Colusa County
Biographies
EDWARD WINSLOW JONES
Among the residents of Colusa County prominent for their energy, business endowments, as also for the esteem in which they are justly held, Edward Winslow Jones is found in the front rank. He was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 23, 1848. His father, James W. Jones, was one of the early pioneers of California, arriving in El Dorado County in the spring of 1850, where he engaged in mining first and afterwards in the hotel and express business, till the year 1853. In that year he located a farm eight miles north of Colusa, and in 1857 was a candidate for the Assembly from Colusa and Tehama Counties, against Ned Lewis, in which the latter, after a stirring contest, was elected by only three votes. In the early days of the settlement of Colusa County, the elder Jones was selected, by the settlers, one of a committee of three to proceed to Washington City and represent their interests against the confirmation of the Cambuston grant. He fulfilled his mission there to the satisfaction of his clients, in proving to the Interior Department the fraudulency of the grant. It will be observed that the father of the subject of this sketch was an active citizen of Colusa County in his day.
In 1859 the elder Jones sent for his family at the East to rejoin him at his new home on the farm in this county, where young Edward passed the following seven years. Having previously received a good common-school education in Wisconsin, he was sent to the State Normal School in San Francisco, where he graduated in 1868. He supplemented the knowledge there acquired with a course in book-keeping and commercial methods.
Returning now to Colusa, he entered the office of his father, who was largely engaged in the grain trade. His father dying shortly afterward, it devolved upon him to settle the parental estate.
In 1870 he organized at Colusa the firm of E. W. Jones & Co., to carry on the buying and selling of grain, which business he still conducts successfully. This firm is the owner of the following warehouses: Grangers, of Colusa, Colusa Warehouse, at Colusa, the warehouse at Sites and another at Lurline, having a combined capacity of twenty-five thousand tons. The business conducted in these warehouses is of more extensive proportions, seeing that this firm purchased and stored, in the year 1889, forty thousand tons of wheat, and for the year ending March 1, 1889, four hundred thousand pounds of wool.
During the long period of diverse activities in which Mr. Jones has conducted business, he has not neglected his duty to his townsmen in local matters of a public nature, nor have they failed to appreciate his services, given gratuitously. He was the first town treasurer of Colusa, under its new and present charter, and has occupied the position of city trustee for twelve consecutive years, a portion of this time serving as president of the Board. He has likewise served as school trustee for eight years.
Though Mr. Jones is a Republican and resides in a Democratic town, its citizens have retained him in office for the past twenty years. Though these offices were purely positions of honor and without salary or fees attached, their incumbency by Mr. Jones is as much a tribute to his unselfish usefulness as it is an evidence of the regard in which he is held personally by his political opponents. He went before the people, having been nominated, August 2, 1890, by the Republican convention for the office of County Treasurer, and was elected by a majority of twenty-seven votes. He is held in high esteem by his party, or whose County Central Committee he has been chairman during the past eight years.
Mr. Jones was the first president of the Colusa and Lake Railway, and after its consolidation with the Colusa Road, he was chosen its vice-president, which position he has ever since held.
Even amid the multiplicity of diverse business matters, Mr. Jones finds time to take a practical interest in the promotion of fruit culture, and cultivates a handsome orchard of ten acres planted to prunes and pears.
Mr. Jones was married, June 14, 1870, to Miss Nellie A. Morris, of Colusa County, a native daughter of California, by whom he is the father of four children, three of whom are living, one son and two daughters.
“Colusa County” – by Justus H. Rogers – Orland, CA – 1891 – pp 381-382
COLONEL GEORGE HAGAR
The subject of this biographical notice was born in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1820, and is the son of Elisha Hagar, a sturdy tiller of an exhausting soil. Young George in early life had the advantage of receiving a common-school education and a course of study at Woburn Academy, which laid for him the foundation of a life of usefulness. Upon leaving the academy, the alternative was offered to him by his father of choosing one of two vocations. He could either pursue his studies further by taking a full collegiate course in some of the many eminent institutions of learning in his native State, and thus prepare himself for one of the professions, or he might devote himself immediately to mercantile pursuits. In consonance with his own tastes and ambitions, young Hagar chose the latter course, and so at the age of sixteen years he entered a general merchandise store at Keene, New Hampshire. Here he remained seven years, justifying, by his aptitude for business, the wisdom of his selection of a career, which was destined to make him years afterwards one of the most successful business men in Colusa County.
With one of his pronounced talents for commercial pursuits, it was but natural that he should engage in business for himself. Hence we find him seven years later in business for himself, conducting a general store most successfully in the same town of Keene. The announcement that gold had been discovered in California had scarcely more than reached the quiet little New Hampshire town in which Mr. Hagar was engaged in business, when he became seized with an ardent desire to cast his lot in the new gold-fields. Disposing of his business, he left the land of small profits and social comfort, and, on March 1, 1849, embarked in a sailing vessel for California via Cape Horn, and after nearly a six months’ voyage he arrived in San Francisco, and immediately thereafter he set out for the mines. Everybody went first to the mines in these brave old Argonaut days.
Colonel Hagar first located at Big Bar, on the Mokelumne River studying the rude mechanism of sluice-box, rocker and “long tom” and endeavoring to wash a fortune out of them. Two months’ trial here convinced him that the precious yellow flakes, or grains, which were coaxed from the grass roots and river beds were not inclined to come his way. Then he started for Stockton, which at this period had become quite a supply-point for the mines. No sooner had he arrived there than he returned to his old love, the mercantile business, and continued to conduct a general store for a period of four years.
In 1852, Colonel Hagar first came to Colusa, and in company with others purchased the Jimeno grant. Having now become fairly well off in this world’s goods, he decided to locate in San Francisco and there branch out in pursuits large enough to be commensurate with his ambition. But after frequent visits to Colusa, he abandoned this design and concluded to locate permanently in this place, in the year 1860.
In conjunction with several prominent business men of Colusa, he was one of the charter members in the organization, in 1870, of the Colusa County Bank (a sketch of which prosperous institution will be found elsewhere), and of which Colonel Hagar has been president for the last eight years. As a conservative and reliable factor in a large and rapidly-increasing agricultural community, the influence of this bank has been beneficially felt in a co-operative way, in full touch and sympathy with the county’s needs and growing condition.
Colonel Hagar’s home is located on the outskirts of the town of Colusa. His residence is one of the most roomy and sightful in the county, surrounded by beautiful and well-kept gardens. In 1867, he was married to Miss Sarah A. Winship, of Colusa, by whom he has an only child, Miss Alice W., born in 1871, and who was graduated from Snell Seminary, Oakland, last year with high honors.
Besides being the owner of several extensive ranches in the county, Colonel Hagar is largely interested in property in the town of Colusa. For the Indian he has especial sympathy, and for those of the old Colus tribe, or their children, he will always provide work, help or a home on his ranches.
In his young manhood he enlisted in the New Hampshire militia and was elected colonel of the Twentieth Regiment. Always a consistent member of the Republican party, he can view a Democratic majority snow his ticket under in the county at every election with undisturbed composure and then “fix his flint” and cast another Republican ballot at the succeeding election with the same good-humor as if his party had been triumphant. During the war he was enrolled in the Union Army, but was never mustered into service.
A quiet, far-seeing, mentally well-poised gentleman in business is Colonel Hagar, and when not found at his own hospitable home or at the bank in Colusa, he is generally either attending to his extensive farming interests or is enjoying a period of rest in San Francisco, where he is a member of the Pacific Union Club and of the Association of Pioneers.
“Colusa County” – by Justus H. Rogers – Orland, CA – 1891 – pp 382-384