USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume II > Part 30
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In 1869, ere leaving the middle west, Mr. Lewis was married to Miss Harriet Pratt and they became the parents of two sons and one daughter. The youngest son is now manager of the building department of the celebrated Post Company of Battle Creek, Michigan. The father came to San Diego in 1906 and erected
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a beautiful residence on Park boulevard, this being one of the finest residential districts of the city. Here he has continued his building operations and the skill which he displayed in the execution of the earlier contracts awarded him has been the source of bringing to him continued patronage until now many of the city's finest buildings stand as monuments to his business ability.
Mr. Lewis holds membership with the Knights of Pythias and is popular among his brethren of that fraternity. He is the author of a history of the Lewis family, a volume of over one thousand pages, profusely illustrated. His own birthplace was a log cabin and the environment of his early home made a notable impression upon his young mind. In later years he made a sketch of his birth- place from memory, which he incorporated in his history. He spent nine years in the gathering of data for the volume with the assistance of a stenographer. This history shows that his grandfather had fourteen children, twelve of whom reached adult age and had families comprising one hundred and forty grand- children. Many of the illustrations beside his birthplace which appear in the history are gems of art. A few years ago Mr. Lewis built a "grandfather's clock" in old Colonial design, which now occupies a conspicuous place in the hall of his home and displays artistic workmanship and design. He is also an ardent sportsman both with the gun and rod and has many trophies of the woods and the stream in his home. Life means more to him than the mere acquisition of wealth, although he has the laudable ambition to attain success. He has developed along other lines as well as in business and his recreations have a place of proportionate prominence. All this has made him a well rounded character and those who meet Mr. Lewis find him a genial, entertaining man who himself has a keen appreciation of the value of true friendship and the social amenities of life.
JAMES E. CONNELL.
James E. Connell, a partner in the undertaking firm of Johnson, Connell & Saum and well known in San Diego as one of the city's most representative business men, was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, April,4, 1862. When he was five years of age his parents moved to San Francisco and there Mr. Connell attended St. Ignatius College until he was fifteen years of age. He then laid aside his books and secured a position with the Holbrook-Merrill & Stetson Hardware Company as salesman and in this capacity he acted for seven years. At the end of that time he came to San Diego, where he has been well known in important business and political relations since that time. For a few months he engaged in the dairy business, but abandoned it to assume the duties of deputy county recorder, which he discharged ably and conscientiously until 1891. In that year he formed a partnership with P. M. Johnson in the conduct of an undertaking enterprise, in which he has been successful by reason of the straightforward business methods to which he has steadily adhered. The firm was later changed to that of Johnson, Connell & Saum. He was also at one time in partnership with G. N. Gilbert in the cattle business for several years.
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In San Francisco, in November, 1892, Mr. Connell married Miss Maria L. Douglas, and they have three children: James Perle, who is attending Santa Clara College; Gertrude C., a student in the San Diego high school; and Corinne M., who is a pupil in a convent. Fraternally Mr. Connell belongs to the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and the Foresters of America, and is a member of the local Turn Verein. He is a devout adherent of the Roman Catholic church and is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus. His allegiance is given to the republican party and he is interested in all that pertains to the improvement and development of the community in which he resides. For over a quarter of a century he has been closely connected with business and political interests in San Diego and he has at all times proven reliable in business, progressive in citizenship and able in the discharge of his public duties.
WELDON B. EVANS.
Probably no man is more familiar with conditions on the Mexican border line or more closely connected with the life of this section and of southern California than Weldon B. Evans, who for twenty-five years has lived in San Diego county and given his attention to work which directly affects development and growth. At present he is serving as deputy customs house inspector and collector, a position which his experience and ability make him ideally fitted to fill. He was born in Linn county, Kansas, in September, 1873, and is a son of W. G. and Amanda (Record) Evans, the former born in Kansas and the latter a native of New York. The father of our subject came to California with his family in 1887 from Springfield, Missouri, and after his arrival became associated with the National City & Otay Railroad, which is now the San Diego & Southern. He was also for three years engaged in the lumber business in South San Diego and afterward was bookkeeper for the firm of Messenger & Lane, on the border line near Mexico. In this section he engaged in farming and fruit-raising for a number of years and became one of the substantial and representative agri- culturists of the district. He has now retired from active life, having earned rest and comfort by hard and well directed work in the past. In his family were two children, Dale and Weldon B.
Weldon B. Evans was thirteen years of age when he came to San Diego county with his parents. He completed his education in the public schools and after he grew to manhood engaged in farming on rented land in the Tia Juana valley, operating from four hundred to six hundred acres which he had planted in grain. He also gave a great deal of his attention to raising fine draft and trotting horses and was extremely successful in both lines of activity. In 1908 he purchased ten acres in the same section and has added to it from time to time until his holdings now comprise sixty-five acres of highly productive land. He developed upon it a fine system of irrigation and installed a twenty-eight hundred dollar electric pumping plant giving one hundred and thirty inches of water. The rise in value of California land may be plainly seen from the fact that Mr. Evans purchased this property for sixty dollars per acre and is now renting it out for two thousand dollars a year. His first investment represented
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a capital of two hundred and twenty-five dollars and upon this he has realized large profits since that time. In 1901 he was appointed deputy customs house inspector and collector and has since served, displaying in the discharge of his duties cool judgment, the power of initiative and well timed aggressiveness which, combined with his knowledge of conditions, their causes and effects, make him admirably fitted for his position. His activity along this line has brought him in close touch with important affairs in Mexico and in California, in all of which his fine training and skilled diplomacy have stood him in good stead. He was close to the battle line at Tia Juana in 1911 and was in the second Red Cross automobile ambulance which went from the border into Mexico after the battle and received permission from General Price to bring back the bodies of the soldiers killed in that engagement. Mr. Evans has traveled extensively in an official capacity along the border line of Mexico and once rode three hundred miles looking for smuggled horses. He has done a great deal to discourage the practice of bringing smuggled goods across the line and in many other ways has proved invaluable as a public official by reason of his economic methods and his well directed activity. In 1902 he was in charge of the grading camp during the construction of the railroad from Imperial to Calexico, in Imperial county, and he has been a leading figure in various other enterprises equally important as factors in the growth of the section where he has resided for so many years and in the development of which he has aided in so material and lasting a way.
In 1898 Mr. Evans was united in marriage to Miss Cora A. Paull and they have two children, Paul and Clara. Fraternally Mr. Evans affiliates with the Yeomen. He gives his political allegiance to the republican party and has proved his public spirit in both private and public capacities, being an active and able official and a loyal and progressive citizen.
C. M. GIFFORD.
A quarter of a century has passed since C. M. Gifford came to San Diego. A much shorter period would have been sufficient to demonstrate his business ability. As proprietor of the Gifford Olive Works he stands prominent among the successful men who are utilizing the natural resources of the state in the cultivation of crops which are adding materially to the wealth of southern California. The semi-tropical climate of this section of the state makes olive growing, when practically and scientifically conducted, a profitable industry and with the preparation, canning and sale of this product Mr. Gifford has long been prominently and actively associated, having built up a business of extensive proportions.
