Sierra
County
Biographies
CHARLES GEER CHURCH
Charles G. Church, whose well
improved ranch is located about four miles north of Loyalton, is one of Sierra
county’s leading farmers and a member of one of the old pioneer families of this
section of the Sacramento Valley. He was
born at Church’s Corners, now called Sattley, on the 29th of
October, 1863, and is a son of Isaac S. and Sarah (Geer) Church. His paternal grandparents were Ezra Bliss and
Harriet (Sattley) Church, and it was in honor of the latter that the village of
Church’s Corners was given the name of Sattley when the government established
a post office there. Both the Church and
Sattley families were from Vermont and the Biblical names of Ezra, Abraham and
Isaac were common ones in these families.
Isaac Sattley Church crossed the
Isthmus of Panama on foot and at the time that he landed in San Francisco it
was but a tent camp. Mr. Church settled
on a ten-acre tract of land near the corner of what is now Third and Market
streets, but he was later taken with the “gold fever” and traded that land for
some mules and a miner’s outfit, after which he started for the mines. He was engaged in freighting by means of pack
mules for many years from Marysville, the head of steamboat navigation, to
Downieville, Virginia City, Nevada, and other mines. He formed a partnership with his
brother-in-law, Frank Rowland, and they each ran a sixty-mule team, packing all
kinds of goods and freight. With the
completion of the Central Pacific Railroad on May 10, 1869, their freighting
business came to an end and they both took up homesteads in the Sierra
Valley. Isaac S. Church was married in
Vermont to Miss Sarah Geer, a native of that state, and brought her back with
him to Church’s Corners. They there ran
a public house for the accommodation of the stage people and freighters and
also engaged in farming.
Charles Geer Church attended the
schools of the Alpine school district and worked on his father’s ranch and
stock farm. After attaining his majority
he worked for one year for his uncle, Frank Rowland, in Long Valley, and also
took up logging. He bought the old Doc
Webber ranch of three hundred and twenty acres, on the east side of the Sierra
Valley, four miles north of Loyalton, or at Smith’s
Neck, as it then was called. He hauled
the first log that was sawed in the old Lewis sawmill
at Loyalton, which later became the Roberts mill. He hauled heavy loads of logs, using seven
and eight yoke of oxen as well as eight-horse teams. He would often spend an entire Sunday shoeing
his oxen. Sometime later he took up a
homestead of one hundred and sixty acres and afterward, under the provisions of
the enlarged homestead law, took an additional tract of four hundred and eighty
acres. Subsequently he sold two hundred
and eighty acres of his land, but bought back twenty acres of it, besides which
he has two hundred acres of range land.
On May 3, 1893, Mr. Church was
united in marriage to Miss Harriet Wiltse, a daughter of Albert and Emma
(Emigh) Wiltse, of New York State, and they are the parents of seven
children. Edna and Elma are twins, the
former of who is the wife of George Gere, of San Jose, California, and has two
daughters, while the latter is the wife of Ray Howes, of Los Gatos, California,
and has a son and two daughters. Ward
died from the influenza while serving with the United States forces in
France. Ezra B., of Clover Valley, is
employed in the lumber camps of that locality as a caterpillar tractor
operator. On July 5, 1930, he was
married to Mrs. Amy Douglas, a daughter of Mrs. Fred Small, of
Sierraville. John works for the Casey
Lumber Company in Long Valley, this state.
Maud is the wife of Claud Fulscher, a conductor of a Clover Valley
Logging Company train, and they have one child, Stuart. Edith is the wife of Hubert Huntley, of
Loyalton, where he is manager of the Clover Valley Lumber Company’s yards, and
they have a son, Hubert.
Mr. Church is a member of the White
Pine Lodge, No. 175, I. O. O. F., at Loyalton, of which he is a past noble
grand. He was a charter member of
Sierraville Lodge, of that order, but demitted to the Loyalton lodge. He has been actively interested in local
public affairs, having served as school trustee, as clerk of the school board
and as a juryman. He is a Republican in
his political views and is regarded as one of his community’s solid and
dependable men, honored and respected by all who know him.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 306-308. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Sierra County Biographies