Yuba County
Biographies
JENNIE MALALEY
A native of Yuba County, Miss Malaley was born near Brownsville, the daughter of James and Catherine (Downs) Malaley, both natives of Ireland, who left the Emerald Isle to live their life and to found a family in the New World. Six children were born to them, of whom four survive: Jennie, Mary, Catherine, and Thomas. The father was a stockraiser and rancher in the foot-hill district of Yuba County, and served as supervisor of Yuba County for four years, from January, 1887, until January, 1891. During one year of this time he was chairman of the board. His demise occurred in June, 1894, his widow surviving him until January, 1913. He was a man highly esteemed, as she was a woman greatly beloved by all who knew them.
Having fitted herself for the profession of teaching, Miss Malaley engaged in her chosen work in the schools of her home county until her election to her present position as superintendent of schools, which occurred in 1914, and was followed in succession by her reelection in 1918 and again in 1922. Thus she is now serving her third term as county superintendent of schools for Yuba County. During the period of her tenure of the office, Miss Malaley has done much to advance the cause of education, to which she is deeply devoted, believing, as do all good teachers and educational heads, that the future of our country depends on the capacities developed and the ideals inculcated in the minds and hearts of the growing generation; and it would be difficult to find a woman more thoroughly in accord with the true Western spirit of progress, or more keenly alive to the opportunities awaiting the children who are now being molded by the public schools into intelligent and loyal citizens of this wonderful land of ours.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1108-1111
PETER L. CARMICHAEL
A prominent stockman and extensive holder of property in Yuba County since 1885, Peter L. Carmichael is of Scotch parentage, the son of Alexander and Margaret (Dick) Carmichael, both now deceased. Alexander Carmichael was born in Scotland, near Glasgow, in 1819, and made the trip to San Francisco around Cape Horn in 1848, as a sailor. He left ship to go into the gold fields with a party having for their destination the Southern Diggings, and followed mining until 1863, eventually locating in Sierra County and engaging in the stock and butcher business until 1880. The wife and mother was also born in Scotland, and came to California via Panama, arriving in San Francisco in 1853, and from there coming direct to the mines of Sierra County.
Peter L. Carmichael was born in St. Louis, Sierra County, an old mining camp, on June 26, 1855, the eldest of seven children, three of whom survive their parents. He was reared in the Sierras and early learned both mining and the butcher’s trade, working at the latter in his father’s shop at an early age, a business for which he was peculiarly adapted, for his paternal ancestors were butchers before him in Scotland. In 1880 he bought out his father, thereafter conducting the shop at St. Louis, Sierra County, for thirty years, and then selling out the retail business, in 1910, to attend to his growing stock business. In the meantime he had invested in live stock and used the foot-hills of Sierra County for range; and with the forming of a Forest Reserve by the government in the high Sierras, he was among the first stockmen to receive a government permit to run his stock on the range, with head camp at Table Rock, near Holland Flat, from June to November each year. He has made a close and careful study of the stock business; and his knowledge is backed by a lifetime of experience, all of a most practical nature. He is now the owner of 1700 acres in the Yuba County foot-hills, with both southerly and easterly slope, twenty-five miles above Marysville on the Yuba River, which makes an ideal stock farm. Here he has been raising shorthorn cattle, his head sires being of pure-bred stock; and in the orchards on the property both oranges and deciduous fruits abound. This ranch and the range near Bangor make up his winter pastures, embracing a total of 3000 acres, of which he owns 1700 acres, renting the balance.
The marriage of Mr. Carmichael, in 1888, united him with Miss Lillie Becker, born near Holland Flat in 1870, the daughter of the late Frank and Caroline Becker, pioneers of California. Her brother, C. J. Becker of Marysville, is a prominent business man of Yuba County. Four children have blessed this union: Mae, wife of William Coupe of Sicard Flat, and a teacher at Long Bar school; Nettie, wife of Robert Scott; and H. R. and Frank P. Carmichael. Both sons are associated in the stock business with their father, having been practically reared in the saddle.
In politics Mr. Carmichael is a Republican, and formerly was a member of the Sierra County Republican Central Committee. He can look back over a remarkable period in the history of mining and stock-raising in the State, in which he has had unbounded faith, and the courage to carry out his convictions, though at times this has required great fortitude, for with the good years he has had some not unmixed with adversities. The present-day stockmen have added many necessary provisions for the protection of their interests, provisions which were foreign to the man who raised and dealt in live stock a generation ago. Experience has been their one great teacher and they have profited by its lessons; but the stockman who was not gifted with fortitude in the early days usually did not remain long in the business. Mr. Carmichael was instrumental in organizing the Bangor Cattlemen’s Association. In mattes of legislation, this organization works closely with the California State Cattlemen’s Association, of which he is also a member. Aside from his cattle interests, Mr. Carmichael also has always been somewhat active in mining; and today he is a joint owner in one of Sierra County’s richest producing mines. A man of strict and honest principle, he has won his way to success through his own hard work and good management.
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1112-1115