YUBA  COUNTY

 Biographies

DAVID MORGAN ADDINGTON, M.D.

            A native of Missouri Flat, who has risen to distinction in the professional circles of the State of California, is David Morgan Addington, who was born near El Dorado, in Eldorado County, on February 9, 1853, the son of Absalom and Martha Jane (Boyd) Addington, natives respectively of Indiana and Ohio.  The mother was of Scotch descent.  She was married to Mr. Addington in Illinois, and they came out to the Coast in 1852, three years after Mr. Addington came here for the first time, as an Argonaut of 1849.  He was a potter by trade; but once in California, he tried his luck at mining until 1859.  He then moved to Michigan Bar; and while in the service of J. W. Orr, he started the large pottery.  He became an authority on pottery, and other potteries adopted the rules that he laid down as to the essentials of production in California.  In 1865, he bought the J. W. Orr Pottery at Michigan Bar, and continued its management for a number of years.  In 1884 he sold it, and moving into Oakland, retired from active business.  He later passed away in Los Gatos, in Santa Clara County, at the age of ninety years.

            The eldest in a family of five children, David Addington went to the Michigan Bar grammar school and then attended the State Normal School at San Jose.  For six or seven years he taught school; and then he matriculated at the Medical School of the University of California, from which, in 1879, he was duly graduated with the usual honors.  He commenced his practice in Oleta, Amador County; and his record ever since has been that of an exceptionally successful and popular practitioner.  At the end of five years he removed to Oakland and remained there for a short time.  Next he opened an office at Upper Lake, in Lake County; and after that he was at Bartlett Springs, Lake County, and then, in 1897, came to Meridian, Sutter County.  In 1902 he removed to Sutter City, and here he has continued to live ever since.  At the conclusion of the World War, Dr. Addington became the government examiner of the returned soldiers who had been wounded in the great conflict.

            While at Oleta, on July 6, 1880, Dr. Addington was married to Miss Abbie Yates, a native of Oleta and the daughter of E. R. and Abigail (Scott) Yates.  Her father also came as a Forty-niner to California, and was one of the county judges of Amador County in early days; and she was reared and educated at Oleta.  Six children blessed this union.  Edward M. is at Manteca, in San Joaquin County; Luella is Mrs. L. J. Moon, of Sutter City; Charles is in Roseville; David M. died on February 23, 1924, aged thirty-three years; Fred, a twin brother of David, met an accidental death in 1920; and Royal is at home.  In politics, and independent, Dr. Addington seeks to support the men and the measures most helpful to the community in which he lives.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924

p 410-413

J. J. KREHE

            Widely known among the most experienced, enterprising and thoroughly progressive orchardists and vineyardists of Sutter County, J. J. Krehe enjoys well-merited prosperity on his ranch of 160 acres situated three miles to the south of Live Oak, and nine miles to the northwest of Yuba City.  He has sixty-five acres set out to Thompson Seedless grapes, now eight years old, while the balance is open land, with twenty acres of wine-grapes, set out to vines from one to twenty years old.  This was the old Henry Krehe stock and grain farm, and here J. J. Krehe was born on March 23, 1862, the eldest of six children of Henry Krehe, who first saw the light in the German Fatherland in 1828.

            Henry Krehe left his comfortable German home for America, and arrived in New York City in 1848; and for two years he worked on a dairy farm on Long Island.  Leaving New York, he came out to California to seek gold, sailing around Cape Horn to San Francisco in 1851, and going direct to the mines in Sierra and Butte Counties.  For a while he was a joint owner in a mine; but he sold out to his partner, and then came to Sutter County to engage in dairying and ranching, renting land near the old Captain Wilbur place in 1856.  He took into partnership a Swiss-German; and they received as high as one dollar a pound for butter and one dollar a dozen for eggs, and found a good market for all they could offer at Marysville.  Mr. Krehe preempted 160 acres; and by a number of subsequent purchases he added in a few years’ time 800 acres, making a total of six quarter-sections of choice land to which he had undisputed title.  One of the interesting incidents of that period was the naming of a creek that ran through part of this ranch the “Buttermilk Slough;” and Henry Krehe received his sobriquet of “Buttermilk Henry” from the people, and appellation that stuck to him to the day of his death.  He had made a hard struggle during scant, dry years; but finally his efforts in dairying, farming, and stock-raising were crowned with success.  He raised large quantities of wheat and barley, and was widely and favorably known for his success in general ranching.  Henry Krehe took the necessary preliminary steps and in due time became a United States citizen.  About that time he was married to Miss Mary Weidemeyer, who died shortly after their union.  He remarried, choosing for his second wife her younger sister, Elizabeth, who was born in Germany and had accompanied her father, Herman Weidemeyer, and five sisters to California in 1858.  Three children were born in the Krehe home:  J. J. Krehe, of this review; Annie, the wife of James Hampton, of Berkeley; and Lizzie, who married Frank Gilhouse, and passed away at Marysville in 1898.  These children survived their mother, who died about 1869.  After her demise, Mr. Krehe married a third time, choosing Miss Annie Heier of New York for his life-companion.  Three children were born of this union:  Mary, the wife of A. W. Bihlman; Benny, in Nevada; and Henry, who married Miss Lizzie Vagedes and resides in the Evergreen district in Santa Clara County.  Mr. Krehe passed away in January, 1922, at the age of ninety-four; his third wife had preceded her husband to the grave in her eighty-second year, after they had moved to San Jose.  Such was the value and reward of the father’s temperate and industrious life that each of his six children received their 160 acres of choice land before his demise.

            J. J. Krehe attended the Union School at South Butte and the Live Oak School, now known as the Encinal School.  At the age of twenty-one he started out for himself, renting the home ranch and going in for the raising of grain, of which he had fair crops.  In 1908 he went to Washington and located near Richville, in the Columbia Basin, bought 640 acres, and engaged in wheat-raising on an extensive scale, renting additional land and at times farming as much as 2000 acres.  Beginning eight years ago, Mr. Krehe developed his vineyard interests, at the same time that the carried on his wheat-farming in the North with his eldest sons, his two youngest boys remaining at home in the fruit industry.  He has spent the last three years at his home ranch, although he retains control of his lands in Washington, now being farmed by his son.  He has done much hard farm work, and has been well rewarded.  His business integrity is widely known throughout Northern California, and he enjoys the enviable reputation of being a man of his word.  The Krehe vineyard and drying yard, with its complete packing plant, employes twenty-eight men in season to carry on the successful harvesting of its crop.

            Mr. Krehe was married at Marysville in 1886 to Miss Mary Stricker, a native of Germany, who came out to the United States as a girl with her brothers and sisters.  They came to California and settled in Sutter County, where she has been for over forty years.  Four sons were born to Mr. and Mrs. Krehe.  Joseph is a rancher and vineyardist, and lives at home.  Leo was born in Sutter County, and is a farmer at Richville, Wash.  Fred, born in Sutter County, is a vineyardist; he married, and resides at Tierra Buena.  Lawrence is a fruit-grower, living near Tudor, Sutter County.  Mr. Krehe is a strong advocate of the direct primary law.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924

p 414-415

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