Butte County
Biographies
WILL CARL RUFF
A native son of California, and a citizen who has had the best interests of the state ever in mind, is Will Carl Ruff, who was born in North Bloomfield, Nevada County, May 17, 1866. His father was Caspar Carl Ruff, a native of Germany who came to the United States in 1851, and the following year came on to California. He was a locksmith by trade, and also did blacksmithing and tool work for the miners in Butte, Plumas, Nevada, Sierra and Yuba Counties. Through his business he was brought in close touch with many of the prominent mining men of the early days in California. In 1864 he was married to Cassandra Bainbridge, of Hansonville, Yuba County. She was the daughter of Levi Bainbridge, a miner, teamster, landowner and stock-raiser of Northern California. He crossed the plains in 1850, from Van Buren County, Iowa. The Bainbridge family are of English descent, some members of the family having settled in Virginia before the War of the Revolution. Levi Bainbridge married Eliza Jane Bowman, a Virginian, and she had twelve children, three of whom were born in California. She died the 1906, at the age of seventy-five. Her husband passed away in 1895, at the age of eighty-five. Their living children are: Worth, Oliver George, Levi, Breckenridge, and Albert Pike; and one daughter, Cynthia Hougland. The deceased are: Edgar, Sarah, Cassandra (the mother of W. C. Ruff), Richard, Marion, and Janie. In 1864 the elder Ruff went to North Bloomfield and developed a gold mine; but four years later he became interested in the sawmilling business at Brownsville, and for thirty years enjoyed a fair degree of success. He and his good wife had twelve children, of whom ten grew up, and eight are still living.
Will Carl Ruff was educated in the public schools in Northern California, and at an early age began to take an interest in the live-stock business; and this interest has continued ever since. In 1901 he homesteaded some land near Wyandotte, which he still owns. In 1905 he bought the Devol place of two hundred acres, which has since been the family home. To this he has added eight hundred forty acres in Butte County, and forty-nine acres in Yuba County, where he maintains an apiary.
In 1891, Mr. Ruff was united in marriage with Miss Rose Devol, a daughter of Norman Devol, who is mentioned in another place in this history. For many years Mrs. Ruff has been interested in educational work as a teacher in Butte County; and she is now the principal of the Stirling City Grammar School. Mr. and Mrs. Ruff have had three children: Cecil, who died in infancy; Laurel C., who is a graduate of the Oroville High School, and has studied at the Normal School in Arcata and at the University of California; and Olive, who was a teacher near Marysville, and is now attending Heald’s Business College, in San Francisco. Laurel C. Ruff married Hilda L. Hartman, of Forbestown. Both he and his wife were engaged in educational work at Hilo, Hawaiian Islands, until July, 1918, when they came home to Butte County, bringing with them a daughter, June Iolani. Laurel Ruff expects to enter the United States army.
Mr. Ruff is member and a Past Grand of the Brownsville Lodge of Odd Fellows. He has always been interested in the good-roads movement, to further which he became a candidate for supervisor from his district, in the fall of 1916, but was defeated by only seven votes. He is a thorough business man and is public-spirited to a marked degree.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 716-717, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies