Butte County
Biographies
JAMES CHADWICK GRAY
JAMES CHADWICK GRAY.--Decidedly one of
the important builders of the city and county, and a pioneer survived for
several years by a pioneer wife of equally noble and influential character and
type, James Chadwick Gray was born in the capital city of Augusta, Maine, on
November 15, 1833, the son of Enoch Gray, a native of the same state, who was a
substantial farmer there and who married a Miss Chadwick. Two others of his
sons came to California: Hiram
was a pioneer of the sixties, who afterwards
returned east and died there, and
Charles, who resided in San Leandro until his death in
June, 1917, came to California in
the early fifties.
James
C. Gray was educated in the public schools of Maine,
after which he clerked in a mercantile store until, in 1855, he came to California.
He crossed the Isthmus of Panama, landed in San Francisco,
and located on Carpenter's Flat, one mile south of
Oroville, where, for a while he engaged in mining. He had the cleverness to
see, however, that there was as much money or more to be made in supplying the
wants of the miners as in searching for gold itself, and so he started a
general mercantile business in which he handled miners' outfits. Still later,
he was engaged in stock-raising, his ranch being four miles below Oroville, on
the Feather River, half way to Palermo,
and in that activity he continued there until 1870. In this ranching enterprise
his brother, Charles H. Gray, was his partner until 1865, when he bought out
his brother and managed the business for himself.
In
1870, Mr. Gray began his mercantile career in Oroville, buying a half interest
from C. T. Topping, in the hardware store on Montgomery
Street, where Braden's furniture store is now
located; and in 1875 he bought the balance of the Topping interest and later
moved the establishment opposite Kusel's store. He
had the misfortune there to be burned out, but he soon rebuilt, buying the
building where the original Topping place was started; and when the Brock and
Taber Hardware Store failed, he bid it in for $36,000 and consolidated the two
stores.
In
buying the Brock and Taber stock, Mr. Gray acquired a lot on Huntoon Street, and there built a one-story brick
structure, 50x100 feet in size, in 1898 or 1899, this forming the first part of
the Ophir Building; and he moved his store into that.
In 1901, with his two sons, Fred H. and Frank C., he incorporated the Ophir Hardware Company, in which he was president,
retaining the majority of stock while his sons each had a quarter interest. Fred H. became manager at that time, and the
father retired from an active part in the hardware store to look after his
other and varied interests. The second story of the Ophir
Hardware Company building was completed about 1910.
Mr.
Gray and sons owned a tract of land in Oroville, and this was set out to
peaches and oranges, water for irrigation being obtained from the town system.
The trees came nicely into bearing, when the land was leased to the dredging
company, which
mined it. Afterwards Mr. Gray and
his sons levelled the acreage, placed soil on the
top, and laid out Gray's Subdivision to Oroville which, since 1910, has been
steadily building up. The Grays built several houses there themselves, and gave
the right of way to the Western Pacific Railroad, and on the Gray's Addition
and Gray's two Subdivisions are now four large olive mills, working up the
products of the neighboring orchards. In addition to these valuable lands, Mr.
Gray was interested in other tracts in different parts of the county.
The
first marriage of James Chadwick Gray took place in San Francisco
on December 17, 1856, when he was joined to Maria Melvina
Saban, a native, like himself, of the state of Maine,
where she was born on June 30, 1839. She came out to California
via Panama, and
died here November 11, 1871, the mother of five children: Ida Belle, who died
in infancy; Ida Dora, passed away when only six years old; James Harold, who
also died when a child; Fred H., secretary of the Ophir
Hardware Company; Frank C., president of the same concern. The two latter are
men of affairs in Oroville. On the second occasioin,
Mr. Gray was married at Buckeye, on the Plumas County
line, October 20, 1872; the bride then was Mrs. Dorcas
W. (Robertson) Moore, also a native of Maine, who had
been born on the Kennebec River,
at the little town of Moscow,
December 7, 1822. She was the daughter of William Webster Robertson, a native
of Edinburgh, Scotland,
and a graduate of the famous Scotch University,
who came to Maine when a young
man, and was a teacher. He engaged in farming until his wife died, when he came
to California and spent his last
days with his daughter, passing away in his seventy-fourth year. He served in
the English army during the Napoleonic wars, and was altogether a very
interesting man. Her mother had been Deborah Pierce, a native of Maine,
of the old Massachusetts Pierce family, and she died in Maine.
Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, and Mrs. Gray was the third
oldest of those who grew up. She was brought up in Maine, and educated at the
excellent public schools of that Yankee state, and was married in Solon, Maine,
to George C. Moore. He was a harnessmaker, and made
his first trip to California by way of Panama
in 1850, following mining, when once settled here, at Holland's
Flat near La Porte. After two years
he returned east for his family and, in 1852, brought his wife to Marysville.
He sailed from New York on February 20, by way of Nicaragua,
and landed in San Francisco in
March, 1852, proceeding at once to Marysville where, with his brother, John, he
started a harness shop. In 1855, the brothers returned to Maine
by way of the Nicaragua route, but as
he did not like it there Mr. Moore in 1856, came back to California, and the
following year Mrs. Moore joined him again, traveling by way of Panama. Her
husband had then located in Oroville, and had opened here a harness business,
but afterwards they sold out and bought the Buckeye House, on the border of
Plumas County, on the Quincy stage road; and there Mr. Moore died of pneumonia,
in 1871, and was buried according to the rites of the Masons, of which order he
was a faithful member. Mrs. Moore remained at Buckeye until her marriage to Mr.
Gray. By her first marriage Mrs. Moore had three children: George A. Moore, who
became a sea captain on the Atlantic, and was lost at sea, while master of his
vessel; Marcelena, who is Mrs. William Perkins at Oakland;
and Helen Pauline, is Mrs. Parker of Oroville.
James C. Gray was a man of much energy and resourcefulness, and in his time became interested in
various enterprises. He was a partner, for example, with the late D. K.
Perkins, in the operation of a cannery at the corner of Bird and Myers
Streets--the first manufactory of its kind here--and there the best of fruits
was canned by the most superior methods. This undertaking was started too
early, and an insufficent quantity of fruit was
raised to make it pay, and so this venture of the early eighties proved less
successful than it was hoped for. The effort, however, but illustrates the
tendency and desire of the deceased to lend a helping hand in business and
other affairs that might prove for the public good and the upbuilding
of the district. Very naturally, therefore, he was a member of the Chamber of
Commerce; he was a director in the Rideout-Smith Bank
until his death, and he was also one of the organizers of the old Bank of
Oroville. He was a Republican, a Mason and an Odd Fellow. He died August 2,
1908.
Mrs.
Gray was a member of the Eastern Star and the Rebekahs.
She made two trips back to Maine since her return to California.
The first trip was in 1881, and the second in 1904, with Mr. Gray. They
traveled by way of the northern route to New York and Maine,
and returning visited Washington and St. Louis,
and Memphis and New Orleans,
intending to go to Mexico; but to
avoid the cholera they returned to St. Louis and reached
the Coast, traveling to Los Angeles and San
Francisco by the Santa Fe.
Mrs. Gray died March 1, 1918.
Transcribed by Sande Beach.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 546-548, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2007 Sande Beach.
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