Butte County
Biographies
JOHN HUDSON GUILL, Jr.
JOHN HUDSON GUILL, JR.—As a son of an
Argonaut of the days of ‘49, and a representative of one of the prominent
pioneer families of Butte County, John Hudson Guill,
Jr., is fulfilling his duties as a citizen and agriculturist in a manner
which leaves nothing to be desired, and which preserves untarnished the name
and life ideals of one of our well-known pioneers. He was born on the Guill homestead about two miles east of Chico, December 28,
1879, and began his education in the public schools, after which he was a
student at Woodman’s Academy, then was graduated from the Chico State Normal in
1899, and then entered the College of Agriculture of the University of
California and graduated therefrom in 1903, with the
Bachelor of Science degree. His education completed, Mr. Guill came back to Butte County and engaged in the dairy
business at the old home place, which he carried on with success for some
years, when he discontinued it to devote his entire
time to general farming pursuits on the home ranch, which he has operated since
1903, and at which occupation he has met with good success.
The marriage of Mr. Guill
united him with Miss Ethel Gardner, born in Siskiyou
County, a daughter of Samuel R. Gardner of Etna Mills. She
is a graduate from the Etna Mills Union High
School and from the Chico
State Normal at Chico, and taught school several years before her
marriage. They have four children: Mary Jane; Samuel Gardner; Ethel May;
and John Guill, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Guill are keeping up the record and high standing of the Guill family as mainstays and supports of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, of Chico.
Mr. Guill holds
important state and federal offices: He is a trustee of the State Normal at Chico, and
a director in the Federal land Bank of Berkeley; he served as
assemblyman fro Butte County, during the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Sessions, being
the first Democrat elected from this county for eighteen years. He was a
member and chairman of the Board of Freeholders that drew up the present
charter for Butte County. For two years, 1916 and 1917, he was president of
the Chico Business Men’s Association; and is now serving as a director and
president of the butte County Farm Bureau. During 1913 and 1914 he was a member
of the Legislative Counsel Bureau Board. In all projects for the
advancement of this section of the state, both economically and socially, he
has taken a prominent part and has in every way done his share toward carrying
forward the good work started by his father, who now resides with him on the
old Guill homestead east of Chico.
John Hudson Guill,
Sr., is descended from Scotch ancestry, his paternal grandfather having
migrated from Scotland to Virginia in Colonial days. His father, Elijah N. Guill, was born in Old Virginia, and as a young man was a
tobacco-planter in that state. In 1837 Elijah N. Moved
with his family to Missouri and located in Livingston County as a farmer and stock-raiser. He married Elizabeth Baldwin, who spent her life in
Virginia. Her father, Pleasant Baldwin, a native Virginian,
served in the War of 1812. Elijah and Elizabeth (Baldwin) Guill were parents of six children, the only son and eldest
child being John Hudson Guill, father of John Hudson,
Jr. John Hudson Guill, Sr., was born in Virginia, September 27, 1831. When but six years of age his
father removed to Missouri, and there the boy received his first knowledge of books
in the district school. A diligent student, with a natural aptitude for
learning, he made rapid progress and although he was taken from school when
fourteen years of age, he kept and conned his text-books until his marriage.
In 1849, in company with eight young men,
John Hudson Guill, Sr., came across the plains to California,
leaving Missouri with two wagons, and arriving here on September 27, of
that year. Cholera was then raging in the new Mecca, and he suffered an attack of the dread disease but,
having a splendid physique and the care of a skilled physician, he recovered
with no ill effects. With his companions, he engaged in mining, first in
Morris Ravine, just above the present site of Oroville, and subsequently
through the northern part of the state, drifting from place to place in search
of richer fields, and spending all his earnings. At the end of three years
Mr. Guill left the mines, having in his possession a
horse and saddle and three hundred dollars in gold. Locating on what was
the nucleus of and which became known as the old Guill
homestead, on October 5, 1852, he purchased a claim of one hundred sixty acres,
and at once began improving his holdings, which he subsequently had to buy over
again from General Bidwell, before he could secure title. From the time of
his first settlement here as a rancher, Dame Fortune, prompted, no doubt, by
his earnest efforts to conciliate the lady by habits of thrift and industry,
seemed to smile on him. To his original purchase he later added one hundred
seventy acres of rich and productive land, devoting his operations to
grain-raising, with the exception of his home ranch of two hundred seventy-six
acres, where he raised alfalfa principally. In 1860 he introduced into
this section of the county the first thoroughbred Durham
stock, and subsequently, at the State Fair, received a diploma for sweepstakes
on the best Durham cattle. He also raised fine Berkshire
hogs and Brown Leghorn poultry, on both of which he took first premiums at
county and state fairs. In 1880 he started the Locust Grove dairy,
stocking it with sixty cows and running milk-wagons to Chico to deliver milk to his customers, an industry which
proved profitable and satisfactory. About 1898 he built the first silo
ever constructed in Butte County, and the second one to be built in the Sacramento Valley.
On March 18, 1860, John Hudson Guill, Sr., was united in marriage with Mary Jane Bryan, a
native of Missouri and a daughter of John Bryan, born in Tennessee. Of their nine children the following reached
mature years: Lee Bryan; Elizabeth Leona, Mrs. S. E. Potter; Mrs. Jessie Ames, deceased; Ross E.; Jay Baldwin; Walter B., who died in
1907; and John Hudson, Jr. Mrs. Guill passed
away in 1914, aged about sixty-seven years. In the evening of his days
John Guill, Sr., can look back upon a useful career,
and to the future without fear, for he has done his duty as he saw it and is
rounding out a noble and well-spent life at his old home near Chico.
Transcribed 2-4-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 690-692, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2008 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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