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 28

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 28

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Dr. Johnston was united in marriage with Miss Ethel L. Thomas of San Francisco, and they have one son, E. Melvin, Jr., of whom both parents are justly proud. But for the fact that the child was two pounds over-weight he would have ranked as a one hundred percent. perfect baby. During the service of Dr. Johnston in the army he had his wife and son with him at the different camps until he received orders for overseas duty, when they returned to California.

Dr. Johnston has been prominent in his profession and served as presi- dent of the San Joaquin Valley Dental Association for one year. He is now serving as councilman to the California State Dental Association as the repre- sentative of the San Joaquin district. He attended the meeting of the Na- tional Dental Association held in Chicago in August, 1918, and while there he was a member of the company that gave an exhibition drill before the Association and was reviewed by Major General Gorgas, Surgeon General U: S. A. and Brig. General Noble, U. S. A. Dr. Johnston is second vice- president of Fresno Parlor, N. S. G. W .; is a member of the University Club of Fresno; and is a charter member of the World's War Veterans and a member of the local executive committee.

WARREN SANFORD MUNGER .- An enterprising viticulturist, famed both for his own success and for his activity in promoting movements for the building up of the County, is Warren Sanford Munger, than whom few if any so well deserve a large circle of friends-Mr. Munger's agreeable personality drawing many to him. He was born near Paw Paw, Van Buren County, Mich., on March 11, 1870, the grandson of Luke Munger, who was born near Canton, Ohio, settled in Michigan as a farmer and died there. His father was Lafayette Munger, a native of Boston and a naval constructor who came west to Ohio and made his home there. Warren's father, A. M. Munger, was a farmer and merchant at Schoolcraft, Mich., who engaged in the hardware and implement trade, and was also a stockman and drover. While in Michigan he was married to Olivia Corey, a native of Ohio, who was born in Van Buren County and became a pioneer of Michigan.

In 1889 Mr. Munger came to California, settling for a couple of years in San Francisco, and two years later he removed to Fresno County, where he bought a ranch on White's Bridge road, near Johnson. He made numer- ous improvements, laid ont the forty acres as a vineyard, and resided there until 1901. Then he sold out and removed to Ignatia Valley, Contra Costa County, where he set out one of the first and finest walnut orchards in the state. Now he resides in Oakland, still actively looking after his orchard, and each year celebrating, as a hale and hearty man of seventy-six, his far-away birthday-February 7, 1842. Mrs. Munger died in 1877, the mother of three children : The eldest was Charles E., a mechanic, who died in North Dakota ; then came the subject of our review; and the youngest is Al Mun- ger, of Fresno.

Educated in the common and high schools of his neighborhood, Warren became a graduate of the Morgan Park Business College of Chicago, after which he entered the employ of the Grand Trunk Railroad, and for six years was assistant train dispatcher at Schoolcraft. In 1891 he obtained a furlough and came to Fresno County for the summer; and although he sub- sequently returned to Schoolcraft and continued with the Grand Trunk until 74

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1896, what he had seen of the wonderful opportunities afforded by Central California was a revelation that he never forgot.

Having permanently resigned from the railway service, Mr. Munger made haste to remove to California and bought forty acres of his present place, effecting the transaction with his brother Al as a partner. A year later, he bought his brother out, and then he continued alone to make ex- tensive improvements on the place. He built a handsome residence and good outbuildings, and since then he has bought twenty acres adjoining. Now his sixty acres, at the corner of Belmont and Johnson Avenues, constitute one of the choice ranches, of its size, in the county. Mr. Munger also owns forty acres on Belmont Avenue, two and a half miles to the west. This property he has improved, fenced and cross-fenced, and sown to alfalfa and grain; and he has installed a fine pumping-plant-one of the first in that section. He was one of the builders and is now the owner of the Forsey warehouse at Forsey station. The main Munger ranch is about four miles west of Fresno, and there the sixty acres is devoted to vineyards, with a pretty and profitable border of figs. Muscat and Thomp- son seedless grapes flourish under the direction of the experienced viticul- turist. From the time when the first efforts were made to form a raisin asso- ciation here Mr. Munger supported the movement: and he is today active in the California Associated Raisin Company.

At Schoolcraft, April 17, 1895, Mr. Munger was married to Miss Nellie M. Kohl, a native of the old Kalamazoo County, by whom he has had two children. Dorris is a graduate of Fresno High School, and Duane is the younger. While in the East, also, Mr. Munger was made a Mason, joining the F. & A. M. order at Schoolcraft.

A Republican in national politics, Mr. Munger served for many years as a member of state and county committees. He has also done good civic duty as a school trustee of the Mckinley school district, where he has been clerk of the board, and as a member of grand juries, sometimes acting as chairman. In business circles Mr. Munger is quite as favorably known as a man of affairs, being interested in particular in the Pacific National Fire Insurance Company, of which he has been for some time a director.

JOHN SHAFER .- It would be difficult, perhaps, to find a more profit- able subject for entertaining study than the lives of those early pioneers who, having set out for a promised land and weathered all the obstacles and ad- versities of a stormy career, lived to participate in the founding and develop- ment of the great commonwealth of the Golden State, and thereby entered into a reward for their toil and good works not always granted even the most meritorious. Among such Americans of the enviable class may well be enumerated John Shafer, now deceased, a man of insight and great force of character, who was born at Everett, Bedford County, Pa., then called Bloody Run, on February 14, 1824. He grew up in Pennsylvania. attending the first public schools of his section, and himself taught school for several vears in Bedford County. The Shafers, of most respectable German origin, had lived in Pennsylvania from early Colonial times, and members of the Shafer family still dwell in the house made of heavy solid red cedar logs where John Shafer was born. He became a drover, and bought and sold cattle for an important firm in the East. In their interest, he went to Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, purchased cattle for the market, and drove them to Philadelphia and New York before there were any railroads in the Southwest.

In 1852, he came across the great plains, as captain of an ox team train that outfitted on the Missouri River, and he walked most of the way and was three months in crossing the continent. Arriving in California the same fall, Mr. Shafer bought swamp and overflow land on the Sacramento River, and cut off the timber for wood for the steamboats plying from Sacramento to San Francisco, before the advent of railroads; and when food and pro-

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visions were scarce, he planted the cleared land to vegetables, and went in for truck farming as onions, etc. sold for fifty cents apiece, later putting his application to the cultivation of grain, alfalfa, apples and fruit, being one of the first to engage in the important industry of market gardening in the Sacramento Valley.

On February 22, 1860, John Shafer was married at Stockton to Miss Matilda Thankful Humphrey, a native of Rochester, N. Y., who had been reared in Michigan. She crossed the plains in 1854 with her parents in an ox team, and like her husband, walked nearly all the way. Four children blessed their union. The eldest is W. H. Shafer, the civil engineer at Selma, a leader in his profession, who has long been connected with irrigation proj- ects in Fresno County, and whose life is elsewhere sketched in detail in this work. The second in the order of birth is the physician and surgeon, J. E. Shafer, of 2815 Woolsey Street, Berkeley. He was born at Stockton on Sep- tember 28, 1863, and passed his boyhood in Sacramento County, where he attended the public schools. Later, he taught school in different parts of California and then studied medicine, and was graduated from the Hahne- mann Medical College at San Francisco, a member of the Class of '97; in 1889 he was married in Santa Barbara County to Miss Jennie Harman, by whom he has had three children. Since then he has lived in and practiced at Berkeley. The third son is Frank E. Shafer, the retired oil man, who is resi- dent in Pasadena. The youngest child was John A. Shafer, who died, un- married, when he was twenty-one years of age.

John Shafer was a public-spirited, high-minded man, and it is not sur- prising that the Shafers have become among the most illustrious of Cali- fornia pioneers. He organized the first reclamation district and built the first levee on Brannan Island; in 1873. He was particularly interested in public schools, and erected the first school house on that island, forty miles below Sacramento. He stayed in Sacramento County from 1852 to 1882, when he moved to the Mendocino district in Fresno County, and there bought a farm of 160 acres, the McClanahan place. Later, he purchased railroad lands in the same vicinity, which he also improved, planting grain and alfalfa, and afterwards vines and trees. He became well-to-do, but not rich, and was influential, so that his death-from an accidental injury- on December 7, 1893, seven months after the demise of his devoted wife, on May 6, 1893, was widely and sincerely deplored. He left in his descendants men and women of virility and force of character, a brainy family with a proper appreciation of historical detail, as one might expect of pioneer blood, and a strong grasp on the essentials of business procedure.

F. G. LADD .- A native son of the Golden West is F. G. Ladd who was born at Stockton, April 6, 1862. His father, Ira W. Ladd, a native of Ver- mont, came via the Isthmus of Panama about 1852 to California where he fol- lowed ranching, teaming and saw-milling. He was married in Stockton to Miss Emily J. Sutherland, a native of New York state. Her father, Jacob Sutherland moved to Chicago and then, about 1851, brought his family across the plains in wagons drawn by ox teams. Ira W. Ladd teamed from Stockton into the Sierra Mountains and into Nevada. He was a good driver, having at times twenty-two mules in a team. He afterwards farmed on a ranch near Stockton, and here he died in 1916, his wife having preceded him in 1908. They had a family of four children. F. G. was the only son and he received a good education. He chose farming for his life work, and went to work at ranching. In Stockton he married Miss Ella Learned, born in Alameda County, the daughter of D. A. Learned, born in Oxford, Mass .. who crossed the plains to California in the fall of 1850. After mining in Siskiyou County for a time he went to Idaho where he also mined and then returned to Cali- fornia, engaging in dairying in San Lorenzo, Alameda County. He was mar- ried in San Francisco to Gennis D. Hall, born in Chester County, Pa., who

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came via the Isthmus of Panama to California in 1860. D. A. Learned and his wife later moved to San Joaquin County and farmed east of Stockton and there they spent their last days.

In 1886, F. G. Ladd came to Fresno County and became a pioneer home- steader and grain-grower of the Cantua district. Mr. and Mrs. Ladd had three children. Elmer is ranching in San Joaquin County; Georgia died at fifteen years of age; and Fred is ranching near the old home. Mr. Ladd is an enterprising man and has been an upbuilder of the county. Fraternally, he is a member of Coalinga Lodge No. 187, I. O. O. F., and is also a member of the Hanford Encampment of Odd Fellows. Mr. Ladd is a well read and much travelled man and is an interesting and instructive talker.

NEHEMIAH W. STEWARD .- A life of well-directed toil, inspired by the principles of the Golden Rule, is exemplified in Nehemiah W. Steward, who came to Selma over a score of years ago and at once established himself in his present business, and who is today one of Selma's best-known and most highly respected business men. He was born in York County, Pa .. the son of I. M. Steward, a native of that State, who married Hannah Urey, also a Pennsylvanian. The former came from English and Welsh blood: the latter of good old German stock. Nehemiah's boyhood was passed on his father's farm, and there, at an early age, he began to work hard, to learn to plow. and to do many other useful things.

In 1873, the lad moved with his parents to Iowa, and there he reached his majority. From his fourteenth year he had taken charge of his father's fifty-seven acres in Pennsylvania, while his father, who was a mechanic, worked at his trade; and now that his father found it more profitable to do skilled manual labor, Nehemiah continued to farm. Thrown on his own responsibility not merely for himself but in the care of the business of others, the young man soon developed that shrewd business sense which he has since displayed. Hearing that there were free homestead lands in York County, Nebr., Mr. Steward left the Hawkeye State when he was twenty- one, and took up 160 acres in the new country. He also set to work to im- prove it and he built a neat home there. His parents migrated with him and shared his home; but from that time he was head of the farming operations.

Four children there were in the family, one having died in infancy; and one of them, now Mrs. George Rickard, resides on a ranch a mile south of Selma.

As soon as possible, Mr. Steward proved up on his fine little homestead, and having continued to make improvements on the farm, he tilled the land and lived upon it nine years. Then he moved still farther westward, and eventually settled in California, first choosing Santa Cruz County. For five years he ran a pack train for the Santa Clara Valley Mill and Lumber Com- pany, and then moved back to York County, Nebr., resumed farming and put in another seven years.

"Once a Californian, always a Californian," however, proved true with Mr. Steward, as it has with so many thousands of other pioneers, and selling out, he came again to the Coast, and this time pitched his tent at Oakland, where he lived a year and a half. In 1896, he came to Selma for the first time. He continued to own and rent out his farm of 160 acres until four years ago when he returned to Nebraska and sold the property. He re- ceived the fancy figure of $100 dollars an acre, and taking the proceeds, he reinvested in twenty acres of highly improved land three miles east of Selma,

John C.Porday

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planted with Thompson's seedless and now in full bearing. Since then Mr. Steward has acquired another ranch of twenty-four acres six miles south of Selma, a considerable portion of which is in peaches. He also owns 100 acres in the eastern part of Riverside County, and he has an undivided quarter interest in 360 acres at Bowles, Cal., which he and John C. Rorden, M. Vincent and C. C. Snyder have improved and own jointly, it being so successfully planted to trees and vines that, as full bearing land, it is now a valuable estate. Besides, he owns his store building at 1814 East Front Street, Selma, where he has transacted business for the past twenty- four years, and in addition, he owns some superior Selma residence property.

While he was in Nebraska, during the Centennial year, Mr. Steward was married to Miss Susan Brown, an native of Pennsylvania, who died at Selma in 1911, the mother of six children. Five of these grew up and four are still living: Mrs. Lillie M. Ballard resides at Selma; Charles is married and in the piano business at Selma; Lee is a partner in Byron & Steward, grocers, of Selma ; Willie is a farmer near Selma; while Mrs. J. L. Hamilton passed away in the same town.

Mr. Steward comes of sturdy lineage, three of his forebears having passed the age of one hundred. His father lived to be ninety-eight years, six months and five days, and his mother was eighty-two years old when she died. Mr. Steward when resident in Nebraska joined the United Breth- ren Church, and ever since has been a consistent member of that church and has served as trustee. He is also a public-spirited citizen who believes in associating the church with all the general movements looking to the uplift of the community. He is a member of the Workman of Selma, the Degree of Honor, the Knights of Pythias and the Fraternal Aid. Mr. Steward enjoys the esteem, confidence and good-will of his fellow men.

JOHN C. RORDEN .- It is brain and brawn, together with the ad- vantages of soil and climate, that have placed the Selma district of the San Joaquin Valley in the front rank. It is through the efforts of such leaders as John C. Rorden, president and manager of the Selma Land Company, Inc., that the city of Selma, with all her natural advantages of soil, climate and beauty of situation, has reached the zenith she has attained.

John C. Rorden was born May 28, 1864, on the Island of Föhr, near Schleswig. At the early age of fourteen he began a seafaring life, working at that vocation for the munificent sum of four dollars per month, as a sailor before the mast on a sailing vessel starting from Greenock, Scotland. He followed the calling of the sea for four years, and in that time visited the principal English, Scottish and North European ports, as well as the princi- pal ports of North and South America, doubling Cape Horn four times. Travel is a liberal education in itself and doubtless his early life left its impress on his mentality, broadening his viewpoint and strengthening his determination to make the most of his natural ability.

No place in all his travels appealed to him as did California, and at the age of nineteen he renounced a seafaring life and became a resident of the Golden State, where he has since made his home. He is now one of the most highly respected and prosperous citizens of Selma. From small beginnings he has advanced steadily-from sailor, lumber-jack, cook and barber, to finally become a foremost real-estate man. In 1883, when he first settled in Cali- fornia, he worked in a lumber mill in Mendocino County. He was taken seriously ill with diphtheria while there and after his recovery went to San Francisco where he worked in a restaurant on Third Street. In 1885 he came to Fresno and accepted a position in the Grand Central barber shop on Mariposa Street. In 1888 he came to Selma and from 1888 to 1901 was proprietor of a barber shop in that city. He is now president and manager of the Selma Land Company, whose offices are in the busy center of the city, on the ground floor in the Selma Land Companies Building on Second Street.

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The Selma Land Company was organized in 1900 and was then a partner- ship owned by Walter L. Chapel, W. McClurg and W .. McDaniels. Mr. Rorden was induced to buy out two of the partners, later becoming sole owner of the business which has continued as a corporation. Its present officers are John C. Rorden, president and manager; Georgia Rorden, vice- president, and Bert Statham, secretary.

John C. Rorden is a booster who has promoted Selma by taking un- improved land, subdividing, planting, and inducing settlement by the right kind of people, in the favored section known as "Selma, the Home of the Peach." He has also been interested in organizing the raisin-growers and peach-growers of Selma. His first venture was the purchase and sub- division of a 960-acre tract near Caruthers. He has bought, subdivided and successfully disposed of 320 acres near Selma, preparing it for the settler and selling on easy terms. He managed the subdividing of a tract of 880 acres for the Selma Improvement Company in the usual satisfactory and successful way. He is a leading man and official in the California Peach Growers, Inc., which he helped organize. He has twice visited his native country since coming to Fresno County. His parents are now dead.

Mr. Rorden has built several residences in Selma and sold them. To ac- commodate the rapidly increasing demand for homes in this fast growing community, he is now, 1919, building six new bungalows. He recently purchased two blocks on North McCall Avenue, which will be called Rorden's Stucco Addition. It is one of the most available as well as desirable resi- dence locations of Selma. It will be a restricted district and is finding favor among discriminating buyers of homes. Mr. Rorden is erecting these houses in units of six, and will continue to build and sell until the tract is fully built up. Perhaps no man in Selma or Southern Fresno County has a larger circle of friends. He is a square-dealer and delights in serving and benefitting his fellow men.

On May 28, 1890, Mr. Rorden was married in Selma to Miss Georgia Levis, born in Wisconsin, the result of the union being three daughters. Dora, Cleo, and Helen. The family resides in the comfortable, commodious and homelike residence which Mr. Rorden owns at 2324 Selma Street. In his political views Mr. Rorden is a Democrat and an ardent and patriotic supporter of the administration and its war measures.

LYMAN L. DAVENPORT .- The pioneer of auto electrics in Fresno, Lyman L. Davenport, vice-president of the Electric Laboratories, Inc., is prob- ably the best informed man in this line of work in the entire San Joaquin Valley. He is a specialist and an expert in the business.

Mr. Davenport was born in Dewitt County, Ill., October 31, 1861. His father was engaged in the manufacture of brick and tile, and Lyman L. studied steam engineering and was engineer in his father's tile plant at Waynesville, Ill., for about seven years. He afterwards followed the vocation of steam engineering in other parts of Dewitt County, and also in McLean County, Ill. For one year he was assistant engineer at the Illinois State Re- formatory at Pontiac, Ill., and for thirteen years lived in Bloomington, Ill., where he followed the vocation of steam and gas engineering and machine work, becoming an expert machinist. While in this connection he became familiar with electric storage batteries, and with years of experience he be- came an expert in this line of work also.

May 2, 1903, he came to Fresno County, Cal., where he continued to work at his trade. Later he was engineer in the Chaddock Packing House. In 1905 he became associated with Waterman Brothers as anto electric spe- cialist, and had charge of their electric storage batteries for several years. In 1913 he formed a partnership with C. W. Keiser under the firm name of Davenport & Keiser, and opened an electric shop at 1242 Van Ness Avenue. In the spring of 1917, at the opening of the war, Mr. Keiser joined the United

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States Navy, and the firm sold out to the Electric Laboratories, Inc., and Mr. Davenport secured capital to finance the corporation in order to take care of the greatly increasing business. In the summer of 1918 a site was secured and the modern building that is now the home of the Electric Laboratories, Inc., at 1347 Van Ness Avenue, was built. It is one of the largest, most up- to-date battery and auto electrical repair and testing plants in the state. Its owners are dominated by the one thought-the best and most efficient service for their patrons.

For thirty-five years Mr. Davenport has been a member of Prairie State Lodge, No. 104, I. O. O. F., at Waynesville, Ill. For many years he was a member of the National Association of Stationary Engineers, and he was a delegate at two national conventions, one at Rochester, N. Y., and another at Milwaukee, Wis.

His marriage united him with 'Miss Cora Mattocks, a fair daughter of Illinois. The children born of the union are: Clyde L., manager of the Electric Laboratories, Inc., at Fresno; Elmo M .; and Hazel May, a native daughter of the Golden State, born in the city of Fresno.

In their religious associations the Davenports are members of the First Methodist Church at Fresno.

JAMES MURRAY NIDIFFER .- Four miles west of Laton, about one- quarter of a mile off from Mt. Whitney Avenue, is the home of James Mur- ray Nidiffer, one of the oldest pioneers of the Laguna de Tache. He came to the "Grant" July 8, 1878, and has been actively and extensively engaged in the cattle-business and in farming ever since. He and his good wife live very unostentatiously. Their experiences reach back to the days when the Laguna de Tache was being operated on a very large scale by competent and influential people, who were English and American and who applied up-to- date American business principles, and raised the stock business on the Laguna to a plane of real dignity and sound financial successes, undreamed of by the native inhabitants of the celebrated Spanish grant.

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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 28

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