JOHN MAXSON MIX

Butte County

Biographies

JOHN MAXON MIX

JOHN MAXSON MIX.—A most interesting person to sit down with and hear, as he chats of early Indian adventures and privations of the brave and hardy settlers, is John Maxson Mix, a native of Bolivar, Allegany County, N. Y., where he was born, November 3, 1839, the son of Myron and Alzina (Maxson) Mix, born in Vermont and new York state, respectfully. The family moved from New York to Hancock County, Ill., when the subject was a small boy, and three years later went to Dane County, Wis., not far from Madison, where they remained for twelve years. John M. was the eldest of seven children. A brother, Franklin, served in Company K, Thirty-eighth Wisconsin volunteer Infantry, and was present at the surrender of General Lee and now makes his home in Gridley.

In Wisconsin, John attended the common schools, and then he went to Adams County, in the same state, and finished his education.

In 1859, with six friends of his youth, he crossed the plains to California, setting out from Adams County. They started for Pike’s Peak, but were discouraged by returning Pike’s Peakers, so the boys voted to come to California, and arrived in Downieville, Sierra County, where he found employment in a restaurant. He next moved to Marysville, Yuba County, but soon came to Butte County and worked on a ranch near Honcut. He also worked on other ranches in Butte County, and later teamed to Quincy and Taylorsville. Then he teamed to the Buck Ranch in Buck Valley, Sierra County, and he drove an eight-house team, hauling freight from Oroville.

Finally Mr. Mix decided to settle down, and to that end he bought a ranch between Bidwell’s Bar and Oroville. It was a neat little farm of two hundred twenty acres which he so improved that he farmed to grain for twenty-two years. In the meantime, during the Civil War, Mr. Mix enlisted, February 21, 1865, from Oroville, Cal., for three years and was mustered into service February 25, 1865, at Sacramento, in Company A, First California Volunteer Cavalry. The First Cavalry Regiment was a part of the Seventh Army Corps, and was engaged with the hostile Apaches and other Indians while stationed at different posts in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. In November, 1865, the Apaches sent word to General Mason, at Fort Whipple, Ariz., that they wished to form a treaty. John Mix was one of a detail of about twenty soldiers, with guide and interpreter, sent to meet them. They traveled three hundred miles to the head of the Little Colorado, but the Indians did not meet the expedition, which returned in the dead of winter. Their rations were exhausted and they subsisted sixteen days on mule meat, and otherwise experienced the most severe hardships, coming through the Tonto Basin, where at the time there was not even a trail. They were obliged to abandon their equipment, arriving at Fort Whipple with only two horses and six mules, they having had thirty-six animals originally. Mr. Mix was honorably discharged May 14, 1866. Mr. Mix is a member of the W. T. Sherman Post, No. 96, G. A. R., of Oroville. Besides ranching and serving as a soldier Mr. Mix also mined in early days above Oroville.

In 1897, after having been in the West thirty-eight years, Mr. Mix returned to his old home in Wisconsin for a visit, renting out his ranch at Bidwell’s Bar; but when he had remained East for several years and thoroughly renewed the associations of by-gone days, he came back to California, as thousands of others have done before and since, and again took up the care of his ranch in Butte County, and this he continued to hold and manage until 1910, when he disposed of the place and made Gridley his home. Here he has a small acreage, which he has developed into gardens, where he grows all kinds of fruit, providing work enough, as he says, to keep him busy in his old age.

Mr. Mix married Miss Rosie E. Lee, a native daughter, who died in 1900. They had one son, John Lee, who was born at Bidwell’s Bar, and is now living in British Columbia.

Transcribed 2-18-08 Marilyn R. Pankey.

Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 742-743, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.

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