Butte County
Biographies
MISS VIENNA FAIN SMITH
MISS VIENNA FAIN SMITH.–Twelve miles north of Chico, fronting on the State
Highway, lies one of the most beautiful ranches in Butte County. It is known as
the Smith Ranch, and at the present time comprises seven hundred twenty acres
of well kept land, its meadows and pastures studded with beautiful live oak
trees. Aside from Pine and Singer Creeks, it is copiously watered by living
springs, supplemented by wells. The founder of this branch of the Smith family,
Jacob Smith, a native of Hollidaysburg, Pa., was born
November 29, 1819, and followed the occupation of a brick
manufacturer in his native city, removing to Dubuque, Iowa, in 1846, where he
continued to manufacture brick for a time, later becoming a farmer. In 1859 he
started for Pike’s Peak with his wife and five children in a train of seven
wagons and a carriage, six of the wagons drawn by ox teams and one by horses,
besides a drove of cattle and horses. On the Platte River he encountered so
many returning from Pike’s Peak, who warned him against his destination as a
gold-bearing region and advised him to go through to California, that he
decided to give up the original Pike’s Peak venture, and with thirty-five men
who were with him, came on to Salt Lake where they laid in supplies and
continued the journey to California. When he arrived at his journey’s end,
September 29, 1859, out of two hundred head of stock and six ox teams with which
he started, he had left only two cows and one yoke of oxen, and a span of
horses. He spent the first winter on Mud Creek, Butte County, and in the spring
of 1860 bought a squatter’s right for seven hundred dollars and located on the
place now owned by his children. He cleared the land of timber, built fences,
cut roads through and otherwise improved the place, later raising and adding to
the small frame dwelling which he first occupied, and in 1875 built the present
commodious dwelling. He continued to raise grain and stock until his death,
July 5, 1883, at the age of sixty-three. He was married in Hollidaysburg, Pa.,
January 23, 1842, to Mary J. Powell, a native of Philadelphia, born February
28, 1825, who lived to the advanced age of eighty-eight years, dying at the
home place, May 7, 1913. In their religious views he and his wife were
Lutherans. He was school trustee of Pine Creek (now Rock Creek) district for
many years. Of their five children, William Henry Harrison was born in
Hollidaysburg, Pa., December 18, 1842, and was married to Eudora, the eldest
daughter of J. L. Keefer, at the old Keefer home, August 15, 1876.
His wife died on January 26, 1896, leaving one daughter, Mabel Eudora, who
became the wife of J. S. Houseman, foreman on the Stanford Ranch at Vina; she died in Petaluma at the age of thirty-two years.
William H. learned the blacksmith trade in Sacramento and for fifteen years ran
a shop on the home place until the railroad came. Sarah Virginia, the second
child was born at Hollidaysburg, Pa., July 22, 1845, and became the wife of
A. J. Clark of Eden Valley, Nevada County; she had four children and
died at Santa Rosa, on February 6, 1904. Alonzo Valencia was born in
Dubuque, Iowa, September 20, 1848, and died on September 13, 1912, leaving a
son, Harry V. Snyder Sherman, born near Dubuque, August 15, 1850, died on the
home ranch, on November 26, 1916. The fifth child in order of birth in this
family, Vienna Fain, more familiarly called “Mecca Smith,” was born near
Dubuque, April 15, 1854.
After the father’s death, the members of
the family continued to farm and raise stock together. Their cattle brand is JS
on the left hip of the cattle, while the horse brand is a small h, on the neck
under the mane. Their business prospered and they added more land until their
holdings amounted to over seventeen hundred acres, when they dissolved
partnership. Harrison, Sherman (now deceased) and Vienna Fain retained the old
home place of over seven hundred acres and continued farming, grazing and
raising Durham cattle and hogs. The alfalfa produces four or five crops each
year.
Vienna Fain Smith, after attending the
public school, took a course in Woodman’s Academy at Chico, then entered Mrs.
Perry’s Seminary at Sacramento, from which she graduated in 1872. Among her
schoolmates were Mary Beckman nee Hart, Dr. Theodora T. Purkitt,
Ruth McCune Garnett, and Mrs. Hershey, who have become prominent women in their
respective localities. On her return from the seminary, Vienna Fain was a great
comfort to her mother and gradually assumed the burden of the household duties.
Politically she is a stanch Republican. She presides over the Smith home with a
grace and charm characteristic of California’s women; she is liberal and
enterprising and dispenses the old-time California hospitality.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
02 August 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
1005-1006, Historic
Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies