Kings County
Biographies
MOORE, ROBERT ANDERSON
As president of the Lemoore Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Kings county Republican central committee Robert Anderson Moore has become well known throughout central California, and he has other claims to distinction than these. Born in Grant county, Wis., in 1861, he lived there until fifteen years old, when his family moved to Minnesota and later to Oregon. He came, eventually, to California, and after stopping for a time in Los Angeles came to Kings county and became a salesman in the McKenna Brothers’ hardware store. He mastered the business and acquired great popularity with its patrons and in 1890 bought the establishment, which he conducted with success until 1911, when he sold it to the Lemoore Hardware Company.
Since disposing of his hardware interests Mr. Moore has interested himself in real estate operations. He owns two ranches, one of forty acres, three miles north of town, and one of one hundred and sixty acres, ten miles south and near the lake; the former is in vineyard, the latter in barley and alfalfa. He has invested to some extent in oil property and is a director in the Mount Vernon Oil Company, which is operating in the Devil’s Den field. He was one of the organizers and is in his second year as president of the Lemoore Chamber of Commerce. As chairman of the Kings county Republican central committee and in other capacities he has long been active in political work, and he was three times elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the city of Lemoore, serving two years as chairman of that body. Socially he affiliates with the Odd Fellows and the Foresters.
In 1886 Mr. Moore married Miss Clara H. Peck, a native of Hollister, Cal. Their son, B. C. Moore, is the successful manager of an automobile garage. During all the years of his residence at Lemoore, Mr. Moore has manifested a lively interest in the development and prosperity of the town, and as a man of public spirit he has cheerfully and generously done much for the betterment of local conditions as occasion has presented itself.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 429, 430
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn
BOOKER, SANFORD
A native of Gardiner, Me., Sanford Booker was born October 12, 1833, and there reared to manhood, educated and given a knowledge of the ship carpenter’s trade, and later learned house building. When he was twenty years old he moved to Medford, Mass., where he worked as a carpenter about fifteen years. At the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted in the Lawrence Light Guards of Medford, a militia company, which , as Company E, Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, was mustered into the government service after President Lincoln issued his first call for volunteers, April 15, 1861. Next day the company was ordered to be in readiness, and on the eighteenth an order to march was issued by Col. Samuel C. Lawrence, this order being taken to the member of the organization by the Colonel’s brother, Daniel W. Lawrence, who in the night of the eighteenth rode from town to town for that purpose. Among these soldiers of 1861 there was a strong conviction that Lawrence rode over the same route that Paul Revere had followed on a similar errand eighty-six years before. The regiment was quartered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, until the morning of April 21, when it left for New York. When Lawrence brought the order to Mr. Booker the latter was running a mill. Going home immediately, he reported that he was ordered out and would have to go to Washington, and he went to Boston and slept that night at Faneuil Hall with his comrades; on that same night the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was mobbed in the streets of Baltimore. At Washington the Fifth was mustered into service for three months from May 1, and it participated in the fight at Bull Run, where Colonel Lawrence was wounded and the regimental color-bearer was shot down. Ten days later the Fifth Massachusetts was mustered out of the service and soon afterwards Corporal Booker’s company was mustered out at Medford. His corporal’s commission is dated February 12, 1861.
About 1868 Mr. Booker moved to De Kalb county, Mo., and engaged in building until 1874 when he came to California. He stopped at Los Angeles, but soon settled at San Bernardino, where he lived seven years operating extensively as a contractor and builder and he erected there the county court house, the Congregational and Baptist churches, some school houses and several fine residences. He was the builder of the first house at Redlands, the latter the property of Frank Brown, civil engineer, who constructed the reservoir through which Redland is supplied with water. Mr. Booker had to grub out sage brush before he could lay the foundation of the building, and he and his men boarded themselves, for there was no one living in the vicinity. In 1887 he sold his property at San Bernardino and removed to Hanford, buying a one hundred and sixty-acre ranch northeast of the town, where he farmed until 1892, and then sold his land and built himself a residence in town. He was very active in securing county division of Tulare county and the partition of Kings county in that year, and assisted with his own means to finance the movements. Indeed there was no other man at Hanford who was more influential to these ends than was he. He personally canvassed every home in the county to ascertain if a two-thirds vote for the new county would be possible if a favorable bill should be passed by the legislature. After this matter was settled he visited the World’s Fair at Chicago. Since then he has lived in Hanford, which when he first saw it in 1887 was a mere hamlet containing but one store and in the prosperity of which he has been a potent factor. In 1893 he bought twelve acres of fruit land and; having suffered a stroke of paralysis which incapacitated him for work, retired from active business. When the “Old Bank” at Hanford was established he was its first depositor, having until then done his banking at Visalia.
On November 27, 1854, Mr. Booker married Miss Sarah E. Carr, at Medford, Mass. Mrs. Booker, who was a native of Massachusetts, bore her husband two children, Everett S., of Hanford, and Sarah Elizabeth, who has passed away. Everett S. Booker married Edith O’Brien, and they have a daughter, Mary Florence. Mr. Booker is identified with McPherson Post, G. A. R., of Hanford, and is a Blue Lodge and Royal Arch Mason, and he an d Mrs. Booker were charter members of the Eastern Star, Mrs. Booker being past worthy matron.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 429, 430
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn