History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 138

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1934

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James F. Kennedy resided in Philadelphia and was superintendent of the Fairmount Water Works until he came to California in 1850 as agent for Commo- dore Stockton, and had charge of the sale of 3000 acres of land between San Jose and Santa Clara. He made his home for ten years on this ranch. During this time he was nominated and ran for lieutenant- governor, when Leland Stanford ran for governor, on the Republican ticket, and was defeated. In 1863 he was elected sheriff of Santa Clara County and filled the office until he died in 1864. In the fall of 1860 he bought 500 acres of land near Los Gatos.

Clara C. Kennedy was born on the Stockton ranch on the Alameda, January 25, 1852, and is the only girl in a family of six children: William C., a lawyer in San Jose, now deceased; James F. is a nursery- man and is well posted on the history of Santa Clara County and is a writer; Theodore died in Goldfield, Ncv .; Edward died in San Jose; Clara C. of this sketch; Frank is in the nursery business with his brother James. The Stockton home on the Alameda, where Mrs. Bray was born, called the White House, has been beautifully preserved. It was all cut and ready to be put together with wooden pegs, in Phila- delphia, and shipped around the Horn, and upon ar- rival was so constructed. Clara C. attended the old Santa Clara Seminary, now the College of the Pa- cific, and knew her husband, Frank Bray, from child- hood. She continues to reside upon the eighty-acre home place, where she has lived for the past fifty years. This ranch is one of the best in the county, located on the northwest corner of Scott's Lane and the State Highway. It is a beautiful place, with its home-like, old-time residence with a luxuriance of flowers and shrubs, fruitful fields and orchards. Frank Bray was born in Missouri and crossed the plains with his parents to California in the '50s, his father. J. G. Bray, coming to California the year previous. The father engaged in the merchandise business in Sacramento, and later, in company with his brother,

the commission house known as the Bray Bros. was established in San Francisco. The business is now operated by twin brothers, nephews of J. G. Bray, who in connection with T. Ellard Beans, founded the Bank of San Jose. Mr. and Mrs. Bray are the par- ents of eight children: Francis William, who died at the age of fifty, was a mining engineer; Anna L. re- sides with her mother; Ernest C. is in the automobile tire business at Santa Clara; Wallace, who married Miss Laura Curtiss, was manager of a baseball team; he passed away at Los Angeles at the age of thirty- eight; Charlotte Louise married W. L. Atkinson, the well-known real estate broker and a member of the board of trustees of San Jose and they are the parents of four daughters-Eleanor, Claire, Margery and Marian; Serena married Angus Mcinnis, with the Chase Lumber Mill at San Jose, and they have three children-Bruce, Douglas and Donald; James Gardin, a member of the police force at Oakland, Cal., mar- ried Minnie Pippin; they are the parents of four chil- dren-Frances, Vernon, Jane and Junior, twins; Har- old is associated with W. L. Atkinson in the real estate business; he married Miss Letcher Verve, and they have a daughter, Elizabeth. The parents of Mrs. Bray were the founders of the First Presby- terian Church in San Jose; later the Kennedys be- came the organizers of the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara.

HON. ARTHUR MONROE FREE .- For many years prominently identified with the profession of law in San Jose, Arthur Monroe Free actively en- gaged in his chosen profession until being sent to Congress in 1920. As a native son, he was born in San Jose, January 15, 1879, a son of George A. and Ellen E. (Littlefield) Free. His father, George A. Free, an only child, came with his parents when but one year old, the family being among the early pioneers of the valley; the mother is a native dangh- ter of the state, and her father, John M. Littlefield, served his community as county superintendent of schools and also as county clerk.

Mr. Free was educated in the grammar and high schools of Santa Clara; graduating from grammar school in 1893; high school in 1896; during 1896-7 attended the College of the Pacific; in the year 1901 he received his A. B. degree from Stanford Univer- sity and his LL.B. degree in 1903 from the same college. He was admitted to the bar September 16, 1903. From 1904 to 1911 he served as city attorney for Mountain View, Santa Clara County, and from January 1, 1907, for three terms, he served as dis- trict attorney for Santa Clara County. In politics he is a stanch supporter of the Republican party, and fraternally he is a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason; a Knight Templar, and Shriner; a member of the Odd Fellows; Elks; Eastern Star; Sciots; Order of Amaranth; Rotary Club; Commercial Club, and a director of the Chamber of Commerce. Re- ligiously he supports the Episcopal Church.

Mr. Free's marriage on November 11, 1905, united him with Miss Mabel Carolyn Boscow, a resident of San Francisco. To them have been born five children; Lloyd Arthur; Gerald Monroe; Geraldine Floyd; Robert George; Herbert William. Gerald and Geraldine and Herbert and Robert are twins. During the recent war, Mr. Free was unselfishly active in all war work. He was campaign manager of the first Red Cross drive, commissioner on the

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

War Work Council of Santa Clara County, and a speaker on the trophy train that toured Arizona, Nevada and California. As a member of the speak- ers bureau, he devoted one year to his work and spoke in every city in California, Arizona and Nevada, in behalf of the Food Administration, Liberty loans, Red Cross, War Savings Stamps and Y. M. C. A. His has been an unright, honorable and useful life in which he has ever displayed loyalty to high standards of citizenship, and he has labored effectively and earnestly to uphold those interests which make for public progress and improvement.

In November, 1920, Mr. Free was elected to Con- gress from the Eighth District of California and he took the seat on April 11, 1921, in the special session called by President Harding. He is a member of Merchant Marine and Fisheries, and Immigration and Naturalization committees.

JEROME V. STAPP. - An experienced hotel man particularly well known to sporting folks, and one who, as a successful agriculturist and a public- spirited man, has done much to forward more than one important industrial interest in California, is Jerome V. Stapp, formerly the proprietor of the Alviso Hotel, but now located at 751/2 E. Santa Clara Street in San Jose, where he is engaged in the real estate, loan and fire insurance business as the P. and S. Investment Company.

Mr. Stapp was born in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, Cal., in December, 1876, the son of M. D. and Agnes May (Jerome) Stapp, also both na- tives of the Golden State, and the grandson of sturdy pioneers on his father's side who came across the great plains to California in 1849, and settled in Sonoma County. His grandfather on his mother's side, as well as his grandmother, was a native of Brooklyn, N. Y .; and soon after Mrs. Agnes Stapp's birth, her parents went to New York again, where they lived until she was eleven years old, the time of their passing away. Some afterward, she be- came heir to the Russ Hotel in San Francisco, whereupon she came alone across the Continent to the Pacific. Later, she was married at Ukiah, to which place she had gone to reside; her husband, M. D. Stapp, being sheriff for sixteen years of Hum- boldt, Mendocino and Sonoma counties. He was also a wholesale butcher, getting his supplies most- ly from Russ & Stapp, Humboldt County's larg- est cattlemen. In addition, he was an inventive genins, and among things evolved by his fertile brain is the railway car coupling so extensively used to- day. Full of years, and rich in friends, he died at Los Angeles in 1912.

Jerome Stapp, after attending the San Francisco public schools, graduated from the University of California with the class of 1900, and having left the acquisition of theoretical knowledge, he went in for the practical by embarking in the hotel field. He has had a wide experience in the management of hotels at various places in South America, the Hawaiian Islands, Prescott, Ariz., and Mazatlan, Mexico, and it is not surprising that he has made such a success of his present venture. In 1919 he came to Alviso and purchased the Alviso Hotel, which he sold in November, 1921. He still retains launches for bay nse, and seven duck-hunting boats. all the blinds for duck-hunting in this district be- longing to him, and he is a member of the South

Bay Yacht Club, located at Alviso. He owns a ranch of 1200 acres used for stock-raising and graz- ing, and having some fruit, in Sonoma County. A spirited Democrat, but also a good local, non-parti- san "booster," Mr. Stapp has been deputy sheriff of Sonoma County for four years, and for two terms, from 1903 to 1907, he was a member of the State Assembly, from the Twelfth District.

At Corona, Riverside County, Cal., Mr. Stapp was married on September 10, 1913, to Miss Laura Brummier, a daughter of Henry and Jenny Brum- mier, citrus growers in Riverside County, and a na- tive of Corona; their union has been blessed with the birth of two children, Jack and Georgina. Mr. Stapp belongs to the B. P. O. Elks, and holds a life membership in Lodge No. 171 at Oakland.

CARL F. TUTTLE .- A dairy rancher who de- deserves the esteem of his fellow-farmers and the gratitude of those who come after and enjoy the many benefits of developed, well-established Cali- fornia agriculture, is Carl F. Tuttle, who lives on the Trimble Road about five miles north of San Jose. He is a native son, which may in part ac- count for his contagious optimism as to the fu- ture of the Golden State, and was born at Salinas, in Monterey County, on May 15, 1893. His father, Hiram C. Tuttle, was one of four brothers who came out to California soon after the Civil War and settled in Monterey County; he had been a mem- ber of the Eighth Iowa Infantry and fought through- out the war with this regiment; he was a participant in the Battle of Shiloh and did splendid service in the defense of the Union; and although he lived to rear a family of seven children, of whom our sub- ject was the fourth son and sixth child, he eventually died, when Carl was only three years old, from the effects of the awful exposure to which he was subjected in that prolonged struggle of the South against the North. He married Mrs. Rebecca Mc- Loughlin, whose maiden name was Miss Rebecca Wilson, and she became the devoted mother of a worthy family, passing away December 25, 1921. Sidney is a farmer at Salinas; Raymond is a dairy rancher on Spring Street, in San Jose; Donald is a dairyman on Capitol Avenue, northeast of San Jose; Carl F. is the subject of our story. Hiram C. is in Oakland where he is a salesman. He served through the war, won the Belgian war cross for services in the Argonne; Joy has become Mrs. Rasmussen, and resides at Seattle, and Maud is now Mrs. Pesante, a teacher in the Oakland schools, and is widowed.

Carl attended the county school at Salinas, and afterward continued his studies at the high school at Alameda, from which he was duly graduated in 1910. Then, from his seventeenth year, he began to do ranch work; and he has followed up agricul- tural pursuits ever since. For three years, he and his brother, Donald, managed his mother's fruit ranch of forty acres and when this was sold and the family moved to Santa Clara Valley, the same two brothers purchased a sixty acre ranch on Capi- tol Avenue devoted to the growing of alfalfa and dairying. When, in 1917, the brothers divided their interests, they had forty milch cows; Donald stayed on the dairy ranch, while Carl went to Napa County and bought a fruit ranch consisting of forty acres. In the fall of 1920 he sold this ranch and returned

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

to San Jose and leased an alfalfa and dairy ranch of forty-three acres, owned by Richard P. Keeble and situated on the Alviso Road about three miles north of San Jose, and there he was engaged in dairying, with his usual enviable success, until the fall of 1921, when he bought twenty-two acres of the Trimble ranch and built a dairy barn to ac- commodate forty cows. Unlike many ranchers, he employs only Americans, and he keeps not less than two constantly at work with him, thus carry- ing out 'a principle and a theory as to the ad- vantage of American labor, and the willingness of efficient Americans to work for those of their own nationality. A Republican in his preference for na- tional party platforms. While at Napa he rendered his fellow-citizens good service as a trustee of the school district.

At Chico, on February 15, 1917. Mr. Tuttle was married to Miss Mary Agnes Young, a native of Ohio and the daugliter of Ernest C. and Effie (Sny- der) Young,-the former a civil engineer associated with a large development company in the Sacramento Valley. Miss Young came to California as a child, and was reared in Chico, where she attended the local schools, although she previously had gone to school for a while at Salinas. Three children have been granted them-two fine lads named Carl and Robert, and a daughter, Rebecca Jane.

HENRIE GRANVILLE HILL .- A scholarly, conscientious and thoroughly dependable representa- tive of the California Bar is Henrie Granville Hill, the junior member of the firm of Bohuett and Hill, the well-known attorneys of San Jose. He was born at St. Louis, Mo., on September 7, 1884, the son of Walter Baylor and Zoe (Taylor) Hill, with whom and the rest of the family he came out to California in the late '80s. Walter Baylor Hill is deceased. but his devoted wife is still living, the center of an honoring circle.

Henrie Hill attended both the grammar and the high schools of San Jose, and in 1909 he was grad- uated from Stanford University with the A. B. de- gree. Two years later he was given by the same institution the degree of J. D. In the meantime, dur- ing 1909 and 1910, he had studied law at the Har- vard Law School. In 1911 he was admitted to prac- tice in California. The first two years he was asso- ciated in practice in San Francisco with Senator A. E. Boynton and Chas W. Slack and in 1914 he located in San Jose and opened a law office. In 1917 with L. D. Bohnett, he formed the partnership in which he at present figures. During his college days he was a member of the Delta Chi and during his senior year he was elected a member of the scholarship fraternity Phi Beta Kappa and the law scholarship fraternity "Order of Coif." Fraternally he is a member of San Jose Lodge of the Elks, the Garden City Lodge of the Odd Fellows and the Masons, and is a past master of Lodge No. 10, F. & A. M., of San Jose.

Mr. Hill was married at San Jose on March 2, 1912, when he took for his bride Miss Bernice Field. a native of California and also a graduate of Stan- ford University. They are the parents of one daugh- ter. Zoe Ann Hill. Mr. and Mrs. Hill are both patrons of good music, and both ready and anxious to forward in every way possible the best and last- ing interests of the county and city.

CHARLES L. WITTEN .- A most interesting rep- resentative of the legal profession in California, whose active participation in the varied events through which he has lived enables him to review some of the most stirring chapters of Golden State history, is Charles L. Witten, who was born in Contra Costa County, on November 1. 1860. His father, T. Z. Witten, was a genuine '49er, who started across the great plains before gold was discovered, and when he reached here, mined at Placerville. In 1852 he came into this valley, and later he removed to Contra Costa County, where he lived for years and died. Hc married Miss Rachel Smith, and she also passed away there. They were the parents of six children,- four boys and two girls,-and our subject grew up the youngest of this family.

He attended the local schools, and after that pur- sned courses of study at the University of the Pacific for a term. He next studied law with Judge S. F. Leib, and he also took a course of lectures upon law by Judge John E. Richards at the Univer- sity of the Pacific. A thorough student, he was ad- mitted to practice in California in August, 1885; and then he was in Judge Leib's office until 1888, when he entered the district attorney's office, and served as deputy for a term under D. W. Burchard. He then devoted himself to his private practice, in which he was recognized as one of the leaders of the bar, until he received the appointment, on Jan- mary 3, 1921, of justice of the peace to succeed Judge F. B. Brown who had been elected one of the superior judges; and although retaining a selected portion of his private practice, much of his time is devoted to official business.

At San Jose, in April, 1894, Mr. Witten was mar- ried to Miss Nellie Hanson, a daughter of pioneer parents and a native of Sonora, Cal., and they have four children: Winifred I. is the wife of G. H. Miller, of San Jose, the clerk of Judge Witten's court, and she has three children, Dorothy, Janie and Grandin; Alice Louise is a student at the University of California at Berkeley; Muriel M. is assistant cashier of the Bank of Milpitas; while the youngest of the children is Kenneth R. Witten. Mr. Witten belongs to Fraternity Lodge No. 399, F. & A. M., and to San Jose Pyramid No. 9, A. E. O. S. He joined Pacheco Lodge No. 117, I. O. O. F. in 1881, in Contra Costa County, passed the chairs of that lodge, then becoming among the youngest past grands in the state. When Observatory Lodge No. 23 was organized in San Jose ahout 1894, he became a char- ter member. He also marches with the Republican party. He has been the attorney for the Bank of Milpitas since its organization, and a member of the San Jose Board of Library Trustees, of which he was president for some years. He is an active mem- ber of the San Jose Bar Association, and until re- cently was its president.

Judge Witten is fond of "hiking." and takes au annual trip, using the railroad to certain points, and then walking over new ground. For the past fifteen years, in fact, he has thus spent his vacations, and during this time he has covered the most interesting points in California, Oregon and Washington, on some occasions walking 250 miles. There are no points of interest, resorts, missions, etc., which he has not visited, and all his trips are written up and published in the local paper and to this mode of recreation he attributes his fine physical condition and good health.

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

BERT T. KIRK .- A descendant of a worthy family of which he is a worthy scion, Bert T. Kirk, in fol- lowing farm pursuits, not only made use of his early training, but followed the bent of his ambition and today he is one of the representative horticulturists of Santa Clara County. His fine ranch, well known as the Socrates Kirk place, containing 100 acres, is located on the Dry Creek and Kirk roads. This ranch was a claim taken up many years ago, the family having owned the water right for the past sixty years. For many years the entire acreage was devoted to the raising of grain and it is within the memory of the subject of this review when most of the valley was a vast grain field.

Born April 25, 1874, on the old home place of his parents in Santa Clara County, Mr. Kirk is the only son of Socrates and Louise (Guerraz) Kirk, pioneers of the county. Socrates Kirk and his brother The- ophilus came to the county as young men and to- gether the brothers purchased and improved their land, the two families owning over 900 acres of fine fruit land. The father passed away in 1906, his death being a real loss to the community in which he had lived and worked for so many years. Mrs. Kirk survives him and still resides on the home place.

Bert T. began his education in the public school at Willow Glen; then he attended Hoyt's Oak Grove School at San Mateo, and from this institution he entered the Garden City Business College owned by Prof. Worcester, and here he was duly graduated, Leasing a portion of his father's large orchards, he engaged in fruit raising, making a study of it from a scientific standpoint and with his energy and ex- perience has made a success of it. His 100-acre or- chard of prunes, cherries, and peaches is located at the corner of Dry Creek and Kirk roads and there he has built a large. modern residence, as well as suit- able farm buildings. He is constantly making improve- ments and his ranch is most modern in equipment, in- cluding a drying plant. He also owns seventy-three acres at Edenvale, which he operates in connection, and valuable business property on East Santa Clara Street and on the corner of Fountain and Second streets, which he has improved, so it brings a nice ircome. He has also been an interested dealer in real estate in other parts of California.

The marriage of Mr. Kirk in San Jose, February 14, 1899, united him with Miss Mary K. Hamilton, a native daughter of California, her parents being early settlers of Santa Clara County. Mrs. Kirk's father, Prof. William Hamilton, came to California around Cape Horn in the early '50s. The boat was wrecked, but the family was saved. He was an edu- cator for many years, now retired, and living in Santa Rosa, a well-educated and cultured gentleman, whose refining influence has left an indelible impression or the communities in which he resided. Mr. and Mrs. Kirk's union has been blessed with three chil- dren: Louis, educated at Heald's Business College, San Jose, is ably assisting his father in his horticul- tural enterprise; Bert. T., Jr. is a graduate of Heald's Business College and also is assisting his father, while Clarence H. is attending the grammar school. Mr. Kirk is a believer in protection as a fundamental prin- ciple and never fails to give his allegiance to the Re- publican party. Mr. and Mrs. Kirk are liberal and enterprising and their home is the scene of much social enjoyment and hospitality. 40

JOHN FRANCIS SHANNON .- Law, order and a regard for the rights and best interests of humanity are well represented in John Francis Shan- non, the alert, efficient and popular constable of San Jose, who was born in the city he so well serves on October 31, 1875. His father was Christopher Shan- non, for thirty-five years a police officer; he had married Miss Nellie O'Keefe, and they had nine children, all living. Mr. Shannon died on May 2, 1919, at the age of eighty years, and Mrs. Shannon passed away in 1898.

John, the eldest in the family, went through the grammar school in San Jose, and then for a num- ber of years worked for the Western Meat Com- pany. Rather naturally, perhaps, considering the record of his father, he was elected constable in 1902, and he has been re-elected so often that he is now serving his twentieth year.

On May 25, 1904, Mr. Shannon was married to Miss Harriet G. Ziemer, a native of San Jose. They attend the Catholic Church, and are familiar figures in the circle of the Pastime Club. Mr. Shannon also belongs to the Native Sons, the Ancient Hibernians, the Modern Woodmen and the Ancient Order of Foresters. He is fond of hunting and fishing, and in politics is a Democrat.

That Mr. Shannon takes a broad view of the duties of a constable is shown in the careful administration of his office-endeavoring, as he does, to afford the greatest protection to society, and yet remembering the human side of those who fall, need correcting, but also need bracing up, if possible, to a better life and for a new start to usefulness.

LAWRENCE E. BARBER .- One of the substan- tial men of his district and a successful rancher, Lawrence E. Barber is located on the ranch pur- chased by his father in 1880. A native of Wiscon- sin, he was born in Oak Grove, Dodge County, June 20, 1872, the son of Reuben S. and Saralı (Evans) Barber. The wonderful stories of the opportunities of the Golden State lured Reuben S. Barber to re- move to California in 1852, where he first mined, then came to Santa Clara County and farmed for fourteen years. Returning to Wisconsin he lived for fourteen years in his old home county. There he was engaged in the manufacturing of agricultural machinery and at one time owned a one-half interest in the Barber & Van Brunt Works at Horican, Wis., the shop now run by the John Deere Plow Company. Returning to California in 1880, the family settled at Milpitas and a farm of 222 acres was purchased and set out to orchard. The ranch is now devoted to truck gardening and fruit raising. mostly pears and prunes, and is well watered from three fine artesian wells.

Lawrence E. Barber attended the public schools of Milpitas and his vacation and spare time was spent in working with his father on the ranch. When his parents passed away, a sister and he became the owners of the old Barber ranch. In San Francisco in December. 1912, he was united in marriage with Miss Kate Bellew, the daughter of Michael and Eliza E. (Kinney) Bellew, the father a native of Ireland who came to California in the '50's, making his way westward via the Panama route. He chose Milpitas as the most promising spot in the Santa Clara Valley in which to establish a home, settling here in 1862, and he acquired about 800 acres of land.

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History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 138

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1934

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1934