History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 103

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 103

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Leaving the party Mr. Burns worked in the mines for a time, but like many others he found it unprofitable as well as uncertain and abandoned it to take a position on a stock ranch. Later he engaged in freighting sup- plies from Stockton to the mines, using oxen to haul the big wagons. Sub- sequently he engaged in ranching at Coarse Gold for six years, giving especial attention to raising hogs, which then commanded high prices, and at one time had over 200 head in his drove. To his stock interests he added the raising of cattle, horses and sheep, owning over 2,000 head of the latter. For years he had the finest horses in this part of the Valley, and his driving teams were the comment of all who saw them, as they were of the finest standard-bred stock. When he began in the stock business he bought 160 acres of land, and as he succeeded he added to his holdings from time to time until he owned 1,150 acres, part of it given over to general farming, and part to an orange grove. He was one of the first to set out orange trees here, securing his stock in Florida and having it brought around the Horn, the trees costing him three and a half dollars each. He also set out the first 42

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peach trees, the fruit of which he sold readily at fifty cents per pound; and he was the first man in Fresno County to dry peaches. After six years at Coarse Gold he moved to Kings River, and while there secured the contract to build a part of the Gould Ditch, the first to take water for irrigation from the river and the beginning of irrigating land in the county. While he was building the ditch he secured a cook and boarded the men working under him. In all his undertakings he had the helpful cooperation and en- couragement of his good wife, who shared with him the hardships and trials incident to pioneer life in California.

On August 17. 1862. Mr. Burns was united in marriage with Miss Mary A. Lewis. Their marriage license was the first one issued in Fresno County, and the ceremony was performed by Justice Mclaughlin at the bride's home in Fine Gold Gulch, twelve miles from Millerton. With his bride riding a horse beside him, Mr. Burns went to his mountain ranch at Coarse Gold, where they lived for six years. Mrs. Burns was born in Austin County. Texas. February 17. 1848, and was the daughter of James Henry and Mal- vina (Akers) Lewis, who crossed the plains from the Lone Star State in 1852. The daughter, Mary A., then in her fifth year, remembers very dis- tinctly how the wagons of their caravan were drawn up in a circle each night in order to protect the women and children from any surprise attack of Indians. After their arrival in California the Lewis family settled in Fine Gold Gulch, where Mr. Lewis kept a general store and a hotel. He built the first lumber house in Fine Gold Gulch. Mrs. Lewis was the first white woman in that section. Gold was plentiful in those days and prices were high ; regular meals cost from one dollar and up; ordinary work shirts, which Mrs. Lewis made by hand for the miners, were readily disposed of for five dollars each : and other necessities were proportionately high. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis were parents of ten children, eight of whom are now living: William H .: Jane, Mrs. F. J. Finch ; John A .; Frank M .: Thomas Jefferson ; George W .: Robert L. ; and Mary A., Mrs. Joseph Burns: and seven of these reside in California. Two, Mrs. Margaret A. Witt and Harvey. died in Fresno County. On the maternal side Mrs. Burns is connected with the pioneer family of Akers, long identified with the best interests of Fresno County, and whose names appear frequently in this history.

Mrs. Burns received her education from private tutors, her father hir- ing, with some of the immediate neighbors, an instructor for their children, until such a time as a public school could be organized. Among her teachers was Judge Lynch, the pioneer. She grew up amidst pioneer surroundings, little dreaming of the wonderful progress the county would eventually enjoy. Mr. and Mrs. Burns became the parents of six children: Ella A. became the wife of Simeon Evinger and the mother of a son and a daughter, Joseph Burns and Eleanor. Joseph Burns Evinger is married and has a son, Robert Burns Evinger. The Evingers live in Fresno. William Burns owns an orange grove adjoining the old home place, where he lives and looks after the family interests : Agnes J. is with her mother and is acting as librarian of the Sanger Branch of the Fresno County Library ; Florence M., who married Fred Mc- Allister, resides with her mother at Sanger and is engaged in newspaper work; Pearl is a copyist in the county recorder's office : and Archibald J. married Annie M. Overholt and is the father of a daughter, Mary Elizabeth. He is attendance officer for the county schools. These children are all na- tives of Fresno County and have been given the best of educational advan- tages, for Mr. Burns was a strong advocate of good schools. In his district, when it was organized, he gave the land for the schoolhouse and yard, gave money towards the erection of the building, and even "boarded" the teacher ; and he also served for almost forty years as a trustee in Hazelton school district. It was in order to give their youngest daughter the advantages of better school facilities that the family removed from the ranch to Sanger, soon after the town was established; and there Mr. Burns erected a com-

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

fortable and even pretentious house for those days, where he lived until the Master called him, on December 13, 1918.

Mr. Burns was a Republican after the party was organized, and cast his first vote for Gen. Winfield Scott. It was said of him that at all elections "Joe Burns cast a Republican ballot and said but little about it." His was the only Republican vote cast for years in Fresno County. He was one of the ten men (Republicans) of Fresno County who banded together and started the Fresno Republican. Dr. Rowell was selected to go to San Fran- cisco to buy a small hand press on which the paper was first printed. This was the beginning of the paper that is now the leading daily in the San Joaquin Valley and wields a strong influence for good in thousands of homes.

Joseph Burns showed his faith in Fresno County by inducing many people to settle within her borders, and to them he gave valuable aid and advice. At the ranch home of Mr. and Mrs. Burns, as well as in their town abode, a charming and typical California hospitality was always extended to friend and stranger alike. When "Uncle Joe Burns" died, there passed away one of the true upbuilders of this great commonwealth, and he was mourned by hundreds who had met him in business and social relations. Mr. Burns held membership in the Ancient Order United Workmen Lodge.

FRANK A. DRAPER .- A California pioneer with an interesting history and a record for enviable accomplishment both in the Golden State and Alaska, and a representative of one of the few families able to claim a part in the foundation of Kingsburg, is Frank A. Draper, the son of the late Elias J. Draper, and a nephew of Josiah Draper, who took up the land upon which a part of Kingsburg is now located. The father came to California from Iowa in 1852, crossing the continent with his half-brother. George Harlan, when the two brought a large drove of cattle, one of the first ever driven across the mountains. His full name was Elias Johnson Draper, and he was born in Vandalia City, Wayne County, Ind., on August 21, 1830. He even belonged to the pioneer days of Indiana, but he so far improved the educational ad- vantages of the log school-house that he became a teacher himself. At six- teen years, also, he became a Christian, and always thereafter he lived the life of a professing Christian, holding steadfast to his dying day, June 7. 1914. In 1851 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Hobaugh, by whom he had three children : Theodore is now a rancher in Monterey County; Francisco Americus (named by his mother), or Frank, is the subject of our interesting sketch ; while the third child is Sarah Elizabeth, who was born in Iowa.

With their first-born child, subject's mother and father crossed the plains to California. Soon after reaching California, their second child, the subject of this review, was born. The parents engaged in dairy-farming and stock- raising, for a short while, and then returned to Iowa via the Isthmus. The third child, as before stated, was born after they returned to Iowa, where the mother died on the fifteenth day of June, 1857, leaving her husband and three small children and the blessed memory of noble life.

In the state of Iowa, in 1858, the father married his second wife, Mrs. Lydia Hobaugh, who was the widow of George Hobaugh, by whom she had one child, Lucy Hobaugh, who married a California pioneer, of Donner Party fame, namely, the late Elisha Harlan, extensive land-owner and farmer and stockman, in what is now the Laton-Riverdale section of Fresno County. In 1863, Elias J. Draper and family returned to California by ox team, the second Mrs. Draper enduring the privations and hardships of those pioneer days. After trying their fortune in different lines of business in various parts of California they settled at Kingston, Fresno County, and ever after were well satisfied with their choice. Mrs. Lydia Draper passed away on July 10, 1887, fifty-seven years of age.

Born near San Jose, Santa Clara County, on February 13, 1855, Frank Draper remembers the trip in 1863 very well, when the party drove three ox teams across the plains to California. They attended the funeral of the

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Government agent who kept the stage station which was burned, and who died from wounds received while fighting the Indians of the Little Sweet- water. From his eighth year, Frank grew up in California ; and on January 1, 1864, the family settled at Kingston, on the Kings River, what is now Laton, where the father bought a squatter's claim which afterwards proved to be on grant land. They continued to live there five years, and then they went to Monterey County and preempted 160 acres, and lived there six years. In 1872, Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Draper and a part of the family moved to Kings- burg, but Frank remained in Monterey County and continued to take care of the ranch there, and five years later reached Kingsburg and rejoined his father. The latter, who was early honored by his fellow citizens as justice of the peace, was then proprietor of the Temperance House, which he had built, and which was later burned. Frank became a partner with his father, and the hotel was one of the well-known hostelries of the time.

On September 21. 1878, Frank Draper was married to Miss Florence Livermore, a native of Iowa who had come to California when she was eighteen years old, and who was the daughter of Wilson and Huldah (Russell) Liver- more, Pennsylvanians, who settled in southern Fresno County, where they improved a farm and were among the first settlers. Mrs. Draper well re- members the outlaw Vasquez and a party of six followers, coming to their home early on the morning after the hold-up at Kingston. They were hungry and asked for breakfast. The mother appreciated the situation, and without arousing fear or alarm in her children (by herself showing fear), she prepared the best meal she could from their scanty food-supply and set it before the desperadoes, who voraciously devoured it, and showed gratitude for her kindness. The sheriff's posse appeared a few hours later, and Vas- quiz was duly apprehended, tried and brought to justice.

Continuing in partnership with his father until 1882, Frank Draper then bought his forty acres and built a home upon it. Altogether he bought and sold between two and three hundred acres, in vines and trees, among which eighteen acres are in muscats, six acres in Thompson seedless, and eight acres in peaches. For a while he cultivated his land himself, but now he has it leased to others.

An adventurous chapter has to do with Mr. Draper's several trips to the tar North in search for gold. He first went to the Klondike in 1898, when he was one of thirty-five thousand to rush there because of the excitement about the yellow metal, but he came back the same fall, only to return to Nome the next year and the year following. In 1901, too, he was back in the North, but in that same fall he was smilingly greeting his friends in Kingsburg, having acquired some profit, if not a fortune, by going to Alaska.

Before he went to the Klondike, Mr. Draper was a grain-farmer, but since he returned he has devoted himself to the fruit and raisin industry. He has long been a member of the Raisin Growers Association and the Cali- fornia Peach Growers' Company, and has helped all movements for better- ing California husbandry. His choice ranch of forty acres is only three miles southwest of Kingsburg.

Mr. Draper has been local superintendent of the Fulgham Canal Com- pany's draining ditch, which runs from Selma, where it connects with the Centerville-Kingsburg Ditch, four miles south, and supplies water for ir- rigation purposes to Mr. Draper's scction of the county. It is now a part of the Consolidated Canal Company, and in its management Mr. Draper has proven very able and efficient.

The Drapers were among the first settlers at Kingsburg, and Draper Street will always be a memorial of their association with the foundation- laying of what is bound to be one of the most prosperous and attractive small cities of Central California. They were good, honest, sober-minded folk, and in a measure Kingsburg has partaken of their character.

Mas, anna Traber

Justraben

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The two children of our subject are : Clayton F. Draper, who is Justice of the Peace and the Assistant Cashier of the Kingsburg Bank, in which town he resides, happy as the father of one child, Pauline; and Flossie E. Draper, who became the wife of Arthur Blair, and has her home at Richmond, Cal.

Frank Draper is a courteous, generous man, and is a member of the Christian Science Society at Selma. Mr. and Mrs. Draper have recently purchased a residence-property on Draper Street in Kingsburg, whither they will soon retire and there enjoy the fruits of well spent lives, and the distinction of belonging to the first generation of honored pioneers of Kings- burg.

PROF. JOHN W. TRABER .- There are men whose lives are so fraught with interesting and important events, that the writer, after he thinks he has done justice to the subject before him, declares as did the Queen of Sheba of King Solomon, "The half has not been told." Perhaps there is not another man in Fresno County who has done more along the same lines and under the same circumstances for the betterment of the county than has Prof. John W. Traber, a man of broad mental caliber and a keen sense of perception.

The parents of John W. Traber were Peter C. and Harriet (Jacob- son) Traber, of Holland Dutch extraction, forefathers of whom came with the Van Rensselaer party and settled in Albany County, N. Y., near Schenectady, and the family is still represented there as property holders of the original lands obtained at that period. Peter C. was prominent in politics in Albany County ; he died in 1859, and his wife lived until 1867, passing away in Milan, Mo.

John W. was born near Albany, N. Y., on May 22, 1849, where he lived until four years of age, when he was taken by his parents to Platteville, Grant County, Wis., where he was reared and attended school until he was sixteen. He moved with his mother, his father having died when he was ten, to Northern Missouri, and at Kirksville he fitted himself for the profes- sion of teaching. He taught in Missouri until 1872, when he migrated to the Pacific Coast.

Upon his arrival in California, Professor Traber taught school in Men- docino County for two years. Then, in 1874, with a brother and other rela- tives, he came to Fresno County and took up government land in what is now the Parlier district. He improved a home on a quarter section of land and has ever since made that place his residence. He engaged in general farming, stock-raising and fruit-growing. With twenty-three neighboring ranchers, Mr. Traber was one of the first to take water out of Kings River to irrigate the land in his section. He has assisted materially in changing the once arid desert into a veritable garden where almost everything in plant life will thrive. In all the years that Professor Traber has been a resident of the county he has continued his educational labors, teaching school winters and giving his attention to the cultivation of his ranch during the summer. Today he ranks among the oldest, as well as the ablest teachers, in this section. For three years he served as justice of the peace of the Fifth Judicial district in the county, but declined the office longer on account of his educa- tional work and the added cares of the ranch.

Mr. Traber was married on August 13, 1871, to Miss Anna Kane, a native of Vermont and a daughter of Dennis Kane, a native of Ireland who immigrated to America and made settlement in Vermont. During the Civil War he was employed as a railroad contractor, which occupation he subse- quently followed in Michigan and Ohio. He spent his last days in Indiana. Of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Traber four children were born: J. Orra, who is a well known lawyer in Fresno; Charles H., who was formerly a teacher but is now a well known and successful physician at Reedley ; Roy C., who is a rancher and owner of the original home place near Parlier ; and Cul-

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len B., well known in the oil business of the San Joaquin Valley, later en- gaged in ranching and during the war was employed in shipbuilding at Mare Island.

As a kind and indulgent father, Mr. Traber has deeded to each of his sons twenty acres of land, while he retained eighty-two acres until selling to his son in 1918. On this ranch are grown peaches, prunes and grapes, all vielding abundant harvests and adding to the annual revenue. The Traber home is a modern structure and the family radiates good cheer and dispenses a kindly hospitality to neighbor and friend. Professor Traber is devoted to his profession, having taught for over thirty-five years in Fresno County, and continued up to the age of sixty-nine to direct the pathways of the young, when he retired to private life and is living in Fresno. He is a con- sistent member of the Methodist Church and for years has taught in the Sunday School. Mr. Traber has always been in favor of cooperative market- ing for the fruit-ranchers of Fresno County, and he holds stock in the raisin, peach and apricot, and prune associations. He is a man of high moral principle and most highly respected by all who know him.

LEWIS P. SWIFT .- Men possessing the fundamental characteristics of Lewis P. Swift have ever been regarded as bulwarks of the communities in which they have pursued their active lives. A native of Perry County, Ind., he had a common school education, and when quite a young boy, left school to earn his own way in the world. Self-made and self-educated, he followed the lumber business all his life, and erected mills in various parts of the country. He built a mill at Cheboygan, Mich., and ran it a number of years : also built another at Quincy, Ill.

Arriving in Fresno, Cal., February 5, 1893, Mr. Swift erected a sawmill in the mountains, sixty miles northeast of Fresno, with Charles B. Shaver as partner, this being the eighth mill Mr. Swift had erected; it was called the Fresno Flume and Irrigation Company, and Mr. Swift brought thirty families from the East, the men to work in the mill and lumber yards, many of them having worked for him in eastern cities. The town of Shaver was established on this spot, Mr. Swift became known as the father of the town, and erected a school, dwellings, a general store, and other necessary build- ings for a growing community. It took two years to complete the mill in the mountains and there abundant timber of sugar and white pine was found. Oxen were used at first to haul the logs, next electric power was installed. and now railroad locomotives and cars, tugboats and booms are used. The capacity of the mill is about 40,000,000 feet of lumber annually and during the time when Mr. Swift had charge of the immense plant there were more than 500 men employed in the mill and timber during the busy season. When the town was first established and a postoffice asked for some of the men who had been with Mr. Swift for years wanted him to have it called Swift, but his innate modesty forbade it, although he was prevailed upon to write to Washington, D. C., but was informed there were other names of Swift and it could not be allowed, so it was called Shaver, in honor of his partner.

Later Mr. Swift erected a box factory at what is now Clovis, in fact his was the first industry to be built in what is now a thriving little town. A flume was constructed, over forty-eight miles in length and requiring over 9,000,000 feet of lumber which totaled a cost of $200.000. The planing mill and box factory, also the dry kilns are located here and many men are given employment at this establishment. Of an inventive turn of mind, Mr. Swift constructed a "Nigger," used to turn logs in the machine carriage : he also invented other valuable labor saving devices that are now in use in mills.

Mr. Swift was known as the friend of the working men and it was his greatest delight to make them and their families happy. It was said of him that he was the largest buyer of toys in Fresno County for he always saw that the children of his men were supplied with amusement and thus en- deared himself to the rising generations. He was one of the foremost develop-

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ers of the lumber industry and was known as a man who did things ; what he set out to do he did with all his might; obstacles never discouraged him, nor did disappointments and defeats; he knew how to push on and he gave his courage, his strong will and his vigorous activities to the accomplishment of whatever interested him or whatever he planned to do. He was a fine example in that phase of his sturdy character and his memory is revered because of his patriotic, pioneer labors for the welfare of the community, for his breadth of interests, and for his disinterested devotion to worthy causes, and the mill at Shaver and factory at Clovis stand as monuments to his memory. His death occurred January 29, 1901. Fraternally, he was a member of the Fresno lodge of Masons.

The marriage of Lewis P. Swift united him, in 1888, with Ella C. French, a native of New Orleans, La., and two children were born to them; Lewella, wife of J. C. Forkner, and the mother of three children-Mary Jane, James Swift and Robert Lewis: Gertrude, wife of Edwin M. Einstein, and the mother of one daughter, Evelyn T. The widow, who resides at the family home, 1661 M Street, is very active in philanthropic work; for five years she was treasurer of the local Y. W. C. A., and is now on the board of trustees and an active worker in the society; she is also a most active and con- scientious worker for the Red Cross, and had a class of 130 knitters who did noble work for the association, knitting sweaters, bandages, etc. Mrs. Swift has been a member of the Parlor Lecture Club for twenty-four years. She attends the Episcopal Church.

RUSSELL HARRISON FLEMING .- Probably no other state in the Union has such an absorbingly interesting (because ultra-romantic) pioneer history as California, and most likely no commonwealth excels this in cherishing every memorial of those who paid so dearly, in the matter of their health, comfort and worldly prosperity, in order that others who have come after them may enter into a promised land. Among the truly, if some- what humbly great of this path-breaking army of American patriots is Rus- sell Harrison Fleming who was born on April 12, 1832, at Kingston, Luzerne County, Pa., the son of John Fleming, a native of the north of Ireland with enough enterprise and endurance to cross the ocean and settle in the still freer United States. Ardently patriotic, he shouldered a musket when the War of 1812 began, and did his duty there as a soldier, along with the Yankee natives. At the age of sixty-five he died in the Quaker State, survived by his wife, who had been Annie Karle, a popular belle of Massachusetts, before her marriage. Mrs. Fleming must have come from especially good Colonial stock, for she lived to be ninety-seven years old.

Russell had the ordinary education of a grammar school boy of that period and section, and when he grew to manhood and found his way to California, he busied himself at farming and mining, as so many pioncers came to do. When the mines no longer had an attraction for him, he took to staging ; and getting worn on the road, he opened a livery for the service of others. In all these undertakings, honesty and conscientiousness charac- terized his varied and often risky dealings, and a good nature and kindheart- edness won for him a host of friends.

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 103

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362