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 49
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 49
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ALEXANDER CROOK
A pioneer and a son of a pioneer, the career of Alexander Crook has been a most active one in this vicinity. He was born in Harrison county, Ind., in 1838, a son of Wiley Crook, and came to California when he was nineteen years old. He and his brother made the long journey by way of the Isthmus of Panama and settled in Sonoma county, remaining in the valley five years. Subsequently they lived for a time in Nevada, and in the interval between their departure from that territory and the year 1874 they lived in various places east and west. In the year just mentioned they located in Tulare county, where the land had just been surveyed by the government, and took up one hundred and sixty acres. Mr. Crook is now the owner of six hundred and forty acres on which he is farming and raising cattle and some fruit with a degree of success that makes him conspicuous among farmers of his vicinity.
In 1873 Mr. Crook married Elizabeth Kipp, a native of Indiana, and they had five children, all of whom are natives of California. Catherine married Holmes Batcheler. Blanch is the wife of Bert
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Smith. Ethel is Mrs. Frank Gill. Arthur B. and Fred A. are mem- bers of their parents' household. The family is well-known and popu- lar in the county and Mr. Crook has demonstrated his deep interest in public affairs by assisting movements for the general good. In asso- ciation with George Dillon he promoted the organization of the first school near his home, was instrumental in having the first school house built there, and for a time he ably filled the office of school director.
His father, Wiley Crook, was born in Indiana and came to Cali- fornia in 1849, eight years before the settlement here of his two sons, making the journey on board an old English brig which was forty days at sea without a landing. He began here with about one hundred dol- lars in cash, with a part of which he secured a few cattle, and pros- pered fairly well until 1885, when he died, leaving his possessions to his two sons.
LYMAN D. FARMER
The youngest man who ever held the office of sheriff in California is Lyman D. Farmer of Kings county. It should be a matter of pride to Californians that he is a native of the state and doubly so to the people of Kings county that he was born within its borders, nine miles northeast of Hanford. He made his advent in this world November 7, 1885, a son of George and Gertrude D. (Ruggles) Farmer, natives res- pectively of Iowa and California. George Farmer came to California in 1875 and located on a farm near Cross Creek Switch, in King's county, where he still lives and of whom a sketch will be found on another page in this work. His wife was a daughter of L. B. Ruggles, a native of Michigan, who came around Cape Horn to California in pioneer days, returned east by way of the Isthmus of Panama and brought his wife back to this state. After mining for awhile, he farmed and worked at Iumbering at Woodland, Yolo county, until he took up his residence in Tulare county. In 1876 he pre-empted land seven miles southwest of Traver, on which he engaged in farming and to which he eventually acquired title. With the aid of his sons he constructed the Settlers' Irrigation ditch in that part of the county. After a life of usefulness he passed away in 1896. and Mrs. Farmer is his only surviving child. Of Mr. and Mrs. Farmer's ten children, eight are living: Leta D. is the wife of Dr. L. C. Cothran; Milton T. is a graduate of U. of C. and now attorney for the State Superinten- dent of Banks with law offices in Oakland; the others are Lyman D .. Ethel R., Theodore P., Paul L., Clarence W. and Lncile B.
Lyman D. Farmer acquired his primary education in the public schools and was a student one year at the University of California.
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He helped his father on the home ranch until 1909, when he was ap- pointed deputy sheriff under Sheriff W. V. Buckner. He was elected sheriff on the Republican ticket in 1910, when he was twenty-five years of age, and is filling the office with ability and fidelity that would do credit to a man twice his years.
Fraternally Sheriff Farmer affiliates with the Sons of Veterans; the Native Sons of the Golden West; is a Royal Arch Mason; a mem- ber of the Eastern Star, Odd Fellows, Woodmen of the World and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of Hanford. Popular as he is in these orders, he is held in no higher esteem than by the citizens generally. In 1911 he married Miss Ethel Rhoads, a native of Cali- fornia, a granddaughter of Daniel Rhoads, a pioneer of California. Her father, J. W. Rhoads, who also was born in this state, came to San Joaquin Valley among the early settlers and passed away in Tulare county and is buried at Hanford.
