Tulare County Biographies

ANDERSON W. LEE

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
It was in Indiana that Anderson W. Lee, who now lives four miles southeast of 
Dinuba, Tulare county, was born March 22, 1867. There he lived until in 1889, 
for three years thereafter making his home in Illinois and Missouri. On March 1, 
1893, he came to Tulare county, Cal., finding the country round about the site 
of his present home practically a vast wheat field. Dinuba had two small stores, 
there was a little store at Orosi and at Sultana no beginning had been made.
He was a daily observer of the building of the railroad in his part of the 
county and often saw many ten and twelve horse teams awaiting the unloading of 
the wagons which they had hauled out to the line. Soon after coming to the 
county he bought eighty acres of land at $45 an acre and planted twelve acres to 
vineyard, twelve to trees and gave most of the remainder to alfalfa. He early 
had a twenty-five acre melon patch from which he sold in one season about $2,000 
worth of melons, feeding about as many more to his hogs. His place is well 
planted to young vines and he has raised twenty-five tons of peaches on five 
acres of six-year-old trees and in 1912 planted twenty-five acres to peaches. He 
keeps eighty head of stock, besides four good horses.
In politics Mr. Lee is a Socialist, and fraternally he affiliates with the 
Woodmen of the World. In Johnson county, Mo., he married Miss Mary E. Null, a 
native of that state and whose parents crossed the plains with ox teams to 
California. The party of which the Nulls were members were often menaced by 
Indians, who drove off their cattle but killed none of the emigrants. Among 
pioneers known to this family was Charles Crow, who crossed the Isthmus of 
Panama on foot. Among Mr. Lee's household possessions is a quart bottle weighing 
four pounds which was brought overland to California in 1852. Anderson W. and 
Mary Ellen (Null) Lee have three daughters and one son: Lilly M., Mary Z., Ruby 
E. and James W. Lilly M. has completed her school studies and is now studying 
music. Mary Z. is a student in the high school at Dinuba ; while James W. and 
Ruby E. are attending grammar school.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 816-817