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 II > Part 10
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In former years Mrs. Hutchinson invested largely in ranch land in Fowler, and at one time owned five fruit ranches totalling over three hundred acres. These were her own, and fortunate speculations; but she has recently dis- posed of her holdings, and being a good business woman, has done so to ad- vantage. Her son, Kingsley Van Lew, is a resident of Oakland and was for a number of years a prominent fruit grower on his ranch of 100 acres near Malaga, Fresno County. Mr. Hutchinson, by-the-way, was at one time super- intendent of the Briggs Canal Company, a position of responsibility in which he was well able to show both his initiative and his power to develop on rational lines.
In 1913 in Los Angeles Mr. Hutchinson fell from a street car, while in the act of getting on. His spine was injured and he grew worse and worse and never was a well man afterwards. He died at Livermore, May 11, 1919, and was buried in the Cypress Lawn Cemetery beside his wife and oldest son.
H. E. NORTON .- A successful farmer, operating according to the latest scientific methods, and an able business man evidencing a good knowledge of the world and every-day life. is H. E. Norton, who came to California in January, 1893. He was born at Twinsburg. Summit County, Ohio, November 8. 1871, and his father, N. N. Norton, was born in the same place in 1844, and so was the grandfather, Horace Norton, who was a farmer there, while N. N. Norton became a wheelwright. During the Civil War he served in the transportation department, and after that went in for farming. In 1878 he removed to Schoolcraft, Kalamazoo County, Mich., where he engaged in the hardware and implement business, but in 1895 he sold out and located in Fresno County, Cal. He took up viticulture and had a vineyard of sixty acres on White's Bridge Road and Johnson Avenue; and there he died, in December. 1911, aged sixty-seven years. He had married Mary Cox, a native of Ohio, and she passed away in June, 1912, at the old home here, the mother of four children. Alta, now Mrs. Frank W. Stuart, resides in Schoolcraft, and Alma, her twin-sister, lives in Fresno; Herman Earl is the subject of this review ; and Bernice is Mrs. W. S. Hinch of Fresno.
Brought up in Michigan, H. E. attended the public schools at School- craft and also the excellent high school there, from which he was graduated in 1890, when he entered the Michigan Agricultural College at Lansing. At the end of the year, he engaged in teaching, but soon after came west to California. In January, 1893, he located in Fresno.
When he bought his first land, he secured twenty acres on White's Bridge Road, which he improved and farmed for six years ; and he also leased lands and vineyards, and engaged in the raising of grain and grapes. In 1899 he entered the employ of the Pierce Lumber Company, for whom he
6.V. Peterson
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acted as officeman and bookkeeper ; but in 1902 he resigned and entered into partnership with Mr. Pierce in the purchase of a saw mill, forming the Peck- inpah Lumber Company at North Fork, Madera County, and manufactured lumber, which was hauled to Friant and shipped to Fresno.
In 1907 Mr. Norton sold his interest to the Pierce Lumber Company, to engage in ranching; and having leased a ranch of 1,080 acres for two years, he undertook the raising of grain, in which he was very successful. He became interested in a tract which was called Tuttle's Colony, developed water, put in a pumping plant, subdivided the land and sold it in small parcels. It is now devoted mostly to the growing of figs and peaches.
In 1910 Mr. Norton moved back to Fresno County, and soon after he purchased his present place of eighty acres on Kearney Avenue, ten miles west of Fresno, which he has improved to alfalfa and peaches. He also has charge for his sister, of the old home ranch. His long experience has given him an enviable position among other successful ranchers, and with them he has great faith in the future of Fresno County.
Mr. Norton was married in Fresno to Miss May Pierce, a native of Iowa and the daughter of the late C. S. Pierce of the Pierce Lumber Com- pany. She was reared and educated here, and has reared and helped educate six of her own children-Mary Ellen, Charles N., Jack Earl, Robert Pierce, James D. and Blanche Elizabeth.
A Republican in matters of national import, Mr. Norton has shown his public spirit by serving as trustee of the Dunkard school district. He is ruling elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Fresno, which he and his family attend.
C. V. PETERSON .- Among the large number of self-made men in Fresno County, few hold a higher place in the estimation of their fellowmen than C. V. Peterson, usually called "Vic" Peterson, the rancher and vice- president of the First National Bank of Fowler. He was born in Sweden, the son of P. G. and Margaret Peterson, who immigrated to California and settled one and a half miles west of Fowler where they bought land which they immediately began to improve. C. V. Peterson was then barely eighteen and he went to work, in a portion of the county which was then devoted to grain. Having helped his parents plant their holdings, he became actively engaged in developing and setting out vineyards for others. In this way, he met Judge Stephen G. Nye of San Francisco, and J. B. Eliot, at that time the business manager of the Chronicle, both owning large vineyards near Fowler. He helped to set out the Nye Vineyard and continued to look after that property for Judge Nye for fourteen years, and was an equally trusted employee of Mr. Eliot during the same period.
When C. V. Peterson first came to Fresno there was not a paved street in the city, while the farming land was mainly devoted to grain. By nature he was well-qualified for the arduous task of establishing a home in a new and untried environment.
The parents are now both deceased, but are remembered at Fowler as generous, kind-hearted folks, who worked unremittingly for the welfare of their children and community, and who, as consistent Christians, made no effort to become wealthy, regarding life and good character as above the so-called "Almighty Dollar." They encouraged all their children to start in business for themselves even before reaching their majority; and when they laid down the responsibilities of life-the father died in 1911, at the age of seventy,-and the mother in 1916, when seventy-three years old, after she had continued, as the sole owner according to her husband's wish, to manage their modest estate-she had the great satisfaction of seeing her children well-established and living the lives of useful and honorable citizens.
When he was able, C. V. Peterson bought in 1889, a piece of raw land situated west of Fowler. He soon had it planted to muscats and peaches 67
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and thereby he became one of the pioneers in the fruit and raisin industry at Fowler. In 1905, he bought his present home ranch situated one and a half miles south and east of Fowler, upon which he resides and in 1906 he began improving it to orchard and vineyard. He has continued to improve it by constructing ditches for irrigation, digging wells, installing pumping- plants and planting nut-trees on the outside.
In the important work of building a home, Mr. Peterson has been ably assisted by his wife, who was formerly Miss Elsie May Pond, of Fresno, and a daughter of Thomas Pond, one of the well-known residents of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Peterson have five children : Evelyn M., Victor Delmas, John Darwin, Thomas Sherman and Luis M. They all attend the Presby- terian Church at Fowler, of which they are members.
Mr. Peterson has become a principal stockholder of the First National Bank of Fowler, and while interested in the success of said institution, and serving as its vice-president, his greatest attachments are for his home and the proper cultivation of his ranch. He delights in the growth and prosperity of his district, and is ever ready to contribute in every way to the advance- ment of the viticultural and horticultural interests here. One of the results of his hard work is a healthy progressive spirit, which leads him to look far ahead and makes him aggressive, as well as wisely conservative, in all that he undertakes.
Mr. Peterson gives due credit to his talented wife for his success and prosperity. In 1918 they built a fine country residence of brick and concrete, in architectural beauty expressing the well-considered ideas of Mr. and Mrs. Peterson,-ideas further evolved and materialized by E. W. Peterson, archi- tect and builder of Fresno. The "Vic" Peterson home is one of the hand- somest, as it certainly is one of the best and most hospitable in Fresno County.
Mr. and Mrs. Peterson are active and industrious, self-reliant and orig- inal in their ways. Selfishness is kept in restraint, while the helping-hand. actuated by a real desire to assist and uplift is ever-extended. They are especially interested in the boys and girls. For more than ten years, Mr. Peterson has given his best efforts to the up-building of the Fowler schools. He is serving on the grammar school and high school boards, being chair- man of the latter. He is chairman of the Y. M. C. A. at Fowler and also chairman of the board of trustees of the Presbyterian Church. He can be found in every good work, and wields a very positive influence for good.
He stands uncompromisingly for a dry and decent town and during the World War served as Home Civilian in Red Cross work and took an active part in each of the Liberty and Victory Loan drives.
LYLE H. SAY .- A popular citizen of Fresno County, and one who may feel a natural pride in his association with, a pioneer family, is Lyle H. Say, son of William Henry Say and grandson of the late James H. Say, both of whom are referred to in greater detail elsewhere in this work. Thus it has developed that the history of the Say family has been very closely inter- woven with the progress of Selma.
Lyle Say was born on December 7, 1893, grew up on his father's ranch, and in 1899, when six years old, accompanied his mother by the way of the White Pass to the Klondike, where his father was then interested in mining. with Clarence Berry and other Selma and California young men. He stayed in the Klondike fourteen months, and then came back to Selma, where he began to attend the Selma grammar school. Having pursued the courses of study at the Selma High School, he was graduated with the Class of '13, and then he spent three months at the Agricultural School of the University of California at Davis.
In January, 1914, he started to ranch, taking charge of one of his father's farms; but when the call for volunteers came on August 15, 1917, he was
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among the first to enlist in the Naval Reserve. He was sent to San Pedro and assigned to the Light House tender "Sequoia," and later was transferred to Mare Island, where he entered the mechanical school for machinists. On August 23, 1918, he was placed in the regular submarine service, and in the following October he was assigned to duty. He remained stationed at San Pedro until February 1. 1919, when he was released subject to call.
Mr. Say was married on June 3, 1914, to Miss Ethel M., daughter of Frank H. Stoker, of Parlier, whose sketch is to be found on another page in this history. She has proven a valuable helpmate who has taken an active part with her husband in war activities and in the purchase of liberty and victory bonds. Mr. Say is a member of the Odd Fellows, in which order he is a past noble grand, and is at present the Senior Warden in the Selma Encampment. He is also past president of Selma Parlor, No. 107, N. S. G. W., and acts as its treasurer. Mr. and Mrs. Say live on a fine ranch of 160 acres, devoted to a vineyard and apricots, four miles southwest of Selma, and besides managing that place, he also cares for the extensive interests of his father.
ROBERT LOCHEAD .- Freedom from ostentation combined with the sterling qualities that are characteristic of his Scotch lineage are marked characteristics of Robert Lochead, Fresno County's supervisor of the Second District. The son of James and Jean (Walker) Lochead, the former a Pais- ley shawl weaver, both are now deceased, Robert was born in Scotland, November 12, 1855, in the County of Ayrshire, a section of country made famous throughout the civilized world because of its association with the name of Scotland's peerless poet, "Bobby" Burns, who so aptly said: "O, wad some power the gif'tie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us."
Robert Lochead acquired a good education in the schools of Scotland and learned the trade of wood turning in that country. As a young man of eighteen, he left home and traveled extensively, coming to the United States in 1884, and locating in Iowa, he remained there three years. In 1887 he came to California, and attracted by the possibilities of Fresno's future, located here, and worked in the planing mills. In 1908, with others, he established the Fresno Planing Mill Company, of which he was president until March, 1916, when he disposed of his interest in the plant. In November, 1916, he was elected county supervisor from the Second District and is discharging his official duties with his usual efficiency.
He established domestic ties by his marriage, December 31, 1890, with Miss Carrie Fisher, and they have two children, son and daughter, James and Inez. In politics Mr. Lochead affiliates with the Republican party and fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World. He has served as a school trustee in Fresno and is a member of the Commercial Club and the Chamber of Commerce.
A. R. KERSTETTER .- As manager of the Grant Rock and Gravel Company, with plants located at Friant, Fresno County, and Visalia, Tulare County, A. R. Kerstetter, who was born at Elkhart, Ind., in 1882, has made a name and place for himself in the world of business in California. His in- terests are those of the company he is representing.
Mr. Kerstetter came to California in 1912, as a representative of the Stone-Webster Company, of Boston, at Fresno, and after he had looked over the country for a time, he saw the possibilities of building up a wonderful business in his line. The Grant Rock and Gravel Company was incorporated September 20, 1915; although it had been doing business in Fresno since April of that year. Mr. Kerstetter was made secretary and manager of the new corporation.
Their plant was started at Friant in April, 1915, and when completed represented an expenditure of $150,000, and the output of the company found ready market; in fact, such a demand for it grew that the company bought
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and rebuilt another plant at Visalia, at a cost of $75,000. Over 300,000 tons of rock was crushed by the company and disposed of in Kings, Tulare, Kern, and Merced Counties in the construction of the State Highway. They fur- nish rock and gravel for all kinds of building, among some of the structures for which they furnished material are the Fresno State Normal School; the Cory, Mason, Olender, and Federal buildings. On May 1, 1919, Mr. Kers- tetter resigned his position and organized the Piedra Rock and Sand Com- pany, manufacturers and dealers in crushed rock and sand, their business extending ·throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Mr. Kerstetter is president and manager of the company, and has offices in the Mason Building.
Mr. Kerstetter was married in Montana to Miss Katherine Walters. He is a member of Fresno Lodge, No. 439, B. P. O. Elks; the Chamber of Com- merce ; the Rotary and Commercial Clubs of Fresno.
R. W. EDMISTON .- A very successful rancher who has become a large landowner with a fine record for developing and improving the same, and who has contributed much toward the development of Fresno County is R. W. Edmiston, a native of Arizona, where he was born on February 2, 1864. His father was Robert Edmiston, who was born in Chilicothe, Ross County, Ohio, on January 16, 1836, and was a college graduate with a diploma for civil engineering. After working as a railroad surveyor, he crossed the plains to California in 1850, and for a time followed surveying and farming. Then he returned East and, wishing to support the Federal Government in its crisis, enlisted in the regular army and fought throughout the Civil War, attaining the rank of lieutenant. During the latter part of the war he was in the Indian campaigns, and was in charge of an Indian reservation in Arizona until about 1865, when he came to Napa County, Cal., and there established himself as a civil engineer and farmer.
In April, 1869. Mr. Edmiston came to Fresno County and almost im- mediately he discerned the great possibilities of the plains of Central Cali- fornia if only water could be taken out of the Kings River and used for irrigation. He confided his convictions to M. J. Church, whom he had known in Napa County, and advised him to build what became the Church canal system, for which Mr. Edmiston did all the early surveying.
Mr. Edmiston became the first settler on the plains in the Fairview district, first as a grain farmer, and later as a horticulturist and a viticulturist, he became a very important factor in the early development of this part of the Golden State. He spent his last days with his son, the subject of our sketch, and died on December 17, 1918. Mrs. Edmiston was Miss Anna Magee before her marriage, and she was a native of Sugar Loaf, Orange County, N. Y. She is still living at the home of her son, R. W. Edmiston, and as one of the oldest settlers who did her part, she is the recipient of the esteem and good will of all who know her. A daughter, Mrs. Anna A. Barr of Fresno, is the other child.
R. W. Edmiston came to Fresno in 1869, although he had come to California with his parents four years before. He was educated at the public schools, and also at the San Jose State Normal, from which he was graduated in 1884, and he finished with a course at the San Jose Business College, where he was graduated in 1886. After that he returned to Fresno, took up farming with his father, making a specialty of fruit raising, and remained at home until he was twenty-three years of age.
Striking out for himself, Mr. Edmiston was a foreman in charge of several large ranches; and then he bought a ranch near Academy. Selling that, he bought in Kutner's Colony, then in Auberry Valley, next in Round Mountain and later in the Clovis district. He has been so active in the suc- cessful manipulation of various properties that he has improved seventeen different ranches, and has owned besides about fifteen others that had already been improved. Among these was an orchard and vineyard in Round Moun- tain that was a particularly attractive place. He has owned places not only
do Amancey
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in Fresno County, but also in Merced, Madera, Tulare, and Kern Counties, and from January to September, 1919, he bought and sold four different ranches. He has title to a ranch of 320 acres in Madera County that he intends to set out to malagas and Thompson seedless grapes. He is now making his residence on his California Avenue vineyard three miles west of Fresno, and it is his desire to improve his 320 acres so as to have it set out to trees and vines. Mr. Edmiston is also active in establishing an irriga- tion district in Madera County, to take the water from the San Joaquin River by damming the river and so conserving the overflow.
At Round Mountain in 1908, Mr. Edmiston was married to Miss Mattie Bacon, a native of Tonganoxie, Kans., by whom he has had four children: Margery Alice, Ida Amelia, Robert Roosevelt and James Oscar Edmiston. He believes in cooperation for fruit men, and is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc .; he has never sued anyone, nor has he himself been sued. In national politics, Mr. Edmiston is a Progressive Republican, but he is non-partisan in matters of local import, and has found pleasure in serving as a trustee of the schools in every district where he has been a resident, and believes in physical, as well as mental education. Fraternally, he is a Woodman of the World.
Mr. Edmiston believes in the future of the great San Joaquin Valley lands and takes pleasure in producing crops to aid in the maintenance of the peoples of the world. He believes that parents should so shape their affairs as to give their children encouragement and inducement to stay at home on the ranch; he does not believe they should wait until they are of age to be given, or promised a piece of land, but as soon as they can under- stand and appreciate it, they should be given every encouragement in order that they may become better men and women.
MRS. AMERICA FRANCES YANCEY .- That women have made a positive success in practically every field of life, and even in those under- takings requiring capacity and experience for which men used to be regarded as alone equipped, is demonstrated in such a story as that of Mrs. America Frances Yancey, long identified with one of the well-known hostelries of California. She is the daughter of Judge Gillum Baley, a native of Illinois, where he was born not far from Springfield, on June 19, 1813. He died in November, 1895. Her mother was Permelia Eleanor Meyers before her mar- riage, and she was born in West Tennessee on June 22, 1819. Their marriage took place in Missouri, and in that State, before he came West to California, Mr. Baley was engaged in farming and stock-raising. He was also judge there for a couple of years; and the reader will recall that Missouri court decisions in those days generally meant a short-cut to justice.
In 1849 her father crossed the great plains with two of his brothers, and at once went to mining, continuing in that hazardous enterprise until 1851, when he returned to Missouri. After seven years more in the Iron State, he started again to cross the continent hoping once more to enjoy the good things of this promised land. He started in a caravan of ox teams, but when the party reached the Colorado River, they were robbed by the Indians. He therefore put back to Albuquerque, N. M., and remained there ten months. A new mule-team party was later made up and, joining it, Mr. Baley came to California by way of Yuma.
In December, 1860, he reached Visalia, and soon came on to Fort Miller in Fresno County. He located at the town of Millerton, and again tried his luck at mining-this time along the San Joaquin River. He followed mining up to 1866, when he was elected County Judge, and that high office he held for twelve years, serving the last term in Fresno where both he and his wife passed away. He was also County Treasurer for a couple of years. At one time he bought a grocery store, but in the spring of 1898 he sold it again. In
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the same town he ran a boarding house for a number of years, Mrs. Baley being an experienced housewife and manager.
Mrs. Yancey was born in Platte County, Mo., on September 30, 1840, and came with her parents to California and Fresno County ; and while en route to California she was married in New Mexico, on September 9, 1859, to Au- gust Block, a native of Nockel, Prussian Poland, who was journeying to Cal- ifornia with the Judge Baley train. Mr. Block died on March 15, 1864, having followed farming until his death, leaving two children: Minnie, who married Thomas Dean, and died in San Francisco; and William, who makes his home with Mrs. Yancey.
Later, in July, 1865, Mrs. Block married Charles Abraham. Yancey, a native of Virginia who came to California in 1854 and followed mining and teaming, continuing in that line until 1868. The first of August in that year, Mr. and Mrs. Yancey opened the Toll House, the first hotel in that section ; and while managing that he also engaged in farming and stock-raising. Mr. Yancey passed away on July 23, 1911, and the responsibilities he had cheer- fully borne then devolved upon the brave woman who had been so truly a helpmate. Like Mr. Block and, indeed like Mr. Baley, Mr. Yancey left behind him an enviable record as citizen, neighbor and husband.
Mr. and Mrs. Yancey, through their generosity and kindness, endeared themselves to every one and were familiarly known as Uncle Abe and Aunt Frank, and to this day Mrs. Yancey is addressed as Aunt Frank. By her marriage to Mr. Yancey she had two children: Mrs. Virginia E. Mills, who, with her husband, now runs the Toll House; and Max H., engaged in gen- eral merchandising at Tollhouse.
Since her husband's death, Mrs. Yancey continues to live at Tollhouse, having turned the management of the hotel over to her daughter, Mrs. Vir- ginia Mills. Aside from her Tollhouse ranch of over 700 acres, she with Mrs. Mills and her nephew. Robert M. Johnson, own the Johnson ranch of 1,000 acres in the Pine Ridge School district, which is well watered and wooded and an ideal ranch for stock-raising, and on this place Mrs. Yancey enjoys spending her summers. She is an old-timer, and it is interesting to hear her tell of early-day events.
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