Ranch house built in 1850s

The house was built by pioneer Charles Kingsbury sometime in the late 1850s. Charles lived in the house with his bride, Agnes, and it eventually became home to their 10 children as well. Charles reportedly came to California in 1852 with Leland Stanford, the railroad mogul, but continued on his way to Shasta County to mine for gold. He was a man of all trades and often worked more than one trade at a time. Besides being a carpenter, he was a gold miner, storekeeper, postmaster, constable, Justice of the Peace and a cattle rancher. He was also chairman of the first Shasta County Republican Convention and a delegate to the local Republican Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860. Agnes traveled to California in 1857 with her brother and rode a mule across the Isthmus of Panama. She traveled here to teach school at Piety Hill, where she was the first schoolteacher. During that year, she met and married Charles...read more