Butte County Biographies

CHARLES NEFF REED 

Transcribed by:  Betty Wilson

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was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 29, 1849.  At 
the early age of seven years he began the battle of life.  At the close of the 
rebellion, in which he participated as drummer-boy, orderly and spy in the Union 
army for three years and five months, he went into the printing business, and 
has since been identified with the press west of the Rocky mountains.  He came 
to Butte county in October, 1877, and was foreman and local editor of the Butte 
County Register from November, 1877, until October of the following year, when 
he assumed the editorial and business management of the Oroville Mercury.  On 
the twenty-ninth of October, 1879, he established the Herald at Gridley, making 
a very successful venture, his paper being considered one of the newsiest and 
most enterprising journals of county.  He is small in stature, but a hard 
worker, and ever on the alert to assist in any movement calculated to benefit 
the community in which he resides.  He is a lineal descendant of General Joseph 
Reed, of revolutionary fame, inheriting much of the spirit of ’76, and is a 
worthy type of the self-made men of the Pacific coast.  Mr. Reed is a member of 
the Oroville lodge No. 59, I.O.O.F.; also of the Oroville encampment No. 22, and 
of the Washington camp No. 15, P.O.S.A.  He is a member and founder of the J. L. 
Ridgley lodge No. 65, degree of Rebekah, at Gridley.
 
History of Butte County, California: From its Earliest Settlement to the Present 
Time - Vol. II -  Harry L. Wells & W. L. Chambers - 547 Clay Street, San 
Francisco, Cal., 1882.