Tulare County Biographies

M. F. SINGLETON

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
Back in Indiana, a state from which many men have come to California to find 
here signal successes, M. F. Singleton, of Ducor, Tulare county, Cal., was born 
in 1862. When he was about twenty-two years old he went to Kansas, where he 
remained but a short time, coming on to California and arriving in Tulare county 
August 27, 1884. Such education as was available to him he obtained in public 
schools in the Hoosier state, but as he was obliged to go to work for a living 
when he was fifteen years old his literary training was necessarily not very 
liberal. He came to the county alone and for four years worked by the day as a 
farm hand, and his first land was a homestead of eighty acres, which he took up 
soon after he came. By later purchases he has acquired five other eighty-acre 
tracts and now owns four hundred and eighty acres. At one time his holdings 
included other land which brought them up to a total of six hundred and eighty 
acres. He is now raising grain in goodly quantities, being located six miles 
from Ducor.
In 1888 Mr. Singleton married Miss Eva J. Hunsaker, a native of Tulare county, 
who died in 1898. In 1902 he married Miss Clara E. Gibbons. By his first 
marriage he had five children, Claude F., Louis I., Nettie E., Elsie and Nora. 
Fraternally Mr. Singleton affiliates with Porterville lodge, No. 359, I. O. O. 
F., and with the Porterville organization of the Woodmen of the World. While he 
is not a practical politician and has never sought office, he was, in 1910, 
elected to represent the fifth district of Tulare county in the board of 
supervisors. This is said to be the largest and wealthiest district of the 
county. He has never accepted any other official position, but he is not without 
honor as a public-spirited citizen and as a self-made man, who having begun at 
the very bottom of the ladder of success, has gained eminence in a fair and 
square struggle for advancement in which he has always been willing to give 
generous aid and honorable dealing. In the days before he was himself a 
landowner he was instrumental in inducing a well-known farmer to have a well put 
down on his place. It is worthy of note that this well was the first in the 
Ducor district for agricultural purposes.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 797-798