Butte County
Biographies
EPHRAIM BIRD JOHNS
E. B. JOHNS.—A man of executive ability and keen judgment is E. B. Johns, proprietor of the Hooker Oak Nursery, of Butte County, who comes from a family of pioneers. His father, J. W. Johns, was born near Des Moines, Iowa, a son of J. C. Johns, who was born in Tennessee. J. C. brought his family across the plains with ox teams in 1852 and settled in Eldorado County, Cal. He farmed there until his removal to Bear Valley, in the Leesville district of Colusa County, where he was one of the first settlers and became a large sheep-raiser. When he sold out he removed to Dixon, Solano County, and retired from active participation in all labor, to enjoy a well-earned rest. He died in that city.
J. W. Johns grew up in California, and for years he was engaged in teaming and freighting from Marysville to the mines about Nevada City. He later located in the Leesville district of Colusa County and engaged in raising horses and cattle on a ranch he had purchased. He sold out and went to Oregon and located in the vicinity of The Dalles, where he was one of the first settlers to plow and raise crops on the uplands; he continued there for ten years and was meeting with good success, when he sold out to good advantage and returned to California and engaged in ranching in Butte County. He sold out and settled in Willows, where he died at the age of fifty-eight years. He married Emily Holmes, a native of New York. She crossed the plains in 1852. Her grandfather was engaged in the hotel business in Sacramento, and then at Brighton, after which he went to Virginia City, Nev., and was engaged in the general merchandise business. Mrs. Johns is now residing in Fresno.
In the family of eight children, six of whom are living, E. B. Johns was born at Nigger Hill, Eldorado County, July 2, 1865. He lived at Leesville, Colusa County, until he was nine years old, then was taken to Oregon by his parents and attended the public schools at The Dalles. After reaching young manhood he made several trips back to California with horses, which he sold. He rode the range in Oregon and made a trip to Cheyenne, Wyo., with about seventeen hundred head of horses, but lost about half of them in the Blue Mountains on the way across. In 1886 he located in Butte County, Cal., and spent some time working on ranches, then followed that occupation successively near Corning, Tehama County, and near Willows, Glenn County; then he went to Nimshew, Butte County, and for twelve years was engaged in drilling water-wells with hand drills, and in digging wells. He dug the wells on the Government Plant Gardens and for the City of Chico.
In 1911, Mr. Johns quit the well-drilling business to engage in the nursery business. His sons had worked in that line of horticulture and were thoroughly conservant with the business. It was upon this as an asset that the business was established by Mr. Johns, and it has been brought up to a fine paying proposition. The first lot of prune trees, some six thousand, were sold to the Diamond Match Company. Mr. Johns sold a ten-acre tract he owned and leased some land near Hooker Oak and named his nursery after the location. Two years later he leased another place which he set to nursery stock. He always changes location every so often, for by so doing he finds that he secures the most hardy and healthy stock. He now has fourteen acres on Big Chico Creek with some 200,000 prune and almond trees for setting. His son is an expert at budding and grafting.
Mr. Johns was married in Susanville, to Miss Minnie Burns, and they have had six children born to them, five of whom are living: Una, at home; Roy, who is in the One Hundred Fifty-nine Cavalry Regiment; O. L., assisting his father; and Alice and Frank. The wife and mother died at Chico, in 1906. Mr. Johns was married a second time, to Mrs. Ruby (Akers) Shelton, a native of Red Bluff. The family home is located on a tract of one and one half acres on Stewart Avenue. Mr. Johns is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America and the Loyal Order of Moose. He devotes his entire time to the development of his business and is winning a well-merited success.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1175-1176, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies