Tulare County
Biographies
HARRY A. CLARK
The esteemed citizen of Tulare county, Cal., Harry A. Clark, has achieved good results as farmer, fruit culturist, dairyman and stock-raiser and is known through his interest in the Tulare Canning company and his activities as a member of the finance committee of the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery company. From time to time he has been identified with other important interests in Tulare and the county at large, and in many ways he has demonstrated that he possesses a public spirit that may be safely relied on whenever its exercise is demanded.
It was in Woodson county, Kans., that Mr. Clark was born, July 30, 1872. He came to California in 1892, and worked for wages at and near Tulare during the ensuing three years, and then went into wheat growing, nine miles south of that city. His operations soon became so extensive that they involved the cultivation of six hundred and forty acres of land, which he farmed till in 1904, when he bought his present home ranch of seventy-one acres, five miles north of Tulare, and under his able management and scientific cultivation this property has been greatly improved. He has set out twenty-five acres to peaches and fifteen are in alfalfa. He has a small dairy, and is setting out at the present time fifteen acres to prunes. He has one hundred head of Jerseys, large Durocs. In 1910 he planted to Egyptian corn eighteen acres between rows of peach trees, and the crop yielded thirty and one-half sacks to the acre, in all amounting to four hundred and thirty-nine sacks, truly a record achievement. He planted also black-eye beans between the trees and they produced, in 1911, eighteen sacks to the acre. Fine blooded brood mares are among his choicest possessions and he raises each year two or three colts bred to a Percheron stallion. He makes somewhat of a specialty also of mules. One of his colts recently was sold for $250.
On December 9, 1908, Mr. Clark married Miss Iris Hemphill, a native of Missouri, and they have children, Hazel G. and Jessie E.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp. 551-552
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
JOHN W. BAXLEY
One of the most successful of the citizens of Tulare county who have come within its borders in recent years is John W. Baxley, a native of Berkeley county, W. Va., born February 8, 1852. Mr. Baxley was brought up and educated and became acquainted with the details of practical farming in his native state, where he successfully raised wheat, corn, red clover, tobacco and other crops till 1882, when he removed to Allen county, Kans. There he farmed many years, acquiring eight hundred acres and giving his attention principally to wheat and corn. It was in 1909 that he came to Tulare county, Cal., where he rents one hundred and sixty acres of the Giannini ranch and has charge of six hundred and forty acres more of it as superintendent. He raises chiefly prunes, grapes, olives and almonds and has produced some fine crops of beans between rows of fruit trees. In the spring of 1911 he planted a sack and a half of black-eyed beans and fifteen pounds of brown beans and harvested two hundred sacks of the former and thirty-four sacks of brown beans.
In Kansas Mr. Baxley served his fellow townsmen as township trustee and road superintendent. Since coming to California he has been too busy with his purely private affairs to give any time to political work, but he has well defined ideas concerning all questions of public policy and, being an outspoken man, he is quite certain to be heard from whenever he shall consider it necessary to raise his voice in advocacy of any measure directed to the enhancement of the public weal. He married, at Gettysburg, Pa., February 11, 1875, Miss Amanda C. Beecher, a native of that state, and they have had eleven children, all of whom survive: William A. married Alice Griffin, and they have two sons, Walter and Marvin. David D., who married Anna Orth, has three daughters, Rose, Violet and Lillian. Charles married Maud Meyers and they have a son named Ralph. Mary is the wife of Edward West and has borne him three children, Russel, Irene and Everett. Laura married R. R. Ross and they have a son, Elmer. Grace became the wife of M. J. Adams and their children are Viola, Harold and Catherine. Bessie is the wife of William Stevens and they have a daughter named Edna. Ernest married Edna Dornburg and has borne him a daughter, Hilda. Mattie married Howard Clark and they have one child, a son, Clive Howard. The remaining two are Clarence and Gladys.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp. 553-554
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler