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Volume 063-2 - April 2009 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
NCHS Bulletin April 2009
Thomas H. and William T. Russell, a native of Bangor,
North Wales, aged 69 years, . month and 24 days.
_ I was now convinced that the daughter of Ellen Russell,
Mrs. Elizabeth Alma Worthley, probably was the Alma Russell I was searching for. Camptonville is in Yuba County,
but not too distant from the town of Washington, and a stage
ran from there to the towns of Washington and Maybert.
While I had been searching for a Miss Russell, I found that
she was a Mrs. Worthley until sometime after 1899. While
continuing to search the 1899 newspaper, looking beyond
the obituary of Ellen Russell, I found another important
piece of the puzzle—a rather big one.
Were Married at Camptonville—Elizabeth Worthley has commenced divorce proceedings in the Superior
Court of Yuba County against her husband, Alfonso C.
Worthley, on the grounds of failure to provide and desertion. The parties were married in Camptonville on May
26th, 1875.
Now, with a marriage date and another county and town to
work with, I was soon able to locate in the Marysville newspaper the marriage record of Alma Russell to Alphonse C.
Worthley on May 25th 1875, at Camptonville, Yuba County.
Next I obtained a copy of the divorce decree from the Yuba
County Superior Court. Then, proceeding to research both
the Russell family of Camptonville and the Worthley family
backward in time, I was able to piece together the puzzle of
Alma Russell and her connection to the Washington Hotel.
In the Beginning: The Prichard
and Russell Families
Elleanor (nee Ellen) Prichard was born in Bangor, North
Wales about 1829. She was living in Slate Range Township,
Yuba County by June of 1860, where she was enumerated
on the Federal Population Census of that town. She was
listed as the head-of household, age 29 years, and living in
her household were two-year-old Elizabeth J. Morgn [sic]
and Richard W. Prichard, age 24 [her brother.] There are no
relationships designated on the 1860 population census and
the fact that Elizabeth J. has a different surname can only
lead to speculation whether the child in Ellen’s household
is Ellen’s natural daughter. Also living in the same township were eleven additional people by the name of Prichard,
all of them born in Wales except for the four young children, three of whom were born in Pennsylvania and one in
New York; all the children were listed in the household of
William Prichard, age 30.
I have no doubt that these other Prichards were related
to Ellen. The oldest was Thomas Prichard, aged 81, and old
enough to be Ellen’s father, and the other males ranged in
age from 20 to 44 years old. Since Ellen was 29 years old
according to the 1860 census, it is possible that all of these
men, except for Thomas, could have been brothers.
Camptonville
Slate Range Township is in the extreme eastern portion “*
of Yuba County. It is described in the History of Yuba Coun-—
ty California, 1879, as “. . . lies amid the beautiful hills of
the Sierras. It is well watered by numerous winding creeks,
the largest of which are Willow, Clear, Beaver, Oregon, and
Mosquito. . . . Many rich placer, quartz and gravel mines
have been discovered, and the gravel mines being worked at
the present around Camptonville are of the greatest richness
and are leading the industry in the region. The Township
received its name from a large bed of slate formation in its
northern part.”
Camptonville was the largest settlement in Slate Range,
a thriving mountain town, and covered only 159 acres. The
old trail to Downieville (Sierra County) led through the town
as early as 1851. In 1853 the Campbell brothers built a large
three-story hotel there and called it the National Hotel. In
1861 or 1862 the ground on which it was built was sold for
mining purposes and the building was torn down. While this
may seem just a little crazy to us today, it wasn’t in those
booming early years, because it was all about the gold. It
was not uncommon for miners to start digging in the middle
of Main Street in any Gold Rush town if a rich deposit was
suspected, as happened in early Nevada City.
In early 1853 a man named Robert Campton opened a
blacksmith shop. He was popular and in 1854 the town was
named Camptonville in honor of him. In the fall of 1854
the wagon road was finished to Camptonville, and in 1855
the California Stage Company began running stages to the
town. Prior to that time pack trains were the only means of
transportation and many came on foot leading a mule or
two.
Peter H. Russell was an early California settler and was
known to be an early hydraulic miner in Yuba County and
in partnership in the early days with a Frenchman named
Fred Joubert. Peter was French Canadian, possibly from
Montreal, and both of his parents were born in France. He
settled in Camptonville and built a house, but the Russell
house on Main street was destroyed in the 1930s when
Judge Cleveland bought the Russell property and tore down
all the buildings on it to build a new home.
On December 12, 1860, Ellen Prichard married Peter H.
Russell. It is believed that the Canadian native came to cali
fornia with a brother by the name of Thomas. On the next
Federal Census, 1870, I found Ellen and Peter enumerated
with five children, ages 12, 8, 6, 4 and 1/12th. The children’s .
first names are not written out; the enumerator used initials ~
and the 12-year-old female is believed to be Elizabeth Jane.