USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol II > Part 5
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DR. DANIEL REAM.
Dr. Daniel Ream, among the oldest citizens of Yreka and the foremost member of its medical practitioners, has, during an experience extending over fifty odd years, witnessed the growth of Yreka from a mere cluster of tents into a prosperous settlement, with its many stores and factories. banks and churches, schools and newspapers, and full complement of institutions and organizations. As a physician and surgeon his name is a household word to the people of Yreka and northern California, but also as a statesman and party leader and man of affairs he has made his mark among his fellow citizens, and under all circumstances and in all the varied relations of a most
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busy and eventful life has kept his rudder true to high ideals and noble pur- poses for himself, his fellow men and the institutions of state and society.
The birthplace of Dr. Ream was in the neighborhood of Hagerstown, Washington county, Maryland, where he was born June 20, 1830. His grand-sires on both sides served in the Revolutionary war, and he remem- bers well his grandfather on his mother's side, Chrisley Coffman, as one to whom he listened with breathless interest when relating stories of the war, especially of the battle of Brandywine, the last in which he took part.
His father, Henry Ream, was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, May 15, 1804, and died in 1876. He was a man of goodly presence, six feet two inches in height, of massive frame, and, though of nervous temperament, strong mentally, morally and physically. He was possessed of firm convic- tions, of rare perseverance and remarkable capacity for work. Dr. Ream's mother, Nellie Coffman before her marriage, was a native of Washington county, Maryland, and some two years younger than her husband. She was also gifted with a strong physique and character, and both were religiously inclined, the father strict and at times severe as to family discipline, while the mother, though by no means over-indulgent, was always ready to take her children's part. She was a woman of kindly and sociable disposition, given to hospitality, and ever on the best terms with her neigh- bors. For Daniel, her oldest son, the height of her motherly ambition was that he should succeed in his chosen profession, and that she lived to see her wish fulfilled was a lasting source of comfort in her declining years. She died in 1894.
Of Dr. Ream's three brothers, David, the next younger than himself. is the only survivor; Jeremiah died in 1844 of typhoid fever, and George was killed in the battle of Pea Ridge while fighting for the Union cause. Of his five sisters, Mary, Margaret, Delilah, Sarah and Isabel, all were married, and, except Isabel, who died October 26, 1877, all are residents of Iowa.
Dr. Ream's happy childhood days were passed in a three-storied house of stone, ten miles from Hagerstown, with a spacious meadow in front, and in the distance the verdure-clad hills of Maryland. Among his early recol- lections was the removal of the family to the adjacent village of Tilghmanton,. where his father, originally a carpenter by trade, though duly qualified for his latter calling, opened a drug store and practiced as a physician. Here. Daniel was sent to school at the age of seven. About this time occurred one of those incidents which, though slight in themselves, impress themselves en- durably on the memory and often reveal the broad and general features of the permanent character. While returning from an errand, some distance beyond the schoolhouse, night overtook him, and as he passed through the woods, in which shone the phosphorescent lights known as jack-o'-lanterns, then attributed to supernatural agencies, he saw in front of him what ap- peared to be a moving object. The more intently he gazed the more it seemed to move, and his childlike imagination bodied forth a monster vision. and with all the celerity that his young legs could command he hied him by another path to the sheltering home. Entirely contrary to the well known conduct of most children on such occasions, Daniel said not a word about this
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circumstance either at the time nor for many years afterward. But on his way to school the next morning he determined to inspect the object of his terror by the light of day, and found it to be a substantial and most immobile stone, four feet high, and placed there as a landmark. Ashamed of his fear, he resolved that he would never again run away from anything till he knew the danger to be real, but, like the youth in the story, "march straight up to it." In all the years since then, if he has ever run from danger, either fancied or real, his friends do not know it.
When he was eleven years old his father settled in Springfield, Illinois, where he practiced his profession two years, and then removed to Lick Creek, Sangamon county, where his sons engaged in farming and he con- tinued his professional work. In 1846 the father moved to Wapello county, Iowa, where he purchased a tract of timber and prairie land. During all this time Daniel was attending public schools whose courses included mainly the three R's and a smattering of grammar and geography. Like so many suc- cessful men of the past generations, he gained his broad knowledge of men and affairs through his own industrious study, and found in those primitive schoolhouses but the means of beginning study which has continued through- out life and delved in the widest realms of knowledge. He had to work dur- ing the summer months and outside of school hours, and the first money he ever earned was by gathering the sheaves of wheat and taking care of horses. At Lick Creek and Wapello county his tasks were harder, such as plowing, chopping wood, making rails and building fences, varying such labor by trapping mink and other fur-bearing animals which were then plentiful in the west. He and his brothers worked together, and aided much in provid- ing for the common welfare of the family.
With such training and environment he developed into a sturdy and vigorous youth, with all his father's manly fibre and firmness of resolve, with his practical common sense and powers of endurance and self-denial; and yet also with the softer traits of character inherited from his mother-her gentleness of manner, her large-hearted sympathy, and her buoyant and sunny temperament. He had such preparation as makes nature's noblemen, and when the time arrived he was ready to enter life and perform whatever tasks the years and destiny should allot him.
At the age of sixteen, under his father's direction, he began studying medicine, although still working on the farm by day. He was drafted into active practice at the early age of eighteen, when, his father being absent, he was called to attend a woman bitten by a rattlesnake, and whose cure he wrought most effectively. Soon after, he was required to prescribe for a child suffering with the bilious fever. He did this reluctantly, for he had as yet little self-confidence, and he returned home in a dejected mood and reported the case to his father, with the request that the latter should go and see it. "No," was the answer, "I shall not interfere; what you have done is perfectly right." He repeated the visit on the following day, but with great dread lest he should see the bed clothes hanging on the line as evidence that the child was dead. But no bed clothing was there, the patient was better. and was fully restored to health in a few weeks. He recalls with much sat-
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isfaction a number of other cases from his earliest practice, and by 1852 he and his father had built up a large practice in southeastern Iowa.
On April 12, 1852, Dr. Ream joined in the rush to the gold fields of the Pacific coast, setting out from the town of Abingdon, Iowa. The train he was in consisted of ten wagons, of one of which he was driver, his own ef- fects consisting of a medical outfit, a moderate stock of clothing, a single horse and forty dollars in cash. Bear river was reached without incident, and at Soda Springs the party separated, some bound for California and others for Oregon, Dr. Ream being of the latter. At the crossing of Snake river at Salmon Falls he saved the life of John Moxley (afterwards sheriff), who was ill with typhoid fever. Cholera also broke out, and his efficient services enabled all the party to survive the disease. The train went by Boise river and The Dalles and arrived in Portland on September 15, 1852.
From the latter place Dr. Ream went on foot to Yreka with a pack-horse, where the many years of a half century were to pass over him employed in useful and humanitarian labors. The town was then spelled Wyreka. It was named after an Indian tribe of the valley, called "Ieka," which was cor- rupted into Wyreka. Dr. Ream is authority for many such points of local history. According to his statement, the word "Siskiyou" originated with the French trappers under Stephen Meek, in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company about 1836. Meek came to this country looking for a ford across the Klamath river, finding one near the town of Klamathon. Six rocks were projecting from the water at this point, and Meek told the Doctor that "sis" in French meant six, and "kiyou" was the word for boulders, whence came the name Siskiyou country from which originated Siskiyou county.
In the spring of 1853, in partnership with two men named Hall and Smith, he purchased a band of cattle and drove them to the rich pasture land on Applegate creek, where they and other parties had their camp. While here, news came of the outbreak of the Rogue River Valley Indians. Dr. Ream at once took a rifle and started out to gather in some horses and mules grazing about a mile distant. He found six Indians in the act of driv- ing them off, and in the skirmish that ensued a bullet passed through his hair and an arrow through the rim of his hat, but he killed one Indian and succeeded in recapturing two horses. The sixty or seventy men at the camp had in the meantime built a fort, and strict guard was kept during the re- mainder of the outbreak. He was on sentry duty one morning at four o'clock, when the Indians attacked, and three whites were killed and twelve wounded. In the course of his early western career Dr. Ream had many other Indian adventures, and some very narrow escapes. He met the famous Cap- tain Jack, and was requested to intercede for the Indians just before the breaking out of the Modoc war. He received nothing but kindness from the Indians, who regarded him as "the great medicine man of the white faces."
After Indian troubles ceased he engaged in mining on Rogue river, fash- ioning out and lining with rawhide the first rocker he had ever seen. He made from ten to twenty dollars a day at Humbug creek, and another claim also paid him handsomely, but his reputation for skill as a medical practi- tioner had become so general throughout the country that he was obliged to
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turn nearly all his energies to that line of work. From 1856 to 1860 he was in Deadwood, and in the spring of the latter year he took up his permanent location in Yreka, where he was soon the acknowledged leader as physician and surgeon, and through over fifty years of practice he has never lost his prestige among the people of northern California. He holds a diploma granted after examination by the Eclectic Medical Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a member of the State Medical Society of California and for sixteen years served as a resident physician and surgeon to the Siskiyou County Hospital. He is a constant reader of scientific works and medical literature, and has kept abreast of the progress of fifty years. His long ex- perience in surgery has enabled him to perfect several excellent devices, among others a glue bandage, which when applied in cases of fractures obviates the necessity of splints and gives entire ease to the patient, and is cleaner than plaster of paris. After using it forty years he has yet to find an instance where it failed its purpose. He has performed many remarkably difficult operations, and in his earlier years he never failed to respond to calls even when involving great hardships and dangers of travel and exposure. At the age of seventy-four he is still a hale and hearty man, his six feet of stature and commanding appearance making age an easy burden. Even at this advanced age he is often known to brave the storms of winter and ride on horseback over the mountains as great a distance as seventy-five miles in a single day to administer to the wants of some suffering patient. He has a strong but kindly face, and his fine and noble character has impressed itself on every movement and feature and made him a man of wonderful self-poise and forceful dignity. Here is his philosophy of old age :
"We have been taught that the human system is composed of cells, every cell is an atom of life, cells are restored, cells are being destroyed, and as long as the cells are reproduced a man is not old: when the balance between restoration and destruction ceases to exist a man is old and death is inevit- able."
And the spirit in which he has carried on his life work with such benefi- cent results is illustrated by these words :
"We should lay aside all selfishness and prejudice at the bedside of the sick and afflicted, and use speedily every honorable endeavor to restore the patient to health-this is the remedy we should use, whether it be Allopathic, Eclectic or Homoeopathic. We can reason only from what we know ; science teaches facts, facts are truths; without truth our fancied knowledge is worse than ignorance."
Dr. Ream has always been one of the leading Democrats and influential public men of northern California. He cast his first presidential vote for Buchanan in 1856. He favors a protective tariff for our infant industries just so long as those infant industries need such a tariff. after which he is an ardent supporter of a free-trade policy. He is opposed to Chinese and pauper immigration, to monopolies, and has been very much interested in the rais- ing of educational standards. He was elected to the office of coroner in 1859. was elected sheriff in 1861. and to the office of foreign miner's tax collector in 1867. In 1877 he was elected by a majority of five hundred as state sena-
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tor for Siskiyou, Modoc, Shasta and Trinity counties, against a powerful and influential opponent. He was chairman of the committee on hospitals in that session, and in this connection made an investigation and found that appro- priations were being made entirely for the benefit of individuals. He had the appropriation bill reconsidered, and thereby effected a saving of forty thou- sand dollars of state funds. He also served on the committees of education and of engrossment. He was very instrumental in gaining the admission to practice, without discrimination, of all the schools of medicine, the allopathic, homeopathic, and eclectic. He was never an office-seeker, and, while urged during Cleveland's term to present his name for various high positions, he always declined and said he preferred to practice medicine.
One of his most enjoyable recreations has been the gathering and ar- ranging of specimens both modern and prehistoric for his private museum, which contains one of the choicest collections in the state.
Dr. Ream has been married twice. September 12, 1864, he became the husband of Miss Alice Augusta Belden, a native of Akron, Ohio, and who died May 7, 1867. There were two children, and the daughter died in in- fancy. The other, Henry Belden Ream, was born July 3, 1865, educated in the Yreka grammar school, held a responsible position with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company for two years, and for ten years was coiner in the United States Mint at San Francisco, California. He was married on April 8, 1890, to Miss Amelia Hattie Kiefaber of St. Louis. Two daughters have been born to them, one named Lucille Fellows Ream, born June 1, 1892, the other, Mildred Kiefaber Ream, born March 16, 1895. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ream are now the owners of and reside upon a beautiful farm about forty miles from Yreka, near the town of Sisson.
Dr. Ream was married the second time on October 13, 1875, to a native daughter of Yreka, Miss Lora Virginia Calhoun, born July 27, 1855. She is a lady of broad culture and refinement, and has always been a power in social circles as well as in the home. There were also two children born of the second marriage, both of whom were boys. One died young and the other, George D. Ream, is a young man still in school.
LEWIS F. COBURN.
Lewis F. Coburn, senior member of the well known Yreka law firm of Coburn and Collier, is representative of the enterprise and progressive spirit which have been stimulating the growth and development of the industries and material resources of Siskiyou county and northern California during the last decade, thus placing this section of the state on its proper plane as one of the most profitable fields for capital and industrial and commercial exploita- tion in all California. Mr. Coburn has been a practicing lawyer in the state for the past twenty years, and is thoroughly identified with the western spirit and ideals, and in addition to caring for a large and lucrative private clientage has made his influence felt in the political and public affairs of the state.
He was born at Newbury, Vermont, May 21, 1854, and belongs on both paternal and maternal sides to old American families prominent in their re-
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spective localities during colonial, Revolutionary and national periods of history. His father was Calvin P. Coburn, born in New Hampshire, and died at Brunswick, Maine, in 1900, at the age of eighty years. He was a farmer, known as one of the solid and substantial men of his community, and was a deacon in the Baptist church. He lived in Boston for a time, and in 1860 bought the farm at Brunswick, Maine, where he lived till his death. He married Rachel Ferrin, who was born in Maine and is still living at the old home in Brunswick. Her family was prominent in the Pine Tree state for many years, and her father, Lazarus, was a sea captain, living in Bath at the time of his death. There is a little house just behind Bowdoin College in Brunswick, known to be over one hundred and twenty-five years old, and which was built by her grandfather. Mr. L. F. Coburn has one brother, Ed- ward E., on a farm near Brunswick.
Lewis F. Coburn was educated in the public schools and in the University of Maine at Orono, where he graduated with the class of '75, with the degree of C. E., having taken a special course in civil engineering. He had also taught school during his college career, and altogether was in that profession five years while in the east, having been principal of the schools at Booth Bay for some time. He came out to California in 1877, and was principal of the schools in Crescent City, whence in the fall of 1881 he went to Dutch Flat and was principal of the schools there until December, 1883. During all this time and even while still living in the east he had been studying law, and in 1883 he was admitted to the bar.
He opened his office at Jackson, Amador county, but a few months later received a severe injury which compelled him to go to Smith river near Cres- cent City, in Del Norte county, where he remained a year in getting back to health. He then commenced practice in Crescent City, and continued there till January, 1891, since which time he has been a leader of the bar at Yreka. In March, 1903, he formed the co-partnership with B. K. Collier which has since become one of the strongest legal combinations in this part of the state, and the firm represents many interests and is very influential as originating factors of business prosperity. They organized the Siskiyou Abstract Com- pany, owning the greater part of the stock, and Mr. Collier is president and Mr. Coburn vice president. They also have mining interests in the county, and Mr. Coburn has made a study of mining and assaying. It was through the public-spirited efforts of Coburn and Collier that some Colorado men became interested in the extension of the railroad from Yreka to Trinity Cen- ter, and the firm are the legal representatives of those capitalists.
