USA > California > Glenn County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 51
USA > California > Colusa County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 51
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In 1912 Mr. Beckwith married Miss Susan S. Yerger, of Greenwood, Miss., a niece of Mrs. Sallie M. Green, and one of the South's fairest daughters. This happy couple have a delightful home in Colusa. Mrs. Beckwith is a member of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Beckwith is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Marysville Lodge of Elks, and Colusa Parlor, No. 69, N. S. G. W.
FRANCIS J. RYAN
Much of the credit for the well-established success of the busy grain warehouse at Monroeville is due to Francis J. Ryan, who for eighteen years was its experienced and obliging superintendent. Born at New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, in 1848, he emi- grated with his family to Canada in 1865, and settled for a while at Quebec. For a short time he was on a farm there, and then he went to Ottawa, where he entered the timber woods of the great Northwest, and became an expert lumberman.
In 1869, he crossed south into the States, and resumed his timber-cutting at Wausan, Marathon County, Wis. In time, he be- came foreman of the gang; and in that responsible position he re- mained until 1890. There he had charge of a large timber mill owned by J. E. Leahy, a former senator of the state. In 1890, he went north to the state of Washington, and for three months was employed at the month of the Columbia River, near Astoria. In the fall of the same year, he came to Shasta County, Cal., and for a couple of years was engaged in timber-cruising.
In 1892, Mr. Ryan removed to St. John, Glenn County, and homesteaded a farm on an island in the Sacramento River. It was
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a rough place, in the beginning; but he greatly improved the prop- erty, and was soon farming there as successfully as any one in the neighborhood. His wife and family joined him here, coming on from Wisconsin. He bought two hundred acres which had be- longed to the Glenn ranch near Ord, Glenn County. This property he sold to the owners of the Parrott ranch.
For eighteen years Mr. Ryan was superintendent of the grain warehouse at Monroeville, living of late in Hamilton City. In 1917 he left the Monroeville warehouse to accept a position with the Sacramento Valley Sugar Company, at Hamilton City, where he now is. When this town was started, in 1906, he bought the first lot and built the first house; and no more enthusiastic "booster" of Hamilton City could be anywhere found.
In 1881, in Wausau, Wis., Francis J. Ryan married Miss Mar- garet Jane Barden, a native of St. Johnsburg, Vt., although a resi- dent of Wisconsin for years. Of this union were born twelve chil- dren, eleven of whom are living. These are: John P., who married Marie Sauer, by whom he has one daughter, Margaret Marie; Margaret, the wife of Ernest Williams and the mother of one daughter, Mildred; Frank, who married Pearl De Bolt; James, who married Miss Clara May Scott, by whom he has a daughter, Katherine; Katherine, Mrs. Arthur Jensen; Agnes, the first of the children born in California; Helen, Mrs. Orville Shelby Kibby; and Eva, May, Edna C., and Joe W. Mr. Ryan and his family are members of the Catholic Church. Mr. Ryan has been actively interested in politics, in the various communities where he has lived. He is a Progressive Republican, and a supporter of every worthy project promoted for the welfare of the people. He has been a particular friend of the public school, and served as trustee in St. John district two terms. He has seen the whole Coast coun- try change for the better during the past twenty-five years; and in the county where he is best known he counts everybody his friend.
MRS. SARAH LEAKE
A native Californian, Mrs. Sarah Johnson Leake was born at Healdsburg, Sonoma County, the daughter of the late William Johnson, a review of whose life appears elsewhere in this work. Sarah Johnson was educated in the public schools and at Mrs. Perry's Seminary in Sacramento. By her first marriage, when she became the wife of George Vickery, she had one son, Fred Vickery, who is her partner in the Glenn County Dairy. They have twenty-one acres planted to alfalfa, which furnishes feed for
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the forty-five cows of mixed breed in their dairy. On the ranch there is a fine pumping plant, the first installed to be run by elec- tric power, in this section. The dairy is sanitary and up-to-date in every particular. Only tuberculin-tested cows are kept, and the milk is bottled in thoroughly sterilized and air-tight bottles. This dairy supplies eighty gallons of milk daily to the people of Willows.
The second marriage of Mrs. Leake united her with William I. Leake, a native of Ralls County, Mo., who settled in Glenn County in the late sixties. He came across the continent in one of the first steam trains, and farmed near what is now the town of Willows. For nine years he was superintendent of the county hos- pital; and he was the first man in this section to install an electric power plant for pumping water for irrigation. He passed away in January, 1914. Of this marriage two children were born to Mrs. Leake: Mrs. Lillian Longmeyer, who is now deceased, and Marcellus Leake. Mrs. Leake is a woman of winning personality, and is deservedly popular. She is a charter member of the East- ern Star Chapter of Willows, and also a member of the Rebekahs and the Native Daughters of the Golden West. She has made of the Glenn County Dairy a marked success, and is a liberal and earnest supporter of all movements for the public good.
WILLIAM JOHNSON
Among those who early wended their weary way across the great, rolling prairies, and after untold inconveniences, privations and imminent dangers, reached the land of golden promise and there won for themselves and their kin all the honor that a free people gladly accords the sturdy pioneer, was the late William Johnson, a native of Posey County, Ind., where he was born on October 20, 1836, and whence, on September 1, 1854, he set out with the customary ox team to traverse the plains leading to Cali- fornia. He paid a hundred dollars for his passage, and was obliged to stand guard and take his turn in driving. The party comprised ten people, and each had his share of responsibility and burdens.
Arriving on the Coast, Mr. Johnson first located at Sacra- mento, and then removed to San Francisco, where he worked for an unele who was in the dairy business. He next moved on to So- noma County, and settled for a while near Healdsburg, and after- wards went to old Silveyville, near Dixon, where he learned the trade of the blacksmith with his brother, James O. Johnson. For
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a number of years they worked together under the firm name of Johnson Bros. He also farmed four hundred acres of rented land near Dixon, seeding the same to wheat, and raising in one year over four hundred tons.
In 1870, Mr. Johnson came to Willows, and formed a partner- ship for the conducting of a mercantile store with Mose Hoch- heimer, under the firm name of Johnson & Hochheimer. After about three years, Mr. Johnson sold out his interests, and with his brother James engaged in farming near Willows for a number of years, renting the John Boggs place, which they planted to grain. This brother died in 1910; another brother, John D., is in the hardware business at Dixon.
William Johnson married Miss Amanda Beard, a native of Illinois, who died on July 10, 1914, the mother of thirteen children, four of whom are living. The eldest of these is Mrs. Sarah Leake, of Willows; James lives at Hamilton City; another daughter, Mrs. Harriett Culver, resides in Sacramento; and Paul resides in Willows.
An active Republican, and decidedly a public-spirited man, William Johnson was appointed postmaster of Willows, and served in that capacity for fifteen years. For half a century he was an Odd Fellow, and had passed all the chairs of the subordi- nate lodge. On July 19, 1917, this worthy pioneer passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Leake. He was buried in the fam- ily plot at Dixon.
HANS SIEVERS
Born in Holstein, Germany, April 5, 1864, Hans Sievers came to the United States, and to California, when he was a youth of seventeen, and settled at Dixon, in Solano County, where his aunt, Mrs. Salzen, an early pioneer of that county, lived and owned a ranch. Later, he became manager of the farm; and during his spare time he learned the trade of a butcher at Dixon. In 1890, he came to Orland, then only a small settlement, and bought out the Nordyke butcher shop, which he conducted for three years. When he closed out the business, he rented four hundred eighty acres of the Brown ranch, near to the Glenn ranch; and this tract he farmed to grain for a couple of years. For the next two decades he was associated with P. D. Bane in the culture of almonds east of Orland. They devoted thirty-three acres to this nut, with such success that they never had a failure in any one of the twenty erops, and averaged half a ton of almonds to the acre. During the succeeding three years, when the orchard was leased, Mr. Sie-
Patrick Haugh
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vers raised almonds on his own acreage. He also bought a ninety- acre ranch near the Bane place. Soon after, he sold sixty acres of this place. The remaining thirty acres he planted to peaches and alfalfa. He cuts five crops of alfalfa a year.
On January 1, 1917, Mr. Sievers entered the butcher business in Orland, opening up a modern and thoroughly first-class shop on Fifth Street, for the supplying of which he also erected a slaugh- ter-house four miles east of Orland. There he kills his sheep, cattle and hogs, and also smokes such hams and bacon as he needs for his trade. Mr. Sievers has also had a number of houses built in Orland, which he rents to various tenants.
Hans Sievers was united in marriage with Miss Maude E. Boone, a native of Indiana, and a daughter of Moses Boone, an early settler in California. Mr. and Mrs. Sievers are the parents of four children. Ray, Glenn, and Teddie R. assist their father in his business. Fern married Chester Leonard; and they reside in Orland.
