Ventura County Republican Project: History and Genealogy

Ventura County Republican Project: History and Genealogy

"A Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura, California" (1891), page 566.

John F. Cummings

John F. Cummings is a prominent and successful rancher living four miles west of Santa Paula on a farm of rich land and on one of the finest roads. He was born in Richland County, Ohio, September 19, 1835. His father, James Cummings, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1795, was a farmer, and lived to the age of eighty-five years. His wife, whose maiden name was Christine McMillan, was born in Pennsylvania, in 1801, of early American ancestry. Mr. Cummings, our subject, the fourth in their family of seven children, was brought up in Ohio, and began life as a farmer on one of his father's farms. In 1860 he came to California and for several years worked by the month in the northern part of the State. Taking 160 acres of land, he improved it as he gradually obtained the means. In 1872 he sold it and came to Santa Paula, bought 150 acres of unimproved land, and year by year he has been making it one of the finest ranches in the county. He has erected the buildings and fences and planted the trees and witnessed their wonderful development. He has added other land to his original purchase. On this place he has raised heavy crops of corn, and also raised and sold many hogs; but his principal business now is the raising of Lima beans. Last year (1889) he raised on seventy-five acres sixty-five tons of beans, for which he has, at date of writing, refused four and a half cents per pound. On ten acres he raised 3,300 pounds of beans to the acre; this quantity, at five cents per pound, would be for the ten acres $1,650. His crop for 1889, at the same price, would amount to $6,500. He has harvested three large crops of potatoes from one planting; has raised corn sixteen feet high and ten feet to the ears; so that the productions of his farm are truly marvelous; and yet not all of his land is in cultivation. Politically, although he voted for James Buchanan for President, he has long been a Republican. He is a man of industrious habits, executive ability and hospitable disposition.

In 1880 Mr. Cummings married Miss Georgia Sweeny, a native of Long Island, New York, and a daughter of Charles Sweeny, a native of the same state. Their five children are: Ada B., Madge, Christine, Walter W. and an infant daughter named Esther.


Ventura County Republican Project: History and Rootsweb Genealogy posted by Jon Miller and Tony Larson.