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 119

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 119

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Oscar Maryatt moved to Albion, Dane County, Wis., and there attended the gram- mar schools. He was graduated from Albion Academy, when only fifteen years old; and from his thirteenth year, and while yet a student, taught penmanship and Latin at Albion Academy, and in that way paid his way through college. He taught school at Woodstock, Il1., and at Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he was for two years, and then he went to Farley in the same state, and became principal of the schools there.

On December 7, 1864, Mr. Maryatt enlisted for service in the Civil War, on the Union side, and was made chief clerk of the district headquarters; and he had served in that capacity for six months before Lee's surrender. Now he is widely known in

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G. A. R. circles. While in Colorado he presided twice as commander of Del Norte Post, G. A. R., and in Santa Ana the veterans have been glad to place him on the firing line.

While teaching school, Mr. Maryatt had put in his spare time in reading law, under E. W. Lewis, the attorney at Farley, and in time he was examined for admission to the bar on motion of the late Hon. David Henderson of Iowa, and was examined in Henderson's office, when he passed the bar examinations successfully. In 1867 he was admitted to practice, and he then opened up a law office at New Albion, Iowa, where he became the attorney for the C. D. & M. Railway, continuing in that capacity for sixteen years, while residing at New Albion.

In 1883, Mr. Maryatt moved to Nebraska, practiced law and became a landowner in Harlan County, but ten years later he removed to Del Norte, Colo., where he engaged in gold and silver mining. He was very successful, and remained at Del Norte until November, 1909, when he came to Santa Ana. During six years of his residence in Rio Grande County, Mr. Maryatt was judge of the county court. Since coming to Santa Ana, he has served as city trustee for four years. He served, during 1920, as commander of the Southern California Veteran Association.

The first time Mr. Maryatt was married was before the Civil War, when he and Miss Josephine C. Ervin of Woodstock, Ill., were united in that place. They had two children: Leonore, now the wife of J. A. Bowles, who resides at Hastings, Nebr., and the mother of twelve children, and George A., who married in Nebraska and died at Del Norte, leaving one child, Oscar H., Jr. Mrs. Maryatt died at Farley. Mr. Maryatt's second marriage took place at Lansing, Iowa, when the bride was Mrs. Hannah H. Lindberg, nee Hall, a native of Vermont.

JAMES VERNON McCONNELL .- An interesting man of affairs, is J. V. Mc- Connell, vice-president and general manager of the Martin-McConnell Poultry Farms at Garden Grove, the world's leading breeders of the celebrated Black Minorcas. A good conversationalist, he is never at a loss, as a well-trained man of scientific train- ing, practical ideas and progressive programs, both to entertain and to instruct; and part of his enviable capital is a wide circle of friends.

He was born at Chatham Center, Medina County, Ohio, on August 28, 1878, the son of S. H. McConnell, who was a dealer in lumber and grain, and operated ware- houses, elevators and lumber yards in Ohio and Kansas. He was married at Chatham Center to Miss Mary F. Whitney. The McConnells had come to Ohio from Penn- sylvania, where they settled in Colonial times; they were of Scotch ancestry, and McConnellsville, Ohio, a town now of 1500 people, was named after members of this branch of the family, who settled there after the Revolutionary War. Three of S. H. McConnell's uncles were killed during the Revolution, and two of his brothers were killed in the Civil War. From this virile, progressive stock have come many merchants and lawyers. Mr. and Mrs. S. H. McConnell had two children, the elder being a daughter, Bessie, now the wife of James Schilling, of Long Beach.

James Vernon McConnell was sent to the public schools in Ohio and Kansas, coming to the latter state when he was a lad of fourteen. His father settled at White City, Morris County, and engaged in buying grain and selling lumber; and in time James attended the University of Kansas at Manhattan, where he was graduated from the commercial course. He was the first of the McConnell family to come to Cali- fornia, in 1907, and soon after arriving here, he settled at Long Beach, and in time bought a ranch of ten acres at Westminster. He bought his present place in August, 1912; and having taken a fancy to chicken raising when a boy, and maintained his interest therein, he embarked in the poultry business under the name of J. V. McCon- nell. As a matter of fact, he had already operated a poultry ranch with a couple of thousand chickens in Kansas, and he therefore brought to his enterprise at Garden Grove a ripe and valuable experience. While at Salt Lake City in 1910, Mr. McConnell was married to Miss Lucinda C. Evans, daughter of a mining man of that city. One son, Charles Harvey, has blessed their happy union.

Mr. McConnell first became prominent as a breeder of Brown Leghorns and Barred Plymouth Rocks, and with his youthful exhibits, scored many successes, some of his ribbons, representing the awards, dating back to 1889. Perceiving the growing demand for the new breed, the Black Minorca, he turned his attention, while yet in Kansas, to the problems of their breeding, and for the past twenty-two years he has been studying the Minorca, so that he is now the world's foremost breeder of that strain. These are widely known as the McConnell Strain of Minorcas, of which there are two-the Prolific Egg Strain, and the McConnell Premier Strain of Exhibition Minorcas. The poultry press, reporting poultry shows, has given his showbirds the latter name, and he has adopted it.

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Selling his ten-acre ranch at Westminster, Mr. McConnell bought a walnut grove of ten acres near Garden Grove, and grubbed out the walnuts for the purpose of de- voting it to poultry. He has built a bungalow residence there, and has a full comple- ment of incubator, brooder, stock and work houses, and pens and chicken houses. To him falls the responsibility of buying all the feed; lie buys grain by the carload. and spent quite twenty thousand dollars for feed in 1920. He feeds mainly milo-maize, wheat, barley and oats, the highest grade of meat scraps, and some fish meal, and to this, as to the other details, gives the most conscientious attention; so that his sales for the average exhibition showbirds in males run over seventy-five dollars, and females forty dollars each for birds six to eight months old, and during 1919 he sold one hundred birds at from $100 to $250 each. He has even sold some cockerels for $500 each.

The prize-winning qualities of Mr. McConnell's birds are acknowledged through- out the world, and it is no wonder that he sells with a guarantee to win first place. For instance, he will sell a cockerel to Chicago for $300, guaranteed to win the prize at the Chicago Poultry Show; and if the bird fails to take first prize, and wins only the second, he will refund twenty per cent of the purchase price; thirty per cent, if the bird takes third prize; and forty per cent, if it receives only the fourth prize. If it takes fifth prize or lower, he will refund the entire purchase price and and still allow the purchaser to keep the fowl. With these inducements, he finds it not difficult to sell all he can raise of Minorca cockerels a year. He has shown at hundreds of fairs and poultry shows all over the United States and England, from the Crystal Palace to the Orange County Fair, and has taken more first prizes for Minorcas than any other man in the world. His stock goes to England, South Africa, Argentine Confederation, Chili, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and to every state in the Union; and he is a well-known contributor to leading poultry journals, so that he is justly regarded as an authority on Minorcas.

By the organization effected under the laws of California on November 20, 1919, whereby Mrs. E. B. Martin of Downey, the well-known prize winner on White Leg- horns, joined Mr. McConnell in business, a corporation with a capital of $125,000, has resulted. The White Leghorns will be bred at the Garden Grove ranch, owned by Mr. McConnell, in addition to his Minorcas, and he will assume the management of the new corporation, of which Mrs. E. B. Martin is the president, and he the vice-president. Mrs. Martin has developed this strain of White Leghorns which, like Mr. McConnell's birds, are in a class by themselves. They are large and vigorous, superb in egg-pro- ducing qualities, while Mr. McConnell's strain of Minorcas will average two and a half pounds heavier than the common strains of the same kind of fowl. He has grown cockerels that weigh from twelve and a half to fourteen pounds.

The year 1920 will see a great expansion in this business. The entire ten acres will be built up with poultry pens and poultry houses. His place is well drained by means of cement pipe tiles emptying into cesspools, and everything there is scientifically laid out. He has invented many features in the self-feeding apparatus and drinking fountains, and these have everywhere been installed. There are two water plants on the place; one furnishes a supply for domestic purposes and for the chickens, yielding 4,000 gallons a day, under eighty pounds pressure, according to the Fairbanks system, and the other plant which has a twenty-five-horsepower gas engine, supplies the water for irrigation.

Mr. McConnell employs the best American experts, for all his stock is line-bred and trap-nested. Records are carefully kept; and birds falling below the high standard required are eliminated. He pays one expert $500 a month; $4,000 a year goes to his office force; and six men are kept steadily busy at outside work. He is working under the American Poultry Association rule; is a life member of the International Single- Comb Black Minorca Club, and National Single-Comb White Leghorn Club, and life member of the American Poultry Association.

JOSEPH WARREN CULVER .- As an agriculturist Joseph Warren Culver has attained a position of prominence in his chosen vocation. He is an extensive and suc- cessful tenant farmer, and operates 120 acres of the Mrs. Mattie A. Nimock ranch, one-half mile east of Talbert.

Of southern lineage, Mr. Culver was born in Georgia, August 7, 1868. His father, Augustus, a native of Georgia, and his mother, Mary (Ensley) Culver, who was born in South Carolina, were married in Georgia just after the Civil War, and Joseph was an infant three months old when they removed to Arkansas. From Arkansas the family went to Texas, and later, in 1888, removed to California. Joseph received his education in the public schools of Arkansas and Texas, and of the thirty-two years that he has resided in California, thirty-one years of that time has been spent in Orange County. He lived one year at Azusa, going thence to Westminster precinct, Orange County.

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where for fifteen years he raised celery successfully. After renting many years he came to Talbert, November, 1919, and rented the Nimock ranch, which he planted to sugar beets and beans. An excellent farmer, he is well equipped with horses and machinery to farm the 120 acres with success.

He was twenty-four years of age when his marriage with Miss Bessie Buck, a native of Kansas, was solemnized, and the five children born of their union are named Myrtle, Loraine, Evelyn, Joseph Warren, Jr., and Dorothy.

In politics Mr. Culver is nonpartisan, being governed by principle rather than party, and casting his vote for the man he deems best fitted to perform the public duties. Of brave Revolutionary stock, his relationship to the Culver family who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War, entitles him to membership in the Sons of the Revolution. A stanch adherent for fairness in all of life's transactions, Mr. Culver believes in the rule "live and let live," and his generosity and the sterling qual- ities of character he displays in all business and social transactions have won the con- fidence and highest esteem of a large circle of warm and admiring friends, among whom he sustains the reputation of the South for hospitality by the entertainment afforded in his home.

WILLIAM A. RALPH .- A man of pronounced native ability, whose years of ripe experience have made him of exceptional value to the interests entrusted to him, is William A. Ralph, the superintendent of the Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Company. He was born in Humansville, Mo., in 1864, the son of William Ralph, a native of Ten- nessee, who came to Missouri as a young man, and there became a farmer. He married Miss Elizabeth Yost, also a native of Missouri, and during the Civil War served in the Union Army as a volunteer in a Missouri regiment. Nine children were born to this worthy couple, and William was the third oldest in the family. The parents both died in Missouri, and our subject and his brother, Charles F. Ralph, of Porterville, are the only two of the family in California.

William was brought up on a farm and educated at the public schools of his locality. When eighteen years old, he started out into the world for himself, and in 1882 came to Nevada. He mined during the winter, and then rode the range, first on a small, and then on a large cattle ranch. He was there, in the employ of Mr. Har- desty, for six years, and became foreman. In 1888, he returned to Missouri, and for another six years pursued agricultural work, and while there he married Miss Clara Emmett. a native of Rogersville, Tenn. She came to Humansville, Mo., when a child, with her parents. Albert and Elizabeth ( Winnegar) Emmett, who were also natives of Tennessee, both representatives of old families of that state.

In 1898, Mr. Ralph came west again to California, and settling at Orange, entered the employ of the Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Company, with which corporation he has continued ever since. He began at the lower round of the ladder, and so steadily worked up that in three years he became foreman. He filled that position with his characteristic conscientiousness, and at the end of eleven years was made super- intendent of the company.

Mr. Ralph gives his whole time and energy to the problems presented, works out his own plans, and surveys his own grades, thereby saving the company hundreds of dollars yearly. He also superintends the work of the yard where the concrete pipe is manufactured. In this way, he makes certain of only the best product-a matter of the greatest import to both company and patron.

Four children have blessed the fortunate marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph. Meta is Mrs. E. A. Kuechel of Orange; Neva has become Mrs. Geo. Banditk, and also resides here; Jewel, a graduate of the Orange Union high school, is bookkeeper for the Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Company, and Esther is still in the high school. The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Mr. Ralph belongs to the Orange Lodge of Odd Fellows, and is a member of the Woodmen of the World, and he and his devoted wife are also numbered among the popular Rebekahs.

ROBERT J. WILEY .- A native son of California whose parents were among the pioneer residents of the state is Robert J. Wiley, who for the past fifteen years has been identified with the progressive development of Orange County. The son of William and Elizabeth (Simmons) Wiley, Robert J., was born at Downey, Cal., February 18, 1873. The father, who was a native of Ohio, came to California in 1854 and in 1858 purchased the place at Downey where Robert was born. He was a suc- cessful farmer and continued to live on the home place until his death in 1898, at the age of sixty-six years. Mrs. Elizabeth Wiley was born in Louisiana, but was reared in Texas, where her parents and grandparents had settled in the early days. In 1862 she came with her parents to California and was married to Mr. Wiley when she was but nineteen years old. She is still living and resides on the old homestead at Downey.

W.C. Ralph

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The eldest of a family of seven children, all of whom are living, Robert J. Wiley grew up at Downey and attended the public school there. At the age of fourteen, however, he started out to make his own way in the world, doing farm work on the neighboring ranches, continuing in this employment until 1905, when he engaged in the fumigating business, becoming a partner in the firm of Bowman and Wiley. Mr. Wiley is one of the veteran fumigators of Orange County and is one of the few who lived through the experimental stages of the business. He has handled tons and tons of cyanide of potassium without ever having suffered from its deleterious effects, and made a financial success of this business, in which he continued until 1918, when he began farming on the great San Joaquin ranch.

Mr. Wiley is now raising his second crop on the ranch, and has 175 acres planted to lima beans and seventy-five acres of hill land on which he raises barley hay, rotating this with a crop of blackeye beans which serves the double purpose of a paying crop and summer fallow for the land, thus keeping up the fertility of the soil. He also leases an additional sixty acres from Isadore Oliveras, which he devotes to grain and blackeye beans. All of the tenants on the San Joaquin ranch own their own buildings and machinery and Mr. Wiley invested $10,000 in work stock, farm implements and buildings. In 1918 he erected his own residence, a commodious, up-to-date bungalow, and is continually adding to the attractiveness of the surroundings. He also owns a third interest in a pumping plant which supplies water for domestic and stock use for himself and two neighbors.

On June 7, 1896, Mr. Wiley was married to Miss Pilar Ruiz, the daughter of one of Southern California's old Spanish families and they have become the parents of nine children: Elisa is the wife of Frank Monroy, a tractor engineer; they reside at Tustin and are the parents of two children-Sadie and Lawrence; Hazel, Robert, Ida, Sinyda died when seventeen months old; Bertha, Edith died at the age of six months; Glenn, Bernice. Mr. Wiley is prominent in the ranks of the Knights of Pythias having been chancellor commander, his membership being in the Tustin lodge. He ranks in the community as a man of broad intelligence and with a fund.of solid information whose success has come through his industry and thrift. Politically he is always found allied with the Republican element of the community and takes a public-spirited interest in all the movements for the general betterment of the county.

MOORE BROS. COMPANY .- Prominent among the enthusiastic "boosters" for Orange County, and among those most ready and also most able to hasten the day when Southern California shall come to its own, are the energetic gentlemen making up the well-known firm of Moore Bros. Company, manufacturers of and contractors for cement pipe, who have had so much to do with the installation of irrigating systems of the latest, scientific patterns, and with the execution of substantial and ornate cement work of various kinds-the last word in one of the highly developed industries of the West. This wide-awake company is composed of John A. Moore and his brother, James F. Moore, two of a family of seven children of William P. and Martha (Skaggs) Moore, and it is quite likely that it is their general reputation for character and experience, backing all that they claim to be able to accomplish, as well as the labor and materials they offer, which has spelled for them their phenomenal success.

John A. Moore was born in Barton County, Mo., on April 5, 1884, three years earlier than the birth of James, on February 2; but the latter was the first to come out to the Pacific Coast. Both attended the common schools of their home district, but received a good part of their most valuable instruction for a wrestle with the world in the "school of hard knocks." In his seventeenth year, James pushed westward to California seeking broader opportunities, and for a short time after reaching Los Angeles he again attended school, at the same time working at anything he could find to do. In 1906 John joined his brother here and they went to Rialto, in San Bernardino County, where they worked for a year on ranches, when they made their way to the Imperial Valley. They spent four years there, and during that time not only bought land, but they developed an alfalfa ranch, which they later sold to advantage.

In March, 1911, James F. Moore came to Fullerton, soon followed by his brother. John A., and shortly afterward they opened the first cement pipe-yard here, styling the firm Moore Bros. They began on a small scale on West Santa Fe Avenue, and by studying the wants of their patrons, and giving conscientious attention to details, they gradually increased their volume of trade. In 1913, John A. Moore went to Le Grand, Merced County, bought and developed property, and disposed of the same at a satis- factory increase; but he and James F. still own the water franchise and the water system at that place.

In January. 1918, responding to the call of his country for active service in the great World War. James F. Moore enlisted in the Three Hundred Nineteenth Engi-

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neers and was transferred to remount station at Camp Fremont, where he remained until he was honorably discharged, in January, 1919. Then he returned to resume the cement business at Fullerton. In September, however, he sold his interest in the West Santa Fe yard to his brother, E. W. Moore, and in the spring of 1920, with his brother, John A., he again formed a partnership and commenced the manufacture of cement pipe for irrigating at 221 East Santa Fe Avenue. The firm not only manufactures cement pipes, but they contract to install such irrigating systems as may be required. They are also well equipped to do all kinds of cement curbing, gutters, and foundations, working in cooperation in this department, with John Osborne, and their thoroughly satisfactory work has given them an enviable reputation, so that they always have all that they can do. They employ from a dozen to fifteen men in all departments of their work. Besides the property at 228 East Commonwealth Avenue, Fullerton, they own some very desirable harbor property on the West Basin at Wilmington.

The cement industry, carried on as it is today with the aid of scientific research, has come to mean a great deal in the development of new towns and their outlying neighborhoods, and Orange County is to be congratulated on such an establishment as that of the Moore Bros. Company.

HENRY SCHAFFERT .- An energetic, successful business man who, although comparatively young, has accomplished much, and whose judgment and advice, there- fore, are often sought, is Henry Schaffert, well known at Orange as the owner of the Schaffert Block. Good luck has followed him, as the result of his integrity and industry, ever since in Kansas he commenced to work for a farmer at the low wage of fifteen dollars a month; for, after only six years of steady labor, he owned the entire 190 acres that were the pride of his first employer.

Mr. Schaffert was born in Everbach, Wurtemberg, Germany, and was reared at Asberg, near Ludvigsburg, his birth occurring on January 28, 1874, the son of Michael Schaffert, a farmer, who had married Miss Caroline Miller. She died in 1875, leaving several children. Michael is. in Orange; Louis is at Youngstown, Ohio, as is also Fred; while Carl and Mary remained in Germany. Henry went to school at Asberg, but as the idea of military oppression was distasteful to him, he decided to follow his brothers to the land of the Stars and Stripes.

When, therefore, he was about sixteen years old, in the fall of 1890, Mr. Schaffert crossed the ocean and pushed west to Youngstown, Ohio, and he soon found work in the large car shops as a car repairer. Hard times, however, swept over the coun- try, and in 1893 he continued west to Rock Creek, Jefferson County, Kans., where he worked at farming. He was not long in buying a farm of eighty acres, on which he raised corn and hogs. He became a successful cattle feeder and stock dealer, and owned an elevator at Rock Creek on the St. Joe branch of the Santa Fe Railroad, gathering and exporting grain.

Mr. Schaffert also did an extensive land business, buying and selling farms. He sold much hay and grain, and bought, fed and shipped cattle and hogs. He built a corn sheller, so that corn could be dumped from the wagons of the farmers and shelled immediately. When he had reached a comfortable stage, Mr. Schaffert mar- ried, and then his father came to America and Kansas to visit him, returning to Germany where his death occurred in 1915. He was born in 1836, and during the span of his busy life he witnessed many interesting developments in Germany and throughout the world, and was privileged to get a glimpse of the wonders of American progress.

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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 119

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