Return to the El Dorado County Page Return to El Dorado County TalesWritten by Joanne Burkett from research taken from Paolo Sioli's History of El Dorado County California, from El Dorado Co. birth, marriage, death and land records and often from interviews.
During the first quarter of the 19th century, when Samuel Larsen was born, a naming custom called patronymics was still being practiced in Norway. This means that a boy's surname was made up of his father's first name as a prefix, with "sen" added as a suffix. Often his first (or given) name was the same as the first name of a grandfather or other male relative.
Samuel Larsen, then, was the son of Larsen Samuelsen, whose surname, in turn, was the first name of his own father, Samuel. No doubt, the younger Samuel took his first name from his grandfather. Confused? To confuse you even further, the younger Samuel Larsen changed his surname to Lawson when he came to America. Probably had to do with pronunciation.
It was on May 30, 1824 that Samuel took his first breath. He was the second of three children born to Larsen Samuelsen and Ellen Bolletto Samuelsen of Bergen, in County Hordaland, Norway.
When Samuel was 13, he quit school and found jobs, sometimes as an office boy and other times running errands. When he turned 16, he went to sea; various ports of Spain were among his first destinations. In 1842, when he was 18, he sailed to South America and for the next couple years he was based in the bustling seaport of Valparaiso, Chile.
Between Christmas and New Years, 1845, Samuel sailed into the busy harbor of New York City. Before leaving New York, he made the acquaintance of a fellow sailor named William J. Fowler, with whom he would eventually become business partners and lifelong friends. In fact, as written in 1883 by Paulo Sioli in History of El Dorado County, "...the acquaintance ripened into friendship and affection that rarely exists between men."
William was an Englishman, born on July 28, 1827, and raised in Dunstable, which lies some 30 miles from London. The manufacture of straw hats was its principal livelihood. William was the only child of Benjamin and Elizabeth Fowler. After he and Samuel became friends, they would compare their childhoods, which were spent almost identically.
When he was four, William's parents took him and moved to Canada, then to Rochester, New York, where he thrived, and as he grew, he worked as a clerk and driver of a team of horses, until, at 16, he took to the sea.
A couple years later, Samuel and William were together in Salem, Mass. when they boarded the bark Hazzard, bound for San Francisco. With Captain Barstow at the helm, they sailed around Cape Horn and disembarked in the city by the bay on March 8, 1851.
Immediately, they went to work as prospectors for businessmen, William Thornton and Gregory Yale. In their employ, the Fowler and Lawson discovered the first coal mine in the state and later, worked in the San Francisco's lighterage business. To use lighterage is to employ a combination of several independent activities using small barges or "lighters" for carrying the cargo discharged from a large ocean-going vessel in order to "lighten" or reduce its weight. So, in effect, they went back to the sea for their livelihood for a short time.
But, the call of a different lifestyle must have been strong, for on the fourth of July 1851, the two rode into Coloma. The following month, they relocated in Kelsey Township. It was primitive, compared to what they were used to. There were but 20 log cabins there at the time. Tradition tells that here the men celebrated their old sailor custom of eating a dish called plum duff for dinner and that was how the area they inhabited came to be called Dufftown.
Finally, in 1860, they began the building of what they didn't think at the time would become their permanent residence. They called it St. Alban's Cottage. It was just a rough cabin, with a few straggly plants lackadaisically scattered about. So, their first improvements to the property were of he crudest nature, since they had no plans to settle.
But, as time passed and the original cabin proved to be an uncomfortable place to relax after a busy day, they found themselves longing for a more genteel comfort, thus they erected a larger, better structure, which in time was sheltered quite nicely beneath the shade of three black oaks and one majestic live oak tree.
Here they built a home and a life of comfort and security, filled with tasteful furnishings and an air of generosity. The house was kept as neat as if "a housewife presided there," according to Sioli. Books, periodicals and newspapers were welcome amusements to all who enjoyed the hospitality of the popular and intelligent pair. They loved to entertain. Many Sunday afternoons and evenings were generously shared with friends and neighbors, young and old, talking and singing, and sipping homemade wine.
As for their livelihood, summers they spent tending the fruit crops and winters were spent in loosely following the mining trade.
They never married; instead they built a life together that encompassed their community and its citizens and the home they loved.
Permission is granted by the author to use or republish this article, but proper attribution to the author -- Joanne Burkett -- is requested.
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Last Updated on: 13 October 2003