Butte County
Biographies
CHARLOTTE REAGAN
CHARLOTTE REAGAN.--A native daughter who, inspired by the traditions
of a pioneer family, has chosen a noble cause and devoted her time and her
energies for the benefit of mankind, is Miss Charlotte Reagan, the
daughter of George W. Reagan, a native of Pennsylvania, who was reared and
educated in Aurora, Ill. Like so many other young men of his time, he crossed
the great plains as a member of an ox-team train in intimate association with
the Pixley family, and arriving in California in the
early fifties commenced to mine in Plumas County, continuing in that haphazard
undertaking until 1860. He also engaged in the sheep and cattle business in
north Butte and east Plumas Counties, and at one time had ten thousand head of
sheep on a large range. While in Plumas County, on December 28, 1858, he was
married, his bride coming on horseback through the deep snow in Butte County,
on Berry Creek; there he had his ranch, and there he remained until he moved to
Oroville. While at Berry Creek he established the first school, acting as
school trustee, and he also established the first voting precinct, at all times
willing to do his full duty as a citizen.
Owing to the lack of educational
advantages, however, he moved to Oroville, and retiring from the business of
stock-raising he bought an acre and a quarter, built a residence, and founded a
home. He planted trees, some of which grew to great size,
so that in his declining years he lived under a huge walnut tree that he
himself had set out. He raised the finest of fruits, and was proud of his
handiwork, and here, in 1908, he died at the age of seventy-nine. A Republican
in matters of national politics, and an Odd Fellow in good standing, Mr. Reagan
was esteemed by all who knew him as a Christian man who let his light so
unpretentiously but clearly shine that men might know the nature and quality of
his good work.
Mrs. Reagan was Miss Caroline Martin
before her marriage, a native of Ohio, and the daughter of David Martin. In the
early fifties, and when she was only eleven years old, she came to California
and stopped with her folks at Bidwell’s Bar camp. After a while the family moved to the Plumas
border, and there her father kept the Martin Hotel and Store, which bought the
gold of miners. This led to a visit from Mr. Reagan, and it was thus that
she met her future husband. She is still living, a well-read lady, being
particularly familiar with early California history, as she is with her favorite
companion, the Bible, and having a good memory she is excellent company for all
who have a half hour to pass in her presence. Now she has a homestead at
Bloomer, in this county, where she has planted many kinds of trees and flowers,
and where she enjoys each day and hour of her seventy-seventh year. In formal
worship an Episcopalian, her sympathies are broad and she is interested in
everything that makes for the progress of true religion.
Eight children were born to this excellent
pioneer couple. De Los Lake was the first native son to die out of Argonaut
Parlor, No. 8, and he passed away at the old Berry Creek Hotel; Roscoe was in
the Spanish-American War, a printer from Chico, and he died at Santa Barbara;
Annie is now Mrs. Hottman at Rich Bar, Plumas County;
Carrie is Mrs. James Munroe, and lives at Vallejo; Bertha is Mrs. G. W. Clark,
of Oakland; Ida is the county librarian at Eureka; Ethel is Mrs. John McGilvary, at Sacramento; and Charlotte, the subject of
this sketch.
Born at Mountain Ridge, in Butte County,
near the Plumas County line, at the home of her grandfather, and reared at
Berry Creek and Oroville, Charlotte Reagan graduated from the grammar school
and later studied for two years at the San Jose State Normal. At the conclusion
of her term there, she was appointed by Senator George C. Perkins, who was a
trustee, to be a teacher in the Boys’ and Girls’ Aid Society at the Baker
Street School, in San Francisco, and there she continued for six and a half
years, when she decided upon a more important field of work.
It was then that she entered the Hygie, afterwards the Waldeck
Hospital, from which, two years later, she went forth as a graduate nurse, and
for sixteen years she practiced her profession in San Francisco, heading the
list at the famous Lane Hospital. At the time of the great San Francisco
earthquake and fire, when she was forced to flee the city, Miss Reagan came to
Oroville and here for four or five years conducted a hospital; at the end of
which time, in 1913, she was appointed matron and superintendent of the
Detention Home of Butte County, a position that she has since held. Meanwhile
she has established her home at her father’s old homestead, and made the most
of the vegetables and fruits there.
Miss Reagan is an active member of the Congregational
Church; one of the charter members of the old Golden Fleece Parlor of Native
Daughters; and finds that the platforms of the Republican party
best satisfy her as a guide in national politics, while at all times she is a
loyal citizen in local affairs.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
19 May 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
971-972, Historic Record
Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies