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 88
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With the profit thus realized, Mr. Ward made the first cash-down pay- ment on a 480-acre tract which he purchased for $8,000; a tract lying twelve miles east of Stockton; and having kept it for three years, and improved it, he disposed of that for $22,500.
The next year, 1883, he went to Texas with the intention of going into the cattle business; but while looking around for the best opportunity to invest, and boarding at the National Hotel at Dallas, he accepted an offer to buy the hostelry, and ran it for ten months. Then he sold the hotel for $3,000 and came back to California, the only place, he thought, to have a real home.
He visited two brothers at Kingsburg, and was induced to buy a hotel there; taking charge, in 1884, of the Welch Hotel, which he managed for five years. He also began to buy and sell land ; and he has since then bought and sold numerous farms and has also engaged extensively in the cattle business, in which he has been successful. Now he owns 800 acres in Kings and Tulare Counties, and although he has sold everything else except his little house in Kingsburg, where he lives, he is rated the richest man in that prosperous town.
About the time of the early eighties, Mr. Ward was married to Miss Julia Gann of Stockton, near which city she had been born; but this devoted wife died soon after he came back to Kingsburg, in 1884. She left four children- Charles H., now a rancher at Kingsburg; Josie, the wife of M. C. Hust, also a rancher of Kingsburg; Ivy, the wife of Vincent Marker, living at Stockton; and Lois, the wife of W. W. Causey, with her home near Kingsburg. For the second time; in 1884, Mr. Ward was married, then choosing Miss Rachel Kerrick, a native of Stockton, as his wife. Mrs. Ward is known for her charming qualities as a neighborly woman, and Mr. Ward locally famous as a good-natured, sympathetic business man and capable of telling a good story.
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JAMES J. TRANBERG .- A prominent viticulturist and orchardist, and influential as a Socialist seeking progress and much-needed reforms, is James J. Tranberg who, with his estimable wife, hospitable and studious like him- self, is much interested in the history of California and the preservation of its absorbing annals. He was born at Gudhjem, Island of Bornholm, Den- mark, September 1, 1870, the son of Hans J. Tranberg, who went to sea when he was a boy, and who sailed to many important cities in the Old and New World. Once he rounded the Horn on a voyage to Valparaiso, after which he returned to New York. He remained in America awhile, but at the outbreak of the Civil War returned to Denmark. He was a patriot, through and through, and in 1864 served on a monitor in the Danish Navy, during the Danish-German War. In 1867 he was married to Miss Mattia Johansen, and was afterwards engaged in the fishing trade, for which he owned his fishing-boat. He died at the age of seventy-five, in 1914, survived by his faithful wife, the devoted mother of four children.
The second eldest of these and the only boy in the family, James J. at- tended school until he was fourteen, after which he went to work in a steam- ship office. Two years later he went to sea, and for six years was a sailor in the coasting trade. This prepared him for the half-year of compulsory ser- vice in the Danish Navy, in which he distinguished himself for alertness and fidelity. He received the coveted honorable discharge.
Attracted by the glowing reports of life on the shores of the Pacific, Mr. Tranberg, in April, 1892, reached the busy city of San Francisco, and soon thereafter secured work on a farm near Modesto. He next set sail from San Francisco for Alaska to take part, for the summer of 1895, in the cod-fish trade, and this he liked so well that he again visited the northern waters in 1896. Strange to say, however, he did not learn of the discovery of gold in the Klondyke until his return to San Francisco, and then he was ready to return to Denmark via Panama and New York.
For eighteen months he was a sailor again in the coasting trade, and then he assisted on a fishing-boat. The hazardous life of the sea made him long for a fireside of his own, and on October 24, 1899, at Copenhagen, he was married to Miss Johanna Hirsch, who was born in that city. Her father was William Hirsch and her mother had been Adolphine Reinholtz. They were born in Germany of Lutheran families, and were married in 1870; and her father, who was a shoe merchant in Hamburg, was a sergeant in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1877, he migrated to Copenhagen, where he opened a shoe-store and became a citizen of Denmark and there reared a family ; and there he remained until he disposed of his business. Both the father and the mother are still living, the parents of nine children, six of whom grew to maturity. The only one in the United States is Mrs. Tranberg, the third oldest, who was educated in Copenhagen, where she attended the grammar and high schools, and then took a course in the business college. They mi- grated to California and on October 21. 1900, Mr. Tranberg and family ar- rived in Fresno, stopping over by chance for a few days on the way to San Francisco; but he became interested in the county and prolonged his visit. He found employment in a vineyard, and liked the work so well that he chose it. In fact, in 1903, he bought twenty acres in the Eggers Colony, and set to work to level and improve it. Hc and a neighbor took out a ditch from the Enterprise Canal, and there he planted alfalfa and conducted a thriving vineyard. He made all the necessary improvements, including the erection of a residence and outbuildings, and the place had a vineyard of eleven acres, planted to Malagas and Thompsons ; also five acres of peaches and figs, and the balance in alfalfa. In 1918 he sold the ranch at a good
James Tranberg. Johanna Tranberg
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profit and moved to a residence he purchased in Clovis, where he resides with his family. In April, 1919, he bought ten acres of vineyard, two miles north of Clovis, set to Malagas, Muscats and Zinfandels. He is a member of the Melvin Grape Growing Association, and also of the California Associated Raisin Company and the California Peach Growers, Inc.
Five children bear the honored name of Tranberg: George is a grad- uate of the Class of '18 of the Clovis Union High School; Arthur, attending Clovis Union High, class of 1922; and Edith, James, Jr., and Ruth all in grammar school, complete the circle. Mr. Tranberg is a member of the Danish Brotherhood and Mrs. Tranberg is a member in the Danish Sister- hood of America. Mr. Tranberg is a loyal citizen of the United States and a warm advocate of the socialistic doctrine.
JOHN FOSTER .- Among the sterling characters who contributed to the development of California by old England was John Foster, who, coming to America in his young manhood, presently joined the stream of hardy adventurers who made that epochal journey across the plains by ox team upon the discovery of gold in California. After a period of gold-mining near Angels, Calaveras County, he established his family near Tracy, San Joaquin County, where he engaged in sheep-raising, which was one of the important pioneer industries of the west. In 1874 he sent his flocks to Fresno County where they were grazed in the hills and mountains during the summers, and in the valley during the winters, as was the custom of the time and circum- stances. His winter camp was located in the neighborhood now occupied by the cemeteries, but which was then the open plains. Mr. Foster's summer sheep camp being situated in the mountains, it was the owner's custom to carry supplies to his herders by pack-animals through the forests and along unfrequented trails. It was when employed on this errand that he was last seen alive on July 11, 1882. A few days later his lifeless body was found lying by the lonely trail, his pack-horses feeding about and his little dog standing guard. The spot is marked by an inscribed zinc band on the tree, and that mountain ridge bears his name. The remains were brought down the mountain and, July 21, were interred in the family plot in Mountain View Cemetery. Mr. Foster had reached the age of fifty-two.
Along with his sheep industry John Foster conducted a lumber business in partnership with his brother, William Foster, on their lots on both corners of H and Fresno Streets, those lots continuing in possession of the family for many years. As a home for himself and family Mr. Foster purchased six lots on K Street (now Van Ness) between Merced and Tuolumne, then considered to be very far out. There he had erected a comfortable, attractive and very well-built six-room house, which was for forty years the dwelling place of his heirs,-by whom the whole property is still owned.
On June 1, 1919 the remaining members of the family sought other shelter. Their home, one of the last of the houses of Fresno's pioneer era was moved away, and there is now under construction on the entire area of 150 x 150 feet a handsome, modern building which will stand for many years as a monument to the foresight and thrift of that kindly, honest man, John Foster, and to the self-sacrifice, patience and courage of his daughter, Annie Foster Hopkins.
John Foster married on February 16, 1857, in Angels, Calaveras County, Miss Lydia Wilson, herself a native of England. Miss Wilson, accompanied by a younger sister, had journeyed to California by way of Cape Horn to join a married sister who was already established in the new land with her husband and children. There were born to Mr. and Mrs. Foster two daugh- ters: Annie, who became the wife of Dr. H. St. George Hopkins, a prominent
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physician of the city, and Emma who married John W. Rogers; she died in August, 1896, and lies near her father in Mountain View.
In the person of Mrs. Lydia Foster, well and active at the age of ninety- five, Fresno honors probably the oldest inhabitant-certainly one of the long- est continuous residents. A woman of gentle descent, who had studied and traveled in the continental countries as well as her native England, Mrs. Lydia Wilson Foster is a lady of kind and gracious manner, and noble sim- plicity of character. In her nearly a century of life she has seen unroll the most wonderful span of the history of the world.
JESSE R. CHURCH .- The expansion of Fresno, which has occasioned an unprecedented number of building operations of all kinds, including brick blocks, palatial residences, and more modest structures of all classes in the various business and residential sections, affords unlimited opportunities for all people engaged in industries and enterprises having to do with building operations.
Among the leading contractors of Fresno who have contributed much to its growth and prosperity, Jesse R. Church of 221 U Street is well known as a first class, reliable and conscientious workman. He is a native of Fresno, born December 25, 1879, and is the son of John M. and Belle (Springton) Church. His mother is also a native of California, born in Lake County. His grandfather, Moses J. Church, crossed the plains to California in pioneer days and located in Napa County where he was a land owner and rancher. Later, in the early seventies he located in Fresno when it was little more than a hamlet, and was known as the "father of the irrigation ditch." He built the first irrigation ditch, which ran through Fresno Street in early days. He also built the first flour mill in Fresno, which he owned and ran, and which was located on Fresno Street where the present Sperry mill stands. He rented many acres of the old Easterby ranch east of Fresno, upon which he raised grain and also engaged in sheep and cattle raising. He was a prom- inent member of and officer in the Seventh Day Adventist Church and built the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Fresno. He was largely instrumental in the advancement and development of the city.
The late M. J. Church donated forty acres of land, which was the nu- cleus of the Mountain View Cemetery at Fresno. That now affords the last resting place for his remains. He had many admirers and personal friends; one of them, namely, Fulton G. Berry, Fresno County pioneer, and a former owner of the Grand Central Hotel, erected a fine monument to Mr. Church : this monument among other inscriptions reveals the fact that it was erected out of personal admiration. "From one who knew his worth."
His son, John M., a child two years of age when his parents crossed the plains, was brought up and educated in Napa County, Cal. He came to Fresno with his father and was the pioneer furniture man of Fresno. He opened a furniture store on Fresno Street near I Street, and for twenty years was engaged in the furniture business. He owned and developed a vineyard on North First Street, and in the early days carried the mail from Fresno to White's Bridge. He was also in partnership with his father in the sheep and cattle business in the early days. He was a prominent member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. He died February, 1912. His wife is still living.
Jesse R. attended the public schools of Fresno and later a business college at Healdsburg, Cal., where he took a stenographic and business course. He worked with his father in the furniture store at Fresno and later took up the trade of carpenter and worked for James M. Smith, the contractor, still later entering the contracting and building business for himself. He has erected over one hundred buildings in Fresno, among which are many of the best residences in the city, a dormitory at the Normal School and four flat build-
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ings in North Fresno in the Normal school district, besides many others (notable among which are the S. E. Black, J. O. Keig, George Haines and E. C. Van Buren residences). He built twelve homes of his own and dis- posed of them. At present he has retired from active building operations. When active he had three or four houses under construction all the time. He has been a life long member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Fresno, of which he is trustee and elder.
He was united in marriage with Maude May Shaw, a native of Nebraska who came to California when a little girl with her mother, and resided in Healdsburg and Oakland, coming to Fresno in 1901. She is a deaconess in the Seventh Day Adventist Church and an officer in the Ladies' Auxiliary.
EUGENE A. MOWER .- A worthy resident of California since 1885 is Eugene A. Mower, deputy county auditor for many years. He was born in Bangor, Maine, June 10, 1862, a son of George and Elizabeth (Eastman) Mower, both natives of Maine, of old New England stock, traced back to Massachusetts, who spent their entire lives in the State of Maine. Of their seven children Eugene is the second oldest and the only one living in Cal- ifornia.
Eugene Mower, after completing the public school courses, attended the Eastern State Normal at Castine, Maine. Finishing the course there, in 1882, he engaged in teaching for a year and then followed farming on the old New England homestead that has been in the family for eighty-five years The old house is still standing and is in good condition.
Wishing to migrate to the Pacific Coast, Mr. Mower came to San Fran- cisco in 1885 and spent four years with William H. Rouse and Company, a wholesale produce commission house. In 1889 he came to Reedley, Fresno County, as superintendent of the California Fruit and Wine Land Company, a position he filled for some years. He then spent some time mining in Tuolumne County, and then returned to Fresno. In January, 1899, he became deputy county auditor under H. E. Barnum, continuing with him until his death, except two years while he was county expert, and a short time while he served as deputy county treasurer. On the death of Horace E. Barnum, Mr. Mower continued as chief deputy under his successor, Charles E. Bar- num.
Mr. Mower was married in Fresno to Mrs. Evelyn (Dearing) Barnum, a native daughter of the state. Mr. Mower is a member of Las Palmas Lodge of Masons, and is also a member of the Foresters, Woodmen of the World and Royal Arcanum. Mr. and Mrs. Mower attend the Baptist Church in Fresno.
CARL EMIL JOHNSON .- A rising young man who has done much to improve land and property interests by the setting out of orchards and vine- yards, and who has thus contributed much. toward the development of the district, so that he is both highly respected and well liked, is Carl Emil John- son, who came to California at the beginning of the present century. He was born in Delarne, Sweden, on February 5, 1879, the son of John Johnson, a progressive farmer still living there. Anna Johnson, the beloved mother of eight children, six of whom grew to maturity, died in her native land. Four of her sons came out to California; and the third in the family is Carl Emil.
C. E. Johnson attended the public schools and learned the trades of an electrician, a carpenter, and a blacksmith. He followed electrical work in Sweden, and was several years foreman for great electrical establishments in Ludvig. When he embarked for the United States in 1901, he was finely equipped for success in the New World. He remained over a year at Center- ville, S. D., and in 1902 came to Fresno. He mined awhile, then bought twenty acres in the Vinland Colony, for which he paid $35 an acre, and then worked out at various places. He was longest at San Francisco as a carpen- ter ; and he also did electrical work and mining in Mariposa County. He was
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particularly successful at carpentering in the Bay metropolis, and made enough money to pay for both his ranch, and the ranch improvements.
About 1908, Mr. Johnson settled on his property and built a residence; and he has been occupied with its management ever since. He has a Bean spraying outfit, and contracts to spray orchards and vines. All the improve- ments have been made by him, and he has five acres of alfalfa, fifteen acres of peaches and apricots, including Muirs and clingstones, and the whole estate borders on Shaw Avenue. He is a member and stockholder of the California Peach Growers, Inc., and also a stockholder in the California Asso- ciated Raisin Company. Mr. Johnson attends the Swedish Lutheran Church, and joins with his fellow members in good works.
ELVIA BRANNON .- A careful, assiduous, thorough and eminently successful oil-man who also enjoys an agreeable popularity among the many who know him as one of the most generous and affable of every-day fellows, is Elvia Brannon, the experienced production foreman for the Coalinga Mohawk Oil Company. He was born at Bolivar, Mo., on September 10, 1889, the son of John Brannon, also a native of that state and a farmer there. A. B. Brannon, the grandfather, did his full duty by the Union in serving as a soldier in the Civil War. Mrs. John Brannon was Martha Reeser before she married, and she was also a native Missourian. She had a grandfather, John Reeser, who was also a Union Army soldier. Four chil- dren were born to this excellent couple: Lee, who is in the overseas army; Elvia, the subject of our instructive review; William, also a soldier enlisted to fight autocracy ; and Atha, who is at home.
The second eldest in the family, Elvia was brought up on a farm while he attended the public schools of his neighborhood. He remained home until 1907, when he came to California. He settled at Coalinga and entered the employ of the American Petroleum Oil Company. He began as a well-puller at the bottom, and was with the company three years, during which time he became head well-puller. He then joined the British Consolidated in the Coalinga field, and for fourteen months dressed tools for the concern. After that he was transferred, as lease foreman for the Associated Oil Company, at Orcutt, in the Santa Maria field, and there he continued until 1916, when he resigned to accept his present post.
