Tuolumne
County
Biographies
JOHN N. LYON
The story of the struggles and
triumphs of a self-made man is usually interesting, and it is always
instructive and encouraging. One of the
best known of this class of men in Tuolumne County is John N. Lyon, the
proprietor of the Stent Hotel, who is also well known in connection with mining
interests. Mr. Lyon was born in Mentone,
Kosciusko County, Indiana, March 4, 1869, a son of Isaac and Sarah (Nichols)
Lyon, both of Irish ancestry but descended from early settlers in New
York. They were themselves pioneers in
Ohio and later in Indiana, and in 1869 removed to Kansas, where Mr. Lyon died
in November 1882, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and his wife three years
afterward at the age of thirty-five. A
man and woman of the highest respectability, they were members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and Mr. Lyon’s keen intelligence made him locally prominent
as a businessman, and, as a Republican, he filled the office of county assessor
for three terms. Isaac and Sarah
(Nichols) Lyon left three sons and a daughter.
Their daughter, Charlotte, died in March, 1897, and two of their sons,
John N. and William, live at Stent. The
other son, David, lives in Labette County, Kansas.
John N. Lyon was reared on his
father’s farm and had small opportunity to obtain an education during the years
of his youth, but by reading and observation he has become a well informed
man. At the age of eighteen years he
began to earn his own living as a miner in Missouri and Kansas. After coming to California he remained awhile
at Fresno, and then came to Stent, where he was one of the first settlers and
where he built the Golden Rule store, the first building erected in the town,
in which he engaged in merchandising, and in which as postmaster he handled the
mail of the town. Eventually he sold out
his stock of goods, and in 1896 he built the Stent Hotel, a sightly structure
containing an office, parlor, dining room, kitchen and forty-four rooms for the
accommodation of guests. By close
attention to business and by his studying the wants of the traveling public he
has made a success of the enterprise and does the hotel business of the
town. He is perhaps the best
representative of the class of self-made men so large in California which his
town affords. No longer ago than 1893,
he was in such financial strait that his capital amounted to no more than
fifteen cents; but he is now the principal property owner and businessman of
his town and is the proprietor of a part of the town site, and also the owner
of undeveloped mining claims. He is a
member of the Miners’ Union, of the Order of Foresters and of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, and is a leading and influential Republican and a citizen
of much public spirit, who never loses an opportunity to advance the interests
of his town. He gives the closest
attention to his business and is a genial, whole-souled nature, easily making
and retaining friends. Mrs. Lyon is a
most hospitable woman and is known as a model “landlady” and has contributed
not a little to his success in the hotel business.
Mr. Lyon was married October 1,
1898, to Miss Alice Fitzgerald, a native of Tuolumne County and a daughter of
Andrew Fitzgerald, an early settler in California, and they have a little
daughter named Maud, who was born December 4, 1899.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 489-490. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.