History of Humboldt County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 55

Author: Irvine, Leigh H. (Leigh Hadley), 1863-1942
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Los Angeles, Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1328

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Mr. Anderson attributes his success in no small degree to the able assistance and counsel of his faithful wife and helpmate, who has ever been ready and willing to share her part of the mutual trials and burdens.

Aside from his prominence in a business way, Mr. Anderson is one of the best known and most influential men in the community where he lives. He has taken time from his busy life to take an active part in all local questions that tend to the upbuilding and general betterment of the com- munity and is always to be found on the side of progress and social uplift. In politics he is a Progressive Republican, and he is a progressive in the truest sense of the word. He is also prominent in fraternal circles, being made a Mason in Arcata Lodge No. 106, F. & A. M .; he is a member of Humboldt Chapter No. 79, R. A. M., Eureka, and of Eureka Commandery No. 35, K. T. ; Islam Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., in San Francisco, as well as the Knights of Pythias, and with his wife and daughters is a member of Arcata Chapter, O. E. S. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were raised in the Lutheran church, to which faith they still adhere.

Mr. Anderson is still active in business, and is enjoying the busy life as well as when he was not so prosperous. His success and attendant wealth have not been won without his having experienced many hardships and en- during many years of bitter toil. His present position in the community is, however, not accorded him because of his wealth, but because of his reputa-

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tion for honesty and fair dealing with his fellowmen, and his splendid qualities of heart and mind.

GEORGE C. LINDLEY .- One of the large stock and fruit ranches in the Upper Mattole valley of Humboldt county is that of George C. Lindley, who has lived there since he was a boy of about sixteen years, when he began to work for the late owner, George Hindley. He now rents the property from the Hindley estate, and though there is considerable responsibility involved in the management and unlimited hard work in the cultivation of the place, his long experience qualifies him for the one and his unusual physical strength for the other.

Mr. Lindley is a son of Oscar Lindley, a well known old settler in the Mattole valley, who had a family of nine children, eight sons and one daughter, George being the sixth in the order of birth. He was born Decem- ber 9, 1882, on Green Ridge, Rainbow, and after receiving common school advantages began to work out by the month. His only employer was the late George Hindley, for whom he began work some sixteen years ago, and whose daughter Verna he married in 1906. Mr. Lindley was associated with his father-in-law in the operation of the ranch for so many years that his work has had a definite share in its successful development, for Mr. Hindley relied upon him implicitly, and never hesitated to trust anything to him. His broad shoulders and exceptional strength, combined with intelligence in directing his labors, and his executive ability, made him a most capable help- er, and he cooperated with Mr. Hindley and his family to their mutual advan- tage in the improvement of the ranch. It consists of two thousand, three hundred sixty acres in the Upper Mattole region, about seventeen miles south of Petrolia, and the stock on the place usually consists of about one hundred seventy-five high-grade Herefords and Durhams and one hundred thirty Poland-China hogs. Forty acres of the place are in fruit bearing orchards of apples, prunes, peaches and walnuts. Mr. Lindley runs the prop- erty alone for about four months of the year, having help only during the months when the work "bunches" so as to make it impossible for one person to handle all the details successfully. He is a man of commendable character, not only because of his industry, but also on account of his integrity and his progressive disposition. At present he is serving as school trustee in the Honey Dew district. For the last nine years he has been road overseer for the Upper Mattole section of the First district. Politically he is associated with the Republican party. Fraternally he is a member of Ferndale Lodge No. 220, I. O. O. F., and Ferndale Parlor No. 93, N. S. G. W.

In 1906 Mr. Lindley married Miss Verna Hindley, and they have two children, Margaret and Elwyn. Mrs. Lindley was born in Upper Mattole and has inherited the practical common sense for which her family is so well known and is a woman of admirable character, a congenial helpmate much beloved and appreciated by her family and neighbors. She and her husband are members of the Episcopal Church.

George Hindley, Mrs. Lindley's father, died March 10, 1914, after an active and successful career in the Upper Mattole valley. The acquirement and development of the highly improved estate which he left was practically his life work, and he was ably assisted by his wife, Margaret (Holman), and their large family, as well as by his son-in-law, all working together to bring the place to its present high state of development. Mr. Hindley was one of

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the most highly regarded men in his locality, and he gave his fellow citizens able service as supervisor of District No. 1, of Humboldt county. Able, public-spirited and hospitable, he became one of the most popular men in his neighborhood, and the spirit of thrift and good management which characterized all his business undertakings seems to have settled permanently on the place which was his home for so many years.

LOUIS P. ROSSIER, M. D .- Descending from sturdy old French Huguenot ancestry, and himself a native of Switzerland, Dr. Louis P. Ros- sier has brought with him to California all the sterling qualities of heart and mind, and all the gentle kindness of heart and consideration for the welfare and rights of others which his ancestry and nativity stand for. In his prac- tice at Garberville, Humboldt county, he is called upon to display all the varied graces that are demanded of the family physician, and especially of the family physician in the rural community, and this calls continually into play all that is best and truest and kindest in his nature ; and it is an acknowledged fact among his patients, that he has never yet failed them in their hour of need, whether they have been in need of physics or sympathy, a porous plaster or kindly advice.

Dr. Rossier was born in Switzerland, April 11, 1852, the son of John and Louise (Mayor) Rossier, both natives of Switzerland. His mother died in Canada at the early age of thirty-four years, and his father died in Boston, Mass., at the age of sixty-three. His parents left Switzerland when Louis P. was a child of two and a half years, coming to Canada, and locating about fifteen miles from Montreal, where the father, who was a teacher, was en- gaged to teach the French language in a young ladies' seminary. Later he taught in a boys' academy or high school, and in a mission boarding school about thirty miles southwest of Montreal, on the Richelieu river. Some- time after the death of his first wife the elder Rossier went down to Boston and became a preacher in the Free Will Baptist church. There were five children by the first wife, all of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. They are: Henry Daniel, residing at Canandaigua, N. Y .; Louis P., re- spected citizen of Garberville; Clara, Mrs. Evans, residing at Fitchburg, Mass. ; Samuel, residing at Newport, Vt .; and Emil, residing at Coventry, Vt. The father was married a second time, and of this second union were born eight children.

When Dr. Rossier was fifteen years of age he went to Vermont from his home in Canada and secured employment on a farm. He did not at that time speak a word of English and his employer did not speak a word of French, but the boy was quick and willing and the association proved satisfactory, and he remained here until he was twenty years of age. Then he fell ill with an affliction of the heart and returned to his home in Canada and again entered the school where his father taught, becoming both a student and a tutor in French. He pursued his studies along the line of the sciences and English, becoming proficient in both.

It was not until he was twenty-five years of age that Dr. Rossier deter- mined to take up the study of medicine. From the age of twenty-two until he was twenty-five he had worked as a carpenter and millwright at Mont- gomery, Vt., and it chanced that his employer was a physician, one Dr. Wil- bur. The young man became interested and commenced to read and study with the older man as his preceptor and teacher and later he entered the

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University of Vermont, at Burlington, graduating June 28, 1878, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He began his practice at once at Irasburg, Vt., later moving to Morgan's Corners, in the same state, and still later to Island Pond, where he was located from 1881 to 1889.

It was in 1889 that Dr. Rossier came to California. In 1894 he located in Garberville, and ever since that time has been a resident of this locality, save for a period of nine months, during 1909, when he was in Stanislaus county.

The field in which Dr. Rossier has found his work for the past twenty years is a large one, and the scope over which he keeps watch and ward is extensive. He has been seriously hampered in that he has no hospital ac- commodations near at hand, and all serious surgical cases have to be sent to Eureka, where there are splendid hospitals, and where he works in co-opera- tion with the finest physicians and surgeons in the city. The doctor inspires confidence in all his patients, men, women and children. In keeping with his Huguenot ancestry he is kind hearted and considerate with all mankind, but somewhat radical when it comes to matters of principle involving ques- tions of right and wrong, standing firmly for what he considers right and holding himself unflinchingly to the standards which he advocates.

Men in the medical profession who spend their lives on the frontier and very sparsely settled mountain districts never receive the appreciation that is due them for the self-sacrifice they show to the sick and needy, often spend- ing days and nights in a buggy or saddle, climbing the mountain roads and trails to reach a patient in time to alleviate pain and suffering, by bringing into use his years of study and experience, when he might use that same knowledge in the larger cities without entailing the discomforts and hard- ships of frontier life. Too much credit cannot be given Dr. Rossier for his unselfish devotion to his duty and his profession.

PETER PARTON .- Many of the early settlers in Humboldt county came west to work in the lumbering industry, attracted not so much by the prospect of high wages as by the climatic conditions prevailing in Cali- fornia. The work in the woods in the Lake states and in Eastern Canada is made doubly hard and perilous by reason of the rigorous winters; and the idea of being able to escape these unpleasant and terrible conditions was a pleasing one, even to young and vigorous lumbermen. Among this class of pioneer settlers may be named Peter Parton, for, although at this time he is a farmer, when .he first came to California, many years ago, he was a lumberman, and up to that time practically his entire life had been spent in the woods. He had been employed in Canada and around the Great Lakes, and had endured all the hardships of the long cold winters in the lumber camps, and felt that it would be indeed worth while to make an effort to locate where this might be avoided.

Mr. Parton is a native of Canada, having been born at Toronto in 1868. His early life was spent in that city, where he attended the public schools until he was thirteen years of age. Conditions in the home were such that at that time he was obliged to start out for himself, and his first employment was in the woods, where he worked for H. B. Rathburn, about one hundred miles east of Toronto. He remained there but a short time, and then came to Saginaw, Mich., where he was again employed in the lumber camps.

It was in 1889 that Mr. Parton left the east for California, coming directly 15

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to Humboldt county, where he had two brothers living; it being through their letters that he was induced to come west. He soon secured a position with Flannigan & Brosnam Lumber Company, working in the woods and remaining with them for almost a year. Later he was with Bill Crowley on the Freshwater river, and still later with Frank Graham at Riverside, both of these men being pioneer lumbermen and well known throughout the county. He was variously employed in the work of the lumber camps until his marriage.

At the time of his marriage Mr. Parton determined to give up the life of the woods, and naturally turned to farming. He purchased what is now his home place of forty acres from the Mary Mahoney estate. At the time of purchase but twenty acres of the farm were improved and under cultivation, and since that time Mr. Parton has cleared and improved the remaining twenty acres. The first year he was on the place he made a specialty of rais- ing peas, but the following year he took up dairying on a small scale, and has since then been constantly interested in that line of farming. He now owns a herd of thirty milch cows, mostly Jerseys and Holsteins, all graded stock. He is interested in the United Creamery at Arcata and has held the position of director for the past nine years.

Aside from his position as a prosperous farmer and business ·man, Mr. Parton has become widely known through his political activities in his district. He is a Democrat and has been closely associated with the affairs of his party for many years past. He is also a prominent member of the Knights of Columbus and with his family is a member of the Catholic church in Arcata.

The marriage of Mr. Parton and Miss Nellie Mahoney took place at Arcata, July 3, 1892. She was born on the ranch where they now live and is the daughter of Michael and Mary (Judge) Mahoney, who were pioneer settlers of California, and were married in San Jose. Her father was an educator, but did not follow it for any length of time, but turned his attention to farming. In about 1868 they located in Humboldt county and pur- chased the ranch about a mile northwest of Alliance, where they reared their children and spent the remainder of their lives. Mr. and Mrs. Parton have ten children: Joseph Albert, attending Eureka busi- ness college; Eugene, attending the Humboldt State Normal ; George, Her- man, Emile, Clara Cecelia, James, Valentine, Donald and Mary Grace. Both Mr. and Mrs. Parton are public spirited and enterprising and are ever ready to help those who have been less fortunate.

HUGH L. CAVE .- Retrospection plays a great part in our later years in proportion as the conditions in the present are different from those of the past, and one needs to use very little imagination to picture Mr. Cave sitting before the fire in the cool evenings, again visioning the events of his earlier life and, unconscious of the passing of time, once more traveling the path of the pioneers, seeing only in the embers the days gone by. He sees the prairie schooner hauled by oxen, and again lives through the awful encoun- ters with the Indians that attended every overland journey to California in the fifties. He was born in Van Buren county, Iowa, November 8, 1837, and is the son of Richard and Colma B. (Williams) Cave, who were early pioneers of that county. Richard Cave was born in Kentucky, July 30, 1799, and was married in Boone county, Missouri, to Colma Williams, September

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28, 1820. Here he learned the trade of millwright, which he followed the greater part of his life. In 1836 he moved to Iowa and there built the first steamboat ever navigated on the Des Moines river, the section of land on which he lived having been purchased a short time before from Black Hawk, the chief of the tribe of that name. In 1840 the steamboat was built in part- nership with another man and together they owned and operated the boat between their place and St. Louis. The partner then decided the boat needed a coat of paint so he started down the river but never returned, having sold the boat and decamped with the money. This was a great blow to Mr. Cave, and he again engaged as a millwright and followed this trade until 1850, when he started for California, crossing the plains in a prairie schooner and bravely facing the dangers he knew were sure to follow. He safely reached the land of promise and located on the Yuba river, where he engaged in mining for two years, but gave it up to return to Iowa in the spring of 1852. He engaged passage on a steamer by way of the Isthmus to New Orleans, and up the Mississippi to the old home in Iowa. The lure of California was too strong for him and in the fall of the same year he again returned, this time locating at Sacramento, where he engaged in house-moving. At this time the high floods of the Sacramento river were raging and he found plenty of employ- ment to keep him busy for a year or more. In the summer of 1853 he moved to Salmon River, Siskiyou county, where he established the first swinging derrick ever used on the river. A water wheel was first built in the stream and this was the power used to swing the derrick. He remained here only a short time, next building a sawmill on the north side of the Klamath river, then organizing a dredging company, and building the first irrigation system used in the county. He also engaged in mining but did not follow this long. In May, 1859, he sold his many interests in the Klamath valley and moved to Shasta county. Here he purchased a drove of cattle and, leaving them here, was returning to his mine when he was suddenly killed by a highwayman on the summit of Salmon Mountain. His family expected him to return in a short time, so hearing nothing from him for two weeks, searching parties were formed, and to the son, Hugh, fell the shock of finding his father's body, on the trail over the mountain, July 30, 1859. Deeply grieved over the tragedy, he returned home to break the news as gently as possible to those waiting for them both. His brother, Josiah, then went to Iowa and, in 1860, returned to California, bringing with him his mother and sisters. They arrived in Arcata, July 1, and there it was that the new home was established.

In 1858 Hugh Cave left his home in Iowa, starting with a party by the southern route over the plains for California, journeying through Kansas and New Mexico via Las Vegas and Albuquerque. Continuing on their way to the new El Dorado, they arrived at Needles in September, 1858, and here encountered a large band of hostile Indians who gave battle. A large num- ber of the party were killed, the surviving few returning to Albuquerque, where the party disbanded. Mr. Cave was fortunate enough to escape death at the hands of the Indians, however, and he formed a new company, this time going by way of Tucson, Arizona, and from there to Yuma, arriving in Los Angeles in 1859. They still continued their journey up the coast and reached Sacramento, May 18, 1859, having been on the way one year, lacking ten days. In Sacramento he purchased a pack-mule and started for the mines

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to find his father, who was then employed in the mines, far from all civiliza- tion. After his father's death he drove the large herd of cattle left in Shasta valley by his father to the Three Cabin ranch in Humboldt county, arriving there December 1, 1859. Here he remained and engaged in stock-raising until 1861, but, the Indians becoming very hostile, he was forced to abandon the ranch and all the cattle and flee for safety to Arcata, where he remained during 1862-3, the period of the Indian wars. He then returned to Three Cabin ranch and there, of his fine herd of two hundred cattle, only sixty-six were left. During the time he was forced to leave his ranch to the mercy of the Indians he had engaged in logging and had also driven a team for Isaac Minor, hauling logs from the camps in the woods to the mills. He was so disheartened over the loss of his cattle that he determined to sell the remain- ing few and forever forsake stock-raising. In 1864 he started with a pack train for Idaho to engage in mining but, not finding conditions satisfactory, he once more returned to Humboldt county by way of San Francisco. In 1865 he rented a tract of land and engaged in farming for ten years but in 1875 he gave this up to enter the livery business. This venture was any- thing but a success as he lost the sum of $2,500, so he again returned to farming, following this until 1880, when he married and went to Walla Walla, Wash. Here he engaged in the raising of grain in the valley until 1895. This, too, proved to be a failure, so on they moved to Rio Grande, Colo., but they decided that conditions were only to their liking in California, so Arcata saw them once more in January, 1897. Here he again engaged in dairying, but selling his interests in 1901, he entered the teaming and hauling business in and around Arcata, retiring to a justly earned rest in 1910. In 1913 he re- visited the old home he had left fifty-five years before, but indeed the surroundings had changed. The old home did not look natural, but while there he found an old mill-stone that had been left by his father seventy-five years ago. He published a challenge in the local newspapers as being the oldest living white man born in the vicinity, and found only one man, who was two years older than himself. After this visit to the old home he returned to Arcata. He was united in marriage November 16, 1867, with Anna Jane Morton, a native of Philadelphia, Pa., the daughter of William Morton, who, when she was three years old, started on the journey to California, locating in Trinidad and later removing to Elk Camp on Bald Hill. Here Mr. Morton owned a stock ranch and also became the proprietor of a hotel for travelers in the vicinity, but in 1862 was forced to seek shelter with many others in Arcata from the marauding bands of hostile Indians. Here in Arcata Mrs. Morton died, and after her death he took up a claim at Scottsville on Mad river, on which he lived until the year 1875, when he sold his interests there and returned to Illinois, where he passed away. Of the marriage of Hugh L. and Anna Jane (Morton) Cave there are six children : Colma Brent, mar- ried to Frank E. Sapp, of Arcata; Alfred Henry, marine engineer in the em- ploy of the North Pacific Steamship Company; Rose Melvina, married to Henry D. Abrams, who is engaged in farming in New Mexico; Hugh William, a conductor for the past ten years in the employ of the N. W. P. Ry .; Richard Walter, also a conductor for seven years on the N. W. P. Ry., and Victor Morton Cave, engineer on the coast division of the Southern Pacific Railway out of San Francisco.

Mr. Cave is the only living member of his father's family and his mem-

b. a. Roberts.

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ories may well be envied by the people who have only lived in the present prosaic generation. He now devotes his time to the writing of special articles for the newspapers and is a man who has a large circle of friends and is a most entertaining and thrilling relater of the adventures in the exciting days of early California. He has long since retired from any active labor, but has always enjoyed the best of health even though his early years were full of grim hardships. He has witnessed the many changes that have taken place in the county and has watched its growth from an undeveloped section over- run with Indians to its present busy, commercial activities. He is indeed a true pioneer and Humboldt county is justly proud to number him among her citizens.

CHARLES A. ROBERTS .- The first shipment of stock made by boat from a Humboldt county port to San Francisco was sent down in 1894, dur- ing the great midwinter fair, and the shippers were Charles A. Roberts and Robert W. Robarts, the former the late proprietor of the butcher shop at Petrolia, farmer, stock-raiser and cattle-shipper-one of the most enterprising business men of the region about Petrolia. Not only was he one of the best known stockmen of Humboldt county, but was also well known in stock- yard circles at San Francisco, his large transactions and honorable dealings having brought him into familiar acquaintance and excellent repute with some of the leading figures in the business on the Pacific coast. Mr. Roberts was of pioneer parentage, being a son of the late William Roberts, who undoubt- edly inherited his taste for frontier life, his parents having been early settlers in Iowa. William Roberts was only a boy when his father died in that state, but his mother lived to be over ninety-one years of age, and paid him a visit after he had settled in the Mattole valley.

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History of Humboldt County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 55

Author: Irvine, Leigh H. (Leigh Hadley), 1863-1942 Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Los Angeles, Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1328

Author: Irvine, Leigh H. (Leigh Hadley), 1863-1942
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Los Angeles, Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1328