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 CULVER MOSIER. A conservative yet progressive stockman, James Culver 
Mosier is numbered among the successful business men of Tulare county. He has been en- 
gaged in this line of work for about twenty years and has brought to bear the experience which 
the years have given him in his methods of today, and combined with ability and energy he 
has met with a success which places him among the first ranchmen of the county. He is now 
located upon a tract of four hundred and eighty acres, five miles south of Visalia, on the Santa 
Fe Railroad, where his specialties are hogs and cattle, which he sells in the local markets. 

A native of Louisiana, Pike county. Mo., he was born January 25, 1851, a son of Henry 
Mosier, who was employed in a grist mill in that town, where his death eventually occurred. His 
wife, formerly Nancy Zumwalt, was a native of Missouri, in which state she died in 1862. Of 
her family of three sons and three daughters, one son and one daughter are now deceased. 
The oldest of this family, James Culver Mosier was reared in his native state, receiving a 
limited education in the common school in the vicinity of his home. At eleven years of age 
he was apprenticed to learn the trade of miller, working two years in Louisiana, after which 
he went to Alton, Ill., and engaged in the same occupation there for four years. Returning to 
his native town he spent the ensuing year, when he went to Deer Lodge, Mont., traveling by 
stage, as there were no railroads at that time. Upon locating in that state he at first followed 
the precarious life of a miner, continuing so occupied for two winters. Entering then upon 
the milling business he had charge of the first water-power mill in Deer Lodge. After some 
time he returned to Missouri and spent one year. In 1882 he came to California, locating at Grand 
Island, Colusa county, where he found employment on a ranch for two years. In Lassen county 
he had charge of a stock business for himself, remaining there for two years, when he went 
to Crook county, Ore., still engaged in the stock business. On a small scale he and a partner 
opened up a business in the same line, which increased to such proportions that in 1888 they 
sold out for $30,000. Returning east to his old home in Louisiana, Mo., he married. April 18, 
1888, Mary Elizabeth Suda, a native of that place, and two months later brought her to California. 
They located on his present property, which consisted originally of three hundred and twenty 
acres which he had purchased just previous to returning east. This property he has cultivated 
and improved, adding to his original purchase until now he owns four hundred and eighty 
acres, upon which he engages in the raising of hogs, cattle and grain. 

Mr. and Mrs. Mosier are the parents of one daughter, Katie Irene, who is at home. In his 
political affiliations Mr. Mosier is a Democrat, but has never desired official honors, as his life 
has been too full of personal duties.