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

WALTER H. DUVAL. The raising of hay, beans and citrus fruits is the industry by which Walter H. 
Duval made himself a factor in the life and activities of Ventura County, and through which he 
has best expressed his own ability and has contributed his chief work to the productive re- 
sources of Southern California.
He was born near Saticoy in Ventura County December 28, 1875. His father E. A. Duval was an 
early settler in that part of Ventura County. Born September 14, 1834, in one of the Windward 
Islands of France, he is of French parentage and ancestry. When sixteen he came to America, 
spent a number of years in the State of Maine, and in 1861 came out to California as a pioneer. 
He had some experience in the mines of Nevada, also in the grocery business, and in 1868 
moved to Saticoy. He was thus in this country at the very beginning of that trans- formation 
which changed this section from a grazing district into fruit orchards. E. A. Duval, buying 
seventy-five acres, began setting out trees, and in time had his entire ranch devoted to such 
fruits as apricots, peaches, plums, pears, walnuts and other nuts, and citrus fruits. He bought 
when land was very cheap, from $12 to $20 an acre, and partly by his own improvements and 
partly by the gradual rise in prices his land was worth upwards of $500 an acre. April 15, 1855, 
E. A. Duval married Miss Artemisa G. Hopkins, who was born at Frankfort, Maine, daughter of 
Captain Smith and Susanna Hopkins. To their marriage were born ten children, the first three in 
the State of Maine and the others at Saticoy.
Up to the age of fifteen Walter H. Duval attended the local public schools and then had the 
benefit of one year of instruction in Woodbury Business College at Los Angeles.
At the outset of his independent career he rented 250 acres near Sati- coy, and was engaged in 
the raising of grain and beans there until 1912. In that year he bought 227 acres from Hobson 
Brothers, and on that land he grows his crops of beans and hay.
In 1911 Mr. Duval and four business associates bought the Blackburn ranch near Saticoy. With 
this property as their chief capital they formed the Saticoy Citrus Company, of which Mr. Duval 
is president and manager. The 300 acres at the time of purchase were all farmed in beans and 
walnuts, but the entire tract is now developed to oranges and lemons.
In 1912 Mr. Duval and his brother, Edward S., bought the Deacon Mose place of thirty acres, 
and this constitutes one of the fine walnut groves of Ventura County.
Mr. Duval is a charter member of the Independent Order of Foresters at Saticoy and politically 
he votes the republican ticket. At Saticoy December 8, 1897, he married Miss Jeanne Bell. They 
have one child, Laura, now seventeen years of age and attending the high school at Hollywood.