Nevada
County
Biographies
IANTHIS J. ROLFE
Few men can trace their ancestry
farther back than can Mr. Rolfe.
Tradition says that the representatives are descended from Rolla, who
went from Norway to England with William the Conqueror. The family was first known in New Hampshire
in the early part of the seventeenth century, and in the Pine Tree state Mr.
Rolfe, of this review, was born, his birth having occurred in Rumford, Oxford
County, on the 8th of September, 1826. He is the fourth in a family of nine
children, whose parents were Samuel and Elizabeth (Hathway)
Rolfe. Both parents were natives of
Maine, but the Hathways were among the early and
influential settlers of Rhode Island.
When Ianthis
J. Rolfe was eight years of age his parents removed to Caldwell County,
Missouri, where he spent his boyhood days and acquired his education in the
public schools. On the tide of westward
emigration, which swept over the country in 1850, he was carried to California,
making the journey across the plains. As
almost all of the other pioneers, he first turned his attention to mining and
worked with pick and shovel in Placer and Nevada counties for about four years. In 1854 he returned eastward and was married,
in the city of Boston, on the 30th of August of that year, to Miss
Emily Lindsey, a native of Maine.
With his bride he returned to
California, by way of the Nicaragua route, and upon his arrival in Nevada City
he formed a partnership with his brother, Tollman H.,
and purchased the newspaper plant, Young America. They conducted that paper until 1863, since
which time Mr. Rolfe has been a notary public and the representative of
seventeen insurance companies. He
carries on one of the largest insurance businesses in this section of the
state, and as he takes the agency of only the most reliable companies he has
the confidence of all with whom he has been associated in business affairs. In 1870 he was appointed deputy internal
revenue collector and held the position for fifteen years.
Unto Mr. and Mrs.
Rolfe have been born six children, namely:
Hattie P., now the wife of J. M. Buffington; Nelly B., the wife of H.
Julian Wright; Dwight F.; Belle, the widow of H. L. Douglass; Horace C.; and
Emily, who died in July, 1897. In
politics Mr. Rolfe is a staunch and steadfast Republican and does all in his
power to promote the growth and success of the party. Socially he is affiliated with the Masonic
fraternity, belonging to blue lodge, chapter and commandery, and in each branch
of the order he has filled all of the offices.
For the past twelve years he has been the secretary of the lodge and is
the present incumbent. He is a man of
exemplary habits and character, of broad sympathy, and is ever willing to lend
a helping hand to those in need, thus fulfilling the precepts and tenets of the
fraternal organizations with which he is connected.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 390-391. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Nevada County Biographies