History of Kern 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, Part 144

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682

USA > California > Kern County > History of Kern 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 > Part 144

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During the residence of the family at Santa Cruz, this state, James F. Brown was born in that city August 15, 1865. In boyhood he was a pupil in the local schools. At the age of eighteen he removed from Santa Cruz to Ilollister and secured employment on a farm. At an early age he learned the processes incident to well-drilling and soon after attaining his majority he became the owner of a new well-drilling machine. For a number of years he devoted his entire time to the drilling of wells in Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. The principal objection to such employment was the necessity for being away from home much of the time, so after his marriage in 1899 he settled upon a farm in San Benito county. Meantime while still living at Hollister he had learned the trade of engineer and also has become familiar with bridge construction, following both occu- pations at intervals of other work. From 1900 until 1908 he operated a dairy near Hollister and kept a herd of forty milch cows, but the work proved too heavy for his strength and he turned his attention to different lines of labor. Going to San Francisco he engaged as shipping clerk for Bemis Brothers Bag Company, but resigned his position and came to Kern county on the 4th of July, 1909. At first he engaged as a carpenter on the Monte Cristo lease at Maricopa, but in little more than a year he began an association with the company that still has his time and attention. He makes his home on the company lease, his family consisting of a son, Richard F., born in 1900, and his wife, Mrs. Itha (Shore) Brown, daughter of Richard Shore, of Hollister.

R. M. DODGE .- After years of successful identification with other in- terests during February of 1912 Mr. Dodge established his home on a ranch of sixty acres which he had purchased ten years before and which lies on Union avenue, section 18, nine miles south of Bakersfield. He expects to make a specialty of barred Plymouth Rock poultry and Mammoth Bronze turkeys and with this end in view he has secured a foundation stock that in breeding, pedigree and markings has no superior in this entire valley. In addition to this property he has also owned for a number of years two hun- dred and forty acres of redwood and tanbark timber in Mendocino county.

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About ten miles west of Hagerstown, in Washington county. Md., stood the country home of William and Sarah E. (Mason) Dodge, and there occurred the birth of R. M. Dodge November 18, 1852. The father, a native of Georgetown, D. C., was a son of Francis Dodge, for years a very influ- ential business man of that city, while the mother was a daughter of Rich- ard Mason, a prominent resident of Alexandria, Va. It was natural that Mr. Dodge should develop ambitious longings for an education and had it not been for the disastrous effects of the Civil war he would have remained in college until graduation; as it was, he had fair advantages at St. John's College in Annapolis and the Shenandoah Valley Academy at Winchester, Va. When twenty-five years of age he came as far west as Colorado, where he secured employment on a sheep ranch near Colorado Springs. After four years in the same location he removed to Trego county, Kan., where he was interested in the sheep business for three years. February 14, 1886, he arrived at Auburn, Placer county, Cal., and from there proceeded to Salinas, Monterey county, where for three years he acted as superintendent of a ranch.

It is as a trainer of bird dogs that Mr. Dodge has acquired a wide repu- tation throughout the west. His work in that line began while he had charge of the Harper ranch near Suisun City, Solano county. After three years on that ranch he resigned to superintend a kennel of his own at Kenwood. For three years he conducted the Kenwood kennels and then went to Ala- meda county, where for one year he had charge of the kennels owned by Mrs. Hearst. Meanwhile he had formed the acquaintance of W. S. Tevis, whose attention he had attracted through his manifest success in the train- ing of dogs and when he left the Hearst estate it was for the purpose of taking charge of the Stockdale kennels on the Tevis ranch. Until 1912 he continued in the same position and when he finally resigned it was with the object of retiring from the business and engaging in general farming. Since that time he has occupied and superintended his own country prop- erty, where he and his family have established a comfortable home. Prior to their marriage in 1892 Mrs. Dodge was Miss Elizabeth S. Stockton, her father having been a leading pioneer physician, while her brother is super- intendent of schools of Kern county. There are three children in the Dodge family, namely : Marion E., a student in the Los Angeles Normal School ; Mary M., at home ; and R. M., Jr., a bright boy of seven years, now attend- ing the country schools. In politics Mr. Dodge maintains an independent position, voting for those whom he considers best qualified to represent the people. As early as 1887 he became a member of La Salle Lodge, I. O. O. F., at Salinas.

JOHN FLETCHER MORRIS .- Living on Bakersfield rural free de- livery route No. 2, Kern county, Mr. Morris has a past of which he may well be proud and a future brilliant with promise of personal honor and substantial achievement. Born in Montgomery county, Mo., April 15, 1857, he had limited educational advantages, his parents' death making it neces- sary for him at an early age to assume the management of the home farm. He devoted himself to general farming in his native state till 1883, then emigrated to New Mexico, where he found employment as a fireman on the Santa Fe railroad. From New Mexico he came to California, following that occupation on the Southern Pacific lines between Los Angeles and Bakersfield.

In 1887 Mr. Morris pre-empted a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres, a part of the property now known as Tejon ranch, which he improved and did dry farming for twenty-one years. The time he could spare from his land he devoted to teaming, hauling borax from the mines. He saved his money and from time to time purchased additional acreage, including one section of railroad land, owning eventually seventeen hundred acres

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which he sold to the proprietors of the Tejon ranch in order to locate on what is his present home ranch of eighty acres. When he came to the place in 1908, only about half of it was under cultivation. He has put in a one-acre orchard and made other improvements and is now raising grain and alfalfa while devoting considerable area to pasturage.

As a citizen Mr. Morris is public-spirited and supports every measure which in his judgment promises to benefit any considerable number of his fel- low citizens. He is an Odd Fellow and member of Woodmen of the World. He served as deputy assessor during the administration of Assessor J. M. Jameson.

R. C. HUGHES .- The best gushers in Kern county for the year 1913 were struck in the Maricopa flats in the Sunset field, with the sole exception of those on the celebrated McNee lease (section 36) in the Midway field operated by the Standard Oil Company. Of all the west side territory in the year named few claims attracted the attention bestowed upon the Mari- copa Northern and Midway Northern Oil Companies, whose two leases each of eighty acres form a very valuable property and adjoin the famous Mari- copa Queen on the north. On these two holdings one rotary and two standard rigs are employed. As manager of a standard rig Mr. Hughes is proving a competent driller and exceptionally capable man for a position of responsibility.

From his earliest memories Mr. Hughes has been familiar with the oil industry. His father, Samuel Hughes, a blacksmith at Franklin, Venango county, Pa., owned oil land five miles from that city and at his death in 1910 left an estate of considerable value. Born at the family homestead in Franklin September 28, 1871, R. C. Hughes was one of fourteen children that attained mature years, his mother having been Anna (Campbell) Hughes, who died three months after the demise of her husband. Of the large fam- ily he was the youngest and it was thought advisable to train him to his father's trade. Hence he spent the years from fifteen to eighteen as an ap- prentice in the blacksmith shop, but as soon as his time had expired he struck out for the oil fields. For three years he worked for the Fisher Oil Com- pany in Venango county. When twenty-one he went to Freeport, Ohio, and secured employment as a tool-dresser. At the expiration of two years he left Ohio for Indiana and at Greenfield had his first experience in drill- ing, being employed by Al Cole, a local oil man. From that time to the present he has engaged steadily in the drilling department of the oil indus- try and was successively employed at Greenfield, Ind., Gibsonburg, Ohio, Bay City, Mich. (where a wild-cat proposition engaged his time), and Cluryon Cross, Ontario, Canada.

Following a period of employment as a driller at Peru, Kan., in 1906 Mr. Hughes came to California and for a year engaged in drilling at McKit- trick. During 1907 he went to Alaska to drill for the Alaska Coal Oil and Development Company at Ketella, where he struck oil. Returning to the United States in 1908 he became a driller for the American Oilfields, Con- solidated, at Fellows, where he and his family have since made their home, although since May of 1913 he has been employed as a driller with the Maricopa Midway and Northern Midway Oil Companies in the Sunset field. While living at Greenfield, Ind., he met and married Miss Susie Banks. They are the parents of three children. The son, Albert, is employed as a tool-dresser and assistant to his father. Wilda is the wife of William Wellman, of Fellows, and Ida is a student in the Fellows schools.

HENRY J. BRANDT .- Several successive generations of the Brandt family were intimately identified with important enterprises in Denmark, one of the most influential of these representatives having been Christian J. Brandt, the owner of large tracts of land and also a ship-owner. The grain

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

raised on his own lands as well as that purchased from other farmers he shipped on his own vessel to Germany and thus built up a large trade between the two countries. Fine mental endowments admirably qualified him for commercial affairs of magnitude. Such enterprises he conducted with signal success. Had he lived in a different country at a more modern era of the world's history he would have been denominated a captain of industry and a progressive promoter of great interests. As it was, his name did not penetrate into any localities remote from his immediate environment and the harbors where his ships cast anchor. Among his children was a son, Christian Jensen Brandt, who in youth shipped as seaman to Africa, left the vessel at one of the ports in that country and for seven years remained there, engaged in various occupations for the earning of a livelihood. Upon his return he assisted his father in business and managed a farm that he owned, later acquiring land for himself. Both he and his wife, who bore the maiden name of Anna M. Peterson, are still living in their native Denmark.

The family of Christian Jensen Brandt comprises seven children now liv- ing and of these the third, Henry J., was born at Aerceskjobing, Aero, off the coast of the main land of Denmark, November 22, 1879. From that rock-bound coast the young man came to the new world in 1895, prepared for earn- ing a livelihood through an expert knowledge of horse-shoeing and the blacksmith's trade, to which he had been apprenticed at the age of fourteen years. Crossing the continent to San Francisco he proceeded to Mendocino county and entered the employ of the Gualala Lumber Company. At the expiration of two years, feeling the need of a better knowledge of the Eng- lish language, he returned to San Francisco and began to study in the city schools. A year later he went to Dinuba, Tulare county, to work at his trade and next he purchased a blacksmith's shop at Malaga, Fresno county. During 1901 he came to Kern county, where for two years he engaged in the oil industry and also owned an interest in the Kern County iron works at Maricopa.

The business headquarters of Mr. Brandt have been at Bakersfield since 1903, at which time he opened a horse-shoeing shop at No. 1414 Eighteenth street. At the expiration of eighteen months he bought an interest in the Panama livery stable and for a year managed that as well as his shop, but then sold the stable in order to devote his entire time to his trade. About 1906 he began to rent out his teams. Finding a steady demand for teams, he bought other horses and mules from time to time until finally, instead of having only one team, he now owns one hundred and eighty head of work animals. At his shop, No. 210 Chester avenue, he does the horse-shoeing for his own teams as well as for the public. It is said that he never violated a contract nor broke his word when once given, and such a record justly gives him a high place in the citizenship of Bakersfield. While he has for several years engaged in general contracting, he has lately enlarged his business and entered into it on a broader scale. He has completed a sub-contract under Mahoney Bros. for the pipe-line and station work between Connor Station and Lobeck for the General Petroleum Company, which line trans- ports oil from the Westside oil fields to San Pedro. This line covers three miles and has five stations from the valley to the summit. His experience in the past and his large equipment for the purpose render it possible for Mr. Brandt to execute the heaviest work with efficiency and dispatch, and he is continually branching out on new projects.

The marriage of Mr. Brandt took place in this city in 1903 and united him with Miss Pearl C. Maynard, who was born at York, Ill., and by whom he has three children. Louis James, Cordelia Grace and Bernice. Besides his business holdings and his stock in the Security Trust Company of Bakers- field (of which he was one of the organizers) he is the owner of two ranches.

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Three and one-half miles to the southwest of the city lies his well-improved farm of eighty-five acres, where he makes his home. This is well-adapted for vegetables and contains soil as rich as may be found in the entire state. The family are adherents of the Lutheran Church. Politically Mr. Brandt votes with the Republican party, while fraternally he was made a Mason in Bakers- field Lodge No. 224, F. & A. M., and he also holds membership with the Woodmen of the World and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

MRS. ALICE A. CRAIN .- The possession of a high degree of business ability on the part of Mrs. Crain is indicated by the sagacious judgment which she exercises in the management of the Decatur hotel, a modern apartment house and hotel situated at No. 2027 Nineteenth street, Bakersfield. Besides being a member of and worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church, she is also identified with the Rebekahs, and on several occasions she has represented in the grand lodge her own local organization, Kern Lodge No. 47, in which she is a past officer. Politically she supports Democratic principles.

Born and reared near Rochester, Fulton county, Ind., Mrs. Crain is a daughter of John Hay and a sister of George Hay, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. The advantages of a high-school education were given to her and these she supplemented by reading and observation. In young womanhood she became the wife of George W. Batz, a native of Fulton county, Ind., and a farmer of capability and fine character. When very young he made himself useful in the tilling of the soil and care of the stock. Coming to California in 1892, he secured land near Kernville on the South fork and engaged in the stock industry with his brother, John B., as a partner. Three years later, disposing of his interests there, he removed to a farm near Bakersfield, where he made a specialty of horticulture. His death occurred on that farm in 1901 when he was forty-one years of age, leaving to his bereaved wife the care of their two children, Orion A. and Grace Fay. About three years after the death of Mr. Batz she became Mrs. E. R. Crain. Fra- ternally Mr. Batz had been connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His son, Orion A., after graduating from the Kern county high school, for five years continued in the employ of the Associated Oil Com- pany, but more recently has engaged in the real-estate business in San Francisco. The daughter, Grace Fay, a graduate of the University of Cali- fornia, with the degree of B.S., is now the wife of G. B. Guyles, of Tacoma.

PAUL R. JONES .- A responsible position efficiently filled by a young man is an index of ability and the fact that Paul R. Jones is discharging the duties of foreman in the Green and Whittier division of the Associated Oil Company furnishes proof concerning his standing in the Kern river fields, where, although one of the youngest men connected with the oil industry, he ranks also as one of the most energetic and intelligent. While his identi- fication with this district does not cover a long period of activity, it being on New Year's of 1910 when he arrived here in search of employment, the brief interval has been one of great industry and intelligent activity and his recognized capability has brought him a promotion as merited as it is gratify- ing. It was as a roustabout that he began to work in the drilling department of the Associated Oil Company. For a time he was employed on the Hecla lease and also in the Green and Whittier division. After he had worked as tool-dresser for a short time he was made well foreman in June of 1911 and since then has given the most rigid oversight to the department under his foremanship.

For years the home of Paul and Clara (Meade) Jones was in Cedar Rapids, Boone county, Neb., and at that place their fifth child, Paul R., was born November 9, 1887. When nine years of age he accompanied the family to California and settled in Fresno county, where his father is still engaged in viticulture. The mother is deceased. There are six children in the family,

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those besides Paul R. being as follows: Ross, a resident of Riverdale, Cal., where he is engaged in the dairy business; J. A., foreman of the San Joaquin division of the Associated Oil Company in the Kern river field; Roy, of Fresno; Jesse, an employe in the Green and Whittier division of the Asso- ciated ; and Mary, living in Fresno county. After he had attended high school at Fresno for two years Paul R. Jones left school and entered the employ of the Wells Fargo Company, remaining with them for three years and then resigning in order to locate in the Kern river district. In 1909 he married Miss Sybil Dupree, of Sacramento, and they and their little daughter, Maxine, make their home on the company property where a comfortable cottage is provided for them.

L. PEYTON .- To mention the Tejon Oil Company is to give merited recognition to one of the leading organizations engaged in the oil business in the Kern river field, a concern whose prosperous history dates back to the start in 1908 and carries up to the present time with unabated profits. When the company was organized the stock was sold to residents of Bakers- field, who bought at $1 each the twenty thousand shares of stock forming the original capital of $20,000. The remarkable success of the concern may be attributed largely to the supervision of L. Peyton, superintendent, secre- tary and manager, in whom the utmost confidence is reposed by the other stock- holders, including the president, H. R. Peacock, and the vice-president, C. L. Taylor. The most intelligent consideration is given to every department of the work. While his education in the University of California and his special studies in political science have perhaps been of little direct benefit to him, the indirect advantage is apparent in his quick grasp of industrial conditions, his broad comprehension of business problems and his practical outlook upon life.

Not a little of the patriotic interest exhibited by Mr. Peyton in every phase of western development is due to the fact that he has spent his entire life in this part of the world. Since he entered the oil industry during 1903 he has risen steadily by dint of industry, perseverance and ability, and these qualities enable him now to manage the properties of the Tejon Oil Com- pany in such a manner that the stockholders are receiving ten per cent divi- dends each month on their investment. While of course this is primarily the result of having superior producers among their wells, it is also due in no small measure to his own careful oversight in expenditures. The holdings of the company include eighty acres located on section 28, township 28, range 27, where there are eight producing wells and a ninth well now in process of drilling. The net production averages sixty barrels daily to a well. A full equipment of machinery and appliances has been secured for the lease, a boiler house and bunkhouse have been built, and there is also a superintend- ent's residence commodious in size and substantial in finish, the whole form- ing a property of recognized value and adding another to the list of profitable leases in the Kern river field.

FRANCIS M. WATKINS .- An excellent type of the able and efficient American foreman of today is to be found in the person of Francis M. Wat- kins, foreman of the Central Point division of the Associated Oil Company, operating on section 4, township 29, range 28, in the Kern river oil fields.

A farm in Chautauqua county, Kan., was the earliest home of Francis M. Watkins and January 13, 1881, the date of his birth. Although the only child in the immediate family, he has two half-brothers older than himself. From an early age it was necessary for him to help on the home farm and his attendance at school was therefore desultory through no fault of his own. During 1897 his father died on the Kansas farm and shortly afterward he came to California with his mother, Sarah Eugenia Watkins, settling in Bakersfield, where he endeavored to make up for lack of early advantages by

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attending the grammar school. After two years they moved to Chino and there he attended the high school to the end of the first year. During his six years spent at Chino he was connected with the beet-sugar industry. Next he went to Calaveras county and worked in a quartz mine at Angel's camp, also in the Utica, a famous mine owned by Charles Lane. The work was exceedingly trying by reason of the fact that it was underground, yet he continued in the quartz and gold mines for five years. The wages being better there than elsewhere he was tempted to endanger health in order that he might have some earnings to save. However, in 1904 he abandoned such labor and returned to Bakersfield, where for a year he was employed as a housemover. During October of 1905 he married Miss Edith Adallah Mc- Cain, whose acquaintance he had formed while living in Chino. They have an only child, Francis Stanley, born in 1907 in Kern county.

Coming to the Kern river oil fields during May of 1905 Mr. Watkins began to work with a pick and shovel on the San Joaquin division of the Associated Oil Company. His aptitude being soon proved by actual work, he was given a job as well puller. In addition he learned the work of a tool- dresser. Later he was promoted to be well foreman on the San Joaquin division, after which he was appointed general foreman of that division. April 1, 1908, he was tranfserred to the Central Point division under the title of foreman, but with the work of superintendent, as by the systematization of the Asso- ciated all positions formerly known by the title of superintendent are now called foremen. A very interesting fact in regard to the Central Point is that, while Mr. Watkins has sixteen men under his supervision, there are only three single men residing away from home, now employed on the lease, while ten families are making their homes here at the present time. The Central Point is composed of two leaseholds, for besides the one known by that name, with fifty acres and thirty-four producing wells, there is also the Red Bank, composed of thirty acres, with seventeen producing wells, and of the entire fifty-one wells all but four are operated by the jack pumping system.

H. G. POWELL .- One of the most striking examples of that class of young men who have exhibited such capable and meritorious characteristics in the Kern River fields is H. G. Powell, the present foreman of the San Joaquin division of the Associated Oil Company. A young man who by sheer force of will, hard work and high ability has come to hold this responsible position, he has already evidenced a marked adaptability for this kind of work, and the fact that he is employed by one of the largest and most pros- perous oil companies on the Pacific coast proves his capacity in this direction.

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History of Kern 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, Part 144

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1682

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682