California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


WILLIAM M. CARDEN. During his residence in Kern county, William M. Carden has witnessed 
many changes for the better, and has himself taken a sufficiently active part to be able to 
share in the general prosperity of the present. Although his present home is a leased farm 
in the Greenfield school district, ten and a half miles south of Bakersfield, the fact that he has 
ceased to be a large land owner indicates a desire to avoid responsibility rather than a wish to 
be less substantially connected with the state of his adoption. Mr. Carden comes of a fine old 
southern family of English extraction, unexpectedly launched in America by Sir John Carden, 
a large vessel owner, who, with his ship, was captured by the Americans during the war 
of 1812. Any bitterness which he might have felt on account of this unceremonious handling 
seems to have disappeared in time, for he settled in Georgia, where the grandfather of Wil- 
liam M. spent many years of his life, and where his son, Thomas J., was born. The family moved 
to Missouri about 1812, Thomas J. at that time being a young boy, who lived on the home farm 
until attaining his majority. He married Elizabeth W. Coker, a native of North Carolina, who 
was reared and educated in Nashville, Tenn. On the maternal side Mrs. Carden was a Virginian. 
In time Mr. Carden located with his family in Arkansas, where he bought a tract of ten thou- 
sand acres with his brother, and engaged in the stock business until, the breaking out of the 
Civil war. The general depression consequent upon the war completely ruined their business, 
and in 1868 Mr. Carden brought his wife and seven children across the plains, William M., born 
in Harrison, Carroll county, Ark., May 11, 1849, being at that time nineteen years old. The 
father located on a ranch near Visalia, remaining there until his death in August, 1871, at the 
age of sixty-seven years. In 1874 his widow and the children located near Kernville, Kern 
county, where the mother died when in her sixty-ninth year. 

William M. Carden began work in earnest after the family came to Kern county, settling on 
the south fork of the Kern river, and owning about four hundred and eighty acres of land, 
eventually known as the Carden ranch. The property proved profitable enough, but after the 
death of his brother in 1893 Mr. Carden became dissatisfied with the place, sold his interest, 
and purchased the farm upon which he lived until coming to his present place in 1902. In the 
meantime, in 1891, Mr. Carden was united in marriage with Helen J. Vandergaw, a native of 
Brooklyn, N. Y., and daughter of Cornelius M. and Anna (Sturgeon) Vandergaw. On the pa- 
ternal side Mrs. Carden is descended from the first settlers of what was then New Amsterdam, 
now Brooklyn, her remote sires building the first schoolhouse of the place, and eventually own- 
ing the navy yards. The family was established in San Francisco about 1872, owing to the illness 
of Mrs. Vandergaw, and in the coast city Mr. Vandergaw engaged in business, but died while 
on a visit to New York at the age of sixty-six. His wife still continues to live in Oakland, where 
her children were educated, and where Mrs. Carden began school teaching at the age of eighteen. 
For a time she was assistant principal of the Oakland school, until, on account of impaired 
health, she came to Kern county and taught on the South Fork until her marriage. Mr. and 
Mrs. Garden have four children : Robert E., Elizabeth A. T., Morris and Sarah J. M. Mr. Carden 
is a Democrat in politics, but is liberal in his views, and votes for the best man regardless of 
political affiliation. He has served as school trustee for a number of years, and has always 
sought to establish a high standard of instruction in his neighborhood. Since 1876 he has been 
identified with Bakersfield Lodge No. 202, I. O. O. F. Mrs. Carden is a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church.