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 80

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 80

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Upon returning to this part of the state Mr. Lewis worked at Tehachapi for a short time, then engaged in the cattle business at Kernville for two years and for a similar period made a specialty of hog-raising in Linn's valley near Woody. During 1880 he became an employe on the Miller & Lux ranch, where he continued for about a year, and in 1881 he became a vaquero on the Buena Vista ranch owned by the Kern County Land Company. Mean- while he had attained his majority and was thus able to carry out a long cherished plan, that of taking up government land under the homestead laws. For his tract he selected a quarter section in Jerry slough, where at once he began the task of cultivation of the virgin soil. He bored the first artesian well on the undeveloped portion of Jerry slough, obtained a flowing well, and since then has put down other wells to obtain water for irrigation and built a reservoir to store the water. He still retains one hundred and forty acres, and engages in general farming and stock-raising. To earn means necessary for the development of his ranch he entered the employ of Mr. Canfield, for whom he worked about eleven years, and thus secured the start so indispensable to a pioneer rancher. A glance at his splendid stand of alfalfa convinces a stranger as to the adaptability of the soil to that crop, for at times the hay grows as high as seven feet, and each year he cuits four or five crops, averaging six tons to the acre. Few sections of the state are as well adapted to alfalfa as this part of Kern county and it is largely to this fact that Mr. Lewis owes his high rating as a farmer and his suc- cess in the stock industry.

THOMAS HOPPER .- The agent of the Wells-Fargo Express Company at Bakersfield has been familiar from boyhood with the business in which he now engages, for he was but a lad when he began to act as assistant to his father, an express agent in a California town, and thus he gained a practical experience of the greatest value to him in later positions of responsibility. All of his life has been passed within this commonwealth and his native vil- lage, Ionc, afforded him fair opportunities in an educational way. It was in this town that his father. Benjamin, who was born and reared in the vicin- ity of Liverpool, England, and came to California at the age of eighteen to

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engage in mining ventures, served as agent for the Wells-Fargo Express Company for many years, in addition to carrying on a general store. The town being situated at the terminal point of a railroad possessed considerable commercial importance and formed the trading point for people living in every direction therefrom. Naturally, also, the express business had much importance and the agent trained his only son to assist him in every way possible. The wife and mother, who bore the maiden name of Mary Miller and was born at Volcano, Amador county, died at Ione, in the same county, when her two children were very small. The younger of the two, Thomas, was born at Ione August 21, 1879, and remained at home until he was twenty-one, meanwhile working in the store of his father. When starting out for himself he was given a position with the Wells-Fargo Company as messenger between lone and Galt, Sacramento county. Two years later he resigned in order to become a messenger on the Santa Fe Railroad out from Fresno and at the expiration of three years he was promoted to be agent at the Southern Pacific depot in that city.

The next promotion brought Mr. Hopper to Bakersfield in 1910 as agent for the Wells-Fargo Express Company, whose interests he since has man- aged at this point with characteristic intelligence and sagacity. Although still a young man, he has had an experience of sixteen years in the business and is thoroughly familiar with all of its details, so that he possesses every qualification necessary for positions of great responsibility in the express service. In the various places of his residence, when voting at all, he invar- iably has voted the Republican ticket, for he believes in the principles and platform of that party and attributes the growth and prosperity of our coun- try to the wise leadership of its statesmen. His family comprises wife and one daughter, Ramona Marbine, Mrs. Hopper, formerly Gertrude Scott McArdle, having been a native of Placer county.

JOE M. ATWELL .- The general superintendent of the producing de- partment of the Standard Oil Company in California comes of an old and honored American lineage. Through his father the genealogy of the family is traced to remote Scotch ancestry. The maternal records indicate a direct descent from the illustrious Ethan Allen, leader of the Green Mountain boys in the famous attack upon Ticonderoga, the brave and fearless man who hav- ing crossed the lake to the fort at dawn marched at the head of his untrained and insignificant command, captured the garrison and called on the captain (according to tradition) to surrender in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress. The deference shown to Allen and the respect entertained for his sagacity appears in the fact that he was sent into Canada to endeavor to persuade the Canadians and Indians to ally themselves with the Americans. However when later in the same year of 1775 he made an attack upon Montreal he lost many of his men and himself fell into the hands of the enemy and was sent to England as a prisoner of war.

Tracing the family history through the nineteenth century we find that Ethan Allen Washburn, the lineal descendant of the Revolutionary com- mander, left his native Vermont to aid in the agricultural upbuilding of Michigan, which at the time was beyond the confines of civilization. Not only did he develop a farm in Lenawee county, of which he was one of the early settlers, but in addition he served as the first sheriff of that county, filled other public offices of trust and responsibility, and further had a local reputation for skill as a veterinary surgeon. Among his children there was a daughter, Lura Washburn, a native of Adrian, Lenawee county, Mich., where in young womanhood she became the wife of John Atwell, who was born in Port Henry. N. Y. For some years Mr. Atwell engaged in the lumber business, but later he became interested in Michigan mines. Event- ually he devoted his entire time to the mercantile business in Glasgow,

John Bidart

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

Lenawee county. Of his two children the sole survivor, Joe M., was born in Adrian, Mich., January 26, 1868, and received a fair education in grammar and high schools and in Brown's Business College. For two years after leaving school he worked along agricultural lines.

The first association of Mr. Atwell with the Standard Oil Company occurred during the year 1889. At the beginning of the construction of the refinery at Whiting, Ind., he entered the employ of the corporation, occupy- ing different positions and remaining at the same place for about eight years. Next he was transferred to Kansas and assigned to work on the construction of the refinery at Neodesha, where he remained for one year. Returning to Indiana and to Whiting, he was assigned to the paymaster's office with the Standard Oil Company. In the general offices at Whiting he held different positions, remaining there until 1900, when he was transferred to California as a special agent. As superintendent of construction he had charge of the pipe-line work through the oil fields of Southern California and the Santa Maria and San Joaquin valleys. Meanwhile he had been united in marriage. at Oakland, this state, with Miss Emma Wylie, of Cleveland, Ohio, and had established a home at Bakersfield, where he is now a popular and prominent member of the Bakersfield Club. Since 1908 he has officiated as general superintendent of the producing department of the Standard Oil Company's oil fields in California and since 1911 the headquarters of his business have been at Bakersfield. In earlier years he was a member of the Transporta- tion Club of San Francisco.

JOHN BIDART .- Third in a family of twelve children born to Jean and Catherine (Inda) Bidart, ten of these children now living, John Bidart was born in 1867, in Basses-Pyrenees, in the town of Urapel. where he received his education. He remained in his native country until he reached his majority, when he fulfilled a long-felt desire to come to the United States and try his fortune here. In 1888 he reached California, and coming to Kern county engaged in the stock business, starting with sheep, which he ranged during the winters in Kern county ; in the summers. how- ever, they were ranged in the mountains in the counties of Kern, Invo, Tulare, Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus, Mariposa, Kings, Mono. Sonoma, Cala- veras, Tuolumne, Amador, Lassen, Eldorado. Placer, San Luis Obispo, Ven- tura and San Joaquin, thus covering an enormous amount of territory. He is one of the largest sheep men in the county. He also raises cattle. horses and hogs of the best variety, his hogs being the Poland-China breed, his sheep Merino, cattle the full blooded Durham variety and his horses are roadsters and saddle bred.

Mr. Bidart has his residence in East Bakersfield, while his ranch head- quarters are at Rancherio on Kern river. His ranch on Kern Island covers about four hundred acres, which is planted to alfalfa and corn, and this is situated about twelve miles south of Bakersfield. Fifteen hundred head of cattle are run out of Rancherio, and are raised with such excellent care and attention that their reputation in the market is ranked among the best. Mr. Bidart's experience in the stock-raising business has covered a quarter of a century more or less, and it is to this that he owes his present pros- perity and exceptional success. He is known far and wide as an authority on breeding and the care of stock, and his advice is often sought by those whose experience has not been so far-reaching. When Mr. Bidart started in the sheep business supplies were carried on the backs of pack animals, while today he uses an automobile to go from ranch to ranch and to his various flocks.

Mr. Bidart was married in East Bakersfield to Miss Marian Inda, who like himself was a native of Basses-Pyrenees, France. To them have been born five children, Leonard, Catherine, Francois, Louisa and John Anton. The

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

last-mentioned child died in 1913. Another child born to the parents now bears the name of John A.

RALEIGH A. MOORE .- With the tide of migration that carried the sturdy American pioneers from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to the unideveloped prairies that stretched out toward the setting sun, the Moore family became established in Ohio and thence was transplanted upon the soil of Indiana by Samuel Moore, a resourceful frontiersman whose ener- getic temperament left a permanent impress upon his own neighborhood. William F., son of Samuel, and a teacher by occupation, married Sarah E. Danely, who was born in Indiana and died near Mattoon, Ill. Descended from fine old southern stock, Mrs. Moore was a daughter of Ira Danely, a Virginian who removed to Indiana in a very early day and developed a large farm from the raw prairie land. After his marriage the young school- teacher followed his chosen calling with patient devotion, but when the Civil war began he felt that he owed a duty to the Union and accordingly offered his services as a private in the ranks. During July of 1861 he was enrolled in the army and sent to the front, where he bore a brave part in the battles of the Seventy-first Indiana Infantry. The death of officers in the company and his own superior knowledge of military tactics caused him to be chosen to lead his men in several engagements and he was elected their captain, but before the papers had been received commissioning him to the office, while he gallantly led his troops, he fell on the battlefield of Kenesaw mountain in 1864. At the time of his tragic death he was still a young man. His son, Raleigh A., who was born at Worthington, Greene county, Ind., February 22, 1859, was taken into the home of an uncle, who gave him such advantages as his means permitted, sending him to the grammar and high schools of Worthington until he had completed the regular course of study.

Upon starting out to make his own way in the world Mr. Moore went to Kansas in 1879 and took up land near Beloit, Mitchell county. The country was new and few attempts at improvement had been inaugurated. The location, in the north central portion of the state, was somewhat remote from the sections of the commonwealth already improved and developed. In time he became the owner of a half-section farm where he made a spe- cialty of Polled Angus cattle. Like all who lived in Kansas at that time he enjoyed seasons of prosperity alternating with years of discouragement and heavy loss, but eventually he sold his holdings at a fair profit. During 1893 lie came west to Oregon and spent a year in Salem. The year 1891 found him in California, a newcomer in Kern county, where he bought unimproved land in the Beardsley district. Through his industry and saga- cious management the tract was converted into a valuable farm and he cultivated the place with profit until, feeling the need of lightening his labors, he relinquished agricultural activities and in 1907 began to engage in the real-estate business in Bakersfield, where now he handles both city and country property, has been a leading associate of the Bakersfield Realty Board and is also a charter member of the Kern County Board of Trade.

After going to Kansas Mr. Moore was married in Beloit to Miss Mary M. Talley, who was born in Greene county, Ind. They became the parents of two children, Fleda O. and Columbus F. The family are identified with the Bakersfield Christian Church and have been among its most generous supporters. Every department of congregational activity has felt the impetus of their devoted zeal, while as a member of the official board and also as a member of the building committee at the time of the erection of the new edifice Mr. Moore has been associated intimately and inseparably with the policy of advancement manifested by the church. In fraternal relations he has been identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen for many years. In politics he is a Republican.

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

BENJAMIN F. AND MAYME B. SUITER .- With the early coloniza- tion of America the Suiter family crossed the ocean from Holland and set- tled among other Dutch colonists of Pennsylvania, where several successive generations lived and labored. Benjamin F., Sr., was born in Davenport, Iowa, of Pennsylvania parentage, and he lived in Illinois throughout the greater part of his useful existence. During young manhood he married Lydia Page, who was born in New York and received a classical education in Lombard University. Two children were born of their union, the son, Benjamin F., Jr., having been born in Mercer county, Ill., December 15, 1864, about the time of the death of the father in Andersonville prison. Leaving his home and family, the father had served at the front as a member of the Ninth Illinois Cavalry and in one of the battles during the fall of 1864 he fell into the hands of the enemy, by whom he was conveyed to the historic south- ern prison to end his days in suffering and privation. After his death the mother, who was a woman of fine mind and exceptional attainments, sup- ported herself and children by teaching school. As soon as the son was old enough he began to be self-supporting and thus made it easier for his mother. whose last days were passed in comfort and whose death occurred in 1893 in Illinois.

Coming to California in 1884 Benjamin F. Suiter, Jr., spent four years near Mojave, Kern county, whence he returned to the old home in 1888 and became a student in Lombard University. While attending that institution he served as non-commissioned officer in the Illinois National Guard. After leaving the university he engaged in general merchandising at Oneida, Knox county, Ill. During the fall of 1893 he came to California for the second time. At Palo Alto he conducted a mercantile establishment and in that university town, June 26, 1895, he was united in marriage to Miss Mayme Bass, principal of the Palo Alto schools and a woman of exceptional educa- tion, ability and attainments. Born near Chicago, Ill., she was the daughter of Joseph and Jane (Gordon) Bass, who died when she was a child of three. and she was adopted by her uncle, Dr. Cyrus A. Bass. With the latter and his wife, Anna (Van de Voort) Bass, she came to California in childhood, and settled at Pleasanton, Alameda county, where she attended scho: 1 under Prof. C. E. Merwin, a talented educator. In 1886 she was graduated from the San Jose State Normal, the youngest member of a class numbering sixty- three students. After graduating she taught in the schools of Alameda county for seven years. On the opening of the schools of Palo Alto she was chosen the first principal. The choice reflected credit upon her ability and success as an educator, for there were more than one hundred applicants. During the two years of her connection with the schools of the university town she gave them a substantial organization and systematized the standard of the grades, so that the work was in excellent condition at the time of her resignation. In religion she has been for some years a warm believer in the doctrines of the Christian Science Church. Of her marriage there is one son, Gordon Page Suiter.

Removing from Palo Alto to Oakland in 1900, Mr. and Mrs. Suiter resided in that city for two years and meantime he located oil lands. Before a railroad had been built into the Sunset field in Kern county he located at that point and in 1905 removed to the Coalinga fields, where he had the able assistance of his wife in land and oil ventures. The family came to Bakers- field in the spring of 1907 and since then Mr. and Mrs. Suiter have engaged in the real-estate business in partnership, having offices at No. 1615 Nine- teenth street. They are Republicans in politics.

W. A. FERGUSON .- The original promoter of the Knob Hill Oil Com- pany and likewise the first and only secretary of the organization, Mr. Fer- gusen merits recognition for his continuous connection with the concern.

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The history of the company has been one of uninterrupted success. The striking of oil in the lease, September 15. 1900, marked an epoch in the devel- opment of the Kern river oil field, for therewith passed the experimental stage of the work and since then the field in the opinions of its friends and investors has been the safest oil proposition in the entire state. It is worthy of mention that the company has never made an assessment on its stockhold- ers, nor has it ever failed to declare monthly dividends in the past ten years. Since the first derrick was built in July of 1900 under the supervision of Mr. Ferguson and since the first well was completed, as previously stated, in September of the same year, with a flow of two hundred barrels, there have been many other wells sunk by the company, which now owns thirty- six producing wells on its lease. The concern has been incorporated with a capital stock of $25,000 and with James Porteous as president, W. J. Kittrell. secretary, the Fresno National. Bank treasurer, and W. A. Ferguson super- intendent, the three gentlemen named acting as directors together with G. T. Willis and F. Cathgart.

The Ferguson family comes of Scotch lineage and was established in California by J. R. Ferguson, a native of Kentucky, born in the city of Lex- ington, where in early manhood he married Julia Dryden, a native of Mis- souri. After their marriage they lived upon a Missouri farm until 1852, when they disposed of their holdings and crossed the plains in a "prairie schooner" drawn by oxen. Six months were spent in the tedious journey. Settlement was made in Santa Cruz county, where Mr. Ferguson engaged in general farming and stock-raising until the infirmities of age obliged him to relin- quish all responsibilities. Both he and his wife are eighty years of age and continue to make their home in Santa Cruz county, where their son, W. A., was born March 15, 1870, and where he spent the first fourteen years of life. In a family of eight children, all but one still living, he was fourth in order of birth. The eldest child, Belle, is the widow of J. T. Lowry and lives in Los Angeles. Mollie is a resident of Fresno. Charles, now in the Kern river oil field, is a stockholder in the Knob Hill Oil Company and superintendent of its power plant. Marie is the widow of Charles Sexton, a court reporter in Los Angeles. Ida. Mrs. S. F. Mitchell, is living in San Francisco, and Fred, the youngest of the family, engages in the raising of stock in Fresno county.

