Tulare County Biographies

P. A. McLEAN

Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

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


     Of Scotch highland stock and born in Canada, P. A. McLean, of Tulare has 
demonstrated the potency of the influences that were back of him in the 
production of good American citizenship. He has also shown what a man of the 
right kind may hope to accomplish in California, if he makes it his business to 
succeed. It was at Milton, across our northern border, that he first saw the 
light of day, November 22, 1842. His parents were natives of Scotland, and his 
mother of the clan of the Camerons. She was descendant of Lord John Cameron, and 
her brother, Capt. John Cameron, came to California as early as 1832, later saw 
service in the West under Fremont, and eventually was killed in the battle of 
Monterey, in our war with Mexico. So passed an old Indian fighter whose history 
is a part of the history of California. 
 
     P. A. McLean has had many interesting and not a few thrilling experiences. 
Seven years he sailed on the oceans, visiting about every important port in the 
world. Off the coast of Africa he was shipwrecked and for four days and nights 
was afloat on a spar. He was a comrade of �Buffalo Bill� Cody, shooting 
buffaloes with him on the plains and fighting Indians shoulder to shoulder with 
that picturesque American hero. It all happened in the period in which the Union 
Pacific railroad was being constructed across the continent. Several times he 
was wounded, and to his grave he will carry a bullet in his body. Through his 
participation in Indian wars, and otherwise, he became acquainted with most of 
the famous chiefs of his time. Manny years in the saddle, he participated in 
some of the famous rides that add spice to western history. It is of record that 
he made the trip from Dayton to Lewiston, sixty miles, in six hours, and rode 
from Spokane to Walla Walla, one hundred and fifty miles, in eighteen hours. He 
helped to locate government posts in Washington, and was one of the first white 
man to pilot a raft down Lake Chelan. He tells how plentiful deer and bear were 
along the lake. At Cheney, Wash., he built the first bank and the first 
gristmill, and later had a blacksmith shop, and the earliest gristmill at 
Spokane was erected by him. 
 
     In his native town, Mr. McLean learned the trades of blacksmith and 
carriage maker, though his apprenticeship was finished at St. Johnsbury, Vt. 
After a time he found employment on the Vermont Central railroad, and in 1866 he 
went to Chicago, where, a few years later, he built the first cabin after the 
Great Fire on the site of the old postoffice on Dearborn street. But meantime he 
was busy elsewhere, for in 1869 he rode into Las Angeles, Cal., and saw an old 
and not very promising cluster of adobe houses, relics of a former civilization, 
and that was about all. His trip on horseback from there took him to Idaho and 
Washington. It was on the 7th of November, 1876, that he made his first 
appearance in Tulare county, riding astride a mustang. He has lived there most 
of the time since, always identified with the county�s growth and development. 
For a long time he made his home in Visalia, where he had a blacksmith shop, but 
did a good deal of carpentering. He it was who framed the first joist that went 
into the construction of the old courthouse, and into the same historic 
structure he put the doors and built the bench for the judge. For six years he 
blacksmithed in Exeter, and from there he moved back to Visalia. He later rented 
a shop in Cochrane. He drifted to Visalia and was in the liquor business there 
four years, and in 1907 he ran a hotel in Cochrane, and came back to Tulare, 
August, 1909, where he now runs a shop. It was in the year 1888 that he bought 
the old Lyle ranch, two miles east of Visalia. He is now the owner of a house in 
Visalia and of the Rosenthal ranch, north of the town, which is stocked and 
rented. He has one hundred and sixty acres in Fresno county and town property in 
Fresno, and property in Kings and Riverside and Sonoma counties, besides his old 
blacksmith and carriage shop at Tulare and with the supervision of his property. 
Public office has been thrust upon him time to time. He was a deputy sheriff in 
Vermont, a justice of the peace at Cheney, Wash., and a school trustee at 
Cochrane, Cal. He helped to organize the Odd fellows lodge at Cochrane and the 
Knights of Pythias lodge at Visalia, also helped organize the K. of P. and I. O. 
O. F. in Exeter, and holds membership in both with due honor. He was a charter 
member also of the Odd Fellows lodge at Exeter. August 22, 1878, he married Miss 
Sarah M. Thomas, and they have a daughter, Sarah F. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 Pp 336, 337, 338