Butte County
Biographies
EDWIN D. MARSELUS
Among the successful ranchers of Butte County, Edwin D. Marselus takes rank as a representative agriculturist and citizen of the state. He is a descendant of good old Holland Dutch stock, his grandfather, Nanning Marcellus, having been of Amsterdam, Holland, from which country he came to America, settling in New York. His son, David, was born in that state, and there engaged in farming in later life. He changed the spelling of the family name to its present form. His marriage united him with Sarah Knights, who was born in New York, of English parentage. Their son, Edwin D., of this review was born in Amsterdam, Montgomery County, N. Y., April 9, 1854, and when twelve years old removed with his parents to Illinois, in 1866, the family settling in Sandwich, Dekalb County, where the parents purchased a farm; and there they died.
Edwin D. Marselus was the second oldest in a family of six children born to his parents. He received his education in the public schools, finishing with a course at the Sandwich high school. After completing his schooling, he engaged in farming for a period of eight years. His marriage, which occurred in Illinois, united him with Miss Eleanor Besecker, who was born near Scranton, Pa. In 1887, they removed to York County, Nebr., where Mr. Marselus purchased a farm of two hundred acres, adjoining York, and engaged in raising corn and stock. They made this their home for twenty years, during which time both Mr. and Mrs. Marselus were members of the board of education in York, and factors in the upbuilding of their community.
In 1907, Mr. Marselus sold his Nebraska holdings and came to California, and after traveling for three months through the state, selected Chico as the place of his future residence. Here he purchased a ranch of three hundred sixty-five acres, a part of the Bidwell Ranch, on the Sacramento River, and engaged in agriculture. He has seventy-five acres of the property in alfalfa, which he raises without irrigation most successfully, averaging five crops a year. He also raises wheat, and uses in his ranch operations a sixty-horse-power Rumley Oil-pull engine, which pulls twenty-one disks and cuts eighteen feet. Aside from his own operations, he uses his outfit in plowing for other ranchers. He has reached success in life through years of industry and unceasing application, and has even been ready to help others along a like road to future prosperity. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, having joined that denomination when fifteen years of age, and was made an elder in Illinois, probably the youngest in the state. During his many years of residence in Nebraska he was an elder in the church also, and prominent in church work there. He has been a member of the Modern Woodmen of America for thirty-three years, one of the oldest members of that organization, his certificate number being two hundred sixty-seven. In political matters, Mr. Marselus supports the Republican platform. To Mr. and Mrs. Marselus have been born two children: Harry E., a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, and who is a surgeon on the staff of Illinois State Hospital, Jacksonville, Ill.; and Raymond, proprietor of the Park Service Station. Since their residence in Butte County, both Mr. and Mrs. Marselus have been interested in all movements for the advancement of their district, and have gained the esteem and friendship of their fellow citizens in the community.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1181-1182, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies