Yankee Hill Dispatch

Vol 2 No 2 April 2008

P.O.Box 4031, Yankee Hill, Ca 95965
www.yankeehillhistory.com
Published by the Yankee Hill Historical Society
Special Edition
The History of Yankee Hill
On Saturday, April 26th at 11:00am a marker donated by Florence and Rosie Smith
at the site of Old Yankee Hill, along Yankee Hill Road, near Hump Hill Road,
will be dedicated to commemorate the history of the community. WE HOPE TO
SEE YOU THERE! Should it rain that day the dedication will be held May 17th
at 11:00am.
Old Yankee Hill
In late 1856 two new mining claims were operating on the hill above Rich Gulch, the Virginia Quartz
Mill and the 49 & 56 Quartz Mill. The Virginia claim was located about 300 yards above the 49 &
56 claim. Both of these claims were hard rock mining claims, which meant they tunneled to fnd gold
embedded in the quartz rock. The area around the 49 & 56 mine was referred to as the Yankee Hill ledge.
The area nearby that housed the Virginia Company offces was referred to as Monte Vista. The 1862
map of Butte County displays the Monte Vista name more prominently than Yankee Hill. But the 49 &
56 claim was the more productive mine. The 1859 Butte county Tax rolls listed the value of the Virginia
quartz mines assets at $1,000 and the 49 & 56 mines assets, including a boarding house, at $7,000.
Michael Henry Wells was one of the original investors in the 49 & 56 mine. Born in Philadelphia on Christmas
day in 1832, he settled in San Francisco in 1850 where he helped organize the Pennsylvania #12 Fire
Company. Several years later he traveled to Rogue River, Oregon where he operated a store. In 1856 Wells
was a member of a party of 130 at Fort Miner in Oregon when 70 were killed by Indians. Soon afterward he
traveled to Butte County and in November 14, 1856 along with his partners established the 49 & 56 mine.
Michael Wells is not listed in the 1858 tax rolls, indicating he personally did not own any property. The 49
& 56 mine owned all the assets. It is interesting to note that in J anuary of 1858 a notice was placed in the
papers notifying stockholders that if back assessments were not paid, their stock would be sold, indicating
Close-up from the 1862 Map of Butte County showing Spanishtown (Concow Rd & Pinkston
Canyon Rd), Frenchtown (Nelson Bar Rd & Lunt Rd), Monte Vista, Yankee Hill and the 49 &
56 Quartz Mill.
that at that time the mine may not have been very proftable and also allowing Wells the opportunity
to increase his shares in the venture. In 1858 it is reported that Wells opened a store at Yankee Hill.
The 1859 tax rolls indicate his merchandise was worth $300 and he had solvent debts owed him of
$1200. The tax rolls still make no mention of his owning any land. In October 1858 the Post Offce,
established in Feb 1857 at nearby Frenchtown, was moved to the store operated by Wells in Yankee
Hill. Offcially known as the Yankee Hill post offce, this would guarantee the name Yankee Hill a place
in history. Ironically, two years earlier, in 1856, the Oroville papers were touting the development of a
new town only two miles away called Spanishtown. In a matter of one year, Spanishtown hosted three
hotels and numerous small cabins. But Spanishtowns reputation for violence and the disappearance
of the surface gold in the area, because of the infux of miners, brought its existence to an abrupt end.
The 49 & 56 mining company continued to add additional services for the community when in 1858
the company donated land for a school. The Yankee Hill School opened next door to the store operated
by Wells. In 1862, Wells ran for and was elected Justice of The Peace; he held that position for many
years. In 1863 Wells and G.G. Marquis, another early settler at Concow, were involved in the round
up of 350 local Indians that were later transported to a reservation. This act may not be as heinous as it
sounds. The local military authorities ordered their roundup and removal by whatever means required.
Any white man who helped the Indians resist was to be taken as prisoner. Transporting the Indians to a
reservation may have seemed like the lesser of two evils to Wells. J ohn Adams Clark, the Grandson of
Yohema Clark, the third daughter of Chief Bercha, Chief of the Konkow Indians reported in the 1918
History of Butte County that previously Wells had hidden 40 Indians in the basement of his store to
protect them from angry soldiers. He and several others resisted releasing the Indians to the soldiers.
Eventually they were forced to turn them over; two were shot by the soldiers for supposed crimes.
By 1867 the Butte County tax rolls indicate Wells owned a lot at Yankee Hill with $300 in improvements and
had $800 in merchandise in his store. Much of this and his future land acquisitions was probably fnanced by
the selling of his shares in the 49 & 56 mine for $15,992 in 1866 to N.H. Tilden. Unfortunately for Tilden,
the stamp mill at the mine burned down two years later and the mine closed. Meanwhile, Wells continued to
acquire more land, by 1874 he owned 40 acres. Sometime in the 1870s Wells built a hotel across the street
from his home and store. The house and store are shown in the 1882 History of Butte County. The hotel was
probably inspired by the building of the dam at Concow in 1871 and the steady traffc to the lumber mills
in Flea Valley. Yankee Hill with its store, post offce, hotel and school was serving the communities in Flea
Valley, Concow Valley, Big Bend, Rich Gulch as well as the farmers in the immediate area. A.B. Clark,
Antone Hotapp, Sam Knowlton, Caleb Nix and W.H. Sweetman were large landowners farming near Wells.
One of the earliest settlers in the Rich Gulch/Yankee Hill area was Alfred Burr Clark who came to the area in
1850; he was a native of Vermont who lived in Oregon City before moving to Yankee Hill. The 1871 tax rolls
indicate he owned 40 acres and had 800 sheep and 40 lambs. At one time he had a butcher shop in nearby
Frenchtown. By 1885 he had expanded his land holdings to 80 acres and was listed as a boot maker in the
Butte County directory. In 1859 Alfred Clark married Yohema, the Konkow Chiefs daughter. Kate, as she was
known, and Alfred had seven children; many of their descendents still live in the area. It was Alfred Burr Clark
who in 1863, with Michael Wells, tried to hide the Indians in the basement of the Wells Store. The Clark family
cemetery is located just down the road from Yankee Hill. Both Alfred and Yohema (Katy) Clark are buried there.
The frst burial held at the Yankee Hill cemetery was Charles Smith, a resident of Concow, who died at
Nelsons Bar; he was buried on May 18, 1875.
In 1876 Michael Wells married Dora Spencer, they had three children. In 1883 Wells expand-
ed the hotel by adding another building adjacent to the frst hotel. The old building had a din-
ing hall downstairs and the upstairs was later converted to a residence. This expansion coin-
cided with J oseph Mullens expansion of his hotel at Concow Reservoir. This was probably
because the Butte County Chapter of the International Order of Good Templars (an anti-liquor orga-
nization) had started holding their yearly conferences at the Concow Reservoir campground, ad-
jacent to the hotel, plus the mines at Cherokee were in full production bringing people to the area.
Wells was an avid reader, his library held 1500 books. Sometime after 1882 Wells built a larger house
and winery behind his frst home and the store. He was also the agent for the Venus Quartz Mine
which was located next to the old 49 & 56 mining claim. One has to wonder if his interest was re-
ally in fnding gold or in creating jobs at Yankee Hill which brought in trade to his store and hotel.
In 1887 disaster struck the local mining industry when hydraulic mining was outlawed. The run-
off into the rivers and the fooding of the land below the mine operations was ruining the farm
lands downstream. There was no hydraulic mining at Yankee Hill but the impact on Chero-
kee was immediate. Many of the local miners left the area to head for Virginia City, Nevada and
the great silver strike. The dreams of most of the local land owners were fading as people slow-
ly left the area. J oseph Mullen sold his hotel at the Concow reservoir and moved to Arizona.
How big was Yankee Hill? There is no evidence that Wells ever tried to speculate in real-estate and
divide up his acreage into smaller lots. Rather, he apparently allowed businesses that supplemented
his own to build in the immediate area. There was a blacksmith shop and a stage depot; it is not clear
if the store and hotel acted as the depot as well. The store ledgers, some of which are at the Butte
County Historical Society, do refect a steady business with 4 to 8 customers per day, spending from
$2.00 to $7.00 each. The school averaged from 10 to 30 students per year. Many times the teacher
lived at the hotel. Rural schools were where new teachers were usually assigned; they usually were
young, single women. The population of Yankee Hill has been reported in County histories as up to
300 people. But as it is today, Yankee Hill was more of a community than a town, encompassing a
large area. The heyday of activity was probably in the early 1870s when nearly 250 Chinese labor-
ers were employed digging the ditches that brought water from a series of reservoirs high in the hills
through the Concow Valley to Cherokee, supporting hydraulic mining. Supply wagons with build-
ing materials were making regular trips to the area. There were also small cattle drives through Yan-
kee Hill to Flea Valley for summer grazing; there was a corral at Yankee Hill. And while there was a
hotel at Concow Reservoir, there was no store, so people had to travel to Yankee Hill for provisions.
Michael Wells continued to operate the hotel, store and post offce at Yankee Hill until his death in
1891. His funeral was well attended by white, Indian and Chinese mourners in Oroville. He was very
well respected and his lengthy obituary talked about his positive attitude and generosity with both his
time and money. He was always there for his friends. This explains why for many years when he held
4th of J uly dances at the Yankee Hill Hotel, they were attended by as many as 100 people from all over
the area. Wells died on July 9th, fve days after his last 4th of July dance, from an apparent heart attack.
After Michael Wells death, his wife Dora continued to operate the store, hotel and post offce, but the popula-
tion continued to decline. In 1904 a serious drought hit the area after the Concow Dam failed the previous year
and was not repaired. Dora Wells tried to sell 80 acres along with the big house, store and post offce for $2500.
Dora had taken up residence above the dining hall in the hotel. She was unsuccessful in her attempts to sell.
That same year Dirk J ohnson, a local resident, had an argument with his wife. He threat-
ened to kill her so she ran away and took refuge in the Yankee Hill Hotel. The next day
Dirk showed up at the hotel with a gun looking for his wife. About the same time the con-
stable arrived and found Dirk in the Wells kitchen where he was promptly arrested.
In 1908 the Yankee Hill Post Offce was moved from the Wells store to the Lunt family home on Nel-
son Bar Road. Sometime afterwards the store was closed. Mrs. Wells continued to operate the ho-
tel until her death in 1936. The family retained the property using caretakers to manage the hotel;
many of the guests were now permanent residents renting rooms. The family fnally sold the prop-
erty to the Hoefing Brothers mining company in June of 1946. They already had mining interests
at Big Bend. In 1949 the Hoefing Brothers put the property up for sale retaining the mineral rights.
Florence Owens had moved to Yankee Hill at the age of 4, when in 1932 she moved from Pennsylvania
with her parents, Lee and Rosella Owens and grandparents, Ed and Alma Chadwick. Florence attended the
Yankee Hill School before it closed in 1943. Married and living in Oroville, Florence and her husband Skeet
Smith purchased 260 acres encompassing the Yankee Hill property in 1949 for $2500. The minimum wage
law at that time was $.49 per hour. They would buy the mineral rights some years later for roughly $11,000.
The enclosed map shows the structures that were on the property when Florence and Skeet purchased it.
Within months after acquiring the property, the hotel caught fre when one of the tenants tipped a kerosene lamp
over. Florence and her husband Skeet, a heavy equipment operator for the State, were not living on the property
at the time. The hotel was completely destroyed. Several families living at the hotel were forced to relocate.
In 1950 PG&E was running high tension power lines through Yankee Hill. As part of the settlement
for a right of way, power was brought to Yankee Hill and the old school house. It allowed Florence and
Skeet the luxury of an electric pump on the old town well. The roads in the area were still mud and
gravel; they would not be paved until the late 1960s, about the same time Lake Oroville was completed.
In the early 1950s the old house next to the old store was falling apart, so it was torn down and used
for fre wood. The house had at one time been rented to the Clark family. It was probably Michael
Wells frst home shown in the 1882 history of Butte County. The Yankee Hill School was rented out
as a residence to workers working on the Pulga power plant. Later the school was used for commu-
nity dances. Florences grandfather, Ed Chadwick, painted scenes on the walls inside the school.
There were two small cabins at the bend in Yankee Hill Road. An article in the 1904 Oroville
newspaper talks about a well known local character, Uncle Billy Rudd, living in a cabin at Yan-
kee Hill. In 1904, he was 79 years old and a veteran of the Mexican war. He lived on a pension of
$12 per month. He cooked his own food and lived alone. His daily routine was to stop by the hotel,
store and post offce during the afternoon, usually fnding old cronies to play Pedro (Pedro is a card
game usually played with four people). They managed to fnish the game about the time the mail ar-
rived. The two small cabins disappeared sometime in the 1950s, one accidently catching fre.
About 1960 Florence and Skeet moved a two bedroom mobile home onto the property on the loca-
tion of the old big house and winery, which by now was in bad shape so it too had to be torn down.
This big house had been the Wells family second home. The Smith family, consisting of Florence,
Skeet and their son Skeeter and daughter Rosella, were now permanent residents at Yankee Hill. In
1964 the well ran dry at Yankee Hill. This was probably related to the work being done on the rail-
road tunnel in preparation for Lake Oroville. Florence drove to Dark Canyon with a 350 gallon wa-
ter tank so they could water the livestock; they had about 30 head of cattle. That same year Skeet
passed away. It was time for Florence to sell the property at Yankee Hill. An attempt was made to do-
nate the old school to the Butte County Historical Society. Unfortunately, the school was in bad shape
and the historical society had no place to put it. Eventually it fell down, probably with some help from
the new owners. Today, only the water pump remains at the site, the last remnant of old Yankee Hill.
Editors note: For more reading about Yankee Hill see the Diggins Vol 28 #2, published in 1982 by
the Butte County Historical Society. Copies are available at the society museum in Oroville. Also for
more information about the Konkow Indians and their history visit their web page at www.maidu.com
First Saturday each month, Bunko Party!! - The frst Saturday of each month at 1:00pm we
have a bunko party at the old school. Prizes and a raffe are held to raise funds for the school restoration.
The restoration crew has been feverishly working on the school and we want to make sure we can provide
the materials to keep them going! The money raised from the bunko party is a primary contributor to the
restoration fund. It is fun and supports a great cause. SEE YOU THERE!
School Restoration Report - The work is beginning again! The planned additional room adjacent the
restroom behind the school is being built! The cement has been poured for the foor. The area will be used
for storage and possible display space open for special events. Ya cant keep a good crew down!
Offcers and Contact Information
President: Bob Huffman (530) 533-4132
Vice President: Jay Nicholson (530) 533-2273
Treasurer: Debbie Ingvoldsen
Secretary: Don Saul
Director: Marji Corey
Director: Patty Dummel
Newsletter Editor: Larry Mauch (530) 532-0706 [email protected]
General Correspondence: [email protected]
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