Butte County
Biographies
PATRICK WOLOHEN
PATRICK WOLOHEN.--The veteran employee of the Stirling City mill, Patrick Wolohen, is wonderfully efficient, accurate and dependable in his line of work. He has filled the position of log-scaler and unloader at the Stirling City mill for the past ten years. His business is to estimate the number of board feet in every log that comes into the mill, and he has become so expert in this that the tally by actual measurement of the sawed lumber will not overrun his figures more than from six to ten per cent. He was born in the city of Rochester N. Y., March 17, 1857. His father, Patrick Wolohen, and his mother, whose maiden name was Mary Macklin, were natives of Ireland. His mother re-married in Rochester after her husband’s death, but no children by the second union grew to maturity.
At the age of seven, Patrick, with his mother, step-father and brother Thomas, removed from Rochester to Livingston County, New York, where the step-father worked by the month on farms. Before he was twelve, young Patrick became dependent upon his own exertions for a livelihood. His schooling was limited to a few weeks in winter, snatched from his farm work, and he even then worked for his board. He continued working on farms in Livingston County, N. Y., until past twenty, then in the spring of 1877, about April 1, came to Chico, Cal., where his old acquaintances, the Cussicks, the only people he knew in California, were living. He worked for General John C. Bidwell as coachman for six months, then began working in the factory at Chico for the Sierra Flume and Lumber Company. The firm failed in 1878 and the plant was taken over by the Sierra Lumber Company. He worked for the Sierra Lumber Company, fluming timber from their various lumber mills to Chico, then for ten years he tallied lumber for the Company, afterward coming to Stirling City.
On July 4, 1886, he was married, at Chico, to Miss Elizabeth Chambers, born in Colusa County, daughter of the late William Chambers, a pioneer drayman in Chico. Of the six children born of this union three died in childhood. The others are: Charles G., assistant superintendent of the retail department of the Diamond Match Company, a young man of marked commercial ability, with a very promising future. He is married and resides at Chico. Albert, the second son, is single and works for the Pelican Bay Lumber Company at Klamath Falls, Oregon. The daughter Elizabeth, a graduate of Heald’s Business College at Chico, is a stenographer at Dunsmuir, for the State Highway. Mr. Wolohen’s family live with him at Stirling City during the summer, and spend their winters at the family residence, 43 Mill Street, Chico. Mrs. Wolohen is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Mr. Wolohen, although a Republican in politics, is a stanch supporter of Mr. Wilson’s war policy standing loyally by the administration, and doing his bit toward attaining victory for the nation.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1202-1203, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Joyce Rugeroni.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County
Biographies