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


CHARLES L. DENNEN. No more encouraging example of the self-made farmer is found 
in Kern county than Charles L. Dennen, owner of a valuable ranch of one hundred and eighty 
acres in the Fairview district, and also an additional one hundred and forty acres in the Pan- 
ama district. Mr. Dennen is the child of parents who had little to offer him in the way of 
pecuniary help, and his youth and early manhood were one succession of struggles for the 
success which has since come to him. He was born in Oxford county, Me., March 7, 1857, his 
father, L. W. Dennen, also a native of Maine, being at that time employed in the factories of 
the great manufacturing and lumbering state. 

The elder Dennen is a strong character, and all his life has shown a disposition for adventure 
and change. As a boy he found vent for an excess of energy by running away from home and 
boarding a man-of-war, upon which he served with creditable fortitude about four years. The 
year of his son's birth he removed to Brown county, Kans., settled on a farm of eighty acres, and 
was busily improving the same at the outbreak of the Civil war. In the service of the Union 
he attained the rank of corporal, and spent his time principally at St. Joseph, Warrensburg and 
Sedalia, Mo., actively engaged in fighting guerrillas. From Brown county he removed to Pot- 
tawatomie county, Kans., where he improved a homestead and became prominent in politics and 
government affairs. He was awarded the mail contract for eight years, and for a number of 
years was postmaster of a station in the county. His next home was his present one in Hennessey, 
Oklahoma, where he is living retired, and where, at the age of eighty years (having been born in 
1824) he is hale and vigorous, and able to enjoy the people and events by which he is surrounded. 
In both Brown and Pottawatomie counties, Kans., Charles L. Dennen attended the public 
schools at rare intervals, but he made up for his educational deficiency by becoming a careful and 
practical farmer. He was but twenty years old when in February, 1877, he married Mary Davis, 
a native of Madison county, Iowa. After his marriage he conducted a rented farm for four 
years, at the end of that time investing his earnings in a farm of his own, which he managed 
successfully until 1887. He then sold his farm and came to Kern county, Cal., took up a tract 
of land covered with weeds and brush, proved up on it, and at the same time rented land for a 
year from the Kern Land Company. He was not particularly successful at the start, and when 
making arrangements for the nucleus of his present farm, which consisted of twenty acres at $60 
an acre, he was able to pay down only $10. A stout heart and hope in the future came to his 
aid, and with the help of his encouraging and economical wife he toiled early and late and 
finally had his farm paid for and a comfortable home established for his family. More land was 
soon required, and finally the one hundred and eighty acres proved also too small. The new 
farm is valued at $100 an acre, but the prospective owner feels no dread of the future, for he 
has gained a substantial footing in the west, and his career has been of so honorable a nature, 
that his word has come to be regarded as would be his bond. He makes a specialty of hay and 
stock, and averages from eight hundred to one thousand hogs a year. He has a good country 
house, well constructed barns, and the most practical of modern agricultural implements. Feel- 
ing keenly the disadvantages under which he labored in his own youth, because of a limited edu- 
cation, he has given his children a better training, and every advantage possible under the cir- 
cumstances. 

Mr. and Mrs. Dennen have had nine children born to them : Lilly Josephine, the wife of James 
Hosking ; Charles Richard, living in Bakersfield ; George Bary, a rancher; Le Roy Alfred; Clara 
C, deceased ; Millie Alline ; Lewis William ; Mary Myrtle, and Vernon Vivian. 

Mr. Dennen is a man of broad and tolerant sympathies, a good neighbor, faithful friend, and 
generous and indulgent husband and father.