Shasta County

Biographies

William Kessler or Kesler, as it is sometimes spelled was born at Covington, Kentucky, May 6, 1824, he moved with his family to Indiana in 1829. His parents are unknown. Most of his early youth was spent at Indiana, when the Mexican War broke out he enlisted into the Company D., 1st Indiana Volunteers as a Sergeant.

When the Mexican War was over he traveled into San Gabriel, California, and then he ventured on to Butte County, which was established in 1850, and is one of the original twenty-seven counties of California. At Butte County he engaged in mining but he didn't turn out to be a successful miner in that county. In 1854, Kessler moved on, he moved to Shasta County arriving at Shasta City. Shasta County was another county established in 1850.

The California pioneer went into mining, and it was here where Kessler earned his fortune. In 1857 Kessler decided to give up mining and try his entrepreneurial skills. He moved to Whiskeytown, and owned and operated a general merchandise store at that location. He was their merchant for many years, Whiskeytown is located Northwest of Redding and is now located under the waters of Whiskeytown Lake, which was formed in the 1960s.

William Kessler by political standards was a Republican. By the time of his death he married three times and left several children, one of them was John Kessler, who was a well known business man of Shasta County. William was a brother-in-law of John Kimble, Thomas B. and John E. Reynolds, all pioneers of this county.

Kessler died in Sacramento, California on March 26, 1889, due to severe asthma attacks. He was taken to Sacramento to receive medical attention that couldn't be offered in Shasta County. It is said he was buried in the Whiskeytown Cemetery. Kessler was an important man in early Whiskeytown history.

John Richard Felch was born in Spring Valley, Minnesota, in 1859 to Richard Carey and Elizabeth Lucinda Hopkins Felch. His mother was a school teacher. In the 1870s, the Felch family traveled to Montana, where John received some education. From Montana the Felch family arrived in Fall River Valley, Shasta County in 1889.

In 1889 John Richard Felch married Lettitia Jane Joiner (Spaulding). Lettitia was a native of Truxton, Mo, and the daughter of Benjamin Nichols and Elizabeth James Itson Joiner. Lettitia was formerly married to DeForest Wells Spaulding, this couple first came to Shasta County in 1874 and were early settlers of Fall River Valley. She had about six children from her first marriage.

About this time John Richard Felch worked in a sawmill it is noted in the book A History of Shasta County, California by Shasta County Book Commission that John walked "seventy-five miles to Redding to file for a homestead where the Pitt Three [powerhouse] is located [on the Pit River]. John found that the land was owned by the Indians. So he filed for a homestead at the end of Bird Flat Road. He homesteaded that. This residence was the old Levi Lindsey place."

To the union of John Richard and Lettitia Jane Joiner (Spaulding-Felch) there were three children born. One of them was a Shasta County historian and Author Mrs. Bertha Lucetty Felch (Stevenson-Maynard). She was a teacher, like her grandmother, and was the published author of poems too, who wrote the book "Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow." She married into two other pioneer families of our county.

John Richard Felch died on May 22, 1923, and was buried a day later in the Burney Cemetery. Not to far from his grave is the grave of Samuel Burney who the town of Burney and Burney Falls is named for. After the death of her second husband, in 1928 she broke her arm, which made headlines and was taken to the St. Caroline Hospital. Lettitia (Spaulding-Felch) died in January of 1936, at Hat Creek in eastern Shasta County at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Emma Wilcox. Burial took place at the Burney Cemetery. Descendants from her first union to DeForest Wells Spaulding, and descendants from her second union to John Richard Felch, still live in present day Shasta County.

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