Sutter-Yuba County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
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NORMAN DUNNING RIDEOUT
 
            One of the most distinguished pioneer residents of Marysville, who 
left a deep impress on the business, social, and economic conditions of the 
city, was the late Norman Dunning Rideout, well known financier, banker and 
capitalist.  Mr. Rideout was a native of Maine, born in 1832.  He came to Yuba 
County in 1851 and conducted a store at Galena Hill, then a lively mining camp 
in the upper end of the county.  He prospered, and later he was interested in a 
banking business at Camptonville, where he dealt heavily in gold dust.  His 
ability as a financier was in evidence then, as it was throughout his entire 
career, for he built up a considerable fortune.  In 1861 Mr. Rideout came to 
Marysville, bought out the firm of Law Brothers, and formed a partnership with 
their bookkeeper, William Smith.  The two established the banking house of 
Rideout & Smith, by which name it was known a great many years, the name being 
changed to the Rideout Bank when the institution was incorporated on November 1, 
1890.  Later Mr. Rideout extended his operations in the world of finance; and at 
the time of his death he was largely interested in the following institutions:  
The Rideout Bank, Marysville; the Northern California Bank of Savings, in the 
same city; the Rideout Bank, Gridley; Bank of Rideout, Smith & Company, 
Oroville; Bank of Butte County, Chico; Placer County Bank, Auburn; and the 
Mercantile Trust Company, of San Francisco.  He was president of all these 
banks, and was vice-president of the Sperry Flour Company and a director of the 
Yosemite Railway Company, besides having numerous other interests throughout the 
State.  The White House ranch, near Chandler Station, Sutter County, was one of 
these.  Mr. Rideout always took an active interest in banking and financial 
affairs, regularly attended the meetings of the California Bankers� Association, 
and served as president of that association one year with good credit.
            Mr. Rideout�s business policy was conservative.  His judgment was 
correct, and he always dealt fairly.  Evidence of this is found in the host of 
friends he made in every community that was the scene of his business 
activities.  He interested himself only in legitimate business enterprises, 
never engaging in speculative undertakings.  His conservatism was therefore 
along lines of safety, not inactivity.  To his unsurpassed executive ability, 
further testimony is given, besides the extensive interests left by him, in the 
extension of the Northern California Railroad from Marysville to Knights 
Landing, built by him and A. J. Binney in 1888; the organization by him of the 
California State Bank of Sacramento, and the Bank of Willows at Willows, his 
interests in which he afterwards sold; and the line of steamers from San 
Francisco to Marysville, owned by him, William T. Ellis, Sr., D. E. Knight, and 
numerous ranchers, and run by him at different times.  At the great San 
Francisco fire in 1906, his position as president of the Mercantile Trust 
Company of San Francisco made him a prominent figure in the trying times before 
the banks reopened for business, as well as the strenuous efforts that 
characterized the rebuilding of the stricken city.  Those associated with him in 
the work know how he engaged in it with the zeal and enthusiasm of a man forty 
years younger, and recall the pride he took in that work.
            Always a stanch believer in Marysville�s commercial importance, Mr. 
Rideout predicted for the city a great future.  He was mayor of Marysville in 
1878-1879; was supervisor of Yuba County, in the first district, in 
1868-1869-1870; and was councilman form the third ward in Marysville in 
1862-1863.  Prominent in the ranks of the Republican party, he served as a 
member of the State Central Committee.  In 1878 he was a delegate to the 
national Republican convention held in Cincinnati that nominated Rutherford B. 
Hayes for president; in 1892 he was a delegate to the national convention at 
Minneapolis, Minn., when Benjamin Harrison was nominated president; and in 1900 
he was again a delegate at Philadelphia, when McKinley and Roosevelt were the 
nominees.  He was a member of the Pacific Union Club, of  San Francisco, and of 
the Sutter Club, of Sacramento, and was a Knight Templar Mason.  On July 2, 
1907, at his home in San Francisco, Mr. Rideout passed on; and in his death, not 
only Marysville, but the State of California as a whole, lost both a 
distinguished citizen and a fine and loyal friend.  His widow, formerly Phoebe 
Abbott, survives him, and resides in San Francisco.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p. 1188-1189