Santa
Clara County
Biographies
MRS.
CARRIE STEVENS WALTER
MRS. CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. The literati of San Jose recognize in
Mrs. Carrie Stevens Walter one of its brilliant and forceful writers, an
author of more than local renown, and formerly the capable editor and proprietor
of the “Santa Clara,” a monthly periodical devoted to short stories and
high-class literature, and which numbered among its subscribers the most
cultivated and exacting readers of the state.
Mrs. Carrie Walter was born in Andrew county,
Mo., and was educated in California under the care of her father, Josiah
Everett Stevens, a pioneer, and one of the most successful of the
agriculturists of Sutter county, Cal.
Col. Josiah Everett Stevens was
born at New Portland, Somerset county, Mo., and in his
youth was hedged in by the disadvantages of a small farm and a non-intellectual
community. His menial tasks were
brightened by the hope of his strong mentality, which saw beyond his father’s
fences, and laid its plans far from its immediate limitations. Following the drudgery of the farm from
sunrise to sundown, his craving for knowledge was satisfied only in the
firelight, and for hours he would lie on the floor, the blazing, crackling logs
sending their grateful light over his book.
That he was able to teach school at an earlier age than the average was
due entirely to this self-acquired education, and at the age of nineteen he
started west, then but sparsely settled, for the pioneer instinct was strong
within him, and appealed to his ambition to accomplish something out of the
ordinary. He followed farming, teaching,
and other honorable occupations in the middle west,
and finally made the acquaintance of Rev. Mr. Dunbar, a Presbyterian
missionary, of whose farms in the Pawnee mission district he was general
superintendent for a few years. He then
went to Missouri, and in 1845 married Emeline Ashley,
a native of Ohio, but of Vermont parentage, and who, like himself, claimed
Revolutionary ancestry. In Missouri he
purchased land and engaged in farming and stock-raising, achieving success and
becoming prominent in the development of his county. Learning that there was a scarcity of cattle
in California, in 1854 he bought up a large herd of cattle and drove them across
the plains. The trip did not impress him
as either dangerous or difficult, for he had become familiar with the Indians
around his own farm and had the faculty of getting along with them. When he reached California he sold enough
cattle to meet current expenses, and soon afterward invested in a ranch of
three hundred acres, now known as the G. Briggs orchard. In 1856 he sent for his wife and children,
erected a modest home on his property, and set out what proved to be one of the
first orchards in Sutter county. His land proving to be part of a Spanish
grant, he disposed of it in 1864 and bought four hundred acres near Lafayette,
Contra Costa county, where he again carried on general
farming for three years. He then sold
out and went to Santa Barbara county, then almost a
wilderness, purchased four hundred acres of the Briggs ranch, and disposed of
the same in 1870. Leaving his family at
Ventura, he drove a herd of cattle, horses and sheep over the mountains to
Arizona, settled near Hackberry, Mohave county, one of
the wildest and most inhospitable regions of the north at that time. Knowing the Indian language, and possessing
tact in dealing with the Redmen, he suffered less
than the other settlers from having his cattle stolen. Having been poisoned by a cactus thorn in
1884 he returned to California, where he died August 15 that year at the
age of sixty-five. He liked the northern
country with its opportunities for adventure, and its closeness to nature, his
own character and disposition blending with the broad sweep of the plains, and
the absence of the trammels of civilization.
Too much cannot be said of his broad and tolerant life, his cultured
mind and oneness with a simple and rational existence. His knowledge of the history of the state was
remarkably accurate, and was a result of extensive travels in the early
days. He was one of the founders of the
Republican party in California, and although he never
sought office, labored earnestly for the preservation of the highest tenets of
his party. While in Santa Barbara county he was induced to accept the nomination to the state
assembly, and lost the election by only a few votes. At the age of twenty-two he joined the
Masonic order in Missouri, eventually becoming a member of all the bodies of
the fraternity. He was perhaps the most
popular and influential Mason of his day in the state, being a fluent and
brilliant speaker, and instituting commanderies in
several cities in California and Oregon.
He was a charter member of the Marysville Lodge, R. A. M. He is remembered as a kind and considerate
neighbor and a loving husband and father.
If he had one fault it was generosity, not always wisely directed,
because of his intense love for and desire to be of assistance to mankind. He was survived by his wife until 1903, she
having attained to four score years.
Besides Mrs. Walter there were five other children born into the
family: Augusta, Henry Clay,
William W. Horace and Alice.
At the age of twenty-one years Carrie
Stevens married William Walter, who was born in Morgan county,
Ohio, and reared in Cedar county, Iowa.
Upon attaining his majority, in 1864, Mr. Walter came to California
and after prospecting in different mining regions settled in Santa Clara county, where he bought a ranch. Disposing of this a few years later he became
superintendent of the T. B. Bishop ranch in Contra Costa county, and
after seven years of faithful survice]sic] became identified with mining in Eldorado county, to
which he has since devoted his attention.
The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Walter are as follows: William C., who died at the age of
nineteen; Mary, a teacher in the State Normal; Roy E., a reporter on the San Francisco Examiner; and Delmas, living at home.
In 1904 Roy E. Walter ran for the office of city clerk of San Jose
and the electoral showing evidenced the extreme popularity of this brilliant
young newspaper man. He is fraternally
prominent, being identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
Protective Order of Elks, Foresters, Red Men, Eagles and Native Sons.
For years Mrs. Walter has
contributed to western periodicals, and has been appreciated for her style,
graphic descriptive power and easy flow of language. In 1893 she established the “Santa Clara,” a
monthly magazine, with its interesting and well-written short stories, and soon
had a circulation of three thousand among the best people of the state. Failing health necessitated the abandonment
of the magazine in 1900, and comparatively speaking, she has since lived in
retirement. Mrs. Walter is an
unusually capable, popular and gracious woman, cultivated in the broadest sense
of the word, and living close to the ideals which have led her into the realms
of intellectual attainment. She has a
kindly and humane personality, is a generous contributor to popular needs, and counts
among her friends many who have become famous in the land of sunshine and
flowers.
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 392-395. The Chapman
Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Donna Toole.