Butte County
Biographies
AUSTIN EARL MORTON
AUSTIN EARL MORTON.--Very few men in
public life have served their constituents so faithfully and satisfactorily as
to have been elected five consecutive terms to the same official position, but
such is the enviable record of the deservedly popular assessor of Butte
County, A. E. Morton. Born in
Princeton, Bureau County, Ill.,
February 7, 1857, he came to California
when seven years of age with his parents. His father, Andrew Jackson Morton, a
native of Massachusetts, settled in Bureau
County, from whence he came via Panama
to California in 1849, where he
mined successfully a few years. He went back to Princeton,
bought land and was there married to Mary Evalyn
Cook, a native of the Empire state. In 1864, with his wife and three children,
Mr. Morton crossed the plains with horses, making a quick and successful trip
for those days, being only three months on the road. He brought with him fine
horses, Morgan and Messengers, besides a fine saddle horse. When he arrived in
California he came to Chico and purchased three hundred sixty acres of land at
Nord upon which he located and where he was engaged in farming up to the time
of his death, in 1868, when only thirty-eight years old. He was a very
successful man, as well as energetic. His widow continued to live on the ranch,
and later married Joseph B. Clark, also a forty-niner, who is now deceased. By
her first marriage five sons were born, one of whom died in Illinois,
and two of whom are still living: Byron, of Sonoma
County, and Austin E., of this
review.
Austin
Earl Morton was educated in the public schools of Butte
County and from a boy helped with
the work on the home ranch, remaining at home until he was twenty-five years of
age. In 1883 he entered the county assessor's office as a deputy under W. S. B.
Wilson, and served five years, the first year in the Oroville office. He was
field deputy under Mr. Wilson and his successor, W. P. Lynch, for eight years,
and served in the capacity of deputy altogether for thirteen years. In 1898 he
was nominated on the Democratic ticket for the office and was elected by a
majority of two hundred seventy-five votes and assumed the duties of the
position in January, 1899. In 1902 there was no opposition to him in his party
for the nomination and he was elected by a majority of seven hundred. In 1906
he was again nominated and elected by a majority of fifty, although he ran
against a very popular Republican from his own district. In 1910 he was renominated, running against C. E. Porter, and was elected
by a majority of about six hundred fifty votes, and again, at the primaries in
1918, he was reelected without opposition, and is now serving his twentieth
years and has filled the office with credit to himself and in the interests of
the citizens of the entire county. His several reelections are in themselves
testimonials of his ability and show the confidence of his fellow citizens in
his conduct of their affairs. He is a member of the State Association of County
Assessors, in which he has taken an active part. Aside from the office in
Oroville he maintains a branch office in Chico for the
accommodation of the people living in the northern part of Butte
County. There is not a piece of
land in the county, north of Chico,
that he has not been on and over in his official capacity, besides, in his
early life, having worked on numerous ranches in this section. While serving as
deputy assessor Mr. Morton bought stock, in 1884, in the Nord Warehouse
Company, and since then has been its manager. In 1901 he purchased twenty acres
just north of Chico, which he has
improved from a stubble field into a fine bearing orchard of fifteen acres of
prunes and three acres of peaches.
Chico
witnessed the marriage of A. E. Morton and Miss Ida McBride, born in Saginaw,
Mich., and this union has been blessed with four
children: Edna Lou, married Harry E. Richardson, a farmer on Rock Creek, this
county; Cecelia is the wife of James O. Truitt, of Chico, who enlisted and is
serving in the United States Army; Minnie became the wife of George E. Young
and resides in Chico; and Clayton Earl, a graduate of the Chico State Normal
and now a teacher in the Chico schools. Mr. Morton was made a Mason in Chico
Lodge, No. 111, F. & A. M.; is a member of Chico Chapter, No. 42, R. A. M.;
Chico Commandery, No. 12, K. T.; and also of Islam
Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of San
Francisco; and with Mrs. Morton he belongs to
Josephine Chapter, No. 104, O. E. S. He is also a member of Great Oak Camp, No.
136, W. O. W.; and Chico Lodge, No. 423, B. P. O. Elks.
Transcribed by Sande Beach.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 516-519, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2007 Sande Beach.
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