Sacramento County
Biographies
HOWARD D. KERCHEVAL
HOWARD D. KERCHEVAL.--An orchardist whose scientific, progressive efforts, and
eminently interesting and satisfactory results, have contributed to extend the fame
of Sacramento County as the garden spot of California, is Howard D. Kercheval, of Grand Island, three miles to the south of
Courtland, where he was born on December 22, 1860, the son of Reuben Kercheval, a native of Eaton, Ohio, born December 1, 1820,
and his good wife, Margaret White Brodie.
The
Kercheval family are traced
to France, the family being Huguenots who, at the time of the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, fled from France,
and coming to the New World, settled in Virginia. Members of the family became prominent in
colonial days and served in the Revolutionary War. Afterwards members of the family drifted into
Kentucky and thence to Ohio,
where, as stated, Reuben Kercheval was born; and
there he was reared and educated.
As
a young man Reuben Kercheval came westward, moving to
Joliet, Ill.; and on the discovery
of gold in California, he
hastened to the new Eldorado, crossing the plains in
1849 in an ox-team train. He set out to
try his luck at mining, but did not like the experience and after two and a
half hours quit the gold-seeking game.
He had an uncle, Armistead Runyon, living on the Sacramento River in Sacramento
County; so he came hither, and in January, 1850,
he purchased a place on Ryer
Island, where he followed the early
dry farming. Meantime he had purchased
134 acres at the northeast point on Grand Island
for his brother, but this brother turned it back to him. He also had 200 acres adjoining; so he sold
his Riyer Island
place to Sol Runyon and moved onto his Grand Island
ranch in 1855, and this became his home during the rest of his days. He built a residence and began improvements
that eventually made the property very valuable. In 1856 he set out an orchard of pears that
is still bearing and is probably the oldest on the river. In 1857 he returned to Illinois
and at Joliet was married to Margaret White Brodie, a native of Urbana,
Ohio, of Scotch and English descent. Returning to his California
ranch with his bride, via the Isthmus of Panama, he
threw himself into the improvement of his property. Seeing the great need of reclamation of the
wastelands, he became one of the pioneers in the great work of reclamation that
has resulted in the marvelous agricultural development on the islands in recent
years. He served in the assembly of the
state legislature during the session of 1873, and voted for Gov. Newton Booth
for United States
senator. In 1877 he again served in the
assembly, displaying marked ability in obtaining needed legislation. He was a Knight Templar and a thirty-second
degree Scottish Rite Mason. He passed
away on May 5, 1881, aged sixty years, five months and four days; while Mrs. Kercheval, who shared the esteem and good-will
accorded his industrious husband by all who knew them, breathed her last on
November 17, 1904, at the age of seventy-one.
Their family consisted of six children, among whom Howard D. Kercheval was the second in order of birth. James Louis, the eldest, was born in 1858,
and died on March 25, 1923, at Walnut Grove.
Edward H. S. Kercheval followed Howard, in
1863; he was drowned when six years of age.
Mary Josephine was born in 1865, married W. H. Metson,
and died in 1911. Hartley, born in 1868,
and Gholdsen, born in 1875, are also deceased.
Howard
Kercheval attended the Onisbo
district school. When a young man, he
took up steamboating, entering the service of the
California Transportation Company on the Sacramento River, and remaining with
that enterprising concern for ten years.
He then returned to the home place and engaged in farming; and he has
lived there since, owning today 200 acres of the Grand Island Rancho, where his
father settled, which is devoted to the raising of pears, plums and
peaches. He is a present manager and secretary
of the Delta Telephone Company, which was started in a small way after a
meeting among neighbors, and which now has some 500 subscribers. The patrons are residents of the entire
Sacramento River Delta section, from Sacramento
to Rio Vista, and the appraisement of the company is now about $250,000 – a
neat sum which speaks for itself in praise of Mr. Kercheval’s
management. In matters of national
political import, Mr. Kercheval is a stanch
Republican.
At
Sacramento, in July, 1882, Mr. Kercheval
was married to Martha Barkey, a native of Newark,
N. J. and the daughter of John and Sarah (Merwin)
Barkley, who came to California in 1858, by way of the Isthmus
of Panama. John Barkley was
connected with the hardware firm of Massol-Merwin of Sacramento
for many years; he died on the Kercheval ranch in
1891, following his affectionate wife to the grave six years after her
demise. They had three children, Minnie,
Henry, and Martha. Four children blessed
the union of Mr. And Mrs, Kercheval:
Reuben, Elbert, Howard G., and Helen Eugenie.
Reuben married Miss Dell Banta, and they have one daughter. Elbert married Miss Elizabeth Finnie, and
they have one child, Joan. Howard
married Juanita Lauppe, and they are the parents of
two children: John Howard and
Robert. Helen Eugenie is now Mrs.
Wallace, of San Francisco.
Mr.
Kercheval is past master of Franklin Lodge No. 143,
F. & A. M., at Courtland, and is a member of Sacramento Chapter No. 3, R.
A. M.; Sacramento Commandery No. 2, K. T.; and Islam
Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in San Francisco; and he is also a member
of Sacramento Lodge No. 6, B. P. O. Elks, and belongs to the Native Sons of the
Golden West of Courtland.
Transcribed by
Priscilla Delventhal.
Source: Reed, G. Walter, History
of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 631-632.
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.
© 2007 P. J. Delventhal.