California Biographies Mendocino and Lake Counties, California Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California With Biographical Sketches History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry Illustrated, Complete In One Volume Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914 HENRY MULSON.� The proprietor of the Grand hotel at Fort Bragg, who has the honor of being the oldest hotel manager in Mendocino county in point of years of actual identification with the business and who has the further distinction of having officiated as a member of the board of town trustees since the spring of 1897, is a native of Schleswig, Germany, and was born August 15, 1847, being a son of Henry T. and Margaret (Hanson) Mul- son, lifelong residents of Germany and members of old Teutonic families. At the age of fourteen, having completed the grammar-school course of study, he engaged as deckhand with a brother-in-law, who was captain of the sailing vessel. Greyhound. The destination of the ship was around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Upon his arrival during July of 1861 he proceeded to Alameda county, where he found employment on a ranch and soon learned to cook. As time went by he became very skillful in the culinary art and this knowledge proved very valuable to him in later days. During the first year on the ranch he received $10 per month and board. The next year his wages were increased to $15 per month. At the expiration of the second year he left the ranch and shipped as a deckhand to New Zealand and Australia, having been attracted to that part of the world by the recent discovery of gold. Finding, however, that the mines were of less value than rumored and the opportunities for work meager, he returned to California and since 1867 he has made Mendocino county his home and headquarters. By his marriage in Navarro in 1874, to Miss Mary Ellen O'Brien, a native of Bangor, Me., he has two daughters, Elsie, Mrs. James Craighan, of Humboldt, and Mabel, Mrs. S. J. Andreani, of Fort Bragg. Mrs. Mulson's father, Michael O'Brien, was a veteran in the Civil war, serving in the First Maine Cavalry, Company A. After the war he came to California and soon his family joined him in Mendocino county, where he followed farming at Pine Grove on the Mendocino coast. His wife was Margaret Waters, and both ended their days there. A brief period of employment at Caspar was followed by removal to Mendocino City, where Mr. Mulson engaged in loading vessels with lumber. A subsequent connection with a lumber camp at Little River was followed by removal to Navarro, where he remained until 1875 and where in partnership with L. E. White he opened and conducted the Salmon Creek hotel. After ten years in the hotel business he bought two ranches, on Salmon Creek Ridge and on Albion Ridge, which he operated for five years. For the six ensuing years he managed the Greenwood hotel. Since 1895 he has lived in Fort Bragg, where he bought the hotel built by the Randolph Bros., from Marks & Leoleiser. Under its present title of the Grand Hotel he is still managing the business and has brought it into popularity with the traveling public, who appreciate the high quality of the service given and the tactful courtesy of the landlord. Besides giving close attention to the hotel he has found time to aid in the upbuilding of Fort Bragg. His long term of service as a trustee, dating back to the spring of 1897, had its culmination in 1908, when he was honored with the chairmanship of the board, a position equivalent to that of mayor. Under his period of service as member of the board and chairman thereof sewers have been built, streets graded, highways improved, a water system developed and other improvements made that put Fort Bragg on the map as one of the most progressive little cities of Northern California. In fraternal relations he is connected with the lodge and encampment of Odd Fellows, the Improved Order of Red Men and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.