Tulare County Biographies

JAMES H. MAY

Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

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

 
     Natives of the South have always been warmly welcomed to California and 
none more so than sons of Alabama. James H. May was born in the state just 
mentioned and went early in life to Montgomery county, Ark., where he was in 
office fourteen years either as tax collector or sheriff. When the Civil war 
began he issued a call for volunteers and quickly recruited a company of three 
hundred and thirteen men, nine of whom returned to Arkansas alive. He rose to be 
a major and later served as lieutenant-colonel of his regiment. Three of his 
sons were lost in the war, one being instantly killed in a charge within ten 
feet of the Union breastworks. In 1865 he became a cattleman in Texas, 
accumulated two thousand head of cattle, and prospered well until his business 
was ruined by dry seasons. He came to California in 1869 as captain of a train 
of ox-teams and later found in Tulare county some cattle that he had owned in 
Texas and marked with his brand �MAY�, which had been driven overland by another 
man. 
 
     Mr. May left Texas with one hundred and ten families in his train. In 
Arizona all but seven of these families were killed by Indians or died from 
sickness. His account of these events was very interesting. Until 1874 he teamed 
at and near Porterville. Then he raised sheep and cattle until he was driven out 
of business by the dry season of 1877, when his stock died. He was for a number 
of years road master of his district and in 1879-80 built the road across the 
Blue Ridge in the mountains. He served also as constable in the Tule River 
district. 
 
     Miss Caroline Hockett, a sister of the famous John Hockett, who came to 
California before the discovery of gold, became the wife of Mr. May, and their 
children who survive are: James J.; Mrs. R. T. Hogancamp, of Bakersfield, Cal.; 
and Mrs., Victoria M. Clarke. There were other children who are now dead. The 
father passed away in 1888, the mother seven years earlier. 
 
     The only surviving son of James H. and Caroline (Hockett) May is James J. 
May, who lives a half mile south of East Mineral King avenue, near Visalia. He 
was born in Montgomery county, Ark., and assisted his father in the latter�s 
farming operations until the elder May died in 1888. Then for a time he teamed 
in Kern county and afterward farmed ten years near Tipton and from there moved 
to Exeter, where for six years he operated the farming land on the Las Palomas 
ranch. He came to his present homestead in 1899. Here he owns forty acres which 
he has developed from wild, rough land to a productive ranch with an adequate 
irrigation system. He gives his attention principally to fruit and has planted 
six acres to prunes, twenty to Bartlett pears and two to peaches. 
 
     Fraternally Mr. May affiliates with the Masonic lodge at Visalia, Tulare 
City lodge No. 306, I. O. O. F., and the local organization of the Woodmen of 
the World. As a citizen he is popular and he has in a public-spirited way done 
much for the benefit of the community. In 1885 he married Miss May E. Boas, a 
native of California, whose father settled at Lemon Cove in the early �50s. She 
has borne him four children: Loyal A.; Frank H.; Lena, who is the wife of Arthur 
T. Dowse of Oakland, and Ruby. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 504, 505