San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ERNEST CHRISTOPHER HARDER
An example of what may be
accomplished through the development of natural executive ability is afforded
by Ernest Christopher Harder, foreman of the A. B. Humphrey rancho of 800 acres
near Escalon, a portion of what was once the historic Johnny Jones ranch, one
of the largest and most celebrated grain tracts in the San Joaquin Valley. Johnny Jones owned about 32,000 acres, about
12,000 of which lay to the south of the Tuolumne River; while some 8,000 acres
were in the home ranch near Escalon; 8,000 acres in Tulare County, between
Porterville and Visalia, on the Tule River; and the balance on the West Side
near Grayson, in Stanislaus County. The
Humphrey ranch has 225 acres planted to vines and trees, and eighty acres of
grain land, while the balance is in alfalfa.
Mr. Harder was born in Holstein,
then a part of Germany, on May 28, 1864, a son of Jacob and Abie
(Spreckles) Harder, and is the youngest of nine
children. He was brought up and
confirmed in the Lutheran Church, and early went to work in his father’s dairy,
on a ranch of about twenty-five acres.
When sixteen years of age, he left home and native country and sailed
for America. His father had died six
years before; and when he said good-bye to his sainted mother, on a morning in
June, 1880, he did so never to see her again, although she lived to be
eighty-six years old. He sailed from
Hamburg on one of the Hamburg-American Line of steamers; and after a voyage of
nine days across the Atlantic, stopping only at Havre, France, landed about the
middle of June at Castle Garden, one of 1,100 passengers dropped there. He did not tarry in the American metropolis,
but hurried on to his destination, Grand Island, Nebraska, where he had two
elder brothers, John and Jim. He worked
there on a farm for three years, and then, in July, 1883, came on to Stockton
and put up at the United States Hotel at the corner of Center and Market
streets. There he was told that a farmer
at Escalon, J. W. Jones, popularly called “Johnny” Jones, was in need of a man;
so he proceeded to the Jones place, and for the next seven years worked
steadily.
On March 22, 1891, Mr. Harder was
married to Miss Ada Cole, a daughter of Lum Cole, of
Stanislaus County, a California pioneer who came out in 1849, traveling from
Missouri with ox teams. After their
marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Harder rented a farm in Merced County, where they stayed
until 1895. Mr. Harder then went to the
Sargent tract on the Island, west of Lodi, and put in 320 acres in Sycamore
Slough. He was completely drowned out,
and had to start all over again. Coming
back to Escalon, he went to work for Dave Jones, on his Stanislaus River farm
in San Joaquin County. He worked for him
until 1906, when he entered the service of A. B. Humphrey on the present
Humphrey rancho near Escalon; and there he has been ever since. He became foreman for Mr. Humphrey in 1908,
and is still holding that responsible position, Mrs. Harder having charge of
the cooking for the ranch household.
Three children have been granted Mr.
and Mrs. Harder. Adaline is the wife of
J. M. Strickland, a pear grower in El Dorado County. Rudolph J. served overseas in France for
twenty-one months, with the 91st Division, and was eventually
honorably discharged. He was married,
before he went to war, to Miss Blendina Higgins of
Escalon. He is now working under his
father on the Humphrey ranch. Cecil
Frazier is still in school.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1144-1147. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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