Tulare & Kings Counties
California
Biographies
1913
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MOORE, ROBERT ANDERSON

 

     As president of the Lemoore Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Kings County Republican central committee Robert Anderson Moore has become well known throughout central California, and he has other claims to distinction than these. Born in Grant County, Wis., in 1861, he lived there until fifteen years old, when his family moved to Minnesota and later to Oregon. He came, eventually, to California, and after stopping for a time in Los Angeles came to Kings County and became a salesman in the McKenna Brothers’ hardware store. He mastered the business and acquired great popularity with its patrons and in 1890 bought the establishment, which he conducted with success until 1911, when he sold it to the Lemoore Hardware Company.

 

     Since disposing of his hardware interests Mr. Moore has interested himself in real estate operations. He owns two ranches, one of forty acres, three miles north of town, and one of one hundred and sixty acres, ten miles south and near the lake; the former is in vineyard, the latter in barley and alfalfa. He has invested to some extent in oil property and is a director in the Mount Vernon Oil Company, which is operating in the Devil’s Den field. He was one of the organizers and is in his second year as president of the Lemoore Chamber of Commerce. As chairman of the Kings County Republican central committee and in other capacities he has long been active in political work, and he was three times elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the city of Lemoore, serving two years as chairman of that body. Socially he affiliates with the Odd Fellows and the Foresters.

 

     In 1886 Mr. Moore married Miss Clara H. Peck, a native of Hollister, Cal. Their son, B. C. Moore, is the successful manager of an automobile garage. During all the years of his residence at Lemoore, Mr. Moore has manifested a lively interest in the development and prosperity of the town, and as a man of public spirit he has cheerfully and generously done much for the betterment of local conditions as occasion has presented itself.

 

 

LATHROP, EZRA

 

     The wise counsel, good judgment and progressive spirit of Ezra Lathrop have been factors in the upbuilding and prosperity of Tulare, Cal. Mr. Lathrop came from his old Iowa home to Nevada, but soon afterward, in 1866 came to California, and since 1873 he has lived in Tulare. His family is of English descent and was early established in the state of New York. William and Perrin Lathrop, his grandfather ad father respectively, were born there, but settled in Susquehanna County, Pa., where the former died. The latter became a pioneer at Cascade, Dubuque County, Iowa, but soon went to Center Point, near Cedar Falls, in Blackhawk County, where he improved a farm. Later he farmed in Louisa County, that state, but passed his declining years in Blackhawk County. Clementine Dowdney, who became his wife, was of Eastern birth, but passed away near Center Point, Iowa. She bore her husband two sons and a daughter: Ezra of Tulare; Gilead P., who died in the Civil War, a member of the Eighth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry; and Mrs. Mary Ellen Brown, who lives in Tulare County, north of Visalia.

 

     At Rush, near Montrose, Susquehanna, Pa., Ezra Lathrop was born in 1839 and there began attending district schools. He was ten years old when his family went to Iowa and sixteen when his mother died, and then he set out to make his own way in the world. For a time he was employed on farms, but in 1864 sought fortune in the West as a member of an emigrant party that crossed the plains. The Indians were unusually troublesome at that time, but the train went unmolested up the Platte and by way of Salt Lake City to Nevada, where Mr. Lathrop began farming on the East Walker river. In 1865 he was teaming at Dayton and in 1866 he was farming near Suisun, Cal., whence he removed three years later to Montezuma Hill. In 1873 he came to Tulare and built the residence which has since been his home and found employment as a driver of six-horse teams in mountain freighting. In 1874 he homesteaded eighty acres of government land north of Tulare, which, with other lands, he began to cultivate six year later, and by adjoining purchases he came to own four hundred and thirty acres. He formerly owned the Round Valley ranch of thirty-eight hundred acres. At this time his holdings comprise four hundred and forty acres in one body, all under ditch; five hundred and sixty acres, south of Tulare; and eighty acres southeast of that city. He was for a time a director in the Rockyford Irrigation Ditch Company.

 

     In 1882 Mr. Lathrop embarked in the lumber business and soon built up a valuable trade, but after eighteen months a concern that had been his most bitter competitor and which he had worsted sold out to Moore & Smith, a company financially strong. Unable to hold his own against such opposition, he sold out in 1884 to the Puget Sound Lumber Company, which appointed him its local agent. In 1886 the two concerns were merged as the San Joaquin Lumber Company and his agency was continued. When the new company was incorporated he became its manager and had its affairs in charge until November, 1898, when it retired from business. He was one of the promoter of the Gas Company of Tulare, was financially interested in it when it was incorporated, January, 1884, and has been its president since May, 1885. Its electric light plant dates from 1890 and since 1894 it has manufactured no gas. His patriotic work in bringing out the compromise with the bondholders of the Tulare Irrigation district resulted in a grand jollification and bond burning which is part of the history of Tulare. He has performed efficient service as fire commissioner and school trustee and has helped the people of the town by his wise and conservative judgment in financial affairs. In 1885 he assisted in the organization of the bank of Tulare, the oldest in the town, of which he was president from that day to the time of his death, November 17, 1908, and which has been an important aid to the welfare of the people. It is apparent that a record of the life of Mr. Lathrop is in sense a record of progress and development of Tulare, for he was inseparably identified with many of its leading interests. Politically he was a Democrat until 1896. Then unable to support the financial theories of Mr. Bryan, he became a Republican. Fraternally he affiliated with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, which has a flourishing lodge at Tulare.

 

     In Iowa, Mr. Lathrop married Miss Virginia Blake, a native of Oakland, that state, who bore him twin daughters and died in 1898. One of the daughter, Martha Adeline, married G. W. Bauman, a biographical sketch of whom will be found in this volume, and the other Matilda Eveline, married W. J. Sturgeon. 

 

     On January 20, 1908, Mr. Lathrop married Mrs. Lena Ayer, whose maiden name was Lena De Vine, born in Nova Scotia. Mr. and Mrs. Ayer came to California from Boston, Mass., December, 1890. Pages 288 - 290

 

 

 

LIGHT, H J

 

     The prominent citizen of Lemoore whose name is above is widely known as a promoter of the oil industry. Judge Light, as he is familiarly called by his many friends, was born in Virginia, March 19, 1851, was reared in the western part of Floyd County and finished his education at the Salem Academy in Roanoke County. Then he took up school teaching as a profession and was so employed many years. In 1866 he went to Kansas, and after teaching there a short time took up his residence in Springfield, Mo., where he taught until 1874. Then he came to California, and locating at Visalia pursued his vocation there and northeast of the city for five years. During the succeeding four years he was teaching again in Missouri, but he came back to California and settled at Lemoore, renting land on the lake of Elias Jacobs and establishing himself as a farmer. In 1886 he homesteaded a hundred and sixty acres of land, pre-empted a hundred and sixty acres in the same section. Later he bought the remainder of the section under the isolated land act He ran a stock ranch until 1909, when he leased his land to tenants and moved to Lemoore, where he has since lived. He has bought property here and expects to pass his declining years in the town.

 

     In the spring of 1910 Mr. Light was elected a member of the city council of Lemoore and in November of that year to the office of justice of the peace. For nine years served as justice of the peace of West End judicial township and resigned the office the better to attend to his private interests. He has been a trustee of the Union high school since the organization of the district.

 

     In 1907, Mr. Light married Ella (Hunt) Logan. He has six children by a former marriage: Tespan, of Kings County; Swinton; Robert Denny, of Santa Barbara County: Theodore, of Coalinga; William Kings, of San Luis Obispo, and Mrs. W. P. Smith, of Lemoore. William Kings Light has the distinction of being one of the first four children born in Kings County, he having been born on the morning after the election for the petition of Tulare County and the formation of Kings County. Mr. Light has been an active member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellow since he was twenty-two years old. In his political affiliations he is a Republican and as such he has been influential in local affairs. A man of much public spirit he has done much towards the development and improvement of the city and the country round about. His investment in real estate at Lemoore includes ten acres and several city lots and on one of the latter he erected his office building. While he lived on his ranch he gave particular attention to the breeding of cattle and horses. In 1890 he and Orlando Barton, of Visalia, located land in Lost Hills. They were the first there and he was one of the original incorporators of the Lost Hills Mining Company, which was sold in 1911. Its property is located in what is now a great oil field. Mr. Light was and is interested in oil lands in Devil’s Den and Kettleman’s Hills and in the West End Oil company, the property of which he located in August, 1908. He was one of the incorporators of the Lake Oil company, which with the West End Oil company is leased to the Medallion Company. With the Devil’s Den Consolidated he was interested also, and he helped to organize and owns stock in the Lauretta Oil Company and is identified with the Dudley Oil company, a San Francisco concern operating in the Devil’s Den field.  Pages 320 - 323

 

 

 

LINDSEY, HON. TIPTON

 

     The honor which belongs to the pioneer and to the leader in affairs of importance to the community attaches to the name of the late Hon. Tipton Lindsey, of Visalia, Tulare County, Cal. Mr. Lindsey was born in St. Joseph County, Ind., May 21, 1829, and was reared on a farm there. Educated in the public schools near his boyhood home, he was well advanced in the study of law by the time he was twenty years old. In 1849, as a member of a party of thirty, he made the journey with ox-teams across the plains to California and mined for a time at Placerville. He then settled in Santa Clara County, whence he came to Tulare County, in November, 1860, driving a band of cattle. He pre-empted a piece of government land near Goshen and turned cattle out to range, but they died in a dry season four years later. He then went to Visalia, completed his study of law and was admitted to the bar, entering upon a successful professional practice. From the first he took and active interest in public affairs and from time to time was called to fill responsible official positions. He was for twelve years receiver of the United States Land Office at Visalia, was long a school trustee, served one term as supervisor and represented his district four years in the senate of the state of California. During all his active life he took a deep and helpful interest in public education and the Tipton Lindsey grammar school of Visalia, named in his honor, is a monument to his activities as a promoter of educational advancement of the city. Indeed, it may be said of him that there was no local interest tending to the improvement of the people at large that did not receive his public-spirited support. Comparatively early in the history of Visalia he bought sixteen home lots in the town for $800, and the lot on which his widow now has her home has been owned in the family for forty-six years. His fine ranch of one hundred and sixty acres, three miles west of town, he purchased forty-six years ago. The property formerly bore prunes and peaches on trees which he set out, but eventually he had them taken out and devoted the land to alfalfa, and for several years it has been operated by tenants. Fraternally he affiliated with the Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He was identified with the California Society of Pioneers, the headquarters of which are at San Francisco, and he helped organize the Tulare County Society of Pioneers. His recollections of 1849 were very comprehensive and very interesting. In these days, when the high price of foodstuffs is so much discussed, readers should be interested in his narratives of a time when water sold for $1 a gallon and eggs for $1 each in San Francisco. This honored pioneer passed away on his ranch west of Visalia in 1894.

 

     In 1859 Mr. Lindsey married Miss Eliza Fine, niece of John Fine, who crossed the plains with her uncle in 1853. When she came to Visalia it was only a village; she saw the trees set out and the homes built in her vicinity, and has watched the development of the city to its present proportions and importance. She recalls many entertaining experiences of her journey across the plains. In every direction she saw long emigrant trains until they looked small and dim on the horizon. She remembers a stampede of buffaloes in which a herd of thousands bore down on her train, threatening death to human and cattle alike, a tragedy prevented by a diversion in the path of the maddened bison which took them past the camp without inflicting injury to anything in it. She recalls the flood of 1868 at Visalia, when for more than twenty-four hours water stood a foot deep on the property which is now her home, and tells how after the water subsided tons of fish were left on the plains west of Visalia. The flood interfered with travel in the country round about to such an extent that for two months not a letter or newspaper was received in the town. Mrs. Lindsey has two children, Charles F., of San Francisco, and Mrs. M. P. Frasier, of Los Angeles, who has a son named Harold.

 

LORENDO, GIDEON

 

     In the province of Quebec, Canada, forty-nine miles west of the city of the same name, Gideon Lorendo was born, September 17, 1846, a son of Cyril and Locadie (Delcours) Lorendo, natives of Canada. His father, who was a farmer, held the office of sheriff more than forty years. When Gideon left his native province he went to Lowell, Mass., and found employment in a cotton mill. Later he worked in a sawmill, then for five years he traveled throughout New England, then went west by way of the Great Lakes and in 1869 stopped at Duluth, Minn. There were at that time only five cabins in the place and they were occupied by half-breed Indians. He found there employment connected with lumbering, but soon went back to the province of Quebec where he married Jane L. Bounty, a native of Vermont, who became the mother of his eight children: Minnie, Napoleon, Ellen, Phillip, Louisa, Alfred, Albert and Josephine. His second marriage was to Elizabeth Ruch, a native of Oregon. Their children are named William, Peter and Agnes. Agnes is attending school at Orosi. Napoleon married Jessie Woods, and resides in Oakland, Cal., and has two children. Ellen married John Fisher, of Mariposa County, Cal., and has five daughters. Philip married Lulu Beggs; their home is in Mono County and they have two children. Alfred married Ethel Griggs and they live at San Francisco. Albert, who is an engineer on the railroad belonging to the mill company at Sugarpine, Cal., married Pearl Uslis and they have a son and a daughter. Josephine married Ira Thomas; they live at Hanford and have two children. Mr. Lorendo has thirteen grandchildren.  

 

     From Windsor, Canada, across the river from Detroit, Mr. Lorendo came to California in 1877. In 1881, because the dry season, he sold one hundred and sixty acres of land for $500. Soon after, he bought another one hundred and sixty acres at Sand Creek Gap for $2.50 an acre and in 1888 sold it for $24 an acre and went to Oregon and lived in Josephine County, that state, for six years, farming for a time, then mining for gold. As he was spending more money than he was getting out of the ground, he disposed of his holdings in Oregon and sold a place near Chamberlain, S. Dak., which he had owned for

some time, for $25, and went to British Columbia and kept a tavern on the Caribou road until he had taken in from lodgers enough to give him another start. Then he came back to Orosi and sent for his wife. He then had but $2.50 to his name and faced the certainty of having to pay out the first $200 that he could earn over and above a bare living. But he struggled manfully for a foothold, and in 1901 bought twenty acres of land at $25 an acre. This he has improved with a house, a barn and other buildings. He has nine and a half acres in Malaga grapes, eight acres in peaches and two acres in alfalfa. He has paid for his land and improvements, has plenty of stock for home use, and is prospering in the regular California way. Politically he is a Socialist and he and the other members if his family are members of the Catholic Church, in which they were al born and brought up.

 

     Before settling down in  Tulare County Mr. Lorendo traveled through twenty-seven states, trying to find the best location possible and is very much pleased with California. He was twenty-six miles from their post office at Visalia when he first settled here. Pages 391 - 392

 

 

 

LOVELACE, BYRON O

 

     The public officials of a County furnish to the outside world the best expression of the character of its people and indicate not only its present state of development, but also its trend and aspirations. Tried by this standard, Tulare County commands the respect and confidence of all inquirers by reason of the representative character of the men who are filling its official positions, and among them none is worthy of higher respect for capacity and devotion to the interests confided in his charge than Byron O. Lovelace, who has ably and honorably filled the office of County surveyor since January 1, 1911.

 

     A son of Joseph W. and Helen (Schlichting) Lovelace, Byron O. Lovelace was born in Texas in 1883. He was educated in the public school at Visalia and was graduated after a special course of scientific study from the Van der Naillen School of Engineering and Mines of San Francisco. During the ensuing six years he was in the employ of the United States government, doing surveying for the agricultural department, most of the time in National Forest reserve work in California and Nevada. Returning to Visalia in 1910, he was a candidate as a Republican at the August primary election for the office of County surveyor of Tulare County, to which he was duly elected by a large majority in the fall of that year.

 

     As a man of public spirit Mr. Lovelace takes high place in the citizenship of Tulare County, to the important general interests of which he has been conspicuously devoted. Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. He married July 10, 1910, Miss Eula Simmons, a native of Riverside County, Cal., and a daughter of a pioneer stockman in that part of the state.  Pages 396 - 397

 

 

 

MADDOX, BEN M

 

     The descendant of southern ancestors and himself a native of the south, Ben M. Maddox was born in Summerville, Chattanooga County, Ga., October 18, 1859, the son of George B. T. and Sarah (Dickson) Maddox, they too being natives of that state. In 1877, when he was seventeen years old, Ben M. Maddox started out in the world on his own responsibility, at that time going to Texas, where he hunted buffalo on the plains. From there he went to Arizona and followed mining from the spring of 1878 until February of the following year. In the meantime he and some friends had determined to come to California, and in February, 1879, the party of three left Prescott, Ariz., having one pack horse and a saddle horse between them for the overland trail. The journey being safely accomplished, Mr. Maddox went to the mining camp of Bodie, Mono County, where he secured work on a newspaper and subsequently he found work of a similar character in Mammoth City, same County. Newspaper work then gave place to mining, following this for a time in Mammoth City, and later, in 1880, in Fresno Flats, Madera County, where he was employed in the Enterprise mine, and in the latter place he also clerked in a hotel for a time.

 

     In September, 1881, Mr. Maddox went to Mariposa, where he found work at the printer’s trade on the Gazette, and the following year, in San Francisco, he worked on the Chronicle. Giving up work on the latter paper in October, 1882, he returned to Mariposa and was employed on the Herald until he purchased the paper later in the same year. After continuing the publication of the Herald for four years he sold it in 1886 and the same year came to Tulare County, with the intention of purchasing the Tulare Register. Being unable to carry out this plan at that time he returned to San Francisco and resumed work at the printer’s trade. This was for a short time only, however for on October 18, 1886, he was appointed deputy clerk of the superior court and thereafter gave his whole attention to the duties and obligations which thus developed upon him.

 

     A hope which Mr. Maddox had long cherished was realized when on Thanksgiving day, 1890, he became the owner and proprietor of the Visalia Times. For two years he ran the paper as a weekly, but on February 22, 1892, the paper became a daily, and as the Visalia Daily Times it has ever since been published under his able management. The management of his newspaper has not absorbed all his thought and attention, as the following will show: When the Mount Whitney Power Company was organized in 1899 he was elected a director, in 1901 was made a secretary of the corporation, and on September 9, 1902, he became business manager of the company, and he still holds this responsible office, having in the meantime relinquished to some extent the active management of his newspaper in order to devote his time to the interests of the power company. In 1894 he was nominated for secretary of state on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated in the election. As secretary of the Democratic state central committee he served two terms and several times was chairman of the Democratic County central committee. He also served as president of the Visalia board of trade for four years and for some time he is the chairman of the County state highway commission, as a director of the Visalia electric railroad, president of the Encina Fruit Co., president of the Evansdale Fruit Co., and a director of the Producers’ Saving Bank. Some years ago Mr. Maddox in company with William H. Hammond opened up and put on the market the Lindsay Heights and Nob Hill Orange colonies, orange land which is now fully developed.

 

     At Mariposa, Cal. March 15, 1883, Mr. Maddox was married to Miss Evalina J. Farnsworth, a native of California. They have five children, Morley M., Hazel C., Ruth E., Dickson F. and Ben M., Jr. Fraternally Mr. Maddox is a Knight Templar and a thirty-second degree Mason; also belonging to the Shrine, the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World.  Pages 362 - 363

 

 

 

MAJORS, COLUMBUS P

 

     A California pioneer who recalls with interest early days in Tulare County when he took a prominent part in local affairs, is Columbus P. Majors, of Visalia. Mr. Majors was born in Morgan County, Ill., March 22, 1830, and in 1853 crossed the plains to California with an ox-team, starting April 14 and arriving at Sacramento September 13 following. The party, which came with a train of nineteen ox-wagons, was made up of Iowa and Illinois people and was under the command of Captain L. M. Owen, who made one trip to the Pacific coast in 1849. The overland emigrants were several times compelled to corral their wagons, fearing attack by Indians, but made the journey without any very lamentable mishaps. For two years after his arrival in California, Mr. Majors worked in the Sherlock Flat mine on the Merced river, but it was not as a miner that he was destined to make his success in this state. He came to Visalia in 1855 and found the people all living in the old fort as a means of protection against the redskins, who were at the time menacing the settlers in this vicinity. He took up eighty acres of government land on the Cutler road and for many years raised cattle and sheep, and it was not until 1884 that he bought his present home ranch on Mineral King avenue. Here he has twenty acres of fine orchard, having planted all the trees with his own hands, and his peaches include Phillips cling-stones, Tucsan cling-stones, Fosters and Albertas. He has developed a fine farm on which he has met with well deserved success.

 

     In 1861, after the Civil war had begun and while rioting was in progress at Visalia, Mr. Majors was captain of the Home Guard Cavalry, which was organized to keep order. His brother, John P. Majors, also came to California and was the first postmaster at Visalia, which was the first postoffice established in Tulare County.

 

     In April, 1852 Columbus P. Majors married Miss Mary C. Owen, a native of Lee County, Iowa, who bore him a son and four daughters: Amador H.; Mrs. Anna L. Arkle, who passed away; Celestia J., who is Mrs. L. E. McCabe; Mrs. Caroline Arkle, and Mrs. Eva Sadler, deceased. During his active years Mr. Majors was identified largely with the public interests of the community and there was no call upon him in behalf of the general good to which he did not respond promptly and liberally. 

 

MARDIS, OLIVER P

 

     One of the Kentuckians who is making a record for himself in Tulare County, Cal., is Oliver P. Mardis, who is farming on the Exeter road, out of Visalia. He was born in Laurel County, Ky., September 5, 1855, and when he was nine years old was taken by his parents from Kentucky to Johnson County, Kans., where he finished his education in the public school and gained a practical knowledge of farming. In 1875 when he was twenty years old, he came to Colusa County, Cal., and worked there a year for wages. In 1876 he “hired out” to a farmer in the Deer Creek district, in Tulare County, where he later bought eighty acres of land, mostly under alfalfa. When wheat began to be gathered on the farms round about to the extent of ten sacks an acre he sold his eighty acres of alfalfa land and bought half a section near by, which he farmed until December 1, 1908, when he came to his present ranch of fifty-two and one-half acres near Visalia. He keeps an average of two hundred and twenty-five hogs, which yield him a good annual profit. Twenty-three acres of Egyptian corn has given him fifty tons, and his land has returned him seventy bushels of Indian corn to the acre. He has ten acres of alfalfa yielding him several crops each year. Many melons are grown on his place, he has raised wheat seven feet tall and has five thousand eucalyptus trees.

 

     In 1883 Mr. Mardis married Miss Josephine Collins, a native of California, whose father was a pioneer in the Deer Creek section. She passed away, leaving two children, Oliver and Alice. By his marriage with Miss Lucy Bunton, a native of Missouri, Mr. Mardis has two daughters, Anna and Claudine. As a farmer he is thoroughly up to date in every department of his work, and his pair of finely matched black colts for which he has been offered $600 is indicative of the quality of his stock. As a citizen he is helpful in a public-spirited way to all worthy local interests. Pages 361 - 362

 

 

 

MARSHALL, LIONEL W

 

     Another Iowan who is succeeding in Tulare County, Cal., is Lionel W. Marshall, of Tulare. Mr. Marshall was born in Marshall County, in the central part of Iowa, January 10, 1857. When he was fifteen years old he was taken to Yankton, S. Dak., by his parents, who maintained the family home there two years, then in 1874, came to California, locating in Los Angeles. The elder Marshall was a builder, and the son gained a practical knowledge of the carpenter’s trade under his instruction. He, in an earlier day, had acquired similar experience in England, where he first saw the light of day. From Los Angeles father and son went to Pomona, where they erected the first building in the town, which as it happened, was a hotel. They were kept busy there, contracting and building, three years, then went back to Los Angeles. Soon Lionel W. Marshall built homes in Tulare for Thomas H. Thompson and Banker Lathrop. He remained in the town during the period of 1907-08 and moved to Lindsay, where he built himself a fine home and fine residences for James Reynolds, Edward Halleck, John Walker and Messrs. Metcalf and Evans. He also remodeled the building of the National Bank of Lindsay, and while he was operating there went over to Visalia and built residences for A. W. King and James Richardson. He took up his residence in Tulare in September, 1911, and soon afterward erected the H. A. Charters home in that city. Even the most fleeting inspection of the structures he has erected conveys an idea of their artistic design, workmanlike construction and solid permanency. They are ornaments to the towns in which they stand and the best possible advertisement of his skill and ability. Some of his recent architectural achievements are in evidence and he has in hand contracts for executions in the near future which cannot but add to his laurels.

