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 46
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 46
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residing at Point Richmond, Cal. Four children have been born to them, Lena, Lillie, Alice and Donald. The family has a comfortable home at Mid- dletown. .
ANDREW ROCCA .- Lake county has been most generously endowed in her natural resources. While her agricultural capabilities seem to be gain- ing the lead now, as farmers take advantage of her unrivaled climate and rich soil, her mines have for years contributed a large share to her producing capacity. It is in connection with mining especially that Andrew Rocca has had a hand in building up the fortunes of this region, and he has also been one of the most valuable factors in another field, the development of water projects in this and other parts of California. His faculty for the successful handling of large undertakings amounts to genius, as results testify. At pres- ent Mr. Rocca is principally occupied with the operation of the Helen quick- silver mine near Middletown. The Great Western, another quicksilver mine in the same locality, was under his superintendence for a period of twenty- four years, until worked out. Mr. Rocca has been mining in California prac- tically all the time since his arrival here, early in 1854, and in that connection is one of the best known men in the state. More than that, although he has acquired wealth he has not done so at the expense of any other's fortune. All his transactions have brought wealth to the territory in which they have been conducted, his methods and dealings have been irreproachable, and as a consequence his friends are legion.
Mr. Rocca was born and brought up at Genoa, Italy, and the birthplace of Christopher Columbus is one of his early memories. When he was four years old he had an attack of typhoid fever, and his father. Bartholomew Rocca, contracted the disease supposedly from him and died, so that his son barely remembers him. The father left the family in comfortable circum- stances. having had a large hotel and general merchandise store, which the mother continued for a short time after his death, being a woman of consid- erable education and executive ability. Then she sold the store and carried on the hotel, and she lived to the age of sixty-four years, dying in Genoa. Her maiden name was Marie Ginocchio. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bartholomew Rocca : Anna, Louisa, Catherine, one that died young, Andrew, Rosa and Joseph B.
Born October 8, 1838, Mr. Rocca left Genoa on his fifteenth birthday, October 8, 1853, bound for California with two companies, one a boy of six- teen, the other a man of thirty-one years. He never afterward saw his mother (having never gone back on a visit) or any other member of the family except his brother Joseph B. Rocca, who was the only one besides himself to come to America : Joseph B. Rocca has been a miner, has been in. every one of the Pacific coast states, and is now carrying on a large ranch at Madrone, Cal .. having an immense vineyard.
Andrew Rocca and his two companions journeyed by way of France to England, where they took passage for New York, landing December 18, 1853. Two days later, on the 20th, they set sail for Panama, crossed the Isthmus and embarked on the steamship Golden Gate for San Francisco. For eight days everything went well. Then, without warning. the shaft broke. The steamer Uncle Sam, passing, offered assistance, but Captain Whiting of the Golden Gate refused all aid for his vessel, which was wrecked at San Diego, being disabled and so short of water and provisions that passengers and crew alike were almost famished. The captain claimed that the ship was as good
-
May R Bocca.
Andrew Roceas
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as ever and that the water in the hold came from waves washing overboard, not from a leak. However, he set three hundred men to work to bail it out, but they bailed until exhausted without lowering it one bit. Then a diver was sent down and reported there was no bottom to the ship, which was full of sand. In spite of the effort of many of the passengers, Mr. Rocca included. to be allowed to land, the captain refused and kept them there for twenty-four hours and were then landed, and twelve hours later three hun- dred of them came on the towboat Goliath, Mr. Rocca one of them, and five hundred of the passengers on the Brother Jonathan, the balance as best they could, Mr. Rocca landing in San Francisco in January, 1854. He went to Bear valley, in Mariposa county, and engaged successfully in placer mining, which he followed on a large scale from 1860 to 1867, being the most extensive operator of that kind in Tuolumne county. He accumulated considerable there. In 1869 Mr. Rocca became superintendent of the Golden Rock Water Com- pany, in Tuolumne county, of which he was also part owner and one of the organizers and financiers, and he operated it very successfully, both as a business proposition and public utility, until 1875. The water was put to inany uses, and the proposition was very popular. In 1875 Mr. Rocca sold his interest and moved to San Francisco with the intention of remaining in that city, having decided to retire from active mining business. However, a few days later he called on Abraham Halsey, with whom he was well ac- quainted, and who was largely interested in mining. Among Mr. Halsey's properties was a two hundred acre placer in Shasta county, in which he inter- ested Mr. Rocca, persuading him to take the management and a seventh inter- est in the ownership, so in June, 1876, we find him on Spring creek, two miles from Shasta, building eight miles of ditches and flumes with the aid of sixty to eighty men. The result was a flow of water of two thousand miner's inches. He then installed two six-inch hydraulic giant engines and began operations. The power was so great that in six weeks' time the debris filled the Sacramento river to such an extent that they knew it would be only a short time until they would be forced by the court to cease operations, as was the case with miners below them on the river, so they discontinued the work and the manager retired to San Francisco. However, the hydraulic sys- tem he had installed for this mining enterprise on Saltpork Ridge was con- sidered one of the finest in California, and it was due to his supervision and enterprising spirit that the result was eminently satisfactory from an engineer- ing and operating standpoint.
But his reputation as a miner and mine manager was established and of very real importance to the directors of the Great Western quicksilver mine, to whom his old friend Abraham Halsey proposed his election as superin- tendent. entirely without Mr. Rocca's solicitation or knowledge. H. M. Newhall was president of the company. The proposition met with approval, and September 12, 1876, Mr. Rocca came to Lake county to assume his new duties, which he performed so satisfactorily that he held the position for the succeeding twenty-four years, resigning when the mine was exhausted. Dur- ing that period more than three million dollars worth of quicksilver was taken out.
In 1899 Mr. Rocca bought the American quicksilver mine property near Middletown, comprising forty-one acres, and he has purchased several other claims near or adjoining since, besides taking up government land. It is now known as the Helen mine, and is producing well, thirty men being employed. 21
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in 1913 three hundred and three flasks were taken out, and rich discoveries have been made recently. The Helen mine was originally patented under that name but changed by the subsequent owners, though when Mr. Rocca pur- chased it he gave it the original name. It is located about seven miles above Middletown at the head of Dry creek. in the foothills of Pine mountain. Aside from the mine property of forty-one acres he owns about six hundred acres of agricultural and timber land, from which he obtains timber for his tunnels and mines. The plant is equipped with a fifty ton Scott furnace together with a retort for the reduction of the soot.
But while he has made a reputation in mining Mr. Rocca has also done big things in other fields, particularly the planning and installing of the water projects so especially valuable to agricultural interests in this state. In Lake county especially he has also been instrumental in promoting improvements along that line. In 1887 he built what is now known as the Callayomi mill on Putah creek and installed the waterpower by which it is operated. This he sold some years ago to his neighbor, the late Mr. McKinley, father of the Mckinley Brothers, who now operate the flour mill and the light and power plant, conducting the business of the latter as the Callavomi & Middletown Light & Power Company.
Besides, Mr. Rocca has handled some large real estate deals. He bought a tract of four thousand acres with John C. Valentine, and after developing it in various ways, particularly as a profitable dairy proposition, sold it to Hon. Nathan W. Hall, of Los Angeles. He also improved the Thomas Bives ranch in Long valley, Lake county, which comprises four hundred and eighty acres. He still retains large interests, being the heaviest taxpayer in the county. Business success has not affected Mr. Rocca's sense of proportion or his ideas on his obligations to his fellow men. His excellent judgment has made him a wise employer, and he has always aimed to treat all his asso- ciates right, his motto being. "Meet on the level and part on the square." His employes have the same consideration. a fact which is so generally recog- nized that he is one of the most popular employers in this part of the state. His operations have not only opened a means of living to many, but have disclosed possibilities and realized others to such an extent that they have added largely to the general prosperity. Mr. Rocca was made a Mason in Mount Jefferson Lodge No. 107, in Garrote, now Groveland. Tuolumne county, in the year 1873, though he is now a member of Callayomi Lodge No. 282, Middletown, of which he is past master. He is also a member of St. Helena Chapter No. 63. R. A. M., Napa Commandery No. 34, K. T., the Order of the Eastern Star, and is a member of the Pioneer Masonic Association at San Francisco.
Mr. Rocca married in Elk Grove, Sacramento county, Miss Mary Ruby Thompson, a native of Eldorado county. Cal., the daughter of Bernard and Amanda (Bartholomew) Thompson. In 1898, while making a trip to Calis- toga, the family had a runaway on the toll road in which they were thrown from the buggy, resulting in serious injury to all. but especially to Mrs. Rocca. who received a scalp wound. She recovered, and it was thought permanently. but in February. 1906, the sudden bursting of a blood vessel caused her death eight days later, on the 25th, at the age of forty-seven years. She was the mother of seven children : Lillian, the eldest, is the wife of C. H. Lord, who resides in Santa Clara ; Beatrice M. is the wife of Warren Bates, a contractor, of Mountain View. Santa Clara county; Florence Genevieve is married to
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Cecil McFarland, of Folsom, Cal., who is in the Natoma Land & Mining Com- pany ; Andrew, Jr., is a civil engineer, engaged at the Snowstorm mine, Larson, Idaho; Bernard Thompson is a student in the University of California, class of 1915, preparing for the profession of mining and civil engineering; Idalene Bartholomew lives at home ; Helen Mitchell is a student in the high school at Healdsburg, class of 1915.
GEORGE YEARY .- Among the live and thriving business interests of Fort Bragg is the Union Lumber Company, of whose planing mill George Yeary is the efficient foreman. His earliest recollections are of a home in Conway, Laclede county, Mo., where he was born July 30, 1873, the son of A. J. and Susan E. (Smith) Yeary, both now making their home in Fort Bragg and natives respectively of Old Virginia and Missouri. For many years the father carried on farming in Missouri and was among those who, during the trying times of the Civil war, laid down the implements of peace and went to the front in defense of their country. When he was only nineteen years old he volunteered his services, being assigned to Company M, Six- teenth Missouri Cavalry, and gave valiant service to the Union cause until the term of his enlistment expired. Since 1902 he has made his home in Fort Bragg and is employed in the Union Lumber Company.
Of the five children included in the parental family George Yeary was next to the youngest. His childhood was passed on the home farm, which was convenient to good schools in Conway, and these he attended, as well as the Conway Academy. Anxious to start upon his business career, as soon as his school days were over he engaged in the produce business with an older brother under the firm name of Yeary Brothers. The business was well chosen from every standpoint and the association was mutually agreeable and remunerative, but a desire of the younger member of the firm to come west and try his fortunte terminated in the sale of the business in 1901. Soon afterward George Yeary set out for California, reaching San Francisco in due time, and from there he came to Mendocino county. For one year he worked at getting out ties and making shakes on contract at Monroe, an expe- rience which gave him a good insight into the lumber business. From Monroe he went to De Haven, this county, and found work in a sawmill as fireman, a position which he filled for one season, and then, in the fall of 1903, he came to Fort Bragg and entered the employ of the Union Lumber Company. Deter- mined to learn the lumber business in all of its details, he accepted work in an humble capacity at first and from this worked his way up until he was given charge of a re-saw. A desire to see more of the west was the means of a change in Mr. Yeary's location and for a time he was employed in a saw- mill in Rio Dell, Humboldt county. The change held more in store for him than he had anticipated, for while in Rio Dell he met the lady who was after- ward to become his wife. From Rio Dell he later returned to Fort Bragg, to accept a position which had been offered him by his old employers, the Union Lumber Company. At that time he was made foreman of the door stock department, a position which he held until December, 1910, when he was promoted to be foreman of the planing mill, a position which he has since filled with efficiency.
The romance begun in Rio Dell by the meeting of George Yeary and Miss Laurel Connick was followed by their marriage in Eureka in 1911. Miss Connick was a native of Eureka, attending the high school there and the
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Eureka Normal, and for several years prior to her marriage she was principal of the Rio Dell schools. Both Mr. and Mrs. Yeary are members of the Bap- tist church of Fort Bragg, are Republican in their political tendencies, and fraternally he is a member of the Woodmen of the World.
