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 SOLON LOVELL.� Among the emigrants that came to 
California during the eventful decade of the '50s there was a family from 
Indiana, who crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1852 and came on to San 
Francisco, bringing with them a son, Henry S., whose birth had occurred in 
Indianapolis June 24, 1849. The parents settled in Auburn, Placer county, 
where the son was sent to the grammar school and for one year to the high 
school. As early as 1862 he came to Mendocino county for the first time, and 
being a skilled rider earned a livelihood by acting as vaquero in the moun- 
tains near Round valley. In the management of pack-trains he became 
efficient, and he was also skilled in driving teams over the dangerous moun- 
tain roads. On many of his mountain trips he has lassoed brown bear, and 
one time caught a grizzly bear. During 1870 he helped to move the last 
soldiers from Fort Bragg. While he had been working with pack-trains and 
on ranches a romance had entered into his own life while yet he was a mere 
lad. He had fallen in love with a pretty young California girl, Sarah Eliza- 
beth Bigley. who was born in Eldorado county December 29, 1852. \\nTen he 
was scarcely seventeen and she was still less than fourteen they eloped and 
were married at Stringtown June 18, 1866, returning to announce their union 
to a surprised circle of relatives and friends. 

When Mr. Lovell purchased a mountain ranch and engaged in raising 
stock the fact that he had been efficient in the care of stock from boyhood 
aided him in getting a start, and his industry was also a factor in final success. 
During 1893 he sold his stock range in the mountains and embarked in agri- 
culture on a smaller scale in Round valley, where besides farming he takes 
contracts for the building of houses and also carries on an undertaking busi- 
ness. A neighbor died in 1875 and he was called on to make a coffin. Though 
without experience in such work he was so prompt and so capable that the 
idea was suggested to him of engaging in the business, and this he consented 
to do, there being no undertaker in the valley. From young manhood he has 
been active in politics as a Democrat. Frequently he has been chosen to 
some local office, such as road overseer and deputy sheriff, and these positions 
he has filled with the efficiency of a man deeply interested in promoting the 
growth of the valley. Fraternally he is a blue lodge Mason. His family has 
numbered ten children, but Harry, Walter and Sylvia are deceased. The 
seven now living are Clara, Frank, Angela, Maude, Margaret, William and 
Charles.