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 132

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 132

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

together selected pieces of steel and, as they were both blacksmiths, they made their first pair of shears in their shop on the old John Cartwright home farm, two miles west of Malaga. They tested it and found it did the work neatly and easily. They pruned their own trees and vines, and then the neighbors found it out and borrowed the tool. It was a practical success, and as a result a great demand sprang up in the neighborhood for the shears, and the Cartwrights were kept busy making shears. Such a necessary tool could not long be hidden, and the business grew to large proportions. R. N. Cart- wright helped build up the business, but sold out his interest to his brother, J. M. Cartwright, several years ago.

R. N. Cartwright owned a fine ranch of twenty acres adjoining the old home place, on which he lived for thirty years and which he improved from a weed patch to one of the most valuable tracts of land in that section. He sold it in April, 1919, and then bought twenty acres in the Nees Colony School District, which he has planted to fig trees and intends to develop it into a home ranch. Mr. Cartwright was married in May, 1890, to Emma N. Hyden, daughter of Rev. John Calvin Hyden, a Methodist preacher for many years and who died at the home of his son-in-law about 1907, aged eighty- two years. Mrs. Cartwright was born in Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright have two children : Mary, Mrs. W. F. Tommer, the mother of two children. Marie and Newton William; and Lucille, a graduate from the Fresno State Normal and a teacher in the schools of Fresno County.

Mr. Cartwright has seen the county grow from grain fields to fine pro- ductive orchards and vineyards. He helped organize the Malaga School Dis- trict and served as a trustee for several years. He also, helped to build the roads in the early days, as well as the bridges over the canals and creeks, the county furnishing the lumber for same and the ranchers doing the work. He was a booster for the various associations of the ranchers, in order to estab- lish a market for their raisins. He is a Democrat in national politics. Since he sold the old ranch he is making his home in Clovis until the new ranch is made suitable as a home place.

M. LEVY .- A capable, farsighted and successful man, interested in numerous business enterprises, a pioneer of California, and a well and favor- ably known citizen of Coalinga, is M. Levy, the subject of this review. Although born in Alsace, France. June 3, 1837, over eighty-two years ago, only fifteen years of his long and eventful life were spent in his native land. He arrived in New Orleans, La., in 1852, having crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a sailing vessel from Havre, France, being sixty-nine days en route. After his arrival in the United States he went to Port Gibson, Miss., and was engaged in the mercantile business until the outbreak of the Civil War.

In 1861, Mr. Levy enlisted in the Sixteenth Mississippi Regiment, Infan- try, and was in several noted battles, including the Second Battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Winchester, Antietam, and through the Shenandoah Valley. During the battle of Antietam nearly all of his regiment were killed. only thirty-three men surviving, out of more than one thousand who entered this fearful combat. After this battle the regiment was disbanded and Mr. Levy was placed on guard duty at Germania Ford, on the Rappahannock River, and here he was captured and taken to Washington and later to Phila- delphia where he was paroled.

In 1863, Mr. Levy started for the Golden State, coming to California via the Isthmus of Panama, and arriving in San Francisco in June. 1863. He made a trip to Oregon but soon returned to California, and lived at what is called Old Sonoma, where he became acquainted with General Vallejo, a notable man in the early days of the commonwealth of California. Mr. Levy engaged in the butcher business at Sonoma, continuing until 1880, when he moved to Fairfield, Solano County, where he ran a shop for four years, after which for a short time he returned to Sonoma. His next move was to Tulare

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and afterwards to Lemoore, later on going to Visalia, where he engaged in the butcher business.

In April, 1900, Mr. Levy located in Laton, Fresno County, where he started the first butcher shop, at the time of the opening of the Rancho Laguna de Tache, to settlers. The business was conducted under the firm name of M. Levy & Company. In 1905 the company purchased the Crescent Market at Coalinga. from the Kreyenhagen Bros., and they have built up a large business and have the confidence of a growing patronage. They in- corporated as the Crescent Meat Company, with M. Levy as president; Albert Levy, director and manager; and J. H. Zwang, vice-president. In addition to the Crescent Market this firm owns and operates the Coalinga Market.

Messrs. Levy, Levy and Zwang are extensive sheep operators, raising, buying and selling on a large scale and for this purpose they have a ranch in Warthan Canyon. M. Levy is also interested in and is a director of the Hayes Cattle Company, Albert Levy being the president, and Jacob Zwang secretary. This company ranges cattle on their ranch at Kirkland, Yavapai County, Ariz.

Mr. Levy was united in marriage at Portland, Ore., with Miss Gida Zwang, and they have had seven children, five living: Rose, who is now Mrs. Ellis of Coalinga : Carrie, is Mrs. Sweet of Dinuba ; Felix, who is en- gaged in the cattle business in Stockton: Albert, a city trustee of Coalinga and a partner in the Crescent Market: Blanche, now Mrs. H. C. Williams, residing at Coalinga. Mrs. Levy passed away in 1903, at Laton.

Fraternally, Mr. Levy is a member of Coalinga Lodge, No. 187, I. O. O. F., of which he is a Past Grand : he is a pioneer Odd Fellow, having joined the order fifty-six years ago at Philadelphia, where he was a member of American Lodge, No. 25. He was a charter member of Laton Lodge, No. 148. I. O. O. F., and is a member of Hanford Encampment and the Coalinga Re- bekah Degree Lodge, and is highly esteemed as a valuable citizen in his community.

WILLIAM O. BENADOM .- A pleasing life-history, and one wherein justice seems to have been meted out by the Fates, is that of William O. Benadom, one of the oldest settlers here and a veteran in a prolonged strug- gle with pioneer conditions, but who now owns a splendid vineyard in Fresno County, and who has in his talented wife a helpmate and companion who is esteemed by all who know her. Mr. Benadom was born in Brownsville, John- son County, Nebr .. in 1863, the grandson of William Benadom, a native of Ohio, who came as a pioneer to Iowa and with his family settled there. One of his sons, Frank, was the father of our subject and was born near Columbus, Ohio, coming out to Iowa ; he grew to manhood and there married and then he migrated to Nebraska. Near Brownsville he became a well-known farmer and stockman, and later he located a homestead of 160 acres which, with characteristic enterprise, he improved.

Frank Benadom had an uncle, Joshua, in California, and in 1874 he fol- lowed him to Waterford, Stanislaus County, where he worked a year and then brought his family to California. He rented the Dallas farm on the Tuolumne River and ran it for two years, and then he moved to Merced County, where he leased, from Miller & Lux, the Canal Ranch which, for seven years, he farmed to grain and stock. Passing the winter at Kingston, he next went to Hanford in which place he conducted the hotel until May; and then, with wife and children, he resumed ranch life at Lemoore until fall. In 1883 he located at the foot of Mount Campbell, Fresno County, where he farmed seventy-six acres under the ditch, and there he and his son William divided their interests. The father rented land for many years and finally bought some ranch acreage; but his good wife dying, he disposed of his land and thereafter resided with his children until, in April, 1916, he died, nearly eighty years of age.

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It was while he was in Iowa that Frank Benadom married Eliza Moyer, a native of Ohio and the daughter of William Moyer of that state, who had brought his family to the Hawkeye State ; and a better wife the sturdy rancher could not have found. When she died, near Mount Campbell, she was the mother of eight children, five of whom are now dead: Martha, who died at three years of age, in Nebraska; Albert died in Stanislaus County; Henry passed away at Hanford; and Lovina, who became Mrs. McDonald, died at Reedley ; Mary is Mrs. Hines, of Richmond; Jane became Mrs. Minkler, and resided at Minkler until her death, June 9, 1918; J. A. Benadom lives at Dun- lap, Fresno County ; and William Otterbine, the second oldest child ; the sub- ject of sketch.

Brought up on the prairie of Nebraska, William O. attended the public schools and, in 1875. when his father had secured a foothold in the Golden State, came to California, where he continued his schooling in Stanislaus and Merced Counties. From a lad he had driven teams in the grain fields ; and as he grew up he had a chance to enlarge his experience, even taking part in the management of as many as forty-four head of horses on a single giant harvester. He assisted his father in different places, and profited by his fore- sight and enterprise.

On October 13, 1882, at Merced, Mr. Benadom was married to Miss Della Whealan. a native of Tiffin, Ohio, and the daughter of William Whealan, an Ohio farmer whose wife, B. King before her marriage, also an Ohioan, died there in 1863, leaving an only child. In November, 1863, the father came to California, and having settled down as a farmer in Napa County, married again, this time choosing for his bride Cynthia Holterman, also an Ohioan. He moved to Merced where he was joined by his daughter Della, who came in 1876; and near Merced he farmed to grain until he retired to live in that town. And there he died on December 1, 1915. Having attended the public school in Ohio, Mrs. Benadom in the Centennial year came to visit an aunt, Miss Anna King of Vallejo, and for two years attended St. Vincent's Acad- emy, finishing her schooling in Merced. Then, for a year, or until she was married, she taught San Luis School, in Merced County.

In 1883, Mr. and Mrs. Benadom began farming in the Mount Campbell district. They bought forty acres there and on part of the land set out one of the first vineyards in that section, continuing until October, 1899, during which time they raised much grain. In that year they sold their farm and located on their present place. They bought 1261/2 acres from the Gray estate, and when they first settled here there was not a tree or a shrub in sight. They also rented land, and sometimes worked as much as a thousand acres at a time. The land they bought is now splendidly irrigated from the Enterprise Canal, and having planted vines in 1903, they now have the finest of vineyards. Be- sides numerous improvements that have added greatly to the value of the ranch there are sixteen acres of peaches, and 103 acres of vineyard, including muscat, wine, malaga and sultana grapes, while the balance is alfalfa. Mr. and Mrs. Benadom are proud of their property, representing as it does so much of personal labor and sacrifice, and it is natural that he should take an active part in the work of the California Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc. He was, in fact, probably the second to sign up under the old Kearney Association, and was also early in supporting the work of the present organization. An idea of what can be accomplished by energy and application can be seen when it can be stated that the stubble field he bought for $23 an acre by intensive farming has now reached a value of more than $1,000 an acre.

Nine daughters, all of whom are still living, have added to the happiness of the Benadom household: May is Mrs. Gaskin of Sanger; Dena is Mrs. McElroy of Oregon; and the other sisters are Mrs. Ollie Atkinson of Perrin Colony, Fresno County ; Mrs. Elsie Taylor of Round Mountain ; Mrs. Grace Herman of Gray Colony ; Emabel, a graduate of the Fresno State Normal, is

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a teacher in this county; Floy, attending Heald's Business College, Fresno; Stella, in the Sanger High School; and Wilma, in the local grammar school.

Always a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Benadom has served twelve years as trustee of the Frankwood district school, and is now a trustee of the Gray Colony school. Mr. and Mrs. Benadom actively support all movements for the advancement of the community.

ALBERT P. BROOKS .- A California pioneer whose established repi- tation for clean, upright living, and plain, honest dealing brought him the honors of responsible office and made him prominent in Fresno and this entire revenue district, is Albert P. Brooks, whose interesting association with California began on August 9 in the great boom year of 1887. He was born at Laurens, S. C., the son of William J. Brooks, a native of that place and a farmer who enlisted in General Kershaw's brigade in July, 1862, and served until he was killed on Sunday, December 13, 1862, on Mary's Heights at Fredericksburg. Mrs. Brooks was Sarah J. Miller before her marriage, and she also was a native of Laurens County, S. C., in which state she was reared on a farm. She married a second time, and with her husband, J. H. Anderson, and her four children by the first union and three children by the second, came to Fresno. The children of the first marriage are Albert P., J. B. and W. W. Brooks, all of Fresno, and Frances M., who became Mrs. Martin of Fresno.

Born on New Year's Day, 1857, Albert Brooks was reared on a farm and attended a private school, remaining at home until he was sixteen years of age. He then went to the high school at Cokesbury, S. C., for a couple of years, after which he returned to farm work. Later he leased a farm and engaged in the raising of cotton, corn and stock ; and he is today well posted on cotton culture. January, 1885, he went to Nashville, Howard County, Ark., and for a couple of years worked as a bookkeeper in a hardware store.

In August, 1887, Mr. Brooks came West direct to California and to Fresno, having here an uncle, D. J. McConnell, widely known as a worthy old settler; and soon he was appointed deputy tax collector under Jim Mead. He served for abont eight months, and was then made deputy superintendent of schools under B. A. Hawkins. From 1890 until the beginning of 1893 he was bookkeeper to the firm of McConnell & Hagne, merchants on Mariposa Street. In August, 1894, he was named for the office of United States gager, for the first district of California, extending from San Francisco to San Diego. He was appointed by John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury, and made his headquarters at Fresno. He continued to serve under President McKin- ley ; and in 1907 he was made United States storekeeper gager of the first district by Leslie M. Shaw, under President Roosevelt. In September, 1909, after a service of fifteen years and a month, in which he had been repeatedly honored for his exemplary administration of office, he resigned. During this time Mr. Brooks had become interested in horticulture ; and having improved an orchard at the corner of Palm and Olive Streets, he built an ornate resi- dence, and finally sold the property at a good profit. Then he bought the corner of Chittenden and Mckinley Avenues, and improved the same by planting vines and sowing alfalfa. He had forty-four acres of stubble field and hog wallow ; but he worked hard and steadily at it, and finally developed it into a vineyard thirty-seven acres in size, devoted to muscat and Thomp- son grapes, while on the remaining acres he raised alfalfa. His resignation from public office was due to his desire to give closer attention to his viti- cultural interests.

Mr. Brooks has been married four times, each marriage bringing its measure of happiness. The first ceremony took place in South Carolina in 1879, when he was joined to Nannie Shell, who died on January 13, 1882. His second marriage occurred at Fresno, in September, 1890, when he chose for his bride Miss Dora Harbison, who was born in Johnson County, Ill.,

Mrs. S. a. Condon

John Boudon

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

and by whom he had three children: William Arthur, who is a bookkeeper at the Concoran office of the San Joaquin Light & Power Company ; Audrey, a stenographer with the Smith Lithograph Company; and Charles Bartlett, who is with Bixler Cleaning Company in Fresno. Mrs. Brooks died in 1900. At his third marriage Mr. Brooks led to the altar Mrs. Carrie B: Gillispie, of Washington County, Pa., who breathed her last in 1912. His last marriage took place at Orosi in February, 1916, when Miss Winnie Liebau, who was born in Elk County, Kans., became his wife. She is the daughter of William and Minnie (Weide) Liebau, and came to Tulare as early as 1904, when her father engaged in viticulture. She was educated in Kansas, and be- speaks all the graces of the women of that state. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks be- long to the Methodist Church South, on whose official board he has served for some years.

Mr. Brooks was made a Mason in Recovery Lodge, No. 31, F. & A. M., at Greenville, S. C., on May 6, 1878, and since 1887 has been affiliated with' Fresno Lodge, No. 247, F. & A. M. He was made an Odd Fellow at Nash- ville, Ark., and at the same place joined the Knights of Pythias. After he had settled in Fresno, he became a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and also joined the Woodmen of the World through Manzanita Camp, No. 160, at Fresno. A Democrat, and working spiritedly as such in national politics, Mr. Brooks has always loyally supported local movements irrespective of party lines.

JOHN CONDON .- An old Californian, who had been an early settler in various parts of this wonderfully developed State, was John Condon, who was a pioneer in Grass Valley and also in the Coalinga section, and who left the record of his activity, for the benefit of the communities as well as for himself, wherever he lived and toiled. He was born in Ireland about 1842, and when only two years of age came to the United States and Massa- chusetts with his father. He was reared in an old New England family in Boston, and while there was educated in the public schools.

He first came to California in the early sixties; but great as was the lure of the Golden State, he was still more attracted back to Missouri, where he was married, at Shelbina, in 1867, to Miss Susan A. Mitchell. She was born in Marion County, Mo., the daughter of William W. Mitchell, a native of old Virginia. He came to Missouri with his parents and was reared as a farmer. He married Miss Elizabeth Jane Slaven, formerly of Kentucky, and both parents died in Missouri. They had nine children, and Susan was the fourth oldest.

In 1867, Mr. and Mrs. Condon came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, having sailed from New York City, and they arrived in San Francisco, landing from the Henry Chancey. They went to Grass Valley, and Mr. Condon engaged in the dairy business, working with his brother, Henry, as a partner. Two years later John moved to Hollister, where for twelve years he was a packer in a flour mill; and then he settled at Paicines, in San Benito County, and went into a stock-raising enterprise. After that he moved to Pacheco Hills above Pleasant Valley, near Millerton, where he took up land and continued his stock-raising. He ranged on government land, and the days were lively, for wild panthers and grizzly bears roamed over the hills. He built a stone house and improved the land, but afterwhile he moved and made still another home. He tried his luck in Merced County, but it was not until he came to Fresno the second time that he was really satisfied.

In 1897, Mr. Condon bought his present place of forty acres on North Avenue, near Coalinga road, and by applying again the fruits of his past experience and his customary hard labor, he improved the land so that it was valuable for the raising of alfalfa and the setting out of a vineyard. There are now seventeen acres in Thompson seedless and muscat grapes,

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and there is also a first-class dairy. He belonged to the California Associated Raisin Company, and was a stockholder in the Danish Creamery.

Mr. Condon died on September 15, 1918, in his seventy-sixth year. Eight children still survive: Mrs. Elizabeth Sarah Rhodes is with her mother; John Henry is also at home; Minnie A., is Mrs. H. Swan, the wife of the foreman of the Thornton Ranch; Ollie M. has become Mrs. L. Huff and lives on Jensen Avenue ; S. Estella is in Fresno; Homer D. is a dairyman on California Avenue; Viola I. is Mrs. Henry Elam and resides near Kerman; and Vernon C. is with his mother. Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Condon and her sons still carry on the business started by Mr. Condon. They keep abreast of the times and use modern methods in their work.

JOE E. FOSTER .- An Ohioan who came to California and began as a farm hand, and who has since then "made good" to such an extent that his services are today sought as an expert in land values and for knowledge of the raisin business, is Joe Foster, one-third owner in the Gartenlaube ranch on the North McCall road, about one mile west of Del Rey, and also one-third owner of the Fortuna ranch, five miles to the east, often called the old Kim- ball ranch. In addition he owns an eighty-acre ranch entirely in his own right, in Fresno County.

He was born in Jerusalem, Monroe County, Ohio, on February 21. 1868. the son of J. B. Foster, a farmer who had married Lydia A. Gatchell. The parents continued to live in Ohio ; but the mother, after two of her sons and three daughters had come to the Pacific Coast, came to California to visit ; and here, in 1914, at the advanced age of eighty, she passed away. Her husband was two years younger when he died.

One of eleven children, and the seventh in order of birth, Joe passed his early life upon his father's farm in Ohio, where he attended the public schools. In 1888. at the age of only twenty, he came to California and has made his way successfully and creditably, step by step. He came to Del Rey, where he has remained ever since.

At first he went to work on a ranch, in harvest time. Then for a year he was raisin and fruit-buyer for the Phoenix Fruit Packing Company of Fresno and Fowler. Later he was a farm-appraiser for the Union Trust Com- pany of San Francisco, and he still acts as the appraiser for the Farmers Na- tional Bank of Fresno.

With Bert Katz of San Francisco and Berthold Guggenhime, Mr. Foster owns the Gartenlaube and the Fortuna ranches, already partly described, both of which are in a very high state of cultivation. The soil is unusually fertile, lying in the very heart of the Thompson seedless grape belt of California. The Gartenlaube ranch is highly improved, and is said to be the best 320-acre ranch in California. Mr. Foster lives upon the Gartenlaube ranch in the fine ranch-house recently constructed at great cost. The ranch is devoted to Thompson and muscat grapes, and to peaches and figs; and the Fortuna is planted to prunes, walnuts, peaches, shipping plums and muscats. Already known for unusually valuable experience, Mr. Foster entered on his duties as manager of the ranches in 1910.

The buildings on the Gartenlaube ranch are very good, and were built by the present company. There is a two-story Japanese camp, declared by the state inspector to be the best laborer's camp in the state, completed in hard-wood finish ; for Mr. Foster takes pride in the welfare of his laborers, and his oak houses, with their dining-rooms, sleeping apartments and shower baths, testify to the practical application of his principles and sympathies. Everything is clean, highly sanitary, cheerful and of such a nature as to in- duce a man to work, and when he has finished his labors there, he goes away the better physically, mentally and morally for having cast his lot in that neighborhood. The old residence has been converted into a foreman's cot-

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tage-a wise provision contributing to still better administration and dealings with a small army of workmen. On each ranch there is a dining-hall and kitchen, and each establishment is thoroughly up-to-date. Reading-rooms provide for the men's mental needs, and the other arrangements enumerated insure their health and leisurely rest. From six to one hundred men are em- ployed on the Gartenlaube ranch, according to the season, while from half a dozen to two hundred are given profitable work on the Fortuna. Besides mules and horses, Yuba tractors are used on both ranches, and to give some idea of the magnitude of the operations. it may be mentioned that on the Gartenlaube alone there are about $22,000 worth of drying trays. These and all the other appliances, as well as all the machinery, are carefully housed from season to season, and this care of the outfit represents great labor and responsibility.

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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 132

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