Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California, Part 48

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844

USA > California > Santa Clara County > Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California > Part 48

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Captain Williams was married in San Francisco, December 11, 1879, to May, daughter of Hon. John Thomson, of Prince Edward Island, who was for many years Speaker of the House of Representatives. They have two children: Reginald Hadley, born June 19, 1883, and Anita Josephine, born January 3, 1885. They lost one child that died in infancy.

ILLIAM B. RUCKER, who is Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, was born in Santa Clara County in 1857. His parents, J. E. and Susan (Brown) Rucker, came to California in 1853, from Missouri, and settled at once in the Santa Clara Valley. The subject of this sketch attended the pub- lic schools of San Jose until he attained the age of sixteen years, when he attended the University of the Pacific for a short time. In 1875 he went to San Benito County and took charge of his father's ranch there; he remained until February, 1886, when he re- turned to San Jose, and received the appointment of Deputy Recorder of this county, which office he filled one year and was then appointed Deputy County Clerk and Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, which office he still occupies.

In April, 1882, he was united in marriage to Miss Mollie. McCarley, also a native of this State and county. Her parents, Samuel W. and Hannah (Harbert) McCarley, came to California in the pio- neer days of its settlement. Mr. and Mrs. Rucker have one child, a son, born June 27, 1885, who bears the name of George A. Mrs. Rucker has one sister and four brothers. Her sister Annic is the wife of D. B. Fuller, of Evergreen, this county, who is en- gaged in fruit-raising. Her brothers, W. B. and Al-

bert, are in partnership in the livery business. Frank J. McCarley is in the United States mail service, and Samuel W., Jr., is now attending school in San Jose. Mr. Rucker is a member of Mt. Hamilton Lodge, No. 43, A. O. U. W., of San Jose; he is also a member of Palo Alto Parlor, No. 82, N. S. G. W., and is District Deputy Grand President for Santa Clara County, and Recording Secretary of Company B., Fifth Infantry, Second Brigade, N. G. C., to which company he be- longs.

EV. WILLIAM D. POLLARD was born in Spencer, Owen County, Indiana, April 12, 1840. His father, Uriah Pollard, was a native of Vir- ginia, and when six years old removed with his parents to North Carolina, where he was reared. He was married there to Sarah Dameron, a native of North Carolina. Uriah Pollard was the owner of one slave, although he did not believe in slavery. He was strongly opposed to the liquor traffic for sixty- five years. He took a firm stand against using it in the harvest-field, and although strongly opposed, finally won the day. Mrs. Pollard was a woman of sterling qualities, like those of old, ever providing for her children. Each child grew in virtue and be- came the head of an honorable family. They moved to Owen County, Indiana, in 1831, and lived there twenty years. In 1851 they moved to McLean County, Illinois, where they died, Mr. Pollard in 1879, aged eighty-two years, and his wife in 1874. They reared a family of seven children, all of whom are now living, three sons and four daughters. W. D. Pollard is next to the youngest. He made his home with his parents till twenty-five years of age. He was educated at the Eureka College, in Woodford County, Illinois, he and his wife attending school one year after their marriage. He was reared in the Christian faith, his mother being a very pious woman, and his father a class-leader for forty years.

He was married June 29, 1865, to Lizzie J. Hows- mon, who was born in Ohio, January 15, 1845. Her parents moved from Ohio to McLean County, Illinois, when she was an infant. Both Mr. and Mrs. Pollard were teachers in the public school. After leaving college they returned to their old home in McLean County; here Mr. Pollard taught school for a year, and then returned to Woodford County and taught a year. They then went to Gilman, Iroquois County Illinois, and took charge of the public school there,

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for one year, and from there to Scott County, where he taught three years, thence to Morgan County, where both Mr. and Mrs. Pollard taught in the public schools for three years. In 1875 they came to Santa Clara County.

He at once bought a ranch of twenty acres and planted it to fruit-trees, and at the same time engaged to teach the Saratoga public school, which he did for four years. Mr. Pollard has been actively engaged in raising fruit, having had at different times as many as 1 50 acres. He has realized $5.00 per acre from three- year-old prunes, $75 per acre when four years old, and $200 when five years old. The best he ever real- ized from prunes was $550 per acre. In 1887 he realized $300 per acre from five-year-old peach-trees.

Mr. Pollard has been a preacher for twenty-five years. He began his ministry about the time he commenced school-teaching, and has many times preached three times a day. Has held protracted meetings and taught school at the same time. For the past three years he has been preaching in Santa Cruz. The most of his efforts in this direction have been gratuitous. The richness of his life has been spent in the ministry, he having obtained from this service the largest results. Mr. Pollard, in the death of his wife, February 2, 1888, met with his greatest loss. She was his constant companion and helper in his Christian work. She was the mother of three children, all of whom survived her. In 1883 Mr. Pollard bought a half interest in Washington College, in Alameda County, where both he and his wife taught for one year. This was the close of their teaching, having devoted about fifteen years to it and twenty- five years to the ministry. He at present gives his time to preaching. His present ranch consists of forty acres,-thirty-four acres of French prunes, four acres of pears, and two acres of peaches, there being about 100 trees to the acre and ranging from two to six years old.

YMAN J. BURRELL, deceased, was born in Massachusetts, September 5, 1801. Both of his parents were natives of Massachusetts. Hi father, Jabez Burrell, was one of eight sons and three daughters. Lyman lived in Massachusetts until he was twelve years old, when his father removed to the Western Reserve and settled in Sheffield, Lorain County, Ohio. His father was a pioneer, and took

up and cleared his land. Lyman had a farm in Shef- field given him by his father, which he cultivated. He married when about twenty-six years old, and his wife died six or seven years afterward. He was married again in 1839, to Clarissa Wright, a native of Connecticut. Previous to this he went to Elyria, the county scat of Lorain County, and was twice elected County Treasurer on the Whig ticket.

In 1849 he came to California, leaving his family at home. He worked in the mines with average success for two years or more, and made about $2,000. On returning to Elyria, and while crossing the isthmus at Panama, he contracted the " Panama " fever, and was in a very weak condition when he reached his home in Ohio. In about a year, thinking himself sufficiently well, he started for California, but upon reaching New York was obliged to return home. In 1852 he made the journey, and his family joined him the following year. Upon his arrival in California he rented land from Cary Peebles, of Santa Clara, planted four or five acres to onions, and in 1853 he planted potatoes and pumpkins on land belonging to the late James Lick. In June, 1853, he made his first excursion into the mountains with a party looking for a home, and all took up land on the ridge between the Burrell and Los Gatos Creeks. He took one-fourth of a section, under the pre-emption laws, supposing it to be gov- ernment land, and built a house and settled there. The other parties with him took up claims for stock ranches, and were only there at times. The nearest permanent neighbor was Charles McKierman, famil- iarly known as " Mountain Charley," and he was three and a half miles away.

After living there six years he found he was on a Spanish grant. He thereupon bought a third of one- ninth interest in the grant, his share being about 3,500 acres, for which he paid $1,500. He engaged in stock-raising, first raising hogs, but had to give that up as there were too many bears and panthers. He then took a herd of cattle on shares from John A. Quincy, and made some money. During the first five years he lived there, there was no wagon road, till the Santa Cruz Turnpike was built. His nearest post-office was Santa Clara, and everything was packed to and from his place on the backs of horses. For two years he followed the old Santa Cruz trail, striking it at "Mountain Charley's." Instead of trav- cling this roundabout way any longer he picked out and opened a trail from his place toward San Jose, which was adopted by the Turnpike Company when it built the turnpike road. He sold off his land from

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time to time in large and small tracts, so that at the time of his death he had but about 1,000 acres left. His wife died in 1857. She was the mother of three children : James Birney, Martha, and Clara, the wife of H. C. Morrell. He married again in 1864, Mrs. Lucy Lewis, who died in January, 1875. He was again married in February, 1876, to Mrs. P. T. Vining. He died June 3, 1884.

BRAM BLOCK is a native of Bohemia, and was born at Schwihau in 1830. When fourteen years of age he came to America, and on his arrival here went directly to St. Louis, Missouri, where he had several brothers. Having only a lim- ited education, he attended school at St. Louis until his seventeenth year. Hc then obtained a situation as a clerk in the wholesale and retail dry-goods house of Nathan Ables, in which he acquired an interest in 1850. In 1852, on account of poor health, he with- drew his interest in the firm and came West to Ne- vada City, where he became associated with S. Furth, in the mercantile business, after which he also en- gaged in private banking until 1874. In 1856 he became a resident of San Francisco, where his firm also engaged extensively in business. Meeting with reverses in 1874, caused by the depreciation of min- ing stocks, and also by accommodating friends in whom his faith was too sanguine, he was forced to make an assignment. In 1878, after settling up his affairs, by the advice of his physician, he abandoned mercantile and banking pursuits and turned his atten- tion to fruit-culture, and with what little he saved from his financial wreck he invested in a fruit ranch near Santa Clara, long known as the Gould Fruit Ranch. Mr. Gould was a noted horticulturist, and it was he who first shipped California fruits to Eastern States, as well as foreign countries, i. e., Australia, Sandwich Islands, and China. Mr. Block's ranch contains ninety-six acres, and he grows many varieties of fruit, but the pear is his speciality, the land being best adapted to that fruit. He is widely known as a pear culturist, and he ships yearly large quantities of pears to Eastern markets. Although deeply in debt, with the help of friends Mr. Block has succeeded in removing every financial incumbrance from his ranch, the result of his persevering industry under the most trying difficulties. He ranks among the prominent horticulturists of the State of California, and in 1885

was appointed a member of the California State Board of Horticulturists, by Governor Stoneman, to fill a vacancy, and afterward by Governor Waterman, to a full term of four years, and is now a member of the Board. He is also one of the Trustees of the Home for the Carc and Training of Feeble-minded Children, a State institution at Santa Clara, having been appointed by Governor Bartlett in 1887.

Politically, Mr. Block is independent, and never votes a strictly partisan ticket; and, although of for- eign birth, he loves the free principles of the United States, and believes in adhering to and upholding the laws of his adopted country. He is still unmarried, and will probably never be a benedict, or allow him- self to be a party to a matrimonial alliance.

CALI HUGH EVANS, son of Hugh and Jerusha (Cone) Evans, was born in Oneida County, New York, June 5, 1824. His father was a native of New Hampshire and his mother of New York. They both died in New York. Of fourteen children they reared twelve, the subject of this sketch being the youngest of the family. At the age of twenty he went to Wisconsin, where he worked in different parts of the State for four years. In 1849 he came to Cal- ifornia, making the trip overland with ox teams. When the party was organized at the Missouri River, it numbered eighty-one persons, under Captain Har- aszthy. Mr. Evans acted as cook for the mess to which he belonged. It took them eleven months to make the trip, by the southern route. The party went into camp twenty-five miles south of Santa Fe, in New Mexico, where it remained six weeks recruit- ing the cattle. The party reached San Diego on Christmas-day. Mr. Evans remained there about three weeks, when he took passage on a sailing vessel and reached San Francisco in February, 1850. The next month he went to the Yuba. River mines and began mining, remaining there four months, when he returned to San Francisco and went into the Red- woods, back of Redwood City. There he engaged in hauling logs. After going to the mines again and to the Redwoods back of Oakland, in 1853 he came to San Jose, where he remained four years running a grist-mill. In 1857, with some others, he organized a stock company and took a contract for making a part of the Santa Cruz Turnpike toll-road. In 1858 he bought his present place, of eighty acres, where he has since resided.

It. L. Woodrow.

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He was married, in 1861, to Jemima Ann Ricketts, who died in November, 1862. In 1870 he was again married, to Julia A. Purdon, a native of Oneida County, New York. They have no children. He has about thirty acres under cultivation, viz .: 70 French prunes, seven years old, 150 Hungarian prunes, eleven years old, 500 egg plums just coming into bearing, 25 Columbia plums in bearing, 20 Oregon silver prunes, 100 pears, mostly Bartletts, five years old, 200 apples, twenty years old, and 150 cherries, some of which are eighteen years old. He also has about four acres in vineyard, about four years old, with the exception of half an acre, which are twenty years old.

LILLIAM L. WOODROW, of the firm of True- man & Woodrow, undertakers, No. 117 South First Street, San Jose, has been a resident of the Pacific Coast for the past twenty-six years, and for the past eighteen years has been the leading under- taker in California outside of San Francisco. A na- tive of Pembroke, Genesee County, New York, where he was born July 5, 1835, his parents removed when he was six years old to Churchville, Monroe County, where the family lived four years. There his mother died on January 6, 1844, and is buried in Churchville Cemetery. In 1845 the family removed to Spencer- port in the same county, near the city of Rochester. Soon after they removed to Spencerport the subject of this sketch went to live with an old farmer named Lemuel Brown, a friend of his father. On this farm he remained four years, attending school in the win- ter months, and aiding in the general work as far as he could in the summer. Here he acquired those habits of industry and attention to the duties of life which, coupled with the precept and example incul- cated by that old Christian gentleman, have done much to make his private life and business career so marked a success. At the age of fifteen years he re- turned to Spencerport, soon after which the family removed to Lee County, Iowa. Here his father pur- chased a farm, which the subject of this sketch took charge of, the knowledge he had gained in New York State enabling him to manage it practically, which he did until 1856. Until the age of nineteen years, Mr. Woodrow always attended school during the winter months, acquiring all the clements of a public-school education.

On December 9, 1856, at the age of twenty-one

years, he was married to Miss Margaret E. Wilcox- son, of Clay Grove, Iowa, daughter of Berry Wilcox- son, one of the oldest and most respectable residents of that part of the country. Mr. Wilcoxson owned one of the finest farms and the largest orchards in that section, being especially devoted to his orchard.

Mr. Woodrow after his marriage conducted a farm on his own account until 1862. He then started across the plains, taking his wife and two children in ox wagons. Leaving the Missouri River May 22, he reached California four months later, the Rev. D. E. Bushnell being a member of his train. His first ex- perience in mining was in Butte County, on the Yuba River north of Marysville. After devoting four years to mining and dealing in mining property in Butte County, California, and in Humboldt and Virginia City, Nevada, with varying fortunes, he came to Santa Clara County in impaired health in November, 1866. Here he engaged in farming at Berryessa for two years, his family residing in San Jose. This occupa- tion not being congenial, he purchased, in 1871, a half interest in the undertaking business with his present partner, Marcus Trueman, in which they have contin- ued since that time.

His two elder daughters, born in Iowa, are Jennie L., wife of William H. Flagg, of San Francisco, and Mollie F., wife of Charles J. Hirsch, also of San Francisco. Since coming to the Pacific slope three children have been born to them: Charles W., at Humboldt, Nevada; George B. and Grace E., at San Jose. George B. died in 1877, at San Jose, aged five years and three months. Mr. Woodrow's first wife died January 2, 1882. In 1883 he was married to Miss Emma H. Kellner, daughter of Rev. Augustus Kellner, Pastor of the First German Methodist Epis- copal Church of San Francisco, which church he es- tablished in 1853, and of which he was pastor until his death, some years later. Mrs. Woodrow was born August 1, 1858. She was for twelve years the organ- ist of the German Methodist Episcopal Church of San Jose. They have had one child, Hazel Augusta, who died in March, 1888, aged one year. Mr. Wood- row's parents were Benjamin and Mary F. (Sprague) Woodrow, the former a native of England, and the latter of New York. His father, now eighty-one years old (1888), is interested with his son, J. M. Woodrow, in the Jasper County National Bank, of Newton, Iowa, of which J. M. is President.

The subject of this sketch owns some valuable or- chard property in the neighborhood of San Jose, and an elegant home on Third Street, between St. James

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PEN PICTURES FROM THE "GARDEN OF THE WORLD."

and Julian Streets. He is a member of Friendship Lodge, No. 210, F. & A. M .; of San Jose Lodge, No. 34, I. O. O. F., and of Enterprise Lodge, No. 17, A. O. U. W. He is also President of the State Funeral Directors' Association. He is now holding the office for the second term, having been re-elected May 14, '88. He has been a member of and actively connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church of San Jose for the past twenty-two years, and has been one of the stewards of the church for twenty-one years, and also Treasurer of the church for a time. The very marked success which has attended Mr. Woodrow in his un- dertaking business is due to the gentle and sympa- thetic care with which he attends personally to its details. Until that sad hour has arrived when it be- comes necessary to prepare the treasured forms of our loved ones for their last long rest, few can appre- ciate how necessary are the services of one skillful and experienced to lift the burden of direction from those bereaved, and administer tenderly and under- standingly the last sad rites to the beloved dead. Then we require the aid of the experienced and care- ful undertaker. Mr. Woodrow is all that a funeral director should be, combining thorough knowledge with excellent taste and a delicacy of refinement. Those who have had occasion to employ him profes- sionally during the past eighteen years, understand and appreciate the superior manner in which he has always performed the last sad offices of his profession.

EORGE WARREN HANDY, son of Elisha and Asenath Handy, was born in Auburn, New York, January 5, 1843. At the age of thirteen he removed to Iowa and was graduated at the State University at Iowa City in 1862. The same year he enlisted in Company F, Twenty-second Iowa Infantry, and served till the close of the war. He served in the siege of Vicksburg and in the Shenan- doah Valley with General Sheridan. In 1863 he was commissioned Second Lieutenant, and in 1864, First Lieutenant, and was mustered out in the fall of the next year. After the war he entered Harvard Medi- cal College at Boston and graduated in 1868, when he began the practice of medicine in Boston. In 1870 he went to St. Louis, where he practiced his profession till 1873, and then went to Atlanta, Georgia, where he had charge of a surgical institution. In 1880 he came to California and located in Oakland. In 1883 hc purchased his present ranch, between Los Gatos and

Saratoga. Dr. Handy was married in 1868, to Au- gusta Haskell, a native of Garland, Maine. They have two daughters: Una, born November 17, 1872, and Nellie, born September 12, 1876.

Dr. Handy has 450 acres of land, of which 150 are under cultivation. He has 125 acres in French prunes, containing 18,000 trees, and 25 acres in cherries, pears, and grapes. The product for 1887 was about 500 tons. Dr. Handy deals extensively in real estate in this and other counties.

AMES BIRNEY BURRELL was born August 4, 1840, and was married June 18, 1871, to Mary L. Campbell, a native of California. After his marriage he built his present house on that portion of his father's estate where he resided until November 18, 1882, when he went to Southern Mexico and took up 5,000 acres of land under the Mexican Coloniza- tion Company, and returned January 31, 1883. In April of the same year he went back to Mexico and remained eleven months. In December, 1884, he made a third trip to Mexico, returning to California in May, 1886. He made the journey again the same year, remaining until April, 1888. He has forty acres of land on his home place, and about 300 acres on the Los Gatos Creek. His first vineyard was planted in 1856. From that time to 1876 he raised good crops of peaches, there being no failure during that time. Many trees are still strong that were planted in 1856 and 1857. Mr. Burrell's two children are: Frank, born September 1, 1873, and Willie, May 27, 1880.

APT. JAMES R. HERRIMAN was born in Bangor, Maine, March 10, 1837. His father, Hezekiah Herriman, also a native of Maine, was a ship-master, as were other members of his family. He followed the sea for some years, but dur- ing the last ten years of his life was in business in Bangor, where he died. His wife, Margaret, nce Bas- sett, was a native of Maine, and she died in Stockton. They reared six children, five sons and one daughter. All the sons were seafaring men and commanders of large vessels. One has since died. James R., the subject of this sketch, was reared in Bangor. Upon the death of his father, his mother moved to Prospect,

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Maine, and afterward he went to Winterport, Maine, where he attended school until fifteen years of age. He then, like a great many boys, got the sea fever and went to sea. He shipped as a cabin boy, and from this he passed through the several grades, until at the age of twenty-two he became captain and took command of a vessel, and from this time on his life was on the sea. He has had command of five dif- ferent ships, all large ones. He was engaged in the merchant trade with foreign countries, mostly with the East Indies, Europe, and California. During the late Civil War he was in command of a transport vessel, conveying troops and munitions of war for the United States Government. He was at York River, lying there with army stores. During the fight "contra- bands" came there in large numbers and were shipped to different places, Captain Herriman landing his load of them at Annapolis, Maryland. He was with the transports on the Mississippi River, below New Or- leans, when the attack was made on Forts St. Philip and Jackson, his vessel being loaded with shot and shell for the war vessels which followed. He lay just below the mortar boats. After the forts were silenced by the gunboats the transports followed them up to New Orleans. The captain was in transport service until May, 1864, when he was discharged by the government. He then returned to his old trade in the mercantile business, in which he continued until he took command of the clipper ship America, in which he had an interest from 1882 to 1887. In 1887 she was badly damaged in a gale off San Pedro. She was afterward repaired, and is now running along the coast. Captain Herriman severed his connection with it soon after it became damaged, and in May he pur- chased his present ranch near Saratoga, where he has since resided. The ranch has nearly twenty-three acres, all in fruit, eleven acres in French prunes, five acres in apricots, the rest in peaches, plums, and cher- ries, and all in bearing. In 1887 he had twelve tons of apricots, and five tons of peaches. The ranch is called " The Anchorage." The first year he was on the place it paid eight per cent interest on the invest- ment.

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Pen pictures from the garden of the world, or Santa Clara county, California, Part 48

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 844

Author: Foote, Horace S., ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 844