OLIVER ARNOLD WASHBURN

Butte County

Biographies

OLIVER ARNOLD WASHBURN

OLIVER ARNOLD WASHBURN.--Among the pioneer business men of Butte County, a prominent place is accorded O. A. Washburn, postmaster and dealer in merchandise at Nelson. He was born in McHenry County, Ill., June 17, 1844, a son of Calvin and Maria (Cole) Washburn, the latter born near Utica, N. Y., where she met and married Mr. Washburn. They were farmer folk, and were among the pioneers of McHenry County, when that was the western frontier. In 1847 they loaded their possessions into big wagons, and with ox teams made the journey to Pennsylvania. After a short stay there, they returned to Illinois behind the slow-moving oxen. A second journey was made in the same way back to Pennsylvania, where they settled in Erie County, neat Wattsburg.

Young Washburn attended public and private school, and took a course in bookkeeping at Eastman’s Business College, in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. His education completed, he went to work for an uncle who was foreman in an oilcloth factory in Philadelphia; but the work was too dirty to suit him, and he quit and went back to Illinois to join his brother, Nelson Washburn, who was engaged in the commission business at Marengo. For a while he worked for his brother, and then went to Independence, Ia., and sold goods on commission for Washburn and Barnes. The town was too small a place for a commission business to develop, however, and Mr. Washburn thought he would like to come to California, and so informed his mother. He had an uncle, J. H. Cole, who had been prospecting and mining in the early days, in California, but was then ranching near Stockton. He wrote to him, stating that if he would come home to Illinois on a visit, he would go back to California with him. The uncle went back; and on hearing of it, our subject bought a ticket to New York. He had a letter from his uncle, in which he told him that he would sail from New York on a certain date, and would meet him at the Morton House in New York City. His ticket from Independence, Iowa, to New York cost him forty-two dollars; and he found the fare to San Francisco to be one hundred fifty dollars, for first class, outside upper deck; one hundred dollars, first class, lower deck; or seventy-five dollars, second class. He decided to go second class and borrowed seventy-five dollars for his passage. Upon meeting his uncle, the first question he asked was, “How much money have you?” The steamship magnates had consolidated their business and doubled the fare. The uncle replied, “Guess I can see you through,” and loaned him another seventy-five dollars. He landed in San Francisco on November 24, 1868, and went with his uncle to Stockton and worked on his ranch three years, when his health became impaired.

In 1871, Mr. Washburn went to Butte County and took up a quarter section of land. This property he later sold to buy a half interest in the store he now owns. This was in 1883. The late G. K. Smith, of Biggs, was the original proprietor. The firm prospered exceedingly; but in 1910, Mr. Washburn was taken ill with rheumatism, and was unable to attend to business. Then unscrupulous creditors came in and took his seven-thousand-dollar stock for a three-thousand-dollar debt, which ruined him financially. He now carries a small stock of merchandise; and since 1898 he has been postmaster of Nelson, where he is highly respected.

In 1874, Mr. Washburn went back East on a visit; and again, in 1877, he went back to Pennsylvania, and was married to Miss Rose Fritts, a native of Mina, Chautauqua County, N. Y., who had been reared but three miles from his boyhood home. The union has been blessed by the birth of three children: Calvin U., a farmer on the Stanford Grant, who married Eva L., Delavan, a native daughter; Susie, who died when three years old; and Ruth, a graduate of the Normal School at Stockton, and for the past six years a teacher in the public schools of Butte County. On June 26, 1918, she was married to Joseph Robinson.

Mr. Washburn is a Republican in politics. He is interested in the early history of California, especially Butte County. He gives interesting reminiscences of the early days in Pennsylvania, when he was at Oil Creek, fifteen miles below Oil City, in the days when oil was struck, and millions were made and lost in the oil game. He knew the famous “Coal Oil Johnny,” and many other oil magnates of those frenzied boom days. Now he is living in peace and contentment, fulfilling his duties as postmaster, and looking after his merchandise business at Nelson.

Transcribed by Priscilla Delventhal.

Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 562-563, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.

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