Butte County
Biographies
ALBERT
FRANKLIN HANSEN
ALBERT FRANKLIN HANSEN.—A thoroughly wide-awake firm of orchardists that is making good, and whose ranch is one of the choicest acreages in Butte County, is that of Hansen and Sweeney, almond and prune growers. The members of this firm are Albert Franklin Hansen and Orville Clarence Sweeney. Messrs. Hansen and Sweeney are brothers-in-law. Mr. Hansen was born at Dayton, seven miles from Chico, the son of Peter Hansen, a sailor and native of Denmark, who went to sea when he was seventeen years of age and first entered the Golden Gate in 1853. He mined on Butte Creek and in Trinity County and finally settled at Dayton, where he died, on May 8, 1908–the very day the United States fleet put into San Francisco harbor on its trip around the world. Peter’s wife, who had been Elizabeth Boydston, was a native of Arkansas and crossed the prairies as a girl in 1856. She was married on Butte Creek, and died in 1910.
These worthy parents had nine children: J. W. Hansen is farming a part of the home place near Chico; Mary is the wife of B. C. Van Zandt, proprietor of a summer resort near Philo; Sarah is the wife of Millard Dockery, a detective in the service of a steamship plying between San Francisco and Portland; Emma is the wife of Marvin Gary and resides in Chico; Charles, who died at the age of forty-five, leaving one child, Wayne, had married Anna Schilling, and the widow now lives on the home place at Dayton; Albert Franklin is the subject of our sketch; Henry, who resides near Davis, Solano County, is a dairy and grain farmer; while a brother and sister died in infancy. Peter Hansen was seventy-six when he died, and Mrs. Hansen was seventy-four.
Albert attended the district school at Dayton and finished with the business college at Chico, meanwhile growing up with the young lady who was to become his wife. She was Emaline Laona Sweeney, the daughter of Henry W. Sweeney, a native of Coles County, Ill., who had married Rebecca Troxel from the same district. Mr. and Mrs. Hansen have no children, but their home breathes hospitality. He is a prominent Gridley Mason, while Mrs. Hansen is a matron of the Eastern Star, also of Gridley.
It was in 1911 that Messrs. Hansen and Sweeney bought the eighty acres of the famous original Hatch and Rock Fruit Ranch, which consisted of three thousand acres and was the first big orchard in East Biggs and the project which demonstrated the adaptability of the soil and climate of East Biggs for almond, prune and fruit culture. This eighty acres is the original home place of the historic firm, and has proven very productive. The enterprising orchardists have planted thirty-five acres to prunes, one half of them being two years old, and the other half one year old. When they bought the place, there was an old orchard of twenty acres planted to almonds by Hatch and Rock, pioneer orchardists, in which firm A. T. Hatch was the nurseryman, and one of the best in California, while Mr. Rock was a financier. They planted their entire three thousand acres to almonds and fruit of various kinds and soon attracted wide attention by their success.
Transcribed by
Marie Hassard 06 December 2009.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Pages 1307-1308, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies