Butte County
Biographies
LUCIUS A. SNOW
LUCIUS A. SNOW.--A pioneer gold-miner, merchant and farmer of Butte County, Lucius A. Snow, now
ninety-one years old and still active, has a wonderful and most interesting
pioneer history. His grandfather, James
Snow, fought under Gen. George Washington at Bunker Hill. His father, Willard W. Snow, was a
down-east farmer, saw-mill operator and cooper.
Willard W. Snow and his wife, Mary (Purce) Snow, were the parents of eight children, six boys and two girls, now
all deceased with the exception of Lucius A., the fifth child in the family.
Born at
Paxton, Worcester County, Mass., October 25,1827, Lucius A.
Snow was reared on the eastern coast, and attended Lester and East Hampton
Academies. When eighteen years of age he
started in life for himself, becoming an apprentice to the carpenter’s trade,
and working the first year for eight dollars a month, the second year for
sixteen dollars per month. In his third
year he had mastered the trade so well that he was permitted to work on a
church building, receiving twenty-four dollars a month for his services. He then went to the city and there engaged in
work in a wire-making factory for one dollar and twenty-five cents a day. He next made up his mind to go to Wisconsin, which was then a border
state. To this his parents objected, but
the youth was filled with a desire to see the West and he left home in October,
1849, thinking he would return in a year or two; in this he was mistaken, however,
as he has never had an opportunity to return to his old home.
Arriving
at Racine, Wis., the same fall, Mr. Snow had as his worldly
possessions twenty six dollars and his set of carpenter’s tools. From there he went to Milwaukee, and wishing to economize
he was induced to stop at a hotel with the sign of “Railway Temperance
House.” He registered at the hostelry,
and soon thereafter a kindly disposed person told him it was the “worst cholera
hole” in Milwaukee. He left
immediately, as people were dying at the rate of sixty a day. He miraculously escaped infection and went
out into the country, where he soon found work.
In 1852 in company with two other young
men, Mr. Snow outfitted for the trip to California, coming by way of the Beckworth Route. They landed at Quincy, Plumas County, August 7, 1952, and
started gold-mining at Taylor’s Gulch. Winter came on with deep snows, and
provisions were very scarce; at one time they were fifteen days without flour,
with no visible means of replenishing their larder. Hearing that there was a small stock for sale
at a little store in Meadow Valley, Mr. Snow, with a
companion, started out across the snow-covered mountain trail with an
improvised hand-sled to Pea Vine, now Merrimac.
They had only one hundred fifty dollars in gold, but with this they
bought a limited amount of flour at fifty cents per pound, and beans and
potatoes at the same price. This meager
stock they put on the sled and pulled back to their cabin, their bleeding feet
leaving scarlet tracks in the snow.
Later they bought provisions at forty cents per pound, but they found
considerable gold and came out ahead financially.
Mr.
Snow came to Bidwell’s Bar in the fall of 1854, when that place was still the
county seat of Butte County. He mined there on the side hill, just below
the courthouse. In the fall of 1855, he
came to Oroville, bought a lot on the corner of Robinson and Lincoln Streets,
and built a house on the plaza. The lot
was covered with chaparral. Not liking
the appearance of it, he cut it all out and cleared it up, leaving a little oak
tree, the only one worth saving. It
became a large tree, and stood just back of the Recorder’s office till two
years ago, when it was cut down. He
mined on Carpenter’s flat, below Oroville.
In the spring of 1858 he located a mine on the Big Kimshew, mining there
until 1860, when he located on the Little Kimshew, so that the year 1860 found
Mr. Snow working a gold claim at Kimshew.
He worked with his customary pluck and luck. His last clean-up for the season was
forty pounds of gold. The news of his good luck and of his intended
trip to the San Francisco mint with his gold, leaked
out. Phil Ripley, at that time
supervisor, who was a friend of Mr. Snow and who lived at Kimshew, over-
heard
a plan, between a certain gambler and other rough characters, to catch Snow
when he would attempt to carry his gold to the mint, the attack to take place
in a certain woods traversed by the trail used for travel in those days. R. Ripley warned Mr. Snow, but he became all
the more determined to make the trip. He
had sent his saddle-horse on ahead to Flea Valley two weeks before and he
strapped his gold on his back and with three men, all well armed, took an
unusual path which came out six miles below the point where the used trail
struck the main Oroville road. Arriving
at the place where his saddle-horse was awaiting him, he treated his three
companions to the best breakfast to be had at the inn and immediately started
off for Oroville, twenty-eight miles distant.
He was young, active and courageous, well armed and had an excellent
horse, and feared no danger. Arriving
safely at Oroville, he went to the office of the Wells Fargo Express Company to
arrange for the expressing of his gold to the mint. Finding that they would charge what seemed to
him an exorbitant amount (thirty dollars), he arranged to ride on the seat with
the driver, and with his hand on his six shooter and his forty pounds of gold
hidden away in his valise, he made the trip, carrying the valise in his own
hand in crossing on the ferry, and walking up Market Street to the Mint.
The
returns from his gold enabled Mr. Snow to start in business at Kimshew. He put in a well-selected stock of general
merchandise and kept ten pack-mules carrying goods to his store for twenty
years. With his own force of men, mules
and horses he built a road, for ten miles, from Kimshew to where Stirling City and Lovelock are now
located, this road costing him twenty-five hundred dollars. With H. C. and H. K. Snow, he also built the
Snow Ditch for irrigating and mining purposes, and later sold it out to the
Hendrick’s Company of Indiana. He
prospered in his undertakings and became the leading business man in that
section. Always taking an active
interest in politics, Mr. Snow attended nearly every county convention and many
state conventions before the days of the primaries. He takes a keen interest in the public
welfare, is generous and hospitable, and has perhaps more warm personal friends
than any other Butte County pioneer now living.
In San Francisco, in the year 1864, Mr. Snow
was united in marriage with Miss Mary A. Sharp, who was born near Manchester, England, and came to California in the early sixties via Panama. Their married life has been very happy; they
have had three children: Florence E.,
the youngest, who died September 8, 1897, aged twenty-nine years; and Josephine
and Martha W., who reside with their parents on the one-hundred-twenty-acre
ranch-home at Lovelock, assisting them and adding to their comfort.
Transcribed by Louise E.
Shoemaker April 5th, 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 840-844,
Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Louise E. Shoemaker.
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