Butte County
Biographies
BENJAMIN LINCOLN McCOY
BENJAMIN LINCOLN McCOY.--Posterity
can hardly realize the value, to a developing commonwealth like young California,
of the services of such men as Benjamin Lincoln McCoy, the experienced civil
engineer and surveyor, who was formerly one of the ablest and most energetic of
county surveyors in the state. He was born at Akron, Ohio,
January 15, 1867, his father, a native of Wadsworth,
the same state, having been Samuel A. McCoy. When the Civil
War broke out the latter, in April, 1861, enlisted in Company A, in the Second
Ohio Cavalry, that being the first company of volunteers organized in Northern Ohio. He was
always on scout duty, and in the ninety-eight engagements in which he took part
six horses were shot under him, but he luckily escaped each time. He came to
have great admiration for Custer, of whom he saw considerable in war days. He
came home on a furlough after Lee's surrender, but returned for the Grand
Review of the Union Army, and was mustered out in September, 1865.
At
the time of his furlough Mr. McCoy was married at Doylestown, Ohio, and after
the war he engaged in carpentry and building, and was then a molder in Akron at
the Buckeye Reaper and Mower Works. In May, 1883, he came to California
and Chico, and filed a government
claim at Cohasset, which he proved up and set out in orchards. There,
thirty-six years after the war, he met his tragic death while plowing with a
quiet team of horses. His plow struck a stump and
caused him to be dragged in such a manner that his chest was crushed, and he
died from the injuries twelve hours later. During the Civil War he had kept a
diary, and this, together with his oral accounts of the awful conflict, was his
personal and valuable contribution in the form of historical reminiscence of
the war.
Mrs.
McCoy was Miss Cornelia S. Hamlin, a native of Mount Vernon, Knox County, Ohio,
and the niece of Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, vice president of the Unites
States, in association with Lincoln,
from 1861 to 1865. The grandfather, Isaac Hamlin, was born in Maine,
a brother of Hannibal, and settled in Ohio
in early days, where eventually he died. Mrs. McCoy met Hannibal Hamlin in Ohio
when the latter was stumping for Blaine and Logan, and had a pleasant visit
with him in the old home town. Mrs. McCoy also died in
Ohio, in 1883, the mother of two children, of whom
Luella M., now Mrs. Bennett, of Cleveland,
is the only daughter.
Brought
up in Akron, Ohio, Benjamin attended the grammar and high schools of that city,
and after graduating from the latter came to California in September, 1885,
where he began land surveying in Butte, Tehama, and Glenn Counties under
William Montgomery, from whom he learned engineering. He was then in the
service of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, in Oregon,
and assisted in their preliminary coast surveying in 1890.
On
his return to Chico, Mr. McCoy was
nominated on the Republican ticket for county surveyor, and being elected by a
good majority he took the oath of office on January 5, 1891, and served for two
years. In 1892, he was reelected for a couple of years; in 1894, he was elected
for another four years, and in 1898 was reelected for the same period, thus
occupying the office until January, 1903.
In
1898, he was appointed a special commissioner to act with A. W. Keddie, another special commissioner appointed by Plumas
County, to establish and determine the county
line between Butte and Plumas
Counties. The appointment was made
by the State Surveyor General, and the findings of the two commissioners were
approved and accepted. Three years later, Mr. McCoy was appointed a special
commissioner for Butte County
to act with J. R. Meek, of Yuba County,
to determine and establish the boundary line between Butte
and Yuba Counties,
and this work was approved and confirmed by the Surveyor General. In 1892, Mr.
McCoy was also chief engineer of the Nelson Reclamation District in Butte
and Glenn counties, and laid out and constructed
levees and canals to reclaim and protect about forty thousand acres of land
from the overflow of Butte Creek. This was his first important task, and the
levee is still intact.
During
the year 1902, Mr. McCoy was appointed manager for H. H. Yard, who was sent
here by George J. Gould to lay out and locate what is now the Western Pacific
Railroad, and which was then known as the Butte
and Plumas Railroad and the Indian Valley Railroad. He also located over three
hundred thousand acres of mineral land for the Northern California Mining Company,
of which Mr. Yard was president, and continued with that concern until 1904,
when the railroad was turned over to the Western Pacific. Between 1910 and 1912
he made engineering trips to seven different states. Mr. McCoy continued
the practice of civil engineering until April, 1906, when he was elected the
first city engineer of Oroville, an office that he held for six years, and as
city engineer he planned and constructed the Oroville city levee. This was the
first levee of its kind ever constructed with reinforced concrete blanket or
face, and since then other towns have adopted the same finish. His plan to
apply concrete on the surface was a necessity, but the result was a success in
every way, and it still stands as it was built. The fact of the matter is that
it has stood the test of several big floods.
Mr.
McCoy has surveyed in thirty-eight different counties in California,
and in many counties in Montana, Oregon
and Nevada, and has been on
railroad work of much importance at different times. He laid out the yards for Natomas, and constructed the double track system between
the Western Pacific and the Northern Electric, and 1905 was engineer in charge
of the preliminary surveys as well as the final surveys, and also engineer in
charge of the construction of the Kunkle and Coal
Canyon Electric Power Plants. In 1906, he was connected with the Great Western
Power Company at Las Plumas. He has also made many large ranch surveys, and
surveys for mining and irrigation projects, for reclamation work and for the
laying out and subdivision of land for different towns. This included the
making of an official map of Butte County
in 1901. In 1911, he also prepared the official map of Butte
County in 1901. In 1911, he also
prepared the official map of Oroville, which was approved by the city trustees,
and he laid out the addition to Gridley. Since 1903 he has been deputy county
surveyor.
In
July, 1912, Mr. McCoy resigned to take up his other work, and in 1913, in
partnership with M. C. Polk, the present county surveyor, he prepared the
present official map of Butte County.
For nearly twenty-six years, or since July 3, 1891, he has been United
States mineral surveyor and also mineral surveyor for Oregon
and Montana, and is now number
seven of the State licensed surveyors, having passed the public examination on
July 1, 1891. On November 3, 1917, he was the oldest in point of service as United
States mineral surveyor in California,
and under the new law of 1907 he was appointed to that position for life.
On
June 13, 1897, Mr. McCoy was married to Miss Mena M. Wickman, a native of Marysville, and the daughter of Joseph
J. Wickman, who was born in Hamburg,
Germany, and who came to California
in 1859 by way of the Horn. He first settled in Butte
County, and engaged in mining at Enterprise,
and as a placer and a quartz miner he did well until his retirement. He died in
Oroville, July 23, 1918. His wife was Anna Maria Cordts,
also, a native of Germany,
who died in November, 1912, the mother of seven children, of whom Mrs. McCoy is
the second eldest. She was brought up in Butte County
and attended the grammar and high schools of Chico,
graduating from the Oroville high school. She then followed teaching for ten
years until her marriage. Now she is the mother of one child, Benjamin Lincoln
McCoy, Jr., who was attending the
Christian Brothers College at Sacramento when he responded to the call for border service, and joined
Company I of the Second California Volunteer Infantry. He served five
months, until the regiment was mustered out of the Federal service, but he
still remains a member of the National Guard, and is in attendance at the Santa
Clara University.
For
years Mr. McCoy has been prominent as Republican, being a member of the
county central committee and serving as secretary for the same for several years.
He has also been a member of the Republican congressional committee of the
first district,
and has been a delegate to the
State convention at different times. He is well known in the Technical Society
of the Pacific Coast
and the California Association of Civil Engineers, and was made a Mason in
Oroville Lodge, No. 103, F. & A. M.; is a member of Franklin Chapter, No.
20, R. A. M.; and belongs to Chico Lodge, No. 423, B. P. O. Elks. Mrs. McCoy is
a member of the Women's Relief Corps, of which she is past president.
Transcribed by Sande Beach.
Source: "History of Butte
County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 486-488,
Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2007 Sande Beach.
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