Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 3 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 7

Fortunate in having personally witnessed all of the important discoveries of oil and other developments in Fresno County, Judge W. J. Kilby enjoys the distinction of being one of the best-posted men in Central California, and an authority on the section in which he has so long been active. He was born at Freeport. Maine, of old New England stock descended from the Cromwellian Puritans and including today, among others of note, the well-known writer. Quincy Kilby, also a native of Maine, and the historian of the Boston theater. These ancestors were in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and both grandfathers on his mother's side were not only in the great struggle of 1776, but were with General Washington when he crossed the Delaware. Mr. Kilby's father was Charles S. Kilby, a builder, and his mother was Cynthia Moses before her marriage, and she also was born in Maine.

Having graduated from a high school in Maine, W. J. Kilby in 1885 came west to California and Fresno County and in April of that year arrived at the Pleasant Valley Stock Farm. The railroad then came only as far as Huron, but in 1888 it was extended to Coalinga, which was laid out on paper and sold off in lots. After being employed on the Pleasant Valley Ranch for a while, Mr. Kilby took a homestead preemption and timber claim on Los Gatos Creek, and engaged in stock-raising and farming, in which field he showed his natural ability.

In the early nineties Mr. Kilby was induced to run for the office of justice of the peace; and his peculiar fitness for that responsibility having been recognized, he was elected. Soon thereafter he moved into Coalinga, and about the same time was appointed postmaster. The post office and the court room of the justice were in the same building on Front Street, and this fact recalls an amusing anecdote told of the Judge. A constable brought in an Irishman who had committed some offence, and as the officer was in a hurry and wished to take him away on the train, there was nothing left for him to do but to bring him before the Justice, who was then very busy making up the out-going mail. The Judge heard the case, the offender pleaded guilty, and the postmaster-justice pronounced sentence of sixty days without stopping his postal duties; whereupon the Irishman, seeing the funny side of the incident, remarked that he had had all kinds of packages handed him through the post office, but never before had he been parceled out sixty days. Judge Kilby was reelected, and served two terms, and never was there a more efficient, more just and popular jurist on the justice's bench.

Judge Kilby still owns his old ranch and several other ranches in the county, for he has also engaged in real estate, handling for the most part his own property, and because of his judgment, honesty and good nature, giving satisfaction to all concerned, and so succeeding with each transaction. He has erected a number of residence and business buildings in Coalinga, including the Kilby Block on E Street, and he has also been in demand for insurance and as a notary public. Long a prominent Republican, Judge Kilby is still an influential man.

He was married at Freeport, Maine, on April 18, 1884, to Miss Helen Murtagh, of Boston, and they have had five children: Mollie is Mrs. G. M. Hughes of Coalinga; Ben W. is a merchant at Helm; Beatrice is Mrs. C. N. Ayres of Coalinga: Colon is a graduate of the Coalinga High School and is now at Redlands University, where he holds the quarter-mile record as a foot-racer of the Pacific Coast: and Neta is studying to be a nurse, in San Diego. Thus all the children of this distinguished citizen have been heard from.