Sierra
County
Biographies
JAMES E. NUGENT
Probably one of the most widely
known newspapermen in the central part of California is James E. Nugent, the
owner and editor of the Sierra Valley News, published at Loyalton, Sierra
County, and one of the brightest and newsiest country papers in this part of
the United States. Mr. Nugent was born
in a house at the corner of Quincy and State streets, Chicago, Illinois, on the
29th of April, 1862, and is a son of Patrick J. and Arminta (Shadley) Nugent. The genealogical record of the Nugent family
harkens back to Castle Nogent, in Normandy, France. The Nogent’s became soldiers under William
the Conqueror, whom they accompanied to England, and after the conquest they
settled in England and Ireland. The
branch of the family from which James E. Nugent is directly descended settled
in Dublin, Ireland, and their fair hair and blue eyes bespeak a distinctively
Nordic origin. The motto of the
Nugent’s, as given in Burke’s Peerage is “De Crevi,” or “I Decree,” the modern
meaning of which is “I Will” or “I Can.”
Patrick J. Nugent was born in Dublin, Ireland, and received a good
education, having graduated from Trinity College, in Dublin. In 1844 he came to the United States, locating
in Chicago, Illinois, which was still in the Fort Dearborn period. He became a builder and a dealer in Chicago
real estate, in which fields of activity he met with marked success, but the
great fire which devastated that city in October, 1871, caused him a loss of
over a million dollars. He had in many
ways become prominent in that city, having been conspicuous among the pioneer
real estate men, and took an active part in local civic affairs, as is
evidenced by the fact that he was a member of the old volunteer fire
department. After the fire he traded his
property there for a restaurant in Denver, Colorado. To him and his wife were born eleven
children, five of whom are deceased. The
survivors are as follows: Lizzie, who
became the wife of W. H. Howell, of Arcata, California; James E., of this
review; Mrs. Mary Strouse, who resides at Inglewood,
California; A. L., of Las Vegas, Nevada; Belle, who is the wife of B. B.
Sheffield and resides at Pasadena, California; and Hattie, the wife of Lincoln
C. Hall, of Loyalton.
James E. Nugent spent the first nine
years of his life in Chicago and received his early education in the Christian
Brothers School in that city. At nine
years of age he began to contribute to his own support, and after the family
moved to Denver, Colorado, he learned the printing trade on the old Denver
Times, on which he worked before and after school hours and on Saturdays. His father was anxious for him to study for
the Catholic priesthood, but newspaper work appealed to him more strongly and
he has never forsaken his first love. He
received only four months’ schooling after going to Denver, but in the stern
school of experience and the “poor man’s college,” the printing office, he
acquired a wide fund of accurate information and no one unacquainted with his
early history would suspect that he is not a college man. The family had been so impoverished by the
Chicago fire that James E. was glad to work at anything he could find to do as
a boy in Denver, and among his other jobs was assisting in running a stage
station on the Fair Play Road through Turkey Creek Canyon—the old Red Rock
house. His father eventually became a
livestock dealer at New Castle, Colorado, and his death occurred there in 1894,
at the age of seventy-eight years. The
mother, who was born in 1834, died in 1888, at the age of fifty-four years.
In 1882 Mr. Nugent went to Idaho,
where his cousin, James W. Haworth, ran the Weiser Leader. Later the paper was sold to Dr. S. M. C.
Reynolds, for whom Mr. Nugent worked for a short time and then bought the
journal. After publishing the Leader for
one and a half years, he sold it at a profit, and went to Boise, Idaho, where
he worked on The Idaho Statesman.
Regarding his experiences at Weiser, Mr. Nugent has told the following
incident of one of the roughest towns in the west, which was periodically shot
up by invading cowboys: “Like all young
editors, I was going to make the world over, and I roasted the sheriff for not
stopping the nuisance. It was Christmas
Day and the town was full of rampaging cowboys.
Their leader accosted me, telling me he was going to shoot my belly full
of bullets. I reminded him that there
was going to be a dance that evening and it would be a shame to mess the street
up with gore. He agreed with me and
invited me to take a drink. But he was
out for trouble and was shot to death that same night.”
At Boise, Mr. Nugent worked on The
Statesman, the oldest paper which is still published in the northwest. In 1885 he went to Portland, Oregon, where he
worked on the Portland Oregonian. There,
during his spare time, he gratified his love for music by playing the clarinet
in the orchestra of the old New Market Theater, so that while newspaper work
was his vocation, music became his avocation.
In 1886 he went to San Francisco, whence he removed to Sacramento and
took a job on the Sacramento Bee, and it was while employed there that he was
married, from which time on he largely laid aside his music interests and paid
strict attention to business. Going to
Fullerton, California, he became the owner and editor of the Fullerton Journal,
after which he was in succession the editor and proprietor of the Anaheim
Journal, the Madera Times, the Willits News, the Bodie Miner, the Bridgeport
Chronicle-Union, the Angels Camp Californian, the San Andreas Prospect, the San
Andreas Citizen, and lastly, in 1929, the Sierra Valley News, a weekly paper,
established eighteen years ago. Under
Mr. Nugent’s able management the News has become one of the most important
factors in the progress and improvement of Sierra County, and his editorial
utterances have been influential in local affairs. Mr. Nugent has also been a feature writer for
the Los Angeles Times. He pursued a university
extension course in feature and fiction writing, and many of his articles have
had wide reading and been liberally quoted.
Mr. Nugent set up the first printing press at Rawhide, Nevada, and
worked on the Rustler for Bill Booth. In
the Sierra Valley News he loses no opportunity to boost for his city and
county, and his optimism and public spirit have been reflected in the able and forceful editorials which have characterized the
News. He possesses the genuine newspaperman’s
instinct for news, which he presents in an attractive and wholesome style, and
the News is a welcome visitor in most of the homes in Sierra County.
On June 20, 1889, Mr. Nugent was
united in marriage to Miss Rebecca Hennessey, who was born in Boston,
Massachusetts. When two years old she
was brought to Sacramento, California, where she was reared and educated. She proved a true helpmate to her husband,
encouraging him by her counsel and loyalty.
Her death occurred at San Andreas, California, on April 7, 1927, at the
age of sixty-two years.
Mr. Nugent has always been a staunch
supporter of the Republican Party and in 1930 was a strong advocate of the
selection of James Rolph, Jr., for governor.
In 1929 Mr. Nugent was appointed justice of the peace and city judge of
Loyalton, to which offices he was regularly elected in 1930. He is a good public speaker, his addresses
being full of logic and sound reasoning, as well as a due share of wit and
humor. In this line he gained additional
laurels in his address of welcome on the occasion of the recent Swiss picnic at
Loyalton. He is a member of White Pine
Lodge, No. 175, I. O. O. F. Wherever he
has lived he has boosted whole-heartedly for his community and has done all in
his power to promote its best interests.
A striking example of this was when, in 1909, he championed the
construction of a highway from Mono County to the west to connect up with the
state highway system. For twelve years
the people of that county had been seeking a road west of the Sierra. In the state engineer’s report for that year
Mr. Nugent discovered little but apologies.
He wrote a letter to the engineer, commenting on the beautiful printing,
the splendid grammar and the excellent picture conjured up by the report, and
concluded with the statement that “the people of Mono County had to travel into
a neighboring state to reach the capital of California.” The engineer, in a return letter, gave Mr.
Nugent a severe panning. Nugent then
published both letters. However, as the
direct result of this encounter, what is now known as the Tioga Road was
constructed and has become one of the most popular in the west.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 368-371. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Sierra County Biographies