ALEXANDER JEFFERSON .- The population of California is some- what cosmopolitan in its nature and among the people attracted hither from every section of the world there is a considerable representation of Canadians, whose substantial qualities give them a position among the most desirable acquisitions to western citizenship. From the province of Quebec Mr. Jeffer- son came to California prior to the completion of the first great transconti- nental system of railroad. A native of St. Andrews, Argenteuil county, born February 21, 1840, he spent the first sixteen years of his life on the home farm and then entered a country store as a clerk. During 1867 he took passage on the steamer Ocean Queen, from New York for Panama. From the isthmus he came to San Francisco on the steamer Montana, which cast anchor in the western harbor on the 20th of June of that year. After two months of farm work near Vallejo in the employ of James Hunter, he entered the employ of E. T. Farmer of that place, but in September of the same year he came to Mendocino county, where he has since been identified with various lines of enterprise. An early experience in a lumber camp was followed by employ- ment on the ranch of A. Gordon and afterward until 1873 he engaged in driving a butcher wagon from Caspar. Meanwhile his first wife, Eleanor (Mathews) Jefferson, whom he had married February 14, 1872, passed away August 30 of the same year.
In order to renew the associations of youth and particularly to renew an early friendship of especial interest to him, Mr. Jefferson returned to Canada, where on Christmas eve of 1873 he married Miss Eliza Gibson. Ac- companied by his young wife, he came back to California in the spring of 1874 and settled on a ranch near Caspar. At the end of a year he sold the land and purchased a one hundred and eighty-five acre ranch from A. Gordon, and also purchased the butcher business of his former employer. Through many and successful years he continued in farming and stock-raising and the butchering business and the buying of stock for his market. His business was not limited to local trade, but extended up and down the coast and he had contracts with lumber firms that necessitated the killing of a hundred head of beef per month, as well as many sheep and hogs. When Fort Bragg was started in 1886 he opened a butcher shop on Main street, and there he built up a large trade. Finally, in 1905, he retired from active business cares. A fine ranch of seventeen hundred and forty acres at Newport which he owns is rented to outside parties for a dairy, this being the largest individual dairy in this section of the country. The old home ranch in Caspar valley is occu- pied by his daughter, Annie L., her husband, Stewart Tregoning, and their three children, Mr. Tregoning being the active manager of the property. Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson now make their home on Fir street in Fort Bragg, and their second daughter, Mary E., who married John Byrnes and has two chil- dren, is a resident of San Francisco. Mr. Jefferson is optimistic concerning the future of Fort Bragg and as a proof of this reference is made to his real estate holdings. He has erected several business houses on Main street, also on Laurel street, and besides this he has built many residences in the city.
Ed Gibson
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He has been a stockholder in the Fort Bragg Commercial Bank since its organization. With his wife he is a member of the Presbyterian Church and he is a member of the board of trustees.
EDWIN GIBSON .- Of old Virginian lineage, Mr. Gibson is a son of William G., and a grandson of Smith Gibson, who left the Old Dominion for West Virginia and settled upon a plantation in Lewis county, the father afterward becoming a farmer and drover in that vicinity, but spending his last days in California. The mother, who bore the maiden name of Elvira Lawrence, was born in Virginia and died in Doddridge county, W. Va., leav- ing five children, all now living. The fourth of these, Edwin, who is the only member of the family now in California, was born near Weston, Lewis county, W. Va., June 23, 1858, and had practically no educational advantages whatever. Misfortune came into the home and at the age of thirteen he was not only supporting himself, but assisting in the maintenance of other mem- bers of the family.
After a period of.employment on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in West Virginia Mr. Gibson obtained a place with a survey corps and for eighteen months carried the chain during the surveying for a trainroad built by R. T. Lowndes near the old Gibson homestead. On the completion of the survey the young assistant was put to work on the grade and when the road had been completed he was placed in charge of a section, his principal duty being to keep the strips of hardwood nailed to the 4x4 oak rails. For eight years he continued in the same work. When finally the timber had all been re- moved and the road ceased to be in operation, he went to Pennsylvania and engaged in a stone quarry on the Monongahela river. Returning to the old home neighborhood. he rafted and made railroad ties for two years. Mean- while he and his brother working together had bought a small place and this was sold in 1885 when he determined to come to California. His own share resulted in a very small payment down and a note for $400 due in three years. After coming to California he continued to help his relatives and every six months sent a widowed sister $20, besides giving orders, when the $400 note came due, that the money should be paid to her, realizing her need of assist- ance.
Stopping in Kansas for three months of inspection in Chase county and vicinity, Mr. Gibson came by stage from Cloverdale to Round valley, Mendo- cino county, where he arrived July 20, 1885, with only $12 in his possession. Immediately he found work on a ranch and for a time he worked by the day. But the employment not being steady proved very unsatisfactory to him, so he hired out for a year to a stockman in Williams valley. From there he went to the Island Mountain ranch, riding the distance of twenty-five miles at night in order that he might not lose any time from work. For five years he remained on the same ranch without losing a day. Meanwhile he obtained permission to raise stock of his own on the range. The first brand used was the quarter-circle E, but later this was changed to GI combined. At the end of five years on the Island Mountain ranch he purchased forty acres one and one-half miles east of Covelo, Mendocino county, where at once he began the task of improvement. In the buying and selling of cattle and hogs he has shown sagacious judgment. Through the buying and selling of several farms in the valley he has increased his holdings and now owns two hundred and forty-five acres of tillable land in one body. One hundred and thirty
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acres are in alfalfa. The ranch, which is now leased for a dairy, is watered by streams and also has an abundance of flowing water from an artesian well. A modern commodious residence forms a valuable improvement to the ranch. Other buildings have been added for the convenience of the dairy interests. Altogether the farm is one of the best-improved for its size in the entire valley. He also owns a stock range on which he runs about one hundred and fifty head of cattle and about that many hogs, besides which he owns three lots in the city of Richmond. When Mr. Gibson first engaged in stock- dealing he drove cattle through to Westport and hogs sixty miles to Ukiah. Later Willits became a trading post and finally Dos Rios, only fourteen miles away, afforded facilities for shipping to the San Francisco market. Asso- ciated with D. P. English, he is engaged in the buying and shipping of stock.
Aside from stock and ranch interests Mr. Gibson was connected with the organization of the creamery and is now a director in the company, besides being a director in the local telephone company. Education appeals to him more especially on account of his own lack of early advantages. For some time he has given service as clerk of the board of trustees of Gray's school district and a member of the board of trustees of the Round valley high school district. In Covelo he married Miss Hettie Hoxie, a native of Round valley and daughter of Ira Hoxie, one of the honored pioneers of the district. They are the parents of three children, Claude, Virginia and Luella. The fan- ily are identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church. In politics Mr. Gib- son is stanchly Republican. After coming to Mendocino county he was made a Mason in Covelo Lodge No. 231, F. & A. M., to which he still belongs, and his wife holds membership in Angusta Chapter No. 80, O. E. S.
ALEXANDER C. McDONALD .- Prior to the discovery of gold in California and before the even greater riches of the state in other resources had been discovered, the exigencies of war brought to this part of the world a young sergeant-major in the New York regiment of Colonel Stevenson. This gallant soldier, whose services in the Mexican war are memorialized in the records of his country, was an easterner by birth and of Scotch and Dutch descent, the former lineage appearing in the family patronymic of McDonald. while the name of his maternal grandfather, Jacob DeGroot, shows the Hol- lander extraction. Born in New Jersey October 5, 1814. it was this grand- father who reared Alexander C. McDonald when the death of the father left him an orphan in very early life. Upon starting out in the world for himself he went to New York City, where later he acquired business interests of con- siderable importance. Without doubt all of his life would have been passed in the east had it not been for the outbreak of the Mexican war, which fired his patriotic devotion to country and led him to enlist in the service of his native land. When the regiment was ordered to the southwest he accom- panied them in the long marches and took part with them in the trying campaigns, finally receiving an honorable discharge in San Francisco. Mean- while he had observed conditions in the west very closely. The possibilities of the country attracted him. Its remoteness and isolation from the friends of his youth did not daunt his high courage, but on the other hand appealed to his love of adventure and his interest in the development of a frontier community.
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