Butte County
Biographies
WILLIAM EARLL
WILLIAM EARLL.--A successful business man who, in his time, was esteemed and loved by those who knew him, and a man who left behind, as a precious heritage to his gifted and estimable wife, the memory of an exalted character, was William Earll, a native of New York, in which state he was born at Canandaigua. He came with his father to Michigan, and grew up on a farm; and for ten or twelve years he was a school teacher. While in Michigan, during 1863, Mr. Earll was married to Mrs. Nancy (Strickland) Wilkinson, who was born in Newstead, Erie County, N. Y., the daughter of Edward Strickland, who was born and died in New York. Her mother, formerly Jane Benson, was also born in New York, and died there. Mrs. Earll was brought up in New York, and attended the public schools of that state, and having married Walter Wilkinson, a merchant, removed with him to Kinneyville, Mich., where they remained until his death. In 1864, Mr. and Mrs. Earll set out across the plains with horse teams, and arriving at Austin, Nev., remained there over winter. For some fifteen months, Mr. Earll followed mining, when he came to California. At Napa he built a residence, which he traded for a stock ranch; and this property he afterwards sold to what is now the Napa State Hospital. The couple then came to the Sacramento Valley, and located at Dunnigan, where Mr. Earll conducted a mercantile business. In 1880 he came to Chico.
On coming to Chico, Mr. Earll bought out Mr. Riley’s interest in the Hubbard-Riley Hardware Store, at the corner of Broadway and First Street, and the firm name became Hubbard and Earll. Later, he moved to the present location at Broadway and Third Street, where the large business of the incorporated Hubbard-Earll Company, of which he was manager until his death, was built up. On January 21, 1905, he died, at the age of seventy-two years.
A Republican in national politics, Mr. Earll was independent in thinking and action when local issues were at stake. A warm and influential advocate of popular education, he was for a while school trustee, and in this capacity well served his fellow citizens; and he was chairman of the committee that secured the State Normal School for Chico. In Michigan, Mr. Earll was an old-time Mason; and later he became a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. In 1884, after coming to Chico, he built the Earll residence at the corner of Third and Hazel Streets; and in time he had valuable prune and almond orchards, and was one of the successful horticulturists of Butte County.
Since her husband’s death, Mrs. Earll has continued her interest in the well-known store. She is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and is as interested as ever in its activities. By her first marriage she had four children: L. V. Wilkinson is a railroad man in Arizona; Emily E. has become Mrs. Haynes of Berkeley; B. D. Wilkinson is agent for the Northern Electric Railroad at Colusa; and W. S. Wilkinson is a cotton grower in the Imperial Valley. Through her second marriage, Mrs. Earll had three children: Florence E., wife Richard White, an attorney-at-law in Chico; Frank, an engineer in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railway, who resides in Orange; and Lillie, assisting her mother in the management of her interests.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1075-1076, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies