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 45
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 45
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for wages, and after two years he was able to rent forty acres of fruit and vineyard land eight miles southwest of Tulare. He re- placed eighteen acres of the trees with alfalfa and set out six hun- dred trees of new varieties in place of others that had ceased to be profitable. Renting forty acres adjoining this land, he set out on it six acres of young orchard and devoted the remainder to vines. The first of these tracts he operated five years, the latter only one year, and then he bought one hundred and sixty acres three miles north of Waukena, which he has improved with good buildings, hog- tight fences and other appliances essential to successful operation. Eighty-five acres of the land is under alfalfa. He has put down four wells, with depths of thirty feet, fifty feet, ninety-six feet and one hundred and twenty-five feet, respectively, for stock and domestic use. For irrigation he gets water from the Packwood ditch, in the company controlling which he owns one hundred and twenty shares of stock. A feature of his ranch is a fruit orchard for home use. He makes a specialty of horses, cattle and hogs and conducts a dairy of seventy cows. As a means to success in the latter venture he holds a membership in the Dairymen's Association of Tulare. He rents three hundred and ninety acres adjoining his home place and devotes one hundred and fifty acres of it to alfalfa, the remainder to grain and pasturage. On this place he has a partner in stock- raising. In 1910 he bought forty-two acres at Paige's Switch, on which he built a fine residence, fences and other improvements. Twenty-five acres of this property are devoted to alfalfa. Here he lives, conducting a dairy of seven cows and raising a few horses, cattle and hogs. He has long been one of the foremost in all that pertains to agricultural advancement in the county, and besides be- longing to the Dairymen's Association he is a stockholder in the Co-operative Creamery and in the Rochdale store at Tulare.
In August, 1893, Mr. Machado married Rosa M. Sauza and has seven children. Joseph is a member of their household. Mary is the wife of M. T. Barrerio of Tulare. The others, who are com- paratively young, are named Vivian, Louisa, Ida, Rosa and Sarah. Mr. Machado is a member of the I. D. E. S. organization of Tulare. He is helpful to religions and educational enterprises and is actively interested in everything pertaining to the welfare of the community.
ALVIN B. SHIPPEY
In and around Visalia stand many monuments to the enterprise and good taste of Alvin B. Shippey, architect, contractor and builder. Mr. Shippey is a native of the capital city of Tulare county and was
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born March 28, 1874, a son of Daniel P. and Martha A. M. (Hurt) Shippey, both of Missouri birth, who came to Visalia in 1872.
A carpenter by trade, Daniel P. Shippey operated a planing mill and worked at his trade in Visalia and has long been well known in connection with contracting and building interests in this city. Here some of his children were born and all of them grew up and were educated. The eldest is Mrs. Eva Sanders. The others are Mrs. Lela White, Walter of Porterville, Wilbur of Utah, Albert of Los An- geles, and Alvin B. of Visalia.
After his graduation from the public schools of Visalia, Alvin B. Shippey learned the carpenter's trade under his father's instruc- tion; in fact, he began to learn it long before he left school, for he has driven nails since he was thirteen years old. He began his busi- ness career as a partner with his father and brother in the Shippey planing mill at Visalia, and in 1902 branched out for himself as a contractor and builder, making a specialty of doing architectural work and drawing plans for his buildings. The following products of his artistic handicraft should be mentioned here as a part of the record of his busy life to date: The James Crowley home, a house for John Frans, the Co-operative Creamery building, the homes of L. Seott, J. B. Simpson, John Daly, O. P. Swanson and L. Lucier, the North Methodist church, the new cannery building, the Palace stables and the residence of J. T. Akers; also twelve fine residences in Lindsay, the ranch house and barns of E. O. Miller, the Fred Hamilton residence, the Prairie Center school house and the resi- denee of Louis Felder.
In 1902 Mr. Shippey married Miss Ethel Hamilton, a native daughter of California, whose father, J. Hamilton, was an early set tler in the state, and they have two children, Chester and Mervyn.
MARTIN V. THOMAS
In the state of Mississippi, one of the proud old Southern com- monwealths, Martin V. Thomas, who lives on the road two miles north of the Ilanford road, northwest of Tulare, and is one of the well-known citizens of Tulare county, was born May 28, 1846. He was taken to Arkansas in childhood, and later went to Texas. He was reared to farm labor and educated in publie schools, and in 1869 became a member of a party that consumed a year in making the overland journey across the plains to California. In April, 1870, he arrived at Visalia, where he had friends and relatives, and, liking the place, decided to stay there. For ten years he worked in and around Visalia for wages, then farmed in the Visalia and Porterville neigh- borhoods until 1885, when he homesteaded one hundred and sixty
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acres at White River, which he improved and farmed seven years. Selling that property, he bought four hundred and eighty acres east of Porterville, where he raised cattle and other stock two years. He disposed of that holding in order to buy sixty-six and one-half acres near Woodville, where he conducted a dairy two years. Finding a purchaser for the property, he bought one hundred and sixty acres at Tipton, where for two years he raised stock and ran a dairy. Sell- ing out there in 1911, he bought forty acres four miles west and two miles north of Tulare, on which he is successfully operating a dairy, milking ten cows and giving considerable attention to poultry. He has twenty-five acres in alfalfa and four hundred fruit trees. His land is irrigated by electric power.
In 1866, while he was a citizen of Arkansas, Mr. Thomas mar- ried Miss Lydia L. Dillard, a native of Alabama. She came across the plains with him from Texas and they became the parents of eleven children, ten of whom are living: Sam, of Tulare; Mrs. Ella Kirby, of Lindsay; Mrs. Ozie Orton, of Lindsay; Mrs. Frank Creech, of Tulare; Mrs. Chidester, of Tulare; Mrs. John Klindera, of Tipton; Jefferson Thomas, of Tulare; Elmer, of Tulare; Ivan and Roy, mem- hers of their parents' household; and Edwin, who is deceased. Mr. Thomas is a genial, whole-souled man, whose friends admire him for the active interest which makes him helpful to all local issues.
JAMES W. WRIGHT
The birthplace of James W. Wright was Newton county, Mo. He was born October 29, 1855, a son of John Wesley and Margaret (Lindsey) Wright, natives of Kentucky. The family moved to Texas in 1857 and remained there until 1879, Mr. Wright starting the first blacksmith shop in Decatur, Wise county. The elder Wright came out from Missouri to California in 1852 and stopped in Hangtown. His party started in the spring, with ox-teams, and was six months in mak- ing the journey. Indians stampeded their stock, most of which they never recovered, and were troublesome otherwise. A young man of the party fell ill of fever and was left in a tent near pure running water, of which he drank copiously, with the result that his fever was subdued and he recovered and eventually made his fortune in Califor- nia gold mines. Crude law was established in the mining camp and swift justice, and sometimes injustice, was inflicted by self-constituted hangmen. Mr. Wright spent two years at Hangtown and at George- town, then returned to Newton county, Mo. From there he went eventually to Chico, Texas, where he engaged in the livery business. Ile had made some money in California, with which he got a good
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start in his new home, where he prospered satisfactorily and where he spent his last days.
James W. Wright first located, in 1879, in Pomona, Los Angeles county, remaining there until 1891, when he located in Inyo county and farmed, raised stock and mined for eighteen years. In 1909 he went to Dunlap, Fresno county. He married, May 29, 1883, in Los Angeles county, Joan Hickox, who was born on November 8, 1860, in Nueces connty, Texas. They have nine children: Alfred W., Gilbert W., Walter L., Winfield, Florence C., Katie, Warren, Felix and Lois. Alfred W. married Mary Remkes, and they have three children, Viola, Gladys and Arthur. Gilbert W. married Alice P. Remkes, and they have two daughters, Iola and Grace. Walter L. and Winfield served in the United States navy. The others are at home.
Ranching and stockraising were long Mr. Wright's principal bnsi- ness. He is now the proprietor of a hotel and feed barns in Dunlap and is materially adding to the capacity of his hotel by the construc- tion of additional rooms. As a business man he is highly respected in his town, where he is prominent in the local Democracy and affiliates with the Masonic order. He has in his possession a rocking chair in which he was rocked when he was an infant and a gold nugget from a Placerville mine, taken ont in 1852 by his father-in-law, and other valuable relies of pioneer days. Mrs. Wright's father, Alfred Hickox, a native of Illinois, went to Texas in young manhood and from there came to California in 1852. After mining for a time he returned to Texas and engaged in stockraising. He again came overland to Cali- fornia in 1869, bringing with him his wife and four children and a step-daughter. Mr. Hickox was captain of the train, which suffered considerably at the hands of the Indians. He told afterward of a young man of the party who killed a squaw and was given up to the Indians, who took him away and he was never seen again. Another of his reminiscences concerned an event in Arizona. Some emigrants dropped a wagon wheel in a spring to tighten its tire; it dropped out of sight, and the prairie schooner to which it belonged was abandoned by the trail side.
ALEXANDER CLARKE ECCLES
Educated at Balmoral Agricultural College, Belfast, Ireland, an institution established under the patronage of Prince Albert, consort of the late Queen Victoria, Alexander Clarke Eccles, of Kings county, Cal., who was for a time horticultural commissioner for that county, was exceptionally well-fitted for the duties of that office and he is widely known as one of the scientific farmers of Central California.
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It was at Belfast, Ireland, that Mr. Eeeles was born March 21, 1854. He remained there until he was thirty years old, for a time devoting himself to practical farming. He came to the United States in 1884 and after tarrying briefly in Kansas and Oregon, came to Redding, Shasta county, Cal., where he became a naturalized Ameri- ean citizen. From Redding he went to Chico, Cal., and for three years was foreman on the fruit farm of General John Bidwell. Then he came to Kings county and set out thirty aeres of vineyard, north- east of Hanford, one-third of which he received for his work. After that he was made superintendent of the Del Norte Vineyard & Fruit Company and was in charge of its one hundred and sixty acres of fruits and vines for twelve consecutive years. After the termination of that service he bought forty acres of land two miles and a quarter east of Lemoore and put his brain and hands to the work of its improvement. He now has thirteen acres in vineyard and ten acres in orchard. On this place he built a fine house and established his home. Later he bought eighty-five aeres at Hardwick, which is under alfalfa and devoted to dairy purposes.
In 1909 Mr. Eccles was appointed horticultural commissioner of Kings county, an office which he filled with much ability and for the duties of which he had a distant liking, but which he was compelled in 1911 to resign because of impaired eyesight. Personally he is popular throughout the county, being a stockholder in the Kings County Fruit and Raisin Company, a member of the Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the World and Foresters of America. He is a member of the Armona Baptist church. His career here has been one of success, as will be readily understood when the comparatively late date of his coming is considered in connection with the fact that when he arrived he had but one dollar and is now worth $40,000. In 1901 he married Miss Maggie May Chamberlain, who was born in the state of Washington but was then a resident of Kings county. They have three children- Alexander Clarke, Ruth May and William Sloan.
JOHN BROTHERS
As favorably known through his connection with the Italian Swiss Company as through his identification with the Lemoore Chamber of Commerce and various fraternal organizations, John Brothers has won repute in Kings county, Cal .. as a man of ability and efficiency, who may be depended upon to assist to the extent of his ability any movement which in his opinion promises to benefit any considerable number of his fellow citizens. He was born in Illinois,
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April 16, 1879, and was brought to California by his parents in 1883, when he was about four years old. He is a son of George A. Brothers, a veteran school teacher, who won success also as a farmer. His mother, Mary E. Brothers, also a teacher, became known as a woman of much ability. The elder Mr. Brothers first came to this state in 1876 and immediately engaged in teaching. He went back to Illinois and in 1877 returned, bringing his family, and remained until 1880, though his wife returned before that time to their old home in the East. In 1883 they came to Lemoore and were both employed as teachers in the public schools of that city. Mr. Brothers had previously taught in Grangeville and in the Roades School district. He died January 19, 1911. The last eighteen years of his life he was engaged in the Government service and a large part of this time worked in the revenue service from the San Francisco Department of Internal Revenue.
It was in Lemoore that Mr. Brothers grew up and began his education in the public schools. Later he continued his studies at Fresno, where he was duly graduated from the high school. During his youth he worked in grocery stores in Fresno and Lemoore and gave considerable time to the aquisition of a practical knowledge of blacksmithing and of the butcher business. From time to time he worked on farms in the vicinity of Fresno and later was associated with his father in some agricultural enterprises. He obtained a com- plete knowledge of ranching, fruit-growing and stock-raising and by 1902 was well fitted to enter the employ of the Italian Swiss Colony as superintendent and local manager. In this connection he has had charge of the colony's fifteen hundred acres of land, six hundred and fifty acres of which is in vineyard, the remainder being devoted to the enltivation of barley and alfalfa. Mr. Brothers personally owns forty aeres, two miles and a half northwest of Lemoore, which he has put under alfalfa and is farming with good results.
His solicitude for the advancement of Lemoore impelled Mr. Brothers to consent to become a member of the board of trustees of that town, in which office he has served eight years, four years of the time as president of the board. He is one of the leading spirits in the local Chamber of Commerce and is secretary of that body. In the fire department of Lemoore he has always taken a helpful interest. and he is the very efficient secretary of that organization also. Socially he affiliates with the Independent Order of Red Men and with the Woodmen of the World and he is secretary of the local division of the first mentioned society. In 1903 he married Miss Iffie T. Foley, daughter of Dr. R. E. Foley, and they have two children, George E. and Carolyn E. Brothers.
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JAMES H. MAY
Natives of the South have always been warmly welcomed to California and none more so than sons of Alabama. James H. May was born in the state just mentioned and went early in life to Mont- gomery county, Ark., where he was in office fourteen years either as tax collector or sheriff. When the Civil war began he issued a call for volunteers and quickly recruited a company of three hundred and thirteen men, only nine of whom returned to Arkansas alive. He rose to be a major and later served as lieutenant-colonel of his regiment. Three of his sons were lost in the war, one being instantly killed in a charge within ten feet of the Union breastworks. In 1865 he became a cattleman in Texas, accumulated two thousand head of cattle, and prospered well until his business was ruined by dry seasons. He came to California in 1869 as captain of a train of ox- teams and later found in Tulare county some cattle that he had owned in Texas and marked with his brand "MAY," which had been driven overland by another man.
Mr. May left Texas with one hundred and ten families in his train. In Arizona all but seven of these families were killed by Indians or died from sickness. His account of these events was very interesting. Until 1874 he teamed at and near Porterville. Then he raised sheep and cattle until he was driven out of business by the dry season of 1877, when his stock died. He was for a number of years road master of his district and in 1879-80 built the road across the Blue Ridge in the mountains. He served also as constable in the Tule River district.
Miss Caroline Hockett, a sister of the famous John Hockett, who came to California before the discovery of gold, became the wife of Mr. May, and their children who survive are: James J .; Mrs. R. T. Hogancamp, of Bakersfield, Cal .; and Mrs. Victoria M. Clarke. There were other children who are now dead. The father passed away in 1888, the mother seven years earlier.
The only surviving son of James H. and Caroline ( Hockett) May is James J. May, who lives a half a mile south of East Mineral King avenue, near Visalia. He was born in Montgomery county, Ark., and assisted his father in the latter's farming operations until the elder May died in 1888. Then for a time he teamed in Kern county and afterward farmed ten years near Tipton and from there moved to Exeter, where for six years he operated the farming land on the Las Palomas ranch. He came to his present homestead in 1899. Here he owns forty acres which he has developed from wild, rough land to a productive ranch with an adequate irrigation system. He gives his attention principally to fruit and has planted six acres to prunes, twenty to Bartlett pears and two to peaches.
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Fraternally Mr. May affiliates with the Masonic lodge at Visalia, Tulare City lodge No. 306, I. O. O. F., and the local organization of the Woodmen of the World. As a citizen he is popular and he has in a public-spirited way done much for the benefit of the community. In 1885 he married Miss May E. Boas, a native of California, whose father settled at Lemon Cove in the early '50s. She has borne him four children: Loyal A .; Frank H .; Lena, who is the wife of Arthur T. Dowse of Oakland, and Ruby.
ALEXANDER WELLINGTON BASS
In Dallas county, Mo., Alexander Wellington Bass was born, October 30, 1861. It was in that county that he was reared and gained much of his education in the public school. When he was eighteen years old he accompanied his father to Boise City, Idaho, where he attended school two years longer. He early gained a knowledge of farming and at Boise City learned the carpenters' trade. Eventually he returned to Missouri and started back to Idaho by way of the coast in order to see California. He stopped off at Hanford March 9, 1888, and liking the town and the country round about obtained employ- ment on a farm, where he worked several months. Then, locating in Hanford, he took up carpentering and after three years became a contractor and builder. Three years later he added house-moving to his business and that part of his work became so important that it gradually commanded all his time and attention. As a contractor he had for a partner J. D. Ellis, and they confined their opera- tions mostly to building residences, of which they built as many in their period of activity as any concern in this part of the state. As a house-mover his operations have extended throughout the San Joaquin valley from Bakersfield to Stockton and he was once awarded a four-month contract as far away as Santa Rosa.
As a Democrat Mr. Bass has been active in local and state politics for ten years. In 1909 he was elected to serve four years as a member of the board of trustees of Hanford. Fraternally he affiliates with Tent No. 40, K. O. T. M., the Foresters of America, and the Woodmen of the World. He was long a member of the old Chamber of Com- merce and has for twenty-one years been identified with the volunteer fire department of Hanford. For twelve years he has served without pay as a trustee of the Hanford Cemetery Association. When he was elected there was no fund even to pay the sexton, but because of his good management the association now has a surplus of $11,000 to $12,000 at interest, a fund for the up-keep of the cemetery.
September 6, 1888, Mr. Bass married Alice Howard, danghter of
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John A. and Mary Howard and a native of Clarke county, Mo. They have had six children: Earnest, born May 20, 1891; Ethel, July 9 1897; Edna, August 16, 1900; Anita, April 12, 1902; Clarence, who died in 1906, aged seventeen years; Avis, who died at the age of ten months. Earnest is at home, and Ethel, Edna and Anita are attending school.
DANIEL M. HERRIN
Incidental to our economic development of the last half century has been the evolution of the modern creamery, a corporate agency which has come to do the work of a large number of individuals, and to do it better and to give results of a more uniform quality than was possible under the old order of things. Creameries are located here and there throughout the county, none of them are very large or conspicuous, and none of them attracts attention by such loud and discordant noises as emanate from industrial plants of various other kinds. But the products of creameries are used everywhere by every- body, in such an immense volume that the statistics of the industry are almost staggering. However, it was not to comment at length on this subject that this article was begun, and what little has been said con- cerning it has been set down by way of showing how important a work has engaged the talents of Daniel M. Herrin for some time past.
Mr. Herrin was born in Marion county; Ind., July 2, 1862, and attended the public schools until he was nineteen years old. In 1891 he engaged in stock-raising and farming and gradually concerned himself in the creamery business. His interests in that way, small at first. increased until he was called to the management of the Tulare Creamery Company of Corcoran. He continued as the manager of the Corcoran plant of the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Company until March, 1912, when he resigned his position. He then organized the Lake View Creamery Company June 1. 1912, and began running regularly November 1 of that year.
This is a stock company incorporated under the laws of the State of California with a capital stock of $50,000.00 of which Mr. Niss Hanson is president, F. A. Cleveland of Corcoran, secretary and treasurer, and Daniel M. Herrin is manager. They have installed a car lot service and are now shipping and selling direct to the wholesale trade of Los Angeles their choice milk and cream products. A three-ton automobile truck transports their products from the plant. which is substantially constructed and built of concrete and equipped with the best of machinery and located six miles southwest of Cor- coran, to the Santa Fe railway station. Thus expeditionsly handled
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the said prodnets net their patrons about fonr cents per pound of butter fat more than can be realized if sold to the creameries.
Mr. Herrin has been a citizen of Kings county since December, 1910, and since that time has never failed to respond liberally to any demand upon his public spirit. He is a Mason and socially he is a favorite with all who know him. His business methods are such as to appeal strongly to the farming community, and the institution of which he is the head is one of the most popular in this part of the state and is patronized more and more liberally with each passing year.
ENOCH WORK
It was on Cache Creek, Yolo county, that Enoch Work was born November 8, 1851, a son of Hopkins and Martha (Parker) Work, natives respectively of Tennessee and Kentucky. They came across the plains with ox-teams from the latter state in 1849, stopping at Hangtown and later at Georgetown and eventually moved to Yolo connty, whence they came in 1859 to Tulare county and settled near Kaweah. The elder Work engaged in farming and stock-raising in that neighborhood and prospered there until 1873, when he home- steaded land on Mill Creek, Fresno county, but soon relinquished the title which was taken and perfected by his son Enoch. He bought an additional one hundred and sixty acres, increasing his holding to three hundred and twenty aeres. This property they improved and it has been the family home to this time. When they came, only the Baker and Turner families lived in the neighborhood and there was no settlement at Dunlap. Cattle and horses roamed everywhere at will, there was an abundance of wild game and bear were so plentiful that Mr. Work lassoed one in the road and led him home, a feat which his consin soon duplicated. These animals were made food for hogs. The early settlers killed many deer.
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