Kings County CA Archives Biographies.....Griswald, Oscar Trout December 7, 1842 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Kellie Crnkovich markkell95@aol.com and Kathy Sedler December 21, 2005, 1:49 pm Author: History of Tulare and Kings Counties In the Buckeye State Oscar Trout Griswold was born December 7, 1842, a son of Edward and Helen M. (Trout) Griswold. He is a descendant of Edward Griswold, who with his brother Matthew came over from England in 1639 and settled in Massachusetts, and is tenth in line of descent from that pioneer. Solomon Griswold, his grandfather, went from New England to western New York and lived there until 1831, when he went to Fort Dearborn, now Chicago, whence he returned to Ohio. Later he visited Wisconsin and still later settled in Iowa, where he died, aged ninety years, having been all his life a farmer. Edward Griswold, father of Oscar T., settled in Iowa in 1851. He had become acquainted with that country as early as 1837, when he was a member of an exploring party which explored the Wisconsin and the vast forests to the westward. He was long a prominent figure in the middle west and was an early and to his death an ardent abolitionist. Oscar T. when only twelve years old, remembers John Brown as a visitor at his father's house and he later saw Brown on the road to Harper's Ferry. Edward Griswold died when Oscar T. was but fourteen years old. He had two other sons, who have passed away. When his parents took him from Ohio to Iowa, in 1851, Oscar Trout Griswold was about eight years old. He was reared on a farm and after he was nineteen was a farmer and a grower and shipper of stock until 1888, when he came to Hanford. He had made a trip to California two years before, riding through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys on a mule-cart, looking for a location. When he brought his family west, leasing his eastern property, he bought one hundred acres of land east of Hanford which he sold in order to buy, in 1893, eighty acres, including water, three miles north of Hanford, at $40 an acre. This land, which is now worth $400 an acre, his sons have set out to fruit, and two of them reside on the place. In 1894 Mr. Griswold bought forty acres near this property on which he has since made his home, though he has done no active farming since he came to California. His sons S. P., Oscar E. and A. E. Griswold during 1911 produced thirty-four tons of honey and fifteen hundred pounds of beeswax from seven hundred and fifty stands of bees. They have been in the bee business more than twenty years and are members of the California State Bee Keepers Association. The oil industry has long had strong claims on Mr. Griswold's attention. He was one of the organizers of the Baby King Oil Company, and is a stockholder in the St. Lawrence Oil Company. Four hundred and eighty acres of land in section eleven, township twenty-three, range sixteen, Kings county, is owned by the Baby King Oil Company in which he is the largest stockholder. He is serving his fourth term as director of the People's Ditch Company and has been for twelve years a director of the First National Bank of Hanford. In 1867 Mr. Griswold married Miss Lucretia Thompson, a native of Ohio, six of whose nine children are living: Elmer B., James C., Alpheus E., Oscar E., S. Perry and May. The latter is the wife of George W. Anderson of Fruitville, Oakland, Cal. Elmer B. is living at Modesto and the other sons live in the vicinity of Hanford. Additional Comments: History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913 pp. 544-545 Transcribed by Kathy Sedler File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/kings/bios/griswald202bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/cafiles/ File size: 4.1 Kb