 

     In 1906 Mr. Marshall married Miss Elizabeth Parker, a daughter of Andrew Parker, a pioneer at Monrovia. He is a member of the Visalia body of the order of Moose. In the affairs of the community he is interested and helpful. Pages 390 - 391

 

  

McADAM RANCHES

 

     In 1908 Robert McAdam, who now is a resident of Pasadena, Cal., bought sixteen hundred acres of land, formerly known as Paige and Monteagle orchards, five miles west of Tulare. On this tract he sold all but about nine hundred acres, and this he divided among members of his family, Annie McAdam receiving eighty-five acres, Robert, Jr., and Fred McAdam two hundred and five acres, William J. two hundred and twenty acres, Mrs. Isabelle McAlpine eighty acres, Frank S. McAdam one hundred and eighty acres, and Robert Mc Adam, Sr., one hundred and sixty acres.

 

     These ranches, all in one body, are irrigated with water developed on them, there being six wells with an aggregate flow of five hundred inches, besides numerous other wells for watering stock. The water developed by the nine large wells, which is used solely for irrigation, is pumped by five motors and three gasoline engines; two of the wells are artesian. The entire combination of ranches is supplied with cement irrigation pipe and galvanized iron surface pipe. There is six miles of the cement pipe and the iron pipe is used instead of ditches. This notable irrigation system will be connected and completed before the end of 1913.

 

     The McAdams have put on the place all the improvements that now add to its utility and attractiveness, including a new $3500 concrete residence on the Frank S. McAdam ranch, a new barn, occupying ground space of 40x45 feet, and a new tank and dairy house combined, with a power separator in the dairy house. On the William J. McAdam place there are two new 56x60 foot barns. Another improvement is eight miles of wire hog-tight fence between the different ranches. The farm of Mrs. McAlpine, Robert McAdam, Jr., and Fred McAdam are rented on a cash basis and that of Robert McAdam, Sr., is operated by a tenant on shares, and the combined annual cash rentals of the above ranches aggregate $11,800, and all has been developed in the last five years. Pages 319 - 320

 

 

 

McADAM, FRANK S

 

     The farm of Frank S. McAdam, one of the McAdam ranches, consist of one hundred and eighty acres, ninety acres of which is rented for dairy purposes and seventy-five acres of the ninety is under alfalfa. The dairyman renter milks forty cows and raises some hogs. Thirty acres of the remainder of the place is devoted to alfalfa, and the last acre of it will be given to that crop as soon as possible. At this time Mr. McAdam milks eight cows and farms forty acres to grain.

 

     Mr. McAdam was born June 3, 1885, in Pembina County, Dakota Territory. In 1907 he married Miss Schukenecht, of Hobart Ind., and their son Lawrence McAdam was born October 25, 1908.

 

     Mr. McAdam’s management of his portion of the big McAdam ranch has been evidence of his capability for the handling of big business. A man of enterprise and of public spirit who has the welfare of the community at heart, he is one of the most helpful citizens of this part of the County. He is at present interested with his brother William J. in the Castle Dome silver and lead mines of their father, Robert McAdam. The mines are located in Yuma County, Arizona.  Pages 325 - 326

 

 

 

McADAM, WILLIAM J

 

      The ranch of this enterprising Tulare County farmer is one of the well-known McAdam ranches. It is located five miles west of Tulare and consists of three hundred and twenty acres rented out for dairy purposes. The remainder of the ranch is gradually being devoted to alfalfa and all of it but five acres will be under that grass for a short time.

 

     The principal business of Mr. McAdam has been stock-raising, though he is planning a dairy for the fraction of the ranch which will not be under alfalfa when his scheme is worked out. He now owns forty-five head of dairy cows and twenty-five head of young stock. Formerly he conducted the dairy which he now leases out, and in the days of his management of it he milked forty cows. He kept six hundred hogs, and rented on the outside three hundred acres which he gave over to grain raising and which produced in 1909 and 1910 an average of eighteen sacks to the acre, and in 1911 an average of sixteen sacks to the acre. He is one of the progressive up-to-date farmers, stockraisers and dairymen of Tulare County, and those who know him and the quality of his land look for developments in the future, which will be well worth studying.

 

     William J. McAdam was born August 27, 1887, in Pembina County (then in Dakota Territory). Along with his agricultural interests he is now actively interested in the Castle Dome Silver and Lead mines of his father, Robert McAdam, they being located in Yuma County, Arizona. Pages 363 - 364

 

 

 

McCORD, WILLIAM P

 

     The highly respected citizen of Hanford, Kings County, Cal., has during his long and busy career won distinction in many ways. He was born in Ohio, February 6, 1831, and there received a limited education and practical instruction in different kinds of useful work. In 1852, when he was twenty-one years old, he came to California by way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama, going from New York to Panama on the steamer Brother Jonathan crossing the isthmus on foot and coming to San Francisco on the steamer Winfield Scott. He stopped on the island of Tobaga six weeks waiting for a steamer and retains a fond remembrance of the place and the people. From San Francisco he went to Sacramento and thence to Ringgold. After mining three months he located at Suisun, Solano County with his brother, with the intention of going into the mercantile business. Going down to put some hay on the island, he learned that John Owens had already erected a store there, and he and his brother-in-law engaged in the butcher business, opening the first meat sop in Suisun, and traded there until 1856, when he went back east and brought his family out to California. Upon his return he engaged in teaming with his own teams, carrying supplies to Virginia City, Hangtown (now Placerville), and other mining centers and selling goods at the stores in all the camps round about. Thus he was employed three years, then for four years he ran a meat market in Vacaville. Disposing of that he returned east and farmed in Ohio and after four years went to Denver, Colo. From there he came on to Los Angeles, Cal., and soon engaged in buying cattle, which he drove to Bakersfield. He located in Bakersfield in 1872 and was a charter member of the first lodge of Masons organized there and is now the only survivor of the original fourteen members. He established the McCord ranch, on the north side, a mile and a half from Bakersfield, constructed an irrigation ditch and for seven years furnished water free to everyone in the vicinity. Then, selling most of his stock, he located on government land, put in alfalfa, built levees, extended the ditch, sold it and afterward managed it two years, under the direction of W. B. Carr, making during that time $15 a day over and above the support of his family. From there he came to Tulare County and in 1886-87 bought land at the mouth of Cross creek, twelve miles south of Hanford. One section, which he bought of O. E. Miller, at $2.75 an acre, is still owned in his family and is now worth over $150 an acre. Another section, which he bought of Bird & Smith and which is now valuable, cost him $7.50 an acre. He bought in all about two thousand acres. He and his sons engaged in stock-raising and he and his brother built a levee and reclaimed thousands of acres of land from Cross creek overflow for settlers in that vicinity. Mr. McCord farmed there ad raised horses and stock on a large scale, putting in more than one thousand acres of alfalfa on his own and, and maintained his home in Hanford while operating there. The family now owns eight hundred acres of that property.

 

     In 1874 Mr. McCord and his son Dallas opened a butcher shop at Bakersfield. The latter conducted it many year and at the age of twenty-nine was elected sheriff of Kern County, and was the youngest sheriff in the state at that time, 1887. After filling the office one term he joined his father on the ranch. The latter retired from farming in 1908 and sold all his remaining land. He made a specialty of selling Arizona horses in San Francisco and attained prominence as an auctioneer at Bakersfield and San Francisco. In his younger years he was an athlete and won honors at Vacaville and Suisun and later at Bakersfield and was the first president of the Bakersfield Athletic club. For a long period he was renowned as a boxer, and when he was sixty-five years old he won in a wrestling match with an opponent of twenty-eight. He drove his own teams through Tulare County from Tipton to Bakersfield before the advent of railroad and he and George McCord and Bill Woswick interested Claus Spreckels to construct the Santa Fe railroad through this section. Spreckels was later president of the Valley road, which was eventually absorbed by the Santa Fe system. Mr. Cord early became expert in the handling of horses and was champion of al horse trainers around San Francisco and Bakersfield for some years.

 

     In February, 1850, Mr. McCord married Lois Sophia Crippen, a native of Ohio, and they have five children, two of whom are living. Alice, deceased, was the wife of James Mccaffery, of Hanford; Dallas, who was successful in business with his father, died in 1891; Douglas lives in San Francisco; Burnside is a citizen pf San Jose; Margery died at the age of three years. The mother of these children passed away at Hanford in April 1911, and was buried by the order of Eastern Star. Mr. McCord has long been widely known as a Mason.

 

     When County division was talked of he was a strong advocate and supporter of the movement, and for every other upbuilding agency of the state and County. He has never aspired to any office, though solicited to become a candidate many times, and once was forced to accept the office of justice of the peace at Bakersfield, winning over his opponent five to one in a Democratic stronghold.    Pages 345 - 347

 

 

McFARLAND, JAMES HENRY CLAY

 

     As rancher, stockman and horticulturist James H. C. McFarland has become one of the most prominent citizens of his community. His activities date from 1891, when he bought his property south of Tulare. He was born in Springfield, Greene County, Mo., August 19, 1849, son of William and Martha (Roberts) McFarland, the youngest of their family of three sons and five daughters, all of whom grew to maturity and five of whom are living. William McFarland was taken to Cooper County, Mo., by Jacob McFarland, his father, who was a native of North Carolina, and there he grew up, was educated and learned the work of the farmer and stockman. It was as such that he was engaged during the active years of his life five miles from Springfield, where he passed away in 1863. A Whig and a Union man, he organized the first Home Guards in Greene County. Each of his three son was a volunteer in the Union service: George, now of Springfield, in the Eighth Missouri Cavalry; and James Henry Clay in Company F, Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry, in which he was mustered at Springfield in March, 1865, when he was in his sixteenth year. William McFarland married Martha Roberts, a native of east Tennessee, whose father John Roberts, took his family to Cooper County, Mo., and later to Greene County, where he died. Mrs. McFarland’s death occurred in 1880.

 

     On his father’s farm in Missouri James H. C. McFarland was reared to manhood. He attended the district school near his home until he was obliged to leave it in order to go to work. After his enlistment as a soldier his regiment was detailed for frontier duty against Indians in western Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. A battle with Cheyennes and Comanches was fought at Salt River and the Indian were defeated, but the cavalry remained on the ground until the government effected a treaty with the Indians, where Wichita, Kans., now stands. Mr. McFarland was mustered out of service at Fort Leavenworth in November, 1865, and was later discharged at St. Louis. He was at that time a few months past his sixteenth birthday, and he went back to school, but left it soon afterward to be came a farmer and stock-raiser on his own account. He successfully conducted an eighty-acre farm five miles from Springfield until 1887, when he came to California and located in Tulare County. He rented three hundred acres of the Bishop Colony land, east of Tulare, for two years. Then he rented two hundred and forty acres of the Zumwalt ranch for a year and forty acres belonging to Mrs. Traverse. In the spring of 1891 he bought twenty acres of the Oakland Colony tract, which he put in alfalfa. He also rented two hundred and forty acres of the Gould ranch in the Waukena section, which he farmed to grain for three years. In the fall of 1894 he and his brother-in-law rented four thousand acres east of Lindsay, which was part of the Tuhony ranch, and farmed it one year. The following year they farmed the Gould ranch and in 1896 operated two hundred and forty acres of the Woods place in the Poplar section. He also bought three hundred and twenty acres on the bayou, three miles south of Tulare, where he raised stock. That place he sold in 1904 and bought sixty acres adjoining his twenty acres in the Oakland Colony tract, which he put under alfalfa. There he lived until 1910, when he sold the property and bought eighty acres of the John Shufflebean ranch, two miles west of town, all of which he operates himself and on which his residence is located. He has installed an electric power plant for pumping.   

 

     In 1869 Mr. McFarland married near Springfield, Mo., Miss Martha J. Wharton, a native of Greene County, that state, and a daughter of Emsley Wharton, born in North Carolina, who settled early in Missouri and died there some time after the Civil war, in which he saw service in the Eighth Missouri Cavalry, U. S. A. To Mr. and Mrs. McFarland have been born two children. Their daughter Clara married W. J. Abercrombie of Tulare. Their son Charles G. is a rancher near that city. Mrs. McFarland is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. In politics Mr. McFarland is Republican. Pages 283 - 287

 

 

McLEAN, P A

 

     Of Scotch highland stock and born in Canada, P. A. McLean, of Tulare has demonstrated the potency of the influences that were back of him in the production of good American citizenship. He has also shown what a man of the right kind may hope to accomplish in California, if he makes it his business to succeed. It was at Milton, across our northern border, that he first saw the light of day, November 22, 1842. His parents were natives of Scotland, and his mother of the clan of the Camerons. She was descendant of Lord John Cameron, and her brother, Capt. John Cameron, came to California as early as 1832, later saw service in the West under Fremont, and eventually was killed in the battle of Monterey, in our war with Mexico. So passed an old Indian fighter whose history is a part of the history of California.

 

     P. A. McLean has had many interesting and not a few thrilling experiences. Seven years he sailed on the oceans, visiting about every important port in the world. Off the coast of Africa he was shipwrecked and for four days and nights was afloat on a spar. He was a comrade of “Buffalo Bill” Cody, shooting buffaloes with him on the plains and fighting Indians shoulder to shoulder with that picturesque American hero. It all happened in the period in which the Union Pacific railroad was being constructed across the continent. Several times he was wounded, and to his grave he will carry a bullet in his body. Through his participation in Indian wars, and otherwise, he became acquainted with most of the famous chiefs of his time. Manny years in the saddle, he participated in some of the famous rides that add spice to western history. It is of record that he made the trip from Dayton to Lewiston, sixty miles, in six hours, and rode from Spokane to Walla Walla, one hundred and fifty miles, in eighteen hours. He helped to locate government posts in Washington, and was one of the first white man to pilot a raft down Lake Chelan. He tells how plentiful deer and bear were along the lake. At Cheney, Wash., he built the first bank and the first gristmill, and later had a blacksmith shop, and the earliest gristmill at Spokane was erected by him.

 

     In his native town, Mr. McLean learned the trades of blacksmith and carriage maker, though his apprenticeship was finished at St. Johnsbury, Vt. After a time he found employment on the Vermont Central railroad, and in 1866 he went to Chicago, where, a few years later, he built the first cabin after the Great Fire on the site of the old postoffice on Dearborn Street. But meantime he was busy elsewhere, for in 1869 he rode into Las Angeles, Cal., and saw an old and not very promising cluster of adobe houses, relics of a former civilization, and that was about all. His trip on horseback from there took him to Idaho and Washington. It was on the 7^th of November, 1876, that he made his first appearance in Tulare County, riding astride a mustang. He has lived there most of the time since, always identified with the County’s growth and development. For a long time he made his home in Visalia, where he had a blacksmith shop, but did a good deal of carpentering. He it was who framed the first joist that went into the construction of the old courthouse, and into the same historic structure he put the doors and built the bench for the judge. For six years he blacksmithed in Exeter, and from there he moved back to Visalia. He later rented a shop in Cochrane. He drifted to Visalia and was in the liquor business there four years, and in 1907 he ran a hotel in Cochrane, and came back to Tulare, August, 1909, where he now runs a shop. It was in the year 1888 that he bought the old Lyle ranch, two miles east of Visalia. He is now the owner of a house in Visalia and of the Rosenthal ranch, north of the town, which is stocked and rented. He has one hundred and sixty acres in Fresno County and town property in Fresno, and property in Kings and Riverside and Sonoma counties, besides his old blacksmith and carriage shop at Tulare and with the supervision of his property. Public office has been thrust upon him time to time. He was a deputy sheriff in Vermont, a justice of the peace at Cheney, Wash., and a school trustee at Cochrane, Cal. He helped to organize the Odd fellows lodge at Cochrane and the Knights of Pythias lodge at Visalia, also helped organize the K. of P. and I. O. O. F. in Exeter, and holds membership in both with due honor. He was a charter member also of the Odd Fellows lodge at Exeter. August 22, 1878, he married Miss Sarah M. Thomas, and they have a daughter, Sarah F. Pages 336 - 338

 

 

 

MELIDONIAN, E G

 

     It was on the second day of July, 1867, that the well-known citizen of California whose name is above was born in Zetoon, Armenia. He was duly graduated from a missionary school in 1886, with a competent knowledge of the English language and many who knew him and appreciated his fine abilities urged him to become a minister of the gospel. He was twenty years old in 1887 when he came to the United States, and for two years he lived in Paterson, N. J., and for twenty-one years he was actively employed as a weaver of silk ribbon. It was in New Jersey that he married Miss Mary Kahacharian, also a native of Armenia and a graduate of a missionary school at Marash, where she received a diploma in 1885. She taught school for two years and her husband was likewise employed for one year. She has borne him six children, whom they named as follows in the order of their nativity: Mary, Anna, Victoria, Elizabeth, Dove, and Martha. Mary married James Erganian, who graduated from the same missionary school in Armenia in which his father-in-law was educated. After coming to the United States he took up work as a butler in Boston and Charlestown, Mass. Four years later he came to California and bought twenty acres of land, which he has improved with vineyards and orchards. Anna married Peter Besoyan and they have a son named Sergius and live at Yettem. Victoria graduated from the grammar school and is the wife of Fred Sahroian. Elizabeth has finished grammar school and Dove and Martha are in school.

