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 61
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 61
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As a lawyer Mr. Cosper has had to do with a large number of important cases. His defense of Ike Daly, the murderer, is a matter of record as well as of history. He also appeared in the defense of Frank Smith and of Ward, the burglar, and hore a conspienous part in the water cases of Lovelace versus the Empire Insurance Com- pany and the C. A. Reagan and Patrick Talent will contests.
In 1884 Mr. Cosper married Miss Sarah Moore, at LaGrange. Ind. Their son, Volney B., of San Francisco, is superintendent of the Sartorions Structural Steel and Iron Company's works. Their daughter, Laura M., is the wife of II. L. Bradley of San Antonio, Tex. Mr. Cosper became a Mason at LaGrange, Ind., and is a member of Hanford Lodge No. 279, F. & A. M. It was at LaGrange, too, that he became an Odd Fellow. Here he affiliates with Hanford Lodge No. 264 and with Encampment No. 68, and with Truth Rebekah Degree Lodge No. 326. Conrt Reges of the Independent Order of Foresters ineludes him in its membership. His interests in the advancement and development of Hanford early made him a promoter of the Chamber of Commerce idea for the town and he is a member of the present local body, as he was also of earlier organizations of similar aims. As a communicant of the Episcopal church he has at heart the various interests of the local organization and has for some time been an active member of its vestry.
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HENRY AND PHILENA A. MURPHY
The well-known breeder of horses, hogs, sheep and cattle, whose name introduces this brief notice, was born in Dennison, Clark county, Ill., in 1836, and when he was three years old he was taken to Wood ford county, in the same state, where his parents established a new home. There they lived until 1854, when Henry was eighteen years old. Meanwhile he had attended school as opportunity offered and had acquired a practical knowledge of farming as then prosecuted in that part of the country. In the year last mentioned the family went to lowa. There Mr. Murphy lived until 1860, when he went to Pike's Peak, Colo. After leaving Colorado in May, 1863, he took a pack train to the gold mines in Montana, and after selling his ontfit took up mining. In February, 1864, he opened up the first paying claim on Alder creek, in Pine Grove district, six miles above Vir- ginia city. The claim was a good one, yielding $40,000 returns. Ile took his gold to Philadelphia to the mint to be coined, and was there when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. After disposing of his gold to a Broadway banker in New York city, Mr. Murphy went to Barton county, Mo., where he purchased considerable land and erected two stoneware pottery plants at Lamar, Mo. In 1880 he erected the finest eut-stone building in Barton county. Two years later he en- gaged in the grocery business in Lamar and subsequently he removed to Wolsey, S. Dak., remaining there two years, when he came to California and settled on the north fork of Tule river, where he now makes his home. This property was inherited by Mrs. Murphy, it formerly belonging to her father. The property comprises eight hundred acres, and this Mr. Murphy is operating with much profit. giving special attention to horses, hogs, sheep and cattle. So exten- sive is his business that he has become known as one of the leading stockmen in his part of the county.
In 1879 Mr. Murphy married Philena A. Bailey, a native of Ohio. When he came to the county it was mostly wild land and he was one of the pioneers in improvement in his vicinity. He has watched the development of this now rich region and has done whatever was pos- sible to encourage and promote it. To those who best know him it is well known that no legitimate appeal to his publie spirit is unheeded. While he is not active in political work he entertains very definite convictions concerning all questions of public policy, and always favors such men and measures as he believes promise to confer the greatest good upon the greatest number. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy have no children of their own, but have taken into their home and bronght up and educated ten orphan children.
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CILARLES HENRY HOWARD
A man who is well regarded in Hanford and Kings county is Charles Henry Howard, who formerly had to do with ranching and with the oil industry, and who will be remembered for his prominence in the partition of the county. Maine is the native state of Mr. How- ard, his birth occurring February 3, 1850. He attended the common schools of the Pine Tree State, which from time immemorial has been famous for its public educational system. When he laid away his school books it was to take up the implements of the carriage builder and in time he became expert in their use, setting up for himself as a carriage builder at Brownsfield in Oxford county, western Maine, where he prospered until the spring of 1884, when he came to California. In the fall of the same year he located in Hanford and for the succeeding eighteen years he most efficiently filled the position of superintendent of A. L. Cressy's ranch, a mile from the city. His principal concern there was with respect to stockraising, and he soon developed into one of the best informed, most careful and most pro- ficient stockmen in central California.
While Mr. Howard was thus employed he bought forty acres of land three and a half miles southwest of Hanford which he developed into a profitable vineyard and which has been for some time operated by tenants on sharing terms. He also made some investments in oil property which turned out quite well. In 1884 he married Miss Addie F. Harmon, a native of Maine, who passed away December 21, 1910. Gifted with all of the natural progressiveness of the down-east Yan- kee and imbned with the spirit of western progress, Mr. Howard has been interested in everything pertaining to the development of his community and helpful to all local interests.
CLAUDE D. COATS
One of the prominent farmers and stockmen in the Paddock dis- triet, eight miles southwest of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., is Claude D. Coats. Mr. Coats was born at Dayton, Nev., December 9, 1860. a son of Thomas Coats, who was until the end of his career a leader in mining enterprises in that part of the country. The family had been at Fort Churchill four months during Indian troubles and were returning to their home in Virginia City, stopping at Dayton to look after some mining business when their son was born. In October, 1881, after his father's death, C'lande located a mile east of his present ranch. He and his brother L. B. Coats rented one hundred and sixty acres and were associated in farming and stock-raising for fifteen years. Meanwhile Clande D. Coats bought two hundred and 37
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forty acres, which is included in his present home property. He moved onto the ranch in 1890 and has since made all the improve- ments for which the property is well known throughout the county. While his principal business is the raising of horses and hogs, he does some farming and has one hundred and twenty acres in alfalfa. Some years ago he bought and sold seventy-three and one-half acres about a mile distant from his homestead.
By his marriage in June, 1902, Mr. Coats united his life and fortunes with those of Miss Mattie Finley, a native of Contra Costa county, Angust 29, 1864, but a resident of Santa Rosa, Sonoma conty. They have many friends in the country round about Han- ford who rejoice in their success thus far and express the firmest faith in their future. Mr. Coats is a man of much natural public spirit who is interested in the growth and development of Kings county.
JOHN V. CREATH
In his successful career as a contractor and builder, John V. ('reath, whose place is at the corner of I and King streets, Tulare, in the California connty of that name, has demonstrated the value of originality and initiative. He is a native-born Californian and his life began in Merced county in 1873. He was only a baby when his family moved back to the place in the East whence they had come out to the West. In 1888, when he was about fifteen years old, he went to Phoenix, Arizona, where he engaged in mining and as opportunity offered worked at the carpenter's trade. He came to Tulare in 1906 and has risen to prominence as a contractor and builder. Among the structures which are monuments to his enter- prise and industry are the Post Office building at Tulare, the Moore block and the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery building. He con- structed the concrete dam across the Tule river near Porterville, built twelve buildings on the Tagus ranch, built several houses in Lindsay. built a set of buildings on the R. F. Gearing ranch and another on the MeGarver and Walker ranch. In fact, he makes a specialty of designing plans for complete sets of ranch buildings which he erects so substantially and artistically that they attract attention and pro- «laim his talent and skill as nothing else could do. In addition to the achievements mentioned he has erected many buildings of differ- ent kinds throughout the country. In 1911 he built twelve houses on min proved property in Tulare City. His business gives constant employment to from ten to twenty-five men and requires the use of two automobiles. In the winter of 1912 he built the town of Graham. twenty five miles west of Fresno, for B. F. Graham.
October 9, 1895, Mr. Creath married Miss June B. Allison, who
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was born in Illinois, and they have children named Ralph, James, Florence and Donald. Mr. Creath is identified with local lodges of Eagles, Red Men and Woodmen of the World. He is too busy to take active part in political work, but has a good knowledge of public questions, local and general, and a well defined opinion as to how he should vote in order to further the best interests of the people at large.
MRS. CATHERINE LOUISA TRAUT
In Livingston county, state of New York, Jime 10, 1836, the lady mentioned above, a citizen of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born and in the state of Pennsylvania she grew to womanhood. May 23, 1860, she married Henry A. Trant, a native of Girard, Erie county, Pa., born August 14, 1830. In 1890 they settled at Texarkana, Ark., whence in 1898 they came to Kings county, Cal. They lived at Grangeville when they came to the county and later bought five acres of land in the Emma Lee Colony and remained for about seven years, engaged in raising fruit and farming. In 1903 they sold out their California interests and returned to their old home in Pennsylvania for a visit, but came back to California before the end of that year, and in 1904 bought twenty aeres half a mile north of the north limits of Hanford, a portion of which was in orchard, the balance pasture land. In 1906 they sold ten acres of this tract, retaining ten acres, which is now the home of Mrs. Traut.
It was at Girard, Pa., already mentioned as his birthplace, that Henry A. Traut was raised. When he was twenty-one years old he came to California, where he mined for eight years. Then, returning to Pennsylvania, he married and engaged in farming and merchandising. Eventually he removed to Arkansas, where he con- tinmed to sell goods until his failing health made it necessary for him to come back to California. Here he gave his attention to fruit growing until his death, which occurred May 7, 1907. Socially he affiliated with the Masons, and he and his wife were identified with the order of the Eastern Star from the time of coming to Kings county. They early identified themselves with the Methodist Episcopal church. Their one child, Minnie, died aged five years, in 1866. Mrs. Traut was a danghter of Samnel L. and Hannah (Crooks) Buckbee. Her father died soon after the beginning of the Civil war. There were many bushwhackers in the neighborhood at the time of his funeral and his family found it advisable to conceal from them the fact of his death. Those were strinnons times in Missouri, when the Buckbee family was then living, and it was understood by Mrs. Trant and her
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friends that Confederate marauders had decorated their bridle reins with scalps of Federal sympathizers. Thomas J. Buckbee enlisted at Chillicothe, Mo., in 1861, in the Federal cavalry, with which he served during the war. His brother David enlisted in 1861 also and served three years in the same Missouri regiment, then, instead of re-enlist- ing, came home to care for his aged mother. Thomas was the eldest and David was the second brother of Mrs. Trant.
PARKER RICE BROOKS
In the old state of Georgia, in the heart of the South, P. R. Brooks, now of Sultana. Tulare county, Cal., was born September 24, 1857, a son of Mieager and Susan (Sansing) Brooks, both natives of Georgia. While he was yet an infant he was taken by his parents to Texas, where the family lived a short time. In 1858, with ox- teams, they made a six months' journey across the plains to Califor- nia. They met many Indians, but were not seriously molested by them. Young Hambrite of the party was drowned in crossing the Colorado river. The Brooks family arrived at Porterville in the fall of the same year and they have lived in this part of the state ever since. The father of the family was a stock-raiser and for some time owned many sheep.
P. R. Brooks was a stockman from 1868 to 1893. Later he bought a homestead in Yokohl valley, one hundred and sixty acres of new land, and from time to time other tracts in the valley and in the hills near by. At the time he was proving up on his land the country was new and wild, with cattle, sheep and horses ranging in all directions. lle has watched the progress of civilization and the agricultural changes that have developed Tulare county into vast fields of grain with vines and trees that are making it famous, not only as a farming district, but as a wonderful land of grapes and oranges. For several years past he has lived in Sultana, but has given his attention to important interests in the vicinity. On two tracts of leased land, one of one hundred and twenty acres, the other of three hundred and twenty acres, lying in the valley, he has hatched twenty five hundred turkeys and has at this time fourteen hundred and fifty. Ile has forty acres near Sultana, purchased in 1901, which he calls his home, thirty acres of it in vineyard and orchard, the remainder in pasture. For the past thirty years he has given attention to turkeys, raising many each season. Since Jan- nary, 1912, he has resided upon his home place and is looking after that with the care he has always displayed. When he began here there was plenty of wild game in the country, including elk, of which he saw more than one thousand specimens, and the territory now
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within the limits of the county had not a population of more than two thonsand sonls.
In his polities, Mr. Brooks, formerly a Democrat, now inclines to Socialism. He married, near Hanford, Miss Ellen Burr, a native of Shasta county, Cal., who has borne him seven children-Myrtle (the wife of Clyde Bursford), Harry, Lillie, Dwight, Minnie, Josephine and Carmen. Josephine is attending school at Fresno.
JAMES MAXWELL CANN
September 1, 1861, James Maxwell Cann was born in Kentucky. In 1880, when he was not yet twenty years old, he went to Missouri, where he remained until 1886. His parents were John Miller and Margaret Franklin (Calhoun) Cann, of English ancestry. He mar- ried, near Visalia, Tulare county, Miss Lizzie L. Ilowell, who was born near Bozeman, Mont., and they have two children. Lewis II. studied at St. Mary's College, Oakland, and is playing professional baseball known as "Mike" Cann; Margaret J. is attending the State Normal school at Fresno.
Soon after his arrival in this county, in the spring of 1886, Mr. Cann found employment in eutting grain with a combined harvester. In 1887 he was employed in a flonring mill and for several years thereafter was in the grain business, for different companies. There was little business then in the country round about except the rais- ing of grain. At Sultana he was later employed in a grain warehouse until his fruit on his ranch had grown to the paying point, he having carefully nursed it in the meantime and done something toward the development of his land otherwise. His property is located in the Alta Irrigation district, the ditch for which was completed about twenty years ago. The district itself was established in 1889. Before the days of irrigation, land could have been bought for $2.50 an acre. With irrigation started, land cost Mr. Cann $37.50 an acre for open stubble field without improvement. He planted thirty aeres to Malaga and Sultana grapes and has five acres of Elberta peaches. Ilis Malagas have brought him $200 to $300 per acre, his Sultanas have yielded a ton and a quarter to the acre. His experience covers all of the latter-day development of this district, he having seen raw land hereabonts increase in price from $2.50 to $200 and $250 an acre in twenty-five years.
Having cast his first presidential vote for Grover Cleveland in 1884, Mr. Cann has been a consistent Democrat to the present time. In a fraternal way he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. Mrs. Cann is identified with the Women of Woodcraft and with the Eastern Star, and is a communicant of the Christian church.
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L. W. BARDSLEY
This native of Missouri was brought to California by his parents when he was seven years old, when the family of Lafayette and Mary Bardsley, after a short stop in Sonoma county and another in San Diego, located in Poway valley. There young Bardsley grew to man- hood and obtained an education in the public schools. He labored there principally at farming until he was twenty-five years old, when he rented a ranch near Santa Ana, Orange county, which he de- veloped and operated with profit in connection with several pieces of land which he had rented, raising alfalfa and conducting a dairy until December, 1904, when he came to the neighborhood of Tulare. Hle bought eighty acres of the E. DeWitt ranch, on which he put all improvements including a residence, farm buildings and fences and made of it a fine dairy on which he keeps about twenty-five cows and raises and handles calves and horses for the market, incidentally keep- ing about twenty hogs; he is well known for his fine Holstein cattle. Sixty acres of his land is in alfalfa and he has a two-acre peach orch- ard, and the remainder is devoted to his stock. He was one of the organizers and is now one of the directors of the Dairymen's Co- operative Creamery company of Tulare and is a stockholder in the Tulare Rochdale association. Besides having achieved success as farmer and dairyman, considerable notice is given to his fine Perch- eron horses, which he is breeding more and more extensively each year.
In 1895 Mr. Bardsley married Miss Mande E. Hartzell, a native of Iowa, daughter of the late Capt. T. B. Hartzell of San Diego, and who had become a resident in the Poway valley. They have a daughter, Zoe L. Bardsley. Fraternally Mr. Bardsley associates with the Red Men, the Woodmen of the World, the Eagles, and with the Indepen- dent Order of Odd Fellows, in which last order he holds member- ship in lodge and encampment and with the Rebekahs. As a citizen he is helpfully publie-spirited.
WILLIAM B. WEST
The late William B. West, of Tulare county, Cal., was born in Henry county, Mo., in September, 1837, and died at his home in Por- terville, October 13, 1903. He was reared in his native state and remained there until 1875, devoting himself to farming. His parents were natives of Kentucky, representatives of that old Southern stock that has done so much honor to American citizenship in successive generations. His wife, Ellen M. Gordon, also of Kentucky ancestry, was born in November. 1841, in Johnson county, Mo., a daughter of
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Dr. Presley and Margaret (Wingfield) Gordon, and their union dated from March, 1857. She bore him five children, of whom only one is living. Rowena married William Moore and died in Tulare county : Thomas G. died at Visalia; William P. died in Tulare county as the result of a railroad accident, and Eunice also passed away in Tulare county. Nancy E. married Elias MeDarment and is living near the Indian ageney in Tulare county.
Mr. West and family settled near Porterville in 1875 and re- mained here up to the time of his death. He owned forty acres of land on Deer Creek, remained there six years, then moved to Porter- ville, which remained their home until he located on eighty acres in the Poplar district. He also invested in business and residence prop- erty in town. Mrs. West managed the ranch after her husband's death until September, 1912, when she sold ont and moved to Porter- ville. When she and her husband came to California, in 1875, the country round abont Porterville was very thinly settled and im- provements in that part of the county were very few. Together they watched and assisted in the wonderful development that trans- formed Central California from raw territory to a vast garden of almost incalculable riches. She has seen the price of land in her vicinity advance from $20 an acre to $200 an acre and she owns town property at Porterville worth now more than $10,000, for which her husband paid $450 in the latter part of the '80s. Mr. West was highly respected by the many who came to know him and won an enviable reputation as a man of public spirit who was ready at any time to do anything within his ability for the uplift and development of his community. He was road overseer and helped build the roads in his locality. His widow is maintaining his enlightened and liberal policies.
SCHNEREGER & DOWNING
The house of Schnereger & Downing, bottlers and distributors of beer at Hanford, is one of the leading concerns of its kind in King's county, Cal., the partners in the enterprise being Joseph Schnereger and Thomas Downing. Mr. Schnereger came to Hanford in 1885 and bought the soda bottling works of M. Hegele, which he con- ducted with success until 1899. It was in 1890 that Mr. Downing came to the town. For several months after his arrival he worked at his trade as a bricklayer, but in 1891 he began to bottle and whole- sale beer and his business was increasingly profitable until 1899, and at that time Messrs. Schnereger and Downing combined their interests and consolidated their two establishments. So wise was this depar-
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ture that they not only abolished mutual competition, but put them- selves in a way materially to enlarge their combined interests. They have the local agency for the Wielands and Rainier beers, which they bottle and distribute throughont Hanford and its trade territory. They are owners of valuable business property in Hanford and Mr. Schnereger is a director of the Old Bank. There is no interest of the town, no proposition for the public uplift that does not have the moral and financial support of these two enterprising and progressive citizens.
WILLIAM STANTON BROWN
January 9, 1859, William Stanton Brown, who now lives a mile west of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born in Henry county, Mo., a son of William and Sallie Ann (Davis) Brown. They had a daughter, Mattie, who is the wife of David Pearson, of Hollister, ('al. The father died in Callaway county, Mo., in 1864. In 1865, W. 1I. Davis, Mrs. Brown's father, came across the plains to California, and in 1867 Mrs. Brown came out by way of the Isthmus of Panama, bringing her son and daughter. They had to take the train from Mexico, Mo., for New York, via St. Louis and Chicago, and embarked on the Henry Chaucer for Panama, thence to San Francisco on the Sacramento, arriving on December 3, 1867. They located in Stanislans county, where Mr. Davis farmed and later he established a ferry across the Tuolumne river, which was in operation before the bridge was built at Modesto, in 1869. lle had made his first stop in Cali- fornia at Stockton, farming one year, then he took up a half-section of land, in 1867. and farmed in Stanislaus county.
From 1872 to 1875 W. S. Brown did farm work near Woodville, in Tulare county, then lived a year with his grandfather at Modesto, attending school. Returning to Tulare county, he located at Grange- ville and was employed on different farms until 1887. During the period. 1857-90, he rented what is now the Kimble prune orchard. Then he set out and improved a prune orchard of two hundred and forty acres, of which he was foreman until 1893. In 1893-94 he workel the Ayers ranch near Grangeville, and in 1894 moved onto twenty three acres two miles west of Hanford, which he had bought in 1891. After two years' residence there he rented the Bardin ranch of four Indred acres, which he farmed 1897-1903. About that time he bought eighty acres of that property. In 1905 he bought Forty six acres adjoining his other ranch. In 1909 he built a fine two-story house on his eighty-acre tract. In 1912, with Lee Camp, Je bought eighty acres of the S. W. Hall ranch, two and one-half
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