Butte County
Biographies
JOEL MEACHAM
JOEL MEACHAM.--The life of Joel Meacham
is one of unusual interest, full of incidents, stirring and adventurous; it
possesses the fascination that attaches to all lives that are essentially
fearless, those characters to which the West owes much in the making of its
history. Joel Meacham was born November 1, 1829, at Kinsman, Ohio.
His father was Ira Meacham and his mother, Oral Gilder, both of whom were born
in Connecticut and Married in Ohio.
There were six children in the family, of whom Joel is the fourth in order of
birth. He and his brother, Austin, now ninety-one years of age, are the only survivors of the family.
Mr.
Meacham received his education in the country schools of Ohio
and helped to clear a farm from the woods. At the age of twenty-one he went to Connecticut
and worked at various places until he had saved one hundred sixty dollars. The
lure of gold seized him and on May 5, 1852, he sailed from New York,
via the Nicaragua Route,
and arrived in San Francisco, July
7, of that year. He went at once to the mines and engaged in placer mining on
the Feather River and its tributaries for several years
with indifferent success. He came to Berry Creek, Butte
County, in 1855, where he worked as
a teamster and in the logging camps until 1860. From 1860 to 1879 he teamed
from Marysville, Cal.,
to Virginia City and Carson City, Nev.,
with a ten mule team.
When
Mr. Meacham left New York, in
1852, it was with the idea of returning in five years with a big fortune. The
fortune did not materialize, but in 1876 he took a trip back to his home in
Kinsman, Ohio, incidentally including the Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia. The
visit was very much enjoyed and he found all of his people living except one.
In due time Mr. Meacham returned to California and continued teaming, and in
1879 he became the driver of the Oroville-Quincy stage, and for seven
continuous years he was driver and guardian of passengers, baggage, United
States Mail and the Wells Fargo express. Many of the experiences of Joel
Meacham would rival those of “Buffalo Bill” There was an attempted hold –up in
the Bidwell Bar Canyon; and at another time when about three quarters of a mile
from Oroville he narrowly escaped being shot. He was returning to Oroville one
dark night, with five passengers, the mail and express, when several shots were
fired. Mr. Meacham courageously fought off the bandits, and brought the
passengers, baggage, the mail and express safely to Oroville. The papers were
full of the account and he was justly lionized for his bravery, and also
received, in recognition of his valor, a fine gold watch and chain,
appropriately inscribed and engraved, from the Wells-Fargo Express Company. From
1886 to 1891, he engaged in mining for himself, built a five-stamp mill
developed a quartz mine and was very successful until the vain gave out. In
1891 he bought his present place of one hundred sixty acres on the Quincy
Road near Berry Creek, and with his six-horse
team, that he also purchased, was engaged in teaming until the spring of 1917,
when the auto truck made the horse conveyance a thing of the past.
Mr.
Meacham is now, at this writing, eighty-eight years old, straight, strong and
active. He is well known to the Pioneers of Butte County, and in the various
gold and lumber camps of Northern California and Eastern Nevada.
During the half century as teamster and miner he has met many people of note.
Through turbulent times and circumstances he has maintained his health, and
though brushing elbows with the class that indulges, he has let Whisky, tobacco
and gambling alone. Mr. Meacham is a Republican. To those who have known him,
and his acquaintances number many, he is a Pioneer worthy of all the name
implies.
Transcribed
by Kim Buck.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 608-611, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Kim
Buck.
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