BIO- Sawyers

SURNAMES:  HEADEN

A prominent citizen of Santa Clara County particularly active in the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce is L. H. Anderson, learned in the law, in which he has been admitted to practice , experienced in extensive dairying, and now the owner of many acres of blackberries, famous for their rare  quality and great productivity.  He was born in Denmark  in 1868, and there grew up on his father's farm.  When he ws eighteen, he crossed the ocean to America and for a while settled in Iowa; but in 1890 he came to California and pitched his tent in Stanislaus County.  He acquired property near Newman, and there pursued grain farming.

Desiring a still higher education, Mr. Albertson in 1891 entered upon the academic course of the College of the Pacific; and in 1900 he was graduated from this institution.  Following this, for a year he took advanced work at Stanford, and in 1901 he was married to Miss Thomasine Headen, youngest daughter of the late Dr. Benjamin Franklin Headen, and the only child of that distinguished surgeon now living- a cultured and accomplished lady.  After his marriage, Mr. Albertson ran a large dairy, for years and succeeded; and later he turned the place into a fruit ranch, where he now was seven acres of Himalaya blackberries, among the wonder producers of the Santa Clara Valley. Mr. Albertson is also operating a ranch in Livingston, Merced County, where he owns 120 acres which he is rapidly setting out to a vineyard, besides being engaged in dairying.  Not caring for the general practice of law, he has never followed it. although his knowledge of law and legal processes has often helped him in his own or in community affairs.

Public spirited to a marked degree, Mr. Albertson served for three years as president of the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce, his term extending from 1913 until 1916; and during this period he was very active in collecting and installing exhibits from the Santa Clara Valley for its exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915, at which exposition he took the first gold medal with his Himalaya blackberries.  He also took a first prize for a two-year-old Guernsey bull, and the reserve championship with the same animal, and his was the only livestock prize bestowed on any exhibitor from Santa Clara County.  Mr. Albertson is now among the pioneer farmers and stockraisers of these parts.  His close observation, study and experience has made him well posted, so much so that his conclusions and ideas have bee often sought and are followed by many others with good success.  It is to men of the type of Mr. Albertson, who are not afraid to work, venture and experiment that the county owes much of its present development and greatness.

Mr. Albertson is particularly active in interesting the public in the improvement of the proposed Alviso water-way, which will open the way for shipping by water all kinds of fruits and products from river points to the Santa Clara Valley. He visions the making of a consolidated city of San Jose and Santa Clara , and of extending its limits to the water-ways at Alviso.  In order to do this, the Alviso channel or slough will have to be straightened and deepened so that  boats laden with the products of the  Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys can run up from the river points throughout he Bay to Alviso.  He is making a strong and active appeal for these improvements, and his reports and plans, now a part of the Congressional Record, were taken up by the Congress through Senator Phelan, who was actively supporting the project, and it would no doubt have already been an accomplished fact had it not been for the intervention of the war.

Mr. and Mrs. Albertson make their home on the  Headen ranch in in the improvements made there they are preserving as far as possible Dr. Headen's ideas of replanting the place to orchards and berries and particularly in the preserving the row of redwood trees he planted in the  sixties as well as the live oak grove that is the admiration of all who see them.  The redwoods along the state highway have now become a landmark, admired by thousands of tourists.  In 1913 they build a beautiful stucco residence, up-to-date in every respect, and there they dispense a generous hospitality.  As a member of the Alumni of the College of the Pacific, Mr. Albertson remains his association with both the academic and the student world.

History of Santa Clara County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present
Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic Record Co., 1922, 1776 pgs.