Butte County
Biographies
MRS. MARGARET JOSEPHINE CARMACK
MRS. MARGARET JOSEPHINE CARMACK.—A prominent place among the women who have left their
impress on the development of Butte County
must be accorded the late Mrs. Margaret Josephine Carmack. In
maidenhood she was Margaret Josephine Taylor and was born in Tennessee,
from which state she went to Missouri
with her parents. She received good educational advantages for those days
and these she supplemented by reading and self-study and thereby became a
well-informed woman.
Miss
Taylor was married in Missouri to Franklin Henderson, a
native of that state, and a son, James Theodore, was born before they started
for California. They arrived
in Butte
County in the early seventies and
here her husband died about 1874. In July, 1877, Mrs. Henderson married
Hezekiah Carmack, a native of Pennsylvania
and of Scotch descent. He came across the plains
in 1852 and followed mining in Butte County. In
1859 he went to Virginia City, Nev.,
and was one of the locators of the Savage mine. Some years later he sold
his interest and engaged in ranching at Truckee Meadows, afterwards removing to
Pitt River
country. When he sold out he returned to Butte
County and bought a ranch on the
Shasta road and this was practically the scene of his operations the remainder
of his life. Mr. and Mrs. Carmack had spent four
years at Pacific Grove, returning to Chico
in 1910, and that year he died, just one week after their return. Mrs. Carmack made her home on the ranch until she passed away on
August 28, 1913. Her only son, a mining man and farmer, survived her death
until July 11, 1916.
Mrs.
Carmack was a well-known resident of Chico,
having lived here about forty years. She was prominent in all movements
for the upbuilding of Chico and Butte
County, giving liberally of her
time and means for the religious and moral uplift of the people. She was
active in social and civic affairs and was an active member of the Christian
Church and the Women’s Relief Corps. She was actively identified with the
late Mrs. Annie E. K. Bidwell in the temperance movement and in the work of the
W. C. T. U. She was a woman of culture and refinement, of an amiable
disposition and a winsome personality. She was ever ready to aid when she
could relieve suffering and want, but all her deeds of kindness and acts of
benevolence were accomplished in a quiet and unostentatious manner.
Transcribed 11-10-07 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 504-509, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2007 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library