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 48
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 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117
446
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
Having disposed of his interest in the shoe business to a partner, about 1880 Mr. Davidson leased a building and opened a hotel at Point Arena. This with the able assistance of his wife, who always aided him in every way, he successfully managed for many years. After fire destroyed the building, in 1882, he immediately bought a suitable site, erected a new structure and again entered the hotel business as proprietor of the Point Arena Hotel. Of late years he has leased the property and retired from the business. Although many had attempted to carry on an hotel business at Point Arena, he was the first to be successful. Many things conspired to render such an enterprise difficult and unremunerative, but he was able to conduct the business in such a manner as to retire with a profit. At one time he was financially interested in the Manchester creamery and is now the owner of the old Campbell ranch of fourteen hundred and fifty acres. fifteen miles east of Point Arena, where he inakes a specialty of stock-raising. On the organization of the Point Arena Lodge, A. O. F., in 1885, he became a charter member and ever since then he has been interested in the work of the order. His marriage was solemnized at Portland, Ore., November 5, 1879, and united him with Miss Matilda L. Bur- roughs. who was born in Lodi. Wis., and came to California with her parents during childhood. Mr. Davidson attributes his success in no small degree to his able wife. A high standing for morality in the community where he has lived for so many years indicates the upright character of Mr. Davidson, while his business ability is shown by the fact that without money or educa- tion to aid him, he has steadily worked his way forward to prosperity and has made good through his own unaided efforts.
ANDREW ALBERT DILLING .- The Dilling family is of Teutonic origin and its first representative in America was George Andrew Dilling, a native of Germany and a sailor during three years of his youth, but after 1863 a resident of California. Having made the long voyage from Germany to San Francisco via the Horn, he then proceeded up the coast to Mendocino county and became interested in the lumber business, then the chief industry of this section of the state. Later and until his death he engaged in farming pursuits. His widow is still living and makes her home at Fort Bragg. Their son, Andrew Albert. was born in Mendocino county at the old family homestead, October 6, 1877, and during boyhood attended the Bridgeport schools, mean- while devoting his spare moments to work on the farm. At the age of eighteen he left home to make his own way in the world. For six months he engaged as a bark-peeler at the tanbark camp. He then engaged in farming at Noyo and was foreman of the Union Lumber Company's ranch at Fort Bragg. While thus employed he was married. Mr. Dilling remained in the same place for six years, meanwhile proving himself to be an efficient manager and popular foreman. From that concern he transferred to the L. E. White Lumber Company as foreman of the Cliff ranch near Greenwood (Elk P. O.). During 1909 the company sent him to Point Arena as foreman in charge of the making of ties at a camp in the woods. Two years later he was re- turned to Elk as foreman in the tanbark camp, but at the expiration of four months he was promoted from that position to be superintendent of the L. E. White Lumber Company's large ranch at Greenwood, in which responsible capacity he has been successful. The ranch covers a large range sufficient to run their fifteen hundred head of cattle. Fraternally he is connected with Tent No. 38, Knights of the Maccabees, at Fort Bragg. On September 2,
447
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
1901, he married Miss Elva Hartley, who was born in Oregon September 30, 1885, and came with her parents to Mendocino county in 1901, settling at Fort Bragg. Mr. and Mrs. Dilling are the parents of two daughters, Mabel and Verona. The family home is one and one-half miles south of the post- office at Elk.
JOHN LIND .- The opportunities afforded by the United States and particularly by the west to young men of enterprise from other countries of the world find excellent illustration in the history of John Lind, who although he has been in the new world for very little more than a decade has risen to a position of trust and ranks among the experienced men in the lumber in- dustry of Mendocino county. The son of Peter Lind, a farmer at Dalene, Sweden, he was born at the old home farm May 25, 1878, and passed all of his early life at the same place, being sent to the neighboring schools until he had completed the studies of the high school. Thereafter he continued at home as an assistant to his father in the tilling of the soil and care of the stock. Desiring better advantages than seemed possible in the old home neighborhood, he crossed the ocean to America during 1903 and at first sought Iowa, where he worked as a farm hand in Guthrie county.
During May of 1905 Mr. Lind arrived in Willits, Mendocino county. At once he secured work in bucking lumber as an employe of the Northwestern Redwood Company. Desiring to learn the business in all of its details, he served under the head millwright at the company's mill and was so efficient that he soon rose to hold the position himself. Meanwhile there had come a longing to see again the familiar sights of Sweden, and in December, 1910, he went back to the old home, where he spent several months among relatives and friends. The lure of the west drew him back to California, and at Willits, September 3, 1911, he was united with Miss Emma C. Svedberg, a native of Dalene, Sweden, and like himself a devoted member of the Lutheran Church. During 1912 he moved to Willits as an assistant of Mr. McClelland in the Northwestern Redwood Company's planing mill, and on the retirement of the superintendent he was promoted to be planer-mill boss, a responsible position which he now fills with recognized efficiency.
JAMES PULLEN .- A representative of an honored old pioneer family of Mendocino county, Mr. Pullen has been identified with the west ever since, at the age of about eighteen, he arrived on Little river, where his father bought a tract of raw land and put up a crude but substantial cabin for the family. It was on the 4th of July, 1864, that they arrived in this country, making the trip via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, thence in a small sailer to Petaluma, where they took a Concord stage to Little River. The former home of the family had been in Maine, where he was born in China, Kennebec county, August 22, 1846, and where he had attended school during about six years of boyhood. For some time before coming west he had earned a liveli- hood by work on farms in Maine. After his arrival in the west he secured a position with the Little River Lumber Company, and for ten years held an important place in the engine-room of the sawmill on Little river, where in 1865 his father, Charles Pullen, a millwright, had erected the first mill ever constructed on that stream. Removing to Salmon creek in 1874, James Pullen, with others, bought the Salmon creek sawmill, located eight miles np the creek, and this he successfully managed until 1900. The company did business as the Salmon Creek Lumber Company, of which he was made
448
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
president as well as manager. The product was hauled by rail to Whitesboro and there loaded on schooners, the cargoes being sent principally to San Francisco and San Pedro. The mill was equipped with a double circular saw with a capacity of thirty thousand a day. When all of the available timber was cut he sold the mill. In 1900 he spent a season in Nome, Alaska, but not finding the country to his liking he returned to Mendocino county and located in Greenwood, where he lives, retired, looking after his varied interests. In the twenty-six years he conducted the Salmon Creek mill he manufactured lumber from two thousand acres of large redwood timber.
The marriage of Mr. Pullen occurred July 31, 1884, uniting him with Miss Eivira Randlett, who at the time was making her home with an aunt and an uncle at Oakland, Alameda county. A member of a pioneer family of California, Mrs. Pullen was born in Placer county, this state, January 31, 1854. and in 1862 was brought to Mendocino county by her parents. Here she attended the common schools and was trained to skill and economical man- agement in housewifely arts, becoming well qualified to manage a home of her own with thrift and intelligence. Recently Mr. and Mrs. Pullen erected a comfortable residence in the village of Greenwood and here they enjoyed the fruits of former years of labor. Their standing in the community is deservedly high.
MRS. NANCY MARIA VINCENT .- So much of her life has been passed in California that Mrs. Vincent does not retain definite and positive recollections of her native county of Atchison in Missouri. However, she vividly recalls the excitement incident to the trip across the plains during the summer of 1852, when she was six years of age. The long days on the trail, the lonely nights by the camp fire, the precautions taken to avoid attacks from the savages, the frequent proximity of the Indians and the occasional loss of stock through their depredations, these left an indelible impression upon the plastic mind of the child. The captain of the expedition was her father, William Southard, a Virginian possessing the fearlessness and tact that qualified him for the leadership of such an undertaking. Accompanying him were his children and his wife, the latter, Jane (Moore) Southard, also a Virginian by birth and ancestry. There were twelve children in the family, but only four of these are now living. Among the younger members of the family circle was the one who, as a child of six, saw for the first time the wide expanse of the trackless desert, the broad ranges of lofty mountains and the great stretch of uninhabited plains. Eventually arriving at the bay, she re- members the little settlement of Oak Grove occupying the present site of Oakland. On every hand were indications of the cosmopolitan nature of the population. The latest news from the gold fields was still the principal theme of conversation, although several years had elapsed since the first momentous discovery. Incoming vessels were bringing gold-seekers from every part of the world. Everything was of interest to the small child whose previous out- look had been bounded by an Iowa homestead.
After a brief sojourn in the Taylor valley, Captain Southard took his family to the Moraga valley in Contra Costa county, where he took up land and developed a farm. It was not until 1870 that he left Contra Costa county and came to Mendocino county, where both he and his wife died in Little Lake valley. At the same time came their daughter, Nancy Maria Vincent, whose marriage to Frank Vincent had been solemnized at Lafayette, Contra
3
Dan. J. English
451
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
Costa county, in 1866. A skilled mechanic, familiar with five different trades, Mr. Vincent, who was a West Virginian by birth, engaged principally in blacksmithing and wagon-making, and after coming to Little Lake valley built a blacksmith shop on the present site of the Willits postoffice. In addition to following the trade he carried on an undertaking business with the assistance of his wife. Up to the time of his death in 1895 he served as a deacon in the Baptist Church, and his wife is now officiating as a deacon- ness in the same congregation. Fraternally he held membership with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and in politics he voted with the Demo- cratic party. After his death Mrs. Vincent continued the undertaking busi- niess for eight years, when the building was destroyed by fire. Later she erected on the same site a brick structure that for many years has been utilized for the postoffice. She also owns a one hundred and sixty acre ranch four miles north of Willits, on the outlet, used for a wood ranch. Since her retire- ment from business she has continued to make her home on Mendocino street and finds abundant outlet for her energies in the management of her property interests and in the society of her children. One of her danghters, Mamie, died at the age of twenty-two years ; the three still living, as well as the only son, continue to make their home in Willits, as follows: Dollie E., wife of Charles Whited ; Mrs. Heloise McWilliams, Mrs. Nora Osborne and Charles Franklin Vincent, a newspaper man by occupation.
DANIEL PRESTON ENGLISH .- Two miles east of Covelo lies one of the finest farms of Round valley, a well-improved tract whose modern resi- dence, substantial farm buildings, neat fences and uniform atmosphere of thrift indicate that the owner is a man of intelligence and agricultural acu- men. Acquaintance with the owner, who is no less a person than Mr. Eng- lish, deepens the impression created by the farm itself, for he is thoroughly posted in every department of agriculture and has ideas and opinions well worthy of consideration. Nor is his community enterprise limited to the management of his farm and the buying and selling of stock, for in addition his name appears on the directorate of the Bank of Willits, among the stock- holders of the Round valley creamery, and in connection with other enter- prises on which local prosperity depends. Outside of Mendocino county he likewise has interests, for he is the owner of a valuable alfalfa ranch near El Centro in the Imperial valley and the returns from that investment have been gratifying.
A member of a pioneer family of Mendocino county, where he was born on Christmas Eve of 1868, Daniel Preston English is a son of Calvin Hender- son English, a Missourian by birth and an emigrant across the plains during the era of "prairie schooners" and ox-teams. Settling in Mendocino county, he became a very successful stock-raiser and general farmer and continued in the occupation until his death, which occurred in 1903. Meanwhile the son had been primarily educated at Central school district and later had attended Santa Rosa schools and Business College. For a number of years he engaged in farming with his father in Round valley, but with his marriage at the age of twenty-six, December 5, 1894, he rented two hundred and forty acres of valley land and embarked in independent farming. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Maggie Long, is a native of Missouri, and their union has been blessed with two children, Norma Beulah and William Preston. After six years as a renter Mr. English bought sixty-six and a half acres for himself which he has sowed to alfalfa and used as a dairy farm. By degrees he has 22
452
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
risen to a position of influence among the efficient tillers of the soil. Nor has he been less capable in the raising of stock. By some he is regarded as without a superior in the valley as a judge of stock. His estimates of quality and weight are seldom found to be at fault. The greater part of his life has been passed on a farm and he is well fitted for the occupation of a farmer, yet at the same time, with a breadth of mental vision, he does not limit himself to agriculture, but takes a keen interest in all movements for the educational, moral and commercial development and advancement of the county.
FREDERICK HUGH CAMP, D. D. S .- An ambition to secure an excellent education laid for Dr. Camp the foundation of a professional success that is developing by steady progress and that is bringing him to a position among the leading dentists of Mendocino county, where since 1905 he has engaged in practice at Willits. The town of his chosen residence has profited by his professional association with its interests as well as by his fine social qualities and the loyal spirit of citizenship that causes him to encourage every movement for the local upbuilding. All of his life has been passed in the west and he is typically western in his attitude of mind, generosity of nature and energy of character. His father. A. B. Camp, now a citizen of Lents, Mult- nomah county, Ore., for many years engaged in ranch pursuits near Marsh- field, Coos county, that state, and there the doctor was born March 4, 1874. In the same neighborhood he received his primary education. When about fourteen years of age he accompanied the family to Roseburg, Douglas county, where he completed grammar-school studies. Later he became a student in the Oregon State Normal at Drain. Douglas county, and continued the regular course there, receiving the degree of A. B. in 1896 upon his graduation.
In taking up the profession of teaching, which he followed with success for three years, it was not the intention of Dr. Camp to make it his life work, but rather as the stepping stone to other pursuits. When he had saved enough money to make possible a dental course he came to California in 1899 and matriculated in the San Francisco Dental College, where he kept up the regular course of study until his graduation in 1902. Immediately after com- pleting his training in college he opened an office at Enreka, but in 1905 came from that city to Willits and entered upon the practice that has since grown steadily and in a manner indicative of the satisfaction given by his efficient services in a dental capacity. Politics has not interested him greatly, but he keeps posted concerning national questions and favors the progressive char- acteristics supplementing old Republican principles. His family comprises two sons. Frederick Hugh, Jr., and Paul, and his wife, whom he married in Drain, Ore., and who was Miss Maude De Vore, a native of Illinois and a lady of education and culture.
PETER SWENSEN .- From a very early age Mr. Swensen was de- pendent upon his own efforts for a livelihood. That he has become a property owner in Mendocino county and that he has built up an excellent trade in his chosen line of business, may be attributed to his own patient perseverance rather than to any extraneous assistance in securing a start in the world. As the only child of his parents, robbed by death of a mother's care when he was only two years of age, he became inured to hardships and loneliness at an age when most boys are care-free. His father, Nicholas, a native of Denmark, drifted to the new world and settled in St. Louis in 1870, after which he fol- lowed his trade of miller, dying in that city in 1888. Meanwhile the son, Peter, whose birth had occurred in Viborg. Jutland, Denmark. November 16,
453
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
1862, had been apprenticed to the trade of baker at the age of fifteen, serving his time in Hadersleben, Schleswig, Germany, and then joining his father in St. Louis during 1881. Different towns in Missouri afforded him work at his trade and later he was similarly engaged in Kansas and Colorado. Coming to the Pacific coast in 1891 and passing through Washington, he found work at Everett for some months. Thence he came to California in 1892 and worked in a bakery at San Francisco. From 1893 to 1895 he conducted a bakery in Angel's Camp, after which he spent two years in Sonora, Tuolumne county, and then went to Nevada to operate a bakery business at Carson City.
In addition to having traveled through so many states Mr. Swensen spent 1898 in Manila and gained a comprehensive knowledge of the Philippines. The trade not being profitable there, he returned to San Francisco and found employment there as well as in other California towns, including Stockton. During 1902 he came to Ukiah and bought the bakery owned by Frank Deyoe, continuing the business on School street. Having bought a lot on State street in 1905, the following year he built a substantial bakery, 50x80 feet in dimensions. This he has equipped with modern improvements, including a first-class oven. The Ukiah bakery has an output of seven hundred loaves in the dullest seasons, while in busy times it is possible to turn out fifteen hundred loaves if needed. In addition to the making of bread, Mr. Swensen bakes confections of various kinds and during the summer months manufac- tures ice cream in large quantities. The quality of his product is superior, which ensures its popularity with customers and gives him a substantial position among the master bakers of Northern California. Indicative of his interest in the advancement of Ukiah is his active membership in the Cham- ber of Commerce. Fraternally he is allied with the Eagles. In politics he supports the Republican party. His creed in life has been the Golden Rule. In all business transactions and in all the associations of everyday affairs he has aimed to treat others honestly and fairly. In the truest sense of the word he is a self-made man, having risen by his own exertions to his present posi- tion in the business circles of Ukiah.
,
WRIGHT SEYMOUR .- It is not generally known that Lakeport has an infant industry which is capable of becoming one of state-wide importance. Mr. Seymour is a most versatile and companionable gentleman with true Yankee genius and enterprise, withal a mechanic and carpenter, who has specialized in house-finishing and cabinet-making. and who now devotes his attention to the manufacture of mission furniture at his Seventh street factory on the Scott's valley road. In the manufacture of his chairs, rockers, tables and other articles he utilizes native yellow pine and oak. It is safe to say that nowhere can be found a more durable or better grade of mission furni- ture than the product of the Lakeport factory, and it is the hope of those familiar with the enterprise that it may expand into a concern of deserved reputation and steady growth. Besides managing the factory, Mr. Seymour owns a valuable farm in Mendocino county, upon which he has a factory equipped to season, plane and saw the lumber, as well as shaping it by means of power machinery. Prior to removing to the more northerly sections of the state he was a foremost finisher of inside work in residences and stores at San Francisco, and is likewise known in other places, where his work as a contractor and builder testifies to his architectural skill.
Generations of the Seymour family have lived and labored in the United States, where the most distinguishing member was the illustrious Horatio
454
MENDOCINO AND LAKE COUNTIES
Seymour. The east was the early habitat of the family, and Wright Seymour, Sr., was born and reared in New York state, where he married Nancy Bishop, a native of Yates county, in the same state. The two established a home in Illinois and for years lived in Lake county, where their youngest child, whose name introduces this article, was born August 29, 1850. Besides. himself there were two sons and three daughters in the family. Of the six, three are now living, the brother, Edward, being a wealthy rancher and prominent horseman at Marcia Basin in Idaho, while the sister, Charity, is the widow of Gibson Oliver, formerly a druggist at Pacheco, Cal., but later for thirty years a well-borer in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, having relinquished pharmaceutical work on account of his opposition to the sale of liquors in drug stores.
When less than eleven years of age Wright Seymour started across the plains with members of the family. Although so young, he rode a pony and drove thirty head of loose horses through many weary weeks of that tedious trip. From 1861 until 1866 he lived on a ranch in Plumas county, but the inability to secure an education for the children caused his mother to return with them via Nicaragua to New York, where she made a home with relatives in Yates county. About 1870 he went from New York to Chicago, where he attended school for some time. On returning to Wayne, N. Y., he began an apprenticeship of three years to Mr. Travis, a cabinet-maker, carpenter and woodworker. After five years in the business at Wayne he returned to Chicago and engaged in building. For a time he filled a contract in Arkansas City, Kan., for the building of a row of houses, and after going back to Chicago he had building contracts with Messrs. Swift, Lindsay, Thompson and other leading men. On coming to California he traveled via the Union Pacific road. Altogether he has made five trips to the Pacific coast, and all but the first have been over the railroad. From about 1888 to 1894 he was engaged in running a stage line from Ukiah to Potter Valley and from Potter Valley over the San Hedron Mountain to Eden valley, where he also had a store at the end of his route. In San Francisco, where he established a woodworking factory, he became well known for skilled interior finishings, but the great earthquake and fire caused him a loss of $9,000 and obliged him to relinquish his business. Thereupon he settled at his ranch of one hundred and sixty acres in Mendocino county, built a shop and began to cut and plane lumber and manufacture mission furniture. For a time he engaged in contracting and building at Ogden, Utah, where some of the most substantial structures still to be seen represent his skill and efficiency.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.