About Parish

About Charles L. Parish

click here for Parish artwork

click here for tales of the Big Bar Bridge

click here to see Parish's partner in the Middle Bar Bridge Dr. Soher

The following is excerpted from the book "California Pictorial", page 138, which

also includes a picture of his view of Jackson and a hanging in 1854.

"Charles L. Parish was born in New York, and in his youth served an apprenticeship

to a builder and architect. In 1850 he went around the Horn to California, intending

work at mining. He soon concluded that mining provided too precarious a living and

decided to take up more steady employment. He settled at Jackson, where he

manufactured rock crushers and quartz mills, and the house he built there is still

standing. As a side line he manufactured carriages which were sent out from New

York, and for several years he was also the owner of the toll bridge at Big Bar.

About 1865 (sic: 1874) Parrish and his family moved to Oakland. He died in 1902

while visiting relatives in the East".

His drawing of Jackson is the oldest known of that city, and his drawings of Volcano

and Mokelumne Hill are also among the oldest. A portfolio of his work is at the

Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.