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 53
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 53
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In Fresno county Mr. Unger married Miss Ada E. De La Grange. and they have three children, Bertha, Elwood F. and Velora. Bertha has graduated from the grammar school and Elwood F. is a student.
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The members of this family are popular with all who know them. Mr. Unger is a Republican in his polities, and is actively interested in all public affairs.
HOMER DAILEY WOODARD
A successful and greatly lamented farmer and stockman who before his death was a prominent representative citizen of Tulare county was Homer Dailey Woodard, who was born November 22, 1850, and died in 1908. His native place was Waukesha, Wis .. and he was a son of Myron Woodard, who was born near Rochester, N. Y., June 9, 1819. The family of Woodard had been prominent there during several generations. William Williams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was an ancestor of Myron Woodard in the maternal line and Mr. Woodard's father saw service as a sol- dier in the Revolutionary war, and served under General Scott in the war of 1812. Myron Woodard was an early settler in Waukesha, Wis., where he cleared a farm and assisted to build up the best in- terests of his community. In 1854 he crossed the plains with the Hawkins boys, driving cattle, and became a gold miner in California. He went back in 1857, spent a year in Wisconsin and brought his family to Knights Ferry, San Joaquin county, making the trip by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Until 1862 he was again a miner, and then he engaged in farming and wool growing in the Washoe valley, Nevada. Returning to California in 1867, he spent three months in Linden, San Joaquin county, then again took to mining, this time at Columbia, Tuolumne county. In 1870 he went to Badger, on the Mill road, where he organized a school district and established a postoffice of which he was the first postmaster. There he farmed, raised stock and conducted a hotel until he retired from active life and made his home with his son, Homer Dailey Woodard, with whom he lived until in 1886, when he died, aged sixty-seven years. His political and religious attitude will be understood when it is stated that he was a Republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He married Miss Ennisa Dailey, a native of Rochester. N. Y., born June 8, 1822. After her husband's death she sold the Badger property and lived on the Woodard farm in the Townsend distriet until her death, October 4, 1899, aged seventy-seven years She left four children: Marvin W., in Tehama county; Melvin C., a farmer in Tulare county; Homer Dailey, and H. P., a railroad man of Arizona.
In the district schools in California and Nevada Homer Dailey Woodard acquired such education as was available to him, and when 32
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he was twenty he became a brakeman on the Southern Pacific railroad between Fresno and Sacramento. After three years of such work he turned to farming and stockraising. In the fall of 1876 he home- steaded a hundred and sixty acres in section two, township seven- teen and range twenty-six, a site that later became known as his home stead. He bought other land from time to time until he owned six- teen hundred acres here, fifteen hundred acres in the foothills, a hundred and sixty acres near Tulare and another one hundred and sixty acre tract in Kings county, all of which he devoted to stock- raising and general farming, with such success that he was recog- nized as one of the leading farmers in this part of the state. His sons, Chester H. and Myron F. Woodard, are partners with their mother in the old home ranch. They sold out their cattle interests in the mountains and now own three hundred and ninety acres and are renting two hundred acres more. They have a dairy of twenty- five cows and have two hundred Poland China hogs. Fifty acres are planted to alfalfa, seventy to Egyptian corn and one hundred and fifty acres to barley.
Mr. Woodard's marriage in Tulare county, May 24, 1876, united him to Susie F. Roork, who was born near Carrollton, Ark. She was a daughter of Thomas Roork, a Tennesseean by birth, who came by the southern overland route to California in 1859, he and his family constituting a part of a large immigrant train. He stopped near Visalia for a while and later became a pioneer in the Cricket- ville neighborhood, where he farmed during the remainder of his life. His wife, formerly Miss Mary Daniel, was born in South Carolina, daughter of Abner Daniel, who died there. She died in Fresno county in 1889. Of her thirteen children eleven grew to maturity and five were living in 1912. Mrs. Woodard was educated at the Visalia Seminary and taught school five years in Tulare county. She bore her husband six children: Flora, a graduate of the San Jose State Normal school, and formerly a teacher in the public schools of California, married H. Swank and leaves near Visalia; Orvis, who was educated at the Pacific Business college. San Jose, and at the Kings Conservatory of Music, married Viola Smith in 1911, and they have a daughter, Mildred; Myron F. married in 1906 Alice Fudge and they have a son, Homer D .; Chester H. married Ethel Elster in 1911, and they have a danghter, Dorris; Hazel and Myrtle are mem- bers of their mother's household. Hazel is now teaching the Chat- ham school and Myrtle is a student, being a senior in the State Nor- mal at Fresno.
Fraternally Mr. Woodard was associated with the Ancient Order of United Workmen and he was a member of the Cumberland Pres- byterian church at Antelope, with which his widow affiliates. Politi- cally he was a Republican and always took a keen interest in local
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affairs, serving from time to time as a member of the county central committee. He was a member of the first board of directors for the Townsend district and long acted either as its clerk or as its trustee, and it is worthy of note that the school building of the district stands on an acre of ground which he donated as its site. In many ways he was useful to the community, always occupying places of trust and responsibility.
MARTIN L. WEIGLE
Many a man who has come to California hoping to find good health has found that and good fortune as well. The experience of Martin L. Weigle is evidence in point. Born in York county, Pa., in 1846, he obtained some common school education in his native state, after which he acquired a practical knowledge of cigar making. When he was abont eighteen years old he went to Ohio, where he worked at his trade until failing health made necessary a change of climate. In February, 1890, he came to California and soon after- ward bought forty acres of land northwest of Tulare City, and to his original holding he has added by purchases from time to time until he is now the owner of two hundred acres. His farming operations have been somewhat extensive and at one time he worked five hun- dred acres in the county. At present he has fifteen acres in vine- yards, giving special attention to raisin grapes, and ninety-five acres in alfalfa, with twenty acres devoted to a peach orchard, in which he grows freestones and canning fruit. He has also ten acres of four- year-old peach trees which in 1911 produced fruit amounting to the value of $1,700, and twenty acres of young peach orchard not yet bearing. Among his possessions is a fine flock of Indian Runner dueks. There are on his place several good breeding mares and he has raised some fine colts, having recently sold a pair for $450. It will be seen that his career in California has been one of increasing success, and it should be noticed that this success has been the result of careful planning and intelligent labor. To an extent it has de- pended also on a good knowledge of crops, climate and market peculiarities. In short, Mr. Weigle has made a careful study of everything that could possibly affect his business and has taken advantage of every opening for improvement and profit.
In 1878 Mr. Weigle married Miss Matilda B. Wilson, a native of Pennsylvania. Though he takes an intelligent interest in all impor- tant public affairs, he is not in the nsnal sense of the phrase a prac- tical politician, but he has demonstrated the possession of public interest of the kind that makes him a useful citizen.
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JOHN BROWN BURNHAM
The Burnham family to which John Brown Burnham belongs came originally from England and settled in Massachusetts at a very early date. They were Pilgrims. Mr. Burnham's paternal grand- mother was born in England and died at Essex, Mass., at the age of a hundred and ten years. An interesting record of this family will be found in a volume, "Genealogy, Eight Generations of Burnhams," by Rosana Angeline Burnham, which was published at Boston, Mass.
In the old Bay State, in the old town of Essex, John Brown Burnham was born July 7, 1838, the third son of a family of seven children born to Nathan and Sarah A. (Brown) Burnham, the latter of whom was a native of Ipswich, Mass., and was Mr. Burnham's second wife. Nathan Burnham was a merchant and stoekman. He was born at Essex, Mass., where he lived and passed away.
John B. Burnham was brought up at Essex and at Lawrence, where he learned the carpenter's trade, at which he was employed until after the outbreak of the Civil war. December 3, 1861, he en- listed in Company H, Nineteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He received his baptism of fire at Yorktown, where he for the first time faced the enemy in an engagement. He fought later at West Point and Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, and in intermediate engagements, and at Malvern Hill was taken prisoner. At one time, through a blunder, he came near shooting General Mcclellan, and while he was held at Richmond he had a memorable talk with Gen. T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson. He was near the spot where Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston fell, when that brave Confederate officer yielded up his life for his beloved South. In Richmond he was eon- fined in Libby Prison eighteen months and had many gruesome ex- periences. One of his recollections is of having paid $2.50 in gold for a green apple pie for a dying comrade. After his release he bore rifle and knapsack through many a hard-fought fight till 1865.
At the close of the war Mr. Burnham went back to Massachu- setts, where he remained two years, then went to Wisconsin, intend- ing to take up government land. Not finding conditions there to his liking, he went to Waterloo, Blackhawk county, Iowa. In 1887 he came to Fresno county, Cal., but soon located at Visalia, where he worked as a carpenter nineteen years. Eventually he bought thirty- seven and a half acres of land, on which he has a sixteen-acre vine- yard and a family orchard. He has built a fine house on the place and has built and sold four city homes in Visalia. As a citizen he is helpful in a publie-spirited way to every movement for the general good. Politically he affiliates with the Socialists.
In Iowa Mr. Burnham married Elizabeth Van Derburgh, a native of that state, a daughter of Isaac Kelly and Charlotte E. (Gleason)
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Van Derburgh. Her father went to Iowa when a boy, and was mar- ried in Dubuque, Ia., where Mrs. Burnham was born July 25, 1846. Her mother died in Cedar county, Ia., when Mrs. Burnham was in her fifth year, leaving her and a little sister, Laura, then in her third year. Mr. Van Derburgh married a second time in Iowa and by his second marriage became the father of three sons and three daughters. John B. Burnham and his wife have six children: Sarah E., Jessie B., Anna B., Pluma B., John B. B., and David C. Sarah E. has married three times. David Carlton was her first husband, Oscar Nelson was her second and Frank McCain is her present husband. She has two children by her first marriage, four by her second and one by her last. Jessie B. is the wife of Hans Larson of Forest City, Iowa, and has ten children, three of whom are sons. Anna B. married Tilden H. Botts, and has five sons; they live in Dinnba. Pluma B. is the wife of O. H. Philbrick, of Oakland, Cal., and they have a son and a danghter. John B. B. became the hus- band of Emma Castilian and she has borne him a son. David C. married Etta Cline, of Dinuba, and they have one child.
ZENIAS KNIGHT
A son of James H. and Mary M. (Worley) Knight and a well- known citizen of Tulare county, whose residence is half a mile south- east of Monson, Zenais Knight was born in Jones county, Iowa, No- vember 16, 1854. In 1860, before he was yet six years old, he came as an emigrant to California. A train of one hundred wagons left Wyoming, Iowa, and at Baker, Idaho, was divided into two trains, one of which, consisting of thirty to forty wagons, started for Oregon, while the other came on to California. Of the Oregon party an annt of Mr. Knight was a member. Indians at that time were very trou- blesome and they attacked the train, killing most of the emigrants, appropriating the stock and burning the wagons. The lady men- tioned was one of those who escaped and it was not until four or five years afterwards that she was enabled to inform her California friends of the fate that had overtaken the train. The journey to California was made by way of Omaha and Lone Tree, Neb., np the Platte River valley, by Salt Lake and down the sink of the Humboldt to Hangtown, where the party rested for a few days. The Oregon party consisted of about seventy-five individuals, the California party of about one hundred and seventy-five.
The Knights located in Green River valley, after a short stop at Sacramento and took up one hundred and sixty acres of railroad grant land which they had later to abandon. The father lived out
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his days in California; the mother is living in Merced county. Zenias Knight's early days were passed as a pioneer in a new and undeveloped country. Work was plentiful and educational advan- tages few, but by reading, study and observation he became well informed. He married, at Hanford, Miss Sarah E. Halford, who was born in California, and they have had seven children: Warren, Walter, Laura, Alice, Wallace, Harvey and Zenias. Alice married Jacob Christen and had a son named Christopher. They live at Dinuba. Warren, a resident of Bakersfield, married Elizabeth Worthley.
After his marriage for a time Mr. Knight lived in Merced county. From there he moved to eastern Oregon, whence after seven years he came back to California and located in Tulare county. He bought sixty acres of land in 1904 which he has since developed into a fine fruit ranch, giving attention at the same time to stock. He has eight acres of peaches five years old and from twelve acres of his land he secured three cuttings of alfalfa in 1911. His stock consists of eight head and he has ten good hogs.
