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 66
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 66
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ALBERT PRATT HOWE
A native-born son of Kings county, Cal., who is achieving suc- cess on his native heath is Albert Pratt Howe, of Guernsey. It was in 1881 that Mr. Howe was born and he was reared in the Lakeside district and educated in the public schools near his home. lle and his brother Edwin and their father farmed on the lake bottom from 1898 to 1906, when they were driven from their land by the filling up of the lake. Before this catastrophe the brothers had bought of their father the farm of one hundred and sixty aeres. eight miles southwest of Hanford, now owned by Edwin Howe, and there they farmed several years as partners. In 1906 Albert sold out his interest there to his brother and bought two hundred and seventy-five acres at Guernsey and eighty acres one mile south of that place. The land has been improved with a new house and a barn, occupying a ground space of 56x80 feet, with a capacity for the storage of one hundred tons of hay. Of the two hundred and seventy-five-acre tract, one hundred and twenty acres is in alfalfa. the balance being farm land and pasture. Mr. Howe sows forty to sixty acres to grain each year. The eighty-acre tract is im- proved pasture land.
The principal business of Mr. Howe is in stock-raising and dairying, though he raises some hogs, and he milks an average of about thirty-five dairy cows. From his farming and dairying he has spared some time and money for investment otherwise. He married, in 1907, Miss Elvira Comfort, danghter of B. G. Com- fort, who is well known in Kings county, and she has borne him two daughters and one son, Carrie, Eunice and Earl. Mr. Howe is a wide-awake man who takes an interest in everything that can possibly influence the public good. He is especially interested in the (1)
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development of the community with which he casts his lot and is ready at all times to give generous aid to any movement proposed for the general uplift.
LOUIS N. GLOVER
A leader in things agricultural, who lives six miles south of Tulare city in Tulare county, Cal., and was born in the historic old state of Kentucky, October 2, 1860, is Louis N. Glover. He passed his boyhood and youth in the public schools and on the farm and when he was twenty-one years old went to Nebraska, whence after six months' residence there he went to Colorado. Two months spent there determined him to come to California, and he arrived at Stockton, October 10, 1882. In that same autumn he found employment on Roberts' island, and then, after three months spent at Lockeford, he came to Tulare county January 23, 1883, in response to an invitation of friends who had bought land there. Liking his surroundings, he entered the employ of Paige & Morton and marked off the land and set out the first orchard on the ranch of that firm, for whose cannery he employed all help. It is said that this was the first establishment of its kind in the county. After three years' connection with that enterprise. he began to farm rented land and at one time worked fourteen hun- dred acres. After operating the Laurel Colony property seven years, he put in two years at dairying in a modest way, and in the fall of 1904 he bonght three hundred and five aeres, six miles south of Tulare, on which he condnets a dairy of forty-eight cows. raises stock, keeps twenty-two head of horses, feeds one hundred and fifty head of hogs and maintains a growing venture in poultry. One hundred and seventy acres of his land is devoted to alfalfa and on the balance he raises corn and grain. Ile was one of the promoters of, and is a stockholder in, the Dairymen's Co-operative creamery, and he helped to establish the old Co-operative creamery at Tulare. Of the Tule River Riparian Water association he was the organizer and it was largely through his influence that cer- tain historie differences concerning water rights near that river were finally adjusted to the satisfaction of all concerned. The official title of the association is now the Tule River Riparianist. incorporated. Its :listrict comprises the country between the sun !- mit and the lake. One of Mr. Glover's possessions is a good resi- dence property in Tulare.
At Tulare, Mr. Glover married, April 12, 1893, Miss Ettie Moody, a native of Kentucky, who has borne him three children,
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one of whom died in infancy. Their son, James Earl, died Decem- ber 1, 1907. Their daughter, Virma, born October 21, 1895, is a pupil in the high school at Tulare. Fraternally, Mr. Glover affiliates with the Tulare organization of the Woodmen of the World and with the Watsonville organization of the Yeomen. As a citizen, he is helpfully public-spirited, never withholding his support from any movement which he deems conducive to the good of the com- munity.
