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 26

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 26

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The Fresno land transaction referred to was such an important one from the historical standpoint, though overlooked by reviewers, as to merit more than simple mention. The bigness of the deal, the acreage involved and the amount of money covered by the trust deed, combined to make it such, aside from the influence it had in the development of county and city. The transaction is covered by a deed of August 4, 1868, from William S. Chapman to Clinton Gurnee recorded September 1, 1868, to centralize sales, followed by a deed of trust from Gurnee to Chapman, Edmund Jansen and Frederick Roeding for themselves and other purchasers, the magnitude of the transfer being evidenced by the fact that to this instrument war tax stamps of the value of $87.50 are attached. Chapman is described as having "entered the land described," and the consideration stated is $83,700. The total acreage covered by the trust deed to facilitate sales was 79,921 and the conveyances as to acreage:

Chapman 31,421, Jansen, Roeding, Isaac Friedlander 5,000 each ; Chris- tian H. Voigt, Charles Baum, William Scholle and George H. Eggers 2,500 each ; Edward Michelsen, Frederic Putzman, Henry Schmiedell, William Kroning, Rudolph, Hochkofler, Gottlieb Muecke, Francis Locan, Thomas Basse and Albert L. Wangenheim, 2,000 each; Henry Balzar, Frederick During and Charles Adler, 1,000 each.

Then there were individual deed transfers by Chapman. Later compli- cations arose when landowners began to sell among themselves or to others and subdivided their original acreage. In October, 1871, Gurnee deeded back to Chapman with covenant to pay all assessments due the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company, and Chapman made deed under date of February 28, 1873, to George Harris, bookkeeper for Francis Locan, for whom the Locan vineyard was named, and who was then a vineyardist in Napa

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

County. The new deeds for the land all around Fresno and beyond were made to the individuals by Harris and the "Harris title" is as familiar in . every title abstract office in the county as the A B C.

As the result of this transaction, a great tract of long neglected land came into various uses, in its development and improvement new blood was injected into the life pulse of the county, even though few of the large buyers became actual settlers on this land bought for $1.50 to $2.50 an acre. Still the changes in ownership and the improvement of the favored spots served to bring to public notice as no agency had before the so-called arid lands surrounding Fresno.

The eastern boundary of the township in which the city is embraced was surveyed by Alexis W. von Schmidt, and the other township lines by J. D. Jenkins in 1853, and the section lines in 1854 by James G. McDon- ald. Von Schmidt was a pioneer land surveyor and civil engineer. He was for several terms president of the Society of California Pioneers and the family became in later years Fresno County land owners. His greatest civil engineering achievement was the blowing up in San Francisco harbor of Blossom Rock, which in the main channel of navigation was such a menace that the government decided upon its removal, a successful piece of work that was made as much of at the time as the much later blowing up of Hell Gate in East River channel, New York City.

CHAPTER XXXII

IRRIGATION AND ITS GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT. M. J. CHURCH RE- MEMBERED AFTER HIS DEATH IN A BEQUEST. FIRST FARM DEMONSTRATIONS WITH WATER APPLIED. EASTERBY MAKES A SUCCESS OF WHEAT FARMING. CHURCH CHAMPIONS IRRIGATION AND DEVELOPS IT DESPITE THE MOST IMPLACABLE HOSTILITIES. HIS LIFE IS PLOTTED AGAINST. SYSTEMS OF THE COUNTY AND ITS WATER POSSIBILITIES. A MARVELOUS TRANSFORMATION COMES ABOUT IN THE FIRST DECADE. WATER IS NOWHERE CHEAPER OR MORE PLENTIFUL THAN IN THIS COUNTY.

"I give, devise, and bequeath to my executors in trust the sum of five hundred dollars ($500) ; with which such moneys I direct such executors to erect over the grave of my friend, M. J. Church, a suitable, substantial. square granite monument, with the inscription thereupon, 'From F. G. Berry, a friend who appreciated his worth.' I make this bequest for the reason only that I consider that of all other men who have wielded an in- fluence for Fresno County, which has been my home for so many years, my friend, M. J. Church, by the development of the present irrigation system deserves more than any other this recognition at my hands."

The quoted bequest is from the probated will of August 25, 1909, made by Fulton G. Berry, whom death summoned on April 9, 1910. The trust has been fulfilled. The monument is of Fresno granite from the mountain quarry above Academy. Church long preceded Berry to the grave. Both are interred here in Mountain View Cemetery.

The language of the bequest fairly states the claim for recognition due M. J. Church, popularly acclaimed to have been "the Father of Irrigation in Fresno County." It is not the purpose to detract in the slightest from the credit that is due him for his achievement! Truthful history must, however, record facts as they are. It is true that the life work of M. J. Church was rounded out in Fresno in all its amplitude ; that the result was startling in effect and that mankind was the beneficiary. But this is not to say that it was he that conceived the thought that irrigation would convert the arid

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

region into fertile fields, though he undoubtedly appreciated the fact after the more than satisfactory demonstrations. Nor was he the first irrigator, though he was the first to make a successful application of the idea on a scale more ambitious than an experiment. In the notable first demonstra- tions, he had the financial and moral cooperation and incitement of Easterby as shown in a previous chapter.

Thereafter and in consequence, he became the foremost champion of irrigation, and through his efforts as the executive head and front of the movement he developed what is the present irrigation system. In the long and exasperating conflict, he was beset by obstacles that would have driven the ordinary mortal from the field disgusted and vanquished by the unap- preciativeness of his fellow men. Having aroused the implacable animosity of the alarmed stockmen by reason of his leadership in the No-fence law agitation and application of the theory of irrigation in connection with grain farming, he literally carried his life in his hands in the work. Three plots against it were confessed to him in warning, and yet he persisted, and bore as a martyr with set and unbending purpose

the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes."

The previous chapter has treated of the Easterby-Church-McBride grain growing experiment in the Millerton foothills in 1869-70. The next experi- ment was in 1871-72 with Easterby as the irrigation projector and Church as the active coadjutor and later developer of it. Two thousand acres of the rancho were sown to wheat. Easterby engaged for the venture Charles M. Lohse, an experienced farmer from Concord in Contra Costa County. Be- fore his coming, Church and son had by September, 1871, flooded three sec- tions with aid of two ditches, Church having been engaged at $100 a month to superintend the getting of water. By February, 1872, the wheat was all in, in May the land was fenced, and in August and September 20,000 sacks of wheat were shipped as the crop.

FIRST EFFORTS AT IRRIGATION

Irrigation had made a start even before this venture was conceived. In October, 1871, Easterby bought for $1,800 the Sweem mill ditch at Center- ville, newly started but about to be sold under an attachment for debt. It was then that Church was engaged to run the water to the ranch and used the bed of Fancher Creek as the part channel medium. J. B. Sweem had recorded notice in August, 1869, of his water diversion from the Kings just below the existing Centerville Canal.

In the summer of 1866 Anderson Akers and S. S. Hyde had a four-foot wide and two-foot deep ditch taking water from the river below William Hazelton's farm to theirs on the west side of the river, and they continued its use for two years when they sold the water right to the Centerville Canal and Irrigation Company. The latter was in existence under an in- corporation of August 9, 1868, and by a twenty-four-foot widened and four- foot deepened ditch ran considerable water to the farms about Centerville. Church recorded intention in July, 1870, to appropriate 3,000 feet of water, but to convey it to the ranch the Centerville ditch had to be crossed. The owners objected and so Easterby was constrained to buy it in May, 1871, and thus the water was secured from the Kings.

To Lohse is due the credit of being the first large grain grower, not alone in the county but in the valley, and his success with wheat stimulated the entire region. The long anticipated railroad was in Fresno by April 19,

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1872, and others followed Easterby's example notably Frank Easterby, An- tonio Day, George Boggs, Robert Brownlee and presumably others. Easter- by pioneered also with cotton and shipped two bales to Manchester. The high cost of labor for picking made the venture prohibitive. Rice, ramie and flax did well. Tobacco was grown and being made into cigars in San Francisco he was offered a dollar a pound for his Havana leaf. The success with wheat suggested a larger appropriation of water for enlarged activities, and Chambers' Slough was chosen as the most available and accessible channel.

Appropriation notice was nailed on a tree and a copy filed with the county clerk on May 16, 1872. Contract followed for a headgate excavation below the river level to avoid the necessity of a dam, and the channel cutting and clearing of it of boulders between gate and river was completed in the fall. In 1873 he further contracted with farmers at Kingsburg to excavate a mile cut below Chambers' headgate, the consideration being twenty-four cubic feet of water delivered at Lone Tree channel, the farmers digging their own two ditch branches towards Kingsburg. Conveyance was made in 1874, and the main canal was meanwhile enlarged and by 1876 extended through Easterby rancho and west through Central Colony to land in T. 15 S., R. 19 E.

Thus much for the first efforts at irrigation on any scale. The Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company, whose maingate was completed in 1872 and parent organization of the present system, was organized by M. J. Church with Easterby, F. Roeding and W. S. Chapman as associates. No one man has contributed a more important or integral chapter to the industrial his- tory of the county than has M. J. Church, or as the bequest stated wielded a greater beneficial influence for the county than he. He cannot be robbed of this due.

It was in 1868 that he came to Fresno with a thirteen-year-old son from Napa and a band of 2,000 sheep in search of pasturage, after selling out his business as a wheelwright and farrier. He located here on government land, three miles northeast of Centerville, intending to make a home, and in preparation erected cabin and corral. At once the stockmen began to harry him. Hostile demonstration preceded denunciation as a trespasser with warning to move off. The moving spirit in this inhospitable reception was one "Yank" Hazelton. Upon a second demonstration with accompanying covert threats, he was given a definite time when to make his departure, and in his absence to accelerate his leave taking cabin and corral were torn down, the horses turned loose after having had the hobbles removed and the winter's supply of provisions and the wheat seed eaten up by a driven in band of hogs. One month later, he took up with Easterby in the history accelerating demonstration of the necessity of irrigation to produce the fullest crops.

The subject of irrigation now fully possessed him. He made survey and ascertained that by connecting the dry channel of Fancher Creek with the Kings about 1,000 feet of water could be conveyed on the plains sixteen miles to Easterby's located four sections. He secured appointment as a deputy land agent to locate settlers as well for neighbors as protectors against the cattlemen, recruiting among friends and acquaintances over 200 such settlers. Selling his sheep, he gave himself up wholly to his newly found task and prosecuted the work of channel digging with the contracted for labor aid of the new comers. All along the line of the canal and of Fancher Creek wheat crops were put in, this alternating canal and field work arous- ing only the more the hostility and ire of the stockmen, who drove in their herds at night to eat up the young wheat and so dishearten the settlers and force them to pack up and leave.

Easterby and Church were personally assaulted at Centerville by William Caldwell to bring on a conflict or show of arms as a pretext for

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a shooting in self defense and thus end the irritating twin irrigation and set- tlement projects. The insults were borne with, but a money and water right compromise of the disputed right of way was arranged by Easterby. Work on the canal progressed with two feeders out of the river, joining about a mile and a half on the plains, the canal 100 feet wide and six deep to Fancher Creek. The demonstration of the value of the plains soil when irrigation was applied proved successful.

The No-fence law agitation was on now. The farmers were powerless as yet because outnumbered at the polls. They put in a second crop and trouble was experienced with the headgates of the feeders of the canal. A large opening into the river was made at another point, but of same size as the canal with a dam across the stream, and a strong headgate and supply ditches were opened from the main canal.

CHURCH'S LIFE PLOTTED AGAINST

Consternation had seized the men of cattle and sheep. The railroad was taking practical shape and upon Church fell all the animosity for his activity in fostering irrigation and wheat farming, the herding legislation and the projected railroad. Three plots to take his life were divulged to him by two members of the conspiracy, neither knowing of the other's confession. Their story agreed that William Glenn of Centerville was to shoot him down in Jacob's store after spitting tobacco juice into his eye in provocation. Church having been forewarned evaded by a stratagem a meeting with Glenn. On another occasion sand was flung into his face, a blow on nose and in face drew blood and he was viciously kicked at to hasten his exit from the store, followed by Dutch-couraged armed ruffians but escaped to the head- gate camp for the protection of the laboring men who took up arms to repel any assault.

Experiences such as these marked the progress of the development of irrigation, but it had no deterring effect on the man, nor on the settling of the country under the impulse of the No-fence law, the coming of the iron horse and the extension of the branch canals to the new farms. By the year 1876, M. J. Church had also for himself developed a valuable property and secured a competency. Riparian right claimants harassed him sorely with suits, asserting first right to the water for stock, and he defended more than 200 such actions. He was quoted as saying that "the cost of defending these numerous trumped up suits has by far exceeded the entire expense of constructing all the canals." During this long continued legal warfare, the work on the main and lateral canals and the distributing ditches did not cease. One thousand miles was their aggregate length, when in 1886 sale was made of a controlling interest in the canal property to Dr. E. B. Perrin with whom were associated the seller, Robert Perrin, T. De Witt Cuyler and W. H. Ingels. In the end, the property passed into the hands of British capital which is now in ownership.

Church, very naturally, became largely interested in land operations. In 1875 he placed on the market the Church Colony of a full section; in 1883 he took over the Bank of California tract of eleven sections, irrigated, sub- divided and sold off in small farms; the Houghton tract, also of eleven sec- tions, in which he had a third interest was also brought under irrigation ; likewise Fresno Colony for which he received a half interest. Besides; he erected in 1878 and conducted for five years the Champion grist mill at N and Fresno Streets, an enterprise that in later years was enlarged and is now one in the chain of Sperry's flour mills. He it was that fostered the organization of the Adventists' Church, donating land and making deed of gift of the auditorium building. He also made donation of five acres for a public cemetery, making it possible for every church and lodge that chose to provide itself with a burial plot. Politically, he was one of the handful

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that organized the first Republican County Committee, and he was the first delegate sent from this county to a state Republican convention.

As regards his irrigation work, it may be said that the system in prac- tice here is substantially the same in detail as his pioneer plan and that his ideas have been followed in the other large similar undertakings of later date. Never but once did he have to pay for right of way, and that was through 160 acres when he first tapped the Kings. Even in that bit of sharp practice, he evaded in large part by condemnation proceedings.

The channel of the San Joaquin is at places from seventy-five to 200 feet below the level of the flanking rolling lands, hence making it more diffi- cult to draw water from it for irrigation. The Kings rises as high in the Sierras, drains a great area in its passage to the plains, is not navigable and has no tributaries. Its drainage area is 1,855 square miles. Its general course is in a southwest direction with few abrupt turns. From foothills to Tulare Lake, sixty-two miles, it has as a perennial tributary Wahtoke Creek only. As with all Sierra headed streams, it has two annual high water periods. The first, usually in December and continuing through January, is caused by the winter rains. The other begins late in May after the rains, and con- tinues through June and part of July, caused by the melting of the snow and is of longer duration than the winter rise. After this the stream falls to the low water stage. The time when water is in greatest demand is for- tunately during the high water periods. The estimate has been made that the Kings pours into the valley from January to July sufficient water to irrigate more than a million acres.

The largest part of the irrigated land of the state lies in the southern portion of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valleys and in the northern section of California. In twenty-four of the fifty-eight counties of the state more than one-half of the farms are irrigated. Imperial leads with ninety- four and six-tenths percent. of farms irrigated, and Inyo comes next with ninety-three and two-tenths. In 1900 and 1910 Fresno reported the largest irrigated area, 283,737 and 402,318 respectively. Tulare irrigated 265,404 acres in 1910 and five other counties each exceeded 100,000. Existing enter- prises in 1910 were preparing to supply water to irrigate 3,619,378 acres, or 955,274 more than were watered the year before. The acreage included in projects exceeded by 2,826,256 acres the 1909 irrigated acreage, or more than twice the acreage brought under water in the decade.

