David left home at the age of fourteen after a misunderstanding with his father; with no money he had to find work. He managed to get to Mossomin, Saskatchewan where an older brother and sister lived. He worked on three different ranches before he saved enough money to come to California: he arrived in Red Bluff in 1874, where he joined another older brother who had settled there about four years earlier. With a partner. William Vestal, he opened a butcher shop.

Lulu "Nettie"Wilson was born September 23, 1869, to Benjamin and Margaret Ann Walters Wilson in Bernadotte, Illinois. Later the family sold their home in Illinois and with a stopover in Missouri moved to the Red Bluff area in California.

Shortly after David and Nettie were married, they decided to sell their holdings in Red Bluff and move to Kennett where the copper mines were providing jobs and business opportunities.  Dave built a slaughterhouse on Butcher Creek and delivered meat to the miners in his saddlebags.

Their son, Wesley was born August 23, 1888 and a daughter, Jessie followed in September of 1889. Jessie died before her third birthday, but Wesley lived to the age of seventy-five.

Later Dave built another slaughterhouse on what is now Slaughterhouse Island in Lake Shasta and opened a butcher shop in Kennett. He also formed a partnership with Mr. O'Grady in a hotel and saloon. He was one of the leaders in the community; the money and enterprise of William
Trewartha, Victor Warren, Louis Zeis and Dave Endicott gave Kennett the best opera house in Shasta County.

Nettie worked at the bank in Kennett and kept books for some of the miners when they brought their earnings to town. She was a Past Commander of the Ladies of the Maccabees and was active in the Rebekah Lodge. Nettie passed away in Kennett, April 8, 1926.

David retired in 1929, and moved from Kennett to Mountain Gate in 1932; he lived there until shortly before his death in Redding, November 4, 1936. Both of them are buried in Redding Cemetery.

Source:  Shasta Historical Society