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 90

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 90

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Returning to Cincinnati and holding positions with different firms until New Year's of 1804. Mr. Truesdell then made preparations to remove to the west and February found him in California, where his first work was on the Horseshoe ranch near Los Angeles. Next he engaged as superintendent of orange groves at Glendora. For seven years he worked in the Santa Fe oil fields, where he acquired proficiency as a driller. Coming to Kern county in 1905 he took up a homestead one mile from Lerdo, where he put down a twelve-inch well by his own labor, built a house and proved up on the property. Meanwhile he secured a standard rig and engaged in drilling water wells. For several years he made a specialty of that laborious work, but eventually disposed of the rig. Renting his Lerdo ranch of one hundred and sixty acres he took up a desert claim of a quarter section near Mojave, where he put down two wells and built a neat bungalow. After living there about a year he sold the place and since then has made his home in East Bakersfield.

The first wife of Mr. Truesdell, who bore the maiden name of Addie Hutch-

حجار

F. C. Jbitte

and 9 family.

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

inson, was born in Campbell county, Ky., and died there at Newport. Two sons were born of that union, but the older, William E., died at the age of three months. The other. James Blanchard, is now a resident of Los Angeles. At Visalia, November 7, 1910, Mr. Truesdell married Mrs. Milford (Gooch) Warner, by whom he has two sons. Ralph and Leo. Mrs. Truesdell. a woman of strong character and attractive personality, was born at Eubank, Pulaski county. Ky., and is a daughter of William Milford and Malcie (Masterson) Gooch natives respectively of Eubank. Ky., and Ripley, Ohio. Her father, a teacher during young manhood, eventually became a prosperous country merchant and continued at Eubank until his death, since which time Mrs. Gooch has lived in Cincinnati. Their daughter was educated in the high school of Covington, Ky., and there married H. L. Warner, of that city. Two children, Maxine and Evelyn, were born of the union. During 1907 the family came to Bakersfield, where Mr. Warner engaged as a chemist with the Standard Oil Company until his death. Both Mr. and Mrs. Truesdell are earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal Church and have been generous contributors to religious movements. In politics he is a Democrat.

FRANK CROMWELL TIBBETTS .- The genealogy of the Tibbetts family indicates their English extraction and proves their close relation- ship to the Cromwells, whose most distinguished representative, Oliver Cromwell, holds a prominent place in the history of the seventeenth century and achieved a worldwide renown. It is known that the early colonization of America found members of the Tibbetts family engaged in the arduous task of earning scanty livelihoods through the cultivation of the rocky soil of New England, where they endured the privations and faced the dangers incident to life in that location and period of our national history. Patriot- ism characterized them from the first establishment of their name in the new world. During the Revolution Ichabod Tibbetts, who was born December 17, 1748. served the cause of liberty with devotion and self- sacrifice. It was his privilege to witness the growth of the cause to which he had given of his youthful strength and when he died, May 23, 1841, the country had become a nation great in the galaxy of the world. Among his children was a son, Benjamin, born on Sunday, November 20, 1786, and married April 23, 1809, to Sarah A. who was born September 5, 1790, and died April 21. 1843. Of the union there were twelve children. namely : Samuel, born November 3, 1810; Julian, August 17, 1812; Cyrus, August 26, 1814: Stinson, April 3, 1816; Benjamin R., August 9, 1818; Sarah, February 10, 1821 : Martha J., March 3. 1823; Ann S., October 7, 1825; Edmund V., February 7. 1828; Roswell Goodspeed, who was born in Maine near the city of Augusta May 29, 1830, and died at Bakersfield, Cal., June 1, 1910; Jane, who was born June 29, 1833; and Emeline. August 13, 1835. The greater number of the family are now numbered with the dead. Ben- jamin, at the age of ninety-four, is a helpless invalid and lives with a son in Maine: Emeline has been blind for years and is cared for by her husband and daughter, Emma, at the family home near Palermo, Me. Jane, Mrs. Hussey, is a widow and lives with her son, Joseph, at the old Hussey home- stead near Houlton, Me., while near her live her son, Benjamin, and her daughter, Sadie, the former the father of nine children and the latter the mother of two sons and two daughters.

Several generations of the Tibbetts family in Maine earned their live- lihood either from tilling the soil or from following the sea and Roswell Good- speed Tibbetts while very young chose the life of a sailor for his occupation. In this way it happened that he came to California as second mate on a vessel that rounded Cape Horn and cast anchor at San Francisco in 1850 six months after the commencement of the voyage. Unlike many sailors of that time, tempted by the lure of gold, he did not desert his ship or leave

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

his employment until the term of his service had expired. For a time he engaged in placer mining on the Feather river. Later he worked in and helped to develop the celebrated Comstock mine of Nevada. Still later he engaged in mining at Truckee and in the Sierra valley. During 1874 he brought his family to Kern county and for many years conducted the American Eagle hotel at Kernville, the hostelry enjoying great popularity under his sagacious and genial oversight. Among the old settlers he had wide acquaintance and a host of friends. Indeed, the circle of his friends was as large as that of his acquaintance and among his most intimate friends was Judge Sumner, there existing between the two a remarkable sympathy of thought and tenderness of affection. Soon after he came to the west he married at San Francisco in 1850 Mrs. Helen Zeruah (Branch) Nor- cross, who at the advanced age of eighty-three makes her home at No. 1028 Fifty-fourth avenne, East Oakland. The family to which she belongs was identified with the pioneer history of California and possessed character- istics most admirable. With them, as with the Tibbetts family, longevity was noticeable, the paternal grandfather of Mrs. Tibbetts having lived to be one hundred and three years of age, while her maternal grandmother was ninety-seven at the time of her death.

There were three sons in the family of Roswell Goodspeed Tibbetts and wife, namely: Frederick, who died in the Bullfrog mining district in December of 1906: William E., who makes his home at Kernville; and Frank Cromwell, who was born September 2, 1869, in the Sierra valley of Cali- fornia during the period that his father engaged in gold mining in that sec- tion. Brought to Kern county in 1874, he received his education in the public schools of Kernville and as he grew toward manhood he became intimately connected with the interests of his father. At first he worked in mines, later he engaged in general farming and in the raising of stock. While never a partner in the hotel business, he operated a store and a butcher shop with his father and became ( ne of the leading business men of Kern- ville. During the year 1900 he came to Bakersfield, where now he has a residence at No. 910 K street and where he prosperously conducts a store at No. 1905 Fifteenth street. About 1898 he was united in marriage with Miss Lizzie Cross, a member of a pioneer family of Kern county. Of this union there are two children, Marion Wallace and Maybelle E. In political views he adheres to Republican principles, while fraternally he holds membership with the Loyal Order of Moose and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

JOHN P. CHINETTE .- A decided acquisition to the French-American population of Kern county as well as one of its pioneer sheepmen, John P. Chinette has been a factor in the agricultural development of this section of the state and is considered an authority in all matters pertaining to the care and range of sheep. From boyhood he was familiar with the sheep industry as pursued in the mountains separating France and Spain, and it was there- fore not difficult for him to understand the business from an American stand- point. With the quick comprehension native to his mind he grasped the details of the work, learned the best places to range the flocks and the best modes of feeding them in the winter months, so that his practical experience is most valuable indeed. . A native of Ogier, Basses-Pyrenees, France, born January 4, 1861, he was reared on the home farm, and had such educational advantages as the local schools afforded. During 1878 he came to California. In the vicinity of Los Angeles he remained for nearly one year, working for a sheep-grower. Next he drove a flock of sheep into Inyo county. Coming to the Tehachapi region of Kern county in 1879, he became a herder here and in 1883 invested in a small flock of sheep, which he ranged in Kern and Inyo counties.

Joseph Eufraud

Augustine

Gyfraud

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

About seven years were devoted to the personal management of his own flock of sheep, which he then sold, and since 1890 he has varied his time between farming and caring for flocks of other growers. At this writing he owns ten acres eight miles southeast of Bakersfield under the cast side canal. This he has improved, placing it under profitable cultivation to alfalfa. Ile makes his home on the small farm and devotes much of his time to its per- sonal oversight. Meanwhile he has been deeply interested in the develop- ment of Kern county, has supported movements for its material upbuilding and in politics has given allegiance to the principles of the Republican party. JOSEPH EYRAUD .- A resident of Kern county for the most part since 1887. Joseph Eyraud was born at Ancel, Hautes-Alpes, France. June 22, 1868, and is a son of Franc and Victoria (Ledge) Eyraud, lifelong farmers in France. In a family of eight children, all but two of whom still survive. Joseph was the youngest and he was quite small when his brothers, Yrene and Franc, left the home farm to establish themselves in the new world. Sending back favorable reports from their destination in Kern county, the youngest brother was induced to join them in California November 27. 1887. when he arrived at Sumner (now East Bakersfield). Without delay he found employment with sheepmen in the county. His beginnings in the sheep industry date from 1888, when he bought a few head. The flock increased rapidly and when he sold in 1909 there were thirteen thousand head alto- gether. They had been raised both for the mutton and the wool. For years the flocks were ranged in Tulare, Fresno, Kern and Invo counties, their owner thus gaining a most thorough knowledge of this section of the state. He is, indeed, particularly well posted concerning the country, knows the character of the different soils, the prospects for water, the varying climates in mountains and foothills and the opportunities for successful work as a stockman or rancher. After selling his large flock he spent two years in San Francisco and then established a home on his ranch of forty acres, eleven miles south of Bakersfield, between Union avenue and Kern Island. where by means of water from the Kern Island canal he is specializing in alfalfa and grain. His marriage was solemnized in San Francisco and united him with Miss Augustine Bertrand. who was born in Chorges, Hautes-Alpes. and by whom he has a daughter, Augustine. Ever since becoming a voting citizen he has cast his ballot for Republican men and measures at general elections. Besides the fine farm upon which he lives and to the improvement of which his attention is given largely. he owns thirty acres of alfalfa one mile distant, also under the Kern Island canal; this is cared for by a ten- ant. In addition he owns a number of lots on Humboldt street, East Bakers- field, these being improved with cottages that he rents. When it is remem- bered that he came to the county without any means and worked for some time as a sheep herder for day wages, his present financial independence indicates energy and industry on his part, and at the same time proves that Kern offers opportunities unsurpassed by any other agricultural county in the state.

LOUIS ALLEN .- The proprietor of the St. Francis cafe at Bakers- field was born April 16, 1880. at Patras, Greece, and received an excellent education in a private college of his native city. Pharmacy was made a special study during his collegiate course and by clerking in a drugstore he supplemented the theoretical knowledge of books with actual experience. Upon coming to the United States in 1903 he became a student in St. Anna's Academy. New York city. From there he went to St. Louis and there en- gaged in the restaurant business during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Afterward he spent some time in Oklahoma and Texas. During April of 1905 he came to the Pacific coast and managed a restaurant at the Lewis & Clark exposition grounds. On the close of the exposition he went to San Fran- cisco and readily found a position in Tait's cafe. but the great fire of the fol-

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lowing year temporarily closed out the business. Later he served as a steward of Tait's cafe and continued in the same place until he had worked up to be the head waiter. Experience had qualified him for a business of his own and he decided to embark in similar work for himself. In search of a location he came to Bakersfield. The city and its favorable prospects at- tracted his attention and he decided to locate here. During March of 1911 he leased the place which he still occupies and which he has transformed into an attractive and elegantly appointed cafe, with service first-class in every respect. The entire aspect of the cafe proves that the manager is the possessor of original ideas and wise business judgment. Through his expe- rience in the leading place of its kind in San Francisco he is enabled to give to his customers and guests the finest service that modern art can suggest.

CHARLES WILLIAM JOHNSON .- Of English nativity, belong- ing to an old and illustrious family of his native land, he was born in the city of Leeds in 1849, being a son of Thomas Varley and Mary Johnson. When he was only three years of age and his sister, Evalina, an infant they were bereaved by the death of their mother. Afterward the father gave them the most devoted personal care and attention, endeavoring so far as pos- sible to take the place of the lost mother. The daughter became the wife of Dr. J. Murray Matthews and died in San Francisco, leaving five sons.

A grandson of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Johnson of England and an own cousin of Sir Jonathan Johnson Courte, Thomas Varley Johnson was born at Bentham, Yorkshire, England, August 11, 1822, and at the age of about sixteen was an eager spectator at the coronation of Queen Victoria. Although always very proud of the land of his birth, he became an exem- plary American citizen and exhibited the utmost patriotism. His first trip to the new world occurred when his son was a youth of nine and the two settled at Lowell, Mass., where the father became foreman of the wool sort- ing department for the carpet corporation of the city of Lowell. Two years later, when the son was eleven, he was apprenticed to the firm of Aldrich & Richardson, manufacturing jewelers, of Providence, R. I. At the expiration of two years, the apprenticeship being completed, the son suggested that they leave for California and with father and sister sailed from New York to Aspinwall and there crossed the isthmus, thence taking passage on the old Sacramento to San Francisco, where they arrived during October of 1868.

Immediately after his arrival in the west the senior Johnson settled in Santa Cruz and bought the Ocean View house, which site and hotel forms a part of the present Sea Beach hotel. At his death Mr. Johnson was sur- vived by his second wife (whom he had married in California) his son and a niece. Mrs. Lottie Thompson, of Santa Cruz. The daughter had died a short time before his own demise.

Leaving home to make his own way in the world, Charles William Johnson found employment as a vaquero in the southern part of Monterey county and from that time he was interested in the cattle industry until 1885, when an injury resulting in the dislocation of his neck obliged him to seek other means of livelihood. A brief and unsuccessful experience in business in San Luis Obispo county was followed by removal to Arizona, where he engaged in the dairy business near Prescott for three years. Next he lived for a short time in Phoenix and then returned to California in 1892, settling in Bakersfield. and ever since then he has been identified with the oil business in Kern county. During 1877 he married Miss Mary A. Mc- Cutchen, member of a very prominent and influential family of Kern county. They are the parents of five children now living, George W., Rosalind, Eve- lyn, Laura and Florence. The son is superintendent of the Walker & Hick Oil Company in the Kern river field. Rosalind married W. T. Taylor, of

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

Maricopa. Evelyn is Mrs. Marion Nidever, of Carpenteria. Laura is the wife of Elmer Fox, of Kern county. The youngest of the daughters is the only member of the family still remaining at the home.

JOSEPH F. PFOST .- Several generations of the Pfost family engaged in farming in the vicinity of the Ohio river. The founder of the name in America, Abraham Pfost, a German by birth and education, migrated to the new world and took up a tract of wild land in what is now West Virginia, his first and only home in this country being situated near Ripley, Jackson county, a short distance from the Ohio river. On that same farm his son, Abraham, lived and labored for many years. Among the children of the younger Abraham was a son, George W., born and reared on the old Virginian plantation and ultimately the heir to a portion of the estate. In young manhood he removed to Mason county, W. Va., and there mar- ried Angeline Rickard, a native of that county, where, at Point Pleasant at the junction of the Great Kanawha and the Ohio river their son, Joseph F., was born on the 4th of July, 1855. During the Civil war the father served in the Confederate army on an Ohio river gunboat. Leaving Mason county in 1870, he spent four years in Missouri, and then returned and established his home at Springhill on the Great Kanawha. Impoverished by the Civil war, he endured many privations and hardships in endeavoring to provide for his large family and it was wholly impossible to give them any advantages. Of the eleven children only five are now living. The eldest of the eleven, Joseph F., to an unusual degree shared in the anxieties of his parents and assisted them in the maintenance of the younger children, for this reason being almost wholly without any opportunities for education or advancement.

U'pon reaching the age of twenty-one a desire to attend school caused Mr. Pfost to leave home and work for his board with a family and he attended the district school during the winter months. To such splendid advantage did he utilize these months that at the age of twenty-two he obtained a first-grade certificate and began to teach in Boone county, W. Va .. his wages being $35 per month. In a short time he left for Missouri, where for six months he attended school at Montrose, Henry county. From Mis- souri he traveled overland with team and wagon, following the usual route through Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho into Oregon, where he parted from the expedition of which he had been a member. After a brief sojourn at Pendleton, Ore., he returned to Idaho and engaged in ranching and teaming near Boise City. At the time of the Sitting Bull Indian campaign in 1878 he hauled supplies to the troops of General Howard and met with many thrilling experiences, not a few of them exceedingly dangerous. From Idaho in 1880 he went to Nebraska and found employ- ment with the Lakotah Cattle Company at the 33 ranch. With two others in 1886 he was appointed by Governor Thayer of Nebraska to serve on a special commission for the organization of Sioux county. That task com- pleted. he was chosen the first sheriff at the first election and so well did he discharge every duty that he was re-elected every two years up to 1893, serving three terms altogether, and resigning at the time of his removal from the state. From 1893 until 1898 he engaged as superintendent for a company opening up lands on the Chevenne river in South Dakota. but unfortunately the venture failed, the company lost everything and to add to his difficulties the bank in which his savings had been deposited closed its doors.

Forced to begin anew, Mr. Pfost investigated conditions in Montana. then returned to Nebraska, but shortly proceeded to Oklahoma, and August 5. 1899. arrived at Bakersfield, Cal., where on the 15th of the same month he secured employment in the well-boring department of the Kern County

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HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

Land Company. In October of the same year he was engaged as foreman of the Panama ranch for Miller & Lux, but in January, 1900, he re-entered the employ of the Kern County Land Company, with which he has con- tinued ever since. For eighteen months he served in the Goose Lake country as camp foreman under Charles W. Jackson, who then sent him to the Rosedale ranch to act as foreman. At that time the Rosedale was a part of the Poso ranch. After two years or more the two tracts were separated and he was made foreman of the Poso under Mr. Jackson. After nearly four years he was transferred to the Rosedale ranch, of which he has been superintendent since December 2, 1905. From early life he has been inter- ested in political questions and has supported Democratic principles. Fra- ternally he holds membership with the Modern Woodmen of America in Bakersfield. His family consists of his wife (whom he married at Pawnee City, Neb., in 1885 and who was formerly Miss Emma Hitchcock, of Bloom- ington, Ill.) and their five daughters, namely : May, Clara, Edna, Lizzie and Lillian, all now living in Kern county with the exception of Clara, Mrs. Knowles, who remains in Nebraska, making her home at Bookwalter, that state.

LESLIE DAVID COOMBS .- Born July 22, 1857, in Hermon, Me., L. D. Coombs was the son of Nathaniel D. Coombs, who was also a native of that state and followed the vocations of hotel proprietor and farmer. He erected and became proprietor of the Bangor hotel, later selling it in order to spend all his time on his farm at Browns Corner Farm, where he died. His wife, Jane (Creamer) Coombs, also a native of Maine, passed away there. The father was twice married, becoming the father of five children by his first marriage, of whom Hon. Nathaniel D. Coombs became a member of the Assembly of California from Butte county, and passed away during his second term of office about twenty years ago.

The only child of his father's second marriage, Leslie Coombs was reared in the little village of China, Me., and then for a time at Browns Corner Farm on his father's place, attending the public school at Vassal- boro. Later he became a student at the Oak Grove Seminary at East Vas- salboro, supplementing this with a course at Hollowell Academy. In 1873 he came to California where his brother Nathaniel D. was in the stock and farming business at Honcut, Butte county. Immediately entering the latter's employ he worked by the month for about four years and became foreman of his ranch ; at the end of this time he engaged in the sheep business for himself on the plains and mountains, meeting with such success that he continued along these lines for about fourteen years. During this time he ran a flock of sheep into Oregon and sold them at Prineville, and then he bought the Olive Hill Colony ranch of a thousand acres near Honcut, Butte county, and continued in the sheep business and farming. In 1892 he sold out his ranch stock and came to Bakersfield. Purchasing a ranch at Angeola, he resumed the sheep business. This farm he found it necessary to improve and fence, and he raised grain and sheep, in connection with which he conducted the Angeola hotel, but later he sold these interests and re- turned to Bakersfield, where he became associated with the Quimby Bros., contracting to drill oil wells in the Kern river field. They put down the fourth well in that field and later the Oriental well was under their contract. With others he leased lands and put down oil wells of his own, becoming well informed on the details of the work. He then became manager for the Livestock Oil Company, operating in the Midway field, the name of this company being later changed to the Tannihill Oil Company, in which he is still a large stockholder. This company now has twelve producing wells and has a flourishing business. He has also been engaged for nearly twenty years in teaming and the leasing of horses and mules and has an extensive 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 90

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