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 75
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 75
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of twenty years' duration, he sold out his plant and bought a ranch of eighty aeres near that city. It was set ont to fruit trees which he dug up to convert the place into a dairy ranch of fifty acres of alfalfa and thirty acres of wild feed. IIe is able to gather six crops of alfalfa each year without irrigation. A dairy of thirty cows is a feature of his enterprise and he keeps fifty hogs.
In 1907 Mr. Luce married Mrs. Metcalf, a native of Iowa, who has two children: Herman and Odell Metealf. Mary E. Lnee is a child by a former wife. Mr. Lnce affiliates with the Visalia Grange and is a man of liberal publie spirit.
EDWIN F. HART
Many Missourians have come to California and have been per- feetly satisfied by their change of location. One such is Edwin F. Hart, of Farmersville, Tulare county. He was born in St. Charles, Mo., December 24, 1860, a son of Amos and Sarah W. (Logan) Hart, natives of Kentucky. He came to this state in 1882, when he was about twenty-two years old, and located in Tulare county. With his brother, he bought three hundred and fifty aeres of land at Cottage, on the Mineral King road, where they engaged in hog raising. Three years later they sold the place and Mr. Hart bought his present farm of two hundred and forty acres near Farmersville, forty acres of which is in alfalfa, eight in peaches, ten in prunes and two in a family orchard. He does general farming and has a dairy of twenty-five cows. He owns also a cattle range of one lun- dred and sixty acres on the Tule river, near Woodville. Fine draft horses are among the prodnets of his farms and he is part owner of an imported Percheron stallion.
Farming and stock-raising do not command Mr. Hart's entire time so as to exclude other interests. His publice spirit has led him from time to time to take part in movements for the general benefit of the community. He is president of the Consolidated People's Ditch company and has been at the head of the corporation since 1894. The other officers are S. T. Pennybaker, vice-president; Bank of Visalia, treasurer; J. C. Lever, secretary. The water used in the system under consideration comes from the Kaweah river. The ditch dng by the old company was merged with the new one in the consolidation and was the first in the county. It was begun with nine short ditches in 1852 and was known as the Swanson diteh. It was enlarged from time to time down to 1860, and in 1864 the Consolidated company took it over, including it in its present sys- tem of five miles of ditches with numerous laterals, each of ten to
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fifteen miles, making an aggregate of nearly one hundred miles. In the dry season of 1898 the company irrigated more than sixteen thousand acres of land. This enterprise is one of ntmost local importance and, as has been seen, has commanded the best efforts of leading citizens in all periods of its history and now is in the hands of some of the best men in the county.
Socially Mr. Hart is identified with the Woodmen of the World and the Fraternal Aid. He married Miss Martha E. Frans, the daughter of a Tulare county pioneer, February 2, 1887, and they have seven children : Sarah F., a teacher in the Farmersville public schools ; Charles E., who married Belle Hartsell; John H .; Rebecca E .; James V .; Homer S .; Ruth E. Sarah F. and Rebecca E. were graduated from the San Francisco Normal School. Mr. Hart is recognized not only as one of the successful men of the county but also as one of the most publie spirited of those who are leaders in affairs of general import.
WILLIAM H. BRALY
In Missouri, in 1862, was born William H. Braly, who now makes his home at Dneor, Tulare county, Cal. When he was three months old his parents made the journey by ox-team to Oregon, and there he lived for eight years. Then coming to California he settled in Alameda county, where he grew up, finishing his studies and familiarizing himself with the details of farming. In 1886 he came to Tulare county and homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of land that is a part of the Braly Brothers' ranch.
The father of the Braly Brothers, Shadrach Braly, was a native of Missouri, and died in 1892. Their mother, who was born in Kentucky, is living on the Braly homestead, passing her declining years amid the scenes of her active life. Her sons, W. H., S. W. and J. (. Braly, constitute the firm of Braly Brothers. Another of her sons, B. F. Braly, lives in this vicinity. Braly Brothers own twenty-two hundred and forty acres of land. While they have raised many horses and mules, they give their attention prin- cipally to grain. They have made their own way in the world by hard work and have proven their right to succeed by showing their willingness in a loyal way to contribute their full share toward the prosperity of the community. Their ranch, two and a half miles west of Dueor, is one of the show places of that part of the county. William II. Braly has served his fellow citizens as school trustee, but has never accepted any other office.
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ELMER L. KITCHEL
In settling in a new country, the measure of one's success is not so much what one brings in as what one acquires. The man who comes with capital does not always keep it, and the man who comes empty-handed may live to fill his coffers. The citizen of Tulare county whose name is above, arrived with thirty cents cash in hand. How he has prospered it is the task of the writer here to narrate. Mr. Kitchel was born in Warren county, Iowa, May 6, 1870, a son of James and Aleysana (Webster) Kitchel, the former born in Illinois, the latter in Indiana. The family came to Cali- fornia in 1887 and lived at Antioch, Contra Costa county, and from there eventually came on to Tulare county.
Elmer L. Kitchel made his appearance in the county with the small sum mentioned, but he had more and something better- he had work in him, work that was for sale because he needed cash, work that was wanted because it was honest and thorough and effective. For two years after his arrival he was a wage earner, then he rented the Johnson & Levison ranch near Visalia, which embraced forty acres, devoted chiefly to fruit. After operat- ing it three years he was able to come to the ranch which he still leases and which has come to be known as his home. It is the old Patterson ranch, northeast of Visalia, which includes ninety-five acres of cultivated land and one lmundred and fifteen acres of pas- ture. There he has lived since 1906. When he came to the place it was badly run down. He got busy, cleaning up, cutting down sixty acres of dead fruit trees, converting the trees into four hun- dred and fifty-eight cords of wood. Ever since he has been im- proving the property, on which there are now twenty acres of flour- ishing prune trees which produced nine tons of dried fruit in 1911, which tested fifty-two and sold at six cents a pound. There is also a young orchard of thirteen acres of French prunes which came into bearing in 1912. In 1909 Mr. Kitchel had forty-five acres of Egyptian corn, which on threshing yielded ten hundred and seventy- five sacks, which he regarded as a very favorable showing. In 1911 he had fifteen acres of corn. Sixty acres of the ranch is de- voted to alfalfa, which in 1912 yielded over eight tons to the acre for five cuttings. Ten acres of this was sown in December, 1910. forty-five in October, 1909. A feature is a dairy of twenty-five cows, all young stock, and there are on the place five Percheron mares from which Mr. Kitchel raises fine draft colts. The mares weigh respectively from fourteen hundred and fifty to seventeen hundred pounds. In 1912 Mr. Kitchel became a stockholder in the Visalia Co-operative creamery, and also owns stock in a Percheron stallion. Socially, Mr. Kitchel is an Odd Fellow, affiliating with Four
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Creek Lodge No. 94. In 1896 he married Minnie E. Hummel, danghter of Thomas and Florence A. (Hill) Hummel, both resi- dents of Tulare county for the past forty years. She was born in Tulare county in that part now in Kings. Mr. and Mrs. Kitchel have four children: Ralph, George, Elmer W. and Hattie.
GEORGE L. BLISS
Near Visalia, Tulare county, Cal., George L. Bliss, the reliable abstract man of Hanford, was born January 24, 1866, a son of Henry F. Bliss, Sr., and his wife Roxey (Jordan) Bliss. His father was the first of this family of pioneers to settle in Central Cali- fornia. He was born in New York state, the son of a Presbyterian minister, whom he accompanied to Michigan.
Amid frontier conditions, in Allegan county, Mich., Henry F. Bliss, Sr., grew to manhood. In 1850 he came overland to Cali- fornia with an ox-team outfit and settled at Sonora for a short time, and later on settled in Tulare county and bought land six miles south of Visalia, which he sold later in order to buy a farm about a mile south of that town, where he built up extensive stock- raising interests. It was after he came here that he married Miss Jordan, a native of Texas, who had accompanied Frank Jordan, her father, to California. From girlhood her home was on the Pacific coast and she passed away at the home of her son, Henry F. Bliss, in her fifty-fourth year. Henry F. Bliss, Sr., died in Visalia in his fifty-eighth year. Of their children, William died in Visalia; llenry F. died in Visalia, in 1909; Charles E. is in Fresno; George L. is the subject of this notice; Irving is a dairyman at Bakersfield; J. H. is in the abstract business in Bakersfield; Mary, the eldest daughter, died in Visalia; Cora is in the abstract busi- ness at San Diego; Maggie, a graduate of the State Normal School at San Jose, married I. E. Wilson of Hanford; and Earl (Maggie's twin) is in the U. S. army, located at Vanconver, Wash.
In the public schools of Visalia George L. Bliss was educated and in 1885 he connected himself with the abstract business of his uncle, John F. Jordan, of the Visalia Abstract company. Even- tually he was made deputy county clerk of Tulare county and served two years as city assessor of Visalia. Later he moved to Bakers- field, where he was employed in an abstract office; then, returning to Visalia, he was again connected with the Visalia Abstract com- pany nutil .Inly 5, 1899, when he took up his residence in Hanford. There he bought a branch of the Visalia Abstract company, which he has operated to the present time, now known as the Kings
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County Abstract company. Meanwhile he has engaged in real estate business, and since 1899 has been interested in the development of oil lands in this part of the state. He is secretary of the Coalinga- Pacific Oil and Gas company. In company with Richard Mills, he has lately erected a new brick block on Eighth street opposite the courthouse, which he has made the headquarters of his abstract business and his rapidly growing real estate business.
A man of public spirit, as well as of private enterprise, Mr. Bliss has done much for the development of Kings county. Fra- ternally he affiliates with Hanford lodge, Knights of Pythias. In 1890 he married Miss Hattie Beville, a native of Georgia. Their children are Iris M., Georgia J. and William Payson Bliss.
M. F. SINGLETON
Back in Indiana, a state from which many men have come to California to find here signal successes, M. F. Singleton, of Ducor, Tulare county, C'al., was born in 1862. When he was about twenty- two years old he went to Kansas, where he remained but a short time, coming on to California and arriving in Tulare county Ang- nst 27, 1884. Such education as was available to him he obtained in public schools in the Hoosier state, but as he was obliged to go to work for a living when he was fifteen years old his literary training was necessarily not very liberal. He came to the county alone and for four years worked by the day as a farm hand, and his first land was a homestead of eighty aeres, which he took up soon after he came. By later purchases he has acquired five other eighty-acre tracts and now owns four hundred and eighty acres. At one time his holdings included other land which brought them up to a total of six Imndred and eighty acres. He is now raising grain in goodly quantities, being located six miles from Ducor.
In 1888 Mr. Singleton married Miss Eva J. Hunsaker, a native of Tulare county, who died in 1898. In 1902 he married Miss Clara E. Gibbons. By his first marriage he had five children, Clande F., Louis I., Nettie E., Elsie and Nora. Fraternally Mr. Singleton affiliates with Porterville lodge, No. 359, I. O. O. F., and with the Porterville organization of the Woodmen of the World. While he is not a practical politician and has never songht office, he was, in 1910, elected to represent the fifth district of Tulare county in the board of supervisors. This is said to be the largest and wealth- iest district of the county. He has never accepted any other official position, but he is not without honor as a publie-spirited citizen and as a self-made man, who having begun at the very bottom of the
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ladder of success, has gained eminence in a fair and square struggle for advancement in which he has always been willing to give gen- erous aid and honorable dealing. In the days before he was him- self a landowner he was instrumental in inducing a well-known farmer to have a well put down on his place. It is worthy of note that this well was the first in the Ducor district for agricultural purposes.
W. D. TREWHITT
This prominent contractor and builder of Hanford, Kings county. favorably known throughout Central California, was born at Cleve- land, Bradley county, Tenn. When he was twelve years old he be- came a resident of Fort Worth, Tex., and there while still quite young, served an apprenticeship to the carpenter's trade. Ile worked ten years there, then went to New Orleans, La., whence he came to Hanford in 1886. Here he has been busy as a con- tractor and builder, the majority of his buildings being handsome brick structures, among which are: the First National Bank, Em- porium, Vendome Hotel, the New Opera House, the Sharples, Knowell. Bush and Kutner-Goldstein buildings, the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches, the Axtell block and the Slight & Garwood, Childress & Nunes. Kennedy & Robinson, Chittenden-Flory, Robin- son, E. Rollins and Buck buildings, and the Hanford ice plant, all in Hanford: many fine structures in Fresno, Exeter, Porterville, Lemoore, Visalia and San Francisco; a bank building in Patterson, Stanislaus county, a $50,000 apartment house in Fresno, a $20,000 addition to the Burnette Sanitarium in Fresno, a $40,000 addition to the court house in Visalia, a $20,000 grammar school building at Visalia, the Mt. Whitney Power company's building in Visalia, the llyde block in Visalia, high school buildings at Tulare and Porterville, grammar school buildings in Lindsay, Exeter and Fresno, a $50,000 school building at Coalinga and some business blocks in Lemoore. One of his notable residences is that of D. R. Cameron in Hanford. The Hanford Sanitarinm, the Delano high school, the high school at Visalia, Scally hotel at Lemoore and the Convention Hall at Fresno.
In 1907 Mr. Trewhitt, in association with L. E. Hayes, founded the S. P. Brick company of Exeter, which makes six million vire- eut brick annually. He is one of the owners of the Tale & Soap- stone company at Lindsay, whose stone material is taken from the earth and ground up into a powder which is a base for many products, including paints and paper, soaps and face powders. He
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has long been interested in ranch property in Kings county and now owns an eighty-acre farm, two miles west of Hanford, which is given over to vineyard, orchard and the raising of horses, cattle and hogs. In 1907 the firm of Trewhitt & Shields was organized. the partners being W. D. Trewhitt and H. W. Shields. Mr. Shields has charge of estimates and drafting.
Fraternally, Mr. Trewhitt is a Mason of the Knights Templar degree, a Shriner and a member of the Woodmen of the World. In 1890 he married Miss Mary Lillian Carney, a native of Ken- tneky, and they have three children: Elizabeth, Dorris and Dong- las Trewhitt.
J. L. PRESTIDGE
This native of Mississippi and prominent farmer near Dinnha, Tulare county, Cal., was born April 1, 1861, and remained in the state of his birth until he was seventeen years old, attending school after he had reached school age and acquiring a practical knowl- edge of farming which has been the foundation of his later success. In 1878 he went to Washington county, Ark., where he remained six years. It was in 1886 that he came to California, locating at Hills valley and remaining one year. In 1887 he went to Kettlemans Plains, where he took a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres and a timber culture claim of one hundred and sixty acres, remaining there until 1894, and six years later he located near Dinnha, where he has since lived. Some idea of the quality of the man may be gained by the fact that he came to the county without capital and without influential friends and has prospered steadily year after year, in spite of many difficulties, until he owns a homestead which could not be honght for $10,000. His friendliness and publie spirit have been of ma- terial aid to him, for it is true that one cannot be a friend without gaining friends or help the community without helping one's self. Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. In his political relations he is a Democrat and as such has been elected to important township offices. He is one of the most prominent pro- dneers of grapes in this part of the state, having a very large acreage devoted to vines. He also raises much fruit.
The parents of Mr. Prestidge were natives of Mississippi and his father died in the last siege of Vicksburg. In 1880 he married Myra D. Pore, who was born in Missouri of parents who were natives of Kentneky. Of their five children, three are living. Dean Prestidge is well known in Kings county, where he has lived at Cottonwood for some time past. He married Miss Hattie Totty of
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Los Angeles. George R. is deputy county auditor of Tulare county. Johnnie is a student in the local publie schools. It is probable that there is not another man in the vicinity who is more prompt and gen- erous than Mr. Prestidge in the assistance of every movement for the publie good.
FRED W. CONKEY
A native of Wisconsin, Fred W. Conkey, bookkeeper for G. W. Knox of Orosi and one of the successful farmers of Tulare county. was born Angust 16, 1864, a son of Lucius and Julia E. (Sheldon) Conkey, natives respectively of New York and of Michigan. His father died in Chicago, Ill., in 1904; his mother is still living. Her great-grandfather was captain of a company of patriot soldiers in the Revolutionary war and was captured by the British and might have been severely dealt with had he not been pardoned by King George because of his standing in the Masonic Order. His great-grandfather in the paternal line also fought for the colonies in the Revolutionary struggle, his grandfather being a soldier of the war of 1812.
Mr. Conkey entered the employ of the Swift Packing Company and rose to anthority in the office and was for several years private secretary of Mr. Swift. For eleven years Mr. Conkey was chief teller in the office of the county treasurer of Cook county, Ill., which includes the city of Chicago. He married in Chicago Miss Jessie Nye. daughter of the Hon. B. F. Nye, now a member of the legislature of the state of Kansas. By a former marriage he has two children. After the death of his father, his mother removed from Chicago to California and bought fifty acres of the old Reinheimer ranch in Tulare county for $19,000, and won much success with oranges, raisins, peaches and other fruit, having had many vines and seven hundred four-year peach trees. This property has been sold for $22,000.
For two years after he came to California, Mr. Conkey did outside work. He now has a forty-acre fully improved ranch near Yettem for which he has refused $16,000. He is conducting the El Monte Inn, a place of twenty-six rooms, in the management of which he is ably assisted by Mrs. Conkey, they having acquired this property by their united efforts, evidencing the reward for unceasing labor and toil. Their place is the only hotel in town and holds an enviable repu- tation among the traveling public. Mr. Conkey affiliates with the Masons, is secretary of the Orosi lodge, and is a member of Medina Temple of Chicago. He is a Republican in his polities and as a citizen has evidenced a publie spirit which makes him useful and popular in the community.
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JOHN J. DOYLE
A descendant of Irish ancestors, that enterprising Irish-American, John JJ. Doyle, of Porterville, Tulare county, Cal., was born at Lafayette, Ind., April 19, 1844, son of John Doyle. The latter was born in Kentucky, whence he removed in 1829 to Indiana and there followed agricultural pursuits until his death in 1876. John J.'s grandfather was William Doyle, who came from Ireland when a boy, settling first in Virginia and then in Kentucky, where his death of- curred. John Doyle married Sarah Wilson, born in Virginia, who in 1876 died in California, where she came with her son John J. on his second trip to the coast. She was the mother of sixteen children, of whom John J. was the second youngest.
John J. Doyle was reared on the parental farm until he was nine- teen, attending the common schools and also taking a course at a com- mercial college. Then he went to Ohio, but soon returned to Indiana, whence he came overland to California in 1865. It was not long, how- ever, before he returned to Indiana, but he came again in 1867 and taught school in Sonoma county in 1869. He settled in Tulare county in 1871 and has paid taxes there ever since, during a period of more than forty years. In the historic Mussel Slough fight, in which J. M. Harris, Ira Knutson, John Henderson, Archie McGregor and Dan Kelley were killed, Mr. Doyle did not participate, but he and four of his friends were jailed for eight months because of their influence in bringing about the troubles which culminated in the encounter. He started the fight and fought the railroad company nine years and four months and was obliged finally to pay $30.60 an acre for his land for which he had so long contended the railroad company had no title. It is a matter of history that more than six hundred other land owners set up a similar claim. The memorable year in which he served his jail term was 1881. In 1883 he was the first to locate a timber claim in the mountains at Summer Ilome. At one time he owned over one thousand acres, which he has since sold. After ten years of farming in that district he went to the mountains and planted an orchard at Doyle's Springs. He now owas about two hundred and eighty acres, one hundred and twenty-one acres of which, adjoining Porterville, he platted into lots and is offering for sale. In 1907 he bought ten hun- dred and forty acres east of Porterville, known as the old Indian traet. and divided it into twenty-acre farms, all of which, except one hundred. he has sold. One acre he gave for school purposes and a school house was built on it which accommodates about forty pupils. He is buying land and selling on easy terms, as much to benefit the town as for any purpose of his own, and he intends soon to plant near Porterville an extensive orchard of deciduous fruits.
In 1880 Mr. Doyle married Miss Lillie Alice Holser, a native of 40
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California, who has borne him four children, three of whom are living and married, viz .. Chester II .; Ruby S .. wife of John McFadyen; and Floreda Alice, married to C. S. Pinnell. Mrs. Doyle's parents were California pioneers, settling in Sacramento county in the early mining days. ller father died in 1866; her mother December 19, 1911, aged ninety-two years. Mr. Doyle's parents both died in 1876. The experi- ences of the family link the early days with the present time. Mr. Doyle has always been noted for his public spirit and has never sought any office, though he has ably filled several appointive ones. He is helpful to an eminent degree and his most distinguishing characteristic is his disposition to look on the bright side of things.
CHARLES WILLIAM HOSKINS
No real success in life is won without a persevering struggle, and the self-made man is, in the commercial and financial sense of the term, literally self-made. At the beginning he is handicapped by lack of capital, and after that his progress must be made in the face of strenuous circumstances and often unfair competition. When he has reached the top he knows how he got there and so do those whom he has left behind in the race. One of the men of this class in Kings county is Charles William Hoskins. Born in Adams county, Iowa, June 8, 1861, it was in 1862 that he was taken by his parents to Penn- sylvania. Ile was able to attend public schools only two years, but he made the best use of his limited advantages and has since aequired much knowledge from books and by an informing course of instruction in the college of hard experience. In his infancy he had reversed the general rule by going East. He was still but a boy, however, when he was in business life as a clerk in a store in Nebraska. In 1891 he came to California and in September settled in Tulare county. Hle moved in 1892 to the Lakeside district and opened a blacksmith shop which he operated about a year, then gave up the enterprise as having a not very promising future. He had now had experience in selling goods and in ranehing and in blacksmithing, and, between times, had made himself useful in other ways. Returning to Hanford, where some of his experience had been obtained, he again became a elerk in a general store. Here he would have seemed to have settled down to the kind of business to which he was best adapted naturally and by association. In 1900 he became manager of a general merchandise store at Guernsey, which he bought a year later and which he con- duete I with steadily increasing success until August 1. 1912, when he sold out and removed to his property in Hanford. In 1882 he married Miss Alma Atwood, a native of Henry county, Ill., who has borne him
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