Butte County
Biographies
FRED C. FRANKLIN
FRED C. FRANKLIN.—Enjoying the distinction of being the youngest large ranch-manager in Butte County, Fred C. Franklin, foremen of the eighteen-thousand-six-hundred-acres Leland Stanford Ranch at Durham, Cal., has the further distinction of being a native son and a Durham boy, born at that place October 14, 1892. His forebears have been intimately connected with the history of Butte County since his maternal grandfather, Cyrenus James Burdick, who crossed the plains with ox teams in 1859, located in the year 1862, one and one-quarter miles west of Durham. Cyrenus Burdick was an extensive tenant-rancher on the Leland Stanford Ranch, and for several years was Leland Stanford’s principal tenant.
Fred C., the oldest son of J. A. and Ella (Burdick) Franklin, received his education in the public school of Durham and the Chico high school, graduating from the latter institution with the class of 1912. In the meantime he worked for his grandfather on this ranch while only a little boy, and is familiar with every acre of the land, much of which he has plowed. The first work given him to do when he began working on the ranch was to draw the hay derrick, and he was so small they had to help him harness his team. Later, at the age of nineteen, he had charge of his father’s work horses on this ranch, continuing to look after them for several years. He also ran a crew of men for his father, stacking hay and doing other ranch work. From these boyish efforts, he was promoted to “straw boss,” or field foreman, under James F. Van Lobensels, superintendent of the Leland Stanford Durham and Vina Ranches. He took his present position in September, 1917.
The eighteen thousand six hundred acres of most excellent agricultural land comprised in the Leland Stanford Ranch, laying east of Durham, and still larger Leland Stanford Vina Ranch, lying near Vina, Tehama County, and the Leland Stanford Ranch at Palo Alto, were left by the late Governor Stanford in trust for the up-keep of the Leland Stanford Junior University at Palo Alto. Eighteen hundred sixty-seven acres of the Durham Ranch are leased to sub-tenants, namely: One hundred eighty-seven acres of alfalfa, leased to Mr. Machado; sixty acres leased to C. C. Brown; one hundred twenty acres leased to Mr. Rapoza; and fifteen hundred acres leased to Mr. Washburn. The Durham Ranch reserves the grazing privileges on all leased land except alfalfa, and is leased for net cash. One hundred head of horses, thirty-six mules, and one sixty-horsepower Holt Caterpillar tractor are used in operating the ranch, on which are raised large quantities of wheat, barley and alfalfa, besides Short Horn cattle and pure-bred Poland China swine. Fifty men are employed in harvest, all well cared for in the new commodious bunkhouse and annex, models of convenience and sanitation, and fed in the model new dining-hall with up-to-date kitchen accommodations. In 1916, one thousand tons of hay were sold from the ranch, and, in 1917, four hundred fat steers, seventy-five cows and fifteen carloads of hogs, products of the ranch, were sold, aggregating a tremendous sum and making the Durham Ranch the best paying of the three Leland Stanford ranches.
Mr. Franklin’s foremanship extends to the eighteen thousand six hundred acres minus eighteen hundred sixty-seven acres leased to tenants, and includes the grazing privileges on all the land except that leased out for alfalfa raising. He it was who caught the six hog-thieves last spring, who were tried at Oroville, in September, 1917, five being convicted and sentenced to San Quentin, for from one to ten years. The cases were known as the hog-stealing cases. In June, 1918, the California Land Settlement Board took possession of the main buildings and thirty-seven hundred acres of the best land, and the other holdings have been taken by other interests. The interests over which Mr. Franklin has had supervision are being disposed of.
Mr. Franklin is one of the most successful and popular young men of Durham. He established domestic ties by his marriage with Miss Ellen Henderson of Chico, daughter of C. E. Henderson of that place.
Transcribed by Sharon
Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1274-1275, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies