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 C. FREELAND.� The cashier of the allied banks, the 
First National Bank and the Selma Savings Bank, of Selma, William C. 
Freeland, is known among his associates as a financier of ability and a man 
of unimpeachable integrity, possessed of force of character and good executive 
ability. Self-made, he has worked his way up from a clerkship to the highest 
place in the active operation of Selma's foremost financial institution. While 
Selma claims him as one of her boys, he was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, 
March 28, 1877, and came to America with his parents, James and Mary A. 
(Cunningham) Freeland, when he was a lad ten years of age. His father, a 
blacksmith by trade, lived in Soquel, Santa Cruz County, from 1887 to 1890, 
and in the latter year came to Selma, where he died, in 1895. His mother is 
living in Selma. and became the wife of the late John G. S. Arrants, of Selma. 

William C. Freeland received his primary education in the schools of 
Scotland, completing it in the public schools of Santa Cruz County and 
Selma, graduating from the Selma high school with the class of 1895. He 
acquired bookkeeping in the high school and was afterwards with the Selma 
branch of the Kutner-Goldstein Company in the capacity of bookkeeper for 
a year and a half. A vacancy occurring in the clerkship of the First National 
Bank in 1897, he took the position and gradually worked himself up until 
in 1905 he became cashier. Of excellent judgment, and unusually swift and 
accurate as a cashier, he has held the position up to the present time with 
credit to himself and the bank. 

In 1902, Mr. Freeland was united in marriage with Miss Joanna Heaton, 
daughter of Joseph and Margaret A. Heaton of Selma. He is the owner of 
one hundred acres two miles east of Selma which is planted to peaches, apri- 
cots, and Muscat and Thompson seedless grapes. A Presbyterian in his reli- 
gious convictions, he is a member and chairman of the board of trustees of 
the church of that denomination at Selma. Fraternally he is prominent in 
Masonic circles. He is a member of the Blue Lodge Chapter in Selma and 
of the Commandery at Fresno. He is a Scottish Rite and Thirty-second De- 
gree Mason, and a member of Islam Temple at San Francisco. He is also 
a member of the Selma Lodge of W. O. W., the largest lodge in Selma. 

For eight years Mr. Freeland was a member of the Board of Trustees 
of the City of Selma and for four years of that time was chairman of the 
board. For the past five years he has been City Treasurer. He and his good 
wife are highly respected in business, social and church circles in Selma.