IRRIGATION ENTERPRISES

California irrigation enterprises-federal and state-cover 2,664,104 acres-the public districts 173,793, the cooperative 770,020, the commercial 746,265 and the individual or partnership 961,136. In California, wells sup- ply much more land with water than in any other state. Of the total 2,664,104 acres irrigated 350,723 were from wells-2,361 flowing wells irri- gating 74,218 acres. The majority of these are in southern California and in the San Joaquin Valley. The 10,724 wells irrigated 276,505 acres in two groups of counties. The cost of irrigation enterprises, including only con- struction of works and acquisition of rights, is reported to have been :

Year. 1900

Total. $19,181,610

1910

72,580,030

Acre Average. 13.27 20.05

Of the irrigated orchard fruits, Fresno has 31.9 percent. of the irrigated crop acreage of the state, and of grapes 62.6. Of the total irrigated acreage of fruit trees and vines not bearing in 1909 (50,031), Fresno had 36.1 percent. The state had 88,197 farms in 1910 against 72,542 in 1900; irrigated 39,352 as against 25,675 ; respective percentage increases 21.6 and 53.3.

The only irrigation district in the county operating under the Wright act of 1887 (amended in 1897) is the Alta of Reedley and operating in Fresno,

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Tulare and Kings Counties. The district covers 130,000 acres extending from the east and south bank of the Kings to the Sierra foothills. It was organ- ized in July, 1888, and the 1876 canal system was bought to supply the water. It did not have an early right on the Kings. Water is cut off annually in July, but is turned on again in October and November by agreement with the earlier appropriators. About 80,000 acres are irrigated, principally around Reedley and Dinuba. Of commercial systems there are three. The Fresno and Consolidated, are two, which though kept separate are operated by the same investors. They cover practically all the irrigated lands in the county. Their points of diversion are on the west bank of the Kings and close to where it enters upon the plains. The Consolidated includes the Fowler Switch, and Centerville and Kingsburg Canals, besides a majority of the Emigrant Canal, the latter diverting on the lower Kings, six miles west of Kingsburg, to irrigate Laguna de Tache rancho lands, and all Brit- ish capitalized enterprises. The Consolidated has later priorities on the river with flow cut off for a time in August so that its rights are not as valuable as the Fresno's. For maintenance of canals, the Fresno makes an annual charge of sixty-two and one-half cents and the Consolidated of seventy-five cents per acre. No measurements are made to users, but each irrigator takes what he needs according to the water rights held. Considering its area, the district is the most highly developed in the state.

The San Joaquin and Kings River Canal and Irrigation Company diverts from the west bank of the San Joaquin, north of the town of Mendota. It is the oldest canal in the county, organized in February, 1871. The country tributary to it extends for seventy miles along the west bank of the stream in Fresno, Merced and Stanislaus Counties. Miller & Lux, who are the owners, have riparian rights on the river, and their own lands are largely included in the system. About 340,000 acres are irrigable from this system, though only about one-third is served, of which 40,000 are in private owner- ship, purchasing water from the company. No water rights are sold. The lands under this system include a large area of swamp and overflow.

Central California has 9,665.000 acres in irrigation zones fit for agricul- ture, 1,959,000 irrigated and 4,300,000 ultimately to be. The San Joaquin Valley has 6,530,000 acres of agricultural land, 1,046,000 of them plains and 1,728.975 irrigated. Fresno County had at the last census 6,245 farms (ex- ceeded by only one other California county), 5,310 irrigated (no other county had so many), 402,318 acres irrigated, 560,326 susceptible of irriga- tion and 633,652 embraced in projects. Cost of enterprises up to July, 1910, was $1,898,460: average acre cost of capable irrigation $3.39. Main ditches numbered 254 of 831 miles; laterals 688 of 1,354 miles; three flowing and 855 pumped wells.

Water users in the Fresno district of the irrigation zone pay less than in any other district in the state-five dollars for water right location and in most cases sixty-two and one-half cents for water delivery per acre. In this district there are approximately 242,000 acres and 202,000 under water rights. The irrigation companies have 258 miles of canals and their prop- erty valuations including water rights are placed at $4,805,382 on which an option of $1,500,000 was offered on its valuation appraisement, in a tentative popular district project to take over the consolidated system on expiration of the franchise. The franchise of the principal company will expire by limi- tation in 1925 and looking to the future a great project is under way, known as the Pine Flat reservoir, the magnitude of which rivals the Roosevelt dam. It involves a $9,000,000 reservoir located on the Kings River with the dam twenty-five miles from the city. The horseshoe wall 300 feet high, making an impounded body of water 600,000-acre feet in all, fourteen miles long and averaging one-half to two miles in width.

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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 26

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