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 111

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 111

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Mr. Cartwright makes three sizes of the shears, one being a tree-shear with handles twenty-two inches long and twenty-nine inches over all, while the over-all length of the others is twenty-six and twenty-one inches respec- tively. They are used for pruning grape-vines. The Cartwright pruning shears are recognized as the best on the market today; and while retailing for three dollars a pair, they form ninety percent. of the shears for this purpose now sold on the Pacific Coast.

John Cartwright, the father, died here aged sixty-seven years, but the mother, whose maiden name was Martha Ashby, lived to be eighty, and was the last of a family of eighteen children. She was born in Coles County, Ill., and grew up with Mr. Cartwright.

J. M. Cartwright attended the Fresno County public schools and also the high school at Fresno, and grew up to work in his father's shop at Malaga. At the age of twenty-five he was married to Miss Maud E. Wilkinson, the daughter of James Wilkinson, late of Le Grand. Merced County, where her father died in 1918. aged sixty-three years. She was born in Missouri and reared in Fresno County. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright have two children, Vera Mae and John Marion, Jr. The valuable years of our subject's life, therefore,

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have been spent near Malaga, and there or in that vicinity has he accom- plished most.

Among his enterprises is the improvement of a forty-acre vineyard at Clovis, which he has since sold, for even some of the lessons learned at forg- ing for years in his father's shop served him in other fields. When his father died, John Marion succeeded him as the head of the business, buying out his brother's interest ; although the old name of the firm, J. Cartwright & Sons is still retained. In 1910, Mr. Cartwright built his brick factory at Malaga ; and since 1914 electricity has been the power used. He employs from five to six workmen and continues to turn out a strictly hand-made pruning shear, of oil-tempered steel, "the best that is." The same year in which he con- structed his shop, he built his residence on Front Street, immediately south.

Mr. Cartwright is a friend of education and has served nine years on the Malaga school board. Politically he is a Democrat, and fraternally belongs to Fresno Parlor, No. 25, N. S. G. W., and Central California Lodge, No. 343, I. O. O. F., at Fresno.

MAJOR M. SIDES .- Honored and conspicuous as one of Selma's oldest living pioneers, it is easy to comprehend why Major M. Sides has become Selma's foremost financier and equally distinguished as a highly representa- tive citizen. He was born seven miles southeast of Perryville, Perry County, Mo., on January 27, 1838, and grew up on a farm in Missouri where his father, Elihu Sides, died when the lad was only six years old. The father had come to Missouri when he was a young man, a member of a family that came from England and was settled here before the American Revolution. Elihu Sides was a native of North Carolina, and married Miss Daisy Welker. She died at the old homestead in Missouri, about 1875, aged seventy years or more, and her native state was Missouri. At the death of her husband, Mrs. Sides was left to provide for six children: Almina, the eldest. is the widow of Lawson Miller, and resides in Chicago. Marshall married and lived in Missouri, where he farmed the old Sides' place ; he was taken with pneumonia and died, at the age of sixty, leaving a widow and a son. Marion, (christened Newton Marion Sides) is the subject of our review. Belfina be- came the wife of Frank Nance; she lived, married and died in Perry County, Mo., dwelling on a farm, and left two children. Veries, the fifth in order of birth, served in Company M of the Missouri State Militia for three years, and then reenlisted ; he married in Missouri, and has four children, and he is now in the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle. Harry is a farmer in Perry County, Mo., is married and has several children.

Growing up on the little sixty-acre farm that the father left, Marion had to live economically. He stayed at home until he was twenty-one, to help his mother, having in the meantime a chance to go to school for only three or four winters and for three or four months of each season, and hardly was he ready to push out for himself when the Civil War came on. He at once enlisted in Company M of the Missouri State Militia, where Captain Lee Whybark appointed him sergeant; and having served for three years, he entered Company D of the Forty-eighth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and there arose to the position of Quartermaster of the regiment, was duly com- missioned Major and has since borne that title. He was mustered out in Chicago, and honorably discharged in April. 1865, at the close of the war.

After the long, hard service in the field, Major Sides went home to Perry County, and there returned to the plow, farming in Missouri for ten vears. He next moved to Dent County, and married the girl with whom he had become acquainted during the war, while he was encamped in that county. After their marriage they lived awhile in Missouri; and being taken up by his neighbors, Major Sides was elected to the legislature from Dent County, and reelected, serving two terms.

Stimulated by what he read in the newspapers as to the completion of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways, and about the Golden State

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in general, Major Sides sold his farm and came to California with his wife and two children. He first went to Petaluma, Sonoma County, and from there came down to Kingsburg, Fresno County, to look around; and so favorably was he impressed with the southern end of Fresno County that he wrote his wife to join him with the children. When he arrived in Fresno County, about December 20, 1875, there was no Selma, and even Fresno City had only about three hundred people, and there were scarcely fifteen to twenty families at Kingsburg. He therefore came up toward what is now Selma, and took up a soldier's homestead of 160 acres, two and a half miles north of the present town site. The Southern Pacific Railroad graded its lands at that time, and he bought a half section the second year, which later became the home of T. B. Mathews.

Major Sides was among the first to foresee the necessity for irrigation, and that the settlers must have water if they were to do much with their land. He accordingly helped to build the Centerville and Kingsburg Ditch. He took one share in the ditch and he worked off the payments with his span of horses, doing the excavating himself. Meanwhile, when he was gone all the week, and returned only Saturday nights, he left his wife and family in the little cabin on the homestead. But he was healthy, happy and hope- ful, and little by little "grew up with the country." He saw the switch built at Selma, and he has seen every building go up in the town. He has also welcomed everybody and everything. including the packing houses of Libby, McNeill & Libby, and the organization of the raisin and other associations.

As is. elsewhere told in the more detailed story of the First National Bank of Selma, Major Sides helped organize the first bank here, namely a state bank called the Bank of Selma. which later became the First National Bank, and for some time he has been the head of the First National. Besides being a director in the Selma Savings Bank. he is also a stockholder in the First National Bank of Fresno: the First National Bank of Kingsburg; the First National Bank of Fowler; the First National Bank of Caruthers, and the First National Bank of Sanger. However, he has been mainly engaged in farming and horticulture. For eight or ten years he was a grain-farmer : and when the ditches were built, he became a pioneer horticulturist, having planted some of the first peaches as well as the first grapes. He has thus improved several ranches, bringing each to a high state of perfection, plant- ing and cultivating in all over 500 acres.

Major Sides was twice married. His first wife was Miss Casander Mathews, a native of Dent County, Mo., the daughter of Mrs. Birchie Mathews, a widow, and the mother of T. B. Mathews, sketched elsewhere in this work. Mrs. Sides died in 1893, the mother of two children: Ira, who died when he was twenty-one years old ; and Effie, who married C. F. Walker, and had one child, which also died. True to his first wife's dying request, he deeded 120 acres of land to her brothers and sisters, that they might be properly provided for. By his second marriage, Major Sides became the husband of Miss Ollie M. Davies, a native of Tennessee, in which state she was brought up, being educated at the Lebanon College for Girls. She came to Selma about twenty-five years ago, and the following year was married. Two sons blessed their union, the elder being Douglass R. Sides, a graduate of the Selma High School and the University of California, and the younger, Thomas Marion, who is a graduate of the Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy and will go to the State University in the fall of 1919. Douglass, who was in the base hospital service abroad for eighteen months, returned from France in May, 1919, safe and sound, and was honorably discharged.

Major Sides was brought up in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, but Mrs. Sides and her family were Presbyterians, and in that church she is a member of the Ladies' Aid Society, and also an active Red Cross worker. The Major helped to erect the first building occupied by the Presbyterian congregation of Selma, a small and unpretentious house of worship, in Cali-

Chris Jorgensen

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

fornia style, on the site of the present magnificent brick edifice, costing $30,000, at the corner of Selma and Mill Streets, which is the third church home put up on that spot. He also helped to build the second church build- ing, which was a good-sized frame structure, and for twenty years he has served on the board of trustees. He built his fine residence at 1333 East Street, Selma, in 1904, and there, round about, he has twenty acres, ten on each side of the road. A safe, conservative and excellent business man, and a most patriotic citizen, Major Sides has repeatedly been urged, since coming to California, to accept public office, and as repeatedly he has declined the honor; yet, in the light of his actual record as soldier and private citizen commissioned with important affairs, where could a Californian he found more imbued with the conviction that public office is a public trust, and that honor lies in service to fellowmen?

CHRIS JORGENSEN .- After many years of faithful public service in Fresno County, Chris Jorgensen has been reelected time and again to the responsible office of supervisor, while his associates have honored him for the past ten years by selecting him as chairman of the board. So long has been his identification with this county, and so intimate his associations with local development that, viewing the remarkable transformation wrought within his memory, he may well exclaim, "All of which I saw, and part of which I was." Great, however, as has been his activity in general, it is as supervisor that the people of his home county most appreciate Chris Jor- gensen, who has served them in that office for more than fourteen years, being chosen by a large majority at each election. His mind and heart have been engrossed in the well-being of the county, and such has been his success in the solution of many difficult problems, that his fellow citizens more and more have reposed their confidence in him.

Born at Middelfard, Fyen, Denmark, on May 18, 1859, Chris was the son of Jorgen and Nora Jorgensen, who passed their entire life in Denmark. His father was a cabinetmaker engaged in the manufacturing of furniture. There were five children in the family, and, besides himself, three sisters now reside in Fresno County, while a brother still lives at the old home. Mr. Jorgensen received a thorough education in the excellent Danish common and high schools, supplemented by a course in the Agricultural College. An aunt having come to Fresno County about 1876, and hearing through her of the resources and unrivalled opportunities in California, he determined to live under the Stars and Stripes. In 1880, therefore, he crossed the ocean and moved westward as far as Atlantic, Iowa, where he was employed at farming until 1881, and then he came on to Fresno County. For a while he worked in the Central Colony, and thereafter located in West Park, where he pur- chased a ranch. While improving it, he was also engaged in grain-farming, and for nine years he ran a large outfit, with the usual vicissitudes of the grain-producer in those days. During these years he also used his teams in preparing lands and setting out vineyards, thus gaining valuable experience and becoming an authority on viticulture.

When the American Vineyard Company was organized, Mr. Jorgensen becafne their superintendent and attended to the preparation of their lands; they began in a small way, and he set out their first vineyard. The company branched out and from time to time increased their holdings, until it owned and operated over 600 acres. He became a stockholder and director, and finally was selected associate manager. He built their first packing-house on the West Park ranch, and in it installed one of the first raisin-stemmers, which was run by hand power. Afterwards they built packing-houses on their other ranches. which were equipped with modern machinery. At the end of twenty-one years of invaluable service as superintendent and associate manager, Mr. Jorgensen resigned from the direction of the American Vine- yard Company, in March, 1914.

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During his years of planning with the other members of the board, Mr. Jorgensen has seen much permanent improvements and building accom- plished. These include the County Almshouse, the rebuilding of the County Orphanage, the erection of an annex to the County Hospital, and the remodel- ling of the old hospital. The Fair Grounds have also been greatly improved and beautified. Large cement bridges have been built over the San Joaquin and Kings Rivers and the Fish Slough, and there has been much building of new roads and improving of old ones. In 1919 the supervisors united on a bond issue of $4,800,000. which was voted, and with this additional money they improved the 315 miles of roads in the county.

Mr. Jorgensen was one of the original stockholders of the Union Na- tional Bank of Fresno, and he is still a member of its board of directors. He is a director in the Fresno Savings Bank, and has been for many years presi- dent of the Scandinavian Mutual Fire Insurance Company. He was also interested in the organization of the Danish Creamery Association; he is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company, has been a supporter of all the raisin associations from the first, and has been a director of the California Peach Growers, Inc., from the time of its organization in May. 1915.

At Fresno, Mr. Jorgensen was married to Miss Hannah Larsen, also a native of Fyen, Denmark, who came to Fresno in 1883, and they have had three children : Chris P., a rancher and viticulturist in this district : Boletta, a graduate of the San Jose State Normal and a teacher here until her death in April, 1918; and Fannie, at home with her parents.

Mr. Jorgensen was made a Mason in Las Palmas Lodge. No. 266. F. & A. M., and he is a member of the Fresno Consistory, No. 8, Scottish Rite bodies. He belongs to Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., San Francisco, and he is a member of the Danish Brotherhood. Still in the prime of life, with apparently many years of usefulness before him, Mr. Jorgensen already en- joys a prestige and confidence accorded to but few.

CHRISTIAN BACHTOLD,-Interesting both as a pioneer of the event- ful "boom" eighties, and as the Nestor of Selma's men of commerce, having been in business continuously here longer than anyone else, Christian Bach- told enjoys the esteem and good will of all who know him, and especially of all who have had business dealings with him. He was born at Schaffhausen, the beautiful "Niagara of Switzerland," on January 20, 1853. and there re- ceived his elementary education. When about thirteen he was confirmed in the Evangelist Reformed Church of Switzerland, in the faith of Zwingli, and at sixteen he was apprenticed to a miller, taking a position in the large merchant flour mill at Stulingen, in Baden, just across the line of Switzer- land, where he worked for three years. He still possesses the certificate of his proficiency as a journeyman miller, issued to him at the end of his ap- prenticeship, which he prizes highly, as he also has the passport issued to him by the Swiss Republic, permitting him to leave his beloved fatherland, in order to come to another Republic that was to become to him quite as dear.

For a year he worked as a journeyman miller in Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium, and then he sailed from Antwerp for New York, by way of Liver- pool, arriving at the old Castle Garden on May 1. 1873. He had a brother at Syracuse, N. Y., and having made his way to that city, he engaged as a miller with the Jacob Amos Flouring Mills in Syracuse, with which concern he remained for a couple of years. Then he came west by rail to the Coast, arriving in San Francisco, in December, 1875.

Having answered an advertisement of George McNear, at Petaluma, he engaged with him as his first miller in his large steam mill at Petaluma, and after two years of successful employment, he arranged to go out to Winne- mucca. Nev. This engagement was effected through Jolin Frey, whom he met at San Francisco, and who promised him the position of head miller in the Charles Kemler mill at Winnemucca. For eight years he remained at Winnemucca, and then he returned to San Francisco. There Jacob Hauptli

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induced him to come to Selma in January, 1886, to see the mill property which he had bought at sheriff's sale, and to buy the same for himself; and on the fifth of April he took possession.

The Selma mill certainly had a history. It was built by Samuel, Jacob and William Frey, fellow countrymen of Mr. Bachtold's, completed in 1880 and fitted with machinery hauled from Bakersfield. It was originally built as a water-mill, water being provided by the Centerville and Kingsburg Canal; and later the Freys' put in a seventy-five horsepower steam engine, so that the establishment was a four-burr steam and water-mill when Mr. Bachtold bought it. The Freys became financially embarrassed and were closed out by the sheriff. As already stated, Mr. Bachtold took charge in the spring of 1886; and ten years later, in December, fire destroyed the old mill. after its owner had changed it to a roller mill, and changed the name to the Selma Flouring Mills. It was partly insured, but Mr. Bachtold lost $12,000 by the conflagration.

In ninety days, however, he had the present mill running. and this new establishment also goes by the name of the Selma Fouring Mills. It has a capacity of seventy barrels of wheat flour daily, and there is a full equipment for crushing barley and grinding corn meal. This means really a capacity of three and a half tons of wheat per day, of twelve hours, and this is manufac- tured into the Charter Oak Flour, and Magnolia brands, justly famous throughout the San Joaquin Valley for their purity and high quality. Approxi- mately 15,000 sacks of barley are also worked up in a year, and this is prepared for feed by rolling, steaming and crushing. Mr. Bachtold, in addi- tion, buys about 150 tons of corn per year, which he makes into corn meal and feed. To meet California conditions, he has made a special study of all kinds of stock and poultry foods, and he prepares a number of special brands, such as the Imperial Chicken Food, and the Imperial Egg Food. He also carries a full line of mill stuffs, while the grain and corn he uses are largely grown in Fresno, Madera and Kings Counties. In 1908, Mr. Bachtold equipped his mill with electricity, but he retains a seventy-five horsepower steam engine in reserve.

In 1888. Mr. Bachtold was married to Mrs. Libbie Hartman, nee Hurshi. a native of Indiana, who had three children by her first husband. all of whom are now living in San Francisco. One child, John C. Bachtold, a partner with his father in the Selma Flouring Mills and acting as the outside man, resulted from the second union. He was married, in turn, in Selma, to Miss Ada Snyder, a daughter of C. C. Snyder, and a granddaughter of Selma's well-known pioneer of the same name, whose life-story is elsewhere given in this work. He stood high as a Mason, and was one of the four original townsite men of Selma. They are the parents of two children, Dorris and Max.

These descendants of Mr. Bachtold recall the matter of his progenitors. His father was Hans Kasper, who married Verena Meier; and they both were born, married, lived and died in Switzerland. His father was a tool- smith, who made all kinds of tools and razors. Our subject, therefore, is a fine mixture of the old Roman and German blood. He was brought up, on account of his particular environment in that corner of Switzerland, to use the German language, but he also became proficient in French and in English. Most of his parents and grandparents have lived to become between eighty and ninety years old. It "runs in the family" to have large heads, full chests, square shoulders and powerful hands and arms.

In 1904 Mr. Bachtold bought and rebuilt his residence in the block northeast of the mill. On February 5, 1897, his fellow townsmen presented him with a fine regulator clock, which still adorns the office of this mill. It is inscribed: "Presented to C. Bachtold by his friends of Selma, February 3, 1897." His friends surprised him, took possession of the mill, and old and young danced there until the small hours of the morning.

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Mr. Bachtold was very active in encouraging the establishing of a fire company in Selma, and encouraged the old fire commission, a quasi-public organization for fighting fires in the early days. The town of Selma was incorporated on November 15, 1893, and Mr. Bachtold was elected to serve on its first board of trustees. He was repeatedly reelected, and served eight years in all. In 1897 he was elected President of the Board, practically Mayor of the town, and for years he served to the entire satisfaction of everyone, and with great credit to himself. During the time that he was on the city council, and largely through his efforts, the property of the old fire commis- sion was taken over by the city of Selma, which ever since has maintained a very efficient fire department. There was considerable wrangling about prices of the old fire apparatus, and it was largely through his good judgment that an amicable adjustment of differences was made, and the affairs of the old fire commission were finally settled. As mayor, Mr. Bachtold kept strict tab on all the city's business, and he allowed no graft or dishonesty on the part of the city officers.

Mr. Bachtold served for many years as vice-president of the Old State Bank of Selma. which was the forerunner of the present First National Bank, and, together with T. B. Mathews and Major M. Sides, he was among its early stockholders. He is now a stockholder in the Selma National Bank, and is valued in all his transactions for his honesty and integrity. In national affairs, Mr. Bachtold is a Republican, of Progressive tendencies, and was a great admirer of the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt and a stanch friend of Senator Hiram Johnson. He has clear views and decided opinions on political matters pertaining to nation, state, county and city, and at times he has made some enemies by the firm stand he has taken. But even those who have opposed his political views are ready to admit his honesty and sincerity. All in all. Mr. Bachtold is easily one of Selma's most efficient, most valuable and most highly respected citizens.

Mr. Bachtold is an honored member of the Selma Lodge of the Knights of Pythias. He is also a prominent Mason, and a member of the Selma Blue Lodge and the Royal Arch Chapter in Selma. He is best known, however, as an Odd Fellow. He is Past Grand of the Selma Lodge of the I. O. O. F., and helped organize Encampment No. 76, at Selma, of which he has repeat- edly been Chief Patriarch. He is the District Deputy of District No. 45, which includes Madera and Fresno Counties.

DANIEL BROWN, JR .- One of the substantial and prominent men of Fresno is Daniel Brown, Jr., formerly the president of the old Fresno Na- tional Bank. A native son of the state, he was born in Petaluma, Sonoma County, in 1863, a son of Daniel Brown, who was born in Tipperary, Ireland, and who came to the United States in an early day and eventually came to California via the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in 1851, when the excite- ment over the discovery of gold was at its height. He engaged in the mer- cantile business in San Francisco and in 1856 he started in the banking busi- ness in Petaluma, whither he had moved a short time before, becoming vice-president of the Wickersham Banking Company, and later president of the same and also vice-president of the Savings Bank of Santa Rosa. He was well and favorably known as one of the pioneers of Sonoma County and for the fifty years that he made it his home, he was identified with almost every project that had for its aim the development of the county. He died in 1902, active up to the last, in the business that had been guided by his masterful mind for so many years. He was one of the prominent Democrats of the county and served on the state and county central committees at various times. His wife, formerly Annie Ferguson, survived him. She had seven children, of whom Daniel Jr., is the second in order of birth.

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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 111

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