McCreary, William

William McCreary was born near Belleville, Alabama, on March 31, 1861, to Lorenzo I. McCreary and Elizabeth Autrey. In the early 1860s, he moved with his family to California, settling in what was then Fresno County and later became Madera County. Reared and educated in Fresno County, he engaged in ranching and stock-raising alongside his father, eventually hauling the first load of lumber onto the Reedley town site for its initial building.

In 1889, William married Lottie Fairweather, an English native born April 28, 1871, with whom he raised surviving children John Lorenzo, Minnie Ethel, Elizabeth M., and Irma A. Settling three miles northeast of Reedley in 1912 at McCreary Corners, he developed a sixty-acre ranch of grapes and figs while grading vast tracts of land for local irrigation. He actively served as a school trustee in the Hills Valley and Sand Creek districts and helped organize the Reedley branch of the Federal Farm Loan Bank Club of Berkeley before becoming an esteemed pioneer of Fresno County.