In national politics a Democrat, but in local affairs always working for the measures and men likely to be best for the community or district re- gardless of party politics, Mr. Brannon believes in doing what he can to promote good citizenship; for a well-governed country is not only the best place in which to live, but by all odds the best place in which to do a thriving and equitable business.
A. ALBRECHT .- Among the enterprising and successful men who have engaged in viticulture in Fresno County, A. Albrecht deserves men- tion. He was born in the province of Schleswig. Denmark, January, 1861, before that province was ceded to Germany by the Danes, and is the son of Amos Albrecht, a tanner, who was engaged in manufacturing leather until he retired.
Of the six children in the parental home, four boys and two girls, only two of the boys are living. Mr. Albrecht being the youngest of all. He was educated in the public schools and served an apprenticeship at blacksmithing for three years. In May, 1879, he came to the United States, locating at Sycamore, De Kalb County, 111., where he worked on a farm and at his trade. In November, 1883, he came to California and traveled through the San Joaquin Valley, stopping at Fresno. He found the town and the country new at that time and they did not appeal to him. In January, 1884, he located at Orange, Cal., where he built a blacksmith shop and engaged in black- smithing, wagon making, and the manufacture of plows, cultivators and other farming implements. Under the firm name of Albrecht and Struck,
Peter Müller Émilie Miller
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he built up a large business and employed six or seven men. In 1900 his wife became ill and he came to Fresno on account of her health, having sold his interest in the business to his partner.
Mr. Albrecht was married near Sebastopol, Sonoma County, to Miss Mary Hennecke, born in Indiana, and they became the parents of three children. Sophia is the wife of August Halemeier, a rancher on Locan Ave- nue; Emma is Mrs. Denneson, of Fresno; and Maggie, died at the age of five years. Mrs. Albrecht died in Fresno in 1906.
In 1900 Mr. Albrecht purchased a fifty-acre vineyard on Ventura Ave- nue, and engaged in viticulture. In 1908 he sold this land and bought forty acres that was unimproved, lying in the Myers tract on Locan Avenue. This he has set to wine grapes and peaches. After many years of hard and ex- acting labor to improve his various pieces of property he retired in 1913, to make his home in Fresno. He is a well-read man, an interesting conversa- tionalist and a man of much public spirit. He was a trustee of the Locan school district for four years and was instrumental in having the new school house erected. He has always favored the workings of the California Asso- ciated Raisin Association and has been a member ever since he began the growing of grapes. In the afternoon of his life he can look back upon a life well-spent and into the future without fear for he has tried to "do unto others as he would have others do unto him."
PETER MILLER .- One of the really progressive men in his section of the county, is Peter Miller, who always leads the van. He has as nice a farm as one could wish, where he has applied the latest word of science and has been able to demonstrate more than one scientific accomplishment of himself; and whatever is pleasing and stimulating to the eye of the student who visits there, is due largely to his own unaided efforts.
He owns 250 acres, all of which was in an unproductive and uninviting state in 1901, when he bought it. During the intervening years, by hard labor and intelligence he has brought it to a high degree of cultivation, and today devotes the acreage to vineyard purposes, an orchard, and general farming.
Expressive of Mr. Miller's ideas as to how things ought to be done, his farm buildings are of modern construction and eminently practical, in each case admirably serving the purpose for which they were erected. His crops are no less a testimonial to his ability, as he produces raisins that are as fine as any grown in the state. He has twelve men all the year around, and in the busiest season he employs from seventy-five to a hundred workers. His annual pay-roll amounts to $12,000. What he contracts for, he dispenses cheerfully ; and his word being as good as his bond, the money is there when the work has been done or the goods delivered. Mr. Miller is above all things a practical rancher, who has learned by experience the secrets of success in agricultural enterprises.
He was born in Denmark, on March 14, 1863, and is the son of Christian and Anna (Jensen) Miller, both worthy children of Denmark's soil. To them were born ten children, of whom seven emigrated to America. Peter, the subject of this review, was the first to migrate, and then came Hans, Neil, Laura, Katherina, Josie, and Caroline.
In 1890, Peter Miller was wedded to Miss Emilie Jansen, who was also born in Denmark. They have had four children, and all have so developed in their character and ability as to win both place and friends: Carl, who married Miss Clare Hendricksen ; Arthur, who married Miss Edith Swansen; and Alma, and Alfred.
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