Monterey County CA

Biography of Joshua S. Beam

Joshua S. Beam, a native of North Carolina, was born in 1826, the seventh of a family of twelve children. His parents, Peter and Ann (Long) Beam, were both born, reared, lived and died in North Carolina. John T. Beam, a weaver by trade, one of the ancestors, came from Germany and worked seven years for a man who paid his passage to America. The subject of this sketch went to Arkansas in the spring of 1850 with his brother-in-law. In April 1852, he started to cross the plains with an ox team, and arrived in California in September of … Read more

Biography of David H. Wixom

David H. Wixom, the tenth of a family of twelve children of Nathan J. and Betsy (Hadlock) Wixom, was born in 1848 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 1850 his parents started with their family, consisting then of ten children, to cross the plains to California. They loaded three ox teams and one horse team with their effects, and brought fifty cows, ten head of horses and a small flock of sheep over as far as Salt Lake, where they spent the winter, and there their eleventh child, Charles W. Wixom, was born. In the spring of 1852 they resumed their … Read more

Biography of Hon. William H. Spurgeon

The Honorable William H. Spurgeon founder of the city of Santa Ana, and the principal factor of its subsequent growth, is a native of Henry County, Kentucky, born October 10, 1829, his parents being Granville and Levina (Sibley) Spurgeon, the latter a native of Virginia, the former of Kentucky. The Spurgeons, of English origin, chose for their first location in this country, North Carolina. From those of the family who afterward removed to Kentucky, our subject springs. When he was but a year old, the family removed to Indiana, and ten years later they settled in Clark County, northeast Missouri. … Read more

Biography of Warren P. Hunt

Warren Palmerton Hunt, who has been a highly respected citizen of Lewiston since 1862, and is numbered among the California pioneers of 1854, was born in Erie County, New York, March 13, 1832, a son of Isaac and Diantha (Allbee) Hunt, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of the Empire state. In 1852 the father went by way of the Cape Horn route to California, but returned to his farm in Erie County, where he made his home until his death, which occurred in the eighty-sixth year of his age. His wife passed away in her eighty-second … Read more

Briscoe, Arlene Brightenstine Mrs. – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Arlene Briscoe, 63, of Baker City died June 5, 2001, in a Boise hospital. Cremation is under the direction of the Cloverdale Funeral Home in Boise. Mrs. Briscoe was born Dec. 18, 1937, at Coco-Solo, Panama Canal Zone, to Eldon and Eleanor Brightenstine. She attended school in Ukiah, Calif., and was a Ukiah High School graduate. She married Richard Briscoe on April 2, 1955. They made their home at Castroville, Calif., until Mr. Briscoe retired in 1988. They then moved to Fernley, Nev. They moved to Baker City in 1997. The Briscoes were very active in the … Read more

Biography of Job Francis Dye

Among the figures who stand prominently forth on the pages of western history is the gentleman whose name introduces this review. His was a marvelous record of long connection with the events which go to make up the annals of the Pacific coast. He was one of those honored pioneers who blazed a path for future cavalcades to follow; who bravely turned their faces from the cities of the east, with all the advantages of wealth and civilization, and cast their fortunes with the western frontier, in all its wildness and primitive modes of life; who, rather than enjoy the … Read more

Biography of H. Titchenal

H. Titchenal, of Santa Ana, was born in Harrison County, West Virginia, January 2, 1817, a son of John R. and Rebecca (Harbertt) Titchenal, both natives of West Virginia. His father, a black-smith by trade, moved to Missouri in 1819, and in 1833 to the vicinity of Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he died January 16, 1831. The second of his nine children, the subject of this sketch, and a sister, are the only surviving members of the family. Mr. Titchenal was brought up to the life of a stock-raiser. From 1835 to 1852 he followed his calling, and also mercantile … Read more