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 81

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 81

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JOHN M. JOHNSON .- A rancher whose several tours of inspection and careful quest in search of the best soil and conditions for walnut growing were well rewarded is John M. Johnson, the owner of fifteen acres on La Mirada Avenue, constituting one of the finest groves in the northwestern section of Orange County. He was born in Smaland, Sweden, on June 14. 1863, the son of John P. Johnson, who is still living there, an alert and able-bodied farmer at the golden age of eighty-six years. He had married Miss Louisa Anderson, and as a good mother she sent John to the excellent common schools in his native land.

In 1882, our subject came to America and settled in Duluth, Minn .; and there he followed the occupation of a cook, preparing the repasts first for camps and then for various well-known hotels. For five years continuously, for example, he was with the Willard Hotel of Duluth, and previous to his work there he cooked for one of the largest lumber camps near Duluth. He spent the winter in the camp with the loggers, and then cooked for the "gang" during the spring drives when the timber was cut loose and was floated to the mills.

In 1905, Mr. Johnson came to the Pacific Coast and made a tour of inspection preparatory to purchasing land, and then he spent a season at the Lewis and Clark

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

Exposition in Portland, after which he returned to the Southland and purchased his fifteen acres west of La Habra. The land was practically hare; but he soon set out thirteen acres to walnuts and two to Valencia oranges, and he soon had a ranch which many came miles to look over. It is under the service of the La Habra Irrigation Water Company, and Mr. Johnson markets his chief product through the California Walnut Growers Association.

An American citizen full of the American spirit of elevation with expansion, Mr. Johnson is an Episcopalian, and as such is ever ready to cooperate in good works. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias of Whittier, and there are few if any members there both enjoying and so deserving of popularity.

HENRY YOUNT .- More than interesting and instructive, from several stand- points, is the story of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Yount, pioneer settlers of California, who, after a life of hard labor and self-sacrifice, are enjoying the reward of having found the Golden State a veritable paradise. Mr. Yount was long a faithful and popular public official, privileged to be identified with the first movements toward the forma- tion of the county of Orange, and, as a result he is never at a loss, wherever he goes, for admirers and friends.

He was born near Platte City, Platte County, Mo., on December 11, 1845, the son of Henry Yount. a native of Pennsylvania and a pioneer farmer in Missouri. He married Deborah Daugherty, who was born in Indiana, and soon after he died, in 1845, she married, taking for her second husband Abraham Van Vranken. Henry Yount got what schooling he could in Missouri during the disturbed condition of Civil War days, and for a while worked on the farm of his stepfather. The latter died in Missouri in 1860, and three years later Mr. Yount, with his mother and three sister's, crossed the great plains to California with an ox team in a train of fifty wagons. During the journey his eldest sister, Mrs. Sarah J. Dinsmore, died, and was buried on the Humboldt River, but aside from this sad incident good luck attended the ven- ture of these sturdy emigrants, who had no trouble with the Indians, lost only two head of oxen on the way-poisoned by alkali-and arrived at their goal with ten head of horses, whereupon they settled in the San Jose Valley, remaining in Santa Clara County for the year 1863-64. Then they went to San Joaquin County and farmed for four years, purchasing 320 acres of land there and raising wheat by dry farming.

In 1868 Mr. Yount went to Stanislaus County, and near what is now Modesto purchased 240 acres on which, for another four years, he raised wheat. His next move was to Visalia, where he purchased a half-section of range for sheep, besides which he rented some land; and for a couple of years he raised sheep there. In 1875 he sold out and came south to Compton, Los Angeles County, where he purchased and farmed forty acres.

When he had disposed of this land, in 1880, Mr. Yount came to Santa Ana, and on Lyon Street in Tustin he bought twenty acres. It was raw land, but he set it out to grapevines; the vines died, and then he set walnuts. The acreage is now under the Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Company, and is therefore well watered. Mr. Yount lived on the ranch at Tustin and thus was enabled to give his personal attention to the improvements which afterward made the sale of the property, at a neat profit, easy. He then purchased an alfalfa ranch of twenty acres on McFadden Street, and when he had sold that, bought a ten-acre ranch on Santa Clara Avenue, which he had for a year. His next purchase was a ten-acre grove of Valencia oranges on Collins Avenue, northeast of Orange, which he retained until 1919, when he sold it.

At Compton, on March 12, 1880, Mr. Yount was married to Miss Alice A. Twombly, who was born near Lansing, Leavenworth County, Kans., the daughter of Benjamin H. and Augusta A. Twombly, educators known for their idealistic, efficient work both in Kansas and California. Her father, a graduate of Dartmouth College, a fine scholar and linguist, and an able speaker, was an attorney and a member of the Kansas legis- lature, and was a member of the committee that located the state penitentiary at Lansing, Kans. He was the first tax collector of Howard County, Mo., and he rode horseback with saddlebags over the county fulfilling the duties of his office. Coming to California for his health in 1873, he was followed two years later by his wife, his daughter Alice, now Mrs. Yount, and his son Benjamin. Four children-two boys. and two girls-blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Yount: John H. is with the Southern Pacific Railroad in Los Angeles; Augusta is Mrs. George H. Merrill of Los Angeles; Charles is with the American Express Company at the same place, and Harriett, who graduated from the Los Angeles State Normal and the State Manual Arts School, Santa Barbara, is now in Hollywood, teaching at the Manual Arts School. In 1908 Mr. Yount purchased the residence at 844 Van Ness Avenue, Santa Ana, and here has since made his home.

alice a yount.

Henry Mount

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Mr. Yount has several times held offices of considerable public trust, and well he deserves to have done so, for in 1888 he circulated the first petition to form the county of Orange. For two years, from 1887 to 1889, he was deputy assessor of Los Angeles County, and from 1889 to 1897 was deputy assessor of Orange County. He thus served under C. C. Mason, Fred Smythe and Frank Vegley, and if he found them inspiring chiefs, it is certain they found in him one of the rare dependables.

Mrs. Yount has always been prominent in the civic and social life of Santa Ana; for more than twenty-eight years she has been a member of the Sedgwick Corps, No. 17, W. R. C., of Santa Ana, and occupied the office of president three different times. In 1907, at the Department Convention, held at Santa Barbara, she had the honor of being elected department president of California and Nevada, presiding at the depart- ment convention held at Santa Ana in May, 1908, and the same year she attended the national G. A. R. Encampment, held at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., thus being honored for her splendid work as department president. Mr. and Mrs. Yount have been active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Santa Ana for over thirty-six years, Mrs. Yount being president of the ladies' aid society for thirteen years, and they are among the oldest and most prominent members of that church. They are both staunch Republicans and prominent in the councils of the party. Mr. Yount was for years a member of the county central committee, and is now active in the work of the local Republican club.

WILLIS J. NEWSOM .- An interesting representative of a fine old pioneer family of California, and a man of, such progressive tendencies that, as a natural leader he has been able to point the way onward and upward to others, is Willis J. Newsom, the well-known teacher of Los Angeles and the president of and prime mover in the Farmers' Loan Association of Orange County. He was born at Glen Elder, Mitchell County, Kans., on April 20, 1882, the son of Alfred J. and Christina (White) Newsom, who came to El Modena in 1887. The father bought some land there, but sold it and went to Pasadena, thence to Lankershim, and from Lankershim to Whittier; moving to Garden Grove in the fall of 1891.

Willis attended the schools at Garden Grove, and for a year went to the Santa Ana high school, still later studying at the Los Angeles Normal School. from which he was graduated in 1903. He began to teach at West Anaheim, and is now teaching at the Santa Fe special school for incorrigibles at Los Angeles. Besides taking charge of this responsible work, going back and forth every day, he directs the farming of forty acres of land near Garden Grove.

He owns twenty-five acres, has planted ten acres to Valencias, and fifteen acres to budded walnuts. He has improved the ranch with a fine house, the best of facilities for a water supply, and a mile of cement pipe for irrigation. All this he has in a high state of cultivation. He is a member of the Farm Bureau.

In 1917, the Federal Farm Loan Association of Orange County was organized, and Mr. Newsom became its president. How well he has pushed its interests and directed its expansion may be shown from the fact that today it has outstanding loans aggregating a quarter of a million dollars, and is growing faster than ever.

Mr. Newsom was married in 1907 to Miss Grace Parish of Berkeley, who died in 1913, leaving one child, Christine Elizabeth. He was married a second time in 1915 to Miss Glee Woolley of Alva, Okla .. then a teacher at Covina; and one child has blessed this second union-Willis Robert. Mr. Newsom is a Republican, and belongs to the Southern California Teachers' Association.

CHARLES C. KINSLER .- A pioneer of Brea and one of the first men who settled there, Charles C. Kinsler is well known as a prominent citizen who always takes an active lead in the advancement of the interests of his home town.

He is a native of the Empire State, and was born January 4, 1878, at Otto, N. Y., but was reared at Bradford, Pa., where his education was acquired in the public schools of that place, and as a boy he was in the employ of the J. T. Jones Oil Company of Bradford. He is a veteran of the Spanish War, having enlisted as a regular in the Thirteenth United States Infantry when the trouble with Spain arose. One of the heroes of San Juan Hill. Cuba, he served alongside the late Theodore Roosevelt and was wounded in the leg during service. After his discharge from the army he came to Olinda, Orange County, Cal., December. 1899, where he worked for the Olinda Oil and Land Company for one year. He then located at Whittier, and was in the employ of the Home Oil Company at that place. Afterward he became major and drill master at the Whittier State Reform School, retaining the position three years. He then went to the Puente oil district, where he was engaged with the Birch Oil Company. In 1912 he purchased land at Brea, buying the third lot that was sold in the town, and he built

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

one of the first homes on the townsite. He held the office of city clerk of Brea and was the first secretary of the Chamber of Commerce after its inauguration, resigning the position in 1920. At present he is engaged in the real estate and insurance business and is also secretary of the Brea Oil Workers' Union.

Mr. Kinsler's marriage united him with Miss Lena Morse, a native of Vermont. and they are the parents of three daughters: Thelma, Arlene, and Mildred. Fraternally Mr. Kinsler is very prominent in Masonic circles. He is a member of the Blue Lodge and Chapter at Fullerton, the Whittier Commandery, and the Shrine at Los Angeles. He is further affiliated with the Knights of Pythias at Brea, the D. O. O. K. at Los Angeles, the B. P. O. Elks at Anaheim, and is a Modern Woodman. He takes a keen interest in the welfare of Brea, is a dominant factor in its business life, ever on the alert to advance its best interests, and justly enjoys the comforts worthily earned by his labors, and the esteem and respect of his fellow-citizens.

ROBERT GISLER .- An Orange County rancher who has contributed much toward the substantial and permanent development of a part of his adopted country, while advancing in prosperity for himself, is Robert Gisler, a native of Switzerland, where he was born in the Canton Uri, on February 28, 1861. His father was Joseph Gisler, a farmer and a dairyman, who had married Elizabeth Troxel .; they were born, married and died in the canton so famous in Swiss history. They had nine children, two of whom dicd young; Robert was the fifth in the order of birth, and is the only one in California. Besides himself, the only other surviving member of the family is a sister, Mrs. Rosa Scroggin, who dwells on the old Gisler homestead. Robert grew up a Swiss peasant boy, attended the Roman Catholic Church, and learned the German language. His mother died when he was fifteen; and perhaps it was his early dependence that made him desire all the more to see America.

At seventeen, then, he bade good-bye to father, brothers and sisters, and took the railway to Havre, France, from which port he was to sail across the Atlantic. He embarked on May 1, 1878, and eleven days later arrived on a French liner at Castle Garden. Without delay he pushed on to Sacramento, Cal., together with some young folks from Switzerland who had relatives at Ventura; and from Sacramento they took the river boat to San Francisco. Even the strange metropolis of the Coast did not detain them, and as soon as possible they continued their journey by steamship to Ventura, where they arrived on June 4, 1878. Mr. Gisler had only enough money to take him to Ventura, and on arriving there he immediately went to work on a farm.

He labored fourteen months for one employer at that place, and then went back to San Francisco and worked at various kinds of employment. mostly dairying, for a couple of years. He put in another two years at dairying in Napa, when he returned to Ventura County and began to farm for himself. He became acquainted with Casper Borchard, Sr., and from him rented a grain ranch of 2,400 acres, in the management of which he continued for four or five years. He toiled and struggled, but prices were very low, and the laborer at times could scarcely depend upon a reward worth talking about. He then bought 300 acres of grain ranch, well situated in Ventura County, but after farming there for five years he sold it.

In 1903 Mr. Gisler came down to what was known as Gospel Swamp and bought some eighty acres as a starter, bringing with him his wife, whom he had married in Ventura County. Her maiden name was Anna Pflanzer, and she was a native of Switzerland, having come to America with her sister, now Mrs. Samuel Gisler of Huntington Beach, when a young woman. The happy and resolute couple set about to improve the Swamp property; they cleared away the willows and drained and plowed and cultivated. After a while Mr. Gisler purchased sixty acres more, and then another sixty acres, and after that twenty acres; so that he finally had about 220 acres a mile south and a mile east of Talbert. In partnership, also, with his two sons, Walter and Tom, Mr. Gisler bought from F. D. Plavan, in 1919, a handsome block of ninety-nine acres, for which they paid $50,000. He has since built a large farmhouse, and has sunk three ten-inch wells and four seven-inch wells, installed a pumping plant and built a tank house. thus adding greatly to the improvements on the home place-improvements in which he can take the more pride since they are the fruit of his own toil.

At first Mr. Gisler kept cows and went in for dairying, but as soon as he got his land clear he continued the raising of sugar beets, a knowledge of which he had acquired in Ventura County. There was then no sugar factory, except the one at Los Alamitos, and his first four crops were shipped up to Oxnard. He has seen the several beet sugar factories built at Huntington Beach and Santa Ana, and he now sells to both the Holly Sugar Corporation at Huntington Beach and the Southern California Sugar Company

a&Hawley

Elizabethuns. Hanley

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

at Santa Ana. In 1919 he had forty-five acres of sugar beets, while he now grows mostly lima beans. In 1920, for example, he and his sons planted about 200 acres to lima beans and eighty acres to sugar beets, and the balance to alfalfa.

Mr. and Mrs. Gisler belong to the Roman Catholic Church at Huntington Beach, and Mr. Gisler is a member of the Knights of Columbus at Anaheim. In national politics he is a Republican, but he never draws the party line when it is a question of giving a whole-hearted support to a worthy local movement. They have seven children: Walter, who married Marie Collins of Talbert, is a rancher; Emma is the wife of Bernard Stouffer, another rancher, and lives at Anaheim; Thomas is also a rancher; Della has graduated from the Huntington Beach High School, and is now living at home; and there are Agnes, Harold and Lucile.

Thomas Paul Gisler, the third in the order of birth, was called into service for the great World War through the first draft, and trained at Camp Lewis. Then he joined Company E of the Three Hundred and Sixty-fourth Infantry. On July 12, 1918. lie sailed from New York for Southampton, and then proceeded to Havre-the same port from which his father had embarked for America-and for a month continued training at Longchamps. From there he was assigned to the reserves at St. Mihiel, France, and in the great Argonne drive was wounded in the left arm by a piece of shrapnel. His severe injuries confined him to a hospital in France for eight and a half months, and on account of disability he was discharged at the Letterman Hospital in San Francisco on June 9, 1919.

ALFRED E. HAWLEY, MRS. ELIZABETH M. HAWLEY .- Distinguished as the oldest living pioneers at Newport Beach, in point of actual continuous residence. Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Hawley enjoy an enviable position at one of the most attractive and most promising of all beach resorts along the Californian Coast. Their faith in Newport Beach, it is not surprising to learn, has always been firm, and it is getting stronger year by year. They have invested wisely here and now own a number of choice residential lots and about eight houses, which they have built and which they keep rented out. They have been in Orange County for thirty-three years, and if anyone is likely to make a success of the business in realty so ably handled by Mrs. Hawley, they are the old-timers of experience.

Mr. Hawley manages a large sporting-goods store at 305 N. Sycamore Street, Santa Ana, and is the head of the firm of A. E. & E. M. Hawley, and is therefore one of Santa Ana's pioneer business men; a gentleman of strict integrity, deep knowl- edge of human nature, and a reputation for urbanity and a desire to please, who naturally has both a wide acquaintance throughout the county, and also a very profit- able and growing trade.

He was born in Cambridge, Vt., and when his mother died in Vermont he came to Madison County, N. Y., with his father, Julius Hawley. He attended school near Oneida, and it was there he met the lady who afterwards became his wife, Elizabeth ( Mallery) Hawley. She, however, was born near Lansing, Mich., but reared in Vir- ginia. She was the daughter of Gibson and Sarah M. (Chadwick) Mallery, both natives of England.

After his marriage Alfred E. Hawley engaged in manufacturing, becoming super- intendent of the Wescot Chuck Company at Oneida. They were manufacturers of lathes and drill chucks. However, they had a longing to live on the Pacific Coast, so came to Santa Ana in 1887. He purchased the small stock of sporting goods from J. P. Hutchins, which business he enlarged from time to time until it is the largest of the kind in the county, and he now has thirty-three years of honorable and suc- cessful business experience to his credit.

Mr. and Mrs. Hawley first came to Newport Beach in the boom year of 1888, and the summer month of August, and it is natural that they should feel the deepest interest in the building up of what today owes so much to them. They have three children: O. J. and Ralph E. are associated with Mr. Hawley in the store, while Arline married Terrel Jasper, and he is assistant postmaster at Newport Beach, and shares in the popularity of the family. Mr. Hawley's enterprise leads him into being an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Merchants and Manufac- turers Association. Fraternally, they are members of the Maccabees, while Mr. Hawley is a popular member of the Santa Ana Lodge of Elks, where he is much appreciated for his native good humor and pleasantness. 29

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

C. GEORGE PORTER .- A representative of one of the most historic American families in Orange County, C. George Porter is well known as both the owner of a very fine orange grove and also as a leading and helpful spirit in the local fraternal world. He was born, a native son, in Orangethorpe, Los Angeles County, now Orange County, on March 7, 1875, the son of Benjamin F. and Mary H. (Meade) Porter, who have been identified with Orangethorpe and its district since the early seventies. The father, who was born and educated in Tennessee, came to San Diego County in 1869, journeying hither from Texas. He was a plantation holder in that commonwealth, and was therefore always a man of influence. On coming to what is now Orange County, he bought forty acres on the north side of Orangethorpe Avenue, and this his wise and progressive management soon made known as the Porter Estate. There our subject lived until he was married, on July 29, 1898, to Miss Jane Orell Jennings, a native of Kansas, who grew up in San Diego; she passed away on September 11, 1917, leaving one child, Charles G., Jr., and the memory of a charming woman.

In 1898 George Porter purchased fifteen acres on the south side of Orangethorpe Avenue, and he now has a valuable grove devoted to Valencia oranges, which he markets through the Specialty Fruit Company of Fullerton. Well-grounded in his education at the Orangethorpe graded school, and later at the Los Angeles Business College, Mr. Porter has operated successfully in both oil and real estate in the county.

On December 22, 1919, Mr. Porter was married for the second time, his bride being Mrs. Alta Rose Rhodes, a native of Iowa, in which state she was educated; and they reside in the fine Porter home built by our subject in 1898. A member of the Masonic Lodge of Fullerton the last twenty years, Mr. Porter has been active there, and he is a past master of the Blue Lodge; also belongs to Fullerton Chapter and Santa Ana Council and the Hacienda Country Club. He also belongs to the Eastern Star. In national political affairs he prefers to work with the Democrats, but he is too broad-minded to allow partisanship to interfere with his support of any movement properly indorsed and likely to benefit the community in which he lives and prospers.

CHARLES DAVID OVERSHINER .- Among the Federal representatives in Cali- fornia whose administration of office has proved satisfactory, is Charles David Over- shiner, the popular postmaster of Santa Ana, who hails from Kentucky, where he was born at Hopkinsville, Christian County, on December 29, 1863. His father was the mer- chant, John G. Overshiner, who married Miss Margaret Nichols, the daughter of David and Mary Nichols, and by her had nine children, of whom five are living. Both parents are now dead.

Mr. Overshiner enjoyed the usual public school advantages of those days, and supplemented them in the field where so many men have acquired a rare education- that of printing. Having learned the printer's trade, he came to California in June, 1883, locating at Santa Ana, and identified himself with the Santa Ana Standard, later with the Blade, and still later with the Santa Ana Bulletin, in which he still retains a half interest.

As a Democrat, Mr. Overshiner was active in support of his party, and on Jannary 12, 1915, was appointed to the responsible position he now holds. His only child, William H., is a graduate of the Santa Ana high school and the University of California, and is a civil engineer, connected with the U. S. Geodetic Survey, stationed in the Philippines. Mr. Overshiner is a Mason, Odd Fellow and an Elk, and has attained to various chairs, his popularity in official circles even being eclipsed by that showered upon him in fraternal life.

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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 81

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