Charles Fayette Lott
At the breaking out of the Mexican War, however, Peter joined the American Army as captain, after appointing Charles as his clerical substitute, and at the Battle of Buena Vista distinguished himself for brave and effective service.
[1] In 1848, Lott was admitted to practice at the Supreme Court in Illinois, and "from the first it was remarked that he was able to hold his own with the other members of the Quincy bar, among whom may be mentioned both Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A.
[1] Stirred by a desire to participate in the gold rush,[3] he joined a party of young men who were arranging to make an overland journey to California.
His father seriously disapproved the step, and even withheld the necessary funds; but Lott obtained what he needed by mortgaging his property, and on April 1, 1849, set out from Quincy by mule teams laden with mining tools.
Lott began to mine at Long's Bar with the customary pick, shovel and pan, and then he spent the winter at Sacramento recruiting his health, returning to branches of the Feather River for another trial with the miner's tools.
[1] Although he had voted for Lewis Cass at the first election when he cast his ballot, Lott really sympathized with the Democrats, and in a short time he became both a leader and an organizer here.
In 1851, he was elected to the California State Senate, and there found himself yoked with or pitted against such men as Broderick, Frank Soule, Jacob Fry and T. B. Vanburen.
[1] In 1861 Lott had purchased on Big Butte Creek, twenty-seven hundred acres, which was a portion of the Neal or Esquon Grant, and going in for gravel-range mining he was rewarded with returns properly remunerative.
Eighty thousand dollars was spent to build a canal to convey the washings of Yellow Creek for hydraulic mining; but in the spring of 1887, when the task was completed, Lott was served with an injunction under the mining debris act, and sold his ranch on Big Butte Creek to be subdivided into small farms for state colonization and actual settlers.
