Yolo-Amador-Calaveras County CA Archives Biographies.....Dietz, Louis 1830 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 30, 2006, 10:47 pm Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891) LOUIS DIETZ, of Woodland, was born in Bavaria, Germany, March 13, 1830, the son of John Frederic and Louisa (Schorm) Deitz. At the age of eighteen years he emigrated to the United States, landing at New York; and his first work in this country was for a farmer about three miles above Auburn, between the Erie Canal and Hudson River During the one month he was employed there he earned $8, and continued, his journey on toward Cleveland, Ohio, where he had relatives living, and which place was his original destination. There he went to harness-making, an art that he had begun to learn in the old country. In the fall of 1851 he went to St. Louis, Missouri, and worked at his trade until spring, when he came on overland to California. Starting from that city with a mixed train of horses and oxen, he passed Independence when the weather was bitter cold and wet,—the ice an inch thick. No other event of importance occurred until they reached the Little Blue, where they found the cholera raging. At Raft River, Mr. Dietz and two companions separated from the train and came on with two packed ponies and traveled on foot. Arriving at Carson Valley they sold their ponies and walked over the mountains without any provisions; but at the summit Mr. Dietz distanced his companions and came on alone to Volcano, then in El Dorado County, but now in Amador. He followed gold-mining until after election that fall, when he and another gentleman went to San Antonio Bar in Calaveras County, put up at a tolerably convenient hotel, and the following day left Vicita, crossed the Stanislaus River to Columbia, where his comrade, an old man named Jones, became sick and was sent back to the old mines where he came from. Mr. Dietz then returned to Angel's Camp, mined there three months, walked to Stockton and thence to San Francisco, failed to find work there and finally went up to Sacramento and found employment there at his trade from a man named Nute, for a year and a half. He then bought out Mr. Nute and admitted a partner named Lawrence Heblin, under the firm name of Dietz & Co. This was in 1854. A short time afterward he established also a branch store at Folsom, and continued in business to the time of the great flood of 1861-'62, which caused him a total loss of his property. The next fall he moved to Woodland, just then started, and laid the foundation of a little business which has grown since then to magnificent proportions. He is one of Woodland's most successful business men and now owns considerable fine property in the town besides some farming land in the State of Washington. In early life Mr. Dietz was a Democrat, but soon after the organization of Republicanism he became a member of that party and has remained in that relation ever since. He is now treasurer of the Republican County Central Committee of Yolo County, and has been a member of that committee at different times for the past twenty years. He is a member of the order of Chosen Friends. Mr. Dietz was married in 1855, to Samantha Selby, a native of Ohio, and they have three sons and two daughters. 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. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/yolo/bios/dietz611nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 4.3 Kb