Sacramento County
Biographies
CHARLES H. HANNUM
CHARLES H. HANNUM.--A proficient federal officer whose efficiency, together with his affability, has made him very popular, is Charles H. Hannum, now in charge of the United States Immigration Bureau at Sacramento. A native son, he was born in Yolo County, California, on February 11, 1860, the son of W.W. Hannum, a sturdy pioneer and a native of Tennessee, now deceased, who had crossed the great plains to the Golden State in 1850. He mined in Placer County, and was the first deputy sheriff there. Later, he engaged in farming and the raising of cattle, in Yolo County, where our subject very naturally first went to school. After a while, growing older, he attended the old Christian College, at College City.
Up to the age of twenty, Charles Hannum was on his father's ranch in Yolo County, eight miles northwest of Woodland, and in 1880 he located in Washington Territory, now the state of Washington. He engaged in cattle-raising and grain-farming, in Lincoln County, remaining there until 1894, when he took an active part in politics and served in two offices, first as clerk of Lincoln County, and secondly as county surveyor in the same shire. From 1894 to 1900, he was attached to the engineering corps of the Great Northern Railroad, and from 1900 to 1903 he was clerk in the Seattle post office. In October, 1903, Mr. Hannum became an inspector in the Untied States Immigration Service at Sumas, Wash., and in January, 1913, he was appointed inspector in charge of the Sacramento office. This appointment was made when the office was first established there, and it fell to Mr. Hannum's lot to throw open the door to the public, and ever since then he has been continuously in charge. Up to January 1, 1922, the territory assigned him included the district north of San Francisco Bay and all of the state of Nevada; and he has handled many cases for the government, requiring him to travel thousands of miles. Some 4,161 investigations were made during the past ten years, and eighty-three deportations of insane and criminals. Mr. Hannum is interested as a stockholder, director, and otherwise in the Gold League placer mines in Nevada County.
Mr. Hannum is married to Miss Sarah C. Lundy, the ceremony taking place at Moscow, Idaho; and their union has been a happy one, Mrs. Hannum, who crossed the great plains in 1864 with her parents, proving the right kind of helpmate in such a country in the making. Four daughters have come to bless their hearth. One is Mrs. Elma Young, of San Francisco; another, Mrs. Vesta Bartoo, of Sumas, Washington; and the others are Mrs. Sadie Grant and Mrs. Elsie Grant, of Sacramento. Mr. Hannum is a Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of Lodge No. 40, F. & A. M. He also belongs to the Fraternal Brotherhood, and the Modern Woodmen.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Page 636. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.