Tulare County Biographies

WOOSTER B. CARTMILL

Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

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

 
     The Tulare County Co-operative Creamery Association, the largest 
institution of the kind in the country, was organized in 1903 and has branches 
at Visalia and at Corcoran. Its officers are: S. B. Anderson, president; P. E. 
Reinhart, vice �president; M. G. Cottle, secretary; the above mentioned and 
William Small and Charles Meador, directors; Wooster B. Cartmill, manager. The 
main station, at Tulare, occupies a modern brick building, which is equipped 
with up-to-date machinery and appliances of all kinds necessary to its 
successful operation. Its output of two tons of butter daily is sold in bulk to 
the Los Angeles Creamery. The milk consumed, that of four thousand cows, is 
supplied by dairymen in the vicinity of Tulare. 
 
     As stated above, the active and practical management of this great industry 
is in the hands of Wooster B. Cartmill. This gentleman, well know personally or 
by reputation in dairy circles throughout the San Joaquin Valley, is a native 
son of California, He was born in Amador county, Cal., in 1857, a son of Dr. W. 
F. and Sophia (Barnes) Cartmill. His father was a native of Ohio; his mother was 
born in Missouri. In 1861, when the immediate subject of this notice was four 
years old, his family moved to Tulare county. There he was reared and educated 
and there he obtained a practical knowledge of California farming, under his 
father�s thorough instruction. For years he assisted the elder Cartmill on the 
family�s big ranch of twelve hundred acres, and later took charge of it and 
managed it successfully until about 1898. It included eighty acres of prunes, 
peaches and grapes, a hundred and sixty acres of alfalfa and a fine dairy. His 
father upon coming to Tulare county made his beginning as a dairyman, by running 
a farm dairy from 1862 to 1870. He made butter which he sold at the mines in 
Tulare and Inyo counties in the early and interesting days, and became one of 
the leaders in the industry. Naturally, the younger Cartmill early in life 
acquired a practical knowledge of dairying. He operated the old D. K. Zumwalt 
creamery from 1889 to 1900, and in the latter year established a skimming 
station of his own at Tulare, which was really the beginning of the history of 
the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Association, as the company took over that 
enterprise and its visible property in October, 1903. Mr. Cartmill was one of 
the original directors of the Tulare Irrigation Ditch District.  He was one of 
the most enthusiastic and efficient promoters and was personally active four 
years in its establishment and maintenance. He is the owner of a two hundred and 
forty-acre tract near Tulare, which he rents out. In all the interests of the 
city and county he takes a public-spirited interest. He is a Mason and as such 
is identified with local organizations of the order, and he also affiliates with 
the order of Woodmen of the World. 
 
     Twice has Mr. Cartmill married, the first time, in 1883, to Miss Hatch, and 
she bore him a daughter, who is Mrs. W. C. Eldridge. His present wife, whom he 
married in 1894, was Mrs. Jane Henry. They have three children�May, Eva, and 
William G. Cartmill.
 
     Mrs. Cartmill�s maiden name was Jane Gilmer. She is the daughter of Rufus 
Gilmer of Visalia. By her first husband, Albert Henry, who died in 1891, she had 
two children. Rufus and Albert are farmers, operating the old Henry farm near 
Porterville. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 296, 297, 298

In 1849 W. F. Cartmill started across the plains with an ox team, but did not 
arrive in Sacramento, California, until the 8th of September, the year the 
United States government took over California and territory.  He was a native of 
Ohio and a practicing physician before coming west.  After becoming a resident 
of California he engaged in mining and later conducted a general store in Amador 
county.  In October, 1861, he again yoked up his oxen and brought his family to 
Tulare county, where he followed farming for many years.  The Cartmill ranch, a 
short distance northwest of Tulare, is one of the oldest cultivated tracks of 
land in the district.  His wife, whose maiden name was Sophia Barnes, was a 
native of Missouri.  Of the five children born to this worthy pioneer couple, 
Wooster B. of this review is the sole survivor.
 
Wooster B. Cartmill was born in Amador county, California, April 3, 1857.  At 
that time the educational facilities were limited and his first school was a 
small one in the Persian district.  After the railroad was built through the 
valley a school was established in Tulare county, not farm from his father�s 
ranch.  He attended this school and finished his education at a business college 
in San Francisco.  For several years after he completed his schooling he was 
engaged in looking after the old home ranch of his father near Tulare.
 
In 1900 he established a creamery in Tulare- the first in the town.  This 
venture proved to be a success and later he organized the Cooperative Creamery 
Company in Tulare, of which he was made manager.  Disposing of his interest in 
this enterprise, he entered the office of the county auditor as a deputy under 
W. J. Hirnian, then county auditor.  In 1922 he was appointed postmaster of 
Tulare by President Harding and still holds that position.
 
Mr. Cartmill has been twice married.  His first wife was Laura Hatch, who has 
passed away.  They had a daughter, who is now Mrs. W. B. Gump of New York.  His 
second wife was Mrs. Jane Henry, and to them have been born three children- 
Mary, Eva and William G. Cartmill.  Mr. Cartmill is a prominent member of the 
Masonic fraternity in Tulare.  He is secretary of Olive Branch Lodge No. 269, F. 
& A. M.; a member of the Royal Arch Chapter, and a director of the Tulare 
Masonic Temple Association.  He also belongs to the Order of Sciots, the Woodmen 
of the World and the Tulare Rotary Club.
 
History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen Edwards Small & 
J. Larry Smith, Vol. I, Chicago, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926, Page 
194
Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama