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 3

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

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At the termination of three months, Mr. Hanson came back to Cali- fornia and Kingsburg, and continued improving the land. He planted twelve and a half acres to muscats, and the balance to alfalfa. He put up the cus- tomary outbuildings, and erected a comfortable, ornate residence, so that as a home-place he has succeeded in evolving a choice country property. Mr. Hanson also owns a vineyard of twenty acres one and a half miles north of Kingsburg, which he has set out to zinfandels, and twenty acres set out to Thompson's seedless grapes; and he has forty acres four miles west, all in muscats, planted by himself and now ten years old.

As a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Hanson has done his full duty in serv- ing on federal and trial juries; while he has contributed to the social life of the community in his activity within the circles of the Masons and in particular within the Traver Lodge, No. 294, at Kingsburg. He is well- informed, progressive and withal a man of large heart; and his excellent wife is a true companion.

PAUL E. VANDOR .- The life career of Paul E. Vandor, writer of this History of Fresno County, is typical of the varied experiences and activities common to that remarkable product of American institutions, the newspaper writer-that restless, indefatigable worker that is ever in touch with the popular pulse, that aids in directing public opinion and while wielding an invisible but conscious power yet sinks individuality in the impersonality of his work, that contributes to and encourages the development and permanent exploitation of communities, and that, while giving the best years of life and an unimpeachable loyalty to a chosen vocation, seldom reaps personal reward for his unceasing efforts in behalf of the public weal. This newspaper class or body of journalists has humorously perhaps been named the Fourth Estate to distinguish an acknowledged power in the state body politic, dis- tinct from the three recognized political or social orders. The subject of this sketch was born at Milwaukee, Wis., June 13, 1858, and is the eldest son of three living children. His father, who died in San Francisco in the seventies, was Joseph Vandor, a Hungarian nobleman, who was a major in the Austrian army. He cast his lot with Kossuth and the Hungarian revolution of 1848-49, but with its collapse and the loss of ancestral estate, escheated to the Crown, fled proscribed to America, sailing from Glasgow, Scotland, as the last port of embarcation. On December 4. 1849, he arrived in the United States in such an impoverished state that, with ignorance of the English language, life for him in the new land was beset by many vicissitudes, and he was reduced to manual labor for a livelihood. Gaining after a time a working knowledge of the language, the while economizing strictly to meet the demands of his necessities, he gave instruction in German, French and fencing, and also did amanuensis work and so worked his way through Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated. Eventually, he moved to Wisconsin to engage in the practice of law at Milwaukee.

On August 22, 1857, in that comfortable city, Joseph Vandor was mar- ried to Miss Pauline Knobelsdorf, who had come to America in childhood, and whose family had settled at Milwaukee. She was of gentle birth, a lineal descendant of the Major von Knobelsdorf who was distinguished as the royal architect of Frederick the Great and who planned and constructed for him the first edifices that marked the Unter den Linden in Berlin. This bit of ancestral history is the more interesting in our story because Mr. Vandor's grandfather on the paternal side was a tutor and mentor of the Duke of

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Reichstadt-Napoleon II., son of Napoleon Bonaparte. His grandmother was a lady-in-waiting of the duke's mother, Marie Louise of Austria. Mrs. Pauline Vandor was one of the pioneer settlers of West Park Colony in Fresno. She died in Fresno City, May 7, 1907. She was a woman of indomitable energy, and an intensely loyal American of the type so often found among those of favored birth in foreign lands who have chosen the American republic as their home.

At the outbreak of the Civil War. Joseph Vandor was commissioned a Colonel by Alexander Williams Randall (the plucky governor of Wisconsin who had called a regiment into existence without authority of the legislature), to organize the Seventh Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, later a unit of the historic Iron Brigade, but as the outgrowth of a cabal in the regiment, nur- tured by jealousy of his military proficiency as evidenced by his being called upon to act in the capacity of brigade commander, an attempt was made upon his life. Under cover of night, he was shot in the shoulder by an unknown assassin, who fired at him through his tent and inflicted a wound which de- veloped into a malignant cancer. He resigned his military command, and with the helpful recommendations of such influential men as Governor Randall, Carl Schurz, Governor Salmon Portland Chase, the Secretary of the Treas- ury, and William H. Seward, Secretary of State. President Lincoln appointed him American Consul at Papeiti, chief town of Tahiti, for the French pro- tectorate in the Society Islands, and in those days station of the New England whalers in the Southern Pacific.

