Page 32 - People & Places In Time

Jamestown to Tulare County
Trail) they would have many encounters with Indians both warriors and friendly. In Idaho they turned south, eventually crossing over Donner Pass, arriving in California on August 5, 1855, at the head waters of the Little Yuba River, in Sierra County. Undecided about what to do next they worked for wages in the mines before deciding to not follow the miner’s life for what Adolphus saw as their bad luck. Soon they traveled south to Mariposa County and remained there until 1857, before moving further south into Tulare County.
The two brothers had crossed the plains with a Mrs. Billups in their original party; when they arrived in Visalia, they unexpectedly reconnected and found her keeping a restaurant. There were at the time only three places of business in the town which had only been established six years earlier. The homes were crudely built with most of them not much more than tents with framed walls and canvas roofs. Upon arrival Adolphus happened to meet with Colonel Baker, the founder of Bakersfield, who advised them to buy land.
Adolphus and Ozro build their cattle ranch and farm
This is just what Adolphus and Ozro did, until eventually they owned twelve hundred acres six miles south west of Visalia. Upon buying their first acre- age they went into the cattle business, having bought one hundred fifty head of Spanish cattle at $12.50/head. The following spring, they would sell fifty head at $30.00 each. I’ve always wondered did he bring money down from the gold fields or was the money used to buy land and cattle brought from Missouri?
Adolphus and Ozro had been in the ranching business for ten years when Adolphus returned to Missouri in June of 1869 leaving Visalia and their cattle ranch in the capable hands of his brother and arrived home later in the same month. Fifteen years after leaving Missouri for California, Adolphus was able to take the Butterfield stage for his return to Missouri. His father had died eight years earlier so I can’t say what the circumstances were for Mary, his mother.
Unfortunately, Adolphus wound up staying longer than expected, as he was taken with an attack of Typhoid in July and wound up remaining in Missouri for fifteen months. It was during this same time that his sister Amanda died as well, so I’m guessing typhoid again was the culprit. Mary, their mother lived another fifteen years with no family close by, as Adolphus had returned to California.
While home in Missouri Adolphus reconnected with Susan Bogle, my great grandmother. She was born May 19, 1844, in Cannon County, Tennessee to a family that had also moved to Missouri in 1859. Adolphus and Susan were married on October 2, 1870 in Newton, Missouri. They returned to Visalia by stage from Stockton to continue raising cattle and building the ranch. At one time they owned about twenty-five hundred acres of land and leased another two thousand.
When the railroad came through, Adolphus and Ozro would expand their efforts into the cultivation of wheat, delivering to the new railhead in Goshen, at that time the hub of activity in Tulare County. M
Great Grandparents Adolphus and Susan Mitchell seated in front of their children ~ my Grandfather Walter Franklin, aunt Addie Bella and uncle Arther Galan. Another son Chester died in 1877.
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