Butte County
Biographies
FREDERICK CLAUDIUS WILLIAMS
FREDERICK CLAUDIUS WILLIAMS.—One of the oldest, most experienced and most reliable
business men of Chico, a successful up-to-date horticulturist and a pioneer
apiarist who enjoys the distinction of having been the first to introduce here,
on a commercial scale, the now profitable culture of bees, is Frederick
Claudius Williams, who came to California in the eventful Centennial year. He
was born at Earlville, La Salle County, Ill., in September, 1855. His father,
William Williams, a builder by trade, was born in Wales and came to America
when a young man. He settled in New York State, and for some time ran a boat on
the Hudson River. After that he moved west to Illinois, in which state, after
farming for years, he died. During the Civil War he volunteered his services in
behalf of the Union, but he was rejected by the army examiners. The mother, who
was Rachel Davis before her marriage, also came from Wales; she became the
mother of nine children, the fifth eldest being the subject of this sketch. One
of the sons, David A. Williams, is a well-known merchant of Fresno, where he is
engaged in the furniture business. Brought
up on a farm in Illinois until he was eighteen years of age, Frederick C.
Williams enjoyed but limited public school advantages, but his ambition was in
no wise hindered, and he set out in his twenty-first year for California, the
land of promise of which he had heard such alluring accounts. He stopped at
Marysville, and for a couple of years was employed there on a farm. In 1878,
however, he took the important step of coming to Chico; and having saved a few
dollars, he invested it with a partner, Charles Fetters, and opened a
furniture, carpet and undertaking business under the firm name of Fetters and
Williams.
The stock was stored in a small frame
building at the corner of Third Street and Broadway. They bought lumber and
made much of the furniture, beds, screen doors and window sashes, as required,
and they also constructed the coffins needed for their growing trade. A year
later, encouraged by their steady success, the firm moved to Main Street,
between Second and Third, where they occupied a larger
building and where they developed, during five years, their now well
established business. They next moved to the corner of Main and Second Streets,
on the east side, a site they continued to occupy for several years.
In 1888, when California was feeling the
effects of the great boom in the Southland, Messrs. Fetters and Williams bought
their present very desirable site and built their two-story structure, between
Broadway and Salem Street; and together they operated for several years. In
1906, Mr. Williams bought out Mr. Fetters and continued the business under the
old firm name, thus perpetuating what is now the oldest business house in town.
Since that time he has so enlarged his quarters that the store now occupies a
three-story brick building, sixty-eight by one hundred twenty-eight feet in
size, devoted to furniture and carpets and the undertaking parlors; the whole,
for the last few years, being in charge of his manager, Frank Nau.
Mr. Williams is also interested in
horticulture, and has set out several orchards on his ranch on Loan Pine
Avenue. With Mr. Nau he has thirty acres in almonds,
and with Mr. Richards he owns fifty-five acres set out to almonds and prunes.
He also takes a lively interest in bee culture, and is the pioneer apiarist of
Chico. This industry, which he was the first to found here, has steadily grown,
and Mr. Williams and his partner have six apiaries containing nearly eight
hundred colonies of bees. He is thus able to sell honey by the carload, and is
the largest exporter in Chico.
A stand-pat Republican all his life, Mr.
Williams has been city trustee for seven years, and during four years of that
period was mayor of the town. He was director of the Butte County Fair
Association for seven or eight years, and held the position by virtue of the
Governor’s appointment. He is a member of the State Funeral Directors’
Association.
At Chico, Mr. Williams was married to Miss
Estella Gertrude Hand, a native of Santa Rosa. He enjoys the pleasures of
fraternity life, being a member of the Odd Fellows and of the Chico Lodge,
B. P. O. Elks.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
07 June 2009.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
947-948, Historic Record
Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies