Williamson, David

David Williamson was born on May 21, 1865, in the Shetland Islands to parents Henry and Janet Isbister Williamson. In 1872, he immigrated with his family to St. John, New Brunswick, where he was raised on a woodland farm and learned both farming and lumbering. Moving to Fresno County, California, in the late 1880s, the family lived in the Temperance Colony before settling in the Lone Star District in 1889.

In Fresno County, David became a prominent self-made pioneer and raisin grower who planted over three hundred acres of vineyards for himself and others. He married Catherine E. McFarlane, daughter of Fresno County pioneers John and Susie E. McFarlane, in 1898, and together they raised five children: Frank, Harry, Max, Doris, and David B., Jr. Beyond managing his forty-acre raisin ranch east of Lone Star, he helped build the local packing house operated by the California Associated Raisin Company and remained an active member of the First Presbyterian Church at Fowler.