Fresno County, California Biographies Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919) History By Paul E. Vandor Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919 Notes: Missing+page1185-1186 Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm WILLIAM DOHERTY.� An honest, upright and good-natured old Cal- ifornian, of genial hospitality, is William Doherty, who sowed the first alfalfa in Kings County. He was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on April 25. 1852, the son of George Doherty who was also born there and came of a family originally called O'Doherty. He was married there to Margaret O'Hara, a native of the region, and they had six children. When William was still a baby, in the fall of 1852, the parents crossed the ocean to the United States � and it was then that Mr. O'Doherty dropped the O' from his name � and settled at Great Barrington, Mass., where he was a fanner; but in 1856 they moved west to Madison, Wis. There the mother died in 1857, leaving eight children ; whereupon the father moved to Kansas and settled on Walnut Creek, sixty miles west of St. Joseph. In 1860 he crossed the great plains with his family, traveling by ox teams and wagon up the Platte River ; and on the way he and his party were attacked by Sioux Indians. The train had forty-six fighting men, and when they were surrounded by Indians, the wagons were used as corrals, and they fought the savages for thirty-six hours. At last, �Buffalo Bill" and a company of United States cavalry came to the rescue, and the Indians fled. The Indians used bows and arrows; William Doherty and his sister moulded bullets for the riflemen. Arriving in California without any further mishap, the family settled in the San Joaquin Valley, where George Doherty farmed Wallace Kerrick's place. Then the father bought a ranch on Mormon Slough, but in the fall of 1863 sold out and located in Stanislaus County, near what is now Modesto. He built a house and was the pioneer farmer in the region between Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers. He had 320 acres which he operated until he died, in 1883, at the age of eighty-four. The mother had died in Wisconsin ; and of the eight children, five are still living. The oldest girl, Fannie, acted as mother to the rest of the children until she was married in 1864. The third youngest in the order of birth, William was for a while in Kan- sas and then he crossed the plains to California, where he grew up on a farm, attended school and remained home until his seventeenth year. Then he be- gan to farm on his own hook on the west side of Stanislaus County, near what is now Westley and after that he and his brother-in-law, Monroe Gar- ner, took up land west of Grayson, plowed the raw land with eight-horse teams, and raised grain. William took up an option on three sections of rail- road land, improved a part by planting to grain, and succeeded well enough to clear up all that was necessary to pay for the entire outfit. This included two six-horse and two eight-horse teams, a header wagon and thresher ; for the land he paid $1.25 an acre, and had about $8,000 left. The two dry ysears, 1870-71. plunged him $5,000 in debt ; but in 1872 he put 2,000 acres into grain, cleaned up sufficient to enable him to pay all he owed, and then had $10,000 over. Selling out, William and his brother Robert removed to Kings County where they took up homesteads and bought five sections of railroad land. They went in for grain raising, and met with success; Robert is still on the place, and William continued there until 1901, when he sold out to his brother all he owned there except 160 acres ; and then he came to Fresno County. He bought 1,200 acres on Little Dry Creek, in old Auberry Valley and went in for stock-raising, farming and the wood business. In 1914 he traded that property for his present place of eighty acres on McKinley Avenue, in the Barstow district, ten miles from Fresno. He devotes this to a vineyard of about thirty-seven acres of Thompson seedless, nine acres Feherzagos, and a peach orchard of ten acres, and the balance in alfalfa, the whole forming a fine place. He makes his residence at 327 Coast Avenue, Fresno, where he has built a comfortable home. He still has 160 acres of alfalfa land at Han- ford, and eighty acres on Little Dry Creek. He owns, too, 140 acres in the sinks of Huron, which he rents out. He belongs to the California Associated Raisin Company and California Peach Growers, Inc. While at Visalia Mr. Doherty was married to Miss Annie Jessie Evans, who was born near Madison, Wis., and came to California in 1870 with her parents ; four children have blessed the union : Edna is Mrs. Garner and resides in Clovis ; Margaret has become Mrs. Gibbons of Hanford ; Eva is Mrs. Spears, of Fresno ; and William J. He was educated in the Fresno High School and Heald's Business College and held a position in the First Na- tional Bank until he began to assist his father on the ranch. He enlisted in the United States Army, served with the Ninety-first Division until mustered out at San Francisco, May, 1919. He is now on the ranch and married to Ethel Gatewood. When not giving his time to the social life of the Independent Order of Foresters, of which he is a member. William Doherty takes part in the councils of the Democratic party, having been a delagate to both county and state conventions. He has served on the grand jury, and for two terms was school trustee in Kings County as well as in Fresno County, where he was trustee in the Auberry district. At the time that Mr. Doherty sowed the first alfalfa in Kings County, he paid fifty cents a pound for the seed. He and his brother and Perry C. Phillips built the Lake Side ditch, which was the first ditch for irrigating in Kings County. The Doherty brothers were the first farmers near Hanford. Mr. Doherty has traveled much through California, and is well-posted on early days and historical old landmarks. He is also familiar with the wonders and beauties of California mountains and valleys. He spent four years in Death Valley, prospecting for nitrate of soda, and found valuable deposits. In fact, he was so lucky, that he also succeeded in selling the find to an English syndicate ; but his partners could not be induced to sell out at the time and they lost out. In the basin, 261 feet below sea-level he found a vast ledge of rock salt, four miles wide and fifteen miles long; while in the south-west corner of Death Valley is a range of what appears like a gravel hill. On close inspection, however, one sees that the gravel forms only a veneer from six to eight feet thick, and that the balance underneath is solid rock salt.