Sacramento
County
Biographies
WILLIAM
RITTER
WILLIAM RITTER,
deceased. The subject of this sketch was
born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1831, his parents being William and
Margaret Ritter. The father was in
prosperous circumstances, and the son had the advantage of a good
education. With two or three young
companions he struck out to try his fortune in California, and was remarkably
successful. With his experience in
actual mining came larger plans, in which he was also prosperous. Being one of the discoverers of the Manzanita mine at Nevada City, he sold out his interest
therein and embarked in the business of constructing mining ditches. He had mining interests at Michigan Bar as
early as 1855, having been then five years in the business. Mr. Ritter was married in Sacramento, to Miss
Jennie Byam, daughter of Seth and Leath
(Pettie) Byam. She had come to California with her widowed
mother in 1853, being brought out by her brother, H. S. Byam,
who had come here in 1849. The mother
died in 1880, aged seventy-six. She was
of the Pettie family of Vermont. The Byams are of
the early settlers of Massachusetts, the first immigrant of that name having
settled in Plymouth Colony about 1640.
In 1857 Mr. Ritter laid the solid foundation of a dam and “sea-wall” on
the South Fork of the Cosumnes, in Musicdale Canon, and thus began the construction of the
Prairie Ditch, extending about twenty-one miles to Michigan Bar, completed
about 1858. He afterward bought some of
the smaller ditches that had been excavated by different parties from time to
time since 1851. His outlay is estimated
at $300,000 between 1857 and 1865. In
July, 1865, during the absence of his wife and child on a visit to Philadelphia,
Mr. Ritter was killed by robbers. While
driving with some friends from Michigan Bar to his home at Sevastopol, he was
recognized by the freebooters as a richer prey than the country store they were
plundering. Being high-spirited and
impetuous, he tried to beat them off, when he was shot by one of them and died
twenty-four hours later. He is buried in
Sacramento. His unresisting companions
escaped with the loss of what little money and valuables they had in their
possession. In 1865 the ditch properties
of the Ritter estate were combined under the title of the Amador and Sacramento
Canal Company, incorporated under the laws of California. The active superintendence of this
corporation has been for sixteen years in charge of Mr. Henry S. Byam, the brother of Mrs. Ritter. Meanwhile Miss Eugenie Ritter finished her
education at Madam Mears’ Academy in New York in 1874, and accompanied her
mother to Europe, where she attracted much attention by her grace and
beauty. She was married in Paris to
Viscount Henry Houssaye, an officer in the French
army, and more recently a writer of distinction, the son of Arsene
Houssaye, an author of international reputation. Mrs. Ritter has paid repeated visits to their
beautiful home in Paris. From a
comfortable but unpretentious house at Michigan Bar, far removed from the great
centers of luxury and refinement, to a grand mansion in a fashionable quarter
of the brilliant metropolis of modern civilization, is quite a change; but Mrs.
Ritter, a true type of American adaptivity, is
equally at home in the Parisian palace and the California cottage. A new and valuable use of the water
facilities of the Amador and Sacramento Canal Company has been devised, and put
in operation in 1889. This consists of
an irrigating ditch extending from the old canal, by a winding course of
twenty-two miles, into Dry Creek Township, near Galt. A great enhancement in value of the back
lands of the Cosumnes is anticipated from this
enterprise, more beneficent and far-reaching in its results than all the
gold-washing of the canal in the days of its greatest usefulness. The stock of the company is owned by Viscountess Eugenie Houssaye and
Mrs. Jennie Byam Ritter.
Transcribed by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Pages 585-586. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007
Karen Pratt.