Tulare County Biographies

Henry Christopher Roes

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
A native of Hanover, Germany, Henry Christopher Roes, who now lives three and a 
half miles southeast of Dinuba in Tulare county, Cal.. was born November 10, 
1835. He received the usual common school education of the place and time and 
when he was in his fourteenth year came over seas to New York. There he attended 
night school and was for six years a clerk in a grocery store. Then he came to 
California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, sailing to Aspinwall, crossing the 
Isthmus on foot and transporting his baggage on a mule, and from Panama came to 
'Frisco [San Francisco] on a ship that had come around the Horn. The voyage from 
Panama to San Francisco consumed eight days and was not marked by any accident. 
After a short stay in 'Frisco Mr. Roes went to Stockton, where during the 
ensuing eighteen months he was proprietor of a general store. Then for three 
years he was mining in Calaveras county, where he and a man named Hines staked 
out a claim and were measurably successful, taking out some days as much as $50 
worth of ore, but not being experienced miners they lost in one way or another 
about as much as they made. Returning to Stockton, Mr. Roes operated a grocery 
six months, then went to La Grange, where he mined until 1868. Early in that 
year he went to Europe, and returning he made a tour of the Southern states and 
in November was in South California when General Grant was elected president the 
first time. About two years later he started for San Francisco by way of Panama. 
He arrived in San Francisco in February, 1870, and soon went to Stanislaus 
county, where he was for three years a merchant. His next place of residence was 
Merced, which was then coming into prominence by reason of the building of the 
railroad. There he dealt in lumber. It was in Merced that he married Miss Louisa 
Snedeker, of French descent and a native of New Orleans, in 1874. She bore him 
two children, Edna L. and Edna Louisa. The latter has passed away. Edna L. 
married W. E. Rushing, a native of Texas. Mrs. Roes died in 1887.
Mr. Roes sold his lumber yard two years before he was married and started in the 
sheep business in the Smith mountain district. At one time he was the owner of 
twelve thousand head of Spanish Merinos, had other important interests and was 
in receipt of a salary of $125 a month and expenses as manager. The country all 
about him was in a state of nature. Standing on the mountain with a spy glass, 
he could see sheep, cattle, horses and antelope for many miles in every 
direction. Many herds of antelope contained as many as fifty or sixty animals 
and he killed many antelope for meat. Deer and bear were numerous in the 
mountains. He had but few neighbors and one of them, in his early days there, 
was Mr. Edmonson. He was in the sheep business eighteen years and made many 
thousand dollars. He left it to engage in wheat growing and eventually 
homesteaded and improved land. The business had not been without its 
disadvantages. Many of his sheep had been killed by bear and his loss by 
accident and disease was sometimes heavy. He was twenty-two-miles, distant from 
Visalia, his nearest market town, which he had frequently to visit for many 
purposes, on one memorable occasion running his horse nearly the whole distance. 
The journey to and fro consumed a day or more time. There being no roads a part 
of the way was necessarily difficult. About six years ago he bought twenty acres 
which he has devoted to vines and alfalfa and he has charge of twenty acres, the 
property of another man. He has been particularly successful with the Thompson 
seedless grapes.
When he was twenty-three years old Mr. Roes became a member of the Masonic order 
and he has been identified with the Blue Lodge at Merced since 1899. In his 
politics he is Republican. He is a communicant of the German Lutheran church.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 856-858