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 155

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 155

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and later was also admitted to the United States Federal Court. Four years ago he located at Kingsburg, Fresno County, where he is successfully con- ducting a general law practice. Mr. Trabing is an able attorney of strict integrity, who carefully studies and prepares each case with a scrupulous re- gard for justice to all. To these ideals he clings with unswerving fidelity and to this may be attributed his rapidly increasing clientele and the building of a lucrative practice, his office records showing an increase of fifty percent. each year since his location at Kingsburg. C. W. Trabing is a man of dis- tinguished personality and poise, and a recognized orator. In addition to his comprehensive knowledge of jurisprudence, he possesses keen business acumen which he gained through his extensive commercial activities at Laramie, Wyo., where he conducted, previous to his coming to California, a large and successful business in grain, hay and feed, and owned one-fourth interest in a cattle ranch of 1,200 acres. These business experiences have given him a clearer conception of the perplexities arising from the conduct of commercial enterprises and greatly aid him in the untangling of legal problems which business men find so difficult of solving. C. W. Trabing is vitally interested in the commercial and industrial welfare of Kingsburg, and of Fresno County and is a loyal worker for the advancement of the highest good of the community both intellectually and financially. He is secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and business manager of the Boosters Brass Band of Kingsburg.

The marriage of Mr. C. W. Trabing was solemnized at Watsonville, Cal., on July 9, 1913, when he was united with Miss Edith Mann, a daughter of Ezekiel and Anna (Rowe) Mann, well known residents of Watsonville. Mr. and Mrs. Trabing were very popular in the most. cultured social circles of Kingsburg. A great sorrow came to Mr. Trabing in the untimely death of his wife who succumbed to the influenza on November 2, 1918. She was well beloved in Kingsburg, where she was a class leader and a member of the choir of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She was also secretary of the Women's Improvement Club of Kingsburg, and was an active worker and officer in the Kingsburg branch of the Red Cross.

Mr. Trabing served as chairman of the Legal Advisory Board of the Kingsburg District, during the war period, and as such received all ques- tionnaires and passed upon all exemptions, and was chairman of the Four Minute Men at Kingsburg. He was also the local food administrator and did valuable work on all bond and other war drives.

CHRIS H. SMITH .- An interesting old-timer, who enjoys a prominent place among the builders of Central California, is Chris H. Smith, who first came to the Pacific Coast early in the eighties. He was born in Slesvig, near Haderlev, Denmark, on July 22, 1856, and his father was Hans Smith, a blacksmith and farmer in that section. His mother was Margareta Chris- tensen before her marriage, and she died there leaving three children, one of whom-the subject of our sketch-chose to cast his lot in the United States.

As the second oldest, Chris was brought up to farm work, assisting his father ; and under him he also learned the blacksmith trade. He attended the public schools. and when he became of age, he embarked in stock-dealing. A stock-dealer in Denmark might make a very fair living, but he would need to labor early and late: and most likely he would never grow rich. Thinking this fact over, Chris decided to migrate to the New World.

In 1881, he came to United States and California, and soon after his arrival, followed the blacksmith trade in San Leandro. At the end of nine months, however, he went in for farming near Hayward. In 1883 he came to Fresno County. At Oleander he hired out as a farm hand, but the next vear he went back to Hayward, where he rented land and raised grain. He then established a hay and grain trade on East Eleventh Street, Oakland, and

A. H. Hain

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he also had a livery business. He traded his property for a ranch in Big Penoche Valley, San Benito County, and raised grain and stock; and, with varying obstacles, made of the undertaking a success.

In 1894 Mr. Smith sold his farm and located in Easton, where he bought a vineyard of eighty acres and engaged in viticulture. At the end of five years, he disposed of this holding and in 1900 located here, purchasing forty acres on Kearney Boulevard, at the corner of Madison and Cleveland Ave- nues. It was raw land; so he leased the vineyard adjoining, improved his own place, and ran the leased land. He set out wine grapes and later grafted thereon Thompson seedless; and now he has his entire vineyard in malaga. feherzagos and Thompson's. He built his attractive residence, and added improvement after improvement, making a model ranch-vineyard. Mean- time, he did what he could' to help along cooperative marketing and now. as an active member of the California Associated Raisin Company, he has the satisfaction of seeing the fruit of his labors.

At Hayward, Mr. Smith was married to Margarethe Jorgensen, a native of Slesvig, Denmark, who came to California in 1888. He was made a Mason in the Hayward Lodge. F. & A. M., and is now a member of Fresno Lodge, No. 247. He belongs to the Danish Brotherhood, Fresno Chapter No. 67, and was once its president ; and he is also a member of the Dania, Chapter No. 5, at Fresno, and has been honored with its presidency, and, with his wife, is a member of Thora Lodge, Ladies Branch of Dania, of which she is vice-president. and Mrs. Smith was also an active member of Danish Aux- iliary and Fresno Chapter of Red Cross. In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Smith made a trip back to their old home, but much as they enjoyed the renewal of endearing associations, they were glad to return to sunnier California.

In national politics Mr. Smith is a Democrat, but in local measures he seeks the closest and happiest cooperation among neighbors. Both Mr. and Mrs. Smith have high ideals as to the privileges and the duties of good citi- zens, and both are untiring in their efforts to advance Central California to the high position and sound prosperity she so richly deserves.

S. H. HAIN .- Prominent among the successful oil-producers of America. and of more than passing interest to the student of industrial development in the United States, on account of his scientific attainments and mechanical ingenuity, which have placed him in the front rank among oil men of the Golden State, is S. H. Hain, the superintendent of the Penn Coalinga Petro- leum Company and also Section 7 Oil Company. He has originated many contrivances and conveniences on the lease, notably for the piping of gas and the condensing of steam, and he has also instituted various systems by which expenses have been saved, and in this Mr. Hain has enjoyed the cooperation, confidence, and good will of his employers, his colleagues and subordinates.

Mr. Hain was born in Glen Rock, York County, Pa., on March 30, 1871. the son of Adam Hain, who was a contractor and builder, and also a lumber manufacturer running a sawmill driven by water power. Adam Hain mar- ried Sarah Kreidler, who became the mother of four boys and one girl, and who, with her husband, is now dead. Our subject was the second eldest in this family, and commenced his schooling in the grammar institutions of the district, studying at the high school at Glen Rock and then attending the Millersville Normal, from which he was graduated in 1892. Then he became a teacher in York and Lancaster Counties, and in time was principal of the high school of Glen Rock.

In 1902, Mr. Hain came to California and located in Coalinga, and soon after he went into the field of oil development and accepted the superintend- ency of the York Coalinga Oil Company, later adding to his responsibilities the oversight of Section 7 Oil Company and the Penn Coalinga Oil Com- pany, all of which he superintended from the time of their first well. He was also a stockholder from the beginning of the York Coalinga Oil Company

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on Sec. 6-20-15, and on it sunk the first well, striking oil, and they have operated the well ever since, adding others that are producers, and whose flow has been remarkable if not phenomenal. The Penn Coalinga Petroleum Company's well was drilled next on Sec. 1-20-15, and Wells No. 1 and No. 2 were flowing, and are still producing. Then they developed Section 7 Oil Company on Sec. 7-20-15 and there struck oil; and not long after that they struck there one of the first gushers in the West Side field, with a strong flow of 3,000 barrels a day. What is so interesting, when one considers Mr. Hain's association with these enterprises, and the unquestionable value of his special gifts for such work and his studious attention to each problem as it arose, is the fact that the development of each company was remarkable for good results in general and the highest production in particular that could be reasonably expected.

A man of affairs and a far-seeing, natural leader, Mr. Hain has frequently been looked to for substantial cooperation in financial and commercial affairs. He was one of the original stockholders in the First National Bank of Coal- inga, and a director from the start, and also one of the original organizers of the Coalinga Gas and Power Company, where he is still a director. He is interested in the Coalinga National Petroleum Company, operating in the Coalinga field, and this augurs well for the ambitious programs of the concern.

In Fresno, on December 10, 1913, Mr. Hain was married to Miss Mary Baker, a native of Arkansas, who through her pleasing personality adds to their wide circle of friends. He is a member of Lincoln Lodge of Odd Fellows at Lincoln, Lancaster County, Pa., and also of the Knights of Malta at York in that state. California and Fresno County offer opportunities befitting the character and genius of men like Mr. Hain, in the work of further developing our great commonwealth.

CHARLES E. BERG .- Among the worthy Central California pioneers must be rated Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Berg, who own a finely-developed ranch of forty acres devoted to peaches and raisins, lying partly in Fresno and partly in Tulare County ; for, having started with many handicaps, they are making sacrifices to give their children the proper education and rearing. Like her husband, Mrs. Berg has the nobility of human nature actuating her daily round of life; and both are appreciative of those blessings peculiar to the United States of America, and those advantages perhaps nowhere to be found outside of California. The comfortable residence of the Bergs is in Tulare County, but they do their trading at Kingsburg, and are identified with Fresno.

Mr. Berg is one of the original four settlers who came to Kingsburg from Ishpeming, Mich., in the fall of 1886, landing in Kingsburg on Novem- ber 21, with a party consisting of two married men and their wives and families, and two still single. They were: Andrew Erickson (the present mayor of Kingsburg), his wife and a child; Mr. and Mrs. P. G. Hero and their three children ; and Charles Carlson and Mr. Berg, both of whom were then unmarried. They all hailed from Ishpeming, and came west on the re- port and recommendation of Mr. Erickson, who had been chosen by a num- ber of the Swedish-American citizens in Michigan to find suitable govern- ment land on the Pacific where they could most advantageously settle. At first Mr. Berg did not like his environment, and although he bought twenty acres, he stayed only a year, when he went south to Los Angeles and San Diego, where he worked for six months. After that he went north again, this time to San Francisco, and in the Bay City he helped build the cable street-car line, as well as the Howard Street Railway. Strange to say, electric cars have now entirely superseded the cable once erected at such cost and labor, except in the very steepest places of the city.

In August, 1890, Mr. Berg was married to Miss Emily Myhre, a native daughter of Norway, who once lived at Ishpeming, where they first met,

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and in 1891 the happy couple came back to Kingsburg and began to improve the ten acres that he still owned after having sold, while discouraged, the half of his holding. Later, he bought back five acres, and this gave him fifteen acres in one fine tract. He made all the necessary improvements, including the building of a house, barns and other outbuildings, and planted the land to vines and trees; but finding the place too small, he disposed of it some- what reluctantly and bought in its stead his present home place of forty acres, which he has also greatly improved. He is a member of the Raisin Growers Association, the Peach Growers Association, and the Apricot and Prune Growers Association of California.

Thus happily domiciled, Mr. Berg looks back with fond memories to the Province of Narke, in Sweden, where he was born in 1861. His father was August Berg, a farm laborer in poor circumstances, while his mother had been Magdalena Person. They were both natives of Sweden, and they died in the land of their birth. They had five children, the oldest of whom is Clara, now the widow of John Q. Nelson, who resides near Kingsburg; then came the subject of our sketch; the third was Peter, a rancher who lives near Charles; the fourth was Gust, who is married and lives east of Kings- burg ; and Anna, who died in Sweden.

Mr. and Mrs. Berg have three children: Alice, a graduate of the Kings- burg High School; is a milliner at Oakland; Edward, who graduated from the Agricultural College of the University of California and became assistant Farm Adviser in Tulare County, and who was recently married in Fresno to Miss Martha Ophelia Hayes of Fresno; and Clara, who is employed at the telephone office, having also graduated from the Kingsburg High School. Mr. Berg is a stockholder in the telephone company, which he helped organ- ize in 1904, and was formerly a director. When the proposition to introduce the telephone was first made, Mr. Berg worked for it; and since then he has been identified with nearly every progressive movement here.

ANTONE JOSEPH .- There are but few of the pioneers of forty-nine left in California, but there is a much larger number of those who came a decade or two later, and among these is Antone Joseph, a wealthy pioneer sheepman of Fresno County. Antone Joseph is a man of sterling worth, and a true type of the Fresno County pioneer of the seventies-hard-working, painstaking, intelligent, frugal and self-denying. It is not an easy matter for us to appreciate the difficulties that the early settlers had to encounter in the undeveloped, arid, cactus-covered, wind-swept and sparsely settled territory. They had the courage to brave hardship, privation and trial, and justly de- serve the esteem and respect accorded them.

A Portuguese by nationality, Antone Joseph was born September 11. 1857, on the Island of Pico, one of the Azores, where his father had a small farm. His father, Antone, and his mother Maria (de Brown) Joseph, lived and died on the island. Antone was the only son. He has an only sister, Marie de Brown Gottlath, who resides on the Island of Pico. Death claimed the father when his son Antone was a child three years old. Antone worked on his mother's farm until he was seventeen years of age, and raised a few cattle and sheep. He was seventeen when he came to California in 1874. and for two years worked on ranches in Alameda County. He came to Fresno in 1875 and continued his ranch work. He worked for P. C. Phillips, at Kingsburg, for two years, then started in the sheep business, working up until his flock numbered 20,000 head. Then the panic during the Cleveland administration caused the price of wool to fall to almost nothing, and Antone Joseph lost two sections of land and all of his sheep, a loss of about $300,000. Undaunted by this calamity he bravely started again, working out by the month until the year 1900, then began with a small bunch of sheep, and for the succeeding eight years gave his best efforts to the sheep business. Fif- teen years ago he bought his ranch of 560 acres one mile south of Monmouth,

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and in 1908 he turned his attention to mixed farming, raising cattle and swine for the past eleven years. He has also planted vines and trees, and has fifteen acres of Thompson seedless. ten acres of muscats and seven acres of peach trees.

In 1884 Mr. Joseph was married to Marie L. Vierra, and they became the parents of fifteen children, among whom we mention the following: Amelia is single and lives at home. Mainnie is the wife of S. D. Harmon and is the mother of three living children ; they reside at Fresno. Josephine mar- ried Joe Marcial ; she lived with her parents on the ranch and died after her marriage, leaving no children. Leonore is the wife of Ernest Caldwell, a rancher near Caruthers. Ed married Beulah Purse, and is a rancher near Selma. Claude married Joe Brocco, a rancher near Monmouth, and they have three children-Bertha, Clarence, and Manuel. Vearnie and Leslie, are living at home, and Minnie and Lelah died in infancy. Mr. Antone and his large family live comfortably on his ranch, upon which he built a fine bungalow country home at a cost of $5,000 eight years ago.

He is a brother-in-law of Joe Rogers, one of the thirty-nine held up by the desperado Vasquez, at Kingston. Mr. Antone was well acquainted with such men as the Rowell brothers, Cuthbert, Burrel, Jefferson James, P. C. Phillips, William Schultz and William Helme. He is a member of the Catho- lic Church at Selma and in politics is a consistent Republican. He has bought Liberty Bonds for himself and every member of his family, and is well liked and respected by his friends and neighbors.

HUGO KREYENHAGEN .- Nestling among the foot-hills of the Coast Range mountains and extending back from the northern end of the Kettle- man plains, lies the Canoas Rancho, one of the three large ranches owned by the Kreyenhagens, and the residence of Hugo Kreyenhagen. The house is large, comfortable and modern, and is gracefully presided over by his accom- plished wife ; both Mr. and Mrs. Kreyenhagen being liberal and kind hearted vie with each other in dispensing old-time Californian hospitality.

Hugo Kreyenhagen was born in the Oak Openings, at what was then called West Point, now Oakland, Cal., November 2, 1858. His father, Gustave a native of Germany, was a college graduate and a man of scholarly attain- ments who was master of six languages. He was married in his native country to Julia Ilering. and about 1853 came to St. Louis, Mo., where he was an in- structor in a college until he came to San Francisco, Cal., via Panama. He was engaged in the mercantile business and it was during his residence at West Point that Hugo was born. Afterwards he engaged in sheep raising on the Peach Tree Ranch in Monterey County, and also on a ranch near Gilroy. In about 1867 he located on the West Side of the San Joaquin Val- ley, at a place which became known as Kreyenhagens' Corners, where he ran a store and raised sheep until Los Banos was started in the same locality and he became one of the first settlers of the new town, built a store and a hotel, and was in business there at the same time with his sons; he also continued sheep-raising as well as freighting. He sold his holdings there and in 1876 located at Posa Chene, now Turk Station, Fresno County, where he built a store, hotel, livery stable and sheep corrals, and with his sons engaged in the merchandise business and stock-raising, also in buying land. He owned Fresno Hot Springs, where he built a hotel and made improvements-a place still owned by the estate-and here he and his wife spent their last days, a worthy couple much esteemed for their culture and high moral and religious principles.

Of their five children who grew to maturity, Hugo is the second oldest. From a boy he learned the stock business, riding the range and assisting in grain-raising. His education was obtained in Christian Brothers College, Oak- land, and when his school days were ended he threw all of his energies into the stock business in which he and his brothers have been so successful. He came to Posa Chene when he was a young man of eighteen, so he has seen

Hugo Kreyenhagen

Marie M. Krigenhagen

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all of the wonderful development of the West Side, in which he has taken a part and of which he can be justly proud. The four brothers Kreyenhagen continued together, raising both sheep and cattle, running about 10,000 head of sheep and 600 head of cattle. Later they disposed of their sheep and de- voted their whole range to raising cattle, and are today undoubtedly the largest individual cattle growers in Fresno County. They purchased land from time to time until they own three large adjoining ranches known as "Canoas," "Zapato Cheno," and "Los Polvaderos," lying southeast of Coalinga and embracing about 10,000 acres. The ranches are well watered by wells and streams and springs, the latter extending back into the foot-hills of the Coast Range, making them well adapted for cattle-raising. Besides these ranches they lease about 35,000 acres of railroad and other lands, thus having an im- portant and valuable range for their large herds of graded Durhams and Herfords-for they use full-blooded bulls of those strains at the head of their herds. However, they also bring in whole trainloads of cattle from Mexico, Arizona and Utah. turning them on their range until they are in condition to ship to the markets. The brothers also raise about 2,000 acres of grain each year, using a caterpillar engine and combined harvester. They estab- lished and owned the Crescent Meat Market in Coalinga, later selling it to M. Levy.

A few years ago Kreyenhagen Brothers (four of them) incorporated their holdings as Kreyenhagens, Inc., being a close corporation including only members of the family. They are also largely interested in the Hays Cattle Company, operating a large stock ranch in Arizona.

On the Avanal Ranch near Dudley, now Kings County, on August 19, 1883, occurred the marriage of Hugo Kreyenhagen with Miss Marie Merrill, a native daughter of California, born at Benicia, Solano County. Her father, Caleb S. Merrill, Jr., born at Sheldon Falls, Mass., and reared in Illinois, when seventeen years of age crossed the plains with his father and family in an ox team train in 1852. Grandfather, Caleb S. Merrill, Sr., was an architect and builder and followed that business in the early days. He resided in California until he was seventy-eight, then he returned to Missouri and there he died. Caleb S. Merrill, Jr .. married Jennie Larseneur, who was born in Canada of an old French-Canadian family. Her father, Peter Larseneur, brought his family to California in 1852. He was also a contractor, and with Caleb S. Merrill as a partner, built many of the early buildings in Benicia, among them the old Benicia Barracks. Afterwards he was a contractor in San Francisco, and among the many early buildings he erected was the old Stock Exchange.

Mrs. Kreyenhagen's father was a stock-raiser on the General Neiglee ranch at Bantos for many years, then a farmer near Stockton until 1878, when he purchased the Avanal Ranch in Tulare, but now Kings County. Here he raised cattle and sheep, having large herds and flocks on this large area of land and being actively engaged until his death. His widow after- wards disposed of the ranch and for some years made her home in Oakland. She spent her last days in Coalinga, where she died in 1916. Of the eight children born to this worthy pioneer couple, five are living, of whom Mrs. Kreyenhagen is the oldest. She received a good education in the schools of Stockton and at Lemoore.

Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Kreyenhagen have two children: Olga, a graduate of the Hanford High School and the Oakland Polytechnic, then spent two years in the University of California, is now the wife of A. L. Newport of Hanford ; Ernest Hugo, a graduate of the Coalinga Union High, spent two years as a student at the University of California in Berkeley,. enlisted for service in the United States Army, serving in the California Grizzlies, Bat- tery F, 144th Regiment Artillery, Fortieth Division. Since his honorable dis- charge he is assisting his father on the ranch, being a stockholder and director in the Kreyenhagens, Inc., as well as a stockholder in the Hays Cattle Com- pany. Mrs. Kreyenhagen is a member of Lucerne Chapter No. 127, O. E. S.,

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at Hanford, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Interested in the cause of education Mr. Kreyenhagen has served as school trustee, keeping up the high standard of the schools of the state. He is a member of the Cal- ifornia Cattle Growers' Association. Mr. and Mrs. Kreyenhagen took part in the different drives for war funds, to which they were liberal contributors, and both are life members of the Coalinga Chapter of the American National Red Cross. Enterprising and progressive, they are never backward in giving ot their means and influence to further worthy movements for the upbuilding of the great commonwealth-where they were born and where every portion is dear to them. Fortunate is the individual who has the pleasure of being entertained at the Canoas Ranch. Mr. Kreyenhagen is a protectionist and Republican in politics.

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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 155

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