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 159
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The birth of Lee S. Beall, on August 9, 1864, also occurred in Ripley County, where he attended school and lived with his parents until he was eighteen. Being energetic and industrious, he spent some time learning the carpenter's trade. On March 21, 1886, he was married to Miss Della Peters, a native of the same county, born February 28, 1863, a daughter of Enoch and Zerilda (Pendergast) Peters; her father still survives, in his eighty- fourth year. Soon after marriage, they started for California and cast in their lot with the sturdy pioneers of that day. They first located at River Bend and there continued until the fall of 1887, when they established a home
LA.Ball
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in the Red Bank section. Mr. Beall started farming, and for nearly five years raised grain.
In 1890, Mr. Beall purchased from J. P. Vincent his present place, a twenty-acre tract near Clovis. It was stubble-field, but he set it out as a vineyard and, having bought twenty acres adjoining, he continued to improve and develop the land until now he owns a place of forty acres, set out to muscat, Thompson and malaga grapes. He erected a commodious modern dwelling-house, other necessary buildings, and installed a pumping-plant.
While Mr. Beall has made for himself a substantial income, he has con- tributed to the permanent prosperity of Fresno and vicinity. He is a Demo- crat, and has attended and taken an active part in many political conventions. In 1902 he was elected justice of the peace of the second judicial township for four years. In 1906 he was defeated by Isaac Coberly. He was appointed justice of the peace in July, 1910, to fill a vacancy caused by Mr. Coberly's death, and he served for three and a half years. From 1907 to 1909 he was roadmaster of the district, and from 1909 to 1910 he was deputy assessor, under G. P. Cummings, and assessed the Clovis district. In July, 1914, he was elected justice of the peace and four years later was reelected without opposition, and is now serving his thirteenth year. He is a notary and deals in real estate.
Judge Beall has three children : Elsie W., now Mrs. Francis living near Fresno ; Helen D., a graduate of the high school, class of 1919, and Harold Lee, in the Clovis high. Judge Beall served as district school trustee of the Jefferson school for eight years, acting also as clerk of the board. He has also served as trustee of the Clovis Union High School for eight years, dur- ing which time he was clerk for seven years, and in the last year, president.
Mr. Beall is a member of the Woodmen of the World, where he is a past officer. He belongs to Clovis Lodge, No. 139, I. O. O. F., in which he is a Past Grand, and he is an active member of the Knights of Pythias in Clovis. The Christian Church, to which his wife belongs, receives his sup- port, and he is a member of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce. He is a firm believer in the cooperation of fruitmen, and has actively supported all the raisin associations and is a member and a stockholder of the California Asso- ciated Raisin Company. In 1903, Mr. and Mrs. Beall made a trip to their old home ; and this was the first time they revisited the scenes of former years since they came to California.
Judge Beall is much respected as a public-spirited citizen endeavoring to advance the best interests of the community.
JOHN G. C. SINCLAIR .- Interesting as one of the few men now living who worked for old Billy Caruthers. the pioneer, John G. C. Sinclair is a highly respected citizen of the town of Caruthers. He was the grain-buyer here for more than a quarter of a century, and enjoys the confidence of those who have business relations with him. He lives on the old Billy Caruthers farm north of the town, and there extends an old-fashioned hospitality. He is a Scotchman by birth, and it goes without saying that he is bright and level-headed, a square-dealer, and excellent farmer and vineyardist: for as the pioneer vine-grower at Caruthers, he is public-spirited and takes a deal 'of interest in the welfare and progress of the community. In many ways he is well-posted, and he is fortunate in having an excellent wife and bright and loyal children.
He was born in the town of Wick, in Caithness-shire, Scotland, on April 8. 1864, grew up there, and on his twenty-first birthday sailed from Glasgow. He had taken to farming when he was sixteen years of age, and was brought up to follow agriculture. His father owned no farm, but was widely known as a successful commission man, auctioneer and cattle-sales- man in Wick and in the small town of Thurso, and conducted auctions all
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over the county, and had his own salesyards, where he offered stock under the hammer every two weeks.
John acquired a grammar-school education, and worked out on farms rather as a student, learning stock-raising, feeding and general farming. When he arrived in Boston, in 1885, he was equipped with experience beyond that of the average young man, and confidently traveled through the country, visiting Quebec and Chicago, and going on to Winnipeg, Manitoba. There he sought employment from Kenneth Mckenzie, M. P., and worked on his Bonanza wheat farm at Portage la Prairie and Burnside for a year, including a very severe winter. The next year he went to work for the Hudson Bay Company in their flour mill.
In the fall of 1887 he came to Tulare County, Cal., and at the same time took out his first citizenship papers, determined to become a citizen of the United States, and for twenty-five years thereafter he followed grain- handling, as a grain-warehouse foreman.
In 1888, Mr. Sinclair came to Fresno County, and engaged with Mr. F. M. Miller, the grain-merchant of Fresno, who induced him to come to Caruthers and take charge of the new grain-warehouse there.
During the spring of 1888, there was very little doing in the warehouse, so with Mr. Miller's permission he took a job for two months on the Caruth- ers ranch; but when the time was up, Mr. Caruthers insisted that he should continue in his employ; and after due consultation with Mr. Miller, who gave his permission, Mr. Sinclair remained in the service of Billy Caruthers for a whole year, and only after that went back to work for Mr. Miller, who employed him for the next twenty-five years. He bought grain and superin- tended the warehouse from 1889 to 1914.
In the meantime he had bought a part of the Caruthers ranch, the home quarter section and two other quarter sections besides, retaining the 285 acres which he still operates as a dairy and for the cultivation of raisins and . peaches. Twenty acres are planted to muscats, and fourteen acres to peaches, and twenty acres to alfalfa ; and the balance is also devoted to alfalfa. He has ditch water from the Fowler Switch ditch.
Mr. Sinclair made a trip back to his native Scotland in 1901, and while there married his betrothed, Miss Christina S. Henderson, who was born at Dunn, Scotland, in Caithness-shire, a daughter of Donald and Christina (Sutherland) Henderson, being the fourth daughter in a family of ten chil- dren. Her father was a farmer in Scotland, and there both parents died. Mr. Sinclair's mother was Margaret Craig, a daughter of Donald Craig, who was a retail shoe-dealer at Wick.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair have had five children: Minnie H., who died in infancy; Donald, who graduated from the high school at Easton (before there was a high school at Caruthers) and who was in the Eighty-ninth Division of the Sanitary Ambulance Corps, and was stationed in France, doing duty between Verdun and Metz, returning home June 17, after serving in the army of occupation in Germany, landing at New York, May 24th, and being honorably discharged at the Presidio, June 17, 1919: John G. C. Sin- clair, Jr., who was in the Easton High School and enlisted in the navy, and served as a pharmacist's mate on the Steamer Melville, south of Ireland, and who is now stationed at a naval base north of Scotland; Margaret C., who graduated from the same institution as an honor student, winning the cash prize of $100 for the highest scholarship, and completing the regular four- year course in three years, and who is now at the State University, where she is majoring in history ; and Alexander H., who is in the marines, stationed at the Bremerton Navy Yard, state of Washington, and who is a graduate of the Caruthers High School, Class of '17, which was the first four-year class graduated from that school.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were brought up Protestants-the former in the Baptist Church and the latter in the Presbyterian communion ; and now they
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are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Caruthers, the first church built there and which Mr. Sinclair helped to build, and of which he is a trustee. They were active in the Liberty Loans, and the work of the Red Cross, and Mrs. Sinclair was instrumental in getting the branch of the County Library at Caruthers. They built a beautiful residence on their home-place in 1912, and there they have dispensed a cordial hospitality. Mr. Sinclair is a stockholder in the Caruthers Cooperative Cheese Association, and has been active in educational matters. He worked hard to get the beautiful and commodious high school building, costing $30,000, erected in 1914 one of the best-appointed school buildings in the county. The manual training department is in the basement; and the other departments are on the first floor, in a brick and cement building, with an auditorium having a capacity of 500 people. The school board is: President, James C. Gallaher ; clerk, F. C. Bonyman; trustees, A. Beckman, John G. C. Sinclair and D. Clemens. Mr. Sinclair has also served on election boards and done jury duty.
AXEL W. SWARD .- California having early bidden high for the heroic pioneer, is rich in the number of such men and women whose lives read like romances because they themselves belong to the romantic; and prominent among these is Axel W. Sward, a retired merchant, landowner and banker of Kingsburg. Coming from an excellent Stockholm family that saw its ups and downs, Mr. Sward has reached by his own efforts and the cooperation of his wife, an enviable status socially, commercially and financially, among the men in Central California.
Born near Stockholm on July 29, 1864, Axel grew up in Sweden, where he attended the public schools. His father was Captain Peter August Sward, an esteemed officer of the Swedish Infantry, who died when the boy was only one and a half years old. The mother was thus left a widow with five children, among whom Axel was the youngest: so that her death when he had reached his fifth year, fell upon him more than the other children. He was therefore put out in a private family, and grew up to know what hard work meant. At the age of fourteen he was confirmed in the Lutheran Church, and soon after he struck out across the wide ocean to America.
All alone, he landed at New York City in 1877. and straightway pro- ceeded to Minneapolis, where he had a varied experience and suffered many hardships. It took every penny of his patrimony to buy his ticket to that point, and for four days he had practically nothing to eat on the train from the coast to Minneapolis. He stepped off the train at half past nine at night, and would certainly have been in the greatest of dilemmas; but a kind- hearted fellow-countryman took him to his home and taught him enough English to enable him to ask for work.
It was very hard, however, just at that time to get employment, and for four weeks he was unable to get a job, so that he became very down- hearted, but finally, Axel secured work in a saw mill at Minneapolis; and then, for the last two years that he was in that city, he ran a grocery business of his own.
At the end of seven years, however, he went to Kansas City, Mo., and bought a blacksmith and wagon shop which he conducted successfully for eighteen months; after which he moved to Omaha where, for a year, he worked as a carpenter and builder. Then he went to Phelps County, in the same state, and started for himself as a contractor and builder.
It was there that he met and married Miss Almeda Dahlstrom, a native of Phelps County and the daughter of John Dahlstrom who had married Mary Dahlstedt. This honored couple were among the first pioneer farmers of Phelps County, and so Axel Sward bought a farm there and prospered.
In 1906, unable longer to withstand the lure of California, he came to Kingsburg and entered the commercial field here. He became a mem-
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ber of the firm of Carlson & Sward, dealers in general merchandise; and three years later, when he sold out his share, he opened a boot and shoe store, putting in the most exclusive stock yet seen in this town.
Mr. Sward, who is a director in the Kingsburg Bank, owns forty of the choicest of Central California acres sixteen miles west of Kingsburg, and some very desirable lots in the city itself. He plotted the East Park Addition to Kingsburg, and he has sold nearly all of the lots there. He is generous-hearted and public-spirited, and always alert to advance any good cause. He gives his excellent wife, however, much of the credit for his advancement.
Mr. and Mrs. Sward, who are members of the Swedish Free Mission Church, still have three children, although three died in infancy. Harold is the subject of another sketch, and is well-known in merchant circles here; Marian is married to R. B. Denham, a farmer in Kings County ; and Ruby is in the grammar school. Mr. Sward was on the building committee of the church, four years ago, when the congregation erected a church edifice at a cost of eight thousand dollars.
NIELS HANSEN .- The life which this narrative sketches began in far-away Jylland, Denmark, June 1, 1867. Niels Hansen, a successful viti- culturist, whose well kept vineyard is located on Hayes Avenue, between Whites Bridge Road and Belmont Avenue, is a son of Jacob Hansen, a Danish farmer, and was reared on a farm in his native land and received a good education in the public school of his native place.
Filled with the desire to see more of the great world and to seek his fortune in the United States, where so many of his fellow countrymen had gained success, Niels Hansen sailed from his native land in 1892, destined for Weston, Pottawattamie County, Iowa. After his arrival in Iowa he was engaged to work on farms in the vicinity of Weston, and followed that line of endeavor until 1894, when he decided to continue his journey further west- ward, coming on as far as California and locating in Fresno County.
Soon after his arrival in Fresno County, Niels Hansen, together with his brother Hans, leased a ranch of 160 acres upon which they raised grain and grapes. The brothers continued the partnership for three years, when it was dissolved and Niels leased a vineyard and alfalfa ranch which he operated for three years. Being very industrious and enterprising, Mr. Hansen determined to quit paying rent and own a ranch himself, which plan was realized in 1899, when he purchased his present place consisting of forty acres situated on Hayes Avenue. He devotes it to vineyard, raising muscat and Thompson seedless grapes, with a border of figs. He has built a splendid residence and here he has been engaged in viticulture ever since.
In Fresno, on February 24, 1896, Niels Hansen was united in marriage with Emma Charlotte Christensen, a native of Hazel Dell, Iowa, and a daugh- ter of P. N. Christensen, the well known and successful viticulturist of the Madison district, a sketch of whose life will be found on another page of this volume. Mr. and Mrs. Niels Hansen are the happy parents of five chil- dren: Agnes, a graduate of a boarding school at Lodi and now attending Union Pacific College at St. Helena : Katie and Laura are attending the Fresno High School: Richard; and Eleanor. Mrs. Hansen is a member of the Adventist Church.
In national politics, Mr. Hansen is a Republican. He is a member of the California Peach Growers, Inc .. also a stockholder and member of the Cali- fornia Associated Raisin Company. Mr. Hansen possesses the happy faculty of making and retaining friends and is highly esteemed in his community for his uprightness of character and genial personality. He is interested in all worthy movements that have as their aim the upbuilding of Fresno County and especially of the community in which he has resided for so many years.
Niels Hansen
Emma Hansen.
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