Collection: Directories and Documents

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Title: History of Herbert & Bernice Pingree and Kramer Farm Collection Type: Directories and Documents # of Pages: 7 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2025-03-31 12:54:54 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.5.0 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-31 22:26:10 Last Updated: 2025-03-31 22:26:10

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 7  

However, he was not as successful as his uncle in locating gold and turned to farming. In 1876 Parker married Minnie Woodfield, a native daughter of California, who had been born in Grass Valley and was related to Lewis wheeler’s wife. She was just sixteen years old when she married Parker Pingree who was twenty-eight. The couple settled on a yanch in Butte County near Biggs and lived there for four or five years, starting their family in that county. However, when Minnie came down with malaria Parker decided to move his family back to Grass Valley and a healthier climate. There he homesteaded 160 acres on old Auburn Road. Herb was born there on the old family ranch -the youngest of five girls and seven boys. Chinese were still placer mining on the Pingree property) when it was homesteaded and they were finding gold. Parker, in the midst preparing his land for cattle, constantly had to chase the miners from his property. wild strawberries grew by wolf Creek and remnants of the Chinese squatters’ cabins still remain nearby on the Pingree property. Recently, and eight-tined sluice jor was found -a relic of the place mining on the land. The first house and barn built on the property was a stopping place for the teamsters going from Auburn to Grass Valley on the stage road. The old place had been sort of an inn, but Parker discontinued taking in guests. He practiced general farming, selling wood, vegetables, milk and butter. In 1900 the house and barn burned and the same year Pingree build a two-story frame house. In 1901 the present large barn of pole construction was built, framed out of a grove of trees on the ranch. When Parker Pingree died in 1928, Herb, who liked farming, continued to farm with his brother on the family vanch. After graduating from highs ool in 1925, he worked for the Nevada Irrigation District while working on the farm. In 1934, the year that he married Bernice Black, he began to work in the Central Mine shoveling or “mucking” as it was called. Herb and the other miners descended 2,000 feet in the cage which operated in a vertical shaft. several hundred miners worked to bring out the gold. The year before his marriage to Bernice the ranch house burned, possible due to a faulty flue, but again, following their father's example Herb and his brother, Perley, built the present house. In 1935 Herb bought out his brother's interest in the ranch and left mine work, invested in more shorthorned cattle and concentrated on cattle and hay crops. For five wears from 1936-41 he worked as a foreman vi construction crews for the Nevada Irrigation * “ District in Grass Valley. At this time, bale . ase z he and Bernice still regularly visited Bernice and Herb (1934) front yard of the Black Camp at Texas Creek. their home on the Pingree ranch... Minnie, Parker and on Herbert about 1910 '