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


A. B. OLSON. � The proprietor of the Olson blacksmith shop at Kelsey- 
ville is the oldest business man in the town in point of years of continuous 
service, and has been a resident of Lake county since 1884. Although now 
fairly well-to-do, with a competency which he and his wife have accumulated 
through the most arduous application and intelligent labor, his life has not 
been without its serious discouragements. Advantages of education were 
not possible to him in youth, and from an early age he gave himself wholly 
to the earning of a livelihood. As he traveled from east to west and worked 
in shops in different parts of the country, he found it impossible to save 
much out of his small earnings. When finally he had accumulated a little 
fund of his own he suffered a loss of more than $4500 through fire. Un- 
daunted, he began anew and in the course of time was again on a firm financial 
footing. His next disaster resulted from sickness, a serious illness in 1912 
obliging him to undergo a surgical operation. Most grievous of all his 
bereavements and discouragements was the loss of his son, John Ernest, who 
died of typhoid fever when at the threshold of manhood, prepared for a life of 
successful activities through collegiate education and wholesome training. 

Mr. Olson was born in Malnio, Sweden, May 5, 1857, and came to America 
in June, 1880, landing in Boston. Although a skilled blacksmith, his first 
work in this country was that of boilermaker. For eighteen months he en- 
gaged in that line of work at Worcester, Mass., and next engaged as black- 
smith on railroad construction work in New Mexico during the building of 
the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. Afterward eighteen months were spent in 
the railroad shops at Albuquerque, N. AL, and then he worked for six months 
in gold and copper mines. After a short trip to New Orleans he came to 
California during the spring of 1883. From San Francisco he went on to 
Portland, then returned to this state, arriving at Lower Lake, Lake county, 
in 1884. In that year he married Miss Amphelia B. Bolter, a native of Iowa. 
The following year they came to Kelseyville and built a shop and livery 
stable, which were lost in a fire in 1896. The lot was then sold and a new 
hop built in another location, while they built a hotel in the year 1900. Since 
then Mr. Olson has devoted his attention to the management of the black- 
smith shop and his wife has charge of the Olson hotel. Their eldest children 
were twins. Elbert and Ethel, who died in infancy. John Ernest, a graduate 
of the Santa Rosa Business College, died at Twin Falls, Idaho, at the age of 
twenty years. The only one now living, Andies Cecil, a graduate of the 
L'niversity of Southern California and an attorney by profession, is now 
practicing law in Oakland, this state.