History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 142

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

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In 1890 Henry Lester accompanied his parents to California, and his boyhood days here were spent on the ranch, attending school at San Ysidro, where he graduated. He former a partnership with his brother, John S. Lester, and they operated a ranch on Malone Avenue for some time. In 1912 he pur- chased 130 acres of the famous Hayes orchard at Edenvale, and since then he has acquired forty-seven acres devoted to a fine orchard, on Senter Road, near Edenvale. These valuable properties are yielding heavily, producing 650 tons of green fruit in 1921, and they are bringing in a handsome income. Mr. Lester has three irrigation systems on his two places, their cost totaling the sum of $20,000, and he usually requires the services of three men the year around to take care of this large orchard property, using both horses and Yuba tractors in its cultivation.

At Trinity Church, San Jose, in July, 1913, Mr. Lester was married to Miss Ethel Edith Cottle, the daughter of Mrs. Edith R. Cottle, the Cottle family heing well-known pioneers of Santa Clara Valley. They have one daughter, Edith Ethel, and reside at the Cottle home place on Snell Road. An industri- ons worker and a man of the strictest integrity, Mr. Lester is keeping up the traditions of his forebears, and well deserves the success that has come to him.

MRS. JAY ORLEY HAYES .- California has al- ways done honor to her women of intellect, culture, influence and leadership, and Santa Clara County will not fail to provide a wreath for those who have contributed to enrich its life. Prominent among such women of true nobility must be numbered Mrs. Jay Orley Hayes, a native of Racine, Wis., where she was reared in an environment of education and cul- ture. Clara Lyon Hayes is the daughter of William Penn and Adelia (Duncombe) Lyon; the former born in Chatham, N. Y., the latter in St. Thomas, Ontario. Both were of English descent. She has one brother, William Penn Lyon, who is business manager of the San Jose Mercury Herald. Her father, William Penn Lyon, was a truly self-made man, who by his strong personality, ability and hard work rose to the high- est place in the judiciary of the state of Wisconsin, to which state he had moved in youth. He occupied many positions of honor and trust in Wisconsin. He was twice elected district attorney of Racine County, was twice elected to the State legislature, both terms serving as speaker of the Assembly; was first captain of Company K of the Eighth Wis- consin Volunteer Infantry, later for three years was

colonel of the Thirteenth Regiment and was mus- tered out of service as brigadier-general. While at the front he was elected judge of the first Wis- consin circuit, later being appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to which position he was elected several times, during the later years of his service there occupying the position of Chief Jus- tice of the Court. He voluntarily retired from the bench at seventy years of age but later was appoint- ed to the State Board of Control, a board charged with the government of all the penal, reformatory and charitable institutions maintained by the state, and served for about seven years as president of that board. In all these positions he acquitted him- self with distinction and honor; his striking ability, modesty of manner, his fairness to and sympathetic interest in and consideration for others, endeared him to all with whom he came in contact and at- tracted to him a host of loving, loyal friends. The evening of the lives of both Judge and Mrs. Lyon was spent at Edenvale, Cal., with their loving chil- dren and grandchildren.

Clara Lyon, after being prepared for college, en- tered the University of Wisconsin, where she grad- uated in 1876 with the degree of bachelor of science. A few years later she went abroad, traveling through the British Isles and on the continent for a year and a half. She was united in marriage in 1885 with Jay Orley Hayes, an attorney-at-law and mining man. The first year they resided in Ashland and then moved to the mines on the Gogebic range where they lived for a little more than a year, when they came to Edenvale, Cal. Here she devoted her life to her family and children and individually saw to their care and comfort as well as to their training and education while they were growing. When she felt her duty to her own was accom- plished she threw herself into the work of the Moth- ers' Clubs and Parent-Teacher Association, and she helped to organize and establish the work in Santa Clara County. For this work she has been called by many the mother of the Mothers' Clubs of Santa Clara County. She was the first president of the San Jose High School Mothers' Club. She was dis- trict president of the P. T. A. and has been delegate to national conventions on different occasions. On account of her deep interest in the moral education of children Mrs. Hayes prepared a book list for use of supplementary reading for the schools and mem- bers of the P. T. A.

Mrs. Hayes was the representative from Santa Clara County on the Woman's Board of the Panama Pacific Exposition held in San Francisco in 1915. For many years she has been intensely interested in many public and charitable organizations and was a director of the Associated Charities of Santa Clara County for many years. The Travelers' Aid Society has also engrossed her attention, Mrs. Hayes hav- ing been appointed to organize the society for Santa Clara County and she has been a director since its organization. She also aided materially in organiz- ing the Association of the Collegiate Alumni for Santa Clara County and was its first president.

Mrs. Hayes in 1919 served in the capacity of fore- man of the grand jury in Santa Clara County and is said to have been the first woman foreman of a grand jury in the United States. She is an active member of the True Life Church and a trustee from

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the date of its organization. Her interest in the work of the True Life Church led her to compile and have published a hymnal for the use of the Church for which she wrote twenty-five hymns, one of which appeared in "Heart Songs," a collection of favorite songs published by the Chappel Company of Boston. She assisted her mother in arranging and editing Judge Lyon's letters written during his serv- ice in the Civil War and a volume of the letters with a few of his addresses delivered upon patriotic occasions was presented to cach veteran who had served under him during the war or to the families of those who were gone.

Her union with Mr. Hayes has been blessed with five children. Mildred, Mrs. Almon E. Roth, a grad- uate of Stanford University, resides at Stanford Uni- versity. Lyetta is cashier of the Mercury Herald Company. Elystus L., a graduate of the College of Letters as well as the Department of Law of Stan- ford University, served as first lieutenant in the U. S. Army, being sent overseas. He is now practicing law in San Francisco. Miriam, Mrs. Edgar C. Kes- ter, resides in Burlingame. J. O., Jr., is a senior at Stanford University.

MRS. ALICE LEE TALBOTT .- In all the hu- manitarian agencies of our cilivization, no higher or more worthy work can be found than in the caring for little children whom circumstances of many sorts have made it impossible for the parent or parents to care for them in their own homes. Among the noble and gracious women with lofty ideals who have given their hands and hearts to this task is Mrs. Alice Lee Talbott, who has shown rare capability in the man- agement of the Haven Grove Home, located near Santa Clara on the Saratoga Road, an ideal situation for an institution of this nature. Mrs. Talbott is a native of Colorado, where she was born at Trinidad, Los Animas County, a daughter of William Alfred and Mary Frances (Bailey) Garner. The father was a native of Tennessee and a descendant of an old and honorable family of that state. During the Civil War he fought on the Union side and was promoted to the rank of captain. On one of the marches through Tennessee his regiment passed over the plantation of Grandfather Benjamin Bailey, an extensive planter there, and it so happened that Captain Garner was entertained in the Bailey home, where he met his future wife, Mary Frances Bailey. At the close of the war he returned to the Bailey plantation to renew the acquaintance and at first his attentions were bit- erly opposed by the father, because he had been an officer in the Union Army, but his persistency won and the young people were later married, making their home in Lawrence County, Tenn., where Cap- tain Garner engaged in the practice of law, becoming state senator from Lawrence County during the ad- ministration of Governor Jackson. He was a member of the committe from Tennessee that was present at the inauguration of Vice-President Johnson, and afterwards served as acting governor. Later the family removed to Trinidad, Colo., and Captain Garner he- came a prominent factor in the growth and prosperity of the state, then in its early days. He first followed ranching and became a large cattle owner, meanwhile locating a coal claim which eventually became very valuable and was sold to the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. Later he resumed the practice of law, devoting his activities to constructive measures, and

he was instrumental in putting through the first irri- gation canal in Las Animas County. He passed away in 1913, mourned by his business associates and a large circle of friends. Mrs. Garner was educated in the female academy at Nashville, Tenn., and was reared in the cultured environment of a typical South- ern home. Coming to Colorado in the early days was a great change from the comfort and affluence of her old home, but she bravely met the trials and hard- ships of pioneer life. Being ambitious, she continued her studies and passed the teacher's examination, teaching school at Trinidad until her death on Deccm- ber 10, 1879, at the early age of thirty-four, a severe . loss to the bereaved husband and children. Captain and Mrs. Garner were the parents of four children, but all have passed away but Mrs. Talbott.

