San Francisco County
Biographies
WENDELL
PHILUCIUS HAMMON
HAMMON,
WENDELL PHILUCIUS, Dredge-Mining Operator, San Francisco, Cal., was born at Conneautville,
Crawford county, Penn., May 23, 1854, the son of
Marshall M. and Harriet S. (Cooper) Hammon. His paternal ancestors settled in Providence, R.I., about the year 1726,
subsequently moving to Ithaca, N.Y., whence his grandfather
went to Crawford county, Penn. Mr. Hammon himself came
to California in November, 1875,
establishing himself first in Oakland. On April 4, 1881, he was
married in Placerville, El Dorado county, to Miss Mary
Augusta Kenney, daughter of Ephraim Kenney, a well known mining man of that
county. Of this marriage the children are: George K., born February 5, 1882;
Wendell C., born February 23, 1890; and Glenn A. Hammon, February 27, 1895.
After a
course through the primary and grammar schools of Conneautville Mr. Hammon
attended the Normal School in Edinboro, Erie county,
but left in 1875, before graduation, to come to California.
Shortly
after his arrival in this State he secured a position as salesman for the fruit
importing house of L. Green and Sons of Perry, Ohio.
Two years later he engaged in the nursery business on his own account and in a
few years became one of the leading authorities in California
on fruit growing. In 1890 he went to Butte county and planted a large orchard near the Feather
River, about ten miles below Oroville. For the next ten years he devoted himself chiefly to this industry, but also
gave some attention to mining in Arizona, Eastern Oregon
and Idaho. It was in Butte,
however, on his own property, that he first shook hands with Fortune,
financially speaking, and became the chief instrument in the development of an
industry that has been of untold importance to the country about Oroville, and
of great benefit to the whole State.
He
had done a little mining in 1896 in the flats along the Feather
River, below Oroville. These had been worked by Chinese miners,
with their crude methods of rockers and ground sluices, in the early ´70s, and
gold was known to be there, but few, if any, suspected that it would pay to
work it on a large scale. While digging a well to supply a huge centrifugal
pump with all the water he needed, Mr. Hammon was struck by the appearance of
the gravel encountered. Panning it, he found it contained good values that
would pay to mine. Encouraged to go further, he secured an option on about a
thousand acres and prospected the whole flat. He was soon satisfied that the
whole basin was gold-bearing, but not that it could be mined profitably. Though
many attempts had been previously made on the Pacific
Coast and elsewhere to dredge for
gold, they had never been very successful, and Mr. Hammon was looking for a
method of handling a large body of gravel at a low cost. In the quest his
attention was called to the type of dredger used at that time on the big
drainage canal building at Chicago.
After consulting with engineers, who reported favorably on the practicability
of this style of dredger for mining the Feather River flats, he had one
constructed by the Risdon Iron Works of San Francisco, and put in operation on
March 1, 1898, for the Feather River Exploration Company, of which he was the
head, and which had purchased a thousand acres of the gold-bearing bottom land.
All
this, however, was not accomplished by the wave of a wizard’s wand. Many
experiments had to be made and much money expended, and that, too, in the face
of abundant skepticism, during which the fate of Oroville “hung in the
balance,” before unqualified success crowned the efforts of those who had the
courage of their convictions. This first dredge was finally improved to a point
where it could be operated to the satisfaction of all concerned. Since those
early experiments Mr. Hammon and his associates have secured control of about
ten thousand acres operated by gold dredges to the number of thirty,
distributed among three counties, as follows: Butte, 8; Yuba, 13; and
Sacramento, 9. In the language of the Bulletin issued by the California Mining
Bureau: “Progress in this important industry is due in a great measure to the
enterprise and successful operations of Mr. Hammon and his associates. Couch
dredge No. 1, the first successful bucket elevator dredge put in commission in
the State, was financed by Mr. Hammon and the late Thomas Couch. It is
eminently fitting that Mr. Hammon should be the leading gold-dredging operator
in California, and in control of the largest companies
of this kind in America.”
Among
the corporations of which he is an officer, he is Pres., Yuba Construction Co.,
Truckee River General Electric Co., Keystone Dredging Co.; vice president and
director Natomas Consolidated Co., managing director Yuba Consolidated Gold
Fields Co.; vice president and general manager of the Oroville Dredging Co.,
Ltd., and director of the Northern Electric Ray. His clubs are: Rocky Mountain
of N.Y.; Pacific Union, Bohemian, Union League and Olympic of San Francisco.
Transcribed by Vicky
Walker, 1/25/07.
Source: Press Reference
Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page
617, International News
Service, New
York,
Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2007 Vicky Walker.
California Biography Project
San Francisco County
California Statewide
Golden Nugget Library