Kings County Biographies


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



GEORGE W. CODY
 
of Grangeville, was born in Oakland County, Michigan, in 1842.  At the early age 
of seven years he began his pioneer life, by going with this parents to Dane 
County, Wisconsin, and settling near Madison, in that wild, unbroken, prairie 
country.  His father purchased a small farm and there resided until 1859, when 
they again moved, settling in Johnson County, Nebraska, where everything was new 
and undeveloped.  Mr. Cody enlisted at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, January 20, 
1861, in Company H, Eighth Kansas Infantry, under Colonel John A. Martin, later 
governor of Kansas.  The regiment was connected with the Army of the Cumberland 
and that of Tennessee.  Our subject served three and a half years, passing 
through fifteen battles and skirmishes, and also spending fifteen months in the 
prison pens of the Confederacy.  He was captured at Chickamanga, Georgia, and 
first confined in the Atlanta bull pens, and being frequently removed he passed 
through Libby and Andersonville, Pemberton, Danville, Charleston, and Florence 
prisons, besides many other tombs of incarceration.  Upon his release, being 
greatly reduced and his time having expired, he was discharged and returned to 
his home in Nebraska.
            He then began farming and milling, and subsequently moved to 
Tecumseh, where he opened a general merchandise store.  In 1873 he sold out and 
came direct to Lemoore, Tulare County, California, where the family of his wife 
then resided.  He purchased 320 acres of land, and renting other lands farmed to 
the amount of 1,000 acres annually, without water.  Mr. Cody was connected with 
and aided in the construction of the Lower King�s river, the People�s and the 
Last Chance ditches.  He farmed until 1881 and then moved to Orange, Los Angeles 
County, bought forty acres of land and set it to English walnuts and raisin 
vines.  He remained there until the boom of 1886, and then moved to Los Angeles 
and engaged extensively in real-estate operations.  In 1888 he came to Fresno 
and became interested in the Providence Mine in the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
Here they erected quartz mills and other expensive machinery, but the prospects 
were soon worked out and much money sacrificed.  In the fall of 1889 he 
purchased his present ranch of twenty acres two and a half miles northeast of 
Grangeville, and eighty acres adjoining the town.  The entire tract is now set 
to fruit and vines, where Mr. Cody devotes his time to his ranch interests. 
            Mr. Cody claims to have invented the most economical and perfect 
raisin dryer in existence.  He makes the raisin culture a specialty; packs all 
his own and buys others and packs for some of his neighbors, etc.  Packs but two 
grades, -- Three Crown London Layers and Three Crown Loose, -- grades the 
balance and sacks them.  One grade is called Two Crown Loose, and the other 
Seedless Muscatel.
            He was married at Elk Station, Johnson County, Nebraska, in 1865, to 
Miss Mary M. Gray, a native of Wisconsin, and daughter of Hon. A.W. Gray, whose 
biography appears elsewhere in this history.  Mr. and Mrs. Cody have three 
children living, -- Thorley G., Harvey P., and Andrew Milo.  Two are dead, Guy 
Tyrral and Marenda Josephine.
 
Memorial and Biographical History of the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern, 
California
Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892  p 301-302
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler