Humboldt County, CA Biographies

JOSEPH CRIPPEN ALBEE

Transcribed by:  Carole Barker
Proofed by: Betty Vickroy

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

        California is always proud to remember the brave pioneers by whose 
efforts in the early days of the settlement of the country this western land of 
ours has come to its present prosperous condition - pioneers whose courage was 
not dampened by the hard and dangerous journey across the plains, by the 
struggle for existence in a new land, nor by the depredations of hostile Indian 
tribes.  None  holds a higher place among the early settlers of Humboldt County, 
California, than the father of Joseph Crippen Albee, Joseph Porter Albee, who 
like his wife, Calthea (Putnam) Albee, was a native of Huron County, Ohio, she 
having been descended from the same family as Israel Putnam, and members of her 
family having taken part in the Revolutionary War.  The parents of Joseph  
Crippen Albee were married in Ohio and removed to northern Illinois, where they 
carried on the occupation of farming.  In 1849, at the time of the discovery of 
gold in California, the father crossed the plains with ox teams, and became one 
of the first settlers in Weaverville, California, where he followed mining, his 
wife and three daughters joining him in California, coming westward via the 
Isthmus of Panama in 1850.  In the autumn of 1852, Mr. Albee with the family 
removed to Humboldt County, making the journey on horseback over the mountains, 
accompanied by pack mules and a few cattle, and in this new section made his 
home at Table Bluff until 1856, when the family moved to Redwood Creek, where he 
engaged in stock raising.  He also conducted a hotel on the pack trail between 
Arcata and the Klamath mines, and later, when the Indians went on the war path, 
the government sent soldiers to guard the house, the family staying there until 
1862, when the soldiers were removed.  After that Mr. Crippen moved his family 
back to Arcata, he himself going back and forth to his ranch, feeling no fear 
personally of the Indians whom he had always treated with the utmost kindness, 
but during one of his trips to the ranch in the fall of 1862, while plowing near 
the house he was shot by Indians in ambush and killed.  After his death his wife 
continued to reside for a time at Arcata, later removing to Eureka, where she 
remained until the time of her death in 1905 at the age of ninety years.
            It will thus be seen that Joseph Crippen Albee, now a well known 
resident of the vicinity of Blocksburg, California, comes a truly pioneer 
ancestry on his father�s side and patriotic forbears of the Revolutionary fame 
on his mother�s side of the family, he himself being a native son of California, 
where his birth occurred in Humboldt County at the old Albee ranch at the 
junction of North Fork and Redwood Creek, on February 19, 1858.  One of a family 
of eight children who lived to grow up, he found it necessary at the time of his 
father�s sudden death, to assist his mother financially in the care of her large 
family and accordingly having completed his education in the public schools of 
Eureka and Arcata, he early secured employment on the ranch of W. S. Robinson at 
Bridgeville, California.  The seven brothers and sisters of Mr. Crippen were:  
Mrs. Annie Monroe Chisholm, of Eureka; Mrs. W. S. Robinson, of the same city; 
Mrs. D. E. Baker, of Petaluma, California; S. E. Albee of Rock Creek, Idaho; L. 
H. Albee, of Eureka; George B. Albee, city superintendent of schools of Eureka, 
and Mrs. Mary Parry who died in San Francisco.
            With two of his brothers, Joseph Crippen Albee started in the sheep 
industry at the age of twenty-two years, he having at that time located a 
homestead on the Little Van Dusen River, the venture prospering financially 
until the hard winter of 1889 to 1890, when all the stock perished.  Mr. Albee, 
however started over again with C.T. Schreiner, of Ferndale, this time in the 
cattle business, the partnership having been carried on continuously since that 
time, Mr. Albee having the management of the cattle raising.
He is now the owner of four hundred eighty acres at his home ranch, where he has 
made all necessary improvements for the betterment of the place, besides owning 
and leasing with his partner over five thousand acres and taking out a forest 
permit, the cattle on their estate being entirely of the Durham strain.  As the 
locality
 about the Little Van Dusen is becoming popular for trout fishing and as a 
summer resort since deer are plentiful there, Mr. Albee and his wife have of 
late years conducted a hotel during the summer months, which has already 
attained a great measure of popularity and is well filled during the vacation 
season, the hotel being reached by trail from Fort Seward and Blocksburg.
            The marriage of Mr. Albee occurred in Eureka on June 3, 1907, his 
bride being Miss Mary A. Dickinson, a native of Liverpool, England, who has 
proved herself a woman of rare business and executive ability and a splendid 
helpmeet to her husband in all his undertakings.  They are the parents of two 
sons, Joseph Porter and Jack Neville Dickinson.  In her religious associations, 
Mrs. Albee is a member of the Episcopal Church while the political affiliations 
of her husband are with the progressive party.
 
SOURCE:  History of Humboldt County, California - Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic 
Record Co., 1915, Pg. 1129-1131