Tulare County
Biographies
GEORGE L. BLISS
Near Visalia, Tulare county, Cal., George L. Bliss, the reliable abstract man of Hanford, was born January 24, 1866, a son of Henry F. Bliss, Sr., and his wife Roxey (Jordan) Bliss. His father was the first of this family of pioneers to settle in. Central California. He was born in New York state, the son of a Presbyterian minister, whom he accompanied to Michigan.
Amid frontier conditions, in Allegan county, Mich., Henry F. Bliss, Sr., grew to manhood. In 1850 he came overland to California with an ox-team outfit and settled at Sonora for a short time, and later on settled in Tulare county and bought land six miles south of Visalia, which he sold later in order to buy a farm about a mile south of that town, where he built up extensive stock-raising interests. It was after he came here that he married Miss Jordan, a native of Texas, who had accompanied Frank Jordan, her father, to California. From girlhood her home was on the Pacific coast and she passed away at the home of her son, Henry F. Bliss, in her fifty-fourth year. Henry F. Bliss, Sr., died in Visalia in his fifty-eighth year. Of their children, William died in Visalia ; Henry F. died in Visalia, in 1909 ; Charles E. is in Fresno ; George L. is the subject of this notice; Irving is a dairyman at Bakersfield; J. H. is in the abstract business in Bakersfield; Mary, the eldest daughter, died in Visalia; Cora is in the abstract business at San Diego ; Maggie, a graduate of the State Normal School at San Jose, married I. E. Wilson of Hanford; and Earl (Maggie's twin) is in the U. S. army, located at Vancouver, Wash.
In the public schools of Visalia George L. Bliss was educated and in 1885 he connected himself with the abstract business of his uncle, John F. Jordan, of the Visalia Abstract company. Eventually he was made deputy county clerk of Tulare county and served two years as city assessor of Visalia. Later he moved to Bakersfield, where he was employed in an abstract office; then, returning to Visalia, he was again connected with the Visalia Abstract company until July 5, 1899, when he took up his residence in Hanford. There he bought a branch of the Visalia Abstract company, which he has operated to the present time, now known as the Kings
County Abstract company. Meanwhile he has engaged in real estate business, and since 1899 has been interested in the development of oil lands in this part of the state. He is secretary of the Coalinga-Pacific Oil and Gas company. In company with Richard Mills, he has lately erected a new brick block on Eighth street opposite the courthouse, which he has made the headquarters of his abstract business and his rapidly growing real estate business.
A man of public spirit, as well as of private enterprise, Mr. Bliss has done much for the development of Kings county. Fraternally he affiliates with Hanford lodge, Knights of Pythias. In 1890 he married Miss Hattie Beville, a native of Georgia. Their children are Iris, Georgia J. and William Payson Bliss.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 796-797
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
M. F. SINGLETON
Back in Indiana, a state from which many men have come to California to find here signal successes, M. F. Singleton, of Ducor, Tulare county, Cal., was born in 1862. When he was about twenty-two years old he went to Kansas, where he remained but a short time, coming on to California and arriving in Tulare county August 27, 1884. Such education as was available to him he obtained in public schools in the Hoosier state, but as he was obliged to go to work for a living when he was fifteen years old his literary training was necessarily not very liberal. He came to the county alone and for four years worked by the day as a farm hand, and his first land was a homestead of eighty acres, which he took up soon after he came. By later purchases he has acquired five other eighty-acre tracts and now owns four hundred and eighty acres. At one time his holdings included other land which brought them up to a total of six hundred and eighty acres. He is now raising grain in goodly quantities, being located six miles from Ducor.
In 1888 Mr. Singleton married Miss Eva J. Hunsaker, a native of Tulare county, who died in 1898. In 1902 he married Miss Clara E. Gibbons. By his first marriage he had five children, Claude F., Louis I., Nettie E., Elsie and Nora. Fraternally Mr. Singleton affiliates with Porterville lodge, No. 359, I. O. O. F., and with the Porterville organization of the Woodmen of the World. While he is not a practical politician and has never sought office, he was, in 1910, elected to represent the fifth district of Tulare county in the board of supervisors. This is said to be the largest and wealthiest district of the county. He has never accepted any other official position, but he is not without honor as a public-spirited citizen and as a self-made man, who having begun at the very bottom of the ladder of success, has gained eminence in a fair and square struggle for advancement in which he has always been willing to give generous aid and honorable dealing. In the days before he was himself a landowner he was instrumental in inducing a well-known farmer to have a well put down on his place. It is worthy of note that this well was the first in the Ducor district for agricultural purposes.
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
Pp 797-798
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler