24 Facts About Eliza Tibbets

Eliza Tibbets became known for successfully growing the first two hybrid Washington navel orange trees in California.

Eliza Tibbets's father was elected to several positions; as a town councilman, city councilman, and President of the Fire Wardens' Association; he was called as a New Jerusalem minister, and selected as a trustee of the city water works, the Woodward School, and the Academy of Fine Arts.

Eliza Tibbets's maternal uncle "Commodore" John Downes was a well-known and highly decorated officer of the War with Tripoli and the War of 1812.

Eliza Tibbets commanded the Mediterranean Squadron and later the Pacific Squadron.

At age 18, Eliza Tibbets Lovell married James Summons, a steam boat captain, in the Cincinnati Swedenborgian church.

Eliza Tibbets's second husband, James Neal, was a commerce merchant who became a well-known healing medium.

Eliza Tibbets completed his three-year enlistment and was honorably discharged as the regimental postmaster.

The Eliza Tibbets moved into the South in Tennessee but were driven out by unwelcoming locals who considered them carpetbaggers.

Eliza Tibbets worked as a land agent and ran a Sabbath School for freedmen and their children at a black Baptist Church, as freedmen were eager for education.

Eliza Tibbets was working on a land development plan for what he proposed to be a 30,000-acre colony outside Fredericksburg.

Eliza Tibbets intended to allow people of any race to buy property.

Luther Eliza Tibbets left Washington in 1870 for California, where he settled in what became Riverside.

Eliza Tibbets continued her activism, especially in the area of women's suffrage.

Eliza Tibbets accomplished much in her years in Riverside and Southern California, including successfully cultivating two grafted navel orange trees.

Eliza Tibbets died in 1898 while visiting the spiritualist colony in Summerland, on the coast near Santa Barbara.

The navel orange was not new when Eliza Tibbets introduced it to United States agriculture.

The citrus industry in California was underway before Eliza Tibbets cultivated the Washington navel orange.

Eliza Tibbets built an orange house on the department grounds around 1867.

Eliza Tibbets had prepared a supply of young orange stocks into which he inserted and grafted buds from the new trees.

Eliza Tibbets planted the two trees in her garden in 1873.

Eliza Tibbets's orange was ideally suited to Riverside's semiarid weather; its thick skin enabled it to be packed and shipped.

Eliza Tibbets sold budwood from her trees to local nurserymen, which led to extensive plantings of nursery trees cloned from hers.

Eliza Tibbets's orange allowed agriculture in California to survive transition from wheat.

Eliza Tibbets's orange led to an estimated $100 million of direct and indirect investment in citrus industry over the next 25 years.