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 117

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 117

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the home farm again. He disposed of it finally, when he had decided to move to the Pacific Coast, in 1908. He arrived in Santa Ana in the spring, and a year later built his home at 402 South Birch Street. At the time when Mr. Read built his home there the tract between Birch and Ross streets was a barley field, and his was the first home that far south on the west side of the street.

In 1912 his son, Walter Wilson Read, purchased from Dr. Samuel Strock a walnut and orange grove of thirteen acres on the Santa Ana Canyon Boulevard north of Olive, which he still owns. Walter W. Read was born in Kane County, 111., in 1881, and was a student at Wheaton College, at Wheaton, Ill. He married Miss Mabel E. Chaffee, who was born in Kane County, and also educated there. Three children blessed their union: Charles C., a high school student of Santa Ana; and Morris Wilson and Mary Emily, pupils of the grammar school.

C. C. Read adopted two children in 1879: William C. Katten, nine years of age, and Emily Manning, a year younger. She lives at present in Chicago. William C. Read was born in 1870, and was educated in the common schools of Kane County, 111. He spent his boyhood and youth on his adopted father's farm, and was married on September 22. 1894. to Miss Maude E. Anderson, a native of De Kalb, Ill., where she was educated in the local schools. He took up painting and worked at that trade until he came to California in 1909. Three children have been born to them. Genevieve C. is now Mrs. A. McConnell of Santa Ana; Rheta E. is a student of the Santa Ana Business College, and Claude C. is a pupil in the grammar school. Wil- liam C. Read is a member of the Modern Woodmen, and believes in the fitness of man for office regardless of party.

JOHN D. LAVIN .- A highly-esteemed citizen of Orange County, now retired, who has merely continued to operate in California according to the same high stand- ards and approved methods as characterized him in former years, having always been a man of affairs wherever he has lived, is John D. Lavin, who was born in Ireland. came to America with his parents while a babe in arms, lived at Windsor, Ont., until he was thirteen years of age, and ever since then has resided in the United States. He lived for a while in Michigan, and finished his education at Bryant & Stratton's Business College in Chicago.

As a young man he started railroading, in the service of the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway, and after a while became agent for that company at Flint, Mich. In March, 1880. he removed to South Dakota, and at Columbia, then 120 miles from a railroad, established the first mercantile husiness in Brown County, which he continued for fifteen years. He was mayor of Columbia, and he also served as one of the com- missioners of Brown County, part of the time acting as chairman of the board. He and his two sisters owned 1.600 acres of fine farm land in South Dakota, which they leased out to tenants on shares.

For twenty years Mr. Lavin was grand recorder for the state of South Dakota of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. with headquarters at Aberdeen; he was appointed by Governor Herried as a member of the state board of charities and cor- rection, having in charge all the state charitable and penal institutions. He resigned his position with the Workmen in 1909 to come to California on account of his sisters' health. Since locating in Anaheim. he has been active in civic affairs, as he was in South Dakota. although retired from business, merely overseeing the general man- agement of his fine ten-acre ranch in South Los Angeles Street, which he set out to Valencia oranges in July, 1919. For a number of years he was a director in the German-American, now the Golden State National. Bank of Anaheim, and he is now a member of the Anaheim Public Library Board, and was formerly chairman of the same. He is a member of the Catholic Church, belongs to the Knights of Colum- bus, and also to Anaheim Lodge No. 1345, B. P. O. Elks.

LEWIS G. BUTLER .- A very interesting "old-timer" who. as a pioneer farmer. nurseryman and grower of citrus fruit. has made a definite contribution to the growth and development of Southern California, is Lewis G. Butler, of 1211 Van Ness Avenue. Santa Ana, who enjoys, with his good wife, the high esteem of many friends. He was born at Prairie du Chien. Wis .. on February 28. 1851. the son of George H. and Eliza- beth (Schoolcraft) Butler, natives of New York State who came west to Wisconsin. His father followed agricultural pursuits, and when our subject was a babe, his parents moved to Iowa. where they settled on a farm, and there the father died when Lewis was only three years old.

After the father's death, Mrs. Butler removed. first. to Belvidere, and then to Sycamore. Ill .. taking the four children, among whom Lewis G. was the third in the order of birth. When ten years old, he went to live with an uncle, Peter Lawyer. a farmer at Sycamore, and with him he stayed, working out on farms until he was

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

eighteen. Then he removed to Iowa and there worked for two years for another uncle, also named Lawyer. Another change brought him to Lincoln, Nebr., where he labored at farm work for a couple of years.

In the fall of 1874, he made still another change, and one calculated to bring him still greater prosperity and happiness. He came out to California and settled at Orange. The year previous he had been married in Nebraska to Miss Martha E. Selby, a native of Ohio and a daughter of George Selby, and Mrs. Butler came along to the Golden State to assist him to win his fortune and to make a comfortable home. He worked for a while for Lockwood on East Chapman Street, cultivated his orange orchard and put out nursery stock for him. He then entered the employ of Dr. Beach, who also had an orange orchard and raised nursery stock, besides prac- ticing medicine. Thus Mr. Butler rapidly extended a valuable experience, and he cani . to enjoy the reputation of being the boss budder in the county.

He budded, for example, the first Washington Navels in the district of Orange. getting his buds from Tom Covert of Riverside, who had one of the old original trees sent out from Washington. And about this time he started in the nursery business ia Orange, first as a partner of Dr. Beach; he planted fifteen acres to oranges and five acres to apricots, and the results attracted wide attention. He also owned twenty acres on East Walnut Street in Orange.

Always, too, a fancier of good horses, a chance acquaintance with the late John Bushard in the Wintersburg district, resulted in his turning his attention to that field, so that he became a partner of Mr. Bushard and bought a ranch of 400 and eighty acres south and west of where Wintersburg is now located. At the end of three years this partnership was dissolved, and then Mr. Butler went up into the San Jacinto Valley, improved a ranch and fruit land, and came to own 160 acres there. and there he prospered for the ensuing thirty years. In March, 1918, he let go his holdings there, and the following November he removed to Santa Ana.

Mr. and Mrs. Butler have had one child, Chester G., who died in September. 1917, at the age of thirty-five, leaving a large circle of steadfast friends. Mrs. Butler belongs to the Christian Church, and both husband and wife find pleasure in sup- porting movements calculated to make California, and especially Orange County, a better place in which to. live.

NIELS JOHNSON .- An honest, kind-hearted and highly esteemed citizen of Pla- centia, who, while seeking to live a retired life, free from the cares of labor or invest- ment, finds it hard to keep his hands off the plow entirely, and who therefore may often be seen superintending the work of the harvest, is Niels Johnson of East Chap- man Avenue, a native of Southern Denmark, where he was born near Kolding, Novem- her 5, 1847. His father was a grain farmer, and as the eldest of a family of seven children, Niels had to go to work early in life. He attended the ordinary grammar schools, and when he grew up, served in the Danish army for the required term, until he had obtained his honorable discharge. After that Mr. Johnson went across the border into Slesvig to work at harvesting, as he rece.ved better wages there than at his old home in Southern Denmark. He remained there and in due time, met a young lady. the acquaintance ripening into a more lasting tie and she became his wife. She was Miss Metta R. Paulson, born in Apenrade, Slesvig, a woman of attractive personality. and their union was indeed a happy one.

After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Johnson engaged in farming, but Mr. Johnson's longing for the New World was so strong that they decided to migrate to the land of the Stars and Stripes. When he had saved sufficient funds to defray the expenses of the trip, he sailed with his family from Hamburg, with New York as their destination. Ships traveled more slowly in those days, and it took fifteen days to cross the Atlantic. and fifteen days more before they reached San Francisco. A brother-in-law had already come to California and located in Watsonville, and here the travelers came. For three and a half years Mr. Johnson worked at Watsonville in the lumber yards: then through Peter Hansen, whose wife was a cousin of Mrs. Johnson, and who resided at Fullerton. Mr. Johnson learned about Orange County, and the story of its wonderfr1 possibilities led him to bring his family there. On their arrival, Mr. Johnson purchased four acres pear Placentia, and in the following years, as he worked for the Anahe'mi Union Water Company, he purchased more land and brought the same to a high state of cultivation. About the year 1800. he bought twenty acres from the Stearns Land Company in the Placentia district and later bought eight acres on East Chapman Street, which is now devoted to oranges. The twenty-acre ranch has been leased and successfully exploited for oil, and he now derives a good income from it; he has also leased his home place for oil recently. The balance of his land has been given to his children. In 1920 Mr. Johnson built a modern bungalow on his East Chapman Street property, and here he resides with his eldest dught'r. Arra who preside; over his

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home in a charming manner and shows her devotion hy looking after his comfort and entertaining his many friends. The other living children are: George, a rancher at Placentia; Dora, the wife of Frank Trendle of Orangethorpe Avenue; and Raymond, a rancher at Placentia, who served in an artillery regiment overseas during the World War. Mr. Johnson is a stockholder in the Anaheim Union Water Company, and he is a charter member of the Placentia Orange Growers Association.

A sorrow never to be effaced came into the life of this happy home circle in the death on November 14, 1918, of Mrs. Johnson, who passed away after a short illness due to a fall, in her sixty-fifth year. She was operated on at the Fullerton Hospital, and was believed to be progressing toward complete recovery, when she passed away very suddenly. She meant much not merely to her near of kin, but to the community as a whole, and it is not surprising that Mr. Johnson attributes much of his success in life to the inspiration of her noble character and her fidelity as a loving and ever devoted helpmate.

ERNEST A. BEARD .- When we are temporarily deprived of the use of the tele- phone we begin to realize what an important part that invention plays in our modern business and social life. The telephone system of Anaheim and Fullerton is under the competent management of Ernest A. Beard, a native of Ohio, who was born in Richland County in that state November 16, 1877. He is the son of Charles W. and Charity (Baker) Beard. While living in the East the father was an insurance agent and was also engaged in the implement business. The family came to Santa Ana, Cal., in 1881, where the father engaged in business and for a number of years was one of the city officials of Santa Ana. His demise occurred in 1910.

Ernest A., the youngest child in a family of four children, was four years of age when he accompanied his parents to California. He received a competent education in the schools of Santa Ana, and later attended the Los Angeles Business School, from which he graduated. After taking up the responsibilities of life he was engaged as a telegraph operator, and for four years was in charge of the Santa Ana postal office. He afterwards went north and learned the harness trade, which he followed for six years. After this he was on an eastern farm for two years, and upon returning to Cali- fornia followed the occupation of farming. Following this he engaged in selling trac- tors and in the antomobile business for the next ten years, and in 1918 became inter- ested with the Anaheim telephone company, which is also in charge of the Fullerton system, with headquarters at Anaheim. Since assuming the management of the tele- phone company Mr. Beard has demonstrated his ability to fill that important position. He still maintains his Valencia orange grove, which is located on East Santa Ana Street about one-half mile east of town. He is a member of Anaheim Lodge, No. 1345, B. P. O. Elks.

His marriage occurred March 8, 1906, uniting him with Miss Anna Morthland, and they are the parents of a daughter named Loma. Mr. Beard, who is musically inclined, finds diversion from the arduous cares of business life in the art of music and is man- ager of the Anaheim band. He is also fond of the sports of hunting and fishing, but dearer than all else to his heart is his interest in the successful growth and development of the county in which his lot in life is cast. Although a Republican in principles, he does not allow party prejudice to influence his vote, ever seeking to lend his influence for the man best fitted for the office, regardless of party affiliations.

HENRY J. HARKLEROAD .- An important overseer on the Irvine ranch, who has also become a successful tenant and a prosperous landowner, is Henry J. Harkle- road, foreman of the Harkleroad Camp, or that portion of the San Joaquin ranch con- taining some 815 acres planted to walnut, lemon, orange and avocado trees, and irri- gated by means of wells and pumping plants. He is also an individual tenant on the same San Joaquin ranch, leasing 200 acres of bean and barley land individually and in partnerships operating another lease of 600 acres devoted to the same products.

A native son, as one might suspect from his aggressive progressiveness, Mr. Hark- leroad was born at Hollister on February 26, 1877, the son of Henry J. Harkleroad, a native of Tennessee, who came to California and here married Miss Caroline Welborn, of Maryland. He was a rancher at Hollister, where he owned 160 acres of land. He died in 1884, when our subject was only seven years old; and Mrs. Harkleroad passed away in 1917. They had four children: Lucy resides at San Jose; Henry J. is the subject of this review; Samuel W. is the manager of the Andrew Mattei Commercial Company of Fresno; and George A. is principal of the high school at Fall Brook, San Diego County.

Henry attended the public schools at Hollister, but being the oldest son, he had a great deal of responsibility thrust upon him through the early death of his father. He managed, however, to get in a good course at the Hollister Business College, and

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when a young man he went to San Francisco and enlarged his experience as a foreman for three years in the Union Iron Works. There he learned to handle men-now unquestionably his forte. He was foreman in the chipping department of the cast steel foundry, many of their castings being used in the construction of vessels, among them the battleships Wisconsin and Ohio and the cruiser California, as well as some of the first submarines turned out for the government. Next he was in the real estate and insurance business at Hollister and San Jose, through which activity and experience he became a still better judge of human nature. After that he was for several years in charge of his mother's ranch, helping her to successfully handle her estate.

On December 1, 1908, Mr. Harkleroad came to Orange County and for the first two years was employed on the home ranch for the Irvine Company as foreman and since 1910 he has been in charge of the Harkleroad Camp as stated above. He also owns 320 acres in Arizona, eighty acres 'in Los Angeles County, five acres in Orange County and ten acres in Madera County.

On June 30, 1906, Mr. Harkleroad was married at Hollister to Miss Mae Fowler of Mulberry, San Benito County, a native of Portland, Ore. He is a Republican in national politics and fraternally is a Knights Templar Mason and a Shriner, as well as a member of the Santa Ana Lodge of Elks. Mr. Harkleroad has become a very enthusiastic booster for Orange County and the Southland from observation and experi- ence, and his two boys, Henry J., Jr., and William F. Harkleroad, bid fair to display the same virtues.

WM. OSCAR WILSON .- A native son who has become one of the most success- ful bean ranchers is Wm. Oscar Wilson, who was born in the city of Ventura on May 19, 1892, the second son of William Wilson, the pioneer lima bean grower on the Irvine ranch. Oscar, as all of his friends call him, was only five years old when, on an October day, he came to Irvine, where he grew up on his father's ranch, and had as good time as any boy in the county. He attended the local public schools at Irvine and Tustin, and applied himself to his studies sufficiently to make it worth the while, later, to take a course in the excellent Orange County Business College at Santa Ana, where he was graduated in 1909.

His father had allowed him a workman's wages since his seventeenth year, and with his studies ended, he went in for some of this world's goods. He had felt very deeply the loss in his fifteenth year of his mother (who was Miss Emma Shepard, of Missouri, before her marriage), but fortunately he was already enthused with certain ideals, and resolved to make his way forward and upward, and to enjoy success. His decision to remain at home with his father until he himself set up a domestic establish- ment was favorable to the quiet formation of a sturdy character such as those who know him highly esteem. When he was nineteen, at Santa Ana, June 10, 1911, he was joined in wedlock to Miss Lenore Brenot, a stepdaughter of Abe W. Johnson of Irvine. She is a native daughter, born at Irvine.

Mr. Wilson spent some time at Capistrano on his father's lease, and then he worked for three years in Santa Ana. He began farming operations for himself three years ago, and now he has under lease from the Irvine ranch, and planted, about 250 acres. One hundred forty of these are given to lima beans; sixty to blackeye beans; and fifty acres to barley hay. Twelve head of mules furnish for him the motor power for which the mule is famous.

Two children have blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Wilson, adding happiness to their happy home, a daughter and a son, Elizabeth Adell and William Wesley. Fraternally Mr. Wilson is a member of Santa Ana Lodge No. 236, I. O. O. F. and of the Encampment, and with his wife is a member of the Rebekahs.

HENRY F. GIBBS .- An enterprising, thoroughly capable ranchman of Hunting- ton Beach, is Henry F. Gibbs, who resides at his ranch two and a half miles northeast of the town, where he devotes thirty acres to the cultivation of sugar beets and berries. He was born on January 9. 1880, in Nodaway County, Mo., the son of Henry Gibbs, now the proprietor of the grocery business at the corner of Walnut and Main streets, which was established by the son. Henry Gibbs was born on November 22, 1850, at Tunbridge in Kent, some thirty miles from London, and his father was James Gibbs, a native of England and a farmer who came to America and settled in Wisconsin. He came out here in 1857, two years before the rest of his family, and in Wisconsin was joined by his wife and a daughter and five sons. Henry Gibbs' mother was employed by Queen Victoria as a housemaid, and in the performance of her duties about the castle, often conversed with the Queen. Mrs. Henry Gibbs was Lucy Latter, a native also of England. When James Gibbs came to Wisconsin, he farmed at Waukesha, and owing to the primitive conditions of that region, Henry's schooling was very limited. Grandfather Gibbs died when Henry was nineteen years old, and three of the ten 40

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children of the family having died when they were in England, Henry F. was the next to the youngest. Henry Gibbs worked out on farms at twelve cents a day in harvest time, carrying water to the cradlers and binders-a jug of water in one hand, and a jug of whiskey in the other; harvesting was then done by cradling, and binding was performed by hand.

In Wisconsin Henry Gibbs met and married Jeanette or Nettie Cross, a native of Macomb County, Mich., where she was born on March 24, 1855. She was reared in that state until her twelfth year, and then she came with her parents to southeast Wisconsin. Her father, Leonard Cross, a New Yorker, was kicked by a horse and he died from the injury, passing away a day after Nettie was fifteen years old. Her mother was Elizabeth Woodard, a daughter of Vermont. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Gibbs were married in 1873, and a year after they removed to Nodaway County, Mo., where they farmed for twelve years.

In 1886, they came to California, and settled in Los Angeles, and there engaged in the sale of staple and fancy groceries. In 1896 Mr. Gibbs bought a ranch of twenty acres at Smeltzer, Cal., and in 1902, he went to Santa Ana, where for two and a half years he busied himself with real estate deals and the management of a restaurant. As a business man at present in Huntington Beach, he is one of the oldest merchants in the city, and he is still ably assisted in his business by his wife.

Henry F. Gibbs was six and a half years old when he came to California with his parents, and his early education was obtained in the grammar schools of Los Angeles, and a year in the Los Angeles high school, after which he took a commercial course at the Santa Ana Business College under Prof. R. L. Bisby. In 1901 he married Miss Viola M. Stewart, the only daughter of O. C. Stewart, a member of a family of early settlers in what is now Orange County, and a sister of D. O. Stewart of Huntington Beach. They have two children-Stewart and Beatrice Nettie.

Few farmers have succeeded better than Henry F. Gibbs in demonstrating the qualities of the soil and environment of Huntington Beach for agriculture of a scientific and aggressive sort: and besides the success thus attained, he and his family enjoy the esteem of all who know them.

STETSON R. JUMPER .- An exceedingly able, first-class official, and a public- spirited citizen in every respect is Stetson R. Jumper, the accommodating postmaster at Balboa, who was born in Maine on July 23, 1859, and lived in that fine old Yankee State until he was twenty-five. In 1884, he came to California and settled at Riverside, and there he kept a cigar and news stand, and was agent for the Los Angeles Times, serving that journal for eight years. He was really a carpenter by trade, and came to East Newport in 1906 to build for the East Newport Town Company, which made him their construction boss. He assumed much responsibility, overseeing, among other works, the erection of the East Newport Pavilion, now used for the Newport Harbor Yacht Club.

After a while, Mr. Jumper established himself in business as an independent con- tractor and builder, and succeeding beyond his expectations, he became the head of the firm of Jumper and Goodcell, building contractors at Balboa and East Newport, and remained in that relation until Mr. Goodcell, dropped out, and Mr. Jumper continued alone as a contractor. He built the dwelling in which he now resides, and also another residence that he still owns.

This mechanical ability was doubtless inherited, for his father, Royal D. Jumper. who died when our subject was only two years old, and was a native of Maine, was a machinist of the genuine American type. He married Miss Mary Myrick, also a native of the Lumber State, and together they represented descent from English, Irish and Scotch blood. The Jumpers had been residents of Maine for three generations, and on the mother's side they went back to the Bradford family made famous by their trip to New England in the Mayflower. Mrs. Jumper died when Stetson was eighteen years old, so that he has helped himself through the world from early years. He attended the common schools of his home district, and also studied for two years at Kent's Hill Academy, in Maine.

In April, 1914, Mr. Jumper was elected to the council of the town of Balboa, and two years later, he was made chairman or mayor. In 1917, however, he resigned in order to accept the appointment of postmaster of Balboa, receiving his commission on March 16. He was chairman of the board of directors of the Chamber of Commerce, and it is not surprising that he has almost doubled the volume of business of the Balboa postoffice since he took hold-a fact that speaks well for both Balboa and its postmaster.

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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 117

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