California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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


WILLARD F. PLATE. � One who has many recollections of persons, 
occasions and places in Central California, is Willard F. Plate, a New Yorker 
by birth, born in Niagara County, fourteen miles east of Niagara Falls, on the 
Erie Canal, on May 1, 1845. His father, Henry Plate, was born in Fayette, 
Seneca County, N. Y., and located in Niagara County where he married Jane 
Flanders, a native of the same county. He was a farmer there, but in 1868 
moved to Macomb County, Mich., where he continued to farm, and where he 
died almost eighty years of age. Mrs Plate also died there, at an advanced 
age. They had three children, and all are living. 

Willard F. was the oldest, and he was reared on a farm and attended 
the public schools, including the Lockport High School ; and on completion 
of his studies he went into the oil-fields near Zanesville, Ohio, where he 
helped drill wells. Then he worked as a pumper, delivering oil to McCon- 
nelsville. Having saved some money, he went to Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 
1866, to attend the Eastman Business College, from which he was grad- 
uated the following year ; and on returning home he was married to Miss 
Lizzie Tennant, a native of Niagara County, N. Y. He farmed for a year, and 
in 1868 moved to Macomb County, Mich., where he resumed farming and, 
with his father, bought a farm. He was not satisfied, however, so in May, 
1874, he came west to California. 

He could then have bought lots just adjoining the City Hall in San 
Francisco, but meeting Mr. Gould, he accepted a post as superintendent of 
the Gould Ditch and so came to Fresno County. In 1875 he was busy shear- 
ing sheep in Fresno, and he sheared sheep on the site of the present residence 
of Frank Short, between K and L streets. He ran a level for engineers, and 
so helped run a level for the flume into Clovis. Mr. Plate helped put in a dam 
at the Eisen vineyard ; and later he built a water wheel on Fancher Creek. 
He also helped make the first vintage in Fresno County in 1877, at the Eisen 
vineyard. In 1877, he joined Mr. Fleming as a partner in the Fleming Livery 
Stable at the corner of Mariposa and J streets, on the present site of Bow- 
man's drug store ; but the dry year of 1877 came and he sold out to Mr. Flem- 
ing and went to Boise City, Idaho. 

After working at mechanical work there for two years, he was sent for 
by the Gould Canal Company and made superintendent of the canal, then for 
three years he followed mechanical work in and out of Fresno, but in 1904 
he went to San Francisco and engaged in carpentering and building. After 
that he went to Butte County and helped put in the woodwork of the Butte 
County canal. At the end of the summer he was back again in San Francisco, 
just in time to experience the earthquake. 

After Air. Plate's return to Fresno County, he worked awhile as a carpen- 
ter, and then he went back again to San Francisco and engaged with the 
building department of the Southern Pacific Railroad. He was also in the 
employ of Horst Bros., at Sacramento, and he assisted to put in the first 
hop-picking machines. At the end of five seasons, with that well-known firm 
he returned to Fresno for the last time. This was in the spring of 1915, when 
he leased his present place on Cole Avenue, near Clinton, where he started 
to raise and feed hogs for the market. He has continued in this line, with 
increasing success. 

Two sons and two daughters have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Plate: 
Nora, who is Mrs. Barr of Fresno ; Cora, with the Rosenberg Company ; 
Charles, with the Associated Oil Company; and William, a rancher at the 
corner of Palm and Trenton streets. In politics, Mr. Plate is a Socialist, but 
first, last and all the time he is an American.