Tulare County Biographies

Stephen E. Henley

Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

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

 
     Born is Scott county, Iowa, in 1858, Stephen E. Henley of Porterville, 
Tulare county, Cal., attended the public schools near his home during the years 
of his boyhood and when quite young engaged in the stock business, raising and 
selling cattle. He continued in that line in his native state until 1901, when 
he came to California. Locating at Porterville, he bought three tracts of land, 
one of twenty acres set to oranges, one of eighty and one of forty acres. In 
1907 he sold this property, retaining only mining rights on eighty acres. His 
mining claim consists of a twelve-foot ledge of high grade china clay, an 
outcropping of spar, suitable for the making of porcelain and dishes. When he 
came to the county and had looked around a little he concluded that there was 
more ore here than more experienced miners would have believed, but he 
prospected six years before he found what he was looking for, then opened the 
ledge known as the �Lost Squaw.� He has been offered $12,000 for the claim, but 
said that with $20,000 exposed to sight he could not sell at such a figure. 
While Mr. Henley had the direction of the matter, his son, O. F. Henley, and 
Budd Creeks actually discovered the ledge. He originated the Tulare County Power 
Company and was the first man of this company to file on the water rights of the 
Tule river, by which power has been developed and is being transmitted three 
hundred miles and used for pumping plants and other purposes. He sold out his 
interest in the company in 1911.  
 
     Mr. Henley�s wife was Laura M. Hartley, a native of Johnson county, Iowa, 
and their marriage was solemnized in that state in 1880. They have five 
children, all of whom live in California. O. Floyd married Edith Bursell and has 
two children, Alta and Alberta; his home is in Tulare county. Ada married 
Charles Roberts, and has two children, Ray and Alice May. May is Mrs. Bert 
Hoover, of Tulare county, and has one daughter, Aysha. Minnie is the wife of Ash 
Crabtree and has three children, Ramona, Clair and Emory. Maud is Mrs. Floy Wyer 
of Modesto, who has one son, Cecil. Mrs. Henley�s parents were natives of Iowa. 
 
     The story of the event that was instrumental in bringing Mr. Henley to 
California is not the least interesting feature of his biography. In 1889, while 
he was living in Northwest Iowa, he was caught by a terrible storm that carried 
damage to a wide and long stretch of country and fell under a nearly fatal 
lightning stroke. After that he was long in the hospital, and when, at length, 
he was discharged he had lost the use of his limbs, partly from paralysis caused 
by his accident, and partly from disuse, and was so impaired in health and 
vitality that his physician advised him to seek the recuperative influence of a 
milder climate. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 508, 509