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 50

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 50

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In 1863, Mr. Magill enlisted in Battery C of the First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery, and was stationed for a while at Fort Wood, near Missionary Ridge. There, in 1864, he was taken ill, and at Madison. Wis., he was honorably discharged, being mustered out at Nashville, Tenn., on September 21, 1865.

Twenty years later, in Kansas, he was married to Miss Matilda Brady, a daughter of the late Peter Brady, who died at Garden Grove on February 11, 1920. In 1869, Mr. Magill and his father and family moved from Wisconsin to Kansas, and settled in Wilson County, where he pre-empted a tract of 160 acres and bought forty acres of school land. Two children were born in Kansas-Dwight E. Magill, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work, and Dr. Peryl B. Magill, who lives at home.

Cyrus Newton Magill came with his wife and their two children from Kansas to California in March, 1889, and for the first year lived at Santa Ana. Then he bought his present twenty acres, and there reared his family. Two more children have been born here. James Magill first saw the light on August 24, 1892, and after attending the public schools at Garden Grove, grew up on his father's ranch. On March 8, 1918, he enlisted in the aviation school at San Diego and trained at Rockwell Field, with' a Curtis plane, showing such proficiency that he was favored with three promotions. He was never in an accident, and was honorably discharged on November 30, 1919. Now he is a charter member of the Santa Ana Post of the American Legion. Julia M., the fourth child, is at home. Mrs. Magill, lamented by all who knew her, died on September 7, 1901. In 1907 Mr. Magill erected a fine cement-block dwelling house on his ranch property.

The family attend the Presbyterian Church, and are active in good works for the benefit of the community. As a patriotic Civil War veteran Mr. Magill is a member of Sedgwick Post No. 17, G. A. R., at Santa Ana, and he has done civic duty by serving on juries.

WILLIAM COCHEMS .- A hard-working, successful business man of Santa Ana, who thoroughly understands the problems of his field, and who feels that he also so well understands Santa Ana and Orange County, and their problems and prospects, that he is in perfect harmony with his environment, is William Cochems, the wide-awake owner and director of the popular Vienna Bakery and Confectionery establishment at 210 East Fourth Street, Santa Ana, and residing at 640 French Street, where his revered mother presides over his household. For twenty years he has devoted on an average not less than eighteen hours a day to his business interests; and it has been this careful attention to details, cver anticipating the wants of his ever- increasing patrons, that has enabled him to "win out" despite high-cost times.

He was born at Chicago on June 22, 1879, the son of Joseph and Gertrude (Stoltz) Cochems, with whom he came to California and Los Angeles in the late eighties. In 1905 his father settled at Orange and there started, with W. W. Ward, what is still known as Ward's Bakery, although it was then called Cochems & Ward's Bakery. His father had come to Los Angeles in 1886; and his mother-who is still living with our subject-followed, bringing her three sons and daughters. Joseph Cochems had learned his trade in Germany, and so had no difficulty in giving satisfaction to the public when he opened a bakery in Chicago. On coming to California he opened a bake-shop first at Los Angeles, and later came to Orange.

J. A. Lume

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

Having learned the art of baking from his father, William Cochems started out as a journeyman baker, and worked in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Sacramento, as well as San Diego; and held positions as baker at the celebrated Hotel del Coronado and also at the Raymond at Pasadena. Only when he was satisfied that he had mastered the ins and outs of the trade did he set up for himself.

As a starter, he bought out H. L. Smith, in 1901, and took charge of his bakery at 309 North Main Street, in Santa Ana. Three years later he removed to 210 East Fourth Street, and here he has been ever since. He has a full, sanitary equipment for his bakery, and produces nothing but the purest of pure food, from the best of wheat flour, eggs, sugar, milk and spices. He uses no substitutes-dried eggs or evaporated milk. Indeed, in 1913 he expended $10,000 in refitting, remodeling and refurnishing his place, and among other things then installed was his elaborate soda fountain. He also has one of the best-arranged, cosy and elegant lunch rooms, ice-cream parlors and confectioneries. He bakes the Butter Top-the best of wheat breads-French, Graham, whole wheat and rye bread, and also a complete line of cakes. He mannfactures his own ice cream, from pure cream, his watchword being, "Not how cheap, but how good." He employs five people, and they, as well as himself, are always busy. His ice cream being of the high quality described, he makes it only for the retail trade. No wonder, then, that everybody goes to the "Vienna," and that everybody comes away satisfied.

Having started in Santa Ana in business for himself with just one week's wages as his capital, and worked hard and practiced the Golden Rule, Mr. Cochems finds himself today the proprietor of one of the best business establishments in Orange County, and a small stockholder in the First National Bank, as well as in the new Santa Ana Hotel. He also has a life membership in the Elks.

JAMES ANDREW TURNER .- Associated for nearly a third of a century with the business interests of Santa Ana, a man of widest influence, the sudden demise of James A. Turner on October 8, 1919, came as a great shock to his family and wide circle of friends. Born in Audrain County, Mo., October 27, 1848, Mr. Turner was the son of Andrew and Mary (Harris) Turner, both natives of Kentucky, and as a young married couple they settled in Missouri. His early education was received in the rural schools of the locality, but, when the Civil War broke out, like other boys of his age he had to go to work on the farm to help fill the place of the men who were away fighting for their country. At the age of eighteen he was married to Sarah Riggs, and two sons were born to them, Benjamin E., who died in May, 1919, in Santa Ana; and Henry Ola, who died in infancy, Mrs. Turner passing away in 1873.

Locating in Sturgeon, Mo., Mr. Turner engaged in the dry goods business with Maj. John F. Rucker, and later with his nephew, P. Henry Turner, in the hardware business. In June, 1887, he came to California with his family and in Jannary, 1888. settled in Santa Ana, being associated in the shoe business with P. H. Turner who came to California about the same time, continuing in that line until he became cashier of the First National Bank of Santa Ana, holding that office for nine years. In December, 1905, he organized the Farmers and Merchants National Bank, acting as its cashier. The bank prospered greatly under his management and a few years later absorbed the Commercial Bank of Santa Ana. In February, 1919, the Farmers and Merchants Bank merged with the First National Bank and after that time Mr. Turner gave his time to the interests of the Farmers and Merchants Savings Bank, the savings department of the First National Bank. On the first of October, 1919. only eight days before his death, he severed active connection with this institution, for the purpose of devoting himself to his ranch interests, owning seventy-two acres in oranges and lemons near Olive, and to get relief from the strain of business life.

On February 12, 1874, Mr. Turner's second marriage occurred when he was united with Miss Alice Rucker, a sister of Maj. John F. Rucker. Of their children, Ellis B. died at the age of twenty; Nannie H. passed away at the age of seventeen months; and Elizabeth is the wife of Thomas L. Inch of Los Angeles; she has one child, Thomas Turner Inch.

In politics Mr. Turner was active in the ranks of the Democratic party. He was a Mason and an Elk and attended the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. A man of fine character and high ideals, he was always a leader in the affairs of the com- munity; his interests in its various enterprises were wide, but it perhaps was as a banker that he was best known. He knew Orange County like a book, he knew lands, he knew men, and in his knowledge of men came his greatest realm of useful- ness as a banker; and there are today in the vicinity of Santa Ana many men whose present financial prosperity is due to the encouragement and advice and backing they received from him.

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

AARON BUCHHEIM .- A remarkably successful rancher whose attainments and prosperity are all the more striking because he began life under the necessity for con- stant work from the time he was a boy of seven years, is Aaron Buchheim, who owns the site of Serra, formerly called San Juan-by-the-Sea, an ideal mountain town on the Pacific Ocean, situated where the State Highway strikes the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego. He was born at Sauk Center, Stearns County, Minn., on April 30, 1870, the son of Frank S. Buchheim, who had married Caroline Zymon. When eleven years old, he came with his parents to California, arriving here on October 11, 1881, and in 1904 his father died at Santa Ana, the mother also passing away here on January 20, 1915.

Aaron Buchheim began life doing farm work, and the hardest kind of farm work, at that; he helped take care of the straw at the tail end of the old-time grain threshing machine as early as 1878, and did his part faithfully, little dreaming that one day he would undertake the most extensive threshing operations of any person in Orange County. When he came to California and lost his father, he resolved to be a help to his mother, his family and his friends; he began as a farm hand on a ranch and he has thus come to sympathize with the laboring man, and to feel a pride in caring for all who labor for him.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank S. Buchheim were the parents of twelve children: The eldest, Lydia, now Mrs. Hemenway, resides at El Toro, where she operates one of the O'Neill ranches in partnership with her brother Aaron; Aaron was the second in order of birth; John is a beet grower near Garden Grove; Jacob is a rancher at Downey; Henry Wil- liam, the fifth in the order of birth, is ranching both in the San Juan Capistrano district and in Ventura County; Emma is deceased; Josie is Mrs. Van Whisler, the wife of a rancher at El Toro; Paul assists his brother Aaron and also is interested in orange and walnut growing with him in Ventura County; Frank is married and resides at the old Buchheim place on East Seventeenth Street, Santa Ana; Fred passed away at the age of thirty, in Santa Ana, leaving a son, Carl, and a widow, the present Mrs. Aaron Buchheim; Emil, who also works for his brother Aaron, has an honorable discharge from the army, having served in the light artillery, Sunset Division, and served over- seas as first gunner on a French "75." Minnie, who married Henry Hoeffner, resides in Nebraska.

Mr. Buchheim's cozy home is ably presided over by his wife, who was Miss Alice Hasenyager before her marriage, a lady of many accomplishments, who was reared in an atmosphere of culture and refinement. Born at Fall City, Richardson County, Nebr., her father was John Hasenyager, a native of Tecumseh, Pawnee County, Nebr., whose parents were among the first settlers of eastern Nebraska and pioneer farmers of that section. Her mother, Anna Dietrich in maidenhood, was born near Fall City, Nebr., and Grandfather Dietrich was a prominent farmer in Richardson County, Nebr., until 1906, when he and his wife located on an orange ranch on Grand Avenue, Santa Ana. He passed away in April, 1918, and his widow still makes her home there. John Hasenyager brought his family to Santa Ana in 1909, and he has ever since been engaged in walnut growing on Grand Avenue.

Operating some 2,500 acres besides his own land, Mr. Buchheim employs the latest machinery and methods in scientific farming, using two gigantic threshing machines drawn by a mighty seventy-five horsepower Holt caterpillar tractor, which also pro- vides the motive power. One is a grain thresher and the other a bean thresher and both were built by himself, showing his remarkable genins and adaptability as an inventor. The bean thresher-without doubt the largest in Southern California-was constructed on his home place in 1916, from plans of his own and is a model of effi- ciency. When operating at full capacity it turns out six sacks of lima beans a minute. requiring three sack sowers, and has attracted widespread attention for its success, having been commented on so favorably that representatives from large threshing- machine manufacturers have called to see it at work and get new ideas. It is necessary for him to have a very large threshing outfit since he handles the beans from the fields and thus has to haul them to the machine, which requires twenty teams and wagons and a complement of sixty hands to do the work. His own years of experience and hard work have made him insistent on giving the workmen the best food obtainable and he says "the best is none too good for them." Consequently the whole crew, almost to a man, remain with him the entire threshing season, which takes about three months. This excellency of service requires convenience, so he has designed and con- structed a dining wagon, 11 by 24 feet, with a large steel range in the kitchen, with the necessary equipment of cooking utensils and pantry facilities, as well as separate cooling compartments for meats and vegetables, and the room arranged with adjustable tables having a seating capacity for thirty-six men. Mrs. Buchheim takes an equal

alice Buchheim.

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interest in providing for the farm employees and much of her husband's success is undoubtedly due to her.

For many years Mr. Buchheim was the crop reporter for the Capistrano district for the Department of Agriculture at Washington, and each month would send in a report to the department as to the amount of acreage, condition and estimate of crops. This he did with the strictest regularity until his own business affairs took so much of his time that he could not do other than resign. He was one of the original stock- holders, with James Turner and others, in the formation of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Orange, which recently was consolidated and is now the First National Bank, in which he is a stockholder. He was also an original stockholder of the Citizens Bank until it was consolidated and is now the California National Bank, in which he is one of the stockholders.

Mr. Buchheim has always been interested in sports and particularly in shooting, in which he excels, and has attained an enviable record as a marksman. For many years he was a member of the Santa Ana Rifle Club of the National Rifle Association. At one of the tournaments, shooting a Springfield rifle he won the sharpshooter's medal making nine hits out of ten shells, all shot inside of twenty minutes, and it was the best score made at the tournament.

A leader among farmers and working men, Mr. Buchheim has such clear ideas regarding industry and economics that it is to be hoped that his voice may some day be heard in legislative halls. In looking back over his life Mr. Buchheim sees that while he had hard work when a boy, yet the system, industry and application taught him by his father established with him habits of accuracy and efficiency which he deems the secret of his success, for he finds that no business can thrive and be successful without accuracy and efficiency at the bottom, as its fundamental principle. Mrs. Buchheim is a member of St. Peter's Lutheran Church at Santa Ana and fraternally Mr. Buchheim is popular as a member of Santa Ana Lodge No. 236, I. O. O. F., as well as the Encampment and Canton of the Odd Fellows, and is a life member of the Santa Ana Lodge of Elks. The Buchheim home is on the land owned by the family and is attractively located, surrounded by flower and vegetable gardens. Music, art and liter- ature find a welcome here, and so does discussion of the latest problems of the day.

W. DEAN JOHNSTON .- The president of the Orange County Farm Bureau and an influential and progressive landowner is W. Dean Johnston of Santa Ana, who has for many years occupied a place of prominence in the agricultural development of the county, where he has resided since he was sixteen years old. Mr. Johnston was born June 13, 1871, at Tipton, Iowa, the son of John and Laura (Safley) Johnston, pioneer farmers of Iowa. John Johnston was a native of Campbellsford, Ontario, Canada, and settled in Iowa in 1865, at the age of seventeen. The mother was a native daughter of Iowa, belonging to the first generation of lowa girls, her father, John Safley, having emigrated from Scotland and settled there in 1836, when Iowa was on the extreme frontier beyond the limits of civilization. Mr. Safley is still remembered by the people of Santa Ana, having resided on Ross Street for about four years before his death. Mr. and Mrs. John Johnston and their family left their home at Tipton, Iowa, in 1886, coming directly to Santa Ana, and there Mr. Johnston still lives, retired from active business, his wife having passed away in 1914, at the age of sixty-eight years. There were four children in the Johnston family: Mrs. G. W. Tighe, wife of a citrus grower and banker at Fillmore, Cal .; William Dean, of this review; Mrs. J. E. Snow, wife of a real estate broker of Santa Ana; and John Clifford, an electrician for the Ventura Refining Company at Fillmore, Cal.

W. Dean Johnston received his first schooling at the country schools of their neighborhood in Iowa, and attended the Santa Ana high school for one year after the family removed here. Always energetic, he made up his mind to start in to ranching on his own account, and went to Riverside County, where he followed grain and alfalfa farming for five years, becoming the owner of 100 acres of land, but leased 500 or 600 acres in addition, devoting it largely to the production of barley. In 1906 he returned to Orange County and became interested in ranching in the vicinity of Westminster. He is now the owner of two ranches of eighty acres each, which are devoted to sugar beets; besides this, he rents three other ranches, aggregating 242 acres of land, which includes his father's place of twelve acres immediately north of Santa Ana. Mr. Johnston has grown up in the industry of farming in Southern California, and so is thoroughly conversant with its best and most progressive methods. He still continues to conduct his own farming operations, notwithstanding his many other interests, and is equally at home with an eight-horse team or a caterpillar tractor.

While ranching in Riverside County, Mr. Johnston was married at Elsinore to Miss Olive Yates, born in San Diego County, and the daughter of Lafayette and Mary

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

(Brown) Yates, born, respectively, in Alabama and Kentucky, their marriage occurring in Arkansas. The family located at Elsinore in 1886, and Mr. Yates still makes his home there, being well known, especially in Odd Fellow and Knights of Pythias circles. Before coming to Elsinore he resided in Cajon Valley, San Diego County.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnston are the parents of three children: Adelle, a senior in the Santa Ana high school, Fred and John. After residing for a number of years on their ranch near Westminster, the family moved to Santa Ana in March, 1919, and have established their residence on North Main Street.

Mr. Johnston was prominent in the establishment and organization of the Westminster Drainage District, and for four years served as its president. While living at Westminster he served for a number of years on the board of trustees of the Westminster school district and was president of that board when more land was purchased for school purposes and the excellent two-story brick building was erected. He helped organize the Orange County Farm Bureau and was elected on its first board of directors, serving several terms, and was elected to the presidency in 1919, an office for which he is admirably fitted. He is also vice-president and a member of the board of directors of the Orange County Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Fraternally, Mr. Johnston is very prominent in Masonic circles, being a member of the Blue Lodge at Huntington Beach, and of the Chapter and Commandery at Santa Ana and the Shriners of Los Angeles. In politics he favors the principles of the Republican party, but is essentially broad-minded and liberal in his views, especially in local issues.

WILLIAM WILSON .- A well-posted, experienced rancher who, through his own worth and exertions, has steadily come to the fore, so that now, the owner of a valuable ranch at Smeltzer, his word is as good as his bond, is William Wilson, a pioneer and prosperous lima bean grower. He has been twenty-three years on the James Irvine, or San Joaquin Ranch, and besides the ranch he owns, he leases and operates 232 acres. He was born near Tipton, Monitean County, Mo., on April 1, 1864, and was reared on a farm in Polk County of the same state.

Mr. Wilson's father was Bartlett Elmore Wilson, a farmer who is still living at the age of seventy-seven in Douglas County, Mo., where he is popularly known as Uncle Dudd Wilson. He was born in Tennessee, and was of Scotch-English blood. He had married, in Missouri, Miss Emaline Morris, of Dutch-Irish origin, who was also a native of Tennessee, and she died when our subject was only four and a half months old, wherenpon his father married again. He had eight children by his second wife, six boys and two girls, all of whom are living; and among them is a half-brother of William Wilson, George B. Wilson, the district attorney of Douglas County, Mo. Another half- brother is the Hon. J. B. Wilson, a member of the Arkansas legislature, while still an- other half-brother is Thomas Wilson, living at Holly, Colo. Two half-brothers, Francis, a wheat rancher, and David, a school teacher-live in Montana.

In 1889 William Wilson went to Caldwell, Kans., and was in the rush for Okla- homa; but he did not stay there. Instead, he came ont to the more promising common- wealth, California, arriving in the Golden State in the spring of 1890. He had been married in Missouri, in 1885, to Miss Emma Shepard, a native of Michigan, and he thus had the good fortune to start with the companionship of a wife who has been a genuine helpmate. He lived at Ventura for seven years, during three of which he followed agriculture, while at other times he worked at various other pursuits, and incidentally learned all about growing lima beans.

In October, 1897, Mr. Wilson came south to Orange County; but the following three years proved so dry and disastrous, that he ran behind and got into debt. He did not despair, however, but persevered and finally prospered. Now he owns eighty acres at Smeltzer, irrigated from artesian wells, which his son-in-law rents and farms to lima beans; and he also raises lima beans where James Irvine once thought he could raise nothing but barley, and in a thousand ways demonstrated that he is not afraid of hard work, and plenty of it.

On April 10, 1908, Mrs. Wilson died, the highly-estecmed and lamented mother of four children: Beryl is a farmer at Chatsworth and the husband of Miss Mamie Jef- frey of Irvine; Maude is the wife of Earl Lentz, the rancher at Smeltzer, and the mother of two children; William Oscar Wilson married Miss Leonore Benott, of Irvine, a pros- perous rancher, and they have two children; Leo B. is the husband of Miss Gladys Geyer, of Santa Monica, by whom he has had one child. Fraternally Mr. Wilson is a memher of all branches of the Odd Fellows.

Mr. Wilson has for years advocated the principles of the Democratic party, but he has never allowed party politics to influence his action in matters purely local, where the needs of a small, mixed community must be considered. He is a wide reader, a deep thinker, and a good conversationalist; and his influence must necessarily work for the upbuilding of town and county.

CAL

CAL.

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

LUMIS A. EVANS .- A pioneer of two cities-Pasadena and Anaheim-who started in the good, old-fashioned way as a farm hand contributing his mite toward the development of American agriculture, Lumis A. Evans, the path-breaking dealer in Anaheim real estate is one of the very interesting citizens of Orange County. He was born on a farm in St. Joseph County, Mich., at Centerville, the county seat, on Novem- ber 8, 1854, and attended the country schools of that section and period. When eight- een years of age, he removed to New York state, to work on a farm, and later he secured employment on an Erie Canal boat plying between Buffalo and New York, an adventure affording him one of the most pleasing experiences of his life. After two years in New York, he returned to his Michigan home for a brief stay.

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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 50

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