History of Santa Clara County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 87

Author: Sawyer, Eugene Taylor, 1846-
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1928

USA > California > Santa Clara County > History of Santa Clara County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 87

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Jose, but in recent years Mr. Battee lived with a son at Los Gatos. He is survived by two daughters and three sons: Mrs. Terry McKean, Mrs. Louis E. Wood, Albert J., Fred and Phillip Battee. In his later years Mr. Battee was actively engaged in horti- culture, although in the early days he was a grain farmer, owning large ranches here as well as in the Salinas Valley. He developed a large prune orchard at Los Gatos, which still belongs to the family. He was one of the founders and for many years a director in the Farmers' Union at San Jose.

MRS. EVERIS ANSON HAYES .- A native of Wisconsin, Mrs. Everis Anson Hayes was born at Whitewater, the daughter of Dwight Bassett and Lucetta Wood Bassett, the former a native of Plain- field. Mass., and the latter of Cattaraugus County, N. Y. Dwight Bassett, when a young man, migrated to Whitewater, Wis., where he met and married Miss Wood, who had come to Wisconsin with her parents in the pioneer days of that region. Mr. Bassett was among the early and prominent nursery- men of that state and there he spent the remainder of his life. Mrs. Bassett, now in her eighty-ninth year, makes her home with her daughter at Edenvale.

Mary Bassett was educated in the public schools of her native state. Very early in her life she became interested in teaching. Her first school was taught when she was fifteen years of age, and except for the four years spent in the State Normal School in Whitewater, where she graduated in 1882, and one year spent in advance work in New York City, she was continuously teaching in the public schools of Whitewater, Wis., and Greeley and Denver, Colo., until the summer of 1893, when she was married to E. A. Hayes, a publisher and mining man of Santa Clara County, Calif. It should be said that in her career as a teacher she was unusually successful, having the ready faculty of interesting her pupils in the practical application of their acquired knowledge. She was especially gifted in handling the primary grades, being able to interest the young minds under her charge in a most unusual way, thus giving them a start that very few teachers could equal. Coming into the family life at Edenvale at a time when Mrs. Hayes-Chynoweth was still living and very active, the principles which she taught and exemplified ap- pealed very strongly to Mrs. Hayes and she em- braced them, assisting actively in their promulgation; she became very much attached to Mrs. Chynoweth and was much beloved by her.

When her husband was elected to Congress in 1904, Mrs. Hayes, with her family, accompanied him to Washington, there participating heartily with her husband in the public life of the Capital of the nation, becoming prominent in the Congressional Club, where for several years she was chairman of the entertainment committee, providing the club with able speakers and artists from all over the world. She made it her special interest to look out for the wives of new members of Congress, seeing to it that they were not only invited to the functions at her own home, but that they were properly introduced into the social life in Washington, thus making it

IM Batte

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easier for many to assume and enter upon the social duties which necessarily belong to the wives of off- cials at Washington. These efforts were appreciated and endeared her to all with whom she came in contact and, as a result, she has today a host of warm and steadfast friends among the wives and families of the members of Congress from all parts of the Union. Mrs. Hayes is modest and unasstiin- ing and absolutely free from the ordinary deceptions of social life, so that those whom she loves and to whom she is a friend naturally respond with an affection and constancy that have blessed her life as very few women have been blessed. An ideal wife and mother, her family and home life are the things that are nearest and dearest to her and have largely occupied her heart and life, although she has found, and still finds, time for much charitable and public work of various kinds.

LOREN N. GIFFORD .- A fine old California pioneer family is that of Loren N. Gifford, who was born in Illinois on March 21, 1861, the son of Alexander and Lucinda (Plesanton) Gifford, the former a farmer who came from Illinois to Califor- nia in 1852. when he crossed the great plains. He returned to Illinois from California in 1855. Later, he removed to the frontier of Kansas, and there, in Crawford County, he breathed his last. He was the father of six children. Myra is the eldest; Myron A. is a resident of Denver; Melvin A. Gifford lives in Stockton; Loren is the subject of this review. William is still in Crawford County, Kans .; Freeman, who came to California about 1890, is ranching on the Almaden Road. Mrs. Gifford passed away in Kansas when Loren was about ten years old; and her devoted husband survived her three years.

Loren Gifford came to California in 1875 with his brother, Melvin, and on arriving at Berryessa, he worked for his uncle, H. Tillotson. He attended school at Berryessa, and then he took first one job and then another at various places. He next went to Yuba County, and for two years farmed near Marysville; and on returning to Berryessa, he was married on October 27, 1886, to Miss Laura J. Ogan, the daughter of J. M. Ogan, a native of Jefferson County, Missouri, where he first saw light near St. Joseph. He grew up to be a frontiersman and a farmer, and married Miss Marcissa E. Dryden; he settled in the Mt. Hamilton Road and farmed at the foot of the hills. Later, he came to Berryessa and acquired a ranch of 217 acres at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Hostetter Street, now known as the Or- lando ranch; he also came to own a ranch of 300 acres on Pearl Avenue, and also 200 acres of grain- farm in Hollister. He sold the Hollister property and divided up the Pearl Avenue ranch among his sons; Laura Ogan attended the Berryessa school, and after that she went to the old San Jose high school. Thus the family, on both sides, is of old- line, American stock.

For six years, Loren Gifford rented the old Alex- ander Ogan ranch of 150 acres on Sierra road, and then he bought twenty acres adjoining that ranch on the west. He later bought an acre of land in Berryessa, and having remodelled the house then on it, he has lived there ever since. For four years he worked in the U. S. Public Health Service in the

great work of exterminating the ground squirrel, and for three years, in response to his public spirit, he served on the Berryessa school board. A member of the Woodmen of the World, Mr. Gifford is a past council commander of the Alum Rock lodge.

A son of Mr. Gifford, Arnold by name, was mar- ried at San Francisco, on November 9, 1914, to Miss Maude N. Smith, the sister of O. J. Smith, whose life-story appears elsewhere in this volume; and they have had three children-Clifford, June Doris, and Fern Jane. Arnold Gifford was born on October 2. 1892, and was sent to the Berryessa school for his elementary training, and later he was fortunate in getting the best that Heald's Business College could afford. In 1914, he took over the running of the Sierra Road ranch, and for a number of years oper- ated the farm successfully. At present he is a partner with O. J. Smith in the Berryessa Garage, where he enjoys much the same popularity as has been ac- corded him in the Alum Rock lodge of the Woodmen of the World, in which, like his father, he is a popu- lar and active member.

EBERHARD TANNING COMPANY .- Promi- nent among the substantial industries which have ma- terially contributed to make Santa Clara widely fa- mous may well be enumerated the Eberhard Tanning Company's plant, interesting as the oldest manufac- turing concern continuously in business here, since 1848, when it was established by Henry Messing. It employs eighty men steadily; and while it is evi- dent that its total output is great, it has been main- tained and increased its prosperity because it has never lowered its high standard of quality. It also has the distinction of being the oldest tannery on the Pacific Coast. As one of the natural consequences, the experienced, far-sighted and decidedly progressive men at the helm exert an enviable influence in the community in which they operate and live.

The company was incorporated in February, 1892, and Jacob Eberhard, who was a native of Kell, Germany, and passed away in May, 1915, highly honored by all who knew him, was the first presi- dent, and he continued to fill that responsible office until his demise. He had married Miss Mary Glein, a native of Hesse-Darmstadt, and they had ten chil- dren, all being born in Santa Clara.

The company makes a specialty of tanning skins of all kinds, even for taxidermists, and they make sole leather, harness leather and especially leather for saddles-known to the trade as skirting --- and they have in their time filled some very interesting com- missions. The most beautiful and highest-priced sad- dle in the United States, for example, is owned by J. C. Miller, of the 101 Wild West Show. It is hand- carved and set with gold and precious stones, and cost its owner $10,000. It was made by S. D. Myers, of Sweetwater, Tex .; and contains 166 diamonds, 120 sapphires, seventeen rubies, four garnets, and fifteen pounds of skirting with silver and gold. The leather in it was tanned and finished by the Eberhard Tan- ning Company, and it goes without saying that it was the best that they could produce.

The present officers of the Eberhard Tanning Com- pany are: John J. Eberhard, president; Oscar M. Eberhard, vice-president; Miss M. Eberhard, secre- tary and treasurer. Henry P. Eberhard, who was its former secretary, died March 6, 1921.

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MARSHALL POMEROY .- It is interesting to chronicle the life of the pioneer, the man who in his prime entered the wilderness and claimed the virgin soil as his heritage, and by braving the perils and hardships began the improving of the land, so that it is possible for the later generation to enjoy the ease and comfort of the present-day civilization, wrought by the hand of those pioneer ancestors. Rapidly these grand old men are passing away, and among the very few remaining of the early settlers of Santa Clara County is Marshall Pomeroy, a rep- resentative of the Pomeroy family, whose entrance into California history dates back to 1849, when Warren Pomeroy, the father of our subject, landed at San Francisco, having come hither via the Isthmus of Panama in the carly rush to the gold mines.

Warren Pomeroy was born in Somers, Conn., in 1801, and was of English descent, the family being traced back to Pomeroy Castle, in England, and they were among the early settlers of New England. Mr. Pomeroy married Lucetta Wardwell, also a native of Somers. He was engaged in the marble business and had built it up to a successful basis when the news of the gold discovery in California went abroad, and leaving the business in charge of his sons, he made haste to reach the new El Dorado. On arriv- ing in San Francisco he at once made his way to the mines and for several years sought the elusive golden treasure, but finally chose agriculture as a surer way to fortune, locating in Santa Clara County, where he did much pioneer agricultural work. He made three trips back to his old home, bringing his wife and the remaining children out in 1859, three sons having already come to California. In 1865 he moved to San Jose, which was from that time his permanent home. He retired from active business some time before his death, which occurred in 1891, his wife having preceded him some years before.

This worthy couple had nine children, of whom Marshall was the next to the youngest. He was born at Somers, Conn., February 10, 1835, and re- ceived his education in the public schools, also at- tending the advanced or select school at Somers, where he was reared until the days of his young manhood in the environment of a typical New Eng- land home. After his school days were over he clerked for a time in Springfield, Mass., and then in New Britain, Conn, but the confinement did not agree with him and he decided to come to California and see the country whose possibilities his father never tired of lauding.

Leaving New York in March, 1858, on the steamer St. Louis for Aspinwall, he crossed the Isthmus to Panama City and took the steamer John L. Stevens for San Francisco, and in the month of April ar- rived in Santa Clara County. He went to work on his father's farm, but he found everything new and wild and quite different from the East, so much so that he was taken with a severe feeling of homesick- ness and resolved that when he had saved up enough money to pay his way back East, he would return home. Before he could do this, however, he received word that his mother was coming out, bringing the rest of the family. On their arrival, his old longing for the East left him and he soon imbibed that lik- ing for the West that has held so many thousands. Thus he came to feel the same as his father had expressed it -- that New England was a good place to

emigrate from and that California was a good place to go to. During the first few years he made trips up and down the Coast, but after investigation he concluded that he could not find any place superior to Santa Clara County, and he has never regretted casting his lot here. During the Civil War he was a member of the Alviso Rifles, but was never called out. After farming with his father for some years he purchased 180 acres at Milpitas, where he raised grain and stock.

In May, 1867, Mr. Pomeroy was united in mar- riage with Miss Ella French, who was born in Michi- gan in 1850 and came with her parents across the plains in an ox-team train in 1852. Her father, Al- fred French, for a time followed mining and then settled in Sacramento County, where he served as a member of the State Legislature. After this he resided for a time in San Francisco, and then located at Milpitas and it was here that the young people met. Mr. and Mrs. Pomeroy continued farming at Milpitas until 1875, when they removed to San Jose, Mr. Pomeroy having been appointed a deputy sheriff under Nick Harris, serving the term of four years. He then concluded it was best to return to ranch life, where his children could have the benefit of the great outdoors, so he bought 208 acres two miles west of Santa Clara on the San Francisco road and went in for raising hay, grain and stock. When his boys grew up they induced him to set out an orchard, and with their help he set out 120 acres to trees, 100 acres being in prunes and the balance in apricots. He also installed a pumping plant for irrigating the ranch, and built drying and packing houses, until he had one of the best improved places in the valley. His sons having grown up, and some of them mar- ried, he turned the entire management of the place over to them and in 1900 purchased the residence at 429 North Third Street, San Jose, where he has since made his home. The holdings are incorporated as the Pomeroy Orchard Company, of which he is presi- dent and Irwin E. Pomeroy, manager.

Mr. Pomeroy was bereaved of his faithful life com- panion September 3, 1917. She was a woman of much culture, making the home attractive and carefully looking after the rearing and education of her chil- dren, as well as assisting and encouraging her hus- band in his ambitions. Her passing away was deep- ly mourned by her family and a large circle of friends. She left five children: Irwin E. is manager of the Pomeroy Orchard Company and chairman of the board of trustees of the California Prune & Apri- cot Growers, Inc .; Clarence is assisting in the man- agement of the Pomeroy ranch; Mrs. Delia Surface presides gracefully over her father's home, giving him her loving care and looking after his welfare; Warren and Clovis are proprietors of Pomeroy Bros., large clothing merchants in San Jose. Mr. Pomeroy also has five grandchildren to gladden his life and of whom he is very fond.

Prominent in the ranks of the Odd Fellows, Mr. Pomeroy has been a member of Garden City Lodge for more than forty years. He cast his first vote with the Whig party and since the formation of the Republican party he has been a stanch adherent and exponent of its platforms. Mr. Pomeroy is now one of the few remaining of the very old settlers of Santa Clara County. He recalls the times, some fifty years ago, when he knew almost every man in the county

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and the great times they had at the conventions. where every one called each other by their first names. He marvels at the wonderful growth of the county, which has greatly exceeded his expectations. The population has become so large that when he walks down San Jose's main streets there appears to be all new faces, for he rarely meets any of his old friends of those carly and interesting days, when they began making those improvements that have made the county one of the most prosperous in the state. He can well exclaim, "All of which I saw and part of which I was." (Since this was written Marshall Pomeroy passed away on November 30, 1921, mourned by his family and many friends.)

NIELS NICHOLAS NIELSEN,-An enterpris- ing Danish-American whose wide experience as a machinist and master mechanic prior to his coming to California, in important engagements in Denmark, South Africa, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minne- apolis and Alaska, has enabled him, after an equally successful activity in San Francisco, to provide Sun- nyvale with the best possible garage service, is Niels Nicholas Nielsen, of Messrs. Cockrell & Nielsen, proprietors of the Sunnyvale Garage. He was born at Odense, Denmark, on February 2, 1882, the son of Hans Nielsen, a machinist; and it was because of his father's trade that he resolved to become a ma- chinist also. He finished courses of study in the primary and secondary schools of his native land, and then took up mechanical engineering under the preceptorship of M. P. Allrup, and served an appren- ticeship at Forborg, and at the iron works in the city of Odense.

He then went to London for a year, and after that to South Africa, serving on the English transport line; but having set his heart on coming to America, he landed at New York in the spring of 1901, and there for four years he was in the Sullivan Auto- matic Machine Works. Later he was employed at Pittsburgh for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and thence went to Minnesota and worked as engi- neer for the Minneapolis Flouring Mills. After awhile, he moved still farther westward to San Fran- cisco; and there he was busy as a machinist until the earthquake, when he went to Alaska. He was in the Far North for twelve years as master mechanic for the Alaska Packers Association, and served also as United States Commissioner and notary public for a period of three years. He took a course at Van Der Nailen School of Engineering at Berkeley, and then, in the fall of 1918, returned to Alaska.

Coming again to California, Mr. Nielsen bought a ranch at Watsonville; and having made the acquaint- ance of William Cockrell in Alaska, they became partners and bought the old blacksmith shop at Sun- nyvale, where they have since erected a modern garage and machine shop. They also operate the Associated Oil Company's oil station, built upon the premises adjacent to the garage, on the State High- way, at this point called the San Francisco Road. Messrs. Cockrell and Nielsen bought the M. Lyon property in May, 1919, consisting of eight acres; an old blacksmith shop was located upon it, which they tore down, and then built the new garage. Mr. Niel- sen also bought the Scofield place of thirteen acres, devoted to prunes, apricots and peaches; and he sold it again to good advantage, and he also dis- posed of his ranch at Watsonville at a very desirable profit. The Sunnyvale Garage is equipped with a

complete machine shop, and the firm is prepared to do strictly first-class work.

Mr. Nielsen was naturalized at San Francisco in 1908: and in that bay city in 1909 he was married to Miss Louisa Lund, a native of Denmark. He is a prominent Mason, and belongs to the Blue Lodge at San Francisco, Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., in the same city, and the Consistory in San Jose, A sis- ter, Caroline, is the wife of Waldemar Brown of Co- penhagen, and a brother, Hans Christian, now touring America, is a noted designer on the staff of the Nord Magazine of Copenhagen.

PLIN MAGGINI .- A worthy rancher couple who are enjoying the enviable prosperity now rewarding their investments and labors, are Mr. and Mrs. Plin Maggini, the owners of seventy-six very at- tractive acres making up a productive ranch at the junction of the Sierra and Calaveras roads, six miles cast of Milpitas. They came to their present ranch in October, 1920; and as leading Republicans and firm believers in Christian Science, they exert a help- ful influence in the direction of progress in the community such as might be wished for in any fast- developing section.

Mr. Maggini was born in the Canton Ticino. Switzerland, at the town of Basca, on the day after Christmas, 1884, the son of Alexander and Joseph- ine Maggini, the former a native of Switzerland, who came out to the United States alone in 1852, and mined for gold at lowa Hill, Gold Run and Forest Hill. After becoming a naturalized citizen, he re- turned to Switzerland and continued his industry of raising goats. A second time he came to Califor- nia, and mined for a while; and a second time he re- turned to the Italian region in the Swiss Republic. A third time he came to California, when our sub- ject was three years old; and in this state he passed away, in 1918, esteemed by all who knew him as a hard-working, highly-intelligent and honest man who had done something definite toward advancing agricultural interests in California. Mrs. Maggini is still living, the center of a devoted group of friends and she enjoys life in San Jose at the age of sixty- six. Owing to these movings back and forth, from country to country, Milton Maggini, the eldest in the family of four children, was born in Switzer- land; Livio in the United States; Plin in Switzer- land; and Ida under the Stars and Stripes.

When only sixteen years of age, Plin started out for himself, and learning the blacksmith trade, he worked for wages for several years. He then went to the mines in Placer County for a year and a half, and mined in the same place where his father had been many years before. Next he went into San Jose and clerked for five years in the City Store; and after that he took a position with the Alloggi wholesale tobacco dealers, but at the end of three years, he established a bicycle and motorcycle shop at 266 South First Street, San Jose, where he handled the Reading, Standard, Snell, Cleveland and the Hud- son bicycles.

Mr. Maggini sold out his cycling business at the end of three years and bought with his increased capital a ranch of thirty-five acres on the Almaden Road, twelve miles out of San Jose; and this farm he set out to prunes and apricots and so well de- veloped, for three and one-half years, that he sold it again at a good margin. Then he purchased a ranch of 575 acres on the Uvas Road devoted to

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cattle and grain and there he had a dairy and en- gaged in the wholesale milk business. This ranch he kept for a year, disposing of it on June 2, 1919.

Mr. Maggini then purchased a ranch of seventy- six acres at the junction of the Sierra and Calaveras roads, forty-five acres of which are devoted to apri- cots, while the remainder of the land is given to the growing of grain; and there Mr. Maggini and his family now reside. He was married at San Jose on October 13, 1915, to Miss Lucielle Corpstein, a native daughter born at Saratoga, whose parents were John and Mary Corpstein. They came to California from lowa and settled at Saratoga; and there Lucielle went to school. Later, she attended the high school at San Jose, and she also pursued the courses of an excellent business college; prior to her marriage she was a bookkeeper for five years, -- first for the Ben- son & Weaver Automobile Company, and then for Messrs. Bloomdahl & Keller. Two children have blessed this union, Evelyn Mae and Mildred Eileen.

CLAUDE REDWINE .- Perhaps no family in re- cent years has added so much to the business, social and political life of Mountain View as has the Red- wine family, and Claude Redwine is a worthy repre- sentative of this useful and prominent family. Born at Marshall, Searcy County, Ark., January 27, 1886, he is the son of Simon L. and Susan ( Hatchett) Red- wine, the former born at Marshall, Ark., in 1860, and the latter a native of Leslie, Ark. The family re- moved to Texas and there Claude grew up, receiving his education in the grammar schools and later at- tending the high school of Fort Worth; after gradu- ation he entered the Polytechnic Business College and received his technical training that later became so valuable. Both parents reside in Mountain View, as do also the four children: Claude, L. Clyde, and the two daughters, Leslie and Lesta.

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History of Santa Clara County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 87

Author: Sawyer, Eugene Taylor, 1846- Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1928

Author: Sawyer, Eugene Taylor, 1846-
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1928