Plumas County
Biographies
Rotheus A. Gray
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 5, 1851. His father, Captain R. D. Gray, was one of the principal seafaring men of New England, and a descendent from old Puritan stock—Edward Gray of the Mayflower being his ancestral progenitor. Captain Gray married a Miss Maria Nolan, daughter of Captain Nolan, British army, and a native of Dublin, Ireland. The result of this marriage was one son, the subject of this sketch. R. A. Gray entered Yarmouth Academy, Maine, to fit for college, in 1860, and left the institution four years after. He came to California in 1864, and entered Santa Clara College the twenty third of October of the same year. He remained in the institution the regular four years required for a classical course, and having completed his bachelor studies, began his medical course in 1868. He returned to the east in 1869, and finished his medical education, graduating in 1872, taking the degree of M. D. The degree of A. B. was received by him in 1874, and of A. M. in 1877. The doctor served one year in the U. S. naval and civil marine service as assistant surgeon, being stationed at Portland, Maine. He moved to California in 1874, and is now surgeon in charge of all the important mines near Greenville. He was married in 1872 to Miss May Seabury, by whom he has two children: Asa White, born November 23, 1873; and William Henry Moulton, born December 8, 1874.
SOURCE: Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 1513 to 1850. –
Fariss and Smith, San Francisco, 1882. p 323
Transcribed by Craig Hahn, Dec. 2004
William H. Miller
Mr. Miller was born in Schuyler county, New York, February 11, 1833. He came to California in 1852, and mined at Hansonville, Yuba county, and afterwards on the north fork of Feather river until 1858, when he bought a ranch in Humbug valley. He sold this ranch in 1859, and went to Butt valley, Plumas county, where he engaged in the stock and dairy business. In 1859 he was married to Mrs. L. A. Smith, who was born in Herkimer county, New York. In 1879 Mr. Miller erected a large hotel and residence. He, in partnership with L. W. Bunnell, was the owner of a store six miles below the valley on the North Fork, also one near their residence. After a short illness, Mr. Miller died on the twenty-sixth of November, 1879. He was universally esteemed, and left a host of friends. He was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity. Mrs. Miller still lives at the homestead, conducting an extensive dairy business, and a store opposite the hotel.
SOURCE: Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 1513 to 1850. –
Fariss and Smith, San Francisco, 1882. p 323
Transcribed by Craig Hahn, Dec. 2004
Joshua Brown McShane
A gentleman who is still living on Rich bar, honored and respected at the ripe old age of seventy-six years, is Joshua Brown McShane, affectionately called Pap by his early associates. He is a native of Pennsylvania, worked in the lead mines of Wisconsin, and came to this state in 1851. It was on a hot spring day of that year that Pap first descended Rich bar hill, crowned with a silk hat, and holding aloft an umbrella to protect himself from the warm rays of the sun. The unusual spectacle filled the miners with astonishment. Down dropped their tools, and a crowd soon gathered about the curiosity to take a look at it. Pap was eminently sound on the social question, and invited the boys in to take a “smile.” They went, and the smiling was several times repeated, finally winding up by Pap’s hat being made a target for a shower of potatoes, while the boys decorated the head of its owner with a fine chapeau of the regulation style. Pap made an honorable record as a miner and butcher on the bar for many years. He is the oldest living Odd Fellow in the state, having been initiated into the order in Wisconsin, in 1838, by Thomas Wildey, the father of Odd Fellowship in America.
SOURCE: Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 1513 to 1850. –
Fariss and Smith, San Francisco, 1882. p 248-249
Transcribed by Craig Hahn, Dec. 2004
W. Blough,
son of John and Mary Blough, was born in Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, May 15, 1826. At the age of twenty-three he went to Illinois, and lived there two years and a half. In 1852 he came to California, via the Isthmus, being 142 days on the voyage from Panama to San Francisco. He spent a year in Placer county, and then went to Yuba county, where he owned and ran a grist-mill for two years. In 1856 he sold out and returned to the east, but repeated his western journey in 1858, and finally settled in Plumas county. He ran a mill for Judkins & Hardwell in American valley for a year, and then located what is now the Corbin & Mason claim at Elizabethtown; but his company failed to make anything out of it, though it has since proved rich. He then went to Quincy, and afterwards to Taylorville, and ran the first mill built in Indian valley, in which he is now interested. Part of his time has been spent in building quartz-mills. He was married November 27, 1875 to Mrs. Louisa Batch of Taylorville. Mr. Blough is a member of Sincerity Lodge No. 132, F. & A. M., at Taylorville, and of Quincy chapter No. 11.
SOURCE: Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 1513 to 1850. –
Fariss and Smith, San Francisco, 1882. p 309
Transcribed by Craig Hahn, Dec. 2004