Butte County
Biographies
HARRY BIDWELL REED
HARRY BIDWELL REED. Occupying a position of prominence among the progressive and prosperous agriculturists of Butte county is Harry Bidwell Reed, who is actively engaged in his chosen calling on a well-kept and highly improved ranch, beautifully located, his pleasant home being just across Lindo Channel bridge. Coming from honored New England ancestry, he was born, April 10, 1859, in Lowell, Mass., a son of the late W.H. Reed. His great-grandfather on the paternal side served as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and his grandfather Ransom Reed, a native of Vermont, removed to Lowell, Mass., where he built up a large mercantile trade.
Born in Lowell, Mass., January 29, 1829, W.H. Reed was there bred and educated. In 1849, a youth of twenty years, he came with a company to California, sailing around the Horn in the bark Maria, and being six months on the voyage. Remaining in San Francisco until after he had disposed of the mercantile goods that he brought with him, he went from there to the Sierra diggings, and thence to the Shasta mines. His results as a miner not being at all satisfactory, he obtained a position with the Adams Express Company, and was located at Georgetown until the failure of the company. Then, in 1855, he accepted a position in the Mills Bank in Sacramento, entering the employ of D.O. Mills, and although color blind, was considered the most expert gold buyer on the coast.
In 1857 he became cashier for the Fisk Banking Company, with which he was connected for a year. In 1858 he made a business trip to New York and Massachusetts, being away one year. Returning to the Pacific coast he entered the employ of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, acting as their agent for a year in Marysville, and then going to Portland, Ore., where for five years he had full charge of their bank, express office and assay office. From there he located in San Francisco, and for a year was connected with their bank in that city. Resigning the position in 1867, Mr. Reed was for two years superintendent of a ranch in Chico belonging to his uncle, Gen. John Bidwell. Going to Stockton in 1870, he was for eighteen months agent for the3 Wells-Fargo Express Company at that point, and from 1871 until 1875 was paying teller at the Bank of California, in San Francisco. He was subsequently clerk in a manufacturing company there, after which he established himself in the mercantile business at Knights Landing, remaining there until wiped out by the memorable flood of 1881. Again re-entering the employ of the Wells-Fargo Company, he was in their auditing department at San Francisco until 1885. Coming then to Chico, he was here engaged in general ranching until his death, December 11, 1900. He married Miss Mary Bidwell, who was born in Vermont, June 5, 1839, and now resides with her son, Harry Bidwell, the subject of this sketch, and the only child born of her union with W.H. Reed. Her father, Daniel Bidwell, a brother of Gen. John Bidwell, was born in New York state, and reared to farming pursuits. Coming to California in 1854, he located in Chico, buying eight hundred acres of land, and was here profitably engaged in agricultural labors until his death, December 2, 1887.
After leaving the public schools, Harry Bidwell Reed entered St. Augustine College, at Benicia, Cal., where he was graduated in 1878. Entering the employ of the Southern Pacific Railway Company in 1879, he was telegraph operated at Durham for five years, at the same time serving as the Wells-Fargo agent for the Sacramento Short Lines. Returning in 1884 to Chico, he has since had charge of the home ranch of four hundred and twenty acres. He has met with signal success in his operations, both as an orchardist and general rancher. He has an orchard of one hundred and fifty acres, in which he raises pears, almonds, peaches and prunes, and in addition raises large crops of grain, and pays considerable attention to raising stock, having good pasture land.
February 4, 1892. Mr. Reed married Miss Rachel Annette James, who was born in Tehama, Cal., where her father, John James, located on emigrating to this country from Wales. Mr. and Mrs. Reed have two children, Daniel Bidwell and Marietta. Politically Mr. Reed is an active Republican, a member of the county central committee, and religiously he belongs to the Episcopal Church.
History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California; by J.M. Guinn, The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago (1906)
Harry Bidwell Reed, pp. 550-551
Transcribed by Betty Wilson
EMIL MEYBEM
EMIL MEYBEM. In reviewing the career of Emil Meybem one is impressed anew with the painstaking and cautious business methods which accompany the sons of Germany to this side of the ocean. This prominent jeweler of Chico has built his own superstructure of success, basing his early claims upon the mastery of a trade which has claimed the attentive of at least one emperor and two European kings, and which has attained its greatest excellence in the quaint old town of Nuremberg, Germany. Reference is made to the art of watch-making, which Mr. Meybem learned during a four-year apprenticeship in his native town of Eisleben, in the province of Saxony, Prussia, where he was born April 27, 1847. His father, Wilhelm, a native of the same town, was a merchant tailor by trade and died when his son was ten years old. His mother, formerly Bertha Ulm, was also born in Eisleben, and reared six sons and one daughter, of whom Emil is the oldest.
Following the custom of his country, Mr. Meybem began to work at his trade when fourteen years old, and after completing it became a journeyman jeweler, traveling through Germany, England, Africa and Canada, and arriving in the United States February 14, 1886. At Oroville, Cal., he worked at watch-making for about a year and in 1887 came to Chico, where he was employed by Hibbard & Sommer, whom he bought out in 1893. Since then he has greatly enlarged his stock and building, and has added to that of jewelry and clocks of all kinds, a stock of music and sewing machines.
Notwithstanding his early educational limitations, Mr. Meybem has become one of the greatest promoters of education in his adopted town. In 1903 he served as president of the board of education, and for three years past has served on boards of both the grammar and high school. His ideas regarding the intellectual development of children are practical and well founded, and give to his opinion convincing weight in the community. He was also one of the stanchest champions of the new high school.
No citizen of Chico has a better standing in fraternal circles than Mr. Meybem. He is a member and past master of Chico Blue Lodge, F. & A.M., past high priest of Chapter No. 42, past commander of Commandery No. 12 of Chico, and a member of Shrine of Islam at San Francisco, and has held six commissions as inspector of Masonry of the Fifteenth District. He is a member of Lodge No. 432, B.P.O.E., in which he is past exalted ruler. In Chico Lodge No. 58, A.O.U.W., he is past master workman and past district deputy, and in Bidwell Lodge No. 124, Fraternal Brotherhood, he is past president and past district deputy. He is also one of the directors of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks Hall Association and the Masonic Hall Association. Possessing broad sympathies and great generosity, as well as clear judgment and thorough knowledge of men and affairs, Mr. Meybem is readily a leader in matters which tend to promote the business stability of the town and to stimulate an interest in the time-honored fraternal institutions which have been a guide and inspiration to countless thousands of people. Mr. Meybem married Bertha Nickolai, a native of Stuttgart, Germany, and to them have been born three sons and three daughters: Emil, Willie, Eda, Alma, Daisy and Albert.
History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California; by J.M. Guinn, The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago (1906)
Emil Meybem, pp. 558-561
Transcribed by Betty Wilson