USA > California > Mendocino County > History of Mendocino and Lake 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 39
USA > California > Lake County > History of Mendocino and Lake 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 39
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Henry Bond passed his early life in his native land, coming alone to America when a youth of seventeen, in 1849. Sailing from Liverpool, he landed at New York City after a voyage of eight weeks and three days, and proceeded from there to Skaneateles, N. Y., where he hired out as a farm hand. He earned $15 at his first job, and for his second, in which he remained eight months, was promised $8 a month, but the employer proved'to be "poor pay," and Mr. Bond had to sue him for settlement of the note, which he received after much trouble. His next work was for a Quaker, with whom he remained four months, and after continuing to be employed thus for about five years he made up his mind to try gold digging in California. On the 1st of April, 1854, he embarked at New York for Panama, crossed the isthmus and came up to San Francisco, where he arrived April 12th. The mines were his objective point, and he was soon engaged in placer mining on the south fork of the American river, making $3.50 a day "rocking." After a little while, when he had acquired some experience, he took up a new claim with two partners, and during the five months they worked it they made $5000 apiece. Until 1857 Mr. Bond continued mining, and by hard work and thrift had accumulated $13,000 in the few years of his stay in California. But the work did not agree with him, having brought on rheumatism, and finally an accident made him decide to give it up and return to farming, though under very different conditions from those with which he had become familiar in his youth. While he was engaged in hydraulic mining a bank of earth caved in and fell on him, injuring his head and hurting him so badly in other respects that he had to be turned over to the care of two doctors. At the time he weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, and had always been well and hearty, but he has never fully recovered his physical strength.
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Leaving the mines. Mr. Bond came to Lake county in 1857, first settling in Coyote valley, where he took up the tract later known as the Phelan place. Within a couple of years, however, he was dispossessed by the Ritchie Com- pany, who claimed it by right of former grant, and in the spring of 1860 he moved into Morgan valley, where he has since made his home. His first purchase was the home tract upon which he has resided ever since, and to which he has added by other purchases made from time to time, until he now owns seven hundred acres, besides which he has given his sons John and Joseph about one hundred and sixty acres apiece. He has resided longer at the same place than any other present resident in the valley, and his industrious years have been well rewarded. Though he faced new agricul- tural conditions when he settled down to farming, he adapted himself readily to them, as his success testifies, for he is one of the most prosperous men in his section. Besides attending to his own affairs he has found time to do good work for the locality, his services as school trustee having covered a period of eighteen years. Since 1856 he has voted the Democratic ticket and given his influence and aid to the candidates and measures of the party.
At the time of his settlement in Lake county Mr. Bond was unmarried. In 1859, while living in Coyote valley, he married Miss Martha Capps, by whom he had three children: John Thomas, who is a farmer in Morgan valley ; Willie, who died when two years, two months old; and Joseph, who is a farmer in Morgan valley. About 1870 Mr. Bond married for his second wife Miss Mary Gentry, and to them were born four children, namely : Mamie, living in Nevada, who is the wife of Charles Burr and has one child ; Frank, who married Iva Smith and has five living children (they live on the home ranch) ; Nettie, who died when eighteen years old; and Maude, who is the wife of Charles F. Frederickson, a Morgan valley farmer, and has six children.
John Thomas Bond was born October 21, 1861, in Morgan valley, and was reared on his father's ranch there. There, too, he obtained his early education, beginning to attend public school the first day it was opened in the valley, with Mr. Knight as teacher. Later he had the advantage of one winter term's attendance at the private school in Lower Lake taught by Mrs Delmont. The home place was the practical school where he had training for his life work, and there he acquired the systematic methods and enter- prising spirit which have marked every one of his undertakings. Since he commenced life on his own account he has acquired ownership of six hundred and forty acres in his native valley, and he has put a lifetime of well-directed labor in its development, all of which has been accomplished under his direction. Here he has established a most comfortable home, and he is profitably engaged in general farm work and stock raising, keeping ordinarily thirty head of cattle, eight horses and mules and forty hogs. Mr. Bond has taken considerable pride in the advancement of his locality, most of its transformation from the primitive state having taken place in his day, and he has not only done his share by opening up his own property to cultivation, but he has been public-spirited about assisting in the promotion of its social and educational interests. His particular work has been as member of the school board and school trustee, in which latter position he served twelve years. On purely political questions he is a Democrat like his father.
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When twenty-five years old. on May 1, 1887, Mr. Bond married in Morgan valley Miss Frances Palmer, who was born at Davis, Yolo county, and whose father, Jasper V. Palmer, settled in Morgan valley in 1870, becoming one of its highly prosperous ranchmen and leaving an estate of eight hun- dred acres, which is a notable property. Mr. Palmer lived in Illinois when a boy and came across the plains to California with ox teams in 1854, following mining for a few years. He then returned to New York, where he was mar- tied at Savona in 1859 to Deborah M. Wing, a native of that state, returning to Illinois in 1861 for a time before again crossing the plains to California, where they resided first near Davis, then came to Lake county in 1870. Mr. Palmer died at Santa Rosa in 1907, Mrs. Palmer's death having occurred at the old home in 1897. Of their five children four survive, Mrs. Bond being the third in order of birth. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Bond: Joella Rose is the wife of Hugh Cross, of Lakeport, former editor of the Lake County Bee, and has two children, Gertrude I. and Ralph H .; Henry Victor assists on the home farm; Amy Alice is married to Richard Ford, who is in the boating business at Lakeport, and has a son, John Herbert.
Mr. Bond is a member of Lower Lake Parlor No. 159, N. S. G. W., and has been active in the interests of that organization, which he has served as trustee. His wife is a member of Laguna Parlor, N. D. G. W. No residents of Morgan valley are more highly respected by their neighbors and many friends than Mr. and Mrs. Bond, who always give of their time and means to any movement for the upbuilding and advancement of the county.
LATHROP MALPAS, M. D .- One of the most startling developments of the opening era of the twentieth century has been the advance made by women in every professional and occupative activity. Particularly has the medical science shown the results of the identification of women with its advance. In the study of therapeutics, in the development of the science of materia medica, in the practice of the profession and even in surgical cases requiring the most exact and unerring skill, women have stood side by side with men, winning a prestige that formerly would have been regarded as impossible and achieving a success that is drawing the science out of the realm of the empirical into the region of certainty, absoluteness and positive results. It is not too much to say that Dr. Malpas has borne her share in this task of advancement and by her own pronounced progress in the profession has shown what it is within the power of women to accomplish when their faculties are trained and their mental endowments rightly developed.
The distinction of rising to prominence among the professional leaders of Northern California supplements with Dr. Malpas the honor of being a native daughter of the state (having been born at San Jose) and the further honor of being the daughter of a devoted minister of the Gospel. Rev. Levy B. Lathrop, a New Yorker by birth and a Forty-niner by choice. The recipient of exceptional educational advantages, she attended the Hollister high school and after graduating therefrom became a student in Florence College. Later she took a course of study in Miss Field's Seminary at Oakland and still later had the advantages of a commercial course in Heald's Business College at San Francisco. In 1897 she was graduated from the Cooper Medical College, after which she spent one year as an interne at the San Francisco Children's hospital and a year in similar practice at Santa Barbara. After a period of professional service in the McNutt (afterward the St. Winifred) hospital at 18
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San Francisco, she came to Ukiah in 1902 and has since conducted a hospital at this point, making a specialty of the treatment of women's and children's diseases and of surgical operations connected with the same. Journals devoted to therapeutics receive her careful study. It is ever her aim to keep abreast with modern developments in the profession and to this end she is a student of medical literature and an interested member of the Mendocino County, California State and American Medical Association, being secretary of the County Medical Society. All civic enterprises for the improvement and up- building of Ukiah and Mendocino county receive her hearty co-operation, and she gives willingly of time and means to forward all such movements. Evi- dence of her popularity in the county and city of her residence appears in her selection as chairman of the Ukiah Woman's Board for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 at San Francisco, and in her recent service as matron of Casimir Lodge No. 252. Order of the Eastern Star, as well as in her distinct success as a physician and the recognition of her skill as a surgeon.
FRED LANGERMANN .- The head of a large family, with several sturdy sons whom he desired to interest in agriculture, Mr. Langermann made no mistake when in 1910 he came to Lake county and bought a tract of sixty acres in the South Kelseyville precinct. Since that time he has been making good as a farmer and getting established in the neighborhood where, in addition to managing his own property, he recently rented a ranch of three hundred and twenty acres from a neighbor. To manage so large a tract means intelli- gent work and unwearied energy, but he has proved equal to every emergency and shows the same sagacity in farming that he exercised in carpentering and contracting. Indeed, he is still in the building business and in all probability, as soon as his sons have gained efficiency in agricultural enterprises, he will return to specializing in contracts, for there is every reason to believe that the future is exceptionally bright for the building trades in Lake county.
Seven miles from Hamburg in Germany Fred Langermann was born July 1, 1857, and from there in 1868 he crossed the ocean to America with his mother, brothers and sisters, settling in Minnesota, fifty-four miles north of St. Paul, where he attended schools and gained a knowledge of the English language. Early in life he became proficient in carpentering, for which indeed he seemed to possess a decided native ability. During 1890 he left Minnesota for Oregon and settled in Portland, where he found employment at his trade. Little by little he rose in the confidence of those who had build- ing contracts to give, and his success in construction work of all kinds was exceptional. In concrete as well as in frame construction he acquired pro- ficiency and his only reason for giving up his work in Oregon to settle on a California farm was the desire to get his sons started along efficient lines of agriculture. During 1910 he left Sheridan, Yamhill county, and came down to this state, where he selected a favorable location in Lake county. While living in Sheridan he was one of the leading Masons of the blue lodge and was also active in the work of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. During his residence in Minnesota, he married Miss Filora Pemberton June 25, 1882, and they are now the parents of seven children, namely: John, who aids his father on the home farm; Henry, who is married and living in San Francisco; Clifton and Earl, both helping on the farm ; Griffin, Pearl and Ralph, attending school, all bright and capable young people whose preparation for efficient
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life work is the chief ambition of their parents. Mrs. Langermann was born in Henry county, Iowa, daughter of William H. and Eliza P. (Davis) Pem- berton, born in Ohio and Illinois, respectively. The father was a miller and also a minister in the Baptist church. Mrs. Langermann's maternal grand- father, Griffie Davis, was born in Virginia and was an uncle of Jefferson Davis. Mr. and Mrs. Langermann are both members of the Order of the Eastern Star.
JAMES O. McSPADDEN .- Another of the real California pioneers, one who came to the state when he was but twenty-one, is James O. McSpadden, now one of the most prosperous farmers and stockmen in Mendocino county. He crossed the plains with ox teams in 1858, and has lived in the west con- tinuously since that time, principally in California, but for a time having lived in Nevada.
Mr. McSpadden is a native of Tennessee, having been born in Calhoun, McMinn county, May 16, 1836. He is the descendant of an old Scotch family which settled in Virginia in an early day. His father was James Walker McSpadden, and was born in Virginia, removing to Tennessee when he was a young man. When the son James was yet a lad the family returned to Virginia, and he was reared on his father's farm there, attending the public schools in his district. When he was twenty-one years of age he determined to come west, and crossed the plains in a "prairie schooner" with ox teams in 1857, in company with a man named Thomas Potter, starting from Missouri. Arriving in California, he remained for a year at Napa, and in 1858 located in Mendocino county. He was employed for a number of years on various ranches in Anderson valley, and also worked in the woods and in the lumber camps and saw mills. He finally settled in Bell Valley, where he engaged in farming and stock-raising.
During the early part of his residence in the west Mr. McSpadden spent two years in Nevada, but the conditions there did not appeal to him, and at the end of that time he returned to California, and has since then made his home continuously in Mendocino county. He has been very successful in the stock business, and has purchased and improved several tracts of valuable land. He is at present owner of one of the finest properties in the valley, and is one of the oldest settlers in the county. He is highly respected as a citizen and as a friend and neighbor, and enjoys the friendship of a wide circle.
