San
Joaquin County
Biographies
DELAVAN M. BURGE
An energetic, foreseeing, eminently
practical and very successful rancher is Delavan M. Burge, a native of Iowa,
where he was born near Cedar Rapids, in Linn County, on December 28, 1856. His father, a native of Virginia, was Simeon
S. Burge, and he married Miss Elizabeth Archer, a native of Ohio. They both went to Iowa, where they
married. In 1862 these sturdy pioneers
crossed the plains, during which they and their companions had no less than
three encounters with the Indians, and in one encounter, the train had to halt
and corral at noon, when shots were exchanged.
The Indians succeeded in stampeding the fleeing cattle, consisting of
about eighty head of domestic stock, but luckily, while two persons were
wounded, none were killed. In 1864 Mr.
Burge went back to Iowa to bring his parents, Minor and Elizabeth Burge to
California. They died here and are
buried at Woodbridge.
Upon arriving in California, Simeon
Burge first settled four miles west of Woodbridge, where he purchased a
quarter-section of land, later adding a second quarter section to it in the
same vicinity. The pioneer and his wife
had seven children: John O., who is now
deceased; Delavan M.; Estella, who has become Mrs. Williams, of San Francisco;
Maude, who is Mrs. Oppenheimer; Ella, Mrs. Charles Searle, and Archer.
Delavan began his education at the
Turner district school, but in 1871, the family moved to Stockton, for Mr.
Burge had been elected county recorder, an office he filled with signal ability
for two years, when he resigned. He then
helped to organize the Grangers Union, and became secretary and manager; and
this helpful enterprise he thus headed from 1874 to 1880. He then became general manager for the D. M.
Osborn Company, and went to Portland, Oregon, for five years; but in 1885 he
returned to Stockton and conducted a hardware business. He bought out Bailey Badgeley,
and from 1885 to 1890, had a business at the corner of Main and California
streets. Mr. Burge then became a partner
in the Burge-Donahoo Company of San Francisco,
jobbers of farming implements, for several years; but from San Francisco he
removed to Merced and engaged in grain buying.
He died at Point Richmond, when past seventy-five years of age, and was
buried in the rural cemetery of Stockton.
Mrs. Burge died in April, 1906.
Delavan Burge struck out for himself
when very young, and at Stockton on May 20, 1880, he was married to Miss Mary
A. Harelson, a daughter of Edmund and Mary Ann (Oliver) Harelson; her father
was a native of Kentucky, who had moved into Wisconsin in frontier days, and
then on to California across the plains, arriving in 1850. He mined for a short time, recovered his
health, then returned to Wisconsin, but did not remain very long until he again
came to California. Mrs. Harelson was a
native of Alabama, and settled on the ranch near Stockton, and her father had
also moved to Wisconsin in pioneer days, braving the rigors of frontier life. They were also married in Wisconsin. Edmund Harelson had located about six miles
northeast of Stockton, on Fairchild Lane, and was joined here by his wife and
children; then they purchased 482 acres from a Mr. Hitchcock. The Harelson’s had six children: Durrett O., now of
San Francisco; Almeda, Mrs. C. C. Castle of Stockton;
Elizabeth became Mrs. John Salmon; Edmund died at the age of sixteen; Mary Ann
is Mrs. Burge; Nevada is Mrs. O. R. Smith of Lindsay. The father died at the age of sixty, while
the mother lived to be eighty-three. In
Lancaster County, Wisconsin, Mr. Harelson had been county treasurer.
In 1881, Delavan Burge bought 57-1/2
acres of the old Harelson place and Mrs. Burge inherited 57-1/2 acres from her
father; they moved onto it and he planted it to grain until he started to
intensify his farming. In 1889 he set
out sixteen acres to grapes; now he has thirty-five acres of bearing
vineyard. He also has four acres of
almonds, five acres of walnuts, and four acres of cherries, the place being
well irrigated. He has put all the
improvements on the place, and has a finely-equipped ranch for high-grade and
abundant production. At the death of her
mother Mrs. Burge inherited forty more acres of the estate.
Two children have been born to Mr.
and Mrs. Burge. Noel S. is superintendent
of the Libby Canal Ranch, a graduate of Stockton high and of Stanford
University in the field of civil engineering, having been a member of the class
of ’07; Hazel, the wife of Prentice Burtis, the
manager of Hale Bros., of Sacramento, is a graduate of Stockton high school and
Smith College in Massachusetts. Noel
married Miss Ruth Maddox, of Visalia, and they have three children: Delavan, Noel S., Jr., and Barbara Ann; and
Mrs. Burtis has a son, Prentice Townsend Burtis, and a daughter, Mary Prudence. Delavan M. Burge is a Republican in politics;
and he is a member of Truth Lodge, I. O. O. F., of Stockton.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
671. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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