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 EDWARD S. THACHER. If anyone can properly be considered an authority on the history of the citrus fruit industry in the Ojai valley of Ventura County, it is Edward S. Thacher, who first became interested in what was then an experimental industry as early as 1887, and has been one of the chief individual producers of the crop now marketed through the Ojai Orange Association for twenty-nine years. In an interesting article contributed to the California Citrograph in December, 1915, Mr. Thacher reviewed some of the experiences of the pioneer orange growers in the valley. He recalls the fact that the original orange grower was a Mr. Buckman, a school teacher of Ventura, who had the hardihood and courage, despite the cynicism of his neighbors, to plant about six acres in orange trees during the ‘70s. Mr. Buckman in spite of many difficulties and lack of financial means demonstrated the fact that the valley could produce oranges of marked excellence for flavor and general quality. After Mr. Buckman began sending his fruit to the market and getting returns, others naturally followed his example, until at the time Mr. Thacher wrote about 600 acres were planted in oranges in the entire valley. The Ojai valley not only produces an orange of splendid quality, but has the advantage of situation in the matter of frosts, which seldom if ever have made it necessary to use protective means to safeguard the fruit from injury. The early crop of oranges had to be transported over rough roads many miles to the nearest transportation center at Ventura, until the modern era of railroads and improved highways. The growers also packed and sold their fruit individually, but for the past five or six years have adopted the advantages of co-operative handling, and in 1915 the crop from 400 acres, amounting to over 200 cars, was marketed through the Ojai Orange Association. It should be noted that Mr. Thacher was one of the organizers of the association, and is now its president. Edward S. Thacker comes of a prominent Connecticut family, closely identified with the history of Yale University and he himself has the inclinations to scholarship, though, largely on account of ill health in his early years, he has lived mostly in the rugged outdoors. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, April 18, 1852, a son of Thomas A. and Elizabeth (Day) Thacher. His father was a distinguished scholar, was born at Hartford, Connecticut, attended local schools there, and graduated from Yale University in 1835. For two years he taught in the State of Georgia, after which he went abroad and spent a number of years in German universities. On returning to America he became professor of Latin at Yale University in 1846 and held a chair in that university nearly forty years until his death on April 7, 1886. At New Haven he married for his first wife Elizabeth Day, daughter of Jeremiah Day, a former president of Yale. After her death he married August 1, 1860, Elizabeth Sherman. Her father Roger Sherman was prominent in the shipping business and his father, also Roger Sherman, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Edward S. Thacher attended the public schools of his native city until ten years of age, and in 1868 graduated from the Hopkins Grammar School. Entering Yale University, he was graduated in 1872, and his first experience after leaving college was as chairman with a railroad surveying crew along the borders between New York and Pennsylvania. After a summer spent in that occupation he was a teacher in the high school at Montclair, New Jersey, for a year, and after that went abroad. His plans and intentions at the time were to become an architect. At Paris, France, he spent two years in the famous Ecole des Beaux Arts and on returning to New York City he was employed in an architects office for eight months. The confining nature of the business and the necessity of living outdoors, caused him to abandon the profession. The following six months he spent on a farm at Concord, Massachusetts, and the following winter he was in the Catskill Mountains, New York, with James Beecher, a preacher, and a half brother to the famous Henry Ward Beecher. The next summer he also spent on a farm at Concord, Massachusetts, and realizing that continued health depended upon outdoor occupation, he decided to take up ranching. He first investigated Minnesota without finding a desirable place to locate, and then developed a cattle ranch on a large tract of prairie owned by Robbins Battell at Victoria in Ellis County, Kansas, until 1880. Mr. Battell, who lived at Norfolk, Connecticut, then employed him to look after his property holdings at Mishawaka, Indiana, where he remained a year. Returning to Kansas, Mr. Thacker bought a ranch near Emporia, intending to engage in the cattle business and was also land and title examiner for the Central Loan and Land Company of Emporia. In 1887 he came to Southern California to look out some land for himself, and in April of that year he and T. S. Krutz and Mr. Leighton bought in partnership ninety acres in the Ojai valley. About seven acres of this land had already been planted in apricots and Mr. Thacher proceeded to set out forty acres in olives. In July 1887, they bought what was known as the Buckman Ranch, where Mr. Thacher still lives and which contains the greater part of his orchard acreage. In 1904 his brother, Thomas Thacher, of New York, joined him in the purchase of what is known as the Greene place, lying west of the Thacher orchard, and also in the purchase of the interests of Mr. Krutz and Mr. Leighton, in the orchards and lands of the former Buckman Ranch and other lands adjoining which they had more recently purchased. Mr. Thacher has since given most of his time to the management of the orchards and outlying lands. The orchard planting was increased to about 160 acres planted chiefly to oranges and grapefruit and he is the largest individual grower of oranges in the valley. The Greene place, mentioned above, of 100 acres, already had a small orchard, but Mr. Thacher has increased it to forty acres in oranges ,but has since sold 25 ½ acres of the orchard, retaining the balance. In 1905 he and his brother incorporated the business as Topa Topa Company, with Thomas Thacher, who lives in New York City as president, and Edward Thacher as manager. At the present time 134 ½ acres of this ranch are planted in oranges, grapefruit and avocadoes, of which latter fruit Mr. Thacher is one of the first producers who have reached the market. In 1902 Mr. Thacher organized the Ojai Olive Association, and has been its president ever since. He is a director of the California Avocado Association. He is a member of the University Club of Los Angeles, Yale Club of Southern California, Jack Boyd Club of Nordhoff, and politically is a democrat. In Nordhoff in August, 1890, he married Miss Lucy W. Smith, daughter of Gen. T. C. H. Smith. Mrs. Thacher died in January, 1915, leaving three children: Olive Day, who is a graduate of the University of California and now lives at home with her father; Edward, aged twenty-two, a student in the University of California; and Thomas Church, aged twenty-one, attending the University Farm School, at Davis.