James David Myers (1840 - 1921)

Born Mar 1840 in Moberly, Randolph, Missouri, USA

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Died 27 Mar 1921 at about age 81 in Oakland, Alameda County, California, United States of America

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Biography

James was born in 1840. He passed away in 1921. J. D. MYERS. Mr. Myers was born in Randolph County, Missouri, March 22, 1840. In 1851 his father, Henry K. Myers, died, and J. D. being the oldest, the duty of providing for his widowed mother and three other children devolved on him. This he did until his mother married again, in 1860. In 1863 he came overland to California and crossed Beckwourth summit July 26, 1863. He worked at the carpenter's trade until the spring of 1867, when he bought a half-interest in a planing mill at Randolph, the firm being Rawden & Myers. In 1876 he sold his interest to Rawden, bought a body of pine and fir timber containing 450 acres, three miles south-west of Randolph, and built a water-power saw-mill, which he has since owned and managed. March 10, 1870, he was married to Mary Duvall of Randolph County, Missouri; born July 17, 1850. Their children are Mittie TL, born January 13, 1871; Henry Wildey, May 24, 1875; infant son, October 7, 1877, died next day. Mr. Myers is a member of Mountain Yale Lodge No. 140, I. O. O. F.

My father, James David Myers, was the oldest son of Henry and Judith Myers. Born March 22, 1840, in the little new log house his father build on the "forty", patented in 1839, he was their only child to reach maturity. On his father's death in 1851 this eleven-year-old boy took on a man's work which increased as he grew older, for his mother didn't remarry until nine years later. Then, November 12, 1862, James D. Myers enrolled at the Huntsville, Missouri Militia, under the command of Colonel Denney and Captain Skinner. If this unit ever saw service it was not until after April 13, 1863. On that day Tunsford Coates obtained a permit to take 50 men, including James D. Myers, from this regiment as armed guards for a mule train he was taking to San Francisco. For the six months he already served in the militia, James received $45. The entire overland trip to California was marked by pure dogged patience. To guard against surprise Indian raids at night, the wagons were drawn up in a circle for camp formation. Several minor skirmishes with Indian marked the trip. The mule train entered Beckworth Pass in Eastern California July 26, 1863. This pass was a break in the mountain chain northwest of Reno, Nevada, running from the eastern side of the summit through Plumas County, California. From there the train followed the emigrant trail down the Feather River Canyon to the Sacramento Valley and on to San Francisco. Once there, Tunsford Coates released his men. He had no further need for guards and he seemed to have made no commitment to return them to Missouri. The gold mining town of Downieville in Sierra County had recently been destroyed by fire. My father, stranded in a strange place, answered a newspaper advertisement for carpenters to aid in rebuilding it. The rebuilding work done, my father, instead of returning to San Francisco, went westward to the Sierra Valley. There he settled and lived for the larger part of his life. Sierra Valley is a large "L" shaped valley at an elevation of 5,000 feet, perhaps twenty-five miles in either direction at its longest point. He located at the southern end of the valley, and in 1867 entered into partnership with W. L. Rawdon in a water-powered planning mill venture. The mill was located at the foot of Randolph Hill in Randolph. When, in December 1869 the famous Golden Spike was driven at Salt Lake, uniting two railroads to span the continent, "Dave" Myers, as he was known in the West, was one of the very early passengers to board the train at Truckee for a trail run on this wonderfully new and easy way to cross the continent. Enriched by $750 he had received from his stepfather for land from his father's estate, he had decided to go "back home" to see the "folks." As a reason for going, he certainly could not have rose-cheeked Mary Duvall in mind? Mother Duvall may have disapproved but they were married March 10, 1870, after a whirlwind courtship of but two months. Whether my father built or bought the house on Randolph Creek just south of the hotel and livery stable, and the planing mill to which he took his bride, I never knew. Here I was born January 13, 1873, and my brother on May 24, 1875. The house is still (1957) standing and in good repair with only a modicum of changes - such as the porch with white pillars on the south side and the Mandeville shingles over the clapboard siding. In 1876 our father sold his interest in the planing mill to his partner, and bought 640 acres of lush timberland three and a half miles to the southwest of Randolph, close to the old Weber Lake trail, and build for the day a very large water-powered sawmill. The first house the family occupied at the mill was a pre-emption cabin across the ravine from the sawmill. To make final proof of title to land by pre-emption, residence of the family for a certain number of weeks in a house on the claim fitted with one window was required. It was indeed primitive living! When the necessary time elapsed we were moved back to the larger limits of the unceiled, weather boarded, story and a half house. It not only housed the family for the next six or eight years, but it was the cook-house and the dining room for the small crew. If the sales season for the lumber was good and the crew was large, we had a Chinese cook complete with queue. When only a small crew was needed mother was cook. I was dishwasher for the morning and noon meals, while small brother (Wildey), was chief delayer of operations.

Those summers at the mill were free, delightful, carefree days for us children. Winters were spent in town for schooling in the large one-roomed, one-teacher school of one hundred pupils. But back we went to the mill to begin summer logging operations as soon as the first signs of spring came on. Each autumn large freight wagons, sometimes two in tandem, drawn by four to six horses, came to the mill from Honey Lake Valley to the north, loaded with boxes of fresh apples, hundred pound bags of potatoes, white and brown beans and twenty-five pound boxes of dried fruits, enough to last the crew and family the winter through. The way between my father and mother was not all smooth going. About 1898 they were divorced and she, with the children, moved to Reno where she bought a house at 608 Ralston Street. He married the widow McMurray who, with three young daughters, had lived on the adjoining farm at Sierraville and had somehow acquired an exaggerated idea of my father’s financial status. Later they also moved to a farm outside of Reno. When my father’s money ran out and he was physically unable to work at his trade to support them, the marriage also ended in divorce.

He lived for a time with me at Holtville in the Imperial Valley and also the Suisun Bay Islands. The Mother, living in Chula Vista, south of San Diego, forgave him and they were remarried in Los Angeles on November 16, 1910, by the Rev. C. F. Scholz. Father must have made a generous financial settlement with Mother at the time of their separation. I assume this because, although she never had any source of income to increase her savings except the interest on her savings accounts, and any profit she may have obtained from the sale of the four houses she had bought during the period of separation, she finished the job of bringing up the minor children, Clifton and Elise, giving them a good elementary education. She supported herself frugally but sufficiently and always had a roof over her head until her death in 1922. Both were living at my home on Van Sickle Island, Solano County when they were stricken with their last illness. Father died at the King’s Daughter’s Home in Oakland on March 22, 1921; she at Pittsburg Hospital, January 16, 1922. Both are buried in Mountain View Cemetery (now Piedmont) in Oakland, California.

The children of James David and Mary (Duvall) Myers were: 1) Mittie Ursula, b. January 13, 1871 at Randolph, CA m. Franklin Chaplin February 17, 1904 at Reno, NV 2) Henry Wildey, b. May 24, 1875 at Randolph, CA; m. Ida M. Erbe November 15, 1910 at Los Angeles; d. October 9, 1942. 3) Mary, b. October 7, 1877 d. October 8, 1877 4) Clifton Duvall, b. February 7, 1886 in Loyalton; m. Maude Forrester September 1, 1910 at San Diego; d. May 8, 1944 in La Habra 5) Elise Marguerite, b. July 8, 1889 at Sierraville; m Herber Kemp January 10, 1914 at San Diego; d January 8, 1921

Sources

• 1870 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

• Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen Sierra Counties: With California From 1513 to 1850, Library of Congress, Fariss Smith,

Call Number 1331606624, 9781331606628 archive.org/details/illustratedhisto00sanf

Personal Memories of James David Myers and Mittie Myers, his daughter.