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Volume 050-2 - April 1996 (16 pages)
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Page: of 16
January 24, 1874, he and nineteen other Grass Valley and
Nevada City community leaders organized a “Committee of
Twenty” to build a narrow gauge railroad from Nevada City
and Grass Valley to the transcontinental station at Colfax.
Unfortunately, Marsh did not live to see the completion of
Nevada County’s only railroad. He died on April 28, 1876,
one month before the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad began regular service. After he had suffered one or more
strokes or seizures earlier in the year, he and his family
moved to San Francisco. On May 1, Hattie Backus Fay, his
friend for more than 20 years, wrote from San Francisco to
their mutual friend, Deborah Wickes Mulford:
For three or four days I have been thinking much of the
old days of Nevada—Charlie Marsh has been living in the
City—as you may have heard (threatened with softening
of the brain}—was getting much better and three weeks
ago was confirmed, kneeling by my little Jimmie’s side.
The family took a seat in church, next to ours—and [I] sat
and looked at him all church time and warned the children
not to look, as I thought he was insane—did not [recognize] him, but was fascinated by the remembrance of
someone. ...
{I] told Mr Kellogg about it, and in a little while he told
me it was Charlie Marsh. It gave me a most unpleasant
sensation, that I should not have known him.
Yesterday he was buried from Grace Church. Such a
throng I have not seen in many a day. There were many
Nevada [County] people there and Knights Templar Masons, Pioneers &c. . . [including] two of the four ladies and
three or four of the gentlemen who were on the last trip
from Nevada to Lake Bigler.
Mr Kellogg was here after the funeral and we grew
sorrowful talking of the dear ones gone. I have seen Charlie Marsh so plainly ever since I heard of the accident
which cost him his life—He was thrown from a carriage
and struck on his head—tlived some days but never conscious again. I have seen him as he looked standing by the
camp fire freezing our blood with the horrible story of the
“Donner Cabins” —
Jim Whartenby was with him always, faithful and true
friend, his devotion was really beautiful.
Marsh’s partners and heirs sold the South Yuba Canal
Company to Alvinza Hayward, a wealthy San Franciscan
who owned many mines in Nevada County. When Hayward
had trouble meeting the payments, he took on a partner,
Warner Van Norden, and the new firm took the name of the
South Yuba Water and Mining Company.
In 1890, the South Yuba company acquired the Bear River
and Auburn Water and Mining Company, a Placer County
enterprise Marsh had helped create in 1851. Because of a
court ruling that abolished most hydraulic mining in the
1880s, the South Yuba Water Company (as the new combination was called) had to find new sources of revenue. In a
brave and farsighted move, the firm embraced the revolution16
ary new technology of hydroelectric power, and built generating plants at Newcastle, Auburn, and Alta.
In January 1905, the company was purchased by the California Gas and Electric Corporation, owned by Eugene de
Sabla and John Martin, who ten years earlier had built Nevada County’s first hydroelectric plant near Purdon’s Crossing
on the South Yuba River. In the fall of 1905, California Gas
and Electric became known as the Pacific Gas and Electric
Company. Although PG&E has absorbed dozens of other
companies during its history, this giant monopoly today is
justly proud that its oldest corporate ancestor was the Rock
Creek Ditch Company, started by Charles Marsh at Nevada
City in 1850.
On August 4, 1921, 636 voters overruled 168 opponents to
establish the Nevada Irrigation District to bring water for
agricultural purposes from the sources originally tapped by
Marsh’s South Yuba Canal Company.
Nearly three years of negotiation with PG&E resulted in a
1924 agreement that described how the private utility company and the public district would share water resources
originating in the neighborhood of PG&E’s Lake Spaulding
teservoir. Before the contract was signed, the NID had built
the Milton reservoir near Jackson Meadows on the Middle
Yuba River. In 1925, the district built a reservoir on the old
Bowman Ranch and connected it to Spaulding with a canal.
Since that time, NID has built other reservoirs, as well as
treatment plants for domestic water supplies. Today it uses
about 500 miles of canals and flumes, some of which were a
part of the original system Charles Marsh designed and built
in the 1850s and 1860s.
If someday we decide to establish a Nevada County “Hall
of Fame” to honor outstanding citizens, as has been suggested more than once, the name of Charles Marsh surely
belongs at or near the top of any list of nominees. In addition,
his home at 123 Nevada Street should be registered as a
significant historic landmark, and the reservoir he built on
Buckeye Hill to protect his friends and neighbors and nurture
his adopted city ought to be memorialized, not only for its
historical importance, but also because of the scenic beauty it
adds to our newest county park.
Sources:
Coleman, Charles M. PGandE of California: The Centennial Story
of Pacific Gas and Electric Company 1852-1952. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1952.
Comstock, David Allan. Greenbacks and Copperheads 1859-1869.
Grass Valley: Comstock Bonanza Press, 1995.
Foley, Doris. “A Saga of the South Yuba Canal Company," Nevada
County Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 23, Nos. 5 and 6, October and December 1969.
Nevada Democrat newspapers, 1853-1863.
Nevada Journal newspapers, 1851-1863.
Nevada Transcript newspapers, 1860-1869.
Wells, Harry L., J. Albert Wilson, H. B. Rice, and Allen M. Freeman. History of Nevada County, California. Oakland: Thompson
and West, 1880.
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