Plumas-Statewide County CA Archives History - Books .....Plumas County 1891
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Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of Northern California

PLUMAS COUNTY.

  The word "plumas" is Spanish for feathers. In 1824 a Mexican exploring
expedition penetrated to the north and named the stream "Rio de las Plumas," on
account of the feathers of a water-fowl which were found floating upon its
bosom. The river is now called the Feather, but the Spanish name was applied to
the county. At the same time the Yuba River was christened Rio de los Uva
(pronounced by them cova), and Bear River Rio de los Osos.

  The county is bounded on the north by Shasta and Lassen; on the east by
Lassen, on the south by Sierra and Butte, and on the west by Butte and Tehama
counties.

  Plumas is one elevated and mountainous region, very little of it having an
altitude of less than 4,500 feet. Pilot Peak, on its southern border, reaches an
elevation of more than 6,000 feet, there being a number of other peaks in the
Sierra further north nearly as high. These mountain ridges being eroded by many
deep and precipitous canons, impresses upon the whole country a wild and rugged
aspect. Scattered throughout these mountains are many small but fertile and well
watered valleys, in which some grain is raised and many cows are kept, dairying
being here the principal industry. The county, with .the exception of these open
valleys, is everywhere heavily timbered with pine, spruce, cedar and fir. Plumas
is abundantly watered by the several forks of the Feather and the Yuba rivers,
and their numerous tributaries. The winter climate here is rigorous and the
snowfall deep at that season. The summers, however, are long and pleasant— warm
without being excessively hot.

  Nearly all the water (including snow as melted) finds its way into the Feather
River. The water-shed between the Nevada and Sacramento basins forms the
dividing line between Plumas and Lassen, while the dividing ridge between the
Feather and the Yuba rivers form the Sierra County line. On the northwest the
dividing ridge between the waters of the Feather and the Buttes and Dry creeks
form the boundary line, so that Plumas County lies wholly within the domain of
Feather River.

  Altitudes: Plumas House at Quincy, 3,400 feet; Geysers, 5,864 feet; Mount
Ingalls, between Red Clover and Grizzly valleys, 8,470 feet; Mount Harkness,
above Warner Valley, 8,875.

  Lying partly in Plumas and partly in Sierra county, is the Sierra Valley, the
largest in the whole Sierra chain. With an altitude of 5,000 feet, its
atmosphere is cool, clear and healthful. It is a very prosperous section,
containing six villages. One of these is Beckwourth; and this, as well as the
valley and the pass at the northeastern end of the valley, was named after James
P. Beckwourth, an old mountaineer whose autobiography has been published by the
Harper Brothers of New York. The book contains many interesting stories, fraught
with the usual exaggerations which no one has the opportunity of disproving.

  Next, Peter Lassen settled at the head of the celebrated Lassen's Ranch, on
Deer Creek, in Tehama County. It was in December, 1843, that this old pioneer
started from Sutter's Fort and reached the place which he chose for his
settlement in February following, having encamped several weeks at the
Marysville Buttes. This was the first settlement north of Marysville, where
Theodore Cordua was then living. Associated with Lassen was a Russian Pole named
Isadore Meyerwitz. It is probable that these two men were the first to set foot
within the present limits of Plumas County. They were here at least as early as
1848, and probably earlier.

   From 1850 to 1854 all the Feather River region was attached to Butte County;
meanwhile no law existed here but that of the miners. March 18, 1854, the act
organizing the county of Plumas was passed, and the first officers elected were:
William T. Ward, Judge; Thomas Cox, District Attorney; John Harbison, Clerk;
George W. Sharpe, Sheriff; Daniel R. Cate, Treasurer; John R. Buckbee, Assessor;
and Jacob T. Taylor, Surveyor. William V. Kingsbury was the opponent of Sharpe,
and it is thought would have been elected in a fair contest. Buckbee's opponent
was Christopher Porter, and for them the vote was a tie. They were persuaded to
decide the matter by a game of seven-up, in which Porter was badly beaten! A
merry drinking crowd of course attended the play. After considerable lively
discussion the town of La Porte and vicinity was taken from Sierra County and
annexed to Plumas, ,by the Legislature, March 31,1866.

  The first District Court for Plumas County was held June 19, 1854, by Judge
Joseph W. McCorkle, at American. Valley, the temporary county-seat named in the
organizing act. The only business of the court was to discharge the venire of
jurors whom the sheriff had summoned, and admit attorneys to practice. McCorkle
came to California from Ohio in 1849, and in 1850 was elected the first district
attorney for Butte and Shasta counties. In 1851 he served in the Legislature,
and that fall went to Washington to represent his district in the lower house of
Congress. Upon his return in 1853 the Governor appointed him Judge of the Ninth
Judicial District, which then included Butte County, to fill the vacancy caused
by the decease of George Adams Smith. He was occupying this office when Plumas
County was created and attached to this district. In 1863 he moved to Virginia
City, in 1868 to San Francisco, and later to Washington, District of Columbia,
chiefly to prosecute claims before the Mexican claims commission.

  William T. Ward, the first County Judge of Plumas County, was born in
Massachusetts in 1802, and came from Wisconsin to California in 1853; from 1857
to 1861 he was a farmer; from 1861 to 1865 he was the proprietor of the Genesee
mine; then he was a resident of Susanville until 1875, during a part of which
time he was postmaster, and then he moved to Quincy, where he resided until his
death, April 21, 1878.

  In 1864 the county of Lassen was cut off, taking territory that contained, in
1860, a population of 476.

  Financially, although there have been several defalcations in the treasury,
Plumas County has kept up its good credit, so that its six per cent, bonds bear
a premium in the market.

  Both Plumas and Sierra counties have a "gold lake" in tradition; but the exact
"gold lake" concerning which a curious man named Stoddard raised a great
excitement in 1849-'50, can not now be identified, even if it ever was
ascertained. There are several interpretations of Stoddard's story, which was to
the effect that he found a large number of lumps of pure gold ou the edge of the
pond where he got down upon his hands and knees to drink. When he started out
with a company to rediscover the place, nearly a thousand others followed
closely, and he either went off the trail purposely to keep the place a secret,
or he lost his way. It is a secret to this day.

  The result of the Stoddard gold-lake excitement was the discovery, by some
small parties following it up, of diggings on Nelson, Poorman and Hopkins'
creeks, early in June, 1850, and those on Rich Bar and Middle Fork a few days
later. Then there was a rush to those points, and more than could be provided
with claims, but they all had to leave on the approach of winter.

  The pioneer wagon road ran from Meadow Valley to Buckeye; was constructed in
1856-'57; and the first turnpike company was formed March 28, 1860, who built
the turnpike road from Plumas Mills to Indian Valley.

  The first stage line operated in Plumas County was run by a joint stock
company, namely, McElhany, Thomas & Co., organized in 1851 to run a stage from
that point to Marysville twice a week. It ran and did well until winter set in,
but did not resume the next spring. The next passenger enterprise was
inaugurated in 1854, by Thomas H. Morrow, who ran a saddle-train of mules
between Bidwell and American Valley. The next year he was succeeded by W. S.
Dean, who ran the mules for a year and then put on stages. In 1858 he sold to
the celebrated California Stage Company.

  The principal towns in Plumas are Qunicy, the county-seat, La Porte,
Gibsonville, Jamison City, Indian Bar, Greenville, Taylorsville, and Big
Meadows, the last three being in the agricultural districts. There are besides
these a number of mining camps and hamlets containing from fifty to 200
inhabitants each.

  Quincy was laid out and named by H. J. Bradley, of Quincy, Illinois, and
proprietor of the American ranch on which the village is situated. As an
inducement to the people to locate the county-seat there in 1854 he built and
tendered to the use of the county free of charge a rude shake building in the
rear of his hotel. This was used as the court-room, while the other county
officials found offices elsewhere in town. John Harbison, the county clerk,
located his office in the upper story of the Bullard building, corner of
Harbison avenue and Main street.

  At the fall election there were three candidates for the honor of being the
county-seat,— Quiney, Elizabethtown and O'Neill's Flat. Thomas B. Shannon, a
merchant of Elizabethtown, worked for that place,—"Betsyburg," as it was
called,—but the people concluded that that village was locked up in a ravine too
narnow, and decided in favor of Quincy; and upon representation to the
postoffice department at Washington that Quincy was a larger place than
Betsyburg, the postoffice was the next year moved from the latter place to
Quincy, greatly to the disgust of the abandoned ambitious little town. On each
letter to that place the postage at that day was 25 cents, until 1858, when the
California Stage Company took the contract for carrying the mail from Oroville
to Quincy. Whiting & Co.'s dog express was chiefly depended upon in the winter
for the transportation of mail.

  A new and substantial court-house was completed in 1859. The first jail was a
log structure, built in the spring of 1855, by John S. Thompson, at a cost of
$500. In it convicts condemned for the gallows were safely kept. The present
brick jail was built in 1863, by Mowbry & Clark, for $7,035.

  Quincy is now a thriving mountain town, surrounded by good farms and a mineral
region that is in a good way of development.

  La Porte, at first called Rabbit Creek Diggings, is the most important
settlement in the extreme southern portion of the county. It is pleasantly
situated on the banks of Rabbit Creek, 14,500 feet above sea level, sixty-one
miles from Marysville, twenty miles from Downieville and thirty-five from
Quincy. The first house here was built in the fall of 1852, by Eli S. Lester,
and was called the Rabbit Creek Hotel.

  The first newspaper in Plumas County was established at Quincy in August,
1855, edited and published by John K. Lovejoy and Edward McElwain. It was named
the Old Mountaineer, was independent in politics and successful in finances. In
1857 they sold to John C. Lewis and James McNabb, who changed the name to Plumas
Argus and ran it until 1860, when it fell into the hands of the sheriff. During
the three-sided campaign of 1856 three papers were published at the office of
the Old Mountaineer, namely, the Argus, the Plumas Democrat and the Fillmore
Banner. The Old Mountaineer was Republican, in politics.

  At present Plumas County ships a great deal of the products of the dairy to
San Francisco.

  The representatives of Plumas County in the State Assembly have been: B. W.
Barnes, 1871-'72; J, R. Buckbee, 1867-'68; J. D. Byers, 1873 -'74; J. W. S.
Chapman, 1875-'76; R. A. Clark, 1863-'64; J. D. Goodwin, 1865-'66; M. D. Howell,
1863; P. O. Hundley, 1860; Richard Irwin, 1857; W. W. Kellogg, 1881; R. C.
Kelly, 1856; Asa Kinney, 1855; John Lambert, 1869-'70; Calvin McClaskey, 1883;
Charles Mulholland, 1880; Thomas B. Shannon, 1859-'60, 1862; J. L. C. Sherwin,
1858; R. H. F. Variel, 1887; J. H. Whitlock, 1877-'78; Joseph Winston, 1856; A.
Wood, 1861; George Wood, 1881, 1885.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California.

Illustrated, Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast
from the Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with
Glimpses of its Prospective Future; Full-Page Steel Portraits of its most
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers and also of
Prominent Citizens of To-day.

"A people that takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendents." – Macauley.

CHICAGO
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891.




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