Butte County
Biographies
FERDINAND CORNEHL
FERDINAND CORNEHL.__A man of original ideas, a good thinker, progressive and thorough, and with the splendid qualities of broad humanitarianism, is exemplified in Ferdinand Cornehl, one of the most successful olive-growers at Wyandotte, Cal. Mr. Cornelhl was born in Hamburg, Germany, July 9, 1874. The father was a mining and sheep man in Australia; the mother, Anna Schmidt, before her marriage, owned a farm near Hamburg and it was on this farm that she and her husband settled and here that the father died while yet a young man, less than forty years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Cornehl had a family of seven boys; Heinrich, former mayor of Barsbuttel, Holstein, Germany, now deceased; Herman, who lives at Bridgeport, Wash.; Gustave, residing in Hamburg, Germany; Henry, a plumber at San Francisco; William, a rancher and stockman, near Bridgeport, Wash.; Ernest, also a resident of Hamburg; and Ferdinand, the subject of this sketch.
Ferdinand Cornehl was educated in the schools of Hamburg and at the age of twelve he obtained his widowed mother’s consent to come to America, with California as his objective point. He made the journey alone, arriving in San Francisco, and with the fine courage that has prompted his successful career, he secured his first position as errand boy for the firm of Charles Brown and Son, stovemen and plumbers, where he worked a few years and acquired a knowledge of English and business. At the age of fifteen he learned the confectionery trade and worked for Guillet and Swayne on Sutter Street until he was twenty. He then started in the grocery business in partnership with H. C. Meyer, under the firm name of Meyer and Cornehl, on Turk and Taylor Streets, continuing in this business successfully for several years. Mr. Cornehl next engaged with the American Commercial Company, establishing agencies for several jobbing houses carrying merchandise of every description, in China and Japan. He traveled through these countries for a year and a half and came back to San Francisco.
He served in the Commissary Department of the U. S. Army, and saw service in the Philippines in 1898, returning home via Nagasaki, Japan. Returning to San Francisco, on Mar 17, 1900, Mr. Cornehl then went into the horse business, breeding and training saddle-horses and trotting stock. At one time he trained five-gaited saddle horses, all of which took the first prize at the State Fair at Sacramento. He owned and trained Max O’Rell, the celebrated five-gaited saddle-horse sold to Prince Fuchimi of Japan; Artistic, now owned by the Empress of Japan, and Limestone Queen, now on the stage doing tricks as a high school horse.
Mr. Cornehl was married in 1902 to Mrs. Florence (Smith) Sylvester, widow of Samuel Sylvester of the state of Maine. She was a friend of Dr. I. L. R. Mansfield of Wyandotte, through whose influence Mr. Cornehl was induced to buy the land on which he now lives. It was in two pieces; two hundred three acres purchased from an estate, and one hundred twenty acres bought from the Oroville Olive Company. Mr. Cornehl has made extensive improvements, building a magnificent country residence of brick, two stories and basement, sixty by eighty feet, with a ten-foot porch, making the bricks used in this construction work on his place. The bricks for the new Wyandotte school-house were made by Mr. Cornehl, who supplied them to the district at cost. On his ranch of three hundred twenty acres, Mr. Cornehl has planted seventy acres in olives, ranging from two- to twenty year old trees, clearing and planting more each year; he also has twenty acres in oranges, and ten acres in almonds.
Before moving onto his ranch, however, the earthquake occurred in San Francisco, and Mr. Cornehl suffered a total loss by fire of his rigs, harnesses and household goods in that city. He moved to his Wyandotte ranch in 1908. In 1903, Mr. Cornehl had made a trip to Hamburg to visit his brother Heinrich, then mayor of Basbuttel, Holstein, Germany, and for the purpose of studying the farmer’s banking system in Germany. He returned in 1904.
Mr. Cornehl and his wife are most estimable people, and are held in high esteem in their community. Mr. Cornehl radiates good fellowship and is alert to develop any progressive ideas. He takes a personal interest in his laborers, building excellent bunk houses for them, and they are well contented. His watchword is thoroughness, and he is a helpful and useful member of the vicinity in which he lives.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1320-1321, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies