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 77
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 77
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December 23, 1883, Mr. Powers married Miss Stella Smith, a native of Butte county and the daughter of Theodore and Sarah W. (Iforton) Smith, who came to California in 1849 and 1852 respectively. The former was a native of Kentucky and the latter of Virginia. Both came across the plains with ox-teams and they were married in 1855 in Butte county. Later they lived for a short time in Shasta county, but returned to Butte county and there passed their remaining years. Besides Mrs. Powers two sons survive, Harry C., of San Francisco, and Jay, of Redding.
The devotion of Mr. Powers to the stock business during so long a period marks him as a man of persistency, who having formulated a plan of action will carry it out intelligently, allowing no obstacles to deter him, and bring it to ultimate success if years and opportunity are given him. He not only raises many cattle, but he buys and sells in the market, and in his business transactions has won a reputation for fair dealing of which any man might be proud.
REV. JAMES MURPHY
The long and useful life of Rev. James Murphy, which throughout its entirety signifies untiring energy, unselfishness and perseverance for the good of others, is a most interesting one, embracing many hard and trying experiences but withal receiving the tribute for the high calling which he had responded to in that he was beloved by all who were fortunate enough to come to know him, and his memory is revered by a wide circle of admiring friends. One of God's noble creatures, he had ever accepted his task without murmuring and filled his duties to the best of his ability and many there are who have had reason to bless him.
Born near Richmond, Va., March 18, 1803, James Murphy at an early date removed to Tippecanoe county, Ind., where he was married to Miss Jane Morris. To this union was born a family of twelve chil- dren, six of whom grew to maturity. He was ordained a minister in the United Brethren Church when he came to Indiana and continued to preach for forty years. Moving from Indiana to Woodford county, Ill .. he resided there until in August, 1854, when he went to Iowa and settled at Clarksville, where he was a pioneer minister. He established the first United Brethren Church at Corbley Grove, Fayette county,
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Iowa, which grew rapidly, and forty years later a new church was built at Westgate by that congregation, and this was named Murphy Memorial Church in honor of Rev. James Murphy, who had been its organizer.
In 1886 Henry Murphy, son of Rev. James Murphy, visited the latter at Oldwein near Westgate, Iowa, and finding him in ill health took him to his home on the north branch of the Tnle river, where he spent the remainder of his life, passing away March 18, 1892. Rev. James Murphy was twice married and as mentioned above six of his twelve children by his first marriage lived to mature age. Delilah. who was the wife of Daniel Fagne, had two children, Mary and Henry ; she died in 1911, at Oldwein, Iowa, aged eighty-two years. Nancy was married three times, first to Ira Havens of Bloomington, Ill .; second to James Phillips, of Delhi, Iowa, and had one son, Zina; and third to Zina Wheelock, of Manchester, Iowa; she passed away in April, 1911. James, now deceased, was married in 1856 to Mary Buckmaster, and is mentioned below. Henry is mentioned fully on another page of this publication. John, a stockman residing at Atchison, Kans., is married and has a family ; he is unfortunate in that he is blind. Emaline is the widow of Elonzo Spencer, formerly of Bloomfield, Iowa, and she had three children, Bert, Louise and William, all residing in the vicinity of Bloomfield. By his second marriage Rev. James Murphy was the father of three children: Hattie, conducting a hotel at Livingston, Mont. ; Fred, a wholesale tobacco dealer at Pocatello, Idaho; and Wen- rich, a railroad man on the Oregon Short Line.
James Murphy, son of Rev. James, married in 1856 Mary Bnek- master, and the eldest daughter of this union is Sara J., now the wife of W. R. Neal, who resides at Springville, Tnlare county. Mr. Neal is one of the leading merchants and postmaster of Springville and was at one time state superintendent of public instruction of the state of Oregon. He is an educator of note, having followed the profession of teaching more than thirty years before taking up the mercantile bnsi- ness at Springville, and is porsning his enterprise with unusual energy and such snecess as to mark him one of the leading business men of the county. Mr. and Mrs. Neal have had a family of six children, viz. : Minerva is the wife of Rev. William M. Olderby, pastor of the North- ern Liberty Church at Philadelphia, Pa., situated at No. 510 Button- wood street, and they have one child, James. William is married to Catharine Gulley and is a partner with his father at Springville. Jennie Neal is vice principal of the schools at Porterville. Lillie is bookkeeper in her father's business. Gwendolyn is a student in the school at Springville. James accidentally shot himself while the family were residing in Oregon when nineteen years of age.
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A. J. PERRY
This well known citizen of Hanford, head of the firm of Perry & Barbeiro, was born on the Azores Islands, July 31, 1863, and worked in a store there from the time he was eleven years old until he was eighteen. His first employment in this country was on a farm near Fall River, Mass., where he remained twenty-two months. In 1883 he found employment in Fresno connty in the construction of levees on the Laguna de Tache grant, to prevent the overflow of water, and was retained on the work seven years. After that for fourteen months he had a liquor store in Kingsburg. Then for a season he helped operate a threshing machine in the vicinity of that town and for a year after that had charge of some sheep. The next year he put in as a farmer on the Laguna de Tache grant. Next he opened a liquor store in Ilanford, in the old Freeman house on Fifth street. but a month later removed to a store on Sixth street and still later to the MeJunkin building, which was his headquarters until 1905. when he moved to a location at 104 Sixth street, where he sells soft drinks and cigars.
For a time M. V. Garcia was Mr. Perry's partner. He was sue- ceeded by S. L. Jackson and he after two years and a half by J. I. Barbeiro. The firm conducts a ranch of three hundred and ten acres, four miles north of Lemoore, which is now rented out for dairy purposes. Beginning Jannary 1, 1913, Mr. Perry will superintend the ranch and the business in Hanford will be taken care of by Mr. Barbeiro. Mr. Perry is a stockholder and was three years a director of the Hanford Mercantile store. He is a stockholder in the Portu- gese-American bank, at San Francisco, in connection with which he is known to men of his nationality throughout the greater part of the state. Fraternally he affiliates with the U. P. E. C., the I. D. E. S. and the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
In 1898 Mr. Perry married Anna S. Flores, and they have had eight children, seven of whom are living: Lillian, Edward, Tony, Lorianno, Earl, Geraldine, Harry and Edith. The latter died when she was six years old.
FRANK REA
The Rea family is one of the early Virginia families. Edward Rea, great grandfather of Frank Rea, came from Ireland and settled in Virginia before the Revolutionary war. Ile was a Universalist in religion and every generation of the Reas has elung to that faith as does the present representative of the family. It was in Macon
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county, Ill., that Frank Rea was born June 9, 1845, and he attended public schools until he reached the age of sixteen. Enlisting in the ('ivil War, he rendered faithful service to the Federal cause as a private soklier during three eventful years. After the war he returned home and for one year attended Lombard University, then completing a commercial course at Deeatur, Ill. He worked for his father until after he became of age. During the succeeding four years he was engaged in farming in Illinois. Then he came to California and after spending two years in the Santa Clara valley came in 1874 to Kings county and later located on what has come to be known as his home- stead. During the first few years of his residence here he worked for others, but as soon as water was obtained he went into stock- raising, dairying and fruit-growing. He has been active in ditch construction, and for some years was a director in the company con- trolling the outer ditch, which was under his superintendeney a year, and consequently one of his publie responsibilities after he came to the county. He has served as trustee of schools by election as a Republican, he being a member of that party, a venerator of its his- tory and an ardent advocate of all its economic policies. By member- ship with the Grand Army of the Republic, he keeps alive memories of the Civil war days which tried men's souls. Mr. Rea has been a director in the Alta Irrigation Distriet for fourteen years, and on February 6, 1913, was re-elected for another term of four years.
Even beyond his expectations Mr. Rea has been prosperous. From time to time he has bought land until he is the owner of ten hundred and eighty acres, eighty acres of which is devoted to fruit, the remainder to ranching and stock-raising. His cattle herd aver- ages two hundred head of blooded stock. The improvements on his land are np-to-date and in every way first-class, and his home is one of the most attractive and hospitable in the county. His marriage occurred in September, 1868, to Miss Mattie Ehrhart, who was born in Macon county, Ill., in Jannary, 1848. Their five children are named respectively Clara, Edgar, Frank, Bunn and Neva.
SQUIRE HAYDEN KINKADE
In Monroe county, Mo., S. II. Kinkade was born Jannary 1, 1836, and there he went to school in a log cabin from the time he was six years old until he was fourteen, when the family moved to Boone county. Mo. From there they went to Scotland county, Mo., whence they started to California. Young Kinkade was about sixteen years old when the family set ont to cross the plains in 1852. A large party was handed together for company and mutual protection and the long
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journey was made with ox-teams, thirty wagons, which made slow progress over the prairies and through the desert for many long weeks which would have been dreary had it not been for the daily excitement inseparable from such a venture. Fortunately there were no Indian attacks. The party arrived at San Bernardino in the fall, the Kin- kades wintering there, and in the spring settled in Santa Cruz county. There they remained two years, then moved to Contra Costa county, whence they came to Tulare county in 1857 and settled two and a half miles southwest of Visalia. Their first experience here was in raising hogs; later they took up cattle and in 1868 went into the sheep busi- ness, in which they continued twelve years, running their stock over a wide range of country and owning at one time four thousand head. There were at that time so many Indians in the county that out on the plains as many as six were encountered to each white man that was seen. Half a mile south of the Kinkade home about four hundred Indians were encamped for some time. Mr. Kinkade has passed through all the changes and revolutions of farming and ranching in Central California and since 1892 has resided in the vieinity of Porter- ville. He closed out his sheep interests in 1881, and after selling his ten-aere ranch in December, 1912, he moved to Porterville.
In 1887 Mr. Kinkade married Miss Harriet Anderson, who was born April 21, 1851, in Rock Island county, Ill. They have had two sons : Benjamin Harrison Kinkade, who is employed by Mr. Traeger in Porterville, and Milton Kinkade, who died aged eleven months. B. H. Kinkade married Jessie Landers, by whom he had two daughters. Evid M., who died when about two years old, and Jessie Bertha, an infant. Mrs. Kinkade died in October, 1912. Mr. Anderson, the father of Mrs. Harriet Kinkade, passed away when she was about ten years old and her mother when she was four. Mr. Kinkade's father died in 1877; his mother in 1885. In his political affiliations Mr. Kinkade is a Republican, and his interest in the community makes him helpful in a public-spirited way to every movement looking to its advance- ment and prosperity.
ANDERSON W. LEE
It was in Indiana that Anderson W. Lee, who now lives four miles southeast of Dinba, Tulare county, was born March 22, 1867. There he lived until in 1889, for three years thereafter making his home in Illinois and Missouri. On March 1, 1893, he came to Tulare county, ('al., finding the country round about the site of his present home practically a vast wheat field. Dinnba had two small stores, there was a little store at Orosi and at Sultana no beginning had been made.
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He was a daily observer of the building of the railroad in his part of the county and often saw many ten and twelve horse teams awaiting the unloading of the wagons which they had hauled out to the line. Soon after coming to the county he bought eighty acres of land at $45 an aere and planted twelve acres to vineyard, twelve to trees and gave most of the remainder to alfalfa. He early had a twenty-five acre melon patch from which he sold in one season about $2,000 worth of melons, feeding about as many more to his hogs. His place is well planted to young vines and he has raised twenty-five tons of peaches on five acres of six-year-old trees and in 1912 planted twenty-five acres to peaches. He keeps eighty head of stock, besides four good horses.
In politics Mr. Lee is a Socialist, and fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. In Johnson county, Mo., he married Miss Mary E. Null, a native of that state and whose parents crossed the plains with ox teams to California. The party of which the Nulls were members were often menaced by Indians, who drove off their cattle but killed none of the emigrants. Among pioneers known to this family was Charles Crow, who crossed the Isthmus of Panama on foot. Among Mr. Lee's household possessions is a quart bottle weighing four pounds which was brought overland to California in 1852. Anderson W. and Mary Ellen (Null) Lee have three danghters and one son: Lilly M., Mary Z., Ruby E. and James W. Lilly M. has completed her school studies and is now studying music. Mary Z. is a student in the high school at Dinuba; while James W. and Ruby E. are attending grammar school.
JAMES LAFAYETTE JOHNSON
It was in the state of Arkansas that James L. Johnson was born August 22, 1844. Early in the following year, when he was about seven months old, his parents. Joseph H. and Mary ( Murray) John- son, took him overland to Oregon. After a four years' residence there. they came to California. They located first at Napa City, later en- gaged in stockraising in the vicinity, and then went to Oakland, and for several years they lived there and at Martinez and on San Joaquin Island. Subsequently they were at Merced, Gilroy and Watsonville, one after the other, and in the meantime James L. had acquired an education in the public schools. At Porterville he married Miss Har riet Rhodes, daughter of the late William C. Rhodes, a biographical sketch of whom appars in these pages. Mrs. Johnson bore her hus- hand three children. Edna married William Lucius Kelley, of Fresno county, and they have had three children named Charlotte, deceased : 47
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Loren and Ora. Elmo married Bertha A. Crocker and she has borne him three children : Idena, Florence and Odessa. Lena is deceased.
The first land in this vicinity owned by Mr. Johnson was bought from the United States government. Ile pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres in Jordan Valley and paid it out at $1.25 per acre, and has added from time to time and now owns about four sections. Three hundred and fifty acres is devoted to farming, the remainder is hill land, used for pasture. On the place are kept about seventy-five head of cattle and one hundred head of other live stock. When Mr. and Mrs. Johnson settled in the valley, land could be bought at $1.25 an aere which would now he cheap at $200 and upward. The only buyers of stock in those days were Miller and Lux.
The old Democratie politics of his sire was in a way inherited by Mr. Johnson, a man of public spirit, ready always to aid to the extent of his ability any movement for the good of the community.
HIENRY W. REED
The well known citizen of Tulare county whose name is the title of this article and who lives a mile north of Sultana could tell many an interesting story of the days before the law was fully established in central California. lle was personally acquainted with Sontag and Frans and the Dalton brothers, and with George Radcliff, who was shot by the latter on Alkali Plains. He tells how the train was stopped by the bandits by force of arms and how, when the door of the express car was blown from its hinges, Radcliff received a load of shot in the abdomen, and he does not fail to add that the brave engineer hung to the throttle until he ran the train to Tulare, then died; and he could indicate the place in Fresno county where the Daltons for a time main- tained their mountain residence.
A native son of California, Mr. Reed was born in Kern county June 23, 1873, and was reared, educated, and lived there until 1884. In 1900 he came to Tulare county, settling near Visalia. Ile married in August. 1907, Mrs. May ( Price) Schaaf, widow of Lonis Schaaf. She was born in Crawford county, Kans., Inne 23, 1876, and had three children, Milo. Chester F. and Marguerite E. Schaaf. By the union with Mr. Reed, one son has been born, Harris Reed. Mr. and Mrs. Reed are Republicans.
In 1907 Mr. Reed located on twenty acres of land, which was the home of Mrs. Reed, all of which is devoted to fruit and vines, he hav- ing nine acres of vineyard and seven acres of apricots. In 1911 he marketed eight tons and a half of raisin grapes. He is an enterprising farmer and a progressive publie-spirited citizen.
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THOMAS SMITH
The sons of Ireland makes friends everywhere, succeeding in any community with which their lot may be cast, and California has always welcomed this industrious class to the ranks of its citizens among those who have sought a home under her sunny skies. One of the most prosperous farmers in the vicinity of Hanford is Thomas Smith, who was born in Ireland, June 27, 1841. He came, comparatively young, to the United States and finished his studies in New York, whence ahont 1860 he went to San Francisco, and from there he moved to Merced county. Later, in September, 1872, he settled in Tulare county, in that part now known as Kings county. Soon thereafter he located on one hundred and sixty acres which was the nucleus of the homestead which is now one of the land-marks of his part of the county. One year later, in 1873, he bought a second one hundred and sixty-acre tract, increasing his holding to three hundred and twenty acres. He engaged in dry farming and has given much attention to dairying and to hog-raising. Having been a farmer all his life he has obtained an intimate practical knowledge of everything making for successful cul- tivation, and so expert is he that in the operation of his fine ranch very little is left to chance except such things as unavoidably depend upon unforeseen developments in the way of blights and pests. He is one of the very few pioneers in his part of the county and every improvement on his ranch today was placed there by himself. In 1912 he and his son bought a twenty horse-power gas engine which is used for pumping water for irrigation on his place as well as his son's. The wells are eighty feet in depth, furnishing ample water for their need.
October 13, 1886, Mr. Smith married Mrs. Margaret (Gan) Whit- worth, a native of Wisconsin, who in 1852 was brought in an ox-wagon across the plains by her parents, who were California pioneers of that time. By a former marriage Mr. Smith was the father of two children, William II., who lives on an adjoining farm, and Mrs. Stella Curry, residing near Hanford. One child was born to his nion with Mrs. Whitworth, a daughter, Myrtle J. Wilkinson, who resides near River- dale. Mrs. Smith was married (first) to P. Johnson and became the mother of two children, Mattie and Katie. By her marriage to Mr. Whitworth she had a son, Clarence.
CECIL I. SMITH
It was in Athens county, Ohio, that Cecil Il. Smith was born in 1867. There he lived until he was seventeen years old, gaining an education in the public schools and obtaining an intimate knowledge
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of agriculture by actual daily contact with the soil. When he left the home of his childhood it was to go to Kansas with his parents, who established a new home for the family in that state. There he worked for wages until in 1887, when he immigrated to California and settled in Tulare county, which was then almost entirely devoted to grain- growing. After he had farmed five years he and his brother began to buy land, their first purchase being a tract of one hundred acres, and they soon afterward bought another of fifty acres. At this time Mr. Smith has one hundred and fifty-five acres which he operates as a dairy, milking about forty cows and doing a business of about $200 a month. Beginning with no capital, he has made all he has by hard work and the exereise of good business ability. The excitement of polities has never appealed to him and he has little liking for partisan activity, but he takes a publie-spirited interest in everything that in any way influences the well-being of the people. At this time he is very creditably filling the office of school trustee. His parents passed away after lives of usefulness. His father was a native of the state of New York, while his mother was born in Ohio, a daughter of pioneers. Ile has himself been familiar with pioneering in the middle west and on the coast, and, accepting the conditions under which the pioneer must strive, he has striven and succeeded.
WILLIAM W. ROBINSON
The late W. W. Robinson was born in Indiana, and was united in marriage there when a young man to Miss Margaret Mcclintock, and they resided in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, in which states their chil- dren were born. In 1880 they all came to California, and Mr. Robin- son bought some land near where Armona is now located. There he lived with his family until recently, when he went over into Fresno county, when he had another ranch, and after putting in a crop was taken ill.
At his death Mr. Robinson left, besides his widow two danghters, Mrs. 11. P. Brown of Hanford, and Mrs. George Campbell, of Suisun, also five sons, Marion, George, Grant, Henry and Charles, all of Kings connty. One danghter, Mrs. Knapp, died near Armona in 1903.
W. W. Robinson was a brother of the late J. S. Robinson, who was likewise a Kings county pioneer and had one sister, Jane Suteliff. of Albion, Iowa. Mr. Robinson was a man who was very successful in his business undertakings. He was a man of large executive ability. decided force of character, very reserved and unassuming, quiet, and very industrions, with exceptional powers for enduring work and sus- taining effort. He was known as a thoroughly good man at heart, and
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had many warm friends. In his home circle he will ever be remem- bered as a kind parent, while the vicinity in his death suffered the loss of a man of the strictest integrity. He died at Hanford Friday morning, February 24, 1905, aged sixty-nine years, ten months and twenty-three days.
WILLIAM A. SEARS
The Sears family, of which William A. Sears is a prominent mem- ber. is an old historie one in America, whose numerous representa- tives are residing in nearly every state of the Union, giving to their country patriotic and industrious service and adding greatly to the best and most representative citizenship. There are many branches of the family in this country and nine generations have lived in the United States. Originally of England, the first American ancestor of the family was born in England, probably not far from the Guernsey Islands, but there the name was spelled Sares. This progenitor was named Richard Sears, and the first authentic record we have of him is on the tax list of Plymouth Colony, dated March 25. 1633, when he was one of forty-four out of eighty-six persons who were assessed nine shillings in corn at six shillings per bushel. He soon crossed over to Marblehead, Mass., and was listed as a tax-payer of that place, and in the Salem rate list was granted four acres of land "where he had formerly planted." This was dated October 14, 1638.
Arthur Elliott Sears, father of William A., was an industrious and well-known minister in California as early as 1878 and his memory is deeply revered by all who have had the good fortune to know him. He was born in Cincinnati, and in Missouri was married to Eliza E. DeFrance, who was born in Mercer county, Pa., near New Lebanon. Mr. Sears had been previously married and was the father of five chil- dren by this marriage, William A. being the only child of the second union. In 1862 Arthur E. Sears came across the plains with ox-teams and settled in Oregon, bringing his family with him. He was a Methodist minister and was an early organizer and itinerant preacher, and was a pioneer of Methodist preaching, traveling and organizing in that state, giving his services up to that vocation for a period of thirty years. In 1874. his health becoming impaired, he went to Colorado and was given entire charge of the work of organizing for the Methi- odist Episcopal Church South in Colorado, where he labored diligently until he came to California in 1878. As a local minister he continued to labor in California for the rest of his days, and such was his influence for good that at his death in 1906 this community felt deprived of a kindly spirit whose place could never be filled. He made
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