YUBA COUNTY  Biographies

J. A. Ashley attended a rural school in Ohio, and first came to California in 1883.  For a time he was chief engineer for the Star Milling Company.  In 1898 he formed the company, now more than locally famous, of which he is the proprietor.  Since then he has applied himself so closely to its affairs that he took his first vacation only two years ago.  The company employs as high as twenty-two men.  He built an orchard truck of convenient design, and over 500 of them are in use here, while others have been shipped to Oregon and even to Australia.  The plant makes meat-safes and clothes bars, and has gone into the extensive manufacture of ladders, turning out, from 1912 to 1914, from eight to ten thousand a year.  These ladders are made for all possible purposes.  The company specializes in brush-burners, making them in different sizes, and mounted either on wheels or on skids.  Another specialty is a brush-rake made up in various sizes to suit different conditions.  The type and construction are the result of practical experience.  The Ashley Manufacturing Company has built up an enviable trade, catering to the wants of the orchardist and grower with such useful articles as check fillers, orchard trucks, steel dipping tanks, all-steel weed cutters, improved brush-burners, ridgers and ridge-breakers, dipping cranes and baskets, spreading tables and turn-tables, dry-yard trucks, auto-type axles, steel, iron and bronze supplies, leather and rubber belting, and hardwood lumber, and also a new patent fruit-dipper.

In Yuba City, Mr. Ashley was united in marriage with Miss Emma Van Dorn, a native of Yuba County, and a gifted woman who has been of the greatest service to her husband in the attainment of his ambitions.  Mr. and Mrs. Ashley have three children.  Byron is in charge of his father’s ranch; Carmel, a graduate of San Jose Normal School, in a teacher in Yuba City; and Russell is with his father in the shop.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924

p 1066

Business enterprise at Sutter City finds a worthy representative in Stanley Ralph McLean, who was born at Lockeford, San Joaquin County, on January 24, 1886, the son of Duncan James and Louisa Fannie (Ralphs) McLean, natives of Prince Edward Island and England, respectively.  Duncan McLean came to California about 1873 and worked in the dry-goods store of D. Samuels in San Francisco.  He married Miss Ralphs at Hocks Corner, near Lockeford.  He engaged in the general merchandise business at Lockeford.  In 1897 he sold out and moved to Sutter City, where he opened a general merchandise store and served as postmaster until succeeded by his son in 1917.

Stanley Ralph McLean attended the Brittan Grammar School and the Sutter Union High School.  After he finished his course in high school, he took over the general merchandise business conducted by his father at Sutter City; and since 1917 he has been postmaster.

On March 4, 1905, at Sutter City, Mr. McLean married Miss Anna Lytken, who was born in Pennington, Cal., a daughter of Hans and Christina Lytken.  Her father, who was one of the early pioneer farmers of Sutter, and her mother have both passed away.  Mrs. McLean has three brothers:  William, Hans and Frank.  Mr. and Mrs. McLean have been blessed with four daughters: Ila, Geraldine, Shirley and Nedra.  Politically, Mr. McLean is a Republican; fraternally, he is a Mason.  Both Mr. McLean and his wife are members of the Eastern Star, in Yuba City.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924

p 1069

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