Fresno County CA Archives Biographies.....Draper, Elias Johnson August 21, 1830 - June 8, 1914
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Steve Harrison raleighwood@juno.com April 15, 2008, 7:42 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Company, 1892

"ELIAS JOHNSTON [sic] DRAPER, of Kingsburg. - About the middle of the 
seventeenth century, three brothers named Draper arrived in New York and 
separated, Josiah, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, locating in 
North Carolina.  In 1794 his son Jesse was born, and in 1815 they moved to 
Wayne County, Indiana, locating on Duck creek.  Jesse first married a Miss 
[Delphina] Davenport, a relative of George Davenport, who was murdered by the 
noted "banditti of the prairies," in 1845, on Rock Island, and after whom the 
city of Davenport, Iowa, is named.  By this marriage there were five children, -
 one son and four daughters.  The second time he married a widow named Sarah 
Harlan, who also had five children - two sons and three daughters.  She was a 
daughter of Enos Johnston, of East Tennesee [sic], and half-sister of General 
Albert Sidney Johnston, of the last war [civil war], and she was born August 
21, 1796, in the town of Vandalia, Wayne County, Indiana.  In 1836 her father 
moved to Grant County, same State, locating in the town of Marion, where he 
engaged in farming.  In earlier life he was a miller by trade.
At the age of nineteen years our subject began teaching public school.  January 
1, 1851 he married Miss Elizabeth Hobaugh.  After living upon his father’s farm 
a year he moved to New London, Howard County, Indiana, with the view of 
remaining there; but during the ensuing winter his half-brother, George W. 
[Washington] Harlan, returned from California, bringing remarkable accounts of 
the resources of that country.  He had emigrated there in 1846 and acquired a 
good fortune.  The following spring (1853) he took a drove of cattle across the 
plains, accompanied by Mr. Draper, wife and one child.  Crossing the Missouri 
river twelve miles above Council Bluffs, May 10, they proceeded up the north 
side of the Platte river, and by way of Salt Lake City, down the Humboldt, 
crossed Nevada and came by way of Stockton to Mission San Jose, arriving 
October 4, after a very tedious trip of six months’ travel.
Mr. Draper soon obtained work, at $4 a day, for a time; next he moved to 
the “Squatterville” settlement, in Alameda County, where San Leandro now 
stands, and was employed in his brother’s dairy, at $65 a month.  He afterward 
established a dairy in Oakland, by which he made some money. In Oakland at that 
time there were only two small dry-goods stores and one grocery, and they were 
situated on Broadway near the old wharf.  Nine-tenths of the population were 
foreigners.
After a time Mr. Draper moved back to the ranch and continued in the diary 
business.  In 1856 he and his family, and other relatives, returned to Indiana, 
sailing on the Golden Gate to the Isthmus of Panama, and thence by railroad to 
Aspinwall, and thence on the George Law to New York, the voyage occupying 
twenty-three days and eighteen hours.  He located at Xenia, Miami County, 
Indiana, and followed merchandising for two years, with rather poor success.  
In 1858 he moved to Iowa, locating in a small village called Peoria City, in 
Polk County.  During that year Mrs. Draper died, leaving two little boys and an 
infant girl only eight days old, which children were then taken in charge by a 
sister of Mr. Draper.  During the ensuing winter he taught school.  In the 
spring he married Mrs. Lydia Hobaugh, the widow of his former wife’s deceased 
brother [George Washington Hobaugh].  After clerking in a store for a while and 
peddling goods for the proprietors, he engaged in shoemaking, adding a small 
stock of ready-made clothing and shoes, and filled the position of Justice of 
the Peace for three years.
In the spring of 1863, in keeping with a long cherished desire, he started 
again for California, with his family and others, having two yoke of steers and 
two yoke of cows to each wagon.  Leaving Des Moines March 31, he crossed the 
Missouri river at Council Bluffs, went up the north side of the Platte and came 
by way of Salt Lake City and the stage route to Reese river, arriving there 
July 10, amid the height of the excitement of the first mine discoveries in the 
Reese river country, at the village named Austin, springing up in consequence 
of the discovery.  Remaining there until the first of October, with his family 
he started onward for California, arriving in Sacramento at the time of 
Governor Low’s inauguration.  A month afterward he visited Niles station in 
Alameda County, finding a wonderful change since his residence there ten years 
previous.  He therefore made up his mind to try a newer country and started for 
King’s river, a distance of 200 miles south; found a wild and romantic country, 
with only a few men there, who were mostly stockmen.  He soon located, buying a 
claim opposite the point where Kingston now stands.  He began raising hogs, and 
continued there till the spring of 1869, when he sold out to Mr. St. John, the 
occupant of the Laguna de Tache grant, and moved to Cholame valley, Monterey 
County, and taking his hogs around to the west side of the Lake Tulare, where 
he had good range and at one time had about 500 head.  During the two years of 
his operations there he prospered in this business.  Selling out he began sheep 
raising, in the same valley, and did well also in that business for two years, 
when the great drouth [sic] put a total stop to it.  He sold his stock at 
thirty-seven and a half cents a head, throwing in the lambs.  Then, in 1875, he 
moved to Kingsburg, Fresno County, bought lots and improved them, and built the 
hotel known as the Temperance House, which he still owns and conducts.  In 
1886, however, he temporarily retired to his ranch of eighty-four acres a half 
mile west of Kingsburg, which is devoted to grain and fruit.  He also owns 160 
acres of timber land on Pine Ridge, a locality to which he frequently takes his 
family to spend the summer.  His family now consists of four children, - two 
boys and two girls, namely: Theodore H., Francisco A., Lucy I., Harlan [Lucy 
Irene (Hobauch) Harlan] and Sarah E. Seance [Sarah Elizabeth (Draper) Sronce].” 
END


Additional Comments:
"A Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno, Tulare and 
Kern, California." Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company., nd (1892)
[The cover title of this edition is Pen Picture From the Garden of the World.]
Page 454-455


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