The marriage of Mr. McSpadden took place in Ukiah June 19, 1893, unit- ing him with Miss Maria Miller, who lived but eighteen months after her mar- riage. Mr. McSpadden has not remarried.
SWAN W. YOUNG .- Among the health and pleasure resorts of Lake county which have enjoyed continued favor for years, Newman Springs has become well known for its comforts and fine location, as well as for the waters whose curative qualities are sufficient to attract many. Mr. Young has been the proprietor since 1898, and with commendable enterprise has succeeded in building up a fine patronage, in spite of the fact that there are various other resorts in the region which have been much longer established. His chicken dinners are so popular as to make his place a favorite stopping point for driving parties, and his mechanical skill is often in demand for the repair of vehicles of all kinds-a very present help to those overtaken with acci- dents on the road. Mr. Young has a powerful physique and in his younger
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days was an amateur pugilist of some note, hence the club room with athletic appliances and training quarters at his resort.
A native of Sweden, Mr. Young was born near Christianstad October 6, 1862, son of West and Kate Young. His mother died when he was only a boy, and the father remarried. There were four children by the first union : Swan W .; Nils, a bricklayer and plasterer by occupation, who resides at Galesburg, Ill .; John, a railroad man, also living at Galesburg ; and a daughter that died in infancy. To the second marriage were born two children : Carrie, who is married and lives in Chicago, Ill .; and Joseph, a bricklayer, settled in British Columbia.
Ever since his mother died Swan W. Young has made his own way in the world. When a young man of nineteen years he came to America, and during his first four years in this country lived at Galesburg, Ill. Then he spent some time in Kansas and worked in Colorado, at Denver, being engaged at grading on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad. Within a short time, how- ever, he came to California, first locating at San Francisco, and in 1888 coming to Lake county, that year entering the employ of the Bartlett Springs Com- pany. During the summer season he was engaged as stable man at the resort, in the winters returning to San Francisco, where he worked as longshoreman or at any other employment-generally heavy work-which would bring him an honest living. Because of his steadiness and reliability, and his aptitude for mechanical work, he was made head stable man, and while thus engaged became an expert horseshoer-a valuable accomplishment, most important to the safety of travelers among the mountains. There are comparatively few blacksmiths who understand the shoeing of horses as thoroughly as Mr. Young. Having worked steadily and saved his money, he concluded to try business on his own account in 1898, and accordingly bought the place, known as New- man Springs, one and a half miles northwest of Bartlett Springs, that year. It is situated in the Bartlett Springs precinct, and one of the several fine springs on his property yields a water which looks and tastes exactly like that of the celebrated Bartlett spring. The Newman or Soap Creek spring is another particularly fine one, and there is another spring strong with iron. These waters have high medicinal value, obstinate cases of eczema and other skin ailments having been known to yield readily to their continued use, and their effects on the liver and kidneys are invigorating and salutary. They are recommended highly as an antiseptic and alterative, stimulating all the secre- tions of the body, eliminating diseased conditions, and particularly benefiting cases of sciatic rheumatism, blood poisoning and similar maladies.
Newman Springs resort is delightfully and romantically situated among the Bartlett mountains in close proximity to the Big Horse mountain. Dur- ing Mr. Young's ownership it has been improved in many respects which have increased its desirability both as a health and a pleasure resort. The Newman house having burned down, he replaced it with a substantial building, and the barns and bathhouse are also of his construction. His versatility and skill as a mechanic have stood him in good stead in all this process of development. He is able to do cement work and carpentry as well as the experienced trades- man in these lines, and combined with his capacity for much heavy work this has been a great advantage where there is so much to be done with proper help not always available. The fine bathing house he has built has a tank large enough to accommodate a score or more of bathers. Mr. Young
IM Church
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keeps personal oversight of the table provisions and service, a fact which is thoroughly appreciated by those who relish good home cooking such as he places before his guests. Together with his pleasant personality the many good points of Newman Springs are drawing an increased patronage yearly. He has the faculty of making his guests feel at home, and his obliging dispo- sition complements a familiarity with the requirements of his business which assures them that everything possible will be done for their comfort.
Mr. Young is six feet tall and weighs two hundred pounds-all solid muscle. His fists, arms and shoulders are tremendous, and though he never entered the pugilistic ring except as an amateur he had the reputation of delivering as heavy a blow as some of the famous professionals. But although he acquired great skill in the art of self-defense and boxing he did not attempt to follow it as a professional, in spite of his manifest qualifications. But his former prowess has kept him interested in such sports, and a number of pugilists have come to the springs to take the baths and train, the club- room and training quarters being fitted with punching bag, dumbbells and cther appliances. Mr. Young is justly popular and respected, and in his suc- cess has the good-will of all who know him.
JOSEPH MARTIN CHURCH .- On the Canadian side of Lake Erie within fifty miles of Niagara Falls, near Brantford, Brant county, Ontario, Joseph Martin Church was born on New Year's day of 1858, the eldest son of Seth and Harriet (Harrison) Church, the former of Canadian birth and the latter of English blood. Of his immediate family there still remain in Brant county an own brother, George W., of Brantford, and a half-brother, Duncan Church, who lives on a farm ten miles west of Brantford. The original American location of the family had been in New England and Philip Church, a native of that section of country, but in young manhood a resident first at Troy, N. Y., and later at Syracuse, the same state, had been the first to establish a home in Canada, where for a long period of industrious activity he engaged in lumbering, an occupation in turn followed by Seth and Joseph Martin Church. The latter at the age of fifteen removed with other members of the family to a farm and for a year aided in the tilling of the soil. A decided bent for machinery and mechanical work led him to become an apprentice in a shop at Brantford at the age of sixteen and there he not only learned the trade of machinist, but in addition studied the principles of engineering. His wages the first year were $4 a week, the second year $7, the third year $10, while the fourth, when practically a finished machinist, he received only $12 a week, and during all of this time he paid his own board. At the end of this period of training, he began to work as machinist and engineer in Ontario and it was not until 1886, when he was twenty-eight, that he gave up work in Canada for the purpose of removing to California. During 1888 he returned to Ontario and married Miss. Alpharetta Churchill of Brantford, who accompanied him to the west and presides with tactful hospitality over their comfortable home.
For the first year of California residence Mr. Church ran a stationary engine for a creamery at Bakersfield owned by the Carr and Haggin interests. Coming to Lakeport in 1887, he became engineer at the Lakeport flouring mill and after seven years in that capacity he and Jabez Banks purchased the mill, which they operated under the title of Banks & Church. After a successful period of co-operation in that business, in 1906 Mr. Church sold
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his interest to Mr. Banks and embarked in general merchandising. He is now the proprietor of the largest department store in Lakeport, his establish- ment containing a varied assortment of dry goods, groceries, shoes, men's furnishings and other merchandise, the stock and fixtures having a conserva- tive valuation of $20,000. The closest attention is given to every detail connected with the store. Prompt payment of bills gives such advantages in discounts that prices are often much lower than in other establishments in town. Besides attractive prices, the store is also noteworthy by reason of convenience of arrangement, harmony of displays and completeness of appointments. Added to all else is the unvarying courtesy of the proprietor, whose genial but commanding presence inspires confidence and whose inter- est in the wants of patrons causes him to do all within his power to fill their orders efficiently and with promptness. Aside from his duties at his business establishment he finds leisure for the work of the local Masonic Blue Lodge, in which he is a Past Master (having been made a Mason in Hartley Lodge No. 199, F. & A. M. of Lakeport, and for the duties of steward and trustee in the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Although not a politician, he keeps posted concerning public affairs and votes the Repub- lican ticket. Versatile in abilities, with the talents that would have brought success in varied lines of endeavor, he is a splendid type of the Canadian- American citizens of California and is highly honored in Lakeport, where his devotion to the church, his interest in charities, prominence in business, combined with and inspired by a serene disposition and earnest Christian character, give him a place in the very forefront of the progressive citizenship of the place.
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