Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 3 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 13

Among the representatives of historic families, who have contributed largely toward the development of our American commonwealth, is J. M. Cartwright, a progressive businessman and public-spirited citizen, who has become the leading man of affairs at Malaga, where he manufactures the widely known Cartwright Pruning Shears that now meets over ninety percent, of the requirements of the Pacific Coast trade. He is the seventh in order of birth in a family of eight children — five sons and two daughters — and was born at Willows, then in Colusa, but now in Glenn County, March 16, 1874; and there he lived until the winter of 1885.

When John Cartwright, the father, in the middle eighties, bought forty acres from the Briggs' estate, and began farming two miles southwest of Malaga, his enterprise affected the residence of J. M. and helped to shape the later course of his life. The town had just then been laid out, subdivided and sold; and having learned the blacksmith's trade at his birthplace, near Charleston in Coles County, Ill., the prospect of development there attracted the artisan. This fact as to the father's handiwork is all the more interesting, because the Cartwright family — so distinguished through such members as George Cartwright, the English traveler who explored and wrote about Labrador; John Cartwright, the English author who advocated peace with the American Colonies; Peter Cartwright, the apostle of Methodism; Mr. Richard John Cartwright, the Canadian statesman; and Dr. Samuel Cartwright, General Jackson's surgeon, — received its name from the occupation of the founders, and a branch 'of the family is still conducting a wagon-making factory in England.

J. M.'s grandfather was Reddick Cartwright, a pioneer of Coles County who came there from North Carolina, was a second cousin of Peter Cartwright, the famous circuit rider just referred to, and was said to have been a man of great physical strength, as was his son, John Cartwright, our subject's father. The latter was one of a family of twenty-three children. He was also distinguished for his moral and mental qualities, and these found expression in his work as a minister of the Baptist Church, which ordained him in Boone County, Iowa, whither the Cartwrights had removed. He had learned the blacksmith trade and wheelwright trade in Illinois, as has been said, and was such a first-class workman and mechanic that, arriving in California, he was able to help himself and his family much better than the average pioneer.

The elder Cartwright first settled at Butte City in Colusa County, and in time became a large wheat-raiser, having as high as 3,000 acres. It was when he came to Fresno, in 1885, however, and set out a vineyard, and realized his wants in a somewhat primitive community, that he was led to take a step even momentous in the history of his family. He needed some pruning shears, and finding none adapted to the local requirements, he set about to make a pair in his own little blacksmith shop on the home farm. They proved to be better than anything on the market, and neighboring ranchers having borrowed and used them, ordered some for themselves. The result was that Mr. Cartwright made thirty pair the second year, and two hundred pair the third year; and from that time the output has been greater and greater each succeeding year. For the past thirty-three years the Cartwrights have manufactured these shears, and now over 200.000 are in use.

Mr. Cartwright makes three sizes of the shears, one being a tree-shear with handles twenty-two inches long and twenty-nine inches over all, while the over-all length of the others is twenty-six and twenty-one inches respectively. They are used for pruning grape-vines. The Cartwright pruning shears are recognized as the best on the market today; and while retailing for three dollars a pair, they form ninety percent, of the shears for this purpose now sold on the Pacific Coast.

John Cartwright, the father, died here aged sixty-seven years, but the mother, whose maiden name was Martha Ashby, lived to be eighty, and was the last of a family of eighteen children. She was born in Coles County, Ill., and grew up with Mr. Cartwright.

J. M. Cartwright attended the Fresno County public schools and also the high school at Fresno, and grew up to work in his father's shop at Malaga. At the age of twenty-five he was married to Miss Maud E. Wilkinson, the daughter of James Wilkinson, late of Le Grand, Merced County, where her father died in 1918, aged sixty-three years. She was born in Missouri and reared in Fresno County. Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright have two children. Vera Mae and John Marion, Jr. The valuable years of our subject's life, therefore, have been spent near Malaga, and there or in that vicinity has he accomplished most.

Among his enterprises is the improvement of a forty-acre vineyard at Clovis, which he has since sold, for even some of the lessons learned at forging for years in his father's shop served him in other fields. When his father died, John Marion succeeded him as the head of the business, buying out his brother's interest: although the old name of the firm, J. Cartwright & Sons is still retained. In 1910, Mr. Cartwright built his brick factory at Malaga; and since 1914 electricity has been the power used. He employs from five to six workmen and continues to turn out a strictly hand-made pruning shear, of oil-tempered steel, "the best that is." The same year in which he constructed his shop, he built his residence on Front Street, immediately south.

Mr. Cartwright is a friend of education and has served nine years on the Malaga school board. Politically he is a Democrat, and fraternally belongs to Fresno Parlor, No. 25, N. S. G. W., and Central California Lodge, No. 343, I. O. O. F.. at Fresno.