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


EDWIN JAY DIBBLE, one of the first actual settlers in the neighborhood of Guernsey, 
Kings county, Cal., was born in Oneida county, N. Y., September 8, 1834, and comes of a fine 
old New England family of Scotch-English extraction. It was well for him that he was a lad 
of sturdy and reliant characteristics, for responsibility came his way at the age of sixteen, 
owing to the death of his father, Jesse Dibble, who died at the age of thirty-seven years. His 
mother, formerly Anna Palms, a native also of New York, lived to be seventy-seven years old 
and died in Oneida county. 

When he arrived at twenty-two years Mr. Dibble left the home farm which he had man- 
aged for six years and found employment by the month in his native state. He went to 
Minnesota in i860 and was there married, later locating on a rented farm in Allamakee county, 
Iowa, upon which he lived until 1863. He then crossed the plains and located near San Jose, 
Cal., where he rented land and also worked by the day until removing to Santa Cruz county, 
where he remained until settling on his present farm nine miles south of Hanford, Kings coun- 
ty. His land was a stranger to any kind of improvement, and its development went hand 
in hand with his active interest in the building of the Lakeside ditch, which came as a boon to 
the agriculturists and stock-raisers of Tulare county. From a barren region he noted the 
gradual unfolding of the great opportunities awaiting the enterprise of man, industriously 
applying himself to making his own home one of fertility and unquestioned promise. Fortu- 
nately he has been able to realize his expectations, and has accumulated a competency as a 
dairyman and grain raiser. In 1890 he purchased one hundred and sixty acres about two 
miles from the home place, and this is devoted to a dairy of twenty-five cows, and a herd of 
about one hundred and fifty hogs. This latter farm is under the management of his son 
George, who is making a practical success as a rancher. 

With the assistance of a noble-hearted and helpful wife, who died in 1896, and who was 
formerly Hannah Blend, a native of Iowa, having been born in 1840, Mr. Dibble has reared 
a family of eight children, three others having died in early childhood. Of those who reached 
maturity, Annie is the wife of Frank E. Howe, a rancher; Le Roy is a rancher located near his 
father ; Flora is the wife of Millard Welton, a rancher of Kings county ; Judson also lives near 
his father; Lester has a ranch in the neighborhood; George leases his father's ranch; Abi 
lives at home ; and Jesse assists his. brother George. Mr. Dibble had few educational ad- 
vantages in his youth, and this fact has led him to take a keen interest in the chances accorded 
the sons of Kings county pioneers. He has served several years as a trustee of schools, but 
has otherwise refused to hold any office whatever, although a stanch upholder of the Repub- 
lican party. He is one of the men whose life has commanded respect and whose example is 
worthy of emulation.