Fresno County Biographies

B. W. Child

Submitted by Craig A Hahn

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

 
B. W. CHILD, of Madera, Fresno County was born near Grand Rapids, Kent County, 
Michigan, in September, 1852, the son of James L. Child, who was a farmer in 
early life, but later a clergyman of the Methodist church. Young Child received 
a common-school education, and then learned the printer�s trade, but the 
confinement disagreed with him, and in 1875 he started for California, first 
settling in San Francisco, where for a time he was proof-reader on the 
Scientific and Rural Press. He then secured a clerkship in a general merchandise 
store, where he remained two years, then went to the Sandwich Islands, and was 
engaged upon a sugar plantation, part of the time on his own account and part as 
overseer of a large plantation, having the management of 300 men, and was also 
in charge of the factory. In 1881 he returned to California, and for two years 
was a member of a surveying party in Wyoming. Upon his return to his State he 
settled in Contra Costa County and engaged in grain farming, leasing 600 acres 
of land and following the industry until 1888, when he came to Fresno County. 
  As agent for Thomas F. Hughes he settled at Madera, where he superintended 
the laying of irrigating ditches and also the sale of lands. Upon the sale of 
3,140 acres to John Brown, where was located John Brown colony, No. 1, in 
December, 1889, Mr. Child accepted the position of superintendent of the colony 
work. In the spring of 1890, they planted 1,085 acres of vines, fifty acres of 
figs, and in the spring of 1891, 2,055 acres, largely in vines. On the colony 
they employ 240 white men, 60 Chinamen and 200 horses and mules. They have 120 
acres in nursery, eighty of which is in grape cuttings for the planting of 1892. 
Mr. Child owns a forty-acre ranch one mile southwest from the depot of Madera, 
thirty acres of which he has set in vines, ten acres in fig, and erected a fine 
cottage. 
  He was married in Contra Costa County, in July, 1886, to Miss Addie 
Sanders, and they have one child, Lottie, born February 19, 1891. Mr. Child, is 
a member and junior warden of Madera Lodge, No. 280, F. & A. M.
 
Memorial and Biographical History of the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, California
Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892 p. 489-490