Tulare County Biographies

ANDREW J. SCOGGINS

Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

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

 
     Among the well-known pioneers of Tulare county is numbered Andrew J. 
Scoggins, son of David Green and Martha (Breedlove) Scoggins, who was born May 
28, 1828, in Alabama. His parents were natives of North Carolina. Their family 
moved at a comparatively early date to Tennessee and were among pioneers in 
Roane county and later in another county in that state and the father prospered 
fairly as a farmer and as a tanner. When Andrew was twenty-two years old he 
settled in Arkansas, but finding the country unhealthy removed to southwest 
Missouri. In 1848, before leaving his old home in Tennessee, he married Miss 
Julia Buttram, a native of that state, who bore him a daughter, Martha Ann, who 
eventually married the Rev. L. C. Renfroe of the Methodist church and bore him 
children, Maud and Louis. Mrs. Scoggins died October 3, 1853. On October 3, 
1856, he married Miss Rebecca Cleek, a native of Tennessee, whom he brought 
across the plains to the Far West. The journey was made in the warm part of the 
year 1857 and he started with two hundred head of cattle and lost a few along 
the way. The start was made from Fort Scott and the Platte river was reached at 
Fort Kearney. The latter part of the journey was made by the southern route and 
Mr. Scoggins settled in Yolo county, then a wild country in which he found wild 
oats higher than his head. By his second marriage Mr. Scoggins had nine 
children: Margaret M., Byron, Josephine, Nettie, John L., Frank, Pearl W., A. J. 
and an infant unnamed. The three last mentioned have passed away. Margaret M. 
married C. Fremont Giddons and has three sons and a daughter. Byron has not 
married. Josephine married Travers Welch and bore him one child who has won 
success as a teacher at Fresno, where the family lives. Nettie married C. L. 
Knestric of Dinuba and has a daughter. Frank married Belle Ellis, daughter of J. 
W. Ellis of Visalia, and has two sons and a daughter. Mr. Scoggins has nine 
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.  
 
     Mr. Scoggins crossed the plains the second time, the journey being made in 
comparative safety, there having been no trouble with the Indians. He came to 
Hanford in 1866 and lived south of that town for ten years. He bought land of 
the railroad company at $12.50 an acres and passed through the experiences which 
culminated in the Mussel Slough tragedy and the subsequent settlement of 
questions at issue between settlers and the railroad company. One of his 
recollections is of having seen Mr. Crow after the latter had been shot down. He 
went for a time to Texas to raise sheep and fed many sheep in Colusa county, 
Cal. He had now entered upon what may be termed his second period of prosperity. 
In 1870 he had paid taxes on property valued at $350,000 and the opening of the 
year 1876 had found him poor. He began to raise grain, operating extensively in 
Colusa county, where he grew ten thousand sacks of wheat in one memorable season 
and was known as a leading wheat producer in that part of the state. In the 
spring of 1888 he owned eleven thousand sheep and sheared four hundred. His 
house in Colusa county, a brick structure which cost $15,000, was the finest 
house in the county at the time of his residence there. On coming to Dinuba he 
bought fifty acres of land a mile and a half southwest of the town and has given 
ten acres to his heirs. He has thirty acres in grapes and a fine family orchard. 

     The country in this region was new when Mr. Scoggins first beheld it. Sheep 
and cattle were fed everywhere, wild game was plenty and he often saw large 
herds of antelope which at a distance looked like bands of sheep. Not only has 
he participated in the development of the country, but as a public-spirited 
citizen he has aided it in every way possible. In politics he calls himself a 
Bryan Democrat. He has long been a Mason and is also an Odd Fellow. He and 
members of his family are communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 -Pp 269, 270