Butte County
Biographies
JAMES GOLDIE NISBET
JAMES GOLDIE NISBET.—A native son, successful in mine-dredging and who has
also brought into the family again, by purchase, his father’s old mining
claims, and is now devoting the same to stock-raising, is James Goldie Nisbet, who was born in Oregon City, Butte County, on March
12, 1857. His father was John Nisbet, the
representative of an old French family driven out of France because they were
Huguenots, and he was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland. He learned the trades of
cabinetmaker and carpenter, crossed the ocean to Montreal, and then went to
Havana; and from Cuba, in the spring of 1849, on hearing of the discovery of
gold in California, he made his way across Mexico to the Pacific Coast. He used
his English passport to enable him to pose as an Englishman on the way to Australia,
and so more easily and safely got through Mexico, making most of the journey muleback to Acapulco. From Acapulco he proceeded north by
coastwise vessel to San Francisco, and landed there on July 4, 1849.
As soon as he could do so, John Nisbet came on to Sacramento and began to run a pack train
from that town to Coloma, on the American River, after which he followed
placer-mining along the stream, and was successful. When he had gathered a good
pouch of dust, he made a trip back to Scotland by way of Panama, and after a
short visit returned to California and again took up mining, also giving his
attention to stock-raising in Butte County. In 1856, finding the nearest parson
at Marysville, Mr. Nisbet was married to Helen
Miller, a native of Glasgow, who had come to Philadelphia with her parents and
later moved to San Francisco and Oregon City, in the early fifties. John Nisbet continued stock-raising and mining, and died about
1899. His wife died about ten years later.
The eldest of eleven children, six sons
and one daughter of whom are still living, James G. Nisbet
was brought up in Oregon City, where he attended the public schools,
supplementing this education by experience in the school of life, and
especially in the business world. From a lad he learned placer-mining and also
mining for quartz, and later he became a stationary engineer in quartz mines.
During these years he worked for the Spring Valley Mining Company at Cherokee;
afterwards, for five years, he was engineer at the Banner Mine. In 1900, he
entered the employ of the California Dredging Company as engineer of the old
dipper dredger; and when later the company was reorganized as the Pennsylvania
Dredging Company and a bucket dredge was built, Mr. Nisbet
was made superintendent of the works, in 1902, and continued to act as
superintendent until all the available ground was dredged.
Mr. Nisbet then
organized the Oroville Union Gold Dredge Company, which purchased the old
Pennsylvania dredge, repaired and remodeled it. The company also bought the
Will and Gable orchard of forty acres, and began dredging the ground. He was
vice-president and manager of the company, while W. H. James of Oroville was
president. In September of 1917, they had completed the dredging of the ground,
and as there was no other dredging-ground available, they sold the dredge and
quit mining. Meantime Mr. Nisbet bought the old Nisbet mining property in Spring Valley, near Cherokee, a
part of which was formerly owned by his father, and he has added to the
original purchase until now he has a ranch consisting of twenty-three hundred
acres, all well watered by streams and springs; and on this ranch he is engaged
in stock-raising and in the breeding of fine cattle. A dyke has been
constructed across Spring Valley which makes a natural reservoir, which he uses
for irrigating his crops. Spring Valley Ranch is ten miles from Oroville and is
one of the most attractive and promising farms in this part of the state. It
extends four miles along Spring Valley and lies on the west bank of Feather
River. Mr. Nesbitt is a Republican.
Near Cherokee, Mr. Nisbet
was married to Miss Marion Wilson, a native of Pennsylvania, and a daughter of
William Wilson, a pioneer miner, and by her he has had five children: William,
with the Swain Lumber Company in Oroville; Roy, with his father in the
management of the Spring Valley Ranch; Nellie, a graduate of the Oroville high
school, and now a bookkeeper in Oakland; Chester, a graduate of the Oroville
high school and of the University of California, who was a teacher in the
Oroville high school, and who now is in the Officers’ Training Camp, Fortress
Monroe, Va.; Hazel, a graduate of the Oakland high school and the Chico State
Normal, and who is now teaching. Mr. Nisbet belongs
to the Chico Lodge, No. 423, B. P. O. Elks, to the Knights of Pythias, and to Argonaut Parlor, No. 8, N. S. G. W., of
which he is Past President.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
07 June 2009.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
942-945, Historic Record
Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies