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 66

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 66

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Because his large ranching interests have kept Mr. Smith remote from the great centers of population, it must not be supposed that he has neglected any duty devolving upon a public-spirited citizen or that he has failed to keep posted concerning national problems. In politics he stanchly upholds Repub- lican principles. An abiding faith in the uplifting influence of religion has deepened his character and harmonized the elements entering into his men- tality. For years he and his wife have been earnest Methodists, loyal to the church of their choice and generous in contributions to missionary and benev- olent causes. Of their six children three attained mature years and two sur- vive. One daughter, Sophia, became the wife of J. B. Batz and is living in Bakersfield. The other, Henrietta, Mrs. J. H. Powers, died in the South Fork district. The only son, Thomas S., is represented elsewhere.

EDWARD D. GILLETTE .- As an active, benign personality combining successful business achievement with the highest social, moral and political ideals, Mr. Gillette stands out prominently among the production men in the Midway oil field and particularly on 25 Hill. Since April of 1909 he has been the efficient superintendent of the T. W. Oil Company, whose holding on section 25, township 32, range 23, now shows five producing wells with a monthly production of twenty thousand barrels. In addition he has been appointed superintendent of the W. T. M. Oil Company, also on 25. 32, 23, with six producing wells that average a monthly production of twenty thousand barrels; and the Carbo-Petroleum Oil Company, on 26-32-23, with eleven producing wells and a monthly production of twelve thousand barrels. The two other organizations of which he is superin- tendent (the Los Posos Oil Company and the San Francisco Midway Oil Company) have no producing wells at present and are now idle, while the Los Angeles Midway Oil Company, on 6-31-23, which he owns, also has proved to be unproductive. In the management of the producing companies there is, however, sufficient responsibility to engross the time of even so energetic and forceful a superintendent as Mr. Gillette. Withal he has found leisure to identify himself with influences uplifting to the community. Not only is Mr. Gillette a native son, but his parents, James O. and Augusta E. (Murley) Gillette, likewise are natives of the state, the latter born and reared in Alameda county. The paternal grandfather, James Gil- lette, the first civil engineer in Humboldt county, this state, started on a surveying expedition in 1849, and in order to take advantage of a short cut to his destination he left the other members of the party. When he failed to put in an appearance a search was made and his body was found where he had been shot by Indians. For many years James O. Gillette has engaged in ranching in Monterey county and there Edward D. was born July 29, 1877. There were three sons in the family. The eldest, Robert L., a skilled machinist, learned the trade with the Union iron works in San Francisco and helped to build the great battleship, Oregon. While still a young man he died of appendicitis. The second son, Nathaniel, who studied assaying and became a practical miner, now owns the Gold Hill, a placer claim near the home ranch in Monterey county. The third son, Edward D., was five years of age when the family removed to Santa Cruz, the father carrying on a lumber business in that city. After two years a return was made to Monterey county and to the old homestead in the Chelam valley.

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where the lad was sent to the grammar school until he had completed the course. He had no higher educational advantages. Through wide general reading he has become well informed. When only sixteen years of age he began to operate a threshing machine and he continued at the work for three years, meanwhile threshing thousands of bushels of wheat. When nineteen he went to the Santa Margarita oil fields in San Luis Obispo county and there secured employment in hewing out timber for oil der- ricks and rigs. Next he worked as a roustabout, then as tool-dresser and rig-builder. After some experience as tool-dresser with the San Luis Obispo Oil Company he was transferred back to Parkfield, Monterey county. Eleven holes were drilled there, but no oil was found, nor was he much more fortunate at San Pablo, where he drilled three holes and found two dry and one with only ten barrels.

Left penniless by these disastrous experiences, the young man drilled a water well for the Santa Fe Railroad Company at Point Richmond and in that way earned money enough to pay his expenses to the Kern river field. Arriving here, he went to work for the Associated Oil Company and became superintendent on the Green and Whittier division of that concern. When he resigned his position, July 1, 1908, at the expiration of five years of continuous service. he had thoroughly learned the production part of the oil industry. In the Sunset field he spent one year with the Sunset Road Oil Company and when that concern became the property of the Union Oil Company he remained about ninety days with the new crew, in order that the Union employes might become acquainted with the location and outputs of the wells. During that period, in addition to his responsibilities on the field, he owned the hospital at Maricopa. On leaving the Sunset he was offered the superintendency of the T. W. Oil Company, which he accepted and has since filled. At the time of his first association with the lease well No. 1 had been condemned as hazardous and unprofitable. After drilling twenty-nine days he secured an average of four hundred barrels and there is now a daily average of two hundred and fifty barrels. The well was the first profitable venture of the kind on the south side of 25 Hill, where John Conley had first discovered oil and where the Sunset Coast Oil Company had brought in the first well. The pioneers of the hill were Messrs. Barlow and Hill, of Bakersfield.

Fraternally Mr. Gillette belongs to Bakersfield Camp No. 266, B. P. O. E. For some years he has been a director in the First National Bank of Taft. His first marriage took place in 1906 and united him with Miss Helen D. Campbell, of San Francisco, who died in 1907 when her child, Isabelle Helen, was only thirty days old. In 1910 Mr. Gillette was united with Mrs. Constance H. Wilson, widow of Dr. W. C. Wilson, of South Africa, and a daughter of William Harshaw, of Toronto, Canada. The attractive residence of Mr. Gillette on the W. T. & M. lease affords a decided im- provement on the primitive conditions in the oil fields, when canvas tents served as houses. Often Mr. Gillette mentions the fact that the first night on his present lease he spent in a rude shack built on posts over a rough board floor, under which. the first sight to greet his eyes as he awak- ened in the morning, he saw three rattlesnakes ready for action. No local movement is of deeper interest to him than the growth of the Petroleum Club, which owes its organization in part to his energy and enthusiasm. In addition to his prominent work in the Petroleum Club and in other local enterprises, Mr. Gillette has been a booster for good roads and maintains a warm interest in the "Three Hours to the Coast" movement, for no one realizes more than he the value to the oil fields (and to all of Kern county as well) of a first-class highway leading to the ocean.

HARRY F. MURDOCK .- The city clerk of Bakersfield traces his lin-

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eage to the Old Dominion and bears the name of his paternal grandfather, a Virginian of fine family and irreproachable character, who removed to Illinois when migration was at its flood tide and settled at Vandalia, Fay- ette county. Having acquired skill in the carpenter's trade during youth, he gave attention to that occupation and for years made a specialty of building contracts. Such work occupied his attention in Vandalia until the infirmities of advancing years prevented manual labor. His death occurred in Illinois in 1910. Under his wise supervision a son, E. E., born in Bond county, Ill., had been trained to a thorough knowledge of carpentering and had entered upon contracting and building, these activities filling the entire period of his business career. At this writing he makes his home in Omaha, Neb., and though no longer active, he retains full possession of mental and physical faculties and keeps abreast with current affairs of city and nation. His wife, who like himself claims Bond county, Ill., as her native home, bore the maiden name of Emma Gill and was a daughter of James Gill, a Virginian by birth and ancestry. Subsequent to his removal from the Old Dominion Mr. Gill followed the occupation of a stage-driver on the plank road between St. Louis and Vandalia.

The family of E. E. and Emma Murdock comprised three sons and one daughter, all still living, the eldest being Harry F., who was born in Bond county, Ill., September 22, 1871, and received excellent advantages in the grammar and high schools of Greenville, that county. After he had com- pleted the high-school course he spent three years in Greenville College and then gave up educational interests in order to earn his own way in the world. Going to St. Louis he entered the office of the "Big Four" Railroad and held clerkships in different departments, but at the outbreak of the Spanish-American war resigned the position in order to enlist in the service. His name was placed upon the muster rolls of Battery L, First United States Artillery, in Indianapolis, Ind., and soon he was appointed to special duty in the paymaster's department, serving at Pensacola, Fla., until he received an honorable discharge by reason of the adjutant-general's orders.

Immediately after his return from the south Mr. Murdock came to California during the autumn of 1898 and entered the Southern Pacific Rail- road offices at San Francisco. The following year he came to Kern as a clerk in the superintendent's office of the operating department with the Southern Pacific Railroad and in a short time was promoted to be pay- master, which position he filled for some years. During July of 1910 he retired from the railroad service. Meanwhile in 1908 he had been elected town clerk of Kern. Upon the consolidation of Kern and Bakersfield July 19, 1910, he was elected city clerk of the new consolidated city. At the regular election in April, 1911, he was chosen to serve as city clerk for a term of four years and he has devoted his time and attention to official duties, having his office in the Producers Bank building. Realizing the need of securing a new and adequate supply of water for Kern, or East Bakers- field, the old Sumner Water Company having failed to keep pace with the growth and to supply the needs of the place, he began individually in 1911 to lay plans to interest people of that section in a new company to take over the old franchise and put in a new water plant and system. He secured an option on the plant for S. W. Wible and organized the Bakers- field Water Company, of which he became secretary and treasurer and one of the largest stockholders. This company sunk five wells and put in three pumping plants and a modern system at present sufficient for a period of twenty years. Since the plant's completion he has resigned his official position and management of the company in order to devote his time to other improvements which he is fostering, which are of general interest in the welfare of the community. It should be stated that the comple-

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tion of the new water system for East Bakersfield has established renewed confidence in that section as shown in the activities of improvement and building that is now going on. In national principles Mr. Murdock favors Republican tenets, but he is not a partisan in any respect and his election to office represents the choice of the people irrespective of political ties. The Spanish-American War Veterans number him among their most interested and loyal members and he is further connected with the Eagles and Woodmen of the World. Since coming to Bakersfield he has purchased property and maintains an active interest in realty developments here and in adjacent communities. His family consists of wife and three children, Elizabeth, Kelton and Virginia, Mrs. Murdock formerly having been Miss Margaret Clay, a resident of St. Louis, Mo., but a member of an old Ten- nessee family and herself a native of Nashville.

HORACE GREELEY PARSONS .- Thirty years after the Mayflower had made its memorable voyage across the ocean to the new world the first representatives of the Parsons family in America came from England and set- tled among the colonists of Massachusetts, whence a later generation became transplanted upon New Hampshire soil. When the tide of migration began to turn toward the new west Jonathan Parsons removed from his native New Hampshire and settled upon the prairies of Wisconsin, where he developed a farm out of raw land in the primeval condition of nature. In his family was a son, Samos, born and reared in New Hampshire and during early manhood a business man of Dunkirk, N. Y., where he engaged in the manufacture of fanning mills. Later he made a somewhat brief sojourn in Ontario, Canada, whence he removed to Wisconsin and settled in Waukesha county. In addi- tion to the difficulty connected with the developing of a large tract of raw land into a productive farm he gave considerable time to public affairs and served efficiently as a justice of the peace and postmaster. Eventually he became a citizen of Whitewater, Walworth county, Wis., and a stockholder in the Esterly reaper factory. Selling out his interests there in 1874 he came to California and purchased a home in Santa Clara county, where occurred the demise of his wife. Sophronia (Burt) Parsons, a native of New York. His own life was spared to the age of ninety years, when he died at his home. In his family there were four sons and two daughters. Two of the sons were gallant soldiers during the Civil war and one of these, Silas, was killed at Chickamauga while bravely fighting with the Twenty-fourth Wisconsin In- fantry. The other soldier son, William, served in the Thirteenth Wisconsin Infantry and remained at the front throughout the entire four years of the war ; his death occurred in 1911 in Santa Clara county.

The youngest member of the family circle, Horace Greeley Parsons. was born in Waukesha county, Wis., August 19, 1847, and received a grammar- school education at Whitewater, that state, later spending a year in the University of Wisconsin. When yet a mere lad he learned the trade of a printer and in it became exceptionally expert. A brother-in-law, L. H. Rann, publisher of the Whitewater Register, began to fail in health and at his solicitation Mr. Parsons agreed to take charge of the paper, which he did with considerable success, having the management of the sheet after the death of the brother-in-law and until the sale of the plant. Later for three years he published the Blue Valley Record at Milford, Seward county, Nebr. At the expiration of that time he moved the plant to Lincoln, that state, and merged the sheet into the Lincoln Leader, a well-known daily. A year later he sold the paper and plant and shortly afterward in 1874 he came to Cali- fornia, where he secured work at his trade in San Francisco. By carefully sav- ing his wages he was able to open a printing office of his own and in it he published twelve or more periodicals, including The Pacific (Congrega- tional). The Pacific Methodist. California Christian Advocate, The Rescue,

Als Parsons

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

and other publications. The business proved fairly profitable, but it was too confining for his health and he was obliged to seek other lines of activity. Selling out he began to travel for the Dewey Publishing Company and for eight years he remained steadily in their employ, meanwhile traveling from San Diego as far north as Seattle. After three or four years as pub- lisher of the Grass Valley Tidings and owner of a one-half interest, he returned to the employ of the Dewey Publishing Company, this time traveling in their interests for six years.

When the oil excitement was bringing many newcomers to Kern county Mr. Parsons became a resident of Bakersfield in 1900 and the following year embarked in the real-estate business. For a time he was a member of the firm of Williams & Parsons, but since 1906 he has been alone. The distinction of being, in point of years of continuous business, the oldest real-estate agent in Bakersfield belongs to him. City realty and country property have been handled by him with equal success. Besides improving a ranch of one hun- (red and sixty acres he has been interested in orange properties in the Edison section and in other lands. At his office on Chester avenue is located the agency for the Provident Building & Loan Association of Los Angeles and the Continental Building & Loan Association of San Francisco, also the agency for six of the leading insurance companies of the world, viz .: Ilart- ford, New Zealand, Scottish Union and National, Law Union and Rock, Manchester of London and Teutonia of New Orleans. Deeply interested in the progress of Bakersfield, he has officiated for two terms as a director of its board of trade and has ranked among its most resourceful members. All movements for the local upbuilding receive his stanch support. He was one of the organizers of Bakersfield Realty Board and was elected its first presi- dent and is now serving his third term.

Mr. Parsons' marriage was solemnized in Nevada City, Cal., and united him with Miss Anne Naffziger, who was born near Keokuk, lowa, and is a graduate of the Laurel Hall school in San Mateo county. Gifted with excep- tional artistic ability, she has devoted herself to music from young girlhood and completed the course in the New England Conservatory of Music at Boston. After her graduation from that noted school she became a teacher of the art and built up a wide reputation for skill as an instructor as well as for proficiency as a pianist. Two children were born of her marriage to Mr. Parsons. the elder being Carrie, wife of George D. Keller, of Los Angeles, and the younger being Horace G., Jr., who is interested in a drug business in Fresno.

MILTON DALLAS BERINGER .- Born in Cambria county, Pa., De- cember 5, 1858, Mr. Beringer is a son of John Beringer, a farmer by occu- pation. The latter moved across the line from Cambria county into Clearfield county and spent his last days at Burnside, where still lives the aged mother, Mary Jane (Patrick) Beringer. There were seven children in the family, namely : Milton Dallas; George Elmore; Porter Jesse, a machinist now employed at Tyrone, Pa. ; A. L., an assistant to his eldest brother in the Kern river oil field; John Oscar, a farmer, who remains at the old Pennsylvania homestead; Charles; and Olie, the widow of Clarence McAleese and a resi- dent of Parsborough, Nova Scotia. The youngest son, Charles, was acci- dentally killed in 1906 at a railroad crossing in Pittsburg, Pa .; he left a wife but no children.

While yet a mere boy M. D. Beringer aided his father on the home farm and earned extra money as a helper in lumber camps. At the age of fourteen years he secured employment as trimmer and edger with the Empire Lumber and Mining Company of Philadelphia. After he had spent four years with the same concern he went south to North Carolina and secured work as a lumberman in Mitchell county, where he met and mar-

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ried Miss Callie Franklin, daughter of the late Andrew Franklin, of Elk- park, Mitchell county. Two years were spent in that locality and he then removed to Little River. Blount county, Tenn., where he remained for four years in the employ of a lumber company. From Tennessee in 1907 he came to California and settled in the Kern river oil field. With- out delay he was able to secure a position as engineer with a natural gas engine used in the Central Point division of the Associated Oil Company and he continued in that place until 1910, when he was chosen as foreman of the waterworks system of the Kern River Oil Felds of California, Limited. With his family, consisting of wife and four children, Charles D., George E., Margaret and Mabel, he is comfortably domiciled in the residence of the superintendent.

DANIEL BOONE NEWELL .- From Kentucky many men have come out to the West who have made their marks as citizens and public officials and been factors in the general development of the community. One such is Daniel Boone Newell, of Bakersfield, who bears the name of a distinguished pioneer and has himself won a notable success in the home of his adoption. He was born May 20, 1865, at Antioch Mills, Pendleton county, Ky. His father, William Stich Newell, a native of Pennsylvania, was brought to Pendleton county by his parents. There he became a prosperous farmer and stockman and remained until 1889, when he took up land near Perkins, Lincoln county, Okla., where he improved a farm on which he died aged eighty-five years. He was descended remotely from Scotch ancestors. His wife, before their marriage Miss Mary Williams, was born in Pendleton county, Ky., and died while on a visit to Bakersfield when she was seventy- two years old.

Of the eleven children comprising the parental family ten grew to manhood and womanhood. Daniel B., the seventh oldest, was early put to work on a farm in Kentucky and had brief educational opportunities in public schools, at the age of thirteen taking up the battle of life for himself. Lo- cating in Hickman county, Ky., he worked there for an uncle until 1881. when he went to Fort Worth, Tex., which town was then primitive and without a railroad. There he engaged in farming and stock-raising and he and his brother John bought land. They were quite successful and accum- ulated considerable money, which they lost, however, by failure of a bank in Fort Worth to which they had instrusted it. From Fort Worth Mr. Newell went to Winfield, Kan., where he farmed until 1888, when he came to California, without capital. He and a partner, Charles Hess, came to- gether to Kern county, having only twenty-five cents between them. They found employment with John Hendrickson as choppers of cord wood at $2 a cord. After they had completed a contract for five hundred cords Mr. Newell found work in the bridge department of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, in which he was employed about four years. Then becoming a citizen of Tehachapi, he followed carpentering during the first winter and then he purchased the Cuddeback stable and ran it about one year, after which he traded it for a farming outfit. For two years he engaged in grain-raising on two sections of land, but both years proved dry and the venture did not turn out successfully. In the meantime, in 1892, he had been elected constable, in which capacity he served two years to the entire satisfaction of all interested. For six years afterward he was the proprietor of a feed yard at Garlock, and at the same time he tried mining on the desert without success. In 1901 he located in Bakersfield. For a short time he was employed in the work of the street department, and after that he was for about four years a street car motorman. July 5, 1905, he was appointed an officer on the city police force. In 1906 he was elected on the Republican

D.B. JEwell

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ticket as constable for the sixth judicial township of Kern, and in January, 1907, he assumed the duties of the office. So able and so satisfactory was his service that in 1910 he was re-elected to serve until January, 1915. Since 1903 he has filled the office of deputy sheriff of Kern county. He was made a Mason in Tehachapi Lodge No. 313, F. & A. M., and affiliates with the Woodmen of the World and the Modern Woodmen of America. Mrs. Newell is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and of L. O. T. M.

At Tehachapi Mr. Newell married Miss Kate Davis, a daughter of James L. and Martha (Moffett) Davis, and a native of Los Angeles, Cal. Her father, who was born in Missouri, moved to Arkansas and there married Miss Moffett, of Tennessee birth. They crossed the plains to California with an ox-team caravan in 1853, and he was for many years successful as a builder in Los Angeles. He pursued the same business after his removal in 1882 to Bakersfield, where he and his wife both passed away. Of their ten children Mrs. Newell was the third youngest, She was brought up at Bakers- field and educated in local public schools. She has borne her husband two children, Roy and Elsa. Mr. Newell owns his comfortable residence at No. 1015 I street. He is locally active in the work of the Republican party and is a citizen of much public spirit.

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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 66

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