Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 4 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 12

A well-situated and prosperous California couple, both of whom are proud of their enviable relation to well-known pioneer families, who are still doing all that they can to improve that part of Fresno County in which they are especially interested, are Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Herbert Smith. Identified with the Golden State since birth, Mr. Smith was born at Cayucos, in San Luis Obispo County, on January 7, 1876, the son of C. A. Smith, a native of Calaveras County, Cal., where he was born in 1852. The grandfather, Edwin Herbert Smith, was born in Illinois and crossed the plains with ox teams about 1849, going to the Calaveras gold fields. In that vicinity and in San Luis Obispo, the father was reared, and he became a stockman and farmer, transacting a cattle business in different parts of the state and along the coast, and later he settled at Cayucos. He was in business for many years there, and now he is in Kern County, ranching at McKittrick, where he is opening up a new ranch. He married Ella Bailey, a native of Illinois, the daughter of William Bailey, who came to California when a child with her parents, and settled in Calaveras, and then moved to San Luis Obispo, homesteading east of Paso Robles. Mrs. Smith died in Santa Maria in 1892. Two children, a boy and a girl, were born of this union, and Edwin is the older of the family.

Edwin H. was brought up on a farm near the coast, and attended the public school there, and at the same time he learned farming and stock-raising. His mother died when he was sixteen years old, and then he began to paddle his own canoe. He was for some time employed at ranching, but in 1898 came to Fresno County where he leased land and engaged in stock-raising. He introduced the brand, a combination of the figure 4 and the letter B, resembling together the figure 8, and such was his success, that he made the brand have a distinctive value.

On April 16, 1904, E. H. Smith was married to Miss Nannie Manning, who was born at Hanford, the daughter of Elisha Arnold Manning, a native of Boston, Mass. Mrs. E. H. Smith, the youngest of five children now living, was educated at the common and high schools in Fresno. Soon after the marriage, Mr. Smith bought a half interest with his father-in-law in both land and the stock business. Following the division of their interests, Mr. Smith came to have, what he now controls, 760 acres in alfalfa and devoted to cattle-raising, and he also has a dairy. In 1918 he bought a ranch at Kerman, fourteen miles west of Fresno, consisting of 440 acres, and this he will use for stock-raising and alfalfa. He has many improvements there, including three pumping-plants.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have one child, Adalene Manning. Mr. Smith was captain of the liberty loan and other drives in the Manning district, and did splendid work in supporting the Government in its war program. He is a Republican in national politics, and is especially interested in local movements that advance and build up the neighborhood.