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 32
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 32
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Of the four sons and three daughters of Frank and Alabama (M(Micken) Jordan, John F. Jordan was the fifth in order of birth and he was four years old when he accompanied his parents on their memorable overland journey to California. After having completed his studies in the Visalia public schools, he became a student at Heald's Business College, San Francisco, from which institution he was duly graduated in February, 1875. Soon after his return to Visalia. in that year, he was appointed deputy postmaster of that city, and in 1876 was appointed deputy sheriff. He was elected in 1879 county auditor of Tulare county, in which office he served with great eredit for five years. Later, in 1884, he engaged in the abstract business, in 1892 incorporating the Visalia Abstract Company, in which he is now a director, being formerly its secretary and general manager. The knowledge he has acquired of land titles in Tulare county is the result of years of study and experience and it makes his advice along these lines of the greatest practical value. At the same time it should be noticed that his work as secretary and manager of this enterprise is no indication of the extent of his activities. In June. 1912, he became president of the Citizens' Bank of Visalia, at which time he retired from the management of the abstract business. He assisted in organizing the Kaweah Lemon Company (Ine) of which he is secretary and which owns three hundred and seventy aeres in the foothills east of Visalia. He is a director in the Encina Fruit Company and has had much to do with the development of its lands. which include four hundred and forty acres, two miles north of Visalia. In the organization of the Visalia Fruit & Land Company he was prominently active and he is secretary of the Lemon Cove Diteh Company.
The lady who became the wife of Mr. Jordan was Alice L. Neill. a native daughter of California, and they have three children: Ethel
Dr B. Hamlin
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V., wife of William B. Rowland; Ray F., and Neill J. Mr. Jordan affiliates fraternally with Lodge No. 128, F. & A. M., of Visalia; Chapter No. 44, R. A. M .; Commandery No. 26, K. T., of which he is recorder; Scottish Rite No. 9, of which he is treasurer; and Islam Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of San Francisco. He has been a local leader of the Democracy, was a delegate to the state convention of his party in 1904 and at one time served on the county central committee. He also served on the city council of Visalia for eight years. It goes without saying that in every emergency his fellow citizens have found his public spirit equal to any demand upon it.
DR. BENJAMIN HAMLIN
A factor and a landmark in the history of Kings county is Dr. Benjamin Hamlin, of Lemoore, who was born January 20, 1824, and came to the present site of Lemoore in 1874, when he was about fifty years old. But at that time there was no town there; on the ground Lemoore now occupies were a few scattered houses of primitive construction and a few settlers had come to the country round about. The doctor has witnessed the transformation of the county from wild land to a vast wheat-field and has watched the gradual supplanting of grain by fruit and vine. There are few peo- ple who have ever lived at Lemoore with whom he was not at one time or another personally acquainted, and many who have known him have had just reason to recognize in him the proverbial friend in need who is a friend indeed.
When he was seven years old the future physician, dentist and druggist was taken by his parents to Lorain county, Ohio, where he grew to manhood. After leaving the public schools, he entered upon his professional studies under the preceptorship of Dr. Hubbard, teaching school in the meantime to provide for current expenses. In 1847 he received his degree of M.D. at Angola, the county seat of Steuben county, Ind., where he practiced medicine during the decade that immediately followed. The next ten years he spent in practice in St. Joseph county, Mich., and while practicing here he volunteered his services in the Civil war, and engaged as a hospital surgeon at Chattanooga during the time of Hood's raid, being in that service for seven months. From St. Joseph county he went to Florida, where he practiced dentistry five years. In 1872 he came to Santa Cruz, Cal., where he practiced medicine and dentistry until 1874, when he came to a little settlement on the site of Lemoore and opened a small drug store on the front of which he hung his professional sign. In 1875 he
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was appointed postmaster there and for ten years he combined the practice of medicine with the sale of drugs, then abandoned the former the better to give attention to the latter. For many years his drug store was the only establishment of its kind in the vicinity. He retired from the drug trade in 1899, since when he has done little business beyond giving attention to his fruit and vine ranch, north of Lemoore, which is now operated by a tenant.
In 1847 Dr. Hamlin married Miss Margaret Fowls, who bore him three daughters and a son. Of these children only one of the dangh- ters is living, her home being in Santa Cruz. Mrs. Hamlin died in 1886 and on the 16th of September, 1889, he married Maria L. Wells, a native of Buffalo, N. Y., but at that time living in San Francisco. Together they are spending their declining years in the companionship of many old friends, and in all the country roundabout Lemoore the doctor is held in loving regard as a pioneer.
Mrs. Maria L. (Wells) Hamlin is a member of a patriotic family of soldiers, her brother, the late Brig .- Gen. A. B. Wells, having had a military record of over forty years' actual military service. Her father, Captain William U. Wells, was one of the pioneer miners at Virginia city, Nev., and he had four sons and one daughter in his family. All four of her brothers were enlisted soldiers in the war of the Rebellion, and the three surviving have given their entire lives to their country's military service. Of these, Capt. Charles H. now resides at St. Louis, Mo .; he served through the entire Civil war, was at Libby and Andersonville prisons and was one of the brave men who dug his way out of Libby by means of an oyster-shell as their sole tool, and he has recently published a book which fully describes this incident. The second brother was the late Brig .- Gen. A. B. Wells. Another is Capt. William Wells, of Chicago, and the fourth brother, Almer H. Wells, of Chicago, enlisted as a drummer boy when he was thirteen years old.
Mrs. Hamlin has had the misfortune of losing her eyesight, but notwithstanding her life has been one of philanthropy and kindness, and hundreds of needy and unfortunate people at San Francisco as well as Lemoore will ever bless her for her gentle and generous aid.
P. A. McLEAN
Of Scotch highland stock and born in Canada, P. A. McLean, of Tulare has demonstrated the potency of the influences that were back of him in the production of good American citizenship. He has also shown what a man of the right kind may hope to accomplish in California, if he makes it his business to succeed. It was at
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Milton, aeross our northern border, that he first saw the light of day, November 22, 1842. His parents were natives of Scotland, and his mother was of the elan of the Camerons. She was a descendant of Lord John Cameron, and her brother, Capt. John Cameron, came to California as early as 1832, later saw service in the West under Fremont, and eventually was killed in the battle of Monterey, in our war with Mexico. So passed an old Indian fighter whose history is a part of the history of California.
P. A. MeLean has had many interesting and not a few thrilling experiences. Seven years he sailed on the oceans, visiting about every important port in the world. Off the coast of Africa he was shipwrecked and for four days and nights was afloat on a spar. He was a comrade of "Buffalo Bill" Cody, shooting buffaloes with him on the plains and fighting Indians shoulder to shoulder with that picturesque American hero. It all happened in the period in which the Union Pacific railroad was being constructed across the continent. Several times he was wounded, and to his grave he will earry a bullet in his body. Through his participation in Indian wars, and otherwise, he became acquainted with most of the famous chiefs of his time. Many years in the saddle, he participated in some of the famous rides that add spice to western history. It is of record that he made the trip from Dayton to Lewiston, sixty miles, in six hours, and rode from Spokane to Walla Walla, one hundred and fifty miles, in eighteen hours. He helped to locate government posts in Washington, and was the first white man to pilot a raft down Lake Chelan. He tells how plentiful deer and bear were along the lake. At Cheney, Wash., he built the first bank and the first gristmill, and later had a blacksmith shop, and the earliest gristmill at Spokane was erected by him.
In his native town, Mr. MeLean learned the trades of blacksmith and carriage maker, though his apprenticeship was finished at St. Johnsbury, Vt. After a time he found employmemnt on the Vermont Central railroad, and in 1866 he went to Chicago, where, a few years later, he built the first cabin after the Great Fire on the site of the old postoffice on Dearborn street. But meantime he was busy else- where, for in 1869 he rode into Los Angeles, Cal., and saw an old and not very promising cluster of adobe houses, relies of a former civilization, and that was about all. His trip on horseback from there took him to Idaho and Washington. It was on the 7th of November, 1876, that he made his first appearance in Tulare county. riding astride a mustang. He has lived there most of the time since. always identified with the county's growth and development. For a long time he made his home in Visalia, where he had a blacksmith shop, but did a good deal of carpentering. lle it was who framed the first joist that went into the construction of the old courthouse,
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and into that same historie structure he put the doors and built the bench for the judge. For six years he blacksmithed in Exeter. and from there he moved back to Visalia. He later rented a shop in Cochrane. He drifted to Visalia and was in the liquor business there four years, and in 1907 he ran a hotel in Cochrane, and came back to Tulare, Angust, 1909, where he now runs a shop. It was in the year 1888 that he bought the old Lyle ranch, two miles east of Visalia. He is now the owner of a house in Visalia and of the Rosenthal raneh, north of the town, which is stocked and rented. He has one hundred and sixty acres in Fresno county and town property in Fresno, and property in Kings and Riverside and Sonoma counties, besides his old blacksmith shop at Cochrane. At present he busies himself with his blacksmith and carriage shop at Tulare and with the supervision of his property. Public office has been thrust upon him from time to time. He was a deputy sheriff in Vermont, a justiee of the peace at Cheney, Wash., and a school trustee at Cochrane, Cal. He helped to organize the Odd Fellows lodge at Cochrane and the Knights of Pythias lodge at Visalia, also helped organize the K. of P. and I. O. O. F. in Exeter, and holds membership in both with dne honor. He was a eharter mem- ber also of the Odd Fellows lodge at Exeter. August 22, 1878, he married Miss Sarah M. Thomas, and they have a daughter, Sarah F.
CHARLES W. TOZER
A California pioneer of 1851, a miner, a fruit grower, a man of many interesting experiences in all parts of the world, thus, briefly, might be summed up the biography of Charles W. Tozer; but there is very much more to tell, and no old Californian would regard this book as complete if in some measure it did not tell it. Mr. Tozer was born in New York, February 10, 1830, and died in California in 1905. He came to the state by way of the Isthmus of Panama and in the early days thereafter mined in Amador, Cala- veras and Trinity counties. He was, in fact, interested in mining during most of the years of his busy and adventurons life. At dif- ferent times he dug for precious metal in California, Nevada, Ari- zona, Alaska, Siberia, China and Japan. After his experience in Nome, where he was associated with Charles D. Lane, he went to the state of Washington, where he installed a large stamp mill. To the mining fraternity of the entire country he was known as an expert mining engineer. In the prosecution of his work in new and wild districts he frequently participated in scenes peculiar to
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gold diggings at the times under consideration. During his stay in Arizona Indian wars were in progress and at one time he was a member of a party sent against the savages in defense of some people whose lives were in danger because of a threatend attack. He was sheriff of Siskiyou county, Cal., and represented his district in Nevada in the territorial Legislature.
In 1890 Mr. Tozer came to Tulare county and bought part of the old Page & Morton ranch, west of Tulare. There he grew fruit for a decade, meeting with good success, and sold out in 1900, his ranch now being a dairy plant. He married Miss Mary Seaton, a native of Youngstown, Ohio, whose father, Daniel Seaton, was a pioneer lawyer in Amador county, where he practiced his profes- sion many years. There were born to him children as follows: Roy S., of Tulare; Charles M., of old Mexico; Mrs. R. G. Cople, of San Francisco. Roy S. Tozer, a native of California, was educated in the public schools of Tulare and San Francisco and at the University of California, at Berkeley. He began his business career in connection with the dried fruit trade in San Francisco, and after a five years' residence there came to Tulare and took over the man- agement of the Fair Oaks Creamery. He is now manager of the E. M. Cox Lumber Company, which in 1910 succeeded the Tulare Lumber Company, which had had an existence of many years and was one of the old and substantial business enterprises of the town. Mr. Tozer is one of the most progressive of Tulare's younger set of business men, interested in all that pertains to the city's growth and development and ready at any time to assist to the extent of his ability any measure inaugurated for the public welfare.
FRANCIS C. SCOTT
As a soldier no less than as a citizen Francis C. Scott is deserving of attention by writer and reader. He was born in Martin county, Ind., May 19, 1841. When he was nineteen years old he enlisted in Company E, Twenty-fifth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry. His first fighting was at Fort Donelson. He saw plenty more at Shiloh, Corinth, Hatchers Run, Grand Junction, Holly Springs, Mud Creek, Pearl River, Marion Station, Memphis, Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge, Kenesaw Mountain, Buzzard's Roost, Atlanta, Chat- tanooga, Kingston, Goldsboro and at other points in the South. He has vivid recollections of the men of his eommand drinking the polluted water of Mud creek. After that fight his company was so small because so many of its members had been killed that
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it was assigned to provost duty in Tennessee. From there it went to Vicksburg and later it went with Sherman to Mississippi. A sixty days' furlough came soon afterward, and Mr. Scott rejoined his command at Chattanooga. The march from Atlanta to the sea under Sherman he will never forget. A provisional division, of which his regiment was a part, was sent back to Chattanooga. From that point a march was made to Paducah, Ky., thence to Cincinnati and thence to Baltimore, where the regiment joined its old command. A coast voyage followed and Mr. Scott was shipwrecked in Cuban waters, but was finally landed in North Carolina and marched to Newberne, where fighting was resumed. After the fight at Golds- boro, the regiment was marched to Raleigh, N. C. Several skirm- ishes followed, then came the Confederate surrender, the Grand Review at Washington, D. C., the discharge and the muster out.
Returning to Indiana, Mr. Scott located in Perry county, set- tled down to farming and married Louisa Goble, a native of that state, who hore him children as follows: Harrison Y., John W., Hiram Curtis, Thaddeus M., Sidney F., Lee Esting, Flora C. All have died except Thaddeus M. and Sidney F. John W. married Nancy Harmon, by whom he had a son named Edmund L. By a second mar- riage two daughters were born. Sidney F. married Nellie Wilson and has had four children: Ray, Leslie, Maynard and Flora. Leslie has passed away.
From Indiana Mr. Scott moved in 1866 to Montgomery county, Iowa, where he lived three years and then returned to Indiana. From there he went to Shelby county, III., and after a year's resi- dence there moved to Sedgwick county, Kas., where he remained until he was forced to leave on account of his crops being destroyed by pests. From there he returned to Illinois, whence he went to Nebraska. There he remained four years, meantime preempting and improving land, after which he returned to Union Star, DeKalb county, and two years later took up his residence in Shannon county, Mo., where he conducted a hotel for four years. He again took up farming in Texas county for eight years. He came to Fresno county in 1904 and bought ten aeres near Laton. Six months later he sold out and came to Tulare city, bought ten acres, then sold and purchased residence property and remained there until he came to Orosi. He bought ten acres half in vines and trees and the bal- ance in pasture. His profits from this investment are quite satis- factory.
As a farmer Mr. Scott is successful along his chosen lines and as a citizen he is publie spirited and helpful. In polities he is Republican. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and is a Mason.
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GEORGE TOMER
The story of the life of a self-made man is always interesting and always carries its lesson of industry, integrity, perseverance and thrift. Of this class is George Tomer, a native of Iowa, born August 16, 1847, whose early life was one of work and study in an environ- ment that was not conducive to rapid progress either in earning money or acquiring knowledge. But he got a start in life, largely by reason of his coming to California. Ile made his appearance in this state in 1862, quite young to undertake much responsibility, but of a self-reliant nature and determined to make something of and for himself. For several years he lived in Yolo county, variously employed, as occasion offered, and in 1873 came to Hanford, Kings county, where he acquired one hundred and eighty acres of good farm land, on which he has lived continuously to the present time. When he first came here he helped himself financially by working on the Peoples ditch until that work was finished. He is included among the pioneers in this vicinity, and is on the membership list of the Settlers' League. From the first he has taken an interest in public affairs, and as a Republican has been elected to several impor- tant local offices, which he has filled with ability and credit to him- self and to the community. He was trustee of the Eureka school fourteen years, trustee and chairman of the Hanford high school board seven years, and was elected constable in 1878 for two years. In 1898 he was elected supervisor from the third district, serving four years.
As a farmer Mr. Tomer has been successful even beyond his expectations. He has three acres in vineyards and twenty-five in alfalfa. While giving attention to general farming he breeds hogs and cattle and makes a specialty of dairying, having at this time about twenty fine cows. For twenty-nine seasons he has operated a header very successfully. He is thoroughly up-to-date in all his methods and his farm is fitted with good buildings and modern machinery and appliances. He has shown a faculty for planning and working out his plans, such as many farmers do not possess, and which doubtless has been a factor in his steady progress.
In Woodland, Yolo county, on September 21, 1872, Mr. Tomer was united in marriage with Miss Carrie Kohler, who was born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1855, and who was brought to California by her mother in 1860. All of her life since that date has been passed in this state and she has been a resident of Kings county since 1873. The following children have been born to this worthy couple : William H .; Leonard L .; Nettie M., who married George Tilton; Clarence E .; Clara E., widow of Walter Kelly; Annie C., widow of George Ehle; George, deceased; Read A .; Rose Ione; King F .; Forest W .;
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and Isaac. All of the children were born, reared and educated in Tulare and Kings counties and are located in the vicinity of Hanford, with the exception of Clara E. and Annie C., who reside in Oakland.
ALVIN H. SLOCUM
It was in the beautiful Genesee valley, in the Empire state, that Alvin H. Sloeum was born in 1837. His family went to Wisconsin when he was a year and a half old and remained there thirteen years, during which time he learned a good deal about farming, more about hunting, and in public and private schools got a good start toward an education. From Wisconsin the family moved to Iowa, where Alvin remained until after he became of age. In 1859 he came across the plains to California and until the fall of 1861 he lived near the Feather river, in Butte county. At the first call of President Lincoln for volunteer soldiers for service in the Civil war he enlisted and was on duty constantly until his discharge, taking part in many his- torie engagements and enduring many hardships and privations. A remarkable feature of his war record for which he is particularly thankful is that when the war came to an end he had never been captured by the enemy. He was mustered ont at Las Cruces, N. Mex., and bought a team of horses and drove through to Sacramento, Cal., near which place he worked in the mines two years. In 1866 he came to Tulare county with no more definite purpose than to hunt awhile, but the country pleased him so well that he determined to remain. Improvements were few and there was game everywhere, bear and deer especially being plentiful. He had Bruce Wilcox as a companion until in 1869, when Wilcox stumbled onto a set gun and was shot to death. Mr. Slocum was only two feet behind him when the explosion came. In speaking of those earlier days, he tells of the killing of fourteen or fifteen bears in the autumn of one year and relates how in one hunt he shot twenty-one bneks; his largest bear he killed in 1867. Jacob Cramer, Marvin Wilcox and Frank Knowles were with him, and they have often testified that it weighed, dressed and with- out hide or head, fifteen hundred and fifty pounds. Mr. Sloenm went on his first bear hunt when he was about twenty-one years old and killed three bears, the first wild bear he had ever seen.
As soon as was practicable after he came to the county Mr. Slocum began to acquire land. He took up one hundred and sixty acres and a little later another one linndred and sixty acres, and began to raise hogs and fruit, in which business he has continued with success to the present time. He has for many years been a member of the local school board and has in other ways been gener-
a. K. Slocum
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onsly active on behalf of the community. In 1880 he married Nancie Alma Hudson, a native of California, who has borne him six children, all of whom are living and all but two are married. His father, who was born in 1811, in New York state, died in 1904 in California, at the advanced age of ninety-three years. Mr. Slocum has mechanical genius of a high order, and has made a number of violins and guitars of an excellent quality.
WILLIAM P. McCORD
This highly respected citizen of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., has during his long and busy career won distinction in many ways. He was born in Ohio February 6, 1831, and there received a limited education and practical instruction in different kinds of useful work. In 1852, when he was twenty-one years old, he came to California by way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama, going from New York to Panama on the steamer Brother Jonathan, crossing the isth- mus on foot and coming to San Francisco on the steamer Winfield Scott. He stopped on the Island of Toboga six weeks waiting for a steamer and retains a fond remembrance of the place and people. From San Francisco he went to Sacramento and thence to Ringgold. After mining three months he located at Suisun, Solano county, with his brother, with the intention of going into the mercantile business. Going down to put up some hay on the island, he learned that John Owens had already erected a store there, and he and his brother-in- law engaged in the butcher business, opening the first meat shop in Snisun, and traded there until 1856, when he went back east and brought his family out to California. Upon his return he engaged in teaming with his own teams, carrying supplies to Virginia City. Hangtown (now Placerville), and other mining centers and selling goods at the stores in all the camps round about. Thus he was em- ployed three years, then for four years he ran a meat market in Vacaville. Disposing of that he returned east and farmed in Ohio and after four years went to Denver, Colo. From there he came on to Los Angeles, Cal., and soon engaged in buying cattle, which he drove to Bakersfield. He located in Bakersfield in 1872 and was a charter member of the first lodge of Masons organized there and is now the only survivor of the original fourteen members. He estab- lished the MeCord ranch, on the north side, a mile and a half from Bakersfield, constructed an irrigation ditch and for seven years fur nished water free to everyone in the vicinity. Then, selling most of his stock, he located on government land, put in alfalfa, built levees. extended the ditch, sold it and afterward managed it two years, under
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