Plumas County Biographies

Dr. Willard Pratt 

Transcribed by Craig Hahn, Dec. 2004 

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

 
was born at Canton, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1826. His father was a physician at 
Canton, and Willard followed in his footsteps. At the age of twenty-two he 
graduated as a physician from the Pennsylvania University, Philadelphia, and 
emigrated to Grant county, Wisconsin, residing at Fennimore, and practicing 
medicine. He was married June 14, 1848, in Marshall, Wisconsin, to Miss Sarah H. 
Hart, daughter of Thomas Hart, and born in Huntingdonshire, England, February 
15, 1825. Dr. Pratt removed to Dubuque, Iowa, in 1850, and practiced until 1853, 
when he crossed the plains to the Pacific coast. He spent four years in 
Placerville, then Hangtown, after which he went to Colusa, where he remained 
until 1860. Then he settled in Butte county, near Chico. Here his health began 
to fail, and having a call to visit Thomas Bidwell at the Big Springs hotel, his 
attention was called to the beauties of Big Meadows. He spent two summers there, 
and in 1867, having decided to make it a permanent home, he erected a residence 
and hotel, the first one in Prattville, or the neighborhood. He went to the 
centennial exposition at Philadelphia, and while there his property was 
destroyed by fire. He came back to find no home; but in 1877 he built his 
present house, which cost $10,000, and is one of the best in the mountains. It 
has twenty-six sleeping rooms, besides parlors, family rooms, etc., and is 
crowded with guests every summer. Mr. And Mrs. Pratt have six children, as 
follows: Emily Charlotte, born April 17, 1849; Anna E., June 21, 1851; Willie 
N., April 21, 1853; Thomas E., March 5, 1860; Mattie J., July 5, 1862; Marion 
N., December 17, 1866. 
 
Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties, with California from 
1513 to 1850. � Fariss and Smith, San Francisco,  1882. p 294