YUBA COUNTY
GENEALOGICAL NUGGETS
NUTSHELL BIOGRAPHIES -
Marysville In Epitome
by Frank McDonald
Extracted from the Marysville Evening Democrat, 1911 - Transcribed by Kathy Sedler with no corrections made in original text.
Tue. 3/28/1911, p4
The history of a community is but the life stories of those of its citizens in
commercial, industrial and professional pursuits whose names are indissolubly
interwoven with its growth and upbuilding. Such life tales, well told, are
always interesting reading matter, offer incalculably valuable lessons to the
growing young and afford examples for emulation to all.
Hence, under the caption of "Nutshell
Biography, or Marysville In Epitome," there will be published daily in The
Democrat for some time to come tersely told tales of the lives of those of our
citizens, - and of the institutions and enterprises which they have founded or
with which they have been or are associated, - whose names are thus linked with
our splendid city's prosperity and development.
Truth and brevity will characterize
all personal mention and the flattery and fulsomeness common to the usual
newspaper "write-up" will be carefully eschewed, the aim being to make this
column a valuable contribution to local contemporaneous history and an
interesting daily feature of The Democrat.
Preceding these sketches each issue,
will be a graphic pen picture of some phaze of Marysville's past history or a
horoscopical glimpse at the splendid future of the city and valley, based on
their respective peerless resources, prepared by a writer of known descriptive
power.
* * * *
Here, where the summer moon so softly
Tints the arched skies' azure dome,
Here where all nature bids me welcome;
Here I'll build my western home.
* * * *
The east has become over-populated and has ceased to expand. The tide-star of
immigration which for more than half a century pointed to the northwest or to
the southwest has well-night forever set. There remains but one last west - the
great west of Northern California - with its multitudinious natural resources
the giant posibilities of which dwarf into insignificance centuries of
deveolpment on either side of the "Father of Waters."
And the pearl of this paradise,
"richer than all its tribe," is Yuba County in the geographical center of the
salubrious and redundantly rich and resourceful Sacramento Valley, of which
county the charming and prosperous City of Marysville is the capital and
metropolis.
In Yuba County, and tributary to
Marysville as its chief commercial and trading center, are the greatest hop
fields of the round world; a luxuriant growth of green alfalfa on almost every
lowland and on many uplands; waving fields of grain nowhere excelled in their
yield per acre whether in wheat, oats or barley; here is the indigenous home of
both the citrus and the deciduous fruit which are ever early, always luciously
edible and invariably prodigously profitable to the grower; here every vegetable
placed in the valley's rich silt-laden soil will grow and quicken to early,
healthful, palatable maturity, and here are vast forests of variegated timber,
quartz placer and dredger mining in all their phazes, and many other material
resources that will hereafter be specially told of in this column.
And here at Marysville is every
concomitant of a Christian, cultured civilization, - schools, churches, lodges,
modern metropolitan business houses and institutions and broad guaged,
enterprising business men of which and whom something will also be said
beginning with this initial number of this semi-historical column.
G. W. HARNEY
Whilst the gentleman here named is not a captain of trade and commerce in the
sense in which these terms are used in the first paragraph of this semi-historic
column, he is, and ever has been, so prominently identified with every movement
making for the material advancement of Marysville and this salubrious and
fertile valley that his name immediately occurs to one when dwelling on the
progressive achievements of the past or speculating on those to be accomplished
in the future.
Mr. Harney's personal calling in life
is that of an horticulturist but whilst his orchard interests are extensive, and
call for much care and attention, he yet finds time to capably serve the city
and county in divers important directions calling for special expert knowledge,
executive ability and a grasp of affairs. As manager of the Abbott Orchard Co.
of Sutter County, comprising 354 acres with 200 acres of full-bearing deciduous
fruit trees, and as a practical horticulturist for fifteen years past, his
success made him the natural selection as horticultural commissioner of Yuba
County six years ago and he has since competently discharged the important
duties of that official position. For the past year he has been acting secretary
of the Chamber of Commerce - giving his time and talent to this public duty, by
the way, without perquisite or emolument - and for two years he faithfully
served the City as Mayor, being elected in 1904. And for decades past he has
been in the limelight as a promoter of progressive measures that would herald
the fame of the manifold resources and opportunities of the city and valley.
Twenty years ago he conducted the
first citrus fair ever held in Yuba and the successful poultry show of last
year, with its 500 entries of fine fowl demonstrating to the world that Yuba
County was the indigenous home of the money-getting hen, and which was conceived
by him and pulled off at his personal expense, is still fresh in the minds of
the people.
G. W. Harney is to the manor born,
having first seen the light in Marysville in 1866, was educated in the city's
public schools and all his mature years of usefulness have been devoted to the
development and upbuilding of his cherished native city.
Wed. 3/29/1911, p5
Who has not read of Mark Twain's congressman and his pet river? This lawmaker
had a stream in his district for which for many sessions he successfully muleted
his brother congressmen and the people for fat wads in the river and harbor
bill. Finally some watch dog of the treasury, when the biennial beg of the
astute political fence repairer bobbed up as perenially before, insisted on
facts, backed up by maps and expert engineers' testimony as to this Amazonian
wonder.
Though somewhat perturbed the
valliant champion eloquently defended his pet project but astounded his
colleagues in his peroration by impulsively and inadvertently exclaiming that if
"widened, deepened and lengthened" his district's stream would be the paragon
navigable river of the world.
Down in Texas they have a river (?)
known as the Brazos which limply and lazily flows in devious and divers
meanderings between Galveston and Houston and over which, in many places, a
person can well-nigh jump across. Yet, on this gentle rivulet has rested for lo!
these many years, Houston's claims to be the headwater of navigation on the Gulf
and the astute Lone Star statesmen have often and again reached into the
National pork barrel of the river and harbor bill and secured countless
thousands of dollars to make this creek navigable.
With a new and just congressman from
this district who, albeit, not so oily and plausible as the dethroned Duncan,
will wield wide influence in Washington, why should not the prominent people of
Marysville bring to his attention the advisability of securing an appropriation
to remove the "snags" and to otherwise improve the recently demonstrated
navigability of the Feather river?
This suggestion is not wholly germane
to the purposes of this column but as it is penned perhaps the editor will not
"blue pencil" it.
* * *
Neither is it the province of this
column to trench on the editorial "we" in other directions but an instance
related to the writer, and the deduction to be drawn therefrom, can be told
without so doing. A person, so the story runneth, recently sought to lease of a
certain prominent property owner, 480 acres of land to be soley devoted to
intensive truck farming. The owner was quite ready to rent but he wanted the
rent - $4000 - paid every six months and an approved bond from the rentor
covering the rental for five years, or for $20,000. Naturally the deal fell
through as the would-be tenant thought it looked like a case of "all the traffic
would bear."
* * *
The soil contiguous to Marysville is
the same as much that surrounds Sacramento which a few years ago lay waste and
uncultivated but which has since yielded many fortunes and is today a great
wealth producer. Those who should be the best informed on this subject state
that every condition in this portion of the valley is ideal for truck farming
with a ready market close at hand, the transit to which will be much cheapened
when the city wharf is completed and steamers are plying on the Feather river.
A great awakening is coming to this
section of the industry named and the exploitation of the other natural
resources of Yuba and Sutter counties, notwithstanding an occasional adherent to
"all the traffic will bear" principles.
* * *
Its banks and manufactories are true
criterions of a city's stability and wealth of resource and the simply told
story in today's Nutshell column of one each of these respective institutions
tells more eloquently of Marysville's prosperity and solidity of varied
resources than an array of facts and figures or a plethora of words.
* * *
Its manufactories are the pulsing
beat of a community's prosperity and the merry hum of their machinery wheels
sing a sweeter song than the peans of deported glory or the tales of triumph in
war. An augmented payroll ever marks a mile post in a city's march to material
greatness and whilst Marysville's principal business mainstay is the abundance
and fertility of its surrounding soil, here also are located many industrial
plants which the restoration of the Feather river to navigation, advertising
which the advantages of this city is now receiving in many channels, the
prevailing activity in valley land transfers and the constant settlement and
peopling of the contiguous tributary country will have a tendency to increase.
One of the most important of local
industries, one that has been uniformly successful since its inception and one
that has few if any peers in its line in Northern California, is the capacious
plant of the Marysville Ice and Cold Storage Co., abutting the S. P. tracks at
the junction of Eighth street.
The enterprise was established in
1899 and until quite recently each succeeding year has been marked by some
addition to its plant, necessitated by a commensurate increase in the volume of
business transacted. The various buildings of the plant cover a half block of
ground; it has a storage capacity of 160,000 cubic feet, it manufactures twenty
tons of ice daily in season and in its bottling department the company enjoys a
large patronage in Yuba, Sutter, Plumas and Sierra counties in Weilands'
far-famed bottled and draft beer, and the renowned Jackson Napa Soda and Castle
Rock mineral waters, for all of which beverages it is sole agent for this
section, and it bottles, as well, all carbonated beverages, syrup and extracts.
The Marysville Ice & Cold Storage
Company gives employment to twenty-two exceptionally paid hands, whose wages
ramify through all the channels of trade and benefit every church, school and
business in the city.
For the past fifteen years the
company's entire business has been managed by its Secretary, Edward Heilman, who
has proven a most valuable acquisition to Marysville's industrial and business
world.
Thu. 3/30/1911, p4
It
wouldn't be philosophy, would it, just because one occasionally gets a bad
beefsteak to forever forswear the succulent sirloin, or the palatable
porterhouse? What would you think of a man who ostracized and eschewed the
health giving and edible egg because, forsooth, he sometimes runs across some
fruit of the festive hen that had lain so long in cold storage that contact with
the normal atmosphere made it odoriferous?
Now, the business men of Marysville
are almost to a man champions of this favored and fertile valley and good
boosters. Here the ancient argonaut, good cheer and generous hospitality - the
spirit of the 49'ers - is more retained than eslewhere in the State, or at
least, any place known to the writer. But ever and anon the gentle scribe rubs
up against some one who in the past has contributed to some publication's "write
up" which didn't measure up to the specification of the solicitor and hence
forth forever he is the sworn foe of printers ink, even in his own local paper
that is always striving with the best ability of its force to further and build
up his interest, forgetting that it is axiomatic that "the pen is mightier than
the sword" and ignoring the fact that every great statesman and thinker, every
Marshal Field or Wannamaker, and every succesful captain of commerce recognizes
the press as the mightiest force of any age making for moral and material
progress. The class of business men and merchants here referred to, happily but
a few in number in this pushing, progressive city, without investigation
relegate all newspaper propositions to the same category, regard them all and
singly as tarred with the same brush, which isn't fair or courteous and which
course is indicative of about as much gray matter as is possessed by the
repudiator of the beefsteak or the egg.
* * *
What doth it profit a community to
have a "write-up" - save the mark - of its resources tucked away in a remote
corner of some obscure page of a metropolitan blanket sheet where everyone of
the few who chance to read it will know, from the very nature of the thing, that
it is purely paid matter?
Yet, that is the quid pro quo that is
usually received by those who prefer this sort of thing in lieu of patronizing
home papers.
Its local press best reflects and
mirrors the life, business and resources of a community and is looked upon by
the stranger as a true criterion of its progress and prosperity if he is
contemplating investment or seeking a location and the writer has in his
possession, and it can be scanned by anyone, a personal letter from one of the
most prominent railroad passenger agents of the country, stating that he regards
a truthful column of retrospect and horoscope, such as is now running in The
Democrat under the caption of "Nutshell Biography, or Marysville in Epitome," as
one of the best possible of methods to attract attention to and build-up a
country.
All of which is respectfully
submitted without any intention of tooting ones' own trombone.
Yuba County is exceptionally
efficiently served in its competent coterie of officials and as this column aims
to treat indiscriminately of all who are the history builders of the city and
county and who are in the band wagon of progress, it presents in this issue a
brief review of the life and accomplishments of one who has long been in the
limelight of public life and who has worked much good for the city, county and
state.
E. T. MANWELL
In
this era of progressive measures when purity of past record and future purpose
is a sine qu non demand of our public men it is a fitting and pleasant duty to
chronicle in this semi-historical column a brief resume of the career of one who
is pre-emmently entitled to the eneomium of "well done thou good and faithful
servant."
E. T. Manwell was born in the
historic camp of Far West in Placer county in August, 1868, but came to Yuba
county when but five years of age and in its confines he has been raised and
educated and has won his spurs in political and professional life.
His parents took up their residence
in Wheatland and after graduating from the grammar schools of Marysville he was
for seven years principal of the public schools of that city, prior to which
time he had taken up the study of law being admidded to the bar in 1899.
In 1905 he was, as a candidate of the
Republican party, chosen a representative of the Eighth district in the
Thirtysixth Assembly and as a member of that body was exceptionally active and
useful, especially in educational matters; the county teachers of the state
owing him a debt of gratitude for the passage of his bill equalizing the
salaries of city and country pedagogues, there having previously existed a
flagrant discrimination against the last named hard working public servants.
Whilst still pursuing the practice of
the law in which profession he had built up a large clientele, he was appointed
Superintendent of Schools, capably serving the county in this capacity until
elected district attorney last year.
Mr. Manwell's climb up the ladder of
success closely follows the footsteps of those now high in place in state and
national affairs and as he is young, talented, and in line with the prevailing
ideas of progress, undoubtedly further honors await him in professional and
public life.
Fri. 3/31/1911, p4
The people of Marysville and Yuba and Sutter Counties have much to be grateful
for for many favors bestowed upon this section by a magnificent Providence and,
as well, for the sound management, safety and Titanic strength of those
institutions created by man that are the foundation upon which rests its fabric
of financial, mercantile and industrial life.
No city of its size in the state has
such a proud record of successful banking for the last half century as has
Marysville. Its banks have weathered every financial gale that has swept the
country during this long lapse of years and stand today with resources of many
millions on a firmer foundation than ever in their history. This is a fact upon
which every thoughtful citizen should felicitate himself, for confidence in its
banks are as much a pre-requisite to prosperity as confidence in the government
itself.
For instance when the credit of a
city's banks has been shaken, years usually transpire before confidence is
restored, not because that city's banking affairs have not been quickly put in
solvent order, but because of the slowness in the return of public confidence,
when once it has been rudely shattered. For to impaired confidence as to the
green eyed monster, "trifles light as air become proofs as strong as holy writ."
Therefore the unimpeached past
records and unimpeachable present standing of the banks of Marysville is a cause
for universal congratulation.
The splendid success of Marysville's
financial institutions tell a succinct and eloquent tale alike of the stability
of resources of the surrounding country and of safe management. In no one
instance in the field of finance is the truth of the above statement better
exemplified than in the record of the
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BANK OF SAVINGS
Incorporated December 7, 1889, and opened for business early in 1890 its career
has ever been onward and upward as regards increased business and renewed
resource although it was established on the eve of the greatest panic of late
years and has more recently passed through another severe country-wide monetary
depression.
Its last sworn statement of
conditions made January 11th last, showed respective resources and liabilities
of $1,709,116.25. Its savings deposits at that time lacked but little of a
million and a half dollars, or to be exact, were $1,481,038.71, attesting the
confidence and esteem in which the bank is held by the general public and the
same statement shows that its paid up capital and undivided profits amount to
$176,138.05.
The officers of the Northern
California Bank of Savings are: Pres., Phoebe M. Rideout, who needs no
introduction to the Marysville public; Vice-Pres., Heiman Cheim, the well known
capitalist, and cashier G. R. Eckart, upon whom the practical management of the
institution largely devolves and to whose banking knowledge, prudence and zeal
its success is largely due.
Mr. Eckart is a native of Ohio,
though he has resided in California for thirty years. His entire business life
has been passed in the banking business, and he has been cashier in the Northern
California Bank of Savings since its establishment. The well known citizens, W.
B. Swain, C. F. Aaron, Dunning Rideout, and Louis Tarke constitute with the
officers named, the bank's board of directors.
A tribute to the success of this
institution is the announcement recently made in these columns, of the intention
to erect a modern two-story building 80x160 on the lot purchased from Mrs.
Hampton. The architect has the plans prepared and the citizens of Marysville
will be more than proud of the new building when completed. Although in reality
the structure will be but one building, it is so designed that the bank front -
40 feet - will appear as if it were a separate structure.
The floor will be elevated some four
feet above the sidewalk level, and will be approached by steps. The front, which
is to be of sandstone, (probably Colusa county stone), will be a facade with
handsome large pillars supporting the cornice. The interior of the banking room
will be full two stories in the open and surmounted by a large glass dome. The
furnishings will be elaborate and of the very best design. A new style of
furniture will be used that is more handsome than the finest mahogany.
Commodious waiting rooms will be a part of the equipment, as will also be a
safety deposit vault. The entrance will have a tiled floor and with massive
bronze doors will be a delight to the esthetic eye.
Sat. 4/1/1911, p4
Tom Lawson started the ball rolling in "Everybodys" some five years ago and I'd
hate to stand in his shoes before St. Peter at the Heavenly gates when he is
called upon to account for his earthly shortcomings. For, albeit the Boston
tape-reader is suspected of being blackened with the same brush and tar with
which he coated Rockefeller, Rogers, et al., the greatest sin he will have to
answer for before the canonized guardian of the entrance to the pearly mansion
of the skies will be that he set the muckrakers going.
