Tulare County Biographies

CHARLES W. CLEARY

Transcribed by Jeannie Miyama

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


Charles W. Cleary, former assemblyman from this district in the legislature of 
the state of California, a substantial rancher and orchardist of the Lindsay 
neighborhood, a director of the Tulare county farm bureau, a director of the 
local Chamber of Commerce, a director of the local cooperative citrus marketing 
agency and in other ways an active and influential factor in the general social, 
civic and industrial life of the community, is a native son of California and 
his interests have ever centered here.  Mr. Cleary was born on a ranch in 
Calaveras county, December 4, 1884, and is a son of Frank and Mary (Cooper) 
Cleary, both of whom were born in that same county, members of pioneer families 
there, and the latter of whom is still living, making her home on the home ranch 
in the vicinity of Lindsay.  She is a daughter of Robert Bruce and Alta Zara 
(Lewis) Cooper, both natives of Mississippi.  Mr. Cooper came into California by 
way of the Isthmus in the mining days and had established his residence in 
Calaveras county, where he was joined in marriage in October, 1853, to Alta Zara 
Lewis, who made the trip across the plains in an immigrant train, the wagons of 
which were drawn by plodding oxen.  The Coopers of this line are of an old 
southern family and of Revolutionary stock, descending from Captain Thomas 
Cooper, an officer in the Continental army during the time the colonies were 
fighting for their independence from foreign rule.  Along another line this 
family also is akin to that of the Hamiltons which during that period of stress 
was represented in so distinguished a fashion by Alexander Hamilton, on whose 
tomb in Trinity churchyard, New York, the following notable memorial is 
inscribed:  �The patriot of incorruptible integrity, the soldier of approved 
valor, the statesman of consummate wisdom, whose talents and virtues will be 
remembered by a grateful posterity long after this marble shall have mouldered 
into dust.�  Mrs. Cleary was reared in Calaveras county and for some time prior 
to her marriage was engaged in teaching school there.  For nearly twenty years 
she has been a resident of this county and has a wide and agreeable acquaintance 
here.
 
The late Frank Cleary, who died at his home on his Lindsay ranch in 1915, was 
born in Calaveras county in 1862 and was a son of Charles W. and Katharine A. 
(Harkins) Cleary, who were married in Calaveras county in the early mining days, 
having come here, he from New Brunswick, Canada, and she from Pennsylvania, and 
were among the pioneers of that county.  He grew up in the county of his birth 
and after his marriage continued to make his home there until in 1888, when he 
moved with his family to Fresno county, where he had taken up a quarter section 
of land and where he became engaged extensively in grain farming.  He was a 
leader for the farmers of the vicinity in the early day desert land entry 
contests and always wherever he resided was a recognized leader in civic and 
community affairs.  When the development of the oil fields began he took an 
active part in those operations, became one of the incorporators of the 
Confidence Oil Company, pioneer company of the west side Coalinga oil field, and 
presently was elected president of the same.  He also was one of the 
incorporators of the Ajax Oil Company and of the New San Francisco Crude Oil 
Company and became widely known in the old fields as a successful operator.  In 
1908 Mr. Cleary moved to the ranch in the Lindsay neighborhood that he had 
bought in this county and here his last days were spent, his death occurring in 
1915, he then being fifty-three years of age, and where, as noted above, his 
widow still is living.
 
During his seven years of residence in Tulare county Frank Cleary took a most 
active part in all civic affairs.  His example and influence were felt to such 
an extent in the community of his residence that his untimely removal by death 
came as a serious shock and loss to a very wide circle of associates and 
friends.  He was a director of the Central California Citrus Exchange for 
several years and an organizer and president of an affiliated orange packing 
house.  He was an organizer for some time president and at the time of his death 
still a director of the Tulare County Power Company, a consumers company of 
magnitude, being composed of some five hundred local consumer stockholders and 
succeeding in breaking the theretofore unquestioned monopoly of the commercial 
concern furnishing power to the farmers and orchardists.  The life of the Tulare 
County Power Company was a strenuous one and calculated to try the souls of men, 
especially the men on whom the burden of administration of the company�s affairs 
rested.  After his death, in introducing and moving the adoption of a resolution 
in his memory at a meeting of over four hundred and fifty stockholders of the 
Tulare County Power Company, a fellow director and general manager of the 
company said of him:  �By the death of Frank Cleary Tulare county lost one of 
her best citizens, Lindsay lost her best citizen, the men of Lindsay lost their 
best example and the boys growing up in Lindsay lost their best example:  the 
Tulare County Power Company lost one of her best stockholders and her best 
director.  My association with Frank Cleary has meant much to me; he had an 
influence on me greater than that of any other man of my association; he changed 
my attitude toward life and I shall make it my aim to live up to the example set 
by him.�
 
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Cleary were the parents of five children, four sons and a 
daughter, the latter of whom died in infancy.  One of the sons, Frank Robert 
Cleary, met his death through an accident in the oil fields in 1904 when he was 
twenty-one years of age.  The other sons, besides the immediate subject of this 
sketch, are Leslie A. Clearly, well known lawyer and present (1925) assistant 
district attorney in and for Tulare county, and Dr. E. W. Cleary, prominent 
orthopedic surgeon of San Francisco.
 
As will be observed by a comparison of above dates, Charles W. Cleary was but 
three years of age when in 1888 his parents moved from his native county of 
Calaveras into Fresno county and in this latter county he grew to manhood, 
supplementing the schooling received in the local schools by a course in 
Chestnutwoods Business College of Santa Cruz.  He early became interested in 
operations in the oil fields, starting in as a pumper and tool dresser, and 
after becoming thoroughly familiar with operations was made superintendent of 
the operations of the Confidence Oil Company, of which his father was the 
president.  He married when twenty-three years of age, the year in which the 
family moved to Tulare county, and he then abandoned the oil fields and has 
since given his chief attention to the cultivation of citrus fruits, now 
operating the home orchards in the vicinity of Lindsay, the Cleary ranch there 
having been developed from a barren waste into one of the productive tracts in 
the county, well improved with modern buildings, adequately irrigated and 
carrying besides the grove of thirty acres of orange trees a five acre olive 
orchard and an ample family orchard.  Mr. Cleary long has been recognized as one 
of the leading citizens of this district and has done much to promote the local 
horticultural development.  He was one of the organizers of the Drake Packing 
Company of Lindsay, later reorganized as the Lindsay Co-Operative Citrus 
Association, of which he was the first president, and has always been affiliated 
with the California Fruit Growers Exchange through the Central California Citrus 
Exchange, of which for a number of years he was one of the directors.  He also 
has been a member of the board of directors of the Tulare county farm bureau 
since the organization of that mutually helpful body and was one of the prime 
movers in the work of getting the bureau on its feet.
 
A republican of progressive thought, Mr. Cleary has from the days of his young 
manhood taken an earnest interest in civic affairs, is one of the acknowledged 
leaders of his party in this county, and in 1918 was elected to represent this 
assembly district in the state legislature.  By successive reelections he was 
kept in the house for three terms and during that period of service not only 
became recognized as one of the leaders in the lower house but succeeded in 
rendering a very real service to the state.  During his second term of service 
he was vice chairman of the legislative committee appointed in 1921 to 
investigate the operations of the state railroad commission and in that same 
year was chairman of the house committee on irrigation, the importance of which 
committee in that year was so generally recognized that its membership was 
increased from thirteen to twenty-one.  It was while thus serving as chairman of 
that committee that Mr. Cleary succeeded in securing the passage of a bill for 
an initial appropriation for a comprehensive investigation and survey of the 
water resource of the state, a very valuable service.
 
It was he also who led the fight both in and out of the legislature to prevent a 
reappointment of the legislative districts which would have given the tree most 
populous counties of the state (Alameda, Los Angeles and San Francisco) control 
of the law making power, and the defeat of this project he regards as his 
greatest political service.  His measure, offered as a substitute bill- the 
so-called three-eights five-eights plan of apportionment, which following a 
strenuous fight in the assembly lost by a very close vote- would, if adopted, 
give to the rural territory of the state control of one house of the legislature 
and the urban districts control of the other, thus creating a political 
equilibrium in the state, and it is still being pushed for adoption by the 
agricultural organizations of the state.
 
The following newspaper comments, which were written in 1924, indicate the 
regard felt for Mr. Cleary by his fellow citizens:  �In Assemblyman Cleary 
Tulare county has all that any assemblyman should be, an honest, courageous, 
right-minded, level-headed man, of sound judgment.  He is a man who has a strong 
affinity for common sense and the right, and he is not the tool of any man or 
set of men.  He does his own thinking and his conclusions are honest and almost 
always right.  Assemblyman Cleary can be depended upon to do right at all times 
but he will not trade his principles for political advantage.  He is the only 
kind of man to be trusted with legislative authority.  If the entire state 
government were made up of men of like ideals we would have the best government 
that any body of people could wish for.�
 
On September 5, 1908, Mr. Cleary was united in marriage to Miss Elsie Hoagland 
of Santa Cruz and they have three children:  A son, Charles W. Cleary, Jr., and 
two daughters, Ilah Frances and Genevieve, representatives in the fourth 
generation of the Cleary family in California.  Mr. and Mrs. Cleary are members 
of the Presbyterian church and are active workers therein, Mr. Cleary being 
formerly a member of the session (an elder) of the local congregation and Mrs. 
Cleary being one of the Sunday school teachers.  He is a member and past 
chairman of the county committee for the promotion of the work of the Young 
Men�s Christian Association and also since its organization a member of the 
local council acting in behalf of the Boy Scouts of America.
 
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 
483