Butte County
Biographies
HENRY C. MORGUE
HENRY C.
MORGUE.—A man who has demonstrated his public spirit
in many ways since he has become a landowner in Butte County, Henry C. Morgue
has worked his own way to his present standing in the community about
Durham. A native of Missouri, he was
born in Clay County, February 14, 1852; and was educated in the public schools,
and was reared on a farm, working until he was twenty-two, in Kansas. He arrived in California, in October of 1874,
with just thirty-five cents in his pocket, and it behooved him to find a
job! Coming to Butte County he worked by
the month at farm work until he had saved enough to lease and stock a ranch and
go into the farming business for himself.
He rented the Ferson place of five hundred
acres and began to raise grain, continuing there for ten years, and meeting
with the usual failures and successes that attended the efforts of all the
ranchers of the county. Here his grain
ran from twelve to eighteen sacks to the acre in good years. The next ten years were spent on the Pratt
place.
In 1893 he
had saved enough to make a purchase of land, and so bought his present place of
thirty-one acres near Durham, which he set to almonds and prunes. The latter are his chief source of revenue,
and have run as high as one ton to the acre of dried fruit. Besides his own place, he leases a ten-acre
prune orchard near by. He was one of the
organizers and is a director of the Commercial Bank of Durham. He has always taken an active interest in
educational matter. He is also a member
of the California Prune and Apricot Association; and is an authority on the
growing of those fruits and nuts, having made a study of the soil and
irrigation projects. In the early days
when he was ranching on a large scale he raised hogs to a considerable extent
and sold them as low as three cents per pound, which is insignificant, when
compared with the prices of today.
Mr. Morgue
married Ella Hewston, of Illinois, whose father was
an early settler of Butte County. Their
children are: Grace, Mrs. C. C. Brown;
Mrs. Bertha Gallher, deceased; Henry; and Augustus
W. Mr. Morgue has seen many changes in
the county and is much interested in its growth. In politics, he is a Republican and has
served on the County Central Committee.
Transcribed
by Chris Worley.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Page 1041, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Chris
Worley.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies