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 158

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 158

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

At the present time Mr. Douglass makes his headquarters on the Kutner ranch of 270 acres, devoted to vineyards of malagas, emperors, wine grapes and muscats. The Sanger ranch of sixty acres is in peaches and grapes, while the Hanford ranch of 320 acres is mostly vineyard, the three ranches being all under his supervision.

G. M. Douglass is a man of noble character and is actuated in his busi- ness transactions by the highest motives. While not affiliated with any par- ticular church organization, Mr. Douglass endeavors to do the kind of work done by church members and is especially interested in the extension of the brotherhood of man.

JOHN W. AIKIN .- A prominent citizen of exceptional ability and in- fluential as a man of affairs, who is such a good "booster" for Selma and vicin- ity that he is naturally found actively identified with every important move- ment for the development and uplift of the community, is John William Aikin, the office manager of the Libby. McNeill & Libby Cannery at Selma. He was born in Clark County, Iowa, on October 12, 1868. the son of Relzy Mitchel Aikin, a native of Martinsville, Morgan County, Ind., a district in which the Aikins were pioneers. He had married Talitha L. Stansbury, of Iowa. The parents in an early day settled in Indiana, later removing to Illi- nois, and from that State Relzy M. Aikin enlisted in Company B of the Thirty- third Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in which he served from 1861 to 1864. After the War he went to Iowa, and there married Miss Stansbury. Her family progenitors. of English and Welsh origin, settled in Virginia in Colonial times, and some of the family later removed to Maryland ; and there is a stone house still standing in Baltimore which has been continuously occupied by the family for two hundred years, and was originally built by one of them.

Having become a farmer and a stockman, R. M. Aikin removed to Nuck- olls County, Nebr., in 1872, and there he was ranching when. in 1874, the grasshoppers desolated the land. He was a member of the Nebraska legisla- ture from 1883 to 1889, and for a term was Assistant Secretary of the Nebraska

1271

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

State Board of Irrigation. He made many trips to California, but never set- tled here, and he died in Nuckolls County in 1912, where he owned a half- section of land. His wife is still living at Nelson, Nebr. She was the mother of six children, among whom John W. was the oldest. Then came Luella, who died when she was two and a half years old; Oliver L., a Nebraska farmer who is living on the old Aikin homestead which was taken up by Relzy M. Aikin under the homestead act; Mary Ellen, the wife of William Wetzel, the butcher at Superior, Nebr .; Hattie Leola, now Mrs. Bert Hewitt, residing at Republican, Nebr .; and Charlotte Grace, the wife of Frank W. Fletcher, living near Edgar, Nebr.

John W. Aikin was only three and a half years old when he removed from Iowa to Nebraska, with his parents, and later he helped to break the virgin soil of Nebraska. He attended the high school at Edgar, Nebr., and took a commercial course at the Lillibridge & Roose business college at Lincoln. Then he became a pedagog and taught in Nebraska for three years, after which he came on to Selma, where an uncle, J. A. Roberts, now of Sanger, then lived. He received a notary public's commission, and took up the col- lection business.

In 1895, Mr. Aikin began studying law with W. B. Good, and this he con- tinued under the direction of E. E. Shepard, but in the fall of 1899, when he had been reading law for three years, and just before he was to take the examination at Sacramento, he was induced to go into the newspaper bus- iness. He accordingly leased the office of the Fresno County Enterprise. a weekly owned by Willis & Willis, and during the first year Frank G. Gill became associated with him. their cooperation extending over two years. Then Mr. Aikin purchased the entire plant and became its sole owner. In 1906 he completed the brick building on High Street, which is still the home of the Enterprise. This plant of the Enterprise he sold in 1911 ; and about five years later, he disposed of the building.

From 1896 to 1900, Mr. Aikin served as City Clerk of Selma, and when the time was opportune, he was a prime mover in securing the Carnegie Li- brary, serving on the committee and as a member of the Library Board. In 1912 he removed with his family to Long Beach, and there engaged in the real estate trade ; but like so many others who have once lived in Selma and are never entirely satisfied to dwell anywhere else, he returned here in 1914.

Messrs. Libby, McNeill & Libby had started their local fruit and vegetable cannery in 1911, when they built a unit of their proposed works ; and as editor of the Enterprise, Mr. Aikin had had much to do with their locating here. On October 4, 1915, therefore, Mr. Aikin went to work for them, starting in vari- ous subordinate capacities until he rose to be office manager. This extensive establishment and its output have become of the greatest importance to Selma and the San Joaquin Valley, and there have been several new departures of late. In 1919 for the first time. for example, they are canning beets, and this year also spinach is being grown for and canned by them. The company has encouraged the farmers to plant the edible, and they will seek to make it more popular as a wholesome and desirable food. It can be planted in the fall and disposed of by April, so that the land can then be used for corn or beans, and the neighborhood become a two-crop country.

At Selma, in 1897. Mr. Aikin was married to Miss Mary Gertrude Brown, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joshua W. Brown, the latter now a widow residing on North McCall Avenue in Selma : and two children have blessed their union : Viola Leonora is now the wife of Glenn W. Butler, a member of the postal service, stationed at Selma, and they have two children-Glenn W., Jr., and Jack Aikin ; Relzy B. Aikin is in the Selma high school and will graduate with the Class of 1920. Mr. Aikin has remodelled his residence property at the cor- ner of Grant and North Streets, and there he has one of the most comfortable of Selma homes. In 1910 he became a Christian Scientist, and he is the first reader of the First Christian Science Society at Selma. Services are held in

1272

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

the Vanderburgh Hall of the Selma Irrigator Building, and although the So- ciety is not large, it is steadily growing and looking forward to the building of an ornate and useful church edifice. As a charter member, Mr. Aikin helped to organize the Selma Lodge of the Woodmen of the World; now it has 500 members, and he has been through the chairs three times. He is also a mem- ber of the Independent Order of Foresters, and has passed through its several chairs.

While doing newspaper work, Mr. Aikin for a while served on the Re- publican county central committee, but this did not prevent him, when he became interested in temperance reform and convinced that Selma (at one time harboring many saloons) needed prohibitive legislation, from throwing himself into the thick of the bitter anti-saloon fight. Through his editorials, he made the Enterprise speak in no uncertain terms for a dry and decent town ; he was bitterly persecuted for his uncompromizing attitude ; and yet he saw Selma go dry in 1904, the first town in the San Joaquin Valley to "mount the water-wagon," and also witnessed the dawn of constitutional prohibition.

CARL GUSTAF PETERSON .- A wide-awake, progressive and suc- cessful rancher, whose kind-heartedness and liberality endear him to all who know him, is Carl Gustaf Peterson, who first came to California in the late eighties when the Golden State was enjoying its boom and beginning to be the talk of the world. He was born at Olspodaburk, Varmland, Sweden, on April 16, 1861, and his father was Peter Erickson, a farmer, who died there. He had married Mathilda C. Berg, and she also died there, the mother of eight children, six of whom are living.

The third oldest in the family, Carl G. was brought up on a farm and attended the ordinary public schools. When he was twenty years of age he crossed the ocean to the United States and settled at Ishpeming, Mich., where he was in the employ of iron mines for seven years. In 1888. he de- cided to go on to the Pacific Coast; and having come to California he settled awhile at Kingsburg, in Fresno County, where he worked at the carpenter trade and at brickmaking. He also commenced to ranch and to experiment with viticulture and horticulture. He bought four lots in Kingsburg, built a residence and continued there until 1897.

In that year he removed to Idaho Springs on Clear Creek, Colo., where he worked in gold and silver mines. He also leased mines with success, and continued there for eleven years, during which time he built himself another residence. The lure of California, however, which has so frequently drawn the pioneer and settler back to the hills and valleys of the Golden State, worked upon him like a fever, and made him restless until he decided to return.

In February, 1909, Mr. Peterson returned to Fresno County and settled at Vinland. As a matter of fact he had come to California the year pre- viously, and while here had met the Reverend Nordstrom and become inter- ested in the colony which that gentleman was promoting. so he bought twenty acres of his present place, moved onto it, and at once began to im- prove it. Since then he has bought ten acres, and now has set ten acres to Thompson's seedless grapes and a few apricot trees. He also works at the carpenter trade and at contracting and building.

While at Idaho Springs, Mr. Peterson was married on June 19, 1897, to Amanda Borg, a native of Iowa, who was reared there and in Kingsburg, where she was educated and where he met her. She was the daughter of Olaf Borg, a rancher of that place. Now they have two children: Adeline, who resides in Fresno, and Torgny, who lives with his father.

The family attends the Swedish Lutheran Church at Vinland, of which Mr. Peterson has been a trustee and deacon and the Sunday School superin- tendent. In national politics Mr. Peterson is a progressive Republican, and always a good American citizen.

Charles It. Mutchler.

Laura M. Mutchler.

1277

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

MR. and MRS. CHARLES H. MUTCHLER .- It is interesting to chronicle the life history of the pioneers, who in their prime entered on their life work at the front, always improving and surging ahead, never idle but always busy in making the soil yield more abundantly, thus making the earth and the peoples thereof richer and at the same time winning success and a competency for themselves. Such are the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Mutchler, agriculturists residing west of Fresno.

Mr. Mutchler was born near Bloomfield, Davis County, Iowa, July 3. 1862, the third oldest in a family of nine children born to Charles A. and Doris (Rouch) Mutchler, well-to-do farmers in Davis County, Iowa.

Charles H. was reared on a farm and as was the custom in Iowa at that time was early set to work on the home farm, each member of the family being taught to work, and necessarily schools were secondary and limited. However, he obtained a fair education which he has supplemented with self-study and reading. At the age of seventeen he made his way to the frontier of Dakota, where he had a cousin who was a cattleman. Charles remained with him for two years, riding the range in care of his cattle, and when he returned to Iowa he had saved $700. Having always had a desire to travel and especially to see the Pacific Coast, he decided to come to Cali- fornia. so when twenty-one years of age he arrived in Modesto. He was a total stranger, but being handy and willing to work, he immediately found em- ployment on the ranch of Sam Miller, with whom he remained two years.

Wishing to engage in business for himself, Mr. Mutchler purchased a farm outfit and came to Fresno County, in 1884, and leased land just south of Fresno, from Dr. Chester Rowell, and began to raise grain, with the usual vicissitudes of the grain-farmer. On October 4, 1884, he was married at Modesto to Miss Laura Hining and he has been signally favored in his choice of his helpmate. She was born in Davis County, Iowa, May 30, 1865, and was one year old when she crossed the plains with her parents. Her father, Charles H., was one of the Argonauts of forty-nine. He was a self-made man, having been left an orphan at the age of eight years in Germany, and com- ing to the United States when thirteen years old, he paddled his own canoe in Davis County, Iowa. Working on the farm, he studied at every spare moment and late into the night, and became a well educated and scholarly man. He was converted in the Christian Church, studied for the ministry, and was ordained in that denomination. He had preached his first sermon when sixteen years old, and ever afterward was a minister. In 1849 he joined the gold rush to California, crossing the plains with ox teams. While travel- ing through the Indian country a mule in the train by its actions warned the emigrants of the proximity of the Indians, which enabled the party to barri- cade against the foe. A stiff skirmish with the Red Men ensued which resulted in the Indians being driven away. After several years of prospecting and mining he returned to Iowa where he was married to Emily M. Shadle, and thereafter engaged in farming in Davis County, until 1866, when, with his wife and two children, Arthur and Laura, the latter now Mrs. Mutchler, then a babe in her mother's arms, he again crossed the plains with ox teams. Arriving safely, he located at Modesto, Stanislaus County. He purchased 160 acres northwest of Modesto and later added another 160 acres and en- gaged in farming and stock-raising. He always preached, and after locating in California he organized the first Christian congregation in Modesto, and built the Christian church there. This he did because he loved the work and in his self-sacrificing way he preached without a salary and farmed for a living. He was a grand old man and a truly honest and conscientious one, remaining active until his death in 1909. His wife had died in Modesto many years before, at the age of forty. They had four children: Arthur, of Stockton ; Laura, now Mrs. Mutchler: Emma, Mrs. W. D. Toomes of Mo- desto ; and Claude, who lives at Sharon, Madera County. Laura Hining

1278

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

received a good education in the public and high schools, and after their marriage they entered heartily into their farming operations. For ten years they farmed the Rowell place. Then they leased land from Jeff James on Fish Slough, now Tranquillity, and ran a grain farm of 2,700 acres for twelve years. But there were always drawbacks coming up that seemed to spoil their chances of realizing the big profits they expected. One year the pros- pects looked fine for a $50,000 crop on 2,500 acres but a flood came and swept it all away. They acquired a large outfit and ran five big teams and gathered the grain with a Holt combined harvester, having the second harvester of the kind in the county. Discouraged by the loss of one crop after another. Mrs. Mutchler, having received a legacy from her father's estate, came to Fresno, and purchased sixty acres in Wolter's Colony. On this they located, making valuable improvements, and eighteen months later sold it at a profit. In 1910 she bought the present place that originally consisted of sixty acres, the old Brickley place on McKinley Avenue, ten miles west of Fresno, and here they are engaged in farming and dairying, having met with success. Since then they have added sixty acres to their holdings and now own 120 acres of valuable land. They have a dairy herd of fifty-five milch cows, all Holsteins. Their large acreage in alfalfa also affords them the opportunity for raising and feeding cattle. Although under the Herndon canal, they have installed two pumping plants which afford them an abundance of water for irrigation, and now, despite early hardships and discouragements, Mr. and Mrs. Mutchler are in easy circumstances.

Mr. Mutchler has been and is a very active man, and an inveterate worker who likes the state of his adoption and particularly Fresno County. Mrs. Mutchler is a business woman of more than ordinary ability and fills her place in the household economy with distinction. They are the proud parents of six children: Clarence, in the United States Army; Claude, assisting on the ranch : May, who is Mrs. Hickok of Merced ; Maude ; Charles, and Laura. Mr. and Mrs. Mutchler find social enjoyment in the Fraternal Brotherhood, and are members of the Christian Church.

WILLIAM REESE GARISON .- Perhaps the best-preserved octoge- narian mail-carrier in California, in the full possession of his mental and physical powers, and a highly-intelligent and noble-hearted gentleman, is William Reese Garison. in charge of the Star Route between Burrel and Wheatville, and the father of a most interesting and progressive family. He gave to his two youngest sons all his horses, mules and cattle; and having started out farming on a big scale, they have become well-to-do. Both of them are very able farmers and foremen, and have done much successful work for the big land-owners, Vogelsang & Goodrich. Hugh is regularly connected with that well-known firm, acting as their foreman at Calexico, while the youngest son is the ranch foreman at Huron, in Fresno County.

Mr. Garison was born in Barry County, Mo., on January 29, 1838, and when three years old, left with his parents for Arkansas, where he grew up. After the death of his father, and when he was twenty-one, he moved with his mother and his brother Thomas to Parker County, Texas, drawn thither by the circumstance that his oldest brother, James, was then located in that county as a farmer and a stock-raiser. He attended the subscription schools of Arkansas and was given such opportunities as the period afforded.

His father, P. S. Garison, was born in South Carolina, was liberally educated and became a school-teacher, and he was able to do much for the schooling of his son. His mother's maiden name was Zylpah Smith, she also was a native of South Carolina, and in that state she was married. Mr. Gari- son taught school in Missouri and Arkansas, and died, in the latter state, when he was fifty-six years old, leaving a widow and nine children, all of whom grew to maturity. William Reese was the third child in the order of birth, and is the only one now living.

1279

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

In Texas, he started in stock-raising, and such was the foresight with which he operated. that he soon developed a ranch worth coming miles to see. At the age of twenty-five he was married to Miss Sarah Wood, who died in Texas after twenty-five years of married life. She was the mother of six children, and three were still living when she died: Bellzora is now the wife of Richard Cornwall, a dairyman at Visalia, and she has three chil- dren, all daughters: A. H., popularly known as "Hugh," is now a single rancher at Calexico; and Thomas Lee, who married Miss Ruth Servis, of Fresno, in which city they reside ; he was recently married, and is employed for part of the time by Vogelsang & Goodrich, as foreman and machinist on their large ranch at Huron in Fresno County.

For thirty years Mr. Garison continued in Texas, prospering as a farmer in Parker County, and when he sold out, he came direct to California and to Fresno County. It was in the great boom period of 1888. and he rented awhile at Fowler, in 1896 coming down to the Burrel sector. There he leased the Captain Clover Ranch of 400 acres, and for eight years farmed it to wheat. Sometimes the returns were not encouraging, for he sold wheat as low as sixty-five cents per cental.

In 1904, Mr. Garison's two sons came here and began renting 3,000 acres of the Burrel Estate, and Mr. Garison let them have his horses, machinery and outfit. As has been said, the sons have been eminently successful, reflect- ing credit in the highest degree on their parents and themselves.

Mr. Garison served for years as justice of the peace in Texas, and thereby continued the enviable traditions of his family, which was of English origin. The Garisons came from England to Carolina, and were there at the time of the American Revolution. It is, therefore, a colonial Carolina family, and one of the proudest in the annals of that great state. William Reese's mother was an orphan, but she enjoyed advantages which later had their beneficent influence on her offspring.

