Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

JOHN HORACE BACKUS

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
            The twilight of a busy and eventful career finds John Horace Backus 
retired from life�s activities, enjoying the competency earned by years of 
arduous toil and quietly passing his days in a comfortable home at 269 B Street, 
Yuba City.  He is a member of an eastern family, born in Kossuth, Des Moines 
County, Iowa, July 16, 1855, a son of Jabez L. and Martha (Eells) Backus, 
natives of Connecticut and New York, respectively.  Jabez L. Backus was a 
frontiersman in Iowa and conducted a hotel at Burlington, that State, for many 
years; he passed away at Burlington.  The mother spent her last days with her 
son, John H., in Yuba City, passing away in 1898.  There were three children in 
the family, Levi L., deceased; George J., of San Francisco; and John H., the 
subject of this review.
            John H. Backus spent his early life in Kossuth and Burlington, Iowa, 
being educated in the public schools.  His father died in 1872, and in 1873, 
with his mother, he removed to Chicago, Ill., where he entered Bryant and 
Stratton�s Business College, from which he was graduated in 1874.  He 
immediately entered the employ of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad as 
a clerk in the main office, beginning in a minor position and working up until 
he was head clerk in the auditor�s office, when in 1890 he left for California.  
He settled at Yuba City where he bought twenty acres of stubble field which he 
set out and improved to an orchard of peaches, cherries, almonds and prunes.  
Mr. Backus disposed of this property in April, 1923, and continues to reside in 
his residence on B Street that he built and has resided in since 1890.
            On May 25, 1882, at Evanston, Ill., Mr. Backus was married to Miss 
Minnie May Estee, a native of Chicago, Ill., daughter of Tully C. and Helen 
(Martin) Estee, both natives of New York State.  Tully C. Estee was a professor 
in the State Normal College at Albany, N.Y.; later he removed to Chicago, where 
he retired.  Mrs. Backus is the eldest in a family of three children, the others 
being Mrs. Harriet Pauline Tower and Mrs. Martha Phillips.  In politics, Mr. 
Backus is a Republican.  Mrs. Backus is a member of the Marysville Art Club, 
Yuba City Woman�s Club and Bogue Wednesday Club.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1294