Kings County Biographies


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


O. C. BROWN
 
the pioneer fruit-grower of Lemoore, is a native of Illinois, born in Hillsboro, 
Montgomery County, in 1829.  His father, John Brown, is a native of Kentucky, 
and was an Illinois pioneer of 1828.  O. C. Brown was educated at the public 
schools of Hillsboro, and resided with his parents until twenty-one years of 
age, when he purchased eighty acres of land adjoining his father�s farm, and was 
married in St. Louis County, Missouri, to Miss Elizabeth J. Kelso.  He then 
lived upon his farm, to which he added to the amount of 400 acres, and followed 
general farming and the stock business.  In 1872 Mr. Brown sold his farm and 
moved to Geneva, the county seat of Filmore County, Nebraska.  He there took up 
a timber claim of 160 acres, farmed in grain, and engaged extensively in the 
raising of Poland-China hogs, keeping a very large band.  Continuing until 1879, 
Mr. Brown then came to the Mussel Slough district, of which he had heard through 
his son, then living in the district.  Mr. Brown purchased 160 acres one and 
one-half miles east of Lemoore, which he farmed until 1882, and then began the 
planting of fruit as a business.  He first set ten acres to fruit and vines 
experimentally, and continued the raising of grain, and hogs, with a band of 
about 500.  In the early days of fruit growing the market was soon overstocked, 
but with greater facilities for shipment Mr. Brown increased his planting, and 
now has 100 acres in vines, with the balance of his ranch devoted to a variety 
of fruits, and has given up all other agricultural work.  He dries all of his 
own fruit, and then sells to the packers.  The raisin crop of 1890 paid him $350 
per acre, and his fruits paid from $400 to $500 per acre.  Mr. and Mrs. Brown 
have six children:  John W., James F., William H., Edward E., Charles C. and 
Cora May.  In the fruit industry Mr. Brown has been successful, watching 
carefully the cultivation of his vines and trees, and superintending the 
gathering of fruits; he is now enjoying the reward, which has been acquired 
through years of application and vigilance.
 
Memorial and Biographical History of the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, 
California
Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892  p. 779-780
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler