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 119

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 119

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On June 23, 1908, Mr. Gonser was united in marriage with Miss Hazel Hemmer, from Stockton, who came to Laton as bookkeeper for T. E. and E. P. Blanchard's store, while Mr. Gonser was still in their employ. This happy union has been blessed with four children: Lester, Evelyn, Harold and Florence.

REUBEN FRANKLIN WILKINS .- A progressive and prosperous raisin-grower, R. F. Wilkins has ninety-three acres in full bearing a mile and a half north of Fowler, upon which he has made all the important improvements. He was born in the same house in which his father first saw the light, at Redbank, Halifax County, Va., on August 27, 1871, the fourth child and third son in a family of ten children-five boys and five girls -all of whom are still living, nine being in California and one in North Carolina. The Wilkinses came from England in the seventeenth century and took, part in the Indian and colonial wars, and also in the Revolution, as is attested by the moss-covered gravestones seen by Mr. Wilkins in the cemetery near Redbank, Va. Petersburg was the nearest city in those early, strenuous days, and in that old-time center the record of the Wilkins family is well known. His father was William Paranon Wilkins, and his mother before her marriage, was Letha P. Yancey, who was early orphaned and was thereafter reared by her grandmother Griffin. She was married in Vir- ginia, where all her ten children were born. The parents are both living in Fresno County. Grandfather Wilkins and Grandfather Yancey were planters in Halifax County, and both families were Baptists.

R. F. Wilkins attended the public schools of Halifax County and grew up on his father's plantation, where they raised tobacco, wheat and corn. When past twenty-one he came direct to Fowler, Cal., where his older brother, Thomas Jonathan Wilkins, was then working. He arrived here on January 28, 1894, and took work on the farm of George Feaver, Jr., with whom he remained during the summer and winter, until June 15, 1896. Then he worked

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out for others, and in November, 1896, he rented a vineyard of L. H. Norris, in Norris Colony.

Mr. Wilkins was married on December 28, 1897, to Miss Luella F. Water- man, a daughter of Meriben and Mary E. (McCoy) Waterman, natives of Ohio and Virginia, respectively, who were married in Missouri and came by rail to California in 1869, settling in Solano County, where their daughter was born. Later they went to Lake County and farmed, and in that county Mrs. Wilkins was reared. She attended the public schools and Overholster's Academy at Lakeport, and was admitted to teach in Lake County. She ob- tained a state diploma while teaching in Sonoma County. In September, 1896, she came to Fresno County and taught at Fowler; and the following year she was married.

Mr. Wilkins continued to rent in the Norris Colony until 1899, when he bought his present place. He had just $645, a watch and a roll of blankets when he started to rent in 1897; now, among other property, he has his home place of seventy-seven acres, and fifteen and a half acres of the old Glazier place, and with the exception of the latter, he has improved his holdings from a grain field and sand hills to fine vineyards of Thompson's seedless, sultanas and muscats, also raising grapes and peaches of the drying variety.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins have three children: Floyd, who graduated from the Fowler High School in the Class of '17, entered the University of Cali- fornia in September, 1918, and later enlisted in the Students' Army Corps and was honorably discharged on November 29, of that year. Bessie is in the Fowler High School, and Alice E., who was in the grammar school and who passed away August 14, 1919. Mr. Wilkins is a Democrat, and a man of influence in his locality. He is a director in the management of the Bridge

Canal Ditch, and is ever ready to support any measure calculated to advance the development of Central California along broad and permanent lines. He has been a strong supporter of cooperation among the fruit-growers and is a stockholder in the California Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc. A friend of education, Mr. Wilkins has always favored good schools and is a trustee of the Fowler Union High School. In May, 1919, Mr. Wilkins made a visit to his old home in Virginia, and while there he took some pictures in the historic cemetery at Redbank, and other places of interest.

F. C. BROOKS .- It is not often, perhaps, that one meets with a musician who is also a successful horticulturist, but this is true to a marked degree of F. C. Brooks, the well-known clarinet player, who has a finely-improved place which he is carefully managing. He was born in Manchester, N. H., on May 8, 1863, the son of George Washington Brooks, a native of Hancock, N. H., who was a manufacturer. He served as foreman of the Amoskeag Man- ufacturing Company for forty years, and died in his native state. He had married Moretta Cheney of Londonderry, N. H., and she also died in the Granite State.

F. C. was the only child of this union, and was given every educational advantage that the public schools afforded. He early studied music and at- tended the New England Conservatory. He made a special study of the clarinet, and for awhile was the pupil of Prof. E. Strasser of the Boston Sym- phony Orchestra. He then went to Waltham, and while employed by the Waltham Watch Company in their dial department, he played in various bands and orchestras.

At Waltham, on Christmas Day, 1891, Mr. Brooks was married to Miss Sarah Adelaide Kirk, a native of Cherryfield, Maine, and the daughter of Henry and Adclia (Quigley) Kirk, also a Cherryfielder and a native of Bear River, N. S., respectively. Mr. Kirk, who was a farmer, died when his daughter, the younger of two children, was a babe; her mother, who is now

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Mrs. Alfred Sherman, resides at Boothbay, Maine. Mrs. Brooks was educated in that state and when twenty removed to Waltham, Mass.

In 1910 Mr. and Mrs. Brooks came West with their family to Fresno and bought their present very desirable place of twenty acres on Chittenden Ave- nue. They built a residence and made many improvements. They also set out a fine orchard of peaches and apricots. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks. Hazel Adelia and Florence Adelaide are graduates of Heald's Business College; and Thelma Blanche attends the Fresno High School. There are also Carl Frederick, Eleanor Dorothy and Vera Evangeline.

In his spare hours Mr. Brooks still follows the attractions of music. He plays the clarinet in the Park Band and in the orchestra of the White Theater. He belongs to the Red Men, and is a Republican in national politics.

LOMAN WARD HAMILTON .- A tactful and popular oil-man, partic- ularly experienced in the field of production is Loman Ward Hamilton, who came to Coalinga on June 22, 1910, and has been production foreman for the Union Oil Company ever since. He was born at Farmington, W. Va., on December 5, 1878, of Scotch-Irish descent, the son of James M. Hamilton, a native of that place. He was in the Civil War as a soldier of the Confed- erate Army, and was long active as a farmer. He still resides at Farmington with his wife, who was Melissa H. Martin, from the same birthplace. She is the mother of nine children, seven of whom are yet living.

The fourth oldest in the family, Loman Ward was brought up on a farm and there remained until he was eighteen, during which time he attended the public school. When he left the farm, he entered the employ of the Georges Creek Coal and Iron Company and remained with them as stationary engineer for four years, resigning to sign up with the Standard Oil Company, at Smith- field. He worked in the fields, learned field work in general, and continued with that company for the next six years.

In June, 1910, he came to California and Coalinga and entered the employ of the Union Oil Company on the Claremont lease. He began at the bottom, working up until he became production foreman of the Iredell lease. He is now production foreman of both Claremont and Iredell leases.

At Fresno, Mr. Hamilton was married to Miss Mary Loudenslager, a native of West Virginia, by whom he has had two children: Mary Louise and James Madison.

Mr. Hamilton was made an Odd Fellow at Farmington, his birthplace, and he is still a member of that organization; and he was made a Mason at Coalinga, Lodge No. 367, F. and A. M. Mrs. Hamilton belongs to Eschscholt- zia Chapter No. 276, Order of Eastern Star, at Coalinga.

ROBERT LUNDELL .- An enterprising and energetic young rancher of Selma Colony is Robert Lundell. He was born at Gottenburg, Sweden, May 17, 1881, and possesses the characteristics that his nationality warrants -thrift and indomitable energy-which have been valuable assets in bringing about his well-merited financial success.

His father Olaus Lundell, a butcher and farmer by occupation, died when Robert was very young, leaving a widow and nine children of whom Robert is next to the youngest child.

Robert received his education in Sweden and was confirmed at the age of fourteen. He served a four years' apprenticeship as a sausage maker in Gotten- burg, and at that time resolved to come to California where his brother Otto and brother-in-law, J. B. Anderson, were living in San Jose. Sailing from Gotten- burg May 9, 1899, he reached San Jose, Cal., May 28, 1899. He went to work on a farm, then came to Kingsburg in July, 1899, going thence to Fresno where he engaged with the Grand Central Hotel Laundry. He followed the laundry business in Fresno, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Selma for fifteen years, and established the Selma Steam Laundry, which he ran for three years, selling it in 1910.

John. M. CetHisson.

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Mr. Lundell has been very successful in buying, improving and selling fruit ranches. In 1902 he purchased twenty acres three miles east of Selma and im- proved it, setting out every tree and vine on the place. He sold it at an advance. It is now owned by J. B. Crocker. After disposing of the Selma Steam Laundry he bought a forty-acre ranch near Caruthers, which he soon sold at an advance. He then bought and sold a ten-acre ranch and later an eleven-acre ranch which he sold to advantage in the fall of 1917, at which time he purchased the Charles Donnell tract of twenty-one acres on Washington Avenue, one and a quarter miles north of Kingsburg. He put that property in fine shape, expending over $2,000 on the place, and sold it to advantage before he bought his present ranch in Selma Colony, a well-improved ranch of sixteen acres where he now lives with his family, and in joint ownership with a brother, he owns another eleven- acre ranch near Selma.

Mr. Lundell was married in Los Angeles in 1904 to Miss, Emma Quist and they are the parents of three children: Dorothy, Myrtle and Alice. In their religious views Mr. and Mrs. Lundell favor the Swedish Baptist Church.

JOHN MARSHALL ATKISSON .- One of the oldest residents, and closely associated with the growth and development of Coalinga from its earliest days, is J. M. Atkisson, now the foreman of the Associated Oil Com- pany's Supply Yards, Coalinga. He was born near Fort Scott, Bourbon County, Kans., on March 18, 1864. His father was an experienced blacksmith and a most excellent man, and under him John M. learned the blacksmith trade at Fort Scott, Kans., and followed this trade there until 1886 when he came to California, where he worked on ranches near Stockton. In 1887 he went to Huron, Fresno County, where he went to work for the Stockton Land Company, in reclaiming the desert land near Cantua. In 1892 he be- came foreman for the Pleasant Valley Stock Farm, at Turk. In the fall of that year he leased 1,400 acres of land from this company, above Coalinga, which he farmed to grain.

In 1896 Mr. Atkisson located in Coalinga, and farmed grain on what is now Sunset addition. This is now in the center of the residential section of Coalinga. During this time he served as Deputy Constable, later as Constable and Deputy Sheriff, and after that as Deputy Marshal of Coalinga for four years. For five and a half years he was special officer for the California Lim- ited Oil Company (now the Shell Company), on their lease at Oilfields. In the early days he was also school trustee of Coalinga. In November, 1916, Mr. Atkisson was made foreman, by the Associated Oil Company, of their supply yards in Coalinga. Long ago he saw the future of Coalinga, and bought a number of lots and built houses on them, and bought one house, and this and the five he built now afford him an income. At one time he owned the lot on which now stands the Pleasant Valley Hotel.

In 1893, Mr. Atkisson returned to his old home in Kansas and while there he was married to Calista A. Boulware, who was born in Bourbon County, Kans. She died in 1913, leaving three children: John C., who served over- seas, attached to the 121st Machine Gun Battalion of the Thirty-second Di- vision, serving on different fronts, and after twenty-two months in the army he was honorably discharged; Clarence E., engaged in business in Oakland ; and Maude A., who graduated at the Coalinga High School and also from the Fresno State Normal, and who is now attending the University of California.

Mr. Atkisson was the first individual to supply the citizens of Coalinga with drinking-water. He brought water from Armona, shipping it by rail in tank cars, and delivered it to Coalinga homes. Thus he continued to serve the people for several years, when he sold out. Mr. Atkisson was made a Mason in Welcome Lodge, No. 255, at Lemoore, but is now a member of Coalinga Lodge, No. 387, F. & A. M. He is a member of the Modern Wood- men of America, as well as Coalinga Lodge, No. 9446, M. W. of A., of which he is Past Council Commander.

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AUGUST HARTWICK .- Possessing the fundamental characteristics for success, August Hartwick is keenly alive to the opportunities in Fresno County and has won a place for himself in his community, maintaining a stand- ard of true American ideals, though born under another flag. His birth oc- curred in Straub, Samara, Russia, October 10, 1876, and his parents, George and Katrina (Willdt) Hartwick, were farmer folk in that country. The second oldest of three children, and the only one living, August Hartwick was edu- cated in the public schools of his native province and assisted his father on the home farm until nineteen ; he then began working on ranches on his own account, and his marriage, May 15, 1899, united him with Miss Kathrina Wegele, born in Laub, Russia, a daughter of George and Lizzie (Gideon) Wegele, also farmers of Samara.

In 1902 the young couple came to Fresno, and here Mr. Hartwick worked on ranches for a time and for the Southern Pacific Railway. In September, 1905, he bought twenty acres of raw land in the Biola district and began the work of transforming it into a productive ranch. He built his residence and set out the acreage to Thompson seedless vineyards and orchards, and sowed alfalfa. He later added another ten acres, one and one-half miles west, and set this to Thompson vines and sowed alfalfa also, and operates a small dairy in connection. On the home place he has erected a residence and enjoys the comforts and prosperity made possible through his own efforts, and with the help of his estimable wife.

Eight children have blessed their marriage: Mollie, Mrs. Friesen of Di- nuba ; Henry ; Floyd ; Esther ; Ezra ; Helen; Marie; and Alvina. The family attends the Seventh Day Adventist Church at Barstow. Mr. Hartwick is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and, with his wife and family, is highly esteemed in the community.

HANS C. HANSEN .- An energetic builder of Central California who has seen not only Fresno but Fresno County develop and expand almost beyond belief, is H. C. Hansen, the vineyardist on Belmont Avenue about two miles west of Fresno, who came to California in 1883 and the next year decided that Fresno County looked better to him than any other place on the Pacific Slope. He was born in Bornholm, Denmark, on July 23, 1862, the son of Lars Hansen, a farmer there, and so was reared on a farm, while he attended the public schools. His father died when he was about fifteen, and at sixteen he was apprenticed to learn the shoemaking trade. He made shoes until he was twenty-one and then he took the great step of crossing the ocean to America.

At first he settled for a while in Merced, Cal., where he worked for William Applegarth on his large grain ranch, but in 1884 he came to Fresno County, following grain-farming for the Applegarth interests here. He worked at grading on land before it was improved, and managed sixteen horses on a V-ditcher. Then he himself bought an outfit, leased land at Centerville for a year, and next, for two years, raised grain seven miles west of Fresno. He then bought a vineyard set out to Malagas, but found that he could not make a success of it because of alkali. So he lost what he had saved and was com- pelled to start all over again.

Mr. Hansen then rented a vineyard west of Fresno and made such a stake that he was able to buy a fine vineyard of twenty acres on Kearney Avenue where he raised Muscats for nearly twenty years. Selling that, he bought his present place of twenty acres in Muscats. Later he bought twenty acres of raw land on California Avenue, five miles west of Fresno, which he checked and planted to alfalfa, raising hay. He belongs to the California Associated Raisin Company, and has been a member of all the cooperative associations from the beginning.

At Fresno, Mr. Hansen was married to Miss Stella Welch, a native of Jowa, by whom he has had three children : Clara, who is Mrs. H. H. Jorgen-

HASavage

Eleanor av. Savage

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sen, and lives near Fresno ; Frank, who was educated in the public school and Fresno Business College, entered the United States service, went overseas with the Rainbow Division, later transferred to another division, was dis- charged after seventeen months service in France, and returned home in July, 1919; and Mabel, who is Mrs. C. C. Brockman, of Madera.

Mr. Hansen is a Republican in national politics, and in religion he adheres to the tenets of the Methodist Church. He served as school trustee for six years in the Madison School district, acting as clerk of the board for two years. He belongs to the Odd Fellows in Fresno, Lodge No. 186, and to the Woodmen of the World; and he and his wife are members of the Rebekahs.

H. A. SAVAGE .- A distinguished representative of the California Bar, whose increasing fame is due in part to his specializing in commercial and real estate law, in part to his high moral character and the confidence natu- rally reposed in him by all who know his life and daily standards, is H. A. Savage, the senior member of the well-known firm of Savage & Lovejoy, whose suite of offices is at 909 Griffith-Mckenzie Building, Fresno. He is an excellent business man, and is becoming a large landowner, and thus more and more in touch with a field whose legal aspects he is called upon to elucidate and defend. Mrs. Savage enjoys the pleasant association with an historically interesting family, and as a lady of culture and great breadth of views, she is an excellent wife and mother.

A native son, Mr. Savage was born at Terra Bella, in Tulare County, on September 30, 1888, and his father was P. M. Savage, a farmer of Tulare. He married Miss Flora Darby, who was born in J. Ogden Mills' mining camp on the American River, one of the first, if not the first white girl born there. Her father and her mother were natives of Texas and Mississippi, respec- tively, and they were married in Yolo County, California. H. A. Savage grew up on his father's grain farm, and as he began to work when he was a mere boy, he early learned to drive horses and mules, sometimes guiding as many as from eight to thirty-two horses and mules on a harvester.

In 1900 his parents moved from the farm to Sanger, where the lad attended both the grammar and high schools, and was graduated with the Class of '06. He then went to the University of California, where he pursued the regular four years' course in political science and was graduated with the Class of '10, when he received the degree of Bachelor of Letters. Finish- ing his work at Berkeley, he went East to Cambridge, Mass., and in Septem- ber, 1910, matriculated at the Harvard Law School; and three years later in June he was graduated from Harvard University with the J. D. degree.

Returning to Fresno, Cal., he opened a law office and in 1913 he was appointed City Attorney of Sanger, and in that responsible capacity he has served that growing municipality ever since. His first office was in the Rowell-Chandler Building, which was just completed, and when the Griffith- McKenzie Building was finished, in 1915, Mr. Savage moved his offices there. The present partnership, which has proven so successful, was formed by Mr. Savage and G. R. Lovejoy, also a well-known attorney, in October, 1918.

As a good manager and prosperous business man, Mr. Savage makes his showing in land ownership and development. He owns 320 acres in the Tivy Valley, where the Kings River emerges from the mountains, and with WV. O. Miles, the president of the Union National Bank of Fresno, he owns the old Maze ranch on the north bank of the San Joaquin River. This consists of 2,400 acres, now being planted to vines and trees. He also owns four other ranches, two grain farms in Madera County, and two in Fresno County. One of these is in Perrin Colony No. 2, near Fresno ; and Mr. Savage also has 400 acres of timber lands at Pine Ridge. This ownership of agricultural land has made Mr. Savage much interested in the problems of irrigation.

In his zeal and patriotism Mr. Savage during the war was very active in the different war and Liberty bond drives, giving of his time and best efforts.

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He was one of the "Four Minute Speakers" working under the direction of the Committee on Public Information at Washington; with his ability as a public speaker and being popular he used his influence to arouse and sustain the patriotism of the citizens of Fresno County. At the Fresno High School during the Second Liberty Bond drive in a little more than an hour he raised over $104,000. President Wilson took personal notice of it and wired him his appreciation of his splendid work. This was the precedent that started the state-wide systematic Liberty bond work in the public schools.

On August 20, 1910, Mr. Savage and Miss Eleanor A. Chambers were married at Sanger. The bride was born at Yakima, Wash., and later gradu- ated from the Sanger High School and the San Jose State Normal School, and for a while, during the time when Mr. Savage was a student at Harvard, she also pursued courses at Radcliffe College, the woman's annex of Harvard University. Mrs. Savage from childhood has been a great lover of horses so much so that her admiration led her to ride the cow ponies on her father's ranch. Thus she became a splendid horsewoman. She is also an expert with a big game rifle, and one summer it was her fortune to kill eight bear.

Four children have been given to this worthy couple to bless their for- tunate union. The eldest is Harold Alonzo, Jr .; then comes Joseph Town- send, and the third in the order of birth is Andrew Jackson; while the young- est is Alvin Palmer. The name of the third child Andrew Jackson is ac- counted for by the interesting historical fact that Mrs. Savage's grandfather, Andrew Chambers, was born in Andrew Jackson's house, and her great- grandfather. Captain Chambers, led the first immigrant trains into the great northwest in a prairie schooner now in the Portland Museum, and on exhibi- tion at the A. Y. P. E. Exposition at Seattle. He was an Indian fighter of renown. Mr. and Mrs. Savage are members of the Christian Church at Fresno, where he was superintendent of the Sunday School for two years; he is a Knights Templar Mason, holding membership in Fresno lodges.

L. M. HUTCHINSON .- A well-informed oil man who understands every detail of the business, and is therefore highly esteemed by all who have dealings with him, is L. M. Hutchinson, the popular superintendent of the North Pole Oil Company. He was born in Marietta, Washington County, Ohio, on May 2, 1864, and his father was Henry U. Hutchinson, who was born in Noble County, Ohio, where he became a farmer. He served in the Civil War, in Company B, of the Seventy-seventh Ohio Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, and as a result of hard service in numerous battles he lost an eye. When he died, he was living at Marietta. Mrs. Hutchinson was Sarah Miller in maidenhood, a native of Ohio, and she died at Marietta. She was the mother of six children, and five are now living.

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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 119

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