Joseph And Zipporah Russ

Joseph Russ was an entrepreneur with a capital “E.” He was typical of a number of California pioneers--resourceful, energetic, committed to putting down roots in a new land and determined that his family would multiply. Zipporah Patrick was made of strong stuff, too. As a teenager in 1852, she crossed the plains in a covered wagon with her family. They met, were married and settled near Bear River Valley, on the Humboldt County coast where ranching life was anything but easy.

Joseph owned a sawmill in Appleton, Maine when news of the discovery of gold in California made its way around the world. He had the frame for a small building cut for him and, with a stock of merchandise, shipped himself and the building to San Francisco on the bark “Midas,” by way of Cape Horn. He arrived on March 15, 1850 and quickly discovered that nearly everyone was heading for “the diggings.” He sold the building and merchandise and went to the gold fields. Instead of digging, however, he operated a sawmill, then filled contracts to build bridges.

In Summer, 1850, he moved to Volcano and opened a general store for the season. He said later, “We did an excellent credit business and left the profits on the books where they still remain.” He went north to Placerville, purchased a herd of cattle, drove them to Yuba City and sold them at a profit. He opened a store with the proceeds. The next year he was busy selling hay and feed and shipping orders between Colusa and Shasta in the Sacramento Valley.

In Fall, 1852, Joseph purchased approximately 100 cattle in Placerville and, with two hired vaqueros, drove them over the Coast Range to Humboldt County, selling them in Eureka to settlers and the Army at Fort Humboldt. The next spring he filed a claim and built a log cabin a short distance east of Centerville (not far from where Fern Cottage stands). He and a partner, Berry Adams, went to the Sacramento area to purchase a large herd of cattle to drive back to Humboldt. There, he met the Nehemiah Patrick family, including daughter Zipporah, who had just arrived from Pennsylvania. He persuaded them to move to the Ferndale area. About the same time, he and Adams drove their herd to the Bear River hills and opened a meat market in Eureka.

Joseph and Zipporah were married December 17, 1854. She was 16. He was 29. In the mid-1850s, they began to buy ranch land, ultimately owning some 50,000 acres of it. Nearly all the ranches are still owned and operated by their descendants.

By the mid-1860s the family included five children. The Bear River area was a remote place from which to manage the expanding Russ enterprises (over time, timber and lumber, an abattoir, several meat markets, a bank, ships and The Brick Store, a dry goods emporium). They looked for a site outside the young town of Ferndale. One day, riding along the high ground above the Eel River delta, west of Ferndale, they came to a spot where Zipporah said, “Here is where I would like to have a house.” And this is where Fern Cottage has stood since 1866.

In 1876, the Russ’s first ship, a three-masted schooner, “Mary E. Russ,” left for Honolulu with a load of Russ redwood. In 1881, the “Maggie E. Russ” and the “Joseph Russ” joined the family lumber-shipping business. Early schools in growing San Diego County were built with Russ lumber.

Joseph Russ, a Republican, was elected to the state Assembly and served three terms, 1871-72, 1877-78 and 1885-86. He was serving at the time of his death, October 8, 1886.
The Russes had 13 children in all. Zipporah Russ died on November 10 1929. During her widowhood she donated in her husband’s memory a large grove of redwoods to the Save the Redwoods League and the acreage for a wilderness park, Russ Park, to the City of Ferndale.