D. W. LEWIS
Corcoran, Kings county, Cal., is the home of D. W. Lewis, president of the Tulare Lake Dredging company, who has made his home in that enterprising town since 1906. He was born in Redlake, Beltrami county, Minn., November 24, 1848, and while young was taken by his parents to Morrison county, where he live ] until he was fourteen. At that time he was done with the public school at Belleplaine, Minn., and became a student at Oberan col- lege. Ilis studies were soon ent short. however, by his enlistment in the United States army, in which he saw arduons and hazard- ous service during the latter part of the Civil war. In 1866 he came to California and lived principally in Santa Cruz and Santa ('lara counties. le traveled over various parts of the state, and from Santa Clara county he moved to Fresno county in 1879, where he established the first commercial nursery in the valley south of Stockton, which he conducted until 1906, and then came to Kings county. His first venture there was to plant out a tract of land to asparagus, but he soon relinquished the latter business to embark in a dredging enterprise and organized the Tulare Lake Dredging company, of which he is president. This business has been highly successful and of much benefit to the country in which it has been operated. Meanwhile, Mr. Lewis has also given attention to wheat farming, which has brought good results.
In 1866 Mr. Lewis married Miss Margaret Clark, a native of New York city, who has been his helpmate and adviser in the various interests to which he has devoted himself from time to tim -. They are a genial and helpful couple, and their kindly interest in all with whom they come in contact insures them a welcome wherever they may go. Public spirited to an unusual degree, Mr. Lewis extends aid cheerfully and generously to any measure which, in his opinion, promises to promote the general welfare or to enhance the prosperity of any considerable number of his fellow citizens.
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HENRY F. ROCK
That progressive merchant and real estate investor of Armona, Kings county, C'al., Henry F. Rock, was born in Shasta county, in this state. September 12, 1870. His youth and the earlier years of his manhood were passed on a farm and he was educated in the public school in his home district. When he was about twenty- nine years old he located on a farm in Fresno county, which he operated with varying success for some years. By this time he had made up his mind that he would be a merchant and had saved money with which to go into business. Buying the O. B. Hlanan store at Centerville, Fresno county, he conducted it four years. meanwhile farming on rented land in the vicinity. In 1907 he closed out the merchandise business to Messrs. Elliott & Coleman of Conejo, Fresno county, and came to Armona, Kings county, to take over the well established mercantile enterprise of Muller Brothers, who had been trading here five years. He has since handled the business with increasing success. From his merchan- dising he has found time to interest himself in real estate, and has acquired an interest in town and country property, in different alfalfa ranches and in a farm of seventy-eight acres. Besides, he is a stockholder in the commission house of Zaiser Brothers, Los Angeles.
Fraternally, Mr. Rock affiliates with Lucerne lodge No. 275, I.O.O.F., Ilanford. He married, November 6, 1890, Miss Lora Burner, at Glenburn, Shasta county. She was born in Colusa county, and has borne him four children, only one of whom survives, Carl E., who was educated in the public school of Armona and Heald's Business College at Fresno, and is now engaged in the bakery business at AArmona. Taking a deep and abiding interest in the uplift and development of his community, Mr. Rock has proven himself dependable when demand is made for aid in movements for the publie good.
J. C. C. RUSSELL
One of the few members of Kings county bar, who is a native of the Golden state, is J. C. C. Russell, who has offices in the First National Bank building at Hanford. Mr. Russell was born Jan- nary 8. 1868, in Merced county, seven miles south of the site of Merced, a son of J. C. C. Russell, Sr., and his wife, Sophia M., who was a daughter of Dr. T. O. Ellis. The latter was a pioneer in
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Tulare and Fresno counties and once prominent as a physician.
The elder Russell, a native of Winchester, Tenn., came to Cali- fornia in 1849, when he was eighteen years old, and after mining for a while, went to Los Angeles, where he remained until April, 1857, when he settled in Mariposa, within the present limits of Merced county. llere he homesteaded government land, which he improved and on which he farmed and raised stock until his death, which occurred September 30, 1891. Ilis son, J. C. C. Russell, grew up and began his education in the public schools, continning it in the high school at Oakland, where he was gradnated July, 1886. The succeeding two years he spent in farming, then entered the University of California, where he was gradnated in 1895. Mean- while, in his spare time, he was a student in a law school at San Francisco, and such good use of his opportunities did he make that he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Cali- fornia, January 9, 1894. After an English course, in which he graduated in 1895, he began the practice of his profession in San Francisco, where he remained for over two years, and then moved to Mariposa, but after a residence of not quite two years there he came to Hanford, September 14, 1897. In 1898 he established him- self here in the general practice of his profession, which he has continned till the present time with much success, winning a high place at the bar and an enviable standing in the public repute.
Socially, Mr. Russell affiliates with the Foresters, the Eagles, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Native Sons of the Golden West, the Degree of Honor, the Woodmen of the World and the Modern Woodmen of America. On June 13, 1903, he mar- ried Gwendolyn Darnell, a daughter of Mrs. Clara E. Myers, and they have a daughter, Mercedes.
CLARK M. SMITH
Numbered among those brave patriots who fought so conr- ageously for their country's cause in the Civil war is Clark M. Smith, born May 5, 1847, at Adrian, Mich., where he grew up, attending the public school. He did farm work until he enlisted in Company K, Sixth Michigan Infantry, and was transferred to Heavy Artillery, for service in the Federal army. He was en- rolled January 4, 1864, and was honorably discharged Angust 20, 1865. During his term of service he participated in many historie engagements, notably at Mobile Bay, Fort Morgan and Fort Blake- ley. His father was a member of the same company and died on the way home after having been discharged.
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Returning to Michigan Mr. Smith remained there, employed mostly on the farm, until July 14, 1873, when he started for Cali- fornia. Locating at Ferndale, Humboldt county, he .engaged in business, was soon elected constable and served as a special officer for years. Then he engaged in the furniture trade, continuing in it there till 1889, when he took up his residence in Hanford and bought out the old Lillie furniture store, but in 1893 the building he ocenpied was destroyed by fire. It was his intention to resume business, but before he conkl secure other quarters he fell ill and was not able to take up the activities of life again until four years afterwards. Then he was elected justice of the peace at Hanford, and after he had filled the office with much credit four years he was, in June, 1903, appointed to the same office at Armona by the board of supervisors of Kings county, and since then the latter town has been his home. lle is a justice of the peace, a notary public and fills the office of secretary of the Grangeville Cemetery association, besides doing considerable business in real estate and insurance.
On October 22, 1890, Mr. Smith was united in marriage with Miss Georgia Ammer and they are the parents of two children, Osmond and Georgia Irene, both of whom have been edneated in Kings county. Fraternally, he has passed the chairs in both the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, as well as the encampment. In 1895 Mr. Smith was commander of MePherson post. G.A.R., of which he has been quartermaster six years and is in his eleventh year as adjutant. He is also a mem- ber of the local organization of the Sons of Veterans. As a soldier, as a public official and as a business man and citizen, he has been equal to every demand.
JOSEPHI WILLIAM STURGEON
As a farmer and as a business man, Joseph William Sturgeon has achieved distinction in the country round about Tulare, Tulare county. He is a native son of California, having been born in AAma- dor conty, October 7. 1855, and was in his sixth year when, in 1×60, his father. Francis Marion Sturgeon, located near Farmers- ville, in Tulare county. There the boy was reared and educated in the common schools and on his father's ranch instructed in the fundamentals of farming and stockgrowing. His original land hold- ing was one hundred and sixty acres, but he rented and farmed other land and grew as a stockraiser until he now has two thou- sand acres and handles about three hundred head of cattle. Fif-
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teen hundred acres of his land is reserved for farming and is at this time used for pasture. He owns also eighty acres of alfalfa land on the Tule river, ten miles from Tulare, which is being im- proved under his personal direction. lle lived on his ranch until 1895, when he removed to Tulare, where he has since made his home. Since his retirement from active farm life he has identified himself with several important interests and is a stockholder in the bank of Tulare. His father, Francis Marion Sturgeon, ranched near Farmersville until his activities were terminated by his death.
In 1889 Joseph W. Sturgeon married Matilda Evelyn Lathrop. and they have three children, Mildred Lee, and William Tyler and Wallace Ezra (twins). The Sturgeon family is well and favorably known to members of most of the best families in the county and its head is recognized as a citizen of much public spirit, who is never backward in assisting any measure which, in his opinion, promises to promote the public weal.
FRANK SMITH
This prosperous farmer, merchant and warehouse proprietor at Angiola. Tulare county, Cal., was born in Alameda county, C'al., June 15, 1862. He attended the public school near his home until he was eighteen years old, meanwhile acquiring a practical knowledge of farming on his father's ranch. After he left school he helped with the work of the family homestead until he was twenty years of age, and then engaged in farming on his own account, and so persistently has he followed out the well-laid plans of his youth that, while he has given attention to some other interests, he has been a farmer during all the years of his active life. He is at present engaged in ranching and wheat-raising on the lake. Locating at Angiola he went into the cattle business and bought and sold stock for eight years. In 1908 he engaged in the grain, feed and fuel trade, with a warehouse in Angiola, and he has continned in these lines to the present time with good success. He makes a specialty of the breed- ing of mules and he was in 1912 the owner of fifty head of as good stock of that class as was to be found anywhere in his part of the country.
In 1886 Mr. Smith married Miss Jennie Morgan, who was born in San Francisco, Cal., in 1866, and they have eight children: C'leve. Grover, Leo, Vieva, Vera, James, William and Edward. Mr. Smith is a man of much public spirit, who has in different ways done mich
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for the welfare for Angiola, for he has the interest of the com- munity at heart and strives earnestly to promote its development and prosperity.
DR. WILLIAM WHITTINGTON
Notwithstanding his comparatively recent advent at Dinnba, Tulare county, Cal., Dr. William Whittington has established a pro- fessional practice which evidences his skill as a physician. Making a specialty of tuberculosis of the lungs, he has achieved a success which has been remarked by his brother physicians throughont central California. ITis beautiful home is presided over by his wife, who is giving Christian training to their children, and he possesses the friendship of many and esteem of all who are so fortunate as to have made his acquaintance. Of Northern birth, but of Southern extraction, he nites all those qualities of enterprise and of cultiva- tion which make for the very highest American citizenship. Besides, he represents honored families of pioneers. Early in the history of southern Illinois Joseph Whittington, his revered grandfather, came from Tennessee and settled near Benton, Franklin county, where he seenred a tract of virgin soil on which he farmed the remainder of his life. His son J. F. Whittington was born and lived out his days near Benton, HI .. . dying in 1886. Ilis wife was Mary Spencer, a native born Tennesseean, and accompanied her parents to Illinois, where she still lives in the companionship of some of her children. There were ten in all, of whom Dr. William Whittington was the first born, and of whom five are living.
Doctor Whittington is the only one of the family now living in ('alifornia. Ile was born near Benton, Franklin county, Ill., and grew to manhood there on the old family homestead on which he was taught practical farming. Agriculture possessed few attractions for him, however, and early in life he turned to school teaching, and in his intervals of teaching read medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. (. O. Kelley. of Ewing, Ill. In 1878 he became a student at the Missouri Medical College, at St. Louis, Mo., where he was grad- uated March 4, 1880, with the degree of M. D. Ile began his practice at Ewing, Ill .. but soon moved to Campbell Hill, Jackson county, that state. In 1891 he came to California and opened an office at Reedley, Fresno county, whence he moved in 1893 to Tulare county. In the period 1898 1900 he was in active practice of his profession in Los Angeles and in 1902 located in Dimba. While a resident of Illinois. he was identified with the Southern Illinois Medical Association which still retains his name on its roll of members.
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In 1876 Dr. Whittington married Miss Virginia Hackney, a native of Tennessee, their wedding ceremony having been solemnized at Elkville, Ill. Her father, E. J. Hackney, was born in Tennessee and represented long lines of Southern ancestry. To Dr. and Mrs. Whittington have been born children as follows: Pearl Ione is the wife of H. Hamner, of Fresno, Cal .; Frank Edmund died in infancy; William E., who is a salesman for the San Joaquin Light & Power Co., married Miss Grace Akers; Charles Roy, who is the proprietor of the Dinuba Electrical Works, married Miss Grace Nichols; and Ray Hackney is a graduate of the Dinnba high school. Dr. and Mrs. Whittington are members of the Methodist Episcopal church of Dinuba and liberal contributors toward its maintenance and that of its numerous charities. He is a Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Dimba lodge, F. & A. M., and is identified with the Woodmen of the World. As a stockholder and director, he is prominent in the affairs of the United States Bank of Dinnba, the history of which dates from its establishment in 1908. He is the owner of a twenty acre orange grove just coming into bearing in the Smith Mountain country.
HENRY L. WILSON
The family of Wilson of which Henry L. Wilson is the head vanie to Tulare county in January, 1906, and was the first to domicile itself on what is now the site of Alpaugh. Mr. Wilson was born in Morgan county, Ill., March 27, 1867. After he was old enough to go to school he was a student in the public school until he was nine years old, and he devoted the ensning eleven years to acquiring a knowledge of farming on his father's ranch and incidentally helping his father with his work. In 1889, when he was abont twenty-two years old, he began farming for himself in Nebraska, but in 1901 removed to Phoenix, Ariz., where he bought land and kept the books of a planing-mill concern. Ile remained there but a short time, how- ever, and in 1906 he was established in Alpaugh as the proprietor of a blacksmithing and implement business and as a freighter between Alpangh and Angiola. In the spring of 1907 he was elected manager of the local water company, which position he held three years with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of all others concerned. For some time he has been doing business as a building contractor and as a real estate dealer and ably filling the offices of constable and notary public. His latest venture has been in well drilling, and he possesses one of the finest well-drilling outfits in central California, thus being prepared to do such work at short notice, if necessity
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so demands. llis interest in education and in religion has made him useful in the community as a school trustee and as the organizer and chairman of the Christian association, of the bible class of which he is teacher. In a general way he has the progress and prosper- ity of the town at heart and is liberal in assistance of all movements for the benefit of its people. He is the owner of sixty acres of land near Alpangh.
Fraternally Mr. Wilson affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen, the Royal Highlanders and the Fra- ternal Brotherhood. Hle married, November 30, 1893, Miss Minnie F. Lois, a native of Texas, and is the father of seven children: Chester 11., Ralph C., Ross L., Earl O., Fred W .. Lloyd E., and Grace L.
SAMUEL REHOEFER
One of the pioneer merchants of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., is Samuel Rehoefer, a member of the firm of Steele & Rehoefer, exclu- sive shoe dealers, his partner being F. J. Steele. Mr. Rehoefer is a native of Bavaria. When he was ten years old he came with his father's family to the United States and they settled in Kentucky. From there he went to Alabama, and thence to Texas, where he passed the years of his young manhood in different dry goods estab- lisliments. In 1878 he came to California, and in the period 1878-82 he was connected with dry goods enterprises in San Francisco, Dixon and Stockton successively. He came to Hanford in 1882 and estab- lished the dry goods house of the Kutner-Goldstein Co., of which he was part owner and general manager for twenty-three years. The first store of the company on Sixth street had a floor space of fifty by one Imundred feet. This, under Mr. Rehoefer's progressive man- agement, was gradually enlarged from year to year until the store was one of the largest and best appointed in the county. In 1903 he disposed of his dry goods interests and with Mr. Steele as a partner opened a shoe store on Seventh street, which has been so skillfully managed that it is one of the most conspicuous of the prosperous business institutions of the city. Other interests than merchandising have to some extent commanded Mr. Rehoefer's atten- tion: he owned at one time an eighty-acre alfalfa ranch in Kings county and he is the proprietor of the Palace rooming house block on Douty street. In many ways he has demonstrated a publie spirit which marks him as a useful and helpful citizen. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masons, in which he has attained the thirty-second degree, and with the Knights of Pythias.
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WILLIAM GEORGE BASSETT
Elsewhere in these pages appears an interesting biographical sketch of Mark Bassett, an Englishman, who came to Kings county from Fresno county in 1895 and has achieved more than state-wide reputation as a breeder of stock, hogs and poultry. Among his children was William George Bassett, who was born in England, October 9, 1876, and is successfully farming eighty acres of his father's land at Armona, twenty-five acres being in vines and most of the remainder in orchard, his principal horticultural products being apricots and peaches. He also gives some attention to farming.
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