reared on the farm
and educated in the public schools of his native state. A liberal education
in those days was not as easily secured as it is today, and therefore Mr. Weitz
supplemented his schooling by self-study and observation, thus acquiring a
fund of knowledge and becoming exceptionally well informed. Fie remained
on the home farm until he attained his majority, then went to Galesburg,
Knox County, 111., where he remained two years. At the end of that time
he migrated west, going to Elk Creek, Johnson County, Nebr., where he
engaged in the mercantile business. In 1882 he removed to Orange, Cal., then
a part of Los .\ngeles County, but since the creation of Orange County a
part of the latter county. Here Mr. Weitz became manager of the flouring
mills known as the Olive Aliils. and was employed in this capacity until 1891,
when he located at Dos Palos, Merced County, and established a general
merchandise business that he conducted fnr two years. In 1893 he located
on his present ranch, which consisted at that time of twenty acres, where the
Empire lulunx- was first laid out. being the first settler in the Colony. FTe was
coliaiization ;igcnt fur the California P.ank Lands of the Bank of California
at San Francisco, his jurisdiction extending over an area of 32,000 acres. He
attended to leasing the lands for grain-raising, dividing it into con\-enient and
suitable ranches for the purpose. He had charge of and laid out Empire Col-
ony, which embraced three sections, and also was in charge of laying out
Vinland Colony, which also comprised three secti'ons. and the Earstow Cul" >ny.
which was sold in large tracts. The land was rich and level and has been
improved, and is now covered with valuable orchards, vinevards and alfalfa
53
1016 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
farms, ^^'hile agent for the bank he was also superintendent of the ranch and
of the water system, which he aided in perfecting. He planned the subdi-
visions, sold the land and collected for the company. During these years he
also experimented in raising hemp, sugar beets, alfalfa and in orchard and
vineyard varieties of fruit. He demonstrated that Thompson Seedless vines
are the most profitable for vineyard culture and that peaches and apricots do
well also. He disposed of 7,000 acres while agent for the lands, the remainder
being sold to the Fresno Irrigated Farms Company. He remained with this
last company for one year, then resigned his position, having been agent for
the lands for a period of fifteen years, from 1893 until 1908. In the meantime
he had improved his ranch in the Empire Colony, setting out an orchard and
vineyard, and planting alfalfa. He was also engaged in raising stock. He
added to his acreage by the purchase of more land and has now sixty acres
in a body, all well improved, ten acres of which are set to olives and the re-
mainder planted to Thompson's Seedless vines.
He was married at Olive, near Orange. Cal., to Miss Mar}' R. Dillin. a
native of Iowa and daughter of Capt. Thomas Dillin, who was captain of an
Iowa regiment in the Civil War, and a miller by trade. Captain Dillin dis-
posed of his flour mills in Iowa and located at Orange. Cal. He built the
Olive mills, where he manufactured flour until he disposed of his interest in
them and located in Los Angeles, where he spent the closing years of his life.
Mr. and Mrs. ^^''eitz became the parents of two children : Mabel Edna, who
is now Mrs. C. C. Johnson of Glendale. Cal.; and Fern Eva, deceased.
INIr, AVeitz built an artistic bimgalow on his ranch in 1917, elegant in its
appointments, designed by himself. He was one of the organizers of Empire
School District and served as trustee of the school for thirteen years. He was
also instrumental in organizing the A'inland School District. In politics he is
a Republican, is prominent in the partv and has been active in County and
State conventions. He is a Life ^lember of the Modern Woodmen of America,
Mr, Weitz is a large man of fine physique and has a strong personality. He
is highly respected and well liked by all. An enthusiastic booster for Fresno
County, he is convinced that its soil and climate are among the best in Cal-
ifornia for horticulture and viticulture.
E. M. NORD. — A highly successful son of a well-known pioneer and him-
self a ver}' influential pioneer Californian who is particularly active in the
councils of the California Raisin Growers Association, having been one of
the leaders in its organization, is E. M. Nord, the oldest living son of J, P,
Nord, He was born in Sweden, September 19, 1884, and left there at "such
a tender age — when he was only three and a half years old — that he has but
little, if any recollection of the country. It was then that he sailed from Nork-
joping with his mother and two brothers in 1888 to join their father, who had
preceded them to America ; and they found him at Fresno, where he had been
temporarily established for a year. In 1889 they came to the Kingsburg Col-
ony," and with this part of California they have been identified ever since,
J, P, Nord still lives on the twenty acres he then acquired, and he is hale and
hearty in his sixty-second year, Mrs, Nord, who was Susanna Charlotte Ti-
man and also a native of Sweden where she was born in 1862, died here in
her fiftieth year.
Four children blessed this happy marriage. Edward ^l.. the subject of
this sketch: Ivar J., died August 3. 1917, lamented bv many to whom'he re-
called some of the finest traits of his mother; he had reached his thirtv-first
year, and had never married, Fritz H, E, Nord resides on his own ranch near
the Clay School House; and Alfred, the youngest, who died in babvhood.
Coming here so early, Edward Nord has seen the wonderful developments
of this county from the time' it was in wheat stubble; and having been very
intimate with the late Judge F, D. Rosendahl, whose life story we give else-
where, he came to have a very active part, too, in helping to develop the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1017
country. As a lad he attended the Harrison district school, and then he took
a business course at HeaWs & Jones Business College at Stockton. He began
farming at twenty years of age, operating for himself; and later he rented land.
Mr. Nord has planted and improved several orchards, and his vineyard
of twenty acres presents the finest Muscats for miles around in the San Joa-
quin Valley. He built a dryer in 1916, and it proved to be the first erected in
the Kingsburg Colony. It marks the man as a person of unusual enterprise,
for he has introduced an improvement that is sure to be generally adopted.
He is a prime mover in the California Associated Raisin Company, and is its
regularly appointed correspondent for his home district, as he is its local so-
licitor. He has signed up ever}' acre in his home district comprising a terri-
tory of 960 acres, or one and a half sections. Not only is he a stockholder in
the Raisin Company, but he is a member of the California Peach Growers
Association and also of the California Prune Growers Association. He was
the president of the Farmers Union at Harrison School House, which was
the forerunner of the Raisin Association, and occupied that complimentary
and responsible position for three years.
In 1912 Mr. Nord was married to Miss Sophia Bengston, of Kingsburg;
and their happy union has been blessed with two children — Howard R. and
Adeline C. Both Mr. and Mrs. Nord take a very active interest in welfare
work in the vicinity and are always to be counted upon to encourage and
assist in those movements necessary and desirable, but generally begging
for willing workers.
Besides the twenty acres of prime muscats above referred to. Mr. Nord
owns another tract of ten acres, a snug little ranch in itself, and in addition
he rents his father's rancli of twent>' acres and another ten acres belonging
to a neighbor; a total of sixt\' acres, requiring, as may be imagined, some very
careful and persistent (A-ersi^lit. lie attends to the various transactions, how-
ever, personally, keeping one hired man steadily and adding to his force when-
ever such a demand may be necessary.
Although a steadfast Republican, Mr. Nord supports President Wilson
and the administration in its great crisis, and has bought Liberty Bonds and
otherwise demonstrated his practical patriotism to the full extent of his ability.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON BARRINGER.— It is interesting to meet
and greet a Fresno County pioneer, a man who in his younger days entered
the wilderness and helped to reclaim the desert lands and experienced the
hardships incident to the life of a frontiersman, and one who has witnessed
the wonderful transformation in the county, and rejoices in its present high
state of development and is proud of the fact that he aided in this develop-
ment— such a man is Alexander H. Barringer, the successful rancher residing
six miles northeast of Sanger.
Mr. Barringer is a Southerner by birth, a native of Marshall County,
Miss., where he was born near Holly Springs on September 28, 1855. His
parents were W. F. and Nancy A. Davis Barringer, natives of North Caro-
lina and Tennessee, respectively, who had two children: Martha J. and
Alexander II., the su1>ject of this review and the only one of the family now
living. The father, W. V . Barringer, served in the Civil War in the Confed-
erate Army, and fought bravely for those principles which he conscientiously
thought were right. He enlisted at Fort Sam Houston and was a member of
the Company under Kirby Smith, and after four years of valiant service he
returned to his peaceful vocation, "a whole man," as his son described him.
.\fter the death of his wife, which occurred in 1866, W. F. Barringer, with
his two children, returned to the old home in Mississippi where he resided
until the fall of 1871, when he brought them to California where he arrived
November 7, 1871 ; he preempted 160 acres of land in Round Mountain dis-
trict, Fresno County, which is now the property of Alexander H. Barringer.
For a number of years after his settling in California, W. F. Barringer 'fol-
1018 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
lowed stock-raising, but after the discovery that his land would grow grain
abundantly he engaged in raising hay and grain till he retired; he died here
in 1907, at the age of seventy-five years.
Alexander H. went to school in Texas, then in Mississippi, till he was
sixteen years old. Then he came to Fresno County. Here he went to work
to assist his father, so school was omitted from that time on. He remained
home and when his father retired he took entire charge of the ranch and in
time came to own the place. For years prior to the death of his father, Alex-
ander had active charge of the affairs of the place and was engaged in rais-
ing stock, grain and hay. He became interested in fruit-raising, setting out
the first vineyard and first orange orchard in the district. He now has a
nicely improved place. The ranch is irrigated from the Enterprise Canal,
having one of the first water rights.
At the bride's home January 1, 1884, Alexander H. Barringer was united
in marriage with Miss Amanda H. Elliott, a daughter of Joseph S. and Jane B.
(O'Connell) Elliott, pioneers of California, who came from ^Massachusetts
and ]\Iaine respectively. Mrs. Barringer was born in Napa and came to
Fresno when she was three and a half years of age, receiving her education
in the Round Mountain district.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander H. Barringer were blessed with two children :
William W.. who in 1905 married Edna F. Hazelton. a daughter of Henry
Hazelton, and to them were born three children, Allen H., Leta A. and Win-
nifred W. : the other child is Anna Josephine, who is now the wife of L. H.
Williams, on the Barringer ranch, and they have two children, Mildred ]\Iax-
ine and Donald Hugh.
At the age of twenty-one. ]\Ir. Barringer became a member of the school
board of Round Mountain district, and served in that capacity for over twenty
years, part of the time as clerk. School was started in an old shack, then a
thousand-dollar building was built by assessment, and still later, in 1906,
the new school building was erected. The Barringers are now among the
oldest settlers in the district. ]\Ir. Barringer remembers when the county
seat was moved from Fullerton to Fresno, in 1874. He took an active part in
supporting the different raisin associations, and is now a member and stock-
holder in the California Associated Raisin Company.
REDDICK NEWTON CARTWRIGHT.— The Cartwright family orig-
inated in England. They were all wagonmakers, wheelwrights and mechanics,
and because of their mechanical genius and their occupation they received the
name Cartwright. A genealogy of the family has recently been compiled and
is being published by State Senator G. W. Cartwright, of Los Angeles, a
brother of R. N.
The father, John Cartwright, born in Coles County. Ill, was a black-
smith and wagonmaker, and ran a small farm in his native county, but in
May, 1858, moved to Boone, Boone County, Iowa, where the son, R. N., was
born October 22, 1858. John Cartwright was the son of Reddick Cartwright,
who was a second cousin of Rev. Peter Cartwright, one of the pioneers and
"circuit riders" of Central Illinois. There are four brothers and two sisters
in the family of John Cartwright: J. E. : R. N. ; G. W. : J. M., who is the
manufacturer of the celebrated Cartwright Pruning Shears ; Mrs. F. M. Cook,
of Orosi ; and Mrs. ^Mamie Roach, of ]\Ialaga.
The story of the Cartwright Pruning Shears is an interesting one and
indicates the mechanical genius that has made the name famous on two con-
tinents. It was about twenty-five years ago when the orchard and vineyard
development began in Fresno County. The growth of the trees and the vines
soon showed the need of pruning, and the only tools with which this could
be done were heavy and unwieldly, weighing five or six pounds. One day the
father called to his son. who was known as Newt, "Newt, let us make a prun-
ing shear that will work." And they did. After talking the matter over, they
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1021
together selected pieces of steel and, as they were both blacksmiths, they
made their first pair of shears in their shop on the old John Cartwright home
farm, two miles west of Malaga. They tested it and found it did the work
neatly and easily. They pruned their own trees and vines, and then the
neighbors found it out and borrowed the tool. It was a practical success, and
as a result a great demand sprang up in the neighborhood for the shears, and
the Cartwrights were kept busy making shears. Such a necessary tool could
not long be hidden, and the business grew to large proportions. R. N. Cart-
wright helped build up the business, but sold out his interest to his brother,
J. M. Cartwright, several years ago.
R. N. Cartwright owned a fine ranch of twenty acres adjoining the old
home place, on which he lived for thirty years and which he improved from
a weed patch to one of the most valuable tracts of land in that section. He
sold it in April, 1919, and then bought twenty acres in the Nees Colony
School District, which he has planted to fig trees and intends to develop it
into a home ranch. Mr. Cartwright was married in May, 1890, to Emma N.
Hyden, daughter of Rev. John Calvin Hyden, a Methodist preacher for many
years and who died at the home of his son-in-law about 1907, aged eighty-
two years. Mrs. Cartwright was born in Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright
have two children : Mary, Mrs. W. F. Tommer, the mother of two children,
Marie and Newton William ; and Lucille, a graduate from the Fresno State
Normal and a teacher in the schools of Fresno County.
Mr. Cartwright has seen the county grow from grain fields to fine pro-
ductive orchards and vineyards. He helped organize the Malaga School Dis-
trict and served as a trustee for several years. He also, helped to build the
roads in the early days, as well as the bridges over the canals and creeks, the
county furnishing the lumber for same and the ranchers doing the work. Fie
was a booster for the various associations of the ranchers, in order to estab-
lish a market for their raisins. He is a Democrat in national politics. Since
he sold the old ranch he is making his home in Clovis until the new ranch is
made suitable as a home place.
M. LEVY. — A capable, farsighted and successful man, interested in
numerous business enterprises, a pioneer of California, and a well and favor-
ably known citizen of Coalinga, is M. Levy, the subject of this review.
Although born in Alsace, France, June 3, 1837, oyer eighty-two years ago,
only fifteen years of his long and eventful life were spent in his native land.
He arrived in New Orleans, La., in 1852, having crossed the Atlantic Ocean
in a sailing vessel from Havre, France, being sixty-nine days en route. After
his arrival in the United States he went to Port Gibson, Miss., and was
engaged in the mercantile business until the outbreak of the Civil War.
In 1861, Mr. Levy enlisted in the Sixteenth Mississippi Regiment, Infan-
try, and was in several noted battles, including the Second Battle of Bull
Run, Fredericksburg, Winchester, Antietam, and through the Shenandoah
Valley. During the battle of Antietam nearly all of his regiment were killed,
only thirty-three men surviving, out of more than one thousand who entered
this fearful combat. After this battle the regiment was disbanded and Mr.
Lev}' was placed on guard duty at Germania Ford, on the Rappahannock
River, and here he was captured and taken to Washington and later to Phila-
delphia where he was paroled.
In 1863, Mr. Levy started for the Golden State, coming to California via
the Isthmus of Panama, and arriving in San Francisco in June, 1863. He
made a trip to Oregon but soon returned to California, and lived at what is
called Old Sonoma, where he became acquainted with General Vallejo, a
notable man in the early days of the commonwealth of California. Mr. Levy
engaged in the butcher business at Sonoma, continuing until 1880. when he
moved to Fairfield, Solano County, where he ran a shop for four years, after
which for a short time he returned to Sonoma. His next move was to Tulare
1022 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and afterwards to Lemoore. later on going to A'isalia, where he engaged in
the butcher business.
In April, 1900, Mr. Levy located in Laton, Fresno County, where he
started the first butcher shop, at the time of the opening of the Rancho
Laguna de Tache, to settlers. The business was conducted under the firm
name of M. Levy & Company. In 1905 the company purchased the Crescent
Market at Coalinga, from the Kreyenhagen Bros., and they have built up
a large business and have the confidence o! a growing patronage. They in-
corporated as the Crescent Meat Company, with M. Levy as president;
Albert Levy, director and manager; and J. H. Zwang, vice-president. In
addition to the Crescent Market this firm owns and operates the Coalinga
]\Iarket.
Messrs. Levy. Levy and Zwang are extensive sheep operators, raising,
buying and selling on a large scale and for this purpose they have a ranch
in ^\'arthan Canyon. M. Levy is also interested in and is a director of the
Hayes Cattle Company, Albert Levy being the president, and Jacob Zwang
secretary. This company ranges cattle on their ranch at Kirkland, Yavapai
County, Ariz.
Mr. Lew was united in marriage at Portland. Ore., with I\Iiss Gida
Zwang, and they have had seven children, five living: Rose, who is now
]\Irs. Ellis of Coalinga ; Carrie, is ]\Irs. Sweet of Dinuba ; Felix, who is en-
gaged in the cattle business in Stockton ; Albert, a city trustee of Coalinga
and a partner in the Crescent Market ; Blanche, now Mrs. H. C Williams,
residing at Coalinga. Mrs. Levy passed away in 1903, at Laton.
Fraternally, Mr. Levy is a member of Coalinga Lodge, No. 187, I. O.
0. F., of which he isa Past Grand : he is a pioneer Odd Fellow, having joined
the order fifty-six years ago at Philadelphia, Avhere he was a member of
American Lodge, No. 25. He was a charter member of Laton Lodge, No. 148,
1. O. O. F., and is a member of Hanford Encampment and the Coalinga Re-
bekah Degree Lodge, and is highly esteemed as a valuable citizen in his
community.
WILLIAM O. BENADOM.— A pleasing life-history, and one wherein
justice seems to have been meted out by the Fates, is that of William O.
Benadom, one of the oldest settlers here and a veteran in a prolonged strug-
gle with pioneer conditions, but who now owns a splendid vineyard in Fresno
County, and who has in his talented wife a helpmate and companion who is
esteemed by all who know her. Mr. Benadom was born in Brownsville, John-
son County, Nebr., in 1863, the grandson of \A''illiam Benadom, a native of
Ohio, who came as a pioneer to Iowa and with his family settled there. One
of his sons, Frank, was the father of our subject and was born near Columbus,
Ohio, coming out to Iowa ; he grew to manhood and there married and then
he migrated to Nebraska. Near Brownsville he became a well-known farmer
and stockman, and later he located a homestead of 160 acres which, with
characteristic enterprise, he improved.
Frank Benadom had an uncle, Joshua, in California, and in 1874 he fol-
lowed him to Waterford, Stanislaus County, where he Avorked a year and then
brought his family to California. He rented the Dallas farm on the Tuolumne
River and ran it for two years, and then lie moved to Merced County, where
he leased, from Miller & Lux, the Canal Ranch which, for seven years, he
farmed to grain and stock. Passing the winter at Kingston, he next went to
Hanford in which place he conducted the hotel until May ; and then, with
wife and children, he resumed ranch life at Lemoore until fall. In 1883 he
located at the foot of Mount Campbell, Fresno County, where he farmed
seventy-six acres under the ditch, and there he and his son William divided
their interests. The father rented land for many years and finally bought
some ranch acreage ; but his good wife dying, he disposed of his land and
thereafter resided with his children until, in April, 1916, he died, nearly eighty
years of age.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1023
It was while he was in Iowa that Frank Benadom married Eliza Mover,
a native of Ohio and the daughter of Wilham Aloyer of that state, who had
brought his family to the Hawkeye State ; and a better wife the sturdy rancher
could not have found. When she died, near jNIount Campbell, she was the
mother of eight children, five of whom are now dead : i\Iartha, who died at
three years of age, in Nebraska ; Albert died in Stanislaus County ; Henr}"
passed away at Hanford ; and Lovina, who became Mrs. McDonald, died at
Reedley: ]\Iary is Mrs. Hines, of Richmond; Jane became Mrs. Minkler, and
resided at Minkler until her death, June 9, 1918; J. A. Benadom lives at Dun-
lap, Fresno County ; and ^^"illiam Otterbine, the second oldest child ; the sub-
ject of sketch.
Brought up on the prairie of Nebraska, ^^'illiam O. attended the public
schools and, in 1875. when his father had secured a foothold in the Golden
State, came to California, where he continued his schooling in Stanislaus and
IMerced Counties. From a lad he had driven teams in the grain fields ; and as
he grew up he had a chance to enlarge his experience, even taking part in
the management of as many as forty-four head of horses on a single giant
harvester. He assisted his father in dift'erent places, and profited by his fore-
sight and enterprise.
On October 13. 1882, at Merced, Mr. Benadom was married to Miss Delia
Whealan, a native of Tifiin, Ohio, and the daughter of William Whealan, an
Ohio farmer whose wife, E. King before her marriage, also an Ohioan, died
there in 1863, leaving an only child. In November, 1863, the father came to
California, and having settled down as a farmer in Napa County, married
again, this time choosing for his bride Cynthia Holterman, also an Ohioan.
He moved to Merced where he was joined by his daughter Delia, who came
in 1876 ; and near Merced he farmed to grain until he retired to live in that
town. And there he died on December 1, 1915. Having attended the public
school in Ohio, Mrs. Benadom in the Centennial year came to visit an aunt,
Miss Anna King of Vallejo, and for two years attended St. Vincent's Acad-
emy, finishing her schooling in Merced. Then, for a year, or until she was
married, she taught San Luis School, in Merced County.
In 1883, Mr. and Mrs. Benadom began farming in the Mount Campbell
district. They bought forty acres there and on part of the land set out one
of the first vineyards in that section, continuing until October, 1899, during
which time they raised much grain. In that year they sold their farm and
located on their present place. They bought 126% acres from the Gray estate,
and when they first settled here there was not a tree or a shrub in sight. They
also rented land, and sometimes worked as much as a thousand acres at a time.
The land they bought is now splendidly irrigated from the Enterprise Canal,
and having planted vines in 1903, they now have the finest of vineyards. Be-
sides numerous improvements that have added greatly to the value of the
ranch there are sixteen acres of peaches, and 103 acres of vineyard, including
muscat, wine, malaga and sultana grapes, while the balance is alfalfa. Mr.
and Mrs. Benadom are proud of their property, representing as it does so
much of personal labor and sacrifice, and it is natural that he should take an
active part in the work of the California .Associated Raisin Company and the
California Peach Growers, Inc. He was, in fact, probably the second to sign
up under the old Kearney Association, and was also early in supporting the
work of the present organization. An idea of what can be accomplished by
energy and application can be seen when it can be stated that the stubble
field he bought for $23 an acre by intensive farming has now reached a value
of more than $1,000 an acre.
Nine daughters, all of whom are still living, have added to the happiness
of the Benadom household: May is Mrs. Gaskin of Sanger; Dena is Mrs.
McElroy of Oregon; and the other sisters are Mrs. Ollie Atkinson of Perrin
Colony, Fresno County ; Mrs. Elsie Taylor of Round Mountain ; Mrs. Grace
Herman of Gray Colony ; Emabel, a graduate of the Fresno State Normal, is
1024 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
a teacher in this county ; Floy, attending Heald's Business College, Fresno ;
Stella, in the Sanger High School ; and Wilma, in the local grammar school.
Always a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Benadom has served twelve years
as trustee of the Frankwood district school, and is now a trustee of the Gray
Colony school. Mr. and Mrs. Benadom actively support all movements for the
advancement of the community.
ALBERT P. BROOKS. — A California pioneer whose established repu-
tation for clean, upright living, and plain, honest dealing brought him the
honors of responsible office and made him prominent in Fresno and this
entire revenue district, is Albert P. Brooks, whose interesting association
with California began on August 9 in the great boom year of 1887. He was
born at Laurens, S. C, the son of William J. Brooks, a native of that place
and a farmer who enlisted in General Kershaw's brigade in July, 1862, and
served until he was killed on Sunday, December 13, 1862, on Mary's Heights
at Fredericksburg. Mrs. Brooks was Sarah J. Miller before her marriage,
and she also was a native of Laurens County, S. C, in which state she was
reared on a farm. She married a second time, and with her husband, J- H.
Anderson, and her four children by the first union and three children by the
second, came to Fresno. The children of the first marriage are Albert P.,
J. B. and W. W. Brooks, all of Fresno, and Frances M., who became Mrs.
Martin of Fresno.
Born on New Year's Day, 1857, Albert Brooks was reared on a farm
and attended a private school, remaining at home until he was sixteen years
of age. He then went to the high school at Cokesbury, S. C, for a couple
of years, after which he returned to farm work. Later he leased a farm and
engaged in the raising of cotton, corn and stock ; and he is today well posted
on cotton culture. January, 1885, he went to Nashville, Howard County,
Ark., and for a couple of years worked as a bookkeeper in a hardware store.
In August, 1887, Mr. Brooks came West direct to California and to
Fresno, having here an uncle, D. J. McConnell, widely known as a worthy
old settler; and soon he was appointed deputy tax collector under Jim Mead.
He served for about eight months, and was then made deputy superintendent
of schools under B. A. Hawkins. From 1890 until the beginning of 1893 he
was bookkeeper to the firm of McConnell & Hague, merchants on Mariposa
Street. In August, 1894, he was named for the office of United States gager,
for the first district of California, extending from San Francisco to San Diego.
He was appointed by John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury, and made
his headquarters at Fresno. He continued to serve under President McKin-
ley ; and in 1907 he was made United States storekeeper gager of the first
district by Leslie M. Shaw, under President Roosevelt. In September, 1909,
after a service of fifteen years and a month, in which he had been repeatedly
honored for his exemplary administration of office, he resigned. During this
time Mr. Brooks had become interested in horticulture ; and having improved
an orchard at the corner of Palm and Olive Streets, he built an ornate resi-
dence, and finally sold the property at a good profit. Then he bought the
corner of Chittenden and McKinley Avenues, and improved the same by
planting vines and .sowing alfalfa. He had forty-four acres of stubble field
and hog wallow ; but he worked hard and steadily at it, and finally developed
it into a vineyard thirty-seven acres in size, devoted to muscat and Thomp-
son grapes, while on the remaining acres he raised alfalfa. His resignation
from public office was due to his desire to give closer attention to his viti-
cultural interests.
Mr. Brooks has been married four times, each marriage bringing it.s
measure of happiness. The first ceremony took place in South Carolina in
1879, when he was joined to Nannie Shell, who died on January 13, 1882.
His second marriage occurred at Fresno, in Septeml)er, 1890, when he chose
for his bride Miss Dora Harbison, who was born in Johnson County, 111.,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1027
and by whom he had three children : \\'illiam Arthur, who is a bookkeeper
at the Concoran office of the San Joaquin Light & Power Company ; Audrey,
a stenographer with the Smith Lithograph Company; and Charles Bartlett,
who is with Bixler Cleaning Company in Fresno. Mrs. Brooks died in 1900.
At his third marriage Mr. Brooks led to the altar Mrs. Carrie B: Gillispie, of
Washington County, Pa., who breathed her last in 1912. His last marriage
took place at Orosi in February, 1916, when ]\Tiss Winnie Liebau, who was
born in Elk County, Kans., became his wife. She is the daughter of William
and Minnie (Weide) Liebau, and came to Tulare as early as 1904, when
her father engaged in viticulture. She was educated in Kansas, and be-
speaks all the graces of the women of that state. ^Ir. and Mrs. Brooks be-
long to the Methodist Church South, on whose official board he has served
for some years.
Mr. Brooks was made a Mason in Recoverv Lodge, No. 31, F. & A. M.,
at Greenville, S. C, on May 6, 1878, and since 1887 has been affiliated with'
Fresno Lodge. No. 247, F. & A. M. He was made an Odd Fellow at Nash-
ville, Ark., and at the same place joined the Knights of Pythias. After he
had settled in Fresno, he became a member of the Ancient Order of L'nited
Workmen, and also joined the ^^'oodmen of the World through Alanzanita
Camp, No. 160. at Fresno. A Democrat, and working spiritedly as such in
national politics, Mr. Brooks has always loyally supported local movements
irrespective of party lines.
JOHN CONDON.— An old Californian, who had been an early settler
in various parts of this wonderfully developed State, was John Condon, who
was a pioneer in Grass Valley and also in the Coalinga section, and who left
the record of his activity, for the benefit of the communities as well as for
himself, wherever he lived and toiled. He was born in Ireland about 1842,
and when only two years of age came to the United States and ;Massa-
chusetts with his father. He was reared in an old New England family in
Boston, and while there was educated in the public schools.
He first came to California in the early sixties ; but great as was the
lure of the Golden State, he was still more attracted back to Missouri, where
he was married, at Shelbina, in 1867, to Miss Susan A. Mitchell. She was
born in Marion County, Mo., the daughter of \A'illiam W. Mitchell, a native
of old Virginia. He came to Missouri with his parents and was reared as a
farmer. He married Miss Elizabeth Jane Slaven. formerly of Kentucky,
and both parents died in ^Missouri. They had nine children, and Susan was
the fourth oldest.
In 1867, Mr. and Mrs. Condon came to California by way of the Isthmus
of Panama, having sailed from New York City, and they arrived in San
Francisco, landing from the Henry Chancey. They went to Grass Valley,
and Mr. Condon engaged in the dairy business, working with his brother,
Henry, as a partner. Two years later John moved to Hollister, where for
twelve years he was a packer in a flour mill ; and then he settled at Paicines,
in San Benito County, and went into a stock-raising enterprise. After that
he moved to Pacheco Hills above Pleasant Valley, near ]\Iillerton, where he
took up land and continued his stock-raising. He ranged on government
land, and the days were lively, for wild panthers and grizzly bears roamed
over the hills. He built a stone house and improved the land, but afterwhile
he moved and made still another home. He tried his luck in Merced County,
but it was not until he came to Fresno the second time that he was really
satisfied.
In 1897, Mr. Condon bought his present place of forty acres on North
Avenue, near Coalinga road, and by applying again the fruits of his past
experience and his customary hard labor, he improved the land so that it
was valuable for the raising of alfalfa and the setting out of a vineyard.
There are now seventeen acres in Thompson seedless and muscat grapes,
1028 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and there is also a first-class dairy. He belonged to the California Associated
Raisin Company, and was a stockholder in the Danish Creamery.
Mr. Condon died on September 15, 1918, in his seventy-sixth year. Eight
children still survive: Mrs. Elizabeth Sarah Rhodes is with her mother;
John Henry is also at home ; Minnie A., is Mrs. H. Swan, the wife of the
"foreman of the Thornton Ranch ; Ollie M. has become Mrs. L. Huff and
lives on Jensen Avenue ; S. Estella is in Fresno ; Homer D. is a dairyman on
California Avenue; Viola L is Mrs. Henry Elam and resides near Kerman ;
and Vernon C. is with his mother. Since the death of her husband, Mrs.
Condon and her sons still carry on the business started by l\Ir. Condon.
They keep abreast of the times and use modern methods in their work.
JOE E. FOSTER.— An Ohioan who came to California and began as a
farm hand, and who has since then "made good" to such an extent that his
services are today sought as an expert in land values and for knowledge of
the raisin business, is Joe Foster, one-third owner in the Gartenlaube ranch on
the North McCall road, about one mile west of Del Rev, and also one-third
owner of the Fortuna ranch, five miles to the east, often called the old Kim-
ball ranch. In addition he owns an eighty-acre ranch entirely in his own
right, in Fresno County.
He was born in Jerusalem. IMonroe County. Ohio, on February 21. 18^8.
the son of J. B. Foster, a farmer who had married Lydia A. Gatchell. The
parents continued to live in Ohio ; but the mother, after two of her sons and
three daughters had come to the Pacific Coast, came to California to visit; and
here, in 1914, at the advanced age of eighty, she passed away. Her husband
was two years vounger when he died.
One of eleven children, and the seventh in order of birth, Joe passed his
early life upon his father's farm in Ohio, where he attended the public schools.
In 1888, at the age of only twenty, he came to California and has made his
way successfully and creditably, step by step. He came to Del Rey, where he
has remained ever since.
At first he went to work on a ranch, in harvest time. Then for a year
he was raisin and fruit-buyer for the Phoenix Fruit Packing Company of
Fresno and Fowler. Later he was a farm-appraiser for the Union Trust Com-
pany of San Francisco, and he still acts as the appraiser for the Farmers Na-
tional Bank of Fresno.
With Bert Katz of San Francisco and Berthold Guggenhime, Mr. Foster
owns the Gartenlaube and the Fortuna ranches, already partly described, both
of which are in a very high state of cultivation. The soil is unusually fertile,
lying in the very heart of the Thompson seedless grape belt of California.
The Gartenlaube ranch is highly improved, and is said to be the best 320-acre
ranch in California. Mr. Foster lives upon the Gartenlaube ranch in the fine
ranch-house recently constructed at great cost. The ranch is devoted to
Thompson and muscat grapes, and to peaches and figs : and the Fortuna is
planted to prunes, walnuts, peaches, shipping plums and muscats. Already
known for unusually valuable experience, ^Ir. Foster entered on his duties as
manager of the ranches in 1910.
The buildings on the Gartenlaube ranch are very good, and were built
by the present company. There is a two-story Japanese camp, declared by
the state inspector to be the best laborer's camp in the state, completed in
hard-wood finish ; for Mr. Foster takes pride in the welfare of his laborers, and
his oak houses, with their dining-rooms, sleeping apartments and shower
baths, testify to the practical application of his principles and sympathies.
Everything is clean, highly sanitary, cheerful and of such a nature as to in-
duce a man to work, and when he has finished his labors there, he goes away
the better physically, mentally and morally for having cast his lot in that
neighborhood. The old residence has been converted into a foreman's cot-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COL'XTY 1029
tage — a wise provision contributing to still better administration and dealings
with a small army of workmen. On each ranch there is a dining-hall and
kitchen, and each establishment is thoroughly up-to-date. Reading-rooms
provide for the men's mental needs, and the other arrangements enumerated
insure their health and leisurely rest. From six to one hundred men are em-
ployed on the Gartenlaube ranch, according to the season, while from half a
dozen to two hundred are given profitable work on the Fortuna. Besides mules
and horses, Yuba tractors are used on both ranches, and to give some idea of
the magnitude of the operations, it may be mentioned that on the Gartenlaube
alone there are about $22,000 worth of drying trays. These and all the other
appliances, as well as all the machinery, are carefully housed from season to
season, and this care of the outfit represents great labor and responsibility.
At Alameda, Mr. Foster was married to Miss Adelina Ross, a native
daughter and a lady of accomplishments, who was popular in her Alameda
County home. She is the daughter of Andrew Ross, who came to California
on ]\Iarch 17, 1857, and is one of the earlier pioneers of the state.
HERMAN F. SIERING.— One of the best-known men in the so-called
Highland district or colony in Fresno County is Herman F. Siering. Although
this part of the county was settled at a comparatively recent date, it is now
one of the best raisin and table-grape districts in the county. Mr. Siering
was born in Berlin, April 25, 1870, but from the age of nine years was
brought up and educated in San Francisco. The father was Herman Siering,
and he was born in Germany, but escaped the t3-ranny of the Prussian aris-
tocracy by coming to America, where he made for himself a name well
known in early business circles in San Francisco, of which city he first be-
came a citizen in 1850. He became extensively engaged in the retail and
wholesale business, dealing in fancy goods, first under the name of Locan
& Company, and later of H. Siering & Company. On account of the financial
panic in 1880 this firm made an assignment for the benefit of its creditors,
and the Siering accumulations of thirty years were all dissolved. The
assignee, Frank Locan, withheld two sections of land in Fresno County in
what is now the Highland district, from schedule, and this act resulted in
almost endless litigation on the part of the heirs of Mr. Siering before the
matter was finally settled. His financial reverses and legal troubles hastened
his death, for at the early age of fifty-six he died in San Francisco. After
his death, the widow brought an action to recover ]\Ir. Siering's share in this
land, with the result that after years of costly litigation 300 acres were set
off for the benefit of the heirs of Mr. Siering. As this land again came into
the possession of the family, the mother, brothers and sisters came to Fresno
County and engaged in the improving of the property.
The mother's maiden name was Jennie Vieck, and she was born in
East Prussia. She and her husband were married in New York State in 1849,
and to them were born nine children of whom four are living: Robert Sier-
ing, a bookkeeper, and Henry Siering, a musician, both living in San Fran-
cisco ; Jennie, the wife of Geo. E. Vockel and the mother of six children,
now residing in Los Angeles ; and Herman F., of this review.
In 1892, the mother deeded forty acres to her daughter Jennie ; and
prior to her death in San Francisco, in 1902, she deeded 220 acres to her
four boys : Robert, Henr}', Frank and Herman F. They began S3'stematically
to farm and improve their land and later the brothers incorporated under
the name of "Siering Company, Inc." They farmed to grain principally, from
1892 to 1907. Then eighty acres were sold to Mr. Charles Pruess, and twenty
acres to Arthur E. Gerner, while the rest of the land was divided among the
four Siering brothers. Herman and Frank Siering received forty acres as
their share.
On November 15, 1913, H. F. Siering married Mrs. Charles Pruess, whose
maiden name was Katy Marcus. She was the widow of the Charles Pruess
1030 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
who is mentioned on another page in this history. Mr. and Mrs. Siering have
had four children born to them : Frank ; Jennie ; Katy ; and Herman, who
died in infancy. Mr. Siering lives with his family on the eighty acres be-
longing to his wife. They have a commodious residence of the bungalow
type, built by Mr. Pruess, and also barns and other ranch buildings. The
ranch is irrigated from the Fowler Switch Ditch.
On Mr. Siering's own property of forty acres he has ten acres of malagas,
four and one-half acres of Thompson Seedless and ten acres of muscats ; and
the balance is being set to malagas. Mr. Siering is a hard worker, is progres-
sive in his methods of work and in his political views and belongs to the
California Associated Raisin Company. He stands for the community good
and is a man of honesty, integrity and honor, justly popular and highly
respected. He is every inch a patriot.
W. H. DAVIS. — All sections of the world honor the pioneers, but espe-
cially is this the case in California where the wonderful developments of the
present are due to the fearless pioneers who faced the hardships of an over-
land journey across the Indian infested plains and endured the trials and
privations incident to life on the frontier, that civilization might march west-
ward and that farms and homes might come into being in the great unknown
country. With due appreciation of the brave men of the days of '49, we speak
their names with pride and respect.
W. H. Davis, Sr., the father of the subject of this sketch, was an Argo-
naut of '49. He was born in Arkansas in 1830, descended of a prominent old
Southern family. He crossed the plains to California and soon after his arrival
found the Indians on the warpath, and volunteered in a comuanv under Gen-
eral Beale, following the Indians into the Yosemite. An old Indian stated
that they were the first white men who had ever been in the Yosemite Vallev.
After the Indian war was over he followed mining in different localities with
more or less success and then went to El Monte, Cal., to visit his sister, Mrs.
Whistler, where he met Miss Sarah Jane Ellis whom he married on October
28, 1858. She was born in Tippah County. Miss., October 29. 1838. the daugh-
ter of Rev. T. O. Ellis, M.D.. a native of Perry County. Mo., born in 1808.
and descended from an old Virginian family. T. O. Ellis was educated in
an eastern college and was ordained a minister in the IVIethodist Episcopal
Church. South ; he was also a graduate doctor of medicine. He married
Elizabeth Long and resided in Tennessee where he was a prominent minister
and physician until he removed to Texas, where he actively followed his
profession until 18.57. when he crossed the plains, bringing his family by an
ox team train to El Monte. After teaching school for a year he became pre-
siding elder of the Visalia district for a year and then located in Mariposa
County, practicing medicine until 1865, when he located on a ranch which
he purchased on Kings River. Fresno County. He was elected superintendent
of schools and became very prominent in educational affairs in the county.
Rev. Ellis was a learned and cultured man of philanthropic disposition and
assisted many young people to get a start. After twelve years' serv'ice as
county superintendent he lived retired on his ranch until his death, aged
seventy-one. His wife survived him and died in August, 1914. aged ninety-
three years.
After his marriage, W. H. Davis, Sr., followed mining in Mariposa
County for some years. In 1867 he located in the Academy district. Fresno
County, engaging in stock-raising until his death, in 1871. After his death
his widow purchased a ranch of 520 acres in that vicinity, where she reared
her family and has engaged in farming and stock-raising ever since. She
lives in her comfortable home and is looked after by her children. The six
children living are : W. T. and J. E., stockmen in this county ; Mary F.. who
is I\Irs. Piaird of Fairview ; Eugene G. and J. O.. stockmen in this countv;
and W. H., Jr. ^ ■
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1033
W. H. Davis, Jr., the subject of this sketch, was born in Centerville,
Fresno County, on September 30, 1871, and in his native county he was
reared and received his education. Following the example of his pioneer
father, he took up agriculture as his vocation, in which he has been very
successful, engaging in stock- and grain-raising, later becoming extensively
interested in the culture of grapes. He is the owner of a seventy-acre ranch
in Round Mountain district, which he devotes to fruit and raisins, and upon
which he has erected a substantial and pretentious residence, with a pictur-
esque environment.
In Fresno, in the year 1900, Mr. Davis was united in marriage with Miss
Alary Hilton, the daughter of F. T. and Alice (Whitney) Hilton, who is a
native of California, having been born in Kern County. Her parents came,
with their parents, to California when they were children, the father coming
from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, when sixteen years of age, and the mother
when twelve years of age, from the state of Maine, Mr. and Mrs. Hilton have
been residents of Fresno County since 1888. Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Davis are
the parents of eight children : Frederick H. and Mary June, in Fresno High
School; Alice A.; Elizabeth A.; Walton L. ; Shirley Jane; Chester B. and
Dorothy May.
Fraternally Mr. Davis was a charter member of the Fresno County Par-
lor of Native Sons (not now in existence) ; he is a member of the Independent
Order of Foresters in Fresno.
ALEXANDER McNEIL. — Since a youth seventeen years of age Alex-
ander ■McNeil's fortunes have been cast in Fresno County, and he has wit-
nessed the various stages of development through which the county has
passed, from the old days of sheep-herding and stock-raising through the eras
of grain-farming, horticulture and viticulture. The old picturesque border
life has given place to an era of culture and refinement, and Fresno County
now holds first place among the counties of the state for the wealth of its
inhabitants, the richness of its productions and the salubriousness of its
climate.
This pioneer of Fresno County was born in Waukesha County, Wis.,
May 15, 1860, and is the son of James and Louisa (Daws) McNeil, the
former a native of New York State, the latter of England. When Alexander
was a sma;ll child the family moved to Alinnesota, and in the fall of 1876
came to California. They arrived in Fresno February, 1877. Alexander Mc-
Neil is the oldest child in a family of four children, all of whom are h'ving.
James H., the next oldest, lives in West Park, Fresno County; \N'illiam J.
resides in Barstow Colony ; and George P. is a resident of Sacramento. Upon
arriving in Fresno the father purchased a section of land two miles north
of Fresno, a part of the old Gould ranch, now known as the McNeil ranch
(although the property has passed out of the family). This ranch was planted
to pears, peaches, apricots, almond and walnut trees, alfalfa and grain. The
orchard was one of the first planted in Fresno County. Nursery stock was
raised, and many of the large orchards now producing in Fresno County
were started from stock raised on this ranch. As this was the only fruit
ranch for miles around, people in the early days drove there from all over
the valley to buy their supply. The father remained on the ranch six years,
and then returned to Minnesota. There he remained for several years, later
returning to Fresno, where he died. After the father gave up the ranch it
was carried on for some time by his brother, George L., and was later sold.
Alexander McNeil, a boy of nearly seventeen when he arrived in Fresno,
attended the only school at that time in the place, which was located in a
small frame building on Tulare at the corner of L Street. After completing
his schooling he took up teaming, driving an eight-mule team from Fresno
to Pine Ridge, hauling supplies to the lumber camps, and returning with
lumber. Later he followed dry farming, raising grain and hay in West Park
1034 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
district. He also rented land in Dry Creek district and on a large scale in
San Joaquin River district. Giving this up later, he entered partnership
with his brother-in-law, H. E. Burleigh, and bought a quarter section of
land in West Park district, seven miles southwest of Fresno, and engaged
in the dairy business. For the past few years he has been acquiring more
land in that section, and is now the sole owner of 1,428 acres. He has de-
veloped one of the best dairy ranches in the valley, milking 200 high-grade
cows of the Holstein breed, and keeping registered bulls. He is gradually
building up a thoroughbred herd. He is raising cattle, mules, horses and
alfalfa and also has a twenty-acre vineyard. He was one of the organizers of
and a director in the San Joaquin Valley Milk Producers' Association. This
association is on the cooperative plan, to facilitate the sale of, and to stand-
ardize, dairy products.
Mr. McNeil was married in Fresno, i\larch 27, 1889, to Sadie E. Burleigh,
who was born in Kansas, the daughter of J. M. and Harriett (Pervier) Bur-
leigh, natives of New Hampshire who joined the throng from New England
that rushed to Kansas in 1854 to make it a free state. They located on Deep
Creek near Manhattan, where the family remained until 1874, when they
came to Fresno, which had just been made the county seat. J. M. Burleigh
was in business for a time, and also served as deputy sheriff. He and his
wife both passed away at the old Burleigh home on I Street. They had four
children : Frank, who fought the Indians in Kansas and Colorado during the
Civil War, and who was a grain merchant in Fresno for many years; H. E.
and F. L., who reside in West Park, this county ; and Sadie E., who received
her education in the public schools of Fresno, her first teacher being Prof.
R. H. Bromlet. Mr. and ]Mrs. McNeil are the parents of three children :
Charles B., associated with his father in the care of the ranch ; Harriett, a
graduate of the Fresno State Normal and a teacher in Longfellow School,
Fresno; and Mollie E., also a graduate of the Fresno Normal and now the
wife of F. J. Harkness of Fresno.
Mr. McNeil's fraternal relations include membership in ]Manzanita Lodge,
No. 160, W. O. W., the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Eagles.
He is thoroughly loyal to Fresno County, taking an active interest in all that
pertains to its advancement, is public spirited to an extreme degree, and is
justh^ entitled to the esteem in which he is held by those who know him.
ZENAS WOLGAMOTT. — A worthy and honored pioneer who recently
passed to his eternal reward, and whose memory will long be cherished by
an appreciative and grateful posterity, is Zenas Wolgamott. He was born
in Holmes County, Ohio, January 30, 1831, the son of Jonathan and Jane
(Boone) Wolgamott. His father came from Hagerstown, Md., where he was
born on June 24, 1800. Later, he came with his parents to Ohio, and grew
up to be a very successful farmer. With his wife and family he removed to
Jefferson County, Iowa, in 1844, and fourteen years later went to Scotland
Count)% Mo. During the Civil War he joined the Union Army, and for sev-
eral months saw service under Colonel Glover. He spent his last days in
Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, where he died in 1881. Jane Boone was born
in Adams County, Pa., May 12, 1804, and early settled in Ohio with her
father, George Boone, who was in the War of 1812. His family was closely
related to that of Daniel Boone, the hero of Kentuck}^ a circumstance of which
Mrs. Wolgamott was justly proud. She died near Unionton, Mo., on ]\Iarch
23, 1862. Both Mr. and Airs. Wolgamott were pillars of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church.
Zenas ^^'olgamott received a liberal education in Jeft'erson County, Iowa.
In 1852 he and his brother George crossed the plains with ox teams as a
part of a great pioneer train. The party was 169 days on the trip. When Air.
Wolgamott reached California he engaged in mining and farming with his
brother George. The latter was stricken with cholera on the trip to Califor-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1035
nia, and Zenas nursed him and brought liini through. George later graduated
as a doctor of medicine, and was a successful physician in Chicago, 111.,
until his death.
In 1856 Zenas returned to his home in Iowa, traveling by way of the
Isthmus of Panama ; and in the spring of the following year he located in
Scotland County, Mo. On November 20, 1859, he was married to Phoebe
Elizabeth Breckenridge, a native of Anderson Countv. Ky., where she was
born on June 30, 1837, the daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Breckenridge,
who was closely related to the Hon. John C. Breckenridge, the distinguished
citizen of the Blue Grass State. She came with her parents, in 1843, to Callo-
way County, Mo., and in 1857 to Scotland County, where her parents died.
She is the second youngest of eight children, only two of whom are living;
and she had three brothers who came to California in pioneer days, but
returned East. Mr. and Mrs. Wolgamott were blessed with eight children,
six of whom grew to maturity. Harris Boone, is a business man at Moberly,
Mo.; Dora B., was Mrs. Grassle, who died at North Platte, Nebr. ; Lizzie L.,
is now Mrs. Hall of Fort Scott, Kans. ; Ollie is Mrs. Gibbons of Fresno : Jen-
nie is devoting her time to the comfort of her mother; and Daisy Grace, is
Mrs. Paulding of Rockford, 111.
For a while ]\Ir. Wolgamott engaged in mercantile business in Unionton,
and then selling^ out, in 1859, he took up farming, which he continued until
1866. During this time he served for a while in Company L, Second Regi-
ment of Missouri Militia. In 1866 he again embarked in the mercantile busi-
ness at Unionton, and in 1888 removed to Kirksvillc, ^lo., where he soon
retired. During this time he made three trips to California, and in 1894,
with his wife and daughter, removed to Malaga. After settling here he
bought forty acres of land, and devoted himself to viticulture; and having
sold the property he located in Fresno in 1910. This was the period of his
final retirement, and in anticipation of a pleasant and well-deserved rest
he purchased the corner of Olive and Palm Streets, a tract of five acres.
Much of this was later sold for building sites, but the family still have thir-
teen lots and a fine house. Mr. Wolgamott spent his last days here, and died
on January 13, 1918, aged almost eight-seven years. He was especially hon-
ored bv the Fresno post of the Grand Army of the Republic, to which he
belonged.
JUDGE J. B. CAMPBELL.— Numbered among the inhabitants the Blue
Grass State has furnished the slopes of the Pacific was the well-known pioneer
Judge James B. Campbell, who died September 15, 1916. He was born on a
farm in Christian County, and received his education in the country schools.
As a voung man he read law in the office of Colonel Buckner of Hopkinsville,
and after his admission to the bar practised law in Hopkinsville for eight
years. In the fall of 1860 he came to California via Cape Horn. His first
wife, before her marriage, was Miss Martha Crockett, the eldest daughter
of Judge Crockett of Kentucky, who came out to California in pioneer days
and became a judge of the supreme court of California.
Judge Campbell was a well-known practitioner of law in Santa Rosa,
Petaluma and San Francisco. He also spent some time in the mining region
of Owens River, back of Visalia. Upon his return to San Francisco his wife
died. He next located in Mariposa and was associated in the practice of his
profession with Judge Buckhalter. He was elected district attorney of Mari-
posa County and served in that capacity two terms, also serving as tax col-
lector. He was appointed district judge over four counties in the San Joaquin
Valley and was later elected to that office for one term. While holding this
office he held court in the historic old courthouse at Millerton. In 1880 he
moved to Fresno and opened a law office with Samuel Hinds. Elected supe-
rior judge of Fresno County, he served one term and then retired from active
1036 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
practice. He was a large landowner in Fresno and Tulare Counties and
ran his ranches until his death.
Judge Campbell was a deep student and possessed a keen appreciation
and love for the best literature. His second marriage, December 12, 1884,
united him to Kittie Bell, of Hopkinsville, by whom he had one son. Garth B.
In politics the Judge was a Democrat. In his fraternal associations he was
a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Knights of
Pythias.
The late Judge's only son, Garth B., is a native of Fresno and one of
the rising young attorneys of the state. Fie was born in the Grand Central
Hotel, December 18, 1885. He graduated from the Fresno grammar school in
1900 and from the high school in 1904, and for one year was a reporter on the
Fresno Evening Democrat. He graduated from the University of California
in 1910 and from the Harvard Law School in 1912. During his vacations, from
1905 to 1912, he served as reporter on the Fresno Republican. He practised
law with the firm of Sutherland and Barbour and served as deputy district
attorney and United Stated commissioner up to 1915. Since then he has been
in private practice of the law.
ELBRIDGE MILES.— It is the proud claim of E. Miles that he is not
only a native son of the state, but a son of an honored pioneer as well. It is
this class of men and women who are held in honor in all sections of the
world, but this is especially true in California, where the younger generations
realized that to the hardy pioneers are due the present wonderful develop-
ments in all lines of industry, and are conscious of the fact that such changes
could never have been accomplished without the heroic work and great hard-
ships of those who blazed the trail for a later civilization. Not all the pioneers
who came deserve credit for the development of the state ; many sought for
gold and left the state never to return, but to those who remained and. with
untiring labor, succeeded in making an unknown country the fruitful abode
for later happy and contented generations, is the honor due.
Such a pioneer was E. Miles, Sr., father of our subject. He was a native
of Maine who left that state when a lad of about sixteen, and with courage
and determination migrated to California, via Cape Horn, about 1850. He
located first in Placer County, where he was engaged in mercantile pursuits
for a time, but later engaged in the stock-raising business, including sheep,
in which he met with success.
In 1857, E. Miles, Sr., was united in marriage with Mary A. Waldren,
and in 1854 they removed to Fresno County, where Mr. Miles became a large
sheep-raiser. After two years here he went to Oakland, remained for a like
period, and then returned to Fresno County, where he lived until 1872. He
next moved to San Luis Obispo County, farmed and raised stock till his
death, in 1899, at the age of seventy-eight years. Mr. and Mrs. Miles became
the parents of eight children: Amanda, Mrs. Schneiderwind, in San IMateo
County; Mary, Mrs. Boney, in Los Angeles; Elbridge ; Martha, Mrs. Wai-
ters, in Los Angeles; Emma, Mrs. Hatfield, also in the southern metropolis.
Three of the children are deceased : Ella, Mrs. Bobst, who died, leaving two
children; \\'illiam, also died, leaving a girl and a boy, who have been reared
by their uncle, J\Ir. iMiles of this review; and Homer, who died in young
manhood.
It is reported upon reliable authority that in the early days of Fresno
County the I\Iiles family were the only Republicans in their section of the
county and that the men were required to carry arms when they went to
vote. The elder Miles was a man of striking personality and possessed a
strong character. If he believed he was right it was impossible to swerve
him from his purpose. Fraternally he was a charter member of the first
Odd Fellow lodge organized in Fresno County. His wife, Mary Miles, was a
loving mother and an unselfish and untiring worker in those strenuous days
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1039
so full of hardships for the pioneer women. She came to California by way
of Panama in 1855. She makes her home in Los Angeles and is in the enjoy-
ment of the best of health.
E. Miles, Jr.. was born in Placer County, January 8, 1860. and was reared
in the city of Oakland, where he attended the public school until the family
removed to San Luis Obispo, where he finished his education, supplementing
his common school course by attending an Oakland business college. After
reaching manhood he became interested in politics and while in San Luis
Obispo County he served four years as deputy assessor. In 1886 he came to
Fresno County and went to work for J. S. Jones, having charge of his grain
warehouse at Traver. and later at Reedley, continuing so occupied until
1910. He served as a deputy sheriff under Jay Scott from the time the latter
took office until he went out.
In 1905, Mr. Miles became a landowner when he bought twenty acres
three miles east of Reedley. This was barren stubble land, and he set out
every vine and tree, erected the buildings and sunk a well. He bought stock
in the Raisin Growers Association before he had set out a vine and is now
a stockholder in the present association, as well as in the Peach Growers, Inc.
On October 18, 1891, Mr. Miles and Miss Belle Apperson were united in
marriage. She was a daughter of ^^Mlliam L. and Elizabeth ( Rucker) Apper-
son, born in Vallejo. Cal., April 16. 1869. She came to Fresno County in 1873
with her parents. Her father was born in Virginia in 1822. and came to
California in 1849, crossing the Indian-infested plains in company with fifty
immigrants driving ox teams. The journey took them six months. LTpon his
arrival in the Golden State he ensjaged in mining for six years, sometimes
making a strike and at others sinking \\hat he had already made. He finally
decided to quit mining and go 1iack to his trade of cabinetmaker. On Septem-
ber 14, 1865, he was commissioned Captain of the Alpine Rifles, Fourth
Brigade of California, by Governor Lowe, to maintain law and order after
the war. He was the first undertaker in Fresno County, manufacturing his
own coffins in Fresno. He died at the age of ninety-four, on January 3, 1917.
Mrs. Apperson was, in maidenhood. Elizabeth Rucker, a very talented
woman, and for years was a school teacher. She was a sister of the late
William Rucker. of Kingsburg. She finally met and married Mr. Apperson
and their union was blessed with four children: Belle, Mrs. E. Miles; Hattie,
^Mrs. Calcote of \'isalia ; ^^'alter. who died in infancy : and ^^'illiam. who died
in 1912. Mrs. Apperson passed away in February. 1899. aged fifty-nine years.
^Ir. and Mrs. Miles have had no children of their own but after the
death of Mr. Miles' brother. AVilliam. they took his son and daughter. Dial
and Velma. and have given them the same love and care they would give
to their own children. Mr. Miles is a member of the Reedley Lodge of Odd
Fellows and Rebekahs. his wife having passed the chairs of the latter order.
of which she is an active member. He is also a member of the Woodmen of
the World. They are Republicans on national issues, but in local matters
they vote for the best men and measures. They are both strong advocates
of the possibilities of Fresno County, where the greater part of their lives
has been spent.
MRS. HELEN KRUSE. — What a woman can do in the business world
when she is called upon to take the rudder and guide the tossing ship is
illustrated in the case of Mrs. Helen Kruse, one of the ablest heads of an
enterprise in Fresno County. She was born at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton
Neuchatel, SAvitzerland, the daughter of William Brutsch. also a native of
that place and a member of an old family there, although her grandfather
came from Schaffhousen, in Switzerland, near the banks of the Rhine. Ilcr
father was a jeweler and watchmaker, and he married Sophia Ncunschwan-
ger. who was born at the same place, and died in 1886. the mother of
1040 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
two children — Charles, who resides at San Jose, and Helen, the subject of
this sketch.
In 1881 William Brutsch came to the United States, settling for a while
in Chicago, where he managed a laundry, running the same on new and satis-
factory lines for five years, and making of it a success. Soon after the middle
of the eighties he resolved to move further westward and came to Califor-
nia ; and once in this state, he was not long in learning that there was one
county offering the best inducements to the stranger. In Fresno he started
a laundry in the Darling Addition, under the name of the Cosmopolitan
Laundry. In 1891, Mr. i?rutsch's two children joined him, and later the
father went to San Francisco, and thence to Santa Rosa, where he em-
barked in the hotel business, finally returning to Fresno to continue running
a hostelry. Afterwards he bought a farm ; but selling it later, he retired
and now resides in Santa Monica.
Born the younger of the two children, and reared in Switzerland until
her eleventh year, when she came to Fresno, in 1891, Miss Helen Brutsch
was married in Fresno, in April, 1898, to Mr. Gustav Kruse, a native of
Enger, Westphalia, and brother of Henry Kruse. The youngest in his fam-
ily, he came to the United States and for two years lived and worked in
Nebraska, after which he came to California, where he was soon busv as a
vineyardist. First, he was foreman on the Anita vineyard, under Hector
Burness. During this time, he bought various pieces of acreage, set the same
out with vines, and otherwise improved the property. He began with twenty
acres, bought twenty more, and later added still another twenty — the old
August Halemeier place, onto which he moved. Now they have sixty acres
given to a fine vineyard and alfalfa, and are growing table and raisin grapes,
and getting several crops of alfalfa a year. This success in the viticultural
field has led them to become active members of the California Associated
Raisin Company.
Two children, Elsie and Wilma, both students at the Fresno High
School, have come to add to the attractiveness of the Kruse home circle.
Outside her home, Mrs. Kruse is most devoted to the affairs of the German
Lutheran Church of Fresno and its Ladies' Aid Society, of which she was
secretary and is now treasurer. Mrs. Kruse's life and work, therefore, pre-
sents the case of an all-around woman, well fitted for business, society or
philanthropy, and acceptable wherever she appears.
LAURITZ LAURITZEN.— The life story of Lauritz Lauritzen has all
the elements of a romance of today. In it is shown the building of a fortune,
not by a miracle, a Scheherezade transformation, but by the steady day-by-
day industry and thrift of an honest man, endowed with the foresight and
business acumen for which the Danish race are noted. Lauritz Lauritzen
was born October 6, 1867, near Apenrade, Schleswig, Germany, at that time
a part of Denmark. His father, Laua Lauritzen, was a sailor, and came to
America, the land of promise, crossed the plains to California, and engaged
in mining in El Dorado County, together with three brothers. He met with
success and, returning to his native land, bought a ship and engaged in
coast trade until his death, at the age of fifty-two. His wife, formerly Mata
Krag, was born in Schleswig also, and there her death occurred.
Lauritz Lauritzen was raised in the old seaport town of Gjenner, and
was educated in the common school of his home cit}'. At the age of fifteen
he was apprenticed to the blacksmith's trade, and followed it in the old coun-
try. In 1889 he came to the LTnited States, locating first at Racine, Wis.,
where he worked in the factory of Fish Brothers Wagon Company one year.
At the end of that time, in 1890, he came to Fresno, landing here with but
a few dollars left of his savings. He secured employment in the Scandinavian
Colony, six miles east of Fresno, for seventy-five cents per day, walking to
and from his work each day. Jobs were scarce and wages low in those days,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1041
and the lad was glad to take any honest work offered him. Later he worked
for H. Ahrensberg, the blacksmith, and then for G. Brainard, in a shop where
now is located his present business. Determined to succeed, he builded for
the future, and was soon able to buy real estate, his first purchase being the
lots on the corner of H and Fresno Streets, where he erected a building and,
in partnership with H. Ahrensberg, ran a blacksmith shop. After seven
years as partner, Mr. Lauritzen bought out the other half-interest, and
formed the Lauritzen Implement Company. This business which was started
twenty-three years ago, in 1896, in a little blacksmith shop on the corner
where the present store now stands, has shown a steady and substantial
growth with each year, until today it stands as one of the leading institutions
of its kind in Central California. This phenomenal growth can be attributed to
tlie personal efforts of Mr. Lauritzen, who from the very beginning j^dopted
the policy of efficient service; and that this has brought results is best ex-
emplified by the large and increasing business that is constantly being done.
The new building, located at the corner of Fresno and H Streets, where
the little blacksmith shop formerly kept the anvils ringing, was erected pur-
posely for the business. It is of brick, has two floors and a basement, com-
prising more than 67,500 square feet of floor space, and is a model structure
for a business of this kind. The company is engaged in the manufacture of
farm implements of all kinds, auto bodies, etc., and is agent for the I. FI. C.
engines, Moline plow goods. Fish Bros, wagons and McCormick mowers
and rakes. In the workshop, the company does general repairing of all kinds,
and in the various departments in connection with the business sixty people
are employed. A large and comprehensive stock of all goods handled is kept
on hand at all times. During the past year the company's business showed
an increase of seventy-iive percent, over that of the preceding year, and
reached a grand total of $250,000. From present indications, even this figure
will be increased in the season to come. The Lauritzen Implement Company
is an incorporated concern, with the following officers: Lauritz Lauritzen,
president and general manager ; Robert Prather, vice-president ; and ]\Tarie
Lauritzen, secretary.
Besides his business interests, Mr. Lauritzen is engaged in horticulture,
owning a thirty-acre orchard five miles east of Fresno, planted to figs, now
three-year-old trees ; and he also has other real estate interests in the city.
Preeminently a self-made man, in the best sense of that often misused word,
he has taken part in all movements for the upbuilding of Fresno ; the growth
of his business has kept step with the phenomenal growth of his city, and
it has been a matter of pride with Mr. Lauritzen to be in the vanguard of
progress in the community where he has "builded his house." Fraternally,
he is a Mason, a member of Fresno Lodge, No. 267, F. & A. M., and has
gone through all the branches of Masonry, up to and including the Shrine
of San Francisco. He is also a member of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, both lodge and encampment ; and of the Dania Society of Califor-
nia, of which order he is past president. Together with the other leading
business men of Fresno, he belongs to the local Chamber of Commerce.
The marriage of Mr. Lauritzen, which occurred in Fresno, October 6,
1892, united hini with Anna Christine Jorgensen, a native of Shelland, Den-
mark. Nine children have been born to them, as follows: Louisa, an artist
of ability: Laura, a musician of splendid voice and training; and Alice,
Walter, William, Robert, James, Louis and Hubert — all born in Fresno.
Mr. and Mrs. Lauritzen celebrated their silver wedding in 1917, after twenty-
five years of happy married life. They and their family are among the repre-
sentative citizenry of Fresno County. Since June, 1918, they have been domi-
ciled in their palatial residence at Blackstone and Florodora Streets, where
they continue to receive their many friends and dispense a wholesome old-
time hospitality.
1042 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
BENJAMIN CASSIUS THOMAS.— A very successful farmer and viti-
culturist who was also in his time an expert carpenter, is Benjamin Cassius
Thomas, who came. to California about the middle of the eighties. He was
born in Fulton, Callaway County, ^lo., on June 21, 1855. His father, John P.
Thomas, was born in Kentucky, September 4, 1834; and while yet a babe
he came with his parents to IMissouri, and grew up on a farm in Callaway
County. In Missouri he married Elizabeth Craghead, a daughter of that
state, of Scotch descent, and a member of a family well situated as farmer
folk.
In 1863, Air. and J\Irs. Thomas, with their three children, crossed the
plains in an ox team train, traveling to Austin, Nev. They stopped there
intending only to rest their cattle, but they stayed twenty years. Mr. Thomas
became interested in stock-raising and farming, and had three different cattle
ranges where he owned the water. Under the brand T the Thomas ranches
were well and favorably known. In 1883, Air. Thomas sold out and came to
Fresno County, California, where he had a brother-in-law, James Craghead.
Through him he became interested in fruit-raising, and bought eighty acres
situated four miles northeast of Fresno, for which he paid $100 an acre.
He gave this his time and his best eiiforts, and the first year put out about
forty-five acres of vines, increasing the amount later until he had all his
property in vines or alfalfa. He also set out five acres of peaches. In 1897
he went to Porterville. but later he returned to Fresno County, and then
engaged in dair}'^ ranching near West Park.
The year 1913 brought to Mr. Thomas' home its full measure of sorrow.
On Blackstone Avenue, while driving to town alone, his devoted wife was
killed in a railroad accident. After this tragedy Mr. Thomas sold his dairy
and all his acreage except forty acres, and retired from active work, there-
after residing with his son, Benjamin, until his death on his old home place,
on January 2, 1916. He was a highly esteemed member of the Methodist
Church and popularly active in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Three
children came to bless the home circle of Air. and Mrs. John P. Thomas.
Luella is Mrs. Hayes, of Porterville : Mattie T. has become Mrs. ^^'illiams,
of Portland ; and Benjamin Cassius is the subject of our story.
In his eighth year Benjamin Cassius Thomas crossed the plains with
his parents, and helped drive the ox team, making the long journey into
Nevada without serious Indian troubles. There he went to school, and in his
spare time gave such attention to the management of horses that he soon
learned to ride the range after the cattle, to lasso them, and to break the
bronchos. He continued with his father until he was twenty-one, and was
then appointed deputy sheriff. This was in 1877, and he was under J. C.
Harper, the well-known county officer. Air. Harper died and Benjamin
Thomas was appointed to succeed him in 1879. In 1880, he was elected
sherifif by a large majority, and he was the youngest sherifif who ever took
the office in Nevada. He was a good officer, who went hard after evil-doers,
and he made some notable captures. In 1883, too, he was sergeant-at-arms
of the Senate in Nevada, and served the term.
Mr. Thomas located in Healdsbnrg in 1884 and bought eighty acres
near Lytton Springs, where he set out a vineyard and orchard. Three years
later he sold out and located in Fresno, where he assisted his father for a
couple of years. He went to Alerced County in 1889, and set out a big vine-
yard at Atwater for the Alerced Land & Fruit Company. At the end of two
years he returned to Fresno, where he was appointed a deputy sheriff under
Jay Scott, which office he held for five years, or until the end of his last term.
Then he went into the employ of the Church Ditch Company, at the same
time acting as deputy under Sheriff Collins for a couple of years more. Re-
turning to his trade of carpenter, he engaged in local contracting and build-
ing until the big fire in .San Francisco drew him to the afflicted city. He was
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1045
one of the first foreman for building there, and soon went into contracting
and building for himself. He erected many structures in San Francisco and
Oakland, and resided in the latter place.
In I9I4, Mr. Thomas came back to Fresno as the administrator of his
mother's estate. After his father's death he was also administrator of his
father's estate. He now owns thirty acres of the old homestead, and is inter-
ested in forty acres near West Park. He has ten acres of alfalfa, and the
balance is in muscat vineyards. He has recently put in a splendid pumping
plant with a twelve horse-power engine, and through its use he secures per-
fect irrigation. As might be expected, he is a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company.
\'\'hile in Nevada j\Ir. Thomas was married to ]\Iiss Mamie Fames, a
native of San Francisco, by whom he had four children. Presley is in Sacra-
mento : Kenneth was in the Ninety-first Division of the United States Army,
serving overseas, and went through the Argonne campaign. After about one
year's service, he returned home and was honorably discharged : and he is
now again a member of the Oakland fire department. Alargaret and Edith
also reside in Oakland. Mr. Thomas is a member of the Knights of Pythias.
In national politics he is a Democrat.
JASPER NEWTON MUSICK.— A pioneer of wonderful vitality and
most exemplary character, in whose death Fresno County lost one of its
most highly-esteemed citizens, was Jasper Newton Musick, who was born
near Jefferson City, Mo., the son of Abraham Musick, of Scotch-Irish blood.
The elder Musick hailed from Wayne County, W. Va., whence he removed,
while yet a lad. to Kentucky. On coming of age, he became a citizen of Mis-
souri, and at a period when St. Louis was a small trading-post, he purchased
farm-land and so improved his holding that at the time of his death he had
4O0 acres under a high state of cultivation. He married Nancy Davis, a de-
scendant of English ancestry and a native of Kentucky. A Democrat of the
old school and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, ^Ir. Mu-
sick did what he could to advance the high standard of American citizenship
and also to raise the moral standards in ordinary, everyday life. He attained
to ninety-three years, and his wife lived to be eighty-five. They had fifteen
children, twelve of whom grew up. Jeremiah, after the Civil ^\'a^ became a
stockman operating extensively and died in January, 1904, after laying out an
addition near Fresno. Thomas, another son, died on one rif Jasper's farms.
Jasper Newton was the sixth in the order of birth, and \^•l^ile lieing brought
up on his father's farm, attended the old-time log schoolhouse. ^\'llen seven-
teen years of age, he crossed the plains to California with his brother Chesley,
and arrived in the Golden State in the fall of 1850. They traveled to Salt
Lake with ox teams, but there swapped their slower means of locomotion for
horses. They experienced an eye-opening surprise, however, on arriving at
Hangtown, to find that the purchaser of the oxen had arrived several days
previous, with his brown steeds in better condition than were the frailer
horses.
Once somewhat settled. ]\Ir. Alusick tried his luck with the gold-miner's
pick, and for si.x years in .\mador County met wth varying success. In 1856,
he moved to what was at that time Alariposa County but soon afterward
Fresno. His ambition to follow peaceful pursuits was rudely interfered with
by a call to arms against the Indians, and he was among the first to volunteer
to meet the redskins at the Tule River, where they were defeated and dis-
persed. After a while he took up teaming between Millerton and Stockton
and the mines, making the round trip in ten days and receiving five cents a
pound fur his freight. In 1858 he had a contract to carry the soldiers from
Fort Miller. Init he soon gave that up in order to form a partnership with John
G. Simpson in the stock business at Dr_v Creek. They had a meat market at
Millerton and drove their cattle, as did so many stockmen of that time to
1046 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Sonora and the mines, as there they could command the highest prices. After
a very successful partnership, Messrs. Musick and Simpson in 1865 dissolved,
but Mr. Alusick continued his sheep business at what later became the site
of Letcher. He came to own some 800 acres, all finely improved, and devoted
mostly to short-horn cattle and the growing of hay.
In 1892. Mr. Musick left the country and took up his residence in Fresno.
He erected residences, came to own city land of value, and at Millerton owned
certain acreage of more value because of some high-grade sulphur springs,
on the road to the Yosemite, where he had a summer residence.
Mr. Musick was twice married. His first wife was Miss Rebecca Rich-
ards, and they were married at Dry Creek, where also occurred her decease.
She was born at Millerton, and was a daughter of James Richards, a pioneer.
Three of their five children reached maturity: ^lary Effie became the wife
of William Henderson of Fresno ; Nancy Ann is Mrs. J. P. Fincher of Clovis ;
and Laura Isabelle is the wife of Benjamin Sims of Fresno. The second Mrs.
Musick was Nancy Jane Messersmith. a native of Cole County, Mo., who sur-
vives him.
As a prominent and influental Democrat. Mr. ]\Iusick for two terms
ser\-ed as supervisor and as chairman of the board, and he was one of the
foremost backers of the movement, carried out while he was in office, to
change the county seat from Millerton to Fresno, contending that the seat
of local government should be on the railroad. He also had an honorable part
in the erection of the county court house. He was one of the sponsors of
the fine private academy at Dry Creek, afterward deeded to the school district
of which Mr. Musick was trustee for 3'ears. He was an Odd Fellow and a
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
Mr. Musick died at his home in Fresno, on June 4, 1918, in his eightv-
sixth year, hale and hearty to the last, and attending to his business afl:'airs
until almost the hour he was called to lay aside earthl}^ matters. He was
known throughout the county, and particularly by the pioneers, as Uncle
Jess, and was distinguished as one of the known eleven living, oldest in years
and in continuous residence, of those that were in the territory before the
formation, out of the mother county Mariposa, of Fresno County, in 1856.
He felt that in early life his advantages had been limited, and probably this
nerved him to that greater endeavor by which he liecame such a splendid
example of successful American manhood.
JAMES NATHAN MAXWELL.— An interesting old-timer who for
years operated one of the best west-side ranches and again and again showed
his warm advocacy of local improvements, especially in the matter of better
schools, is James Nathan Maxwell, a native of Pike County, Mo., where he
was born on October 31, 1844. The father, William Maxwell, was a Virginian
of a good old family, who became a pioneer in Pike County and died at the
age of thirty-five. The mother was Polly Van Noy before her marriage, and
.she came from Tennessee. After the death of Mr. ]\Iaxwell, she married
Benjamin Woodson. When she passed away, in Missouri, she was the
mother of two children, by the first union and one child living of the second
union. The oldest, Albert P. Maxwell, resides at Yamhill, Ore. William G.
Woodson is a farmer of Borden, Madera County.
Thus orphaned, James Maxwell, the younger of the two children by his
mother's first marriage, was brought up with an uncle, Edley ^laxwell, a
farmer, and attended the local school. In the beginning he worked on his
uncle's farm, but at fifteen he began to work on the farms of other ranchers.
Early and late, he was at his post of duty, and in time made such a reputation
for intelligent, progressive enterprise, and for reliability and honesty, that he
had no difficulty in finding engagements and opportunity.
While he was near Bowling Green, in Pike County, ^lo., in 1873, j\lr.
Maxwell was married to Miss Marv E. Rutherford, a native of that section
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1047
and the daughter of James Rutherford, who came from an old Kentucky
family. Her father arrived in Missouri as a young man, went through the
pioneer stages, and married Margaret A. Van Noy, who was born in Ten-
nessee. Later he came to Fresno County with his family, and at Lone Star
he and his wife breathed their last. They were the parents of fourteen chil-
dren, twelve of whom grew to maturity ; and among them Mrs. Maxwell was
the oldest.
After their marriage, Mr. Maxwell bought a farm ten miles from Bowl-
ing Green, where he engaged in grain and stock-raising; but on account of
his ill-health, he sought a change of climate, and in 1876 sold out and located
in California. For a while he had a ranchita in Los Angeles County, where
he raised corn ; and succeeding, he bought a ranch of thirty acres. In 1884
he sold out and came to Fresno County and rented farm lands at Red Banks.
In 1886 he homesteaded 160 acres forty-one miles west of Fresno, and there
he carried on general farming. He dug a well, but the water being unfit
for use, he was forced to haul water all the way from Firebaugh, twelve
miles away, and at the end of seven years sold what he had for $250. During
this time, he worked out in grain fields and on farms with a six-horse team. On
account of the dry years he finally gave up farming there, and moved to
Big Sandy, where he followed stock-raising for a period of three years. Then
he rented some alfalfa land near Fresno, and so got started. In 1898, he
bought twenty acres in the National Colony, paying one hundred dollars
down on the place, which cost sixty-five dollars an acre. The next year he
set out a fine vineyard, and grew watermelons between the rows of vines,
and thus in time. managed to pay for the place. Some of the melons weighed
sixty pounds. He grew wine grapes, Thompson's Seedless, Sultanas and Zin-
fandels : and nowhere for miles around could finer fruit from a vineyard be
seen. He early identified himself with the California Associated Raisin
Company.
Four children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell. William
Elmer is ranching in this county ; James Guilford also has a fine farm near
here ; and ]M3Ttie Ellen and Ernest Edwin dwell at home with their parents,
the latter having charge of the home place. The family attend the Firsf
Christian Church of Fresno. Wide-awake to every movement for the public
good, Mr. Maxwell has found pleasure in serving as a trustee of the West
Side school ; that is, the school in the Penocha district. The schoolhouse used
to be far below the standard ; but Mr. Maxwell succeeded in bonding the
district and having a new school building erected at a cost of $2,400.
ALBERT GRANT GIBBS. — A very successful and enterprising rancher
and vineyardist, in the Lone Star District of Fresno County, a self-made
man who has risen, by indomitable energy and judicious management, from
very modest circumstances to one of comfort and is now regarded as a well-
to-do viticulturist and owner of one of the best forty-acre ranches in this
district is Mr. A. G. Gibbs, the subject of this sketch. He is a native of
Illinois, having first seen the light of day in Adams County, November 17,
1868. Jonathan Gibbs. his father is still living at the age of eighty and is
the owner of a fifty-acre vineyard at Lone Star. His mother, who in maiden-
hood was Miss Elizabeth McGibbons, passed away ten years ago at Lone
Star, Fresno County. Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Gibbs were the parents of nine
children, the subject of this review, A. G. Gibbs, being the third in order
of birth.
The family moved from Illinois to Missouri and later migrated to San
Francisco, Cal., where they remained eight years and it was in the big city
by the Golden Gate that A. G. Gibbs passed that portion of his life between
the ages of twelve and twenty years.
In 1888, in company with his father and family, A. G. Gibbs came to
Fresno Countv, where at first they rented land, afterwards buying an interest
1048 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in a land company which they finally sold and purchased land separately.
A. G. Gihbs purchased forty acres one and a half miles southwest of Lone
Star where he has developed a splendid vineyard, having planted all of the
vines himself, with the exception of ten acres. In 1908 he built an attractive
bungalow and now he has a beautiful and cozy place. He and his brother-in-
law own jointly eighty acres of land near Raisin City.
In 1896, Mr. A. G. Gibbs was united in marriage with Lillie Frances
Armstrong, daughter of William and Millie (Stover) Armstrong, who own
a- twenty-acre vineyard at Lone Star. Mrs. Gibbs was born at Wintersett,
Iowa, and when nine years of age came with her parents from Missouri
to the Golden State. Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs are the parents of one child ; Roy
Harold, a student in Fresno High School.
When i\Ir. Gibbs arrived in Fresno County he quickly realized the great
opportunities this section ofifered to ambitious young men of good character
who were not afraid to" work and willing to practice thrift and economy in
their daily lives. By adopting such a code of living himself. Mr. Gibbs
achieved success and to his estimable wife, no less than to himself, should
the praise of the achievement be ascribed.
Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Gibbs are highly respected in the community where
they have resided for so many years, he being a member of the California
Raisin Growers Association.
MORGAN BAIRD. — Conspicuous among the progressive and prosper-
ous ranchers and stockmen of Fresno County, was the late Morgan Baird,
a worthy son of an honored pioneer father, the late Alfred Baird. Benjamin
Morgan Baird was a native of the Hawkeye State, having been born in
Frankville, Winneshiek County, Iowa, on December 27, 1853, and when six
years of age came across the plains with his parents and settled in Visalia,
Tulare County. Cal. His early education was obtained in the public school
of Tular-e Count}', supplemented by special study under Father Date, and
later completed by attending the San Jose State Normal School, and a course
at the business college in San Jose, from which institution he was graduated.
Upon finishing his school-days he engaged in the sheep business with his
father, but some years later became an independent sheep-grower in Tulare
Count}'. While sojourning in Tulare County, Morgan Baird sowed the first
alfalfa in the vicinity and also set out a vineyard of fifty-five acres .the first
in all that neighborhood. Another enterprise largely due to his efforts was
the organization of a ditch company by which he secured water for irrigating
his land. Upon selling his sheep he embarked in the grain business with
John A. Patterson, and they were the first to place the Glide Ranch, in
Stokes Valley, under cultivation ; also the first ranchers to introduce the
Shippey combined harvester, operated by sixteen horses. Under ordinary
circumstances they would have reaped large profits from their cultivation of
4,000 acres, but poor crops and low prices combined to make their invest-
ment unprofitable so they finally sold out their holdings. Upon his return to
Fresno County, Morgan Baird became interested in raising grain and cattle,
which business he conducted upon his father's homestead.
On January 24, 1898, Morgan Baird was united in marriage with Mrs.
Mary (Davis) Givens, a native of Fresno County, the ceremony being sol-
emnized at Reno, Nev. She is the daughter of \\'illiam and Sarah J. ('Ellis)
Davis, who were natives of Mississippi and Virginia, respectively. Her father,
William Davis, an own cousin of jefiferson Davis, President of the Confed-
eracy, crossed the plains to California in 1849, when eighteen years of age,
and was among the pioneers of Alillerton, where he became interested in
sheep-raising. He was a brave and fearless pioneer having taken part in the
Indian wars in California. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan Baird were the parents of
five children : Addison, and ]\Iorgan, Jr.. attending the University of Califor-
nia ; Carroll, a student in Fresno High : Gordon, and Alfreda.
^ ^ Gcu^^^X^
^^::^=22^^^-^ "sC^^^^^^-^^t:^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1033
After the death of his father, in 1914, Morgan Baird was l)y his father's
will made the administrator of his large estate, but was not privileged to
manage the estate for a very long time as he was called to the Great Beyond
on February 16, 1916, and in his passing the community sustained the loss
of one of its most successful and prosperous ranchers and stockmen. Morgan
Baird had watched with much gratification the wonderful development of
the San Joaquin Valley and Fresno County, in which he had the honor of
participating. He was a gentleman of fine personality and bearing and frater-
nally he was a prominent Alason of the Scottish Rite degree.
MRS. MORGAN BAIRD.— A splendid example of noble California
womanhood and a lady of accomplishment and pluck, the worthiest possible
representative of other worthy Americans long influential for great good in
the communities in which they lived and amid the civilization that they helped
to guide and develop, is Mrs. Morgan Baird, who has a fine home ranch in
Fairview that she is bringing to a high state of cultivation. She is the widow
of the late Morgan Baird, the honored descendant of the well-known pioneer,
Alfred Baird, both of whose careers are also sketched in greater detail in this
historical work.
At Reno, in Nevada, on January 24, 1898, Mr. Baird married ]\Irs. Mary
(Davis) Givens, a native daughter born near Homitos, Mariposa County,
whose parents were William and Sarah J. (Ellis) Davis, natives respectively
of Mississippi and Virginia. William Davis was a second cousin of Jefiferson
Davis, the great leader and president of the Southern Confederacy, and Mrs.
Baird is the niece of Mrs. Mary (Davis) Lemberger, a lady remarkable for
her advanced age (of over one hundred years) and her clear intellect, ^\'il-
liam Davis was among the bravest of the early settlers at Millerton, having
crossed the plains, and while engaged in the stock business and the raising
of sheep he lielped put down the Indian insurrections. A grandfather on the
mother's side was Dr. T. O. Ellis, a member of an old Virginia family, and
the first physician to practice in Fresno County, as he was also the first
county superintendent of schools here, and the first man in the entire county
to set out a vineyard and an orchard. After the death of ?ilr. Davis in 1871.
his widow made her home near Academy, the beloved mother of six children,
grown to maturity : W. T. Davis is a stockman in Fresno County ; Jefiferson
E. Davis is a prominent real estate man in Fresno ; Eugene is a stockman at
Fort Miller; Mary F. has become Airs. Baird, the subject of this review; Jack
is a stockman in Dry Creek, and W. H. is a viticulturist and horticulturist in
Round Mountain. Mrs. Baird received her education in the public schools of
Visalia and in a young ladies' seminary at Oakland, where she enjoyed the
best of social advantages, in keeping with the traditions of her family. Dr.
Ellis, referred to, was highly educated, in the classics as well as in medicine,
and so was Mrs. Baird's mother, who is a well-educated, cultured and very
refined woman, and a favorite in the best circles in Fresno, where she makes
her home. As a result of her marriage with Air. Givens, Mrs. Alorgan Baird
has two daughters, Mrs. Edith Baird and Airs. Hazel Wood, both of whom
live in the Fairview district, while through her union with Air. Baird she is
the mother of five children : Walter Addison and Alorgan Corwin, both
graduates of Fresno High, now attending the University of California; Car-
roll Hubbard, a student at Fresno High School; and Gordon and Alfreda.
During their later years, Mr. and Airs. Alfred Baird were tenderly cared
for by their son Alorgan and his equally devoted wife, who was an accom-
plished nurse ; and it was only natural that the senior gentleman should
appoint Alorgan, in his will, as administrator of the estate. As is often the
case, one of the benefactors of the will at once proceeded to contest the wishes
of the deceased ; long litigation followed and naturally the worries incidental
to such an unpleasant responsibility undoubtedly had the efl^ect of hastening
Alorgan Baird's death, which occurred on February 16, 1916. He was pre-
1054 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
vented, therefore, from further acting in the capacity designated by his father
in his last testament, but Mrs. Baird pluckily and properly took up the fight,
not merely for the estate, but to vindicate the character and claims of her
husband and her father-in-lawr, who were noted both for their gentlemanly
personality and public-spiritedness in the development of this part of the
state, and finally she had the satisfaction of witnessing the Supreme Court
sustaining the will. Since then she has administered with rare ability the
estate and numerous afifairs left by her lamented husband, and she is making
a great success of farming, both in viticulture and stock-raising.
The several thousand acres in the Academy district left Mrs. Baird by
her husband, she is devoting to stock and grain farming, and she has a home
ranch of 100 acres in Fairview, which she is developing into a vineyard and
an olive and fig orchard. Prominent in local social circles, Mrs. Baird also
finds a sphere of great usefulness in the activities of the Episcopal Church
at Fresno, to which she belongs, as well as to Raisina Chapter, O. E. S., and
San Toaquin Court of the Order of Amaranth. With the new spirit of the
new century, hailing woman as decidedly the equal of man, Fresno County
is proud of every such native daughter as Mrs. Benjamin Morgan Baird.
CARL A. LISENBY. — Of more than ordinary significance both for the
present and the future industrial life of Fresno is the great enterprise, the
Lisenb}^ Manufacturing Co., of which Carl A. Lisenby is Secretary, Treasurer
and General Manager and in the story of his life we get the introduction to
that of the industry referred to. A native son, Carl. A. Lisenby was born
at Fresno on August 21, 1888, the son of A. V. and Emma C. (Wright)
Lisenby, and the lad had the advantage of counsel and example from one of
the most substantial citizens of the town. Flis father was long identified
with banking interests, and is today president of a well-known banking
companv
Carl was educated at the local grammar and high schools, and sought to
top oiT his studies at the Lniversity of Southern California. He made a
specialty there of literary work, but eventually commenced the law course.
Circumstances, however, compelled him to abandon the undertaking, in
order to assume his present position: and having thus early been initiated
into the intricate business, he has come to understand every stage in the
manufacture of their machine — the wonderful Multicolor Printing Press.
The Lisenby plant is a model one, and in the manufacture of this
famous machine some seventy-five people are employed. Every considera-
tion is given to the comfort and protection of the employe, and to meet
the increase of orders (which always far exceed the present supply), the
company contemplates enlarging their works, having a large machine shop
built, also building a new foundry, so that every part of the machine may be
manufactured in this city. The multicolor press has long ago passed its
experimental stage, and is an established success, and has been sold in far-
away countries all over the world. The general eastern sales offices of the
company are at 298 Broadway, New York City, and 417 South Dearborn
Street, Chicago, 111., and many branch offices have been opened in the
principal American cities. Another branch of the Lisenby industry is the
manufacture of a line of farm implements. Its phenomenal success, re-
quiring expert handicraft.. iTitricate machinery and special tools, has enabled
the Company to pay the highest wages, which return again to the community
in local expending and general circulation.
He is a popular supporter of all good measures in the Fresno Commer-
cial Club. Chamber of Commerce. Merchants Association and other civic
bodies. Mr. Lisenby was made a Mason in Fresno Lodge, No. 247, F. & A. M.
of which he is a Past Master. He is a member of the Fresno Chapter
R. A. M. : Fresno Commanderv No. 29, K. T. ; Fresno Consistory No. 8.
Scottish Rite bodies and Islam Temple A. A. O. N. M. S.. San Francisco.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1055
\\"ith his wife he is a member of Fresno Chapter O. E. S. Mr. Lisenby is a
charter member of the Masonic Club in San Francisco. During the World
War he spent much of his time in the different drives: Liberty Loan; Red
Cross ; War Savings Stamps and all war activities and was a member of
different committees for the raising of money to prosecute the war.
On March 14, 1912, the marriage of Mr. Lisenby to Miss Edith M.
Niblock was delightfully celebrated, and one daughter, Catherine Grace, now
graces the household. Mr. and Mrs. Lisenby attend the Methodist Church.
WINFIELD SCOTT ROBINSON.— Of marked character and attain-
ments, and one who is also interesting because of the honored family that he
represents, is Winfield Scott Robinson, who came to California in the seven-
ties. He was born near Louisville, Clay County, 111., on October 15, 1849,
the son of William H. Robinson, a native of Virginia, who came to Illinois
and was there married to Hannah Clark, a native of Maryland, and they
settled in Clay County, where the elder Robinson was a farmer. He died
in 1852, and the mother passed away in 1873, the mother of ten children, six
of whom grew»to maturity.
William H. Robinson was a true educator, and built the first school
house and taught the first school in the district. He was also a justice of
the peace, and at the time of his deatli was candidate for sheriff on the AA'hig
ticket. He was a prominent and influential man, and of striking and attractive
personality.
Winfield Scott lived with his grandfather. Robert Robinson, a native of
Philadelphia, who was born in 1795 and had served in the War of 1812.
While receiving a good education in the public schools, he assisted his grand-
father on the home farm, until he was twenty-one. In 1871 he started for
California, and on March 13th of that year he arrived in the Golden State and
went as far south as Modesto, at that time the terminus of the railway. He
worked on a ranch and in the fall leased a section of land where, for seven
or eight years, he engaged in the raising of grain. They were dry years and
the prices obtained for his products were very low, so that he did not accumu-
late much. Unfortunately, he shipped one crop through E. E. Morgan &
Sons and on account of their failure in business he lost all but the small
initial payment.
In 1879 Mr. Robinson located in Fresno County, near what is now
Selma, and there he bought 240 acres and engaged in general farming. He
experimented with vines and orchards, and planted alfalfa and grain. He
was successful here, and having thrice received good offers for his land, then
highly improved, he sold eighty acres. After that he rented land and farmed
for six years, at Kingston, now Laton. Afterwards he ran the hotel in Laton
and finally, selling out, he located in Fresno. Here he resumed the hotel
business, and in 1908 he bought his present holding, twenty-five choice acres
in the Arizona Colony, and at once began improvements. While still in
business in town. .Mr. Robinson set out a fine orchard, and the place is now
devoted to raising peaches, together with alfalfa and berries, which he sells
to local stores. The ranch is under the Herndon Canal, but he has also
installed a pumping-plant. For some years Mr. Robinson was in the poultry
business, and in that field also he set a new pace in the application of im-
proved methods for raising fouls. He has been a member and stockholder
of the California Peach Growers, Inc., from its origin.
At Fresno, on August 20, 1885, Mr. Robinson was married to Miss Nellie
Clark, a native of Iowa City, Iowa, who came to California when she was six
months old, crossing the plains in an ox team train with her parents, C.
Andrew and Eliza (Blunt) Clark, natives of Nebraska and Indiana re-
spectively. In 1867 they left Iowa for California, and after a stay in Men-
docino County, Mr. Clark became one of the first settlers of Tulare County,
in 1873, engaging in farming near Hanford until his death in 1876; his
1056 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
widow now resides with the children. Of their eight children five are living.
Airs. Robinson being the second youngest. One child has blessed the union
of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, a daughter, Alice, now the wife of J. A. Kiefifer
who is engaged on the Santa Fe Railroad, and who resides in the Arizona
Colony.
Mr. Robinson was made a Mason in La Clede Lodge, No. 601, at La
Clede, III., and he is now a charter member of Selma Lodge, No. 277, F. &
A. M., of which he was master for two terms. Both Mr. and Mrs. Robinson
are members of Raisina Chapter, O. E. S., of Fresno. As a Republican, Mr.
Robinson has been a strong advocate of temperance. He has also worked
for better irrigation facilities, and has been a delegate from his (the Roeding)
district to irrigation meetings for the public ownership of canals as well as
water-ways of Fresno County.
SARKIS TUFENKJIAN, M. D.— Scattered here and there throughout
the wide L'nited States, never, perhaps to be found in any considerable col-
ony, and yet representing a rather formidable aggregate, and making up, one
of the most valuable classes among our progressive American citizens, are
the thrifty and highly-intelligent folk from faraway, romantic "Armenia — that
land and people so long under a barbaric yoke, so long subject to dire and
awful persecutions, so that it is a wonder that the race has prospered at all,
and more of a miracle when a son of that land attains to the eminent success
which has rewarded the life and labors of Dr. S. Tufenkjian, now one of the
prominent ranchers of Fresno. He was born in Armenia in December, 1867, a
son of John Tufenkjian, well-known in that country, and leaving an excellent
record for accomplishment in the round of plain, everyday duty. His mother,
of whom he also has fond memories, was Zerta Tufenkjian; and in her come-
ly virtues, she well typified the women of her ancient and renowned land.
As a lad. the subject of our sketch was educated at the American mis-
sionary schools, and while thus getting a very thorough Western training,
he had his attention early and fortunately directed to the great Republic with
its irresistible appeal to the lovers of liberty. As a result, when he had finished
his elementary and secondary schooling, he came to the United States and
matriculated at the University of Michigan, where during four years of resi-
dence at Ann Arbor, he thoroughly enjoyed the life of the quiet university
town. He had made a flattering number of friends, and these wished him
God-speed as he set out into the larger world.
Going to New York — for he now began to feel the lure of the metropolis,
with its varied and most instructive side-lights of life — I\lr. Tufenkjian en-
tered the medical school of the great University of the City of New York,
then, as for half a century and more, directed by many of the most eminent
men in the surgical and medical world; and in 1885 he finished his course
with distinction, and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Fie had
thus studied medicine under some of the most advantageous conditions any-
where obtainable in America.
Dr. Tufenkjian's first practice, somewhat naturally, was had in New
York City, where he also profited by the neighboring hospitals and clinics ;
but after that, although he had become a naturalized citizen of the United
States, he returned to Armenia and went among his native people, rendering
medical aid to whomsoever he could. Only when he felt that a still greater
field for the exercise of his best gifts awaited him on this side of the ocean,
did he return to America.
It was just the beginning of the new century, in 1900, when Dr. Tufenk-
jian turned his face toward the Pacific Slojie, and the same year when, having
surveyed California rather critically, he chose Fresno as promising the most
for the future. Growing up in a country highly favored in certain facilities
for agriculture, he no longer essayed to practice medicine, but took to the
more open life and orcharding. Now he owns the famous Estrella \^ine3'ard,
0 . J ^iM^^-y^^^^^
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1059
eighty acres of the choicest land to be found in this region, which he partly
improved. Applying his knowledge and his industry, he has been, as one
might say he was bound to be, more than ordinarily successful, thus adding
one more interesting record to the splendid history of the Armenians in
America.
On November 17, 1892. Dr. Tufenkjian was married to Miss Perooza
Kaloostan. and by her he has had three children: Zabel, Mrs. Kandarian ;
Richard, a graduate of the high school and Junior College at Fresno: and
Florence. The family worships as Presbyterians, and the doctor is a lilue
Lodge jNIason.
The important part in politics taken by the Doctor has been in the organ-
izing of the Armenians for the Republican party, thereby overthrowing the
Democratic strength. He has been an ardent supporter of the Republican
candidates on national questions, Ijut on local issues supports the best men
and best measures, and he has always taken the stump for various candidates.
He has led his people in all drives during the Great War, and all charitable
enterprises have received his hearty support. He has been a supporter of all
the raisin associations from the start and is now a member of the California
Associated Raisin Company.
Not only have the political experiences of Dr. Tufenkjian made him ar-
dently patriotic and greatly interested in civic affairs, but his professional
work and his recent scientific experiments, demonstrating the extent to which
the material prosperity of the state depends on intelligent husbandry and the
wise conservation of resources, ha.ve led him to give time, effort and influence
to furthering every cause for the real uplift of the people, and the advance
of social welfare. In this way. Dr. Tufenkjian's advent in Fresno must be
reckoned as fortunate for everyone concerned.
CLARENCE WILLIAM EDWARDS.— Prominent among the pro-
gressive educators of California whose aggressive, thoroughly scientific and
scientifically thorough methods and accomplishments in the past give stimu-
lating warrant of a still more brilliant future, auguring all that could be
desired for the best interests of the public committed to their care, must
be mentioned Clarence William Edwards, for years a very active and valuable
co-worker, in one position of responsibility or another, in the solution of the
great problems attending the development of education in Central California,
and since the beginning of 1919 Superintendent of Schools for Fresno County,
an office he is filling, as might well be expected from his exceptional prep-
aration and opportunity for experience, to the satisfaction of everyone.
His grandfather, Pressley N. Edwards, was a '49er hailing from ^lissouri,
so that such have been the traditions in Superintendent Edwards' famil_v
that he has always enjoyed and cherished the " California spirit."
Fie was born at Visalia on March 4, 1878, the son of Edward Darnall
Edwards, a native of Liberty, Clay county, Mo., who married Anna Finch
of Obion County, Tennessee. When the Civil War broke out, Edward
Edwards entered the Confederate Army from Missouri, and at the con-
clusion of the great struggle, matriculated at William Jewell College, at
Liberty, Mo. He then studied law at Memphis, Tenn., was successfully
admitted to the Tennessee bar, and for a while practiced law in Memphis
and Union City in that State. During the great Centennial A-ear he brought
his family West to California, settled for a while in San Francisco, and then
went to \"isalia.
In 1878 Mr. Edwards, foreseeing the greater field at Fresno, moved to
this city, and ever since he has practiced law here continuously, so that now,
at the age of seventy-three, he may well be regarded as a veteran attorney,
and one'who, pleasantly situated in his well-appointed offices in the Temple
Bar Building, enjoys the esteem of thousands to whom he has long been
known. ]\Irs. Edwards, it is happy to relate, is still living to enjoy with
him, as she has done for the past quarter of a century there, their hospitable
1060 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
home at 1837 J Street; although, for eight years previously, the Edwards
lived at their San Dimas Ranch, a choice vineyard of 100 acres in the Scan-
dinavian Colony, five miles north-east of Fresno. Besides the subject of
our interesting and instructive sketch, two other sons were born to this
highly-favored couple. Ernest H. is in the transportation department of
the Southern Pacific at Tucson. Ariz., while Jefiferson James is Captain of the
twentieth U. S. Infantry, at Camp Funston, Texas, and recently in attend-
ance at an officers' training school at Fort Lee, Virginia.
A mere lad when he first came to Fresno, Clarence Edwards attended
both the grammar schools and the high school of the city and finished his
studies in a creditable manner, taking the literary course at the high school,
and being graduated with the Class of '97. He matriculated at the University
of California in the fall of that year, took the social science course, and was
graduated in 1901 with the degree of B.L. During vacations, beginning
with his high school life and extending through the da}'s at the university,
he worked in his father's law office, where he came in touch with the county
and city officials, and also came to know the local lawyers and newspaper
men, thereby getting a first-liand acquaintance with the rank and file of the
men and women of al)ility with which Fresno has so long been favored in its
superior citizenry ; and between the Sophomore and Junior vears at the
University, he worked as city reporter on the old " Expositor," then " The
Daily Evening Expositor " of Fresno. Bv this application to practical work,
Mr. Edwards added much to his experience with human nature, and the
men of affairs had a good chance to look over and get acquainted with the
rising young man of promise.
His uni\•c^sit^- diploma entitled Mr. Edwards to a grammar school
certificate, ami with tliat coveted equipment, he began his career as a peda-
gogue by acting as principal of the Belmont grammar school in Fresno,
now known more appropriately as the Webster school. Being ambitious
from the start, however, for six summers he also did post-graduate work at
the University, where he specialized in histor}-, jurisprudence and education;
and at the end of these desirable studies, in 1''03 he received a University
Document of the greatest value as fully estal)lishing his status as an educator
according, in particular, to California ideals. Since that time he has done
considerable additional post-graduate work along the same lines. He was
for a while principal of the Emerson and the Hawthorne grammar schools,
and for the past ten years has been principal of the Lowell grammar school :
while from 1914 to 1919 he was supervising principal of the Lowell, Frank-
lin and Poppy schools. He has also taken an active part in the county
teachers' institutes, where he has given talks and read papers and contributed
substantially to the discussions so important to the teacher desiring to grow
and broaden ; and very naturally his acquaintance with the teachers of
Fresno County has become more and more extensive.
At the opening of the campaign of 1918, Mr. Edwards was prevailed
upon to become a candidate before the primaries for the Superintendency of
Fresno County Schools, and the result of the primaries insured his election.
No one could carry his honors with more becoming modesty; but his popu-
larity is well attested by the fact that he won out by a very handsome
majority over his opponent, Prof. A. E. Balch, who was the leading super-
vising assistant under former Superintendent E. W. Lindsay, an educator of
great ability whose life-story is told in detail elsewhere in this volume.
Superintendent Edwards is a member of the Central California Teachers'
Association Ex'-Officio, by virtue of being the County Superintendent. He
also belongs to the University Club of Fresno. He is a Mason affiliated
with Fresno Lodge, F. & A. M., No. 247, where he is Past Master, and as
a Knight Templar is a member of Fresno Commandery No. 29. Of course
he is also a member of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1061
How important a trust has been committed to this up-to-date school-
man may be judged from the fact that Fresno County has 156 elementary
scliools and fifteen high schools, to which he must give his closest super-
vising attention. He is ably assisted, however, by C. S. Weaver of Fresno,
and W. L. Worth, of the same city, and Airs. Florence B. Rutherford, also
of the county seat.
About the only " serious " diversion indulged in by j\lr. Edwards is that
of hunting, for in company with his gun and dog, he seeks to repair the
waste in a strenuous life among his fellow-men. In this respect he finds
himself in as good a company as when training the young idea how to shoot.
GEORGE W. JONES. — Among Fresno's citizens whose business career
since 188*^ has been associated witli the interests of this beautiful city, we note
Attorney George W. Jones, of the firm of Jones and Johnston. Of California
pioneer stock, he was born at Placerville, Eldorado County, Cal., November
6, 1864. His father, William, a native of the state of New York, came to Cali-
fornia from Illinois in 1851, crossing the plains by the usual means of locomo-
tion of that day, the ox team caravan, of which he was in charge. During the
Civil War he served as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second California Volunteer
Cavalrv. His mother, in maidenhood, Emma Artz, came to California by
way of the Isthmus in 1852. 'W'illiam and Emma (Artz) Jones were united
in marriage in San Francisco by the noted divine. Star King. The parents
are both dead.
George W. received his education in the public schools and studied law
at the University of California, graduating with the class of 1888. He selected
Fresno as the city of his choice, where he has been engaged in the active
practice of his profession since 1889. For two years he was in partnership
with Judge H. Z. Austin, and is now a member of the law firm of Tones and
Johnston. Under Alva E. Snow, Mr. Tones served as assistant district at-
torney. He was elected to the office of district attorney in 1903 and served
one term. He was a member of the board of education and was also city
trustee under Dr. Rowell, and under Mayor Snow by appointment. In
politics he is progressive : was actively engaged in organizing the Lincoln-
Roosevelt League and was president of the local branch. He is unmarried.
For two years he was Captain of Company F.. Sixth Infantry Regular Na-
tional Guard of California, and Major of the Second Battalion for the same
length of time.
Fraternally, Air. Jones is a Alason and has passed all degrees of the York
Rite : and is a member of the Foresters of America and of the Woodmen of the
World, and director of the building corporation of the latter. He is also an
Elk and a charter member of the Sequoia Club.
During the recent war George W. Jones was a member of the Legal
Advisory Board for Fresno County, and branch chairman of Military
Camps Association of the United States, a civil organization working under
the ciirection of the War Department, and he was appointed a civil aid to the
Adjutant General.
He was also a Four ATinute Man, and participated in its activities through-
out Fresno County.
MILTON D. HUFFMAN. — Fresno County, in the early years of its
history, was often spoken of as the "Wild Flower County", owing to the pro-
fusion of the beautiful California poppy and many other varieties of wild
flowers. In 1881 Milton D. Huft'man with his young wife, came to California
and located in the "Wild Flower County" near the now flourishing city of
Fresno. He was the son of Milton and Catherine (Weaver) Huffman, born in
Columbus and Circleville. Ohio, respectively. Milton HuiTman senior, was
a prosperous farmer in the state of Ohio on the Scioto River, south of
Columbus, but in 1858 removed to Pettis County, Mo. where he farmed for
many years. Owing to the long hot summers and cold winters the Hufif-
1062 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
man's in their later years decided to test the more equable climate of Cali-
fornia, to which state they came in 1905, remaining here until they passed
away. Mr. Huffman died October 21, 1910, and his well beloved wife in April,
1911. Grandfather Jacob Huffman was born in Pennsylvania, he was an
early settler of Ohio and homesteaded 160 acres on the Scioto River, and
became a prosperous and large landowner.
I\Iilton D. Huffman was born in Columbus, Ohio, December 5, 1857, and
in 1858 removed with his parents to Pettis County, Mo. and as a boy and
young man he remained with his parents, helping his father with the farm
work and attending the public schools in Sedalia, Mo. In 1876, at the early
age of nineteen, Mr. Huft'man was united in marriage with Miss Laura
Elliott of Boonville, Mo. and in 1881 came to California and began general
ranching and sheep raising west of Wild Flower in Fresno County. He
remained on the ranch until 1902, when he removed to the city of Fresno,
but continued in the sheep raising business in which he has been very suc-
cessful, and at the present time has a large band of fine sheep. He soon
became well known and very popular, so much so that in 1908, although not
seeking the office, he was elected as supervisor on the Democratic ticket and
reelected in 1912 serving for eight years, from January, 1909 till January,
1917 when, although urged by his many friends to serve again he declined
to be a candidate. During his service he was particularly interested in the
building of roads and his district was said to have the best mountain roads
built for the least money.
Mr. and Mrs. Huffman have two daughters, both married. Nina is i\Irs.
W. W. Terrill of ^Yi]mington, Delaware; Leona, is Mrs. L. F. King, of San
Jose.
yiv. Huffman is a pnbhcspiritcd man and during his long residence in
Fresno County has had much to do with its development. He is a prominent
member and trustee of the First Christian Church, is a Democrat in his polit-
ical views and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a Knight
Templar and Shriner, also a member of the P.. P. O. Elks and the Knights of
Pythias.
DON PARDEE RIGGS. — Perhaps no man has contributed more to the
musical advancement of Fresno County than has Don Pardee Riggs. Him-
self a musician of note, he has been prominent in musical circles in California
since 1894, and was the direct means of bringing the first stars of that pro-
fession to- Fresno ; beginning with the world renowned violinist, Ysaye, in
1905, he brought the following here for concert work: Schumann-Heink,
Madame Gadski, Gerardy, the cellist, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the
Russian Symphony Orchestra, the Ben Greet Company, in "A IMidsummer
Nio-ht's Dream," and other famous artists, thus giving Fresno the opportunity
to hear music interpreted by the foremost exponents of that art.
Mr. Riggs was born in Barnsville, Belmont County, Ohio, December 7.
1869, and was reared and educated there. In 1888 he came to Fresno, and
was in the employ of the Fresno Furniture Company here for eight months.
He then went to Oakland, in the employ of the C. Schreiber Furniture
Company, until 1890. For the next two years he traveled on the road through
the Middle West for the E. T. Barnes vvholesale furniture commission house
of Chicago, 111., and Grand Rapids, ]\Iich. Returning to Oakland, in 1892,
he was again with the C. Schreiber Company for a time.
From 1894 up to 1917, Mr. Riggs became identified with music in the
bay cities and Fresno. He is a charter member of the Music Teachers Asso-
ciation of California, organized in 1897. He began the study of the violin at
the age of eleven years, under Prof. George Collins, in Ohio, continuing six
vears. Again taking up the study with William F. Zech, of San Francisco,
and during the next six years he studied and taught the violin, and was choir
director of the Grace M. E. Church and of the Trinitv M. E. Church of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1065
San Francisco. He was also manager of the Clara Schumann Ladies Quar-
tette in that city. He studied voice with Miss Marie Withrow and with
McKenzie Gordon of San Francisco, and Stephen Townsend of Boston, Mass.
In 1900 Mr. Riggs came to Fresno as concert violinist and teacher. After his
arrival here his services were secured as music director of the First Presby-
terian Church of Fresno, where he had a well organized choir. In four years
he began the teaching of voice, and soon became one of the most prominent
teachers in the interior of the state, his pupils filling solo positions in almost
every town and city in the San Joaquin Valley. Himself a most finished and
artistic singer, he has given many recitals in the valley. He lent his in-
fluence and personal help in the upbuilding of the Fresno Musical Club, and
has been one of the most prominent figures in the development of music in
Fresno from 1900 to 1918, doing his utmost to help this section of the state
keep its artistic advancement in a line with the phenomenal growth of its
other developments. In April, 1917, Mr. Riggs entered the employ of the
D. H. Williams Furniture Company of Fresno, and on March 1, 1918, he be-
came a member of the above firm. Fraternally he is a member of the Fresno
Lodge, No. 439, B. P. O. Elks, and is Past Exalted Ruler of that order.
JOHN HOLLISTER CADWALLADER.— Among those pioneers long
identified with the development of California, and prominent as the repre-
sentative of an old, historic family, may well be mentioned John Hollister
Cadwallader, a viticulturist and agriculturist whose application of scientific
methods has been seasoned with the most practical personal experience. He
was born at Pleasant Grove, Des Moines County, Iowa, on February 8, 1863,
the son of David Cadwallader, a native of New York and a carpenter by
trade, who in Ohio met and married Albina Howison, a native of Virginia.
The Cadwallader family, a branch of the Cadwaladers famous through such
lights as George, John and Lambert Cadwalader, the soldiers who won re-
nown on the battle-field, originally came from Wales and the Howisons from
England, and David Cadwallader was here so early that he became a veteran
of the Mexican War. Arriving in Iowa from Ohio, he worked as a con-
tractor and builder, as well as a farmer near Burlington, and later he removed
to a farm that he purchased near Pleasant Grove, where he followed agricul-
tural pursuits until he died, in 1865. Of the two children born to him and
his good wife Albina, John H., who was left fatherless when he was two
years old, is the eldest. His widowed mother continued to reside on the
farm for five years, during which time she taught school. In April, 1873, she
brought her children to California, accompanying her father, Edwin Howison.
She married a second time in Fresno County, choosing as her husband Steve
Hamilton, who was a rancher and also supervisor for two terms. Both
passed away here, the mother of our subject dying in 1901. Two of her sisters
located in Fresno County.
John H. went to school in both the Mississippi and Red Bank districts,
and "while attending school, assisted his step-father, Steve Hamilton, who
was a very worthv man, receiving such excellent training that when he had
finished h'is schooling, he went to work on grain ranches, thereby learning
the San Joaquin Valley method of farming with big teams. At different
times in those early days he harvested grain all over the Dry Creek and Red
Bank districts including what is now the Garfield, Jefiferson and Red Bank
districts, and so came to be posted on the best-producing and richest soils.
He knew every man that took homesteads on the plains, and he was acquainted
with the head' of every family from the San Joaquin to the Kings River.
When only seventeen years of age. John's inborn characteristics, _ par-
ticularly his energy and perseverance, began to be displayed. Not satisfied
with working for wages, he leased ground in 1880, and commenced to lay
the foundation for a successful and enterprising career. During the period
from 1880 to 1900 he continued to rent land and raise grain, and twenty
1066 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
years were devoted to this industry, during which time he continued to in-
crease his holdings. Beginning with 320 acres at Red Bank, he acquired more
land from time to time, and having also leased land, operated about 1,500
acres, using four large teams, and wearing out three combined harvesters.
In 1900 he bought forty acres east of Clovis, and was among the first to
set out a vineyard in Enterprise Colony. This place he sold, and in 1899
purchased his present place of forty acres about the center of Garfield dis-
trict, which he named the Garfield vineyard, and developed to muscats and
an orchard of figs and peaches. Aside from this, he bought and improved
several other places, which he sold at a profit ; and including his present
farm, he has set out and improved to vineyard and orchard not less than 180
acres. Garfield Vineyard, through his care, has become one of the finest
and best-kept ranches in the vicinity, its comfortable residence and other
buildings adding dignity and making it notable. A firm believer in coopera-
tion for fruit men. ]Mr. Cadwallader is a member and stockholder of the
California Associated Raisin Company, the California Peach Growers, Inc.,
and the California Fig Growers Association.
Aside from superintending his own valuable holdings, Mr. Cadwallader
has found time to devote to public movements, and his support can be relied
upon for any measure for the advancement of the community. For twenty
years he has been trustee of Clovis Union High School, serving since its
organization and being president for the last twelve years, and he has also
been trustee of the Garfield district for many years. In 1905 he was instru-
mental in organizing the Farmers' Telephone System, of which he is still
president. This company built the telephone lines in this section, with head-
quarters in Clovis. He' was elected a director of the First National Bank
in Clovis, when it was organized in :May, 1912, and continues in that capacity,
and he was also an organizer of the Clovis Farmers Union, and active in it
until it was sold to the California Associated Raisin Company.
]\rr. Cadwallader is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Clovis, and
actively identified with it from its organization, being a member of its board
of trustees, and having been the board's chairman, and a delegate to the
meetings of the Presbytery. He was also instrumental in building the new
church" in Clovis, and Was'chairman of the board having the construction in
charge. Fraternally he is a member of the AA'oodmen of the World.
Mr. Cadwallader was first married on October 5, 1885, at Academy. Cal.,
when he was joined to Miss Belle Heiskell, a native of Tennessee, who died in
1893, leaving a son Thomas, who resides in San Francisco, and who served
over seas in the One Hundred Forty-third Field Artillery of the United States
Army. His second marriage occurred at Fresno in 1895, when he chose for
his wife Miss Annie Ambrosia, a native of Missouri, by whom he has had
two children : Maude, who is a graduate of the Clovis High School, and
also the Fresno State Normal, and is now principal of the Nees Colony
School; and \\'ard, a graduate of the Clovis High School and University of
California, from which he received the degree of D.D.S., and is now practic-
ing dentistrv in Fresno. He served in the United States Army at ]\Iare
Isfand as assistant dentist in the Department Base Hospital.
Mr. Cadwallader is well and favorably known and highly esteemed, and
has been instrumental in many ways in building up the county, himself em-
ploying the most modern methods in intensive farming and in the growing
and marketing of fruits. He has seen the county, by intensive farming,
transformed from a stock-range to its present wonderful state of cultivation,
with orchards, vineyards and fields of alfalfa, showing what may be done
with the splendid soil and an ample water supply. In educational lines he
has been foremost in building up the school system, and especially in raising
the standard of the Clovis High School. The advancement of church life
and work, and the raising of public morals to a higher standard have received
attention and support, and in that field he has become a leader. A Republican
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1067
from the time of his first vote, Mr. Cadwallader has been active on the
Republican County Committee, and as a delegate to the county and con-
gressional and state conventions. He is truly a self-made man, and a citizen
of aggressively progressive tendencies, of whom the county may well be
proud.
JOHN H. PEAK.— Born in Delaware County. N. Y., on April 28, 1867,
J. H. Peak was the son of Eleazer Peake (the final letter having been re-
tained until they came west), a native of New York, who married Mary
Holmes, who was also born in that state. His great grandfather Peake was
born in Scotland ; his great grandmother, on his father's side, was a native
of Ireland. On his mother's side his great grandparents also came from
Scotland. John's father was a sailor in his youthful days, and once doubled
the Horn and sailed up along the west coast of America, and along the
California coast in the forties, before the days of the famous gold discover-
ies. As a souvenir of his voyage he brought home with him a beautiful
white conch shell, which he picked up on the west coast of South America,
and which is still in the possession of the subject of this sketch. Mrs. Peak
died when John was only two and a half years old, so that he has no recol-
lection of her. His eldest sister — then only sixteen — nobly assumed the
duties of the head of the household and, acting as a mother to the younger
boys and girls, kept the family together, at least until the father's death.
In 1870, the Peak family moved west to Cass County, Nebr.. and seven
of the brothers and sisters grew to maturity. A younger brother was only
six months old when the mother died, and he was then taken by an aunt who
lived in New York State: and John, who was the sixth in the order of birth,
never saw hint again until lie was tweiit}--one. The father had enlisted. in a
New York State regiment and served throughout the war; and eventually he
died in Franklin County, Nebr., from the effect of illness contracted as a
soldier. To add to all their other privations, the oldest brother Augustus,
while out on a hunt for bufTalo in 1874, was accidentally shot in the side,
and he suffered untold agony, no doctors or surgeons to be had. Not until
the spring of 1875, when they all went back to Cass County, Nebr., did he
secure relief, for a physician at Plattsmouth removed a dead bone from the
wounded part of the body. The oldest sister married G. A. Lotta, who was
with the oldest brother on the ill-fated buffalo hunt.
The brother and Mr. Lotta had filed on various pieces of land in Webster
County, Nebr.. and they then went out to their claims, and the family lived
during the strenuous times of pioneer days in Nebraska, suffering among
other things the awful scourge of grasshoppers that swept the land in 1874
and 1875. John continued to live with his sister, Mrs. Lotta. until he was
twelve vears old. and then he began to work out and has made his way
ever since.
At first, and until he was sixteen, he labored on farms and at road camps,
and in all he had less than two terms of schooling. This deficiency and
handicap he began to realize when he attained his sixteenth birthday and
while he was living at Cowles, in Webster County. The country school
teacher boarded at the same place where he was working, and she took pains
to teach him ; so that about nine-tenths of his book-learning was acquired
during that winter's term of three months. Since then he has ever been a
reader and a student, and has, by self-help and a course with the Inter-
national Correspondence Schools at Scranton, acquired a good business edu-
cation.
The spring after he was sixteen, he apprenticed himself to Horton &
Snodgrass, carpenters and builders in \A''ebster County, agreeing to stay with
them for three years and to receive $15 per month for his work. He con-
tinued there and learned the trade thoroughly, although the firm dissolved
a couple of months before the completion of his apprenticeship. As a remem-
brance of Mr. Horton, he bought his tool chest, and he still has it. He has
1068 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
built many more houses than Mr. Horton ever did, but they have remained
the best of friends and advisers. He worked at carpentering for a few months
in Webster County, and then went west to Chase County, where he built
the first hotel at Imperial, the county seat.
In the fall of 1886, Mr. Peak went to Lincoln, where he ran across his
former employer, Mr. Horton, who was engaged there in the B. & M. car
shops. No immediate opening, however, in the car-shops presenting itself,
he took a job as oiler for three months and then he went with the outside
repairing crew and later joined the wrecking crew, with which he worked
for a year and a half. Owing to drink, the mechanic at the head of the
traveling car repairer, as it was called, lost favor with the company, and
Mr. Peak, whose habits were temperate, was selected in his stead, and he
then filled that responsible position for another year and a half.
About this time Mr. Peak was married to Miss Cora F. Wells, a daughter
of George W. and Rebecca (\^'ray) W'ells — a native of Webster County,
Nebr., and for the next two years they farmed in Nebraska. Suffering, how-
ever, from the severe drought, and hearing of the exceptional advantages of
Central California, they decided to come to the Coast and try their fortunes
here.
On December 13, 1890, they arrived at Selma, Mr. Peak's earthly pos-
sessions at that time consisting of his wife, their baby, dishes, bedding,
kit of carpenter tools and just $51 in cash. He went to work immediately
as a farm hand in the River Bend country, and there he stayed until the
following June. He later struck a job with ex-Sheriff Ball .of Yolo County,
who was then improving forty acres near Selma. The times were panicky,
and our subject was compelled to work at anything that his hands could
find to do, in order to sustain himself, wife and baby. It was during his spare
hours in these difficult years that he completed the correspondence course
offered by the International Correspondence Schools referred to. By much
sacrificing effort Mr. Peak also built a small house at Selma, where he lived
and worked at the J- A. Roberts Nursery. The next vear he rented eighty
acres of land, sixty acres of which were in alfalfa. This ranch he kept for
six years, and it was of considerable help to him, although he had to work
it partly by means of hired help, using a team of his own, receiving in the
end sometimes, only three dollars per ton for his alfalfa. In the fall of 1895,
Mr. Peak was appointed to a position as special registration deputy, and in
that capacity he serv^ed for ten months.
.About this time his health failed him, for he found that he could not
stand the heat of the glaring midday sun. He secured work in the wood-
working department of M. Vincent's wagon and blacksmith shop at Selma.
receiving $1.25 per day. He stayed with Mr. Vincent eight years, and
during this time became a master blacksmith. He also made a small pur-
chase of twenty acres, which he improved and planted, while he continued
to work at the forge. The five j^ears at Vincent's were followed by one year
in Gordon's blacksmith shop, and after that he was employed in Mr. Lloyd's
smithy at Selma, when he reengaged with Mr. Vincent. At this time he
looked after his twenty-acre ranch until he finally disposed of it for $6,000.
For the past six years Mr. Peak has given practically his entire time to
his operations as a first-class contractor and builder, until he has become
the leading operator in that line in this entire district. He lives three-fourths
of a mile south of the city limits of Selma, on the South McCall Road, on
the twenty-acre ranch which he has recently purchased, and upon which, in
the fall and winter of 1917-18, he built a beautiful residence of tile and stucco,
a modern bungalow, with garage, barn, etc., the whole costing some $5,000
and affording himself and family a very pleasant home with country sur-
roundings. In his building operations, he ran a crew of eight men. He has
done $100,000 worth of work for Libby, McNeill & Libby, alone, at Selma, in
the past five years. He has erected more than one hundred residence build-
Jn^-i^ 'ffij^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1071
ings in Selma and vicinity, and has also hnilt the Selma Hotel, the First
Methodist Episcopal Church at Selma, the Vincent Block on East Front
Street, and the Bryant & Steward Building on High Street. He has recently
sold his ranch of seventy-five acres on the Ward Drainage Canal.
Mr. Peak expects hereafter to give his attention to the automobile busi-
ness in Selma, where, at 1941-43 West Front Street, he owns a large brick
garage building, with well equipped machine shop, salesrooms and office,
under the firm name of J. H. Peak & Sons.
Mrs. Peak is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Selma.
Mr. Peak is active in the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World.
They are the parents of seven children : Elsie, the wife of R. J. Smeaton,
resides with their two children, Elsworth and \^aughn, on their ranch at
Selma ; George W., who married Gertrude Reed of Selma, is a farmer nearby,
and has two children — Viola and Elwin ; Ernest, returned from France, hon-
orably discharged May 12, 1919, and is now of the firm of J. H. Peak & Sons,
of Peak's Garage, at Selma ; Margaret, who is the wife of J. H. Robinson, the
electrician at Fresno, and has two children — Jean and Don; ]\Ielvin, attend-
ing the Selma High School : and Gertrude and Elbert, in the seventh and
fifth grades of the grammar schools.
JOSEPH WILLIAM HOGAN.— A resident of California since 1872. an
honored pioneer of Fresno County, and one of those fearless and patriotic
men who volunteered their services in the defense of our country during the
Civil War, a gallant soldier and a hero, such a man is Joseph W. Hogan.
He was born near Waterloo, Monroe County, 111., October 7. 1839, and was
reared and educated there. His father was Joseph William Hogan, born in
Monroe County, where his parents had settled in early days, taken up govern-
ment land and from the wilderness built up good homes and made a pros-
perous country. The father enlisted for service in the Mexican War and was
killed at the battle of Waterloo. He served under Gen. Zachary Taylor. The
son well remembers the day his father left home to join the soldiers. His
mother was Louise McMurtry in maidenhood and she died about four years
after her husband was killed. She left three children, our subject being the
only one living. After the death of his mother he was taken by his uncle.
Dr. Andrew Squires, and was reared on the American Bottoms of the Mis-
sissippi River and spent his early manhood as a farmer.
Joseph W. then went to Missouri and was in that state at the breaking
out of the Civil War. Realizing the necessity of defending the Union, which
his forefathers had established through sacrifice and suffering, he was fired
with patriotism and enlisted for three months. After serving with bravery
and honor the allotted time, Mr. Hogan realized that the rebellion could not
be subdued in three months, so with the spirit of a true patriot he reenlisted
for three vears. or during the war. He served with Company B, Thirty-first
Regiment^ Missouri \"olunteer Infantry, and after four years and seven months
of valiant service he was honorably discharged on November 19, 1865.
Joseph W. Hogan was a heroic soldier and during his service he was
wounded four times, and was engaged in the following battles; Pea Ridge,
which was fought on March 7 and 8, 1862, where he received a flesh wound:
at the battle of Vicksburg he was wounded in the left hip; he was injured
at the battle of Carthage by being hit with a piece of shell ; and at the battle
of Pine Ridge he was shot in the arm by a prisoner he had captured.
When the war was over, Mr. Hogan, in 1866, started for the Pacific
Coast, but on reaching Denver he decided to remain for a time and it was
two years before he again took up his journey westward. He secured a place
as a driver of a six-mule team for Cook & Keith, who were freighting to Salt
Lake City. He stopped there a month, but as the Gentiles were getting too
numerous to suit the INIormons, they were ordered to leave within three days,
so Hogan with about 300 other pilgrims set out on foot for the fort at Lar-
1072 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
amie. ^^'vo. En route, they met Kit Carson, the famous scout, and he was
headed for Salt Lake City' with about 5.000 soldiers. The 300 men joined
him and were outfitted with arms and ammunition and were among the men
who surrounded the city and captured Brigham Young. Air. Hogan went
back to Fort Laramie with the soldiers, received his discharge from the army,
returned to Denver, later went to Nebraska, and still later to jMissouri.
From Alissouri, Mr. Hogan came to California in 1872, in a cattle car,
paying $111 for a one-way ticket and taking twelve and one-half days to make
the trip, finally arriving in San Jose. He soon went to Salinas, stopped there
two years and then came on to Visalia, and a little later went to work in
Squaw Valley for Frank Jordan, a pioneer cattleman. He was in this part of
the country before Fresno County was organized, before a courthouse was
built, and he was a member of the jury that tried the first case in the new
countv. He bought 320 acres in Hill's Valley, farmed five years, then moved
into Tulare County and farmed near Traver till the dry years broke him.
In 1903. he bought twenty acres of stubble near Reedley, began to make im-
provements and now has Thompson seedless and Malaga grapes. He is a mem-
ber of the California Associated Raisin Company and advocates cooperation
and organization as the salvation of the fruit-growers.
Mr. Hogan has been married twice. His first union was in 1863, when
he was united with Miss Eliza Henley, who bore him nine children, seven
of whom are living: Alary F.. Mrs. Cook, in Fresno County; James W., in
Glenn County; Joseph R.. in Santa Cruz Countv; Emmett W., in Shasta
County; Dolly, Airs. Shaw, in Fresno County; Aland, Airs. Furman. in Di-
nuba ; and AA'esley. in Fresno. Airs. Hogan passed away in October, 1887.
and is buried in the Kingsburg cemetery. The second marriage united him
with Airs. Katherine f Crandley) King, a widow with two children : ^^'illiam
O., superintendent of the Colonial Vineyard in Fresno County; and Nellie,
wife of R. S. Thompson, living near Reedley. This marriage was solemnized
January 4, 1888. Airs. Hogan reared her own children as well as the large
"familv left by the first wife. She did all her own work, cooked for twenty-
five men during the busy ranching season, put up her fruit and performed all
other work necessary to carry on a large household, and with no help, other
than what the older children could give. About eleven months after her
marriage to Air. Hogan, a daughter. Cornelia Belle, was born, now the wife
of Arthur Ward of Dinuba.
Joseph W. Hogan is beloved and honored by the community where he
has lived for so many years, and is highly revered for his valiant and un-
selfish service rendered to his country in time of her great need, and if he
had not been prohibited by his advanced years, his friends are confident that
he would have been found with the United States Army "somewhere in
France," intrepidly fighting "to make the world safe for democracy." He
has been a friend of the public school system ; he secured the organization
of the Windsor school district by going before the supervisors with enough
signatures to organize a school and served as a trustee for twelve years. In
politics he is an unswerving Democrat. He is an enthusiast on the subject of
the possibilities of Fresno County.
JAMES M. FERGUSON. — An experienced oil-man who as a path-
breaking pioneer has contributed to the development of the Golden State,
a man of liberal views and charitable tendencies, and the representative of
a prominent old Scotch family, is James AI. Ferguson, who was born in
Lochee, near Dundee, Scotland, on February 12, 1882. the son of John Fer-
guson, a native of the Scottish Highlands. He married .\nnie Aludie, who
was born near Lochee, and was a mariner, traveling around Cape Horn. He
was shipwrecked off San Francisco about 1884. and remained in California.
He settled at Visalia, and in 1886 his family joined him. He was a blacksmith
at Visalia, then set up his shop at Goshen, and soon made a specialty of
drilling for water-wells. He had three or four rigs in the San Joaquin Valley,
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1073
and when oil was struck in the Kern River field, he contracted to drill for
I\Iessrs. Turnbull & Beebe. In 1903 he removed to Coalinga and continued
drilling: and there he and his good wife still make their residence. Five
children were born to this excellent couple: Andrew is superintendent at
Maricopa and employed with the Melita Oil Company; John C. is superin-
tendent of the Zier Oil Company in Coalinga; James is the subject this
review ; Annie is Mrs. Hord of Armona ; and William lives at Coalinga.
The third oldest in the family, James M. came to California and attended
school in various places, according to the location of his parents. He early
helped his father, and from a boy learned how to drill water-wells. The
result was that he was ready for the advent of oil, at Kern River and later
at Coalinga, and took part in the exciting operations in those fields from the
start. In 1903 he came to Coalinga and became producing foreman for the
Peerless Oil Company, and two years later he entered the service of the
Zier Oil Company. \Vith his brother Andrew he leased the holding of the
Zier people, which had two wells, and he drilled eight new ones, and con-
tinued there until 1910. when he sold his interests and accepted a position
with the Spinks Crude Oil Company, as superintendent, and this responsible
position he has held ever since, except the year from July, 1916, to July, 1917,
when he was drilling water-wells. AVith his brother John he drilled the two
water-wells for the city of Coalinga, and then he returned to the Spinks
Compan}^ as superintendent.
Mr. Ferguson was married at Fresno to ]\Irs. Jane (Ashman) Lenhart,
a native of that city; and he had a step-daughter, Elizabeth Lenhart. He
belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was one of the
organizers of the Coalinga War Fund Association.
GEORGE WASHINGTON HENSLEY.— The seventh son in a family
of nine children, George A\'ashington Hensley has the further distinction of
being a native son of Calaveras County, Cal., born February 15, 1857.
His father, John Jackson, and mother, Margaret (Murray) Hensley,
were among the intrepid pioneers of '53, who braved the perils and hardships
of a journey with ox teams across the wilderness that intervened between
their old Missouri farm home and the golden sands of the promised land.
The family, consisting of parents and six children, followed the northern
route via Salt Lake City and the Humboldt River, to Calaveras County, Cal.,
where they established their home. Their experiences in their new home
were similar to those of other pioneers of the early days — hardships endured,
obstacles overcome, and the gradual betterment of conditions as tiie country
grew and developed. Most of the early pioneers were interested in mining,
for a time at least, and Mr. Hensley was no exception. After devoting some
vears to the mining industry, in 1859 he moved to Deep Creek, Tulare
Countv, and engaged in the cattle business. In the fall of 1861 he settled
on the Fresno River, in what was then Fresno County (now Madera
County"), bought a tract of unimproved land and raised stock. He was super-
visor of Fresno County one term, on the Democratic ticket. He died Decem-
ber 25, 1902. His wife, a native of ^Missouri, preceded him six years. She
died at the old home, October 11, 1896. Her father, the Honorable Thomas
!\Iurrav, was active in public afl'airs in Missouri, and at one time served as
a member of the ]\Iissouri legislature. He accompanied the Hensleys across
the plains in 1853 and settled at Petaluma where he engaged in farming.
Of the nine children comprising the Hensley family, a daughter died at
the age of five. The other members of the family are: Thomas J., a stock-
man in Madera County; Samuel P., residing in the same county; Abel H.
and W. C. who reside on the old home place in Madera County ; P. J. and
G. W^, residents of Fresno: John M., ex-sheriff of Fresno County, residing
in Madera ; and Martha A., deceased.
George W., being the seventh son of his father, was called by his
family and acquaintances Doc Hensley and is still known by that name.
1074 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
From a lad he learned the care of sheep, with his father. In 1868 the flood
caught all of his father's sheep below Lane's bridge and all were drowned,
but he started again and made a success. Doc Hensley, when seventeen
years of age, engaged in the sheep business for himself in Tulare County,
near Tipton. In 1877, the dry year Was disastrous and he lost all. He then
worked with the California Lumber Company as foreman till 1880, then
located in Madera and later followed draying and teaming for two years.
Still later he ran the Club Stables on the spot where the Fresno Auditorium
now stands. In 1888 he started boring wells and has continued that occupa-
tion for the past thirty years. He is the oldest in this line of work in Central
California, if not in the whole state. He dug his first well on N Street,
Fresno, and also dug wells at the County Hospital, the County Court House,
the Fresno Fair Grounds and the Jersey Farm Dairy. He bored the first oil
well bored in the Kern River District, Kern County, for the Fresno-Bakers-
field Oil Company. He bored the first well for irrigation and installed the
first pumping plant in Fresno County. Since then this method of irrigation
has become universal.
He is quite ingenious and has made a number of improvements in well-
boring outfits and machinery, one of his inventions being a perforator which
has proven verv successful and is now in general use. In partnership with
his brother, Abel, he owns the old home ranch in Madera County, one-half
section of land devoted to stock-raising.
George W. Henslev was united in marriage with Annie Pennington, a
native of Roseburg, Ore., whose father, J. B. Pennington, crossed the plains
in the early forties with Whitman, settling in Oregon. Her father was a
pioneer and Indian fighter; he died while with our subject, aged over ninety-
nine years. Mr. and Mrs. Hensley are the parents of six children : George
W., Jr., a business man in Clovis ; Warner, with the Fresno Fruit Growers
Association ; Mrs. Elsie Obanion. on the home ranch : Lillian, Mrs. Robinson
of Fresno; Harold, with the California Fruit Exchange and who served in
the United States Navy; and May, graduate of Fresno High School, Class
of 1919.
In his fraternal affiliations Mr. Hensley is a charter member of the
Fresno Lodge of Knights of Pythias.
BELDIN WARNER. — A Californian. who with his devoted wife under-
went severe hardships to accomplish their share of commonwealth building
that those who come after them may inherit and enjoy the blessings, is Bel-
din Warner, the well-known rancher almost four-score years old, who lives
two miles northeast of Selma on Floral x^venue. He was born in Eden Town-
ship, County of Compton, in the Province of Quebec, Canada, on September
26, 1841, the son of Chester Warner, whose birthplace was also the Province
of Quebec, but who came of English blood on his father's side, and of Irish
blood on the side of his mother. Her maiden name was Vilinda Heath, and
she was born in Connecticut. Chester Warner's wife was Sarah Pease before
her marriage, and she came of Scotch blood and was born in Vermont, al-
though both of her parents were natives of Connecticut. One of the Warners
fought in the Revolutionary War, and two of the earliest Warners came over
soon after the Mayflower. Charles Dudley Warner, the famous author and
editor, belongs to the family group.
Brought up under the English flag and sent to the excellent Canadian
schools, Beldin worked on his father's farm there and then for three years
labored in a Canadian saw-mill. On September 27, 1875, when he was thirty-
four vears old, he started for California by way of the Union Pacific and the
Central Pacific Railways, accompanied by an older brother, Walter C. War-
ner, and arriving at Santa Cruz engaged for three years as butter-maker in a
dairy. In 1878 he came to Fresno, and with his brother Walter, who took
shares in the company, and which were paid for in labor, hired out to work
i^viA^^t^^^
CCyi^^p-u^t^ ^ , xfa/U^LeAy^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1079
on the Centerville and Kingsburg ditch, and at one time he was one of its
biggest stockholders. The next year they bought a half section, of 160 acres
each, from the pioneer sheepmen, Fanning Bros., and this has continued to
be the Warner home ever since, although the brother died some twenty years
ago. Farming has always been his occupation, and along with hard work, he
and his family live the simple life. He owns 120 acres, where he grows alfalfa
and has a fine pasture, and he has thirty-five acres of trees and vines. The
ranch is valuable and conduces to contentment and happiness. Since they
came here, in the days when Selma was not yet on the map, they have borne
the toil and heat of the summer day, but they take a just pride in the growth
and development of Central California, and look forward particularly to a
brilliant future for Fresno.
On July 7, 1898, ]\Ir. Warner was married to Miss Anna Swenson, who
was born in Chicago and reared in Central Iowa. Her father was Benjamin
Swenson, a Swede, and he lived in Chicago, and she remembers that her
mother was called Betsy. Mrs. Warner was too young to know much about
her family's history ; she had one sister Charlotte, who became the wife of
a Mr. Thompson ; there was an older brother, John, who was thirteen years
old when she left home, and a younger brother, Samuel, then four years of
age. She has never seen any of her folks since she left Chicago for Iowa,
and she has often been heart-broken over the separation of the family. The
last she recalls of her mother, dying on a sick bed, was her prayer to God
to take care of her little girl. — a prayer that has certainly been ansAvered.
Mrs. Warner's mother died in Chicago when she was five years old, and she
was adopted into an Iowa family, that of 'Mr. and Mrs. F. Barnes, with whom
she came to California, staying tmder their roof for fifteen years. They
settled at .Selma in November, 1881, when she was onlv ein:liteen, and she
attended school at Selma. held in the old Presbyterian Church. She was first
taken by Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Seward, of New Providence, Iowa ; she worked
for her board, studied hard, passed the teachers' examination at Fresno :
taught for two terms in Fresno County, and then went for a year to the Nor-
mal at Los .Angeles, after which she taught for eight and a half years.
Two children have blessed the union (if Mr. and Mrs. Warner: Norval,
who was graduated from the Selma High with the Class of '19. is a member
of the Selma Concert Band ; and Cyrus is a Sophomore in the Selma High
School. Mrs. Warner is a member of the INIethodist Episcopal Church at
Selma, and they both belong to the Red Cross and bought Liberty and Victory
bonds. The Golden Rule has long been the standard of this excellent couple,
and thev have cultivated a public spirit. Air. Warner has never taken a glass
of liquor, although reared in Canada, where every hotel had its bar.
WILLIAM HENRY SAY.— Distinguished as not only a thoroughly
scientific and prosperous horticulturist but also as one of the largest free-
holders at Selma, William Henry Say, one of the most popular citizens of
this section, would merit particular interest and general esteem as the eldest
and worthy son of the late James H. Say, an honored pioneer who was also
a large landowner hereabouts. The father was born and brought up in Ve-
nango County, Pa., and as early as 1853 came out to California by way of
the Isthmus, and for ten years or more was successful as a miner at Placer-
ville. The following decade he was employed in general ranching in Men-
docino County, and in 1874 he first located in Fresno County, wdien he home-
steaded and preempted 320 acres of land lying five miles northeast of what
is now Selma, and later bought railroad land, coming to be a noted holder
of real estate. From time to time he resided in Selma, where he erected the
Renfro House, which was the first good hotel in Selma. but it was burned
down in 1890. He had married Miss Laura Jane Coates, who was born in
Wisconsin, and who became the mother of his four sons and two daughters.
On October 15, 1902, Mr. Sav died.
1080 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The eldest in this family, William Henry was born in Mendocino County,
on August 2, 1864, and after completing his early education in the ditsrict
school, he was well trained by his father in a practical knowdedge of agriculture
and horticulture. In 1884, Mr. Say was united in marriage with Miss Mary E.
DeWitt, a native of Missouri, the ceremony being solemnized in Fresno County
near Selma. Her father came from one of the fine old families in Virginia, but
he early pushed into Missouri as a pioneer, and settled first in Sullivan and
later in Adair County. In 1883. on account of ill-health, he came to Califor-
nia, accompanied by his daughter Mary; and greatly pleased with the climate
of the Golden State, he returned to Missouri in 1884, to bring the remaining
members of his family to California. Upon their arrival, the family located
upon a ranch five miles northeast of Selma, and there he engaged in raising
fruits, grapes and alfalfa, continuing until his death, in 1891, at the age of
fifty-seven. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Say: DeWitt H.,
who died at the age of four; and Harry Lyle, who, responding to the call of
his country, served in the United States Navy, making an enviable record,
given in some detail elsewhere in this work. It is not surprising, therefore,
that Mr. and Mrs. Say are intensely interested in the welfare of the sailors
and soldiers, and were loyal supporters of the Wilson administration in the
conduct of the present war "to make the world safe for Democracy." Mrs.
Say is the active head of the Red Cross at Selma, and is such an untiring
worker that the organization at Selma did heroic service both in work and
in raising money, as may be readily seen from the fact that during the one
month of January, 1918, the Red Cross at Selma raised $400.
In 1888, Mrs. ]\Iadelaine McCidlough DeWitt deeded her thirty-acre
tract, now known as Corona Vineyard, to her daughter and her son-in-law,
namely, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Say, who added to it another thirty acres, which
they purchased, so that they soon owned si.xty acres north of the town, and
subsequently they bought 160 acres of land south of the city, eighty acres
of which he devoted to the culture of grapes, and eighty acres to the raising
of alfalfa. At the present time he is the owner of four ranches, aggregating
460 acres, planted to vines and trees, which are in a high state of cultivation.
In 1898, Mr. Say joined the goldseekers making their way feverishly to
Dawson City, Alaska, and there located at Grand Forks. He purchased Claim
No. 6, above Discovery on the Bonanza Creek, and also Claim No. 48 on the
Eldorado, and there busied himself with mining until October, 1901, when
he returned to California. The next spring he went back to Alaska, and on
May 24, 1902, sold his claims, clearing the snug sum of somewhat less than
seventy-five thousand dollars. By June 12, 1902, he was back again in Fresno
County. Since then, with characteristic enterprise, Mr. Say has been fore-
most in promoting the best interests of the California Raisin Growers As-
sociation, and also the California Peach Growers, Inc. In these various en-
terprises Mr. Say has always had the encouragement and support of liis
equally brave and resourceful wife, who made three trips to Alaska. On her
first journey, in 1899, she took her five-year-old boy with her, but in the
fall of the ne.xt year she came back to California, arranged for the schooling
of her son and returned north the same year, arriving at Dawson on Decem-
ber 30. In October, 1901, she came witli her husband to Selma. and subse-
quently accompanied him on his trip to and from Alaska in the spring of
1902. Like her wide-awake husband, Mrs. Say is highly esteemed in Selma
and vicinity for public-spiritedness and generous support of all movements
for the advancement of the community, and she was the first president of
the Improvement Club at Selma, and directed the club work when the beau-
tiful Lincoln Park was established.
Mr. and Mrs. Say are honored members of the Presbyterian Church,
and were members of the Building Committee when in 1917 and 1918 they
erected the splendid new edifice at the corner of Selma and Mill Streets.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1081
Fraternally, Mr. Say is a member of Selma Lodge, No. 309, I. O. O. F.,
and also of Selma Encampment, No. 176, and Mr. and Mrs. Say are members
of the Rebekahs; and he is also a member of the Woodmen of the World.
When the Centennial of Odd Fellowship was celebrated on April 26, 1919,
that order honored itself as well as Mr. Say by appointing him Grand Mar-
shal to head the memorable parade at Fresno ; and in all the long line of
favorites, none was more wildly acclaimed than good-natured Henry Say.
MRS. LAURA J. SAY. — After a life of strenuous work and pioneering,
Mrs. Laura J. Say, the widow of the late James H. Say, an honored pioneer
of southern Fresno County, is living a quiet and retired life at her beautiful
cottage home, 1819 Young Street, in the city of Selma, Cal. James H. Say
was born in Venango County, Pa., on February 14, 1834, and died at Selma
on October 15, 1902. Like many other young men of his time, he was en-
thused by the glowing reports of gold-mining in California and decided to
seek his fortune in the Golden State. Arriving in San Francisco in 1852. he
soon engaged in placer mining which he continued awhile but later became
interested in merchandising and storekeeping.
In 1863, James H. Say was united in marriage with Laura J- Coates, a
native of Platteville, Wis., the daughter of George I. Coates, who was a
miller in the early days of southwestern Wisconsin. Her mother, in maiden-
hood, was Loretta Jones. Mrs. Say is the seventh child of a family of nine,
five of whom are still living; an older sister of ilrs. Say is the wife of Uncle
Billy Berry whose sketch appears on another page of this history. George
I. Coates was a man of considerable wealth, in Wisconsin, and after selling
out his interests there, he came across the plains in 1862, to California, ac-
companied by his wife and family, including Mrs. Say, who was then an ac-
complished young lad}-, hnxing lieen a school teacher at Platteville, AVis.
An older brother, Henr\' Cnatcs, who was a soldier in the Union Army of
the Civil War, migrated to California after the war had ended.
After their marriage. Mr. and ]\Irs. Say operated a hotel at the placer
mines, for a short time only. Later they moved to Mendocino Countv, where
Mr. Sav followed the trade of a carpenter and joiner, having learned this
vocation in Pennsyh-ania. Four of their children were born in Mendocino
County. Hearing that the United States Go^'crnment was ofifering free home-
stead lands in the great San Joaquin Valley, Mr. Say removed his family to
the southern part of Fresno County and there, near Kingsburg. he pre-
empted 160 acres, and later homesteaded 160 acres more. This ranch he im-
proved and farmed to grain. Learning that cheap railroad lands were to be
had in the vicinity of Parlier, he sold his 320 acres and moved near Parlier
where he purchased 160 acres from the railway company and improved it
by building a home and setting out fruit trees. Mrs. Say still owns eighty
acres of this tract, whicli is now very valuable.
In 1884, Mr. Say built the Renfro House, at Selma. which he owned and
operated for several years until it was destroyed by fire. During its day it
was the chief hostelry in Selma. He moved back to his ranch near Parlier,
but later returned to Selma in order to give the children better school facil-
ities.
Ten years ago Mrs. Say built her beautiful Colonial cottage at 1819
Y'oung Street, Selma, where she is happily ensconced and surrounded by her
children, relatives and old-time friends. Mr. and Mrs. Say were the parents
of six children: AVilliam H. is a rancher near Selma and is perhaps the
largest farmer in that neighborhood, as he is the owner of several ranches ;
he married Miss Mary DeWitt. and they have one child, Lyie H., who is:
also married, his wife having been in maidenhood. Miss Ethel Stoker, of
Parlier. Lyle H. enlisted in the navy, and an interesting account of him is
elsewhere to be found in this work. Grant is the second child ; he resides in
Fresno and is the owner of the remaining eighty acres of the James H. Say
ranch at Parlier. Elnora is now the wife of A\'. L. IMatlock, a dealer in ice at
1082 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Selma and an extensive landowner and farmer ; the Matlock home is located
on the corner of Third and Young Streets, Selma, and Mrs. Matlock is the
president of the Woman's Improvement Club at Selma. Luther was the
fourth child in order of birth; he is a fruit-grower in the Parlier district; his
wife in maidenhood was Lina Tremper, and they are the parents of two chil-
dren : Harry, a student in the University of California, and Kenneth. Maude,
the fifth child, is now the wife of George F. Otis and she is the mother of
three children, Buell, Bernice, and Lawrence. James Halton is the youngest
son of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Say ; he married Miss Blanch Coates and they
are the parents of t\vo children, Glenn and Esther. Mr. James Halton Say
is a rancher and fruit-grower and is located between four and five miles from
Selma.
After meeting and conversing with this very interesting and intelligent
pioneer woman and listening to her reminiscences of early days in Califor-
nia, one cannot fail to be impressed with her unusual business ability and can
readily understand how, through her thrift and self-sacrificing efforts, she
greatlv aided the accumulation of the wealth of the Say family in Fresno
County, and also to appreciate the influence for good which she has exerted
upon the community where she has resided for so many years.
MARIE ARIEY. — Since the foundation of the great commonwealth of
California, France has given freely of her sons and daughters, especially in
the swelling of California's agrarian population. .\ splendid type of Ameri-
can of French extraction, honorable to a high degree in his personal charac-
ter, and industrious, progressive and successful as a viticulturist, is Marie
Ariey, a native of the Hautes Alpes, France, born near Gap, on September
16, 1850. His father was Jaques Ariey, a prosperous and honored farmer of
that region, who died in 1859. His mother, who passed away three years
later, was Marie Jousselme before her marriage. She was the devoted mother
of nine children, "only three of whom are still living. Marie and his brother
Julius, now deceased, were the only ones of this worthy family to come to
the newer and more promising land of America.
Marie Ariey passed his boyhood on a farm in the Sampsaur Valley,
France, a most fertile agricultural country; so that, having finished with the
public school, he had a good chance to learn farming as the French practice it.
When he came to America, he first went to Boston, where he remained for
a time before coming on to the Pacific Coast. It was the day before Christ-
mas, 1873, when he arrived at San Francisco. Tarrying but a short time in
the metropolis, he pushed on to Virginia City, Nev., and tried his luck in
the mines ; but he was not particularly pleased with the novelty, and so
came back to the Sacramento Valley, where, near Georgetown, he found
employment on a farm for five months. At the end of that time, in 1875, he
came to Modesto, where he worked for nine years at one place — the well-
appointed dairy farm of Mr. Clark.
When Mr. Ariey came to Fresno, in February, 1885, he bought forty
acres of the Easterby rancho and set the same out as a vineyard, adding forty
more as soon as he was able. The first trees he set on the place he bought at
a nursery located on the corner of Mariposa and Kay Streets, the present
site of Holland's grocery store. In 1900 he sold the eighty acres on account
of his poor health, and for a year went back to San Francisco. At the end
of the twelve months, however, he concluded that there was no better place,
at least not for him, than Fresno, and to this city he came again, this time
determined to make it his home. He built a place at R Street and Fresno, on
four lots, and at the same time secured sixty acres of land in the Colonial
Helm tract, two miles west of Clovis. As rapidly as he could, he made every
needed improvement, building a residence and setting out vines and trees, and
has since set and reset them, until now he has ten acres of wine grapes, with
the balance devoted to muscatels, a few malagas, and about seven acres in
alfalfa. His ranch is half irrigated from the Gould Ditch, and half from the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1085
Enterprise Ditch. His residence and buildings are equipped with electric
lights, and he has installed a pumping plant and has an electric motor to
work his pump.
Mr. Ariey has had much experience in grape-growing, but not all his
recollections as a ranchman and a viticulturist are of the most pleasant sort.
He has seen the time when he has sold raisins for one and a half cents a
pound, and has been glad to get even that price for what he had ; and he has
gone through some very hard times, when he found it necessary to work out-
side to pay the bills and keep up his vineyard. He has been in all the dif-
ferent raisin associations as both a member and a stockholder ; and now be-
longs to the California Associated Raisin Company.
In May, 1885, Mr. Ariey was married in San Francisco to Miss Alexan-
drina D'Gastervigne, a French belle from the same valley in which he him-
self was born, who came to California to seek her fortune, and found it — in
Mr. Ariey. Four children have blessed their union, but one, Emma, died in
her ninth year. Albert is assisting his father ; Andrew, a graduate of the
high school, is in France, a member of the aviation corps; and Helen, also a
graduate of the high school, is with her parents. The familv attend the St.
Alphonse Catholic Church. Independent in political affairs, Mr. Ariev is a
decidedly public-spirited citizen, ready to help along any good cause and,
with his good wife, always willing to make a special effort for anything that
will advance the interests of Fresno. He has served one term as trustee of
the Easterby school.
ANDY D. FERGUSON.— The distinction of being not only a native
born son of California, 1nit of having parents who were pioneers in the truest
sense of the word, belongs to Andy D. Ferguson, who was born at Kings
River, January 14, 1868, the son of Ed. C. and Louisa (Neiveling) Ferguson.
The father crossed the plains in the memorable year of 1849, the party taking
three years to make the journey to their destination, for their outfit was
raided, and nearly everything of value was taken, including their ox team.
The mother came with her parents at a later date. Upon his arrival in Cali-
fornia, E. C. Ferguson went directly to the mines in Mariposa County, where
he was fortunate in "making a stake ;" and then, in 1856, he came to Fresno
County and engaged in the cattle business. In the early sixties he acquired
large land holdings in the vicinity of Reedley, and while living there in
1866 he was married. This land was put to use as a cattle range until 1882,
when it was disposed of to good advantage. Mr. Ferguson was prominent in
business and financial circles until his death, on December 24, 1882, and will
long be remembered for his substantial aid in the upbuilding of the county.
During the October just previous Mrs. Ferguson had passed away.
