Tulare County
Biographies
BELZ, ANDREW G.
As far back as the ancestral records can be traced the home of the Belz family has been in Germany. Christoff Belz, a Saxon by birth and a machinist by trade, came to the United States and settled in Rome, N. Y., in 1854, and in that city he followed his trade throughout the remainder of his life. He married Margaret Schnuer, also a native of Saxony, who died at the home of her son, Andrew G., when she had reached the advance age of eighty-nine years. She bore her husband four children, of whom Andrew G., the eldest, was the only one to make his home in California. In their religious belief Christoff Belz and his wife were Lutherans, devoted to their church and contributing to the limit of their ability to all its various interests.
In Saxe-Meinigen, Germany, Andrew G. Belz was born January 31, 1832. In his youth he learned the machinist’s trade, attending a mechanical school in which he specialized as an ironworker and a locksmith. Subsequently he served for two years in the army of his native country, as required by law, but the service was so distasteful to him that he fled to the United States to escape the third and last year. In 1854 he accompanied his father to the United States, settling in Rome, N. Y., where his first occupation was burning charcoal. From New York state he went to Pennsylvania, subsequently to Jefferson county, Wis., and finally in 1862, he came to California. In 1864 he became a pioneer settler in Visalia, where he set up the first blacksmith shop, and here it was that he welded the first four-inch wagon tire that was made in the county. He continued to follow the blacksmith business here with good success until the ‘80s, when the failure of his eyesight made it necessary for him to give it up. Following this he became interested in the hotel business, and on the site of his blacksmith shop he erected the Pacific lodging house. As this was near the Southern Pacific depot it had good patronage from the first and is still dispensing hospitality to the weary wayfarer.
At Watertown, Wis., August 17, 1874, Mr. Belz was married to Miss Caroline Wegman, a daughter of George J. and Caroline (Wennerholdt) Wegman. A sketch of the former will be found elsewhere in this volume. Three children have blessed the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Belz, as follows: George A., Frank A. and Eliza M., the latter the wife E. Blair. George A. is a graduate of the San Jose state normal school class of 1902. Frank attended the grammar school, passed three years of high school, and then attended Santa Clara college. Finally both sons entered the University of Wisconsin, and graduated from the college of agricultural connected with that well-known institution. They are now engaged in carrying on scientific farming and dairying on the old Wegman estate, and associated with them are Mr. and Mrs. Blair. The sons are young men of much ability and of the highest integrity, who carry into their business the high ideals that made the names of their father and grandfather honored wherever they were known. Mr. and Mrs. Wegman followed their daughter to California in 1875 and settled on what is now known as the Wegman ranch, three and one-half miles north-east of Visalia.
Just fifty years have passed since Mr. Belz came to California by way of Panama in 1862. From San Francisco, where he landed, he first went to Sacramento and then to Stockton, where he stacked about one thousand acres of wheat for Mr. Newton. All was destroyed in a flood, a circumstance which discourages Mr. Belz with any future attempt at farming. After coming to Visalia in 1864 he worked for several men in the capacity of blacksmith before setting up a shop of his own. The passing of years has obliterated the memory of early discouragements and disappointments, and in the enjoyment of his present prosperity he rejoices that he persevered, adjusting himself to circumstances and conditions.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 276, 277, 278
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn
SCOGGINS, ANDREW J.
Among the well-known pioneers of Tulare county is numbered Andrew J. Scoggins, son of David Green and Martha (Breedlove) Scoggins, who was born May 28, 1828, in Alabama. His parents were natives of North Carolina. Their family moved at a comparatively early date to Tennessee and were among pioneers in Roane county and later in another county in that state and the father prospered fairly as a farmer and as a tanner. When Andrew was twenty-two years old he settled in Arkansas, but finding the country unhealthy removed to southwest Missouri. In 1848, before leaving his old home in Tennessee, he married Miss Julia Buttram, a native of that state, who bore him a daughter, Martha Ann, who eventually married the Rev. L. C. Renfroe of the Methodist church and bore him children, Maud and Louis. Mrs. Scoggins died October 3, 1853. On October 3, 1856, he married Miss Rebecca Cleek, a native of Tennessee, whom he brought across the plains to the Far West. The journey was made in the warm part of the year 1857 and he started with two hundred head of cattle and lost a few along the way. The start was made from Fort Scott and the Platte river was reached at Fort Kearney. The latter part of the journey was made by the southern route and Mr. Scoggins settled in Yolo county, then a wild country in which he found wild oats higher than his head. By his second marriage Mr. Scoggins had nine children: Margaret M., Byron, Josephine, Nettie, John L., Frank, Pearl W., A. J. and an infant unnamed. The three last mentioned have passed away. Margaret M. married C. Fremont Giddons and has three sons and a daughter. Byron has not married. Josephine married Travers Welch and bore him one child who has won success as a teacher at Fresno, where the family lives. Nettie married C. L. Knestric of Dinuba and has a daughter. Frank married Belle Ellis, daughter of J. W. Ellis of Visalia, and has two sons and a daughter. Mr. Scoggins has nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Mr. Scoggins crossed the plains the second time, the journey being made in comparative safety, there having been no trouble with the Indians. He came to Hanford in 1866 and lived south of that town for ten years. He bought land of the railroad company at $12.50 an acres and passed through the experiences which culminated in the Mussel Slough tragedy and the subsequent settlement of questions at issue between settlers and the railroad company. One of his recollections is of having seen Mr. Crow after the latter had been shot down. He went for a time to Texas to raise sheep and fed many sheep in Colusa county, Cal. He had now entered upon what may be termed his second period of prosperity. In 1870 he had paid taxes on property valued at $350,000 and the opening of the year 1876 had found him poor. He began to raise grain, operating extensively in Colusa county, where he grew ten thousand sacks of wheat in one memorable season and was known as a leading wheat producer in that part of the state. In the spring of 1888 he owned eleven thousand sheep and sheared four hundred. His house in Colusa county, a brick structure which cost $15,000, was the finest house in the county at the time of his residence there. On coming to Dinuba he bought fifty acres of land a mile and a half southwest of the town and has given ten acres to his heirs. He has thirty acres in grapes and a fine family orchard.
The country in this region was new when Mr. Scoggins first beheld it. Sheep and cattle were fed everywhere, wild game was plenty and he often saw large herds of antelope which at a distance looked like bands of sheep. Not only has he participated in the development of the country, but as a public-spirited citizen he has aided it in every way possible. In politics he calls himself a Bryan Democrat. He has long been a Mason and is also an Odd Fellow. He and members of his family are communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 -Pp 269, 270
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn