YUBA COUNTY Biographies

JOSEPH H. HALL

One of the progressive rancher of Sutter County, Joseph H. Hall was born in Canada, near Ontario, August 27, 1863, the son of John E. and Jane Elizabeth (Benjamin) Hall, the father a native of Scotland, and the mother a native of Canada. In 1867 the family came to California via Panama, and settled first in Contra Costa County, near Benicia, where the father leased farms for a number of years. They next moved to Sacramento County, and there he rented a ranch one mile west of Franklin, which became the family home for twelve years. In 1890 the family came to Sutter County and rented Frank Walton’s dairy at Yuba City. After operating this for a couple of years the father passed away, aged only fifty-three years; the mother died aged fifty-four.

The youngest of a family of six children, Joseph H. Hall received his education in the Franklin district school, and at the age of sixteen started out to earn his own living, working as a ranch hand in Sacramento County and various other places. His marriage, which occurred at Yuba City on December 27, 1897, united him with Mrs. Sarah Webb, nee Sarah Rackerby, the widow of Orrin Webb. She was born in Marion County, Ore., the daughter of J. J. and Katherine (Hibbard) Rackerby, her father a native of Missouri, and her mother a native of Wisconsin. J. J. Rackerby came across the plains twice, and finally settled in Sutter County, in 1873, on the Sutter side of Knights Landing. He was a physician, and practiced in the early days in Oregon; but in later years he became a rancher near Knights Landing. His death occurred at the age of fifty-seven, while the mother lived to be seventy-one years old. Mrs. Hall was the fourth in a family of eleven children.

After his marriage, Mr. Hall engaged in ranching two and one-fourth miles north of Meridian, where he bought eighteen acres. Here he does general farming, meeting with gratifying success. He has lived most of his life in this section of the State and has first-hand knowledge of local crops and soil conditions. Two sons comprise the family of Mr. and Mrs. Hall, Wayne E. and Harvey W.; while Mrs. Hall has one daughter by her former marriage, namely, Mrs. Clara Orrina (Webb) Farington, the wife of I. E. Farington, a rancher near Sutter, Cal.

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

p 613

For more than a half-century, Horace Ackley Betty has been actively engaged in ranching in California. While now residing in Sutter City he has the oversight of an eighty-acre ranch three miles northeast of town devoted to grain and rice, and a twenty-acre prune orchard one-half mile south of Sutter City. He was born at Williston, Vt., May 23, 1851, a son of James and Augusta (Webb) Betty, farmer folk. There were four children in the family: Minerva, now Mrs. Doty, residing in San Jose, Cal.,; Lucinda; Horace Ackley, of this sketch; and George, who is engaged in the retail and wholesale grocery business at Mina, Nev. When our subject was four years old his father died. The family remained in Vermont until 1868, and Horace Ackley Betty attended the public schools in Williston, and also the academy there. In 1868 the family removed to California and settled at Browns Valley, where they lived for two years; and then they moved to Meridian, where the mother passed away.

On February 22, 1878, at Meridian, Mr. Betty was married to Miss Bettie Kennedy, a native of North Carolina. Mr. Kennedy passed away in North Carolina, and the mother brought the family to California in 1873 and settled in Colusa County. After Mr. Betty was married, he moved into Butte County and farmed west of Gridley for seven years; then they returned to Meridian and farmed a thirty-two-acre place, where he built a comfortable house and where their family was reared. Besides his farming activites, he operated a route for the Watkins Company through Colusa, Glenn, Nevada, Yuba, Sutter, Yolo, and Solano Counties for seventeen years. Nine children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Betty: Minnie, deceased; Ralph, Lloyd, and Fred; Neita, now Mrs. Gilkey of Berkeley; Leonard; Pearl, Mrs. Bennett; Grace, Mrs. Fred Peters; and Vernon. In political views, Mr. Betty is a Prohibitionist.

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