History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 105

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700

USA > California > Orange County > History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 105

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Mr. Hare's marriage on August 6, 1912, united him with Miss Marie Larter, a native daughter of California, whose father is R. E. Larter, a prominent financier and capitalist of Westminster, a review of whose life is given elsewhere in this work. Mr. and Mrs. Hare are the parents of two promising children: Orel Edwin and Mary Louise. Like his father, Orel C. Hare is a member of the Masonic Lodge at Hunting- ton Beach and also votes the Democratic ticket.

JOHN H. McCARTY .- How much of the satisfaction felt by the San Juan Capis- trano public with the splendid service of the Santa Fe Railroad is due to the ability and affability of the company's agent at this point, only those who have had personal and continued dealings with the courteous and reliable John H. McCarty, the representa- tive of an excellent old Scottish-American family, will fully realize. He is unusually well-posted, a hard worker, and a most faithful employee, and is very naturally highly respected at San Juan, where he has lived and served as station agent for the pas twenty years. He owns both a ranch and some living-house property, and has, there fore, some reward for his years of strenuous, prosy application to daily duty.

He was born at Dexter, Meigs County, Ohio, on August 29, 1856, not far from old Fort Meigs, on the Western Reserve, the son of Jonas and Sarah (Jordan) McCarty Jonas McCarty was mechanically inclined, and was a worker in wood, iron, brass and steel. The McCarty family hailed originally from Scotland, and Grandfather George McCarty was born in Greenbrier County, Va. As a planter, he left his farm to become a soldier in the War of 1812; and having been honorably discharged, he was duly pen- sioned. Later, he moved from Virginia to the vicinity of old Fort Meigs on "the Trail," before there were any regularly traveled roadways from the Old Dominion to the Buckeye State, and he took shelter under the eaves of Fort Meigs. He was thus a pioneer in all verity, and contributed at real personal sacrifice something for the wel- fare of posterity to come after him. Settling on land near Fort Meigs, he became prominent both as a progressive agriculturist and as a politician with statesmanlike ideas and ideals. Mr. and Mrs. Jonas McCarty reared a family of ten children-four boys and six girls, and among these John was the seventh in the order of birth. John H. McCarty has only one living brother, Miles I. McCarty, who conducts a drug store at Fallbrook, California; he has a sister in Nebraska, one in Wisconsin, one in West Virginia, and two in Ohio. Growing up in Meigs County on his father's farm, he so busied himself in his father's workshop and sawmill that he became a sawyer, and for eight years ran a portable sawmill for his father. He worked alternately in the mill, the shop and on the farm, saying, laughingly, that when he did so he was only keep- ing up a habit he had formed when he was three years old!

After attending the common schools of his district, he went to the Wilkesville Academy, four miles from his home, to supplement his rudimentary studies, and soon thereafter was married, on June 12, 1881, at Salem, Ohio, to Miss Addie F. Edmund- son of that state. Then he learned telegraphy at the Valentin School of Telegraphy at Janesville, Wis., and he began his railway career by working for the Santa Fe Railway as station agent at Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kans. At the end of a year, in 1882, he was taken ill with the typhoid fever and nearly died, as a result of which he went back to his old home in Ohio to recuperate. On his recovery, he went to work for the Ohio Central Railroad, and for a year held the position of station agent at Carpenter, Ohio; and then, for twelve years, he had the same responsibility at Albany, Ohio.

Owing to Mrs. McCarty's impaired health, Mr. McCarty came out to California in 1895, and was first located at National City, San Diego County, as agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, and at the dawn of the present century he was transferred to San Juan Capistrano, to his own satisfaction and that of those who could foresee in him just the kind of a person of experience and temperament needed at this historic and much-visited town. And, having made more than good, he has been here ever since. He is, of course, a member of the Order of Railway Telegraphers.

Four children have been granted Mr. and Mrs. McCarty. The eldest of the family is Earl E. McCarty, trainmaster for the Santa Fe on the run from Needles to Barstow.

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Dale is in the automobile business, and is traveling agent for a firm in Texas. Fay has become the wife of LeRoy R. Cook, and Marie A., the youngest of the three children born in Ohio, is the wife of Dr. Charles Swanson, the veterinary and rancher living in the Coachella Valley.

Mr. McCarty is a Mason, belonging to a lodge at Athens, Ohio, and is also a member of the Odd Fellows' Lodge at Albany in that state, where he was its first noble grand. He is also a member of Capistrano Camp, W. O. W. Mr. and Mrs. McCarty are members of and very active in the Community Presbyterian Church at San Juan Capistrano, for which the congregation will soon have a fine edifice. He is a Democrat in matters of national politics, but otherwise votes for the best man and the most appealing principles.

CHARLES E. GUPTILL .- One of Garden Grove's highly respected citizens is Charles E. Guptill, who came to this locality in 1912, bringing with him his family and considerable means from South Dakota. Mr. Guptill is a native of Rockton, Winnebago County, Ill., born September 22, 1852, of good old New England lineage. His father, John B. Guptill, was a native of Maine, and his grandfather, Amos Guptill married Miss Hannah Bickford in the old Pine Tree State, and migrated to Winnebago County, Ill., in pioneer days before the building of the railway. John B. was a young man when the family came to Illinois from Maine, and he married Miss Emily Warren at Rockton, Ill., who was born and reared in Ogle County, in that state.

Charles E. Guptill was six years old when his father moved to Shirland, Winne- hago County, Ill., and is the eldest of a family of two boys and two girls. Velona is the wife of Benjamin D. Goldy, and resides in Florida; Seymour is a rancher at Palo Verde, Cal., and Lilly died at the age of sixteen; the father attained the age of sixty before his demise. Charles E. grew up on his father's farm at Shirland, and acquired his education in the district school. At Newark, Rock County, Wis., he was united in marriage with Miss Anrila Jane Hoyt, a native of Rock County, the daughter of Otto Hoyt, one of that county's pioneer farmers. After his marriage Mr. Guptill continued farming on the Hoyt farm in Rock County, Wis., until 1888, when he went to South Dakota, then a territory, and settled at Canton, Lincoln County, where he improved a 120-acre farm, and continued to reside there until 1901. He then removed to Spring- field, Bon Homme County, S. D., and purchased 480 acres of land, which he improved and became a prosperous and successful stockman. In 1913 he came to California and purchased sixty acres of land in the Garden Grove precinct; this he has since divided up among some of his children, retaining the home place of ten acres.

Mr. and Mrs. Guptill are the parents of six children: Pearl, the wife of Thomas J. Kane, a rancher at Alamitos; John O .; Charles H., a rancher in the Palo Verde Valley; Mary, who is single and at home; and Benjamin A., who operates ten acres three miles west and a half a mile north of Garden Grove, which was given him by his father in 1918. He was born in Canton, S. D., July 28, 1900, and reared in Springfield, that state. Coming to California with the family in 1912, he became a student at the Alamitos school, and still resides at home with his father. The youngest son, Thomas, died at the age of ten. Mr. Guptill has built a comfortable country home of the bungalow type, with several attractive features and thoroughly modern. He is regarded as one of the substantial, and upright men who are maintaining the stability and dignity of Orange County, where he and his estimable family are highly regarded. Mrs. Guptill is hospitable and charitable to a fault, a Christian woman who has many friends in the community in which their lot is cast. In politics Mr. Guptill is inde- pendent in his views.

CYRUS B. PULVER .- One of the substantial men of his district who in his day worked untiringly for the betterment of conditions in Orange County, and who, as the result of his foresight, integrity and industry, builded far better than he knew, was the late Cyrus B. Pulver, a native of Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y., where he was born April 18, 1835, the son of Nicholas and Margaret (Righter) Pulver, both descended from old York State stock.

When twenty-one years of age, Cyrus B. Pulver moved to Champaign County, 111., and there improved a farm from the prairie. In 1869 he went to Tuscumbia. Ala., where he remained until 1872, and then located in Coffey County, Kans .; in 1876 he moved to Wichita, Sedgwick County, the same state, and there on April 13, 1881, he was married to Miss Isabel S. Hatch, who was born in Jacksonville, Fla., the daughter of Chauncey and Eliza ( Huntington) Hatch. The father was born in Craftsbury, Vt., in 1799, and the mother in Greensboro, Vt., in 1808. Chauncey Hatch removed to Florida in 1838, intending to engage in orange culture, and purchased seventy acres of land near Mandarin, and began setting out oranges. But when the Seminole Indian War broke out and massacres occurring they were obliged to leave everything and

Oh and thus R. S. Thompson

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

fled to Jacksonville, where Mrs. Hatch taught school and kept a hotel; later the family moved to Key West and there the parents passed away. Mrs. Pulver, the youngest of their five children, and the only one now living, received her education in the private schools of Key West. After spending several years in the North and then awhile in St. Louis she came to Wichita, Kans., in 1878, on a visit, and it was there she met Mr. Pulver, the acquaintance resulting in their marriage, and soon afterward they came to California.

Mr. Pulver located first at Newport, where he remained for a time, but in 1884 he removed to the property upon which his widow now resides. This is a ranch of nine acres which was brought to a high state of cultivation during Mr. Pulver's life time, and is now a valuable estate. Mr. Pulver for many years devoted himself to citrus culture, and was looked upon as an authority upon many disputed points.

He passed away in January, 1919, mourned by his family and friends; he had been for many years a faithful and highly honored member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was also a worthy member of the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Ana. Mrs. Pulver worthily represents her pioneer ancestry, and the good old town of Santa Ana which, in its time, has welcomed so many pioneers. Like her husband, she is a member of the First Presbyterian Church and is also a stanch Republican and member of Santiago Orange Growers Association and the Santa Ana Walnut Growers Association.

ROBERT J. THOMPSON .- A highly-progressive rancher of the type that always profits from experience, and so enjoys today according to the labor of yes- terday, and while building for tomorrow, is Robert J. Thompson of Orange Avenue, Santa Ana, favorably known through his successful land dealings, in which he has always operated in the fairest manner. He was born at Romney, Hampshire County, Va. (now West Virginia), on the south branch of the Potomac River, on March 2, 1847, the son of Robert Thompson, a farmer, who married Zulemma Taylor, and was sent to the private schools of that locality, as there were then no public schools there. In 1865, when he was eighteen years old, he moved near Pawpaw, Lee County, Ill., where the elder Thompson had already purchased Government land, but did not join his son until 1868. He finished his schooling in the Prairie State, and when he put aside his books, he engaged in farming at Pawpaw.

In Lee County, on March 15, 1870, Mr. Thompson was married to Miss Evelyn L. Flagg, a native of Vermont and a daughter of Lucius and Elmyra (Chittenden) Flagg, and the great-granddaughter of Thomas Chittenden, the first governor of Vermont, and a grandniece of Martin Chittenden, who was governor of Vermont in 1813 and 1814, and had attained the rank of major-general of militia at only the age of thirty-three. Her parents moved to Pawpaw, Lee County, Ill., when she was three years old, and she was educated there, finishing her schooling at Pawpaw Academy. She taught school for six years in Lee County, prior to her marriage, and was thus able to assist in directing the course of education in that part of the fast-developing Middle West.

Having added by purchase to some land that he inherited, Mr. Thompson ran a farm of 310 acres, until he sold some eighty acres, after which he still continued to be an extensive stock feeder. He came out to California in 1900, at the very beginning of this century, and once at Santa Ana, and familiar with the superior advantages of the country, he disposed of his Illinois farm for good. Seven days later he purchased a home at Santa Ana, at 303 Orange Avenue, but he sold that in the fall of 1901 and the next spring erected the home at 402 Orange Avenue, in which he has since resided.

Mr. Thompson has a half-interest in 515 acres in Kings County which is leased for grazing. In 1912 with three others he purchased 308 acres west of Orange and the Dawn Land Company was incorporated with Mr. Thompson as president and Harry W. Lewis as secretary. Here they sunk two wells and installed pumping plants, sold seventy-two acres for the site of the present Orange County Farm and Hospital, and forty acres to others. The balance they divided between themselves and disincorpo- rated the company. Mr. Thompson had forty-seven acres, and of this he set twenty acres to oranges and twenty to walnuts and has since sold his orange grove and now owns twenty-seven acres of budded walnuts. Thus he has taken an important part in the development of the county. He belongs to the Santa Ana Walnut Growers Association and his land is irrigated by a private pumping plant owned by a concern incorporated as the Dawn Water Company. It has two wells, one with a capacity of 150 inches and the other of sixty inches, while a third, designed as a check emergency well, has been recently finished, but not yet tested.

Mrs. . Thompson, who passed away on March 3, 1904. was the mother of five children: Guy A., a graduate of the University of Illinois, later of Harvard College and

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still later a graduate of the University of Chicago with a Ph.D. degree, was professor of English literature in the University of Maine for the last eighteen years and now professor of English literature at Occidental College; George P., is a builder at Ana- heim; Nora B., married Seth F. Van Patten of Los Angeles; Blanche E., is the wife of Walter Vandermast, the clothier, of Santa Ana; Edward H., the fourth in the order of birth died in infancy.

On March 27, 1907, Mr. Thompson married Miss Ida May Garrett, a native of Iowa, who came to California in 1903. She was born at Brighton, Washington County, and was the daughter of James W. and Mary C. Garrett, who brought her to the Pacific Coast. Her father lives retired in Santa Ana, but the mother passed to her eternal reward on September 1, 1918. Mrs. Thompson had received a high school training at Victor, Iowa, and is a bright, companionable lady. Mr. Thompson is well read and this, coupled with a rententive memory and an intellectual alertness, makes him an interesting conversationalist. A Democrat in matters of national political import, he served on the board of city trustees of Santa Ana from 1907 to 1911. He is a member of the First Presbyterian Church, having served for many years as a trustee, and is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. He was one of the freeholders that framed the charter for Santa Ana, but at the election it was not ratified by the people.

ORVIS U. HULL .- A representative and successful citizen of Orange County who has become one of the most enthusiastic "boosters" of this section of the state, is Orvis U. Hull, dealer in real estate, with offices in Orange, and a citrus grower in the immediate vicinity. Mr. Hull was born in Boonesboro, Boone County, Iowa, in 1855, a son of Philip and Sophronia (Holcomb) Hull, natives of. Ohio and Illinois, respectively, who became residents in Boone County, Iowa, as early as 1850, before any railroads had been projected into that state. This worthy couple had nine chil- dren, eight of whom are still living and all residents of California, as is Mrs. Hull, now in her eighty-sixth year, hale and hearty and in the possession of all her faculties. Mr. Hull died in lowa, having lived to see Boone County grow into a modern farming community.

Orvis U. Hull is the only member of the family living in Orange County, whither he came in 1909, having disposed of most of his holdings at that time to locate here. His boyhood and young manhood were spent in Iowa, attending the common schools ot his locality and growing up on the farm of his father at Boonesboro. In 1885 he went to Lincoln County, Kans., entered upon a career of a stockman and farmer when that was a sparsely settled and wild country. As the years passed he became closely identified with the development of the region, saw Lincoln Center grow from a strag- gling village to a city of fair proportions and was elected its mayor, serving one term. He also took great interest in every forward movement of that section and became well and favorably known, in time acquiring some 2,000 acres of land which he farmed and used as a stock range. He went through some thrilling experiences with others of that part of Kansas-drouth and high winds that destroyed his crops and necessitated his mortgaging his property to "hang on" and try to win out. He became a well driller and operated in Nebraska, where people had money to pay for such work, for several months with success, enabling him to return and once more take up his work in Lincoln County. While living there he served for years as a school director, work- ing hard to maintain a high standard of education.

His mother had come to California in 1905 to visit some of her children who had preceded her, and once in the Golden State she decided to remain, so in order to see her again it was necessary for Orvis to come out here. He came, and like thousands of others, was so thrilled by what he saw that he decided he would dispose of his holdings and locate here permanently. This he did, and he has never entertained one regret of that determination. Here in Orange County he decided to pitch his tent and he bought his first ranch in 1912; this consisted of nineteen and one-half acres of raw land and he at once set to work to make it productive by setting out oranges and lemons, and made of it a fine income property. In 1918 he bought another ranch, located on Fairhaven Avenue, and this bears fruit in abundance. Besides looking after his ranch interests Mr. Hull has been dealing in real estate and has been the means of many settlers locating within the borders of Orange County. In all his transactions he believes in a square deal, backing up his sales with all he possesses and thereby maintaining the confidence of his clients, who advertise his methods to their friends.

Mr. Hull was married in 1881, in Iowa, to Miss Clara R. Mitchell, a native of that state and daughter of Daniel R. and Sarah (Miller) Mitchell, born in Ohio and Indiana, respectively, but who became residents of Polk County, Iowa, in. 1865. Of their union six children have been born: Ralph W., is a resident of Orange County

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

and the father of two children; Flora M. has become Mrs. Walter Taylor and is living in Orange at the present writing; she has two children: Grace G., is the wife of Dr. R. C. Thompson of Chicago; Daniel R., was in the government service for nineteen months during the World War, is now superintendent of the Western Division of U. S. National Parks, a position that calls for ability and tact. He is the father of one child. Clara R. is Mrs. Harold Girton, and they reside near Orange; Evangeline is the wife of William F. Kroener, former secretary of the Y. M. C. A. at Orange, but now living in Chicago. They also have one child. These children have been given every educational advantage in the reach of their parents and all have won recognition for themselves. A business man of progressive ideas, Mr. Hull holds membership in the Central Lemon Growers, the Villa Park Orchards, and the Santiago Orange associa- tions. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and he and his good wife participate in all civic enterprises for the good of the county, and have an ever-widen- ing circle of friends throughout Orange County who appreciate them for their worth as builders-up of the community.

Mr. Hull has, for many years. taken a firm stand for national prohibition, as was shown in 1918, when the liquor interests held their convention in Fresno, at which time the convention took such action that every voter in the state would be compelled to support a liquor measure or lose their right of franchise. Mr. Hull, seeing the viciousness of this action, at once started a movement to give to the people of Cali- fornia an opportunity to exercise their rights and privileges. Because of his efforts there was a measure called the "Bone Dry" law placed on the ballots for the people to vote on. No petition had ever been presented to the people for signature that was so eagerly signed as was this "Bone Dry" petition. It was not carried, but it did defeat the most vicious measure ever presented to a people. This was largely due to the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Hull.

JACK McINNES .- An enterprising citizen of Orange. whose great success in buying and selling citrus fruit is undoubtedly due to his apprenticeship to mercantile trade in old, but thorough Scotland, is Jack McInnes, who began at the bottom of the ladder, long ago, and through years of unremitting industry, worked himself up. He was born at Glasgow on September 5, 1865, the son of Hugh McInnes, a native of Scotland, who was a wholesale merchant in Glasgow. Jack was educated in the schools of that city, and under his father was indentured to learn the wholesale drygoods business. Then he went to the great city of London and was a salesman in the whole- sale drygoods establishment of George Brettle & Son.

In 1893, Mr. McInnes, attracted to America especially on account of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, came out to "the States," and after visiting the World's Fair, went on to Edgerton, Rock County, Wis., where for a couple of years he was in business with his brother. He found the climate too cold, however, and in 1895 came to California. He was fortunate in having his attention directed at once to Orange County, and in pitching his tent at Santa Ana. where he started in the fruit business with the Ruddick-Trench Fruit Company, beginning there at the bottom, and master- ing every detail. In time he became a foreman, then an estimator, then a buyer, and later he was in the employ of other fruit companies. Finally he became manager for the Altleand Fruit Company at Orange, and that position he held for several years, or until he resigned to engage in business for himself.

Since then Mr. McInnes has been actively engaged in buying and shipping fruit, and has built up his present large trade. He has an extensive packing house along the Santa Fe tracks, and conducts business as J. McInnes, of which he is the sole owner. The packing house is 78 x 282 feet in size, and there are sorted, graded and packed from 500 to 600 car loads of oranges and lemons, which he buys, and sells for cash F. O. B. Mr. McInnes has the distinction of being one of the oldest fruit men in Orange County, and has witnessed the transformation of the county in all its various lines of endeavor.

At Los Angeles-where Mr. McInnes now resides-he married Mrs. Minnie A. Lyon, a native of Kansas, who has readily adopted the Golden State as her own, and is now, both in loyalty and good works, almost a native daughter.

VOLNEY V. TUBBS .- Among sturdy Californians who have added to the great wealth of the Golden State by completing the improvements on more or less raw land is Volney V. Tubbs, the rancher, who resides at Tustin and First streets, in the Tustin district, where he owns and operates a fine farm containing twenty acres devoted chiefly to oranges. This ranch he purchased in 1889, at which time it was only partially improved; so that the present high state of his acreage is largely due to his experience with and knowledge of Coast husbandry, and an untiring industry through which he has made a transformation almost miraculous. He has, among other features of his

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History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 105

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1700

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700