James N. Walker
Another who was once listed was a pioneer of the valley, influential in his day politically and financially, James Null Walker, who died January, 1916. His closing career is tinged pitiably when he is recalled in the days of the dandified and handsome personage of younger and middle age, in contrast with his Rip Van Winkle sloven, ragged and neglected appearance of the closing days. A day had been when none was too high not to court the friendship and acquaintance of the Hon. James N. Walker. A Missourian, born in February, 1829, he was brought up in the handling of stock and at fifteen was sent to the New Orleans market in charge of his father's cattle, and later was taken into partnership. He made his last trip to New Orleans as a drover in 1849 and netted enough out of the joint venture to purchase an outfit to come to California in 1850 and arrived in August, after the overland ox-team journey.
He mined in Grass Valley. Nevada County, and in Mariposa County following up mining with merchandising at Coarse Gold Gulch in Fresno County. He conducted a large credit business with the miners but had to close out at a heavy loss with the early giving-out of the mines. Walker's Store was a political and civic center in those days. Ranching at Fine Gold followed, and in the foothills, in 1863, he stocked a range with four dollar a head cattle and in 1867 located also on the north side of the San Joaquin. This was an establishment that was a show place in its day, it was added to until he had 1,300 acres on the river, first raising mules, then interested for twelve years in sheep and later in cattle. Prosperity favored him in this and other enterprises and he served two terms in the state legislature after 1861, was twice sheriff after 1866 and an assemblyman in 1870.
It was said of him in 1905, that he was then one of five left of the early settlers of Fresno County, manifestly as incorrect a statement as the popularly misconceived one that he was the first sheriff of the county. Still. Walker was a prominent and honored citizen in his day. There is in existence a remarkable photographic work of art by Frank Beck picturing him tuning up an old fiddle. The picture was one of twelve that won for Beck the first prize at the photographers' national convention exhibition at Chautauqua. Walker died at the age of eighty-six leaving a $40,000 estate, a widow. Agnes J. Cranmer, and seven children, four of them daughters.
Joseph Medley and T. J. Dunlap
Death removed from the list, in the summer of 1917, Joseph Medley and T. J. Dunlap. Medley, born in October, 1826, was a picturesque character, a resident of the Auberry Valley section for upwards of sixty-six years, identified with activities in the Tollhouse lumber district, a miner of course in the first days, and a squaw-man as was his brother, Marion, whose death preceded his. Joseph went through life without achieving other mark of distinction than as the picturesque survivor of a past day, eking out an existence as a cattle and hog rancher, and removed only a degree above the Indian whose life long associate he had been. His remains lie buried in the little cemetery at Auberry Grove and, at the simple funeral (July 9, 1917) Rev. Hardie Connor of the near-by Indian Mission officiated. Surviving Medley were son and daughter, three nephews and a niece. Leaving no impress of his long life on the history of the county, yet talking interestingly of the very earliest personal recollections of it and its men, the most lurid events in his negative career are recalled in visits to the later founded Fresno City in its infant days to yield to the pitfalls in his path in the den that was dignified with the name of the Star Theater to squander with the prodigality of a Monte Cristo the returns of successive seasons from sale of hogs and cattle, returning to foothill haunts and squaw, bankrupt after wasting his substance on the bedizened and short skirted damsels who welcomed him as long as his money lasted. Medley ended his days in the almshouse, decrepit and almost blind. The local print noticed his death in a twenty-five-line obituary, without revealing the picturesque identity of the character that had passed away.
Of another stamp was T. J. Dunlap of Madera, arrival of 1852-53, whom fortune favored at the very outset in making him strike it rich with a cousin in mining at the mouth of Kaiser Creek where it empties into the San Joaquin, later selling the claim for a big price after having profitably worked it for years. His later day home was on the ranch near Fine Gold; in the 70's he was in the lumber business with saw mill on the site of what is now Bass Lake in Madera County, one of the impounded water reservoirs for electric power generation and at the upper end of which is located The Pines resort.
Dunlap represented in the Fresno County board of supervisors the district north of the San Joaquin, made a campaign for sheriff, but was defeated, and was a deputy under County Assessor W. J. Hutchinson. He was a citizen of note and his death was at the age of eighty-nine. As with many others Fortune, fickle drab that she is, gave him cold shoulder in his last days; or perhaps times and conditions had changed and the pioneer of other days fell by the wayside in the swifter march of the day.
Passing allusion is made here only to earliest of pioneers in Mrs. Ann McKenzie-Hart who died in 1910, at the age of eighty-five and Dr. Lewis Leach who passed away at seventy-four, in March, 1897. Record of them is found elsewhere. They were of the very first white permanent settlers. Others might be recalled but they would have to be summoned out of obscurity. It is with sadness that it must be noted that in their closing days fate has been unkind, even harsh, with some of these pioneers of pioneers, for burdened with the ills and infirmities of age and poverty not a few have had to seek the sheltering roof of public institutions.
John Dwyer and Robert Brantsford
Not overlooked should be one who, until his death in June, 1912, was a character in Fresno city. John Dwyer came to the territory with the soldiers to give protection to the miners against the hostile Indians. He came as a drummer boy and the tale is, that on the march through Death Valley he was carried, in an exhausted state, for two days and nights on the shoulders of Robert Brantsford, a stalwart and burly Virginian and soldier of the expedition. Dwyer labored on the hand-operated saw mill that turned out the logs and planks for Fort Miller, the soldiers first bivouacking at Fort Washington, further down on the river, where today the school district bearing the name is located.
Dwyer was also of the squaw-men contingent. After leaving the garrison he became a freight carrier between Stockton and the Southern Mines; in this connection the story is recalled that as an expert horseman he was once a principal at Stockton, in a wager with thousands in gold dust at stake, as to who had the best horse to move a load of given weight over a marked course. The demonstration by his opponent foreshadowed his loss of the wager, but a quick thought saved the day. Dwyer jumped on his horse astraddle and with the added weight the animal was enabled to secure better foothold to start moving the load and the wager was won. Dwyer was known in Fresno as "The sand wagon man" from his vocation of carting and selling sand for mortar, plaster and other construction work.
Dwyer had passed his eighty-fourth year when death summoned him. It is to be noted as remarkable, the years that the men and women of the pioneer times attained after the hardships and privations endured. Dwyer as a teamster hauled the material in the construction of the Millerton courthouse, was a California volunteer in the Civil War, took unto wife the widow, Mary Friedman of Millerton, was a pioneer of Fresno city, and a member of the first volunteer fire company. His lot in life was a humble one but he shirked no duty.
Of Brantsford who also joined the squaw-men, it is recorded that he died in September, 1890, and in his will, made liberal provision for a daughter Martha, the offspring of a Mono Indian mother, who was known as Mary Hancock because of having assumed other marital relations. Brantsford left for the daughter a trust estate, with Jasper D. Musick as executor of his will.
James J. Rogers