USA > California > Glenn County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 84
USA > California > Colusa County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 84
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William Walter Wheeler was educated, first at the grammar schools and then at the high school, in Mono County, and finally at the Stockton Business College. He began business life in San Francisco, where he became an apprentice in the service of the Westinghouse Electric Company. He was soon sent by that con- cern to install plants in various parts of California and Nevada, and became an expert in the electrical field. In 1902 he went to Redding, Shasta County, where he remained, as an employee of the Northern California Power Company, until 1908. Then he came to Hamilton City to make the necessary surveys, and to in- stall the plant of the Northern California Power Company here; and in this place he has remained ever since. He designed the concrete station for the Power Company, and also the concrete structure for the Hamilton Sugar Factory substation. He was with the company when the plant was erected at Willows, and has more than once proved the right man in the right place.
Mr. Wheeler is a member of the Elks and Masons, and is asso- ciated with the lodges at Redding.
A. M. GELSTON
Through his position as manager of the Hamilton City factory of the Sacramento Valley Sugar Company, A. M. Gelston has be- come well-known in Hamilton City, with which fast developing town he has been actively associated, practically from its begin- ning. He was born in New York State, July 29, 1859, and was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1882. He became interested in the manufacture of railroad and mill machinery at Bay City, Mich., where he lived and worked for fifteen years. In 1897, he was identified with the erection of the first beet-sugar fac- tory, at Bay City in the Saginaw district, east of the Mississippi; and in the spring of 1906 he came to the Coast. Settling in Ham- ilton City, he at once became associated with the Sacramento Val- ley Sugar Company as its cashier, and in the fall of 1913 became the manager of the plant. This responsible position he holds at the present time.
The Sacramento Valley Sugar Company is a Los Angeles cor- poration, organized and still controlled by New York and Los An- geles capital, its president being William C. Baker, of Los An- geles, and its vice-president George S. Safford. In the fall of 1905, the company bought five thousand acres from the Chambers estate, and started at once to develop its resources. It set aside four hundred acres as a town site, and named the town after J. G.
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Hamilton, of New York; and soon the streets were laid out, and the necessary buildings were constructed. In 1906, the factory was erected, and continued in operation until 1913. E. C. Hamil- ton and J. McCoy Williams were in charge of the construction and operation of the factory. For five years, P. H. Prein acted for the company as its agriculturist, and he was assisted by H. C. Shay, who continued in office until, in 1916, he was drowned in the Sacramento River. Mr. Prein was succeeded by E. H. Nichol- son, who was chief agriculturist until 1914. When it was neces- sary to close the works, the land was farmed to barley, and with abundant success, the rich bottom soil yielding twenty sacks to the acre. In the fall of 1917, after a period of inactivity, the factory was again reopened.
Some years ago Mr. Gelston had the great misfortune to lose his estimable wife. She left two sons, both graduates of the Uni- versity of California. One is Clain F. Gelston, resident physician at the University of California Hospital at San Francisco; and the other is Arthur S. Gelston, a civil engineer residing in Berke- ley. Fraternally, Mr. Gelston belongs to the Masonic Lodge in Bay City, Mich.
WILLIAM J. APPLEGATE
Few men among the great mass of efficient citizens have be- queathed to posterity a more enviable record for duty well per- formed than the late William J. Applegate, the value of whose life-work and accomplishment has been recognized by his fellow citizens. William J. Applegate was a native of Pike County, Ill., where he was born on September 5, 1856, the son of Samuel and Mary Ann (Myers) Applegate, both of Ohio. The father died when William was a little child; and the mother remarried, her second husband being George Westrope. In 1864, the family crossed the plains to California, and settled in Butte County, where the mother is still living on a ranch near Pentz, at the age of eighty-five years.
More or less self-educated, although he had his turn at the country schools, William Applegate worked in a store to pay for his instruction, and later attended the Oakland Business College. In 1887, he took a clerkship in the general merchandise store of Charles Papst, at St. John, in Glenn County; and after that he clerked at Clipper Gap, in Placer County.
When he returned to St. John, he became a partner with Rich- ard Billion and bought out the Papst store, and with his usual
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foresight and push began to make things spell success from the start. After a while he bought out his partner, and then con- ducted the store alone. Alive to all the questions of the day, Mr. Applegate was active in politics, especially under the Democratic banner, and as a member of the Democratic County Committee. He was appointed postmaster at St. John; and a better adminis- tration of that office the town never enjoyed.
At the time when Hamilton City was started, in 1906, he . closed out his store at St. John, and established the first merchan- dise business at Hamilton City, which he continued until his death.
On June 3, 1914, Mr. Applegate married Miss Nettie E. Dun- ning, a lady of rare personal charms, who is still an honored resi- dent at Hamilton City; and with her he enjoyed the social activi- ties of the community. He was a thirty-second-degree Scottish Rite Knight Templar Mason, and a Shriner, and was also a mem- ber of the Elks of Chico. Mr. Applegate was charitable to all. He had great capacity for friendship, and qualities of mind and heart that easily attracted the regard of others; and when he closed his career, on October 9, 1914, his passing was regarded as a public loss.
ROBERT BRUCE DUNNING
A pioneer who not only has made a snecess at farming, but has contributed much to the cause of primary education and the bettering of an earlier, cruder condition of society, is Robert Bruce Dunning, who was born in the parish of San De Leandia, La., on April 20, 1848. His father was William A. Dunning, who came to California by way of the Isthmus in 1852, and mined for a while at Yankee Jim, Placer County, after which he went to Sut- terville, five miles south of Sacramento. There Robert assisted his father on their ranch.
Later, Robert Dunning took up ranching for himself at Wat- sonville, after which he came to Santa Clara County, and then put in a year, in 1881, in Washington Territory. He then came back to California, and settled at St. John, in Glenn County. For four- teen years Mr. Dunning was road master of the district in which he lived, and no better administration of that office has the public there enjoyed. He helped dig the old canal, and not merely laid it out on its approved lines, but also exerted himself to construct it under the most economic conditions and at the least ultimate expense.
On January 26, 1893, Mr. Dunning bought his fine ranch of two hundred sixty-eight acres at Hamilton City, the old Sharkey
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place on the Colby grant, a tract of rich land along the Sacra- mento River. This he farmed until 1912, when he retired to Ham- ilton City and rented his property.
Mrs. Dunning was Miss Annie Shade before her marriage. She is the mother of seven children: Clarence C., Albert W., Robert Harold, Ray E., and three daughters-Mrs. Nettie E. Applegate; Ada May, Mrs. W. C. Stevens; and Mrs. Estella ยท Livingston.
Always a leader and a spokesman in matters of public im- provement, Mr. Dunning helped build the first schoolhouse in his section-a service the value of which may be better appreciated when it is known that it was the only school building between Princeton, in Colusa County, and Tehama County. In fraternal life, Mr. Dunning is an Odd Fellow, a member of the Chico Lodge.
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ELI J. KIBBY
An engineer who is not only exceptionally proficient in every detail of his extensive and intricate field of work, but who under- stands the possibilities in the application of modern science to the wants and comforts of modern society, is Eli J. Kibby, chief elec- trician at the Hamilton Sugar Factory, in Hamilton City. He was born at Grayson, Carter County, Ky., on January 29, 1857, where he was reared and educated. At the age of eighteen he began to teach, and for eight years presided over the class-room. During this period he taught in no less than eight schools, in four differ- ent districts of his native state.
In 1883, the young pedagogue moved westward to Kansas, where again he worked in cycles of eight. He had abandoned teaching, however, and was now busy as an electrical engineer. For eight years he was at Clay Center; and for another eight years he was at Junction City, where he was superintendent of the electrical plant. The next year he put in at Colorado Springs in Colorado, as electrician to the Philadelphia Smelting Company.
Attracted to Colton, Cal., in 1902, Mr. Kibby became chief electrician at the Portland Cement Works, in which position he continued for a year and a half. He then went to Los Angeles County, and for two years was in charge of the electrical system of the Pacific Light & Power Company, at Azusa and Covina. His next move was to Chico, where he was busy for a year installing an electrical plant for the Diamond Match Company. About the same time, he conducted an electrical fixture store in that town.
