Butte County
Biographies
DR. WILLARD PRATT
DR. WILLARD PRATT.--A pioneer physician of Butte County who had much to do with the building up of the county in early days was Dr. Willard Pratt, who was born in Bradford County, Pa., in 1828. He was of English descent and traced his ancestry back to the Mayflower.
Willard Pratt graduated from a medical college in Philadelphia, after which he practiced medicine in Wisconsin. There he was united in marriage with Sarah Hart, who was born in Sommersham, Huntingtonshire, England, and came to New York City when twenty-one years of age, whence she afterwards removed to Wisconsin.
Dr. Pratt crossed the plains in 1853 on horseback, with his saddle bags, in which were stored his medicines. He was the physician for the ox-team train he accompanied; and after his arrival on the Coast he practiced medicine at Georgetown and other mining towns, and afterwards in Colusa, and then located in Butte County. He owned Fairmead Farm, near Chico, and practiced medicine over a wide area. At the time of the Indian trouble, when the Hickok children were massacred, he organized a company and went in pursuit; and Fairmead home was, for the time being, converted into a fort. Later on he located in Chico, where he was a prominent physician and an influential man. He served as a member of the state legislature. On retiring from the practice of medicine, he purchased a large tract of land at Big Meadows, Plumas County, opened a resort, Prattville Springs, and started the town of Prattville, named in his honor. Here he made his home until his demise in 1888. Some years afterwards the family sold the ranch and holdings to the Great Western Power Company, which built a huge dam, and the place is now the site of the large reservoir and power plant.
Mrs. Pratt had joined her husband with her three little daughters in 1859, coming via the Isthmus of Panama. She survived her husband, passing away in 1903, aged seventy-three years. Six children were born to Doctor and Mrs. Pratt. Emily was the wife of John Benner and died at Lovelock, Butte County; Anna is Mrs. Haun, of Plumas County; Willie is Mrs. C. J. Sommer, of Piedmont; Thomas resides at Porterville, Cal.; Mattie is the wife of Dr. Landis, of Chico; and Marion W. is chief assistant in the assessor’s office in San Francisco.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1324, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies