|
ANTHONY BYRD HUMPHREY.—The march of
improvement and progress is accelerated day by day and each successive moment
seems to demand a man of broader intelligence and keener discernment than the
preceding. The successful men must be live men in this day, active,
strong to plan and perform and with a recognition of opportunity that enables
them to grasp and utilize the possibilities of the moment. Among the
most progressive and successful horticultural and agricultural
representatives in San Joaquin and Sacramento Counties, is Anthony Byrd
Humphrey, who has contributed to the advancement and prosperity of these
localities in a most substantial manner. His ancestry dates back to England,
and the first in this line in America
was Michael Humphrey, a son of Samuel and Susannah Humphrey, of Lyme-Regis, England. The
first record of Michael in America, is found in ancient Windsor,
Conn., where he was engaged in the
manufacture of tar and turpentine, at that time an important industry. He
also engaged in a merchandise business to a considerable extent, his goods
being shipped to him from St. Malo by his brother
Samuel. He married Priscilla, the daughter of Matthew Grant, an ancestor
of Ulysses Grant, and at that time an important and leading citizen of the
town of Windsor. The Grants
were of Scotch descent. Michael Humphrey was deputy to the General Court
of Connecticut in 1670. He died about 1690 leaving a large family of
children, among whom was a son Samuel.
Samuel Humphrey was born May 15, 1656,
in Windsor, Conn., and married Mary, the daughter of Simon and Mary (Buel) Mills, who was born December 8, 1662, probably in
Windsor, Conn. Lieut. Samuel Humphrey removed from Windsor to Simsbury,
Conn., with his father about 1669 and became an influential citizen
there. The hardships attendant upon the settlement of Simsbury were very
great on account of depredations of the Indians and although the family were
once forced to flee back to Windsor when the town was completely destroyed,
they returned the following year and remained. Samuel Humphrey held many
grants of land and many offices of responsibility. His commission signed
by Governor Saltonstall is still in the possession
of one of his descendants. Besides his grants of land he inherited
several tracts from his father and purchased others. He died at Simsbury, June, 1736, leaving eight children. His son
Samuel is the ancestor in this line.
Samuel Humphrey, the second, was born
May 17, 1686. He was married four times and had nineteen
children. His wife, Lydia North, daughter of Nathaniel North of Farmington,
Conn., was the mother of his son Ezekiel, who is the
ancestor of the line under discussion. Samuel settled at Simsbury, where, like his father and grandfather, he appears to
have been a prominent citizen, for his name occurs many times in the town
records. He was an ensign and sergeant. About the year 1739 he
removed with his wife and family to Goshen, Conn., and settled upon a tract of land which he had bid off
at a division of land at New
Haven in
1738. This tract was located in the north part of the town, where the
family gave their own name to the road on which they lived. It is
interesting that up to 1880 nearly all of this land was still in the
possession of his lineal descendants. Samuel died in Goshen, October 16, 1859.
Capt. Ezekiel Humphrey, son of the
above, was born August 28, 1719, in Simsbury,
Conn. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Pettibone, Jr. The Humphrey genealogy says:
"Capt. Ezekiel Humphrey was a man of remarkable mental and physical
stamina and one distinctive mark of the family seems to have come
conspicuously to the surface in him and his immediate descendants. He himself
stood six feet four inches high and had five sons that averaged over six
feet. He also had a large number of grandsons and great-grandsons, all
of whom were men of equally large stature. Capt. Frederick, one of the
sons, was six feet four inches high and weighed 350 pounds. It is rare
that so tall a family can be found. These peculiarities—large stature,
great physical strength and stamina with courteous manners—render them worth
successors of their ancestors, the historic Humphrey Knights of
Old." Captain Ezekiel was representative to the General Assembly in
1777. He died in 1795. The line continues through his son, Elijah.
Capt. Elijah Humphrey was born September
20, 1747. He married Chloe Wilcox, daughter of Ephraim Wilcox, of West
Simsbury, and his wife, Ruhamah Pinney,
widow of Thomas Bidwell, Sr., of West Simsbury. Elijah was a sea captain, engaged in the
merchant marine between new London and the West
Indies. In 1788 he was
lost at sea together with all on board, this being his third shipwreck in
making the then dangerous voyage to the West Indies. His
second son Allen carried the line on.
Maj. Allen Humphhrey
was born in 1777 and married Polly, daughter of Benjamin Bodwell
and his wife Mary Woodbridge, of Simsbury, Conn., a lineal descendant of Gov. Thomas Dudley, and
also of Mabel Harlakenden, who descent from Edward
III of England is to be found in many geneological
records. Allen Humphrey was a clothier by trade and removed with his
family in 1811 to Claridon, Ohio. His was the third family that settled in that
town. He bought 300 acres of land for a farm, upon which he lived until
his death. He served as major in the War of 1812 and was commander of
the post at Cleveland, Ohio, at the time of General Hull, surrender at Detroit. He died December 22, 1825, at Claridon, and was buried there. He left nine children,
the fourth being Elijah Huron.
Col. Elijah Huron Humphrey was born in Canton,
Conn., June 30, 1805, and removed with his parents to Claridon in 1811. He married Sybil Sophronia Sweat. In early life he was a saddler and
harness-maker, but afterward became a lawyer and was admitted to the Ohio bar. Colonel Humphrey served in the Civil War on
the Northern side and achieved some fame by the capture single-handed of the
notorious rebel, Scott. He died about 1890 leaving eleven children, of
whom the second son was Ervin Decius.
Ervin Decius
Humphrey was born August 4, 1836, at Claridon, Ohio. Early in life he became a school teacher in the Ohio schools and while following this profession met his
wife, Mary Goodfellow, also a school
teacher. She was born in Ballygawley, Ireland, in 1831, and due to the loss of her father, came to America alone at sixteen years of age. Her parents were
Presbyterians, probably of Welsh or English descent. In America she completed her education and became a school teacher. This
marriage took place about 1860 in Ohio. In 1862 they emigrated
to San Francisco, where they both continued to teach school. Mr.
Humphrey became the principal of the Hays
Valley grammar school, at that time one of the largest
schools in town. He was considered an authority on the subject of
English grammar and methods of teaching it. His premature death in 1878,
following a severe siege of typhoid fever, cut short a successful career and
left his wife with three young sons. She continued an honored member of
the staff of San
Francisco
teachers until her death in 1889. The names of their children who
survived infancy were Anthony Byrd, John and Harry Ervin.
Anthony Byrd Humphrey, the subject of
this sketch, was born at Harmony, Ohio, June 27, 1862. With his
parents he came to San Francisco when less than a year old and there received his
education in the San
Francisco public
schools under the direction of his teacher parents, who desired him to be
educated for a doctor. His father’s death when he was sixteen years old,
however, caused him to decide that he would not accept the balance of his
education from his mother, who had two younger sons, one less than eight
years old. In addition to this he had always had a longing for ranching
as a calling, and so after a year he left home and took work with a farmer
with the idea of learning to ranch. At first the struggle was hard, for
he was a city-bred boy and unused to the roughness of the men with whom
he toiled. On one occasion when he applied for work he was turned away
because they hired Oriental labor; and this incident made such an impression
on his mind that he never in later years hired anyone but white men on his
places. His first venture for himself was made in Texas at Sweetwater. Previous to this in November 1883,
he had married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of John Jones of San Joaquin County,
and formerly wife of E. A. Hall of Waterford, Stanislaus County, Cal., by
whom she had four children: William Hall of Waterford; Georgianna,
wife of Charles Camp of Modesto; Alice Maud, wife of Judson P. Ross of
Modesto; and Katherine. Mrs. Hall was well-known for her beauty of
personality and character, and was beloved throughout the country by all who
had ever known her. At Sweetwater, Mr. Humphrey created a sensation by
starting a dairy. Although the Texas hills, at that time, 1885, were
covered with beef cattle, such a thing as a dairy was unheard of and there
was much laughing and jeering at the idea; but the milk for which he charged
fifty cents a gallon, at that time a price equal to fifty cents a quart
today, could not be made to cover the demands of the jeering
customers. Although the wealthy cattlemen laughed at him, their wives
were determined to have the milk at any price, and Mr. Humphrey figured to
charge enough to cover the fun at his expense. The business thrived; but the
health of his wife and infant daughter suffered as a consequence of the
severity of the climate, and so the Texas property was
traded for a place at Anderson, Cal, and 1886 saw the family back in the Golden
State. Within two years the Anderson
property was traded again for the ranch at Mayhews,
Sacramento County, where Mr. Humphrey is still located and where the
success he has achieved has made his name well-known throughout the ranks of California farmers. This place, at that time, was known as
the Weinstock & Lubin
place, because if belonged to the gentlemen of that name, who later became
such well-known merchants in Sacramento. It is situated on the Folsom road nine miles out
of Sacramento at Mayhews, and since it has
belonged to Mr. Humphrey it has been known as Grape Wild. It consisted
at that time of 350 acres, for which Mr. Humphrey paid the unheard-of price
of $70,000. In addition to the property traded in he paid a small cash
sum and assumed the balance on a mortgage of large proportions. As the
ranch had never, up to that time, paid its own expenses, it must have been
the courage of pioneer blood that had the confidence to attack such a load;
but Mr. Humphrey believed that by the application of certain practical ideas
the place could be made well worth the difficulties to be overcome; and that
his confidence was well placed has been demonstrated by the results
obtained. The ranch under his management has produced great quantities
of so fine a product that it has made a name for him in Eastern markets and
has not only paid its own expenses, but in addition has gone a very long way
towards helping to develop into a paying property the land in San Joaquin
County, which his minor daughters later inherited from their grandfather,
John Jones.
In 1889 in collaboration with R. D.
Stephens, one of the pioneers of the California fruit industry, he arranged to make their own cars of
fruit and ship them to Eastern auctioneers under the name of Stephens &
Humphrey. They were the first California growers to take this step, and it at once repaid them
in the increased prices they received and the fact that they were able to
take advantage of their knowledge of the conditions of Eastern markets and to
control their shipments accordingly. Mr. Humphrey specialized on the
table grape known as Tokays, of which he has sometimes shipped as high as
50,000 crates in a single season. Shortly after he had purchased the
ranch, he devised a system of tying his grape vines to stakes twelve feet
high with cross-bars on top, and in this way he avoided a large percentage of
mildew and decay after the fall rains and exposed the grapes to the sunlight
in such a way as to develop the beautiful red color that has so often
occasioned favorable comment for his product in the New York and other
Eastern markets. He is a firm advocate of the policy of keeping grape
vines off the ground either by the stake or trellis system, which he has used
on other varieties of grapes on the San Joaquin ranch, a policy which of late
years has been adopted by many other growers. He was among the first to
realize the necessity for artificial irrigation and to start a system of
wells on his place. In the early nineties he began to bore
wells. These wells had to be sunk to a depth of 150 to 175 feet, and
although they were expensive to bore, supplied a large stream of very clear
water when they were once installed. The first power used was the old
gasoline engines, which were later replaced by electric motors. An
underground system of concrete pipe made on the ranch has also in late years
taken the place of the ditches, which, attractive to look upon, were
difficult to maintain. There are now twelve wells on the place supplying
water to every part of the 400 acres which make up the original Grape Wild
farm at Mayhews.
Perhaps Mr. Humphrey’s most valuable
contribution to the industry of California farming was the theory which he
advanced, advocated, practiced and demonstrated to be correct, that a fruit
ranch can be much more economically conducted in conjunction with a small
dairy and stock plant and that alfalfa planted in orchards is a decided
advantage. Before 1900 he had planted to alfalfa a large portion of the
Grape Wild orchard, his theory being that by so doing he would counteract, in
a measure, the bad aspects of artificial irrigation, namely, the tendency of
the ground to sour from the surplus water which was not used by the trees and
the increased need for cultivation as a result of the application of water,
as alfalfa would consume the surplus water, keep the ground open and
introduce oxygen into the soil. In pear orchards it would lessen the
danger of spreading the blight which constant cultivation increases. The
next difficulty to be met and overcome after the planting of the alfalfa was
the constant drain upon the soil from so great a crop as both fruit and
alfalfa. To meet this emergency Mr. Humphrey installed a limited dairy
which would consume the alfalfa and in turn would supply the cheapest and
best form of fertilizer to continually build up the soil. He chose
Guernsey cattle because, his hay production being restricted more than it
would have been in open fields, it was necessary for him to have a breed of cattle
that would return the most milk for the food consumed, and because he could
not run a large herd, he went in from the start, as far as he could, for
pure-breds, his idea being to sell breeding
cattle. This plan he adhered to, and through a number of years has built
up an enviable reputation as a Guernsey and Berkshire
breeder. The next step was to dispose of the skimmed milk, and to do
this he went into pure-bred Berkshire hogs. Although these herds were started and the
foundation laid on the ranch at Mayhews, the ranch
with which they are really associated in the minds of the public is the ranch
at Escalon, also known as Grape Wild Farms, to which the largest part of the
herd was removed in 1915, and where Mr. Humphrey has installed a very
complete and modern dairy and hog plant. Each year he exhibits his stock
at all the fairs of the state where he never fails to carry off his share of
the prizes. At the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco he took the grand champion boar and grand champion
junior boar in Berkshires, both of which had not only been raised but bred by
himself. The boar was sold to an Eastern breeder at the unprecedented
price of $3,000 and the junior boar went to the University of California experimental farm at Davis. He has shipped stock to many Eastern states, to Hawaii,
to the Philippines and to China. Visitors come to see his stock from as far away
as Australia.
In 1894 Mr. Humphrey had the very great
misfortune to lose the wife who had been his greatest help and inspiration
during the first hard years on the ranch at Mayhews. She
it was who had day by day walked over the property with him, discussing,
planning and advising; and her genius at making things grow and her
understanding of plant life in general, were marked qualities. It was
after her death that his little daughters inherited from their grandfather,
John Jones, the ranch at Escalon, which consisted of 800 acres of what had
once been very fine wheat land, but which, due to many years of continuous
wheat crops, had at the time it was inherited come to a state where it seldom
produced a paying crop of any kind. When Mr. Humphrey had brought the
ranch at Mayhews to a state where he could spare
the time and attention, he attacked the Escalon property upon the same
principles that had brought so much success at Mayhews. He
leveled the land so that it could all be irrigated, and before the irrigation
district was installed had bored four wells and had intended to bore
others. One hundred acres were planted to vineyard and olives, and as
fast as was feasible the balance was put into alfalfa. Then began the
system of fertilization which has been so beneficial that a vineyard planted
a year ago to cuttings on ground which has been under irrigation, alfalfa and
fertilization for some years, has made in one year a greater growth than did
the original vineyard in several years, which was planted on ground that had
been impoverished by forty years of continuous wheat-growing. The grape
which Mr. Humphrey chose for this vineyard is also a discovery of his
own. He calls it Lady Finger because of its white color and long,
slender shape. It is presumably an Oriental variety, which had never
been cultivated in this country until he introduced it and which he obtained
in some cuttings sent to him years ago by the University of California for experimental purposes. It is very tender,
with a thin, inoffensive skin and a very sweet flavor. In reality it
contains less grape sugar than any other variety, but it contains practically
no acid. It has reached the height of perfection on the Escalon place
and is quite popular in the markets. It is Mr. Humphrey’s ambition to
put nearly all the balance of the Escalon property into vineyard and orchard,
and towards this end he is devoting his entire time and attention.
Mr. Humphrey is a remarkably active and
energetic man, able to stand great strain and heavy labor without showing the
effects. He has been and is still so devoted to his calling that for
many years he has consistently declined all public and honorary positions, as
he has always felt that his greatest contribution to society could be made by
devoting himself entirely to the calling he had chosen. He was for several
years president of the Western American Berkshire Congress, but with this exception
and possibly one or two other minor ones he has not broken the rule he made
early in life. Of late years the two ranches have been thrown together, for the
purpose of simplification in handling, into a close family corporation, the
A. B. Humphrey Company. Mr. Humphrey has two daughters, Bessie Byrd, born
May 31, 1885, wife of F. E. Greene, a son of the late L. D. Greene of Vorden, Sacramento County, Cal., and Winnifred
Electra, born November 24, 1886, wife of L. B. Landsborough
of Mayhews, a son of L. M. Landsborough
of Florin, Sacramento County. Mr. and Mrs. Landsborough
live on the home place at Mayhews, where Mr. Landsborough is interested with Mr. Humphrey; and Mr. and
Mrs. Greene live in Berkeley, where Mr. Geeene is
interested in a road-paving company.
Mr. Humphrey’s success can be traced
clearly to two or three traits or policies. First is the logical manner
of thinking which has developed his practical theories—the quality of
reasoning from a given condition and result; second, his prompt application
of a principle as soon as it becomes clear to him, his persistence in
adhering to a plan, his own strenuous labor and close attention to detail
over a period of many years—years in which there have been but few
vacations—a developed executive ability, and lastly, a policy of always
delivering the very best quality of goods obtainable and of square dealing in
all his relations. A favorite remark of his is that "the customer
is always right, and he must be pleased."
Transcribed 3-28-07
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 452-459. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 Marilyn R. Pankey.
|