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.

 

Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies

 

California Statewide

 

Golden Nugget Library