Andy C. was the eldest of five children, all of whom were given such
educational advantages as the times and their environment afforded ; and
after attending the public schools of Santa Rosa and Fresno, he completed his
studies at Lytton Springs College. Returning to Fresno, he first engaged
in general insurance for three years ; then, upon attaining his majority, with
ranches in the Wild Flower district, he entered the profitable field of cattle
raising. He was also associated for four years with H. Clay Austin in the
raising of horses.
The energy and executive ability characterizing Mr. Ferguson, whose
interests multiplied, found many and varied channels for expression. For
eight years he was successful in farming in the Del Rev district ; for one year
he acted as confidential agent and buyer of grain ; he held the responsible
position of superintendent of construction for some time ; for seven years he
devoted much time and effort to oil interests : wliile for four years he held
the office of field agent and chief patrol of the state fisli and game coinmission
for conservation, and was game warden of the county. In 190''. lu- was per-
suaded to establish a district office in Fresno, which was to include nine
counties, and he took the position with the understanding that it would
1086 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
occupy only a portion of his valuable time. However, the work increased so
rapidly that he was obliged to devote his entire time to it ; and as a result, on
March 1, 1916, the Fresno office was merged with that at San Francisco,
and he was appointed field agent for the California Fish and Game Commis-
sion, with supervision over all the deputies of the state. His wide experience
in different enterprises peculiarly fitted him for this responsible position,
which he fills with fidelity and intelligence. His resourceful ability and tire-
less energy have been displayed on more than one occasion. During the
fight in Coalinga against county division he took charge and by wise judg-
ment and inherent ability to manage men, the affair was amicably adjusted.
Mr. Ferguson's marriage took place in February, 1889, when he was
joined in wedlock to Miss Arza Patterson, a native daughter whose parents
were John A. and Rebecca Patterson of Visalia, both pioneers. !\Ir. Patter-
son came to Fresno County as early as 1848, and was thus one of the organi-
zers of the county and was also instrumental in the organization and de-
velopment of Tulare County. Until his death he was a prominent factor in
county aft'airs, and he further aided in public progress by serving in the
State Legislature. Mr. and ]\Irs. Ferguson are the parents of five children :
Maude is now Mrs. Edgar C. Smith ; Edgar C, was on the border in Ari-
zona with the First Arizona Infantry when war with Germany was declared,
and he immediately volunteered and saw acti\-e service at Chateau Thierry,
St. Mihie! Salient. Verdun and in the Argonne in an infantry division. He
was honorably discharged in Jnlv, 1919, and is now at home ; Edith is now
Mrs. Kenneth Hughes; Thomas P., left the Fresno High on April 17, 1917,
at the age of nineteen, enlisted in a machine gun battalion and served through
the war; although never in active service at the front, he was overseas five
months. While in France he was transferred to the Twenty-seventh Division
of New York Infantry, machine gun battalion. He was honorablv discharged
in New York City, in May, 1919; and Andy D., Jr. Six grandchildren have
co.me to gladden the hearts of this family, upon whom fortune has bestowed
many a smile.
Mr. Ferguson is of the Protestant faith, and strongly favors Democratic
principles. Since assuming the arduous duties of his present office, he has
devoted time, money and energy to his public duties, and has little time for
social activities. He is particular!}^ interested in the conservation of the flora
and fauna of California, and as a well-known newspaper and magazine writer,
he has dealt with California's great out-of-doors and contributed in partic-
ular to the San Francisco Bulletin, the Fresno Republican and eastern and
western sporting periodicals.
E. B. ROGERS. — One of the interesting things that strikes the student
of early California history most forcibly is the facility with which the pioneer,
face to face with untried problems, made a success of his endeavor just be-
cause he had mastered the great task before him. Such a man was the late
E. B. Rogers, owner of the famous Margherita Vineyard, one of the show-
places of Fresno County, to which favored spot he came in 1882. He was a
native of Troy, N. Y., and was educated in the Troy Polytechnic, where he
made a specialty of mining engineering ; and so thoroughly was he prepared,
and so well-equipped was he naturally for that important and difficult line of
work, that, after coming west, he was engaged as mining engineer in various
places from Canada to the Central American States. Returning to New York
City, he followed his profession in the great metropolis for years and was
much sought for his expert knowledge.
Recalling Central California with favorable impressions, Mr. Rogers
came to Fresno in 1882 and soon after inspected the property now so per-
manently identified with his name ; and the next year he purchased it from
M. Theo. Kearney. The site was in the heart of the Easterby Colony, four
miles east of Fresno, and Mr. Rogers began at once to improve and beautify
the place. His wide travel contributed much to the experience and taste
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1087
necessary; and the results show how well he had profitted from his jaunts
about the western hemisphere.
With his brother-in-law, M. T. Sickal, he set out the row of palms along
the westerly line of the 320 acres, a mile in length, and so handsomely have
these palms grown in height and symmetry that the Margherita Palm Drive
has attracted attention the world over, appearing on postal cards not only
in the United States, but in Europe as well.
Mr. Rogers and Mr. Sickal were very companionable and found much
enjoyment in each other's company. Mr. Sickal's little daughter, Margherita,
spent much time with her uncle Rogers, and manifested more than ordinary
interest in the place ; and it was after her that the vineyard was named.
The park around the house was laid out, and all the trees planted by
Mr. and i\rrs. Rogers, and it is largely due to their intelligent care that it
has become one of the most beautiful private places in the valley. So in-
tensely interested was ;\Ir. Rogers in obtaining the rarest trees, that on a
trip to Europe and while in Rome, he no sooner saw the "pinus pina" (stone
pine) in the parks of the Eternal City (a tree that appears in some of the
paintings by the old masters) than he arranged to have some seed sent him
when it was ripe and cured. They were despatched, in due time, to the
Bureau of Agriculture at Washington, which kept some of the seed, and
sent the balance to Mr. Rogers ; and the latter sent them to the University
of California. The Agricultural Department there planted the seed, and
when they had grown to )^oung trees, they sent the best specimens to Mr.
Rogers, who planted them on his place.
Mr. Rogers set out the vineyard, watched the growth, and reset and
replanted when it was necessary. During these busy years, Mr. Rogers
continued interested in mining, and for his mining interests, he maintained
an office in San Francisco. At the time of the mining excitement in Gold-
field, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers resided there while he maintained an office here.
After the fire in San Francisco — 1906 — they resided on their ranch, and no
little was done by both of them in the building up of Fresno Count}'. Mr.
Rogers died on December 23, 1912, widely mourned by the many who knew
and appreciated his personal and professional worth.
Since her husband's death Mrs. Rogers has carried on viticulture, and
has conscientiously followed out the plans they made together for maintain-
ing the Margherita \'ineyard as one of the splendid places of the county.
GEORGE FINIS CRAIG.— George Finis Craig is the" popular and suc-
cessful dealer in general merchandise at Lanare, in the Summit Lake coun-
try, which is the western terminus of the Laton and Western Railway, being
a part of the Santa Fe system. He occupies a new store building 30x40 feet,
with a wareroom 20x30 feet, which was built by Joe Prandini, and there
keeps on hand a clean and well selected stock of general merchandise.
Lanare has experienced a splendid growth of late. Mr. Prandini has built
a garage, general store building, a shop for a meat market and a confec-
tionery store. Mr. Craig's previous long and honorable career in this county
as ditch tender, rancher and business man gives him a wide range of acquaint-
ances and an enviable reputation for square dealing.
He was born near Vinita, Craig County (then Indian Territory), Okla.
His father, Granville C. Craig, moved thither in 1869 and Craig County,
Okla., was named after him. Granville C. Craig was born in Johnson County,
Mo., while grandfather Craig, helped move Cherokee Indians from Ten-
nessee to Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, in 183S. The grandfather
mo\ed back to Missouri where the father was born and where the grand-
father died. The father was but twenty years old when he came out to
Indian Territory in 1869. He was a farmer and stock-raiser. George Finis
Craig grew up on his father's farm in Craig County. When only eighteen
years of age he went to \''inita and there accepted a position in a orocerv
store for about a year. He then went back to his father's stock farm, and
1088 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
continued at agricultural pursuits until 1905, when he came to Kingsburg,
Cal., where he bought a thirty-acre ranch and improved it, planting it to
vines and trees and for six years prospered well as a horticulturist. Dispos-
ing of his Kingsburg fruit-ranch he went to Alpaugh, Cal., where he bought
and operated a ranch for some time, living, however, in Riverdale. His next
venture was to buy the Riverdale Meat Market which he successfully
operated for thirteen months, when he sold it. He then took a position as
ditch tender for the Burrel and Riverdale Ditch Company holding that posi-
tion satisfactorily for four j^ears.
From August of 1918 until February 1, 1919, he was employed as a
clerk in Hamilton's large general merchandise store at Riverdale, and on
February 1, 1919, he came to Lanare and started up his present business
which is now the main general merchandise store in this promising town.
He is an excellent level-headed business man. who makes and keeps friends
and customers.
Mr. Craig has twice been married. His first marriage took place in
Oklahoma in 1896 when he was united with ]\Iiss Anna Jones by whom he
had one child — a daughter, Anna Jewell — who resides with him at Lanare.
His first wife died ^larch 19, 1899, in Oklahoma. His second marriage also
occurred in Oklahoma, when he was wedded to Miss Minnie Grantham.
Mr. and IMrs. Craig are both prominent members of the Rebekah Lodge
at Riverdale. Mr. Craig does not neglect the social side of life, particularly
among the Odd Fellows is he prominent. He has twice held the office of
Noble Grand, and has taken an active part in the upbuilding of Riverdale
Lodge, L O. O. F.. No. 341.
Aside from his other activities, Mr. Craig bought and improved a forty-
acre alfalfa ranch, two miles northeast of Lanare, which he disposed of to
good advantage before embarking in business at Lanare. Mr. and Mrs. Craig
are now nicely domiciled at Lanare— Riverdale's loss is Lanare's gain.
MRS. MARY A. IMRIE.— The widow of the late Josiah Imrie. a pioneer
settler who located in Round Mountain district, Fresno County, in 1870,
still resides on her ranch eight miles northeast of Sanger. Mrs.' Mary A.
Imrie, in maidenhood, was Mary A. Elliott, the daughter of Joseph S. and
Jane B. (O'Connell) Elliott, natives of Massachusetts and Maine, respec-
tively. Joseph S. Elliott came to California in 1849, via Cape Horn, and nat-
urally rushed to 'the mines where he remained for a time. He then drove
stage to St. Helena. He was married in Napa, in 1860, his wife having come
to California in 1859, also via Cape Horn, and after their marriage they
farmed in Xapa County until 1869, when they located in the Round ]\Ioun-
tain district. They homesteaded a quarter section and preempted another.
The Round Mountain schoolhouse is located on this land, he having donated
the site and having been a member of the original board. Subsequently buy-
ing another quarter section of land, Mr. Elliott engaged extensively in grain-
raising, and at one time filled the important post of county superintendent
of roads. He died in 1893, and his wife preceded him two years. Mr. and
Mrs. Joseph S. Elliott were the parents of two daughters: Mary A., who is
the widow of Josiah Imrie, and the subject of this sketch; and Amanda H.,
Mrs. Alex. Barringer, also of this district.
Mary A. Elliott was born in Napa City, where she attended school, con-
tinuing there after her parents removed and later joining them in Fresno
County, in 1874, where she completed the local school. At her parents' house,
April S' 1877, she was united in marriage with Josiah Imrie, and this union
was blessed with six children: IMargaret, who was Mrs. Allison, is now
deceased • Robert, of Madera Countv ; Elliott, who is also deceased ; William,
a rancher; Walter, in the Aviation Section of the United States Army, serv-
ing overseas ; and George, who is assisting his mother.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1091
Josiah Imrie was born at Delhi. N. Y., where he became a carpenter and
builder. He was a pioneer settler of Napa County, having located there in
1860. afterwards moving to Round Mountain, Fresno County, in 1870, where
he homesteaded one quarter section and preempted another quarter section
of land, improving the quarter that he homesteaded and engaging in raising
grain, also some stock. After selling his property to John Bacon, he pur-
chased the ranch where his widow now resides, which consists of forty acres
and moved there in 1908. This place has been nicely improved since they
purchased it and is now devoted to vines and fruits. On September 17, 1915,
Josiah Imrie passed away, his loss being lamented by many. Since his death
I\Irs. Imrie continues to operate the ranch, assisted by her son, George. She
holds membership in the CaHfornia Associated Raisin Company and the
California Peach Growers, Inc.
Mrs. Mary A. Imrie is beloved for her many kindly and gracious deeds.
Since the death of her daughter, Mrs. Margaret Allison, her home circle has
been increased by the addition of her two grandchildren: Zella May and
Imrie Allison, whom she has reared from babes and who make their home
with her, the former being a graduate of Sanger High School. Mrs. Imrie's
life is full of benevolence, and she is always helping others, and is much
esteemed for her many charities and kindnesses.
WILLIAM H. McKENZIE. — A liberal and enterprising citizen, and an
upbuilder of the best interests of county and state, the late A\'iniam H.
AIcKenzie was one of the most widely known and honored men of Fresno
County. The son of a pioneer and himself born among the primitive condi-
tions of an early civilization, his efforts were laid along the lines of the be-
ginning of a statehood, the development of natural resources and the pro-
motion of enterprises calculated to promote the growth of the community's
interests. A business man of unusual executive ability, unerring judgment,
conservative yet progressive ideas, he made a personal success, and in addi-
tion to the position accorded him as a factor in pioneer enterprises he also
held the esteem of his fellow citizens for these qualities which distinguished
his character.
The jMcKenzie family is of Scotch-Irish ancestry, County Sligo, Ireland,
being their home for several generations. Alexander McKenzie, the grand
father of \A'illiam H., was a large landowner in that locality, a gentleman
of means and education, who gave to his family every possible advantage.
James jMcKenzie. the father of \\'illiam H.. was born in County Sligo, came
to New York about 1848, and in 1853 he joined the United States Army. The
regiment was ordered to the Pacific Coast to subdue the Indians in 1854. The
soldiers traveled by steamer to Aspinwall. thence across the Isthmus on
mule-back, thence by steamer to San Francisco, then to Benicia, and by land
to Fort Miller. Mr. ]\IcKenzie became sergeant in the company, with Cap-
tain Lozier commanding. They remained at Fort Miller until being ordered
to Oregon to serve in the Indian wars. At the end of his enlistment, in 1858.
Sergeant ^IcKenzie was honorably discharged, and as a citizen of CaHfornia
he began raising sheep and cattle on a ranch just above the Fort. He re-
mained in that location and occupation until his death, January 1, 1864. He
was married in New York, in 1854, to Ann Brennan. a native of County Sligo,
born November 7, 1826, and who came to the United States in 1848 to visit
a sister. Her wedding journey was a trip to the West, and as did her hus-
band, she rode a mule across the Isthmus of Panama. She made her home
at the Fort up to the time of her husband's discharge, owning their quarters
there until 1861, when they sold out and located on the ranch. She after-
wards became the wife of Judge Charles A. Hart.
Of the three children born to his parents, A\"illiam H. McKenzie was
born at Fort Miller, in Mariposa County (now Fresno County), March 10.
1857. He was reared to young manhood on the farm, which is still in pos-
1092 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
session of the family and which now comprises 10,000 acres on the San Joa-
quin River, and on the ranch is located the old Fort and the town of Miller-
ton, and the old courthouse of Fresno County. For many years this old fort
formed the residence of the family. Mr. McKenzie was educated in the public
schools at Fort Miller, after which he was graduated from Heald's Business
College at San Francisco in 1873, and the following year he returned to his
home and soon after was appointed a deputy, under SheriiT J. S. Ashman,
after which he acted as deputy clerk, assessor and tax collector. In 1879 he
was elected county assessor and the adoption of the constitution extended
his term about three years. In 1882 he became interested in the abstract
business which was later incorporated as the Fresno Abstract Company, he
being a director for years and the largest stockholder. At the same time
that he was engaged in farming he was also interested in mining and the
oil-well business, meeting with success in both lines. With Mr. Griffith he
was active in building the electric railway, and after it was built the com-
pany bought the old road and formed the Fresno Electric Railway Company,
of which Mr. McKenzie was a director and manager. The company expanded
their lines and put in new equipment and finally sold out in 1903. Mr. Mc-
Kenzie was active in developing the Mud Spring Mine in Madera County,
and also gold mines in Fresno and surrounding counties. He was one of the
men to get into the "oil game" at an early period, in Kern County, and waS
interested in several producing companies : he was also interested in the
Coalinga field.
In Healdsburg, Cal., ^Ir. McKenzie was united in marriage with Carrie
E. Hoxie, who was born at Millerton. a daughter of Clark Hoxie. a pioneer
farmer and one of the first supervisors of the county. To ]\Ir. and Mrs.
McKenzie five children were born: Alfred H. : \\'illiam T. ; Richard ; Donald;
and Truman.
Mr. McKenzie was a Democrat and served as treasurer of Fresno City
for twelve years; he was a member of the county and city Democratic com-
mittees ; a member of the board of fire and police commissioners and of the
Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of the Odd Fellows of Fresno
and a past officer. He died at his home. December 21, 1909. mourned by all
who ever knew him.
Since the death of Mr. McKenzie his property remains intact as a trust
estate under the management of his eldest son, Alfred H. McKenzie. In
1913 the estate in conjunction with S. N. Griffith erected the Griffith-McKen-
zie Building, a ten-story Class A steel structure that is the largest of its
kind not only in Fresno County but in the San Joaquin Valley.
JOHN JONSEN. — As a pioneer merchant of Fresno John Jonsen proved
the value of his citizenship and the integrity of his character. A native of
Preston, Ontario, he followed the shoe business from boyhood. In 1878 Mr.
Jonsen arrived in Fresno, at that date a town of twelve hundred people. After
his arrival, he opened a small shoe shop on the corner of I and Mariposa
Streets. He later moved to 1937 Mariposa Street and remained in business
at that location for twenty-three years. T. J. Kirk was Mr. Jonsen's first
partner, under the firm name of Jonsen & Kirk ; at the end of three years
Kirk sold out and went east for three years ; returning, he again bought in
with ]\Ir. Jonsen, and the firm was then Kirk & Jonsen, until Mr. Kirk was
elected state superintendent of public instruction and moved to Sacramento.
In 1890 A. D. Olney became a partner, and the firm name was then as it
now stands, Olney & Jonsen. For one year Mr. Jonsen retired from the
business on account of ill health, and bought a forty-acre vineyard at Malaga
and engaged in outdoor work.
A public-spirited and influential man, Mr. Jonsen was foremost in all
plans for the promotion of the public welfare, and gave all such movements
the benefit of his keen judgment and wise cooperation. A man of broad and
charitable views, he aided every movement for the advancement of educa-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1093
tion. morality, and the well being of the community. When the new Odd
Fellows Building was erected, on the corner of I and Merced Streets, Mr.
Jonsen was chairman of the committee of five who had charge of the raising
of funds and erecting the building.
Mr. Jonsen's marriage, in Sparta, 111., in 1875, united him with Margaret
Young, a native of that city, and three children were born to them, now all
deceased : ]\Iary, a musician and accomplished pianist, who died aged twenty-
one ; John, Jr., a graduate of the Hastings Law School of San Francisco,
who started a weekly paper called the Fresno Saturday Night, which was
later sold to the Sunday Mirror; Arnold, who was in the insurance business,
and later with his father in the store. Mr. Jonsen passed away in Fresno on
January 5, 1916.
During her many years of residence in Fresno, Mrs. Jonsen was an active
member of the First Presbj'terian Church ; she was the soprano in the church
choir for many years.
GEORGE COSGRAVE. — A native of California, George Cosgrave was
born in Calaveras County, California, on February 20, 1870, the son of Michael
Cosgrave who came to California in the early fifties about the same time or
soon after Mark Twain was searching for gold in the region he later made
so famous through his "Jumping Frog" story — that inimitable contribution
to not only western but world literature — and like Mark also followed placer
mining in Calaveras County. He had married Margaret Pyne. who proved
just the help-mate to him required for that trying formative period and place.
Growing up with the usual indifferent school opportunities, Mr. Cos-
grave's ambition led him to matriculate at the San Jose Normal School from
which he was graduated in 1889, and thereafter he devoted himself to teach-
ing, thus becoming one who early helped to lay the foundation for popular
education in the Golden State. Pedagogy, however, was not his ultimate
aim, and he continued to direct the training of youth only so long as it Avas
necessary to master the pages of Blackstone and other learned legal works.
In 1895 Air. Cosgrave was admitted to the bar, and since then he has more
and more come to the front in the community with which he is so honorably
connected.
On June 1, 1904, at Alameda, Mr. Cosgrave was married to Miss Irene
Copeland. the daughter of Isaac and Ellen G. Copeland, a native daughter
representing another pioneer family with an interesting history. Her father
was an hydraulic miner in the days when that phase of engineering absorbed
the keenest of minds; and the mother was among the earliest white children
born in Butte County. One child, a daughter named Margaret, has blessed
this fortunate union. Mr. Cosgrave is a Mason, having been master of Fresno
Lodge, No. 247, F. & A. M., in 1900.
A Republican in matters of national politics, Mr. Cosgrave has also done
good civic duty by serving on the Fresno board of education to which he was
appointed in 1897 arid elected in 1917.
WALTER L. CHOISSER.— Hard-working, experienced and successful
dairy ranchers and breeders of registered cattle and hogs, Mr. and Mrs.
Walter L. Choisser, who started life together, in their youth in Califorina,
are deserving of more than ordinary interest on account of their memberships
in well-known pioneer families. They own and operate a twenty-acre dairy
ranch two and a half miles west and half a mile south of Riverdale.
Mr. Choisser was born in Mariposa County, on May 18, 1880, the son of
LaFayette Choisser, a French-American hailing from Indiana, who had
married Miss Julia Riley in Illinois, in which state she was born. He was
a constable and deputy sherifif of Mariposa County, and his fame is still
talked of there on account of exceptional courage displayed by him during
the troubles between the rangers and the Indians, — an absorbing story told
in detail in the Fresno Republican of September 30, 1917. His greatest act
1094 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUXTY
of bra\'erv occurred in January, 1878, when Indian Willie, accused of having
murdered' Jonas Thompson, a ranger of the Chowchilla district, was placed
on trial in the wooden courthouse in Mariposa, and some half a hundred
rangers, under the leadership of a giant Kentuckian, watched the trial in
and around the court-room, and only awaited the moment when they could
relieve the sheriff of all responsibility in disposing of the prisoner, as they
had previously endeavored to relieve the county of the expense of the trjal.
Unknown to the revengeful members of the Chowchilla band (some of
whom were looked upon as likely to know more about the murder than did
the poor Indian), LaFayette Choisser, riding a saddle horse and leading an-
other, met the sheriff and prisoner at the back stairs of the court house and,
running the gauntlet of the crowded streets, dashed madly off for ]\Ierced,
followed by the prisoner strapped to the saddle, and the jail, fifty miles
away. Within ten minutes, many of the rangers were dashing off, too, and
far in the lead of the band, and liot after the fleeing couple, was the tall and
powerful Kentuckian, swinging his heavy gun. The ten minutes' gain on
the side of the Frenchman was counterbalanced by the burden of the half-
dead Indian, whose spirits he tried to keep up. Beyond Princeton, six miles
out, the road divided into what was then a thicket of oak so dense that the
fork was invisible a rod away: Choisser took the branch to the old Buck-
ingham toll-road, smooth as glass but with many treacherous turns and open
spaces, and the Kentuckian, with unerring frontier instinct, hurled himself
after him along the same devious route. Into Hornitos, twenty-four miles
covered, pursued and pursuer rode, the former able to effect a change of
horses at the little stable ; but the steeds supplied were not equal to those
started out with, and it was a wonder that for them darkness dropped as
the ofificer and his prisoner, now unstrapped and armed with a revolver,
crossed the bridge over Bear Creek and rushed into the town of Merced. No
telephone or telegraph had foretold their coming, so that it was doubly
luckv that the jailer was on hand to open the prison door and, almost in the
face of the cursing pursuer, to swing back the iron door. LaFayette Choisser
looked at his watch. Fifty miles over mountains, foothills and plains they
had ridden in exactly four hours, and the ten minutes' gain at the start had
never lessened. To Hornitos neither could boast the better horse, but there
Black Bess had been left, while the poor Kentucky charger with its heavy
burden had plunged on through the entire stretch with but one drink of
water. LaFayette Choisser w^as a hero; but one night in the eighties (after
he had ceased to do sheriff work and had become the superintendent of the
old Fremont Grant and also superintendent of the Mariposa Commercial
and Mining Company), his dearly loved horse came back alone to the Chois-
ser home in Bear Valley and turning, mutely led a party of searchers over the
mountain to the Merced Canyon where, six miles below Benton Alills. now
Bagbv, on the river bank the little Frenchman lay dead. "He told nothing
then, as he told nothing in life, and only his Creator knows the story" of his
"damnable taking off."
La Fayette Choisser was only forty-five years old when he was killed :
besides his widow (who died also aged forty-five), he left seven children,
all of whom are now living. Nancy has become Mrs. J. B. Trabucco of Bear
Valley ; Phil is in business at Riverdale ; another daughter is Mrs. S. E.
Ball of Le Grand, Cal. ; Joe resides at Livingston ; John works at mining in
the Yosemite Valley, but owns a ranch near Kerman ; Walter L. is the sub-
ject of this review; and Daisy is Mrs. Condrey of Riverdale.
\\'alter grew up in Bear Valley, but he hardly recalls his father, who
died when he was four years old. He remembers that he saw him ride off
on his horse — his last ride ; and he also remembers viewing his father's re-
mains lying in the coffin, when someone lifted him up so that he could see.
He attended the short-termed district school at Bear Valley and had only
very meager educational advantages.
>^^^t^
/f.
a^^7<.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1097
At Bear Valley, on October 5, 1902. he was married to Miss Alinnie M.
Ball, the daughter of R. F. and Lizzie (Kaler) Ball, the former being a real
estate agent at Le Grand. He is the very interesting person who superin-
tended the hauling-out of the gigantic World's Fair California redwood tree,
moving it from Converse Basin, in Fresno County, to Visalia in 1892, and
there loading it on the cars to Chicago. Mrs. Choisser was born in Kansas,
and from there was brought to California when an infant; and in Fresno
County she grew to maturity.
After his marriage, Mr. Choisser settled at Riverdale and set to work to
improve his twenty-acre ranch. Originally, these twenty acres were a part
of the John's Ranch, but they tell a different story now that they are im-
proved with a well-liuilt house, barn and other outbuildings, forming a stock
ranch. Of late, Mr. Choisser has entered a new field and is breeding full-
blooded Holstein-Frisian cattle and Poland-China hogs, duly registered. He
has four full-blooded registered cows, a bull and two heifer calves ; and he
has three registered Poland-China sows. Having begun their hard struggle
together with very little money, and little by little bought their place and
worked themselves out of debt, they are now beginning to invest their sur-
plus money in this new field.
Mr. and Mrs. Choisser ha\e had two children — \\'alter, who died when
he was four years old, ami l".\-crrtt, who died when he was thirteen. Mr.
Choisser takes a live interest in civic affairs, though not a politician, and
marches \\-itli national issues under the banners of the Republican Party.
HENRY RAMACHER.— One of the best-known builders-up of Fresno
County, a fine old gentleman, whose influence has been especially potent be-
cause of his reputation for uprightness and honesty, is Henry Ramacher, a
pioneer of the early eighties. He was born in the Rhine provinces of Ger-
many, near Elberfeld, June 1, 1843, the son of Henry Ramacher, a harness-
maker and saddler, who in 1853 brought his wife and six children to America,
sailing from Havre, France, on the sailing vessel Ocean Home. After a
voyage of seven weeks they landed in New Orleans, and then came up the
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Evansville, Ind., and thence by rail to Vin-
cennes, finally locating near Linton, in Greene County. There he settled on
a farm, and there he died. His wife, who had been Mary Hochwar, also
died there, the mother of six children, of whom Henry is the only one living
and the only one who came to California. His youngest brother John had
gone to Mississippi to establish himself in the harness business : and there
he was pressed into the Confederate Army and served in Kentucky until
he had a chance to desert. Then he came to Illinois, and finally died in
Indiana.
Brought up on a farm, Henry Ramacher was educated at the public
schools, attending for a while a school that was held in a log cabin ; and when,
at the age of nineteen, he lost his father, he continued to manage the home
farm for his mother, and ran it until she died in 1872. Then he bought the
farm and conducted it as his own, making some reputation thereabouts as
a successful husbandman.
Desiring, however, to locate in California, Mr. Ramacher sold out and
brought his wife and three children to California in 1884. After carefully
examining into the claims of the several sections of the state, he located in
Fresno County, and here for a while he followed stock-raising. Then he took
up vineyarding, and when he had mastered its details he bought twenty acres
in the Kutner Colony. He did not like the situation, however, so he let the
holding go, and then purchased eighty acres in the northeastern part of Kut-
ner Colony, twelve miles northeast of Fresno. There he set out a vineyard to
Tokay and Malaga table grapes and muscat raisins, and planted a small fam-
ily orchard. He had over forty-three acres in the vineyard. The rest of the
farm he planted to alfalfa. Soon his experience brought him a reputation of
1098 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
commercial value, and his services were in demand for setting out and caring
for hundreds of acres of vineyards owned by other people.
\^'hile in Indiana Mr. Ramacher had married Miss Mary Fainot, a native
of Louisville, Ohio, and the daughter of French parents ; and with her he
lived very happily until she died in 1909. He continued to manage the
ranch until 1913, when he leased it to his son and bought the residence at
1628 White Avenue, Fresno. From the time of the formation of the first
raisin association here, Mr. Ramacher has actively supported every movement
designed to advance the interests of that industry, and he is now a stock-
holder as well as a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
Public-spirited to a very commendable degree, Mr. Ramacher has al-
ways been ready to serve his fellow citizens when he could, and has acted
as school trustee in the Kutner Colony school district for twenty-two years,
or until he moved away ; part of the time being clerk, and part of the time
president of the board of trustees. He helped build both the first and second
schoolhouse in Kutner Colony. Fond of social life, he was made a I\Iason
in the Bloomfield Lodge, in Indiana, and was a Past Master there; and he
used to be a member of the O. E. S., and is an Ancient Odd Fellow; but he
finds his greatest social delight in the company of his children, of whom he
has eight. They are: Leroy, who lives at the old home ranch; Vernv. now
Mrs. Michael, residing near Clovis ; Leonard, who is a rancher in the Kutner
Colony ; Henry, a rancher living near Rolinda ; Mary, who presides over her
father's house; Annie, better known as Mrs. Campbell of Biola ; Bismarck,
who is in the United States Army, serving in France as a corporal ; and Hen-
rietta, who is at home.
LEVI NELSON FINCHER.— A man of unusual intelligence and learn-
ing, though practically self-educated. Levi Nelson Fincher has left his mark
in the world as one who was honorable and upright in all his dealings, deeply
religious, though never obtrusively so, and well read and informed in the
world's doings during his full and useful life. A native of North Carolina,
he was born October 30, 1830. His father brought the family to Missouri
when Levi was a child of less than six years, and there they settled on a
farm, in Osage County. The small boy's schooling was limited as there was
no school system in Missouri in those early days, and he had only one year
of school, the balance of his education he received at the hands of his father
and older sister, who were both well educated ; his first instruction was from
the Bible, and he was a great student all his life. He became a well-informed
and scholarly man, able in later life to quote whole chapters from the most
ancient of all books.
On reaching manhood. Mr. Fincher followed farming in ^Missouri for a
time, but he was of too enterprising a spirit to remain there long, and in 1850
he came to California via Panama and here followed mining two years. At
the end of that time he returned to Missouri and married Paulina Moore,
born in Tennessee on February 18, 1830, a daughter of Patrick Moore of
Virginia, a man of Scotch and Irish extraction, who took for his wife Sarah
Elston of Frankfort, Va.
After his marriage Mr. Fincher lived in Missouri for a few years, then
removed to Kansas, where he farmed. He again heard the call of the ^^'est,
however, and returned to California, this time bringing a wife and five chil-
dren across the plains in ox teams and wagons in 1862. On their arrival
they located in Sacramento County, for about one year, then came to Stanis-
laus County where he took up land near what is now Riverbank, and improved
a farm of 320 acres. Here the family resided for twenty-five years. In the
meantime Mr. Fincher bought land in Fresno County, and moved here in
1884. He purchased 800 acres for twenty-five dollars per acre, a quotation
that goes to show the difference in land valuation between those early days
and the present era. Besides these large holdings Mr. Fincher rented other
land and became one of the large grain raisers of this section. He later laid
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1099
out Fincher Colony and intended to sell off small tracts Ijut he was more
farsighted than the majority of men at that time and the ranch remained as
a whole until his death, in 1899. The wife and mother passed away in 1907.
Mr. Fincher was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
To this most worthy pioneer couple twelve children were born: Mar-
garet Alice, Mrs. Evans of San Diego; Mary C. Mrs. G. D. Wooten of Santa
Cruz; Robert, of Hanford ; J. Al., residing in Fresno; l\Iamie, Mrs. J. B. High
of Madera ; J. P., a viticulturist in Fincher Colony ; Letitia ; William Francis '
of Fresno ; Elizabeth of Fresno ; Vital ; Bangs, viticulturist of Fincher Colony ;
Tillie, of Fresno.
A truly good man and one whose memory is respected by all who came
in contact with his wonderful personality, Levi Nelson Fincher as a pioneer
of Fresno County was an example of the best fiber of California's growth.
It is such men as he who have laid the foundation for the state's present
remarkable standard, and Fresno County has exceeded in its quota of real
upbuilders.
EDWARD D. VOGELSANG.— The success attained in life by E. D.
Vogelsang, one of the leading ranchers and vineyardists of Fresno County,
is due to efficiency, coupled with close application to business. He is a
native Californian, born in Calaveras County, April 5, 1863, a son of Henry
and Anna (Vennigerholz) Vogelsang, the former came to California in
1852 and the latter in 1856, making the journey via Panama. They were
the parents of ten children : Henry, was killed in a railroad accident at Santa
Barbara, he left a widow and four children ; Charles A., is connected with
the C. A. Hooper Lumber Company of San Francisco ; Alexander T., is
Assistant Secretary of the Interior at Washington, D. C. ; Edward D. ; Julius,
was in the government civil engineering department and was killed in a
landslide while on a tour of inspection. He left a widow and one child;
Dorothy, is principal of one of the San Francisco schools ; Carl Theodore,
is a captain in the LTnited States Navy, a graduate of Annapolis, now com-
mander of the dreadnaught, Idaho ; Nellie, is the wife of F. A. Eckstrom, of
Stockton; Emma, is matron at the county hospital at Stockton; Anna, is
the widow of William Bechtel and resides in San Francisco. The father died
at the age of seventy-eight, and the mother aged sixty-four.
Until the age of thirteen Edward D. Vogelsang attended the country
schools, and after finishing at the city schools in Stockton, engaged in the
manufacture of paper in Stockton, using for the firm name the caption.
The California Paper Mill Manufacturers of Newspaper and Wrapping
Paper. He was also interested in the real estate and insurance business.
Since a young man twenty-four years of age, Fresno County has been
the scene of his activities. In the year 1888 he located at Huron, Fresno
County, where he erected a grain warehouse and engaged in buying and sell-
ing grain, representing ]. D. Peters of Stockton and the Eppinger Company
of San Francisco, Cal. He also followed the insurance business, insuring
crops, cattle, etc., and was constable of the Sixth Township. During this
interval he was interested in raising grain and in buying and selling grain
lands in that district. In those early days barley sold as low as forty-five
cents and wheat sixty-eight cents per hundred.
In 1899 he came to Fresno to make his home and for eight years served
as deputy sheriff under J. D. Collins. For the past twenty years E. J. Good-
rich has been his partner in grain farming, and at present they are farming
3,000 acres of grain land. In 1907 Mr. Vogelsang left the sheriff's office and
has devoted his time to grain farming on the west side. The mule power
used in his work in the grain business in early days has been superseded by
the caterpillar engine and tractor, with which he now does all his work. His
recent record of seeding 4.500 acres of barley in sixty days is well known.
Some years his barley crop has yielded as high as thirty-six sacks to an acre.
and grain forty sacks to an acre. He is the owner of sixty acres on Chit-
1100 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
tenden Avenue, twenty acres of which are planted to muscat grape-vines,
twenty acres to j\Iuir peaches, and twenty acres are a mixed orchard. He
also owns 100 acres on Shields Avenue, twenty of which is in muscats and
twenty in Muir peaches. "Sir. Vogelsang was one of the original locaters of
the Fresno Oil Company, in the Coalinga district in 1889, the first discovery
of oil in the county. The venture was unsuccessful.
He married Eleanor Toomey, a native of San Joaquin County, Cal. Two
children have blessed their union: Margaret and Edward, school children.
Fraternally Mr. Vogelsang is a member of the Woodmen of the World.
A man of liberal views and generous impulses, he is noteworthy among the
self-made, successful men of Fresno County.
JOHN LEVIS. — An experienced and successful ranch owner whose
name is closely associated with the development of Fresno County is John
Levis, who is residing on a fine ranch three miles southwest from Parlier.
He is a progressive citizen and a ^on of the late Mahlon Levis and his wife
Mariah Elizabeth (Oldenl Levis, well known in the Selma district as one'
of the representative pioneers.
He was born on January 22, 1878, grew to manhood on his father's
ranch and from him learned the details of agriculture and since then has
been engaged in agricultural and horticural pursuits in this county. His
education was received in the common schools of the county and at the age
of twenty-seven he was united in marriage with Marion Freeland, daughter
of Mrs. James Freeland, who came from Scotland to California and settled
first in Santa Cruz County. When l\Ir. Freeland died, his widow married
Mr. Arrants, one of the pioneers of Selma district.
Mr. Levis received forty acres from his father's estate, which was dis-
tributed among his children before he died, he retaining 100 acres for him-
self. Five years after receiving his gift, he added to his holdings another
twenty adjoining, buying the same from his father. He later added twenty
acres after his father's demise, part of the original acreage. For the most
part the land was used for grain raising when he first obtained it, but by
hard labor he has transformed it into a fine tract of peaches, apricots and
grapes. The ranch buildings are of the modern kind, equipped with the con-
veniences of a city home. The ranch is well watered by the Kingsburg and
Centerville ditches and a pumping-plant.
Mr. Levis' mother died in Selma when she was sixty-five. His father
reached the age of ninety-two. Three children have been born to Mr. and
Mrs Levis: Mary Elizabeth; John; and Geraldine. Mrs. Levis is a Presby-
terian. Of his ranch, Mr. Levis has rented out seventy acres and ten acres
are worked by himself. In 1916 he moved into Selma where he bought prop-
erty at 2.^04 Logan Street. This move was made in order to give the children
the opportunity of the city schools.
ANTON LARSEN. — Among those who have made good on the Laguna
de Tache Grant must be mentioned Anton Larsen, who, now seventy-three
years old, owns a well-improved ten-acre home ranch on the south side of
Mt. Whitney Avenue, a short distance west of Laton, where he now lives in
comfort. He also owns another tract of fifty acres, which is partly covered
with timber, but will in time with clearing and cultivation make fine alfalfa
land. He persists in his habits of industry acquired in early life and he may
be found any day busy at work. Any time that can be spared after attend-
ing to the necessary work on his own holdings, is gladly given to helping
out his neighbors, one of whom recently said : "Andy is more dependable
and can do more hard work today, than the majority of young men." Anton
Larsen comes by his unusual strength of body and mind honestly. His an-
cestors were Danes, that industrious and hardy race, which has had so much
to do with the establishment of political and economical freedom. He was
born in Jutland, Denmark, November 11, 1846, was brought up in his native
^^
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1103
country where he was schooled and where by apprenticeship he learned the
cooper's trade, after which he performed military service for one and one-
half years in the Danish army. But his hopes for the future were in America,
of which he had read and studied, and arriving at New York, he went up to
Amsterdam. New York state, and became a farm laborer. From there he
went out to the state of Iowa, where he worked on farms near Cedar Rapids
and Iowa City. He then went to Milwaukee, ^^'is.. and there found work as
a cooper for three years, after which he went to New York City, engaging
at his trade on Staten Island. He then made a three-month visit back to
Denmark after which he again returned to New York City, engaging at his
trade for another year. He then resolved to see the Golden State, and came
out to San Francisco, where he worked at his trade for two and a half years,
then returned East working as a journeyman cooper in New York. St. Paul,
Minn., and in the Black Hills country, before coming back to San Francisco,
after which he was ^•ariously engaged at Saint Inez and Lompoc. Santa
Barbara County, going thence to Pine Ridge in Fresno County, where he
engaged in a sawmill, and then came to the Laguna de Tache Grant, en-
gaging as a Avood chopper at first. This section appealed to Mr. Larsen and
he has remained here ever since and invested his earnings in land and has
attained a verv fair degree of success. He is an excellent workman and a
man of rigid honesty.
JOHN W. HUMPHREYS.— The California of early days is onlv a
memory in the minds of a few of the old pioneers who are rapidly passing
to their reward, but the pictures that hang on Memory's walls have been
sketched by the pen of many writers, and other equally able settlers are
from time to time adding to the invaluable collection. Fresno was not in
existence in 1S67, the year when John ^^^ Humphreys, now deceased, settled
in this county. He had been born in Athens, Ala., on January 11, 1830. and
his father was Alexander Humphreys, a native of Kentucky.
He descended from an old \\^elsh family that came from England to
Virginia in early Colonial days, and whose name was spelled "Home-fries"
by the people of Wales, meaning householder, while in England it was
Anglicized to Humphreys. From Virginia the family scattered into various
Southern states. Alexander Humphreys moved to Arkansas in 1833. where
he improved a farm, raised a family of twelve children and resided there
until he followed his son to California, and spent his last days in Los Angeles.
John W. Humphreys received his education in the public schools and
afterwards gained a richer knowledge in the fuller school of life, profiting
thereby more than the average of men who have braved perils and hard-
ships in the van of civilization ever marching toward the West. He came
to California in the year 1852. then a young man twenty-two years of age,
having crossed the plains with ox teams by way of Texas and going from
San Diego to San Francisco by boat, and thence to the mines in Tuolumne
County. In 1860 he went to Mariposa, where he engaged in the occupation
he followed the greater portion of his life — the saw-mill business.
In the year 1863, Mr. Humphreys was married to Miss Martha Flinn,
who was born in Cape Girardeau County, IMo.. February 23. 1843, and also
crossed the plains, in 1860, with her father, William E. Flinn. Ten children
were born of this union, six of whom have survived: Emma is the wife of
J. E. Paddock, the manager for the El Paso Milling Company at El Paso,
Texas: Anna is Mrs. Hugh Maxwell, of Evanston, 111.; John W.. Jr., is an
horticulturist near Fresno; Mrs. Clara B. Lehr is also living in this county;
Rav resides in Madera, and Miles O., whose life-story is given in greater
detail elsewhere in this work, is the well-known real estate man of Fresno.
Some of these children also have children, so that IMr. Humphreys' descend-
ants number thirteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. The chil-
dren who early passed away were: Elizabeth, who died when she was two
years old ; Ernest, who succumbed at twelve ; Alattie. whose career closed
1104 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
in her twenty-first year, having just completed a course at the Stockton
Business College ; and Herbert, who was six years old.
In 1867, Mr. Humphreys moved his mill to Fresno County, and settled
six miles from Tollhouse on Pine Ridge, where he lived until 1874. The coun-
try was at that time very sparsely settled, the principal population being
peacefully disposed Indians, whom he employed in the woods and mill. There
were no schools and no white people nearer than the post office at Millerton,
twenty-two miles away. ]\Irs. Humphreys and her sister, Mrs. Clara Mock,
were the first white women in that neighborhood, and their ranch was nearly
thirty miles from the nearest doctor, at Centerville. There were no roads.
They cut the timber and made the roads when he pulled the machinery up
the hills by ox teams. He helped build the Tollhouse grade which has since
become famous as the scene of automobile hill-climbs and contests. — a rise
of two thousand feet in two miles, the same grade he established. They
sold their lumber to the settlers at Smith's Ferry on Kings River, who
bought the lumber as fast as it was sawed. They made plenty of money,
and died very well-to-do. And in the vicinity of their toil, their children
were brought up and educated.
In 1874, Mr. Humphreys sold the mill to Henry Glass and Jeff Donahoo,
and for two years he was out of the saw-mill business. Then, in partnership
with Closes Mock, he again entered the field, building and operating three
different mills in that locality, one of which, the Bonanza, he afterwards sold
to C. D. Davis. This was located a mile south of the present site of Shaver.
He continued this work until 1891, when they sold, and dissolved partner-
ship. In 1892. in partnership with John Sage, he operated a saw mill one
mile southeast of Ockenden, continuing there for two years, when he sold
out and retired to his ranch-home at Tollhouse, where he owned a section
of land and was engaged in stock-raising.
During his busy life Mr. Humphreys has owned several different ranches,
one of 160 acres being at Wildflower, near Selma, and another of 160 acres
at Kingston, both of which he improved to alfalfa. His family has continued
to operate the home-ranch, and has increased the holdings to 1,400 acres.
At his Tollhouse ranch this venerable pioneer passed to his reward on
March 20. 1900, mourned as an active and devottt member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church South. His widow, aged seventy-six resides with her son,
J. W. Humphreys, in Barstow Colony. She is well-posted on early history,
and is always an interesting conversationalist, entertaining a guest most
profitably.
CHARLES BERCHUM HARKNESS.— Among citizens of Scotch an-
cestry who have for some years been identified with the growth and pros-
perity of Fresno is Charles Berchum Harkness. His father Thomas was a
native of Scotland. His mother. Catus V. (Allison) Harkness, was a native
of Ohio. The father was one of the pioneers of California who crossed the
plains with ox teams in forty-nine, coming to Placer County, where for a
time he worked at mining; after which he engaged in grain farming and
teaming in the Santa Clara Valley. Coming to Fresno County in 1877 he
homesteaded 160 acres near what is now Sanger, upon which he raised
mainly grain. He also owned eighty acres near by and in addition farmed
rented land. Later in life he settled in Fresno where he retired from active
life. He was a member of the I\Iasonic order and died in 1911. He left three
living children: Charles B.. Mrs. G. P. Sisler and Mrs. H. J. Sisler.
Charles B. in early life attended the grammar schools in Sanger and
later on spent two years in the Fresno Business College, after which he
turned his attention to ranching, renting one-half section of land on the
Kearney ranch west of Fresno. He also rented 160 acres of the Judge Camp-
bell ranch at Lone Star. In addition he owned 160 acres of alfalfa and graz-
ing land at Riverdale and also rented a vineyard at Malaga. He continued
in this line of business for about ten years, when he sold out his interest and
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1105
became associated with the Fancher Creek Nursery Company. After four
years he became superintendent of the company which position he held for
twelve years, when he resigned and purchased an interest in the Fresno
Nursery Company, becoming its vice-president and superintendent. After
remaining with the Fresno Nursery Company for two years he .sold his
interest and became deputy sheriff under Walter McSwain, holding this
position for three years and four months. Resigning his position as deputy
sheriff he became manager of the Valley I'ruit Growers Association. This
association serves 4,000 growers in the San Joaquin Valley, covering four
counties. In 1917 he was the means of securing 3,500 answers to help har-
vest crops, many coming from the eastern states. The association employs
white labor exclusively. The officers and directors of the association are:
S. Flanders Setchel, president; W'iley M. Giffen, vice-president; C. B. Hark-
ness, secretary; S. P. Frisselle, treasurer; Frank ^Malcolm ; P. H. McGarry;
George C. Roeding and M. F. Vapley. Mr. Harkness was elected constable
of the Third Judicial Township of Fresno County, November 5, 1918. On
taking office January 1. 1919, he resigned his position as manager of the
Valley Fruit Growers Association to give all of his attention to his office.
Mr. Harkness was married to Miss Emma J. Driver of Michigan. They
have four children. Earl B. ; Floyd J. ; Margaret and Dorothy. Mr. Harkness
is a Native Son, a member of the Woodmen of the World, a Forester and a
member of Fresno Lodge, No. 186, I. O. O. F. He is justly entitled to the
esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens.
H. M. McLENNAN. — Among the early settlers here who deserve and
who receive the highest esteem and good-will of their fellow-citizens, is the
successful viticulturist, H. M. McLennan, well-known for his progressive
methods, who is also overseer of the roads of his district. In both private and
public affairs, Mr. McLennan has displayed rare business acumen. As a
viticulturist. pointing the way to others as he blazes for himself, Mr. Mc-
Lennan enjoys a prosperity none will gainsay ; while as an officeholder he has
proven one of the most successful and acceptable Fresno County has had for
many years.
Having arrived in California in 1878, Mr. McLennan settled at Quincy,
Plumas County, where he completed his schooling; and when the excitement
concerning Tombstone broke out in 1879, he was not long in getting ready
to visit the scene of new operations. In 1880 he made the trip from Tucson
to Tombstone by stage, and reached there when the town was only nine
months old. Even then it was as interesting as it was new, and for a while
he prospected for himself. He also worked in the quartz mills. ^Vhen he
shifted, it was to continue as battery feeder, in the Tombstone Mill & ^Mining
Company's mills at Charleston, nine miles from Tombstone.
In 1886 j\Tr. McLennan returned to California and settled in Fresno
County. He bought his present place, then a tract of raw land, consisting of
forty acres two miles west of Fresno, and at once settled upon it. He sunk a
well, built himself a house, and made numerous improvements. He even had
to construct a road over which he might haul the lumber needed for his
operations, and he dug a mile and a half of ditch to bring water from the
Houghton Canal with which to irrigate his place. Then he set out muscat
vines and engaged in viticulture.
When the vines began to bear, he sold his 1889 crop for six and one-half
cents a pound, and his second crop, the following year, at the same price. The
price went down, however, to one cent, and a cent and a quarter a pound ; and
once through a conmiission merchant, he shipped four tons to Buft'alo and sold
them there for a quarter of a cent a pound less than the cost of the freight.
Mr. McLennan gave his heartiest support to the various raisin associations
as they w'ere projected, becoming finally both a member and a stockholder
in the present California Associated Raisin Company which has done so much
to help the rancher do for himself. He himself stuck to his vinej'ard, and for
1106 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
years his vines have been growing and bearing well. Having a keen, scien-
tific interest in husbandry, Mr. McLennan has also heartily supported, as a
stockholder and member, the California Peach Growers, Inc.
In national affairs he is a Democrat, but a citizen who believes in sup-
porting local issues, when good, irrespective of party lines. ]\Ir. McLennan
in 1907 became road overseer of his section under Chris Jorgensen. He has
also demonstrated his interest in the course of education by serving accept-
ably as a member of the board of trustees of the Madison School district
for fourteen years, having been clerk of the board thirteen years of the time
and helped build three different school houses in the district.
While at Tombstone, Mr. McLennan was married to Agnes J- Frazier;
and they are among the social favorites in the circles of the Woodmen of the
World, of which Mr. McLennan is a member.
HUGH B. BISSELL. — A man who, by his indomitable energy, per-
severance and business acumen, has risen to a place of prominence and afflu-
ence in the affairs of Fresno County, is Hugh B. Bissell, who comes of sturdy
old New England stock that had much to do with the shaping of the political
and economical affairs of their times. When the Bissell family first became
identified with the industrial development of America it was established in
Connecticut, the progenitor of the family coming from England, in 1629.
Various members of the family became prominent in chttrch and state, as
well as in the Colonial and Revolutionary AVars. and among these was Hugh
B. Bissell's great-great-grandfather, Zebulon Bissell, a commissioned officer
in the latter war.
Hugh B. Bissell was born near West Point, Lee County, Iowa, on April
23, 1850. His father was Ralph Bissell, a native of Litchfield, Conn., born
September 17. 1816. The father followed farming and milling in Connecticut
until 1838, when he removed to Lee County, Iowa, becoming one of the
pioneers of that state. In that county he married Mrs. Jane (Brunson) South,
who was born in Pennsylvania, November 4, 1820, and who passed away
April 4, 1869, they having four children, three of whom are living: Hugh B.,
the eldest; Julia A., who is ]\Irs. Garrett, of Clovis ; and Frank, viticulturist
of Easton.
Ralph Bissell was a very successful farmer in Lee County, being well
known and highly respected. In 1871 he was married again, to Sarah Stevens,
and soon afterwards removed to Macon County, T^Io., where he resided until
1886, when he joined his son in Fresno County, Cal. He became interested
in farming in Easton, and resided there until his death, September 26, 1888.
His wife still survives him and is making her home at Easton.
Hugh B. received a good education in the public schools of Iowa. From
a lad he assisted his father on the Iowa farm and after his school days were
over gave all of his time until twent3'-one years of age, when he began farm-
ing, on his own account, making a specialty of growing corn, in which he was
very successful. In 1871 he disposed of his farming interests in Iowa and
removed to Callao, Macon County, Mo., and there. April 6, 1875, he was
married to Missouri A. Paine, who was born in Mississippi, May 4, 1851.
During his residence in Missouri he followed farming, as well "as the livery
business, at Carthage, Jasper County.
Having a desire to come to the Coast, he answered the call of the \A"est,
and in 1885 located in Modesto, Cal., where he engaged in farming for one
year, and then removed to Fresno County in 1886. For two and a half years
he leased land south of Fresno and at the end of that period he purchased a
ranch on Elm Avenue, operating the place for about ten vears, selling it in
1898. Meantime he also leased about 3,000 acres of land in'the countv, which
he farmed to grain. In this business he used many big teams and a combined
harvester for gathering the grain. During these years, he had manv trving
^;^Z^^-^.<1-^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1109
experiences from loss of crops and also the very low price of grain. He con-
tinued grain-farming until 1906, when he quit.
Meantime, during these years of struggle, he had purchased his present
place, known as the old Shipp place, of 320 acres, at twenty dollars an acre,
the nearest neighbor at that time being about two miles distant: nor did it
have any water right from the canal. Later he purchased 160 acres adjoin-
ing so he had 480 acres in all. Nothing daunted, he immediately went to
work to improve it for intensi\-e farming. He sunk wells, found abundant
water, which rose close to the surface, and although he was ridiculed by
those who thought it impossible, he installed a pumping plant to irrigate
his ranch. This was the first pumping plant in his section ; it had a six-inch
centrifugal pump, run by a twenty-horsepower engine. Thus it came that he
set out the first vineyard above the general irrigation ditch, and, despite the
scoffers, he made a success of his vineyard and orchard, which are now irri-
gated by three pumping plants. At various times he has sold a portion of
his holdings, retaining 160 acres which he has developed into a wonder-
fully productive and valuable place, and erecting a large comfortable resi-
dence, constructed of cement blocks, making it one of the show places of
the district. To evidence the wonderful change and development from the
original stubble-field, it need only he stated that his last sale of eighty acres
was for $750 per acre — for the land which he had purchassed for twenty dol-
lars per acre.
Y'iticulture and horticulture, however, did not engross all of Mr. Bis-
sell's time. for. among other activities, he was one of the original stock-
holders in the First National Bank of Clovis, in which he was afterwards
chosen a director, being retained ever since. He has supported the various
raisin associations from the days of Theo. Kearney, and is today an active
member of the California Associated Raisin Companv.
Mr. Bissell was bereaved of his wife on July 1, 1908, leaving two sons:
Lora Clyde, who was married in 1904 to Miss Maud Early, but who. passed
away August 15. 1909. leaving a child. ^^'iIliam Hugh : and Raymond H.. who
was born August 28. 1890, and who is married to Hilda Franck and has one
child. Dorothy Ann, and who is assisting his father in his ranching enter-
prises. About six years after his wife's death. Mr. BisseH married again, the
ceremony being performed in Oakland which united him with Miss Irene
L. Bissell. who was "born in Sharon. Medina County. Ohio, a daughter of
E. S. and IMary A. (More) Bissell. farmers in that state.
Mr. and Mrs. Bissell are members of the First Presbyterian Church of
Clovis. where they have many friends and are highly respected. It is to
such men as Hugh B. Bissell that Fresno Count}' owes much of its present
development and greatness. Endowed by nature with energy, strength and
ambition, and seeing the possibilities of the rich soil, and having faith in
his own judgment, he proceeded to carry out his plans, and he has lived to
see, not only his own section, but vast areas in Fresno County blossoming
like the rose.
CHARLES S. HAYCRAFT.— Altruistic tendencies, uprightness and
true Christian character make Charles S. Haycraft a safe counsellor and
considerate friend. Jealous for his honor, he always keeps his word, and his
generous impulses lead him to have a thought for the other fellow in all his
transactions.
Mr. Haycraft was horn in Lewis County, Mo., August 31, 1871. His
father. E. R. Haycraft. was born in Kentucky, and died in Fresno County
in 1908, at the age of eighty-fovu- years. He was a pioneer California gold
miner, his mines being located on the Feather River. He crossed the plains
in 1849 with ox teams, and from that year until 1851 operated his mines. He
went back to Missouri via the Panama Canal. At the time of his death he
owned a place on Chestnut Avenue. Fresno. The mother was Amanda
1110 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Miller, born in Kentucky, near Elizabeth. They were married in Missouri,
in which state the father was a farmer. In 1887 they came to California,
Charles then being sixteen years old. There were four children to bless this
marriage: L. M., who died in the fall of 1917, he formerly owned the old
Haycraft ranch on Chestnut Avenue; Bettie D., wife of J. W. Briscoe, of
Bakersfield ; W. E., a rancher, now owning part of the old Haycraft home-
stead ranch ; and Charles S.. of this review.
Mr. Haycraft attended the common schools in Missouri and California.
He is the youngest of the family, and has lived in Fresno County since 1887.
He went back to Missouri to marry Miss Edith Porter, with whom he be-
came acquainted in California. She is the daughter of J. W. Porter, who
resides near Malaga. They have no children.
Mr. Haycraft is now owner of two ranches: his home ranch of forty
acres, lying two and a half miles from Fowler and the other on Chestnut
Avenue, southeast of Fresno, of twenty-four acres.
Mr. Haycraft is a member of the Baptist Church in ]\Ialaga, of the
Raisin and Peach Growers Associations, and of the \\'oodmen of the ^^'o^ld,
in Fresno. In politics he is a Democrat, and in his daily life a successful and
influential man.
CARL M. JACOBSEN.— An honored pioneer of Fresno County, one
who has taken an active part in its development, whose original idea con-
cerning the establishment of the Cooperative Raisin Growers Association
was afterwards adopted, and, withal, a man of progressive spirit and enter-
prise, is Carl M. Jacobsen, who came to Fresno County about thirty-eight
years ago. He is a native of Denmark, born near Holstebroe, Jylland, in
July, 1860, a son of Jacob Petersen, a Danish farmer, who is now deceased.
His mother, who in maidenhood was Christine Nielsen, came to California
and spent her last days with her son. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Petersen were
the parents of seven children, five of whom emigrated from Denmark, three
coming to the United States and two going to x\ustralia.
Carl M. Jacobsen is the third oldest of the family and when nine years
old his father died. His early education was received in the public schools
of Denmark, which he attended until thirteen years of age, when he was
apprenticed to learn the trade of a blacksmith and after serving his allotted
time he worked as a journeyman for several years. When nineteen years old,
having decided to see more of the world, he immigrated to the United States,
arriving at New York City, where he remained but a short time, the follow-
ing month continuing his journey westward until he reached Fresno County,
Cal. For four years he was employed with Miller and Lux, extensive land-
owners and cattlemen, being located on their Dos Palos ranch where he be-
came a foreman and afterwards the blacksmith for the place. In 1883, de-
siring to engage in business for himself, he established a blacksmith shop in
Fresno, locating on Front Street, where he remained until he removed to
Livermore and there worked for four years at his trade, subsequently re-
turning to F>esno where he continued. Later. Mr. Jacobsen engaged in
the restaurant business for one year; however, this undertaking not proving
a success he resumed work at his trade.
During the year 1894, Mr. Jacobsen purchased his present ranch of
twenty acres, on Kearney and Boulevard Avenues. This was raw land when
he bought the place, but was soon leveled and cultivated, a vineyard set out
and alfalfa planted. He further improved the corner by establishing a black-
smith shop which he conducted for years and in 1910 sold the shop to
Martin Hall, who moved it to Rolinda. In 1914, Mr. Jacobsen purchased
the shop at Rolinda and again engaged in business, this time in a more
extensive way and with better facilities, as he installed electric power, and
up-to-date machinery, being the first person to receive electric power from
the Kearney Electric line. Here he continued to follow his trade until
March 1, 1918, when he rented his shop in order to give his attention to
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1111
his ranch whicli he plans to set out to sultana grapes. He has recently
resumed the management of his shop and added a garage and auto repair
shop.
The first marriage of Carl M. Jacobsen occurred at Livermore, Cal.,
when he was united with Miss Inga Christensen, a native of Denmark who
came to California in 1884. She passed away in Fresno, leaving besides her
husband, two daughters: Ida, now Mrs. Hugh Cox, residing at Surf; and
Amanda, who married Charles Duncan and now resides at Coalinga.
The second marriage of Mr. Jacobsen was solemnized in Fresno, when
he was united with Miss Alma Hegg, a native of the Hawkeye State. This
marriage was blessed with six children, five of whom are living: Leonard,
the manager of the telephone company at Dinuba : Ingwar, a student in the
high school at Kerman ; Mabel; Irving; and Earl.
Mr. Jacobsen is very resourceful and original in his ideas, and has taken
the initiative in many progressive movements and business enterprises that
have been carried to successful completion. He was one of the men to sug-
gest an organization of the raisin-growers, through an article printed in
the Fresno Republican, and also suggested the name of M. Theo. Kearney
for president, who accepted and was elected. Mr. Jacobsen was also very
successful in developing and enlarging the business of the Scandinavian Fire
Insurance Association, by soliciting business and arousing interest in the
organization which has grown to be very strong and successful, and in which
association he was a director. Mr. Jacobsen is a member of the cooperative
store in Fresno ; was one of the organizers of the Danish Creamery, and was
one of the first ]>crsons in his locality to have a telephone installed, going
out and securing the first ten subscribers to the telephone line.
Fraternally he is a member of the Danish Brotherhood, Modern Wood-
men of America, and was, at one time a member of the Fraternal Brother-
hood and acted as the president of the local lodge for three terms. In politi-
cal matters he supports the Republican platform and religiously is a member
of the Lutheran Church in Fresno.
CHARLES FRANKLIN McKEAN.— The youngest child of a family of
ten children of Archibald and Ellen (Stoutenberg) McKean, Charles Franklin
McKean's father was born in Scotland and married in Canada where he en-
gaged in the saw mill business and farmed in the Province of Ontario.
Charles Franklin McKean was born at Callenwood, Ont., Canada, No-
vember 3, 1876. He grew up in Canada, attended the public schools there
and was fifteen years of age when he came with his parents to Pasadena,
Cal., where he resumed his schooling in the public schools and in the Troop
Polytechnic College.
At the age of sixteen he came up to Hanford where his brother A. D.
was then engaged in running a threshing machine. Since that time his home
has continued to be in Kings and Fresno Counties. He saw Riverdale before
the advent of its railroad, viz., the Hanford and Summit Lake Railroad, now
a part of the Southern Pacific system, and has watched with keen interest the
growth and development of Riverdale. Mr. McKean, as in fact also his brother
A. D. (before he became a banker), and his father and grandfather, all have
a talent for machinery. Charles McKean worked at threshing, running the
portable steam engine and tending the threshing separator for three years,
for his brother A. D., and then he launched into business for himself. He
bought a threshing outfit consisting of a 32x54 Case Separator and a forty-
five horsepower Case traction steam engine. He now owns and operates two
sixty horsepower Holt Caterpillar tractors and contracts with the farmers
of his locality to do their plowing, seeding, harvesting and threshing, and
in this line he is more than ordinarily successful.
Mr. McKean is now one of the oldest continuous residents and business
men in Riverdale, where he has built several buildings, residences and the
first and leading garage in Riverdale. He is at present contemplating its sub-
1112 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
stantial enlargement. Mr. McKean owns some very choice inside property
at Riverdale. He is one of the best builders and boosters for Riverdale and is
highly regarded.
At Bakersfield on December 24, 1913, Mr. :\IcKean was married to
Miss Elva M. :Monasco of Riverdale, a native daughter who was born at
Watsonville and is a daughter of Mrs. J. Ahlman now living in Riverdale.
Mr. and Mrs. McKean have no children.
Mr. McKean's father died at Pasadena when about sixty-five years old.
His mother still lives at Pasadena and although seventy-three years old, is
hale and hearty.
JOHN DUNKEL GARMAN.— A man who for many years was actively
aiding in the building up of Fresno, is John Dunkel Carman, born in Cam-
bria County, Pa., on October 25, 1854. His father, William A. Carman, was
also a native of that state, being engaged in farming and brick contracting
and building in Cambria County. His wife was in maidenhood Catherine
Dunkel, also a Pennsylvanian ; both were Presbyterians and passed away in
Cambria County. Of the twelve children born to this worthy couple, John
Dunkel was the fifth oldest and the only member of the family in California.
After completing the public schools at the age of sixteen years, he began
working at the brick-layers' trade under his father, continuing with him until
1879, when he removed to Adel, Iowa, and there he worked at his trade
until 1882, when he came to Fresno County, and in Fresno he worked as a
brick-layer on the building of the Hughes Hotel and many other of the early
brick buildings in the city. In time he became foreman on construction of
buildings. This occupied all of his time until 1914, when he located on his
ranch thirty miles northeast of Fresno, on Little Dry Creek. Here he has
400 acres devoted to grain and stock-raising, having improved it with a
comfortable modern residence and other farm buildings.
The marriage of Mr. Carman occurred in Adel, Dallas County, Iowa,
on February, 1882, uniting him with Miss Mary E. Loper, who was born at
Adel, Iowa! a daughter of J. W. Loper, a pioneer rancher of the Little Dry
Creek section, and who is also represented in this work. Mr. Carman was
bereaved of his faithful wife on May 31, 1919. She was a consistent Chris-
tian all of her life. She was a charter member of the Christian Church in
Fresno, where she was very active and much loved by everyone for her
noble traits and exemplary life. She left one son, Roy, now city editor of
the Fresno Herald.
Mr. Carman is a member of the Knights of Pythias Lodge in Fresno, and
politically is a stanch Republican. In the fall of 1886, with his wife, he made
a trip back to Pennsylvania and while there they lost their first-born child,
Florence Myrtle. They returned to Fresno again in the spring of 1887, when
a full appreciation of living in California fully dawned upon them.
EDGAR SNOWDEN VAN METER.— There are many names of
eminence connected with Fresno's fraternity, among whom the well known
city attorney of Fresno, Edgar Snowden Van Meter, has made a name for
himself. A descendant of one of the old Knickerbocker families of New York,
who in earlv days moved to Virginia, he was born in that state, August 1,
1850. at Morefieid, Hardy County, in what is now West Virginia, and when
two years old crossed the plains in a wagon with his parents, who removed
to Illinois, at that time almost a frontier state, with its rich plains compara-
tively sparsely settled. Death claimed the father of the family while living
in Illinois, where they remained until Edgar was five years old, when they
returned to Virginia.
Educational facilities were far dift'erent in those days from the advan-
tages enjoyed by children at the present time, and young Edgar received his
education in the old brick church, which served as both school house and
church. At the age of seventeen he taught school, and studiously inclined,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1115
read law, studied history and the Bible. In 1870, when twenty years of age,
he went to Illinois and for three years was on a farm in Piatt County, in the
meantime studying law and teaching school. He reaped the fruit of his in-
dustry when he was admitted to the bar at Springfield, Illinois, January 1,
1877. For ten years he practiced law successfully in Clinton and Blooming-
ton, III. He was city clerk of Clinton, district attorney of De Witt County
and also deputy county clerk of that county. In 1888 he came to California,
locating in Fresno where he has built a Uicratixe practice, and in 1890-91
was appointed deputy district attorney under W. D. Tupper. In May, 1917,
Mayor \^^illiam F. Tooney appointed him city attorney of Fresno, a position
he is ably filling.
Mr. Van Meter has been twice married. His first wife, in maidenhood
Carrie Summers, a native of Michigan, died in 1900. She bore him six chil-
dren, namely: Edna, James P., deceased; Harry S., a member of the Fresno
police force was shot and killed while on duty in 1902 ; Harlow G., who is
in the butcher business in Coalinga ; Mrs. Ethel Hooper of Fresno, who is
the mother of two sons ; and Walter, a member of Fresno's fire department.
In his second matrimonial venture his fortunes were linked with those of
Miss Cora B. Reynolds, one of California's daughters, born in San Diego,
a woman of education and fine character. Mrs. Van Meter is very active in
the order of "Native Daughters of the Golden West." Mr. Van Meter is
fond of hunting and fishing, in the pursuit of which he spends much of his
spare time. He is the owner of West Side undeveloped farm land and also
city property. Fraternally he was made a Mason in Lodge No. 242, Clinton,
III., F. & .\. M.. and is now a member of Fresno Lodge. Fie is also a member
of the Chamber of Commerce.
JOHN BORELLO. — A progressive and prominent man who left his
native heath to become a valued citizen of the state of California, is John
Borello, president of the Borello Brothers Company, Inc., manufacturers of
soda water and soft drinks.
Born in Torino, Piemonte, Italy, on January 17, 1861, he was the son
of Andrew and Margarita fChiamberlando) Borello. When but a lad his
mother died in their native land ; then his father came to this country, arriv-
ing in New York in the \'ear 1874. In the meantime his brother Frank re-
solved to seek his fortune in America. Shipping before the mast on a vessel
bound for California, he landed in San Francisco. Here he was joined by
bis father. Seeking a more favorable location in which to establish himself
in business, he went from San Francisco to Merced. Finally, he moved to
Fresno in 1881. where he started the present business. Again his father
joined him, but only lived a short time, his death occurring in 1883.
John Borello remained in Italy during his childhood and early youth.
He was educated in the public schools of his native land, receiving a good
education. In 1886 he came to Fresno, where he went to work for his
brother. Being desirous of learning the English language, he used his earn-
ings to study each evening under a private teacher, Mrs. Cummings, con-
tinuing his studies for more than two years, perfecting himself in reading
and speaking English, as well as in mathematics. He continued with his
brother for ten years, at the end of which time he acquired a half interest in
the business. On January 31. 1905, the business was incorporated, as Borello
Bros. Company., with the older brother as president of the company and
John as vice-president. After the death of his brother Frank, which occurred
in May, 1912. he succeeded him as president, and has continued to increase
and enlarge the business. In 1912 the present plant was built. It is equipped
with all modern conveniences, and the average working force is ten men.
The Borello manufacturing plant is located at 1235 G Street and has a large
fireproof building, 100 by 150 feet, with concrete floor and a most modern
and full equipment for making sodas and soda fountain supplies. The labora-
torv occupies a separate room, where cleanliness is the first thought. Here
1116 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUXTY
all the extracts and syrups are blended and are kept in glass jars and bottles
until prepared for shipment and delivery to the trade. The whole plant is
kept in the best of order and in sanitary condition. Their exhibit was awarded
a silver medal both at the Panama Pacific Exposition at San Francisco and
at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego.
On July 15, 1893. occurred the marriage of John Borello .and Miss
Eugenia Cebrelli. Four children have been born to this fortunate couple.
Clara, a graduate of St. John's Academy, is her father's bookkeeper. Andrew
served in the United States Army seven months and has just been honorably
discharged ; he is now assisting his father. Mary J. and Frank are attending
St. John's Academy. Since Mr. Borello became a citizen of our country, he
has voted with the Democratic party. Through membership in the Chamber
of Commerce, Merchants' Association, Commercial Club and the Druid, he
keeps in touch with his fellow men in a social way, and withal holds the
respect and esteem of the community for his proficient business policy and
good citizenship.
ABRAM H. KEYSER.— A real old-timer who, despite the vicissitudes
of life, has always done sumcthing to improve a community in which he has
lived and toiled, is A. H. Keyser. who came to California in the Centennial
Year, after he had been eaten out of house and home in Kansas by the grass-
hoppers. ^^'hen this experience had been repeated for several years, he
asked a Mr. Klein what was best to be done, and the latter told him that
he and his brother ought to go to California, for they were young, and this
was the coimtry of young men. So, instead of going to Philadelphia to see
the great show, they came on to the Golden State. A. H. Keyser was then
twenty, and his brother Andrew was eighteen, and they worked energetically
for a year at Los Gatos, and then for another year at the New Almaden
Quick Silver mine, leaving that line of activity to engaged in farming.
They bought some old horses and an outfit, leased land and put 500 acres
near FTollister into wheat. The year 1878 was a good one, and they not
only had good ci^ops, but thej^ were favored with good prices. They also
ran a hay-baler between seasons, and were busy all the time. They continued
farming there for ten years, leasing from two of the large landowners, and
putting in 1,000 acres a year. About 1883 they moved their outfit to Fresno
County. They helped to grade Kearney Avenue and to build it up, and leased
land from Kearney, and for ten or twelve years raised large quantities of
grain.
In partnership with his brother Andrew, A. H. Keyser in 1883 bought
eighty acres on California and Kearney Avenues, making the purchase from
Jeiif James, and set the land out to vines. They otherwise improved it with
various buildings, and some of the acreage they devoted to grain farming,
and bought a combined harvester. They raised lots of hay ; and they also
contracted to level, check and grade land. They hauled lumber from Pine
Ridge to Fresno, and on such a scale that 10,000 feet was considered a load.
In this way the brothers continued together until 19O0, when they engaged
in vineyarding, leasing 200 acres of the Kearney Vineyard and running it
until Andrew went to Nome, Alaska, to take up mining. A. H. Keyser
followed later, and at Nome he succeeded. He made money, too, prospecting
in the hills, but by unfortunate investments they lost all that they thus made
— A. H., the hard earnings of three years and Andrew all that he had acquired
in a year longer in the frozen North. In 1902 they returned to California
and dissolved partnership.
A. H. Keyser then bought twenty acres of his present place at the
corner of Valentine and California Avenues, improved the land and there
farmed, and later added ten more : while his brother went to the Lone Star
vineyard, bought first forty and then forty acres, sold the eighty acres, and
then bought and improved another eighty : and now he resides, retired, on
Blackstone Avenue, where he has twentv acres.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1117
A. H. Keyset- was born near Norristown, Montgomery County, l^a., on
February 22, 1856, the son of Isaac Keyser. a native of that state, and Susan
Swank, who was also born there. The parents removed to Linn County,
Iowa, where the elder Keyser was a farmer, and then to Nemaha County,
Kans.. forty miles west of Atchison. There Isaac Keyser, after extending
his envialile reputation as ' a farmer, died; and the mother, at the age of
ninety-three, came to California and died at the home of her son, Andrew,
in l'"resno. She was the mother of four boys and four girls, of whom three
boys and two girls are still living. Besides his brother. Andrew, there is
another brother. Theodore, at San Jose.
Reared in Iowa and Kansas, where he attended school in a log school-
house, with slal) lienches. Mr. Keyser grew up in a country infested with
Indians, and struggled, as has been narrated, against such forces of Nature
as the all-dcvnuring grasshoppers. He was fortunate, however, in finding
in Fresno OiuiitN tlmse favoring conditions so desired by the ambitious
man who is liaiiilicipped, and here also he was married on August 28, 1895,
his bride L)eing Miss Georgia Luce, a native of Massachusetts. She was the
daughter of John J. and Louisa G. (Norton) Luce, the former an old sea-
captain who settled in the Liberty district about 1874 and became a Fresno
County pioneer: so that both Mr. and Mrs. Keyser have interesting associa-
tions with the growth and history of this state. They have two children,
Helen A. and Katherine.
A Republican in nati(jnal politics and a booster for all projects to better
the community. Mr. Keyser is also a member of the California Associated
Raisin Company and of the. Cabfornia Peach Growers, Inc.. and in fraternal
afifiliations he is an Odd Fellow.
REV. CARL W. WOLTER.— Distinguished among the clergv of Fresno
County, to whose untiring efforts society at large owes much, is the Rev.
Carl W. Welter, pastor of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Cross Church
of Fresno. He was born at Belgard. Pomerania, Germany, on August 9,
1876, the son of Carl W. Wolter, who was paymaster in the German Army,
and died in 1881. Wilhelmina Katherine Wolter was the good mother who
brought the family of three children to the LTnited States in 1892, and located
in Dayton. Ohio, where she was married again to the Rev. J. Moeller, M.D.,
a minister in the United Brethren Church, who was also a physician and
surgeon. B}' preference he followed clerical work, and the worthy couple
both died in Cleveland.
Carl W., the oldest of the three children, was educated in the excellent
public schools in Belgard, and then entered the gymnasium, from which he
was graduated after finishing his classical studies. Immediately after this
he came with his mother to Dayton and entered the United Brethren Sem-
inary, taking the theological course and graduating in 1897. He then preached
in the I'nited Brethren Church at Cincinnati, and in 1900 was ordained to
the ministry of that church.
After preaching for seven years in Cincinnati. Re\erend Wolter came to
Peoria, 111., as pastor of the German Congregational Church, where he re-
mained for six years. In 1910 he accepted a call to Parkston, S. D., as pastor
of the Congregational Church, and he ministered to that congregation for
three years. He was then elected financial secretary of Redfield College,
S. D., filling the position until ^lay 1. 1913. when he resigned to come to
Fresno.
He had accepted a call to the Free Evangelical Lutheran Cross Church,
and has ever since given his best eiTorts to build up the church, in which
work he has been very successful. He has increased the membership from
five hundred to over one thousand, and instead of the small building in th'e
center of the block, there is a fine edifice at the corner. The building was
commenced in May. 1914. and completed the following February. It is a
large brick edifice at F and San Diego Streets, and has a seating capacity of
1118 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
1,600. It is the largest church structure and congregation in Fresno, and
cost $50,000. There is a main auditorium, with galleries, a beautiful altar
and pulpit, and a pipe organ costing $3,000. Their service flag numbers
fifty-six stars, one of them being a gold star. The basement is fitted up for
the Sunday School rooms. This congregation was started about twenty-
five years ago, and was the first German congregation in this city. On com-
ing to Fresno, the Reverend Wolter also built a large modern parsonage,
which was completed in 1913.
His first marriage was at Dayton, Ohio, in 1897, when he was joined
to Miss Annie Moeller, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio. She passed away
in Peoria, about ten years after their marriage, leaving two children, Marie
and William. He was married a second time, in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1908,
to Miss Amalia Seitz, a native of that city, by whom he has had three
children, Carl. Howard, and John.
The Reverend Wolter (who is also a graduate of the American Univer-
sitv, Chicago, from which he received the degree of D. C, in 1914) is a
trustee of the Northern California Conference on the Congregational Church,
with which the Free Evangelical Lutheran Cross Church is affiliated. He is
editor of the Brothers Paper, a religious semi-monthly published in Chicago
and devoted, as its name indicates, to the entire brotherhood of Churches in
the United States and Canada.
GEORGE R. MATTHEWS.— A young, wide-awake manufacturer of
foresight and marked general ability, who, while developing his own indus-
trial interests, is helping to build up Fresno and vicinity along commercial
and civic lines, is George R. Matthews, proprietor of the Novelty Iron Works.
He was born near Louisville, Ky., on March 23, 1874, the son of Quincy M.
I\latthews, a native of Newburg, Ind., where he first saw the light on Febru-
ary 26, 1849. Ouincy's father, Aaron Matthews, was a native of Kentucky,
and was taken to Indiana when he was two years of age. Growing up, he
assumed the duties of citizenship, and was fife major in the home militia at
Newburg. Quincy's grandfather was a contemporarj^ of the famous Daniel
Boone of Kentucky, and they served together as two pioneers renowned for
their prowess in the Indian wars. Aaron ^Matthews was a butcher in Indiana,
and he died at Hartford, K3^, aged eighty-seven years. George's grand-
mother Matthews, who was Louisa Shaul before her marriage, was a native
of Indiana and died in that state in 1863.
Ouincy Matthews learned the machinist's trade in Louisville, and worked
three years on the construction of the bridge across the Ohio River at Louis-
ville. After that, he worked in the coal mines in Kentucky and Indiana. At
Hendersonville, Ky., in 1876, with several associates he opened a coal mine
that bid fair to yield large returns, but the panic came on and they lost all
their investment. He next went to Coal A^alley, near Rock Island, and later
to Cable, Mercer County, 111., where he engaged in the restaurant and
grocer}' business, and in 1888 he established himself in the same line of trade
at Lincoln, Nebr., enjoying there the same reputation for untiring service
and honest dealing. In 1903 he came to California and settled at Fresno, and
for six years he busied himself as a viticulturist, turning away from that
field in l'X)9 to start again in the grocery business. He built a store at the
corner of San Pablo and McKenzie Streets, and having already become ex-
peri'enced, attained a satisfactory degree of success. While at Carmel, Ind.,
Mr. Matthews had married Aliss Lizzie Irwin, a native of that section, and
by her he had six children : George R.. the first-born, is the subject of our
sketch ; John M. is foreman for Guggenhime at Fresno ; Henry L. is in Los
Angeles ; Winifred, with the gas company in Fresno ; ]\Irs. Gail Parker
resides at Fresno ; and Ruth assists her father. Mrs. Matthews passed away
here in 1915.
\Vhen five j^ears of age, George removed with his folks to Cable, 111.,
and until he was fifteen years old, he attended the public schools. Then he
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1121
went to Lincoln, Nebr., and was apprenticed to the moulder's trade, more
and more filling responsible positions with the Nebraska Iron Works. So
well was he satisfied with his experience that after finishing the four years
for which he was bound, he continued a couple of years more as a journey-
man in the same establishment. Then, for a couple of years he traveled and
worked in the middle states west of the Mississippi, moving from Galveston
to Minneapolis, then to the Rockies and back to Lincoln, where he became
foreman of the Lincoln Iron Works. With that firm he continued until the
spring of 1903, when he came to the Pacific Coast and Fresno.
The day after his arrival here, he entered the service of the Fresno
Agricultural W^orks, with which he continued as a moulder for eighteen
months, leaving to take a year's service at the Novelty Iron Works. He was
next foreman, for over a year, at the Burnett Iron Works, and for another
year with the Valley Foundry and Machine Works, and once more with the
Novelty Iron Works, where he was made foreman and continued for a
couple of years. In 1915, having well established his reputation as one of
the best iron-masters in this vicinity, he bought of Mr. Halford the Novelty
Iron W^orks, and continued to manufacture not only iron, but bronze, brass
and aluminum casting. He has recently purchased six lots for a new site in
Prather's Addition, on Railroad Avenue, where he plans a new foundry
about 150x150 feet in size. He employs eleven men and with his up-to-date
equipment makes all the castings for the Fresno Agricultural Works, as well
as for many other concerns.
At Lincoln. Nebr., Mr. Matthews was married to Miss Lovana Robin-
son, a native of Peoria, 111., and the daughter of James K. Robinson, a
master machinist. Two children have blessed their union : Cecil, a graduate
of Heald's Business College and now with the Fresno Natatorium ; and
Percy, a moulder, who is assisting his father. Mr. Matthews owns nine lots
on Washington Street at Fresno Heights, and has built a fine residence at
3665 Washington, where he has installed a good pumping-plant ; and he also
has other residence property.
HENRY H. BACKER. — Nowhere are the advantages of a good, prac-
tical business training better shown than in the phenomenal career of Henry
H. Backer, the well-known rancher, who has devoted some of the best years
of his life to work in several fields, where in each case his efforts have proven
highly productive and successful. A man of strong character and original
initiative, Mr. Backer believes in doing whatever is worth undertaking in a
worthy manner and seeing it through to the finish in the best shape possible.
His father was named Flenry Backer and, as a sturdy pioneer, settled
in Sierra County, Cal., in 1859, when he engaged in mining, suffered the usual
vicissitudes, and finally, in 1878, came to Fresno with his wife and five chil-
dren. In that year, highly honored as a Californian builder, he died. Mrs.
Backer was Aliss Augusta Busch before her marriage ; and she, also mourned
by many, passed away on September 1, 1904.
Born near Downieville, Sierra County, Cal, October 27, 1872, Henry H.
enjoyed the superior educational facilities of Fresno's school system, and
later took a thorough course at Heald's Business College. But perhaps he
received the most valuable preparation of all in the great school of life, where
he had the rough corners smoothed down and learned both how to give and
take a blow straight from the shoulder. Completing his studies, he worked
for a year in San Francisco as a bookkeeper.
Viticulture made a stronger appeal to his capabilities, so Mr. Backer
engaged in ranching with the other members of the family, adapting himself
with wonderful facility to the new line of activity and easily demonstrating
his claim to fitness in that line. Their products vie with the best of those
produced in the vicinity, and he has made some reputation for his own inves-
tigations and experiments.
1122 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
With the other members of his family, :\Ir. Backer incorporated as the
Backer \'ineyard Company, and they own and operate a very productive
vineyard of 120 acres, eight miles east of Fresno. They are pioneers in the
raising of all kinds of grapes, making a specialty of Emperors, and have a
large vineyard of this variety now twenty-three years old, and are expert ~
growers of table grapes. Their acreage contains thirty acres of Emperors,
twenty of Malagas, ten- of Cornishons, twenty acres of Servian Blue or Fresno
Beauty, and forty acres of Aluscats. The sharp competition with the Tokay
grapes from Northern California in the Eastern markets led to the necessity
of finding some means of packing their table grapes so they would keep in
cold storage until the tokays were out of the market. Backer Bros, had
shipped table grapes packed in crates in refrigerator cars to New York City
but. finding a glutted market, placed the consignment in cold storage, wdiich
resulted in their spoiling, and they suffered a severe financial loss. Henrs^
Backer, having made the journey to New York at the time, watched the suc-
cess or failure of the cold storage experiment and while waiting around New
York his attention was called to the splendid condition of the Spanish table
grapes which had arrived packed in cork. Packing in cork being impracti-
cable, if not absolutely impossible in California, ]\ir. Backer began thinking
about substitutes. He broached his idea to his commission merchant, Charles
Thurston, and they together sought the advice of the \'iticultural Depart-
ment at Washington as to substituting sawdust for cork in which to pack
the grapes. This was in 1908. The government assisted Mr. Backer in 1909
in experimenting, shipping the grapes packed in various kinds of sawdust,
but it proved a failure ; the sawdust used was too fine, and also gave an un-
pleasant flavor to the grapes and they would not keep. In 1910 they made
further experiments with the sawdust from redwood trees and this led to
fair results in 1911 and further experiments in 1912 until they developed a
method of making and treating a coarse sawdust from the redwood, which
now meets all practical wants and Fresno County table grapes are now being
shipped to the great cold storage establisments, not only in the large cities
of the United States but to important cities and ports all over the world,
packed in this substitute for cork, and it has been found that grapes, when
thus properly packed, will keep all winter.
After proving the packing and shipping of table grapes a success, the
Backers readily and enthusiastically showed others the success of their ex-
periment and this method of shipping became universal and has been the
means of bringing great wealth to the state and probably no other enterprise
did more to bring Fresno County to the fore and aid in bringing the price
of Fresno County lands to the present high value and standard. So it is
readily seen that in this Mr. Backer has rendered a valuable service. In ad-
dition to his interest in the Backer Vineyard Company's 120 acres, they also
own a splendid grain farm of 760 acres, eight miles north of Sanger.
Although coming of an old pioneer family with valuable social and other
connections, Mr. Backer is still a bachelor, and as such is a very popular
member of the Odd Fellows and the Elks. A loyal Democrat, he is even a
more loyal American, and being brimful of civic pride, finds time for partici-
pation in movements making for the public welfare.
EMIL PEARSON. — For the past quarter of a century Emil Pearson
has been a well known figure in the Kingsburg Colony. He is known as a
successful man in the vocation of his choice, that of horticulture and viti-
culture, and his well kept ten-acre home place, as well as his ten-acre piece
one and one-half miles further northeast, testify to the efRcacious methods
employed by their owner in their care.
Mr. Pearson was born in Sweden. April 1, 1864, received his education
in the schools of the land of his birth, and was confirmed in the Lutheran
Church. As a young man he followed the occupation of farming before
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1123
coming to the United States. His parents, Per Nilson and Crita (Eglund)
Nilson, lived and died in Sweden where the father owned a small ten-acre
farm and was also a carpenter. The father, who wa.s married twice, had
three children by his first wife. The eldest, Gustav Eden, was a tailor in
London, where he died leaving three children, Oscar, Carl and Hedwick by
name. The second child, Annie, is the wife of Nils Chelgren, a rancher in
Washington Colony. Maria, is the widow of Mr. Bergrooth and lives in
Kingsburg. The father's second wife bore him four children: The eldest,
Tilda, is single and lives in Sweden. Augusta, or Jennie, is the wife of W. T.
H. I\Iartin, a rancher near Kingsburg. Alfred, was a storekeeper in Fresno,
where he died. Emil is the youngest of the family, and as his parents grew
old he assisted them.
In 1892, Emil left Sweden and came to Kingsburg, Fresno Count w Cal.,
where he had a brother and sister living. At this time he had hut sixtv-five
dollars. He worked out, carrying his blankets from place to place, and e.x-
perienced the vicissitudes that accompany hard times. It was difficult to get
work owing to the financial stringency, but perseverance finallv won the day.
and in 1895 he bought his present ten acres, then practically unimpro\'ed.
It had no house, barn, well or pump.
In April, 1898, he was united in marriage with Miss Lena Lindholm, a
native of Sweden and daughter of Erik Person and Johanna (Johnson)
Person. Mrs. Pearson's parents died in Sweden, where the father was a
farmer and timber-worker. There were five children in the family : Lars,
who died at Ishpeming, Mich. ; Louisa, the wife of Mr. C. G. Pahlm, a rancher
of Kingsburg; Lena; Remhold, a farmer in Sweden; and Anna, the wife
of Robert Thompson of Berkele3\ ]\lrs. Pearson came to America and worked
in Berkele\' and San Francisco. While on a visit to her sister in Kingsburg
she became acquainted with Mr. Pearson. They are the parents of two
children : David, a farm laborer, nineteen years of age, and Paul. Their home
is one and one-half miles northeast of Kingsburg, and they belong to the
Kingsburg school district.
Mr. Pearson is a member of the Swedish Baptist Church at Kingsburg.
and the family is held in high esteem.
EDWARD J. GOODRICH.— "Back to Nature" is the impelling slogan
of the day. \Miatever the needs, in the last analysis nature must supply
them. They who study and cultivate nature in all its various moods are the
people who are to provide the remedy for want. The sturdy farmer is the
solution of humanity's problem.
Edward J. Goodrich's parents, Charles FI. and jMaggie (AlcCarthy) Good-
rich, were from the great state of Maine. In 1856 they came to California,
locating in Monterey and San Benito Counties where the mother died in 1878.
Here they followed stock raising and farming until 1880, when they removed
to Fresno County, leasing land in the Coalinga district, where, they engaged
in sheep and cattle raising. Later they followed farming near Selma. They
had four sons: Edward J., of 221 Coast avenue. iMcsnn; Charles F., and John
A., of Tranquillity, and Leonard J., of Stockton. The father died in 1894 at
Selma.
Edward J. Goodrich was born in San Juan, San Benito County, Cal..
March 25, 1869. He finished his schooling in the Washington Colony school
district, Fresno County. At the age of thirteen years he began working for
wages and in 1891 he started into grain farming for himself on leased land
near Selma, Caruthers and \Vheatville. In 1898 a partnership was formed
with Ed Vogelsang for the purpose of grain farming in the Huron district.
Fresno County, on leased lands. They have been partners ever since in that
district. Mr. Goodrich is the personal owner of a 200-acre tract of alfalfa in
the Wheatville country, which he leases to others. He also owns 880 acres in
the Huron district. In addition he is also farming 320 acres of leased land
in grain for himself near Wheatville. This is aside from his partnership
1124 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
with Mr. Vogelsang. It will thus be seen that Mr. Goodrich has contributed
largely to the supply of humanity's needs, and by a consistent and loyal
devotion to the welfare of the community, has established for himself a high
standing in the regard of his neighbors.
On October 30, 1892, Mr. Goodrich was married to Sadie Gingrich, a
native of Pennsylvania, who came to California when a young woman. They
are the parents of three girls: Gladys, now the wife of P. H. Drew, of Bakers-
field ; and Erma and Elsie Kathryn, school children. The girls are all
members of the First Presbyterian Church.
GEORGE W. BARR. — It has been more than a quarter century since
George W. Barr, the subject of this sketch, located in Fresno County, and
during his long residence has witnessed wonderful changes and marvelous
developments in both the city and country of Fresno. George W. Barr, is
a Hoosier by birth, having first seen the light of day in Jennings County.
Ind., March 27, 1842. When a small boy he left Indiana for Adams County
111., and it was in this county that he attended the country school of his
district and received his early education.
In 1864, George W. Barr accompanied a party across the plains to Cali-
fornia, and in the caravan there were twenty-five wagons, horses and mules.
While in the Piatt River country the party met about five hundred Indians,
and, contrary to their expectations, they found that the Indians were friendly,
consequently their trip across the plains proved uneventful and the party
arrived in the Golden State in safety.
After his arrival in California, George \\'. Barr secured work on a ranch
in Solano County, where he remained three years, afterwards removing to
San Bernardino County, later he went to Santa Ana, Orange County, where
he engaged in farming and ran a threshing machine. In 1891, George W.
Barr moved to Fresno County locating near Oleander, where he purchased
twenty acres which he improved by setting out a vineyard and an orchard,
residing there for fourteen years. After selling this property he bought
forty acres of the Barton vineyard and lived there two years prior to moving
to Fresno, afterwards purchasing twenty acres north of the McKinley school
where he resided for four years. Mr. Barr's next purchase was twenty acres
west of Caruthers which he continued to operate until June 1918, when he
sold the place and moved to Fresno where he is now living retired from
active business and is located at 306 Olive Avenue. An interesting fact
connected with the place where he now resides is, that, in the early days of
the city of Fresno, Mr. Barr threshed grain on this very spot.
George W. Barr was united in marriage with Mary A. Garner, a native
of California, the ceremony being solemnized in San Bernardino County.
This union was blessed with two children : Wallace L. Barr, and Mrs. Mabel
Henderson.
ALBERT JULIUS OLSON.— A native of California, born in San Fran-
cisco April 16. 1877, Albert Julius Olson is the son of Gustav Olson, who
was a cooper b}' trade in his native place, Smalon, Sweden. Coming to the
United States while yet a young man, the father worked at his trade in
Boston, Mass,, until he came to San Francisco via Panama, about 1870,
He followed his trade in San Francisco until 1878, when he located in
Fresno County. He was one of the first settlers in the Scandinavian Colony,
where he purchased forty acres of land, which he had improved to vineyard
while he followed his trade as a contractor of cooperage. He built the
cooperage in the Barton Winery, reset the cooperage in the Fresno Winery
after it was burned, and also installed the cooperage in the St. George and
Margherita Wineries, as well as the Scandinavian and Eggers Wineries.
He retired from active business two years before his death on April 30, 1893.
Albert Olson's mother was Jennie Marie Hanson, who was born in Stock-
holm, Sweden. She died at her home in Fresno Countv in 1904. Seven
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1127
children were born to this worthy couple, of wliom five are living-, Albert
Julius being the second oldest.
Albert Julius Olson came to Fresno County with his parents during the
first year of his existence. He received a good education in the local
schools, after which he took up the work of a viticulturist and by study and
close application mastered the cultivation of vines, so that when his father
died he took charge of the vineyard, later adding forty acres to it. On this
eighty acres he and his brother Charles O. built a winery and engaged in the
making of wine. They added still another tract of sixty acres, operating
the whole as well as the winery until 1914, when they sold out.
In 1900 Mr. Olson had purchased his present place of twenty acres in
Helm Colony, which he had set to vineyard of Thompsons, sultanas,
malagas, and wine grapes. In 1914 he moved onto this ranch, having com-
pleted the building of his residence and farm buildings. He also owns
twenty acres in National Colony.
The marriage of Mr. Olson occurred in Fresno, where he was united
with Miss Carrie Louise Dauner, born in San Francisco, whose father,
Frederick A. Dauner, was a pioneer of San Francisco and then, in 1878,
located in Scandinavian Colony, Fresno County, where he improved a vine-
yard, now the Roessler place. His wife is dead, and he now makes his home
with Mr. and Mrs. Olson. Mr. and Mrs. Olson have two children, August
Albert, attending Clovis High School, and Dorothy May. Mr. Olson is a
Republican and protectionist. He is a member of the California Associated
Raisin Company.
ROBERT W. RHEA.— For thirty-two years as a resident of Fresno
County, Robert W. Rhea well deserves the title of pioneer. He has not only
witnessed the steady development of the \\'est, but has rendered valuable
service in the improvement and growth of this section. He was born on Feb-
ruary IS. 1851, in Ringold, Platte County, Mo., the son of Spartan F. and
Lamanda CMcKey) Rhea, the latter being an aunt of John McKey. ex-Gov-
ernor of Nebraska.
When only a year old, Robert was left motlierless, and when three years
of age his father moved to Kansas in the late fall of 1854, where he not only
engaged in farming, but for twenty years held the position of county sur-
veyor. He was an early settler of Easton, Leavenworth County. Kans., and
the first government land sale was held at his house. For ten years he was
identified with the growth of this town, then removed to Platte City, where
Robert received the most of his schooling. \Vhen his school days were over
he continued to assist his father on the home farm until he was twenty-two
years of age. He was reared on the frontier and hunting appealed to him,
living in an atmosphere where boys led active, outdoor lives, only five miles
from where Buffalo Bill Cody was raised. He engaged in hunting buffalo
for four years, from the Platte to the Red River, hunting them for their meat
and hides. He has seen as many as thirty-five carloads of Buffalo hides in
bales shipped out of Kit Carson at one time ; they were sold to an English
firm. As a buffalo-hunter he had many thrilling experiences and also narrow
escapes from the Redskins. He has seen some high stakes played and had
some hard enough frontier experiences.
After four years of hunting the buffalo he went to San Luis ^"alley, Colo.,
w'here he rode the range for Dickie Bros., and soon became a trusted man
and left to carry out large undertakings, and one of the first of these was to
drive a herd of cattle from Colorado to Black Hills, Mont. In 1884 he went
to Apache County, Ariz., taking charge of a cattle ranch for J. H. Bowan and
at the same time was engaged in cattle-raising with a partner. George Lock-
hart. While residing in Apache County he was elected Justice of the Peace
and filled the office with general satisfaction. His partner and two of their
men were killed by Navajo Indians, and after this he remained on his ranch
another year when he sold out and located in Fresno County, in 1887.
1128 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
During his residence in Arizona Mr. Rhea was united in wedlock to Miss
Laura A. AMiite, a native of Pennsylvania. The marriage took place at St.
Johns, Ariz., on November 17 , 1885. After selling his Arizona interests, he
first visited San Diego, where he met a ]\Ir. Thornton, who advised him that
Fresno County held wonderful possibilities. Consequently, in July of 1887 he
settled in Fresno, where he purchased forty acres of farm land, his present
home. He built a house, purchased a number of calves from D. D. Fowler,
and in a small way made a venture at stock-raising. Finding it a profitable
business, he continued, until at present his home place consists of 100 acres
of valuable land. Besides raising stock, he makes a specialty of dairying. He
has a fine herd of thoroughbred Jerseys, and has established a reputation for
dairy products. He is also connected with the Danish Creamery, having been
a director for fourteen years and president for ten years, when he requested
to be__ excused from the presidency. He was president when the new brick
building was built.
Aside from his varied business. ]\Ir. Rhea finds time for outside interests.
He has been a member of the County Democratic Central Committee for the
past twelve years. He became identified with the First Christian Church
twelve years ago, and has served in the capacity of deacon. He is an indus-
trious worker in any undertaking, be it business, civic or social ; and as a
citizen of Fresno is well known and highly respected for his inherent good
qualities.
WALLACE L. BARK.— Is the only son of George W. and Mary A. Barr,
and was born in Santa .\na, Cal., June 11, 1881. His early education was
received in the ]3ul)lic school at Oleander, and the \\'ashington Union High
School, at Easton. after which he supplemented his knowledge by pursuing
a business course in the Fresno Business College, under Prof. J. N. Sproule.
After leaving school he accepted a position as bookkeeper for the Einstein
Company remaining with the firm for one year and a half, afterwards keeping-
books for the Kutner Company. His next position was with the advertising
department of the Fresno Democrat, remaining with this paper four years
when he accepted a position as traveling salesman which he held six years.
In 1910 Wallace L. Barr entered the real estate business in Fresno, being
associated with W. E. Bush and Company for three years when he engaged
in business for himself with an ofifice at 924)4 J Street.
^^'allace L. Barr was united in marriage with Georgia H. Jones, of Kansas
Citv. Fraternallv. Mr. Barr is a Mason and a member of Las Palnias Lodge,
No! 347. F. & a' :\f., at Fresno.
MRS. MARY M. DONLEAVEY. — A very interesting pioneer whose
life-work seems to have been very fruitful in service to her fellow-men, and
especially in much needed orphanage work, is Mrs. i\Iary M. Donleavey, of
,306 Olive Avenue, Fresno. Her maiden name was Branham and she was born
in Culpepper County, Va. Her first husband was Joseph W. Roberts, and
he was killed at the Battle of Bull Run. After his death, she became a nurse
in the Civil \\'ar, and saw heroic service at Antietam, Harper's Ferry and
other centers in the thickest of the fight. She was in Washington when
President Lincoln was shot, and so came to know Booth personally.
Later Mrs. Donleavey took up orphanage home work and resolved to
make that her life ambition. For five years she conducted an orphanage at
Bloomington, 111. In 1871 she married W. H. Donleavey, a native of Illinois,
who served in the Civil War as a member of in Illinois regiment. Being
a miller by trade, he settled at Rush Center in Rush County, Kans., where he
built and ran the Walnut Valley Rolling Mills. He invented an iron roller
for grinding the grain, and installed the invention in the mills at Keokuk and
Independence, Iowa, and at Warsaw, 111.
]\Ir. Donleavey came to California in 1886, and at Smithville, Colusa
County, he ran a mill. In 1887 he came to Fresno: but a vear later he was
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1129
taken sick and died in Lake County. After the death of her husband, Mrs.
Donleavey came back to Fresno and opened the first orphans' home in that
town. She went before the town trustees and told them of her experience,
and advocated an orphanage at Frpsno station. She became matron of the
same on May 1, 1893. The first location was at Woodman's Addition, in a
large, two-story house ; later she moved to Gilbert Street, and afterwards
bought ten acres of land on West Olive Avenue, where she built a cabin and
moved her ten orphans, later on she had a home erected. Selling her ten
acres, she bought five acres farther west on Olive Street near Merced. Still
residing in that section, she gave up her orphanage some few years ago, after
having done a lot of good for the orphans and poor people of Fresno. She
still retains one acre of the five, the remaining four having been subdivided
and sold. She was the first to build and buy on West Olive Avenue, having
farmed some seventy acres there to grain and at one time she had sixty
acres in melons.
By her first marriage Mrs. Donleavey had a daughter, Mrs. Georgia
Senior, of Hayward, Cal., to whom three children have Jaeen 1)orn : James:
Robert ; and the other is Mrs. Grace Prism.
Mrs. Donleavey has nine great grandchildren, and has adopted a son. an
orphan who took her name — Joseph \A'. Donleavey. ^^'hen at home, he
worked in the ofificc of the Fresno Republican, and now he is in the U. S. A.
aviation service.
B. F. NEIKIRK. — The appearance and environment of a man's ho'me
clearly indicate his character and ta^^te in life. This is especiall)^ true of the
cozy home of Mr. and 'Mrs. B. F. Xeikirk. which nestles in the midst of
orange, peach and nectarine trees on their highly cultivated fifty-acre ranch
devoted to the culture of fruits and vines. ]\Ir. Wikirk i-^ a practical and
enterprising rancher and has always confined his interests to the cultivation
of the soil and, by hard work, persevering and intelligent efforts, has gained
success in his horticultural and viticultural enterprise and now has attained
the enviable position in life where he and his estimable wife can now take
life easier.
B. F. Neikirk is a native of Smith Count}', \^irginia, where he was born
in 1852, a son of George W. and ]\Iary J. Neikirk, who were also residents
of Virginia. Of their family of five children, B. F. Neikirk, the subject of
this review, was the only member to migrate to California, which occurred
in 1891. After arriving in the Golden State he became the foreman of a large
ranch for eight years, after which he held a similar position on another, for
two years.
In 1901 he took possession of his present ranch, containing fifty acres
devoted to the culture of nectarines, apricots, peaches, muscat and Thompson
seedless grapes.
^^'hen he purchased the property the land was in an uncultivated con-
dition, Ijut through hard toil and judicious management, he has brought the
land up to a high state of cultivation and his persistent efl:"orts have been
duly rewarded b}' abundant crops.
In 1877, Mr. B. F. Neikirk was united in marriage with Aliss Mattie
McCall, a daughter of John and Rebecca (Edmondson) McCall, the ceremony
being solemnized in the state of Texas.
The Neikirks and McCalls are both old and highly respected families of
the Old Dominion State and their ancestors can be traced back to the Revo-
lutionary \\'ar, in which conflict members of the family rendered valiant
service.
John McCall, the father of Mrs. Neikirk. was a soldier in the Civil War
and served in the Confederate Army. Her maternal grandfather Edmondson.
was an extensive slave owner and an old settler of Washington County, \'a.
1130 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
The Neikirk family were also old settlers of the South and took an
active part in defending and upholding what they believed a just cause, the
principles of the Southern Confederacy.
In 1917, Mr. and Mrs. Neikirk took an extended trip to the South and
Middle West, leaving home in April and returning in November. During
their vacation trip they visited in Virginia, Washington, D. C, Tennessee,
Oklahoma, Denver, Salt Lake City and many side trips of interest were en-
joyed among which was a visit to Boone's monument. The pleasures of this
enjoyable trip will never be forgotten by 'Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Neikirk.
JONATHAN C. GIBBS.— Especial interest attaches to the life of Jona-
than C. Gibbs, the successful raisin grower and owner of a highly improved
fifty-acre vineyard on North Avenue, one mile east of Lone Star. From the
early age of ten years he was compelled to make his own way in the world,
and, although handicapped through lack of money and the advantages of a
good education, he has achieved marked success through his own eflforts and
untiring energy.
Jonathan C. Gibbs was born at Lyons, Wayne County, N. Y., on May
5. 1840, a son of Aaron Swaine and Mary (Clark) Gibbs. Aaron Gibbs was
a farmer in the Empire State and passed away when his son Jonathan was
seven years old. The mother continued to operate the farm for three years
after the death of her husband, when she went to make her home with one
of her daughters. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Gibbs consisted of ten
children, seven girls and three boys. Two of the boys grew to manhood.
Jonathan C. is now the only member of the familv living.
Jonathan C. Gibbs, the subject of this sketch, hired out by the month at
ten years of age, working on farms, and when fourteen years of age was able
to do the work of a man in the harvest field, binding grain after the cradlers.
In 1858, being then about eighteen years of age, Jonathan C. Gibbs, left his
native state and journeyed westward to Adams Coimty, 111., where in 1860
he was united in marriage with Elizabeth McGibbons, a native of the same
county, whose parents came from Westmoreland County, Pa. Mr. Gibbs
rented a farm and engaged in agricultural pursuits until the Civil War was
declared, when he showed his patriotism and loyalty by enlisting in Com-
pany A, One Hundred Nineteenth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, be-
ing mustered into service at Ouincy, 111. He was engaged in several skir-
mishes but was taken sick and developed a chronic disease, on account of
which physical disability he was honorably discharged in 1863. In 1880 he re-
moved to Chariton County, Mo., where he was engaged for five years in farm-
ing, after which he migrated farther westward, this time coming through to the
Pacific Coast and locating in San Francisco, in 1885, where he remained six
years, being employed in the agricultural implement business.
In 1891 Mr. Gibbs moved to Fresno County, and although his total cash
at that time amounted to but eighty-five cents, he was undaunted by adver-
sity. He was a large and powerful man, possessing strong brain power and
marked executive ability ; and being an indefatigable worker and very eco-
nomical in his habits of living, by 1898 he had saved $2,200, with which he
purchased his present ranch of fifty acres. This property is now an excep-
tionally productive raisin vineyard, and its present value is placed at $50,000.
It is a cozy, homelike place, equipped with every ponvenience.
Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs were the parents of nine children, two of whom died
when about two years of age. ]\Irs. Gibbs passed away on July 26, 1908,
leaving, besides her husband, seven children to mourn the loss of a loving
and devoted mother. The seven children are : Jennie B., now Mrs. Horst-
man, of Fresno; Linda B., the widow of Daniel Burgan, residing at Lindsay;
Albert Grant, a rancher living near the home ranch ; Charles E.. a resident
of the state of Washington; Maud F., the wife of Walter Pool, living in
Fresno Coimty ; Almeda Carrie, who married .Starr Williams, a rancher liv-
ing near Fresno ; and Hazel Kirk, who is the wife of Baalam Cannon, living
J.4.^Uh.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1133
on the home ranch. Mr. Gibbs has three grandchildren: Bernice Clanton,
mother of two children, Fern and Ralph; Roy Gibbs; and Charlene Gibbs.
Of a sociable and companionable nature, Mr. Gibbs is one of the l:>est-liked
men in this section of the county. He is a member of the California Raisin
Growers' Association, and in politics is a Progressive Republican. In the
spring of 1918, he met with a severe accident that resulted in a broken hip,
from which he was a sufiferer for months, but he is now slowly recovering.
GEORGE M. BOLES. — An experienced and influential business man,
such as is always to be prized in the formative period of any state, is Georgje
M. Boles, one of the representative business men of Fresno. Ilis father was
Cornelius Boles, a furniture dealer of Iowa, who came west to California in
1885 and engaged in ranching near Fresno, and there died, in 1910, at the age
of seventy-two. His mother, before her marriage, was Eliza Rolens, and she
is still living, having passed her eighty-fourth milestone.
George M. Boles was born near Des Moines, Iowa, March 17, 1868, and
was educated at Cherokee, in the grammar and high schools, to which town
the family had moved, continuing his schooling at Fresno. Leaving school,
he became bookkeeper for a numi:)er of firms, and even in that routine line
of work he showed capacity for larger responsibility.
In 1890, he married Miss A4^ay Waf?ord, of Texas, by whom he has had
two sons, George C. and C. E. Boles ; and with his family he resides in com-
fort at 1561 J Street. C. E. Boles served in the Coast Artillery for six or
seven months, and after the armistice was signed he received his honorable
discharge.
In 1900 Mr. G. M. Boles engaged in the harness business at 1144-46 I
Street, and there his extensive stock was constantly added to for seven years.
Selling out his harness interests, he went into the meat business for a couple
of years: but in 1910 he disposed of that store, to devote himself entirelv to
real estate operations. He formed the Boles Realty Company, which dealt
largely in San Joaquin Valley lands and in fire insurance; and in that field.
Mr. Boles was assisted by his two sons. For ten terms, at diiTcrent times,
he was director of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, and also director of
the Fresno Traiific Association for five years.
Always a public-spirited man, Mr. Boles served a couple of terms as city
trustee from the Second Ward, being first elected in 1901, and reelected in
1913. He was also for seventeen years a member of the Second Infantry — the
first battalion in San Joaquin Valley — of the California National Guard, and
retired full of honors in 1911, with the rank of Major. A Mason, an Odd
Fellow and a Woodman of the World, Mr. Boles also has long been one of
the pillars of the Commercial Club.
REV. G. R. EDWARD MAC DONALD.— Noteworthy among the active
and talented ministers sent to California and to Fresno County, Rev. G. R.
Edward MacDonald, Dean and Rector of St. James Episcopal Pro-Cathedral,
Fresno, has carried on his work here with the same earnestness of purpose
for which he has been noted in other fields. Broad and liberal in spirit, and
sincerely devout in his convictions, he is a practical Christian, and his kindly,
sympathetic nature make him a true minister of the gospel, and a helper of
man. Born in St. Andrews East, Quebec, Canada, July 21, 1877, Dean Mac-
Donald is a son of Samuel and Emily Elizabeth (Roberts) MacDonald, the
former a native of old Oregon, his father being a chief factor of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and the latter of Fredericton, New Brunswick. When he was
a small lad of six years. the family moved to Fredericton, and he received his
early education in the schools of that city, graduating from the University of
New Brunswick in 1898, and from Kings Theological College of \\''indsor.
Nova Scotia, in 1899. ' '
Mr. MacDonald was ordained Deacon December 24, 1899. by Bishop
Kingdon. and was ordained a priest July 21, 1901, by the same Bishop, in
1134 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
the Diocese of Fredericton, N. B. His first charge was as curate of Rathurst,
New Brunswick, where he had charge of a large mission field in Gloucester
County. He was next rector at South Hampton, and Queensbury, N. B. For
three and one-half years he was curate of Trinity Church, at St. John, New
Brunswick.
On February 1, 1906, ]\Ir. MacDonald became rector of the Church of the
Savior, at Hanford, Kings County, Ca!., where a new church was erected
during his pastorate. In April. 1012. he was called to the charge of St. James
Pro-Cathedral, Fresno, and lirought to the larger field a largeness of purpose,
and a genuine devotion to the best interests of his congregation, and of the
growing municipality. He is president of the Council of Advice of the San
Joaquin Episcopal Diocese, and is secretary of the ^Missionary Commission of
the same district. His faithful and disinterested devotion to worthy causes
has also won him public recognition, and he is a member of the Department
of Public Welfare of Fresno County, appointed by the board of supervisors
of the county.
The marriage of Mr. MacDonald, which occurred June 4, 1902, at Fred-
ericton, N B., united him with Lilla Clifton Tabor, a native of that city, and
two children have been born to them. Lilla Klvne, born at St. John, N. B..
:\Iarch 7, 1903, and Charles Ranald, born in Hanford, Cal., September 9, 1909.
HARRY M. JOHNSTON. — The senior member of the well known law
firm of Johnston and Jones, in the city of Fresno, is a native of the state of
Alississippi, born December 15. 1863. at Coldwater. De Soto County. Brought
up on a Southern plantation, ^Ir. Johnston, after completing his education
at the South Western Presbvterian University, Clarksville, Tennessee, and
graduating from that institution with the degree of M. A. in the year 1888,
spent a vear in European travel, after which he took a course in the Columbia
Law School, in the city of New York. In 1890 he came to California and
was admitted to the bar the same year. He opened a law office in Santa Cruz.
California, and served that city in the capacitv of city attorney for two years.
April, 1893, he came to Fresno, where he has since been ens:aged in the
practice of his profession. For four years, from 1908 to 1912. Mr. Johnston
was the city attorney of Fresno.
By his marriage with Laura M. Barksdale, a native of Arkansas, he
established domestic ties. They are the parents of three interesting children,
nameh^: William B. : Harry M. Jr. and Evelyn S. In his religious con-
victions Mr. Johnston is a Presbyterian and a member of the First Presby-
terian Church of Fresno. Fraternally he is connected with Fresno Lodge,
No. 247, F. & A. M.; Fresno Lodge, No. 162, Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks, and is Past Council Commander of the Woodmen of the World.
A. D. CRIBB. — An exceptionally fine old settler who has done his "bit"
toward the development of the State of California and sending it forward
to its magnificent destiny, is A. D. Cribb, who has improved various vine-
yards, and in doing so has attained a comfortable prosperity for himself.
in the early seventies he came to California, having been born at Racine,
Wis., June 22. 1848. His father was James Cribb, who was born at Land's
End, Cornwall, England, and as a young man came to the United States and
Wisconsin, settling at Mineral Point. He was married to Elizabeth Clenes.
who was born near London. He engaged in mercantile business at Mineral
Point, and then removed to Racine County, where he secured some land, im-
proved it and built there a home, and in that hard won home he died, a
rugged pioneer, in 1860, at the age of forty-two. His wife had preceded him
to the life beyond two years before, the mother of four children, who had
called her blessed.
A. D. Cribb was the eldest of the family, and was brought up as a farmer.
He had but a limited training at the public school, and after his father died
he made his own living and way in the world. He lix'ed with John ^McKinzie,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1133
a Scotch Presbyterian of the old-school type until he was twenty, and in
1868 he removed to Bates County, Missouri, where he followed the stock
business. The region, however, was cursed with malaria, and as Mr. Cribb
was in bad health he determined, in 1872, to some to California. Twenty-
four hours after he had reached San Francisco and the attractions of bay city
life he made for the San Joaquin Valley, and there he w.'i- luck\ in securing
employment with a sheepman, which line of work he cniitinucil until he
was able to buy a band for himself. By 1877 he had two thuusand sheep,
but the dry year forced him to sell at a great loss, and he was just about aljle
to pay his bills.
Summoning anew his cournt^e and resolution, Mr. Cribb started for
Fresno. He had a few dollars lii'i. ami with tliis small sum he bought a
tract of forty acres at Malaga, and m t ii .mt ,is a \ine>ar(l with muscat grapes,
being among the first to make a muscat \ineyar(I, hut, after a few seasons,
alkali develo]ied and lie sold the land for about what he had origina:llv ])aid
for it.
Nothing daunted he bought a place at Lone Star of forty acres, which
he set out to muscat and Thompson grapes and to peaches. The land prov-
ing good the investment was a success, so that at the end of eight jean^ he
was able to sell it at a fair profit. In the meantime he had bought twenty
acres on Chittenden Avenue, which he diMiirt] to peaches and muscats, and
with care he has made this also a successful (ircliard and vineyard. Intensely
interested in his line of acti\-itv, he has suppc)rted the various cooperative
raisin associations from the original T. M. Kearney Association, and has for
years been an active member of the California Peach (Growers' Association
and the California \s<,-,ciate(l Raisin Co.
With a IniiL;. inactical and rich experience in daily life and with human
nature, Mr. CriMi has worked hard for ci\ic improvements aufl uplift of the
community, and has also never failed to give a thought to the spiritit.il si.le
of existence and the attractions of the future Ufe. He is a consistent nu nilier
of the Methodist Church, and in national affairs is a Republican ; but \\hen it
comes to local issues he knows no party lines and supports the best man and
the best measures.
RAY W. BAKER. — .\ representative citizen of California, of which
state he is a native son, Ray W. Baker, tax crijlector of Fresno County, first
saw the light of day on February 22, 1881, in Msalia. His parents P. Y. and
Augusta (Ferguson) Baker, were representative of the pioneer element that
laid the foundation for our future prosperity. The elder Baker was a civil
engineer and contractor. He organized and promoted the company that built
the 76 Canal and was associated with much of the early development work
in Tulare and Fresno Counties, having settled there in the early seventies.
He served in the United States Army in California, .^fter an active and
useful life he passed away May 24, 1899, respected and honored by all who
knew him. His widow is still living.
Ray W. Baker received his education in the grammar and high schools
of Fresno, but did not quite complete the high school course for he fomvl an
opportunitv to enter upon the career of a journalist, an ambition he had
nourished for some years. He entered the ofifice of the Fresno Democrat and
during the nine years he was with that paper he served in all departments.
Later he was a member of the staff of the Fresno Republican. He is still a
member of the Typographical Union.
At a pubHc meeting of citizens of Fresno, Mr. Baker was chosen a
member of a committee to select men for public offices of the city. For
eight years he held the office, by appointment, of deputy county recorder
of" the county. In 1914 he was a candidate for the office of tax collector of
the county, was elected and installed into the office on January 1, 1915, which
office he now fills with credit to himself and to his constituents, having been
1136 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
reelected without opposition in 1918, when he received the highest number
of votes of any candidate for pubUc office in the county at that election. In
1916 Mr. Baker was chosen for the office of secretary of the California Tax
Collectors' Association and held the position three years. He was then
elected vice-president and now fills that office in the Association.
On November 14, 1910, Ray W. Baker was united in marriage with
Miss Belle Drew, of Selma and they have had two children, Ramona and
Elaine. Politically Mr. Baker was a prominent worker in Republican ranks
and wielded a strong influence in the county as secretary of the County Cen-
tral Committee, serving for six years. He was president of the City Library
Board at the time the city and county libraries were consolidated into one
system, and he has been president of the Fresno Labor Council two terms.
He is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, and has served as secretary
of Las Palmas Lodge, No. 343, F. & A. M., for ten years; he is a member of
the Fraternal Brotherhood and of Fresno Parlor, No. 25, N. S. G. W. In
all progressive movements for the upbuilding of the county or the advance-
ment of the people's interest, he is always found among the leaders and
wherever he is known he is highly respected.
FRANK B. HARRIS.— Undaunted in the midst of failures that were
enough to put out of business one less fitted for big things. Frank B. Harris
has come up through them all with great credit to himself and those con-
nected with him. He was born in Sioux City. Iowa. October 26. 1S51. His
parents went to Kansas and it was in Lawrence that he grew up, and attended
the public schools. This was just at the time of the border troubles at the
close of the Civil War.
His father, Amos Harris, was a pioneer of IS50 in California, coming via
Panama and engaging in mining in Nevada County very successfully. He
returned to his eastern home after eight years and there married. \\'hile
living at Lawrence. Kans.. he was in the dairy business. During his sojourn
in the East he had a longing to get back to California but it was not until
the year 1874 that his wish was gratified. Once more in California, he spent
four years looking over the state for a location, the family meanwhile remain-
ing in Lawrence. In 1878 they joined him at Turlock. Cal., where he farmed
three years. The mother was Nettie P. Pelham before her marriage ; and she
had two sons, Frank B. Harris and Howard A. Harris, of Fowler. Both par-
ents are dead. They were people of force in the community in which they
lived, having pioneered from the early days in that part of the state. The
mother was a woman of especially high character, and was widely known
and loved for her admirable life.
The Harris family first settled at Turlock. but came to Fowler in 1881.
and bought some Southern Pacific land. Frank Harris worked with his
father on this place, and also worked out and assisted his father in paying
for it. He became an expert sheep-shearer and followed this business for sev-
eral years. He also rented land and leveled it. and was a contractor for
ditching and leveling. He leveled and prepared for planting several sections
of land in the vicinity of Fowder, and also made ditches for irrigation at
Fowler and Kerman. and later at Hanford. In 1890 he farmed wheat and
barley in the vicinity of Fowler, and it was in this year that he married
Miss Ella ]\IcDowell. of Fowler, daughter of Calhoun and Mary (Martin")
McDowell, both born and married in Evansville. Ind., who came to Califor-
nia in 1882. settling first at Colusa. There the father died as the result of
blood-poisoning, and in 1885 the mother, who had married Wm. W^estcott,
came with her two children to Fowler. These were : Ella McDowell, born
in Posey County, Ind., and Edgar, rancher and vineyardist on the McCall
Road, who owns a forty-acre vineyard in partnership with his brother-in-law.
No children of the second marriage are living. The mother died at Fowler
at the age of sixty-three years.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1139
After marriage Air. and Mrs. Harris rented the Harris home place
Avhere they lived, and he continued to farm hundreds of acres of wheat.
^^l^ile living at Fowler, their only child, Ella Belle, now the wife of Floyd
Pendergrass, a mechanic in the garage at Fowler, was born. She occupies
a responsible position in the First National Bank of Fowler. Mr. Harris
went onto the Burrell estate in the Wheatville section, rented 5,000 acres
of land, and sowed 3,500 acres to wheat. He bought one of the first big
tractors that was ever used in Fresno County for plowing, harvesting and
threshing wheat. For this tractor he contracted to pay $10,000. Unfortu-
nately this was at the time of the panic during Cleveland's administration,
and he met with great financial reverses. About 1891 he went to the West
Side and operated 5.000 acres of the Burrell Estate, remaining there from
1893 to 1905. This did not prove a success, for it was too dr}^
In the meantime Mr. Harris became acquainted with Hector Burness,
of Fresno, superintendent of the Balfour-Guthrie interests, an English syndi-
cate which at one time owned 3,500 acres ; and of this property Mr. Flarris
became foreman in 1907. Since that time the land has been divided into
twenty-, forty-, and eighty-acre tracts, and sold to prospective fruit-growers,
it having been demonstrated that the land is particularly fitted for raising
table grapes and olives. There are now but 400 acres of the original holdings,
and the place is called Waverly Ranch, of which Mr. Harris is the foreman.
Mr. Harris has raised a great deal of grain during his life, and it was
his reputation as a farmer that secured him the position he now occupies.
Through all the vicissitudes of his life, Mrs. Harris has been found ready
to uphold his hands and encourage when days were dark and dreary.
HENRY HAWSON. — Widely known in professional and civic circles,
is Henry Hawson, a native of England and the youngest son of James and
Susannah (Craddock) Hawson. His grandfather was Thomas Hawson, a
farmer of the Southwest Riding in Yorkshire, and the descendant of an old
family of yeomen. His mother was a member of a Leicestershire family; and
such was the character of these worthy parents that the boy started well-
equipped, in many ways, for the race in life.
Born at Shei^eld, the famous industrial center, Henry at first received
home training, later attending one of Sheffield's well-known parochial schools;
after which, when less than twelve years of age, he cuinnicncci] to work for a
living. He also attended night school and, like so many I'.ritishers, learned
short-hand. He was employed as errand boy in a lawyer's office, and later
as stenographer in a manufacturing establishment. There he served an ap-
prenticeship to the Sheffield cutlery trade, and then, until he was twenty-two
years of age, as a salesman, traveled England, Scotland and Irelan<I.
Coming to America, he joined two brothers already establi^lu■cl in business
in Oregon, and soon was doing nevvspajier work there and on I'liL^vt Sound.
His fitness for the new field soon made him known in I'.riti^li ( dlumbia,
where he became City Editor of the Victoria Times. MoxinL; ^nuili lo Cali-
fornia in 1900, Mr. Hawson continued his journalistic acti\ii\ uii the San
Francisco papers, after which he was on the Redding Searchlight, in Shasta
County. He remained there until 1901, when he came tu b'resno, and served
on the stafif of the Democrat until 1903, and on the Republican until 1907.
At Berkeley, in 1904, Mr. Hawson and Elsie May Tade. adopted daughter
of the Reverend Dr. E. O. Tade. a pioneer minister of the Congregational
Church in the West, were joined in matrimony.
Taking up the study of law, Mr. Hawson passed the State Bar examina-
tion in 1907, and at once began private practice. In September of that year
District Attorney Denver S. Church appointed him Deputy District Attorney
of Fresno County, from which office he resigned in August. 1910. He re-
turned to private practice and so continued until he was again appointed,
this time Assistant, bv District Attornev McCormick, in Mav, 1915.
1140 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Elected Assemblyman from the Fifty-first district in November, 1914,
and reelected in November, 1916, each time with the backing of the Democratic
party, whose platform he espoused, Mr. Hawson was nominated for Congress
from the Seventh district in 1910, but withdrew, and in 1918 he was a candi-
date for that office. He has been a delegate to every state convention of the
Democratic party since 1906, served as chairman of the County Committee
from 1908 to 1912, and as vice-president of the Woodrow Wilson League of
Northern California 1911 and 1912. He also served as a member of the Board
of Directors of the Fresno County Chamber of Commerce during 1911 and
1912, and since 1910 as chairman of the Joint Committee on Improvement of
the San Joaquin River for Navigation.
Mr. Hawson is a member of Manzanita Camp, Fresno, Woodmen of the
World, with which he has been identified since 1903, and was Consul Com-
mander of that camp for two terms. He was a delegate to the Triennial
Head Camp Session, at Portland, in 1910. He also belongs to Fresno Lodge,
No. 186, I. O. O. F., and is a member of the Commercial Club of Fresno.
CHARLES PLUNNEKE.— The romantic linking of two lives and their
combined contribution, as developers of California, to help make this glorious
commonwealth still more attracti^•e and desirable as an abiding place, is nar-
rated in the story of Charles and Katherine Plunneke. Mr. Plunneke was
born in Hanover, Germany, and reared to the life of a farmer, and received
the best common-school education, so that he was well equipped when he
came to America. He spent some time in the East, and might easily have
been persuaded to settle there, had it not been that he was happily attracted
to California. He came west to see for himself, and he had no sooner gazed
upon Fresno County, than he decided to remain. This was over thirty years
ago, and Mr. Plunneke was one of the first to improve his immediate environ-
ment: he made viticulture a special study, and worked hard in the Barton
vineyard, making good and lasting friends.
Mr. Plunneke first purchased twenty acres of the present place of forty
acres in Temperance Colony and set it out to muscatel grapes. He afterwards
bought forty acres more in the same section which he devoted to a vineyard
which later was sold at a good profit. A fine residence was built and other
improvements were made on the original place which increased its value and
attractiveness. Mr. Plunneke was an influential member of the Odd Fellows,
and a very patriotic citizen and was held in high esteem. He passed away
October 2, 1913.
Mrs. Plunneke is a native of Vienna, Austria. Both her grandfather and
her father were portrait and landscape painters, but her father died early in
life, before he had an opportunity to distinguish himself by his unquestioned
talent, and his widow, still a resident of Vienna, was left with the respon-
sibility of educating her family. Mrs. Plunneke attended the Vienna Lyceum,
where she graduated with honors, and when she had put aside her books,
she accepted employment as a stenographer and bookkeeper. Owing to the
failure of her health, however, she was advised to go south, so she embarked
for Egypt, and remained in Cairo eleven years. Her health improved, and
she returned to her mother, but soon the climate caused the same old trouble,
and she was advised to try California. In 1906, she came to Fresno, and here
she first met Mr. Plunneke, their acquaintance eventually resulting in mar-
riage. Being possessed of a commercial education, as well as much native
ability, and business acumen, she immediately entered heartily into her
husband's enterprises for the developing and improving of their lands.
Having traveled much, Mrs. Plunneke realized the great possibilities of
Fresno County lands under intensive farming. Thus she was well qualified,
when her husband died, to take up the responsibilities of the affairs and in-
terests left her, so she continued viticulture, and firmly believes that it has
great possibilities. Mrs. Plunneke has purchased the Beall vineyard, adjoin-
ing her place, and now has sixty acres in a body. This tract is devoted to the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1141
raising of emperor and malaga grapes, and muscatel and Thompson seedless
raisins. By her careful oversight, she has brought her ranch to a high state
of cultivation, as well as making of it a profitable investment. But this is not
the limit of Mrs. Plunneke's ambition or activit)', and her recent enterprise
gives great promise for the future. In 1917, she purchased a ranch of 160
acres near Kerman. and she is planning to improve this property with vines,
orcliards and alfalfa. Rather naturally, she is an enthusiastic member of the
California Associated Raisin Company. A cultured and refined woman, of an
artistic temperament and high ideals, Mrs. Plunneke is intensely interested
in every movement for improving the social, religious and economic con-
ditions of the community, and is generous toward those less fortunate. Fra-
ternally. I\[rs. Plunneke finds recreation with the Rebekah Lodge of Fresno.
ALBERT HAMLET SWEENEY, M. D.— Enjoying not only a lucrative
practice, but an enviable reputation for scientific ability and the most pains-
taking conscientiousness in the treatment of every patient committing his
life and comfort to him. Dr. Albert Hamlet Sweeney easily occupies a fore-
most position among the medical fraternity of Fresno County. His father,
James Sweeney, was a native of Canada, and came to California by way of the
Horn, sailing from Elaine for the Golden Gate. In time, he became a real
estate agent at Truckee, where he built the Sweeney Block. He conducted a
hotel, was pleasantly acquainted with thousands and passed away in 1895.
His mother, a native of Ohio, had been Anna Oboy, before her marriage, and
she came west bv crossing the plains. She also is dead, having passed awav
in 1894.
Born at Truckee on December 23. 1869, Albert H. Sweeney was educated
in the grammar and high schools of that enterprising town, and in time
entered the Cooper Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1896.
Since that time, he has done post-graduate work, in several successive years,
in New York, eager to get the latest and the best that the metropolis had to
offer for his patients, and sparing neither expense, time or trouble in their
behalf.
He first practiced as a police surgeon at San Francisco, for a couple of
years, then went as government surgeon for six years to the Pyramid Lake,
Indian Reservation, in Nevada, and then came back to California and to
Sanger, where he was surgeon for the Hume-Bennett Lumber Co., which
had a hospital of nineteen beds. At the end of five years, or in 1905, Dr.
Sweeney took up medical practice at Fresno, which he has always considered
his home. Untiring in research and reform, Dr. Sweeney has long been active
in the national, state and county medical societies.
In July, 1901, occurred the wedding of Dr. Sweeney and Miss Clara May
Lindsey, of Sanger, a marriage blessed with their two children, Ethel A.
and Irma May Sweeney. The family attend the Methodist Church.
A Republican in matters of national politics. Dr. Sweeney is prominent
in the Commercial and the Riverside Country Clubs. He also belongs to the
Masons and the Knights Templar, the Odd Fellows, the Elks, the Woodmen
of the World, the Eagles and Stags.
ABSALOM WELLS.— Southeast of Del Rey lies the highly improved
fifty-three-and-one-quarter-acre ranch owned in partnership by the brothers
Absalom and G. C. \\"ells. who came to this section of the country before the
Santa Fe was built through Parlier and before the Southern Pacific was
built through Sanger and Reedley.
Absalom Wells was born in Tyler County, W. Va., August 29, 1862, and
Is the son of Benjamin and Jerusha (Headley) Wells. The father was a
miller by trade and an old steamboat man on the Ohio River. He served
for a while in the Civil War. In 1880 became to California. His brother
Caleb Wells, who preceded him to the West in the early days crossed the
plains with horses in the days when prairie schooners were the popular vehi-
1142 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
cles for transportation across the trackless wastes of the western plains,
and when men enjoyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously. He became
a large wheat rancher in Solano County.
Benjamin Wells was the father of eight children, six boys and two girls.
A. J. Wells, his eldest child, was born August 3, 1853, near Wheeling, W. Va.,
and was married at the age of twenty-eight in his native state, sixty miles
north of Wheeling, near the Ohio River, to Miss Elizabeth Underwood, a
native of W'est Virginia. They became the parents of five children, namely :
Florence Etta, who married A. A. Channel!, a rancher, and became the
mother of nine children ; E. A., a carpenter at Del Rey : Bessie Ruf¥ner, who
married Berncl Hopper, a rancher and large landowner residing in Fresno,
and is the mother of three boys ; Frank Russell who trained at Camp Lewis
for service in the World War; and Theresa, who died as an infant. A. J.
Wells resides on his well-improved eighty-acre ranch near Del Rey, which he
purchased of his father. Benjamin Wells' second child, Alfred, is a merchant
at Joseph's Mills, W. Va. ; Emery E. is a hardware merchant at Pensboro, W.
Va. : Absalom is the fourth child ; Flora Lola is the wife of R. E. Nash, a
rancher near Del Rey : Frank died in California, single ; Narcissus also died
in California, single ; Gilbert C. is the youngest of the family, and was six
years old when his parents came to California. Benjamin Wells lived to
the mature age of eighty, and his good wife attained the age of seventy-five.
Both died in California. The father owned 160 acres and deeded eighty acres
to his son A. J. Wells before his death. After his death the other 'eighty
acres went to his wife.
Absalom AA^ells in earlier years worked as fireman on a portable steam
engine with a threshing machine. He has experienced the privations incident
to a pioneer's life, planting and waiting for vines and trees to come into bear-
ing. He is an intelligent man as well as very industrious, and is a most ex-
cellent business man. A worthy descendant of an old and honored family,
he is held in high respect in the neighborhood in which he lives.
The two brothers are bachelors, and their fifty-three and one quarter
acres represent their joint inheritance. A Republican in politics, Absalom
Wells is loyal to the administration and to the flag.
HANS A. UHD. — An enterprising and progressive early settler in the
vicinity of Rolinda, whose hard, incessant work with the aid of his good wife
has not only acquired a comfortable competency but has contributed to the
betterment of the community, is Hans A. Uhd. the owner of a trim dairy
farm of forty acres of well-improved land and a nice herd of milch cows. He
came to Fresno County in 1890 and has ever since been counted among the
most desirable of Central Californians.
He was born at Varda in Jylland, Denmark, on November 25. 1863. the
son of Anton Uhd, also a native of that section, and Johanna (Knudsen) LHid
who, like her husband, died there. There were three children in the family,
and Hans was the oldest. He was brought up on a farm and was educated in
the public schools of his native place. His father died when he was eighteen
years of age, and very early he assisted his mother to run the home place.
When he grew up, he served the regularly prescribed time in the Danish
Army, and was messenger on the stafif of the commander.
in 1890 ]\Ir. L"hd came to California and settled in Fresno County, where
he was early employed on various ranches, his first engagement being in the
^\'ashington Colony. Then he worked for the Butler Company, in Sackett's
A'ineyard and other vineyards, and then he came to Kearney Park. He hauled
the cuttings to the different places and helped level the land.
In the Spring of 1891, ]\Ir. L^hd was married to Miss Mary Jacobsen. who
was born in Denmark near Esbjerg, Jylland; and then he rented land near
Rolinda and began in the dairy and poultry business. He worked out and for
three years rented more land until, in 1898, he was able to purchase twenty
acres of his present place.
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1145
It was then mere stubble-field, but he leveled it, put in alfalfa and some
orchard, and continued dairying. Later he bought forty acres beyond Rolinda,
which he afterwards sold, and bought twenty acres more adjoining his original
twenty, so that he now has forty acres in a body. This he has fully improved
with the sowing of alfalfa, so that he is dairying with great success.
He has an exceptionally attractive herd of about twenty-five Holstein
milch cows, and he also raises cattle, leasing land from the Kearney' estate.
He sells his milk to the Jersey Farm Dairy through the San Joaquin Valley
Milk Producers Association, of which he is a stockholder. He is a stock-
holder in the Danish Creamery Association and is a member of the California
Peach Growers, Inc.
Three children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Uhd and added
to their popularity socially : Clara is Mrs. John Peelman and resides on Fill-
more Avenue, where Mr. Peelman is a successful dairyman ; and Agnes and
Axel are both at home, assisting their parents. Mr. Uhd is a welcome member
of the Danish Brotherhood.
AL E. SUNDERLAND. — A prominent, many-sided business man who
has dedicated his talents, time, energies and capital to one of the most im-
portant of California's fruit industries, is AI Sunderland, the secretary and
treasurer of the California Peach Growers, Inc. He was born at Pavilion,
X. Y.. on October 5, 1866, the son of E. R. and Mercy (Cronkhite) Sunder-
land, the former of an old New York State family, the latter a descendant of
the Cronkhites of Mayflower fame, who later migrated from Massachusetts
to Connecticut and then to New York, and who boasted the most active and
honorable participation fas indeed did the Sunderlands) in both the Colonial
and Revolutionary Wars. E. R. Sunderland was a New York farmer who
removed to Kansas City, where he resided for a few years ; then he went to
Tacoma ; and after his son Al came to Fresno County, he also came here
and was in business for some time in Clovis. becoming well and favorably
known. His good wife, a devout member of the Baptist Church, passed away
in 1907, and he died in 191.^. The)' had two children, our subject being the
only son.
Al E. was educated at the public schools in Pavilion, but when fourteen
years old he came to Kansas City, Mo., and soon after worked as billing
clerk for the Armour Packing Company. Then he became manager of the
Kansas City Towel Supply Company for two years, and during that period,
in 1888, he was married to jMiss Lillian Gilliam, a native of Missouri and the
daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Gilliam, the former a Civil War veteran
who was a farmer in Kansas and was marshal of Kansas City, Kans., and
who came west to Fresno in 1886 and still resides there.
In 1889 Mr. and Mrs. Al Sunderland came to Fresno County, and he
engaged in viticulture in Kutner Colony. Then he moved into Clovis, when
that town started, and entered the employ of the Fresno Flume and Irriga-
tion Company, soon after it was established there, and ran the big planes
in the mill for three years ; however, he met with an accident which caused
the loss of his left eye, and he then came to Fresno and associated himself
with the Home Packing Company, as secretary and office manager, in which
position he was kept increasingly busy for twelve years. Next he engaged in
the drug trade, buying out George Monroe's interest in Webster Bros, and
continuing under that firm name on ^lariposa and K Streets, until the organi-
zation of the California Peach Growers, Inc., in which he took a prominent
part. In January, 1916, he was elected secretary, whereupon he sold his in-
terest in Webster Bros., that he might give all of his time to the secretary-
ship. As secretary and office manager. Mr. Sunderland meets heavy responsi-
bilities, for the Peach Growers, Inc., disburses from seven to eight million
dollars each year to growers. Mr. Sunderland is a member of the Commercial
Club, the Rotary Club, and the Chamber of Commerce ; in national politics
1146 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
he is a true-blue Republican ; he was city trustee of Fresno and was chairman
of the building committee which supervised the erection of the City Hall.
He was also president of the board of education of Fresno for four years.
^Ir. and Mrs. Sunderland have four children living: Le Roy is a plumber
at Turlock, is married and has one child, Al. E. ; Hazel has become Mrs.
Carl La Maine, the wife of the Dinuba druggist ; Netta is a graduate of the
high school and Fresno Junior College ; and Pearl is still in the Fresno high
school. Mr. Sunderland resides with his family at 727 Mildreda Street.
He was made a Mason in the Las Palmas Lodge, F. & A. M., Fresno, and
he is a member of the Fresno Chapter, R. A. M., of the Fresno Commandery,
Knights Templar, the Fresno Consistory of the Scottish Rite, and Islam
Temple, San Francisco. Mrs. Sunderland is a member of the Order of the
Eastern Star, and is a prominent leader. Besides belonging to the Odd Fel-
lows, Mr. Sunderland is a prominent Woodman. He was the charter Counsel
Commander at the time of the organization of Pine Burr Camp, W. O. W.,
at Clovis, and he organized the first uniform drill team of the Woodmen of
the ^^■orld in the Valley, and his membership was transferred to Manzanita
Camp, No. 160, W. O. W., Fresno. In 1902, at the Head Camp session in
Los Angeles, Mr. Sunderland was elected Head Adviser, and at the next
Head Camp session in 1907 in Seattle, he was elected chairman of the Law
Committee. In 1910, at Portland, he was elected Head Banker of the Pacific
Jurisdiction embracing nine western states, and since then he has been re-
elected at each Head Camp session to the same high and honorable office.
Through his office is handled each month approximately $250,000, so that
much accuracy and work on his part are entailed.
Mr. Sunderland has much natural ability as an actor, and in Kansas City
he had considerable experience in dramatic art. On coming to Temperance
Colony he organized a dramatic company, and for two winters he gave sev-
eral plays, so successful that with the proceeds the hall in the colony was
built. In Clovis he again called into existence a dramatic club, which gave
plays through a period of several years. The first play was given in the old
warehouse there, and later the new hall was used; and in this commendable
intellectual and social activity, he enlisted the active cooperation of such
men as J. G. Ferguson, Fred' Ewing and others. Inheriting this dramatic
talent to a high degree. Miss Netta Sunderland is now studying dramatic
art in Los Angeles. All in all, Mr. Sunderland has led a most useful life, in
which hard work has been again and again rewarded, and through which he
has contributed to the betterment and to the increased happiness of the
A\orld.
JAMES G. GREGORY. — A representative fruit-grower, and a resident
of Fresno County for thirty-two years, James G. Gregory has developed many
pieces of property from grain and sheep-grazing land into valuable fruit-
ranches, and, be it said, his places give evidence of the thrift and intelligence
of the owner.
Mr. Gregory was born in the State of Oregon on August 14, 1873, the
son of Levi N. and Sarah Jane Gregory, both born in Missouri, but residents
of California since 1881. Mrs. Gregory passed away some years before her
husband, and he died in 1914, aged about seventy-five years. They had seven
children, three now living: W. A. and P.. W. Gregory, in Tulare County:
and our subject.
J. G. Gregory attended school in Oregon until his parents came to Cali-
fornia, after which he completed his schooling here. At an early age he be-
gan working on ranches, especially in the fruit sections, until he became an
authority on orchards and vineyards. He soon became a landowner, and
since then he has owned many different ranches, all of which he has sold at
a profit. One of these, near Parlier, consisted of 167 acres divided as follows:
55 acres of Thompson's, 60 acres of muscats, 10 acres of prunes, 15 acres of
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1147
apricots and 16 acres of peaches. These acres jnelded a handsome sum in
1917 when he had 300 tons of Thompson's, 120 tons of muscats, 22 tons of
dried fruit, 28 tons of prunes, $2,500 worth of apricots. He also had ten acres
in alfalfa. The return from all his products for the year 1917 was $34,000.
He bought the ranch in 1916 and after gathering the 1917 crop he sold the
place and bought 60 acres near Fowler and 50 acres near Hanford. all in
fruits of various kinds, and these he sold in 1919. He now owns 280 acres
in Vinland Colony on the river bottom, all fine land and in vines and orchard ;
also he became owner of 480 acres of grain-land in Glenn County, in the vi-
cinity of Orland. He has been a fruit-grower all his active life in the county
and has great faith in the future of Fresno County.
In December, 1897, Mr. Gregory was united in marriage with Miss Metta
C. Patterson, a native daughter, born in Shasta County and the daughter of
J- M. Patterson. Four children have come to them : Leonard ; Carl ; Sherrill ;
and Roy. Mr. Gregory is a man of high ideals, and his family enjoys the
respect and good will of their many friends. They are members of the Chris-
tian Church, in which Mr. Gregory is a deacon. He has been a member of
the various associations of raisin-growers and holds stock in the California
Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc. He be-
lieves in progress and supports all measures to further his ideals.
JAMES ROSS. — Of the many foreign-born citizens vyho have enriched
the country by their coming here, none have contributed more to advance the
science of gardening and the higher orders of agriculture than the industrious
and far-seeing Scotch, and, among these, few, if any, deserve more esteem and
good-will than James Ross, whose intelligence and hard work have enabled
him to improve some property and make of it a fine place, and who now has
a valuable Thompson seedless vineyard. He was born near .Aberdeen, Scot-
land, on February 21, 1868, the son of John Ross, a farmer and representative
of an old and historic family. His mother was Jane Milne before her mar-
riage, and hers also was a name that long had a place among those of estab-
lished Scotch households. James was the oldest of the three children, and he
was reared and educated in the land of his birth. There he learned to farm ;
and there he acquired the stamina and shrewdness which, guided by the
highest and noblest of principles, have helped him forward on his way in the
New World.
At the beginning of the nineties James Ross crossed the ocean and the
American continent to California, and reaching Los Angeles, remained there
for a year. In twelve months, however, he became convinced that Fresno
County offered the best opportunities to the newcomer with small capital,
and so he came here and settled, commencing work in a livery stable. At the
end of a year, he switched off to ranching for grain, and drove a big team
in the grain fields, finding work on the Jeff James ranch and also at Wheat-
vale, where he was soon singled out as above the average in capacity, and
was put in charge of places. In 1904 he entered the employ of R. N. Barstow
and continued with him as foreman for five years, and then, for three years,
he was with the Fresno Canal and Irrigating Company, now the Fresno Land
and Canal Company, where he was given the responsible task of caring for
the ditches.
In 1913, Mr. Ross bought his present place of forty acres, his choice
showing good business judgment and thorough understanding of agricultural
conditions. It was the rawest land, but the soil was rich, it was well located,
and he set to work with energy to check it off and improve it. He set out
eight acres of Thompson seedless grapevines, planted most of the balance to
alfalfa and, established a small dairy, equipped in the most up-to-date and
sanitary manner. He built a residence, barns, and outbuildings, the whole
constituting a profitable business machine.
By 1909, Mr. Ross was able to make a trip to his old home, where he
spent some six months enjoying again the scenes of his boyhood and the
1148 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
companionship of old friends. While there he was married to Miss Annie
Cuthill, a native of bonnie Scotland who was born near Arbroath, Forfarshire ;
and they had two children, Mildred and Gertrude. They attend the Presby-
terian Church, in which they were reared.
Mr. Ross is an active member of the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany. In national politics he is a Republican, working always for improved
American conditions. He is an Odd Fellow, and belongs to Lodge No. 343 at
Fresno. Mr. and Mrs. Ross are awake to every proposition making for a bet-
ter community, as well as better agricultural conditions and a greater com-
mercial prosperity, and are always among the first, in local civic affairs, to
lend a helping hand.
WILLIAM H. LEWIS. — Among the enterprising and industrious ranch-
ers of the Kerman section of Fresno County, who are engaged in viticulture
and horticulture, especial mention is made of William H. Lewis, who resides
on his highly improved ranch in the Empire district, located on Vinland Ave-
nue. He has been a resident of the Golden State since 1897 and a citizen of
Fresno County for over eleven years.
William H. Lewis is a native of the Empire State, born near East Ham-
lin, Monroe County, N. Y., July 6. 1872, a son of Jeremiah and Charlotte
f Goodrich) Lewis, both of whom were natives of New York state. The father
followed farming jn New York until 1881, when he migrated with his family
to Montana, locating near Lewistown, now in Fergus County. Jeremiah
Lewis engaged in cattle-raising for many years until his health becoming im-
paired, in 1907, he sought a milder climate and it was but natural that he came
to California where he had a son residing, W. H. Lewis, the subject of this
review. He did not long enjoy the cheerful sunshine and salubrious atmos-
phere of California, for he passed away in 1908. His widow makes her home
with her son W. H. Lewis.
When nine years of age, William H. accompanied his parents from New
York state to Montana, where he was reared to manhood. He attended the
public school of his district, which was three miles distant from his home.
When he was old enough \\Mlliam rode the range on his father's ranch and
being a very ambitious youth he started to develop a herd of cattle of his own
when but sixteen years of age, and continued in the business until twenty-two
years of age. About that time he sold his stock and drove to Idaho, locating
for two years near Genesee. Mr. Lewis strongly desired to locate in the
Golden State, in consequence of which he drove from Idaho to California,
locating in San Benito County, in 1897. He followed ranching for eight years,
five of which were spent on the ranch of C. N. Hawkins. In May, 1906. he
removed to Berkeley where he was engaged in carpentering and in December
of the following year located in Fresno Covmty, on a ten-acre tract in the Em-
pire district, west of Madera Avenue. He improved this place by planting an
orchard and setting out a vineyard and in addition leased 100 acres of alfalfa
land and engaged in dairying. Mr. Lewis sold this ranch in 1912, and subse-
quently purchased his present ranch of twenty acres on Vinland Avenue, in
the Empire district, which is devoted to a vineyard of Thompson seedless
grapes and a peach orchard. Again Mr. Lewis decided to engage in the dairy-
ing business, and for the purpose leased alfalfa land, bought a carload of
cows in Nevada County and shipped them to his ranch, where he conducted
a dairy for three years, after which he disposed of this business. His present
ranch is highly improved and since locating there he has built a residence and
installed a pumping-plant.
William H. Lewis was united in marriage on August 5, 1893, with Miss
Jennie M. Batdorf, a native of Kansas, the ceremony being solemnized in the
state of Montana. This union has been blessed with eleven children : Jesse J.,
a graduate of Kerman high school who also attended the Fresno Normal
school, and served in the United States Army as a member of Coast Artillery;
Verna, also a graduate of the Kerman high school and living at home ; Helen,
s^^
^^^
^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1151
a graduate of Kerman high school and now a sophomore in University of
California, at Berkeley; Harold, Arthur, Alice, Carl, Thelma, Lloyd, Ethel,
and Darrell are all at home.
.Mr. Lewis is a charter member of the Beulah United Brethren Church,
has been a trustee since its organization, and is now president of the board.
He is highly esteemed in the community for his sterling qualities and is inter-
ested in every worthy movement to advance the interests of the horticul-
turists and viticulturists of the county, and is a member of, and stockholder
in, both the California Peach Growers, Inc., and the California Associated
Raisin Company.
L. M. FREDERICK. — A resident of San Joaquin Valley for forty years
and the owner of a well improved ranch of ninety acres situated two and
one-half miles northeast of Fowler, is L. M. Frederick, a very optimistic and
justly popular raisin-grower. He is a native of the Hawkeye State, born
August 20, 1854, at Monticello, Iowa, a son of L. S. and Mary (Torrence)
Frederick, both natives of Ohio and in which state they were married. This
union was blessed with nine children, the fourth child being L. M., the subject
of this sketch. His father kept a country .store at ATunticello, Iowa, and in
1858 moved his family to .\dams Count\-, 111., ami it was in that state, on a
farm sixteen miles from Quincy, that L. M. was reared. He attended the
public schools of x^dams County and later was a student at the Christian
University, Canton, Mo., for two years.
His first business undertaking was as a buyer and shipper of live stock.
He became a buyer for the firm of Smith and Farley of Chicago. His opera-
tions included the buying and shipping of horses and mules as well as cattle
and hogs to the Chicago market. He was extensively engaged in this line
of business from 1874 to 1877. He bought extensively throughout the state
of Missouri but mostly in Adams, Pike and Hancock Counties in the state of
Illinois.
In 1877 a combination of circumstances, especially the panicky times in-
cident to the demonetization of sih'er, caused his' tinanci.il failure. Un-
daunted by discouragements and financial losses, Mr. Frederick started
again, by working as a farm hand for wages. In 1878, he decided to come
out to Fresno, Cal., and after his arrival, he went to San Joaquin County
where he worked for wages in the wheat fields. After following this kind
of work for several years he became interested in wheat farming, going to
Tulare County, near Visalia, where he rented a ranch from 1880 to 1883.
His farming operations then ended in another financial failure and again he
was compelled to work for wages and he continued as a farm hand for another
three years. His next business venture was to go to Stanislaus County,
where he likewise engaged in farming. He met with reverses in Stanislaus
Countv, also, but, possessing indomitable courage and a large degree of
self-confidence, he would not yield to discouragements, being confident that
he would succeed in time. For the next few years he was variously engaged.
