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 43

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 43

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Of the seven children of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar F. Heartwell all; were born in New York and six of them are living. C. D. Heartwell, the third in order of birth, passed his early years in the locality in which he was born. He attended the public schools and later took a commercial course at a business college at Auburn, N. Y. Hel then took up railroad work, entering the service as a passenger conductor on the Northern Central branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, afterwards being identified with the railway mail service on the Syracuse, Geneva and Corning Railroad. In 1882, while engaged in this work, he was severely injured in a collision, so that for a time his life was despaired of, and for five years he was an invalid. In 1887, Mr. Heartwell went to Hastings, Neb., and with his brother, J. B. Heartwell, organized the Nebraska Loan and Trust Company.

In 1904 Mr. Heartwell came to Huntington Beach and started on his work of development that has done much for the town. At that time the Pacific Electric Rail- way had not begun its service there. With his brothers, J. B. Heartwell and J. F. Heartwell, and J. M. Edgar, he organized the Union Investment Company and built for their office the frame building where the U. S. Restaurant now stands; he was president of the company and Mr. Edgar was its secretary. Soon thereafter J. B. Heartwell organized the First National Bank of Huntington Beach and they leased the Union Investment Company's building on Main Street, the company then building a smaller office south of Main Street on Ocean Avenue, and here Mr. Heartwell has been located ever since, being the oldest realty dealer or business man, in point of continuous business, in Huntington Beach. The lands belonging to the Union Invest- ment Company have all been disposed of and the affairs of the company wound up, but Mr. Heartwell still continues a thriving real estate, loan and fire insurance business.

Mr. Heartwell's first marriage, which was solemnized in Buffalo, N. Y., united him with Miss Emma Schermerhorn, who died a few years later at Geneva, N. Y., leaving two children; Julia M., the widow of E. L. Payne, resides with her father and is secretary to the superintendent of the Huntington Beach High School; Emmeline S. is the wife of E. A. Neilson of Huntington Beach. Mr. Heartwell's second marriage took place in Nebraska, where he was married to Miss Georgiana Dennison.

EDWIN BAILEY FOOTE .- With few or no exceptions, the Footes in America descended from either Nathaniel Foote, of Colchester, England, who came to Water- town, Mass., about 1630, or Pasco Foote, who settled in Salem, Mass., soon after, or Richard Foote, of Cornwall, England, and later of Stafford County, Va. That the first two were nearly related, if not brothers, there can be little doubt. According to one tradition, the far-away ancestors of these migrating worthies lived near the base or foot of a mountain in England, at the time when surnames were adopted, and they called themselves Foote, Fotte or Foot. However that may be, our subject's family tree throws its branches back to Nathaniel Foote, the settler of Colchester, Conn., doubtless related to William Henry Foote, the clergyman, who was born at Colchester in 1794. Other early and distinguished Footes are Arthur William Foote, the musician, of Salem; Elial Todd Foote, the physician, of Gil, Mass .; Elisha Foote, the commissioner of patents, of Lee, Mass .; Samuel Augustus Foote, the senator, born in Cheshire, Conn .; Andrew Hull Foote, his son, the naval officer, who was born at New Haven, Conn .; Henry Wilder Foote, the clergyman, also born at Salem, and Henry Stuart Foote, the senator, born in Virginia. There are no less than eleven branches of the Foote family in America at the present time, and Edwin Bailey Foote is the grandson of William Foote, a farmer of Stanford, N. Y., and the son of Henry B. Foote, himself the second son, in a family of eight children. He had mar- ried Miss Lucretia Eels, of Walton, N. Y., the daughter of Horace and Eliza Eels,

DC Pixley

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steady-going farmer folk, and the ceremony took place on January 30, 1856. They took up their home at Stanford, and there reared their family.

The eldest son, and one of three still surviving, Edwin Bailey Foote was born on February 6, 1857, and grew up on his father's' farm of 126 acres. He attended the district school, and helped to care for the milk and the butter which were marketed in New York City. When he was twenty-five years of age, he started westward, and for a year farmed in Michigan, then for a year in Ohio, and finally worked for a year on a farm at Manhattan, Kans.

An uncle, Horace Eels, had come west to Garden Grove, Cal., on November 18, 1887, and liked what he saw; and the same year Mr. Foote followed to the Golden State. He took up carpentering, and for five years worked at that trade. In 1890 Mr. Foote married Sarah Elizabeth Ross, and as Mrs. Foote was a member of the highly- honored pioneer family of Josiah Ross, the first to settle at Santa Ana, he found no difficulty in making valuable connections, and in getting all the work he could do.

In 1892 he took up ranching for the first time, although he had helped on a farm in Orange County three years before. Three years later he became a pioneer of Laguna Beach. He has acquired city property, and shown his interest in public affairs by serving as a trustee on the Laguna school board. He also owns various ranch properties in Garden Grove and El Toro. He is not a politician, but a liberal- minded, patriotic citizen, proud, to begin with, of his own family of three children- Hugh, and the twins, Harry and Hazel; the first-born died Nov. 23, 1917. He tries to live a simple, Christian life, and is never ashamed of the fact that he is a hard worker.

DE WITT CLINTON PIXLEY .- A prominent financier of California, whose deep interest in the welfare and sound and permanent development of Orange County would naturally entitle him to the good will of those who undeniably admire his meth- ods leading to success, is De Witt Clinton Pixley, who came to Orange County in the early eighties. He was born in Ingraham, Clay County, 111., in 1857, the son of Osman Pixley, the merchant and banker, who was a native of Edwards County, Ill., and a member of a family traceable to Liverpool, England. They migrated to Boston, Mass., and in time came to be early settlers of Illinois, in which state they established themselves when there were block houses near old Fort Vincennes, and Illinois was a territory. Osman Pixley, as seems to have been the Pixley habit, made a real success of all he undertook in business at Ingraham, as well as in banking at Flora, Ill., where he was president of the First National Bank of Flora for twenty-seven years. He continued actively in business until his death, at an advanced age. His good wife was Frances Wood before her marriage, and she was a native of Illinois, and spent her last days in Clay County. They had three children who grew up: De Witt Clinton, the subject of our sketch; Harvey F., now president of the First National Bank in Flora, Ill., and Arthur H., a member of the Chicago Board of Trade.

De Witt Clinton was educated at the public schools of his district and at Eureka College in Illinois, from which he graduated in 1878, with the Bachelor of Arts degree, after which he engaged in the mercantile business for a couple of years in Southern Illinois. But, desiring a milder climate, he came west to California in 1881 and located on a ranch at Orange.

In the spring of 1882 he bought the general merchandise store of R. L. Crowder in Orange, who was one of the pioneer merchants in town. It was where the Campbell Block now stands, at the corner of the Plaza and Glassell Street, and was in a small frame building. Three years later, Mr. Pixley purchased a lot on North Glassell Street, built a brick block, and engaged in general merchandising in what was for that time, at that place, the largest concern of the kind. Later, he sold the grocery and the dry- goods departments, and continued in the hardware and implement, and also the furni- ture business, which in time also grew into large proportions. About 1909 he sold the furniture business to his son, W. C. Pixley, who now runs it as the Pixley Furniture Company, and the hardware trade to the Kogler Hardware Company.

Mr. Pixley had early become interested in various enterprises of vital importance to the building up of the town, and was, for example, an original stockholder and a director in the National Bank of Orange; and he has been president of that bank for the past seven years. He was also president, and is still a director of the Orange Savings Bank, which has grown to have nearly $800,000 assets. He was prominent in the reorganization of the Orange Building and Loan Association, and was its presi- dent for twenty-two years, or until he resigned in 1919. He saw this institution grow from assets of less than $20.000 to over $800.000. He was the most prominent factor in building up the Olive Milling Company, and his management and financing was such that it was brought to such success it never failed to pay a semi-annual divi-

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dend. He served as its president for ten years, until it was sold, in the fall of 1919, to the Central Milling Company of Los Angeles.

Mr. Pixley has for many years been a director and vice-president of the Abstract & Title Guarantee Company of Santa Ana, having been interested in the company from its organization as a stock company, and he is also a director of the Fidelity Savings and Loan Association of Los Angeles. He built and owns the Pixley Furniture Store block on North Glassell Street, as well as other valuable property here, and property of worth in Los Angeles and San Diego, and owns a stock ranch in the Santiago Canyon, as well as one in the Laguna hills.

