Butte County
Biographies
ADAM M. COMPTON
ADAM M. COMPTON.—Among the prominent and successful ranchers in Butte County
is Adam M. Compton, who was born on the Parrott Grant, in this county, October
2, 1960, the son of Henry Clay and Mary (Murdock) Compton, pioneer settlers of
California, who biographies appear on another page in this work. Adam M.
Compton was the eldest of a family of six children born to his parents. After
finishing his studies he began ranching; and in 1882, with his brother, H. C.
Compton, he rented a part of the Stone Valley Ranch in Glenn County, which was
the property of his uncle, William Murdock, devoting it to grain-raising. In
1888 the brothers dissolved partnership, and Adam M. then engaged in farming
the old Compton ranch at Princeton, continuing until 1898, when, again in
partnership with his brother, H. C. Compton, he purchased his present ranch of
six hundred seven acres, which was formerly the Northgraves
place, situated four miles south of Chico, on the state highway.
On the death of his uncle, William Murdock, Mr. Compton was
appointed, together with two others, W. P. Harrington and B. H. Burton of
Colusa, administrator of the William Murdock estate, comprising about twenty
thousand acres of land in Glenn County, to which he gave the necessary time and
attention until the estate was settled. After this was accomplished, with his
mother, brothers and sisters he incorporated the Murdock Land Company, starting
their operations with about twelve thousand acres of the old Stone Valley
Ranch. Since then they have added to it by purchase of lands adjoining, and
also of the old Crouch ranch on Butte Creek, so that now the company owns about
twenty thousand acres, devoted to the raising of Devon and Shorthorn cattle,
and also to the raising of sheep. Mr. Compton has been vice-president and
treasurer of the corporation since its organization.
The home ranch of Mr. Compton, which is named the Glenwood
Ranch, consists of splendid fertile lands lying on Little Butte Creek, from
which he has taken out a private ditch for irrigating his fields and orchards,
as well as furnishing water for his stock. He has set out seventy acres to
almonds, and thirty acres to peaches of valuable varieties. The ranch is
productive, and with the many improvements it is rapidly becoming one of the
show places of the district. The extensiveness of Mr. Compton’s grain crop of
1917 can be best understood when it is realized that he harvested two thousand
sacks of wheat and four thousand sacks of barley. He uses caterpillar engines
and the most modern labor-saving machinery in operating the place. Glenwood
Ranch is also well known for its Elk Park, about thirty acres being set apart
and enclosed with an eight-foot Page wire fence, in which roam a dozen fine
specimen of elk, much enjoyed and admired by people from all over the state. In
1904, at the St. Louis Exposition, and in the Butte County exhibit, Mr. Compton
took first prize and a diploma for an exhibit of lemons picked from trees in
their yard.
Mrs. Compton, before her marriage, was Miss Bee Patrick, a
native of Butte County, and the daughter of William Garrison and Melissa
Virginia (Wright) Patrick, natives of Howard and Randolph Counties, Mo.,
respectively, who crossed the plains to California in 1857, locating in Butte
County, and a little later on what is now known as the Patrick Ranch, which had
been located as a claim by Mrs. Patrick’s brother, Thomas S. Wright, in May
1852. Mr. Wright was a forty-niner in California. A more detailed sketch of the
Patrick family will be found elsewhere in this work. When Mrs. Compton was a small
child of about two and one-half years, her parents, with five children,
returned East, crossing the plains with horse teams
and wagons, in the summer of 1867, the trip taking six months. In 1868 the
mother and four children returned to California via Panama, coming from New
York to San Francisco on the same steamer with General Bidwell
and his bride, in 1868, while the father and oldest brother again crossed the
plains. Mrs. Compton finished her education at Miss Field’s Seminary, at
Oakland. Her marriage to Mr. Compton took place at the old Patrick home,
November 27, 1895.
Fraternally, Mr. Compton is a member of Chico Lodge, No.
423, B. P. O. Elks, and of the Colusa Lodge of Odd Fellows. Personally he is a
man of high ideals and unquestionable integrity, and his life has had an
uplifting influence upon the community, where almost his entire life has been
passed.
Transcribed 1-15-08
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 581-582, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies