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 CLYDE ALVIN RIFFE. � An atmosphere of romance lingers around the early identification of the Riffe family with the then unknown and un- developed west. When John C. Fremont was delegated to come to the coast as "pathfinder," blazing a trail that might be followed safely by home-seekers, he was accompanied on the expedition by a gallant young Kentuckian, Win- chester Riffe, a native of Frankfort, whose fearless courage well qualified him for successful contests with savages and for the perils of war. The entire west was at that time in a condition of danger owing to the enmity of the Indians and to the prosecution of the Mexican war. On the expiration of the war he returned to his native commonwealth of Kentucky, where in 1849 he was selected to serve as captain of a wagon train crossing the plains. For such work his western experience qualified him and he was fortunate in guiding his party through to the gold mines, without loss. One of the members of the expedition was a young lady. Miss Lucy Maxwell, a member of a colonial family of Virginia and herself a native of that state. The culmination of the long journey occurred in the marriage of the captain to Miss Maxwell, who afterwards shared in his hardships and frontier ex- periences. They lived in San Francisco when it was a small town of tents or crude huts of boards. Later they settled in San Joaquin county, where their son, James Henry, was born October 14, 1853. This son married Eliza- beth Annie Burdge, who was born in Iowa, July 13, 1860, and died June 6, 1908, in Round valley, Mendocino county, where the death of her husband had occurred August 3, 1903. They were the parents of six children, namely : Ethel, Mrs. Walter Hargraves, bookkeeper for the Round Valley Commercial Company; Clyde Alvin, who was born at Hanford, January 17, 1887; Lester, a rancher at Ukiah ; Bertha, attending Round Valley High School, and Loretta and Lorena (twins), who reside at Covelo. Up to the time of his removal to Mendocino county, in 1891, James Henry Riffe had been employed as a rancher. His first move toward independence occurred with his purchase of forty acres from L. D. Montague. This tract he sold in 1901, when he bought the old Dorman place of one hundred and thirty-two acres. To make such a purchase it was necessary to incur a heavy indebtedness, and about two years later he died, leaving the property heavily mortgaged. He was a capable farmer and had he not been taken at the untimely age of fifty years he undoubtedly would have risen to inde- pendence and prosperity. With his death the elder son, Clyde A., then sixteen years of age, was forced to take up the management of the place, thus being deprived of needed school advantages. On the death of the mother in 1908 the two sons bought out the interests of their sisters, and in 1913 the elder son bought the interest of his brother, after which he sold sixty acres of the property. At the present time he owns thirty-three acres, all in alfalfa, which he hopes to make one of the most productive properties in Round valley. Meanwhile he clerks in the store of the Round Valley Commercial Company and is devoting his savings, as well as his leisure hours, to the improvement of the place, with the intention of ultimately devoting his time exclusively to his alfalfa ranch, to his dairy business and to the raising of stock. In politics he is a Republican, to which party all of his family have given allegiance. Interested in local affairs and particularly in any movement for the well-being of Round Valley, he is loyal to this section of the county, and believes that it compares favorably with any part of the state.