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


JAMES GARRETT. A successful farmer of Tulare county, James Garrett is located sixteen 
miles northeast of Visalia, just west of Antelope valley. He came to California in 1867. from 
Australia, his native land being England, and his birth having occurred in Norfolk in 1837. He 
was reared in Northumberland, where he followed mining in young manhood. Deciding to 
visit the gold fields of Australia, he went to Melbourne at the age of twenty years, thence 
to the mines of Castlemaine, following the various excitements in that country for some time 
and engaging in both quartz and placer mining. Like all miners he had his times of success 
and of failure, but found a compensation in the work. In 1867 he came to California via Tahita 
to San Francisco, and following his arrival found employment in the Mount Diablo coal mines, of 
Contra Costa county, where he remained for two and a half years. In September, 1869, he 
came to Kings county, and pre-empted a quarter section of land near the present site of Le- 
moore, then known as Mussel Slough. The country was practically a desert at that time, 
but with twenty-six of the settlers a company was formed, which built the Lower Kings river 
water ditch. Mr. Garrett's land is all under irrigation and he is engaged in general farming 
operations, having made many valuable improvements with the passing of the years. In 1885 he 
rented this farm and bought a farm in Townsend district. Tulare county, where he owns two hun- 
dred and forty acres on section 14, township 17, range 26. Here he is successfully engaged in 
raising grain, and is numbered among the prominent men of this section. In his religious con- 
victions Mr. Garrett is a member of the Episcopal Church.