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 131
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Born in Pomerania, Prussia, November 9, 1852, the son of Carl Hagen, who had married Minnie Hopp, William C. was the oldest boy and the second in the order of birth of a family of nine children. His father was a stone-cutter, who made curbs and the paving for highways. He attended the public schools of his Fatherland, and was brought up in the Lutheran Church.
When only sixteen years of age, he bade good-bye to his parents and rel- atives and sailed from Bremerhafen on the old sailing ship, "George and John ;" and after forty-seven days on the ocean, he landed at Castle Garden in New York, July 5, 1868, and almost at once proceeded westward to Chicago, where he had relations. For a while he stopped with his uncle, John Hopp, a tailor
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on North Clark Street, in that city, and very gladly worked at anything he could find to do.
After he learned the English language, he became a brakeman on the Michigan Central and later, he "broke" on various roads until he went to Oregon in 1882, where he settled down as a farm laborer in Umatilla County. Two years of residence in Oregon, however, quite sufficed for him, and in 1884 he came to Fresno County, where he began to work by the month.
Here in 1891 Mr. Hagen was married to Miss Nettie Halburg, a native of Norway. Mrs. Hagen died in 1898, the mother of three children. Ernest served as a marine in the World War: Chester is in the artillery in France ; and Mar- tha served as a trained nurse in the Letterman Hospital in San Francisco.
Mr. Hagen's second marriage occurred in 1900. when he chose Miss Sophie Carson as his bride : she also was born in Germany, and they have one child, Minnie, the talented musician.
After his first marriage, Mr. Hagen worked out by the month; then for eleven years he rented land in the Oleander district. In 1898 he came to his present holding, where his house now stands, and bought fifteen acres of un- improved land, which he soon set out to vines and planted to alfalfa. Bv a subsequent purchase, he bought twenty acres more, and still later he added another twenty acres, until he had fifty-five acres, all in bearing trees and vines. For a man who had only sixty dollars to his name when he was married, this is a most creditable showing. When his sons enlisted in the regular army, Mr. Hagen found that he was endeavoring to manage more than he could well attend to, and he sold all but fifteen acres.
Besides vigorously supporting the cooperative programs of such associa- tions as those for bettering the interests of the raisin and the peach growers, and thereby helping to advance the state of husbandry in California, Mr. Hagen has done his dutv as a citizen. serving on juries and otherwise per- forming what he was called upon to do for the benefit of the community at large. Since 1895 he has been a member of Court Fowler No. 767, Independent Order of Foresters. He is a naturalized American citizen, and in political matters very properly holds himself an Independent.
JAMES R. CLARK .- A hard-working, progressive, patriotic and emi- nently successful rancher, whose modest holdings in land do not begin to represent the sum total of his achievements, is James R. Clark, justly re- spected and even popular among his fellow-citizens who know the extent to which he has been living and doing for others, and who are glad to call them- selves his friends. He lives and labors three and a half miles southwest of Kingsburg, but follows with keen interest every stage of the development of Fresno County as a whole.
He was born in Massac County, Ill., October 29, 1851, the son of Wesley and Levina (Bailey) Clark, natives of Kentucky and East Tennessee, respec- tively, who were married in Illinois. When the lad was only two years of age, his father died, and before he had attained his seventeenth year, his good mother passed away. They had two children: James, the subject of this sketch, and William Wesley, who was born in 1853 and now lives at Selma, where he has made an enviable reputation as a machinist and engineer, with a specialty in well-boring. James was reared in Southern Illinois, where he had but limited educational opportunities, and was early compelled to apply himself to such hard work as the clearing of land. He lived close to the mouth of the Tennessee River, however, and so caught something of permanent value in his knowledge of life and the world from the river scenes daily before his eyes.
In 1881, and while still in Illinois, Mr. Clark was married to Miss Penola Moorehead, the daughter of Henry Moorehead, a native of Kentucky. He had married Jane Ann Metcalf, also of the Blue Grass State, and had come to be highly esteemed, with his lady, for personal qualities, the inheritance
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of which has undoubtedly contributed happily to Mrs. Clark's known strength and amiability of character.
In 1886, Mr. Clark came to California with his wife and two children, and settled one and a half miles southwest of Selma, where he has improved and sold two ranches, and for ten years was on the west side in the bee business. In this field he led the way, and he still has seventy-five stands of bees. In 1908 he came to take possession of his present place, and now he is both a member and a stockholder in the California Peach Growers Association and in the Kingsburg Packing House.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark have had six children, four of whom are still spared to them, the others having died young. Artemas, a well-borer and land owner, resides at home, unmarried; W. H. married Josie Thornburg, and has one child. Ella Ellen. He is a rancher in the Eschol school district; James Rob- ert, Jr. served in France, enlisting with the Twenty-sixth Engineers; he was trained at Camp Dix, in New Jersey, being transferred to the One Hundred and Fifty-third Depot Brigade, from which he was honorably discharged November 30, 1918; he has been married and has one child, Iva R., who lives with his grandpa and grandma; Viola, married Thomas R. Brown and re- sides on the Kettleman plains, twenty miles south of Coalinga, where he is homesteading. They have no children.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark have set an excellent example as citizens in first pro- viding for their near of kin and for themselves, and then reaching out and doing what they could for others. They have shown, for years, the right kind of public spirit ; and they and their family are always ready to cooperate in movements for the benefit of society, the raising of political standards, and the improvement of the neighborhood.
FRITZ WEHRMANN .- An American with an interesting and enviable record as a citizen who did his duty as a soldier, and a man who was a good husband and father, was Fritz Wehrmann, who died on February 26, 1908. He was born at Bromberg, Germany, on October 19, 1857, the son of Michael Wehrmann, who died when the lad was only sixteen years of age. Soon after, having remained just long enough in the Fatherland to profit by the best side of German life, Fritz came to America and to Chicago, and identified himself with the younger and freer Republic at such an age that he was able to imbibe fully the true spirit of Americanism. Growing up here, he twice volunteered for service in the American army, the two enlistments covering ten years. He first joined Captain Keller's Company G., Second Regiment Infantry, U. S. Army, being mustered in on January 19, 1871, and mustered out on January 18. 1876; and then he reenlisted at Columbus, Ohio, on February 1, 1876, when he joined Company H, Twenty-first Regular In- fantry, of which he became first sergeant, and from which he was mustered out at Fort Canby, Washington Territory, on January 31, 1881.
Having thus done well by the country of his adoption, Mr. Wehrmann turned his gaze westward toward the broad Pacific and, coming to California, located in Fresno County. He went to work as a vineyardist in the Temper- ance Colony, and was there for many years as one of the most efficient and faithful of hands. Being observant by nature, and diligent by habit, he learned viticulture thoroughly.
While in Chicago, Mr. Wehrmann had met Miss Louisa Pettelkau, and on November 16, 1890, they were married in the Temperance Colony. She also was born near Bromberg. in the province of Posen, and was the daughter of Carl Pettelkau, a merchant tailor of that region; while her mother was Juliana Zoch before her marriage, a native of that section. Both parents of Mrs. Wehrmann died where they were reared, leaving three children. One of these is a brother, Gustav, who was a resident of Chicago until his death, December 18, 1918. Mrs. Wehrmann, the youngest, spent some years in Texas, when she first came to America, and then went to Chicago.
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GH. Weitz
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After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Wehrmann bought twenty acres in Kutner Colony, situated one mile north north-west of the present place, and began to improve it and to set it out as a vineyard, with muscat and malaga grapes; and there they built a good residence. Twelve years later they ac- quired the ten acres that have become the home place, now much improved with vines and peach trees, and also a nice residence and other needed build- ings. The old place has been retained, and is set out as a vineyard and planted to alfalfa.
Six children, five of whom have grown up, were born to this worthy couple. Ernest assists his mother in the management of the estate. He served in the United States Army, Company B, Seventy-fifth U. S. Infantry, Thirteenth Division, until he received his honorable discharge. Lena has become Mrs. Warner, and resides in Fresno. Helka, now Mrs. Fuchs, has her home adjoining the old home. Clara and Edna are at home. Mr. and Mrs. Wehrmann were identified with the German Lutheran Church from its organization, and Mrs. Wehrmann still belongs to the congregation, which is one of the live spiritual bodies in Fresno. She feels a keen interest in all civic affairs and in movements calculated to improve the community, and is active in national politics, working usually under the banners of the Re- publican party.
GEORGE H. WEITZ .- A conspicuous example of what an energetic man can accomplish in carrying to successful completion projects that he has full faith and confidence in, is found in George H. Weitz, pioneer and founder of the Empire and Vinland Colonies and prominent in the general development of Fresno County.
Mr. Weitz is a native of the Buckeye State, and was born at Edgerton, Williams County, Ohio, April 17, 1853, and is of German parentage on the paternal side. His father, Adam, who was a native of Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, came to the United States at the age of twenty-eight and settled in Ohio, where he was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth Yeager, a native Pennsylvanian. The parents were farmers and lived the remainder of their lives in Ohio. Of their eleven children ten grew to maturity, and two of their sons served in the Civil War, and nine are still alive.
George H., next to the youngest of the family, was reared on the farm and educated in the public schools of his native state. A liberal education in those days was not as easily secured as it is today, and therefore Mr. Weitz supplemented his schooling by self-study and observation, thus acquiring a fund of knowledge and becoming exceptionally well informed. He remained on the home farm until he attained his majority, then went to Galesburg, Knox County, Ill., where he remained two years. At the end of that time he migrated west, going to Elk Creek, Johnson County, Nebr., where he engaged in the mercantile business. In 1882 he removed to Orange, Cal., then a part of Los Angeles County, but since the creation of Orange County a part of the latter county. Here Mr. Weitz became manager of the flouring mills known as the Olive Mills, and was employed in this capacity until 1891, when he located at Dos Palos, Merced County, and established a general merchandise business that he conducted for two years. In 1893 he located on his present ranch, which consisted at that time of twenty acres, where the Empire Colony was first laid out, being the first settler in the Colony. He was colonization agent for the California Bank Lands of the Bank of California at San Francisco, his jurisdiction extending over an area of 32,000 acres. He attended to leasing the lands for grain-raising, dividing it into convenient and suitable ranches for the purpose. He had charge of and laid out Empire Col- ony, which embraced three sections, and also was in charge of laying out Vinland Colony, which also comprised three sections, and the Barstow Colony, which was sold in large tracts. The land was rich and level and has been improved, and is now covered with valuable orchards, vineyards and alfalfa
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farms. While agent for the bank he was also superintendent of the ranch and of the water system, which he aided in perfecting. He planned the subdi- visions, sold the land and collected for the company. During these years he also experimented in raising hemp, sugar beets, alfalfa and in orchard and vineyard varieties of fruit. He demonstrated that Thompson Seedless vines are the most profitable for vineyard culture and that peaches and apricots do well also. He disposed of 7,000 acres while agent for the lands, the remainder being sold to the Fresno Irrigated Farms Company. He remained with this last company for one year, then resigned his position, having been agent for the lands for a period of fifteen years, from 1893 until 1908. In the meantime he had improved his ranch in the Empire Colony, setting out an orchard and vineyard, and planting alfalfa. He was also engaged in raising stock. He added to his acreage by the purchase of more land and has now sixty acres in a body, all well improved, ten acres of which are set to olives and the re- mainder planted to Thompson's Seedless vines.
He was married at Olive, near Orange, Cal., to Miss Mary R. Dillin, a native of Iowa and daughter of Capt. Thomas Dillin, who was captain of an Iowa regiment in the Civil War, and a miller by trade. Captain Dillin dis- posed of his flour mills in Iowa and located at Orange, Cal. He built the Olive mills, where he manufactured flour until he disposed of his interest in them and located in Los Angeles, where he spent the closing years of his life. Mr. and Mrs. Weitz became the parents of two children: Mabel Edna, who is now Mrs. C. C. Johnson of Glendale, Cal. ; and Fern Eva. deceased.
Mr. Weitz built an artistic bungalow on his ranch in 1917, elegant in its appointments, designed by himself. He was one of the organizers of Empire School District and served as trustee of the school for thirteen years. He was also instrumental in organizing the Vinland School District. In politics he is a Republican, is prominent in the party and has been active in County and State conventions. He is a Life Member of the Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. Weitz is a large man of fine physique and has a strong personality. He is highly respected and well liked by all. An enthusiastic booster for Fresno County, he is convinced that its soil and climate are among the best in Cal- ifornia for horticulture and viticulture.
E. M. NORD .- A highly successful son of a well-known pioneer and him- self a very influential pioneer Californian who is particularly active in the councils of the California Raisin Growers Association, having been one of the leaders in its organization, is E. M. Nord, the oldest living son of J. P. Nord. He was born in Sweden, September 19, 1884, and left there at such a tender age-when he was only three and a half years old-that he has but little, if any recollection of the country. It was then that he sailed from Nork- joping with his mother and two brothers in 1888 to join their father, who had preceded them to America ; and they found him at Fresno, where he had been temporarily established for a year. In 1889 they came to the Kingsburg Col- ony, and with this part of California they have been identified ever since. J. P. Nord still lives on the twenty acres he then acquired. and he is hale and hearty in his sixty-second year. Mrs. Nord, who was Susanna Charlotte Ti- man and also a native of Sweden where she was born in 1862, died here in her fiftieth year.
Four children blessed this happy marriage. Edward M .. the subject of this sketch ; Ivar J., died August 3, 1917. lamented by many to whom he re- called some of the finest traits of his mother ; he had reached his thirty-first year, and had never married. Fritz H. E. Nord resides on his own ranch near the Clay School House ; and Alfred, the youngest. who died in babyhood.
Coming here so early, Edward Nord has seen the wonderful developments of this county from the time it was in wheat stubble ; and having been very intimate with the late Judge F. D. Rosendahl, whose life story we give else- where, he came to have a very active part, too, in helping to develop the
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country. As a lad he attended the Harrison district school, and then he took a business course at Heald's & Jones Business College at Stockton. He began farming at twenty years of age, operating for himself; and later he rented land.
Mr. Nord has planted and improved several orchards, and his vineyard of twenty acres presents the finest Muscats for miles around in the San Joa- quin Valley. He built a dryer in 1916, and it proved to be the first erected in the Kingsburg Colony. It marks the man as a person of unusual enterprise, for he has introduced an improvement that is sure to be generally adopted. He is a prime mover in the California Associated Raisin Company, and is its regularly appointed correspondent for his home district, as he is its local so- licitor. He has signed up every acre in his home district comprising a terri- tory of 960 acres, or one and a half sections. Not only is he a stockholder in the Raisin Company, but he is a member of the California Peach Growers Association and also of the California Prune Growers Association. He was the president of the Farmers Union at Harrison School House, which was the forerunner of the Raisin Association, and occupied that complimentary and responsible position for three years.
In 1912 Mr. Nord was married to Miss Sophia Bengston, of Kingsburg ; and their happy union has been blessed with two children-Howard R. and Adeline C. Both Mr. and Mrs. Nord take a very active interest in welfare work in the vicinity and are always to be counted upon to encourage and assist in those movements necessary and desirable, butt generally begging for willing workers.
Besides the twenty acres of prime muscats above referred to, Mr. Nord owns another tract of ten acres, a snug little ranch in itself, and in addition he rents his father's ranch of twenty acres and another ten acres belonging to a neighbor : a total of sixty acres, requiring, as may be imagined, some very careful and persistent oversight. He attends to the various transactions, how- ever, personally, keeping one hired man steadily and adding to his force when- ever such a demand may be necessary.
Although a steadfast Republican, Mr. Nord supports President Wilson and the administration in its great crisis, and has bought Liberty Bonds and otherwise demonstrated his practical patriotism to the full extent of his ability.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON BARRINGER .- It is interesting to meet and greet a Fresno County pioneer, a man who in his younger days entered the wilderness and helped to reclaim the desert lands and experienced the hardships incident to the life of a frontiersman, and one who has witnessed the wonderful transformation in the county, and rejoices in its present high state of development and is proud of the fact that he aided in this develop- ment-such a man is Alexander H. Barringer, the successful rancher residing six miles northeast of Sanger.
Mr. Barringer is a Southerner by birth, a native of Marshall County, Miss., where he was born near Holly Springs on September 28, 1855. His parents were W. F. and Nancy A. Davis Barringer, natives of North Caro- lina and Tennessee, respectively, who had two children: Martha J. and Alexander H., the subject of this review and the only one of the family now living. The father, W. F. Barringer, served in the Civil War in the Confed- erate Army, and fought bravely for those principles which he conscientiously thought were right. He enlisted at Fort Sam Houston and was a member of the Company under Kirby Smith, and after four years of valiant service he returned to his peaceful vocation, "a whole man," as his son described him. After the death of his wife, which occurred in 1866, W. F. Barringer, with his two children, returned to the old home in Mississippi where he resided until the fall of 1871, when he brought them to California where he arrived November 7, 1871 : he preempted 160 acres of land in Round Mountain dis- trict, Fresno County, which is now the property of Alexander H. Barringer. For a number of years after his settling in California, W. F. Barringer fol-
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lowed stock-raising, but after the discovery that his land would grow grain abundantly he engaged in raising hay and grain till he retired; he died here in 1907, at the age of seventy-five years.
Alexander H. went to school in Texas, then in Mississippi, till he was sixteen years old. Then he came to Fresno County. Here he went to work to assist his father, so school was omitted from that time on. He remained home and when his father retired he took entire charge of the ranch and in time came to own the place. For years prior to the death of his father, Alex- ander had active charge of the affairs of the place and was engaged in rais- ing stock, grain and hay. He became interested in fruit-raising, setting out the first vineyard and first orange orchard in the district. He now has a nicely improved place. The ranch is irrigated from the Enterprise Canal, having one of the first water rights.
At the bride's home January I, 1884, Alexander H. Barringer was united in marriage with Miss Amanda H. Elliott, a daughter of Joseph S. and Jane B. (O'Connell) Elliott, pioneers of California, who came from Massachusetts and Maine respectively. Mrs. Barringer was born in Napa and came to Fresno when she was three and a half years of age, receiving her education in the Round Mountain district.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander H. Barringer were blessed with two children: William .W., who in 1905 married Edna F. Hazelton, a daughter of Henry Hazelton, and to them were born three children, Allen H., Leta A. and Win- nifred W .; the other child is Anna Josephine, who is now the wife of L. H. Williams, on the Barringer ranch, and they have two children, Mildred Max- ine and Donald Hugh.
At the age of twenty-one, Mr. Barringer became a member of the school board of Round Mountain district, and served in that capacity for over twenty years, part of the time as clerk. School was started in an old shack, then a thousand-dollar building was built by assessment, and still later, in 1906, the new school building was erected. The Barringers are now among the oldest settlers in the district. Mr. Barringer remembers when the county seat was moved from Fullerton to Fresno, in 1874. He took an active part in supporting the different raisin associations, and is now a member and stock- holder in the California Associated Raisin Company.
REDDICK NEWTON CARTWRIGHT .- The Cartwright family orig- inated in England. They were all wagonmakers, wheelwrights and mechanics, and because of their mechanical genius and their occupation they received the name Cartwright. A genealogy of the family has recently been compiled and is being published by State Senator G. W. Cartwright, of Los Angeles, a brother of R. N.
The father, John Cartwright, born in Coles County, Ill., was a black- smith and wagonmaker, and ran a small farm in his native county, but in May, 1858, moved to Boone, Boone County, Iowa, where the son, R. N., was born October 22, 1858. John Cartwright was the son of Reddick Cartwright, who was a second cousin of Rev. Peter Cartwright, one of the pioneers and "circuit riders" of Central Illinois. There are four brothers and two sisters in the family of John Cartwright: J. E .; R. N .; G. W .: J. M., who is the manufacturer of the celebrated Cartwright Pruning Shears; Mrs. F. M. Cook, of Orosi ; and Mrs. Mamie Roach, of Malaga.
The story of the Cartwright Pruning Shears is an interesting one and indicates the mechanical genius that has made the name famous on two con- tinents. It was about twenty-five years ago when the orchard and vineyard development began in Fresno County. The growth of the trees and the vines soon showed the need of pruning, and the only tools with which this could be done were heavy and unwieldly, weighing five or six pounds. One day the father called to his son, who was known as Newt, "Newt, let us make a prun- ing shear that will work." And they did. After talking the matter over, they
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