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 110

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1424

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 110

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At Fresno, Mr. Nelson was married to Miss Hilma Carolina Swenson, a native of Skaane, Sweden. When eight years old she came with a sister to Illinois, and in 1899 made her way to California. They have four sons: Carl Hilmar Clarence, who assists his father ; and Arthur Conrad, Harry August, and Melvin Amendus, who are at home. They all attend the Swedish Mission Church in Fresno, where Mr. Nelson is a deacon and was once a trustee. In national politics he is a Republican, and a strong advocate of temperance.

STEVE TUCKER .- The "universal car" of motordom is ably repre- sented in Kingsburg by Steve Tucker, the enterprising proprietor of the Ford Automobile Agency. In up-to-date methods of selling Ford auto- mobiles and in a comprehensive knowledge of their construction and opera- tion, Mr. Tucker is regarded as one of the leading agents of California. His business is conducted in a dignified and conservative way, the Ford way. which is not only conducive to the making of new patrons, but the retaining of old friends.

Steve Tucker was born at Greeley, Kans., on September 29, 1880. His parents are Henry and Jennie (Boen) Tucker, formerly farmers of Linn County, Kans., but now residents of Selma, Fresno County, Cal. Steve Tucker attended the grammar school at Parker, Kans., where he was reared. After finishing his school days he was employed as a clerk in a general store at Parker. At the age of twenty-two he engaged in the grocery business at

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Parker and continued there for six years. Afterwards, for a period of a year, he was located at St. Louis, and from there he moved to Denver where he and his brother, Fred, operated a grocery. Later Steve Tucker was employed as the city salesman for a wholesale coffee and tea house. His next move was to South Canon, Colo., where he became the manager of a coal mine and the company's store; also serving as postmaster and the clerk of the mine. After remaining there two years he migrated to the Golden State and settled at Selma, Cal., in 1914, where for two years he was employed by his brother, Fred, in the Ford automobile agency.

In 1917, C. J. Stone erected a spacious and beautiful building, at Kings- burg, which was planned and designed by Mr. Tucker for an automobile show-room, machine shop and garage. Mr. Tucker has leased this well arranged room for a term of five years. In addition, he has an excellently equipped machine shop and carries a large line of Ford accessories. He has been very successful in selling these popular autos, his annual sales totaling 144 machines. His territory includes forty-seven square miles, about seven miles each way from Kingsburg. The Ford agency is a credit to the city of Kingsburg.

Steve Tucker was united in marriage with Miss Frances Peebles, of Eureka, Kans., and the ceremony was solemnized at Kiowa, that state, on December 10, 1912. They have one child, Dorris M. Mrs. Tucker is a mem- ber of the Christian Church. Their new bungalow home in Kingsburg has just been completed.

CHRIS JORGENSEN, JR .- A young man who is now reaping the re- ward for his early application to general farming and in particular to viticul- ture, is Chris Jorgensen, Jr., the son of the supervisor who is also represented in this work. He has a valuable little ranch where he is experimenting and developing in such a manner as to enlarge both his estate and his experience, and where, while satisfying himself, he is pointing the way to those who, as well-wishing competitors, watch with interest the outcome of his energetic efforts. A native Californian, proud of his association with the great Pacific commonwealth, Mr. Jorgensen was born at West Park, in Fresno County, on August 20, 1887, the son of a well-known early settler, and on his father's well-kept farm he grew up. He attended the public schools, and then he went to the Fresno Business College, from which he entered Grand View College at Des Moines, Iowa. During the thirteen months that he spent in that state, he also worked with a contractor and builder, and so mastered some of the important practical problems of daily work. On his return, he assisted his father as a rancher and viticulturist.

In 1912, Mr. Jorgensen bought his present place of forty acres three miles west of Fresno, at the corner of Whites Bridge Road and Braly Ave- nue, and soon after began to set out a vineyard and an orchard. Now he has three acres of peaches, while the balance of the acreage is given up to mus- cat, Sultana and Thompson seedless grapes.

In Fresno, Mr. Jorgensen was married to Miss Daisy Jepson, a native of South Dakota, whose father was Chris Jepson, who was born in Denmark, but who migrated to the United States and for a while resided in the Middle West, later coming out to Dakota, and now living at Del Rey where he is a successful horticulturist. Mr. and Mrs. Jorgensen have two children : Harriett and Kenneth.

Independent in politics, although inclined to Democratic principles, Mr. Jorgensen is active in all that would promote the best interests of the locality. He is a live member and stockholder in the California Peach Growers, Inc., and a member of the California Associated Raisin Company. He is a public-spirited citizen, whose own success is calculated to advance the in- terests of the community.

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ROSS B. LOWTHER .- Success doesn't always need to wait until a man is well up in years before it comes to him, young men sometimes go out and meet it, and are enabled to enjoy many days of comfortable circum- stances. This has been the case with R. B. Lowther, who has achieved suc- cess by an intelligent use of the energy and industry with which he was en- dowed at birth. He was born in West Virginia, February 26, 1886, and came to California when in his seventh year. His father, W. W. Lowther, is a painter in Fresno ; his mother, who was Josephine ( Freeman) Williams, is living and is sixty-six years old. This is her second marriage, and she had one son by her first, Starr B. Williams, a rancher on Jensen Avenue. By this second marriage there are two sons, twins, Lee B. and Ross B. Lowther.

When the family came to California they settled near Trimmer Springs, Fresno County. Here R. B. grew up, running stock and other labor for wages. He went to the Lone Star District four years ago and in company with his half brother, Starr Williams, bought a twenty-acre vineyard. After working together for a year, Lowther sold his interest to his relative, and bought the twenty-five acres where he now lives. The same care and atten- tion that he gave to his work in his earlier days, he has given to his ranch, and his neat and comfortable home and surroundings are the result. He had to go into debt when he made his purchase of this land, but by judicious man- agement he has succeeded. His real work began in the foothill country of Fresno County, where he worked on ranches. Owing to his carefulness and frugality he was enabled to have a small herd of cattle for his own, and these he tended carefully and gained a start for his subsequent activities.

He was married at Malaga to Miss Maude Mercer, daughter of W. H. Mercer, of Fresno County. Mrs. Lowther has proven a happy choice for her husband, and much of the success that has come to him is due to his excellent wife.

OTTO ANDERSON .- A comparative newcomer in Fresno County, but one who is gifted with the enterprise for hard work and has amply demon- strated a high order of business ability, and whose home is a center of inter- est in educational and religious work, is Otto Anderson, who has half a hundred or more acres on Grant Avenue, two miles north of Kingsburg, where he is assisted by his two sons. Born in Sweden, in the centennial year of the United States, and growing up in that northern land, he came to America at the beginning of the present century. He was reared a farmer, and crossed a wide ocean and continent to enter California, the most promis- ing of all farming lands.

His father, a farmer before him, was Andrew Peter Olafson, who had married Margaret Anderson ; and they had eleven children, ten of whom are still living. Five of these are particularly fortunate in being in California, although the other five are also happily situated in Sweden. Otto attended the usual public schools and at fourteen was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. For a year he was employed in the wood and coal business at Got- tenburg, but for the most part he was busy farming, learning those A B C's of agriculture applicable the world over. However, he decided to bid good- bye to his native land, and in March, 1900, he sailed from Gottenburg.

Crossing the Atlantic to New York. Mr. Anderson stopped awhile in New Hampshire and in Connecticut, where he found plenty of work in machine shops; but he longed for a more out-door activity, and so turned his face westward to California. Once in the Golden State, he was not long in finding Kingsburg and choosing it as essentially promising, taking up his residence here in 1904; and on the first of August, four years later, he was married to Mrs. Satterburg, widow of Gust A. Satterburg, who was originally Alma Josephine Olson, a native of Sweden and daughter of Olaus Olson who died when she was ten years old. His wife was Beata Olson before her marriage; and she was the mother of eleven children. In 1908

R.M. Johnson

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

she came to America, and she died at the home of the subject of this sketch, in 1911, in her seventy-third year. Mrs. Anderson had five children by her first marriage, the eldest of which is Lilly, a graduate of the Selma High School, class of 1916, and now a graduate of the Fresno Normal and a teacher at the Ross School, in Fresno County; while next are Arthur and Milton, who help run the ranch; and Elvera and Walter, who are at school. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson have one child, Stanley.

During the years intervening between 1905 and 1908, Mr. Anderson improved a twenty-acre ranch and, after bringing it to a fine state of culti- vation, sold it at a profit. Later he acquired another twenty acres, an alfalfa ranch, in Tulare County; and this property he still owns. The nucleus of their present home place on Grant Avenue was a tract of thirty-two acres owned by Mrs. Anderson, and to that he added ten acres already planted and, finally, another ten in the neighborhood, so that now they have fifty-two acres, irrigated by means of two wells, two pumping plants and the service of the Consolidated Ditch. He enlarged and remodelled the dwelling, and now he has a comfortable residence, with a beautiful lawn, a garden of flowers, trees and shrubbery. He built a tank-house, and also a good barn; and he has a full complement of horses and farm machinery, together with a touring car.

Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are active members of the Swedish Baptist Church at Kingsburg, and their children also belong and attend the Sunday School. When Mrs. Anderson joined, there were only five families and thirteen members, and now there are over 350 members, and the congrega- tion is preparing to build a dignified edifice. When the history of Kingsburg shall be written in fullness and detail, the family name of Anderson will find an honorable place. Mr. Anderson's parents have recently come from Sweden, and they are pleasantly situated on a near-by ranch of ten acres, devoted to fruit and raisin culture.

ROBERT M. JOHNSON .- A stockman operating with headquarters at Tollhouse, as well as at the Johnson ranch in the Pine Ridge district, is Robert M. Johnson, known as "Cousin Bob." By helpfulness to others he has endeared himself to all with whom he comes in contact and they call him by this familiar name.

In a great bend of the Missouri River, which takes up the greatest portion of Saline County, lies some of the richest land in the state of Missouri, and on a farm near Marshall, the county seat, is where Robert M. Johnson first saw the light of day, on January 29, 1848, and here he was reared until he was eleven years of age, when he removed with his parents to Knobnoster, Johnson County, in the same state, where his father, James R. Johnson, was a merchant, afterwards removing to Bates County, Mo., and then later to Gainesville, Texas, where he died. The mother of Robert was in maidenhood Martha Yancey, born in Albemarle County, Va., a sister of the late Charles A. Yancey of Tollhouse, Fresno County ; the mother passed away in Saline County, Mo., in 1855, when Robert was only seven years of age. The young- est of her three children, he went to school at Knobnoster. Soon after moving to Bates County, he began farming on his own account, continuing until about 1876, when he removed to Gainesville, Texas, where he farmed till 1884. His uncle and aunt, Mr.and Mrs. Abe Yancey, lived at Tollhouse, so he came here in 1884, and for some years assisted them on their ranch, as well as at the Tollhouse Hotel.

At Tollhouse, Mr. Johnson drifted into the stock business and his herd of cattle growing, he established his brand, a capital P with a quarter circle under it. About twenty-five years ago, with the Yanceys, he purchased a part of what is now the Johnson ranch, lying in the foothills of the Sierras, above the Tollhouse, and here they have prospered, raising cattle and adding to their purchase until now they have 1,000 acres of land in the Pine Ridge

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district. Here have been erected a residence and suitable farm buildings, with water piped from springs for both irrigation and domestic use. A full-bear- ing orchard with choice varieties of apples is very much in evidence. The Johnson ranch is watered by both Taylor and Flintlock creeks, besides numerous springs, yielding an abundance of water for the cattle, the ranch also being well wooded with pine, cedar, fir and oak, making it an ideal stock- ranch.

Cousin Bob is very interesting and companionable and makes those who visit the Johnson ranch feel at home. The writer well remembers the genial and frank invitation and his earnest insistence. Fortunate is he who enjoys the hospitality of the Johnson home. He is a great lover of children, always finding time to do something for them. He is honest and straightforward and his word is as good as his bond. Mr. Johnson is a member of the Cali- fornia Cattle Growers Association and is also a member of the Y. M. C. A. and the American National Red Cross.

A. R. HILTON .- Pioneers of Fresno, Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Hilton reside at 1544 N Street, where they are enjoying the fruits of a well-spent life. Mr. Hilton was born at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, April 19, 1852, descended from a very early English family who settled in Nova Scotia. His father, Fred- erick Hammond Hilton, was also born in Nova Scotia, where the paternal grandfather, Thomas Hilton, ran a tannery and boot and shoe manufacturing establishment at Yarmouth, being among the first, if not the first, leather and boot and shoe manufacturers in Nova Scotia. Thomas Hilton was born in England at or near Liverpool, where the Hiltons had been tanners and leather workers for generations.

Thomas Hilton married in England and brought his family to Nova Scotia in the early days. He was twice married, but had no children by his second wife, although raised a large family by his first wife. Frederick Ham- mond Hilton was the oldest son and succeeded to his father's business. He married in Nova Scotia, Miss Mary Hilton. During the gold excitement he came across the Isthmus in 1852, and mined at Georgetown, and in other gold-mining districts. He went back to Nova Scotia in 1856, and in 1868 re- turned to California, accompanied by A. R. Hilton in 1868. They crossed the Isthmus, arriving at San Francisco May 1, 1868. They went on up to Center- ville, Alameda County, where the father opened up a boot and shoe shop. The mother and the rest of the children joined the father and our subject about six months later. A. R. Hilton attended the public schools at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia ; was brought up in the Congregational Church, and shortly after coming to California, he was apprenticed to Walton and Faulkner at Cen- terville, and learned the blacksmith trade and horseshoeing, serving an ap- prenticeship of two and a half years, when he bought out a blacksmith shop in Centerville, ran it three years, then, as a journeyman blacksmith, worked in San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield and Pittsburg (then known as New York Landing) in Contra Costa County, where he met and married his wife. She was Miss Alice Rebecca Whitney, daughter of William E. and Sophia A. (Fales) Whitney-their marriage taking place August 11, 1877, at New York Landing. William E. Whitney was born at Thomaston, Maine, where he was also married and there Mrs. Hilton was born and lived till she was eleven years of age, attending the public schools. Mr. Whitney came to California in 1849 and dug gold near the Nevada line, went back to Maine and returned again to California. His family joined him in California on Thanksgiving Day, 1868, sailing via Panama. Mrs. Hilton grew up at New York Landing. now Pittsburg, and attended Mill's Seminary. Mr. Whitney followed railroad building at Pittsburg and farmed 300 acres. He built the first limekiln in Santa Cruz; built the Black Diamond Railway, put in a great deal of piling and built many of the piers and wharves about the bay ; became an extensive contractor in building culverts and bridges for the Southern Pacific Railway and became well-to-do. Ile died at New York Landing more than thirty

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years ago. His wife outlived him and died at the home of Mrs. Hilton in April, 1894, seventy-two years old.

The Whitneys. had four children who grew up: William J., well known in Contra Costa County. He died at Pittsburg several years ago; Frank, died in Contra Costa County; Mary A., is the wife of George South, farmer, at Pittsburg; and Alice Rebecca. Four of the Whitney children died before reaching maturity.

Mrs. Hilton's mother, Sophia A. Fales, was born in Thomaston, Maine, was a very intellectual person; was a school teacher in Maine. Her family were merchants and sea-faring men. The Fales were of English and Scotch origin, and the progenitors had settled in Maine before the Revolution.

After marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hilton went to Kernville, Kern County, where he bought a partnership in a blacksmith shop, which he ran three years, thence went to Bodie, Mono County, and worked in blacksmith shop connected with a gold mine one year and then ran a blacksmith shop of his own about nine years, then Mr. Hilton came to Fresno, November 29, 1888; bought two lots on N Street across the road from the old Church Mill. He built a shop and conducted a general blacksmithing business and gained wide recognition as the manufacturer of the Hilton Wagon. He made and sold thousands of the Hilton Wagons, locally. He also manufactured buggies and light road wagons, but his principal work was the making of wagons for freighting in the mountains and in the valley, wagons, from for two horses to sixteen horses. He remained actively in business until 1904 when he was taken seriously ill and underwent an operation.

They have lived at 1544 N Street since April, 1894. Mr. and Mrs. Hilton have two living children : Mary Sophia, wife of W. H. Davis, a raisin grower at Round Mountain, Fresno County, and they have eight children: Frederick Hilton ; Mary June; Alice Adelia ; Elizabeth Ann; Walton Leslie; Shirley Jane; Chester Byron; Earla May; and Leslie Allen, manager of the United States Rubber Company in San Diego. He married Miss Ethel Van- dercook, formerly of Fresno, and they have one child: Bettie Jane.

Mr. and Mrs. Hilton have watched Fresno grow with great interest. Mrs. Hilton and the children are members of the Christian Church. Mr. Hilton is an Odd Fellow ; is a naturalized American citizen, and in political matters is a Republican.

C. EDWARD FOSBERG .- An able and influential member of the board of city trustees of Kingsburg, is C. Edward Fosberg, the retired mer- chant, whose business judgment is often sought. He was born at Jönk- öping, Sweden, the "Chico" of that country, where the safety match origi- nated and is still extensively manufactured. He is a son of Carl and Inga (Anderson) Fosberg. The father was a foreman for a spool factory, and he lived and died in Sweden, passing away in his seventieth year. The mother once came to America on a visit, to see her sons in Texas; and returning to Sweden, died there.

Five children were born to this worthy couple, one of whom, Esther, died single in Texas. Carl Edward, the subject of our sketch, was the eldest, and the next was Annie, who married Ernest Johnson, a railroad man in the employ of the Swedish government, and who now resides in Sweden. Vic- tor, the husband of Annie Lund, a native of Ohio, is a cotton-planter in Texas; while Emil, still single, is a stockman in the Pan-Handle country, now serving in the United States Army on the Mexican border.

Born on February 3, 1867, Carl Edward was educated in Sweden, where he received a good elementary training, followed by courses in business college. When eighteen, however, he left home and his native land, and set sail for Boston, where he arrived on May 1, 1885. Soon afterward, he went on to the Gulf Coast in Texas. For the first few years he worked by the month on stock-ranches around Austin. He then went to Georgetown, Texas, where he clerked for four years, after which he bought into a grocery busi-

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

ness; and off and on he sold and bought and ran other general merchandise concerns. Next he became general ticket agent for the Atlantic and Gulf Steamship Company, and as such he did a large business, having an ex- tensive and loyal acquaintance. He prospered and saved up some money. Altogether he was in Texas twenty-one years, and while there his brothers joined him, coming from Sweden at a later date. His mother also came to visit him, as has been narrated. And in Texas, in 1890, he was married to Miss Annie Anderson, a native of Sweden, who had grown up in the Lone Star State.

In 1910, Mr. Fosberg came to California, and after a year in business in Pasadena, as a stockholder in the Model Grocery, came on to Kingsburg and immediately proceeded to conduct the business for which he had already contracted. The firm had been known as Carlson & Broline, and it then became Broline & Fosberg. That partnership continued until January 1, 1918, when Mr. Fosberg sold out to F. O. Roosman.

In high favor among all who know him as a neighbor, and a wide-awake man of affairs, Mr. Fosberg has twice been elected to the city board of trustees, and he is still serving in that capacity. He is a member of the Swedish Methodist Church in Kingsburg, and of the Odd Fellows, having affiliated himself with the Crown City Lodge at Pasadena. His two children are married and are also prosperous: Maimie Mary is the wife of G. E. Andrews, manager of the California Peach Growers, Inc., at Kingsburg ; and Annie Laura is the wife of Ralph Scott, of Fresno.

WILLIAM ALLISON GREER .- A responsible position with the Asso- ciated Oil Company, at Coalinga, Cal., is filled by W. A. Greer, the efficient superintendent, who, in length of service, is one of the oldest superintendents in the Coalinga oil field. "Al" Greer, as he is familiarly called, is an exception- ally well posted oilman and has large responsibilities, which he discharges in a manner satisfactory to the company. Pennsylvania is his native common- wealth and Florence, Washington County, was his birthplace, and there he first saw the light of day on January 26, 1875. He is a son of Joseph A. Greer, a native of the same place, who moved to the Bradford oil-field, McKean County, where he was an oil-operator until his death.

W. A. Greer attended the public school at Bradford, and from a boy of eleven years he assisted his father in the oil-fields until he was of age. In Jann- ary, 1900, he came to Coalinga, Cal., where he secured employment with the Whale 8 Oil Company, remaining there six months, when he left for Bakers- field, and for a short time was located on the West Side, in the McKittrick field. Later on he went to the Cholame Valley, San Luis Obispo County, where he assisted in putting down a wild-cat well, returning to Coalinga eight months later where he has resided ever since. Mr. Greer was the driller of the first and second wells for the El Capitan. He next drilled for the No. 28 Oil Company, and for the Oil City Petroleum Company, the two latter be- ing under the same management. He was interested in and employed by the Montana Oil Company and also by the Arlene Company. In April, 1906, W. A. Greer entered the employ of the Associated Oil Company as a driller on National 30. It was in 1908, that Mr. Greer became superintendent of the Coalinga division for the company, and since then both the production and development of this division are under his able management. That his serv- ices have greatly aided in the development of the company's business, is at- tested by the fact of his holding this responsible post for eleven years.

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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 II, Part 110

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1424