At the age of fourteen years W. A. Ferguson moved with his parents to San Benito county and settled near Hollister. Later he accompanied the family to Georgetown, Eldorado county, where he completed the studies of the common schools. After leaving school he began to work on a stock ranch south of Fresno and from there he came to Kern county in 1809. Among his personal friends was J. E. Ellwood, who sank the first oil well in the Kern river field and had the first lease (written on brown paper) with the late Thomas Means, the same covering section 4, township 28, range 28, which property, later absorbed by the Associated, is known as the Central Point lease. Through the instrumentality of Mr. Ferguson a lease was secured from the Aztec Oil Company, managed by B. F. Brooks, said lease covering forty acres on section 4, township 28, range 28. Upon the organiza- tion of the Knob Hill Oil Company, in which he was a large factor and principal stockholder, he returned to Fresno, but later established his home at No. 2029 Truxtun avenne, Bakersfield. Besides his home place he owns several other residence properties in the city and his local investments are enlarged through the purchase of stock in the new Bakersfield National Bank. At Fresno in 1893 he married Miss Theo Ormsby, of that city, and they are the parents of three children. The daughters, Cleo and Tina, are graduates of the Bakersfield high school and the only son, Robert, a bright lad of twelve years, is a student in the grammar school of the city.

James R Caldwell

John G. Caldwell

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

JOHN E. CALDWELL .- By birth and ancestry he is a southerner and his early childhood days were passed in his native commonwealth of Mississippi, where his father, the late W. A. F. Caldwell, M. D., had a high standing as a physician and surgeon. During the Civil war he went to the front as a surgeon and endured all the hardships and privations incident to that long struggle, returning to his Mississippi home at the close of the conflict to take up again his private practice in the midst of the associations long familiar to him. It was not until 1879 that he removed from Mississippi and for four years he engaged in professional work in Arkansas, whence in 1883 he brought the family to California. He made his home near White River, Tulare county, where, having given up the practice of medicine and being a great lover of horses, throughout the balance of his life he devoted his attention almost wholly to raising horses, besides raising a few cattle. His death occurred in Tulare county, which is still the home of his widow. Mrs. Sarah J. (Cochran) Caldwell. Of their ten children the third in order of birth, John E., forms the subject of this article. Educated in grammar schools, he has made the cattle industry his life work and has continued in Kern county since young manhood, with the sole exception of three years spent in Arizona.

Having been joined by a brother, James Robert, in 1909 Mr. Caldwell em- barked in the cattle business upon a somewhat larger scale than heretofore. the two brothers buying the French ranch of nine hundred and sixty acres. in addition to which they own a ranch of eight hundred acres at Granite. Both ranches are well watered and therefore offer exceptional advantages to cattle-raisers. Besides the land which they own they lease land in Kern county. Through a long and intimate identification with the stock industry in Kern county Mr. Caldwell has become known to men in the occupation and everywhere he is honored for ability, intelligence and energy. Particu- larly is he prominent and popular in the vicinity of Granite, where he makes his home and has his headquarters. Liberal and enterprising, he favors all movements for the upbuilding of Kern county. He is a member of the Eagles.

JAMES ROBERT CALDWELL .- A firm believer in the future of Kern county and in the excellent opportunities it affords to men of intelligence and energy is to be found in the person of James Robert Caldwell, whose early identification with this and Tulare counties gave him a positive knowledge of conditions existing during the '80s and whose later association with the stock industry here, dating from 1909, makes him familiar with twentieth century possibilities. While he has great faith in the county its citizens have an equal faith in him and few men are more popular than "Bob" Caldwell, whose genial disposition, progressive outlook upon life, kind heart and energetic temperament are as well known as his name- itself. At the time of first com- ing to this county and state in 1883 he was a youth of about fifteen years, at the impressionable and plastic age when the impressions are the most tenacious and the faculties of observation the most alert. Although a later sojourn of many years was made in another section of country, it was only to return to Kern county with renewed faith in its advantages and increased desire to identify himself with its agricultural development.

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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 80

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