Among other things he did was to take up a homestead in western Fresno
County which he proved-up in due time. He moved down to Hanford and
there he tried his hand at various lines of business and occupations. \A'hile
there the tide finally turned in his favor, and he did well. In 1905, he moved
to the city of Fresno and busied himself with ranching, and also tried the
real-estate business. He made a fortunate investment in Fresno in the month
of February, 1906, when he purchased property on L Street, which has
steadily increased in value, and four years ago he exchanged it for the ranch
of 110 acres, where he has resided and worked ever since. He sold twenty
acres of this ranch to his son LeRoy M., a few years ago, and when this son
entered the army, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick took charge of both ranches — a
task which calls for hard work and careful management; but a peep in at
their place shows that they are masters of the situation. They have one of
the best cultivated ranches and one of the nicest homes in the county.
1152 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
In 1883, L. M. Frederick was united in marriage with Miss Ida E. Griggs,
daughter of John and Angeline E. (Williams) Griggs, both of whom are
well known in San Joaquin County. The mother of Mrs. Frederick was born
in the Green Mountain countr3% Vt, and is now living at Modesto, Cal., at
the advanced age of eighty-three years; the father having passed away at
Traver, Cal. Mrs. Frederick has one sister living, namely, Lillie Belle, the
wife of F. A. Littlefield, a prosperous dairy farmer near Escalon, San Joa-
quin County, Cal.
Mr. and Mrs. Frederick are the parents of four children: Albert is an
electrician in the employ of the Pacific Electric Company at Stockton. LeRoy
M. is at Brest, France, Avhere he is serving as a military police officer, having
been detailed to that serA-ice since the signing of the armistice. He trained
at Camp Fremont before being sent over to France, where he served as
signal-service man in the Machine Gun Company of the Eighth Infantry,
until the armistice. He is still, July 4, 1919, in France. Lillie May is now
the wife of C. C. Crowell, a rancher at Turlock. Jessie E. is the wife of J. C.
Holland, contractor, builder and rancher at Turlock.
Mr. Frederick possesses a very cheerful disposition, is a true optimist,
always looking on the bright side of life, which makes him justly popular
in his communit}^ Besides his splendid ninety-acre ranch two and one-half
miles northeast of Fowler, Mr. Frederick also owns the Lone Oak, sixty-
five-acre stock-ranch, twenty miles due south of Fresno, in the north edge of
the Laguna de Tache Grant, in southern Fresno County, where Mr. and Mrs.
Frederick lived and farmed man}- years ago, and where they have many
friends who, in that localit}', shared the joys as well as the discomforts of a
pioneer experience.
MRS. RUTH L. HAYES.— The noble part women have had in the
history of California, contriljuting their intelligence, heroic endeavor and in-
domitable courage to bring the Golden State up to the high-water mark of ac-
complishment, and to what extent the thousands of progressive women among
the citizens of Fresno County are a guarantee of a still more glorious future,
may be seen in the life-story of Mrs. Ruth L. Hayes, a refined, well-posted
and inquiring lady of pleasing personality, and of more than ordinary interest
on account of her gift as an entertaining conversationalist.
She was born in Greensburg, Knox County, Mo., the daughter of Alex-
ander H. Dalton who was a native of Tennessee and came to Missouri, where
he married Mrs. Martha (Williams) Trimble, of Scotch-English descent
leading through Washington County, Ind. They were farmers in Missouri,
but California began to look good to them, and in 1882 the mother brought
the family to the Coast and bought land near Lemoore. There she improved
an orchard and vineyard and took such good care of them and herself that
she still resides on the old place, having attained her eighty-eighth year on
Christmas, 1918.
Mrs. Hayes is the only child of this marriage, and received her education
in the schools of Lemoore, thence going to Portland, Ore. There she met
Dr. James L. Hayes, a native of Alabama, who was reared at LaFavette
Ore., where he practiced as a graduate of the St. Louis Medical College
class of 1892, having previously spent two years at Rush Medical College
in Chicago. The acquaintance grew into romantic friendship, and the friend-
ship led up to marriage, but she was bereaved of her husband six months
after she became his wife. He was a IMason, a Knight of Pvthias, a member
of the Ancient Order United Workmen and the Woodmen of the World ; and
in all these organizations he stood high and was honored of all men. '
Resolving, despite this sorrow and loss, to make her own way in the
profession of nursing, Mrs. Hayes entered the Mt. Zion Training School
foi Nurses in San Francisco, where she was graduated Avith honors in Jan-
uary, 1900. She followed her calling in San Francisco, and then in Kings
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1153
and Fresno Counties ; but in the meantime she also became interested in
horticulture and viticulture.
Purchasing twenty acres at Orosi, in Tulare County, she set to work
improving the land ; and such was the intelligence, together with the industry,
expended on the problem that, although the field was new to her, she brought
the ranch to a high state of perfection, devoting it to sultanas, muscats and
figs.
In 1910, persuaded that her more imperative duty lay along the new path
of this agricultural venture, Mrs. Hayes, although in constant demand as a
professional nurse gave up that work, and has since devoted all of her time
to her ranches. In February, 1917, she purchased twenty acres in the Dakota
Colony, Fresno County, and this she reserves for the cultivation of peaches,
Thompson seedless grapes and alfalfa. While personally superintending both
ranches, she makes her home on her Fresno ranch which is an ideal residence
retreat.
Mrs. Hayes is a member of the Luzerne Chapter of the O. E. S., at
Hanford, and both within and outside of that society she has a host of es-
teeming and well-wishing friends. Her success in horticulture and viticul-
ture reflects in the highest degree creditably on the neighborhood, in which
she has become a leader in good works making for better citizenship.
MRS. MARY J. GOBBY. — Among the well-rewarded heroines who, by
their years of faithful work and self-sacrifice have helped to make California
the land of opportunity and the realm of happy homes, must be mentioned
Mrs. Mary J. Gobby, widow of the late Peter Gobby, who owned a ranch of
320 acres two miles west of Riverdale and another ranch of eighty acres north
of Riverdale. He was born in the village of Niva, Canton Ticino, Switzerland,
on March 11, 1858, and although the oldest of three brothers he was the last
to come to California. Louis Gobby came first and two years after his arri-
val in Petaluma he sent back money for his youngest brother, Rocco, to join
him, in 1886; and two years after that Louis and Rocco remitted passage
money for Peter.
Peter Gobby returned to Switzerland in 1891, and that year he was mar-
ried in his native canton to Mary Jane Guglielmoni, who was born in Niva
and who was, therefore, familiar with the scenes of his boyhood. Her father
was a successful bridge-contractor in Switzerland ; he later went to Australia
during the gold excitement and was quite lucky for several years in seeking
the shining dust. On his return he resumed bridge-building; and he then
married Mary Agatha Calanchini and became the father of three children;
Mrs. Gobby, the eldest; Martin, who died when he was twenty-three years
old at Crescent City. Cal. ; and Charles, who married May Raker of Riverdale.
and who owns 100 acres and is a dairyman at Burrek in Fresno County.
Mrs. Gobby's father died when she was eight 3''ears old ; her mother passed
away when she was eighteen, and she was married in her twentieth year.
She remained seven years in Switzerland after her marriage, during which
time Peter Gobby went back and forth between California and Switzerland ;
and five children were born to her in the old country. One of these died and
four accompanied her to America. She has had fourteen children, twelve of
whom are still living: Adeline, at home; Josephine, a trained nurse in San
Francisco; Arthur and Oscar, who served in the World War for Uncle Sam;
Pauline, Mary, Emma, Elvin ; William, who is ten; Albert, who is eight;
'\-\'alter. who is six, and Allen Bon Homme. Two died in infancy, the one in
Switzerland and the other here. Mr. Gobby died on July 15. 1917. He was a
director in the creamery and he sold the right of way to the railway running
through Riverdale.
At first Mr. and Mrs. Gobby lived in "The Adobe" on the Johns Tract.
Her huslmnd rented 6,000 acres of the Burrel estate, and for several years
husband and wife worked almost day and night. They kept from 120 to 150
1154 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
cows, made cheese and hauled loads of cheese to Fresno. Peter Gobby oper-
ated the cheese factory himself and Mrs. Gobby helped him. They also lost
fifty valuable cows through the Texas fever, and at one time had to struggle
very hard to get a start again. Finally, Peter Gobby became a stockholder
in the First National Bank of Riverdale and the First National Bank of
Laton, Fresno County. He served as a director in the Riverdale Cooperative
Creamery from its organization Jn 1911 until the time of his death.
One of the happy results of the hard work and self-denial by Mr. and
Mrs. Gobby is that no mortgage burdens the two ranches operated by her
with the help of her sons and daughters. They live on the large dairy farm
of 320 acres two miles west of Riverdale, and reside in a commodious two-
story frame country house built a few years before Mr. Gobby died. Mrs.
Gobby is a hard-working, intelligent and plucky woman who kept close tab
on the business end of the ranching operations. She had a good education
in Switzerland and she has acquired the English language here. In her various
business operations she has amply demonstrated her executive ability.
Mrs. Gobby has the undivided love of her children and is highly respected
in the community where she lives. She continues to maintain the family
home : to keep her children together, and to work and sacrifice for them.
Some are still attending the Riverdale grammar school, and among the bright
and industrious pupils there they give evidence of becoming useful and hon-
ored members of society.
M. P. BISCHOFF. — An oil man who has worked himself up from
the lowest round of the ladder and is not only well-qualified to hold his
present position of responsibility, but is fortunate in having many loyal
friends, is M. P. Bischoflf, superintendent of both the Caribou Oil Mining
Company and the Record Oil Company. He came to Fresno in 1903. and has
since been identified with the development of important Central California
interests. He was born in Denver, Colo., on February 9, 1882, the son of
Leopold and ^Vlary Bischoflf who were farmers in Kansas and had settled
in the Colorado metropolis. There his father died, and his mother is still
living at Denver, the mother of eight children, five of whom are living. The
oldest in the family, M. P. was brought up in Denver and there attended
the public schools until he was thirteen, wdien he went to work at the
butcher's trade. This occupation took him to "Fort Collins for three years, and
there he was in the employ of Beach & Schrode, packers.
On August 7, 1903, Mr. Bischoflf came to Fresno and for some time was
employed in packing-houses and at ranching. The following ]\Iay, however,
he came to Coalinga and entered the service of the Associated Pipe Line
while it was building its conduit to Monterey. He was next with the Inde-
pendence Oil Company on No. 28, and after that with the California Oilfields
Limited. In fact, he served with dififerent oil companies until 1907, when
he accepted the post of production foreman with the Caribou Oil Mining
Company. In July, 1917, he was offered the position of field superintendent,
accepted it, and has held it ever since. He has entire charge of the Caribou
Company, which is operating on 100 acres, with twenty-six w^ells producing;
and, as has been said, he has charge also of the Record Oil Company inter-
ests, on forty acres in the same section, where nine wells are producing. The
high averages in well-yieldings reflect most creditably on Mr. Bischoff's ex-
perience and methods.
At Oakland, Cab, he was married, some years ago, to Ethlyen Graves, a
native of Santa Rosa, and they have one child, Ethlyen Janyce.' Mr. Bischoff
belongs to tlie Odd Fellows of Coalinga and the Benevolent and Protective
Order of Elks of Fresno, as well as the Growlers Club in Coalinga. Loyal
and active in all patriotic movements, he w-as director in the Coalinga dis-
trict war fund association and with his wife, was active in the Red Cross.
^(I6I^;t<^Uf(,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1157
EARL C. BUCHANAN.— Many years of successful buying of live stock
and activity in the cattle business have won for Earl C. Buchanan the repu-
tation of being one of the best posted men on live stock in Fresno County.
He was born in Vernon County, Wis., August 7, 1869. At a very early age
Mr. Buchanan became interested in the cattle business while living in Ne-
braska. In 1889 he migrated westward and arrived in Madera, Cal., while
that section of the state was still a part of Fresno County and during the
campaign to cut off the northern part of the county, to form what is now
Madera County, E. C. Buchanan took an active part in favor of the project.
For ten years he resided in the town of Madera where he was engaged in
buying and selling horses and mules and also raised grain for two years.
In 1899, Mr. Buchanan located in the city of Fresno where he conducted
a livery business, operating the Palo Alto and the Crescent Stables as well
as a horse and mule market. After selling his stables he operated a horse
and mule market on L Street for five years, when he disposed of it. That
Mr. Buchanan is regarded as an expert buyer of cattle by leading cattlemen
outside of the state, is shown by his large purchases for prominent stockman
in other states. For four years he was buyer and salesman for D. M. Mc-
Lemore, the well known cattleman of Klamath Falls, Ore., and during that
time purchased and shipped from Old and New Mexico and .Arizona to Cali-
fornia and Oregon, 72,000 head of cattle. During 1917, Mr. Buchanan bought
some 2,000 head of cattle in California which he shipped to the Siegel Camp-
bell Company at Denver, Colo. In April, 1918, he became associated with
F. M. Haws, in stock-raising, leasing 2,400 acres four miles southwest of
Caruthers, the land being knoAvn as Pacific .\creage, and they have 250
acres in alfalfa. The ranch is under the Liberty Ditch, and has three large
pumping-plants.
Earl C. Buchanan was united in marriage in the city of Madera, on
December 20, 1893, with Anna Harris, a native of Colusa County and of a
prominent family in that section. They are the parents of three children:
Mabel, who is now the wife of C. B. Bender, of New Dayton, Canada : Her-
bert, who served his country in the Signal Corps of the United States Army,
stationed at Camp Fremont, and was honorably discharged at the close of
the war; and Helene, a graduate of Fresno High School.
GEORGE EHNER FRAME.— .\ successful stockman of Warthan
Canyon, Fresno County, George Ehner Frame was born at Copperopolis,
Cal., July 10, 1867. His father, James W., was born in Indiana, of Welsh
descent ; he crossed the plains to California with his father, David, who settled
near Stockton afterwards removing to Lakeport, where he died. James W.
Frame was engaged in sheep-raising: but afterwards he moved to the moun-
tains on the Fresno and Monterey County line, where he owned a ranch and
ran cattle, most of his ranch lying in Fresno County. About 1899 he sold his
ranch to his son, George ¥... and moved to Flanford, where he died, April
17, 1913. aged seventy-five years. The mother of George E. was Mary Turner,
born in AA'isconsin. Her father, James Turner, brought his family across the
plains in an ox-team train in 1849. After following mining for some years
he located in Monterey County, where he was one of the first settlers of
what was called Turner's Valley but now called ^^''ayland Valley. Here he,
raised cattle and hunted bears, lions and deer. When he finally sold his hold-
ings he moved to Gilroy, but spent his last days at Riverdale, Fresno Count3%
where he passed away, aged eighty-four years. Mrs. James W. Frame died
on the old home ranch. Five of her six children grew up, namely: Adeline,
Mrs. Victor Roberts of Jacolitos Creek ; George E., of this review : Isobelle,
Mrs. Lake of Hanford : Era, who was Mrs. Dickman, died in .San Francisco;
and William, in business in Stockton.
From the age of nine years George E. was reared in Fresno County,
receiving his education in the public schools, with one year at school in
1158 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Hanford. When twenty-one years of age, he entered 160 acres of land on
Jacohlitos Creek, later buying railroad land. He was successful in raising
cattle, in time purchasing his father's ranch and becoming the owner of 3,000
acres of land. In 1918 he sold all of his land except his Warthan Creek ranch
of about 900 acres, where he is raising alfalfa and cattle, his brand being the
diamond half circle. His residence is built on Warthan Creek, about the
center of his ranch, under four beautiful giant oak trees.
In Fresno, in July, 1895, Mr. Frame was married to Miss Mary E. Mor-
ton, born in Mantorville, Dodge County, Minn., the daughter of Asa C. and
Mary (Sanford) Morton, born respectively in New York and Illinois. Her
father was a wheelwright in Mantorville, Minn., till 1876, when he located
with his family in Santa Cruz County, Cal., and in 1879 took a homestead
on top of the mountain on the Fresno-Monterey County line. There being
no school in the vicinity and having a large family, he moved to Fresno in
1881, where he followed his trade and also ranching near Fresno, on White's
Bridge road. He passed away in Fresno, his widow surviving him in that
city. Mrs. Frame received a good education in the schools of Fresno, where
she is well posted on the early landmarks of that city.
Mr. and Mrs. Frame have two children : Eva, a graduate of Coalinga
Union High and Fresno Junior College, and who is now attending the Santa
Barbara State Normal Training School : and Era, who is attending Fresno
High.
For seventeen years Mr. Frame was clerk of the board of trustees of
Warthan school district, until his resignation. Politically he is a Democrat.
GEORGE FORSYTH.— Since his coming to Fresno County, nearly
forty years ago, George Forsyth has witnessed many wonderful changes.
He is a native of Scotland, born May 26, 1846, in the County of Aberdeen,
Fyvie Parish. His parents were James and Mary (Shand) Forsyth, the
father being a farmer and country storekeeper, operating forty acres of land
and conducting a grocery store at Mactarry, Fyvie. He lived to be eighty-
six, while his wife passed away at the advanced age of eighty-nine, and
grandfather Forsyth lived to be ninety-nine years and nine months of age.
Mr. and Mrs. James Forsyth were the parents of four boys and two
girls, George being the third child.
George Forsyth was reared on his father's farm and was brought up in
the Scotch Episcopalian Church and attended the Episcopalian school. When
he was eighteen years of age he went to Aberdeen where he learned the trade
of stone-cutting which he followed for four years, when he moved to West-
moreland, England, working at his trade for ten )'ears with D. D. Finning.
While living at Westmoreland, Mr. Forsyth was united in marriage with
Jane Harrison, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Harrison. Her father was
a building contractor, dealing in stone and brick.
Having a strong desire to see America, he left his wife and three children
in England and sailed for Canada with the intention of cutting stone for the
Wellington Canal, then in course of construction. Arriving at Merritton,
Ontario, on the Wellington Canal, Mr. Forsyth was disappointed in both the
project and the country and consequently did not remain long there. W'hile
in Merritton the citizens were celebrating the Queen's birthday. Subquently
he left for Boston, Mass., where he found the citizens celebrating the One
Hundredth Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. The next day he left
for Quincy, Mass., where he cut stone for three weeks when he received a
letter from a friend asking him to come to Dix Island, off the coast of Maine,
where granite was being cut for the postoffice building at New York City.
After remaining sixteen months at Dix Island, cutting stone for the postoffice
buildings at both New York City and Philadelphia, Mr. Forsyth returned to
England, where he remained one year.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1159
In 1881, he returned to the United States, this time accompanied by his
wife and family, his destination being Fresno County, Cal., where he had a
brother, James Forsyth, who owned a half section of land known then as
"the Adobe," but at the present time it is the property of Louis Gobby.
That section of the county was then called Liberty. In partnership with his
brother James, Mr. Forsyth farmed 200 acres on Dry Creek, but the very
dry years of 1881-82 caused them to abandon their enterprise. Afterwards
George Forsyth went to Placer County where he cut stone for Griffith Grif-
fith, from Carnarvonshire, Wales. For two years he remained in Placer
County when he secured employment with Frank Dusey, a contractor who
built the stone steps for the Fresno County Court House. At the time the
Hall of Records was built by Smiley Brothers, Mr. Forsyth cut the stone for
this building. Afterwards, for eleven years, Mr. Forsyth was employed by
the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company. In the meantime he purchased
160 acres near Elkhorn. where he raised alfalfa. At Laton; in 1910. Mrs.
Forsyth passed away, after which he located at Caruthers, where he bought
the store building where he now conducts a pool hall, cigar stand and an
oil-filling station.
Mr. and Mrs. George Forsyth had four children: Mary E., now the
wife of Fred Goodrich, a rancher at Tranquillity ; Margaret Jane, the wife of
H. A. Adams, a rancher near Riverdale, whose sketch is given elsewhere in
this history; James, who married Lucy Cirini, he is now deceased, and left
one daughter, Margaret; and Robert Harrison, who was born on Dry Creek,
Fresno County, and who is a mechanical engineer connected with a large
farming enterprise in Mexico, and who married Miss Effie Goodie of Wheat-
ville.
Mr. George Forsyth is a Mason, and holds membership in Mechanics
Lodge, A. F. & A. M., Aberdeen. Scotland.
WM. L. GREENUP.— The late Wm. L. Greenup was born in Spring-
field, Mo. His father. John Greenup, was a farmer in Missouri and spent
his last days in California. Wm. L. was only a boy of fifteen when he en-
listed in the Confederate Army and served until he was taken prisoner, just
before the close of the war, and held at Little Rock, Ark., after his release
returning to Missouri. In 1872 he came to Fresno County, where he was
married on November 25, 1875, to Nancy J. Baley, born in Nodaway County,
Mo. Her father. Judge Gillum Baley, was a very prominent character in the
early history of Fresno County. He was born in Cairo, 111., June 19, 1813,
and was reared in Nodaway County, Mo. There he married Permelia Myers,
born near Knoxville, Tenn., June 22, 1819. Judge Baley came to California
via Panama in 1849, following mining for three years and then returned to
Missouri. In 1858 he brought his wife and nine children across the plains,
coming the southern route, on the Rio Grande. They were attacked by about
fifteen hundred Indians, who killed eight of the men in the train. The guide
told Mr. Baley if he could kill the chief the Indians would leave and not
molest them. Having had the chief pointed out to him. Mr. Baley took a
dead rest and killed the chief and the Indians withdrew, taking their dead
with them. The train had lost most of its cattle, for they had been driven
away by the Indians. The train then made its way to Albuquerque. Two
young men volunteered to go ahead for relief and their effort was successful
as government teams, with needed food and water, met them 200 miles from
Albuquerque. The men of the train went to work and after nine months, in
the spring of 1859, they started again and arrived safely in Southern Cali-
fornia that fall, and in January, 1860, Mr. Baley and family came to Miller-
ton. He mined on the Chowchilla River, and later on the Fresno River. He
was elected county judge in 1869, and was reelected, and he was county
judge when the county seat w^as moved to Fresno, in 1874. He held the office
intermittently for fourteen years and then was county treasurer for one term.
1160 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
after which he was engaged in the grocery business for five years until he
retired in 1887. He helped build the first Methodist Church in Fresno. He
died in November, 1896, aged eighty-three years, and his widow died Decem-
ber, 1905, aged eighty-seven years. Of their eleven children, ten grew up :
Rebecca, Mrs. Shannon, died in .\lameda : Mrs. Catherine Krug died in South
America ; Mrs. Frances Yancej' lives at Tollhouse ; Mrs. Elizabeth Ashman
died at Millerton ; George, who resides at Academy; Mrs. Ellen G. McCardle,
of Fresno ; Patience died in Missouri, a little girl ; Charles, who resides in
Fresno: ]\Irs. Nancy J. Greenup; Mrs. Berthena AIcKeon of Los Angeles;
and Leach, who died in F"resno.
Nancy J- was reared at Millerton and at Tollhouse until 1874, when the
family moved to Fresno, making their home on ^I Street between Fresno
and Mariposa, and there she resided until her marriage. After their mar-
riage Mr. and Mrs. Greenup moved to the ranch of 480 acres which they had
purchased, abofe Academy, and here Mr. Greenup was engaged in farming
and grain-raising until his death, on October 8, 1886, at the age of forty-one.
He was for eight years deputy sheriff under Sheriff Stroud.
Mr. and Mrs. Greenup had four children : Pearl died in infancy ; Toe
assists his mother in farming, he married Alice Sarah Reals, born in Ten-
nessee, and they have three children. Tack Baley. ^^'ilHam Robert and ^^'il-
letta Margaret; Bertha W. is ]\Trs. Faber, who resides with her mother;
Tolin died in infancy.
After her husband died. ]\Trs. Greenup resided with her father in Fresno
and rented the ranch. In 1908, they moved back to the ranch and are raising
grain and stock. The soil is rich and there is an abundance of spring water,
making it suitable for fruit as well as for a stock ranch. Mrs. Greenup is a
member of the ^lethodist Episcopal Church, South, at Academy.
J. C. THOMSEN. — An able and experienced ranchman, who has im-
proved and now owns a large orchard and vineyard with which he has done
exceptionally well, is Tens Christian Thomsen. viticulturist and horticulturist,
active in both the California Associated Raisin Company and the California
Peach Growers, Inc. He was born at Blaakjerskov, Jylland, Denmark, on
?ilarch 28, 1871, the son of Niels Thomsen, a native farmer of that section, and
Mette Marie Jensen, by whom he had three children. Both parents are now
dead. Of their four children two are li\ing — the subject of this sketch and
his sister Bolletta, now Mrs. Iversen, resident in Denmark.
From a lad J. C. Thomsen was brought up on the farm, and attended the
school of the district until he was fourteen, when he was apprenticed to a
cabinet-maker in Kolding, for whom he worked five years. On completing
his trade, however, he was convinced that he did not like the work; and as
farming had been his hobby from boyhood, he resolved to win his fortune
in that field. Thinking the matter over carefully with respect to the future
and to opportunity, he resolved to come to the LTnited States. On May 25,
1890, after an eventful trip across the ocean and the great continent, he ar-
rived in Fresno, and was soon fortunate in finding employment in a vine-
yard at Oleander. He liked the work, took to it naturally, and remained there
for two and a half years. Then, full of ambition, he decided to start business
for himself. He had saved some capital, and witli that he bought an outfit
and leased land just west of Fresno. He operated 320 acres for three years,
got ahead, and won the respect of his neighbors, business customers and
friends.
Having thus established himself, Mr. Thomsen moved to the Red Bank
district, where he leased 800 acres from D. C. Sample. He had the land for
seven years, and in its operation used two big teams, a header and a thresher.
He had his full share of the ups and downs of the times, and ofttimes suffered
from hammered-down prices, which were as low as one dollar or less per cen-
tal. One year, however, he had a bumper crop and good prices. In 1900, at
'^X^/&A^.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1163
the end of five years, he found himself with enough earnings and savings to
be able to buy some forty acres of raw land in the Enterprise Colony. He
continued grain-farming thereafter for two years. In 1902 he built h'is fine
residence, moved onto his present home-place, gave up the raising of grain,
sold his outfit, set out his vines and orchards, and began the sowing of alfalfa.
From that time on, he has been busy with viticulture.
In 1904, Mr. Thomsen bought fifty-four acres of land adjoining in the
Eggers Colony, across the road from the original forty of his holding. It
was raw land, but he soon had it set out with a fine orchard and planted to
alfalfa. Now he owns ninety-four acres in all. Thirty-four of these are de-
voted to pasture-land, twenty-five to alfalfa, fifteen to Lovell, Muir and Al-
berta peach trees, and twelve acres of vineyard to muscat and Emperor
grapes. Many of the Alberta peaches are shipped, and the balance of the
peaches are usually dried there. The ranch is under the Enterprise Canal,
and he has installed a pumping plant with a twelve-horse-power engine. All
the wells are sixty feet deep, the water is within ten feet of the surface, and
he can irrigate with the greatest ease and efficiency. He has one of the de-
sirable places of this region, and his house, for which he hauled the lumber
from Pine Ridge, is comfortable and attractive.
On March 24, 1897, in ^\'ashington Colony, Mr. Thomsen was married
to Miss Marie Amelia Frikka, a daughter of James G. and Anna K. (Petersen)
Frikka, who are referred to on another page in this history. Mrs. Thomsen
came to \\'yoming, where her uncle, George Frikka, lived, in 1892, and six
months later came to Fresno, where she wed Mr. Thomsen. She is a native
of Kolding, Denmark. Mr. and ^Irs. Thomsen have three children : Metta
Christene is a graduate of Fleald's Business College at Fresno and is em-
ployed in the office of the county assessor ; Anna Marie assists her mother
in the home ; and James Gearhart attends the C]o\-is High School. Mr. Thom-
sen is a Republican in national politics, but is absolutely inflependent in local
affairs, and aims to support the men and the measures most likely to advance
the interests of the community and the county in which he lives. He belongs
to the Danish Brotherhood in Fresno.
MERL LEE BOLES, — A deservedly popular gentleman, whose experi-
ence has naturally brought him to the high position of responsibility
that he now enjoys, is Merl Lee Boles, who has been a long time in Coal-
inga, and is one of the oldest of the "old-timers" in the oil fields. Although
born in Bradford, Pa., on May 17, 1881, he was reared in California from the
age of five years. His parents were John and Lillian (Gish) Boles, natives of
Kentucky and X'irErinia, respectively. The father was a machinist by trade.
Alerl was brought to Ottawa, Kans., before he was a month old, and
there remained with his mother until 1886, when he came to Fresno, Cal. For
a year the family resided in the Lone Star district, and then they moved
to Los Angeles, where he received his education in the public schools. When
fourteen, he went to work in the Los Angeles oil-fields on North Figueroa
Street, dressing tools, and he continued there until 1898 when he came to
the Coalinga field. At that time there were only four producing wells in the
district. Chanslor and Canfield had two wells, besides their discovery well,
and the Home Oil Companv had one well.
At first, Mr. Boles was employed at dressing tools, for a year with the
Old Home Companv, and then with different companies in the same capacity
until 1905, when he became a driller for the Pittsburgh-Coalinga Oil Com-
pany, later drilling for other companies. About 1907 he undertook certain
work for the W. K. and Turner Oil Company, as a driller on Sec. 2-20-15.
and brought in their first well, which yielded 5,000 barrels a day. Afterwards
he was foreman on the leases ; and when the Shell Company of California pur-
chased the propertv, about 1914, he left that concern and became superin-
tendent for the Coalinga-Mohawk Oil Company. Now he has charge of the
1164 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
development and production of the Company's holdings, comprising 640
acres on Sec. 12-20-15. development having been liegun about 1907. Their
deepest well is 4,760 feet, and besides being the deepest wells in the Coal-
inga fields, they are among the very deepest producing wells in California
and have the record for increasing their production. Mr. Boles is also inter-
ested in the company as a stockholder, and in 1917 he was made manager.
In 1919 the Mohawk penetrated a deeper sand than any heretofore in the
district. The well is below 4.200 feet and yields the highest gravity oil — 900
barrels; and is the biggest gasser of any well in the field — 1.000.000 cubic feet
per day.
Coalinga was the scene of Mr. Boles' wedding some years ago when he
was married to Miss Lilian Stickler, a native of Oregon, by whom he has had
two children : Earl and Evelyn. Popular, like his good wife, socially, Mr.
Boles was made a Mason in Coalinga Lodge, No. 387, F. & A. M.. and he is
a member of the Fresno Lodge of Elks and the Coalinga Growlers' Club.
As a member of the Coalinga War Fund Association, he rendered valuable
service in the war fund and Liberty Loan drives.
MARTIN S. GREVE.— A native son of California, Martin S. Greve was
born near Hollister, San Benito County, June 5, 1884. His father, Paul
Greve, was born in Germany on the border of France, where he married
Sophia Eberhart and soon afterwards they migrated to San Francisco. Cal.,
about 1863. Later they located in San Benito County, engaging in stock-
raising for some years. Then he moved to Priest Valley, Monterey County,
locating a homestead where he resided until his death, about 1895, aged sixty-
four years. His widow, hale and hearty, at the age of seventy-four, still
resides on the old home. Of the ten children born to this worthy pioneer
couple, nine are living, of whom two were younger than Martin.
From a boy, ]\Iartin was reared on the stock-ranch, learning to ride after
cattle, meantime attending public school in King City. When he was of
age, he and four of his brothers located homesteads in Warthan Canyon,
Fresno County, and here they engaged in raising cattle. He followed cattle-
raising actively till 1910, when he sold his ranch and stock, to follow the oil
business, entering the employ of the Associated Pipe Line Company, on the
Coalinga-Monterey Division. After three years in the repair department, he
became foreman and in 1916 was promoted to engineer, and is now engineer
in charge of the Associated Station No. 2, which is located only eight miles
from his homestead.
Martin S. Greve was married, in Fresno, to !Miss Clara Grant, a native
of Kalamazoo, Mich., and they have three children : Adelle, Adeline, and
Jean. Mr. Greve is a member of the Christian Science Church, at Coalinga.
He is enterprising and progressive, and lends his aid to movements for the
upbuilding of the county.
WM. BURROWS.— A native son of the Golden State, Wm. Burrows
was born at Sacramento. September 10, 1867. His father. Phillip, was born
in Michigan, where he learned the woolen manufacturing business under his
father: he was married to Sarah Knight, a native of New York, and a week
later they started across the plains in an ox-team train, arriving in Calaveras
County in the fall of 1849. He followed mining in that county for twelve
years and then built the Sacramento Woolen Mills, thereafter building woolen
mills in Stockton, San Jose and Los Gatos. After selling out, he located in
Santa Cruz where he engaged in lumbering and getting out tan bark and ties,
having as his partner Charles McKiernan. known as Mountain Charley. Later
he removed to San Miguel, engaging in grain-farming, in Vineyard Canyon,
until he retired. He spent his last years near Parlier and died about 1907;
his wife died in .San Jose. Of their six children, five are living.
From the age of eight until eighteen, Wm. Burrows' life was spent prin-
cipally in the public schools of Santa Cruz. ^Moving to San Miguel when he
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1165
was eighteen, he continued to assist his father for three years, though he was
for a time engaged in driving stage from Soledad to San Luis Obispo, being
the youngest driver on the road.
Mr. Burrows then went to the redwoods at Watsonville, where he fol-
lowed teaming to the mills until December, 1895, when he came to Sanger
and assisted in setting out the East Oakland Vineyards, and one year later
was made superintendent of the place, filling the position for two years. He
then bought a small farm near Parlier and set it to vines and orchard. This
was during a period of hard times and he worked out at fifty to seventy-five
cents a day to help pay expenses. He finalh^ sold the place and then for two
years engaged in the tallyho business in Fresno, at L and Fresno Streets.
Selling the tallyho business, Mr. Burrows bought fruit for different com-
panies and then became foreman for the Minnewawa Vineyard of 600 acres.
After six years he resigned and leased the Ben Epstein ranch on San Joaquin
River, raising grapes and peaches for three years. In March. 1918, he became
superintendent of the Wawona and Glorietta \^ineyards, having 300 acres in
vines, figs and peaches. He also has charge of the Riverview Ranch and the
Clover Glenn Orange Orchard at Centerville, so his time is well and fully
occupied, but he is well qualified by experience for his position.
Mr. Burrows was married, in Fresno, to Mrs. Lizzie (Young) Hustler,
born in Missouri, who came to California in 1904. By a former marriage Mr.
Burrows has two children : Edna and Cora ; the latter is Mrs. Coleman and
both reside in Fresno. Mr. Burrows is a member of the Stags Lodge at
Fresno.
LEONARD D. RAMACHER.— A family whose activity and usefulness
in social, civic and charitable work is as well-known as their success in bus-
iness undertakings and enterprises designed to advance the agricultural pros-
perity of the state, is that of Leonard D. Ramacher and his forbears. He is
the son of Henry Ramacher, who was born in Alsace and came to America
and Indiana when he was only ten years of age. Growing up, he became a
farmer and a merchant at Linton, in that state, and in time married Mary A.
Fainot, a native of Ohio and the daughter of worthy French parents. In 1884
he disposed of his farm and brought his wife and three children to California ;
and arriving in Fresno on Alay 10, he followed ranching in the foothills near
Letcher. After that he moved to the Scandinavian Colony, where he was in
the employ of George Bernard for three years. Having made a careful studv
of the propagating of plants, and the care of vineyards, he purchased a twenty-
acre tract in the Kutner Colony and set it out to vines ; but finding after five
years that it was not what he wanted, he sold it and bought eighty acres in
the northeastern part of the same colony. The soil there proved good and all
that could be expected, and so he built a residence and made other improve-
ments, and as soon as possible turned half of the acreage into a vineyard. ]Mrs.
Ramacher died in 1909, but he continued on the ranch until 1913, when he
sold it to his oldest son, and retired to a residence he had purchased on ^^'hite
Avenue, Fresno.
Born at Linton. Indiana, cjn April 17, 1882, the third eldest of eight chil-
dren in the family, Leonard Ramacher came to this section with his parents
when they moved \\'est. and was educated in the public schools of Fresno
County. When a lad he learned viticulture under his father while working on
the home place and helping run the vineyard ; and he also assisted in the care
of other ranches, so that he became familiar with every department of viti-
culture.
On July 10, 1912, Mr. Ramacher was married at Fresno to Miss Ruth
Miller, a native of Burlington, Iowa, and the daughter of Champ C. and Delia
D. (Biddle) Miller, of Connorsville, Ind., and Fulton County, Ohio, respec-
tively. IMr. Miller, who had come to Iowa when a lad, was a merchant at
Burlington ; and from Iowa he enlisted for service in the Civil ^^'ar, and did
1166 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
his duty valiantly in supporting the Union. Later, he became manager of
the John H. Gear mercantile establishment at Burlington and Governor Gear's
close associate ; and when the latter took his seat as United States Senator
from Iowa, Mr. Miller was made assistant postmaster of Burlington, and held
that office for twenty-four years, under every change of administration.
Finally he resigned on account of his health, and moved to California : and
here lie has been greatly improved. He was at one time chairman of the
Postal Association of Iowa. After reaching California, ]\Ir. and ]Mrs. ^liller
became interested in viticulture in Fresno County, having purchased, as
early as 1892, a vineyard in the Kutner Colony ; and there they now make
their home.
One of two children, ^[rs. Ramacher was educated in the Burlington
High School, and later graduated from Marslialltown College. Iowa. She
came to California in 1911, and for a while was engaged in teaching at the
County Orphanage. Of the union of Mr. and INfrs. Ramacher one child has
been born, named Baldwin D. In 1913 Mr. and Mrs. Ramacher bought their
present place of seventy acres in the Kutner Colony : and having much im-
proved it, they now have a fine vineyard, raising muscat, tokay and malvaise
grapes and raisins. Mr. Ramacher is identified with the California Associated
Raisin Company. In politics Mr. and ^Irs. Ramacher are Republicans, and
Mrs. Ramacher is a trustee of the Kutner school district. They are members
of the First Christian Church of Fresno, and Mrs. Ramacher is chairman of
the Kutner Colony Auxiliary of the Fresno Chapter of the Red Cross. Few
worthy appeals fail to elicit a helpful response from this family, now so
pleasantly identified with Fresno County and its growth and development.
JACOB HINSBERGER.— An old-timer who has been identified with
California since 1870 and with Fresno County for the past quarter of a
century, having come to Fresno when there were only two brick buildings
in the town, and who is today as well-liked as he is highly respected, is
Jacob Hinsberger, an active viticulturist who has done much in his time
to improve Fresno lands for viticultural purposes. Born in Germany on
February 20, 1842, he was brought to Illinois when a child by his father, John
Hinsberger. who was a farmer at Arlington Heights, Cook County, where
he died.
Jacob Flinsberger was educated in the public schools of Illinois, and
growing up, followed farming. When he reached his twenty-first year, he
went to 3iIuskegon, ^Mich.. and engaged in lumbering there, as also later in
Manistee. He drove logs in the river for four years, and had many hard
experiences and narrow escapes. He also took part in breaking the road-
way, and many times was nearly caught by the separating jams.
In 1870 ]\Ir. Hinsberger came to California, and settled for a while near
Colfax, where he was employed in a saw-mill. He became an expert sawver.
and after three years went to Chico, where he worked with the lumber com-
pany for several years. In 1880 he came to Madera, and then to Fresno
County, and here he secured work with the Madera Flume & Trading Com-
pany, now known as the Sugar Pine Company. He had charge of the flume :
and as foreman responsible for keeping the lumber moving, he rode horse-
back up and down the waterway. For six years he was "on the job," day
and night when necessary, especially in storms, continuing with the firm until
1886, when he resigned to engage in farming. In that year he bought the
twenty acres in the Scandinavian Colony, which he improved, and on which
he erected a residence and other buildings ; and afterwards he purchased a
tract in the \\'olters Colony consisting of forty acres, which he set to vines ;
but this he gave to one of his sons. Later he purchased another twentv acres
in the Wolters Colony, which he set out to grapes, but later sold at a good
profit. Lately, he has rented his own vine^'ard, but has continued an active
member and supporter of the California Associated Raisin Company.
^«^«^
^L-AsJ
^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1169
At Salt Springs, in Fresno County, on December 26, 1886, Mr. Hins-
berger was married to Mrs. Sarah (Lynch) Allen, a native of Renfrew, On-
tario, and the daughter of James Lynch, who was born in Wales and there
married Miss Mary Hill, of Scotch descent. They settled as farmer folk at
Renfrew, Ontario, and there the daughter Sarah was educated in the public
schools. Attaining to womanhood, she was married in Ontario to William
Allen, a native there, and with him, in February, 1876, entered the Llnited
States and came West to California. For a while Mr. Allen was a carpenter
at Chico, but later he removed to Redding, where he died. Following Mr.
Allen's death, his widow was married to Mr. Hinsberger; and by this second
marriage she had two children : Emory Ralph, who is a moulder bv trade
and was in the government employ at Mare Island Navy Yard during the
war, but is now operating the home place: and Chester Rowell, a machinist
in Fresno. She had also two children by her first marriage: Arthur ^^'. Allen,
a farmer in Wolters Colony; and Herbert W. Allen, a machinist at Sugar
Pine Mill. ]\Iadera County.
Mr. Hinsberger was made a Mason in Madera Lodge. F. & A. M., but
is now a member of Fresno Lodge. No. 247. Public-spirited to a high degree,
he has been a school trustee in the Scandinavian district for a couple of terms,
and has also served as a member of the grand jury.
WILLIAM T. JAMES.— .\n enterprising, broad-minded and liberal-
hearted old settler is William T. James, the genial nephew of the pioneer.
Jeflf James, so widely esteemed by all who knew him. He was born near
Elk, Lick Springs. Rollo County, Mo., on May 10, 1858, the son of Thompson
B. James, a native of that section who was a farmer there. In 1852 he crossed
the great plains with his brother, Jefif, traveling by means of ox teams and
wagons, and engaged in mining at Virginia City, Nev. The bovs were with
a cousin, old Joe Douglas, and they struck a lucky vein, and were rewarded
for all their trouble. Thompson returned to Missouri at the end of three
years with a big "stake," and there bought a farm. He went in for scientific
agriculture of the most practical kind, and developed into a champion cradler.
Finally, in a contest he was smitten with sunstroke and died, in 1861. Mrs.
James had been Puss Crousen, and she was born in Callaway County, Mo.,
and died there in 1867. There were three children in Mr. and Mrs. Thompson
James' family, and our subject — now the only one living — was the second
eldest.
William T. was reared in Missouri and was early supposed to be afflicted
with consumption : but by working out-doors on the farm he recovered his
health. He was educated in the public schools; and after his mother died,
he was reared by his grandfather, John R. James, in Pike Count>-. fniiiMUs for
its pioneer traditions. When seventeen years old he began to wmk fur him-
self. He and his sisters owned 960 acres in Rollo County which the>' inherited
from their father, and on his portion of this estate he located and went in
for general farming and stock-raising, doing well; but when Cherokee Strip
was opened in Cleveland's administration, he lost $7,000 through an unfor-
tunate investment in buying and shipping cattle. This ruined him for the
time being, at least.
On January 12, 1890, Mr. James arrived in Fresno Count)'; and leasing
land from JefTerson James, he went in for grain-farming and stock-raising.
In 1906, however, a flood caused him to lose everything and for a second time
he "went broke," but removing to Barstow, he leased 400 acres of alfalfa
and in the raising of hay was very successful. At the end of three years,
that is, in 1912, he bought his present place of nearly eighty-two acres of
raw land in Tranquillity, and having leveled it and checked it for alfalfa, he
now has twenty-five acres in that very desirable grass, and the rest in golden
grain. He leases additional land for grain-raising, and there raises, besides,
hogs and alfalfa.
1170 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
\Miile still in Audrain County, ]Mo., December 1, 1881, Mr. James was
married to INliss Elizabeth Watkins, a native of Rollo County, by whom he
has had three children: William D., of Tranquillity; Roy L., who served in
the United States Naval Reserve until his discharge, now living at home ;
and Jeff G., who is in Los Angeles.
Always ready to support any local movement, regardless of party lines,
for the advancement of the community, Mr. James is a Democrat, and as
such has done his share toward raising the standard of citizenship. In fra-
ternal matters he is an Ancient Odd Fellow, and lends a hand whenever and
wherever it is needed for the bettering of social conditions. Any community
might regard itself fortunate in having as permanent residents two such
public-spirited and sympathetic citizens as Mr. and Mrs. William T. James.
WILLIAM RUTH.— Ireland has furnished the United States with many
of its most substantial citizens, and in every state of the Union the natives
of the Emerald Isle have become prominently identified with various enter-
prises. Thrift, unremitting energy, perseverance in the face of obstacles,
and native wit are characteristics of the Irish race, and are an innate posses-
sion of the subject of this sketch, William Ruth, who is a native of Queens-
town. Ireland, where he was born on September 28, 1840.
When a lad, Mr. Ruth emigrated to the United States, and up to the time
of his majority was engaged in various occupations. In 1861, at the opening
of the Civil War, he enlisted at New York City in the United States Navy.
After faithfully fulfilling the term of his enlistment before the mast, he re-
enlisted in the service of the Ignited States ; but this time he joined the army,
where he served valiantly until the close of the war. Like many other j^oung
men, he felt the call of the great undeveloped West, and desiring to try his
fortune in seeking for the precious metal, he migrated to California in 1865.
For a while he engaged in mining in California, but later went with others to
Arizona, where also they intended to engage in mining. The companv being
attacked by the Indians, however, they returned to California, and Mr. Ruth
then took up quicksilver mining. For a short time he resided at Los Angeles,
and afterwards mo-\^ed to \^isalia. Later he settled on Smith Mountain, where
he engaged in the stock business on a large scale, raising cattle, horses, mules
and smaller stock by the thousand. He continued in this business until 1016,
when he sold his entire interest.
William Ruth is a pioneer of Reedley, having been located in the neigh-
borhood since its beginning. He is a man of unquestioned uprightness of char-
acter, whose word is always as good as his bond.
HERBERT J. CLARK.— A very successful horticulturist and viticultur-
ist who has developed for himself a fine estate and is an influential member
of the California Peach Growers, Inc.. and the California Associated Raisin
Company, as well as the Melvin Grape Growers Association in which he is
a vice-president and director, is Herbert J. Clark, who came to Fresno in
the middle eighties. He was born in London, England, July 17, 1875, the son
of Joseph Clark, who was a well-known stationer in the world's metropolis.
Joseph Clark had married there Miss Esther Parker, and in 1886 crossed the
ocean and the .American continent with his wife and eight children. He set-
tled in the Central Colony, Fresno County, and laid out a vineyard and or-
chard, and there he continued until 1905, since which year he has lived retired,
with our subject. Mrs. Clark died in Fresno, and seven children, six girls
and a boy, survive her.
The youngest in the family, Herbert J., attended a private school in Lon-
don and continued his schooling at the Orange Center School when he came
to Fresno County. He grew up to assist his father, and until he was twenty
years of age was under his leadership as a viticulturist and horticulturist:
and having mastered these fields of important California husbandry, he leased
a vineyard and started in for himself in the raising of grapes and other fruit.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1171
In 1899, Mr. Clark located in Jefferson District and bought forty acres
of unimproved land. It was mere stubble field when he began to develop a
vineyard and orchard, but he set out three acres of peaches and the balance in
muscat and malaga vines. As might be expected from persistent labor guided
by foresight and experience, the ranch has become one of considerable value
and of much interest to the grower following scientific methods.
While at F"resno, Mr. Clark was married to Miss Kathryn Rogers, a na-
tive of Iowa. They have three children : Josephine, Vivian, and Marian. The
family attends the Episcopal Church. A Republican in national politics, Mr.
Clark supports everv local movement to better the community. He belongs
to Fresno Lodge. No. 439, B. P. O. E., and to the Manzanita Camp of the
Woodmen of the World.
HENRY F. BAREFORD.— An expert carpenter favorably known in
Fresno, who has also improved a twenty-acre vineyard, is Henry F. Bare-
ford, who first came to California in the middle eighties. He was born in
Waretown, on Barnegat Bay, near the famous lighthouse, on December 20,
1861, the son of Samuel Bareford, who was born there and was also a car-
penter and builder. Grandfather Joseph Bareford was a fine mechanic and was
also a good blacksmith. The great-grandfather, who was born in New Jersey,
served in the Revolutionary War and was captured by the Hessians, but as
he understood and could speak German, and they had no place to keep him
where he could not hear what w-as being said and done, they let him go.
Samuel Bareford moved to Mitchell, Ind., and then to New Albany, in Floyd
County. He served in the United States Navy during the Civil War. Mrs.
Bareford. Sarah Creby before her marriage, was born in the same vicinity,
and died in Indiana. Grandfather Creb_y was a native of Switzerland. Mr.
and Mrs. Samuel Bareford had four children, three of whom grew up, and
among these Henry Bareford was the second oldest.
Brought up in New Jersey and Indiana until he was sixteen, Henry
Bareford attended the public schools, and in 1879 he came to Mitchell, where
he worked on a farm for three years. Then he went to New Albany. Ind.,
and began to learn the carpenter's trade, and in time was able to superintend
the erection of buildings. He continued until 1886, when he came to Cali-
fornia. He reall}' started for Hastings, Nebr., in the fall, but found no work,
so he returned to Kansas Cit}% and then came to Riverside, where he helped
build the first cold storage warehouse there. Thirty days later he went to
Los Angeles, and there he saw an exhibit advertising Fresno County, which
so interested him that he came here in January of the great boom vear, 1887.
\Mien he came to Fresno, he helped erect some of the larger buildings here,
some of his first work being done on the Hughes Hotel.
In 1891 Mr. Bareford was married near Bowling Green, Mo., to Miss
Nannie L. Smith, who was born there, the daughter of Elias Washington
and Margaret (Biggs) Smith, both of Missouri. Mrs. Bareford's parents were
farmer folk, and were Union patriots in the Civil War. Mr. and Mrs. Bare-
ford have a son, Samuel, a graduate of the high school, who is attending the
University of California and has been in training for the United States Army.
On coming to Fresno, j\Ir. Bareford purchased a residence here. About
1905 he purchased ten acres on Blackstone Avenue, and in 1906 he added to
his holding ten acres adjoining. He set out ten acres of malagas, and this
tract he sold. He still owns ten acres, which he is setting out to vineyards.
Besides grapes, he also grows peaches.
Mr. Bareford belongs to Manzanita Camp, \\'oodmen of the World, and
to Central California Lodge No. 343, I. O. O. F., of Fresno; while Mrs.
Bareford belongs to the Neighbors of Woodcraft. Fresno Circle, and is fill-
ing the chair of Guardian Neighbor. Formerly she was a member of the
Fresno Rebekahs. She is a member of the Christian Science Church, and has
been active in Red Cross and war relief work.
1172 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
JOHN JAY VANDERBURGH.— To the judicious management and
business acumen of John Jay Vanderburgh, the efficient editor, publisher and
proprietor of the Selma Irrigator, this up-to-date semi-weekly newspaper
owes its successful career. Although a resident of California for over forty
years, the Hawkeye State claims J. J. Vanderburgh as a native son. He was
born on April 13, 1866. in Waterloo, Blackhawk County, Iowa, the son of
Isaac K. Vanderburgh, a native of Norwich, Oxford County, Canada.
Isaac K. Vanderburgh was united in marriage with Pluma A. Gaines,
who was a native of Barre, Oswego County, N. Y. After their marriage they
settled in Iowa. Isaac K. was a member of a party that made the govern-
mental survey of Iowa. In 1875 he migrated to California where he settled,
for four years, in Fresno County, afterwards locating for two years in Santa
Cruz County. In 1881 he returned to Fresno County where he purchased
forty acres of land located five miles north of Selma. He passed away in
1890. at the age of seventy-one years.
The mother was a woman of considerable business ability and, after
the death of her husband, very successfully managed the home ranch. Her
death occurred in 1913, at the age of seventy-nine. She was the mother of
six children, three boys and three girls, the subject of this review. John J.,
being the fifth child and the youngest boy. He spent the first nine years of
his life on his father's farm in Iowa, and in 1875 accompanied his parents
to California. He attended the high school at Selma. after which he supple-
mented his education by a course in the academv at Tulare. Having decided
to become a teacher he took the required examinations and received his cer-
tificate. In the fall of 1887. he assumed the cares and responsibilities incident
to the life of an instructor, following this profession for four years.
In 1891, Air. Vanderburgh accepted a position with Chappel & Lyon, the
publishers of The Irrigator, at Selma, Cal. Possessing a penchant for jour-
nalistic work, and catching a vision of the future importance of the publish-
ing business, he soon become so deeply interested in his new field of en-
deavor that he purchased Mr. Chappel's interest in the paper, in 1892, and
from that date until 1897 the business was conducted under the name of
Lyon & Vanderburgh. At the latter date, Mr. Vanderburgh purchased the
interest held by Mr. Lyon, thus becoming the sole owner of the Irrigator.
He is a man of ability and wields a strong influence for good in the promotion
of every worthy movement that has as its aim the upbuilding of the educa-
tional, commercial and civic interests of Selma.
An important epoch, in the life of this successful citizen of Selma, be-
gan upon September 11, 1889, when he was united in marriage with Isabelle
Bowen, a native of Missouri. She arrived in Fresno County on Christmas
Day, 1885. Mrs. Vanderburgh is a daughter of Levi Bowen, a native of New
Jersey. Her mother in maidenhood was Maria Zuck, a native of Pennsyl-
vania. Mrs. \''anderburgh's maternal great-great-grandfather. Abraham Mor-
ris, was a lineal descendant of Robert Morris, the American patriot who used
his personal funds to purchase supplies for the .American army, during the
Revolutionary War.
Abraham Bowen, the grandfather of Mrs. Vanderburgh, married a grand-
daughter of John Marshall, the ex-chief justice of the Supreme Court of the
LTnited States. Levi Bowen, the father of Mrs. Vanderburgh, was a successful
pioneer farmer in Schuyler County, Mo. Her mother passed away only a
vear ago at the advanced age of ninety-six and one-half years. Mrs. John J.
Vanderburgh was the twelfth child of a family of thirteen. She received her
education in Missouri, at the Kirksville Normal School. For three years prior
to her coming to California she was engaged in teaching. At present she is
ably assisting her husband in editorial and office work on the Irrigator. They
have had three children: Zoe, a graduate of the Selma High School and
the Normal School at Fresno, taught in the .Selma grammar school for three
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1175
years, and is now married to Clarke W. Crocker, graduate of Stanford Uni-
versity ; Isabelle, is a third-year student at the Selnia High School ; the other
child, a son, died in infancy.
Fraternally, J. J. Vanderburgh is a Mason, being Past Master of Selma
Lodge, F. & A. M. He is also a member of the local lodge of Odd Fellows
and has passed all the chairs ; and is affiliated with the Benevolent and Pro-
tective (3rder of Elks 'and Woodmen of the W^orld. His public-spiritedness
and keen interest in civic affairs, was duly recognized by the community in
his selection as a member of the city board of trustees. He is a member of
both the Raisin Growers and Peach Growers associations, also of the Cham-
ber of Commerce. Mrs. Vanderburgh is interested in both the Red Cross
and Belgian Relief work.
FRANK CASS. — One of the most enterprising and active citizens of
Fresno County is Frank Cass who. from the time that he was first able to
start out for himself, has been doing things with a view to improvement and
expansion. He was born in Connecticut, in August, 1863, and was reared
and educated among the down-east Yankees who had something more to
their credit than wooden nutmegs. His father was Nicholas Cass, born in
Ireland, Queens County, who came to Connecticut with his mother and
there he was educated and married Catherine Clansey, a Canadian.
Nicholas Cass was well versed in both tempering and sharpening metal,
and so came to be a skilled tool-maker. This business brought him out to
the Golden State in 1850, and here he followed his trade, attaining rapidly
a popularity with miners, whom he supplied with what they then so much
needed — tools that would do the work. He stayed in California a few years
and then returned to the East ; and on the breaking out of the Civil War, he
joined a Connecticut regiment and served the cause of the Union until the
close of the great struggle, after which he followed farming until his death.
Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Cass, but only two of
them are now living. These are Frank, our subject, and his brother, A. J.
Cass, now a vineyardist in Enterprise Colony.
Frank Cass spent his childhood on the farm in Connecticut, receiving
a good education in the public schools. In 1883, when the nation needed
men to protect the pioneers in the W^est, who were the advance-guard of
civilization, from Indian interference, he gave five years of service in the
regular army, enlisting June 1, 1883. in Troop B, Seventh United States
Cavalry, and' being sent to Fort Meade as his headquarters, and from there
he served in different parts of the AVcst. In one campaign of seventeen
months, his detachment brought old Sitting Bull back from Canada, and in
the spring following this he was in a party that prevented the half-breed
chieftain Reel from crossing into the United States from Canada, on his
expedition of depredations. After five years' service Mr. Cass was honor-
ably discharged in June, 1888, at Fort Sill, I. T.
From a boy, Mr. Cass had been greatly interested in the stories his
father told of the wonders of California, the land of gold and sunshine, and
he early decided that as soon as opportunity afforded he would locate on
the Pacific Coast. As soon as he was discharged from the army he imme-
diately came to California, first locating in San Luis Obispo County, but
attractive as he found that region, in 1890 he came down to Fresno and the
following 3'ear bought his first farm of twenty acres. This was some of the
choice land in Enterprise Colony, and Mr. Cass and his brother were among
the first to make a beginning in the colony. He was pleased with Clovis and
retained the tract as long as he could ; but he was finally obliged to abandon
it on account of the hard times of 1893-94. In 1897, trusting that conditions
had improved, he bought the place back again and improved it further but
in 1906 he sold it once more at a good profit, and fortunately moved nearer
to his ultimate goal.
1176 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
He then came to Sanger and purchased 100 acres on Kings River, which
he still owns. It is bottom land and produces an abundance of grass.. For
some years he engaged in dairying but gradually drifted into cattle-raising,
in which he has been very successful, it being demonstrated that his meadow
will keep two animals to the acre. He also purchased a ranch of 320 acres
lying eight miles northeast of Academy, which he uses for winter range.
He he has also built a residence, and suitable farm buildings, and has utilized
a mountain spring for irrigating his field of alfalfa, making a splendid stock
ranch. He also owns a 120-acre ranch on Pine Ridge where there is an
apple orchard that produces very fine fruit. Taking it all in all, Mr. Cass
is a very successful and enterprising man, who has established an enviable
record.
In 1898, Mr. Cass was married to Miss Nalilla A. Turman, a native
daughter from El Dorado. Cal., whose people were among the early settlers
at Coloma, having come to the Golden State not later than 1850. Thus in
the lives of both Mr. and Mrs. Cass are elements connecting them with the
historv of the Pacific Slope and enrolling them with those who have paved
the way. for thousands, to a glorious future.
JAMES G. FRIKKA. — Prominent among the men of affairs in Fresno
County, and especially well-known among the leaders of Clovis and closely
identified with its wonderful development, is James G. Frikka, who first
came to California in the early seventies. He is a native of Dalby, Jutland,
Denmark, where he was born on October 18, 1848. When he was a little
boy, his father died ; and his mother having remarried, the lad was raised in
Dalby and there attended the public school until he was fourteen. He learned
farming, and when he had grown to manhood he married there Miss Anna
K. Petersen. He continued to follow agriculture for a livelihood until, hear-
ing of the wonderful opportunities in California, he concluded to leave Den-
mark and to try his fortunes in the New World.
In 1872 he crossed the ocean to New York and made for New Jersey,
where he found employment for a year in an iron mine. Having kept the
goal toward which he started ever before him. however, in 1873, he pushed
on west, and at length reached Solano County, near the Montezuma Hills. He
■ was in the employ of Mr. McDonald for a year, and then went to the Redding-
ton mine in Napa County, for another year. After that he came to Greenville,
Plumas County, where he worked in the Green Mountain Mine and the
National Mine', as a miner, until 1879; and in April of that year, passing
through Fresno, he came to Tombstone, Ariz., where he was employed as a
miner, and especial!}'- later as a shift boss, at the Top Knot ^Nline for the
Tombstone Mining and ^Milling Company. His work there lasted five years.
In 1885. however, when a strike caused the closing down of the works,
'Sir. Frikka went back to Denmark, to his wife, whom he had left there with
a baby; and he remained there from June of that year until April. 1886. He
had a little property in Denmark, and as his wife did not like to leave there,
he bought some more at auction. ^Meantime some property in Tombstone
had called him back to America, the trip being necessary properly to guard
his interests ; and not long after, the auction property in Denmark was
knocked down to him and he had to cross the ocean again to take charge
of that. On his return to his native land, he undertook the management of a
farm and hotel ; and at this he continued for eighteen years. His family mean-
while increased. The oldest child, Marie, had migrated to Fresno County,
Cal., and his son Hans had come out to Fresno when fifteen; and as Mr.
Frikka always liked California and still longed to return here, and the mother
finally showed a desire to come, Mr. Frikka sold out and prepared to move
to America, once and for all.
The family arrived in Fresno in 1902, and joined the son and daughter
already here. Mr. Frikka engaged in grain farming on the Sample ranch,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1177
and ran three, ten and sometimes twelve mule teams, tilling about 3,000
acres. A dry year, with rust, coming upon him, he was nearly ruined ; how-
ever, he kept on for eight years more, but in 1910 sold his outfit and bought
his present place. He obtained forty acres of stubble land in the Fincher
Colony, and there he set out a vineyard and a peach orchard and planted
some of the land to alfalfa. This choice property is under the Gould Ditch,
and he has a fine pumping plant. \\'ith his sons, Hans and Andrew, he has
also bought twenty of the adjoining acres, and these he has set out to vines.
He has built a fine residence, with an avenue of fig trees. There are twenty
acres of alfalfa and fifteen acres of raisin and muscat grapes, and the bal-
ance of the land is given up to peaches. He is an active member of the Cali-
fornia Peach Growers, Inc., and of the California Associated Raisin Company.
Mv. and Mrs. Frikka have five children. Marie, Mrs. J. C. Thomsen,
lives in the Enterprise Colony; Carrie is Mrs. Jensen, of the Grau Colony;
Hans and Andrew are in the United States Army, Hans in the Thirty-first
Infantry, serving in Siberia, and Andrew in the Three Hundred Sixty-fourth
Regiment, Ninety-first Division, United States Expeditionary Forces in
France, with which he served in the Battle of the Argonne Forest and at
Ypres, Belgium ; and Josie lives at Fresno. The family attend the Lutheran
Church and encourage and support every worthy movement for the uplift
of the community. ]\Ir. Frikka is a member of the Odd Fellows, having joined
in Tombstone. Ariz., but is now a member of the Kolding Lodge in Denmark.
In national politics a Democrat, he enthusiastically supports all local move-
ments without regard to party lines.
MRS. MARGARET MULLIGAN. — A native daughter, the widow of a
genuine '49er and one of Sonoma's famous pioneers, who is generous-hearted
and liberal to a fault, and in her old-time hospitality recalls the brilliant days
of early California, when no stranger was turned away uncared for and with-
out cheer, is Mrs. Margaret Mulligan, whose husband passed away in 1914,
mourned by many friends. Born in St. Louis, Mo., from which city came so
many of the best pioneers of the ne^v commonwealth destined to be formed
this side of the Rockies, \A'illiam ^ilulligan came to California by way of the
Isthmus in 1849, and settled at Healdsburg, and in 1868. in .Alexander Valley,
Sonoma Count}', he married the lady who now so well honors his name.
Before her marriage she was Margaret Alexander, the daughter of C^■rus
and Rufina (Lucero) Alexander, her father coming from Pennsylvania, while
her mother was a native daughter proud enough of her origin. He was one
of the early settlers in Sonoma County, and was a member of the Bear Flag
party that played such an historic role in the annals of the Golden State.
Having come to that section early, he acquired a vast stretch of territory ; and
this was called Alexander Valley. Twelve children were born to this couple.
onlv five of whom grew up ; three are still living, a fourth having passed away
recently: IMargaret, the subject of our very interesting sketch, is the eldest
of the four; Joseph, who was a large ranch-owner at Santa Rosa, died at
that place, in April. 1918; Thomas resides in Alexander Valley, and George
lives at Healdsburg.
Margaret attended the public schools in .Alexander \"alley and the Youno-
Ladies' Seminary at Healdsburg, and in 1868 she was married to William
Mulligan. They at once began to farm in Alexander Valley and in time Mr.
Mulligan had a ranch of 500 acres of vineyard. This involved much responsi-
bility, expense and labor ; and when the panic came, due to low prices, he
found that he had so over-reached himself that he was all but ruined.
With characteristic and commendable courage, however, Mr. and Mrs.
Mulligan started all over again by coming to Selma, in January, 1894, and
purchasing thirty-five acres, which they improved in various ways. In 1914
they built a large and attractive bungalow as their country residence, but in
June of that same year Mr. ^Mulligan died. Mrs. Mulligan still lives on the
1178 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
home place, a devout member of the Roman Catholic Church at Selma, while
in politics she is a supporter of the Progressive party.
j\lr. and Mrs. Mulligan had ten children, most of whom growing up,
have become hard-working, progressive and highly respected citizens. Their
children are: William A., a railroad man who married Edith Gross and has
one child, Genevieve, and resides in Los Angeles; Leo Vincent, single, is
a rancher near Selma ; Inez, single, lives at home ; Julian, who married Mae
Falters, by whom he has had one child, George William, is a bee man and
lives five miles to the north ; Francis M., who married Alameda Cunningham,
has one child. Jack, and works at the fruit company's packing house at Selma ;
Teresa, single, a graduate of the University of California, is a teacher in the
Haywood High School; Lewis, a rancher living five miles to the north, is
single; Fred, who married Emma Metzler, owns a twenty-acre ranch five
miles south of Selma and also rents the old home ranch here; Margaret Ce-
cilia, who died on lulv 4, 1893 ; and Genevieve, who died on November 14,
1916.
For many, many years two of the most honored names in California
pioneer history will be those of the path-breakers and empire-builders, Cyrus
Alexander and William Mulligan, recalling their heroic work and that of
their devoted wi\-es and families.
JOHN DUNKEL.— A kind and helpful early settler in the Kutner dis-
trict, who is well liked and who, with his brother George, also an early set-
tler in these parts, did much toward the wonderful development of Central
California, is John Dunkel, the well-known vineyardist, who hails from the
picturesque republic of Switzerland. He was born at Schafifhausen, Switzer-
land, on March 12, 1859, the third oldest of six children, and the son of George
Dunkel, who was a clever cooper. He was educated in the excellent public
schools of Switzerland, and when eighteen was apprenticed to a brewer in
Canton Zurich. Here he remained three years, and then, according to the
custom of his country and his time, he went as a journeyman brewer to Ger-
many, Belgium, and France, working from place to place and gathering a
wider experience than would have been possible had he remained in Switzer-
land ; and he visited Paris in particular. Returning to his native country, he
entered the Swiss army when he was twenty-one, and served the required
time as a soldier in Division Six of the Sixty-first Regiment; and finally re-
ceived the coveted honorable discharge. _
In 1882, Mr. Dunkel came to America, landing in New York City, and
soon found employment on the upper Hudson, near Albany, with a farmer.
He began to find the winters, however, too cold, and hearing of the wonder-
ful climate of California he determined to push further west and see for him-
self what the Pacific Slope had to ofifer. In December, 1883, John Dunkel
landed in San Francisco, and after taking a good look at the western metrop-
olis he went to Napa, where he found employment on a ranch at Yountville.
He liked his surroundings, and he remained for four years ; and then coming
to Sonoma County he secured good employment on a ranch near Sonoma,
where he remained until 1890.
In that year he returned to his old home across the ocean on a visit, and
while there was married to Miss Christene ^^■i]mer, a native of Germany.
and one who was well fitted by experience and temperament to be his help-
mate. After nine months in his native land he entered the Swiss army again
for eighteen days, as he had taken out only liis first papers leading to Amer-
ican citizenship ; but in 1891 he returned to California and located in Sonoma,
where he once more engaged in ranch work.
In 1904, Mr. Dunkel fortunately turned to Fresno County, and here en-
tered the employ of his brother George, who had a vineyard in the Kutner
district, and was a very successful viticulturist. He worked for him for four
years, and during this time bought thirty acres adjoining his brother's place,
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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1181
which he also set out as a vineyard. In 1^)08, he bought forty acres of his
brother, and continued as a viticulturist for himself, his two sons being as-
sociated with him in ranching. Finding that they had somewhat more land
than they needed, they sold twenty acres of the ranch in January, 1918, and now
have a fine tract of fifty acres, thirty of which are devoted to malaga ship-
ping grapes and twenty acres to muscat raisin grapes. They are also leasing
forty-five acres adjacent devoted to malagas and muscats. Mr. Dunkel has
built a handsome residence, and made many needed improvements, and as a
member of the California Associated Raisin Company is justly proud of his
estate. He has an electrical pumping-plant for irrigation, and this furnishes
him also with electric lights for his place.
The two sons, who further honor John Dunkel's name are : Frank, farm-
ing with his father; and Herman, who served in the Three Hundred Sixty-first
Regiment. Ninety-first Division, U. S. A., overseas, for nine months, taking
part in the Ijattles of the Argonne and Odenard, Belgium; he was honorably
discharged, May .t. 1919, and is now engaged in ranching with his father
and brother. The Dunkels are greatly interested in every civic movement
for the bettering of the State and the cnmmnnity. support the best men and
measures in local affairs, and do their part in national politics in the ranks
of the Republican party.
LEWIS JACOBSEN.— A veteran sower in the wide fields of spiritual
endeavor, who has also reaped, and abundantly, in the harvests of succes-
sively fruitful years, is Lewis Jacobsen, the rancher who owns forty acres
on the Canal School Road and there lives retired as a Danish Baptist preacher.
He was born on March 8, 1842. at Jutland, near Aaalborg, in Denmark, and
was brought up in that country. He early joined the Baptist Church there, and
at the age of twenty-two entered the Baptist College at Hamburg, where he
studied theology. On his return to Denmark, he was ordained as a Baptist
minister, and for ten years he traveled in Denmark as a general missionary
of the Baptist Conference.
In 1874 he came to the United States and Minnesota, and for four years
was a missionary in the Danish Baptist Church in this country, and did mis-
sionary work in Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, when he
was regularly ordained as a minister. Thousands owe to this gdbd and untir-
ing expounder of the Gospel, who brought to them the Bread of Life, their
encouragement to endure in the hard struggle against the forces of sin, and
their aliility to find the paths that led to green meadows and pleasant waters.
At Clarks Grove, in Freeborn County, Minn., the Reverend Jacobsen was
married on July 18, 1878, to Elizabeth Matilda Jensen, who was born at Tisdad
in Jutland, Denmark, on September 27, 1850. Her father was Jens Jensen,
who married Annie Nelson, and he was a well-known storekeeper in the
section in which he lived. She was an only child, and her mother died when
she was nineteen. Her father married again, and he very much desired her
to accompany him to America. At that time, having visited England and
learned English there, she had an excellent position as ladies' maid to the
Countess Gravenkoep Castenskold, but she yielded to her father's request,
and accompanied him and her step-mother to America, and arrived in Chicago
in 1873. There she was converted and became a Christian, and joined the
Baptist Church; and it was thus that she came to meet her husband, who
was doing missionary work there.
Seeing that the hard work of his ministry was telling on liis health, Mr.
Jacobsen was persuaded to resign from the |)nl|iit, wIutcuimhi his parisliiimers
and friends purchased for him a farm in Mimiesnta. whicli he imjir. i\ed and
sold. The new income gave him the means and opportunity to visit Cali-
fornia, and leaving Clarks Grove, he and his good wife settled about one
and a half miles east of Selma. Here they have worked hard and long and
have prospered. They have never lost sight of the spiritual and religious
1182 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
life so necessary to be eternally happy, and have sacrificed in order properly
to bring up and educate their children, of whom they have had eight: Jacob,
the first-born, died when he was three years old ; Albert, whose birth occurred
in Iowa on February 2. 1882, is a well-known rancher, living single, near
Selma ; Noah, who was born on March 9, 1884, in Iowa, married Martha :\I.
Christensen, by whom he has had three children, and they are ranchers at
Kingsburg; Jacob, the fourth-born, also died in infancy; David, who was
born on June 6, 1886, in Wisconsin, died when six weeks old ; Lewis, who was
born on September 23, 1888, and who is pastor of the Baptist Church at Man-
hattan, Kans., graduated from the \\'illiam Jewell College in Missouri and
from the Rochester (N. Y.) Baptist Theological Seminary, and married Jo-
hanna Sorensen, who was formerly assistant postmaster at Selma ; Emanuel,
who was born on May 5. 1891, is a student at Redlands University, is single,
and is licensed as a Baptist minister, and has just returned from France; and
Arthur D.. who graduated in 1917 from Redlands University and won a Har-
vard scholarship, and is now a student at Harvard.
This shepherd of the sheep, many will be sorry enough to learn, is now
sufl'ering from a stroke of paralysis, an affliction not so surprising perhaps,
when one remembers that he has reached his seventy-seventh year and has
so long been such a hard worker; but this physical burden has not in the
least dimmed his faith, nor saddened his spirit.
ROBERT J. COOPER. — A well known and highly respected pioneer
resident of the Selma section of Fresno County is Robert Jinkens Cooper,
popularly known as "Bob" Cooper. He came to this locality in November,
1875, when the land was little more than a desert waste, and with his own
hands and team he assisted in digging the Centerville and Kingsburg ditch,
more as an experiment, but which later proved the making of this section of
the county. It is to such men that the county owes a debt of gratitude for
making it "blossom as the rose."
Bob Cooper was born in Calaveras County, March 8, 1858, a son of
Robert Bruce Cooper, born in Mississippi in 1822, who when he was eighteen
went to Texas and farmed in Harrison County several seasons, after which
he came to California in 1850 and followed mining for a few years. He took
up a homestead near '^Milton, Calaveras County, and lived there until 1889,
when he moved to Fresno County and lived with his children until he moved
to Santa Cruz. He married Miss Alta Zara Lewis, also born in Mississippi
but reared in Arkansas. They had five children : Samuel B., a rancher near
Del Rey ; Joseph H., a rancher at Selma ; Mary, married Frank Cleary who
died at Lindsav ; Robert J., of this review ; and Henry E., residing in Academy
district. Mrs. Cooper died in 1872, in Calaveras County. Mr. Cooper spent
his last days at Lindsay, dying at the age of ninety-one, in 1915. They were
a fine pioneer couple and endured the privations of the early settlers. Mr.
Cooper came from Texas, with saddle and pack mules, as far as Mazatlan,
thence by boat to San Francisco, while Mrs. Cooper spent six months on the
plains, making the journey from Mississippi with ox teams over the Santa Fe
trail.
Bob Cooper is a native son and as such takes a pride in the welfare of
the people and in the development of the country in general. His education
was obtained in the public schools of the state and his early training was
along agricultural lines. He came to Fresno County in 1875, looking for a
favorable location, and at that time bought forty acres of land where he now
lives and upon which he has spent his time and attention in bringing to a
high state of development. He has been a hard worker and is a good manager.
As one of the pioneers he has shown how to succeed in cultivating the desert
lands. Selma was not known and the nearest station and switch was at
Kingsburg on the south and at Fowler on the north. There were three of the
Cooper bovs who settled in Fresno County and took up homesteads or bought
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1183
railroad land in 1876. Samuel Bob and Joseph, and all of them have made
good by their wise investments. The Kingsburg and Centerville ditch proved
a success and made it possible to grow the peach and raisin grape in this
section. This was the first successful irrigation system in this part of the
county.
In 1883, on the day before Christmas, at Visalia, R. J. Cooper and Miss
Kate L. Mann, were united in marriage. Mrs. Cooper was born in the San
Ramon Valley, Contra Costa County, on February 19, 1864, a daughter of
Elson Mann, born in Indiana and a pioneer of California of 1849, in which
year he crossed the plains and made settlement in what is now San Benito
County, and later lived in Tulare County uiitil 1896, when he came to Fresno
County. He spent five years here and then moved to Santa Rosa. He served
in the Mexican War under Colonel Doniphan. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper en-
deared themselves to their many friends by their many acts of kindness and
by their integrity. Mrs. Cooper died on April 15, 1919. mourned by a wide
circle of friends by whom she was held in the highest esteem for her gener-
osity, genial disposition and Christian character. Mr. Cooper is a member
of Selma Parlor, No. 107, N. S. G. W.. and has passed all the chairs of the
lodge. He is a Republican.
WILLIAM JOHNSON.— Over forty years a citizen of Fresno County,
is a record of which but few of the present residents of this great common-
wealth can boast, but such is the fact revealed by the biographical sketch of
the honored pioneer and vineyardist, William Johnson, who for the past
twelve years has resided on his highly improved ranch situated on the lower
Reedley road, in the Parlier district.
William Johnson, a native of Sweden, was born in Oeland, October 26.
1849, a son of Johan and Kaissa Breta fAnderson) Jacobson, both natives of
Sweden, and now deceased. Johan Jacobson owned a landed estate and was
a well-to-do farmer. Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Johan Jacob-
son: William, the subject of this sketch, and the eldest; John, a rancher,
who died at Kingsburg, Cal., leaving a widow and two children: Elina, the
wife of Peter Gustafson, a contractor and builder of Oeland, Sweden, and
they reside on the old Jacobson place.
William Johnson was educated in the public schools of Sweden and
reared on his father's farm until he was nineteen years of age, when he de-
cided to become a sailor and to see more of the world. His first experience
in following the sea was on a Norwegian liner sailing between Bremerhaven
and Quebec. He followed the life of a sailor for six years and during this
time visited many of the world's leading seaports, in France, England, Ger-
many, Norway, Sweden, South America, China, Cuba, America, the Mediter-
ranean seaports in Africa, and twice made the trip through the Suez Canal.
During the last two years of his seafaring life he sailed on American ships
and it was on one of these vessels that he arrived on the Pacific coast in
1874, and during that year he stayed awhile in San Francisco, the ne.xt year
locating in Fresno County, where he found employment working on farms,
which he followed for two years.
In 1878 he bought 640 acres of land seven miles east of Fresno, where
he commenced farming operations for himself and began to raise grain, but
the undertaking failed to prove a financial success.
Undaunted by his great financial loss, and determined to succeed in
ranching, he started in business the second time, this time choosing viti-
culture, and for the purpose he purchased a small tract of land near Kings-
burg, in Tulare County, which he set out to muscat vines and, after improv-
ing twenty acres, sold it, and then purchased another piece of raw land which
he also improved and sold. In 1906 he purchased his present place of forty
acres of highly improved land, which is considered one of the most productive
ranches in the Parlier district, sixteen acres being planted to muscat grapes.
1184 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
four acres each to malaga, sultana, and Thompson seedless grapes, four acres
are devoted to ]\Iuir peaches, two to prunes, all being in bearing. The place
is improved with a commodious country residence and it is here that Mr.
Johnson makes his home, but, owing to the present difficulty in obtaining
farm laborers, he has for the time being rented his ranch.
In 1880, William Johnson was united in marriage with Matilda Joran-
son, a native of Sweden who came to Fresno County with her brothers and
sisters. She passed away in 1888, leaving one child, John O. Johnson, the
owner of a forty-acre ranch north of Lone Star, Fresno County.
The second marriage of \\'illiam Johnson occurred in 1898, when he
was united with Mrs. Hilma Nelson, widow of B. P. Nelson, of Kingsburg,
Cal. She was a native of Sweden and in maidenhood was Hilma Danielson.
Her death occurred in 1913, leaving two children by \\' illiam Johnson : Gust,
who is now nineteen years old and is at present employed at farm work :
Henry, who is attending the grammar school in the Ross district.
By her former marriage, Mrs. Johnson was the mother of four children:
Mable, Charles, Benjamin, and Hildor Nelson; but after their mother's mar-
riage to William Johnson, all of the children took the name of Johnson.
Mable is now the wife of Albert Peterson, a rancher in Tulare County near
Kingsburg ; Charles married Miss Callie Madsen, of Parlier, and is now
foreman of the American Vineyard Company, at Flanford ; Benjamin married
Miss Christine Madsen, of Parlier, and is now renting subject's ranch ; Hil-
dor is the wife of Earl English, who served his country in France.
William Johnson is a man of sterling worth and has decided religious
convictions, is a leading member of the Swedish Lutheran Church at Kings-
burg, and was a member of the building committee for the beautiful new
church which cost $20,000 and which was dedicated April 28. 1918. Politically,
Mr. Johnson registers as a Republican, and is ready to aid every movement
for the upbuilding of the community.
J. L. SKOONBURG. — Swedish energy and American opportunity are a
combination that will produce results, as illustrated in the case of Mr. Skoon-
burg. He was born in the Province of Skaane, Sweden, May 2, 1856. His
father owned about an acre of land and worked at farm labor about the neigh-
borhood. He died in Sweden, as did also the mother. There were four boys,
but three of them are dead, and J. L. is the only one of the family now left.
While in his native land Mr. Skoonburg learned the bricklayer's trade,
and this was at a time when the apprentice or laborer who did not drink
was considered as not worthy of notice. Notwithstanding all this, he retained
his manhood, and today he is a strong temperance advocate and a clean man.
In the early part of December, 1879, Mr. Skoonburg came to America,
stopping but one week in New York. He went to Chicago, but being winter-
time he went on to Indiana and worked on grading the Grand Trunk Rail-
road until the opening of spring, when he returned to Chicago and worked
at his trade. He stayed in Chicago for seven years and then came to Califor-
nia, settling first in Kingsburg where he remained for one year, and then
moved to Fresno. After a time he went to Visalia, and became a part owner
in a brick yard, and was also an independent contractor in partnership with
John Edsenhauser, of Visalia. During this time his family lived on a ranch
at Sanger. His son having met with an accident, the father was compelled to
give up his business at Visalia, which by this time had reached good propor-
tions, and go to his farm at Sanger ; later he sold out and went to Los Angeles
to work at his trade, and remained there for two years. He then returned to
Fresno County and bought a ranch of thirty acres on Church Avenue between
Orange and East Avenues, and for the next twelve years devoted all of his
time and energies to make it yield good crops. He sold out in 1919 and
removed to Fresno where he purchased a home on Glenn Avenue and intends
to live a retired life.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1187
Mr. Skoonburg was married in Chicago to Ellen Bartelson born in
Sweden. She died leaving one child, a son, Arthur Skoonburg, who prac-
ticed medicine in San Francisco for ten years. He volunteered for service
in the World War, was commissioned a lieutenant and went into training
at Fort Riley, Kans. After his discharge from duty he came to Fresno and
is now resident physician at the Sample Sanitorium. Mr. Skoonburg's sec-
ond marriage united him with Mrs. Mary Marmaduke, a widow with one
son, Millard Marmaduke, in the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad, married
and lives at Calwa. Mrs. Skoonburg was born in Missouri, a daughter of
William Brewer, and had lived for years in Kansas City. Mr. and Mrs.
Skoonburg are members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Fresno.
Mr. Skoonburg takes an active interest in the growth and progress of
Fresno and Fresno County and is an active member of the Raisin Growers'
Association. His success is due entirely to his own efforts.
OREN FRED PACKARD.— A native son of the Golden State. O. F.
Packard is the owner and manager of the Merchants Night Patrol of Fresno,
which he organized in 1903 and for fifteen years has successfully operated
to the entire satisfaction of his large clientele among the best business con-
cerns of the city. He was born in San Francisco, November 19, 1867. a son
of Cyrus C. and Sophia Addie (Merriam) Packard, both natives of Maine.
In 1859. the parents and four children sailed from Boston to San Francisco,
where the father engaged in contracting and carpenter work. Mr. and Mrs.
Packard were the parents of seven children, four of whom were born in
Maine and three in California.
In 1882. the family moved to Fresno, where the father with his two
oldest sons established the Valley Truck and Transfer Company, and were
the first to do trucking on a large scale in Fresno. The home of C. C. Pack-
ard was at 1430 I Street and at the same place the office and barns of the
transfer company were located. Mr. C. C. Packard, in the early days of
Fresno, had a hog ranch and vineyard in the West Park district. He passed
away in 1907, his widow surviving him until December 19, 1917.
Oren F. Packard received his early schooling in San Francisco, and after
moving to Fresno he worked for his father and brothers in the transfer busi-
ness, later on taking over the business and conducting it himself for twenty
years. After selling the transfer business, in 1903, he established the Mer-
chants Night Patrol, in the business section of Fresno, which enterprise he
still continues to operate. At one time O. F. Packard had charge of a fifty-acre
vineyard and hog ranch. He was a member of Company F, California Na-
tional Guards, for fourteen years, and for seven years was sergeant of the
organization ; he is president of the Fresno Volunteer Firemen's Association
and for many years was a member of the old volunteer fire department, and
also took an'active part in baseball when Fresno was a member of the State
League.
Politically, Mr. Packard is a Republican ; he takes an active interest
in politics, and has a large circle of friends and acquaintances in the city
wherein he has resided for so many years.
WARREN G. NASH. — In looking at the grand and stately oak tree we
are apt to forget the small acorn from which it grew, and think only of its
beautv and stately magnificence. It is quite as true of many of the great
enterprises of this work-a-day world that have sprung from comparatively
small beginnings. We look and wonder and our mind is focused on the attain-
ment rather than the source from which it sprung.
In the famous Libby-McNeil products that cover a range of everything
delectable for the table from meats and vegetables to the delicious fruits of
the tropics, we have an ocular demonstration of what can be evolved from a
small beginning. In 1867, A. A. Libby and A. McNeil first handled fresh
meats in a small way in the city of Chicago, then began experimenting with
60
1188 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
varying success in the preservation of beef and tongues, finally attaining
the success they were searching for. Only the regular cuts of beef and
tongues were first used, all the remainder, except the hide of the animal,
not being considered available. Today not the smallest piece goes to waste,
every particle having some value, either edible, medical or for manufacturing
purposes, and their products are no longer confined to the preservation of
meat, but vegetables of all varieties and delicious fruits are placed upon the
world's market for the delectation of the appetite of rich and poor. Long
since exceeding their original circumscribed boundaries in the Windy City,
their establishments are to be found in all climes, from Illinois and other
states of the Union to far-away Hawaii and Alaska. Appreciating the possi-
bilities and advantages of the favored section in which the city of Selma,
Fresno County, Cal, is situated, in 1911 ground was broken for the first sec-
tion of their plant at Selma. Additions have been made from time to time
under the direction of Superintendent Warren G. Nash, until the plant now
covers 200x700 feet of the ground space comprised in their seventeen acres,
and is the largest fruit and vegetable cannery on the Pacific Coast, excepting
the Libby, McNeil & Libby Canning factory at Sacramento.
Warren G. Nash, the able superintendent of Libby, McNeil & Libby's
plant at Selma, is a native son of California. Large both in stature and mental
ability, handsome, able and good natured, he is withovit doubt Selma's larg-
est fruit and vegetable buyer and employer of labor.
Mr. Nash is a San Jose boy, born in that city, November 11, 1866, the
son of Van Buren Nash, a native of Maine who crossed the Isthmus as a
young man nineteen years of age in 1851, and, like other adventurous spirits
of those memorable days, wended his way to the gold mines. Later he went
to San Jose, where he farmed, and still later, in 1870, located in HoUister, San
Benito County, Cal. Here his son, Warren G., attended the public schools,
afterwards taking a course in a commercial college at San Jose. He then tried
his hand at farming, contracting, road and bridge building. He was married
at San Jose to Miss Alice M. Woods, daughter of George W. Woods, an old
pioneer, and after marriage settled in San Jose where he followed contract-
ing for several years, then began in the orchard industry from whence he
drifted into the general contracting business, building roads, bridges, founda-
tions, etc. ; afterwards going to San Francisco, where he engaged in the fruit
canning business with the California pioneer fruit-canning firm of the Gibbs,
Wilson Company. He afterwards became instrumental in promoting the
Winters Canning Company at Winters, and later the cannery at Suisun, Cal.
In 1913 he disposed of his interests there and went to work for Liliby, McNeil
& Libby at Selma, as superintendent, succeeding Mr. Frank Heatherington.
The factory is five times as large as when Mr. Nash first took charge of
it. Among the products of the factory, canned in Libby, McNeil & Libby's
matchless way, are apricots, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, pears, spinach,
pumpkins and squashes. They also pack table and cooking raisins, and put
up six grades of the various kinds of fruits : special extra ; extra ; extra stand-
ard: standard; second: and water or pie goods. In 1917 they used ten thou-
sand tons of fruits, etc., of which seven thousand tons were brought in l)y
farmers in the vicinity of Selma, and three thousand tons were shipped in.
The Selma cannery puts up a product valued at more than a million dollars
per year, and employs ninety people the season round, increasing the num-
ber to seven hundred during the busy season, their army of workers being
drawn as largely as possible from Selma. They have a cafeteria and also a
restaurant on the premises where wholesome meals and lunches are served
at about cost, to employees. Near the office and superintendent's room is the
"first aid" room, specially set apart and used for emergency cases, where
the best first aid equipment is always at hand. Ladies' and gentlemen's dress-
ing-rooms give opportunity for the employees to change their street garb for
canning-house attire. Sixty-one cottages for employees and their families
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1189
have already been built. Two wells 150 feet deep provide an abundance of
pure water for all purposes, which is pumped b}^ electric power into an
elevated tank. They have the finest system of electric lighting on the Coast.
All the electric wires for lighting are enclosed in electric conduits. Although
bu}-ing their clectricit}' from the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation,
the company keeps in reserve adequate steam engines. Superintendent Nash
has bricked up the boiler-room in a very substantial way, making it doubly
safe against fire. The company's premises are toward the south end of Selma
and they have a side-track from the Southern Pacific Railway, where four-
teen freight or refrigerator cars can be loaded or unloaded at one time.
However, seven-tenths of their fruit is brought in by, auto trucks or wagons
and horses, the farmers now using auto trucks almost exclusively.
Superintendent Nash is ably assisted by Earl Womack, assistant super-
intendent; J. W. Aikin, office manager; and S. J. Townsend, warehouse fore-
man. They are all residents of Selma and heartily in sympathj^ with Selma's
growth and development. Mr. Aikin, several years ago, helped secure the
Carnegie Library for Selma.
Mr. Nash takes great interest in the success of the institution under his
care, and is a highly respected and valued member of the city of Selma's
board of trustees, having been elected to the office in 1916. He is a member
of the Selma Chamber of Commerce, and of the San Jose Lodge of F. & A. M..
the Elks, the Winters Lodge of Woodmen, and the San Jose Lodge of that
order. He and his good wife are members of the Order of the Eastern Star
at Suisun.
JOHNSTON JOSEPHUS EDGAR.— Men possessing the fundamental
characteristics of which J. J. Edgar is heir, have ever been regarded as bul-
warks of the communities in which they have lived. The life of J. J. Edgar,
which this narrative sketches, began November 22, 1860, in Carroll County.
Mo., but he was reared near Hardin, Ray County. He is the son of V. G. and
Lucy fDonan) Edgar, who were blessed with six children, four of whom
grew to maturity ; three are now residing in California.
J. J. Edgar received a good education and fitted himself for the profession
of teaching, which he followed for some years in Missouri. Except for the
time spent in the pursuit of his profession, he has through his life time devoted
his attention to agriculture, a vocation that brings a man so close to his
Creator, that he sees in every bud and plant, every flower and petal, every
leaf and dew drop, the working of a higher power. Mr. Edgar is a man of
high ideals, who believes that to bring out the best that is in the soil, or in our
hearts, we must work very close to and in harmony with nature's God.
In 1889, Mr. Edgar came from Missouri to California, coming directly
to Fresno County and locating at Sanger. There being no empty houses in
the new town he had to build a shack in which to live until he could do better.
He worked in the lumber mill for a time and then took up farming and in
1902 he located on his present homestead, where he has since resided. Thirty-
five acres are equally divided into vineyard and orchard and the balance is
given over to ranch buildings and alfalfa. ?Ie has made all the improvements
seen on the place and has made of his forty acres a very productive and at-
tractive ranch home.
In March, 1884, in Missouri, Mr. Edgar was united in marriage with Eliza-
beth Mossbarger. daughter of Eli Mossbarger of Carroll County. Mo. Five
children have been born of this happy union : Ethel L. ; Mabel ; Clarence ;\T.,
a graduate of Sanger High School and with one year at Heald's Business Col-
lege, in Fresno, to his credit, when he was called for special service during
the World War and assigned to the Spruce Division at Vancouver. \A^ash.,
until the armistice was signed, when he was discharged; Cecil E., a graduate
from the Sanger High School and the University of California at Berkeley,
who entered the service of the L^nited States, October 17, 1917, in the Machine
1190 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Gun Battalion, served in the 148th and 151st, saw sixteen months' service in
France, and was discharged in May, 1919. and who will take up his university
course in the law department where lie dropped it when the call to the colors
came ; Joseph P.. who graduated from the Sanger High School, took training
at the University of Southern California for the Field Artillery, and was dis-
charged soon after the signing of the armistice.
Mr. Edgar has always been interested in educational matters and for
years has served as a trustee of the Sanger High School. He is a consistent
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of Sanger, of which he is
trustee and steward ; he is a member of the Woodmen of the World. Mr.
Edgar aids every movement for the advancement of the community. He
was a promoter and is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company
and the California Peach Growers, Inc.
GARRETT E. ANDERSON. — An interesting pioneer couple who, by
hard labor and frugality have become well-to-do and now own and enjoy
a fine home-place, are Mr. and Mrs. Garrett E. Anderson, for many years
prominently identified with Fresno County. He was born near Herodsburg.
Mercer County, Ky., on January 3, 1873. the son of Robert R. Anderson, a
native of that state and a prosperous farmer. Robert R. tried to enlist in
the Union Army but he was too young to be accepted, and his ruse of stand-
ing in high-heeled boots to overcome his short stature was also of no avail.
While in Kentucky he married Margaret Jane Poulter, and in 1882 removed
to Missouri, near Sedalia, Pettis County. As early as 1884 he came to Cali-
fornia and Fresno, and was employed by different contractors, helping to
build the Hughes Hotel. Seven years later, IMr. Anderson, with his wife and
a daughter, returned east, leaving a son and a daughter here : and taking up
his residence again in Kentucky, he resumed farming. In 1909 they returned
to California and settled at Orleans Bar where, two years later, he died. Since
then ]\Irs. Anderson, who has remarried and become Mrs. Goven, has returned
to Kentucky to live. Eleven children were born of this union, but only three
grew up. Laura A. is Mrs. Gay of Santa Barbara; Josie is Mrs. Sebastian, in
Kentucky; and Garrett Edgar is the subject of our sketch. Brought up in
Kentucky until he was eleven years old, Garrett then came to Fresno and
attended the Hawthorne School, the only school here at that time. When
he began to work, he took up viticulture ; and when his father went east,
he remained and continued the work in his vineyard.
During July, 1893, in the Kutner Colony, Mr. Anderson was married to
Miss Elizabeth Rice, a native of Newark, N. J., and the only child of James
Rice, a gas-maker there, who went to Texas and engaged in farming, but
on account of three successive failures of crops he moved with his family
to Fresno, in 1885, and entered the service of the Fresno Gas Company. He
made gas for the concern and also showed them how to establish their busi-
ness, and in 1890 he located in Kutner Colony on some raw land. Mrs. An-
derson also went to the Hawthorne School, as well as to the school in Tem-
perance Colony. Mr. Rice died February 16, 1915, and Mrs. Rice passed
away in June, 1917. They were very generous and hospitable and assisted
many of the early settlers to get a start.
For a season Mr. Anderson was in the employ of the Pine Ridge Lumber
Company and then he went into the mountains with the Sanger Lumber
Company. In the fall of 1898 he bought twenty acres adjoining the property
of Air. Rice, and began to engage in viticulture. He had a horse, and he built
upon the ranch and otherwise much improved it; and he later bought ten
acres, near the Kutner school-house, on which he resided for eight vears.
The original twenty acres, now in full-bearing muscats, Mr. Anderson still
owns.
In the meantime this enterprising pioneer invested in a tract of sixty
acres, in 1909, when the nearest vineyard was a mile away. He had
<^:::^^^?-2<^^t£/
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1193
to poison off the horde of squirrels and jack rabbits before he could set his
vines but he succeeded in making it a fine place. He built a residence, with
the usual barns and outbuildings, and then bought, with Mr. Rice, a tract of
forty acres near by, thirty-five of which he set out as a vineyard with muscat
and shipping grapes, and several acres of alfalfa. He worked out, saved and
invested his surplus in his ranch, and has become well posted in his line.
This ranch, located five and a half miles southeast of Clovis, became one of
the landscape, as well as agricultural, attractions in this section. However,
in June, 1918, he sold this place and moved back to the old Rice home, which
he and Mrs. Anderson still own, in connection with their original twenty
acres. It is located on National Avenue, eleven miles east of Fresno, and
is well improved, with a modern residence and a pumping plant. Mr. .'\nder-
son has supported the successive raisin and fruit associations, and he is now
a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
Thirteen children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and all but two
are now living. Josie is Mrs. Davis, of Kutner Colony ; Robert B. is serving
in a motor transportation company of the United States Army at Camp
Merritt, N. J. ; James S. was in Company K, Thirtieth Infantry, Third Divi-
sion, serving overseas, and took part in the Battle of Chateau Thierry, France,
and on July 28, 1918, was severely wounded by shrapnel and after recovery
he returned to the United States and was honorably discharged, April 28,
1919; Marguerite J. is at home and so are Laura P., Ruth, Hester, Sarah,
Albert, Garrett and Dorothy.
Mr. Anderson belongs to Fresno Lodge, No. 39, of the Eagles, and the
Woodmen of the World at Fresno ; and Mrs. Anderson and the familv do
their share in local social life. In national politics Mr. Anderson is a Demo-
crat, but he favors the obliteration of party lines in local government : he
has served as a trustee of the Red Bank school district.
HENRY KRUSE. — An enterprising Californian widely known as a viti-
culturist, and who occupies an interesting place among local jiioneers, having
set out around his yard and gardens the first olive hedge seen hereabouts, i?
Henry Kruse, the son of Henry Kruse, a Westphalian agriculturist who,
after a successful life, during which he enjoyed the esteem and good-will of
many, died at the ripe old age of eighty-four. The mother, who was Fred-
ericka Brinkmann before her marriage, lived to be one year older. She was
the mother of six children. Hermann resides in Germany, as does also Mina,
while Hermina (Mrs. Brock) died in that country; and Henry, August and
Gustaf are all in California.
Born at Enger, in Westphalia, on July 27, 1859, Henry Kruse grew up
on his father's farm and there first learned the rudiments of agriculture. Then
he went to the agricultural college at Herford and at the age of nineteen
graduated with full credentials, after which he supplemented his technical
training with practical work as a day farmer. He was then made foreman,
but when he had reached the age of twenty-one he entered military service
in the Fifteenth Regiment of Westphalia, serving most of his time with the
staff. Later, he was superintendent of a large ranch.
In the middle eighties, Mr. Kruse began to turn his thoughts toward the
young republic in the New World, and in August, 1886, he crossed the ocean
and came as far west as Fremont, Nebr. A winter there sufficed to convince
him that he had not yet reached the goal he had dreamed of. and so he came
to California in January. 1887, the first of the family to come as far west as
the Pacific. He was fortunate in securing work on the Egger ranch, where
he began at the bottom, finding it necessary to learn American conditions
and problems, as well as Yankee ways ; but in six months he was made
second foreman. In that responsible post he continued for a couple of years,
when he resigned in order to become superintendent of the Las Palmas
vineyard, which lie managed for four years. He was especially fortunate
in his experiments in packing the raisins for market, and shipping them East.
1.194 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
In 1889, he bought his first land from Eggers — twenty-six acres of raw land
now included in his home place ; he improved the land, turned it into a
vineyard for muscatels and an orchard for figs, laid out the grounds, and in
time built his residence.
In 1892 Mr. Kruse made a trip to his old home, passing seven months
at the residence of his beloved mother; and while in Germany, on August 21,
he was married at Luebeck to Miss Anna Hilka, a native of that place and
the daughter of William Hilka, a gardner of good repute. After his marriage
and the usual farewells, Mr. Kruse returned to California, bringing with him
his wife ; and it was then that he built his residence, and set and reset his
vinej'ard. Four children came to give life and happiness to the Kruse home :
Frieda, now Mrs. H. \A'^estrup, living near Enterprise ; Margaret, a graduate
of Heald's Business College, Fresno ; Clara, who graduated in 1916 from the
Fresno High School and in 1918 from the Fresno State Normal, and is now
teaching in this county; and Ellen who is attending the Fresno High School.
The family attend the German Lutheran Church in Fresno, of which !Mr.
Kruse was one of the founders and was for fourteen years a trustee and
secretary of the board.
Twenty-six acres of land adjoining his place were bought by Mr. Kruse
in 1896, and there he planted Muscat grapes. In 1906 he bought sixty acres
of raw land from George C. Roeding in the Colimina Colony, and this acreage
he set out to jMalaga and wine grapes, with a few ^luscats, while all around,
and in avenues, he planted rows of figs. As an ornament to liis olive hedge,
he has trimmed some of the olive trees in the form of hu.ge balls, and this is
but one of many features which attract the attention of the passer-by to this
notable place.
JOHN T. WALTON.— A prominent horticulturist and viticulturist of
Sanger, and one whose success is the fruitage of thrift, industr^•. enterprise
and integrity, is J- T. Walton, a native of Clarksville, Ark., where he was
born on December 1, 1855. He is the son of Dr. Isaac A. and Mary Elizabeth
(Perry) \\'alton, of an old and highly respected family of Tennessee, and
who were the parents of eleven children ; Joe ; Timothy, who is now de-
ceased ; C. P. : Mrs. S. E. Cobb ; J. T. ; Isaac L. ; Mrs. Belle Elder ; R. L. ;
Hannah, who is now deceased: Philip J-, and W. A.
Dr. Isaac Walton, with his family, migrated to California in 1880 and
homesteaded a quarter section of land, on a part of which the present town
of Sanger has been built, and a part of this ranch is now owned by J- T. Wal-
ton. Dr. ^^'alton received his medical education at the Louisville Medical
College in Louisville. Ky., and opened his first office at Clarksville. Ark., but
on account of ill health, caused by too close application to his work, he began
to seek a location where he could find relief. He was for a time in Texas, then
located in Missouri, and from there he came to Fresno County. Cal., in 1880.
AA'ith each of his moves he found temporary relief. He practiced medicine
up to within a short time of his retirement. He was born in 1822 and died
in 1899, aged seventy-seven years. His wife, who was born in 1829. died in
1893, at the age of sixty-four.
J. T. Walton is the owner of a fine ranch of eighty-two and one-half acres
upon which he has peaches and raisin grapes. In 1917 he built a modern, ten-
room stucco house of the bungalow style of architecture in which he and his
family live in comfort and happiness.
In 1890. Mr. Walton was united in marriage with Augusta M. Hudspeth,
born in Missouri, a daughter of Dr. J. D. Hudspeth, a ^^irginian, Ijut later a
resident of Fresno County. Cal. ]\Ir. and Airs, ^^'alton are parents of six chil-
dren: Charles LeRoy, a postgraduate of the University of California at Berke-
ley; Estey H., a graduate from the Corvallis Agricultural College, Corvallis,
Ore., who enlisted and was assigned to the Forestry Department of the Twen-
tieth Engineers, U. S. A., and has served at the headquarters of the First,
Second and Third Divisions, attaining to the rank of sergeant, and is now with
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1195
the army of occupation at Coblenz ; Nellie, a graduate of the Fresno Normal
and a teacher ; Isaac Aubrey ; George, deceased ; and Mildred.
J. T. Walton is a member of the Baptist Church, he and his wife being
two of the eight charter members of the Baptist Church at Sanger, the first
church organized in the town. Since its organization on January 6, 1896, at
the home of Dr. J. D. Hudspeth, Mr. Walton has served in every office and
has been one of its most active members. He maintained interest in the Sun-
day School in those early days, and today he is cheered by the sight of a
vigorous church and Siuiday School. In 1898, a small church building was
constructed and in I'Tll it was enlarged to meet the needs of the growing
congregation and now it has a seating capacity of 500 and the property is
valued at $8,000, with a membership of over 160.
The M^alton family has ever been loyal to church and state. The records
of the nation show that its patriots have been connected with every war from
Revolutionary Days to the recent World War. One of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence was George Walton, and his son was one of
the early Governors of the State of Georgia. The paternal great-grandmother
of J- T. W^alton was the first white woman in Nashville, Tenn.
Mr. Walton is highly respected in the community, where he has resided
since 1884. He served four years as Justice of the Peace in Sanger.
JORGEN LARSEN. — \A^hen we speak of pioneers who have been instru-
mental in the building up of a community, whose life and character have been
woven into the warp and woof of the county's fiber, we are not necessarily
governed by the showing of financial success, but rather by the status of the
man — his character and standing with his fellow men. This is the true evi-
dence of actual worth in the upbuilding of a commonwealth. Jorgen Larsen,
one of the pioneers of what is now the town of Reedley, is known through-
out Fresno County for his honesty of purpose and upright life. He is a native
of Denmark, where he was born July 10, 1860, a son of Lars and Dorotha
Jorgensen, who were born, lived and died in Denmark.
Jorgen Larsen was reared and educated in his native land and worked
on farms until he decided to come to the United States. He came direct to
Fresno County, arriving in 1886, and began working for six bits to one dollar
per day. His capital consisting of a determined will and an honest heart,
which requisites proved sufficient for his success in his adopted country.
Flis first enterprise was the taking up in 1888, of 160 acres of government land
in Fresno County ; his wages were put into the land, in improvements, which
soon brought results, and he lived on this ranch for eight years. In 1896, he
moved to Reedley, then a small hamlet. He next rented 120 acres of im-
proved land, which he operated for two years, and at the end of that period,
he had just five dollars to show for his two years' labor. He next rented
eighty acres owned by the Sacramento Bank, across the road from the 120,
and kept the place in such good condition that the owner offered to sell it
to him on easy terms. This he could not do with his five dollars, as it was
all the money he had to go on. On meditating the matter, however, he de-
cided to buy it anyway, and therefore borrowed $300 from a friend, with no
security but his honest word. The deal was made and closed, and in four
years' time Air. Larsen cleared enough above his expenses to pay $3,200 for
the eighty acres of the ranch, which he set to raisin grapes and later sold.
Later he purchased 2C0 acres south of Reedley, for stock-raising purposes.
He also bought twenty acres of improved land, north of Reedley.
In 1908, Mr. Larsen built a fine home in Reedley, and there lives in
comfort and peace, enjoying a well earned rest from the toil of earlier years.
In 1889 he was united in marriage with Miss Stina Jansen, who was born in
Denmark in 1855, and who came to Fresno County in 1889, to marry her
sweetheart of earlier years. One son, William, was born to them. This son
was liberally educated and subsequently took a course in business college.
1196 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
He is an expert accountant and is now cashier in the First National Bank
of Reedley. He married Mrs. Elsie Ario-Larsen, in 1914, and one child has
been born to them, a daughter, Marjorie.
Mr. Larsen has proved himself a true pioneer and a worthy man in
whom the entire community has implicit confidence. His honest and straight-
forward course in life has proved his passport to any of the financial insti-
tutions in the county. He helped organize and is a stockholder in the First
National Bank in Reedley. He still owns his ranches and his town property.
Mrs. Larsen has been a worth}' helpmate to her husband. They are members
of the Danish Lutheran Church, and are Republicans in national afTairs, but
in local matters vote for the best men and measures.
J. D. WILSON. — A scientific viticulturist of wide and varied experience,
who has ably managed some of the most valuable ranch properties in Central
California, is J- D- Wilson, the secretary and treasurer of the Wilson Vineyard
Company, of which his father, J. A. Wilson, is the president. The father was
born in Rhode Island, and coming west engaged in the lumber business. He
married Mary T. Wilson, and they are still living to enjoy the affection of
their two children: Irene, Mrs. H. B. Foster, of Chicago; and J. D., the sub-
ject of this sketch. Developing rapidly in the wholesale lumber trade, J- A.
Wilson had his headquarters awhile in Chicago, and for years or until he
retired he was with the Witbeck Lumber Company. About 1905 he became
interested in Fresno County and especially in the operations of the Behymer
Company, which bought lands in this vicinity. They first developed a sixty-
five-acre tract of orchard and vineyard in the Nees Colony, and then another
twenty acres there. Later, they bought 320 in the Garfield Colony, which
they set out to vines and orchard. About 1914 this company was dissolved,
and then Mr. Wilson and his son took over 320 acres of their holdings, which
they operated as the Wilson Vineyard, and which was incorporated in 1917
with J. A. W^ilson as president and J. D. Wilson as secretary and treasurer,
and manager.
The younger of the two children. J. D. Wilson, was born in Chicago in
1892, and brought up in the great city by the lake and at Madison. Wis. He
spent the summers in northern Wisconsin, and went to school for the most
part at Madison. After completing grammar school he entered a technological
school, the Lewis Institute in Chicago, from which he went to the University
of Wisconsin at Madison, and entered the Department of Agriculture, where
he completed the special adult course. While at college, he belonged to the
Phi Delta Theta.
When free to push out for himself into the world, young Mr. \Vilson lo-
cated in Fresno County in 1913, having first come here seven years before,
and he took charge of his present place. Four years later, as has been stated,
the Wilson Company was organized with its valuable properties, three miles
north of Clovis, under the Enterprise Canal. There they have about eighty
acres in vineyard, and raise for shipping both malaga and emperor grapes
and also wine grapes. The vineyards are surrounded by a border of olive
trees, and present a very attractive appearance. Twenty acres are devoted to
a peach orchard in which there are Muir and Lovell and Alberta peaches. The
balance of the land is given to hay and grain. Numerous improvements have
been made, and there is a fine residence.
Mr. Wilson belongs to the California Associated Raisin Company and to
the California Peach Growers, Inc. During his residence of Fresno Count>',
Mr. Wilson was married to Miss Bettie Beveridge, a native of this County,
and the daughter of George P. Beveridge, late manager of the California Wine
Association, and they have one child, James Beveridge. Mrs. Wilson was
graduated from the Dominican College at San Rafael, and like her husband
she is a well-informed and attractive conversationalist. They are interested
in all civic matters and in movements for local advancement. In national
politics, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are Republicans.
S, c^a^a^'^e^-
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1199
EDWARD F. BARTELS.— An enterprising developer of the natural
resources of Fresno County is Edward F. Bartels, who was born near Bre-
men, Hanover, Germany, March 24, 1863. His father, also named Edward,
was a well-known and successful contractor and builder until he retired;
after years of usefulness and upright living he passed away at his home. His
widow, who from last accounts is still living, was in maidenhood Christene
Braas. She is the mother of seven children, six of whom are still living,
Edward F. being the third in order of birth and the only one in the United
States.
Mr. Bartels" youth was spent in obtaining an education in the excellent
schools of his native land until the age of fourteen, when he was apprenticed
and learned the carpenter's trade under his father, under whose able instruc-
tions he continued to work until 1886. In that year, finding he was exempt
from military service and free to go to foreign lands, he decided to come to
the Pacific Coast, a region in which he had become greatly interested. He
crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Baltimore and came thence across the conti-
nent, arriving in Fresno in August, 1886. This was during the boom days,
and he immediately found work as a carpenter with the firm of Smith and Pole
and later with Riggins and Rehorn. He continued actively at the trade until
1890, when times became so dull, with no buildings going up. that it was
difficult to get any work at carpentering. In 1889 he had purchased twenty
acres just east of Locan, near National Avenue; so in 1890 he built a resi-
dence and other buildings and moved on the place, adding twenty acres more
to it in 1891. He improved it energetically setting out the forty acres to
Malaga and muscat grapes. When he purchased the place, raisins were sell-
ii;g for si.x or seven cents : but by the time his vineyard began producing,
che Cleveland dull times came on and raisins were selling from one and one-
quarter to one and one-half cents per pound. Thus, in order to pay interest
and make payments, he had to work at his trade, building houses and car-
pentering for the ranchers. In this way he made his payments and got by.
In 1900 he bought forty acres on Locan Avenue, his present home place, and
began improving it. In 1902 he sold his first forty acres to Allan McNab
and moved to his present place, where he has erected a large, comfortable
residence and the necessary farm buildings, and has beautified the grounds
with ornamental trees and hedges. He has added to his holdings and now
has ninety-two acres in vineyards. The interurban railroad runs through his
place, with a station called Bartel on his ranch, which provides a convenient
shipping point at his door.
This fine property, however, does not measure the extent of Mr. Bartels'
enterprise and ambition, for he has improved several other ranches. On Bel-
mont Avenue he improved forty acres to vineyard and sold it in 1912. He also
improved and sold eighty acres in Kutner Colony, and lately has acquired
eighty acres on Belmont Avenue near Academy, which he intends setting to
vines. All in all, he has been very busily engaged in improving Fresno
County acreage.
During these 3'ears Mr. Bartels has made three trips back to the old
home, first in 1895 and again in 1901. The last trip was taken in 1912, when
he and all of his family made an extended tour of the different places of in-
terest, returning home after a nine-months trip.
In Fresno, in 1888, occurred the marriage of Edward F. Bartels, when
he was united with Annie Steinkamp. also a native of Hanover, who came to
Fresno County in 1886. They have four children : Emma, Mrs. Dunklau,
residing on a ranch in this community ; and Minnie, Alma and Edward H.,
who reside with their parents.
Mr. Bartels is a liberal and public-spirited man, giving of his time and
means, as far as he is able, to worthy movements that have for their aim the
improvement of the county and of the social conditions of its citizens. He
1200 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
was one of the original organizers of the German Lutheran Church in Fresno,
and for many years a member of its board of trustees. He has been a mem-
ber of, and active in advocating, the various raisin associations, from the
first cooperative association under Theo. Kearney to the present California
Associated Raisiq Compan3^ of which he is also a stockholder. He is a
Republican and protectionist in politics.
FREDERIC WILLIAM PINNIGER.— A well-educated and highly in-
telligent viticulturist, and a good business man, who has a fine place of his
own and who sees, in his vision of Fresno County, with its wonderful possi-
bilities, a vast area with thousands of the most attractive of California homes,
is Frederic William Pinniger, who first came to California in the early nine-
ties. He was born at Stanton. St. Rernard. Wiltshire, England, on March 28,
1876, the son of Thomas Pinniger. \vho was a timber merchant there, and
who married Louije Lane, by whom he had ten children. Both parents, hon-
ored and beloved, are now dead, and Frederic is the only one in the United
States.
The third youngest in this interesting family, Frederic W. was educated
at the private Mill Hill School in London, and after completing the excellent
courses, entered the field of the timber trade, in which he was active for seven
years. For five years he was at Newport, Monmouthshire, where he finished
an apprenticeship running through the entire period. Then he went to I,on-
don, where he was a couple of years in the office of a lumber merchant. In
1899, Mr. Pinniger came out to Winnipeg, Canada, and engaged in farming,
but not finding conditions there to his liking, he traveled to see the country,
and having well informed himself, he returned to England for six months.
His next venture across the Atlantic brought him to North Dakota, which
attracted him to settle, and where he engaged in farming, at Emerson, until
1903.
It was then that Mr. Pinniger came west to California and located at
Fresno. He bought the forty acres on Belmont Avenue, later Avell knoAvn
through his scientific and industrious husbandry, notwithstanding that they
are eleven miles east of Fresno. Only ten acres were set out to vines when
he took the property, but he planted the balance, devoting three acres to
white figs. He has thirteen acres of muscats, and four of emperor and malaga
grapes. Later, I\Ir. Pinniger sold one-half of his forty acres. He later bought
another twenty acres one mile north of his place, and after improving the
same with peaches, sold it at a profit. For years he has been an active sup-
porter of the California Associated Raisin Company.
During a delightful sojourn at San h'rancisco. Mr. Pinniger was married
to ]\Iiss Dorothy Akin Higgins. born in India but educated in England. She
is a daughter of Captain Arthur Akin Higgins, a native of England, and late
of the British Consular Service. Mr. and Mrs. Pinniger have one child, Mil-
dred Louise. They are members of the Episcopal Church, and in national pol-
itics, they adhere to the Democratic party. Mr. Pinniger is active in the Inde-
pendent Foresters Lodge of Fresno.
WILLIAM T. ZIMMER.— A successful oil man, who is also a poultry-
fancier able to command results, is \\'illiam T. Zimmer, the superintendent
of the Pilot Oil Company, in which he is a stockholder. He was born at
Meadville, Crawford County, Pa., on September 3. 1871, the son of Jacob A.
Zimmer, a native of that state who was a lumberman. He died when William
was eighteen months old, leaving a wife, who was Anna Oster before
she was married. She was a native of Germany, crossed the ocean when she
was only fifteen years of age, and settled in Pennsylvania. Now she resides
at Cherryvale, Kans., the mother of three children, of whom our subject
is the youngest.
He was educated at the public schools of Meadville, and when fifteen
years old began the machinist's trade in the shops of the N. Y., P. & O.
IlISTDRY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1201
Railroad, now the X. Y., L. E. & ^^■estern Railroad. Then he went to Erie,
Pa., and was with the Erie City Iron Works, and then with the Stearns Mfg.
Company in Erie. Having completed his trade, he came back to Meadville
and worked as gang foreman in the railroad shops, remaining there until
after the Carnegie strike.
About 1891 he went into the oilfields where he began work as a tool-
dresser and in time became a driller, working in that capacity in the McDon-
ald field. Pennsylvania. He continued until January, 1896, when he came to
Xeodosha. Kans., during the oil excitement there, as a driller of oil and gas-
wells for the Standard Oil Company. At the end of two and a half years
he went to Joplin, Mo., where he drilled prospect holes for lead and zinc. He
was a contractor, and ran two strings of tools. Then he went back to Kansas
to drill oil and gas wells for Mike McSweeny. After that he bought a string
of tools and contracted for drilling in Kansas, in which he was very successful.
In 1899. Mr. Zimmer came to California for the Union Oil Company and
went to work in Adam's Canyon, near Nordhoff, under the field superintend-
ency of P. D. McConnell. Having again shown his skill as a driller, he went
to Bakersfield at the time of the boom and for four years drilled in the Kern
River field. Next he went to Modesto, Cal., and was with the Mt. C)zi) C)il
Company, for which concern he put down a test well. The year 1901 found
him at Longmont, Colo., where for a year he was wildcatting for the Ohio
Oil Company, at the end of which time he went back to Kansas. He was in
Chanute as driller for Esperson, and then he went to Oklahoma as a driller
in the Osage Country. He drilled the first oil well struck in Cherryvale,
Kans., and then went to the Atoka country, Oklahoma, where he drilled a
wild cat, and then came back to Kansas.
On March 30, 1908, Mr. Zimmer came back to California and took charge
of the Pilot Oil Company's property at Coalinga. He drilled the first two
oil wells there, and has been the company's superintendent ever since. The
Pilot Company owns sixty acres in Sec. 12-20-14, and now has seven produc-
ing wells. Electric motors are used for pumping, and everything is strictly
up-to-date. Mr. Zimmer has been interested in the company as a stockholder
for nine years.
At Elk City, Kans., Mr. Zimmer was married, October 25, 1898, to ]\Iiss
Hallie Oswald, a native of Independence in that state, by whom he has had
one child, ^^■illiam Oswald. Mr. Zimmer was made a Mason in Carson Lodge,
No. 132. A. F. & A. M., at Elk City, Kans., in 1903, and is a member of
\\'ichita Consistory No. 2, and with his wife is a member of Prosperity
Chapter, No. 134, at Elk Citv. He also belongs to the Fresno Lodge. No. 439,
B. P. O. E.
As a poultry fancier, Mr. Zimmer is raising pure-bred Ancona chick-
ens, and he has taken first prizes on exhibiting his birds at the State and
the Fresno and Kings County fairs, and has the silver cups and blue ribbons
to show for it. One year, he raised the best Ancona cock and cockerel
produced and shown in all the state.
CAS'WELL B. HOWARD.— A successful viticulturist and the repre-
sentative of an early, patriotic southern family, is Cns\\ell B. Howard, the
son of Alfred Howard, a native of Wilkes County, N. C, where he was born
in 1812. The father was only twelve years lAd when he migrated to Tennes-
see ; he became a farmer near Knoxville, and there he died. His wife, who
was Euphemia Hall before her marriage, and came from Tennessee, also
died there, the mother of nine children.
Caswell, the second youngest in the family, ^^■,ls born at Knoxville in
1852, and was reared on a farm, attending tlie pu]ilic schools. He went to
work while young, assisting his father for simie }-ears: and then started for
himself. In 1879 he removed to Texas, and at \\'eatherford, Parker Count}-,
he engaged for three 3'ears in the stock business, riding the range and gaining
first-hand experience.
1202 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
In 1882 he came to California, and on the twenty-eighth of August he
arrived in Fresno. He had a brother-in-law, J. M. Heiskell, living in the
Mississippi district, but he could not get a rig to take him out there, and so
he had to remain in town all night. At that time Fresno had but five brick
houses and a few board sidewalks, and was so overcrowded that he could not
get a bed, but finally old Mother Jones arranged the accommodation needed,
and the next day he reached Heiskell's and was heartily welcomed. The ad-
venture was never forgotten, and it serves to contrast the primitive town of
that period with the Fresno of today. Mr. Howard soon leased land and
began grain-raising. He started very modestly, but in time came to have
1,000 acres and a big outfit, with a combined harvester. For twenty years he
managed this extensive ranch and became well known as a progressive
farmer. He was also engaged in teaming between Clovis and Shaver, driving
an eight-horse team. Sixteen years ago Mr. Howard leased a vineyard north
of Garfield, which he ran for three years ; when he bought thirty and a half
acres and set the same out with muscat, Thompson and sultana grapes. He
made numerous improvements, and created a valuable vineyard. He has
supported all the raisin association movements, and he is an important factor
in the California Associated Raisin Company.
In Tennessee, ]\Ir. Howard married ]\Iiss Rachel Heiskell. a native of
that state, and this marriage was blessed by eight children ; the beloved wife
and mother passed away on February 24, 1917. The children are: Blanche,
now Mrs. Frank Pearce, who resides at Clovis; Johnnie Elizabeth, who mar-
ried M. W. Pearce, of Fresno ; Burton, who was a barber of Fresno, enlisted
in the United States Navy and was waiting the call when he died, July 4,
1918; W. Duard, is a viticulturist in charge of the ranch; J. Homer, who is
serving his country in France ; Earl, who is doing his bit in the United States
Navy ; King, of Fresno ; and LloA^d who is also manfully serving his country
in the United States Navy.
Mr. Howard has been active in civic matters and every local movement
for advancement, and has served for years as a trustee in the Garfield school
district. He is a member of Clovis Lodge, No. 417, F. & A. M., where he
was made a Mason.
JOHN M. HEISKELL. — .\ctivity and self-reliance have been dominant
factors in the life of John M. Heiskell. A native of eastern Tennessee, he
was born in Island Creek, Monroe County, November 12, 1846, a son of John
M., who was born in Powells Valley, Va., February 27, 1817. Originally
four Heiskell brothers came from Germany to the United States, two of
whom settled in Virginia. Our subject's father when eighteen years of age
removed to Tennessee, where he married Betty Leeper, who was born in
Tennessee and was the daughter of Hugh B. Leeper, a planter in Blount
County, Tenn, who was of Irish descent. The parents died in Tennessee.
John M., being fourth in order of birth of the ten children, received his edu-
cation in a subscription school held in a log schoolhouse with slab benches.
After the war he entered Friendsville College for a session. In the spring
of 1867, he engaged in business in his home town where he operated a grist
mill. This he disposed of before starting for California in 1869, with his wife
and one child.
The trip overland was made by rail. Stanislaus being the objective point.
.Arriving in October, 1869, Mr. Heiskell tried his hand at farming, but only
remained there two seasons and in the fall of 1871 decided to make Fresno
County his home, locating at Fresno Copper Mine in the Mississippi district.
Taking up land, he engaged in cultivating grain on Big Dry Creek, being
located on the old Stockton-Millerton and Visalia Road. Starting on a small
scale, then branching out, he purchased more land and experimented in dry
farming. Obtaining his seed from Kings River, he was among the first to
sow grain on the plains in this district.
^^..^cC^J.^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1205
In the year 1877, Mr. Heiskell had the misfortune to experience a dry
year. Several thousand acres of land were under cultivation, but not even
a hay crop matured. However, this did not deter him from acquiring more
land, and at Scaggs Bridge he leased from four to six thousand acres, which
he operated and also ran horses, cattle and hogs. He made his home about
seven miles northeast of Clovis, but carried on extensive farming operations,
until he ran from eight to ten big teams to put in his crops and used a com-
bined harvester. Some years he had 4,000 acres in grain. In 1900 he sold out
and in the fall of the year went to Inyo County and near Bishop bought land
and engaged in stock-raising, which was the principal industry at that time.
He remained there nine years, then disposed of his interests and returned to
Fresno County in 1910. Purchasing a home in Clovis, he retired from active
business, but has never ceased to be actively identified with the growth and
development of the county. Since then he has owned several vineyards but
finally sold his last in 1918. He still owns valuable lands at Bishop, Inyo
County, ^^'hen Mr. Heiskell first moved to this section, a part of Kings
County and all of Aladera County was a part of Fresno County, while Miller-
ton was the county seat, and he has watched the changes with keen interest
and aided materially in the betterment of the community. He remembers
the planting of the first grape vineyard, the Eisen Vineyard of 140 acres. The
building of irrigating ditches was only begun when Mr. Heiskell took a hand
at public enterprises. He was also one of the first men to organize the Fresno
Flume and Irrigation Company, to get water from Stevenson, Pitman and
Big creeks to irrigate the plains. The company built the flume into Clovis,
but just before completion they were joined by Miller & Lux, and then on
account of a money panic. Mr. Heiskell sold his interest and resigned from
the board of directors. He was the first president of the company and was
vice-president at the time of his resignation.
While Mr. Heiskell had but little chance to obtain schooling himself,
he realized the necessity of good public schools, and made good use of his
opportunity, while serving for a number of years as school trustee, to develop
the school system in that section, serving as trustee and clerk of the Missis-
sippi school district.
The marriage of John M. Heiskell. Jr., at Morganton. Tenn.. in 1867,
united him with Miss ;\Iary Jane Jack, a native of Hamilton County. Tenn.
She passed away on November 25. 19O0. leaving five children: William, living
in Clovis ; MarLTuerite and Rettv, in Fresno ; Rob, a rancher in Fresno Countv ;
and Kate, Mr^;. WoUe. of Berkeley.
Mr. lleiskt'll was married the second time, in Fresno, to Mrs. Fannie I.
(Walbridge) Baxter, born in Homer, Mich., who came to California about
1900. They are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Clovis.
It is to men of Mr. Heiskell's caliber that Fresno County owes much of its
present greatness, and its present prosperity is the result of their earlv work
and hardships.
OLE J. CHRISTENSEN.— A straightforward Danish-American gentle-
man, who is a pioneer and leading citizen of Bowles, as he was a pioneer
business man of Fresno where he was once engaged in the meat business, is
Ole J. Christensen, an intelligent, progressive, and popular resident of Central
California. He has been at Bowles for the past twelve years and has a ranch
of fourteen acres ; and he has lived in Fresno and Fresno County since 1882,
when he knew nearly every person in the town, for then all the inhabitants
were soon aware of a new arrival.
He was born in Denmark, near Schleswig. on January 4, 1855. and there
grew up. His father was J. P. Christensen, a landowner having about fifty
acres, and who lived and died in Schleswig. He had married Hedwig Jensen,
who died on April 9, 1859. when Ole was four years old. She was the mother
of five children, among whom he was the youngest. Two years after his
mother's death, his father married again, but the second wife died without
1206 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
issue in 1863. A third time the father was married, liut he did not increase
his family. Ole is the only one of the family now living, and the only one
who came to America. He grew up on his father's farm, and after coming
to the United States in 1874, he went to work for P. P. Whittier, a farmer
whose home was at Metuchen, N. J., who was a nephew of the poet John
Greenleaf Whittier, and who had a sister, a school teacher. She interested her-
self in him and instructed him in the English language ; she assigned him
daily a lesson, and heard him recite each evening. Fie worked for a winter
for his board and schooling, and then engaged to work for three years for
Charles C. Campbell of the same place. The latter was tax-collector, and
Ole kept his books, learning at the same time a good deal about both business
and American politics. Later he reengaged with his first employer, P. P.
Whittier, a butcher as well as a farmer ; and thereby he learned the butcher's
trade. He learned how to kill, dress and cut up meat, working on the block
at the retail store in the forenoon, and at the slaughter-house in the after-
noon.
On tlie evening- of election day in 1880, wlien he had been in New
Terse}' for six years and had just cast his first vote for president — his choice
being James A. Garfield — Mr. Christensen took one of the most important
steps of his life in taking the train for the West. On November 12th he
arrived at Omaha, and the following spring he bought the Tenth Street
IMeat Market. At that time Omaha was not as large as Fresno is today, and
it required faith to make such an investment. When he sold out, he came to
California and reached Fresno on October 12, 1882. He brought with him
his wife, whose maiden name was Christine Petersen, and who had come from
North Schleswig to New Jersey when she was a girl. He became acquainted
with her in her home-place, and married her in Omaha ; and when they came
to .Fresno they also brought their first child, Agneeta, then a baby of nine
months. She was the proprietress of the Selma Sanitorium and a very suc-
cessful trained nurse, and one of the pluckiest girls in Fresno County. On
May 31, 1919, she was married at subject's home, at P>owles, to H. Penning
of Caruthers, where he is in the auto-truck business.
Mr. Christensen bought the Palo Alto Meat Market in Fresno, and for
three years ran a successful meat trade there. Then he sold the market, but
continued to butcher and to supply certain sections of the country by means
of two wagons. These two conveyances he kept in steady service for twenty-
one years. After a while, he bought 160 acres in the foothills which he later
sold to the government for a site for the Baptist Indian School and Church.
This was in 1917, and Mr. Christensen then contributed liberally to the
school.
Mr. Christensen left Schleswig in order to evade German militarism, and
he has done much, in taking liberty bonds and in other war work, to support
the administration. He helped to establish the school at Bowles, and served
on the first board of trustees, and continued in that office until he was
paralyzed.
When Mr. Christensen's first wife died, she left two children : Agneeta
and John P. N. The latter married Lucille Gruning of Oregon, a butcher
who resides at Selma, and by him she has had two children. On his second
marriage, he was joined to Miss Metta M. Christiansen, and they have had
four children : Christine is the wife of C. C. Russell, an employee of the Holt
Manufacturing Company of Stockton, where he resides ; Chester, a machin-
ist, married Luis Smith of Selma; they reside at Hamilton, Cal., where
they have one child, Charmian ; Irene is the wife of Frank Cassell, also an
employee of the Holt Manufacturing Company and a resident of Stockton;
and Andrew, still single, who owns a ranch of sixteen acres next to his
father's place, where he busies himself as an horticulturist. Since the father's
paralytic stroke in 1915, Andrew also runs the home-place vineyard of four-
teen acres. Some years ago Mr. Christensen built a fine two-story frame
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1207
residence and a large barn on his place, which adjoins Bowles. Brouglit up
and confirmed in the Lutheran Church. Mr. Christensen still adheres to that
communion in the church at Easton.
In politics Mr. Christensen is a Republican, and he endeavors to be in
every way a model citizen. He is now improving in health, and can walk
around with difficulty. He has a high broad forehead and light blue eyes,
and is of a decidedly intellectual temperament — just such a person as would
have made an able private secretary. He is methodical and mathematical,
and can add up a column of figures with great rapidity.
Mr. and Mrs. Christensen accommodate transients at their home at
Bowles, set a good table and dispense a genial hospitality. Mrs. Christensen
was brought up in the same district from which came Mrs. Hans Graflf, wife
of the lamented and lately-deceased Fresno citizen, and took passage with
her, and shared her stateroom on crossing the Atlantic, and later they were
neighbors in Fresno.
FRANK J. CRAYCROFT. — The development of a large and labor-using
industry, is shown in the story of Frank J. Craycroft, the president of the
Craycroft Brick Company. He is the son of C. J. and Frances Craycroft, and
came with them to Fresno in 1886, when it was little more than a village.
Flis father engaged in making brick, and later Frank joined him as a partner
under the firm name of C. J. Craycroft & Son. When the Santa Fe Railroad
bought their property, a new company was organized under the name of
Craycroft-Herrold Brick Company, and this was succeeded, in 1917, by the
Craycroft Brick Company.
Frank's father was one of the substantial men of Fresno, and had an
active part in its early and later development. For eight years he was a
trustee of the city, and he served four years as president of the board. He
died on November 17, 1916. He had married a second time, and his widow,
Mrs. Laura T- Craycroft is still living.
Born in'lUinois on March 31, 1876, Frank J. Craycroft, was educated at
the public schools in the vicinity of his birthplace, and at Fresno ; and when
a voung man, as has been said, he entered business with his father. At the
latter's death, he succeeded to the presidency of the company. They continued
to make both the common and the fancy red brick ; and being a Fresno insti-
tution long established, the company has supplied the brick for a large num-
ber of the best buildings in Fresno and other sections of the San Joaquin
Valley.
A stalwart Republican high in the councils of the party, Mr. Craycroft
has always used his political influence for the public weal.
In 1899 he was married to Miss Mae Tobin, and they have two children:
Fannie Mae, and Kenneth Tobin. Mr. Craycroft is a member of the First
Christian Church. He is also a member of the Rotary Club, Chamber of
Commerce and Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Woodmen of the
\\^orld.
THOMAS P. SMITH, — Among the prominent business men of Coal-
inga, and one who has been a participant in, and promoter of many move-
ments for the development of Coalinga's educational and commercial activ-
ities, is Thomas P. Smith, who deserves especial mention. He was born in
Jacksonville, Floyd County, Va., February 27, 1871, a son of Jacob and Jane
(Nixon) Smith, both natives of Virginia whose ancestors were of English
stock. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Smith are still living in Virginia, their family
consisting of ten children, all of whom are living and four are now residents
of California.
Thomas P. Smith, the subject of this sketch, was brought up on the
farm and received his early education in the public schools of his native state.
As the result of an injury he was obliged to abandon farming and seek some
less arduous work. When nineteen years of age he accepted a position as a
1208 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
clerk in a men's furnishing store at Matewan, W. Va. Desiring to see more
of the world and to gain a broader knowledge of business afifairs, Mr. Smith
migrated westward, gradually working his way from one state to another
until he finally arrived in Hanford, Cal., in 1896, where he remained until
1903. Being a keen observer, Mr. Smith saw a good opening for a men's fur-
nishing store in Coalinga and in February, 1903, opened the first store,
exclusively for men, in that city. It was located at 189 Fifth Street, between
Front and E, in the second brick building constructed in Coalinga. He kept
this location for many years and by square-dealing and efificient service built
up a large business. In 1915. Mr. Smith purchased his present brick store-
building, 30x100 feet, at 270 Fifth Street, all of which is used for his growing
business. At first the firm was known as Smith Brothers, his brother, A. \V.
Smith, being his partner. In 1914, Mr. Smith bought his brother's interest
and has operated the business since then under the caption of Thomas P.
Smith. He is also interested in the corporation known as Smith Brothers, Inc.,
located at Taft, Cal., a men's furnishing and clothing store, where his brother,
A. B., is the manager and also his partner. The company built its own store
building at Taft.
Mr. Smith is progressive and active in civic afTairs, having served for
two years and a half as a trustee of the city of Coalinga. all of which time he
was chairman of the board. Mr. Smith is also interested in educational mat-
ters and was a trustee of the Coalinga Union High School, from April. 1911,
to 1917. During this period the Union High School District Library was
established and' the Carnegie Library was built. The board of high school
trustees constituted the library board, of which Mr. Smith was the efficient
secretary, holding the office when the Carnegie Fund was obtained and dur-
ing the "building of the beautiful structure of which the citizens of Coalinga
are justly proud.
In 1904, Thomas P. Smith was united in marriage with Miss Bessie M.
Wescott, a native of Kansas, but reared and educated in Hanford, Cal., where
the ceremony was solemnized. They have three children : Ernest, and the
twins, Mildred and Mabel.
JAMES F. BARNES. — A prominent rancher and one of the oldest set-
tlers of the West Side in Fresno County, is James F. Barnes, a native
Californian, who was born near Woodland. Yolo County, on September 12,
18.i8. His father was Talton Turner Barnes, whose first wife died after
three children were born. He married a second time, to Aliss Josephine Gil-
liam, a native of Tennessee, in which state the marriage took place. Her
father was a farmer in Missouri. The grandfather, Abraham Barnes, was a
planter in Missouri, and with T. T. Barnes he migrated to California in
1856, crossing the plains with ox teams, and settling in Yolo County. The
grandfather died there, and the father moved to Red Bluflf and engaged in
farming and stock-raising, and for four years devoted his attention also to
sheep-raising. Later, in 1869. he located in Pleasant Valley, Fresno County,
on a ranch two and a half miles from Coalinga. He later homesteaded 160
acres in Warthan Canyon, and there he died, aged seventy-eight years. He
had studied medicine, and administered to the sick and was very successful
in his practice, and never made a charge for his services. He was thus per-
mitted to do a great deal of good. The mother died at Red Bluiif. To this
marriage were born six children, of whom James was third oldest. Three are
now living.
Tames Barnes was brought up in Yolo and Tehama Counties untd 1869.
when he came to what is now Coalinga. He was denied the privilege of
school until in 1873, when he attended district school in Pleasant Valley. He
learned the sheep business under his father, then worked for others in caring
for and shearing sheep. In 1878 he and his brother, Zach, engaged in the
sheep business together until 1887, when the partnership was dissolved. He
(lo^J-^^t^ ~J>y^s^-^^iyt^cje^JL^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1211
then preempted 160 acres and bought forty acres of railroad land in Warthan
Canyon, then homesteadcd his present place of 160 acres in Warthan Canyon,
which he has improved and upon which he has lived ever since, He sold his
preemption, and now has 240 acres cleared and improved. Warthan Creek
gives him water for irrigating about fifty acres, and he is raising alfalfa and
grain, and feeding cattle and hogs.
Mr. Barnes was married at Visalia to Mary Ellen Gribble, a native of
Tulare County. They have six children : Joseph Marion, in Coalinga ; Edna
Blanche, now Mrs. Furman, residing at home; Adeline Pearl, now Mrs. Liv-
ingston, of Los Angeles ; Mabel, wife of William Tucker, who died at the
age of twenty-two; Evelyn, now Mrs. Bennett, of Los Angeles; and Clarence
Raymond, of Coalinga.
Air. Barnes is highly esteemed in his community. For many years he
was school trustee of the Round Tree district, and for a time was clerk of
the board. He was deputy county assessor for a term under William Hutchi-
son. In politics Mr. Barnes is a Democrat.
JOSEPH SAGNIERE.— One of the best-posted vineyardists in Fresno
County, and one who may implicitly rely on his own knowledge of viticul-
ture, for he has obtained it from personal, practical experience, is Joseph
Sagniere, a French-American who has made a study for years of grape-
growing, and at great expense of time, labor and money has experimented
until he has been able to graft and propagate any vine onto wild stock. While
a lad he learned the rudiments of viticulture from his father, Fidele Sagniere,
who had an extensive vineyard, was well-known and very successful, and
died in 1916, nearly ninety years of age ; and from his mother, Marie Sagniere,
who passed away when the lad was only ten years old, he inherited those
amiable qualities which have made him esteemed as a neighbor and a friend.
Under the sunny skies of smiling France the subject of our sketch tried his
hand for the first time in pruning and grafting, with what success his reputa-
tion today for proficiency in those fields attests.
Born in 1856 in Gap, in the Hautes Alpes, Joseph Sagniere was reared on
a farm and attended the valley public schools. He rendered his service to
his native country, entering the French army when he was twenty-one and
bearing the daily work and hardships of a soldier for a year ; and at the end
of that period, he received an honorable discharge from the Sixth Artiller}^
In 1887, Mr. Sagniere resolved to leave his native land and to come to
America ; and once the resolution was made, it was but a matter of weeks
before he was treading American soil. He stopped a short time in the East,
but as soon as possible came to Los Angeles, where he was employed for six
months. He next went to Carson City, Nev., taking up lumbering, and for
three years worked at logging around Lake Tahoe. In 1891 he first came to
Fresno, and soon after settling here went into the wholesale liquor business.
With a partner, Jean Trout, he formed the firm of Boudreau & Co., and
opened a wareroom on H Street. Later he sold his interest in the establish-
ment and went to work for Mr. Bronge on I Street, with whom he remained
until the latter sold out. After that he started the Fresno Family Liquor Store.
In the meantime Mr. Sagniere had bought his present ranch of twenty
acres, which he set out for a vineyard and otherwise much improved; and
when, at the end of eight years, he sold his business, he moved to his ranch,
where he had erected a neat house and all the necessary outbuildings. This
vineyard property he still owns. Since that time Mr. Sagniere has bought
thirty-two and a' quarter acres in the Garfield district, the entire acreage
being in vinej'ards, so that all in all he has fifty-two and a quarter acres given
up to muscats and malagas, with ten acres of peaches. Of this area, thirty-
two and a quarter acres are under the Enterprise Ditch. He is also interested,
as a director, in the Colonial Helm Ditch. Out of his harvest, he ships raisins
and peaches to market. He has always been a supporter of the several raisin
1212 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
associations, and is now an active member of the California Associated
Raisin Company.
While still in France, j\Ir. Sagniere was married to Miss Rosalie Tren-
quier, a native of his own home district ; and by her he has had one son,
Joseph Sagniere, Jr., who assists his father in operating the ranch. Mr. Sag-
niere is a Republican in his civic activities. Fraternally, he is a member of the
Fresno Lodge. B. P. O. Elks.
JOHN C. FERGUSON.— An oil-producer who has a great fund of valu-
able information and is an authority on deep-water wells, is John C. Ferguson.
He was born at Lochee, near Dundee, Scotland, on January 19, 1879, the
son of John Ferguson. He came to California in 1886 and was educated in
the public schools ; and from a boy he went to work drilling wells under
the direction of his father. He thus early became familiar with the problems
of drilling water-wells and was soon able to run a rig for his father. By
1898 he had brought a well-rig into Coalinga, and had engaged in drilling for
oil for Captain McClurg on Warthan Canon above Alcalde.
After completing this well, he continued drilling water-wells in the San
Joaquin Valley and on the Coast, and then he contracted for drilling water-
wells for the Santa Fe Railroad Company at the Franklin Tunnel and the
Roundhouse Well at Stockton. Next he assisted his father at contract drilling
of oil wells in the Kern River field.
In 1903 Mr. Ferguson came to Coalinga with his brothers. Andrew and
James, and engaged in contract drilling on the Ward Oil Company's prop-
erty. The brothers then leased the Zier Oil Company's property, and later
John C. engaged in contract drilling on his own account. Then he became
superintendent of the Fresno & San Francisco Oil Company in 1910. but
after a Avhile he resigned and engaged in drilling water-wells, in Fresno and
Kings Counties, making his headquarters at Hanford. He went in for drill-
ing deep water wells, and ran both a rotary and a cable rig.
He started the deep-water drilling at Henrietta, thus opening up the
west side of Fresno and Kings Counties; and since then he has become an
authority on drilling deep wells for water. He put down the first five wells
for the Henrietta irrigation enterprise. He also successfully drilled the two
deep wells for the city of Coalinga, running the wells down some 1,4,3.S feet
deep, and securing for the city two flowing wells. He drilled the wells for
the Fitzwilliams at Helm, and also the ones at Burrel.
In the summer of 1918 Mr. Ferguson accepted the position of superin-
tendent of the Zier Oil Company, succeeding his brother Andrew, who had
resigned to become superintendent of an oil company at ]\Iaricopa.
At Napa, Mr. Ferguson was married to Miss Amy Little, a native of
Monticello, Napa County and the daughter of John Little a pioneer of Mon-
ticello, and a farmer and justice of the peace.
W. A. WELCH. — Owing to his long residence in California and his
close identification with its agricultural pursuits, W. A. Welch is considered
an authority on the various phases of ranching, especially as it is conducted
in the Golden State. He is a native of Kansas, where he first saw the light
of dav on October 6, 1862, his parents being James and Mary A. Welch, who
were also of Kansas. After the death of her husband. Mrs. Mary A. Welch
was united in marriage with Mr. Murd Phillips, and in 1873 the family mi-
grated to California, locating at Visalia, Tulare County, where Mr. Phillips
engaged in farming and stock-raising. Mrs. Mary (Welch "l Phillips was the
mother of ten children, each marriage being blessed with five, and of this
number only four are livng. two from each marriage. Both parents are now
deceased, the mother having passed away in 1914.
W. A. Welch is a practical and successful rancher and has had an ex-
tensive and varied experience. He resided in Tulare County, from 1873 to
1916, where he owned 160 acres. He spent fourteen years in stock raising
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1213
and dairyings and ten years in general farming. At present he owns ten
acres of land within the prosperous town of Reedley, upon which he con-
templates building a beautiful residence and making other improvements.
In 1886, W. A. ^^'elch was united in marriage with Miss Maggie Parker,
the daughter of Daniel and Mary Parker, and of this union were born eight
children: Elsie: Bertha; Raymond: Irene: Elizabeth: Roy; Vada, and
Robley. Mrs. Welch was bom in Fresno County, of pioneer parents. Her
parents crossed the plains with an ox team, in the early fifties, and while en
route the grandmother of Mrs. Welch passed away, as also a little babe. It
was not until years after they arrived in California that Daniel Parker met
and married Alary AA'ork. the marriage being solemnized in 1861, in Tulare
County.
Besides being an enterprising and successful rancher, Air. Welch is in-
terested in all movements for benefiting and upbuilding the community.
DR. FLORA W. SMITH. — Among the exceptionally endowed women
of California, who have come to the fore with the rapid evolution of the
modern state, is Dr. Flora W. Smith, whose attainments in statesmanship as
well as in science have rendered her of the greatest service to society. She
was born at Canal Fulton, Stark County, Ohio, near the Tuscarawas River,
on Ma\ 27, 1872, the only child of the late Edward D. and Charlotte fCald-
well I \\'illiams. her father having been a native of New York who was
reared to manhood in Maryland. He came from the renowned family of
Roger Williams, and was a lineal descendant of the great Colonial spirit
who founded Rhode Island, so that early Williams progenitors saw yeoman
service in the A\'ar of the Revokition. He l">ecame a ^\-ell-to-do Ohio manufac-
turer and dealer in furniture, a citizen of civic spirit, and a leading Republican
politician. He became a warm personal friend and ad\-iser of such men as the
late President McKinley, Mark Hanna and other political leaders.
Airs. AA'illiams, the mother of our subject, was a native of Stark County,
Ohio, where she was born in 1851, and came of French, Spanish and Scotch-
Irish and English blood. Among her Liirl friends and chums at school was
Ida Saxton, who later married \A"illi:iiii McKinley: and as President and
Mrs. McKinle}' lost both of their cliililrrn, llura Williams, now Dr. Smith,
became to the bereaved couple much the same as their own child. This con-
tact with the great American statesman gave her early the inspiration to do
something for the public weal, and especially something in the child welfare
of today.
Dr. Smith as a child attended the pubHc schools of Stark County, after
which she took a preparatory course at the AA^ooster Universitv, the work
selected leading to a professional career in medicine and surgery. She had
taught school in her home county for a couple of terms when she became
acquainted with Dr. C. A. L. Reed of Cincinnati, who was the first president
of the Pan-American Aledical Association and a physician of note. He en-
couraged her to take up medicine as a profession, and she entered the Wom-
an's Aledical College at Cincinnati and was graduated from it fourteen
months before she was twenty-one. That institution was of such a high stand-
ard that it had a rule which forbade the issuing of a diploma or the granting
of a degree to any person who had not yet attained the age of twenty-one,
so that she had to wait over a year for the. coveted honor and authority.
Miss Williams also took a course at the Eclectic Medical College at
Cincinnati, and it was there that she met Dr. Thomas D. Smith, then a fellow-
student, to whom she soon became engaged, and on June 9, 1892, they were
married.
Since coming West, the two Doctors Smith have practiced together,
with eminent success. They first opened an office, in 1893, at Yreka, Siskiyou
County, Cal., but after a year, they returned to Ohio and for seven years
practiced at Cleveland. Then they moved to a place near South Bend, Ind.,
where thev followed their chosen calling for eleven years, and at the end of
1214 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
that period they renewed their association with California and located in
Kingsburg, Fresno County. How much her fame, as the only woman for
years in Marshall County, Ind., to hold a diploma from a regular medical
college may have helped to introduce her. Dr. Smith and her equally-equipped
husband prospered from the first. They have built one of the finest arranged
office buildings for physicians and dentists in the Valley. It is a two-story
building with a commodious reception room on the first floor, while the
second floor of the building is a modern flat, and there Dr. Thomas D. and
Dr. Flora W. Smith enjoy all the comforts of a home, and dispense a true
Californian hospitality. They are among the most highly respected citizens
in both the city and county. Their many friends include both Senator John-
son and Governor Stephens ; and to the latter Dr. Smith was hostess on his
visit to Kingsburg. On that occasion she arranged a program, enlisting the
cooperaton of the Boy Scouts and the school children of Kingsburg, and
tendered the Governor one of the finest receptions he had ever received.
During Governor Johnson's term of office, he named Dr. Flora Smith
a member of the convmission appointed by him to investigate the matter of
Mothers' Pensions, Workingmen's Industrial Accident Insurance, Old Age
and Unemployment, and report on the same to the Legislature ; and so well
was the work done, that this commission's conclusions were acted upon and
have been actually incorporated into the state's laws.
So very well did Dr. Smith do her work that Governor Stephens in 1917
appointed her one of a committee of seven (she being the only practicing
physician) on the commission to investigate and advise the Legislature con-
cerning the adoption of a system of social insurance ; and as a result this
commission recommended a plan for compulsory health insurance which was
voted upon at the general election in 1918. That Governor Stephens knew
the capabilities of Dr. Smith for just this wor.k is seen from the fact that
she is widelv recognized among club women of the state, being chairman of
the Child's W'elfare department of the Women's Federated Clubs of
California.
Dr. Flora Smith, of Kingsburg, has the distinction of occupying a high
position in the Grand Court, Order of the Amaranth of California, and at its
annual conclave held in the Masonic Temple, on April 11, 1919, at Los An-
geles, Cal., she was installed in the high office of Grand Associate Royal
Matron, with one more step to the highest office in the Amaranth in the
State of California. "Dr. Flora," as she is known among her friends, is prom-
inent in lodge and social affairs, and her personal work in her home city of
Kingsburg in aid of the unfortunates, and in support of every worthy cause,
has caused her home folks to repose the greatest confidence in her. In sup-
port of the government during the war period, in its Liberty loan drives.
Red Cross work, and in other branches, she has given freely, and she has
spared not a moment when L'ncle Sam called for aid.
Ambitious in the right channels, for her home city, state and nation,
she has caused to be woven about her an army of loving friends. During her
recent visit in the southland, after the installation in the Amaranth, her
friends showered her with man}^ valuable gifts, tokens of their love and
affection. As a member and high officer of the Amaranth, Dr. Flora Smith
seeks not for her personal aggrandizement, but her prime motive in the lodge,
as in daily walks of life, is to bring others up to the high standard of success,
to which she has always aspired.
Dr. Smith has published much in favor of various reforms affecting
children and the future of our country, while she has become a familiar
figure upon the platform. At a club address she enunciated principles which
mav be taken as indicating her high ideals and some of the practical goals
she would reach. Accepting the two facts — that war made conservation the
slogan of the day and that we are decidedly a democratic people — she deduced
the undeniable fact that this slogan should reach and abide with our man-
^^T^^r^^^?^
ra-^^^€t^^^..<y^
HISTORY OF -FRESNO COUNTY 1217
agement of child life, for from that material comes the future of our people.
Only the intensive training of the boys and girls of today can keep our nation
a clean, healthy democracy. The public schools are the true melting-pot.
There the underfed measures its strength with the well-fed and the overfed ;
there the diseased sits beside the health}^ ; there the foreign standards meet
the American ideals. At the present ratio of average decrease in the fam-
ilies of Americans as compared to foreigners, within another generation these
children of foreigners will be making the laws and otherwise regulating the
life of our democratic country. In other words, our children will be governed
by their children. In California, therefore, it behooves the women with the
ballot in their hands to see that all public education is along lines of Ameri-
canism, and if the 75,000 club women of the state do not awaken to the crying
need, they will miss one of the greatest of opportunities.
M. G. GALLAHER. — Among those of exceptional qualifications, both
natural and acquired, whom the recent crisis in the afifairs of the nation has
brought into prominence, is M. G. Gallaher, the eminent lawyer and junior
partner in the firm of Everts & Ewing. He was Fresno's candidate for
member of Congress from this district in 1918. He was born at Clarington,
Monroe County, Ohio, February 15, 1873, was educated at normal schools
and Scio College, and first came to California in 1899. At Fresno, he was
married to Miss Nellie L. Martin, after which he returned East.
Twelve years ago Mr. Gallaher again responded to the call of the West
and moved to Fresno ; and here he has since resided, engaged in the practice
of the law, and more and more identified himself, as private citizen and
public official, with the development of Central California along the lines
of her proper destiny. In thus performing his duty and seeking the op-
portunity to serve, Mr. Gallaher has spared neither time nor expense in
attaining the goals which his high principles and extreme conscientious-
ness, his clear insight and wise foresight have early set before him ; so that
it is doubtful if Fresno County today has a citizen more acceptable to the
majority appreciating unselfish civic devotion.
Mr. Gallaher, who has always taken a keen interest in political matters
and public questions, has for years been a consistent Democrat, and has
naturally enough served on the central and executive committees of his
party, both in Ohio and California, while in 1910 he was a member of the
platform committee of the Democratic convention held at Stockton. In
that service alone he has been able to contribute much toward the bringing
about of a higher tone in politics.
