Calaveras
County
Biographies
CHARLES MYRON BURLESON
There are many men in California who
have come into the state during comparatively recent years and have been a
factor in its development since the war period who are especially deserving of
a place in a work of this character, and one of the best known of that class is
the leading citizen of Mokelumne Hill, Calaveras County, whose name is above.
Charles Myron Burleson was born in
Iowa, April 17, 1853, and came of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Shadrach Burleson, his great-grandfather,
from Scotland, was an early settler at Troy, New York, and Mr. Burleson’s
grandfather in the paternal line was a pioneer in Iowa, then a part of the territory
of Wisconsin, in 1827, and had all the experiences of primitive civilization in
that part of the country. William
Burleson, the father of Charles Myron Burleson, was born in the state of New
York, and was a year old when his father went west. He was educated in the public schools near his
prairie home and married Miss Sarah Ann Mallard, also a native of the state of
New York, who bore him four children, who with their parents are all
living. Mr. Burleson is now seventy-four
years old, and his wife is in her sixty-eighth year. The subject of this sketch is the only member
of the family not a resident of Jackson County, Iowa.
Mr. Burleson was educated in the
public schools in Iowa and at the Iowa State University, at which he was
graduated in the class of 1869, as a civil engineer. In 1871 he came to California and lived for a
time at Oakland, but for the past twenty years has been a resident of Mokelumne
Hill, where he has busied himself with mining and as a surveyor and mining
engineer, and has long held the office of deputy United States surveyor. He has been the superintendent of a number of
important mines, among them the Concentrator, Empire and Black Wonder mines,
and the success of all these properties has been enhanced by the able manner in
which he has handled them.
In 1883 Mr. Burleson married Miss
Stella M. Wells, who was born at West Point, Calaveras County, a daughter of
that prominent pioneer, the late William Wells, and they have three children,
named Stella, Norma and Bruce. Mr. Burleson
has been a Republican from his youth and he has been elected to the office of
supervisor, which he has so well filled that he has no opponent to a
re-election. He was received as an
Entered Apprentice, passed the Fellow Craft degree and was raised to the
sublime degree of Master Mason in 1874, took the degrees of capitular
Masonry, and was exalted to the august degree of Royal Arch Mason, and was
constituted, dubbed and created a Knight Templar in 1876, and he has received
also the degrees of cryptic Masonry and passed the circle of Royal and Select
Masters. He has been secretary of his
blue lodge for two decades and he and his wife are members of the Orders of the
Eastern Star and Daughter of Rebekah, for Mr. Burleson is prominent also as an
Odd Fellow. Mrs. Burleson and their
children are communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the family
enjoys a wide acquaintance and its members are highly respected wherever they
are known.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 407-408. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Calaveras County Biographies