Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

HOWARD REED

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
A far-sighted, progressive rancher, who by hard work, strict integrity and 
initiative ability has established a place for himself among the leading 
citizens of Yuba County, is Howard Reed, who was born in Yolo County near 
Sacramento, January 12, 1874, a son of C. W. and Abbie Brown (Jenks) Reed, 
natives of New York and Illinois, respectively.  His father came to California 
in 1855 via the Isthmus of Panama and settled on a quarter section of Sacramento 
river-bottom land.  Through untiring effort and hard work he cleared this land 
and set it out to pears and a fine orchard property was developed.  He shipped 
his first carload of pears to the eastern market and accompanied the shipment 
personally.  At one time he had fifty-two varieties of pears in his orchard.  C. 
W. Reed and his wife were the parents of six children: Marvin Dudley, Charles 
Wesley, Jr., Norman, who died from the effects of accidental poisoning when he 
was an infant; Howard, the subject of this sketch; Hayward and Rowena.  C. W. 
Reed died in 1893, at the age of sixty-five years.  Mrs. Reed died when she was 
seventy-two years old.
Howard Reed attended the grammar and high schools of Sacramento.  A few years 
after the death of his father he went to work as a foreman and superintendent on 
his father�s property.  He then worked with his brother, who had acquired one of 
his father�s places; and in 1902 he came to Yuba County and purchased the 
200-acre New England orchard.  The fall of the same year, he bought the El Rio 
orchard, formerly owned by Senator Woodward; the two ranches were combined and 
called the New England Orchard and embraced approximately 600 acres of land 
which was devoted to farming and fruit raising.  Mr. Reed sold this ranch, but 
in 1918 he returned and purchased 325 acres of the old New England Orchard, 
which was devoted mostly to pears.  The orchard was in a very poor condition and 
Mr. Reed has exerted the utmost effort since that time in bringing it back into 
shape.  Mr. Reed uses a new cure for blight menace and now has it under control; 
and by this newly discovered treatment he can save nearly every tree that is 
affected with the blight.  The fruit raised on this orchard is the finest in 
quality grown in the Golden State and is in great demand, the various California 
canning companies bidding to get this fruit.  Mr. Reed is putting in a 
sixteen-inch well and a large pump which will add greatly to the water supply.  
He has been attracting considerable interest by planting 212 acres on the Yuba 
River to Blight Resistant pears, which is an entirely new departure in the pear 
industry.
In October, 1896, Howard Reed was untied in marriage with Miss Edith Colburn 
Cooley, a native of Marysville, Cal., and the daughter of George S. and Anna 
Cooley.  Her father, who is an old-timer, is still living.  Miss Cooley was 
reared and educated in Marysville and is the oldest of the five children born to 
Mr. and Mrs. Cooley, the rest of the family being: Edward S., Ellen L., Anita, 
and George (who died when he was fifteen years old).  Mr. and Mrs. Reed are the 
parents of three children: Charles Wesley, George S., and Rosalind.  Mr. Reed 
maintains a non-partisan attitude in national politics and votes for the man 
rather than the party.  Fraternally, he is a member of the Marysville Lodge No. 
783, B.P.O.E., and of Shamrock Camp, W.O.W., having passed through the chairs of 
the latter.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 1227