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 63
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 63
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In 1886 Mr. Davidson married Lena L. Ellis, a native of Iowa,
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and they have two children: Charles G., and Corda May, who married George P. French, of Tulare county. Politically Mr. Davidson is a Democrat, devoted to the principles and policies as well as the tra- ditions and future work of his party. Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World, with the Loyal Order of Moose, and with Four Creek lodge, No. 94, I. O. O. F., and the encampment. As a citizen he has always taken a public-spirited interest in everything pertaining to the general welfare and there is no proposition which in his good judgment promises to benefit any considerable number of fellow citizens that does not receive his encouragement and support.
PETER LEAVENS AND WILLIAM A. LEAVENS
On Prince Edward Island, in the extreme east of Canada, Peter Leavens was born January 1, 1844. Until 1868 he there made his home, receiving his schooling in the public schools and later learning the carpenter's trade, and then came to San Francisco via the Isthmus of Panama. From San Francisco he made his way to Cordelia, Solano county, where for eight years he worked as a carpenter, and then moved to Lafayette, Contra Costa county, where he leased land and became a farmer. On December 31, 1863, he had married on Prince Edward Island Miss Martha Gerow and to them six children were horn, viz. : William A., Enphemia, Walter, Louis, Frank (of Dinuba), and Gracie. Walter, Euphemia and Louis are deceased. Gracie is the wife of Julius Larson of Oakland. The mother died in Oakland.
William A. Leavens was born in October, 1864, and was but four years of age when his parents came to California. Educated in Solano county, he learned the trade of carpenter with his father and has ever since followed that line of work, also engaging in ranch- ing at different periods. He married Helen Bordman, and they have had three children, Louis A., Frederick R. and Goldie E. Frederick R. married Alice Fees and they live at Salinas, Cal. Goldie married Andrew Rader, of llanford, and they have a son and a daughter. Mrs. Leavens passed away in 1891 and in 1895 Mr. Leavens married Georgia A. Culberson, of Kings county, and three sons have been born to them, William Gordon, Bert F. and Edgar R.
From Contra Costa county Peter heavens brough his family to what is now King's county, where he followed farming and carpen- tering. Buying a farm of eighty acres near Yettem he made improve- ments and finally sold, obtaining $100 an acre for half, while the other forty acres sold for $125 an acre. Later he purchased twenty
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acres at Yettem which he is now improving and preparing for sale. Carpentering, however, has been his chief industry, in which he has met with signal success. Mr. Leavens is a Republican in national issues, but in voting for local officials he supports the man best suited for office. As a citizen he has proven himself most public-spirited and very helpful to the community.
HENRY WASHINGTON BYRON
A career of much unusual activity and usefulness has marked Henry Washington Byron as one of the valued citizens of his com- munity, he having been a strenuous worker in the pioneer days, evincing high traits of character and forceful will. Much credit is due him for his work and expense in securing the winery at Lemoore and the organization of the Kings County Raisin and Fruit Associa- tion, which has proved a splendid influence for good among the fruit growers of the community. Henry W. Byron makes his home a mile north of Lemoore, Tulare county. He is a son of an English- man, Peter Byron, who located in Pennsylvania and there married Mary Hesketh, a native of that state and of Dutch stock, and took her with him to Ohio. Six children were born to Peter Byron and wife. James served in the Mexican war as artilleryman and during an engagement lost his left arm by a premature discharge; Philander served in the Civil war and was a prisoner at Andersonville; William was also in the Civil war, being a prisoner at Libby Prison; Olive became the wife of Mr. Greensides and went to live in Ohio; Eliza- beth married in Peoria county, Ill., and lived at Elmwood, Ill .; and Henry Washington, born in Ohio. February 22, 1840, was so named because of the date of his birth.
When Henry W. Byron was seven years old he accompanied his parents to Illinois, where he lived until 1859, coming then to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and in 1860 was a miner in Placer county. In the year last mentioned, following the Iure of the gold-seekers, he went to Australia, where he mined until 1864. Returning to San Francisco he made his way to Somersville, Contra Costa county, where he worked in a coal mine until August. 1869. Then, with $25 in his pocket, he started in a spring wagon to move to Visalia, but at the ferry at Kingston he heard such glowing accounts of the land in the Mussel Slough country he drove to that point and took up one hundred and sixty acres where he now lives. lle soon found employment digging ditches and making barriers of willow trees as protection against wild cattle and horses. Two years later he and twenty-five other men organized and constructed
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the Lower Kings River ditch which was a boon to the whole section of country. After eight years of grain farming he began setting ont vineyards, his first venture having been on forty acres. The next year he started a fourteen acre apricot and nectarine orchard and put some land under alfalfa. He now has seventy acres of vineyard and fourteen acres of fruit trees, and except for eight and a half acres which he gave for a cemetery the remainder of his homestead is under alfalfa. During recent years he has interested himself in oil and has become a stockholder in the following companies: The Devil's Den Consolidated, the Tressciretos Oil Company, the Alamo Oil Com- pany, the Pluto Oil Company and the Lemoore Oil Company.
While in Australia Mr. Byron was married to Rosina Gallard, daughter of Matthew and Frances Ann (Smith) Gallard, both natives of England, near Kent. Mrs. Byron was born in New South Wales, Australia, and is one of a family of ten children born to her parents. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Byron, as follows: Lincoln H., of Lemoore; Dr. E. H., of Lemoore; Dr. W. P., of Lemoore; Dr. Albert, of Oakland; Olive and Rupert, both deceased; and Frank Mark, who died in infancy.
Fraternally Mr. Byron has long affiliated with the Odd Fellows. In Australia, in 1862, he identified himself with the Manchester Unity, the forerunner of American Odd Fellow lodges. When he returned to California he joined the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Somersville, Contra Costa county, from which later he was transferred to the Lemoore lodge. He was identified also with Manhattan Tribe, No. 2, I. O. R. M., of Somersville, the second tribe organized in California, and later joined the tribe at Lemoore. He was a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen until his lodge gave up its charter. In all the affairs of his community he takes an active interest. Until 1903 he long was president of the Lower Kings River Irrigation Ditch Company, and in all his various con- nections with concerns in this community he has evinced the habits of honorable dealing, straightforward and conscientions in every detail, and loyal and active in his citizenship.
EAN ROSS
Born in Kings county, Cal., February 26, 1884, the well-known young farmer whose name is above is a native son of the Golden State. He attended public schools until he was eighteen years old, then joined his father on the ranch and was his chief assistant as long as his parent lived. David Ross, his father, came to Kings county, Cal., in 1871, and in 1873 settled near Lemoore, where for a time
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he tanght public school, and he also taught in Tulare, Kern, Fresno, Mariposa, Merced, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, and for two years filled the office of school trustee.
In 1873 there came to California a young woman who was to become the wife of David Ross. She was Maggie Bell Ross, a girl of strong common sense, who took a hopeful view of life and was to him a helpmeet to the end of his days. Quite early in life he engaged in stock-raising, farming and dairying, in which occupations he met with considerable success and in 1874 he took np public land, to which he later acquired title and which he developed into the fine ranch which came to be known as the Ross place. On that property he labored with good financial results as long as he lived. He passed away February 11, 1911. His widow, Maggie Bell Ross, survives and is living with her son on the homestead. The latter manages the eighty-acre place, giving attention to general farming, dairying and stock-raising. He learned farming nnder his father's enlight- ened and practical instruction and has achieved successes in his specialties of which many an older agriculturist might be justly prond.
WILLIAM BUDD
One of the most successful horticulturists and general ranchmen of Tipton, Tulare county, is William Budd, who was born June 29, 1842, in Camden county, N. J., over the river from Philadelphia. Hle grew up and was educated in his native county and at seventeen located in Philadelphia, whence after a few years he moved to Kansas ('ity, Mo., where he was for ten years well known in the shoe trade. In 1890 he came to California and made his home at Tulare, Tulare county, and four years later he bought eighty acres about five miles north of that town which he converted into a fine vineyard and eventually sold in order to move to a point five miles southwest of Tipton. Here he bought four hundred and eighty acres, and he has since given his attention to stock-raising, growing cattle, horses and hogs of breeds and quality which have always made them in demand in the market. When he came on the place it included thirty-five acres of orchard. but that is now out of bearing; in 1910 he set out ten acres of new orchard. He also has twenty acres in vineyards, given over entirely to raisins, and is preparing one hundred and sixty acres for alfalfa. In every respect his homestead is first class of its kind, its buildings being modern and ample and its appliances up to date. On the place is an artesian well which flows two hun- dred and fifty gallons a minute and two pumping wells, one of them supplied with a ten horse-power electric motor, the other, which is
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exclusively for domestic use, having a two horse-power motor. Mr. Budd's residence is modern and substantial, one of its conveniences being an electric light plant. He gives considerable attention to dairy- ing, at present milking fifty cows and planning to milk in the near future twice as many. He sells about twenty tons of raisins in a season from twenty acres of land. His live stock includes twelve horses, about one hundred and fifty head of cattle and many hogs, and he has also made quite an investment in poultry.
In 1890 Mr. Budd married Miss Katie Spankle, a native of Ohio. In comparatively recent years a member of their household has been William Blanw, their grandson and a son of Antonio Blauw, whom they have reared since he was eight months old. Mr. . Bndd is active, energetic and animated by public spirit. He has from time to time had to do with business interests not directly connected with his ranching. The dairy interest also has been fostered to an extent through his identification with it. He is at this time a stockholder in the Tipton Co-operative Creamery.
GEORGE BARTLETT
Two miles north of Orosi, Tulare county, Cal., lives George Bartlett, son of Isaac Bartlett, grandson of Abraham Bartlett, great- grandson of Cornelins Bartlett, and great-great-grandson of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- ence. Mr. Bartlett's father married Hannah Williams, who like him- self was a native of Lebanon Springs, N. Y. She had five brothers in the army of General Grant in the Civil war, not one of whom was wounded, and they are all still surviving. She had five sisters, of whom one survives. The grandmother on the maternal side reached the age of eighty-eight and the grandfather passed his ninetieth year.
George Bartlett was born in Albany, N. Y., September 16, 1858. In his youth he learned the millwright's trade and at different times has converted many old-style grist mills to new-style roller process mills. For six years he traveled in the interest of the E. P. Allis Company, of Milwaukee, Wis., visiting twenty-two states, and then settled at Hay Springs, Neb., for a time. Later he spent one year in Salt Lake City and in November, 1890, settled in California, mining for a year in Tuolumne county, where he now owns property. lle owned a half interest in the eighty acre Anthony prune orchard in Kings county, where he was a resident of Grangeville and vicinity for sixteen years. In 1908 he bought thirty-eight acres, nineteen acres of which are in Mnir and Lovell peaches, paying $7,500 for the property, and has sold over $12,000 worth of peaches since he bought
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the place. Without irrigation he is able to harvest five erops of alfalfa each year. Ile keeps just stock enough to properly operate the ranch and has made a specialty of chickens, having raised one thousand in 1911. when he sold $180 worth of eggs from one hundred and eighty hens. His home is one of the most comfortable in its vieinity. He bought property in Berkeley which he traded for orange land near Bacon Buttes and owns an undeveloped mine in Tuolumne county.
In Sheridan county, Neb., Mr. Bartlett married Miss Julia M. Knowlton, a native of Salem, Oregon, and they have two daughters, Gladys and Ethel. Gladys was graduated from the University of California in 1910 and is teaching school, and Ethel is a student at the University of Berkeley, Cal. Independent in thought and action, Mr. Bartlett affiliates with no political party. He was a member of the high school board for three years and in that capacity has had to do with the advancement of the school at Hanford. He was reared in the Presbyterian faith. Mrs. Bartlett is a Baptist.
EDWARD G. SELLERS
Among the active citizens of Lemoore is numbered Edward G. Sellers, the progressive and flourishing farmer and contraetor, who is honored not only as a worthy citizen of that place, but as having been the first rancher in this section to install a cream separator in connection with his dairy. This, however, is but one example of the aggressive initiative spirit which has marked Mr. Sellers' entire business career.
It was at Fruitvale, now a part of the site of Oakland, Cal., that Edward G. Sellers was born July 24, 1864, a son of Samuel Sellers. Hle was reared in Contra Costa county, where his father farmed, and received his education in the public schools near Antioch, and it was in that vicinity that he had his early experience in farming and fruit raising. In 1885, when he was twenty-one years old, he settled on a ranch near Lemoore and since then at various times he has bought several pieces of property. The first was his present alfalfa ranch of one hundred and sixty acres seven miles southeast of Lemoore. Another one hundred and sixty aeres, located five miles south of Lemoore, he sold in 1905 after having put some improvements on it. Later he bought eighty acres four miles south of Hanford, which he improved with thirty acres of vineyard, putting the remainder under alfalfa, and this he sold in 1904. A year later he bought two hun- dred and twenty acres near Stratford, all in alfalfa, which is one of his present holdings. In 1902 he had invested in twenty-five acres, three miles north of Lemoore, of which eight acres is in
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vineyard, seventeen aeres in alfalfa, which improved place is a valued part of his property.
For many years Mr. Sellers has been a contractor in teaming, freighting, ditching and moving dirt. He did most of the ditching and much of the work on the levees on the Empire Investment Com- pany's ranch of nineteen thousand acres near Lemoore, a large amount of levee work on the Riverdale reclamation project, and much heavy teaming in the hauling of pipe and machinery for a pipe line of the Standard Oil Company. In 1910 G. B. Chinn became his part- ner in this enterprise. They employ an average of twenty men the year round and their business requires the work of fifty horses. Mr. Sellers is a stockholder in the Chinn Warehouse Company of Lemoore and is a stockholder in and a director of the First National Bank of Lemoore.
Mr. Sellers married July 24, 1887, Miss Ella Graves, a daughter of Nathan L. Graves, born in Calaveras county, Cal., but at the time of her marriage she was living in Kings county.
JOHN E. WALKER
The famous bee culturist of central California, John E. Walker, was born near Woodville, on the Tule river, June 27, 1876. As a youth he had opportunity to learn a good deal about practical farm- ing and acquired a good business education in the public schools. For some time after he started out for himself he worked for wages, early in his career becoming interested in honey bees. Since his boyhood he has kept bees and studied them and become more and more expert as a producer of honey; for the past decade this busi- ness has commanded his principal attention and he was the first in this vicinity to sell any considerable amount of honey, he having made his first delivery at Armona where a carload was being made up, the price paid him having been three cents a pound. The first load of honey, twenty years ago, was drawn by a four-horse team. The deliv- ery at Visalia and Tulare in 1911 aggregated $20,000. Mr. Walker has six hundred colonies of bees and his average output is about twenty-five tons a season. For some years past he has been selling agent for the Tulare County Bee-keepers Association of which for three years past he has also been president.
It was in 1903 that Mr. Walker bought his present homestead of twenty-one aeres, most of which is under alfalfa, but carries only enough stock for his own business. He has become widely known among the apiarists of the entire country and is recognized as an authority on bee culture and the production and marketing of honey.
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In his relations with his fellow citizens he is liberal-minded and help- ful, and in his religion he affiliates with the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. On October 11, 1899, he married Miss Arna Headrick, and they have four children, Oliver, Vernon, Neva and Elvin.
RICHARD E. HYDE
The wise application of sound business principles and safe financial conservatism accounted for the noteworthy success of the late popular citizen of Visalia whose familiar name is the title of this article. Mr. Hyde was born at what is now Port Ewen, Ulster county, N. Y., and died at Visalia in 1911. He was a son of David and Sarah (Iloughtaling) Hyde, natives also of the Empire State. He was fortunate, in his youth, in being poor and in living among people who respected labor, frugality and honesty and cultivated a feeling of good-will toward their fellow men. It was with such ideals that he fared forth in the chances of life. He was but a big boy when he began to earn his living as a clerk in a general merchandise store, and it was in the same capacity that he began his career in California, years afterward, in one of the then busy mining districts. Later, at Santa Cruz, he opened a store of his own, and still later he established the Bank of Visalia, the pioneer monetary institution of Tulare county and one of the oldest in the San Joaquin valley. It is a matter of record that this last important business beginning was made in Angust, 1874, and that he was at the head of the institution, latterly with the honored title of president, during the remainder of his life.
The large interests of Mr. Ilyde reached out along many avenues of activity. Many buildings were erected at Visalia by him, and he naturally acquired landed interests. From time to time he was, in one way or another, associated with important commercial enterprises. Though his connection with some of them was only indirect and not avowed, his eminent ability for affairs was very potent in advancing them, and his faculty of success made him master of strong proposi- tions.
The family of David and Sarah (Houghtaling) ILyde consisted of Richard E. and his six brothers, the others being Abram, Jeremiah D .. Alfred, Christopher, Jolm and William. Richard E. was quite young when his father passed on, leaving the training of his sons to a watchful and prayerful mother, whose affectionate devotion was rewarded by the compensating knowledge that her sons had all developed into honest and trustworthy men, each a credit to his com-
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munity, helpful in its advancement and in sympathy with its people and their aspirations. Two of them, Christopher and John, were pioneers in Wisconsin and were leaders in the agricultural and eco- nomie affairs of their respective localities. Christopher reared two daughters and a son, the latter being a well-known business man of Oakland. John became father of a large family.
Like many others who have been instrumental in shaping the destinies of the far west, Mr. Hyde brought to the task eastern energy, industry and confidence. He became known as one of the wealthiest, as well as one of the coolest and most reserved and digni- fied men in Tulare county, recognized along the San Joaquin valley as the personification of social and business integrity.
GEORGE H. STEVES
The father of George H. Steves was Jeremiah Steves, his grand- father was Joshua Steves, his great-grandfather was Jeremiah Steves the first. The only other Steves to found a family in America was Franklin Steves, a nephew of the first Jeremiah. George H. was born in Chautauqua county, N. Y., January 24, 1840. On June 9, 1861, soon after he became of age, he enlisted in Company H, Ninetieth Regiment. New York Volunteer Infantry. Louisiana was the scene of his first battle experience and the last regular engagement in which he participated was at Cedar Creek, during the interim of which he saw active service in twenty-five or thirty hot skirmishes. At Cedar Creek a shot entered his breast and lodged behind his shoulder-blade inflicting a serious wound which, while it did not send him to the hospital, has troubled him ever since, and in recognition of which he has had conferred upon him a pension of $36. He has a vivid recollection of service under General Banks in a small Louisiana town where he helped confiscate the silver spoons of certain Con- federate sympathizers. The immediate effect upon him of his wound was to reduce his weight from one hundred and eighty-six pounds to eighty-six pounds, and he was honorably discharged from the service at Camp Russell, December 9, 1864, returning to his native county in New York. There he remained until 1902, when he came to Tulare county. He owned some property at Jamestown, N. Y., which he sold when he came West. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and politically he affiliates with the Republican party. In his religious identification he is a Methodist. Mr. Steves has during recent years been a great traveler. He married in New York state Miss Lucinda R. Wilson, a native of that state, who passed away nine years ago. The names of his children are Ida B., J. G., Melvin F. and Matie
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1 .. Ida B. married Frank Wilcox and their daughter is named Rose Belle. J. G., guard at the Auburn, N. Y .. penitentiary, married Ethel Sampson and has children Catherine, Ethel, William and Annie. Melvin F. married Lonisa Karsthorse and they have children, Lewis, Louise, Mary, Henry and Elizabeth; their home is in Rochester, N. Y. One of Mr. Steves's most precious possessions is a Grand Army badge, Department of Utah, 1909.
WILLIAM G. WALKER
A native of Arkansas, William G. Walker was taken when a small boy to Texas, where his father's family established a home. There he grew up and was educated so far as local facilities permitted, and there he enlisted for service in the Mexican war, in which he bore the part of a true and dependable soldier. After immigration to Cali- fornia had set in, he came across the plains from Texas by the Mexi- can ronte and stopped for a short time at San Jose, and from there for a short time he devoted himself to stock-raising, and thence went went to San Juan and later mined in Tuolumne county. In 1859 he took up his residence in Tulare county, and there for a short time he devoted himself to stock-raising, and thence went eventually to Mono connty, where he passed away in 1863.
In 1846 Mr. Walker married in Texas Miss Martha M. Tolbert. whose parents had brought her in her childhood to Montgomery county, that state, where she was reared to womanhood. J. T. Walker, of No. 427 South Court street, Visalia, was the youngest of their chil- dren; Anna is Mrs. J. A. Keer of Los Angeles; Mary is Mrs. McEwen of Visalia ; and Mrs. Amanda Wren is their youngest daughter. Mr. Walker was a member of Visalia lodge No. 94, F. & A. M., and as a citizen he was public-spirited and helpful to the community. Mrs. Walker, who is one of the few living connecting links between the old order of things and the new, has a vivid recollection of her over- land journey to California. The Indians were at the time very hostile and her party had an encounter with a band of them. There were sixty people in the train and the mode of locomotion was by means of horses and mules. In the period before that of California immigration she had thrilling experiences in Texas in connection with the Mexican war, while her husband was absent from home in furtherance of his duties as a soldier.
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