 

     On coming to California in 1908 the subject of this notice bought fifty acres of land at $50 an acre at Yettem. He has thirty acres of vines, a small orchard, and ten acres of pasture, and intends to take up the cultivation of oranges and peaches on the other ten acres. Although he purchased the land but four years ago, it is now worth about $300 an acre. He has built a good house on the property and keeps enough stock and horses for his own use. Mr. Melidonian is a Republican, a Presbyterian, a member of the Royal Arcanum and a progressive citizen of much public spirit.  Pages 354 - 357

 

 

 

MILLER, ROBERT W

 

     In Jasper County, Ill., Robert W. Miller was born September 5, 1847. Orphaned when very young, he grew up in Crawford County, that state, under the care of a guardian who allowed him practically no educational advantages. When he was nineteen years old he became a student in public school in Sangamon County, Ill., from which he graduated when twenty-one and given a teacher’s certificate. While teaching school during the next two years, he prepared himself by special courses of study to enter the University of Illinois, and in 1871 he took the law course of that institution; in 1874 he was admitted to the bar to practice as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of Illinois. He soon afterward went to Minnesota, where he taught school two years, also procuring admission to practice in the Supreme Court of that state, and he was in professional work there until the fall of 1879, when he located to Humboldt County, Cal. For two years thereafter he practiced at Eureka and then gave up the law temporarily in favor of mining, but in two years he was glad to return to his law office, and on June 17, 1885, he became a member of the bar, admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of California. After laboring professionally for a short time at Eureka and Del Norte, he located at Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, and was in legal practice there until 1904, when he came to Hanford, where he at once opened offices and has since been professionally successful. Shortly after his arrival in Kings County he was appointed Court Commissioner, and in 1906 he was a candidate on the Republican ticket for the office of judge of the Superior Court but was defeated by a very small majority. After the Santa Cruz Republican State convention in 1906, he became most active in furthering progressive government, principles to which he has been a convert for many years. In 1907 he was appointed state organizer for Kings County and he gave his best efforts to the organization of the Lincoln-Roosevelt League of California which culminated in the election of Hiram Johnson for Governor and later in the birth of the Progressive party in 1912. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masonic order. His social popularity is wide, and his fellow citizens admire him as a man of ability and of honesty who has the interests of the community at heart and does it in a public-spirited way all that he is able to do for their promotion. 

 

     In 1880 Mr. Miller married Miss Mattie Morrison, a native of Wisconsin, who has borne him a daughter a four sons. Maud E. is the wife of Dr. Edward Dunbar of Fallon, Nev. R. Justin is a student in the University of Montana, a graduate of Stanford University of the class of 1911, and was recently admitted to practice law in the Montana Supreme Court. J. Arthur is studying engineering at Stanford University. He is a graduate of the Palo Alto high school, where his brothers, W. Leslie and Lowell Mill, are now students. Pages 324 - 325

 

 

 

MILLER, WILLIAM R

 

     It was in England that William R. Miller, who now lives eight miles south of Hanford, was born October 26, 1843. When he was about eighteen months old his parents brought him to Troy, N. Y., and he lived there and at Saratoga, in the same state, until he was nineteen years old. Then he enlisted in the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until June, 1865, when he was honorably discharged at Alexandria, Va. As a member of Company C of that organization he was included in the second army corps of the army of the Potomac, participating in many engagements, including the fight in the Wilderness, the battle of Spottslvania Court House, where he was wounded; the fighting in front of Petersburg, where he cast his first Presidential vote for Lincoln, and other encounters no less important. His wound caused him to be in the hospital three months. After the war he farmed in New York state until April, 1870, when he located sixteen miles north of Webster City, Iowa, and there farmed and raised stock until 1887, when he came to California. After stopping a short time at Tulare he went to the west side, near Dudley, accompanied by his immediate family, his father and his wife’s mother. He and his father and brother took up land there which soon proved so unpromising for farming purposes that his father and brother abandoned their claims, but he retained his, which after he had sold part of it proved to be valuable oil land, but this holding is not the least of his possessions. Returning to Tulare County, he soon went to Delano, where he put in two crops, and in June, 1899, came to Kings County and worked for a year near Armona. In his second year there he bought twenty-two and a half acres, eight miles south of Armona, on which he built a house and put all other improvements, settling six acres to vineyard and a family orchard and giving the remainder over to alfalfa, and this is his present home place. He began here as a stockraiser and was successful for some years. His son, Fred C. Miller, now operates a dairy on the place. In 1911 Mr. Miller bought forty acres of the Jacobs tract, south of his ranch, on which there are improvements.

 

     In 1867 Mr. Miller took for his wife Caroline A. Chesterman, of English birth, who was brought to the United States when three months old and grew to womanhood in New York state. They have five living children: The Rev. Charles N. Miler, who is blind, is an ordained minister of the gospel and resides at Bakersfield; Carrie M. married John C. Goodale, of Denair, Cal.; May M. married E. W. Houston, of Visalia; Fred C., the youngest so of the family, married Anna J. Erni and is ranching and dairying on his father’s land. William R., Jr., was accidentally killed by a boiler explosion, aged twenty-five years, and Mina M. was married to E. R. Houston and died about twenty.

 

     Mr. Miller keeps alive memories of the days of the Civil war by association with his comrades of McPherson Post, G. A. R. He is a genial man, given to pleasant reminiscence, and is welcomed as a friend wherever he may go. His interest in the welfare of the community makes him a citizen of much public spirit.  Pages 360 - 361

 

 

MONTGOMERY, LITCHFIELD YOUNG

 

     Of those who are engaged in ranching and stock-raising in the vicinity of Hanford, Kings County, none stand higher in public favor than L. Y. Montgomery, who came to this County in January, 1881, and during the long time that has elapsed since has demonstrated the value of the industry and fair dealing in the making of a career of usefulness and honor. Mr. Montgomery was born in East Tennessee on May 17, 1857, the son of William Glaspy and Mary Jane (Burton) Montgomery, natives respectively of Tennessee and Virginia. Both passed away on the old homestead, the father when about seventy years old, and the mother also lived to pass her seventieth year. L. Y. Montgomery was educated in public schools near the family plantation and at Maryville College. He was early instructed in all of the details of successful farming as conducted in that part of the country at the time, and may be said to have been in the fields since he was a lad of ten years. After he left college he assumed charge of his father’s business, managing it for a short time, and in January, 1879, he went to Louisiana, where he was much enthused over the fine opportunities which the farming interests of that state offered to a young man, and in leaving there he felt that he was turning his back on fortune, besides leaving behind many appreciated friends whom he had made among the planters. However, falling a victim to malaria, he decided to seek a change of climate and came to California.  

 

     Mr. Montgomery’s first employment in the Golden State was in the redwood lumber camps controlled by San Francisco parties, and in June, 1881, he found work in the harvest fields for a time. In the latter part of that year he came to Grangeville, then Tulare County, and for the following two years was paid well earned wages by G. H. Hackett for ranch work. After he had saved some more he leased land and for some time was successful as a farmer on his own account; still later on, as success smiled on his efforts, he became a land-owner and engaged in general farming and stock-raising. At this time he owns his home place of eighty acres, five miles north of Hanford, besides two hundred acres in Fresno County, all of which is well improved. He has forty acres in fruit, to the cultivation of which he gives considerable attention. He is interested in irrigation projects and is a director of the People’s Ditch company and also the Riverside Ditch company. For four years, from 1906 to 1910, he served as supervisor from the third district of Kings County and while a member of that body the new County hospital was erected and the courthouse park was enlarged.

 

     On November 30, 1891, occurred the marriage of L. Y. Montgomery and Miss Jennie G. Latham, who was a native of Sutter County, born on August 7, 1870. They have three sons, Cloyd Burton, a student in Heald’s Business College at Fresno; Russell Latham and Creed Litchfield. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are members of the Kings River Methodist Episcopal church and both belong to the order of the Rebekahs, and he is a member of the Odd Fellows. In all matters pertaining to the well-being of the County or the people, Mr. Montgomery has always shown his public spirit and has advocated and supported measures to the best of his ability along those lines. To such men as he the County owes its development and standing among its sister counties of the state. Pages 287 - 288

 

  

MOORE, ORLANDO

 

     Visalia has no more prominent citizen along industrial and agricultural lines than Orlando Moore. The son of Henry C. and Amelia (Renalds) Moore, he was born at Venice Hill, Tulare County, Cal., March 30, 1869. His father and mother were natives respectively of Missouri and Iowa.

 

     Henry C. Moore came to California in the early ‘60s, taught school in Tulare County and raised sheep, and later operated one of the pioneer sawmills in the mountains which was one of the first in the vicinity, but at length returned to Missouri. Eight years later he came back to California with a carload of cattle and went into the cattle business on a section in the swamp lands of Tulare County with R. E. Hyde as a partner. Eventually, however, he sold out his interest to Mr. Hyde and went to Puget Sound, where he farmed and operated a saw and shingle mill seven years. He came again to Tulare County in 1900 and has since lived there.

 

     In some of the ventures mentioned above, Orlando Moore was his father’s helper and after a time he engaged extensively in the cultivation of watermelons, in one season receiving $2700 from the sales of melons; at the Fourth of July celebration at Visalia in 1903 he had seventeen horses and five wagons selling melons through the town, he and his brother Edward making a fine display of his product with five four-horse teams. Mr. Moore was the pioneer orange grower at Venice Cove. Buying twenty acres there, he raised the trees from seeds, brought fourteen acres of fruit to bearing and sold out for $14, 500. The nursery business also commanded the attention of Mr. Moore and his brother for a while. In 1910 he sold out his Venice Cove property and bought twenty acres near the west city limits of Visalia, which he has improved and put on the market in half-acres and quarter-acre lots. He owns also a mountain ranch of one hundred and sixty acres and one hundred and sixty acres near Spa on the Santa Fe, five miles northeast of Alpaugh. One of his possessions is a fine auto-truck with a capacity of fifty people, and with which he made an experimental run to San Francisco with fruit that he took through without bruising or otherwise injuring it. He contemplates a like trip with his auto-truck to Portland, Ore., with fruit from Tulare County, and it will doubtless attract much attention to this part of the state. The raising of tomatoes has been another experiment of Mr. Moore’s which has proved noteworthy. He set half an acre to fifteen hundred vines, and sold his product as high as ten cents a pound; for tomatoes grown on five acres in a single season he received $1750.

 

     Mr. Moore’s latest venture has been in the field of invention. In the year 1912 he took out a patent upon a detachable tread for any size double-tired auto-truck. This invention enables the truck to be changed into a tractor for field and farm purposes, and it bids fair to become an extremely useful and popular devise. Its advantages may be listed as follows: Protection to the rubber tire; increase of tractile power so that it can be used in  a field for the purposes of plowing or discing and seeding summer fallowed or loose sandy land; prevention of slipping upon a muddy or sandy road; great strength and durability; inexpensive and capable of lasting a lifetime; and easily and quickly adjusted.

 

     Socially Mr. Moore is identified with the Fraternal Brotherhood. He and Mrs. Moore are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Visalia. He married, in 1903 Muriel Witherell, a native of Knoxville, Ill., and they have three children, Ramon, Ralph Spencer and Kathryn Moore.  Pages 379 - 380

 

 

POWELL, FRANK

 

     The people of Lemoore have many times been congratulated on having such a genial and efficient postmaster as Frank Powell, who has held the office continuously since his first appointment by President Harrison. Mr. Powell is a native of Sacramento, Cal., born March 22, 1867, a son of F. M. Powell. He was brought up at Brighton, near Sacramento, and came to the vicinity of Lemoore with his parents in 1873, when he was about six year old. The elder Powell turned his attention to farming and the boy became a student in the Lemoore public school and later was graduated from the high school at Tulare.

 

     The first postal work done by Mr. Powell was in the Tulare postoffice, where he was for two years a deputy under Postmaster under M. D. Will. Usually postmasters are appointed chiefly for political reasons, but Mr. Powell was called to the postmastership of Lemoore because he was experienced in the work that the postoffice demanded and could adapt himself to the situation more easily and become an efficient postmaster with greater facility than any other man in town. He was first appointed under the Harrison administration and he has since been five times reappointed. His management of the office has put it on a business plane considerably higher than that usually occupied by postoffices of towns of about the population of Lemoore. So far he has been able he has brought the establishment to a system resembling in some ways that which obtains in cities of considerable importance.

 

     Eight miles from Lemoore in the midst of the Empire district, is a fine ranch owned by Mr. Powell, which he devotes to the cultivation of alfalfa and the raising of fine hogs. Politically he is a Republican and socially he is a Woodman of the World. As a citizen his public spirit is equal to all demands which tend toward municipal welfare. He married in 1898, Miss Belle Adams of Kings County, and they have a daughter whom they have named Ella.  Pages 385 - 386

 

 

 

NOBLE, GEORGE A

 

     A prominent citizen and successful builder of Tulare County, and a native son of the Golden State, George A. Noble was born in Soquel, Santa Cruz County, in 1856, a son of Augustus and Johanna M. (Short) Noble. His parents were both born in Massachusetts, and his father is living at Soquel at the age of ninety years.

 

     The elder Noble came to California on board a sailing vessel by way of Cape Horn in the year 1849, a member of a party of thirty-nine men who were three months in reaching their destination, and he is one of the few ‘49ers surviving in this state. On the voyage the supply of meat was exhausted and some of the people on the ship died of scurvy, for a time there being no fresh food but fish. Soon after his arrival Mr. Noble began mining on the Feather river, and in nine months took out gold to the value of $20,000, sending some of his nuggets back East. Later he returned to his old home, married and brought his bride to California. Locating in the mining district of Marysville, he set himself up in business as a cooper, working over the material of old whisky barrels into kegs, which he sold profitably to miners, but he was burned out at Marysville, losing it all. After a time he went to San Francisco, bought a cooper shop near Black Point, operated it successfully two years and then sold it in order to remove to Soquel, Santa Cruz County, where he has since made his home. He bought an undivided one-ninth interest in the Soquel ranch of two thousand acres and in the Argumentation ranch of nine hundred acres, which he still owns. He was one of the early justices of the peace on the Pacific slope and is a member of the Pioneer Society of California. His wife, who died in 1907, bore him children as follows: Mrs. Charlotte M. Lawson, of San Francisco: George A., of this review; Edward T.; Frederick Dent; Prof. Charles A., of the University of California at Berkeley; and Walter.

 

     In Soquel, Santa Cruz County, Cal., George A. Noble grew to manhood, acquired his education and gained practical familiarity with fruit growing. He began his independent business life in 1878 as a fruitman near Fresno, on a tract of eighty acres, twenty of which was in vineyard, forty in fruit and the remaining twenty in alfalfa. In 1888 he moved to Seattle, Wash., where he was for a time a successful contractor and builder. Returning to California, he bought eighty acres at Savilla, near Atwell’s Island, Tulare County, but owing to failure on the part of the vendors to furnish water according to their agreement he was compelled to abandon his holdings after two years’ work and many improvements made upon it. He then removed to Fresno, where he devoted his time to the cultivation of Indian corn. In 1900 he settled in Visalia, renting twenty acres, which he afterwards bought and still owns. He developed it into an orchard and is now doing well as a grower of peaches. His property, lying within the city limits of Visalia, is exceedingly valuable. In connection with his fruit growing he has done much contracting and building at Visalia since 1905, having erected, among other buildings, the Episcopal church, five houses for J. S. Johnson, the W. R. Pigg home, the M. J. Wells home, the Willow district schoolhouse and Mrs. Dyer’s home. In the year 1912 he built the Bliss, Cutler and East Lynne schoolhouses in Tulare County and is at present engaged on the new Presbyterian church at Visalia. The residence of Mrs. Oaks, opposite the new Baptist church in Visalia was also completed by him. Besides buildings of the class mentioned he has built numerous cottages in different parts of town, and his work has been such as to give him high standing among the builders and contractors of the County. He is a charter member of the local organization of Modern Woodmen, and as a citizen is progressive, public spirited and helpful to all good interests of the community.

