YUBA COUNTY
Biographies
MRS. EMMA M. LEWIS
A resident of California since 1864, Mrs. Emma M. Lewis was born near Harvard or Roscoe, McHenry County, Ill., November 3, 1846. She is a daughter of Samuel and Jane (Moulton) Garrett, natives of New York State who came to Illinois and engaged in farming near Roscoe, McHenry County; and there the father died. In 1864 the mother and children crossed the plains in an ox-team train to Marysville, Cal. James Riley Garrett, the oldest child, took the lead and watched over the family during their migration. Emma Garrett was then a girl of eighteen. She well remembers the long journey, which was fraught with so much danger. She resided in Marysville; and in 1868, on January 7, was married to Abram Wallace Lewis, who was born in New York State in 1836, a son of Ward and Susan Lewis, farmers in New York, who became early settlers of Whiteside County, Ill. A. W. Lewis enlisted for service in the Civil War, serving in the 7th Regiment, Illinois Infantry. In 1865 he came to California; and Marysville and Yuba County were thereafter the scene of his operations until he died. His death occurred on November 11, 1907; and his passing was mourned by his family and a large circle of friends. He was a member of the Odd Fellows and the Grand Army of the Republic.
Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, six of whom are living: Addie, Mrs. Standiford, of Pacific Palisades, Cal.; Nettie J., deceased; Edwin Huntington, an ex-member of the State legislature and the present postmaster at Marysville; Ward, deceased; A. Walter, president of the J. R. Garrett Company, of Marysville; Arthur Garfield, residing in San Francisco; Everett R., of Butte County; and Edna, of Pasadena.
After her husband’s death, Mrs. Lewis continued to reside in Marysville until 1914, since which time she and her daughter Edna have been making their home in Pasadena. She is a cultured and refined woman of splendid attainments. In her spiritual life and religious belief, she is a Methodist.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 353
GEORGE ERNEST NUTT
An influential native son, prominent as supervisor of the third district of Yuba County, of which body he is chairman, is George Ernest Nutt, who was born five miles southeast of Marysville, near Ostrom Station, March 29, 1872, a son of Samuel Doty and Harriet Augusta (Wilbur) Nutt, natives of New Jersey and New York, respectively. In 1858, Samuel Doty Nutt crossed the plains with a government train of soldiers that was sent to Utah to quell the Mormon trouble. This train, commanded by Captain Hancock, consisted of 186 six-mule teams and a regiment of American soldiers. Mr. Nutt came to Benicia, Cal., where the stock was sold at a government sale. He then went to work on various ranches, and drove a stage over the Bret Harte trail from Marysville through Rough & Ready and to the mountains. He settled in Yuba County, and took up a quarter-section of government land, situated five miles southeast of Marysville, near Ostrom Station, once known under the name of Reed Station. He farmed on this piece of land until his death. He passed away when he was seventy-seven years old; Mrs. Nutt came to California via the Isthmus of Panama; and she passed away at the age of sixty-two years. This worthy pioneer couple were the parents of six children: George E., of this sketch; Minnie Frances, Mrs. Anderson, of Arboga; Ida Olive, Mrs. Huffaker, deceased; Otis, at Wheatland; Ward, at Durham; and Arthur Francis, whose sketch is given on another page.
Ern Nutt, as he is familiarly known by all his friends, attended the district school in Virginia District, and remained in the home of his parents until he was married. At Sacramento, the day before Thanksgiving, 1904, he married Miss Ginevra Dunn, a native of Greene County, Mo., and the daughter of John B. and Margaret (Love) Dunn. Her father, who was a farmer, came to California in 1875 and settled near Wheatland, in Yuba County, and Ginevra was educated at Wheatland. After his marriage, Mr. Nutt leased a ranch of 840 acres for five years, on the White, Cooley & Cutts grain ranch. He purchased eighty-seven acres just north of Wheatland, and devoted seventeen acres to vineyard and eight acres to peaches. He installed a four-inch pump on his ranch and improved it materially, building a fine modern bungalow. In 1916, Mr. Nutt was elected supervisor of the third district of Yuba County; and so well did he fill the place that he was reelected in 1920. He is serving his second term as chairman of the board. Mr. Nutt believes in substantial public improvements; so he inaugurated the concrete bridge program, and now there are twenty-one concrete bridges in his district. The road work has also been enlarged; so much so that his district is now practically all graded and graveled. Politically, he is a Republican. Fraternally, he is a member of Sutter Lodge No. 100, I.O.O.F., Wheatland. Enterprising, progressive, and hospitable, Mr. and Mrs. Nutt have won the esteem and confidence of their fellow citizens, who appreciate them for their straightforwardness, honesty of purpose, and true worth.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 354-355
JAMES OLIN WANZER
A public official of exceptionally wide and valuable experience is James Olin Wanzer, the efficient city manager of Marysville. He was born at Santa Cruz, on June 21, 1878, the son of Horace and Elizabeth (Wideman) Wanzer, the former a pioneer who had settled in California about 1874, coming with his good wife from the State of New York. He was a civil engineer; and in that much needed professional work he rendered to the young and fast-developing commonwealth a valuable service. He passed away in 1904, mourned by a large circle of friends and associates. Mrs. Wanzer is still living, at Los Banos, surrounded by devoted friends.
James Olin Wanzer attended the public schools in Santa Cruz, and the high school in Petersburg, Nebr., and then took various valuable courses in the University of California; and after that he followed civil engineering, having served an apprenticeship with his father and also studied along that line in the university. In 1898 he enlisted for service in the Spanish-American War in Company L, 2nd Nebraska Volunteer Infantry, serving until the close of the war. He was honorably discharged, and then enlisted in Company A, 35th U. S. Volunteer Infantry, for putting down the Filipino Insurrection, and was sent over seas. He served until the capture of Aguinaldo, taking part in six different engagements, and received his honorable discharge in Manila in 1901. He immediately entered the United States postal service in the city of Manila, and served until 1913, when he resigned and went to China as a civil engineer with the Canton & Hankow Railroad Company, continuing with them for two years. When the work was completed, he returned to San Francisco. Next, he went to Alaska as a civil engineer for the Alaska Central Railway for one year, after which he returned to San Francisco, and served three years with the Southern Pacific Railroad as construction engineer. In 1903 he went to South America as a civil engineer with the Madeira-Mamore Railway of Brazil and Bolivia in the upper Amazon Valley. On the completion of his work he traveled for a year in Europe and northern Africa for pleasure and the study of European railroads. In the fall of 1913 he returned from Europe and entered the employ of the California State Highway Commission as engineer, and was actively employed with them, with headquarters at Sacramento, until Congress declared war on Germany.
In May, 1917, Mr. Wanzer entered the first officers’ training camp at the Presidio and was commissioned a first lieutenant of the 47th U. S. Engineers. He was sent over seas, and saw active service at the front until the armistice, when he was commissioned a captain of engineers. He was then sent to Germany with the Inter-allied Railroad Commission and served as chief railroad transportation officer of the American Army of Occupation of Germany and Luxemburg, and also as division adjutant of Transportation Corps troops of the 3rd Army. In August, 1919, he was ordered home; and on September 15, 1919, he was honorably discharged at the Presidio. He is now a captain in the Engineer Reserve Corps, U.S.A., serving as 9th Corps topographical officer.
In November, 1919, Captain Wanzer was one of the five engineer commissioners recommended to the Negro Republic of Liberia, Africa, by the United States State Department. After serving for one year as commissioner of interior tribes, comprising a half million of natives, he returned home in November, 1920, resuming his former work with the highway commission until July, 1922, when he accepted the position of city manager of Marysville, a position to which he has since given his undivided attention, and for which, through his varied experience in technical and administrative capacities, in this country and in foreign lands, he is peculiarly fitted. He belongs to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Association of Engineers, and the Society of American Military Engineers. He was one of the original organizers of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Mr. Wanzer was married in Sacramento, December 18, 1915, to Miss Magdalene Ferrier, a native of Canada and a graduate of the University of California. He is a Mason, and is fond of outdoor recreation. His particular hobby is the study of birds; and he is a member of the Cooper Ornithological Society of California. In politics he is a Progressive Republican.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 360-361
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