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 JOSIAH I. KEENE. One of the men who contributed to the improve- and extensive development of the beautiful Santa Clara Valley in Ventura County was the late Josiah I. Keene, a stanch New Englander, a pioneer of the great Northwest in the early days, a soldier of the Civil war, and one of the arrivals in Ventura County of the early '70s. He was born at Canaan, Maine, December 19, 1828. Reared and educated in his native state he learned the machinist's trade and in early manhood moved out to what was then the extreme northwestern frontier, the territory of Minnesota, locating in Mankato, where he was employed at his trade until the outbreak of the war. In 1861 he enlisted in the Second Minnesota Volunteers, and remained with his command until he was wounded in 1864. Being incapacitated for active field service he was assigned to work in the Department of the Interior at Washington, District of Columbia, and remained a resident of the national capital until 1872. In that year he came to Ventura, California, and bought eighteen acres of land near the city of that name. This land he planted to walnuts and orange trees. In 1874 he took up a soldier's claim of 160 acres on Sespe Rancho in Santa Clara Valley near Santa Paula, but retained his residence on the original eighteen acres. Not long afterward he filed upon a 132- acre timber culture claim adjoining the homestead. One feature of his early industry there was bee culture. In 1888 he sold his Ventura property and moved to the homestead, where in 1889 began the development which has transformed every portion of it into a varied fruit orchard. in that year he planted forty acres of vineyard and twenty-five acres of olives. In 1895 water was introduced for irrigation purposes. He continued the active management of his fine estate until death came to him on September 12, 1900, when he was past seventy years of age. The late Mr. Keene was an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, was a republican voter and a member of the Universalist Church. In Washington, District of Columbia, December 31, 1873, he married Lucy Monroe, who was born at Conway, Massachusetts. There were five children: Kendall, a rancher at Suisun, California; Allen in the oil business at Fullerton, California; Herman; Mrs. Robie Jenkins of Santa Paula; and Mrs. Helen Foster of Santa Paula. Herman Keene, who has succeeded to the large ranching responsibilities established by his father, was born at Ventura December 26, 1879. He attended public school in his native town until 1889, and thereafter was in the schools of Sespe completing the common school course in 1894. For two years he was in the high school at Santa Paula and had a business college course in Ventura for six months. With this preparation he began working his father's ranch and continued to find ample employment for his energies there until the death of his father in 1900. Since then he has been active manager of the 292 acres comprised in the old homestead and timber claim, and in 1903 he personally bought 11o acres adjoining the Keene estate. At the present time the management of this property is divided about as follows: Forty acres in vineyard, ten acres in walnuts, sixteen acres in apricots, sixteen acres now being planted to lemons, and the rest in pasture land. Mr. Herman Keene is a member of the Native Sons of California, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Eagles, the Fraternal Brotherhood, and politically is a republican as was his father. In Santa Paula July 11, 1907, he married Vesta Fansler, a native of Iowa and a daughter of John Fansler, who came to the Santa Clara Valley, Ventura County, in 1887.