Butte County
Biographies
WILLIAM RAY PATTERSON
WILLIAM RAY PATTERSON.—A trustee of Oroville who has the entire confidence of his fellow citizens, not because he is a representative of one of the finest old pioneer families, but on account of his own character and his value as an experienced man of affairs, is William Ray Patterson, who was born at Cherokee, Butte County, on November 24, 1871. His father was Jacob Patterson, a native of Ohio, near Mount Vernon, who came west to Iowa and finally, in 1853, crossed the plains, repeating the trip back and forth several times after that. On one of his return journeys to California, he brought out his family, and for a while he settled at Elizabethtown, Plumas County. Then he removed to Cherokee and there, as an old-time miner, he resided until he retired. He is still living at the age of eighty-five years. He is a Mason, and the first to be initiated in Table Mountain Lodge, F. & A. M. He is also a Royal Arch Mason.
Mrs. Patterson, who was Miss Rachael Fry before her marriage, is a native of Licking County, Ohio, and is still living at the age of eighty-one, the mother of four children, three of whom grew up: Alice is Mrs. Charles Campbell, the wife of a cattleman of Cherokee; Willis Howard resides at Jenny Lind, Calaveras County, where he is a dredgerman; William Ray, the second oldest is the subject of our sketch. The latter was reared at Cherokee, where he attended the public schools until he was fourteen years of age, when he went to reside at Powellton, Mosquito Creek and Yankee Hill, consecutively. With his father he bought the store at Paradise and, enlarging it, engaged in the mercantile business, under the firm name of Patterson and Son, and in that line he continued for two years. After that he went to Yankee Hill, and for nine years he busied himself with placer mining, in which he was reasonably successful. A year at Cherokee rounded out that period.
In 1901, Mr. Patterson came to Oroville and, preferring this town above all others, he has made his home here ever since, although he has been away on trips for two or three years altogether. On one of his jaunts he was with W. P. Hammon and prospected the dredger ground in Yuba and Butte Counties, using a Keystone drill in this work. Next he was with Chas. Hellman, off and on for most of this period, prospecting in Calveras, Tuolumne, Shasta and Siskiyou Counties. He then became amalgamator for the Boston and Oroville Gold Dredging Company and the Boston and California gold dredgers, and later was with the Natomas Consolidated Company as their amalgamator for about seven years. When he found that he had impaired his health through the use of mercury, he at first operated with extreme care, knowing how dangerous this substance was, but finally he discovered he had to give up the work altogether. He thereupon built two shops and an office building for the Natomas people in Thermalito, for he had worked at carpentering from his twenty-first year. He also constructed other buildings there, among them being one for the Natomas and the other for the El Oro Dredging Company in Calaveras County. In recent years he has enjoyed the reputation of an expert carpenter and builder, and a never-failing tester of mineral ground.
On December 10, 1903, Mr. Patterson was married at Oroville to Miss Bessie Cline, a native of Greenwich, Ohio, and the daughter of Charles S. Cline, who was born in Richland County, the same state, and who became a dredge carpenter when he reached Butte County. Mr. Cline was with the dredging company and constructed their dredgers, and then he had charge of the work of the building the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Masonic Temple in Oroville. For three years, from June, 1913, he was probation officer of Butte County, until he died on November 26, 1916. Mrs. Cline had been Miss Martha Harrod, a native of Mount Vernon, Ohio, and she died in January, 1900, the mother of three children, namely: C. C. Cline is in Siam, manager and superintendent of dredgers; Harriette is the wife of Dr. Bigham, of Anaheim; while the second in order of birth is Mrs. Patterson. She is a member of the Order of Eastern Star and the Rebekahs, and attends the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Patterson is a Democrat, has been city trustee for four years, having been elected in 1915, and is chairman of the building committee. For many years he was a member of the local parlor, Native Sons of the Golden West, and is an ex-president of same.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1130-1131, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies