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 51

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 51

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The family of James Addison Arp comprised nine children, all but one of whom survive, James Horace being next to the youngest and the only mem- ber of the family on the coast. Born at Murphy, Cherokee county, N. C., April 28, 1867, he had only limited educational advantages, and at an early age began to work in his father's sawmill. In addition he gained a thor- ough knowledge of carpentering and also studied the lumber business. Going to Tahlequah, I. T., in 1890, he worked as a carpenter for Mr. Thomp- son, the representative of the Cherokee nation. The year 1891 found him in Bakersfield. For four years he had charge of a ranch south of town owned by General Shafter and Captain McKittrick, after which he spent six months lumbering at Fort Bragg, in the redwoods of Mendocino county. Upon returning to Bakersfield he was employed by H. F. Condict, then the agent for the Standard Oil Company. Later, when Mr. Arp held the same posi- tion himself, he built the first tank for the company at this point and later increased its capacity to thirty-five thousand barrels. At the time oil operations began he was engaged in buying and moving houses. About that time he was boycotted by the unions because he employed Mr. Haw- kins, a non-union man, with whom the union men refused to work. The boycott advertised him widely and proved the foundation of his later suc- cess. He had employed only four men, but in thirty days he jumped to forty-four workmen and within three months it was necessary for him to open a plumbing shop, paint shop, paper store, etc., in order to push forward his contracts with the promptness desired. Two years of growing success swiftly passed. Then Mr. Lindgren asked to buy one-half interest with him in the business, stating that he had a shop at Fresno, but not sufficient business. The two combined and organized the Quincy Plumbing Company.

Shortly after the earthquake and fire in San Francisco Mr. Lindgren sold his interests at Bakersfield and moved to that city, where there was great demand for workers in his line. About the same time the union ceased to oppose Mr. Arp and he consented to give their members employment. His interests were large and contracts for every kind of structural work were consummated with accuracy and dispatch. Among his contracts may be mentioned those for the Brodek building, the Mascot apartments with disappearing beds and other built-in furniture, the Harding building. St. Regis hotel, Alicia apartments (he owns the latter), and Beale avenue school

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in Kern, the Bakersfield Garage. Willis building and others equally substan- tial. Besides owning and erecting the James Arp building, a three-story brick structure 50x122 feet, at No. 1919 I street, he also built his own unique modern residence in Bakersfield.

Besides his large contracting and building business, Mr. Arp utilizes the largest house-moving outfit in Bakersfield. Perhaps his most important con- tract in that line was for the removal of the Santa Fe freight depot a dis- tance of five hundred feet, a difficult feat which he accomplished without stopping for even a day the handling of freight or the sending of telegraphic messages. In addition to other important interests, he has been a large promoter of subdivisions. The southern addition to Bakersfield, comprising about twelve blocks, he laid out and sold in lots or improved with residences, some of which latter he still owns. The James Arp subdivision along the oil field road he also platted. Some years ago he bought the Sweetbrier ranch and at this writing he still owns forty acres of the tract, which con- tains a walnut grove, the only one in Kern county, and is adorned with a row of palms around the entire place. After buying the E. M. Roberts ranch of three hundred and thirty-five acres one and one-half miles from town, he subdivided a portion of the farm into tracts running from one to five acres and in this way he sold off about one hundred and seventeen acres at a handsome profit. The North Bakersfield subdivision of twenty acres was also laid out and platted under his ownership and control.

The Bakersfield Board of Trade and Builders' Exchange number Mr. Arp among their more forceful members. In politics he has supported the Republican party. Fraternally, besides being associated with the Modern Woodmen of America and the Woodmen of the World, he has been a Mason since early life in North Carolina and is now connected with Bakersfield Lodge No. 224, F. & A. M. After coming to Bakersfield he was united in marriage with Miss Anna Tracy, who was born near Galt, this state, and in January of 1890 was graduated from the San Jose State Normal School, after which she taught in Bakersfield until her marriage. From early life she has been a devoted believer in the doctrines of the Congregational Church and has contributed to the missionary projects of the denomination. Of her marriage there are four children, Tracy Ferdinand, Eva Virginia, James Addison and Alice Martha. The family of which she is a member traces its lineage to old eastern stock. During the early half of the nine- teenth century her grandfather, Edward V. Tracy, removed from Connecticut to Wilkesbarre, Pa., but later went to Ohio and afterward became a pioneer of Chickasaw county, Iowa, finally coming west as far as Utah, where he died. Her parents, Edward Vernett and Mary (Dix) Tracy, were natives, respectively, of Pennsylvania and Chickasaw county, Iowa, and the latter died at Galt, Cal. The former, after crossing the plains during 1856, became identified with farming interests in San Joaquin county, where he made his home for years near Galt, Sacramento county. At the opening of the Civil war he offered his services to the Union and was assigned to a California regiment, of which he remained a member until the close of the war, when he returned to the San Joaquin valley to resume ranch activities. Eventually he removed to Kern county and here he since has made his home.

FIRST NATIONAL BANK .- This institution has been most essen- tial to the best progress of the town of Taft, for the officials of the bank have devoted their time to conserving the interests of the oil operators and customers in lines of business connected therewith. When the bank was established, it was because a number of citizens of Taft realized the impera- tive need of such an institution. Results have proved the wisdom of the step which they took when they started to organize and incorporate a concern, with a capital stock of $25,000.

The checking department by no means represents the limit of the use-

بدون

JE Gray

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

fulness of the First National Bank of Taft. In addition information is fur- nished concerning investments and business conditions ; banking advantages are offered in the mail department, for those unable to visit the institution personally ; self-identifying travelers' checks are furnished, available through- out the world, money is telegraphed and drafts issued to any given city in the whole world, so that the institution is metropolitan in its sphere of ser- vice, and by its outside affiliations brings to Taft the banking service of the country. The officers have devoted their entire attention to the study and practice of banking and they do not rest content with the providing of un- surpassed local facilities, but use their financial strength and moral in- tegrity to place their customers on a basis of thrift and orderly knowledge.

By affiliation and co-operation with the First National Bank of Bakers- field, the Producers Savings Bank of Bakersfield and the First National Bank of Maricopa, the First National Bank of Taft has increased its own strength and enlarged its sphere of useful service. Clinton E. Worden has been the capable and successful president from the first. The vice-presidents are W. E. Benz and L. P. Guiberson and in the sketch of the latter will be found additional facts concerning this bank, of whose remarkable growth he is justly proud. The cashier is C. L. Shirk, and the assistant cashier, J. M. Williams. While the officials serve as directors, they are reinforced by other stockholders, namely: J. J. Wilt, Cyrus Bell, E. D. Gillette, E. M. Brown and J. S. Henton.

JONATHAN ELMER GRAY .- The president and general manager of the J. E. Gray Oil Company has the distinction of being the oldest living oil operator in the Kern river field, where aside from his company interests he is the owner individually of two hundred and fifty-five acres under lease south of the Kern river, including ninety-five acres of the original quarter section known as the Thomas A. Means land, the original site of oil dis- covery in this district and county. For the period since 1899 a record of his life would be in many respects a history of the oil industry and development in these fields, now well known throughout the whole world. While yet the number of the wells here could be counted on the fingers of one hand he explored the entire district and made a map marking the sections which in his judgment were oil producing. It is a singular fact and testifies highly to his experience and judgment that this map, made in 1899, is absolutely accurate at the present time, for in every spot indicated a well was drilled with excellent results.

From his earliest recollections Mr. Gray has been familiar with the oil industry. His father, James Gray, a pioneer oil man of Venango county, Pa., was one of the first to embark in the oil business on Oil creek, that county. Later he became a prosperous contractor and finally retired from active cares to spend his last days in ease, dying in March of 1911 at the age of eighty-four years. About the time of his demise occurred that of his wife, March 8, 1911, at the age of seventy-six. They were the parents of nine children, namely : Mary, Margaret Catherine, Nancy Jane, John Wesley, Jonathan Elmer. Samuel A., Martha Ellen, Arra F. and Ramsey E., the last-named being now engaged as a driller for the Kern Trading and Oil Company at Coalinga. Cal. Three sons, J. W., S. A. and R. E., and a nephew. G. W. Gray, are connected with our subject in oil operations in the Kern river fields. Jonathan E. Gray was born near East Brady, Clarion county, Pa., June 4, 1862, and attended school for a few years in childhood, but as soon as old enough he began to assist his father in contract work. Often, after a day of hard work, he would spend the evenings far into the night over his books and would also practice writing from copy. In that way he laid the foundation of a common-school education. At the age of fifteen he began to work for wages and the following year he assisted in drilling

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wells at Duke Center, Mckean county, Pa., later working in Warren county. By the time he had reached the age of nineteen years he was recognized as a professional driller. During the Balltown excitement he went to Forest county, Pa., and thence moved on to Butler county at the time of the Thorn creek excitement. Next he worked near Iron Bridge, Monroe county, Ohio, and thence proceeded to Sistersville and Nannington. W. Va., later going to Indiana, where he drilled near Reservoir. His ser- vices as a driller were next called into requisition at Robinson, Ill., and later he was employed in Kansas and Oklahoma. An idea of the extent of his op- erations may be gained from the fact that he drilled for water in New York City and Omaha and for oil, not only in the places before mentioned, but also in Wyoming, the Dakotas and Nevada.

Arriving in Los Angeles June 17, 1897, Mr. Gray began to drill for oil in the Los Angeles oil field and acquired some oil interests at Newhall, that county. For a short time he drilled at Coalinga and in the Parkfield district, Monterey county. When news reached him concerning the discovery of oil in the Kern river field he came at once to Bakersfield and formed the acquaintance of Judd F. Elwood, who held an oil lease with Thomas A. Means. With Mr. Elwood he inspected the entire district and then began to drill on the central point lease on section 4, where, as soon as they had drilled into the oil sand, they were offered $43,000 for their interests. In order to secure money for future development work they accepted the offer. At that time there were only three wells in the entire field and Mr. Gray mapped out the land, indicating the location of wells with a remarkable accuracy, as shown by the map, now in the possession of Mr. Elwood.

Investing in such companies as he believed would prove profitable, by the end of a year Mr. Gray was worth $75,000 and subsequent invest- ment has increased his fortune. On the west side he drilled several wells by contract. For the J. E. Gray Oil Company he has drilled twenty-six wells and on his individual lease seventeen wells, the former producing four thousand barrels per month and the latter one thousand bar- rels per month. By means of a lease he secured control of ninety- five acres of the Thomas A. Means quarter-section, the original place of oil discovery, and he also acquired the Thomas A. Joy lease of one hundred and twenty acres and forty acres in the South Kern lease. In October, 1912. he became interested in the American Union Oil and Refinery Company, a corporation capitalized at $25,000, which bids fair to become a very in- portant industry in Tulare, where the refinery is located. Mr. Gray is now a large stockholder, president and general manager of the company. The refinery went into operation May 1, 1913. The plant is equipped with the Trumbull system and has a capacity of one thousand barrels of crude oil every twenty-four hours. The products manufactured are gasoline, kerosene, cylinder oil, engine oil, distillate, fuel oil, road oil and asphaltum. In his judgment as to oil wells and the entire industry Mr. Gray has few superiors and he is often sought for advice by those whose experience has been of briefer duration or less successful than his own. With his time and attention given closely to the industry he has not had leisure for participation in so- cial or fraternal organizations, although he has identified himself with the Union League Club in San Francisco and when in that city usually avails himself of the advantages offered by the club. In politics he voted the Republican ticket for years, but his principles lead him to support reforms and he has allied himself with the progressive element of the old party organization.

HARVEY A. VAN NORMAN .- Although a native of Victoria, Tex., born October 5, 1878, Mr. Van Norman has lived in Southern California from his earliest recollections and his only lengthy period of absence from

CA, Quincy

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the state occurred during his service in the Philippines. The family of which he is a member has ever been loyal to country and brave in battle. During the Mexican war his grandfather, J. M. Van Norman, who was a native of Pennsylvania and a planter in Tennessee, enlisted in the service and went to the southwest to fight for his country. Travel showed him the greatness of the undeveloped prairies of Texas and on the expiration of his time he sold out his Tennessee property, removed to Texas, took up land and embarked in the cattle business, which industry likewise engaged the attention of his son, J. M., Jr., a native of Tennessee and a soldier in a Texas cavalry regi- ment during the Civil war. The latter in 1881 brought his family to Cali- fornia and settled on a farm near Santa Ana, but now lives retired at San Gabriel. In Texas he married Martha M. Halsel, a native of that state and the daughter of a Scotchman, who had served in the Mexican war.

The fifth in a family of nine children, Harvey A. Van Norman was three years of age when the family removed from Texas to California. When the Spanish-American war broke out he had completed a course in the Los Angeles high school. During May of 1898 he enlisted in the Third United States Artillery and was sent to the Philippines on the transport Ohio, which landed there in July of the same year. In a short time he rose to the rank of first duty sergeant. Besides the battle of Manila he participated in twenty-seven engagements with the insurgents. By a special order he was mustered out and honorably discharged in September, 1899, after which he returned to California. Since then he has been identified with engineering and electrical work. During 1901 he was made engineer in charge of the Pasadena plant of the Los Angeles Railway Company. Transferred to the electrical construction department as assistant to electricians in 1903, he soon rose to be superintendent of the electrical department of the railroad. In 1906 he became superintendent of construction for the Los Angeles Gas and Electric Company, but the following year he resigned the place in order to engage with the Los Angeles aqueduct as electrical constructor. Upon the completion of the hydro-electric stations in the Owens valley he was placed in charge of the construction of the Owens valley division of the aqueduct. On finishing that task, he was transferred to Mojave as division engineer in charge of construction work there. When the entire aqueduct had been completed he was placed in charge of the maintenance and operation of the entire aqueduct, and as such superintends the system whose magnitude and splendid engineering feats have attracted the admiration of the greatest engineers in the world. Mr. Van Norman married Miss Bessie C. Ross, a na- tive of Chicago, and they make their home in Los Angeles. For some years he has been prominently connected with the National Association of Station- ary Engineers. Fraternally he was made a Mason in South Gate Lodge No. 320. F. & A. M.

CHARLES H. QUINCY .- The Quincy genealogy is traced to Revolu- tionary stock and back of that to the historic Mayflower. The family name is connected with the early records of various portions of New England, but particularly with the western part of Maine near the New Hampshire line. Several bore an honored part in the Civil war and among them was one who served as captain of a company in a Maine regiment. A brother of the captain, likewise a Civil war hero, Nathaniel Haley by name, was born and reared in Cumberland county, Me., and there engaged in the manufacture of lumber and the tilling of the soil for many years, but event- ually removed to Massachusetts and there passed away March 22, 1911. at the age of eighty-three years. When the Civil war began he offered his services to the Union and was accepted as a private in a Maine regi- ment. Upon the expiration of his term of service he re-enlisted in another regiment from Maine and remained at the front until the end of the Rebel- 22

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

lion. Meanwhile he had married Miss Martha Freeman, who was born in Maine and died there. The Freeman family traces its lineage to the earliest settlers of New England.

The family of Nathaniel Haley Quincy comprised four children and three of these are still living, one, Horace, being now superintendent of the Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company. The eldest of the family, Charles H. Quincy, was born at Bridgton, Cumberland county. Me., March 27, 1855, 'and passed all of his early life in the western part of Maine in Cumberland and Oxford counties. Ambitious in temperament, he worked his way through the Bridgton high school and prepared for Bowdoin Col- lege. In order to secure the means necessary for a complete college course he taught school for about four years, but meanwhile other interests claimed his attention and he relinquished all hopes of further study. Instead, he earned a livelihood as head clerk in a mercantile establishment in Maine. After a time the confinement caused a failure in his health and hoping to be benefited by a change of climate he came to the west.

Arriving in Los Angeles, January 29, 1888. Mr. Quincy remained only a few days, coming to Bakersfield February 2. Here he was employed with the Kern County Land Company as a carpenter for six months and then entered the employ of A. J. McLeod and for eighteen months worked at carpentering, while Mr. McLeod devoted his entire attention to the lum- ber business. At the expiration of that time he began to take contracts for residences and business houses, building among others the Tevis resi- dence and the Methodist Episcopal Church South and completing the old (). D. Fish building. As prospects were most encouraging from a business standpoint he was stricken with typhoid fever and it was more than a year before he was able to resume work. His next enterprise was trading for a plumbing establishment. The business soon became large in that line in the oil fields. With restored health, he took up building operations again. Since then his career has been remarkably successful. During 1905 he sold his plumbing business and removed to Los Angeles, where he now resides at No. 822 West Thirty-sixth Place. The corner of I and Twen- tieth streets, Bakersfield, where for years he had his plumbing business. he improved in 1911 with the Quincy building, a substantial three-story brick structure that is an ornament to the city and source of gratifying annual income to the owner. During 1909 he built the Fabian hotel on Humboldt street near Baker avenue. East Bakersfield, which he still owns, and in addition he owns the Hunter & Wilson building, also of brick, in East Bakersfield, as well as other valuable property both in Bakersfield and Los Angeles, where he continues the building and real estate business upon an extensive scale. Of late his attention has been given principally to the real estate business, having offices in the Hollingsworth building, Los Angeles.

Fraternally Mr. Quincy is a Mason, having been initiated in the order in Pythagorean Lodge No. 11. A. F. & A. M .. at Fryeburg. Oxford county, Me. In politics he supports Democratic principles. While living in Maine he married, at Fryeburg, Miss Myra E. Harnden, a native of Denmark, that state, and a descendant of an old New England family. Well educated in the schools of Maine, she is a woman of culture and refinement. In relig- ious connections she holds membership with the Congregational Church. There are two daughters and a son in the family, the eldest being Mildred. wife of Charles T. Metcalf, of Bakersfield. Ralph is a cornice maker in Los Angeles, and Ethel resides with her parents in that city.

JOHN RIPLEY .- Familiarity with frontier conditions from earliest recol- lections developed in Mr. Ripley self-reliance. patient endurance of hardships

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and an ability to overcome obstacles by sheer force of character. The farm where he lived in boyhood was situated near Sun Prairie in the town of Bristol. Dane county, Wis., and was at no great distance from Madison, where now the art of landscape gardeners and the wealth of a community has transformed a frontier environment into a region of great beauty. The first member of the family to settle in Wisconsin was his father, William Henry Ripley, a native of New York state and for years a farmer of Dane county, but from 1868 until his death a resident of Vernon county, Mo. By his marriage to Alcena Davis, who died in 1849, he had four children and three of these are still living. One son. Horace, who served for three years in the Seventh Wisconsin Infantry during the Civil war, is now a resident of Vernon county, Mo. Another son, Lewis, who served in the Seventeenth Wisconsin Infantry, is now living at Mitchell, Iowa. The youngest of the sons. John, who was born at the old homestead near Sun Prairie, Wis .. May 22, 1847, and was only two years of age at the time of his mother's death, left school at the age of seventeen, in August, 1864, in order to enlist in the Union army. Accepted as a private and assigned to Battery F, First Illinois Light Artillery, he served under General Thomas in the battle of Nashville. During November of 1864 he was transferred to Battery I. mounted. in the same Artillery as before. With this regiment he continued until June, 1865, when he was honorably discharged at Eastport. Miss .. re- turning thence to his school studies in Wisconsin for one term. He then went to work at farming in Wisconsin, spending his winters in the lumber woods and one winter (1866-67 ) trapping in Minnesota. In 1868 he located in Missouri, where he bought a tract of wild land in Vernon county, secured three yoke of oxen and with their aid broke the first furrows ever turned in that soil. For some years he engaged in raising corn and wheat on the Mis- souri farm. Seeking a new location in 1880. he left Vernon county, Mo., and went to Glorieta. Santa Fe county, N. M., where he contracted to haul ties and piling for the Santa Fe Railroad. After eighteen months in that work he went to Silverton, Colo., where he engaged in freighting and hau !- ing ore. The year 1883 found him in South Dakota, where he bought a farm near Menno, Hutchinson county. The soil was well adapted to wheat and of this crop he made a specialty, but also raised flax and corn. Finally he sold the farm and came to California, settling at Caliente in 1891, and taking a contract to get out wood. It was his intention to complete the contract and then seek a different location, but at the expiration of four months he was induced to begin freighting. With a six-horse outfit he hauled to the mines in the Amelia, Piute, Havilah and Bodfish districts. Soon he purchased another outfit and used two eight-horse teams in freighting. Meanwhile he had started a livery stable. feed yard and corral. The need of such an enter- prise was such that he soon used four barns for his vehicles and horses. In addition he built a blacksmith shop and gave steady work to four skilled blacksmiths. The great fire of June, 1909, which almost wholly destroyed the business portion of Caliente, wiped out his barns and shop and destroyed his wagons and outfits. For that reason he discontinued freighting and built the Ripley House, the largest hotel in Caliente, a building with a frontage of one hundred and eight feet and containing the postoffice and public telephone station. This hotel he sold in January, 1913, since which he has been retired from business.

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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 51

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