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 76
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William H. Kerr died at Loma Linda, Cal., February 26, 1918, whither he had gone for medical treatment. He was a pioneer of Alcalde of eighteen vears before, several years later was elected justice of the peace and moved to the new Coalinga, serving until January. 1918, when he resigned to accept the postmastership. He was active in politics, a kindly rugged man of the old western type and numbered friends by the thousands.
A California pioneer of 1852 was Mrs. Hannah L. Lonsdale, who at the age of seventy-nine years died in Fresno, a widow. June 7, 1918. She crossed the continent in wagon, settled in Humboldt County, went through the early Indian troubles in that northern county, and was a school teacher for years. A sister is Mrs. W. F. Leavitt, school teacher, and wife of the last fire chief of the Fresno city volunteer fire department.
First white male child born January, 1841, in Kent County, Mich., with Indians as his playmates at Grand Rapids was Benjamin F. Sliter, who died in Fresno City at the age of seventy-seven years June 8, 1918. He was a Michigan pioneer, taught school, was a lawyer but on account of failing eyesight never practiced in California, came to this state in 1903 and to Fresno after residing in three other cities.
James Madison, who was manager of the California Raisin Association, has returned to his former haunts on California Street in San Francisco and is a regular again in maritime circles, enticed by the seductive influence of the salt water and the fog of the bay. While today one of the big men on shipping row with his brokerage and shipping interests, time was when his career was a much more humble one in the 80's, associated with Joseph H. Redmond in the tugboat business and "Jim," as he was hailed then, very much on deck on "steamer days" collecting tug hire bills. He became after- ward a partner in the shipping firm of Lorenz Ford and was associated in the successful salvage of the wreckage of the several men of warships stranded at Apia harbor in the memorable hurricane of March 16, 1889, which providential interference stayed then America's punishment of Prussia for an insult to the American flag. Later he bought an ancient Norwegian bark, renamed her the Margaret and after placing her under American regis- ter sailed her the seven seas over, added to the Madison shekels which were invested in Fresno and paved the way to enter the raisin business.
Jasper N. ("Uncle Jess") Musick, who died in June, 1918, was probably in membership the oldest Odd Fellow in the county.
George E. Andrews, aged a little over eighteen, and son of Public Ad- ministrator G. R. Andrews, was killed February 20, 1918. His slayer received in May the court sentence of one year's imprisonment in the penitentiary.
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The slayer was Giuseppe Imperatrice. The slain youth was not forty-eight hours old, when in a spirit of fun application was made in his behalf for membership in Manzanita Camp No. 160 of the Woodmen of the World, of which his father was then and for years after the clerk. The application was duly recommended and favorably voted on and safely stored away in safe by the proud parent. On the eighteenth anniversary of his birthday, June 19, 1917, which was also camp meeting night, the lad was initiated on that resurrected membership application.
Mrs. J. H. Minard, who died June 4, 1918, was the widow of a former elder of the Christian Church and the mother of twelve children. The Min- ards came to California in 1877, locating at Butte City and removing to Fresno in 1888.
Miss Boletta Jorgensen (obit Estrella Vineyard, April, 1918) was a daughter of Chris Jorgensen, chairman of the supervisors, and sister of Miss Fannie Jorgensen, deputy county treasurer. She had been a teacher in the Madison and Wolters districts.
June 6, 1918, died at Selma, Catherine L. Holmes, at the age of seventy- four, a resident for twenty-seven years, and wife of George W. Holmes, for many years postmaster of Selma. Three sisters and two brothers, seven sons and daughters, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren survived her.
Mrs. Sarah M. Simpson, who died at Exeter in May, 1918, at the age of seventy-seven, was one of the earliest pioneers of the Academy region. She was of the Baley family.
Scott McKay, the county surveyor who died in May, 1918, was noted for the accuracy of his work. It is he, who is responsible for the easy grade (averaging six per cent.) mountain scenic roads in the county. A monument to his road building capacities is the Sand Creek road. He ran in late years the boundary line surveys between Fresno and Kings and Tulare Counties and left unfinished the Coast Range crest line survey with Merced.
John F. Boling, who at the age of sixty-two died May 11, 1918, at Lane's Bridge where he located in 1877, was the eldest son of the John Boling, a sheriff of Mariposa of the late 50's and the man who commanded a com- pany of Major Savage's Mariposa battalion that pursued the renegade Yo- semite Indians into the famous valley, one of the first parties of whites to enter the great gorge. John F.'s aged mother still lives in San Francisco. He has been given the distinction of having been the first white born, or one of the first, at old Hornitas in Mariposa.
The death at the home of his son, Luther E. Weldon, city trustee of Clovis, of A. J. Weldon in May, 1918, was the first in the family in forty years. The decedent was seventy-nine years of age, for nearly thirty years a resident of the locality and prominent as a grain farmer in that section. He entered the Confederate army from Texas, served four years and was taken a prisoner. In the family are eight children and nineteen grand children.
John D. Hickman, who died in Fresno City in May, 1918, founded shortly after arrival from Illinois the national bank at Fowler, retiring after about five years to look after his Fresno and Madera ranching. He came from Monmouth, where he was in business with his brother J. R. Hickman, former Fresno County treasurer. He financed here the colony named for the Illinois town, a prosperous colony of a superior class of colored people. The decedent was seventy years of age at death.
William H. Story, a Tennesseean who died in May, 1908, crossed the plains to California late in '49, mined in Plumas and then in Nevada where he lived sixteen years, coming to Fresno in 1883, engaging in the dairy business and made his home in the suburbs of this city on Echo Avenue, when that locality was considered to be out in the wilderness, as it were. In religious belief he was a Spiritualist.
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Mark I. Nidever ((obit January 12, 1918) was seventy-five years of age and could relate a world of experiences as a California pioneer of sixty- four years ago and of Fresno of thirty-two years. He was Arkansas born.
Cornelius Curtin (obit January 23, 1918, at sixty-seven) was one of the first settlers in 1877 of Madera when it was part of Fresno and long before dream of separation. His surviving son, County Clerk William R. Curtin, was his only child. Curtin was a man of property and a familiar figure in the little northern town. He died in Fresno.
At the age of eighty years H. G. De Witt died. (January 19, 1918) at Berkeley, Cal., at the family home. The wife's death preceded his by about four years and shortly after the couple had celebrated its golden wedding anniversary. Dr. De Witt, as he was known, had a busy career. He was a Baptist minister in early life and for thirty-two years in evangelistic work holding meetings in the southern states during the Civil War and also in the Mormon settlements when his doctrines were not popular with that sect. Twenty years ago he resigned the charge of the First Baptist Church of this city and as the representative of the Bank of Sacramento's large hold- ings in the Clovis district took up the work of selling them and placing settlers, acquiring himself considerable property which is yet in the family or under sale contracts and also owning property in Oakland and Berkeley. His name is a frequent one in the records of the county recorder and the clerk in transfers of land or suits to enforce contracts or foreclose.
William E. Gilmour, who died in Oakland at the age of about seventy- five, will be recalled as a former owner of valuable city property, notably the one acquired on Mariposa Street by the Union National Bank, which it remodeled in an enlargement of the premises. A foster daughter is Mrs. Samuel D. Hines, wife of a lawyer of Fresno who made criminal law a specialty and was counsel in some of the most celebrated cases in the county.
With the death in November, 1917, of Osmer Abbott passed away a man prominent in educational circles. He had taught in Hawaii before coming to Fresno in 1899, was principal of the Fresno high school, for eleven years principal of the Easton school, later for six years of the Coalinga school and organized the town's public library, and at the time of his death had been for three years the supervising principal of the schools at Hanford in Kings County. He was for two terms before that a member of the Fresno County board of education.
Isaac A. Melvin, eighty-one years of age at death in November, 1917, was a resident for nearly forty years and on coming here from Pennsylvania was in the sheep business on a large scale. The warehouse on the Santa Fe is named for him. A son-in-law is the chairman of the city planning com- mission, Miles O. Humphreys.
Henry M. Rice (obit at Madera at eighty-four) was the father-in-law of former Sheriff W. B. Thurman of Madera and a man that experienced all the vicissitudes of the early comer, in his life making and losing several competencies. Bostonian born, he was named for an uncle governor of Minnesota ; came to California in 1852 via the isthmus route, followed the cattle and mining business for a decade in this state; moved to Oregon as one of the pioneer settlers in Grant County; dabbled in politics and was a supervisor ; married and the ceremony was performed by Joaquin Miller, "the Poet of the Sierras," then a judge in the county. For the last quarter of a century he made homes in Mariposa, Fresno and Madera Counties, the last ten years spent in the last named county.
The pioneer minister of the Episcopal Church in the San Joaquin Valley was Rev. O. D. Kelley, aged seventy-four years and eighteen days. Wife and four sons survived him. He served three years in the Union army as an Ohioan : spent fifteen months as a prisoner of war ; studied law and practiced in California until 1870 and was ordained in 1872; became rector of St. James Church of Fresno in 1879 and served in that capacity until 1891 ;
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also began the Episcopal Church work in Modesto, Merced, Visalia, Tulare, Selma, Hanford, Madera, Reedley and Lodi. The little rectorate has grown into a diocese with a bishop and the little church at Fresno and N Streets has become the pro-cathedral.
The claim for mention of Mrs. Sarah Reed, who died in Fresno at the age of eighty-seven in April, 1913, after widowhood for twenty-five years, was that in her younger days she was the boarding house mistress of James A. Garfield, when he was a lad of eighteen and attending the seminary at Chester Cross Roads in Geauga County, Ohio. It was there that he met Lucretia Rudolph who afterward became Mrs. Garfield. The winter after Garfield's stay at Chester took him to Cleveland to ship as a sailor on lake schooners.
The death of A. L. Sayre at his Madera home in December, 1917, was sudden following an illness of only a day after having taken for breakfast a little grapefruit and a glass of milk. He was a leading citizen of Madera interested in creamery and vineyard and at one time conducted a packing house. He was a director of the first raisin association and at the time of his unexpected death was a director of the California Peach Growers' Company.
Sudden was death's call to Miles Wallace (February 24, 1917), lawyer. U. S. commissioner and only a few weeks before elected president of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce at the time in the midst of a membership campaign to rehabilitate that organization. Mr. Wallace was for thirty years an active man in civil and political life in Fresno and Madera coun- ties. His health was never good and he suffered intermittently as a result of the crushing of an ankle in an accident when nineteen years of age, necessitating operations at intervals. He was born at Murfreesboro, Tenn., February 19, 1861 ; studied law in Kentucky; practiced in Texas and later in Arkansas: came to Sanger in Fresno thirty years ago and after living there six years, cast his lot with Madera. He was one of the advocates of county division and was elected the first district attorney of the new county, and also married Miss Anna Dickinson, daughter of the late James Dickinson, lumber man of Madera. Next he was for two years under the Budd administration guardian of the Yosemite Valley as a state park, re- turning thereafter to Fresno to resume the practice of the law and had continued here since. Mr. Wallace was accounted a "spellbinder," was fre- quently called upon to make campaign speeches, to preside at public meetings, act as toastmaster at celebrations; took an active interest in politics and for a time was lecturer for the chamber of commerce in Los Angeles to secure homeseekers for the San Joaquin Valley, acting in the same capacity at the Panama Canal Exposition in 1915. In 1902 he made an unsuccessful campaign as a candidate on the Democratic ticket for the state senate against the late Dr. Chester Rowell ; in 1915 was appointed U. S. Land Com- missioner for the district but resigned after one week because of ill health and was succeeded by Frank Laning of Fresno, former city attorney, and one year later was appointed federal commissioner. Mr. Wallace's mother and brother. Lee, perished in the Galveston flood.
Hedge's addition, one of the acreage enlargements of the city after cutting up into town lots, recalls the name of James D. Hedges, who died at the age of eighty-six November 3, 1917. The wife Rebecca still lives.
Many incidents cluster about the memory of George B. Otis, who claimed direct descent from the James Otis of Revolutionary fame, who was the last of the group of four that founded the town of Selma and himself was the man that gave the town its name. His death on the last day of April, 1918, was at the family home homesteaded in 1876 on the sand plain where stands today Selma, "the Home of the Peach." The Otis family came to California in 1856 via the isthmus from Wisconsin, settling in Sonoma County. It was in the centennial year that he accumulated 600 acres, established his home at what was to be in time Selma and in 1880
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with three others platted the town, and lived there until he removed to Berkeley, his father having died there in 1865 on the site of what is now the state university grounds. The son was a charter member of Selma Lodge No. 309, I. O. O. F., one of the founders of the Episcopal Church and one of the builders of the first canal system in the section, the plans for which were laid out on the tables of the Otis house which were the headquarters of the constructing engineer. From the sand wastes he presciently selected properties destined to become the most valuable city business sites and time justified his judgment. The sweep of the wind over the sand plains often effaced all surveyor's marks and many are the stories told of Mr. Otis giving his time unsparingly and with no hope of reward bringing about agreeable settlement of disputes, having the faculty of being able to locate points and digging down uncover the charcoal deposit in which the surveyor had set stake but which cattle had trampled down or wind covered with sand. The founding of the town of Selma was a long and discouraging undertaking.
Identified for forty-four years with the history of the city, it was always the pride of the late Herman Levy that the distinction of being the first man to be made a Mason in Fresno was his as a member of Fresno Lodge No. 247. F. & A. M. His death was on March 6, 1918, at the age of sixty-two. His long connection with merchandising had given him a most extensive acquaintanceship. His coming here was in 1874; his earliest business connection was with Kutner, Goldstein Company: afterward at Borden eighteen miles northwest and at the time the great rival of Fresno and later back to Fresno in the clothing business, first located at the drug store corner at J and Mariposa, later at other locations on Mariposa, and eighteen years ago retiring to take up life insurance. He was an ardent Democrat ; interested in public affairs and was one of the freeholders that drafted the charter under which the city operates. The Levy home on Van Ness Avenue is one of the residence land marks of the days when the im- mediate neighborhood was known as "Nob Hill."
When John Tim Walton died November 2, 1917, there passed away a charter member of the Veteran Firemen's Association, an enthusiastic fire- man, a former chief of the volunteer department days and one of the greatest "base ball fans" that any town could boast of. He was a grocer in business. Few knew that the name "John" was his.
The name of Mrs. Millie Hill (obit December 19, 1917) is linked with some of the earliest pioneers of the county. She was eighty-three years of age, the sister of the late Mrs. J. W. Reese, aunt of Mrs. A. D. Ferguson wife of the fish and game warden and of Dr. T. J. Patterson of Visalia son of a member of the first board of Fresno's supervisors on organization of county.
One of the largest funerals held in Reedley was the one February 13. 1918, of Daniel L. Meekel, a settler of the town thirty years ago, long in business there and for the last fifteen years as a land and insurance agent.
Pioneer and builder was Elisha A. Manning (obit at Hanford at age of eighty-three, January 27, 1918). He went to Hanford from Oakland, 1872, attracted by the opening of the country with the building of the railroad; took up government land; was a prime mover in the building up of the irrigation system in the Mussel Slough district (recalling the railroad mas- sacre of settlers over disputed lands) extending for 125 miles and the first big irrigation enterprise in the then "Baby Kings County;" after thirteen years of activities moved to Fresno and entered the business partnership of Thomas, Sharp & Manning colonizing the Perrin lands, Manning interesting himself in bringing water there; later he moved to Kerman, in this county, building himself a ranch home and starting another colonization as a pioneer and a member of the partnership of Manning & McCullen; in December, 1917, ill health because of declining years compelled return to Hanford.
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An active man in his day and like General Grant never seen without a cigar in mouth was Richard B. Butler, one of the first to take up raisin growing on a large scale. A North Carolinian, born in May, 1846, he spent his youth in Alabama and in 1862 at the age of sixteen enlisted in the Con- federate cavalry under Gen. Jos. Wheeler, served throughout the war and was wounded several times. Three years after the war he and an associate drove a band of cattle from Texas to California for sale ; returned to Alabama but in 1871 moved with family to Yolo County, Cal. He farmed and in 1875 was business manager for a large mercantile house and four years later married Miss Mary Francis Stephens, a sister of L. O. Stephens, later the first mayor of Fresno under a charter, and moved to a home in Fresno. Butler planted what became the well known Butler vineyard, engaged also in cattle raising and was a prime mover in the formation of the Fowler Switch Canal Company and was its president. Elected a supervisor in 1890 for a term; he sold his vineyard in 1902 and moved to San Francisco, living there and at Modesto until in 1915 he took up mining operations in Mexico; but it was not until February, 1917, that he won the litigation securing title ; he was taken ill, hurriedly returned to America; but the ailment was a fatal one. He was a familiar figure around the iron basement railing of the old Fresno National Bank building, now covered by the Bank of Italy's sky- scraper.
The eyes of a patriarch were closed when death summoned William T. Cole pioneer of Academy at the age of eighty-seven years in June, 1900. Widow and nine daughters survived him then. The daughters were: Mrs. D. C. Sample (since dead) of Fresno, Mrs. J. A. Stroud of Oakland, Cal., Mrs. A. Birkhead of Fresno, Mrs. F. A. Estill of Academy, Mrs. J. R. Beall of Clovis, Mrs. W. M. Shafer of Selma, Mrs. Robert Hague of Fresno, Mrs. W. Haskell of Clovis, and Mrs. A. H. Blasingame of Academy. There were said to be thirty grandchildren and many, many more distant relatives.
B. Y. Colson, who died at the age of seventy-three at San Diego, Cal., February 14, 1918, was a Malaga rancher of thirty-five years ago when he came to California from Massachusetts, later he moved to Fresno and took up the painting business. Mrs. Alva E. Snow, wife of the former mayor of Fresno, is a sister and Capt. H. D. Colson, formerly of Fresno, and Will Col- son of Berkeley and former druggist of this city, are brothers.
William B. Gordon (obit January 29, 1918), a resident for nearly eigh- teen years and blacksmith by trade, was one of the three members of the board of city trustees that passed the ordinance that made Selma the first "dry" town in the San Joaquin Valley.
In April, 1918, Lawrence Jensen, city trustee of Selma, was forced to resign on discovery that he is not legally an American citizen but technically an alien who cannot become naturalized, however loyal he may be. His father was a Dane, born in that portion of Denmark later taken over by Germany, making him a German technically. He took out naturalization papers making the son in minority automatically an American, but unfor- tunately the papers were lost and he cannot establish the proof and must wait until after the war before he can be Americanized.
Emile F. Bernhard was a native of Agua Fria in Mariposa, came to Fresno with his parents in 1874 and resided here until death. He was ad- mitted to the bar, was a deputy under District Attorney W. D. Tupper but the law did not appeal to him. He was in land developing enterprises and in mining and was the trustee that liquidated the affairs of the Fresno Loan and Savings Bank, paying off dollar for dollar. After that he engaged in oil development work and lived for a time in the field. Brothers are George and Jos. P. Bernhard; sisters Mesdames J. W. Coffman, T. W. Patterson and Henry Avila. Fraternal life appealed greatly to him and he devoted much of his time to Fresno Lodge No. 247, F. and A. M. He was energetic in
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the Hundred Thousand Club which never attained the population mark for Fresno.
Andrew Farley was of a type that has almost disappeared. He came in 1867 from Petaluma to the section that is Kingsburg and preempted the townsite land. He was its first postmaster, erected the first hotel, had sheep, cattle and horses roaming over the plains and was a lover of blooded equine flesh to the last. The story is that "Uncle" Cy Draper "jumped" his land. Long litigation followed, ending in a satisfactory compromise, Farley taking the land west of the railroad and Draper that east. Thereafter Farley took unto wife Draper's oldest daughter, Della, and permanent peace ensued be- tween the families. Fate was harsh to him in his last days. He was a crip- pled paralytic and mourned the loss of all save the youngest of four children.
Mrs. Rebecca Patterson, who died at the age of seventy-six, crossed the plains in 1852 and with the family of ten resided for a time in the stockade that protected Visalia against the Indians. There she met John A. Patterson whom she married in July, 1854, eleven children being born, eight surviving their mother. Patterson and William Hazleton cattle ranched on the Upper Kings, ten miles above Centerville then part of Mariposa, and here the family lived until the early 60's when it returned to Visalia. Patterson was an organizer of Tulare in 1852 and one of its first supervisors. He assisted at the organization of Fresno and was in its first board of supervisors. Mrs. Pat- terson died in this city at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Andrew Darwin Ferguson.
William R. Shannon of Fowler was a veteran of the Mexican and of the Civil War and a pioneer of 1849 from Ohio via the Cape Horn route. He died at the age of eighty-five. In youth he was secretary to his uncle, Wil- liam Shannon, U. S. Minister to Mexico, studied law but left Mexico before the war broke out. He served for six months in Willock's battalion of mounted volunteers from Marion County, Mo., and after discharge went to Ohio and from there set out in February, 1849, for California. After four years of mining he went to Texas, near Dallas, engaged in the law and ac- quired livestock interests. From 1855 to 1887 he was in the Texas legisla- ture, save during the war for the Confederacy, serving as captain and lieu- tenant colonel of the Tenth Texas regiment and twice wounded. He re- turned to California, for a time lived in Ventura County, then moved to Fowler and was the justice of the peace there. At the 1905 centennial Lewis & Clark Exposition at Portland, Ore., Shannon was honored as a direct de- scendant of the youngest member of that expedition of 1802, his father, George, who was with the explorers when only sixteen years of age.
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