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


WILLIAM H. HILDEBRAND. One of the finest dairy, stock and alfalfa farms in Kings 
county is owned by William H. Hildebrand, who lives eight miles south and three miles east of 
Hanford, and who is known as a pioneer, and one of the first raisers of alfalfa in this section. 
Although still in the prime of life, and in the enjoyment of vigorous health, the marked success 
of this honored rancher enables him to rent his land at the present time, and to temporarily retire 
from its active management. His life-work is to be measured rather by the extent accomplished 
than by the time taken to accomplish, for he has ever been a disciple of method as well as indus- 
try, and has made every hour and day count for its full valuation. An excellent business man, a 
good judge of stock, and having an accurate knowledge of the nature and kind of soil com- 
prising his property, he has turned it to the best possible account, and has been rewarded with a 
substantial yearly income. The greater part of his ranch is under alfalfa, while he maintains a 
dairy of sixty cows and a family orchard of five acres, besides several acres under vines. His 
improvements have been dictated by a thoughtful and cautious mind, and embrace only such ad- 
vantages as have met with the approval of a solid and practical agriculturist.  

Mr. Hildebrand comes from the middle west, and was born near Des Moines, Iowa, July 28, 
1851. As the name implies, he is of Teutonic extraction, and both his paternal and maternal 
grandparents were born in Germany. Early settlers in America, they lived in Pennsylvania. 
Near Johnstown, that state, the grandfather owned a farm upon which Joseph Hildebrand, 
the father of William H., was born, and where he was reared and trained to thrifty habits. Jos- 
eph Hildebrand saw beyond the old farm an era of greater prosperity farther west, and thus be- 
came identified with Ohio while it was yet an unsettled country, later moving to Indiana, and still 
later to Iowa. Still his restless spirit remained unsatisfied, and, while yet the journey across the 
trackless plains was matter of wonderment and consternation to the minds of prospective emi- 
grants, he started out to explore the west. Leaving home in the spring of 1853, he arrived in 
California in the fall of the same year, thereafter mining and prospecting in different parts of the 
state until 1855. He then located in Nevada City where he found everything very expensive, and 
afterward represented one of two families who were first to settle at Grizzly Hill, seventeen miles 
from Nevada City. Grizzly Hill was most appropriately named, and was about as wild, pic- 
turesque and wicked a community as was to be found in the west at that time. With true cour- 
age, the pioneer settler made the best of the situation, and, being on hand at the opening of the 
mines, gathered in his share of their rich accumulation. In 1856 he settled in the Vaca valley, 
Solano county, taking up land, and engaging in farming and stock raising until i860. His next 
place of residence was near Madison, Yolo county, where he preempted land and engaged in 
stock raising until 1869. Disposing of this farm, he went to San Luis Obispo county and rented 
a farm until 1876. when he came to what is now Kings county, and, being advanced in years, di- 
vided his time between his son William and his daughter, at whose house he died at the age of 
eighty-four years and six months. He was a Whig in the early days, and later espoused the 
cause of the Republican party. He was reared in the Moravian Church, and in that married Annie 
Harkrader, a native of Ohio, who survived him three years, her death occurring at the age of 
eighty-two. 

Until his twenty-fourth year William H. Hildebrand lived at home with his parents, and during 
that time found too many duties around the farm to permit of anything but a meager education. 
For a couple of years he worked by the month in the county, and in 1873 came to Kings county 
and worked for his brother-in-law, Perry C. Phillips, for a year. He preempted his present ranch 
near Guernsey, in 1874, coming here a single man with well defined ambitions, and with ex- 
pectations of making a success as a farmer and stock raiser. Putting up a small cabin, he lived 
in it for nearly four years, and as soon as the ditch was completed he began the raising of 
grain. A few years later he experimented with alfalfa, and finding it well adapted to his land, 
he continued to make it his staple product for many years, being almost the first producer of it 
in Kings county. In 1881 the humble cabin was supplanted by a more pretentious habitation, to 
which the owner brought his newly wedded wife, formerly Agnes McNamee, who bore him three 
children, and who died after a comparatively brief married life. These three children, Clarence E., 
Everett A. and Alma G., are living with their father. Mr. Hildebrand married for his second 
wife Alice Chapman, a native of Canada. He is a Republican in politics, but has never wanted 
nor been willing to accept office of any kind. He is a plain-spoken, straightforward, thoroughly 
honorable man, a considerate neighbor, and a generous contributor to all worthy causes.