HUMBOLDT PERROTT'S FAMILY ALBUM

The Perrotts are a Pioneer Humboldt County Family (since 1865) with a track record of nature conservation and philanthrophy.

William Perrott (1842-1911)

William Perrott (1842-1911) and Sarah Jane van Duzer Perrott (1845-1937).

William Perrott was born in Michigan, orphaned at 6, went west at 17, first riding shot gun on a military ammunition wagon train to Salt Lake City, then joining three other mounted horsemen, to guard a pack train to California, arriving in 1859. He was of French Huguenot stock, by way of Cork, Ireland. The name is pronounced 'Parrot' locally but more knowledgeable linguists say 'Perr-oh' (like Texas' Ross Perot). He worked in the bay area, met and married Humboldt County resident Sarah Jane van Duzer in Marin County in 1864. They proceeded to Humboldt, where the newlyweds took a 640 acre land grant, the Perrott homestead, next to Sarah van Duzer family in 1865. The railroad from San Francisco to Eureka came through the Perrott homestead in the 1880's, and the town of Swager, later renamed Loleta, grew up on the railroad (on the Perrott ranch). William Perrott gave virgin timber to the State Of California, now PERROTT GROVE a mile South of Weott.

Sarah Jane van Duzer, the Perrot family matriarch, came west by covered wagon in 1848 (age 3), wintering in Salt Lake City, then in early 1849 (pre gold rush) continued west on the Oregon trail, to the Columbia River, then by ship into Humboldt County, to settle near `now' Loleta. She was tough as a boot and lived to age 93.

California Redwood State Park bronze monument near signboard designating PERROTT GROVE, California Humboldt Redwood State Park, about a mile south of Weott on 'scenic' 101, a gift by the Humboldt County pioneer Perrott's first generation William Perrott.

Humboldt Redwood State Park sign board for PERROTT GROVE, given to the State by the Perrott's first generation, William Perrott (1842-1911).

Laura Perrott Mahan, Vera's aunt, daughter of William and Sarah, was a cofounder of the Humboldt County Women's Save The Redwood League. She discovered Pacific Lumber logging in what is now Rockefeller Grove in November 1924. Laura stood in the line of fall of the giant redwood, stopping loggers, while she dispatched her lawyer husband to Eureka to get an injunction, saving the virgin Redwood grove (near Weott) for posterity.

The Perrott tribal clan gather at the Perrott's 1865 homestead ranch at Loleta, circa 1931. Vera Perrott is at the extreme right, facing to the picture's left (light dress). Vera's mother is second from the right, kneeling, front row. The Perrott family matriarch Sara Jane Van Duzer Perrott is the lady standing in the second row three feet in front of Vera, gray hair, black dress. She came west in 1848, by covered wagon, at age 3, via the Oregon trail (before the California gold rush), then south to Humboldt County by ship. Her family had a homestead adjacent to the Perrotts.

Vera Perrott Vietor a nature loving, tree hugging, ornithologist goes birding and `nature walking' circa 1949. She hated crowds and 'stuffy' society. She wouldn't let Lynn join the Ingomar club.

Vera Perrott, circa 1913 with her father William Henry, mother Bernetta, and brother Henry William (father of Vera's five watchdogs) at the family homestead near Loleta.

The first four generations of Humboldt County Perrotts at 'Forest Lodge' near Perrott Grove, Weott. (circa 1931) Center, Sara Jane Perrott, on her left is her son William Henry, on her right is Sara's grandson, William Henry. Sara Jan is holding the first of the fourth generation, Vera's Watchdog, Bill Perrott.

Vera Perrott, circa 1924, at UC Berkeley, as her aunt Laura Perrott Mahan stopped PL logging to save Rockefeller Grove California Redwood State Park near Weott.

Lynn Vietor an ardent outdoorsman and fly fisherman on the Klamath River circa 1950.

Vera's two oldest watchdogs at the Vietor Klamath Glenn weekend house circa 1939, John Perrott on left and William Perrott on the right.

John Perrott - 1998 in the Botswana Kalahari, meets mankind's oldest surviving legacy (by DNA - UC Berkley) the Kalahari Kung San or Bushman.

The fourth generation of Humboldt County pioneer Perrotts, Vera's five `watchdog' nieces and nephews, William or "Bill" (Oregon), John (Texas), Sally (Texas), Henry (family ranch at Loleta), and Carol (California) have the same family ethic, devotion to nature and altruistic causes. They spent considerable time during their combined 150 years with their aunt Vera at her Indianola `hill', and have a deep appreciation for her architecturally significant John Yeon residence, and surrounding property and Vera wanting to keep it 'native and unspoiled', and 'all of it', the house and the property. They often spent time with her 'birding' or in nature, camping on the Klamath river or at the family's summer home on the Eel river just south of Weott (Perrott Grove).

That is why Vera's watchdogs have fought for 20 months (as of March 2001), and well into six figures in legal costs to save Vera's and the North Coast public's Lynn Vietor Nature Preserve, with their legal efforts now going to the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile, John Perrott has fortuitously distinguished himself in the same areas as his preceding three Perrott generation, conservation and philanthropy, but on a more International scale. He:

• graduated from UC Berkeley (56) as did his Aunt Vera, (John as a civil engineer)

• flew in the US Navy

• lived and worked as an engineer and project manager on every continent but Antarctica

• 17 years in Africa (where he killed a man eating lion feeding on a Kenya native in 1965, the cover story of OUTDOOR life, December 1965).

• John Perrott published the book BUSH FOR THE BUSHMAN, (1992), 'ghostwritten' by him for the Bushmen, to help save from extinction the Kalahari people depicted in the movie THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY. In 1993 he created the nonprofit 501-c-3 SAVE THE KALAHARI SAN ( San being the anthropologists 'less pejorative' name for the 'Bushman'). See Internet site www.savethesan.com .

• In 1995-1996, Perrott as project manager for a Louisiana entrepreneur created for the Mozambique Government the Elephant Coast Project, co-sponsored by the World Bank, on the Indian Ocean coast, bordering on South Africa's Natal province (south) and Swaziland (west). It is a Yellowstone sized, billion dollar safari game viewing eco-tourism development, that entailed (1996) getting South African Paper and Pulp (SAPPI) ejected with their environmentally destructive eucalyptus plantation (for pulp), in favor of the Elephant Coast Project. This trasnpired when it was discovered that the huge area was the Maputaland Center Of Plant Diversity (CPD) (gazetted in 1994) to be protected under the UN's International Bio-diversity Agreement signed by the world's heads of state at the Rio 1992 Earth Summit (which Perrott attended on his 'save-the-bushman' quest). The project saves a rare and exotic ecosystem, while giving a home to untold numbers of endangered African wildlife, and a huge boost to the economy of war torn Mozambique. See NY Times article below. He was the 'key man' on the nine billion dollar 1970's Alaska Pipeline and came up with the plan to put out the well fires in Kuwait in nine months (1990 - 1991). While John Perrott was saving the `environment' in Mozambique in 1995, Vera's `trustees', HAF, were destroying the North Coast public's `north of house' keep it `native and unspoiled', not even `a picnic table or barbecue pit' Lynn Vietor Nature Preserve, and embarking on their destruction of the architecturally significant Vietor residence. Vera and her watchdogs are not at all amused.