Butte County
Biographies
OSCAR F. MARTIN
OSCAR F. MARTIN.—The
title of pioneer is justly merited by Oscar F. Martin, for he came to California
with his parents in 1860, and from that date his life history has been
connected with that of the Golden State. The
lives of the early settlers were fraught with many hardships and adventures,
but those who have survived to the present day find comforts that are ample
compensation for former deprivations.
Oscar
F. Martin was born at Chester, Vt.,
April 24, 1848, the son of Jonathan F. Martin, also a Vermonter, who came to California
via Panama, in
1852, and became a successful miner. With five others he mined for coal
under Table Mountain,
where in time he lost all that he had made when mining for gold. He then
went to work for Smith and Sparks in the Banner Mine, taking the position of
superintendent. Sufficiently satisfied with California,
he looked forward to making it his future home and, returning to his native state in 1860, he brought his family West with
him. For three years he continued working at the Banner Mine, when he
removed to the vicinity of Dayton, Butte
County, where he bought land and by
steady, hard work, improved it and made of it a good farm. He preempted
and bought land adjoining and soon owned two hundred acres there. Later he
removed to Big Meadows, Plumas County, bought land and engaged in raising
stock, and there, on his ranch near Chester, he died some eighteen years ago,
aged seventy-five years. His wife, who had been Sophronia
Coolidge before her marriage, was born in Vermont and
died at Chester, Cal.,
aged eighty-six years, the mother of three boys, who were brought to the coast
by their parents, and two children who were born here. The three children
now living are: Orland J. and Arthur F., who are ranchers in Butte
County; and Oscar F., of this
review.
Beginning
his education in the public schools of Vermont, Oscar F.
Martin accompanied his parents to California in 1860,
and continued his studies at Thompson Flat and at Dayton. After
his public school days were over he worked at ranching near Dayton,
and when he was twenty-one he moved to a point near Butte
City, where he bought a claim and
farmed it two years. Selling his farm he attended Hesperian College at Woodland,
afterwards taking a course of study for one year at the University
of California.
Mr.
Martin was married at Big Meadows to Miss Alice Bailey, who was born in Butte
County and was a member of an old
pioneer family that came to this state in 1860. This afforded him a degree
of comfort hitherto unknown, and for three years he threw himself energetically
into the stock business, ceasing only when his good wife died near Red
Bluff. For a time he owned and managed three big teams and carried on a
freighting business, and during the winters he engaged in ranching near Dayton. He
later bought a ranch near Nord, which he still owns, comprising three hundred
twenty acres and situated seven miles northwest from Chico,
upon which grain is raised. He owned a farm at Big Meadows, on three sides
of the town of Chester, which he
deeded to his daughter. Mr. Martin owned the original townsite
of Chester, which he named,
subdivided the first tract there and started the town. Later he laid out
an addition, built a comfortable residence and other structures and so
encouraged the town’s growth that Chester
has become a well-known summer resort.
About
forty years ago Mr. Martin moved to Chico,
and here he has resided ever since, in the residence he erected at 1312
Park Avenue. This was one of the first houses
in that vicinity. A daughter, Edith, a graduate of the Chico State Normal
and of the University of California,
gracefully presides over her father’s home; while another daughter, Olive, a
graduate of the Chico State Normal, is now the wife of Dr. J. R. Young, of Chico,
and both are social favorites in Chico. To
each of his daughters he has given valuable property.
Mr.
Martin today occupies a position of prominence in Butte
County, won by years of industry
and the exercise of that balanced judgment which bespeaks the successful
business man, whether as a tiller of the soil or as a participant in the busy
marts of commerce. He is a citizen of whom any community might well feel
proud and the people of Butte County
accord him a place in the foremost ranks of its representative men.
Transcribed 12-1-07
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 545-546, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2007 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
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