PATRICK HENRY HAUGH
In the life of this successful citizen of Colusa County are illus- trated the results of perseverance and energy, coupled with judi- cious management and strict integrity. He is a citizen of whom any community might well be proud. Patrick Henry Haugh was born in County Clare, Ireland. He is a splendid specimen of those who, starting amid humble environments in the Old World, have come to America and contributed to the development of this repub- lic. He received a public school education in his native land, and came to the United States when he was still a lad in his teens. ITis first work in this country was in a rolling mill in Chicago, where he remained for a year, after which he found employment in the shops of the Chicago and North Western Railway Company in that city. His work was by no means light or easy; but what he did he did well, and the lessons there learned he has continued to apply in the subsequent years of his success.
In the boom period of 1886, Mr. Haugh came to California; and at Vallejo he worked in the yard of the Southern Pacific Rail- road. Then he went to Woodland, Yolo County, where he had charge, as foreman, of a section for the same railroad. In the fall of the same year he was transferred to Williams, still in the posi- tion of foreman. This was in 1887. Meanwhile, from the time of his arrival in the state up to that time, he had been getting vah- able experience. Abandoning railroad work, for the next five years he was employed on a ranch owned by Campbell, Terrill and
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Williams; and then, when he was able to do so, he built the Wash- ington Block in Williams, and for some years was engaged in the liquor business. The building is now ocenpied by a bakery.
Mr. Haugh always had a desire to own land; and as soon as his means permitted he bought a farm, and for more than twenty- two years now he has been engaged in farming. He made money and invested it wisely. Today he owns three fine ranches, and also is part owner in another farm. He decided that those who would buy ranch property would greatly profit by so doing. His first investment was the Pat Graham place, seven miles west of Williams, consisting of two hundred forty acres. This he has since farmed to grain, generally averaging twenty sacks to the acre. He improved the place, and superintends the operations of the ranch himself. He also purchased five hundred sixty-five acres of the Pulsifer ranch in the same locality, and three hundred twenty acres of the Conrad Kissling place, three and one half miles northwest of town. The two last-named places are leased to tenants. He also owns some valuable business property in the town of Williams. Besides these interests, he has a one-quarter interest in twelve hundred ninety-two aeres five miles southwest from Williams. This is a splendid ranch, with sixty-five aeres in vineyard and orchard and the balance in grain.
For thirty years Mr. Haugh has watched the growth and de- velopment of Williams and vicinity, seeing many changes for the better in both town and surrounding country; and he has himself been a factor in these improvements. He has always had faith in the value of Colusa County lands, believing this to be one of the best sections in the state for investment in farming and horticul- tural acreage. He has won a name for himself in the county, where he has lived for the past thirty years ; and by all who know him he is respected for his just dealings with his fellow man.
JOSEPH JAMES
The title of pioneer is justly merited by Joseph James; for although he settled in Orland as late as 1876, he first came to Cali- fornia in 1850. He was born in St. Louis, Mo., July 12, 1833, and was the son of John G. and Julia (Crealey) James, both natives of Missouri. His father died when he was a boy; and he remained at St. Louis, where he was educated, until he was seventeen years old. Then, together with two brothers, Edward and Samnel, he joined a party of twenty-one and crossed the plains to California,
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traveling on horseback as far as the headwaters of the Humboldt River. There the Indians drove off their horses in the night; and they were obliged to walk all the rest of the way, across desert and mountains, to their destination. In the spring of the same year they reached Mud Springs, in Placer County, where they mined for a while; and then Joseph James went on to Sacramento and secured work in a livery stable owned by Nicholas Watson, and located on J Street between what is now Eighth and Ninth.
Realizing the necessity of a bold stroke of enterprise, Mr. James returned East in February, 1851, by way of Panama, walk- ing across the Isthmus, and finally reaching his old home, in St. Louis. There he bought a band of cattle, and with others drove them across the plains, spending just six months and a day on the trip. On October 13, 1853, they arrived with their cattle in Te- hama County, at a spot where Henleyville now stands; and later he drove his herd to the Newville section, in Colusa (now Glenn) County. There he remained about fifteen years, on government land, raising cattle and hogs. During this time he had much trouble with the Indians, whose depredations brought about fre- quent encounters between them and the settlers. On Sunday morning, July 7, 1855, he was shot in the breast with an Indian arrow; and the wound, which might well have cost him his life, still bothers him at times. Later the Indians were pacified, and became industrious farmers and peaceable neighbors.
On the first day of the centennial year, at a time when there were no houses here and all was a barren plain, Mr. James re- moved to what is now Orland. He took up eighty acres of govern- ment land in the southern part of the town, which he farmed to grain; and for a time, also, he was engaged in the liquor business. In later years, he handled live stock, buying and shipping to the markets. When the railroad was projected through Orland, many of the property-owners sold the right of way through their land at very high prices; but when the agents came to Mr. James, he granted them a strip one quarter of a mile long through his prop- erty, for one dollar, and gave them back the dollar, an act well illustrating his public-spirited attitude towards enterprises for the upbuilding of the county. He opened the first store at Newville, when that section of country was new.
In the early days elk and antelopes roamed the plains; and Mr. James recounts times when he saw as many as five hundred elk in a single band. He once came upon five grizzly bears on Townes Creek. Although he was a fine shot with rifle and revol- ver, he let the bears go. In those days, when the settlers lived far apart, furrows were plowed as guiding lines between their ranches ; and if a traveler got off his beat and found one of the furrows, by
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following it in either direction he would find a habitation at the end.
In St. Louis, Mo., in 1857, Mr. James married Miss Felicia Moro, a most estimable lady, born in that city, and they came to California for their wedding trip. They left New Orleans for Ha- vana, Cuba, where the vessel was in quarantine fifteen days on ac- count of yellow fever; and half of the passengers died of the dread disease. A New York vessel picked up the survivors and took them to the Isthmus. They crossed to Panama, boarded the Golden Age, and were landed in San Francisco. This made the third voyage for Mr. James. Mrs. James died on August 1, 1895. She was the mother of four children. John resides in Paskenta. Mary is the wife of C. P. Dyer, of Paskenta, and they have four children: Z. P., Irene, William, and Morris. Mildred married Martin Herman, and has three children: John, Mildred and Mar- tin. Della married T. B. Lund, and died in 1905, aged twenty-one years, leaving one daughter, Bernardine Lund. Mr. James is a Democrat in national polities, but has never been an office-seeker. He is a quiet, unostentatious man, doing all the good he can as he travels through life, and trying to live by the "Golden Rule."
JOHN THOMAS HULEN
For many years John T. Hulen, of Orland, has been identified with the development of this part of California. Born in Marion County, Iowa, on November 3, 1859, and brought up and educated in Union County, of the same state, he was bereft of his father while yet a lad. With his mother he journeyed westward to Cali- fornia, arriving in Marysville in January, 1878, with but twenty- five cents in his pocket. From this small beginning he has risen, largely by his own efforts, to a position of prominence and sne- cess. Ile secured employment on neighboring ranches, for a while working in the Fall River country, and later coming to Colnsa County. In 1880 he was in charge of the fine driving stock on the Dr. Glenn ranch.
In the spring of 1881, Mr. Hulen came to Willows, scarcely expecting that he was to remain there for seventeen years. Dur- ing the first two years, he conducted a draying and express busi- ness; and then he started to learn the butcher's trade, working for Nordyke & Sherfrey. He was quick to learn, and soon had a fair understanding of the details of the trade. In 1897, he settled at Newville, on a part of the old James Masterson ranch, where he raised grain, cattle and hogs ; and during the last three years that
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he was there he had a chance to apply the knowledge he had ac- quired in the butcher shop, having seenred a government contract to furnish meat to the men employed on the government irrigation project. In 1909, he arrived in Orland and opened a butcher's shop, which he conducted six years and then sold at an advantage.
In 1897 Mr. Hulen married Mrs. Louisa (Masterson) Shellooe, widow of Jerry Shellooe, by whom she had one son, Daniel Claude, employed by Armour & Company, with headquarters at Modesto. Mrs. Hulen is a daughter of James Masterson, the well-known pio- neer, who is mentioned on another page of this work. Of the mar- riage of Mr. and Mrs. Hulen, four children have been born: John W., James Batten, Golda I., and Ila G. John W. Hulen gradu- ated from the Orland high school in 1917. The others are students in the Orland school. Mr. Hulen erected a fine residence on North Second Street, in Orland. He and his family, however, spend much of their time on his ranch of a hundred sixty acres, located sixteen miles from Orland on the Newville road. In addition to this property, he also rents two hundred acres, which he devotes to the raising of cattle and hogs, and to the growing of alfalfa, for which, on account of excellent irrigation, the place is well adapted. Mr. Hulen is a Mason, belonging to Newville Lodge, No. 205, F. & A. M. Since August 25, 1881, also, he has been a member of Mon- roe Lodge, No. 289, I. O. O. F., at Willows.
JAMES MASTERSON
How many interesting narratives might be gathered from pio- neers who saw things with their own eyes, and actually had a hand in fashioning onr present heritage from cruder conditions, is sng- gested by the story of James Masterson, whose father, of the same name, was a native of Ireland, and whose mother, Miss Eliza James, before her marriage-a sister of Joseph James-was born in St. Louis, of French-English descent. His father arrived in Mobile, Ala., on December 31, 1850, after a three months' trip from Europe on the sailing ship Guy Manning, and pushing in- land to St. Louis, obtained work there. On February 5, 1853, he and Miss James were married, and by the first of March they had begun their trip, with ox team and prairie schooner, across the plains. Two brothers of Mr. Masterson, Hugh and Terence, were in the party, and shared the experiences of the toilsome journey. At Carson River, in the Sierras, the oxen died; and from that point on they packed what they could on horseback, and the whole party walked the rest of the way. In the fall of 1853, they arrived
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at Hangtown, now Placerville. There, for a while, the men mined; and then Mr. Masterson went to Jackson, Amador County, and again tried his Inek with pick and shovel. Later, he entered the dairy business, buying Spanish cattle at a hundred twenty-five dol- lars a head. When he sold out, in 1858, it was to settle at New- ville, Colusa County, where he took up five hundred acres of gov- ernment land, still in the possession of the family after all these years. Although devoting himself more or less to farming and the raising of cattle, the elder Masterson was by profession a civil engineer. He served three terms as the county surveyor of Te- hama County; and he was afterwards deputy surveyor of Colusa County. He performed much meritorious public service. His death occurred in January, 1897; and his widow passed to her re- ward two years later, in the month of June. Of their children, Dennis H. Masterson, of Newville; James Masterson, the subject of onr sketch; and Edward K. Masterson, of Germantown, were born in Amador County; while John G. Masterson, of Newville; Mary (now deceased) ; Mrs. Lonise Hulen, of Orland; and Mrs. Julia Jnhl, of San Francisco, were born in Tehama County.
Born at Jackson, October 8, 1856, James Masterson was reared on the home ranch at Newville, and in 1868 attended the old Union School there, the first school to be established in the north- ern part of Colusa County. He remained at home with his father until 1878, and then married and settled in Tehama County. Here he farmed for nine years, and was afterwards engaged in the sheep business until 1893. In 1891, he came to Orland to give his children the advantage of the town school, and bought fifteen acres in the southeastern part of the town, where he has since re- sided. He devoted ten acres to an almond orchard, and recently he has experimented with onion-growing. In 1916, he planted an acre to the California Red variety, from which he received a net income of one hundred fifty-five dollars; and in 1917 he planted five acres to the same vegetable, which yielded not less than eight hundred sacks.
The appearance of the valley in the early days, when Mr. Masterson first saw it, is a subject of exceptional interest. The valley was then a great, barren waste. All the early settlers lo- cated on or near the mountains on account of wood and water. From Redding south to Suisun Bay was a wilderness. The Tod- hunter ranch of thousands of acres was on the spot where Wil- lows now stands. The old Indian adobe house was the only build- ing in the Orland district ; and the River Settlement was made up of large Spanish grants. The nearest post office was Tehamna, in Tehama County. Mail came from there on horseback twice a week. Antelopes, elk and wild cattle roamed the plains, and inter-
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fered with the driving of stock; for in those days hogs and cattle had to be driven many miles to market. The Indians were wild, and for the most part wore only a breechcloth. In 1862, a band of Pitt River Indians made a raid down Newville Valley and killed a man named Watson. Then the settlers took up the trail and drove the red men up into the mountains, capturing some and killing many. During the battle a man named Ford was killed. After that there was but little trouble for the settlers. During the past ten years, this same territory has been cut up into small tracts and sold to settlers. Great development has overtaken the country; and what was an uninhabited waste has been settled up by a home- loving, prosperous people. All this transformation has been wit- nessed by Mr. Masterson with a great deal of satisfaction.
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