Tulare County Biographies

B. F. Bishop

Transcribed by Beverly Green

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


B. F. Bishop, who is prominently identified with the stock interests of Tulare 
County, was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, November 6, 1853. His father, 
Payton R. Bishop, settled in Bridgeport when that now famous city was a town of 
1,500 inhabitants, and, as a contractor and builder, was intimately connected 
with the city's growth, erecting many of its business blocks and private 
residences. About Golden Hill stand many beautiful homes as monuments to his 
artistic skill and masterful workmanship.

The subject of this sketch was educated in the private institution of Mr. Guy B. 
Day, a prominent and popular school; and at the age of sixteen he began 
mercantile life as a clerk, at nineteen starting a general grocery store on his 
own account and continuing it one year. He then gave up his business in order to 
accompany his father to California and engage in raising sheep. They arrived on 
California soil in the spring of 1874, came direct to Tulare County and 
purchased a band of 2,500 sheep, locating east of Tulare on the ranch our 
subject now occupies. They pre-empted 320 acres of Government land, with free 
grazing on all sides. Their band gradually increased to 7,500 and they continued 
the business until 1882, when they sold out and engaged in raising horses and 
mules. Father and son lived together until 1886. At that time, owing to failing 
health of the former, they went East, and he died October 20, 1886, at the 
advanced age of seventy-six years.

Mr. Bishop subsequently returned to his ranch, which they had increased by 
purchase to 2,400 acres, with 640 acres of grazing land in the mountains and 343 
acres elsewhere about the valley. He has about 225 head of horses and mules on 
the ranch, a large part of which he rents for farming purposes. He has 250 acres 
in alfalfa and twenty-eight acres in vines, with fruit for home use. Four 
hundred acres of his land he has colonized under the name of the Oakdale Colony, 
to which he will add other lands as required.

Mr. Bishop was married, in Brooklyn, New York, January 16, 1889, to Miss Anna 
Roberts, a native of Norwalk, Connecticut.

He still owns important interests in the East among which we refer to the 
Islands of Chimous, Hay and Copp, his brother-in-law being a partner with him in 
their ownership. These islands comprise about seventy-five acres and lie just 
off the shore at South Norwalk. They are being improved and are likely to become 
a popular resort for pleasure seekers of New York City, who desire rest and 
quiet and still wish to live in the enjoyment of the cooling breezes of Long 
Island Sound.

SOURCE: Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno, Tulare and 
Kern, California; Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892, Page 639