Lawson's stuff "caught on" with the
reading public because of his original, graphic style and supposedly inside
information, though what he told was known to the well informed long before, and
forthwith the Lincoln Steffens', the Upton Sinclairs', Judge Lindseys' and all
the mediocre lesser lights, who never could and never can write interestingly,
instructively or intelligently, began - and have since never ceased - dishing up
muckraking dope in the magazines of municipal and private graft until their
readers have become nauseated and fling down their whilomly favorite monthly in
disgust, Macbeths' "Avaunt! Begone and quit my sight," not beginning to express
their feelings by a mill site.
* * *
The above is penned apropos of
nothing, unless it be that the writer is seeking the sympathy of a fellow
feeling, and hence pardon is asked and the scribe pleasureably turns to the more
useful task of telling facts about the resources of the valley and of those who
have up-built it.
RICHARD E. BEVAN
In
a business the pre-requisites to success in which is the possession of tact,
delicacy and the instincts of a gentleman, Richard E. Bevan of Marysville has
been distinctly the leader in Yuba county for twenty-three years past. And he
couples with the above mentioned attributes of taste and refinement a thorough
grounding and training in the undertaking and embalming business, being a
graduate of the Chicago College of Embalming and having the benefit of well-nigh
a quarter of a century's experience in this calling. He is is only exclusive
undertaker and embalmer in the county and he never delegates his duties to a
servant or employee but attends in person to all calls.
Mr. Bevan has played a prominent and
worthy part in Marysville and Yuba County history. From 1889 until 1899 he
capably served the county as coroner and in the last mentioned year he was
elected Sheriff and efficiently discharged the onerdus and important duties of
the shrievalty office until 1903. Since the last named date he has given all his
time and attention to the care of his private business interests but is is
whispered that if he so chose he could again hold officials. He is a member of
the city council.
Richard E. Bevan first saw the light
in Oneida county, N. Y., September 16th, 1855, but came to California more than
thirty years ago and is imbued with every best hope and tradition of the Golden
State.
One of the most genial, affable and
companionable of men his friends are numbered only by the limit of his
acquaintance, and fraternally he is a 32d degree Scottish Rite Mason, a member
of the Odd Fellows, the Independent Order of Foresters, Forester of America,
Woodmen of the World, Knights of Maccabees, the Benevolent and Protective Order
of Elks and the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Mr. Bevan in his 56th year is in the
prime of active physical and mental manhood and has not known a sick day in
thirty-three years.
Sun. 4/2/1911, p4
"As the twig is bent the tree is inclined" is an old and honored axiom or
proverb that gets its force not from felicity of diction or epigrammatic power
but from the fact that it tersely stated a profound truth.
Literally construed it means that
environment and early influence is the foster parent of the child, that the
surroundings that compass girlhood during the perilous period when blossoming
into beautiful womanhood and the moral principles and precepts that, corallary
with the curriculum of a liberal education, are then instilled into the virgin
mind determines her future welfare and well being, either in the sweet maternity
of the home and family on in any walk of life. And the same is analogously true
of the other sex.
It was with the full realization of
this truth that "Seers" of profound wisdom and that wondrous vitrue which seeks
the safe-guarding and salvation of souls yet unborn, founded in France more than
a century ago a noble sisterhood the college and establishments of which now
encircle the world.
And there is no prouder record in
Marysville's history than the fact that as long ago as 1856 this city was
selected as the site for one of its most important colleges in the state.
The reasons that govern the location
of the establishment of the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namour are many but
healthfulness and salubrity of climate and scenic grandeur and beauty in
contiguous environment of country and approved moral tone in local citizenship
is ever insisted upon, and that Marysville met all these requirements even in
Argonaut days is something in which every patriotic citizen can take a
justifiable pride.
Indeed it is a matter of statistical
record that there is not a healthier stretch of country in the state than the
delta between the Feather and Yuba rivers upon which the city of Marysville is
located. The supply of city water, which comes from an artesian well in the
heart of the city, is highly mineralized with sulphur and iron and many other
health-giving properties and has been chemically tested and pronounced by the
experts of the University of California, the healthiest of any city in the
state.
There is scarcely any malaria here at
any season, though the thoughtless might draw a different deduction from the
surrounding sloughs, and typhoid is absolutely unknown. The death rate of
Marysville is but twelve a thousand per annum, notwithstanding the fact that the
city's undertakers conduct the funerals of nearly all of those whose demise
occurs within a radius of 40 or 50 miles and the deaths of whom are made a
matter of city record. And notwithstanding the further fact that the ailing
indigent are sent from all sections to the county hospital and when their deaths
ensue, if the illness proves fatal, they are also erroneously credited to
Marysville's death record.
The climate of Marysville is balmy
and salubrious and whatever the temperature of the day the prevailing summer
breezes, that are cooled as they waft over the river from the south, make the
nights delightfully enjoyable and ever give refreshing slumber.
The nearby mountains, forest and
stream scenery, including the many alluring vistas on the beautiful bosom of the
Feather river, which are in summer shaded embowered in fragrant foliage, is
nowhere surpassed, and all of these facts doubtless wielded a weighty influence
in the selection of Marysville as a site for the splendid educational
institution today described in this column.
COLLEGE OF NOTRE DAME
"LOST! Fifty diamond seconds, set in sixty golden minutes. No reward will be
paid for they will never be returned."
The above advertisement was inserted
in a Boston newspaper more than half a century ago by Horace Mann, the great
Massachusetts educator, to bring home to man the value of time, the brevity of
this fleeting span of life and the need to rightly utilize the priceless passing
hours.
It recurred to the writer's memory
whilst viewing the sightly buildings of the greatest educational institution in
the Northern Sacramento Valley - the College of Notre Dame of Marysville -
wherein nearly 300 budding minds are being inculated with the principles and
precepts of morality and the value of correct deportment and the courteous
graces of life, coupled with a thorough educational training that is approved
and accepted by the State Normal Schools and is the open sesame to both the
State Universities.
The curriculum of the college as
pertains to young ladies consists of a complete grammar and high school course
as given in the public grammar and high schools, to which is added courses in
music, art, language and domestic economy, in which branch credits and special
mention is made for proficiency, at the end of each term.
The domestic economy course embraces
instruction in such useful household knowledge as the proper manner of cleaning
furniture, the correct care and hygiene of the dining room and kitchen, etc.,
and the art of sewing in all its phazes, particular attention being given to
making the pupil proficient in plain sewing and mending.
In this college each child is cared
for personally by the Sisters, her morals and deportment being carefully but
firmly shaped and governed, though with the rod of kindness, and, in short,
every pupil receives maternal solicitude and a mother's care as to their moral,
mental and physical well being.
The Mother General of the Sisterhood,
who is now in this country inspecting its various colleges, visited the
Marysville college in November last and expressed particular commendation of the
advanced studies, appearance and deportment of the pupils, stating that they
were "just what children ought to be."
Boy pupils are received in the
college only up to the age of eleven or twelve and are taught the lessons of the
primary grade with some slight rudimentary tuition in the grammar course.
The College of Notre Dame is
conducted by the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namour, a city in Belgium where, since
1809, has been located the mother house of the sisterhood presded over by the
Mother General. The sisterhood was founded in France in the revolutionary period
but its headquarters were removed to Namour in Belgium in the year stated.
The original purpose of its founders
was the inculcation of the Christian doctrine in the minds of children but soon
the educational features were, as well, added and today the College of Notre
Dame of the Sisters of Namour are plentiful in every part of the globe and are a
great and potent power for good. There are nine establishments of the sisterhood
in this state, the Marysville College ranking 3d in point of size and the number
of attending pupils. It was first established here in 1856.
This splendid educational institution
makes much for the moral and material benefit of Marysville and the valley and
it is eminently fitting that it should be chronicled in this semi-historical
column.
[No column could be found in the 4/3 edition]
Tue. 4/4/1911, p4
Yuba stands preeminent in the sisterhood of Northern California counties as regards a satisfactory public financial condition, as will be later more fully and satisfactorily shown in this column, and this desirable state of affairs is largely due to the splendid administration of the respective county offices by the incumbents, and of all this capable coterie of efficient public servants, there are none, - and this can be said without disparagement of any of the honest and able officials of whom the people are justly proud, - who have a record superior to, and who stand higher in the estimation of the electorate, than its competent, hardworking assessor.
TOM E. BEVAN
In
the latter day era of municipal county and state graft and picking and stealing,
the high repate of Yuba County for the honesty and efficiency of its public
servants is a factor of no small moment in making for its moral advancement and
material upbuilding, especially in attracting thither desirable acquisitions in
new citizenship.
And one of the nestors of this
competent coterie of officials, Tom E. Bevan, who has continuously held this
high office for seventeen years past, has by the intelligent and faithful
discharge of the onerous and important duties of this position, contributed much
to the making of this laudable reputation.
The assessorship is one of the most
trying of county offices, calling for a complete knowledge of property values,
for fairness and impartiality, tact, talent and urbanity and having found Mr.
Bevan the possessor of all these qualifications, the intelligent voters of Yuba
have grappled him with hooks of steel and regularly re-elect him to office. All
told, he has capably served the county will-nigh a quarter of a century, as
prior to his election as assessor, he was under sheriff for four years and
deputy-county assessor for two years.
Tom E. Bevan is a native of Oneida
county, New York, where he was born January 30, 1854, but has lived in
California since March, 1862, and previous to assuming public office in 1889,
resided in Wheatland. Officially he has ever lived up to the principle that
public office is a public trust and he has cared for the interest of the people
as conscientiously as he would conduct his personal business affairs.
Wed. 4/5/1911, p3
The banking business is the most potent and dominant force in all the world's
affairs and the true and tried Napoleons of finance of the modern world wield a
power and influence that make even the illustrious and gifted Macaulay's graphic
pictures of the glamor and show of the potentates and princes of the past,
albeit historically truthful, seem the mockery of a mellow mind, the sham of a
sooth-sayer.
No nation of the globe dares
institute a war without first consulting the Rothchilds of old or the Morgans of
the new world and pledging approved collateral for the financing of the venture.
It is a simple law of business founded in the self-interest of human kind,
existing since the days of Adam and destined to endure an unwritten statute of
common law until the end of time. And after all, banking is not an involved
intricate or complex business, but simply the placing of the aggregated savings
and the many commercial units of the many in the hands of a chosen few, who, by
their lives of continuous integrity and by their showing of shrewd sagacity,
wisdom, perspicacity and prudence, have demonstrated their especial fitness to
safeguard and make profitable the money of the depositor better than he could
himself.
Hence it is that a community in which
its banks have been safely and prudently managed, enjoys a repute for stability
of resource and has a far reaching credit of solid foundation not possessed by
its sister communities, however rich in resource, where frenzied finance in
banking circles have prevailed. In short its banks mirror, reflex, and best
bespeack a community's prosperity, and the solidity of its financial
institutions has given to Marysville a well earned enviable reputation second to
no city in the state.
THE RIDEOUT BANK
The oldest established and largest bank of Marysville is the one above named.
For half a century past the city's current of commercial life has mainly flowed
through its vaults and its fifty years of banking is an unbroken record of
progress, characterized by energy, ability and liberal and honorable methods.
Ever conservative it has yet ever stood ready with a financial life-line for
every worthy enterprise struggling in a sea of monetary stringency and it has
piloted many to a safe harbor of success.
During the long lapse of years that
are embraced in its corporate existence with their recurring periods of
depression and panic that have compelled many other banks that were normally
solvent to resort to clearing house certificates and cashier's vouchers to
enable their customers to transact business, The Rideout Bank, and indeed all
Marysville Banks, have ever met their every obligation, and paid every
depositor's check when presented at their teller's desks, with the legal coin of
the realm.
The last sworn statement of condition
of the splendid financial institution here told of, made January 19th last,
shows respective resources and liabilities of $2,676,828.33; that its individual
deposits subject to check and its demand certificates of deposit aggregate
$1,387,572.23; that its surplus apportioned earnings are $250,000 and undivided
profits $124,672.86. It is very questionable if any bank in the confines of the
commonwealth from Shasta to San Diego, in a city of like size, can make a
similar satisfactory showing.
The Rideout Bank is equipped with
every appointment known to modern banking, including fire and burglar proof safe
deposit boxes, and is amply protected by fire and burglar insurance.
It is officered as follows:
President, Phoebe M. Rideout; Vice-President, Dunning Rideout; Cashier, C. S.
Brooks; Assistant Cashier, W. B. Swain, and these with Martin Sullivan
constitute the board of directors.
Thu. 4/6/1911, p2
The Marysville Chamber of Commerce has an excellent motto. It is "boost, don't
knock." But, sad to say, there are quite a number of members of that band of
boosters who don't live up to it. They wear lugubrious countenances and claim
that business is rotten and the city not going ahead as it should. And the worst
kicker of the lot is usually the fellow with the fattest bank account. Happily,
this pessimistic class are limited and the great captains of commerce and
industry of this city are not thus tainted, but are working as usual for the
upbuilding of a new and greater Marysville. New industries and new lines of
business are constantly coming to this city, attracted thither by its richness
of contiguous resource and its strategic commercial advantages.
The two companies told of in this
issue are among the most important recent acquisitions to Marysville's business
world and the abundant success that they have met with bears out every
prosperity contention ever made in this column.
HUB CITY BOTTLING WORKS
One of the important tires in the automobile of Marysville's industrial plants
is the Hub City Bottling Works, located at 631 Fifth street, of which M. L.
Derby is manager. Mr. Derby is the largest and the only thoroughly experienced
manufacturer and bottler of soda, syrup and extracts in Yuba county and his
volume of trade is constantly increasing and expanding. He is agent for the
celebrated Ruhstaller "Gilt Edge" beer, being the second largest distributor in
the city, and maintains a warehouse adjacent to the S. P. tracks with a capacity
of four carloads.
Mr. Derby became a business man of
Marysville in 1909 and he at once evidenced that he was entitled to a front seat
in the band wagon of progress. He has a fine realization of what is necessary to
put a city's best foot forward in this modern era of push and hustle and is ever
ready to lend his aid and influence to all movements and measures looking to
this end. It is such nien that make up the captains of commerce and industry and
who will build up a new and greater Marysville.
BELL-MULHERN COMPANY
Dean Swift said about a century ago that "he who caused two blades of grass to grow where before had been but one is a public benefactor." If this aphorism be true, and ever since its utterance it has been accepted as axiomatic, those who pioneer and point the way to successful farming in the staples, fruits or vegetables, are still greater benefactors.
This is one of the principal missions in this section of the Bell-Mulhern Company, the wholesale, produce and fruit house and dealers in butter, eggs and cheese, whose commodious building is at the corner of Fourth and D streets. The company was established and is doing business in Marysville because of its contiguity to the finest fruit land and the most fertile soil in all fair California for extensive truck farming.
And since its establishment here in March of last year its management has labored with untiring zeal to impress the husbandman that splendid and assured profits awaited those who would prosecute the truck farming industry in the splendid soil of this portion of the fabulously rich silt-laden Sacramento Valley. Much success has been achieved by the members of this firm in this laudable work although they report that the most lethargic spirit has been encountered in the country directly tributary to Marysville.
Around Gridley, where they are quick to grasp the opportunity which the talented Ingalls graphically pictured as "knocking but once to return no more," extensive truck farming has received great impetus through the efforts of this firm. In that city, Mr. H. A. Bell recently addressed an enthusiastic audience of forty-five farmers, at the conclusion of which meeting each and every soil-tiller present promised to make truck farming the main feature of his future labor. And as time elapses it will be seen that greater wealth is vested in the soil in the prosecution of this industry, than erstwhile flowed from it in golden streams in the days of old.
The Bell-Mulhern Company have the most complete facilities for the economical handling of the produce business in all its phazes, have important connections in Sacramento, Stockton, San Francisco and the Eastern marts of trade, their establishment here filled a void, the opening of which was vitally necessary, and it disparages no one to say that this company is the most important acquisition to the channels of trade that this city has acquired in recent years. The officers and directors of the company are: President, W. F. Kelly; Vice-President, H. A. Bell; Secretary, Wm. Brown, and H. L. Brown and T. L. Mulhern.
Fri. 4/7/1911, p2
Marysville possesses many points of strategic commercial value as a
manufacturing center. It enjoys the same freight rates as a common terminal
railroad point - at Stockton, Sacramento and San Francisco. Here rents are
comparatively low and county affairs are securely and economically administered
and hence the conjecture that this city will some day become a great industrial
center is not a far-fetched conclusion.
Every manufacturing enterprise
inaugurated in Marysville has been successful and the case of the Woolen Mills
cannot be taken as an exception, as its idleness is but temporary.
EMPIRE FOUNDRY
The Empire Foundry has been conducted with great success for more than forty
years. It manufactures every sort of tool or utensil used in the mining, milling
or agricultural industries, and its reputation for turning out the highest grade
of goods is not only country wide but has been wafted on the white winged sails
of commerce to many distant foreign shores.
The Empire Foundry is a large
employer of skilled, well paid labor in Yuba County and is the most important
spoke in Marysville's industrial wheel and its success is largely due to the
competency and untiring zeal of its manager, Supervisor Fred Roberts. Corallary
with the management of the foundry Mr. Roberts conducts in an adjacent
commodious building the city's leading garage.
He is the sole agent in this section
for the renowned Buick and other high grade automobiles and at the Empire Garage
all automobile repairs are quickly made with the speed of scienced and
experienced workmanship.
Fred Roberts, manager of the Empire
Foundry and proprietor of the Empire Garage, is as widely and favorably known in
a public as in a private way. He is Supervisor of the Fifth district, is serving
his second term as Chairman of the County Fathers and on the completion of his
present term will have given twelve years of service to Yuba County as
Supervisor.
[No further evidence of this column was found in following issues.]