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 21

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 21

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).

General Johnston had sent on his resignation before Sumner's arrival and with his relief severed forever connection with the United States Army. His resignation was withheld from the newspapers until after he had been relieved to guard against any ill effect that his act might have upon others and he declared that so long as he held a commission he would to the last extremity maintain the authority of the government. "If I had proved faith- less here," said he, "how could my own people ever trust me?" Johnston was ordered to report at Washington for active service; he was advised by letter that he enjoyed the confidence of the secretary of war; and when President Lincoln learned the facts he executed a major general's commis- sion for Johnston but the latter having already started for Texas the com- mission was canceled. Johnston accepted a general's commission in the Confederate army and was killed while in command at Shiloh. When in- formed that a plot existed to seize Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay he caused several thousand muskets to be removed from Benicia arsenal to the island where they would be less exposed and informed the governor that they could be used by the militia to suppress insurrection if necessary. His integrity was so universally recognized that he was not approached on the subject of a Pacific Republic favored by many in the event of a disso- lution of the Union.

The first call for troops from California was in a telegram at eight- thirty P. M., July 24, 1861, to farthest point west and thence by pony express to California, accepting for three years a regiment of infantry and five cavalry companies to guard the overland mail route from Carson Valley to Salt Lake and Fort Laramie. The First California Infantry of ten companies

147

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

and the first battalion of five companies of the First California Cavalry were raised. In 1863 seven more cavalry companies were raised, making a full regiment. August 14, 1861, a telegram to Fort Kearney and thence by pony express and telegraph came as the second call. It was for four regiments of infantry and one of cavalry. The Second Cavalry and the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth regiments of infantry were mustered in.

There were at this time and later many evidences in this state and adjacent territories of sympathy with the rebellion and there was a feeling that "California is on the eve of a revolution." The Confederate govern- ment had entertained hopes in the earlier period of the struggle to secure New Mexico and Arizona and thus if possible gain foothold in California to obtain supplies, horses and money. A large force did come through Texas, captured New Mexico and advanced almost to the Colorado River. A party of seventeen organized in California by one Dan Showalter was surprised near Warner's Ranch on the border of the desert between that place and Fort Yuma, Ariz., by First California Cavalry and Infantry de- tachments. It was loaded down with arms and ammunition, armed with re- peating rifles and from dispatches intercepted and also found on their per- sons it was discovered that several of the party were commissioned as officers in the Confederate service. The entire party was confined as pris- oners of war at Fort Yuma until exchanged.

At this time it was considered that "there is more danger of disaffection at Los Angeles than at any other place in the state," and troops were trans- ferred there from Forts Mojave and Tejon. Insurgents were also designing to seize upon the province of Lower California as a preparatory step to acquiring a portion or the whole of Mexico and having possession cut off American commerce, seize the Panama steamers and with the aid of the treasure extend the conquest to Sonora and Chihuahua at least. With the check at Los Angeles, the Secessionists became active in Nevada territory then without a civil government and the country "a place of refuge for disorganizers and other unruly spirits." It was a time for vigilance on every hand save in Oregon where there was no secession element.

When the first call for troops came it was understood that they would be used to guard the overland mail route via Salt Lake. But it was after- ward decided to use them for an invasion of Texas by way of Sonora and Chihuahua, landing at Mazatlan or Guaymas in Sonora, permission having been granted by the governors of those Mexican states and by the Mexican government. General Sumner was assigned to the command and the expedi- tion troops were selected. This proposition to send California troops out of the state created intense excitement and feeling and in response to an earnest appeal the secretary of war countermanded the order. The protest was by sixty-five business men and firms of San Francisco dated August 28. 1861, and it stated among other things that their advices "obtained with great prudence and care" show "that there are upwards of 16,000 Knights of the Golden Circle in the state and that they are still organizing even in the most loyal districts." The protest had its effect.

It is not the intention to follow the movements of the California troops during the war further than to emphasize that there was danger from the Secessionist movement on the Coast. The Texas invasion having been abandoned, General Sumner was ordered East and was relieved by General Wright. The California troops were stationed at various places throughout the state. The regulars with the exception of the Ninth Infantry and four companies of the Third Artillery were ordered East. At this time (Novem- ber. 1861) there were in the department a force of 200 officers and 5,082 enlisted men. Then followed the organization of the California Column that recaptured New Mexico which at that time comprised territory within the present limits of Arizona. The column proceeded as far as Texas and the

148

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Rio Grande, driving the Confederates before it, a military achievement re- ported to have been creditable to the soldiers of the American army, the march of the column from California across the Great Desert having been in the summer months in the driest season that had been known for thirty years.

California and the Pacific Coast states and territories remained loyal to the Union. The secession movement was after all mere propaganda as the sequel proved.

TIMES OF MILLERTON

Fresno went along for nearly nine years after county organization before it had a home paper in the Times, whose first published number ap- peared on Saturday January 28, 1865. It was delayed two weeks in coming out. It issued ten weekly numbers and its last was on April 5, 1865. The lack of a paper was not that there was dearth of news, but that the time was not ripe for one, primitive and apologetic as were the "cow-county" publications of the day, hazardous financial undertakings at best, and ever remembering Millerton's isolation and as yet comparative sparse population. Ira McCray was the financial sponsor of the Times. His own affairs were not flourishing. The Times was published in a shanty on the river bank, opposite McCray's Hotel and poorly equipped.

In the 50's and early 60's, the Millertonites had the Mariposa Gazette for county official organ (merged with the Free Press in 1871, as a Demo- cratic paper) and others that had a local circulation were the weekly Vi- salia Delta (a pioneer of October, 1859), and the Argus of Snelling, Merced. In vogue among the miners was the Sacramento Union (now the Record- Union and oldest continuously published newspaper in the state), and from San Francisco the pioneer Alta California and the Bulletin, both boosted into prominence by the Vigilance Committee of 1856, and during and after the war the original Examiner as an evening paper concerning whose true blue Democracy there was not the shadow of a doubt and whose editorial declarations were accepted as articles of faith. In 1856, when Fresno had its birth, there were in the state 116 publications classified as follows: Dai- lies twenty-five, weeklies seventy, steamer day or semi-weeklies sixteen, monthlies four, quarterly one. Politically twenty-three were Democratic, nine American, eight Republican for that party was in the gestation and thirty-three independent; seven were in languages other than English; and thirty-two in San Francisco, seven at Sacramento, five at Marysville and three at Stockton as the commercial and population centers. In fourteen counties there was no paper issued.

The Millerton Times' delayed first issue was brought out with the vol- unteer aid of citizens and the soldiers at the fort to run the Washington hand press. The plant was that of the defunct Tulare Post of Visalia. The editor of the Times was Samuel J. Garrison, also of Visalia, who died three or four years ago, and who was a bitter, uncompromising, fire-eating Secessionist. He was a son-in-law of T. O. Ellis, who was for three terms county school superintendent of Fresno and who asserted that the blood of Princess Pocahontas coursed in his veins. Before coming to Fresno, Garrison was the junior of Hall & Garrison, who in September, 1862, at Visalia, began the publication of the Equal Rights Expositor. It raved so loud and persistently in seditious, treasonable and personal utterances that on a certain March evening in 1863 a long suffering populace sacked the printery and flung the type out of the window into the street. The immediate provocation for the outbreak was an article headed, "California Cossacks." This at Visalia, a stronghold of Southern sympathizers, with a camp of

149

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

federal soldiers on the outskirts of town, sent as at Millerton to curb any threatened or proposed demonstration.

There is in existence only one known file of the ten issues of the Times. It was the one preserved by William Faymonville while county clerk, pre- sented by him to J. W. Ferguson and being bound with the first volume of fifty-two weeklies of the Expositor came after his death into the possession of Edward Schwarz, bibliophile and curiosity collector. He made gift of the first number, protected in glass frame, to the late Dr. Rowell, the founder of the Republican. The Times was a little six-column folio publication and unique, aside from the fact that it was the pioneer journal in the county and six weeks in the travail of birth. Neat and clean in typography, the Expositor was so similar in size and make-up that there was little to distinguish them, save in the first page headlines. During its brief career, the Times flatly repudiated the Democratic party wing in power in the state, asserting that "the party claiming to be Democratic is a_sham," with "no fixed principles," lacking "the courage to defend the past nor the sense to grasp the future," etc., and that "no great party will submit to the lead- ership of such men as Mcclellan, Seymour, Weller, Bigler," etc. As a curiosity the file repays examination. In course of time the printing plant was hauled back to Visalia.

FRESNO WEEKLY EXPOSITOR

An interval of five years elapsed before the second journalistic venture at Millerton on April 27, 1870, in the Weekly Expositor, published on Wednesdays by Peters & Company and launched with the coming of J. W. Ferguson, a California pioneer of August, 1849, from Yuba City, J. H. Peters retiring in November, 1871; then by Ferguson & Heaton until purchase of the latter's interest in October, 1873, C. A. Heaton going into the real estate and agency business at Millerton.

The Expositor's birth was in humble surroundings, and its first issue, 200 copies, was worked off on a Washington hand-press. The printing ma- terial was hauled from Stockton for a supposed rate of two cents a pound. The bill was seven cents and the plant was mortgaged to meet charges to Chicard & Company, who took part pay in advertising. Being notified to secure other quarters within three days, the Expositor was installed in a stable. Eight months were passed there, with the journalists cooking in the printery on a second-hand stove, because business would not justify boarding at a hotel. A carpenter shop was the next locale.

The Expositor moved with the town to Fresno and on April 22, 1874, was the first paper issued in the future Raisin City, in a building, the lum- ber of which was brought from Millerton. It was located on the site of the Fresno National Bank, and now by the Bank of Italy's skyscraper. In 1881 the paper moved to a location midway in the block on J Street, the first daily was issued on April 3, 1882, followed by several enlargements, the erection of a $12,000 two-story brick building, with other enlargements up to January, 1890.

The Ferguson residence was on the bank corner in which depression an orange grove was planted, later removed and now surrounding the Ferguson Mansard roof residence at J and San Benito, in its day one of the most pre- tentious city residences and long a notable landmark.

The Expositor ceased publication during the Spanish-American War. It had lost prestige in its last years with ownership changes as the personal organ of ambitious political aspirants, dying slowly from inanition and neg- lect after losing the patronage and support of its own party following one of the many divisions and quarrels in its ranks. For years it did "a land office business" in a most lucrative field, with practically no opposition. A sensa-

150

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

tional episode connected with its long career was the alleged assassination of Louis B. McWhirter, a Democrat of the Bourbonistic school, who after disposing of his part interest in the daily Democrat in August, 1888, became editor of the Expositor and was a leader in party reform politics in the early 90's.

The first trial before the late Judge Holmes of Richard Heath for the killing, on August 29, 1892, was one of the celebrated cases in the county, the evidence supporting the assassination theory being largely circumstantial. The claim was set up on the trial that McWhirter had committed suicide-one of several constructive defense pleas.

Heath was indicted in March, 1893, with Fred W. Polley, a carpet layer, by a grand jury of which the late ex-Judge Hart was foreman. The June trial lasted thirty-two days ending in disagreement. The jury stood eleven for conviction and one for acquittal-Juror J. H. Lane who made declaration that firearms were coercively exhibited in the jury room. Change of venue was denied and the thirty days' second Fresno trial in March, 1894, before Judge Lucien Shaw of Tulare, also ended in a disagreement. Change of venue was granted to Los Angeles County, but the case never again came up. The Polley indictment was dismissed in October, 1893, and Heath died later in Alaska in the Klondike gold fields.

FRESNO REPUBLICAN

In March, 1875, Heaton mentioned before, issued the weekly Review. It lived only a few weeks, followed on September 23, 1876, by the Fresno Republican as a weekly, established by the late Dr. Chester Rowell with whom were associated representative citizens, Republican in politics, popu- larly called "The One Hundred," and the founders of the party in the county. The first issue of 750 copies created a stir, herald as it was of the party that was to combat Democracy in its stronghold.

After the presidential election that year, it was $900 in debt, with prac- tically no subscription list and only limited advertising patronage. Dr. Rowell assumed personal management and all obligations. He kept it alive by fre- quently meeting its labor hire demands, for the struggle was a hard one calling for frequent sacrifices to make deficiencies good. The conduct of the paper gave him, however, the popular confidence and respect, that in 1879, elected him a state senator from a strong Democratic district.

In April, 1879, sale was made to S. A. Miller, stipulating that its politics and name should never be changed, nor its policies as regards public mat- ters and never to amalgamate with its rival Expositor for business or poli- tics. Under Miller the paper prospered. John W. Short from Nebraska be- came associated with the paper in May, 1881, for four years, and with J. W. Shanklin as partner they bought a half interest and on October 1, 1887, established the morning daily and met with success. A sale followed in May, 1890, to T. C. Judkins, whose regime lasted about one year with many improvements. Financial obligations undertaken were so great and pressing that Dr. Rowell came again to the rescue and the incorporated Fresno Re- publican Publishing Company took charge with a clean slate and has con- tinued ever since. After being in various locales, the Republican was located under Short & Shanklin in the Grand Central Hotel annex, then in the Edg- erly block, and in a brick structure in rear on J Street, and in 1903 moved into its present commodious home opposite the postoffice.

The directors are: Chester H. Rowell (president, editor and general manager), John W. Short, Milo F. Rowell, F. K. Prescott and William Glass (secretary and business manager). The personnel is practically that of the incorporators, Milo F. succeeding the late Dr. Rowell in the board and the nephew, Chester H., to the presidency, when before he was vice-president. The Republican has a splendid plant, and while it is the paper of the San Joaquin Valley it is ranked also as one of the foremost journals in the state.

151

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

OTHER NEWSPAPERS

Fresno has been a veritable newspaper graveyard. The list of dead ones is a formidable one. The Republican is the one conspicuous success and the survivor of all. W. S. Moore of Franklin, Ky., began in March, 1883, the publication of the weekly Democrat, issued as a daily in 1886, discontinued and revived in November, 1887, as the Weekly Inquirer issued in March, 1889, consolidated in February, 1891, with the three-year-old weekly Budget as the weekly Central Californian in espousal of the Farmer's Alliance cause.

Another daily, the Evening Democrat, was launched in 1898 in con- solidation in September, with the weekly Keystone and in August, 1899, with the weekly Watchman, prospered for a time but went by the board be- fore a decade closed over it with confessed liabilities of over $50,000. It was under four or five different managements afterward, including the Calk- ins Syndicate in the defense cause of "the Higher Ups" in the San Fran- cisco graft prosecution, and finally became what is the Fresno Evening Her- ald of today.

It is published by two enterprising young newspaper men from Mich- igan, George A. Osborn and Chase S. Osborn Jr., who have made a manful and successful struggle to live down the evil reputation of the paper by reason of its numerous proprietorship, policy and political changes and have established it on a firm and certain basis in its own home at Kern and L Streets. It is the second largest newspaper in the valley. Democratic strong- hold that Fresno was once, as a county, it has for years not had a party organ.

Before the county lost the territory north of the San Joaquin River, there was the Madera Mercury in 1890 by E. E. Vincent, also John McClure's County Review, both weeklies then. Selma's Irrigator first issued in 1886 as a weekly and as a daily in 1888 by W. L. Chappell and W. T. Lyon is still in existence as a semi-weekly under J. J. Vanderburgh. The Enterprise dates from 1888. Sanger has a breezy little Herald that saw the light of day in May, 1889, under E. P. Dewey and does to this day. Reedley has the Ex- ponent started by A. S. Jones of Mandan, N. D., in March, 1891, and still publishing. Fowler in the Ensign, Kingsburg in the Recorder, Clovis in the Tribune, Kerman and Raisin City have their local publications. Coalinga has the Oil Record (Shaw Bros.) as the survivor of a batch of ventures that marked the oil development period. Fresno has a freelance in R. M. Mappes' Sunday Mirror that has passed the fortieth semi-annual volume mile-stone.

CHAPTER XXVI

COUNTY SEAT REMOVAL IN 1874. BIG DEFALCATION IS DISCOVERED IN THE TREASURY. "FRESNO STATION" IS STAKED OUT IN MAY, 1872, IN A MOST FORLORN SPOT ON THE PLAINS. MILLERTON DESERTED AS RATS LEAVE A SINKING SHIP. FIRST RAILROAD PASSENGER TRAIN SCHEDULE OF 1873. DEPARTURE FROM ORIGINAL PLAN IN LAYING OUT THE NEW TOWN. COURT- HOUSE CORNER STONE LAYING A GENERAL FESTIVAL DAY. FRESNO TAKES ON CITY WAYS. VISIT OF FIRST CIRCUS TO COUNTY IN 1874. 1895 FIRE IN THE ENLARGED COURTHOUSE.

Throbbing with sensations and promises of great changes in the future for the Millertonian, was the year 1874. The new railroad town-in embryo -first called "Fresno Station," won hands down at the county seat removal special election. Historic Millerton, the mining village, was officially aban- doned by September 25 for the first meeting of the supervisors in the new county seat on October 5. General dismantling of houses for the

152

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

lumber and timbers kept the villagers busy while bewailing fate. The senti- ment to abandon the place was almost unanimous. Its desertion has been likened unto that of rats leaving a sinking ship. Contemporaneous with the petition for seat removal election was the discovery of a defalcation in the treasurer's office, the largest in the history of the county, followed by a smaller one in the office of the district attorney, S. B. Allison for $882.41, less $250 due for the closing quarter of the year.

"Fresno Station" had been surveyed and staked out in May, 1872, as a townsite on the barren sand plain in lots 50x150 with intersecting alleys between streets by the Contract and Finance Company, a subsidiary of the Central Pacific Railroad building the Southern Pacific line. The latter had not vet reached the site in the sink of Dry Creek. Water was no nearer than the San Joaquin, ten miles away, no settlement of any kind, not a shack. Nothing there but a vast prospect. It was a most forlorn looking spot. None but an optimist would ever be tempted to locate there.

The old-timer relates that there was not a drop of water to be had on the journey from the settlements on the Kings to Millerton-from river to river-and of course none plainwards towards the new town which was not on the traveled way ; that not a human habitation was passed en route ; so desolate was the plain that one could journey twenty miles or more in any direction without so much as finding a brush large enough to cut a horse switch; and so level and unobstructed that long in after years on a bright day the courthouse dome could be discerned by the wagon traveller as far as Centerville, fifteen to twenty miles away.

By September. 1872, a postoffice was established at Fresno with Rus- sell H. Fleming, the stagedriver and liveryman as postmaster. Before that the mail was brought sixteen miles. By November, there were four hotels and eating houses, three saloons and as many livery stables and two stores, besides one or two living shacks, the railroad employes living in tents. By July, 1874, there were fifty-five buildings in the town-twenty-nine business and twenty-six dwelling houses. There were optimists in the land.

The petition for the seat removal election was presented February 12, 1874, signed as required by a number equal to one-third of the qualified electors at the last previously held election. The supervisors had no dis- cretion on such a request in legal form and granting it set the election for March 23. Millerton's doom was pronounced on that Monday. Three days after the Expositor exultingly flared out with the following scarehead an- nouncement :

THE COUNTY SEAT ELECTION !

FRESNO WINS THE VICTORY!

OLD FOGYISM PLAYED OUT OUR COUNTY HAS IMPROVED HER OPPORTUNITY

HER FREEMEN SPEAK

THORN ELECTED TREASURER

A DAILY MAIL, TELEGRAPHIC AND RAILROAD COMMUNICATION

VOTE OF THE PRECINCTS AS FAR AS RECEIVED

153

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

The vote was:

Fresno

417

Lisbon

124

Centerville 123

Millerton

Total

757

Out of sixty-six votes cast at Millerton precinct, thirty-nine were for Fresno. Fresno cast 112 in all, 111 for herself, Centerville 101 for herself and the largest other precinct vote was Kingston's sixty for Fresno. It was the participation in the election of the railroad hands that carried the day. The sec- tion boss was kept busy hustling voters to the polling place, and as an induce- ment to vote for Fresno tradition has it that whiskey was carried in bucket and ladled out in tin cup. But the Expositor's "freemen" dealt the solar plexus blow and the "old fogyism played out."

It is not to say that the site contestants offered at the time accommoda- tions or inducements superior to or even equal to those at Millerton, save Fresno in location on the railroad and central as to the county, and in mag- nificent prospects-in the hazy future. There had been more site offers but with withdrawals before election day the contest was reduced to four.

Alfred Baird had offered forty acres of his Poverty Rancho, town blocks to be each one acre and stipulating among other things to reserve two blocks for a graveyard. Chairman Henry C. Daulton of the supervisors had offered 1,000 acres of his farm, if gift of land was the consideration in selecting town location. Fresno City citizens published notice that they "will run this place for the county seat." and "ample ground will be donated for all public build- ings." A "place" to be called "Lisbon" in S. 22, T. 12 S., R. 21 E., with thirty acres donated to the county, was also "run," and Centerville offered "all necessary lots for county buildings" over the announcement of Mrs. Paulina Caldwell. One argument advanced was that, if removal be had, it should be to a locality which would "never need moving again," an impression prevail- ing that the county would be divided by the next legislature and that the northern boundary of the southern county would be the San Joaquin. That division came, but nineteen years later.

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 21

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