California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

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


HENRY H. NEEL. The romantic history of California, the business opportunities here, and that 
natural desire for a change which prompts many young men to break loose from their old 
moorings and seek new scenes and new adventures, brought Henry H. Neel from his native 
state of Missouri to California at the age of twenty-one. He was born in Scotland County, 
Missouri, March 19, 1853, a son of William and Anna Neel, had been reared on his father's 
farm, and in the meantime had acquired the education furnished by the common and high 
schools.
His first experience in California was in the general merchandise business in Butte County. He 
conducted a store there and with a considerable degree of success until 1890. Having sold out, 
and having spent the succeeding two years in Siskiyou County, he then came to Ventura County, 
where he has been a resident for the past quarter of a century, though recently he retired to 
Los Angeles. For six months he was clerk in the Chaffee Dry Goods Store, and then rented 200 
acres in the Del Norte Rancho. He handled that land as a rented proposition for ten years. In 
the meantime in 1901 he bought 67 acres in the same location, and farmed it along with his 
rented land. In 1903 Mr. Neel bought 56 acres more and in 1908 bought the Keiler Ranch of 24 
acres. His last purchase in the county was in 1910, when he acquired 91 acres of the Sexton 
Ranch. This land constitutes a magnificent property, is highly developed, and its active manager 
is his son Thomas W:
Mr. Henry Neel removed to Los Angeles in 1905. His wife died there in 1914 and since then he 
has made his home in the Jonathan Club, of which he is a member. He is also a member of the 
York Rite bodies of Masonry and the Mystic Shrine, of the Independent Order of Forresters, is a 
democratic voter and belongs to the Christian Science Church. In Butte County, California, July 
ii, 1880, he married Minnie B. Armstrong. The only child of their union is Thomas W., who now 
carries on his father's ranching interests in Ventura County.