W.H. WERFIELD – The subject of this sketch stands prominently forth among the active young men of Madera, and through his colony system he is doing much toward developing that part of the valley. He was born in Shamokin, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, in 1856. His father, Henry Werfield, was a well-known mining expert of that locality, and after forty-five years of anthracite coal mining, he came to California in 1890 and is now settled upon a forty-acre ranch, southwest of Madera, which he is improving in vines and trees.

After a common school education, young Werfield took up the study of mechanical engineering, in which he became very proficient and which he followed very successfully in the mining districts of Pennsylvania until 1881. With a desire for travel and a broader development, he then visited the Western States and located in Denver, Colorado, and engaged in the real estate business. In 1885 he returned to Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, where he accepted the position of general time keeper with the Susquehanna Coal Co., a position of great responsibility, as the list of laborers numbered 4,500 hands. After four years of faithful service he resigned his position for the purpose of coming to California and entering into the colonization business at Madera, as president of the first colony organized in that locality, which was incorporated in September, 1889. The colony was a success from its inception, which was largely due to the extensive business acquaintance and executive ability of its able president. On October 10, 1890, Mr. Werfield resigned his position and then organized the Border Farm Colony, to which he now gives his undivided attention. This colony land consists of 640 acres, and is considered of the finest land in Fresno County. It has been subdivided in blocks of five acres and upwards, and according to the system, the purchaser can pay for setting and cultivation of vines ad allow the fruit to pay for the land; or he can pay for the land, receive deed, and direct his own improvements. Mr. Werfield began his improvements on January 15, 1891, and on March 21, 1891, he completed the planting of 420 acres, a large portion of which was already sold to colonists, the balance of land to be set in the spring of 1892. Mr. Werfield will continue a general colonization and real estate business in both ranch and city property. He was married, in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1882, to Miss Janet S. Nesbit, a native of Pennsylvania, but of Scotch descent.

Mr. Werfield is an energetic, progressive and careful business man. He enjoys the respect and confidence of all who know him, and he has proved himself an enterprising and valuable citizen.