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 91
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ROBERSON J. KING .- The efficient superintendent of the S. W. & B. Oil Co., for the past thirteen years, Roberson J. King, is a native of Bed- ford County, Tenn., where he was born in 1846, a son of Charles Brandon and Mary (McQuiddy) King. His great-grandfather, John B. King, was a native of Georgia but removed to North Carolina and it was in this state that Grandfather Brandon King was born. Roberson J. King's maternal grandfather, John McQuiddy, a native of Massachusetts, migrated from the Bay State to Kentucky and afterwards located in Tennessee. The lineage of the McQuiddy family in the United States is traced back to a Scotchman who married a French woman and emigrated to America locating in Massa- chusetts. Charles and Mary King were the parents of nine children, Rober- son J., being the second oldest. He was brought up on a farm in Tennessee and followed farming in his native state until 1880, when he migrated to California locating at Hanford, where he purchased 160 acres and engaged in farming and stock-raising. Later on he sold his ranch and located on a homestead east of Traver. Tulare County, where he engaged in farming. While living there he was deputy county assessor and served for six years as assessor of Alta Irrigation district, holding the office from its creation.
After selling this ranch, Mr. King located in Hanford, where he was engaged for four years in buying and shipping hogs, cattle and sheep.
In 1900, R. J. King came to Coalinga where he was one of the organ- izers of the Whale Oil Company, who leased land in the Jacolitos Canyon and sunk a well, the venture proving a failure. At the same time Mr. King was interested in sinking a well in the Cholame section, of San Luis Obispo County, which was also a failure. Mr. King believes in the old adage, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Undaunted by repeated failures he became associated with the El Capitan Oil Company, and in 1901 they leased sections 15-19-31, and sunk two wells which proved successful pro- ducers, and two years later the company sold out their interests.
Subsequently Mr. King engaged in the fruit packing business, for one year, being located at Hanford. Afterwards he returned to Coalinga where he became the superintendent of the Esperanza Oil Company on section six. Later on he made a trip to the Utah oil fields, where he prospected for one year and then went on further east, to his native state, Tennessee, after remaining one year he returned to California. In 1905, R. J. King became the superintendent of the S. W. & B. Oil Co. At that time they had but two producing wells, but, through the efficient management and wise foresight of Mr. King, since that time four more wells have been sunk and at present the company is pumping five wells. In addition to his oil operations Mr. King is interested in farming near Tulare Lake in Kings County, where he has leased 640 acres which he has devoted to raising barley and wheat. Rob- erson J. King was united in marriage with Miss Mary Bramblett, a native of Tennessee. She passed away in 1896 leaving six motherless children who
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were raised by their loving father. The children in order of birth were: A. D., now a banker residing in Piedmont; E. B., is in the lumber business and re- sides in Berkeley ; Everett W. and Elmore W. are twins, also in the lumber business and reside in Bakersfield ; Leslie B. was in the United States Army, served overseas and now resides in Bakersfield; Clementine, as present is living in Berkeley.
Fraternally, Mr. King is a Mason, having joined this organization in Tennessee, but is now a member of Hanford Lodge, F. & A. M. He is a public spirited man and has always been interested in those movements and meas- ures that have as their aim the upbuilding of the best interests of the com- munity wherever he resides and is especially interested in educational mat- ters having served as trustee of the Alpha School district, Fresno County, and while living in Tulare County served in the same capacity in his home school district.
A. LORENZO BABCOCK .- There are but few men who have been able to crowd so much activity of various kinds into so short a time as has A. Lorenzo Babcock. He seems to have been endowed with a capacity for big things, and by a life of integrity and close application has accomplished that which would take an ordinary man a lifetime to encompass.
Mr. Babcock is the owner of a thirty-four-acre ranch at Lone Star, which he acquired in February, 1917. This vineyard contains sixteen acres of zin- fandels and fourteen acres of sultanas. It has been named the Babcock Vine- yard, and acre for acre is one of the biggest yielders in Fresno County. He resides on the celebrated Montecito No. 1 Vineyard, a very attractive coun- try villa, on Manning Avenue, three miles west of Fowler. Aside from being a splendid producer, it provides Mr. Babcock and his family with a magnifi- cent residence and home. He is also the owner of the fruit ranch known as The Kings County Orchard of fifty acres, planted to apricots and prunes. It lies seven miles northeast of Hanford and is one of the best paying or- chards in the San Joaquin Valley. Besides this he owns a ninety-acre tract, known as the California Ranch, at Orosi, Tulare County. This property is surrounded by most picturesque scenery, and truly suggests "California" in soil, climate and surroundings.
Mr. Babcock was born in Sabula, Iowa, October 27, 1877, a son of Lorenzo Dow Babcock. This branch of the Babcock family came from New York State, where they were farmers. The father married near Toronto, in the Province of Ontario, Canada, Miss Augusta Bastedo, born in Canada, of very distinguished Scotch and French-Canadian origin. The parents came to Michigan, and then to Minnesota, where they farmed a few years in each state. They then went to Clinton County, Iowa, and here A. Lorenzo Bab- cock was born. Then the family went to Winnebago City, Minn., where they followed farming for a few years, and when the son was nine years old the family moved to Pottawattamie County, Iowa, and there bought 160 acres, and raised corn, hay, horses, hogs and cattle. The mother is now living in Washington, and is sixty years old ; the father died in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, at the age of forty-eight years. There were eight children, of whom A. Lorenzo is the third and the second son.
Lorenzo worked on the Iowa farm, attended high school at Elliott, Iowa, and matriculated at Simpson College, at Indianola, Iowa. He went into a lawyer's office at Guthrie Center, Iowa, for a time, after which he went to Omaha, Nebr., and engaged in work in the office of the Omaha Chris- tian Advocate. He next went into the National Bank of Commerce as an office clerk, and served four years there, becoming receiving teller; then he went to Colorado and became connected with the Colorado Title and Trust Company, at Colorado Springs. He was then twenty-one, and had landed at Colorado Springs with seven and a half dollars in his pocket. Here is where he learned independence.
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A Lorenzo Malcost
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Six years and six months' experience gave Mr. Babcock a business acquaintance in Denver, in which city he became bookkeeper in the Daniel's Bank, where he remained for six years. Here he became interested in politics, and was in the state auditor's office with John Holmberg for six months. He received the appointment as secretary of the Colorado Commission for the Portland Fair. After serving on this commission he returned to Denver, and became connected with the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek Railway. Later he went to Silverton and entered the employ of the Guggenheim inter- ests at their Silver Lake mines at Silverton, remaining with them one year, and then went to San Francisco and was connected with the Southern Pacific for one year, and then went to the Orient for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, being stationed at Hong Kong, China, and here he remained for . two and a half years, and arose from assistant in the freight department to manager. Returning to San Francisco for three months, Mr. Babcock then went to Manila as manager of the Pacific Mail Agency, where he remained for two and a half years.
Returning to California, Mr. Babcock became traveling auditor for the San Joaquin Light and Power Company, and took up his home in Fresno. This was in 1913, and that year he married Miss Lillian Irwin, of Tennessee, and this he considered the best act of his life. During the year 1913 he continued with the Light and Power Company, and in 1914 became cashier for the California Associated Raisin Company, serving as such for four years, from August 1, 1914, to September 16, 1918.
WILLIAM MICHAEL GLAVES .- A successful and prominent farmer of Fresno County who enjoyed an equally enviable reputation as an agricul- turist in Missouri, is William Michael Glaves, who has one of the finest farm residences in Fresno County outside of Fresno City. He was born near La Grange, Lewis County, Mo., on July 3, 1857, the son of David N. Glaves, who was born near Falmouth, Ky., in 1819. Grandfather Michael Glaves was a major in the War of 1812, and afterwards, while major at a general muster in 1823, was accidentally killed through being thrown from his horse. The Glaves family came from Virginia to Kentucky as pioneers of Scotch-Irish descent ; the father was a farmer in Kentucky and married Nancy A. Wallace, also a native of Kentucky. Grandfather Graham Wallace was of Scotch de- scent and moved from Kentucky to Missouri; the mother was a cousin of General Lew Wallace. The father moved to Lewis County, Mo., in the spring of 1857, and bought a farm there; and he died on August 16, 1888. The mother died at the old home in 1901. She had seven children, and William Michael was the fifth in the order of birth. James H. died at La Belle, Mo., on March 18, 1917 ; Elizabeth J. resides at La Belle; John N. is in Lewiston, Lewis County, Mo .; Martha, now Mrs. Joseph Carman, is at the same place ; as is also Robert G .; and D. G. Glaves is at the old home at Ewing.
Reared on a farm, William attended the public schools and the Christian University of Canton, Mo., and then remained home to engage in farming. He rented land and went in for grain and stock ; and he got such a successful start that he was able to buy a farm seven miles south of Lewiston. Later he bought another farm and had cattle and hogs, and he leased still other farm lands. He became a large feeder of cattle and hogs, and shipped to St. Louis and Chicago ; he also went in for raising horses and mules. When he started, he and his brother rented sixty acres of land and began to feed hogs; he bought hogs at four cents a pound and made the weight 270; and he sold at six and a half and seven cents a pound, and was successful. The following year they rented seventy acres, and at the end of two years bought 160 acres. They fed two loads of cattle and 130 hogs the first season and after nine years of partnership, they dissolved.
In 1914, Mr. Glaves traded his home place for forty acres at Tranquillity and property in Fresno, Cal., and came to Kerman; and later he traded 160 acres for eighty acres in Empire devoted to alfalfa. He engaged in stock- 99
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raising and set out forty-two and a half acres in Thompson seedless, for which he paid $14,600. He improved it, and in 1918 sold it at good profit.
Mr. Glaves still owns property in Fresno. In 1918 he bought for a home his present place, twenty acres at the corner of Shields and Thompson ave- nues, and set out much of it to Thompson seedless grapes; and he built his handsome residence in Mission style, and made it one of the finest residences in this section.
At La Belle, Mo., Mr. Glaves was married to Miss Annie Rosalie John- ston, a native of Carroll County, Mo., and the daughter of Elisha Johnston, who was born in Ohio. When thirteen he came to Missouri and served in the Union Army during the Civil War; then he came to California, where he was a grain farmer near Monmouth. After fifteen years he returned to Mis- souri, and lived there about twelve years; then he came to California and to Phoenix, Ariz., and on July 22, 1918, he died at Oakland. He married Mary J. Walker, a native of Ohio, who now resides in Stockton. In all these years he made four different trips to California and spent the winters here. Mrs. Glaves was educated in the Monmouth public schools and attended an acad- emy at Eldon. Seven children were born to this favored couple, and of these six are living, Viola Mary having died when she was four months old. The others are: Leona Gladys, who married Wilhelm Hansen on June 1, 1919, and resides in Kerman ; Doris Elizabeth, who attends the Kerman high school ; Robert Wallace; Vera Irene; William Michael, Jr .; and Mildred Lucile. The family attend the Baptist Church; and in matters of national politics, Mr. Glaves is a Socialist. He is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and is a supporter of all public enterprises that help build up the county. He was a member of the Grange in Missouri, also of the Farmers' Alliance there.
A. N. CRESSMAN .- A prominent man in the Pine Ridge district and a resident of Fresno County since November 20, 1888, A. N. Cressman was born near Tylersport, Pa., June 5, 1868. His father, George Cressman, was born at Souderton, Pa., where he was a farmer and is descended from an old Pennsylvania family. The mother of A. N. Cressman was, in maidenhood, Mary Ann Wesner, also born in Pennsylvania, and A. N. is the second oldest of their nine children and the only member of the family in the west. He was reared in Montgomery County, Pa., receiving a good education in the public schools of that county. When nineteen years of age he came west arriving in Weeping Water, Nebr., in the spring of 1888, remaining until fall when he came to Fresno County. He went to work for Bill Forsyth in the Fresno vineyard at fifty cents per day and three months later he was made foreman of the vineyard, a position he held for about a year when he resigned to work for G. W. Smith in Eggers Colony from the fall of '89 until the spring of 1890, and then came to Ockenden, being employed by Burnham & Eversole, butchers. After two summers with them he went to Porterville and was married there December 24, 1892, to Miss Nellie Hall, who was born in Nebraska, a daughter of Robert and Eleanor (Sweeney) Hall, natives of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, respectively, who moved to Nebraska and in 1891 to Porterville, Cal. Her father died in Oklahoma and her mother now lives in Selma.
After his marriage Mr. Cressman came back to Ockenden and was em- ployed by Thomas Bacon and ran his butcher business and was later with his successors, Bacon & Simpson until they sold to Tom Ockenden and con- tinued to run his business until 1908. Meantime in 1905 he had purchased his present place of 160 acres, the old Tom Downey place above the Tollhouse. Here he set out an apple orchard and built a residence and store and in 1907 started a store, saloon and hotel. He still runs the mercantile business and hotel and his apple orchard is in full-bearing. These he packs in boxes and hauls to Fresno with his truck. He has as many as 3,000 boxes of winter apples which not only are sold in different cities in Fresno County, but he
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ships them, some going east as far as Kentucky and Virginia and west to Honolulu. He has made displays of apples in the Fresno County Fair and has taken his share of the prizes.
The result of the union of A. N. Cressman and Nellie Hall has been ten children: Robert A., with the San Joaquin Light and Power Company ; Mary E., Mrs. Chambers, who resides with her husband on the Cressman ranch; Bertha and Linda H., twins, who, both live in Fresno; Lizzie H., Alice H., George, Benj. H., Annie, and Allen.
Mr. and Mrs. Cressman have an interesting family to whom they are giving the best educational advantages within their means and they have the regard and well wishes of a host of friends who admire them for their integrity and honesty of purpose. Deeply interested in the cause of education, Mr. Cressman is a trustee of the Pine Ridge School District, having served many years as clerk of the board. He gave one acre of the present site for the school house. He is a member of the Herman Sons and the Eagles. In political preferment he is always a true blue Republican.
CLINTON D. COLLINS, M. D .- Few counties of California have been so fortunate as Fresno in their selection of county physicians, and among those who have filled that office with signal ability is C. D. Collins, the physi- cian and surgeon, who is not only a native son, but was born, on May 24, 1885, in Fresno County. His father was the late J. D. Collins. A sketch of the family is given elsewhere in this history.
One of a family of five brothers and three sisters, Mr. Collins was edu- cated in the public grammar and high schools of his district, and later he attended the medical department of Leland Stanford University, where he graduated in 1911. For the following nine months he was interne at the Alameda County Hospital, greatly enlarging his experience.
On February 24, 1912, Dr. Collins and Miss Gertrude Drew, daughter of A. M. Drew, the well-known attorney, were united in matrimony. Two chil- dren-Barbara Drew, and Thomas Arthur-have blessed this union. Dr. Collins is a valued member of the University Club, and the family attend the Methodist Church.
Coming to Fresno, Dr. Collins commenced his practice here with most encouraging success from the start; and having shown much public spirit as a citizen working under the Democratic banner, he was appointed, in January, 1915, County Physician by the Board of Supervisors, still continuing as visit- ing surgeon to the county hospital. Dr. Collins entered the service of the United States during the war, enlisted and received his commission of First Lieutenant June, 1918, and was discharged January, 1919. Coming back to Fresno and resumed his private practice and his connection with the county. He is a member of the County and State Medical Societies and the American Medical Association.
MARTIN W. PEARCE .- There are few more inspiring examples of self-won success in the history of Fresno County farmers, than that furnished by Martin W. Pearce, who has, by perseverance, hard work, and intelligently directed efforts, succeeded in attaining a large measure of prosperity, and is regarded as one of the most enterprising and up-to-date ranchers in his com- munity. A Canadian by birth, born in Ontario, October 7, 1867, he was reared on a farm and educated in the public school of his district.
In the fall of 1887, when Martin W. Pearce was twenty years old, he came to the United States, and for a few months stopped in Northern California, where he investigated the prospects for farming, but after seeing Fresno County and investigating its wonderful opportunities for farming, fruit cul- ture, and cattle raising, he decided to made his future home in this great commonwealth. After arriving in Fresno in the spring of 1888, he secured employment on the T. C. White ranch, and being an ambitious youth, and desirous of being in business for himself, in 1890 he purchased forty acres
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of raw land in the Garfield district near Clovis, being one of the first to set out vines in that district. He improved it with a Muscat vineyard, residence and fences, bringing the ranch up to a high state of cultivation, and raising some very large crops. Having made his residence there for twenty-two years he sold the place in 1912.
During his long residence in Fresno County Mr. Pearce has owned a number of ranches; among the various properties he has owned were forty acres in the Perrin Colony No. 2; two ranches of twenty acres each in the Garfield district; fifty acres in the Niece Colony, and a grain and cattle ranch of four hundred and forty acres also in the Garfield district. Mr. Pearce has been engaged in grain farming, cattle raising and viticulture, in all of which he has made a decided success. By his long and varied experience in agriculture, he has gained a valuable knowledge of the surrounding con- ditions and crops, and is considered an authority on lands and values in Fresno County. Although a comparatively young man, Mr. Pearce has retired from active farm work, and is living in his new and modern bungalow at No. 1403 San Pablo Avenue, Fresno.
He is a man of splendid business ability, and has been recognized as a leader in financial circles by being elected to the responsible position of a director in the First National Bank of Clovis.
In the Garfield district, March 18, 1900, Mr. Pearce was united in mar- riage with Johnnie Elizabeth Howard, a native of Fresno County, and this happy union has been blessed by two children, Zella, and Thomas, both at- tending the Fresno Normal Training School.
Mrs. Pearce is a member of the Parlor Lecture Club of Fresno, and the family are highly esteemed in the community.
HENRY KELLAS .- The late Henry Kellas was a splendid example of a kind-hearted and public-spirited citizen, and was born near Forest, forty miles from Quebec, Canada. His parents were of Scotch ancestry, and owned a farm on the Canada and United States line. When Henry was a lad of thirteen, the family moved to Illinois, and he was raised and educated in that state. When he was old enough he began farming for himself, and working in the pineries. He later farmed in Iowa, and in 1872, settled in Kansas, and bought 280 acres of railroad land, near Newton, Harvey County, upon which he raised grain and some stock until 1905, when, on account of ill health, he sold out and removed to Seattle, Wash. Having recovered from his asthma, four months later, he came to California, and on June 26th, of that year, pur- chased a ranch of sixty acres, seven miles east of Fresno. There were some young vines planted on the acreage, and seventeen acres were in young fig trees. Mr. Kellas set the balance of the ranch to vines, Thompson seedless, Muscats, Malagas, and all were grown under ditch irrigation; some wells and a pumping plant furnishing further water for the property. Mr. Kellas was actively engaged in the development of his ranch, when he was called by death, on September 26, 1909. He was interested in the cause of education and in his home district in Kansas, was clerk and trustee, and helped build first school in his district which was named for him, Kellas School. He also built the second or present school house, was elected a trustee and served for nearly thirty-three years. In Locan district, he helped organize a new district and was one of first trustees and helped built first school house. He was always a Republican.
In Newton, Kans., January 12, 1887, Mr. Kellas had been united in mar- riage with Miss Emma Gast, who was born in Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind., a daughter of Andrew Gast, a native of Germany. Mr. Gast was brought to the United States by his parents when he was two years of age, and for a time the family stopped in New York, but later located in Marshall County, Ind. Mr. Gast, after reaching young manhood, enlisted for service in the Civil War, in Company E, Twelfth Indiana Cavalry. After the war, he re- turned to farming in Indiana. He married Angeline Lolmaugh, a native of
Joseph Fearou
Elizabeth Yearon
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the Hoosier state, and soon afterwards they moved to Newton, Kans., where Mrs. Gast's father, Jacob Lolmaugh, had settled in an early day. The chil- dren now living that were born to Mr. and Mrs. Gast are: Mrs. Emma Kellas; Mrs. Dora Pippig; Mrs. Mary Bell; Jacob A .; Mrs. Lizzie Pippig; Lawrence, of Newton, Kans .; Edward, of Long Beach; John B., of Colorado Springs; Peter, of Long Beach; Mrs. Laura Mickelberry, of Bakersfield; and Mrs. Margaret Skoegard, of Lemoore. Mr. Gast removed from Newton, Kans., to Larned, then back to Newton, and in 1906, came to California. He and his wife are now living retired in Fresno.
Since the death of Mr. Kellas, his widow, with the aid of her son, Floyd H., has operated the home place and has displayed much business acumen in the discharge of the duties falling upon her. Her sons are: Floyd Harrison, an expert horticulturist in charge of the Kellas ranch, and a member and clerk of the Locan school district; and Edward Leslie, a graduate of the law department of the University of California, and was admitted to practice ; he was in the United States Army, served overseas as First Lieutenant in the Three Hundred Sixty-first Regiment. Mrs. Kellas is a Republican in political matters.
JOSEPH FEARON .- A pioneer couple who deserve the esteem and goodwill of every Californian-as, indeed, they undoubtedly have it-on ac- count of the many sacrifices they made, during the really hard times of early days, to help develop and build the country, are Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Fearon, among the oldest settlers in the Coalinga field. He was born in Lancashire, England, on March 17, 1843, and in that bustling and prosperous country he was reared. On account, however, of serious trouble to his eyes, in the nature of cataract, he could not go to school, nor study much, and his book education, therefore, was quite limited. He worked, first in the copper mines and then in the iron, of Lancashire. On April 8, 1870, he was married at Dalton, in Furness, England, to Miss Elizabeth Lightburn, a native of Newcastle-on- Tyne; and for eighteen years they continued to reside in Lancashire. All this while they were really preparing, while mastering their none too favorable conditions at home, for their next great step by which they were to venture all they had in the New World.
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