 

     In 1877 Mr. Noble married Miss Otto, a native of Germany, whose father, long in the employ of Claus Spreckels, built in Wisconsin the first beet sugar factory in the United State and later erected the Eldorado sugar factory, near San Francisco. Mrs. Noble has borne her husband six children, Augustus, Edgar, Rosa, Ewald, Gertrude and George. Rosa is the wife of Clarence Brown of Visalia. Mr. Noble has recently organized the California Building Co., which has platted the Nobles Subdivision to Visalia and is now engaged in building houses and selling off lots to prospective homemakers, this being the finest available residence district in Visalia. The family home is at No. 820 West Mineral King avenue, Visalia.

 

 

OSBORN, FRANK

 

     In Fountain County on the Wabash river in Indiana, Frank Osborn, a musician and singer of note and now superintendent of the Tulare County Hospital at Visalia, was born May 2, 1851, a son of Oliver and Margaret (Dyer) Osborn, natives of respectively of Ohio and of New Jersey. Oliver Osborn, brought his family to California in 1875 and settled in Tulare County on the Upper Tule river near Globe, where he bought land and achieved success as a stockraiser. His wife, who was a singer of exceptional ability even when she was more than seventy years old, died there in 1898 and he in August, 1909. Mr. Osborn was a man of influence in the community and during all his active life gave much attention to educational matters. He and his wife were devout members of the Christian church. Of their thirteen children four survive: Oliver P., a rancher near Porterville; Frank, of this review; Mrs. Sarah A. Evans, of Indiana, and Mrs. Mary E. Clark, of Missouri.

 

     From his boyhood Frank Osborn has been familiar with all the details of stockraising and until 1897 was identified with his father in that industry. As long as he can remember he has been a singer, he having inherited marked musical ability from his talented mother. As such he became known throughout all the country round about Visalia, and he was long in great demand as a teacher of vocal classes during the winter months, for many years leading the choir of the Christian church at Visalia. In 1897 he was appointed superintendent of the Tulare County Hospital at Visalia, which position he has since filled with a degree of ability and integrity which has commended him to all the people of the County. He has in all his relations with his fellowmen proven himself public spirited in an eminent degree. Fraternally he affiliates with the Knights of Pythias.

 

     In 1870 Mr. Osborn married Miss Elizabeth Marksbury, a native of Kentucky, who was so situated during the Civil war that she was an eye-witness on many engagements between the Federal and Confederate troops. A detailed account of her experiences and the conditions which made them possible could not but make a most interesting volume.

 

     To Frank and Ellen (Marksbury) Osborn have been born children as follows: Mrs. Edna Hannaford, who has children named Lura, Duke and Laura; Charles H., who married Miss Minta Berry, daughter of Senator G. S. Berry of Lindsay, and has children named Audra and Irma; Earl, who married Maud Carter, who has borne him a child whom they have named Rolla; and Gladys, wife of E. L. Cary of Stockton, who has a daughter, Ellen L. Cary.

 

OVERALL, DANIEL G

 

     The Texan is as cosmopolitan as any citizen of the United States. Wherever his lot may be cast, he immediately becomes one of the people and is ready with heart and hand and money to do his part towards the advancement of the public weal. Texas, too, has been a station in the travels of families bound for California, but who have leisurely in their travels; stop in Texas has sometime been premeditated, sometime it has been incidental and sometime accidental. These stops in Texas have been signalized by the addition, by marriage or by birth of members to families from further east or north. It was in Texas, in 1857, that Daniel G. Overall first saw the light of day. His father, Daniel G., Sr., was a native of Missouri; his mother, Charity (Mason), was a native of Illinois. The father sailed around Cape Horn to California in 1849. Later he went back to Missouri, and from there went to Texas. While tarrying in the Lone Star State, he busied himself by getting together a large band of cattle, which he drove from there to Tulare County in 1859. Selling his cattle, he was enabled to buy ranch property here. He prospered as a farmer, and here he and his wife both died. They had two children—Mrs. Mary E. Farrow of Visalia and Daniel G. Overall, Jr. The latter was reared and educated in Tulare County and went into the real estate business at Visalia, in association with John F. Jordan and W. H. Hammond. A man of public spirit, and influential politically, he was elected auditor and sheriff of Tulare County and served in the former capacity during 1887-1888 and in the latter during 1889-1890.

 

     Ranching and stock-raising have commanded Mr. Overall’s attention during most of his business career, but in the late years he has been much interested in orange-growing in the citrus belt of Tulare County, and is now president of the Central California Citrus Fruit Exchange. He is manager and principal owner of the Kaweah Lemon Company, director in the First National Bank of Visalia and the president of the Visalia Abstract Company. For thirteen years he was proprietor of the Palace Hotel, Visalia, and he has extensive oil interests in Kern County and mining interests in Calaveras County. He is a Scottish Rite Mason, Knight Templar and a Shriner, active and widely known in the order, and affiliates with the Fresno lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He has married twice. His first wife was Miss Hawpe, who bore him a son, Orvie Overall, who has attained much fame as a baseball pitcher in some of the great games of the past decade. His present wife was Miss Van Loan.

 

 

PETERSON, ALFRED

 

     A native of Sweden, Alfred Peterson is descended from old families of that country. He was born August 23, 1869, near Oskarshamn, Smoland, a son of Peter and Christine (Johnson) Carlson. His father was a sexton, in charge of the local church and cemetery, and his grandfather, a Swedish cavalry soldier, did gallant service in the Napoleonic wars 1812-15. Alfred and his sister, Mrs. Selma Pospeshek, of Tulare County, are the only living children of the father’s family. In 1884, when he was between fourteen and fifteen years old, Alfred Peterson came to America with his brother Oskar and found employment on a farm near Long Point, Livingston County, Ill. From there he went to Marshall County, in the same state, and in 1889 came to Los Angeles, near which city he worked two years in an orange grove for Abbott Kinney. Then he went to Antelope Valley, intending to locate there, but did not like the prospect in that vicinity and proceeded to Formosa, where he and his team were employed two months in construction work, and after that he teamed four months at Fresno. In 1891 he came to Tulare, where he was variously employed until the spring of 1893, when with William Kerr as a partner, he went into the threshing business, buying an engine of twenty-four horse power. At the expiration of two years he took over the business, which he continued until in the fall of 1901, when he retired in order to devote himself almost exclusively to stockraising. In 1893 he had farmed at the Oaks, north of town, on one hundred and sixty acres of land leased for one season. In the spring of 1894 he rented twenty acres, three and one-fourth miles east of Tulare on the Lindsay road, where he now lives. In the following fall he bought that property and in the spring of 1895 he bought twenty acres more. In the fall of 1897 he bought forty acres adjoining on the east and in the spring of 1900 two hundred and sixty-five acres adjoining the north. In the winter of 1905 he bought one hundred acres known as Bliss field, across the road, south of the other property. He has introduced many improvements and his land is all fenced in. He has about one hundred acres of alfalfa, twenty-five acres under orchard tree, farms two hundred acres to grain and devoted the remainder of his land to pasturage.

 

     The marriage of Mr. Peterson, in Chicago, the spring of the year 1904, united him with Miss Hilda Anderson, who was bon near Westervik, Smoland, Swden, and they have children named Carl, George and Helen, the first of whom is in school. While maintaining a deep affection for the land of his birth, Mr. Peterson is loyal to America, especially to California. He has long been an advocate of irrigation, realizing that the lack of water here is the only drawback to the achievement of satisfactory results in agriculture. He was for a time director in the Farmers’ Ditch Company, from the improvements of which his own land was irrigated and he has in other ways promoted the irrigation facilities of this part of the County and has not been less helpful in a public spirited way to other movements for the benefit of the people among who he has cast his lot. He is a stockholder in the Bank of Tulare and in the Rochdale store. During the entire period of his residence in Tulare County he has affiliated fraternally with the lodge, encampment and Rebekah organization of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. During recent years he has devoted much of his time to travel and in 1902 he journeyed thirty thousand miles by railroad and steamer. Nine times he has crossed our own continent and twice has he returned to his old home to renew the associations of his youth, the first time in 1902, when he enjoyed a visit with his father in Oskarshamn and with other relatives and friends whom he had long been separated. In the spring of 1908 he went back again for five months accompanied by his family. Since the establishment of the reformation by Martin Luther, the successive generations of the family have been of the Lutheran faith and Alfred was reared in its doctrine, but since he came to America he has affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which his wife is also a member. Pages 347 - 348

 

 

History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches
History By Eugene L Menefee and Fred A Dodge
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

                                                               Site Update: 12 January 2009
                                                                  Martha A Crosley Graham
                                                                    Rights Reserved - 2009