Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 074-4 - October 2020 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2023-12-30 11:48:46 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:34 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:34

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

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NCHS Bulletin October 2020 Landing at Keweenaw By 1870 William Best, Sr., 47, and William, Jr., 17 were working at the Copper Falls Mine on Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula which juts into Lake Superior. The mine, about two miles from Eagle Harbor, exploited rich copper veins and employed about 250 men. The two Williams each worked 12-hour days, 6 days a week for about $45 a month. The Best family lived in company housing and the four younger children attended school, getting a level of education unavailable in their parents’ day. Communication and commerce traveled on the lake and supplies were stocked before its waters froze in October. Winter travel was by dog team or on foot. In summer, wild flowers brightened the hillsides and a good wagon road led to Eagle Harbor. William and Betsy’s eldest daughter Elizabeth, 16, married a Cornish miner who worked two miles away at the Central Mine and their first granddaughter was christened at the Central Methodist Church. There were so many Cornish at the Central Mine, people called it “Keweenaw’s Duchy of Cornwall”"’. The Magenta Claim, Grass Valley The Copper Falls mine declined in the early 1870s, partly due to an inadequate water supply for running the mill. Having endured enough hard winters, the Best family, including their married daughter and son-in-law, sought a change and better climate. About 1874 they left the Keweenaw, most likely sailing to Chicago and riding the Central Pacific Railroad to California. They rode a stage from Colfax to Grass Valley. The family lived on Bennett Street before moving to a large house near the top of Henderson Street. In Grass Valley William had found a home; he became a naturalized citizen in 1876. William Best, with his two able-bodied sons, prospected for gold in Grass Valley. Drawing on his experience in Creswick, William staked a claim along the creek that today runs through Memorial Park. The Magenta claim was on the slope between the current park and the Empire mine. Working the claim by hand, the Best family was well rewarded. They mined ore which produced over $25 of gold per ton". Rather than making the large investment in machinery necessary to develop the claim below the water table, William sold it to a stock company, earning enough to retire. Betsy Best died at 59 in 1882 after 30 years of marriage. William died at 66 in 1890. Miners to Merchants to Professionals The son who didn’t mine was John Best, the boy with a lift in his shoe. While the family lived in Michigan, John apprenticed to a German cobbler at Copper Falls, obtaining a trade and a rudimentary command of German. After the family came to Grass Valley, John Best made custom shoes for men and women. In 1883 with a partner, he opened the Philadelphia Shoe Store at 12 (later 112) Mill Street. John taught his younger brother Samuel to mend and make shoes and eventually bought out his partner. His business continued as the John Best Shoe Store until his retirement about 1930. Having been one of Grass Valley’s best-known merchants for nearly 50 years, he continued to operate a lathe and repair shoes in his Race Street home”. John Best Shoe Store, at 112 Mill Street, was one of Grass Valley’s best-recognized business firms, continuing until about 1930. A shoe store operates at the site to this day. Courtesy Best Family. John Best married Amanda Richards, the Canadian-born daughter of a dairyman. “Aunt Amanda was tall and in her hat and pearls looked as grand as the queen,” remembered her grandniece, Brita Berryman Rozynski. Amanda was active in the Methodist Church and the Christian Women’s Temperance Union. The couple had two sons and a daughter. The youngest son, Clarence, died of appendicitis. The youngest child, Muriel, attended high school in Grass Valley and then a girls’ boarding school in Berkeley. She met her husband, Jim Lauritson, on a blind date to the 1915 Panama Pacific Exhibition. The eldest son, Elbridge John “Jack” Best knew he wanted to study medicine after dissecting a frog in 8" grade biology. He got his undergraduate education at the University of California and continued at UC medical school, graduating in 1911. He practiced internal medicine in San Francisco and became a professor at UCSF". Dr. Best lived large. He served as a medical officer in France during World War I and in the Pacific in WWII. He hunted, loved wine, sailed with the San Francisco Yacht Club and joined the hijinks at Bohemian Grove. His most famous patient was Ishi, the sole survivor of the Yana Tribe of California Indians. A Lost Homeland Had William and Betsy Best remained in Cornwall, the lives of their descendants would not have been possible. No son of a miner had any likelihood of establishing a business