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


HARVEY J. OSTRANDER. Prominent among the pioneer settlers of Merced county is Harvey J. 
Ostrander, who for more than half a century has been a resident of Merced, and one of its 
most respected and valued citizens. In the development of the agricultural, manufacturing 
and mercantile interests, he has been an active and influential force. Full of vim and energy as 
a young man, he was among the foremost in establishing beneficial enterprises in the county, 
and has the distinction of having brought the first steam flouring mill to Merced county ; of 
being the first to improve the land by irrigation ; of sowing the first alfalfa seed in this region; 
and of being the pioneer orchardist and vineyardist of Merced county. The story of his early 
life reads more like a tale of romance than like the history of a plain, matter-of-fact agriculturist, 
being filled with thrilling incidents and interesting facts, connected with the early settlement of 
the state. A son of Alexander Ostrander, Jr., he was born, October 7, 1825, in Madison county, 
N. Y., of Holland-Dutch ancestry, being a lineal descendant of one Von Ostrander who emigrated 
from Holland in 1666 and settled in New York state. His grandfather, Alexander Ostrander, Sr., 
a native of Washington county, N. Y., served as an Indian scout during the Revolutionary war, 
and afterward settled as a farmer in Madison county. N. Y., where the Ostrander families removed 
after the war of 1812. 

Alexander Ostrander, Jr., was born in Washington county, N. Y., but settled in Madison coun- 
ty with the other members of the families. He was engaged in various business enterprises, 
owning a good farm, contracting and superintending large business enterprises. Inheriting 
the patriotic virtues of his ancestors, he served in the war of 1812. He married Mary Annis, 
who was born of Scotch-Irish ancestors in New York state, being the daughter of an Indian scout 
during the Revolutionary war. She bore him thirteen children, of whom Harvey J., the subject 
of this sketch, was the youngest child, and is the only survivor. 

Educated in the district schools, and well trained in the arts and science of agriculture by 
his father, Harvey J. Ostrander remained at home during the days of his boyhood and youth, 
completing his studies in the village academy. Going west in 1845, he made several trips as 
a boatman on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and afterward spent a number of months in Wis- 
consin. Returning from there to New York, he remained in his native state until 1849. when 
he joined the gold-seekers, starting for the extreme western part of the continent in search 
of fortune. He came by boat to the mouth of the Rio Grande river, and thence up that water- 
way to within eighteen miles of Camargo, Mexico, where the boat ran aground and he had to 
help unload the goods, standing waist-deep in water. He then hired a man to take his personal 
effects, with those of some of his fellow-passengers, to Monterey, but that man dying of 
cholera, he hired another. 

With eight of his companions, Mr. Ostrander purchased nine mules, one for each, and started 
across the country for Mazatlan. At Rhinaldo pass the company met some freighters camping. 
On the way out their guide, McNab. killed one of the party, a young doctor. At Mazatlan the 
company embarked on a schooner bound for San Francisco, on which there were many other  
passengers bound for the same point. When forty days out they made the captain land them,  
having been on short rations (one pint of water for cooking and drinking per day) for two weeks, 
disembarking about three hundred miles south of San Diego. Continuing the journey on foot, 
the party came on the third day to a spring around which there was about an acre of grass, 
on which a Mexican pack train had left a horse whose back was too sore to travel, and this 
proved a blessing to the almost discouraged travelers, who at once killed the animal for food. 
Mr. Ostrander and two of his companions walked on. traveling until ten o'clock that night, when 
they made a camp, built a fire of sage brush and cooked their horse meat, to him the sweetest 
morsel he had ever eaten. On the fourth day they traveled until sundown, when arriving at 
a dry creek at night, they dug down beside a big rock for about twenty inches, and to their 
joy found water. This day was one of the most trying he ever experienced, the heat being in- 
tense. Arriving at El Rosario, a small hamlet of six or eight houses, on the fifth morning, they 
were given food, consisting of a bowl of soup and meat from a beef's head roasted in the ground. 
The Mexicans fetched provisions back to the remainder of the party, being induced to do so 
by reason of the company's equipments, which were exceptionally good, consisting of blankets 
and clothing, no longer needed after they had crossed the first range of mountains. One of the 
men left at the spring had died from hunger and exposure. 

From El Rosario Mr. Ostrander came as far as San Diego on horseback, having been able 
to purchase a horse near El Rosario, where he sold his animal. Walking thence to Los Angeles, 
he and his partner bought horses, each paying $10 apiece for them. Mr. Ostrander's proved 
to be unbroken and bucked badly, but as he was a born horseman, and could ride any kind of an 
animal, he succeeded in conquering the bucking horse, although he was thrown several times. 
At San Luis Obispo the partners sold their horses, and with one pack-horse between them 
walked to the mines in Tuolumne county, going via Monterey and Stockton. At the latter place 
they bought a supply of ham and crackers, and borrowing a pan and shovel engaged in placer 
mining on the Tuolumne river. Mr. Ostrander bought a rocker made from a shoe box, giving 
$96 for it, and made enough in a week to pay for all of his purchases, including overalls, shirts 
and provisions. He and his partner met with losses and reverses, but made a great deal of 
money, also. In 1849 they accumulated much gold on Indian bar, but lost it the following year by 
becoming interested in companies to erect dams at Rogers, Indian and Hawkins bars, to turn 
the waters from their natural beds, the price of labor being $8 per day. The dams were all 
swept away by the high waters that prevailed in September of that year. Mr. Ostrander suc- 
ceeded in mining at the latter bar only, where in ten days he washed out $3,000. Always in 
search of something better, Mr. Ostrander and his partner went to Mariposa county, but were 
not at all successful there, and after wasting a month's time returned to the Tuolumne dig- 
gings, at which time they became interested in the above enterprises. Had be and his partner 
continued mining they would doubtless have made money, but they opened a store and by 
trusting the miners soon lost all their capital. 

Disgusted with his ill luck, Mr. Ostrander came to the Merced river in the fall of 1850, 
took in another partner, and for two years was profitably employed in buying and selling beef 
cattle. Buying a steam flour mill in Stockton in 1853, he removed it to the Merced river, and 
here put up the first mill south of Stockton. He afterward sold both mill and lands. He as- 
sisted in building the first water mill in this locality, was the first to irrigate, set out the first 
orchard and vineyard, and sowed the first alfalfa seed, raising a crop which he at first found hard 
work to dispose of, but which, during the drought of 1864, he sold for from $40 to $60 
a ton. Ever since that time Mr. Ostrander has been prosperously engaged in agricultural pur- 
suits, including general farming and stock raising, and was the first man to use the mountain 
ranges for summer pastures for sheep, taking a flock to the Yosemite ranges as early as 1862. 
He is now paying especial attention to raising sheep, having four thousand head in Merced and 
Fresno counties. He was the first president of the Farmers' Canal Company, known afterward 
as the Crocker-Huffman Canal Company, the first large irrigation company in the state. 

Since casting his presidential vote in 1856, at the mouth of a six-shooter, for John C. Fremont, 
Mr. Ostrander has been a loyal supporter of the principles of the Republican party. When the 
news of the firing of Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, was heard in Merced county, there was great ex- 
citement among the Union and the Confederate sympathizers, and when it was proposed to raise 
the American flag there were threats of pulling it down. Mrs. Ostrander made her husband 
promise to refrain from talking politics. On his way to Snelling with a man from Louisiana, 
the subject of raising the flag was brought up, but Mr. Ostrander, true to his promise, said noth- 
ing. When his companion, Mr. Gwyn, said, "If the flag is put up, it will be torn down," Mr. 
Ostrander could contain himself no longer, and said, "Both of my grandfathers fought in the 
Revolution, my father fought in the war of 1812, and if the flag is put up and torn down I will 
kill the __ ___ that pulls it down." When he returned he told his wife that he had broken his promise. The 
Unionists decided that it was best to defer the flag raising until the Fourth of July, but the night of 
the third of July the flag pole was chopped up, so there was no flag raising the next day. The next 
year, previous to July 4, 1862, Mr. Ostrander obtained from those who had contributed to the 
purchase of the flag, permission to put it up in his yard, and on that glorious day it was unfurled to 
the breeze, and strange as it may seem was never molested, but was kept flying during the remainder 
of the Civil war. 

Returning to New York state in 1852, Mr. Ostrander married Lydia Wheeler, who was born 
in Malone, N. Y., and died, in 1890, in California. Five children were born of their union ; namely : 
Frank, district attorney of Merced county, who died in 1902; Jasper, a physician, who died in 
1902; Willis, an inventor, who resides in Chico; Sadie, the wife of Thomas Crew, of Chico; and 
Frederick G., a prominent attorney of Fresno, who is an ex-district attorney and ex-judge of 
Merced county. In 1876 Mr. Ostrander was presidential elector of the fourth congressional 
district, being elected on the Hayes and Wheeler ticket. He was the first president of the Merced 
County Agricultural Society and later of Agricultural District No. 21, comprising Merced and 
Mariposa counties, and was appointed by Governor Markham to serve one term of four years 
as a member of the Yosemite valley and Mariposa commission. He is a life member of the Society 
of California Pioneers of San Francisco, and belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
While he has always participated in all movements that have tended to advance the interests 
of the community and has taken pride in the success of the same, his greatest pride is in being 
able to have kept the American flag flying during the Civil war.