Tulare County Biographies

WILLIAM P. RATLIFF

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
W. P. Ratliff has been postmaster at Tulare since May 1, 1902, having received 
his original appointment under President Roosevelt in the preceding April. He 
has been a local leader in the Republican party, has served on state and county 
central committees, has been city assessor and city treasurer of Tulare and 
president and secretary of the Board of Trade. Fraternally he affiliates with 
Olive Branch Lodge No. 269, F. & A. M., in which he was made a Mason and in 
which he is past master; with Tulare Chapter No. 71, R. A. M., in which he is 
past high priest; with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and with the Woodmen 
of the World. With the members of these orders he is no more popular than in the 
business and social circles of the city and county.
In Oskaloosa, Iowa, Mr. Ratliff was born October 12, 1859, a son of John and 
Elizabeth (Madden) Ratliff. John Ratliff was a son of William Ratliff, whose 
father, a native of the Isle of Man, settled in Pennsylvania. William moved from 
Pennsylvania to Indiana and later pushed on to Iowa. When his parents left 
Pennsylvania John was but a small boy. In his early manhood he settled on a farm 
in Iowa, but the stories of gold in California which came to him in the late 
'40s awoke within him a spirit of adventure. He crossed the plains in 1850 and 
prospected and mined for eight years, then went back to Iowa by way of the 
Isthmus of Panama and New York. He made a brief stop in New York City and there 
married Elizabeth Madden, a native of Dublin, Ireland, whose brother Michael had 
shared the ups and downs of mining with him in California. At the beginning of 
1860, when their son William P. was about three months old, John Ratliff, who 
had stopped in Iowa to settle up some business preparatory to his intended 
return to California, was killed by being thrown from a horse. His widow brought 
their child to California before the close of that year and found a home in 
Plumas county, where she later married E. H. Holthouse, to whom she bore four 
sons and a daughter, who live in Santa Clara county. The family moved to a farm 
near Lawrence Station, not far from San Jose, in 1870. There Mrs. Holthouse died 
as the result of an accidental fall in 1902, when she was in her sixty-ninth 
year. Her son, William P. Ratliff, supplemented a common school education by a 
three years' course in Santa Clara College, then became a clerk in the employ of 
T. W. Spring. In 1882 he came to Tulare and became a brakeman in the employ of 
the Southern Pacific Railroad company. In a year he was made conductor of a 
train running between Tulare and Huron. In 1888 he identified himself with the 
business of Braly & Blythe, real estate agents and representatives of the 
Wells-Fargo Express Company. He withdrew from that connection in 1892 to become 
cashier of the Tulare County Bank and the Tulare Savings Bank. In August, 1896, 
he resigned to accept the assistant cashiership of the Bank of Tulare, which he 
held until February, 1901, when he removed to Kern county as superintendent of 
two oil companies operating in the Kern River oil field. There he fell a victim 
to typhoid fever, which held him to his bed for five months. Meanwhile he was 
taken to San Francisco, where better attention and care were possible than he 
was receiving in Kern county. He came back to Tulare in November, 1901, and a 
few months later accepted the cashiership of the Bank of Tulare, which he held 
until his appointment as postmaster.
June 5, 1888, Mr. Ratliff married Alice Harter, a native of Stockton and a 
daughter of Isaac and Matilda (Parker) Harter, pioneers in California. Their 
wedding was celebrated in Tulare and there their son Clinton P. was born.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 870-871