Butte County
Biographies
COL. CHARLES C. ROYCE
The Rancho Chico, formerly owned by the late Gen. John Bidwell, has been under the able management of Col. C.C. Royce since 1888. It is safe to say that no man at the head of ranching interests in the state is more deservedly popular, or is of a higher business or social standing. Colonel Royce has always made friends, has almost always kept them, and is universally respected for the research and culture which have dignified everything that he has undertaken, from his service in the Union army, and his association with Indian affairs and banking enterprises, to his present responsibility as manager of one of the finest properties in this most ideal ranching section of the state.
Colonel Royce was born in Defiance, Defiance county, Ohio, December 22, 1845, and comes of an ancestry distinguished not only because of the attainments of its members, but because of their association with the early history of Massachusetts. The name was formerly Rice, and the ancestor farthest back in the family records was Edmund Rice, who was born in 1594, in Berkhampstead, County Hertford, England, twenty-seven miles northwest of London. In 1637 he settled in Sudbury, Mass., nineteen miles from Boston, and in 1660 removed to Marlboro, where his death occurred in 1663. His third son, Thomas died in Marlboro in 1681. The latter’s eleventh child, Jonas Rice, was Colonel Royce’s great-great-great-grandfather, and was born in Marlboro, March 6, 1672. He was a noted man in that locality and later became the first settler of what is now Worcester, Mass., a hazardous undertaking at best, for the settlement was broken up by Indians, and only after his third attempt did he succeed in making it is permanent home. This was October 21, 1713, and he was always regarded as the father of the town, officiating in its town offices and starting its pioneer enterprises. In 1753 he was appointed judge of the court of common pleas, and it was while thus employed that his death occurred, September 22 of the same year. His fifth child, Adonijah Rice, the great-great-grandfather of Colonel Royce, was born November 7, 1714, and was the first white child born in Worcester, Mass. This ancestor served in several campaigns against the French and Indians and was a sergeant in Captain Dalrymple’s company during 1755-56. In the latter part of his life he moved to Bridgeport, Vt., dying there January 20, 1802, in his eighty-eighth year. His eighth child, Jonas Rice, great-grandfather of Colonel Royce, was born in Worcester, Mass., June 26, 1755, and died in Orwell, Addison county, Vt., February17, 1839. He served as corporal in Col. William Williams’ regiment at the battle of Bennington, in September, 1777, and was first lieutenant during the campaign of 1780-81. The latter’s son Alpheus, grandfather of Colonel Royce, was born in Orwell, Vt., December 18, 1787, and died there April 15, 1871. He it was who changed the spelling of the name from Rice to Royce, assigning as his reason for it, his discovery that the Rice family were multiplying so fast that they would soon constitute the greater portion of the inhabitants of the United States. He was captain at the battle of Plattsburg, during the war of 1812, leading a Vermont regiment. The eldest son of Alpheus Rice, Charles Volney, the father of Colonel Royce, was born in Orwell, August 28,1810, and in time married Emily Ashumn, born in Russell, St. Lawrence county, N.Y., October 22, 1810. In April, 1853, the father removed to Miami county, Ohio, where he served as county clerk for ten years, and where his death occurred October 2, 1863, in Troy, at the age of fifty-three. Besides holding prominent positions in military life, among them major and paymaster, he was active in the ranks of the Republican party.
For four years prior to her death, which occurred March 5, 1904, when over ninety-three years of age, Mrs. Royce made her home with her son in Chico. She came of a noted Massachusetts family, her father, Reuben Ashumn, a native of Massachusetts, having been the first white man to explore and survey the great Adirondack wilderness in New York state. Her cousin, Hon. George Ashumn, was president of the Republican national convention of 1860 that nominated Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States. Besides her son, Charles, Mrs. Royce had three daughters, all of whom are deceased. The father located in Defiance county, Ohio, in 1833, and there conducted a general merchandise store for many years, at the same time acting as county clerk for years.
Colonel Royce was educated in the public schools of Defiance and Troy, to which latter town he removed in 1853. His youth was uneventful, and until the breaking out of the Civil war nothing of note happened to test his calibre or bring to the surface his strength of character and inclination. In September, 1862, he enlisted in the United States navy, serving on the monitor Neosho, as mate, and was discharged from the service August 26, 1865. He was slightly wounded at the battle of Nashville. In the meantime he had been appointed ensign by Admiral Porter, but the unexpected termination of hostilities interfered with the delivery of the honor. In 1866 Colonel Royce was appointed to the department of Indian affairs in Washington, D.C., remaining there ten years, for the last three years of that time serving as chief of the land division of that department. In 1874 he graduated at Columbian Law College and was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of the District of Columbia. In 1876 he was appointed to the department of ethnology in the Smithsonian Institute, and while there compiled several works on the Indians of North America, which were published by the Institute, 1884 to 1900. In 1871 he was appointed assistant adjutant-general of the Grand Army of the Republic, on the staff of Gen. John A. Logan, who was then the commander-in-chief, and in 1880 was elected commander of the department of the Potomac of that organization. In 1886 he was chief of staff to the commander-in-chief, and has been a member of the National Encampment of the G.A.R. since 1871.
In 1886 Colonel Royce chanced to meet Gen. John Bidwell at the national Grand Army convention in San Francisco, and a friendship sprung up between them which caused both participants to be remembered by the other, and which resulted in Colonel Royce becoming the business manager of Rancho Chico in 1888.
In Troy, Ohio, in 1871, Colonel Royce married Belle Harter, a native of Ohio, and she is still living. Besides his identification with the Grand Army of the Republic Colonel Royce belongs to the Sons of the American Revolution and the Military Order of Foreign Wars. In politics he is a Republican. Personally, he is a man of impressive and interesting traits, of exhaustive information upon all questions which hold the attention of the world. A man of high ideals and aspirations, he is readily conceded to be one of the most influential men of this part of the state, and has drawn to him distinguished friendships from many of the higher walks of life. An interesting and instructive conversationalist, he also possesses tact and discretion, and has the rare faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.
"History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento Valley, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A.M. Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago. 1906." pp 285-286
Transcribed by: Betty Wilson, August 2004