USA > California > Kings County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 28
USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 28
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84
In Saxe-Meiningen, Germany, Andrew G. Belz was born Janu- ary 31, 1832. In his youth he learned the machinist's trade, attend- ing a mechanical school, in which he specialized as an ironworker and a locksmith. Subsequently he served for two years in the army of his native country, as required by law, but the service was so dis- tasteful to him that he fled to the United States to escape the third and last year. In 1854 he accompanied his father to the United States, settling in Rome, N. Y., where his first occupation was burning char- coal. From New York state he went to Pennsylvania, subsequently to Jefferson county, Wis., and finally, in 1862, he came to California. In 1864 he became a pioneer settler in Visalia, where he set up the first blacksmith shop, and here it was that he welded the first four-inch wagon tire that was made in the county. He continued to follow the blacksmith business here with good success until the '80s, when the failure of his eyesight made it necessary for him to give it up. Following this he became interested in the hotel business, and on the site of his blacksmith shop he erected the Pacific lodging house. As this was near the Southern Pacific depot it had a good patronage from the first and is still dispensing hospitality to the weary wayfarer.
At Watertown, Wis., August 17, 1874, Mr. Belz was married to Miss Caroline Wegman, a daughter of George J. and Caroline (Wennerholdt) Wegman. A sketch of the former will be found else- where in this volume. Three children have blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Belz, as follows: George A., Frank A. and Eliza M., the latter the wife of E. Blair. George A. is a graduate of the San Jose state normal school, class of 1902. Frank attended the grammar school, passed three years in high school, and then attended Santa Clara college. Finally both sons entered the University of Wisconsin and graduated from the college of agriculture connected with that well-known institution. They are now engaged in carrying on scien- tifie farming and dairying on the old Wegman estate, and associated with them are Mr. and Mrs. Blair. The sons are young men of much ability and of the highest integrity, who carry into their business the high ideals that made the names of their father and grandfather honored wherever they were known. Mr. and Mrs. Wegman fol- lowed their daughter to California in 1875 and settled on what is
278
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
now known as the Wegman ranch, three and one-half miles north- east of Visalia.
Just fifty years have passed since Mr. Belz came to California by way of Panama in 1862. From San Francisco, where he landed, he first went to Sacramento and then to Stockton, where he stacked about one thousand acres with wheat for Mr. Newton. All was destroyed in a flood, a circumstance which discouraged Mr. Belz with any future attempts at farming. After coming to Visalia in 1864 he worked for several men in the capacity of blacksmith before setting up a shop of his own. The passing of years has obliterated the memory of early discouragements and disappointments, and in the enjoyment of his present prosperity he rejoices that he persevered, adjusting himself to circumstances and conditions.
HON. JUSTIN JACOBS
The life story of Judge Justin Jacobs is interesting and should be instructive to the ambitious young man who desires to get on in the world in a high-minded way and to win substantial and creditable success. Justin Jacobs was born in Troy, N. Y., in 1844. His father. who had been an officer in the Seminole war, was connected with the United States arsenal at Troy until he was crippled for life by the explosion of ordnance in that military establishment. Then he went to Wisconsin and in 1847, when his son was three years old, the family settled near Waupun, where the future jurist was educated in the common school. When the Civil war broke out he was sixteen years old and, responding to President Lincoln's call for volunteers, he became one of the very young soldiers in the Federal army. On the same day he enlisted in the Sixteenth Regiment Wisconsin Vol- unteer Infantry, which was under command of Colonel Fairchild; his brother Curtis enlisted in the Third Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. The Sixteenth Wisconsin was assigned to the Department of the Tennessee and followed Grant and Sherman in all their long and brilliant campaigns in the west. Private Jacobs took part in many hotly contested engagements, including that of Shiloh, where he was one of those who stood in the historic "Hornet's Nest." Exposure and bad surgical treatment resulted in the loss of one of his eyes and he was discharged from the service in March, 1865, so nearly blind that he was unable to resume his studies for a year and a half. How- ever the sight of his remaining eye was restored, and he soon became a student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. After the junior year he entered the law department of that institution, from which he was graduated in 1871, and after two years spent as prin-
Justin Jacobs.
F
7
281
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
cipal of the Waupun public schools, he began the practice of his profession. He came to California in 1874 and until 1876 was con- nected with Tipton Lindsey of Visalia in professional work. In the year last mentioned he moved to Lemoore and built the first dwelling house in the town on land which he bought from the railroad com- pany which was promoting development there. During the legal struggle between the settlers in what was once known as "the Mussel Slough Country" he was their attorney and ably defended them in the courts. In 1883 he sold his property at Lemoore and until 1885 was the law partner of L. H. Van Schaick, of San Francisco. Returning to Lemoore he was until 1891 the leading lawyer in Western Tulare county, and in that year he took up his residence in Hanford, where for a year he had as his law partners M. L. Short and B. T. Mickle. When the western part of the county became settled and developed and a movement for the creation of a new county took form he was one of the advisors who supplied the legal knowledge upon which the work of separation and re-establishment was carried to success. This fact gives him standing in history as having been one of the founders of Kings county in 1893. He was elected superior judge of the new county and re-elected to succeed himself, and he won the reputation of being one of the ablest judges of the Superior Court of California. He was foremost in all the work of general develop- ment so long as he lived, instrumental in bringing about the bonding of the county for public school purposes and in establishing the Union high school and in securing good roads throughout the county. In the founding and building up of the First Unitarian church of Hanford he was a factor and of its congregation he was a member until he passed away.
At Janesville, Wis., in 1872, Judge Jacobs married Miss Annie M. Lowber, a native of New York, and they had three children, Clara Belle, H. Scott and Louisa M. Fraternally he was an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias, a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and of the Grand Army of the Republic, and passed all the chairs in each of these orders. He died September 23, 1898.
JOHN W. STOKES
Not only by reason of identification with California during its early formative period, but also by virtue of his long association with the stock and farm interests of Tulare county Mr. Stokes holds a leading position among the citizens of the community. When in the winter of 1855 he came to the vicinity of his present location in Visalia few attempts had as yet been made to place the surrounding 17
282
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
country under cultivation. Visalia was a very small village, sur- rounded by a wilderness, and Mr. Stokes drove his cattle along the foothills east of Visalia, where now stand the thriving towns of Exeter and Lindsay. Game of all kinds abounded and it was not uncommon to see three hundred elks in one band.
A native of Missouri, John W. Stokes was born in Daviess county, July 2, 1837, the son of Yancy B. Stokes, a native of Kentucky. Removing from Kentucky to Missouri in an early day the latter engaged in farming and stock-raising, and became well known throughout the middle west through his large stock transactions. From 1840 until 1850 he made his home in Iowa, and on April 10 of the last mentioned year he took up the march across the plains for California. He was accompanied on the trip by his son John W .. then a lad of about thirteen years, and the incidents of the ox-team journey covering seven months proved a source of unfailing interest to the youth. The party arrived at Hangtown on October 12 and the first winter was passed in Stockton, the father suffering ill- health the greater part of that season. It thus devolved upon the son to take care of the stock that winter, and with the opening of the spring father and son went to the Curtis Creek mines. They were especially fortunate in their mining experiences during the three months they were there, but all to no purpose, as the entire accumulation was stolen from Mr. Stokes' trunk. From there he went to Mokelumne river, Calaveras county, remaining there until the spring of 1852, when he located in Marysville on the Yuba river. The following spring and summer were spent in prospecting in the mines, after which he returned to Stockton. In the fall of that year he returned to lowa and in 1853 he brought his family to Cali- fornia across the plains. The journey was broken by a stop in Carson Valley, where the family spent the winter, and the following spring they located in Contra Costa county, near Martinez. One year later, December 25, 1855, they came to Tulare county, locating on government land which Mr. Stokes took up six miles west of Visalia. Here he engaged in general farming and stock-raising until selling the property to his son, after which he bought another tract in the same section, his holdings at the time of his death amounting to sixteen hundred acres. Ile passed away March +, 1886. His wife, in maidenhood Elizabeth Moore and a native of Missouri, also died in California.
A family of six sons and five daughters was born to this pioneer conple. Only three of the children, S. C., B. F. and J. W., are living in Tulare county. Two daughters, Martha J. Sanders and Hattie Webb, are residents of the state, and Mrs. Rachel Brewer, the eldest of the children living, makes her home in Iowa. The school advantages that fell to the lot of John W. Stokes were limited,
283
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
for his entire boyhood was passed on the frontier, first in Iowa and later in California. In 1853, while his father returned to Iowa for the remainder of the family, he went to the mines at Hangtown with a brother, buying flour and other stuff which they sold to the emigrants, flonr bringing $1 per pound. They raised water melons in Carson valley and sold them for $1 each. Coming to Tulare county with the family, J. W. Stokes was for some time associated in general farming and stock-raising on property which was later sold to the son, as previously stated. The latter afterward branched out along the same lines on a large scale and at one time owned as high as sixteen thousand acres of land. Considerable of this has since been disposed of, although he still owns valuable farm lands in the county. He can truly be numbered among the extensive and successful stockmen of Tulare county.
It was in Tulare county that Mr. Stokes' first marriage occurred. uniting him with Rachel M. Gibson, a native of Missouri. She died in San Luis Obispo county, Cal., leaving the following children: Christina, the wife of S. N. Chase; John Thomas; Elta; Miles Andrew and Cland. Subsequently, in Visalia, Mr. Stokes was married to Nancy Liggett, a native of Tennessee. The two children born of this marriage are Henry J., a rancher near Goshen, and Roxanna, the wife of C. B. Dorrity. Mr. Stokes espouses the prin- ciples of the Republican party, as did his father before him.
JAMES HENRY CLAY MCFARLAND
As rancher, stockman and horticulturist James H. C. McFarland has become one of the most prominent citizens of his community. His activities date from 1891, when he bought his property south of Tulare. He was born in Springfield, Greene county, Mo., Angust 19, 1849, son of William and Martha (Roberts) McFarland, the youngest of their family of three sons and five daughters, all of whom grew to maturity and five of whom are living. William Mc- Farland was taken to Cooper county, Mo., by Jacob McFarland, his father, who was a native of North Carolina, and there he grew up. was educated and learned the work of the farmer and stockman. It was as such that he was engaged during the active years of his life five miles from Springfield, where he passed away in 1863. A Whig and a Union man, he organized the first Home Guards in Greene county. Each of his three sons was a volunteer in the Union ser- vice : George, now of Springfield, having borne arms in a Missouri regiment ; John, also of Springfield, in the Eighth Missouri Cavalry; and James Henry Clay in Company F. Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry,
284
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
into which he was mustered at Springfield in March, 1865, when he was in his sixteenth year. William McFarland married Martha Roberts, a native of east Tennessee, whose father, John Roberts, took his family to Cooper county, Mo., and later to Greene county, where he died. Mrs. McFarland's death occurred in 1880.
On his father's farm in Missouri James H. C. McFarland was reared to manhood. He attended the district school near his home until he was obliged to leave it in order to go to work. After his enlistment as a soldier his regiment was detailed for frontier duty against Indians in western Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. A battle with the Cheyennes and Comanches was fought at Salt River and the Indians were defeated, but the cavalry remained on the ground until the government effected a treaty with the Indians, where Wichita, Kans., now stands. Mr. McFarland was mustered out of service at Fort Leavenworth in November, 1865, and was later dis- charged at St. Lonis. He was at that time a few months past his sixteenth birthday, and he went back to school, but left it soon after- ward to become a farmer and stockraiser on his own account. He successfully conducted an eighty-acre farm five miles from Spring- field until 1887, when he came to California and located in Tulare connty. He rented three hundred acres of the Bishop Colony land, east of Tulare, for two years. Then he rented two hundred and forty acres of the Zumwalt ranch for a year and forty acres belonging to Mrs. Traverse. In the spring of 1891 he bought twenty acres of the Oakland Colony tract, which he put in alfalfa. He also rented two hundred and forty acres of the Gould ranch in the Waukena section, which he farmed to grain for three years. In the fall of 1894 he and his brother-in-law rented four thousand acres, east of Lindsay, which was a part of the Tuohy ranch, and farmed it one year. The following year they farmed the Gould ranch and in 1896 operated two hundred and forty acres of the Woods place in the Poplar section. He also bought three hundred and twenty acres on the bayon, three miles south of Tulare, where he raised stock. That place he sold in 1904 and bought sixty acres adjoining his twenty acres in the Oakland Colony tract, which he put under alfalfa. There he lived until 1910, when he sold the property and bought eighty acres of the John Shufflebean ranch, two miles west of town, all of which he operates himself and on which his residence is located. He has installed an electric power plant for pumping.
In 1869 Mr. McFarland married, near Springfield, Mo., Miss Martha J. Wharton, a native of Greene county, that state, and a daughter of Emsley Wharton, born in North Carolina, who settled early in Missouri and died there some time after the Civil war, in which he saw service in the Eighth Missouri Cavalry, U. S. A. To Mr. and Mrs. MeFarland have been born two children. Their daugh-
- ------ --
Jemme Montgomery y Montgoming
287
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
ter Clara married W. J. Abererombie of Tulare. Their son Charles G. is a rancher near that city. Mrs. McFarland is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. In politics Mr. McFarland is Repub- lican.
LITCHFIELD YOUNG MONTGOMERY
Of those who are engaged in ranehing and stock-raising in the vicinity of Hanford, Kings county, none stand higher in public favor than L. Y. Montgomery, who came to this county in January, 1881, and during the long time that has elapsed since has demonstrated the value of industry and fair dealing in the making of a career of usefulness and honor. Mr. Montgomery was born in East Ten- nessee on May 17, 1857, the son of William Glaspy and Mary Jane (Burton) Montgomery, natives respectively of Tennessee and Vir- ginia. Both passed away on the old homestead, the father when about seventy years old, and the mother also lived to pass her sev- entieth year. L. Y. Montgomery was educated in public schools near the family plantation and at Maryville College. He was early instructed in all of the details of successful farming as conducted in that part of the country at the time, and may be said to have been in the fields since he was a lad of ten years. After he left college he assumed charge of his father's business, managing it for a short time, and in January, 1879, he went to Louisiana, where he was mneh enthused over the fine opportunities which the farming interests of that state offered to a young man, and in leaving there he felt that he was turning his back on fortune, besides leaving behind many appreciated friends whom he had made among the planters. However, falling a victim to malaria, he decided to seek a change of climate and came to California.
Mr. Montgomery's first employment in the Golden State was in the redwood Inmber camps controlled by San Francisco parties. and in June, 1881, he found work in the harvest fields for a time. In the latter part of that year he came to Grangeville, then Tulare county, and for the following two years was paid well-earned wages by G. H. Hackett for ranch work. After he had saved some money he leased land and for some time was snecessful as a farmer on his own account; still later on, as snecess smiled on his efforts, he became a land-owner and engaged in general farming and stock- raising. At this time he owns his home place of eighty acres, five miles north of Hanford, besides two hundred acres in Fresno county, all of which is well improved. He has forty acres in fruit, to the
288
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
cultivation of which he gives considerable attention. He is interested in irrigation projects and is a director of the People's Diteh com- pany and also of the Riverside Ditch company. For four years, from 1906 to 1910, he served as supervisor from the third district of Kings county and while a member of that body the new county hospital was erected and the courthouse park was enlarged.
On November 30, 1891, occurred the marriage of L. Y. Mont- gomery and Miss Jennie G. Latham, who was a native of Sutter county, born on August 7, 1870. They have three sons, Cloyd Bur- ton, a student in Heald's Business College at Fresno; Russell Latham and Creed Litchfield. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are mem- bers of the Kings River Methodist Episcopal church and both be- long to the order of Rebekahs, and he is a member of the Odd Fel- lows. In all matters pertaining to the well-being of the county or the people, Mr. Montgomery has always shown his publie spirit and has advocated and supported measures to the best of his ability along those lines. To such men as he the county owes its development and standing among its sister counties of the state.
EZRA LATHROP
The wise counsel, good judgment and progressive spirit of Ezra Lathrop have been factors in the upbuilding and prosperity of Tulare, Cal. Mr. Lathrop came from his old Iowa home to Nevada. but soon afterward, in 1866, came to California, and since 1873 he has lived in Tulare. His family is of English descent and was early established in the state of New York. William and Perrin Lathrop, his grandfather and father respectively, were born there, but settled in Susquehanna county, Pa., where the former died. The latter became a pioneer at Cascade, Dubuque county, Iowa, but soon went to Center Point, near Cedar Falls, in Blackhawk county, where he improved a farm. Later he farmed in Lonisa county, that state, but passed his declining years in Blackhawk county. Clementine Dowdney, who became his wife, was of Eastern birth, but passed away near Center Point, Iowa. She bore her husband two sons and a daughter: Ezra of Tulare; Gilead P., who died in the Civil war, a member of the Eighth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry ; and Mrs. Mary Ellen Brown, who lives in Tulare county, north of Visalia.
At Rush, near Montrose, Susquehanna, Pa., Ezra Lathrop was born in 1839 and there he began attending district schools. He was ten years old when his family went to Iowa and sixteen when his mother died, and then he set out to make his own way in the world.
289
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
For a time he was employed on farms, but in 1864 sought fortune in the West as a member of an emigrant party that crossed the plains. The Indians were unusually troublesome at that time, but the train went unmolested up the Platte and by way of Salt Lake City to Ne- vada, where Mr. Lathrop began farming on the East Walker river. In 1865 he was teaming at Dayton and in 1866 he was farming near Suisun, Cal., whence he removed three years later to Montezuma Hill. In 1873 he came to Tulare and built the residence which has since been his home and found employment as a driver of six-horse teams in mountain freighting. In 1874 he homesteaded eighty acres of gov- ernment land north of Tulare, which, with other lands, he began to cultivate six years later, and by adjoining purchases he came to own four hundred and thirty acres. He formerly owned the Round Valley ranch of thirty-eight hundred acres. At this time his holdings com- prise four hundred and forty acres in one body, all under ditch; five hundred and sixty acres, south of Tulare; and eighty acres southeast of that city. He was for a time a director in the Rockyford Irrigation Ditch Company.
In 1882 Mr. Lathrop embarked in the lumber business and soon built up a valuable trade, but after eighteen months a concern that had been his most bitter competitor and which he had worsted sold out to Moore & Smith, a company financially very strong. Unable to hold his own against such opposition, he sold out in 1884 to the Puget Sound Lumber Company, which appointed him its local agent. In 1886 the two concerns were merged as the San Joaquin Lumber Com- pany and his agency was continued. When the new company was incorporated he became its manager and had its affairs in charge until November, 1898, when it retired from business. He was one of the promoters of the Gas Company of Tulare, was financially inter- ested in it when it was incorporated, January, 1884, and has been its president since May, 1885. Its electric light plant dates from 1890 and since 1894 it has manufactured no gas. His patriotic work in bringing about the compromise with the bondholders of the Tulare Irrigation district resulted in a grand jollification and bond burning which is a part of the history of Tulare. He has performed efficient service as fire commissioner and school trustee and has helped the people of the town by his wise and conservative judgment in financial affairs. In 1885 he assisted in the organization of the bank of Tulare, the oldest in the town, of which he was president from that day to the time of his death, November 17, 1908, and which has been an important aid to the welfare of the people. It is apparent that a record of the life of Mr. Lathrop is in a sense a record of the progress and develop- ment of Tulare, for he was inseparably identified with many of its leading interests. Politically he was a Democrat until 1896. Then, unable to support the financial theories of Mr. Bryan, he became a Re-
290
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
publican. Fraternally he affiliates with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, which has a flourishing lodge at Tulare.
In Iowa, Mr. Lathrop married Miss Virginia Blake, a native of Oakland, that state, who hore him twin daughters and died in 1898. One of the daughters, Martha Adeline, married G. W. Bauman, a bio- graphical sketch of whom will be found in this volume, and the other, Matilda Eveline, married W. J. Sturgeon.
On January 20, 1908, Mr. Lathrop married Mrs. Lena Aver, whose maiden name was Lena De Vine, born in Nova Scotia. Mr. and Mrs. Ayer came to California from Boston, Mass., December, 1890.
CHARLES TILDEN ROSSON, M. D.
The profession of medicine and surgery is becoming more and more specialized as time passes, and its two principal branches are today more distinct and individual than they have ever been before. One of the medical profession in Kings county, Cal., who is hecom- ing well known in central California through his successful devotion to surgery is Charles Tilden Rosson, M. D., of Hanford, who was born in Vergennes, Jackson county. Ill., in 1876, and was there edu- cated in the public schools. In 1894, when he was about eighteen years old, he came to Tulare county, Cal. It was in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of San Francisco that he finished his pro- fessional edneation and was gradnated with the M. D. degree in 1903, and in that and the following year he was house surgeon in the City and County Hospital at San Francisco. In 1904 he came to Hanford and for a time made the office of Dr. Holmes his head- quarters, but it was not long before he established an independent office, which is now located in the Emporium building.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.