When Mr. Knight first came to this county there was not a house between Visalia and Fresno, and he saw herds of from five hundred to seven hundred antelope and many elk, while bear were numerous in the swamps. The whole country was a vast unde- veloped plain. He was acquainted as boy and man with many pioneers and one man of note among several he knew was Evans of doubtful fame. In 1867 and 1868, then only a big boy, Mr. Knight freighted between Stockton and Bakersfield, often visiting Sacra- mento, hauling mill stuff. Ile recollects that on one occasion the transportation charges on a steam boiler amounted to $50 more than the original cost of the boiler at Sacramento. Those were the days of primitive things in California. In the later development of this part of the state Mr. Knight has manfully borne his part. Politically he is a Republican. He formerly had membership with the Baptist church. In every relation of life he has been public-spiritedly helpful to those with whom he has been brought in contact.
GILBERT M. L. DEAN
At Clarksville, Red River county, Texas, Gilbert M. L. Dean was born November 11, 1839. In 1850 he came with his parents overland to California by the southern route, reaching Visalia by way of Fort Yuma. He was the son of Levi and Letitia (Paten) Dean, natives of Tennessee, who had been pioneers in Red River county. Texas, in 1836. The party was in charge of Captain Bailey
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and Levi Dean would appear to have been second in command. They were often menaced by Apache Indians, from whom they were successful in concealing the knowledge of their numerical strength, sometimes camping for the night in stoekades well guarded on all sides. Indians claiming to want to buy tobacco or oxen to be killed for beef, sought entrance to their stronghold but were excluded on one pretext or another. Nine months was consumed in making the trip, for the party often withdrew to one side of the trail to rest their stock and hunt. They brought one hundred cows and eighteen yoke of oxen. At this time a span of mares and a carriage would be a small price to pay for one hundred cows, but such a purchase was made on that basis by these immigrants in 1850. The party, consisting of thirty-two men in charge of the same number of wagons, arrived at Visalia just before Christmas of that year and Mr. Dean soon located on the Jacob Brus ranch up the ereek. His family consisted of himself, his wife and their eight children, the latter being Anna N., Martha J., Helen, Mary A., Henrietta, George W., Gilbert M. L. and Albert L. Anna N. married Robert Huston, whom she bore six children and with whom she went back to Texas. Martha J. became the wife of Robert Hamlington and they had five children. Mary A. married Claiborne Dunn and bore him two children. Henrietta became Mrs. John Baker and had two daugh- ters. George W. is married and has two sons and a daughter.
Gilbert M. L. married Laura E. Shaw, and following are the names of their eight children: Levi, Letitia A., John H., Laura B., Martha J., James S., Mary A. and Jesse L. Levi married Adeline Filey, who bore him two sons. Letitia A. became the wife of Alfred Wooley and had two daughters. John H. married Martha Filey and they were the parents of three children. Laura B. became the wife of George Hill and the mother of his three sons and one daughter. Martha J. married John Findley and has borne him three daughters and a son. Mary A. married George T. Seamunds. Jesse L. took for his wife May Downing and they have a son. Mr. Dean has sixteen grandchildren and one of his granddaughters is married.
For several years Mr. Dean lived near Visalia, where he carried on an extensive stock business and raised corn and vegetables. He remembers when he thought he was doing well to sell one hundred pounds of shelled eorn for seventy-five cents. He was for a time engaged in freighting from Stockton and had a government con- tract to deliver supplies for soldiers at Fort Independence. He voted at the first election in the county, casting his ballot for Lincoln with his father, under an oak tree in the open. He remembers well when the county seat was changed. He herded stoek quite exten- sively and sold many eattle at the mines in California and Nevada and was for a time in business in Visalia. In 1867 he homesteaded
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land in the county, which later he sold in order to lease a ranch of nine hundred acres for stock raising purposes. He keeps an average of two hundred head of cattle and horses and sufficient number of hogs for his own use.
Mr. Dean's experiences in Tulare county cover the period of much of its development. He has seen land which was formerly worth only $1.25 an acre sold for $5 to $20 an acre and other lands at much higher prices at a corresponding increase in value. During his early years here he hunted a good deal, killing many deer and bear. He has seen as many as two hundred and fifty deer in a single winter and more than one hundred bear, sometimes in groups of eight or ten. At one time he shot a bear which had come to the mill at Visalia for water. He killed also many antelope and saw numerous elk. For a time his association with Indians was rather intimate and they often called upon him for advice in their rela- tions with their white neighbors. At one time they counselled with him as to whether they should give a war dance or peace dance at Isham. His knowledge of Spanish and of Indian tongues made him useful in this capacity. He has been school trustee of the Isham Valley school fourteen years. In politics he is a Democrat and as a citizen he is markedly public-spirited. Mrs. Dean passed away in February, 1911, after forty-nine years of wedded happiness.
FRED GILL
For many years Iowa has attracted settlers from the east and distributed them through the southwest and the Pacific coast country, and Tulare county has profited because of this fact. Fred Gill was born in lowa in 1869 and when he was five years old was brought by his father to California, and his education was acquired in the pub- lic schools at Exeter. He grew up in the stock business and his earliest recollection is of hundreds of cattle and hogs ranging on the plains in sight of his father's house. In fact, he never turned his hand to work of any other kind. In 1897 he married Miss Car- rie Iliekman, a native daughter of California, who bore him three children. Roy, now sixteen years old, is a student in the grammar school, and Emmett and Adolph, aged thirteen and eight years re- spectively, are students in the public school.
In Tulare county Mr. Gill and his brother are recognized as leaders among stockdealers. They own forty thousand acres of land, mostly devoted to grazing, keep an average of four thousand head of cattle, and in 1912 their sales reached three thousand head. Mr. Gill's whole active life has been given to the raising of horses, cat-
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tle and hogs, in which business he has been peculiarly successful, having made all that he possesses practically within the last fourteen years. He has never affiliated with any secret or fraternal order, nor has he ever held a political office, but he performs his duties as a citizen in a public-spirited way that makes him valuable to the community. His father was a native of Iowa and a man of ability and considerable success, who passed away in 1910, aged seventy- three years. His mother is living in Porterville. Mrs. Gill's mother is dead, but her father survives, and is an honored citizen of Tulare county.
JOEL W. WILLIAMS
An honored pioneer who has passed away within a comparatively recent time was Joel W. Williams, a native of Missouri, born in 1841, who came overland to California in 1857, when he was abont sixteen years old, making the journey with ox-teams and having in his possession at his arrival a cash capital of fifteen cents and no more. Locating in Sacramento, he soon found employment stringing tele- graph wires on a line then under construction between that town and Reno, Nev. Later he was long in the employment of railroad companies as a foreman, and afterward for fifteen years he worked in the wiring department of telegraph installation and repairs, sav- ing money with which he started in the sheep business in Fresno and Tulare counties, with which he busied himself profitably until 1883. In 1881 he bought the Joel W. Williams ranch of one hundred and sixty acres, a mile and a half northeast of Lemoore, where in 1886 and 1887 he planted forty acres to vineyard. He devoted him- self principally, however, to the breeding of fine horses, making a specialty of standard bred animals. Bay Rose, a stallion of his raising, was sold when six years old to the Queen of Guatemala. For many years he was successful in his chosen line and was widely recognized as a leading stock-raiser of Central California.
In his religions preference Mr. Williams was a Presbyterian. He was a charter member of Lemoore lodge No. 225, F. & A. M. In 1882 he married Miss Christie E. Edmonds, of Kirksville, Mo., who bore him a daughter, Iva W., who is the wife of William J. Bryans, of Lemoore. He passed his declining years on his ranch and died December 14, 1907. He is survived by his widow and the daughter mentioned, and the inevitable termination of his long and useful career was sincerely regretted by many admiring friends, who dur- ing their many years companionship with him had had the daily encouragement and consolation of his loyal and warm hearted friend- ship.
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JESSE W. HARRIS
In that grand old midway state, Missouri, in the historic old county of St. Clair, Jesse W. Harris, now a well-known contractor and man of affairs at Corcoran, Kings county, Cal., was born Feb- ruary 24, 1869. When he was five years old he was taken to Union City. Ind. He was educated in public schools in that state and at the State Normal school at Winchester. Ind. One of the conditions under which some students are admitted to State Normal schools is that they shall teach for a certain time after their graduation. Mr. Harris devoted seven years to that work and won great suc- cess as an educator. In 1907 he came to California and stopped for a short time in Los Angeles, then came to Corcoran to assist in the erection of a sugar factory which is one of the conspicuous buildings of that town. Eventually he went into contracting and building, in connection with which he later took up real estate, in both fields of endeavor being satisfactorily successful. In all direc- tions may be seen buildings which attest his mechanical skill and his business ability, and he has turned some of the notable local land deals of the last few years.
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