Alice Lee Garner began her education in the schools of Trinidad and was then sent to Tennessee to live with her Grandmother Bailey where she attended high school. Later, on returning to Colorado, she was graduated from the State Normal School at Pueblo and became a kindergarten teacher, following her profession until her marriage to John Reck Talbott on May 20, 1892. His parents were Joseph and Marie (Reck) Talbott, and they were both natives of Ohio, where they were married, driving overland in a prairie schooner to Kansas in the early days before railroads were built, and there the father became engaged in the real estate business. John Reck Talbott was born and reared in Atchison, Kans., and while still a young man came to Colorado and engaged in the cattle busi- ness with his uncle, Frank Reck. Mr. and Mrs. Tal- bott have been blessed with three children: Grace Jean, a graduate of the San Jose State Normal, is a kindergarten teacher at Fresno; Alice J., a graduate nurse, is assisting her mother as a teacher; John Frank lives in San Jose.

In 1904 Mrs. Talbott came to San Jose, where she was occupied in various kinds of children's welfare work, and through this she became intensely inter- ested in all children, and their welfare and education. During this period she had become well acquainted with members of the State Board of Charities and Correction and the State Board of Control, so that when she decided to establish a home for children she had no difficulty in obtaining the necessary authority from the state. In June, 1918, she opened Haven Grove Home; her work spoke for itself and soon her home was full of healthy, happy children. Her large residence is beautifully located for such a phil- anthropy, and with her unusual ability, makes the place a real home for children, whose parents are de- lighted to have their dear ones come under her faith- ful and able supervision. Her ambition in establish- ing Haven Grove Home was to get away from the ordinary institutional environment and make it a real home in every sense of its sacredness, providing abundantly for their material welfare with plenty of room, warmth and the best of food. The children are taught up to the fifth grade and with the individual attention given them they make rapid progress. Music is not neglected in their education, as they are not only given instruction but have their own little orches- tra. Her desire in having them under her influence is to develop in them the traits of character that will tend to make them the best of men and women for American citizenship. She is endowed by nature with those characteristics that make the children love

alice Lee Talbott

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her, thus she has their confidence and implieit faith, so that there is no difficulty in the discipline of the school. Mrs. Talbott finds great joy in the loving care she is giving these little ones, and the noble work she is doing is resulting in real and lasting good.

WALTER H. WOOD .- Standing high in the esti- mation of the people, the late Walter H. Wood was a worthy member of the pioneer family of that name, and at his passing was mourned by his devoted family and a host of friends. A native son, he was born at San Felipe, Santa Clara County, December 5, 1868, a son of Uriah and Phoebe L. (Smith) Wood, the father a native of Cattaraugus County, N. Y., and the mother was an Ohioan, but grew to womanhood in Illinois. Uriah Wood was horn Sep- tember 5, 1829, and when ten years of age he ac- companied his parents to Illinois.

The Woods are of remote German extraction, but long identified with the United States. The paternal great-grandfather, David Wood, was a native of New York who suffered the terror of being taken cap- tive by the Indians when a boy, but made his escape and reached home in safety. Some years afterwards, when he had grown to man's estate, he became a soldier in the Revolutionary War. The paternal grandfather, Uriah D., was born and reared in New York and in early manhood engaged in lumbering in the Alleghany mountains. In 1839 he took his family from New York to Illinois, making the trip with horses through Ohio and Indiana, settling in Whiteside County. However, he removed to La Salle County within the next two years, and here devoted himself to farming.

Uriah Wood, the father, in company with three other young men started for the West in 1852, crossing the plains with oxen and arrived at Hang- town, Cal., in September of 1852. He engaged in various occupations, the last being teaming in the redwoods. Money being searce he accepted as pay- ment horses and cattle, and thus aceumulated 100 head of cattle. By exchanging and selling, his herds were increased, and all the time he was buying land, until he had acquired some 5,000 acres. All of his real estate was incorporated under the title of Uriah Wood Company, he acting as president and his four sons being directors in the organization. In 1885 that family removed to San Jose. In 1862 he was married to Miss Phoebe L. Smith, and they were the parents of four sons, Chester W., Walter H., of this review: Ralph W., deceased, and Louis E.

Walter H. Wood began his education in the pub- lic schools, supplementing with a course at Brewer Military Academy at San Mateo, and later at the College of the Pacific, San Jose. His first business venture was in the banking business in Seattle, Wash., but that was of short duration; then he established an export and import business in the same eity and was thus engaged until 1894, when he returned to the Santa Clara Valley and assisted his father and brothers in the management of their extensive stock business in Santa Clara and San Joaquin counties. Later he engaged in the dairy business near Los Banos, Mereed County, and was very successful in this enterprise. At the time of his father's death on June 13, 1914, he assumed full charge of the large land holdings and stoek business.

Mr. Wood was married at San Jose in 1893 to Miss Maude E. Madegan, a native of California, born near Petaluma, Sonoma County, a daughter of

William and Alice Mary (Cooper) Madegan. Her father descended from a Scotch-Irish family and the mother was of English parentage and a native of New York. At the time of her marriage, she was a student at the College of Notre Dame in San Jose. They are the parents of two children, Doris M., the wife of Ed. Koch of San Jose, and Aletha. Mr. Wood was a man of sterling worth and character; lie was a great lover of outdoor life and spent his vacation periods each year with his family, seeking the restful peace and quiet of the National Parks, especially Yosemite. It was in July, 1918, that he made his last trip into Yosemite. After having spent a time with his family in the park, he had returned with a number of his business friends from San Jose on a hunting and fishing tour and was stricken suddenly ill, which resulted in his death on July 29, 1918, at the Yosemite Hospital.

Mrs. Wood is conducting the business interests of the estate bequeathed to her and the children and shows remarkable aptitude in all financial and busi- ness matters. She enjoys the association of a Fost of friends and acquaintances, extending gracious hospitality of her beautiful home at 425 South Second Street, San Jose. Politically Mr. Wood was a stal- wart Republican and fraternally he was a member of the Elks of San Jose.

RALPH R. BENNETT .- A progressive business man who deserves mueh credit for the stimulating prosperity of a corporation rated among the best of its kind in all the state, and of which both San Jose and Santa Clara County are justly proud, is Ralph R. Bennett, the president and manager of the Paek- ers & Canners Equipment Company at San Jose. He was born at Des Moines, Iowa, on November 27. 1883, the son of Dr. J. L. Bennett, a physician and surgeon of high standing who had married Miss Clara E. Briggs. Both parents, rich in friends and enjoying an enviable record of professional and social usefulness, are still living, residents of Nebraska.

Ralph attended both the grammar and the high schools of Kearney, Buffalo County, Nebr. While still attending high school, Mr. Bennett began ranching in Nebraska, and after his school days were over he gave it all of his attention, raising grain and stock on a 900- acre ranch and also followed buying and shipping eat- tle. After twelve years he sold the ranch and stock and located in San Jose in December, 1912, entering the employ of the Bean Spray Company as a machin- ist. While thus employed he took a correspondence course in civil and structural engineering. In Janu- ary, 1915, he entered the service of the Anderson- Barngrover Company at San Jose with whom he re- mained for five years, traveling for them, installing and repairing machinery. During this time he made a trip to Australia to superintend the installing of ma- chinery in a large canning plant for the government at Leeton, New South Wales and was there from No- vember 1, 1917, until March 20, 1918. When he left this concern he was head of the production depart- ment, and had acquired a valuable experience.

In 1919, Mr. Bennett and his associates estab- lished the business which he now directs, being located at 806 South First Street. It manufacturers about everything in the way of machinery or appliances needed by packers, eanners or growers of vege- tables or fruit. The most original commonsense ideas are illustrated by their modern, convenient and

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economic devices, and it is no wonder that their products are in such demand that the business is rapidly increasing.

At San Jose, in 1911, Mr. Bennett was married to Miss Emma Thompson of San Jose, born in Plainfield, Will County, Ill., who came to San Jose in 1901 with her parents, Wm. and Ann (Leonard) Thompson. A gifted, broad-minded lady, she shares with him a keen interest in the uplift work of the Second Presbyterian Church, to which they belong. A daughter, Frances, brightens the home. Mr. Bennett is a Republican, but in matters of local import he likes to cast parti- sanship to the winds and help what he can to further the cause of the best candidates and the best propo- sitions for community growth and betterment.

MARTIN MURPHY .- The subject of this histori- cal review is the only living male adult representative of the famous pioneer family, being a great-graandson of Martin Murphy, Sr., who was born in County Wex- ford, Ireland, November 12, 1785. He grew up in his native county to be an intelligent, industrious and pious man. He married at an early age, Mary Foley, whose family afterwards became prominent in Amer- ica. Several children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Murphy in Ireland. As the family increased so did their desire for a larger measure of freedom than was accorded to Irish citizens by Great Britain in those days; so, taking all his children except his oldest son, Martin, and his daughter, Margaret, with him, they set sail for the New World, settling in the township of Frampton, near Quebec, where he bought land and built a home. Two years later the aforementioned son and daughter came from Ireland and joined the rest of the family. Martin Murphy, Jr., went to work at Quebec, where he met and married Miss Mary Bulger, July 18, 1831. Being still unsatisfied with their political surroundings, they looked longingly across the borders to the great republic. In 1840 the elder Murphy, with nearly all of his family, removed to Holt County, Mo. Martin Murphy, Jr., remained at Quebec until 1842, when he and his brother James, who had been left behind, also migrated to Missouri.

It was at Quebec that Bernard D. Murphy, the fa- ther of the subject of this sketch was born on the first day of March, 1841. Still longing for greater lib- urty and freedom than even Northwestern Missouri afforded, the family resolved to seek their ideal in far-away California, beyond the Rockies, which was then under Mexican domination. The party, with Martin Murphy, Sr., and Martin Murphy, Jr., and their families, consequently outfitted with 100 or more wagons, numerous oxen, mules, and the first American cattle ever brought across the mountains into California. They started from St. Joseph, Mo., and traversed such a route, at such a path-breaking period that the Donner party, trailing along two years later, were able to use cabins erected by the Murphys, thus through their pioneering and hardships, ameliorating to some extent the terrible sufferings of those that came later.

Martin Murphy, Sr., with the unmarried portion of his family, which consisted of his three sons, Bernard, John and Daniel, and his daughters, Ellen, Margaret and Joanna, reached California in 1844, and soon thereafter came to what is now Santa Clara County, and purchased the Rancho Ojo de Agua de la Coche,

situated on the Monterey road south of San Jose, near what later became known as "Twenty-one Mile House. Here they made their permanent home, and were loved by native Californians and highly re- spected by all the immigrants who came later, dis- pensing liberal hospitality and lived clean God-fearing lives in accordance with their highest social and religious ideals. They were foremost in matters of both church and state. Martin Murphy, Jr., at first settled near Sacramento, but before long he, too, came over to Santa Clara County and bought a vast tract of land where Sunnyvale now stands, which became known as the "Murphy Ranch." He there built the first good frame house ever built in California from lumber which had been cut and framed at Boston, Mass., according to his plans and specifications and shipped in the "knock-down" around Cape Horn to California. This house is still standing; it is the sun- iner home of Mrs. Mary Ann Carroll, and is in an ex- cellent state of preservation, and there our subject's father, Bernard D. Murphy, grew to manhood, and as the Murphys were most excellent entertainers in addition to their being California's first pioneer fam- ily, he became acquainted with all of California's lead- ing public men, and many other of the nation's lead- ing characters, as for instance, Bayard Taylor,, Amer- ican writer and lecturer, who visited the Murphys in 1859, while making a tour of California as corre- spondent for the New York Tribune, then owned by Horace Greeley. Mr. Martin Murphy, Jr., took a leading part in the establishment of the College of Notre Dame at San Jose, while Bernard D. Murphy was once elected to the assembly, twice to the state senate and thrice elected mayor of San Jose, being a leading politician and a most efficient and popular public servant, whose altruism and high sense of honor led him to turn over his salary to the public library fund, and to other general welfare purposes. His example would indeed be worthy of emulation by politicians of the present day.

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History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 142

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