A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 132

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

USA > California > A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 132

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Immediately after his return from the war Mr. Berry resumed work as a surveyor, and continued engaged in that and kindred occu- pations in Minnesota until 1881, when he re- moved to the west, coming via St. Paul, Sioux City, and the Union and Central Pacific Rail- roads. On the last day of the year 1881 he ar- rived at Vernondale, a suburb of Los Angeles. and there he purchased property and engaged in raising fruit. During the eighteen years of his residence in that place he served two terms by appointment as school trustee, in addition to two full terms of three years each. May 9. 1889, he was appointed postmaster at Vernon- dale and continued in that position until Sep- tember 15, 1897, when the office was discon- tinned by reason of annexation to the city of Los Angeles. In August of 1899 he came to Long Beach, where he now lives retired from business cares, surrounded by the comforts previous exertions render possible. and enjoy- ing the companionship of a circle of warm per- sonal friends.

In fraternal relations Mr. Berry is a mem- ber of the Sons of the American Revolution and Stanton Post. G. A. R., No. 55, also the Military Order of the Loval Legion of Cali- fornia. In Masonry he has won high rank. April 2, 1860, he was entered an apprentice Mason, and on the 16th of the same month passed the degree of fellow-craft. May 10, 1860, he was made a Master Mason in Cata- ract Lodge No. 2, A. F. & A. M., at Minneap- olis, Minn., in which he was appointed senior deacon in 1861, advanced to the honorary de- gree of master and inducted into the Oriental Chair as past master February 17, 1862, and acknowledged Most Excellent Master Febru- ary 22, 1862. Three days later, in St. An-

888

HISTORICAL, AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

thony's Falls Chapter No. 3, R. A. M., he was exalted to the sublime degree of Royal Arch Mason. During that year and the two follow- ing years he served as a guard in the chapter, of which he is still a member. January 8, 1900, he was elected an active member of the Masonic Veteran's Association of the Pacific Coast.

While living in Minnesota Mr. Berry was married at Minneapolis, August 20, 1866, to Helen Godfrey, who was born in Maine and died at Long Beach March 27, 1902. Their only son, David M., residing in Alameda, is married and has one child. The only daugh- ter, Vida H., is one of the popular school teachers of Long Beach.

WILLIAM H. POSTON. No resident of Pomona is more keenly alive to its best inter- est than William H. Poston, who for the past fifteen years has conducted one of the town's most thriving enterprises. He is president of the firm of W. H. Poston & Co., one of the largest grocery concerns in the west, and which has branch stores at Lordsburg, Clare- mont and San Dimas. The business was orig- inally started and owned by B. B. Nesbit, of whom Mr. Poston bought the stock and good will in 1881. For a time the new owner ran the business alone, but later had the com- pany incorporated, capital stock $50,000, and branched out in business in the towns afore- mentioned. Almost all of the stock is owned by Mr. Poston and his wife, the latter being secretary of the corporation. No effort has been made on the part of the owners to sell stock outside of the employes, and at this writing (1906) about fifteen have availed them- selves of the opportunity and are sharehold- ers in the concern, each share selling for $500.

A native of Illinois, William H. Poston was born in Hamilton, Rock Island county, June 2, 1856, and is a son of Vance and Ann (Don- aldson) Poston, born respectively in Virginia and New York state. Their marriage was celebrated in Iowa, and for a number of years thereafter they made their home in the mid- dle west. The western tide of immigration which crossed the plains in the year 1860 found Mr. Poston with his family among the number, going direct to Napa county, where he again took up farming, the calling which he had followed during his residence in the middle states. He died on his ranch in Napa county when in his sixty-sixth year. Polit- ically he was a believer in Democratic princi- ples. The wife and mother is still living and now makes her home in Pomona.

Of the six children comprising the parental

family William H. and one sister reside in Pomona, while the others are residents of Napa county. Mr. Poston was a lad of only four years when his parents brought the fam- ily across the plains and settled in Napa coun- ty. At first he attended the common schools in the neighborhood of his father's ranch, but was later given the benefit of a course in Napa College. Returing home he gave his father the benefit of his services in assisting with the work of the home ranch, but finally deter- mined to start out in the world on his own ac- count. Going to Butte county, he settled down to the business with which he was most familiar, for as yet he had had no experience aside from work on his father's ranch. He started in an unpretentious way as a grain raiser, increasing his facilities and acreage as his means would permit, until at the time he disposed of his ranch seven years later he was one of the largest grain growers in that part of the state. It was at this point in his career that Mr. Poston came to Pomona and estab- lished the business with which his name has since been connected.

