Yuba
County
Biographies
RALPH HAINES DURST
Ralph Haines Durst, of Wheatland,
Yuba County, is probably best known throughout this section of the Sacramento
Valley as a hop grower, although he has also extensive horticultural
interests. He has been identified with
the hop growing business at Wheatland since the time of its inception and is
regarded as an authority on that industry.
He was born at Austin, Nevada, on the 28th of March, 1865,
but has been a resident of Wheatland since eighteen months old. He is a son of the late Dr. Daniel Peters and
Rose Frances (Haines) Durst, the former born at Greenville, Mercer County,
Pennsylvania, and the latter at Pekin, Illinois,
their marriage occurring in Colusa, California.
Early in life Daniel P. Durst took up the study of medicine, graduating
from Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, and immediately afterward
entered upon the practice of his profession in Mercer County. In 1853 he decided to come to California and
made the long voyage around Cape Horn in a sailing vessel as ship’s doctor. On landing at San Francisco, he started for
the gold mines and spent his first winter at St. Louis, near La Porte,
California, where he practiced medicine and, with several partners, engaged in
mining. Dr. Durst then came to the
Sacramento Valley and entered upon the practice of medicine at Colusa, where he
was married. During his stay at that
place he put in several crops of grain, but the two dry years of 1864 and 1865
resulted in a complete failure of crops.
He then removed to Austin, Nevada, where he followed his profession
until 1867, when he located at Wheatland, California. Purchasing thirty-five acres of land just
south of Wheatland, adjoining the railroad, he built his residence and became
the pioneer physician of that locality.
He enjoyed an extensive practice, covering a wide area of surrounding
country in southern Yuba and Sutter counties, as well as in Placer County.
Dr. Durst planted the first crop of
alfalfa ever grown at Wheatland. He had
a great liking for agriculture and in 1876 bought five hundred acres of land
west of Wheatland. In 1883 he planted a
field of twelve acres to hops on the Bear River, and this was the first hop
field in this part of California. That
fall he added to his holdings by purchasing the Russian ranch, just southwest
of Wheatland, extending back to Bear River.
On these rich bottom lands he planted another one hundred acres to hops
the next year, and planted more every succeeding year until he had six hundred
and seventy acres in hops and became the country’s biggest hop grower. He was actively interested in reclamation work
and in the building of levees and he stood with the ranchers in the anti-debris
fight against hydraulic mining, which filled up and raised the river beds and
flooded the bottom lands. His hop fields
and lands were located in Yuba, Sutter and Placer counties, his residence and
office being in Yuba County. Partially
on account of seeking to regain his health by leading an active outdoor life,
but more particularly since his extensive hop fields demanded his entire time
and attention, he discontinued the practice of medicine, to the regret of
hundreds who had benefited by his able ministrations. He passed away in 1911, at the age of
eighty-one years, and in his death the state of California lost one of its most
progressive and enterprising men.
In 1858, at Colusa, California, Dr.
Hurst was united in marriage to Miss Rose Frances Haines, who was born in Pekin, Illinois, August 18, 1836, a daughter of Jonathan
Haines, a well known manufacturer at Pekin, on the
Illinois River, who invented and built the first header and also invented and
built the famous Buckeye mower. His
implements were shipped to the Pacific coast, and he made several trips to
California. The daughter came to
California and was a teacher at Colusa when she met and married Dr. Durst. She was a cultured and refined woman, of
pleasing and attractive personality, and proved a true helpmate to her husband,
lending her hearty encouragement to him in the realization of his
ambitions. She passed away August 4,
1917, greatly mourned by all who knew her.
Dr. Daniel P. and Rose F. Durst had
four sons: (1) John Haines,
the eldest, born September 9, 1859, became a lawyer and served as city attorney
of San Francisco and county attorney of San Francisco County. He married and left one son, Vernon Durst, of
San Francisco. John H. Durst died at the
age of forty-three years. (2) Murry Haines, born June 14, 1861, died in 1914, at the age
of fifty-three years. He was a graduate
of the University of California, and was known as a leading hop grower of this
state. He visited London and various
European countries in the interest of the sale of California-grown hops. He married and at the time of his death left
three children, Dorris, Edward and Audrey. (3) Ralph Haines is the immediate subject of
this review. (4) Jonathan Haines, who
died in St. Francis Hospital, San Francisco, June 14, 1930, was married, but
left no children. He was a partner in
the ownership of the Durst hop ranch at Wheatland. Jonathan was a well known newspaper man and
editor, as well as a hop grower. He
learned the printing trade under John Landis, the first editor of the Wheatland
Four Corners. He financed that paper and
later became its editor, serving until the press of other business made it
expedient to quit the editorship.
Ralph Haines Durst is now the only
surviving son of Dr. Daniel P. Durst. He
was reared on the old Durst ranch, received a public school education, and
engaged with his father, and later with his brothers, in the hop raising
industry. From boyhood he had assisted
his father on the ranch and when he was eighteen years old his father set out
the first hops grown on the Bear River, so it was natural that he in turn
should become actively interested in hop growing, which he has followed
continuously from the inception of the industry in this state. That and farming have comprised his
activities in the main. After the death
of the father, Ralph and Jonathan took over the ranches which have since
operated under the firm name of the Durst Brothers. In the spring of 1923 Ralph Durst
individually purchased two hundred acres of land on the south side of Bear
River, across from the old Durst ranch, and has devoted this to horticulture,
having planted it largely to clingstone peaches.
Politically he is a staunch
Republican, while fraternally he is a member of Sutter Lodge, No. 100, I. O. O.
F., of which he is past grand. His
religious connection is with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He is worthily maintaining the family
prestige so well established by his father, and throughout the community in
which he has spent his life is deservedly held in high regard.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 128-130. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Yuba County Biographies