USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 1
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01149 4934
HISTORY OF
SAN BERNARDINO AND
RIVERSIDE COUNTIES
BY
JOHN BROWN, Jr. Editor for San Bernardino County
AND
JAMES BOYD Editor for Riverside County
WITH
Selected Biography of Actors and Witnesses of the Period of Growth and Achievement
VOLUME III
-
THE WESTERN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922 THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO, ILL.
1.83746
S. H.Merrick
STEPHEN HENDERSON HERRICK-It would be difficult to conceive of broader and greater benefits flowing from the influence and character of one individual and affecting in a constructive and progressive way the development and future of the Riverside community than those attribut- able to Stephen Henderson Herrick during his residence of nearly forty years in California. He was one of the men of vision as well as prac- tical resourcefulness who comprised an important syndicate of Iowa capitalists attracted to the development of that section lying east and north of the original Riverside Colony. The primary problems involved in its development was a dependable irrigation system. That system was first inaugurated in the famous Gage Canal. Mr. Herrick as head and member of the Iowa syndicate furnished the support and co-operation to Matthew Gage which were indispensable for the construction of that irrigation project on a broad and stable basis. On part of the land benefited by this enterprise Mr. Herrick in 1887 set out the first plant- ings of orange trees, and of the extensive holdings he has had and helped develop he still retains a large part, indicating that his interest in the country is not that of a speculator but one who is willing to wait for the fruits of his constructive enterprise to ripen. While so much of his time has been given to the material development, his interest has been deep and abiding in the broader growth and progress of Riverside. He has been a factor in the organization of some of the leading banks of this locality, notably the Citizens National and the Security Savings of River- side, and for a number of years was president of both institutions. He is now Chairman of the Board of Directors of the latter bank.
Mr. Herrick represents one of the oldest lines of Colonial New Eng- land ancestry, although he traces his line back over 1,000 years to Eric, a Norse chieftain or king. One of his ancestors was a judge of court in Massachusetts, and was directly responsible for putting an end to the infamous practice of witchcraft. The English branch of Herricks came to America in 1660, settling at Salem and Beverly, Massachusetts.
S. H. Herrick was born at Crown Point, Essex County, New York, son of Stephen Leonard Herrick, a Congregational minister who for twenty-five years was in charge of the church at Crown Point. Later he removed to Fairhaven, Vermont, and from there to Grinnell, Iowa. where for many years, until his death in 1886, he was connected with Grinnell College as a teacher and trustee. The mother of S. H. Her- rick was Delia Ives, a native of Vermont. Her parents were of Scotch ancestry and moved from Connecticut to Vermont in December, 1799, for a large part of the way, blazed trees marking the route for their slow going caravan of ox teams. While on this pilgrimage they re- ceived the news of the death of Washington.
Stephen Henderson Herrick was reared and educated in Iowa, at- tending public schools and after completing a full course in Liberal Arts at Grinnell College in 1865, he received the A. B. degree. After a further two years course in law and theology he received the degree of Master of Arts. His alma mater also elected him to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honorary society. Instead of entering upon a professional career he took up mercantile business at Grinnell, and continued that connection for twenty- three years. He was also deeply interested in his alma mater, and in 1883, after the buildings of Grinnell College had been destroyed by a cyclone, he came west to Oakland, California, and for several months was husy throughout the state in making collections. particularly for the college museum. He acquired a great abundance of material for this purpose besides interesting the various transportation
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companies and also through the aid of the faculty of the University of California. Mr. Herrick then returned East, and in 1885 became asso- ciated with others in the organization of the East Riverside Land Com- pany. His chief associates in this were ex-Governor Merrill of Iowa, Colonel S. F. Cooper, former U. S. consul at Glasgow, and Senator De Los Arnold of Iowa, and the late A. J. Twogood of Riverside. These men organized for the purpose of developing the mesa land east of Riverside and purchased several thousand acres in that vicinity from the Southern Pacific Railway Company. This was subdivided, the town of Highgrove being platted. In this development Mr. Herrick and his associates worked closely in co-operation with Matthew Gage so that the Gage Canal would directly benefit the East Riverside tract. Mr. Herrick remained president of the company tor several years, and the company was dissolved in 1915, after all the land had been sold. Under the Gage Canal system Mr. Herrick planted the first orange trees, and he continued his planting over several large tracts, and still retains a large share of this property. Other tracts have been touched with his enterprise as a developer, all in the section east of Riverside, where he has owned or developed about four hundred acres.
Mr. Herrick is president and his son, S. L. Herrick, vice president and manager of the "Herrick Estates, Incorporated." The various prop- erties and interests of the family are concentrated for more effective business management. Mr. Herrick is also president of the Lemona Heights Company, owning 180 acres of citrus fruits above the Gage Canal, upon which the company developed the water. At one time he owned considerable land in West Riverside, Corona and Rialto.
Mr. Herrick at the time of the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 had charge of the large exhibit of Griffin & Skelley, this being the firm that is now manufacturing the famous Del Monte brand of food products. Following his work at Chicago Mr. Herrick remained East four years. and during that time was one of the managing directors of the Grinnell Savings Bank, of which he had been president prior to coming to Cali- fornia.
In 1903 Mr. Herrick was one of the prominent organizers of the Citizens Bank of Riverside and was its first president. In 1904 this bank took over the Orange Growers Bank and soon after became a national bank, with enlarged capital. The Security Savings was organ- ized in 1907, owned by the Citizens National. Of this bank Mr. Her- rick was the first president. In 1916 the First National Bank of River- side was taken over by the Citizens National and the Riverside Savings Bank was absorbed by the Security Savings Bank. At this time Mr. Herrick resigned the presidency of the National Bank to devote his entire time to the Savings institution, but in 1920 resigned to accept the posi- tion of chairman of its Board of Directors. He is also vice president of the Citizens National Bank and vice president of the Citizens Bank of Arlington. He was one of the organizers of the Fast Riverside Water Company, and has been president practically since its inception. He is president of the Riverside-Highland Water Company and president of the Monte Vista Citrus Association.
Mr. Herrick is affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic, having served in the Civil War in the 46th Regiment of Infantry of Iowa Volunteers. A man of deep religious convictions, he has all his life given much attention to church and educational causes. He is Deacon Emeritus and one of the advisory board of the Congregational Church. and has frequently officiated as a lay minister, even while president of the bank holding services in various places. In former years he found
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time to share the duties of politics natural to a man of his high standing. At the age of twenty-one he was elected a delegate to the Iowa State Republican Convention. He also served as mayor of Grinnell and was at one time a member of the Republican County Central Committee and has represented his party in the California State Convention. He is deeply interested in his alma mater. The beautiful Herrick Chapel, which adorns the Grinnell College campus was made possible by his benefactions. It is a family memorial, as three generations were educated there-Mr. Herrick's father, himself and his son.
September 3, 1869, Mr. Herrick married Miss Harriet E. Fellows, a native of Princeton, Illinois, and daughter of Ephraim Fellows, who was born in New Hampshire and who became extensively identified with the pioneer development of Colorado. Mrs. Herrick is of English and Revolutionary ancestry and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They have two children, the son, Stephen Leonard Herrick, being referred to above as active associate with his father. The daugh- ter, Lida, is the wife of J. Lansing Lane, recently of Hollister, California, now of Santa Cruz County. Mr. and Mrs. Lane have two children, Derick and Elizabeth.
ISAAC ALLEN HOLEMAN has been a resident of Riverside twenty years, and while he has invested capital in this district he has taken little part in active business affairs. He is a loyal and enthusiastic Californian, and a man of the highest standing in Riverside, where his fellow citizens respect his judgment and integrity and know him as one of the most public spirited men in the community.
Mr. Holeman was born in Warren County, Illinois, May 11, 1858, son of Reuben and Suzanna (Crabb) Holeman. His parents moved to Illinois at an early date, and spent most of their lives on a farm in Warren County. Isaac Allen Holeman grew up in Central Illinois, grad- uated from the city schools of Monmouth, and after completing his edu- cation returned to the farm and gained his prosperity from the corn belt of Illinois. In 1900 he moved to Riverside and purchased an orange grove, but has practically retired from its active management, though he holds considerable stock in the Cressmer Manufacturing Company.
Mr. Holeman is a democrat in politics, like his father before hin. He has never been interested in public office as an honor, though he performed his duty for a number of years as road overseer in Warren County, Illinois. At Richmond, Indiana, in 1886, Mr. Holeman married Miss Melvina A. Stephenson, who was born in Indiana, representing an old American family of Revolutionary stock and English descent. Mr. and Mrs. Holeman have two sons: George S., born in 1887, graduated in medicine from Stanford University, subsequently took special work in surgery, and is now engaged in a successful practice at Portland, Oregon. November 16, 1920, he married Miss Estella Buckley, of San Francisco. The younger son, Roy Holeman, born in 1889, completed the scientific agricultural course at the State University and is now a practical agri- culturist at Van Nuys, California. In 1916 he married Miss Nellie Ross, of Riverside.
J. D. LANGFORD .- The career of J. D. Langford of Redlands exenpli- fies the making of a successful business man through strenuous experi- ence and a disposition never to stop or waiver on account of failure or obstacles.
He borrowed a hundred dollars to come to California, and had three dollars left when he arrived on March 26, 1888. The remainder of that
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year he was employed on the Raymond place. The following sixteen years the scene of his work and experience was at Highland. Most of his employment was in the orange industry. Mr. Langford bought his first acreage, only two and a half acres, near Highland Station in 1890. planting it to oranges and nursery stock. It was unprofitable, since the nursery was late in planting, market was dull and prices low. An- other factor in his ill success there was the burning of a barn, in which his horses were destroyed. He then showed the disposition of one who could face defeat without being discouraged. Going into the moun- tains, he took charge of the saw mill property of the Highlands Lumber Company at Fredalba Park for two years. Returning to East High- lands, he became foreman of the orange ranches of C. H. Sherrod and Frank Gore, and after the first year was appointed receiver, general superintendent and manager, a post of duty he held six years. He later superintended these properties for H. M. Olney and C. A. Sherrod, and on leaving them became superintendent in charge of the nursery and salesman for H. H. Linville. About that time he began speculating in the buying and shipping of oranges, and after a year turned his entire time and attention to the productive end of the orange industry, a line in which his talents and energies have been most successfully displayed since he came to California.
A number of years ago Mr. Langford became associated with A. H. Gregory on the Williams tract. The laying out, grading, planting, in- stallation of the irrigation system on this tract were under his personal supervision. He planted 665 acres. During this time he and Mr. Greg- ory also bought the four hundred eighteen acres owned by the Riverside Highland Water Company just east and south of Colton. A beginning had been made of a peach plantation, and they continued the planting of this fruit over two hundred and twenty-five acres. Mr. Langford made a contract with the City of San Bernardino to take charge of the sewage water for twenty-five years, and laid a line from the city to this ranch. This business was incorporated under the name the Delta Water Company, and Mr. Langford was interested in the ownership of the prop- erty for five years, being president of the Delta Water Company. The operations on the William tract were conducted as the Redlands Security Company, a close corporation, with Mr. Gregory and Mr. Langford as half owners, Mr. Gregory being the president and Mr. Langford, sec- retary and manager. During this time Mr. Langford was also engaged in the fertilizing business. In 1909 he organized the Carlsbad Guano Fertilizer Company, purchasing guano caves in Carlsbad, Mexico, and operating a mixing plant at Redlands. He was president and general manager of the company.
After selling his fertilizer business and his interest in the Delta Water Company Mr. Langford removed to San Francisco, and in 1911 en- gaged in the wholesale brokerage business, handling heavy machinery supplies, including locomotives, steam cranes and shovels and a general line of heavy machinery, trucks, etc. The five years he spent in San Francisco was a strenuous time, and altogether he lost about ten thousand dollars of his individual capital. His associates were young men who lost their heads, and practically the entire responsibility of the manage- ment devolved upon Mr. Langford. When the young men sold to others the new partners added additional gravity to the already tangled condi- tions, and it was only by a supreme effort that Mr. Langford guided the enterprise away from disaster.
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He had in the meantime retained his orange interests in San Ber- nardino County, and his first task on returning to Redlands was to put his groves in first class condition. He was then selected as general man- ager by the Crown Jewel Association, and took charge of this business October 23, 1916, and his business headquarters are today at the plant of the Crown Jewel Packing House at Alabama and San Pedro streets in Redlands. In 1912 he and Mr. Gregory divided their holdings, Mr. Gregory taking over the books and corporate name of the Redlands Se- curity Company, while Mr. Langford received a hundred acres as his share of the two hundred and five acres then owned by the company. Mr. Langford incorporated as the J. D. Langford & Company and under this title has continued his business as an orange grower. He has since purchased twenty acres of improved oranges in the same section, and having cleared up his other interests is now giving his entire time to the orange production and marketing.
This brief outline is intended to convey some of the facts and cir- cumstances under which Mr. Langford has toiled toward a success and prosperity that he splendidly merits. His early life was one of compara- tive poverty. When he was only twelve years of age he had to perform a man's part on the home farm. He worked horses when he was so small that he had to turn the collars in order to reach the buckles. It was Mr. Langford who planted the first orange grove in the West River- side District, twenty acres for Dodd & Dwyer.
In 1886, at the age of eighteen, Mr. Langford married in Missouri Miss Ida L. A. Hingle. Their only child died in infancy and his wife a year and a half later. Soon afterward Mr. Langford came to California. A year later he went back to Kansas and married Miss Ida McReynolds. The children of this union are two sons and one daughter. The oldest, J. Roy Langford, born November 24, 1890, was educated at Redands and married Miss Cora Dudley. The second son, Cleveland Paul Lang- ford, born January 14, 1896, was educated in Redlands, married Edna Hass and has a daughter, Lucille Pauline. Cleveland P. Langford joined the National Army for service in the World war April 11, 1918, being with the 363rd Regiment of Infantry in the 9Ist Division. After train- ing at Camp Lewis, Washington, he left for New York June 26th, em- barked for England July 6th, from England went direct to France, and after two weeks of rest and training went almost directly to the Ar- gonne front. He was with an automatic rifle squad, served in the trenches about two weeks, went over the top on the 26th of September, and was a participant in the strenuous program of the Argonne fighting until gassed on the first of October. The following months he spent at a base hospital, then rejoined his company, and soon after the signing of the armistice was stricken with the influenza, that period of illness being passed in an English hospital on the border between Belgium and France. He had barely been discharged when he had the mumps and another hospital experience, and after recovering was put with the 36th Division and returned home with that command, reaching New York June 6, 1919.
The third child of Mr. Langford is Gladys Langford, born December 15, 1898. She was educated at Redlands, and is the wife of H. L. Covington, an orange grower there. Mr. Langford has given his two sons a chance to start in life, providing each with a good ten acre grove, with opportunity for employment on his other holdings, and thus they had every incentive to work out their own salvation.
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HUGO SONTAG .- The story of development of land and homes in San Bernardino County introduces Hugo Sontag, one of the old timers of this region, who has lived here nearly half a century. His post office address is Alta Loma, but his home is a ranch three miles northeast, at the mouth of Cucamonga Canyon.
Mr. Sontag was born in East Prussia July 24, 1840, son of Gustav Sontag, who had fought in the German armies against Emperor Napo- leon. Hugo was the youngest of six children. He acquired a good edu- cation in the schools of Prussia and Silesia, and received a thorough technical training in the University of Halle, from which he graduated in 1862. In University he specialized in minerology, geology and sur- veying. He was examined as preliminary to his work as a mining en- gineer in the presence of the Burghauptman, and on passing was qualified for government work. He then entered the service of the Imperial Gov- ernment and was employed in sinking test wells to discover coal veins, but these wells showed deep salt deposits instead at the depth of 950 feet.
Mr. Sontag in 1871 came to America. For a time he was in Penn- sylvania, and as an expert geologist did some prospecting for oil, and located what later became a well developed oil field. From there he went on to St. Louis and entered the service of the old Pacific Railroad Com- pany as a surveyor, and did some of the preliminary work running lines for proposed railways to Old Indian Territory. He surveyed the line from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Okmulgee.
In the fall of 1875 Mr. Sontag arrived at Los Angeles, and three months later he went to Cucamonga, where in 1876 he bought six or eight acres from the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and thirty acres from private parties. This land he cleared, set to vineyard and deciduous fruits, and kept the property until it was well developed, when he sold.
In the meantime, in 1877, Mr. Sontag took up a homestead of a hun- dred thirty-six acres at the mouth of Cucamonga Canyon. Subsequent purchases have enlarged this to two hundred and forty-one acres. On it he has built his home, and has a considerable area developed as orange, lemon and deciduous fruit groves and has also developed a water supply. Later he bought forty acres of wild land from Charles Frankish, on which he developed a considerable flow of water, building a reservoir and piping the water to users below. A storm destroyed the pipe line and practically all improvements except the reservoir. Mr. Sontag in this and other ways has been a real pioneer in the development of this section. He was one of the first to go into the bee industry on a com- mercial scale, and formerly he sold honey by the carload lots. He still has an apiary of 194 stands.
Mr. Sontag, who is a genial bachelor, has been in the Cucamonga Dis- trict from a time when he practically had no white neighbors, the country being occupied chiefly by Indians and a few Mexicans. His nearest rail- way station was Cucamonga, but now Guasti, and the only resident at the station was the railway agent, who lived in a box car. Mr. Sontag is a republican in politics.
HERMAN HARRIS, one of San Bernardino's most prosperous mer- chants and substantial business men, is an example of the right type of citizen who adopts America as his home country, assimilates its ideals, achieves success through rigid industry and integrity, and earns the respect and generous esteem of his fellow men.
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Herman Harris was born in Germany, May 2, 1871, son of Morris and Johanna Harris. His father was a lover of freedom, and during the Revolutionary troubles of 1848 suffered temporary exile. The Harris ancestors originally came fom Spain, and Herman Harris' maternal grandfather was a cloth merchant in London.
Herman Harris graduated from a German gymnasium in April, 1887, at the age of sixteen, and soon afterward left for America, reach- ing New York in October of that year, with only two dollars and forty cents in cash. A week later he started for San Francisco, and had twenty cents on arriving at the Golden Gate City. The first meal he ate was paid for by a man he met on the ferry, who also paid the fifty cents required for his night's lodging in the old Brooklyn Hotel on Bush Street. His first work was cleaning up the back yard of a store, for which he received a dollar, and his total earnings the first month amounted to twenty dollars. After getting acquainted and find- ing employment where his efficiency would count, he increased his salary to a hundred and fifty dollars a month.
After coming to San Bernardino Mr. Harris was employed two years by Rudolph Auker, remained two years at Tehachapi, and made his first business that of general merchandising. He was at Santa Ana in the drygoods business beginning in 1893, and had a difficult struggle during the panic which began in that year. He remained in Santa Ana for nine years, and in April, 1905, returned to San Ber- nardino, where two years later he took in his brothers, Philip and Arthur, as partners in the Harris Company. This business has grown and prospered, the quarters being enlarged several times, and it is today one of the largest mercantile firms in the county. The Harris Company has purchased several pieces of property, the most important being at the corner of East and Third, known as the Ward Block, which the company plans to improve with a modern structure.
During his residence at Santa Ana, Mr. Harris served three years as a member of the National Guard. He was president of the Mer- chants Protective Association, was for several years a director of the National Orange Show, and for a similar time a director of the Cham- ber of Commerce. He is a republican in politics, a former president of the B'Nai B'rith, and is affiliated with the Masons and Elks.
ERNEST SMITH MOULTON-The late Ernest Smith Moulton was for years one of the leading bankers of Riverside, and took a prominent part in civic affairs, identifying himself with practically every enterprise which promised to prove beneficial to the city in a practical way. He had been connected with railroading with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and the Santa Fe Railroad for many years in Illinois, and when he came to Riverside brought with him a ripened experience, vigorous energy and many ideas which were of practical value in the progressive development of this district.
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