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 90
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 90
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WALTER SCOTT DUNBAR .- Very early in the colonization of America members of the Dunbar family came hither from Dumbarton, Scotland, and settled on the rockbound coast of Maine, where later genera- tions lived and labored with sturdy fortitude of endurance. In the genera- tion following Dunbar Joseph Dunbar, who lived to be more than eighty years of age, was Joseph C. Dunbar, a skilled carpenter well known in Lincoln county, where he had many contracts for the erection of large and permanent buildings. Not a few of these stand to the present day, memorials to his skill and honest workmanship. When seventy-two years of age he put aside the tools of his craft and entered into the rest of eternity. During young manhood he had married Mercy Ann Glidden, who was a lifelong resident of Maine, dying there at the age of sixty years. Her father, a man of remarkable strength, able to do a full day's work after he was eighty years of age, became very deaf in his later years and on one occasion, not hearing the passing engine, was struck and killed on a railroad near his home. Longevity had characterized previous generations, his father having lived to be almost one hundred and having cast his last vote for John C. Fremont for president. One of the vivid memories of the childhood of Walter Scott Dunbar is that of sitting on the knees of this aged man, his great-grandfather, who would entertain him with tales of his service in the Revolutionary war and his acquaintance with George Washington. Had it been possible to record these stories much interesting history concerning the Revolution would have been saved for future generations.
The family of Joseph C. Dunbar consisted of ten children, of whom the first-born, Joseph Roscoe, died at Baltimore in December, 1862, while serving in the army. The second, Mercy Augusta, married M. V. B. Knowlton, a ship caulker, of Belfast, Me., where she died in 1872. The third, Walter Scott, was born at Nobleboro, Lincoln county, Me., March 14, 1842, and since 1908 has lived on Sixth street, in Lakeport, Cal. Of his life and thrilling war experiences mention is made in the following paragraph. The fourth child, Harlow E., was killed in 1864 in front of Petersburg during the siege at that point. The fifth child, Lewis W., went through the entire period of the war uninjured, but afterward came out to the Pacific coast and was killed by a snowslide in Nevada. The sixth child, Bion B., of Eugene, Ore., is a carpen- ter by trade. Laura, who never married, died in 1879. Meaubec M., a quartz miner and prospector, died at Aspen, Colo., about 1900. The youngest daughter, Esther, never married and remained throughout life at the old homestead in Maine. The youngest of the ten children, Owen L., now a foreman in one of the Spreckels sugar factories near Salinas, has been en- gaged in the sugar business for about one-quarter of a century.
Owing to the poverty of the parents and the necessity for self-support at an early age, it was impossible for Walter Scott Dunbar to attend school more than three months each year of his boyhood, yet he secured a fair rudi- mentary education, which later was expanded by travel, reading and observa- tion. During the spring of 1862 he enlisted in Company K, Sixteenth Maine Infantry, assigned to the army of the Potomac. His initiation into battle occurred at Antietam, after which he fought at Fredericksburg in December, 1862, and at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863. When the battle of Gettys- burg opened on the 1st of July, 1863. the Reynolds Corps began the charge, and as a member of its second division he was in the very front of the memor-
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able engagement, where he fought for three days and nights in the brunt of the storm of shot and shell. After the final charge he joined his corps in the pursuit of the opposing forces, whom he followed down into Maryland and Virginia. In all of this fighting he never received a scratch. His closest call occurred when a minie ball cut the strap of his haversack. After crossing the Rapidan river at Mine Run he went into camp there for the winter of 1863-64. During the spring of 1864 he fought throughout the entire battle of the Wilderness. On the 10th of May, at Laurel Hill, in a charge he was struck in the left side by a piece of shell, which caused an ugly wound and forced him to go to the hospital. Upon recovering he returned to his regiment just before the attack on Petersburg, having missed the engagements at Spottslyvania, Cold Harbor and North Anna. Winter quarters were estab- lished at Petersburg for the winter of 1864-65, and on the 5th of February they fought the battle of Hatchie's Run, where he was taken prisoner. About the middle of March he was paroled and the morning after the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox he succeeded in rejoining his regiment. Ordered to Washington, he took part in the grand review June 5, 1865, and was then honorably discharged, although he did not receive his final pay until after his return to Maine.
On the morning of the 4th of July, 1865, Mr. Dunbar left his native place in Maine and started out for Colorado, making the trip principally by wagon and landing at Denver on the 1st of September. For thirty-five or more years he engaged in placer mining in the west, meanwhile buying property at Canon City, Colo., where he lived for a number of years. His marriage in 1895 united him with Miss Edith L. Tawney, of Esbon, Kan., by whom he is the father of one child, Thelma I., now a student (1914) in the Lakeport union high school. From 1902 until 1908 the family lived in Washington near the city of Olympia, but in the latter year they came to Lakeport, where Mr. Dunbar bought two lots on the corner of Sixth and Mansanito streets and erected the little cottage that makes a comfortable home for the family. Since coming here he has identified himself with the Grand Army of the Republic at Upper Lake. In politics he always has been stanch in his support of the Republican party. While not connected with any denomination, he is in sympathy with religious work, and his wife and daughter hold membership with the Metho- ciist Episcopal Church of Lakeport.
SULLIVAN S. RUSSELL .- Prior to the opening of the Revolutionary war by many years the Russell family came from France to America and settled in Maine, near the Atlantic coast. James Russell, the son of a Revolu- tionary officer and patriot, was born at Farmington, Franklin county, Me., and married Cordelia Gordon, a native of Phillips, the same county, and a descendant of German ancestry of colonial pedigree. Among the eleven children forming their family was Sullivan S., who was born in Maine August 5, 1837, and became self-supporting at a very early age. Schools were so few in that day and the poverty of the family so imperatively made necessary the early labor of each child that he attended school only eighteen months alto- gether. In spite of this handicap he has become a man of broad information. In acquiring knowledge he has been helped by his native wit and quick comprehension. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to Absalom Park- man, a blacksmith, at Solon, Me., under whom he spent three years of diligent application to the mastery of the trade. On the expiration of his term as an ap-
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prentice he started for the then unknown and undeveloped regions of Minne- sota, into which no railroad had yet been built. It was possible for him to ride on the train as far as Dubuque, Iowa, and there he boarded a steamboat to travel on the Mississippi as far as Stillwater. When the vessel reached Lake Pepin it was discovered that navigation was impossible by reason of ice, so the passengers disembarked from the boat and walked thirty miles around the lake, a most unpleasant undertaking in the chill and dampness of the early spring.
The introduction to Stillwater had by the young blacksmith from Maine was no more encouraging than his experiences in the journey thither. Arriv- ing there in the latter part of March, he spent his first night on a carpenter's tool chest with six inches of water on the floor. The following day he began to work in a blacksmith shop, where he remained until October, 1858. Re- signing the position at that time, he returned east to New York and took passage on a boat that sailed via Havana to the Isthmus of Panama. From that place he sailed on another vessel to San Francisco, where he landed with $5 in his possession. However, to a young man possessed of health and in- dustry, lack of capital is not a formidable affair, and with characteristic resolution of purpose he quickly found employment. His first task was that of shoeing mustang stage horses for the Fowler Bros.' stage line running from Sacramento to Red Bluff. Next he spent a month in a blacksmith shop at Tehama, after which he worked for D. C. Huntoon on the Cottonwood for a year. Meanwhile, a new bridge having been built across that creek and the course of travel having been changed thereby, he went to a location near Bell's bridge and built a small cabin for a shop. Until October of 1862 he followed his trade at that point. From 1862 until 1886 he engaged at the trade of blacksmith at Laporte, Plumas county. Shortly after New Year's of 1886 he brought his family to Lakeport, where he bought out D. C. Nicoll, the old carriage manufacturer, wagon-maker and blacksmith. Working quietly but industriously at the forge, he made a fair livelihood and rose to a position among the efficient blacksmiths of Lake county. For eight years beginning in 1894 he served as county assessor and meantime discontinued business, but afterward built a shop and resumed blacksmithing, eventually to sell out to Mr. Fraser and retire from active work at the trade.
Since casting his first vote for Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, Mr. Russell has continued to uphold the principles of the Republican party by his ballot. Upon the organization in 1862 of the Laporte Guard, Company E, he was commissioned first lieutenant. At the election of the following year he was promoted to be captain and continued as such for the next six successive years, until the company was finally mustered out of the state militia after seven years of service. Fraternally he is past grand and past chief patriarch in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Although not allied with denomi- national work, he is in sympathy with the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church, with which his wife is connected.
The marriage of Mr. Russell and Miss Roxanna Carrie McMath was solemnized March 26, 1863. Eleven children were born of the union and seven of these attained mature years. The eldest, Frank B., a traveling sales- man with headquarters at Sacramento, married Emma Stanley and has three children, Mabel, Calvin and Stanley. The second, Grace E., married J. A. Keithly, a teamster and owner of a pear orchard in Big valley, and they have
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five children, Glenn, Blanche, Sarah and Seth (twins) and Audrey. The third, May, married H. L. Tressel, an attendant at the Napa asylum, and they have one son, Clarence. The fourth, Ralph S., who remains with his parents, follows the trade of a blacksmith. The fifth, Archie M., married Mrs. Milli- cent (Kemp) Moran, of Oakland, is an undertaker at Lakeport, and is repre- sented elsewhere in this volume. The sixth, Bessie, is the wife of Jack Hanson, a teamster and farmer at Fairfield, Solano county. The youngest, Jessie I., is the wife of A. Beelard, a prosperous rancher at Vacaville, and they have one son, Russell.
As early as 1857 Archie and Elizabeth (Kimmel) McMath, the parents of Mrs. Russell, came to California, accompanied by their three youngest children, Archie, Robert and Ella (twins). A family home was established first at Marysville, Yuba county. One of their elder children, George, had already married and established a home in Washtenaw county, Mich., but early in the '60s brought his family to California and remained in the west until his death. The two eldest children, Henry and Cyrus McMath, had preceded their parents to California, crossing the plains shortly after the discovery of gold. Henry is now deceased, and Cyrus, still living. is a resident of Willows. Two daughters had married before the parents left Michigan. Susan, the wife of Sumner Perry, then lived at Ypsilanti, Mich., but now resides at Berlin, Wis. Elsie, now deceased, was the wife of Everett Frazer, of Marquette, Mich., where she was living at the time of the removal of the parents to California. There were two remaining daughters in the family, Elizabeth (generally called Libbie), then sixteen years of age, and Roxana Carrie, then only ten. For the convenience of travel and realizing the uncer- tainties about establishing a new home in California, these two daughters were left behind in Washtenaw county, Mich., with their grandparents, Henry and Susan Kimmel, a well-to-do farming couple living near Ypsilanti. During August of 1858 the girls started to travel alone to California for the purpose of joining their parents. By stage to Adrian, Mich., and thence by railroad, they reached New York City in due time, only to find, when they inquired the price of their passage that they were short of money for the tickets. At first it seemed as if the younger girl must be sent back to the grandparents in Michigan, but they finally decided to travel second-class, instead of first-class as originally planned, which left them just enough for the steamship tickets. They sailed on the old "Moses Taylor," which took them via Havana to Panama. Thence they sailed on another vessel to San Francisco, where kind- hearted fellow-passengers paid their fares to Sacramento, and in that city their father awaited them. Thus happily ended a memorable journey. Five years later the smaller girl, grown to young womanhood, became the wife of Mr. Russell. The older daughter, Elizabeth, was married to D. A. McConnell and moved to Colorado, her present home being at Doyleville, Gunnison county.
ARCHIE M. RUSSELL .- Facing in childhood a future that ill health had made to appear gloomy indeed, Mr. Russell has surmounted obstacles and discouragements that would have daunted a heart of less heroic mould, and now, restored to strength, follows the undertaking business in Lakeport with characteristic efficiency, evincing a courtesy, unfailing tact and rare good judgment so indispensable to satisfactory continuance in a work calling for high qualities of intelligence. In the prosecution of his work he has had the
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efficient co-operation of his wife, an experienced embalmer and a woman of splendid business qualifications, who in young womanhood was thrown upon her own resources for the support of herself and of the three children by her first marriage. Bravely she took up the burden and courageously she met every need. It is probable that she has had an experience in undertaking as extensive and practical as that of any woman in California. Combined with her wide experience are broad sympathies and an attractive personality, so that it is natural that she should have a strong hold upon the confidence and esteem of acquaintances. The undertaking establishment on Main street is so arranged that funerals may be conducted from the parlors, without inter- fering with the work of the operating room or with the prosecution of the business in the office. Careful attention has been given to every detail by the proprietors, and their rapid rise in the confidence of the people, since they purchased the Pedrazzini business in 1913, has been well merited by their experience and efficiency.
Born in Plumas county, Cal., September 20, 1879, Archie M. Russell is a son of Sullivan S. Russell, a native of Maine and a pioneer of California. After having followed the trade of blacksmith in Plumas county for a long period, he came to Lake county during the fall of 1884 and bought out a black- smith and carriage business at Lakeport. After years of the closest attention to his shop he sold the business and is now living retired in Lakeport, at the age of seventy-seven years. By his marriage to Roxanna C. McMath, who was born in Michigan and is ten years his junior, he became the father of seven children, who attained maturity, named as follows: Frank, a traveling salesman, with headquarters at Sacramento; Grace, wife of J. A. Keithly, a teamster living at Kelseyville; May, wife of H. L. Tressel. of Napa ; Ralph, a blacksmith following his trade at Lakeport : Archie MI., of Lakeport ; Bessie, wife of J. Hanson, a teamster at Fairfield, Solano county; and Jessie, who married A. L. Beelard and lives on a farm at Vacaville. When the family came to Lake county Archie M. Russell was only five years of age. He was taken ill with cerebro spinal-meningitis and for more than a year was unable to walk. Life was despaired of, and even when there seemed hope of life, it appeared that he would be permanently crippled, but he has been fortunate in regaining his strength and in being able to engage in business pursuits unhampered by ill health. After a scientific course in the Lakeport Academy he took a business course in 1907 at the Heald's Business College of Oakland, where later he engaged with the firm of Waterhouse & Lester. While living in that city he was honored with the office of district deputy grand master of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in recognition of his efficient ser- vices he was presented by the order with a case of seventy-two pieces of silver- ware.
In Santa Rosa, October 5, 1911, Mr. Russell was united in marriage with Mrs. Millicent (Kemp) Moran, who was born near Bennett, Lancaster county, Nebr., and is an own sister of George W. Kemp, former sheriff of Lake county, who was shot in 1909 by two Indians whom he was endeavoring to arrest in the discharge of his duties as sheriff. At the age of sixteen years Mrs. Russell began to learn the undertaking business and for nine years she engaged in the business under the leading undertakers of Oakland, mean- while gaining an experience most valuable to her in later independent work. While living in Oakland she was officially prominent in Rebekah Lodge No.
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16, but since coming to Lakeport it has been necessary for her to devote herself exclusively to the business and to relinquish in large degree social and fraternal activities. Her eldest child, Francis R. Moran, an undertaker living at Calistoga, Napa county, married Louise Azelida and has one son, Russell M .; the second child, Clarence Moran, is employed at Oakland; and the youngest child and only daughter, Mona Moran, is the wife of Thomas Menary.
LAURANCE CLAY HOPPER .- Various states of the middle west were made the home of the Hopper family at different times, but they were identified especially with Kentucky, and James B., son of John L., a Ken- tuckian who served in the Civil war, was born at Bowling Green, that state, where during young manhood he engaged in general farming and stock-rais- ing. A desire to see something of other sections of the country and a hope of bettering his condition led him to Missouri and to Adams county, Ill., later to Colorado, where he located with his family near Empire on Clear creek. Eventually he returned to Missouri and settled in Linn county, where he at first engaged in the insurance business and afterward became a traveling salesman. Through his marriage to Louisa Foster, who was born in Iowa and died in Missouri, there were three children, the eldest of whom, Laurance Clay, was born near Clayton, Adams county, Ill., November 21, 1876. At the age of fourteen years he became a cowboy on the plains of Kansas and Colorado, engaging to ride the range for a cattleman of Victoria, near Fort Hayes. During the year as cowboy he had many exciting and even danger- ous experiences and enjoyed to the utmost the outdoor existence with its element of peril. A return to the routine of farming in Missouri proved tame and uninteresting, so that he was ready to embrace an opportunity to learn the business of an aeronaut with Uncle Tom Baldwin, at Quincy, Ill., where he made his first flight in June. 1893. Afterward he made descensions with parachute from gas and hot-air balloons. His travels took him to every part of the United States and gave him a thorough knowledge of conditions, so that he is exceptionally well informed in regard to the country. Being a skilled and efficient aeronaut, he went through some dangerous adventures unscathed and in his three or four falls received no serious injuries. At the time of the breaking out of the Spanish-American war he was in Virginia and volunteered his services to the cause, becoming a member of Company C. Third Virginia U. S. V. Regiment. He served with the regiment until mustered out at the close of the war. when he returned to the balloon business.
For some years after ceasing to make air flights Mr. Hopper engaged in the street carnival business, and in that capacity visited many sections of the middle states and the south. During 1901 he came to California and found employment at Oakland in the office of the surveyor of Alameda county, where he remained until the earthquake, April 18, 1906. The falling of the Sherman and Clay building on Broadway and Thirteenth streets crushed in the St. Charles hotel, where, he was sleeping. Seriously injured and with difficulty dragged from the ruins, it was three months before he had recovered sufficiently to resume work at any occupation. He then entered the store of Smith Bros., stationers, with whom he continued for a year and afterward returned to surveying. From Oakland he came to Willits to superintend the construction of the sewer system in the employ of the Vincent Construction
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Company, and later he filled the same position with the same concern at Newman. On the completion of the contract he returned to Willits and engaged in cement and sewer contracting. December 12, 1910, he entered the employ of the Willits Water & Power Company as resident manager and superintendent of the water department, which position he is filling with characteristic efficiency. In politics he votes with the Republican party. Fraternally he is identified with the Woodmen of the World. The unique and attractive bungalow which he erected on South Main street is presided over by his wife, who was Miss Amelia F. Vega, a native of Tuolumne county, this state, and at the time of their marriage a resident of Fruitvale, Alameda county.
HENRY DAVID HECKENDORF .- It was not until about twelve years ago that there was a blacksmith business established on the Willits road between Ukiah and Calpella, as no one had thought of The Forks as a good location. It originated in the mind of Henry D. Heckendorf that it was a good opening, and the result of his success demonstrates the fact that his judgment was not wrong, for he has a large trade reaching over a wide scope of country.
Henry D. Heckendorf was born in Farmersburg, Clayton county, Iowa, February 25, 1875, the son of Louis Heckendorf, who was born in Wisconsin. The latter's parents came from Germany and were seventeen weeks crossing the Atlantic ocean on a sailer. During this time provisions ran short and the passengers were put on very short rations during the latter part of the voyage.
Louis Heckendorf was a blacksmith in Clayton county, Iowa, where he married Minnie Englehardt, who was born in Germany and came with her parents to Iowa when she was seven years of age. In 1889 they brought their family to California and located at Calpella, Mendocino county, where the father purchased a blacksmith shop, which he ran for many years. However, he also purchased land in the Coyote valley, which with the aid of his children he cleared and set to vineyard, and of late years he devotes all of his time to viticulture.
Of the nine children born to his parents Henry D. Heckendorf is the second oldest. His first schooling was obtained in Iowa, where he remained until he was thirteen years of age, when he experienced the interesting trip to California. Arriving in Cloverdale, the family came in an old Concord coach to Mendocino county, and it was here that Henry D. completed his education in the public schools. While a boy in Iowa he learned the black- smith trade, finishing it under his father at Calpella, and in the meantime also helping to clear his father's farm. When twenty-two years of age he started for himself and worked at his trade in Lakeport, then about a year at Needle Rock on the coast and about the same length of time during the building of the railroad from Ukiah to Willits. He then put into execution the idea of opening a blacksmith shop at The Forks, three miles north of Ukiah. Leas- ing a half acre of ground he built a shop and soon had a successful business. Six years later, not being able to secure a satisfactory lease, he purchased eight acres opposite the Central school house, two and one-half miles north of Ukiah. and moved his shop on the place, also building his residence on the tract. He gives all of his attention to blacksmithing and horseshoeing and has a large and satisfactory business. His pleasing personality has brought to him a wide circle of friends.
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