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 30

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 30

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As an authority concerning land titles and values Mr. Lightner is said to have no superior in Kern county. His memory of location is unerring, his knowledge of valuations accurate, his judgment keen and his decisions seldom questioned. His office in Room 1. Producers' Savings Bank building. is a scene of constant business activity, for he is in demand as a searcher of records, a judge of land locations and values and an authority concerning titles. As an attorney practicing before the Interior Department, he is re- garded as authority in all matters relating to the procedure of acquiring titles to lands under the various acts of congress pertaining thereto. He is one of the inheritance tax appraisers for Kern county, appointed by the state comptroller. The accuracy of his judgment is enhanced by his broad knowl- edge of jurisprudence, for at an early age he was admitted to practice as an attorney before United States land offices, his certificate of application bear- ing the signature of Hon. R. E. Arick, judge of the Superior Court of Kern county. One of the oldest native son's in California, he is also one of the most influential and prominent and further has the distinction of being the first past president of Bakersfield Parlor No. 42, N. S. G. W. Besides being con- nected with the Independent Order of Foresters, he is a charter member of

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Bakersfield Lodge No. 266, B. P. O. E., and is now the oldest surviving member of that body. Mrs. Lightner, formerly Miss Tena Morrell, is also a native Californian and has spent her entire life in the west. There are two daughters in the family, Gladys and Marguerite, the elder of whom is the wife of B. K. Stroud, superintendent of drilling operations in Lost Hills for the Universal Oil Company.

JOHN BUTLER BATZ .- The president of the Bakersfield Abstract Company, who is a pioneer of 1874 in Kern county, represents the fourth generation of the Teutonic family of Batz in America. Henry, a son of the original German immigrant, was born in Pennsylvania, learned the trade of a shoemaker and followed the same in Indiana for many years and until his death. When he removed from the Keystone state he was accompanied by his son, Benjamin, who was born and reared near Philadelphia and after settling in Indiana followed the trade of millwright. Near Rochester, Fulton county, he built a grist-mill operated by water power. Ten miles from the nearest town he took up a tract of raw land and from it he devel- oped a profitable farmi, where he was still engaged in agricultural pursuits at the time of his death in 1863. In 1911, in that same vicinity, occurred the death of his wife, who bore the maiden name of Clarissa S. Rice and was born in Ohio. Of their six children only three are living. John Butler being the eldest of these. His two sisters are Mrs. Amelia Meredith of Bakersfield and Mrs. Emma Edgington of Indiana. At the old home farm in Fulton county, Ind., where he was born January 25, 1852, he passed the uneventful years of boyhood alternating attendance at the public schools with such farm work as his size and strength permitted. At the age of sixteen years he began to learn the carpenter trade with a skilled con- tractor in the home neighborhood and when only eighteen he was able to take up building contracts of his own, making the doors, sash, blinds, etc .. by hand and finishing jobs in a manner satisfactory to customers.

Believing that opportunities would be greater further west, in 1872 Mr. Batz removed to Kansas and settled at Grenola, Howard county, but now Elk, where he engaged in carpentering. Not being entirely satisfied with the Sunflower state he came on to California in 1874 and settled in Kern county, where after a time he was employed as superintendent of the Landers stock farm in the South Fork country. Next he secured a clerkship with Michaels & Co., at Kernville. While thus occupied he established domestic ties, being married to Miss Sophie E. Smith, a native of Oakland, this state, and an earnest member of the, Methodist Episcopal Church. They are parents of two children now living. The daughter, Daisy M., is the wife of J. H. Jordan, vice-president of the Bakersfield Abstract Company. and the son, Vernon S .. is an employe of this company. Mrs. Batz is a daughter of Thomas H. Smith, a native of England, who after crossing the ceean settled in Ohio, but at the time of the discovery of gold in Cali- fornia he closed out his interests in Ohio and in 1849 sailed around the Horn to San Francisco. Later he engaged in the mercantile business in Oakland.

For some years Mr. Batz engaged in stock-raising and some time after his marriage he bought two hundred and forty acres on South Fork. where he had a profitable acreage in alfalfa, also engaged in horticulture and in addition made a specialty of the stock industry. For two years he served as under-sheriff with W. J. Graham and he also held office as trustee of the Scodie school district for some years. From the early period of his residence in the county he ranked among the leading Democrats and his services were in frequent demand as a member of the county central committee of the party. Nominated by the Democrats for the office of county treasurer in 1894, he was elected by a gratifying majority and took the oath of office in January of 1895. At the expiration of his term he was re-elected by a greatly increased majority, a fact which bears strong evidence as to the

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satisfactory nature of his services. When the second term expired in Janu- ary, 1903, he was not a candidate for re-election, his business interests being so important as to demand his entire time and attention. Prior to that he had acquired stock in the Occidental Oil Company, operating a producing well near Maricopa, and of this company he served as treasurer and manager ; besides he owned an interest in the Monarch Oil Company, proprietors of one hundred and sixty acres and managers of a well of strong productive capacity. After he had sold his «il interests he went to San Francisco and became treasurer and manager of the New Blue Jay Mining Company, owners of the Blue Jay mine on Coffee creek in Trinity county near Carrville. He assisted in organizing the Bakersfield Abstract Company in 1903 and was elected its first president, which position he has filled up to the present time. The company acquired the plant of Bender & Hewitt and thus became owners of the oldest set of records in the county. Employment is furnished to six- teen persons and a business of great importance has been established. On the organization of the National Bank of Bakersfield Mr. Batz was one of the incorporators and is a member of the board of directors. In the midst . of extensive business interests and large political connections, he has found leisure for social and fraternal activities and with his wife has been active in the Kern County Pioneer Society, while in addition he is associated with the Fraternal Brotherhood, the Degree of Honor and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. In the latter he is past master workman and has served as representative to the grand lodge. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows has had the benefit of long years of interested activity on his part. As past noble grand and representative to the grand lodge, he is a leading factor in local lodge work, while he further has been prominent in the encampment and the canton, in the former having been representative to the Grand En- campment as well as a prominent official. Movements for the benefit of Kern county have received his stanch support and not the least of these is the organization and maintenance of the Bakersfield Abstract Company, which is a concern of vital importance to the realty affairs of the county and also of more than passing importance through its representation of insurance agencies and building and loan associations.

C. V. ANDERSON .- As examiner of titles for the Kern County Abstract Company, in which he is a large stockholder and also holds the office of vice-president, Mr. Anderson is intimately identified with one of the leading concerns of its kind in the San Joaquin valley. Descended from an old southern family, he was born at Memphis, Tenn., March 11, 1874, and is a son of James A. and Maria Anderson, the latter of whom died when C. V. was a very small child. After a successful career as an attorney in Memphis the father came to California in 1885 and opened a law office in Los Angeles, where he engaged in practice as a partner of the late Attorney-General Fitz- gerald, of California. Twice married, by the two unions he became the father of fifteen children, seven of whom are living. Out of this large family C. V. was thirteenth in order of birth. From an early age he expressed a decided preference for the profession of the law, in which his two brothers, W. H. and James A., Jr., have also been successful, forming the firm of Anderson & Anderson, well-known among the law firms of Los Angeles.

After he had completed the studies of the public schools and St. Vincent's College, C. V. Anderson entered his father's office as a law student and during 1897 was admitted to the bar. With other members of the family he then engaged in practice in Los Angeles, whence he came to Bakersfield during the latter part of 1900, influenced in this move by the recent oil discoveries in the Kern county fields. In 1901 he formed a partnership with W. W. Kaye under the firm title of Anderson & Kaye, which connection continued until 1905 and meantime, from 1902 to 1905, he acted as adviser to the Kern County Abstract Company. Returning to Los Angeles in 1906 he became examiner

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of titles for the Title Insurance & Trust Company, also practiced his profession as a member of the firm of Anderson & Anderson, but in 1910 was induced to relinquish his associations in the southern metropolis in order to identify him- self with the Kern County Abstract Company, an important and well-estab- lished concern of Bakersfield.

The marriage of Mr. Anderson took place in 1905 and united him with Miss Elizabeth Alexander, of Los Angeles, daughter of the late Col. Richard Henry Alexander, and Emily W. (Houston) Alexander, the latter still a resident of Los Angeles. During a long and brilliant career Colonel Alexander was retained successively as a surgeon in the army, as colonel on the staff of General Miles and as the head of the medical department of the west. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are the parents of two daughters, Emily and Betty. The re- ligions home of the family is in the Episcopal Church of Bakersfield, to the maintenance of which Mr. Anderson has contributed generously and in whose philanthropies he has been a willing assistant. The Masonic Order and the Bakersfield Club number him among their active members and their pro- gressive projects have received his quiet but earnest co-operation. The Re- publican party embodies in its platform the principles which he believes to be best adapted to the welfare of the nation and he has given to it his stead- fast allegiance.

JAMES EDGAR STONE .- The Kimball-Stone Drug Company ranks among the leading business concerns of Bakersfield. The present organi- zation, which dates from 1904. has been engaged in business since 1910 at No. 1413 Nineteenth street, where the first floor is utilized for the various departments of the trade and in addition the basement furnishes storage facilities for a large reserve stock. The modern stock of the company, valued at $25,000, includes everything known to the science of medicine. The firm carries a full line of pure drugs and druggists' sundries, patent medicines of all kinds, toilet articles, perfumes, brushes and other articles to be found in a first-class shop of the kind. The compounding of prescrip- tions is a special feature of the business. For that purpose the freshest and purest of drugs are kept in stock. The prescription counter, unsurpassed by any in the state, is open to the public view by means of plate glass. The entire store is a model of neatness and system and indicates the thrifty qualities of the proprietors, whose skill as pharmacists is attested by their high reputation throughout the community.

The junior member of the firm, James Edgar Stone, was born at War- rensburg, Mo., July 23, 1881, and is a son of John W. and Elizabeth (Emery) Stone, natives respectively of Kentucky and Indiana, and early settlers of Missouri, where they were married and where they since have made their home. The father has engaged in raising live stock and still makes a specialty of handling live-stock, through which occupation, coupled with general farming, he has been enabled to reach financial success. In his family there are six children, the eldest of whom, Nellie May, is the wife o1 WV. L. Hyer, an employe of a large packing house at Warrensburg, Mo. The eldest son, John William, Jr., is engaged in the drug business in Kansas City. The third and sixth among the children, Josephine B. and Pansy K., are teachers in the Bakersfield public schools. The fifth, Luther Brooks, is engaged in the stock business with his father. James Edgar, the fourth in order of birth, received his education in Warrensburg, where for three years he was a student in the Missouri State Normal, after he had com- pleted the regular course in the public schools.

At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Stone matriculated in the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, where for two years he studied with industry, diligence and intelligence. At the expiration of that time he was graduated with the degree of Ph. G., as a member of the class of 1904, in which he had the honor of serving as vice-president. During the autumn of the same year he came

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to Bakersfield and purchased the interest of Dr. B. E. Morrow in the Mor- row-Kimball Drug Company, the predecessor of the Kimball-Stone Drug Company. After some years at the old stand the firm removed in 1910 to their present location, where they have a modern and model shop, equipped with every facility and improvement designed to render the business satis- factory and successful. Customers are treated with the most gracious cour- tesy and are given every possible attention. The Johnson line of remedies and toilet articles is prepared at the manufacturing table, back of which is a room for reserve stock and in the basement a large reserve stock also is maintained. The firm makes a specialty of poisoned wheat manufactured for the extermination of squirrels and gophers. Their stock of Parke-Davis goods is the largest in the San Joaquin valley. Among their bacteriological serums is Dr. Schaeffer's phylacogeus, manufactured by a Bakersfield physi- cian and already having to its credit many astonishing cures.

The marriage of Mr. Stone took place in Kern county and united him with Miss Mae Mouliot, daughter of Martin Mouliot, a stockman now resid- ing in Bakersfield. Born at Tehachapi, Mrs. Stone received her early edu- cation in the Bakersfield schools and later completed a course of study in the Chico State Normal. For three years prior to her marriage she taught in the schools of East Bakersfield with gratifying success. Politically Mr. Stone has been stanch in his allegiance to the Democratic party, and has maintained a warm interest in public affairs. Since coming to Bakersfield he has been active in Masonry, and is now a Shriner of the York Rite. Personally he is decidedly popular with everyone with whom he has busi- ness dealings or social relations.

THOMAS NORMAN HARVEY .- The genealogy of the Harvey family is traced to England and includes the names of many men of sterling worth and patriotic spirit. During the progress of the Revolutionary struggle they became associated with Canadian affairs, and their intense sympathy with the cause of the Tories led to their being classed with the empire loyalists. Cul- tured endowments marked every generation of the past. Out of the traditions that lighten the obscurity of bygone ages their names emerge as educators of talent and as far back as the lineage can be traced their identification with pedagogy has been established and even at the present time their association with educational affairs is as pronounced as it is successful. After a lifetime of service in the Canadian schools, during which time he had the supervision of the schools at Sydenham and other Ontario towns, W. B. Harvey died at Toronto, Canada, January 10, 1913. One of his sons, J. F., is superintendent of the high schools at Peterboro, Ontario. A daughter, Catherine, married R. H. Cowley, who now holds the office of superintendent of education for the province of Ontario and resides at Toronto. The present identification of the family with educational work in Canada will thus be seen to be intimate and influential.

The youngest child in the family of W. B. and Jean (Watt) Harvey, (the latter of Scotch extraction) was Thomas Norman Harvey, whose birth occurred in Ontario, Canada, December 9, 1878, and whose education was received in his native province. After he had graduated from the Sydenham high school in 1896 he matriculated in the Ottawa Normal School and took the regular course of study in that institution, graduating with the class of 1900. Immediately after his graduation he took up the task of teaching and served successively as principal of the schools at Strathroy and Parry Sound, Ontario, while in addition for a short time he acted as proprietor and publisher of a weekly newspaper in the village of Wyoming, a small town in Ontario, directly east of Port Huron, Mich. During January of 1904 he came to Cali- fornia and settled in the Napa valley, where for six months he studied law in the office of W. F. Henning and then continued his studies in the Hastings Law School at San Francisco. During 1905, while still a student in the law

Joseph Hamm@hammer

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school, he was admitted upon examination to the supreme court of California and since then he has devoted his attention to law practice. Coming to Bakersfield in July of 1910 he opened an office and has since made a specialty of oil and mining law, practicing before the United States land office. His office is located at No. 1667 Chester avenue and there much of his time is devoted to tireless and effective work in behalf of clients. Earnest in the preparation of cases, logical in reasoning faculties, well informed in the law, he has demonstrated his admirable qualifications for his chosen profession. One month before he came to Bakersfield he was united in marriage with Miss Violet Salter, daughter of J. W. Salter, who was a prominent pioneer and well-known druggist of San Francisco. Mr. Harvey is the father of a son who bears his name. In religion he was reared in the faith of the Church of Eng- land and has assisted in other movements for the general advancement.

JOSEPH WARREN SUMNER .- With the earlier events that shaped the history of Kern County the name of this California pioneer of '49 was intimately associated and the title of Judge, by which he was long and familiarly known, came to him through an efficient service of more than thirty years as justice of the peace at Kernville. For the difficult tasks incident to the development of a frontier community he was well qualified by the inheritance of rugged traits of mind and sturdy endurance of body from a long line of American ancestors who were pioneer unbuilders. Whether his task was that leading occupation of earlier days, mining, or the equally arduous experiences incident to hauling freight between Los Angeles and Kernville; whether presiding over the justice court with keen discrimination and impartial judgment or with far-seeing discernment concerning future conditions planting and developing the first commercial orchard in the Kernville region, into each responsibility he threw his energies with the whole-sruled devotion and enthusiastic interest that made him a leader among pioneers.

The genealogy of the Sumner family shows a close association with the colonial history of New England, where they became residents about the middle of the seventeenth century. The family history shows that William, the only son of Roger and Joan (Franklin) Sumner (the former a husband- man of Bicester. Oxford, England), was born in that English shire in 1605 and some time after his marriage to Mary West he brought his family to America, settling at Dorchester, Mass., where for many years he was a member of the general court and a prominent citizen. The next generation was represented by William, Jr., likewise a native of Bicester, England, and who married Elizabeth, daughter of Augustine Clement, of Dorchester. England. Throughout much of his life he followed the sea, but eventually he retired to Boston and there his death occurred in February, 1675. Clement. son of William, Jr., was born in Boston September 6. 1671, and married Margaret Harris, by whom he was the father of a son, Samuel Sumner, born in Boston August 31, 1709, and married at Charlestown, Mass., to Abigail, daughter of Samuel Frothingham, of that place. The death of Samuel Sumner occurred January 26, 1784. In the next generation was Ebenezer Sumner, born in Boston in March of 1742, married to Elizabeth Tappan and deceased at Newburyport, Mass., December 27. 1823. Hon. Joseph Sumner. son of Ebenezer, was born at Newburyport, Mass., May 26, 1783, becanie a merchant at Lubec, Me., served as a member of the Maine state legislature and died September 21, 1861. By his marriage to Sarah Wiggin, a lineal descendant of Governor Wiggin, of Massachusetts, there was born at New- buryport, Mass., January 3, 1819, a son, Joseph Warren Sumner, who in early manhood, after having completed an academic education, engaged in merchandising in Lubec, Me., and also operated a line of fishing boats from that isolated Atlantic port. The discovery of gold in California furnished the incentive for his emigration from the bleak coast of eastern Maine to the

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then unknown shores of the Pacific. A voyage via Panama brought him to San Francisco, from which city he proceeded to the mines of the Sierras. From that time he never entirely relinquished his identification with mining and his interests in that work took him as far away as British Columbia. During 1860 he became the owner of the Sumner mine at Kernville, where for many years he also owned and operated the Sumner mill, besides conduct- ing a freighting business to Los Angeles. As early as 1869 he purchased the Sumner ranch across the north fork from Kernville and there he embarked in horticulture upon a scale larger than that attempted by previous experi- menters in that occupation.

The marriage of Judge Sumner in Lubec, Me., August 3, 1843, united him with Miss Mary E. Dakin, who was born at Digby, Nova Scotia, January 16, 1826. They were spared to a long married life of mutual service and helpfulness and in death were not long divided, his demise taking place at his Kernville home March 29, 1911, when he had reached the age of ninety- two, while the death of his wife followed in the same year on the 31st of May, rounding out eighty-five useful years. Their only son, Elisha Payson Sumner, had passed away at Saco, Me., November 23, 1871. The older daughter, Mary Josephine, of Los Angeles, was the wife of the late Rev. C. G. Belknap, a member of the Southern California conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. The youngest member of the family circle, Alice Maude. is the widow of Andrew Brown, formerly a prominent merchant and banker of Los Angeles. From the standpoint of citizenship Judge Sumner was progressive. in personal character he was just and yet generous and broad. For many years he served as a member of the school board and aided in the building of school houses and the establishment of school districts. Fraternally he was a Master Mason. Originally an old-line Whig in politics, on the founding of the Republican party he transferred his allegiance to its principles and also supported the abolitionist movement from its inception. It was his privilege to vote at eighteen presidential elections, dating back to the exciting campaign of William Henry Harrison, when even at the remote and isolated Maine home of the Sumner family the cry of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was the most familiar slogan of the period, and extending through all the years up to and including the scarcely less exciting and interesting Roosevelt campaigns.

WILLIAM VANDEVER MATLACK .- The cashier of the Security Trust Company of Bakersfield traces his lineage to England and Holland and is himself a native of Philadelphia, born February 20, 1859. His parents, John R. and Lydia B. (Vandever) Matlack, were natives respectively of Philadelphia and Baltimore and for many years the former engaged in a manufacturing business in his native city, but after his retirement from business cares he came to California, and in 1896 his death occurred in this state. The English progenitors of the family had spelled the name Mat- lock and during the Revolutionary war Timothy Matlock, a leading Phila- delphia representative of the family, had been identified in business activi- ties with Robert Morris, the financier of the colonists during the first strug- gle with England. The maternal ancestry was of Dutch extraction. The records show that William Vandever, exiled from Holland during the thirty years' war, found a temporary refuge in Sweden and during 1682 crossed the Atlantic ocean to the new world in company with a colony of Swedes that settled in Delaware. From him descended William Vandever, a bookbinder by trade and a gallant soldier during the War of 1812; after the close of that struggle he settled in Baltimore, where occurred the birth of his daughter, Lydia B., later Mrs. Matlack. Her death occurred in Philadelphia. The oldest son in the family became a prominent resident of California and served as member of congress from Ventura county.

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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 30

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