Colusa County Biographies

Dr. Hugh James Glenn

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

            Dr. Hugh James Glenn was born near Stanton, Augusta County, 
Virginia, in 1824.  When he was a boy, his family removed to Paris, Monroe 
County, Missouri, and being an only child, he was indulgently treated and given, 
at private schools, every opportunity to acquire such education as the locality 
and the times permitted.  In 1844 he attended a course of lectures in McDowell�s 
Medical College of St. Louis.  In 1845, seized with a spirit of patriotism, he 
enlisted in a division of the army commanded by General Price, and participated 
in the battles of Taos and Moro.  Receiving an honorable discharge in 1847, he 
returned to St. Louis, resumed his medical studies, and afterwards graduated 
with the highest honors in a class of two hundred.  He remained in St. Louis for 
two years, and on March 15, 1849, he was united in marriage to Miss V. H. 
Abernathy, who still survives him.  On the 12th of April following, he left his 
young bride and started across the plains in quest of fortune and a new home.  
After an adventurous journey, his party arrived in Sacramento in the following 
August.   With no capital whatever, Dr. Glenn sought the tempting mines and 
staked out a claim on Murderer�s Bar, on the American River.  He remained there 
a couple of months, and, having gathered together a few dollars, he bought an 
ox-team and carried freight for a few months from Sacramento to Coloma, and 
various points in the mountains.  He then opened a livery stable in Sacramento, 
conducted this successfully for a short time, and then disposed of it for 
$5,000.  With this amount he returned to Missouri, and, after remaining there 
two years, he set out again to cross the plains.  He made another trip back to 
Missouri in 1853 and returned to California with his family, locating on Stony 
Creek, just at the north end of the present Glenn ranch, in Colusa County.
            From 1852 to 1855 Dr. Glenn had associated himself in the cattle 
trade with S. E. Wilson, Major Briggs, of Yolo, subsequently coming into the 
firm.  Selling out his interests, in 1856, he returned to Missouri, accompanied 
by his family, expecting to pass the remainder of his days in that State.  But 
the yearning to return to the scene of his early labors and adventures was too 
strong within him to be repressed, and so we find him, after a couple of years 
of restless residence in Missouri, returning again to the Sacramento Valley.  
For several years after 1859 Dr. Glenn traveled back and forth over the plains 
with droves of cattle, horses, and mules, varying the trip occasionally by going 
to New Orleans.  He now attempted farming, and in 1865 he was joined by Major 
Briggs as a partner in his agricultural operations, and the �big ranch� in Yolo 
became noted throughout the county.  In the spring of 1867, Dr. Glenn determined 
to make California his permanent home, and with that object in view he purchased 
land in Colusa County, and in the spring of 1868 moved, with his family, to 
Jacinto.
            It was here he began the cultivation of grain, which made him the 
largest farmer in the world, managing the cultivation of nearly sixty thousand 
acres of land in Colusa County, besides owning large stretches of grazing and 
grain land in Nevada and Oregon.  The fencing of his Colusa County farm measured 
one hundred and fifty miles, and divided it into seven main fields, the largest 
containing twelve thousand acres.  In 1880 Dr. Glenn shipped to England on his 
account twenty-seven thousand tons of wheat and received not less than $800,000 
for it.  He usually raised a half million bushels of wheat per year.  Besides 
managing a wheat farm, he set out a vineyard of several hundred acres of wine 
and raisin grapes.
            Though strict in his business relations, Dr. Glenn was noted for his 
kindness of heart, and the unostentatious manner in which he exerted it.  When 
one of his partners was at one time embarrassed by heavy losses, with a large 
family and without a dollar, Dr. Glenn furnished him the capital to go on with, 
telling him that as long as he had a dollar half of it belonged to his 
distressed associate.  Dr. Glenn was always a busy man and seldom took any 
recreation.  His first and only experience as a public man was as a member of 
the State Board of Agriculture.  In 1879, with reluctance, he accepted the 
nomination for Governor by the New Constitution and Democratic parties, being 
defeated by George C. Perkins.  After his defeat the Doctor returned to his 
ranch at Jacinto, superintending in person the five or six hundred men, who, 
during the summer season, were in his employ.
            Dr. Glenn was shot and killed by Hurum Miller on the Jacinto ranch, 
on February 17, 1883.  (The circumstances attending the killing are given in 
this book under that date.)  Surviving Dr. Glenn are his wife and three 
children.
 
�Colusa County� � by Justus H. Rogers � Orland, CA � 1891 � pp 387-389