Pennsylvania claims Mr. Gifford as one of her native sons, his birth having occurred in the city of North East, May 7, 1856. His parents were Frank and Kate Gifford, who directed his educational advancement while he was a youth in his native place. He attended the public schools there and at the age of fourteen years went to Cleveland, Ohio, where he remained for four years. He afterward removed to Cheboygan, Michigan, and located on a ranch in
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that locality. At length, however, he was attracted by the far west and estab- lished his home at Jamacha, California, since which period he has been closely identified with the interests of the Pacific coast. In 1888 he came to San Diego and is recognized as one of the city's valuable business assets. At all times he has been actuated by a spirit of enterprise and determination that has enabled him to push steadily forward to the goal of success. The Gifford Olive Works are today regarded as one of the leading productive industries here. In pre- paring and packing he has placed upon the market five brands which are well known. Among them are Gifford's Special, which are the largest olives grown in California, and Gifford's Select, extra fancy, medium, and standard grades. The packing plant is most modern in its construction and equipment and the olives are all packed in the extra coated sanitary cans, no solder being used. Today the shipment from this plant carries the products throughout the country, Mr. Gifford having won a national reputation in this field of commercial enter- prise. He has continuously followed the best methods for preparing the crop for the market and the excellence of his product, combined with his own business reliability, has brought him a gratifying measure of success.
In 1886 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Gifford and Miss Rachel Whelock, and they have become parents of two sons and a daughter, of whom one son, Dewitt, is associated with his father in business. The children in order of birth are: Dewitt, Ruth, and Orville, all of whom are at home. Mr. Gifford is well known in San Diego and throughout California as one of the representative shippers of the coast. He has been a director of the Chamber of Commerce for the past ten years. He is a man of virile character, thoroughly mastering whatever he undertakes, and with the passing of the years he has achieved that success which only comes through persistent and honorable effort.
WALTER N. DUPEE.
Walter N. Dupee, an active and successful business man and a noted polo player, is a native of Chicago, Illinois. His early education was acquired in the public schools of that city and was supplemented by a course in the University school and the Harvard school of Chicago. He began his business career as partner in the firm of C. G. Gates & Company and still retains this important connection, although he maintains his home in California. For a number of years previous to locating in this state, Mr. Dupee had come to Coronado each winter and every year became more and more enthusiastic over the beauties of the scenery and climate to be found in this section of the state. Therefore, he determined to make his home here and accordingly built a most beautiful and artistic residence on Ocean boulevard in Coronado, where he now resides.
Mr. Dupee is a polo player of note and is deeply and scientifically interested in this sport. Since 1909 he has been captain of the Coronado polo team and has given a great deal of his time and attention to its affairs, supplementing his fine enthusiasm by executive business ability of a high order. In 1911 he brought over from England to complete the team, Lord Tweedmouth, Lord Herbert and Lord Gower, three famous polo players. His stables contain forty thoroughbred
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polo ponies. Mr. Dupee is interested in all kinds of outdoor sports and is es- pecially fond of shooting, being a skilled marksman. He owns a large ranch of fifty-five thousand acres in Loma, twenty-four miles from Tia Juana, which he uses as a preserve having stocked it with all kinds of game.
In 1900 Mr. Dupee was united in marriage to Miss Florence Kenneth, of Chicago, and they have two children : Evelyn, aged nine; and Walter, aged seven. The family are well known in social circles of Coronado, where their home is the center of a representative society. Mr. Dupee is affiliated with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and is a member of the Country Club of Coronado. His business ability is executive and constructive and his personal characteristics genial and attractive and he, therefore, stands high in the estimation of his asso- ciates and friends.
WILLIAM H. HOLDERNESS.
William H. Holderness, an early settler in the Tia Juana valley and since 1886 one of the dominating forces in its development and upbuilding, is today one of the substantial and progressive farmers of this locality. He is part owner of one hundred and four acres of fine farming land and is, moreover, entitled to a place in this volume because of his honorable and worthy service in the Civil war.
Mr. Holderness was born in Adams county, Ohio, February 10, 1844, and when he was eleven years of age moved to McLean county, Illinois. At the outbreak of the Civil war, when he was seventeen years of age, he enlisted in Company K, Eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, under command of R. J. Oglesby, and served for three years in the vicinities of the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers, and participated in the siege of Vicksburg. He was at Fort Donelson and was in the thick of the engagement at Raymond, Jackson, Cham- pion Hills and Black river and was present when Vicksburg fell. He served his country loyally and faithfully and was mustered out with his honorable discharge at Cairo, Illinois, in August, 1864. After leaving the army he con- tinued his studies, attending a commercial college at Brooklyn, New York, after which he secured a position with a publishing company in New York city, working in its interests for three years. The next two years he spent teaching school in McLean county, Illinois, and in that section he carried on general farming until he moved west, settling in Republic county, Kansas, where for six years he engaged in farming and stock-raising upon an extensive scale. In 1886 he came to California and settled in San Diego county, near Nestor, upon one hundred and four acres of Tia Juana valley land. Here for over a quarter of a century he has engaged in farming, witnessing during the period the won- derful growth and development of the country and in an important way assisting in it by his practical work along agricultural lines. He raises fine crops of alfalfa every year and has also well kept truck gardens, in which he raises vegetables of high quality, this branch of his business being one of the most profitable sources of his income. Four acres planted in green peas yielded in six months a crop which sold for fifteen hundred dollars in the local markets.
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In 1873 Mr. Holderness was united in marriage to Miss Leona B. Vance, a native of Illinois, and they have become the parents of six children, Edward P. G., Stella E., Skiffington, Mary, Paul, and Josephine. Mr. Holderness came as a pioneer into the Tia Juana valley and can relate some interesting expe- riences concerning early times. Twenty-five years ago the total population was fifty people and only three hundred acres of the fertile and productive land was under cultivation. The water supply was small, coming as it did from surface wells, and the work of development which has now been effected was then barely begun. Today more than four thousand acres are under the plow and are producing almost priceless harvests. Two thousand inches of water have been developed, modern machinery has been installed and the region developed and reclaimed. The moral and intellectual progress has kept pace with the material growth and the upbuilding of the valley is an accomplished fact. The work was a great one and the men who have achieved it have made notable and substantial contributions to the nation's wealth and to the elevation of the standards of business integrity. No one has a more just claim to a place among their number than William H. Holderness, who came here as a pioneer and who has worked diligently, earnestly and in a public-spirited manner through the years.
WILLIAM H. SMITH.
William H. Smith, president of the Back Country Transportation Company, and by virtue of this position and the force of his ability one of the most successful young business men of San Diego, was born in Douglas county, Illinois, March 31, 1884, a son of William Harvey and Mary Caroline Smith.
In the acquirement of an education William H. Smith attended the public schools of his native section and left the Charleston (Ill.) high school at the age of fifteen, after which he spent four and a half months in the Gem City Business College at Quincy. From there he went to Havre, Montana, and worked upon a cattle ranch until the spring of 1905, when he came to San Diego, where he has since resided. During the eight years he has made many changes in the nature of his activities, all of which have promoted his business advance- ment and demonstrated the quality of his business ability. He began as a conductor and motorman on the San Diego Street Railway and he worked at this for one year before he became connected with George B. Keith & Company as real-estate salesman. After one year he entered into partnership with E. B. Harvey, renting automobiles for all purposes, and their patronage grew so rapidly that in July, 1911, the business was incorporated under the name of the Auto Service Company, with Mr. Smith as president. On December 6, 1912, Mr. Smith sold the Auto Service Company to E. B. Harvey at a valuation of twenty-five thousand dollars and purchased on January 13, 1913, the Back Country Transportation Company. Ten days later, on January 23d, the business was incorporated under the same name with a capitalization of fifty thousand dollars and with Mr. Smith as president of the organization. Thirteen auto trucks of three and five tons respectively are needed to carry on the business,
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which mainly consists of general trucking and transferring throughout the city. The firm also operates a freight and passenger line between San Diego and Julian, sixty miles back into the mountains and valleys. Two twelve-passenger touring cars and four trucks are used on this line, two trucks and one passenger car leaving every morning, the passenger cars making the round trip daily. In addition to this, trucks are sent to all parts of the country, being rented out or leased by the company by the hour, day, week or month and also in contract work, hauling by the ton. As courtesy, promptness and reliability are prominent factors in the directing policy of the enterprise, the patronage is constantly growing and their service ever in demand. Mr. Smith gives most of his atten- tion to the further development and expansion of this concern and his industry and straightforward methods steadily promote his business success.
In Douglas county, Illinois, on February 14, 1906, Mr. Smith was united in marriage to Miss Lula Mae Duffle, and they have one son, Andrew J., who is three years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are devout adherents of the Christian church. Mr. Smith gives his allegiance to the republican party but is not active in political life. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, belonging . to Al Bahr Temple. He is also a member of the Rotary Club. Still a young man, he has accomplished definite success in business and his many friends in San Diego do not hesitate to predict for him continued progress in his chosen line of activity.
OSCAR LEHNER.
Oscar Lehner has important ranch interests in San Diego county. He makes his home in the city of San Diego and from this point superintends his agri- cultural and horticultural pursuits which he conducts according to modern scientific methods. He was born in Chilton, Wisconsin, March 23, 1873, a son of Matthias and Rosina (Burger) Lehner, and early became familiar with the methods of farming in his native state so that practical experience served as the starting point for his success when he came to California in 1900. He was first employed on the W. D. Woolredge ranch at Escondido, this county, for five years, during which period his industry and his careful expenditure brought him capital sufficient to enable him to purchase a four acre tract planted to lemons and oranges. He sold that in 1906 and went to the Tia Juana valley, where he purchased two ranches which he still owns, one comprising forty- three acres on National avenue, while the other of forty acres is near the county line on the Mexican border. The forty-three acre property is splendidly devel- oped, its improvements including a sixteen hundred dollar pumping plant with three-quarters of a mile of ten inch water pipe and a quarter of a mile of cement ditch carrying eighty inches of water. He raises alfalfa on this property which will run one hundred dollars to the acre annually, and in 1912 he realized eleven hundred dollars from fields which he cultivated without irriga- tion. He also operates three fumigating outfits for fumigating fruit trees, thus caring for over one hundred thousand trees each year. On his forty acre ranch near the Mexican border he follows dry farming with success, using not a drop
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of water in the cultivation of his products. He is very successful in gardening, particularly in the cultivation of melons, and from eight acres he gathered in 1912 watermelons to the value of seven hundred dollars. He also raised seventy- five sacks of red beans on fifteen acres and had two acres planted to Hubbard squash.
In 1906 Mr. Lehner was married to Miss Louise Seiwert, a daughter of Theodore and Anna (Huber) Seiwert and a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and they have two children, Lillian Amelia and Freda May. Mr. Lehner holds membership with the Odd Fellows of San Diego but he has little time for outside interests, preferring to concentrate his efforts upon business affairs of con- stantly growing importance, his practical methods bringing him a gratifying measure of success.
SANFORD W. BELDING.
Sanford W. Belding, who during the greater part of his life has been con- nected with transportation interests but in recent years has been an active factor in public service in San Diego, is now acceptably and capably filling the position of secretary of the city board of education. He has advanced gradually step by step, utilizing each opportunity that has come to hand and always has been faithful to the interests entrusted to his care. He was born at Greenwich, Ohio, September 23, 1845, a son of Benjamin and Jane Belding. At the usual age he entered the public schools, which he attended until sixteen when, following the outbreak of the Civil war, his patriotic spirit was aroused and he at that age enlisted as private in an infantry company, but being undersized, was not accepted. Again, at the age of seventeen, answering another call for defenders of the flag, he enlisted in a cavalry company. Still being too small for the requirements of the government, he was rejected. The appeal still ringing in his ears, however, he enlisted some months prior to his eighteenth birthday for active service as a member of the Twelfth Ohio Independent Battery, Light Artillery, doing active duty in defense of the Union, and was mustered out in 1865, returning home with a most creditable military record. He was only nineteen years of age when he again came to the north, having, however, in the meantime met the usual experiences of army life which fell to the lot of the veterans of twice his years.
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