Mr. Coburn is one of the influential Republicans of the county, and has attended state and county conventions many times, and served on the county central committee. He was elected district attorney of Del Norte county in 1884 for a term of two years, and again elected in 1888 for the same period. He is trustee of the law library in the court house, and has been city attorney for Yreka since October, 1903. He was one of the moving spirits in the or- ganization and is the president of the Business Men's Athletic Club, which it is now proposed shall be turned into a chamber of commerce for further-
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ing the interests of the city and county and for advertising the resources of the region, maintaining, among other things, a big mineral exhibit.
When in college in Maine Mr. Coburn was first lieutenant in the finest drilled cadet company in the state. He is a blue lodge, chapter and com- mandery Mason, being past master of Howard lodge No. 96, F. & A. M., and past commander of Mt. Shasta Commandery No. 32, K. T., of Yreka. He is a past chancellor commander of the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias. He is president of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, in Yreka, and is member of the Union League Club of San Francisco.
Mr. Coburn was married in Del Norte county, June 26, 1880, to Miss Ella C. Anthony, a native of Del Norte county. Her father, Joseph G. An- thony, was a miller and farmer, now retired, and was one of the state's pio- neers, having been, when he first came to California, the confidential clerk of Harry Meiggs: He is of an old New Jersey family, of Quaker extraction, and a relative of Senator Anthony of New Jersey. Mr. and Mrs. Coburn have two daughters and one son: Luella, Kate and Bert, all in school, and Luella soon to graduate from high school.
JAMES L. FLANAGAN.
James L. Flanagan is well known to the public men of the state of Cali- fornia as the manager of the State House Hotel at Sacramento, and his long connection with the hotel business and his attractive personality and integrity of character give him great prestige in this line. He is a native son of the state and is possessed of all the sunny qualities of the true Californian, and this western spirit is no doubt responsible for much of his success. The State House Hotel is one of the best known hostelries of the city, and is the headquarters for all the leading politicians and public men during the various conventions and legislature sessions. Since Mr. Flanagan took charge it has been remodeled and enlarged so as to accommodate over two hundred guests, and it is the intention soon to enlarge it to nearly double its present capacity. It has all the modern conveniences and everything is found there essential to a first-class metropolitan hotel.
Mr. Flanagan was born at Sunol, Alameda county, California, December 24, 1865. His father, Alonzo Flanagan, a present resident of San Francisco, was born in Ireland and came to California about 1863, taking a position at Mission San Jose with the firm of Palmer, Cook and Beard. He remained in their employ until 1868, and from then until 1881 engaged in farming near Livermore. In the latter year he accepted a position in San Francisco as superintendent of the outside grounds of the late Adolph Sutro. Under his immediate supervision the immense Sutro forest was planted, the Sutro prop- erty comprising one-eighth of the entire area of San Francisco county. He remained in the employ of Mr. Sutro until the latter's death, and he then re- tired and is now living with his wife and children in San Francisco. He was married while at Mission San Jose, in 1864, to Miss Mary Riley, who was born in Ireland and came to America and to California in girlhood. Her sisters now reside in Alameda county.
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James L. Flanagan is the oldest of the eleven children of his parents. He attended the public schools in Alameda county, and completed the work of the Lincoln grammar school in San Francisco at the age of fifteen. He then went to work, being in various positions in San Francisco until he was nineteen years old. At that age he came to Sacramento and for one year was employed in a drug house and began learning the business. From that, how- ever, he was diverted by his acceptance of a position as night clerk in the Western Hotel, under William Land, and he was in that employment for the long period of fourteen years. In September, 1902, he took the management of the State House Hotel. and has been conducting it with much success to the present time. He also has other business interests in the state. He is connected with some mining companies, and is secretary of the San Andreas Gold Channel Mining Company, which owns property in Calaveras county. He was one of the organizers and is president of the Roseville Banking Com- pany of Sacramento, which has secured a bank charter from the state. He has property interests in San Francisco.
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