Colusa County Biographies

J. B. DE JARNATT

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

            Mr. De Jarnatt is a native of Kentucky, born in the year 1846.  When 
he was but seven years of age, his parents removed with him to Savannah, Andrew 
County, Missouri, where his father carried on a mercantile business, in which he 
continued till 1863, and during which time young De Jarnatt received the 
principal part of his education.
            In company with his father�s family, he removed in 1863 to Denver, 
Colorado, and in the spring of the following year they set out in search of a 
place for a permanent home, traveling through a portion of Montana, and after a 
protracted wandering they located at Yamhill County, Oregon, where the elder De 
Jarnatt leased a farm, his son, J. B., securing a position as clerk and 
book-keeper in a store in Lafayette, in the same county.  The family remained in 
Oregon till the spring of 1866, when they set out for Colusa County.  Arriving 
at Colusa on June 5, Mr. J. B. De Jarnatt immediately secured employment in the 
office of Jackson Hart, then County Clerk, with whom he remained nearly four 
years.
            In 1870, Mr. De Jarnatt was associated in San Francisco with W. S. 
Green, in the real-estate business, and, in connection therewith, in the conduct 
of a newspaper called �Green�s Land Paper.�  After spending nearly a year 
fruitlessly in this enterprise, he returned to Colusa County, and in March, 
1872, again went to work in the Clerk�s office under the administration of G. G. 
Crandall, with whom he remained two years.  In 1874 he made the first map of 
Colusa County under contract with the Board of Supervisors.  It was subsequently 
approved, and declared the official map of the county.  He next served as 
book-keeper for Jackson Hart, until his election, in 1877, to the office of 
County Clerk, in which position he served two terms.  His courteous demeanor, 
his peculiar qualifications for the discharge of official duties, coupled with 
an unquestioned probity of character, rendered him extremely popular.  Mr. De 
Jarnatt was married, in April, 1868, to Miss M. A. Green, a native of Missouri, 
though a resident of Colusa County since her fifth year, by whom he has several 
children.  Mr. De Jarnatt is a strong advocate of irrigation and of having large 
tracts of land cut up into small farms and sold, thus inviting immigrants of the 
best class and making it a county of prosperous homes.  In 1883 he blazed the 
trail and showed the way which others have since followed in planting an orchard 
and cultivating it with care.  Brentwood Farm, which belongs to Mr. De Jarnatt, 
is located over a mile northwest of Colusa.  It consists of two hundred acres, 
of which seventy are planted in grapes and fruit.  It is as tidy and thrifty an 
orchard and vineyard as can be found in the State, and on this pleasant spot Mr. 
De Jarnatt has built a handsome residence.
 
�Colusa County� � by Justus H. Rogers � Orland, CA � 1891 � pp 435-436