Tulare County Biographies

JOHN F. EVANS

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
When the Evans family went to Tipton the plains about the site of that town were 
a runway for wild cattle. John F. Evans, of Tulare, was born in Santa Clara 
county, October 5, 1865, a son of Dudley and Sarah A. (Doty) Evans. Edward Doty, 
his mother's great-grandfather, came to America with the Mayflower Pilgrims and 
is said to have been the first of the party to set foot on Plymouth Rock. Later 
he had a memorable experience as a sailor in Greenland, being wrecked and cast 
away on the shore of that inhospitable land, and having to subsist there through 
an entire winter under circumstances such as to make his survival depend on the 
merest chance. Dudley Evans was a native of New York, while his wife, Sarah A. 
Doty, was born in Ohio, 1834 being the year in which they both were born. Dudley 
Evans crossed the plains to California in 1852, and went into stock-raising in 
Santa Clara and San Luis Obispo counties. On coming to Tulare county, he settled 
six miles west of Tipton, taking up government land. To his original one hundred 
and sixty acres he added a purchase of one hundred and sixty from the railroad 
people and then owned three hundred and twenty acres, all in one body. When he 
came to the vicinity there were only seven houses in Tulare. It should be noted 
that there is evidence in support of the statement that to him belongs the 
credit of having burned the first kiln of brick in Tulare City. He passed away 
in 1893. His widow, who lives at Tipton, is surrounded by loving relatives and 
friends, happy in her declining years and most interesting in her reminiscences 
of the pioneer days which tried the souls of men and women among the mountain 
passes and prairie stretches of beautiful California, a land of promise and of 
fulfillment, but a land of vicissitudes which sometimes sank to the plane of 
fatal disappointments. Following are the names, in order of birth, of the 
children of Dudley and Sarah A. (Doty) Evans : John F.; William, of Fresno; 
Albert D., of Cochran; Elmore H. and Harry N., of Tipton.
John F. Evans spent his early life on his father's ranch, went to school and 
gained a good deal of useful knowledge of different kinds in the college of hard 
experience. His ranching life is varied and was spent in different parts of the 
country. It includes the operation of threshing machines, rough work on the 
Creighton ranch near Tipton and the breaking of wild horses, and it has other 
interesting features. He started farming on his own account in 1889, on rented 
land, six miles east of Tulare, where he remained only one year. After that he 
operated a thousand to fifteen hundred acres in the Dinuba and Orosi section of 
Tulare county. Returning to the vicinity of Tipton, he first rented and later 
bought two hundred and forty acres. He is now renting out two hundred and forty 
acres near Tulare. A dairy of fifty cows is a feature of his enterprise, and he 
has one hundred acres in alfalfa. In 1910 he had twenty acres of Egyptian corn 
which yielded eighteen sacks to the acre, and in 1911 eight acres, planted to 
the same corn, gave him twenty-two sacks to the acre. He owns a fine home on 
East King street, Tulare, where he and his family have lived for some years.
John F. Evans married, September 25, 1892, Mary Cortner, a native of California, 
and they have children as follows : Reba L., Harry D., James and Helen A. Mrs. 
Evans's father was William C. Cortner, a native of Tennessee, who came overland 
to California in 1852, ox-teams affording him a means of transportation. For a 
time he mined with some success, but we find he was in Tulare county before the 
end of 1853, with a stock ranch in the mountains and a farm north of Visalia, 
but later he farmed near Orosi, and died in March, 1894. The father of Mrs. 
Cortner was John Jordan, who was in command of the party with which he came 
overland to California�the same pioneer Jordan who helped to blaze the Hockett 
and Jordan trail in the mountains. The following-named of the children of Mr. 
and Mrs. Cortner were living in 1912: Mrs. S. L. N. Ellis; Lee, of Tipton; Mrs. 
John F. Evans; Talbert, of Orosi; Preston, of Auckland. Mr. Evans is a member of 
the Independent Order of Foresters and a director of the Tipton Co-operative 
Creamery, and in other relations he has demonstrated his public spirit so 
unmistakably that he is regarded by all who know him as a citizen generously 
helpful to all public interests.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 558-559