Colusa Biographical Sketches.
CHAPTER XII.
RICHARD POIRIER.
This gentleman, who knows everyone in the county, and who is himself, perhaps, the best-known man in the Sacramento Valley, was born at Montreal, Canada, May 1, 1832. He lived on a farm till he was eight years of age, and in 1840 moved with his parents to St. Louis, Missouri, where he lived until the year 1856. He followed the calling of a clerk in various kinds of stores while residing in that city, and acquired a general idea of business, which served him in good stead in after life. The Golden West now wooed him and filled him with a longing to reach there and begin life for himself. For this purpose he started across the plains in 1856, by way of Salt Lake, reaching Sacramento City on September 14 of that year, where he soon opened a store on his own account. In 1860 he took charge of the commissary department of the steamer Sam Sole, and in 1863 he secured the eating department of this and other boats on the Sacramento. He continued in this business till 1884, and became so popular with the traveling public that it was but the natural result of his employment that he should engage in the hotel business. In 1882 he purchased the Colusa House, the oldest and leading hotel at the county seat. He then leased it until 1884, when he moved to Colusa and took charge of the hotel himself.
Mr. Poirier was married, in San Francisco, in 1873, to Miss Alphonsa Laport, of Troy, New York, and is the father of three boys and one girl.
Success did not overtake Mr. Poirier; he rather compelled it to come within his grasp, by his industry, urbanity and through knowledge of his business. These, with his experience and the State-wide number of his friends, have made him the model landlord.
COLUSA COUNTY
ITS
HISTORY TRACED FROM A STATE OF NATURE
THROUGH THE EARLY PERIOD OF SET-
TLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT,
TO THE PRESENT DAY
WITH A
DESCRIPTION OF ITS RESOURCES, STATISTICAL
TABLES, ETC.
ALSO
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PIONEERS AND
PROMINENT RESIDENTS
by Justus H. Rogers
Orland, California
1891
Page 343-465
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 7/5/2009
Colusa County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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