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 122

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 122

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FRANK SILVA .- A sturdy pioneer of the section in which he has attained so great success, and now one of the oldest residents in the vicinity, enjoying a well-earned rest after years of strenuous labor which lead back to a boyhood in the balmy Azores, Frank Silva is among the most popular ranchers in Fresno County, and enjoys with his family the esteem of a wide circle of friends. He was born in the Island of Flores, on March 9, 1862, and was brought up on a farm as a member of a large family, a cir- cumstance that compelled him early to set to work. In the spring of 1879, when he was only sixteen years of age, he came to Fresno, attracted here be- cause a half-brother had preceded him to the land of promise. For two years he worked for Alex. Gordon and herded sheep; and then he was with other ranchers and sheepmen.

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

In 1887, Mr. Silva started in business for himself, by buying a drove of sheep which he ranged where he could in the county. His returns were suffi- ciently encouraging for him to continue in that enterprise for sixteen years; and he came to have as many as from three to four thousand head. He next engaged in grain-farming and for that purpose leased land in the Houghton tract. He broke it up and put in there the first crops planted. But the prices were so low that he did not realize the profit that he ought, and it required faith and courage to go ahead. Later, Mr. Silva bought his present eighty acres-Section 25 of the Barstow Colony-and still later he purchased the forty acres adjoining, on Section 24. Still later he secured another twenty- . five acres from Section 25. This gave him 145 acres together, which he has improved, putting sixty-five acres in Thompson seedless grapes, and the balance in alfalfa, making a specialy of A-1 hay. He also built a fine resi- dence. When he had finished what has proven the oldest place thereabouts. he could survey the developments and improvements of many others, un- doubtedly inspired by his own pioneer enterprise. He is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.

At Fresno, Mr. Silva married Miss Mary Brickley, a native of Liberty, Fresno County. She is the mother of three children: Maggie, who is Mrs. Fred Kaiser of Fresno; Mamie has become Mrs. George E. Kaiser, of the same city; and Benjamin Franklin is at home. Mrs. Silva is the daughter of John and Dorah ( McCormick) Brickley, born in New York and Ireland respectively. Her father served in the Civil War. In the latter sixties he came to California and soon afterwards located in Fresno County, being one of its early. upbuilders. All in all, a very attractive family is that of Mr. and Mrs. Silva, each one devoted to promoting the general welfare of the community.

CHARLES SCHARER .- During his many years of residence in the county, Charles Scharer has weathered the vicissitudes of agricultural de- velopment work, and by diligent application and perseverance has won success in his later years. Born in Straub, Samara, Russia, November 26, 1859, he is a son of Philip and Louise (Schaeffer) Scharer, both of whom died in that country, the father in 1875. Of their union two children were born, and Charles was the eldest and the only one now living. He was reared on the home farm in that far country, and after his father's death assisted his mother there until his marriage. This occurred in Straub, in 1881, and united him with Miss Maggie Schwabenland, also a native of that province.

After his marriage, Mr. Scharer raised grain and stock, owning a farm on the River Volga, where he engaged in farming on a large scale. In 1888 he brought his wife and family to Fresno, and here he first engaged in build- ing, the Farmer's Bank being among the buildings he worked on. Later, he bought twenty acres of land in Perrin Colony No. 1 and improved the barren land to alfalfa; three years later he sold the property as it proved alkaline. He then bought forty acres on McKinley Avenue, five miles from Fresno, leveled and checked another ranch from the raw land and planted it to vineyard and orchard; again he was disappointed, as the water rights he purchased with the property were not forthcoming. He abandoned this project and returned to Fresno to begin again. He then rented forty acres in alfalfa on Kearney Avenue for three years; then rented fifty acres in vineyard and orchard at Fowler and ran the property one year.

After these ranching activities, Mr. Scharer returned to Fresno and bought six lots on F and Inyo Streets, filled in the lots and improved them for a feed yard and livery barn and here he ran the F Street Livery and Feed Yard for twelve years, meeting with success. His real liking was for ranching, however, and in 1912 he sold his business and property and settled on the 160-acre ranch in Gray Colony, which he had purchased in 1905. This property he had partially developed while in business in Fresno; had leveled and checked it and put in orchards and vineyard, 113 acres in muscats and

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a ten-acre orchard. In 1906 he gave each of his two sons forty acres to develop, and kept the remaining eighty acres until 1918, when he sold his acreage, and in that same year bought forty acres of unimproved land in Barstow district, and this property he is also setting to vineyard, of the Thompson seedless variety. While carrying his other development work, in 1915 Mr. Scharer also bought a seventy-acre ranch in Del Rey, improved to vineyard. In May, 1919, he bought twenty acres in Biola, fifteen acres of which were in Thompson seedless. As can be seen, he is a man of diversified abilities, always putting forth new efforts and meeting with the success due to a man of energy and farsightedness.

To Mr. and Mrs. Scharer six children have been born: Charles, a· rancher in Parlier; August, a rancher at Fowler; Marie, whose death oc- curred shortly after their arrival in California ; Margaret, Mrs. Tripple of Fresno; Philip, assisting his father in ranch development; and Mary, Mrs. Will of Caruthers. The family attends the Christ Lutheran Church in Fresno, and Mr. Scharer has served as trustee of that church. In national politics he is a Republican. A man of public spirit and progressive mind, he has done his share in the upbuilding of Fresno County and enjoys the respect of his many friends in the community. He is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and a firm believer in the further development of the resources in which this county abounds.

R. C. HEIMS .- A pioneer merchant of the town of Kerman, Fresno County, Cal., R. C. Heims began his business career in that place in 1906. in a store-room twenty-five by forty-five feet. He carried a stock of general merchandise such as is required in that section, and it was not long before he had to move to more adequate quarters, where he has since conducted a prosperous and increasing business. He is interested in all that helps to build up Kerman and vicinity. The packing-house at Kerman was one of the results of his spirit of enterprise, so that the fruit-grower of that district could dispose of his product at home; another public necessity was the creamery, in which enterprise he is heavily interested. This institution has been the means of developing the alfalfa lands into prosperous dairy ranches, and has added materially to the development of the surrounding country. Besides these activities he is president of the Kerman Commercial Associa- tion ; president of the Kerman Building & Loan Association, which he helped organize, and no one is more loyal in the support of all movements for the upbuilding of this section of Fresno County than Mr. Heims. He also was one of the organizers and a charter member of the Kerman Cham- ber of Commerce.

Mr. Heims was born in Lancaster County, Pa., August 16, 1865, and his education was obtained in the grammar and high schools there. At the age of seventeen, he learned the business of manufacturing furniture, and at the age of twenty-five was superintendent of a furniture factory in St. Paul. He first married, in St. Paul. Minn., Katherine Schneider, who was born in Bloomington, Ill., and who died in November, 1918. His second marriage took place in Madera, where he was united with Anna Schallman, a resident of San Francisco, and she presides over his home at Kerman.

ERNEST KLETTE .- A Fresno attorney whose natural ability and steadily increasing knowledge of the law has very naturally brought him increasing patronage, confidence and esteem, is Ernest Klette, who was born at Montreal, Canada, on July 17, 1874, the son of C. J. M. Klette, a furrier, who married Marie Held. Through the methods he had developed in his business career, the elder Klette came to occupy a good position wherever he operated, while his good wife helped to add, by her personal traits, to their circle of friends.

In the centennial year of the republic, when attention was directed anew to the advantages of the United States, the family first came to California

L. D. Rey burn

Frances L Peyburn

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

and settled in Fresno County, then hardly yet entering upon its era of pros- perity. They took a farm about five miles from Millerton, and the family ranched and engaged in the stock business. After a busy and useful life, the elder Mr. Klette died June 8, 1909, honored by all who knew him, while Mrs. Klette, equally well liked and mourned, passed away December 28, 1903.

Ernest Klette was educated at the county school in the district eighteen miles square which his father had organized, and then he helped on the fam- ily ranch until he was past twenty years of age. He early interested himself in local civic affairs, and during this period of apprenticeship to agricultural pursuits he became Justice of the .Peace and in that office conscientiously served his fellow men. In 1902 he resigned the responsibility, determined upon a forward movement demanding increased efforts for a new field.

Having studied privately, he entered Stanford University and took the law courses there ; and in December, 1904, at San Francisco, he was admitted to practice at the California bar. For a year and a half he practiced in Selma, and since then he has been one of the most active and prosperous attorneys of Fresno.

On April 4, 1904, at Fresno, Mr. Klette was married to Miss Ada Knight, a resident of Fresno, who passed away November 4, 1908, the mother of a daughter, Ruth. On September 18, 1912, he was wedded to Olga Sorensen. He belongs to Camp 160 of the Woodmen of the World, and has passed through the chairs. He is a member of the Fresno County Bar Association, supports the Republican platform, and is untiring in efforts for local advance- ment and uplift. In 1907 he was appointed a city trustee of Fresno to fill the unexpired term of Mr. Wrightson; in 1909 he was reelected to this position ; and in 1912 he was appointed city attorney of Fresno.

Mr. Klette has been a frequent contributor to the press, of articles upon public questions.

LESLIE DEVOE REYBURN .- A successful vineyardist who may proudly look back to the accomplishments of his pioneer father, nor fear a comparison between what was wrought in an earlier generation and what he himself has achieved, is Leslie Devoe Reyburn, who owns one of the scien- tifically developed and artistically arranged places at Clovis, and quite as nice a ranch home for its size and pretensions as any in Fresno County. He was born a native son at Salida, Stanislaus County, on September 7. 1876, the son of Joseph D. Reyburn, a native of Des Moines, Iowa, where he was born in 1840. After attending a log-cabin school there, the father grew up appren- ticed to farming, worked out as a farm laborer, and in the early sixties joined a mule-train company about to cross the plains. They traveled along the Platte River and finally reached distant Oregon, where Mr. Reyburn had some experience in lumbering ; but although he had planned to stop in that state, he was so dissatisfied with the long rains that he and his party came south into California, to the Sacramento River and Folsom, and finally crossed over the mountains into Nevada. There he teamed between Carson City and Vir- ginia City, then he drove to Stockton, sold his mules and camped for the win- ter. He returned to Nevada, but in the fall of 1864 came back to California and settled on the Stanislaus River. He homesteaded and preempted on what is now Salida, and again engaged in the lumber business, this time on the Tuolumne River. In 1869 he was married to Miss Mary Ella Lester, an Iowan who had come to live nearby, and by whom he had the following children : Charles T .: Leslie D., of this review; Glenn W .: Emery Everett; C. Ray ; Ida May : Walter P: John L, and a child who died in infancy. He continued to raise grain until 1881, and then he came to Fresno County and bought a farm in the Red Bank district. He owned over 2,500 acres in a body, some of which he eventually gave to cach of his children, while he was vet alive. He also set out a vineyard of 120 acres. On May 9, 1897, Mr. Reyburn re- married at San Jose, and six more children were born to him: Gilbert Rowell,

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

who died a baby ; and Gladys, Alfred, Doris, Mary Margaret and Adda. After a particularly active life, in which he sought to contribute toward civic reform under the banners of the Republican party and endeavored to exert, as a ruling elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, such religious influence as he could, Mr. Reyburn lived in retirement at Pacific Grove and quietly passed away, full of honor, in 1914.

Educated at the public school at Red Bank, and also in the Jefferson dis- trict, Leslie Reyburn assisted his father until he was twenty-one and then engaged in farming for himself. His father gave him an outfit, and leased him some land ; and he engaged in grain-raising, in which field his father had been so successful. This he continued for six years, but light crops decided him to enter another field.

He then tried viticulture, and toward this end his father gave him forty acres of stubble field, three and a half miles southeast of Clovis. . He leveled and improved it, and set out a vineyard : in 1907 he built himself a handsome residence. He set out twenty acres of muscats, ten acres of malagas, five acres of seedless grapes, and planted the balance to figs ; and when well estab- lished, he energetically supported each of the raisin associations, and par- ticularlv the good work of the California Associated Raisin Company, and the California Peach Growers, Inc.

The La Frances Vineyards, as he has named them, are well kept. sightly and beautiful, and reflect great credit on the enterprising owner. To what he had inherited of intuition. foresight and a natural aptitude for agricultural endeavor on a high plane, Mr. Reyburn has added an invaluable experience of his own. so that today he is rated as one of the ablest viticulturists in this section of the state.

In the Jefferson district, October 22, 1902, Mr. Reyburn was married to Miss Frances Dawson, a native of Arena, Wis., and the daughter of John A. Dawson. She came here when she was eleven years of age. and has grown up practically as a native daughter. She has three children: Harold. Milton and Leland, and with her husband is active in Concordia Chapter, No. 320, of the Order of the Eastern Star at Clovis. The family attends the First Pres- byterian Church at Clovis, of which Mr. Reyburn has been a trustee for years, and was secretary of the building committee when the new church was built.

Public-spirited in every respect, Mr. Reyburn is a school trustee of the Jefferson district and for six years has been clerk of the board. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Clovis Union High School. In 1917 he served on the Grand Jury. and he has been ready at all times to respond for war-service of any kind. He was made a Mason in Clovis Lodge. No. 417, F. & A. M., and belongs to Pine Burr Camp, No. 254, at Clovis, of the Wood- men of the World.

BERNHARD KOHMANN .- A vigorous upbuilder and a generous im- prover, who has effected all that he has accomplished with his own unaided efforts, is Bernhard Kohmann, who came to Fresno County in the early eighties. He was born near Lahr, Baden, Germany, on August 14. 1858, and there he was reared and received a good education. When sixteen he was apprenticed as a wheelwright, and when he had reached his eighteenth year, he had completed his trade. He then went as a journeyman through southern Germany and northeastern Switzerland, and while in the little Swiss republic, he determined to come to the United States. He saw an advertisement in a German paper calling for men to work in the vineyards and setting forth the prospects in Fresno County for viticulture, and having visited and said adieu to his parents, he crossed the ocean and wide continent, and in November, 1883, arrived in Fresno.

At first Mr. Kohmann went to the Eisen vineyard, which had been men- tioned in the advertisement referred to, and found employment; and there he continued until he was foreman in that and other wineries. He later worked at his trade in the Fresno Agricultural Works, and he was the first

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man to carry a ladle of molten iron to the molds there, in May, 1887. After- ward he worked in the Donahoo-Emmons hardware store awhile, and then in different shops at his trade, both as a wheelwright and a blacksmith.

In 1892, Mr. Kohmann rented an alfalfa ranch from A. V. Lisenby in West Park, who advanced him the means to start in farming; and he con- tinued until, on January 2, 1900, he finally bought his present place. This consists of twenty acres on Belmont Avenue, two miles west of Fresno, for which he paid thirty dollars an acre, fifty dollars down, while the balance was to be paid within nine years. While he leveled and improved the place, he worked out for others, leveling lands, making roads and ditches, and con- tracting generally. From time to time he improved his property, setting out a vineyard and building a residence and barns, which he erected himself; and then he bought five acres more, near it, also a vineyard. He now raises Thompson seedless grapes, but at first he set out zinfandels, which were later grafted, and he also set out malagas. He joined the California Asso- ciated Raisin Company and the California Fruit Growers Association, and thus helped to advance California husbandry.

At Fresno on September 11, 1888, Mr. Kohmann was married to Miss Mary Duss, a native of Emmendingen, in Baden, Germany, and they have six children: Adolph B., who assists his father; Emil J., who was educated in Fresno County, entered the United States Army on August 10, 1917, trained at Camp Kearney with the Grizzlies, went overseas with the Field Artillery and later was transferred to the Army of Occupation and served there until June, 1919, when he returned to the United States ; Otto Francis, who entered April, 1918, trained at Camp Lewis, went overseas with the Ninetv-first Di- vision and came back with them: was discharged in May, 1919, and is now at home ; Bertha, a twin of Otto F., now Mrs. John Kooyman, ranching near Rolinda ; and Emma and Gerald, at home.

Mr. Kohmann, who is a Roman Catholic, belongs to the Knights of Co- lumbus and the Young Men's Institute. He is a Democrat in national politics, and an American citizen, who believes in casting aside partisanship in local issues, for the welfare of the community.

M. BOS .- A progressive farmer and viticulturist who has the distinction of being the oldest settler still living in the Holland Colony is M. Bos, who has not only cared industriously for his own interests, but has found time willingly and efficiently to serve his fellowmen as well. He was born at Appeldoorn, Holland, January 1, 1861, the son of Dirk Bos, a farmer and lumberman, who died there. His mother was Hendrika von Logem before her marriage, and she also died in her native land. She was the mother of five children, and the second eldest of these is the subject of our sketch.

Mr. Bos is the only one of the family who came to the United States. He enjoyed the excellent public school advantages of Holland until his elev- enth year, but then began to work to help his parents, and from that time on he had something of a struggle with the world. In July, 1884, he was mar- ried to Miss Antonia Pol, who was born in Holland and was the daughter of Andrew and Eva Pol. For a while after his marriage he rented a farm and practiced agriculture as the Dutch understand it.

By 1891, however, Mr. Bos had decided to leave the country of dikes and canals and try his fortunes in the New World. His attention was already fixed on California, and in due time he arrived at Fresno and soon was em- ployed at a vineyard in the Holland Colony. Three years later he was able to rent a vineyard. which he ran for a couple of years; and this experience as well as the profits of his labor put him on his feet sufficiently to enable him to take another and important step forward. In 1896 he bought his present place of twenty acres on Blackstone Avenue, four and three quar- ters miles north of Fresno, where he engaged in ranching ; and later he bought forty acres more, half a mile to the north. He went in for grain raising. and

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

made of the home place a fine vineyard with the best of muscat vines. He also bought twenty acres a quarter of a mile nearer Fresno, and set out vines and an orchard there. He has become one of the notable producers of high-grade apricots, figs and grapes, and is an active member of the Cali- fornia Associated Raisin Company.

Eleven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bos, and ten are still living. Dirk assists his father; Andrew is in the United States' service; Everett resides in this vicinity; John is also serving his country; Temmen is living not far away; and besides these there are Marie, Albert, Eva, Johanna and Hendrika. Henry died when he was seventeen years of age. Mr. Bos has taken a very active part in civic affairs, and has given his services freely for sixteen years as a trustee of the Wolters school district. He has been clerk of the school board for ten years and was a member of the board when the new school building was erected.

DR. HIRAM P. MERRITT .- Of Huguenot stock, the Marriatts came originally from France to Florida; three brothers located there, and their descendants gradually drifted northward, some of them to Vermont. The name was always Marriatt until later generations Americanized it. Noble M. Merritt was born in Vermont and was married to Elizabeth Bates, a Vir- ginian ; they were the parents of three children, the eldest of whom. Hiram P .. was born at Fair Haven, Rutland County. Vt., January 24, 1828, and when three years old his parents removed to Cuba, N. Y. When a lad of fourteen he became filled with the desire to "go west," and accordingly went to South Bend, Ind., where he made his home with an uncle, Dr. A. B. Merritt, and soon found employment in his uncle's drug store. He occupied his spare moments in the study of pharmacy, and later on medicine. Six years after his arrival in South Bend he went to Laporte, where he entered the Indiana State Medical College, graduating in due time, and he gave promise of a brilliant career in his chosen profession.

In the spring of 1850 he and five of his comrades fitted out a company and started on that long and perilous trip across the plains. The trip was attended with many exciting and trying incidents. Owing to inexperience and poor advice. they had not provided sufficient provisions and were obliged to live on half rations, at one time being so famished that they were unable to travel. In Utah they had all their horses stolen, and it was some time before they recovered them. Many and thrilling were the hairbreadth escapes of these young men from the Indians. After six months of travel, foot-sore and weary, the little party arrived in Sacramento.

When he had recuperated from this exhausting and perilous trip, Mr. Merritt bought a lot of provisions and other necessaries and went back into Nevada to meet incoming emigrants. He traded these supplies for their famished stock, which he put on good pasture and soon had in salable con- dition, and thus laid the foundation of future prosperity. From this on he traded extensively with the emigrants and miners, and had pack trains running as far north as Siskiyou and Trinity Counties. On one of these trips one of his pack mules fell into a creek and was drowned, losing a pack- load of coffee. From this circumstance Mr. Merritt named the stream Coffee Creek, which has since become famous for its gold mines.

In 1851, Mr. Merritt first passed through Yolo County on one of his trips from Sacramento to Siskiyou, and the following year returned to what he believed would be the future garden spot of California. By this time he had accumulated enough means to begin stock-raising on an extensive scale, and later on wheat-growing, and by perseverance and industry he became the most extensive stock-raiser and mule-breeder in Central California. At the time of his death, in 1893, he was the owner of large tracts of land in Trinity. Mendocino and Fresno Counties, Cal., and in Morrow County, Ore., and also had the largest sheep-ranch in Nevada, his flocks feeding over four

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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 122

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