Sutter-Yuba County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
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PETER L. CARMICHAEL
 
            A prominent stockman and extensive holder of property in Yuba County 
since 1885, Peter L. Carmichael is of Scotch parentage, the son of Alexander and 
Margaret (Dick) Carmichael, both now deceased.  Alexander Carmichael was born in 
Scotland, near Glasgow, in 1819, and made the trip to San Francisco around Cape 
Horn in 1848, as a sailor.  He left ship to go into the gold fields with a party 
having for their destination the Southern Diggings, and followed mining until 
1863, eventually locating in Sierra County and engaging in the stock and butcher 
business until 1880.  The wife and mother was also born in Scotland, and came to 
California via Panama, arriving in San Francisco in 1853, and from there coming 
direct to the mines of Sierra County.
            Peter L. Carmichael was born in St. Louis, Sierra County, an old 
mining camp, on June 26, 1855, the eldest of seven children, three of whom 
survive their parents.  He was reared in the Sierras and early learned both 
mining and the butcher�s trade, working at the latter in his father�s shop at an 
early age, a business for which he was peculiarly adapted, for his paternal 
ancestors were butchers before him in Scotland.  In 1880 he bought out his 
father, thereafter conducting the shop at St. Louis, Sierra County, for thirty 
years, and then selling out the retail business, in 1910, to attend to his 
growing stock business.  In the meantime he had invested in live stock and used 
the foot-hills of Sierra County for range; and with the forming of a Forest 
Reserve by the government in the high Sierras, he was among the first stockmen 
to receive a government permit to run his stock on the range, with head camp at 
Table Rock, near Holland Flat, from June to November each year.  He has made a 
close and careful study of the stock business; and his knowledge is backed by a 
lifetime of experience, all of a most practical nature.  He is now the owner of 
1700 acres in the Yuba County foot-hills, with both southerly and easterly 
slope, twenty-five miles above Marysville on the Yuba River, which makes an 
ideal stock farm.  Here he has been raising shorthorn cattle, his head sires 
being of pure-bred stock; and in the orchards on the property both oranges and 
deciduous fruits abound.  This ranch and the range near Bangor make up his 
winter pastures, embracing a total of 3000 acres, of which he owns 1700 acres, 
renting the balance.
            The marriage of Mr. Carmichael, in 1888, united him with Miss Lillie 
Becker, born near Holland Flat in 1870, the daughter of the late Frank and 
Caroline Becker, pioneers of California.  Her brother, C. J. Becker of 
Marysville, is a prominent business man of Yuba County. Four children have 
blessed this union:  Mae, wife of William Coupe of Sicard Flat, and a teacher at 
Long Bar school; Nettie, wife of Robert Scott; and H. R. and Frank P. 
Carmichael.  Both sons are associated in the stock business with their father, 
having been practically reared in the saddle.
            In politics Mr. Carmichael is a Republican, and formerly was a 
member of the Sierra County Republican Central Committee.  He can look back over 
a remarkable period in the history of mining and stock-raising in the State, in 
which he has had unbounded faith, and the courage to carry out his convictions, 
though at times this has required great fortitude, for with the good years he 
has had some not unmixed with adversities.  The present-day stockmen have added 
many necessary provisions for the protection of their interests, provisions 
which were foreign to the man who raised and dealt in live stock a generation 
ago. Experience has been their one great teacher and they have profited by its 
lessons; but the stockman who was not gifted with fortitude in the early days 
usually did not remain long in the business.  Mr. Carmichael was instrumental in 
organizing the Bangor Cattlemen�s Association.  In mattes of legislation, this 
organization works closely with the California State Cattlemen�s Association, of 
which he is also a member.  Aside from his cattle interests, Mr. Carmichael also 
has always been somewhat active in mining; and today he is a joint owner in one 
of Sierra County�s richest producing mines.  A man of strict and honest 
principle, he has won his way to success through his own hard work and good 
management.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1112-1115