ABRAM BLOCK
Gould Fruit Ranch
Bio- Pen Pictures
Abram Block is a native of Bohemia, and was born at Schwihau in
1830. When fourteen years of age he came to America, and on his arrival
here went directly to St. Louis, Missouri, where he had several
brothers. Having only a limited education, he attended school at
St. Louis until his seventeenth years. He then obtained a
situation as a clerk in the wholesale and retail dry-goods house of
Nathan Ables, in which he aquired an interest in 1850. In 1852,
on account of poor health, he withdrew his interest in the firm and
came West to Nevada City, were he became associated with S. Furth, in
the mercantile business, after which he also engaged in private banking
until 1874.
In 1856 he became a resident of San Fancisco, where
his firm also engaged extensively in business. Meeting with
reverses in 1874, caused by the depreciation of mining stocks, and also
by accommodating friends in whom his faith was too anguine, he was
forced to make an assignment. In 1878 after settling up his
affairs, by the advice of his physican, he abandoned mercantile and
banking pursuits and turned his attention to fruit-culture, and with
what little he saved from his financial wreck he invested in a fruit
ranch near Santa Clara, long known as the Gould Fruit Ranch. Mr.
Gould was a noted horticulturist, and it was he who first shipped
California fruits to Eastern States, as well as foreign counties, i.e., Australia,
Sandwich Islands, and China. Mr. Block's ranch contains
ninety-six acres, and he grows many varieties of fruit, but the pear is
this speciality, the land being best adapted to that fruit. He is
widely known as a pear culturist, and he ships years large quantities
of pears to Eastern markets. Although deeply in debt, with the
help of friends Mr. Block has succeedd in removing every financial
incomubrance from his ranch, the result of his perserving industy under
the most trying difficulties. He ranks among the prominent
horticulturists of the State of California, and in 1885 was
appointed a member of the California State Board of Horticulturists, by
Governor Stoneman, to fill a vacancy, and afterward by Governor
Waterman, to a full term of four years, and is now a member of the
Board. He is also one of the Trustees of the Home for the
Care and Training of Feeble-minded Children, a State institution at
Santa Clara having been appointed by Governor Barlett in 1887.
Politcally, Mr. Block is independent, and never votes a strictly
partisan ticket; and, although of foreign birth, he loves the free
principles of the United States, and believes in adhering to and
upholding the laws of his adopted country He is still unmarried,
and will probably never be a bedict, or allow himself to be a party to
a matrimonial alliance.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County,
California, Illustrated. - Edited by H.S. Foote.- Chicago: The
Lewis Publishing Company, 1888. page 265 transcribed by Carolyn Feroben
