Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 6 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 46

A successful California dairyman who once dwelt at the other end of the great American continent, where he was equally prosperous in raising potatoes in the fruitful fields of Aroostook County, Maine, is Charles Henry Richardson, one of Fresno's prosperous ranchmen. He was born at Solon, Somerset County, on May 14, 1864, and his father was Levi C. Richardson, also a native of Solon, who came from a Yankee family extending generations back. The Richardsons came from England and settled at Woburn, Mass., taking a prominent part in the Revolutionary War. Levi Richardson was a school teacher, but about 1878 moved to Fort Fairfield. Aroostook County, Maine, there to engage in the raising of potatoes; while there he continued to teach school. He died in that place in his sixty-fifth year.

Mrs. Levi G. Richardson was Elmira Jackson before her marriage, and she also was born at Solon, a member of one of the old Maine families. After a while she came to California; but she spent less than a year here, and then she returned to Maine, where she now resides at the old homestead. She was the mother of three children, two girls and a boy; of whom Charles is the oldest and the only one in California.

He was reared at Solon on the Kennebec River, and from a lad took charge of the farm, at the same time that he attended the public school. He thus not only acquired the A B C's of agricultural experience, but what was to be of inestimable value in later years, he learned to rely upon himself. In 1878 he removed to Fort Fairfield where his parents bought 120 acres of land, eleven acres of which was cleared, and the balance timbered. Each year they cleared and burned up such a part that they soon had about eighty acres under cultivation. He had charge of the home place, and in common with many in that section, father and son raised potatoes as a specialty.

Through reading. Charles became interested in California: and being attracted to the state because of the reported mildness of its climate, he came to California in 1905 and was so satisfied with what he saw that he sold his eastern home and settled here. He did not choose Fresno County however until he had first traveled the state and had become convinced that Central California offered more to the square mile than any other part. He then bought land in the Houghton district, now Roosevelt, his first place being two miles west of his present homestead. It was an alfalfa ranch, and he ran it for a year, but thinking he could do still better, he bought, in 1906, his present place, which consists of eighty acres on McKinley Avenue, situated ten miles northwest of Fresno. Having disposed of the other property, he has devoted this to dairying and the raising of alfalfa. The soil is excellent, and is well irrigated, being under the Herndon canal, the ranch also being equipped with a first-class pumping plant run by electric power and having a five-inch pump. He is also interested in sixty acres adjoining, which his son runs as a dairy.

While at Fort Fairfield, Mr. Richardson married Elizabeth Bloomfield, a native of the province of New Brunswick, by whom he has had five children: Marion L., who was in the Second California Infantry and served during the border trouble with Mexico. He was honorably discharged but when the great war was declared with Germany he enlisted and was in the Fortieth Division overseas. Since his discharge he has been ranching near the home place; Charles E., who also did his duty and was First Lieutenant in the Marine Corps attached to the second separate machine gun battalion, is also ranching in Fresno County; Otto B., who was a corporal in the 187th Company, United States Marine Corps, and is now in the general merchandise business at Rolinda, under the firm name of Houghton and Richardson; and Edith and Ruth. The family attend the United Presbyterian Church at Barstow, in which Mr. Richardson is a ruling elder; and they also do their civic duty under the banners of the Republican party, to which Mr. Richardson has belonged for years.