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 49
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October 7-George Bernhard opens merchandise store at I and Tulare. . . Supervisors met on the 5th for the first time in Fresno and levied one dollar and forty-eight cent tax rate. . . . City school district assessment foots up $633,760. . . . The charter of the I. O. O. F. lodge has been removed and first session in Fresno was on the 5th.
October 14-E. P. Nelson opens as a butcher on Second Street (I). . . . S. W. Henry as a boarding house keeper at Tulare and J. . . . Thomas Pryce
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as notary and conveyancer, justice of the peace and general agent. . . . Peter Larquier and Simon Camy dissolve as copartners. . . . Expositor publishes week old account of the courthouse corner stone laying, never "such a large and fashionable assemblage" having before gathered and as usually reported "the whole ceremony passed off as well and pleasantly as could be desired." Another story was told in a paragraph in another column under the sidehead "Drunks." Total expenses for the day $260; receipts from ball $326, balance of $66 to be donated to city school fund. ... Beds were not obtainable on the day of the cornerstone laying, or the day after. . .. District court met for the first time in Fresno on 19th, the term calendar the largest ever before a Fresno county court.
November 4 Twelve thousand pounds of the first of the cotton crop of the season came to the depot from the A. H. Statham farm on the Upper Kings, being a trifle over one-third of his crop, ginned and baled, ranging 300 to 400 pounds and averaging about 250 pounds of lint per acre, the equal of any from the southern states and land that was not irrigated producing best. ... New Year's ball at Magnolia hall being arranged for the benefit of the fire protection fund. ... Scarcely a day passes but two or three wagons loaded with immigrants seeking places to locate are in town. Kings River is the chief point of attraction, though many go further down the valley. . . . Winter temperance meetings are resolved upon at Shannon & Hughes' hall, the lead- ing lights being Judge Gillum Baley, Rev. L. Dooley, W. J. Young and E. C. Winchell. . .. Report is of "quite a settlement" near Wheatville on vacant government land, and simultaneously that Theodore Schultz "will immediate- ly commence the erection of a large and elegant saloon" at the place formerly known as King's River Switch. ... W. T. Rumble appointed justice of the peace, vice J. R. McCombs.
November 11-Fresno Dashaway Literary Association formed with E. C. Winchell president and H. C. Shelton secretary as a temperance organ- ization. Twenty signed the pledge. ... Social club organized to give winter season hops.
November 18-Contract and Finance Company sells to Russell H. Fleming Mariposa Street lot for $125, Fleming to Dixon & Faymonville $400. A. J. Brawley to H. D. Silverman a lot for $2,000. ... Dr. Lewis Leach building dwelling on K near Tulare adjoining C. G. Sayle's. George Mc- Collough completing tenement on Mariposa near his residence. . . . Froelich & Barth's brick building is the first in the town. The name of the Larquier Hotel is changed to California House.
November 25-As high as forty teams a day loaded with emigrant fami- lies bound for Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties have crossed Fresno Slough at Watson's Ferry during the last thirty days. . .. Brick work on the court- house is up to the second story. . . R. H. Bramlet appointed deputy county school superintendent.
December 2-Reported sale of lots: L. Farrar to J. L. Smith lot $600, B. B. Sheldon to J. W. Hutchinson one-half of two lots $1,200, C. & F. Co. to F. Jensen two lots $187.50, to M. A. Schultz two for $375, to George McCol- lough for $250, to A. M. Clark a block and a lot $362.50. . . . H. D. Silver- man of E. Jacob & Co. announces intention of erecting a 30x100 brick build- ing at Mariposa and H, two stories, with basement, practically three stories. . . Maassen is excavating for brick edifice on H adjoining the International Hotel.
December 9-Bierstadt, who made the Yosemite Valley famous with his paintings, completes a magnificent picture entitled "Kings River Canyon." Eastern dispatches say he sold it to an English nobleman for $50,000. . . Twenty families have settled on government land at Wheatville in the past month. Si Draper is the father of the town and in it are blacksmith shop, two stores. hotel and two saloons. ... Louis Einstein, late with E. Jacob & Co., buys the L. Davis building and two lots on H Street for $1,400. . . .
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B. S. Booker is building fruit store on Mariposa, adjoining Nelson's meat market, J. M. Taber a dwelling on J near Tulare and J. W. Williams a two- story building on Mariposa. ... Only twenty-one marriage licenses were taken out in the county for the year.
December 23-Eugene J. B. Du Gas locates as physician and surgeon at Bishop's drug store, "A share of public patronage is solicited." Brick work on the third story of courthouse is half completed. ... Lowest local bid for the Henry Hotel was that of Shanklin & Co. for $6,850. . .. Rev. L. Dooley bought two lots adjoining the Baley house for a dwelling. . . . Sab- bath count made showed 109 buildings completed in town, or with finishing touches being put on, over double the number five months before. Besides, there were about thirty in the Chinese quarter. Simon Camy and M. A. Schultz talked of brick buildings and Maassen of a large one on the vacant lot adjoining the International on H, Henry Glass having bought the Mari- posa and I Street corner will remove blacksmith to the rear and erect a sub- stantial substitute. The demand for houses is an insistent one, the most tem- porary affair finding ready occupancy at large rental. The town is keeping pace with the advance over the county. The construction work has attracted considerable of a floating population. . . . The name of the Millerton post- office has been changed to Fort Miller, and Charles A. Hart named postmaster. Thus is expunged even the last official record of the existence of the pioneer county seat. . . . It was a most depressing closing of the year. The unprece- dented cold and fog continued over the valley. A month had passed without rain. In Fresno, Christmas passed off quietly. "Of course," said the official organ, "the usual amount of eggnog was drank and a few drunken fights occurred."
CHAPTER LVI
STEADY AND SUBSTANTIAL THE PROGRESS OF THE TOWN. GREATEST CHANGES ARE NOTED IN THE FARMING ENVIRONS. VILLAGE IS CLASSED ALREADY IN 1875 AS "FLOURISHING." FIRST CEMETERY IS ABANDONED. FIRE PROTECTION A MUCH FELT WANT. PROS- PECTUS IS PUBLISHED OF THE CENTRAL CALIFORNIA COLONY, PIONEER OF A HOST OF SUCH LAND ENTERPRISES. GRANICE MERCED MURDER TRIAL COMMENCES. AGITATION FOR A CHURCH. COMPLETION OF COURTHOUSE. LAND COLONY RAILROAD EX- CURSIONS BEGIN. A FRESNO GROWN ORANGE IS AN EXHIBITED CURIOSITY OF THE DAY.
Fresno City was making steady and substantial progress, even though on a comparatively small scale. The great change was being made in the out- lying farming district with the organization of colonization enterprises, which proved to be the basis of Fresno's future stability. In the less than three years of the existence of the new county seat more substantial progress was made, more land opened up to colonization and more done in development with the spread of irrigation than in all the years of history with Millerton as the official center since organization of the county.
The fact was commented upon at the beginning of July 1875 in the state- ment that "the improvements that have been made about the town during its short life have been wonderful." Mushroom mining towns had been seen to make greater growth in a few months than Fresno had but they had also languished and soon gave up the ghost leaving only a memory of the brief bustling past. As to Fresno, "it was scarcely three years since the first shanty was erected, and now it was a flourishing town with 1500 inhabitants and comprising more than 150 houses including four or five brick edifices and as nice a courthouse as there is in the interior of the state."
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People had settled with the intention of staying. Some nice dwellings had been erected, gardens laid out, trees and shrubs planted, "and an air of refinement imparted to the village." The one great requirement for making gardens thrive was water and the means for securing it was found in raising it in wells by windmills. People visiting the town wondered when informed that the village was less than three years old and that not a tree or plant in town was over eighteen months old. Another year would see a forest of young trees lifting its heads throughout the town to add to the appearance of the village. Otto Froelich was the pioneer tree planter and garden maker one year before in spring and he had a splendid lot of thrifty trees, plants and vines to make as neat a home as could be desired. M. A. and Theodore Schultz, L. Andrews and others planted trees along the roadway about the time that Froelich did "and in every instance where the roving stock left to pillage for a living from the public had not destroyed the trees they have made a good growth and are looking ornamental." There was reason to believe, and the later years confirmed it, that the town of Fresno "instead of being a lot of houses on a dry and barren plain will be a pleasant village en- vironed with trees and decorated with beautiful gardens."
-1875-
January 6-Julius Biehl died at the age of thirty-seven on the last day of 1874. . .. A "Grand Calico Ball" is announced at Court house hall for Monday, February 22. ... School opened on the 4th in the new house with over 100 children in the district and not over half receiving schooling under existing arrangements.
January 13-The Expositor says that the name of Fresno should be changed to Dogtown because there are not less than three dogs for every human being in it.
January 20 The remains in the nine graves in the first cemetery in northern part of town are taken up for removal and reinterment in the new cemetery south of Chinatown on the resumption of fair weather. . . . A lodge of the Good Templars was organized on the 25th by Jabez F. Walker, G. W. C. T.
February 3-James McCardle is building a dwelling at Mariposa and K. A residence for Dr. Chester Rowell at Tulare and K is near completion.
February 10-The large brick store of E. Jacob & Co. will front 100 feet on Mariposa and fifty on H. ... The firm has dissolved partnership, H. D. Silverman and Louis Einstein purchasing the Jacob interests at Fresno and Centerville, and Jacob retaining the interest at Kingston and Visalia. . . . The remains of W. W. Hill interred in Odd Fellows cemetery at Millerton are reinterred at Centerville March 7th. . .. Meeting held on the 6th to secure fire protection and committee appointed to devise means and possibly also to incorporate. One of the means suggested was to bring water to the town by pipe from one of the irrigation ditches. The 17th of March was selected for another party for the benefit of the fire protection fund.
February 17-Announcement made that C. A. Heaton is about to publish the Fresno Review.
February 24 Mrs. Mattie Card is established on I Street as a milliner with Miss A. MacDonald as a fashionable dressmaker. ... The school dis- trict is in a financial pickle. Over ninety children are attending school. The census under which the district was formed returned only sixty-four and fourteen of these were lost with the formation of the Red Banks district. It required about $250 to continue as an eight months school. Judge Gillum Baley and Sheriff J. S. Ashman consented to solicit funds for the district and had indifferent success. . . . Saturday morning the 19th another providential escape from fire thanks to the still air. Fire broke out in the loft of the J. Lamothe large stable near Mariposa and I, in the hay on which drunken Indians had slept. Only the active exertions of citizens prevented a spread.
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The Silverman & Einstein store has been moved to a place a few feet north of the Magnolia to make room for the corner brick building. . . . Washington's Birthday the flag was unfurled from the dome of the court- house ninety feet from the ground, at sunset the workmen were addressed assembled on the pinnacle and then marched through the streets.
March 3-The Good Templars' lodge has over forty members. There are eight prisoners in the county jail when in former times it would be empty for months. "But things have changed," notes the Expositor, "the advent of the railroad and the increase of the population did the business."
March 10-First recorded game of baseball was on Sunday be- tween the Fresno and Magnolia clubs. . .. William Vellguth is adding wind- mill and tank for a bath house in connection with barber shop. . . . Walter Tupper appointed justice of the peace. . .. Schultz is grading Tulare Street near his hotel; Maassen, H Street on the railroad reservation, and Silverman and Einstein, Mariposa. . . . H. D. Silverman, Lewis Leach, William Fay- monville, Otto Froelich, W. J. Lawrenson, J. C. Hoxie, R. H. Fleming and Leonard Farrar bought seven-eighths interest in 100 acres from William Helm for a fair ground and race track, a stock corporation to be formed. . . The long promised Fresno Weekly Review has appeared.
March 21-The Sunday meeting of the Dashaway Society had as a special attraction after the lecture the marriage by Judge Gillum Baley of Frank Henley and Miss Lizzie Shanklin and "the venerable judge brought down the house by the skill with which he stole the first kiss from the bride."
April 1-The cattle buying and selling firm of St. John, Abbott & Co. has failed with liabilities of $250,000. It was the lessee of the Laguna de Tache grant. . . . Henry's Hotel is completed and is described as "the finest edifice yet completed in Fresno and in finish is equal to any hotel that we know of outside of the cities." The horizon of the Expositor was limited. The Odd Fellows' lodge is negotiating for a Mariposa Street lot for a hall, though the Finance and Contract Company had donated it three lots for that purpose.
April 10-Dr. Joseph Borden died at Borden at the age of sixty-nine.
April 28-The Henry Hotel fronts sixty-six feet on Tulare and sixty on K. with wing 30x40 and a kitchen addition 16x18 and two and one-half stories high. It was stated that the house and furniture cost over $15,000. . . . The walls of Maassen's brick house on H Street are going up and it will break the long row of wooden structures in that vicinity. . .. The freight train from the south, two days before, consisted of twenty-nine cars, evidence it was pointed out "that the railroad business down the valley is building up." . The spelling match craze has struck Fresno. . .. So has the bovine gum- chewing habit. ... The Odd Fellows celebrated on Monday with parade, oration by James A. Louthitt of Stockton and a ball at Magnolia Hall at night the fifty-sixth anniversary of the establishment of the order in America. The only complaints made of the celebration "were in regard to the music from Stockton" and "this for the price paid was very poor." . . The public exercises of the Dashaways were suspended on account of the weather. .. Alarm was caused by the report that "grasshoppers were swarming the plains."
May 5-Simon W. Henry's new hotel will open on the 10th. ... May day the town was thrown into excitement by fire on the roof of the California House. The International Hotel force pump and the bucket brigade over- came the blaze. . . . Fares reduced to San Francisco to $11.35, to Stockton $8.35, to Merced $3.85, to Goshen $2.35, to Sumner $7.55. Passenger train from Fresno south leaves at 1:25 A. M .: north 3:12 A. M .; freight south at 12:10 A. M. and north 6:45 A. M. . .. Applegarth ranch of about 50,000 acres was sold by the sheriff for debt on the 3rd for $210,000. . .. Ex-judge A. C. Bradford is the avowed Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor before the state convention at San Francisco, June 20. . . . Whitlock & Young start 20
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city planing mill, followed by C. M. Bennett at Pine Ridge with the latter to turn out rustic, flooring and surfaced lumber for building. . .. Many irrigation schemes are in the air. The Expositor publishes a two-column account of the project of the San Joaquin and Fresno Canal Company involv- ing the diversion of 30.000 miners' inches of water from the San Joaquin at a point above Fort Miller conducting the water by canal to the plains, thence via Fresno to the so-called Fresno City across Fresno Slough, there connect- ing with a projected canal from Summit Lake to Antioch, diverting as much water from the lake and conducting it by canal running near the base of the foothills to Antioch, opening canal navigation from tide water through one of the most fertile portions of the state. It was one of other grand schemes that was never realized.
May 10 Montgomery Queen's Caravan, Circus and Menagerie-"Great Representative Show of California"-exhibited in Fresno. The town took great credit to itself that "the expenses of this monster establishment are so great that it can only afford to show at the largest places" and "that the mam- moth tent was filled to repletion both afternoon and evening," despite "the dismal croakings of hard times, the failure of the crops and the like." It was yet the day when circuses and menageries travelled not by special railroad trains but traversed the country with their caravans, following the public highway making the towns from day to day. ... Henry's Hotel .opened this day. Fresno is cityfying with the hotel's "free carriage to and from all trains" and because "a bath room is attached to the hotel for the use of our guests." . . Troupe show is announced at Magnolia Hall for the 18th, including "Senator Pinchbeck (colored) who was refused his seat in the U. S. Senate.' . One Martin Vivian cut down one of the largest "big trees" in the King's River grove to convey a section to the Centennial exhibition at Phil- adelphia. He then went before a justice of the peace and informing against himself for the act of vandalism pleaded guilty and was fined $50. He there- after appeared before the supervisors for a remittance of one-half of the fine against himself, because he had been the informer. The claim was rejected because not a legal charge. The comment was that "this man has cheek enough to make a good witness in the Tilton-Beecher case," which was then agitating the newspaper reading world. ... Cranes are gathering in bands, following up the grasshoppers and feasting on them. . . . Surveyors are lo- cating the route for a ditch from the Kings River to lands of W. S. Chap- man south of town to divert 30,000 inches of water. ... Master Masons or- ganized a lodge on the 9th with W. H. Creed as W. M., George Bernhard S. W., A. Kutner J. W., S. Goldstein Treas., A. M. Clark Sec., W. L. Nelson S. D., C. G. Sayle J. D., P. H. Schussler, Tyler. ... Sunday preaching was a regular forenoon and evening thing by Revs. L. Dooley and A. Odom at the temporary court room.
June 2-Closing exercises at Magnolia hall of the city public school, May 29, with R. H. Bramlet and Miss Mattie Patten as the teachers. . . . Cole Slough settlers change the name of the settlement from Liberty to Riverdale. . .. Another meeting held May 28 with H. S. Dixon as chairman and W. H. Creed as secretary to consider fire protection. Dr. Leach, R. H. Fleming, G. McCollough, WV. J. Lawrenson and Warren Spencer named a committee to or- ganize a fire company and Dr. Leach, A. Kutner, A. M. Clark, R. H. Fleming and George McCollough to organize a joint company to supply the town with water. The Expositor had no faith "in anything being done, at least not until after the town is burned down." ... Organization of grange lodges is a pop- ular fad in the farming settlements. ... More windmills are going up in town. Another cityfying fad is the publication of the Henry Hotel guest list.
Land tract owners in the county publish warnings to sheep men against trespass by herding or driving across their holdings en route to mountain ranges. . .. Glass & Donahoo of the Clipper Mills at Pine Ridge offer to sell at mills: Common lumber at $11 per 1,000 feet, clear flooring at $15, clear
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sugar pine at $18 and refuse at $6. All classes purchasable at Tollhouse yards at foot of grade at uniform advance of $8 a thousand.
June 6-The Sabbath school and Bible class were organized.
June 16-Jackley's Vienna Circus with the remnants of the bankrupt Signor Chiarini Circus is announced for Saturday the 19th. Shows at the county seat are of frequent occurrence. ... The water from Kings River is flowing into the San Joaquin through the slough. The San Joaquin is falling rapidly and the steamers have made their last trips to Watson's Ferry for the season. . . . The B. S. Booker fruit and variety store and newspaper agency on Mariposa Street is bought by Presley Fanning. . .. The first irri- gation decision is given by District Judge Deering in the case of the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company against the Kings River and Fresno Canal Company ruling as to the right to use water channels.
June 26-A. D. Firebaugh dies at his Big Creek ranch at the age of fifty-one, a pioneer of a very early day and the founder of Firebaugh Ferry. Death was from cancer of the tongue.
June 30-Prospectus of the Central California Colony is out under the auspices of the California Immigrant Union, taking up 4,000 acres of the Chap- man tract to be divided into 200 holdings of twenty acres each, two acres of raisin grape vines to be planted on every twenty, water distributing ditches to traverse the tract and sales to be made at fifty dollars an acre, $100 down, twelve dollars and fifty cents a month for five years and $150 at the end of the fifth, additional vine acreage to be furnished at fifteen dollars an acre with a dollar a month for care and cultivation. Prophecy was that it will be surprising if in a few years Fresno "is not one of the leading raisin and wine producing sections of the world." . . There are 151 children for whom school money can be drawn : 114 attended school during the term: sixty-six-thirty- two boys and thirty-four girls-are under five years of age. . . . A band of antelope raided the Henrietta Rancho one day last week and J. D. Forthcamp and another man of the ranch gave chase on horse and lassoed one of the fleet quadrupeds. This was less than three miles from the present town center.
July 3-The Saturday celebration of the Fourth was only an indifferent one according to the public print, notwithstanding the elaborate promised program. "But a small amount of tangle-leg comparatively was drank in town on the occasion." Centerville celebrated and on Monday July 5 also there was a social picnic at Glass & Donahoo's saw mill at Pine Ridge, likewise on Sunday at the starting up of the Champion quartz mine of Jensen & Keys at the head of Big Creek. ... July 4 at the residence of M. J. Church near town Charles W. De Long was married to Miss Maria Church.
July 7-Trial commenced on change of venue of H. H. Granice for the killing at Merced December 7, 1874, of Edward Madden, editor and proprietor of the Tribune on account of a publication two days before of an article con- cerning his mother, the wife of Robert J. Steele of the San Joaquin Valley Argus, also of Merced. The article was a scandalous one attacking the chastity of the woman, stating that she had been inmate of a house of ill fame and in- timating that a sensational book that she had published was a recital of her experience in that life. The killing was a cowardly one, Granice took Madden by surprise and unguarded after lying in wait for him, firing six times at him with pistol, wounding him five times and one of the six shots coming so close as to burn the cheek of the shot-at-man. The homicide was the sensation of the day. There was danger of mob violence, Granice was spirited away for safety after the Argus office had been partially looted and the Steeles had been or- dered to leave town by the excited populace. Granice escaped from his guards at the Halfway House, six miles from Merced, in the confusion resulting from a supposed mob visit, and three days later Granice was taken at Modesto after having been found lost and starving in his wanderings. On the 10th of July after five hours of deliberations the jury found Granice guilty of murder
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and fixed imprisonment for life as the punishment, October 20 time set for pronouncing judgment.
July 22-The first time that a candidate for governor of the state visited Fresno politically was on this evening when William Irwin spoke at a Demo- cratic rally. ... William Frank Lethers visits town thrice a week to deliver ice from Waggie's mill. An ice house is promised next. .. . Failure of crops has greatly checked the growth of the town this season. . .. Here was a local announcement: "John Bidwell, the land grabber, will tell the people of Fresno on the evening of August 4th how he stole that 23,000 acres of land and why he ought not to be elected governor of California. Take a cherry, sir."
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