Fresno County, 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 JOHN LEE SCOGGINS.� A successful viticulturist who, after ex- tensive investigation, finds the soil and climate in Empire most suitable to raisin-growing, and also a native son who is greatly interested in California history, is J. L. Scoggins, who was born in Colusa, Cal., on October 6, 1866. His father, A. J. Scoggins, was born in Alabama, and when two years old was taken by his parents to Tennessee where he was reared. Grandfather Scoggins had an honorable part as a soldier in the Mexican War, and A. J., who inherited the same intrepid spirit, crossed the great plains in 1853 to California and settled in Yolo County, where he was a farmer. His first wife died there, and in 1856 he returned east and in Tennessee married Rebecca Ann Cleeke, a native of that state. With his wife, Mr. Scoggins, in 1857, started to cross the plains, but having stopped to winter in Arkansas he did not reach California until the following year. He made his way again to Yolo County, and soon bought a farm near Colusa, in Colusa County, and there became a large landowner, widely known as a grain-farmer and stock- man. In 1875 he removed to Sonoma County, but after a year took up his residence, in January, 1877, in Tulare, now Kings County, where he engaged in farming. He bought railroad lands and improved them, but in the fall of 1883 he removed to Texas. Four years later he returned to California and busied himself as a viticulturist at Dinuba, in Tulare County, and there he died. A daughter by the first marriage died in Tulare, and Mrs. Scoggins also passed away there, the mother of four boys and three girls, all of whom are now living save one son. The fifth eldest in the family, J. L. Scoggins. was brought up in Tulare and Kings Counties and there attended the public schools, meanwhile learn- ing grain-farming. He continued home until he was eighteen, when he went to work on a ranch in the employ of Ed. Giddings. During a service of ten years he was made foreman, and then he engaged with A. W. Clark of Messrs. Clark & Kennedy, the grain-farmers and stockmen of Dinuba. He was with them eighteen years, and became superintendent of their stock- raising. During this time Mr. Scoggins improved a forty-acre vineyard at Dinuba, which he set out to Thompson seedless and muscat grapes ; and five years ago he quit the service of Clark & Kennedy to manage his own place. In 1916 he sold his holding and bought his' present ranch on Thompson Avenue. Fresno County. This was a tract of forty acres in the California Bank sec- tion, and only fourteen acres were set out with Thompson grapes; and in 1917 he set out sixteen acres more. He provided irrigation from the ditch, sunk a well and put in a pumping-plant, and since then he has been improving his property in many ways. until it is now one of the finest ranches of its size in the locality. On Washington's Birthday, 1917, Mr. Scoggins was married at Fresno to Mrs. Emily K. (McKinsey) Liggett, a native of Columbus, Kans., and the daughter of Samuel McKinsey. He was born in Indiana, and during the Civil War served in an Indiana regiment known as Wilder's Scouts. He moved to Columbus, Kans., became a farmer and died in Kansas. He had married Anna Rash, a native of Indiana ; and she came to Fresno in 1900 and resided here until she died, twelve years later. She was the mother of three children, and among these Mrs. Scoggins was the second oldest. Her first marriage occurred in San Francisco, when she became the wife of Harry Lig- gett, who represented the New York Life Insurance Company, and who died in Nevada in 1903. Mr. and Mrs. Scoggins attend the Methodist Episcopal Church, and are greatly interested in all good works that make for the uplift of the community, and he is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.