In 1883, in Napa county, William H. Pos- ton was united in marriage with Miss Ella V. Dunn, a native of Wisconsin, in which state her parents had settled during its pio- neer days. Later years found them in Pomo- na. Cal., where Dr. Dunn practiced dentistry until 1896. Later he removed to Los An- geles, where he died in April, 1906. Mr. and Mrs. Poston are the parents of two children, Ruby and Florence, aged respectively sev- enteen and fifteen (1906). As was his father before him Mr. Poston is a Democrat and it was on the ticket of this party that he was elected to the position of mayor of Pomona, an office for which he was well qualified, as the work which he accomplished during his term well testifies. He is now the chief of the fire department of Pomona. Fraternally he is a Mason, belonging to Pomona Lodge No. 219. and to Pomona Lodge No. 789, B. P. O. E. Much praise is due Mr. Poston for what he has accomplished in the upbuilding of his adopted city. Quick to recognize the possibili- ties which lay before it, he was no less ready to make the most of them, with the result that both town and citizen have been benefited.

LEE R. MATTHEWS. Among the re- spected and highly esteemed citizens of Pomoma valley Lee R. Matthews holds an assured position, his industry, uprightness and neighborly dealing having gained for him the confidence and good will of the whole com- munity. The ranch on which he now resides

889

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

has been his home since 1893, in which year he bought thirty-six acres on the corner of Crow and Rebecca streets, which he set out to fruit and alfalfa. With the passing of years he has been enabled to enlarge his holdings and now has forty-five acres, eight acres be- ing in walnuts and thirty-six in alfalfa.

In a family of seven children born to his parents Lee R. Matthews is the fifth in or- der of birth, born in Tremont, Tazewell coun- ty, Ill., August 5, 1870. His father, Levi R. Matthews, was descended from a long line of Vermont ancestors, his own birth occurring in that state February 9, 1830. He died of apoplexy July 2, 1902, but the mother is still living and a resident of Pomona. (A more ex- tended history of the parents will be found in the biography of Levi R. Matthews, given elsewhere in this volume). Until he was a lad of fifteen years Lee R. Matthews was reared and educated in the vicinity of his birthplace, Tre- mont, Ill., and then, in 1885, removed with the family to Colorado Springs, Colo. After completing his high-school term in the latter place he accepted a position with Wells-Far- go & Company, remaining with them about one year, when, in the fall of 1890, the family came to California, he also accompanying them. The same year he bought a portion of the Kingsley tract on the cornor of Olive and Washington avenues. a portion of which was in oranges : he set out the entire five acres to this fruit, making of it a fine property. Three years later, in 1893, he sold this ranch and re- invested in a thirty-six acre ranch at the cor- ner of Crow and Rebecca streets, which was the nucleus of his present fine property, now owning forty-five acres in all. A fine well of two hundred and fifty feet furnishes water for the, pumping plant located on the ranch, the engine which furnishes the power for dis- tribution being a thirty-eight horse power gas engine of the White and Middleton make. Not only does the plant supply his own ranch, but all of the adjoining ranches are supplied from Mr. Matthews' irrigating plant, which has a capacity of seventy miners inches. He also has among his holdings residential prop- erty interests in Colorado Springs.

In Pomona Mr. Matthews was married to Miss Nora E. Laughery, who was born in Tremont, Ill., and one son, Wayne D., has been born to them. Mrs. Matthews is a mem- ber of the Christian Church, to the support of which both she and her husband are lib- eral supporters. Politically he is a Republican, and fraternally he is a member of the Odd Fellows lodge at Pomona and also of the Encampment. In addition to the management of his large property interests in this vicinity

he has mining property in the Mojave dis- trict, and with F. H. Osler is agent for the Cadillac automobile. The younger element of business men of Pomona has no better rep- resentative than Mr. Matthews, whose fitness for offices of a public nature has led to his election to the chairmanship of the lighting, streets and sewers committees, and he is also one of the city fathers, he being elected a member of the board of trustees from the third ward in 1904.

ROGER LEANDER CHOATE. A citi- zen well known throughout Southern Cali- fornia and esteemed for his qualities of char- acter, Roger Leander Choate is located in the vicinity of El Monte and now engaged in the management and improvement of a five-acre ranch, where he has permanently established his home. He was born June 18, 1854, in Nashua, N. H., a son of Charles Choate, a na- tive of the same state, who in the same place married Mary Cogswell, also a native of New Hampshire. He became the owner of a fine farm of forty acres in Derry, N. H., where he spent his entire life, passing away at the · ripe age of seventy-seven years, while his wife lived to be but sixty-three. They were both active members of the Presbyterian Church, and Mr. Choate took an active inter- est in the politics of his day, although he never cared for official recognition. He had seven children, of whom four are still sur- viving, two daughters residing in the old homestead (which is located in the home town of Horace Greeley). and another in South Da- kota ; while Roger L. is the only one in Cali- fornia.

Roger L. Choate was taken by his parents to Derry when a small child, and it was there that he grew to manhood, receiving his educa- tion in the public schools and in the same town was prepared for college. After com- pleting his education he worked for four years in a general merchandise store conducted in conjunction with the postoffice and telegraph office of the place, thus securing a general knowledge of business which meant no little to him in future enterprises. Removing to Illinois in 1879 he there entered the Methodist Episcopal Conference and began his minis- terial work. His first charge was at Arcola, and he was later sent to South Champaign, where he filled a pulpit for two years. Sent to Colorado in 1884 he filled a pulpit in Sil- ver Cliff for four months, was then located in Breckenridge for one vear, then in Salida for four months, and finally moved to New Mex- ico because of impaired health. Coming to

890

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

California in 1886 he spent a brief time in San Francisco, soon coming to the southern por- tion of the state and in Sierra Madre engag- ing in the raising of fruit. Three years later, in 1890, he located in El Monte. His first purchase was a ranch of twelve acres, which he sold at a handsome profit, and in 1905 he bought the five acres which forms his present ranch, and this he intends to devote to the raising of strawberries.

In 1892 Mr. Choate was united in marriage with Miss Effie Kallmeyer, a native of Mis- souri and daughter of Garrett Kallmeyer. Mr. and Mrs. Choate have become the parents of two children, Lois and Rufus. In national and local politics Mr. Choate is a stanch advocate of the Prohibition ticket, and is always to be found on the side of right, regardless of might, work- ing for good government and clean adminis- tration. Fraternally he is associated with the Foresters at El Monte. Although not now ac- tive in his work of the ministry Mr. Choate has on many occasions filled the pulpit since coming to California.

ROSSEAU J. WVILMOT. Numbered among the successful ranchmen of San Diego county is R. J. Wilmot, who has been a resi- dent of De Luz for twenty-five years, during which time he has been prominently identified with its development and progress; and, as opportunity has occurred, has given his influ- ence to encourage the establishment of enter- prises conducive to the public welfare. The descendant of a substantial New England fam- ilv, he was born in Bangor, Me., December 7, 1858. a son of John Wilmot.

Born and reared in Hillsboro, N. H., John Wilmot grew to sturdy manhood among the rugged hills of his native county, was subse- quently for many years engaged in business in Bangor, Me. Removing from there to Southern California, he purchased land in On- tario, San Bernardino county, where for many years he has been successfully employed in the growing of fruit of various kinds. He is a Republican in politics, and a citizen of worth. He married Sophronia Parsons, who was born in Bangor, Me., and they became the parents of five children, all of whom are residing in California, one son and two daughters being in San Diego county, and one daughter in Santa Barbara county.

Completing his early education in the grad- ed schools of Bangor, R. J. Wilmot remained an inmate of the parental household until after attaining his majority. Coming to Cali- fornia in 1879. be located first in San Luis

Rey, San Diego county, where he conducted a dairy in partnership with his brother. From here he came to De Luz, taking up one hun- dred and sixty acres of government land upon which he began the improvement of a home- stead. Energetic and progressive, he made additional improvements each season, and having purchased an adjoining tract of forty acres has now two hundred acres in his home estate, beside which he has the management of an eighty-acre ranch belonging to his wife. As a general agriculturist he has met with eminent success, in addition to raising stock and grain, keeping bees and

chickens, branches of industry which have proved very profitable, considering the amount of work re- quired in caring for them. He also has the contract for carrying the mail between De Luz and Fallbrook, making three trips each week.

In 1883 Mr: Wilmot married Lena B. Leigh- ton, who was born in Bangor, Me., and they are the parents of five children, namely: Ar- thur, living in Ontario, San Bernardino coun- ty; Oscar, at home; Jolin, engaged in ranch- ing near Eltoro, but living at home; Maurice, at home; and Grace, a pupil in the home school. Politically Mr. Wilmot is identified with the Republican party, the principles of which he firmly supports. Fraternally he be- longs to Ontario Camp, WV. of WV. Religiously both Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot are members of the Congregational Church.

JOHN J. DONOVAN. A practical demon- stration of the results obtainable by a union of singleness of purpose, good judgment and large capacity for industry, is found in the home surroundings of John J. Donovan, the owner, through the right of unassisted per- severance, of a ranch of three hundred and eighty acres near Nipomo, San Luis Obispo county. Mr. Donovan came empty handed to the United States, but he was abundantly supplied with adaptiveness, optimism and re- source. He was eighteen years old at this important turning point in his life, having been born in Ireland April 4, 1860. His par- ents. Cornelius and Nora (Donovan) Dono- van, were the proprietors of a small farm, the resources of which were all too inadequate for the support of their large family. Jolin J., the youngest of nine children, was three weeks old when his father died, but his mother sur- vived until eighty-five years old. One daugh- ter died in infancy, and three of the sons are residents of California.

John J. Donovan's idea in coming to this

GR. Gallender

893

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

country was embodied in a determination to become a prosperous and useful citizen of the state of California. He earned his first Ameri- can money as a farm hand in San Luis Obispo county, and in 1882 rented a farm which he operated until purchasing his present ranch in 1897. He makes a specialty of grain raising and a large part of his three hundred and eighty acres are under this product, the bal- ance being under beans, corn and devoted to stock-raising. He also farms two hundred ad- joining acres of grain, and has a half inter- est in a thousand-acre tract devoted to grain and general produce. His appointments are modern in construction, and his environment has taken on the character of a thoughtful, exceedingly thrifty and shrewd business man, alert to every passing opportunity, and in touch with all that science has evolved to lighten his burdens and facilitate his advance- ment.

The marriage of Mr. Donovan and Margaret Brown, occurred in 1890, and of the union there were two children. Genevieve and Mar- garet. Mrs. Margaret Donovan died in 1896, at the age of twenty-three years six months and twelve days, and in November, 1904, Mr. Donovan married Winifred Kane, a native of New Zealand. Mr. Donovan subscribes to the principles of the Democratic party, and for many years has served the best interests of the community as a member of the school board. In religion he is a Catholic. Per- sonally Mr. Donovan is popular in the com- munity which his labor and character have helped to upbuild. He is the friend of educa- tion and progress. and his sojourn in the coun- ty has tended to the widening of its prosperity and opportunity.

C. R. CALLENDER, a present resident of Los Berros, San Luis Obispo county, Cal., was born in Great Barrington, Berkshire county, Mass .. December 24, 1830, his parents, Julia Goodrich and Archibald Callender, being ear- ly pioneers of the same state. The mother died when her son C. R. was only ten years old. The family being large and of limited means he was obliged to paddle his own canoe at an early age. He filled a year's engage- ment with a Henry Smith of Malden Bridge, Columbia county, N. Y., receiving two months in a district school, his board and clothes for his services. He spent the next eleven years in various localities and occupations-as clerk in a grocery store for W. C. Barker in Pitts- field, Mass .; in the woolen mills at the Asha- willot factory in Dalton and Green River,

Mass .; for the Hemenways in East Nassau, Columbia county, N. Y .; for the Kilbourn Brothers in Norfolk, Litchfield county, Conn .; and as a boy of fourteen years, a season as dairyman and milk peddler for David Church at Great Barrington, Mass., where he supplied the "Hopkins household" with the dairy's best production. In after years, as he read of the successful exploits of the "Big Four," Hop- kins, Stanford, Huntington and Crocker, he would catch himself dreaming as to whether or no the sips from the cream can in the milk cart given slyly to the then boy, Mark Hop- kins, was not a factor, a straw, in the physic- al, hence mental development that so mani- fested itself in the push and ability so essen- tial in the great enterprise of pushing the over- land railroad across the continent.

Mr. Callender's facilities for schooling were very meagre; he attended only the common district schools, with an academic term at Great Barrington, Mass. In May, 1852, he left the employment of Kilbourn Brothers of Nor- folk, Litchfield county, Conn., with whom he had been employed for three years previously, and started for California, sailing May 5, 1852, on the steamer Northern Light, Captain Tin- klepaugh commanding, via the Nicaragua route, and arriving at Runnels Ferry on the Stanislaus river, where he found his brother Stephen. After putting in a year at mining. he returned to San Francisco and purchased a horse and dray, which he successfully manip- ulated until August. 1883. when he sailed on the steamer Sierra Nevada for home. in com- Dany with Dyer Stanton and Mr. Garam of Fall River, Mass. After a visit with friends in Norfolk, Sheffield, and Chatham, N. Y., a sea- son of roaming in his old native Berkshire hills, he spent the winter in Canada, where he had a brother, Dr. F. G. Callender, then re- siding. In 1854, obeying the injunction of Horace Greeley to "go west," he went to Dix- on, Lee county. Ill .. engaging in the photo- graphic business at Dixon, Polo, Amboy and Sterling for some four years, when he moved to St. Joseph county. Mich., following the same occupation for three years in White Pig- eon. Centreville. Constantine and Sturgis.

On May 1, 1860, Mr. Callender, in company with C. E. Clays, a present resident of San Francisco and for some twenty years an em- plove in the custom house, and O. A. Persing. now of Berros, San Luis Obispo county, came across the plains on his second trip to Califor- nia, this time locating about ten miles from Sonora, Tuolumne county, where he spent seven years, principally in quartz mining, and where he still retains a one-half interest in the

894

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

old Comstock mine, now known as the O. P. mine, located ten miles above Sonora. Leav- ing the mines in the fall of 1867, he moved to near the old town of Langworth, Stanislaus county, where he took up government land and became one of the pioneer ranchmen of that section. Stockton, thirty miles away, be- ing then their only market, did not make grain raising a lucrative business, but this was some- what relieved in later years by the advent of the railroads, Oakdale being five and Modesto nine miles from his place. Acquiring a pre- emption and homestead and adding to same by purchase from time to time, he by push and economy during a period of sixteen years ac- quired some seventeen hundred acres of land, which he disposed of in 1883 and moved to San Luis Obispo county, purchasing of J. M. Jones the Eureka ranchi on the upper Salinas river, consisting of nineteen thousand acres.

In 1881 Mr. Callender, in company with James Cummings, Col. J. S. Byington of San Francisco and W. B. Wallthal of Modesto be- came interested by purchase and location in the Omega and other mines in Sonora, Mex- ico; on investigation, while satisfied that the locality contained many mining inducements, the handicap of the American in many ways, especially the barring by Mexico of sixty miles of her border line, and her then forty to sixty per cent duty on machinery imported, he concluded that Uncle Sam offered an ample field for enterprise and capital. In 1882, with Joseph Warner, then of Warner Brothers of Stanislaus county, he visited Texas, and to- gether they bought a tract of sixty-four thou- sand acres. This tract is now in Sutton and Schleicher counties, the flourishing town of Eldorado being the latter's county seat; they still are interested in the land. Mr. Callender also invested quite extensively in Texas state school lands in Haskell, Runnels, Taylor and Zavalla counties.

About 1885 Mr. Callender disposed of the Eureka ranch and moved to the town of San Luis Obispo, and soon after bought some nine thousand acres of the Nipomo rancho. He also, in company with J. W. Smith, purchased the William Dana tract of eight hundred acres at Los Berros ; subdividing and selling some of this, he still retains an interest in town and acreage property. It was on this ranch and its vicinity that he for a period of six years ex- perimented with the raising of sugar beets, ex- pending considerable money and time in en- deavoring to attract capital to this locality, finally attracting the attention of the Eldorado Sugar Company of San Francisco, who sent Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Burr, the present su-

perintendent and general manager of the Un- ion Sugar Company at Betteravia, to prospect the locality. Mr. Callender, with the present Judge, E. P. Unangat of San Luis Obispo, drove the parties from San Luis Obispo through the valleys of Arroyo Grande, Oso Flaco and Guadalupe, up the Santa Maria to the Sisquas. It was due to their favorable re- port that the present factory at Betteravia was located, which vast enterprise speaks for itself.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 132

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184