Yolo-Sacramento-El Dorado County CA Archives Biographies.....Ruddock, Calvin 1814 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 13, 2006, 7:58 pm

Author: Lewis Publishing Co. (1891)

CALVIN RUDDOCK, M. D., although not a practicing physician at present, yet is
one of the oldest citizens of Woodland, and of this State for forty years. His
present hardy constitution and hale physique he inherits from the sturdy Scotch.
His father, Edward Ruddock, emigrated from Scotland about the age of eighteen
years, and the Doctor's mother is a native of Massachusetts, town of Whately.
The Revolutionary war being in progress at the time, he (Mr. E. Ruddock)
enlisted in the American army at Bunker Hill, and served through the remainder
of the war. The Doctor's step-grandfather Stafford, and his grandfather on his
mother's side, Thomas Sanderson, were also both soldiers in this war, serving
from the beginning to the end. Edward Ruddock first settled in Boston, where his
first occupation was milk-peddling. He afterward moved to Whately, Franklin
County, Massachusetts. Shortly after he married and moved into the town of
Buckland, where he made his permanent home, bringing up a family of six sons and
six daughters. His wife's maiden name was Martha Sanderson. She was a native of
Franklin County, and was seventeen years old at the time of her marriage, while
her husband was three years her senior. They lived a happy life together for
seventy-eight years, the old gentleman being ninety-eight years old and his wife
ninety-seven at their death. When they went to the town of Buckland they rode,
both on one horse, a distance of twenty miles into the wilderness and settled on
200 acres of heavily timbered land, which in due time was all cleared except a
scanty amount left for fuel.

  Calvin Ruddock, our subject, was born in Buckland, Franklin County,
Massachusetts, January 18, 1814, and was brought up to the monotonous labor of
farm life. At the age of sixteen years he began to learn the carriage-making
trade in Ashfield, same county, and served an apprenticeship of five years.

  After his five years' apprenticeship expired he went to Clinton, in Oneida
County, New York, where he attended a literary school called the Liberal
Institute. He afterward began the study of medicine, under the instruction of
Dr. Stewart, of that place. About that time the celebrated William H. Seward was
elected Governor of New York, in 1840, and Mr. Ruddock went to Albany and
attended medical lectures. While there he spent a year in the office of Drs.
Wing & Boyd, and continued his study there, while at the same time he attended
lectures. Next he attended another course of medical lectures at the Berkshire
Medical Institute at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1842. All
through this period the Doctor had to devote his vacations from study to
teaching school, in order to replenish his scanty store of funds. His first
practice was in the town of Pitcher, Chenango County, New York, which, by the
way, is the burial place of all his parents. A year afterward he moved four
miles further down to the town of Cincinnatus, in Cortland County, where he
thought he could do better. Later he removed to Gilbertsville, Otsego County,
same State, where he remained until he came West.

  During all this time he was a regular physician, but had given considerable
attention to homeopathy, and he at length became a zealous and thorough
homeopathist. He feared that his change of system would make him unpopular, but
it actually increased his patronage.

  A digression to general history is here justified. Samuel A. Ruddock, a
brother of Edward, was a well-to-do merchant in Boston, who at length became
bankrupt; but he was so far advanced in mathematics that the Government
appointed him Topographical Surveyor for the western country. For nine years he
was absent on this duty from his family at their home in Charleston, South
Carolina, who during all this time heard nothing from him! His work called him
through the Western Territories fully to the Pacific coast. He gradually worked
his way here through. Mexico. While here he found gold on what he termed the
"Coast Range of the Rocky Mountains." He had several pieces of metal in his
possession when he was captured by the Indians near Fort Hall. To prevent the
loss of his life, and even of his effects, he managed to obtain communication
with some whites, who came to his relief, proving to the Indians that he was a
Government officer; they therefore released him.

  The letter which was written by him from this coast, to his brother Edward,
gives the details relative to the above facts, and also a general description of
the country. He returned to the East by way of Fort Hall, where he met Kit
Carson. In later years, Dr. Ruddock having this point in mind, saw Carson at
Placerville in 1849, and spoke to him on the subject. The surveyor, having only
one eye, was easily described; and when asked as to whether he saw such a man at
such a time, Carson replied that he did recollect him, and gave the place of
meeting as being between Fort Hall and the States, where Ruddock was then going.
He went on to the East, and while in New York had his precious findings assayed,
and it proved to be gold twenty-two carats fine.

  Mr. Ruddock then continued on his journey to Washington, resigned his position
and organized a company for a trip to this coast to follow gold-mining; but as
he was about to start, the mountain fever was revived which he had contracted on
his journey to the East, and he died; and all traces of his travel and
discoveries were lost to the family. It is supposed that by the phrase "Coast
Range of the Rocky Mountains," used in his letter, the Sierra Nevada was meant,
as at that day the geography of this region was very obscure. His letters nerved
many a '49er for the contest and fatigues of the journey. Samuel A. Ruddock laid
out his route through the Southern States, New Mexico and onward to the Pacific
coast by way of Fort Hall; and it was while in New Mexico or Arizona on this
trip that he was taken sick and was laid up on the desert where there was no
water or food for either man or beast, and the escorting company had to move on
to some place for subsistence. Mr. Ruddock had therefore to be left alone to
die; for to remain was death, and to go on was hope. They left him with his
horse, rifle and blankets, etc. On the third day, about sunset, an elk appeared
in sight; Ruddock rolled up on his elbows and brought the animal down with his
rifle, and by extraordinary effort he crawled up to the fresh carcass, opened a
blood-vessel and drank to satisfaction. That night he slept well. His fever was
broken on the fourth day, and he moved on in pursuit of his company. Before
reaching it, and while crossing a small stream running west, he discovered what
proved to be gold, twenty-two carats fine.

  This discovery was made eighty years ago, and the letters referred to were the
wonder of Calvin's youth, and were worn into pieces by frequent perusal. Thus we
have another account, to be added to several already published, of the discovery
of gold in California prior to Marshall's discovery in 1848.

   Mr. Calvin Ruddock, our subject, left New York State in 1848, with the
intention of making a trip to this State with a company of others to whom he had
imparted a knowledge of the above facts as a secret; but some of them failed to
give security, and the organization was not completed. However, he continued
westward, stopped in Wisconsin and practiced his profession for one year, and
while there the news went abroad over the world of Marshall's discovery. He
quickly organized a company and crossed the plains with a band of cattle,
coining by the old Fort Hall route, and first stopped in this State at Findlay,
on Bear River, where for a time they pastured their cattle. They ended their
march at Sacramento in 1849, on the site where the old French Hotel was, on
Front street. A few days later the Doctor went on to Placerville, where he spent
a portion of the winter mining and practicing medicine. His patients became so
numerous that he opened a hospital at Placerville, the first homeopathic
hospital on the coast. In the fall of 1851 he came down into the Sacramento
Valley to collect money which he had lent, and having to take live-stock for
payment, he floated it into Yolo County, and has made it his home here ever
since. This movement caused him to turn his attention to stock-raising. He first
located on the Monument ranch, on the west side of the Sacramento River, eight
miles above the city. About 1857 he bought a place on Willow Slough, half way
between Woodland and Davisville, near where Merritt's Station now is. There the
Doctor carried on general farming until 1872, when he moved into Woodland, where
he has since resided. The first fifteen or sixteen years of his residence in
this city he was in the eastern part of the town; in 1887 he purchased his
present home, comprising two and a half acres of land on Oak avenue, west of
Cleveland.

  He was married December 25, 1862, to Mrs. A. B. Guilford, who was born in
Portland, Maine, a daughter of William Bell.

  In political matters the Doctor was an old-time Whig, casting his first
Presidential vote for General Harrison. His next vote was foe James G. Birney,
of Detroit, Abolitionist. Birney had been nominated by a convention in Albany,
New York, to which Dr. Ruddock was sent as a delegate from Oneida County. The
Doctor was also nominated on the Abolition ticket in Chenango County, for the
New York State Senate. He now is a strong Prohibitionist Republican. Religiously
he was educated a Congregationalist, and joined that church at the age of
sixteen years, but for the past six years he has been a Methodist.


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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