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 74
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Mrs. Nutting was Sarah Hubbard Nutting before her marriage, born at Groton, Mass., about 1821, on the old farm which had been a part of the Nutting family home for perhaps the preceding hundred years. She spared no pains in the training and early education of our subject, who was sent for a while to the district school and then, still in his home town, to the first 92
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State Normal School of Vermont, where, at the age of eighteen, he was graduated from the first course, in the spring of 1868. Prior to that, on account of his father having both a twenty-acre farm and a shop with many wood and iron-working tools, turning lathes, circular saws and other machinery, he had a good deal of training in both farm and shop-work, so that when he left home (on November 5, 1868), he went to work in a factory at Springfield, Vt. On September 1, 1870, he celebrated his twentieth birthday by beginning work as steward of the New Hampshire Reform School at Manchester, where he had charge of certain boys doing the cooking, and of all the boys, about seventy-five in number, at their meals.
Getting tired of that work after nine months, Mr. Nutting left, but he was called back and given a somewhat higher position; and after a few more months he was promoted again and placed in charge of the chair-seating shops, where, within six months, through his organizing ability, he succeeded in raising the earnings of the shops from about $3,000 to $6,600 annually, for which the superintendent gave him full credit, in his annual report to the State legislature. Because, however, his pay was not raised in proportion to the increased earnings, Mr. Nutting accepted appointment, at a higher salary, at the Reform School near Portland, Maine, and from there, after a few months, he was attracted to Baltimore, Md., through a still higher salary. Soon after, too, he was offered simultaneously similar positions at the New Jersey Reform School and the Connecticut Reform School; and the latter post at Meriden, being better, with more salary, he accepted it, about the first of September, 1873, and remained there about a year. Then the overwork, care and anxieties of the preceding four years brought on a complete nervous collapse ; nevertheless there was some gain, for he can now look back and per- ceive that the four years given to re-forming the human mind had enabled him to reform, improve and organize both many kinds of business and public enterprises.
Three years after he had ended his reformatory school work, Mr. Nutting started in Boston, in 1877, the business of fitting fine houses with electric lighters for gas burners; and the enterprise grew into the Boston Electric Company, a corporation employing one hundred men by 1881 and lasting for about thirty years after he took up his next venture. While busied with this matter of lighting gas by electricity, Mr. Nutting originated, with the help of one of his mechanics, the nickel-plated push-button plate which . . has been used to turn electric lights off and on ever since Edison invented the electric light system in 1880; and at the same time he took from the jewelry trade the bead chain, up to that time used for the most part for girls' neck chains, and adapted it to the lighting of pull-burners. This, too, with its acorn pendant, has never been superseded and is universally used in the electric light pull-burners of today. It has been no ordinary delight to Mr. Nutting, in a long life of "starting things," that these two improvements have proven useful to millions of human beings all over the civilized world, and that none of the thousands of bright minds in the electrical business-attracting, though it does, the brightest of intellects-has yet discovered anything better for either purpose. Neither of these devices could be patented, but both have added everywhere to the comfort of living.
While in the electrical specialty at Boston, Mr. Nutting had the pleasure of knowing some of the people who were active in starting the first telephone exchange, called the Telephone Dispatch Company of Boston, and he had one of their 'phones installed between his shop and office. He also happened to see Prof. Alexander Graham Bell teaching in a deaf-mute institute in New York in 1873, three years before Bell exhibited the first "talking machine" or telephone, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Mr. Nutting also enjoys recalling that he saw Edison's first public exhibition of his new electric light system on the eve of New Year, 1880, or rather the evening of
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December 31, 1879, although he is bound to confess that he was so closely wrapped up in pushing his own small electric business, and had not vet grown to have a broad point of view, that he was unable to see at once the greatness of either of the vastly greater inventions.
In 1881, in sixty days, Mr. Nutting raised $70,000 from among fifty of the largest capitalists in Boston, and in July started what was known as the Herdic system of cheap and quick cross-town conveyance for passengers, using two- or four-wheeled carriages named after their inventor, Peter Herdic of Pennsylvania. They had a crank-axle and a low-hung body, with back entrance and side seats for four or eight people, and came to be much used from 1881 to 1890 for public hire. He ran them from four railroad stations at the south to four stations at the north of the town, and crossed the city in fifteen minutes, while the horse cars of those days took from twenty minutes to an hour or more.
In September of that year he started the same system in Worcester, Mass., then a city of fifty thousand people, with a horse-car system running once in half an hour over a three-mile stretch on the main street, for which a fare of seven cents was charged. Mr. Nutting made his fare five cents, and gave transfers to all points radiating from the center like the spokes of a wheel, and the new system proved such a benefit to the city that it grew very popular ; but after a few months the horse railway put in a new equip- ment and ran oftener than the herdics did and at the same price; and after two years of competition, the railway company succeeded in driving these early "jitneys" out of business. In this enterprise, as with some others since, the community reaped an immense benefit from Mr. Nutting's work, but at a heavy loss to himself and friends.
Meanwhile, he had started the same system in Fitchburg, Fall River and Springfield, Mass., and in each case the competition put new life into the operation of the street railways, greatly to the benefit of the public but at a heavy loss to the projectors. This has been referred to by writers as the first "jitney" system in America, although it was really started by Herdic, for- merly of Williamsport, Pa., at Philadelphia and Washington, whereas Mr. Nutting established it in New England, after arranging for Herdic's patent rights. In April, 1881, when the proposed system was first noticed in a brief item in the Boston Herald, that paper remarked editorially that anyone who could establish such a system in Boston would be entitled to a monument on the historic Common ; but if such a memorial has been erected by the Bosto- nians, Mr. Nutting has not yet heard of the honor. It was some satisfaction to him, however, to be told years later that the city of Worcester alone could well have afforded to make him a present of $100,000 for the benefit done that community by the Nutting system of herdics.
Following his losses, Mr. Nutting was anxious to get into some far-off country with entirely different conditions, where he could at least hope to capitalize his experience and ambitions and make up his losses; he therefore took a temporary appointment as manager for California of the Union Mutual Life Insurance Company. In October, 1884, he came to San Francisco with his family ; and partly because the cooperative insurance companies were so popular just then, but largely because he had no acquaintance on the Coast and the Union Mutual was not widely known, it proved impossible to make a success in that line, and for years Mr. Nutting found it exceedingly difficult to support himself and family, and educate his children in the common schools and the University at Berkeley, where he had settled on coming West.
In November, 1885, Mr. Nutting performed his first service of wide com- munity value in California when he wrote a column and a half for the San Francisco Evening Post as to what he had learned in Boston, and through an investigation in Dakota and Montana, of the great benefit up to that time of the farm mortgage loan system of the original Lombard Investment Com-
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Mr. Nutting says no small part of his life-work is due to his teacher at school having given him the following "piece to speak" at an early age. Re- printed now it may help attract some one else to a life of philanthropic activity, instead of only selfish money-making.
ABOU BEN ADHEM
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw within the moonlight in the room, Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold. Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, "What writest thou?" The vision raised his head And, with a look made all of sweet accord, Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." "And is mine one?" said Adhem. "Nay, not so," Replied the angel. Adhem spoke more low, But cheerily still, and said, "I pray thee, then, Write me as one who loves his fellow men." The angel wrote and vanished; the next night He came again with a great awakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blest And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
-LEIGH HUNT.
RALPH H. SCOTT .- An aggressive and progressive California agricul- turist, who is highly esteemed by his friends and acquaintances, is Ralph H. Scott, who was born at Selma, on August 27, 1895, the son of the late Hon. L. D. Scott, a native of Clinton, Ill., a statesman who had much to do with guiding California to its destiny. His mother was Miss Florence A. Persinger, a native of Sydney, Ohio. The family came to California in 1886, and settled at Clifton, Fresno County, later called Del Rey, but in 1891 they moved to Selma.
The youngest of four children, Ralph H. was educated at the public schools, and graduated from the Selma high school in 1913. He was then em- ployed in various fruit-packing houses, and in time became a foreman. After that he became a dairyman, and ran a dairy on the family estate in the Dun- kard district. In 1916 he located on a ranch which he had inherited from his father. This is an exceptionally fine tract of 320 acres, eleven miles west of Fresno, on Jensen Avenue. Here he immediately began improvements for intensified farming, leveling and checking the land, and sowing alfalfa and is raising alfalfa and stock. He has erected a comfortable residence, and other suitable farm buildings. He is a member of the California Alfalfa Growers' Association.
At Selma occurred the marriage of Mr. Scott and Miss Laura Fosberg, a native daughter of Texas who moved to California and for a while lived at Kingsburg. The union has been blessed with one child, Harriet.
CLOYD BURTON MONTGOMERY .- An enterprising, successful stockman and rancher is Cloyd Burton Montgomery, who operates one of his father's ranches consisting of 220 acres about three and a half miles south- east of Riverdale. He keeps a herd of fine, registered Holstein cattle, regis- tered Poland-China hogs, and conducts a dairy. Mr. Montgomery's father is Litchfield Y. Montgomery, the well-known ex-supervisor of Kings County, who now resides at 244 U Street, Fresno, of whom a more detailed sketch is given on another page of this history. Born at Grangeville on August 29, 1892, Cloyd B. Montgomery attended the district school, then went to the high school at Hanford, and afterward took a commercial course at Heald's Business College, Fresno. When only twenty he started to run the stock farm of 220 acres referred to above.
On December 24, 1914, Mr. Montgomery was married to Miss Mary Shellabarger, a native of Kings County and the daughter of F. P. and Sadie Danham Shellabarger, pioneers of Kings County and well-to-do farmers there.
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One child has blessed this union, and he is named Leland Niles. He took the Grand Sweepstakes Prize at the "Better Babies Show" at the Kings County Fair, 1916-17. He was given first place in his class in both contests, and scored ninety-eight per cent. perfect.
Mrs. Montgomery is the third child in a family of four. The eldest is Phil. Shellabarger, who runs the Willard Service Station at Hanford; the next in order of birth was Laura, now the wife of A. W. Clark, the orange- grower of Porterville; Mary, now Mrs. Montgomery; and Lloyd who volun- teered as a member of the Marines when the War broke out. He was a ser- geant, served in France from 1918 until his discharge and is now in Hanford. Among his comrades was his best friend, who was blown to pieces by the bursting of a German shrapnel shell, and also one who was gassed and almost killed and rendered unable to go to the front again. But before he was incapacitated he took fifteen German prisoners while alone at one time, and was wounded in his right hand by a piece of shrapnel. For heroic service in volunteering to go into No Man's Land and thus facing the deadly German fire, he was recommended for the French cross.
Mr. Montgomery has become such a man of affairs that he employs from two to eight men, according to the season, while in politics he is active in the councils of the Democrats. Fraternally, he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America.
JUDGE ISAAC MYER .- One of the prominent men of the West Side in Fresno County is Isaac Myer, who came to Firebaugh as early as 1875. He was born in Thalfang, Rhenish Prussia, Germany, on June 5, 1850, being the next to the youngest of seven children born to Leopold and Clara (Levy) Myer. The father was a stock-dealer and a business man of large affairs until he retired, his death occurring at the advanced age of ninety-three years, while his wife had preceded him, reaching only the age of sixty-two years.
Isaac Myer received a thorough education in the public and high school, from which he graduated, and then entered the employ of a wholesale lace and fancy goods house, continuing with them as a clerk until the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when he was called to the colors and was assigned to the sanitary corps. After the war he continued clerking until 1875, when he came to Firebaugh, Fresno County, where his brother . Jacob had preceded him two years.
Soon after his arrival Mr. Myer purchased the store and stock of goods on Big Penoche, then in Fresno County, and engaged in general merchandis- ing, continuing with increasing success for eight years; at the same time he also engaged in stock-raising. Selling the store to John Oliver in 1883, he removed to Seattle and engaged in the clothing business. However, he did not like the climate and so he returned to Fresno County. He established a gents' furnishing goods store in Fresno on Mariposa Street, near I Street, and did a successful business; two years later, however, he sold out and moved to San Benito County, and ran a mercantile business for about four years. Returning to Firebaugh in 1890, he became proprietor of the Firebaugh Hotel, where he was "mine host" for five years, after which he sold and moved to Fresno and ran a cigar store also with good success; two years later he moved to Mendota where he resided for fourteen years, engaged in the mercantile business as well as running the Cash Register Hotel. During this time the store and contents and also the hotel were burned, after which he rebuilt the store for his sons, who put in a new merchandise stock. The second year after he located at Mendota he was elected Justice of the Peace, and was reelected, filling the office to the satisfaction of the people.
In 1914, Judge Myer moved the office, as well as his residence, to Fire- baugh, finishing his term of office in January, 1915. In the meantime the city of Firebaugh was incorporated and he was appointed the first City Recorder, a position he still holds, while he is also engaged in real estate and insurance, as well as holding a commission as a notary public. He is also serving as
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clerk of the school board and is active in building the new modern school- house. He is an active member and chairman of the Firebaugh Merchants Association. Judge Myer is broad-minded and is an enthusiastic booster for the County and is also an active member of the Fresno Chamber of Com- merce. During the World War he received the appointment from Washing- ton as explosive inspector for his district, the duties of which he attended to faithfully.
In San Francisco occurred the marriage of Judge Myer to Miss Ottilie Levy, a native of Koeln, Germany. He was bereaved of his faithful helpmate on August 8, 1916, leaving him four children : Amy, who is Mrs. Wickersham, of Fresno; Irma Viola, with the State Compensation Bureau of Fresno and who is a young lady of much ability; Oscar L., a traveling man making the state of Oregon; Albert Leo, who was in the United States Army, serving over-seas and is just returned from France and now living in Fresno.
Judge Myer was made a Mason in Fresno Lodge No. 247, F. & A. M .; he is prominent in the Knights of Pythias as a charter member of Sunset Lodge No. 193, K. of P., Mendota, having served as Council Commander. He or- ganized Firebaugh Lodge No. 335, K. of P., of which he is Past Chancellor, and is now serving as Deputy Grand Chancellor. He is also a member and ex-President of Fresno Lodge, B'nai B'rith, as well as a member of the Red Cross. He was prominent in the different war drives and was chairman of the local committee for the Third Liberty Loan and they went "over the top" early.
Mr. Myer is liberal and kind-hearted, and has accomplished much good by his timely aid and helpfulness in an unostentatious way. He is held in the highest esteem and regarded as a leader in the community.
JAMES H. DAVIS .- Among the residents of Fresno County there are none who have contributed more in the exercise of energy and industry than James H. Davis. He was born in Schuyler County, Mo., November 30, 1847, and came to Fresno County in 1874, and is one of its later pioneers. His father, H. M. Davis, and his mother, Julia (Brower) Davis, were both natives of Kentucky. The mother died when James was but a small child. In 1851, his father and family, together with two brothers, William B. and Wilson, started for California, crossing the plains with ox teams. When they reached Green River, Wyo., they built a number of boats and conducted a ferry for the con- venience of emigrants, giving night and day service, for two summers they carried on this work, and in the fall of 1852 left for California, locating in Grizzly Flat, Eldorado County, where they mined for a time. Later the father farmed near Vacaville, Solano County, where he died in 1910.
Although but a child when his father crossed the plains, James remem- bers some of the incidents of the trip. As far as the eye could see the plains were covered with buffalos, and what was most interesting to the boy, were the men riding to and fro with their hats off, their hair flying in the wind, keeping the buffalo from stampeding the cattle of the emigrants. Then there were Indians who harassed the travelers to such an extent that they were in almost constant fear.
Mr. Davis was educated in the public schools and in the old Pacific Methodist College at Vacaville. When a boy of fifteen years, in 1862, he drove a band of cattle to Idaho, remaining away one year, traveling through Grand Ronde Valley, Ore., with his stock. Returning to Vacaville, he worked for his father and on ranches, and in 1874 he started for himself; coming to Fresno County, locating near Kingston. He later bought 100 acres on Cross Creek, improved it and farmed to grain for two years. He then rented the Hineland ranch, near Lemoore, where he engaged in grain farm- ing. In 1886 he homesteaded 160 acres, four miles east of Coalinga, where he now makes his home. He is raising grain (wheat and Egyptian corn), and has a family orchard.
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Mr. Davis is an engineer by trade, and for a few years he rented his ranch and worked in the oil fields in McKittrick, Kern County, also worked at his trade for three years in the Coalinga oil fields, but returned to his ranch in 1915. It speaks volumes for his vim and vigor that he is still, even at his advanced age, looking after the affairs of his ranch taking all care of it. When he located in Kingston in 1874, he put in his first crop of grain in part- nership with A. C. Williams. Later Mr. Williams was county clerk of Fresno County for twelve years.
In the early days Mr. Davis was a school trustee, and when road masters were elected to office he was chosen to take care of the roads in the Coalinga district ; later when that office was filled by appointment from the Supervisor, Mr. Davis was twice appointed, once by a Republican and once by a Dem- ocratic administration. While occupying this office, he built many of the roads of the early times-the Warthan Canyon Road, the oil field roads, and always did good work, serving in office for ten years. He came into this district before the town of Coalinga was started, and was one of the founders of the town, "Coalinga" taking its name from a coal mine discovered in the mountains.
Mr. Davis married Nancy Jane Heriford, who was born in Sonoma County, of an old pioneer family. To them were born five children: Mrs. Clara Keyser, of San Francisco, who has one child; Mrs. Jessie Wood, of Coalinga, who has two children; Mrs. Doris Edwards; Oscar A., with the Shell Company; Harvey E., in United States Field Artillery-served six months in the Philippine Islands, later at Fort Still, Okla., and was discharged for disability. Mr. Davis has always believed in the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." He has no enemies, that he knows of and has always tried to make his given word as good as his bond. In the evening of his days he looks back with no regrets, and forward with- out fear.
ROY P. MATHEWS .- What intelligence, foresight, wisdom to choose the right field of endeavor-the field for which one is by natural inclination and temperament and personal gifts best fitted, and a patriotic desire to ad- vance, as far as possible, the development of the State's resources, may be learned from the perusal of the sketch of Roy P. Mathews, one of the most extensive orange, olive and fig producers in Fresno County. The grandson of a distinguished pioneer, Mr. Mathews was born in Oakland on October 3, 1880. His father was William A. Mathews, born in San Francisco, April 18, 1850. Two sons gave promise of carrying forward the family name, but the brother of Roy, W. C. Mathews, passed away at an early age.
The Mathews family was indeed one deserving of a high place on the roll of honor of the State already so rich in notable names. The grand- father was Judge Edwin Goodrich Mathews, a forty-niner who located at Oakland and homesteaded 160 acres, the site of the present city of East Oak- land. In the early seventies he was one of the largest grain brokers in California.
Roy was educated in the public schools of various grades in his native city, and entered the University of California with the class of 1903. Leaving college, he went into the wholesale jewelry business, in San Francisco. His marriage, November 25, 1908, united him with Miss Jeanette Merritt, the daughter of H. P. Merritt, who had married Jeanette E. Hebron. Two chil- dren were born to Mr. and Mrs. Mathews: Marjorie Merritt, and Jane Eloise. No happier home may be found for miles around, and cheer and hospitality greet friend and stranger there, and do much to maintain those old, charming traditions of California life.
Mr. Mathews is a scientific orchardist, and in his work follows only the most approved methods. Of the Santa Juanita Ranch, 125 acres are devoted to various kinds of fruit, forty-five being devoted to oranges, twenty to figs, twenty-three to olives, thirty to Thompson grapes, four to avocados, and
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three to grapefruit. The beautiful residence, costing $10,000, rises at the foot- hills of the Sierra range, and commands an inspiring view-groves of oranges, olives and figs in the foreground, with the mountains for a setting; the whole forming one of the most beautiful spots in all the State for a country home. About fifty acres of the orchards belong to Mrs. Jeanette E. Merritt, mother of Mrs. Roy Mathews.
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