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 57
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 57
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THOMAS JEFFERSON CLARKSON
In Seott county, Ill., Thomas Jefferson Clarkson, who lives in Exeter, Tulare county. Cal., was born in 1860, and he was nine years old when his parents brought him to California. The family lived in Yolo county until 1871, then came to Tulare county. He attended the public schools more or less until he was twelve years old, and from his twelfth to his twenty-eighth year he rode after cattle on the plains. Then he turned his attention to blacksmithing, which has employed his energies ever since. For a time he worked from place to place, but during the last nine years he has operated a general blacksmithing and agricultural repair shop at Exeter.
As a Democrat Mr. Clarkson has long been prominent in the affairs of his town and county, and was appointed a member of the health board of the city of Exeter, in which office he is serving with ability, integrity and discretion at the present time. Fraternally he affiliates with the organizations of the Woodmen of the World and Knights of Pythias of Exeter. He is devoted heart and soul to the general interests of the county. Coming here when the land was wild and there were about as many Indian inhabitants as white ones, he has witnessed and participated in its development to one of the rich sections of one of the great states of the Union.
The woman who became the wife of Mr. Clarkson was before her marriage Mrs. Mary Angeline Anstin. She was born in Kansas of a family who were among the pioneers there. Four children have blessed their union: Annie, May, Presley and Hazel. Annie is Mrs. V. W. Lneas of Exeter. May married Charles Maddox of Exeter. Presley is in the high school.
CHARLES GREEN MCFARLAND
An innovator among farmers and dairymen in Tulare county, C'al., Charles Green McFarland, who lives two miles west of Tulare, is undoubtedly deserving of special mention. lle is a native of Green connty, Mo., born February 27, 1872, who came to California in 1887. During the five years after his arrival he was employed by his father, and in 1892 bought the Exeter stable at Tulare, where he conducted a livery business for abont a year and a half. Sub- sequently he grew grain eight years, and in 1901 bought forty acres of land and rented three hundred acres, on all of which he set up as a stockman and dairyman and he operated with snecess five years. His location during that period was four miles south of Tulare. He now bought thirty-two acres two miles west of the
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Tulare post office and rented an adjoining thirty-two acres. 1Ie has on his own place twenty acres of alfalfa and twenty-five acres on his leased land, and milks thirty cows, disposing of their prod- nets over a milk route which he has established in Tulare. He has the only herd of registered Jersey cows in the vicinity, thirty-five head altogether, the largest milk producers thereabouts, the average test of their milk yielding 4.8 in butter fat. He has raised no cattle except thoroughbreds and it is only after years of selection and of careful attention to details that he has been able to produce a herd so excellent. In 1910 he built a silo on his place, in which respect he was a pioneer in his part of the county, and in 1912 he installed an electric pumping plant which furnishes ample water for all purposes.
On February 27, 1896, Mr. MeFarland married Matilda Monroe, who has borne him a daughter and two sons, Lois, Merrill and Loren, who are aged respectively fourteen, ten and eight years. The family are communicants of the Methodist Episcopal church of Tulare, and Mr. McFarland is a member of the order of Fraternal Aid of that city. He is a stockholder in the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery Company of Tulare, and also a stockholder in the Tulare Power Company.
ELMER A. BATCHELDER
It was in Plainfield, Vt., that Elmer A. Batchelder, a prominent fruit grower, living two and one-half miles east of Lindsay, Tulare county, Cal., was born in the year 1866. He was brought up and edu- cated in his native place, and when he was seventeen years old came to California and was for a year and a half a resident in Nevada county. Then for a year he was in the Sacramento valley, whence he went into Humboldt county, where he passed the succeeding twelve months. During this time he had been employed at ranch work and had acquired an intimate knowledge of California farming in the best of all schools-the school of experience.
In 1887 Mr. Batchelder came to Tulare county and for a time worked rented land. In 1892 he homesteaded a quarter section in the district known as Round valley and made improvements on it and devoted it to wheat growing till 1906, when he set out twenty acres of orange trees and fifteen acres of vines, including five acres of Valencia oranges. His orchard is so well advanced that the crop for 1912 from the twenty acres promises to reach the 1,000-box mark. By later purchase he has added to his land holdings until he now has one hundred and forty acres.
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The parents of Mr. Batehelder, natives of Vermont, both have passed away. In 1893 he married Catharine Crook, a native daugh- ter of California, and she has borne him two children: Harold, now eighteen years old, and Ennice E., now in her fourteenth year. They are attending school at Lindsay. Mrs. Batchelder's parents were early settlers in Tulare county. Mr. Batchelder has never aspired to publie office, but because he was known to be a good-roads man of advanced ideas he was three years ago given the oversight of the roads in his district, and so well has he discharged his trust that he is likely to be kept at the same task year after year. Public spirited in a generous degree, he is ever ready to respond to demands upon him for the good of the community. Fraternally he affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias.
ALBERT A. HALL
There are probably few men known more widely or more affee- tionately in Tulare county than Albert A. ("Dad") Hall, of Tulare. A native of Watertown, N. Y., he was born July 6, 1846. While he was vet quite young, his family moved to Baraboo, Wis., where he was brought up and educated so far as he could be before he went away to the war between the North and the South. That was in 1863, when he was but seventeen. He enlisted in Company F, Third Wisconsin Cavalry, which regiment was under command of Colonel Barstow, and saw arduous service, principally in guerilla warfare in Missouri and Arkansas, till he was mustered out at Leavenworth, Kans., June 27, 1865. Returning to Wisconsin, he was interested in hop raising there two years, then went to Nebraska and took up some government land. The grasshoppers were so numerons, however, that after five years filled with attempts to save from them enough for his absolute per- sonal needs, to say nothing of improving a farm, he gladly turned his face toward California. He arrived in February, 1877. and bought a hundred and sixty acres of land near Forestville, Sonoma county, which he cleared of trees and planted to a vineyard which yielded him grapes for seven years. In 1888 he came to Tulare county and, settling on forty acres north of Tulare city, engaged in the dairy business and sold milk in Tulare fifteen years. Two years during that period he fed cattle in the mountains. In 1904 he established at Tulare City an express and transfer business, which, under the half jocular title of Dad's Transfer Company, has come to be one of the popular institu- tions of the town. In this well established enterprise his son, Rozelle E. Ilall, is his partner.
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Naturally, Mr. Hall. is a member of the Grand Army of the Re- public. Thus he keeps alive memories of the days of the Civil war in which he was a faithful, if a very young, soldier. He is a Royal Arch Mason, a member also of Tulare Lodge No. 269, Free and Accepted Masons. With Forestville Lodge No. 320, Independent Order of Odd Fellows he affiliates also. He married Miss Adilla Plummer, a native of Wisconsin, in 1867, and they have children, Rozelle E., Carrie (wife of J. E. Robidoux, Eda (Mrs. F. A. Thomas, of Tulare), Beryl and Edna.
JOHN R. REED
A native of England, John R. Reed, of Orosi, Tulare county, Cal., was born in Leicestershire, November 14, 1840, was brought to the United States when six months old, stopping at New York City and Philadelphia, and about 1848 arrived in what is now Evanston, Ill. He was the oldest of the six children of his parents and eventually became one of the bread winners of the family. In 1851, when the boy was about eleven years old, his father, responsive to the lure of gold, left for California, and made the journey by way of the Isthmus of Panama. After his arrival his family heard from him several times, then came rumors of Indian outbreaks in California, they heard from him no more and his fate has been a mystery which none of his chil- dren have been able to unravel.
In the course of events the family settled in Illinois, whence the mother took her children to Geanga county, Ohio, settling not far from Cleveland. During their residence there ex-President Garfield boarded with Mrs. Reed for a time while attending school. The support of the family devolved upon her and John R. The latter early found work at $3 a month and his board. He kept busy, his fortunes im- proving until in 1861 he was receiving $13 and his board. Then he enlisted April 24, 1861, in Company F, Nineteenth Ohio Volunteer In- fantry, and served for a time in West Virginia. Returning home he veteraned by enlisting in Company (, First Ohio Light Artillery with which he served until in 1863. He had now earned $400 in bounty and he married and gave his mother $300, his newly wedded wife $75, then re-enlisted in his old company to serve during the period of the war. He was duly discharged and mustered out at Cleveland in June, 1865. He participated in many notable engagements, including Rich Moun- tain and Chickamauga, and was under Sherman on the march from Atlanta to the sea. His last engagement was at Bentonville, N. ( .. where his brother was killed. At the close of his service he returned home. His first wife, who was Miss Adelaide Gillmore, bore him two
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children. George V .. cashier of the First National Bank of Lindsay, married Jonnie Mitchell and they have two children, Jay and Earl. Daniel L. married Lelah Bander and they have two children, Roseoe and Lola, and are living near Reedley. Mr. Reed's second wife, Mary Ann Post, whom he married in Ohio and who was a native of that state, bore him four children: Bernice (deceased), Eliza Mabel, Ray- son J. and Sarah A. Rayson J. married Edith Bacon and they have a son, John Allen Bacon Reed and live at Lindsay. All of Mr. Reed's children were born in Ohio and all have been given as good education as is afforded in common schools. The family removed to California in 1886 and located in Fresno county, where Mr. Reed engaged in wheat farming. Later he took charge of four sections, increasing his acreage to fifteen thousand acres, and broadened operations by raising wheat and barley. He was thus engaged for sixteen years in the vicinity of Reedley. He came to Orosi in 1902, bought seventy acres, party improved with vines. At this time he has eighteen aeres in vines, ten in peaches, forty in alfalfa, and also engages in dairying and the stock business.
The educational advantages of Mr. Reed were limited, but by read- ing and otherwise he has become a well informed man. In his political affiliation he is a Demoerat and his influence in local affairs has been considerable. He was the organizer and the first master of the Masonic Lodge at Orosi and is a member of the Presbyterian Church.
ROBERT A. PUTNAM
John and Polly Ann (Shields) Putnam, natives respectively of Illinois and of Indiana, were visiting at Mount Sterling, Ind., when their son Robert A. Putnam was born, April 24, 1856. Burland Shields, grandfather of Robert A. Putnam in the maternal line, came overland to California in 1849 and settled in Shasta county. His party was several times menaced by Indians, but no member of it was killed and all arrived safely. For a time Mr. Shields mined, but later he became a stockman and was successful in that way until his death. No other member of the family came to the Pacific coast until 1901, when Robert A. Putnam located in Tulare county. He married in 1877, Sarah A. Shackleford, who was born in Mississippi in 1856, of parents who were natives of North Carolina. She was reared and educated in Illinois and one of her brothers served as a soldier in the Civil war. She has borne her husband seven children: Jolm F., George William, Laura E., Pina M., Myra N., Mabel G. and Sadie B. John F. of Orosi married Blanche Miller and has two children. George William mar-
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ried Katie MeKersie and has two children. Laura E. married Duane Straw. Pina M. has graduated from the Orosi high school and the others have been educated in the public school.
When Mr. Putnam came to his farm nine acres of it was devoted to peaches and five acres and a half to Muscat grapes. In 1910 he sold seven and a half tons of dried peaches, a goodly quantity of green peaches and eleven tons of raisins. A portion of his ranch is devoted to pasture and he has some stock, but he keeps only enough horses for his own use. He is as progressive a citizen as he is a farmer and in a public-spirited way aids every movement for the good of the com- munity. He and Mrs. Putnam are Democrats.
ALEXANDER M. BEST
In the state of Iowa Alexander M. Best, of Tulare county, Cal., was born April 23, 1867. Hle passed his boyhood and youth on a farm there and was edneated in a public school near by. In April, 1888, when he was about. twenty-one years old, he arrived in California and located on a ranch in Poway valley, twenty miles northeast of San Diego, where his father took up government land. For seven years he lived and farmed in San Diego county, then located in Orange county and lived at Santa Ana, and he also bought land at Newport. He farmed in that vicinity five years, on the San Joaquin three years, and at La Habra one year, and in October, 1901, came to Tulare connty and bought the Jones ranch of one hundred and twenty acres, twelve miles east and two miles south of Tulare. After raising grain there four years, he sold the property and bought eighty acres a mile and a half west of town, a homestead of forty acres with forty acres adjoin- ing it at one corner, on which he put all improvements, including house, ontbuildings, fences and roads. Until February, 1911, he con- ducted a dairy, but he then sold his cows, retaining his stock and horses, for the excellence of which his place is well known. He also gives attention to hogs and poultry. Thirty-five aeres of his land is in alfalfa.
December 3, 1894, Mr. Best married Susan Columbia Bardsley, of Poway valley, Cal., and they have a son named Edwin Bardsley Best. Fraternally Mr. Best is identified with the Woodmen of the World lodge of Tulare. Politically he has well defined ideas about all publie questions and does his full duty as a citizen, but he has no liking for professional polities and has never sought any elective or appointive office. He has at heart the welfare of the community and is generous in his encouragement of movements for the general good.
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J. L. TAYLOR
The prosperous farmer and fruit grower of Three Rivers, Tulare county, Cal., whose career it is intended here briefly to refer to, is a native of Fallbrook, Tenn., born in 1846. In 1866, when he was twenty years old, he came to California and settled near Three Rivers and Lemon Cove and, having faith in the future of the state, he resolved to grow up with it, deserving his share in its prosperity.
It was at ranch work for others that J. L. Taylor was employed until 1893. He became known as a hard and steady worker and as a man who saved his money, and in the year mentioned he was able to buy one hundred and sixty-five acres of land, on which he has been . successful with fruit and grain. It was in the year 1893, the year in which he started for himself, that he married Miss Louise Elizabeth Myrten, a native daughter of California, who in 1904 bore him a son, Edward, who is engaged with his father in conducting the ranch and developing the fruit and nursery business. Mr. Taylor has always been too busy to take much practical part in political work, but as a citizen he has performed his duties with the ballot, voting always for such men and measures as in his opinion promised most and best for the general good. He has never petitioned for nor accepted public office. Fraternally he affiliates with the Lemon Cove organization of Woodmen of the World. His father is living, retired from the activi- ties that once made him a factor in the uplift and advancement of the community.
LUCIUS HERVEY TURNER
The well known native of Tulare county whose name is above was born December 6, 1866, a son of Peter Q. and Emily S. (Keener) Turner. His father was born in Hampton county, Va., February 15, 1828, his mother in Missouri, December 9, 1843. The former lived in his native state until 1850, when he was about twenty-two years old. He then went to Alabama and Mississippi, where he had more or less intercourse with Indians, and lived for a time in New Orleans, where he passed safely through a historie epidemic of cholera. At one time. believing he had been attacked by the disease, he found relief by drinking burned whiskey. It was during this early period of his life that he had his first experience with a stove. He took up his residence in Texas, where he married Miss MeGlassen, of Texan birth, who died three months later.
In 1858 he came from Texas to California, making the journey overland with oxen, a member of a party of which his future father-
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in-law, John D. Keener, was captain. At one time, while traveling a new route, they were withont water for seventy-two hours. Mr. Tur- ner's tongne became so swollen that he could not talk, all his com- panions suffered and one of them became temporarily insane. They came to Los Angeles in 1858, where they remained some time, selling their cattle. From Los Angeles they went to Visalia, where in July, 1861, Mr. Turner married Miss Emily S. Keener, who bore him fifteen children: Nancy A .. Peter Q., John H., Lucins H., Anna B., Edna M., Laura I., Charles A., Ida C., Frank E., Marcus A., Elizabetlı, Lottie, Ada C., and another who died in infancy. Nancy A. married J. A. Drake. John H. married Mary E. Dunham. Lncius H. married Grace Lenell, who has borne him three children. Anna B. married C. H. Foster and bore him four children, she died May 30, 1889. Ida C. is the wife of J. E. Foster and they have seven children living. Frank E. married Idena Jones and they are the parents of four chil- dren. Marcus A. married Elsie Brothers and they have three children. Elizabeth F. married H. B. Mitchell and has five children. Charles A. married Mary Mades. Lottie married George Fickle and has one child. Ada C. married J. G. Jones and they are the parents of two children. Peter Q., Edna M. and Laura I. have passed away. The father died at Dunlap June 6, 1883; the mother makes her home with her children.
It was as a farmer and carpenter that Mr. Turner was instructed in the practical work by means of which he was destined to earn his living. His first purchase of land was of twenty acres. He later bonght ten acres on which he now lives. Six acres of his land is de- voted to fruit and berries, the remainder to pasturage. Fraternally he affiliates with the Modern Woodmen of America, of which he is a charter member. His political affiliations are Socialistic. Mrs. Turner is a communicant of the Church of God.
ERASTUS F. WARNER
Well and favorably known in Tulare county, where he has been a resident since 1858, Erastus F. Warner is prominently mentioned among the representative citizens of this section. He was born in Cambridge, Washington county, N. Y., October 24, 1842, the son of Captain Gerrit W. and Julia A. (Fenton) Warner, both natives of that state also. The news of the finding of gold in California bronght Captain Warner to the state in 1849, the voyage being made via the Horn in the vessel Morrison. He was successful beyond his expectations in his mining experience on the middle fork of the Ameri- can river, and with the means which he accumulated by his efforts he returned east for his family in 1851. It was not until two years later,
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however, that he was able to settle his affairs in the east and make his second and last trip to California. The year 1853 found the family coming to the west by way of Nicaragua. Settlement was made in San Jose, and that was the home of the family until the fall of 1855, when the father became interested in mining at Hornitas, Mariposa county, and subsequently he became the proprietor of a hotel at Mariposa. January of 1858 found the family in Visalia, where the father con- tinned to follow the hotel business, being proprietor of the Exchange, the Eagle and the Esmeralda Hotels. Going to Porterville in 1863 he opened a hostelry and also conducted a stage depot, a business which he followed profitably until death ended his labors on June 1, 1865. His wife is also deceased, having passed away August 30, 1898.
The parental family comprised three children, Mrs. Sarah M. Cousins and Frederick A., both deceased, and Erastus F., of this review. At the time the family removed from the east to California in 1853 the latter was a young lad and the experiences of the voyage made a lasting impression on his plastie mind. They left New York March 5 of that year and all went well until April 9, when their ship. the propeller steamship Lewis, was wrecked off Bodega bay. Total destruction threatened them, and although the ship was driven ashore and considerable damage done, no lives were lost. The passengers were finally taken aboard the Goliah and the steamer Active that were sent to their rescue from San Francisco, and thus they reached their destination in safety.
Throughout Tulare county Mr. Warner is well known as an expert well borer, having followed this business for the past thirty-eight years. Considerable work of this character has been done for the Southern Pacific Railroad, ranging all the way from El Paso, Texas, to Salt Lake City, and he also made the boring's for setting the rail- road bridges all over the line. Mr. Warner's services are still in constant demand, and that his work is entirely satisfactory is evidenced in the fact that his reputation is county wide, and visible evidences of his work are as broadly scattered. In the early days he was a member of the volunteer fire department of Visalia, and he is still connected with the department as foreman of old Eureka Engine Company No. 1. He is an honorary member of the Volunteer Veteran Firemen of San Francisco, and fraternally is a member of Four Creek Lodge No. 94, I. O. O. F., having joined the order in 1866, and is also identified with Damasens Encampment No. 44, and Canton No. 24. His political sympathies are with the Republican party.
The first marriage of Mr. Warner ocenrred December 24. 1868, uniting him with Mand A. Baker, a native of Pennsylvania. She died in 1893, leaving one daughter, Mrs. Evelyn English. Mr. Warner's second marriage, May 21, 1903, united him with Mrs. Kitty (Schreiber) Horsnyder, a native of Kentucky.
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EARL MATHEWSON
Among the native sons of Tulare county who are winning success as farmers is Earl Mathewson, who lives on the Exeter road, near Visalia. Arthur W. Mathewson, his father, married Miss Lucinda Tinkham in 1866, who was born in Iowa, daughter of Nathaniel Tink- ham, a native of Vermont, and bore her husband eight children, of whom five are living: Mrs. Pearl Ogden, Levi, Mrs. Edith M. Mosier, Earl and James A. A biographical sketch of the father has a place in these pages. Earl Mathewson was born near Farmersville, August 28, 1876, and was educated in the public schools near his boyhood home. For a time he helped his father on the ranch, then made some money running cattle through the mountainous portion of Tulare county.
In 1900 Mr. Mathewson rented of his mother a ranch of one hundred and fifty-one acres which he has since operated with much success. He has twenty acres of three-year-old French prunes, ten acres of Egyptian corn yielding a ton to an acre, and twelve acres under alfalfa. He makes a specialty of the breeding of cattle, horses and hogs and has produced some stock that is as fine as is to be seen in his vicinity.
Fraternally Mr. Mathewson affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. In 1909 he married Miss Marie Holtoof, a native of Trinity county, Cal., and they have a son named Orley. As a citizen Mr. Mathewson is public-spiritedly helpful to all worthy local interests.
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