Pickle Family

Robert Pickle’s family immigrated from Palatine, France, in the 1700s and settled in Pennsylvania. They later moved to Alabama, where Robert Pickle was born in 1793. In 1820, Robert married Nancy Jones. Together they had ten children: Christopher Jones, William Jones, George Washington, Jeremiah Jones, Sarah Bird, Martha Jane, Henry S., John Faust, Nancy Catherine, and Jesse Wiley.
Their son George, born in Alabama in 1824, married Mary Ann Jones in 1844 in Yell County, Arkansas. In 1852, they joined a wagon train and set out for California with their two children, Mary Elizabeth and Sarah Jane. Tragically, George’s wife Mary Ann died en route to California. George remarried in 1860 to Mary Ann Mariah Jones. They had nine children: Margaret, John William, Jesse Wiley, and Martha Frances, all born in Healdsburg, California. In 1872, George and Mary Ann, along with their young children, settled in Potter Valley on land George purchased from the Mewhinney family. After settling in Potter Valley, they had five more children: George Jr., Della Ann, Franklin, Ellen, and Josephine.

An article in the Healdsburg Enterprise reported that George and his neighbor, Eli Jones, brought four tons of very fine wheat to Healdsburg to sell as seed. In the following years, many ranchers invested in hops, but much of the soil in Potter Valley remained too wet for successful cultivation. In 1886, the Pacific Rural Press reported that George and his brother, who had joined him in Potter Valley, began tearing out their hop fields, along with the Spotswoods, Thorntons, Mewhinneys, and Burkhardts.

George and Mary Ann’s son, John William Pickle, was born in Healdsburg in 1863. When he was nine years old, his family purchased a ranch in Potter Valley. He lived in Centerville and, like most residents there, was a Democrat. He served as constable in Centerville and worked as a teamster, driving a wagon over 18 miles of rough roads to Ukiah. As a young adult, John bought 100 acres in Coyote Valley. In 1889, he married Sarah Lulu Jackson, whose family had come from St. Louis when she was a small child. They had six children: Robert, Etta, Bessie, Samuel, Pearl, and Frances. John served as county road foreman for 20 years and helped build many Mendocino County roads.
George William Pickle Jr. married Viola May Adams in 1894. They had five children: Ray, Herbert, Lillie Eva, Jennings, and Chester. Viola passed away in 1910. George later married Elizabeth Shelton Dickey in 1926; Elizabeth had two children from her first marriage.

George Jr. and Viola’s son, Herbert, married Elva Spotswood in 1917. Their only son, Harry Pickle, married Elizabeth Palmer on June 21, 1975. Harry and Elizabeth did not have any children. After Harry’s death in 1987, the Pickle Scholarship was created to assist graduating seniors from Potter Valley High School. Through the estate, the Pickle Scholarship continues to be awarded to Potter Valley students—a legacy that lives on through the Pickle family.

There are many stories yet to be told about the Pickle family, as George and his wives’ children remained in Potter Valley, married, and produced a long line of descendants. George and Mary Ann’s children and grandchildren married into families such as the Spotswood, Neil, Day, Jackson, March, Shelton, and Hughes families, among others. Numerous family members and descendants are interred at Potter Valley Cemetery.

George passed away on June 26, 1907, and his second wife, Mary Ann, passed away on February 21, 1911. Both died at their home in Potter Valley.