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COLONEL JAMES BOYDSTON ARMSTRONG
A Man of Vision
Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve is named for Colonel James Boydston Armstrong, an early Sonoma County landowner. He was a conservationist with a dream of turning his grove of ancient redwoods into public property forever.
James Boydston Armstrong was born August 20, 1824, in Wayne County, Ohio. His grandparents Robert and Isabella Armstrong immigrated to the United States from Ireland with their seven children. When James was a young boy, his father, George, who was a minister, moved his family to Urbana, Ohio, where James lived until he moved to California.
James, educated as a civil engineer and surveyor, began his public life early. At 21, he was elected county surveyor of Champaign County, Ohio, following which he served two terms as county treasurer.
On December 25, 1847, James Armstrong married Eleanor Wilson. Their eldest child, named Elizabeth, was born October 9,1850, in Urbana. However, throughout her life she was known as Lizzie. Their son, Walter, was born two years later.
James made the first official map of Champaign County in the winter of 1850-51. He also wrote for an early Urbana newspaper as ASpectacles.@ In 1856, he went to California as a correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette. The exact reason for the trip is unknown, but he wrote a letter home that he was Ahunting the trail of my man,@ so it might have been a pursuit of some sort.
His youngest child, Kate, was born October 16, 1857. James purchased the defunct Farmers= Bank of Urbana in 1860 and reopened it as the Armstrong Bank. He was president until 1874, when he moved his family to California. In 1860, he was part of the Ohio Republican delegation that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president.
In 1862, a year after the Civil War began, James Armstrong served for about four months as a lieutenant colonel in the 95th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was similar to a National Guard. His regiment took part in the battle at Richmond, Kentucky.
Two years later, James Armstrong again entered the service, this time as a full colonel and commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade 134th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Virginia. After he was mustered out, he continued using the title of colonel for the rest of his life.
In 1874 James Armstrong moved his family to California. Both his wife, Eleanor, and daughter Kate were in poor health by then. The family first lived in Santa Rosa, where Armstrong developed several subdivisions and established a lifelong friendship with Luther Burbank. The family then moved to Cloverdale, where they invested in some orchard land and built a family home.
Upon his arrival in Sonoma County, James Armstrong began to purchase land in the densely forested Big Bottom Valley three miles north of Guerneville. Three years later, the family purchased the Big Bottom Mill, a large capacity sawmill, but Armstrong began to realize that the redwood forest was not an inexhaustible supply of timber. In 1878 Armstrong gift-deeded 440 redwood forest acres to his daughter Kate for Aone dollar, love, and affection.@ Soon after, he gave Kate another 160 acres, bringing the total to 600 acres. His intention was to preserve the old growth redwood grove and have it become public property. Common use of the grove by the public began and continued as a family courtesy to the public. The family also built a house near the redwood grove which was used as a summer home.
On August 6, 1880, Eleanor Armstrong died. That same year, James purchased a newspaper, the Santa Rosa Republican, and was editor until its sale two years later.
James Armstrong was called the AFather of the Cloverdale Citrus Fair.@ His daughters, Lizzie and Kate, were active in the Cloverdale Missionary Gleaners of the local Congregational Church who raised funds for church projects. The group also raised and displayed flowers at the annual Chrysanthemum Fair to raise money for the church. This gave James the idea of exhibitions of the local citrus crops, which grew into the annual Cloverdale Citrus Fair.
On New Year=s Day, 1891, James Armstrong, age 67, married Jessie V. Magee in Southern California. She was 37 years his junior. Kate and Lizzie were among the family who attended. After their brief honeymoon, James and Jessie, and his two daughters, moved to the home near Guerneville.
James Armstrong formulated a plan for a Natural Park and Botanic Garden in the redwood parkland, with a board of trustees headed by Luther Burbank and including Kate, along with other citizens, but no deed was ever recorded transferring the property to the trustees.
In November 1891 Armstrong suffered his first paralytic stroke. A second one, two years later, left him in need of assistance for the rest of his life. His 1895 will included $100,000 as an endowment for his proposed park, but the endowment was never made following his death, most likely due to financial reverses. When his daughter Kate died in 1898, the 400 redwood parkland acres, which she still owned, were left to her sister Lizzie.
Colonel James Boydston Armstrong, age 76, died October 15, 1900, at his home in Cloverdale. Lizzie and Jessie were with him. He was buried in the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery by the graves of Eleanor and Kate. Jessie Armstrong returned to the Los Angeles area to live. Lizzie remained in the Cloverdale home.
When he died, James Armstrong=s dream of saving his redwood grove for public use was unrealized. This dream was left for his daughter, Lizzie, who inherited Kate=s part of the redwood grove and later divided it with Walter. Walter soon sold his portion to family friend Harrison LeBaron, so it was Lizzie and the LeBarons who finally arranged with the county to make the 400 redwood acres into public parkland.
In March 1901, Lizzie Armstrong married the widower, Rev. William Ladd Jones, who was 23 years her senior. Before his death, James Armstrong chose a particular tree in the forest as his own memorial, so in June 1901 Lizzie dedicated Athe most majestic monarch of the forest@ to her father, during an encampment of the Veterans= Association, to which he had belonged. Thus, we now have the Colonel Armstrong Tree, approximately 1,400 years old, dedicated to the memory of Col. James Armstrong=s vision for the redwood grove.
In October 2004 the National Civil War Association honored Col. James B. Armstrong with a new Veterans’ Administration marker in the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, dedicating it to him as the highest ranking Civil War veteran in the cemetery. The official ceremony also honored James as a G.A.R. member and a Mason.
Abstracted from:
Finley, Carmen J. and Dickenson, Doris M., Colonel James B. Armstrong, His Family and His Legacy, (Guerneville, California: Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, 2008).