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 38

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 38

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According to the will the distribution was in equal shares to the widow and only daughter, Miss Helen C. Lillis, who is cashier in the First National Bank at Hanford. The distribution was as to land:

In Fresno County-41,966.82 acres of grazing land ;

Twenty percent. interest in 4,937.97 acres.

Half interest in another block of 15,946.47 acres.

In Kings County an interest in 3,831.31 acres.

In San Benito County 480 acres.

Total-67,162.57 acres.

William L. Apperson

William L. Apperson, who had passed the ken of all when he died at the age of ninety-three at the home of daughter, Mrs. Edward Miles, of near Reedley January 31, 1917, arrived at Sacramento, Cal., by ox team in September after leaving St. Louis, Mo., in May, 1849. He followed mining and made and lost several fortunes. About 1865 he forsook mining and fol- lowed his trade working for the government at Mare Island navy yard. The family came to Fresno to reside in the early 70's and being a carpenter and cabinetmaker by trade he opened a shop on the present site of the Grand Central Hotel and probably the first coffins used in Fresno were made by him. He had a sign over his shop "Coffins Made to Order." At one time he owned the two J Street lots adjoining the hotel. He was in his last days a great lover of pets and had chickens, quail and birds so tame that they could be approached and picked up.

CHAPTER XLV

THE SMALL FARM IN A SETTLEMENT GROUP NOT AN IDEA ORIGINAL WITH FRESNO. LARGE HOLDINGS THAT RECALL DAYS OF A LAND BARONAGE. CENTRAL CALIFORNIA COLONY THE PIONEER IN THE COUNTY AND THE TYPICAL ENTERPRISE. THE ALABAMA AND HOLLAND FAILURES. COLONIZATION PROJECTS BROUGHT ON THE BOOM PERIOD OF FEVERISH SPECULATION. SIXTY OR MORE AGRICULTURAL PROJECTS FLOATED IN 1900. EARLY FARMERS WERE EXTRAVAGANT WITH THE USE OF CHEAP WATER. STERILIZATION OF SOIL WITH THE APPEARANCE OF ALKALI IS A CONSEQUENCE.

Distinctive feature that the small farm was in the colony settlement system as a contributor to the agricultural development, the general wealth and the individual prosperity, it is not to claim that the idea originated in Fresno, successful on a large scale the demonstration as nowhere else. The colony or settlement of small places was a borrowed one from Southern California in the notable examples of Anaheim thirty miles south of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside in San Bernardino and the Indiana Colony which yielding to the quicker and large returns from lot sales resulted in the town of Pasadena.

Nordhoff, whose little book with its revised edition did as much to make agricultural California read about as all the boom literature since, traveled over the state making notes and acknowledged that he was amazed in the fall of 1881 at the great changes after an absence of nine years wher- ever the small farmer had come in with his careful culture and scientific planting. Said he: "Fresno County, which eight or nine years ago was given over to cattle, and where a man put in a hundred acres of wheat at the peril of his life and with an almost certainty that cattle would destroy

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

it before it was half grown is now dotted with colonies, where after five or six years only of settlement trees and vines are coming into bearing and the former desert has become a prosperous and happy country side."

Nordhoff quotes the assertion that "California was made by Providence for the small farmer." Californians once denied the allegation, declaring that in general it was fit only for great holdings on which the moneyed, absentee owner could raise cattle, sheep and wheat in the loose and wasteful manner of the Californian as did the Spaniard before him, with the aid of unskilled labor directed by a foreman. Big ranches there are yet but they are hazardous ventures, and the fact is that in the big valley the twenty, forty and eighty-acre farmers brought the lasting and real agricultural pros- perity. There, where wheat was once the big and only crop, the man with less than 320 acres classed himself as an humble small farmer. Slowly but gradually the conviction forced itself that eighty acres with water on a good location was a little too much, forty a liberal plenty with which to make a fair start in life, and twenty just enough for one man on which to make a comfortable living for self and family and have something over with industry and health for the proverbial rainy day. Wonders have been accom- plished with ten acres by men who were not overambitious, not overbur- dened with money and hesitated not to combine brain and brawn in the labor in the field. Intelligent twenty-acre men are laying up what eastern farmers would consider a fortune and are enjoying during the accumulation process more of the comforts and pleasures of life.

Interesting from a historical standpoint and as recalling the days of land baronage is the following list of large block holdings once owned by Fresnans. In the course of time changes in ownership and subdivisions of the tracts have come about, but not in connection with the early coloniza- tion enterprises. In the list are eleven as follows :

ADOBE RANCH of 68,000 acres on the Fresno River, ten miles from Madera, J. G. Stitt owner.

DAULTON-16,000, ten miles from Madera, H. C. Danlton.

FISH SLOUGH-40,000, twenty miles southwest from Fresno, J. G. James.

HAZELTON-3,800 on the Kings River near Centerville and twenty miles east of Fresno, William Hazelton.

HELM-14,000, four miles north of Fresno, intersected by Kings River and San Joaquin Canal, William Helm.

HERMINGHAUS-20,000 on south side of San Joaquin, twenty-five miles northwest of Fresno, Gustavus Herminghaus.

HILDRETH-12,000, fifteen miles east of the railroad and five north of the San Joaquin, Charles McLaughlin.

LAGUNA DE TACHE-48,000-acre Spanish grant to Jose Castro on the Kings River, twenty miles south of Fresno, Jeremiah Clarke.

MILLER & GORDON-5,700 on north side of San Joaquin, twenty miles north of Fresno, W. C. Miller and Alexander Gordon.

MILLER & LUX-200,000 acres extending from Coast Range on the west to the Central Pacific Railroad line on the east with over seventy miles of board fencing and about fifty of irrigating canals, Henry Miller and Charles Lux.

SUTHERLAND-14,000 on both sides of the Kings, twenty miles south of Fresno and ten from the railroad, John Sutherland.

Without extension of irrigation, it goes without saying the colony farms that sprang up all around Fresno and the county over would not have been. Results came after patient waiting, much planning, hard labor and many a setback. Had development of Fresno's dry plains been an easy task, there

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would have probably been no colonization, or rather the more favorable conditions and superior natural advantages of other localities would have attracted for settlement the people of moderate means. It is needless to con- sider the difficulties that were in the way of the early colony farmers, or the reasons why the productive acres of the valley lay unused so long, despite the cheap and rich virgin land and the abundance of water. Relatively the same condition exists today in lack of water and transportation as regards the West Side region where lie thousands of acres of the best tillable soil utilized only for sheep grazing or cultivated in small patches near some creek, the flood water of which can be conserved for the time when needed at seeding and after germination. The development of this area is such a vast undertaking that it has been doubted whether it can be carried through without federal government aid in a water conservation plan.

PIONEER SETTLEMENTS RECALLED

Central California Colony was the first in the county, fathered by Bern- hard Marks of San Francisco, former miner and later teacher. His plan was followed in main features by subsequent similar enterprises. He con- tracted with W. S. Chapman for twenty-one square miles of best land sur- rounding the new town, selected six out of the center, divided this tract into 192 twenty-acre farms, surveyed and laid out twenty-three miles of avenues and caused to be extended the main irrigation canal from its terminus then at the Henrietta Ranch and across the railroad through the proposed colony tract in three branches. Water rights were bought from the company in per- petuity as a notable departure at the time from its policy of dealing with land only in quarter sections, practically excluding the small farmer, who was as yet unheard of. This very feature with other considerations sug- gested the adoption of the colonization plan.

Seven broad avenues, each two miles long, were laid out running north and south: East Avenue bordered with almonds alternating with red gums, Cherry with nine varieties of cherries, Elm with cork elms, Fig with the White Adriatic, Walnut with the English walnut, Fruit with a variety in systematic alternation and West was to have been set out to eucalyptus but never was. Three miles long North Avenue was planted to Monterey Cypress and Central to Black Mission figs in all thirty-six miles of trees. Avenue planting was insisted upon to overcome the caprice or indifference of settler and to insure uniformity and system. Considerable of this planting was lost for lack of water at the right time but enough survived to mark this distinctive feature. In two and one-half years the lots were ready for irri- gation and fruit culture. The installment plan of payment without interest was allowed and included planting of two acres of raisin vineyard on every twenty to be cultivated and cared for without expense to the purchaser. In the first two years such vineyards were set out on 119 lots but lost for the want of water. The phylloxera vastatrix was at this time ravaging European vineyards. Timely warning was sounded. The only known remedy was submersion, easily accomplished here, before planting. The company was generally relieved of this in consideration of allowing colonists the esti- mated cost of this planting. Intention was to surround colony with a rabbit proof fence, project was abandoned and estimated cost divided pro rata.

The work of surveying and constructing began in August, 1875, contin- ued until the winter of 1877 and the first settlers came on the land to erect their rude shanty homes in the autumn of 1875, hopeful, anxious and ever fearful of the water problem. For lack of experience, there was ignorance as to choice of and adaptability of the fruit varieties to plant, and how to irrigate scientifically, necessitating costly and aggravating experiments. The fate of the colony hung in the balance. Marks and Chapman seriously de- bated abandoning the venture by buying out the settlers and Chapman of

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

relieving Marks on his contract. Better counsel prevailed, the third man in the project, W. H. Martin, was bought out, and the enterprise was pro- ceeded with on the original lines, even though Chapman was not an en- thusiastic believer in the colonization system. Fortunately many of the first settlers were of the Scandinavian race, thrifty, plodding and home building settlers. During the second year of the colony's existence S. A. Miller, a former Nevada miner then in charge of the Republican, became the promoter and within three years the last lot was sold. M. Theo. Kearney was a sales factor with judicious advertising and business energy. Central California Colony became a notable "beauty spot on the arid plain." Its history is typical of the others.

Washington Irrigated Colony of five sections of land afterward en- larged to eleven lying south of and adjoining Central California was the next project organized in March, 1878, by J. P. Whitney. O. Wendell Easton of San Francisco, A. T. Covell who was resident agent and superintendent with Easton as the nominal owner and general manager. In June, 1880, J. W. North, whose name is associated with the Riverside Colony, located in the colony and assumed the agency preceded by Easton and Walter J. Whitney. In January, 1882, G. G. Briggs, vineyardist and fruitman of Yolo County, bought the unsold land and fencing in 100 acres began im- proving a holding of nearly 1,000 acres. The colony became an industrious and thrifty settlement of varied nationalities.

The Nevada of three sections was promoted by S. A. Miller among his Nevada mining acquaintances whom he induced to invest in the western third of the tract while still with the Central California, whose western extension was blocked by litigation. In Washington Colony only three- quarters of a section was sold as at first contemplated in twenty-acre tracts, the remainder in eighty-acre lots and quarter sections going to purchasers of means. Impetus was given the enterprise by the former land owners- Church and Roeding-in a gift of a 160-acre tract with water right for the erection by the colony of a fruit dryer to stimulate orchard planting. M. J. Donahoo was the first buyer of land and improved it notably. Among the early big settlers were J. S. Goodman, John R. Hamilton, William Forsyth, J. M. Pugh, B. R. Woodworth and Henry Donnelly.

Scandinavian Home Colony resulted from an organization in San Fran- cisco of October, 1878, to colonize either in Oregon or Washington. A visit was made to Fresno with the result of location on a land section, three miles northeast of Fresno bought from Henry Voorman of San Francisco on liberal terms, among others ten years' credit at low interest. Within one week the thirty-two twenty-acre lots were taken up and by the middle of 1879 the first settler families arrived. Two adjoining sections were added giving the colony 1,920 acres in ninety-six lots, practically all disposed of in 1882 save five choice reservations. While at first the membership was restricted to the Scandinavian born, the bar of nationality was afterward let down. Scandinavian proved a distinctive success. A notable improvement was a winery, but the orchard was not neglected. Throughout the county the Scandinavian has proven himself to be a desirable and welcome settler and as making the best citizen. Lots bought in the Scandinavian in 1880 for $450 were valued unimproved two years later at $1,000 and upwards, while improved land was held from $100 to $300 per acre.

The Easterby Colony of the historical ranch of A. Y. Easterby of Napa came about 1877 into the ownership of William O'Brien of the Nevada Bank and the Bonanza firm of Flood and O'Brien, upon whose death the bank had the management. It was sold to N. K. Masten and M. Theo. Kear- ney to colonize in June, 1880. Improvements followed with enlarged irriga- tion facilities. Here were located some of the best known first large raisin and wine grape vineyards such as Malter's. Butler's, the Fresno of 400 acres organized by Kearney with Lachman & Jacobi and other prominent

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wine men. Some 900 acres were sold off in smaller forty and twenty-acre tracts. The colony was intensively cultivated and highly improved. It was located three miles east of Fresno and in later years with the general growth became a cluster of pretentious suburban farm residences of the well to do.

Fresno Colony was the speculation of Thomas E. Hughes & Sons upon purchase of 2,880 acres in August, 1881, from the estate of E. Jansen and nearly one-half of the tract was sold in three months. The land was bought for six and one-half dollars an acre and sold for forty dollars and fifty dol- lars, over $30,000 having been realized on sales in six months. One-half of the land was deeded for water rights on the other half. The colony joined the town of Fresno immediately on the south, stretching northward to the boundary of Central California. It was virtually part of the town: is in fact part of the school district. Colony was in twenty-acre parcels, sold for fifty dollars an acre, $300 cash at purchase and balance at ten per cent. To the original tract an addition of 960 acres was made, giving a total area of 3,840 acres, or six miles.

The Coulson Colony named for Nat. T. Coulson was a project of 1882 of Dr. J. L. Cogswell with others, one mile and a half from old Centerville. It involved a trust estate.

The American comprised 3,200 acres adjoining the Washington on the west and the Central on the south. Its twenty-acre lots sold at $700 or in 160-acre tracts at fifteen to twenty dollars an acre with water right.

Temperance Colony adjoined the Nevada with ex-Supervisor G. W. Beall as one of the larger and more prominent settlers. It was launched in December, 1880. Temperance and Nevada were enterprises of M. J. Church, the land owner, who was a total abstainer, always a temperance man, and in his later days embraced the faith of the Seventh Day Adventists. Accord- ing to the platted map, the canal branch contemplated to run on each side of every avenue, and on all lines of lots for the convenience of irrigation.

SUCCESSES, FAILURES AND RESULTS

Within a radius of less than ten miles from Fresno, there were then in 1882 nine wholly or partially improved colonies as above outlined, rang- ing in acreage from one to eleven sections. The substantial financial and economic success of many of these and others that followed them does not signify that there were no failures.

Notable as the first failure was also the pioneer effort, the Alabama Colony or Settlement of 1868-70 around Borden, the pioneers mostly Ala- bamans. It was the only settlement south of Mariposa Creek for farming purposes on the plains in the sense of grain farming. It was practically abandoned about 1874-75. Without inquiring into all the causes for the failure, suffice it that "the Southern planter did not make a successful farmer," even with water for irrigation, and that when another set of men succeeded them "with other methods more adapted to the requirements of the times" they were more successful.

Equally notable-though at the time considered notorious-was the Holland Colony of Dutch immigrants located about five miles from Fresno where a mansion headquarters with broad porticos was erected and stood until a few years ago when it was destroyed in an incendiary fire. The Hol- land Colony has been put down as a bare faced swindle. In one sense of the word it was in the representations made to induce colonization. If what is known now had been known then, the failure might have been retrieved in part. The colonists were placed on "hard pan" land which pick would not disintegrate and which was impervious to water. Experience since the colony's day in that neighborhood and on that very land has been that "hard pan" surfaced land is fit for agriculture but the original cost of preparing it for development and cultivation is much increased by reason of the

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added one of blasting the "hard pan" to reach the sub drained subsoil. Where this has been done, the soil has been found excellent for peaches, apricots, grapes and other fruits. In time the "hard pan" can be by constant working crumbled to assimilate with the unbared soil. It is a laborious and costly undertaking. With the increased value of land, while "hard pan" is not anxiously sought, neither is it absolutely condemned.

These and other failures did not prevent the spread of colonies in every direction to which water could be directed. Features of the colonies were that later many purchasers were non-resident investors. Along about 1885 when the colonization fever was at its height, Fresno was receiving extra- ordinary advertising all over the state. Large real estate sales agencies in San Francisco handling tract colonizations ran train excursions with bands and lunches on the grounds on the sales days, and thus brought people to view the country. Another feature borrowed from the Central was the plant- ing of border trees on the avenues. The White Adriatic was a favorite, and thus Fresno's prominence as a dried fig producer had its beginning. The Australian gum was another favorite because as a rapid grower it gave shade, was evergreen and furnished wood for fuel. The mulberry had its champions with the reorganization in 1880 of the State Silk Culture Asso- ciation which later became dormant. This recalls a one time popular craze. The Riverside Colony founded in 1870 bought its land from the California Silk Center Association which gave up the ghost with the recall of the state bounty of 1866 of $250 for every plantation of 5,000 two-year-old mulberries. Bounty demands were so many that treasury was threatened with bank- ruptcy, for the estimate was that in 1869 there were 10,000,000 mulberry trees in the Central and Southern portions of the state. Bounty had stimulated tree planting but the silk production (3,587 pounds of cocoons according to the 1870 census) was negligible, evidenced in a few specimen flags and orna- mental doilies at state and county fairs.

With the colonization of Kearney's Fruit Vale Estate in August, 1885, the Chateau Fresno Avenue or boulevard was laid out to float the colony scheme, but conditions were exacted from land buyers on the avenue look- ing to its maintenance in perpetuity, even though it had not later been made a gift to the county.

Colonization projects and their promotion brought on naturally the land and town lot boom times of the early 80's. Curbstone brokers would turn a piece of property two and three times in a day, each turn at an advance, making big money on the day's transactions and having nothing more sub- stantial as the basis for the day's business than an option limited in hours as to time. It was big money, of course, for the owner of land not too far from town and accessible to water to make the necessary arrangements and sell a five-dollar acre for ten times that much and more as land values in- creased with the feverish boom demand. With the call for acreage land, Fresno city boomed speculatively and villa and homestead additions were hung on at every conceivable angle to the old boundary limits, causing much expense and trouble in later years in the extensions of city streets to the outlying districts. Vineyards and orchards were torn up and town contiguous acreage was cut up into city lots to bring material advances on sale. A sorry day came with the collapse of that unhealthy boom, due to inflation of values and abnormal demand not warranted by the conditions and the times. Years of stagnation followed before the reaction came about with sane, slow but substantial and apparent progress. Meantime, however, fortunes had been turned by those who let go on the crest of the wave and lost by those who held on too long and did not know when that wave had crested but imagined that the cresting would continue indefinitely.

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MANY PROJECTS ARE FLOATED

In 1900 when conditions had taken a decided turn for the better, there were sixty or more projects floated in the county. Not all successfully breasted the times. Most of them did. It is a tax on memory to remember the names of many of these. They have been forgotten in the passage of time to be recalled only by an occasional transfer deed or an examination of the referred to descriptive recorded plat. Among the better known these may be recalled :

Bank of California Tract (West Park Colony garden spot) ; Brigg's Selma Tract; Caledonia Tract adjoining the county fair grounds floated by Alexander Gordon and Bank Cashier John Reichman succeeded by the late Archie Grant; Clay's Addition between Fresno Colony and the city on the south; Curtis & Shoemake near Reedley ; Eggers' named for G. H. Eggers adjoining Kutner's; El Capitan in the Malaga Tract; Enterprise of J. A. and A. R. Cole adjoining Eggers': Kearney's Fruit Vale with its Monarch, La Favorita, Estrella, Nestell's and Paragon vineyards ; his Fruit Vale Estate with avenues named for the Presidents and the Fruit Vale Raisin Vineyard; the Fortuna of the P. I. Company in T. 15 near lands of I. N. Parlier ; E. S. Kowalsky's Gould Ranch north of Scandinavian and the later British capitalized celebrated and model raisin and wine grape vineyard of the late Robert Barton, who expended $450,000 in the improvement of the estate when sold to the English syndicate and which stood as one of the foremost landmarks in the county; the Indianola at Sanger and the Kingsburg near the town of the same name.

The Kingsburg was an example in the reclamation as a garden spot of a veritable sandy Sahara through the advisory and practical efforts of the late F. D. Rosendahl, a graduate of the University of Sweden and a Cali- fornia pioneer of 1849. He had made botany a special study, was a lover of nature, and having traveled much had large experience in his field. He aided in the landscaping of Central Park in New York, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and the Kearney Fruit Vale Estate in Fresno. He was the pioneer nursery man in this territory that stocked the vineyards and orchards of the neighboring counties in the Kings River watershed. It has been said about him that if one-half of the unsettled for nursery stock in plantations furnished by him on time contracts was paid for he would have had a competency in his old age. He was one of nature's noblemen and of such a philanthropic spirit that he wrought more for the community than in his own interest. For years he was the township justice and in office prevented rather than encouraged personal litigation and in that capacity was the father confessor, repository and pacificator of community and in- dividual troubles. He recognized early the possibilities of the land and was a factor in its improvement and development.

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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 38

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