Henry Doolittle, A Happy Camp Pioneer

By Linda Martin

Richard Ramsey, the great-grandson of Happy Camp pioneer, Henry Doolittle, signed the guestbook of the Happy Camp History website this last week and solved one of our long-standing mysteries for us. He told us where Henry Doolittle went when he left Happy Camp in the early 1870’s!

To this day, Henry Doolittle is one of the best-known gold-rush era Happy Camp settlers. There’s a street named Doolittle in the center of town and there’s Doolittle Creek Road a few miles north, off Indian Creek Road too. At one time he and his brothers, Alfonso and Albert, owned most of Happy Camp.

Henry Doolittle sold the lot the Camp Mercantile Store sits on to James and Heil Camp and John Titus in the late 1850’s. He served as postmaster from 1858 to 1860 and from 1864 to 1870, and as Justice of the Peace from 1866 to 1870. He sold his vast properties and extensive business interests in 1872 and left town. Thanks to Richard Ramsey, we now know he moved north to Washington state with his second wife and two children.