Butte County
Biographies
THOMAS MARSHALL GUMM
THOMAS MARSHALL GUMM.—Possessed of characteristic Southern hospitality, liberal,
kind and thoroughly likable, Thomas Marshall Gumm has
hosts of friends among his neighbors and associates. Of Southern ancestry, he
was born in Irvine, Estill County, Ky., November 4,
1847. His father, John P., was a native of the same place, a rare thing in
these days of change and unrest. The grandfather, Abram Gumm,
was born in Old Virginia and settled in Kentucky in ante bellum days. The
father was a farmer and died before the war. The mother, Ann (Combs) Gumm, was also a native of the Blue Grass State and died at
Berea, Madison County, Ky., in 1910, aged eighty-three. Of her four children,
two are living. Thomas Marshall Gumm, the oldest, was
brought up on a farm where he became familiar with the various branches of
agriculture, receiving the benefits of a public school education. After the
death of his father the property was lost and young Thomas, the eldest of the
family, assisted in helping support his mother, continuing to do this after he
came to California. He was married January 11, 1866, in Madison County, Ky., to
Miss Mattie F. Kindred, a native of that county, as was also her father, Jarvis
Kindred, a miller by trade, who died in his native state. Her grandfather
Kindred and her mother, Nancy (Robinson) Kindred and all of her people were
natives of Old Virginia.
After his marriage Mr. Gumm
continued to farm in his native state until 1876 when he came to Butte County,
Cal., with his family, and was employed on the Waste place for a year;
afterwards leasing land near Four Corners, he continued the occupation of
farming, enlarging and leasing more land until he operated six hundred acres.
Then he began horticulture, leasing orchards and
engaging in raising peaches, almonds, prunes and apricots. Finding a
satisfactory place, in 1891 he purchased from the Waste ranch, where he first
worked after coming to California, his present home of eighty acres, at one
hundred two dollars per acre, planting thirty acres of it to peaches and
almonds, and the remainder to grain. He has built a residence and otherwise
improved the place with barns, fences, wells, etc., and has an inexhaustible
supply of fine water at twenty-four feet in depth. He is now retired, spending
the closing years of an active and eventful life in “Sunny California.” He and
his wife have made several trips back to the “Old Kentucky Home,” the last one
in 1891. Both are members of the Christian Church, in which he is deacon and
Mrs. Gumm a member of the Ladies’ Society. In
national politics Mr. Gumm is a Democrat, but in
local politics he is independent, voting for the man rather than for the party.
He feels so well satisfied with opportunities in Butte County,
that he says if he was “broke” and wanted to make a stake he would want
to start in Butte County.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
23 October 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1055-1056, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte
County Biographies