Here is some information about the neighbors of the famous Wells Fargo guard.  [George Hackett]  These persons can be found on the same census pages as the Hacketts in Ohio.

 

Ransom Foulks was the first white child born in Butler Township, Richland County, Ohio, in 1816.  His father Jacob, was the first to patent land there.  Ransom  married Elizabeth Tourbett/Turbott, on February 7, 1844 in Richland County.  They were counted in Butler Township, Richland County, in 1850, for the U.S. Census.  By that date they had three children, Neotia (died young), Albert and Irwin.

 

In 1853 they left Ohio to travel to California.  They went down the Ohio River, took a ship to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed Panama without guides because the Indian guides deserted them.  They got a ship to San Francisco and went to Marysville.  He build a toll road to the gold fields. This road has not been identified. There he joined some old neighbors from Butler Township , the Gries family, who had journeyed west from Ohio two years earlier.  He became owner/proprietor of a hotel at Foster's Bar or Oregon House.

 

Ransom Foulks can be found on a list of persons subject to military duty in Yuba County, taken by the County Assessor, S.C. Tompkins on September 23, 1853.  Another son named Randolph was born, about 1854, as he is six years in the 1860 Census.

 

It is not now known when Ransom Foulks died, though it is said he is buried in Marysville. His grave has not been identified.

 

The Gries family were; Jacob Gries, his single brother John and a married brother Adam, with his family, a brother-in-law, Obediah Ferrell, and a man by the name of Joe Miller. At first they all were engaged in mining at Foster's Bar.  Later Jacob and Adam worked at their trade as  wagon makers.  Jacob can be found on the list of persons subject to military duty, 1853.  John Gries went to Washington City and established a meat market there. 

 

Obediah Ferrell can be found in Sierra County.  Obediah was unusually tall, being 6'4" and he had intense red hair. He must have made a most unusual sight, living as he did amongst the miners from China, as can be seen in the 1860 Census.  He probably was deceased before 1870, as shortly thereafter his family in Ohio received final payments in the settlement of his estate.

 

Jacob soon opened the hotel,  the Oregon House, with a Foster's Bar Post Office and married the widow Foulks who was there with her three sons.  Adam and his family worked there - Adam as a carpenter - and William Turbett from Ohio, a single man, probably Elizabeth Turbott Foulks' brother,  was recorded as a laborer there in the 1860 Census.

 

Another brother-in-law, Eli Cline, married to Jacob and Adam's sister Mary Ann, had left for the gold fields in March, 1849, shortly after the discovery at Sutter's Mill.  He died on his way to California, leaving his widow and children in Ohio.

 

In 1856 another brother, George, turned 19 and joined his brothers in the west.  Jacob  John and George Gries endeavored to supply meat for the thousands of new inhabitants.  Jacob, John and Adam grew hay, supplying feed for the many hundreds of horses and mules needed for  the mines of the Comstock and Virginia City. Jacob filed a claim on land at the upper end of Washoe Valley, Nevada before 1860 and John moved to Washoe County before 1862 to join Jacob and George in the retail meat business. 

 

George and John  went to Abilene, Texas to buy cattle and horses to take to California. The Confederate government of Texas notified them that they must either enlist in the Confederate army or leave the country.  George refused, and with others made his way to Vera Cruz, Mexico where there was a Federal gunboat which eventually brought him to New York, from whence he made his way back to Richland County. He lived in Tifflin Ohio until his death, having had enough of his adventure.

 

John wasn't so fortunate  He had remained in Abilene to dispose of the stock.  He was taken as a prisoner to Charlestown, South Carolina.  Through the kindness of one of the guards, a doctor, he managed to escape, and after hiding in the swamps and being hunted by bloodhounds he got to Missouri, and eventually came back to California in 1879.  He  joined his brother Jacob in Ventura county, farming and horse raising.  He served for several years as Warden of San Quentin Penitentiary.  He and his wife adopted two girls, having none of their own.

 

In 1869, when the activity in the Nevada mines had slowed, and following a disastrous fire at the barn and meat market of the Gries brothers, Jacob and his wife, with her three boys moved to Ventura County where he engaged in farming, near Santa Paula.  He had a daughter by Elizabeth his wife, before she was killed in a runaway horse incident.  He remarried twice, and amassed a large fortune, being director of the Ventura Bank and of the Los Angles Herald Publishing Company at the time of his death.   He owned several ranches in Ventura County, and financed several road-building enterprises throughout the state

 

 Adam, the oldest of the Gries brothers, wanted to farm and to practice his craft as a furniture maker. He moved first to Ophir Twp., near Oroville where he farmed for some time, and later to Port Kenyon, Humboldt County where he farmed and engaged in shipbuilding.  He raised a large family and lived to the age of 90 years.