Fresno County CA Archives Biographies.....Draper, Francisco "Frank" Americus February 13, 1854 - February 27, 1937
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Steve Harrison raleighwood@juno.com May 16, 2011, 8:29 am

Source: History of Fresno County, California (1919)
Author: Paul E. Vandor

"A California pioneer with an interesting history and a record of enviable
accomplishment both in the Golden State and Alaska, and a representative of one
of the few families able to claim a part in the foundation of Kingsburg, is
Frank A. Draper, the son of the late Elias J. Draper, and a nephew of Josiah
Draper, who took up the land upon which a part of Kingsburg is now located.  The
father came to California from Iowa in 1852, crossing the continent with his
half-brother, George Harlan, when the two brought a large drove of cattle, one
of the first ever driven across the mountains.  His full name is Elias Johnson
Draper, and he was born in Vandalia City, Wayne County, Ind., on August 21,
1830.  He even belonged to the pioneer days of Indiana, but he so far improved
the educational advantages of the log school-house that he became a teacher
himself.  At sixteen years, also, he became a Christian, and always thereafter
he lived the life of a professing Christian, holding steadfast to his dying day,
June 7, 1914.  In 1851 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Hobaugh, by whom he had
three children:  Theodore is now a rancher in Monterey County; Francisco
Americus (named by his mother), or Frank, is the subject of our interesting
sketch; while the third child is Sarah Elizabeth, who was born in Iowa.

With their first-born child, subject's mother and father crossed the plains to
California.  Soon after reaching California, their second child, the subject of
this review, was born.  The parents engaged in diary-farming and stock-raising,
for a short while, and then returned to Iowa via the Isthmus. The third, child,
as before stated, as born after they returned to Iowa, where the mother died on
the fifteenth day of June, 1857, leaving her husband and three small children
and the blessed memory of noble life.

In the state of Iowa, in 1858, the father married his second wife, Mrs. Lydia
[Malott] Hobaugh, who was the widow of George Hobaugh, by whom she had one
child, Lucy Hobaugh, who married a California pioneer, of Donner Party fame,
namely, the late Elisha Harlan, extensive land-owner and farmer and stockman, in
what is now the Laton-Riverdale section of Fresno County.  In 1863, Elias J.
Draper and family returned to California by ox team, the second Mrs. Draper
enduring the privations and hardships of those pioneer days.  After trying their
fortune in different lines of business in various parts of California they
settled at Kingston, Fresno County, and ever after were well satisfied with
their choice.  Mrs. Lydia Draper passed away on July 10, 1887 [may not be the
correct date], fifty-seven years  of age.

Born near San Jose, Santa Clara County, on February 13, 1855 [sic, 1854?], Frank
Draper remembers the trip in 1863 very well, when the party drove three ox teams
across the plains to California.  They attended the funeral of the Government
agent, who kept the stage station which was burned, and who died from wounds
received while fighting the Indians of the Little Sweetwater.  From his eighty
year, Frank grew up in California; and on January 1, 1864, the family settled at
Kingston, on the Kings River, near what is now Laton, where the father bought a
squatter's claim which afterwards proved to be on grant land.  They continued to
live there five years, and then they went to Monterey County, and preempted 160
acres, and lived there six years.  In 1872, Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Draper and a part
of the family moved to Kingsburg, but Frank remained in Monterey County and
continued to take care of the ranch there, and five years later reached
Kingsburg and rejoined his father.  The latter, who was early honored by his
fellow citizens as justice of the peace, was then proprietor of the Temperance
House, which he had built, and which was later burned.  Frank became a partner
with his father, and the hotel was one of the well-known hostelries of the time.

On September 21, 1878, Frank Draper was married to Miss Florence Livermore, a
native of Iowa who had come to California when she was eighteen years old, and
who was the daughter of Wilson and Huldah (Russell) Livermore, Pennsylvanians,
who settled in southern Fresno County, where they improved a farm and were among
the first settlers.  Mrs. Draper well remembers the outlaw Vasquez and a party
of six followers, coming to their home early on the morning after the hold-up at
Kingston.  They were hungry and asked for breakfast.  The mother appreciated the
situation, and without arousing fear of alarm in her children (by herself
showing fear), she prepared the best meal she could from their scanty
food-supply and set it before the desperadoes, who voraciously devoured it, and
showed gratitude for her kindness.  The sheriff's posse appeared a few hours
later, and Vasquez was duly apprehended, tried and brought to justice.

Continuing in partnership with his father until 1882, Frank Draper then bought
his forty acres and built a home upon it.  Altogether he bought and sold between
two and three hundred acres, in vines and trees, among which eighteen acres are
in muscats, six acres in Thompson seedless, and eight acres in peaches.  For a
while he cultivated his land himself, but now he has it leased to others.

An adventurous chapter has to do with Mr. Draper's several trips to the far
North in search for gold.  He first went to the Klondike in 1898, when he was
one of thirty-five thousand to rush there because of the excitement about the
yellow metal, but he came back the same fall, only to return to Nome the next
year and the year following.  In 1901, too, he was back in the North, but in
that same fall he was smilingly greeting his friends in Kingsburg, having
acquired some profit, if not a fortune, by going to Alaska.

Before he went to the Klondike, Mr. Draper was a grain-farmer, but since he
returned he has devoted himself to the fruit and raisin industry.  He has long
been a member of the Raisin Growers Association and the California Peach
Growers' Company, and has helped all movements for bettering California
husbandry.  His choice ranch of forty acres is only three miles southwest of
Kingsburg.

Mr. Draper has been local superintendent of the Fulgham Canal Company's draining
ditch, which runs from Selma, where it connects with the Centerville, Kingsburg
Ditch, four miles south, and supplies water for irrigation purposes to Mr.
Draper's section of the county.  It is now part of the Consolidated Canal
Company, and in its management Mr. Draper has proven very able and efficient.

The Drapers were among the first settlers at Kingsburg, and Draper Street will
always be a memorial of their association with the foundation-laying of what is
bound to be one of the most prosperous and attractive small cities of Central
California.  They were good, honest, sober-minded folk, and in a measure
Kingsburg has partaken of their character.

The two children of our subject are:  Clayton F. Draper, who is Justice of the
Peace and the Assistant Cashier of the Kingsburg Bank, in which town he resides,
happy as a father of one child, Pauline; and Flossie E. Draper, who became wife
of Arthur Blair, and has her home at Richmond, Cal.

Frank Draper is a courteous, generous man, and is a member of the Christian
Science Society at Selma.  Mr. and Mrs. Draper have recently purchased a
residence-property on Draper Street in Kingsburg, whither they will soon retire
and there enjoy the fruits of well spent lives, and the distinction of belonging
to the first generation of honored pioneers of Kingsburg." END

Additional Comments:
Biography of Francisco [Frank] A. Draper in Volume I on pages 735-739.

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