USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 40
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 40
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ern house and other excellent buildings. At one period the water shares held by Mr. Webster were virtually without value, as the irrigating plant was in poor condition and its service consequently inadequate. The mutual corporation known as the West Rialto Water Company was organ- ized in 1900 and now gives the best water service to approximately 350 acres. At the time when Fontana was made a distinct water district the West Rialto Water Company dismantled its old plant and installed in its place a new and modern equipment, the original supply of twenty inches of water-flow having been increased to 100 inches. The plant is operated by electric power and the stock of the company is now worth $200 a share. As engineer for the company Mr. Webster has aided in the development of its plant to its present high standard of efficiency, the original equipment of two wells having been increased and the service being now of the best in every respect. When Mr. Webster here established his home the lands to the west of his tract were covered with brush and were entirely unreclaimed. Tracts that then commanded a price of only $20. an acre are now valued at $300. an acre, and that with no orange trees yet planted. Mr. and Mrs. Webster are representative citizens of the Fontana district, have won worthy success and command unqualified esteem in the com- munity.
On November 4, 1896, Mr. Webster married Miss Elizabeth Chalfant, who was born in Marshall County, Iowa, February 5, 1874, a daughter of Edward and Elizabeth (Hoskyn) Chalfant, the former of whom was born in Ohio and the latter in England, the father having become a successful merchant in Iowa and later having continued in the same line of enterprise in South Dakota, whence, on account of impaired health, he later removed with his family to the south- western part of Louisana. Of the family of three sons and two daughters only Mrs. Webster is now living. She was nine years old at the time of the family removal to South Dakota, where she was reared to adult age and where she was eventually graduated from the high school at Huron. Thereafter she was engaged in teaching in that state until she accompanied her parents to Louisiana, and upon returning to the north she continued her work as a successful teacher for one year, at the expiration of which her marriage occurred. Of the eight children of Mr. and Mrs. Webster the firstborn, Harry, died in infancy. The first four children were born in Wisconsin, the birth of the second son, John Perham Webster, having there occurred November 2, 1898. This son was graduated from the San Bernardino High School, and while he was a student in Throop College at Pasadena the nation became involved in the World war and he entered the Reserve Officers Training Corps, of which he was a member at the time of his death, resulting from an attack of double pneumonia. He was a young man of gallant patriotism, and his fine character and personality gained to him a host of friends. Dorothy, the third child, was born September 14, 1900, and died October 6, 1916. Emerson was born February 7, 1903; Laura, De- cember 23, 1905; Kenneth, January 27, 1908; and the next two children, twins, died in infancy. Mrs. Webster has been on the School Board for six years, and is now clerk of the Board.
HARRY H. MILLER, who has been a resident of California since 1884 and who has become one of the very successful orange growers of the Fontana district in San Bernardino County, has here proved himself a man of thorough as well as resourceful action, for he
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encountered many obstacles in the earlier period of his enterprise as an orange grower, was not to be deflected from his course and eventually achieved distinctive success and reputation in his chosen sphere of effort. His orange grove, one of the best in this colony, is situated on Palmetto Avenue, one-fourth of a mile south of Foothill Boulevard, on Block No. 528, Fontana being his postoffice address.
Mr. Miller was born in the State of lowa, near Burlington, September 11, 1856, and this date indicates with significant emphasis that his parents were numbered among the early pioneer settlers of that commonwealth, both having been born in Pennsylvania, and the father, Barnett Miller, having reclaimed and developed one of the productive pioneer farms of the Hawkeye State. Of the family of four children the subject of this review was the second in order of birth, and he was reared under the conditions and influences that marked the pioneer days in Iowa, his early education having been effectively supplemented by the careful reading and study, which have made him a man of broad information and mature judgment. He continued his active association with farm enterprise in lowa until 1884, in March of which year he arrived in Merced County, California. For several years thereafter he was employed on large grain ranches, and in 1891 he came to Fontana and purchased ten acres of land on Palmetto Avenue. The representatives of the Semi-Tropic Land & Water Company tried to persuade him to buy twenty acres, but he refused to purchase more land than he could pay for at the time. By paying cash he bought the ten acres and a supposed water right for ninety dollars an acre, a ten percent reduction from the price he would have paid with deferred payments. The water right proved valueless, and later he purchased water shares from the Fontana Company, which succeeded the corporation previously mentioned. With characteristic energy Mr. Miller cleared the brush from his land, which he planted to raisin grapes. About two years later, however, in 1893, he set the tract to oranges, and when his water right failed he hauled domestic water from Rialto for two years in order to preserve his trees from destruction. He did all manner of incidental work to meet expenses, never wavering in his determination to develop his orange grove to successful productive- ness, and he thus persevered at a time when many of his neighbors abandoned the field in utter discouragement. His reward is evident in his ownership of one of the best orange groves of this district, and the passing years have brought to him substantial prosperity, the while he has had the satisfaction of contributing his quota to both the industrial and civic advancement of this now favored section of San Bernardino County. He has about fifty hives of bees and makes the apiary department of his business likewise distinctly profitable. Mr. Miller has won success entirely through his own ability and efforts, and takes constant delight in the study of the best literature pertaining to the citrus industry, with the result that he has applied the most approved scientific methods in the development and care of his fine orange grove. He is a stalwart republican in politics, is affiliated with the Rialto Camp of the Knights of the Maccabees and is one of the popular bachelors of San Bernardino County. He served six years on the School Board.
JOHN WILLIAM FOWLER has gained precedence as one of the most successful growers of citrus fruit in San Bernardino County, where he is now the owner of a valuable property devoted to the best types of
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oranges and lemons. He and his young wife initiated their enterprise as orange growers with minimum financial resources, and he credits his wife for much of the splendid success which has been achieved in this connection, for her effective counsel and ready co-operation have counted for much in his progressive career in the Rialto district of the county.
Mr. Fowler was born in Crawford County, Kansas, June 23, 1870, a son of David and Elizabeth (Thomason) Fowler, both natives of North Carolina, where their marriage was solemnized. As young folk the parents migrated to Missouri and established their home on a farm which is now the site of the City of Springfield. Later they became pioneer settlers in Crawford County, Kansas, about the time of the beginning of the Civil war, and there the father engaged in agricultural and stock-raising enterprise. The parents endured not only the hard- ships and trials that pertained to pioneer life on the Kansas frontier, but also suffered greatly from depredations committed in connection with border warfare in the Civil war, both the guerrilla bands and hostile Indians being a constant menace. On the old Kansas homestead the devoted mother died in 1878, and there the father continued to reside until his death in 1906, as one of the venerable pioneer citizens of the Sunflower State. In the family were two sons and two daughters, all of whom survive the father.
John W. Fowler was reared on the old home farm in Kansas, profited by the advantages of the public schools of the locality, and in 1892 grad- uated from the Kansas Normal College at Fort Scott. In 1894, influ- enced by correspondence with a kinsman who had preceded him here, Mr. Fowler came to Rialto, California, where he promptly found em- ployment in a citrus orchard of forty acres. He was an apt student of horticulture and was soon made foreman and thereafter superintendent of this fruit ranch, where he remained four years. He then married the sweetheart of his early days in Kansas, and it was largely through the counsel of his talented young wife that they purchased ten acres of unimproved land, with water right, for a consideration of $1.150, their initial payment being only $100. Mr. Fowler planted a windbreak and began the general improvement of his land. In 1900 he laid a pipe line for irrigating the tract, and the tract was planted to oranges. After holding this property ten years Mr. and Mrs. Fowler sold the same for $12,000, and they had previously cleared themselves of all indebtedness. Mr. Fowler has continued his successful activities as a grower of oranges and lemons, and they now own a well improved property of twenty acres. ten acres being situated just to the south of the original place, which now constitutes the oldest and finest lemon orchard in the Rialto district. In 1912 Mr. Fowler erected his present residence. at 128 East Third Street, Rialto, and the same is one of the finest and most modern homes in this beautiful and prosperous section of San Bernardino County. As an authority in the citrus fruit industry Mr. Fowler is also superinten- dent of many groves owned by non-residents, he being responsible for the care of ninety acres of such orchards.
Mr. Fowler is an uncompromising republican, and he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is affiliated with San Bernardino Lodge, B. P. O. E .; with Rialto Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America, and he and his wife are charter members of Rialto Lodge. A. I. U. He is a member of the Board of Education of Rialto and is an enthusiastic worker in behalf of efficient educational system. Mrs. Fowler is a member of the Christian Science Church and the Rialto Woman's Club, and in the home community both she and her husband have a circle of friends that is limited only by that of their acquaintances.
CHRISTINA DOMECQ
JOHN P. DOMECQ
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May 4, 1898, recorded the marriage of Mr. Fowler and Miss Oneda M. Hayes, who came from her home in Kansas to join him, the mar- riage having been solemnized at San Bernardino. Mrs. Fowler is a daughter of Jesse B. and Cecelia A. (Long) Hayes, the former a native of Indiana and the latter of Pennsylvania. Upon removing to Kansas Mr. Hayes purchased a farm near Fredonia, judicial center of Wilson County, and there his wife died in 1887. Mr. Hayes later re- moved to the western part of that state, and he passed the closing period of his life at Ocean Park, California, where he died September 8, 1906. Mrs. Fowler depended largely on her own resources in gaining her higher education, which included one year at the Kansas State Normal School at Fort Scott and one year at the Kansas State Normal College at Emporia. She was for six years a successful and popular teacher in the public schools of Kansas, and retired from such pedagogic service at the time of her marriage. Of the five children of Mr. and Mrs. Fowler two died in infancy ; Aleta M., who was born at Rialto May 26 1900, is a graduate of the high school and also of Longmire's Business College in San Bernardino, and she now holds a responsible position in the office of the American Fruit Growers at Rialto. Eugene, born December 17, 1906, is, in 1922, a member of the sophomore class in the San Bernardino High School. Julian Hayes, who was born March 26, 1911, is attending the Rialto graded schools.
JOHN P. DOMECQ came from his native France and established his residence in California more than half a century ago, and here he even- tually became one of the pioneer exponents of ranch enterprise in San Bernardino County, where he developed and improved a fine landed estate and won substantial prosperity. He was one of the honored and representative men of the county at the time of his death, which occurred at his fine ranch home near Colton, this county, on the 24th of Sep- tember, 1892.
Mr. Domecq was born and reared in the Pyrennes Mountain district of France, the year of his birth having been 1846. He received good educational advantages in his youth, and continued his residence in France until March 22, 1867, when he embarked for the voyage to the United States. He first settled at San Francisco, California, where he engaged in the dairy business, in which he had gained experience in his native land. He later established himself in the same line of enterprise at Los Angles, and in 1882 he came to San Bernardino County. where he entered into a contract with John Anderson, Sr., to plant and develop a vineyard of 160 acres, a provision of the contract being that he should have the supervision of the vineyard until it became productive and was then to receive a deed to the ownership of one-half, or eighty acres, of the tract. It was on this homestead, two and one-half miles north- west of Colton, that he passed the remainder of his life, the place being eligibly situated on Rancho Avenue.
Mr. Domecq had most meager financial resources when he came to this country, but his ability, ambition and persistent application enabled him to achieve large and worthy success of material order. the while he stood exemplar of loyal and liberal citizenship, and his sterling character gave him secure place in popular esteem. In San Francisco he married Christina Kupferschlager, and he and his wife were earnest communicants of the Catholic Church and in politics he gave his allegi- ance to the republican party. After his death his widow assumed active charge of the home ranch, the management of which she successfully continued from 1892 until she, too, passed to the life eternal, her death
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having occurred on the 1st of September, 1913. Mrs. Domecq was born in the fair old city of Cologne, Germany, June 24, 1852. Of the three children only one survive the honored parents. _ and this son, Peter J. Domecq, now owns and resides on the old homestead. On this ranch his birth occurred August 17, 1883, and his early education, received in the public schools of Colton and San Bernardino, was sup- plemented by a course in the Los Angeles Business College. He was but nine years of age at the time of his father's death, and after leaving school he learned the machinist's trade, to which he continued to give his attention as. a skilled workman from 1900 to 1919, in the meanwhile continuing to reside with his widowed mother on the old homestead. After the death of her husband Mrs. Domecq set orange trees on eighteen acres of the land and sold twenty acres of the property, at the southeast corner, to James Barnhill. The remainder of the place remains intact and is now a valuable and splendidly improved property. After the death of his devoted mother Peter J. Domecq added to the area of the old home place by purchasing an adjacent tract of sixty-two acres, and this he has planted to grapes. The Domecq ranch is one of the finest and most picturesque in this part of the county, the home standing on a terrace rising above Lytle Creek and commanding a fine view of the mountains, of Colton and of the City of San Bernardino, as well as the valley below. Peter J. Domecq is well maintaining the honors of the family name and is one of the prominent and influential citizens of the Colton District. His political convictions are indicated by his stanch support of the cause of the republican party, but he has had no desire for political activity or public office. He is a member of Ashlar Lodge, F. and A. M., of Colton.
On the 11th of July, 1909, was solemnized the marriage of Peter J. Domecq and Miss Nettie DeWitt, who was born in San Bernardino, July 2, 1886, and who was there reared and educated, she being a daughter of Alonzo DeWitt, of whom individual mention is made in fol- lowing sketch. To Mr. and Mrs. Domecq were born three children, of whom two are living: Alvin Joseph, who was born December 22, 1914, and June Irene, who was born June 1, 1918. May Christiana was born February 23, 1916, and died July 24, 1918.
ALONZO DEWITT, who now resides on the fine ranch of his son-in- law, P. J. Domecq, two and one-half miles northwest of Colton, San Bernardino County, is a native son of this county and a representative of one of its sterling pioneer families. The house in which he was born stood on the site of the old race track, on Mills Street, San Bernardino, and the date of his birth was December 16, 1861. He is a son of John and Nancy (Long) DeWitt, the former of whom was born in Iowa and the latter in Texas. In the early '50s the parents crossed the plains with the pioneer colonists of the Latter Day Saints who founded Salt Lake City, the wagon train having fought many hostile bands of Indians on the long and perilous overland journey. Later John DeWitt and his wife came with another band of Latter Day Saints to found a new colony in California, the journey having been made with wagons and ox teams. John DeWitt established his home on a tract of land that was later developed as a race track at San Bernardino, and there he grubbed the underbrush and cut off the timber to make the land available for cultivation. Both he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives in San Bernardino County and were upright and earnest pioneer citizens who commanded the respect and confidence of the community in which
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they established their home. They became the parents of five children : George, Alonzo, Jane, Nettie and Emma.
Alonzo DeWitt was reared under the conditions and influences mark- ing the pioneer period in the development of San Bernardino County, and as a young man he married Miss Orissa F. Boren, who was born and reared in this state, her father having come to California with ox teams and having been a pioneer settler in San Bernardino County. The mar- riage of Mr. and Mrs. DeWitt was solemnized by Judge Knox, and of this union were born five children: William Henry, now a foreman in the Hanford Iron Works at San Bernardino, married Miss Emily DeLore, and they have one son, Arthur. May is the wife of P. J. Domecq, of whom personal mention is made in preceding sketch. Inez is the wife of J. E. Harris, and they have one daughter, Joy. Lola married Miss Eva Roberson, and their one child is a son, Elmer. Fay, the youngest of the children, married Miss Bessie Olsen, and they have one daughter, Violet Belle.
DAVID FRANK STONER .- The Stoners as a family rank among the leading pioneers of the Ontario District of San Bernardino County. The spirit of enterprise has always been in their blood, and it is apparently as urgent to action today as it was in former years when all the country was new. The Stoner ranch is a mile south of Riverside Boulevard, on Archibald Avenue in Ontario, and the present residence is a mile and a half north of Claremont, on the new Camp Baldy Road.
The head of this family was the late David Frank Stoner, who died April 21, 1921. Mrs. Stoner, who survives him, possessed fully as much of the courage and ability to cope with the adversities of a desert coun- try, and the same spirit manifests itself in their children.
David Frank Stoner was born in North Liberty, Iowa, January 2, 1854. He was fifth in a family of seven children, and acquired his education in Iowa district schools. In 1878 he went to Nebraska, where he followed his trade as a carpenter and cabinet maker. On October 26, 1881, he married Miss Mary Adaline Collins. Mrs. Stoner was born at Charleston, Indiana, October 13, 1862, and when she was seven years of age she lost her mother, and her father died two years later. She was the oldest of four children, and all of them grew up among strangers or relatives. Mrs. Stoner spent most of her girlhood in Nebraska.
When they married Mr. and Mrs. Stoner moved to an eighty acre farm which he had bought in 1880 near Lyons, Nebraska. There was a heavy mortgage on the farm, and he subsequently sold it and bought 320 acres of prairie land at eight dollars an acre. He borrowed a thou- sand dollars to make his initial payment on this land. The lender was his father. Eighteen months later Mrs. Stoner received her share of her father's estate, and with the proceeds she paid off the mortgage and built the substantial home in which they lived for eleven years. Their farm was near Wakefield, which at the time had one store, two resi- dences and a blacksmith shop. The railroad was just building through that section of Nebraska. The community improved fast, and the Stoner farm was sold for about twelve thousand dollars.
In 1891 Mr. and Mrs. Stoner came to California for the benefit of her health. On January 11, 1892, thev returned to make their perma- nent home here. Mr. Stoner had previously bought from a land agent twenty acres without having personally investigated the land. It proved to be worthless desert. He traded this, paving cash difference, for eightv acres on Archibald Avenne. This was also desert land, but had good
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possibilities, and the fourth house built in that district was the Stoner place and the entire property is still owned by the estate. On this Mr. Stoner erected a modern home and set the land to peaches. Subsequently they bought three hundred and twenty acres in the Fay tract across the avenue, which they cleared and set to fruit. Later a portion of this was sold. The present Stoner estate consists of 210 acres, all in bear- ing orchard and very valuable. The conspicuous feature of it is that it is not irrigated, and the peach and apricot crops are raised by dry horti- cultural methods. In the early days the sun dried all the fruit. The family are now members of the California Growers Association, a mutual canning and marketing association. In one season as high as twelve thousand dollars worth of fruit was sold from the Stoner place. The Stoners were the fourth family to undertake horticulture as a desert proposition.
Mr. and Mrs. Stoner had seven children, the first five born in Nebraska and the last two in California. Donald Dale, born September 14, 1882, married Fredrica Buck and has a son and four daughters : Nina I., born September 9, 1883, is the wife of George T. Trotter, and they have a son, Morris, born July 10, 1916; Frank J., born October 8, 1884, married Lulu B. Bush, and their children are Mildred Adeline, born January 11, 1908, and Loraine Hildreth, born in 1911; Fay Elizabeth, born January 8, 1887, is the wife of Bert Pheysey and has a son, Herbert Hungate; Azile May, born July 19, 1892, was married to Charles G. Frisbie, and their two sons are Robert Charles, born in February, 1919, and Edward, born in June, 1920; Harvey Merton, born September 2, 1893, is a graduate of the Los Angeles Military Academy, and by his first marriage has a daughter, Alta, born February 14, 1914, while his present wife was Miss Winnifred Watson; Elbert Hugh Stoner, the seventh and youngest of the family, was born September 20, 1894, graduated from the Chaffey High School and the Los Angeles Military Academy, and married Miss Osie Bell Jones, their three chil- dren being Kathryn Corienne, born April 7, 1917, Emma Frances, born November 1, 1919, and Wanda, born February 11, 1922.
The pioneer instincts of the family show themselves in the sons, Elbert H. and Donald Dale, each of whom homesteaded 320 acres in Cochise County, Arizona, and have made this a valuable farming propo- sition. The son, Elbert, was a sergeant in Company D of the Cali- fornia National Guards, was a member of the state team of riflemen, and was selected as one of the expert riflemen to represent his organi- zation in the annual rifle shoot at Camp Perry, Ohio.
The late Mr. Stoner thus satisfied his ambition by life and exertion in new countries. He was born in the pioneer era of Iowa, shared in the early frontier days of Nebraska, and reached California in time to do his part in the great development of the country. Mrs. Stoner has proved not less eager in the conquest of nature. She has achieved more than the average that can be credited to most pioneer men. She laid out and sold the first subdivision in Ontario, a three-acre tract on East D Street and Sultana Avenue. She paid the expenses of paving, curbing and laying water mains, and overcame a great deal of diffi- culty in securiing the consent of the Ontario Water Company to connect with her mains beyond the original city limits. She put on the market and sold this tract at a profit. Later she subdivided two and a half acres, associated with A. T. H. Alyen, who combined a similar acreage. This was the second addition to Ontario and was located on E. Street and Sultana Avenue. She and Mr. Alyen then put on a third addition,
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