Ventura County Biographies

BURTON L. MUNGER, Sr. 

Submitted by Carolyn Feroben

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

 
Various members of the Munger family have been actively identified with Ventura 
County for over forty years. As a family they have helped forward the 
development work and especially diversified horticulture of this region.

Dexter X. Munger, father of Burton L., was born in Genesee County, New York, in 
1836, was reared and educated there, being a college man, and in 1857 remove 
with this parents to Shiawasee county, Michigan. The father of Dexter was one of 
the pioneer lumbermen of that region, and buying a large tract of timber land he 
erected a planning mill an on his land established the Town of Mungerville. In 
order to attract permanent residents he gave each settler an acre of ground.

Dexter Munger found employment in his father�s mill at Mungerville but in 1861 
subordinated all personal interests to the welfare of his county, and enlisted 
in the Ninth Michigan Cavalry. A portion of this regiment afterwards had the 
distinction of capturing Jefferson Davis. Later he became captain of a company 
and served until the close of the war in 1865. He then re-enlisted in the 
Veteran Reserve Corps and was second in command at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, 
during the Indian troubles on the northwestern frontier. In 1867 he returned to 
Mungerville, Michigan, to take charge of his father�s estate. In 1869 he removed 
to Tullahoma, Tennessee, and was a merchant there until he came out to 
California in 1876. Locating at Nordhoff in Ventura County, he bought sixty-five 
acres of land and set out the olive grove which now distinguishes that tract 
under the name Los Olivas. He sold this olive grove in 1880 to his son, and 
removed to Boston, Massachusetts, where he was actively identified with he 
mercantile business for a number of years. In October 1889, having sold his 
eastern interest he returned to California and while visiting his sons in Santa 
Paula died in January, 1890. Dexter Munger was a republican and a member of the 
Methodist church. He was married in Orleans County, New York, to Miss Jennie 
Warren. They were the parents of two sons: Seymour of Nordhoff, California, and 
Berton Lorenzo.

Berton Lorenzo Munger was born in Mungerville, Michigan, June 15, 1858. He had 
the advantages of the public schools there until 1869, and afterward attended 
school at Tullahoma, Tennessee, until he was seventeen. On coming to California 
with his father he took up farming at Nordhoff in Ventura County, and in 1880, 
as already stated, he and his brother Seymour bought their father�s olive grove. 
In 1887 Berton Munger sold his interests in that property, and removed to San 
Bernardino County and had charge of some lime works for six months. ON returning 
to Santa Paula he put in three yeas with the Hardison-Steward Oil Company, and 
then became manager of the Hardison Horse and Cattle Company a business which 
engaged all his time and attention for twelve years. Some years ago Mr. Munger 
bought fifty acres west of Santa Paula, and now has it developed, eight acres in 
lemons, twenty-five acres in beans, and the rest in pasture.

Mr. Munger is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, is a republican in 
politics, and a member of the Presbyterian Church.

In the Ojai Valley of Ventura County in August, 1888, he married Miss Elizabeth 
Gamble. They have four sturdy sons. Elwood is connected with the Union Oil 
Company at Fullerton, California. The other three, Heathcoat, Berton L., Jr., 
and John, are all engaged in ranching in Ventura County. Mrs. Munger is a native 
of Ireland and a daughter of John Gamble. She is the nice of John Pinkerton, 
deceased, who was one of the first to buy land from Senator R. R. Bard in the 
upper Ojai.
 
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917. pp 580-581