Tulare County
Biographies
MOOREHEAD, JAMES ADDISON
It was within the borders of West Virginia of today, then a part of the Old Dominion, that James Addison Moorehead was born in 1830, and there he remained until he was seventeen years old, attending school and learning something about farm labor and other work. In 1850 he went to Louisa county, Iowa, where he farmed until 1862, and in that year, in company with DeWitt Maxwell and the latter’s family, he came overland to California, the slow and wearisome journey consuming six months’ time. They stopped at Salt Lake, Utah, three weeks, then came to Placerville by way of Carson, and from Placerville they pushed forward to Stockton, where the train was divided according to the respective destinations of the different members of the party. Mr. Moorehead worked a few days in a lumber yard in Stockton, and then found employment on the ranch of William Bailey, with whom he remained two years, when, with two men of the name of Neuel, he went to the mines in Eldorado county, remaining there until 1869, when he came to Visalia. Having decided to take up land, he was advised to file a pre-emption claim on one hundred and sixty acres of public land six miles northwest of Tulare. Upon following this advice he lived there until he legally perfected his title to it and then he took up eighty acres adjoining his original claim. This land he improved and developed and farmed with success until 1906, when he began to rent it out, its tenant at this time being Fred Billings. Mr. Moorehead was the first in this section to fence in a ranch and the first to file on land here under the advertising law, his claim having been entered in the fall of 1869. On his place is one of the largest oak trees in the world. The original Grange at Tulare numbered Mr. Moorehead among its members, but when its charter lapsed he did not join the new grange which succeeded it. For many years a feature of his business was threshing and one of his interesting reminiscences is of farming five hundred acres in Stokes valley in the period of 1870-73, which were truly pioneer days in that section.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 452, 455
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn
BEQUETTE Jr., PASCHAL
In Iowa county, Wis., Paschal Bequette was born in December, 1845, a son of Col. Paschal Bequette, Sr. In 1852 Col. Bequette brought his family across the plains with ox-teams to California and was for a short time in general merchandise trade in Sacramento, but being a man of unusual ability he was soon called to a more important field of action. In 1853 he went to San Francisco to enter upon his duties as receiver of public money and pension agent under appointment by President Franklin Pierce, and these offices, he filled through the administration of President Buchanan. In 1859 moving with his family to Visalia, Tulare county, he there became the owner of land and established himself as a breeder of cattle and horses. He served the county as its treasurer and as deputy recorder and passed away in December, 1879. His wife was Elizabeth P. Dodge, a native of Wisconsin, and a daughter of ex-Governor Dodge of Wisconsin, afterward the first United States senator from that state and a sister of Hon. A. C. Dodge, United States senator from Iowa, the father and son serving in the United States senate at the same time. Col. Bequette was a native of Missouri.
Following are the names of the children of Paschal and Elizabeth P. (Dodge) Bequette: Lewis L., Mary L., Christiana A., Philip, Mrs. N. O. Bradley, Mrs. S. G. Patrick, Frank R., and Paschal, Jr. The latter passed his childhood days in Wisconsin and was in his seventh year when his family moved to California. His education was begun in San Francisco and continued at Visalia, and it was in the office of the Visalia Delta that he served a five years’ apprenticeship at the printer’s trade. When he had perfected himself in his knowledge of “the art preservative of all arts” he went to Havilah, Kern county, and became half owner of the Courier, a newspaper published in that town. In 1869 he disposed of his interests at Havilah, and became a student at a business college at San Francisco, and in 1871 and in 1872 he was connected with the Los Angeles News for a year. Returning to Visalia in the year last mentioned, he bought a half interest in the Visalia Times, which he disposed of eventually in order to engage in sheep raising in Kern county. On his return to Tulare county he took up general farming and interested himself more actively in local politics than he had ever done before. He served eight years as deputy county assessor, four years in the United States land office, four years as under-sheriff, in the administration of B. B. Parker, and he is now deputy county recorder and deputy county treasurer. All of these various offices he has filed with ability and integrity which have commended him to the good opinion of his fellow citizens of all classes.
In 1875 Mr. Bequette married Martha L. Clarke, who has borne him children as follows: Augustus D., Paschal, Mary C., Elizabeth T., and James C. Mrs. Bequette is a daughter of James T. Clarke, a Mexican war veteran, and a California pioneer of 1849, who was a prominent early stock-raiser in this state. Her mother, who was Mary A. Graves, was a member of the famous Donner party, the awful experiences of which are a part of the history of pioneer immigration to California. Led by a man named Donner, these pioneers were snow-bound at the point now known as Donner Lake in Nevada county, Cal., and a great number of them starved to death.
SOURCE: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 456, 457
Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn