John Aldridge was a seventh generation American being descended from Nicholas Aldridge who settled in Maryland in 1681. Following one of the migration routes, succeeding generations moved to Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri and finally to Oregon where John was born in 1860, the ninth child of William and Mary Aldridge and one of thirteen surviving children. There where seven sons, each being named after a patriot or a southern rebel. John was named after John Cabell Breckenridge but preferred to run his name together to make it his own. Other brothers were named Ethan Allen, James Knox Polk, and Jeffersorn Davis Aldridge.

In 1862 William and Mary moved their growing family to the Snow Creek Ranch in Shasta County. Around 1895 John and Jeff became partners on the Snow Creek Ranch.

Maria Craven came with her parents in a wagon train from Iowa. They settled for a short time in Colusa before traveling on to Whitmore in Shasta County in the early 1890s, where she met John Aldridge and miarried him in 1901. After their marriage, John worked for the Northern California Power Company at Cold Springs. By 1911 they were living in Oak Run. In 1914 while working at the Benton Mill in Penoyer, John was stricken with Trichinosis. Maria drove him to Redding where he died in the old St. Caroline Hospital on the 15th of November, 1914.

There were six children born to John and Maria:

1. Teresa Almira - b: 1902
   m: Elmer Frank Viles
2. Pearl Orenda - b: 1903
   m: George Baird
3. Iceadore Beth - b: 1905 d: 1906
4. Raymond Wert - b: 1908 d : 1908
5. Gerald Fay - b: 1911
   m: Irene Estella Asa
6. Mary - b: 1912
   m: Joseph Carl Boren

There are many tenth and eleventh generation descendants from this family, too numerous to list.

Source: Shasta Historical Society