About sixteen years ago, Mr. Pixley was supervisor of Orange County from the Fourth district for a term, and then, although pressed by friends to continue in the public service, declined further honors in that line. Yet he has never failed to take a leading part in good roads movements, and was chairman of the highway commission of the county, and had a very honorable share in providing, at a generous expenditure of $1,270,000, the excellent Orange County highways, permanent in their construction and well serving the detailed districts of the locality, enjoyed by the public today.

At Ingraham, Ill., Mr. Pixley was married to Miss Florence M. Boring, a native of Illinois, and a sister of J. P. Boring, the well-known pioneer of Orange. Five children have blessed the union. Walter C. is at the head of the Pixley Furniture Company; Osman is secretary of the Orange Building and Loan Association; Frances, the wife of J. R. Fletcher, a prominent citrus grower of El Modena; Florence is the wife of J. G. Marks, a merchant in Los Angeles; Alma is the wife of Argus Dean, a horticulturist at Nuevo, Riverside County. Mr. and Mrs. Pixley are charter members of the Christian Church in Orange, where for many years he was a deacon, and was also active in Sunday School work.

Mr. Pixley was made a Mason in Orange Grove Lodge, No. 293, F. & A. M., and was exalted in Santa Ana Chapter, R. A. M., but is now a charter member of Orange Grove Chapter, No. 99, R. A. M. He was knighted in Santa Ana Commandery of the Knights Templar, and he is a member of Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Los Angeles. In 1916 Mr. Pixley took an ocean voyage to Australia, including the South Sea Islands, and four years later he repeated the delightful maritime adventure.

STEPHEN KISTLER .- An example of well-directed industry conducing to suc- 'ess, is found in the business career of Stephen Kistler, the wealthy retired baker and landowner of Anaheim. He was born June 25, 1863, in Strassburg, Alsace-Lorraine, under the French Flag. After the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, this historic and pic- turesque territory, by the Treaty of Versailles, became a part of the German Empire. Stephen Kistler was, therefore, educated in the German schools of his native land.

When school days were over, Stephen learned the trade of a baker, serving an apprenticeship of three years, after which he followed the business of a baker for several years in Strassburg. Possessed of a desire to see more of the world and to seek his fortune in America, he emigrated to the United States in 1888, with his cousin, landing at New Orleans. During the same year he journeyed still farther westward until he reached Los Angeles, Cal., where he secured employment in Louis Ebinger's bakery, at the corner of Spring and Third streets, as a candy maker, remaining there three years. During one summer season Mr. Kistler was engaged as the baker for the Redondo Hotel, Redondo Beach; this was during the opening season of the new and popular hotel of that day.

In 1891 Mr. Kistler came to Anaheim, where he purchased the Anaheim bakery on North Los Angeles Street and continued to operate it until 1896, when he built a bakery of his own on the corner of East Central and Claudina streets. For three years, in connection with his bakery, he conducted a restaurant which was known far and wide as the best place in Anaheim and it attracted patrons from many sections of the county miles away and traveling salesmen from the East always stopped there. He also conducted an ice cream parlor and installed the first soda fountain in Anaheim. As an example of his progressive business spirit mention is made of the fact that Mr. Kistler installed the first electric light, for business purposes, in Anaheim, having them in use in his old bakery on North Los Angeles Street; and also was the first baker here to use an oil burner. Thrift and frugality are strong characteristics of Stephen Kistler. whose early practice of them has brought him abundant financial success. As his busi- ness prospered he saved his money and wisely invested in land. In 1910 he purchased five and three-quarters acres of land one mile south of Anaheim at $150 an acre; planted it to oranges and after developing the place, sold it at the end of nine years for $4,000 an acre.

In 1913 he disposed of his bakery business on East Center Street, but still owns the building. In 1917 he erected a modern two-story brick building adjoining his property on East Center Street; the upper floor is occupied by the Knights of Columbus

Prichard Egam

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Hall. At 110 North Claudina Street he built a substantial residence, then in 1919, he bought five acres of oranges and a house on East Center Street, one mile from the center of town, where he now lives retired from active business cares, as the result of thrift and industry, coupled with judicious management and keen business judgment. Mr. Kistler is a public-spirited citizen and has always freely given his aid and support to those movements which had as their aim the benefit of the best interests of Anaheim and Orange County.

In Los Angeles, August 1, 1891, Mr. Kistler was united in marriage with Caroline Kaiser, a native of Basle, Switzerland, a daughter of Ignacio Kaiser, the pioneer land- scape gardener and expert grafter and pruner who was active in vineyard work in the early days of Anaheim and Orange. Mary Kaiser, a sister of Mrs. Kistler, has made her home with them since they came to Anaheim. Mr. Kistler is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Turnverein Society and the Catholic Church.

RICHARD EGAN .- A truly distinguished citizen of San Juan Capistrano is Richard Egan, popular as "Judge Dick," who was born in County Waterford, Ireland, in 1842, and who came to the United States when he was about ten years of age and lived with an uncle on Long Island. He attended the public schools, caught the spirit of the New World, and when about twenty-three years of age, sailed around Cape Horn to San Francisco. He remained there for a year and a half, and then returned East; and in 1866 went to Europe and took in the Exposition at Paris.

On his return to California, he again met a gentleman whom he had come to know in Paris, a Mr. McCowen, who proposed to take up some land, from the Govern- ment if possible, to which young Egan assented. Mr. McCowen agreed to sail alone to San Diego, buy a horse, travel in the saddle toward the north or until he found what seemed most attractive, and then return to San Francisco, to report to Mr. Egan, when the two were to go South together, look over the prospective purchase, and make their final decision. In time, they arrived at Wilmington Harbor, from which place they traveled by stage to Los Angeles, and then to San Juan Capistrano, whose location had seemed to McCowen quite ideal. A square league of this public land was then open to settlement, at $1.25 per acre; and they lost no time in acquiring title to some of the land promising soon to flow with milk and honey. At the Mission they found a settlement of about 2,200 Mexicans and Indians, only three of whom could speak English.

Now Judge Egan owns 600 of the acres he originally acquired, and lives in a well-built brick house on Central Avenue, a part of the State Highway running through San Juan Capistrano. He himself set out several walnut groves; he rents out his land, and the tenants give him one-fourth of the produce and one-half of the walnuts. He has the finest row of Lombardy poplar trees in Southern California, some of which at the bottom are seven feet in diameter. He also has a number of giant eucalyptus trees set out by his own hands, and his well-kept lawns show that he has an eye for the artistic, and that he especially appreciates shrubs, flowers and canes of Japanese propagation.

Both a public-spirited man and a leader of wide and valuable business experi- ence, Mr. Egan served for four years as supervisor of Los Angeles County prior to 1889. He never sought the office, but the office sought and found him. Indeed, he has been repeatedly called upon to assume public trust, and never has he been found wanting. With James McFadden, for example, and a Los Angeles man he served on the commission appointed to adjust disputed questions between the counties of Los Angeles and Orange at the time of county division and he has always been ready to serve his own community. He held the office of justice of the peace for many years, during which time he rejected all fees for his services and devoted the fines imposed to the alleviation of the poor in that locality. He himself paid out money for the same cause, and in that way prevented any burden to the taxpayers. He did valiant work for the Santa Fe Railway in securing rights of way that they might build their road, which was the first great boost for Orange County as well as all Southern California. He was one of the commissioners along with D. C. Pixley and M. M. Crookshank appointed by the supervisors to look after the construction of the present svstem of Orange County public highways, in which he took an active part in the disbursement of the $1,270,000 bond issue that had been voted for that purpose. The splendid highways and good roads of Orange County, the pride of the citizens, as well as thousands of tourists, reflect great credit to the hard work and integrity of the commission. He also worked hard for good and still better highways.

A courteous, genial and well-read gentleman. Judge Egan has a well-stored mind and a fund of interesting things he is ever ready to dispense to others when they evince any wish to hear what he has learned and experienced. He is a member of the Southern California Historical Society, and kept valuable records and acquired

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many relics; but in 1898 his house was burned and nearly all his collections were destroyed-a great loss to the would-be historian of the section. Since then he has gathered together other relics, largely from and before the period of the Mexican War; and among other things of curious interest is a baptismal font hewn by Indians out of a solid block of granite, and a massive, beautiful chair, made in Spain and used by the Archbishop of Mexico.

OWEN HANDY .- A pioneer in California whose years of prosperity, crowning years of hard work, have made him public-spirited and confident, is Owen Handy, who was born in Boone County, Ill., on February 24, 1841, the son of John Handy, a farmer who helped develop early Wisconsin and died in 1850, honored by all who knew him. His wife was Celinda Shattuck before her marriage, and she was a native of the Empire State. She enjoyed the esteem of a large circle of appreciative friends, and bade goodbye to this world while a resident of Illinois, in 1864. Our subject is the only one of this family to survive.

The ordinary country schools in his district furnished his early education, and in time he became manager for his mother of her forty acres near Belvidere, I11. In 1866 he left Illinois bound for Oil Creek, Venango County, Pa., and there, as engineer, he became an employee of the Noble Well Company. From March, 1866, to August, 1874, he was a driller and a dresser of tools for a brother-in-law, who was a contracting driller; but in 1874 he removed to Nevada, Story County, Iowa, and there he purchased 160 acres of land, on which he raised corn, wheat, rye and stock. In Iowa he remained until 1881, and by that time no part of the earth appealed to him so strongly as did the great commonwealth along the milder Pacific.

As early as October, 1870, Mr. Handy had made a visit to Anaheim, Cal., and hoping that times and conditions were better than when he then found them here, he brought his wife and family here in the early eighties, arriving again at Anaheim on March 25, 1881. He then secured a position as manager for Messrs. Hellman and Good- man, who owned some eighty acres of oranges and lemons and limes, and wished to bring it to a high state of development. These gentlemen believed that they found in Mr. Handy, a man out of the ordinary, and he must have "made good," for he was with them for twelve or thirteen years.

In 1882, Mr. Handy bought for himself some thirty acres in Villa Park, and in 1898, ten acres on what is now Handy Street, later named in his honor, and he spent a great deal of time, labor and thought in developing these properties. He came to understand thoroughly the conditions peculiar to Orange County, and was accus- tomed to trim his sails to the local winds.

On July 2, 1865, Mr. Handy was married to Miss Mary A. Parker, born in Buffalo, N. Y., but living near Marengo, Ill., and they have had the blessing of four children: Celinda J., born May 12, 1866, wife of J. L. Conley of Yorba Linda; Harry B., born September 1, 1878, both of whom were born in the Middle West; and Joell B., born December 5, 1881, and Robert Ray, on April 13, 1884, native sons of California. There are seven grandchildren in the Handy families. While in Orange, Mr. Handy served for a year on the board of aldermen. He retired to Long Beach in January, 1913, and in August moved to San Pedro, and there built for himself a handsome residence at 1016 Santa Cruz Street. He makes weekly trips to Villa Park, and so keeps in touch with both his relatives and those business investments in which he so long had an interest. Both Mr. and Mrs. Handy are members of the Maccabees, where he has gone through all the chairs.

In national politics Mr. Handy is a Republican, and under the banners of that long-established party, he seeks to elevate the standards of citizenship and to increase the highest and purest types of American patriotism. But he knows no partisanship when it comes to "boosting" local movements worthy of support, and is intensely loyal to both Villa Park and San Pedro, the later town of his adoption.

WM. L. BENCHLEY .- As president and owner of the Benchley Fruit Company, W. L. Benchley has taken his place as one of Fullerton's progressive business men and is identified with every movement for the betterment of its civic and commercial inter- ests. A native son of California, Mr. Benchley's entire life has been spent within its borders and so he has been familiar from his earliest childhood with all the details of the citrus industry to which he has devoted his time and efforts for a number of years.

W. L. Benchley was born at Ventura, Cal., on December 16, 1880, his parents being Edward K. and Emma (Wagner) Benchley. The early years of his life were spent at Los Angeles, the family removing to Fullerton in 1893, and here W. L. Benchley re- ceived his education in the grammar and high schools, supplemented with a two years' course of private study. He then became associated in the Benchley Fruit Company as a partner with his father and in 1911 he bought out his father's interests, since that time conducting the business of the company alone, and through his foresight and

Owen Handy

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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 43

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