Santa
Clara County
Biographies
LESTER
S. ALLEN
LESTER S. ALLEN. The successful farming and fruit-raising
career of Lester S. Allen ilustrates[sic] anew the worth of practical sense, of fashioning one’s
life according to inclination and ability, and of growing in wisdom and
understanding through the medium of the multitudinous avenues open to the
wide-awake and broadminded citizen of to-day.
From earliest manhood this honored rancher has evidenced a tendency to
progress a little further than his associates, and to use his mind and
intelligence in a thoroughly independent fashion in advancing his own and the
community’s interests. Since he came to
Santa Clara county in 1872, his course has been one of steady and sure
advancement, and the county will not soon forget that he set out the first
prune orchard in the Santa Clara valley in the winter of 1874, and the first
almond orchard of the region on the old Bradley ranch. During all these years he has given special
study to fruit cultivation, and probably has as large a fund of useful
information pertaining thereto as any pioneer of the valley. He is a native son of Cortland county, N.Y., and was born on a farm near Deruyter, July 20, 1848, his parents being
Seymour R. and Samantha (Reed) Allen, natives of New York, and the former
born June 29, 1821.
Seymour R. Allen was reared on a
farm, and the first break in an otherwise monotonous youth came with the
culmination of hostilities between the North and South. In September, 1861, he enlisted in
Company G., Seventy-sixth New York Volunteer Infantry, Army of the
Potomac, but owing to disability he was discharged in 1863, and thus missed
many of the important battles of the war.
In 1864 he removed to Webster City, Hamilton county, Iowa, and in 1872
located on eleven acres of land near Santa Clara, on Stevens Creek road. Not satisfied with his place, he removed to
another one in 1878, this located on Cypress avenue,
where he engaged in orcharding until May, 1902. He was a stanch[sic]
Republican in politics, and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. The wife whom he married June 29, 1841,
in Madison county, N.Y., died in January, 1894, at the
age of seventy-seven years.
The second of the four sons born to his
parents, Lester S. Allen received a practical education in the public
schools of Iowa, finishing at the high school in Webster City. He came to the coast in 1869, and at Dutch
Flat, Placer county, engaged in mining with his uncle,
E. L. Bradley. In the spring
of 1870 he returned to Iowa, but was again in California in 1873 as foreman on
the ranch of his uncle, Mr. Bradley, who owned a large orchard and two
hundred and twelve acres of land. Twelve
years as foreman gave him a comprehensive knowledge of land production as encouraged
in California, and during that time he started the orchard and almond grove
before referred to, and also bought and sold a farm of his own of twenty acres,
on the Stevens Creek road. In 1882 he
purchased his present farm of nineteen and a half acres, which is a small part
of the original purchase of one hundred and forty acres, the balance of which
he has sold off. He laid
out and improved the Cypress road, and has otherwise interested himself in
undertakings of use to the entire community.
His ranch is as complete as any in the county, having every facility for
caring for his prunes, including a large dryer, and a pumping plant of eight
hundred gallons capacity per minute. He
is unable to use all of this water himself, and his neighbors find his excess
amount convenient and purchasable. He
also owns eighty acres of farming land in Shasta county.
One is not surprised to learn that
Mr. Allen is the stanch[sic] friend of education, and that his hopes for
the future of the county rest in its bright and adaptive rising
generation. Next to his interest in
roads, as road overseer, has been his promotion of schools, and his personal
zeal is responsible for the laying out of the Meridan
school district. For many years past,
and at the present time, he is clerk of the school board, and has wielded a
broad influence in its deliberations. He
is a Republican in politics, and fraternally connected with the Fraternal
Aid. In the state of Iowa Mr. Allen
married Emma Meeks, who was born in Ohio, and who shared his rising fortunes
and subsequent success, and died in Capitola, Cal., July 7, 1897, while
striving to regain her health at the famous resort. She was the mother of ten children, eight of
whom are living: Ida May, living at
home; Edwin C., an orchardist in this valley; John S., a resident of Santa
Barbara; Charles, living in Caliente, Cal.; and Frederick, Ralph, Mabel and
Frank, living at home. Mr. Allen
represents the substantiality and personal integrity of his prosperous county, and in his achievements reflects its opportunities
and remarkable resources.
Transcribed by Donna Toole.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 545-546. The Chapman Publishing
Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Donna Toole.