CHARLES ALDEN HULL

Sacramento County

Biographies

CHARLES ALDEN HULL

CHARLES ALDEN HULL was born in Vermont in 1824, his parents being Sewell and Lucy (Ray) Hull. The mother died at the age of forty-five; the father, who was born in 1794, is still living. Grandfather Joseph Hull lived to be ninety; Grandfather Ray, about seventy, and both grandmothers reached a good old age. The father is living in Michigan with his oldest son, George, born in 1822. There are two sisters, Sarah, born in 1829, and Samantha, born in 1834. C. A. Hull received the usual schooling of the early part of this century, three months in the year, until he was twelve. His parents being in poor circumstances, he hired out with a neighboring farmer at four and a half dollars a month. In 1844 he moved with his parents to Berrien County, Michigan, near Niles. He bought a small farm there in 1847, and raised one crop in 1848, when the gold fever struck him, and he sold out his place. He arrived in California, across the plains, August 14, 1849, and went to mining for nearly one year, chiefly on Bear River and at Goodyear’s Bar on the Yuba, the net result being about $2,000. In July, 1850, he came to Sacramento, where he worked into the business of teaming besides keeping a hay-yard as well as a grain and feed stable, employing drivers for his teams. He made a trip to the Sandwich Islands and there spent the winter of 1850-’51, but did not find it a promising field for business. In 1851 he made his first purchase of land in California, being the 160 acres immediately surrounding his home. In 1863 he bought the 320 acres adjoining on the north, giving a frontage of about three-quarters of a mile on the lower Stockton road, eight miles south of Sacramento. The land for the Prairie district school-house, on the southeast corner of his ranch, was donated by him for that purpose. About 240 acres are meadow land and 240 are good grain land. He also raises an average of forty head of cattle and twenty horses. In 1861 he was married in Sacramento to Miss D. Delany Ridley, born in Maine in 1835, a daughter of Matthias and Nancy (Pratt) Ridley. Her father, who had served in the war of 1812, lived to be eighty-eight, and her mother, eighty-seven. Mr. and Mrs. Hull are the parents of four living children: Minnie L., born March 5, 1862, now Mrs. Christopher A. Wagner, of Sacramento, is the mother of three girls; Rose L., born June 20, 1863, was married in 1888 to Henry Neuhaus, also of Sacramento; Charles L., born April 30, 1864; and Elliott Isaac, April 24, 1872. Charles L. took a full commercial course at the Napa Collegiate Institute; and Elliott I., is at present pursuing his studies at Bainbridge’s Business College in Sacramento. Mr. Hull is a member of Sacramento Grange, No. 12, and has held all the offices, being Secretary three years and Master one term. He was the first Master of Sacramento Pomona Grange, No. 2. He owns stock in the Sacramento Valley Grangers’ Business Co-operation Association, of which he has been a director for eight years.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 680-681. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.