Sutter County
Biographies
JOSEPH KERR
A thoroughly wide-awake executive whose popularity has made him additionally serviceable is Joseph Kerr, the general foreman of the Sutter Basin Company. A native of Nevada, he was born at Cherry Creek on March 9, 1879. His parents were Joseph and Katherine D. (Schuret) Kerr, the former a native of Ohio, and the latter of Pennsylvania. Mr. Kerr had a fourteen-horse team with which he did freighting in Nevada; he was murdered, being shot and killed while our subject was an infant. Joseph Kerr was reared by a stepfather, Andrew J. Linton, who was a miner at Osceola, Nev. With his partner, Mr. Monroe, Andrew J. Linton was a founder of Osceola. Later Mr. Linton raised fruit in Wasco County, Ore., and there Joseph Kerr attended school. Both Mr. and Mrs. Linton died in Oregon, each aged about sixty-five years.
Joseph Kerr is the youngest in a family of five children, and at the early age of sixteen started to paddle his own canoe. He went into Elko County, Nev., and rode the range for three years; and then he returned to Wasco County, Ore., where he took the home-place of 360 acres, devoted to fruit-raising and general farming. He remained there until 1905, when he engaged in the transfer business, for a year, at The Dalles, Ore.; and then he shipped his outfit to Reno, Nev., and for a short time conducted the Nevada Transfer Company. He traded his transfer outfit for a stage-line, and ran a stage from Clark Station to Ramsay, Nev., during 1908-1909, and then sold out.
In 1910 Mr. Kerr began freighting in Nevada County, Cal., and that same winter took up farming on the Natomas land at Folsom, on the American River, although his chief work during 1911-1913 was that of rent-collector for the Natomas Company. In the autumn of the latter year he became a State guard at Folsom, and there he was almost killed in the notorious Creeks break, and is the only one living that was in that melee. It was at night, and while on guard duty Mr. Kerr was knocked unconscious by two prisoners. It happened that Capt. James Drury, one of the guards, was along and the prisoners beat him to death. Regaining consciousness almost immediately, Mr. Kerr was shot at nine times; but each shot missed him, although one prisoner and two guards lost their lives. Creeks escaped and remained at large for a short time; but he was apprehended, and was later hanged for the murder of James Drury. In 1916, Mr. Kerr took charge of an honor crew on the building of the State highway. The following year he went to work for the Farris estate at Gridley, as foreman, and remained with them for a short time; and then he removed to Siskiyou County, and became ranch foreman for the Butte Valley Land Company’s ranch.
In November, 1918, Mr. Kerr received a telegram from the Sutter Basin Company requesting him to buy up a car-load of horses and bring them to the Sutter Basin, and inviting him to accept the position of general foreman of the Central Division for that company, which he did; and he has served in that capacity on the company’s ranch ever since, to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. He likes his work and has a single eye to the best interests of his employers, and at the same time he seeks always to do and get the best for the men working under him. He is a Republican; and since July, 1921, he has been deputy sheriff of Sutter County.
The marriage of Mr. Kerr, which occurred in Woodland, December 13, 1923, united him with Mrs. Eva Irene (Van Lew) Roth, who was born in Sutter County.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 1309-1310
R. H. BAILEY
A rancher whose progressive methods cannot fail to be interesting, is R. H. Bailey, a native of Sutter County and now a prominent and representative resident of the vicinity of Knights Landing, his choice ranch lying two and one-half miles to the north of that town. He was born on the old Bailey ranch, on January 2, 1865, the son of James Bartlett Bailey, a native of Kentucky, who had married Miss Mildred M. Hottle, a native of Virginia, but reared in Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Bailey were married in the Iron State, and crossed the plains to California in a prairie schooner. They settled at first at Knights Landing, where they lived for two years; but about 1860 they removed to a ranch about two and one-half miles north of that place, Mr. Bailey having bought some eighty acres, which he had to clear of heavy timber before he operated it as a farm. He died aged fifty-eight years, when R. H. Bailey was two and a half years old. Mrs. Bailey reached her sixty-fourth year.
Fourth in the order of birth in a family of six children, R. H. Bailey attended the school in the Knights Landing district. Mrs. Bailey married a second time, John Yardley, becoming her husband; and she had two sons by him. Our subject was brought up by Mr. and Mrs. Yardley, and has always been associated with the home place, and at the death of his parents he fell heir to the sixty-five acres devoted to general farming. He also leased land, so that now he operates 1000 acres. He is a Democrat, and has served as constable of Vernon Township for a term; and he is a member of the County Democratic Central Committee at the present time.
In Sutter County, on June 12, 1895, Mr. Bailey was married to Miss Fannie Green, born in Sutter County, the daughter of O. B. and Katherine (Newkirk) Green, the former a native of Missouri, while the latter was born in Kentucky. They were married in Missouri, and in 1864 came to California. They settled in Sutter County, about five miles to the north of Knights Landing, and there cultivated 120 acres. Mr. Green lived to be sixty-two years of age, and his good wife was eighty-two when she breathed her last. Mrs. Bailey is one of thirteen children, a twin and the eleventh in order of birth; and she attended the Sutter district school. They have two children, Clarence Wesley and Elsie Mildred, Mrs. W. J. Black, both of Woodland. Clarence married Miss Edna Josephine Black, of Sacramento; and they have one daughter, Thelma. Elsie also has one daughter, Mildred Alice. Mr. Bailey is a member of River Lodge No. 256, I.O.O.F., of Knights Landing, in which he is a Past Grand. He also belongs to Woodland Lodge, No. 1290, B.P.O. Elks, and is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America at Knights Landing.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 1310-1311