Butte County
Biographies
JENO
C. RASMUSSEN
J. C. RASMUSSEN.—An enterprising and public-spirited citizen and the founder of a family esteemed and influential here, J. C. Rasmussen came to California in 1875. He was born in Denmark, April 25, 1851, in Fyen, near Odense. His father was Rasmus Peterson, a manufacturing cooper and violinist, who had such musical talent that he taught the violin until he was more than eighty years of age. When the subject of our sketch was only twelve years old, his mother died, the mother of fourteen children, only two of whom are still living.
J. C. was educated in the public schools of his native town, and in 1872 came to the United States, proceeding to the region of Lake Superior, Mich., where he was in the employ of the New York and other mining companies around Ishpeming. He then went to Houghton County in the employ of the Heckla and Calumet Copper Mine. In the spring of 1875 he came to California, and for a couple of years worked around San Francisco Bay; and in the fall of 1878 he came to Chico. He worked at threshing and for twenty-two summers was a sack-sewer. For about eighteen years he has been engaged in dealing in and hauling hay to Chico. Sometimes he has handled as much as ten tons of hay a day, and has thus become widely known as a hay-dealer. He uses two teams and collects what he wants, the year around; and thus he is able at all times to offer the thing sometimes difficult to obtain—loose hay. He goes as far as fourteen or fifteen miles for hay, and has hauled as heavy a load with one team as 7,975 pounds. Not so very long ago, he had the misfortune to be kicked by a horse usually gentle, an accident that resulted in the breaking of two ribs and an arm; but this has but little affected his indomitable spirit of enterprise. He raises some hay himself, and that crop increases his output resources.
Mr. Rasmussen was married at Chicago, Ill., in 1886, to Miss Valborg Bonde, who was born near Kolding, Denmark, and four children have blessed their union: Lillie, who was a graduate of the high school, became Mrs. Reves and died in St. Louis, Mo., in April, 1918; Martha, a graduate of the Chico State Normal, is a public school teacher; Rose is a graduate of the Chico high school and is executive secretary for the Chico State Normal, while James W. is in the officer’s training school at Camp Kearny, in the United States service.
A live citizen when it comes to matters of civic duty, Mr. Rasmussen served as school trustee of the Little Chico school district. A Republican in national politics, he is a well-known Odd Fellow, having been a member of Chico Lodge, No. 113, for over thirty years.
Transcribed by
Marie Hassard 06 December 2009.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Pages 1308-1309, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies