Tulare County
Biographies
WILLIAM A. WILLIAMS
In Queens county, N. Y., part of Long Island, in the old town of Jericho, William A. Williams was born January 1, 1840, a son of George and Mercy Williams, both of whom were natives of Hyde Park, London, England. When he was six years old his family removed to Mill Neck, N. Y., whence they went to Hempstead, Long Island. After two years' residence there they moved to a place four and a half miles west of Hoboken, N. J., near the Hudson river, and there lived for quite a number of years. The father was an industrious teamster and farmer, and there were nine children in the family. On July 30, 1862, William A. Williams enlisted as a private in Company K, Eleventh Regiment, New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, and later saw some of the most hazardous service of the Civil war. At Chancellorsville, his first battle, of five hundred men detailed for a certain duty, eighteen were killed, one hundred and forty-six wounded and five missing. On the second day of the fight at Gettysburg seventeen men of his regiment were killed, one hundred and twenty-four wounded and twelve missing. The Eleventh New Jersey was included in Humphrey's division of the Third Army Corps, being afterwards transferred to the Second Corps under General Hancock. Mr. Williams took part in twelve battles and in a large number of skirmishes, among them the second Chancellorsville, Battle of Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor. In his last general engagement he was wounded in the head by a Confederate sharpshooter and sent to the hospital, and in the course of events he was discharged from the service for disability, March 11, 1865, about a month before the collapse of the Southern Confederacy.
Returning to New Jersey, September, 1865, Mr. Williams married Josephine L. Williams, in June, 1866, and she bore him four children, Gertrude, Clark V., Josephine and one daughter, deceased. After his marriage, he lived three years in Adams county, Wis., where he devoted himself to farming and hop-raising. In 1870 he homesteaded land in Kansas, where during a time of privation he and his family lived on buffalo meat and artichokes, for the cooking of which there was no fuel but buffalo chips. It was necessary for them to haul their provisions one hundred and fifty miles, from Waterville and Marysville. The great grasshopper year, 1874, Mr. Williams will never forget. One of his neighbors had his grain in shock and he helped him to thresh his wheat. The man declared that he would cut his corn as soon as the first grasshopper would appear, but the pests came in such numbers that they ate ten acres of corn before he could do anything to prevent them, and after having vainly attacked them with rollers, he and his wife were obliged to burn the prairie to kill them. From 1880 to 1906 he lived in various places in Colorado and South Dakota. In October of the year last mentioned he bought forty acres in Tulare county at $40 an acre. Previously he had owned land in the Owens river valley, which he sold to the city of Los Angeles. His forty-acre tract in Tulare county was unimproved, but he has since built a house, a barn and other necessary buildings on the property and is making a specialty of the cultivation of Muscat grapes.
Associations of the days of the Civil war are maintained by Mr. Williams in a way by his membership in the Grand Army of the Republic and he receives a government pension of $24. He was a charter member of General Shafter Post No. 191, G. A. R., of Dinuba. Politically he is a Republican. As a citizen he is public-spirited and helpful to all good interests of the community. Dear to him as are the memories of his youth and of the Civil war period, the recollections of his days of overland travel, in the period 1870-85, are no less fondly cherished. They picture to him the old road to Kansas and to Colorado, glimpses of Greeley and Fort Collins and of other wayside places and of Miller, S. Dak. Those days under the white-topped prairie schooner were days of discomfort, but they were days of hopes that after a time were fully realized. Mrs. Williams died in 1887 at her home in Missouri Hot Springs, whither she had gone on a visit and for her health while her husband was getting settled in his new location.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 828-829
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
WILLIAM ALFORD
One of the native sons of California who are winning success in Tulare county is William Alford, who is farming and dairying eight miles north of Exeter on rural free delivery route No. 1. Mr. Alford was born in Plumas county in 1862 and began attending school near his childhood home. When he was twelve years old he was brought by his family to Tulare county, where he completed his education and where he has lived continuously to this time except during three or four years. His father, who was a native of Virginia, was a prominent farmer and an active promoter of irrigation who had much to do with the construction of early ditches in the county. His mother, also a native of the Old Dominion, was a woman of the finest character, who influence has been a beneficent force in her son's life. They came to California among the pioneers, as long ago as 1853, and passed to their reward many years ago. Mr. Alford has been familiar with the work of the farm since his childhood, having been early instructed in it by his father. When he came to Tulare county the country was new, settlements were sparse and improvements were few and primitive. He has been permitted not only to witness but to participate in its development into one of the most productive districts of a state of wonderful resources.
In 1882 Mr. Alford bought forty acres of land and in 1907 one hundred and sixty acres more, constituting a farm of two hundred acres, which he devotes to farming, dairying and stock-raising, keeping about twenty cows the year round. His career has been successful from every point of view, for while he has prospered financially he has won the respect of his fellow-citizens by an exhibition of public spirit that has made him most helpful to all worthy local interests. His reminiscences, could they be given in full, would be most interesting as a contribution to the history of the county. He knew the pioneers and has known all the prominent men of a later day. At the time of the lamentable Mussel Slough fight, so-called, he was within a half a mile of the scene of action.
In 1890 Mr. Alford married Miss Mary Etta Mason, a native of California and a daughter of a pioneer freighter in this part of the country, and she has borne him twelve children, all of whom survive. Mr. Alford's interest in education has impelled him to accept the office of school trustee, which he has filled greatly to the advantage of the schools and his neighborhood.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 829-830
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler