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 43

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 43

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In 1915, Mr. Lohman organized the Riverbend Gas Company, of which he became secretary and one-quarter owner and which includes the following gentlemen in its management: W. J. Lohman, R. K. Madsen, W. W. Parlier and Harry G. Williams. There is invested in this business $230,000 and the company furnishes gas-of an excellent quality, superior to that often found in large cities-to Dinuba, Reedley, Parlier and Kingsburg.

W. J. Lohman is also trustee of the Ross School district, an office of peculiar honor that he has held since 1909. He is an efficient member of the Chamber of Commerce of Parlier having served as its president two years, and is an advance guard in its progressive policies.

Mr. Lohman has both made and saved quite a fortune, notwithstanding his known generosity, owning three dwellings, office lots, two ranches, and a quarter interest in Riverbend Gas and Water Company, bank stock, first mortgages, United States Bonds and War Savings and Thrift Stamps, amount- ing all told to the sum of $75,000, all made in fifteen years. He is one of the livest men in Parlier, and what he undertakes or supports is generally successful. He is efficient and untiring in his application to duty, however irksome. He has the respect and good will of the community. He served

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as chairman of the Liberty Bond Committee and Parlier went over the top in every instance, winning all honors, and, in the Victory Loan, Parlier was one of the three towns in the entire valley which won a German helmet.

In 1904, Mr. Lohman was united in marriage to Miss Adelaide Mat- thiesen, the daughter of Peter Matthiesen, by whom he has had five children : Raymond Peter, Neal Joseph, Doris Hanorah, Eldred John and Virginia Adelaide, and they constitute an interesting and attractive family.

MATHIAS THOMSEN .- One of the leading and most experienced ranchers and raisin-growers in the Parlier section is Mathias Thomsen, brother-in-law of N. J. Hansen, a viticulturist of scientific methods, who has become well-to-do and who with his family is everywhere highly re- spected. He owns twenty acres on the Kingsburg and Centerville Road, five miles north of Kingsburg, where he has resided for about thirty years, and these are devoted to peaches and raisin grapes. He is an active member of the Raisin and the Peach Growers' associations, is a stockholder in the bank at Parlier, and an ex-trustee of the Ross School district. In national politics he is a steadfast Republican, and a Republican of the kind who, in the present war crisis, loyally supports the Administration ; while in matters of local administration and improvement Mr. Thomsen always favors the best man and advocates the best measures.

He was born in North Schleswig (since 1864 a part of Germany) on August 21, 1867, and grew up in Schleswig where he learned the Danish language despite the German imposition of their own tongue. His father was Soren Thomsen, who was born, married and died in North Schleswig, where he owned a small dairy farm. The mother, Annie Christine Petersen, was likewise born in Schleswig. The parents had eight children: Bodil Maria ; Meta Maria; Martha; Mathias; Peter; Nielsine; and Niels, and Ingemann.

When only eleven years of age Mathias went out to work for different farmers, and for one farmer alone he labored for four years, and another for five. Meanwhile he was brought up at the public schools and in the circles of the Lutheran Church, where he was confirmed at the age of four- teen. His schooling was really very limited, and confined mostly to a few weeks in the winter time, on which account his later successes would seem to redound all the more to his credit.

When he was twenty years of age he crossed the Atlantic and pushed inland as far west as Minneapolis, where his older and, married sister then lived. He had sailed from Hamburg on the steamship Suavia, of the Ham- burg-American line, in M'arch, 1888, and landed at old Castle Garden in New York City, April 12, after a voyage of three weeks. An accident alone marred the journey. The Suavia ran down a small steamer with thirteen men aboard, and both the captain and the cook lost their lives.

Once somewhat settled here, Mr. Thomsen started to work in a dairy at Minneapolis, undertaking to milk cows, and there he stayed for nearly a year. Then he came on to California attracted by the fact that his sister Martha, the wife of N. J. Hansen, already referred to, was living with her husband in the Central Colony, four miles south of Fresno. He arrived at Fresno on October 11, 1889, and at once engaged in some work for his brother-in-law, N. J. Hansen, with whom he continued until the fourth of July of the following year. Then he went out to the Fresno Colony, two miles distant from Fresno, and there hired himself out as a milker on a dairv farm, then owned by William Sherman. At the end of a month and a half, however, he obtained other farm work which kept him busy until December, 1890. Then he came here and bought his present place, which at that time was only wheat stubble.

He straightway started to improve the property, and has himself planted every vine and tree on the place. He built a fine dwelling-house and roomy

Karl Madsen

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

barns and other buildings and things needed, and even erected a tank- house. The farm is served from the Kingsburg and Centerville ditch, and because of the good water service everything planted there flourishes. There are five acres of muscat, seven acres of Thompson's seedless, five acres planted to trees, and two and a half acres of alfalfa, while the balance is given over to buildings, drying yards, barnyards, and similar corners.

In 1892, Mr. Thomsen was married at the Central Colony to Miss Inge- borg Hansina Riggelsen, a native of North Schleswig, who came to America with Mr. Thomsen, they having been engaged to marry in the old country. This happy union has been blessed with seven children: Frederikka, wife of Fred Holm, the rancher and raisin-grower, owning twenty acres in the Parlier School district, is the mother of three children; Lawrence R. was in the aviation service of the United States, and was with our troops in France, he returned home safely in February, 1919, with an excellent record and honorable discharge ; Sivert A. is at home, as are Esther M., Anna Maria, and Anna, while Johanna Margrethe is at school. The family attends the Lutheran Church, which Mr. and Mrs. Thomsen helped to organize, and of which Mr. Thomsen is a trustee. Their children are local favorites both because of their personalities and their talents. One for example is a pianist of special promise, although she is only in her sixteenth year, and critics pronounce her accomplishment rare musical ability.

KARL MADSEN .- An energetic, far-seeing man, who believes in the gospel of close application and hard work, and who living according to his belief, has prospered to an extent not granted to everybody, is Karl Madsen, well known as a fine fellow. He was born in Denmark, near Odense, Fyen, on November 26, 1868, the son of Mads Mortensen, who farmed near where he had been born. As a young man he had married Miss Anna Catherina Olsen, and they were blessed with a family of nine children. Five of these were living as late as 1905, and two had come to the American West. Rasmus Madsen, of the Red Bank district, whose interesting story is given else- where in this work, is the brother of our subject.

Karl was the youngest son and next to the youngest child, and like most of the family was brought up on his father's well-appointed if modest farm. He attended the excellent Danish common schools and learned the important rudiments of agriculture. He followed farming in Denmark until he went to Australia, whither his brother Marten had emigrated fourteen years before. As a matter of fact, Marten had not written home for years, and when Karl sailed from London on the Duke of Sutherland, bound for Brisbane, in 1888, he did so with some uncertainty as to his immediate future. He sailed to Queensland, found his brother and was soon employed profit- ably at farm work.

In 1893, however, believing that California offered still greater induce- ments, Mr. Madsen sailed for the Pacific Coast, this time bent on joining his brother Rasmus, who had settled in Fresno County. After arriving here, he worked for M. Theo. Kearney for five years; and during the last three years of that period he was in charge of Kearney Park and its gardens. In dis- charging this responsibility he gave entire satisfaction, but having bought ten acres of vineyard five miles west of Fresno, he left his employer to look after his own property. So well did he develop this that he later sold the tract at a good profit.

Then he rented ninety acres of vineyard in the Gray Colony and was so successful that he bought seventy acres there, and improved twenty for vineyard purposes. He planted alfalfa, individually built a ditch a mile from the Enterprise Canal, and while running the place for four years amply demonstrated his familiarity with vineyarding in California. When he was ready to sell, he had no trouble in disposing of his property at a higher figure than he had paid for it. He next bought a thirty-acre vineyard west 80

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of Fresno, known as the Estrella vineyard; set it out anew with muscats, and ran that for five years, making it more than pay for itself, and selling it in 1913 at some gain. Then for a while he rented and operated vineyards. At present Mr. Madsen is leasing both the L. Jensen and the George P. Dyreborg places, consisting of about 150 acres in Gray Colony, forty of which he has laid out for vineyarding, while seven and a half acres are given up to an orchard, and much of the balance to the raising of grain. Whatever he undertakes seems to prosper under his wise management. Naturally enough, Mr. Madsen is one of the active supporters of the California Asso- ciated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc., and he has come to be known as one of the substantial viticulturists and horticulturists of Sanger.

MANUEL VINCENT .- No other country save the United States may boast of such unrivalled opportunities for the man of humble birth and dis- couraging circumstances, and in no other State of this glorious Union will be found so large a number of those who, like Manuel Vincent, once a black- smith and now one of the leading financiers of Selma, have climbed from the very lowest rung of the ladder, and in climbing have raised still higher the standard of California. Born in Flores, the most westerly of the balmy Azores, on November 4, 1863, Mr. Vincent is the son of John Vincent, school teacher, contractor, builder and farmer who died when Manuel was four years old. His mother, Mary Vincent came to America and California, and died in Mariposa County. All that the subject of our story recalls of his parents is lovable and edifying, and what a worthy son would delight in remembering.

On account of the success attending the ventures of two of the oldest sons in the family, who had located in Tuttletown, Tuolumne County, Cal., Mrs. Vincent left the Azores in the fall of 1871 with Manuel, who was then eight, two sisters and two brothers, and joined the enterprising boys. For a while Manuel attended the public school in his neighborhood, and then he set out on a kind of journeyman's tour through the county, his object being to learn the blacksmith trade. Later, and while still a poor young man, he traveled from Indian Gulch, Mariposa County, to Traver in Tulare County, to see a friend ; and passing through Selma, he had his first view of the town. The first extensive ditch-the Centerville and Kingsburg Irrigation Canal- had then been built and completed ; the railway had put in a siding and erected a depot : and the station was called Selma.

In 1887, Mr. Vincent closed out his business in Mariposa County and struck out. He remembered Selma, and made haste to reach here, getting a job, as soon as he arrived, in a blacksmith shop, where he worked by the day. Later, in the same year, he bought an interest in the shop, succeeding W. H. Harris, as the partner of W. L. Jones, the firm having been Jones & Harris, and then becoming known as Jones & Vincent; and in May, 1889, he bought Jones out. From that day the firm was styled M. Vincent. In May, 1890, however, his shop was burned out. The old shop was on West Front Street, and was owned by another person ; but the stock was a loss to Mr. Vincent : only $600 in insurance being reclaimable. Thereupon he rented another place, and within two weeks he had a full complement of blacksmith tools. In 1895 he moved his shop to East Front Street, having bought out Warner Brothers' property there the year previous; and soon thereafter he added a line of general farm implements, and there he continued until 1906.

In the meantime Mr. Vincent had become a stockholder in the First National Bank of Selma, although it was not until 1907 that he closed out his blacksmith business and continued only as a dealer in implements, remain- ing in that line for ten years. In 1905 he helped organize the Selma Savings Bank, going in as an original director : and in 1912 he became president of that flourishing institution. He also became vice-president of the First National Bank of Selma, assuming that responsibility in 1915. In many

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ways, and with varied enterprises, Mr. Vincent has prospered, having been interested at one time in several retail lumber yards in Central California.

Mr. Vincent opened his present attractive office at 1810 East Front Street, in October, 1917, under the firm name of M. Vincent & Son; and there he deals with success in real estate and insurance, being ably assisted by his son, G. Paul Vincent. The latter is a graduate not only of the Selma High School, but of the Chicago Veterinary College, finishing his studies with the Class of 1911. Although he then received with honors the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Science, he has never practiced his profession.

Mr. Vincent, now widely recognized as a business man of sound prin- ciples, is also a director in the First National Bank of Kingsburg and a director in the First National Bank of Sanger. Always a public-spirited citizen, he has twice served as trustee of the City of Selma. He has also been chairman of the board, and he was second fire-chief of the city.

In the town where he has thus enjoyed so much prosperity, Mr. Vincent was married to Miss Laura Paul, a native of Kansas, who came to Selma when she was a young woman. Six children have blessed this union. G. Paul, his father's partner, married Miss Elleanor Bellamy; and they have two children, Paula and Phyllis. Nellie is the wife of K. L. Self, a rancher near Selma. They have one child, a boy, named Kenneth Vincent Self. Mil- dred married P. D. Register, of San Pedro, Los Angeles County, where he went into training for the United States heavy artillery. While in this service his motorcycle accidentally collided with an electric car at Long Beach and he met instantaneous death on the 28th day of September 1918. Since then, on the eighth day of December, 1918, a baby girl, named Beverly Duane Register, was born; the child and widowed mother are living at the home of Mr. Vincent, in Selma. Winnifred is in the Selma High School, as is also Walter; and Corinne is in the grammar school.

Mr. Vincent and family attend the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Vincent is a member of the board of trustees of the church, and he served on its build- ing committee, and became one of the largest donors to the fund by which the magnificent new brick edifice was erected at Selma, in 1917. His practi- cal Christianity has led him to espouse the principles of the Prohibition party, and he takes especial pride in the fact that Selma was the first town in Fresno County to declare for the abolition of the iniquitous traffic in alcohol.

Very naturally, Mr. Vincent is a fraternity man, and one enjoying an enviable popularity. He is a member of the Blue Lodge of Masons at Selma, and has been through all the chairs. He is a Royal Arch Mason at Selma, a Knight Templar at Fresno and the Islam Temple at San Francisco. He also is active in the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World, and is a Forester. Mr. and Mrs. Vincent are members of the Eastern Star at Selma.

OLIN C. UNDERWOOD .- As janitor of the West Side Grammar School for the past ten years, Olin C. Underwood is a well known figure in Reedley, Fresno County, and especially to the children of that thriving little city. Born in McHenry County, Ill., November 27, 1855, he is the son of Honorable James and Melissa (Gardner) Underwood, the former a native of Ohio, and the latter of Pennsylvania. They were the parents of six chil- dren, two of whom are now living in California. The family moved from Illinois to Iowa in 1870, and there followed farming. James Underwood, the father, was a man of considerable ability, and served as a member of the legislature in Iowa. He farmed in Grundy and in Greene Counties. He was killed by the cars at Grand Junction, Iowa, while pursuing his daily work of delivering milk to his customers.

Previous to his coming to California, Olin C. Underwood held the office of township assessor in Palo Alto County, Iowa, for seven years. Later he was a candidate for county auditor but failed of the nomination. For twenty

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years he was a locomotive engineer on the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, and left of his own accord to engage in farming. In conjunction with his duties of janitor of the grammar school, Mr. Underwood is a rancher, now the owner of fifteen acres of fine land. He originally owned forty acres, but he sold ten acres to his son, Byron C., and fifteen acres to another party, retaining the balance; twenty-five acres of this property he developed from a stubble field.

In 1881, MT. Underwood was united in marriage with Laura C. Cook, a native of Iowa, born near Burlington in 1858. Nine children have been born of this union: Bessie C .: Minnie E .; Byron C .; Albert E .; Mildred E .; Esther L .; William Otis ; Harold C .; and Luella, who married Edwin Greene of Dinuba, in May, 1917, and they had a baby son, named Samuel, born July 14, 1918. Mr. Underwood is a member of Highland Lodge. A. F. & A. M., at Ruthven, Iowa ; politically he is a Republican. Since 1911 he has worked in the fruit industry for others as an orchard foreman and as receiver at the warehouses.

There is one matter of interest that makes Mr. Underwood a very proud man, and that is the service that his four sons rendered their country during the great World War. Byron C., although a married man, entered the service October 5, 1917, as a member of Company F, Three Hundred Sixty-fourth Infantry, Ninety-first Division, went to France with the latter and was dis- charged May 25, 1919. Albert E., entered the service July 25, 1917, was assigned to the Eighth Infantry, Medical Department, reached France on November 9, 1918, and is still in service at Brest. William Otis entered the United States Navy on May 20, 1917. trained at Mare Island, was assigned to the destroyer U. S. S. Taylor. did convoy duty from July, 1918, until his discharge on April 15, 1919, with the position of Third Quartermaster. He was in the line and saw the surrender of the German fleet, and his was the flagship of the convoy that escorted President Wilson into Brest on his first trip to France. Harold C. entered the service in June, 1918, in the One Hundred Sixteenth Engineers, trained at Norfolk, Va., saw service in France, was discharged April 15, 1919, as Corporal.

WM. D. BECKWITH .- Although Mr. Beckwith is living a somewhat retired life, his fellows never forget that he was for years a leader to whom they might look with confidence. He is energetic for his age, and still tries to be useful; and this is only natural to one who has led such a long and useful life.

He was born in Clinton County, N. Y., August 1, 1841, and reared and educated there; and under the flourishing conditions of the Empire State he early turned his attention to the cultivation of the soil. When the dark clouds of the Civil War arose, he promptly volunteered his services and was attached to the First New York Engineers. He was engaged at the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, was at Farmville and finally at Appomattox Court House where Lee surrendered. At the close of the war he received an honorable discharge and again took up the burden and the pleasurable duties of civil life.

In 1871, Mr. Beckwith removed to Kansas where he farmed for twenty years, and where, at that time, buffalo were roaming the prairies. On ac- count of the sickness of his wife, who was Josie Norris, in maidenhood, he shifted to Nebraska, and there for four years he engaged in business as a merchant. His wife's health not improving, he finally came to California, and in 1908 took up his residence in Fresno, where Mrs. Beckwith died in 1910. She, too, was a native of New York, and she endeared herself to all who became acquainted with her. Such has been the consistent, unselfish life of both Mr. and Mrs. Beckwith that wherever they have lived, there they have left an enviable record for kindly endeavor.

da R Robertson

James M. Robertson

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Beckwith, four of whom are still living: Mrs. G. H. Smith, of Fresno; Mrs. F. Barber, also of Fresno; F. L. Beckwith, of Nebraska; and B. H. Beckwith of Sanger. The latter was born in Kansas, in 1881, and was ten years of age when his folks re- moved to Nebraska. In 1912 he married Miss Bertha, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Van Fleet, and at his marriage his father gave him a deed to his ranch of forty acres in the Sanger district. He was a carpenter by trade, and he contracted for building in both San Francisco and Fresno, but he has later given his attention to the ranch, which he has set out to peaches and apricots. In time he intends to plant the entire ranch to English walnuts, which he believes will prove even more remunerative. Mr. Beckwith has been in the County since 1905, having preceded his parents, and has been closely identi- fied with Fresno's development.

W. D. Beckwith is a member of the Grand Army Post in Fresno. In politics he is a Progressive Republican and a warm friend of Hiram Johnson.

JAMES MacGREGOR ROBERTSON .- From the sturdy Scotch people, who have been such an important factor in the upbuilding of Ameri- can civilization, is James MacG. Robertson, a native of Bridge of Ern, Perth- shire, Scotland, where he was born in 1863, a son of Andrew and Ann (Barnett) Robertson, both natives of the "land of heather," where they were farmer folks.

James MacG. Robertson was reared in Scotland until twenty years of age, when he emigrated to America, landing at New York City, but soon afterwards drifted to the Pacific Coast, arriving at San Francisco. After a short stay in the city by the Golden Gate he located at Fresno, where he followed his trade of a carpenter and engaged in the building business in Fresno County. Afterwards Mr. Robertson located in Hanford, where he engaged in contracting and building, and to his credit and superior work- manship are due some of the most substantial buildings in that city.

It was in Hanford that Mr. Robertson met and married Miss Ida Rose Adams, the ceremony being solemnized on September 7, 1892. Mrs. Robert- son is a native of Louisiana, Mo., a daughter of John F. Adams, a native of Virginia who settled in Missouri before the Civil War. During that war he served valiantly in the Third Missouri Regiment of Cavalry, in the Union Army, being wounded in action during battle. After his honorable discharge from the army, Mr. Adams was united in marriage in Louisiana, Mo., with Martha Tipton, a native of Kentucky. John F. Adams was a manufacturer of agricultural implements, carriages and wagons in Louisiana, Mo. Afterwards he removed to New Haven, Mo., where he ran a blacksmith and carriage- shop and it was while living there that Mr. Adams was honored with the office of mayor of New Haven, to which responsible position he was elected for four terms of office. In 1888, J. F. Adams migrated with his family to California, locating at Traver, and it was while living there that he was be- reft of his life companion. After her death, Mr. Adams moved to Hanford where he engaged in business and continued to reside until his death on January 6, 1914. Mrs. Robertson was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Adams who grew to maturity.

After his marriage, James MacG. Robertson, continued in the contracting and building business, and, about 1905, became interested in the Coalinga oil-field, becoming a stockholder in the Lucile Oil Company. He located in Coalinga where he engaged in contracting and building until 1906 when he removed to San Francisco immediately after the big fire and there fol- lowed the building business. After a residence of one year in San Francisco, following the great fire, he returned to Coalinga and became the president and manager of the Lucile Oil Company. On the oil company's leased land Mr. Robertson built a substantial residence of brick that were made and burned on the land. He was a very successful oil operator, a liberal and kind-hearted

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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 43

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