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 81
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 81
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84
From time to time Mr. Swall has diverted his energies from the farm to the town and he is a director of the Bank of Tulare, a director of the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Company, a stock- holder of the Tulare Telephone Company and a director in the Roch- dale stores of Tulare. He has been prominent in the promotion of irri- gation and was one of the originators of the Tulare Irrigation Dis- triet. Since 1903 he has been one of the directors of the district. Republican, interested in all public questions but never an office seeker, he has nevertheless been a director of the Elk Bayon school district. Mr. Swall married Emma Cole, born in Knox county, Ill .. a daughter of Asa Cole, a native of Ohio, who crossed the plains to Cali- fornia with his family in 1856 and located in Contra Costa county. Several years later Mr. Cole went to Santa Clara county and in 1866 he located near Tracy, San Joaquin county. In 1873 he came to Visalia, whence in 1888 he removed to Brentwood, Contra Cos4 county, where he passed away in the autumn of that same year. Mr. and Mrs. Swall were the parents of children as follows: George, who is a dairy rancher near Visalia ; Newell, who is deceased; Walter, who is also a dairy rancher near Visalia ; AArthur, who is superintendent of the Neuman ranch, south of Tulare; and William, Jr., who lives sonth of Visalia, not far from his father. Mr. and Mrs. Swall also have eleven grandchildren.
Mr. Swall has been described as a prince of good fellows, always
851
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
ready to lend a helping hand to those less fortunate than himself. The responsibilities of citizenship appeal to him forcefully and definitely. While his character is commanding he is eminently fair in all busi- ness transactions and is admired for his kindness, sympathy and good judgment. His loyalty to his family, to his friends and to his convic- tions has never been questioned.
JOHN A. WILSON
One of the leading cattle men of his district, John A. Wilson, who lives at No. 720 North Irwin street, Hanford, was born in 1862, in the part of Tulare county which is now Kings county, twelve miles north- east of the site of Hanford, a son of O. L. and Rose J. Wilson. The elder Wilson came to California in 1848 and was a pioneer of pioneers. He mined in Placer county and on the Feather and Ameri- can rivers and after 1850 settled in the vicinity of Gilroy, where he farmed extensively until 1857. In that year he married and came to this part of the state.
It was in the district schools of the days of his youth that John A. Wilson was edneated. IIe hegan at seventeen, with some financial aid from his father, to fight the battle of life for himself. His career since then has been one of ups and downs, but he has never gone down hopelessly and he is undeniably up at this time so well established that there is little probability that he will suffer further disaster.
In 1887 Mr. Wilson married Miss Mary Alcorn, of California, and their daughter is the wife of Marion Hefton, of Hanford. The Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows ineludes Mr. Wilson as one of the most valned members of its Hanford organizations, and he is popular not only with the brethren of the order but with the citizens of Hanford and Kings county generally. Friendly and optimistic, he has a pleasant word for all whom he meets and a ready hand for the assist- ance of the general interests of the town.
JAMES HOUSTON
Noteworthy among the pioneer settlers of Tulare county was the late James Houston, for over forty years a respected and valned citi zen of Visalia. The descendant of a long line of Southern ancestry. he was also a native of the Southland, having been born in Tennessee. During young manhood he located near Pocahontas, Randolph county. Ark., this being at a time of an uprising of the Indians, and he val-
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
iantly took a hand in quieting these disturbances and other troubles that arose incident to border life. During the Sabine disturbances of 1837 he enlisted in the United States army and as a lientenant of the mounted gun militia of Arkansas rendered a service that was appre- ciated, as was evidenced in the fact that at the time of his discharge he received the brevet of major. Mr. Houston was a second cousin to the famons Sam Houston of Texas, and no doubt inherited his intrepid spirit from the same source as did his celebrated relative.
The marriage of James Houston united him with Frances Sebourn Black, a native of Virginia and the descandant of a prominent Sonth- ern family, being related to the Sebourns of South Carolina and to General Cobb, the latter a conspicuous figure in the Revolution. In 1859 James Houston brought his family to California across the plains by means of ox-teams. For a short time he mined at Hang- town, now Placerville, but in the spring of 1860 he came to Tulare county and made settlement in Visalia. Purchasing land near town he made his home thereon until 1902, when his earth life came to a close, at the venerable age of ninety-three years. His wife survived him about three years, passing away in 1905 at the age of eighty-four years. Of the eleven children born to this worthy couple seven are living, as follows : Mrs. E. B. Townsend, of Visalia; Mrs. J. W. Oakes, also of Visalia; Miss Thalia Houston; Mrs. R. A. Robertson, of Kingman, Ariz .; Mrs. Ed Graham, of Berkeley; Mrs. John Went- worth, of Globe, Ariz .; and Andrew, an extensive cattle rancher near Phoenix, Ariz. The four children deceased are: Maria, who was the wife of A. H. Glascock, a well known citizen of Tulare county; Samuel T .; Mrs. Frances S. Chilson, and William, who was a well known attorney of Visalia.
JOSEPH LEY
In Seneca county, Ohio, January 27, 1852, was born Joseph Ley, son of Andrew and Mary (Steinmetz) Ley, natives of Alsace Loraine, Germany. When he was nine years old his family removed to Noble county, Ind. There he grew up on his father's farm and he was employed as a farmer until he was twenty-four years old. In 1876 he went to Towa, farmed near Sioux City for five years, going from there to Thomas county, Neb., where for six years he followed farm- ing. lle came to Tulare county in 1891 with little worldly goods besides an ax and a cross-eut saw. with which he was ready to make his living unless some better means should be at hand. He pros- pered by hard work and was enabled, eventually, to buy seventy-five acres of land at $3 an aere in Squaw Valley, Fresno county, and in
853
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
1905 he bought one hundred acres more. His holdings consist of one hundred and seventy-five acres, located in Squaw Valley, which was so named because in an earlier day Indians often left their squaws there to await their return from hunting expeditions. He has ninety aeres under cultivation and some of it has produced four tons of hay per acre, and in 1911 he raised twenty sacks of barley to the acre. The remainder of his tract is in pasture. He keeps horses for his own use and usually has on his farm about twenty head of cattle. All the improvements he installed on the place.
Mr. Ley married, in Indiana, Miss Effie Smith, of English birth, whose parents had settled in Pennsylvania and moved thence to the Hoosier state. They have six children: John E., Martin M., Oliver, Mary, Rose Ann and Susan A. John E. married May Applegate and has a daughter and a son. Mary is the wife of Frank Volf; they have two sons and four daughters and their home is in Calaveras county. The others make their home with their parents.
Politically Mr. Ley is independent of party affiliations. He has no great liking for practical politics, and one of the most vivid recol- lections of his boyhood days is of having gone to the polls on election day to see and hear Northern and Southern sympathizers wrangle over questions on which they were at odds. He and his family are members of the Catholic church.
JAMES WALLACE OAKES
The Canadian family of Oakes, originally from France, had its first American representatives in New Brunswick. John W. Oakes died there at the advanced age of one hundred years. His son, Ham- mond Oakes, was for many years a lumberman on the St. John's river, then located near Port Ryerse, where he farmed and raised stock, prospering as a stock-raiser near Port Rverse. He became the owner of three farms, and died aged eighty-five years. Ile married Miss Isabelle Hammon, who was descended from old New England families, and located as a farmer and stockman near New London. She died aged sixty-eight years. Of their eleven children, only five of whom are living, James Wallace Oakes, fifth in order of nativity, was the only one who came to California. He was born in Canada West, in 1836, and reared on his father's farm. He was not only well edu- cated in a literary way, but was given practical training which was beneficial to him as long as he lived. He came to the United States in 1855 and stopped near Sabula, Jackson county, Iowa, until the fol- lowing spring, when he bought one hundred and eighty acres of prairie and timber land in Harrison county, Mo., which he proceeded
854
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
to break and improve, one of his first purchases for his farm having been a yoke of oxen. In the spring of 1857 he was employed by Upton Hayes as driver of a freighting team between Fort Leaven- worth and Camp Floyd. Relinquishing that employment, he went to Salt Lake, Utah, and from there he and fifteen others set out for California by way of Carson, Nevada, but at Genoa they sold their ox-teams, and came the rest of the way on mule back. He mined at Placerville, in Nevada county, and at Marysville until 1868, then came to Tulare county and rented a ranch of B. G. Parker, on Elbow Creek, where he began farming on a seale large for that time. He con- ducted three farms, meanwhile improving his own ranch, operating altogether about seven hundred acres. He also operated a ranch owned by his wife. Mill Creek and Packwood Creek and a ditch which he and others constructed all traverse this property, about one hun- dred and thirty acres of which was devoted by him to alfalfa, the bal- ance having been given over to dairying. At one time he owned eighty-five milch cows. Toward the end he leased this ranch for dairy purposes, furnishing the stock. He had also a stock ranch of twenty-two hundred acres, about thirty-five miles east of Visalia, on which he raised cattle and horses.
Fraternally Mr. Oakes affiliated with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Politically he was a Democrat, never shirking the respon- sibilities of citizenship, but never consenting to become a candidate for office. However, he was for two years a deputy sheriff under Sheriff Balaam and later for three years a deputy United States marshal under Marshal Franks. The duties of the last-mentioned position included the settlement of the Mussel Slough troubles of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and settlers on its land in this vicinity and demanded great tact and diplomacy, for the people were naturally suspicious of anyone attempting an adjustment of the dispute. Before undertaking the work. Mr. Oakes gained the consent of the railroad company to exercise his own discretion, and he soon won the con- fidence of the land claimants and brought about amicable settlement of all questions in controversy and returned to private life with the commendation of all with whom he had business dealings.
The lady who became the wife of Mr. Oakes was Mrs. Margaret 1. (Houston) Allen, a native of Arkansas, whose first husband, W. B. Allen, came to California in 1857 and settled in Mariposa county, but later became a stock-raiser in Tulare county, where he passed away July 26, 1867. Her son, William Byron Allen, is engaged in farming on a ranch of two hundred and twenty acres, two miles east of Visalia, and owned by himself and his mother. Mr. Oakes died De- comber 4, 1909.
855
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
M. L. CRAMER
This active and progressive citizen of Springville. Cal .. was born in 1864 near Cottage postoffice, Tulare county, one of the early set- tlements in that part of the state. In 1865 his parents moved to Mountain View, on the north fork of the Tule, and continued to reside there until 1887. When he was a small boy there was no school near his home, but one was available to him there when he was nine years old and he attended it in 1872 and in 1873. Ilis life has been a busy and useful one and he has had to do with many interests of impor- tance. As a machinist he has been employed in responsible places here and there. Since locating in Springville he has worked at his trade as occasion has offered, giving attention, meanwhile, to other business matters also. His activities in connection with the Lindsay Planing mill are matters of public knowledge. Fraternally he affiliates with the Porterville lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. His ex- perience in this part of the state dates back to the days when deer were plenty in the woods and wild game was to be found everywhere. He has seen the country settled and improved and villages spring up on every hand and quickly develop into cities of more or less impor- tance. In all this growth he has taken the interest of a public- spirited man. As a member of the local school board he has done not a little to advance the efficiency of the public schools.
In 1887 Mr. Cramer married Miss Mae Baker, a native of Kan- sas, who has borne him six children: Morris, Bessie, Frank, Violet, Eleanor and Jolm. Mr. Cramer's father, J. K. Cramer, a native of Pennsylvania, came to California in 1851, crossing the plains in the slow and dangerous way then in vogue. Taking up land which eventually proved to be railroad property, he suffered disappointment and loss in being compelled to forfeit it. His wife, Eleanor Ott, a native of Ohio, carre overland with her parents in 1850, and they were married at Petaluma, C'al., in 1857.
HON. AALLEN J. ATWELL
The name above will be recalled as that of one who as lawyer, journalist, legislator and man of affairs was long prominent in Tulare county. The late Allen J. Atwell was born at Pharsalia, Chenango county, N. Y., April 16, 1836, and died at Visalia November 21, 1891. His parents were Daniel L. and Mehetabel (June) Atwell, both natives of the Empire State. When he was ten years old his family removed to Wisconsin, and after a preparation in the public schools he became a student at the Lawrence University at Appleton, Wis ,
856
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
graduating with first honors from the first class of that niversity. Because of alphabetical precedence his name headed the membership list of the class.
The day after graduation, Mr. Atwell went to Nebraska, where he read law a year under competent direction. In the early '50s he crossed the plains to California, and after stopping for a time in San Diego he came to Visalia, where he was soon afterward admitted to the bar and where in due course of events he gained a place in history as the orator who delivered the first Fourth of July oration at that county seat. He succeeded as a general practitioner of law, was made district attorney of the county and was elected to represent Tulare county in the legislature of California. He won much success as prosecuting attorney, several important cases having fallen to his management during his term of service, and as an assemblyman the records show that he not only achieved distinction on the floor of the house, but did important and patriotic work as a member of com- mittees. He was for a time owner of the Visalia Times, which under his control was a local newspaper of much influence. During another period he owned and operated a lumber mill near Mineral King, and among his possessions at one time was Atwell's Island, in Tulare lake, where he raised cattle and hogs. For some years he was asso- viated in the practice of law with N. O. Bradley of Visalia. In his long and useful career he was identified from time to time with varions local organizations, and as a citizen he was notably public- spirited.
In 1861 Mr. Atwell married Miss Mary M. Van Epps, a native of Illinois, who survives him, and they were the parents of nine children : Mary, wife of F. M. Creighton; Arthur J .; Nellie, wife of B. J. Ball, of Visalia; Irving, who is dead; Clarence C .; Allen L .; Pan]: Ethel, who is the wife of Hugh McPhail; and Lizetta, who is Mrs. E. Martin.
HENRY CHRISTOPHER ROES
A native of Hanover, Germany, Henry Christopher Roes, who now lives three and a half miles southeast of Dimba in Tulare county, C'al .. was born November 10, 1835. He received the usual common school education of the place and time and when he was in his four- teenth year came over seas to New York. There he attended night school and was for six years a clerk in a grocery store. Then he came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, sailing to Aspinwall, crossing the Isthis on foot and transporting his baggage on a mile. and from Panama came to 'Frisco on a ship that had come
857
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
around the Horn. The voyage from Panama to San Francisco con- sumed eight days and was not marked by any accident. After a short stay in 'Frisco Mr. Roes went to Stockton, where during the ensuing eighteen months he was proprietor of a general store. Then for three years he was mining in Calaveras county, where he and a man named Hines staked out a claim and were measurably successful, taking out some days as much as $50 worth of ore, but not being experienced miners they lost in one way or another about as much as they made. Returning to Stockton, Mr. Roes operated a grocery six months, then went to La Grange, where he mined until 1868. Early in that year he went to Europe, and returning he made a tour of the Southern states and in November was in South California when General Grant was elected president the first time. About two years later he started for San Francisco by way of Panama. He arrived in San Francisco in February, 1870, and soon went to Stanislaus county, where he was for three years a merchant. His next place of residence was Merced, which was then coming into prominence by reason of the building of the railroad. There he dealt in lumber. It was in Merced that he married Miss Louisa Snedeker, of French descent and a native of New Orleans, in 1874. She bore him two children, Edna L. and Edna Louisa. The latter has passed away. Edna L. married W. E. Rushing, a native of Texas. Mrs. Roes died in 1887.
Mr. Roes sold his lumber yard two years before he was married and started in the sheep business in the Smith mountain district. At one time he was the owner of twelve thousand head of Spanish Merinos, had other important interests and was in receipt of a salary of $125 a month and expenses as manager. The country all about him was in a state of nature. Standing on the mountain with a spy glass, he could see sheep, cattle, horses and antelope for many miles in every direction. Many herds of antelope contained as many as fifty or sixty animals and he killed many antelope for meat. Deer and bear were numerous in the mountains. He had but few neighbors and one of them, in his early days there, was Mr. Edmonson. He was in the sheep business eighteen years and made many thousand dollars. He left it to engage in wheat growing and eventually homesteaded and improved land. The business had not been without its disadvan- tages. Many of his sheep had been killed by bear and his loss by accident and disease was sometimes heavy. He was twenty-two miles distant from Visalia, his nearest market town, which he had frequently to visit for many purposes, on one memorable occasion running his horse nearly the whole distance. The journey to and fro consumed a day or more time. There being no roads a part of the way was necessarily difficult. About six years ago he bought twenty acres which he has devoted to vines and alfalfa and he has charge
858
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
of twenty acres, the property of another man. He has been partic- ularly successful with the Thompson seedless grapes.
When he was twenty-three years old Mr. Roes became a member of the Masonic order and he has been identified with the Blue Lodge at Merced since 1899. In his politics he is Republican. He is a com- municant of the German Lutheran church.
JASPER N. BERGEN
April 19, 1862, Jasper N. Bergen was born in Minnesota. He is now a prosperous fruit grower, two miles and a half southeast of Lindsay, Talare county, Cal. His parents, natives of Indiana. have passed away. His sister was the first of the family to come to Cali- fornia. When he was twenty-six years old, in 1888, Mr. Bergen came here to visit her, and during a seven months' stay made trips of observation to different parts of the state. He went back to his old home and remained there seven years, then came again to C'ali- fornia and during the succeeding seven years was farming five miles north of Woodville. It was not until 1902 that he occupied his pres- ent ranch of twenty acres. Small farms are rapidly becoming a fea- ture of Tulare county; many families are not only making a good living, but are each year banking money from returns of twenty-acre orchard, vineyard or alfalfa field. Such farmers are always located close to town and they have daily mails and telephone service that rob rural life of its isolation and make social conditions agreeable. The home built up by Mr. Bergen is one of the pleasantest in its vicinity. For the vacant land he paid $65 an acre, and planting seven acres of figs, he produced a good erop, packed it himself and sold it in the local market at fifteen cents a pound. Four years later he planted five acres of orange trees and two years ago he planted five aeres more. His place is almost entirely devoted to figs and oranges.
In 1901 Mr. Bergen married Miss Sarah Etta Dunham, a native of Indiana and a daughter of parents born in that state. Socially he affiliates with the Lindsay organization of the order of Fraternal Aid, of which he was a charter member. While he is not an active politician, he takes an intelligent interest in all economie questions and is helpful to the uplift of the community in a publie-spirited way. As a fruit grower he is progressive and resourceful and he is fast coming to the front as one of the leaders in that industry in his part of the county. With figs he has been remarkably successful, and in 1911 he packed about forty-five hundred pounds gathered from four hundred and eight trees.
-59
TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES
WILLIAM SWAN
A son of Frederick and Sarah (Butler) Swan, William Swan was born in Kent, England, November 7, 1849, and was two years and a half old when he was brought to the United States by his mother, his father having preceded him in 1850. The family lived in Indiana until 1858, then settled in Decatur county, Iowa, where Frederick Swan bought one hundred and sixty acres of government land at $1.25 an acre, which he improved and on which he lived ont his days, dying in 1893, aged eighty-four years. Mrs. Swan died in 1900.
In Iowa William Swan learned farming and worked at it until 1875, when he came to Tulare county. He went up into the mountains in the neighborhood of Sequoia lake and worked in the timbers and later tended sheep for a while in Kings River at Reedley. Then he came to the valley. Those were pioneer days in a new, wild country, and he had often to cope with bears foraging for food and saw at different times as many as a thousand antelope. His first holding in the valley was two hundred and forty acres of railroad land. Later he bought six hundred and forty acres of other land and acquired a half interest in oak timber land in the mountains. He sold forty acres of land in small tracts, by judicious subdivision. He has now ten acres of fruit bearing land. Around his house are a number of large trees and he owns the biggest orange tree in Tulare county.
The woman who became Mr. Swan's wife was Mary Smith, a native of Kansas, who had taken up her residence in California. Their children who are living are: Bertha J .; Wesley W .; Gertrude; and Wilma E., at home. Bertha J. married J. W. Smith, a native son of California. The Swan family is a family of Democrats and Mr. Swan has served his fellow townsmen as school trustee, in which office his son-in-law, J. W. Smith, is serving at this time. Mr. Swan and Mr. Smith are enterprising and public spirited, ready at all times to do their ntmost for the general good.
FRANK REMBRANDT KELLENBERG
Prominent in real estate circles in Visalia and the San Joaquin valley in general, Mr. Kellenberg's enterprise and ability have won for him an enviable place among his fellows, yet his high principles and keen sense of justice have actnated throughout his successful career none but the fairest dealings. Mr. Kellenberg was born June 11, 1854, in Alton, Madison county, Ill., and was the second youngest in a family of two sons and five daughters. His father, Francis Jerome Kellenberg, a native of Georgetown, D. C., was an artist of
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.