HENRY C. HORSMAN
Of Kentuckians who have become prominent in Tulare county, Henry C. Horsman of Dinuba is, perhaps, as highly regarded as any. He was born in Daviess county, in that grand old state, in 1844. His father was a native of Virginia and his mother was a Kentuckian by birth and ancestry. When he was five years old, which was in 1849, his family removed to Illinois, and thereafter he did not leave that state until in 1861, after he had enlisted in Company H, Twenty-sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. By re-enlistment he served four years and was finally discharged at Louisville, Ky., and given papers testifying to his bravery and fidelity as a soldier. It is some- what remarkable that he participated in twenty-seven hard-fought engagements without receiving a wound, and it is to his credit that he enlisted as a private and rose to be a corporal.
It was not until 1884 that Mr. Horsman came to California. He homesteaded land in Tulare county and the woman who later became his wife also acquired government land. All of this he sold when he removed to his present homestead near Dinuba, where he raised grain a number of years, but eventually turned his attention to fruit and vines. For his ranch, which is one of the most beautiful in this vicinity, he paid $47 an acre ten years ago, and today it could not be bought for $500 an acre.
The lady who was the wife of Mr. Horsman's youth was Nancy E. Smith, a native of Illinois, who came with him to California in 1884 and died in the fall of that year. In 1886 he married Lydia E. Hoskins, a native of Oregon, who had come to California. Mr. Hors-
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man is a patriotic citizen, who has in a public-spirited way done much for the community and has been called to some public offices, which he has filled with ability and credit. All who know him deem him a Christian gentleman, having at heart the welfare of mankind, and there are not a few who have felt his kindly influence for good and his generous helpfulness.
By his first wife Mr. Horsman had one child, Clarence E. Hors- man, who is identified with the educational profession of Tulare county as a public school teacher, having followed this profession for about twenty years. He was principal of the Orosi grammar school six years and has been principal of the Dinuba grammar school four years. He is at present in charge of the public school at Venice in Tulare county. Mrs. Horsman is a member of the local W. C. T. U. and has given much active attention to the upbuilding of that society. She was president of the local organization for four years, then be- came president of the Tulare and Kings county W. C. T. U., which position she held with great ability. Mrs. Horsman is a daughter of the Golden West. She was born in Douglas County, Oregon, and came with her parents, William and Peninah (Hobson) Hoskins, to California in 1867, when she was thirteen years of age, and settled in Tulare county in 1873.
F. M. PARRISH
This efficient city trustee of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born at Soquel, Santa Cruz county, Cal., September 10, 1856, a son of Joshua and Narcissa ( Dell) Parrish, natives of Ohio. The father crossed the plains with mule teams in 1849, mined and later hauled freight to the mines till 1851, when he settled at Santa Cruz, Cal., and farmed land which is now within the boundaries of that city. After a time he rented land at Soquel, then took over a Spanish grant and for many years farmed the land involved in it. He died at Soquel in 1898. and his wife survived him till in May, 1911. Their children were all born and raised in Santa Cruz county. Mary, the wife of Charles Spreckelsen of Soquel, died in December, 1911. F. M. is the immediate subject of this notice. Winfield S. lives on a ranch four miles west of Hanford. Benjamin F. was next in order of birth. Anna is the wife of A. J. Wyman of Soquel.
On the second of November, 1878, F. M. Parrish moved from Santa Cruz county to Hanford. During his first year in Kings county he worked for wages. In the second year he put in a crop of wheat. five miles west of Hanford, and he has been ranching in the county ever since. For ten years he farmed a quarter-section north of Han-
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ford, raising wheat, alfalfa and grapes. In 1890 he sold his land and for a decade thereafter lived on a small place which he bought near Grangeville. He still owns the last mentioned homestead of eighty acres, which has twenty acres of peaches, thirty of grapes and thirty of alfalfa. The family have lived in Hanford since 1901.
At Hanford Mr. Parrish has proven himself to be a public-spirited citizen with the interest of the community at heart. In the spring of 1910 he was elected a city trustee for a four-year term. He had been previously for many years a school trustee at Grangeville. He affiliates with the Woodmen of the World, and is a director in the Hanford Savings Bank, the Last Chance Ditch Company and the Lone Oak Canal Company. In 1880 he married Miss Martha Robinson and they have four children: Maud is the wife of Royal L. Waltz of Armona; May married R. O. Deacon of Lemoore; Emma is Mrs. H. A. Thedieck of Fresno; Ada is a member of her parents' household, and is a student at the Southern California University.
ARTHUR W. MATHEWSON
In Wheelock, Caledonia county, Vt., Arthur W. Mathewson was born November 14, 1834, a son of Charles Mathewson, a native of Rhode Island and a descendant of English ancestors who early settled there. He married Sarah Williams, also of Rhode Island birth, a direct descendant of Roger Williams and a relative of Governor Sprague of that state, with whom members of her family were largely interested in cotton manufacture. Arthur W. Mathewson, the sixth in a family of ten children, was brought up to farm work by his father and educated in public schools and at an academy at Linden, Vt. Self- supporting from the time he became sixteen years old, he worked in a tannery about two years, then on his father's farm three years, and in 1856 came to California by way of Cape Horn. For two years after his arrival here he worked in the mines and in 1858 he was in Tulare county a short time, then bought land at San Jose, which he operated until 1864, when it passed from his possession because of a previous Spanish claim. Returning to Tulare county in the year last mentioned he engaged in herding sheep and in time acquired four thousand head. From time to time he bought and sold ranch property and, August 17. 1896, when he died, he owned a ranch near Farmersville, Tulare county. He did much to promote irrigation and was for many years president of the People's Consolidated Ditch Company. Fraternally he affiliated with the Farmers Alliance and with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In his politics he was Republican.
In 1866 Mr. Mathewson married Miss Lucinda Tinkham, a native
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of Iowa and a daughter of Nathaniel Tinkham, who was from Ver- mont. They had eight children of whom five are living: Mrs. Pearl Ogden, Levi, Mrs. Edith M. Mosier, Earl and James A.
October 1, 1870, Levi Mathewson was born near Visalia, Tulare county, where he was reared and educated. He began his active life by helping his father on the ranch, and in 1891 bought forty acres near Visalia, which he devotes to the enltivation of prunes and alfalfa and to the breeding of hogs, and on which he formerly had a dairy of twenty-five cows. He set out ten acres to prunes and has otherwise improved the property. In 1911 he sold six tons of dried prunes from two hundred and fifty trees and he has no difficulty in gathering from five to six crops of alfalfa each season. His ranch, one of the oldest in the valley, has been farmed for more than half a century and was formerly known as the old Judd place. Mr. Mathewson remem- bers the old slab house that was built on it by Mr. Judd some time before 1860.
In 1897 Mr. Mathewson married Margaret J. Bacon, a native of California, whose father, John Bacon, settled early in Tulare county. Mr. and Mrs. Mathewson have two children, Guy and Madeline. Socially Mr. Mathewson affiliates with the Native Sons of the Golden West and with the Woodmen of the World. He is interested in every- thing that pertains to the development of the county and responds generously to all demands for publie-spirited promotion of the com- munity.
A. FRANK SMITH
An efficient member of the board of supervisors of Kings county, Cal., whose name heads this article, was born in San Jose, Cal., December 6, 1866, a son of Buck and Fannie (Heisley) Smith, natives respectively of Iowa and Pennsylvania. Buck Smith eame to Cali- fornia in 1859 and engaged in stock-raising in Santa Clara county. Later he operated at the New Idra mines in San Benito county and in 1872 again went into stock-raising. In 1880 he transferred his farming and stockraising business to a point near Hanford and in 1891 he bought land at Lindsay, Tulare county, known as Lindsay Heights, on which he has lived to the present time.
Wheat-raising at Hanford first engaged the attention of A. Frank Smith, though later he took up contraeting and building and erected many cottages and residences in and around that city. In 1906 he engaged in the bee business and has become one of the extensive apiarists in his part of the state, selling about a carload of honey annually. Ile was elected supervisor in 1906 and re-elected in 1910,
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elected a third time in 1912, and is now serving in that office. Since he entered upon his duties the following undertakings have been success- fully carried out: Annexation of a part of Fresno county to Kings county; purchase of the sonthwest portion of the plat to enlarge the court house grounds; purchase of the fairground property of fifty- three acres half a mile west of Hanford, for the site of the new connty hospital; building of the county hospital in 1910 at a cost of $30,000; and the selling of the old county hospital site and the purchase of an addition to the court house grounds in 1911. Mr. Smith is secretary of Hanford Lodge No. 264, I. O. O. F., and one of the managers of Hanford Lodge No. 163, W. O. W.
In 1886 Mr. Smith married Miss Cornelia Vermason, a native of California, and they have a daughter named Veda.
BENJAMIN V. SHARP
This prominent citizen of Kings county, Cal., whose office is in the court honse at Hanford, is the present efficient horticultural con- missioner of that division of the state. Benjamin V. Sharp, a native of Schenectady county, N. Y., was born April 29, 1839. There he grew to maturity and gained his primary education. In 1858, when he was nineteen years old, he went to McLean county, Ill., and located not far from Bloomington. He began his higher education in the Illinois Wesleyan University. It was interrupted, however, in 1861 by Presi- dent Lincoln's call to arms. Young Sharp enlisted in Company K, Second Illinois Cavalry, but was discharged on account of ill health after a year's strenuous service. Returning to his home in Illinois he resumed his college course and was duly graduated.
After leaving college he was for two years superintendent of a soldiers orphans' home at Bloomington. Then he was for some time in the hotel business in that city. Later he farmed until 1900, when he settled in Kings county, Cal. He bonght one hundred and twenty acres of land a mile and a half sonth of Hanford. It was mostly in fruit, but some of the trees have since been removed. He made his home on the property until 1905, when he rented it; in 1906 he sold it, and since that time he has lived in IIanford. In 1896 he was appointed by the Board of Supervisors horticultural commissioner for Kings county, an office which he filled with great ability and wholly to the satisfaction of the public until in 1904, when he resigned it. He was reappointed in 1906 and has served continuously ever since. As a citizen he is public-spirited and helpful to a remarkable degree, and so great is his faith in Hanford that he has invested heavily in its real estate. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masonic order.
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In September, 1864, Mr. Sharp married Elizabeth A. Hazel, a native of Ohio, but then a resident of Illinois. They have two sons, James A. Sharp of Chicago and Burns B. Sharp, a contractor well known in Hanford, which is the center of his business operations.
OSCAR TROUT GRISWOLD
In the Buckeye State Oscar Tront Griswold was born December 7. 1842, a son of Edward and Helen M. (Trout) Griswold. He is a descendant of Edward Griswold, who with his brother Matthew came over from England in 1639 and settled in Massachusetts, and is tenth in line of descent from that pioneer. Solomon Griswold, his grand- father, went from New England to western New York and lived there until 1831, when he went to Fort Dearborn, now Chicago, whence he re- turned to Ohio. Later he visited Wisconsin and still later settled in Iowa, where he died, aged ninety years, having been all his life a farmer. Edward Griswold, father of Oscar T., settled in Iowa in 1851. He had become acquainted with that country as early as 1837, when he was a member of an exploring party which explored the Wisconsin river and the vast forests to the westward. He was long a prominent figure in the middle west and was an early and to his death an ardent abolitionist. Oscar T. when only twelve years old, remembers John Brown as a visitor at his father's house and he later saw Brown on the road to Harper's Ferry. Edward Griswold died when Oscar T. was but fourteen years old. He had two other sons, who have passed away.
When his parents took him from Ohio to Iowa, in 1851, Oscar Trout Griswold was about eight years old. He was reared on a farm and after he was nineteen was a farmer and a grower and shipper of stock until 1888, when he came to Hanford. He had made a trip to California two years before, riding through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys on a mule-cart, looking for a location. When he brought his family west, leasing his eastern property, he bought one hundred acres of land east of Hanford which he sold in order to buy, in 1893, eighty acres, including water, three miles north of Hanford, at $40 an acre. This land, which is now worth $400 an acre, his sons have set ont to fruit, and two of them reside on the place. In 1894 Mr. Griswold bought forty acres near this property on which he has since made his home, though he has done no active farming since he came to California. His sons S. P., Oscar E. and A. E. Griswold during 1911 produced thirty-four tons of honey and fifteen hundred pounds of beeswax from seven hundred and fifty stands of bees. They have been
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in the bee business more than twenty years and are members of the California State Bee Keepers Association.
The oil industry has long had strong claims on Mr. Griswold's attention. He was one of the organizers of the Baby King Oil Com- pany, and is a stockholder in the St. Lawrence Oil Company. Four hundred and eighty acres of land in section eleven, township twenty- three, range sixteen, Kings county, is owned by the Baby King Oil Company in which he is the largest stockholder. He is serving his fourth term as director of the People's Ditch Company and has been for twelve years a director of the First National Bank of Hanford.
In 1867 Mr. Griswold married Miss Lucretia Thompson, a native of Ohio, six of whose nine children are living: Elmer B., James C., Alpheus E., Oscar E., S. Perry and May. The latter is the wife of George W. Anderson of Fruitville, Oakland, Cal. Elmer B. is living at Modesto and the other sons live in the vicinity of Hanford.
O. E. GIBBONS
The prominent citizen of Plano whose name is well known throughout Tulare county, Cal., as an enthusiastic promoter of the development and prosperity of Central California and as a man whose public spirit is always equal to any demands that may be made upon it, O. E. Gibbons is a native of Lake county, Ill., born August 2, 1850. He lived in Texas from the time he was abont four years old until he was nearly ten. Then his father started with his family to California, arriving at Plano September 2, 1861. There the boy was educated and has lived continuously to the present time except for such brief ah- sences as the developments of life often demand. His father, Deeming Gibbons, took up a homestead which was number nine of its series, a fact which in itself would suggest how sparsely the country was settled at that time. He planted a few trees on the place and raised a small crop of grain in 1863, and it is said that he was the first man in Tulare county to set out orange trees and sell oranges. He had half an acre of seedlings and sold the first oranges from them at twenty-five cents eachı.
O. E. Gibbons was brought up on the farm and carefully in- structed in the details of agriculture and horticulture by his father. The father died Jannary 4, 1884, his wife April 1, 1880. At this time Mr. Gibbons is the proprietor of the only general merchandise store at Plano; he is the local postmaster and has been justice of the peace and served as a member of the school board. Fraternally he affiliates with the Knights of Pythias. He is a man of enterprise and of helpful dis- 30
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position, who while winning success for himself has not forgotten his obligations to the community.
In 1874 Mr. Gibbons married Miss Fannie E. Thomson, a native of Ohio, and they have three children: Clara E. married M. F. Single- ton; lliram E. married Nellie Monroe; and Pauline is living with her parents and acquiring an education in the high school at Porterville.
WILLIAM II. BLAIN
More than a half century in the land where he came as a pioneer brought to the late William H. Blain well deserved rewards. Cali- fornia has proven herself a generous mother to her adopted children, and Mr. Blain was loyal to her. He was a Missourian, born in Pike county, twelve miles from Bowling Green, January 3, 1839, son of W. W. and Ann (Turner) Blain. The father, a cooper, a mason and a briekmaker, built and conducted the Blain Hotel, at Bowling Green. In 1844 he built the Pike county court house. There he lived and kept tavern till the end of his days; his wife died at Hannibal, Mo. Of their nine children, six are living. Two came to this state. The oldest of the girls emigrated thither with her brother and married Hugh Jones, a retired pioneer of 1849, and died at Gilroy.
The second horn of his father's family, William H. Blain, was brought up at Bowling Green, attending the public schools and, under his father's instruction. obtaining a knowledge of stock-raising. llis first trip to the coast, in the year 1854, was made with a bunch of cattle. He was but fifteen at the time, a mere boy, but observant and receptive for one of his age, and he stood guard at night like the most seasoned plainsman in his party and shrank from no other duty that came to him. He left Missouri April 20, reaching Santa Cruz in October, after having made the trip by way of Sublett's Cut-off, thence down the Ilumboldt, through the Thousand Springs valley to Walker's, thence to Tuolumne county, a route on which there would be no lack of feed for the cattle. From October until December Mr. Blain stopped at a point near Santa Clara ; then he went to Monterey connty, now San Benito, where he managed a stock ranch a year. Going back to Santa Clara, he farmer there on shares till 1857, then engaged in hauling lumber in Tuolumne county, whence, eventually, he went to Monterey county, to raise cattle on shares in Pacheco Pass. Ile sold out there early in 1863, and in June drove to Visalia, Tulare county, and, making headquarters there, teamed to the mountains till the spring of 1865. The first winter of this period he spent at Wilcox canyon. From 1865 to 1869 he was in the sheep business, making money, and then he opened a butcher shop at White Pine, Nev., whence
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he went later to Eureka, continuing in the same business. By 1873 he had mastered the butcher trade so that he had no thought of changing his occupation, and it was as a butcher that he then went back to Visalia, where he established a market, which he conducted success- fully many years, in conjunction with a cattle business so large that he at one time owned six hundred head. He acquired an improved cattle ranch of thirteen hundred and twenty acres near Monson, Tulare county; three hundred and fifty acres northeast of Visalia; five thou- sand acres in the foothills of Tulare county ; a hundred and sixty acres east of Visalia ; and a handsome home in that city. For a time he was in the dairy business, but eventually he gave attention only to stock- raising.
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