He walked here from Humboldt Bay in 1850 to try his luck at
goldmining. But decided that wasn't for him. Instead he
purchased the land and an existing trading post at the
confluence of Clear and Crystal Creeks. In the next 15 years he
built two hotels, the Tower House and the Globe Hotel at Shasta,
built the first wagon road from Shasta to the Tower House,
planted the first peach trees north of Sacramento and was
possibly the first person to experiment in the raising of fruit
and berries in Shasta County. He planted over 1,000 fruit trees
in and around the Tower House. In 1856 he was elected as one of
the first two county supervisors. Then, 15 years after he
arrived here, when he was only 45 years old, he contracted
typhoid fever and died in 1865. He was buried behind his beloved
hotel on the south side of Crystal Creek. Today, the land that
he once owned is properly named the Tower House Historic
District an owned by the National Park Service. Read the rest of
his story in Friday's paper.