Colonel Vandor's loyalty to the country of his adoption was intense, and the American flag such an object of veneration for him that our subject recalls how he quelled a native insurrection on the island of Huaheine by the dis- play of Old Glory from the masthead of the little Tahitian schooner aboard which was the consular party. The flag was run up while the insurgents on the beach fired on the craft and refugees swam out or canoed to the schooner for protection. Speaking of these romantic but exciting days, Mr. Vandor says: "My father knocked me flat upon the deck, to escape the bullets he heard whistling on their flight toward us, but for which and being in the line of range, I might not have survived to tell the tale. I can recall, also, that often he emerged from the consulate at Papeiti to liberate American sailors from the custody of Kanaka policemen, indignant at their practice of tying prisoners' wrists behind their backs for want of handcuffs, and then roundly castigating the policemen. At that time, as a small boy, I was familiar with the Kanaka language of the Islands, and could read it as printed in the French Jesuit or English Episcopalian missionary books; and although only a child in years I was the interpreter for the consulate. I accompanied my father on official tours of the islands in the archipelago, and rendered the translations of Kanaka into the German or French, as I had only an indifferent knowledge of English."

· The serious nature of the Colonel's wound, and the education of his three children, prompted him to resign the consulship, and the family arrived in San Francisco, in April, 1869. Colonel Vandor took up the practice of law, became prominent in the Grand Army of the Republic, and a leader in the German-speaking colony, still including many of the most loyal and most efficient citizens of the state. Because of the evil effects of the wound upon his health, he declined the political preferments from time to time offered him. Before his death in the middle seventies, and after the Franco-German War, he returned to Europe and journeyed to Paris and Vienna, to consult eminent surgeons ; and after submitting to operations, he made a last pathetic visit to the estates at one time his ancestral possessions, and the grave of his mother in a closed Vienna cemetery, and returned home, never again to leave his bed. His remains lie in the family plot in the G. A. R. reservation of the Odd Fellows' Cemetery at San Francisco.

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Paul E. Vandor grew and thrived under somewhat disordered educa- tional conditions. He was taught French by the Jesuit Fathers in the South Sea Islands, and, on return to his native land at the age of eleven, was French in spirit and habit, although German was spoken in the home circle. Attend- ing the cosmopolitan public schools and a private collegiate institute in San Francisco, he began the study of English, of which he had only a smattering, gathered from an American school teacher. a protége of the family while in the Islands. Being a voracious reader, he learned of himself to read and to write, delving into classic literature from the time when he read his first English book, Robinson Crusoe.

Newspaper work had for him its fascination even during boyhood, and as a school lad in the late seventies he was a publisher in San Francisco, when amateur journals were a juvenile fad. He once had the questionable credit, while in college, of being held to answer, with two older companions, on two charges of criminal libel lodged by a rival boy editor. The grand jury gave all concerned a lecture on the enormity of their offence, and then, after treat- ing them to a good scare, made heroes of them all by ignoring the accusation. Mr. Vandor studied law in San Francisco, thinking to make that his profes- sion; but with the loss of family fortune following collapse of the mining- stock gamble of the late seventies in San Francisco, abandoned the law to take up newspaper writing. Today, he is the second oldest newspaper writer in point of continuous service in Fresno County. In his career he has been dramatic critic of the old Golden Era, a reporter for the Chronicle, the Even- ing Post, the Examiner, and the Morning Call, in San Francisco. He has also been a reporter on the Morning Telegram. the Argus and the Encinal of Alameda, and he has served in like capacity in Fresno with the Evening Expositor and the Democrat, the Morning Republican and at present is with the Evening Herald. Alternately, Mr. Vandor has also been assistant city editor of the San Francisco Call and Editor of the Fresno Democrat. He has spent the major part of a busy life in the ever interesting city of San Francisco, of whose marvelous growth he was an eye-witness, and he has wept amid her devastated streets, when he beheld the aftermath of the earth- quake and the big fire. While in San Francisco, he was a charter member of the first Press Club of 1880, whose supporters hobnobbed with and welcomed many of the notable literary men of the world as they sojourned in or passed through the Bay Metropolis and sipped of a life now largely a memory.

From January, 1885, until the Spanish-American War, Mr. Vandor was in the California National Guard, having enlisted in Company G, First Infan- try, Second Brigade, which with Company C as the mother organization dated from the days of 1856 and the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, and he held transfer memberships in Company G, in Alameda, Fifth Infantry, Second Brigade, and in Company F, in Fresno, of the Sixth Infantry and Third Bri- gade. Having been color-sergeant in the First Regiment, he was in his own company first sergeant, but he was rejected for service in the Spanish-Amer- ican War on account of physical disability. A veteran member of the Na- tionals, Mr. Vandor was a charter member of the Veterans' State Association of the National Guard. In national politics a Republican, Mr. Vandor is locally decidedly non-partisan. A charter member of Pitiaches Tribe, No. 144, I. O. R. M., of Fresno, Mr. Vandor is also a member of Manzanita Camp, No. 160, W. O. W. of Fresno. He also belongs to the Shaver Lake Fishing Club.

A Californian to the backbone, although compelled sincerely to regret that he was not born within the limits of the Golden State, Mr. Vandor has made the study of California history a labor of love, and is recognized as an authority on Fresno County history. He has contributed on historical sub- jects to local publications, and has the honor of being a charter member of the Fresno County Historical Society. A member of no established church, Mr. Vandor leans to Unitarianism.

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JOHN B. MARSHALL .- Among the pioneer residents of Fresno County who have resided here for a quarter of a century, particular mention is made of John B. Marshall, now retired and living at 164 Echo Avenue, Fresno. He has devoted many years of his life to the development of this county, and is an enthusiastic booster and supporter of those movements, that have as their aim, the upbuilding of the county's best interests.

John B. Marshall was born March 6, 1845, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He attended the public schools of his native state, was reared on a farm, and when old enough, learned the trade of a blacksmith. Afterwards he was employed by Captain Shields, a railroad contractor in New Jersey, helping in the construction of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and at one time followed farming in his native state. In 1878 Mr. Marshall migrated to the Great West, where he worked on railroad construction, as a blacksmith, for a contractor named Wolf, operating in the states of Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin and Illinois. He also worked for the Santa Fe Railway Company in Canyon City, Colo. In 1882 he returned to New Jersey and engaged in farming ; after- wards he was employed by his first employer, Mr. Shields, in railroad work. After his return to the east, he felt the insistent call of the Golden West, with its great attractions and unbounded possibilities. His second journey west- ward terminated on July 25. 1892, when he arrived in the Golden State and soon thereafter located in Fresno County, where he has resided ever since. During his long residence in the county Mr. Marshall has bought, sold, devel- oped and traded many different pieces of property, and acquired quite an extensive holding of real estate ; at present owning one-half section of land on the West Side of the county, two houses and five lots in the City of Fresno, six lots and one house in Sanger, two lots in Fresno Heights, two lots in East Richmond; he has also owned the following real estate, which he has sold or traded : twenty acres six miles northeast of Sanger ; forty acres on Mc- Kinley Avenue : fifty-five acres in the California Poultry farm tract ; and forty acres near Clovis. For three years he has farmed his West Side ranch to grain. Mr. Marshall has done his share in the developing of the county, and now in the afternoon of his life is living retired and enjoying the fruits of a life of industry and frugality.

MRS. EVA H. RAWSON .- A California woman who has won for her- self an enviable name as a successful viticulturist, and who has a host of friends among those who admire her qualities as a cultured, refined and sym- pathetic fellowcitizen, is Mrs. Eva H. Rawson, a native of Woonsocket, R. I., the daughter of Captain William E. Hubbard, who was born near Franklin, Mass. Grandfather Elisha Hubbard died in Massachusetts, and the father, who was an architect and builder, settled at Woonsocket, where he became a contractor. He was one of the prominent builders of Woonsocket and among its most leading citizens; and ten years before his death he was able to retire. William E. Hubbard served in the Civil War as captain of Com- pany F of the Twelfth Rhode Island Regiment, and saw plenty of hard cam- paigning. Later he was a prominent Mason. He had married Ruth Scott, of Scott Hill, Mass., and she was able to trace her family back to the May- flower and then back to Europe. The mother died in Rhode Island.

Four of the five children are still living, and Mrs. Rawson is the third in order of birth. She is also the only one of the children living in California. Her full name was Eva Hortense Hubbard ; she was reared in Woonsocket, and was graduated from the Woonsocket High School in 1884 and is a mem- ber of its Alumni Society. On August 22, 1888, she was married to Malcolm Augustus Rawson, who was born in Uxbridge, Mass., the son of James A. Rawson, who married Louisa Scott, of Massachusetts. The father was a stonemason and contractor, and both he and his wife died in Massachusetts.

Mr. Rawson was educated at the common and high schools, and Worces- ter Academy, and he became a pharmacist and followed the drug business for over forty years. He spent six years learning the business and as an em-

Eva Hubbard Rawson

Malcolm Hubbard Rawson

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ploye of the Fenner Drug Company in Providence, and then for seventeen years was with the James McCord wholesale drug house of La Crosse, Wis:, during which time he bought a drug store at Viroqua, Vernon County, the same state. He continued there until he went with Noyes Bros. & Cutler of St. Paul and also Meyers Bros. in St. Louis; and then, from the time of its organization, he became interested in the Iowa Drug Company of Des Moines, acting as vice-president of the concern. When he sold out, he located in Port- land, Ore., and for twelve years, or until his death, he was traveling salesman of the Blumauer-Frank Drug Company. He died suddenly in Portland, on September 16, 1917, in his sixty-second year.

Meanwhile, as early as 1912, the Rawsons became interested in California by the purchase of twenty-one acres in the Vinland Colony, and in 1913 Mrs. Rawson began the improving of the property by erecting the usual buildings. In 1914 she set out a vineyard, sunk wells and installed a pumping-plant for irrigation, in connection with which she put in a cement pipe-line ; and since that year have been planted all the Thompson seedless vines that make the tract such a good commercial ranch. It is conveniently located at the corner of Woodburn and Thompson Avenues, and the north line is on the San Joa- quin River. The soil, therefore, is heavy rich bottom-land of white ash de- posit, pronounced by experts the very best of all soil for Thompson seedless grapes. During the latter part of March, 1919, Mrs. Rawson added eighteen acres to her holdings, six acres being full bearing Thompson's and the bal- ance she and her son have set to Thompson's.

Amid this superior vineyard Mrs. Rawson built her residence; and there, with the aid of her son, Malcolm Hubbard Rawson (born May 4, 1890, at La Crosse, Wis.), she personally superintends the farm-work. This one child was educated at the public schools, taking also the high school course, and also attending the Business College at Portland ; he enlisted for service during the World War as a private and became Sergeant; was stationed at Camp Lewis, Wash., until discharged. Mrs. Rawson has adopted a child, Donald Dudley Rawson.

Mr. Rawson was a Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner, and belonged to the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Rawson and her son also belong to this same communion and continue their residence on White Crest Ranch (appropri- ately named by her husband) although she still owns valuable property in Portland. In national politics she is a loyal Republican, and she actively sup- ports the California Associated Raisin Company.

EDWIN HERBERT SMITH .- A well-situated and prosperous Califor- nia couple, both of whom are proud of their enviable relation to well-known pioneer families, who are still doing all that they can to improve that part of Fresno County in which they are especially interested, are Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Herbert Smith. Identified with the Golden State since birth, Mr. Smith was born at Cayucos, in San Luis Obispo County, on January 7, 1876, the son of C. A. Smith, a native of Calaveras County, Cal., where he was born in 1852. The grandfather, Edwin Herbert Smith, was born in Illinois and crossed the plains with ox teams about 1849, going to the Calaveras gold fields. In that vicinity and in San Luis Obispo, the father was reared, and he became a stockman and farmer, transacting a cattle business in different parts of the state and along the coast, and later he settled at Cayucos. He was in business for many years there, and now he is in Kern County, ranching at McKittrick, where he is opening up a new ranch. He married Ella Bailey, a native of Illinois, the daughter of William Bailey, who came to California when a child with her parents, and settled in Calaveras, and then moved to San Luis Obispo, homesteading east of Paso Robles. Mrs. Smith died in Santa Maria in 1892. Two children, a boy and a girl, were born of this union, and Edwin is the older of the family.

Edwin H. was brought up on a farm near the coast, and attended the public school there, and at the same time he learned farming and stock-rais-

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ing. His mother died when he was sixteen years old, and then he began to paddle his own canoe. He was for some time employed at ranching, but in 1898 came to Fresno County where he leased land and engaged in stock- raising. He introduced the brand, a combination of the figure 4 and the letter B, resembling together the figure 8, and such was his success, that he made the brand have a distinctive value.

On April 16, 1904, E. H. Smith was married to Miss Nannie Manning, who was born at Hanford, the daughter of Elisha Arnold Manning, a native of Boston, Mass. Mrs. E. H. Smith, the youngest of five children now living, was educated at the common and high schools in Fresno. Soon after the mar- riage, Mr. Smith bought a half interest with his father-in-law in both land and the stock business. Following the division of their interests, Mr. Smith came to have, what he now controls, 760 acres in alfalfa and devoted to cattle- raising, and he also has a dairy. In 1918 he bought a ranch at Kerman, four- teen miles west of Fresno, consisting of 440 acres, and this he will use for stock-raising and alfalfa. He has many improvements there, including three pumping-plants.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have one child, Adalene Manning. Mr. Smith was captain of the liberty loan and other drives in the Manning district, and did splendid work in supporting the Government in its war program. He is a Republican in national politics, and is especially interested in local move- ments that advance and build up the neighborhood.

HARRY W. HAGERTY .- When Harry W. Hagerty first opened his eyes to the light of the world, in Sierra County, in 1887, his parents, James and Hilca (Backer) Hagerty, planned a successful future for him, and his early training and education were along the lines of usefulness. His father was born in Pennsylvania, and came to California when a young man, hoping thereby to better his condition. He began farming in Nevada County, and while there married a native daughter of the state, Hilca Backer. Her father, Henry Backer, was a pioneer who lived for a time in Eureka, Sierra County, and then settled in Fresno County and bought two hundred acres of land. He was one of the very first settlers of Temperance Colony, where he raised potatoes, grain and stock. His land was all subirrigated. He did not live long to enjoy his new surroundings, for he died soon after he settled here. His widow was married again, to August Heringlake, and they continued farm- ing, setting out vineyards and in other ways keeping abreast of the times. Mrs. Heringlake died about 1903. She was the mother of six children, of whom Mrs. Hagerty is third in order of birth. After his marriage, Mr. Hag- erty opened a general merchandise store in Sierra City and conducted it very successfully for several years. He then came to Fresno County, bought a tract in Temperance Colony, and followed ranching until he began railroad- ing, in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railway. For a time was sta- tioned at Sacramento, until he returned to private life, and he is now living at Penryn. His wife died in Fresno, leaving two children, Harry W., of this review ; and Ernest, of Los Angeles.

From the age of five, Harry W. Hagerty was raised in Fresno County, where he attended the public schools of Temperance Colony, and the Fresno High School, from which he graduated in 1905. Reared in a county where viticulture is one of the principal sources of revenue, from an early age he was familiar with that branch of agriculture. After his graduation, he en- tered the employ of the Southern Pacific Railway as a clerk in the office. In time, however, he decided that in order to get ahead and accomplish some- thing worth while he would buy some land and take up the culture of vines ; so he purchased forty acres at Mt. Campbell, set out a vineyard, and sold it in 1912 at a good profit. He then accepted a position with the Wallace Trust Company, which owns 870 acres in Fresno County, 640 acres in one body be- ing devoted to vineyard, orchard and alfalfa ; forty acres in oranges is situated

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at Centerville, and 160 acres of farming land is located on the San Joaquin. He is superintendent of the entire tract, and supervises the conduct of the various branches of ranching carried on, which include, besides those above mentioned, the raising of wine grapes, cattle and horses. He gives his per- sonal attention to his work and is making a name and place for himself in Fresno County.

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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 3

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