Tulare County Biographies

WILLIAM SWALL

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
The life story of William Swall, one of the large landowners of the Visalia 
district and one of the honored citizens of Tulare county, a model of honesty 
and enterprise and foremost in all good works, is a most interesting one. He was 
born in LaSalle county, Ill., November 5, 1848, a son of Mathias and Elizabeth 
(Hayne) Swall, both natives of Germany, the father born in Berlin, January 24, 
1824.
In 1840, Mathias Swall came to America in an old-time sailing vessel and settled 
in LaSalle county, Ill., where he married April 16, 1847. There he farmed till 
1865, in the summer of that year coming to California by way of Panama. He 
remained that winter on a farm near San Jose, and in the fall of 1866 settled 
near Tracy, San Joaquin county. His land there he sold in 1871, when he went to 
Monterey county, and farmed and raised stock until in 1877, when he moved to 
Ventura county. Thence he went to Sherman, Los Angeles county, late in 1882. He 
farmed and conducted a dairy almost to the time of his death in May, 1896. His 
widow still lives at Sherman. In religion Mr. Swall was a Catholic, in politics 
a Democrat.
First born of his parents' family of two daughters and nine sons, William Swall 
secured what education he could in the public school near his Illinois home. 
Later he attended school in Santa Clara county, Cal., and was for a term a 
student at the San Jose Institute. Meantime he had become a practical farmer of 
wide and accurate knowledge. In 1873 he homesteaded eighty acres of land in 
Tulare county and later bought land along the Tule river. In 1884 he moved to 
his present farm of seventeen hundred acres, known as Deep Creek Ranch, which as 
he has improved it is one of the finest properties in the county, and has four 
hundred acres in peaches, prunes, pears, apples, plums, nectarines and English 
walnuts. He owns all in all seventeen hundred acres, and his extensive 
operations necessitate the renting of an additional thousand acres, which he 
devotes to stock and fruit. As a farmer he has been well-informed and up-to-date 
in all respects. He employs on his ranch from thirty to fifty men. His dairy has 
an electric power plant for pumping water, and there is a similar plant for 
lighting his house and barns. The place is provided with an adequate and 
convenient water system. It is one of the notable alfalfa farms of the district, 
having six hundred acres set apart for that crop.
From time to time Mr. Swall has diverted his energies from the farm to the town 
and he is a director of the Bank of Tulare, a director of the Tulare 
Co-operative Creamery Company, a stock�holder of the Tulare Telephone Company 
and a director in the Rochdale stores of Tulare. He has been prominent in the 
promotion of irrigation and was one of the originators of the Tulare Irrigation 
District. Since 1903 he has been one of the directors of the district. A 
Republican, interested in all public questions but never an office seeker, he 
has nevertheless been a director of the Elk Bayou school district. Mr. Swall 
married Emma Cole, born in Knox county, Ill., a daughter of Asa Cole, a native 
of Ohio, who crossed the plains to California with his family in 1856 and 
located in Contra Costa county. Several years later Mr. Cole went to Santa Clara 
county and in 1866 he located near Tracy, San Joaquin county. In 1873 he came to 
Visalia, whence in 1888 he removed to Brentwood, Contra Costa county, where he 
passed away in the autumn of that same year. Mr. and Mrs. Swall were the parents 
of children as follows : George, who is a dairy rancher near Visalia; Newell, 
who is deceased ; Walter, who is also a dairy rancher near Visalia ; Arthur, who 
is superintendent of the Neuman ranch, south of Tulare; and William, Jr., who 
lives south of Visalia, not far from his father. Mr. and Mrs. Swall also have 
eleven grandchildren.
Mr. Swall has been described as a prince of good fellows, always ready to lend a 
helping hand to those less fortunate than himself. The responsibilities of 
citizenship appeal to him forcefully and definitely. While his character is 
commanding he is eminently fair in all business transactions and is admired for 
his kindness, sympathy and good judgment. His loyalty to his family, to his 
friends and to his convictions has never been questioned.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 849-851