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 120

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 120

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).

On August 8, 1894, E. W. Lindsay and Miss Rebecca L. Fader were united in marriage. Mrs. Lindsay is a native of Nova Scotia and she shares with her gifted husband the esteem of their many friends. Mr. Lindsay is an active worker in St. Paul's Methodist Church and for years has been a mem- ber of the Board of Stewards, also superintendent of the Sunday School and a director of the Young Men's Christian Association. In national politics he is a Democrat and fraternally he is a member of the Masons, Odd Fellows and Woodmen of the World.

HOWARD A. HARRIS .- Prominent because of his association with af- fairs of the greatest importance in the community, Howard A. Harris has for years been influential in assisting to direct the destiny of Fowler as the editor and proprietor of the Fowler Ensign. He is welcomed everywhere as a man whose judgment is sought and prized.

He was born at Lawrence, Kans., on December 8. 1867, the son of Amos and Antoinnette Harris, the well-known and highly-esteemed pioneers, whose interesting lives are outlined in another part of this work. The father was a native of the Empire State and came to California as early as 1851, to seek for gold. He mined in Placer and Nevada counties, found the shining dust that he was after, and returned East with several thousand dollars. He took up his . residence at Jackson, Mich., and there opened a hat store : and while there he married Miss Antoinnette Pelham, who had studied at Olivet College and the State University, and had been a successful teacher, working in a field that peculiarly prepared her for the great work she was to be privileged to do when it fell to her lot to be one of the foundation builders of Fowler. years later. Mr. Harris removed to Kansas, invested in lands in Chickasaw County, and there, face to face with the plague of grasshoppers, lost the last of his Califor- nia gold. When, therefore, he came back to California, in 1874, and settled in Fresno County, in 1881. it was to begin life anew.

Howard A. Harris followed his father and came with his mother, brother and sister, to Turlock, on December 23, 1877, the worst of all years, for it went into history as abnormally dry. In October, 1881, however, the entire family came to Fresno County by team, when it took five days to make the journey. They settled a mile southeast of Fowler, and took up railroad land which was then selling at from three and a half to five dollars an acre. The family then consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Harris, and their children, Frank B. and Howard A.

Howard's childhood was passed on the frontier, under pioneering condi- tions, and his schooling was therefore limited. He had to work hard to make a living, and this experience in getting the necessaries of life was continued

905

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

after he arrived in California. The first two crops were absolute failures ; and it required backbone, and plenty of it, to keep up the game. He and his brother Frank still own the original Harris ranch of seventy-four acres, but today its well cultivated, and the fruitful fields tell an altogether different story. It is planted to muscats and Thompson seedless grapes and there are five acres of alfalfa. Through thick and thin the boys stuck by their devoted parents, and no one was ever more honored by those who gave them being and a higher development. Amos Harris served as a school trustee for years and was in every organization for the public good, being, with his entire fam- ily, an outspoken advocate of temperance, and living to witness one triumph after another of the blue-ribbon crusaders; and when he died, in 1911, he had rounded out eighty most useful years. Mrs. Harris also came to be greatly interested in community affairs, and so endeared herself to the neigh- borhood that she was universally beloved and when she passed away, in the fall of 1916, about seventy-nine years of age, her demise was generally regretted.

Howard Harris's greatest activity in a semi-official capacity was as a progressive journalist identified with the Fowler Ensign for twenty-two and a half years. This paper was started as the Fowler Courier, on April 19, 1894, by C. P. Ruffner, and on October 13, of the same year, when the infant was likely to give a last kick and go the way of so many newspaper enterprises, it was re-christened as the Fowler Ensign, and Mr. Harris became proprietor and editor. In an account published in the Ensign on May 30, 1917, he tells the story of the journal's vicissitudes, and speaks a good word for the suc- ceeding editor, Charles A. Foster. The Ensign played more than an ordinary part in boosting Fowler, and the town will never forget the long years of labor, including altogether too much night work, by which Mr. Harris rescued more than one enterprise from disaster, and won success where many prophe- sied failure.

Among these ventures, difficult enough at first, was the introduction here of insurance as a definite business ; and now Mr. Harris writes for nine leading old-line fire insurance companies. He was a promoter, director, sec- retary and manager of the Fowler Independent Telephone Company.

On November 15, 1897, Mr. Harris was married, at Pomona, to Miss Tabitha Close, a native of Ledyard, in Cayuga County, N. Y., where she was born on July 14, 1875. Ill health, due to the strain of caring for a sister through a long illness from which death finally resulted, led Miss Close to come out to California in 1895; and as Amos Harris was distantly related to her mother and a childhood friend, she came directly to the Harris home. There she remained for fifteen months, when she returned to New York; but in the following November she again came to California, and was met by Howard Harris, to whom she had become engaged, and they were married in the Southland. On January 12, 1902, their child, Howard Avery, was born -now in the Fowler High School.

From her advent as a citizen of Fowler, Mrs. Harris took a deep interest in everything pertaining to the development of the town, and to gratify a wish of her own, she worked with her husband in the Ensign office and often added many a touch that gave some reader pleasure. At her father's death. she invested most of her share of the estate in Fowler property; and when she came to have their residence built, she had a care not only as to the interior conveniences, but to the exterior design, solicitous that it should be a credit to the town. She was an active member of the Fowler Improve- ment Association, serving both as treasurer and director, and took a leading interest in the laying out and beautifying of the town park. She was also an active participant in welfare work of the Presbyterian Church, and such was the success of her efforts to lead an unpretentious, consistent Christian life that her bereaved husband could say of her, "In all of the eleven and a half years of our married life, I have never known her to speak an unpleasant

906

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

word intentionally." When, therefore, she passed away in the night on July 20, 1909, her untimely end came as a terrible shock not only to her im- mediate family, but to all in the community who knew and loved her, as the numerous and heart-felt tributes to her memory, at the funeral and afterward, amply testify.

S. M. ANDREWS .- A hard-working, self-made man owning one of the best-located, most productive and extremely beautiful ranches, acquired through toil and sacrifice, and developed by foresight and sensible attention to the experience of the past, is S. M. Andrews, a resident of the vicinity of Parlier, which he helped to organize. He has a new and attractive bungalow residence, one of the ornaments of the fast-growing district, and there Mr. and Mrs. Andrews dispense a hospitality typically Californian.

He was born at Farmington, August 30, 1874, the son of G. W. Andrews, a well-known farmer in San Joaquin County, who came to California fifty- five years or more ago, and settled near Stockton. He attended the schools at Farmington and had the usual experiences of a California boy, although he was more fortunate than some, for he grew up when the great state was growing, and both had a chance to try for himself one thing or another, and to learn to lean upon his own powers.

In 1890, when he was sixteen years old, he first came to Parlier, and soon after bought twenty acres half a mile southeast, which he planted, im- proved and then sold. Then he bought another tract of forty acres, which he likewise prepared, planted and greatly improved, and finally sold at a profit. He soon demonstrated that good judgment and square methods assisted him in such transactions, and that he had special gifts for operating in that new field.

Ten years ago he bought the Preacher Miller ranch of fifty acres, and in the fall of 1917 he sold twenty acres, leaving him thirty. This he made his home ranch, and there, during 1916 and 1917, he erected the residence referred to.

During 1910, Mr. Andrews was married to Miss Nellie Tremper, who was born in Lower Lake, Cal., and grew up in Lake County. She is a sister of Chris Tremper, a prosperous rancher who lives between this place and Kings- burg, and is a charming woman such as one would expect to find gracing the Andrews household. Both Mr. and Mrs. Andrews aim to endorse and support every movement for the general betterment of the community.

Active for years in the commercial as well as the industrial development of the county, Mr. Andrews helped bring into existence the First National Bank of Parlier, and to well establish itself; and he did so by the practical method of becoming a stockholder. He also helped to organize the Cali- fornia Associated Raisin Company and became a stockholder of that also. He is a Republican, and has worked for the elevation of the ballot and na- tional politics, and as a loyal American has vigorously supported the admin- istration in all its war work.

PERCIVAL BOWDISH .- Among the early settlers of Fresno who contributed to the development of some of its surrounding colonies, was Percival Bowdish of Central Colony. Though born in San Francisco, he spent his boyhood and early youth in New York State, coming to Fresno as a young man of twenty. He soon realized the extent of the opportunities offered in the vastness of the San Joaquin Valley, and in this particular district. The tract around Fresno had an irrigation system, then partially completed by the late M. J. Church, and some orchards and vineyards had been planted. From the Bowdish's home place in Central Colony, the eve could traverse the plains as far as the three buttes which now form the back- ground of Fresno's irrigation supply. The foothills supplied the winter wood which was hauled across the plains over roads broken by the farmers. In 1886 the family bought an eighty-acre tract at Malaga and planted a vine-

909

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

yard. Raisins were then confined to the muscat variety, and the sale of the finished product was varied and often difficult. Some had to be shipped to San Francisco and there sold in small boxes to groceries or peddled by the pound to housewives.

Percival Bowdish engaged in grain-farming, at the same time taking an interest in the social and political advancement of Fresno. Thus he became a member of the vigilante committee which rid Fresno of much of the unde- sirable element then existing there. In 1889 he married Miss May Kimball of Oakland, whose father, Henry Kimball, was also a pioneer of California, being constructor of the first water ditch for mining purposes built in Cali- fornia, in Sierra County. He also helped build the first warehouse in Fresno and plant the first vineyard in Temperance Colony.

In 1892, the fruit industry expanded and Fresno shipped carloads of fruit and grapes to the eastern markets. Mr. Bowdish worked awhile in the icing of cars for that purpose, and so saw that business, also, in its infancy. A few years later he moved to San Francisco, where he was caught up in the current of the gold rush to Alaska. After spending a hard and fruitless vear in Alaska, he came back to San Francisco and in 1903 again returned to Fresno. Here he engaged in the fruit business, this time planting a Thomp- son vineyard at Kerman, where he has brought that variety of raisin to its perfection both in quality and quantity.

Thus he has seen Fresno develop from a few straggling houses set in the middle of the plains with a pump in its main street, and an open ditch running the length of the settlement to supply water for its primitive flour mill, to the present city surrounded by miles of rich vineyard land. Mr. Bow- dish is glad to have been one of the promoters of such a vast enterprise. and is looking ahead to greater things to come.

JOHN AND EMMA L. GUNN .- An illustration of the splendid oppor- tunities in California for intelligent, worthy and industrious immigrants from other countries, is afforded in the interesting careers of John and Emma L. Gunn, who, coming from their homes in old England many years ago, are now numbered among the prosperous and much-esteemed citizens of the Golden State.

John Gunn was born in London, on December 27, 1854, and in the ex- cellent common schools of England received his education. He first went into the planing mill business, and thus prepared himself for technical and industrial work. While still in London in February, 1876. Mr. Gunn was married to Emma Louisa Henderson, a native of Clifton, Somersetshire, England, who was admirably fitted to enter into his life with its English background and its American present and future.

In 1883, bidding good-bye to the country they had good reason to love so well, they crossed the ocean to the United States and landed in New York City ; and there Mr. Gunn again engaged in the mill business. putting in six years in Brooklyn. He made a specialty of planing, sawing and molding mill-work, and soon had a reputation for accurate workmanship. In 1889, during the great boom, Mr. and Mrs. Gunn came out to California, and after looking over the state they chose Fresno County as their location and thus early became acquainted with the section where they have by their industry become so well and favorably known. Mr. Gunn worked for a couple of years in Madary's mill, but he sensibly decided to turn his attention to land and its products.

Twenty-six years ago he located on his home-place east of Clovis, and was among the first to join the Enterprise Colony movement. He had forty acres of stubble field and he set it all out into vineyards, later adding five acres, making forty-five acres in the home place, devoted to vines, peaches and oranges. The Gunn vineyard has become widely known; the original vines are still healthy and good producers, the soil being especially adapted to viticulture. The large modern residence was built by Mr. and Mrs. Gunn

910

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

in 1903 ; the grounds have ornamental trees and are surrounded by an orange orchard. On the same section they purchased forty acres which they have improved to a muscat and Malaga grape vineyard. They also purchased 100 acres at Clotho which they set out to Malaga vines, with a border of figs. In 1916, they also built one of the most modern packing houses in the county on this place, with a switch from the Southern Pacific Railroad. The fruit is packed and loaded in cars and consigned directly to eastern cities. They sold this 100 acres in 1918 to L. Powers for $100,000, at that time the highest price paid in Fresno County for 100 acres in vineyard, straight through. Thus they have improved 145 acres of land, although they have owned other places.

They found the marketing of fruit in the early days very unsatisfactory because the shipper often came back to the producer for money to pay the freight. Believing a cooperative sales company was the only remedy, they joined the movement from the starting of the first raisin association by Mr. Kearney, and they are active members and stockholders in the California Associated Raisin Company.

The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Gunn has proved a happy one, especially since their coming to California and their commencement in the absorbing work of building home and fortune. Mr. Gunn is a member of the Woodmen of the World, and Mrs. Gunn shares the social life incidental to that affiliation. Both are public-spirited and ready to do their part to advance community, state and nation, along broad-minded ideals. All who know Mr. and Mrs. Gunn esteem them highly.

MISS MAGGIE P. RUCKER .- A kind-hearted, broadminded and ex- ceedingly charitable lady of prominence in Kingsburg church and social circles is Miss Maggie P. Rucker, the daughter of Ambrose B. Rucker, a California pioneer of 1853, who first settled in the Salinas Valley. He was born at Richmond, Va., and in that old Southern city was educated, taking a theological course and becoming a minister of the Methodist Church. In time he moved to Ohio and Iowa ; and assisted by his good wife, who was Margaret Atkinson before her marriage, he left a record for faithful pastoral labors, the influence of which was felt for years. When he came to the Salinas Valley he chose a piece of land which he thought belonged to the government, but which proved to be included in an old Spanish grant; and having become convinced that the title was really owned by another, he moved off, taking with him, through the consideration of the authorities, his house and certain improvements. He then moved nearer to the Coast and once more took up government land; whereupon he built a second home, where he brought up his five children.

W. A. Rucker, now deceased, was the eldest and came to Kingsburg in 1882, when he bought and improved a place half a mile to the east of the town. And at Kingsburg, on February 27, 1914, he passed away, eighty-two years old, never having married. He was eminently prosperous, and was probably the heaviest taxpayer at Kingsburg. He was kindly disposed, and everybody was his friend. He was born in the state of Ohio, and came with his father to California, and at first settled in Monterey County. There he became an extensive cattleman ; and he continued as such in Fresno County. He raised and bought and sold cattle, and kept cattle on the Coast Range. After coming to Kingsburg, he became the owner of a ranch of 160 acres; and his mother, who was a native of Ohio, and two nieces and a nephew stayed on the Rucker ranch, known as the Rucker home. In 1890 they moved to the present home in Kingsburg, and here the mother died, eighty- three years old. The father had previously died in Monterey County, in his forty-seventh year.

Lydia Jane married William Curtiss of Monterey, and they are now both deceased. They left four children, however, each of whom has reflected most creditably on the family name. E. E. Curtiss is the well-known news- paperman, at present residing at Berkeley, and for years associated with the

911

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Fresno Republican, the San Francisco Chronicle and other journals. In fact, he was the first editor of the Republican, and in the issue for January 1. 1917, of that famous paper he published some exceedingly interesting reminiscences under the title, "Fresno City Forty Years Ago, when the Republican was Founded," in which he told of his early experience as a newspaperman in Monterey, the cradle, it will be remembered, of California newspapers ; the scattered appearance of Fresno and the uninviting character of the surrounding country ; the first location of the newspaper founded by Dr. Rowell, and the peculiar politics of that time. Mr. Curtiss still writes for the press and magazines, and looks back with pride to his connection for years with the Associated Press. He is married and has two children- Emmett and Madeline. Lydia, another child, resides in Calaveras County, the wife of James Cosgrave, a rancher and cattle-raiser. They have five children-Laura ; Clarence, who is in the army; Harold, a rancher and fruit- grower in the state of Washington; and Ernest and Ruth who are both at home, attending school. E. A. Curtiss is a fruit-raiser at Kingsburg, and resides on the Rucker place. He married Dina Johnson, of Kingsburg, and they have two children-Frances and Howard. The fourth child is Dolly. the wife of W. W. Grimes, a rancher and fruit-raiser near Centerville, and the mother of four children-Loren, Evelyn, Blanche, and Lila.

Isabella married J. B. Stinson at Salinas; and two years ago she died. Elizabeth became the wife of W. L. Apperson, and lived in Fresno, where he was a cabinet-maker and carpenter. She died and left three chil- dren-Margaret Isabella, the wife of Ed Miles, a rancher who resides three miles east of Reedley ; Harriet, the wife of Daniel Calcote of Visalia; and W. H. Apperson, who is dead.

The youngest of this interesting family is Miss Maggie P. Rucker, our subject, who was born in the state of Iowa and was a baby of three months when her parents left Iowa to cross the plains with ox teams to California. She attended the public schools in Sacramento, where her mother and brother, W. A. Rucker, lived after her father's death in Monterey County ; and later she attended the Methodist College at Santa Clara. In 1881 she accompanied her mother and brother to this place and settled on the ranch ; and nine years later, they removed to Kingsburg.

Besides being active in the Red Cross. Miss Rucker is a hard-working Methodist, particularly active in the Rucker Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church of Kingsburg, so named in honor of the pioneer work in the Method- ist ministry done by her esteemed father and mother, and because of the generous contributions made by William A. Rucker and herself to the building fund. The history of this church was outlined in an absorbing ad- dress made by the pastor, the Rev. D. A. Allen, at the watch meeting on New Year's Eve, 1913, and published in the Kingsburg Recorder on January 3, from which one may gather the full significance of the Memorial. Indeed, as long as the history of Kingsburg shall be recorded, the family name of Rucker will never cease to be honored, and among these beloved will be the lady whose good works will live after her.

MADLAIN DeWITT .- A distinguished lady of Selma, the descendant of noted American forebears, and highly esteemed in the town where she is best known as the widow of a very worthy citizen, Mrs. Madlain DeWitt en- joys a wide circle of friends. She was born in Sullivan County, Mo., and is a daughter of John McCullough who married Elizabeth Bell, a native of Pittsburgh, the ceremony taking place in Pennsylvania. He had been born in Ohio, went South to Louisiana, then North again and West to Missouri, where in Sullivan County he developed a farm ; and when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Union Army, served with the Twenty-third Missouri Volunteers, and was made a major. Eight children were born to these de- voted parents, among whom our subject was the fifth and the oldest girl. She grew up in Sullivan County, attended the common schools, and when

912

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

twenty-one years of age was there married to Thomas Buffington DeWitt, a native of Virginia who served in the Home Guards at Milan, Mo. He was a farmer and stock-raiser, at first in Adair County, that state, in 1872, and in 1884 came to Fresno County, where they settled on a ranch four miles north of Selma, on what was known as the Russell Quarter. They had ten children, of whom the second daughter, Luella E., now Mrs. Garnet Adkins of Los Angeles, was married in Missouri, and the seventh child, a little girl named Alta, died there; so that they brought with them to California eight children, namely: Mary Elizabeth, who is Mrs. W. H. Say; William Henry, the blacksmith at Caruthers; Oscar, a well-borer at Selma; Florence, the wife of W. J. Boles of Fresno, a rancher near Caruthers ; Viola, wife of R. M. Pettus, a housepainter in Oakland; Shearon, an engineer at Sacramento; and Thomas Buffington, at Selma.

This son, Thomas Buffington, recalls Mrs. DeWitt's husband, who was born at Wheeling. Va., in 1833, the son of Thomas DeWitt, a Virginia farmer, whose estate near Wheeling is still owned by a member of the DeWitt family. His father, in turn, was born in France, became a soldier in the French Army, and came to America with Lafayette, to aid in the great struggle for American Independence.

Mrs. DeWitt is an active member of the Presbyterian Church and there, as well as in such circles as the Red Cross, works for the betterment of society. Her daughter, Mrs. W. H. Say, is a well-known club-woman, and was president of the Woman's Improvement Club at Selma for five consecutive years, an organization that has accomplished much for that beau- tiful town. Upon leaving that office she turned over $1,200 in cash, which had been raised during her incumbency, and was in turn presented with a beautiful hand-painted jardiniere, by the club, in appreciation of her valued services.

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.

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 120

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