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 55
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 55
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resumed work at blacksmithing with Mr. Tocher, with whom he continued for two years. He has since given most of his time to agriculture, renting his mother's land, which comprises eighty-four acres, all but five of which is in alfalfa. Mr. Armstrong also rents a hill ranch of three hundred acres, where he pastures about twenty-five head of cattle. His work is looked after dili- gently and intelligently, and he is a well and favorably known citizen of Mid- dletown, where he has a pleasant home, his mother occupying the house on the ranch. He is a worthy member of a family whose name has been honor- ably associated with Middletown from the days of its inception.
By his first marriage, which took place October 16, 1887, to Miss Leona Lilly, of Shasta county, Mr. Armstrong has two children: Francis M., who lives at Richmond, Cal., is a shingler by occupation ; he married Ethel Petit, and they have one child. Clara May is the wife of William Hanson, a railway engineer, on the Santa Fe road, and lives at Riverbank, Cal .; they have one child. In July, 1902, Mr. Armstrong married Miss Valeria Fuller, of Austin, Nev., a native of that state, and they have had one child, Lovita. Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church South at Middletown, which his mother, Mrs. Annastasia Armstrong, was instru- mental in organizing. In political matters he gives his support to the Demo- cratic party. Fraternally he is a member of Friendship Lodge No. 150, I. O. O. F., of which he is past grand, and with his wife is a member of the Rebekahs. He is also a member of the Foresters of America.
JOHN WILLIAM PICKLE .- Any summary of the names of the pro- gressive, able and public-spirited citizens of Mendocino county who have as- sisted in the upbuilding and improvement of conditions generally for the common good would be incomplete should it not include the name of John William Pickle. For a number of years he has engaged in building public roads throughout the county, studying details and giving his utmost effort toward bringing about the most desirable results. His birth occurred Sep- tember 23, 1863, in Healdsburg, Sonoma county, where he was sent to the public school and acquired his elementary training. In 1872 he was brought by his parents to Potter Valley, where they bought a ranch. Until seventeen he attended school at Centerville, meanwhile receiving a careful training in agriculture and general farming. At the age of twenty-five, until which time he had worked with his father on the home place, he started out for himself, engaging at farming in Potter Valley on a small scale, and as the years have passed he has acquired a deeper knowledge of the vocation and has prospered accordingly. In 1913 he removed to the place in Coyote Valley of one hun- dred acres which he has cleared of brush and brought to a good state of cul- tivation.
Mr. Pickle is a staunch Democrat in his political principles, and has served as constable of Centerville with capable judgment and foresight. For a number of years he was well known as teamster over the eighteen miles between Potter Valley and Ukiah, his genial, happy disposition winning him friends by the score along his way. He was married in Ukiah December 10, 1889, to Lulu Jackson, born in St. Louis, Mo., and a resident of Mendocino county since she was a small girl. Six children have been born to them : Robert, Etta (Mrs. Christie), Bessie, Samuel, Pearl and Frankie. A modern home on the new place attests to Mr. Pickle's prosperity and appreciation of comfort and taste as well, and modern improvements in many directions have brought his place to a state of completion that bespeaks prosperity,
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thoroughness and good business judgment. A community may well be proud of such a citizen.
HENRY MALCOLM FOYE .- It was a far cry from Maine to Cali- fornia to which Mr. Foye responded when he was a young man of less than nineteen years, but in all the time that has since elapsed he has not known one moment of regret for the decision that he then made. Since 1869 he has been a resident of Mendocino county and much of this time has been passed in Fort Bragg, where he has become well and favorably known as a good business man and a citizen of exemplary habits. He was born in Chelsea, Me., May 28, 1851. the son of William H. and Abbie (Lord) Foye, the former born in Belgrade, Me., and the latter in York, in the same state. Although they were married in Massachusetts, they made their home continuously thereafter in Maine, and there all of their five children were born.
Next to the youngest in the parental family was Henry M. Foye, who was reared on the home farm and who was made familiar with farm life and its duties in performing his part of the- chores that were assigned him. At the public schools of Chelsea he secured a good educational foundation which stood him in good stead in his after life. When he was only eighteen years old he took upon himself the responsibilities of his own welfare by starting out alone for the far west. From the port of New York he set sail for the isthmus of Panama with Mendocino city in view, and his destination was reached in August, 1869. His expenditures on the way had sadly depleted ins pocketbook and when he landed on the beach and took account of his finances he had only twenty-five cents left. This being the case he was forced to walk to Little River, where he had prospects of securing work, and furthermore had to pay a tax of ten cents to cross the bridge. The three remaining nickels he has ever since kept as souvenirs and tangible reminders of his struggles of earlier days. He was successful in finding work on the river, driving logs at first, later ran a cross-cut saw for three weeks, and still later found employment in the Little River Mill, remaining there for several years. For one year thereafter he was employed in a sash and door factory in Truckee, Nev., but at the end of this time he again came to the Mendocino mill and remained a year before taking a position with the Reeves mill at Reeves canyon, sixteen miles from Ukiah. In the last mentioned mill he rose to be superintendent, and filled the position efficiently for three years. Coming back to Mendocino county he worked in the planing mill for several years and was later made foreman for L. E. White, a position which he held for nine years. With all of the experience to his credit herein enumerated it will be seen that Mr. Foye was well qualified to assume the position of foreman of the Union Lumber Company of Fort Bragg when the opportunity came to him. After filling this position with credit to himself and his employers for thirteen years and eight months he resigned and accepted the position of foreman of the Hardy Creek Lumber Company, filling the position for three years or until the plant was sold out. Since then he has lived retired, in a comfortable residence erected on lots which he cleared of timber. The original purchase consisted of seventeen acres, which some time ago he laid out into lots 50x150 feet, and these he is disposing of as rapidly as possible, Altogether he has built seven houses on the property, some of which he has sold, and the property is supplied with water from pumping plant and reservoir in the vicinity.
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In Mendocino, January 7, 1883, Mr. Foye was married to Miss Alice Wells, a native of London, England, the daughter of William and Margaret (Crutchington ) Wells, who brought their family from London via Panama to Mendocino in 1869. Mrs. Wells is a lineal descendant of the Jennings family of England. Mrs. Foye received her education in Mendocino and is the inother of five children. Abbie, Mrs. Gailen L. Hill, resides in San Francisco; Eugene is a bookkeeper in San Francisco; Florence is a teacher in Noyo; Fred is fitting himself for the dental profession in San Francisco; and Arthur is at home. Mr. Foye has served on the school board of his district as trustee. Politically he is a Republican. In 1873 he was made a Mason in Mendocino Lodge No. 179, F. & A. M., and also belongs to the Odd Fellows Lodge at Fort Bragg.
ALONZO DEMOSTHENES SCOTT .- The Scott family is of colonial southern lineage and was established in the north by Col. John W. Scott, a native of Nashville, Tenn., and a pioneer of Illinois, where he officiated as sheriff of Cook county at a time when there were only four counties in the entire state and when Chicago was a hamlet with only eight log houses within its boundaries. The title by which he was known came through service as an officer in the Black Hawk war. For a time he was associated with Abraham Lincoln in the practice of law. Another of his most intimate co-workers was Hon. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, a statesman of national renown. After settling in Illinois he married a young lady from Ohio and twelve chil- dren were born of their union. The sole survivor of this once large family is Hart Benton Scott, who was born in Greene county, Ill., February 9, 1844, and attended the grammar and high schools of that part of the country. In 1862 he enlisted in the Union army, in which one of his brothers had been commissioned a first sergeant. At the expiration of eight months he was honorably discharged on account of physical disability. During 1864 he left Illinois for California. The expenses of the trip across the plains were made by his work as a cattle-herder. Upon his arrival in Mendocino county he took up a government claim of one hundred and sixty acres near Point Arena, put up a cabin, began to till the soil, then bought cattle and engaged in stock- raising and dairying.
The marriage of Hart Benton Scott and Belle Hoyt was solemnized May 16, 1868. Mrs. Scott was born in New York April 6, 1850, being the only child of Sylvanus and Sarah M. (Van Winkle) Hoyt, natives respectively of Vermont and Jersey City, N. J. Her parents were married in New York and remained there for some time, but about 1859 came via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco and thence to Mendocino county, where they engaged in general farming and dairying. During his last days Mr. Hoyt was retired from active work. After a long period of residence on the same farm in 1888 Hart Benton Scott sold his land and dairy and removed to Point Arena, where in 1890 he opened a general mercantile store. Meanwhile from 1886 to 1890 he had served as supervisor from the fifth district. After two years as a merchant he sold the store and resumed farming on leased land, where for five years he made a specialty of raising stock. The ten following years were given over to general mercantile pursuits. Since selling out his business he has lived in retirement, with the exception of filling at the present time the office of justice of the peace. In politics he has been a lifelong Democrat. For thirty-five years he has affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd 25
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Fellows and has contributed to their charities. In religion he is of the Presby- terian faith. His family consists of six children, namely : Mortimer, Fletcher, Hart Benton, Alonzo D., Ada and Zella.
Born near Manchester, Mendocino county, Cal., October 30, 1873, Alonzo D. Scott passed his early years on the home farm and attended the Manchester schools. Later he was a pupil in the Point Arena schools. At the age of eighteen he began to work as a ranch-hand. Two years later he entered the employ of the L. E. White Lumber Company as a clerk in their store at Point Arena, under the then manager, J. O. Davenport. After a short time he was transferred to the company's general mercantile store at Greenwood (or Elk), where W. F. Fuller was then in charge. During 1901 he succeeded Mr. Fuller as manager of the store, which position he has filled with the greatest efficiency up to the present time. In addition to the management of the store he acts as clerk of the board of trustees of Greenwood school district and is a con- tributor to the work of the Presbyterian Church, of which he is a member. His marriage took place at Ukiah October 25, 1899, and united him with Miss Grace Smith, who was born in that California town August 23, 1874. They are the parents of two children, LaVerne Malcolm and Grace La Belle. He was made a Mason, Mendocino Lodge No. 179, F. & A. M., and is a member of Mendocino Chapter No. 88, R. A. M., and Ukiah Commandery No. 33, K. T. The Republican party has a stanch supporter in Mr. Scott, who is a member of the county central committee and a leading factor in local party affairs.
HENRY MULSON .- The proprietor of the Grand hotel at Fort Bragg, who has the honor of being the oldest hotel manager in Mendocino county in point of years of actual identification with the business and who has the further distinction of having officiated as a member of the board of town trustees since the spring of 1897, is a native of Schleswig, Germany, and was born August 15, 1847, being a son of Henry T. and Margaret (Hanson) Mul- son, lifelong residents of Germany and members of old Teutonic families. At the age of fourteen, having completed the grammar-school course of study, he engaged as deckhand with a brother-in-law, who was captain of the sailing vessel, Greyhound. The destination of the ship was around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Upon his arrival during July of 1861 he proceeded to Alameda county, where he found employment on a ranch and soon learned to cook. As time went by he became very skillful in the culinary art and this knowledge proved very valuable to him in later days. During the first year on the ranch he received $10 per month and board. The next year his wages were increased to $15 per month. At the expiration of the second year he left the ranch and shipped as a deckhand to New Zealand and Australia, having been attracted to that part of the world by the recent discovery of gold. Finding, however, that the mines were of less value than rumored and the opportunities for work meager, he returned to California and since 1867 he has made Mendocino county his home and headquarters. By his marriage in Navarro in 1874, to Miss Mary Ellen O'Brien, a native of Bangor, Me., he has two daughters, Elsie, Mrs. James Craighan, of Humboldt, and Mabel, Mrs. S. J. Andreani, of Fort Bragg. Mrs. Mulson's father, Michael O'Brien, was a veteran in the Civil war, serving in the First Maine Cavalry, Company A. After the war he came to California and soon his family joined him in Mendocino county, where he followed farming at Pine Grove on the Mendocino coast. His wife was Margaret Waters, and both ended their days there.
Hola Johnson
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A brief period of employment at Caspar was followed by removal to Mendocino City, where Mr. Mulson engaged in loading vessels with lumber. A subsequent connection with a lumber camp at Little River was followed by removal to Navarro, where he remained until 1875 and where in partnership with L. E. White he opened and conducted the Salmon Creek hotel. After ten years in the hotel business he bought two ranches, on Salmon Creek Ridge and on Albion Ridge, which he operated for five years. For the six ensuing years he managed the Greenwood hotel. Since 1895 he has lived in Fort Bragg, where he bought the hotel built by the Randolph Bros., from Marks & Leoleiser. Under its present title of the Grand Hotel he is still managing the business and has brought it into popularity with the traveling public, who appreciate the high quality of the service given and the tactful courtesy of the landlord. Besides giving close attention to the hotel he has found time to aid in the upbuilding of Fort Bragg. His long term of service as a trustee, dating back to the spring of 1897, had its culmination in 1908, when he was honored with the chairmanship of the board, a position equivalent to that of mayor. Under his period of service as member of the board and chairman thereof sewers have been built, streets graded, highways improved, a water system developed and other improvements made that put Fort Bragg on the map as one of the most progressive little cities of Northern California. In fraternal relations he is connected with the lodge and encampment of Odd Fellows, the Improved Order of Red Men and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.
HANS CONRAD JOHNSON .- When the Mississippi River valley was yet a possession of France, and the inhabitants were loyal and devoted in their love and affection for their country and their flag, Louis Bonapart, advocating the sale of the vast territory to the United States while it was yet theirs to sell, declared: "The inhabitants, the people who make Louisiana, will go to bed some night good Frenchmen and awaken in the morning equally good Americans." And so it has been throughout the history of the United States, people have come to our shores from lands across the sea, loyal and sincere in the love of the Fatherland. Then they have gone to bed at night, longing again for the scenes of home, only to awaken in the morning perfectly good American citizens, with a love and loyalty to their new country even greater than that which they gave to the old. And in the second generation we have the very flower of our American manhood and womanhood, clean, strong, pure, the civilization of centuries imbued with the strength of new worlds. This is especially true of the kindred nations from Germany, and the Scan- dinavian Peninsula, where the blood of the Vikings still flows in their veins, and where the clean, rugged strength of the mountains and wind-swept plains is retained by their sons and daughters.
Of such as these is Hans Conrad Johnson, representing as he does the second generation from the sturdy little kingdom of Denmark, noted over the world for its thrift and clean living, for its educational standards and its love of home ties. The father of Mr. Johnson was Claus Johnson, a native of Den- mark, who came to California by way of the Horn on a sailing vessel, when gold was discovered in 1849. He had been a carpenter in his native town, and had for a time followed the fortunes of the sea. It was in 1852 that he reached San Francisco after a long and perilous journey over tempestuous seas, the trip requiring many months of time for its completion. He followed mining in California until 1858 with varying success and accumulated a hand- some sum by careful industry and unfaltering application. The call of home
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was still insistent, for there was a lassie waiting for him there, and, returning again to the Fatherland, he was married in 1859, and immediately set sail again for America. This time, however, they landed on the Atlantic coast, intending to cross the plains and settle in his beloved California. But the party of emigrants with whom he and his wife had traveled elected to locate in Wau- paca county, Wis., and there Mr. Johnson and his bride also established their home. He took up land and developed a handsome farm, which he tilled until his death in 1877. Eight children came to bless the new home, and of these H. C. was the fourth eldest. He was born March 20, 1864, and was reared on the farm, receiving his early education in the public schools of the vicinity. He was but thirteen years old when his father died, and with eight little mouths to feed, it was necessary that all should do their share to aid the mother in caring for her family, and H. C. stopped school and commenced to earn his own living. He worked on the farms in the vicinity until he was sixteen, when he was apprenticed as a blacksmith. Completing the trade in Waupaca, he opened his own shop, and soon had a flourishing business. This, however, did not deter him from making further progress, and he added other departments. finally securing an expert machinist to care for that department of the work, and from him learning the machinist's trade himself.
Other members of the Johnson family were also starting out in business and, with his brother Peter. Hans C. located in Rhinelander, Wis., in 1882 and opened a blacksmith and carriage shop and also built a machine shop of which Hans C. took charge. The business flourished and necessitated the building of a new plant. Three months after it was completed it was destroyed by fire, no insurance having been placed upon it. The plant was immediately rebuilt and business resumed, but in November, 1888, the brother died and the burden of the indebtedness fell on H. C. Notwithstanding the responsibilities that thus devolved upon him he continued the business until the panic of 1893, when, with hundreds of others, he was forced to close down on account of the money stringency. After this he continued to work at his trade for a few years, or until he accumulated sufficient money to purchase a shingle mill. Atter remodelling the mill he started in business, but in this undertaking he also met with disaster, for the mill was burned down the first night after it had been started. Nothing daunted, however, and with a determination to fol- low the line of work for which he felt himself adapted, he went to Hermans- ville, Mich., and during the three years that he remained there he was fore- man of a sawmill. By carefully saving his earnings he was able to pay off his indebtedness and loss in connection with the shingle mill. During this time also he took a mechanical engineering course through the International Correspondence Schools of Scranton, Pa.
The Far West was calling him, however, as it had called his father in the days of '49, and in 1902 H. C. Johnson came to San Francisco as draughts- man for the Eby Machinery Company and a year later he accepted the position of superintendent of the Union Lumber Company's mill at Fort Bragg, which position he still occupies. Mr. Johnson located in Fort Bragg in 1903, since which time he has given his work at the mill his entire time and attention. With him he brought his wife, who was Miss Ellen Jennings, of Portage, Wis., and to whom he was married in Rhinelander. They have two daughters, Edith and Ellen. Since making his home in Fort Bragg, Mr.
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Johnson has become intimately identified with local civic and fraternal inter- Ests, and is one of the most inflential citizens of his adopted city. He is a man of more than ordinary ability as a mechanical engineer, while his general business ability and close application would in themselves be a guarantee of success. He is a Republican in politics and his influence is a vital factor in local issues and he is thoroughly informed on all matters of governmental policy, both state and national. One of Mr. Johnson's pet fraternal orders i- that child of the lumbermen, the Hoo Hoos, and he has done much to increase the local membership. Mrs. Johnson is a member of the Congre- gational church, and her husband and daughters are constant attendants at this same house of worship.
JOHN ELLIOTT SHIRLEY .- The genealogy of the Shirley family is traced to Virginia, whence John Shirley, a native of Lynchburg, in early life followed the trend of emigration across the mountains into Kentucky and there in 1840 married Miss Martha C. Elliott, a native of the Blue Grass state. The wedding trip of the young couple consisted of a journey by wagon to the western part of Missouri, where they built a cabin and started a home in Lafayette county. Five children came to bless the home and the first deep sorrow came with the death of the father in 1853. Afterward the eldest daugh- ter, Elizabeth Ann, died in Missouri at the age of seventeen. The second daughter, Lucy J., came across the plains to Colusa county, married E. C. Riggs, in an early day, and later settled in Lake county, where she died in 1908: her husband, whose first trip to the west was made in 1849, is now eighty-seven years of age and is living retired in Scott's valley. The third eldest child was John Elliott of whom we write. The second son and fourth child, James William, was one of the early graduates of the San Jose State Normal School and became a teacher in Lake county. Elected to the office of county superintendent of schools, he died during his term of service. The youngest child in the Shirley family, George T., died in Missouri at four years of age. After the death of Mr. Shirley the widow was married a second time and by that husband, George W. Tucker, she had one son, Joseph M. Tucker, now a farmer in the state of Washington.
At the time of crossing the plains in 1859 John Elliott Shirley was a youth of fourteen years, able to be of the greatest assistance in the driving of three hundred head of cattle and horses. The task was one of great difficulty and obliged him to ride muleback for the entire distance, but he proved a capable herder of stock and averted trouble on more than one occasion. After a month at Honey lake the family stopped at Princeton for a year and in the fall of 1860 became pioneers of Scott's valley, where Mr. Shirley began to work for wages as a herder of cattle. Later he was employed in a sawmill for two years. Next he turned to farming and cleared and grubbed one hundred and fifty acres, on which he made all the improvements necessary to a well-kept country home. His has been a strenuous existence. The most untiring industry has been necessary for the maintenance of his family and the educa- tion of his children. To clear a timber farm is of itself a task of great mag- nitude. Only a man stout of arm and dauntless of heart could attempt such an undertaking, but he carried the enterprise to a safe termination and devel- oped a farm that is one of the best in Big valley.
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