Butte County
Biographies
MRS. NETTIE M. KNOTWELL
As one of the proprietor of the Oakdale Drug Company, Mrs. Nettie M. Knotwell is demonstrating her ability as a woman of business acumen and as a pharmacist, in Chico. Her father was the late Hon. Adrian A. Smith, a native of Pennsylvania, born at Pittsburgh. He was a college man and a teacher and had studied medicine in his home city. He married Maria Hughes, born in Cheltenham, England. They removed to Ohio, where Mr. Smith continued the study of medicine, and, in 1856, with his bride, he came to California via Panama, arriving in San Francisco on the steamship United States. Cholera broke out on board the ship and they were in quarantine for six weeks before they were allowed to disembark. Mr. Smith went to Nevada County, where he had an uncle, Nathaniel Smith, who ran a big sawmill at Rough and Ready, and was postmaster of that place. He worked for his uncle for two years and then went to teaching school, continuing for five years in Nevada County. He then engaged in the drug business at Bloomfield, served as a notary public and justice of the peace, and was a member of the state assembly during the sessions of 1863-1864.
While Mr. Smith was engaged in the drug business at Bloomfield he was joined by John Knotwell, who afterwards became his son-in-law, and they branched out by establishing drug stores at Forbestown and Rocklin. Mr. Smith moved to Rocklin for a short time but sold out and returned to Bloomfield. He made a trip to the St. Louis Exposition and back to Pennsylvania, in 1905. Four weeks after his return to California, he died on November 2, of that year. He was a member of the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. There are three of the Smith family now living: Arthur E. H., of Monterey County; Nettie M., of this review; and Lillie, Mrs. Wood, of Twin Lakes, Cal. Nellie M. Smith was born at Kentucky Flat, Nevada County, March 20, 1859. She was reared at North Bloomfield, where she attended the public school. When she was eight years old her mother died, and at the age of thirteen she took charge of her father’s household, keeping house for him and going to school; after she was fifteen she assisted her father in the store. On July 20, 1881, she married John Knotwell, her father’s partner. He was born at Cornwall, England, and at the age of fourteen came to the United States and stopped for a time in Pennsylvania, coming in 1855 to California via Panama. For a time he was engaged in mining in Nevada County. He came to Bloomfield and bought an interest in the drug business with Mr. Smith, from whom he learned the business. When they opened branch stores he went to Forbestown and ran the store there until it was burned out in 1899. He then opened another store and was doing a fine business. He went to Bloomfield on a visit and died there in November, 1901. He was a member of Knights of Pythias and the Odd Fellows. He served as a supervisor of Nevada County for one term.
Mrs. Knotwell had been an assistant to her husband in the drug business and after his death she passed the state examination and became a registered pharmacist. In 1901 she was appointed postmaster at Forbestown, to succeed Mrs. Vail, and moving into Mrs. Vail’s building, she conducted the post office and opened a drug store, continuing the same until the death of her father in 1905, when she resigned her office and went back to Bloomfield and ran the store, of which her father had been owner for so many years, until August 1908, when she moved the stock to Chico and opened her store in the building she erected for that purpose, at the corner of Park and Fourth Avenues. The business is carried on under the name of the Oakdale Drug Store, and post office sub-station No. 2 is at her place of business; the ticket offices of the Northern Electric Railway are also to be found there. As a result of her marriage with Mr. Knotwell, a daughter, Lillian, now Mrs. Brooks, was born. She is in partnership with her mother and is a very successful business woman. Mrs. Knotwell is a member of the Pythian Sisters; in politics she is a supporter of Republican principles, and is interested in all movements for the upbuilding of Butte County.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1178-1179, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies