Tulare County Biographies

HENRY C. HORSMAN

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
Of Kentuckians who have become prominent in Tulare county, Henry C. Horsman of 
Dinuba is, perhaps, as highly regarded as any. He was born in Daviess county, in 
that grand old state, in 1844. His father was a native of Virginia and his 
mother was a Kentuckian by birth and ancestry. When he was five years old, which 
was in 1849, his family removed to Illinois, and thereafter he did not leave 
that state until in 1861, after he had enlisted in Company H, Twenty-sixth 
Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. By re-enlistment he served four years and 
was finally discharged at Louisville, Ky., and given papers testifying to his 
bravery and fidelity as a soldier. It is somewhat remarkable that he 
participated in twenty-seven hard-fought engagements without receiving a wound, 
and it is to his credit that he enlisted as a private and rose to be a corporal.
It was not until 1884 that Mr. Horsman came to California. He homesteaded land 
in Tulare county and the woman who later became his wife also acquired 
government land. All of this he sold when he removed to his present homestead 
near Dinuba, where he raised grain a number of years, but eventually turned his 
attention to fruit and vines. For his ranch, which is one of the most beautiful 
in this vicinity, he paid $47 an acre ten years ago, and today it could not be 
bought for $500 an acre.
The lady who was the wife of Mr. Horsman's youth was Nancy E. Smith, a native of 
Illinois, who came with him to California in 1884 and died in the fall of that 
year. In 1886 he married Lydia E. Hoskins, a native of Oregon, who had come to 
California. Mr. Horsman is a patriotic citizen, who has in a public-spirited way 
done much for the community and has been called to some public offices, which he 
has filled with ability and credit. All who know him deem him a Christian 
gentleman, having at heart the welfare of mankind, and there are not a few who 
have felt his kindly influence for good and his generous helpfulness.
By his first wife Mr. Horsman had one child, Clarence E. Horsman, who is 
identified with the educational profession of Tulare county as a public school 
teacher, having followed this profession for about twenty years. He was 
principal of the Orosi grammar school six years and has been principal of the 
Dinuba grammar school four years. He is at present in charge of the public 
school at Venice in Tulare county. Mrs. Horsman is a member of the local W. C. 
T. U. and has given much active attention to the upbuilding of that society. She 
was president of the local organization for four years, then became president of 
the Tulare and Kings county W. C. T. U., which position she held with great 
ability. Mrs. Horsman is a daughter of the Golden West. She was born in Douglas 
County, Oregon, and came with her parents, William and Peninah (Hobson) Hoskins, 
to California in 1867, when she was thirteen years of age, and settled in Tulare 
county in 1873.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 539-540