Chapter I
By S. A. D. Puter
I WAS BORN January 6, 1837, in Trinity County, California. Two years later my parents moved to Humboldt County, in that State, where my father purchased the possessory title to a homestead claim on Mad River, about twenty miles north of Eureka. Here I was reared, leaving there in 1888 and moving to Oregon, living in Portland until 1903, at which time I took my family to Berkeley, California, where they now reside.
Our family consisted originally of three sons and four daughters, but of these, only four of the children survive—Lawrence F. Puter, an attorney of Eureka, California, and one of my counsels in the Township "11—7" case: Lucile, the youngest sister, wife of Robert Sawyer, of Los Angeles, California: Daniel, at present engaged in mining in the State of Idaho, and myself.
During 1861–62, when I was but five years old, the Indians broke out in Humboldt County. killing a number of farmers and stockmen while on the warpath, and burning and destroying a great deal of property belonging to the settlers thereabouts, our home being among the first to suffer in that respect, on account of its isolated position. After this episode, father moved the family into the town of Arcata. which is situated on Humboldt bay, twelve miles north of Eureka. and with a number of other men, formed a military company and inaugurated a vigorous campaign against the redmen, completely subduing them at the end of two years' fighting. In 1864 father went to Idaho and engaged in mining, leaving his family in Arcata. Two years later our claim was "jumped" by squatters, as we had never completed the title on account of the depredations of the Indians. As soon as my mother learned of the situation, she moved the family back on the place, where we lived in a shack during the summer and winter of 1866 and up to the fall of 1867, when my father returned from Idaho, remaining with us on the ranch until his death in 1886.
My educational advantages, as may be imagined, were very limited, and were confined to short terms in the public schools of Arcata during the summers of 1865-66. I was then but nine years old, and as we moved back on our ranch in 1866 I had no opportunity for attending school until 1873, and then only in the summer of that year and the year following, on account of the great distance the school house was from our ranch. Whatever knowledge I have acquired has been picked up in my business transactions throughout the country.
During father's absence in Idaho, the family experienced many hardships and privations. particularly so after being forced to return to the ranch, as the place had not been under cultivation for some years and we had no money with which to purchase farming implements of any consequence, depending entirely upon such work as could be done by hand in the way of raising garden stuff. We had no horses, nothing, in fact, in the livestock line but one cow. Fresh
