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 79

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 79

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his colleagues for the honor, trust and confidence reposed in him. Marcus Antonius on the Lupercal thrice presented Caesar with a kingly crown which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Jo Spinney was not patterning after Caesar, probably never having heard of him. He was acting an original part. He relinquished the distinction and after resigning cast his vote so that C. J. Craycroft was chosen ex-officio mayor by the grace of Jo Spinney and the latter attached to himself another adherent out of gratefulness. In 1897 in a four-cornered fight Spinney received more votes than his three opponents combined, so well had he mastered the art of election manipulation. Spinney played the game of politics of the day as it was taught him but outgeneraled and outmastered his tutors. His own ward's interests he considered supreme ; the general interest of the city was a matter for second consideration for him in action, which is not to say that he did not take an interest in the gen- eral affairs of the city. Like so many ignorant and illiterate men, he had a wonderfully retentive memory. His was an active brain. No one was better informed than he on the municipal ordinances. Often did he correct the reading of the board's minutes before approval. Not infrequently would he present questions on legislation or interpretation of ordinances to puzzle city attorney and the other wiseacres, to hesitate and ponder before making reply. The police and fire departments were his creatures to manipulate as the foun- dation of his source of political power. He used them as playthings to serve his purpose and he rewarded those that served him. He was not without virtue to exhibit when the opportunity offered to make the show. He was good of heart also; faithful to friends; implacable towards an enemy ; un- reliable in his relations with a political enemy or opponent. While in power. he had hosts of friends ; when sick, poor and dying, the I. O. O. F., true to its obligations, was his only succor. Jo Spinney's life was a human tragedy.

J. A. Blasingame, one of the county's early settlers, died April 28, 1887, at the age of sixty-one and left an estate valued at a quarter of a million dollars, many of the holdings greatly advancing in value with the later years. He was one of the big men in the sheep business and had ranges widely scattered and counting up in the thousands of acres, following the custom of the day in herders taking up government land homesteads and buying off the entry makers. Blasingame also owned advantageously located town prop- erties. He was a veteran of the War with Mexico.

Only the living early settlers recalled J. B. Folsom, who died at the county hospital from heart disease May 6, 1887, at the age of sixty-one. He was a native of Mississippi, a half-breed Cherokee. As far back as 1851, he was the chief hunter for the military garrison at Fort Miller. Later at Miller- ton he was engaged in the saloon business for a time with Stephen Gaster. His end was that of so many of the first comers as a public charge.

Fulton N. Berry, who died at the age of twenty-six, May 12, 1887, was the only son of the late Fulton G. Berry and wife. He was engaged in San Francisco in the insurance business.

Mrs. Helen I. Albaugh (obit October, 1917) will be recalled as the first milliner in Selma, having moved thither over thirty-one years ago with the early group of settlers. She was the widow of Solomon A. Albaugh and marrying him in 1862 made the ox team trip across the continent as wed- ding journey, settling on land now covered by the townsite of Modesto. She was one of the faithful members of the First Presbyterian Church of Selma, made her home with a daughter, Mrs. Fred C. Berry. Death resulted from a hip fracture, the result of an accidental fall.

Mrs. Alice C. Baker, who died in August, 1917, was the second widow of the late Dr. Westwood J. Baker, who owned the Talequah vineyard, one of the show places east of town. While a resident of Fresno, she was identi- fied with the work of the Parlor Lecture Club and other social activities. She died at Memphis, Tenn., at the home of a sister, Miss Elizabeth Cooke, where she was on a visit. The burial was at Memphis.

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The reported death in Oakland of Mrs. Elizabeth A. Donahoo recalled that it was at her home in this city that the First Baptist Church had its organization. She was the wife of William H. Donahoo; they moved to Fresno in 1881 and after a few years returned to Oakland. In 1907 they cel- ebrated their golden wedding anniversary. She was the mother of the wife of the late Charles L. Wainwright, who was among the early younger pioneers of Millerton, Kingston and Fresno and prominent in county official circles.

It was with Masonic rites that the funeral of H. N. Cutler was conducted in this city November 23, 1917. He came to California in 1860 via the Pan- ama Isthmus route, settled in Santa Clara Valley, taught school at Saratoga and marrying Hester J. Don Allen in 1869 moved to Panoche Valley in the westernmost part of Fresno County, where as a trustee he organized the first school district and erected the log school house in which the late Thomas J. Kirk, afterward county and state superintendent of schools first taught in California. He served as a deputy assessor under the late William H. Mc- Kenzie, and in 1879 moved to Central California colony, and later to his ranch near Selma, which until the last was his home.

John W. Dumas died in San Francisco at the age of seventy years. He was for years a city and county peace officer and a man of whom it was said that he did not know physical fear. He served in the Confederate Army with the Texan Rangers. He was a Georgian born.

Late in the afternoon on the 24th of October, 1917, M. B. Havner, a resi- dent since 1906 and a life insurance agent, was killed and his machine re- duced to splinters in a race to drive his automobile over the Washington Avenne crossing of the Santa Fe, near Del Rey, ahead of an oncoming train. Widow and six children, also a brother, a physician of Troy, Tenn., survived him. The belief was that Havner was on his way to visit a son, who having been called to report in a few days to go to American Lake, Wash., as a national army soldier was finishing up work on a ranch near Del Rey. The decedent was a member of three fraternities, naming the Masonic lodge master to administer his estate and be guardian of his minor children.

Return Roberts, who was prominent in affairs at Madera as well when it was a part of Fresno County as when it undertook separate county organ- ization died at the age of seventy-five years at Livermore, Cal., having been in ill health for about one year before death. The burial was at Cypress Lawn Cemetery at San Francisco, where the remains of the predeceased wife are. Roberts crossed the plains with parents in 1849, settled at Watsonville, later was educated in the San Jose schools and became connected with a bank which had loaned money to the Madera enterprise which became the Madera Sugar Pine Company and which later acquired the property, to manage which Roberts was sent in 1878. He was identified with the greatest periods of growth of Madera County, himself erected two substantial blocks in 1890 and in 1893 organized the Commercial and National Bank and was reputed to be the wealthiest man in the county. The wife to whom he was married in 1869 died in San Francisco August 17, 1916, since which he had made a home with a married daughter in San Francisco. He retired from business life in 1915. The Roberts banking interests have been taken over by the Bank of Italy. Political life had never attraction for him; financially he was the power in the county.

John T. Robinson, who was known to pioneer city residents as Jack Robinson, came to Fresno in April. 1889. He was upon death survived by widow and nine children, one of whom is City Electrician T. M. Robinson. He was for eight years engaged here in the transfer business, the pioneer in that line when the Kearney cstate, the boulevard and the neighboring vine- yards were being laid out and transported the trees and plantings. He opened the first hay market in the city, locating at H and Merced Streets opposite the S. P. freight sheds, and later on the site of the present city hall. In his

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later years he ranched. He was a pioneer member of Fresno Lodge No. 343, I. (). O. F., and at the time of death sixty-eight years of age.

The name of Peter Van Valer is often met with in the earlier records. He was a pioneer of Tulare and Kings counties and prominent in the 70's in the sheep and cattle business in Fresno. His death at Hanford was at the age of eighty-five years. He was a New Yorker born and at the age of twenty- seven in 1859, came to Stockton to join a brother, Andrew, in the cattle business. In 1861 he last returned east to enlist in the One Hundred and Seventy-second N. Y. Infantry Regiment, later reorganized as the Sixth N. Y. Heavy Artillery, serving on detached duty as quartermaster and on discharge went to Stony Point, N. Y. He returned to California in 1869 and settling at Visalia, resumed the cattle business with the brother named and took up range land along the Kings River, in 1874 adding sheep to the venture and running about 8,000 to the band of 1,000 head of cattle and 200 horses. The business prospered until the disastrous "dry" year of 1877 when half the sheep was lost. For seven years after 1874, he was deputy district revenue collector while retaining his stock interests until 1886. In 1875 he bought out the brother's interest, remaining at Visalia until 1884, when he moved to his 1,000-acre ranch, eight miles northeast of Hanford on the river. He retired from the ranch and removed to town and was elected county tax collector for the term 1898-1910. He was a member of the Elks and of the G. A. R.

The death of Julius C. Wolters at the age of seventy-nine at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Charles G. Bonner, on the Bonner vineyard recalls that he and his brother, Henry, laid out forty years ago Wolters Colony. The decedent came to America from Germany when fourteen years of age. Three years after founding the colony, and having disposed of all his holdings he moved to Sierra County and engaged in mining and merchandising for more than thirty years, and about 1914 returned to Fresno to make his home with daughter. Another daughter in San Francisco and a son in Fresno, W. H. survived him.

A visit to Fresno in October, 1917, by Charles M. Pyke working up a Symphony Orchestra Association recalled one who has been connected with theatrical, musical and amusement enterprises nearly all his life, commenc- ing with remote past when Dion Boucicault, the adapter of plays from the French, the impersonator of Irish characters with the ever present shillelah, whose Irish plays are numbered by the dozens and whose most famous was perhaps "Conn, the Shaugrauhn," hired Pyke to sing behind the scenes "Maryland, My Maryland" in the forgotten production of "Belle La- mar." He was the head of the Pyke Opera Company with his wife the light opera prima donna. He was the first manager of the Barton Opera House and continued as such for about three years after its opening. The engage- ment followed his coming to Fresno with the opera company and playing as he said "in the old Armory Hall, a wooden shack down on J Street." After the engagement, the opera company was invited out to the hospitable Barton vineyard and there Barton unfolded his plan and declared that if Pyke would remain and manage the theater he would build it. The theater was built and it was considered one of the finest in the west. Even Fanny Davenport, daughter of John L. Davenport, tragedian and foremost actor of his day, pro- nounced it "a beautiful theater." Pyke hung up two records at the old Barton. The first was when Sarah Bernhardt appeared acting in French with an English speaking support and the receipts were over $3,200. This stood as a record for twenty-two years but was broken when Pyke came with Tetraz- zini, opera singer, and the first record was beaten by about $200. The prices of admission were special ones, accounting for the large receipts.

During the first week in October, 1918, Monsignor J. M. McCarthy sev- ered the rectorship of St. John's Church to become rector of St. Andrew's Church at Pasadena. Not only the Catholic but the community at large lost a commanding figure in the religious life after a residence of twenty years,

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having been appointed to the field in October, 1898, since which every church in Fresno has had change in ministry, Monsignor McCarthy holds a distin- guished place in the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles. Though seldom appearing before the public, no movement for the good of the community but had his fullest co-operation and aid. It was during his incumbency that the parish became the largest and most influential in the valley territory of the diocese. His interest was keen in building up the parish school, intro- ducing new methods and doubling the capacity of its school buildings. The Monsignor was ordained June 24, 1890, and coming to California was assigned as rector of the Old Plaza Church at Los Angeles, October 20, 1890. In Au- gust. 1893, he was appointed rector of St. Francis de Sales' Church at River- side by the late Bishop Mora. This five-year pastorate was followed by ap- pointment in charge of St. John's of Fresno. The present church with the adjoining parish school are the result of his efforts. When he assumed charge, parish was a small but promising one. According to the diocesan records, St. John's parish is regarded as one of the most important in the diocese. Nor was he left unhonored by the Mother Church. It was through his efforts and not without opposition from a portion of the parish that the church was removed from its pioneer site; that the large and handsome edifice was erected in 1902 and remodeled and decorated in its present completed form in October, 1915, to do which the brick structure was en masse lifted bv jack-screws from its foundations to enlarge and heighten the nave. Church honors that were conferred on the young priest were to be made Diocesan Consultor in January, 1906, in November named Private Chamberlain to His Holiness, the late Pope Pius X with the title of Very Reverend Mon- signor, in June, 1909, by appointment as Domestic Prelate with the church title of Right Reverend Monsignor and in June, 1917. reappointed Diocesan Consultor to serve on several boards having to do with diocesan affairs. It was in June, 1905, that he celebrated his silver jubilee and received testi- monials of honor not alone from his parishioners but from citizens at large. Monsignor McCarthy is a native of Brooklyn, N. Y., an accomplished musi- cian, completed theological studies at All Hallows in Ireland following his philosophical studies in the College of the Propaganda in Rome. His suc- cessor as rector of St. John's is Rev. Leo J. Foin from St. Paul's at Los Angeles. He was educated in the schools of Fresno, completed his theological studies in the east, attended St. Vincent's College in Pennsylvania and on graduation entered the seminary of the College. He said his first mass at St. John's on ordination. The Foin family is an old and respected one of Fresno.

Charles L. Walter, capitalist of Fresno and property owner of Fowler, was one of the youngest soldiers regularly enlisted in the Union Army. He was left an orphan at nine years. The war broke out when he was eleven years of age. Two years later, he enlisted in an Illinois regiment and upon discharge re-enlisted in the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry commanded by Col. Robert Ingersoll and served to the end of the war. After mining in Nevada and Arizona, he came to Fresno in 1881 and becoming interested in land near Fowler colonized the tract as Walter Colony, realizing good profit. Walter was born near Aledo, Ill., July 16, 1850.

O. J. Woodward, who succeeded to the presidency of the First National Bank upon removal to San Diego of J. H. Braly, January 1, 1888, is a man of business acumen. He is from Clinton, DeWitt County, Ill. At nine years of age, his father lost all by fire and later a few years upon his death became the sole support of widowed mother and a younger sister. At twenty he graduated from high school and after teaching a country school for one term entered the employ at Clinton of Jacob Vogel in a shoe store at twenty-five dollars a month. Three years and a half later his employer failing in health projected a tour of Germany and entrusted the management of the business as partner to his clerk in his absence. The partnership lasted for six years,

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the stock was sold and Woodward came to California in 1880 to look the field over. Returning home, he reentered the shoe business and continued for three years, forming a new partnership with his former associate. A journey to Arizona resulted in the purchase of cattle ranch of which he took charge leaving partner to manage the home business. After eighteen months, the ranch was sold at great profit, he tarried three months at Los Angeles and came to Fresno to establish a home. Money was invested in land, he engaged actively in the sale and booming of real estate until he joined the bank as stockholder, then as cashier and next as president. His former partner was persuaded to come out to Fresno and he became vice-president of the bank. The two associates were the means of attracting to Fresno as settlers a de- sirable contingent from Clinton. Mr. and Mrs. Vogel were murdered in their home in Alameda.

T. C. White dates his residence in Fresno from the 27th of April, 1877, coming with $325, all that he had, which he deposited with the First National Bank of which he afterwards became a director. The sale of a Central Colony lot bought in the summer of 1877 yielded a profit and while not ashamed to make use of a violin to give him a living he became the owner in time of the historic Raisina Vineyard. model institution that it was. It was the first raisin vineyard and he one of the pioneer raisin producers in the county. The Raisina took six first premiums at the California state fair and one silver and two gold medals for the best California produced raisins. Mr. White is a large city property owner. The White Theater and the adjoining Pleas- anton Hotel are his properties.

J. H. La Rue, who died at the age of eighty-four, was a vineyardist and a resident for thirty-one years. He was survived by widow, three sons, eleven grand and ten great-grandchildren.

Rev. Thomas Boyd was pastor emeritus of the First Presbyterian Church of Fresno City. He was pastor of the church for fourteen years, and during his pastorate it was that the church at M and Merced Streets was built and the number of communicants more than doubled from the time that he answered the call. Before his coming. the congregation worshipped in an assembly hall on Merced Street, opposite the Masonic Temple. He resigned about three years before his death, at the age of seventy.

Dr. W. T. Burks was a pioneer physician identified with the life of the city and county for nearly forty years, professionally, as a member of the city board of health or as county health officer. It was related of him that in early manhood he served as ship's surgeon on a Pacific liner and in that capacity visited the South Sea Islands on a cruise for one year. On returning in 1890, the vessel touched at a Mexican port and President Diaz enlisted him to stamp out the yellow fever then raging in Mexico, investing him with full authority and placing at his command the services of the military and navy. The epidemic was controlled in three months and after a residence of ten months in Mexico he returned to California. Dr. Burks' death was the first notable one in the city during the Spanish influenza epidemic in October, 1918.

Edward E. Bush was mayor of Fresno preceding Dr. Chester Rowell, elected April 12, 1909. He was chosen by the board of city trustees of which he was a member to fill the unexpired term of W. Parker Lyon, who had resigned about a year before. The same political power placed him in office that was instrumental in elevating Lyon to the mayoralty. Bush declined to be a candidate at the election because of ill health. A non-partisan pri- mary law being in effect. all candidates went on the ballot by petition and there were no party nominations or conventions. The contest for the mavor- alty was a four-cornered one with Trustees J. B. Myers and J. D. Statham, W. F. Toomey and Dr. Rowell as the candidates, the Good Government League having to do with the selection of candidates. Mr. Bush was a mem- ber of the milling firm of Hollenbeck & Bush and was a relative by marriage

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of Clarence J. Berry, the Klondiker. His administration was a negative one after the troublous one of Lyon and the policy constructive one of his suc- cessor.

Rev. W. B. McElwee, who died at the age of eighty, had preached from valley pulpits for nearly thirty years coming from Missouri in 1886 to occupy the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church of Madera and remaining in charge for nineteen years. He became in 1906 pastor of the Belmont Presby- terian Church of Fresno which later merged with the Calvary and became the Westminster. He retired from the active ministry six years ago. His wife died two weeks before him.

Rev. Benjamin A. Hawkins, who died at St. Helena Sanitarium, was county school superintendent of Fresno from 1883 to 1891 and after the di- vision, superintendent of the Madera County schools. Death was from a cerebral trouble.

Mrs. H. D. Carver, widow of B. F. Gray, was one of the many victims of the Spanish influenza epidemic in November, 1918. She was principal of the Emerson and Kirk school kindergartens, a resident for twenty years, one of the guiding spirits of the kindergarten schools, active in club work and in the Baptist Church. She was a member of the City Beautiful Commission.

Henry Markarian, president of the California Fig Growers' Association, was another victim of the Spanish influenza. A resident of the county for thirty-six years coming from Armenia at the age of ten years, he devoted a life to the stitdy of the fig industry and was a recognized authority on the subject. He owned the well known Markarian Fig Gardens, one and one-half miles north of the city where at the time of death he had completed a beau- tiful home.

Bernard Faymonville, chairman of the board of directors of the Fire- men's Fund Insurance Company, who died in San Francisco, was a resident of Fresno for five years after 1877. While here he was in the insurance bus- iness and in abstract office of his brother, William Faymonville, an early pioncer. He removed when appointed special agent of the insurance com- pany. He was one of the trustees of the W. J. Dickey cstate. He had a fatal stroke of paralysis while playing golf.

IV. M. Wyatt, who died at the age of seventy-nine years, had been a resident of Fresno for about three decades. He was a North Carolinian, who after the Civil War went to the northwest, engaged in the freighting business amassing a fortune for the times, lost it in the panic of the early 70's, took up the cattle business in Montana, recouped his losses and in 1886 came to California and a year later settled in Fresno. He invested in land near Fresno and Fowler. He had planted several vineyards near Lone Star and at the time of death was considered well to do.

From a vegetable garden to the pomp of court life is the romance in the life of Lily Haw, a pretty native born Chinese girl of Fresno. She was born in the country near the Eisen Vineyard, where her father Fernando Haw raised vegetables for the Fresno market. She was nineteen at the time of her marriage. Her education was received in the public schools of the city, she was a student of the Washington grammar school and ready to enter the high school. She was as bright and clever as any American girl and had inherited much of her mother's shrewdness. Haw was a character of Fresno's Chinatown. He had a shrewd and intelligent wife and they were the head of a thoroughly Americanized household and a family of ten. Lily. the second daughter, as she was known under her American name, forsook the parental roof-tree in July. 1907, and with Ben O. Yung and the latter's match-making wife as the official "go-between" in the affair journeyed to New York where the wedding, according to the Chinese custom, was had at the Hotel Astor. The husband was Kang Yu Wee, Chinese consul general to Stockholm and a leader in the much talked of Chinese reform movement. Unlike the majority of Chinese brides, who do not set eyes on their liege

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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 79

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