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Selling out in 1906, Mr. Kibby came to Hamilton City and took charge of the construction of the electrical equipment at the sugar factory here; and soon after he wired the town of Hamilton City. He also installed the pumping plant at the sugar factory, and remained with that concern until 1913, when the works shut down. For the next three years he managed a ranch of eighty acres, which he owned two miles southeast of Hamilton City; and there, with the assistance of his son, Orville, he developed a first- class dairy. He was in charge of the electrical department of the sugar factory until April, 1917, when he became connected with the Alameda Sugar Company at Alvarado, as chief electrician. His experienced son manages the ranch, raising a hundred fifty head or more of hogs, and growing some of the best alfalfa seen in this part of the state.
In 1875, Miss Grace Holbrook, a native of Greenup County, Ky., and a member of a well-known and historic family of that state, became the wife of Mr. Kibby. They are the parents of three children : Frances, Mrs. Block, of Los Angeles; Bessie, wife of William Dixon, of Los Angeles; and Orville, who married Helen Ryan, and has one daughter, Grace. Mr. Kibby is a mem- ber of the Knights of Pythias. In polities he is a Democrat.
JOSEPH WILDERMAN
A proprietor of a finely equipped dairy ranch, who gets five crops of alfalfa a year and milks as many as half a hundred cows, is Joseph Wilderman, a native of Fayette County, Pa., where he was born on March 4, 1847. His father was Jacob Wilderman, a native of Germany, who married Miss Hannah Adams, a native of Pennsylvania. Joseph Wilderman was educated at one of the ex- cellent country schools for which Pennsylvania has long been famed; and when he was twenty-four years of age, he left home and started West to make his way alone and unaided in the world. Arriving in California, he directed his steps to San Diego, then a town about the size of Willows. In that vicinity, he found his first work at hauling wood from the hills into the town. When he left there he settled in Mendocino County, where he worked for a year and a half in the redwood Inmber camps, near Ukiah.
In 1873, Mr. Wilderman arrived in Colusa County, and having bought a band of sheep, was for six years engaged in sheep-rais- ing, west of the town of Williams. He also went in for grain- farming in the same locality, and for succeeding seasons rented six hundred forty acres of land, which he made into one of the 51
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most attractive ranches in that section. Mr. Wilderman next located at Hamilton City, in 1906, when the sugar factory was be- ing erected; and seeing a good opportunity for business in hauling beets to the factory, he made that the object of his special enter- prise. Afterwards he undertook to do grading work at Beckwith, in Plumas County, during the construction of the Western Pacific Railroad; and then he was on his ranch near Williams.
In 1910, he bought his present eighty acres, four miles north- east of Willows, and with his son-in-law, Russell Wright, as his partner, went in for dairying. The land was undeveloped when he bought it; but he checked it off, planted alfalfa, and built a home and barns. He sunk two wells, installed a couple of motors for a pumping plant, and soon had a fine irrigation system. His alfalfa, cut five times a year, runs from one to one and a half tons to the acre at each cutting. The forty acres on which the home stands was planted to alfalfa as an experiment, the first alfalfa to be planted in this locality; and so well did it thrive, that others followed his lead in planting, so that today this is one of the im- portant agricultural sections of Glenn County, and has been settled up by contented farmers, who are reaping wealth from the soil. During his residence here, Mr. Wilderman has built up a good dairy herd, and has made it a dividend-payer.
Mr. Wilderman married Mrs. Kate Otten, a native of Ger- many. They have been blessed with five children, three daughters and two sons. The daughters are Mrs. Russell Wright, Mrs. T. W. Harlan, and Mrs. Edward Bedford. One son, William, mar- ried Miss Selma Mohr; the other, Christopher, married Miss Ada Crawford. There are also five grandchildren in the family. Mrs. Wilderman, by her former marriage, had a son, John Otten.
FLINT W. SIDENER
A justice of the peace who has fourteen years of splendid record to his credit, is Flint W. Sidener, a native of Lexington, Ky., where he was born on August 15, 1868. His father was Jolm A. Sidener, an evangelist, who traveled widely in the United States preaching the Gospel; while his mother, who died when he was a child, was in maidenhood Miss Elizabeth White, of Ten- nessee. Brought up in Kentucky and Tennessee, the lad was educated according to the excellent standards prevailing in that favored section of our country.
In the fall of 1885, Flint Sidener accompanied his father, brother and sister to California, settling at Orland, where for
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four years he attended the Orland College. He then took up ranch work as a farm hand, and later swung an axe and guided the saw in the great lumber woods of the State of Washington. He has made his home, however, nearly all the time that he has been in the West, in the community of whose progress he always speaks with pride. He was elected to the office of justice of the peace in 1902, and has served continuously ever since.
For a while, Mr. Sidener was in the tailoring business, and then he conducted a confectionery store here. At present he is looking after a seven-acre ranch on West Walker Street, where he does diversified farming. He has a graded Jersey cow that tests 8.6% butter fat, close to the world's record.
On August 6, 1901, Flint W. Sidener married Miss Lillie Lake, a native of Orland, and the daughter of Daniel Lake, the pioneer farmer and blacksmith of this district. Seven children have come to bless their home: Stanley M., Ray A., Clay W., John Tyler, Merle Wallace, Maude Virginia, and Flint Worth. Fra- ternally, Mr. Sidener is an Odd Fellow, being associated with the Orland Lodge, No. 218. He has passed through all the chairs, and was a delegate to the Grand Lodge at the meeting in Los Angeles in 1907. He is also a member of the Woodmen of the World. Mr. Sidener is a member of the Christian Church; while Mrs. Sidener is a Baptist, and belongs to the organizations of that church, and to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
LINDSEY HUDSON
The important part played by civil engineering in modern civilization is well represented by Lindsey Hudson, of Willows, who was born in Meigs County, Ohio, on June 19, 1877, and in 1884 came with his parents, Charles E. and Hannie (Lindsey) Hudson, to Western Kansas. He lived in different parts of that state until 1894, going to school and clerking in stores in Dodge City. In the latter year, he located in Salt Lake City; and for three years he attended school there. In 1898, Mr. Hudson saw service for a year in the Philippine Islands, as a member of the Utah Light Artillery, a private company known as the Mormon Battery, attached to the Eighth Army Corps. Second Division, under Richard A. Young, Commander. He took part in many skirmishes on land, and he also did river patrol duty.
On his return to Salt Lake City, Mr. Hudson was for four years connected with the engineering department of the Oregon Short Line Railroad. Thereafter he was a member of the State
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Engineering Department of Idaho, and as such put in a year at Boise. Then he was assistant engineer for the Twin Falls Land & Water Company, in its engineering department, where he was busily employed until 1906. In partnership with his father, he went into the mining brokerage business, with offices at Tonopah, Goldfield, Salt Lake, and San Francisco.
In 1908, Mr. Hudson came to Willows and entered the employ of the Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company. He started in as an instrument man, and when he left the company in 1913 he was general foreman in the construction and farming departments. From there he went to Atascadero, in San Luis Obispo County, and became the general superintendent of the Lewis Colony. For eighteen months he did construction and engineering work, organizing the forces there.
Since February, 1916, Mr. Hudson has made his residence in Willows, where he is engaged in the private practice of his pro- fession. His chief work has been along the line of irrigating systems for the growing of rice. He was the engineer for the Mallon & Blevins people, who are developing seven thousand acres five miles east of Maxwell, Colusa County. He was asso- ciated with D. W. Ross, the engineering expert of San Francisco, in water projects in Glenn County, and for the past year has been installing six small lateral systems for outside parties. He has prepared over nine thousand acres, in 1917, for the cultivation of rice.
In 1907, Mr. Hudson was married to Miss Wanda Murray, of Oregon. In social circles he is a member of the Clampers.
ARTHUR F. KRONSBEIN
One of the leading contractors and builders of Glenn County, whose expensive and successful operations have had much to do with influencing the trend of architecture in this section of the state, is Arthur F. Kronsbein, a native of Lafayette County, Mo., where he was born, of German parents, on October 4, 1883. He was brought up in his native state and given the best of popular educational advantages, and when through with his studies was apprenticed to learn the carpenter's trade. At the age of eighteen, he left home and settled for a while at Arlington, Nebr., where he erected a number of the finest buildings, including the high school. For some years he followed his line of work in the Middle West, and later returned to Corder, Mo., and there erected some fine homes.
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In 1907, he came to California and located in Orland, where he has since lived. The first year of his residence he was in the employ of John B. Hazelton, the contractor, but more recently he has been operating for himself. He has erected a goodly number of the most attractive homes in the Orland section, and has been peculiarly successful in the building of ranch houses. Many of the most imposing dwellings in the farming districts were put up by him, his center of activity being the area within seven miles around Orland. Undoubtedly much of his success is due to his ability to draw his own plans and specifications. Besides the residences and farm buildings that he has put up, he has contracted for a number of the best business blocks in town. Among the structures that have come into existence through his taste, skill and enterprise are the Hicks Building and the Peter Christianson Building; while the following is a partial list of those for whom he has built homes and ranch buildings: Ed. Green, E. King, Henry McBain, C. Henry Jasper, F. L. Cook -on the state highway-and Mr. Martin, the banker. Mr. Krons- bein owns two fine houses, built by himself, and is also the owner of two valuable unimproved house lots. Besides these properties he has a planing-mill on South Fifth Street.
Arthur F. Kronshein was married to Miss Tracy Jasper, a native of California, and the daughter of the pioneer, Henry Jasper. One child, a daughter named Paulina, has blessed their union.
BEGUHL & BELIEU
The visitor to Willows cannot fail to have noticed the well- appointed and well-maintained Corset & Waist Specialty Shop of Beguhl & Belieu, located in the Glenn County Savings Bank Building, and owned and conducted by Mrs. J. P. Beguhl and Mrs. C. F. Belieu. In the line of fine corsets and shirt waists, as well as hosiery and ladies' underwear, anything that one may reasonably expect to find in a modern and up-to-date establishment can be found here. The shop was opened as recently as February, 1917 ; and these estimable and popular ladies are rapidly building up a paying business, and are filling a long-felt want in the mer- cantile life of the town.
Mrs. Beguhl and Mrs. Belieu are native daughters of Califor- nia, and are sisters. Mrs. Beguhl was born and reared in Colusa (now IGenn) County, and taught school successively in Glenn, Santa Clara and San Luis Obispo Counties. Her husband, J. P. Beguhl, is a native of Rio Vista, Solano County, Cal., and is engaged in
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the Inmber business and in mining in Fresno County, having a lumber mill in the Pine Ridge section. A lady of artistic taste, who has traveled considerably in the West, Mrs. Beguhl has a fine collection of Indian baskets, possessing the second largest lot of Tulare-weave Indian baskets in the state. She is the owner of one of the snowshoes worn by the Indians who went to the rescue of the famous Donner party at Donner Lake, in 1846. Mr. and Mrs. Beguhl are the parents of two children, Charles and Hazel.
Mrs. C. F. Belieu, who was also born in Colusa County, has had many years of experience in mercantile life, at one time con- ducting a store in Willows, and also working for others who dealt in ladies' wearing apparel. Her husband, C. F. Belieu, was reared in Willows, and has followed railroading and other lines of work. They are the parents of two children, Zelma and Charlotte.
The father of Mrs. Beguhl and Mrs. Belieu is Henry V. Branham, one of the early settlers and land-developers of Colusa and Glenn Counties. He was born at St. Charles, Mo., eighteen miles from St. Louis, on September 1, 1849. His father was Charles J. Branham, a native of Kentucky, and his mother was Mary Elizabeth (Richards) Branham, who was born in Missouri. When eleven years old, Henry Branham went to Rulo, Nebr., where he was reared by an aunt; and when he reached his ma- jority, he moved further West to Wyoming, where he worked in a general store at a frontier trading point near Fort Laramie. There he saw many stirring events during the Indian troubles, in which his uncle and two of his cousins were killed by the redskins. After a year there, he returned to Nebraska, and then migrated to California, arriving here on April 5, 1874. At first he worked for George Hoffman on a ranch near Yolo; and then, with his brother-in-law, Alfred St. Louis, he rented five hundred acres of land from Hugh Logan, near Norman, which they farmed for three years to grain. With St. Louis, he also bought a hundred sixty acres of land from the Colusa County Bank, and the two partners farmed the same together. The next year he bought a hundred sixty acres near by, which he planted to grain and con- tinued to farm for several years. He then sold out to Mr. St. Louis and moved to Norman, where he was in business for a year.
After he came to Willows, Mr. Branham was engaged in business for a time, but soon sold out and entered the employ of Colonel Crawford, in the Crawford Hotel. For fourteen years, also, he was in the employ of Hochheimer & Company, in charge . of their grain department. Since 1909, he has been in the real estate and insurance business at Willows.
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