Mr. Gallaher believes in President Wilson and his policies and to such
an extent that on October 1, 1916, he resigned his office as assistant United
States Attorney in order to work untrammeled in that campaign ; and, there-
after, despite pressing professional interests, he devoted his time daily to
speaking in favor ofMr. Wilson's reelection. He himself had previously
served as a soldier at the front in Cuba during the Spanish-American War,
and so could speak from more than one standpoint of personal experience
and advantage ; and later for two years he was Assistant District Attorney
for Fresno County, and for two years First Assistant United States Attorney
for the Southern District of California.
Mr. Gallaher also believes that this country now has only one business,
and that business is to crush Autocracy, and to crush it forever, and so
to make America and the world democracy safe. These are his convictions ;
this his aim : nor does anyone who knows him at this time doubt that he
considers it the imperative duty of every loyal citizen to lend his un-
qualified support to the president in his laudable efforts to establish a League
of Nations and a durable peace, no less than that it was his (hity. at the
outbreak of hostilities, to stand by him and his administrati< m in the vigorous
prosecution of the war to its victorious end. Loyalty to the president and
1218 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUXTY
patriotic devotion to our country's cause — these are the two most important
paragraphs in Mr. Gallaher's convictions as to the duty of every citizen of
this country.
Reflecting profoundly on the many possible results of the war, Mr.
Gallaher believes that no man can now foresee all the problems that will
arise since victory has come and peace is in sight. Therefore the responsi-
bilities of the law-maker will be greater than ever before. Already a gifted,
scholarly citizen of real quality and ability, and one who is widely honored,
the future would seem to have in store for this distinguished representative
of the bar still more of honor and achievement.
JAMES R. ERSKINE. — As manager of the Valley Ice Company, J. R.
Erskine has attained his position through character and ability. The Valley
Ice Company has greatly assisted in the development of the fruit-shipping
industry at this point. Before 1910 it was hard to get ice in Fresno and the
Valley cities. Ice from Truckee was used, and its cost was over twice as
much as artificial ice. In this year the Valley Ice Company was started in
Fresno, when they contracted to furnish thirty-seven and a half tons daily
to each of the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe Railway companies for icing
refrigerator cars. The first plant built in 1910 had a capacity of 130 tons
daily, and the first ice was drawn by \V. E. Keller, in July. Mr. Keller was
the first president of the company, and is still its president. He is also con-
nected with the Globe Grain and ^Milling Company, and lives at 543 Shatto
Place. Los Angeles. Cal. He is also the president of the San Joaquin Valley
Farm Lands Company.
It became evident in 1911 that the demand for ice would be extensive,
and the company planned to increase the output, and the plant was enlarged
in 1913 to 240 tons daily. In 1915 another addition was made, this time for
seventy tons, or a total of 310 tons daih-, and in 1917 still another addition
of 200 tons capacity, making in all 510 tons daily at the present time. The
principal business is to supply ice for fruit-car refrigeration, but they also
wholesale to the various deliveries in Fresno. The business is still growing
in volume, and is indirectly under government control. The plant has a
storage capacity of 8,200 tons and is filled during the fruit-shipping season.
It is located south of Fresno, on the State highway, between the main tracks
of the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific. A fourth addition to the plant is
now being contemplated. They are daily icing cars on both sides of a track-
age of 1,000 feet, thus accommodating the shipping of both companies. The
Santa Fe occupies the east side and can ice twenty to twenty-two cars at
a time, while the Southern Pacific does the same on the west side. From
70 to 100 men are employed, and from 150 to 300 cars per day are iced. It
requires from 700 to 1,100 tons daily during the fruit season, and it is neces-
sary to draw upon the reserve that is made during the earlier part of the
season.
James R. Erskine was born at Blooniington, 111., March 9, 1871, a son of
Andrew and Jeannette f^^IcEwen) Erskine. both natives of Scotland. They
came from historic families, the father being a direct descendant from the
Earl of Mar. prominent in Scottish annals. The family came from Scotland
in 1871, settling at Bloomington, 111. The mother's health was poor and the
family returned to Scotland, but her health not improving, they again came
to Bloomington. where she died. The family then left Bloomington and
went to Rich Hill, Mo., when James was twelve years old. His early educa-
tion was slighted, as he worked in the coal mines with his father until he was
eighteen. He then determined to get an education and entered Battle Creek
College, where he was a student for three years, when his father died, and
he returned to work in the coal mines at Rich Hill. He is the only living
child by his father's first marriage, and the only one in Fresno. There are
two half brothers and three half sisters.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1219
James Erskine early became interested in machinery. \\'hen working
in the coal mines he arose from the position of trapper to that of superin-
tendent when but eigliteen years of age. ^^'hile at the college at Battle Creek,
he met Dr. J- H. Kellogg, of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and was engaged
by him to do mechanical work in the large plant devoted to the manufacture
of health foods. He soon became superintendent of this plant. Later he went
with the Manna Cereal Company, of Detroit, and again became superin-
tendent. From there he went to Los Angeles, Cal., in 1904, and was with
the. Southern Pacific for six months, when he entered the employ of the
Globe Mills, at Los Angeles. It was here that he met W. E. Keller, who
sent Mr. Erskine to build the mills of the Globe Flouring and Ice Cold Stor-
age Company, at El Paso, Texas, in 1908. This work was so satisfactorily
done that he was sent to Fresno in 1910, where he has since resided, although
he has constructed several plants in other places in the Valley. He became
superintendent of the Fresno plant in 1911 and that year he built the Valley
Ice Company's plant in Bakersfield, which has a capacity of 300 tons daily,
and a storage plant of 5.000 tons. He also built the company's plant at Mo-
desto, which has a capacity of 400 tons daily, and storage of 9.200 tons.
Mr. Erskine was superintendent of the ice plants of the Valley Ice
Company up to August 1, 1918, when he was promoted to manager of all
the companies in San Joaquin Valley. He is married, his wife being Miss
Anzanettie K. Showalter. formerly of Rich Hill. Mo., where thej^ were mar-
ried. They have one child, Frances N.. a senior in the Fresno High School.
^Ir. Erskine is a ^lason, raised at Rich Hill, demitted to Detroit, and from
there to Las Palmas Lodge, F. & A. M., of which he is now an honored
member. The Erskines are well known in social circles of Fresno, and their
acquaintance includes many prominent people throughout the state. The
family resides at 1362 P Street, Fresno.
The Valley Ice Company is a comparatively new industry, and is a
million dollar concern, the most important in the San Joaquin Valley, as it
has made the shipping of green fruits to the East a practical possibility and
a tremendous success. Ice is now furnished crushed and delivered at $2.60
per ton, whereas nature's product from Truckee used to cost more than
twice that sum. The large part which Mr. Erskine, a man who does things,
has had in this work is a great satisfaction to him and his friends and is a
real benefit to mankind.
REV. K. A. HERMAN THIEDE.— In the Rev. K. A. Herman Thiede,
pastor of the Imnianuel German Lutheran Church at Ventura Avenue and
L Streets, Fresno, Cal, we find a man of superior mental ability, broad views
and high spiritual attainments. He is a native of Germany, born near Frank-
furt on the Oder, February 20, 1879, and came to the LTnited States with his
parents when four years of age, settling in Detroit, Mich. He received a
liberal education in the public and private schools and later attended Con-
cordia College, at Fort Wayne, Ind., for six years, graduating in 1899 from
the classical course. The same fall he entered Concordia Seminary, at St.
Louis, J\Io., graduating from that famous theological institution in June,
1903. On September 6, of the same year, he arrived in San Francisco, and in
St. John's Church of that city, on September 13, was ordained to the minis-
try. For eight months he was actively engaged in missionary work in that
city as the city missionary, and in March, 1964, was called to Santa Rosa to
take charge of St. Luke's Lutheran Church at that place. During the eight
years that he served this church in the capacity of pastor, he made many
and important improvements, increased the membership of the church, brought
it out of debt, and built a new building for the young people's meetings and
Sunday School. Accepting a call to Fresno, he was installed as pastor of
Immanuel Lutheran Church on September 8, 1912. Here he has continued
his activities, increasing the membership, installing an eleven-hundred-dollar
pipe organ, and building a new altar. The church is free from debt. As
1220 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
spiritual director, he is intensely interested in and attends the various
so-cieties of the church. He is also pastor of the branch congregation at
Yinland, where he holds services twice a month.
Reverend Thiede's marriage united his destiny with Ulrike Hansen,
also a native of Germany, although her mother, Mrs. Anna (Roerden) Han-
sen, was born in Marin County, Cal., and belongs to an old pioneer Califor-
nia family, her grandfather, Eschel Roerden, having crossed the ocean seven
times. Reverend and Mrs. Thiede have an interesting family of five children :
Lillian, Anita, Elfriede, Bertram and Priscilla. Mrs. Thiede is a true help-
meet, ably assisting her husband in church work and taking an active part
in connection with the Ladies' Aid Society.
The congregation of the German Lutheran Immanuel Church of Fresno
was organized March 9, 1890. A few months previous to tliis time. Rev. J. M.
Buehler and Rev. J. H. Theiss, of San Francisco, held services at intervals.
The first resident pastor was Rev. H. i\Ieyer, who served one year. Then
it was attended by Rev. O. Kitzman, from Tracy, until 1892, when Rev. S.
Hoernicke took charge and served until Reverend Thiede was installed, on
September 8, 1912. The church has a membership of over 350 souls. Rev-
erend Thiede is a member of the California and Nevada District of the Luth-
eran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states; also of the Northern Con-
ference of the California District, of which he has served as secretary for a
number of 3^ears.
FRANCIS ASBURY WELLS.— A prominent oil-man of Coalinga. F. A.
Wells was born in Moulton, Appanoose County. Iowa, on April 3, 1873. His
father, John D. Wells, was of English descent, a native of Ohio, but became
one of the early settlers of Iowa, where he followed farming. During the
war he drove a stage for the government. In 1877 he removed to Havana,
Chautauqua County, Kans., and engaged in raising cattle, and trailed cattle
on the old Texas trail. The mother was Sarah (Craig) Wells, of Scotch
descent but a native of Iowa, and in that state they were married. She later
made her home with her son Francis A., at Bakersfield, and died there.
John D. Wells died in Havana. The family consisted of four Ijoys, three
of whom grew up, Francis A. being the youngest.
Mr. Wells was eight years old when his father died, and he grew up at
Chanute, Kans.. on the Indian Territory line, riding the range in the Chero-
kee Nation, and becoming expert in roping and branding. The brothers
farmed together, and later Francis A. began farming for himself, and sup-
ported his mother. When he was seventeen he came to Bakersfield, Cal.,
and entered the employ of the Kern County Land Company, under Major
Rice, on the Stockdale Ranch, and for five years was foreman in the breeding
department. In 1898 he enlisted in the Spanish-x\merican War, in Com-
pany G, Sixth California Regiment, and served until his regiment was mus-
tered out at San Francisco. Lie returned to the Stockdale Ranch and re-
mained with the Kern Count}' Land Company for one A'ear as foreman of
their stables at Bakersfield.
As oil had been struck in the Kern River oilfields, Mr. Wells resigned
his position with the Land Company and entered the employ of B. F. Brooks
as foreman of his teams where he remained until Mr. Brooks sold to the
Associated Oil Company. Mr. Wells stayed with the company for five years
and worked his way up to superintendent of the lease, resigning to accept
a position as production foreman with Chanslor & Canfield, in the IMidway
field. One year later he went to work for C. A. Canfield at Tehachapi in
charge of the Jamison Lime Kiln. .Mter six months he resigned to engage
in contracting teaming and haying in the San Joaquin Valley with head-
quarters in Bakersfield. He brought hay from Delano to Tehachapi. He con-
tinued in this business for one year when he sold to go back into the oil
business again. In 1907 Mr. Wells came to Coalinga and was employed by
Porter & Scribner of the Inca Oil Company as pumper. One year later he
J^.^^-LCL^^OLO- 0-2^ G)
.JL Cl-^^-^^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1225
became production foreman and then, about 1910. superintendent of this
company. Since 1907 he has never lost a day's time. When he first liecame
connected with the company, there were five wells on the 160 acres of Sec.
24-20-14, but now there are thirty-seven and thirty-four are producing. These
wells have a depth of from 800 to 1,300 feet.
In Bakersfield Mr. Wells married Miss Maude Barling, who was born
in Azusa, Cal., and they have three daughters : Kathleen, Nixon, and Lois.
Mr. Wells is a Republican in politics. He is a member of Bakersfield Lodge,
No. 202, I. O. O. F., and of the Rebekahs and the Woodmen of the World.
He took a great interest in the Liberty Loan drives, and was a member of
the Coalinga Liberty Loan Committee. As trustee of Claremont district he
was active in building the first school building, and he was very prominent
and active in the building of New High School building erected in Coalinga
at the cost of $100,000. Mr. Wells is also a member of board of trustees of
Coalinga Carnegie Library.
MRS. AMANDA M. DEAN. — Among the women who are greatly
interested in the development of Fresno County we find Mrs. Amanda M.
Dean, of the Sanger district, where she occupies a prominent position among
the ranchers and leading business women. A native of Tennessee, she was
born in Sumner County in 1871, a daughter of N. T. and Nancy A. (Webster)
Price, who were pioneers of Sumner County. As Amanda Price she was
given a liberal education in her native state and when she was seventeen,
in 1888, she was married to C. H. Edwards, an extensive grain-farmer and
stock-raiser in Tennessee. They came to California immediately after tlieir
marriage and located in the Sanger district, Fresno County, where Air. Ed-
wards made some wise and fortunate investments in land and sold at a good
profit. AMiile he lived in California he became a vineyardist and thus was
interested in the raisin industry. At one time he owned 200 acres in this
countv. After two years here he sold out and returned to his native state
and there he died of typhoid pneumonia soon after. His widow settled up
her affairs in Tennessee and returned to California and soon afterwards she
was united in marriage with Marcus L. Dean, a pioneer of the Sanger dis-
trict.
Mr. Dean was born in North Carolina, March 6, 1854, and was reared
and educated there. He came to California in 1888, settled in the district
now called the Sanger district and entered extensively into grain and stock-
raising. He became owner of 400 acres of fine land and was endowed by
nature with those qualifications that make for success in business, and
through his good education he was equipped to compete with any man in
legitimate business. For many years he was a trustee of the Bethel school
district, and served for several years as clerk of the board. His passing
away in June, 1913, was regarded as a distinct loss to the community whose
best interests were always his first consideration. His widow now has 160
acres of the land held by him, upon which she is raising grapes and fruit
with remarkable success.
Mrs. Dean is an estimable woman, an entertaining conversationalist,
and is admired, also, for her business ability. She is a stockholder in the
California Associated Raisin Company and the Peach Growers. Inc., is a
Democrat in national politics, belongs to the Women of Woodcraft, and is
public-spirited to a high degree and counts her friends by the score.
CHARLES PREUSS. — One of the most worthy deceased pioneers of
Highland Colony, Fresno County, a man who was noted for his public
spirit and excellent business judgment, was the late Charles Preuss, a native
of West Prussia, Germany, where he was born March 10, 1858. After immi-
grating to the United States he lived for a while in Texas, before coming to
California in 1892, where Mr. Preuss bought twenty acres in section nineteen
and about 1905 he bought twenty acres adjoining that was owned by the late
1226 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Henry Kramer, this forty he afterwards sold to a good advantage. In 1907 he
purchased eighty acres from the Siering Company, Inc., which he improved
and where he built a fine residence. He was a pioneer of the Highland Colony
and was always greatly interested in its development and being a large
hearted generous man helped many persons, who are now prosperous vine-
yardists, to buy land and get a start and settle in this district, which eventu-
ally developed into a very productive raisin and table grape section.
In the year 1903 Mr. Preuss was united in marriage with Katy ]Marcus
a native of Russia, born near Saratov, a daughter of Adam and Katharine
(Karle) Marcus, both natives of Russia, of German ancestry. Her father
was a well-to-do farmer in the German Russian Colony which originally
settled in the valley of the Volga about two hundred years ago. After her
father's death, in Russia, her mother with six children, immigrated to the
United States and settled in Fresno County. She passed away in 1908, aged
sixty years. One sister, Mrs. Lizzie Dahrlinger, and a brother, Henry Mar-
cus, reside in Fresno. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Preuss were the parents of six
children : Herman, who died at the age of four years ; Charles ; Adolph ;
Emma ; Ferdinand ; and Olga.
On January 1, 1913, Mr. Preuss passed away at his home ranch on Jen-
sen Avenue, nine miles east of Fresno. He was always very popular in his
communit}' and by his genial personality gained and held the esteem of his
man)^ friends and neighbors. Fraternally he was a member of the Odd Fel-
lows and at one time served as trustee of Highland School District. Mr.
Preuss was a very progressive business man and helped in the organization
of the first raisin association, also the Malaga Packing House, and Sanger
Winery. He was greatly interested in every movement that had as its aim
the advancement of the best interests of the Highland Colony and Fresno
County.
ALLAN McNAB. — Of all the enterprising, solid men of good old eastern
stock who came West to throw in their fortune with that of California, it is
doubtful if many ever felt and responded to the lure of the golden common-
wealth as did Andrew McNab, the father of Allan McNab, the well-posted
and successful horticulturist and viticulturist of Fresno County. Andrew
was of good old Scotch parentage, although he was born in Manchester,
England, and he lived in Glasgow until his seventh year ; but being then
made an orphan, he came to the United States with an older brother. He
thus spent part of his boyhood in New England; and growing up at Fall
River Mills, he learned the block printer's trade. In 1849, he started for
California, excited by the reports of the discovery of gold; but he got no
farther than the Isthmus and, doubtless discouraged b)'^ reports, returned to
New England, locating in New Hampshire. In Manchester, he started in
the grocery business, at which he was always successful.
In 1861, Mr. McNab again .started for California by way of Panama,
and this time reached San Francisco. He did not remain long in the city,
but pushed on to Placer County, where he tried his luck at mining; but giving
that up, he returned to New Hampshire and again opened a grocery store.
Catching the California fever again, however, he came West once more in
1871 : and this time he brought his family. P.ut the next year found him
back in New Hampshire.
One would think, perhaps, that by this time Mr. AIcNab might have
settled down, either on the Atlantic or the Pacific ; but the year following
the Philadelphia Centennial, he still again came out to California, accompan-
ied by his family; and having remained a couple of years, in 1879 he returned
to New Hampshire. In 1882 he made his last trip to the Golden State; and
here, aged but fifty-six, he died in 1883. During his experiences in California,
he was" interested in a ranch back of Twin Peaks ; and there, in partnership
with Orrin and Charles Taber, both earlv California settlers, he owned the
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1227
Guadalupe A'alley dairy. Charles Taber is dead, but Orrin still resides in
San Jose.
Mrs. Andrew McNab was Emily P. Taber before her marriage in New
Hampshire, and she came of an old New England family. She proved a
valuable helpmate, and one willing to share thick and thin with her hus-
band. She died in Fresno County in 1914, aged eighty-two years, while living
on Allan McNab's ranch. She was the mother of two children — Allan, the
subject of our interesting sketch, and Elgin, the well-known viticulturist in
the Temperance Colony.
Born in Manchester, N. H., Allan AlcNal) was reared there, meanwliile
making several trips to California with his parents. He began his schooling
at Manchester, continued it at San Jose, where he attended the University of
the Pacific in 1877 and 1878, and in 1878-79 took a course in Heald's Business
College, San Francisco, from which he was graduated with honors in June,
1879. Like his father, his experience as a young man was in connection with
both eastern and western social and business conditions, and he was thus
able to lay a very broad and deep foundation.
Returning to New Hampshire, he assisted his father in the grocery store,
and in 1881 the latter turned the business over to him and his brother Elgin,
and they conducted it together until 1884, when they sold out and came to
San Francisco. There, at the corner of Valencia and Twcntv-third Streets.
Allan established a fruit and vegetable business: but selling this in 1887.
he bought a Chronicle route in the ]\Tission district. Soon he had charge of
other routes ; but in 1900 he disposed of the newspaper business and returned
to New Hampshire on a two months' vacation, going by way of the Southern
Pacific Railroad, and returning to California along the line of the Canadian
Pacific. For eleven months he was then proprietor of the '\^^^ite Star Laun-
dry at Santa Rosa: but returning to San Francisco, he boueht a Bulletin
route in the IMi'^^inn .li^frict and manaeed it from 1901 to 1903.
Selling out. Mr. MrVali came to Fresno in July, 1903, and bought his
present place of foitx' .iitc^, in the Eggers Colony. Since then, he has steadily
improved it, devoting his attention both to horticulture and to viticulture,
until now he has twenty-two acres planted to muscats, six acres to malagas,
six acres to figs, and two and a half acres to olives. It is under the Gould
ditch, and shipments are made on the Interurban from Las Palmas station.
For some years Mr. McNab was secretary of the Farmer's Union, and he
is still an active member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
At Manchester, N. H., in 1880, Mr. McNab was married to Miss Ella
M. Wilkins, a native of that city: and three children have blessed their
union : Hattie Bell, now Mrs. Rushen ; George A. : and Gladys M., or ]\lrs.
Passons. all of whom live in this vicinity. A Republican in matters of national
political import, but very devoted to the interests of his localitv, irrespective
of party, Mr. McNab endeavors in every way to advance the standard of
living in Central California.
THOMAS BULLIS. — Among the pioneer residents of Sanger and vicin-
ity, the prominent vineyardist and retired contractor, Thomas Bullis, is note-
worthy for his energy, keen foresight and wisdom, which have resulted in
the accumulation of a competency.
A native of Racine, Wis., born September 18, 1852, he was orphaned
when but a babe. Thrown upon his own resources for a livelihood at the age
of thirteen, he went to Iowa where he worked for his board and small wages.
At fifteen he decided to take up the trade of carpentry, and followed this
occupation in Cass County, Iowa. When the town of Atlantic, Iowa, was
started he was one of the first on the ground, assisting in building up the new
town by doing teaming, and later carpenter work. He afterwards went to
Dakota, where he homesteaded a piece of land in Brown County, proved up on
it and remained there three vears. He then went to Abensville, Kans.,
1228 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
where he followed the carpenter's trade, and in 1888 came to California, loca-
ting in the fall, at Sanger, the business portion of which at that time con-
sisted of one store and twelve saloons.
He purchased five acres in Walton Colony, improved it, setting out vines
and orchard, and lived on the place twelve years. He then settled in Sanger
and followed the occupation of contracting and building. He erected the
Winner and the Giles business blocks in Sanger, also a number of fine homes
in the town, as well as on various ranches all over the valley. In the mean-
time he bought 113 acres on the river bottom, cleared it of brush and later
sold it. His present ranch is located two miles west of Sanger. He first
purchased forty acres and later added another forty acres to it, planting
the property to vines and fruit. He deeded forty acres of the place to his
son. The eighty acres, which is finely improved, is planted to peaches, Thomp-
son seedless and muscat grape vines and yields on an average two tons of
dried fruit to an acre. In 1911 Mr. Bullis retired from the contracting busi-
ness and now devotes his entire time to his ranch.
His marriage united him with Martha Saunders, a native of Indiana.
The one son born of this union, William E., married AHie Kline, by whom
he became the father of one child, a daughter, Verda.
FRED W. HANSEN.— As president of the San Joaquin Valley Milk Pro-
ducers' Association and as a native son of California, Fred W. Hansen is well
and favorably known to the people of Fresno County and the San Joaquin Val-
ley. He was born July 4, 1876, in the old Hansen homestead on Fig Avenue, in
Central Colony, Fresno County. His parents were Jens and Christiana (Fred-
ericksen) Hansen, both born, reared and educated in Denmark. They were
sweethearts in their native country, and it was but natural that when Mr.
Hansen considered coming to America the girl of his choice should make her
decision and be a member of the same party to cross the Atlantic in 1873.
The elder Hansen was an experienced dairyman in his native country. When
he arrived in California in the above-named year he found employment as a
laborer in the vicinity of Oakland for about eighteen months, after which he
came to Fresno County, driving a horse team, and settled as one of the pio-
neers in Central Colony. This was in 1875, and it was in Fresno County that
he and the girl of his choice were married that same year. They labored
together and enjoyed the esteem of their neighbors and friends, and at last
answered the final summons, both passing away in Fresno County.
Fred W. Hansen was educated in the public schools of Fresno County
and early showed a disposition to learn the details of planting and caring for
vines ; he also inherited the dairyman's instinct and a love of stock. As a
vineyardist he was said to have the finest raisin vineyard in the county, and
as a dairyman he has made a record to be envied. He was the promoter of
the Danish Creamery and operated it for two years with marked success ;
and he also ran a milk wagon in Fresno to supply the people with milk. He
is a born organizer and a convincing talker. He believes thoroughly in cen-
tralization of the dairy interests of the state and has been an ardent worker
in the organizations that have led up to the present San Joaquin Valley
Milk Producers' Association. He and his father worked under trying condi-
tions in the fruit industry, when with the advent of irrigation the water-
table rose and the alkali from the hard-pan beneath killed their trees and
vines ; and they met all kinds of competition in dairying. These severe lessons
in the hard school of experience only strengthened his claims that co-opera-
tion and organization were the only successful means by Avhich to handle
local conditions and bring order and prosperity out of chaos and low prices.
He made his first venture in the Danish Creamery, which was the first co-
operative creamery association to successfully operate in the county. Today
(1919) the dairy interests are pretty generally organized throughout the
state, as is shown by the existence of dairymen's associations in San Fran-
cisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento Valley, Northern California and
^^7t?^^^c-^^<^^'^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1231
the San Joaquin Valley. Mr. Hansen has been a diligent worker to bring
about these organizations bv heartily cooperating with all movements to
that end.
The San Joaquin Valley Milk Producers' Association is one of nine
units in the state at the present time. It was instituted in August, 1917.
and is meeting with well-merited success. A corps of solicitors are employed
and about forty percent, of the milk producers of the valley have signed up,
and its influence is rapidly spreading. This concern takes in every industry
in which cows' milk is the basic element. The marketing association for the
whole state is known as the Associated Dairymen of California, its directorate
being made up of two directors from each unit who meet in San Francisco
once a month to exchange ideas and work for the best interests of all. The
officers of the local unit are: Fred W. Hansen, president and manager; Al.
McNeil, first vice-president; M. H. Tyrrell, second vice-president; B. B.
Minor, secretary ; H. E. Vogel, treasurer. The directors of the association
are: William Glass, Fred W? Hansen, H. E. Vogel, Al. McNeil, J- A. Coelho,
Frank Howell, J. W. Guiberson, M. H. Tyrrell, B. B. Minor, W. F. Wyatt and
Ralph Cushman. Offices are maintained in the Cory Building, Fresno. The
association plans to erect and equip a general utility plant at Tulare, cost-
ing about $1.W,000, for taking care of dairy by-products in the San Joaquin
Valley, which shows the immensity of the dairy interests here.
In 1896 Fred W. Hansen was united in marriage with Dorothea Gortz,
who was born in Denmark and came to Fresno County in company with the
elder Hansens on their return from a visit to their native land. Of this union
eight children have been born: A\'illiam AV., in the United States Navy;
Christian J. J., who served in France in the Engineers' Corps and is now at
home; Kirby W., serving in the quartermaster's department of mechanics
in France, and one of the young men selected by the government for an edu-
cational course in a college in Europe, where he is taking a course in agri-
culture ; Mata G., a sophomore in the Fresno High School; Frederick J., also
a student in the Fresno High ; IMilton L. and Ernest, in the grammar school ;
and Arthur Leroy. at home. Mr. and Mrs. Hansen are members of the Elm
Avenue Danish Lutheran Church. He is, and has been for several years, a
member of the trustees of the Orange Center school district; and is a mem-
ber of the Odd Fellows and of the Danish Brotherhood. The Hansen home
continues, as in the pioneer days, to extend a liberal hospitality to friend or
stranger. Mrs. Hansen is a most able helpmate to her husband and they
enjoy a wide acquaintanceship in Fresno County, where they are highly
esteemed.
C. B. HUDDLESTON. — A pioneer who as a boy and young man had
many hardships to overcome, and who so overcame them that he grew up
strong of body and mind, self-made and self-reliant, a man of integrity and
liberality, is C. B. Huddleston. now the leading man in the raisin and peach
section of the Eschol school district. He resides three one-half miles south-
west of Kingsburg, and there divides his attention between worthy business
operations and works of charity and reform.
Washington's Birthday, 1856, was the festive natal day of ^Ir. Huddles-
ton, who was born in Harrison County, Mo., near Bethany, the county seat,
the son of John and Harriet (Babbitt) Huddleston. The former was born
in Knox Count}-, Tcnn.. and came to ^Missouri with an uncle, David Buck,
thereafter fnlluw ing farming; while Mrs. Huddleston was a native of Illinois.
Both, therefore, were very early settlers of Harrison County. In 1851. i\Ir.
Huddleston came out to California, leaving his family in Missouri ; but after
mining for thirteen months, he went back with a train of horses, and a year
later, having been taken with pneumonia, he died there.
C. B. Huddleston was only three and a half years old when his mother
was left a widow with five children, he being the fourth youngest, and the
only boy. \\'hen he was six his mother married again and seven years later
1232 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
she died. All the schooling that he obtained was secured while he was work-
ing nights and mornings for his board in the winter time after the war. There
were no schools during war-time in his neighborhood, but the district was
subject to jayhawking and bushwhacking. ]\Iost of his knowledge, there-
fore, has been obtained since he was grown, by wide reading ; but he is at
present a very well-informed man. After the death of his mother, Mr. Hud-
dleston had no home, and then he worked out by the month on farms, until
he was twenty, when he began to rent Missouri land.
At the age of twenty-five, and while he was still in the Iron State, Mr.
Huddleston was married to Miss Mary M. Reed, the accomplished daughter
of S. B. and Parmelia (Shackleford) Reed, and a sister of David Reed, the
enterprising flour and feed man in Kingsburg. The only one of the family now
living, Mr. Huddleston was exceedingly fortunate in his marriage, and has
thus been able to perpetuate the family name with honor and happiness. With
Mr. Huddleston, a half-brother came to California, but he went back to
Missouri after ten months, and is still living there.
It was on March 3, 1898, that the expectant party alighted from the cars
at Traver, where they lived a month, when they moved to Kingsburg. In
1903, Mr. Huddleston bought forty acres, his first investment in California
land, near the place where he now lives in the Eschol school district. By
hard work, he soon transformed the acreage, and it has more than once been
remarked that whatever C B. Huddleston had to do with, prospered. He
owns forty-four acres of well-improved land three and a half miles south-
west of Kingsburg, and has twenty-five acres in peaches, eight acres in
Thompson seedless, and the balance in alfalfa.
Mr. and ]\rrs. Huddleston have become the parents of six children, all
of whom have done well : John S. is a rancher in the Eschol district, and
married ]\Iyra Beaver, by whom he has had six children — Francis, Bernice,
Vernal, Raymond, Clyde, and Forest. Gertrude is the wife of Hubert Rat-
lifT, a farmer in the Laguna de Tache grant ; and she has five children — Mar-
garet, Rawlston, jNIax. Charles, and the baby. ^Mvrtle married A. T. Brewer,
the wide-awake butcher at Kingsburg, and she is the mother of five children —
Bonna, Morgan, Lynn, Dale, and Dante. Iva is the wife of Hugh Clark, Mr.
Brewer's partner in the meat market, and the}' have one child, Fav. Claire
Franklin is at home, and Hugh, seventeen years old, is a student at the Kings-
burg high school. The family belongs to the iNIethodist Episcopal Church at
Kingsburg.
Mr. Huddleston has always been public-spirited, and anxious to do his
full civic duty ; he has served sixteen years as a member of the board of
education of the Eschol school district, and has served in trial and other jury
work.
FRANK D. ROSENDAHL. — Not without reason was it that Frank D.
Rosendahl, popularly known as Judge Rosendahl, enjoyed the highest favor
and goodwill of the largest number of his fellowcitizens. for he was not only
the pioneer of all the Swedes who came to Kingsburg, but he encouraged
hundreds of others to settle here, and so gave a tremendous impetus to the
town along the best and most permanent lines. He himself first saw the light
of day in Sweden, having been born there on June 5, 1843, a son of Henry
Rosendahl, who came to the United States in the early seventies and for
a while lived in New York. The father had been an iron-maker in a rolling
mill in his native country, and that line of work he followed on coming to
America. In the middle seventies he moved west to California and until his
death, which occurred in 1890, he shared the home of his son who came with
him via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco in 1875. The companion
of his joys and sorrows, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Erickson, whom
he had married in Sweden, died there, the mother of two sons and three
daughters, of whom our subject was the eldest.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1233
Frank Rosendahl attended the excellent common schools of Sweden,
then went to college, and topped off with the study of landscape gardening
at the Rosendahl College in Stockholm, where he also mastered surveying.
In 1868 he was engaged to lay out the city part of Umeo, Sweden ; and in the
same year he crossed the ocean to New York, where he was employed in
Central Park and remained for seven years as division gardener.
In 1875 he came to San Francisco as gardener in Golden Gate Park,
which was then being laid out, and a year later embarked in the nursery bus-
iness at Oakland. His success was so marked that it was only a logical step
for him to move to Fresno, in 1878, and engage in the raising of fruit in
Washington Colony. Later Mr. Rosendahl traded this ranch for 140 acres
in the Kingsburg Colony, and there he followed the nursery business until
1900, when his son, Henry Rosendahl, assumed the direction of the work. In
the meantime, ]\Ir. Rosendahl transacted more or less business in real estate,
from 1885 handling ;ill kinds of property and giving his best efforts in par-
ticular to the colonization of Kingsburg. In this he was very successful, bring-
ing here his fellowcountrymen and others, so that he is gratefully remem-
bered hv all who knew him for unselfish qualities of character that had their
bearing on the happiness of thousands of lives.
\\niile in Sweden, Mr. Rosendahl was married to Hannah Flizalicth AX'ick-
man, a native of tliat l^cautifu! country, and tliey liecame the parents of several
children: Frank T. is a rancher in the vicinity of Pakersficld : .Henry was a
nurseryman of Turlock and is now a rancher at Kingsluirc; ; I'annie and Edith
are teachers at Fresno, nnd Fannie served as Count}- Sclioo] Superintendent
of Fresno Countv for eight or nine vears ; and Florence, wlio taught at San
lose. In fraternal life, Air. Rosendahl was a member of the Independent Or-
der of Foresters, having been active in the lodge at Kingsburg. Miss Fannie
Rosendahl has become prominent in the educational world as Assistant Su-
perintendent of Schools for Fresno County, and her sisters, Edith and Flor-
ence, live with her in Fresno.
For many years a stanch and energetic Republican. Mr. Rosendahl not
only served in the councils of the party, but for years was Justice of the Peace.
His record as a magistrate was in the highest degree creditable, and has be-
come to his descendants a precious heritage. Mr. Rosendahl died on August
26, 1915, and his remains were interred in the cemetery at Fresno.
WALTER WILSON DUKE. — A popular business man whose succesi
is due to his high ideals and standards of conduct, is Walter Wilson Duke,
a native of Missouri, born near Carrollton, August 28, 1870. His father, W.
H. Duke, was a Kentuckian, and his mother, who was Elizabeth Lester before
her marriage, came from Tennessee. This fusion of some of the finest of
Southern blood was bound to tell, and Walter W. started life with physical
and mental force such as would spell attainment and prosperity. His father
moved to Missouri and farmed there, and when he left the Iron State, he
received the farewells and best wishes of many who deeply regretted his
going; it was in 1876 that Mr. Duke's course lay across the broad continent
to the northwest and Oregon. At Lakeview, in Lake County, he at last pitched
his tent, and as a farmer and stockman, won success for himself and pointed
the way for others to follow, and there he died, honored by all who knew him.
One might verv well find in just such lives as that of W. H. Duke and his
faithful wife the entire story of the conquering of a vast continent by the
Eastern pioneer. The oldest of their four children, Walter W. was brought
up at Lakeview, and there attended the public school. He learned farming,
and with a boy's enthusiasm, he rode the range. His experiences were not
always pleasant, nor were his tasks light, but he proved what was in him,
and prepared himself for the real tussle with the world.
AVhen he was twenty-one, Mr, Duke engaged in farming for himself in
Lake Countv, Ore., and in 1898 he moved to Modoc County, Cal. .-Vt Davis
1234 HISTCIRY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Creek he managed the Davis Creek hotel ; and he soon engaged in the raising
of sheep, cattle, horses and hogs. He leased a ranch of about 1,000 acres, and
for ten years was one of the most successful ranchmen. In 1908, he sold out
and went to San Francisco ; and a year later, he came to Kerman, where he
bought a farm, and for three years raised alfalfa. Later he established his
general merchandise store, at first in a small building a block below his pres-
ent site. His stock was not large, but his business acumen, his straightfor-
wardness, and his desire to be of service to his patrons, enabled him to do a
good business from the start.
In January, 1915, Mr. Duke bought his present site and erected a re-
inforced concrete structure, forty-five by eighty feet, affording two large
stores, and his business has grown until the Duke establishment is noted for
the completeness and quality of stock handled. Mr. Duke is active in the
Merchants Association of Kerman and was one of the organizers and a char-
ter member of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a live wire in all that will
advance the community or benefit the State. Loyal to the principles of the
Democratic parfy, he is non-partisan in local issues.
Mrs. Duke iDcfore her marriage on April 19, 1915, was a popular M'm-
neapolis maiden, Katherine R. de Harven, and she came of good old French
stock. Their one child is named Walter de Harven Duke. Mrs. Duke attends
the Episcopal Church.
MISS JULIA ELLEN FLEMING.— The appearance of woman in the
modern business world is not such a commonplace event that one does not
wonder a little when they succeed, amid the sharpest of competition ; and when
that success is so apparent and undeniable, as in the case of Miss Julia Ellen
Fleming, admiration is added to the surprise, and the whole world, so to speak,
is ready good-naturedlv to doff its hat. What is delightful about the wliole
affair is that Miss Fleming bears her laurels just like any other mortal, looking
upon her success as natural enough.
A native of Fresno, of which thriving California city she is always proud,
Miss Fleming is the daughter of Russell Harrison Fleming, one of the well-
known pioneers of Central California and a member of a sturdy family reach-
ing back through our early Colonial history to historic old Ireland. Her
grandfather, John Fleming, came from the North of Ireland and served in
the War of 1812; and later he died in Pennsylvania at the hearty age of sixty-
five. Her grandmother, on the other hand, a native of Massachusetts and An-
nie Karle by her maiden name, lived to be almost one hundred years old. In
Mariposa County, at the beginning of the troubled year of 1863, Russell Flem-
ing married Elizabeth Dorgan, who had come to the United States when she
was a child, and had lost all trace of her Cork near of kin. Mr. Fleming en-
gaged in farming, mining, staging and the livery business, and thus had a busy
and varied career ; but he provided well for his family, and this may have been
one of the most important early influences or conditions making for Miss
Julia's success.
Educated at both the public grammar and high schools, where she was
equipped for office work of an expert character. Miss Fleming in 1900 engaged
with W. T. Mattingly, and later entered the service of Smith & Ostrander*
attorneys. Having by that time made for herself a reputation for ability and
fidelity that commenced to create a demand for her services, she accepted a
position of responsibility with the Shepard Teague Company, and with that
concern remained nine years. She was also for four years with the .Shepherd-
Cochrane Compan}^ of Fresno and on September 1, 1915, she established a
business for herself. How well the public has responded with confidence in
her judgment and conscientiousness may be seen from the fact that Miss
Fleming is now energetically representing several of the leadmg companies of
the entire country. Among these are the New Hampshire Fire Insurance
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1237
Company, The Boston Insurance Company, dealing in automobile insurance;
the Home Fire and Marine Insurance Company ; The United States Fidelity
and Guaranty Company: The Massachusetts Bonding and Insurance Com-
pany, the last two named being casualty and bonding companies. In her
reaching out after a just share of the local trade. Miss Fleming is rated one
of the most energetic and attaining agents in the State. She also handles
employers' liability insurance, and all other kinds of insurance, except lite
insurance, and is also a Notary Public. But Miss Fleming is more than a
mere lousiness woman, or one who participates in ordinary social affairs. She
has a broader view of her obligation to society, takes a live interest in public
issues, and so, while pushing trade and advancing the commercial prosperity
of Fresno, she never neglects an opportunity to render civic service where
she can. At this time of tremendous stress in particular, when women more
than ever are finding their right place and coming to their own. Miss Fleming
is doing her duty, modestly but faithfully, to enable Fresno to take the place
she should in the columns of the nation.
CHARLES STRID. — For over thirty years a resident of the Kingsburg
Colony, and one of its successful ranchers, Charles Strid is a worthy example
of a self-made man who, after years of hard toil and continuous struggle,
became the owner of a twenty-acre ranch in this prosperous section of Fresno
County.
Charles Strid was liorn on August 21, 1866, at Nykroppa, Sweden, a son
of Erik and ,\nnie (PetersdU) Strid. The father was an iron-miner and died
in Sweden when about sixty }-ears of age; the mother came to America in
1898, accompanied by her youngest son, Victor, and settled in the Kings-
burg Colony where she passed away at the age of seventy-one. Mr. and
Mrs. Erik Strid were the parents of ten children, nine grew up, and two
were killed accidentally in the iron mines of Sweden — Anders, at the age of
thirteen, and Gustav, who was twenty-seven and married, and who left
a widow and one son, Anders Strid. who is now a rancher in the Kingsburg
Colonv. Emma came with her mother to .America in 1808 and is now living
in Oakland.
Charles Strid, the subject of this sketch, when a mere boy of twelve.
went to work in the iron mines alongside of his father, and when fifteen he
was able to do as much work as a grown man, continuing this hard work
until he was twenty years of age. In 1886 he left his native land f(ir the
United States of America, settling at first at Ishpeming. Mich., where he
worked in the iron mines for one year. Hearing about the wonderful oppor-
tunities in California and learning that .\ndrew Erickson. the present mayor
of Kingsburg and pi.me.r -( til.r, was located at Kingsl)urg. Charles Strid
resolved to migrate to t!ir (ioldcn State, and acconiiianied l>v his oldest
brother, Erik, he came to Kingsburg, arriving August 12, 1887. lie was so
favorably impressed with the country and its future prospects tliat u|i^'ii the
third day in Fresno County he purchased his present ranch of twriux acres.
on credit, paving sixty-five dollars per acre and nine per cent, interest. With
the aid of his brother Erik, he planted, during the first spring, two acres to
muscat grapes, and afterwards worked out for one dollar per day to make
living expenses. Four years later he planted eight acres more to muscat
vines. After a long and hard struggle and many privations. Mr. Strid suc-
ceeded in paying for his ranch and becoming the owner of a home and
twenty acres of valuable land. Five acres were planted to ]Haclus and apri-
cots but after about eighteen years the trees were not a- iiia.iitabk' as in
former years, so they were grubbed out and during the sea~^ai oi ]''1/-I8 this
five-acre tract was replanted to vines. In addition to his vineyard, .Mr. Strid
has improved his place with a house, barn and pumping-plant.
In 1906, Charles Strid was united in marriage with Miss Sophia Carlson,
a native of Sweden, born at Westrejotland, a daughter of Carl and Anna
1238 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
(Larson) Peterson; her father died when Sophia was six. and her mother
passed away when she Avas nine years of age. ;\Irs. Strid had two brothers,
John and Anders Carlson, both of whom died in Sweden; a sister. Selma.
died in infancy. While living in Sweden, Sophia Carlson, now Mrs. Charles
Strid, corresponded with her cousin, .Miss Selma Anderson, then a resident
of Rockford, 111., who is now Mrs. Schoenlund, of Princeton, 111., and she be-
came so interested in America that she decided to emigrate to the United
States, and in 1881 she arrived at Rockford, 111. After remaining three years
in Rockfard, she removed to Minneapolis, Minn., where she resided three
years and a half. In 1887 Sophia Carlson migrated to California and for one
year resided at Colton, afterwards going to San Francisco and Oakland where
she lived until 1906. when she married Mr. Strid and moved to the Kings-
burg Colony, Fresno County.
Religiously Mrs. Strid is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Strid
was confirmed in the Lutheran Church at the age of fourteen. He is a man
of high principles, a worthy citizen of the county and is highly respected ;
he is a stanch supporter of the California Raisin Growers Association, as well
as an enthusiastic booster for California and Fresno County.
PETER OLSON. — Few men probably in all Fresno County receive a
larger share of merited goodwill and esteem from their fellowcitizens than
Peter Olson, who reached San Francisco twenty-nine years ago, came to
Kingsburg four years later, and now owns, among other property, a fine
bungalow residence with a brick foundation, dating from 1913, and has as a
help-mate in life one of the most genial of women, and has been blessed with
several worthy children. He was born near Engelholm, Skaane, Sweden, on
September 19, 1857, the son of Ole Person, a farmer and bricklayer, who was
married in that country to Asseneva Foss, also a Swede, by whom he had
four children who grew up in that land : Carolina, who was married, in Swe-
den, to Per Nilson, a farmer still active there ; Jane, the third-born, who mar-
ried l\Iiss Mary A. Johnson, and is a rancher near Kingsburg; while Hildah.
who came to America, died when she was eighteen years old.
Peter Olson, the second in the family, passed his boyhood and youth
in Sweden, and when fourteen went to Halmstad and learned the baker"s
trade, after having had a limited schooling, which included confirmation in
the state church of Sweden. Concluding his apprenticeship, he returned to
Sweden, but almost immediately went to sea as a sailor, putting out from
Forsom, in Norway. He sailed for Norwegian and Danish ship companies,
and for six years followed the life of a sailor. He visited Iceland, .\rchangel
(Russia) various ports of England, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France,
the Mediterranean, Finland, Russia, Holland. Germany, Denmark. Sweden,
and Norway.
Some of his voyages were romantic, and during one he had such a trying
adventure that he was converted and resolved to lead a Christian life. He
made four trips to America; and on the fourth, while with a Norwegian sail-
ing vessel from London to Quebec, he was wrecked and nearly lost his life.
A monster Greenland whale struck the ship ofT the Newfoundland Banks,
and the vessel immediately went down. All twelve of the crew took to the
life-boats and were tossed about until rescued by a Rotterdam passenger boat
and taken to New York City. There, unfortunately, he could get no work,
so he made one more trip to Bordeaux, France, but he returned to New York
the next spring, and the same April came on to Chicago. This was in 1880,
and failing to secure work on the land, he shipped as a sailor on the Great
Lakes.
That fall, Mr. Olson went to ^Minnesota and worked in the woods at Hav-
iland, getting out lumber, and the next spring he began to learn the carpen-
ter's trade, joining a crew of house-builders. For twelve years he continued
to work as a carpenter, si.x in Minnesota, three in San Francisco, and three
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1239
after he had arrived at Kingsburg, and it was only after that that he com-
menced farming. So successftd has he been in the latter field that for twenty-
one years he has given most of his attention to ranching and the growing of
fruit and curing of raisins: and in addition he has built several houses in and
about Kingsburg. sometimes building them on a speculation and selling when
he found the proper Ijuyer.
Fihal de\-otion was strong in Air. Olson, and when he had secured some
promising work in Afinnesota he sent for his father, mother and brother lane,
and for his sister Hildah, and they came to Minnesota to live. After a while,
the father returned to Sweden and died there; whereupon the mother accdm-
panied Peter to California where she continued to reside with liim until she
died six years ago, aged eighty-two.
Mr. Olson has been twice married. On Noveml)er 25, 1882. at St. Paul,
Minn., he was joined in wedlock to Emma Louisa Svenman, a native of Swe-
den, by whom he had tour children : X'irginia, the wife of Ernest Greel, a rice-
grower and resident of Richvale, P.utte County: Esther, the wife of Fred
Moraine, who resides on a ranch near Kingsburg: Wesley, unmarried, was
in the army and served in England, was honorably discharged and came home
January 2, 1919; and Lawrence, who was in training at Camp Kearney, and
was married June 19, 1918, to Miss Clementine Francis, of Kingsburg. Mrs.
Olson having died on April 21. 1909, Mr. Olson remarried on October 25, 1*^'09,
choosing as his wife Miss Nettie V. Person, a native of Skaane, who, with
Air. Olson and the family, belongs to the Swedish Methodist Church at Kings-
burg, which i\lr. Olson helped to build. He was, in fact, for years a member
of the board of trustees.
Mr. Olson owns three places near Kingsburg, of four acres, twentv acres,
and thirty acres, respectively. The tract of thirty acres belonged to the eldest
son, ^^'^sley, who was in the army, but on account of the young man's depar-
ture in the service of his country, the land was deeded to his father, in trust.
The }oungest son, Lawrence, also owns a tract of forty acres.
CHARLES WILLARD TRABING.— The leading attorney at Kings-
burg, and one of its most enterprising and honored citizens, is C. ^^^ Trabing,
the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. He was born at Medicine Bow,
Carbon County, Wye. His father was Charles A. Trabing, a leading financier
and stockman of that state, who passed away at the early age of thirty-six,
his death being attributed to blood poisoning. Charles A. Trabing was born
in Germany and immigrated to America when a young man. He became one
of the leading men of Wyoming and with a brother owned at one time the
great "T. B." (Ti-abing Brothers) ranch located north of Medicine Bow.
Charles A. Trabing was united in marriage, at Laramie, with Miss Minnie
Dykeman, of Broome County, N. Y. This union was blessed with five chil-
dren: Ruth Agnes, who is now the wife of J. H. W. Jones, an orchardist
residing at Watsonville ; Lewis Edward, in the hardware business at Alarys-
ville ; Charles Willard, the subject of this review; Raymond Clarence, an
orchardist and carpenter and builder at Watsonville : and Daisy, wdio passed
away when five years of age. After her husband's demise Mrs. Trabing
moved to Ogden, LTah, and later to California and lives now in Pajaro
Valley. Cal.
Charles W. Trabing, was but four years of age when his father died.
His early education was received in the public schools at Ogden, which was
afterwards supplemented with a college education received at the University
of Wyoming and Santa Clara College, near San Jose, Cal. ; and he studied
oil painting for six years at Hopkins Art Institute at San Francisco, also
studied under William Keith, the famous landscape artist of San Francisco,
and finally under Professor Grimpie of Oakland. Possessing a penchant for
legal lore, he thoroughly prepared himself for the practice of that profession,
and in 1910 he was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court of California,
12-!0 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
and later was also admitted to the United States Federal Court. Four years
ago he located at Kingsburg, Fresno County, where he is successfully con-
ducting a general law practice. Mr. Trabing is an able attorney of strict
integrity, who carefully studies and prepares each case with a scrupulous re-
gard for justice to all. To these ideals he clings with unswerving fidelity and
to this may be attributed his rapidly increasing clientele and the building of
a lucrative practice, his office records showing an increase of fifty percent.
each year since his location at Kingsburg. C. W. Trabing is a man of dis-
tinguished personality and poise, and a recognized orator. In addition to
his comprehensive knowledge of jurisprudence, he possesses keen business
acumen which he gained through his extensive commercial activities at
Laramie, Wyo., where he conducted, previous to his coming to California,
a large and successful business in grain, hay and feed, and owned one-fourth
interest in a cattle ranch of 1.200 acres. These business experiences have
given him a clearer conception of the perplexities arising from the conduct
of commercial enterprises and greatly aid him in the untangling of legal
problems which business men find so difficult of solving. C. \V. Trabing is
vitally interested in the commercial and industrial welfare of Kingsburg.
and of Fresno County and is a loyal worker for the advancement of the
highest good of the community both intellectually and financially. He is
secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and business manager of the Boosters
Brass Band of Kingsburg.
The marriage of Mr. C. ^^^ Trabing was solemnized at Watsonville. Cal.,
on Julv 9. 1913. when he was united with ]\Iiss Edith Mann, a daughter of
Ezekiel and Anna (Rowe) Mann, well known residents of ^^'atsonville.
Mr. and Mrs. Trabing were very popular in the most. cultured social circles
of Kingsburg. A great sorrow came to ^Ir. Trabing in the untimely death
of his wife who succumbed to the influenza on November 2. 1918. She was
well beloved in Kingsburg, where she was a class leader and a member of
the choir of the -Methodist Episcopal Church. She was also secretary of
the Women's Improvement Club of Kingsburg, and was an active worker
and officer in the Kingsburg branch of the Red Cross.
Mr. Trabing served as chairman of the Legal Advisory Board of the
Kingsburg District, during the war period, and as such received all ques-
tionnaires and passed upon all exemptions, and was chairman of the Four
Minute Men at Kingsburg. He was also the local food administrator and did
valuable work on all bond and other war drives.
CHRIS H. SMITH. — An interesting old-timer, who enjoys a prominent
place among the builders of Central California, is Chris H. Smith, who first
came to the Pacific Coast early in the eighties. He was born in Slesvig.
near Haderlev, Denmark, on July 22, 1856. and his father was Hans Smith,
a blacksmith and farmer in that section. His mother was Margareta Chris-
tensen before her marriage, and she died there leaving three children, one
of whom — the subject of our sketch — chose to cast his lot in the L'nited
States.
As the second oldest. Chris was brought up to farm work, assisting his
father; and under him he also learned the blacksmith trade. He attended the
public schools.- and when he became of age, he embarked in stock-dealing.
A stock-dealer in Denmark might make a very fair living, but he would
need to labor early and late ; and most likely he would never grow rich.
Thinking this fact over. Chris decided to migrate to the New ^^'orld.
In 1881. he came to Ignited States and California, and soon after his
arrival, followed the blacksmith trade in San Leandro. At the end of nine
months, however, he went in for farming near Hayward. In 1883 he came
to Fresno County. At Oleander he hired out as a farm hand, but the next
year he went back to Hayward, where he rented land and raised grain. He
then established a hay and grain trade on East EIe-\-enth Street. Oakland, and
,</ y/^ y/aA>p<y
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1243
he also had a livery business. He traded his property for a ranch in Uig
Penoche \'alley. San Benito County, and raised grain and stuck; and, with
varying obstacles, made of the undertaking a success.
In 1894 Mr. Smith sold his farm and located in Easton, where he bought
a vineyard of eighty acres and engaged in viticulture. At the end of fi\-e
years, he disposed of this holding and in 1900 located here, purcha.^inL;' fnrty
acres on Kearney Boulevard, at the corner of Madison and CUnrlaml .\\e-
nues. It was raw land ; so he leased the vineyard adjoining, iniprox ed his
own place, and ran the leased land. He set out wine grapes and later grafted
thereon Thompson seedless; and now he has his entire vineyard in malaga,
feherzagos and Thompson's. He built his attractive residence, and added
improvement after improvement, making a model ranch-vineyard. ]\Iean-
time, he did what he could' to help along cooperative marketing and now.
as an active member of the California Associated Raisin Company, he has
the satisfaction of seeing the fruit of his labors.
At Hayward, j\Ir. Smith was married to ^largarethe Jorgensen, a native
of Slesvig, Denmark, who came to California in 1888. He was made a Alason
in the Hayward Lodge. F. & A. M.. and is now a member of Fresno Lodge,
No. 247. He belongs to the Danish Brotherhood, Fresno Chapter No. 67,
and was once its president ; and he is also a member of the Dania. Chapter
No. 5. at Fresno, and has been honored with its presidency, and. with his
wife, is a member of Thora Lodge, Ladies Branch of Dania. of which she is
vice-president, and Mrs. Smith was also an active meinber of Danish Aux-
iliary and Fresno Chapter of Red Cross. In 1908 i\Ir. and Mrs. Smith made
a trip back to their old home, but much as they enjoyed the renewal of
endearing associations, they were glad to return to sunnier California.
In national politics Mr. Smith is a Democrat, but in local measures he
seeks the closest and happiest cooperation among neighbors. Both Mr. and
Mrs. Smith have high ideals as to the privileges and the duties of good citi-
zens, and both are untiring in their efforts to advance Central California to
the high position and sound prosperity she so richly deserves.
S. H. HAIN. — Prominent among the successful oil-producers of America,
and of more than passing interest to the student of industrial development in
the United States, on account of his scientific attainments and mechanical
ingenuity, which have placed him in the front rank among oil men of the
Golden State, is S. H. Hain, the superintendent of the Penn Coalinga Petro-
leum Company and also Section 7 Oil Company. He has originated many
contri\ances and conveniences on the lease, notably for the piping of gas and
the condensing of steam, and he has also instituted various systems by which
expenses have been saved, and in this Mr. llaiii has enjoyed the ci loperntion,
confidence, and good will of his employers, his colleagues and sub. irdinates.
Mr. Hain was born in Glen Rock, York County, Pa., on March 30, 1871,
the son of Adam Hain, who was a contractor and builder, and also a lumber
manufacturer running a sawmill driven by water power. Adam Hain mar-
ried Sarah Kreidler, who became the mother of four boys and one girl, and
who. with her husband, is now dead. Our subject was the second eldest in
this family, and commenced his schooling in the grammar institutions of the
district, s'tudving at the high school at Glen Rock and then attending the
Millersville Normal, from which he was graduated in 1892. Then he became
a teacher in York and Lancaster Counties, and in time was principal of the
high school of Glen Rock.
In 1902, ^Nlr. Hain came to California and located in Coalinga, and soon
after he went into the field of oil development and accepted the superintend-
cncv of tlie \nvk Coalinga ( )il Company, later adding to his responsibilities
the oversight of Section 7 < )il Company and the Penn Coalinga Oil Com-
panv. all of which he superintended from the time of their first well. He was
also a stockholder from the beginning of the York Coalinga Oil Company
1244 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
on Sec. 6-20-15, and on it sunk the first well, striking oil, and they have
operated the well ever since, adding others that are producers, and whose
flow has been remarkable if not phenomenal. The Penn Coalinga Petroleum
Company's well was drilled next on Sec. 1-20-15, and Wells No. 1 and No. 2
were flowing, and are still producing. Then they developed Section 7 Oil
Company on Sec. 7-20-15 and there struck oil; and not long after that they
struck there one of the first gushers in the \\'est Side field, with a strong
flow of 3,000 barrels a day. What is so interesting, when one considers Mr.
Hain's association with these enterprises, and the unquestionable value of
his special gifts for such work and his studious attention to each problem as
it arose, is the fact that the development of each company was remarkable for
good results in general and the highest production in particular that could be
reasonably expected.
A man of affairs and a far-seeing, natural leader, Mr. Hain has frequently
been looked to for substantial cooperation in financial and commercial affairs.
He was one of the original stockholders in the First National Bank of Coal-
inga, and a director from the start, and also one of the original organizers
of the Coalinga Gas and Power Comiiany, where he is still a director. He is
interested in the Coalinga National Petroleum Company, operating in the
Coalinga field, and this augurs well for the amliitidus programs of the concern.
In Fresno, on December 10, 1913. IMr. Hain was married to ]\Iiss ^lary
Piaker, a native of Arkansas, who through her pleasing personality adds to
their wide circle of friends. He is a member of Lincoln Lodge of Odd Fellows
at Lincoln, Lancaster County. Pa., and also of the Knights of Malta at York
in that state. California and Fresno County ofifer opportunities befitting the
character and genius of men like Mr. Hain. in the work of further developing
our great commonwealth.
CHARLES E. BERG. — Among the worthy Central California pioneers
must l)e rated ]Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Berg, who own a finely-developed
ranch of forty acres devoted to peaches and raisins, lying partly in Fresno
and partly in Tulare County ; for, having started with many handicaps, they
are making sacrifices to give their children the proper education and rearing.
Like her husband. IMrs. Berg has the nobility of human nature actuating her
daily round of life; and both are appreciative of those blessings peculiar to
the L^nited States of America, and those advantages perhaps nowhere to be
found outside of California. The comfortable residence of tlie Bergs is in
Tulare County, but they do their trading at Kingsburg, and are identified
with Fresno.
Mr. Berg is one of the original four settlers who came to Kingsburg
from Ishpeming, Mich., in the fall of 1886, landing in Kingsburg on Novem-
ber 21, with a party consisting of two married men and their wives and
families, and two still single. They were : Andrew Erickson (the present
mayor of Kingsburg), his wife and a child; Mr. and Mrs. P. G. Hero and
their three children ; and Charles Carlson and Mr. Berg, both of whom were
then unmarried. They all hailed from Ishpeming, and came west on the re-
port and recommendation of Mr. Erickson, who had been chosen by a num-
ber of the Swedish-American citizens in Michigan to find suitable govern-
ment land on the Pacific where they could most advantageously settle. At
first Mr. Berg did not like his environment, and although he bought twenty
acres, he stayed only a year, when he went south to Los Angeles and San
Diego, where he worked for six months. After that he went north again,
this time to San Francisco, and in the Bay City he helped build the cable
street-car line, as well as the Howard Street Railway. Strange to say. electric
cars have now entirely superseded the cable once erected at such cost and
labor, except in the very steepest places of the city.
In August, 1890, Mr. Berg was married to Miss Emily Myhre. a native
daughter of Norway, who once lived at Ishpeming, where they first met.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1245
and in 1891 the happy cduplc came back to Kingsburg and began to improve
the ten acres that he still owned after having sold, while discouraged, the half
of his holding. Later, he bought back five acres, and this gave him fifteen
acres in one fine tract. He made all the necessary improvements, including
the building of a house, barns and other outbuildings, and planted the land
to vines and trees; but finding the place too small, he disposed of it some-
what reluctantly and bought in its stead his present home place of forty
acres, which he has also greatly improved. He is a member of the Raisin
Growers Association, the Peach Growers Association, and the Apricot and
Prune Growers Association of California.
Thus happily domiciled, Mr. Berg looks back with fond memories to the
Province of Narke, in Sweden, where he was born in 1861. His father was
August Berg, a farm laborer in poor circumstances, while his mother had
been JMagdalena Person. They were both natives of Sweden, and they died
in the land of their liirtli. Tlie>- had fi\-e children, the oldest of whom is
Clara, now the widnw of John O. Nelsim, who resides near Kingsburg; then
came the subject of our sketch ; the third was Peter, a rancher who lives
near Charles ; the fourth was Gust, who is married and lives east of Kings-
burg: and Anna, who died in Sweden.
Mr. and ^Irs. Berg have three children: .Mice, a graduate of the Kings-
burg High School,' is a milliner at r)alx];inil : l~ihvard, who graduated from
the Agricultural College of the University oi' California and became assistant
Farm Adviser in Tulare County, and who was recently married in Fresno to
Miss Martha Ophelia Hayes of Fresno; and Clara, who is employed at the
telephone office, having also graduated from the Kingsburg High School.
Mr. Berg is a stockholder in the telephone company, which he helped organ-
ize in 1904, and was formerly a director. \\'hen the proposition to introduce
the telei^hone was first made, Mr. Berg worked for it; and since then he has
been identified with nearly every progressive movement here.
ANTONE JOSEPH.— There are but few of the pioneers of forty-nine
left in California, but there is a much larger number of those who came a
decade or two later, and among these is Antone Joseph, a wealthy pioneer
sheepman of Fresno County. Antone Joseph is a man of sterling worth, and
a true type of the Fresno County pioneer of the seventies — hard-working,
painstaking, intelligent, frugal and self-denying. It is not an eas}^ matter for
us to appreciate the difficulties that the early settlers had to encounter in the
undeveloped, arid, cactus-covered, wind-swept and sparsely settled territory.
They had the courage to brave hardship, privation and trial, and justly de-
serve the esteem and respect accorded them.
A P(Trtuguese by nationality, Antone Joseph was born September 11,
1857, on the Island of Pico, one of the Azores, where his father had a small
farm. His father, Antone, and his mother Maria (de Brown) Joseph, lived
and died on the island. Antone was the only son. He has an only sister,
Marie de Brown Goulath, who resides on the Island of Pico. Death claimed
the father when his son Antone was a child three years old. Antone worked
on his mother's farm until he was seventeen years of age, and raised a few
cattle and sheep. He was seventeen when he came to California in 1874.
and for two 3'ears worked on ranches in Alameda County. He came to
Fresno in 1875 and continued his ranch work. He worked for P. C. Phillips,
at Kingsburg, for two years, then started in the sheep business, working up
until his flock numbered 20,000 head. Then the panic during the Cleveland
administration caused the price of wool to fall to almost nothing, and Antone
Joseph lost two sections of land and all of his sheep, a loss of about $300,000.
I'ndaunted by this calamity he bravely started again, working out by the
month until the year 1900, then began with a small bunch of sheep, and for
the succeeding eight years gave his best efTorts to the sheep business. Fif-
teen years ago he bought his ranch of 560 acres one mile south of Monmouth,
1246 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
and in 1908 he turned his attention to mixed farming, raising cattle and swine
for the past eleven years. He has also planted vines and trees, and has fifteen
acres of Thompson seedless, ten acres of muscats and seven acres of peach
trees.
In 1884 Mr. Joseph was married to ]\Iarie L. Vierra, and they became
the parents of fi-fteen children, among whom we mention the following:
Amelia is single and lives at home. Mainnie is the wife of S. D. Harmon and
is the mother of three living children ; they reside at Fresno. Josephine mar-
ried Joe ]\Iarcial ; she lived with her parents on the ranch and died after her
marriage, leaving no children. Leonore is the wife of Ernest Caldwell, a
rancher near Caruthers. Ed married Beulah Purse, and is a rancher near
Selma. Claude married Joe Erocco, a rancher near Alonmouth, and they
have three children — Bertha, Clarence, and Manuel. Vearnie and Leslie, are
living at home, and ]\Iinnie and Lelah died in infancy. ]\Ir. Antone and his
large family live comfortably on his ranch, upon which he built a fine
bungalow country home at a cost of $5,000 eight years ago.
He is a brother-in-law of Joe Rogers, one of the thirty-nine held up by
the desperado Vasquez, at Kingston. Mr. Antone was well acquainted with
such men as the Rowell brothers, Cuthbert, Burrel, Jefferson James, P. C.
Phillips, ^^'illiam Schultz and William Helme. He is a member of the Catho-
lic Church at Selma and in politics is a consistent Republican. He has bought
Liberty Bonds for himself and every member of his family, and is well liked
and respected by his friends and neighbors.
HUGO KREYENHAGEN.— Nestling among the font-hills of the Coast
Range mountains and extending back from the northern end of the Kettle-
man plains, lies the Canoas Rancho, one of the three large ranches owned by
the Kreyenhagens, and the residence of Hugo Kreyenhagen. The house is
large, comfortable and modern, and is gracefully presided over bv his accom-
plished wife; both Mr. and INIrs. Kreyenhagen being liberal and kind hearted
vie with each other in dispensing old-time Californian hospitality.
Hugo Kreyenhagen was born in the Oak Openings, at what was then
called West Point, now Oakland, Cal.. November 2, 1858. His father, Gustave
a native of Germany, w-as a college graduate and a man of scholarly attain-
ments who was master of six languages. He was married in his native country
to Julia Ilering. and about 1853 came to St. Louis, Mo., wdiere he was an in-
structor in a college imtil he came to San Francisco, Cal., via Panama. He
was engaged in the mercantile business and it was during his residence at
West Point that Hugo was born. Afterwards he engaged in sheep raising
on the Peach Tree Ranch in Monterey County, and also on a ranch near
Gilroy. In about 1867 he located on the \\'est Side of the San Joaquin Val-
ley, at a place which became known as Kreyenhagens' Corners, where he
ran a store and raised sheep until Los Banos was started in the same locality
and he became one of the first settlers of the new town, built a store and a
hotel, and was in business there at the same time with his sons ; he also
continued sheep-raising as well as freighting. He sold his holdings there and
in 1876 located at Posa Chene, now Turk Station, Fresno County, where he
built a store, hotel, livery stable and sheep corrals, and with his sons engaged
in the merchandise business and stock-raising, also in buying land. He owned
Fresno Hot Springs, where he built a hotel and made improvements — a place
still owned by the estate — and here he and his wife spent their last days, a
worthy couple much esteemed for their culture and high moral and religious
principles.
Of their five children who grew to maturity, Hugo is the second oldest.
From a bt)y he learned the stock business, riding the range and assisting in
grain-raising. His education was obtained in Christian Brothers College, Oak-
land, and when his school days were ended he threw all of his energies into
the stock business in which he and his brothers have been so successful. He
came to Posa Chene when he was a young man of eighteen, so he has seen
A
'^-i-^ij n^t^.,^..-C''yxAA^'-^>iyi^
f/l^OyuU^ }yi, [7C^L-W-«-^-^^-
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1251
all of the wonderful dex'elopment of the A\'est Side, in which he has taken a
part and of which he can be justl}' proud. The four brothers Kreyenhagen
continued together, raising both sheep and cattle, running about 10,000 head
of sheep and 600 head of cattle. Later they disposed of their sheep and de-
voted their whole range to raising cattle, and are today undoubtedly the
largest individual cattle growers in Fresno County. They purchased land
from time to time until they own three large adjoining ranches known as
"Canoas," "Zapato Cheno," and "Los Polvaderos." lying southeast of Coalinga
and embracing about 10,000 acres. The ranches are well watered by wells and
streams and springs, the latter extending back into the foot-hills of the Coast
Range, making them well adapted for cattle-raising. Besides these ranches
they lease about 33,000 acres of railroad and other lands, thus ha\ing an im-
portant and valuable range for their large herds of graded Durhams and
Herfords — for they use full-blooded bulls of those strains at the head of their
herds. However, they also bring in whole trainloads of cattle from Mexico,
Arizona and L'tah, turning them on their range until they are in condition
to ship to the markets. The brothers also raise about 2.000 acres of grain
each year, using a caterpillar engine and combined harvester. The)' estab-
lished and owned the Crescent Meat Market in Coalinga, later selling it to
M. Levy.
A few years'ago Kreyenhagen Brothers (four of them) incorporated their
holdings as Kreyenhagens, Inc., being a close corporation including onlv
members of the family. They are alsd largely interested in the Hays Cattl''
Company, operating a large stock ranch in .\rizona.
On the Avanal Ranch near Dudl('\-, miw Kings County, on August 19,
1S83, occurred the marriage of Hugo Krcwnhagen with ]\Iiss Marie Merrill,
a nati^•e daughter of California, Iiorn at licnicia. S(.lano County. Her father,
Caleb S. Merrill, Jr., born at Sheldon I*"alls, Mass.. and reared in Illinois, when
seventeen years of age crossed the plains with his father and familv in an ox
team train in 1852. Grandfather, Caleb S. Merrill, Sr., was an architect and
builder and followed that business in the early davs. He resided in California
until he was seventy-eight, then he returned to Missouri and there he died.
Caleb S. Merrill, Jr.. married Jennie Larseneur, who was born in Canada of
an old French-Canadian family. Her father. Peter Larseneur, brought his
famih- to California in 1852. He was also a contractor, and with Caleb S.
Merrill as a partner, built many of the early buildings in Benicia. among them
the old Benicia Barracks. Afterwards he was a contractor in San Francisco,
and among the many earh' buildings he erected was the old Stock Exchange.
]\Irs. Kreyenhagen's father was a stock-raiser on the General Neiglee
ranch at Bantos for many years, then a farmer near Stockton until 1878,
when he purchased the Avanal Ranch in Tulare, but now Kings County.
Here he raised cattle and sheep, having large herds and flocks on this large
area of land and being actively engaged until his death. His widow after-
wards disposed of the ranch and for some years made her home in Oakland.
She spent her last days in Coalinga, where she died in 1916. Of the eight
children born to this worthy pioneer couple, five are living, of whom Mrs.
Kreyenhagen is the oldest. .She received a good education in the schools of
Stockton and at Lemoore.
Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Kreyenhagen have two children : Olga, a graduate
of the Hanford High School and the Oakland Polytechnic, then spent two
years in the L^niversity of California, is now the wife of A. L. Newport of
Hanford: Ernest Hugo, a graduate of the Coalinga Union High, spent two
years as a student at the University of California in Berkeley,, enlisted for
service in the L^nited States Army, serving in the California Grizzlies, Bat-
tery E, 144th Regiment Artillery, Fortieth Di^•ision. Since his honorable dis-
charge he is assisting his father on the ranch, being a stockholder and director
in the Kreyenhagens. Inc., as well as a stockholder in the Hays Cattle Com-
panv. Airs. Kreyenhagen is a member of Lucerne Chapter No. 127, O. E. S.,
1252 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
at Hanford, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Interested in the
cause of education Mr. Kreyenhagen has served as school trustee, keeping
up the high standard of the schools of the state. He is a member of the Cal-
ifornia Cattle Growers" Association. Mr. and Mrs. Kreyenhagen took part
in the different drives for war funds, to which they were liberal contributors,
and both are life members of the Coalinga Chapter of the American National
Red Cross. Enterprising and progressive, they are never backward in giving
of their means and influence to further worthy movements for the upbuilding
of the great commonwealth — where they were born and where every portion
is dear to them. F"ortunate is the individual wlio has the pleasure of being
entertained at the Canoas Ranch. ]\Ir. Kreyenhagen is a protectionist and
Republican in politics.
JOSEPH R. LE BLANC— The varied and extended ocean trips .which
mark the career of Joseph R. Le Blanc, a successful horticulturist of Mc-
Kinley Avenue, Fresno, have given him a broad and interesting knowledge
of the various ports of the world, and his friends enjoy hearing about his
interesting experiences. He is a native son of California, born at Lodi, San
Joaquin County, April 13, 1869, a son of Pery and Sarah (Hough) Le Blanc.
The father, a native of Louisiana, saw service in the Civil War in the Con-
federate Army, being a member of a Louisiana regiment. The mother was
a native of Mississippi, and accompanied her liusband and one son to Cal-
ifornia in 1866, coming by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and locating at
Lodi, San loaquin County, where he bought a ranch. In 1876, ATr. -Le Blanc
located in Fresno Count}' on the Kings River above Centerville, where he
engaged in stock-raising until 1878. Afterwards he removed to Fresno and
was engaged in the sheep business, running the sheep on the plains. Later
he became deputy constable and marshal in Fresno County, retaining these
important ofifices until he retired. He passed away in Fresno at the age of
sixty-four years. His widow, who is now in her seventy-eighth year, resides
with her son, J. R. Le Blanc, the subject of this review. Mr. and ]\Irs. Pery
Le Blanc were the parents of five children, four of whom grew to maturitv :
Robert, who lives in Bakersfield, is in the employ of the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company; Joseph R., the subject of this sketch: Thomas, a Heuten-
ant in the LTnited States Army, stationed at Ft. Alason ; and Albert, a
musician, and who has a music store in Fresno.
J. R. Le Blanc has been a resident of the city of Fresno since 1878, and
after attending the public school there was apprenticed to Barrett & Hicks,
the well known plumbers, to learn the trade, and was the first boy to learn
the business with this firm. After finishing his apprenticeship he remained
with them as a journeyman plumluT fur tlirce vears. His next business enter-
prise was as the proprietor of the Ircsno llakcrv. in which undertaking he
suffered loss by fire and afterwards lucated in Paso Robles, where in com-
pany with two others he o]iened a hardware st(ire, of which he was the man-
ager, the firm being known as Bennett, Shackelford & Le Blanc. After six-
teen months he sold his interest to his partners and returned to Fresno.
In 1891, !\Ir. Le Blanc realizing the ^■alue of a business education, entered
the Ramsey Business College, at Stockton, imm which institution he was
graduated. Desiring to see the world and to bniadin his knowledge of navi-
gation, J. R. Le Blanc entered the LTnited States Xa\ \ , in January, 1892, and
was assigned to the Mohican as navigator's writer, in wliich position he spent
one year, when he was transferred to the captain's office. In August, 1894,
he was trans"ferred to the Petrel where he was Chief Yeoman, and while in
China reenlisted in the service. Mr. Le Blanc was next transferred to the
Battleship Oregon, at the time she was first commissioned into service, in
1896 ; she afterwards became famous for her important service during the
Spanish-American ^^'ar. In January, 1898. J. R. Le Blanc was paid off at
Bremerton, \A'ash., and upon leaving the navy he returned to Fresno.
HISTORY ()!• FRP:SX() COUNTY 1253
Mr. Le Blanc then opened a plumbing business on Fresno Street, where
he continued for one year. After selling- out he entered the merchant marine,
sailing from San Francisco to Oueenstown, via Cape Horn, on the Eurasia,
and after reaching his destination he was paid off at Limerick, when he pro-
ceeded to Liverpool. From this great English maritime center, Mr. Le Blanc
sailed on a Holland steamer to Buenos Ayres, and from the metropolis of
Argentina proceeded to Rosario, a town in the Province of Santa Fe, Argen-
tina, on the Parana River, 230 miles from Buenos Ayres. After remaining
there for two months he sailed on the windjammer Egeria, for Cajie Town,
South Africa, and was in that country during the Boer War. Later he returned
on the same ship to the ^\'est Indies and from there sailed for Xew \'nvk ( ity.
After arriving in his native land once more, he sailed for CalifMrni.i \-i,i the
Isthmus of Panama and after crossing the Isthmus took the stcanur .\c\\]iiirt
for San Francisco, where he arrived September 9, 1902. Upon reaching the
Golden State, Mr. Le Blanc returned to Fresno where he was employed
again by Barrett & Hicks, continuing with them in the plumbing business
until June, 1916, when he resigned to look after his jieach ranch. In 1907, he
had ])urchased forty acres on McKinley Avenue, which he had improved by
planting twenty acres to cling and twenty to Muir peaches. In the operation
of his ranch he uses up-to-date methods and equipment.
In September, 1906. J. R. Le Blanc was united in marriage with Mrs.
Mary (Wilson) Young, a native of Elkhart, Ind., who came to California with
her parents about 1888. Mr. and Mrs. Le Blanc are the parents of one child:
Georgia. Fraternally, Mr. Le Blanc is a member of the Foresters of America
and is a stockholder in and a member of the California Peach Growers, Inc.
MARIUS L. KOLLER. — No influence has been more potent in the de-
velopment of Fresno County than that exerted by the pioneers of viticulture
and horticulture, and to these enterprising and far-seeing men, who overcame
many obstacles licfore attaining their ,i:;<ial, great credit is due for the present
prosperous condition of the count}-, .\mong these is Marius L. Koller. the
subject of this review, a native of Denmark, born October 19, 1858, on the
Island of Bornholm, in the Baltic Sea. His father owned a farm on the
island and he was known as Peter Kjollcr, but, for the sake of convenience
in business, Marius changed the spelling of his name to Koller. His mother
was, in maidenhood, Annetta Kofoed, and both of his parents are now de-
ceased. Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kjoller were the parents of four children, two
of whom grew to maturity : Anton, who makes his home on the old home
place on the Island of Bornholm ; and Marius, the suliject of this sketch, who
is the youngest.
Marius L. was reared on the farm and attended both grammar and
high school in Denmark. He served the required time in the Danish army,
being a member of the First Regiment of Artillery. Desiring to seek his
fortune in America, he left his native land for the United States, April 8,
1880, and upon arrival continued his journey Avestward until he reached the
Golden State, in IMay, 1880, locating at Merced, where he was employed on a
ranch by ^^'illiam Applegarth. He continued there until 1882, when he accom-
panied Mr. .Applegarth to Fresno County and worked for him on the con-
struction of the canal that runs in front of his present ranch. Ijut at that
time he never dreamed he would own a ranch in that vicinity. In 1884, Mr.
Koller again came to Fresno County, to help in harvesting. Init when the
work was completed he returned to Merced where he engaged in grain-
farming during the season of 1884-85, continuing there until 1885, when he
moverl to Fresno County and rented land in the Madison district and engaged
in raising grain.
It was in 1890 that Mr. Koller purchased his present ranch of forty acres
on California and Polk Streets, five miles west of Fresno. The ranch at that
time was in wheat but after ploughing it under he set thirty acres to muscat
1254 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
A-ines, five to alfalfa, and five acres were devoted to a peach orchard. Owing
to sub-irrigation the soil proved too wet for the vines, so in after years Mr.
Roller dug up the vineyard and planted the acreage to alfalfa. Mr. Koller
recalls how he sold raisins as low as one and a quarter cents per pound. He
is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and has been a
member of all of the various raisin associations since the first one organized
by M. Theo. Kearney. By industry and economy Mr. Koller has prospered
in his undertakings, and in 1914 he bought twenty acres adjoining his ranch,
making a total of sixty acres. In addition to raising alfalfa and peaches,
Mr. Koller conducts a dairy and since the organization of the Danish Cream-
ery Association he has been a stockholder.
On December 10, 1891, ]\Iarius L. Koller was united in marriage, at
Fresno, with Miss jMargaret Enemark, born in Slesvig. This happy union has
been blessed with four children : Thorvald, who is helping his father on the
ranch; Agnethe, now Mrs. Sorensen. of Vallejo; Harold, who was raised in
Fresno County, educated in the schools, and was leading man at Baypoint
Navy Yard when he died from the Spanish influenza, January 13, 1919; and
Anton, who is assisting his father. "Sir. and Airs. Koller are members of the
Lutheran Church, and he is a Republican in national politics and a member
of the California Peach Growers, Inc.
R. C. BAKER. — Conspicuous among the wide-awake men of affairs of
bustling and progressive Coalinga must be rated R. C. Baker, who was born
at Chester, Va., on July 18, 1872, and has since then led a many-sided, active
and successful life, while no one today places a higher value on education,
and few are more interested in the preservation of Californian historical
data. His father, Reuben, was a native of the Keystone State and came to
California in the Centennial year. At first he located in Shasta County, until
he joined his son Reuben C, who had located in Los Angeles, and has since
been assisting his son looking after his farming and horticultural enterprise
at Sanger and other Central California points.
R. C. Baker, the subject of this review, started out for himself at the
age of twenty-one and located in Los Angeles at the very time when the
oil boom excited that city. He, too, was enthused by the sight of the oil
wells being sunk within the city limits, and from that time he has been
identified with the oil business, but in a large way. In 1899, Mr. Baker came
to the Coalinga district as a contractor, first starting to drill a well on Sec.
21-14, three miles west of town. This was before a depot was built and there
were no oil wells in sight of the town, the only oil wells being at Oil City,
nine miles to the north of Coalinga. In 1900 he went to the Kern River oil
field at Bakersfield, drilling some fifteen or twenty wells for the Mount
Diablo Oil, Mining and Development Company, in which he was financially
interested and a director. At the same time he was interested in the Midway
district, being one of the locators and promotors of the Bay City Oil Com-
pany, the first company to get oil in the Midway" district. He was also one
of the organizers of the Empire Oil Company which developed and produced
the first light oil in the Midway field in 1901. In November, 1901, Mr. Baker
went to Wyoming and drilled a well 1,500 feet deep on a contract for the
Western Wyoming Oil Company, but they failed to strike oil. In 1902 Mr,
Baker returned to the Coalinga district, and since then he has been in charge
of many wells in that field. He had his home in the fields until 1909, but he
has since made his residence in Coalinga.
With his brother, J. E. Baker, he owns a ranch of 160 acres near Sanger.
It was raw land when they took hold of it, but they have developed sixty
acres to White Adriatic figs and twenty in alfalfa. He is also interested in
the Coalinga-lMerced Syndicate, which owns three ranches. in Merced County,
consisting of some 2,900 acres, now being subdivided into smaller tracts.
There are 1,076 acres in grain, partly barley, and 1,090 acres elsewhere iri
(/D a^J^^^yty.
HISTORY OF FRE-SXO COUNTY 1257
grain. Individually he owns a ranch of 1,054 acres sixteen miles from Merced
on the Merced River, which he is gradually improving to alfalfa and fruits,
and where by putting in pumping-plants he has ample water for irrigation.
That Air. Baker is not merely a successful theorist but a very practical
workman is shown by the fact that he has invented fifteen different ap])li-
ances in machinery used in the development of oil. The leading patent is
known as the Baker Casing Shoe, and a factory was recently established in
Coalinga for their manufacture, and also for the making of other oil-tool
supplies, incorporated as the Baker Casing Shoe Company for $150,000 capi-
tal, he being president, manager and principal owner of the company. This
casing shoe has become a very \-aluable article in well-boring. It is a steel
shoe put onto the bottom of the casing during the boring of a well, and
greatly facilitates the work. This inxc-ntiini is now used all over the world
where oil is developed, being used in far-away Russia, Rumania, India and
South America. The invention was patented in 1907, and since then over
two hundred thousand of the appliances have been made and are in use.
They are made to sell from twenty dollars to $120 each, according to size. The
company also makes a line of other useful patents and special tools used in
oil operations, and to facilitate the supply he has arranged for different manu-
facturers in various parts of the United States to manufacture his patents
on a royalty.
In 1908 Mr. Baker helped organize the First National Bank of Coalinga,
and he is today a director in the institution. He is also an organizer and
president of the Coalinga Gas and Power Company. From the organization
of the Coalinga Union High School he was president of its board of trustees
until in 1918, when he refused to be a candidate for reelection on account of
his time being taken up on the Exemption Board. During this time the
splendid high school l^uildings were built. He was a member of District No. 1
of the I'resno County Exemption Board and served actively on it from start
to finish, being appointed July 3. 1917, and continuing till the armistice was
signed and to his credit and patriotism, and like his colleagues, did not even
present a bill for expenses. For some years he was a member of the Coalinga
Board of Trustees and Library Board. He is also an active member of the
Coalinga Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. Baker married Miss Minnie Zumwalt, a nati\-e daughter born in
Colusa County and a memlier of one of the best-known families of California
pioneers; and they have two children, J. R. Carlton and Thelma. Mrs. Baker
is a member of the Presbyterian Church and the Coalinga Chapter of Red
Cross. Few persons have had the opportunity to do for Coalinga what Mr.
Baker has done, and no one has been more faithful to duty and pri\ilege.
JEREMIAH HURLEY. — An interesting old-timer who has not only
made a reputation for straightforward, square dealing, but is one of the
pioneer dairymen and butter-makers of Central California, is Jeremiah Hur-
ley, who had five sons on duty and one waiting the call, in the ("".re:\t W ar,
and deserves the esteem of every American for having sacrificed nne nt tlu-m
in the cause of liberty. He first came to California in 1875. and on September
13, 1877, arrived in Fresno, the scene of so much of his subsequent success.
He was born in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland, in 1848, and was reared on a
farm, while he attended a private school. In 1873 he came to the L^nited
States, landing in New York on May 5, and from there he went to Boston,
where he worked for two months. His next removal was to Hartford, Conn.,
in the days when Mark Twain was a prominent and popular resident of that
Yankee city, and there he worked at farming.
\A'hen Mr. Hurley luckily moved west to California, he set up a dairy
at Petaluma, but unable to resist the attraction of Fresno County, he moved
his establishment south, lie li.catcd in the Central California Colony and
bought twenty acres, whicli he improved by planting alfalfa and setting out
an orchard and vines. After a while he bought twenty acres adjoining, and
1258 HISTORY OF. FRESNO COUNTY
later he twice added twenty acres more. At one time he had eighty acres
devoted to farming and also' to dairying, for he established a first-class dairy.
He was the first butter man who made rolls of butter and sold them in Fresno,
and he also invented a churn of his own. He took a barrel of about forty-
gallon capacity, which he hung in the long way, now so general, and which
attracted much attention.
Later Mr. Hurley sold out in order to engage in stock-raising, and then
he removed to Auberry V'alley, where he traded for a ranch, upon which he
settled. He bought land and took a preemption of 160 acres. The ranch is
located on the North Fork of Little Dry Creek, and there he raises cattle,
hogs and goats. He has a thousand acres of land in a body on the creek, and
they are watered by ample springs. He is also raising wheat, barley and oats,
and he has produced the largest crops of potatoes ever raised there. He has
also built a residence, and suitable barns ; and he still runs his cattle on the
ranch, under the brand JH (combined) branded on the left hip.
In 19O0, Mr. Hurley bought his present home ranch of forty acres in the
Perrin Colony Xo. 2, six and a half miles northwest of Fresno, and there he
has his residence and headquarters. He was a school trustee in the .\uberry
Vallev for many years and he was the oldest school trustee in the county
when he resigned in 1917, and was a deputy under Sheriff McSwain.
In Tune, 1884, ']\Tr. Hurley was married in Fresno County to Miss Kate
Sweenev. a native of County Cork, Ireland, who came to San Francisco in
1876 and to Fresno County in 1880. They have had ten children: Julia, at
home; Cornelius Val answered the call an(l ])rissed examination but was never
drawn; he assists the subject of our sketch to run the ranch ; Jeremiah Llew-
ellyn was in the Ignited States service over-seas and was wounded but re-
covered and continued in service until honorably discharged, April, 1919;
John Wellington served in the United States Army and has since been hon-
orably discharged; Margaret is at home; Henry H. is serving in the United
States Naval Reserve Force ; George Dewey was in the Aviation Corps as a
flier over-seas, and has been since honorably discharged ; and there are Mary
J., and Tames Emmett. The fifth in the order of birth, Timothy Sarsfield, died
at \\'iliiams Bridge, New York City, in April. 1918, while serving in the
I'nited States Army.
An interesting experience not afforded every rancher fell to the lot of
Mr. Hurley some time ago. He was running a bunch of cattle near Mc-
Mullen's, when a photographer took a picture of them among the alkali
weeds. He heard nothing more of the matter until, to his surprise and satis-
faction, he received an Agricultural Report from the Government at ^^'ash-
ington, containing as one of the embellishments to the volume, the photo-
graphic study of his choice herd ; and later he was still more pleased to see
the same picture used as an illustration in the school books designed for
Young Californians.
HENRY SANTEN. — In the new and changed era that is upon us, poul-
try-raising and egg-farming must be conducted upon a newer and broader
basis than in vogue during past years, and Henry Santen of Conejo, on his
two-acre poultry farm, has solved many perplexing questions in relation to
this industry and has succeeded in reducing it to a science.
His svstem differs from Philo's or Weeks' or any other known system
of egg-production, and is peculiarly adaptable to the conditions of soil, climate
and environment obtaining at Conejo. Bolton Hall wrote, "Three acres and
independence!" — but Hall's idea must yield to Henry Santen's actual demon-
stration of "Two acres and a competency!" He has built up a twenty-five-
hundred-dollar poultry-plant which he conducts along the line of his original
ideas and methods.
Mr. Santen was born at St. Louis, Mo., .\ugust 31, 1867, and is of German
extraction. His parents, John and .\nne (Therhorst) Santen, were born in
Germanv. They came to Missouri and were married at St. Louis, Mo. The
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1259
father was a teamster, a fanner, and the owner of a Missouri farm. Later he
removed to Woodson County, Kans., where young Henry grew to maturity.
Henry had a brother who died twenty-five years ago. He has four sisters
who are all living in the Middle West. He received his education in the ex-
cellent public schools of Kansas, and in 1889 went to Oregon, where he spent
seven years. For several years he was connected with Mt. Angel College,
at Mt. Angel, Ore., in the capacity of bookkeeper. Later he came to San
Francisco, where he learned the barber trade and worked at barbering until
after the earthquake in April, 1906. He received such a shock at that time
that he resolved to get out of the earthquake belt, and accordingly came to
Fresno in 1906. For two years he was emploj'ed at the Wild Flower Stock
Farm, two miles southeast of Conejo, then came to Conejo in 1908, where he
engaged in the barber business.
At that time the cattle-shipping town of Conejo was infested with three
saloons and gambling dens, together with all appurtenances usually found
in connection with such places. The good people of the community got to-
gether and voted the town dry. Then an era of boot-legging and tin-liorn
gambling set in. Henry Santen became the leader of the dry forces and the
decent element of the community. He received the appointment of humane
officer, and in conducting his business had to make arrests of law-breaking
boot-leggers. He stood courageously for law-enforcement and decencv, and
for this reason was singled out by the other element for punishment. He was
threatened with lynching, shooting and personal violence, and it was sought
to drive him out of the community. It took courage to remain in Conejo in
the face of such prejudice, but Henry Santen remained at his post. The
WV)men's Christian Temperance L'nion and the law-abiding citizens came to
his aid. and by their united efforts Conejo is today an orderly dry tnwn. In
the columns of the Fresno Republican of October 6th and 7th. l''ll, apiieared
articles headed: "Lone man is flighting liquor element at Conejo," and "Hot
battle is raging in Comi'i Intwixt wets and drys. — Officer Santen charges
District Attorney witli inilit'tercncc."
Mr. Santen continuetl to run his barber-shop at Conejo until 1913. when
he engaged in the poultry business. He began operations in a small and ex-
perimental \\ay, first starting with Buff Orpingtons, and later tried others of
the heavier breeds. He has come to the conclusion that ^\'hite Leghorns are
the best breed for egg-production. He buys baby-chicks and sells the cock-
erels when large enough for broilers, keeping only layers. His net receipts
for the eggs from 2?0 eight-months'-old Leghorn pullets, for the month of
December, 1918, were $250. and his well arranged hen-houses, yards, self-
feeders and watering system, designed after his own pl3ns, bear witness to
the efficiency of his methods. He has studied, worked, observed, and grown
with the business. He has an irrigation plant (well and six-horsepower
engine) on the premises and raises the green food necessary for his flock. He
is about to install an electrically heated brooding-plant, and will increase his
flock of layers to 2,000 by January, 1920. He confidently looks forward to a
competency on his little two-acre farm at Conejo. He understands the power
and has the ability of concentration. He is a great reader and student and is
well informed. He has read the Bible in English, German and Latin. He was
brought up a Catholic, but is now an agnostic.
He is a careful student of political and economic questions, and aims
always to vote for officials of correct principles and habits, and men of ability.
He is a great admirer of Thomas Edison and other men of accomplishment.
He has an up-to-date Edison phonograph of the best quality, and furnishes
music for himself and his many friends and patrons of the Conejo Free Public
Librarv, of which he is librarian. He furnishes the room for the Conejo branch
of the Fresno County Library free of charge and keeps the Sunday Examiner
on sale. He purchased freely of Liberty Bonds and was the leader in soliciting
and gathering up Red Cross funds.
1260 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
PETER M. MORGAN. — A veteran of the Civil \Var, and one whose
personality no less than his enviable official record has entitled him to the
respect and best wishes of all who have been privileged to know him, is Peter
5r. Morgan, who first came to California somewhat over a decade ago. He was
born in Shelby County, Ohio, on May 7, 1S44, the son of a farmer, Monfort
Morgan, also a native of that state, the original family having been known
as Monfort, and coming from French descent. Grandfather ]\Iorgan belonged
to the \\'elsh family of Morgans that located in the Province of Jersey in the
seventeenth century : and he was in the Revolutionary ^^'ar. ^^'hile in Ohio,
Peter's father married Rebecca 'Mulford, a native of that State; and there
the mother died. The father migrated to Kansas, went back to Ohio, returned
to Kansas and died there. Eleven children bore the honored name ; and there
was also a half-brotlier. Aaron Morgan, who enlisted in the Civil War and
served in the same regiment and company as did the subject of our sketch.
The eldest child of this union, Peter attended the public schools, grew up
and enlisted in the Union Army, in August, 1862. becoming a volunteer in
Company I, 118th Ohio \'olunteers, that was mustered in at Lima, Ohio, as
a part of the Army of the Ohio. For the first ten months he was placed on
guard duty on the Kentucky Central Railway, and then he was with Burn-
side in his campaigning in eastern Tennessee. He took part in the Siege of
Kno.xville and the fighting at Mossy Creek. Sweetwater, Loudon and Kings-
ton, and on May 7, 1864, joined Sherman on his memorable Atlanta campaign,
seeing service at Buzzard's Roost, Red Clay Station, Roccaca, Peach Tree,
Ottawa River, Kennesaw Mountain, and Snake Creek Gap. He assisted at the
Siege of Atlanta, and was at Lovejoy station under Thornas, getting into the
battles of Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville. Later he was transferred, via
Washington, and Alexandria, Va., to Smith\-ille. N. C, and he saw the
taking of Fort Anderson, Fort Wilmington and Fort Goldsborough. Fie
marched to Salisbury. N. C, and did guard dutv until June 28, 1855, when he
was transferred to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and then brought on to
Cleveland. In July, 1865. after having seen a great deal of the roughest ser-
vice, yet never being wounded, he was mustered out and honorably discharged.
On returning home, 'Sir. Morgan farmed for a year, during which he
worked at shoemaking while awaiting the prospective crop. The crop failed,
and he continued at his last in Ohio. In 1868, at Spring Hill, in that State,
he married iNIiss ]\Iary Catherine Mathis, a native of the Buckeye State and
the daughter of Allen Mathis, a farmer there, and then he moved to Kansas.
The same year he located in what is now Harvey Count)', near Sedgwick,
where he homesteaded 160 acres, which he improved and farmed and sold to
his father. He then 'engaged in the hardware business in Sedgwick City, but
when the grasshoppers and the panic of 1873 and 1874 came, he went out of
business. He next became a carpenter and builder, and for three years he was
the manager of a lumber yard. In 1889, he opened a lumber yard, hardware
and furniture store at Edmond, Okla., but a month later he located at Newton,
Kans., where, for a year, he was the manager of a lumber yard. After that
he was in the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad, working first as carpenter
and then as foreman in their bridge and building department. Not having
proved up on the homestead, he was entitled to another try; and in 1891,
when Kiowa and Comanche, Okla., were opened, he drew a number which
gave him a new homestead fourteen miles north of Anadarko. Beginning
with March, 1902, he located on it and improved it; and in 1905 he sold his
claim.
The following year was memorable in his ex]3erience, for he came to
California and found it, from the first, a promised land. He then bought the
vineyard he has, a fine tract of forty acres in the Garfield District, only four-
teen acres of which were at that time set out to vines ; but with the aid of
his son, H. C. Morgan, he planted the remaining section. \Miile they were at
Newton, Kans., in 1890, Mrs. Morgan died, the beloved mother of four chil-
J)cu^cl4 ^/oAtL^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1263
dren : Iza became ^Frs. Frank \\'. Johnson, and died in California, the mother
of a girl, Blanche: and Harry C. is a \'iticulturist and, as a man of affairs, is
associated with his father in the management of the ranch; Claude D. is in
Carthage, AIo., where he has married Aliss Aletha Ferguson; Hattie D. died
in Kansas.
Mr. Morgan has frequently proven a leader among his fellowmen. He
was Justice of the Peace at Sedgwick City, when the country was new and
wild, in the stormy days of Kansas, and frequently had cases to keep him
busy for days ahead. He was a councilman at the same city, and also served
as Mayor and as school trustee. In politics, he has become a Progressive
Republican. Always interested in the welfare of the Civil War veterans, Mr.
Morgan is a member of Atlanta Post. G. A. R.. at Fresno, and has been Post
Commander. He is a member of the San Joaquin Valley Veterans Associa-
tion, and in 1916 was Commander and presided at the annual meeting in Clovis
in that year. He is identified with the Unitarian Church at Fresno. He was
made a Alason in Stokes Lodge, No. 205, Port Jefferson. Ohio, and then helped
organize the lodge at Sedgwick City, Kans., where he was a Past IMaster.
Finally, he was transferred to Newton Lodge, No. 142, and still retains his
membership there. He also belongs to the Modern Woodmen, at Carthage,
Mo.
SANDS BAKER.— The title of pioneer was justly merited by Sands Ba-
ker, for he came to Fresno County many years ago and was closely identified
with its best interests. The lives of the early settlers of Fresno County were
one unbroken record of hardships and privations, but those who survived to
the present daj^ find ample compensation for the deprivations of the past.
High above the fog and mist, nestling among the foot-hills of the Sierras,
some forty-seven years ago was established a home of comfort, refinement
and culture, bv Sands Baker and his good wife, pioneers of Squaw A'alley
and substantial upbuilders of this section of the state.
A native of New York State, Sands Baker was born at Montezuma, on the
Erie Canal. December 19, 1837, a son of George and ]Martha N. (Bentley)
Baker, both of English extraction, who had immigrated to New York from
Massachusetts. Early depri\ed of a father's love and guidance, when he was
fifteen years of age. Sands Baker was taken to Oconto. "Wis., by an uncle who
was in the lumber business. Young Baker gained a good knowledge of that in-
dustry. l)ut he did not have an}- liking for it, his desire being tn olitain a thor-
ough education. He attended the public schools in Ne\\' ^'ork state, then en-
tered a seminary near .Mliany. wlurc ;i tli'.u^.ind studrnt< wrrc In-ing prepared
for professional careers. He next went tn Mruli^on. Wis., where he entered the
high school and specialized in English until failing e_\"esi,uht necessitated his
relinquishing his studies. He went to Green Bay, A\'is., and taught three years
in the public schools. He was very successful and instituted sextral innova-
tions that made the school work very efficient. He then traveled for his
health and for recreation, through M'innesota, Iowa, and to St. Joseph, Mo.,
where he fell in with some men who pictured the wonders of California so
vividly that the young schoolmaster was fired with the desire to try his for-
tune on the w-estern coast.
Leaving St. Joseph in the spring of 1860. with a party bound for the
Pacific Coast, the journey was made with horses and mustangs, via Salt Lake.
Finding feed short they abandoned their original course and came through
Salt Lake Valley. Indians threatened to attack them but the danger was
averted and the party arrived in Los Angeles in September. Mr. Baker went
on to Visalia. While assisting in baling some hay at Rockyford. he met a
county superintendent of schools who wanted to hire a teacher. At that
time there were but two public schools in all of Tulare County. Mr. Baker
established a private school, which he taught two years. Since he was in
California, Mr. Baker decided to investigate so far as he was able and he
went north into the mining sections and was employed as principal of the
1264 HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY
school at Downieville, in Sierra County. He closed the school at one p. m.
and spent the rest of the time in the mines, but on studying the condition of
the people so engaged he decided that mining was not his forte. He succeeded
as a teacher, getting an advance of forty dollars per month in salary if he
would continue the work. He eventually returned to Visalia and taught a
private school for six months. He filled the position of government inspector
of tobacco, gager of liquors and revenue assessor during which time he often
was called to old Millerton, meanwhile acting as deputy assessor of Tulare
County. Soon becoming known as an expert mathematician, he was often
called in to figure interest on notes and accounts, and to straighten out
tangled bookkeeping, being well paid for such services. He continued this
until his health failed and he had to seek a change.
In October, 1872, the marriage of Sands Baker and ^liss Sarah Josephine
Drake was celebrated. ]\Irs. Baker was born in Ohio, but came to California
with her parents in 1870. settling near Tulare Lake, and later in Squaw Val-
ley. On the maternal side she is of old Virginian stock. Of this happy union
there were born seven children: Martha A., married L, B. King; Royal R.,
married Nellie J. Hodges and they live near Farmersville ; Chauncey ]\I., mar-
ried Olive E. Hargraves. a teacher ; Lulu M., became the wife of J. A. Mitch-
ell of Dunlap ; Blanche C, a graduate from the Stockton Business College
("19021, is married to Charles F. Hubbard, a competent stenographer and
bookkeeper; Elsie F.. is the wife of James R. Hinds: Pearl .\., was a teacher,
now Avife of C. F. Relander, and resides near A'isalia : and their adopted son,
William Baker, is farming near Exeter.
In 1870. Mr. Baker had come to Fresno County and purchased a quar-
ter section of land lying at the foot of the mountain that has become known
as Baker's Mountain. To this tract Mr. Baker added from time to time until
he had about 2.000 acres. 100 acres of which is under cultivation and the
balance given over to the stock business. Considerable of the land is val-
uable for its timber. On the ranch is grown fruits of all kinds and every
variety of vegetables as well as a considerable acreage in alfalfa, the whole
place being well improved. Besides this ranch he had some land near Visalia
where he was engaged in the stock business. Mr. Baker had chosen his home
place on account of a very fine spring that supplied sufficient water for nec-
essary irrigation. The flow of this spring was interfered with at the time
of the earthquake in 1906. ConsideralDle attention was given to raising fine
horses, and a fine stallion, a thoroughbred Percheron, owned by Mr. Baker,
was the means of raising the standard of horses in this part of the country.
He found a ready sale for many of his beef cattle at Hume, where is located
the large lumber mills and village.
In politics Mr. Baker was a stanch Republican, having cast his first presi-
dential ballot for President Lincoln. He had an honorable record in Fresno
County where he served as a member of the board of education ; deputy
county assessor and often served on the county grand jur}'. He was the
prime mover in having the road opened through from Sand Creek, which has
proven a boon to the settlers in the foot-hills. He was a Mason. In the even-
ing of life's span, with wife and children, grand-children and great-grand-
children, he enjoyed the comforts due him for his many years of toil. He
looked back on a life well spent and forward without regret, for he had done
what he considered his duty to his fellow man and to his country. Mr. Baker
died on April 13, 1918. and is buried in the cemetery on his home ranch ; his
funeral was one of the largest ever held in the hill section.
JOHN W. LOPER. — An honored resident of Fresno County since Jan-
uary, 1883, John A\'. Loper was born in Clinton County, Ohio, December 3,
1838, the son of William and Lucy Ann (Garrontte) Loper, natives of New
Jersey, of French descent.
In 1848. William Loper removed with his family to Hancock County, III,
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1265
and again in 1854 to Dallas County, Iowa, \\here he and his wife spent the re-
mainder of their days.
John W. was sixth oldest of their ten children. He was reared on the
farm and received his education in the log school-house of that period, learn-
ing the rule of three and to write with a quill pen. He was married at Adel,
Dallas County, Iowa, in 1859, to Miss Sarah Hoeye, born in Ohio.
Mr. Loper then purchased forty acres of land and after six months sold
it at a profit. Next he bought eighty acres, later selling it at a profit. He
then continued buying and selling farms and also swapping horses, and be-
tween the two, as he says, he made enough money to bring his family to
California. They arrived in Fresno in January, 1883. Eight days after his
arrival he purchased twenty acres one and one-half miles south of the court-
house, set it out to orchard and vineyard and continued there for six years,
when he sold it.
Meantime, in 1885, he had located a homestead of 160 acres on Little
Dry Creek and later bought 650 acres more. After moving onto it he began
improvements and raised cattle, and as he prospered he bought land adjoining
until he has over 2,000 acres. He also bought 160 acres of meadow land on
Kings River, but sold it eight years later. He owned an apple oi-chard on Pine
Ridge but he found it was too far from his ranch, so he sold it. He also owns
some lots and a residence in Fresno. For over twenty years he raised cattle,
using the brand 3L fcombined), and in April, 1919, he sold his cattle and he
now rents his land.
On December 11, 1^112, he was bereaved of his faithful wife and helpmate,
who was always an acti\-e member of the Christian Church. Thev were the
parents of the following children: A. M.. who is interested in and is manager
of Madary Planing Aiill ; Mar>-, who was I\Irs. Carman ; Lucy is ]\lrs. Zetz, and
presides over her father's hnusehold ; ^^'m., ranching on a part of the home
ranch: H. W., who has remained home and ably assisted his father in his
farming operations.
Mr. Loper has been school trustee of his school district for some years
and was clerk of the board. He was one of the organizers and is a member
of the Christian Church in Fresno, and politically he is a protectionist and
Republican.
PETER CHRISTENSEN.— Exceeding by two years the proverbial three
score and ten allotted to man. Peter Christensen, in the afternoon of a well-
spent life, is still hale and hearty, an inveterate worker and a man of strong
executive force. He was born May 21, 1847, at Jutland. Denmark. His father.
Christen Jacobson, a farmer and the owner of a small farm, and his mother,
Magdalen (Christinsen) Jacobson, were born in Denmark and lived and died
in their native country. The father lived to be sixty-six years old, and the
mother attained the ag£ of eighty. Mr. Christensen's maternal grandmother
lived to the ripe old age of ninety-six. Of the eight children in his father's fam-
ily, four bovs and four girls, Peter was the onlv one who came to America.
He recalls the German-Danish war of 1864 when twc . of his brothers enlisted.
His brother Jacob fell in the war and the other 1)rother lived to return home.
Peter received his education in the schools of his native land, was brought
up in the Lutheran faith and confirmed at fourteen. When fifteen years of
age he began to work out on near-by farms. He married Johanna Christensen
and continued his work as a farm hand, but for two years was engaged in
working for a government contractor in clearing up unimproved land pre-
paratory to planting it to timber by the Danish government. Eventually he
became foreman on a large farm in Denmark with ten men working under
him. He worked long hours, from four .A. M. until ten P. 'M. In 1892, Mr.
Christensen came to Oleander, Fresno County, Cal., with his wife and their
two children. He purchased ten acres, the nucleus of his home place, and
added to his acreage subsequently until he had 100 acres. He gave thirty
acres of this to his eldest son, and thirty acres to his eldest daughter. On the
1266 HISTORY OF FRESNO COL-XTY
remaining forty-acre home place he has planted Thompson seedless vines,
twenty acres of muscats, five acres of malagas. three acres of peaches and five
acres of apricots. He has a beautiful place, and seven years ago built a fine
house.
Mr, and Mrs. Christensen became the parents of eight children: Ivar,
who was born in Denmark, married Dovida Jeppsen of Oleander, and they
have one child, a boy named Donald. Ivar owns the thirty-acre ranch on
Maple Avenue just north of his father's ranch. Christian was also born in
Denmark, and died soon after the family came to Oleander, aged ten months.
Annie was born in Oleander, and is the wife of Christian Petersen. She owns
the thirty acres just south of her father's place on Maple Avenue. Carrie is
at home.' Magdalene and Margaret died in infancy. Henry, fourteen years of
age, is at home and is a student in Easton high school. Edna, aged twelve, is
a student in the grammar school.
Mr. Christensen and his good wife are respected and esteemed not only
bv their Danish-.\merican friends but by every one in the Oleander school
district, where for many years he has been a member of the school board, and
has served as trustee on the board. He is a stanch supporter of the public
school svstem, and is a natural leader among his fellows. He and his family
are prominent in the councils of the Danish Lutheran Church at Easton, of
which thev are members. He is a member of the Raisin Growers Association
and the Peach Growers Association. Mr. Christensen spent $1,600 for Liberty
Bonds, and bought liberally of Stamps, was active in Red Cross, Y. I\I. C. .\.
and united war work, and was out on the various drives. He has taken out
his naturalization papers and affiliates with the Republican party politically.
He has a Studebaker car and has taken numerous trips to the beach, has
driven to San Francisco twice and to Santa Cruz twice, and has made numer-
ous trips to mountains.
WILLIAM C. CLAYBAUGH, B. S. A.— A landscape architect to whom
Fresno and vicinity are indebted for notable public improvements, a learned
viticulturist and a gentleman of culture, is ^^'illiam C .Claybaugh. B. S. A.,
who is fortunate in having at his side an equally accomplished and charming
wife. He was born in Monmouth, ^^'arren County, 111., September 25. 1S79,
the son of Mathew Smith Claybaugh, a native of Ohio, who moved to Mon-
mouth and did valiant ser\'ice in the Civil \Var as a member of the Fiftieth
Illinois Regiment. In 1884, the father settled in Iowa and in Mills County
engaged in farming. Now he lives retired at Vallev, Nebr. Fie married Miss
Mary Elizabeth Moore, a Pennsylvanian. She is the mother of ten children,
all of whom are living to do her honor.
The fifth eldest in the family, A\'illiam C, was educated in the public
schools in Iowa. He then entered the Ames Agricultural College, from which
he graduated in 1905 with the degree of Bachelor of Scientific Agriculture,
having had his junior year in the practical garden laboratory at St. Louis.
He then engaged in landscape gardening at DeKalb, 111., and also did some
research work in Shaw's Botanical Garden at St. Louis. After that he spent
a year in architectual and landscape work at Chattanooga, Tenn., and then
for a few months he was in Chicago and Minneapolis pursuing the same line
of laboratorv studies.
In 1908, Mr. Claybaugh came to California, and at Alpaugh he associated
himself wnth the Iowa Land and Water Company. There he was superintend-
ent of works and had charge of the construction of canals and wells in the
irrigation system. After two and a half years he came to Fresno, and then
began that "identification with this section which has proven of such benefit
to the community.
On November 19, 1911. Mr, Claybaugh was appointed by Dr. Rowell as
Superintendent of Parks, and later he was reappointed by Alva Snow, thus
holding his position until 1917, when there was a change of administration.
He gave to his responsibility his untiring and most painstaking attention.
■<5^oJi/- 5)
HISTORY OF FRESXO COUNTY 1269
and among the important work that he effected was the changing of Roeding
Park. His plans were ap])rovcd by eminent San Francisco landscape artists,
and the results have met with general approval. He also laid out the parks
on Ventura Avenue and maintained there the most beautiful and imposing
natural effects, and it was he who designed Fairmont Park when it was given
to the city.
At the close of his second term 'Mr. Claybaugh retired with honors as
Superintendent of Parks, and in July, 1917, purchased his place of forty acres
twelve miles northeast of Fresno. This he has devoted to a vineyard in which
he has ten acres of malaga and twenty acres of muscat vines, with the balance
in sultanas. He has constantly improved the place until now it is one of the
choice ranch properties of the neighborhood. He is a member of the Melvin
Grape Growers' Association and of the California Associated Raisin Com-
pany.
At San lose, on June 27, 1914, Mr. Claybaugh was married to Miss Edna
Ellen Rowell. born near Rloomington, 111., the daughter of ^A'illiam Franklin
Rowell. a brother of Dr. Rowell, who located in Fresno County, at Easton,
in 1883. He became a well-known ^'iticulturist and horticulturist, and died
at San Jose. Mrs. Claybaugh graduated from the Washington Union High
School, and in 1903 from Stanford I'niversitv where she received the degree
of Bachelor of Arts. She enga.ged in educational work and became Dean of
Women in the Fresno State Normal. She was also made a member of the
National Geographical Society. Now she is the mother of three daughters,
Mary Ellen, Edna Elizabeth; and C\'nthia Louise, and is acti\-e in the Congre-
gational Church, which lier hnsliand and familv also attend.
For years Mr. Claybaugh was a member of the American Association of
Park Superintendents, the American Forestry Association and the .\merican
Genetic Societv. while in national politics he has long been an influential Re-
publican. He is a member of Fresno Lodge, No. 439 B. P. O. E.
G. M. DOUGLASS. — The traits of honor, integrity, and thrift are exem-
plified in the life of G. M. Douglass, the viticulturist and horticulturist, who
has charge of the extensive ranches of Mrs. A. Verwoert, one located in
Kutner Colony and one situated two and one-half miles southwest of Sanger
and a third located near Hanford. He is a native of the Hoosier State, having
been born near Crawfords^-ille, INIontgomery County, June 22, 1863, Init
reared in Kansas, to which state his father moved and where G. jNI. Douglass
remained until 1887, when he migrated to California and was located for
some time at Visalia.
Grandfather Jerry Douglass was born in Scotland and was a cabinet-
maker, coming to Indiana where he followed farming, also having a cabinet
shop as well as a wagon and carriage shop on his place. G. M. Douglass'
parents were John A. and Amelia S. flNIitchell) Douglass, to whom eight
children were JDorn: G. M., of this review. Rose, who is ^Irs. Morris: D. ]\L ;
James L. ; E. E. ; Estelle, who is Mrs. Paine; John; and Alfreda, now Mrs.
Carl Verwoert. Mr. Douglass' maternal grandfather, Galiriel Mitchell, was
born in Kentucky. He became a farmer in Indiana, where he died at sc\enty-
nine years of age. Mr. Douglass' father, John A., came to Hanford, Cal., in
1890, where his wife died. He now resides in Pasadena at the age of scxcnty-
seven years.
G. M. Douglass was reared on the farm, receiving his education in the
public schools. He engaged in farming for himself after he reached his
majority. In 1887 he came to Visalia, Cal., where he followed ranching.
About the same time he located a homestead two and one-half miles south-
east of Coalinga, onto which he moved in 1889 and began grain-raising. He
helped to hau'l the first rig into the Coalinga oil-field for Chanslor & Can-
field. This was the rig that struck oil.
After this, ^Ir. Douglass spent some time in Hanford where he was en-
gaged in the grocer}- business, then spent three and one-half years in Oak-
1270 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
land, until 1912, when he took charge of a lemon grove at Visalia. In 1916,
he came to Fresno County as superintendent of his sister's ranches, taking
a keen interest in their productiveness. He is especially qualified to fill this
responsible position for his sister, as he had had experience tending large
ranches previous to his coming to Fresno County, wherein he gained valuable
knowledge concerning the cultivation of the soil, as well as the management
of men.
Mrs. A. Verwoert inherited property from her husband, but before her
marriage she taught school and invested her savings in property which she
added to the estate left her, and by wise speculation and careful manage-
ment she acquired more land until now she is the owner of 650 acres which
are located in separate ranches, and devoted to vines and orchard. As the
manager of this large estate. ]\Ir. Douglass has greatly increased both the
qualitv and quantity of the crops, evident proof of his ability as a superin-
tendent.
Mr. Douglass was married, in 1890, at Coalinga, to Miss ^lyrtle Lane,
born in ]\Iissouri, but this union was unhappy and resulted in a divorce. To
them two sons were born: Earl W. and Leslie L., both of whom are now
serving their countrv in the World ^^'ar. Leslie L. is a member of Com-
pany A. Coast Artillery, stationed in the Philippines ; Earl \\'. is valiantly
serving in the Ninety-first Division "somewhere in France." The second time
Mr. Douglass was married he was united with Miss Ruth \Varren, who
passed away in Tulare County. On January 29, 1917, Mr. Douglass was
united in marriage with I\Trs. Susie (Suddeth) Belcher, a native of Lincoln
County, Mo., and a daughter of James and Anna A. ("Dockinsl Suddeth, born
in Kentucky. Her father served in a Missouri regiment in the Civil War.
Mrs. Douglass was reared and educated in Illinois. She came to California
in 1904.
At the present time Mr. Douglass makes his headquarters on the Kutner
ranch of 270 acres, devoted to vineyards of malagas, emperors, wine grapes
and muscats. The Sanger ranch of sixty acres is in peaches and grapes, while
the Hanford ranch of 320 acres is mostly vineyard, the three ranches being
all under his supervision.
G. M. Douglass is a man of noble character and is actuated in his busi-
ness transactions by the highest motives. \Miile not affiliated with any par-
ticular church organization, ]\Ir. Douglass endeavors to do the kind of work
done by church members and is especially interested in the extension of the
brotherhood of man.
JOHN W. AIKIN. — A prominent citizen of exceptional ability and in-
fluential as a man of afiairs, who is such a good "booster" for Selma and vicin-
ity that he is naturally found actively identified with every important move-
ment for the development and uplift of the community, is John ^^'illiam
Aikin, the office manager of the Libby, McNeill & Libby Cannery at Selma.
He was born in Clark County, Iowa, on October 12, 1868, the son of Relzy
Mitchel Aikin. a native of Martinsville, ]Morgan County, Ind., a district in
which the Aikins were pioneers. He had married Talitha L. Stansbury. of
Iowa. The parents in an early day settled in Indiana, later removing to Illi-
nois, and from that State Relzy M. Aikin enlisted in Companv B of the Thirty-
third Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in which he served from 1861 to 1864. After
the War he went to Iowa, and there married Miss Stansbury. Her family
progenitors, of English and Welsh origin, settled in Virginia in Colonial
times, and some of the family later removed to Maryland ; and there is a stone
house still standing in Baltimore which has been continuously occupied by
the family for two hundred years, and was originally built by one of them.
Having become a farmer and a stockman, R. M. Aikin removed to Nuck-
olls County, Nebr., in 1872, and there he was ranching when, in 1874, the
grasshoppers desolated the land. He was a member of the Nebraska legisla-
ture from 1883 to 1889, and for a term was Assistant Secretary of the Nebraska
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1271
State Board of Irrigation. He made man}' trips to California, but never set-
tled here, and he died in Nuckolls County in 1912, where he owned a half-
section of land. His wife is still living at Nelson, Nebr. She was the mother
of six children, among whom John W. was the oldest. Then came Luella.
who died when she was two and a half years old ; Oliver L., a Nebraska
farmer who is living on the old Aikin homestead which was taken up by
Relzy j\I. Aikin under the homestead act; Mary Ellen, the wife of William
Wetzel, the butcher at Superior, Nebr. : Hattie Leola, now Mrs. Bert Hewitt,
residing at Republican, Nebr. ; and Charlotte Grace, the wife of Frank W.
Fletcher, living near Edgar, Nebr.
John \\\ Aikin was only three and a half years old when he removed from
Iowa to Nebraska, with his parents, and later he helped to break the virgin
soil of Nebraska. He attended the high school at Edgar, Nebr., and took a
commercial course at the Lillibridge & Roose business college at Lincoln.
Then he became a pedagog and taught in Nebraska for three years, after
which he came on to Selma, where an uncle, J. A. Roberts, now of Sanger,
then lived. He received a notary public's commission, and took up the col-
lection business.
In 1895. Mr. Aikin began studying law with ^^'. B. Good, and this he con-
tinued under the direction of E. E. Shepard. but in the fall of 1899. when he
had been reading law for three years, and just before he was to take the
examination at Sacramento, he was induced to go into the newspaper bus-
iness. He accordingly leased the office of the Fresno County Enterprise, a
weekly owned by "W'illis & Willis, and during the first year Frank G. Gill
became associated with him, their cooperation extending over two years. Then
Mr. Aikin purchased the entire plant and became its sole owner. In 1906 he
completed the brick building on High Street, which is still the home of the
Enterprise. This plant of the Enterprise he sold in 1911 ; and about five vears
later, he disposed of the building.
From 1896 to 1900, Mr. Aikin served as City Clerk of Selma, and when
the time was opportune, he was a prime mover in securing the Carnegie Li-
brary, serving on the committee and as a member of the Library Board. In
1912 he removed with his family to Long Beach, and there engaged in the real
estate trade : but like so many others who have once lived in Selma and are
never entirely satisfied to dwell anywhere else, he returned here in 1914.
]\Iessrs. Libby, McNeill & Libby had started their local fruit and vegetable
cannery in 1911. when they built a unit of their proposed works; and as editor
of the Enterprise, 'Sir. Aikin had had much to do with their locating here. On
October 4, 1915, therefore, Air. Aikin went to work for them, starting in vari-
ous subordinate capacities until he rose to be office manager. This extensive
establishment and its output have become of the greatest importance to Selma
and the San Joaquin Valley, and there have been several new departures of
late. In 1919 for the first time, for example, they are canning beets, and this
year also spinach is being grown for and canned by them. The company has
encouraged the farmers to plant the edible, and they will seek to make it more
popular as a wholesome and desirable food. It can be planted in the fall and
disposed of by April, so that the land can then be used for corn or beans, and
the neighborhood become a two-crop country.
At Selma, in 1897, Mr. Aikin was married to Miss Mary Gertrude Brown,
a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joshua \^'. Brown, the latter now a widow residing
on North !McCall Avenue in Selma ; and two children have blessed their union :
Viola Leonora is now the wife of Glenn W. Butler, a member of the postal
service, stationed at Selma. and they have two children — Glenn W.. fr., and
Jack Aikin ; Relzy B. Aikin is in the Selma high school and will graduate with
the Class of 1920. Mr. Aikin has remodelled his residence property at the cor-
ner of Grant and North Streets, and there he has one of the most comfortable
of Selma homes. In 1910 he became a Christian Scientist, and he is the first
reader of the First Christian Science Society at Selma. Services are held in
1272 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
the Vanderburgh Hal! of the Selma Irrigator Building, and although the So-
ciety is not large, it is steadil_y growing and looking forward to the building
of an ornate and useful church edifice. As a charter member, Mr. Aikin helped
to organize the Selma Lodge of the \\'oodmen of the World ; now it has 500
members, and he has been through the chairs three times. He is also a mem-
ber of the Independent Order of Foresters, and has passed through its several
chairs.
While doing newspaper work, Mr. Aikin for a while served on the Re-
publican county central committee, but this did not prevent him, when he
became interested in temperance reform and convinced that Selma (at one
time harboring many saloons) needed prohibitive legislation, from throwing
himself into the thick of the bitter anti-saloon fight. Through his editorials,
he made the Enterprise speak in no uncertain terms for a dry and decent
town ; he was bitterly persecuted for his uncompromizing attitude ; and yet he
saw Selma go dry in' 1904, the first town in the San Joaquin Valley to "mount
the water-wagon," and also witnessed the dawn of constitutional prohibition.
CARL GUSTAF PETERSON. — A wide-awake, progressive and suc-
cessful rancher, whose kind-heartedness and liberality endear him to all who
know him. is Carl Gustaf Peterson, who first came to California in the late
eighties when the Golden State was enjoying its boom and beginning to be
the talk of the world. He was born at Olspodaburk, Varmland. Sweden, on
April 16, 1861, and his father was Peter Erickson, a farmer, who died there.
He had married Mathilda C. Berg, and she also died there, the mother of
eight children, six of whom are living.
The third oldest in the family. Carl G. was brought up on a farm and
attended the ordinary public schools. When he was twenty years of age
he crossed the ocean to the United States and settled at Ishpeming. Mich.,
where he was in the employ of iron mines for seven years. In 1888, he de-
cided to go on to the Pacific Coast ; and having come to California he settled
awhile at Kingsburg. in Fresno County, where he worked at the carpenter
trade and at brickmaking. He also commenced to ranch and to experiment
with viticulture and horticulture. He bought four lots in Kingsburg, built
a residence and continued there until 1897.
In that year he removed to Idaho Springs on Clear Creek, Colo., where
he worked in gold and silver mines. He also leased mines with success, and
continued there for eleven years, during which time he built himself another
residence. The lure of California, however, which has so frequently drawn
the pioneer and settler back to the hills and valleys of the Golden State,
worked upon him like a fever, and made him restless until he decided to
return.
In February, 1909, ^Ir. Peterson returned to Fresno County and settled
at Vinland. As a matter of fact he had come to California the year pre-
viously, and while here had met the Reverend Nordstrom and become inter-
ested in the colony which that gentleman was promoting, so he bought
twenty acres of his present place, moved onto it, and at once began to im-
prove it. Since then he has bought ten acres, and now has set ten acres to
Thompson's seedless grapes and a few apricot trees. He also works at the
carpenter trade and at contracting and building.
While at Idaho Springs, Mr. Peterson was married on June 19. 1897. to
Amanda Borg, a native of Iowa, who was reared there and in Kingsburg,
where she was educated and where he met her. She was the daughter of
Olaf Borg, a rancher of that place. Now they have two children : Adeline,
who resides in Fresno, and Torgny, who lives with his father.
The family attends the Swedish Lutheran Church at Vinland, of which
Mr. Peterson has been a trustee and deacon and the Sunday School superin-
tendent. In national politics Mr. Peterson is a progressive Republican, and
always a good American citizen.
-iJuayJLcAJ //r TrU^TEtduw.
C\6Layr Cty 7/1/, /MA^^taAJL^
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1277
MR. and MRS. CHARLES H. MUTCHLER.— It is interesting to
chronicle the life history of the pioneers, who in their prime entered on their
life work at the front, always improving and surging ahead, never idle but
always busy in making the soil yield more abundantly, thus making the
earth and the peoples thereof richer and at the same time winning success
and a competency for themselves. Such are the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Charles
H. Mutchler, agriculturists residing west of Fresno.
Mr. Mutchler was born near Bloomfield, Davis County, Iowa, July 3.
1862, the third oldest in a family of nine children born to Charles A. and
Doris (Rouch) IMutchler, well-to-do farmers in Davis County. Iowa.
Charles H. was reared on a farm and as was the custom in Iowa at that
time was early set to work on the home farm, each member of the family
being taught to work, and necessarily schools were secondary and limited.
However, he obtained a fair education which he has supplemented with
self-study and reading. At the age of seventeen he made his way to the
frontier of Dakota, where he had a cousin who was a cattleman. Charles
remained with him for two years, riding the range in care of his cattle, and
when he returned to Iowa he had saved $700. Having always had a desire
to travel and especially to see the Pacific Coast, he decided to come to Cali-
fornia, so when twenty-one years of age he arrived in Modesto. He was a total
stranger, but being handy and willing to work, he immediately found em-
ployment on the ranch of Sam INIiller, with whom he remained two years.
Wishing, to engage in business for himself. Mr. Mutchler purchased a farm
outfit and came to Fresno County, in 1884, and leased land just south of
Fresno, from Dr. Chester Rowell, and began to raise grain, with the usual
vicissitudes of the grain-farmer. On October 4, 1884, he was married at
Modesto to Miss Laura Hining and he has been signally favored in his choice
of his helpmate. She was born in Davis County. Iowa. ]\Iay 30. 1865, and
was one year old when she ci;ossed the plains with her parents. Her father,
Charles H., was one of the Argonauts of forty-nine. He was a self-made man,
having been left an orphan at the age of eight years in Germany, and com-
ing to the LTnited States when thirteen years old, he paddled his own canoe
in Davis County, Iowa. AA'orking on the farm, he studied at every spare
moment and late into the night, and became a well educated and scholarly
man. He was converted in the Christian Church, studied for the ministry,
and was ordained in that denomination. He had preached his first sermon
when sixteen years old, and ever afterward was a minister. In 1849 he joined
the gold rush to California, crossing the plains with ox teams. While travel-
ing through the Indian country a mule in the train by its actions warned the
emigrants of the proximity of the Indians, which enabled the party to barri-
cade against the foe. A stiff skirmish with the Red Men ensued which resulted
in the Indians being driven away. After several years of prospecting and
mining he returned to Iowa where he was married to Emih^ M. Shadle. and
thereafter engaged in farming in Davis County, until 1866, when, with his
wife and two children, Arthur and Laura, the latter now Mrs. Mutchler. then
a babe in her mother's arms, he again crossed the plains with ox teams.
Arriving safely, he located at Modesto, Stanislaus County. He purchased
160 acres northwest of Modesto and later added another 160 acres and en-
gaged in farming and stock-raising. He always preached, and after locating
in California he organized the first Christian congregation in Modesto, and
built the Christian church there. This he did because he loved the work and
in his self-sacrificing way he preached without a salary and farmed for a
living. He was a grand old man and a truly honest and conscientious one,
remaining active until his death in 1909. His wife had died in IModesto
many years before, at the age of forty. They had four children : Arthur, of
Stockton : Laura, now Mrs. Mutchler ; Emma, Mrs. W. D. Toomes of Mo-
desto; and Claude, who lives at Sharon, Aladera County. Laura Hining
1278 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
received a good education in the public and high schools, and after their
marriage they entered heartily into their farming operations. For ten years
they farmed the Rowell place. Then they leased land from Jefif James on
Fish Slough, now Tranquillit}-, and ran a grain farm of 2,700 acres for twelve
years. But there were always drawbacks coming .up that seemed to spoil
their chances of realizing the big profits they expected. One year the pros-
pects looked fine for a $50,000 crop on 2,500 acres but a flood came and
swept it all away. They acquired a large outfit and ran five big teams and
gathered the grain with a Holt combined harvester, having the second
harvester of the kind in the county. Discouraged by the loss of one crop
after another, Mrs. Mutchler, having received a legacy from her father's
estate, came to Fresno, and purchased sixty acres in Wolter's Colony. On
this they located, making valuable improvements, and eighteen months
later sold it at a profit. In 1910 she bought the present place that originally
consisted of sixty acres, the old Brickley place on McKinley Avenue, ten
miles west of Fresno, and here they are engaged in farming and dairying,
having met with success. Since then they have added sixty acres to their
holdings and now own 120 acres of valuable land. They have a dairv herd
of fifty-five milch cows, all Holsteins. Their large acreage in alfalfa also
afifords them the opportunity for raising and feeding cattle. Although under
the Herndon canal, they have installed two pumping plants which afiford
them an abundance of water for irrigation, and now, despite early hardships
and discouragements, ^Ir. and Mrs. Mutchler are in easv circumstances.
]\Ir. I\Iutchler has been and is a very active man. and an inveterate worker
who likes the state of his adoption and particularly Fresno County. Mrs.
Mutchler is a business woman of more than ordinary ability and fills her
place in the household economy with distinction. They are the proud parents
of six children: Clarence, in the United States Army; Claude, assisting on
the ranch : May. who is Mrs. Hickok of IMerced ; Maude : Charles, and Laura.
Mr. and Mrs. Mutchler find social enjoyment in the Fraternal Brotherhood,
and are members of the Christian Church.
WILLIAM REESE GARISON. — Perhaps the best-preserved octoge-
narian mail-carrier in California, in the full possession of his mental and
phvsical powers, and a highly-intelligent and noble-hearted gentleman, is
William Reese Garison. in charge of the Star Route between Burrel and
Wheatville, and the father of a most interesting and progressive family. He
gave to his two youngest sons all his horses, mules and cattle ; and having
started out farming on a big scale, they have become well-to-do. Both of
them are very able farmers and foremen, and have done much successful
work for the big land-owners, Vogelsang & Goodrich. Hugh is regularly
connected with that well-known firm, acting as their foreman at Calexico,
while the youngest son is the ranch foreman at Huron, in Fresno County.
Mr. Garison was born in Barry County, Mo., on January 29, 1838, and
when three years old, left with his parents for Arkansas, where he grew up.
After the death of his father, and when he was twenty-one, he moved with
his mother and his brother Thomas to Parker County, Texas, drawn thither
by the circumstance that his oldest brother, James, was then located in that
county as a farmer and a stock-raiser. He attended the subscription schools
of Arkansas and was given such opportunities as the period afforded.
His father, P. S. Garison, was born in South Carolina, was liberally
educated and became a school-teacher, and he was able to do much for the
schooling of his son. His mother's maiden name was Zylpah Smith, she also
was a native of South Carolina, and in that state she was married. Mr. Gari-
son taught school in Missouri and .\rkansas, and died, in the latter state,
when he was fifty-six \'ears old, leaving a widow and nine children, all of
whom grew to maturity, ^^'il]iam Reese was the third child in the order
of birth, and is the only one now living.
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1279
In Texas, he started in stock-raising, and such was the foresight with
which he operated, that he soon developed a ranch worth coming miles to
see. At the age of twenty-five he was married to Miss Sarah W^ood. who
died in Texas after twenty-five years of married life. She was the mother
of six children, and three were still living when she died : Bellzora is now
the wife of Richard Cornwall, a dairyman at Visalia, and she has three chil-
dren, all daughters: A. H., popularly known as "Hugh," is now a single
rancher at Calexico ; and Thomas Lee, who married Miss Ruth Servis, of
Fresno, in which cit\' they reside ; he was recently married, and is employed
for part of the time by ^'ogelsang tS: Goodrich, as foreman and machinist on
their large ranch at Huron in Fresno County.
For thirty years jNIr. Garison continued in Texas, prospering as a farmer
in Parker County, and when he sold out, he came direct to California and
to Fresno County. It was in the great boom period of 1888, and he rented
awhile at Fowler, in 1896 coming down to the Burrel sector. There he leased
the Captain Clover Ranch of 4O0 acres, and for eight years farmed it to
wheat. Sometimes the returns were not encouraging, for he sold wheat as
low as sixty-five cents per cental.
In 1904, Mr. Garison's two sons came here and began renting 3,000 acres
of the Burrel Estate, and Mr. Garison let them have his horses, machinery
and outfit. .As has been said, the sons have been eminently successful, reflect-
ing credit in tlie liighest degree on their parents and themselves.
^Ir. Garison served for years as justice of the peace in Texas, and therebv
continued the enviable traditions of his family, which was of English origin.
The Garisons came from England to Carolina, and were there at the time
of the American Revolution. It is, therefore, a colonial Carolina family.
and one of the proudest in the annals of that great state. AVilliam Reese's
mother was an orphan, but she enjoyed advantages which later had their
beneficent influence on lier oft'spring.
A Democrat of the good old school, although in local issues a puljlic-
spirited citizen who works for the good of the community regardless of
party lines. ■Nir. Garison became mail carrier on July 1, 1913, and has carried
the mail steadily for more than five years. He travels daily over the Star
Route from Burrel to ^^'heatvil]e and back, making a trip every day except
Sunday, of four miles and return, by means of his horse and buggy.
Mr. Garison's place of residence is planted to alfalfa, and is owned by
his two sons, T. L. and A. H. Garison. They began by leasing 160 acres
from the Smith Estate, or rather the whole section, and later bought it.
They now lease out their holding for dairying and the growing of alfalfa,
for which the ground is especially well adapted.
^^^^ile in Texas, Mr. Garison was married a second time to Miss Ten-
nessee Blackwell of Parker County, who is still living, and who, together
with her husband, is highly esteemed by their many friends.
JAMES H. McKAMEY. — A very interesting, progressive citizen, who
came to California in 1903, but was one of those who, in 1911, were laying
the foundations of Tranquillity, is J- H. McKamey, who hauled his goods
from Jameson, and bought his first lot with a check from Graves Bros.,
owners of the Jefif James lands. He was born near Bristol, Tenn., on January
25, 1857, the son of Robert McKamey, who came from Sullivan County,
Tenn.. while the grandfather and three brothers came from Scotland. The
father was well and favorably known as a farmer near Bristol, and died
there ; he espoused the cause of the Confederacy, and was in the Civil War.
The mother, who had been Mary Catherine Hodges, was born at \\^ashing-
ton, Tenn., and she is still living. She liad six children, four boys and two
girls, all of whom grew up ; and our subject is the oldest of those who
survived.
James H. was brought up on the home farm until he was twenty-one,
and then he attended the local school and availed himself of the limited
1280 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
educational advantages. On arriving at maturity, he went to Texas for
three years, but finding it unhealthful enough to give him chills and fever,
he returned home and then began clerking in a store. At the end of tviro
years he v^'ent to Bristol to continue clerking. After that he had a store of
his own and engaged in the general merchandise business at Bristol. He
was a member of the firm of Lore, Devault & McKamey, and continued as a
partner and in that line for many years. Selling out his interest to his part-
ners, he engaged in the produce business in ^Mountain City until he came
to California.
In 1903 he sold out and, coming to the Coast, was awhile at Gait, and
then at Dinuba, where he embarked in general merchandising characteristic
of that enterprising community. While there he became acquainted with a
civil engineer, Frank Rautsma. in the employ of the San Joaquin Company;
and through him he was first interested in Tranquillity, and bought out the
business of Graves Bros. There was at that time so little of the prospective
town that for a couple of years he hauled all the goods for his store from
Jameson, but he persevered as a real pioneer, and by 1913 he was able to
build the new store edifice he at present occupies, and which is such a credit
to the place. He made it large and commodious, and once again engaged in
a general merchandise business, including groceries, drygoods, clothing,
shoes, etc.
^\'hile in Tennessee, ]\Ir. ■NIcKamey was married to ]\Iiss Emma Latture.
a native of Sullivan Countv, and they have four children : \'esta, ?ilrs. C. I.
Rider of Redwood City; Pearl, at home; Ottis O., who was in the United
States Army; and Fay, Mrs. J. W. Tapp of Glendale, Ariz.
Besides his store-building, Mr. AIcKamey owns a comfortable residence.
In national politics he is a Democrat, but in the hearty support of local issues
designed to advance the general welfare of the community, he knows no
party lines and votes for the best that is attainable.
LEE S. BEALL. — An influential factor for over thirty years in the
progress and development of the community of his adoption, Lee S. Beall
comes of an historic family, his grandfather, Zephaniah Addison Beall, par-
ticipating in the War of 1812, and taking part in 1814 at the Siege of Balti-
more, at the very time and place when Francis Scott Key fought the common
enemy and, as a result of the all-night struggle, wrote his immortal Star
Spangled Banner. He removed from Maryland to Ohio, married and then
moved on to Indiana, being one of the pioneer settlers of that State. He
established a home in Ripley County, and died at the age of eighty-six. In
Ripley County, William M. Beall, Lee's father, was born; while the mother,
Caroline E. Hancock before her marriage, a descendant of John Hancock, a
signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Dearborn County,
Ind. William M. Beall farmed in Indiana until November, 1886, the beginning
of the great boom in California that beckoned the thousands from all quarters
of the globe ; and, coming under the spell, he made the trip west with his
good wife, and located at River Bend, Fresno County, where he tilled the
soil for a few years, and then, retiring from active life, moved to Fresno.
Here he died at the age of eighty-four, and Mrs. Beall was over sixty at her
death.
The birth of Lee S. Beall, on August 9, 1864, also occurred in Ripley
County, where he attended school and lived with his parents until he was
eighteen. Being energetic and industrious, he spent some time learning the
carpenter's trade. On March 21, 1886, he was married to IMiss Delia Peters,
a native of the same county, born February 28, 1863, a daughter of Enoch
and Zerilda (Pendergast) Peters; her father still survives, in his eighty-
fourth year. Soon after marriage, they started for California and cast in
their lot with the sturdy pioneers of that day. They first located at River
Bend and there continued until the fall of 1887, when thev established a home
a>6Mf3^^oU&
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1283
in the Red Bank section. Mr. Beall started farming, and for nearly five years
raised grain.
In 1890, Mr. Beall purchased from J. P. Vincent his present place, a
twenty-acre tract near Clevis. It was stubble-field, but he set it out as a
vineyard and, having bought twenty acres adjoining, he continued to improve
and develop the land until now he owns a place of forty acres, set out to
muscat, Thompson and malaga grapes. He erected a commodious modern
dwelling-house, other necessary buildings, and installed a pumping-plant.
^^'hile Mr. Beall has made for himself a substantial income, he has con-
tributed to the permanent prosperity of Fresno and vicinity. He is a Demo-
crat, and has attended and taken an active part in many political conventions.
In 1902 he was elected justice of the peace of the second judicial township
for four 3'ears. In 1906 he was defeated by Isaac Coberly. He was appointed
justice of the peace in July, 1910. to fill a vacancv caused by Mr. Coberly's
death, and he served for three and a half years. From 1907 to 1909 he was
roadmaster of the district, and from 1909 to 1910 he was deputy assessor,
under G. P. Cummings, and assessed the Clovis district. In July. 1914. he
was elected justice of the peace and four years later was reelected without
opposition, and is now serving his thirteenth year. He is a notary and deals
in real estate.
Judge Beall has three children : Elsie W.. now IMrs. Francis living near
Fresno ; Helen D., a graduate of the high school, class of 1919, and Harold
Lee. in the Clovis high. Judge Beall served as district school trustee of the
Jefferson school for eight years, acting also as clerk of the board. He has
also served as trustee of the Clovis Union High School fur eight years, dur-
ing which time he was clerk for seven years, and in the last year, president.
Mr. Beall is a member of the Woodmen of the World, where he is a
past officer. He belongs to Clovis Lodge. No. 139. I. O. O. F., in which he
is a Past Grand, and he is ah active member of the Knights of Pythias in
Clovis. The Christian Church, to which his wife belongs, receives his sup-
port, and he is a member of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce. He is a firm
believer in the cooperation of fruitmen. and has actively supported all the
raisin associations and is a member and a stockholder of the California Asso-
ciated Raisin Company. In 1903. ]\Ir. and IMrs. Beall made a trip to their old
home ; and this was the first time they revisited the scenes of former years
since they came to California.
Judge Beall is much respected as a public-spirited citizen endeavoring to
advance the best interests of the community.
JOHN G. C. SINCLAIR. — Interesting as one of the few men now living
who worked for old Billy Caruthers. the pioneer. John G. C. Sinclair is a
highly respected citizen of the town of Caruthers. He was the grain-buyer
here for more than a quarter of a century, and enjoys the confidence of those
who have business relations with him. He lives on the old Billy Caruthers
farm north of the town, and there extends an old-fashioned hospitality. He
is a Scotchman by birth, and it goes without saying that he is bright and
level-headed, a sc|uare-dealer, and excellent farmer and vineyardist ; for as
the pioneer vine-grower at Caruthers. he is public-spirited and takes a deal
'of interest in the welfare and progress of the communit.\". In many ways he
is well-posted, and he is fortunate in having an excellent wife and bright
and loyal children.
He was born in the town of Wick, in Caithness-shire, Scotland, on
April 8. 1864. grew up there, and on his twenty-first birthday sailed from
Glasgow. He had taken to farming when he was sixteen years of age, and
was brought up to follow agriculture. His father owned no farm, but was
widely known as a successful commission man. auctioneer and cattle-sales-
man in Wick and in the small town of Thurso, and conducted auctions all
1284 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
over the county, and had his own salesyards, where he offered stock under
the hammer every two weeks.
John acquired a grammar-school education, and worked out on farms
rather as a student, learning stock-raising, feeding and general farming.
When he arrived in Boston, in 1885, he was equipped with experience beyond
that of the average young man, and confidently traveled through the country,
visiting Quebec and Chicago, and going on to Winnipeg, Manitoba. There
he sought employment from Kenneth McKenzie, M. P., and worked on his
Bonanza wheat farm at Portage la Prairie and Burnside for a year, including
a very severe winter. The next year he went to work for the Hudson Bay
Company in their flour mill.
In the fall of 1887 he came to Tulare County, Cal, and at the same time
took out his first citizenship papers, determined to become a citizen of the
United States, and for twenty-five years thereafter he followed grain-
handling, as a grain-warehouse foreman.
In 1888, Mr. Sinclair came to Fresno County, and engaged with Mr.
F. M. Miller, the grain-merchant of Fresno, who induced him to come to
Caruthers and take charge of the new grain-warehouse there.
During the spring of 1888, there was very little doing in the warehouse,
so with Mr. Miller's permission he took a job for two months on the Caruth-
ers ranch ; but when the time was up, Mr. Caruthers insisted that he should
continue in his employ; and after due consultation with Mr. Miller, who
gave his permission, Air. Sinclair remained in the service of Billy Caruthers
for a whole year, and only after that went back to work for Mr. Miller, who
employed him for the next twenty-five years. He bought grain and superin-
tended the warehouse from 1889 to 1914.
In the meantime he had bought a part of the Caruthers ranch, the home
quarter section and two other quarter sections besides, retaining the 285
acres which he still operates as a dairy and for the cultivation of raisins and
peaches. Twenty acres are planted to muscats, and fourteen acres to peaches,
and twenty acres to alfalfa ; and the balance is also devoted to alfalfa. He has
ditch water from the Fowler Switch ditch.
Mr. Sinclair made a trip back to his native Scotland in 1901, and while
there married his betrothed. Miss Christina S. Henderson, who was born
at Dunn. Scotland, in Caithness-shire, a daughter of Donald and Christina
(Sutherland) Henderson, being the fourth daughter in a family of ten chil-
dren. Her father was a farmer in Scotland, and there both parents died. I\lr.
Sinclair's mother was Margaret Craig, a daughter of Donald Craig, who
was a retail shoe-dealer at Wick.
Mr. and Airs. Sinclair have had five children : Minnie H., who died in
infancy; Donald, who graduated from the high school at Easton (before
there was a high school at Caruthers! and who was in the Eighty-ninth
Division of the Sanitary Ambulance Corps, and was stationed in France,
doing duty between Verdun and Metz, returning home June 17, after serving
in the army of occupation in Germany, landing at New York, May 24th, and
being honorably discharged at the Presidio, June 17, 1919; John G. C. Sin-
clair, Jr., who was in the Easton High School and enlisted in the navy, and
served as a pharmacist's mate on the Steamer Melville, south of Ireland, and
who is now stationed at a naval base north of Scotland; Margaret C, who
graduated from the same institution as an honor student, winning the cash
prize of $100 for the highest scholarship, and completing the regular four-
vear course in three years, and who is now at the State University, wliere
she is majoring in history; and Alexander H., who is in the marines, stationed
at the Bremerton Navy Yard, state of Washington, and who is a graduate of
the Caruthers Fligh School, Class of '17, which was the first four-year class
graduated from that school.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were brought up Protestants — the former in the
Baptist Church and the latter in tlie Presljyterian communion; and now they
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY 1285
are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Caruthers, the first
church built there and which Mr. Sinclair helped to build, and of which he
is a trustee. They were active in the Liberty Loans, and the work of the
Red Cross, and Mrs. Sinclair was instrumental in getting the branch of the
County Library at Caruthers. They built a beautiful residence on their
home-place in 1912, and there they have dispensed a cordial hospitality. Mr.
Sinclair is a stockholder in the Caruthers Cooperative Cheese Association.
and has been active in educational matters. He worked hard to get the
beautiful and commodious high school building, costing $30,000, erected in
1914 — one of the best-appointed school buildings in the county. The manual
training department is in the basement ; and the other departments are on
the first floor, in a brick and cement building, with an auditorium having a
capacity of 500 people. The school board is: President, James C. Gallaher;
clerk, F. C. Bonyman ; trustees, A. Beckman, John G. "C. Sinclair and D.
Clemens. Mr. Sinclair has also served on election boards and done jury
duty.
AXEL W. SWARD.— California having early bidden high for the heroic
pioneer, is rich in the number of such men and women whose lives read like
romances because they themselves belong to the romantic ; and prominent
among these is Axel \A". Sward, a retired merchant, landowner and banker
of King'sburg. Coming from an excellent Stocklidlm family that saw its ups
and downs, Mr. Sward has reached by his own elTorts and the ci » qicratiun
of his wife, an enviable status socially, cijniinercially and financially, among
the men in Central California.
Born near Stockholm on July 29, 1864, Axel grew up in Sweden, where
he attended the public schools. His father was Captain Peter August Sward,
an esteemed officer of the Swedish Infantry, who died when the boy was
only one and a half years (}ld. The mother was thus left a widow with five
children, among whom Axel was the youngest: so that her death when he
had reached his fifth year, fell upon him more than the other children. He
was therefore put out in a private family, and grew up to know what hard
work meant. At the age of fourteen he was confirmed in the Lutheran
Church, and soon after he struck out across the wide ocean to America.
All alone, he landed at New York City in 1877, and straightway pro-
ceeded to Minneapolis, where he had a varied experience and suffered many
hardships. It took every penny of his patrimony to buy his ticket to that
point, and for four days he had practically nothing to eat on the train from
the coast to Minneajmlis. He stepped off the train at half past nine at night,
and would ccrtainl\- have been in the greatest of dilemmas; but a kind-
hearted fellow-countryman took him to his home and taught him enough
English to enable him to ask for work.
It was very hard, however, just at that time to get employment, and
for four weeks he was unable to get a job, so that he became very down-
hearted, but finally. Axel secured work in a saw mill at Minneapolis ; and
then, for the last two j'ears that he was in that city, he ran a grocery business
of his own.
At the end of seven years, however, he went to Kansas City, Mo., and
bought a blacksmith and wagon shop which he conducted successfully for
eighteen months; after which he moved to Omaha where, for a year, he
worked as a carpenter and builder. Then he went to Phelps County, in the
same state, and started for himself as a contractor and builder.
It was there that he met and married ]Miss Almeda Dahlstrom, a
native of Phelps County and the daughter of John Dahlstrom who had
married Mary Dahlstedt. This honored couple were among the first pioneer
farmers of Phelps County, and so Axel Sward bought a farm there and
prospered.
In 1906. unable longer to withstand the lure of California, he came
to Kingsburg and entered the commercial field here. He became a mem-
1286 HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
ber of the firm of Carlson & Sward, dealers in general merchandise ; and
three years later, when he sold out his share, he opened a boot and shoe
store, putting in the most exclusive stock yet seen in this town.
Mr. Sward, who is a director in the Kingsburg Bank, owns forty of
the choicest of Central California acres sixteen miles west of Kingsburg,
and some very desirable lots in the city itself. He plotted the East Park
Addition to Kingsburg, and he has sold nearly all of the lots there. He is
generous-hearted and public-spirited, and always alert to advance any good
cause. He gives his excellent wife, however, much of the credit for his
advancement.
Mr. and Mrs. Sward, who are members of the Swedish Free Mission
Church, still have three children, although three died in infancy. Harold is
the subject of another sketch, and is well-known in merchant circles here;
Marian is married to R. B. Denham, a farmer in Kings County ; and Ruby
is in the grammar school. Mr. Sward was on the building committee of the
church, four years ago, when the congregation erected a church edifice at
a cost of eight thousand dollars.
NIELS HANSEN.— The life which this narrative sketches began in
far-away Jylland, Denmark, June 1. 1867. Niels Hansen, a successful viti-
culturist, whose well kept vineyard is located on Hayes Avenue, between
Whites Bridge Road and Belmont Avenue, is a son of Jacob Hansen, a
Danish farmer, and was reared on a farm in his native land and received a
good education in the public school of his native place.
Filled with the desire to see more of the great world and to seek his
fortune in the United States, where so many of his fellow countrymen had
gained success, Niels Hansen sailed from his native land in 1892, destined
for ^^'eston, Pottawattamie County, Iowa. After his arrival in Iowa he was
engaged to work on farms in the vicinity of Weston, and followed that line
of endeavor until 1894. when he decided to continue his journey further west-
ward, coming on as far as California and locating in Fresno County.
Soon after his arrival in Fresno County, Niels Hansen, together with
his brother Hans, leased a ranch of 160 acres upon which they raised grain
and grapes. The brothers continued the partnership for three years, when
it was dissolved and Niels leased a vineyard and alfalfa ranch which he
operated for three years. Being very industrious and enterprising, Mr.
Hansen determined to quit paying rent and own a ranch himself, which plan
was realized in 1899, when he purchased his present place consisting of forty
acres situated on Hayes Avenue. He devotes it to vineyard, raising muscat
and Thompson seedless grapes, with a border of figs. He has built a
sple^ndid residence and here he has been engaged in viticulture ever since.
In Fresno, on February 24, 1896, Niels Hansen was united in marriage
with Emma Charlotte Christensen, a native of Hazel Dell, Iowa, and a daugh-
ter of P. N. Christensen. the well known and successful viticulturist of the
Madison district, a sketch of whose life will be found on another page of
this volume. Mt. and Mrs. Niels Hansen are the happy parents of five chil-
dren : Agnes, a graduate of a boarding school at Lodi and now attending
Union Pacific College at St. Helena ; Katie and Laura are attending the
Fresno High School: Richard: and Eleanor. Mrs. Flansen is a member of
the Adventist Church.
In national politics, Mr. Hansen is a Republican. He is a member of the
California Peach Growers, Inc., also a stockholder and member of the Cali-
fornia Associated Raisin Company. Mr. Hansen possesses the happy facidty
of making and retaining friends and is highly esteemed in his community for
his uprightness of character and genial personality. He is interested in all
worthv movements that have as their aim the upbuilding of Fresno County
and especially of the community in which he has resided for so many years.
K. i
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