Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 4 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 33

A resident of California since 1852. Joel Thomas Elam, or "Tom" as he is called by his friends, was born on March 15, 1851, in Bell County. Texas, and from the Lone Star State was brought to California by his parents, Joel Elam, a native of either Tennessee or Virginia and a member of an old Virginia family, and Sarah Frances Callis, a native of Kentucky, whom he married in Tennessee. The happy couple came to Texas, where Mr. Elam followed his trade of a machinist; but as he was in very poor health, he was advised by physicians to remove to the Pacific Coast, in the hope that a milder climate might renew his constitution. With that yearning in view, he started with his wife and five children across the plains in an ox team train; but he was destined never to see the blue waters of the Pacific, for he died en route and was buried on the trackless plains.

His widow brought the little children through to El Monte, the youngest a baby and the oldest a boy in his ninth year; and from El Monte they moved to San Juan. There she was married again to a Mr. Presley, a farmer and a stock-raiser, and four children were born from this second union. Afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Presley removed to San Joaquin County, then to Stanislaus County, and then to Mariposa County, and at Mormon Bar Mrs. Presley kept a boarding house, rearing and schooling her children as best she could. When they were old enough to farm, they moved to Pea Ridge, and later to Chowchilla; and here the children, while farming and raising stock, cared for their mother in return, until she became very ill, and was taken to Stockton for treatment, where she died, in her sixty-fourth year. She was a wonderful woman, full of energy and ambition, a devout Methodist, rearing her family in the ways of honesty and truth, and she had the satisfaction of living to see the children stand by her to the end.

Of the five children by her first marriage, Joel Thomas was the youngest, and his earliest recollections are of the Golden West. He attended school in the wilds of Mariposa County, and as early as his eighth year went to work in a dairy at Chowchilla, where he continued until he was fifteen. Then, for four years, he raised hogs on shares, meeting with reasonable success, and after that, for eighteen months, he worked on a farm for Frank Twitchell. During that time, he drew only ten dollars of his wages; and when Twitchell failed, he lost all that he had earned. He then worked for other ranchers until 1876 when, with his brother, Taylor M. Elam, he bought some cattle and engaged in stock-raising. The year 1877, however, proved one of the terrible "dry years" of Coast history, and they were compelled to drive their cattle far back into the Yosemite Valley, in order to save most of them. After that, the brothers ran their stock at Pea Ridge for seven years.

In 1879 Mr. Elam was married in Mariposa County to Miss Mary E. Mullins, a native of that county, and after that he dissolved partnership with his brother, and farmed alone at Chowchilla until 1886. There, ten years later, his wife died. In his farming operations he was successful, especially as a raiser of grain, for which he used three big teams and a combined harvester; but selling his outfit, he engaged in raising cattle, mules and horses. He also owned a good ranch, while he rented a stock range.

In 1901 he brought his cattle and stock to Fresno County, and leasing from M. Theo. Kearney, started a dairy on the Kearney ranch. Then, in 1902, he married a second time, choosing for his wife Mrs. Elizabeth Frances (Beevers) Mullins, a native of Mariposa County. Her father, John Beevers, had crossed the plains in pioneer days, was a good miner and then a stock raiser, making a specialty of fine horses; and by her union with Mr. Mullins she had had one daughter, Ida, now Mrs. Russell, who since her mother's death, on August 24, 1917, presides over Mr. Elam's home.

Mr. Elam bought a ranch of fifty-five acres, in 1904, on North Avenue, four miles southeast of Kerman, taking into partnership again his brother, Taylor M. Elam. This they leveled and improved to alfalfa, and then continued dairying and stock-raising. They also own forty acres on Kearney Avenue, which they have improved to alfalfa, where they have installed a pumping plant for irrigating; and they have 700 acres for pasture. Here they maintain a dairy herd of sixty cows, besides many stock cattle. Ever since 1904 Mr. Elam has made his home in Fresno, superintending the ranch from there.

He is a stockholder in the Danish Creamery Association, a member of the Methodist Church. South. He has been very active in church work, liberal and enterprising, and gives his support gladly to every movement that has for its object the building up of the county, and the enhancing of the comfort and morals of the people.