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 CHARLES R. SCOTT. The family represented by this influential citizen of Tulare is of eastern extraction. His father, Joseph, was a native of Chambersburg, Pa., but at an early age accompanied his parents to Ohio and settled on a farm near Goshen. On starting out to earn his own way in the world he went to Illinois and settled on a farm in McLean county, thence in 1864 removing to Doniphan county, Kans., where he combined the raising of stock with the tilling of the soil. When advanced in years he came to the coast and died in California, August 24, 1904, after eighty busy years. During the days of his youth he met Maria Thacker, who was the daughter of William Thacker, one of their neighbors near Goshen, Ohio. The acquaintance thus formed ripened into affection, and their destinies were united by marriage. Mrs. Scott was a mem- ber of an eastern family ; her father was a native of New York state, and for years carried on a farm in Ohio, but eventually removed to Michigan, where he died. Since the death of her hus- band Mrs. Scott has made her home in Tulare, and notwithstanding her advanced age of sev- enty-eight years, she is still physically and mentally robust. In religious belief she is a devoted adherent of the Presbyterian Church. In a family of seven children, of whom two sons and two daughters are now living, Charles R. Scott was third in order of birth, and was born near Heyworth, McLean county, Ill., April 6, 1857. Accompanying his parents to Kansas in 1864, he was primarily educated in the pub- lic schools of Doniphan county, and then took the regular course of study in Highland Univer- sity, from which he was graduated in 1882 with the degree of A. B. During the next few years he engaged in teaching school in his home county and in Buchanan county, Mo., meanwhile de- voting his leisure days to the study of law under the preceptorship of M. Poke, of St. Joseph. In 1885 he was admitted to" the bar in Kansas and entered upon a general practice at Nashville, Kingman county. The prospects, however, were not flattering. There was much to turn his am- bitious thoughts from the conditions and climate there to the opportunities offered in the trans- mountain region, and he decided to seek a home in the coast country. On New Year's day of 1889 he arrived in Fresno, and with the new year began life in a new region. November 20, 1889, he left Fresno and came to Tulare, where he began in the practice of law, but gradually drifted into the real estate and insurance business, which he now conducts, in addition to the negotiating of loans. He also acts as agent for the Laurel colony of fourteen hundred acres, is a director of the Rochdale Company, owns individually an alfalfa ranch north of Tulare and considerable orchard land, and is further a onetenth owner and a stockholder in El Mirador Colony with four thousand acres of orange land, which, as the company's local agent, he superin- tends for colonization purposes. The El Mirador Land Company's property lies at Lindsay, at the approach of the Sierra Nevada range, almost at the base of Mount Whitney, with sufficient ele- vation to give a commanding view of the valley to the west, with a climate of warm, sunny days and cool but frostless nights, thus being well adapted to the orange, lemon, fig, apricot, peach, plum and cherry. El Mirador is a tract formerly known among Californians as the Lewis creek ranch, and at the old homestead there stands the largest lemon tree and the largest lime tree in the state, also figs forty years old and more than a hundred feet high, which each year are burdened to the ground with valuable fruit. In Tulare Mr. Scott married Miss Annie H. Wilder, who was born in Germantown, Pa., and by whom he has a son, Joseph Francis. For six years Mr. Scott filled the office of city attorney of Tulare, elected on the Independent ticket, and he has also served as treasurer of the Tulare Board of Trade, being the present incumbent of the office. He is a member of the Fraternal Brotherhood and a leading worker in the Tulare Congregational Church, of which he is now president of the board of trustees.