Butte County
Biographies
EMERSON FLETCHER TRUXELL
E. F. TRUXELL.--Although born in the
South, E. F. Truxell might be called a native son,
for he has spent almost his entire life in the Golden
State. A native of Tennessee, he
was born in Roane County,
March 12, 1870, a son of John D. Truxell, a Virginian who settled in Tennessee,
were he farmed. When the Civil War broke out, John Truxell enlisted in the
Confederate Army, in which he served for three years. In 1871 he came to California
and located near Stockton, where he
farmed for a time. His next move was to the adobe plains near Nelson Station,
where he bought a ranch and farmed for four years. It was during this period
that his wife Mary (Brandon) Truxell a native of Tennessee
died in 1875. After the death of his wife, Mr. Truxell sold out and moved to
Clear Creak; and four years later he went to the Pajaro
Valley, in Santa Cruz
County, where he engaged in farming
and truck garding. Four years were spent here, and then he went back to Chico.
His death occurred in 1914, at Oroville.
The
youngest of three children, and the only son, E. F. Truxell
was brought to California when he was one years old, and
was reared to the age of thirteen in Butte County,
after which he went to the Pajaro Valley
and attended the public schools there. When he returned to Chico,
he had reached his seventeenth year; and then he went to work on a ranch for
his brother in-law, William V. Helphinstine, who was farming on the Pratt
grant. He remained there two years, and then spent one year with another rancher.
Five years were spent in the employ of the J. F. Entler
dairy, driving the milk wagon in Chico.
After this experience, he went back to work for his brother in-law for two
years. In the meantime, Mr. Truxell had saved his money; and now, feeling that
he had enough capital to launch an enterprise for himself, he put in a crop of
hay. The heavy rains ruined it, however, and he lost the years work and one
thousand dollars besides. This setback necessitated his beginning over again;
and consequently he went to work in the woods for William Campbell, and
continued in this occupation for five years, after which he spent one season
with the Sierra Lumber Company. Upon his return to Chico,
he went to work for the Boyd-Parley Company, wood dealers, working his way up
during the five years he was in their employ until he became manager of their
business, and had charge of their live stock and the breaking of their colts.
Leaving
the employ of this company, Mr. Truxell started a breaking stable of his own at
1206 South Broadway, He soon got into the dairy business also, meanwhile still
continuing the breaking stable, until June, 1914, when on account of ill
health, and he gave it up and went to the mountains--to die, as many had
prophesied. After a few months spent at Longville, in Humbug
Valley, however he regained his health and,
returning to Chico, started in the
dairy business again, which he has successfully continued.
In
May 1917, Mr. Truxell bought his present place of forty acres on the state
highway, four miles north of Chico.
Here he has thirty acres in Alfalfa and a dairy of twenty Jersey cows, with a
pure-blooded Jersey bull, Gordon Dyke, at the head of
the herd. He sunk three wells to get water for irrigation, and intends to
install an electric pumping plant. He conducts the Jersey Home Dairy, and has a
tuberculin-tested herd, and all appliances and appointments of the most
sanitary kind.
Mr.
Truxell was married in Chico, to
Miss Della J. Broyles, who was born in Kansas,
a daughter of Manley Broyles. Mr. Truxell is a member of the Odd Fellows and of
the Woodsmen of the world.
Transcribed
by Kim Buck.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Page 838, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Kim
Buck.
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