Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

CHARLES WILDER HARMON

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
            In early days, comparatively speaking, this part of the State was 
largely devoted to grain-raising, large acreage being planted each year; and the 
�staff of life� was marketed for prices which now seem impossibly low.  Among 
the men engaged in grain-farming in Sutter County was Charles Wilder Harmon, a 
native of the northern Atlantic coast, born January 3, 1856, in Oldtown, Maine, 
the son of Major and Katherine (Davis) Harmon, both natives of Maine.  The 
father, who was a farmer, lived in Maine all his life, and passed away at the 
good old age of ninety-six years, while his wife died aged forty-five.
            The youngest in a family of four children, Charles Wilder Harmon was 
educated in the public schools of Maine and started out in life for himself at 
the age of nine years, when he went to Ionia, Mich., and worked in the logging 
camps for five years.  In 1880 he came to California and settled in Sutter 
County, twelve miles southwest of Yuba City.  For thirteen years he worked for 
John Kimball, driving the eight and ten-mule teams in the grain fields, and then 
went to ranching for himself.  He leased land, sometimes as high as 2000 acres, 
and engaged in grain-raising, using as many as seven eight-mule teams, and a 
combined thresher drawn by thirty-two horses.  In 1911 he bought eleven acres of 
the Hobbs ranch, and this he set out to prunes, developing a fine, productive 
orchard.  He is still raising grain, putting in only so much acreage as he can 
operate with his tractor.  He also cultivates orchards and vineyards for others, 
when he can spare the time.  He devotes much time to the further development and 
cultivation of his orchards, using the knowledge gained in his early life and 
putting it to good advantage, both to himself and the general advancement of the 
county.  He is a member of Wilson Center, of the Sutter County Farm Bureau.  Mr. 
Harmon is now among the old settlers remaining in the vicinity, where he came as 
a young man, and he has seen this section grow from a stock and grain country to 
one of orchards and vineyards.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 963