Sierra
County
Biographies
ARTHUR R. PRIDE
One of the oldest mining men in the
vicinity of Sierra City is Arthur R. Pride, who is a native of the Sacramento
Valley and is the owner of some valuable gold-mining property in Sierra
County. He was born at Courtland,
Sacramento County, California, on the 7th of February, 1877, and is
a son of Baruch and Maggie (Haddox) Pride.
His father was born in what is now West Virginia and came to California
in 1856 locating in Sierra City later in the same year. He followed the vocation of mining, working
at the Sierra Buttes and Independence mines, and did much prospecting and
mining in various localities. At that
time Sierra City was in its embryo stage, and there was not a road or hotel
there. In Virginia he married Miss
Maggie Haddox, who was born in that state and was of Welsh ancestry, while he
was of English antecedents. Her father
was a gunsmith, blacksmith and machinist and was an excellent workman, being
able to make guns or tools of the highest quality. He was an ardent Methodist in his religious
belief. Baruch Pride died on January 2,
1916, at the age of eighty-six years, and his widow is still living in Sierra
City, at the age of eighty-two years.
They were the parents of six children, of whom three survive,
namely: Arthur R., of this review; Mrs.
Richard Thomas, of Sierra City, whose husband is a miner; and Mrs. Frank
Fischer, a widow, of San Francisco.
Arthur R. Pride received his
educational training in the public schools of Downieville and has devoted
practically all of his active life to mining, either
hydraulic, surface or underground.
When sixteen years of age he discovered the Pride hydraulic mine of two
hundred and eighty acres, on which he worked for many years, also taking charge
of other mines and prospects in this vicinity.
He is a miner, blacksmith and machinist and, though he still owns the
Pride hydraulic mine, he has it leased out under bond and is now working for
the Hayes Brothers, the owners of the Independence and Sierra Buttes mines,
near Sierra City.
On December 25, 1912, in Sierra
City, Mr. Pride was united in marriage to Miss Evelyn Champion. She was born in Cornwall, England, and while
still a babe in her mother’s arms she was brought to California by her parents,
Joel and Elizabeth (Stapleton) Champion.
Her father was engaged in mining in Grass Valley and Sierra City. He also conducted a dry goods store in Sierra
City and was postmaster here for nineteen years. He died in Sierra City at the age of
sixty-six years, and the mother passed away in Auburn, this state, on January
26, 1930, when seventy-eight years old.
Mr. and Mrs. Pride have had two children: Mildred Elizabeth, who died at the age of two
years; and Lillian Mildred, who is in the eighth grade. Mr. Pride owns his own home in Sierra City is
well known throughout this part of the Valley and is deservedly held in high
esteem. He filed his questionnaire for
World War service on November 1, 1918, but the armistice was signed before he
got into the army. He is a member of
Harmony Lodge, No. 164, F. & A. M., at Sierra City, and since 1897 has been
a member of the Native Sons of the Golden West, of which he is a past president
and has been secretary for several years.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 337-338. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Sierra County
Biographies