Walter Fremont Grow, one of the young and enterprising horticulturists of San Bernardino County, living on Base Line, six miles east of the city, was born in Maine, July 19, 1856, the son of Lorenzo and Harriet (Currier) Grow. His father was born in Hartland, Windsor County, Vermont, March 11, 1806. His parents were Samuel and Jerusha (Stowell) Grow; the former was a native of Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, and the latter of Pomfret, Connecticut. Their ancestors were owners of large tracts of land and were of English origin. Lorenzo Grow was the third of a family of seven children. He was educated at the common schools of Vermont and Maine. While a boy he worked in a sawmill at Queechy Falls, Vermont, and later went to Penobscot County, Maine, where he engaged in the lumber business, at which he continued eight years. Then he went to farming and sheep raising in Kennebec County, at which he continued for fifteen years. In 1865 he moved to Monroe County, Iowa, and bought a quarter section of land in Lincoln Township, also town property in Onawa City, which he still owns. Mr. Grow farmed in Iowa until 1883 when he left the farm in charge of his son, Wallace D. Grow, and came to California to spend the evening of his life with the wife of his youth.
He was married in December 8, 1838, to Miss Harriet Carrier, of Windsor, Kennebec County, Maine, born May 13, 1820. She was the daughter of Charles and Mary (Baker) Currier, both of Maine. The subject of this sketch is one of a family of five children. The oldest son, Charles Currier Grow, entered the army in the Thirty-second Regiment Maine Volunteers, was in Banks’ Expedition, and was killed in the battle of Cane Crossing. He was First Lieutenant at the time of his death. The second son is Samuel Lorenzo; the third child, Mary Frances, married Arthur Newell, of LaGrange, Illinois; Walter Fremont and Wallace Dayton are twins. Mr. Grow owns a fine ranch of 160 acres in Highlands and is doing a rushing business in fruit and vines and nursery stock. He was married in Iowa, in 1880, to Miss Carrie E. Burroughs.
