HORACE LITTLE

 Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: WILLIS, FISK,

            Horace Little, San Jose Township, is one of the early settlers of Santa Clara County, having come here in 1853.  He is a native of New York, born in Cayuga County, October 6, 1828, his parents being Asa and Esther (Willis) Little.  George Little, of Scotch birth, was the founder of the family in America.  He settled in the Massachusetts Colony in the year 1640.  In 1798 Moses Little, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, leaving his home in New Hampshire, emigrated to Cayuga County, New York, and established the family there.  Some members of the family have taken part in every war of this country, including that of the Revolution, and in the Civil War two hundred and fifty-one of its representatives fought in the Union ranks, and not one in the Confederate Army!

            When Horace Little was eight years of age his parents removed to Michigan, and located in Hillsdale County, where both afterward died.  He was reared there, and in 1852 left home for California, coming by the Isthmus route, and arriving in San Francisco January 18, 1853.  He went into the mines of Amador County, and afterward to Georgetown, El Dorado County.  In May, 1853, he came to Santa Clara County, and went to work by the month farming and dairying.  His first location was near Evergreen, but in 1863 he bought where he now resides, and has made all the improvements there.  He has three hundred and six acres, adjoining the Monterey road, eight and a half miles from San Jose.  He was engaged in dairying until 1887.  Mr. Little has had but one failure of crops, and that was in 1864.  He expects a yield of forty-five bushels to the acre of barley in a good year, and has cut as high as sixty bushels.  Hay averages from two to two and a half tons per acre, and the ground has yielded four tons.  An avenue a quarter of a mile long leads from the roadway to the house, and is bordered with Lombardy poplar, which are very handsome trees for his purpose.  He has a small family orchard, set out in 1883, in a variety of fruit, and all kinds have done excellently without irrigation.  In 1888 he set out 2,000 fruit-trees,--Muir peaches, Nonpareil and I X L almonds.  He will set out thirty acres more of almonds soon, and will each year add to the acreage of fruit.  He has a pump-house, supplied with a forty-horse-power engine capable of irrigating the entire tract, if necessary, as it has a capacity of throwing 90,000 gallons per hour.  His bored wells are a hundred feet deep, though water has to be raised only twenty-five feet.  These works were put in to irrigate his alfalfa land.  He has about a hundred rods of irrigating ditch, and eighty rods of flume.  Everything on the place was put there by Mr. Little, who has made his start in the world since coming to this county.

            He was married, in this county, to Miss Lovina Fisk, a native of Ontario, Canada, who came to California from Canada about 1868.

            Mr. Little is a Republican, politically.  He was one of the founders of the Farmers’ Union, San Jose, and has been a Director since its organization.  He has a mountain ranch of 400 acres near San Felipe, where he raises horses and colts, principally Norman.

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.

Pg. 348

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

Proofread by Betty Vickroy

 SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT

SANTA CLARA COUNTY The Valley of Heart's Delight