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 143

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 143

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Mr. Buchheim is a good example of the efficient builders of the California of today, who not only bring to bear the experience and wisdom of yesterday in the inheritance of pioneer brawn and brain, but who are fortified with something of value originating in a foreign land, and adapted to the institutions of our own country.

CHARLES J. SEGERSTROM .- A rancher whose carefully planned years of hard work has netted him and his equally able wife and industrious family handsome returns, is Charles J. Segerstrom, one of the most successful farmers in the Greenville district. He was born at Sodermanland Lan, near Stockholm, Sweden, on June 29, 1856, the son of Gustav Adolph Segerstrom, who came from a long line of military heroes, and Anna Charlotta Anderson, whose family were seafaring merchants. The good parents had seven children, all of whom are deceased except two daughters, who are now living in Chicago, and Charles. Gustav Adolph Segerstrom died in Sweden in 1876 and his wife died in St. Paul, Minn., in 1884.

Charles passed his early life in Sweden, where he enjoyed the usual advantages of the excellent elementary schools. After graduating from school he took a course in agriculture under the best Government experts, and at an early age began farming for himself, and since then has made his own way in the world.

On May 30, 1878, he was united in marriage to Bertha Christine Anderson, who since has proven such a valuable helpmate in Mr. Segerstrom's ventures in the new world. In 1882 he and his wife and three children sailed from Gothenburg, crossing the North Sea to Hull, England, from there to Glasgow, where they went aboard the Fornecia, the largest boat then used in crossing the Atlantic. After fourteen days of stormy voyage they landed at Castle Garden on May 20, 1882, and soon after left for Chicago. Arrived in the metropolis by the lakes, Mr. Segerstrom secured employment with Libby, McNeil and Libby, the packers, and lost no time in entering on the great work of adapting himself to his America environment.

After a year spent in Chicago, they moved to Prentice, Wis., where they spent two years in the heart of the great pine forests as pioneers. The family next moved to St. Paul, Minn., and here Charles was naturalized. He was engaged in the railroad business for thirteen years and as a result he received the best of recommendations from the railroad company.

In 1898 Inred by the reports of still greater opportunities in the West the family moved to California. They located at Orange, first leasing a twenty-acre orange ranch from Mr. Riley. While there they took a pleasure trip to Newport Beach and passing through Old Newport were so pleased with the locality they decided to locate there. The first purchase was a forty-acre tract belonging to Ben Fallert, where they engaged in dairying and alfalfa raising. The holdings have been increased extensively, one of the purchases being the Brooks ranch, in 1912, where a modern residence has been erected and is now the family home.

For the past five years Mr. Segerstrom and his sons have engaged in dairying and the growing of lima beans and have enjoyed good and profitable results, the ranch now being equipped with all modern buildings and machinery. Mr. and Mrs. Seger- strom have been blessed with eleven children, all living except Clara who died in 1912. The girls are: Christine, Anne, Ida and Esther. The boys are: Charles Jr., Eric William, Anton, Fred and Harold.

FRANK ULRICH .- An expert blacksmith who has become a clever and success- ful inventor, is Frank Ulrich, in more respects than one a citizen of worth. He was born in Fayette County, Ill., on February 19, 1876, the son of Fred Ulrich, who had married Martha Walker. After Frank was born, his parents moved with him, then their only child, to Barton County, Mo., and there the lad grew up in the public schools, topping off his studies with a course at the Polytechnic high school at La Mar, Mo. In the same town he served a three years' apprenticeship at the trade of a blacksmith, and there the other four children of the family were born.

In 1896 Mr. Ulrich was married to Miss Alice Ainscough, a native of Barton County, and four years later he came west to California, and settled for a while in San Bernardino, where he worked in the railway shops of the Santa Fe Railway. Then he went to Banning and put in two and a half years in a blacksmith shop there. Then he shifted to Smeltzer, and worked for John McMillan, who then ran the blacksmith shop at that place, and continued with him for about six months, until he sold out.

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After that Mr. Ulrich pitched his tent in Wintersburg and once he had decided to stay, he bought of James Kane the shop built by the latter. It is a one-story frame structure, 24x72 feet in size, fitted up with an electric motor and an electric blower, as well as a trip-hammer, an emery wheel, a drill and a power hacksaw, and also two forges. In 1909, Mr. Ulrich built his residence, a pretty bungalow.

Mr. Ulrich does a general blacksmithing business, which includes horse-shoeing and horse-clipping, and makes a specialty of oxy-acetylene welding, and he employs at least one man the year around. He builds beet plows, cyclones and a so-called Swedish harrow, and manufactures celery growers' tools. He has invented a tubing drainer, for pumping oil out of oil wells, which he patented in 1918, and two of his inventions are on trial in the Midway oil field at Taft, on the Santa Fe and the Hondo Oil Company's leases. They give entire satisfaction and are well spoken of.

As a progressive, patriotic citizen, Mr. Ulrich has found pleasure in serving on the board of trustees of the Ocean View School, and he was on both the board and the building commission when that school was erected. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and served as worthy council; Mrs. Ulrich attends the Metho- dist Episcopal Church.

CHARLES TREULIEB .- The pioneer blacksmith of Cypress, Orange County, Charles Treulieb is a public-spirited citizen, who has done his share to aid in the up- building of his section of the county by giving his hearty support to all movements for the public good and thereby has gained an enviable reputation among his fellows, who appreciate his good qualities.

A native of Russia, he was born in Courland, Dondangen, February 28, 1865, the son of Charles and Julia Treulieb, both natives of that country and the parents of four- teen children, four of whom came to America, and two of these are living in Orange County-Charles and his sister, Mrs. Margaret Yudis. His brother, Christ, lives in Alameda, Cal., and August is a resident of New York. Both parents died in their native land after living useful lives among their neighbors.

Charles attended the public schools of his native town and when he was eighteen he was apprenticed to a blacksmith for five years to learn that trade. After he had mastered it he traveled in various parts of the old world and then came to America to broaden his education and to master English by personal contact with the people, first stopping for a few months in Rio Janeiro, where he worked for a short time. This was in 1893, and it was that same year that he landed in New York, going thence to the West Indies; later he came back to America and stopped in Maine for a time. The West seemed to hold a fascination for him and he came to Arizona, where for some years he worked at his trade in Jerome. He became an American citizen at Prescott in 1903 and ever since has been among the most loyal of citizens of the country he adopted as his home. In 1905 he arrived in Los Angeles, but very soon came to Los Alamitos and was employed as a machinist at the sugar factory until 1905, when he opened his present blacksmith shop at Cypress, where he has catered to the wants of the locality ever since. He has seen this part of the county grow from an almost unproductive section to one of diversified farming and a very rich and productive cen- ter: in fact, as one of the pioneers here, he has aided every movement that meant ad- vancing the interest of the people. Besides a well-equipped shop, where he does all kinds of blacksmithing, he conducts an oil-filling station and sells motor supplies; in both lines of activity he is meeting with well-deserved success. His obliging manner and cheery disposition have made him many friends. He is a member of the Woodmen of the World and politically is a broad-minded man who believes in living and letting live.

ROCH COURREGES .- A pioneer rancher who has become prosperous and influ- ential, and who, while forging ahead to affluence, has never failed to encourage any movement worth the while for the development of Huntington Beach, and has thereby been privileged to assist in establishing there most of its important industries and institutions, is Roch Courreges, who owns a fine ranch of sixty acres on the Talbert- Huntington Beach Road, a mile west of Talbert. He was born at Bruges, in the Basses-Pyrenees, France, on November 3, 1850. His father was Joseph Courreges, a well-to-do landowner at Bruges, who conducted a lumber business; he married Justine Laroze, and they both lived and died in France. Roch first came to the United States in 1867, coming via Panama and landed in San Francisco on February 12; he started out into the world equipped with a good French grammar school education, and acquired English after he settled in America. Indeed, he is fond of admitting that he learned many a lesson in the language. of his adopted country while talking with his children, or perusing their school books.

Mr. Courreges' first work in California was milking cows on dairy farms in San Francisco and in Monterey County, after which, for a while, he went to the placer

Chas Touliebe

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

mines in Tuolumne County. Then he came back to San Francisco and worked in a tripe factory. At the end of five years, he gave that up and for a year kept a boarding house. He then became a partner in the tripe factory, but sold his interest in 1877. The following year he came to Los Angeles County, and since then he has experienced a great deal and has seen many changes.

The marriage of Mr. Courreges took place at Bolso Chica, in 1880, when he was united with Mrs. Magdalena Smith, nee Mogart, a native of Lower California and a member of an old Spanish family. Thirty-seven years later, on November 29, she died, aged sixty-four years. By her first husband, she had had two children, Josephine Smith and Walter Smith; while through her second marriage, she was the mother of, besides three who died young, the following offspring: Joseph, who married Maria Ramariz, and is a rancher, operating the place owned by Mr. Courreges, and residing there, in part- nership with his younger brother John; Elizabeth, the wife of Peter Lacabanne, a resident of Los Angeles; Philippine, the wife of Henry Lacabanne, the rancher of this place; Justine, who gracefully presides over her father's home; and John, who was in the field artillery service in France for three months. He was honorably discharged, and he is now farming at home, as has been stated, in partnership with Joseph.

Mr. Courreges came to Bolsa Chica on December 15, 1878, as a sheep raiser, for this was then a sheep country. This section at that time was in Los Angeles County, and there were no railroads, steam or electric. Six years before that, or in 1872, settlers had made their inroads and had squatted here, or taken the land without authority, but they were disturbed by the Stearns Ranch Company in 1880. In 1883, the Secretary of the Interior rendered his decision, but the squatters retained possession until 1890, when they were ousted for good. In April, 1883, Mr. Courreges established his sheep camp on the spot where his house now stands; and when he first rented pasture land, he leased from the Stearns Ranch Company, and when he came to the site of his present farm in 1882, it was also as a tenant of the said Stearns Company.

At first, Mr. Courreges was a partner in the sheep business with Roch Sarrail, and they herded sheep at Bolsa Chica, as well as at Bolsa Grande, two places named in the terminology of the miner, "small pocket" and "large pocket." They kept high grade merinos. and when they separated in 1882 they had 6,000 head. Mr. Courreges took charge of the camp at Bolsa Grande, and continued in that line for twenty-one years, and at one time he had 8,500 head of sheep.

It was in 1896 that Mr. Courreges bought some eighty acres, including his present ranch, from the Stearns Company, of which he later sold twenty acres to his son-in- law. Henry Lacabanne; and in company with his oldest son he went into farming. At first, he raised potatoes, corn, pumpkins, and alfalfa, and he kept a few cows; and for many years he raised sugar beets in the rich bottom lands, which make up his farm for the most part. He encouraged the establishing of the Holly Sugar Corporation, but two years ago, he planted some lima beans, and in 1919 and 1920 he has had the entire sixty acres planted to limas. His first house burned down five years ago; and since then he has built a beautiful bungalow home on the mesa. He has a couple of good wells and a tank house, furnishing and retaining a good supply of water; and irrigation is carried on by his own pumping plant.

Mr. Courreges has ever been a public-spirited citizen, and he has helped in every way to establish good roads. He worked for the state highway, and voted for county road bonds. He donated the right-of-way through his land for county roads, giving a deed therefor, and has paved the county road past his home. He also worked hard for the cannery at Huntington Beach, but it failed, and he lost $7,000 as the result. He invested $15,000 in twenty-nine lots at Huntington Beach, and he still owns the same. He helped to established the Linoleum Company at Huntington Beach, and also to bring about the "Tent City." He was one of the founders of the First National Bank of Huntington Beach, and owns fifty shares of its stock; and was a director from its organization and has been the vice-president of the bank for the past five years. He also interested himself in the coming here, north of Huntington Beach, of the peat-fuel company, and in encouraging in every way the operations of the Southern Pacific, the Santa Fe and the Pacific Electric railways.

HENRY LACABANNE .- A hard-working and progressive farmer, whose attrac- tive and equally industrious wife shares with him the good will and esteem of a large . circle of friends, is Henry Lacabanne, the son-in-law of Roch Courreges, the pioneer. He was born in Estialesq, France, on October 9, 1873, the son of Pierre Lacabanne, a farmer, who had married Catherine Lagrave. They were owners of valuable land, and lived and died in their native country. They had six children, all sons, among whom Henry was the fourth in the order of birth. Two of the boys, besides Henry, came out to California; Jean is a rancher at Huntington Beach, and Pierre is employed by the Houser Packing Company at Los Angeles. Three sons are in France; the youngest,

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Auguste Lacabanne, served throughout the late war, or until he was taken prisoner, in July, 1918, but is still alive and in France.

Henry attended the excellent French grammar schools, and later worked ou his father's farm. In 1892 he resolved to come to America, and in the latter part of May landed in New York City. On June 6, he reached the capital of California's Southland, Los Angeles. For a while he worked at hay-baling, and then he went to Ventura County, and in October began a five years' engagement as a sheep herder. After that he bought a band of sheep and with his older brother, Jean, as partner, came to San Joaquin ranch in Orange County. He prospered, and remained there until his marriage.

This interesting event occurred in 1905, when he married the second daughter and third child, Philippine Courreges, of the well-known pioneer. Once established as the head of a family, he bought ten acres at Katella, which he planted as a walnut orchard. At the proper time for a good deal, he sold this and came to the other locality in Orange County, where he now resides. In 1910, he bought the twenty acres he manages as a home farm, purchasing from his father-in-law, and by hard work converted it from the bare laud, and has brought it up to a high state of cultivation, built a modest but very comfortable home, and has paid for all the improvements, including a large barn, a good well, and a first class pumping plant.

In 1910, also, Mr. Lacahanne took out his last papers, and now as an American citizen, and a patriotic Republican, he seeks to do his civic duty in every respect. He lives on the Talbert Road, a finely-paved county thoroughfare, and in his well-kept ranch has something to display as the evidence of a life of intelligent industry.

HERMAN F. RUTSCHOW .- Born in Ganschendorf, Pomerania, Germany, on September 5, 1868, Herman F. Rutschow was reared there until in his fourteenth year. On April 5, 1882, he emigrated with his parents, Carl and Wilhelmina Rutschow, to the United States and located at Alma, Buffalo County, Wis. Here Carl Rutschow engaged in railroading for a time until he entered the employ of the brewery in Alma, where he became brewmaster. In 1898 he removed to Seattle, Wash., and was brewmaster for Heinrich Bros. Brewery until he was retired on a pension; he died in Seattle in 1917, while his wife had preceded him, dying in 1904. Of their seven living children Herman F. is the second oldest and received a good education in the schools of his old home town and was confirmed just before he left for Wisconsin, where he continued his education.

When eighteen, Mr. Rutschow began to learn the brewer's trade and on com- pleting it in 1892 he migrated to Washington where he was foreman of the bottling department for the Bay View Brewing Company at Pt. Townsend; thence to Vancouver, B. C., where he filled the same position in the Red Cross Brewery for one year, then he returned to Seattle and was employed in the Rainier Brewery owned by Heinrich Bros. (one of them, Alvin Heinrich, was Mr. Rutschow's brother-in-law). He continued with them as a brewer for many years and during this time took a course in Wilson's Business College in Seattle. After many years in the above responsible position he resigned and engaged in business on his own account in Seattle for five years. He built a brewery in Aberdeen, which he called Gray's Harbor Brewery and Malting Company and later sold it to Alvin Heinrich and then purchased another brewery, which he managed for eighteen months, then sold It at a good profit. Next he took a trip to Calgary, Canada, where he took up a farm of 320 acres of land, but the promised government loan failed to materialize so he gave it up six months later and returned to Seattle and became foreman of the bottling department for the Aberdeen Brewing Com- pany, a position he filled very ably for a period of seven years when the state of Washington went dry. He then ran a stage between Montesano and Aberdeen for eighteen months, then was employed in the shipyards at Aberdeen for six months. After this he came to San Francisco, Cal., where he was employed three months with Chas. Bach and Company.

In 1917 he came to Anaheim as brewer for the Anaheim Brewing Company and one year later was made brewmaster, a position he filled till September, 1919, when he resigned to take the agency of the E. & A. Extract manufactured by the North Coast Products Company of Aberdeen, Wash., and is representing them in the ten counties of Southern California, having established local agencies in most of the towns, his headquarters being at 118 North Thalia Street, Anaheim.

Mr. Rutschow was married in Seattle when he was united with Miss Margaret Antonia Koch, who was born in Zittau, Saxony, Germany, and they have one child, Frederick, who is now learning the automobile machinist's trade in a city near Zittau, Germany. Mr. Rutschow is enterprising and progressive and is always willing to do his share toward aiding enterprises that have for their aim the building up of the community in which he lives.

St. F. Rutschau

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JOSHUA O. PYLE .- Ability and industry, combined with a good practical head for business, are among the qualities that have brought success in life to J. O. Pyle, rancher near Smeltzer, and an able machinist as well as an agriculturist.

Mr. Pyle, a young man of striking personality, was born in Washington County, Pa., December 5, 1880. His parents, William Wesley, and Laura (Scott) Pyle, pioneer farmers of that section of country, were natives of Pennsylvania and Jowa, respectively. The father died in 1905 and the mother in 1910. Mr. Pyle's uncle, Joshua J. Pyle, is a well-to-do pioneer rancher of the Westminster precinct of Orange County, and the youngest and only surviving member of a family of three brothers and three sisters.

Joshua O. Pyle comes of an historic and long-lived family. His paternal great- great-grandfather on the maternal side, William Lyons, attained the advanced age of ninety. His great-grandfather, and great-grandmother, who was a cousin of General Robert E. Lee of Civil War fame, each lived to be eighty-four years old. His grand- father, William Pyle, who in early life followed the occupation of a carpenter and later the occupation of tilling the soil in western Pennsylvania, lived to be seventy-seven years old, and was a member of the Home Guard and captain of the Black Horse Cavalry Company.

Joshua O. first started in life as a machinist. He was fireman on the Pennsyl- vania Railroad for two and a half years, and afterwards a locomotive engineer for one year. In 1906, at the age of twenty-six, he went to Alberta, Canada, and engaged in running a steam plow and threshing outfit. Three years later, in 1909, he came to California, and worked for a time for the old California sugar factory, finally settling at Smeltzer. He holds a lease on eighty acres of land owned by the Anaheim Sugar Company, the forty acres on which he lives, and another forty acres north of Smeltzer. Twenty-five acres of the land is planted to sugar beets, and he will plant the remainder largely to lima beans. He planted sixteen acres of land to oranges in the Garden Grove district, which he disposed of to good advantage.

In 1910 Mr. Pyle was united in marriage with Miss Minnie Keseman, a native daughter of San Bernardino County, Cal. . Politically Mr. Pyle casts his vote with the Republican party. Fraternally he is a member of the Huntington Beach Lodge No. 380, F. & A. M., of which he is past master; belongs to Santa Ana Chapter No. 73, R. A. M., Santa Ana Council No. 14. R. & S. M., and to Santa Ana Commandery No. 36, Knight Templars and Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Los Angeles, and is held in high esteem by his brother Masons. He and his wife are members of the Order of Eastern Star, of which she is past matron and he is past patron. Generous and hos- pitable, Mr. and Mrs. Pyle are justly popular among their friends and neighbors.

ARTHUR A. SCHNITGER .- A thoroughly practical agriculturist who has been able to transform rough grain fields into beautiful gardens and orchards, and to create one of the finest ranches in his neighborhood, is Arthur A. Schnitger, proprietor of twenty choice acres on Euclid Avenue, one mile north of Garden Grove. He was born at Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis., on April 13, 1879, the youngest son in a family of nine children, including two brothers and six sisters. His father was Adolph F. Schnitger, who came here from Watertown in 1892, and bought the forty acres known as the Langenberger Place. It was planted to a vineyard, and fenced around with lattice-but the vineyard died out, and Mr. Schnitger turned it into an alfalfa ranch. He became well and favorably known in and around Anaheim and Garden Grove as a man in every way of sterling worth; and when he died, in 1913 at the age of sixty-six, he was widely mourned. Mrs. Schnitger was Caroline Hager before her marriage, and she is still living at Anaheim. Mary, the eldest child, married the Rev. J. Schneider, and now resides at Oakland; Edwin expects to remove from Watertown to California; William E. is the president of the Garden Grove Walnut Growers Association; Lydia is the wife of Martin Fisher of Anaheim; Arthur Albert is the subject of this sketch. Pauline became the wife of H. C. Meiser, orange grower and nurseryman at Fuller- ton: Ella died at the age of eleven; Esther, a seamstress, shares the home life of her mother at Anaheim; and Hattie, who married Henry G. Carl, resides at Salem, Ore.

Arthur Schnitger attended the district schools in Jefferson County, Wis., and continued his studies at Garden Grove, where he was graduated from the grammar school. In 1906 he bought the twenty acres he has so handsomely developed-an unattractive stretch of grain land, with not a tree upon it; now he has fourteen and a half acres set out to Valencia oranges, five acres planted to walnuts, and maintains a very good family orchard and vegetable garden. He has a fine well 149 feet deep, with a fifty-foot lift, driven by a powerful electric dynamo. His ranch has already reached the horseless stage, where a touring car and a Cleveland tractor do it all, and there is not a horse to be seen. He has also a good blacksmith and machine shop on his place, and there he does nearly everything needed in the mechanical line. 48

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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 143

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