USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 50
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 50
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During his long and varied career, Mr. Haven's experiences were numerous and interesting. It is related that on one occasion when he and his Homestake partner were riding through a gulch, Mr. Havens saw a likely-looking spot and remarked to his partner that there was a prospect. The other, after a cursory investigation said "Nothing to it" and rode on. Mr. Haven had faith in his own judgment however and when he remained his partner was forced to return. Within three weeks' time they took $3,500 from this pocket. A thorough mining man of his day, Mr. Haven made many trips to San Francisco, always traveling in the greatest style and stopping at the famous old Palace Hotel. He was equally able to make friends at home, in the big cities and in strange places elsewhere. On many occasions he came into contact with the Indians who were frequently hostile. He never took the suicidal course of attempting to flee when he was overtaken by the savages, but would ride in boldly among them and thus gained their respect for his nerve, although doubtless his presents also played their part in gaining him popularity. At any rate, he was never seriously molested.
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Mr. Haven was very successful and in 1899 retired from active mining operations. He had located at Cucamonga in 1881 where he and Mr. Milliken purchased 640 acres of desert land, cleared it of cactus and brush and planted it to wine grapes. This was the very first attempts to grow wine grapes without irrigation and was then spoken of as "Haven's Folley." When this land was planted, there was no water, and that to be used for domestic purposes and livestock had to be hauled four miles. It was an absolutely new experiment, and was at first widely ridiculed, but Mr. Haven had the faith of his convictions and eventually his judgment was vindicated in the wonderful success of the enterprise. He and Mr. Milliken later dissolved partnership, dividing the property evenly, and Mr. Haven later added many acres to his holdings. His grapes were marketed to the winery men, but the prices were not satisfactory. After he had sold his crop for $5.00 a ton one year and had been offered the same price the next year, he realized that some means for the protection of the growers would have to be found, and he accordingly organized, and in 1909 built, the Cucamonga Vintage Company, a vast institution which has added many units since and is now a stock company of fifty-three growers. In addition to being its founder, Mr. Haven was one of the first officials of this organization and was a large stockholder. Likewise he was one of the first stockholders when the First National Bank of Cucamonga was founded. In December 1913, he incorporated his holdings, divid- ing his stock among nineteen heirs.
He died a very much admired and beloved man, November 25, 1914, at which time he left an estate valued at $77,000, net, all of which he had accumulated absolutely without aid at the start of his career. Mr. Haven's wife died November 3, 1893. They have no children from this marriage. In politics he was a staunch republican. The property is now owned by H. H. Thomas and family, of Cu- camonga.
JOHN MCINTOSH .- While loyalty to locality is by no means unusual among the residents of San Bernardino County, the affection John McIntosh feels for Redlands is due not only to its many charms as a place of residence but also to the fact that here he made his suc- cessful fight for prosperity, coming here some thirty odd years ago without financial capital, and is now retired from business and in the comfortable circumstances of a citizen who owns an attractive home and some productive orange groves.
Mr. McIntosh was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 15, 1862, son of William and Anna McIntosh. His father was a New England farmer, and John was next to the youngest in a family of eight children. He lived on his father's farm and attended public school but between the age of fifteen and sixteen started an appren- ticeship at the blacksmith trade, and followed that occupation at Dor- chester until 1882.
Mr. McIntosh has now been a Californian forty years, His first location was at San Francisco where he worked at his trade. In October, 1887, he came to Redlands. He left the train at Brookside, the nearest railroad point, and journeyed by stage into the village of Redlands, then new and with hardly a hint of its modern development. The town proper contained only a few houses, and one of those under construction was the Sloan house. Most of the town lots were covered with grapevines. Mr. McIntosh went to work in McLean's blacksmith shop for four months, and then opened a shop of his own at the corner
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of Fifth Street and Citrus Avenue, where the Home Investment Company is now located. Later he moved to Orange and State streets on the site of the Fisher Block and still later purchased property of his own at 18 West Citrus and sold this to buy the Southwest corner of Fourth and Citrus Avenue, where he continued active in business until 1914. As a master blacksmith he employed a number of skilled hands, prospered and saved, and invested his surplus profitably in several orange groves and still owns a five acre block on Citrus Avenue and five acres on Domestic Street.
In 1886 Mr. McIntosh married Miss Harriet Jones who was born and educated in Berkeley, California. They are the parents of a daughter Lillian and a son Reuben. Lillian who graduated from the Redlands High School is the wife of H. A. Woessner, a painting and decorating contractor at Redlands. Mr. and Mrs. Woessner have one son Arthur Leroy, born September 29, 1910. The son Reuben who was born in 1892, is a graduate of the Redlands High School and has to his credit a distinguished war record. He enlisted in the 144th Field Artillery. known as the "Grizzlies," was trained at Camp Kearney, was made a sergeant, and from Camp Kearney went direct to France where his command made a record that will always be a matter of pride to California. He returned to the United Sates and was mustered out January 27, 1919, and is now a salesman for the Burroughs Adding Machine Company with headquarters at Portland, Oregon. On February 23, 1921, Reuben McIntosh married Miss Chloe Wells of Portland, daughter of a retired lumberman and prominent Oregonian.
JAMES S. EDWARDS, recognized as one of the representative and in- fluential business men of Redlands and San Bernardino County, was born at Plymouth, Illinois, on the 14th of April, 1857, his father having been one of the substantial farmers of that locality. After profiting by the advantages of the public schools Mr. Edwards continued his studies at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, and the Missouri State Normal School at Kirksville, Missouri. In April, 1881, as a young man of ambition and purposeful outlook, he came to Riverside, California, and found employment in the work of an orange grove. In the follow- ing November, shortly after a plat of Redlands had been filed, he came to the new district and became one of the first buyers of property here. In 1882 he made minor plantings and other improvements on his land. and two years later he here initiated his nursery industry, by planting seed and starting the growing of nursery stock. The citrus-fruit in- dustry of the Redlands district was then in its infancy, but a period of specially rapid development ensued and Mr. Edwards supplied a very appreciable part of the early nursery stock of the district. Under his careful and vigorous management the business became an important and prosperous one. In 1887 Mr. Edwards became associated in busi- ness with Wilbur N. Chamblin. Besides extending their nurseries, they built a warehouse (now belonging to Cope Commerical Company) and engaged in the shipping of fruit for the growers in a cooperative way and also in the handling of grain and hav. About the same time, the firm purchased about 500 acres of land in the East Highlands section of the Redlands district. In '91 their interests were segregated, Mr. Chamblin taking the warehouse and the mercantile business, Mr. Ed- wards taking the land and nursery stock. In 1893 Mr. Edwards began planting this tract of land to oranges and the entire area is now covered by orange groves. The property is now operated under coporate control, Mr. Edwards having effected, in 1893, the organization and incorpora-
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tion of the East Highlands Orange Company. Of this corporation he is the general manager, and Robert Roddick is the efficient foreman. Here has been developed one of the best groves of navel oranges in California. The early selection of the land as the stage of such enterprise has proved a very wise action, for the district is comparatively free trom damage by frost and the soil and general climatic conditions wonderfully to the successful propagation of navel oranges of the finest type.
Mr. Edwards helped to organize also the Goldbuckle Association, which owns and operates one of California's most complete and suc- cessful fruit-packing plants. In connection with the modern packing house, which is of large capacity, the association maintains its own ice-manufacturing plant, which supplies all ice required in connection with the business. Mr. Edwards is president of this association and C. S. Hunt is manager. Mr. Edwards is a director of the California Fruit Exchange, and Fruit Growers Supply Company, and is in every sense one of the leading representatives of the citrus-fruit industry in the state. He and his associates in the Goldbuckle Association have given careful study and consideration and conducted divers experiments in perfecting the service of what is conceded to be one of the most satis- factory and efficient fruit packing and shipping agencies in the state all growers being assured the maximum excellence of service through the medium of the Goldbuckle Association.
In August, 1887, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Edwards to Mrs. Alice Pratt, a native of the state of New York and a woman of exceptional culture. Mrs. Edwards, a talented musician, is a zealous member of the Congregational Church, and is known as an earnest worker in behalf of the unfortunate and helpless, as well as for the general uplifting of humanity. Of the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards the eldest is Ruth, who was born November 19, 1888, who was graduated in Pomona College, and whose marriage to Paul R. Jennings occurred June 19, 1893, their home being in the city of San Diego. Paul L. Edwards, who was born September 24, 1891, is a graduate of the University of California, after leaving which institution he entered the Government service, in the department of commerce and labor. He was first sent to Brazil, and thereafter became commer- cial attache of the American embassy at The Hague, Holland, where he continued in service until the spring of 1920. During the period of the World war he served as representative of the Netherlands on the war trade board. Since his return to the United States he has remained in the service of the Government and he was stationed in the national capital until the spring of 1921. For nine months he was in various European countries and is now commercial attache at Con- stantinople. Russell W. Edwards, the third child, was born July 18, 1897, and was graduated in the Redlands High School. Though not twenty-one years of age at the time when the nation became involved in the World war, he promptly enlisted in the coast artillery, and he was in the training camp at the time of the signing of the historic armistice which brought a technical close to the war. He is now assistant super- intendent of the Goldbuckle Association and proves an able coadjutor of his father in directing the large business of this organization. May 2, 1918, recorded his marriage to Miss Marjorie Reynolds, of Redlands.
James S. Edwards had little capital save energy, ambition and resolute purpose when he initiated his independent business career in southern California. He applied himself unremittingly in the developing and upbuilding of his nursery business. He is distinctively one of
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the representative pioneers of the Redlands district and has contributed loyally and in generous measure to its development and progress. Mr. Edwards has been a most energetic and vigilant worker in behalf of prohibition, and he has been nominee of the Prohibition party for various high state and Federal offices. He was one of the original board of directors of the First National Bank of Redlands. He has vied with his wife in earnest and effective service in the Congregational Church of Redlands, and for a number of years was superintendent of its Sunday School.
HENRY A. HOSTETLER-Since coming to the Upland community seven- teen years ago Henry A. Hostetler has studied and learned and has become a highly proficient orange grower, devoting himself to this industry and the work of his grove almost exclusively, allowing outside business interests to go their way without his participation, and has been unusually successful as one of the citrus producers of this section.
Mr. Hostetler was born August 18, 1854, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. He is of Swiss ancestry. The founder of the American branch of the name was Adam Hostetler, and his descendants through the successive generations were Jacob, Jacob, John, Jacob and Abraham B., father of Henry A. Hostetler. Abraham B. Hostetler was born il. Somerset County, Pennsylvania, August 30, 1826, and died at Waterloo. Iowa, November 19, 1889. On February 19, 1852, he married Rachel Rankin, who was born January 29, 1833, daughter of John C. and Elimina (Kell) Rankin. Abraham B. Hostetler was a minister of the Dunkard Church. Abraham and Rachel Hostetler had a large family of children, named, in order of birth, John R., Henry A., Mary Ellett, George Washington, Arabella Jane, Elmer Lincoln, David Eugene, Wil- liam Kuhns, Hiram Allen, Martin Birdy, Samuel C., Dora S. and Arthur Ives.
Henry A. Hostetler was thirteen years old when his parents moved to Walterloo, Iowa. Iowa was then a comparatively new state, and his father bought good agricultural land at twenty-five dollars an acre. Mr. Hostetler grew up on his father's farm. He completed the eighth grade in the schools, and his tasks and responsibilities were on the home farm until he was twenty-one. In 1877, after leaving home, he took a course in a seminary at Waterloo, and was awarded a teacher's certificate, though he never used it to teach school. From Iowa Mr. Hostetler eventually moved to York County, Nebraska, and followed farming until he came to California in October, 1904. He soon purchased ten acres at the corner of Eleventh Street and Mountain Avenue at Upland. This was a fine grove of Washington Navel Oranges, and at that time was sixteen years old and in full bearing. It is one of the best groves in this district and has been handled most efficiently bv Mr. Hostetler, who gives it his complete time and energy. He has studied the most practical methods of citrus fruit growing. and is re- garded as an authority on the care and cultivation of the orchard and the handling and packing of the fruit.
On March 6. 1879. Mr. Hostetler married Mrs. Mary L. (Bice) Mapes, widow of Jacob Mapes. Bv her first marriage she had two daughters: Mrs. Lovina Cory and Mrs. Florence A. Baker. These daughters were reared and educated hv Mr. Hostetler. Mrs. Lovina Corv was born January 25. 1874. and has two children. Lovon. horn in Woodbury County. Iowa. August 22. 1899. is the wife of Frank Phillips, and they have one son, Edwin Frank Phillins, horn November 11, 1918. Oliver D. Cory was also born in Woodbury County, June
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7, 1900. Mrs. Florence A. Baker, born July 9, 1876, married on May 9, 1897, C. C. Baker, who was born November 11, 1867. They have five sons and three daughters: Claude Birney, born February 16, 1898, John Leland, December 19, 1899, Lyle Leroy, May 19, 1903, Clarence Enis, May 27, 1905, Florence Lucile, July 12, 1908, Gladys Lovon, March 22, 1910, Cecil Lester, May 21, 1912, and Doris Leota, December 17, 1918. Claude B. Baker married Bertha Lucile Ross, December 10, 1918. John L. Baker married Fern Leota Frame, August 27, 1920, and they have a daughter, Pearl Janet.
The children of Henry A. Hostetler's own marriage were four sons : Arthur Derwin, Rolland Reginald, Elmer Bertram and Roy W. D. Arthur D., who was born May 24, 1880, at Bradshaw, Nebraska, married at Mason City, Iowa, Lura Martha Hutchinson. Their children are : Derwin Hutchinson Hostetler, born March 25, 1904; Dorothea Linde Dix, born August 22, 1905; Marjory Lura, born December 21, 1906; Ilene Lucile, born February 22, 1908; Arthur Gerald, born June 30, 1910; and Enid Mae, born September 15, 1913. The second son of Mr. and Mrs. Hostetler was born June 28. 1883, and died August 27, 1886. The third son, Elmer Bertram, born December 24, 1885, at O'Neill, Nebraska, married, August 28, 1906, Allie May Groner, born May 26, 1886. They have three children, two boys and a girl : Rolland Donald, born January 7, 1908; Elden Lloyd, born May 13, 1912; and Ardys Joyce, born September 27, 1913. The fourth son, Roy W. D .. born May 19, 1888. married on July 8, 1908. Grace A. Wiley, born September 17. 1890, and they have three children, all boys; Harold Alton, born October 13, 1909; Verne LeRoy, born October 19, 1911 ; and Delbert Wiley, born September 7, 1915.
Mrs. Henry A. Hostetler was born in Kansas, January 5, 1858. and was educated in the public schools of Madison County, Iowa.
Mr. and Mrs. Hostetler are active members of the Christian Church at Ontario, and he has always been an advocate and worker for tem- perance and in the cause of education.
ERICK GUSTAF NELSON was one of the honored pioneers of the present thriving little City of Chino. San Bernardino County, and played a large part in the early development and upbuilding of the town. Here he continued to reside until his death, which occurred July 17, 1917, and this publication consistently enters a tribute to his memory.
Mr. Nelson was born in Varland, Sweden, on the 9th of November. 1860, and was reared and educated in his native land. At the age of twenty years, penniless and unversed in the English language, he ar- rived in the City of Joliet, Illinois, where for three years he was employed at common labor. He then went to the City of Chicago, where he learned the carpenter's trade. and in 1887. in company with his wife.
he came to Ontario. San Bernardino County, California. In 1885 he married Mrs. Anna ( Anderson) Colstrom, whose first marriage occurred in 1870. Mr. Colstrom having died in 1872 and being sur- vived by one son. William, who became known by the name of his stepfather. Mrs. Nelson was born in Sweden on the 31st of January. 1850. and in 1880 she came, alone, to the United States. At Joliet Illinois, she found employment as housekeeper, and in two years gained an excellent knowledge of the English language and the customs of her adopted land. With ten dollars in cash she built and eventually paid for a six-room honse at Joliet. through the medium of a building and loan association, to which she paid eight dollars a month. She
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made these payments by conducting a boarding house, in which she cared for an average of twelve boarders. She was thus engaged when she became the wife of Mr. Nelson, and they thereafter worked and saved together, with a determination to place themselves in independent circumstances. They arrived in Ontario, California, in the spring of 1887, and here Mr. Nelson aided in the construction of the first depot of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the only other business structures in the town at that time being a blacksmith shop and a grocery store. From Ontario Mr. and Mrs. Nelson removed to Chino, as pioneers, and here he erected some of the first buildings, including a hotel, a printing office, the Baptist Church and his own house. Here he built also the first railroad station, and he continued his operations as a carpenter and builder until 1890, after which he held for twenty years the position of carpenter foreman for the Chino Sugar Refining Company. In 1894 he purchased five acres of land on Riverside Drive, and de- veloped the same as an apple and pear orchard. After selling this property he purchased the Bellflower Ranch, on the corner of Riverside Drive and Roosevelt Avenue, where his widow still maintains her home, this being one of the historic places of the Chino District. Mr. Nelson bought this property in 1905, and became the third person to own the property after the making of the original grant. When he came to Chico this ranch, which then comprised 8,000 acres, was owned by William Gird, and it was then a great cattle range, with virtually no improvements, Mr. Nelson having made all later improvements on the land which he thus acquired, and having brought the same under effective cultivation, with an excellent system of irrigation. He was affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and was an earnest member of the Baptist Church, as is also his widow. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson had no children, but he was all that a father could have been in the caring for and the rearing of his stepson, William, who has borne the name of Nelson. This son of Mrs. Nelson's first marriage was born in Faulon Sweden, April 24, 1873, and was a lad of seven years when he ac- companied his widow mother to the United States. He attended the first school established at Chino, and upon the death of his stepfather he assumed charge of the Bellflower Ranch, after having previously been for seventeen years in charge of the machinery department of the Chino Sugar Refining Company. In 1907 he married Mrs. Laura (Molen) Anderson, who was born September 16, 1870, her first husband being survived by two children, Arthur and Edelia, the former of whom is now in the employ of the Layne & Bowler Pump Manufacturing Company in Los Angeles. Arthur Anderson, the elder of the two children, was born at Stanbaugh, Michigan, August 21, 1893. In June, 1914, he married Wanda Hammer, and they have one daughter, Wanda La Verne, born June 14, 1917. Edelia Anderson was born at Chino, August 14, 1895, and in June, 1911. she became the wife of Benjamin Kriegh, who is in the employ of the pump company with which her brother also is connected. Mr. and Mrs. Kriegh have two children : Charles Benjamin, born October 24, 1912, and Junita, born October 27. 1913.
William Nelson, now in active charge of the home ranch which his stepfather effectively developed and improved, is well upholding the prestige of the name of Nelson and is one of the substantial and loyal citizens of San Bernardino County.
SILAS C. Cox first saw San Bernardino when he was about seven years of age, and his intimate recollections of this city and community
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cover a period of almost seventy years, during which period he has witnessed the development of all the towns and cities in this section of the state from a vast horse, cattle and sheep pasture.
He was born in Fayette County, Alabama, January 14, 1843, and two years later his father, A. J. Cox, moved to Council Bluffs, lowa, in 1847 crossed the plains to Utah and in the spring of 1850 the family came on to California and a year or so later came down to San Bernar- dino.
Silas Cox therefore grew up on the frontier, learned to ride a horse before he knew his letters, and in subsequent years his travels and experiences took him over nearly all the great West, as far north as Idaho and Montana, and he made a score of trips back and forth between Utah and California. He has been a cowboy, prospector, freighter, Indian fighter, and for about thirty-five years conducted a dairy ranch but is now living completely retired in his home at San Bernardino. His varied experiences, his character as a citizen, and his active associations with all the leading men of affairs of this district give him a well deserved prominence, and it is appropriate that this brief record should be preserved in the history of Riverside and San Bernardino counties in the absence of a complete account of his adventures, which in an important degree are part of the history of his times and which should be preserved in the pioneer records of the county.
M. L. BLACK was responsible for developing one of the earliest and finest orange groves in the Redlands District. He owns a large amount of property in that section, most of it developed through his enterprise and capital, and after more than thirty years of labor is now gradually retiring from the heavier responsibilities and turning them over to his sons.
Mr. Black was born June 10, 1853, at Louisburg, Ohio. His father, William Anderson Black, was born in Ohio July 19, 1827, and spent his life as a farmer. He died May 8, 1904. The mother, Amanda Maria Gruber, was born December 20, 1830, and died January 12, 1907.
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