Santa Clara County
Biographies
JAMES FRED PAYNE
JAMES FRED PAYNE. One of the most painstaking and
successful farmers in the vicinity of Campbell is James Fred Payne, owner of
one hundred and twenty six acres of land, devoted to general farming and fruit
raising. During the years which have passed since he took possession of his
farm in 1873, the changes have been so numerous and well advised that one
passing with the memory of yesterday to guide him would fail to recognize the
once barren and unpromising property. Modern implements have done much to
establish its superiority, but a well directed brain and untiring devotion to a
life work which holds for him pleasure as well as profit, have done more to
convert the place into a neat and thrifty center of activity. Few farmers are so particular about details as Mr. Payne, and system
has been his strong fort, enabling him to accomplish more and in less time than
the average tiller of the soil.
Mr. Payne was born in Columbia county,
N. Y., March 20, 1833, a son of William Payne, who was born in Yorkshire,
England, in 1799. John Payne, the paternal grandfather, was also a native of
Yorkshire, and in 1802 brought his family to the United States, locating in
Columbia county. He was a cabinet maker by trade, and
lived to an advanced age. William Payne farmed for years in Columbia county, and in 1837 removed to Schoharie county, where he
spent the balance of his life and died in 1866, at the age of sixty-five. In
Schoharie county he married Gertrude Crapser, daughter of John Crapser,
a native of New York state, and a soldier in the war of 1812. Mrs. Payne
lived to be eighty-four years old, notwithstanding the fact that her life was
one of toil, and that she reared a family of eleven children. Her seven sons
and four daughters were given the best education possible of attainment in the
country schools of New York, and they were reared with due regard to lives of
future goodness and usefulness.
Until 1855, James Fred, the fifth in his father’s family,
worked on the home farm, and then came to California by way of Panama, locating
in Tuolumne county, where he lived until 1858. That year he bought a farm in
the foothills in Santa Clara county; two years later,
in 1867, he settled on a farm a mile east of Los Gatos, and in 1873, as before
stated, came to his present home. He has thirty-seven and a half acres under
prunes, twelve and a half under apricots, and the balance of his farm is
devoted to hay and grain and general produce. He is well equipped for caring
for his own fruit, having a large dryer, and the absence of frost insures
uniformly excellent crops. Mr. Payne is a believer in agreeable
surroundings, and has wrought with great care for the happiness and comfort of
his family. A fine modern residence is well furnished and cheerfully arranged,
and the custom prevails of having current literature and other aids to progress
at the disposal of the family and their many friends. The grounds surrounding
the house suggest the landscape artist’s work, and have flowers, shrubs and
trees to gladden the heart in the summer time. Mr. Payne married in Mountainview, Cal., in 1874, Phoebe McClellan, a native of Missouri, in which state her father, William,
settled after removing from his native home in Tennessee. The McClellan family are numbered among the California pioneers of 1850,
and the father spent his last years on the farm in Santa Clara valley, where he
had labored long and faithfully. Five children comprise the Payne household:
George Carlton, Perley B., Jay
Howard. Gertrude and Louise. Mr. Payne is a
Republican in political affiliation, and was a school director for eight years.
He is a member of the Grange, and has done much to increase the usefulness of
that admirable organization. He is popular with his neighbors, and has the
faculty of maintaining agreeable relations with all with whom he is associated.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 03 July 2016.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page
1242. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Marie Hassard.