Colusa County Biographies

Joseph Billiou

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



            Joseph Billiou resides near  St. John, some thirty-seven miles north 
of Colusa.  He was born in St. Louis County, Missouri, in 1839, and was engaged 
in farming in that State until 1856, when he came to California.  After arriving 
at San Francisco he was not long in looking about him, but came up the 
Sacramento Valley, and immediately found work on the Capay Grant, owned by 
Richard J. Walsh.  And he has remained there ever since, and now owns a portion 
of the same grant on which he labored thirty-four years ago.  He is estimated to 
be worth $150,000.  His career shows what industry, and adherence to a settled 
purpose in life, may accomplish.  It is an object lesson for every young man in 
the State.
            In 1864 he married Miss Julia Stack, a native of Ireland, by whom he 
had four children.  A terrible disaster overwhelmed the happy domestic circle of 
Mr. Billiou on April 6, 1887, in the killing of his wife by a Chinese cook in 
his employ, named Hong Di.  (The particulars of this atrocious murder are given 
on page 230.)
 
�Colusa County� � by Justus H. Rogers � Orland, CA � 1891 � pp 457-458