Sutter County
Biographies
JOHN HAMILTON LAMME
A highly esteemed citizen of Sutter City, whose useful and well-spent life has not only gained the confidence of his fellow-men, but has also secured for him a comfortable competence, is John Hamilton Lamme, who was born at Grass Valley, Cal., September 15, 1860, a son of Adam Hamilton and Fannie L. (Crane) Lamme, both natives of Illinois. Adam Hamilton Lamme and his wife crossed the plains to California with an ox team in 1859 and located at Grass Valley, where Mr. Lamme became an underground miner. A cave-in in the mine where he was working caused him to give up mining, and he then removed to Carson City, Nev., where he engaged in vegetable-raising. He remained there until 1866 and then returned to California and settled at Pennington, where he purchased 240 acres of land. Later he bought his brother-in-law’s place of 240 acres, and from time to time added more acreage until he had 1400 acres of land devoted to sheep-raising and general farming. He spent the remainder of his days on this ranch, where he passed away in 1899. Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Lamme: John Hamilton, of this review; William; Rash, deceased; Samuel; and Edna, now Mrs. Ocheltree. The mother resides in Alameda, aged eighty-three.
John Hamilton Lamme received his education at the Pennington district school and Napa College, and remained at home with his folks until he was twenty-two years old, when he began farming on leased land.
On December 10, 1882, Mr. Lamme was married to Miss Clara Davis, a native of Sutter County, and a daughter of Eli and Sophie Davis. Eli Davis was a farmer and stock-raiser, and was county supervisor for many years. There were eight children in the parents’ family: W. J.; Clara, Mrs. Lamme; Sophie, who is now Mrs. C. E. Williams; Ruth, now Mrs. Frank Douglas; Edith, Mrs. Hook; Grant; Florence, now Mrs. Glover; and Ella. Mrs. Lamme received her education in the Washington district school and Napa College. Mr. and Mrs. Lamme resided in Pennington for two years, and then removed to Sutter City, where they have since resided. They have had six children: Eva, who is now Mrs. Powers; a child who died in infancy; Elmer and Wallace, deceased; Ansel W.; and Davis. From 1910 to 1913 Mr. Lamme served as postmaster of Sutter City; and since 1915 he has been county sealer of weights and measures. For four years, also, he was deputy county assessor. He is a Republican in politics; and fraternally he is a Mason.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 608
CHARLES FREDERICK FARINGTON
Not every industrious, progressive rancher who has tried to operate according to the most approved and up-to-date methods can feel the quiet satisfaction as to the results obtained which rewards Charles Frederick Farington, the well-known farmer of Sutter City, who was born at Big Grove, Kendall County, Ill., on May 17, 1861, the son of Charles Wesley and Eunice Ellen (Barker) Farington, the former a native of Rochester, N.Y., while the latter was born in Illinois in 1839. Charles W. Farington came to Illinois in the late forties, and farmed there; and there the worthy couple were married. It thus happened that our subject went to school in the fourth ward school district in Kendall County. Charles Wesley Farington passed away in his thirty-third year, but his devoted wife lived to see her sixty-eighth year. Mr. and Mrs. Farington had five children, of whom Charles Frederick was the second. Ira E. was the first-born; and after Charles came Eloise, Herbert and Oscar.
Losing his father when he was eight years old, a good deal devolved on Charles Farington and his older brother; and instead of developing in robust fashion, Charles Farington in time began to feel the need of a change of climate. In 1886, or when the great “boom” was just starting in California, he came out to the Coast for his health, weighing at that time only 117 pounds, and for a year or so, while he lived with an aunt, Mrs. Harriet Griffith, at Sutter City, he took up odd jobs, and was glad to get anything to do that would afford him outside work and exercise. In December 1887, he went to work for J. M. Stevens, and he remained with him until March of the following year. He then worked for a couple of months for Mr. Haynes; and then, returning to his aunt’s, he stayed on her farm until the fall of 1888. He next worked on the Clements ranch until May, 1889, and then went back to Griffith’s and helped to gather in the hay. On July 12, 1889, he returned to Illinois; and there he farmed for a year. In October, 1890, he came back to California and settled again in Sutter City; although, having been mixed up in a railroad wreck in Kansas, where he suffered injuries, he came near to never seeing California again. John Stevens again furnished him employment; and in December, 1890, he went about four and one-half miles to the south of Sutter City and there for a year helped D. E. Knight with his ranch operations.
At Sutter, on December 9, 1891, Charles F. Farington was married to Miss Alice M. Haynes, a native of Chicago Junction, Ohio, who was brought out to California by her parents, James and Frances Haynes, when she was only a year old, the party traveling by way of the Isthmian route. James Haynes settled in Sutter County, south of the Buttes, in 1869, and became one of the most esteemed of the many fine old pioneers who helped to develop and build up that section of the Golden State.
After his marriage, Mr. Farington worked for D. E. Knight for eleven years, never losing a day; and then, in March, 1900, he rented the Knight ranch, and operated it for a couple of years. In the autumn of 1901 he came onto his present ranch. In January, 1898, he had bought 240 acres two miles to the northeast of Sutter for $12.50 an acre; and in October, 1901, he purchased ninety acres from E. S. Wright. These two tracts joined each other. Since then, he himself has installed all the improvements, including a comfortable, attractive dwelling, two barns, and a group of farm buildings. In 1905 he added 100 acres adjoining his land on the east, which he purchased from Elizabeth Epperson; in 1908 he bought another 150 acres on the south; and in 1914 he added to his possessions forty acres more, five miles to the south of his home. In 1918 he bought 480 acres of range land, in Butte County, near Bangor, and in 1919 he added eighty acres to that. In August, 1919, he also purchased thirty acres of the old Stevens grant, a quarter of a mile east of Sutter, where his son lives. Mr. Farington raises rice; and with his son, C. L. Farington, he runs 350 head of cattle in the mountains. Mr. Farrington is a Republican. He takes a deep interest in education, and has been for eight years a trustee of the Brittan district school.
Alice Haynes Farington died in November, 1906, beloved and esteemed by all who knew her; and that same year, the mother of our subject passed away through the same dread disease that had taken his wife–typhoid fever. Alice Haynes Farington was the mother of three children: Irwin Edson, who is on the ranch with his father; Charles Le Roy, who is running stock; and Ruth, who has become Mrs. Folsom, of Marysville. On January 4, 1908, at Los Gatos, Mr. Farington married a second time, being united with Miss Ruth Clayton, a charming lady who had come to California a short time before. She was born near Winona, Minn., a daughter of Samuel and Henrietta (Howes) Clayton, the former a native of Michigan, and the latter a native of New York. Samuel Clayton was a farmer, who left the plow when Lincoln called for volunteers, and served in the Civil War with a Minnesota regiment. Samuel Clayton lived to be sixty-nine years of age, and his good wife was seventy-two when she died. Ruth Clayton Farington attended a local Minnesota grammar school, and later graduated from the Winona Normal School. She taught a number of years in rural and city schools, and then joined the staff of the Indian Reservation at Pine Ridge, still later becoming one of the faculty at the Kiowa Reservation, in Oklahoma, and the Chippewa Reservation in Minnesota. She also taught in the schools at Wittenberg, Wis., and Pipe Stone, Minn., these also being Indian reservation schools. One child, Eunice was born of this second union.
Irwin Edson Farington has to his credit an enviable military record. On August 24, 1914, he entered the service of his country by joining the 3rd Company, C.A.C. National Guards, and with his company was on duty, during the Mexican troubles, at Fort Scott, San Francisco, where he became a duty sergeant. He was transferred into the Federal service as a member of Park Battery C., Army Artillery Park, 1st Army, A.E.F., and was over seas from September 1, 1918, until May 1, 1919, when he was discharged at the Presidio, in San Francisco. Before going abroad, he served as first sergeant at the Presidio, training troops for foreign service. He is at present serving as historian of Yuba-Sutter Post No. 42, American Legion, and holds a commission as lieutenant of Company H., 184th Infantry, N.G.C. He was an active spirit in reorganizing the old Yuba-Sutter Rifle and Pistol Club in the spring of 1923; and its premises are now about to be taken over by the State of California as a battalion rifle range. It is located just south of South Butte in Sutter County. He was married at Oakland, November 4, 1917, to Miss Clara Orrina Webb, born at Meridian, Cal. He is a graduate of the Brittan Grammar School and the Sutter Union High School, class of 1913. For two years he pursued a special engineering course in the University of California, and was engaged in the Moore & Scott shipyards at Oakland for a year before the United States entered the World War.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 612