Santa Clara County Biographies


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

 
ROBERT BLANCH
 
  
SURNAMES: Watkins, Beck, Vance,Burke, Parsons, Markam
 
A thoroughly progressive, up-to-date and successful rancher, Robert Blanch, of 
Maybury Road, to the northeast of San Jose, is doubly interesting as the son of 
the late Charles Blanch, who was born in Gloucestershire, England, on February 
20, 1831, and there he grew up as a farmer. He came to the United States in 
1851, and for three years farmed in Iowa; and then he went to Minnesota and kept 
bravely at farming there for five year, although for two seasons in succession 
all the crops he raised were eaten away by grasshoppers. 
 
As early as 1858 he and his brother, William (who was one of the first white men 
to be killed by an Indian in 1859, in San Jose) came across the plains to 
California, bringing a band of Durham cattle, which were all run off by Indians 
near Salt Lake, so that when they arrived they had only three oxen. They pitched 
their tent at San Jose; but in 1861 Robert moved to a ranch about ten miles 
south of town. In 1868, he established himself as a dairyman in San Luis Obispo 
County, and soon had reason to repent his venture, for his cattle died from 
Texas fever. Coming back to Santa Clara County, he farmed for a year, then went 
to Oregon for a winter, and after that came south again to White Oak Flat, in 
Burnett township, Santa Clara County, removing at the end of four years to 
Hoover Valley, where he lived for many years, operating a ranch of 150 acres, 
where he raised horses and carried on a dairy. He died in 1896 on a leased ranch 
in the Calaveras Valley. On April 27, 1859, he was married at St. Paul, Minn., 
to Miss Maria Watkins, also a native of England, and their union was blessed 
with ten children. The eldest was Edmund H; then came Jessie A; William T; next 
came John W.; after that came Mary E., and the others were Charles E., Sarah M., 
and finally Robert., the subject of our sketch. Charlotte and Richard, with 
Edmund and Jessie, all died in childhood.
 
Robert Blanch was born at San Jose on March 27, 1875, and he attended the 
grammar schools of Santa Clara County. As a youth he began to help his father on 
the home ranch, and he remained with him until the latter died, when the estate 
was divided up. Then he took up ranching alone, and for many years he has had an 
interest in a strip of range land of some 2,000 acres lying in the hills between 
Livermore and Mt. Hamilton. This ranch, which is leased, is devoted to grain, 
hay and stock, and Mr. Blanch still maintains his equity in the stock raising on 
this land. It was really railroad land, but it is better known as the McLaughlin 
Land Companies holding.
 
In 1906, Mr. Blanch bought a ranch of fifteen acres on the Maybury Road which is 
devoted to apricots, prunes and peaches--one of the oldest orchards in Santa 
Clara County, having been planted in 1880 by one of the Hobsons. The land is 
abundantly irrigated by water from a neighboring private pumping plant which 
produces about 900 gallons a minute. Mr. Blanch has lived on this ranch since 
1906, and during that time as a Republican in matters of national political 
import. but as a nonpartisan "booster" in respect to local affairs, he has done 
what he could to improve civic and agricultural conditions.
 
At San Jose, on November 29, 1905, Mr. Blanch was married to Miss Ruth M. Beck, 
a native of San Jose and the daughter of Thomas and Laura (Vance) Beck.  Mr. 
Beck, who was an expert blacksmith, died in 1912, and his good wife in February, 
1918. Of their six children, one is Rollo H. Beck, the world-renowned 
naturalist, who has traveled very widely to collect scientific specimens; the 
others are Mrs. Addie May Burke; Dr. Edna Beck, a medical missionary in India; 
Mrs. Helen Parsons; Ruth M., and Mrs. Blanche Markham. Mrs Blanch was given the 
best of educational advantages at the College of the Pacific, and she and her 
husband are the parents of one daughter who is attending the Berryessa grammar 
school.
 
 
Transcribed by Marie Clayton, from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara 
County, California  published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 446