California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

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

 
 
 JEFFERSON L. CRANE. To bring Southern California to its present condition as one of the richest areas 
on the globe in the production of a varied fruitage of horticulture and agriculture has required the 
energies, the plans and the efforts of nearly two generations of people. Those who began the 
experiment and laid the foundations of the industry have largely passed away. All the more honor 
therefore belongs to one who was identified with the first stages of that work and has been a witness 
and factor in every step of progress up to the present time.  

Such a place of distinction is enjoyed by Jefferson L. Crane of Santa Paula. In the annals of Southern 
California horticulture his name and service should always be remembered.  

He was born near the present City of Akron in Sharon Township, Medina County, Ohio, June 17, 1839. 
His is an old and -worthy American ancestry. His father was a pioneer Ohioan, having taken up land 
from the Government and having cleared it of timber in order to render it available for agriculture. He 
made his home there the rest of his life and reared a family of seven sons and one daughter. He was a 
native of Massachusetts and died in Ohio in 1885. Mr. Crane's great-grandfather, Bernice Crane, 
served for three years in the Revolutionary Army and in the Indian wars in Narraganset Swamp. In the 
latter he was badly wounded. Mr. Crane's grandfather was Barnabas Crane, who led an interesting life 
between the ocean and the land. During the summer months he commanded a seagoing vessel, while 
the winter season was spent in school rooms as a teacher. He was a man of great physical vitality and 
rugged in nature as in character, and lived to be four-score and six years of age. The first American 
ancestors of Mr. Crane came early in the seventeenth century from England to Massachusetts, and 
later the family furnished soldiers who fought for independence in the Revolutionary war. On the 
maternal side his ancestors came over in the good ship Fortune in 1621.  

It was in October, 1861, that Jefferson L. Crane arrived in California. He was at that time twenty-two 
years of age. He had attended country schools back in Ohio, and was possessed of the knowledge and 
experience that were part of a farmer boy's training. In California he became associated with his uncle 
G. G. Briggs, who was the pioneer of pioneers in the development of fruit as a part of California's 
wealth. Mr. Crane was first employed by 'his uncle in the Santa Clara Valley, and managed the Briggs 
ranch there for seven years. Mr. Briggs had bought this property from the More brothers in 1862, 
paying $45,000 for 18,000 acres. A year after the purchase of the land Mr. Crane assisted Mr. Briggs in 
setting out an orchard of 200 acres. Particular attention should be paid to this orchard, since it was the 
first planted in the entire valley. All the surrounding country was wild and uninviting, and the 
occupation of its scattered inhabitants, chiefly Indians in the neighborhood of Saticoy, was entirely 
nomadic and pastoral. The nearest white neighbors at that time were eight or ten miles away. Some of 
the riches of the land consisted of game, which abounded everywhere, and the early settlers like Mr. 
Crane often saw deer and bear in their dooryards. His uncle Mr. Briggs set out with the intention of 
colonizing this valley, but a visitation of drought ruined one season's crops and discouraged all the 
settlers who had arrived or who were intending to make it a home.  

During 1868 Jefferson Crane returned to Ohio, but remained there only ten months until he was lured 
back to the Golden West, where his real destiny has been worked out. On returning he settled in 
Santa Paula, where previously he had bought twenty acres. He erected the first house in that 
settlement, but after six months of farming experience sold his land and moved to Carpinteria. where 
he bought 160 acres. He utilized that land as one of the pioneers in the planting of lima beans.
 
 Mr. Crane was more personally related to the lima bean development in 1874 than any one else in the 
matter of its introduction to eastern markets. Before the panic he corresponded with eastern people 
and found the price of beans to be from $5.50 to $7.50 a bushel with a good market and he invested 
$5,000 in lima beans and shipped them to an old acquaintance named P. D. Hall in New York City and 
when they arrived there the panic was on and market was obstructed for all luxuries. The beans would 
not sell for sufficient to pay the freight and Mr. Crane held on and had his father go to New York to 
look over the situation. It was concluded to peddle them and Mr. Crane’s father visited forty- eight 
cities and disposed of a part of them, and that was the first introduction of the lima bean in that part of 
the country. It took two years to dispose of that output and when they were gone, so was Mr. Crane's 
home, but the distribution of these beans did as much to develop the trade and the market as 
anything that ever happened.
 
Seven years later, having sold out, Mr. Crane returned to Ventura County and rented 170 acres of the 
Nicholl tract, and this he cultivated as a bean plantation for two years. His next work was on 500 acres 
of Las Posasgrant, which he rented, and where he raised flax for three years. Mr. Crane then rented 
320 acres from the Luther tract, including what is now the City of Saticoy, and devoted his land to 
beans and barley for a couple of years. Renting 600 acres of the Edwards tract, he planted that in 
beans and wheat for five years, and then came to his present home location, buying fifty acres from 
the old Mission grant, and there he has since lived and now has his land chiefly in a walnut orchard. 
 
From the first Mr. Crane has been active in the Saticoy Walnut Growers' Association, and for a time 
was its president. In political matters he supports the democratic ticket.  

In Medina County, Ohio, October 4, 1861, he married Janette Briggs, a native of Massachusetts and a 
foster daughter of Daniel Briggs. They are the parents of five children: Emmet C. of Santa Paula; 
Lincoln P., of Monticello, California; Cora, Mrs. A. C. Hardison of  
Santa Paula ; Charles and Chauncey I., both of whom are engaged in the operation of their father's 
walnut orchard.