A Democrat of the good old school, although in local issues a public- spirited citizen who works for the good of the community regardless of party lines, Mr. Garison became mail carrier on July 1, 1913, and has carried the mail steadily for more than five years. He travels daily over the Star Route from Burrel to Wheatville and back, making a trip every day except Sunday, of four miles and return, by means of his horse and buggy.

Mr. Garison's place of residence is planted to alfalfa, and is owned by his two sons, T. L. and A. H. Garison. They began by leasing 160 acres from the Smith Estate, or rather the whole section, and later bought it. They now lease out their holding for dairying and the growing of alfalfa, for which the ground is especially well adapted.

While in Texas, Mr. Garison was married a second time to Miss Ten- nessee Blackwell of Parker County, who is still living, and who, together with her husband, is highly esteemed by their many friends.

JAMES H. McKAMEY .- A very interesting, progressive citizen, who came to California in 1903, but was one of those who, in 1911, were laying the foundations of Tranquillity. is J. H. McKamey, who hauled his goods from Jameson, and bought his first lot with a check from Graves Bros., owners of the Jeff James lands. He was born near Bristol, Tenn., on January 25, 1857, the son of Robert McKamey, who came from Sullivan County. Tenn .. while the grandfather and three brothers came from Scotland. The father was well and favorably known as a farmer near Bristol, and died there ; he espoused the cause of the Confederacy, and was in the Civil War. The mother, who had been Mary Catherine Hodges, was born at Washing- ton, Tenn., and she is still living. She had six children, four boys and two girls, all of whom grew up; and our subject is the oldest of those who survived.

James H. was brought up on the home farm until he was twenty-one. and then he attended the local school and availed himself of the limited

1280

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

educational advantages. On arriving at maturity, he went to Texas for three years, but finding it unhealthful enough to give him chills and fever, he returned home and then began clerking in a store. At the end of two years he went to Bristol to continue clerking. After that he had a store of his own and engaged in the general merchandise business at Bristol. He was a member of the firm of Lore, Devault & McKamey, and continued as a partner and in that line for many years. Selling out his interest to his part- ners, he engaged in the produce business in Mountain City until he came to California.

In 1903 he sold out and, coming to the Coast, was awhile at Galt, and then at Dinuba, where he embarked in general merchandising characteristic of that enterprising community. While there he became acquainted with a civil engineer. Frank Rautsma, in the employ of the San Joaquin Company ; and through him he was first interested in Tranquillity, and bought out the business of Graves Bros. There was at that time so little of the prospective town that for a couple of years he hauled all the goods for his store from Jameson, but he persevered as a real pioneer, and by 1913 he was able to build the new store edifice he at present occupies, and which is such a credit to the place. He made it large and commodious, and once again engaged in a general merchandise business, including groceries, drygoods, clothing, shoes, etc.

While in Tennessee, Mr. McKamey was married to Miss Emma Latture, a native of Sullivan County, and they have four children: Vesta, Mrs. C. I. Rider of Redwood City: Pearl, at home: Ottis O., who was in the United States Army ; and Fay, Mrs. J. W. Tapp of Glendale, Ariz.

Besides his store-building, Mr. McKamey owns a comfortable residence. In national politics he is a Democrat, but in the hearty support of local issues designed to advance the general welfare of the community, he knows no party lines and votes for the best that is attainable.

LEE S. BEALL .- An influential factor for over thirty years in the progress and development of the community of his adoption, Lee S. Beall comes of an historic family, his grandfather, Zephaniah Addison Beall, par- ticipating in the War of 1812, and taking part in 1814 at the Siege of Balti- more, at the very time and place when Francis Scott Key fought the common enemy and, as a result of the all-night struggle, wrote his immortal Star Spangled Banner. He removed from Maryland to Ohio, married and then moved on to Indiana, being one of the pioneer settlers of that State. He established a home in Ripley County, and died at the age of eighty-six. In Ripley County, William M. Beall, Lee's father, was born : while the mother, Caroline E. Hancock before her marriage, a descendant of John Hancock, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Dearborn County, Ind. William M. Beall farmed in Indiana until November, 1886, the beginning of the great boom in California that beckoned the thousands from all quarters of the globe; and, coming under the spell, he made the trip west with his good wife, and located at River Bend, Fresno County, where he tilled the soil for a few years, and then, retiring from active life, moved to Fresno. Here he died at the age of eighty-four, and Mrs. Beall was over sixty at her death.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 158

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