Hugh H. Shuffleton

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1830-1919.

Shuffleton was born in England, May 27, 1830, and came to America with his parents the same year, settling in Hoosick Falls, New York. From there, the elder Shuffletons pushed on to Fairfield, Iowa Territory, when Hugh was nine years old. In 1842, his mother was killed by lightning, and in 1846 the father died, leaving Hugh and two brothers and a sister complete orphans.

By then, however, Hugh, like any other frontier boy of his age, was old enough to take care of himself. During the winter of 1848-1849, he and five other men bought eight yoke of oxen, two wagons, and a whole emigrant's outfit with intention of starting for California the following spring. On April 1, they left Fairfield, crossed the Missouri River at Council Bluffs on May 1, and after enduring the million vexations and troubles of a 49er, arrived at Benton City, October 8.

His first venture in mining quickly netted him $1000 in dust. Then he entered a river-damming project and lost his money as fast as he had made it. Well along in 1850, he joined the exodus from Benton City to Shasta, then called Reading Springs, where, on Clear Creek, he again engaged in mining, staying at it three years and averaging about $10 a day. His largest single "take" was $50 from one pan of dirt, and he once found a nugget worth $65.

In '53, Shuffleton went east and some nine months later returned with a herd of milk cows to enter the dairy business. For a while he got 75 cents a gallon for milk and made about $500 a month. In '59, he bought 160 acres of land some distance southwest of Shasta, and stocked it with 300 cows, which could graze on the free pasture lands that extended for mils in every direction beyond his acreage. Here he lived and conducted his dairy business for years.

In addition to his pioneer dairy work, Shuffleton always found time for public service. He organized the first school district in that part of Shasta County and helped to raise the money to build a schoolhouse. In 1860, he was elected justice of the peace, which office he held continuously for twenty-five years. And, in 1888, he was elected a member of the County Board of Supervisors.

Shuffleton was made a Mason in Western Star Lodge in 1854, and remained a faithful member of it till his death in 1919. Though he never passed through the chairs, he was the first of five generations of his family to maintain the light of Masonry in Shasta County. One of his sons, Hugh Hall Shuffleton, Jr., was made a Mason in Reading Lodge No. 254, in 1912, and became its Master in 1932. People of Shasta affectionately remember him as the man who served for years as their county auditor. Hugh Adelbert Shuffleton, a son of Hugh, Jr., was born July 9, 1904. He was made a Mason in Reading Lodge, but demitted to affiliate with Western Star Lodge, of which he became Master in 1941. Hugh Adelbert Shuffleton, Jr. born April 18, 1927, was raised in Western Star Lodge by his own father, April 22, 1949. His son, Hugh Adelbert Shuffleton, III has gone on to become a Mason and two-time Past Master of the the same lodge his great-great-grandfather joined back in 1854.

Source: 100 Years of Freemasonry in CA