Kings County
Biographies
COURTNEY, SAMUEL EDWARD
This well known nurseryman, who is an agent for the Capital City Nursery and whose residence in the Emma Lee Colony, northeast of the limits of Hanford, is a native of County Antrim, Ireland, and, was born in 1862. The Courtney progenitors came from Holland with Prince William and fought in the religious wars. On the maternal line Mr. Courtney is of Scotch and Danish extraction. He was about eighteen years old when he came across the ocean to Ontario, Canada, and lived at Oshawa for some time there after. In 1885 he volunteered for service in the suppression of the insurrection known as the Northwest rebellion. After his discharge he lived for two years at Fort William, with his brother, and they were employed in the construction of a large elevator, quartering opposite the historic battleground at Quaminisque; and they endured many hardships in that new country, the temperatures often registering as low as sixty degrees below zero. They bought property in that vicinity, but eventually went to Halifax, N. S., where Mr. Courtney married and was engaged in farming and as a builder until 1892. Then he sold out and went to Boston, where he worked six months as a carpenter. During his stay in Boston he heard much of California and the wonderful opportunities it held out to the horticulturist, and coming out in 1893 and locating at Hanford, he found employment at his trade and later as a contractor, built many residences there and throughout the country round about. In 1902 he became a salesman for the Capital City Nursery Co., of Salem, Ore., and during his second year of work in that capacity sold $16,000 worth of peach and apricot trees (most of the trees being Albertas), all of which were planted in Kings county. He has handled the line ever since, adding to it local and home grown stock, and his yearly sales during the last few years have averaged $6,000. In 1903 he bought five acres of land for a home at the northwest corner of the city, paying $100 an acre for it; it is now worth $1,000 an acre. He has built on it a fine house and other necessary buildings and has set it out to fruit trees. He is also the owner of twenty-two and a half acres in the Crowell addition, a good portion of which he has set out to fruit. Another tract which he owns is one of sixty acres, three and a half miles east of Hanford, which he intends to put in vines and trees, and he intends to improve this property still further. Having a liking for horses and cattle, he has devoted some attention to raising both and intends to go into business more extensively. In 1911-12 he bought out four small nurseries ad has disposed of their stock, his nursery business being one of the most comprehensive in this part of the sate. Its numerous offerings include twelve varieties of peaches, seven of plums, ten of such apples as do well in the San Joaquin valley country, three of prunes, three of apricots, seven of table grapes, Franquette walnuts, olives, plums, eucalyptus trees, shade trees, palms and roses.
The place on which Mr. Courtney lives was formerly owned by one Knudson, who was shot at the time of the Mussell Slough trouble; brought home, died under an old walnut tree which is still standing in the nursery yard. In 1887 Mr. Courtney married at Halifax, N. S., Miss Annie Roper, a native of Nova Scotia, and they have had children as follows: James; Hugh. Deceased: Millicent M.; Blanche M.; and Samuel Ernest. Three of these are living. Millicent M. is the wife of Charles Fellows of Modesto, who is also in the nursery business.
Mr. Courtney was converted to the Presbyterian church in the north of Ireland, when a boy. His father James Courtney, of French Huguenot stock, was an evangelist in his home locality. He was connected with the Salvation Army of Hanford from the start and has always been in the fight for the right and advocates and supports all worthy movements. He is a National Prohibitionist, secretary and treasurer of the Kings county delegation, and took a leading part in the fight to eliminate liquor traffic from his city.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 352, 353, 354
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn
McCORD, WILLIAM P.
The highly respected citizen of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., has during his long and busy career won distinction in many ways. He was born in Ohio, February 6, 1831, and there received a limited education and practical instruction in different kinds of useful work. In 1852, when he was twenty-one years old, he came to California by way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama, going from New York to Panama on the steamer Brother Jonathan crossing the isthmus on foot and coming to San Francisco on the steamer Winfield Scott. He stopped on the island of Tobaga six weeks waiting for a steamer and retains a fond remembrance of the place and the people. From San Francisco he went to Sacramento and thence to Ringgold. After mining three months he located at Suisun, Solano county with his brother, with the intention of going into the mercantile business. Going down to put some hay on the island, he learned that John Owens had already erected a store there, and he and his brother-in-law engaged in the butcher business, opening the first meat sop in Suisun, and traded there until 1856, when he went back east and brought his family out to California. Upon his return he engaged in teaming with his own teams, carrying supplies to Virginia City, Hangtown (now Placerville), and other mining centers and selling goods at the stores in all the camps round about. Thus he was employed three years, then for four years he ran a meat market in Vacaville. Disposing of that he returned east and farmed in Ohio and after four years went to Denver, Colo. From there he came on to Los Angeles, Cal., and soon engaged in buying cattle, which he drove to Bakersfield. He located in Bakersfield in 1872 and was a charter member of the first lodge of Masons organized there and is now the only survivor of the original fourteen members. He established the McCord ranch, on the north side, a mile and a half from Bakersfield, constructed an irrigation ditch and for seven years furnished water free to everyone in the vicinity. Then, selling most of his stock, he located on government land, put in alfalfa, built levees, extended the ditch, sold it and afterward managed it two years, under the direction of W. B. Carr, making during that time $15 a day over and above the support of his family. From there he came to Tulare county and in 1886-87 bought land at the mouth of Cross creek, twelve miles south of Hanford. One section, which he bought of O. E. Miller, at $2.75 an acre, is still owned in his family and is now worth over $150 an acre. Another section, which he bought of Bird & Smith and which is now valuable, cost him $7.50 an acre. He bought in all about two thousand acres. He and his sons engaged in stock-raising and he and his brother built a levee and reclaimed thousands of acres of land from Cross creek overflow for settlers in that vicinity. Mr. McCord farmed there ad raised horses and stock on a large scale, putting in more than one thousand acres of alfalfa on his own and, and maintained his home in Hanford while operating there. The family now owns eight hundred acres of that property.
In 1874 Mr. McCord and his son Dallas opened a butcher shop at Bakersfield. The latter conducted it many year and at the age of twenty-nine was elected sheriff of Kern county, and was the youngest sheriff in the state at that time, 1887. After filling the office one term he joined his father on the ranch. The latter retired from farming in 1908 and sold all his remaining land. He made a specialty of selling Arizona horses in San Francisco and attained prominence as an auctioneer at Bakersfield and San Francisco. In his younger years he was an athlete and won honors at Vacaville and Suisun and later at Bakersfield and was the first president of the Bakersfield Athletic club. For a long period he was renowned as a boxer, and when he was sixty-five years old he won in a wrestling match with an opponent of twenty-eight. He drove his own teams through Tulare county from Tipton to Bakersfield before the advent of railroad and he and George McCord and Bill Woswick interested Claus Spreckels to construct the Santa Fe railroad through this section. Spreckels was later president of the Valley road, which was eventually absorbed by the Santa Fe system. Mr. Cord early became expert in the handling of horses and was champion of al horse trainers around San Francisco and Bakersfield for some years.
In February, 1850, Mr. McCord married Lois Sophia Crippen, a native of Ohio, and they have five children, two of whom are living. Alice, deceased, was the wife of James McCaffery, of Hanford; Dallas, who was successful in business with his father, died in 1891; Douglas lives in San Francisco; Burnside is a citizen pf San Jose; Margery died at the age of three years. The mother of these children passed away at Hanford in April 1911, and was buried by the order of Eastern Star. Mr. McCord has long been widely known as a Mason.
When county division was talked of he was a strong advocate and supporter of the movement, and for every other upbuilding agency of the state and county. He has never aspired to any office, though solicited to become a candidate many times, and once was forced to accept the office of justice of the peace at Bakersfield, winning over his opponent five to one in a Democratic stronghold.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 345, 346, 347
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn